cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/2468670

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The Serbian government wanted to launch golden passport programs in 2022 and then significantly simplify the issuance of citizenship to Russians working in the country, reducing the residency period before applying for citizenship to one year. But, as the Financial Times reported, the European Commission put pressure on Belgrade. They threatened to suspend the Serbia-EU visa-free regime, if the granting of citizenship through investor schemes is deemed to pose an increased risk to the internal security and public policy of the Member States of the European Union.

As IStories discovered, European countries still have something to fear. In hundreds of decisions on granting Serbian citizenship for services rendered from 2022 to April 2025, the names of dozens of Russians closely connected to the military-industrial complex, the Kremlin, oligarchs, state corporations, and even special services are listed. None of them appear on sanctions lists and, therefore, can travel freely with a Serbian passport.

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Several Russian billionaires from the Forbes list and people formerly associated with managing the assets of oligarchs Alisher Usmanov and Alexei Mordashov also became citizens [of Serbia], however, there is no information about their current relationship with the Russian government.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/2468564

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Russia has created thousands of TikTok accounts in an effort to influence public opinion in Ukraine, [...]. The strategy takes advantage of TikTok’s algorithm, which allows even new accounts with no followers to go viral — making it the most effective platform in Ukraine for bot farms to spread pro-Kremlin propaganda.

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Data from the research firm DataReportal shows that TikTok has 17 million users in Ukraine — more than both Instagram (12 million) and Facebook (13.9 million). In April 2024, Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation reported blocking several dozen TikTok channels spreading what it referred to as “enemy propaganda.” Among them were pages linked to anti-vaccine activist Ostap Stakhiv, pro-Russian journalist Diana Panchenko, and lawmaker Oleksandr Dubinsky, who is currently in jail awaiting trial on treason charges. But according to the center’s head, Andriy Kovalenko, taking down individual accounts is like “treating symptoms, not the disease.” He said the platform itself should be able to distinguish between disinformation and legitimate content.

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Russia’s playbook: first, a “bot farm,” a network of accounts with minimal information or followers, is set up. Then, an “emotional video” is created using either real footage or AI. The same video is posted across hundreds of these accounts within a day, and bots swarm in to like, comment, and “watch” the video all the way through to boost engagement. TikTok’s algorithm interprets this as genuine popularity and starts pushing the video to more users.

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AI and deepfake technology have also made it possible for Russia to create fake TikTok accounts posing as Ukrainian soldiers. In late March 2025 — during the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the Kursk region and amid statements by U.S. President Donald Trump about thousands of Ukrainian troops being surrounded — videos began appearing on TikTok that appeared to show Ukrainian soldiers recording their “last words.” The AI-generated men in the clips claimed that their commanders had abandoned them and that they were expecting to die there. According to Ukrainska Pravda, these videos racked up millions of views.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/2458687

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On the morning of April 15, Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti published — and later deleted — two Telegram posts that appeared to show military drone operators directing strikes against Ukrainian territory from a makeshift control center located inside a residential high-rise in Moscow City, the Russian capital’s business district.

The first post claimed that a “combat FPV drone, controlled from Moscow, struck an Armed Forces of Ukraine target in Chasiv Yar at an ultra-long distance for the first time.” The second post said the UAV, piloted remotely from Moscow, had been launched by the drone unit of the Espanola brigade, which was operating near Chasiv Yar — a city in the Bakhmut District of Ukraine’s Donetsk Region, most of which is under Russian control.

A six-minute video accompanied the posts, showing the coordination of the drone strike in detail. Both posts, along with the video, were removed within 90 minutes of publication. The Telegram channel CHTD first noticed that the posts had been taken down.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/2458687

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On the morning of April 15, Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti published — and later deleted — two Telegram posts that appeared to show military drone operators directing strikes against Ukrainian territory from a makeshift control center located inside a residential high-rise in Moscow City, the Russian capital’s business district.

The first post claimed that a “combat FPV drone, controlled from Moscow, struck an Armed Forces of Ukraine target in Chasiv Yar at an ultra-long distance for the first time.” The second post said the UAV, piloted remotely from Moscow, had been launched by the drone unit of the Espanola brigade, which was operating near Chasiv Yar — a city in the Bakhmut District of Ukraine’s Donetsk Region, most of which is under Russian control.

