#anna nemtsova

[mariacallous]

US President Joe Biden confirmed on Thursday evening that a 24-person prisoner swap had taken place with Russia, in what would be the largest such exchange since the end of the Cold War.

Among the most notable of the 16 returnees to the West – four Americans, five Germans and seven Russian political prisoners – are Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former US Marine Paul Whelan, opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, a dual Russian-British citizen, and RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual US-Russian citizen.

Going in the other direction were eight prisoners, excluding two minors, most notably Russian assassin Vadim Krasikov, who has been held in a German prison since 2019 for the murder of a Chechen exile in Berlin, and Pablo Rubtsov, also known as “Pablo Gonzalez”, who is believed to have been a GRU military intelligence agent posing as a Spanish journalist working in Poland, Ukraine and other former Soviet countries.

The prisoner exchange, which took place at Ankara airport, had been in the works for many months, according to multiple analysts. Indications that the swap was in the final stages came with reports that some of those released had been moved from where they were being incarcerated, as well as the speeding up of trials in Russia and Slovenia.

In Slovenia on Wednesday, two Russian deep-cover spies arrested in 2022, whose real names are thought to be Artem Dultsev and Anna Dultseva, pleaded guilty to charges of spying and falsifying documents in a court case held in private. The Ljubljana court sentenced them to time served in prison and ordered their immediate expulsion. The two minors in the exchange are thought to be their children.

Key to the swap was Germany’s reluctant agreement to release the hitman Krasikov, who was serving life for the killing of Georgian citizen Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin, a crime the judge called an act of “state terrorism”. The western prisoners, on the other hand, were widely seen as being sentenced in show trials on trumped-up charges.

On February 27, 2022, Polish authorities detained Rubtsov on the Polish-Ukrainian border and later charged him with spying for Russia. He had been detained in Poland ever since, reportedly spending time in solitary confinement.

ABW, the Polish internal security agency, claimed the man was carrying out operations to benefit Russia while posing as a journalist and was on his way to Ukraine when detained.

The man was a dual Russian-Spanish citizen, and, under the name of Pablo Gonzalez, he was working as a reporter for several Spanish media, including online newspaper Publico and TV station La Sexta. The fact he was arrested by the ultra-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government lent some weight to arguments by his lawyer and wife back in Spain that he was arrested because of his “inconvenient” reporting. A campaign demanding his release was organised by international media groups such as Reporters without Borders, to no effect.

Christo Grozev, former lead Russia investigator for Bellingcat, had reported for The Insider in 2023 how Rubtsov allegedly gathered intelligence for Russia and tried to gain the trust of Russian opposition activists so he could report back on them. Grozev’s reporting was based on investigative work by a Russian independent outlet, The Agency. Among others, he had allegedly gotten close to and reported on Zhanna Nemtsova, Boris Nemtsov’s daughter, and people from her circle.

Donald Tusk, the ABW or any other Polish authorities had not made any public statement by the time of publication.

Until today, the largest prisoner swap since the Cold War was in 2010 and involved a total of 14 people, including Anna Chapman and Sergei Skripal, a Russian military intelligence officer convicted of spying for Britain, who was later poisoned by Russian agents in Salisbury.

[odinsblog]

After President Vladimir Putin announced this week that Russia was conscripting some 300,000 reservists and military veterans to reinforce its war effort in Ukraine, international flights out of Russian cities quickly sold out. This latest wave of Russia’s exodus included Anton Shalaev, a 38-year-old senior manager at an IT company, and 15 colleagues.

On less than a day’s notice, these men of military age all left their relatively comfortable lives in downtown Moscow to fly to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. Because of Putin’s war, Shalaev tossed a book, an iPad, and a laptop in a backpack and got out of Dodge.

Shalaev and his co-workers are true tech geeks, producers of high-value computer games. They represent their country’s brightest and best, members of a tech elite that was the economic foundation of Russia’s new middle class. In a last selfie from Moscow, Shalaev brandished a coffee mug that bore the slogan, not today, satan.

Anna Nemtsova: Why didn’t you want to be drafted to fight in Ukraine?

Anton Shalaev: On the day Putin declared the war, I knew I would never fight on behalf of this new Nazi Reich. They are my personal enemies: mercenaries who steal my country from me, occupy foreign territories, and kill innocent people. Putin’s army commanders have had plenty of time to turn down their contracts; instead, they are recruiting more cannon fodder now.

So I chose to help Ukrainians suffering from this horror—pay for shelters in Kyiv with cryptocurrency and write antiwar posts on social media. To encourage Russians at home, I said: “Guys, look, I am writing this from Moscow.”

Nemtsova: What was your escape like?

Shalaev: Unlike state-owned companies such as Yandex or the Mail.ru Group, which are making their employees stay, we were independent of government funding, so we made an immediate decision to relocate.

The atmosphere at passport control in the airport was quiet but tense; men waiting for the flight around me were exchanging alerted glances. I had bought my ticket right before the announcement—we were already hearing rumors of the mobilization—so it cost me only about $300. But my colleagues got their tickets the next day, and they cost more than $1,000.

