The Ukrainian drone strikes on Moscow once again demonstrate the futility of weapons restrictions and the Kremlin's lack of red lines. This is the largest drone attack on Moscow from Ukraine. Drones hit Ramenskoye, Domodedovo, and Zhukovsky. Several drones hit residential
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buildings. This may be due to the work of Russian air defense. Ukraine is aiming at military targets because bombing civilians does not improve the situation at the front. Drones do not cause much destruction since their warhead is about 10 times smaller than that of Russian
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FAB-500 bombs, but they have a psychological effect. Russia is not going to stop. The loss of part of the Kursk region, huge losses of personnel, a declining economy - Russia is not going to withdraw its troops from Ukrainian territory. In this case, the aggressor can only
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be stopped by moving the war to Russian territory and destroying the Putin regime. The Kremlin will survive the loss of Kursk, but the landings in Moscow are very close to the work of many propagandists and the Russian leadership. And this worries those on whom Putin's
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regime relies. Drone attacks become commonplace and will only happen more often. However, threats to Putin's regime do not only come from Ukraine. Internal ethnic conflicts with residents of the Caucasus are becoming more frequent, and on September 3, another fight on this
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basis took place in the city of Anapa. As the Anapa Media portal wrote, on the night of September 3, on Pionersky Prospekt, a girl refused to meet a representative of one of Russia's neighboring republics and received a portion of insults. When other guys stood up for her,
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a crowd of Caucasians attacked them and began to beat them up. Later, the commander of "Akhmat" Apti Alaudinov stood up for them, blaming the girl for everything. Russia is losing strength, and this is felt by representatives of those peoples who have been humiliated and
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discriminated against throughout their coexistence with Russia. Tensions are growing between Akhmat and Russian troops. If Russia starts to fall apart, it will be because of the war in Ukraine, but it will start with Chechnya and Dagestan. Russia is still trying to advance,
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but the advance in the Pokrovsky direction has slowed. "Agency" published the size of the territories captured by Russia from August to September based on DeepState data and it is clear that the advance has slowed. Russia is starting to show signs of resource problems, but
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Ukraine in turn has also transferred additional forces and more experienced brigades, like Azov, to stop the advance. The intensity of the offensive remains high, but the attacks are repelled more successfully. Ukraine is having a very hard time. Every day. Two and a half
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years. The length of the entire front line is more than 3 thousand km. The line of active combat operations is more than 970 km, but Ukraine is not defeated and it is obvious that Russia cannot win. However, how much longer the war will continue, no one can say.
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A wave of property confiscations that swept across the regions and affected officials, security officers, and judges has brought the state an amount comparable to the annual budget of a small region. In total, over the past 5-7 years, property worth 100 billion rubles has been
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seized in corruption cases, Accounts Chamber auditor Andrei Baturkin reported in the State Duma. The confiscations have reached such a scale that, according to Baturkin, a “road map” is now required to coordinate the relevant agencies that will have to deal with seized companies,
houses, land plots, and collections of luxury cars and watches. It is necessary to “establish communication between the power bloc and Rosimushchestvo so that there is more feedback regarding what property is to be transferred into the ownership of the Russian Federation,”
Bloomberg reported, citing sources, that Greece and Malta have become the main obstacles to an EU proposal to replace the price cap on Russian oil with a ban on services necessary for transporting fuel. According to the agency’s interlocutors, the two southern European
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countries raised concerns about this step at a meeting of EU ambassadors on Monday, where the latest sanctions package against Russia was presented. They warned that such a shift could affect Europe’s shipping industry and energy prices. Both countries also requested
clarifications regarding proposals to impose sanctions on foreign ports handling Russian oil and to strengthen oversight of ship sellers in order to reduce the number of vessels entering Moscow’s fleet. A representative of the Greek government declined to comment.
The most unpleasant forecasts regarding the Russian economy are beginning to materialize. What analysts cautiously spoke about a year ago is now being discussed openly even by the most pro-government Russian economists: the safety margin is rapidly shrinking. While Putin talks
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about “stability” and “growth,” the reality looks far more prosaic: a country that unleashed a war of aggression against Ukraine is methodically burning through its own financial system. According to estimates by Germany’s BND intelligence service, Russia’s real military spending
reaches around 10% of GDP and nearly half of the federal budget. In fact, actual expenditures are 66% higher than officially declared, due to hidden budget lines, Defense Ministry construction projects, military IT infrastructure, and social payments to servicemen. In simple
According to BND estimates, last year Russia’s military spending may have amounted to almost half of the state budget and around 10% of the country’s GDP. According to the German intelligence service, Russia is spending significantly more on the war and its armed forces
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than it has declared in recent years. Since the start of the war against Ukraine in February 2022, Russia’s defense budget has increased sharply every year. In addition, Russia’s interpretation of “defense spending” differs significantly from the NATO definition, German
intelligence officials note. A comprehensive analysis of budget data conducted by BND shows that Russia’s defense budget in recent years was 66% higher than officially reported. Unaccounted expenditures include, for example, construction projects of the Ministry of Defense,
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky explained why he sharply criticized Europe at the World Economic Forum in Davos. He made these remarks during a meeting with journalists in Kyiv, according to a correspondent from European Pravda. Zelensky said he had grounds for critical
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statements toward Europe after a lack of funding led to a shortage of air defense missiles, allowing Russia to strike Kyiv’s energy infrastructure. Zelensky did not deny that his speech may have sounded overly harsh from European capitals and explained this by saying that
Ukraine and the rest of Europe live in different information spaces. He also acknowledged that the differences are not only informational but also emotional in how events are perceived. The president explained that his Davos speech was preceded by heavy strikes on energy
Putin is losing the game he himself started. His bet was placed on a return to the world of the 19th and early 20th centuries - a world of empires and spheres of influence, where Europe, America, Africa, and Asia are divided among several “superpowers.” In Putin’s vision of
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the world, there were supposed to be three such powers: the United States, Russia, and China. However, the real transformation of the global order is unfolding in a completely different way. The key failure is Ukraine. At the end of the fourth year of war, Russia has still
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been unable to subjugate it. The army is visibly degrading, human and technological resources are being exhausted, the economy is held together by military spending and gray schemes, and the state increasingly resembles an overextended empire losing its ability to govern
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