A former US general compared back-and-forth fighting between Russia and Ukraine to a boxing match, as the war in the eastern European country nears the four-month mark.
“It’s a heavyweight boxing match,” Mark Hertling, the former top commander of the US Army forces in Europe, wrote in a Twitter thread late Monday night. “In 2 months of fighting, there has not yet been a knockout blow. It will come, as [Russian] forces become more depleted.”
Hertling said fighting between the two sides in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region is like a “punch-counterpunch” fight, where artillery exchanges, counterattacks, and moving frontlines makes progress hard to come by.
“The Donbas fight has been a slugfest for over 2 months, so an expectation would be advancement on one side or the other,” Hertling said. “That’s not happened.”
Hertling said that while both Russia and Ukraine continue to face casualties — hundreds of troops are reportedly killed every day — Ukraine can, for now, enjoy the advantage of greater “will and morale.”
Ukraine has pleaded with Western countries to send more weapons deliveries after admitting it is outmatched by Russian artillery on the battlefield. Hertling said he expects Ukraine’s resources to grow as the country obtains and benefits from new equipment.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces pivoted their invasion to focus on eastern Ukraine after Russian forces failed to capture the capital city Kyiv in the weeks following the unprovoked late-February invasion.
The fight in eastern Ukraine has since become a slow-moving and bloody affair, with many — including NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg — predicting that the war could drag on for years.
Attorney General Merrick Garland made a surprise visit to Ukraine on Tuesday, meeting with the country’s chief prosecutor regarding alleged Russian war crimes.
Montrose was once Houston’s epicenter of LGBTQ+ culture and political organization and the home of the Houston Pride Parade.
The celebration has since moved downtown, the gayborhood’s counterculture vibe encroached on by million-dollar townhomes, and while some remain—such as Eagle and Ripcord—many of Montrose’s storied gay bars are now shuttered.
We take a look a handful of queer icons and what stands in their place today.
A detail of one of the fragments reclaimed from Mary’s… Naturally from a 2021 exhibit at the Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston. During the AIDS crisis, patrons affixed photographs of friends to the surface of the bar.
Molly Glentzer / Houston Chronicle
Then: Chances
Chances opened in 1994 at 1100 Westheimer as a bar that catered to lesbians in particular, and others in the LGBTQ community. Owner Marlene Beago hosted regular fundraisers at the bar. Flyers collected by Houston LGBT History show that there was always live music at Chances, which had separate rooms throughout the venue, including The Barn and The G-Spot.
When Chances closed in 2010, the Houston Press reported that it would become “a high-end restaurant, with a superstar chef that [the property owners] are keeping under wraps for now.”
Now: Chances became a series of restaurants by Chris Shepherd—Underbelly, Hay Merchant and Georgia James—which are now all closed. The land has been sold to a Dallas-based company, but there’s no word yet on a new leasee.
The exterior of Georgia James, now also closed.
Yelp/Fox E
Then: EJ’s Bar
EJ’s Bar was around for 40 years, from 1974 to 2014, first on Richmond Avenue and then on Ralph Street just off Westheimer. According to Houston LGBT History, the original owners also operated Inside/Outside, which is now Present Company. Both bars were packed with entertainment from jock strap contests to drag performances by Rainbo de Klown.
The last owner of EJ’s posted a long message to the bar’s Facebook page explaining the circumstances of the closure, concluding with: “While I believe there will always be a need for LGBT bars, the writing is on the wall for the need for so many LGBT bars. This is the price we pay for greater acceptance in the mainstream community, but our community has found other ways to connect and support each other, and that is something to celebrate.”
Now: The EJ’s space is currently taken up by La Grange, a Tex-Mex restaurant and cocktail bar with a huge patio. La Grange still hosts drag shows and the occasional fundraiser for LGBTQ causes.
Parade goers crowd the sidewalk and roof of Mary’s, a landmark gay bar in Houston’s Montrose neighborhood.
Ben DeSoto/Houston Chronicle
Then: Mary’s, Naturally
Mary’s was arguably the most iconic of Houston’s gay bars. Previously called Tommy’s Lounge, Joe and Mike Anthony bought the bar around 1970, according to Houston LGBT History, and renamed it Mary’s. It was the oldest gay bar in Houston and the second oldest in Texas, its pink brick building the host of many parties, especially during the annual Pride Parade. Mary’s also had murals depicting regular customers and the bar cat, Mr. Balls.