The departure was super stressful. The border guards took each of my friends aside into a small room, interrogated them, asked if they had ever served in the military, and if not, why not. And you know that type of sly border official making their little jokes: “Aha, you are leaving on the day of conscription.” Of course, they checked whether our names were in the database for the mobilization.

Nemtsova: Did you do military service, in fact, when you turned 18?

Shalaev: No, I entered the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, which had a military department, so that released me from the service obligation. I studied political science, and dreamed of becoming a Russian diplomat—Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was a graduate there. For a long time, I considered myself a Russian patriot, ready to serve.

When I enrolled in college, in 2001, there was some ideological diversity: We had a neo-Stalinist who taught us about how “Josef” ruled with an iron fist, but the next class would be with a professor telling us about liberal values. Today, the school recruits students for the secret services. And lately, I heard that the dean has urged students to call for Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to surrender.

Nemtsova: What do you think of the Kremlin’s decision making?

Shalaev: A few old men and an army of zombies are leading us to hell. I say that because people around me in Russia behaved as if they had been bitten by a zombie, dragging my entire country into a dreadful war. All I saw was Russian loser husbands beating their wives, while the entire rotting house of the state system has turned my people into an army of the dead.

They are my enemies.

Nemtsova: What do you know of the situation in Ukraine?

Shalaev: I constantly follow the war news in Ukraine—and I seek out the best, most objective analysts. My main sources on the atrocities are Ukrainian refugees from cities bombed by Russian forces.

I realize that I would rather go to prison than go to fight against the Ukrainian army. I openly embrace my antiwar position. I urge my social-media followers to donate to Ukrainians. This entire war is a crime against humanity.

(continue reading)

[kragnir]

"A few old men and an army of zombies are leading us to hell. I say that because people around me in Russia behaved as if they had been bitten by a zombie, dragging my entire country into a dreadful war. All I saw was Russian loser husbands beating their wives, while the entire rotting house of the state system has turned my people into an army of the dead."

Truthful words that could get this guy in a gulag or even killed if he should return to a mafia-controlled Russia.

[lapdropworldwide]

This Is Where Ukraine’s Legendary Female War Reporters Are Taking a Breather

This Is Where Ukraine’s Legendary Female War Reporters Are Taking a Breather

Courtesy Anna Nemtsova For journalists covering the Ukraine war, months of continual violence and tragedy take a toll. The feeling is of suffocation. It’s even more devastating to be working under pressure while constantly worried about the people you love. In the first two weeks of the war alone, many reporters lost their homes to Russian artillery fire in cities that were turned into…

[nouvelordremondialcc]

NOUVEAU : Suivez l'actu du blog sur Telegram ! Le Daily Beast célèbre le déclin de la natalité en Russie et affirme que tous les hommes russes sont trop mauvais pour devenir pères Anna Nemtsova est une journaliste russe qui célèbre la fin des russes. Le Daily Beast a publié cette semaine un article sur…

[jrljohnsonsrussialist]

JRL NEWSWATCH: "Putin Rumors Run Wild as He Shrouds Himself in Secrecy; Putin’s secrecy has helped fuel Russia’s black market in information which is thriving online and undermining the president’s authority." - Daily Beast/ Anna Nemtsova

JRL NEWSWATCH: “Putin Rumors Run Wild as He Shrouds Himself in Secrecy; Putin’s secrecy has helped fuel Russia’s black market in information which is thriving online and undermining the president’s authority.” – Daily Beast/ Anna Nemtsova

“Vladimir Putin has surrounded himself with such a thick fog of secrecy that it’s now unclear where he is living, how many children or lovers he has, if his health is failing, or whether he’s planning to stay in power ….” Click here for: “Putin Rumors Run Wild as He Shrouds Himself in Secrecy; Putin’s secrecy has helped fuel Russia’s black market in information which is thriving online and…

[zloyodessit]

ISIS will "live on" in Ukraine as long as it benefits supervisors of puppet "journalists"

The issue of ISIS terrorist presence in Ukraine was one of the most favorite ones for Russian propaganda over the past few years.

Through affiliated, so-called "independent" journalists and public figures, the Kremlin has been spinning a narrative that ISIS militants are fighting as part of volunteer battalions, while Ukraine is a transshipment base and a haven for terrorists, providing them with an opportunity to get to the European Union thanks to visa-free travel.

Such narratives had at least two objectives. The first was to hinder at an early stage the granting of EU visa free travel for Ukrainians, which would be a painful political blow to the previous Ukrainian government. Another one was to portray Ukraine as a terrorist state, which would discredit the country in the eyes of Western partners who would start treating it at least with some caution.

At the forefront of such tarring campaign operated a Russian native with a Ukrainian passport Kateryna Sergatskova and "opposition" journalist from Russia Anna Nemtsova, who has been regularly visiting Ukraine, totally unhindered.

