0825GMT/May 2 2025
TOURISTS FLY TO GEORGIAN REBEL REGION: Abkhazia, the Moscow-backed Georgian rebel region, received its first commercial flight in 32 years on Thursday. The flight from Moscow's Vnukovo Airport was operated by UVT Aero. Among the passengers was Sergei Kiriyenko, a top aide to Vladimir Putin. He has special oversight of the Kremlin's strategy in the region. (COMMENT: The Kremlin sees Abkhazia, which lies on the Black Sea and is famed for its lush micro-climate, as a way to needle the West which wants to pull Georgia into its sphere of influence. The Kremlin also plans to build a new base for its Black Sea Fleet in Abkhazia. The region has declared its independence from Georgia but is bankrolled by Russia. Georgia has called the new flight to Abkhazia from Russia illegal, but the option of flying to Abkhazia on holiday will also be a boost for ordinary Russians.)
ECONOMIC DOWNTURN: Russia's economy slowed sharply in the first quarter of the year, said Russia's Ministry for Economy Development. It said that industrial growth rates fell from 5.7% in the previous quarter to 1.1% and retail turnover growth from 5.5% to 3.2%. (COMMENT: This is more evidence of the economic problems facing Russia. Importantly, a Russian think tank reported earlier in April that industrial demand generated by the Kremlin's war machine has stopped powering the economy and that civilian industrial production had actually shrunk.)
PRESS FREEDOM, OR LACK OF IT: Reporters Without Borders, the media lobby group, ranked Russia as the 171st worst country to work as a journalist – only nine places off the bottom. Only Nicaragua (172), Vietnam (173), Turkmenistan (174), Afghanistan (175), Iran (176), Syria (177), China (178), North Korea (179) and Eritrea (180) are ranked below Russia. (COMMENT: The Reporters Without Borders' ranking may be fairly arbitrary but it does highlight the point that Russia is one of the worst countries in the world for free speech.)
PUTIN'S ADMIRATION FOR ALEXANDER III: Russian TV aired a video of Vladimir Putin in his Kremlin apartment for the first time which showed a portrait of Russian Tsar Alexander III on a mantelpiece. (COMMENT: Putin has previously mentioned his admiration for Alexander III who ruled Russia from 1881 - 1894. He was a traditional and conservative ruler who repealed many of the reforms of his liberal-minded father and instead increased his own autocratic powers. He was also known for his straight-talking manner. These are clearly traits that Putin, who is known to want to go down in history as one of Russia's great rulers, admires. Where Putin and Alexander III differ is warfare. Putin's 25-year rule in Russia has been scarred by several wars and conflicts. Alexander III was, instead, known as 'The Peacemaker'.
TORTURE CENTRE: Russia's FSB security services have been running a systematic regime of torture of captured Ukrainian soldiers and citizens at a prison in the town of Taganrog, a consortium of Western newspapers led by the Guardian reported on Thursday. They based their report on dozens of interviews with survivors. Prisoners are beaten, electrocuted, starved, waterboarded, hung upside down from bars, threatened with rape and execution and humiliated at the prison. The reporting project was named after Viktoriia Roshchyna, a Ukrainian journalist who died aged 27 at Taganrog last summer. Her broken body was finally returned to Ukraine in February, missing organs. (NOTE: Although Russia's use of Taganrog as a torture centre was already known, many of the details are new. What is staggering is that the torture regime, which must have been sanctioned by the Kremlin, appears largely gratuitous – designed to disgust and instil fear, rather than extract any valuable information.)
UKRAINE WAR TALKS: The US has threatened to pull out of its role as mediator in the war between Ukraine and Russia because, as explained by a State Department spokeswoman, "the work must now be carried out between the two sides". (COMMENT: It feels more like Donald Trump and the White House are frustrated by a relative lack of progress.)
RUSSIAN SPY ARREST: Police in Greece arrested an ethnic Georgian for spying for Russia. The 59-year-old man was arrested in Alexandroupolis on Greece's Thracian Sea coast near the border with Turkey. (NOTE: Reports said that the man had been sending encrypted messages with details of NATO shipments to Ukraine for at least six months. Alexandroupolis is an important NATO port hub.) (COMMENT: European governments have warned of an increase in activity by Russia's GRU foreign intelligence service.)