- Beijing dislikes Taiwan's new President William Lai and his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which they see as pro-independence. It has ramped up military incursions around Taiwan's waters and airspace since his election win in January.

- The situation, closely watched by Taiwan's allies, is, according to Lai, the "greatest strategic challenge to global peace and stability". But the 64-year-old also stuck closely to the formula used by his predecessor president Tsai Ing-wen, whose legacy will be defined by her cautious but steady handling of Beijing.

- At home, Mr Lai also faces big challenges due to unemployment and rising cost of living. Taiwan's economy is seen to be heavily dependent on its hugely successful semiconductor industry - it supplies more than half the world's chips.--

Taiwan's newly inaugurated president William Lai has called on China to stop threatening the island and accept the existence of its democracy.

He urged Beijing to replace confrontation with dialogue, shortly after being sworn in on Monday.

He also said Taiwan would never back down in the face of intimidation from China, which has long claimed the island as its own.

China responded by saying, "Taiwan independence is a dead end".

"Regardless of the pretext or the banner under which it is pursued, the push for Taiwan independence is destined to fail," China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at the daily press briefing on Monday afternoon.

Beijing dislikes Mr Lai and his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which they see as pro-independence. And it has ramped up military incursions around Taiwan's waters and airspace since his election win in January.

Such military incursions by China have become a routine affair in the past few years, triggering fears of conflict. In his speech, Mr Lai called this the "greatest strategic challenge to global peace and stability".

But the 64-year-old also stuck closely to the formula used by his predecessor president Tsai Ing-wen, whose legacy will be defined by her cautious but steady handling of Beijing.

Mr Lai, a doctor turned politician, won a three-way presidential race in January, securing an unprecedented third term for his. He had served as Ms Tsai's vice-president since 2020, and before that as her premier. In his younger days, he was known to be a more radical politician who openly called for Taiwanese independence, much to Beijing's ire. It labelled him a "troublemaker" ahead of the polls, and Chinese state media even suggested he should be prosecuted for secession.

The Chinese government is yet to issue a statement on Mr Lai's inauguration. However, the Chinese embassy in the UK held a press briefing over the weekend, asking the UK government to not endorse it. And earlier last week, a spokesperson for China's Taiwan Affairs Office warned that the island's new leader "must seriously" consider the question of whether he wants peaceful development or confrontation.

And just as Mr Lai was being sworn in, China's Commerce Ministry announced sanctions against several US companies "involved in arms sales to Taiwan".

But on Monday, Mr Lai struck a far more conciliatory note. He reiterated he would not do anything to change the status quo - an ambiguous diplomatic status, which doesn't recognise Taiwan as a country despite its constitution and sovereign government. China insists on this and accuses major Taiwan allies such as the US of altering this delicate agreement by supporting the island.

Vowing peace and stability, Mr Lai also said he would like to see a re-opening of exchanges across the Taiwan straits including Chinese tourist groups coming to Taiwan. But he said people on the island must not be under any illusion about the threat from China and that Taiwan must further strengthen its defences.

This too was a continuation of Tsai's policy. Taiwan's former president believed that strengthening defence and earning the support of key allies such as the US and Japan was key to deterring China's plans of invasion. Her biggest critics say this military investment risks provoking China, making Taiwan even more vulnerable.

Nevertheless, yearly defence spending increased up to about $20bn (£16bn) under Ms Tsai, and Mr Lai has pledged even more funds. Taiwan has purchased new battle tanks, upgraded its fleet of F-16 fighter jets and bought new ones, and has built and launched a fleet of new missile ships to patrol the 100-mile Taiwan strait. Last September came the completion of what Ms Tsai considers the crowning achievement of her military program: Taiwan's first indigenously developed submarine.

Taiwan's own allies are watching closely too, to see if his rhetoric is likely to aggravate tensions further. Mr Lai's caution was also aimed at his American audience. His vice-president Hsiao Bi-Khim, widely believed to be Ms Tsai's protege, is yet another source of assurance for Washington. The 52-year-old was born in Japan and mostly grew up in the US, where she also served as Taiwan's representative for three years.

Mr Lai also faces big challenges at home. Unemployment and cost of living cost the DPP the youth vote in January, and Taiwan's economy is seen to be heavily dependent on its hugely successful semiconductor industry - it supplies more than half the world's chips

And a divided parliament, where the DPP no longer has a majority, is likely to deny him a honeymoon period. The differences spilled into the spotlight over the weekend when lawmakers were caught brawling in parliament over proposed reforms. The bitter dispute and the protests that followed marred Mr Lai's address.

But how he deals with Beijing will be the biggest question that will determine his presidency, especially as both sides have had no formal communication since 2016.

Lawyer Hsu Chih-ming who attended the inaugurations told BBC Chinese that Taiwan had fared quite well under Ms Tsai but added that there is a need to maintain "good communications" with China.

"Lai said he was a 'practical worker for Taiwan independence'. I hope he wouldn't emphasise this too much and worsen cross-strait relations," he said. "Otherwise all of us wouldn't be able to escape if a war broke out."

As night fell over the Indian Ocean, Li thought he would die in his boat.

It had been four days since he and nine other men from China boarded the small wooden vessel in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta and headed to Australia.

Li was told by the so-called "agent" who sold him the place on the boat that the trip would only take four days.

But as the sun set on the fourth day, strong winds and huge waves saw the group still floating on the ocean, with Li feeling nauseous and hopeless.

And the worst was yet to come.

Two engines broke down. Perilous waves hit the boat again and again. The only pump in the ship stopped working. Water leaked from beneath the floors.

Li took out his phone and started to draft his last words.

In the message, he apologised to his wife and child for being too busy with work in the past few years, and for not taking good care of them.

"I was hoping that if I didn't make it through, then maybe someone could find my phone one day and know who I am," he told the ABC.

Somehow, after eight stormy nights, the boat came ashore on the northern tip of Western Australia. They had made it, but in many ways, their journey was only just beginning.

Exhausted and thirsty, the group of men decided to look for water. They broke up into smaller groups, and one of those groups accidentally walked into the unfenced Truscott air base.

What happened next hit national headlines, reviving a fierce debate about border security and boat arrivals that has vexed successive federal governments for decades.

Chinese nationals trying to reach Australia by boat has been a phenomenon rarely seen until this year.

The ABC can confirm at least three groups of Chinese nationals have travelled or planned to travel to Australia by boat via Indonesia this year.

Only Li's boat made it to Australian shores.

The latest group was found on May 8. Their fishing boat, carrying six Chinese men on board — including an alleged smuggler — was intercepted by Indonesian authorities as they tried to make their way to Australia.

Indonesia's Immigration Agency has confirmed one people smuggler from Bangladesh has been arrested, and two Indonesian field operators have been sentenced to seven years in jail for people smuggling.

Indonesian authorities also revealed that the people smugglers used TikTok to lure in the Chinese nationals and get them to set sail for Australia.

Li and the other men on board the boat that reached Western Australia have been detained at an offshore processing facility in Nauru for more than a month.

But their story is not just about border security and people smuggling.

It speaks to an emerging trend of Chinese nationals risking death for what they say is a chance at a better life abroad.

Why these men spent $10,000 each to reach Australia

The ABC has been in contact with three men — including Li — who have been detained at the Nauru Detention Centre since wandering into the WA air base.

The ABC has used pseudonyms to protect their identities.

For Li, who is in his early 30s, travelling to Australia by boat was a last resort after being continuously frustrated by what had happened in China since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020.

Even after the lockdowns were lifted, the Chinese economy continued to suffer. Li's business went bankrupt and he was left with huge debts.

He said he also felt discouraged by China's political atmosphere after President Xi Jinping began his third term of leadership and tightened his control over society.

"I found my life in China too stressful, with limited freedom," he said.

"I want to come to Australia as it's more humane and free."

Zhang, another Chinese man in his late 30s who is also detained in Nauru, said his reasons for leaving were similar.

"I also ran a business before but due to the broader environment I now owed lots of debts," Zhang said.

Zhang also said he suffered political oppression for refusing to bribe officials.

Li and Zhang never met before boarding the boat in Jakarta. However, they both say they had been browsing on social media platforms Xiaohongshu and Douyin — the Chinese version of TikTok — looking for ways to leave their country.

They spotted advertisements about smuggling operations to Australia via boat in comment sections.

They were then added to a chat group.

"We then found out lots of people want to come to Australia but their visa applications were rejected," Li said.

"We still wanted to come to Australia and gradually we decided to take a risk."

They paid an agent about $10,000 per person for the journey.

Under the agent's instructions, they took a plane to Jakarta, then waited until sundown to get into the boat.

The men say it took them eight days to get from Jakarta to the WA coast by boat

The smugglers never told the 10 Chinese men they could be taken to Nauru, where Australia's offshore immigration detention centre is based.

"We were not aware of this at all," Li said.

"What we only knew is that there'd be two possibilities awaiting us if we travelled by boat: We either got intercepted before coming ashore or we landed successfully and then applied for visas based on our individual situations, such as applying for asylum."

Fang, another Chinese man from the boat, also said he was not aware of Australia's immigration policy and the existence of offshore detention centres.

The 30-year-old Chinese national told the ABC that he was working in a steel factory in Malaysia.

He also came across information about boat travel on Chinese social media. When he boarded the vessel, he was still yet to resign from the factory.

"I have travelled to Australia in the past and I quite like the country," Fang said.

"I want to come here to make some money. Life has been difficult."

In a statement to the ABC, a spokesperson for Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu said it prohibited using the platform for illegal activity.

"Upon discovering such violations, the company will remove the content and take action against the account," the spokesperson said.

The ABC has also reached out to ByteDance — the parent company of Douyin — for comment but is yet to receive a response.

**The treacherous 'walking route' to the US **

The ABC is unable to independently verify Li, Zhang and Fang's claims.

And the men could not provide any documents to the ABC because their possessions, including their phones, were taken from them at the Truscott air base.

However, their stories — including how they used Douyin and Xiaohongshu to find ways to enter Australia without visas — heavily overlap those emerging from the US border in the past two years.

Since late 2021, there has been a dramatic rise in undocumented Chinese nationals entering the US through Mexico — a route often used by people from Central America.

According to data from US border authorities, more than 37,000 Chinese nationals were arrested on the US-Mexico border in 2023 — 10 times more than the previous year.

Many of these Chinese nationals used Douyin — where Li, Zhang and Fang found information about the boat travel — to record how they travelled from China to the US without a visa.

They often go to Hong Kong or Macau, take a plane to Turkey, and then fly to Ecuador, where Chinese passport holders can enter the country without visas.

From there, they walk through the Darien Gap — one of the most dangerous jungles in the world — all the way north to Mexico.

They call this journey "the Walking Route" and it takes about a month to complete.

Tracy Wen Liu, an award-winning journalist now working for Voice Of America — a US government-funded broadcaster — has been documenting the phenomenon since 2022.

She said the people she spoke to who followed the Walking Route were often from a lower- to middle-class background, with about $30,000 to support themselves as they left China.

"A lot of them actually have had some sort of college education or even had a job in China," Ms Liu said.

She said they tended to be young — between 20 and 40 years old — and they were familiar with using social media to look for information or document their journey.

And Chinese nationals' growing demand for the route had inspired a new business model in Mexico, Ms Liu said.

New Chinese restaurants, hostels and car rental services are being set up by locals to serve these new customers.

"There are an increasing number of agents trying to offer packages to people who are taking this route," Ms Liu said.

"Those agents can arrange transportation for these people or they can even help bribe local police or help bribe local gangsters to make this trip much less risky."

Still, the route is full of danger.

In late March, a group of eight Chinese nationals were found dead on a beach in Mexico.

This is the first known case of Chinese migrant deaths since the Walking Route became popular in 2021.

Why are Chinese nationals leaving their country?

It's rare to see people from China — a middle-income country — opting for illegal migration pathways to leave, according to Victor Shih, an associate professor in Chinese political science at the University of California, San Diego.

"Usually this kind of sizeable economic migration would stop when a country reaches middle-income status, which China reached a few years ago," Dr Shih said.

"Of course, even in middle-income countries, people try to leave sometimes for better economic opportunities, but mainly relying on legal channels, like studying overseas and then getting a work visa."

