Original NYT article is behind a paywall.

Russian authorities are executing a long-term operation to destabilize Moldova, positioning the conquest of Ukraine as their top priority and gaining control over Moldova as their second.

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According to an investigation based on interviews with Moscow-directed operatives, security officials from Moldova, Europe, and the US, and thousands of leaked documents, Russian leader Vladimir Putin intends to capture southern Ukraine to establish a land corridor connecting Russia directly to Moldova.

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Sergey Kiriyenko, deputy head of the Russian presidential administration, oversees destabilization efforts alongside Ilan Shor, a fugitive banker sentenced in Moldova to 15 years in prison for organizing a 2014 fraud scheme that stole $1 billion from local banks.

Before the autumn 2025 parliamentary elections, Shor recruited over 150,000 Moldovans—representing roughly 4.5% of the registered electorate—paying them to vote for specific candidates and participate in staged protests.

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During four months leading up to the 2024 European Union integration referendum, Shor distributed nearly $20 million to 38,000 recruits to post anti-government content online and vote against President Maia Sandu, her party, and EU accession.

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The operations extended to physical training camps managed by Russian military intelligence (GRU) in Serbia, Bosnia, and near Moscow. In Serbia, recruits completed 3-4 day courses for $400, practicing how to break police lines and set fire to buildings.

In a facility near Moscow, over 100 young Moldovans received instruction in making explosives, incendiary devices, and operating drones designed for arson and bomb attacks.

Additionally, hundreds of Moldovan priests from the Russian Orthodox Church were flown to Russia starting in summer 2024, signed contracts with the Kremlin-linked Eurasia organization, and received payment cards from Promsvyazbank. In exchange for roughly $1,000 each, the priests campaigned against EU integration among their parishioners.

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When covert political action failed to deliver full control, Russia engaged in direct infrastructure strikes. Russian forces shelled a Ukrainian hydroelectric station near the Moldovan border, contaminating regional water supplies, and struck a high-voltage power line in western Ukraine that provided up to 70% of Moldova's electricity, causing widespread blackouts.

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Although pro-EU voters secured narrow victories in the 2024 and 2025 votes—largely due to votes cast by the overseas diaspora—Moldovan officials emphasize that Moscow is pursuing a long-term strategy.

Mihai Lupascu, director of Moldova's Cybersecurity Agency, stated, "We won the battle, but not the war."

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On April 8, 2026, Moldovan authorities dismantled a Russia-backed cross-border network that trained operatives in secret camps in Bosnia and Serbia for destabilization campaigns targeting France and Germany.

Recruits received between $300 and $500 to complete training in drone operations, handling incendiary devices, and evading law enforcement during staged unrest. Moldovan officials uncovered the scheme after intercepting operatives at the border with specialized equipment, including drone components and radio controllers.

Following the crackdown, Chisinau offered to share its expertise in fighting illicit finance, disinformation, and election interference with European allies facing similar hybrid threats.

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The construction workers stumbled across the hidden trove of gold bars and coins while drilling to lay new sewage pipes in the property in east Flanders earlier this week, local media report.

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The property currently belongs to CAW Oost-Vlaanderen, which provides welfare support in Dendermonde, a Flemish community of around 47,000 people.

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The rightful owner has five years to claim the hoard under Belgian law - though the local prosecutor, who has launched an investigation, said it was not yet known who this might be.

If no one comes forward, civil law states that hidden treasure on someone else's property be divided between the finder and the property's owner.

This only applies, though, if the stash is not found to be linked to criminal activity.

Both the builders and the charity now face a wait of up to 1,823 days for an owner to come forward. If no one speaks up to successfully claim it, silence truly will be golden.

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• Russians have found a new way to withdraw capital and are sending $500 million a month to foreign brokers, according to Russian Central Bank data.
• Between December 2024 and June 2026, Russian households transferred nearly 600 billion rubles ($7.2 billion) to foreign brokerage accounts. This exceeded the total transfers recorded over the previous seven years combined.
• Meanwhile, banks in neighbouring Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan sharply raise fees for depositing cash Russian roubles held by nonresidents.

