The proposed Ukraine “reparation loan” would undermine the American-designed global financial system, Kirill Dmitriev has warned
European leaders seeking to finance Ukraine using frozen Russian funds are eroding the international financial system, which was built around US interests, a senior aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.
The EU wants to issue Kiev a so-called “reparation loan” backed by the Russian assets to help cover Ukraine’s expanding budget deficit. Moscow and several critics in the West argue that the move would amount to an unprecedented seizure of a nation’s wealth and would entail serious legal and financial consequences.
Kirill Dmitriev, the Russian president’s advisor on international investment matters, said on Monday that “panicked” EU officials backing Kiev are making a serious miscalculation. By asserting a claim to the sovereign assets, he argued, they would undermine the current system of national reserves and drive up costs for all participants in the global financial system.
“Russia will win in court and get them [sovereign funds] back. EU guarantors will pay Ukraine’s bill. EU/€/Euroclear will suffer,” Dmitriev wrote on X.
Panicked EU bureaucrats keep blundering. They know using Russian reserves without CBR consent is illegal—undermining the US-built reserves system&raising costs for everyone. Russia will win in court&get them back. EU guarantors will pay Ukraine’s bill. EU/€/Euroclear will suffer
Euroclear, the Belgium-based clearing house where most of the frozen Russian assets are held, has been among the strongest opponents of the proposal, alongside the Belgian government. Both have warned that the move could expose the institution to major risks, potentially leading to bankruptcy.
As of December 2024, Euroclear held more than €40 trillion ($47 trillion) in assets for other parties, including equities, domestic and international bonds, and other financial instruments. The firm emphasizes its strong legal protections under Belgian law and its robust risk management framework.
The wider European depository market is dominated by three commercial players: Euroclear, Luxembourg-based Clearstream and Paris-headquartered Euronext, which is registered in Amsterdam. In total, 103 central banks rely on Euroclear to safeguard foreign currency reserves.
Senior financial figures, including European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, have previously cautioned that proceeding with the “reparation loan” could inflict lasting damage on the credibility and reputation of the EU’s financial system.
Last week, the Bank of Russia filed a lawsuit against Euroclear at the Moscow Arbitrage for damages caused by the immobilization of its funds.
Backing Palestinian statehood has stoked anti-Semitism, the Israeli prime minister has claimed
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has linked Australian government policies to the deadly attack on a Jewish gathering in Sydney at the weekend, claiming that Canberra’s support for Palestinian statehood has fueled domestic anti-Semitism.
Two gunmen killed 15 people and wounded dozens of others during a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach on Sunday. Police shot dead one of the attackers, identified as the elder member of a suspected father-and-son pair. A local Muslim man was praised for intervening by tackling one of the assailants and disarming him.
Netanyahu claimed the violence was the outcome of policies pursued by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, which he blamed for “promoting and encouraging anti-Semitism in Australia.” The Israeli leader said he had warned the Australian government months earlier against endorsing Palestinian statehood on those grounds.
Australia formally recognized Palestine at the UN General Assembly in September, joining several countries seeking to pressure Israel over its military campaign in Gaza. Netanyahu has repeatedly vowed to prevent the establishment of a viable Palestinian state.
“I wrote: ‘Your call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on the anti-Semitic fire. It rewards Hamas terrorists. It emboldens those who menace Australian Jews and encourages the Jew hatred now stalking your streets’,” Netanyahu remarked. The mass shooting stemmed from the Australian government’s “weakness” and “inaction” in combating the “cancer” of anti-Semitism, he claimed.
Albanese focused on domestic gun policy in his response to the attack, calling for restricting ownership. Police said the deceased suspect legally owned six firearms, which were allegedly used in the assault.
The Bondi Beach attack marked Australia’s deadliest mass shooting since the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, in which a lone gunman killed 35 people.