Dr Shih said the growing use of the Walking Route spoke to the economic downturn in China in the past few years, as well as the increasingly challenging business environment.

"During COVID, a lot of small businesses had their savings wiped out because the lockdown policy just led to no cash flows," Dr Shih said when asked why business owners such as Li and Zhang would take such risks to leave China.

"Many of them, also, in order to survive their businesses, borrowed a lot of money, either through formal banking channels or informal lending channels.

"But because of the weakness of the recovery, many of these businesspeople were not able to make enough money to repay their debt."

And that is when their economic struggles turn political.

"In China, because of how pervasive the credit system is … if you get a low score on the credit system, some of these people are not able to even ride a train," Dr Shih said.

"So that makes doing business — to start a new business in order to repay some of their debts — nearly impossible."

After COVID-19 restrictions were lifted in 2022, Beijing announced measures such as tax cuts to boost the economy. However, Dr Shih said "that doesn't really help" with the cash flow situation.

"The other problem is that many local governments are basically bankrupt, so some local governments have instituted informal taxes on small businesses," he said.

Many Chinese people — from the elite to the middle class — have lost their optimism, according to Dali Yang, a China political economist at the University of Chicago.

"We do see this year, for example, finally, the uptake in domestic tourism [in China]," he said.

"But at the same time, for people who have lost a lot of money in recent years, it's not like they can easily get back the money, and very often they may have exhausted their savings."

Data from China's Central Bank released last week also shows China's manufacturing and services sector has slowed at a time of weak domestic demand and possible deflation.

"The latest figure [from the Central Bank] also just simply reveals that people don't find a lot of opportunities for making investments in China at this moment," Professor Yang said.

The new reality after leaving China

In the US, journalist Tracy Wen Liu has stayed in touch with Chinese nationals who have risked their lives on the Walking Route to enter the US.

She has found those who can speak some English and drive can adapt to American culture more easily.

"I think a lot of them are struggling as well," she said.

She has also noticed many Walking Route migrants have chosen to settle in big cities such as New York and Los Angeles, and many of them are competing for the same jobs.

"It's more and more difficult for them to find a job right now, and also hostels or hotels in those areas are getting more and more expensive because there's an increase in demand," she said.

She has also found some of the Walking Route migrants have returned to China.

"A lot of Chinese migrants, when they were living in China … they had a perception about life in the US, [like] it's very easy to make money in the States, it's very nice to live there, it's very convenient and prosperous," she said.

"However, when they actually came to the US, when they live in those hostels and share a room with 10 other people, when they work 14 hours a day, seven days a week and make a salary that's much lower than the minimum salary by law because they don't have a status … I think a lot of them realise that it's actually really difficult to find a living in the States."

Both China and the US have tried to crack down on the flow of migrants.

In April, Douyin — where many Chinese migrants search for information about the Walking Route — censored relevant videos on the platform.

The two countries have also reportedly resumed cooperation on repatriation to tackle Chinese migrants rushing to the southern border of the United States.

Meanwhile, in Nauru, the 10 Chinese men who sought a better life in Australia face an uncertain fate.

Fang chose to return to Malaysia and continue his work there. However, Li and Zhang want to try to stay in Australia.

"After going through what happened at home, I don't want to go back to China," Liu said.

"I came to Australia because it's a free country. It has human rights. It gives people freedom, both physically and mentally."

The nine Chinese men say Australian immigration officials offered them $US5,100 (about $7,600) per person and a return ticket if they agreed to go back to China.

During their stays in Nauru, they took English lessons, went through various health checks, and had time for exercise.

As the men barely spoke any English, they communicated with officers from the centre through mobile translation apps, and when they had meetings with police and the immigration department, there was an interpreting hotline set up for them.

But what they had been hoping for was access to legal aid.

Li said the centre told them they would have a legal aid session in late April, but they told the ABC they were unable to meet with a lawyer until May 17.

They are becoming more anxious as the days pass.

Two sources inside the Nauru Detention Centre told the ABC that one of the Chinese men has been on a hunger strike since Wednesday, demanding to be sent to Australia.

The sources say he is in a good condition.

Li occasionally calls his wife using the phone provided by the centre.

"My family is quite worried but they are also supportive," he said.

He also has a young child but in the past few weeks has tried not to speak to them directly.

"I worry that I will get emotional," he explained.

In a statement to the ABC, the Department of Home Affairs said people who attempted to travel to Australia by boat without a valid Australian visa had "zero chance of settling in Australia".

"Australia's policy response remains consistent — unauthorised maritime arrivals will not settle in Australia," a spokesman for the department said.

"The government of Nauru is responsible for the implementation of regional processing arrangements in Nauru, including the management of individuals under those arrangements."

The ABC has contacted the Chinese embassy in Australia for comment but is yet to receive a response.

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Kallas argued that the fears of NATO allies about sending troops to Ukraine to train soldiers drawing them into a war with Russia are unfounded. She mentioned that some NATO member states are discussing the possibility of sending military instructors or contractors to Ukraine to train troops and assist with equipment repairs. Kyiv has requested assistance from the U.S. and other NATO countries to train 150,000 soldiers closer to the front lines. Kallas emphasized that it is essential to train Ukrainian troops on their own territory and that if any personnel were to be hurt, it would not automatically trigger NATO’s Article 5 on mutual defense. Macron’s comments in February sparked the debate about the potential presence of NATO troops in Ukraine, but many countries have not ruled out sending troops for non-combat missions such as training the Ukrainian military.

Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur stated on May 14 that the concept of sending Western troops to Ukraine has not progressed in Estonia or at the EU level due to a lack of clear understanding among allies of the potential outcomes. Macron mentioned that he would consider sending troops to Ukraine in the event of a Russian breakthrough and a request from Ukraine. However, he clarified that such conditions did not currently exist. The U.S. and multiple European allies, along with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, have distanced themselves from Macron’s statement. While some countries have not ruled out the possibility of sending troops for non-combat missions, there is no clear consensus regarding this among NATO allies.

Kallas noted that some countries are already training soldiers on the ground in Ukraine at their own risk. She believes that assisting in the training of Ukrainian troops on their own territory, rather than elsewhere in Europe, will not escalate the war with Russia. Kallas dismissed the idea that if training personnel were to be hurt, those who sent them would immediately invoke Article 5 of mutual defense and retaliate against Russia. The debate surrounding the potential presence of NATO troops in Ukraine has been ongoing since Macron’s comments in February. Despite some countries considering sending troops for non-combat missions, there is no unanimous agreement among NATO allies on this matter.

The discussions about sending military instructors or contractors to Ukraine to train troops and assist with equipment repairs have raised concerns among NATO allies about being drawn into a conflict with Russia. Kallas maintained that these fears are not well-founded and emphasized the importance of training Ukrainian troops on their own territory rather than in Europe. She pointed out that if any training personnel were to be harmed, it would not automatically trigger NATO’s mutual defense clause. Macron’s suggestion of sending troops to Ukraine in certain conditions has not been widely supported by other NATO allies, and the idea has not advanced at the EU level. The debate around the potential presence of NATO troops in Ukraine remains ongoing, with differing opinions among member states.

In conclusion, the issue of sending NATO troops to Ukraine for training purposes remains a topic of debate among member states. While some countries are considering the possibility of sending troops for non-combat missions, others are more cautious due to concerns about being drawn into a conflict with Russia. Kallas emphasized the importance of training Ukrainian soldiers on their own territory and highlighted the lack of consensus among NATO allies on this matter. The discussions sparked by Macron’s comments in February have not led to concrete action, and the idea of sending Western troops to Ukraine has not made progress. As the situation continues to evolve, it remains to be seen how NATO will navigate its involvement in Ukraine and respond to the ongoing conflict in the region.

Estonian MPs passed a law that enables the use of Russian assets frozen under international sanctions to compensate Ukraine for war damages.

The president must now promulgate the legislation for it to enter into force.

It enables assets of individuals and companies that have contributed to Russia's wrongful acts, which have been frozen under sanctions, as an advance payment for damages owed by Russia to Ukraine.

To seize Russian assets, Estonia would need to receive a request, and the connection of their owner to illegal acts must be sufficiently proven. The asset owner can challenge their use for Ukraine in Estonian courts.

Estonia's move is seen as an important first step as the vast majority of Russia's frozen and largely euro-denominated sovereign assets, which are worth €300 billion, are located in Europe.

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- A St Petersburg court seized more than EUR 463mn in assets belonging to Italy's UniCredit and EUR 238mn belonging to Germany's Deutsche Bank.

- The court also seized assets of Germany's Commerzbank, but the details of the decision have not yet been made public so the value of the seizure is not known.

- The moves follow a claim from Ruskhimalliance, a subsidiary of Gazprom , the Russian oil and gas giant that holds a monopoly on pipeline gas exports.--

A St Petersburg court has seized over EUR700 mln worth of assets belonging to three western banks - UniCredit, Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank - according to court documents, the Financial Times and Reuters reported Saturday.

The seizure marks one of the biggest moves against western lenders since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 prompted most international lenders to wind down their businesses in Russia.

The moves follow a claim from Ruskhimalliance, a subsidiary of Gazprom , the Russian oil and gas giant that holds a monopoly on pipeline gas exports.

The court seized EUR463mn-worth of assets belonging to Italy's UniCredit, equivalent to about 4.5 per cent of its assets in the country, according to the latest financial statement from the bank's main Russian subsidiary.

The frozen assets include shares in subsidiaries of UniCredit in Russia as well as stocks and funds it owned, according to the court decision that was dated May 16 and was published in the Russian registrar on Friday.

According to another decision on the same date, the court seized EUR238.6mn-worth of Deutsche Bank's assets, including property and holdings in its accounts in Russia.

The court also ruled that the bank cannot sell its business in Russia. The court agreed with Rukhimallians that the measures were necessary because the bank was "taking measures aimed at alienating its property in Russia".

On Friday, the court decided to seize Commerzbank assets, but the details of the decision have not yet been made public so the value of the seizure is not known.

The dispute with the western banks began in August 2023 when Ruskhimalliance went to an arbitration court in St Petersburg demanding they pay bank guarantees under a contract with the German engineering company Linde. The banks were among the guarantor lenders under a contract for the construction of a gas processing plant in Russia with Germany's Linde which was terminated due to Western sanctions.

Ruskhimalliance is the operator of a gas processing plant and production facilities for liquefied natural gas in Ust-Luga near St Petersburg. In July 2021, it signed a contract with Linde for the design, supply of equipment and construction of the complex. A year later, Linde suspended work owing to EU sanctions.

Ruskhimalliance then turned to the guarantor banks, which refused to fulfil their obligations because "the payment to the Russian company could violate European sanctions", the company said in the court filing.

The list of guarantors also includes Bayerische Landesbank and Landesbank Baden-Württemberg, against which Ruskhimalliance has also filed lawsuits in the St Petersburg court.

UniCredit said it had been made aware of the filing and "only assets commensurate with the case would be in scope of the interim measure".

Deutsche Bank said it was "fully protected by an indemnification from a client" and had taken a provision of about EUR260mn alongside a "corresponding reimbursement asset" in its accounts to cover the Russian lawsuit.

Commerzbank did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Italy's foreign minister has called a meeting on Monday to discuss the seizures affecting UniCredit, two people with knowledge of the plans told the Financial Times.

UniCredit is one of the largest European lenders in Russia [it is the second largest Western bank in Russia after Austria's Raiffeisen Bank International], employing more than 3,000 people through its subsidiary there. This month the Italian bank reported that its Russian business had made a net profit of EUR213mn in the first quarter, up from EUR99mn a year earlier. It has set aside more than EUR800mn in provisions and has significantly cut back its loan portfolio.

Legal challenges over assets held by western banks have complicated their efforts to extricate themselves. Last month, a Russian court ordered the seizure of more than $400mn of funds from JPMorgan Chase (JPM) following a legal challenge by Kremlin-run lender VTB. A court subsequently cancelled part of the planned seizure, Reuters reported.

When Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan's President who soon leaves office after eight years and hands over to her successor William Lai, swept to power in 2016, she was dismissed as a dull bureaucrat. But she stood up to an increasingly authoritarian and aggressive China under Xi Jinping; she held on to a vital US alliance under Donald Trump and buttressed it under Joe Biden. At home, she expanded the island’s defence and legalised same-sex marriage, the latter a first for Asia.

