Fogbow

The Russian ambassador to Italy, Sergey Razov, said on Friday he was suing Italian newspaper La Stampa over an article that had raised the possibility of killing President Vladimir Putin.

"Needless to say that this goes against the rules of journalism and morality," Razov told reporters in front of the prosecutor's office in Rome after he had deposited the suit.

On March 22 La Stampa published an analysis headlined "If killing the tyrant is the only option". The piece said if all other options failed to halt the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the only solution would be for someone to kill the president.

Suranis wrote: ↑Fri Mar 25, 2022 10:14 pm

President Vladimir Putin's rouble payment scheme for natural gas is the prototype that the world's largest country will extend to other major exports because the West has sealed the decline of the U.S. dollar by freezing Russian assets, the Kremlin said.

Russia's economy is facing the gravest crisis since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union after the United States and its allies imposed crippling sanctions due to Putin's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.

Putin's main economic response so far was an order on March 23 for Russian gas exports to be paid in roubles, however the scheme allows purchasers to pay in the contracted currency which is then exchanged into roubles by Gazprombank.

"It is the prototype of the system," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russia's Channel One state television about the rouble for gas payment system.

"I have no doubt that it will be extended to new groups of goods," Peskov said. He gave no time frame for such a move.

Russian Embassy urges Irish government to intervene as it faces fuel shortage with companies refusing to deliver supplies
EXCLUSIVE: The Irish Mirror also understands that Bank of Ireland have decided to suspend their accounts with the Russian Embassy in Ireland

The Russian Embassy in Ireland is running out of fuel for heating and hot water and is complaining that numerous Irish oil companies have refused to deliver supplies.

It has forced the embassy to write a letter to Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney’s department asking the Government to intervene before they run out.

In a letter seen by the Irish Mirror, the Russians – ironically one of the world’s biggest oil exporters before the Ukraine invasion – have requested Foreign Affairs “intervenes into this clearly discriminatory case”.

A source said: “The embassy is struggling because no one wants to do business with them as a result of what’s happening in Ukraine. It’s not only some oil companies they’re having issues with, it’s banks too and many more businesses.”

The Irish Mirror also understands that Bank of Ireland has decided to suspend their accounts with the Russian Embassy in Ireland, according to senior sources.

When contacted, a spokesman for Bank of Ireland said the firm can’t comment on any individual account. It’s understood the embassy also had both its boiler contract and fuel card account ended by separate companies.

A second source said: “The Department of Foreign Affairs wouldn’t be stepping in to get anyone anything.”

The letter sent by the Russian embassy to Minister Coveney’s Department on March 22 reads: “The current provider of fuel to the Embassy has refused to deliver diesel to our mission.

“The Embassy checked other providers in [the] Dublin area for the availability of diesel supplies, but they have all refused to cooperate. The Embassy is left with a very limited supply that will last till the end of the week only.

“This diesel is an essential commodity, since it is used for heating and hot water supply of the Chancery, as well as the residential area of our mission. The Embassy requests that the Department intervenes into this clearly discriminatory case.”

When contacted by the Irish Mirror, the Russian Embassy refused to say if it had since secured fuel. The Russian Ambassador’s press secretary, Nikita Isakin, said: “The Embassy does not disclose the details of its communications with the Department or any other third party.”

A Department spokesman said: “The department doesn’t comment on the operation of embassies.”

The Russian Embassy here has also expressed to the Department of Foreign Affairs that Russian people living in Ireland feel unsafe and discriminated against as a result of the war in Ukraine.

Konstantin Malofeyev, a sanctioned Russian Oligarch, has been indicted in New York for attempting to tap $10 million in frozen U.S. assets, a scheme he allegedly executed with the help of a former Fox News director, American Jack Hanick.

Malofeyev is an arch-conservative Russian nationalist and media mogul with close ties to Vladimir Putin. He was sanctioned by the United States in late 2014 for acting as “one of the main sources of financing for Russians promoting separatism in Crimea” and for threatening the “territorial integrity of Ukraine” by supporting the breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic in the east of that country.