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Morning Headlines
FT: Russian officials believe western pressure is hampering Moscow’s efforts to draw former Soviet nations closer into its orbit and build economic ties with the global south, according to a leaked government report (archive).
Reuters: Overnight Russian drone attacks sparked a fire in Kyiv and injured a woman and damaged several houses in the northeastern city of Sumy, Ukrainian officials said on Monday.
ISW: Russia appears to be leveraging the technological innovations it is developing in its war in Ukraine directly against NATO states.
09.02.2025
AP News: Trump’s national security adviser said Sunday that top administration officials will meet with European officials this week about how to end the war in Ukraine, nearly three years after Russia launched an all-out invasion.
Politico: The German military is investigating suspected Russian espionage after six drone sightings over an airbase in the northern town of Schwesing, where Ukrainian soldiers are trained on Patriot missile defense systems, Süddeutsche Zeitung reported.
The Kyiv Independent: The European Union should stop importing Russian energy products and "seriously consider" a complete trade embargo against Russia, Estonian President Alar Karis said on Feb. 9.
The Moscow Times: An explosion Sunday on an oil tanker at a port in northwest Russia forced the crew to evacuate and was being investigated, the country's Federal Agency for Sea and Inland Water Transport said.
Reuters: The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania completed a switch from Russia's electricity grid to the EU's system on Sunday, severing Soviet-era ties amid heightened security after the suspected sabotage of several subsea cables and pipelines.
Yonhap: Thousands of North Korean laborers have been sent to work in Russia last year, South Korea's spy agency said Sunday, in apparent violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions against Pyongyang.
AP News: The governor of Russia’s Pacific island region of Sakhalin has declared an emergency after a Chinese cargo ship ran aground off its southwest coast.
New York Post: Trump has spoken to Putin on the phone to try to negotiate an end to the Ukraine war, he told The NY Post. “I’d better not say,” he said when asked how many times the two leaders have spoken. But he believes Putin “does care” about the killing on the battlefield.
ISW: The Russian command may be redeploying forces from the Kurakhove direction towards Toretsk in order to facilitate Russian offensive operations against Kostyantynivka in Spring or Summer 2025.
08.02.2025
The Kyiv Independent: The UK is allocating 25 million pounds ($31 million) to launch a social recovery initiative in Ukraine called the SPIRIT program, the British government announced on Feb. 8.
NHK has learned that North Korea is expected to start producing drones this year that will be co-developed with Russia.
The Kyiv Independent: Ukraine's military said on Feb. 8 that it had downed a Russian Su-25 attack aircraft near the town of Toretsk in Donetsk Oblast.
AFP: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday Kyiv wants its allies to invest in its mineral resources after Trump asked for "rare earths" in exchange for military aid.
The Kyiv Independent: An oil refinery in Russia's Volgograd Oblast was among the targets of a Ukrainian overnight drone strike on Feb. 8, Russian local authorities claimed.
Reuters: Russia's Defence Ministry said on Friday that its forces had taken control of the strategic coal-mining city of Toretsk in eastern Ukraine, but Ukraine's military denied the city had been captured and reported heavy fighting in and around it.
ISW: The Kremlin continues to conduct an information campaign likely directed toward both domestic and international audiences that aims to conceal the extent to which Russia's protracted war against Ukraine has negatively affected Russia's economy.
07.02.2025
The Moscow Times: Russian officials are celebrating Trump’s move to sanction the International Criminal Court as a game-changer that will weaken the court’s global influence and hamper the West’s efforts to isolate Putin and his inner circle.
AFP: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that North Korean troops were back on the front line in Russia's Kursk region, after reports Moscow had withdrawn them due to heavy losses.
Reuters: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy pored over a once-classified map of vast deposits of rare earths and other critical minerals during an interview with Reuters on Friday, part of a push to appeal to Donald Trump's penchant for a deal.
The Kyiv Independent: Ukraine is working to secure alternative funding sources for critical programs previously supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development and has already reached preliminary agreements on some, Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Minister Olha Stefanishyna said on Feb. 7.
Reuters: Three people were killed in a Russian guided bomb attack on Ukraine's northeastern region of Sumy, Ukrainian authorities said on Friday.
AP News: Huge crowds gathered in dozens of cities and towns across Slovakia on Friday to mount vocal protests against the pro-Russian policies of populist Prime Minister Robert Fico.
Reuters: Russia is set to widen its power to retaliate for Western asset seizures with new legislation that could allow it to confiscate the frozen funds of foreign companies and investors.
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