Good examples of the brand Taiwan – a democracy that the world should care about losing. “People say we are more important than Ukraine - strategically our position is more important and our place in the supply chain - and that they should shift support to Taiwan. We say no. The democratic countries need to support Ukraine,” Tsai says.

Rather than Taiwan’s wildly successful chip industry, which could be replicated, instead Tsai wields the one thing she has and the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t: the soft power of democracy. --

It is a well-known fact that the diminutive, soft-spoken president of Taiwan does not like doing interviews.

It’s taken months of quiet negotiations to sit down at Tsai Ing-wen’s dining table in her Taipei residence, not long before she leaves office after eight years and hands over to her successor William Lai.

Even so, the president seems keener to ask about me than talk about herself. She is certainly more comfortable showing us her cats and dogs than answering questions in front of a rolling camera.

“That’s Xiang Xiang,” she says, pointing to the large, grey tabby eyeing me suspiciously through the open doorway. “Would you like to meet her?”

When Tsai Ing-wen swept to power in 2016, she was dismissed as a dull bureaucrat and ridiculed as a “cat lady” - a swipe at her for being middle-aged and unmarried. She embraced the image, appearing on magazine covers holding Xiang Xiang in her arms. Soon, her supporters adopted a new sobriquet: Taiwan’s Iron Cat Lady.

Tsai admits to a sneaking admiration for Margaret Thatcher, although she’s quick to add it’s because of her toughness as a female leader, not her social policies.

In Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan found an unlikely champion. During her two terms, she carefully yet confidently reset the relationship with Beijing, which has claimed the independently governed island as its own for 75 years.

She stood up to an increasingly authoritarian and aggressive China under Xi Jinping; she held on to a vital US alliance under Donald Trump and buttressed it under Joe Biden. At home, she expanded the island’s defence and legalised same-sex marriage, the latter a first for Asia.

While Tsai shied away from the spotlight in Taiwan’s boisterous politics, Xiang Xiang became a celebrity. She played a starring role in Tsai's 2020 re-election campaign, along with the president’s other cat, a ginger tom called Ah Tsai.

Tsai has her detractors. Beijing is no fan, and neither are the many older Taiwanese, who want better relations with China, where they have family and business interests. Domestically, she has been criticised for not doing enough for the economy – the rising cost of living, unaffordable housing and a lack of jobs cost her party young voters in January's election.

And her biggest critics fear that she has made the island of 23 million more, rather than less, unsafe.

Put crudely, this is what any Taiwan leader faces: a much bigger, wealthier, and stronger neighbour, who says he owns your house, is willing to let you hand it over without a fight, but is ready to use force if you refuse. What do you do?

Tsai’s predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou, chose conciliation and a Beijing-friendly trade deal.

But he miscalculated how young Taiwanese would react to what they saw as appeasement. In 2014, thousands took to the streets in what became known as the Sunflower Movement. When President Ma refused to back down, they occupied parliament.

Two years later Tsai Ing-wen was elected on a very different calculus: that the only language Beijing understands is strength.

Now, as she prepares to step down, she says she has been vindicated: “China has become so aggressive and assertive.”

Dear Beijing - back off

“Wow, you’re really tall,” the president exclaims, craning her neck at a lanky, young soldier standing stiffly to attention.

He tells her he is 185cm and she asks, with genuine concern, “Are the beds here big enough for you?” They are, he reassures her.

This was on a recent morning in April at a new special forces training centre on the outskirts of Taipei, which Tsai had just opened.

The relaxed and chatty president disappears when she enters the cavernous dining hall, where hundreds of crew-cut recruits stand to attention and shouted “Zong Tong Hao!”, or “Hello, President!”

She almost looks out of place in these settings. Her speech is worthy and matter of fact, with no soaring rhetoric. And yet such visits are quite frequent, to make sure the military reforms she has pushed through are paying off.

One of the most difficult was a return to a year of military service for all men over the age of 18. While she admits it is not popular, she says the public accepts it is necessary: “But we have to make sure that their time spent in the military is worthwhile.”

For a former law professor and trade negotiator, Tsai has spent a surprisingly large amount of time as president donning camouflage fatigues. In one famous image she’s seen shouldering a rocket launcher. The reason: she believes Taiwan cannot hope to fend off Beijing without a modern, well-trained military in which young Taiwanese are proud to serve.

While China's threat of invasion is not new, it is only recently that President Xi Jinping has gained the military capability to mount what would still be a huge and risky operation. His threats have also become more urgent and ominous. He has said twice that a resolution over Taiwan cannot be passed down from one generation to another, which some have interpreted to mean that he wants it done in his lifetime.

On the other side of the strait, Tsai has set about rebuilding Taiwan’s outdated, demoralised and ill-equipped ground forces. It has been an uphill struggle, but results have begun to show. Yearly defence spending has risen significantly to about $20bn (£16bn).

“Our military capability is much strengthened compared to eight years ago. The investment we have put in to military capacity is unprecedented,” Tsai says.

I have spoken to many in Taiwan’s opposition who genuinely believe Tsai’s strategy of building up the military is naive, if not dangerous. They point to China’s powerful navy, the world’s largest, and more than two million active troops. Taiwan’s forces are not even a tenth of that.

To Tsai and her supporters that is missing the point. Taiwan is not trying to defeat a Chinese invasion, they say, but dramatically increasing its price to deter China.

“The cost of taking over Taiwan is going to be enormous,” Tsai says. “What we need to do is increase the cost.”

Tsai was no stranger to Beijing, or the Chinese Communist Party, when she became president. Her unorthodox rise to power began in the mid-1990s, when she cut her teeth as a trade negotiator. She then caught the eye of Chen Shui-bian, the first president from the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). He appointed her to run Taiwan’s top body for dealing with China. There she rewrote the book on how Taiwan should handle Beijing.

She has long known where the red lines are - and she believes that to resist China, Taiwan needs allies: “So strengthening our military capacity is one and working with our friends in the region to form a collective deterrence is another.”

Many in Tsai’s party, the DPP, now talk of a new alliance that stretches from Japan and South Korea to the north, through the Philippines to Australia in the south – with the US as quarterback, holding the team together. But this is theoretical at best. There is no Asian Nato and Taiwan enjoys no formal military alliances. Despite mutual antipathy towards Beijing, Tokyo and Manila are both deeply reluctant to vow support for Taiwan. Even that most important ally, Washington, has stopped short of guaranteeing it would put boots on the ground.

But Tsai is optimistic. “A lot of other countries in the region are alert and some of them may have a conflict with China,” she says, referring to rival claims by Beijing, Tokyo and Manila over disputed waters and islands.

“So, China is not an issue for Taiwan only. It is an issue for the whole region.”

The power of soft power

Painting China as a big, bad bully is not hard for a Taiwan president. The trickier job is to find allies who would risk irking the world’s second largest economy.

And that’s why Taiwan leads such an increasingly lonely diplomatic existence. In the last decade China has put the squeeze on many of the island’s allies who still recognise it – only 12 remain now, most of them tiny Pacific Island and Caribbean micro-states.

Tsai believes the way out of this diplomatic isolation is to build alliances with what she calls “like-minded democracies”.

To that end she hosts dozens of parliamentary delegations from all over the world, a loophole for meeting foreign dignitaries from countries that don’t see Taiwan as one. Last month I attended Holocaust Memorial Day. There was music and poetry, and an impassioned speech to never forget by the representative from Germany.

There are also more unusual events. Earlier this week, while Xi Jinping was getting ready to welcome Vladimir Putin in Beijing, Tsai Ing-wen hosted a drag performance by Taiwanese-American Nymphia Ward. “This is probably the first presidential office in the world to host a drag show,” Nymphia reportedly told Tsai.

Both are examples of brand Taiwan – a democracy that the world should care about losing.

“People say we are more important than Ukraine - strategically our position is more important and our place in the supply chain - and that they should shift support to Taiwan. We say no. The democratic countries need to support Ukraine,” Tsai says.

Rather than Taiwan’s wildly successful chip industry, which could be replicated, instead Tsai wields the one thing she has and the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t: the soft power of democracy.

In the run up to January’s election, the rainbow flag was hard to miss at every DPP rally.

“In Taiwan we are free to live how we choose. We could not do this in China,” one couple told me.

It’s a remarkable change from when I was a student here more than 30 years ago. Taiwan was still emerging from four decades of military rule. I remember a gay friend desperately looking for a way to get to America. Back then, if you were found to be homosexual during your military service you could get thrown in jail or a psychiatric ward.

That changed but Tsai Ing-wen’s government went further than any in Asia when it pushed through legislation legalising same-sex marriage in 2019. A little over half the population still opposed it. Some, including church and family groups, ran a vociferous campaign against it. It was a big political risk, and one that could have cost her re-election.

Tsai calls it a “very difficult journey” but one she saw as necessary: “It's a test to society to see to what extent we can move forward with our values. I am actually rather proud that we managed to overcome our differences.”

Taiwan is still conservative and patriarchal. I ask Tsai if she’s worried it might return to being a “boys club” once she, the island’s first female president, steps down. “I have a lot of opinions about that boys club!” she says but does not elaborate.

The island’s strength, in her opinion, is its mixed heritage – it’s a society of immigrants.

The Chinese came in many waves, sometimes centuries apart, and they joined hundreds of thousands of indigenous peoples.

“In… [such a] society, there are a lot of challenges,” Tsai says. “People are less bound by the traditions. The main goal is to survive [as a society]. This is why we have been able to move from an authoritarian age to democracy.”

And that is why she hopes Taiwan’s most important alliance – with the world’s most powerful country and democracy - will last no matter who makes it to the White House after November.

Best friends forever?

After Donald Trump’s stunning victory in 2016, Tsai Ing-wen rang to congratulate him – and she was put through. No US President since Jimmy Carter had taken a call from the president of Taiwan. Tsai has described the call as short but intimate, and wide-ranging.

The truth is Trump is a wild card for Taiwan. He’s criticised the island for “stealing America’s semiconductor industry”, but, as Tsai points out, he has also approved more arms shipments to Taipei than any of his predecessors. But she doesn’t want to discuss him, or the possibility of his return to the Oval Office.

What she does want to emphasise is the perception of a growing China threat.

“The rest of the world is telling China that you can't use military means [against Taiwan]. No unilateral action is allowed and no non-peaceful means is allowed and… I think China got the message,” she says.

That might be wishful thinking. There has been no noticeable decrease in military pressure. Rather, China regularly sends dozens of military aircraft and ships across the median line that divides the waters and airspace of the Taiwan strait. In 2022, Beijing declared that it no longer recognises what was effectively the border. The trigger was one of Tsai’s diplomatic coups.

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s historic visit in 2022 was celebrated in a Taiwan starved of international recognition. But China was furious, firing ballistic missiles over the island, and into the Pacific Ocean, for the first time ever.

It was a warning. Even some inside Tsai’s own administration worried quietly that Pelosi’s visit had been a mistake.

“We’ve been isolated for such a long time,” she says. “You just can't say no to a visit like that of Speaker Pelosi. Of course it comes with risks.”

You can feel the tension in her voice. Her opponents say the Pelosi visit was reckless and left Taiwan more exposed. Even President Biden is thought to have opposed the trip.

But Tsai says this is the line Taiwan must walk.

“I had to turn a party of revolutionaries into a party of power,” Tsai Ing-wen says of her time at the DPP’s helm.

When she took over, she was an economics graduate leading a party of older, male radicals who had spent their early lives fighting for Taiwan independence – or behind bars for it.

There is no need for Taiwan to hold a referendum or declare independence, she says, because it is already an independent, sovereign nation.

“We are on our own. We make our own decisions; we have a political system to govern this place. We have a constitution, we have laws, we have a military. We think that we are a country, and we have all the elements of a state.”

What they are waiting for, she says, is for the world to recognise it.

Media is barred from hearing as 71-year-old man appears in closed session over attempted assassination of prime minister.

While the attack on PM Fico has sparked fears in other European capitals that similar incidents could occur there, some in Slovakia say they were anxious the attack would embolden the authorities to launch assaults on the media, civil society and the opposition parties.

