The Kremlin has laughed off an attempt by the CIA to recruit spies from Russia via social media. “Somebody should tell the CIA that VKontakte is much more popular here than the banned X [formerly Twitter] and that VKontakte has a much larger audience,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday, according to state-run news agency … Read more
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia agreed on Friday to set up a common Baltic defense zone on their borders with Russia and Belarus amid growing security concerns. The defense ministers of the three Baltic countries met on Friday in Riga to approve the construction of “anti-mobility defensive installations” on their eastern frontiers. They also agreed to … Read more
An increasingly belligerent Russian President Vladimir Putin could attack the NATO military alliance in less than a decade, Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned. “We hear threats from the Kremlin almost every day … so we have to take into account that Vladimir Putin might even attack a NATO country one day,” Pistorius told German … Read more
Thousands of protesters rallied in south-central Russia on Wednesday after a court sentenced Fayil Alsynov, an indigenous rights activist for the local Bashkir ethnic group, to four years in a penal colony on charges of inciting ethnic hatred. The demonstration took place outside the courthouse in Baymak, a town of 17,000 inhabitants nearly 2,000 kilometers … Read more
This story was originally published in German by WELT, a sister publication of POLITICO in the Axel Springer Group. Nate Lin wants to be prepared for war. On a Saturday morning in November, Lin, a 35-year-old Taiwanese man, practices how to apply a tourniquet to his right arm. In this fictive scenario, he’s been shot and … Read more
Armies rarely measure their success by the roads they’ve paved or the rail lines they’ve laid down — but that may be the metric Russia is using in occupied portions of Ukraine, where major infrastructure projects are underway or are being planned. Over the last few months, Moscow-based media have reported on the construction of a new railway line between Rostov-on-Don … Read more
A Russian singer who got in trouble for performing on stage wearing only a sock to cover his genitals was arrested at a St. Petersburg airport as he planned to leave the country. Maxim Tesli, lead singer of Russian band The Puppies, was charged with petty hooliganism. He was planning to flee Russia, according to … Read more
Latvian Foreign Minister Krišjānis Kariņš said Russia “will not stop” after the war in Ukraine and that NATO needs a “long-term strategy” to contain Moscow. “Russia will not stop, Russia can only be stopped,” Kariņš told the Financial Times in an interview published Friday. “Stopping Russia in Ukraine does not mean that it is over. It simply means … Read more
Press play to listen to this article Voiced by artificial intelligence. Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe. Back in November, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the far-right and religious nationalists in his coalition government to pipe down and “be careful with their words” when talking about their desired outcomes for the war … Read more
Press play to listen to this article Voiced by artificial intelligence. Dragan Đilas is the president of the Party of Freedom and Justice and a member of the Serbia Against Violence coalition. He served as the mayor of Belgrade (2008–2013) and the president of the Democratic Party, Serbia’s main opposition party (2012–2014). When Serbia was … Read more