Both resurfaced in my memory as Anna Nemtsova on December 29 published on The Daily Beast an article entitled "War and Corruption Made Ukraine a Terrorist Twilight Zone", which claims it is for ISIS terrorists in Ukraine to get a national passport and settle, only to later get to Europe, as Russian propaganda has long been alleging.

A cherry on the cake was that in this piece, Anna Nemtsova finally echoed with another "transponder" of terrorism-related topics, Kateryna Sergatskova.

In my opinion, absolutely everything is important is important in this article, including the authors, the timing, and the platform. So let me explain.

The thing is that it's by no accident that Sergatskova and Nemtsova, both playing key roles in discrediting Ukraine in the international arena as a country that allegedly was an exporter and is now becoming a haven for ISIS militants, have become more pro-active just recently.

Indeed, ISIS has now lost its former prowess as a result of the efforts by a U.S.-led coalition in the Middle East, although the very topic of fighting terrorism is a favorite leitmotif of almost all speeches by the leadership of Russia, the country that deployed the largest number of militants in the ranks of this terrorist organization.

Moreover, the transshipment base was the FSB-controlled Dagestan, while terrorists were even issued medical insurance by the Dagestan Compulsory Medical Insurance Fund before their deployment.

However, the unraveling conflict in Libya, which might as well grow into a major war, could provide fertile ground for nurturing new myths about ISIS.

At least, this is precisely of what Russian propaganda is already accusing the internationally-recognized Government of National Accord, thus justifying the offensive on Tripoli by the Kremlin-backed army of an unrecognized Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar.

So, what we have is another military escalation in Libya, the spread of propaganda tirades about ISIS terrorists defending Tripoli, and another story about a terrorist Ukraine by "truth-seeking" journalists on the website of a respected publication ... But is it "respected" though, really?

It should be noted that that the rather popular platform chosen to publish the piece by the Nemtsova-Sergatskova duo has long been raising certain questions.

For example, not so long ago Sergatskova published an initially low-profile article at Ukraine's Hromadske.ua, also dedicated to ISIS in Ukraine. More specifically, it covered the arrest by the SBU security service of Al-Bar Shishani, a Georgian national who was the deputy of one of the leaders of the terrorist organization, the so-called "Minister of War" Umar Shishani.

But since Katerina Sergatskova is not a widely known figure, her debut piece on Hromadske.ua of November 19 sent no shockwaves across the information space, so someone added some "nitrous oxide" to it via a repost by the Russian Novaya Gazeta, the publication that has patrons in Russian security agencies.

This piece alone is enough raises unambiguous questions to platforms that have published it, namely, Hromadske.ua and Novaya Gazeta. Another outlet raising similar questions is The Daily Beast, which Anna Nemtsova used to try to tie ISIS to Ukraine – with no evidence base whatsoever – and equate the Ukrainian Army with, as the author put it, "pro-Russian rebels" in Donbas. At the same time, she chose to turn a blind eye to the presence of Russian troops in the conflict.

In 2015, caring little about facts, a so-called "opposition" journalist from Russia Anna Nemtsova published in the same U.S.-based The Daily Beast a piece claiming that Chechens who had previously trained at ISIS camps were fighting in Donbas alongside Ukraine's Armed Forces.

At the same time, stopping short of the actual fact-checking work, the "journalist" limited herself to simply citing a militant identified as "Muslim".

In a while, Nemtsova delivers another piece "Ukraine's Out of Control Arms Bazaar in Europe's Backyard", also for The Daily Beast. Here she once again manipulates the issue of war, distorts and fuels the theme of uncontrolled arms trade in a warring country and reflects on threats to EU.

The Daily Beast has actually long turned into an English-language platform for campaigns, including to discredit Ukraine, although, subjectivity and excessive manipulation made many readers turn their backs on the outlet and sparked criticism among experts.

The Young Turks journalist Michael Tracy directly blamed The Daily Beast for disinformation, which used to be inherent in Russian media, and ridiculed the publication's journalists over self-aggrandizing and sloppy reporting.

So the general outline is visible to the naked eye, and the content is more than obvious. The Libyan conflict, which the Russian media have already associated with ISIS and branded Haftar's joint campaign with the Russian PMC "Wagner" mercenaries and the Russian spec-ops troops to take over Tripoli a "Crusade" on ISIS, is reviving a "good old song" about a global terror threat.

The conflict itself will cause another huge wav e of refugees pouring into Europe again. Besides, Libya is really close to EU, namely, Italy, so another humanitarian crisis would be a great pretext for deploying terrorists among "illegal migrants".

However, "independent journalists" are already fertilizing the soil for further spinning narratives of Ukraine "again becoming transit base for terrorists".

So far, these are only indirect and unobtrusive hints – just a mention of the arrest by the SBU security service of Al-Bar Shishani. In fact, it was a single incident over a long period of time, while dozens of arrests have been carried out in Europe, the U.S., and beyond of former militants affiliated with the terrorist organization, while Russia goes as far as extracting former ISIS operatives and their families from Syria by air.

