Russia
Starbucks will exit Russia after 15 years, closing 130 licensed cafes
A woman drinks coffee in a Starbucks in a mall in Khimki outside Moscow. Alexander Natruskin | Russia After 15 years operating in Russia, Starbucks will exit the market, joining companies like McDonald’s, Exxon Mobil and British American Tobacco in withdrawing from the country completely. The coffee giant announced Monday that it will no longer […]
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Russia dominates nuclear power supply chains — and the West needs to prepare now to be independent in the future
Wind turbine and cooling towers of the Cruas-Meysse nuclear power plant in France, April 12, 2021. Jean-Marie HOSATTE | Gamma-Rapho | Getty Images Russia’s war in Ukraine has pushed countries around the globe to wean themselves from Russian oil and natural gas. Parallel conversations are imminent in the nuclear energy space, too, because Russia is […]
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Russian forces focus efforts on Severodonetsk, eastern Ukraine; Zelenskyy set to address Davos elite. Follow our live updates
Russian forces zero in on Severodonetsk in Donbas, Ukraine says Russian forces have been targeting Ukraine’s defenses in the Donetsk area in a bid to push through to neighboring Luhansk in the eastern region of Donbas, Kyiv said in its latest military update Monday morning. The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said Russia had […]
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Ukraine rules out ceasefire and ceding territory; Moscow names 963 Americans banned from Russia
Russia’s only unit of Terminator tank support vehicles is believed to be in the Donbas: UK MoD The U.K.’s Ministry of Defence believes that Russia’s only operational company of BMP-T Terminator tank support vehicles has likely been deployed to Severodonetsk in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas, where Russian forces are heavily concentrating strikes to gain territory. The […]
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Russia may be running out of crucial targeting drones; brutal siege of Mariupol steel plant ends. Follow our live updates
Boris Johnson spoke with Turkey’s Erdogan about NATO concerns U.K. Boris Johnson spoke with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday, focusing on their two countries’ cooperation and the war in Ukraine. Johnson raised the issue of Turkey’s opposition to Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership applications, and “encouraged” Erdogan to work with both countries […]
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Goodbye, American soft power: McDonald’s exiting Russia after 32 years is the end of an era
Soviet customers stand in line outside the just opened first McDonald’s in the Soviet Union on January 31, 1990 at Moscow’s Pushkin Square. Vitaly Armand | Afp | Getty Images It was 4 a.m. and a trickle of Russians had already begun lining up outside the building in the freezing winter cold, hours before opening […]
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Russia will shut off gas to Finland from Saturday, Finnish energy provider says
A drilling rig at a gas processing facility, operated by Gazprom. Maxim Shemetov | Reuters Russia may have just made its first retaliatory move against Finland after lawmakers in Helsinki officially applied to join the military alliance NATO. Gasum, Finland’s state-owned gas wholesaler, said in a statement Friday morning that natural gas imports from Russia […]
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China quietly increases purchases of low-priced Russian oil
China is quietly ramping up purchases of oil from Russia at bargain prices, according to shipping data and oil traders who spoke to Reuters, filling the vacuum left by Western buyers backing away from business with Russia after its invasion of Ukraine in February. The move by the world’s biggest oil importer comes a month […]
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Vaccinated and tested, the rich and powerful descend on the snowless hills of Davos
The World Economic Forum is returning to Davos in May after cancelling previous meetings because of the coronavirus pandemic. Fabrice Coffrini | Afp | Getty Images The rich, famous and most powerful are once again returning to the Alpine retreat of Davos, Switzerland, next week following a two year coronavirus-induced hiatus that had forced the […]
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