[Original in Russian, automated translation witih minimal edits.]

Russians are increasingly using accounts with foreign brokers to withdraw money from Russia. Such transfers have increased noticeably since the end of 2024. From December 2024 to June, Russian households sent almost 600 billion roubles to the accounts of non-resident brokers – more than in the seven years since the beginning of 2018, when the Central Bank started publishing this data. As can be seen from the regulator's statistics. In April-June, these transfers amounted to 42.3-45.5 billion roubles, or more than $500 million per month.

A significant part of such transactions is the withdrawal of money from the country. Dmitry Isakov, the founder of the investment platform Lender Invest, estimated their share at about 40% of transfers to the accounts of non-resident brokers. Of these, according to his observations, three-quarters are so-called "parking solutions", where a brokerage account is used as an alternative to a foreign currency bank account, and a quarter are related to "capital relocation" in case of moving or educating children abroad – in this case, the brokerage account acts as the first link in a future chain of transfers.

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This is forced by the tightening of sanctions and the tougher attitude towards Russian money in Western banks. Yulia Khandoshko, head of the European broker Mind Money, called "brokerage stories", in essence, "quasi-banking operations": this is not "substitution or manipulation", but simply "a different format of work". At the same time, it is much easier to open a brokerage account than a bank account, which has become a problem, especially after the EU blacklisted Russia at the end of last year as a country that does not combat money laundering effectively.

However, the tightening of the rules for working with Russian money also applies to brokers. One of Europe's largest players, Scalable Capital, is notifying Russians that their accounts will soon be closed.

Russians often use brokers from the EAEU countries, primarily Kazakhstan and Armenia. Foreign brokers, primarily in the EAEU countries, have become the most accessible and convenient channel for transferring funds abroad, noted independent financial advisor Natalia Smirnova: through them, you can withdraw roubles from the Russian Federation to your account in the EAEU or even in Cyprus, and from there transfer them to a bank account in another country. At the same time, it should be understood that the receiving bank will ask for the source of the funds and may not accept such money, she stressed, "but this is more about crediting bank accounts in Europe". She herself uses an account with a Cypriot broker to transfer roubles from the Russian Federation to the EU.

Russians also use foreign brokers for their intended purpose – for investment. Since the start of the war, the Russian stock market has fallen more often than it has risen: since the beginning of 2022, the Moscow Exchange index has lost more than 40%. In addition, foreign markets give investors the opportunity to diversify their portfolio by including securities from industries not represented on Russian exchanges and to reduce country risk. Before the war, this did not require an account with a foreign broker: shares of American, European, Chinese and other companies were easy to buy for roubles on the St. Petersburg and Moscow exchanges. These investments were frozen – in total, for more than 1.5 million people. The Central Bank does not disclose the value of these assets; at the end of 2022, it estimated it at almost a trillion roubles.

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Meanwhile, Banks in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan sharply raised fees for accepting cash rubles, as reported per the independent media outlet Meduza.

Banks in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan have sharply raised fees for depositing cash Russian rubles into accounts held by nonresidents, the Russian business news outlet RBC reported.

Fees that ran 2–5% at the start of summer have since climbed to 10–15% of the deposited amount at some banks, with Belarus’s Neo Bank Asia now charging a flat 20%.

At least 10 banks have tightened their terms since the beginning of August, according to the outlet’s review of their websites.

Fees for depositing Russian rubles at banks in neighboring countries first appeared in June amid a sharp influx of cash from Russia. A source at one of the Belarusian banks told RBC that the surge in cash flowing from Russia into Eurasian Economic Union countries stemmed from tighter controls on cash transactions inside Russia.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10742800

Russia will not be able to win the competition in the "war of attrition" when Ukraine is supported by the Western world. This was stated at a session of the Nikitsky Club by Andrey Klepach, chief economist of Vnesheconombank (VEB.RF), a key Russian state bank that finances the Kremlin's national projects and has the status of a "state development corporation".

[Original link in Russian, automated translation with minimal edits.]