Another point is interesting here. The piece by the Nemtsova-Sergatskaya tandem came not only amid Libyan aggravation and the revival of the ISIS story, but also against the background of a foiled terror attack in St. Petersburg.

Moreover, it was the United States that tipped Russian security officials about the impending terrorist attack.

In fact, the Americans made a preemptive move, hindering Russia's plans to tailor an attack only to claim afterwards that "ISIS attacks us, too, and again", which would entitle Moscow, say, to officially deploy their troops at Haftar's request (as they did in Syria back in 2015), and also provide for an alibi for the upcoming terror attacks in Europe.

Let me remind you that just two weeks ago, Austrian police detained two Chechen immigrants in Vienna on suspicion of plotting a terrorist attack. The two men, 25 and 31, were arrested and placed under custody in the prison of Wiener Neustadt. No details of the case have been disclosed to ensure quality investigation. It was only reported that the Chechens had planned to perform their attack in the Austrian capital in the period between Christmas and New Year.

It is also worth noting that had the terrorist attack in St. Petersburg worked out, it would've created a very "appropriate" picture for the Kremlin on New Year's eve, with the widest horizon of opportunities opening up in 2020.

Meanwhile, having foiled the attack, American professionals also humiliated the FSB, showing that they are better aware of the situation in Russia from across the pond than the local security agencies.

By the way, it is precisely this factor of a fairly good situational awareness of both European and American intelligence that prevents fake news by Sergatskova and Nemtsova from growing into anything bigger than sorry bleating on websites of ambiguous publications.

Indeed, these agencies know perfectly well, which country is in fact a transshipment base, a haven, and a financial donor for global terrorism, and who many of those Russian "opposition" journalists really work for. That's including those who settled in Ukraine and the West or still remain in Moscow, where, by the way, other Russian citizens are immediately thrown behind bars for a mere "share" on social networks.

https://zloy-odessit.livejournal.com/2997400.html

[luizacarvalhocardoso]

Rússia vive os dias mais quentes em 120 anos

Por RTP | Emissora pública de televisão de Portugal

O ano 2019 foi o mais quente na Rússia em mais de 120 anos, anunciaram hoje os serviços meteorológicos locais. Moscou enfrenta um raro inverno sem neve.

“De uma forma geral, este foi o ano mais quente da Rússia de todo o período de observações instrumentais”, disse o diretor do Centro Hidrometeorológico Roman Vilfand.

Para contornar algumas das dificuldades causadas pelo tempo, as autoridades de Moscou decidiram despejar neve artificial no centro da cidade mantendo as festividades do ano novo, quando é habitual as pessoas saíram para a rua para fazerem snowboard.

A decisão provocou diversas reações na rede social Twitter. Alguns russos afirmaram que “o orçamento de Moscou pode comprar qualquer coisa: até o inverno”. Em outra mensagem a população lamentou o cenário que “está muito longe do tradicional inverno”.

Authorities have been creating Potemkin #villages to impress Russia’s leaders and tourists for centuries. Today #Moscow is decorating it’s central avenue, Tverskaya, with fake snow. pic.twitter.com/D4eb3FNctY

— Anna Nemtsova (@annanemtsova) December 29, 2019

На Тверскую улицу завезли снег и перекрыли её для автомобилей. Улицы Тверская, Моховая, Охотный ряд и Театральный проезд будут пешеходными до 22:00 6 января. С московским бюджетом можно все купить. Даже зиму pic.twitter.com/lGxEBizRzT

— Дикая Москва (@WildWildMoscow) December 28, 2019

No Instagram, usuários têm multiplicado vídeos que mostram caminhões transportando e espalhando neve na cidade. “Esta é toda a neve que há em Moscou. Está toda guardada na Praça Vermelha”, escreveu um usuário ao comentar a fotografia tirada perto do Kremlin.

View this post on Instagram

Это весь снег, который есть в Москве. Его охраняют на Красной площади

This is all the snow there is in Moscow. It is being guarded on the Red Square

#москва#декабрь#краснаяплощадь#гум#снег#погода#тепло#скороновыйгод#moscow#instamoscow#december#redsquare#gumstore#nikolskaya#snow#weather#warm#soonnewyear#city#cityscape#citylife#photographylover#photography#photooftheday

A post shared by Maria

(@mariksa_10) on Dec 27, 2019 at 9:53pm PST

As preocupações com os efeitos do aquecimento global na Rússia são crescentes, já que o permafrost ou pergelissolo – o tipo de solo encontrado na região do Ártico, constituído por terra, gelo e rochas permanentemente congelados – está derretendo lentamente e fazendo recuar o gelo ártico. A situação leva os ursos polares famintos a procurarem comida em áreas urbanas.

O clima ameno que se tem registado este mês no país interrompeu a hibernação de vários animais no jardim zoológico de Moscou e fez com que açafrão, liláses e magnólias do jardim botânico da Universidade Estadual florescessem mais cedo.

