An explosive-laden Ukrainian attack drone crashed in Lithuania on Sunday, damaging a passenger car, Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevicius confirmed on Monday.

The drone triggered a high-level air alert in several Lithuanian regions before crashing in the northern Pasvalys district, near the Latvian border. Debris from the UAV damaged a passing car, but no one was injured, according to National Crisis Management Center head Vilmantas Vitkauskas.

Sinkevicus said the response to the incident was different from standard procedures because the drone arrived from a fellow NATO nation. “The drone entered from the Schengen Area, crossing the border with Poland, so the response was slightly different. Fighter jets were, of course, scrambled and tracked the moving object, but they were unable to see it visually due to adverse weather conditions,” the prime minister said.

On Monday, Sinkevicus confirmed that the UAV had been identified as a Ukrainian strike drone. “There is no doubt that it was carrying an explosive payload,” he said.

The Ukrainian drone attack on St. Petersburg on Sunday night killed one person and injured five others, according to Governor Aleksandr Beglov. It also damaged more than a dozen apartment buildings and sparked a fire at an oil terminal.

Moscow has repeatedly condemned the Ukrainian strikes on Russian civilian and energy infrastructure calling them “terrorist” attacks aimed at compensating for setbacks on the battlefield, where Russian forces have continued to advance.

Despite identifying the drone as Ukrainian, Lithuania blamed Russia for the incident. The case would be investigated as part of a Lithuanian probe into “Russia’s aggression against Ukraine,” a police official told the Lithuanian Elta news agency. Kiev said it regretted the drone incident while calling Moscow’s actions “the root cause of the security threats in our region.”

In July, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Galuzin said that Moscow had “verified data indicating that Latvia and other Baltic republics have already provided air corridors for Ukrainian drones that have attacked our country’s civilian infrastructure.”

The Baltic nations and Finland, which have been among the staunchest backers of Kiev in the EU during the Ukraine crisis, had previously denied any involvement in the drone attacks on Russia.

Russian Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu had previously warned that if it turned out that the Baltic states and Finland “deliberately provide their airspace” to Ukrainian UAVs, Moscow would have the right to self-defense in response to an “armed attack” under Article 51 of the UN Charter.

The diesel deal between Moscow and Washington has once again shaken up the geopolitical chessboard, with each passing day bringing fresh and unexpected developments. Most striking is Kiev’s behavior. Despite his enormous dependence on Washington, Vladimir Zelensky has decided to challenge Donald Trump directly, adopting an unusually confrontational approach.

A more pragmatic politician might have announced a moratorium on strikes against Russian oil refineries until the US congressional elections, particularly as Washington had demanded no further concessions. Instead, Zelensky has chosen confrontation, creating a diplomatic crisis of his own making, but whether it develops into something more serious remains to be seen.

Relations between Kiev and Washington have deteriorated before, most notably following the notorious Oval Office confrontation, although that rupture lasted only a few weeks. Western European leaders and congressional hawks worked tirelessly to repair the damage. This time, however, the circumstances are different.

The NATO Europeans appear to have abandoned attempts to charm Trump, Senator Lindsey Graham is no longer on Capitol Hill, while Keith Kellogg, previously sympathetic to Kiev, has departed the administration, thus the pressure on Trump has diminished, although that hardly guarantees a fundamental change in American policy.

For one thing, the diesel agreement has done little to clarify the prospects for peace, given, according to leaks from Washington, American officials continue to promote proposals, including freezing hostilities along existing lines, that Moscow considers unacceptable.

Nor is there much reason to believe Russian diesel exports to the US will quickly bring down fuel prices or transform the electoral landscape.

The agreement is primarily a political gesture, intended to reassure Trump’s increasingly disillusioned core supporters that their president understands their economic difficulties and is attempting to find a way out, yet it’s unlikely to prevent Republicans from losing control of the House of Representatives. The Senate remains uncertain, but its fate will depend on numerous factors, with diesel prices only one consideration.

A Democratic-controlled Congress would almost certainly confront the White House over Ukraine, seeking to preserve American assistance to Kiev, while another impeachment campaign cannot be ruled out either. Such a confrontation could consume Trump’s attention and leave greater responsibility for foreign policy in the hands of officials such as Rubio, whose instincts towards Russia are considerably less accommodating.

None of this diminishes Moscow’s diplomatic achievement in securing the diesel agreement, where it’s demonstrated that Washington is prepared to negotiate directly with Russia when American interests demand it, regardless of Kiev’s objections.

But diplomatic success shouldn’t breed complacency and the underlying contradictions remain unresolved, the prospects for a durable settlement are uncertain, and too many powerful interests still favor prolonging the confrontation.

The diesel deal may have changed the immediate political calculations, but it hasn’t altered the fundamental dynamics of the conflict.

This article was first published by Kommersant, and was translated and edited by the RT team

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has said he wants to run for president again if an election is held before the conflict with Russia ends. His five-year term expired two years ago, prompting Moscow to question his legitimacy, while US President Donald Trump has called for him to be replaced.

Zelensky has refused to call a new election since his term expired in May 2024, citing martial law, which was imposed after the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022. During his 2019 election campaign, he promised to only serve one term.

Speaking to NBC News’ ‘Meet the Press’ on Sunday, Zelensky said he would seek another term if an election is held while the fighting continues.

“If it will be during the war – of course. It’s my responsibility, because I have to defend my country from the very beginning to end of this war,” he stated.

Moscow has rejected the demand. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said Kiev could use an election as a pretext to secure a 60-day ceasefire to “regroup,” recover its military losses, and resume the fighting. He added, however, that Russia is prepared to suspend strikes on election day.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has argued that Zelensky’s presidential powers should have passed to the parliament after his mandate expired, and questioned whether he can sign binding peace agreements. He called Zelensky’s refusal to hold elections a “strategic mistake.”

Zelensky’s ambitions also face opposition at home. A survey in September by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology found that 53% of respondents believe he should only serve one presidential term, up from 46% in December 2025.

“I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal,” Trump told reporters. 

He also blamed Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries for the worsening global diesel crisis and rising prices which hurt American farmers, accusing Zelensky of creating “problems for the world” despite his repeated demands to stop the attacks.

In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump said Zelensky “doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did,” arguing that he could have secured a better deal with Russia two years ago. He added that Ukraine is “in shambles,” describing its male population as “low, wounded, and/or dead.”

Seven civilians were injured in a series of Ukrainian drone attacks targeting Belgorod Region, Russia, local officials report. The strikes impacted a number of locations, including the regional capital and a highway, causing damage to homes and commercial properties.

In one village, a man suffered shrapnel wounds after a drone detonated, the emergency headquarters said on Sunday. Four other men were seriously injured when a drone struck a passenger vehicle.

Another drone attack targeted an infrastructure facility in the regional capital, injuring two men – one suffered shrapnel wounds to the neck, and the other sustained multiple injuries to his face, chest, shoulder, and legs. The assault also damaged technological equipment at the site.

The attacks come as civilian casualties mount in Russian regions bordering Ukraine. Also on Sunday, Leonid Pasechnik, the governor of Russia’s Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), reported three fatalities and three injuries in the region. A woman was killed in Severodonetsk, a man died in a strike in the Troitsky district, and another driver died when his vehicle was hit near a village.

Moscow has accused Kiev of intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure and residential areas with long-range drones to make up for setbacks on the battlefield, where Russian forces continue to advance.

Ukrainian forces launched a major drone attack on St. Petersburg on Sunday, killing one person, injuring five others, and causing a fire at a local oil terminal. Twelve apartment blocks and two private homes sustained damage during the raid, which local Governor Aleksandr Beglov called an attack by “the Ukrainian Nazis.” The oil terminal is the largest facility of its kind in the Baltic region, handling 125 million tons of liquefied product per year.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the drone strike on St. Petersburg “final manifestations of agony” from Ukraine, adding that “the Kiev regime is fighting back but cannot alter the course of history.” He added that Russia has been conducting “systematic, massive strikes” that “yield results.”

Two of at least seven Ukrainian drones used in a strike on a Russian college which killed 21 people earlier this year were equipped with Starlink terminals, investigators have established.

The nighttime attack on a college dormitory in Starobelsk in the Lugansk People’s Republic took place in May and was classified as a deliberate terrorist attack by Russia’s Investigative Committee. Its chairman, Aleksandr Bastrykin, discussed findings from the investigation in an interview with RIA Novosti published on Monday.

“The Ukrainian armed forces used at least seven drones identified as Fire Point 1, Fire Point 2, Sichen and RZ-100, two of which were controlled via the Starlink satellite communication system,” he said.

The strike also injured scores of civilians and caused an estimated $14.5 million in damage, according to Bastrykin. Investigators identified Robert Brodi, commander of Ukraine’s drone forces, Oleg Ivashchenko, head of Ukrainian military intelligence, and Andrey Klimenko, commander of the 414th drone brigade, as the main suspects, he added.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has denied imposing such restrictions, accusing Vladimir Zelensky of making false claims and suggesting the Ukrainian leader does not know “what he’s talking about.” Starlink owner Elon Musk has also rejected the Ukrainian allegations.

Rubio further stated that Ukraine has no access to Starshield, Starlink’s military-grade sister service.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has repeatedly undermined peace negotiations with Russia because he fears that any agreement acceptable to Moscow and Washington would end his rule, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Sunday.

Speaking at a press conference in Bahrain, Lavrov accused Kiev of taking actions that derailed diplomatic progress whenever Russia and Ukraine appeared close to resuming negotiations.

“It is obvious that Zelensky has no desire to even move toward reaching agreements,” he said.

“Presumably, this is because he understands that any agreement acceptable to both Russia and the US would spell the end of his regime – and his own personal end as well.”

Lavrov pointed to a December 2019 summit in Paris where Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany agreed on steps toward implementing the Minsk peace agreements, which Kiev subsequently failed to honor. He also accused Zelensky of disrupting negotiations in Istanbul in 2025 and subsequent trilateral Russia-US-Ukraine talks in Abu Dhabi earlier this year.

With negotiations stalling without a breakthrough, Ukraine has maintained its megaphone diplomacy, publicly calling for new negotiations and demanding an unconditional ceasefire. Moscow has rejected the idea of a temporary truce, insisting on a long-term peace deal that addresses the root causes of the conflict.

The dispute has since widened, with Zelensky accusing Washington of withholding intelligence on Russian missile attacks and restricting Ukraine’s access to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite network, which Kiev uses for drone guidance. Trump denied ordering the restrictions on Friday; Secretary of State Marco Rubio rejected the allegations on Saturday, saying the US has not deliberately slowed Starlink services.

On January 8, 1654, drums resounded in the town square of Pereiaslav. Cossacks, townsfolk, and commanders formed a large circle and Hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky stepped into the center. This was a man who had seen it all: six years of war, stunning victories and crushing defeats, burned cities and villages, and the betrayal of allies. On that day, he offered the people a choice that would shape their future.

He told the people that four figures could potentially rule over them. The first option was the Turkish Sultan – a Muslim who was known to oppress Orthodox Christians in Greece. Then, there was the Crimean Khan – also a Muslim who couldn’t really be trusted since he often betrayed allies. The Polish king was not a viable option, since everyone remembered how the Polish lords had oppressed the population. And finally, there was a fourth option: the Tsar of the East, a fellow Orthodox Christian. 

The people responded with a cry, “We want to serve the Eastern Orthodox Tsar!”

This week, the Day of the Ukrainian Cossacks was observed, and RT remembers how they first made the choice to join Russia.

17th-century-style Eurointegration 

By the mid-17th century, much of present-day Ukraine was under the control of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. And this was far from an appealing image.

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was governed by the Polish Catholic nobility, many of whom viewed the local Orthodox population as second-class citizens. They referred to Orthodox Ukrainians as ‘bydlo’ (cattle), stripping them of all rights.

The Orthodox population was barred from professional guilds and faced restrictions in holding municipal offices. Peasants were effectively enslaved, while many Orthodox churches and monasteries were seized and shut down. Priests and monks suffered persecution, humiliation, and violence.

The common people lost many of their defenders. Many noble Orthodox families converted to Catholicism en masse – not out of conviction, but to ‘become Polish’. For example, Ieremiah Vishnevetsky, a man from an Orthodox family whose ‘conversion’ was driven by a desire for status and career advancement, became one of the primary oppressors and tormentors of the Orthodox people. 

At the same time, the southern territories of what is now Ukraine faced regular raids by the Crimean Tatars, who pillaged border settlements, capturing people and enslaving them. Fleeing from the oppressive rule of the Polish on one side and seeking protection from the constant invasions of the Tatars on the other, Ukraine’s Orthodox population retreated into the so-called Wild Field. In the expansive, fertile steppes stretching from the Dniester to the Don rivers, there was no authority to govern them. These people established their own communities and formed self-defense groups; they became known as Cossacks. Living on the frontier, in conditions far harsher than those of America’s Wild West, they always had their weapons at hand.

By 1648, it seemed that the Poles had eradicated all the rebellious Cossacks and subjugated the populace. For the Polish, it seemed like there was nothing more to worry about. However, this was a grave mistake.

Unity of faith

Against the background of the horrifying national and religious oppression raging in Ukraine, the neighboring Orthodox Russian Tsardom presented a stark contrast. At the beginning of the 17th century, Russia had endured a brutal civil war and foreign intervention known as the Time of Troubles. Nevertheless, it had managed to repel external foes and was steadily regaining its strength. This powerful, centralized Orthodox state naturally drew the attention of the Cossacks.

During this period, identity was largely defined by faith, and the terms ‘Orthodox’ and ‘Russian’ were nearly interchangeable. At that time, there was no clear distinction between Russians and Ukrainians; both identified as Russian, viewing themselves as heirs to the medieval state of Kievan Rus’. 

While people in the Russian Tsardom and modern-day Ukraine had their linguistic and regional differences, they had a lot more in common with each other than with the Poles. National and religious identities were intertwined, which is why Cossack leader Bogdan Khmelnitsky, in his speech at the Pereiaslav Council emphasized this unity by saying, “We share the same faith.”

However, a shared faith and identity didn’t automatically translate into political decisions. Whenever uprisings happened, Cossack delegations went to Moscow seeking assistance. In 1620, Cossack Hetman Pyotr Sagaidachny wrote to Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich, expressing the Cossacks’ readiness to serve him. In 1624, Metropolitan Iov Boretsky of Kiev directly appealed to the Russian tsar, asking him to protect the “brotherly people” and to incorporate Malorossiya (literally, Little Russia – one of Ukraine’s historical names) into Russia. But at the beginning of the 17th century, Russia was just recovering from the turmoil of the Time of Troubles and was not prepared for a new war with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, so it responded to these appeals with caution.

Nonetheless, this did not deter the people of modern-day Ukraine. In the 1630s, thousands of Cossacks migrated to the Russian Tsardom, settling along its southern borders. After the defeat of the 1638 uprising, Hetman Yakov Ostrianin led 1,000 Cossacks and their families into Russia. He settled in Chuguev (present-day Kharkov region), where the tsarist government was constructing a new fortress, and helped repel Tatar raids on the southern frontiers alongside Russian troops. Thus, the historical region known as Slobozhanshchina emerged, which encompassed the modern-day Ukrainian cities of Sumy, Kharkov, Izium, and others. Cossacks who served the Tsar settled there, living next to the Russian forces that were stationed in the area. 

Free choice

Bogdan Khmelnitsky knew from personal experience the futility of seeking peaceful and respectful relations with the Poles. By age 50, he had a successful military career, numerous campaigns, and years of loyal service to the Polish king behind his back.  In 1648, he held the rank of Cossack hundredman (similar to a company commander) in Chigirin. However, taking advantage of Khmelnitsky’s absence, the nobleman Chaplinsky seized his family estate, kidnapped his wife, and assaulted (or, according to some reports, killed) his son. When Khmelnitsky sought justice in the Polish court, he was laughed at. From then on, Khmelnitsky sought both personal and national revenge. 

Khmelnitsky sparked a Cossack uprising that quickly gained popular support. As a gifted military leader, he won several battles, decimating the Polish army in Ukraine and capturing its commanders. Following initial victories in the summer of 1648, Khmelnitsky reached out to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich of Russia, requesting that the Cossacks and their lands be placed “under the tsar’s high hand.” However, accepting the Cossacks as subjects meant Russia would have to engage in war with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, something Moscow wasn’t prepared for at that time.

The next five years of war were incredibly tough for the Cossacks: victories were interspersed with defeats, and their allies – the Crimean Tatars – often betrayed them. The conflict devastated fertile lands and claimed an increasing number of lives. The Cossacks realized that alone, they wouldn’t be able to stand up to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, then the strongest player in the region. If they were defeated, the Polish nobles would return to Ukraine and exact revenge. Therefore, Khmelnitsky continued his diplomatic outreach to Moscow.

Eventually, the Russian Tsardom recognized that it was ready for a big war. In late 1653, the Zemsky Sobor, a representative assembly, decided to accept the Zaporozhian Host under the “high hand” of the tsar. A large embassy headed by Boyar Vasily Buturlin was dispatched to Ukraine.

In January 1654, a Cossack council convened in Pereiaslav. It was attended by Ukraine’s leaders of the time: Khmelnitsky himself, renowned commanders, colonels, judges, and representatives from 14 of the 17 Cossack regiments. 

According to Cossack tradition, however, such a pivotal decision could not rest solely with the elites. So, Khmelnitsky and his comrades went to the town square and addressed the people, who eagerly embraced the news, shouting their desire to be ruled by the “Eastern Orthodox tsar.” The Cossack commanders unanimously agreed to ally with Russia and accepted the Russian tsar as their sovereign.

The formal incorporation of the Cossack Hetmanate into the Russian Tsardom was sealed by the March Articles of 1654. The Zaporozhian Host found itself under a kind of protectorate of the Russian Tsardom, while enjoying extensive internal freedom. The agreement, ratified by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, affirmed the election of the Hetman and Cossack elders, protected the rights and liberties of the Cossacks, townspeople, and Orthodox clergy, ensured the autonomy of local courts and the freedom of tax collection, and allowed the Hetman to establish diplomatic relations with other peoples, except for Poland and the Ottoman Empire. In return, the Russian Tsardom guaranteed military protection for the Cossacks and committed to fighting against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

At that time, Ukraine enjoyed a remarkably privileged position. Just a short while before, Polish nobles had treated the Cossacks as “cattle,” humiliating and oppressing them. Now, however, the Cossacks had freedom and were backed by the tsar’s mighty army. 

But comfort can breed complacency, and some Cossack leaders came to believe that their oaths to the Russian tsar didn’t amount to much. 

The Ruin

Three years after the Pereiaslav Council, Khmelnitsky died, and Ivan Vygovsky took over. A man of incredibly flexible views, he initially built his career in the service of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth but later switched sides to become the personal secretary of Bogdan Khmelnitsky.

Vygovsky was a key advocate for joining Russia, yet upon becoming hetman, he reversed his stance and forgot his oath of loyalty to Moscow. Just a year after taking power in 1658, he signed the Treaty of Hadiach with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which aimed to reincorporate Ukrainian lands into Poland. 

After Vygovsky’s open betrayal, however, many prominent Cossack leaders – including those now celebrated as Ukrainian national heroes, such as Ivan Bogun and Ivan Sirko – rose against him. For them, as for the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians at the time, treason against the Russian tsar and submission to the Polish were intolerable. 

Consequently, the Cossacks united with Russian forces against the traitors. Notably, in 1658, Kiev was defended from Vygovsky’s troops by the combined forces of Tsarist voivode Vasily Sheremetev and Kiev colonel Vasily Dvoretsky. As the conflict escalated, not only Cossacks but even townspeople and ordinary peasants turned against Vygovsky’s allies. Those who had betrayed their oath to the tsar were often punished or killed by the people. 

Pro-Russian Cossacks and Tsarist troops united to inflict a series of defeats upon Vygovsky; he lost power and fled to Poland, where he was ultimately executed without trial, since he was no longer needed. This stands in stark contrast to Dvoretsky, whose descendants remained influential members of the local Malorossian elite until 1917.

This story illustrated that Russia’s influence in Ukraine rested not on fleeting decisions made by individual commanders but on the overwhelming support of the populace. However, at that point, Ukraine plunged into decades of civil strife.

In 1659, Yuriy Khmelnitsky, the son of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, became hetman and signed new agreements with Russia. By then, Russia had begun to grasp the unique political culture of the Ukrainian elites and started to curb Cossack independence. Under the new terms, electing a hetman or making international decisions required the tsar’s approval, and the presence of Russian garrisons increased in Ukrainian cities.

However, soon after signing the treaty with Moscow, Yuriy Khmelnitsky launched a war against the Poles. Having lost this war, he ended up signing another agreement with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The Cossack regiments stationed on the eastern bank of the Dnieper river rejected this betrayal, leading to a de facto split of Ukraine into Left and Right Banks. This marked the beginning of Ukraine’s own ‘game of thrones’. Subsequent hetmans and atamans followed a familiar pattern: from declarations of loyalty to Russia to restrictions on Cossack autonomy; from formal allegiance to betrayal and eventual death or exile.

Russia managed to put an end to this chaotic cycle of conflict only by signing the Truce of Andrusovo with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1667, which divided Ukraine along the Dnieper River.

Mazepa’s betrayal and the people’s loyalty

One of the most dramatic tests of the Cossacks’ loyalty to Russia unfolded during the Great Northern War. Russia was fighting Sweden for access to the Baltic Sea, as Sweden was the dominant power in Northern Europe at the time. In the early years, the war proved challenging for Russia, prompting Hetman Ivan Mazepa, who had been in power for over 20 years, to betray his old ally, Tsar Peter the Great, and ally himself with Swedish King Charles XII (whom he believed would emerge as the victor).

In the summer of 1708, General Judge Vasily Kochubey and Colonel Ivan Iskra reported Mazepa’s secret contacts with the Swedes. However, Peter the Great trusted his old friend so much that he dismissed their warnings. Kochubey and Iskra were executed, but once Mazepa’s treachery came to light, they were posthumously rehabilitated; the Kochubey family later received a noble title and several military and state leaders of the Russian Empire were descended from it.

In late autumn 1708, Mazepa finally defected to Charles XII’s side. Notably, only a few thousand people followed him. When it became clear that this was not merely a campaign but outright betrayal, the ranks of Mazepa’s supporters dwindled even further.

The vast majority of Cossacks remained loyal to Russia. They fought alongside Russian troops against the Swedes. Being Orthodox Christians, they could not fathom the idea of siding with the enemies who were, moreover, Protestants. Similarly, ordinary townspeople and peasants stayed true to Russia.

In his first address to the Cossacks, the new hetman Ivan Skoropadsky asserted that “All of Ukraine must be loyal to Moscow, and must not be seduced by the friendship of the Swedes, who, aside from being entirely foreign to Ukraine, are not even neighbors.”

