Tag: Russia

Turkey’s foreign minister on Thursday accused Sweden of being complicit in a “hate and racist crime” for failing to prevent weekend protests in Stockholm by an anti-Islam and pro-Kurdish groups. Mevlut Cavusoglu also confirmed that a key meeting in Brussels to discuss Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership has been postponed, saying such a meeting would have been “meaningless” in the…

Defence Minister Anita Anand says she has “no news to share” on whether Canada is willing to send some of its battle tanks to Ukraine — should Germany greenlight the export — following a meeting of 50 allied defence leaders this week. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly issued pleas for tanks, although members of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group…

A former high-ranking member of the Russian private military contractor Wagner Group seeking asylum in Norway is in custody on suspicion of entering the Scandinavian country illegally, authorities said Monday. Russian Andrey Medvedev “has been arrested under the Immigration Act and it is being assessed whether he should be produced for detention,” Jon Andreas Johansen of Norwegian immigration police told…

A former Special Agent in Charge of the FBI New York Counterintelligence Division and a former Soviet and Russian diplomat were arrested Saturday on criminal charges related to their alleged violating and conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and conspiring to commit money laundering and money laundering.

Two businessmen, Vladislov Ospiov, 51, a dual Russian and Swiss national, and Richard Masters, 52, a United Kingdom national, are charged in separate indictments unsealed today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, with facilitating a sanctions evasion and money laundering scheme in relation to the ownership and operation of the Motor Yacht (M/Y) Tango (International Maritime Organization number 1010703), a $90 million, 255-foot luxury yacht owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg.

A complaint was unsealed this morning in federal court in Brooklyn charging Anatoly Legkodymov, a Russian national and senior executive of Bitzlato Ltd. (Bitzlato), a Hong Kong-registered cryptocurrency exchange, with conducting a money transmitting business that transported and transmitted illicit funds and that failed to meet U.S. regulatory safeguards, including anti-money laundering requirements. Legkodymov was arrested last night in Miami…

Britain’s government stood accused Wednesday of actively undermining talks with union leaders in a bid to encourage strike action and depress workers’ wages across the economy. The government was hoping for a public backlash, to justify newly introduced legislation that would force unions to provide a “minimum service” in public sectors, railway union leaders said. The allegation came as ambulance…

German authorities said on Thursday they had arrested an employee of its foreign intelligence service (BND) on suspicion of sharing state secrets with Russia this year and thereby committing treason. Police arrested the suspect, a German citizen identified as Carsten L, on Wednesday in Berlin, the federal prosecutors office said. It said police also raided his flat and workplace as…

The Kremlin on Thursday accused Kyiv and Washington of turning a deaf ear to its concerns and charged the United States was using Ukraine as a battleground to weaken Russia. It came as President Vladimir Putin insisted Russia was aiming for a speedy end to the fighting. “Our goal is… to end this conflict. We are striving for this”, he…

Turkey on Tuesday lashed out at Sweden’s refusal to extradite a top reporter that Ankara has demanded in exchange for its ratification of Stockholm’s NATO membership bid. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants Sweden to return dozens of people that he suspects either of involvement in a failed 2016 coup or of membership of a banned Kurdish militia that Washington and…

North Korea said Monday it fired a test satellite in an important final-stage test for the development of its first spy satellite, a key military capability coveted by its leader Kim Jong Un along with other high-tech weapons systems. The North’s official Korean Central News Agency also released low-resolution, black-and-white photos showing a space view of the South Korean capital…

Danske Bank A/S (Danske Bank), a global financial institution headquartered in Denmark, pleaded guilty today and agreed to forfeit $2 billion to resolve the United States’ investigation into Danske Bank’s fraud on U.S. banks. According to court documents, Danske Bank defrauded U.S. banks regarding Danske Bank Estonia’s customers and anti-money laundering controls to facilitate access to the U.S. financial system…

Publicly filed court documents, including a 16-count indictment unsealed today in Brooklyn, charge five Russian nationals – including a suspected Federal Security Service (FSB) officer – and two U.S. nationals with conspiracy and other charges related to a global procurement and money laundering scheme on behalf of the Russian government in which the defendants allegedly conspired to obtain military-grade and…

The investigation and enforcement of potential sanctions violations by crypto exchanges is an area of focus in the US at present.  The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control’s (OFAC) recent settlement with Kraken, a global virtual currency exchange, is the most recent OFAC case demonstrating the risks for virtual currency platforms that process transactions without comprehensive…

States must apply effective arms-control measures to prevent the diversion of weapons supplied to Ukraine, a senior United Nations official told the Security Council today, as some Council members defended their decision to continue providing military support to Kyiv while others detailed the danger of doing so. Izumi Nakamitsu, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, said that the transfer of materiel…