Other European leaders close to Fico like Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán have appeared to be eager to capitalise on his shooting, raising conspiracy theories. Fico is widely considered a divisive and populist official who has been criticised by the opposition for lashing out at independent media outlets and scrapping a special prosecutor’s office. --

The suspect in the shooting of Slovakian prime minister Robert Fico appeared in a closed court hearing on Saturday outside Bratislava amid growing fears about the future of the deeply divided nation.

The media was barred from the hearing, and reporters were kept behind a gate by armed police officers wearing balaclavas.

Fico, shot several times at point-blank range during a rally in the mining town of Handlová, had more surgery on Friday as the country reeled from the most serious attack on a European leader in decades.

The government has released only sparse details about the assailant or the health of the prime minister , who remains in a stable but serious condition.

Slovak media identified the attacker as Juraj Cintula, 71, who the authorities described as a “lone wolf” who had recently been radicalised.

A poet and former security guard, Cintula was known in his home town of Levice in provincial Slovakia as an eccentric but likable man.

His political views appear to have developed erratically. He is seen railing against violence in one YouTube clip, but later praising a violent pro-Russian paramilitary group on Facebook for their “ability to act without approval from the state”. He later adopted staunchly pro-Ukrainian views, which grew increasingly strong after Russia’s invasion.

In his published writing and personal conversations, Cintula expressed xenophobic views about the Romany community in Slovakia, a popular topic among the country’s far-right parties.

Neighbour and friend Mile L’udovit said the pair would occasionally discuss politics and that Cintula had been angry about the growing attacks on free speech under Fico’s leadership, a major topic of concern for the Slovakian leftwing opposition.

“No one knows why he did it, but I think it was a ticking timebomb before something like this would happen,” said Pavol Šimko, a 45-year-old history teacher, speaking in central Bratislava on Friday.

Wednesday’s assassination attempt in Handlová, 112 miles from the capital, has shone a light on what officials and many Slovaks say should be seen as a wider symptom of the country’s polarised political environment.

“We are now truly becoming the black hole of Europe,” added Šimko, referring to comments made by former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright, who coined the phrase to describe Slovakia in 1997 after the abduction of the son of then president Michal Kováč and the murder of a key witness in the case, police officer Róbert Remiáš.

Acts of political violence have become a grim fixture in recent Slovak history, but this latest is by far and away the most serious.

Other European leaders close to Fico, a divisive and populist official who has been criticised by the opposition for lashing out at independent media outlets and scrapping a special prosecutor’s office, have appeared to be eager to capitalise on his shooting.

Speaking on state radio on Friday morning, the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, drew a link between Fico’s views on the war in Ukraine and the attempted assassination.

Since Fico’s return to power, “Slovakia started on the path of peace, and this was a big help for Hungary,” Orbán said. “We have now lost this support. We know that the perpetrator was a pro-war person,” he added, without providing any evidence.

The Hungarian prime minister, who often employs conspiratorial narratives, has spent more than a decade nurturing a relationship with the Kremlin and has repeatedly argued the west should stop providing support to Ukraine.

*"Of course [Fico] he became the target. There are only a few like him in Europe. And they need to take care of their own safety." *- Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president

In his radio interview, he suggested – again without evidence – that the shooting in Slovakia was part of a geopolitical struggle. “The combinations that connect the assassination attempt with the war are not unjustified,” he said.

“The pro-war parties are negotiating with each other, which is why the head of the [George] Soros empire and the US secretary of state also went to Kyiv,” Orbán said.

In Moscow, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev praised the Kremlin-friendly Fico, also implying that he was targeted for his views on the Ukraine war. “Of course, he became the target. There are only a few like him in Europe. And they need to take care of their own safety,” he said.

Ľudovít Ódor, opposition party Progressive Slovakia’s lead candidate for the European parliamentary elections, said that foreign politicians “should not misinform foreigners and should not make political capital out of this for themselves”.

In an interview with independent Hungarian news outlet Partizán, Ódor, who briefly served as Slovakia’s caretaker prime minister last year and comes from Slovakia’s Hungarian-speaking minority, warned that “we have seen how this just comes back like a boomerang to us”, noting that many people in southern Slovakia watched Hungarian media.

The attack has also raised questions about a possible failure by the Slovak security services and sparked fears in other European capitals that similar incidents could occur there.

Slovak authorities have opened an investigation into the response of security forces at the scene. A source said that the security services were caught off guard and that Cintula was not known to them.

“Other European security services will be looking at their measures, realising that the danger can come out of nowhere,” the source said.

Polish PM Donald Tusk said on Thursday he received threats after the assassination attempt on his Slovakian counterpart, with a media outlet reporting his security protection would be strengthened.

In Belgium, prime minister Alexander De Croo filed a police complaint against a radio presenter who urged listeners to “take him out”.

“You see that it is possible to shoot down a prime minister. So I would say: Go ahead,” the radio presenter told his listeners on a station that airs from the Belgian province of West Flanders.

Some in Slovakia said they were anxious the attack would embolden the authorities to launch assaults on the media, civil society and the opposition parties.

“I worry that the ruling coalition will now use the shooting as a pretext for a big crackdown. They already started blaming the opposition and the media for it,” said Lenka Szabóová, a student in Bratislava. “This should be a time of coming together. But it seems like it will only tear us apart.”

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The national security advisor to the Estonian president is the latest NATO nation official to weigh into the debate over the wisdom of foreign forces in Ukraine, while a senior British officer said it's still "not a path that the [UK] Prime Minister wants to go down".

The government of Estonia is “seriously” discussing the possibility of sending troops into western Ukraine to take over non-direct combat, “rear” roles from Ukrainian forces in order to free them up to fight on the front, though no decision is imminent, Tallinn’s national security advisor to the president told Breaking Defense.

Madis Roll said the executive branch is currently undertaking an analysis of the potential move, and though he said Estonia would prefer to make any such move as part of a full NATO mission — “to show broader combined strength and determination” — he didn’t rule out Estonia acting in a smaller coalition.

“Discussions are ongoing,” he said on May 10 at the presidential palace here. “We should be looking at all the possibilities. We shouldn’t have our minds restricted as to what we can do.” He also emphasized that it’s “not unthinkable” that NATO nations opposed to such a move would change their minds “as time goes on.”

Following publication of this report, Madis clarified that such a decision is not pending before the Estonian prime minister or her cabinet specifically, and he meant only that the discussion “is not dead” and is “ongoing in Estonia in general.” “We have not excluded any option in the future,” he said.

Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur on May 14 told the European news outlet ERR such talks haven’t “gone anywhere” in Tallin.

“There is nothing new here. When France came up with the idea of considering whether Europe and the allies could do more, it has been floated in various discussions, but it has not gone anywhere, because at the moment there is no clear understanding among the allies of what it adds,” Pevkur said. “There is certainly no initiative by Estonia and certainly Estonia alone is not going to do anything.”

Roll’s boss, Estonian President Alar Karis, holds a position with many ceremonial duties relative to the nation’s prime minister, Kaja Kallas, but he is ultimately Estonia’s commander-in-chief and is a key figure in foreign policy.

Roll’s comments came after the head of Estonia’s defense forces, Gen. Martin Herem, told Breaking Defense earlier last week there had been discussions in the military months ago about sending troops to western Ukraine to take on jobs like medical services, logistics or air defense for some western cities, but the air had gone out of those talks after the idea became a public lightning rod.

Herem and Pevkur were referring to the outcry that followed French President Emmanuel Macron’s declaration that Western nations must be open to discussing sending their troops in to aid Ukraine. (Kallas, the Estonian PM, in March appeared to defend Macron’s statement, noting that he wasn’t talking specifically about sending ground troops into combat. “In the exact same way, I can assure you that our soldiers will not go there to fight,” she said.)

Also earlier last week a key Estonian lawmaker, Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Marko Mihkelson, told Breaking Defense that European nations “have to start thinking about a coalition of the willing” to more directly help Kyiv, potentially with direct combat forces. (The Estonian officials spoke last week to an audience from the Kaplan Public Service Foundation; Breaking Defense accepted accommodation in Estonia from KPSF.)

The willingness of different nations to send some forces into Ukraine is a potential dividing line inside NATO. Although each member of the alliance is free to send forces where it feels it must for its national interests, some nations have been clear they see more risk than reward in doing so.

Notably, Germany and the US have flatly rejected the idea of sending in troops. The US Ambassador to Estonia, George Kent, pointed Breaking Defense to the Biden administration’s policy of aiding Ukraine through significant aid packages, but a firm commitment not to send in American soldiers.

Asked May 9 in Washington how Russia could react to NATO-nation forces being in Ukraine, British Chief of Defense Adm. Sir Tony Radakin was evasive, saying, “I won’t go into too much commentary on your question, if you don’t mind … The UK position is very clear in terms of, that’s not a path that the Prime Minister wants to go down.

However, he emphasized that the UK position is not “being governed by how Russia will react.” Instead, he said, it is based around what the UK views as the best approach overall: “I think that what you’ve seen all the way through, is a UK that has done the right thing, based on its judgment of what’s needed to be done.”

In contrast, there is Macron’s statement, as well as Lithuanian prime minister Ingrida Simonytė who recently told the Financial Times she was open to sending Lithuanian troops into Ukraine to train Kyiv’s forces there. The FT wrote that Simonytė predicted Russia could see the move as an escalation, but added, “If we just thought about the Russian response, then we could not send anything. Every second week you hear that somebody will be nuked.”

‘Adversaries know migration is our vulnerability,’ says Kaja Kallas, spelling out negative consequences to Europe of Ukrainian defeat

Vladimir Putin is seeking to weaponise the threat of mass migration to divide and weaken Europe as supporters of Ukraine struggle to maintain unity to defeat Russia, Kaja Kallas, the Estonian prime minister, says.

“What our adversaries know is migration is our vulnerability,” she said. “The aim is to make life really impossible in Ukraine so that there would be migration pressure to Europe, and this is what they are doing.”

Speaking in Tallinn on Friday, she said Russia had already created the migration pressure through disruption in Syria and in Africa via the Wagner group.

“I think we have to understand that Russia is weaponising migration. Our adversaries are weaponising migration.

“They push the migrants over the border, and they create problems for the Europeans because they weaponise this since with human rights, you have to accept those people. And that is, of course, water to the mill of the far right.”

Kallas admitted the plight of the Ukrainians on the front was “very serious” and European promises of extra weapons had not been delivered, something that could be rectified if Nato took charge of coordinating weapons delivery. “The problem is that our promises do not save lives,” she said.

Kallas is one of many European politicians trying to spell out the many negative consequences to Europe of a Ukrainian defeat, and rebut those who claim such a reverse could be contained.

She was speaking the day after the former Estonian president Toomas Ilves predicted that if Ukraine fell to Russia as many as 30 million Ukrainians would seek to flee. “That is the threat we face due to our inaction,” he said, adding that Europe had a “complete meltdown” when faced with 2 million refugees from the Middle East in 2015.

A pamphlet produced by pro-Ukrainian NGOs has detailed how Russian shelling between October 2022 and January 2023 had increased migration out of Ukraine by a quarter compared with the previous year.

The recent round of attacks has targeted electricity generation rather than transmission. Olena Halushka, board head at the international centre for a Ukrainian Victory, said: “Right now they are trying to bomb Ukraine into the stone age,” adding that in the past two months more damage had been inflicted than the whole of the winter of 2023.

She said: “Europe needs to think about Kharkiv, a city the size of Munich without energy this winter and then think about the financial implications of tens of millions of Ukrainians fleeing the war due to fear of occupation”.

Kallas said Russian assaults were now targeting Ukrainian cities every day and night.

She conceded that, based on geography and history, some countries in Europe did not see the threat of a Ukrainian defeat in the same way. “They don’t see and they don’t believe that if Ukraine falls Europe is in danger, the whole of Europe, maybe some countries, but not the whole of Europe”.

She said she feared a mistake was being made similar to the late 1930s, when linked conflicts were seen as isolated events. Kallas, tipped as a possible successor to Josep Borrell as EU high commissioner for foreign policy, cited links between the conflicts in Azerbaijan and Armenia, the Middle East, and the South China Sea. She said the same error was made in the 1930s about the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, the German occupation of Austria and the Sino-Japanese war.

