Candace Owens billed her trip to Russia last week as a family vacation. It turned into something far more useful for the Kremlin.
The U.S. far-right conspiracy theorist — boasting 35 million followers across all social media platforms — ended up appearing at Russia's flagship economic forum
YEREVAN, Armenia — The best of a bad lot was how many Armenians described victorious Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan ahead of Sunday's pivotal election — the first since the bitter defeat in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with neighboring Azerbaijan.
While the election has frequently been framed outside Armenia as
© Pedro Pardo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is willing to stop the war along the current line of contact and move to negotiations, he said in a Sky News interview. He presented the idea as the quickest route to a ceasefire, while rejecting any deal that hands Russia Ukrainian land. He also urged allies to close Ukraine's air defense gaps.
Asked where he would freeze the lines if Russia agreed to a ceasefire, Zelenskyy said he is ready to accept today's positions.
"Yes, it's the quickest way," he said.
He insisted this is not a giveaway. He does not want to simply freeze the conflict, but to stop the war so it cannot restart "because of some crazy people." A freeze would let Ukraine save children's lives and bring soldiers home. Any ceasefire must be total and free of Russian games, watched by American and European partners. Only then would the sides sit down to end the war through diplomacy. A ceasefire, he added, is "the biggest compromise from our side."
The most urgent need from allies is air defense, Zelenskyy said. Ukraine faces a large deficit in anti-ballistic missiles, with US transfers slowed by the war in the Middle East. He again asked for more Patriot systems. Russia attacks daily, usually with around 300 long-range explosive drones. On the heaviest nights it launches 600 to 850 drones and dozens of missiles.
Ukraine has built more than 400 defense companies since the full-scale invasion, Zelenskyy said. Dozens rank among the world's strongest. They produce drones and missiles, some underground, and the country is close to its own ballistic missile. Ukraine can now share that expertise with allies and even build air defenses for Europe, he said. Kyiv aims to mass-produce drones on a scale few countries can match.
Ukraine's recent strikes on St. Petersburg and the Moscow region answer Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy, Zelenskyy said. St. Petersburg was hit twice last week. He wants Russians far from the front to feel the war they started. Russian President Vladimir Putin understands only "total pressure," he said. Sanctions on Russia's shadow fleet of sanctions-dodging tankers and its oil and gas exports hit hardest.
Zelenskyy said Putin does not want to stop the war and is signaling he wants to win. Whether the fighting ends "100% depends on his decision," he said. His 4 June open letter, which Moscow called rude and rejected, was meant to force an answer and pierce a Russian public living in "some fantastic world." Russian businessman Roman Abramovich came to Kyiv to carry messages to Putin, Zelenskyy said.
His key message was on the Donbas: Ukraine will not leave its land, and compromises come only after a ceasefire. He is ready to meet in any format, but not in Moscow, Belarus, or Minsk. Leaders cannot decide "without us about us," he said, in a message aimed at Washington. Russia, by contrast, keeps insisting that Ukraine surrender all of the Donbas first.
Members of Russian President Vladimir Putin's sanctioned inner circle are still flying Western-built luxury business jets, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). A network of European brokers buys the aircraft, registers them in countries that ignore sanctions, and then sends them to Russia. Western enforcement, meanwhile, has gone slack.
A $75 million Bombardier Global 7500 sits at Moscow's Vnukovo airport. The Canadian-built jet sells to the global super-rich, and close Putin allies fly aircraft like it. WSJ reviewed records from an aviation-data firm, import filings, and flight-tracker logs to map the pattern.
Sergei Chemezov runs Rostec, Russia's state defense conglomerate, and has known Putin since their KGB days in East Germany. He has flown a Bombardier to Dubai, Türkiye, and Southeast Asia. Flightradar24 tracked roughly six of his UAE flights between October 2025 and January 2026. In Dubai, he holds a property fronting its own private beach on the Palm Jumeirah, the emirate's palm-shaped artificial island, Radio Free Europe reported earlier. Leaked financial files known as the Pandora Papers once tied him to estates in Spain.
Arkady Rotenberg, a boyhood judo partner of Putin's in St. Petersburg, built a fortune on state contracts. International sanctions have targeted him since Russia seized Crimea in 2014. He gained access to two Bombardier Global jets in late 2022. Flightradar24 shows them flying to Azerbaijan and the UAE.
Igor Kesaev made his money in tobacco and alcohol, then moved into retail and weapons. Forbes puts his fortune at $4.8 billion. The US and the EU blacklisted him after the invasion for helping arm Russia's military. In 2023, he brought in a jet-black Bombardier Global Express XRS, according to Ch-Aviation and Import Genius records.
Until the all-out war, much of Russia's elite parked their jets with European management firms in tax havens like Switzerland and Luxembourg. The war cost them those deals, and sometimes the planes themselves. They gave up London, the French Riviera, and the Swiss chalets, and now head to the UAE, Türkiye, and Azerbaijan.
These days, sanctioned Russians reach Western aircraft by going through middlemen and broker firms. European dealers buy Bombardier and Gulfstream aircraft secondhand. They register them in places like the UAE, Oman, Kazakhstan, and South Africa, then fly them to Russia. Similar shadow schemes were tracked before.
The planes moved through a Vienna firm, Avcon, and its subsidiaries before landing in Russian hands. Chemezov's jet started out registered in Bermuda under Avcon's management. A firm called Tarp Aviation later moved it onto Russia's registry. A separate Vienna-based fiduciary, SecuTrust, holds shares in both Avcon and Tarp.
Result strengthens PM Nikol Pashinyan’s drive for deeper integration with Europe despite warnings from Moscow
Armenia’s ruling pro-Europe party has won parliamentary elections, confirming the country’s pivot towards Europe and away from its traditional ally, Russia.
Final results in the small South Caucasus country showed the prime minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party securing a slim majority, while the Strong Armenia alliance, led by the Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, won 25% of the seats in parliament.
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© Photograph: Anthony Pizzoferrato/AP
© Photograph: Anthony Pizzoferrato/AP
© Photograph: Anthony Pizzoferrato/AP
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