War Threatens Russian Banking Crisis

Russia’s banking system – on which the state depends to support growing debt as the cost of war drains state coffers – is in danger of collapse, according to a European intelligence report.

Russia is facing a 21st package of EU sanctions, which the bloc hopes could force President Vladimir Putin to change course in the war on Ukraine. A number of factors have raised European hopes that new sanctions could put intolerable pressure on Russia’s financial system.

The Bank of Russia was forced to revise the liquidity requirements of the financial system earlier this year after five months of increasing cash withdrawals, with over 88% of the entire country’s cash supply now held as physical cash in homes and safe deposit boxes. The banking system relies on deposits to fund itself, and the ensuing liquidity deficit reached 2 trillion rubles in June.

The number of bad loans has also been rising, household debt has reached 43.6 trillion rubles and the number of personal bankruptcies hit a record 568,000 in the previous 12 months.

Ukraine War Casualty Numbers Surpass Two Million

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has cost the country some 450,000 lives, according to a new study that estimates the war’s total casualty numbers at more than two million.

The research by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) estimates Russia has suffered 1.4 million casualties, including killed, wounded and missing soldiers – a stunning number that amounts to roughly 1% of the country’s population.

The losses are not spread evenly across Russia, with poorer areas and ethnic minorities suffering significantly higher casualty rates. Stories of male populations of small remote villages being virtually wiped out are becoming more common in Russian opposition media. And according to the study, Russia is currently unable to recruit new troops at the same rate as it is losing them.

“These rates are astounding,” Seth G. Jones and Riley McCabe, the authors of the study, said. “Russian fatalities in Ukraine are more than four times greater than all U.S. fatalities in all wars combined since World War II, and more than nine times greater than all Soviet and Russian fatalities in all wars combined since World War II.”

Meanwhile, Ukraine is estimated to have endured between 525,000 and 625,000 casualties, including 125,000 and 150,000 fatalities.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine release official casualty data, but the latest CSIS figures are broadly in line with western estimates, CNN said.

Bayeux Tapestry Returns To UK For First Time In Centuries

The 950-year-old fabled Bayeux Tapestry has arrived in London ahead of a unique exhibition at the British Museum – driven from France in the dead of night in a hi-tech, climate-controlled crate.

Nearly a millennium after it was thought to have been embroider in England, the Bayeux Tapestry has returned to the UK.

Under tight security – and insured for $1 billion – the medieval masterpiece left a secret location in northern France and reached the British Museum in London shortly before 2am GMT on Friday, July 10. The museum will unveil it to the public in September.

Stretching almost 70 meters, the 11th-century tapestry tells the story of the events that culminated in William the Conqueror's victory at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, reshaping the course of English history.