Latest news, headlines and top stories you need to know RIGHT NOW about Russia, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
During Moscow’s annual Victory Day celebration in the Red Square on Tuesday, President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia fully supports its military and said that the country is facing a “real war.”
In an interview with Spain’s El Pais, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres discussed his opinions regarding the war in Ukraine and said, “I believe that peace negotiations are not possible at this time,” as “both parties are convinced that they can win.”
With increasing opposition to his authoritarian regime, French President Emmanuel Macron is now moving to enact legislation intended to ban Twitter in France. Under the pretext of protecting minors, the new bill effectively seeks to silence the main social media platform that has served as an uncensored source for reporting on the protests against the Macron regime largely ignored by mainstream media outlets.
On Friday, a NATO official announced that a Polish jet patrolling over the Black Sea near Romania on behalf of Frontex, the EU’s border agency, had a concerning encounter with a Russian aircraft.
Tensions rose this past week between Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Wagner, Russia’s paramilitary group, and Russian officials when the Wagner chief threatened to pull his forces out of Bakhmut if the Russian Defense Ministry didn’t provide the organization with the necessary arms to continue the offensive. Wagner and Russian troops control 90 percent of the destroyed city.
The world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, has been sending teams of executives to Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky since September, and in December, CEO Larry Fink and Zelenksy reached a tentative agreement via phone to coordinate large-scale reconstruction investment for the war-torn country.
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This week, the White House released the details of its latest $300 million defense aid package for Ukraine, which will be pulled from already existing, although dwindling, Pentagon stockpiles. This package includes the Hydra-70 rocket for the first time. The rockets are unguided missiles that are usually air-to-ground and fired from an aircraft.