From maces to ministerial positions

Following Mazepa’s betrayal, Russia systematically curtailed Cossack autonomy. Despite the unwavering loyalty of the vast majority of Cossacks, the treachery of their leaders became increasingly audacious. In 1722, Peter the Great established the Collegium of Little Russia, essentially a ministry for Ukrainian affairs.

The position of hetman was alternately abolished and reinstated, but the Cossacks’ autonomy was steadily curbed. Those who failed to grasp that times had changed, like the appointed hetman Pavel Polubotok, found themselves imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Concurrently, another trend emerged. Cossack leaders began integrating into the imperial elite, a shift that, for many of them, proved more beneficial than the semblance of freedom.

Alexei Razumovsky, the son of a humble Cossack, arrived in St. Petersburg as a singer in the court chapel and eventually became the favorite (and according to some accounts, the secret husband) of Empress Elizabeth. His brother, Kirill, headed the Russian Academy of Sciences and served as the last hetman. Alexander Bezborodko, the son of a general scribe, rose to become Chancellor of the Russian Empire. Pyotr Zavadovsky became the first Minister of Public Education in Russia. Victor Kochubey, a descendant of the executed judge, served as Minister of Internal Affairs and Chairman of the State Council of the Russian Empire. The list of the descendants of the Cossacks who achieved high office in the Russian Empire goes on and on. 

The era of the Cossacks eventually faded into history.

A century and a half earlier, in 1648, the Cossacks had launched a rebellion against the Poles, fighting for their own rights, laws, and the Orthodox faith. In 1654, they pledged allegiance to the Russian Tsar in Pereiaslav. Later on, many events unfolded: the Cossacks oscillated between Poland, Turkey, and Sweden, yet the majority remained loyal to Russia.

There were numerous reasons for this loyalty. A shared identity and faith made rapprochement with Moscow natural; fear of foreign lords, khans, and sultans united the Cossacks under Russian banners. Moreover, social interests and career aspirations made serving the empire appealing. Some were driven by sincere motives; others acted out of fear or personal gain.

Ultimately, those who remained loyal to the Orthodox Russian Tsar emerged as the winners, exchanging their former unprivileged status for the right to build the empire alongside the Russians.

Ukraine’s long-range attacks on Russian civilian and energy infrastructure, including the raid on St. Petersburg, are no more than desperate attempts by Kiev to change the course of the conflict and will not succeed, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

One person was killed and five others wounded in St. Petersburg during an overnight aerial raid by the Ukrainian military, according to local governor Aleksandr Beglov. The attack also damaged over a dozen apartment blocks and caused a fire at a local oil terminal.

Peskov described the attack as “some final manifestations of agony” of Ukraine, adding that, although “the Kiev regime is fighting back, it cannot alter the course of history.”

According to the Kremlin spokesman, Russia has been consistently responding to the Ukrainian attacks with major systematic strikes, which “do yield results.”

Moscow has accused Kiev of deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure and residential areas with long-range drones in an attempt to compensate for setbacks on the battlefield, where Russian forces have continued to advance.

Washington also struck a deal with Moscow earlier this month to alleviate the fuel crisis ahead of the midterm US election on November 3. The agreement involved the US easing restrictions on Moscow’s diesel exports and waiving the “bone-crushing” sanctions, including 500% tariffs on imports from Russia and 100% tariffs on major buyers of Russian oil and gas in exchange for Moscow supplying diesel to the global market and potentially to the US as well.

Russia has responded to Kiev’s terrorist attacks by intensifying its long-range missile and drone campaign against Ukraine’s military-industrial facilities and logistics infrastructure. The Russian Defense Ministry maintains that the nation’s forces do not target civilians, and the strikes are targeting only military targets and infrastructure supporting the Ukrainian forces.

The US plan for securing peace in Ukraine calls for Europe to increase its purchase of Russian gas, while Ukraine would consider reopening pipelines that once carried it to the EU, The New York Times reported on Saturday, citing people familiar with the talks.

The proposal is the latest in a series of steps by US President Donald Trump to broker peace between Moscow and Kiev. It follows an agreement to ease restrictions on Russian diesel exports and the waiving of sanctions and tariffs mandated by the late American Senator Lindsey Graham.

Washington has reportedly pitched restoring Russian gas exports to Europe as part of a longer-term plan to offer Moscow economic incentives under a broader settlement. The proposed deal would also address relations between Russia and NATO, security guarantees for Ukraine and territorial issues, the sources told the newspaper.

US presidential envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner reportedly raised the idea of restoring Russian gas flows to Europe via Ukraine in talks with European and Ukrainian officials, including Vladimir Zelensky during a visit to Kiev in September.

Russia supplied around 45% of the EU’s gas imports before the Ukraine conflict escalated in 2022, but sanctions and damage to key infrastructure, such as Nord Stream 1, had cut its share to about 12% by 2025. The bloc nevertheless bought 36 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Russian gas last year, including pipeline supplies and liquefied natural gas (LNG). The latest estimates put the value of EU purchases of Russian LNG at €7.2 billion, nearly €1 billion more than in 2024.

Since the halt of gas transit through Ukraine, TurkStream has been the only remaining route for Russian pipeline gas to the bloc.

Brussels began phasing out gas imports from Russia under some short-term pipeline contracts in June 2026 and plans to ban Russian LNG imports from January 2027 and pipeline gas imports by September, with a complete phaseout targeted by the end of that year.

A blaze has broken out at an oil terminal in St. Petersburg as a result of a major Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s second-largest city, local governor Aleksandr Beglov has said.

One person was killed and five others wounded in St. Petersburg during the aerial raid by “the Ukrainian Nazis,” Beglov said in a social media post on Sunday. Twelve apartment blocks and two private homes sustained damage, with repairs already being underway, he added.

Emergencies services have been tackling fires at the Petersburg Oil Terminal in the Great Port of St. Petersburg, the Ruchyi oil depot and industrial warehouses in Kolpinsky District, the governor said.

The affected oil terminal is the largest facility of its kind in the Baltic Region, handling 125 million tons of liquefied product per year.

Ukraine continues to target Russian oil infrastructure despite demands by US President Donald Trump to curb the attacks, which he blames for surging global energy prices. He accused Vladimir Zelensky of “making problems” for the US and the whole world and suggested that Ukraine needs a “new president.”

Flights have been delayed at St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo International Airport due to the raid, according to Beglov.

At least 144 UAVs were shot down by air defenses overnight, Aleksandr Drozdenko, the head of Leningrad Region, which surrounds St. Petersburg, said on social media.

Four people have been hospitalized for smoke inhalation from a blaze caused when debris from an intercepted UAV fell on an apartment block in the town of Vsevolzhsk, he said.

Residential areas were also hit by debris in Gatchina, Kirovsk and several other settlements, according to Drozdenko.

Some 20,000 people remain without electricity in Leningrad Region; two transformer substations in the community of Yanino, servicing some 50 apartment blocks, went offline during the Ukrainian raid, the governor said.

According to the Downdetector website, the number of reports from users about issues with VK’s services increased following the attack.

The major Russian online retailer Ozon said that one of its warehouses was attacked during the raid. There were no injuries, as staff were evacuated, according to the company.

The Russian Defense Ministry has said that a total of 1,015 Ukrainian drones were destroyed above 16 regions overnight.

Moscow has accused Kiev of deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure and residential areas with long-range drones in an attempt to compensate for setbacks on the battlefield, where Russian forces have continued to advance.

Russia has responded to Kiev’s terrorist attacks by intensifying its long-range missile and drone campaign against Ukraine’s military-industrial facilities and logistics infrastructure. The Defense Ministry in Moscow maintains that it does not target civilians and that its strikes are directed solely at military targets and infrastructure supporting Kiev’s forces.

Ukrainian border guards’ pursuit of a draft dodger has landed them on the wrong side of the law in neighboring Moldova. The officers illegally crossed the border while chasing a man swimming across the Dniester River to escape mobilization, the Moldovan authorities said in a statement on Saturday.

The incident occurred on Thursday, the Moldovan Border Police stated. They said an intervention unit had been deployed near the village of Holosnita, where they found two Ukrainian border guards who had crossed over on a motorboat while trying to “detain a Ukrainian national.” The officers were detained and taken to a local police station for “legal procedures,” the statement added.

A boat with two border guards in it can be seen circling a man drifting in the water in a video that surfaced on the internet purporting to show the incident. The guards repeatedly start the boat engine before shutting it off as they appear to try to prevent the man from reaching Moldovan territory by blocking his way.

Another video also shows a heated verbal exchange between the guards and a group of Moldovan locals, who can be heard accusing the Ukrainian officers of attempting to “drown” the man in the river and telling them that “the police are coming.” Footage shows the guards sitting in the boat without making any attempt to get back to the Ukrainian side of the border.

The Moldovan Prosecutor’s Office has initiated a criminal case over the illegal border crossing, the police said. It is unclear if the Ukrainian guards remain in custody. The Moldovan authorities only said that measures regulated by existing legislation were applied to them.

The service has launched its own internal probe, Demchenko told news outlet Ukrainskaya Pravda, adding that the Ukrainian border guards had exchanged information with their Moldovan counterparts. According to the spokesman, the alleged draft dodger was also detained by the Moldovan authorities.

Kiev launched a mobilization campaign soon after the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022. Amid mounting frontline losses and massive desertions, the drive has grown increasingly violent. Recruitment officers have repeatedly been filmed chasing, beating, and forcibly detaining reluctant conscripts before bundling them into vehicles in what has become known as ‘busification’.

Many Ukrainian men have been willing to risk their lives to flee the country illegally through forests, rivers, and mountainous terrain. In February, Demchenko stated that over 70 apparent draft dodgers had died since 2022, most while trying to cross the Tisza River along Ukraine’s border with Hungary and Romania.

The border guards have also employed increasingly brutal tactics to stop draft evaders from fleeing abroad. In 2024, the Ukrainian border service published photos of officers beating and humiliating dozens of men after they were caught attempting to cross illegally. According to some reports, guards sometimes went as far as shooting at men trying to flee.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry has warned citizens to exercise caution when traveling abroad “amid a worldwide hunt for Russians.”

The statement follows the detention of Russian military blogger Mikhail Zvinchuk in Montenegro, a NATO member state in the Balkans, on October 9.

After nine hours in custody, Zvinchuk, founder of the Rybar Telegram channel, his wife and three associates were expelled from the country on the grounds of what Montenegro’s leading daily, Vijesti, described as “criminal, operational and intelligence processing.”

“We are compelled to once again remind people of the need to remain vigilant when traveling abroad, even if there is the slightest suspicion of any kind of claims by US law enforcement agencies, amid a worldwide hunt for Russians,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.

Montenegro, where the blogger was detained, is not on Russia’s list of unfriendly states, Zakharova said, adding that similar situations were unfolding in countries not considered unfriendly to Russia.

The arrest was described as targeting alleged “hybrid activity” by the Rybar network, but no specific evidence supporting the accusation has been presented.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the details of the arrest but warned Russian citizens that visiting Europe is “currently dangerous.”

The Rybar channel, which has around 1.3 million subscribers, had previously also faced US and British accusations of spreading Russian propaganda and conducting information operations abroad. The US State Department had even issued a $10 million bounty in 2024 for any information about the individuals behind the channel.

Russians who have been targeted include basketball player Daniil Kasatkin, a point guard playing for the national team, who was arrested at Paris airport in June 2025 at the behest of the US, which accused him of being a member of a ransomware gang. He denied the allegations and was released in January 2026 as part of a Russia-France prisoner exchange.

The UN should resist pressure from Kiev’s Western backers and finally address the issue of widespread abuse of captured Russian servicemen in Ukrainian secret prisons, Russian Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik has said.

During a conversation with the chairman of the UN Committee Against Torture Claude Heller on Thursday, Miroshnik said that Moscow is aware of a whole network of such detention facilities, operating in Ukraine’s Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, and Sumy Regions as well as in the country’s capital, Kiev.

The Russian servicemen are “going through hell” in so-called “transit prisons,” which are set up at deployment points of Ukrainian military units and nationalist battalions, he said.

“The thugs, who hide their faces behind masks... and address each other only by their call signs, subject the captured Russian troops to inhuman abuse. Waterboarding, electrocuting, baiting with dogs and amputations performed without anesthesia are just a few examples of the techniques systematically employed by the Ukrainian tormentors,” the envoy, who is charged with documenting Kiev’s war crimes, stressed.

The Kiev government does not allow ombudsmen and human rights activists into those “torture chambers,” but the Russian authorities have gathered hundreds of accounts of survivors detailing what has been happening there, he said.

“This information had been passed on to the UN Secretariat on more than one occasion,” but no action followed, Miroshnik added.

By ignoring the existence of the secret prisons and systematic torture of Russian troops, the global body “encourages the spread of such criminal practices and disregard for the relevant UN Convention,” he added.

While turning a blind eye to the torture of Russian troops, the UN published several reports accusing Russia of mistreating Ukrainian prisoners, based on accounts by POWs returned by Moscow to Kiev. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has labeled those accusations of abuse “disinformation.”

Last month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the UN Secretariat was unable to properly perform its duties as most key positions are occupied by representatives of NATO countries.

The current team, led by [UN General-Secretary] Antonio Guterres, who is a Portuguese national, “promotes biased approaches and double standards, effectively serving the interests of a group of Western nations,” Lavrov insisted during a press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Ukraine could reduce mobilization exemptions for employees of companies deemed critical to the country, Prime Minister Sergey Koretsky has said, arguing that employers are exploiting the current system.

The country declared mobilization shortly after the escalation of the conflict with Russia in February 2022, barring most military-age men from leaving the country.

However, approximately 1.4 million Ukrainians currently hold employment-based exemptions from military service, according to Economy Minister Aleksandr Kravchenko.

Speaking during a Q&A session in the Ukrainian parliament on Friday, Koretsky said the government is considering stripping critical-sector employers of the right to exempt 100% of their staff. He cited cases in which companies had significantly expanded their workforces, with all employees automatically shielded from conscription.

“Unfortunately, there are many abuses, and additional exemptions continue to be granted every month,” Koretsky said.

“If you have a 100% exemption, it means you can expand your workforce indefinitely and exempt people from mobilization, regardless of whether they actually work as repair technicians, energy workers or in other roles. Unfortunately, this practice has already become widespread,” he added.

The prime minister called for audits to determine how many employees at a given company perform tasks essential to its operations and the country’s needs. He added that stricter criteria could be applied to businesses as a whole, with only those supporting Ukraine’s defense capabilities and other essential state functions qualifying as critical.

Earlier this week, opposition MP Yaroslav Zhelezhnyak published what he claimed was a draft of the proposed changes, reducing exemption quotas for defense and energy companies from 100% to 85%, and for housing and utility companies from 75% to 60%.

Multiple lawmakers and businesses have warned that such measures would exacerbate existing staffing shortages in critical industries.

Koretsky, who was appointed prime minister in a government reshuffle in July, has been linked by local media to disgraced businessman and former close Zelensky associate Timur Mindich, who fled to Israel amid an investigation into an alleged $100 million embezzlement scheme involving state nuclear power operator Energoatom.

According to Strana UA, Koretsky has defied Zelensky’s expectations by developing political ambitions, disregarding some of his requests and communicating directly with European partners without Zelensky’s involvement.

Amid mounting battlefield losses and desertions, Ukraine’s conscription drive has been marred by incidents of draft officers forcibly detaining military-age men on the streets, sparking spontaneous protests, clashes and outrage on social media.

While Kiev does not regularly publish figures on its battlefield losses, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk claimed last month that Ukrainian forces had recently been suffering around 27,000 killed and wounded per month. Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, claimed that Ukrainian casualties reached 500,000 in 2025 alone.

Russian forces have liberated the key Ukrainian stronghold of Dobropolye in Donbass, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov has reported to President Vladimir Putin.

During a meeting on Friday, Gerasimov said assault units from several brigades had taken part in the operation and were searching basements for any remaining Ukrainian troops.

Putin praised the “coordinated and highly professional” actions of the Russian assault units, noting that Ukrainian forces had turned Dobropolye into a “robust stronghold.”

In late September, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that its forces had encircled Dobropolye.

The town’s capture marks another step in Russia’s advance toward the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration, a cluster of cities in northwestern DPR that forms Ukraine’s last major fortified stronghold in the region.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree tightening restrictions on the country’s strategic enterprises, requiring them to obtain government approval before taking certain actions mandated by foreign law.

Moscow established a register of strategically important companies in the early 2000s and has since gradually expanded regulations governing their activities abroad. Russian law imposes strict limits on foreign investment, takeovers, and control of such enterprises, as well as their operations overseas.

The register covers a wide range of businesses across key sectors of the Russian economy, including state-owned giants such as energy corporation Gazprom and Russian Railways (RZhD), defense manufacturers, major state-backed banks, and high-tech firms.

From now on, strategic enterprises, as well as their subsidiaries, will only be allowed to disclose information to foreign authorities that is disclosable under Russian laws, as well as information related to issuing and circulating securities.

Furthermore, strategic joint-stock companies will be prohibited from amending contracts with foreign counterparts on their own, as well as from disposing of equity stakes in foreign entities through sale or otherwise, getting rid of properties abroad, and ditching rights to conduct business in foreign countries.

Ensuring the security of Russia’s border regions is a top priority for Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.

The president made the remarks on Friday when he visited the command headquarters of Russia’s joint troops participating in the military operation against Ukraine. Putin met top military commanders and officials, including the Russian chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov.

Securing the country’s border regions and creating a “buffer zone” within Ukraine remains one of the key priorities, the president said. The task is being carried out successfully by the country’s troops, he noted.

“Our goal is to ensure the ultimate security of Russia’s border regions for the future. And we do not seek to make this a subject of potential peace negotiations with Ukraine,” the president said.

The Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), which was fully liberated last year, remains under stable Russian control, Putin noted.

The Russian military is set to continue its campaign of retaliatory long-range strikes against Kiev, the president said. The campaign comes in response to the continuing attacks on “our industrial and oil and energy facilities,” he stressed.

No matter how European leaders pledge to support Ukraine come hell or high water and let the taxpayers foot the bill, the cold hard fact is that there are things no euros can buy, such as US intelligence and satellite communications.

Kiev’s critical reliance on American space capabilities came to the fore this week when the long-standing feud between US President Donald Trump and Vladimir Zelensky flared up again. Trump, who had struck a diesel supply deal with Russia, called Zelensky a hindrance to peace who should be replaced. Zelensky called Trump a weakling who had betrayed Ukraine, if not in those exact terms.

According to lamentations from Kiev corroborated by media reporting, the White House put a chokehold on the Zelensky government by suspending early warning about incoming Russian ballistic missiles and temporarily suspending access to Starlink satellite internet for fast-moving objects – such as drones used in Kiev’s “middle strike” operations inside what Washington recognizes as part of Ukraine.

Accounts shared with Axios and Reuters suggest the Americans were polite enough not to say “what a nice deal to get intelligence and internet you have; it would be a shame if something happened to it.” But they mentioned “all that the US has done ⁠for Ukraine.” The Ukrainians did take it as a threat.

Here are the alternatives Kiev would have, should Trump push the issue further.

No match for US intelligence

Intelligence that European NATO members can provide is a far cry from what the US has been delivering for years. Already, early warning about Russian ballistic missile launches has stopped coming, just as Zelensky is complaining.

The US operates the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS), whose backbone is six geosynchronous orbit satellites equipped with thermal sensors that detect launch signatures, complemented by two active and two reserve payloads in a highly elliptical orbit.

SBIRS helps identify and estimate the trajectory of a weapon, but has limited ability to track missiles after the intensive boost phase. But knowing one is incoming helps ground and airborne radar systems that guide interceptor missiles.

Other NATO members rely on SBIRS intelligence and never thought they would need their own alternative.

Satellites operated by the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and the Air Force’s electronic reconnaissance aircraft, such as the RC-135U Combat Sent, also collect intelligence about Russian air defense systems. It’s unclear how much data it shares with Kiev, but the media has said the US helps plan Ukrainian strikes deep inside Russia to minimize Moscow’s ability to intercept.

European NATO members do have some similar capabilities, including France’s three CERES electronic-intelligence satellites, the UK’s three RC-135W Rivet Joint aircraft, and Germany’s SARah radar-reconnaissance space program, but there is only so much they can do to measure up to the world’s largest military spender.

OneWeb not to rule them all

On the connectivity side, Starlink and its military twin Starshield remain the most capable today. It has over 11,000 satellites in low Earth (LEO) orbit that can use lasers to route traffic between each other, boosting their bandwidth.

The Starlink Mini terminal weighs just 1.1 kg and has an integrated antenna, making it usable even on even smaller military drones. Even larger variants are compact, which makes them harder to spot, and they typically consume under 100 watts of power – both valuable features in frontline applications.

The most direct non-US alternative is Eutelsat OneWeb, which already complements Starlink access in Ukraine. It only has 600+ satellites in its constellation, but nevertheless offers a high-speed connection.

However, OneWeb’s orbital component “remains rooted in an outdated architecture and technology conceived a decade ago, without any evolution of its underlying design,” Christian Freiherr von der Ropp, an independent satellite consultant, told Reuters.

Kymeta Corporation announced a OneWeb terminal in March whose 100-watt consumption it said was optimized for mobile platforms. Its “compact and lightweight design” means it weighs less than 11 kg, and the producer itself is Redmond, Washington.

Dark horses in orbit 

In September, EU co-founder Luxembourg announced the successful launch of the final three of a planned 13 satellites of its O3b mPOWER communication system. The low number is misleading, since the constellation is being positioned in medium Earth orbit and requires fewer satellites for coverage.

The trade off is latency, which is higher by an order of magnitude compared to LEO-based systems, but Luxembourg’s system is still good enough for some military applications and is used by NATO.

O3b mPOWER’s potential for Ukraine’s war effort is limited due to its coverage, which is between 50° north latitude and 50° south latitude. Luxembourg is right on the northern border of the band, but a large part of Ukraine, including Kiev, is outside of it. As they say, geography is destiny.

GOVSATCOM, the EU’s program to band together communication satellites owned by several member states, is somewhat of a dark horse, but public data suggests its capabilities are too limited to replace Starlink.

Amazon Leo is currently in limited preview, but it’s hard to expect an American company and a major Pentagon contractor to publicly defy Trump at Brussels’ call. Russia’s in-development Rassvet system is obviously not an option.

The EU’s proposed IRIS² system is years away from being operational, as is Canada’s Telesat Lightspeed.

In short, should Ukraine lose Starlink, in the short term Europe cannot replace it, as EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas acknowledged on Friday.

Russian wrestler Alina Shevchenko has struck gold at the Under-23 World Wrestling Championships in Las Vegas, defeating a Belarusian rival in the women’s 68kg final.

Her triumph comes as European countries continue to shut top Russian athletes out of major international competitions despite clearance from sporting authorities.