A six-minute video accompanied the posts, showing the coordination of the drone strike in detail. Both posts, along with the video, were removed within 90 minutes of publication. The Telegram channel CHTD first noticed that the posts had been taken down.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/2458687

Archived link

On the morning of April 15, Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti published — and later deleted — two Telegram posts that appeared to show military drone operators directing strikes against Ukrainian territory from a makeshift control center located inside a residential high-rise in Moscow City, the Russian capital’s business district.

The first post claimed that a “combat FPV drone, controlled from Moscow, struck an Armed Forces of Ukraine target in Chasiv Yar at an ultra-long distance for the first time.” The second post said the UAV, piloted remotely from Moscow, had been launched by the drone unit of the Espanola brigade, which was operating near Chasiv Yar — a city in the Bakhmut District of Ukraine’s Donetsk Region, most of which is under Russian control.

A six-minute video accompanied the posts, showing the coordination of the drone strike in detail. Both posts, along with the video, were removed within 90 minutes of publication. The Telegram channel CHTD first noticed that the posts had been taken down.

...

Archived link

On the morning of April 15, Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti published — and later deleted — two Telegram posts that appeared to show military drone operators directing strikes against Ukrainian territory from a makeshift control center located inside a residential high-rise in Moscow City, the Russian capital’s business district.

The first post claimed that a “combat FPV drone, controlled from Moscow, struck an Armed Forces of Ukraine target in Chasiv Yar at an ultra-long distance for the first time.” The second post said the UAV, piloted remotely from Moscow, had been launched by the drone unit of the Espanola brigade, which was operating near Chasiv Yar — a city in the Bakhmut District of Ukraine’s Donetsk Region, most of which is under Russian control.

A six-minute video accompanied the posts, showing the coordination of the drone strike in detail. Both posts, along with the video, were removed within 90 minutes of publication. The Telegram channel CHTD first noticed that the posts had been taken down.

...

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The Belarusian and Russian security services are preparing to take “preemptive” measures against Nato member states, the Kremlin’s spy chief has said.

Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, accused Nato of an increase in military activity near the borders of the two countries. Belarus is Russia’s strongest ally in Europe and the Kremlin has used its territory for attacks on Ukraine. Moscow also says it has transferred tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus.

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Naryshkin, a reputed former KGB officer, gave no other details or evidence for his claim of a Nato build-up near the Belarusian and Russian borders.

Western security officials suspect that agents from both countries have orchestrated dozens of arson and sabotage attacks in Europe since President Putin ordered tanks into Ukraine in 2022.

The Kremlin’s shadow war in Europe is intended to create “political disquiet” in Europe and undermine support for Ukraine, Nato has said. It has been described as “staggeringly reckless” by Sir Richard Moore, the head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service.

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A recent report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank said the number of attacks nearly tripled between 2023 and 2024, after quadrupling between 2022 and 2023. It read: “Despite the increase in Russian attacks, western countries have not developed an effective strategy to counter these attacks.”

The report said sabotage was an attractive tactic for Moscow because it allowed the Kremlin “to conduct coercive activities against a state below a threshold that is likely to trigger a costly or risky conventional war”.

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There have been no suspected Russian sabotage attacks in either Hungary or Serbia, the Kremlin’s biggest allies in Europe besides Belarus.

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Not all of the sabotage has been carried out directly by the Kremlin’s agents. Last year a 20-year-old British man admitted an arson attack on a Ukrainian-owned business in east London on behalf of Moscow, while a Romanian man was arrested this month over a fire at a DHL warehouse in Birmingham that was caused by a suspected Russian incendiary device.

A 17-year-old Ukrainian refugee has also been charged with terrorism by Lithuania over an arson attack on an Ikea store in Vilnius, the capital. Daniil Bardadim is said to have been offered a BMW and about $11,000 to set fire to the store. It is unclear if he realised he may have been working for Moscow.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/2450773

Critical minerals and green energy: two subjects Germany’s ambassador to Canada plans to explore during his first Manitoba visit

[German Ambassador ] Matthias Lüttenberg [...] arrived ahead of 18 colleagues; a group of European ambassadors and high commissioners, part of a European Union delegation, landed in the keystone province Monday.

