• Small businesses on TikTok are telling their customers about their worst business struggles.
• "My small business is failing" and other messages have become common hooks.
• It's a good way to build authenticity, marketing experts say — as long as it's done smartly.

In the last couple of years, small businesses have littered TikTok with confessionals.

"My small business is failing," is how they often begin.

"If you've been following me for the last couple of months, you may think that it's not," craftsperson Laura Craine said in a post last year. "But in reality, I haven't received an order in weeks."

Another TikToker said: "On the outside, it might look like everything is going well and I'm making lots of orders, but I'm just not."

Ranging from straight-up claims of failure through to warts-and-all insight into the toughest days, each post aims to grab a precious few seconds of your attention, and maybe a portion of your cash.

They resonate well with users "who want to see more than the polished, curated success stories that once dominated social media and Instagram," Inigo Rivero, cofounder of UK-based TikTok marketing agency House of Marketers, told BI.

It also comes "as more small business owners are embracing radical transparency" on TikTok, Rivero added.

And in many cases, it seems to be working.

I remember thinking: 'I can't do this.'

Emma Molloy has long known the power of lifting the veil on her vegan-friendly doughnut business through TikTok, and being transparent about the ups and downs of making her four-year-old business work.

But the hardest moment for her company, Cat Burglar Dough Co., came in August. She had just given birth and was exhausted. Sales had been poor, and she had just learned that her maternity cover had fallen through.

"I was in a real corner and I remember just sitting there thinking, 'I can't do this,'" Molloy, 30, told BI.

She posted about her worries on TikTok, saying: "This month I've come closer than I ever have before to quitting," but added that she was determined to carry on.

A couple of days later, she was sitting on the floor with her baby when her phone suddenly started buzzing nonstop.

Notifications were flooding in. "Order, order, order, order," she said.

Over on Facebook, an influencer named Lisa Dollan — more familiar to her hundreds of thousands of fans as Yorkshire Peach — had just posted a glowing review.

"We had about £3,000 [about $3,800] worth of orders in a week," Molloy said, adding that the business turned a corner after that.

Business Insider wasn't able to independently confirm the amount.

Dollan didn't respond to BI's request for comment. It's unclear whether Molloy's emotional post prompted her reaction.

But some business owners told BI that posting some variant of "my small business is failing" has brought them unusual engagement, new customers, as well as encouragement at a time when they sorely needed it.

The pull of schadenfreude

Creative duo Caitlin Derer and Joseph Lattimer hopped on the trend in August, with a video that has been watched more than 1 million times.

"For us that's huge," they said.

They used the format as a vehicle to talk about how hard they were working and what they needed to turn the business into a success.

Their business, Collectable Cities, makes art toys for the high-end souvenir market, but the pair had reached the "soul-destroying" part of the business where practical issues turned the spark into a slog, Derer said.

"Then you see someone else make a video, where you can feel their pain through the screen and it's like, 'I should be also sharing some of this,'" she said.

The response to their video spanned thousands of comments, giving them exposure to new customers, as well as a wealth of feedback and suggestions.

Alice Bull, founder of Gratified, a TikTok-focused strategy and content agency, says she finds these kinds of posts compelling and has even ordered from businesses after seeing them. She characterizes it as a "storytelling hook," one of five tried-and-tested approaches that she says tend to produce results on the platform.

Bull regularly encourages her clients to not just showcase their products, but to pull back the curtain on their own stories.

"Telling stories, especially on TikTok right now, is one of the most powerful things you can do, particularly with a small business," she told BI.

"Anything you can do to connect with the audience that will potentially become your customers is absolutely vital," she added. "And one of the quickest ways you can do that is by being slightly dramatic."

She said that research shows that emotionally positive content gets the best engagement, but negative content has its own pull.

Indeed, one 2023 study that tracked the eye movement of TikTok and Twitter users suggested that viewers spend more time on negative rather than positive content.

It works because people immediately want to know what happened, Bull said. "You want to either experience that emotion with that person or understand what they went through" in order to save yourself from the same fate, she said.

It can also be a smart way of adding context to unpopular decisions like price hikes, Bull said.

Staying authentic

Done right, the hook can tap into the authenticism that has underpinned other TikTok trends in recent years, like deinfluencing and the "social media isn't real" hook.

But there's an obvious business risk to telling the world you're failing.

People who adopt this strategy need to weigh up the risk of harm to their long-term reputation with the benefits of appealing to people through honesty, Bull said.

There's also a potential ethical problem that comes with virality — if declaring your troubles is such an effective cash lever, there'll always be the temptation for successful businesses to exaggerate or even lie about their struggles.

Indeed, so many iterations have proliferated on the platform that it's been boiled down to something like a script, with audio from particularly successful versions borrowed by others, who simply paste it over their own visuals.

Rivero said that quality also matters.

"I'm not just going to buy a product just because I like the story," he said. "It needs to come hand-in-hand with a good quality product."

He added that a dropshipper who makes the same complaint as a one-person craft business is unlikely to get much sympathy.

Building trust

Laura Craine said that the massive response to her "small business is failing" post was part of what rallied her to carry on with her craft business when she was almost ready to close shop.

"At the time, my videos weren't doing great," she said. But this one took off, bringing her hundreds of new followers and a wealth of supportive feedback.

Craine's business, With Love And Dreams, preserves personal items like wedding blooms or human remains in resin to create memorial keepsakes.

The fact that she handles sensitive and irreplaceable items means her business depends on maintaining a deep wellspring of trust. Being completely authentic with her audience just made sense.

"I want people to see that I'm a real person," she said.

• Trump and his team have signaled opposition to some of Ukraine's recent attacks on Russian soil.
• Trump's Ukraine envoy said this week that the killing of a Russian general was outside the rules of war.
• Trump has also criticized Biden's decision to allow strikes on Russia using US-supplied missiles.

In a worrying sign for Ukraine, the incoming Trump administration has signaled its disapproval of recent attacks on Russian soil, including long-range strikes and the assassination of a top general in Moscow using a scooter bomb.

President-elect Donald Trump's envoy to Ukraine, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, said on Wednesday that Ukraine's claimed killing of Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov this week was contrary to the rules of war.

Kirillov, who headed up Russia's chemical, nuclear, and biological protection troops, was killed by a bomb planted on a scooter in Moscow on Tuesday. Ukraine has claimed responsibility.

Speaking on Fox Business, Kellogg said, "There are rules of warfare and there are certain things you just kind of don't do."

He added: "When you're killing flag officers, general officers, admirals or generals in their hometown, it's kind of like you've extended it, and I don't think it's really smart to do it."

Russia said it had arrested a man in connection with the killing, saying he was suspected of a "terrorist attack," the BBC reported.

Kellogg said the events wouldn't be a setback for any peace talks.

The US State Department said it was unaware of the plot, with an unnamed official saying the US doesn't support this kind of action, according to Agence France-Presse.

Kellogg's remarks come after President-elect Donald Trump said on Monday that the decision to allow Ukraine to make long-range strikes on Russia with US-supplied missiles was "stupid," and that he might reverse it once in office.

"I don't think they should have allowed missiles to be shot 200 miles into Russia," he said. "I think that was a bad thing."

Trump claimed that the decision prompted North Korea to send troops to fight alongside Russia, though intelligence agencies said that North Korean troops were being deployed at least two weeks before the Biden administration's decision.

He also said that the Biden administration should have asked for his opinion "weeks before I take over."

"Why would they do that without asking me what I thought?" he added.

Trump has repeatedly stated he would end the war in Ukraine, without publicly saying how he would achieve it.

Plans under discussion have included establishing a demilitarized zone in the areas occupied by Russia and requiring a pledge from Ukraine not to join NATO, The Wall Street Journal reported in November.

In an interview with Le Parisien on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated his stance that ceding territory to Russia in any talks would be unacceptable, along with any promise not to join NATO.

• Gazprom's share price hit a 15-year low amid ongoing export challenges to Europe.
• It comes after the company posted its first annual loss since 1999 in May.
• The EU is pushing to phase out its use of Russian gas, impacting Gazprom's European market share.

Gazprom's share price tumbled to a new low on Wednesday, the latest episode in a calamitous year for the Russian state-owned energy juggernaut.

According to Russian outlet RBC, Gazprom's 106.1-ruble share price on Tuesday represented its lowest value since January 2009. As of Wednesday, the share price had dropped further to 105.75 rubles.