“The lesson from 1938 and 1939 is that if aggression pays off somewhere, it will be taken up elsewhere. Ukraine’s defeat is something all aggressors will learn from. They will learn that in 2024, bluntly, you can just colonise another country and nothing happens to you.”

She pointed to what she described as baby steps to strengthening the European defence architecture, including a European defence fund, the increase in individual nation state defence spending, and the proposal for a shared defence debt bond to boost spending. She denied Estonia had had any serious discussions about sending troops to Ukraine, while arguing at the same time it was better to keep Putin guessing about Europe’s plans.

She said it was also a valid criticism that Ukraine was not moving fast enough to mobilise more troops.

Meanwhile, Russia’s foreign ministry warned the west it was playing with fire by allowing Ukraine to use western missiles and weapons to strike Russia, and said it would not leave such actions unanswered.

The foreign ministry said in a statement that it saw the hand of the US and Britain behind a recent spate of attacks, and blamed Washington and London for escalating the conflict by authorising Ukraine to use long-range rockets and heavy weapons they had supplied against Russian targets.

“Once again, we should like to unequivocally warn Washington, London, Brussels and other western capitals, as well as Kyiv, which is under their control, that they are playing with fire. Russia will not leave such encroachments on its territory unanswered,” the ministry said.

TLDR: - China's president Xi wants to maintain an alliance with Putin's Russia, while also knowing that close ties with a pariah puts at risk his stable ties with the West which he needs to help his ailing economy.

- The costly war in Ukraine has changed their relationship, exposing the weaknesses in Russia’s army and its economy.

- China’s interests are not Russia’s interests. As the senior partner in this relationship, Mr Xi will likely co-operate when it suits him – even if his “dear friend” and ally needs him.

Vladimir Putin’s state visit to China this week was a show of strength. It was a chance for the Russian president to prove to the world that he has a powerful ally in his corner.

The Russian leader is widely regarded as a pariah after ordering the invasion of Ukraine. But to China’s President Xi Jinping, he is a key partner in seeking a new world order that is not led by the US.

And Mr Xi made his guest welcome. He rolled out the red carpet, the band played old Red Army songs, and cheering children greeted both leaders as they strolled through Tiananmen Square. There was even a brief hug for the cameras.

Russian and Chinese state media focused heavily on the camaraderie between the two leaders. But in truth, this is no longer a partnership of equals.

Mr Putin came to China cap in hand, eager for Beijing to continue trading with a heavily sanctioned and isolated Russia. His statements were filled with honeyed tones and flattering phrases.

He said that his family were learning Mandarin – this was particularly noteworthy because he very rarely talks about his children in public.

He declared that he and Mr Xi were “as close as brothers” and went on to praise China’s economy, saying it was “developing in leaps and bounds, at a fast pace”. This will likely play well with Beijing officials worried by a sluggish economy.

But Mr Xi himself did not echo the tone of these lofty compliments. Instead, his remarks were more perfunctory – even bland. Mr Putin, he said, was a “good friend and a good neighbour”. For China, the welcome ceremony and show of unity is in its interests, but lavishing its guest with praise is not.

The costly war in Ukraine, which shows no signs of ending, has changed their relationship, exposing the weaknesses in Russia’s army and its economy. Mr Xi will know that he is now in charge.

The war has isolated Russia. China’s ties with the West may be tense, but Beijing has not cut itself off from the world like Russia, nor does it want to.

While the public statements may have lacked enthusiasm, President Xi did hint at the importance that China places on the relationship.

He invited Mr Putin to his official residence, Zhongnanhai. Few leaders are afforded that honour - US President Barack Obama being among them back in 2014, when ties between the two were at their best.

President Xi is attempting a fine balance - he wants to maintain an alliance with Mr Putin, while also knowing that close ties with a pariah puts at risk his stable ties with the West which he needs to help his ailing economy.

The fact is, this visit was all about the money: Mr Putin needs China’s support for his war in Ukraine.

The make-up of the Russian leader’s entourage was a sign of what he hoped to get out of the trip: he brought with him the governor of Russia’s Central Bank, his finance minister and his economics advisor.

The joint statement released to mark the visit also contained some eye-catching ideas to increase trade – building a port on an island which the two countries once wrangled over for more than 100 years, and speaking to North Korea to see if Chinese ships could navigate through a key river to reach the Sea of Japan.

It mentioned the word “co-operation” 130 times.

All of this will, of course, have been carefully watched by the US. Last month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned China to stop fuelling Russia’s war and trading in components that could be used in Russian drones and tanks.

So they will not have missed the fact Mr Putin toured a state-backed university famous for its cutting-edge defense research during Friday’s visit to the city of Harbin.

The tour - and the ceremony and symbolism surrounding this visit - certainly appears to suggest Mr Xi is determined to prove that he will not be swayed by pressure from the West.

But behind the scenes of this show of unity, there may be limits to how far Mr Xi is prepared to go.

After all, China’s interests are not Russia’s interests. As the senior partner in this relationship, Mr Xi will likely co-operate when it suits him – even if his “dear friend” and ally needs him.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/13856220

https://archive.is/CVhhG

- Total credit demand in China fell in April for first time since 2005 - China has increasingly hidden negative data in recent years

A series of research reports from Chinese brokerages on the country’s recent bad credit data disappeared from social media over the weekend, highlighting the increasing difficulty of getting reliable information about the world’s second-largest economy.

At least seven research reports from mainland brokerages and securities firms that had been posted to WeChat by analysts were unavailable for viewing on Monday. The link to six of the reports now leads to an error message saying the content couldn’t be viewed after complaints about unspecified violations of rules governing public accounts.

A report from China Merchants Securities Co. was deleted from a WeChat account where the brokerage’s fixed-income analyst Zhang Wei usually posts research, according to a screenshot of the posting viewed by Bloomberg News.

Reports from analysts at Zheshang Securities Co., Guosheng Securities Co., GF Securities Co., China International Capital Corp., Shenwan Hongyuan Securities Co. and Soochow Securities Co. were also unavailable for viewing or had been taken down before Monday morning.

None of the seven companies responded to requests for comment.

China has increasingly hidden negative data over the past few years, making it harder for investors to accurately judge what is happening in the economy. The nation’s exchanges are set to switch off a live feed of foreign money flows into stocks as early as Monday, the latest example of closely-watched information being removed.

The data released over the weekend showed that total credit demand fell in April for the first time since 2005. That unexpectedly bad result was driven by weak demand from companies and households to borrow, and also by local governments across the country pulling back on selling bonds.

The data released over the weekend showed that total credit demand fell in April for the first time since 2005. That unexpectedly bad result was driven by weak demand from companies and households to borrow, and also by local governments across the country pulling back on selling bonds.

China’s the top securities newspapers attempted to put a positive spin on the data. A front-page article

in China Securities Journal on Monday suggested the credit data would stabilize and pick up once the government started issuing more bonds.

The central government said it will start selling ultra-long bonds from Friday, although that likely won’t immediately turn around the falling demand for mortgage loans from households or the weak demand from companies to borrow money.

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Russia has been bolstering its military presence in Libya for the past few months, according to an investigation. Libya has been mired in civil war since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, and Russia has long been accused of meddling in the conflict. Now, the Kremlin appears to be shipping more military equipment to Libya and the surrounding region and redeploying regular troops disguised as mercenaries, along with recruits from Wagner Group’s Africa operations.

The increased military activity in the region may also have something to do with increased pressure for Libya to hold elections. While there have been several attempts to hold elections, plans have often been delayed or disrupted due to escalations in the military conflict. The U.N. has urgently called for elections to be held to prevent the country from sliding further into war.

'Tectonic shifts’

In the past three months, Russia has begun actively transferring military personnel and mercenaries to Libya, according to Verstka’s findings. These forces are primarily concentrated in eastern Libya, a region under the control of Khalifa Haftar, the commander of the Libyan National Army and a Kremlin ally. (The western part of the country, including the capital, Tripoli, is governed by the U.N.-recognized Government of National Accord.)

A source within a Libyan security agency reported that at least 1,800 Russian military personnel have arrived in the country in the last two weeks alone. Some were dispatched to Niger, while others remain in Libya awaiting further orders.

One serviceman told journalists that he and several hundred other special forces soldiers were redeployed from Ukraine at the beginning of the year. Several thousand more fighters — both professional soldiers and mercenaries from Wagner Group’s Africa operations — arrived in Libya between February and April. In conversations with journalists, the soldiers themselves acknowledged that their presence in Libya is unofficial. They said that they’re there as part of a private military company, though they didn’t specify which one.

Russian military personnel and equipment have been spotted in at least 10 locations in eastern Libya since the beginning of March. Russian troops are stationed around major military bases, such as Al Jufra Air Base and Ghardabiya Air Base, as well as near smaller ones by Waddan and Marj.

Sources say that some of the newly arrived Russian military personnel are involved in training local soldiers and new recruits from private military companies. Others are carrying out combat missions, such as securing the transport of military equipment.

“There’s never been such a fuss; tectonic shifts are happening here,” one Russian soldier in Libya commented. “I think a big mess is brewing.”

Following the breadcrumbs

Location data from Telegram users show an increase in activity around military sites in Libya. On March 5, a Russian soldier with the username “Andrey” showed up near the Ghardabiya Air Base near Sirte. A few months before, “Andrey” was in Mulino — a city in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region where soldiers are being trained for combat in Ukraine. Nearly two weeks after “Andrey” appeared at Ghardabiya Air Base, the Libyan National Army conducted military exercises there.

Soon after, another group of Russian soldiers was spotted in Marj, Libya. On March 17, photos of them were posted on Libyan social media; Verstka and its investigative partners were able to geolocate these photos by comparing the buildings and structures in them with satellite images.

In early May, geolocation data confirmed the presence of two Russian soldiers in Jufra. One of them was the same “Andrey” who’d been at the Ghardabiya Air Base in March. He stayed there until at least April, then moved to Jufra by May.

The second soldier in Jufra was 26-year-old Pavel Vavilov from Russia’s Vladimir region. It’s likely that Vavilov entered the military recently: leaked data shows he worked as a security guard in 2020, and before that, as a taxi driver. He’s faced various legal issues, including a theft conviction. Another Telegram account linked to Vavilov shows a car with a license plate from the self-proclaimed “Luhansk People’s Republic” in the profile picture.

In recent weeks, there’s been a notable increase in shipments of Russian weapons and transport vehicles from Syria to Libya. In photos published on March 30 by the Russian pro-war Telegram channel Military Informant, several Russian Tigr armored personnel carriers can be seen being used in Libyan National Army exercises. Judging by the unit insignia on the front doors, they were delivered to the Libyan National Army’s 106th Brigade.

The channel also released video footage of the exercises. After comparing the terrain, buildings, and landmarks seen in the video to satellite images, Verstka and its investigative partners determined that the footage was shot between Al Jufra Air Base and the town of Waddan.

Russia is shipping a large amount of military equipment to Libya by sea. A source told Verstka that he had personally escorted equipment from a “military port” to various “military bases.” In some cases, the equipment comes to Libya via Syria’s Tartus port. For instance, on April 2, two Russian landing ships — the Alexander Otrakovsky and the Ivan Gren — were spotted in Tartus. On April 6, the same ships were off the coast of Crete, and on April 8, they arrived at the Port of Tobruk in Libya. These vessels were transporting vehicles and weaponry; one item in the shipment resembled a Soviet-era 2S12 “Sani” heavy mortar system. According to open-source investigators, this marked the fifth such shipment in the last six weeks. Satellite imagery shows that since then, the ships have continued to make trips back and forth.

Jalel Harchaoui, a Libya expert at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank, drew attention to the fact that Russian military personnel are being redeployed to the Brak al-Shati base in Libya. According to him, the number of Russian-speaking personnel at the base has increased by about 25 percent in recent weeks.

Back in March 2024, investigators from the All Eyes on Wagner project didn’t find any Russian Telegram accounts at the base. However, the situation has changed in the last few weeks. For example, in early May, an account registered to a Russian number was discovered near the base. The user, 28-year-old Russian Maxim Kukol, doesn’t appear to have been connected to the military before 2021. But there’s no public record of his employment after this. However, by 2022, his debts had been cleared.

