How did Sberbank’s record dividend end up frozen for Western shareholders?
Russia’s largest bank keeps setting profit records and paying record dividends. For its shareholders in the West, that money is frozen in accounts they cannot touch.
Ukraine’s Zaporizhstal may idle half its capacity to fit new EU steel quotas
The EU dropped its steel duties in 2022 to help Ukraine through the war. On 1 July, it halved the tariff-free quotas and taxed the remainder at 50%.
Is a fifth or well over half of Wildberries gone—or can both counts be right?
Estimates of how much of Wildberries Ukraine has burned run from a fifth of the network to well over half. Which is right depends on what you count. And some of the loudest claims don’t survive a check.
Moldova overtakes every EU country as Ukraine’s top dairy buyer
Ukraine is selling less dairy abroad and importing more—while Moldova, rather than an EU country, has become its largest foreign customer.
Russia’s oil money is drying up—so its own people are paying for the war
Fresh figures show the Iran oil windfall came and went—and Russia, further behind than before, is now reaching for pensions and paychecks.
Crude goes south, gasoline north—Ukraine’s strikes split Russia’s oil trade
Ukraine’s refinery campaign has turned one of the world’s largest fuel exporters into an importer—and pushed its crude onto an Arctic shortcut it barely used a year ago.
Ukraine’s drone strike shut Russia’s biggest LPG plant as fuel rationing returned in 16 regions
The strike hit the plant’s entry unit 2,200 kilometers behind the front, taking 40% of Russia’s LPG production offline indefinitely.
Russia is squeezing independent gas stations out of its fuel market
Russia cannot make more fuel. So it’s handing the market to the state-linked majors, and the independent ones are being cut out.
Occupied Sevastopol puts fuel back on open sale—then caps every car at 20 liters
The occupation calls it stabilization. The 20-liter cap and the price limits say the shortage hasn’t moved.
Ukraine’s strikes gave Kazakhstan leverage over Russian retail giant Wildberries
Wildberries is building 260,000 square meters of warehouses while Kazakhstan tells shoppers to buy local.
Ukraine’s drones force oil-giant Russia to import gasoline—now from Morocco
Ukrainian strikes have cut Russian refining to a two-decade low, forcing one of the worldvs largest oil producers to buy finished fuel abroad—first from India, now from Morocco, shipped to the Arctic.
Russia wrecked Ukraine’s grid. Dutch turbines with 20 years left are keeping its factories lit
Too small for a Dutch wind farm, exactly big enough for a factory running on two hours of power a day.
Some Ukrainian farmers sell wheat below cost as Black Sea disruption stops ore operations
The central bank has put a $2.5 billion price on the port closures, and an iron ore miner now has weeks of cash left.
Reconstruction holds Ukraine’s economy above water as service sector cracks
The sector rebuilding what Russia destroys is now the war economy’s most confident, while service firms slip into pessimism, and the overall mood stops improving.