In comparison, just before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Gazprom's share price hovered around 300 rubles.

Analysts speaking to RBC attributed the slide to broader market factors as well as roadblocks in Gazprom's ability to export gas to Europe, as the continent doubles down on its commitment to end its dependence on Russian energy following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

In May, Gazprom posted its first annual loss since 1999, and its share price immediately dropped by 4.4%. It continued to tumble through June, to a then-low of around 113 rubles.

The dreary May report reflected Gazprom's "loss of a significant share of the European gas market," Katja Yafimava, a senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, told Business Insider.

Impact of Russia's war

Prior to 2022, Europe sourced around 40% of its natural gas from Russia. In June, a Gazprom report seen by the Financial Times said that it would take a decade for the company to recoup losses caused by the war in Ukraine.

Compounding the concerns, an agreement to transit Russian gas via Ukraine is set to end on January 1, 2025.

In September, European Commissioner Kadri Simson said that the EU is "fully committed" to phasing out Russian gas via the Ukraine pipeline. "We started preparing two years ago," she said.

The move away from Russian gas is not without its headaches for EU countries, and Slovakia is leading efforts from some affected countries to stop this flow running out.

On Monday, following a meeting with Slovakia's prime minister, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal reiterated what the country had been signaling for some time: that it has no interest in renewing the deal.

He added, however, that Ukraine is open to the transit of gas from other sources.

Yafimava told BI that "the transit question is still hanging in the balance," but a recent decision by Austrian energy company OMV to cut ties with Gazprom amid a thorny contract dispute has "arguably weakened" its chances of continuing.

OMV's decision earlier this month was a historic blow to Gazprom, with the company among the first in Western Europe to import and invest in Russian gas during the Soviet era.

Industry experts told Business Insider this month that the end of the OMV deal was a significant indicator of Europe's success in weaning itself off Russian energy, one that would have been unthinkable before the invasion of Ukraine.

Even so, Gazprom's problems in Europe are not a death knell for the company, Yafimava said.

Gazprom can stay afloat thanks to the large domestic gas market in Russia, she said, adding that the blow had been cushioned by sharply increased gas prices.

Gazprom needs to find new markets "while the cushion lasts," she added.

One option ahead for it is an agreement over Power of Siberia 2, a Russia-China pipeline that would sharply increase exports to China. "In my view, this will eventually happen," Yafimava said.

• Ukraine said that North Korean troops had accidentally killed 8 Russian soldiers in Kursk.
• Ukrainian intelligence said it was a "friendly fire" incident caused by a language barrier.
• Experts previously told BI that language issues would pose a challenge for the military alliance.

Eight Russian soldiers were killed by North Korean forces in a recent "friendly fire" incident in Kursk, according to Ukrainian intelligence.

North Korean soldiers opened fire on Russian military vehicles, Defense Intelligence of Ukraine said on Saturday, attributing it to a language barrier between the two forces.

It didn't say when the incident took place, but added that language barriers continue to be a "difficult obstacle" for Russian and North Korean personnel, per The Kyiv Independent's translation.

Business Insider could not independently verify the report.

North Korea has sent thousands of troops to aid Russia in its fight against Ukraine, officials from South Korea, Ukraine, and the US have said.

Dmytro Ponomarenko, Ukraine's ambassador to South Korea, told Voice of America last month that the number could reach 15,000, with troops rotated out every two to three months. He said a cumulative 100,000 North Korean soldiers could serve in Russia within a year.

Experts on the relationship between the two states have previously said that the language difference between North Korean and Russian soldiers would be a key logistical issue.

Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., an expert in North Korean defense at the Center for International and Strategic Studies, told BI that though the two countries have historical ties, they rarely learn each other's language.

"To conduct combat operations with an allied force that doesn't speak your language presents real problems," he said.

North Korean soldiers have been sent to aid Russian forces in Kursk, an area of Russia that was partially occupied by Ukraine in August.

The North Korean soldiers are reported to have been scattered across various Russian units and had already come under Ukrainian fire as of early November.

Audio intercepted by Defense Intelligence of Ukraine in October suggested a chaotic start to the Russia-North Korea partnership, not least because of language difficulties.

In the intercepted audio, a Russian soldier complained about leaders having "no fucking clue" what to do with the new troops and remarked that they had been allocated one interpreter per 30 soldiers.

The soldiers reportedly killed in the friendly fire incident were from the Ahmat battalion, Ukrainian intelligence said — a group under the control of Chechen warlord and Putin loyalist Ramzan Kadyrov.

"Kadyorovites," as they are known, have been fighting in Kursk since August, according to reports.

Ukraine initially seized a large swathe of Kursk in its surprise cross-border raid — around 500 square miles — but Russian forces have retaken about 40% of that land, a senior Ukrainian military source told Reuters in late November.

• Dozens of unidentified aircraft have been spotted over military bases, airports, and cities in the US.
• The Pentagon said Monday that DoD has "no evidence" the drone sightings pose a threat.
• A White House spokesperson said the sightings include a mix of commercial, hobbyist, and law enforcement drones.

US officials said on Monday that the mystery drones flying over US military bases, airports, and cities don't pose a threat.

On Monday, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said that more than 5,000 drone sightings have been reported in recent weeks, but only about 100 required further investigation.

He said the sightings have included a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as some crewed aircraft and stars mistaken for drones.

The House Intelligence Committee was expected to receive a classified briefing on Tuesday over the issue, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

The drones have been seen flying at night over New Jersey and other East Coast states since mid-November, sparking concern and speculation from officials and citizens.

Kirby told reporters that "our assessment at this stage is that the activity is lawful and legal,"

The federal government has sent advanced technology and additional personnel to assist local authorities and state officials investigating the sightings, Kirby said.

He stressed that the government does not believe the drones represent a threat to national security.

"There are more than one million drones lawfully registered with the FAA here in the US and there are thousands of commercial hobbyists and law enforcement drones that are lawfully in the sky on any given day," Kirby said.

Kirby spoke to reporters on Monday after the Pentagon indicated, drawing an analogy to vehicles that approach the base, it wouldn't shoot at something unless it presented as a "clear and present danger."

The Department of Homeland Security echoed Kirby's statement in a post to X late on Monday.

Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said the Defense Department has "no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or public safety threat, or have a foreign nexus."

"We'll continue to do everything possible to investigate reports of concerning activity," he told reporters Monday. "But given how many drones are lawfully in our skies every day, we need to be careful to avoid assuming malintent or malicious behavior."

President-elect Donald Trump accused the US government on Monday of withholding information about the drones.

"The government knows what is happening," he said during public remarks at Mar-a-Lago. "And for some reason, they don't want to comment. I think they'd be better off saying what it is. Our military knows, and our president knows, and for some reason, they want to keep people in suspense."

"Something strange is going on," Trump said of the recent developments. "For some reason, they don't want to tell the people."

Mayors of 21 towns in New Jersey sent a letter Monday to the state's governor, Phil Murphy, demanding more transparency.

"Despite inquiries made to relevant authorities, we have yet to receive satisfactory answers about the purpose, operators, or safety protocols governing these flights," the letter says.

Where have residents reported seeing drones and unidentified aircraft?

Residents and officials have reported spotting unidentified aircraft, believed to be drones, flying above New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Ohio in recent weeks.

Murphy, the New Jersey governor, said late Monday that he had received a briefing from FBI Newark on their investigation.

"We are ready to assist the federal government in getting to the bottom of this," he added.

Murphy told reporters on Monday that some of the suspected drones spotted over his state are "very sophisticated" and can "go dark" the "minute you get eyes on them." Others have described the flying objects as bigger than normal hobby-style drones and able to avoid detection.

"This is something we're taking deadly seriously and we've gotten good cooperation out of the feds, but we need more," Murphy said.

Drones have been spotted near Picatinny Arsenal and Naval Weapons Station Earle, both military bases in New Jersey, and an airport in New York serving the public and the military.

However, officials have stressed such sightings are not necessarily unusual.

"This is not a new issue for us. We've had to deal with drone incursions over our bases for quite a time now," the spokesperson for the Joint Staff said Saturday. "It's something that we routinely respond to in each and every case when reporting is cited."

There have also been reports of suspected drones following a US Coast Guard vessel, as well as local police statements on the presence of unidentified aircraft near critical infrastructure.