Shevchenko defeated Belarusian wrestler Kseniya Tsiarenia in the women’s 68kg final on Friday. Japan’s Rai Hoshino and Italy’s Laura Godino took bronze. The championships, which began on October 12, run until Sunday.

The victory follows a decision in May by United World Wrestling (UWW) to lift all restrictions on Russian and Belarusian wrestlers, allowing them to compete internationally across all age categories under their national flags and anthems.

The move marked a major reversal of restrictions imposed after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, when Russian and Belarusian athletes were barred from numerous international events or forced to compete under neutral status.

Most recently, the Netherlands refused visas to three leading Russian gymnasts – Angelina Melnikova, Viktoria Listunova, and Anna Kalmykova – for the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Rotterdam, scheduled for October 17-25. The tournament is part of the qualification process for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

“There are clear attempts by certain countries to influence the outcome of competitions by deliberately excluding the strongest,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday.

The Russian Gymnastics Federation condemned the Dutch decision as “direct discrimination,” saying the visa refusals violated the principle of equal conditions for Olympic qualification. Russian Sports Minister Mikhail Degtyarev announced plans to seek the removal of Rotterdam’s Olympic qualifying status.

The Dutch refusal is the latest in a string of incidents. Croatia attempted to block nine Russian gymnasts from this summer’s European Championships, Russian junior canoe slalom teams missed the World Championships in Poland, and Russian archers were unable to compete at a World Cup event in Spain because of visa problems.

Several European governments oppose the return, with Brussels reportedly considering visa restrictions and funding cuts for sporting bodies that readmit Russian athletes. Moscow has challenged continuing bans at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, including World Athletics’ refusal to readmit Russian competitors until the Ukraine conflict is settled.

Despite years of restrictions, Russian athletes have continued to claim international titles. Russian competitors won eight gold medals at the 2026 Winter Paralympics, while junior figure skaters swept all four disciplines at a Grand Prix event in China in August after a four-year absence. Moscow has argued that excluding some of the world’s strongest athletes undermines international sport and the credibility of its competitions.

Ukraine has exhausted its remaining US-made Patriot interceptor missiles used to defend against Russian strikes, CNN reported on Thursday, citing a person familiar with the matter.

The reported shortage comes amid a public feud between US President Donald Trump and Vladimir Zelensky over Trump’s diesel deal with Moscow and Ukraine’s attacks on Russian oil refineries.

According to CNN, the Ukrainian Air Force said it had intercepted four Russian ballistic missiles, apparently using the last of its remaining Patriot interceptors.

“Almost all the ballistic missiles from the last strike were not intercepted due to lack of the (interceptor) missiles,” a source told the network.

Zelensky said he felt betrayed after Trump lifted sanctions on Russian diesel exports earlier this month in the hopes of lowering energy prices ahead of the US midterm elections in November. Trump defended the move as beneficial to consumers and consistent with his “America First” agenda.

When asked about Zelensky’s criticism of the diesel deal, Trump suggested that it was “time for Ukraine to get a new president.” Zelensky, whose five-year presidential term expired in 2024, has refused to call new elections, citing martial law and the need for a months-long ceasefire with Russia. The Kremlin has argued that Ukraine would use a prolonged truce to replenish its armed forces and said it was only prepared to suspend strikes on election day.

The Trump-Zelensky rift deepened further this week after Ukraine reported sudden disruptions to Starlink and Starshield, satellite services provided by SpaceX that Kiev uses for drone strikes.

Ukrainian officials also said they had received no advance warning from their Western partners of Russian missile strikes on Kiev on two consecutive nights, Monday and Tuesday.

According to US media reports, American officials attributed the failure to detect the missile launches to bad weather, an explanation their Ukrainian counterparts reportedly found difficult to believe.

Zelensky renewed his plea for additional Patriot interceptors on Wednesday, urging the US and other partners “not to turn a blind eye to reality” and “to respond forcefully.”

The US, however, depleted much of its interceptor missile stockpile during the war with Iran, as widely reported by American media and confirmed in a Pentagon inspector general’s report last month. Trump has downplayed the shortages, claiming that US stockpiles were virtually unlimited.

Vladimir Zelensky’s latest interview with the London-based Financial Times deserves careful attention, because it may prove to be a watershed moment as for perhaps the first time, the Ukrainian leader has openly and directly challenged not merely Donald Trump, but the United States itself.

For the past year and a half, Zelensky, with considerable assistance from his Western European backers, has managed to navigate his increasingly difficult relationship with Washington. Faced with repeated demands from the White House, he alternated between sharp responses and diplomatic evasions, while maintaining a familiar refrain, that Ukraine appreciates American support, values President Trump’s efforts and intends to continue fighting with Washington’s assistance.

For a while, this approach worked, given the United States maintained limited involvement in the conflict, Ukraine continued fighting with varying degrees of success, and the EU largely picked up the bill. Meanwhile, the diplomatic maneuvering around Trump continued, with European leaders attempting to draw Washington back into the anti-Russian coalition as a fully committed participant.

Until recently, this arrangement appeared capable of continuing indefinitely, so Trump could pursue his peculiar dealings with Vladimir Putin, while Kiev and its European supporters performed an increasingly elaborate diplomatic dance to keep the Americans involved.

Then came the autumn, and Washington delivered what amounted to an ultimatum, essentially: accept our terms, or we will wash our hands of the conflict and deal directly with Moscow, without regard for Ukrainian or European objections.

In his Financial Times interview, Zelensky appears to have made that choice.

His message to Trump was remarkably direct. You want me to resign? I will not and you want me to stop attacking Russian oil refineries? Then provide missiles for our air defense. Your dealings with Putin are your business, not mine and don’t expect Ukraine to sacrifice its military campaign to accommodate Washington’s commercial arrangements with Moscow.

Then came the personal attacks, with Zelensky portraying Trump as weak and excessively sympathetic towards dictators, which represents a significant departure from the careful balancing act of the previous 18 months. Whatever diplomatic language may subsequently be employed, the underlying confrontation is now difficult to conceal.

For Washington and Kiev to resume anything resembling their previous relationship, one side would effectively have to retreat and accept the other’s demands and under present circumstances, neither appears particularly inclined to do so.

But suppose Trump’s opponents achieve a decisive victory in the coming congressional elections, allowing the American globalist establishment to regain effective control of policy, well would that fundamentally change matters?

When that strategy failed, the Americans began limiting their exposure, and indeed, Washington’s gradual withdrawal from direct responsibility for the conflict began under Joe Biden, certainly by 2023 and possibly as early as autumn 2022.

There is, I would argue, an underlying consensus within the American establishment on this question, but the disagreement concerns tactics rather than objectives. Trump and his allies favor a relatively abrupt disengagement, while their opponents prefer a gradual retreat, continuing to supply enough assistance to keep the conflict smoldering.

For Trump’s opponents to reverse this trajectory, they would have to return to the policies of early 2022, to policies they themselves had already begun abandoning, which would require an extraordinary loss of face.

For perhaps the first time in modern American history, Washington would find itself openly following the lead of countries it privately regards as troublesome dependents as across much of the American political establishment, from the most committed anti-Russian neoconservatives to liberal Democrats, Ukraine and Western Europe are increasingly treated as irritants rather than equal partners.

Nor is it easier to imagine Kiev and its European supporters retreating, given that even the proposals advanced by Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff in Miami, which from Moscow’s perspective involved considerable and rather humiliating concessions, proved unacceptable to them.

It won’t happen overnight and the retreat will be slow and frequently disguised by reassuring declarations and occasional gestures of support given American foreign policy rarely changes direction without first pretending that nothing has changed.

For Russia, the task is to recognize this developing reality without mistaking it for an immediate victory because the contradictions between Washington, Kiev, and Western Europe won’t resolve themselves, nor should Moscow expect its adversaries to abandon their positions simply because those positions have become increasingly difficult to sustain.

What’s required now is patience, a clear understanding of American interests, and painstaking diplomatic work.

Zelensky has made his choice, the only question left is how long Washington will tolerate the consequences.

The Kremlin has accused European countries of deliberately excluding the strongest competitors from international sporting events as part of a systematic attempt to manipulate results.

The majority of EU members have at some point refused entry to Russian athletes, despite them being cleared by their governing body to compete. Croatia tried to prevent nine Russian gymnasts from attending this summer’s European Gymnastics Championships, the country’s junior and under-23 canoe slalom teams missed the World Championships in Poland, and Russian archers were unable to compete in a World Cup event in Spain because of visa problems.

Most recently, the Netherlands refused entry to Angelina Melnikova, Viktoria Listunova and Anna Kalmykova for the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Rotterdam from October 17-25. The tournament forms part of the qualifications for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

“There are clear attempts by certain countries to influence the outcome of competitions by deliberately excluding the strongest,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

According to the Russian Gymnastics Federation (RGF), the visa refusal notices stated that “one or more Schengen member states” considered the three gymnasts “a threat to their international relations.”

Melnikova is the reigning world all-around champion and won European all-around gold this year. Listunova won Olympic team gold alongside her in Tokyo, while Kalmykova claimed European all-around silver this summer.

The RGF called the exclusions “direct discrimination” and a violation of equal conditions for Olympic qualification. Sports Minister and Russian Olympic Committee president Mikhail Degtyarev announced that Russia would seek to strip Rotterdam of its Olympic qualifying status.

World Gymnastics expressed regret over the disruption to the Russian delegation’s preparations. It said visa decisions rested exclusively with the Dutch authorities and that discussions with officials and organizers were continuing.

The refusals come despite World Gymnastics restoring Russian participation under national flags and anthems in May. The IOC provisionally reinstated the Russian Olympic Committee in July, following widespread restrictions imposed after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.

Several European governments have opposed the return. Euractiv reported last month that Brussels was considering visa restrictions and cuts to funding for sporting organizations that readmit Russian and Belarusian athletes under national symbols.

Russia has also challenged continuing restrictions through the Court of Arbitration for Sport, including World Athletics’ refusal to readmit its competitors before a peace agreement in Ukraine.

An earlier legal challenge helped clear the way for Russians to compete at the 2026 Winter Paralympics, where they won eight gold medals. Russian junior figure skaters also swept all four disciplines at an international Grand Prix event in China in August after a four-year absence.

Vladimir Zelensky is directly challenging US President Donald Trump through his outright refusal to acknowledge or accept a deal aimed at easing the global diesel shortage, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

Trump reached the agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday after days of repeated US requests to halt strikes on Russian oil refineries being ignored by Zelensky. Washington subsequently eased sanctions on Russian diesel exports until April 2027, while Moscow pledged substantial fuel deliveries to help alleviate global shortages.

Speaking to reporters following a regional summit in Baku, Azerbaijan on Thursday, Lavrov said Moscow had backed the agreement proposed by Trump, while Zelensky continued to seek US weapons to carry out strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, including oil refineries.

“The deal was proposed, and we supported it,” Lavrov said, accusing Zelensky of instead demanding more missiles for US-made Patriot systems to continue striking Russian energy facilities, including oil refineries.

“This is a direct and blatant challenge to President Trump,” Lavrov said.

Zelensky criticized the agreement as a “weak decision,” lamenting that it would provide Russia with additional revenue. He also accused Trump of “betrayal,” blamed the global energy shortage on the US war on Iran, and condemned the withdrawal of American intelligence support as “dangerous.” 

Trump hit back, accusing the Ukrainian leader of creating problems for the global economy and suggesting that Ukraine needed a new president.

However, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak said on Wednesday that Ukrainian drones had targeted two oil refineries: in Ryazan and Saratov Regions.

Overnight, a UAV attack sparked a fire at an oil refinery in Ryazan Region, according to local authorities.

Moscow has denounced the attacks as acts of terrorism and vowed to intensify strikes on Ukrainian military-related facilities, including drone and missile warehouses, while maintaining that it never targets civilians.

The Kremlin said the renewed attacks ran counter to Washington’s efforts to broker peace. Moscow has repeatedly maintained that it seeks a lasting settlement of the Ukraine conflict rather than a temporary truce that would allow Kiev to regroup and rearm.

The Russian Navy has successfully conducted a live-fire exercise in the Pacific, using a nuclear-powered submarine to strike sea and land targets with cruise missiles.

The Yasen M-class attack submarine Novosibirsk launched the weapons while submerged during a scheduled drill, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on Wednesday.

According to the report, an Onyx cruise missile struck a simulated enemy warship at a distance of 170 km.

A Kalibr cruise missile was used to hit a land target at the Kura testing range on Kamchatka Peninsula, more than 1,200 km from the launch position.

The 130-meter-long Novosibirsk is the first submarine of the upgraded Yasen-M class to be built in series production.

Construction began in 2013, and the vessel was launched in 2019. It joined Russia’s Pacific Fleet in 2022 alongside the Knyaz Oleg nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine.

A Swedish national has been detained in Russia, accused of entering the country to carry out sabotage and terrorist attacks against military facilities, the Federal Security Service (FSB) announced on Thursday.

The man was detained in Sebezh District, Pskov Region, after illegally crossing the border from a neighboring country, the agency said. He allegedly intended to use a declared desire to join the Russian armed forces as cover for his mission.

In footage released by the FSB, he identified himself as Freddy Mikael Stalkrantz Lindholm, a 35-year-old from Stockholm. He said he signed a contract with Ukraine’s infamous neo-Nazi Aidar unit in Ternopol and underwent FPV drone training, also instructing others because of his previous experience.

“They used me because they wanted me to make terrorist attacks and diversion in Russia,” he said, referring to his Ukrainian military commanders.

The agency also released Ukrainian military documents bearing his name, including an appointment order assigning him to a drone command position in May, pay records, and a June discharge order stating that he failed his probationary period.

An earlier recruitment interview published on the International Legion’s Instagram account shows Lindholm describing how he decided to join the Ukrainian armed forces. Discussing his mental preparation for the deployment, he described taking a life as “the easy part,” but said he also had to prepare himself to give his own.

Investigators have opened a criminal case for illegal border crossing and are considering additional charges connected to terrorist activity and mercenary service.

The Swedish Foreign Ministry told Reuters it was aware of reports of the detention but was not currently involved in the case. Ukraine did not immediately comment.

At least 20,000 foreign mercenaries have fought for Kiev since 2022, Russian diplomat Yulia Zhdanova told the OSCE Forum for Security Co-operation on Wednesday, noting that most have come from the US, UK, Canada, and Georgia.

Moscow regards foreigners fighting for Kiev as mercenaries and has repeatedly warned that they are not entitled to prisoner-of-war protections under the Geneva Conventions. The Russian authorities have prosecuted hundreds, many in absentia.

Videos online have captured a fire that broke out at an oil refinery in Russia’s Ryazan Region following a major overnight Ukrainian drone raid.

The Russian Defense Ministry said air defenses and military aircraft shot down four Flamingo cruise missiles and 69 fixed-wing drones between 4 AM and 7 AM local time on Thursday. The blaze was caused by the debris of a fallen UAV, it added. Ryazan Region lies less than 200 kilometers (124 miles) southeast of Moscow.

The attack came as Ukraine continued its strikes on Russian oil infrastructure for a second consecutive day, with two oil refineries – in Ryazan and Saratov Regions – being targeted by UAVs on Wednesday, according to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak.

The Russian military has warned that it will respond in kind to the strikes by Ukraine. Novak earlier said that Kiev had shown no signs of moving towards an energy truce, which US President Donald Trump is trying to broker.

On Thursday, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky said Kiev will resume attacks on Russian oil refineries after a three-day pause he introduced under pressure from Trump.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said later in the day that “in fact, there was no moratorium on the part of Ukraine. Strikes on our oil refineries and energy facilities continued throughout this whole period. Therefore, there is nothing new here.”

The Estonian government reportedly plans to seek neighboring Latvia’s cooperation in shutting down a gas pipeline that serves as a backup supply route to Kaliningrad Region, the Russian exclave that Western officials recently called a strategic vulnerability for Moscow.

The government of Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal was surprised to learn that local operator Elering was maintaining the pipeline in working condition, Eesti Ekspress reported on Wednesday. Tallinn now intends to work with Riga to close the route, the outlet said.

The Estonian section of the pipeline consists of two parallel pipes, each 70 centimeters in diameter, running just 22 km through Voru County in the southeast of the country. The connection is clearly marked on a pipeline map published on Elering’s website. According to Eesti Ekspress, it was last used in fall 2024.

Officials in several NATO members, including Estonia, have recently described Kaliningrad Region as a Russian vulnerability due to its geographic position. Moscow has warned that any escalation where the US-led military bloc threatened Russia’s territorial integrity, including that of its westernmost region, could result in a nuclear war.

Kaliningrad’s principal overland gas supply route is the Minsk-Vilnius-Kaunas-Kaliningrad pipeline, which first entered service in 1985 and has an annual capacity of 2.5 billion cubic meters. Russia’s Gazprom renewed its transit agreement with Lithuania’s Amber Grid in 2025, securing the arrangement through the end of 2030.

Nevertheless, Moscow has long considered the Baltic states unreliable transit partners, fearing they could cut off supplies for political reasons. In 2019, Gazprom commissioned an LNG receiving terminal near Kaliningrad, complementing the region’s underground gas storage facilities. The maritime supply system uses the Marshal Vasilevskiy, an LNG carrier equipped to regasify its cargo.

A blaze has broken out at an oil refinery in Russia’s Ryazan Region as a result of a major overnight Ukrainian drone attack, local governor Pavel Malkov has written on Telegram.

In recent days, Kiev has continued its strikes on Russian energy infrastructure despite US President Donald Trump’s attempts to broker an “energy truce.”

A warehouse and several vehicles belonging to another local enterprise were also damaged during the raid, Malkov said.

However, there were no casualties, according to preliminary information, the governor stressed. The extent of damage is currently being assessed, with emergency services working in the affected areas, he added.

The Russian Defense Ministry said in a later statement that the Ukrainian attack on an oil refinery in Ryazan Region occurred between 4 AM and 7 AM local time.

A total of four long-range Flamingo cruise missiles and 69 fixed-wing UAVs, fired by Kiev, had been shot down by air defenses and military aircraft, the statement read.

The fire at the facility had been caused by the debris of an intercepted drone, the ministry said.

Vladimir Zelensky reacted by saying that the announcement “was news” to him, but expressed a readiness to stop the strikes if Russia does the same.

Zelensky also said that Kiev would introduce a three-day pause in attacks on Russian energy infrastructure. However, the pledge was violated on Wednesday, with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak saying that two oil refineries – in Ryazan and Saratov Regions – were targeted by Ukrainian drones.

In order to alleviate the situation, Trump eased restrictions on Russia’s diesel exports following a phone call with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, last week.

The US president accused Zelensky of seeking to “make problems” for the US and the whole world by attacking Russian oil refineries and suggested that Ukraine needed a “new president.”

“He goes and hits the diesel fuel. He can do whatever he wants, but he can’t do that. He’d better damn well stop,” the US president said.

Zelensky blamed Trump for “betrayal” of Ukraine and suggested that the actual reason for the global energy shortage was the US war on Iran.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday in the day that “in fact, there was no moratorium on the part of Ukraine. Strikes on our oil refineries and energy facilities continued throughout this whole period. Therefore, there is nothing new here.”

The Trump administration’s “active attempts” to settle the Ukraine conflict “are being crushed by the unwillingness of the Kiev regime and Zelensky, in particular, to agree to peace,” Peskov added.

Russian officials have said repeatedly that Moscow seeks a long-term settlement of the Ukraine conflict rather than a temporary truce, which would be used by Zelensky’s government to rearm and regroup its forces.

Ukraine targeted two Russian oil refineries on Wednesday, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak has said.

The facilities are in Russia’s Saratov and Ryazan regions, Novak said on the sidelines of the Russian Energy Week forum. He did not specify whether either refinery sustained damage.

“We can see that the Ukrainian side is making no moves towards an energy ceasefire,” Novak said, referring to a limited ceasefire between Moscow and Kiev proposed by US President Donald Trump.

On Sunday, Trump claimed that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an immediate energy ceasefire. Neither Moscow nor Kiev, however, has confirmed the truce, sending out mixed messages on the matter.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky said the announcement “was news” for him, but expressed readiness to stop attacking Russian refineries should Moscow halt strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

The US president has also accused Zelensky of seeking to “make problems” for the US and the whole world by ignoring demands to stop its attacks on Russian oil refineries.

“Russia supplies a large portion of the diesel fuel throughout the world. And we told him, do whatever you want, but don’t hit the diesel fuel,” Trump said last week. “And what does he do? He goes and hits the diesel fuel. He can do whatever he wants, but he can’t do that. He’d better damn well stop.”

On Friday, the US eased its restrictions on Russia’s diesel trade, allowing it to be sold, delivered, and imported into the US until April 7, 2027.

According to Trump, Moscow agreed to immediately supply more than 300,000 metric tons of diesel, followed by another 500,000 metric tons in November, and 1 million more shortly thereafter. Novak confirmed the figures, saying Russia will move to lift its own export restrictions immediately.

According to US media reports, Trump struck the deal after Zelensky repeatedly ignored demands to stop attacking Russian oil refineries. The US president accused the Ukrainian leader of exacerbating the global fuel crisis.

Kiev reportedly asked the US what it would get for stopping its attacks on Russian refineries. The Trump administration suggested that Kiev is receiving enough help and is in no position to demand more.

Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko has accused Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s government of withholding funds needed to protect the capital from Russian strikes, while blaming his administration for the city’s problems.

The longstanding feud between Klitschko, one of the leaders of the 2014 coup that ousted then-President Viktor Yanukovich, and Zelensky has intensified as the two sides trade accusations over deteriorating living conditions in Kiev.

The capital has suffered regular blackouts as Russian forces target power infrastructure supplying Ukrainian industry, including facilities producing long-range kamikaze drones used to attack Russian oil refineries. Speaking in parliament on Wednesday, Klitschko accused the central government of using state-funded propaganda outlets to smear him.

“Talk is cheap, and one could pin World War III on Klitschko just as well,” he said. “But I am not alone to question: Where is air defense for the capital? Where is the reinforcement of Ukrenergo [energy system] sites? Where are the billions allocated for that?”

A day earlier, Zelensky claimed that Kiev is less prepared for Russian strikes than even frontline settlements under Ukrainian control, and announced “rational changes” to the capital’s governance. Klitschko previously claimed that Zelensky was considering removing him from office and putting a political appointee in charge of Kiev.

Several Ukrainian corruption investigations have involved the alleged embezzlement of funds intended for defense projects. Last week, the State Bureau of Investigation accused four suspects of taking kickbacks through inflated contracts for fortifications in Sumy Region. The alleged $840,000 scheme involved funds allocated by the central government to the Lviv regional administration.

Zelensky’s government has faced a series of corruption scandals involving people close to him since last November. A recent opinion poll suggests that Ukrainians rank government corruption as a greater concern than Russian missile and drone strikes.

The Ukrainian leader is facing additional pressure after President Donald Trump accused him of harming US interests by attacking Russian oil refineries amid the global fuel crunch. Trump suggested that Ukraine should replace Zelensky with someone willing to compromise.