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The European Union delegation has [...] discussions with Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew and ministerial roundtables on trade, clean energy and raw materials.

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The brief trip occurs as U.S. President Donald Trump slaps tariffs on countries globally and talk of market diversification intensifies. However, the EU ambassadors’ visit was planned beforehand, Lüttenberg said.

“I think it’s just underlining the importance of that mission that we are doing,” he continued. “We feel that, with all these changes going on … (this trip is) a very strong signal to say that, yes, we hear you when you say, ‘We want to diversify our trade routes.’

“We also would like to diversify.”

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[In 2023], Canadian exports to Germany totalled $7.1 billion. German imports to Canada amounted to $24.9 billion. Agricultural products and car parts are among the items being exchanged between the two countries.

Lüttenberg believes the trade still has “huge potential” to grow.

He listed zinc, lithium and nickel as Manitoba resources Germany could be interested in. The Port of Churchill is something to seriously consider, Lüttenberg added.

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“There’s certainly an opening for other markets,” Lüttenberg said. “Our doors are wide open.”

He’ll be joined in Winnipeg by ambassadors and high commissioners from Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/2449681

Researchers from China are to be allowed access to half a million UK GP records despite western intelligence agencies’ fears about the authoritarian regime amassing health data, the Guardian can reveal.

Preparations are under way to transfer the records to UK Biobank, a research hub that holds detailed medical information donated by 500,000 volunteers. One of the world’s largest troves of health data, the facility makes its information available to universities, scientific institutes and private companies. A Guardian analysis shows one in five successful applications for access come from China.

For the past year, health officials had been assessing whether extra safeguards were needed for patient records when added to the genomes, tissue samples and questionnaire responses held by UK Biobank. Personal details such as names and dates of birth are stripped from UK Biobank data before it is shared but experts say that in some cases individuals can still be identified.

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Researchers from China are to be allowed access to half a million UK GP records despite western intelligence agencies’ fears about the authoritarian regime amassing health data, the Guardian can reveal.

Preparations are under way to transfer the records to UK Biobank, a research hub that holds detailed medical information donated by 500,000 volunteers. One of the world’s largest troves of health data, the facility makes its information available to universities, scientific institutes and private companies. A Guardian analysis shows one in five successful applications for access come from China.

For the past year, health officials had been assessing whether extra safeguards were needed for patient records when added to the genomes, tissue samples and questionnaire responses held by UK Biobank. Personal details such as names and dates of birth are stripped from UK Biobank data before it is shared but experts say that in some cases individuals can still be identified.

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British Steel should be the “canary in the coalmine” that forces ministers to remove Chinese companies from critical infrastructure, they have been told.

The government was forced to take direct control of the company amid concern that its Beijing-based owners would not keep the plant running at Scunthorpe. Ministers feared the company planned to “sabotage” the site to increase British reliance on cheap Chinese imports, The Times understands.

There is alarm over Chinese involvement in other areas of critical infrastructure, such as nuclear power plants.

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UK Government insiders believe that steps taken by Jingye, the Chinese owner of British Steel, were intended to stop Britain producing its own virgin steel and force it to rely on imports from China. The steps included refusing to order new raw materials, selling the materials it had and rejecting offers from ministers to help stem losses at the Scunthorpe plant.

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Sir Christopher Chope, a Tory MP, told Times Radio that shutting down British Steel was “exactly what [Jingye] wanted to do”. He said: “They’re building a new steel production facility in China, and what they wanted to do was to use that production facility to supply the UK market. And indeed, this was an attempt at what I think is best described as industrial sabotage.”

Chinese companies have gained a foothold in telecoms, security equipment, and nuclear and green energy projects. Analysis published in January found Chinese businesses had funded or provided parts for at least 14 of 50 British offshore wind projects. Companies owned by the Chinese government had large stakes in three projects that produce enough energy between them to power up to two million homes. Chinese Generation Nuclear Power remains a lead ­developer in plans for the Bradwell B nuclear plant in Essex.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/2447669

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Three years into the full-scale war in Ukraine, the Kremlin’s propaganda machine is still hard at work telling Russians that the invasion is justified, Ukraine and the West are to blame, and Vladimir Putin is acting in their best interests. But U.S. President Donald Trump’s first two months back in office have complicated this narrative. His efforts to rebuild ties with Moscow have led Russian state media and officials to swing from cursing the U.S. over the war to praising its president for his kind words about Putin and his dismantling of institutions like USAID. To unpack how Russian propagandists have handled this about-face,

[In an Q&A session, the independent journalist] Ilya Shepelin, who tracks pro-Kremlin media and formerly hosted the show “Fake News” on TV Rain, unpacks how Russian propagandists have handled this about-face.