During the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, ashes of beloved bargoers and community members were scattered in the backyard garden. Mary’s closed in 2009 and that memorial area is now a parking lot.
Now: Blacksmith, a trendy coffee shop that slings cortados and chai lattes, stands where Mary’s once was. See if you can spot the pink triangle on Blacksmith’s floor, a nod to the bar.
Montrose Mining Company closed in 2016 to make way for Postino Montrose.
courtesy photo
Then: Montrose Mining Company
When EJ’s closed, the crown of oldest Houston gay bar went to Montrose Mining Company, which opened in 1978 at 805 Pacific Street. It had been cruise bar Uncle Charlie’s before that. A grand opening flyer and others materials published in Houston LBGT History tout Montrose Mining Company touts as a bar “for the man’s man.” The venue’s Pride Parade float appeared to be, at least for some years, a tractor with the message “proud to be serving Houston’s hot men.”
In 2016, Montrose Mining Company closed and was sold to developer Fred Sharifi of SFT Investments.
Now: Montrose Mining is now Postino Montrose, a local wine bar chain that has a few locations around Houston. There is a wall inside the restaurant dedicated to old photos and flyers of the gay bars that came before.
A Russian colonel has died in a helicopter crash after it was hit by a Ukrainian missile.
Lieutenant colonel Sergey Gundorov, 51, is said to be the 55th Russian officer of that rank to be killed since president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
His military helicopter was struck by a portable surface-to-air missile while flying near Volnovakha in the Donbas. The Mi-35 hit the ground before cartwheeling over a strip of woodland and then exploding in a field.
Video footage also showed a second helicopter being targeted but escaping after firing decoy flares.
Lieutenant colonel Gundorov had won three Orders of Courage. Online tributes to the married dad-of-two, who died last Thursday but whose loss has only just been revealed, included one from his teenage son Ilya who posted: ‘Love you Dad.’
The deaths of two other colonels were announced on the same day last week – colonel Sergei Krasnikov, 56, who had volunteered to rejoin the forces to fight in Ukraine, and colonel Sergei Postnov, who was in his 40s.
The Kremlin is also thought to have lost at least 11 generals.
Overall, Russian deaths in the conflict are believed to be above 30,000. However, some estimates have put the figure closer to 50,000.
Meanwhile, Russian troops have seized control of a key battleground in Severodonetsk, as Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky warned Moscow would likely escalate attacks in the days to come.
The town of Toshkivka, on the Kyiv-held western bank of the Siverskyi Donets river fell into Russian hands as EU leaders flew to Ukraine to support its bid to join its 27-nation bloc.
The Kremlin has also captured Metyolkine, a village near Severodonetsk which has become the front line of the war in recent weeks.
In his latest address via video, Mr Zelensky warned Ukrainians: ‘We should expect from Russia an intensification of hostile activities. We are ready.’
He also repeated his plea for Western allies to send more weapons to fend off the Russian onslaught.
‘We need your support. This is a matter of life or death,’ he said.
Ukraine now controls just one area of Severodonetsk, the Azot chemical plant where fighters and about 500 civilians are taking shelter.
Luhansk governor Serhiy Haidai said the situation in the city was ‘very difficult’: ‘It’s hell there. Everything is engulfed in fire. The shelling doesn’t stop.’
Russia also continues to bombard key sites in Kharkiv, with the Saltiv tram depot destroyed in the latest attack.
But, here, the Ministry of Defence insisted the war was not going all Russia’s way. Moscow’s ground troops are said to be exhausted and poor air support is stalling their advance into north and eastern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, international concern remains focused on trying to restore Ukrainian exports of food, halted by a Russian blockade of its ports.
The Soviet-German War of 1941–1945 was the most extensive intelligence/counterintelligence war in modern history, involving the capture, torture, deportation, execution, and doubling of tens of thousands of agents—most of them Soviet citizens. While Russian armies fought furiously to defeat the Wehrmacht, Stalins security services waged an equally ruthless secret war against Hitlers spies, as well as against the Soviet population. For the first time, Robert Stephan now combines declassified U.S. intelligence documents, captured German records, and Russian sources, including a top-secret Soviet history of its intelligence and security services, to reveal the magnitude and scope of the brutal but sophisticated Soviet counterintelligence war against Nazi Germany.
Employing as many as 150,000 trained agents across a 2,400-mile front, the Soviets neutralized the majority of the more than 40,000 German agents deployed against them. As Stephan shows, their combination of Soviet military deception operations and State Securitys defeat of the Abwehrs human intelligence effort had devastating consequences for the German Army in every major battle against the Red army, including Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, the Belorussian offensive, and the Vistula-Oder operation.
