Ukrainians may be tiring but won’t compromise with Putin, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff says – POLITICO

And this week another former unpaid adviser to Zelenskyy’s office linked to Tatarov, Artem Shilo, was arrested by detectives with the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine on charges of embezzling $2.48 million from Ukrzaliznytsia, Ukraine’s state railway company. The allegation is that he was the ringleader of a group involved in the acquisition of transformers from … Read more

Ukraine embraces far-right Russian ‘bad guy’ to take the battle to Putin – POLITICO

From football fields to the battlefield The 40-year-old Kapustin was born in Moscow. He moved with his parents at the age of 17 to Cologne, Germany, where he quickly established a fearsome reputation as a street-brawling white-power skinhead always up for a punch-up with everyone, especially Antifa activists. He tells POLITICO he was unhappy with … Read more

Russian journalist who covered Navalny’s trial is arrested for extremism – POLITICO

Favorskaya, a correspondent for independent broadcaster Sotavision, was detained for a second time on Wednesday after initially serving a 10-day administrative sentence in the Moscow region on charges of disobeying police orders, Sotavision said in a post on Telegram. She had also extensively covered Navalny’s funeral in Moscow before she was detained at a cafe on an … Read more

Putin the autocrat comes of age – POLITICO

But it also resulted in him suffering “delusional beliefs” about the state of affairs in his country, as underlings feared sharing any information that could be seen as negative, Umarov said.  He added that although there are clear parallels between the autocracies in Central Asian countries and Russia today, there is also an important difference. … Read more

Kremlin delivers warning to Telegram boss after Moscow terror attack – POLITICO

On Friday, at least 143 people were killed in an attack on a concert hall in Moscow. According to the Russian state-controlled news agency RIA, the attackers were recruited in a Telegram channel belonging to ISIS-K, an Islamic State group affiliate, which emerged in late 2014 as a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban.  Up … Read more

Germany’s Scholz says he hasn’t talked to Putin since December 2022 – POLITICO

Scholz said that after the outbreak of all-out war, Russia and Ukraine tried negotiating — but Moscow wasn’t serious. “The talks failed because Russia only used them as a pretext to move its troops to the east for a major offensive at the same time,” said Scholz. The German chancellor, who has often been criticized … Read more

Moldova to allow billionaire’s pro-Kremlin party to field candidates in elections – POLITICO

Shor welcomed the verdict. “This decision not only restores the rights of individuals, but also calls into question the legitimacy of the past elections,” he said Tuesday in a Instagram post. Shor was sentenced in 2017 to 7.5 years in prison — later increased to 15 years — on fraud and money laundering charges in … Read more

EU sanctions 33 of Putin’s people over Navalny’s death in prison – POLITICO

The two sanctioned entities are the prisons where Navalny was kept in custody for years after he returned to Russia in 2021, after surviving an apparent assassination attempt. The EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime was used to enact the measures. It now lists 104 people and 24 entities from different countries, including China, Eritrea … Read more

World’s cartoonists on this week’s events

First published on PoliticalCartoons.com, March 20, 2024 | By Taylor Jones First published on caglecartoons.com, Costa Rica, March 15, 2024 | By Arcadio Esquivel First published on caglecartoons.com, Bulgaria, March 17, 2024 | By Christo Komarnitski First published in U.T. Independent, India, March 17, 2024 | By Paresh Nath First published on PoliticalCartoons.com, Canada, March … Read more

Putin’s going nowhere. The West needs to get a grip. – POLITICO

He also lamented the “Noon Against Putin” protest, which saw opposition-minded Russians exhorted by Yulia Navalnaya to spoil their ballot papers or write in her late husband’s name. According to Ponomarev, this only boosted participation in the sham election and allowed Russian state media to broadcast footage of voters lining up at polling stations, adding … Read more