US Northern Command, which is responsible for overseeing the protection of the US homeland, said over the weekend it was "aware and monitoring the reports of unauthorized drone flights in the vicinity of military installations in New Jersey."

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio acknowledged that drone activity near the base led officials there to close its airspace for several hours late Friday night and into Saturday.

A recording of a controller from the Wright-Patterson air traffic control tower that was shared by The War Zone, which first reported the incursions, urges an aircraft to "use extreme caution for heavy UAS movement on the base."

What are officials saying about these mystery drones?

Trump said Friday on Truth Social that there are mystery drones being sighted all over the country. "Can this really be happening without our government's knowledge," he wrote. "I don't think so!"

He suggested that they be shot down. Other officials have expressed concern about shooting them down due to the threat to local populations of falling debris. Neither kinetic nor electronic warfare methods are particularly ideal near civilian areas.

New Jersey State Assemblyman Brian Bergen told CNN News Central's Sara Sidner on Monday that "we shouldn't be shooting things down right now."

"Look, I was an attack helicopter pilot in the US Army. I flew overseas. I have seen bullets fly through the sky. It's not a great idea to do over the United States," he said. "Things should not be shot out of the sky. That is a very dangerous thing to do."

The FBI and New Jersey State Police issued a joint statement on Monday warning of "a concern with people possibly firing weapons at what they believe to be a UAS," as well as increased incidences of pilots being dazzled by lasers.

There could be "deadly consequences" of these actions, they said.

Amid the confusion on the drones, there has been a lot of speculation, including from officials.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey said on Fox News last Wednesday that the drones came from an Iranian "mothership" off the East Coast of the United States, citing "very high sources."

Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh rejected the congressman's claim in a press conference later that day, saying "there is no Iranian ship off the coast of the United States, and there's no so-called mothership launching drones toward the United States."

Singh said that the Pentagon has no evidence that the reported drone sightings are the work of a foreign adversary. While Iran does have vessels that can carry drones, they were spotted off its southern coast as recently as Thursday — debunking Van Drew's claims.

He doubled down on Thursday, saying the government isn't telling the truth. The congressman said it could be another ship belonging to another foe. A Department of Homeland Security official said Saturday that there is no evidence of any foreign-based involvement in sending drones ashore from vessels in the area.

"We're doing our best to find the origin of those drone activities," an FBI official told reporters Saturday. "But I think there has been a slight overreaction."

Local officials, meanwhile, have been calling for additional information.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Saturday called for increased federal oversight of drones and said runways at Stewart International Airport in Orange County were shut down for an hour due to unidentified drone activity. "This has gone too far," she said.

Hochul called on Congress to strengthen the Federal Aviation Administration's oversight of drones and provide counter-unmanned aircraft equipment to local law enforcement. On Sunday, she posted to social media that the federal government was sending a "drone detection system" to her state.

Previous unidentified flying objects and drone sightings

There have been a number of sightings of suspected drones and other unusual flying objects over or around military installations in recent years.

In February 2023, for example, the United States shot down three unidentified objects flying over American airspace over the course of three days. The incidents were part of a saga that followed the US takedown of a spy balloon off the coast of North Carolina the government said came from China.

As for drone activity, The Wall Street Journal reported in October that drones had been spotted over a military base in Virginia and the Energy Department's Nevada National Security Site the year prior. Retired US Air Force Gen. Mark Kelly, until March of this year the head of Air Combat Command, said that he learned about the sightings in December 2023, when officials at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia reported seeing dozens of drones flying over the base at night. It's unclear who was behind those incidents.

While the federal government says that the latest sightings are not the work of adversaries or a public security threat, multiple recent incidents near bases have raised national security concerns.

For instance, federal authorities on Monday charged a Chinese citizen residing in California, Yinpiao Zhou, with failure to register a non-transportation aircraft and violation of national defense airspace. The Justice Department accused Zhou of using a drone to photograph Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County on November 30.

Police arrested Zhou at the San Francisco International Airport before he boarded a China-bound flight.

And another man, Fengyun Shi, a Chinese national, was sentenced to six months in federal prison in October for photographing US Navy ships with a drone in Virginia. Fengyun, a student at the University of Minnesota, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of unauthorized use of aircraft for the unlawful photographing of a designated installation.

The FBI official who spoke to reporters on Saturday said of the most recent sightings: "We are doing everything we can, alongside our partners, to understand what is happening and whether or not there is more nefarious activity that we need to explore."

• An Austrian gas company ended its historic relationship with Russia's Gazprom.
• Austria framed the move as defiance against Russian energy blackmail attempts.
• It's a key step in Europe's thorny path to gaining energy independence from Russia.

A European gas supplier ended a decades-long contract with Gazprom, the Russian state-owned energy juggernaut.

Analysts are hailing the decision as a sign of Europe moving to be more resilient in its energy supplies.

The Austrian gas conglomerate OMV announced on Wednesday that it was cutting ties with Gazprom over a protracted contract dispute, ending its dealings with Russia.

OMV was one of the last large, long-term buyers of Russian gas.

"Huge, positive development. Russia is in trouble," political scientist Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia, wrote on X about the collapse of the deal.

The termination of the 34-year contract comes after months of wrangling between the two companies, in which Gazprom switched off the gas supply to OMV last month.

Austria's government — which owns 31.5% of OMV — framed the move as defiance against Russian attempts to blackmail the country, a common refrain from European leaders.

Austria's chancellor, Karl Nehammer, wrote on X on Wednesday: "Russia wanted to use energy as a weapon against us — that didn't work," adding: "Austria cannot be blackmailed by Russia!"

Austria has a secure energy supply, he added.

The news is a blow to Gazprom and, despite rising prices, is one sign of success on Europe's rocky path to wean itself off energy dependence on Russia, industry experts told Business Insider.

Dmitrij Ljubinskij, Russia's ambassador to Austria, denied in an interview with Ivzestia that Russia uses energy as a tool of pressure and said that OMV's move would not go unanswered.

Gazprom did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A calculated move?

Gazprom's supply to OMV and Austria — which comes via Ukraine — was not likely to be there for long anyway.

Ukraine has long signaled that it will not renew an agreement, which expires in January, to allow Russian gas to transit its pipelines.

Jack Sharples, a researcher at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, told Business Insider that OMV had likely been eyeing the Ukrainian decision, in parallel to the Gazprom dispute, for some time, and preparing alternative suppliers.

"There were significant risks to transit as a result of the Ukrainian transit deal ending in January, so canceling the deal seems a good idea," Tom Edwards, a modeler at the energy-market analysis company Cornwall Insight, told BI.

OMV now says its gas storage is at around 85%, and that it's well positioned to supply gas from alternative sources.

A feud entangled deep in the Ukraine war

OMV's announcement ends a historic partnership. It was among the first Western European, non-socialist companies to import gas and invest in Soviet Russia in the 1960s.

It signed its 34-year contract with Gazprom to supply Austria with gas in 2006, signaling a relationship of trust that showed signs of breaking down with Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

By March that year, the company announced it would no longer invest in Russia, but kept up its long-term supply relationship.

A Brookings Institute report from June highlighted that remaining tie as one of the many issues Europe still faced in decoupling, saying any break would be fraught with risk.

But a long-running, separate contract dispute sowed the seeds. A subsidiary of OMV had a smaller contract with Gazprom to supply gas to Germany via the Nord Stream undersea pipelines.

In summer 2022, Gazprom said that newly-imposed sanctions were preventing it from accessing key parts needed to drive the pipe's turbine.

That supply petered out and then stopped. Infamously, it never restarted after the attack on Nord Stream a few months later.

OMV went to commercial arbitration over the lack of supply to Germany, and in November was awarded 230 million euros, or about $240 million, plus interest and costs.

It said it would offset this award "against payments to be made by OMV to Gazprom Export under its Austrian gas supply contract."

Gas prices jumped 5% at the news, reaching a new high for the year. Three days later, Gazprom shut off the supply to Austria.

Europe is — slowly — weaning itself off Russian gas

The start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine stiffened political will across Europe to end dependency on Russian energy — something few could have foreseen, Sharples said.

Before 2022, Europe got around 40% of its imported natural gas from Russia.

"I think if you had asked European gas market analysts back in 2021, could the European market cope with losing 80% of what it gets from Gazprom via pipelines? We'd have said no, it would be horrendous," he said.