The post Rússia vive os dias mais quentes em 120 anos appeared first on CicloVivo.

Rússia vive os dias mais quentes em 120 anos Publicado primeiro em http://ciclovivo.com.br/

[plusorminuscongress]

NPR News: How Gun Violence In The U.S. Is Viewed From Abroad

How Gun Violence In The U.S. Is Viewed From Abroad NPR's Ari Shapiro speaks with journalists Patrick Gower in New Zealand, Hanne Skartveit in Norway, and Anna Nemtsova in Russia about how the mass shootings in the U.S. are viewed in their countries. Read more on NPR

[ebenpink]

Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- February 25, 2019 https://ift.tt/2Ex0SYg

Reuters

Daniel R. DePetris, National Interest: Give Trump a Chance on North Korea For the first time since former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright jetted to Pyongyang to meet Kim Jong-il 18 years ago, there is a chance - however slim - for the United States and North Korea to establish a relationship that is categorized as something other than hostile and adversarial. We should give the administration the freedom to prove many of us wrong. Read more ....

Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- February 25, 2019

Negotiations, nukes and Nobels: All you need to know about the Kim-Trump summit in Vietnam -- Andrew Salmon, Asia Times Trump’s modest expectations are realistic -- Robert E. McCoy, Asia Times Trump-Kim summit 2019: From Singapore to Canada, fans of North Korea praise its ‘juche’ ideology and supreme leader -- John Power, SCMP Worry about US-SKorea alliance grows before Trump-Kim summit -- Hyung-Jin Kim, AP How many IS foreign fighters are left in Iraq and Syria? -- BBC The War in South Asia -- Kevin D. Williamson, National Review How US trade negotiators are misreading China while ignoring America’s dangerously low savings rate -- Stephen Roach, SCMP Here’s How Putin’s Russia Is Rebuilding the Iron Curtain -- Anna Nemtsova, Daily Beast Inside Trump's Venezuela pivot -- Jonathan Swan, Axios Venezuela crisis: Who is buying its oil now? -- Jack Goodman BBC After the fight for humanitarian aid, what next for Venezuela’s opposition? -- Katy Watson, BBC What's the Trump Doctrine? Depends who you ask -- Analysis by Michael Warren, Zachary Cohen and Michelle Kosinski, CNN Donald Trump needs to remain calm this week, but the Mueller report's release could infuriate him -- Zoe Daniel and Emily Olson, ABC News Online Ukraine at crossroads five years after 'revolution of dignity' -- Mansur Mirovalev, Al Jazeera Cold War 2.0? Northern Europe and the threat from Russia -- Juliette Lacharnay and Christophe Leon, France 24 from War News Updates https://ift.tt/2VpsFQl via IFTTT

[kragnir]

“This is not the war of the Russian people.”

A little correction is required at this point: “This is not the war of the minority of Russian people.”

First off, those of you, who oppose the crime gang that pretends to be a legitimate government, my hat goes off to you. However, as level-headed adults, you should understand the bitter life-and-death fight that the innocent country of Ukraine is battling. Of course, there will be certain measures taken that will affect every Russian, including you. This is not a time to snivel about such things. While you can’t travel wherever you want, millions of Ukrainians have FLED their country. Thousands have been KILLED. An unknown number have been MURDERED. Who knows how many have been RAPED. Countless have been ROBBED of their precious few possessions. Thousands upon thousands have been BOMBED. Millions are affected by this war. They have no idea what sort of future awaits for them. This is YOUR country that’s causing all of this pain and misery! A little understanding about ANY measure to punish mafia land should be understood by any level-headed adult. That’s life, and YOUR life goes on, while Ukrainian ones could end today, at this very moment even.

[lapdropworldwide]

‘This Is Not a Computer Game:’ Wounded Kids Stunned by Putin’s War on Ukraine

‘This Is Not a Computer Game:’ Wounded Kids Stunned by Putin’s War on Ukraine

Anna Nemtsova/The Daily Beast CHERNIHIV—During the long, dark and icy days of the winter, 7th grader Bogdan Parasyuk said he had been dreaming of springtime, when he could finally hop on his bike and race his friends along the central streets of his home city. Chernihiv is a charming, European city full of graceful historic architecture, universities, parks and hipster cafes. At least, it was a…

[narcisbolgor-blog]

Another Putin Critic Murdered in Ukraine? Nope. His Death Was a Sting That Caught Alleged Assassin

Editors Note: Arkady Babchenko, one of the bravest and most famous of Russias war reporters, is not dead, although Tuesday night the world, including his family and friends, believed that he was. Now we find out it was all part of a sting to capture those who really did want him dead.

On Wednesday Babchenko appeared alive and well at a press conference, saying that he had to fake his death as part of a Ukrainian Security Service counter-terror operation. A suspect reportedly is in custody.

This is not the first time secret services have pulled off such a sting to embarrass their enemies and capture conspirators. In 1984, for instance, the Egyptians faked the murder of a leading opponent of Libyan strongman Muammar Kaddafi. But in todays news environment, such a spectacular example of fake news risks discrediting those who pull it off as well as those who would commit the crime in the first place.

