Tag: ukraine

‘Utmost seriousness:’ UK police probe death of Russian oil tycoon, Mikhail Watford

A Russian tycoon has been found hanged in his garage at home on one of Britain’s most exclusive estates.

The body of Mikhail Watford was found by a gardener on the Wentworth Estate in Virginia Water, located in the English county of Surrey. He was discovered on Monday.

The father of three, 66, made his fortune from oil refineries in Ukraine then set up a property firm after moving to Britain, The Sun reports.

Police are probing the death with the “utmost seriousness” amid fears he could have been on a hit list. Moscow has been linked to a number of exile deaths in Britain.

A family friend said: “His state of mind might have been affected by the situation in the Ukraine,

“The timing of his death and the invasion of Ukraine was surely not coincidental.”

Another associate said: “His death raises questions. After all the other suspicious deaths of Russian nationals and associates in the UK, it is only natural there will be speculation about his death.” Mr Watford changed his name from Tolstosheya after moving here in the 2000s.

He lived with Estonian wife Jane, their two children and an older son from his first marriage, in a $33 million mansion on the Wentworth Estate.

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Joe Biden Seeks $10 Billion More from Congress for Ukraine After Spending $1.4 Billion

President Joe Biden wants Congress to send him $10 billion to help Ukraine fight Russia, according to a letter from his administration seen Thursday.

“[W]e are requesting $10 billion to deliver additional humanitarian, security, and economic assistance in Ukraine and the neighboring region in the coming days and weeks,” Biden’s acting budget director Shalanda Young wrote in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Young said the money would be used for humanitarian assistance and additional defense equipment to help them defend against Russia’s invasion. It would also help fund Biden’s decision to send American forces to surrounding countries.

She indicated the White House wanted to see the spending package passed by March 11th but said more would be needed in the future.

“Given the rapidly evolving situation in Ukraine, I anticipate that additional needs may arise over time,” she wrote.

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Facebook Announces ‘Narrow Exception’ for Previously Censored Neo-Nazi ‘Azov Battalion’.

Facebook is reversing a ban on users praising Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, previously included in the platform’s Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy, amidst Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Internal memos from the social media platform, which has routinely censored mainstream conservative content, reveal it will “allow praise of the Azov Battalion when explicitly and exclusively praising their role in defending Ukraine OR their role as part of the Ukraine’s National Guard.”

“Internally published examples of speech that Facebook now deems acceptable include “Azov movement volunteers are real heroes, they are a much needed support to our national guard”; “We are under attack. Azov has been courageously defending our town for the last 6 hours”; and “I think Azov is playing a patriotic role during this crisis,” added The Intercept, which first obtained the company memos.

“For the time being, we are making a narrow exception for praise of the Azov Regiment strictly in the context of defending Ukraine, or in their role as part of the Ukraine National Guard,” clarified a spokesperson from Facebook’s parent company Meta.

“But we are continuing to ban all hate speech, hate symbolism, praise of violence, generic praise,  support, or representation of the Azov Regiment, and any other content that violates our community standards,” they added in a statement to Business Insider.

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Ukraine asks for Russia to be kicked off the internet

The internet is more than just hardware. It’s also a global network of shared standards and protocols. Some, such as Domain Name Server (DNS), provide the master address list for all internet resources. 

Now, because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Andrii Nabok, Ukrainian representative on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov, have asked that Russia’s top-level domains (TLD), such as .ru, .рф, and .su be revoked along with their associated Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates.  

Why? To stop the Russian propaganda machine, and prevent further propaganda and disinformation.

“These atrocious crimes have been made possible mainly due to the Russian propaganda machinery using websites continuously spreading disinformation, hate speech, promoting violence and hiding the truth regarding the war in Ukraine,” Nabok said.

Fedorov has also asked that RIPE NCC, the regional Internet registry for Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Central Asia, withdraw Russia and its Local Internet Registries (LIR) rights to use their assigned IPv4 and IPv6 addresses and to block their DNS root servers.  

If it were to happen, the move would be unprecedented. While Russia has deliberately disconnected itself from the internet in the past as a security test, this is an entirely different proposition. 

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