Geolocation data also shows a steady stream of Russian military personnel arriving at the Tartus port in Syria, which has become a kind of redistribution hub for military resources. Among them is 19-year-old Navy serviceman Anton Zaikin, who was stationed in Baltiysk, in Russia’s Kaliningrad region, in early 2024. By early May, he had relocated to Syria.

A strategic move

Turkey, the U.S., and other countries have repeatedly accused Russia of interfering in the Libyan conflict, including through the use of Wagner Group mercenaries. Journalistic investigations have confirmed that Russian mercenaries have been present in Libya since at least 2019, and experts say the Kremlin has been supporting Khalifa Haftar since around 2018.

In 2023, Russian officials and Haftar held their first public negotiations since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In August, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-bek Yevkurov met with him in Libya, and in September, Haftar met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Following this, there were multiple media reports of Kremlin plans to build a Russian naval base in Tobruk, Libya (where Russian military cargo arrives from Syria).

In January 2024, shortly before Russia began sending large numbers of troops to the region, Yevkurov visited Libya again. He met with Haftar in Benghazi; Verstka’s sources say that a new Russian military training base is already operating not far from this city. According to Verstka and All Eyes on Wagner’s sources, the Russian contingent in Libya is controlled by four commanders who were previously in Syria. They, in turn, report to Yevkurov.

"I think the Russians are betting on a war inside Tripoli among the militias, so they’re going to shift gears,” said one military source. Another source suggested that the current influx of Russian equipment and the repositioning of troops are intended to supplant Wagner Group forces in Libya and pave the way for further deployments to other African countries.

RUSI’s Jalel Harchaoui noted that an increased presence in Libya aligns with many of Russia’s strategic regional interests. “Libya offers extremely valuable access to the Mediterranean Sea, acts as a southern flank to exert pressure on NATO and the E.U., and strengthens dialogue with other key Arab countries,” he explained. “Importantly, it also serves as a gateway to Sub-Saharan African countries, offering a strategic route to countries like Sudan, Niger, and beyond.”

According to him, cooperating with the Haftar family allows the Kremlin to achieve these goals while minimizing costs. “Roughly speaking, the Haftar family rewards Moscow materially and financially for doing things that are already in its interest,” Harchaoui believes.

The increased military activity in the region may also have something to do with increased pressure for Libya to hold elections. While there have been several attempts to hold elections, plans have often been delayed or disrupted due to escalations in the military conflict. The U.N. has urgently called for elections to be held to prevent the country from sliding further into war.

Archived link

Following a series of high-profile failures and mass expulsions of uniformed “diplomats,” Russian intelligence has turned to more subtle methods, including leveraging scientific organizations with international ties. One such espionage “front” is the National Research Institute for the Development of Communications (NIIRK), which is led by ex-SVR and FSB officers. In Europe and neighboring countries, the institute organizes numerous conferences and internships. Here, intelligence officers and pro-Kremlin propagandists, under the pretense of promoting good neighborly relations, spread the notion that the West is an enemy, and that prosperity lies in friendship with Russia. The main targets are promising students and young scientists, who are ultimately groomed for espionage activities.

On June 19, 2023, Moscow’s usually quiet Korobeinikov Lane was unexpectedly closed off. Athletic-looking men with radios were bustling around its perimeter. Soon, an honor guard and official cars with flashing lights appeared. People carrying carnations gathered in front of the building that houses the National Research Institute for the Development of Communications (NIIRK). The last to arrive for the festivities was SVR head Sergey Naryshkin, who presided over the installation of a memorial plaque for former SVR director Vyacheslav Trubnikov. Speeches followed: “Vyacheslav Ivanovich worked here for two years,” “an outstanding intelligence officer and diplomat,” “a legend of intelligence,” “a knight of the Cold War,” and so on.

Before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the house was home to actors Alexander Lensky and Alexander Yuzhin-Sumbatov of the Maly Theatre. Later, it was occupied by the NKVD, MGB, and KGB; the mansion hosted clandestine meetings with agents. After 1993, several businesses were based there, but over time, the place fell into disrepair, and homeless people took over the vacant premises. In April 2020, the restored mansion became the new home of NIIRK. Cars belonging to the embassies of Central Asian and Transcaucasian republics began appearing outside.

What kind of institute is this? According to its website, NIIRK’s primary mission is “the development of multilateral dialogue among peoples, cultures, religions, states, international scientific and educational organizations, and civil society to strengthen peace and harmony.” The institute’s expert research and analysis are utilized by the Presidential Administration's Office for Interregional and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, foreign aid and cultural exchange agency Rossotrudnichestvo, the FSB's 5th Service, and the SVR.

The institute’s first official director was Irina Zavesnitskaya, co-founder of the PoiskSidelki LLC. A year later, she was succeeded by her husband, former FSB general and overseer of the Transcaucasian region, Vladislav Gasumyanov.

Friends of the Kremlin

As per The Insider's findings, over the past eighteen months, NIIRK has organized a total of twelve off-site conferences, forums, and roundtable discussions across various countries including Armenia, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Transnistria, Tajikistan, and Slovakia. Moreover, NIIRK has welcomed several delegations from these nations to Moscow for internships, with plans to host approximately ten more this year.

The institute primarily targets young scientists — aged 20 to 40 employed in research or academia. As one Armenian student shared with The Insider, “Throughout the internship, we were constantly reminded that without Russia, we would be doomed to become slaves to the West. Once, they casually asked me if I had relatives in Europe. Upon hearing my negative response, they lost interest in me.”

Key speakers at these conferences include General Gasumyanov, former SVR Academy head Nikolay Gribin, and former Slovak Prime Minister Jan Černogurský, who chairs the “Friends of Crimea” association. Černogurský frequently appears on Russian propaganda TV shows, where he advocates a pro-Kremlin agenda for his country of citizenship while predicting the imminent collapse of the dollar and the subsequent disintegration in the United States.

The building on Korobeinikov Lane is a frequent host to presidents from the Russian-occupied Georgian “republics” of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, along with representatives from Moldova’s Russian-occupied Transnistria region. Last year, a delegation from Vietnam even paid a visit.

The institute’s leadership also makes the rounds, with Gasumyanov visiting Serbia to hold negotiations with leaders of the For Peace and Justice in Afghanistan movement (DMSA). Spearheaded by former Afghan intelligence chief Masum Stanikzai, DMSA was established by senior officials from the previous administration who fled from the Taliban regime. It appears that the Kremlin is playing a double game: on one hand, it welcomes the Taliban to Moscow, while on the other hand, it engages with their sworn enemies.

Among other partners, NIIRK is known to have connections with the Awami Party from Pakistan. Since its founding in 1986, the group has been aligned with Moscow and was the only political force in Pakistan to support the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which lasted from 1979-1989. A source from Russia’s Veterans of Foreign Intelligence Association, who requested anonymity, informed The Insider that General Trubnikov — the figure honored by the memorial plaque on the NIIRK building — was well acquainted with the leadership of Awami during his tenure at the KGB residency in Islamabad.

In February 2024, NIIRK organized a conference titled “United Kingdom - EU - Russia - Middle East: Challenges and Perspectives.” Notably, the discussions took place not in Moscow, but in Bratislava, Slovakia. Among the speakers were Slovak Parliament Vice-Speaker Luboš Blaha, who accused the United States and NATO of provoking the conflict in Ukraine.

Another notable participant was former Austrian counterintelligence general Gustav Gustenau, who in 2019 was dismissed due to serious suspicions of connections with Jan Marsalek, the fugitive COO of the payment company Wirecard. In 2020, Marsalek fled to Russia. The Insider recently published yet another article in a series of investigations concerning Marsalek’s ties to Russian intelligence.

Patrushev's man in Transcaucasia

NIIRK head Gasumyanov has long been referred to as “Patrushev's man” (a reference to longtime Security Council head Nikolai Patrushev, who was recently demoted to the role of “presidential aide”). Gasumyanov himself has had quite the career. In 1982, he worked as a Komsomol district committee instructor in Kyiv, and through the Komsomol recruitment, he was directed to the Higher Courses of the KGB of the USSR. The young intelligence officer was then dispatched to the KGB Office in Ivano-Frankivsk, in western Ukraine, where he was tasked with combating manifestations of nationalism. In 1988, he was transferred to Nagorno-Karabakh, where the first clashes between the local Armenian and Azerbaijani communities had already begun. He rose to the position of deputy head of the KGB Directorate in the region, but when combat operations there escalated, all Lubyanka officers were relieved of their duties and dispersed to various other directorates.

After a period of unknown activities, in 2000 Gasumyanov found himself in the FSB Office in the city of Sochi. Two years later, he moved to the position of State Secretary of the State Reserve, which at the time was led by Alexander Grigoryev — a friend of Putin’s from their youth and a colleague of the future president in the Leningrad KGB. In the 1980s, as part of his official duties as a lieutenant colonel, Grigoryev had worn the cassock of an Orthodox priest and, under the operational guise of “Father Alexander,” directly supervised the Estonian-born Alexey Rigidier, who from 1990-2008 became better known as Alexey II, Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’.

After the war with Georgia in 2008, the Kremlin decided to strengthen its influence in Transcaucasia. Trusted intelligence personnel were needed. and the “Patrushev man” was appointed Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration's Department for Interregional and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, a department staffed largely with former officers from the security services.

The core of the Presidential Administration's Department for Interregional and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries consists of ex-security officers

At Moscow’s “Old Square” — where the Presidential Administration has its office — the “culturologist” Gasumyanov held oversight responsibilities for Georgia, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia. Reports even surfaced in the media suggesting that he had directly intervened in the 2011 presidential elections in South Ossetia, advocating for Moscow's favored candidate, Anatoly Bibilov. Allegedly, Gasumyanov intimidated opponents of Bibilov by promising that they would receive a visit from Jambulat Tedeev, the coach of the Russian national freestyle wrestling team.

Transitioning from the presidential administration, Gasumyanov assumed the role of Chief Security Officer at Norilsk Nickel. In this capacity, the FSB officer made visits to Europe and Africa and proposed the development of a Charter on Information Security for critical industrial facilities, a proposal met with skepticism by many foreign companies.

Concurrently, Gasumyanov chaired the Security Committee at the International Platinum Group Metals Association (IPGMA), affording him access to internal documents of major global companies within the industry. Notably, on the NIIRK website, Gasumyanov shared a photo gallery that included an image of himself alongside former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

After opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan became Prime Minister of Armenia, the Kremlin once again required the services of the former overseer of Transcaucasia, and NIIRK offered the perfect instrument for Gasumyanov to restore Russia’s influence in the region. “We have always treated our neighboring countries with care, love, and attempted to help them, from promoting independence to providing financial assistance and establishing institutions,” the “Patrushev man” said in February 2023, as Russian rockets and bombs were destroying peaceful cities in Ukraine.

After opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan became Prime Minister of Armenia, the Kremlin once again required the services of the former overseer of Transcaucasia

Spies as supervisors

Alongside Gasumyanov, the Supervisory Board of NIIRK boasts other individuals with extensive intelligence backgrounds. One such figure is FSB General Anatoly Bolyukh, well-known to the Security Service of Ukraine and European counterintelligence agencies. After graduating from the Peoples’ Friendship University in Moscow in 1982, Bolyukh joined the KGB's Foreign Intelligence Service, operating undercover as a diplomat in Soviet embassies. Later, he was seconded to the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), where he served as an assistant to the rector for security matters and played a role in recruiting promising students. After MGIMO, Bolyukh was assigned to the International Academy of Fuel and Energy before finding himself back in Europe — this time with a press pass from the Izvestia newspaper.

In 2009, Bolyukh took charge of the Department of Operational Information (DOI) within the 5th Service of the FSB (Unit 26047), which is responsible for espionage internationally. The DOI's structure includes departments covering Europe, Moldova, Transcaucasia, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Ukraine, where intelligence reports from residencies are consolidated. Additionally, the DOI has achieved success in recruiting European politicians, as was recently reported by The Insider.