World News Editor Christopher Dickey

Anna Nemtsova, who wrote the original story reporting Babchenkos death, filed this update from Moscow:

No fake news ever shocked reporters working in Russia and Ukraine more than this story.

On Tuesday Ukrainian authorities convinced the world that the famous Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko was killed in Kiev. A photograph of Babchenko in a puddle of blood with three gunshot wounds on his back was released to the public. Ukrainian parliament member Anton Geraschenko told a detailed story about the murder on his Facebook page, giving details of the assassination. The Ukrainian police released a composite sketch of the supposed killer.

Thousands of Babchenkos fans and friends wept for hours. Respectful publications wrote tributes. Russian politicians blamed Kiev and Ukrainians blamed Moscow for ordering Babchenkos murder; the United Nations demanded an investigation.

But at the Wednesday press conference the Ukrainian Security Service, the SBU, broke a happy news: Babchenko was alive. According to Ukrainian officials, the sting was a top secret specialoperation conducted to find the real would-be killer.

When a live Babchenko appeared on TV screens on Wednesday afternoon, all of his colleagues at ATR, a Tatar TV channel in Kiev, began to scream in shock in the newsroom, they had no idea, Pavel Kanygin, Babchenkos friend, told The Daily Beast.

Kanygin, as well as several other friends flew to Kiev on Wednesday morning to help Babchenkos wife organize the funeral. There were too many real assassinations of Russian journalists and politicians criticising President Vladimir Putin to doubt Babchenkos murder story.

During the press briefing on Wednesday Babchenko appeared before his colleagues and said: The SBU operation, conducted in order to prevent large scale terrorist attacks, was prepared for two months.

Apparently a former Ukrainian volunteer soldier had received $15,000 to kill Babchenko. The head of SBU Vasily Gritsak told reporters that the detention of the assassin helped to prevent dozens of other contract killings in Ukraine, that the list of potential victims included at least 30 names.

In Russia, Babchenkos friends were crying and laughing, happy to hear the news. We have the entire newsroom at Echo of Moscow screaming too, some curse badly, Tanya Felgenhauer, deputy chief editor of Echo of Moscow told her friends.

Later, Babchenko wrote to a group of fellow journalists: My wife is not doing great. It is hard. But she says hi to all of you and thanks you for all the words of support and words of sympathy. This is important. Thank you, brothers. And I am sorry that I had to drag you through all this. But there was no way.

We had to get the bastard. And we got him.

This is what Babchenko and the SBU had everyone believing, as reported in a story published by The Daily Beast earlier on Wednesday:

... On Tuesday night, [Babchenko] was shot in the back on the doorstep of his Kiev apartment. His wife reportedly was in another room when she heard the shooting. He died on the way to the hospital.

Babchenko was 41 years old and leaves behind his 12-year-old daughter.

His murder is a terrorist attack on the entire journalistic community, on all of us who cover the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Babchenkos old friend and colleague at Novaya Gazeta, Pavel Kanygin, told The Daily Beast shortly after news broke of the assassination.

Hundreds of thousands read Babchenkos fearless, controversial stories about Russian politics, human rights violations, and the war in Ukraine, and Kanygin spoke bitterly of the impact on journalists and journalism this killing will have. The spin master behind the contract murder intends to tell us that no matter how sharp and well-reported our stories are, no matter how well we hide from their persecutions, they will come and get us.

Babchenko himself was the biggest optimist of all of us. In one of his posts written in April 2015 while covering the war in the eastern Ukraine region known as Donbas he said: I will survive all their fucking wars. I will survive Donbas. The third Chechen war. And all their new local wars that they have time to start in their agony. In the same post he calls all his readers to drink beer, Champagne, twerk, shake it. Life rules! You guys love, kiss, talk, argue, have fun, make jokes and maybe for such an occasion I will dig myself out and one more time hang out with you.

It escaped no ones notice that Babckenkos cowardly assassin shot him three times from behind, just the way the murderers of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov fired into his back in 2015. Babchenkos close friends among Moscow journalists suspected Russian authorities are behind what appeared to be a contract killing.

The Ukraine Interior Ministry released a composite sketch of a bearded man in his forties with a denim cap, but some journalists in Ukraine question its authenticity.

Two years ago Babchenko wrote a blog about another journalist assassinated in Kiev, Pavel Sheremet, who was a journalist many young reporters looked up to. I am tired of having funerals for my friends. Every time it is the same thing, this damned endless run of deaths, Babchenko said. Now Arkadys name joined the list of Vladimir Putins assassinated critics. And we mourn one more friend.

Since the early days of the war in eastern Ukraine in 2014, Babchenko had received constant threats on his life from Russian officials and pro-Russian rebels. Moscow-backed militants put his photograph on the wall of the occupied administration building in the Ukrainian city of Donetsk with a sign: A provocateur and enemy.