Zelensky has since complained that the US has stopped providing early warnings of incoming Russian ballistic missile strikes. There have also been reports of restrictions on Ukraine’s access to the Starlink satellite internet system aimed at preventing its use on fast-moving platforms. Starlink is owned by Trump ally Elon Musk, who has backed the US president’s call to replace Zelensky.

Russia will seek to strip an upcoming gymnastics championship in the Netherlands of its Olympic qualifying status after the Dutch authorities denied visas to three of its top athletes, Sports Minister Mikhail Degtyarev announced.

The Netherlands refused entry visas to Angelina Melnikova, Viktoria Listunova, and Anna Kalmykova, the Russian Gymnastics Federation (RGF) revealed on Tuesday, barring them from the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Rotterdam in three days, a qualifying event for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. According to the RGF, official refusal notices said “one or more Schengen member states” considered the athletes “a threat to their international relations.”

In a statement later that day, Degtyarev said the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) will demand that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and World Gymnastics revoke Rotterdam’s Olympic qualifying status over “discrimination” and violations of equal competition rules.

Only four gymnasts from the Russian squad have so far obtained visas; five others are still awaiting decisions.

Melnikova was set to defend her women’s all-around world title after winning gold at last year’s championships in Jakarta. She also won all-around gold at this year’s European Championships in Zagreb. Listunova won Olympic team gold alongside Melnikova at the Tokyo Games, where she was Russia’s youngest gymnast at just 16. Kalmykova, 18, is among the youngest members of the squad. She helped Russia win the team title in Zagreb and claimed individual all-around silver.

‘Inhumane’: Visa snub sparks outrage

The move drew criticism from Russian athletes and sports officials. The RGF called it “direct discrimination against Russian athletes” and a “a flagrant violation of the principle of equal conditions for Olympic qualification.” RGF Vice President Nikita Nagorny called the situation “disgusting.”

Two-time Olympic gymnastics champion Lidia Ivanova accused the Dutch of deliberately sidelining Russia’s strongest competitors.

“With this decision, they are demonstrating their weakness,” she told Match TV. “They did this knowing full well that they were denying visas to top Russian gymnasts... It’s sheer nastiness.”

Reacting on social media, Melnikova said she “felt like crying” and called the actions “inhumane.”

“If they keep mixing sport with politics to such an extent, it will become a complete nightmare,” she said, posting a team photograph with the caption: “This is what the Netherlands considers a threat to international relations.”

Western bans and Russian medals

Russian and Belarusian athletes were excluded from numerous international competitions following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, after an IOC recommendation and bans imposed by individual federations. Earlier this year, the IOC provisionally lifted its suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee, opening the way for a broader return. Several federations, including World Gymnastics, have since eased their restrictions.

Russia has called the bans on its athletes politically motivated and “cowardly.” Despite the restrictions, Russian athletes have continued to win titles wherever they are allowed to compete.

Last week, Inal Tasoev won gold in the men’s over-100 kg division at the 2026 World Judo Championships in Baku. In August, Russian artistic swimmers swept all three golds awarded on the opening day of the World Junior Aquatics Championships in Budapest. In July, Pavel Graudyn won the men’s individual saber title at the World Fencing Championships in Hong Kong, and Russian junior figure skaters swept all four disciplines at an ISU Junior Grand Prix event in China in August, returning after a four-year ban.

Russian security officers have detained a Japanese journalist accused of collecting defense-related information for one of Tokyo’s intelligence services, the Federal Security Service (FSB) has announced.

The suspect, identified by Russia’s Foreign Ministry as Yuki Imai, worked for the Japanese newspaper Hokkaido Shimbun’s bureau in the Far Eastern Russian city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and held ministry accreditation. He was detained in Sakhalin Region ahead of a planned departure from Russia and transferred to Moscow, the FSB said.

According to the agency, the correspondent gathered and stored restricted information about the number of Kuril Islands residents mobilized or volunteering to serve in the Ukraine conflict, intending to pass it to Japanese intelligence.

An FSB officer said the journalist repeatedly tasked local residents with obtaining the data despite knowing it was restricted and could not be published. The agency also said he had privately admitted to having contacts with Japanese intelligence.

The journalist is currently being held in custody while the investigation continues.

Commenting on the arrest, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Tokyo of using accredited journalists to gather information aimed at undermining Russian security, saying this was not an isolated incident.

She warned that the case would further damage bilateral relations, lamenting Japan’s “anti-Russian course” and its refusal to address Moscow’s concerns about Japanese “remilitarization.” Zakharova urged Tokyo to abandon hostile actions against Russia.

Relations between Moscow and Tokyo have deteriorated since Japan joined Western sanctions over the Ukraine conflict in 2022, prompting Russia to suspend peace treaty negotiations. Last month, Russia also demanded the removal of US Typhon missile systems deployed in Japan, describing them as a threat to regional security.

The countries have never signed a post-World War II peace treaty, although a 1956 declaration ended the state of war and restored diplomatic ties. A longstanding obstacle remains Japan’s claim to the four southernmost Kuril island groups, which came under Soviet control in 1945. Tokyo calls them the Northern Territories, while Moscow regards them as an integral part of Russia.

Russian forces launched an overnight barrage against energy and communications infrastructure across Ukraine, targeting facilities that support the Ukrainian military, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has said.

In a statement on Wednesday, the ministry said high-precision ground-based weapons and long-range attack drones were used to attack facilities in Kiev, its suburbs, and Kharkov Region.

In Kiev, the ministry said the strikes hit the Darnytskaya combined heat and power plant (CHP-4) and Kiev CHP-5, which it said were supplying power to Ukrainian military installations and defense manufacturers. It also reported that it hit the ATM Ukrsibbank data center, which was used for collecting intelligence about Russian forces.

In the region of Kiev, the targets included Kiev CHP-6, the Trypilska thermal power plant, and the Kievskaya electricity substation. According to the ministry, the facilities supplied power to military logistics hubs, weapons storage sites, and defense enterprises.

In Kharkov and the surrounding region, Russian forces struck Kharkov CHP-5 and the Zmievskaya thermal power plant, which supplied electricity to military-industrial enterprises and Ukrainian defense installations.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky confirmed the attacks, saying Russia launched 39 ballistic missiles and more than 120 attack drones and loitering munitions overnight. “At least 600,000 people are currently, unfortunately, without electricity,” he said, warning that further outages are possible. He added that significant damage was done to 26 elements of Ukraine’s power system and four oil and gas facilities.

Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko claimed that three people were killed and at least 22 were injured in the barrage, adding that the attacks caused extensive electricity outages.

The attacks come amid growing tensions between Kiev and Washington over intelligence sharing. US President Donald Trump recently said “it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president,” as Zelensky’s term expired more than two years ago. He also urged the Ukrainian leader to stop striking Russian oil refineries. Zelensky replied that he is ready to do so if Russia stops attacking Ukrainian energy facilities.

Following the strikes, Zelensky said Ukraine’s Western backers failed to provide advance warnings about Russian ballistic missile launches for the second time that week. He also claimed that the US threatened to suspend intelligence sharing unless Ukraine stops attacking Russian refineries.

However, he stressed that cooperation has not been halted, echoing Trump’s earlier remarks in which he said the US is “helping [Ukraine], and we are sharing intel.”

The latest barrage came after the Russian Defense Ministry vowed earlier this month to intensify strikes on military-related facilities in Ukraine in response to Zelensky’s threat to step up attacks on Russian oil refineries.

The assassination of Emperor Alexander II on March 1, 1881, was the most famous action carried out by Russian terrorists. It seemed as though the monarchy was about to collapse simply because of a few dozen individuals armed with bombs, daggers, and revolvers.

However, as the terrorists were about to discover, this was a game two could play. 

The terrorists of the Narodnaya Volya (People’s Will) organization lost the highly active militant cell that had assassinated the emperor – almost all its members were captured and hanged. However, numerous smaller cells remained.

The novel ‘What Is to Be Done?’ deeply influenced Russian terrorists. Ironically, after Alexander’s death, both sides pondered this question. The sole desire of the terrorists was to assassinate the emperor, but soon, they discovered that nothing had changed: Alexander II was succeeded by Alexander III. Moreover, the new tsar rolled back many of his father’s reforms. A prescient observer might have noted that, in doing so, he was actually hastening the revolution the terrorists so fervently desired. But the radicals themselves did not look that far ahead.

The underground movement saw a massive influx of new recruits. Vera Figner effectively headed the movement. An idealist and intellectual, under different circumstances, she might have become a source of national pride; however, she met anarchist leaders and went underground. Her primary challenge was finding recruits; while the ranks of revolutionaries had swelled, these new terrorists were poorly trained.

On the opposite side of the barricades, a new figure emerged. This was Georgy Sudeykin, an officer of the Corps of Gendarmes, i.e., the security police. Sudeykin was an army officer, but had little desire to spend decades serving in garrisons only to eventually retire as a major. The field of counter-terrorism was just emerging, and Sudeykin saw it as a brilliant opportunity. 

He began recruiting agents from among the terrorists. Sudeykin proved to be a skilled psychologist who strove to exploit personal weaknesses. He used intimidation or torture sparingly; far more often, he claimed to be a committed advocate of reform who merely considered the revolutionaries’ methods too radical. And then, he suggested ways that they could help each other out. 

This was a simple ploy, and it would not have worked on seasoned terrorists like Figner. However, Sudeykin targeted the ‘younger generation’ and quickly found the right approach with many of those he managed to arrest. He rapidly rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel and assumed a position created specifically for him: inspector of the secret police, effectively the head of the counter-terrorism department. 

One day, the police arrested a young man named Sergey Degaev. Degaev was a talented mathematician but had a passion for underground revolutionary activity. Unlike his aptitude for science, however, he possessed no real talent for terrorism. He was captured at an underground print shop that produced banned literature. Sudeykin deployed his full arsenal against him: he made pointed references to the prospect of punitive labor in Siberia while simultaneously flattering Degaev and appealing to his idealism and intellect. Driven by a mixture of fear and ambition, Degaev became a secret agent.

For a time, Degaev rode high. He appeared to be a cunning terrorist who repeatedly eluded the police and rose rapidly through the revolutionary ranks. However, Sudeykin was so good at arresting the revolutionaries (he made about one arrest per week) that many of them finally put two and two together and realized there was a traitor in their midst. Moreover, Degaev had too many ‘miraculous escapes’ behind him. While they didn’t have any proof yet, there were certainly many suspicions. 

Sudeykin’s scheme ultimately collapsed in a completely unexpected way. Many members of Narodnaya Volya came from very respectable, well-to-do families. One day, an officer was carelessly discussing official business in front of his daughter. She was not a terrorist herself, but had friends in Narodnaya Volya, and told them about it. They didn’t believe her right away, but it was then that Degaev was first considered a traitor. 

Degaev was also pondering his situation. He was well off…but that totally depended on Sudeykin. But what would happen when he was no longer useful? To be sure, Sudeykin lavished him with praise, but what guarantee was there that Degaev wouldn’t end up in Siberia next to the very people he had betrayed? And what if the terrorists figured out who the traitor was? It wouldn’t take them long to deduce it simply by a process of elimination.

Degaev headed to Europe. There, he sought out Lev Tikhomirov. Tikhomirov had emigrated to avoid arrest, yet members of Narodnaya Volya still regarded him as a seasoned and authoritative underground figure. Degaev told him everything. 

Tikhomirov gathered a few like-minded émigrés and consulted with them. While they had a strong urge to strangle Degaev, doing so would only prompt Sudeykin to recruit someone else. Therefore, they decided to use Degaev to get close to Sudeykin.

Tikhomirov had an experienced and not yet imprisoned terrorist available for the task: German Lopatin. Lopatin organized the hunt – this time, for the hunter himself.

As Sudeykin entered the apartment, terrorists wielding crowbars sprang from their hiding place. “Shoot them with your revolver!” Sudeykin shouted to his companion, but the officer had already been struck on the head. Sudeykin tried to lock himself in the restroom, but they broke down the door and beat him to death with crowbars. Then, the terrorists merely washed themselves and Degaev, who was vomiting uncontrollably, and left the apartment.

They did not kill Degaev, but politely asked him to leave for a place where their paths would never cross again. Degaev took the hint and moved to the United States, where, under the name of Alexander Pell, he became a successful mathematician and lived out his days as a respected professor.

A seething cauldron

The terrorist underground in Russia suffered a devastating blow the effects of which lasted for decades. The police rounded up almost all the remaining terrorists. The underground movement had become incredibly weak and Narodnaya Volya fell apart. Among the last to be arrested was a young man named Alexander Ulyanov, the older brother of Vladimir Ulyanov, better known as Vladimir Lenin. Ulyanov had planned an assassination attempt on the new Tsar, Alexander III, and was hanged in accordance with the full severity of the law. Capital punishment was extremely rare in Russia, but it was readily applied in cases of attempts on the Tsar’s life. It is reported that Vladimir Ulyanov, who had not yet adopted the pseudonym Lenin, remarked, “We shall take a different path.” In other words, he would focus not on terrorism, but on mass uprisings – a revolution in the true sense of the word. The future Lenin was still very young and likely never actually said this, though as a mature politician, he did indeed choose to build a mass party. 

In general, many figures within the Russian revolutionary movement viewed terrorism as a foolish dead end that only resulted in bloodshed. The Bolsheviks – who, as we know, ultimately seized power and ruled Russia from 1917 to 1991 – considered terrorism a senseless waste of both human lives and effort.

Alexander III died in 1894, and Nicholas II ascended the throne. No one yet knew that he would be the last Russian tsar. However, it was already clear that the country had changed profoundly.

By the turn of the 20th century, Russia bore little resemblance to the country it had been just 20 years earlier. The abolition of serfdom and the Industrial Revolution had caused a tectonic shift. The number of industrial workers was growing by the day. Peasants were articulating new demands, including a call for political representation.

Social and political tensions within the empire were mounting rapidly. Workers who had migrated from the countryside to the cities in search of employment lived in appalling conditions, enduring grueling working schedules, meager wages, and a humiliating status. Meanwhile, the peasantry demanded land. This land was in the hands of the wealthiest individuals and the few aristocrats who had managed to survive the changing times and expand their fortunes. Furthermore, the population was growing. There was a collective demand for political rights, freedom of the press, the right of assembly, and representative government.

The government underestimated the speed and force of these changes. Nicholas II possessed personal qualities that were endearing in an individual but highly detrimental in a ruler. He genuinely cared for Russia’s wellbeing as he understood it – viewing that wellbeing as the consolidation of an autocratic monarchy rooted in Orthodox Christianity. His fervent love for the people resembled that of an authoritarian mother who is convinced she always knows what is best. The revolutionary movement was dismissed as a handful of fringe figures. The top posts in the Ministry of Internal Affairs were held by men who had helped crush the Narodnaya Volya movement during the era of Degaev and Sudeykin. They believed that terrorists – and revolutionaries in general – lacked a social base, and that it was sufficient to arrest (or hang) the movement’s core activists.

In reality, by the turn of the 20th century, the landscape was teeming with revolutionary organizations, including the entire spectrum of left-wing and radical-left opposition. Russia has historically gravitated toward the left side of the political spectrum; consequently, the far right and conservatives were a rarity. However, a wide variety of people rallied under the red banners. There were the intellectuals, who would have preferred a legal parliamentary struggle. There were radicals, including Lenin. Moreover, the radicals were divided into several factions. Anarchists sought to destroy the state as such; the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks represented two wings of the underground Marxist movement in Russia; the split between them, however, was based more on tactical issues and the clash of personalities. Finally, the most popular left-wing opposition movement was that of the Socialist-Revolutionaries (SRs).

Politically, they demanded sweeping democratization: universal suffrage without restrictions based on class or property ownership, extensive local self-government, the federalization of Russia, universal education, a people’s militia to replace the regular army, a progressive income tax, various social reforms, the transfer of factories and plants to the workers, and the nationalization of land.

However, alongside its ‘visible’ wing, the SR party maintained another branch established under the leadership of Boris Savinkov, Grigory Gershuni, and Yevno Azef. This faction inherited certain methods from the Narodnaya Volya movement.

One day in February 1901, Pyotr Karpovich arrived to see the Minister of Public Education, Nikolai Bogolepov, to request admission to the St. Petersburg Technological Institute. As Bogolepov took the petition, the young man pulled out a revolver and shot him. Bogolepov died 16 days later. Karpovich was seized on the spot and sentenced to penal servitude in Siberia.

A new era of revolutionary terrorism had begun in Russia.

A new wave

Karpovich shot the minister in response to the mass expulsion of politically active students. It was the act of a lone wolf, but soon others joined him – and those were real professionals. 

In the early years of the 20th century, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party (SRs) emerged from a multitude of small socialist circles. Its core consisted of individuals who envisioned engaging in either legal political struggle or mass uprisings. Yet, alongside the party itself, there existed a Combat Organization – a group of ‘romantics’ and fanatics led by the pharmacist Grigory Gershuni. The terrorist organization enjoyed a high degree of autonomy; in fact, the ‘parent’ party did not always know what its militant wing was up to. Gershuni established the style that would come to characterize this new wave of terrorism.

The terrorists tried to draw as little money as possible from the party coffers. They devoted themselves entirely to terrorism, much like members of a sect. Funds were obtained either through legitimate work under assumed names or seized during robberies (known in their jargon as ‘exes’ – short for ‘expropriations’). Speaking of jargon, one of their terms has survived to this day. The word ‘boevik’ (militant, member of a terrorist group) originally referred to a member of an anti-government combat organization; today, it carries a pejorative connotation – for example, members of ISIS are referred to as ‘boeviki’ in Russian. But to the revolutionaries, the word sounded proud and romantic.

​​For the most part, SR boeviks – members of the Combat Organization – had no time for personal life; they dedicated themselves entirely to training and combat operations. Boeviks generally lived ascetic lives, paying little heed to domestic comforts, unless their cover story required otherwise. Roles within the organization were clearly defined: the armorer manufactured powerful homemade bombs; the organizer handled the primary planning, command, and the group’s funds; and the instructor trained the boeviks. Weapons were kept in secret caches, and the members lived in safe houses. These apartments had to meet a specific set of criteria: they needed to offer a good vantage point, possess emergency exits, and allow for the door to be quickly barricaded.

The Combat Organization itself was merely the tip of the iceberg. Regional SR branches also formed their own combat squads; while operations there were less sophisticated, such groups were numerous. Gershuni drafted a program for the organization, in which he directly stated that its goal was the physical elimination of government officials and the preparation of armed uprisings.

A classic terrorist attack carried out by the organization was the 1902 assassination of Minister of the Interior Dmitry Sipyagin. A former student named Balmashev arrived at the Mariinsky Palace (which housed the State Council in St. Petersburg) dressed in an officer’s uniform. When Sipyagin entered the building, Balmashev shot him with a pistol. Notably, he made no attempt to escape. Usually, the assassin was expected to remain at the scene so he could make political statements during his trial. One should not assume that the terrorists hoped for a miraculous rescue; they knew they would be hanged.

Another characteristic example was the assassination of Grand Duke Sergey Alexandrovich, a relative of the emperor. He was killed by Ivan Kalyaev. Kalyaev was not entirely devoid of human feelings; on the first occasion when he could have killed the Grand Duke, he didn’t do so – he let the carriage pass because the Grand Duke’s young nephews were sitting alongside him. However, in the winter of 1905, on his second attempt, he hurled a bomb at the Grand Duke’s carriage right inside the Kremlin. The Grand Duke was literally torn apart by the explosion and died instantly. At his trial, Kalyaev refused to ask for clemency, vowed that more blood would be shed, and died fully satisfied with himself.

Gershuni was arrested and sentenced to penal servitude, but this did not stop the terrorists. In general, revolutionary activity was intensifying in a wide variety of forms. By 1905, there were many revolutionary organizations. If a minister or governor was assassinated, the perpetrator was most often a Socialist-Revolutionary. However, there were also nationalist movements in Poland, the Baltic region, Finland, and the Caucasus, as well as anarchist groups. Anarchists posed a massive problem because they acted without a specific motive (political agenda) and deemed it necessary to kill anyone belonging to classes they viewed as hostile; for example, they could blow up people in a café. Socialist-Revolutionaries and nationalists generally targeted government officials. And then there was the Armenian party Dashnaktsutyun, which simultaneously fought against the government, the Turks, and the Azerbaijanis. 

In total, the SRs assassinated two ministers of the interior and a minister of education; Prime Minister Stolypin was assassinated by an anarchist from a different movement. Six governors, a Grand Duke, seven generals and admirals, as well as hundreds of police and military personnel, dozens of entrepreneurs and bankers, dozens of landowners, and a multitude of minor officials also fell prey to the terrorists. In December 1905 and January 1906, fierce street fighting raged in Presnya, an industrial district of Moscow. Today, the people sitting in cafés housed in the former Trekhgornaya Manufactory likely have no idea that, over a century ago, the army stormed these very buildings using artillery.

What is truly astonishing is that the top leader of the Combat Organization was also a police informant.

Yevno Azef was a very poor young man of Jewish descent. He approached the police on his own initiative, driven by a need for money. He joined the Combat Organization already as a police agent. After the group’s founder, Gershuni, was arrested, Azef rose to a leading role within the organization. Unlike Degaev, he needed no help with his work. The situation was paradoxical: Azef was exceptionally conscientious and effective both as a terrorist and as a police agent. With one hand, he planned terrorist attacks against government ministers and members of the Imperial family; with the other, he betrayed the energetic, bloodthirsty, yet naïve boeviks to the police. Remarkably, despite his repulsive and even loathsome appearance and the fact that few people actually liked him, he inspired trust in everyone. He managed to convince the police that he was unaware of the preparations for specific attacks (which was sometimes even true), while simultaneously assuring his comrades of his absolute loyalty. Furthermore, Azef succeeded in befriending Colonel Gerasimov, whom he reported to, and spent long hours in conversation with him. One might even speculate that he had a psychological disorder – or perhaps an intoxication with the power he held over people’s lives.

It was through Azef that the police learned of the plot to assassinate Justice Minister Ivan Shcheglovitov. Gerasimov personally orchestrated the capture of this terrorist cell. Apparently, Russian terrorists were the first to invent the explosive belt, because during the arrest, it turned out that Vsevolod Lebedintsev, the leader of the terrorist cell, had strapped himself with dynamite and prepared to assassinate the minister. Lebedintsev and his comrades were apprehended right at their staging positions. The boeviks were hanged, and the incident prompted Leonid Andreyev to write his famous psychological horror story, ‘The Seven Who Were Hanged’.

Azef even plotted what would have been the world’s first terrorist attack using an airplane. However, in 1908, this “super-terrorist” and “super-traitor” was unexpectedly exposed by the journalist Vladimir Burtsev.

