FINANCIAL GEOPOLITICS JUNE 2026: Firestone firecracker-Irish-Russian scandal-Moscow in Moldova

Hello, people. It’s a scorcher out there and also inside this Financial Geopolitics Chungus newsletter. Your June payday briefing has the goods on various scenarios for Russia’s internal economic crisis and stalemate in the Ukraine war; an ongoing scandal around an Irish alumina plant with Moscow links; our latest multi-newsroom investigation revealing how Great Britain and Moldova tackled crypto-electoral fraud; NATO’s shortcomings on drone explosions in Romania, and more!

THE BROAD VIEW WITH JAMIE FIRESTONE

Lawyer, activist, Russia expert and now best-selling author Jamison Firestone has long been a friend of our small media project. We are grateful for his time while he’s out on the national news circuit promoting his brilliant, Great American Novel-like memoir, which we are happy to endorse, having given it a pre-publication read earlier in the year. For our audience, Firestone shared his latest thinking on why Russia’s economy may collapse but Putin is not likely to go anywhere.

Rising oil prices caused by the abortive US war on Iran were not enough to tide Russia’s economy over, Firestone said, especially amid division at the top about the direction of policy, culminating in a dramatic absence of Central Bank Chief Elvira Nabiullina, who is now back at work. “My gut feeling is, the Gulf war bought Russia a bit of time, but Nabiullina’s absence, if it’s not for a genuine illness, may mean that the system has become inherently unstable.” Asked if banks are likely to start going belly-up, he said: “presumably the ones making these forced loans to the defence contractors. Knowing Russia, there won’t be bank runs until a bank fails but once a reasonably large bank fails, there may be quite a few runs on banks and it doesn’t look like Russia is in a good place to handle that.” Russia started printing money to make banks seem solvent in June. 

Is banking sector weakness able to topple the regime? Firestone is a sceptic, noting that the war going badly is more of a factor in Putin’s relative status. “I don’t see Putin going away, and almost certainly not in the next 12 months,” he said. “Considering how the war is now going, he would probably be ready to declare victory if he got the Donbas, take a pause, rearm and attack again in a few years.” But even for that, Putin “needs more men and the question is how does he get them? Putin’s contract with the Russian people is that this war won’t cost them anything,” said the author. “He can easily close the borders to men between the ages of 18 and 45 and start a mobilisation, and that is probably what’s necessary if Russia wants to have a chance of capturing the Donbas. However, if he does that the party is over and the entire country will take a totally different view of this war and of Putin.”

Hope on the horizon: “Either way, after this summer and certainly after a mobilisation, should he do one, if Russia does not make significant gains on the battlefield, I think Putin may well start looking for a ceasefire because social tension is going to break out into the open shortly,” said Firestone.

Oligarchs as NPCs (non-player characters). ”I don’t believe they are a threat to Putin. They don’t control the power ministries and are just vessels. The threat to Putin if it comes will come from someone else in government, someone who may see the world much the way Putin does but who simply doesn’t support continuing to fight the war.”

“We need to watch how people in Moscow and St. Petersburg react to Ukrainian strikes in and around their cities and how the country reacts as a whole.”

In the oil sector all is not well either, with petrol prices rising, rationing and shortages increasing. Intriguingly, an alleged Godfather figure with ties to Putin was arrested this month in St Petersburg, at a time when a key oil port he controlled was undergoing an ownership dispute. The West can help increase pressure by being more diligent in applying sanctions, said Firestone.

Eyes on India: “The sanctions on Russian energy sales don’t work nearly as effectively as they should,” said Firestone. “The price cap on Russian oil isn’t enforced and so a new mechanism should be developed. We should also enact secondary sanctions on companies that buy Russian energy.” In particular the link between Russian crude and Indian refining hasn’t been tackled well, he thinks. Trump made a mistake “subjecting India to tariffs when he could have simply targeted the Indian companies buying the crude under secondary sanctions. Tariffs turn India against the US, secondary sanctions effectively stop Indian refineries from buying Russian crude without alienating India.”

