Russia launched one of the largest attacks on Kyiv in months, using approximately 500 drones and 40 missiles, including Kinzhal missiles. The attack killed 2 people and wounded at least 46, including two children. Over 1 million households in and around Kyiv lost power, and more than 40% of …
Trump administration officials notified Congress of plans to close six Voice of America overseas bureaus and four shortwave radio transmitters, defying federal court orders requiring VOA operations to resume. The closures will shut down VOA presence in Jakarta, Islamabad, Nairobi, Prague, and other …
On February 5, 2025, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the immediate dissolution of the KleptoCapture Task Force, a critical anti-corruption initiative established in 2022 to enforce sanctions on Russian oligarchs following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The shutdown marks a significant …
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, confirmed by a narrow 52-48 Senate vote, faces intense scrutiny over her 2017 secret meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and consistent pro-Russia positioning. Her minimal intelligence experience and controversial past have raised significant …
Cellebrite announces it will immediately halt all sales of its digital intelligence solutions and services to customers in the Russian Federation and Belarus, following revelations that its technologies were used by state officials to persecute opposition activists, minority groups, and LGBTQI+ …
Former National Security Council Russia expert Dr. Fiona Hill delivered searing testimony on November 21, 2019, exposing how Rudy Giuliani ran a shadow Ukraine policy for Trump’s “domestic political errand” that undermined U.S. national security and advanced Russian interests. …
President Trump announced via Twitter on July 28, 2019, that Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats would resign effective August 15, ending a tumultuous two-year tenure marked by fundamental conflicts over Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and ongoing threats to American …
Russian aluminum giant Rusal announces a $200 million investment in Kentucky’s Braidy Industries aluminum mill project, taking a 40 percent equity stake just three months after the Trump administration lifts sanctions on the company. Rusal was sanctioned in April 2018 because its major …
The New York Times publishes a major investigation by Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe titled ‘How McKinsey Has Helped Raise the Stature of Authoritarian Governments’ based on interviews with 40 current and former McKinsey employees and dozens of clients. The investigation reveals …
In a rare moment of unanimous Senate action, lawmakers voted 98-0 to approve a resolution rejecting Vladimir Putin’s proposal to interrogate U.S. officials—a direct and powerful rebuke of President Trump’s consideration of the Russian offer during the Helsinki summit. The vote …
One day after facing fierce bipartisan condemnation for siding with Vladimir Putin over U.S. intelligence agencies, President Donald Trump attempted damage control with an implausible claim that he had simply misspoken a single word during the Helsinki press conference. The walkback was widely …
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) revealed through the Paradise Papers investigation that U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur L. Ross Jr. maintained a stake in Navigator Holdings, a shipping firm that received millions of dollars annually from a Russian gas company whose …
Former Air Force veteran and NSA contractor Reality Leigh Winner was arrested for leaking a classified intelligence report documenting Russian cyberattacks on U.S. election infrastructure. Her case would result in the longest prison sentence ever imposed for an unauthorized release of government …
The day after firing FBI Director James Comey, President Trump met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Office and revealed highly classified code-word intelligence provided by Israel about an ISIS laptop bomb plot, jeopardizing a critical …
On August 14, 2016, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau revealed a secret “black ledger” documenting $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments from Ukraine’s former pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych’s party to Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s campaign …
On July 27, 2016, at a televised press conference, Donald Trump publicly called on Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” According to Mueller’s indictment of 12 GRU …
On July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks released 19,252 DNC emails and 8,034 attachments stolen by Russian GRU intelligence—strategically timed for maximum political damage just three days before the Democratic National Convention. The release, coordinated between Russian intelligence (via Guccifer 2.0), …
On June 15, 2016—just one day after CrowdStrike publicly disclosed that Russian intelligence had hacked the Democratic National Committee—the GRU launched the “Guccifer 2.0” persona and began releasing stolen DNC documents. The Mueller investigation later proved that Guccifer 2.0 was not …
