Ice on the Gulf of Finland in front of Gazprom’s headquarters at the Lakhta Centre in St. Petersburg, Russia, 9 March 2024. Photo: EPA-EFE/ANATOLY MALTSEV Russian energy giant Gazprom is considering unprecedented staff cuts at its St. Petersburg headquarters after posting gigantic losses in 2023 and being on course to announce a comparable deficit for last year, regional news website 47 news reported on Monday.

Gianni Cenni, photo: telegram channel of the Ukrainian Air Assault Forces Ukrainian military captured 51-year-old Italian citizen Gianni Cenni, who was fighting on the side of the Russian army. This was reported by the press service of the Air Assault Forces of Ukraine. The department said that the Italian mercenary entered service in the Russian Armed Forces in November 2024, before that he worked as a cook in one of the restaurants in Samara.

In the elections in Croatia, Zoran Milanovic, an outspoken critic of Ukraine and NATO, retained the presidency. How does his fight with the country's pro-European prime minister help the Kremlin and hinder Brussels? Zoran Milanovic at a post-election rally after the second round of the presidential elections in Zagreb, Croatia, January 12, 2025.

Photo: Social media Three tankers carrying over 2 million barrels of Russian oil have been refused permission to dock at ports in China and are currently idling some distance off the country’s coastline in the Yellow Sea, Bloomberg reported on Monday.

Anna Trapkova. Photo: mos.ru The Moscow city government has appointed a new director for the Gulag History Museum, which was forced to close its doors in November in what was widely seen as a Kremlin-backed move to cement its control over Russia’s only state museum dedicated to Stalin’s victims, the Moskva news agency reported on Monday.

Vladimir Putin welcomes Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian before their meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, 23 October 2024. Photo: EPA-EFE/MAXIM SHEMETOV / POOL Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian are due to sign a strategic partnership agreement in Moscow on Friday, the Kremlin announced on Monday.

On the death of the “black colonel” Viktor Alksnis Victor Alksnis. Shamil Zhumatov / Reuters / Scanpix / LETA FROM THE EDITOR: At the beginning of January, Viktor Alksnis, one of the most odious representatives of the “national-patriotic” camp in the late USSR and modern Russia, died. A career Soviet military man, Alksnis began his political career in 1988, opposing the Popular Front of Latvia, which sought to secede the country from the Soviet Union.

Gazprom is considering the possibility of reducing the number of employees in the central office and the St. Petersburg branch of the company by more than one and a half times - from 4,100 to 2,500 people. This was reported by 47news, and later confirmed by the state corporation. Deputy Chairman of the Board Elena Ilyukhina approached the head of Gazprom, Alexey Miller, with a proposal to fire some employees.

Three tankers carrying more than two million barrels of Russian oil have stopped unloading in the Yellow Sea off the coast of China. Bloomberg reports this. According to the agency, a total of three ships with Russian fuel were heading to China - Olia, sailing under the flag of Gabon, as well as Mermar and Huihai Pacific under the flag of Panama.

Demobilized war veterans in Ukraine will receive medical care out of turn, said Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova. According to her, the program of state guarantees of free medical care to citizens was supplemented with a separate section dedicated to military personnel returning from Ukraine. It follows from it that participants in the Russian invasion will receive “extraordinary specialized, high-tech” medical care and rehabilitation.

The Russian Armed Forces fail in Kursk, but advance in Donbass. What's happening on the front line? Ukrainian serviceman at a training ground in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, November 29, 2024. Photo: Oleg Petrasiuk / Ukrainian 24th Mechanised Brigade / AP / Scanpix / LETA The Russian Army cannot liberate the territory of the Kursk region captured by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, but continues offensive operations in the Donbass and is preparing new ones.

Some aspects of cultural decolonisation are vital if Ukraine is to resist Russia’s forced embrace A Ukrainian national flag is placed around Lenin’s neck in the eastern Ukrainian city Slovyansk, 12 March 2015. Photo: EPA/ROMAN PILIPEY In 2022, Lithuania’s then-Minister of Culture Simonas Kairys decided that performing Russian composer Tchaikovsky’s classic ballet The Nutcracker was no longer an appropriate way to celebrate the Christmas season.

The Russkaya compression station in Russia’s Krasnodar region. Photo: Gazprom Ukraine attacked the TurkStream natural gas pipeline’s first compressor station in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region on Saturday, the Russian Defence Ministry announced on Monday.

The death toll due to fires in Los Angeles has risen to 24 people, according to data from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office. Sixteen of the victims were found in the Eaton area, and eight more were found in the Palisades area, the release said. As Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said at a press conference on January 12, rescuers and police began a search operation in the Eaton area and have already found the bodies of three victims.

The Novosibirsk Regional Court sentenced four citizens to terms ranging from five to 7.5 years in prison in a case of “sabotage” (Parts 1, 2 of Article 281 of the Criminal Code). This was reported by Kommersant and the project “No to Extremism” . As the NGS wrote earlier, we are talking about residents of the Novosibirsk region Savely Ryapolov, Kirill Veselov, Viktor Skorobogatov and Pavel Solovyov. They were detained in May 2023.