Why should Russia nerds read Firestone’s book? “My book delivers the message loud and clear that Russia isn’t economically strong,” he said. “The book explains what we need to do, which is to starve Russia of revenues while funding Ukraine, preferably funding it at Russia’s expense with the frozen assets. If we do that long enough, Putin pulls out of the war or his government falls. Either way, we spare the West a much larger war.”

Teaser time: You’ll have to buy the book to see why Jamie’s own experience with Russian financial institution Renaissance Capital put a very sharp light on this instant vintage scoop from our friends at ICIJ.

TOP LINES

1. DUBLIN TO DONBAS? Media has been buzzing this month about an alumina plant in county Limerick, Ireland, after an OCCRP investigation said its product was linked to Russian weapons manufacturing. This prompted calls from EU politicians to tighten sanctions on the factory, which is owned by structures related to Rusal, the aluminium business of sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska’s. Prominent Irish journalist and Russia hand Jason Corcoran called for the factory’s nationalization. The news comes at an awkward time, as Ireland is being accused of being too soft on Russia to the point of becoming a “back door” for spies in Europe and the UK. 

However, speaking to relevant people in the country, reporter.london discovered resistance to these proposals and much less harsh judgment of Russia than is typical in the UK or most of the EU.

“Alumina is listed as a critical raw material in the EU and not a sanctioned product,” said Niall Collins, the member of parliament in whose constituency the controversial factory is located. “If you sanction the plants in Limerick the company would close the place down,” he warned in an exclusive interview with reporter.london, with some 475 direct jobs being lost and a much wider hit to the community and the related supply chains. The factory also has a strategic role in Ireland’s electricity grid.

The Irish government is reluctant to nationalise the plant, Collins said. “I’ve never seen it discussed.”

Collins did not accept the suggestion that the output of the factory was being used to supply the Russian army. “That is an allegation and a media report,” he said. “The Irish government and the EU Commission are looking into it.”

“I’ll wait on the outcome of the investigation before commenting further.”

Collins also said that targeting the factory would not do anything to help Ukraine push back Russia, estimating that only around 10% of Rusal’s needs are covered by the Irish firm. “The alumina exported from Ireland would not move the dial one inch.”

“You should design a sanction that has an impact where it is supposed to,” he concluded.

An official letter from the head of the factory, seen by reporter.london, argues against EU sanctions on alumina exports to Russia, saying it would kill the plant as a business in a context where it is only one of five remaining alumina producers in the EU. “Aughinish believes the recent media coverage mischaracterizes its operations and the nature of global industrial supply chains. Aughinish is cooperating fully with the ongoing Government review and confirms the company operates in full compliance with all Irish, EU and international trade and export laws.”

On top of the direct jobs, some 400 additional contractors and a further 1,000 jobs in the region depend on the plant, the letter said.

RED MUD: “There were cameramen and drones in the area – the media is all over it,” said a local who has lived around the factory almost 30 years. The “red mud” produced by the industrial process is “a blight on the landscape” but the local community benefits from the plant and are not keen to see Ireland joining the European campaign to counter Russia’s aggression, the local said over the phone. “Shutting it down is not on the agenda. The plan is to move the Russians out,” said the local businessman citing conversations with others in the area. “We were not hugely aware of the wider implications, but we want to stay out of this level of geopolitics,” he said. “To us there are no good guys,” he added by way of answering a question on the victimisation of Ukraine. “Historically the bosses [of the factory] would always invite us in for Christmas. They had us all in for a bash last year.”