On July 11, 2015, at the FreedomFest libertarian conference in Las Vegas, Russian intelligence operative Maria Butina publicly questioned presidential candidate Donald Trump about US sanctions on Russia. Trump responded that he knew Putin and believed they would “get along very nicely” …
Vladimir Putin orchestrated the illegal annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, violating international law and multiple treaties. The operation involved deploying unmarked Russian special forces, conducting a disputed referendum, and subsequently integrating Crimean territories into Russian control. The …
On November 9, 2013, Donald Trump brought the Miss Universe pageant to Moscow, held at Crocus City Hall owned by Aras Agalarov—a Russian billionaire known as “Putin’s Builder” with close Kremlin ties. During the event, Trump pursued meetings with Vladimir Putin (who sent a gift via …
Edward Snowden boarded an Aeroflot commercial flight from Hong Kong to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport on June 23, 2013, accompanied by Sarah Harrison of WikiLeaks, just days after the U.S. filed espionage charges and requested his extradition. The Hong Kong government allowed Snowden to leave …
The Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act was introduced in the US House of Representatives, targeting Russian officials responsible for human rights violations and corruption. Named after Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who exposed a $230 million tax fraud scheme and subsequently died in …
Boris Yeltsin resigned as President of Russia on December 31, 1999, elevating Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to Acting President six months before scheduled elections. The succession had been carefully engineered by Yeltsin’s oligarchic allies, known as ’the family,’ who began …
Vladimir Putin was appointed Prime Minister by Boris Yeltsin on August 9, 1999, marking a pivotal moment in Russia’s political transformation. At the time virtually unknown to the public, Putin was strategically positioned as Yeltsin’s potential successor. His appointment was part of a …
The Russian government under Premier Sergei Kiriyenko announced a sovereign debt default, devaluation of the ruble, and a 90-day moratorium on commercial external debt payments, marking the climax of Russia’s most serious economic crisis since the 1991 Soviet collapse. Three days after …
From 1998-2016, Deutsche Bank loaned Donald Trump and his companies over $2.5 billion despite Trump’s history of bankruptcies, defaults, and “Donald risk” that caused all other major US banks to refuse him. This lending relationship persisted even as Deutsche Bank was …
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) canceled most of its funding for Harvard’s Russia economic reform project after investigations revealed that top Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) officials Andrei Shleifer and Jonathan Hay had used their …
Boris Yeltsin won re-election as President of Russia in a stunning comeback victory engineered and bankrolled by a coalition of seven oligarchs who became known as the ‘Semibankirshchina’ (seven-banker outfit). Despite approval ratings below 10% earlier in the year, Yeltsin defeated …
The Russian government under President Boris Yeltsin implemented the ’loans-for-shares’ privatization scheme between November and December 1995, auctioning twelve of Russia’s most profitable industrial enterprises—including mining, steel, shipping, and oil companies—to a small …
The International Monetary Fund approved a $6.8 billion loan to Russia, the second largest loan the IMF had made at the time, following years of failed stabilization efforts and broken conditionality requirements. This was followed by an agreement in 1996 to provide a total of $10.2 billion over …
Russia launched the world’s largest privatization program, distributing vouchers worth 10,000 rubles each to approximately 148 million citizens, enabling the privatization of over 15,000 medium and large enterprises. The program was designed and implemented by Anatoly Chubais, chairman of the …
Russian President Boris Yeltsin ordered the liberalization of foreign trade, prices, and currency, launching the radical ‘shock therapy’ economic transformation designed by Deputy Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, a 35-year-old liberal economist advised by Harvard’s Jeffrey Sachs. The …
Harvard University’s Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) received a $40.4 million contract from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to provide advice on privatization and market reforms in post-Soviet Russia, awarded without normal competitive …
Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs became a formal economic advisor to Boris Yeltsin’s economic team in December 1991, after Yegor Gaidar—soon to be acting Prime Minister—contacted him in September requesting he come to Moscow to discuss Russia’s economic crisis. At that stage, Russia faced …