“A significant book that clearly shows the importance and vastness of the clandestine intelligence-counterintelligence war on the Eastern Front. . . . Stephans thorough and imaginative research, and his patient analysis and interpretation of the documents and memoirs he has unearthed, set a standard that other historians working on intelligence should emulate. ”
—American Historical Review
“An indispensable account of this dimension of the war on the Eastern Front, and a valuable primer for all those who wish to understand how to conduct intelligence and counterintelligence operations. Needless to say this topic is of immense relevance to American forces and intelligence agencies today.”
Simultaneously, Soviet State Security continued to penetrate the worlds major intelligence services including those of its allies, terrorize its own citizens to prevent spying, desertion, and real or perceived opposition to the regime, and run millions of informants, making the USSR a vast prison covering one sixth of the worlds surface.
Stephan discusses all facets of the Soviet counterintelligence effort, including the major Soviet radio games used to mislead the Germans—operations Monastery, Berezino, and those that defeated Himmlers Operation Zeppelin. He also gives the most comprehensive account to date of the Abwehrs infamous agent Max, whose organization allegedly ran an entire network of agents inside the USSR, and reveals the reasons for Germanys catastrophic under-estimation of Soviet forces by more than one million men during their 1944 summer offensive in Belorussia.
Richly detailed and epic in scope, Stalins Secret War opens up a previously hidden dimension of World War II.
Ukraine acknowledged difficulties in fighting in its east as Russian forces captured territory and intensified pressure on two cities ahead of an EU summit this week expected to welcome Kyiv’s bid to join the bloc. Follow FRANCE 24’s liveblog for all the latest developments. All times Paris time (GMT+2).
Russia’s security council chief Nikolai Patrushev on Tuesday warned EU and NATO member Lithuania of “serious” consequences over restrictions on the rail transit of EU-sanctioned goods to Moscow’s exclave of Kaliningrad.
Retaliatory steps “will be taken in the near future. Their consequences will have a serious negative impact on the population of Lithuania,” Patrushev said at a regional security meeting in Kaliningrad, a Russian region wedged between Lithuania and Poland.
11:12am: Kaliningrad govt criticises Vilnius’ ban on rail transit of EU-sanctioned goods to Russian exclave
The government of Kaliningrad expressed regret over Vilnius’ ban on the rail transit of EU-sanctioned goods from other parts of Russia through Lithuania to the Russian exclave.
The Russian foreign ministry was to summon on Tuesday the EU’s ambassador to Moscow, Markus Ederer, over the ban.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Monday that “there is no blockade” of land transit between Kaliningrad and other parts of Russia.
“Transit of passengers and goods that are not sanctioned continues,” Borrell said.
01:34
9:30am: Russian army captures Toshkivka near Severodonetsk; food warehouse destroyed in Odesa
Fierce fighting continues in Ukraine’s Donbas, notably around the flashpoint city of Severodonetsk. The governor of the Luhansk region says Ukrainian forces are still holding on to an industrial zone around the Azot chemical plant, but their control over the territory is limited as shelling continues. In Southern Ukraine, Russian missiles struck a grain warehouse on Monday in the port city of Odesa.
FRANCE 24’s Catherine Norris Trent reports.
‘Months into this war, Odesa is still a flashpoint city’
02:51
8:19am: Ukraine’s Kherson region airs Russian TV, says Russian army
Russian television was now broadcasting in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, the Russian army said on Tuesday, in an area where Moscow already introduced the rouble and began distributing Russian passports.
The Russian armed forces have “reconfigured the last of the seven television towers in the Kherson region to broadcast Russian television channels” for free, it said.
Bordering the Crimea peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, the Kherson region was occupied by Russian forces in the days following the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
One of the pro-Moscow officials in the region, Kirill Stremousov, said on Tuesday that the territory could join Russia “before the end of the year.”
8:15am: Kremlin says Lithuania’s decision to bar some rail transit to Kaliningrad ‘a violation of everything’
Following Vilnius’ announcement last week that it would bar rail transit of EU-sanctioned goods from Russia via Lithuania to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday called it a “violation of everything”.
FRANCE 24’s correspondent Nick Holdsworth reports from Riga, Lativa.