2. ANTI-A7 ALLIANCE: After a four-month investigation, we can reveal that the UK government co-operated with Moldova to track suspicious crypto payments made to surreptitiously influence the 2025 Moldovan election in favour of Russia. This was part of our latest story with Romanian partners Context.ro, Rise Moldova, and the FACT network. Aside from what went into the story, co-author and scoop-getter Tom Rowley dug further into this groundbreaking London-Chisinau collaboration, discovering that the work was done through an OSCE project which is predominantly funded by the UK. That involved training Moldovan law enforcement on so-called crypto “dusting,” as well as identifying cash desks where crypto is swapped for physical banknotes – to generate “actionable intelligence”. Said one European official that was briefed on the operation: “There’s been a coordinated effort by countries, and international organisations to stop election interference via crypto […] The UK, despite cutbacks to its Foreign Office budget, has decided to continue funding projects like this, and they do yield results.” The project was designed to provide Moldova (and other partners) with investigative tools for the long term, and in that it has succeeded, the official said. “Here, without the UK’s assistance, and the funding, I don’t think the Moldovan authorities would have 100% been able to identify the funds.” A comment from the UK Foreign Office is included in the linked story. Correspondent networks: Apart from our reporting, top crypto analysis firm TRM Labs published their own material finding that Shor’s A7 network relies both on traditional banking and crypto, which should be relevant to global finance regulators, who have so far been completely out of the picture on chasing down A7’s sanctions-busting. “A7’s dual-track architecture — fiat flows through correspondent banking chains for commercial trade, cryptocurrency for high-risk counterparty relationships — requires a corresponding dual-track response,” TRM said. By the by, this top analyst wrote a Substack based on leaked files from Shor’s network, explaining how the sanctioned oligarch continues to enjoy access to the global banking system. “This is not a crypto story. It has never been a crypto story. It is a correspondent banking story, and the evidence is sitting across 1,091 banks that processed payments for A7,” he writes. Emotional counterintelligence: A7’s misadventures in politics are of the same type as the so-called “cognitive strikes” inflicted by Russia’s online armies against its perceived adversaries globally, as discovered by our friends at OCCRP. Cyberpunk world with 18th Century feuds. What could go wrong?

3. BIG BALKAN BALLS-UP: This month has seen global media descending on Albania following protests against a real estate deal involving some controversial local businessmen and some members of the Trump family. To get the big picture, our undefeated reporter and Chief UAV Operator Roger Hamilton-Martin was there well before opponents from less specialised outlets (CNN or PBS). Roger captured the mood of the nation in his excellent write-up and also gave us exclusive drone footage of the breathtaking Albanian paradise where the Trumps once again got bogged down in scandal. The issue goes beyond real estate – it’s a story of generations of obscure and criminal money seeping into the Albanian economy and real estate market, crowding out honest citizens and harming the reputation of an otherwise wonderful country (and importantly, a close NATO ally). The Guardian also had a fine piece on the problems in this region. 
4. ROMANIAN DRONE DRAMA: Drone explosions from the Ukraine war have been rocking Romania, prompting political condemnation of Russia’s aggression from allies. But these attacks would have been preventable if NATO had better procurement strategies around drone defense, and smoother funding channels to keep up with fast-evolving tech, according to Emanuel Popp, the owner of a small military drone business in Romania who spoke exclusively to reporter.london. “There is a bad mentality at the level of NATO, and the big [defense] companies are also to blame. We are now ramping up military spending across Europe but the processes in place continue to favour big players and bureaucracy instead of innovation.” The EU’s flagship SAFE program worth €150 billion prioritises big companies by imposing the condition of at least two countries jointly buying eligible items, Popp said. “This clearly favours large contractors,” he said. The product pipeline for a multinational military business can take over 10 years to market. As a solution, Popp pointed to Israeli procurement strategies, which are more supportive of tech start-ups.
5. EURO-ATLANTIC RIFT: The EU and Washington are continuing to drift apart, as a result of the US policy of “tough love” – demanding the EU to be self-sufficient in security, while the EU is becoming hostile to US tech platforms and free speech advocacy. Two significant developments this month: The EU Court decided that banks could still open accounts for people who have been sanctioned by the US, in effect weakening the power of US Treasury sanctions in Europe after Washington targeted a few top Brussels figures. Also, the EU is uniquely among top monetary players going ahead with the digital euro, with officials framing the decision in strict geopolitical terms. “Europe is restoring its sovereignty in payment methods from the oligopoly of US giants like Visa and Mastercard by adopting the digital euro,” posted Aurore Lalucq, head of the powerful Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the EU Parliament. Irony alert: the post was made on X.com, owned by Elon Musk. The EU’s vituperations against the US appear even weaker as the bloc is increasingly forced by circumstances beyond its control to take sides in the global clash between the only two tech-industrial powers of the planet. Just as this edition of the Chungus was being typed, the Commission signed Trump’s Pax Silica initiative that seeks to contain China’s access to AI chips. Our current in-house view is that Europe might live to regret antagonising the US on issues of tech and politics while not focusing enough on its own capacities. We in Europe risk missing out on global power in the 21st Century for the sake of irrational ideological attachment to environmentalist extremism and mass migration, for which our leaders have proven ready both to enter political conflict with the US and clamp down on civil rights at home.