According to Klepach, the costs to the Russian economy from sanctions and the Western blockade are rising, the damage from Ukrainian strikes on ports, infrastructure, chemical and oil plants is increasing, and Russia is increasingly lagging behind the world in technological development.

“We are lagging behind. We are losing both technological and economic competition in the world. Moreover, as I have already said, we are not only losing it to China and the United States, but in some respects, we are losing it to Ukraine. Ukraine's economy, of course, is partly destroyed, and there is a demographic catastrophe. But, again, the Ukrainian economy, despite everything, is surviving. Of course, there is huge financial assistance <...> With such assistance for military expenses and their own expenses, this is about almost 50% of our budget," said Klepach.

"We will not win the competition in this war of attrition. We have the illusion that everything will collapse there. It hasn't collapsed and it won't collapse. Our costs are increasing," Klepach continued.

He recalled that after the military boom of 2023–24, the Russian economy shifted to a decline this year, investment fell sharply, and civilian industries slipped into recession — from the aviation industry and the production of building materials to the light and food industries. The situation is exacerbated by the ultra-tight policy of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, which, according to Klepach, is responsible for at least half of the economic downturn.

"The conflict in Ukraine with NATO's involvement has already lasted longer than the Great Patriotic War, and there is no end in sight yet. Both sides are increasing the intensity of their strikes, including on each other's economies. The losses from the AFU strikes on our infrastructure — ports, oil and gas, chemical complexes, logistics — are increasing and are already becoming a noticeable macroeconomic barrier to the growth of the Russian economy," said Klepach.

The tightening of US sanctions at the end of 2025 led to India and China starting to reduce their purchases of Russian oil, "despite all the repeated statements that they are not complying with the sanctions," he recalled. Taking into account the likely new wave of sanctions and "increasing losses from AFU strikes", the potential growth rate of the Russian economy may not exceed 1–1.5%.

According to Klepach, all this will inevitably lead Russia to a "social crisis", and "when no one really expects it".

"But let me remind you that no one expected the February Revolution either. Lenin wrote in December 1916 that 'we will not live to see it', but he lived to see it a few months later. The situation in the Soviet Union in 1991 — we were moving towards it for a long time and consistently, and everyone understood that we were heading for a crisis, but there was no fatal inevitability that the Soviet Union would collapse," said Klepach.

"I believe that Russia will not collapse, but I am almost certain that we will face a social crisis. We will not collapse economically, but our backwardness will also increase with all the ensuing consequences," he concluded.

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On Aug. 7, Polish security services detained a Russian citizen who had been recruited by Russian intelligence services to organize the killing in Warsaw of a person with U.S. and Ukrainian citizenship, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced at a news conference on Aug. 14, according to Reuters.

Tusk said the target was a dual national who was inconvenient for Vladimir Putin’s regime. He said Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW) and police had prevented “this execution, this attack," adding that he was not authorized to disclose the name of the detainee or of the intended victim.

Local radio station RMF FM, citing unofficial sources, reported that the intended target was a defense industry entrepreneur who supplied products to Ukraine. The alleged perpetrator was said to be a 29-year-old resident of Donbas, the eastern Ukrainian region partly occupied by Russia since 2014. He was detained in Warsaw’s Mokotów District by officers from the Warsaw police department who are responsible for combating terrorism, killings, and criminal violence, with support from the country’s counterterrorism service.

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Mine is german band "Sondaschule" with their banger "Grüße vom Meer"

At least one person has died and around 40 others have been injured after a severe wildfire tore through cities on Croatia's coastline on Thursday night and Friday morning.

The blaze broke out near the village of Lokva Rogoznica on Thursday evening, and spread quickly towards the nearby tourist town of Omiš, 6km (7 miles) away.

Around 1,200 residents and tourists were evacuated, while 10 people were in intensive care in hospital, the prime minister said. Croatia's fire chief Slavko Tucaković described it as "one of the worst" blazes in the country's history.

A large-scale blast hit an ammunition factory in the Italian town of Colleferro, near Rome, on Aug. 13, local authorities and regional media reported.