‘The Russians are saying this threatens their national interest’
03:10
6:24am: Russia gains ground as Ukrainians acknowledge ‘extremely difficult’ fighting
Ukraine acknowledged difficulties in fighting in its east as Russian forces captured territory and intensified pressure on two cities ahead of an EU summit this week expected to welcome Kyiv’s bid to join the bloc.
The governor of the Luhansk region, scene of the heaviest Russian onslaughts in recent weeks, said the situation was “extremely difficult” along the front line as of Monday evening and the Russian army had gathered sufficient reserves to begin a large-scale offensive.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had predicted Russia would step up attacks ahead of the EU summit on Thursday and Friday. In an address to the nation on Monday evening, he was defiant, while also referring to “difficult” fighting in Luhansk for Severodonetsk and its sister city Lysychansk.
“We are defending Lysychansk, Severodonetsk, this whole area, the most difficult one. We have the most difficult fighting there,” he said. “But we have our strong guys and girls there.”
Luhansk governor Serhiy Gaidai said Russian forces controlled most of Severodonetsk, apart from the Azot chemical plant, where hundreds of civilians have been sheltering for weeks. The road connecting Severodonetsk and Lysychansk to the city of Bakhmut was under constant shell fire, he said.
“Lysychansk has been suffering from massive Russian shelling all day. It is impossible to establish the number of casualties,” Gaidai said.
Rodion Miroshnik, ambassador to Russia of the Moscow-backed, self-styled Luhansk People’s Republic, said its forces were “moving from the south towards Lysychansk” with firefights erupting in several towns.
“The hours to come should bring considerable changes to the balance of forces in the area,” he said on Telegram.
6:12am: US citizen killed in combat in Ukraine, State Department confirms
A US citizen was killed in combat in Ukraine last month, according to an obituary and the State Department, after he joined thousands of foreign fighters who have volunteered to help Ukraine fend off invading Russian forces.
Stephen Zabielski, 52, was killed in fighting on May 15, according to an obituary published in The Recorder, an upstate New York newspaper, earlier this month. Media reports of his death circulated on Monday.
Zabielski, who was from New York and had moved to Florida in recent years, is survived by his wife, five stepchildren, and a grandchild, among other family.
In a statement, a State Department spokesperson confirmed Zabielski’s death in Ukraine and said the agency has been in touch with his family and provided “all possible consular assistance”.
The spokesperson’s statement repeated earlier warnings that US citizens should not travel to Ukraine because of the conflict and the potential for the Russian government to single them out. It added that any citizens in Ukraine should depart immediately.
2:14am: Russian journalist’s Nobel medal sells for $103.5 million, destined for Ukraine aid
Dmitry Muratov, the Russian editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, on Monday auctioned off his Nobel Peace Prize gold medal for a whopping $103.5 million to benefit children displaced by the war in Ukraine.
All of the proceeds from the sale of the medal – which was snapped up by an as yet unidentified phone bidder – will go to UNICEF’s Humanitarian Response for Ukrainian Children Displaced by War, according to Heritage Auctions, which handled the sale.
Muratov won the prize in 2021 alongside journalist Maria Ressa of the Philippines, with the committee honouring them “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression”.
2:10am: Kremlin spokesman says Americans captured in Ukraine committed ‘crimes’
Two Americans captured in Ukraine while fighting with Kyiv’s military were “endangering” Russian soldiers and should be “held accountable for those crimes”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday in an interview with NBC News.
The interview marks the first time the Kremlin has commented on the cases of Alexander Drueke and Andy Huynh, both US military veterans, according to NBC.
“They’re soldiers of fortune and they were involved in illegal activities on the territory of Ukraine. They were involved in firing and shelling our military personnel. They were endangering their lives,” Peskov told the network, in English.
“They should be held responsible for those crimes that they have committed,” he added in the first bits of the interview made public.
“Those crimes have to be investigated.”
When pressed on what crimes the Americans had committed, Peskov admitted their specific offences were not yet known, but claimed that they would not be covered by the Geneva Conventions on prisoners of war.
“They are not (in the) Ukrainian army, so they are not subject to the Geneva Conventions,” the Kremlin spokesman said.
BERLIN — Russian President Vladimir Putin fears the “spark of democracy” spreading to his country, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, adding that he was trying to divide Europe and return to a world dominated by spheres of influence.
Scholz was responding to a question in an interview with the Muenchner Merkur newspaper, published on the government website on Monday (June 20), on whether Putin would accept Ukraine moving closer to the EU.