Last year Babchenko had to leave Russia. Some Moscow source who he trusted informed him that Russian authorities were planning to lock him, Babchenkos friend, the Prague-based photographer Petr Shelomovsky, told The Daily Beast. So last year he first moved to Prague and then to Kiev.

In March last year, shortly after the former Russian State Duma deputy Denis Voronenkov was gunned down in the center of Kiev, Babchenko told his friends that every year some famous Russian gets killed in Ukraine. He wondered who would be next.

Today we got the answer to that questionhe was right, famous Russian public figures are vulnerable in Ukraine, says Ilya Barabanov, a BBC reporter based in Moscow, and another of Babchenkos friends. Looks like the order to kill Arkady came from Moscow; in fact, he constantly received death threats, he was feeling concerned about his own and his familys security.

In 2002 and 2006 Babchenko published a series of stories and essays about the war in Chechnya; in the past few years he was running a blog called Journalism without Intermediaries. Tens of thousands read his posts.

All of us, journalists who covered Russian-Georgian war in 2008, admired Babchenkos reportages for Novaya Gazeta. He was wounded in that war, but that didnt stop him.

He had many enemies both in Russia and Ukraine; there is no doubt that he was killed for his articles, Tanya Lokshina, a Russia program director of Moscow Human Rights Watch told The Daily Beast.

To Babchenkos friends he will always be remembered as an honest, passionate storyteller, an easy-going colleague.

Every day he received hundreds of messages, people recognized him on the streets and would ask him questions, but Babchenko still found time to answer personal notes.

If I met Babchenkos killers, said Kanygin at Novaya Gazeta, I would tell them that they would never be able to kill our memories and that Arkady Babchenko will always stay a heroic reporter who had the guts to write things that most people were too scared even to think of.

Original Article : HERE ; This post was curated & posted using : RealSpecific

=> *********************************************** Read More Here: Another Putin Critic Murdered in Ukraine? Nope. His Death Was a Sting That Caught Alleged Assassin ************************************ =>

Another Putin Critic Murdered in Ukraine? Nope. His Death Was a Sting That Caught Alleged Assassin was originally posted by Viral News - Feed

[protoslacker]

For the first time in decades Muscovites in recent days heard that Russia’s most secret law enforcement agency had arrested one of its own top officers, and it happened in the middle of an official meeting. Like a scene out of some Brian de Palma movie, FSB officers grabbed their colleague and put a bag over his head—and afterward made little or no effort to keep what they had done a secret.

Anna Nemtsova in The Daily Beast. The Downfall of a Top Russian Cyber Spy The dramatic arrest in Moscow of a top intelligence official raises questions about who knew what, and when, about the hack of the U.S. elections.

[bountyofbeads]

Lev Parnas Helped Rep. Devin Nunes’ Investigations

Betsy Swan, Political Reporter |

Updated Nov. 21, 2019 3:16AM ET Published Nov. 20, 2019 7:58PM ET | Daily Beast | Posted Nov. 21, 2019 |

Lev Parnas, an indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani, helped arrange meetings and calls in Europe for Rep. Devin Nunes in 2018, Parnas’  lawyer Ed MacMahon told The Daily Beast.

Nunes aide Derek Harvey participated in the meetings, the lawyer said, which were arranged to help Nunes’ investigative work. MacMahon didn’t specify what those investigations entailed.

Nunes is the top Republican on the House committee handling the impeachment hearings—hearings where Parnas’ name has repeatedly come up.

Congressional records show Nunes traveled to Europe from Nov. 30 to Dec. 3, 2018. Three of his aides—Harvey, Scott Glabe, and George Pappas—traveled with him, per the records. U.S. government funds paid for the group’s four-day trip, which cost just over $63,000.

The travel came as Nunes, in his role on the House Intelligence Committee, was working to investigate the origins of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian election-meddling. 

Parnas’ assistance to Nunes’ team has not been previously reported. A spokesperson for Nunes did not respond to requests for comment.

Nunes has been helming the GOP’s involvement in the impeachment inquiry. He has spent much of his time criticizing the probe and the media’s coverage of it. “In their mania to attack the President, no conspiracy theory is too outlandish for the Democrats,” he said on Wednesday morning before Ambassador Gordon Sondland’s testimony. Later in the day, Nunes accused Democrats of harboring “Watergate fantasies.”

“I guess they fantasize about this at night,” he said.

Giuliani has been a subject of much discussion at the impeachment hearings. To a lesser extent, so have Parnas and his associate, Igor Fruman, who worked with Giuliani as he attempted to find damaging information on Joe and Hunter Biden from Ukrainian sources.

Nunes has been at the center of the broader story about foreign influence in President Donald Trump’s Washington. When congressional investigators began probing Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, Nunes made a late-night visit to the White House and announced the next day he’d found evidence of egregious wrongdoing by Intelligence Community officials. The move appeared to be an effort to corroborate a presidential tweet claiming that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. Nunes then stepped back from the committee’s work scrutinizing Russian efforts. Instead, he ran a parallel probe looking at the origins of Mueller’s Russia probe. The undertaking made him a hero to the president and Sean Hannity, and a bête noire of Democrats and Intelligence Community officials. That work was still underway when he traveled to Europe in 2018.

