Putin has stepped up pressure on Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina to lower Russia's key interest rate, signaling his expectations twice in July ahead of the central bank's policy meeting, Bloomberg reports. The Bank of Russia cut the key rate by 25 basis points to 14% on July 24, insisting the decision was independent. Analysts say political pressure on the central bank is increasing, although its formal independence has not been abandoned.

Putin: We did not start any war, there is no aggression on the part of Russia. We are responding to the actions of Ukraine, which has unleashed hostilities with the support of the West.

Putin: In the western part of Ukraine, there are lands that Stalin gifted to Ukraine after WW2. Yes, it was Stalin who gifted those lands to Ukraine. But he gifted them within the framework of a single state. Apparently, it never occurred to him that a situation like today's could arise. By the way, I am sure that sooner or later, Ukraine will lose these western lands. What belonged to Poland, Hungary, and Romania will eventually, historically, return to its place. There was only one guarantor of Ukraine's territorial integrity—and that was Russia. But they found it necessary, possible, and beneficial for themselves to declare Russia their enemy.

Putin Last night Donald Trump released a declassified document that says his own intelligence community identified Putin as personally running an operation to defeat my father in 2020, built around a fake Burisma corruption scandal centered around me and executed through prominent Americans. Trump tasked his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to fly to Kyiv and meet a known Russian agent. The Americans who ran, laundered, and legitimized the operation: Donald Trump. Rudy Giuliani. John Solomon. Joe DiGenova. Victoria Toensing. Lev Parnas. Igor Fruman. Chanel Rion. Sean Hannity. Steve Bannon. Miranda Devine. Ken Vogel. Ron Johnson. Chuck Grassley. James Comer. Jim Jordan. To name a few. An operation formally sanctioned by Trump's own Treasury Department on September 10, 2020, and expanded to include more named actors on January 11, 2021. Oh, and don't forget the Russian-linked FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, who later pleaded guilty to making the entire Burisma bribery story up. The record exists and we have all the receipts, and more.