“The Russian President must accept that there is a community of law-based democracies in his neighbourhood that is growing ever closer together,” he said. “He clearly fears the spark of democracy spreading to his country.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson Maria Zakharova rejected the comments, writing on social media: “German sparks have spread onto us a couple of times. We will not allow any more fires.”
The European Commission last week recommended that Ukraine, which has been battling a Russian invasion since February, be given the status of candidate to join the EU, a move Scholz said he also backed.
Scholz warned that soaring energy prices would likely be around for a long time, and rejected Russia’s assertion that it had cut gas flows because necessary spare parts were missing due to sanctions.
Vladimir Putin’s invaders and Ukrainian defence forces are locked in a drawn-out battle in the Donbas region
Troops patrolling the areas in the Donetsk region controlled by pro-Russian separatists.
Russia risks running out of ammunition as the deadlock deepens in eastern Ukraine, a Western official has revealed.
Vladimir Putin ’s invaders and Ukrainian defence forces are increasingly locked in an attritional conflict in the Donbas region.
An official warned: “With no strategic compromise and near stalemate on the ground, this will be a long war.”
They believed the battle for the Donbas was “moving remarkably slowly”, adding: “ Russia has achieved tactical creeping success at very considerable cost.”
They said Western officials were “increasingly alert that there will come a time when the tiny advances Russia is making become unsustainable in light of the costs and they will need a significant pause to regenerate capability”.
Moscow was sending “significant reinforcements to the Donbas sector”, the official said, pointing to the Kremlin calling up “relatively low quality, under-manned, reservist units”.
“In terms of force generation, Russia is effectively selling off the family silver,” they said.
“The deployment of reserves links to a key point of assessment – there will presumably come a point when Russia will cease to be able to generate effective, offensive combat power, due to a lack of ammunition, low morale and simply a shortage of combat units.
ussian President Vladimir Putin (
Getty Images)
“We can’t yet speculate when exactly that point might be reached, and clearly the Ukrainian military have faced their own challenges too.”
They said “expensive, advanced weaponry takes a considerable amount of time to produce under specialised conditions”, adding: “At any one time any country holds a limited stockpile.
“From Russia’s point of view they have expended a huge quantity of them but want to maintain a strategic reserve in the case that they need to fight a war with NATO.”
They believed there were “limits to their precision munitions remaining” and highlighted the “enormous” amount of artillery shells unleashed in the Donbas.
In the Commons, Defence Select Committee chairman Tobias Ellwood, a former Royal Green Jackets officer, warned that while Russia was “not losing” the war, Ukraine was “not winning”.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky (
UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
“The long-term European security is threatened not just by the utility of force, but a wider conflict between the West and growing authoritarianism,” he told MPs.
“Britain should lead a coalition of the willing that offers Ukraine the scale of support that it requires and, in recognising this new threat picture, it does require us to review our own defence posture.”
Defence Minister Leo Docherty insisted: “We are providing political and practical support to support its self-defence and will further strengthen NATO’s deterrence and defence posture.”
Outlining equipment supplied by Britain, he added: “To date we have sent over 6,900 anti-tank missiles, five air defence systems including Starstreak anti-air missiles, 120 armoured fighting vehicles… and 1,360 anti-structures munitions, 4.5 tonnes of plastic explosives and 400,000 rounds of small-arms ammunition.
“In addition, we have also supplied over 200,000 items of non-lethal aid, including more than 82,000 helmets, more than 8,000 body armour kits.”
Meanwhile, Home Secretary Priti Patel suggested an overhaul to the Homes for Ukraine scheme was imminent after demands to widen the project to children travelling with family members who are not their parents.
Published: 19:51 BST, 20 June 2022 | Updated: 19:59 BST, 20 June 2022
A vast network of companies holding a combined total of more than $4.5billion in luxury assets linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin all share one common email domain, it has been reported.
An investigation by Russian-Latvian news organisation Meduza and the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) found that a total of 86 different companies, seemingly unrelated and operating across different industries, all communicated under the email domain ‘LLCInvest.ru’.
The email domain is hosted by a Russian IT company heavily tied to Bank Rossiya – described by the US Treasury as ‘the personal bank for senior officials of the Russian Federation’ – whose shareholders are a collective of Putin’s friends, associates and even one of his supposed mistresses.
A whole host of assets owned by various companies and their oligarchs – including a Black Sea palace, a luxury ski resort and a superyacht – have reportly been used and enjoyed by Putin in the past.