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Question: For more than a decade now, Russian propaganda has pushed the idea that America is Russia’s eternal enemy, and that U.S. policy is rooted in hatred and fear of our country. But the moment Trump said a few kind words about Putin, Russian TV suddenly forgot all about this existential standoff and started gushing over this “wonderful man” and the America that’s supposedly about to become great again. Were you surprised by this sudden shift?

Ilya Shepelin: I’m not sure there’s anything left that can still surprise me — and that’s a serious professional problem [...] So no, I’m not surprised that Russian propaganda suddenly started singing America’s praises. Especially since Trump’s own style of politics fits perfectly with how Russian propaganda operates. He’s not bothered by obvious contradictions. One day he’ll post that Zelensky is a dictator with a four percent approval rating, and a week later he’ll tell a reporter he never said or thought any such thing.

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It’s all about raw, exaggerated emotion — pure and simple. The same kind you see with soccer fans. If something good happens — say, Trump says Putin’s a great guy and one of the greatest leaders ever — we celebrate and gush over the U.S. president. But the moment Trump decides to extend sanctions put in place by the previous administration, we’re suddenly tearing our hair out and ripping down the posters of him we just hung over our beds.

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it’s not about full-scale mobilization [of Russian people] — it’s about offering narratives that help people make peace with what’s going on [the war]. Something like, “Look, politicians around the world are hypocrites — that’s even worse than what Putin’s doing. At least he’s doing it for Russia. The others are just scheming against us.”

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“Scaling” is a key idea here [as the actual fighting in Ukraine is over small villages that few people have ever heard of]. How does Russian TV portray battle maps of some village in a random district of Donetsk? They act like like they’ve stretched a map of Europe across the screen. Just zoom in close enough, and it starts to feel like we’re not talking about a few square kilometers, but hundreds or thousands. Like it’s a world-shaping event. A massive conquest.

And really, the actual territory doesn’t matter much to the propaganda. What matters is the image of the army steadily advancing, day by day, while the enemy retreats in shame, losing one village after another. And to keep it from feeling like a toy war bought off AliExpress, they constantly show our soldiers fighting and dying heroically on the front lines.

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They never talk about the number of casualties on [Russian state-controlled] TV [as Russia's casualty numbers are massive]. The last official figure the [Russian] Defense Ministry mentioned was, I think, five thousand. On TV, they’re always talking about the hundreds or thousands of enemy soldiers killed, constantly showing videos of them dying. And when they talk about fallen heroes, it’s always just a few, and they’ve either saved 20 people or killed 140 enemies before they died.

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Russian society is highly atomized. The people who are fighting and dying went there voluntarily, for money that’s unimaginable to most of the country. And that helps remove the sense of personal connection to the tragedies of those who’ve died. It’s seen as the price for taking the risk.

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[Russian general Andrey] Gurulyov is constantly saying insane things, like that we should drop a nuclear bomb on Britain or wipe out a quarter of Russia’s population because they’re all Western agents. But suddenly [when peace negotiation started with the US], this guy ended up on the blacklist of federal channels. He disappeared from the airwaves after he called Trump a “bandit” who shouldn’t be sitting at the same table [with Putin].

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Now he’s having to appear on regional channels, popping up on [far-right Russian Orthodox news network] Tsargrad TV. And you can really see how his rhetoric has changed. Now he says, “Well, of course, we all want victory, but right now the U.S. is calling for a settlement, and when the U.S. accepts our terms, that’ll be the victory.

So, just by cutting someone off from federal airwaves, you can instantly change their [the people's] view of victory. Not long ago, he was demanding Odesa and Kyiv, and now he’s happy with recognition from the U.S. There’s no real issue with victory at all. Whatever they achieve in negotiations, that’s what they’ll portray as a victory.