The Department of Operational Information has achieved success in recruiting European politicians

During the 2014 Maidan protests in Ukraine, Bolyukh flew to Kyiv with a group of FSB, GRU, and SVR generals in order to aid Viktor Yanukovych. However, by the time they arrived, the situation had already turned in favor of the protesters, and on February 22 of that year, Yanukovych fled the capital, ultimately ending up in Russia. In response to Putin's dissatisfaction with the outcome, Bolyukh was removed from his position and transferred to Rosgeology, an organization historically utilized by the KGB for espionage purposes.

In 2019, there was a change in leadership at Rosgeology, with Sergei Gorkov, a graduate of the FSB Academy, assuming control of the state corporation. Gorkov brought in his own team, prompting Bolyukh’s departure. At NIIRK, the former student recruiter now oversees educational processes and enjoys discussing the concept of good neighborliness: “Tactics are essential here. It is also important to consider the level at which good neighborliness is based — the state, the people, or the elite. So, creativity and unconventional solutions are essential in this matter. Cliches and copying won't suffice.”

The Insider has obtained a list of phone contacts of the current head of the DOI, Lieutenant General Georgy Grishaev. In addition to Grishaev's current colleagues, Bolyukh's phone number is also included in the list. While it could not be determined precisely which topics the generals discuss amongst themselves, it is unlikely that “neighborly relations” is among them.

Boris Miroshnikov, an Honorary Security Service Worker, joined the Supervisory Board alongside Bolyukh. Miroshnikov commenced his service in the Counterintelligence Operations Department (UKRO) of the FSK-FSB, focusing on developing and implementing novel methods for operational and investigative activities. Miroshnikov personally established the Computer and Information Security Directorate within the FSB, now known as the 11th Center (Unit 68240). In 2002, he was assigned to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), where he assumed leadership of the Bureau of Special Technical Measures (BSTM).

The Bureau, overseen by the FSB, is responsible for tasks such as phone tapping, email hacking, and monitoring electronic payments of criminal suspects. Evgeny Chichvarkin, the founder of mobile phone retailer Euroset, accused Miroshnikov of instigating the round of persecution that led the independent entrepreneur to flee Russia in 2009. In a 2011 video address to Russia’s then-president Dmitry Medvedev, Chichvarkin labeled the BSTM leadership as a “gang of crime bosses” — with Miroshnikov chief among them.

The Bureau, overseen by the FSB, is responsible for tasks such as phone tapping, email hacking, and monitoring electronic payments of criminal suspects

Also in 2011, the “crime boss general” became the vice president of a company called Citadel. Citadel's primary focus lies in developing software for information security and manufacturing SORM (telephone tapping) equipment for law enforcement agencies. Moreover, telecommunications operators in Russia are obligated to install SORM on their networks.

One can only speculate as to what role the wiretapping specialist has in the Korobeinikov Lane headquarters. Whatever activities it is that his official duties require, Miroshnikov’s hobbies appear to include waxing philosophically on the importance of culture: “It's a very delicate matter! It's necessary to cultivate culture in the highest sense of the word, where my life-cultural space wouldn't suppress the same space of my neighbor. It's an extremely challenging task! Any misstep is nationalism transitioning into Nazism-fascism.”

Among the other members of the Supervisory Board, notable figures include former head of the SVR Academy, Nikolay Gribin, and former deputy director of the FSB, Valentin Sobolev. Gribin, who served in the political intelligence department of the KGB's First Main Directorate in the 1980s, worked undercover as a diplomat in Denmark and Norway before transitioning to the KGB-SVR central apparatus. Judging from his speeches, Gribin is concerned about Article 13 of the Russian Constitution, which explicitly states that “ideological diversity is recognized in the Russian Federation,” and “no ideology can be established as state or mandatory.”

Another “supervisor,” General Sobolev, began his career in the Tomsk Directorate of the KGB and rose to the position of the secretary of the Directorate's Communist Party committee. After relocating to Moscow, his career took off. Sobolev has served as the first deputy director of the FSB, and later moved to the Security Council.

Following his retirement in 2012 as a Lieutenant General in the FSB, Sobolev has been a frequent speaker at events targeting young audiences. He has also spent leisure time in the affluent Gorki-2 community in the Odintsovo District, where he owns a mansion valued at around 120 million rubles ($1.32 million).

Propagandists and publishers

NIIRK owns the conference organizing company Project LLC, along with the Eurasia Daily news agency, which employs well-known pro-Kremlin political analysts and conspiracy theorists. The institute publishes three journals: “Man and the World: Dialogue,” “Perspective: Generation of Search,” and “Russia and the World: Scientific Dialogue,” all of which are distributed free of charge in CIS countries. Regular trips abroad, conferences, presentations, and publishing activities incur considerable costs. In 2022, the total assets of NIIRK amounted to 467 million rubles ($5.2 million), even if that figure fell to 273 million in 2023. Of course, “Patrushev's man” can always ask his business partners for financial assistance, and they are unlikely to refuse him. For example, the head of the Pangeo Capital fund, Yuri Kudimov, who manages investments worth $1 billion, is a known associate.

In fact, Kudimov and Gasumyanov are co-founders of Moskovskoe More Management Company LLC (ООО «УК Московское море»), which built an elite cottage settlement in Zavidovo just under 100 miles northwest of the capital. Kudimov also boasts an extensive espionage background: following his graduation from the journalism faculty of Moscow State University, he joined the KGB's First Main Directorate and completed an internship under the direction of Kim Philby, a former MI-6 officer who defected to the USSR in 1963.

Under the guise of a correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda, Kudimov conducted espionage activities in London until his expulsion from the country in 1985. Later, holding a Novoye Vremya press card, he operated from a KGB station in Mexico. Upon returning to his homeland, he transitioned into banking as a reserve SVR officer, bringing in a decent income by servicing Soviet debts.

In addition to his activities at Pangeo Capital, Kudimov became one of the founders of the Kim Philby Memorial Fund. European media outlets alleged that Pangeo Capital was involved in providing clandestine financing for “friends of the Kremlin,” but Kudimov successfully contested these claims in court. Nonetheless, last March, Lithuanian authorities revoked his citizenship after the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs determined that the activities of the “former KGB employee” were “incompatible with the national interests of Lithuania.”

Archived link

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia’s attritional fighting has bombarded Ukrainian schools, hospitals and other vital civilian infrastructure in an attempt to make life unsustainable for remaining civilians.

But Russia has waged an aggressive campaign online as well as off, seeking to exploit and exacerbate divisions and tensions created by the war in Ukraine. While the strategies used are not new, the full-scale invasion saw an intensification of efforts to spread fear, muddy the waters, sow division, and ultimately, undermine support for Ukraine.

More than two years on, as more than two billion people across 50 countries head to polling stations in 2024, democracies around the globe are increasingly vulnerable to Russian influence attempts to polarise public opinion, discredit governments, and cast doubt on democracy itself.

**The information laundering process **

While we’ve heard plenty about the Kremlin’s narratives and disinformation campaigns – and the bot networks and troll farms behind them – we’ve heard less about the specific strategies that are making dis– and misinformation increasingly difficult to detect.

Key to this process is information laundering. Akin to money laundering, information laundering is when propaganda is spread through layers of media to conceal and distance it from its Kremlin origins. Actors use a range of techniques to build credibility and embed laundered information within public discourse, allowing falsehoods at the fringes of the media environment to go global and shape mainstream narratives.

One of the aims is to subtly manipulate information in a way that makes inaccuracies difficult to detect or debunk. In simple terms, clean and dirty information – or fact and fiction – are washed together until the two become indistinguishable, explains Belén Carrasco Rodríguez, director of CIR’s Eyes on Russia project.

“Information laundering is a multi-layered influence process involving the combination and progressive application of a set of influence techniques that seek to distort an event, a claim, or a fact,” explains Rodríguez.

“Instead of just disinformation, this involves a more complex process where facts are mixed up, decontextualised, misappropriated or misconstrued. Once a fact is recycled through a network of accounts or layers of media, it becomes completely distorted, and the original source is obscured."

Laundering information involves the gradual application of techniques such as disinformation, misappropriation, click-bait headlines, and the ‘Woozle effect’ – when fabricated or misleading citations are used repeatedly in laundered news items in an attempt to provide ‘evidence’ of their integrity.

The information is then integrated into and spread around the information ecosystem through processes such as smurfing – a term borrowed from money laundering – where an actor sets up multiple accounts or websites to disseminate the information. There’s also what disinformation analysts call ‘Potemkin villages’, a network of accounts or platforms that share and endorse each other’s content, serving to amplify and propagate material.

The goal of such dissemination techniques is to boost visibility while building credibility – based on the premise that audiences tend to trust information more if it’s widely reported by different actors or organisations.

An international operation

CIR has seen numerous examples of information laundering in different languages and online environments since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In 2023, our investigators worked alongside the BBC’s disinformation team to investigate Yala News – a UK-registered, Syrian-linked media company that was found to be spreading Russian state disinformation to millions in the Arabic-speaking world.

The topics and rhythm of Yala’s social media posts revealed traits of information laundering, with many of the posts identical to those seen on Russian state media just a few hours earlier.

Some videos – including one that claims President Zelensky was drunk and 'lost his mind’ – generated over a million views. According to Rodríguez, such content “hits the right audiences”, allowing outlets such as Yala to not only disseminate pro-Russian, anti-western messages but to drive their readership at the same time.

In another case, in February 2023, CIR saw a fake UK government letter circulated online and addressed to UK sponsors of Ukrainian refugees. The letter asked for the personal details of Ukrainian men living in the households, information that had allegedly been demanded by the Ukrainian Embassy in London for reasons unspecified.

It was an operation that Rodríguez describes as hybrid, combining a forgery with an information laundering operation that was designed to stoke fear among the Ukrainian refugee community while portraying the Ukrainian armed forces as desperate and running out of manpower – and prepared to go to cruel lengths to obtain recruits.

Such narratives were embedded into social media groups in countries supporting the Ukrainian war effort, like Lithuania and Latvia, with posts suggesting authorities were collecting information on Ukrainian men so they could be deported for conscription.

“They used that forgery as an initial entry point to a further influence campaign involving information laundering,” explains Rodríguez, adding that the letter was swiftly shared online alongside stories from individuals who had supposedly received it, or knew someone who had. These narratives were an attempt to add legitimacy to the claims, she says.

“This is how laundering works – online and offline networks mobilise to spread a piece of disinformation, in this case, a forgery.”

Sowing division, casting doubt

Like large-scale money laundering operations, it is the transfer of narratives into other countries’ political environments that helps to strengthen their credibility while serving the purpose of the launderer – making the strategy especially dangerous in the so-called year of elections.

Rodríguez says what is particularly concerning is Russia’s ability to embed its influence networks in different communities and launder information by “speaking the domestic language and understanding the domestic grievances.”

Recent CIR analysis shared with Bloomberg revealed how X (formerly Twitter) accounts being used to promote Russian interests in South Africa are attempting to rally support for a new party backed by former President Jacob Zuma. Investigators identified several accounts that praised Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and drew parallels between Zuma’s leadership and Putin’s. One such account has around 170,000 followers and regularly interacts with other users to amplify its reach – at times generating over 1 million impressions per post.

Ahead of elections in the U.S. and Europe, military aid to Ukraine has been a key topic for debate, and American officials have expressed concern that Russia will increase support for candidates opposing Ukrainian aid.

Recent reporting by the New York Times details Russia’s intensified efforts to amplify arguments for isolationism, with the ultimate aim of derailing military funding for Ukraine. While the initial arguments against additional aid may be organic, it is the amplification that is being “engineered” by Russia through the replication and distortion of legitimate news sites – a clear example of the information laundering described by Rodríguez.

Another key Russian tactic to destabilise support for Ukraine is through attacks designed to discredit and undermine the country’s political figures. The Washington Post recently uncovered a Kremlin disinformation campaign designed to push the theme that Zelensky “is hysterical and weak”, and to “strengthen the conflict” between Zelensky and Zaluzhny – the top military commander he dismissed in early February.

One senior European security official commenting on the campaign told The Washington Post: “Russia survived and they are preparing a new campaign which consists of three main directions: first, pressure on the front line; second, attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure; and thirdly, this destabilization campaign.”

Fragmented societies and social media bubbles

But as democracies around the world prepare to open their polling booths, U.S. officials have also warned that Russia may be attempting to move beyond targeting individuals, instead sowing seeds of doubt over the future of democracy itself.