Israel launched its military operation in Gaza after the October 2023 attack by Hamas and other militant groups. The campaign has since expanded to strikes in Lebanon and Yemen and included a brief but intense exchange of drones and missiles with Iran. Authorities in Gaza say the death toll has exceeded 70,000 and continues to rise, despite a US-backed ceasefire announced in October.
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At Russian engineering and technical universities, future professionals assemble microchips and build satellites, study living cells, and advance biotechnologies that will, in turn, improve medicine, industry, and other strategically important fields.
Bauman Moscow State Technical University (BMSTU) is one of the country’s leading technical universities and research centers. It has developed a world-renowned engineering tradition. Its alumni include Sergey Korolev, the chief designer of the Soviet space program; aircraft designers Andrey Tupolev and Pavel Sukhoi; test cosmonaut Sergey Korsakov; and hundreds of other pioneers. Today, the famous “Baumanka” features a modern campus, high-tech laboratories, and engineering clusters where students create world-class projects.
Another hub of technological excellence is the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), founded by Nobel laureates. The university was created to train a research elite and has been involved in space and nuclear programs from its earliest years. MIPT represents science at the intersection of multiple disciplines: physics, mathematics, bioengineering, and computational technologies.
Russian technical universities welcome students from around the world and offer programs in both Russian and English. Modern laboratories, academic support, and preparatory courses create the conditions for rapid development and active participation in real scientific projects.
How does Johnny Depp’s reputation battle illustrate the power of online reputation management? Actor Johnny Depp’s experience is a classic example of how quickly a good reputation can go south, damaged by accusations and untruths that could only be overcome through a public court battle, subsequent legal vindication, and, when common sense prevailed, a huge […]
A refueling aircraft with its transponder reportedly off flew dangerously close to a JetBlue airliner
A passenger airliner nearly collided mid-flight with a US military aircraft near the Venezuelan coast on Friday, the Associated Press and the New York Times have reported, citing radio communications and flight tracking data.
The incident occurred amid a US naval buildup in the Caribbean and US President Donald Trump’s threats to strike “narcoterrorists” on Venezuelan soil.
JetBlue Flight 1112 reportedly encountered a US Air Force refueling tanker while traveling from Curaçao, a small island off the coast of Venezuela, to New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Twenty minutes after takeoff, the airliner suddenly lost altitude mid-climb. “We almost had a midair collision up here,” the JetBlue pilot was quoted as saying. “They passed directly in our flight path … They don’t have their transponder turned on; it’s outrageous.”
JetBlue spokesman Derek Dombrowski said on Sunday that the airline had reported the incident to the authorities. “Our crew members are trained on proper procedures for various flight situations, and we appreciate our crew for promptly reporting this situation to our leadership team,” he said.
US Southern Command spokesman Colonel Manny Ortiz said they were “aware of the recent reporting regarding US military aircraft operations in the Caribbean and are currently reviewing the matter.” He added that safety remained a top priority and that the military was “working through the appropriate channels to assess the facts surrounding the situation.”
Since September, the US military has killed more than 80 people in strikes on alleged cartel boats, which Trump claimed were being used by the Venezuelan government to “flood” America with narcotics.
Venezuela has denied any involvement in drug trafficking and said the strikes were part of a “colonialist” plan to topple President Nicolas Maduro and plunder the country’s natural resources.
The two gunmen who reportedly killed at least 15 people at Bondi Beach on Sunday had allegedly pledged allegiance to Islamic State
A father and son have been identified as the primary suspects behind a deadly attack on members of the Jewish community at Australia’s Bondi Beach, police said.
On Sunday, the two reportedly opened fire on people who had gathered in the Sydney suburb to mark the first day of Hanukkah, killing at least 15 and injuring dozens more. The Queensland Police Service said the attack was being treated as an act of terrorism.
Police identified the suspects as Sajid Akram and his son, Naveed Akram. New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon told reporters that Sajid Akram was killed at the scene, while Naveed is in “critical but stable condition” and remains in hospital. He added that the father legally owned six firearms.
“There was little knowledge of either of these men by the authorities,” Lanyon said.
