Tag: Russia
Wagner Remnants Run Drug Trade in Africa
Roughly 500 fighters from Russia's Wagner Group remain based up the Ubangi River in the Central African Republic, controlling a tramadol trade that lets them exploit the country's gold and forest resources beyond the reach of local law enforcement or Moscow itself, according to The Wall Street Journal. Tramadol, an…
Estonia Approves Permanent Military Base on Russian Border
Estonia will begin large-scale construction of a new military base in the border city of Narva at the end of 2026, with around 200 Estonian Defence Forces personnel to be permanently stationed there once the facility is completed, according to Ando Voogma, project portfolio head at the Estonian Centre for…
How Ukraine’s Drones Are Draining Russia’s Fuel Tanks
Ukraine's long-range strike campaign has pushed Russia into its most widespread fuel crisis of the war, disabling as much as 40% of the country's refining capacity and splitting Russia into rationing zones and stockpiling zones. The pressure now extends beyond refineries to the tankers supplying occupied Crimea, isolating the peninsula's…
Russia Bans Diesel Exports as Ukrainian Drone Campaign Hits Fuel Supply
Russia has suspended diesel exports until at least the end of July after months of Ukrainian drone strikes disrupted refineries, fuel depots and fuel transport infrastructure, forcing Moscow to prioritize domestic supply over overseas sales. The suspension is not a routine market intervention. Russian refiners have historically produced roughly twice…
Belarus Caught Between Russian Pressure and Ukrainian Deterrence
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko made an unusually explicit promise to his servicemen in early July: "No one is going to send you into this slaughter." The declaration came after weeks of rising tension. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy openly accused Russia of trying to pull Belarus deeper into the war, Kyiv…
China Helped Plan Starlink Destruction, Probe Finds
A joint investigation by The Insider, Der Spiegel, and Le Monde has found that China's proclaimed neutrality in Russia's war on Ukraine conceals years of military-technical cooperation, structured around an explicit three-tier plan to disable Elon Musk's Starlink network. By fall 2023, Starlink had become Ukraine's primary battlefield communications system,…
NATO Jets Cleared to Shoot Down Baltic Threats
NATO has agreed to upgrade its two-decade-old Baltic Air Policing mission into a full air-defense mission, and the operational catalyst is more specific than "a less peaceful environment." Russian electronic warfare units based in Kaliningrad have repeatedly jammed and spoofed GPS signals across the Baltic, causing Ukrainian strike drones to…