The landscape has changed significantly, Sharples said.

Over the last years, Europe has invested more not only in alternative suppliers but also the integration of its distribution system, meaning it can more flexibly respond to shortages, he said.

There are still many difficulties. A Chatham House analysis from this year pointed out that some replacement imports are Russian gas being "laundered" via third states.

And as of 2024, gas prices are still higher than they were before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Sharples said.

But the market has reacted with both a reduction in demand and the seeking out of alternative supplies, he said.

"What has actually happened is that European gas demand has come down by a fifth, and we've ramped up our imports of LNG from the global market," he said.

"There's no doubt that Gazprom has lost a huge chunk of its revenues by losing these export volumes to Europe," he said.

The impact on Russia

"Gazprom has lost a substantial share of its gas sector revenues since February 2022, and the loss of the Austrian market is another chip away at those revenues," Sharples said.

"It's not make-or-break for Gazprom, but it certainly doesn't help."

There's also a domestic impact — the Russian government derives much of its tax revenue from energy sales and also uses the funding from Europe to subsidize domestic gas prices, Sharples said.

• Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes on Syria since Bashar Assad's ouster.
• Its forces have also advanced into the Golan Heights, a previously demilitarized zone in southwestern Syria.
• Israel's defense minister said it intended to create a "defense zone free of weapons and terrorist threats in southern Syria."

Israel says it has launched hundreds of airstrikes on Syria in the days since Bashar Assad's regime collapsed.

On Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forces said it had "struck most of the strategic weapons stockpiles in Syria" in 48 hours as part of a push to stop the weapons "falling into the hands of terrorist elements."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday welcomed the toppling of Assad but said the moment is "fraught with significant dangers."

Assad's downfall followed a surprise rebel offensive led by the Islamist opposition group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which traces its roots to Al-Qaeda.

Per Tuesday's IDF statement, the Israeli military had conducted strikes on targets including antiaircraft batteries, Syrian Air Force airfields, and weapons production sites.

It said the strikes took out "numerous" strategic assets, including cruise and Scud missiles, tanks, radars, and attack helicopters.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which gathers data from on-the-ground sources in Syria, said on Tuesday that it had documented nearly 310 Israeli airstrikes on Syrian territory since Assad's government collapsed on December 8.

The Israeli navy also hit two ports, one in Al-Bayda and one in Latakia, the IDF said.

The IDF did not say how many ships were struck, but Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that the mission had been a "great success" and that the navy had destroyed the Syrian fleet overnight, CNN reported.

The IDF declined to clarify what proportion of Syria's military capability had been taken out when approached by Business Insider for comment.

Katz said that Israel intended to create a "sterile defense zone free of weapons and terrorist threats in southern Syria," adding that it's "in order to prevent terrorism in Syria from taking root," per The Guardian's translation.

The US and Turkey have also been reported to be carrying out airstrikes in Syria since Assad's fall.

Washington has targeted ISIS camps and operatives in Syria with precision strikes, President Joe Biden said on Sunday.

Jonathan Lord, a former political-military analyst at the Pentagon, previously told Business Insider the US military was hitting as many targets as possible as it was "rightly worried that ISIS could slip through the cracks in the chaos."

For its part, Ankara has reportedly launched a drone strike on a military site in an area held by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Force, which it views as a terror group.

Troops on the ground

The strikes come as Netanyahu announced that he had sent forces into the Golan Heights, a formerly demilitarized buffer zone in southwestern Syria.

In a video address on Sunday, Netanyahu described this as a "temporary defensive position" designed "to ensure that no hostile force embeds itself right next to the border of Israel."

Israel has denied reports that its forces have advanced beyond the buffer zone.

An anonymous Syrian source previously told Reuters that troops had reached Qatana, a town close to the Syrian capital Damascus.

Business Insider could not independently confirm the report. The IDF declined to comment.

Several Arab countries have criticized the move into the Golan Heights.

Egypt's foreign ministry said on Monday that it constituted "an exploitation of the state of fluidity and vacuum in Syria to occupy more Syrian territories," the Egypt Independent reported.

The Arab League said that Israel was "taking advantage of the developments in the internal situation in Syria," per CNN.

Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, confirmed at a press briefing on Monday that the Israeli military had entered the Golan Heights and was stationed in at least three locations there.

Dujarric said that peacekeepers at the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force had told Israel that such actions would violate the 1974 disengagement agreement and that there should be no military forces or activities in the area.

Netanyahu said that the agreement had "collapsed" and that "the Syrian army abandoned its positions."

• The downfall of Assad has threatened Russia's military presence in Syria along with its wider strategic objectives.
• Russia's bases in Syria made it a major diplomatic player in the Middle East.
• The bases were also crucial for its activities in Africa.

The fall of Bashar Assad has thrown Russia's military presence in Syria into question. It also poses a threat to Russia's ability to project power throughout the Middle East and beyond.

On Sunday, Syrian rebels, led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, overthrew Syria's longtime autocratic ruler.

It followed a dizzying two-week campaign that caught the world off guard and many are now trying to work out what will come next for the country.

Russia has been a close ally of Syria and has leases on two military bases in the country, giving it a strategic foothold in the Middle East.

"It hits them hard," Edmund Fitton-Brown, a senior advisor to the Counter Extremism Project, said of Russia.

He added: "Syria has been their most reliable Arab ally."

A springboard to power

In 2017, Syria granted Russia a 49-year lease on the Hmeimim air base and the Tartus naval base, in return for military assistance.

Russia has used the bases to project power in the Mediterranean and into Africa, and as a counter to NATO's southern flank.

"These bases are the most important bases outside the direct sphere of Russian influence," Andreas Krieg, a Gulf specialist at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies at King's College London, told Business Insider.

Ann Marie Dailey, a geopolitical strategist at RAND, told BI that despite its massive landmass, Russia "doesn't have great geography for power projection."

"It doesn't have warm water ports that have direct access to the oceans," she added. "And so having a port in the Mediterranean is incredibly strategically useful."

Hmeimim, meanwhile, gives Russia a refueling base and overflight access throughout the Middle East and on to Africa, she said.

On Sunday, Ukrainian military intelligence said that Russia had pulled two ships from Tartus, and had transferred weapons from Hmeimim.

BI was unable to independently verify the report.

But satellite images captured by Planet Labs PBC show Russian warships that had been seen in Tartus earlier this month were gone as of Monday.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia intended to have serious discussions with future Syrian authorities about access to the bases, but that it is too soon for now.

The potential loss of influence in Syria is not just about state power. The bases have also allowed support for the activities of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner.

"If you look at the Wagner footprint in Africa, you can tell that it's been enabled by the fact that they have that access in Syria to support those operations," said Dailey.

According to the Institute for the Study of War, losing the bases in Syria will "immediately" interrupt Wagner's rotation and resupply efforts.

Russia's ambitions for global leadership

Russia's involvement in Syria is a legacy of the Soviet era when the USSR traditionally maintained strong ties with other socialist states.

Russia propped up the Assad regime for more than a decade, notably sending aid during the 2011 Arab Spring, and troops and weapons to help counter the uprising in 2015.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had many reasons to stick his neck out for Assad.

"By backing Assad, Russia positioned itself as an indispensable player in regional politics, thereby increasing its diplomatic leverage," said Ali Bilgic, a professor in international relations and Middle East politics at the UK's Loughborough University.

But the huge cost of invading Ukraine appears to have forced Russia to choose between the two.

It "really speaks to how stretched thin Russian forces are," according to Dailey.

Putin has based Russia's international stature on the idea it can play a major role in different parts of the world, said Cristian Nitoiu, a Russia-focused lecturer in diplomacy and foreign affairs, also at Loughborough University.

Yet Putin's refusal to help Assad this time "basically shows that Russia was unable to support one of its long-lasting friends," Nitoiu said.

"The events in Syria can be seen as a sort of strategic failure on the part of Russia, and the optics look really bad," he added.

An uncertain future

In a statement on Sunday, Russia's foreign ministry said it was maintaining contact with "all" Syrian opposition groups, adding that while Russia's Syrian bases are on high alert, there's no serious threat to their security at the moment.

Russia has called Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham a terror group — so the fact that they are communicating with rebel groups now "demonstrates the importance of these bases," Dailey said.

HTS is also designated a terror group by the US and the UN.