But a digital paper trail, revealed via the common LLCInvest email domain, has shown for the first time how all of these companies and their respective assets are inextricably linked to one vast network of power and wealth, at the centre of which sits the Russian President.
A vast network of companies holding a combined total of more than $4.5billion in luxury assets linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin (pictured) all share one common email domain, it has been reported
This grab taken on January 25, 2021 of an handout video of the Alexey Navalny Youtube Channel shows an aerial view of a property, located along Russia’s southern Black Sea, that Navalny claims is owned by Russian President Vladimir Putin
A whole host of assets owned by various companies and their oligarchs who share an LLCInvest email address – including this Black Sea palace – are all reported to have been used and enjoyed by Putin in the past
Alexei Navalny’s team share new pictures from what they describe as President Vladimir Putin’s ‘palace’ in Gelendzhik, by the Black Sea
This image from the Black Sea mansion was described as ‘Putin’s bedroom’ by Navalny’s team
The vast ‘Igora’ ski resort outside St Petersburg is one of many assets owned by LLCInvest companies
Previous attempts to prove which assets are owned by Putin have been futile, though the reality is widely believed to be vastly different to the picture painted by official Russian records, which suggest the President owns little more than an apartment and a few cars.
Each time a luxurious villa or superyacht has been linked to the Russian despot, one of his friends, associates or oligarchs came forward to claim ownership.
Billionaire businessman and Putin’s fellow judo practitioner Arkady Rotenberg was named as the owner of the Gelendzhik Black Sea palace, while the Sellgren villa north of St Petersburg was claimed by Sergey Rudnov, the son of an old Putin associate who died in 2015.
But the companies associated with both of these individuals were found to operate a private email address connected to the LLCInvest network.
Other unofficial members of the network include Putin’s childhood friend and majority Bank Rossiya shareholder Yuri Kovalchuk, oligarch Gennady Timchenko, and alleged mistress Svetlana Krivonogikh.
A Russian corruption expert, who remained anonymous for safety reasons, told Meduza: ‘The only explanation I see is that these companies are united by a common management system… ‘[LLCInvest] looks most of all like a cooperative, or an association, in which its members can exchange benefits and property.’
This theory of a common management system through which Russian elites can trade and share incredible sums of money and highly-desired assets supports the longstanding claims that Putin has consolidated a vast fortune shrouded by a series of proxies and frontmen.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov immediately shut down enquiries following the revelation of LLCInvest, declaring that ‘The President of the Russian Federation is not linked or affiliated in any way with the assets and organisations mentioned.’
Meduza and OCCRP meanwhile said they did not receive a single response from hundreds of LLCInvest email addresses they had contacted in the course of their investigation, though read receipts showed dozens of the emails were opened by the recipients.
Ownership of this lavish villa north of St Petersburg was claimed by Sergey Rudnov, the son of an old Putin associate who died in 2015
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and billionaire Arkady Rotenberg (L) attend judo training at Yug Sport complex February 14, 2019. Rotenberg is the supposed owner of a huge palace on the Black Sea connected to the LLCInvest network
Unofficial members of the network include Putin’s childhood friend and majority Bank Rossiya shareholder Yuri Kovalchuk (L), oligarch Gennady Timchenko, and alleged mistress Svetlana Krivonogikh (R)
The findings of the investigation were published just days after Putin slammed the West’s sanctions imposed on Russian oligarchs and businesses following his invasion of Ukraine and delivered a thinly-veiled threat to any oligarchs thinking of abandoning Russia for sunnier climes.
Amid a lengthy denunciation of the US and its allies, Putin, 69, warned ‘nothing will be as it used to be’ as he delivered last week’s St Petersburg Economic Forum (SPIEF) keynote speech more than 90 minutes later than expected after the event suffered a cyber attack.
When he eventually took to the stage, Putin issued a warning to Russian elites thinking of quitting his regime.
‘It’s safer in your own house,’ he said solemnly. ‘Those who didn’t want to listen to this have lost millions abroad.’
Putin drew applause from the hall when he reaffirmed his determination to continue the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine that has unleashed what he said was an ‘unprecedented’ barrage of Western economic sanctions.
Putin ominously claimed the West ‘thinks they have won’ and said Moscow’s war in Ukraine had become a ‘lifesaver for the West to blame all the problem on Russia.’
He added that the US considers itself ‘God’s emissary on Earth’, and that Western sanctions were founded on a false premise that Russia had no economic sovereignty.