Last month, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York charged Parnas and Fruman with illegally moving money from foreign donors to American political campaigns. Both men maintain their innocence.

“Contrary to many aspersions in the press to date, Lev Parnas is a proud United States citizen, who has lived here since he was four years old,” said Joseph Bondy, an attorney on his legal team.

“Raised in Brooklyn, and now living in Florida, Mr. Parnas is happily married with six children—five living at home—and a zeal for America and its democratic values. At all times throughout, he has believed that what he was doing was furtherance of the President’s and thus our national interests. President Trump’s recent and regrettable disavowal of Mr. Parnas has caused him to rethink his involvement and the true reasons for his having been recruited to participate in the President’s activities. Mr. Parnas is prepared to testify completely and accurately about his involvement in the President and Rudy Giuliani’s quid pro quo demands of Ukraine.”

When Nunes traveled to Europe in 2018, Giuliani—who is Trump’s personal attorney—was working to oust Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch from her post in Kyiv. The Justice Department indictment of Parnas and Fruman alleges they illegally moved money into American elections to “advance the political interests of... a Ukrainian government official who sought the dismissal of the U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine.”

Allegations against Yovanovitch blew up in American conservative media, including at The Hill and on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show. Donald Trump Jr. even joined the chorus of voices calling for Yovanovitch to be recalled. And on May 20, she was.

Numerous U.S. officials, however, have testified to the impeachment inquiry that the claims against her were baseless. Yovanovitch herself testified to investigators last week. As with all the other impeachment hearings, Nunes led Republicans’ questioning of her. 

—with additional reporting by Anna Nemtsova and Jackie Kucinich

[luizacarvalhocardoso]

Rússia vive os dias mais quentes em 120 anos

Por RTP | Emissora pública de televisão de Portugal

O ano 2019 foi o mais quente na Rússia em mais de 120 anos, anunciaram hoje os serviços meteorológicos locais. Moscou enfrenta um raro inverno sem neve.

“De uma forma geral, este foi o ano mais quente da Rússia de todo o período de observações instrumentais”, disse o diretor do Centro Hidrometeorológico Roman Vilfand.

Para contornar algumas das dificuldades causadas pelo tempo, as autoridades de Moscou decidiram despejar neve artificial no centro da cidade mantendo as festividades do ano novo, quando é habitual as pessoas saíram para a rua para fazerem snowboard.

A decisão provocou diversas reações na rede social Twitter. Alguns russos afirmaram que “o orçamento de Moscou pode comprar qualquer coisa: até o inverno”. Em outra mensagem a população lamentou o cenário que “está muito longe do tradicional inverno”.

Authorities have been creating Potemkin #villages to impress Russia’s leaders and tourists for centuries. Today #Moscow is decorating it’s central avenue, Tverskaya, with fake snow. pic.twitter.com/D4eb3FNctY

— Anna Nemtsova (@annanemtsova) December 29, 2019

На Тверскую улицу завезли снег и перекрыли её для автомобилей. Улицы Тверская, Моховая, Охотный ряд и Театральный проезд будут пешеходными до 22:00 6 января. С московским бюджетом можно все купить. Даже зиму pic.twitter.com/lGxEBizRzT

— Дикая Москва (@WildWildMoscow) December 28, 2019

No Instagram, usuários têm multiplicado vídeos que mostram caminhões transportando e espalhando neve na cidade. “Esta é toda a neve que há em Moscou. Está toda guardada na Praça Vermelha”, escreveu um usuário ao comentar a fotografia tirada perto do Kremlin.

View this post on Instagram

Это весь снег, который есть в Москве. Его охраняют на Красной площади

This is all the snow there is in Moscow. It is being guarded on the Red Square

#москва#декабрь#краснаяплощадь#гум#снег#погода#тепло#скороновыйгод#moscow#instamoscow#december#redsquare#gumstore#nikolskaya#snow#weather#warm#soonnewyear#city#cityscape#citylife#photographylover#photography#photooftheday

A post shared by Maria

(@mariksa_10) on Dec 27, 2019 at 9:53pm PST

As preocupações com os efeitos do aquecimento global na Rússia são crescentes, já que o permafrost ou pergelissolo – o tipo de solo encontrado na região do Ártico, constituído por terra, gelo e rochas permanentemente congelados – está derretendo lentamente e fazendo recuar o gelo ártico. A situação leva os ursos polares famintos a procurarem comida em áreas urbanas.

O clima ameno que se tem registado este mês no país interrompeu a hibernação de vários animais no jardim zoológico de Moscou e fez com que açafrão, liláses e magnólias do jardim botânico da Universidade Estadual florescessem mais cedo.

The post Rússia vive os dias mais quentes em 120 anos appeared first on CicloVivo.

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