What the US does regarding events in Syria will also be pivotal to what sort of foothold Russia can maintain, Loughborough University's Bilgic said.

On Saturday, President-elect Donald Trump posted on Truth Social: "THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!"

Should the US withdraw all involvement, Russia could exploit any ensuing power vacuum. But "this scenario appears improbable," Bilgic said.

In fact, diminishing Russian influence in Syria is a huge strategic draw for the US, he said, adding that there is also a concern that a new Russia-backed government could give room to ISIS, as well as threats to Israeli security.

Russia's presence in Syria has also helped it shape its objectives in energy markets, Bilgic said.

"Economically, the Tartus base played a role in Russia's energy strategy, helping to counter competing projects like the Qatar-Turkey pipeline," he said.

A grim reminder

What has happened in Syria in recent days may lead to some sleepless nights in Russia.

"I think it will rattle some folks in the Kremlin to see just how quickly Russia's military had to withdraw," Dailey said.

Assad's fall may also be a grim reminder for those in power in Russia of the necessity of crushing domestic resistance quickly, she said.

"Anyone in the Kremlin, because they've studied Russian history, knows that an autocratic regime can crumble very quickly."

• Ukraine's navy released images of vessels with what is likely a dazzle-camouflage paint job.
• It stems from a WWI-era tactic to make it harder for the enemy to gauge a ship's speed and direction.
• A naval expert told BI that the tactic has limited use, but could help against drones.

Ukraine's navy has revealed a fresh paint job on some of its vessels, which appear to have adopted a World War I-era tactic of using dazzle camouflage.

The Ukrainian navy shared the images on social media on Thursday, showing versions of the paintwork.

The vessels included at least one small armored artillery boat and an island-class patrol vessel, according to military site MilitaryNYI.

The boats were pictured taking part in a demonstration for naval experts from Denmark, which is cooperating with Ukraine on various naval issues, Ukraine's navy said.

It's unclear when the paint job was applied.

In the pictures, the boats feature distinctive, jagged patterns in various shades of gray, likely a design approach meant to confuse enemy onlookers.

The idea is that the differing shapes trick the eye, making it hard to calculate a ship's speed and direction.

How much of an edge it will really give Ukraine's boats in modern warfare remains to be seen.

"This does appear to be dazzling camouflage," Sidharth Kaushal, a sea power expert at the UK's Royal United Services Institute, told Business Insider.

He said the tactic could have some utility against optical sensors — on drones, for example — "but would have less value against radar-guided threats."

Dazzle camouflage first emerged in World War I as a means to confuse enemy submarines and reduce their ability to effectively aim torpedoes.

However, it has also seen some modern usage.

In 2021, the Royal Navy's HMS Tamar was repainted in dazzle camo as a way to give it a "distinct identity" before it set off on a tour, the BBC reported.

In July 2023, Russia also used a related gambit, painting its ships with blocks of black at each end in an apparent attempt to make them appear smaller and, therefore, harder to strike accurately.

At the time, Russia's Black Sea Fleet was being targeted by Ukraine, which was using long-range missiles and drones to take out vessels.

This resulted in the relocation of much of the Russian fleet from the strategic port of Sevastopol, in Crimea, to the further away port of Novorossysk.

Ukraine's navy has no large ships on active duty and consists mainly of small vessels, like those seen in the recent images.

Denmark's recently-announced cooperation with Ukraine aims to address issues of protecting Ukrainian ports and securing the Black Sea grain corridor, as well as the removal of naval mines and helping it to develop a more modern fleet, Ukraine's navy said.

In October, Denmark announced a $340 million aid package for Ukraine, which included new weapons and equipment.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has at least two daughters he rarely talks about.
• He has two daughters with his ex-wife Lyudmila Shkrebneva: Maria and Katerina, both in their 30s.
• Various unconfirmed reports say he has at least three other children, who he fiercely guards from the limelight.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is famously secretive about his personal life.

Putin has long tried to shield his personal life from the spotlight.

He has rarely publicly acknowledged his children, though media outlets have for years reported that he has two daughters with his ex-wife.

Putin is also rumored to have had relationships that may have produced other, secret children, including two boys by one mistress and a girl from a later rumored affair.

Putin's family affairs are so secretive that reports of exactly how many children he may have fathered have varied over the years, as have their names.

Most recently, in November 2024, Ukrainian media reportedly tracked down one of Putin's alleged daughters, who was living in Paris and working as a DJ.

Putin had two daughters with his first wife Lyudmila Shkrebneva, a former flight attendant

Sources: Vladimir Putin, Reuters, Business Insider

Their daughters' names are Maria and Katerina. Maria was born in St. Petersburg in 1985, and Katerina was born in Germany in 1986.

Sources: Vladimir Putin, Reuters, Newsweek

Both girls are named after their grandmothers. Maria's nickname is Masha, and Katerina's nickname is Katya.

Masha and Katya are common Russian shortenings for Maria and Katerina.

Sources: Vladimir Putin, Reuters, Newsweek

When the family moved to Moscow in 1996, the girls attended a German-language school. The children were reportedly removed from school when Putin became acting president, and teachers educated them at home.

Source: Newsweek

"Not all fathers are as loving with their children as he is," Lyudmila said in an undated quote on Putin's government website. "And he has always spoiled them, while I was the one who had to discipline them."

Source: Vladimir Putin

But as Putin gained political power, his children saw him less and less, according to one of his early biographers.

His first official biographer, Natalya Gevorkyan, interviewed him and his family in 1999.

The family was soon isolated and surrounded by security after Putin became prime minister for the first time, she said.

His daughters told her that they admired their father and were proud of him, but it appeared they didn't get to see him much, she said.

Source: BBC Sounds

Putin's marriage may also have been loveless. Lyudmila "was not a happy woman" and Putin wouldn't "hold" her, his biographer said.

"I understood that [Lyudmila] was not a happy woman. She was not," the biographer Gevorkyan said, speaking of her interviews conducted in 1999.

Gevorkyan said she had the impression Putin did not love her. She recalled Lyudmila as saying: "There are women who are admired by men, I think I am not that kind of woman. He will not hold me in his hands."

Gevorkyan said Lyudmila's tone was "more with respect" to her husband.

"I had the feeling that she really loved him," she added. "And I had a feeling that she was not that much loved back. I didn't have the feeling that it was a successful marriage for her."

Source: BBC Sounds

Putin and Lyudmila announced their divorce in 2013, although they were likely living separate lives long before that.

Lyudmila had become "almost invisible" in Putin's public life, according to Nina Khrushcheva, a professor of international affairs at New York's New School. 

Putin was rumored to be seeing Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva, while Luydmila was believed to have begun dating businessman and triathlete Arthur Ocheretny by around 2010. 

Sources: BBC, Proekt, Politico.

Meanwhile, the daughters were growing up. Maria studied biology before medical school, while Katerina majored in Asian Studies in college. Both girls attended university under false identities.

Sources: Reuters, Newsweek

There are no official current photos of the women. For Katerina, we found the slightly varying first names of "Katerina," "Katya," and "Yekaterina," and the last names "Putina," "Tikhonova," and "Shamalov."

Sources: Reuters, Newsweek

Maria is a medical researcher. According to reports, she married Dutch businessman Jorrit Faassen, although it's unclear exactly when.

Maria appears to have a lower public profile than Katerina. Here, she is seen presenting at a 2022 pediatrics conference. 

An investigation found that between 2019 and 2022, she earned $10.7 million from her role at New Medical Company (NOMEKO). 

Sources: Current Time, Reuters, Newsweek, Bloomberg

Maria and Faassen reportedly have a child — Putin told filmmaker Oliver Stone in 2017 that he was a grandfather. When Stone asked if he played with his grandchild, Putin replied: "Very seldom, unfortunately."

Sources: Reuters, The Independent, Bloomberg, Daily Mail

Katerina, an accomplished acrobatic dancer, is a tech executive.

She has been reported to head up Innopraktika, one of Moscow State University's initiatives to foster young scientists, as well as being deputy director of a mathematical institute there.  

In 2022 she was given a role overseeing Russian import substitutions.

Sources: Reuters, Bloomberg, CNN, The Moscow Times.

Here she is in her dancing days at the 2013 Rock 'n' Roll World Championship in Winterthur, Switzerland, representing Russia.

 

She took fifth place at that year's final. 

