cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/16759425

https://t.me/astrapress/63733

Lithuania installed "dragon's teeth" and mines in front of the bridge on the border with the Kaliningrad region

"This is a precautionary step to ensure more effective defense," the Lithuanian Defense Ministry said on Twitter. The ministry explained that the Queen Louise Bridge is Russian property, so Lithuania cannot install "dragon's teeth" and mines on the bridge itself, but only in front of it.

Archived link

Archived link

Estonia has revealed that Moscow was behind a series of cyber attacks targeting several Estonian ministries in 2020, in a rare move that publically accuses another state actor of a cyber attack.

Four years after Estonian ministries’ IT services, including the foreign ministry, were hit by cyberattacks, Tallinn identified the members of Unit 29155 of Russia’s military intelligence service (GRU) as the perpetrators, the prosecutor’s office stated in a press release on Thursday (5 September).

This is the first time the Baltic country has attributed a cyber attack targeting the state to a perpetrator, the statement adds.

“The Prosecutor’s Office sought the arrest of three GRU officers and they are wanted internationally based on the arrest warrant issued by the Harju County Court,” a press release from the Foreign Ministry reads.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/41581791

Major Russian banks have called on the central bank to take action to counter a yuan liquidity deficit, which has led to the rouble tumbling to its lowest level since April against the Chinese currency and driven yuan swap rates into triple digits.

The rouble fell by almost 5% against the yuan on Sept. 4 on the Moscow Stock Exchange (MOEX) after the finance ministry's plans for forex interventions implied that the central bank's daily yuan sales would plunge in the coming month to the equivalent of $200 million.

The central bank had been selling $7.3 billion worth of yuan per day during the past month. The plunge coincided with oil giant Rosneft's 15 billion yuan bond placement, which also sapped liquidity from the market.

"We cannot lend in yuan because we have nothing to cover our foreign currency positions with," said Sberbank CEO German Gref, stressing that the central bank needed to participate more actively in the market. The yuan has become the most traded foreign currency on MOEX after Western sanctions halted exchange trade in dollars and euros, with many banks developing yuan-denominated products for their clients. Yuan liquidity is mainly provided by the central bank through daily sales and one-day yuan swaps, as well as through currency sales by exporting companies.

Chinese banks in Russia, meanwhile, are avoiding currency trading for fear of secondary Western sanctions.

Archived link

A spokesperson for Raiffeisen said that the Russian court move ruled out a sale of the bank, although they said it would have no impact on the Russian bank’s operations [...]

“We can still appoint management and give instructions to the Russians but we cannot sell the bank,” they said.

[...]

Although Italy’s UniCredit also has a business in Russia and is also under pressure to leave, RBI is far larger and has become a test of Western resolve to end ties with Russia.

Russian authorities had made it clear to RBI, which has around 2,600 corporate customers, 4 million local account holders and 10,000 staff, that they wish it to stay because it enables international payments,

[...]

RBI is a critical financial lifeline for millions of Russian customers who want to send euros or dollars abroad. Western regulators want this to change. The European Central Bank is demanding the bank pare back its Russia business.

With sprawling industrial holdings, more than 18 million customers from Vienna to Moscow and 44,000 staff, Raiffeisen is a financial linchpin for Austria and much of eastern Europe.

Russia has become an even bigger money spinner for the bank since the Ukraine war started in 2022. Russia accounted for about half of the group’s profits in the first three months of this year as fees on payments abroad spiked.

[...]

Archived link

Russian companies have been able to purchase spare parts for outdated microchip-making machines produced by Dutch tech giant ASML through Chinese intermediaries since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Dutch daily Trouw reported Wednesday, citing Russian customs data.

Small Russian importers reportedly obtained these parts at least 170 times between February 2022 and December 2023. Trouw noted that Russian trading firms continued to obtain “countless” spare parts on the secondary market.

The imported parts are suited for ASML machines built from the late 1990s and to the early 2000s, which, according to the report, remain “very useful for chips in everyday devices and weapons.”

Although tools from that era are not considered “dual use” — or technology with potential military applications — Trouw suggested they could still be used in the production of missiles, drones, tanks and military aircraft.

[...]

Two sanctioned Russian oligarchs have become part-owners of the UK's largest oil producer after it completed a deal to buy a German firm.

LetterOne, the investment company part-owned by oligarchs Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven, now owns nearly 15% of Harbour Energy.

LetterOne itself is not sanctioned, and the two Russians have no contact with the firm and don't receive any share of its profits.

Harbour Energy is the largest oil and gas producer in UK waters. It has bought most of the oil and gas production assets of a Germany-based firm, Wintershall DEA, from the chemicals giant BASF.

https://archive.is/LUjWU

Germany is blocking tighter restrictions on Russian spy-diplomats across Europe.

The Czech Republic has proposed ending free movement for Russian diplomats and their families in the European Union’s Schengen zone amid a series of Kremlin-inspired attacks.

Warehouses containing aid destined for Ukraine, arms factories supplying Kyiv and railway infrastructure heading east have all been targeted by Russia’s mounting hybrid war on the Continent, it is claimed.

Moscow has often deployed its intelligence officers in Europe under the guise of diplomatic postings.

The EU’s free-travel area, which spans 29 countries, is “easing malign activities” across the bloc, Jan Lipasvsky, the Czech foreign minister, wrote in a recent letter to Josep Borrell, Brussels’ top foreign diplomat.

Mr Lipasvsky, backed by eight EU counterparts, urged Brussels to “restrict the movement of Russian diplomats and their family members to the territory of a state of their accreditation only”.

[...]

European diplomats who spoke to The Telegraph and diplomatic notes seen by this publication revealed that Germany is a key blockage to the proposed crackdown.