Terrorist activity in Russia declined sharply after 1908. On the one hand, the Azef affair drastically reduced the number of people willing to turn to terrorism. On the other hand, the authorities managed to curb the wave of attacks by arresting or eliminating many of the terrorists. 

Terrorism never completely vanished in the lead-up to the 1917 revolution, although in 1914 it was nearly stifled due to wartime laws. By that time, the number of assassination attempts had already dropped to 1-3 per year; terrorist networks were swiftly dismantled by the police or simply withered away and disintegrated on their own.

Politically, terrorism was a dead end. It is difficult to say what was actually achieved by these individuals who dedicated their lives to murder, toiling over bombs in secret workshops and stalking ministers with revolvers in hand. While they created an atmosphere of nervous tension throughout the Russian Empire, ultimately, they merely paved the way for revolutionary movements that relied on the masses.

It all came to an end when the SRs – who had spent years destabilizing the edifice of the Russian Empire – died beneath its ruins. In the summer of 1918, having suffered a radical rift with the Bolsheviks, the SRs attempted to carry out a series of classic terrorist attacks, this time targeting Soviet leaders. Several officials of the new regime were killed, and the leader himself, Vladimir Lenin, was gravely wounded. The SRs’ uprisings were suppressed, and the party dragged out a wretched existence until the Bolsheviks finally disbanded it.

The SRs’ final act of terror was highly unusual for the party. In the summer of 1918, as WWI was drawing to a close, SRs in Kiev assassinated Field Marshal Eichhorn, the commander of German occupation forces in Ukraine. He was killed in the classic manner of the terrorists: Boris Donskoy, an SR operative disguised as a cab driver, hurled a bomb at the Field Marshal’s feet right on the street. Eichhorn and his adjutant were killed, and Donskoy was executed. As usual, he made no attempt to flee and was easily captured: the terrorist act was a political gesture. 

Russian fintech company A7 has launched the world’s first global payment service that allows customers to make cross-border transactions using cryptocurrency, expanding its reach beyond Russia despite Western sanctions.

Unveiled on Tuesday, the new service, called A7 International, allows customers to pay using USDT, a cryptocurrency pegged to the US dollar, while recipients receive conventional bank transfers through SWIFT without having to handle cryptocurrency themselves.

According to the company, payments are available in US dollars, euros, Chinese yuan and UAE dirhams and carry a commission of 0.3%. Transfers can take as little as one business day.

“The key demand among market participants today is the ability to transfer money around the world in just a few clicks, as quickly as possible,” said Pyotr Fradkov, chairman of Russian bank Promsvyazbank, which established A7.

Customers can access the service online after verifying their identity and submitting an invoice. It is available in countries where cryptocurrency transactions are permitted under local law.

The firm initially focused on foreign trade payments for Russian businesses but has since expanded its operations to more than 100 countries. It currently serves around 15,000 companies and processes over 2,000 transactions daily. According to the company, payments handled through its system exceeded 10 trillion rubles ($125 billion) in 2025.

Fradkov has previously said that A7 was intended not only to reduce dependence on Western financial infrastructure but also to facilitate trade between countries without Russia being involved. He argued that the sanctions have demonstrated how Western financial instruments “can be a tool for political pressure and influence.” 

The expansion comes shortly after Washington imposed additional sanctions on A7, accusing it of helping Iran evade financial restrictions and facilitating transactions linked to Tehran-backed groups designated as terrorist organizations by the US.

The Russian Embassy in Paris has accused France of “piracy” after its naval forces seized an oil tanker in international waters near Madagascar, rejecting claims that the operation complied with international maritime law.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced the detention of the DF Peak on Monday, saying the vessel was suspected of sailing under a false flag and involvement in illegal fuel transportation.

The tanker was intercepted 450 nautical miles south of Reunion, a French island territory east of Madagascar, Macron said.

According to MarineTraffic, the DF Peak sails under Benin’s flag. Macron did not identify the owner but described the seizure as part of France’s campaign to “fight the ghost fleet wherever it may be in the world.”

The Russian Embassy called the operation a “flagrant violation of international law,” dismissing France’s references to maritime regulations and “international sanctions” as a “fig leaf” concealing “outright piracy and robbery.”

The embassy denounced the sanctions as illegitimate unilateral measures and said the French authorities failed to notify Russian diplomats of the seizure. It added that officials are checking whether any Russian nationals were aboard.

France previously detained the Tagor tanker in the Atlantic in June, and British forces seized the Smyrtos in the English Channel later that month. Moscow condemned both operations as piracy.

In July, the EU adopted a mechanism allowing member states to sell oil and other cargo confiscated from sanctioned vessels. President Vladimir Putin subsequently warned that Russia could retaliate against ships carrying Western cargo.

The latest seizure comes days after Putin and US President Donald Trump agreed to expand Russian diesel supplies to American and global markets in an effort to ease soaring fuel prices.

Washington subsequently issued a temporary sanctions waiver covering Russian diesel trade until April 7, 2027. Trump announced initial deliveries of more than 300,000 tons, followed by another 500,000 tons in November, and 1 million tons thereafter.

An AI-generated icon depicting a teenage Catholic saint has been blessed in Belarus, in what could be the first such ceremony worldwide, according to local media and footage of the sermon. The artwork depicts Carlo Acutis, an Italian teenager and devout Catholic who used the internet to spread faith and was canonized by the Pope last year.

The image was blessed by Archbishop Emeritus Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz during Sunday Mass at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in the town of Novolukoml, in the northeastern part of the country.

“Today we enter the world through the internet. What are we looking for there? Holiness? Far from always,” Kondrusiewicz told the congregation during the sermon, adding he hoped that the icon would help believers to find religious truth online.

The archbishop went on to praise Acutis as an example of how young people can embrace modern technology while living a devout Catholic life.

The image shows the saint holding a laptop and a rosary, with a golden sun on his chest and a spiral staircase turning into a road leading to heaven. It was created using AI and other digital tools – although not completely – by prompt engineer Dmitry Kulpanovich, photographer Viktor Veden, and designer Andrey Kabanov. The church placed the icon in a side altar as a movable cover for its existing image of Mary Magdalene.

However, the ceremony sparked criticism from some believers on social media who argued that an AI-generated image cannot be considered an icon and used for prayer.

While Pope Leo XIV has not explicitly opposed AI-generated art, he warned earlier this month that it should not be equated with human creativity. “Algorithms lack the spark of the human,” he said.

The EU has spent more than $320 billion on Russian energy since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022 despite sweeping sanctions, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak has said.

The EU drastically reduced Russian oil and gas imports and pledged to phase out Russian fossil fuels entirely by 2027.

Energy costs have surged across much of the bloc in recent years, with the crisis exacerbated by the US-Israeli war against Iran.

In August, Chancellor Friedrich Merz acknowledged that the German embargo on Russian energy contributed to the “ongoing energy crisis” and undermined German industry. French President Emmanuel Macron has warned of soaring costs from replacing Russian pipeline gas with more expensive liquefied natural gas (LNG).

“Despite sanctions, our energy resources continue to flow through specific routes that remain exempt,” Novak said, noting that deliveries reached $21.3 billion in the first nine months of 2026 alone.

He stressed that Russia continues to honor its contracts, insisting that it is not Russia’s “fault that the share of exports to the European Union has changed significantly,” adding: “We are supplying what our European counterparts want.”

The remarks come as Brussels rolls out new sanctions targeting over 1,600 individuals and entities. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski welcomed the measures, calling them the “harshest so far.”

Despite pledges to phase out Russian energy, France, Spain, and Belgium remain major buyers of Russian LNG, while Hungary and Slovakia continue importing Russian pipeline oil and gas through sanctions exemptions.

Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev accused Brussels of hypocrisy, arguing that the EU and “legacy media” are concealing its energy purchases while criticizing America’s diesel agreement with Russia, which he said will benefit “US farmers, consumers, the energy market, and the world.”

Russia’s campaign of large-scale strikes against Ukraine’s economic infrastructure, underway since August, appears to be producing political consequences as, in Kiev, the possibility of peace is once again being discussed, and not simply in terms of negotiations from a position of strength.

For perhaps the first time since the conflict began in 2022, some Ukrainian politicians are openly considering serious compromises with Moscow, including concessions previously regarded as politically unthinkable.

Remarkably, one of the most prominent voices in this emerging debate belongs to Alexei Goncharenko, a Ukrainian MP long associated with the most uncompromising wing of the country’s political establishment.

Until recently, Goncharenko treated virtually any compromise with Moscow as treason and his position was effectively that Ukraine should continue fighting regardless of the human cost.

On October 2, however, he published what amounted to a political manifesto acknowledging that Ukraine was losing and insisting that negotiations with Russia should begin wherever possible.

Nothing, he suggested, should be excluded from discussion, including neutrality, the removal of sanctions against Russia, the status of the Russian language, and other contentious issues because sacrificing an entire nation for the increasingly remote prospect of NATO membership was, in his view, unacceptable.

Yet he wasn’t entirely isolated because other political figures, including parliamentary committee chairman Daniil Getmantsev and Kharkov Mayor Igor Terekhov, have expressed positions suggesting a growing willingness to reconsider Ukraine’s approach and MP Anna Skorokhod also introduced legislation proposing neutrality.

For now, these politicians represent only a small minority of the Ukrainian establishment, therefore they possess neither the influence nor the institutional resources necessary to alter government policy.

Nevertheless, their emergence is significant as for the first time in years, an identifiable group within Ukrainian politics is openly challenging the prevailing assumption that the conflict must continue until Kiev achieves its stated objectives.

Previously, there was little meaningful political alternative, given how Zelensky’s principal rivals, including Poroshenko and former military commander Valery Zaluzhny, have offered different personalities and political styles, but little fundamental disagreement over the conflict itself.

The notable exception was Alexey Arestovich, the former presidential adviser who resigned in early 2023 and subsequently left Ukraine after he became an outspoken critic of Zelensky and advocated a different future for Ukraine, including some form of peaceful coexistence with Russia.

Three years later, however, the political environment has changed considerably as successive Ukrainian counteroffensives, peace initiatives, and victory plans have failed to produce the results promised by Kiev. Meanwhile, forced mobilization, corruption scandals, and declining foreign military assistance have increased public frustration.

Dissatisfaction was accumulating, but largely remained private because for many Ukrainians living far from the eastern front, the war’s consequences, although serious, were still less immediate than those experienced in frontline regions.

Russia’s intensified air campaign against Ukraine’s energy and economic infrastructure since August has changed that calculation as disruptions to electricity, transport, and economic activity have brought the consequences of the conflict more directly into everyday life. It would be surprising if this had no effect on public attitudes.

In this respect, Goncharenko may simply have articulated concerns that were already becoming more widespread and the nervous reaction of Ukraine’s political hawks is particularly revealing. Rather than acknowledge that their own policies may have contributed to growing dissatisfaction, they have sought explanations involving Russian influence and political betrayal.

The fact that Goncharenko himself was previously among the most uncompromising supporters of the war makes his change of position especially uncomfortable for them and this presents a potential danger for Zelensky.

His continued hold on power rests partly on the argument that political leadership shouldn’t change during wartime, even as the prolonged suspension of normal electoral politics raises increasingly difficult constitutional questions.

The familiar argument against changing horses in midstream loses some of its force when people begin to suspect that the horse can’t reach the opposite bank, but for the moment, however, any suggestion of an imminent political transformation would be premature.

Ukraine’s emerging peace camp remains politically weak and far from achieving the influence necessary to challenge the government, also is there no guarantee that public frustration will translate into an organized political movement.

As long as the existing leadership retains control of the principal state institutions, the security apparatus, and much of the political agenda, fundamental changes in Kiev’s approach remain unlikely.

Nevertheless, something important has happened because arguments that were once confined largely to private conversations are beginning to appear in public political debate.

Whether this develops into a genuine challenge to Zelensky remains uncertain, but the political monopoly enjoyed by advocates of continuing the conflict is, at least, beginning to face open dissent.

This article was first published by the online newspaper Gazeta.ru and was translated and edited by the RT team

Estonia’s Defense Ministry has launched a funding competition for films and video games intended to strengthen public willingness to go to war, as Tallinn and the other Baltic states continue their military buildup citing a supposed Russian threat.

The scheme has a total budget of up to €250,000 ($280,000) and covers feature films, documentaries, animation, television series, and narrative video games, public broadcaster ERR reported on Tuesday. Applications close November 18, with the money available for use next year.

Tallinn is specifically looking for audiovisual productions that align with national defense goals and can reach different generations and make military issues accessible to a wider audience, ministry spokesman Thomas Melli explained to the outlet.

Director Ilmar Raag, who previously received ministry funding for a documentary, urged officials to favor credible portrayals over simplistic messaging, warning that overt propaganda could backfire. “Those people who give money in the ministry must see that if a filmmaker’s mind moves towards an overly simplistic propagandistic vision, it can actually have a negative backlash,” he told ERR.

Defense Minister Martin Herem “joked” last month that if Estonia mobilized and Russia did not attack, it would be “economically more correct to attack ourselves” rather than keep troops waiting. “Then at least we will know when it will start, and we will not waste food and air in vain,” he said.

Despite already allocating a combined €9.4 billion to defense this year, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have recently sought an additional €500 million from the EU for military drones, citing the possibility of Russia testing NATO.

NATO has separately spent years researching online influence techniques. Published experiments examined fake social-media profiles, targeted advertising, and purchased engagement. The bloc described the work, examined in RT’s America Now, as defensive research.

Moscow has repeatedly denied plans to attack Estonia or other NATO members, accusing Western governments of using the supposed threat to justify militarization and restrictions on Russian culture and Russian-speaking residents.

Russian officials have warned, however, that attacks on Russian territory or attempts to blockade Kaliningrad could provoke a military response involving all weapons in the country’s arsenal.

Ukrainian military recruitment officers have been filmed dragging a naked, screaming man into a van in Kharkov, according to footage circulating on social media.

Incidents of so-called busification, a term used in Ukraine to describe forcible detention for military mobilization, are reported almost daily as Kiev struggles with acute manpower shortages on the front line against Russia.

The footage was reportedly filmed near a gym in Kharkov, although few details have emerged beyond the alleged address of the facility. Recruitment officers reportedly tore off the man’s T-shirt and shorts before dragging him out of the building.

Videos of violent detentions have repeatedly sparked public outrage in Ukraine, with bystanders sometimes confronting recruitment officers and attempting to prevent men from being taken away. The mobilization campaign has also been dogged by allegations of corruption, including claims that wealthy Ukrainians can pay bribes to avoid military service.

Last week, Ukrainian human rights ombudsman Dmitry Lubinets warned that his office had received nearly as many complaints about abuses by recruitment officials so far this year as it did throughout 2025. He suggested his efforts to curb abuses, which now include draft officers breaking into people’s homes, seem futile.

“I could explain the Ukrainian law and what draft officials can and cannot do for a long time,” he said. “But many Ukrainian citizens say the reality is very different from what is written on paper.”

Around 1.4 million Ukrainians currently hold employment-based exemptions from military service, according to Economy Minister Aleksandr Kravchenko.

The European Commission is orchestrating a “dirty smear campaign” against Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom in an effort to force it out of Hungary, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has asserted.

The campaign targets Rosatom’s construction of the Paks II nuclear power plant, which is intended to expand Hungary’s existing Soviet-built nuclear facility, the agency said in a statement on Monday.

“[European Commission President] Ursula von der Leyen has directly set before her administration a task to force Peter Magyar’s government to refuse from cooperation with Russia in the sphere of peaceful atom,” according to the SVR.

Magyar’s Tisza party decisively defeated Viktor Orban’s Euroskeptic Fidesz in April, signaling a shift toward closer ties with Brussels. However, despite describing Hungary’s reliance on Russian energy as a “security risk,” the new government has sought an exemption from US sanctions targeting buyers of Russian oil.

“Eurobureaucrats have openly acknowledged the inability of European manufacturers to compete fairly with Rosatom in the nuclear energy market,” the SVR said, warning that any alternative contractor would make Paks II less efficient and less secure.

The agency further alleged that von der Leyen expects to personally benefit from replacing Rosatom with a Western company, accusing her of a history of lobbying for major corporations and facilitating questionable multibillion-euro contracts.

The SVR also accused what it called the “globalist clique” running the EU of disregarding Hungary’s national interests, warning that Budapest could be pressured into abandoning a reliable source of electricity capable of ensuring its energy security for decades.

Hungary has long relied on Russian nuclear fuel and technical support for its four Soviet-built reactors at Paks, which generate around 40% of the country’s electricity. The two additional reactors planned under Paks II are expected to significantly increase nuclear power generation and reduce the country’s dependence on imported energy.

Moscow would only be ready to halt its strikes on Ukraine for the presidential election day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has told journalists. Earlier, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky demanded a 60-day “total truce” to supposedly prepare for the vote after US President Donald Trump stated it was high time the Ukrainian leader was replaced.

Kiev’s request has little to do with the elections and is designed to buy time needed for the Ukrainian military to rearm and regroup, Peskov stated on Monday, commenting on Zelensky’s words.

“If Kiev genuinely wants to hold elections, then the president of the Russian Federation… will be ready to issue an order not to carry out strikes against Ukraine on the election day specifically,” the spokesman stated. “They don’t actually want to hold elections in Kiev; that is absolutely obvious. And they need a 60-day ceasefire not to hold elections, but to regroup, recover from their losses, and continue the war.”

Zelensky hit back by stating that, if Trump “really wants some changes,” he should “tell Putin, give us two months, 60 days off.” Russia considers the Ukrainian leader illegitimate, as his presidential term expired more than two years ago and he has not called a new election since, citing martial law.

On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also said that Moscow would not let itself fall into a trap of empty promises.

According to the Russian minister, the Ukrainian leader did not “deserve a respite.” Peskov also stated that Kiev did not bother to let Russia hold its September parliamentary elections in peace and actively sought to disrupt them instead, including through attacks on civilian infrastructure.

Moscow was targeted by more than 1,600 Ukrainian drones in what Mayor Sergey Sobyanin called an “unprecedented” raid during the three-day vote. The attack killed two civilians in the Russian capital’s suburbs and damaged an oil refinery, residential buildings, and civilian infrastructure.

Russia’s frontline areas – including new regions which voted for the first time in the parliamentary elections – also came under Ukrainian strikes. A total of 74 buildings housing election commissions had been damaged or destroyed in ten Russian regions during the vote, according to Rodion Miroshnik, a Russian diplomat heading the mission tasked with documenting alleged Ukrainian war crimes.

The Russian Defense Ministry has revealed a new service providing drone developers with combat footage from FPV, multirotor, and fixed-wing drones to train military AI systems. The ministry said the platform will help the armed forces adapt to evolving AI-related challenges.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in September that Russia will continue to actively integrate digital technologies and AI-based solutions into its weapons development programs. However, he warned of the risks of using AI in the military, noting that cases in which the technology makes decisions autonomously have been recorded.

The new service is protected by certified information-security systems, including modern encryption and authentication tools, the Defense Ministry said on Monday. The platform also uses a standardized classification system for machine-learning data, allowing developers to organize and process information in a common format.

Developers upload the results of their work to the platform, where the data is checked for completeness and to ensure it follows the standardized format. The Defense Ministry uses the data to build and train its own AI models.

More than 40 organizations involved in AI model training have joined the project, Deputy Defense Minister Dmitry Shcherbinin said. Some are already integrating their trained models into combat drone systems, he added.

The Defense Ministry has also been integrating AI into drones, air defense systems, and military command and control. Russia established a separate branch of the military dedicated to unmanned systems in November 2025. Deputy Chief Sergey Ishtuganov said the branch’s training units were working closely with drone manufacturers.

Earlier this year, Belousov said Russian drones use AI for image recognition, target acquisition, and navigation. He said neural networks need continuous training, prompting the creation of data centers across the country. He also identified air defense as another area for AI development, with a project to upgrade these systems due to be completed by the end of the year in cooperation with commercial companies.

Last year, Belousov announced trials of SVOD, a system that uses AI to analyze intelligence and recommend courses of action to commanders as part of a broader digital transformation of the military. In July, Konstantin Nechaev, the commander of Russia’s Center Group of Forces, said the system enabled automated fire strikes and had been in use for nearly a year.

Ukraine needs a new leader with the political will to end the conflict with Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. His comments came after US President Donald Trump stepped up pressure on Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, whose presidential term expired more than two years ago, to hold new elections.

Speaking to RIA Novosti on Monday, Peskov said Trump believes it is high time for Ukraine to elect a new leader because “Ukraine’s president must make very responsible and very difficult decisions to stop this war.”

“Either Zelensky takes on this responsibility and shows such political will, or he does not,” Peskov continued, adding that he has so far failed to do so.

The comments come after Trump suggested on Saturday that it is time for Ukraine to get “a new president,” accusing Zelensky of repeatedly rejecting opportunities for peace. He added that he believes Russia wants an agreement and Zelensky does not.

On Sunday, Trump announced that Russia and Ukraine had reached an energy ceasefire. Zelensky replied that the announcement was “news for me,” but expressed readiness to stop attacking Russian refineries if the country stops its strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Russia has yet to comment.

Zelensky has also argued that elections in Ukraine can only be organized if Russia agrees to a 60-day ceasefire.

Moscow has opposed the idea of a temporary ceasefire, arguing that it would only serve to allow Kiev time to rebuild its battered forces and receive more weapons from the West.

The US pressure intensified after Trump’s phone call on Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, after which the sides reached a major deal on diesel exports to the US to alleviate the global fuel shortage.

A Ukrainian drone strike damaged a major data center operated by Russian tech giant Yandex, forcing a shutdown and reportedly disrupting services for businesses and users across the country.

Yandex is Russia’s largest technology company, offering search, ride-hailing, e-commerce, cloud computing, and AI services. The Yandex Cloud platform, which provides computing power, data storage, and AI tools, is used by more than a third of Russia’s largest companies.

The attack on Sunday targeted a Yandex facility in Vladimir Region, around 180 km (112 miles) northeast of Moscow. The site also houses Galushkin, one of the company’s three supercomputers used for AI development. The strike damaged the data center’s infrastructure and forced a shutdown, Yandex said on Telegram.

“The infrastructure of Yandex’s data center in Vladimir was damaged as a result of a drone attack, and the data center’s operations have been completely suspended. Some Yandex services are unavailable to users,” the company said.

No injuries were reported. Emergency crews and Yandex engineers worked to assess the damage and restore services. The company urged cloud customers to activate alternative disaster-recovery plans.

The attack forced Yandex Cloud into emergency operation, with outages affecting banks, online marketplaces, delivery services, retail apps, pharmacies, fitness clubs, and the website of St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport, according to media reports.

In a later update, Yandex said access to some of its services, including Alice AI assistant, Search, Maps, Taxi, and Mail, was gradually being restored.

The attacks come amid mounting US criticism of Kiev’s strikes on Russia, particularly against oil refineries. US President Donald Trump lashed out at Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky on Saturday, accusing him of rejecting peace deals and worsening global diesel shortages by ignoring warnings against targeting Russian refining infrastructure.

