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Exclusive: We discovered what's going on inside Russia's shadow fleet
Russia

Exclusive: We discovered what's going on inside Russia's shadow fleet

by Tanya Kozyreva

The vessels are old, their hulls streaked with rust, and their ownership obscured behind layers of shell companies. Yet the tankers that make up Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, the armada used to move sanctioned oil across the globe, are kept running with modern Western technology including Starlink, an investigation by the Kyiv Independent can reveal. To gain an insight into how the shadow fleet operates, the Kyiv Independent spoke to two Ukrainian sailors who claim they unwittingly became p

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Ukraine's parliament attempts to unblock stalled IMF financing, votes on contentious tax bills

Editor's note: The story has been updated. Ukraine's parliament approved on April 7 one of several key tax bills tied to International Monetary Fund (IMF) funding, in a packed legislative push that also includes measures to align the country with the EU. The vote comes after weeks of political tensions and friction between the parliament, the government and President Volodymyr Zelensky over the stalled legislation. After missing the official IMF deadline of March 31, the parliament was set to

Outdated treaties leave Ukraine exposed to wave of international arbitration by Russia

As sanctions increasingly weigh on the Russian economy, businesses and tycoons linked to the Kremlin are launching billions of dollars in claims under Cold War–era treaties — opening legal fronts against Ukraine and its Western supporters beyond their own courts. The Ukrainian-born Russian financier Mikhail Fridman is behind five claims and is seeking 16 billion euros in damages over Luxembourg’s freezing of his assets, while a company he co-owns with Pyotr Aven is claiming $1 billion over Ukra

Moscow's Arbitration Court holds a hearing for Russia's Central Bank lawsuit against Euroclear, Jan. 16, 2026.

Russian FPV drone hits bus in rush hour attack as strikes kill 9, injure 51 across Ukraine

At around 9 a.m., a Russian FPV drone, guided by a Russian operator, deliberately struck a passenger bus in central Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, killing three people and injuring 16 others. Three of the wounded are in critical condition. Earlier, an 11-year-old boy was killed and five people were injured in another attack in the region, , Governor Oleksandr Hanzha reported.

About Russia

The Kyiv Independent’s coverage of news on Russia. Spanning eleven time zones across Eastern Europe and Asia, Russia has an estimated population of 146 million people. Russia’s capital city is Moscow, which is home to almost one in 10 Russians. Russia’s official currency is the Russian Ruble.

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