Worldcrunch
Andrei Akimov runs state-controlled Gazprombank and is part of the Russian leader’s inner circle, aligned with the condemnation of the “collective West” conflict. He also oversees a web of luxury holdings across the same West, thanks to schemes to hide behind the names of relatives.
As Moscow and Kyiv direct their troops toward the southern Ukrainian city, the strategic and symbolic value cannot be overstated.
French daily Les Echos profiles Vladimir Potanin, Russia’s incarnation of a never-turn-back oligarch. The owner of Nornickel, Russia’s leading company in the metals and mining industry, Potanin continues to grow his business despite Western sanctions. He recently took over French bank Société Générale’s Russian subsidiary — with the Kremlin’s approval, of course.
Russian authorities opened a murder investigation after Darya Dugina was murdered in a car bomb on the outskirts of Moscow on Saturday. Dugina’s father is Russian author and staunch Putin ally Alexander Dugin: Both of them were together before the attack, though Dugin took a different car than his daughter’s and minutes later the explosion […]
Russia’s use of international food supplies as a weapon of war may be far from over.
Russia’s territorial goals in Ukraine are no longer limited to the eastern Donbas region, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Instead the Kremlin’s objectives in Ukraine are likely to extend into the country’s south toward the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, and “a number of other territories,” Lavrov said in an interview with Russian state […]
Occupy Kyiv? Turn to Donbas? Hunt down “Nazis”? Vladimir Putin’s intentions have been a moving target.
The Russian Foreign Minister, among the country’s most recognizable figures, embodies both the corruption and confusion of the Putin regime. Not everything is what it seems — and that’s the point.