Sanctions threaten domestic payments system Mir PRO Members Public
The exit of Visa and Mastercard from Russia in the wake of the Ukraine invasion means Russians with cards issued by them can no longer use them overseas. Now, it looks like Russia’s Mir alternative is also being targeted by the West. * Mir cards can still be used in
Russia’s Kharkiv defeat ignored by propaganda outlets PRO Members Public
The Russian authorities and supporters of the Ukraine invasion spent much of last week trying to make sense of the Armed Forces’ heaviest defeat since the spring. State-owned media studiously ignored the fact that Russia was almost entirely driven out of Kharkiv region, focusing instead on military successes announced by
State-owned Russian media shrugs off Russia’s Kharkiv defeat PRO Members Public
Hello! This week our top story is about state-owned Russian media ignoring the successful Ukrainian advance near Kharkiv and some top politicians raising the issue of mobilization. We also look at how Russia’s domestic payments system is threatened by sanctions and why the new iPhone will be both cheap
The Central Bank will compensate Russian investors at foreigners’ expense PRO Members Public
Russia’s Central Bank seeks to compensate 5 million Russian investors who lost access to their foreign shares due to war-related sanctions. To do this, it will use an estimated $300 billion in funds from “unfriendly” countries frozen in Russia. The Bank intends to invest this money in “friendly” securities
Putin increasingly divorced from reality of Russian economy PRO Members Public
Putin didn’t just spend last week riding on Moscow’s new ferris wheel. He also visited the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, where he delivered another keynote speech about the economy. Compared with the figures and predictions that Russian officials debated behind closed doors in late August, the president’
Russia’s pro-war bloggers become a serious threat to the Kremlin PRO Members Public
This week’s fighting saw Ukraine’s armed forces inflict a major defeat on Russia, almost completely liberating the Kharkiv region. Neither Russian nor Ukrainian officials offered any significant information about the course of the offensive and, unsurprisingly, the gap was filled by bloggers and Telegram channels. Russian pro-war bloggers,
Pro-war bloggers PRO Members Public
Hello! This week, we look at the Russian pro-war bloggers covering the invasion of Ukraine on the ground — and whose allegiance to the Kremlin’s narrative of the war varies widely. We also look at the growing divide between Putin’s economic proclamations and the real picture of Russia’s
The death of last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev PRO Members Public
Mikhail Gorbachev died on Aug. 30 at the age of 91 in a Moscow hospital for top state officials. He was the third leading figure of the perestroika era to die this year. In May, the first post-Soviet presidents of Ukraine and Belarus Leonid Kravchuk and Stanislav Shukevich died within
Journalist Ivan Safronov jailed for 22 years on treason charges PRO Members Public
A Moscow court sentenced journalist Ivan Safronov to 22 years in prison Monday. The sentence means that Safronov, who was arrested in 2020, will remain behind bars until 2042. Previously a defense correspondent for Russian newspapers, Kommersant and Vedomosti, did not plead guilty to any of the charges and repeatedly
Gazprom shuts its main gas pipeline to Europe PRO Members Public
It finally happened. As anticipated by European leaders and analysts all summer, Russia shut down its Nord Stream gas pipeline to Europe indefinitely. The decision appears to be a response to the G7 countries’ agreement on capping prices for Russian oil and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen’s
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The Bell was founded in 2017 by journalists Elizaveta Osetinskaya, Irina Malkova and Peter Mironenko as a news outlet independent from the Russian authorities, after its founders have been sacked as top editors at the largest Russian news website RBC because of pressure from the Kremlin.
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