Kiev’s backers been unable to define what their ‘as long as it takes’ pledges mean, according to Aleksey Danilov The West does not have a clear picture of how the Ukraine conflict will end, Secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Aleksey Danilov lamented in a TV interview on Friday.

Moscow and its trade partners should switch to transactions in national currencies, Andrey Kostin believes Russia should abandon the use of the Western-controlled global financial messaging system SWIFT, the head of Russia’s second-largest bank has argued.

Bulgaria plans to wean itself from Russian oil by next fall despite being exempt from the EU-wide ban on crude purchases from the sanctioned country, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing officials. The Balkan country had been allowed to continue buying seaborne Russian oil for its Neftohim refinery, owned by Russia’s Lukoil, until the end of…