#putins-control-mechanisms

#putins-control-mechanisms

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 provisions of the Bahrain-led resolution had been repeatedly pared down in an effort to convince Russia and China to abstain from voting, an effort that ultimately failed as the two nations refused to back down in Tuesday's vote.

In 2021, when Olga Rudenko and other journalists launched the Kyiv Independent, they were committed to making a publication that wouldn't face political pressure from an owner. A few months later, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the Independent began reporting breaking news from the front lines.

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.

It is "highly likely" that Russian opposition leader Alexei Nalvany was killed by a rare toxin found in poison dart frogs, five European nations said in a statement Saturday, adding that Russia had the "means, motive, and opportunity" to administer the deadly dose when Navalny died in an Arctic prison two years ago. The statement issued by the United Kingdom, Sweden, France, the Netherlands and Germany was timed to coincide with the Munich Security Conference - the same venue his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, was about to attend when she heard of his death in 2024.

The SBU says the enemy has ramped up these operations, using phones, messaging apps, and even online dating platforms to trick people into carrying out dangerous acts. The SBU said, "During such operations, Russian agents telephone or message people, posing as employees of the SBU, the Main Intelligence Directorate, NABU, the National Police, and other law enforcement agencies." "The Security Service of Ukraine once again calls on citizens to maintain information hygiene and to exercise caution in contacts with unknown individuals," the SBU added.

What was meant to be a swift military operation to topple the Ukrainian government and take control of the country has now dragged on for four devastating years. Russian President Vladimir Putin's promise to protect the people of Donbas, who, according to him, had been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kyiv regime for the previous eight years, has meant that hundreds of settlements have been wiped off the face of the Earth and millions of lives have been broken, in both countries.