#kirill-yemelyanov

#kirill-yemelyanov

Using Hungarian public money - funnelled through legally insulated foundations partly funded by Russian oil revenues - Orbán has built a cross-border network of populist right think tanks, journalists and activists.

The Turkish president notes that Ankara won't circumvent EU and US sanctions imposed on the Kremlin since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But he adds that third-country nationals subject to these sanctions may face certain difficulties in their relations with Turkey, citing EU sanctions against Uzbek philanthropist and businessman Alisher Usmanov and his family as the most important example.

The narratives they offer through culture are therefore some of the clearest expressions of how they see their role in a wartime country. This year, Moscow has hosted two major government-backed awards ceremonies one for books, one for films. In both cases, the organisers played it safe, repeating familiar themes, many of them rooted in Soviet-era cultural and wartime mythology. Prizes went largely to people within the same orbit in most cases, the families of well-known Soviet-era cultural icons.

Elections in Moldova and Romania are recent examples, and we expect more hybrid campaigns throughout this election year in Germany,

The abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by the United States military and the subsequent threats by Washington to intervene in Iran during its recent upheaval have generated a tide of enthusiasm in hawkish pro-Ukraine circles in the West. If Moscow's allies are weakened, then Russia also gets weaker, the simplistic logic goes. Although he criticised US interventionism in the past, US President Donald Trump is newly infected with the regime change fever once spread by his Democratic predecessors.

Five European countries have accused Russia of using a toxin from dart frogs to kill the Kremlin critic. The United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden issued a joint statement on Saturday saying they believed he had been poisoned with epibatidine a toxin found in poison dart frogs and that the Russian state had the means, motive and opportunity to administer it.

Writing on Telegram, Pushkov criticised Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, French President Emmanuel Macron, and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, arguing that European leaders have offered "no serious answers" for why they should be involved in talks already led by the United States. Pushkov suggested that EU ambitions risk "derailing even the fragile negotiations that are already underway," framing European efforts as symbolic rather than substantive.

"agreement is a long-overdue step toward dismantling one of the Kremlin's most powerful economic weapons. Every cubic meter of Russian gas kept flowing into Europe has helped finance the missiles that strike Ukrainian cities. This Regulation, if implemented without loopholes, brings Europe closer to honouring its promise to end this deadly dependency."