3. CANADIAN CRAFT: JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon had a discussion on June 24 at the Council on Foreign Relations where among other things he criticised Canada for trying to form alliances against the US, including in trade and finance. This may or may not be related to an earlier eye-catching speech by the CEO of a Canadian financial industry organisation, saying that payments are a form of  “economic statecraft”. The tenor of the speech was against US economic dominance and the need to create alternative channels. Indeed this goes in correlation with a developing partnership with China on the subject of payments, pushed by leader Mark Carney (a seasoned financier and regulator, definitely not ignorant of the importance of financial flows to geopolitics).
4. CHINESE TRIADS IN THE UK: Yet more evidence emerges of the confluence of organised crime and hostile state activity, with the Daily Mail reporting that Chinese gangs are being directed from Beijing to collect information on British soil. This is a topic we are staying close to, as dirty money, strategic adversaries and the criminal underworld are increasingly collaborating to undermine the West. Russia has also been said in UK court to have hired criminals in the UK to commit arson against properties related to the Prime Minister, and Russian hackers have been behind the costliest attack against a UK company in history, according to the New York Times.
5. HELLO, HALDANE: Maverick policy thinker Andy Haldane, who was also the chief economist the Bank of England, is reportedly being roped in as a top adviser to incoming British Prime Minister Andy Burnham. We are fans of Haldane’s and although not agreeing with everything he said over the years, we believe that his perspective is likely to be part of the solution to fixing Great Britain’s deepening and heartbreaking polycrisis. We recommend his recent FT article suggesting special accounts should be created where citizens could place their savings to help ramp up defense spending while also earning above-market returns. [Insert “shut up and take my money meme here – Ed.]
6. BUDAPEST BOOTY: The corrupt elites of Hungary under the former regime of Viktor Orban are reportedly likely to have stolen as much as $194 billion, an eye-watering amount that is almost three quarters of the whole economy on an annual basis. In an amusing twist, the Hungarian official who publicised the number was himself accused of corruption. Whispers in the financial investigations sector are circulating that Peter Magyar, the new Hungarian leader, is set to embark on a monumental asset recovery campaign. We rub our hands thinking of any potential documents leaking out. Bank bust: The talented journalists at VSquare, who we are proud to call friends, have unearthed incredible detail of a subject we have covered previously in this letter – an armed raid and seizure by Hungary of a physical valuables transport by Oschadabank, a Ukrainian bank. We argued this precedent puts banks even closer to the eye of the geopolitical storm as their business becomes weaponised to the point that staff risk unlawful detention and robbery by hostile states. And we were right. In their latest newsletter, VSquare reported that the illegal operation was directed by the former Hungarian prime minister himself, and there is now an active investigation into the case.
7. VERSAILLES TREATY: While the signing of Trump’s Versailles Treaty with Iran to end the war has moderated oil prices, which is good for the free world’s economy and awful for Putin and the Kremlin, strategically it was seen as a defeat of the US by the mullahs in Iran – which is bad news for the West in the long run. The US is also rolling back a lot of the sanctions on Iran, while seeking to calm the fears it itself stirred up about Tehran’s nuclear capability. We believe the conflict is far from decided and is likely to flare back up soon. Here’s an interesting analysis by Moscow-based Tatiana Stanovaya on how this news is affecting Russian strategy in Ukraine.
8. CONSULTATION COST: Top global consultancy FTI settled an action from the US Treasury for alleged Russia sanctions violations involving state bank VTB. We ask our readers in this industry to kindly email their thoughts to matei@reporter.london.

Alright, that’s it. We’ll be with you again next payday. Enjoy the rest of your Friday!

Special thanks as always to BM who helped edit this edition.

Any comments or errors to report? email matei@reporter.london