#Europe

UEFA has funneled more than $12.6 million to Russian soccer clubs since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine—despite banning them from competition—while blocking similar payments to five Ukrainian teams it claims are in a “war zone.”

They’re called Storm-1516—a Kremlin-backed disinformation group stealing real journalists’ identities to wage a digital war. Using fake bylines and AI-generated videos, they’re targeting elections and reputations, eroding trust in Western democracies.

After months of Kremlin-fueled disinformation claiming BlackRock owned 47% of Ukraine and even banned the country’s military burials, the world’s largest asset manager has further unraveled that narrative, announcing it has halted work on the Ukraine Development Fund—a project that never moved beyond the conceptual stage.