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Reuters: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday announced a $2 billion fund to help Ukraine build up its defense industrial base, as he concluded a two-day visit aimed at reassuring the country reeling after Russia opened up a new front in its war last week.

The Insider: Researchers at the Slovakia-based cybersecurity company ESET have uncovered two new backdoors, dubbed LunarWeb and LunarMail, which they believe were likely used by a Russian state-affiliated hacking group to infiltrate the foreign affairs ministry of an unnamed European country.

Reuters: An increasing number of foreign actors, including non-state actors, are seeking to influence U.S. elections, and Russia, China and Iran, while the most significant, are far from alone, U.S. officials told a Senate committee on Wednesday.

NY Times: Russian disinformation videos smear Biden ahead of U.S. election. Many of the videos are trying to appeal to right-wing voters with fake messages about President Biden, experts say (archive).

Reuters: EU ambassadors agreed in principle on Wednesday to place four Russian media outlets on its sanctions list, accusing them of propaganda, EU Commissioner for Values and Transparency Vera Jourova said.

RFE/RL: How exactly is Russia recruiting so many men to fight in Ukraine without resorting to another unpopular mobilization? Private-sector companies are playing a crucial, and little-understood, role in making this happen, according to new findings by Systema, RFE/RL’s Russian investigative unit.

Reuters: At least one Mondelez investor, Swedish pension fund AP7, will back a resolution calling for the Oreo cookie maker to conduct an independent study of the risks of continuing to do business in Russia, which faces a vote at the company's annual meeting this month.

CNN: Russia has stepped up its disinformation efforts to discredit Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and raise questions about his legitimacy in recent months, US intelligence agencies have observed.

Reuters: A summit that Switzerland hopes will pave the way for a peace process in Ukraine has drawn delegations from more than 50 countries, Swiss President Viola Amherd said on Wednesday.

Bloomberg: Commerzbank AG said it’s facing various legal cases in Russia that have created a business risk (archive).

Reuters: Estonia's parliament has approved a proposal allowing the use of frozen Russian assets to pay compensation for war damage in Ukraine.

AP News: The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor faced demands Tuesday for speedy action against Israeli leaders and a blistering Russian attack over the ICC’s arrest warrant for Putin stemming from Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Reuters: A close ally of Chechnya's Ramzan Kadyrov resigned unexpectedly as speaker of parliament on Wednesday, creating a vacancy in the elite at a time when Kadyrov's health is under close scrutiny.

The Guardian: The British digger maker JCB, owned by the billionaire Bamford family, continued to build and supply equipment for the Russian market months after saying it had stopped exports because of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Reuters: Russian missile and guided bomb strikes on Ukraine's southern cities of Mykolaiv and Kherson injured at least 25 people, local officials said on Wednesday.

Reuters: Finland plans to change its conscription rules to allow thousands of reservists to help patrol its border with Russia should there be a sudden wave of migrants, the government said on Wednesday.

Reuters: Portugal's new government is keen on ramping up sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, Environment and Energy Minister Maria da Graca Carvalho said on Wednesday.

Bloomberg: Russian military intelligence has worked to exploit fringe peace demonstrations in Germany as part of a broader operation aiming to influence public opinion in the country and undermine support for Ukraine (archive).

Reuters: President Volodymyr Zelenskiy postponed all his foreign trips as the battlefield situation continued to deteriorate on Wednesday and Kyiv said fighting raged in the northeastern border town of Vovchansk in Kharkiv region.

Reuters: Raiffeisen Bank International was warned by the U.S. Treasury in writing that its access to the U.S. financial system could be curbed because of its Russia dealings, according to a person who has seen the correspondence.

worth mentioning

Slovak PM Fico no longer in life-threatening condition after being shot

Gazprom’s declining fortunes spell trouble for Moscow

Neutral-country general to head EU’s top military body

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