The factory is operated by KNDS Ammo Italy, a subsidiary of the French-German defense firm KNDS. The facility produces 155 mm artillery shells supplied to Ukraine via European partners.

The explosion caused a fire and a loud blast that could be heard by residents in nearby districts, the Italian outlet AGI reported. The fire broke out in the plant's gunpowder processing and compression unit.

Emergency crews arrived on the scene and employees reached the designated safe zones in accordance with evacuation protocols, AGI reported. The incident caused no casualties.

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KNDS Ammo Italy manufactures large- and medium-caliber munitions for land and naval forces. It also cooperates with Ukraine on the production of NATO-standard 155 mm ammunition under agreements with the European Defense Agency.

In addition to artillery, Ukraine receives multiple weapons systems produced by KNDS Group, including the Caesar artillery gun, the Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft gun tank, and the PzH 2000 armored howitzer.

The defense firm opened its first office in Ukraine in October 2025.

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The blast at KNDS Ammo Italy comes a week after a drone outfitted with explosives was found near a Ukrainian aircraft at the Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany. The so-called "modified drone" was discovered on Aug. 4 next to a Ukrainian Antonov Airlines An-124 transport plane, while a second drone collided with an incoming cargo plane.

A bomb disposal robot was deployed to carry out a controlled explosion at the airfield, preventing further damage.

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German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt also described the incident as a "hybrid attack scenario." While he did not name Russia, the incident is consistent with a pattern of Kremlin-linked hybrid warfare operations in European countries in recent years.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.wtf/post/47525261

Germany's Federal Foreign Office is still cautious, but politicians across the political spectrum are calling for tougher action against the Russian House in Berlin. With its tolerance, Germany is exuding "pure weakness", they say.

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[Original link in German, this is a paraphrased automated translation with minimal edits.]

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Several German politicians are calling for the closure of the Russian House cultural centre in Berlin-Mitte following new accusations that it is a spy centre.

"This house is a symbol of our weakness and of Russian influence," the CDU foreign policy expert Roderich Kiesewetter told the broadcaster Welt TV.

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"We are not closing it because, conversely, we believe that the Goethe-Instituts in Russia will then be closed. But: So what? Then they'll just be closed."

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A spokesman for the German Federal Foreign Office referred to the bilateral agreements on "property matters" that exist between Germany and Russia. These also concern the Goethe-Institut in Moscow. Both institutions are therefore "directly linked to each other".

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The investigative team of [public broadcaster] WDR and the [daily newspaper] "Süddeutsche Zeitung" reported last week on an assessment by the French Ministry of the Interior. It states that the Russian House is "used as a cover by the Russian secret services".

Kiesewetter emphasised that the facility's energy consumption is considerably higher than it would be for the 100 people who live there. "The cultural offering is strange, but because the electricity consumption is also so high, we assume that there is technically complex equipment there, and that people are accommodated there who also have to be accommodated there in the Russian sense," said the CDU politician.

The Chair of the European Parliament's Defence Committee, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (FDP), spoke in favour of closing the facility. "In the middle of Berlin, I'll say it quite clearly, sits the enemy of freedom – and we're watching. And that is unbearable," she told Die Welt.

The defence policy spokeswoman for the Green Party parliamentary group, Sara Nanni, told the broadcaster: "We are letting Russia walk all over us."One consequence that Germany could take, according to her, would be to close the Russian House. What Germany is currently projecting is "pure weakness", according to the Green Party politician.

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The Austrian Defense Ministry has sent a warning to all military personnel calling on them to notify military counterintelligence if they have been contacted by any of 21 Russian diplomats suspected of having ties to Moscow's intelligence services.

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“If you know one or more of these individuals or they have contacted you, please notify the Military Counterintelligence Service via the espionage signals unit“, the statement says.

The alleged agents work at the Russian embassy and in Moscow's representations to the OSCE, the UN and other international organizations organizations in Vienna. Most are suspected of ties to Russian military intelligence, and the rest - to the Foreign Intelligence Service and the Federal Security Service.

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There are concerns that the alleged agents may have deliberately sought contact with Austrian military personnel in order to obtain information.

