Russia’s banking sector has begun to decouple from Visa and Mastercard payment networks, and is due to begin issuing joint Russian Mir/Chinese Union Pay credit and debit cards.

Russia, the world’s sixth largest economy by GDP PPP, has for years planned to deepen economic co-operation with Asia, and reduce its reliance on financial institutions of the West.

The current breakdown in relations with the West, coupled with near-total sanctions, will undoubtedly speed up the process

A day at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant

After 30 years, the symbol of the designers and builders of Europe’s largest nuclear power station - the hammer and sickle - once again fly above above the compound. An ironic end to Ukraine’s 8 year long “de-communization” campaign

A day at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant

The facility was guarded by 240 troops of the Ukrainian National Guard, who were ordered to “fight to the last drop of blood”, their commander admitted during the surrender of the NPP to Russian forces.

Having disobeyed orders, the commander now believes he is a dead man walking, but continues with his duties at the NPP.

All the Ukrainian troops were freed to return to the homes and families, after signing a written statement, promising not to participate in any more fighting.

The amount of weapons and ammunition that they had was colossal, as you can see. And this doesn’t include all the heavy weapons and armored vehicles at the facility

@Murad_Gazdiev

Along the motorways of Ukraine’s Kherson province, we saw only two types of vehicles: endless Russian military convoys, and what used to be Ukrainian ones.

Anywhere you drive, whatever direction, you’re bound to come upon abandoned or destroyed Ukrainian tanks, overturned APC’s or damaged trucks, still loaded with tonnes of ammunition.

The bodies that could be found and collected have been transported away, but every so often, if you look under a hatch, you’ll see the silhouette or remains of a former Ukrainian soldier, or a militant from one of Ukraine’s nationalist battalions

Another devastated Ukrainian military convoy - destroyed in what appears to be an airstrike.

Recently, the Pentagon warned that the Ukrainian military faces a logistical collapse. That, evidently, is what the Russian military is after; to degrade and destroy Ukraine’s ability to transport weapons, ammunition and fuel from stores not yet destroyed by Russian airstrikes, to troops on the front lines. One salvo from a Grad MLRS weighs around 5 tonnes, which has to be delivered from stores.

For 8 years, Ukraine has battled militias made up of farmers and coal miners in the separatist Donbas, without ever having to worry about wasting ammunition and fuel. That is now costing them

More: horrifying footage from downtown Donetsk, where a Ukrainian ballistic missile attack has killed at least 23 civilians, among them a child