It prompted allegations that Berlin’s government is attempting to foster relations with Russia, despite promises to end its reliance on previously cheap Russian energy supplies.

“Germany has the approach of returning to business as usual with Russia and they think this is escalatory,” a diplomat said.

I feel secure in the capital. An hour’s drive away, white-pride tattoos remind me that we Berliners can’t take our safe, hedonistic lives for granted any more

Archived link

When men go to pee in a public toilet they spend a minute gazing at the wall in front of them, in what many advertisers have seized upon as an opportunity to put up posters of their products above the stinking urinals.

But in terms of framing, you'd better ask yourself: is this really what I want my brand to be associated with?

You might well think twice if you were selling ice cream or toothpaste, so what if your poster was Ursula von der Leyen's face selling EU values?

Because that's the kind of environment in which the European Commission president, other top EU officials, and national EU leaders are posting their images and comments every day when they use X to communicate with press and the EU public.

Even the toilet analogy is too kind.

There was already lots of toxic crap on X before the summer of 2024.

**Racist, antisemitic, and homophobic content had "surged", according to a January study by US universities. **

**X had more Russian propaganda than any other big social media, an EU report warned in 2023. **

**Porn was 13 percent of X in late 2022, according to internal documents seen by Reuters. **

But this summer, with the failed assassination of Donald Trump in the US and the UK race riots, X's CEO Elon Musk turbocharged his platform into an overflowing sewer of bigotry, nihilism, and greed.

As I tried to follow the UK riots from Brussels using X, time and again, I saw von der Leyen's carefully-coiffed Christian Democrat torso issuing some polite EU statement, while sandwiched on my laptop screen between video-clips getting off on anti-migrant violence, pro-Russian bots, and OnlyFans links.

Musk's algorithms pushed pro-riot content so hard down users' throats it prompted a transatlantic UK government rebuke and talk of legal sanctions.

Tommy Robinson, a leading British racist, got over 430 million views for his X posts, for instance.

Andrew Tate, Britain's top misogynist, got 15 million views for one X post inciting rioters.

And the biggest turd in the cesspit - Musk's own avatar - also kept appearing next to von der Leyen and other EU leaders on my screen, as the US tech baron ranted about "civil war" in the UK, pushed pro-Trump conspiracy theories, or told EU commissioner Thierry Breton to "literally fuck your own face".

Musk's summer coincided with France's arrest of a Russian tech CEO, Pavel Durov, in August on suspicion he condoned the sale of child pornography and drugs on his Telegram platform.

The European Commission also started legal proceedings against X in July over misleading and illegal content, in a process that could see Musk fined hundreds of millions of euros.

But aside from the grand issues of how to regulate social media without stymying free speech or privacy, EU leaders could do something a lot simpler and closer to home for the sake of public mental health - just switch to any other less sleazy platform instead.

You could do it tomorrow with one email to your tech staff and for all the stupid content on Instagram, for example, at least your face won't keep flashing up next to racist glee and naked tits on your constituents' screens.

Von der Leyen has 1.5 million X followers, French president Emmanuel Macron has 9.8 million, while Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez and Polish prime minister Donald Tusk have 1.9 million each.

EU leaders could also do something a lot simpler and closer to home for the sake of public mental health - just switch to any other less sleazy platform instead

But please don't worry, not all journalists or the general public are that dumb yet, most of us will find you and follow you because politics is genuinely important.

And we will thank you for giving us one more reason to get off X ourselves, because so long as you use it as your main outlet for news updates you are dragging us along with you.

My initial analogy of advertising in a public toilet was designed to show the importance of semiotics in political PR - it matters where you speak, not just what you say.

The analogy also holds good for those who worry that if normal leaders and media abandoned toxic platforms, then extremism would grow in its own exclusive online world.

It's just good public hygiene to bury our sewage pipes, instead of letting people empty their buckets out of the window onto our heads.

But if you prefer to hold your nose and stay on X, consider also that you are damaging not just your own brand but also causing financial and political harm in real life.

Financial hurt, because if you help make people reliant on X for news, then greater use of Musk's platform makes people like him, Robinson, and Tate ever richer via X's monetisation schemes for viral content.

Political injury, because to the extent that von der Leyen, Macron, or Sánchez possess real importance, they help to aggrandise Musk, Tate, and Robinson by continuously appearing alongside them in X's hyper-curated online space.

And so if you should worry that urinals below your face might put people off, then the situation is actually worse than that.

Your presence on X is also helping to pay for the muck to flow and the toilet owner is using you to sell it to the world.

The journalists spoke witih Chinese students in Amsterdam.

Dialogue with green groups results in agreement on ‘urgent, ambitious and feasible’ reforms in agriculture

Archived link

Hungary batting for the other side on Ukraine, Estonia foreign minister says

Viktor Orban's Hungary is not aligned with the majority of western countries on Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine, and could even be said to be siding with the opposing camp, Minister of Foreign Affairs Margus Tsahkna has conceded.

Speaking to ETV show "Välisilm" on Monday evening, the minister said: "Unfortunately, it is really the case that Orban has started 'batting for the opposing team' on this particular matter."

"I think he is speaking to his own voters in Hungary, and so is far removed from what we have agreed upon in Europe," Tsahkna added.

As to the EU's limited ability to act against Hungary, given that it currently holds the EU presidency, the minister responded, "There is still something we can do."

"The EU Treaty's Article 7 procedure has been initiated, which may result in the suspension of a member state's voting rights."

"I am certainly not optimistic on this though, because it requires the consent of all 26 other member states, though at least we want right now to to create a situation in the near future whereby 21 countries can move forward with this process."