The defense ministry told the Austrian news agency APA that the army regularly sends such messages to raise awareness and alertness among servicemen.

“There is a fear that there could be espionage and direct contact with servicemen,“ Defense Minister Claudia Tanner told Austrian radio. She said Russian intelligence services are seeking to destabilize other countries and spread Moscow's messages.

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The Austrian Armed Forces' warning comes as a response to reports this week that one in six Russian diplomats in Austria may be tied to intelligence agencies.

... At least 20 of the 117 employees of Russian diplomatic missions in Austria are likely tied to the SVR, GRU, or FSB, according to a report by the independent Russian outlet Agentstvo, which made use of information from the RuPEP public figures database and the foreign diplomatic staff list published by Austria’s Foreign Ministry ...

Of the 48 employees of the Russian Embassy, at least eight showed signs of links to intelligence agencies. Counselor Evgenii Ambrosii is registered at an SVR departmental building on Vilniusskaya Street in Moscow. Attaché Aleksandr Sobolev received income from military unit 21247, which corresponds to the Foreign Intelligence Academy. Alexander Paloyan received income from SVR military unit 33949.

First Secretary Alexander Golovashkin, military attaché Alexey Fokin, and attaché Stanislav Aleksandridi are linked to GRU addresses and units (Aleksandridi listed the military intelligence headquarters on Khoroshevskoye Highway in Moscow, while Fokin was registered on the grounds of the Senezh Special Purpose Center). Attaché Dmitrii Kramarev worked in the 2000s at the Atlas Scientific and Technical Center, which at the time was under the FSB ...

Of the 22 employees of Russia’s mission to the OSCE, links to intelligence agencies are suspected in seven cases. Four figures — Counselors Anton Momatyuk and Vitaly Kozlov, First Secretary Sergei Kildyashov, and Second Secretary Alexei Silantyev — used addresses of facilities linked to the GRU and military education. Three other employees previously worked at Defense Ministry institutions or listed addresses belonging to the General Staff, military academies, and military units.

Among 47 employees of Russian missions to other international organizations, signs of links to intelligence agencies were found in five cases. Three of them work at the IAEA. In particular, Sergei Berezin was registered on the grounds of the GRU’s Central Special Communications Hub, while Grigory Krivenchenko received income from military unit 52025, a nuclear weapons arsenal in Mozhaysk. Two other diplomats with possible links to military intelligence represent Russia at U.N. institutions.

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Back in May, Austria expelled three Russian diplomats over spying accusations.

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US urges EU to deliver commitments to ease non-tariff trade barriers

Joint statements on such barriers expected in autumn, sources say

EU not planning more environmental rule concessions, sources say

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The European Centre for Strategies and Transformations has mapped the architecture of Russian influence in Europe in its analytical brief Russia’s Disinformation Network in Europe: FIMI, AI Operations and the New Hybrid Threat Landscape (pdf).

The research on FIMI [Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference] shows how proxy media, cloned outlets, platform manipulation, AI-generated content and cross-platform amplification already function as parts of a wider hybrid-pressure system. The next question is whether selected elements of that infrastructure could become interoperable with Chinese influence capabilities.

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For much of the past decade, Russian and Chinese influence operations have been treated as two different security problems. Russia became associated with disruption: hacked material, proxy outlets, fabricated personas and campaigns designed to deepen political divisions. Chinese operations were generally more selective, combining state-media and diplomatic amplification with covert account networks, multilingual content and targeted attempts to shape debate around issues of strategic importance to Beijing. The distinction was never absolute, but it provided a workable basis for analysis.

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Where the threat becomes concrete

An election campaign offers a clear example. A Russian-linked network may obtain or fabricate compromising material, release it through a proxy outlet and push allegations of fraud or foreign control. The story does not have to be convincing on its own. It only needs to create enough noise to be picked up elsewhere. Chinese state media, diplomatic accounts or covert networks could then carry parts of the controversy into other languages and markets, not necessarily endorsing the original allegation but presenting it as further evidence of political dysfunction in the West ...

