Bloomberg: China is considering buying or increasing stakes in Russian energy and commodities companies, such as gas giant Gazprom PJSC and aluminum producer Rusal International PJSC, according to people familiar with the matter.

China is trying to use its leverage over Russia right away.

The dependance of Europe on Russian gas. No need to overestimate it, we think. This war could be the real start of an energy transition.

Case of Poklonskaya (I)

In the middle of January, 2022 Natalia Poklonskaya, international symbol of Russia’s Crimean takeover and an anime icon, suddenly canceled her plans for taking the office of Russia’s ambassador to Cape Verde.

A month later Vladimir Putin started a full-scale offensive against Ukraine. Now he is going to proceed with catastrophic decisions and try to put Viktor Yanukovich back in position.

According to our sources, part of Russian elites is getting increasingly frustrated with Putin’s decisions.

There is an understanding among top-siloviks that Yanukovich along with Putin's Ukranian narrative are a lost cause.

Case of Poklonskaya (II)

Poklonskaya suddenly went public today with peaceful message without nazis and hate speech contrary to official Russian propaganda.

We are seeing a public opposition to Putin’s narrative on Ukraine, or at least an alternative.

The same people that took Poklonskaya back from Cape Verde in January are supporting her effort today.

We’ll see how it all works out among Kremlin towers, whose disagreement is already public. Poklonskaya and her narrative make sense, totally.

CIA Director William Burns: Putin’s assumptions on Ukraine turned out to be profoundly flawed. He is not in position to sustain a stable puppet regime in Kyiv.

According to CIA, Putin "has no sustainable political end game” in Ukraine.

Russian state propaganda is confused about Natalia Poklonskaya. That's exactly what we were talking about. Let's see what happens next.

According to CIA Director William Burns who spoke yesterday in front of House Select Intelligence Committee, Putin premised his war on four false assumptions:

• he thought Ukraine was weak;
• he believed Europe was distracted and wouldn't mount a strong response;
• he thought Russia's economy was prepared to withstand sanctions;
• he believed Russia's military had been modernized and would fight effectively.

Everything turned out to be wrong. What’s more disturbing, Burns said that now Putin will double down on Ukraine because this case is a matter of “personal conviction” for him.

Burns knows Putin personally.

Bank of Russia’s Head Elvira Nabiullina wants out and rightfully so.

Contrary to Russian folk conspiracy, Nabiullina is a great professional. Her actions in 2014 after Crimea were questionable, but other than that she has been very good.

Everything she and many others in Russian public administration and business were working on for decades has been destroyed in one day – for nothing.

Putin is impossible to work with since that bunker stuff started.

For those who think that the current crisis will reshape Russia for better - guys, come on. The disaster is only getting started.

The fact that gasoline is getting more expensive in the US and Europe will bring you joy for a couple of days. Then what?

So, Kyiv government is not a band of junkies and neo-Nazis anymore? Or Moscow's morale is getting so low that it is ready to communicate with drug-addicts?

We're reminding you, that a week ago Putin addressed Ukrainian Army and asked its officers to take out Zelensky and hold direct talks with Kremlin. Now it's not the option, ok.

Looks like Russia has to stop the war immediately, every other day will make the future terms worse for the country and its people.

Russia has banned foreign currency sales for six months. No more cash in dollars and euros available for Russians, cannot buy it.

Internal sanctions are usually more sever than external, this is the case. Nabiullina is assessing the situation as a disaster.

This is either a panic move or desperation. It didn’t take long. Now there is a black market of dollars and euros in Russia which will be controlled by siloviks.

Meanwhile there are reports about Russian elites taking foreign currency out of the country through airport green zones.

Billionaire Alisher Usmanov's successful negotiations with the U.S. Treasury could possibly open the way for other Putin's oligarchs to come to terms with the U.S. government as well.

Usmanov was excluded from the sanctions list by a special license.

According to Bellingcat's Christo Groziev, several Russian bilionaires are already playing for the other team.

Russia's Defence ministry finally acknowledged that Russian conscripts are in Ukraine.

President Putin denied this on various occasions, saying only professional soldiers and officers had been sent in.

Now Putin had ordered military prosecutors to investigate and punish the officials responsible for disobeying his instructions to exclude conscripts from the operation.

This is an order to punish Sergei Shoigu. Now we know who will be held responsible for Ukrainian failure by Putin.

This is getting more and more interesting day by day. Maybe they will drown together.

Kremlin used Beslan massacre in 2004 to eliminate direct elections of governors in Russia. Now it is using war in Ukraine to rip the future opposition of any possibilities to influence the process of elections through election commissions.

Nazarbayev passed all kinds of bills and laws. We are just saying.

Britain had imposed asset freezes on seven Russian businessmen: Roman Abramovich, Igor Sechin, Oleg Deripaska, Andrey Kostin, Alexei Miller, Nikolai Tokarev and Dmitri Lebedev.

Abramovich won’t be able to sell Chelsea now. Trying to save his other assets, he promised to donate all the money from a potential Chelsea deal to a fund for Ukranians.

Hasn’t worked out.

He said that with a straight face. These people really have to go.

We were so amazed with Lavrov that forgot to give a translation of his statement: "Russia hasn't attacked Ukraine". Oh well.

According to Christo Grozev, FSB is recruiting young people whose job is to scour comments under social media posts for ''extremist'' statements. Starting salary is $500. ''Creating the world's biggest network of snitches''.

Christo is not exactly correct: the network of snitches in Russia has been created a long time ago. Now it is just recruiting new people.

Holding on in his office is the most important issue for Putin now, when he got trapped in Ukraine.

Institute for the Study of War: The Kremlin has set informational conditions to blame Ukraine for a Russian-conducted or Russian-fabricated chemical or radiological false-flag attack against civilians as a pretext for further Russian escalation.

There shouldn’t be second Putin in a nuclear power. Ever.