Russia and Belarus were two of just a handful of countries that avoided having additional tariffs imposed on their exports to the United States on Wednesday as Donald Trump launched a global trade war by announcing duties on goods from over 180 countries. ⤵️ US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt both later said that Russia and Belarus, as well as long-time US adversaries North Korea and Cuba, would not be affected by new tariffs due to existing sanctions against them.

In order to circumvent strict international sanctions, Moscow has assembled a vast “shadow fleet” of ageing oil tankers sailing under the flag of poorly regulated third countries to continue exporting oil. 🧵 However, four mysterious explosions on shadow fleet oil tankers in the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas in the past three months have made many wonder whether, as well as undermining the sanctions on Russia, the fleet poses a growing threat to the global ecosystems.

When wide-ranging sanctions were imposed in 2022, the US authorities confidently announced the measures would “severely restrict Russia’s access to technologies” needed “to sustain its aggressive military capabilities”. It is now clear that those goals have not been achieved. 🧵 According to Novaya Europe’s calculations, for which data published by Ukrainian Defence Intelligence (GUR) was used, at least 722 Ukrainian civilians have been killed in Russian attacks using weapons built with foreign components since the war began.

Until just over a year ago, Mishchenko did his own watches at night, usually alongside fellow activist Pavel Kolesnikov. But everything changed last autumn when Mishchenko was suddenly arrested and Kolesnikov suffered a stroke and would go on to die a year later. 🧵 Mishchenko was detained several times for his attendance of protests, as well as for his solo pickets, and even for reading the Constitution aloud on Red Square.

In by far the most lengthy and frank account yet heard from any of the 16 political prisoners freed by Russia as part of an international exchange, three of Russia’s best-known opposition politicians held a press conference in the German city of Bonn on Friday evening. ⤵️ Addressing reporters for over an hour, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Andrey Pivovarov and Ilya Yashin were at times emotional, humorous, angry and defiant as they took turns to describe their experiences of being deported from Russia at short notice.

A Russian activist living in Norway revealed on Monday how she discovered that her Russian identity document had been cancelled while visiting the Russian Consulate in the Norwegian city of Kirkenes to renew her international passport. ⤵️ Olesya Krivtsova, who was placed under house arrest in Russia in January 2023 while awaiting trial for “discrediting the Russian military” and “justifying terrorism”, managed to flee the country in March 2023 despite having an electronic tagging device attached to her ankle.

Hamster Kombat, a new cryptocurrency game that has taken the Telegram messaging app by storm, has lured in millions of users with the promise of fast and easy money, even if Telegram itself stands to gain far more from it than would-be crypto traders. 🧵⤵️

#HAMSTERKOMBAT Hamster Kombat appeared on Telegram in March and quickly gained widespread popularity. In the last month alone, the game’s online presence has increased rapidly, breaking the record for most YouTube subscribers gained in a single week at over 11 million.

Ukraine’s Russian troops, who executed the incursion into the Belgorod region in mid-March, continue to play an important and unique battlefield role, even as their long-term future remains uncertain. 🧵1/7 It wasn’t until the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 that a new wave of Russian volunteers emerged. 2/7

EXCLUSIVE: The illness of Chechen head Ramzan Kadyrov is a source of concern for the Kremlin, which is now forced to decide how to maintain stability once the brutal Chechen dictator is no more. ⤵️

THREAD 1/8 🧵 When doctors first diagnosed pancreatic necrosis, a serious complication of acute pancreatitis, in Kadyrov in January 2019, he didn’t hide the fact that he was “temporarily unable to work” and that the time off was due to health problems. 2/8

✍️ | The worst flooding seen in Russia for decades has left much of the Orenburg region under water. Why, people ask, didn’t Putin come and see the devastation for himself?

@Leonid_Gozman’s op-ed for Novaya Europe: 1/8 As for why he didn’t come and see Orenburg, it’s because he doesn’t go anywhere, Gozman writes. 2/8

How did the co-chairman of the Nobel Prize-winning human rights organisation Memorial Oleg Orlov become just another victim of Vladimir Putin’s gruesomely cruel regime and what is likely to happen to him next?

THREAD 1/7 Although the Memorial human rights group was dismantled by the Kremlin just months before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Oleg Orlov has chosen to remain in Russia and continued to criticise the government despite an increasingly repressive political climate. 2/7

As Vladimir Putin begins his fifth term in office, he faces even fewer constraints on his power when deciding how to progress his war in Ukraine, and many now expect there to be a fresh wave of mobilisation, despite its unpopularity with the Russian public. (1/4) 🧵 (2/4)

“We’re waiting for you in the Hague!”

Some of our readers who spoiled their presidential election ballot on purpose have shared the photos with us. We’re posting the best ones.

🧵1/6 “Murderer, you will never win. Glory to Ukraine!!! Glory to the Armed Forces of Ukraine” 2/6

EXCLUSIVE: Communication with inmates at penal colony IK-3 in the Russian Arctic, where Alexey Navalny died on Friday, has never been easy even at the best of times due to its strict detention regime and incredible remoteness. 1/5 We talked to an inmate who said that a “mysterious commotion” had broken out in the penal colony on Thursday evening. 2/5

Our data investigation has found that over 600,000 pro-war posts made on Russia’s main social media site VK were written by state sector employees following official guidelines. How do pro-government commentators ensure they dominate Russian social networks? 1/6 At least 45% of VK posts with pro-war hashtags have been copied somewhere between 5-100 times on average. Of people who list their job in their profiles, 67% of users posting copies of pro-war content are state employees. 2/6

✈️Over the past 23 years, more people have been killed in Russian plane crashes than in plane crashes in any other country in the world.

In our new investigation, we look at the state of the Russian airline industry and how it was affected by the war. ⬇️1/6 By analysing open-source data, Novaya-Europe has found that there were over 120 aviation accidents involving passenger planes used by Russian airlines in the first eight months of this year: 2.2 times higher than it normally is. 2/6

The Russian economy has been profoundly affected by the war in Ukraine, with the 37% of national spending that currently goes on defence predicted to rise to as much as 45% by the year’s end. 1/8 As well as contributing to the ruble’s continuing fall, the massive increase in military spending is creating wider problems for the country’s economy that risk repeating the mistakes of the past. 2/8

Hola Prystan — a city on the left bank of the Dnipro River occupied by Russia — has been flooded after the collapse of the Kakhovka dam.

Its residents talk about what they have lost in the disaster:🧵1/5 Iryna says some local residents went around the city in a rowboat trying to save people huddling on the roofs. But they couldn’t save everyone. 2/5

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VPNovaya: helping those who stayed in Russia and Belarus access true and reliable information

Following the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian authorities introduced military censorship, blocking all independent media in the country. twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 2/4

It has become almost impossible to get to the truth. Every day, we receive more applications for VPNovaya from those who stayed in Russia and Belarus.

Since the start of the war, Russia has been publishing daily bulletins on destroyed units of Ukrainian military hardware.

But the combined numbers from the reports are absurd: Ukraine ended up with a negative number of military equipment by late 2022.

Let’s do the maths: 🧵1/8 Judging by the Defence Ministry’s statements released in early March 2022, the Russian army had already achieved “impressive success”. 2/8

Ukrainian Defence Minister Reznikov: “I am certainly satisfied with the assurances from the allies”

Video: Novaya Gazeta Europe "Today, we heard very important news about the so-called 'birds coalition', or the fighter jets coalition. Today we saw commitment from our partners [as it was said that] the training for our pilots will start," Reznikov said.