Russia
Delhi and Islamabad close the Bishkek list
India and Pakistan put their confirmations on the record on Thursday: Narendra Modi attends Tuesday's Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek, and so does Shehbaz Sharif, at a table the Kyrgyz presidency counts at 21 heads of state. Four days out, the open question is what gets signed.
Baku's media complaint goes on the record: 96 outlets
The number that reached the wires this week began as an interview. Azerbaijan's ambassador to Russia counted the Russian outlets running theses about his country at 96 or more, and asked Moscow for a political assessment and concrete measures. The count had circulated for days as a stray figure; now it has an author on the record.
The biggest container line stops booking Novorossiysk
MSC suspended new bookings to and from Novorossiysk with immediate effect after a strike on one of its ships bound for the port. At the grain quay in the same harbor, repairs are now priced at up to four months.
The region's fuel backstops harden into the supply plan
Ukraine's drones stopped Lukoil's NORSI refinery on Wednesday, and Reuters counted the wider score: every big Lukoil plant in Russia now stands idle. For Central Asia's importers, the hedges assembled this summer, Chinese contracts, an Iranian request, third-country cargoes inside a Russian commitment, now read as the base case.
The port war now runs on both shores of the Black Sea
Russia says it struck cargo vessels and fuel storage at Ukraine's Pivdennyi and Chornomorsk ports on 25 August, extending a campaign against Ukrainian harbours it has run since mid-July. Across the water, Russia's own grain terminals at Novorossiysk are idle for a third week, and moving Kazakh oil through the same sea still costs nearly $400,000 a day.
A Kazakh refinery turns north, and the minister calls the terms normal
Kazakhstan's energy ministry says an arrangement is in place under which the Kondensat refinery in Aksay keeps up to 30% of its petrol and diesel at home and sends the rest to Russia. The tonnage is small. The direction, with Russia's own petrol exports banned into 2027, is the news.
The price of shipping Kazakh oil eases off its record
The Baltic Exchange's weekly report has the Novorossiysk-to-Augusta Suezmax run settling Thursday at WS532, a round trip earning "just under $400,000" a day, almost 40 Worldscale points off in a week.
Russia's fuel export bans now reach into 2027
Alexander Novak put dates on the whole architecture on Saturday: petrol exports banned for all sellers through 31 January 2027, diesel for non-producers extended to the same day, jet fuel to 30 November, with producers regaining their diesel exemption on 1 September. For the region's importers, Russia's export calendar is now a winter planning document.
Russia's border cameras have turned away 68,900 people
The interior ministry put a number on its biometric border experiment: about 14 million foreigners have given fingerprints and photographs at the checkpoints since December 2024, and 68,900 of them were on the entry-ban list and were refused. The count is cumulative, a running total rather than a surge. From 1 September it acquires a domestic partner: the Amina app becomes mandatory for visa-free arrivals in 11 regions, and in Moscow and its region the only way to register.
Drones return to Nizhnekamsk, and the airports close before dawn
A massed drone attack crossed Tatarstan in the night into Thursday, densest over the Zakamsk industrial zone, 10 days after a strike on the same district killed 13 people, 9 of them Central Asian workers. Officials count injuries, no deaths. By Friday before dawn, flight restrictions reached Kazan, Samara and 5 more airports.
Yerevan promises everyone a deepening, and Moscow sends the first invoice
The programme Armenia's cabinet takes up on Thursday lists partners from Washington to the EAEU for deeper relations, all at once. One of those partners has already put a price on its line: Rosselkhoznadzor is asking for inspection results and a written compliance programme.
Baku's wanted list reaches into a Moscow ministry
Aleksey Chadayev, an adviser to Russia's transport minister, announced his resignation late Tuesday after Azerbaijan's Prosecutor General's Office charged him and 2 media figures over summer livestreams and put them on a wanted list. Russia's foreign ministry, for its part, has stepped back from the commentators: their views, it says, in no way reflect Moscow's position.
Baku hands Moscow’s envoy a list of 3 broadcasts
Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry summoned Russian ambassador Mikhail Yevdokimov on Tuesday and lodged what it called a firm protest over “provocative, insulting and threatening statements” about Azerbaijan’s state, people and leadership in Russian media.
Novorossiysk resumes its loadings, and the ships burn again
Novorossiysk reopened for crude on Sunday. Within 2 days a drone found a tanker whose tracking pointed to the CPC terminal, a grain ship burned out on approach, and the second Kazakh cargo the restart promised remains unconfirmed.
Kazakh crude is loading again at Novorossiysk
Novorossiysk resumed crude loadings on Sunday, Reuters reported on Monday, citing two industry sources, and the first two cargoes the sources describe are Kazakhstan's KEBCO grade. A Suezmax began loading Sunday and was due to sail Monday; a second tanker was expected to start on 80,000 tonnes of KEBCO on Tuesday.
The tanker leaves in the log, and nowhere else
The port-call record for Aegean Dream now shows a departure from Novorossiysk at 07:02 UTC Monday after a 10-hour call. The ship's transponder, dark since 10 August, confirms none of it.
The tanker is inside the port and nothing shows it loading
Aegean Dream’s port call log now reads arrived, Novorossiysk, Sunday 20:45 UTC. Every other signal reads dark: no live AIS fix since 10 August, ballast draught on the last one, no loading recorded, no departure.
Moscow rejects the moratorium and says no formal proposal ever arrived
Moscow rejected Hakan Fidan’s Black Sea moratorium on Friday, calling it a half-measure and denying that any formalised Turkish appeal had arrived through official channels. Ankara had not answered by Monday morning, and the war keeps washing up on Turkish shores.
The tank farm is full at Kazakhstan’s other Novorossiysk outlet
Crude exports through Sheskharis, the terminal that ships Kazakhstan’s KEBCO grade alongside Russian oil, halted on Friday after a tanker turned back to sea and the storage behind the pier reached its limit. No restart had surfaced in the wires by Monday morning, and the CPC terminal next door has now said nothing in its own name for 18 days.
Dushanbe borrows 200 million dollars to keep paying salaries
The Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development signed a budget support loan with Tajikistan on Thursday at one per cent over twenty years. The state news agency says the money matters because a eurobond has to be repaid.