County Alexander Financial News

Putin emerged from last month's Wagner mutiny looking weakened, despite defusing the immediate threat, according to analysts. The short-lived and ultimately aborted revolt by Yevgeny Prigozhin's mercenary force marked the most dramatic challenge ever to Putin's rule. The Belarus-brokered deal to halt Wagner's march toward Moscow saw off a major clash, yet now that agreement seems to be in question.

Belgium's regional Flemish government will together invest 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) in Belgian chip technology firm Imec, the Flemish government said on Friday. Imec will use the investment to expand its «clean room» test facility with the most advanced equipment and processes, the company said in a statement.

Prigozhin is still in Russia, Belarus's president said on Thursday, despite a deal with the Kremlin for him to move to Belarus following his failed insurrection last month. «As far as Prigozhin is concerned, he is in Saint Petersburg… He is not in Belarus,» Alexander Lukashenko told reporters from foreign media outlets. Lukashenko said that fighters from Prigozhin's Wagner mercenary group have also not moved to Belarus yet, despite an offer from the Kremlin for those who took part in the failed mutiny to do so. «At the moment the question of their transfer and set-up has not been decided,» Lukashenko said. «I am absolutely not worried or concerned that we will host a certain number of these fighters here,» he added.

Vladimir Putin reassured Asian leaders of Russia's stability and unity on Tuesday in his first appearance at an international forum since the country was rocked by a brief armed mutiny last month. «The Russian people are consolidated as never before,» Putin told a virtual meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a group that also includes China and India. «Russian political circles and the whole of society clearly demonstrated their unity and elevated sense of responsibility for the fate of the Fatherland when they responded as a united front against an attempted armed mutiny.» Putin's emphasis on Russia's unity at a meeting with key allies appeared to show how keen he is to remove any doubts about his own authority on the world stage after the short-lived mutiny led by Wagner mercenary founder Yevgeny Prigozhin late last month. Wagner fighters took control of a southern city and advanced towards Moscow on June 24, confronting Putin with the gravest challenge to his hold on power since taking over as Russia's paramount leader on the last day of 1999.

The OpenZeppelin Defender smart contract security platform has now integrated with Coinbase’s Base network, allowing Web3 app developers on Base to automate security tasks.

The Euronews Brussels bureau brings you its latest episode of a new talk show that aims to break down European news and politics to make it more accessible to viewers. 

Belarus political prisoner Maria Kolesnikova has been hospitalised in an intensive care unit, according to the Telegram channel of another opposition politician.

A group of hacktivists called the Belarusian Cyber Partisans have been attempting to sell a nonfungible token (NFT) featuring the purported passport info of Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko.

Violent storms in Europe have killed at least a dozen people, including two children, since Wednesday.

The Belarusian military on Thursday denied reports of explosions overnight near a military airfield in the Gomel region of southeastern Belarus, not far from the border with Ukraine.

A Belarusian court has sentenced a journalist to more than eight years in prison for reporting on mass opposition protests in 2020.

Belarus has introduced the death penalty for planning an attack or "attempting an act of terrorism", according to a decree issued Wednesday — charges that target many opposition activists, including its exiled leader.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday opposed any challenge to post-Brexit controls establishing a special status for Northern Ireland, which London says are "not tenable" after the Sinn Fein republicans won recent elections in the UK territory.

A Belarusian court on Friday sentenced the Russian girlfriend of opposition figure Roman Protasevich to six years in prison, a year since they were arrested after the Ryanair plane they were travelling on was intercepted by a fighter jet and forced to land in Minsk.

Belarus’ authoritarian leader says he didn’t expect Russia’s war in Ukraine to drag on for so long and claimed he was doing “everything” to stop it, in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday.

EU ministers have been discussing a potential sixth round of sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, but an embargo on oil or gas to stop financing Putin's war machine continues to divide the bloc.

EU ministers have been discussing a potential sixth round of sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, but an embargo on oil or gas to stop financing Putin's war machine continues to divide the bloc.

The United States has hit the crypto exchange Garantex with sanctions, claiming that it has “willfully disregarded” anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML, CFT) obligations and “allowed” its “systems to be abused by illicit actors.” A joint Washington-Berlin effort has also closed down darkweb servers in Germany – while the Russian Central Bank says it is still opposed to crypto adoption.

The European Union has frozen the assets of Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in response to the invasion of Ukraine, adding the two names to the EU sanctions list.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has signed a decree that will allow the free circulation of cryptocurrencies but crypto wallet addresses will fall under a central register.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has signed a decree that will allow the free circulation of cryptocurrencies.