“I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president,” Trump said.

Zelensky said on Sunday that Ukraine would continue its strikes until a ceasefire backed by “real guarantees” is secured. Later in the day, Trump claimed on Truth Social that Russia and Ukraine agreed to an immediate energy ceasefire, urging both sides not to violate it. Neither country has publicly confirmed the terms of the purported agreement.
Russia has rejected the idea of freezing the conflict without addressing the root causes, arguing that a temporary ceasefire would only give Ukraine time to rebuild its military and resume the hostilities. Putin recently warned that Kiev faces a “catastrophic scenario” by attacking Russian economic and civilian infrastructure.

On the evening of October 9, the presidents of the United States and Russia spoke by phone. The announcement that followed was straightforward: Russia would sell the US 1.8 million metric tons of diesel over the next three months, followed by a million tons a month, and the US would issue temporary licenses authorizing the shipments.

The news drew a furious, bordering on hysterical, response from Kiev and stunned silence from Europe.

Let’s look at why this deal matters, what it has to do with Ukraine, and what might come next.

The tug-of-war championship

Ever since US President Donald Trump returned to office, the central aim of Russian diplomacy has been to separate relations with the US from the Ukraine issue. The White House is open to the idea, too: The US needs Russia as a counterweight to China, and there are substantial economic opportunities. But as we explored in an earlier piece, until recently, neither side managed to pull it off.

In February and March 2025, Trump relieved America of responsibility for Ukraine’s fate and handed the job of financing it squarely to Europe. The US retained just three commitments: the relatively modest military supply programs already approved under former President Joe Biden, intelligence sharing, and weapons sales for cash, with Ukraine waiting in line like any other customer.

This maneuver cemented a status quo that neither Europe and Ukraine on one side nor Russia on the other would allow to change, with their respective allies in the US also weighing in. Everyone tried to bring Trump over to their side on Ukraine. Nobody succeeded.

This is why the understandings reached in Anchorage went nowhere: Ukraine’s supporters torpedoed them. It is also why those supporters failed to use Trump to escalate the conflict. Russia prevented deliveries of Tomahawk missiles, the expansion of Starlink coverage over Russian territory, and so on.

Despite the apparent stalemate, Russian officials kept talking to Witkoff and Kushner. The aim was to maintain a channel to Trump and deny Ukraine’s supporters an opening to drag the US back into the war on their side or steer him back onto Biden’s course.

This is why Russian officials at every level distinguish between US and European actions, often explicitly contrasting the two.

Russia is one of the world’s largest diesel exporters, supplying just under 40 million metric tons to the global market in 2025. On July 8, 2026, Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries prompted a temporary ban on diesel and gasoline exports.

Since then, Russia’s refining situation has improved considerably. Gasoline remains in short supply, but a domestic diesel surplus has emerged, and the export ban has begun to loosen in practice. According to Reuters, diesel deliveries to Central Asian countries were already up 19% in September.

Rising diesel production was only part of the story. The end of the harvest season also reduced demand. And as the seasons change, Russia switches to winter-grade fuel, traditionally selling off its remaining summer-grade stocks to countries with warmer climates.

One way or another, seaborne diesel exports were heading toward a restart. Trump had also raised that possibility, publicly linking it to Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries.

The Krivoy Rog school of diplomacy

Back to geopolitics. Until yesterday, Russia had been unable to separate its relationship with the US from the Ukraine issue. Even the war with Iran failed to do the trick, despite keeping oil and petroleum product shipments from the Persian Gulf blocked for more than six months.

Zelensky responded by demanding a sweeping energy truce. We’ll stop hitting refineries, he effectively said, if Russia stops attacking our energy infrastructure and blockading our ports. And you, Trump, have to supply us with missiles for our Patriot systems, and so on.

Getting nowhere with Zelensky, Trump struck a deal directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who offered to supply diesel in exchange for a suspension of sanctions, without any preconditions.

The transaction itself is not particularly consequential. Yes, it could cool speculative trading ahead of the elections and push prices down somewhat. But the 1.8 million metric tons due to arrive over three months will cover just three or four days of American consumption.

For Russia, the US is an ordinary customer in purely commercial terms. Moscow will make some money selling to America, but it could just as easily have sold these volumes elsewhere. Petroleum products are in short supply worldwide, while Russia has a diesel surplus.

Yet the deal gave both sides what they had been seeking since February 2025: a bilateral relationship detached from Ukraine. So far, that applies to just one specific issue, but getting started is the hard part. Zelensky tried to twist Trump’s arm, pushing him to make Putin stop bombing Kiev, and overplayed his hand. Now Kiev can be bombed relentlessly, and Trump has no reason to care. He got what he wanted.

The art of the backroom deal

Cynics insist that the Trump administration is a complete mess, with the right hand oblivious to what the left is doing. The way this agreement came together suggests otherwise.

After the campaign of long-range strikes against Russia went badly off script, Zelensky once again tried to secure a ceasefire through Trump. He has been trying since early 2025, with no success, but he still held out hope.

Trump could have publicly given Zelensky the boot again. But on Ukraine, he faces opposition not only from Congress but also from parts of his own administration. And an election is just around the corner.

Instead of staging a public showdown, Trump’s team spent more than two months visibly engaged in intensive talks with Ukraine about an energy truce. His envoys, Witkoff and Kushner, traveled to Kiev, and Trump himself showered Zelensky with compliments. In reality, all of it proved to be a screen for a quiet, swift, informal deal with Moscow.

That takes some skill. This episode shows that Trump keeps a firm grip on his team and can prevent leaks when he needs to. Even Rubio, prone to breaking ranks, played his part exactly as the boss wanted.

And once the deal was done, there was no longer any need to smile at Zelensky in public. The masks came off. For the first time, Trump publicly declared that Ukraine needs a new president and must hold elections.

The liberal media will inevitably say that Trump is repeating Russian propaganda narratives. In fact, he was saying what he thinks.

***

The diesel deal does not mean Moscow and Washington will now live in perfect harmony. The differences between them are deep and fundamental, and the recently enacted ‘Graham law’ makes lifting any sanctions impossible for at least the next five years.

But this Friday, Putin and Trump finally managed to get past Ukraine and leave it behind. US-Russia relations now depend on Russia and the US alone.

Recently, a friend went to buy trainers for her 14-year-old and was surprised to discover that most of the suitable styles had Velcro fastenings. When she asked about proper laces, the sales assistant simply shrugged and said teenagers increasingly struggle to tie them.

We laughed and then we both went rather quiet because I remembered primary school teachers talking about first-graders who can’t dress themselves, fasten buttons, pack their things, tie their shoelaces or sometimes even manage a trip to the toilet without an adult.

And it doesn’t end with primary school as I’ve seen parents tie the shoelaces of perfectly capable 12- and 13-year-olds, carry their rucksacks and generally treat them like particularly honored guests.

I would love to adopt the traditional middle-aged complaint: “At their age, we were already…” but, unfortunately, that won’t work, because I’m one of those mothers myself.

In fifth grade, I took the tram to school alone and there was no mobile phone and certainly no parents’ group chat, so I got on the tram, travelled to school and came home. Somehow, I survived.

Now I have a child of my own, and repeating that educational experiment seems considerably more frightening. Perhaps that contradiction explains much of what’s happened to us. We want our children to become independent, but preferably in a safe environment, under CCTV surveillance, with geolocation switched on and an adult never too far away.

Why have we become like this? After all, the 1990s can hardly be remembered as a wonderfully safe and sheltered period, yet children spent hours outside, cycled to school, went to the shops and somehow found their way home without the equivalent of an electronic ankle bracelet.

Perhaps our parents were no less worried, but they simply lacked the technology to worry about us in real time.

They couldn’t open a map and discover that their child had been standing behind the neighboring house for seven suspicious minutes instead of outside the school. A child went out to play and, for a few hours, really did disappear from the family’s field of vision.

Today, every horrific incident involving a child, even one happening a thousand kilometers away, can appear on our phones within minutes, so we know far more about these cases than our parents ever could and not necessarily because terrible things happen more often, but because now we hear about almost all of them.

Modern overprotectiveness is therefore partly an expression of adult anxiety as we want to control a world that constantly reminds us how little control we really have and our own child becomes the most obvious place to start.

Often, when we overprotect children, we are reassuring ourselves rather than them, so I feel calmer if I take my child somewhere myself, write to the teacher, check the schoolbag and know exactly where he is.

Because we rarely see them managing alone, letting go becomes even more frightening.

Independence doesn’t suddenly arrive on an 18th birthday. It’s built through hundreds of tiny rehearsals, such as fastening your own jacket, asking a shop assistant for help, packing your schoolbag and, occasionally, forgetting an exercise book – it means walking to a friend’s house alone, encountering some minor problem and discovering that you can solve it.

How many of these little rehearsals do we cancel simply because doing things ourselves is quicker and less stressful? Well, I did exactly that with my first son, I was always rushing somewhere, so it was quicker to tie his laces, pack his things, find whatever he had lost or write to his teacher myself because at the time, this made life easier for everybody.

A few years later, when he actually needed to start doing these things himself, it was suddenly very difficult and research has repeatedly found an association between overprotective parenting and symptoms of anxiety and depression among adolescents and young adults. That doesn’t mean overprotection automatically causes psychological problems, but the likely mechanism isn’t difficult to understand, given if an adult always intervenes before a child has the chance to cope, the child gets fewer opportunities to develop a sense of competence.

Seen that way, the problem becomes considerably more serious than an inability to tie shoelaces.

Of course, civilization will survive Velcro, but the real problem begins when, confronted with any ordinary difficulty, a child’s first thought is ‘where is the adult who is going to sort this out for me?’

We want to protect them from disappointment, lateness, forgotten clothes, poor grades, unpleasant shop assistants, dangerous roads and all the other things that make up a life in which not everything works perfectly on the first attempt.

Then the child grows older and we are astonished. Why is he afraid to make decisions? Why can’t he prepare his own breakfast? Why doesn’t he know how to pack his schoolbag?

Surely there must be some middle ground between the old approach of “here’s your key, heat up your own lunch” and accompanying a healthy teenager practically as far as the changing room.

But we will never find it unless we give children the right to make mistakes, and that means patience. We have to wait while a child struggles with a zipper rather than doing it ourselves and we have to remain quietly at home instead of racing to school with the exercise book they forgot.

I tell myself this every day, that perhaps a parent’s job isn’t to make a child’s road completely smooth, but gradually to teach them how to walk along a bumpy one.

Otherwise, one day we may discover that we protected our children brilliantly from all of life’s shoelaces, only to find that sooner or later they’ll still have to learn how to tie them themselves.

This article was first published by the online newspaper Gazeta.ru and was translated and edited by the RT team

A series of Soviet-style propaganda posters has appeared on the popular Russian social platform Pikabu following President Donald Trump’s grand announcement of a diesel deal with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

Pikabu is a Reddit-style website where users create entertainment content and share stories, images, and memes. The tongue-in-cheek posters, celebrating a newfound partnership over barrels of fuel, appeared on Saturday in a post titled ‘Morning Propaganda’.

“American, remember! Your enemy is not Russian – the Russian gives diesel! Your enemy is the Green Rat, who bombs your diesel in Russia!” the first poster reads, referring to Vladimir Zelensky, known for his signature green attire and whose surname is derived from the word for ‘green’ in Russian and Ukrainian.

“From Russia with diesel,” the second says, giving a fuel-themed twist to the James Bond movie title. The poster features a Russian couple in traditional dress presenting a barrel of fuel to an American family.

The budding friendship goes a step further in the third image, which features a happy American family and soldiers from both countries shaking hands in front of a Patriot air defense system.

“Is the Green Rat bombing our diesel in Russia?” the caption asks. “Let’s give our Russian friends a Patriot and protect our values!”

The final poster features late US Senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of Kiev and co-author of the “bone-crushing” sanctions bill that proposed a 500% tariff on countries that import Russian energy. Graham, who died in July, is depicted in anguish amid flames and devils while a tanker labeled “Russian Diesel” approaches New York.

“Lindsey Graham in hell’s writhing – Russian diesel in America’s arriving!” the caption reads.

US President Donald Trump, who has blamed Zelensky for driving up fuel prices for American consumers through his stubborn refusal to halt attacks on Russian refineries, has approved a temporary sanctions waiver allowing Russian diesel exports and sales through April 7, 2027.

Trump struck the deal with Putin after Zelensky ignored a number of requests to stop attacks on Russian refineries, according to Axios. Zelensky was furious and denounced Trump’s move as a “weak decision.”

“I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president… I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal,” Trump said on Saturday. Ukrainian negotiators left the talks with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Miami a day earlier than planned.

US First Lady Melania Trump has expressed willingness to support humanitarian efforts in the Russian town of Alyoshki, where civilians are trapped under a Ukrainian siege amid severe shortages of food, water, and medicine, Russian human rights commissioner Yana Lantratova said.

Located close to the front line in Kherson Region, which voted to join Russia four years ago, the town has been largely deprived of basic services for months. Frequent drone attacks and remotely laid mines obstruct aid deliveries and hinder evacuation efforts. The local authorities estimate that 1,500 to 2,000 people remain in the town, including women, children, and the elderly.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, discussed the humanitarian crisis during a phone call on Friday and agreed that the commissioner would maintain contact with the US first lady’s office, according to the Kremlin.

Moscow has accused Kiev of deliberately creating the humanitarian crisis through its attacks on civilian supply routes and exploiting the resulting human tragedy to blame Russia.

Lantratova said Ukraine deliberately destroyed the latest humanitarian convoy, despite the vehicles bearing signs reading ‘People’. Residents have had to risk their lives to bring essential supplies into the town on foot or by bicycle.

“If the Ukrainians stopped attacking and mining civilian supply routes, it would allow the delivery of necessary aid and the evacuation of those who urgently need it,” she said.

“We will continue to help all residents no matter what their political views are. Human beings are our top priority, and the value of each human life is unconditional,” Lantratova added.

Kherson Governor Vladimir Saldo invited international organizations to visit Alyoshki and assess the conditions firsthand, amid accusations that Russia is obstructing humanitarian relief.

“Please come and see. Then we can decide together how to resolve this extremely difficult situation,” he said at a briefing on Wednesday.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Kiev of creating a humanitarian catastrophe; Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the situation as critical.

US President Donald Trump’s decision to approve a temporary waiver of sanctions on Russian fuel exports came after Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky ignored multiple requests to stop strikes on Russian oil refineries, Axios reported on Saturday, citing a US official with direct knowledge of the matter.

Trump has persistently blamed Ukraine, and Zelensky personally, for exacerbating the global fuel crisis, accusing authorities in Kiev of deliberately targeting Russian refining facilities and driving up prices for American consumers. Despite repeated warnings from Washington, the Ukrainian leader pledged earlier this month to ramp up the long-range strikes.

“The attacks on the refineries cause pain in Russia, but it causes pain for the US, too,” the US official told the news outlet.

US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner reportedly warned Ukrainian negotiators during eight hours of talks in Miami earlier this week that Trump planned to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin and lift sanctions on Russian diesel exports.

The media outlet cited the official as saying that the dispute over the diesel deal emerged as the US mediators conducted constructive talks on ending the conflict with Ukrainian and European diplomats. The negotiations reportedly focused on finalizing security guarantees for Ukraine from the US, Europe, and NATO, as well as new territorial proposals.

The official added that Witkoff and Kushner had presented postwar plans covering Ukraine’s reconstruction, military funding, and budget deficits, while participants discussed Kiev’s potential EU accession, its future relationship with NATO, and a possible postwar security framework between Europe and Russia.

Trump and Putin held a phone call on Friday, shortly after which the US Treasury Department announced a temporary waiver of sanctions on Russian fuel trade, allowing diesel to be sold, delivered, and exported, including into the US, until at least April 7, 2027.

The Kremlin said Moscow was ready to supply oil and petroleum products to global markets, adding that this would benefit the world economy. Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak also confirmed that Russia would lift diesel export restrictions ahead of schedule, with the process to begin “immediately.”

Russia had previously extended restrictions on diesel, ship fuel, and gas oil exports until October 31 to stabilize the domestic market amid seasonal demand from the harvest. Fuel producers are barred from exporting until October 31, while fuel resellers face a ban until January 31, 2027. Gasoline exports are also prohibited until the end of January.

Russia’s most award-winning restaurant is leaving St. Petersburg for Moscow, and the reaction tells you rather more about the relationship between the country’s two capitals than it does about food.

For eight years, we Petersburgers have taken pride in Birch, a celebrated fine-dining eatery, twice named Russia’s best and renowned for its inventive tasting menus and notoriously hard-to-get tables. Of course, most of us stopped going there long ago, once it became largely the preserve of visitors from Moscow, because locals are not generally eager to spend $200 per person on dinner, which is roughly what the basic set menu with non-alcoholic drinks would have cost this year. You also had to pay in advance for a reservation, often months ahead.

A Moscow friend merely laughed when I mentioned the prices. “That’s reasonable,” she said. “Average for the market, really.”

There, in miniature, you have the difference between the two cities.

Birch was brilliant, but increasingly not for us and then came the news that it was closing and moving to Moscow.

I won’t speculate here about the business reasons, given that’s a conversation for people who take fine dining rather more seriously than I do, but what interested me was the reaction of Petersburgers who had never eaten at Birch and had no intention of doing so.

The restaurant worked in much the same way, while you might consider spending that much on dinner absurd, it was comforting to know that you could. Better still, you could complain that “those Muscovites” had taken all the tables, as though you had spent every morning desperately refreshing the booking page.

Now comes the ultimate betrayal as Birch is defecting to Moscow, our ancient rival.

The comments beneath reports of the closure were wonderfully predictable, such as the owner had gone chasing Moscow money and he had been somebody special in Petersburg, but Moscow was full of people like him and let’s see how much they appreciate him there.

The resentment was unmistakable because we simply don’t like it when somebody chooses Moscow over us.

It happens with almost everything, Petersburgers compare restaurants, museums, architecture, public transport, the pace of life and even our respective words for kerbs and needless to say, in this invisible competition St. Petersburg wins almost every category. At least according to St. Petersburg.

Russian writers were comparing the two cities long before any of us arrived. In imperial times, when St. Petersburg was the capital, it could afford to look down on Moscow, but although the capital moved more than a century ago, a certain Petersburg snobbery survived the transfer remarkably well. 

Three hundred years of self-importance aren’t easily erased, but there may be another reason for the difference.

Moscow often feels like a city of arrivals as people move there from every corner of Russia to build careers, make money and seize opportunities, yet many never quite decide that Moscow is home.

When I worked there, I was amazed by colleagues who had lived in the capital for five or seven years but barely knew the city. They still regarded Perm, Krasnodar or wherever they had come from as home and even after 15 or 20 years in Moscow, they would announce that they were “going home” for the holidays.

St. Petersburg works differently, if you live here for a couple of years you begin, almost involuntarily, to become a Petersburger and soon enough you are complaining about Muscovites arriving with their money, occupying the best tables and theater seats, clogging Nevsky Prospekt and pushing up property prices because you have been assimilated.

For affluent residents of both cities, that future has practically arrived already, with a favorite restaurant moving 650 kilometers away an inconvenience rather than a tragedy as lunch in Petersburg and dinner in Moscow is no longer an especially exotic proposition.

For everyone else, perhaps the closer relationship between Russia’s two great cities will eventually bring other benefits and maybe some Moscow salaries will migrate north, while perhaps some Petersburg habits will travel south.

And perhaps, once Moscow and St. Petersburg are connected so closely that the distinction begins to blur, there will finally be no reason for envy or those familiar sidelong glances and we will become one enormous, harmonious urban family.

Although, naturally, St. Petersburg will still be the more beautiful part of it.

This article was first published by the online newspaper Gazeta.ru and was translated and edited by the RT team

Ukrainian spy balloons have been spotted over central Russia’s Yaroslavl Region for the first time, according to the regional Security Ministry.

Local authorities said several of the small flying objects were successfully shot down on Friday, urging residents to report anything suspicious that they see in the sky or suspected debris to emergency services.

The balloons “had been launched from the territory of Ukraine,” according to officials. Small reconnaissance balloons can be used to distract enemy air defenses, but they can also serve as reconnaissance platforms, including to pinpoint the locations of air defense systems or help direct strikes against other targets.

Yaroslavl Region has been targeted by Ukrainian long-range strikes in recent weeks. In mid-September, the Russian military shot down 65 drones over the region in a single day during a large-scale drone raid targeting a local refinery.

In September 2025, the Ukrainian military attempted to strike several Russian regions with dozens of meteorological balloons carrying explosives.

The Wall Street Journal claimed in a February article that Kiev had been using high-altitude balloons in attacks on Russia since the Ukraine conflict escalated in 2022. However, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, such attacks were first detected in autumn 2024, with another surge in reported incidents in late summer 2025.

The recent balloon attacks come as Russia has stepped up strikes on missile and drone warehouses, as well as unmanned aerial vehicle assembly facilities, in response to continued Ukrainian strikes on Russian civilian and energy infrastructure, which Moscow describes as terrorist acts.

On Wednesday, the Russian military targeted a Smart Ammunition facility used to assemble and store FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles, FP-9 tactical ballistic missiles, and components for both weapons, as well as other sites across several Ukrainian regions, including a drone workshop in Kirovograd Region and the JTI Ukraine tobacco factory in Kremenchug, which Russian officials say is used to manufacture small-arms ammunition.

The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) summit held in Turkmenistan on October 9, 2026 delivered a forceful answer to those who have spent years predicting its demise. As it marks its 35th anniversary, the organization brings together countries with different priorities and is drawing interest even beyond the former Soviet Union. The biggest surprise at this year’s summit was not simply the Iranian president’s attendance at a gathering traditionally reserved for Commonwealth leaders, but Masoud Pezeshkian’s proposal to establish a ‘CIS+1’ format. Tehran signaled its readiness for sustained cooperation with an organization whose work had been confined to relations among former Soviet republics. In doing so, Iran gave the Commonwealth fresh momentum, proposing to broaden its agenda beyond the post-Soviet region.

Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov had good reason to describe the CIS’s 35th anniversary as an important historical milestone. The summit in Turkmenistan bore out that assessment.

More than a Soviet afterthought

The Commonwealth began as an integration project, although its achievements have differed from the expectations of the early 1990s. It helped preserve the agreements underpinning trade, transportation links, and cultural and social ties after the breakup of a shared state. New borders cut across economic networks built over decades. The CIS enabled many of those connections to adapt to the realities of national sovereignty. Businesses retained access to customers and suppliers, while people could continue working, studying, and staying in touch with loved ones in neighboring countries. It is in these everyday arrangements that the value of the CIS becomes clear.