Source: WRRC

Katerina married Russian billionaire Kirill Shamalov in 2013, though they are reportedly no longer together. Their wedding was a lavish affair at the Igora resort in St. Petersburg.

The wedding was highly secure and included a laser show, an ice-skating display, and a mock Russian village, according to Reuters. 

A 2023 investigation found that the couple, though married by a priest in an elaborate ceremony, never formalized their vows at the registry office, as required by the Russian Orthodox Church. The report suggested this was connected to the structure of the family's vast and secretive property holdings. 

By 2018, the pair had split, according to Bloomberg. 

Sources: Reuters, The Guardian, Proekt   

Shamalov prospered during the marriage, racking up lucrative business interests. By the time he and Katerina split in 2018, the divorce papers revealed they were worth $2 billion.

As early as 2016, the couple were hardly corresponding, and Shamalov had seen lucrative shares in energy company Sibur returned to Putin's friends, a 2023 investigation reported. 

Sources: Reuters, Bloomberg, Proekt

Katerina made her debut on Russian state TV as a biotechnology expert in December 2018.

Her appearance did not include comments on her being related to Putin. The link was briefly made public in the course of a dance competition, but later retracted.

Source: Business Insider, Reuters

She has at least twice joined an event known as Russia's answer to Davos, and in 2024, Maria was also there. Both were rare appearances.

In June 2021, Katerina addressed the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum — but nobody called her Putin's daughter, apparently out of fear of reprisal from the Kremlin.

At the same event in 2024, Katerina appeared virtually, commenting on the "technological sovereignty" of the nation's military.

The following day, Maria spoke in person on a panel about biotech innovations. Programming listed her as a member of the Russian Association for the Promotion of Science, according to CNN.

Source: CNN

In 2022, it emerged that Katerina had begun a clandestine relationship with German ballet star Igor Zelensky and had a daughter with him.

Zelensky — no relation to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — has served as the director of the Bavarian State Ballet and the Munich State Ballet. 

The relationship was revealed by a 2022 investigation that examined Katerina's flight records, showing that she traveled with members of Putin's presidential secret service.

Per the report, Katerina secretly flew to Munich more than 50 times to see Zelensky between 2017 and 2019, with their daughter in tow.

Sources: Important Stories, Der Spiegel

Meanwhile, Maria Vorontsova split with Faassen and had a child with businessman Evgeny Nagorny, independent Russian media reported.

A post shared by Barkli_rus (@barkli_rus)

 

Nagorny — who formerly showed an interest in opposition politics — has been flying around the world with Vorontsova since at least 2016, according to a joint investigation by Russian outlets Meduza and Current Time.

They had a child together, and Nagorny became the manager of major gas company Novatek, the outlets reported. 

In 2020, per the outlets, Nagorny bought a luxury Moscow apartment in the building pictured above.  

Sources: Meduza, Current Time.

There are rumors that Putin has other children with ex-girlfriend and former Russian rhythmic gymnast Alina Kabaeva.

It's unclear exactly when Putin began dating the famed gymnast, but rumors were swirling long before he and Lyudmila announced their divorce. 

In a 2008 news conference in Italy, a reporter asked him about the chatter, which Putin dismissed, adding: "I always disliked people who go around with their erotic fantasies, sticking their snot-ridden noses into another person's life."

Reports have varied over the years on what children they have, with tabloid reports of the birth of a daughter in 2015.

More recently, however, an investigation reported that they have two sons. 

Neither the relationship nor the reported children have been confirmed by Russia. 

Source: New York Post, Proekt, NPR

A bombshell investigation in 2024 said that Putin and Kabaeva have 2 sons who live in seclusion and extreme luxury.

The boys are named as Ivan, born in 2015, and Vladimir Jr, born in 2019.

Business Insider could not independently verify the report. 

At Ivan's birth, according to the investigation, Putin was so happy that he shouted: 'Hurray! Finally! A boy!'

Extreme secrecy surrounds them — per the investigation, they have used "cover documents since infancy, which are mostly made for intelligence officers and people under state protection."

Source: Dossier Center

 

 

 

No publicly available images exist of Ivan and Vladimir Jr.

In its investigation, the Dossier Centre declined to publish images of the boys, both of whom are still children. 

The boys live at Putin's heavily protected lakeside palace at Valdai, in western Russia, according to the report. 

Source: Dossier Centre

In 2024, Ukrainian armed forces said they had flown a drone over Valdai palace, where Kabaeva and the children reportedly live.

The drone was on its way to attack a St Petersburg oil terminal as part of a spate of attacks on Russian energy facilities, Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukraine's minister of strategic industries, said. 

An unnamed special services official said that it had managed to evade the extensive defenses at Valdai. 

A few months later, it emerged that Russia's armed forces had moved much-needed air defenses closer to the palace to protect it. 

Source: Kyiv Independent, RBC Ukraine, Radio Liberty

 

Reports have also claimed that a former cleaning lady, Svetlana Krivonogikh, once had an affair with Putin and moved into one of St. Petersburg's wealthiest neighborhoods.

Independent investigations have reported that the pair had a close friendship between the late 1990s and the end of the 2010s, which resulted in a daughter.

In that time, Krivonogikh went from a former cleaning lady to the billionaire owner of one of Putin's favorite ski resorts.

Sources: Proekt, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project

Krivonogikh's daughter, who was born in 2003, is named Elizaveta Vladimirovna Rozova and goes by Luisa. Identity papers do not indicate a father, but her middle name means "daughter of Vladimir." She has not confirmed any relationship.

A Proekt investigation remarked on Elizaveta's "phenomenal resemblance" to Putin and many connections between the president and her mother. Images reportedly from her social profiles show a striking resemblance to Putin. But no relationship has been proven.

In a 2021 magazine interview, Elizaveta's face was not depicted. 

Asked about the resemblance, she agreed, but said "there are a lot of people similar to Vladimir Vladimirovich," using an alternative, respectful name for Putin.

Sources: Proekt, Russian GQ

Elizaveta appears to have led a vibrant life as a DJ and fashion businesswoman in Moscow and Paris.

In a bizarre turn of events, Andrey Zakharov, the journalist who first reported on Elizaveta, got added to a Clubhouse chat with her in 2021.

"I live in my own bubble," she reportedly said, adding that she doesn't pay attention to the news.

"I watch fashion shows, I buy copies of Vogue, and I love to go to the nearby restaurant and eat tasty pasta, dishing with friends about the latest gossip and investigations."

Source: TSN, Meduza

But at the start of the invasion of Ukraine, commenters reportedly mobbed her social media — which she then deleted.

An investigation published in 2024 reported that she went suddenly off-grid, changing her name to Elizaveta Olegovna Rudnova. 

An Elizaveta Rudnova was registered to study at a private art and culture management school in Paris between 2020 and 2024, the report said. 

In November 2024, Ukrainian media reportedly tracked down Rudnova, who was living in Paris and working as a DJ.

Business Insider was unable to independently verify the report. 

Source: TSN, The Telegraph

 

In late 2020, Putin announced Russia had finalized its COVID-19 vaccine. He said he gave the shot to one of his daughters, but wouldn't specify which one.

Sources: Business Insider, BBC, Politico

In February 2022, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. No statement came from Katerina or Maria, but scrutiny of their families ramped up.

In March 2022, an activist broke into a property owned by Katerina's ex-husband Kirill Shamalov in Biarritz, France, saying he was going to use it to host Ukrainian refugees.

More than a year later, as the war dragged on, Dutch authorities seized land belonging to Maria's ex-husband Jorrit Faassen, who was under suspicion of evading sanctions. 

Sources: Insider, The Insider, The Guardian

In April 2022, the US sanctioned Maria and Katerina, saying that they had "enriched themselves at the expense of the Russian people."

A White House statement said: "This action cuts them off from the US financial system and freezes any assets they hold in the United States."

The UK quickly followed suit, saying it was targeting Maria and Katerina's "lavish lifestyles." 

The announcement also contained more details about their work.

Tikhonova's work supports Russia's government and defense industry, while Vorontsova's genetics research programs are personally overseen by Putin, the White House said.

Source: White House, ABC News

 

 

The US said it believed the women were hiding assets for Putin, which was its rationale for sanctioning them. The Kremlin suggested the move was anti-Russian.

"We believe that many of Putin's assets are hidden with family members and that's why we're targeting them," a senior Biden administration official said, according to ABC News.