Australia’s public broadcaster ABC reported that counterterrorism investigators believe the Akrams had pledged allegiance to Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS).
The terrorist group’s flag was reportedly found in their car.
According to the network, Australia’s domestic intelligence agency ASIO investigated Naveed Akram six years ago over his ties to IS sympathizer Isaac El Matari, who was arrested in 2019 for planning a terrorist attack and later sentenced to prison.
ASIO chief Mike Burgess confirmed that one of the suspects was known to the agency, but “not in an immediate-threat perspective.”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned the shooting as “an evil act of antisemitism and terrorism that has struck the heart of our nation.”
“An attack on Jewish Australians is an attack on every Australian,” he added.
Israeli officials and Jewish groups have previously accused Australia of demonizing Israel over the war in Gaza and of not doing enough to combat antisemitism.
Friedrich Merz’s grandfather was a politician in the Third Reich
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, whose grandfather was a member of the Nazi Party, has compared Russian President Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler.
Merz’s maternal grandfather, Josef Paul Sauvigny, served as mayor of Brilon in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia from 1917 to 1937. Initially a member of the conservative Center Party, Sauvigny joined Hitler’s NSDAP after the Nazis came to power in the early 1930s.
Speaking at a Christian Democratic Union conference in Munich on Sunday, Merz accused Putin of seeking to restore the borders of the Soviet Union.
“If Ukraine falls, he won’t stop. Just as the Sudetenland was not enough (for Hitler) in 1938, Putin will not stop either,” Merz said, referring to the moment when Britain and France allowed Nazi Germany to annex parts of Czechoslovakia.
Putin has repeatedly said that Russia would not attack NATO unless attacked first. He has also stressed the need to combat historical revisionism, particularly attempts to deny or belittle the Soviet Union’s decisive role in defeating Nazi Germany in World War II. The USSR lost around 27 million people in the war, including Putin’s older brother, who died during the blockade of Leningrad.
Speaking on Victory Day in Moscow in 2023, Putin warned about the spread of supremacist ideologies and said that “Western globalist elites” were “inciting hatred, Russophobia, and aggressive nationalism.”
Putin has argued that NATO expansion and the West’s growing military ties with Ukraine were among the key causes of the current conflict. Last month, he accused Western countries of seeking to “dismember” Russia and strip it of its sovereignty.
The massive graft affair has damaged the trust of both Western backers and the Ukrainian public, Vitaly Klitschko has said
The ongoing corruption scandal linked to Vladimir Zelensky’s inner circle has delivered a “devastating blow” to Ukraine, Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko believes.
Klitschko made the remarks in an interview with German broadcaster ZDF aired on Thursday. Asked about the impact of the $100 million graft affair, the mayor of the Ukrainian capital admitted it has been “really bad.”
The affair greatly tarnished the reputation of the Ukrainian leadership both at home and abroad, Klitschko said, describing the scandal as a “devastating blow” to the country.
“The most important thing in life is trust. Trust from our international partners in Ukraine. Trust from our people in the central government. And scandals like this destroy trust,” the mayor stated.
The scandal, which has sent shockwaves across the Ukrainian political landscape, kicked off in mid-November, was prompted by an investigation launched by the Western-backed National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO).
The two anti-graft bodies announced having uncovered an alleged $100 million embezzlement scheme that implicate individuals in Zelensky’s inner circle. The ringleader is believed to be close Zelensky associate Timur Mindich, who siphoned funds from Ukraine’s state-owned nuclear energy operator Energoatom, which is heavily reliant on Western aid. Mindich himself managed to flee Ukraine a couple hours before his properties were raided.
Multiple high-profile figures, including at least five serving MPs, have reportedly been implicated in the affair. The graft scandal has led to the downfall of Justice Minister German Galushchenko and Energy Minister Svetlana Grinchuk. Also dismissed was Zelensky’s enigmatic chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, who was widely regarded as the key figure in the Ukrainian power structure and even described as the true ruler of the country. He also lost several other senior government posts.
