Russia’s oil export revenue soars to $98 billion as war in Ukraine rages on

A report shows Russia’s income from oil and gas exports reached the highest record during the first 100 days of the war, with Moscow taking 93 billion euros ($ 98 billion), most of the European Union customers.

Reports from the Clean Energy and Clean Research Center (CREA) based in Finland show the main clients for Russian oil, gas and coal are China with 12.6 billion euros, followed by Germany (12.1 billion euros) and Italy (7 , 8 billion euros).

EU last month agreed to stop most of Russian oil imports but Russian gas embargo is not on the current card.

Ukraine forces were driven from Central Severodonetsk

The Governor of East Lugansk, Sergiy Gaiday, said Ukraine forces had been expelled from the main eastern center of Severodonetsk, after a Russian attack for several weeks.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his troops struggled to “literally every meter” from the industrial center.

Gaiday said that Russia had destroyed the second bridge to the city in the Donets River and that Azot Chemical Plant, where hundreds of civilians took shelter, were being issued.

The separatist troops supported by Moscow said the city was “blocked” and called for Ukraine forces to “surrender or die.”

More body in Bucha

Ukraine police said the seven other bodies, several with their hands and feet were bound, had been found in a grave near Bucha, the suburbs of Kyiv which had become synonymous with the accusations of Russian war crimes.

Regional Police Chief Andriy Nebytov claimed seven found near the village of Myrotske, about 10 kilometers (six miles) of the northwest of Bucha, “tortured by Russia who was then executed by cowardly with bullets to the head”.

The corpse of a dozen civilians was found lying on the road, in the basement and buried in a mass grave in Bucha after Russian troops withdrew from the area at the end of March.

Baltic countries can be the next, said EX-PM

One former Russian Presidential Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned that war could last up to two years and tell AFP that Ukraine won.

“If Ukraine falls, Baltic countries will be the next,” said Mikhail Kasyanov, who was Putin’s first prime minister before being fired in 2004 and is now one of the main criticisms of Kremlin.

Kasyanov, who has left Russia, disagrees with the advice of French President Emmanuel Macron that Putin should not be humiliated and also reject the call for Ukraine to surrender the territory to end the war.

I believe this is wrong and hopes that the West will not take the road,” he said.

Use of ‘Surprising’ Cluster Bombs: Amnesty

Amnesty International accused Russia of using repeated bomb cluster in an attack on the housing environment in the second city of Ukraine, Kharkiv.

London -based NGOs said that they had revealed evidence of the use of 9N210 and 9N235 cluster bombs and printed soil mines, all of which were prohibited under the international convention.

Repeated use of cluster ammunition which is widely forbidden, and further indications of total neglect of civilian life,” Donatella Rovera, an advisor to the senior crisis of Amnesty International, said.

Read | Russian vacuum bombs are so scary | Indian Today Infographics

Long queue for ‘McDonald’s’ Russia

Long queues formed outside the former McDonald’s restaurant in Central Moscow which was reopened on Sunday a month after the US fast food giant withdraws from Russia.

Russia’s answer to McDonald’s is called “Vkusno I Tochka” (“Delicious. Full Stop”). The new logo depicting burgers and two fries has replaced the iconic golden arches of McDonaldsements.

The queue at the restaurant in Pushkin Square Draw Comparisons with the excitement produced by the opening of the first McDonald’s in Russia in January 1990, which was praised as a sign of Soviet detente with the West.