Russia Financial News

Reform UK's top leader Nigel Farage, in an interview with BBC, had claimed that the West had somehow 'provoked' Vladimir Putin to go into war against the Ukraine, a statement that has received severe criticism from leaders like Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, says an Evening Standard report.

KYIV: At least three people were killed in a Russian bomb attack on Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv, on Saturday afternoon, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. Another 19 people were wounded in the attack, in which a guided aerial bomb hit a residential building, according to Zelenskyy. Russia has also continued to target Ukraine's energy infrastructure. Russia launched a new barrage of missiles and drones in an overnight attack on Ukraine, officials in Kyiv said Saturday, damaging energy facilities in the southeast and west and injuring at least two workers.

Nigel Farage, the leader of Britain's right-wing Reform UK party, said the eastward of expansion of the European Union and NATO had provoked Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. The remarks, made in an interview with the BBC aired late on Friday, drew strong criticism across the British political spectrum ahead of a July 4 election in which Farage's party is predicted to win millions of votes.

David Dhawan's 1997 Judwaa — a film Tarkovsky never lived to see, though I like to imagine he shook a leg to Disco Dancer tunes like other Russians. The clip in question had the 'Chalti hai kya nau se baara' line. I was sucked right in. I must have listened to the full song a few dozen times between then and now — and watched the scene, which has two Salman Khans performing increasingly manic dance steps. I loved the tune, rhythm, lyrics with their evocation of old-world memories like iced Mangola, but also the visuals. The audacity of it, the crass maleness, the Salman-ness, and the fantasy scenes in the police station where Anupam Kher and other cops are both moral-policing and dancing along (because multiple possibilities can co-exist in this sort of sequence).

A large chunk of the world's wealth today is locked in illiquid assets, therefore they are typically traded at a discount. 

Russia has sent so many men to join its war in Ukraine that crime levels in the country fell soon after the invasion began. Now their return is starting to unleash a wave of offending. Crimes committed by servicemen that aren’t linked to the war increased by more than 20% last year, according to data from Russia’s Supreme Court. While the overall numbers are still small and many returning servicemembers don’t go onto commit offenses, there was a jump in cases of violent crimes as well as thefts and drug-related transgressions. The figures exclude crimes involving tens of thousands of convicts released from jail to join the war under a program set up by the late Wagner mercenary group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin. Those who survived six months at the front were able to gain a pardon from President Vladimir Putin and return to Russia as free men.

China is watching closely as Russia and North Korea deepen their relationship through a new defense pact, sparking concerns about potential shifts in power dynamics among the three authoritarian states.

South Korea's port city of Busan on Saturday for joint military exercises this month with the host nation and Japan, the Yonhap news agency said. The leaders of the three nations agreed at a Camp David summit in August 2023 to hold annual military training drills as they condemned China's «dangerous and aggressive behaviour» in the disputed waterway of the South China Sea. Russian President Vladimir Putin visited North Korea this week for the first time in 24 years and signed a deal with leader Kim Jong Un that included a mutual defence pledge.

Bill Gates isn't the first name that you'd think of after watching Oppenheimer. But TerraPower, the nuclear reactor engineering company the Microsoftwala founded in 2006, began constructing a micro nuclear reactor plant, Natrium, in Wyoming this month. This marks a quiet, commercially untested class of nuclear reactors: small modular reactors (SMR).

India has rejected a comment by the UN's top human rights official on foreign influence laws, saying principles of «transparency and accountability cannot be applied selectively.» India's Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations and other International Organisations in Geneva Ambassador Arindam Bagchi, said he «humbly disagrees» with the brief reference to India made by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk in his Global Update 56th session of the Human Rights Council this week. Turk had said in his global update that a «worrying trend in terms of civic space is the consideration or adoption of so-called „transparency“ or „foreign influence“ laws in over 50 countries, including in the Republika Srpska entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, India, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation, Slovakia and Turkiye. These laws risk having serious chilling effects on the work of civil society, freedom of expression and of association.»

Kremlin on Friday criticised the US decision to ban Moscow's cybersecurity firm Kaspersky over security concerns as creating "unfair competition" from American companies. The comments came a day after Washington banned the firm, saying it presented a "national security risk."

cybersecurity firm Kaspersky denied Friday that it is a security threat after the U.S. Commerce Department banned the use of its software in the United States. The Moscow-based company — whose CEO Eugene Kaspersky is Russian — said in a statement that the Commerce Department's decision would not affect its ability to sell and promote its cyber security products and training in the U.S.

Ukraine that it can use American-supplied weapons to hit Russian forces «anywhere». They can hit any Russian forces attacking from across the border, and not just the region near Kharkiv, Politico reported, citing US officials. This subtle shift, which according to the officials is not a change in policy, comes weeks after the US quietly signaled the green light to Kyiv to strike inside Russia in retaliation to a cross-border assault on the city of Kharkiv. During that time, the US officials stressed that the policy was limited to the Kharkiv region, among other restrictions.

Gold prices were flat on Friday but were on track for their second straight weekly gain as weak economic data from the U.S. boosted expectations that the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates this year. FUNDAMENTALS

Biden administration on Thursday announced plans to bar the sale of antivirus software made by Russia's Kaspersky Lab in the United States, with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo saying that Russia's influence over the company poses a significant security risk. The software's privileged access to a computer's systems could allow it to steal sensitive information from American computers or install malware and withhold critical updates, enhancing the threat, a source said, noting that Kaspersky's customers include critical infrastructure providers and state and local governments.

South Korea says it will consider sending arms to Ukraine after Russia and North Korea rattled the region and beyond by signing a pact to come to each other’s defense in the event of war

NATO member Romania’s top defense body says the country will donate a Patriot missile system to neighboring Ukraine to help Kyiv in its war against Russia as Moscow’s forces continue to bombard civilian areas and energy infrastructure

European Union envoys have reached agreement on a “powerful and substantial” new series of sanctions that are part of its ongoing response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Western Moscow Exchange sanctions look set to drive up Russian interest in cryptoassets such as USDT, a survey of traders and investors has found.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is in Vietnam to strengthen ties with its longtime partner in Southeast Asia at a time when Moscow is facing growing international isolation because of its military actions in Ukraine

North Korea reached by their leaders requires the countries to use all available means to provide immediate military assistance in the event of war, North Korean state media said. The North's official Korean Central News Agency on Thursday reported the language of the comprehensive strategic partnership agreement reached by its leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Pyongyang on Wednesday. The agency said Article 4 of the agreement states that if one of the countries gets invaded and is pushed into a state of war, the other must deploy «all means at its disposal without delay» to provide «military and other assistance.» The deal could mark the strongest connection between Moscow and Pyongyang since the end of the Cold War. Both Kim and Putin described it as a major upgrade of their relations, covering security, trade, investment, cultural and humanitarian ties.