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Morning Headlines
The Guardian: Early voting in Russia’s presidential 'election' has already begun in occupied areas of Ukraine, with officials carrying ballot boxes going house to house in some areas, accompanied by soldiers.
AP News: ...Putin’s Russia evolved from a country that tolerated some dissent to one that ruthlessly suppresses it. Arrests, trials and long prison terms — once rare — are commonplace, especially after Moscow invaded Ukraine.
Reuters: Dozens of oil tankers used by Russia have stopped sailing under the Liberian and Marshall Islands flags in recent weeks after the United States ramped up sanctions enforcement on ships linked to those registries.
ISW: Russian forces are reportedly operating a “black market” to sell Ukrainian prisoners of war, including to Russian paramilitary groups that may be conducting their own POW exchanges with Ukraine.
More News
Reuters: The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for top Russian commanders Sergei Kobylash and Viktor Sokolov for suspected war crimes in Ukraine, it said in a statement on Tuesday.
POLITICO: Tensions between Berlin and Paris spilled into the open Tuesday as German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius hit back at President Emmanuel Macron for urging Europe not to be "cowards" in the defense of Ukraine.
Bloomberg: Ukraine’s top energy official ruled out any commercial agreements to allow Russian natural gas to continue flowing through the country after the current transit deal lapses at the end of the year (archive).
The Kyiv Independent: An Estonian arms dealer sold laser target markers destined for the Ukrainian military at an inflated price, allegedly making millions of euros at the expense of the German taxpayers, according to an investigation by Estonian newspaper Ekspress published on March 5.
RFE/RL: The new Uzbek owner of a massive gas-storage project linked to sanctioned Russian tycoon Gennady Timchenko serves as key figure in Moscow's energy ties with Tashkent.
Reuters: France has invited foreign and defence ministers from Ukraine's main allies and the NATO Secretary General to participate in a video call on Thursday aimed at showing a "united front" and coming up with concrete proposals to boost support for Kyiv.
Meduza: Police in Moscow have begun arresting people who attended Alexey Navalny’s funeral on March 1, according to the human rights project OVD-Info. Several of the arrestees were either filmed by surveillance cameras at the event or appeared in footage that was posted online.
POLITICO: Kyiv’s chief prosecutor chided the United Nations for not speaking out enough regarding Russia’s kidnapping of Ukrainian children. “If [the] U.N. is silent when Russia kidnapped up to 20,000 Ukrainian children, I don’t understand what’s going on,” Andriy Kostin said Tuesday during a panel debate in Brussels.
Reuters: Moldova's spy chief said on Tuesday that Russia was planning fresh attempts to meddle in the country's internal affairs by provoking protests, interfering in upcoming presidential elections, and disrupting plans to join the European Union.
The Kyiv Independent: Turkey's Dortyol oil terminal in the Mediterranean Sea has halted business with Russia as pressure caused by U.S. sanctions mounts, Reuters reported on March 5.
The Moscow Times: Russia's Federal Security Service on Tuesday searched the homes of nearly a dozen Crimean Tatar activists and religious figures in annexed Crimea, according to a local rights group.
AP News: A German military officer used an unsecured phone line at a Singapore hotel to join a conference call that was hacked by Russians and leaked to the public, Germany’s defense minister said Tuesday.
Reuters: Top European Union officials on Tuesday unveiled plans to boost the continent's arms industry, arguing Russia's war in Ukraine showed member countries should increase joint purchases of weapons and devote more spending to European firms.
POLITICO: Russian intelligence is using a Serbian agent to infiltrate EU institutions and to spread pro-Kremlin talking points about its invasion of Ukraine, according to a Western intelligence briefing seen by POLITICO.
AFP: Ukraine struck an oil depot in the Russian border region of Belgorod on Tuesday, setting at least one fuel tank ablaze, a military intelligence source in Kyiv told AFP.
Reuters: Russia on Tuesday accused Western ambassadors in Moscow of meddling in Russia's internal affairs by attending the funeral of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, saying their behaviour raised questions about the point of such envoys.
BBC News: Ukrainian intelligence says seven people have been killed and six more injured after a Russian patrol ship was hit and sunk in a sea drone attack. The Sergei Kotov was allegedly hit in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
worth mentioning
Hungary cannot support Mark Rutte for NATO chief, minister says
Russia says it is considering putting a nuclear power plant on the moon with China
Russia’s Chinese yuan funding lifeline is getting too expensive
How Russia’s world of ‘fixers’ has changed since the start of the war in Ukraine
Meet Ukraine’s small but lethal weapon lifting morale: unmanned sea drones packed with explosives
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