A U.S. review of elections between 2020 and 2022 identified 11 contests in nine countries where Russia attempted to undermine confidence in election outcomes. More subtle campaigns – which attempted to cast doubt and amplify domestic questions about the reliability of elections – were identified in a further 17 democracies.

While content moderation by Silicon Valley companies has been strengthened in the wake of the 2016 U.S. elections, research has repeatedly raised the issue of comparatively inconsistent and weak moderation of non-English language content, leaving hundreds of millions of voters particularly vulnerable to campaigns and strategies that Russia has expertly refined.

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen previously warned that 87% of Facebook’s spending on combating misinformation was spent on English content, despite only 9% of users being English speakers – a disturbing finding for non-English speaking voters as they head to the polls. Meanwhile, after Elon Musk’s controversial takeover of X, disinformation and hate speech reportedly surged.

Research indicates that public trust in government, the media and democracy is waning, while conspiracy theories have flourished in recent years, particularly in the wake of the pandemic, a trend noted by Rodríguez:

“Societies are suffering a post-covid effect, we’re still extremely divided, and audiences are being held in social media bubbles. It’s very easy to disseminate false narratives and amplify them online, shaping cognitive processes and impacting public perceptions.”

Coupled with weak or understaffed content moderation from social media companies, this fragmentation provides fertile ground for influence operations to thrive, Rodríguez warns.

“The recent changes in social media platforms like Twitter favour this trend. It is a very volatile environment in an electoral year.”

Note: There are diagrams I can't post here, it may be worth clicking the link.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping have praised the deep ties between their countries, during a meeting in Beijing.

It was their fourth meeting since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

In that time, Beijing has become a vital partner for Moscow, as it seeks to soften the impact of sanctions imposed by the US and other countries.

Is China providing Russia with weapons?

China has repeatedly denied allegations that it supplies Russia with weapons.

In an interview with BBC News, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: "What's not happening is the provision of actual arms by China to Russia for use in Ukraine."

However, China has been accused of building up Moscow's war machine by providing critical components.

Mr Blinken said: "Those are being used to help Russia on what's an extraordinary crash course effort to make more munitions, tanks, armoured vehicles, missiles."

About 70% of the machine tools and 90% of the microelectronics Russia imports come from China, he added.

Sanctions announced by Washington in May targeted about 20 firms based in China and Hong Kong. It said one exported components for drones, while others helped Moscow bypass Western sanctions on other technologies.

China defends its trade with Moscow by saying it is not selling lethal arms and "prudently handles the export of dual-use items in accordance with laws and regulations".

Beijing exports more than $300m worth of dual-use items - those with both commercial and military applications - to Russia every month, according to an analysis of Chinese customs data by the Carnegie Endowment think tank.

It says the list includes what the US has designated as "high priority" items, which are necessary for making weapons, from drones to tanks.

RUSI, a UK-based think tank has also cautioned about the potential use of Chinese satellite technology for intelligence on Ukraine's front line.

How much has trade between China and Russia increased?

Beijing has become Moscow's key supplier of cars, clothing, raw materials and many other products, after Western countries imposed sanctions on Russia.

Trade between China and Russia reached a record $240bn (£191bn) in 2023, up more than 64% since 2021 - before Russia's invasion of Ukraine - according to official figures from China.

Russian imports from China were $111bn and its exports to China $129bn, the figures show.

At their meeting in Beijing in May, Mr Xi and Mr Putin praised growing trade between the two countries.

They highlighted that the two nations now use their own currencies for 90% of trade, instead of US dollars.

Mr Putin also said he welcomes Chinese carmakers in Russia. This came just days after the US announced a quadrupling of tariffs on China's electric vehicles to 100%.

The export of Chinese cars and parts to Russia reached $23bn in 2023 - up from $6bn the previous year.

"Russian natural gas is fuelling numerous Chinese households, and Chinese-made automobiles are running on Russian roads," said China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi in March.

However, some experts consider this a "lopsided" relationship in which Russia is more dependent on China than vice versa.

As of 2023, China has become Russia's top trade partner, while Russia is China's sixth-largest trade partner.

How much oil and gas does China buy from Russia?

Almost half of all the Russian government's annual revenues come from oil and gas.

Its sales to the US, UK and EU countries have plummeted since the invasion, because of sanctions.

A significant amount of this shortfall has been made up with increased sales to Asia - in particular, China and India.

In 2023, Russia surpassed Saudi Arabia to become China's top crude oil supplier. Beijing imported 107 million tonnes of crude oil from Moscow - a 24% increase from 2022.

The G7 group of "advanced" economies, along with the European Union and Australia, has also tried to limit Russia earnings by imposing a worldwide cap on the price of its oil transported by sea.

However, China has continued to buy Russian crude at above the price of the cap.

India, which has continued to maintain its decades-old relationship with Russia, has also been a major buyer of its discounted oil since the invasion.

Russia's share of India's total oil imports hit a record high of 44% in June 2023, according to the Bank of Baroda, an Indian state-controlled lender.

In 2023, China also imported eight million tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) from Russia, a 77% increase from 2021.

The two countries also plan to expand energy ties, including a new pipeline - called the Power of Siberia 2 - to export natural gas from Russia's western Siberia region to north-eastern China.

China already receives gas from Russia through the original Power of Siberia pipeline, which has been in use since 2019.

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During the two-plus years of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has imported at least 169 Austrian-made Steyr Mannlicher rifles and pistols. These weapons are actively being used by the Russian military in the war. The Insider has discovered that 11 sniper rifles were delivered to Russian companies as recently as February 2024.

Russian snipers’ Austrian rifles

Since February 2024, The Insider has published several investigations into the smuggling of European and U.S.-manufactured small arms into Russia. Russian importers have received more than 15,000 units of weapons over the course of their country’s full-scale invasion. The firearms range from pistols and hunting rifles to sniper rifles. And while imported pistols and carbines are not so common at the front lines, Austrian Steyr Mannlicher rifles remain popular with snipers in both the Russian army and security forces.

Steyr Mannlicher rifles are used by snipers of the Federal Protective Service (FSO), which is charged with guarding Vladimir Putin's security. They are also used by Russian mercenaries in Syria and Libya, and Russian naval infantry units fighting in Ukraine. The Insider was able to confirm, through public records, that Austrian rifles are used by snipers in at least five different brigades in official Russian army units:

• 155th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade of the Pacific Fleet
• 31st Guards Air Assault Brigade, which stormed Hostomel Airport near Kyiv in February 2022
• 14th Separate Special Forces Brigade of the GRU Spetsnaz
• 3rd Guards Separate Brigade of the GRU Spetsnaz -37th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade

The Austrian rifles are also used by:

• The Wagner Group's “Derivation” Company in Ukraine
• Wagner Group snipers in Libya and Syria
• The Federal Protective Service (FSO), which deploys snipers on the walls of the Kremlin

The most recent publication about the use of Steyr Mannlicher SSG rifles by Russian forces found by The Insider in open sources is dated April 30, 2024. Steyr Mannlicher’s Russian affiliates

In June 2014, in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the European Union imposed export restrictions on arms deliveries. At the time, discussions were underway about the possibility of Steyr Mannlicher producing weapons in Russia under an Austrian license. This potential project was closed, but the supply of finished rifles did not stop. A company affiliated with the Austrian factory served as the Russian recipient of Steyr Mannlicher rifles.

The largest importer of these rifles is Arsenal Weapons Salon LLC (ООО Оружейный Салон «Арсенал»). According to customs data, this company received Steyr Mannlicher rifles directly from the manufacturer until 2018 and imported 19,838 kg of products while cooperation persisted. The company is owned by three entrepreneurs: Alexander Seleznev and Vladimir Cherevichny each own 30% of the company's capital, while Dmitry Startsev owns 40%. The latter was the CEO and co-owner of another Russian company, Steyr Mannlicher LLC (ООО «Штрайр Маннлихер»). The company was established in September 2010, liquidated in March 2014 and had an insignificant turnover. It should be noted that the second co-founder of this company, which owned 75% of the share capital, was Steyr Mannlicher Holding GmbH (Austria).

Although the formal ties between Steyr Mannlicher and Startsev were severed, in February 2024, Arsenal Weapons Salon LLC, owned by the Russian businessman, received a new batch of 11 Steyr Mannlicher rifles in the .338 Lapua Magnum caliber. As of May 14, Arsenal's website indicated the availability of more than 20 different Mannlicher models, ranging from hunting rifles to sniper rifles.

Two other companies that import weapons from the Austrian manufacturer are Hunter-Ru LLC (ООО «Хантер-Ру») and Test-Oruzhie LLC (ООО «Тест-Оружие»). The owner of Hunter-Ru is entrepreneur Vladimir Shchigorets. In March 2022, the company imported 20 Steyr Mannlicher SSG 08 rifles in .338 LM caliber. According to customs records, the logistics intermediary was the Cyprus-based Philippos Constantinieds Trading Co Ltd, which UK authorities suspect of supplying arms to North Korea. Test-Oruzhie is linked to Beretta Holding's Russian partner, arms baron Mikhail Khubutia. In July 2023, the firm delivered 65 Steyr A2 MF pistols in the 9mm caliber to Russia.

Steyr Mannlicher’s business history in Russia

The first evidence of the use of Austrian weapons by the Russian military dates back to 2011. At that time, Russia’s Airborne Forces reconnaissance units received close to two dozen Mannlicher rifles.

The Russian army’s purchase of modern sniper rifles was long overdue. The most widely used sniper rifle in service with the Ministry of Defense, the SVD, was developed in 1957-1963. Its effective range is 600-700 meters, which is less than half that of modern .338 Lapua Magnum (1,750 meters) and .375 CheyTac rifles (2,286 meters).

Russian attempts to create a large caliber sniper rifle capable of operating at ranges beyond the reach of normal calibers led to the development of the ASVK (Army Large Caliber Sniper Rifle) in 2004. The project was not a success. Russia managed to create a heavy weapon — at 12.5 kg, the ASVK weighs more than twice as much as its European counterparts — but not an accurate one.

Russian Defense Ministry officers quoted on the social network “gunsforum” by former special forces and military blogger Alexander Arutyunov, known as Razvedos, are critical of the rifle's long-range accuracy, noting that “at 1,000 meters you can only hit a barn.”

Given their experience with the ASVK, Russian snipers were more than satisfied with the accuracy and compactness of the Austrian rifles, and their manufacturer was attracted by the opportunity to sell the weapon to one of the largest armies in Europe. Two years after the first deliveries were made, the head of Rostec State Corporation Sergey Chemezov and the chairman of the Russian-Austrian Business Council Vladimir Artyakov discussed the “development of military-technical cooperation” with the president of the Austrian Federal Chamber of Economy Christoph Leitl. In September 2013, Rostec and Steyr Mannlicher signed an agreement to produce small arms in Izhevsk. But due to the annexation of Crimea, this project was never realized. Still, deliveries of finished rifles did not stop — neither during the period of hybrid war in eastern Ukraine from 2014-2022 nor after the start of the full-scale invasion.

Lack of sanctions control

Since November 2023, it has been known that large-scale shipments of European small arms including Austrian Steyr Mannlicher and Glock rifles were still making their way to Russia. An investigation on this topic by the German publication Correctiv was covered by dozens of other publications. A series of articles on the smuggling of European weapons followed, naming specific participants in the supply chain. Finland's Helsingin Sanomat, Czechia’s Investigace, Italy's IrpiMedia, and The Insider all wrote about the issue.

So far, European authorities have reacted to these publications only once: in Germany, the public prosecutor's office in Ravensburg opened a preliminary investigation against the German rifle manufacturer Blaser. Such inaction raises serious questions. While it can be difficult to find intermediaries involved in the supply of microprocessors and semiconductors to Russia, there is no such problem in the case of weapons: the European Union's regulatory authorities have reliable information on the serial numbers of the barrels of most rifles and pistols that have ended up in Russia since February 2024.

Following the publication of The Insider's previous investigations into the smuggling of European small arms into Russia, Russia’s Federal Accreditation Service (Rosakkreditatsia) stopped publishing new certificates and declarations of conformity for a number of product groups.