What's more on the radar?
- RuZZia will buy soap, shampoos and clothes from North Korea, according to the Rospatent magazine. An application for trademark registration for the relevant products was filed by Ryongaksan Soap Faktori from Pyongyang, Sota noted. Z-sources wrote that NK manufacturers are considering the possibility of supplying jeans, bags and shoes. The 2017 UN Security Council resolution bans the export of textiles from the NK to cut it off from sources of foreign currency that could be used in its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. The Security Council also banned the use of labor from the NK, since the workers get deduct up to 70% of wages to the state.
- Chinese companies are developing an attack drone for Russia, similar to the Iranian Shahed, which the Russian military uses to attack on the territory of Ukraine, European officials familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
They claim that back in 2023, russian companies held negotiations with Chinese partners on cooperation and offered to create a copy of the Iranian kamikaze drone. This year, development began in China. At the moment, the drone is being tested before being sent to Russia, the agency's interlocutors noted. At the same time, they clarified that Chinese drones have not yet been used in Ukraine.
- Russia's active rapprochement with China worries India, which opposes its growing influence in the region. Concerned about expanding the "borderless partnership," Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to Moscow for talks with Putin. "The deepening of strategic cooperation between russia and China makes New Delhi uncomfortable, since it is like a best friend sleeping with an enemy. Given our concerns, it makes sense for the prime minister to go there and talk to Putin at the highest level." Like China, India has taken advantage of the difficult situation in which russia has found itself due to sanctions, so Putin might not be inclined to hear Indian worries.
- A former US policeman, US Marine John Mark Dugan, who worked as a police officer in Florida and Maine in the 2000s, who fled to russia began to spread Kremlin propaganda. For the mass production of fakes, he and other Internet trolls began to actively use artificial intelligence, according to a BBC investigation.
In European countries and the United States, sites mimicking local newspapers have proliferated (some of them, such as the Chicago Chronicle published in the 19th century, have long since closed). Websites linking to "independent journalists" and "whistleblowers" are proliferating, through which disinformation about Ukraine and Western politicians is spread, and artificial intelligence (AI) is used to produce it. Fake documents and fake videos are also used.
In recent weeks, many such sites have focused on American politics and the upcoming presidential election, the BBC has learned. They can mix Ukrainian and American themes: for example, one story tells how horrified a Ukrainian propagandist was when she was given the task of defaming Donald Trump and supporting Joe Biden; another said that the first lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska, during a trip to New York, went shopping in jewelry stores and made racist remarks about employees there. Thousands of articles appearing every week show that the production of such disinformation is being automated by AI.
Cybersecurity firm Recorded Future has identified 120 sites registered in May in just three days that are involved in an operation dubbed CopyCop. And this is just one such Russian operation, estimating that at least 170 sites are linked to CopyCop.
- Putin opens a new register of all "foreigners who own shares large russian companies, directly or indirectly" by decree.The data are available to the court, the prosecutor's office, the Investigative Committee, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB at their request for familiarization "in connection with criminal or administrative cases".
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