Russian intelligence

The US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control said on Monday that it has imposed sanctions on seven people with ties to the Russian intelligence services for their involvement in attempts to destabilise democracy and influence elections in Moldova, Ukraine and the Balkan countries.

According to Sergey Naryshkin, the West is doing this in order to open a second front because the war in Ukraine "is not developing in favor of Kyiv".
"We see constant attempts by Washington, Brussels and London to convince the Georgian leadership of the need to open a so-called second front," Naryshkin said during his visit to Belarus, according to CNN.

A sign of that intention can be seen in the Kremlin's alleged intention to overthrow the current Moldovan government and incite unrest through protests in the country, an U.S. diplomat who recently visited Moldova told "The Daily Beast".

It said senior Kremlin officials continue to hold high-level meetings with the Belarusian leadership.
By doing so, they could create the conditions for a major Russian attack on Ukraine from Belarus, but that, they add, is unlikely to happen in the coming weeks.

"During peace negotiations, it will be clear whether Russia is really an aggressor," according to the deputy chairman of the BSP parliamentary group, Ivan Chenchev.

Moscow said on Sunday its army conducted a deadly "retaliatory strike" in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk to avenge the deaths of 89 Russian troops killed in Makiivka.

Germany's cybersecurity chief was sacked on Tuesday after a TV satire show accused him of having ties to Russian intelligence services, with the country on high alert over potential sabotage activities by Moscow.

EU foreign ministers met in Prague this week, under the auspices of Czechia's presidency of the EU Council, to discuss calls from CEE and Nordic member states to close the bloc's door to Russians.

Kyiv and Moscow accuse each other of the attack on the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Sochi agreed that part of the payment for Russian gas should be in rubles.
Ukrainian officials announce that Russian forces from Kherson shelled Nikolaev.

Russian missiles regularly fly in other directions, hitting the military infrastructure.
Boris Johnson was in Kyiv on Friday, from where he promised that Britain would provide "strategic resilience" to Ukraine.