Dmitry Peskov, Putin's top spokesperson, said the Kremlin found the decision "difficult to understand" and framed it as part of a "rabid" Western animosity toward Russia.

Since 2022, the list of countries that have slapped sanctions on Maria and Katerina has only grown.

The US, UK, European Union, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan have all imposed sanctions on them.

Sources: ABC News, Reuters, Associated Press, Reuters, Reuters, Japan Times, New Zealand Herald

 

In July 2022, as sanctions began to bite in Russia, Katerina was given a top post overseeing import substitutions.

Tikhonova was appointed to a position at the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, known as RSPP.

Putin critics speculated that the shakeup at RSPP, a key Russian business lobby, was done to help bolster the country's lagging economy, which remains heavily dependent on foreign imports and has suffered from the bevy of international sanctions imposed due to the war in Ukraine. 

State media reporting on Tikhonova's appointment didn't mention her relationship to Putin.

Sources: RBC, Fortune

In the summer of 2022, the US added Kabaeva to its sanctions list, citing her "close relationship" with Putin.

The US government had initially held off sanctioning Kabaeva on the basis that it would be too personal a provocation to Putin — a reservation that suggests the White House, at least, is in no doubt about their relationship.

But Kabaeva was finally sanctioned in August 2022 over her ties to the Russian government. 

Sources: The Wall Street Journal, US Treasury

Svetlana Krivonogikh was the last woman connected to Putin to feel the weight of sanctions.

In February 2023, the UK sanctioned Krivonogikh. 

The UK government made no specific reference to a personal connection to Putin, although it did say she was one of five people "connected to Putin's luxury residences," including his luxury compound at Valdai.

It also said that she is "a shareholder in Bank Rossiya and the National Media Group, that consistently promotes the Russian assault in Ukraine."

Source: UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

 

In early February 2023, Kabaeva made a rare speech, where she said Russia's media is as powerful as a Kalashnikov rifle in war.

Kabaeva made the speech to the National Media Group.

Her praise of "war correspondents" came just a couple of weeks ahead of the first anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 

Sources: Insider, Newsweek

 

In March 2023, the Innopraktika Institute, headed up by Katerina, scolded Russian youth for not being patriotic enough online.

The report, which examined young people's social media activity, likened the drop in patriotism to a hybrid special military operation waged against Russia by foreign countries — using language more associated with how Putin characterizes his own invasion of Ukraine. 

Sources: The Moscow Times, Rozkomnadzor

• Elon Musk criticized the F-35 and called crewed fighters obsolete in the drone era.
• Musk's comments align with tech leaders advocating for drones over traditional military assets.
• Drones can't yet replace crewed aircraft. Even if they could, a mix of both might be more effective.

Drones are changing war in ways we never thought possible, but are we to the point where uncrewed systems can replace top-dollar weapons like the F-35 stealth fighter?

Prominent tech industry figures are saying yes. Former warfighters and analysts say we aren't there yet, and replacement might not be the right call regardless.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has targeted the Pentagon's prized fifth-generation stealth jet, the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter. In a series of social media posts on X this week, he called it idiotic to continue building them and criticized the design. Pointing to Ukraine, he said human-piloted jets are "obsolete" and "inefficient" and will "just get pilots killed" as drones and counter-air threats become more prolific.

In the Ukraine war, drones are surveilling and striking enemy vehicles and troop positions. But they are not a substitute for crewed jets, which Kyiv has long sought in greater numbers even as pilots face a tough air-defense environment.

Musk's comments follow similar remarks by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who called tanks "useless" last month while urging the Army to "give them away" and "buy a drone instead." Musk went a bit further, speculating about ways adversaries could defeat the F-35's stealth.

Musk's criticism comes as he prepares to target wasteful government spending as part of Trump's Department of Government Efficiency initiative. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is the Pentagon's most expensive weapon system program, with lifetime costs expected to top $2 trillion. Musk has previously suggested the F-35, troubled by setbacks throughout its development, isn't the best fit for the military.

Four years ago, the SpaceX founder said a remotely controlled uncrewed fighter would be a better alternative to the F-35 and argued the future is autonomous drone warfare.

This week, he said that "manned fighter jets are obsolete in the age of drones."

Drones are game-changers

Small, cheap drones are transforming land warfare by providing new options for tactical reconnaissance, targeting solutions, and threatening maneuvers. For situations where air and sea combat over vast areas might be more prevalent, like a war in the US military's priority Indo-Pacific theater, these drones are too slow with inadequate payloads and range to be sufficient.

The US also needs fast, low-observable, and maneuverable platforms that can carry advanced sensors and stand-off weaponry across great distances through potentially contested airspace.

"That's just not something that small UAVs can do," said Justin Bronk, a Royal United Services Institute airpower analyst.

Providing the full range of capabilities for this theater means larger, more sophisticated platforms with a higher price tag. Existing remotely controlled systems only meet some of the demands, some can cost as much as an F-35, and they are vulnerable to intensifying electronic warfare and surface-to-air threats.

The US military is actively developing new semi-autonomous and artificial intelligence-driven aircraft, from pilotless F-16s to collaborative combat aircraft in which a pilot directs the tasks. This space offers immense potential, with some limitations since the technology isn't yet mature.

"If I develop an aircraft that does not require a human in the cockpit, I could develop one that could pull 15 Gs, 20 Gs because you're no longer worried about the physiology of the human," said Guy Snodgrass, a retired naval aviator and former senior defense official.

Without a human pilot, "you could then strip out the cockpit, you could strip out the oxygen generation, you could strip out a lot of the life support systems," potentially freeing up space for sensors, weapons, and more, the former TOPGUN instructor said, arguing that "there are definitely advantages."

But without crewed fighter aircraft, particularly the high-end systems like the F-35, the US risks being "stuck with a huge capability gap for a significant period of time because the drone technology and the ability to not only produce it but then to incorporate it in the military and actually employ it in a tactically relevant or strategically relevant sense isn't there yet," he said.

Mixing the crewed fighters with uncrewed aircraft

In response to Musk's comments on X about their fighter this week, a spokesperson for Lockheed Martin told BI that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is "the most advanced, survivable, and connected fighter aircraft in the world, a vital deterrent and the cornerstone of joint all-domain operations," a reference to the jet's role as a combat quarterback.

The fifth-gen stealth jet is not only a US military aircraft. It is used by nations around the world, with more planning to establish F-35 fleets. That's because the F-35 isn't just a fighter jet. It's also a bomber, electronic warfare plane, surveillance tool, battle management platform, and key communications node.

An uncrewed aircraft can't yet match that capability. "That technology is simply not there," said Mark Gunzinger, a retired US Air Force pilot and the director of Future Concepts and Capability Assessments at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

If one day drones have all those capabilities, there are still advantages to keeping human pilots flying combat missions. Combat is unpredictable and requires making decisions in uncertain situations. Autonomous systems might be less prepared to look past the data, like a false radar return, to make the smart call.

Machines are more rigid. "The flexibility that human pilots give you to use the machine and the systems that it has in relatively unforeseen circumstances or across a very wide variety of mission types and circumstances is something that's very difficult to replicate in an automatic system," Bronk said.

For the US military, wargaming scenarios have shown that the better solution is not one or the other, crewed or uncrewed.

"We need both," Gunzinger said. "And the greatest impact on warfighting, the biggest leap ahead in warfighting capabilities and capacity, is in figuring out how to combine what they both bring to the fight in the most effective way. That's the secret sauce."

Much like the US isn't solely dependent on a single energy source, US national security isn't dependent on a single capability. In this situation, uncrewed systems enhance crewed systems and vice versa. The US military is still figuring out what comes next, but the F-35 is an imperfect but important bridge to that future of airpower, whether it's crewed, uncrewed, or some mix of both.

• Elon Musk criticized the F-35 program on Sunday.
• Musk's comments come as he prepares to advise Trump on government efficiency in 2025.
• The GAO expects the F-35 program to cost about $2 trillion over its entire lifespan.

Elon Musk, who's set to start advising President-elect Donald Trump on government efficiency in 2025, criticized the Pentagon's F-35 program in two social media posts on Sunday.

The billionaire reposted a video montage of coordinated drone swarms on X, writing: "Meanwhile, some idiots are still building manned fighter jets like the F-35."

He added a "trash can" emoji to his post.

When another X user defended the F-35's capabilities, Musk responded that the prized jet is a "shit design."