The same logic applies beyond elections. A cyber intrusion may produce stolen documents; selected files can then be leaked, stripped of context or mixed with fabricated material. Russian-linked outlets have extensive experience turning such releases into political scandals. Wider circulation through Chinese media and multilingual account networks could make the material appear to have several independent points of origin ...

Where the Russian and Chinese systems already converge

The clearest convergence is strategic. NATO StratCom COE research identifies alignment around criticism of US dominance, NATO, sanctions, Western military interventions and alleged Western hypocrisy.

The alignment is selective, not automatic. Beijing has not consistently repeated Moscow’s most extreme claims about Ukraine and still invests heavily in presenting China as a constructive and responsible power. Russian operations in NATO information environments are generally more disruptive and more willing to cultivate confusion for its own sake ... Formal media links provide another layer. They do not establish covert campaign management, but create durable channels through which narratives, techniques and professional practices can circulate.

The foundations for deeper convergence therefore already exist. What remains uncertain is whether they will connect to covert operational infrastructure ...

Elections are the most likely test

Elections provide the clearest environment in which such a model could take shape. Russian operations can discredit institutions, intensify hostility between political groups, question electoral legitimacy and create confusion. Contradictory narratives can be useful when the objective is disruption rather than persuasion.

China’s approach has historically been more selective, focused on regime reputation and specific policy interests. Recent reporting on Russian election interference and Microsoft’s analysis of PRC-linked activity show a wider willingness by state-linked actors to test domestic fault lines and election-related tensions ...

Building resilience before convergence becomes operational

European governments need to get better at joining the dots. A cyberattack, a suspicious leak, a sudden wave of election-related claims and an opaque payment to a communications contractor may all be parts of the same operation, yet they are still too often handled by different institutions. Governments should build permanent channels for sharing information across intelligence, cyber-security, electoral and financial authorities, and focus less on individual posts than on the infrastructure behind them: domains, contractors, advertising accounts, payment routes and patterns of activity across languages and platforms.

The private sector also has a central role. Platforms, hosting providers, advertising firms, media companies and AI developers should know who is using their services and be prepared to act when the same networks move between them ...

Civil society, journalists and researchers should look beyond the latest false claim and pay closer attention to how a story travels. The key question is often not whether one post is true or false, but who introduced the narrative, who gave it credibility and how it moved from an anonymous source into mainstream debate. That requires sustained multilingual monitoring, stronger open-source investigation and greater caution around dramatic leaks and apparently independent foreign commentary.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10703946

A European Union ban on public funding for utility-scale solar inverters from "high-risk" countries is set to shift the ​market towards European suppliers, SMA Solar's chief executive said ‌on Thursday.

The 27-country bloc imposed the ban in May, mainly affecting Chinese-made products, citing fears that internet-connected inverters supplied by what it called "high-risk" countries could ​be used to disrupt Europe's power grid.

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"Roughly a fifth of ​all bigger projects are EU-funded and on those, the ⁠restriction on China, North Korea, Russia, Iran, of course will ​help us," CEO Jürgen Reinert told Reuters, estimating that SMA Solar ​could gain around 10% share in the utility-scale market in Europe.

Chinese manufacturers, led by Huawei and Sungrow, supplied about 70% of Europe’s inverters in recent ​years, leaving the region reliant on foreign equipment for a ​fast-growing share of its electricity supply. Based on current deployment levels, the EU-wide ban ‌would ⁠affect at least 14 gigawatts of new solar capacity, according to Reuters calculations.

"There will be a shift from Chinese players towards European players when it comes to European finance projects, but it will ​still take some ​time," said Reinert, ⁠predicting the situation would become more certain by the start of 2027.

But the German photovoltaic and ​battery storage equipment supplier has already held "lots of ​discussions" with ⁠new customers who previously purchased inverters from Chinese companies, he added.

SMA Solar has reduced its dependence on China, where it currently sources ⁠between ​2% and 4% of components for its ​large-scale inverters, and sees limited risk of supply chain disruptions from potential retaliatory measures, ​Reinert said.

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