The FSB claims it has solved Daria Dugina's murder. Predictably, Russia is blaming Ukrainian secret services: the FSB says a Ukrainian woman named Natalya Vovk rented a flat in Dugina's building, trailed her, planted the car bomb, and escaped to Estonia.
A lot of odd details in this claim by the FSB:
– Natalya Vovk apparently carried out this professionalized car bombing with her 12-year-old daughter in tow
– She allegedly followed Dugina in a Mini Cooper with Kazakh, Ukrainian, and Donetsk People's Republic plates
Also:
– The FSB is claiming Ukraine targeted Dugina, a relatively obscure media figure, and not her much better known father
– they are claiming to have solved this one awfully fast, especially when you consider how many murders of Putin opponents are still cold cases
RT's Margarita Simonyan now says Russia should send "people to admire the spires in Tallinn" if Estonia won't extradite the suspect in Dugina's murder.
I'm old enough to remember how proud she was of her interview with the Salisbury poisoning suspects...
Putin: "A despicable, cruel crime took Daria Dugina's life away – a bright, talented person with a real Russian heart, kind, loving, warm, and open [...] She honestly served people and the motherland and showed what it means to be a patriot of Russia."
The FSB publishes what it says is video of Vovk driving her Mini Cooper into Russia, entering Dugina's apartment building, and leaving the country through Estonia.
Notable by its absence: any footage connecting Vovk with the car bombing.
All the latest on the Daria Dugina murder, by @polinaivanovva and yours truly.
The story seems to get crazier with every new twist. But it's also clear that whatever happened, Russia wants to use this as an excuse to ramp things up against Ukraine.
In August last year, a group of Iranian nuclear scientists flew to Moscow, ostensibly as consultants.
It was a cover story. The Iranians were traveling on diplomatic service passports, some sequentially numbered and issued on the same day just weeks before the trip took place.
The delegation was closely linked to Iran's SPND, or the Organisation of Defensive Innovation and Research. This secretive military research unit has been described by the US government as “the direct successor organisation to Iran’s pre-2004 nuclear weapons program.”
One of the Iranians once ran a company the US sanctioned for being a nuclear weapons-related procurement front under the control of the SPND. Another is known to western intelligence agencies as a senior SPND scientist. A third did his physics PhD under the SPND's founder.
It’s time for the annual Putin presser and phone-in, combined into one – the first time he’s done it since the invasion of Ukraine.
Pavel Zarubin is showing off a huge pile of questions supposedly sent in by ordinary Russians. Expect this to be even more stage-managed than usual
Zarubin, the Swiftie-esque Putin fanboy who is moderating this, says some questions have been resolved already. "In the morning I complained I hadn't been paid my salary, and by the evening I got it!", one ordinary Russian supposedly said.
Putin says Russia has "strengthened its sovereignty," and seen off a sanctions onslaught from the west. Putin credits the "high consolidation of Russian society" and "stability of the financial-economic system."
As their yacht bobbed on the Mediterranean, the microchip executive snapped a picture of his Russian partner asleep on the deck.
He only knew the Russian by his first name, Maxim. But he knew Maxim was using a shadowy network to get the chips for the Russian defense industry.
Marc Rocchi’s qcompany Ommic desperately needed Maxim’s business to stay afloat. A few months earlier Rocchi had flown to Greece to hand-deliver Maxim 230 microchips — €45,000 worth. Maxim had, at one point, offered Rocchi “cash and women” for more, though he declined.
Rocchi knew his ultimate customer was NPP Istok, which makes electronic warfare systems for the Russian military. Specialist microchips like Ommic’s high-performance gallium nitride and gallium arsenide-integrated circuit boards are vital to defense manufacturers like Istok.
Insane footage on Russian social media from Makhachkala in the North Caucasus region, where there have been several anti-Semitic protests this weekend.
A crowd of people, some with Palestinian flags, broke into the airport in search of passengers on a flight from Tel Aviv.
Remarkable to see security forces in Russia standing by for so long. By now, according to Baza, police in Makhachkala have chased them off the runway and outside the airport, where they are now protesting. The airport is closed t.me/bazabazon/22573
🚨 Belarus says it has convinced Prigozhin to stand down his armed uprising.
Lukashenko spent "the entire day" negotiating with Prigozhin after "agreeing on joint actions" with Putin and "additionally clarifying the situation through his own channels."