Syria Today – Protests Spread to Aleppo; Turkish Strike on Northeast

Protests have emerged in Syria due to the deteriorating economic conditions in areas controlled by the government. The city of Aleppo has also seen an expansion of these protests on Thursday. Simultaneously, a car was targeted by a Turkish drone strike in the Kurdish-controlled northeastern region of Syria on Wednesday. The strike resulted in the death of the car’s driver and inflicted injuries upon an accompanying journalist.

HTS Monopolizes Oil Market in Northern Syria; Popular Protests Take Place

Ongoing protests in the rural areas of Aleppo have shed light on the monopolistic practices of the al-Anwar Company, according to al-Modon.

The ongoing protests in the rural areas of Aleppo, currently under the control of National Army factions, have shed light on the monopolistic practices of the al-Anwar Company within the northern Syrian fuel trade. Furthermore, these demonstrations have exposed the extent of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham’s (HTS) influence in the region, particularly its dominance over the crucial oil market, a cornerstone of the local economy.

RUSSOPHOBIA AGAINST RUSSIA IN THE INFORMATION WAR

Attempts to discredit the concept of the “Russian world” – a view from Serbia.
Today, Russophobia from the Serbian point of view is exactly what the word means in the strict sense: a phobia (irrational fear) of Russia. What kind of rational or irrational fear of Russia could Serbia have today?

THE CONFLICT IN UKRAINE: THE REPUTATIONAL CATASTROPHE OF THE WEST

Oleg Nesterenko

After the bipolar world that lasted from the end of World War II until the collapse of the USSR in December 1991, the current conflict on the territory of Ukraine is the center of gravity of the transition process between two eras of modern history: the old – unipolar – which lasted the last 30 years and the new – multipolar – post-hegemonic, born at the end of February 2022.

Why Putin Wanted Prigozhin Dead

A Conversation With Tatiana Stanovaya

In a Foreign Affairs article released earlier this month, Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, tallied the mounting stressors on Vladimir Putin’s regime—particularly the short-lived mutiny led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner private military company. The rebellion was “the product of Putin’s inaction,” she wrote, and the leniency afforded to Prigozhin afterward made the Russian president look “less powerful.” On Wednesday, Putin may have gotten his payback after all: Prigozhin was listed among the fatalities of a private jet that crashed outside Moscow. Executive Editor Stuart Reid spoke with Stanovaya the same day. Their conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

The End of the Russian Idea

What It Will Take to Break Putinism’s Grip

On June 17, 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin staged a special ceremony on the St. Petersburg waterfront to mark the anniversary of three flags: the flag of the Russian Federation, otherwise known as Peter the Great’s tricolor, formally unfurled in 1693; the imperial Russian flag, introduced by Tsar Alexander II in 1858; and the Red Banner, the Soviet Union’s hammer and sickle, adopted by the Soviet state 100 years ago and later used by Joseph Stalin. Putin watched the event from a boat as the National Philharmonic and the St. Petersburg State Choir performed the national anthem, which, thanks to a law Putin enacted in 2000, has the same melody as its Stalin-era counterpart. The portentous rite unfolded in front of the Lakhta Center tower, the country’s tallest building, as well as the $1.7 billion headquarters of Gazprom, the state-run gas company that has become another crucial symbol of Putin’s Russia.

The Washington Post’s ‘Good’ Terrorists

The attacks by the Fatah-affiliated terrorists came days after The Washington Post published a story from Balata refugee camp, near Nablus, in which its correspondents romanticized members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, even documenting them as they visit their barber for a haircut.