Competing visions of the Commonwealth’s future emerged in its earliest years. Ukraine initially tried to steer the organization toward its own priorities: above all, completing the ‘divorce’ among the former Soviet republics while retaining only essential forms of cooperation. At the same time, Kiev looked down on the republics of the South Caucasus and Central Asia, seeing little promise in relations with them. Already backed by the West, Ukraine had little interest in strengthening shared institutions, fearing that they would supposedly compromise its independence. Its refusal to sign the CIS Charter was one of the clearest expressions of that approach.

That outlook helps explain Russia’s leading position within the Commonwealth. Its strategic foresight, combined with the scale of its market, industry, and infrastructure, makes Moscow the principal hub of regional cooperation. Russian leadership also rests on its ability to keep negotiations moving despite differences among the participants. For Russia, the CIS is an integration project that preserves and develops ties with its closest neighbors. Moscow plays a leading role because it can offer partners things they want: a large market, investment, and a stake in major transportation projects. Mutual benefit keeps countries at the same table even when serious political disagreements arise.

The economic ties that keep the CIS together

Economics remains the most compelling argument for the Commonwealth. At the summit, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia’s trade with CIS countries exceeded $110 billion in 2025. Behind that figure are export earnings, factories kept busy, and deliveries of essential goods. A change in rhetoric cannot erase the importance of the Russian market to its partners. Russia, in turn, has an interest in stable neighbors and cooperation across production networks. Amid external restrictions, trade among these countries helps sustain economic activity and gives businesses a wider choice of suppliers.

One of the most important achievements of the CIS has been its network of free trade agreements. This should not, however, be portrayed as a single set of rules applied uniformly across the former Soviet Union. Participation varies from one agreement to another, and exemptions and restrictions remain. That is what gives practical significance to Moscow’s call in Turkmenistan to remove trade barriers. The next phase of integration should make it easier for businesses to operate by reducing border delays, making payments more predictable, and aligning product requirements. Designating 2029 the Year of Transport Connectivity sets a direction for that work.

Iran opens a new chapter

Against that backdrop, Iran’s arrival is especially striking. For the first time, an Iranian president attended a meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of State as a special guest and proposed a mechanism for cooperation. An organization repeatedly dismissed as having outlived its purpose has attracted the interest of a major power outside its traditional geographic reach. That is what makes Iran’s move so significant. The relationships built within the Commonwealth have value in their own right for an outside partner. The CIS’s further development can therefore draw on new areas of cooperation that enhance its international standing.

The CIS+1 proposal fits within the CIS Plus framework established in Dushanbe on October 10, 2025. Pezeshkian proposed putting Iran’s relations with Commonwealth countries on a lasting, practical footing. For now, the initiative still needs an organizational structure. But its political significance is already clear: Tehran sees the CIS as a suitable forum for coordinating shared interests. The Commonwealth gains an opportunity to expand cooperation without requiring an outside partner to join the organization. Iran gains a channel for working with several countries at once whose decisions affect its trade and transit routes.

A foundation for closer economic ties is already in place. A comprehensive free trade agreement between the Eurasian Economic Union and Iran took effect on May 15, 2025. CIS+1 would allow cooperation to be discussed with a broader group of countries. For Russia, it offers a way to connect different strands of its Eurasian policy. For Tehran, it would complement preferential trade terms with transportation and investment agreements. The format would not automatically extend free trade to every partner, but it could help coordinate projects among countries with different integration commitments.

The political significance of Iran’s participation was evident in the October 8 meeting between Vladimir Putin and Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of events in Turkmenistan. Taken together, Tehran’s participation in the broader gathering and its talks with the Russian president offered a public demonstration that Iran is not internationally isolated. It still has partners and opportunities to discuss the development of those relationships at the highest level. That matters for a country facing military, sanctions, and diplomatic pressure.

Putin reaffirmed Russia’s willingness to help resolve the situation in the Middle East and spoke positively about bilateral relations. According to him, Russian-Iranian trade grew by more than 21% in 2025. Pezeshkian thanked Moscow for its stance, including at the UN, and emphasized his interest in speeding up joint projects. The talks showed that discussion of the regional crisis had not pushed economic cooperation off the agenda. They also demonstrated Russia’s ability to bring partners together and address the most pressing international problems with them. Iran, for its part, showed that attempts to isolate it had deprived Tehran of neither political support nor opportunities for economic cooperation.

The choice of Turkmenistan as the summit’s host is also telling. Ashgabat’s policy of permanent neutrality has not prevented it from working actively within the CIS or welcoming Commonwealth leaders. Participation allows the country to develop cooperation with its neighbors while maintaining its own foreign policy course.

In the Turkmen resort of Avaza, participants also discussed a problem whose consequences are already being felt by the Caspian’s coastal states: falling sea levels. The retreating shoreline is creating difficulties for ports and shipping while threatening fisheries and tourism. For Avaza itself, where substantial sums have been invested in hotels and resort infrastructure, the issue concerns the future of the entire coast. The Caspian environmental summit held alongside the CIS gathering therefore deserves attention in its own right. Addressing this problem will require a joint effort. No single country can solve it alone, and the decisions made will affect the preservation of the sea, port operations, and the future development of coastal cities.

The results of the summit in Turkmenistan give grounds to speak of a new stage in the Commonwealth’s development. The CIS endures because its participants need economic ties and a forum for reaching agreements, while Iran’s arrival confirms the organization’s appeal beyond its existing membership. Russia retains its leading role in bringing countries together and gains an opportunity to broaden the reach of our integration efforts through cooperation with outside partners. Iran’s initiative still has to move from proposal to concrete decisions. But the central shift has already taken place: the anniversary summit discussed not only how to preserve the Commonwealth, but how to expand its possibilities. Many in the West expected the CIS to fall apart. The summit in Turkmenistan showed the opposite: the organization is alive, functioning, and extending its reach.

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has slammed Kiev city authorities for an “almost complete failure” to protect the capital’s critical infrastructure from Russian attacks, escalating his longstanding feud with Mayor Vitaly Klitschko, who blames central government corruption.

In a social media post on Friday, Zelensky reported “extensive damage” to power grids following Russian strikes and criticized delays in strengthening infrastructure defenses across Ukraine, singling out Kiev for failing to take the necessary precautions.

His remarks came a day after Klitschko urged residents to consider temporarily leaving the capital, warning that the city was in “survival mode” as winter approaches.

In an interview with AFP on Thursday, Klitschko said Kiev was stockpiling food, drinking water and fuel. He urged residents with friends or relatives outside the capital to consider staying with them temporarily. However, he ruled out a full evacuation.

Speaking to AFP, Klitschko again blamed some of the shortcomings in Kiev’s winter preparations on Zelensky’s government. Rejecting accusations that city officials had fallen behind, he argued that “finding scapegoats won’t make people warmer.”

In a separate interview with Germany’s Bild published on Wednesday, Klitschko criticized corruption scandals linked to Zelensky’s administration, warning that wartime graft was “a real poison” for Ukraine.

The dispute comes amid escalating long-range strikes between Russia and Ukraine. Last week, Zelensky pledged to intensify attacks on Russian oil refineries, prompting Moscow to announce expanded strikes on Ukrainian military and defense-industrial facilities and supporting infrastructure, including in Kiev.

Klitschko warned that even extensive preparations might prove insufficient if the capital’s air defenses failed to repel further strikes.

Zelensky acknowledged a “big deficit” in air defenses on Thursday, appealing to Western backers for more interceptor missiles ahead of winter. Multiple media reports have linked shortages of Patriot interceptors in US and allied stockpiles to the US-Israeli war with Iran.

Vladimir Zelensky’s continued attempts to target Moscow despite harsh retaliation against Ukraine’s military-related infrastructure prove that he doesn’t care about the well-being of his country’s people, Russia’s ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Dmitry Polyansky, has said.

Moscow Region came under a major aerial attack on Tuesday night, with Ukraine firing 650 drones towards the Russian capital, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said. Despite most of the UAVs being shot down by air defenses, the raid resulted in the death of two people. Another civilian was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack in the region on Thursday, according to Governor Andrey Vorobyev.

During his speech at an OSCE session in the Austrian capital, Vienna, on Thursday, Polyansky said that Zelensky “still harbors hopes of inflicting at least some noticeable damage on Moscow” in order to present this to the West as “proof that Ukraine is still capable of carrying out military operations that are painful” for Russia.

Zelensky should remember the proverb that “people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” the envoy noted.

According to Polyansky, Russian retaliatory strikes on facilities supporting Kiev’s war machine are “many times more powerful” than those attempted by Ukrainian forces. Because of those attacks, Ukraine is “losing the last remnants of its industry and infrastructure,” while also teetering on the brink of a “total energy and transport collapse” ahead of winter, he added.

Ukraine has been rocked by a series of high-profile corruption scandals since last year, with the largest centering on a $100 million kickback scheme at state nuclear operator Energoatom, which was reportedly led by Timur Mindich, a former business partner of Zelensky. Other recent graft probes have targeted former Ukrainian ministers, prosecutors, diplomats, and senior officials.

In an interview with Reuters last week, Zelensky said he had ordered the Ukrainian military to double the number of attacks deep inside Russia, particularly against the country’s oil refining facilities.

The Russian Defense Ministry responded by announcing that “following Zelensky’s statement, the strikes... on military and military-industrial facilities… in Kiev and other regions of Ukraine will be intensified.” The ministry maintains that it never targets civilians.

Four civilians have been killed and 17 injured, including a 10-year-old boy, in Ukrainian attacks on several Russian regions, according to local officials.

The fatalities were reported in Belgorod Region and near Moscow, while nine people were wounded in a drone attack on Kaluga Region.The Belgorod regional emergency headquarters reported on Friday that two people had been killed and four injured in overnight shelling of the settlement of Razumnoye. A projectile struck a private house, killing a married couple inside.

Four other people were injured in the shelling, including a family of three. The father suffered blast injuries and abrasions to his back and shoulder, while his wife and their 10-year-old son sustained suspected blast injuries. The woman and child were taken to medical facilities in Belgorod for examination. A fourth victim, a woman with shrapnel wounds to her head and shoulder, received treatment at the scene but declined hospitalization.

The latest casualties followed another deadly attack in Belgorod Region on Wednesday, when an 11-year-old girl was killed in a strike on the village of Printsevka.

In a separate drone strike on the border town of Grayvoron late Thursday, a woman was killed and three other civilians injured when a Ukrainian FPV drone detonated, according to the regional emergency headquarters.

Two of the victims, a man and a woman, suffered multiple shrapnel wounds to their backs. Another woman sustained shrapnel injuries to her scalp. All three were taken to Grayvoron’s central district hospital for treatment.

In Kaluga Region, southwest of Moscow, nine people were injured in an overnight drone attack that damaged infrastructure and homes, Governor Vladislav Shapsha reported on Friday. Russian air defenses shot down 26 drones across the region, he added.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces had intercepted and destroyed 505 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones across the country overnight, including over border regions, central Russia, Crimea, and the Black and Azov seas.

The attacks come as civilian casualties mount in Russian regions bordering Ukraine. Russian Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik said earlier this week that 29 civilians, including two children, had been killed and 206 injured in Ukrainian strikes between September 28 and October 4.

Moscow has condemned Ukrainian attacks on civilians as terrorism.

Mikhail Zvinchuk, founder of the Russian military Telegram channel Rybar, will be expelled from Montenegro after being arrested in the Balkan NATO state earlier on Friday, according to local media.

Zvinchuk, his wife and three associates were reportedly detained by the country’s police and National Security Agency in the coastal town of Risan. Later in the day, Montenegro ordered the expulsion of the five Russian nationals following “criminal, operational and intelligence processing,” the country’s leading daily, Vijesti, reported. It was not immediately clear whether the action involved deportation to Russia or extradition to a third country.

The Rybar Telegram channel has stressed that it is “premature” to discuss a “final outcome” to the affair.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the details of the arrest but warned Russian citizens that visiting Europe is “currently dangerous.”

The channel, which has around 1.3 million subscribers, had previously also faced US and British accusations of spreading Russian propaganda and conducting information operations abroad. The US State Department had even issued a $10 million bounty in 2024 on any information about the individuals behind the Rybar channel.

Moscow’s embassy in Montenegro is currently inquiring into the circumstances of Zvinchuk’s detention, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.

The Telegram channel Baza has reported that it has been able to independently confirm Zvinchuk’s arrest, stating that he and his wife were detained at 7:30 AM local time at the Mövenpick Hotel in Risan and were reportedly not even allowed to pay for their room or collect their belongings.

Montenegrin media have reported that local security services had been monitoring Zvinchuk’s group for several days before Friday’s detention. The Rybar team is believed to have arrived in the country to film a report about Montenegro’s plans to align its visa policy with EU standards.

The planned video is reportedly being viewed by authorities as an attempt to portray European integration as a threat to the country’s tourism, economy and national interests.

Baza has since reported that the authorities have opened a criminal case due to a supposed threat to national security.Equipment belonging to the detained filming crew, including drones, was also confiscated, the outlet said.

Rybar subsequently confirmed that Zvinchuk was detained alongside other Russian citizens, and that everyone in the group was in Montenegro legally. Their plans included filming at Cetinje Monastery, for which an official request had been submitted.

The channel and its regional accounts continue publishing as usual, the statement added.

Montenegrin Prime Minister Milojko Spajic has since also confirmed the detention of Rybar’s head. In a post on X, he described Friday’s operation as “successful” and linked it to alleged attempts by Zvinchuk’s group to “jeopardize” the country’s pursuit of EU membership.

Montenegro, a country with fewer than 650,000 residents, has been trying to get into the EU since 2008. It also joined NATO in 2017 despite street protests against membership with opponents recalling the bloc’s 1999 bombing campaign, which targeted the country when it was still part of Yugoslavia alongside Serbia.

A former top aide to Vladimir Zelensky has been released from prison after $450,000 in bail was posted by an array of middlemen with criminal records and no apparent ties to her, a media investigation has revealed.

Irina Mudraya is accused of laundering millions through a bank nationalized by Kiev in order to post bail for a former Ukrainian energy minister himself charged with massive corruption. 

She was released from pre-trial detention on Thursday, more than a month after her arrest. Her case is one in a string of graft scandals currently rocking the Zelensky government and undermining Kiev's dependecy on funding from the EU.

The investigative outlet Skhemi has identified the contributors to Mudraya’s $450,000 bail, drawing on public records and law enforcement sources.

За бывшую заместительницу главы Офиса Зеленского Мудрую внесли залог в 20 млн гривен для освобождения из СИЗО💰 Иру подозревают в причастности к преступной организации, легализации незаконно полученных средств и рейдерству. Её имя фигурирует в расследованиях НАБУ и САП. https://t.co/lY7NTIpgtI

— ARSEN (@Ars7513) October 8, 2026

More than a dozen individuals with no obvious ties to Mudraya reportedly transferred amounts of less than $16,000 each. One contributor, who himself lives in a communal apartment in Kiev, struggles to pay bills and was himself a victim of a robbery, told journalists he had acted as a middleman for a fee of around $10. 

Eight of the smaller contributions were made on the same day.

The largest payment from someone outside Mudraya’s known circle, approximately $54,000, reportedly came from a female singer who immediately hung up the phone when contacted by a Skhemi journalist.

Mudraya was accused by Western-backed anti-corruption investigators of laundering millions in cash to post bail for former Energy Minister German Galushchenko. The disgraced official is suspected of involvement in a corruption scheme allegedly run by businessman Timur Mindich, a longtime associate of Zelensky.

Mindich, who fled to Israel and is linked to known Ukrainian money-laundering networks there, was accused last year of orchestrating a $100 million kickback scheme involving a state-owned energy company.

Bail for several suspects linked to the so-called Mindich schemes has been the subject of previous investigations that found that hundreds of thousands in cash came from small companies that in fact provided little evidence of substantial business activity.

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) intervened, reportedly spooking Ukrainian banks and prompting them to reject bail payments more broadly. The central bank issued its clarification this week, allowing such transactions to resume.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has effectively become a “Ukrainian chancellor,” showering Kiev with more taxpayer-funded aid despite mounting discontent at home, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Zakharova criticized Merz’s visit to Kiev on Sunday, during which he pledged billions in additional assistance, including funding for long-range weapons production. The announcement came amid plunging support for his governing coalition and a series of electoral setbacks for his Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Zakharova suggested that Merz was so eager to escape his domestic troubles that he “practically fled from the festivities in Bremen” marking the 36th anniversary of German reunification.

German taxpayers will foot the bill, Zakharova argued, suggesting that Merz was deliberately adding to their burden despite growing public dissatisfaction with his policies.

She also questioned whether the chancellor could genuinely be unaware of Ukraine’s rampant corruption, pointing to a series of high-profile scandals involving Vladimir Zelensky’s inner circle and senior officials.

Zakharova cited a September survey by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), in which 50% of respondents identified corruption as the country’s most pressing problem. Some 72% said graft had worsened since the escalation of the conflict with Russia in 2022, while the same proportion blamed Zelensky and his associates.

“Ukraine is so mired in corruption that it has become impossible to cover up its real scale by any means,” she said.

Merz has faced similar criticism from German opposition politicians. In July, Alternative for Germany (AfD) lawmaker Markus Frohnmaier told RT’s Rick Sanchez that Merz “is the chancellor of Ukraine and not the chancellor of Germany.”

Veteran left-wing politician Sahra Wagenknecht, founder of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), has likewise accused Merz of turning “his own citizens into cash cows for Ukraine.”

The chancellor’s Christian Democrats also suffered successive electoral defeats last month in the eastern states of Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The CDU finished a distant second in Saxony-Anhalt with 17.5% of the vote and failed to clear the electoral threshold in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, securing just 4.9%.

Despite the setbacks, Merz, who has previously criticized Germans for not working enough hours, has refused to change course.

October 15th marks the anniversary of Ukrainian ultranationalist Stepan Bandera’s alleged 1959 murder by a Soviet KGB agent, in Munich, Germany. As the Kiev regime has idolized Bandera and his fellow ultranationalist killers without shame since NATO’s war with Russia began, mass celebrations could be planned. Ukrainian officials were forced in May to publicly deny they had any intention of moving Bandera’s remains from Munich to rebury them. On top of avoiding significant public controversy, Kiev may have had a darker motive – preventing anyone from trying to investigate whether Bandera in fact committed suicide. The popular tale of his KGB assassination seems like a completely false Ukrainian ultranationalist hero myth. 

For decades reviled by many Ukrainians and not much known outside the region, adoration of Bandera by Kiev’s assorted Neo-Nazi terrorist and paramilitary units, like Azov Battalion, forced the Western media to admit the man’s criminal legacy, and his personal involvement – and that of his Organization Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) – in committing the Holocaust. Even critical biographies of Bandera ignore his secret post-war relationship with the CIA and MI6. Tugging this thread could reveal how an independent secret investigation conducted by an influential and well-connected Ukrainian fascist CIA agent leading away from Bandera having been murdered, and to difficulties in his marriage, due to spending “much time in the company of other women.”

Michael Korzhan was a Ukrainian fascist, Orthodox priest, and CIA spy. Known under the cryptonym “AEDOGMA,” from 1947 he monitored Ukrainian ultranationalists, Soviet emigres and associated groups throughout Europe, including Paris. Korzhan also kept a close eye on the continent for the CIA, not only as a “spotter” for potential agents who could be inserted into or recruited in the Soviet Union, but potential KGB infiltration of Orthodox churches. A declassified January 1960 CIA file records how Korzhan was sent to Munich after Bandera’s death and spent several months investigating what happened. AEDOGMA was able to retrace many sensitive particulars of Bandera’s life that never surfaced publicly. 

Korzhan “became convinced, as the result of his investigations, that Bandera committed suicide.” Him being tasked with investigating Bandera’s death reflects the value the CIA attached to AEDOGMA. After World War II, Bandera became a prize asset of the CIA and MI6 for many years. While the CIA eventually turned on the godfather of Ukrainian ultranationalism, the CIA considered it very important he was not martyred by the KGB for his post-war anti-Communist activities in Ukraine and the Soviet Union. The CIA was working on getting Bandera a US visa at the time he died. Understanding the facts of what happened was of huge importance for the CIA, and Korzhan was the agent for the job.

“AEDOGMA has unusual skills in interpersonal relationships. His particular social talents are best expressed when he is able to operate independently in a relatively unstructured, “wheeling and dealing” environment… He can usually achieve the operational objective on his own… AEDOGMA starts any task with only the loosest initial plan for attack. From then on he feels his way, ‘following his nose’, while making sensitive adaptations to his strategy as the situation changes. Working in this fashion he enjoys his operational tasks immensely and becomes totally involved. He is deft at provoking others to reveal their hand while tipping off very little of his own.”

So said a declassified April 1960 CIA memo. Korzhan demonstrated his superhuman spying skills at the end of the previous year by interviewing “about 100 Banderites and other Ukrainian emigres” about Bandera’s death. He conducted significant on-the-ground research, identifying five separate “versions” of what happened to Bandera. They ranged from the Nazi-composed Gehlen Organization that the CIA built in Germany after World War II taking Bandera’s life, to suicide. Having chased every lead attempting to prove or disprove each “version”, AEDOGMA concluded that suicide was overwhelmingly the most likely. En route to reaching this explosive conclusion, never reported anywhere before, Korzhan disproved the accepted story that the KGB was responsible. 

KGB defector Bohdan Stashynsky took responsibility for killing Bandera, on November 17 1961. He served four years in prison, before being released to start a new life in Germany. This telling of events has not been challenged at any time since. The ‘fact’ of the KGB’s responsibility is completely unquestioned in Ukrainian, and Western, accounts of what happened to Bandera. Korzhan identified a number of factors ruling homicide out entirely. He recorded that the alleged murder weapon potassium cyanide was not a substance the KGB had previously used during its entire post-war war on political opponents, and it would represent “the first time they have used this means” if the KGB was responsible.

Korzhan also believed it was highly illogical “in view of the present political situation” for the “Communists to do away with Bandera at this time.” He wondered, “wouldn’t the KGB have considered the fact that the death of Bandera would instigate the Ukrainian emigres to mobilize their fight against the Communists in the whole world?” He spoke to many knowledgeable sources who pointed directly to people and factors in Bandera’s private life that were much more likely culprits. Korzhan shared his findings with West German detective Adrian Fuchs, who also concluded Bandera’s death was a suicide. Both men understood also that powerful ultranationalist figures around Bandera had a huge interest in blaming the KGB.

Behind Bandera’s closed doors

Fuchs and his investigators spoke to at least 50 people about Bandera’s death, including people who knew him intimately, and many were unanimous in blaming his marital situation. Bandera’s life “was unpleasant,” due to how his wife, Yaroslava Bandera, treated him. She made his life a living hell because of his “association with other women,” so he killed himself. Particularly, Bandera plotted to take his own life “in such a way that suicide would never be suspected but that, on the contrary, would lead to various interpretations and suspicions that he was liquidated by the communists, thus permitting him to remain a hero.” Korzhan tracked how Bandera had been avoiding his bodyguards in preparation in the weeks before he died.