In another post, Musk said: "Crewed fighter jets are an inefficient way to extend the range of missiles or drop bombs. A reusable drone can do so without all the overhead of a human pilot."

"'Stealth' means nothing", he added, saying that it's "laughably easy" to shoot down fighter jets.

Musk has made similar arguments several times over the years.

Mauro Gilli, a senior researcher in military technology at the Center for Security Studies of the Swiss university ETH Zurich, told BI that Musk was echoing valid criticisms of the F-35 program.

But, he said, there were many problems with Musk's line of thinking.

Gilli acknowledged that the F-35 program has had well-documented cost and time overruns. But those problems are not primarily down to them being crewed aircraft, he told BI.

"The primary source of costs and problems was the electronics and, in particular, the software," he said.

And that would only get more expensive with a drone equivalent, he added.

"A drone operating within enemy airspace will not be remotely controlled," Gilli said. "It will need to have a very high level of autonomy."

This requires even more costly and complex electronics and software than even a piloted aircraft, he suggested.

According to Gilli, Musk's suggestion is to rely on something that has "so far been the primary source of cost and time delays. And so there is no reason to believe that these drones would be any cheaper."

Musk's emphasis on a "reusable" drone also means it would need all the same stealth capabilities as an F-35 in penetrating enemy airspace and evading air defenses, Gilli said, making his comments about stealth a moot point.

A target for DOGE?

It's unclear if Musk intends to use his new position to impact any plans or costs for the F-35, the Pentagon's most expensive fighter program to date.

But he mentioned Defense Department spending in a column in The Wall Street Journal that criticized federal government budgets.

"The Pentagon recently failed its seventh consecutive audit, suggesting that the agency's leadership has little idea how its annual budget of more than $800 billion is spent," Musk wrote in the column with Vivek Ramaswamy, who is to lead Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency with him.

Musk and Ramaswamy wrote that the intention of their department is to eliminate the "sheer magnitude of waste, fraud, and abuse that nearly all taxpayers wish to end."

As for the F-35, costs for the Lockheed Martin-developed stealth jet have hit about $485 billion, after a 10% bump this year due to what the Pentagon said was a need to improve its engine cooling.

Around 1,000 of the planes have been delivered to the US military and its allies, out of a total of over 3,000 aircraft planned for production over the F-35 program's lifetime.

The jet's operational lifespan is estimated to last until 2088, and the Government Accountability Office thus expects the F-35 program to cost over $2 trillion to produce and sustain.

Musk did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider, but he's said before that the US should consider remote-piloted alternatives to manned jets, both to keep up with the rise in drone warfare and also to help Air Force procurement stay competitive.

In response to Musk's tweets, a Lockheed Martin spokesperson told BI that the F-35 is "the most advanced, survivable and connected fighter aircraft in the world, a vital deterrent and the cornerstone of joint all-domain operations."

"As we did in his first term, we look forward to a strong working relationship with President Trump, his team, and also with the new Congress to strengthen our national defense," they added.

Meanwhile, a Pentagon spokesperson told BI: "We have combat capable aircraft in operation today and they perform exceptionally well against the threat for which they were designed."

The spokesperson added: "Pilots continually emphasize that this is the fighter they want to take to war if called upon."

• Russia has sent North Korea 1 million barrels of oil since March, according to satellite imagery analysis.
• The findings underscore the growing partnership between the countries, which includes military aid.
• The oil shipments are in defiance of UN sanctions, which Russia has ignored in the past.

An analysis of satellite images shows Russia defying sanctions to supply North Korea with at least one million barrels of oil this year, according to a new report.

The findings underscore the increasing partnership between the two states, and the extent to which Russia is willing to flout international norms to pursue its war in Ukraine.

The investigation, published jointly by the BBC and analysts at the UK-based Open Source Centre, used aerial and satellite images to track tanker shipping routes between Russia's port of Vostochny, in the country's far east, and five separate North Korean ports and oil terminals.

In the imagery, vessels would set out from North Korea riding high in the water, but on their return would appear fully laden, the group said.

The oil is payment for weapons and troops sent to aid Russia's war in Ukraine, the UK's foreign secretary, David Lammy, told the BBC.

Open Source Centre used the imagery to estimate that between March and November this year, Russia provided North Korea with at least a million barrels of oil — double the amount that North Korea is allowed to import under UN sanctions.

The UN Security Council — of which Russia is a permanent member — sanctioned North Korea in December 2017, forbidding the transfer of more than 500,000 barrels of oil a year to the state.

In March this year, Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution to extend the mandate of the expert panel tasked with monitoring the sanctions, effectively disbanding it.

The Open Source Centre and BBC investigation, which Business Insider has not independently confirmed, appears to back up assertions made by a US official in May.

The unnamed official told Reuters that in March alone, more than 165,000 barrels of refined petroleum had left Vostochny headed for North Korea, and that "Russian shipments have already pushed DPRK imports above the 500,000-barrel annual cap."

The new findings also give further insight into the continued material exchanges between Russia and North Korea.

Analysts have warned for months about the growing partnership between the two countries.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who signed a mutual defense agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin in June, has supplied vast amounts of ammunition and — it is believed — artillery to Russia to help in its invasion of Ukraine.

Around 11,000 North Korean troops have also been sent to fight, according to Ukraine, with reports suggesting that as many as 100,000 could be deployed within a year.

The two states have not made clear what the terms of the exchange are, but South Korean intelligence has estimated that it could be receiving about $2,000 per soldier a month, as well as food and access to advanced technology.

Earlier this year, a Carnegie Endowment analysis said the partnership was taking shape against the backdrop of the "slow and irreversible breakdown of the Kim dynasty."

But the oil transfers give North Korea "a level of stability it hasn't had since these sanctions were introduced," Joseph Byrne, one of the authors of the Open Source Centre report, told the BBC.

Analysts have previously told BI that the relationship between the two states is largely transactional, but that for Kim it's a "win-win" as he gains access to much-needed resources.

Kim is "getting paid, getting access to foreign technology," Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., a North Korea defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told BI last month.

• Officials in two Russian regions have said public bodies won't be holding New Year's parties this year.
• The regions said that they're planning to redirect funds to the war in Ukraine instead, per reports.
• This would be the third year of Russia scaling back celebrations in part to fund its war efforts.

The governments of several Russian regions have decided not to hold New Year's parties, with many proposing to allocate savings to funding the war in Ukraine, according to multiple reports.

The heads of the regions of Buryatia and Sakha, both in the east of the country, announced the move this week, according to The Moscow Times.

The Buryatia region's Telegram account proposed using the saved funds for those participating in the war, and encouraged others to do the same.

"It's wrong for public administrators and local governments to hold such events when the country is conducting a special military operation," the region's government said, per The Moscow Times' translation.

There will also be no fireworks as part of public celebrations to mark the season in the region's capital, Ulan-Ude, local outlet Arigus reported.

In Sakha, Russia's largest region, public institutions will not hold lavish celebrations, local outlet Yakutia 24 reported.

It is the third year in a row that cities and regions in Russia have scaled back festive celebrations.

In 2022, authorities in Tomsk, as well as Saint Petersburg, Sakha, Yaroslavl, and Nizhny Novgorod, all toned down festivities, The Telegraph reported at the time.

In addition to Buryatia and Sakha, several other regions have also said they'll be scaling back this year and sending funds to the military, according to Russian outlet Vedomosti.

Leningrad's governor announced plans to limit concerts and celebrations in favor of supporting the war efforts.

New Year is Russia's main festive celebration in December, as the country celebrates Christmas on January 7, in accordance with the practices of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Russian children traditionally receive gifts for New Year. The governments in both Buryatia and Sakha said that children's festivities wouldn't be affected.

There are signs that Russia's public sector is under strain, with large layoffs planned in 2025.

Russia is expected to lay off at least 40,000 government officials next year, according to a report by the Russian Kommersant newspaper.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered regional branches of federal government agencies to cut staff by 10% by July, per the outlet, which said that the cuts are designed to make the civil service more efficient and raise the salaries of existing staff.

It would also allow more people to enter Russia's labor market, which is experiencing a widespread shortage of workers amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Many holiday celebrations have been affected by Russia's invasion of Ukraine in the last years, not least Ukraine's own.

Ukraine is bracing itself for rolling blackouts this winter, per the Atlantic Council.