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🎯 Russian Trade Surging, Approaching Prewar Levels, Despite Sweeping Sanctions. After an initial steep fall in imports following the imposition of sanctions, Russia has been able to evade the restrictions and build new supply chains to get its hands on key technology and other goods. RFE
Top Stories
💥 Putin Wants His Hit Man Back. Moscow seeks the return of a covert operative serving a life sentence in Germany, possibly in exchange for Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and others held by Russia. WSJ
💥 Xi Jinping Is Done With the Established World Order. Xi is positioning his country as a full-on opponent – ready to align its own bloc against the United States, its partners, and the international institutions they support. Atlantic
💥 Diamonds, girlfriends, illicit lobbying: The fall of a former ambassador. Ambassador Olson arranged for a Pakistani American businessman — who is now serving a 12-year federal prison sentence for illegal campaign donations and tax crimes — to pay $25,000 in tuition bills that enabled his girlfriend to attend Columbia University. WaPo
💥 FTX Probing If Millions in Payments to Shaq, Naomi Osaka Can Be Reversed. Financial advisers hired by FTX disclosed that they’ve analyzed if certain payments dished out to athletes before the company unraveled last November can be recovered in Chapter 11. Bloomberg
💥 Iran, US on verge of prisoner swap under Qatar-mediated deal. When $6 billion of unfrozen Iranian funds are wired to banks in Qatar as early as next week, it will trigger a carefully choreographed sequence that will see as many as five detained U.S. dual nationals leave Iran. Reuters
💥 US seizes nearly 1 million barrels of Iranian oil bound for China. The DOJ claimed that multiple entities affiliated with Iran’s IRGC and the IRGC-Qods Force were involved in the scheme to disguise the origin of the oil and illegally sell it to China. CNN
💥 Skirting US sanctions, Iran earning billions from oil exports while Russia, China cash in. Numerous Russian and Chinese companies attended the highly guarded Iran Oil Show run by the sanctioned National Iranian Oil Co. Fox Business
💥 In Ukraine, a U.S. Arms Dealer Is Making a Fortune and Testing Limits. A half-dozen men gathered last month for afternoon drinks at the penthouse bar of the 11 Mirrors, one of Kyiv’s swankiest hotels, to discuss the lucrative business of arming Ukrainian troops. NYT
💥 Afghanistan meth trade surges as Taliban clamps down on heroin. Methamphetamine trafficking in and around Afghanistan has surged in recent years, even as the Taliban has curbed heroin trafficking since retaking power. Reuters
💥 Influx of Russian fraudsters gives Turkish cybercrime hub new lease on life. Russian hackers fleeing Putin’s military conscription prompts surge in activity involving stolen financial data. FT
💥 India To Offer Russia to Invest Trapped Rupees, Lavrov Says. Lavrov also said Russian arms contracts with India remain in force, despite difficulties with payments caused by sanctions imposed by the US and its allies over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Bloomberg
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