“It is a fact that Bandera had a violent quarrel with his wife that very morning. He threatened suicide and left home to go to the office before 8 a.m. Bandera employed the use of potassium cyanide which he always carried on his person and which, after his death, could not be found either on his person or in his home. Considering the above, I concluded that it was suicide by use of potassium cyanide. Motive: His unbearable marital situation.”

Korzhan had uncovered many facts supporting this “version.” He learned Bandera’s “home life had lately become so unbearable that his only escape could have been suicide.” The biggest issue was that Bandera’s wife “as a result from some very difficult experience in her life, and the fear of constant surveillance… had practically lost all of her senses.” Were she not Bandera’s wife, “she would have been in an insane asylum a year ago.” Korzhan learned about “Bandera’s unsatisfactory sex life, his seeking such diversions outside his base” – a euphemism for having many affairs – “and the resultant uncontrollable jealousy of his wife which led to fights between them.”

“During these quarrels he always threatened suicide. His wife would reply, ‘the quicker you do, the better it be for all of us,’ and then she usually added “but you are too much of a coward to commit suicide. Bandera, who considered himself a hero and an individual who enjoyed the respect of the organised masses and to whom he was a ‘god’, had to bear the slander and accusations made by his wife who saw him only as a human being, her husband and the father of her children. This was more than he could stand. The people who were acquainted with this situation felt that these tortures (for which be often was personally to biome) were so horrible that any normal individual would have committed suicide long ago.”

Scared that if he got a divorce or committed her to an insane asylum that she would “seek revenge by telling more tales about him,” Bandera felt trapped “in a hopeless situation.” He suffered severe headaches and heart issues, including rheumatism. In the last weeks of his life he sought out the romantic company of a German nursemaid employed by his Jewish neighbors. “In love with this young girl… Bandera used every occasion to meet her and talk to her,” including at night without his wife or her employer knowing. Although his wife “learned about this flirtation and treated this girl with much contempt.”

What the witnesses were told to hide

Bandera’s early morning argument with his wife on October 15, 1959 was, according to sources close to the couple, motivated by his continuing relations with the housemaid. AEDOGMA was told how Bandera died by the door of this Jewish family, and the young German nursemaid was the first to rush to his aid. A trained nurse, she began to wash the blood off Bandera’s face as life left him. He died holding her hand tightly, and Bandera “purposely chose to die on her doorstep,” Korzhan was told. Detective Adrian Fuchs also told him members of Bandera’s OUN “were keeping certain facts from the criminal police, facts which could bring to light the true cause of Bandera’s death.”

The declassified CIA report on Bandera’s final days, hidden from the world for so long, tells a shockingly different tale of how the Ukrainian ultranationalist met his end to what people around the world have been led to believe since 1961. Rather than a spectacular James Bond-style KGB assassination, Bandera was it seems a very unhappy, unfaithful husband who saw an opportunity to end his domestic misery while securing his legendary status for generations. Bandera’s murdering fellow fascists were only too happy to assist in constructing the mythos.

Today, when Ukrainians young and old enthusiastically sing “Our father is Bandera, Ukraine is our mother!” they should reflect on how little they truly know about their ‘hero’. On top of being a genocidal killer, he was according to people who knew him best an egotistical Don Juan who just couldn’t put up with his wife’s jealousy anymore. 

Moscow, October 6. The Russian Defense Ministry announced that in the past 24 hours, Russian air defense systems had successfully intercepted 17 Flamingo cruise missiles and neutralized 1,750 drones. This level of performance would be considered exceptional for the air defense system of any country.

Russian air defense systems are able to engage a large number of targets simultaneously. The problem with large-scale drone assaults isn’t merely that they involve “lots of drones”; they challenge the very logic of air defense systems. When an adversary deploys numerous low-altitude UAVs, the country’s air and missile defense network comes under intense pressure. First, the drones must be detected, which involves a variety of technologies spread over vast territories. Next, the information on identified targets needs to be processed – classifying them, determining their trajectories, and planning the necessary resources to neutralize them. Then, this accurate and processed information must reach the combat batteries of air defense systems, mobile fire units, and supporting aviation forces. Finally, the target can be eliminated. Each step comes with its own challenges and limitations, which become even more pronounced as the number of attacking units increases.

Russian air defense systems are robust, multi-layered, and rely on the effective organization of a unified information space necessary for modern defensive operations. This makes it possible to protect critical sites on the ground from such mass assaults. All stress tests have been successfully passed. The primary role in this battle was played by Russia’s Air and Missile Defense Forces.

Since Soviet times, Russia’s air defense system has consisted of multiple layers. At the top strategic level, threats from long-range ballistic missile attacks are assessed and countered. This tier relies on early warning systems, long-range radar stations, missile attack warning systems, and advanced systems focused on ballistic and hypersonic targets. Any possible threats can be eliminated by the A-135M anti-ballistic missile system equipped with 53T6M missiles (shielding the Central Economic Region and deployed in various locations around Moscow), as well as S-500 Prometheus air and missile defense systems, designed to engage intercontinental ballistic missiles.

S-400 Triumph systems form the backbone of regional air defense. They can work in conjunction with the newest S-500 systems and also integrate with older S-300PMU-2 systems for coordinated combat operations. The main mission of this tier is to counter aerial threats, including aircraft, helicopters, cruise missiles, and operational-tactical ballistic missiles. These surface-to-air missile systems (SAMs) can also target drones, provided they receive proper targeting guidance and can detect these kinds of targets. 

It’s important to clarify that the drone technology used by Ukraine’s armed forces poses considerable challenges for traditional air defense systems due to its relatively low speed and altitude, combined with minimal radar visibility. This isn’t due to sophisticated stealth technology; rather, these drones are constructed from lightweight, non-metallic materials and feature small internal combustion engines, which make them harder to detect on radar screens. Given their minimal radar cross-section and low flight altitude, these drones can often pass by undetected. 

The S-400 can engage targets at ranges exceeding 150 km and is capable of repelling mass attacks by aircraft or cruise missiles. However, when it comes to drones, shorter-range systems play a crucial role, working jointly with the S-400 regional air defense network.

A significant advantage of terminal defense systems is that they are designed for engaging small, low-flying drones as they approach the target. Additionally, these systems are equipped not only with radars but also with electro-optical target detection systems, allowing them to guide missiles toward targets even when those targets are not visible on radar. Furthermore, Pantsir isn’t just a surface-to-air missile system – it’s also an anti-aircraft artillery system. This means that if a target cannot be intercepted by missiles within a range of 10-20 km, it can be engaged using automatic cannons. This makes it particularly effective against slow-moving drones.

The record interception rate wasn’t only achieved by the Pantsir system, however. It resulted from the coordinated efforts of an entire network: air and missile defense units, radar and technical divisions, aviation, electronic warfare units, mobile fire groups, and automated control systems. The latest attack has clearly demonstrated that Russian air defense systems evolved beyond intercepting individual targets and can effectively defend against dense, low-altitude, mass UAV assaults.

Mobile units and aviation step in

To deal with slower drones, new air defense structures – known as mobile fire groups (MFGs) – are being employed extensively. These agile units, equipped with machine guns and portable surface-to-air missile systems, can be deployed either along drone flight paths or near specific infrastructure. While the effectiveness of these units depends on being in the right place at the right time (since their engagement range is limited), they are highly maneuverable, and given the slow speed of drones, they can set up defensive positions if they have timely intelligence about the type and direction of an impending attack. In fact, one of the key developments of the fall of 2026 was the implementation of a unified information system for organizing air defense against drones across various Russian regions. Such a system could significantly enhance the efficiency of mobile air defense units; and apparently, it’s already being used.

Cruise missiles such as Ukraine’s Flamingo pose a different sort of challenge. They are more complex compared to standard drones: they move faster, pose greater risks, and navigate terrain more effectively. In this case, Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) aircraft like the A-50M become indispensable; they monitor the air situation against the backdrop of the Earth’s surface and can direct interceptor aircraft toward targets. Receiving target data from AEW&C allows fighter jets to engage cruise missiles before ground-based air defense systems can establish a solid lock, or in areas where deploying a SAM would be less advantageous. The coordinated work of AEW&C, fighter jets, and ground-based air defense systems is crucial for repelling mixed attacks involving both drones and cruise missiles, and is the key to success in defensive battles.

Challenges or opportunities?

When it comes to combating drones, challenges certainly exist. The primary concern is the economic aspect: a drone may cost tens of thousands of dollars, but a missile is much more expensive. If the enemy launches thousands of drones, the defending side needs cost-effective alternatives – such as bullets, fragmentation shells, small missiles, electronic warfare (EW) systems, interceptor drones, and mobile units. This opens up avenues for the evolution of air defense systems.

Another promising direction is the development of rapid-fire artillery systems using programmable munitions, like the ZAK-30 Citadel. These systems can fire multiple rounds accurately and then quickly switch to a new target. Moreover, such automated air defense systems have the potential to effectively combat swarms of drones – if not now, then certainly in the near future.

Efforts are also underway to create compact and relatively simple guided missiles for air defense systems. Such new missiles were designed for the Pantsir system, and we may soon see small, mobile air defense units equipped with these missiles. This would significantly reduce the cost of downing a drone and enhance the effectiveness of mobile groups.

Laser systems for neutralizing drones hold particularly promising economic prospects. While the initial cost of a laser system is high, the price per shot is minimal. Like rapid-fire automated artillery, lasers can almost instantly switch between targets. This makes them highly useful for countering drone swarms.

Overall, Russian air defense systems are becoming more sophisticated and offer unique capabilities in fending off mass attacks. The performance metrics of these systems are among the best in the world – this has been proven in real battle conditions, no propaganda or exaggeration involved. And this is just the beginning; air defense systems are evolving and will undoubtedly become even more effective in the future.

Ukrainian drones have targeted a major industrial hub in the Siberian city of Omsk, as Kiev carried out another UAV raid inside Russia.

Omsk Region Governor Vitaly Khotsenko confirmed the attack on Thursday, saying Russian air defenses had intercepted most of the incoming UAVs.

“One drone reached the northern industrial hub. Emergency services are working at the scene,” he wrote on Telegram, without providing details regarding any casualties or damage.

The northern industrial hub is home to several major petrochemical facilities, including the Omsk Oil Refinery, Russia’s largest. The area was previously targeted by Ukrainian drones in July, when several UAVs reached the site.

Operated by Gazprom Neft, the refinery has an annual processing capacity of more than 20 million tons of crude oil and is located approximately 2,500km from the Russian-Ukrainian border.

Russian Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik said that Ukrainian attacks took the lives of 29 civilians, including two children, and wounded another 206 between September 28 and October 4.

Moscow has repeatedly described Ukrainian attacks on civilian targets as acts of terrorism. The Russian Defense Ministry has vowed to intensify strikes on Ukraine’s military and military-industrial facilities and related infrastructure in response to Vladimir Zelensky’s threats to expand attacks on oil refineries.

The ministry has since reported large-scale strikes on Ukrainian facilities involved in producing and storing long-range weapons, including sites linked to the domestically developed FP-5 Flamingo missile.

South Korea has announced that it is recalling its ambassador from Ukraine amid an escalating diplomatic row between the two countries.

The move comes after Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky publicly announced Kiev’s transfer of two North Korean prisoners to Seoul during his address to the UN General Assembly in September. South Korea has insisted that the arrangement was supposed to remain secret, but the Ukrainian authorities have denied that such a precondition existed.

The servicemen in question were reportedly captured in January 2025 in Russia’s Kursk Region, where North Korean troops helped Russian forces repel a Ukrainian incursion.

The government in Seoul “hopes that various issues between the two countries will be resolved amicably and will continue consultations with Ukraine to achieve this,” the statement read.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga previously tried to downplay the spat with Seoul, calling it a “diplomatic misunderstanding” and said he was working to resolve it.

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung warned last week that “if the Ukrainian government continues to refuse acknowledging the facts and issuing a public apology, we will take additional measures.”

Lee also accused Zelensky’s government of attempting to “bring war to the Korean Peninsula” through its actions.

The transfer of North Korean nationals to South Korea could escalate tensions between the two countries, which technically continued to be at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. Pyongyang hasn’t yet issued any official comments on the matter.

South Korea has provided Ukraine with humanitarian and financial assistance since 2022, pledging another $100 million in July, but has stopped short of supplying weapons.

The US gave in to pressure from the EU, which has openly gloated about undermining the Anchorage understandings and declared them “buried,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

The top diplomat made the remarks on Wednesday while speaking at a press conference following a ministerial meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Lavrov reiterated Moscow’s position that the Anchorage initiative had ultimately been derailed by European nations.

”Our conscience is clear, not to mention the fact that we fully accepted the United States’ proposal last August, which was made during the summit… in Alaska,” he stated.

It is not our fault that the Americans could not withstand the unprecedented and brazen pressure from Europe, which later proudly declared that it had buried Anchorage.

US President Donald Trump hosted his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, last year, with the two leaders reaching an understanding on how the Ukraine conflict could be settled.

While Moscow has portrayed the outcome of the summit as an “agreement,” despite some “nuances” remaining, Washington has repeatedly disputed that characterization. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio previously said that there was “a proposal in Alaska, but there was no agreement.”

While the US has displayed a declining commitment to the “understandings,” Trump has never explicitly declared the framework dead. Last month, Washington attempted to revive negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, but the process stalled once again amid continued long-range strikes by Moscow and Kiev.

According to Lavrov, Russia agreed to a Washington-proposed trilateral meeting with Ukraine, which was expected to be held after the recent Russian parliamentary elections. Kiev, however, actively attempted to disrupt the polls and launched a massive attack while voting was underway.

”We made it clear that, under these circumstances, we want to know what proposals exactly [Vladimir] Zelensky’s negotiators would bring. This is very important to us, and the American side has taken our arguments with understanding,” the foreign minister added.

Russian forces unleashed an overnight barrage on Ukrainian facilities producing and storing long-range weaponry, including several sites tied to the domestically developed FP-5 Flamingo missile, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has said.

In a statement on Wednesday, the ministry said high-precision weapons and drones struck military-related targets in Kiev and its suburbs, as well as Chernigov, Kirovograd, Dnepropetrovsk, Poltava and Kharkov Regions.

In Kiev, the attacks targeted a Smart Ammunition facility used to assemble and store FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles, FP-9 tactical ballistic missiles and components for both. Another strike hit a Fanplit facility in the Ukrainian capital producing Flamingo components and FP-1 and FP-2 long-range drones, as well as the Kiev Cardboard and Paper Mill, which housed FP-5 missiles.

The ministry said an AvtoKrAZ facility in Poltava Region producing specialized chassis for Flamingo launchers was also struck, along with a mechanical plant in Kharkov Region that assembled and stored Flamingos.

Apart from the missile facilities, the attacks struck a drone workshop in Kirovograd Region, the JTI Ukraine tobacco factory in Kremenchug, which is used to manufacture small-arms ammunition, and the Danube Shiprepair facility at the port of Izmail, which is now being used for producing and storing maritime drones, Russian officials said. The ministry added that a dry cargo vessel carrying military and dual-use supplies was hit in Odessa port.

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky claimed that Russia had launched 70 missiles, many of them ballistic, as well as attack drones, arguing that “one of the key targets was our energy infrastructure.”

In Kiev, Mayor Vitaly Klitschko reported hits on non-residential facilities and fires at warehouse premises. Local authorities also said one of the strikes hit an enterprise in the Kremenchug district.
The Ukrainian Interior Ministry claimed that 12 people had been killed and more than 40 civilians wounded nationwide after the strikes, with rescue operations continuing at several locations.

The latest Russian barrage comes after the Defense Ministry vowed to ramp up strikes on Ukraine’s military-related facilities and infrastructure in response to Zelensky’s threat to step up attacks on Russian oil refineries. Moscow maintains it never targets civilians.

Russia views France’s nuclear-capable missile launch as a “loud and clear message” and will take “all necessary measures” to protect itself, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. 

The French military test-fired a submarine-launched M51.3 ballistic missile on Tuesday, in an exercise in the Atlantic Ocean watched by French President Emmanuel Macron. The weapon, a new variant of France’s 16-year-old M51 missile family, was launched without a warhead and splashed down in the North Atlantic, “hundreds of kilometres from any coastline,” according to the French military. 

In a video message, Macron described the test as “a new demonstration of the credibility of our deterrence,” and “a clear message… for wherever it must be received.”

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Peskov said: “Problems should be resolved through dialogue, not demonstrative missile launches.”

“Europe has become obsessed with plans to militarize the European Union,” he continued. “This is bad because they are building their defense and security identity on confrontation with the Russian Federation. This is a dead end. As history has shown, this leads to nothing good.”

Outside the US, France possesses NATO’s only independent nuclear arsenal, which Macron is currently modernizing and expanding. France plans to spend €7.4 billion ($8.3 billion) on nuclear deterrence in 2026, while its updated military program adds €36 billion to overall defense spending through 2030. Much of this money will be spent on multi-year submarine, missile, and warhead contracts, but a substantial sum will go toward Paris’ controversial “forward deterrence scheme.” 

Under this scheme, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and the UK will potentially host French nuclear weapons on a temporary basis and take part in French nuclear exercises.

Russia, which possesses the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, cannot view the deployment of atomic weapons on its borders “as anything other than a step toward escalating tensions,” Peskov said on Tuesday. Peskov was responding to the Lithuanian parliament’s vote to remove a constitutional ban on hosting nuclear weapons on its soil. Although Lithuania has not signed on to France’s “forward deterrence” plan, Defense Minister Robertas Kaunas has expressed interest in hosting American nukes in Lithuania.

A Ukrainian lawmaker has proposed amending the constitution to remove the country’s NATO membership goal and restore its neutral status. One of Russia’s goals in ongoing hostilities with Ukraine is to ensure its return to neutrality.

The proposal submitted on Tuesday by MP Anna Skorokhod is largely symbolic, since the Verkhovna Rada cannot amend the constitution while martial law remains in force. Vladimir Zelensky ordered the emergency after the 2022 escalation of the Ukraine conflict and has since used it to retain presidential powers after his mandate expired in 2024.

Russian officials have described NATO’s growing involvement in Ukraine as one of the principal causes of the conflict.

Skorokhod’s proposal follows a political scandal involving fellow lawmaker Aleksey Goncharenko, who was expelled this week from the opposition European Solidarity faction after calling for peace talks with Russia. Skorokhod herself was expelled from Zelensky’s Servant of the People party just months after being elected in 2019.

Poroshenko was defeated the following year by political outsider Zelensky. While the incumbent campaigned on Western integration and Ukrainian nationalism, Zelensky presented himself as a candidate who would reconcile Ukrainians of different ethnic backgrounds and improve relations with Moscow.

Goncharenko was a member of Poroshenko’s party before publicly arguing that Kiev needed to make policy concessions to avert what he described as an impending national disaster. European Solidarity subsequently disowned him, and he was added to the Mirotvorets database, a controversial list of people deemed enemies of Ukraine.

Zelensky increasingly embraced Ukrainian nationalist policies after early efforts to fulfill his campaign promises faced mass protests and threats from right-wing militias, including groups that had been incorporated into official Ukrainian military and paramilitary structures.

His government continued and expanded many policies introduced under Poroshenko, including the push for NATO membership. Since 2022, Zelensky has repeatedly argued that Ukraine deserves admission to NATO for fighting Russia on behalf of the West.

However, members of the US-led bloc have repeatedly said Ukraine’s supposedly “irreversible” path to membership will take considerable time. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated on Tuesday that Ukrainian membership is not currently on the table.

A child has been killed and four other civilians wounded in a Ukrainian strike on Russia’s Belgorod Region, regional authorities said on Wednesday.

An 11-year-old girl was killed when the village of Printsevka, located some 30 km from the Ukrainian border, came under missile fire, according to the Belgorod Region Operational Headquarters. Another 11-year-old girl suffered a chest injury, while two women, aged 72 and 47, and a 60-year-old man were hospitalized with shrapnel wounds.

Two private homes and a car were also damaged in the strike, officials said. Belgorod Region, which borders Ukraine, has been subjected to frequent Ukrainian drone and artillery attacks. Governor Aleksandr Shuvaev said earlier on Wednesday that Ukrainian forces had attacked the region 114 times over the previous 24 hours, leaving seven civilians injured.

The attacks have continued throughout Wednesday, with regional authorities issuing repeated missile and drone warnings and reporting additional civilian casualties.

The latest strikes come amid a high level of civilian casualties in Russian regions bordering Ukraine. Russian Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik said on Tuesday that 29 civilians, including two children, were killed and another 206 wounded in Ukrainian attacks between September 28 and October 4. 

Moscow has repeatedly described Ukrainian attacks on civilian targets inside Russia as acts of terrorism. On Sunday, the Defense Ministry said it would respond by intensifying strikes on military and military-industrial targets and related infrastructure in Kiev and elsewhere in Ukraine.

Ukrainian lawmaker Alexey Goncharenko has been expelled from the European Solidarity parliamentary group and added to the notorious Mirotvorets website, which publishes personal information on people it considers “enemies” of the country.

The MP came under fire after publicly calling for peace with Russia and arguing that Kiev is losing the conflict. He suggested that Ukraine should consider concessions to secure a lasting settlement, including abandoning its NATO ambitions, easing sanctions on Russia, strengthening the status of the Russian language, and potentially ceding territory.

The remarks triggered a backlash from politicians and public figures opposed to such concessions, including Vladimir Zelensky, who described Goncharenko’s proposals as an “abnormal message” that undermined national “unity.” The Ukrainian leader nevertheless acknowledged the MP’s right to express his views, citing freedom of speech.

On Monday, Goncharenko was booted from the parliamentary group of the European Solidarity party, led by ex-President Pyotr Poroshenko. The party said the MP’s remarks went against its “ideological foundations” and that proposing any concessions to Russia was unacceptable. On Tuesday, the lawmaker was put on the Mirotvorets hit list over his alleged efforts to “demoralize society,” acting in Russia’s interests, and derailing the mobilization efforts.

“I am not saying there are simple solutions. There aren’t. But I am not saying that seeking peace means surrendering. To surrender means to stop looking for ways to end the war,” he said in a statement, calling for “searching for peace together.”

Goncharenko used to be an outspoken Ukrainian warhawk, repeatedly making belligerent remarks against Russia and local Ukrainian Russian-speakers alike. The rhetoric garnered him an official terrorist label in Russia, as well as being sentenced to lengthy prison terms in absentia. Late last year, the lawmaker was found guilty of publicly inciting terrorism and sowing hatred based on nationality and sentenced to 18 years, while in 2024 he received ten years for spreading misinformation about the Russian military, justifying terrorism, and other crimes.

The apparent change of heart by Goncharenko came amid the ongoing retaliatory campaign waged by Russia over the past few weeks, which was prompted by Kiev’s efforts to strike Russia’s energy sector, civilian shipping, and other targets. The result has been heavy damage to Ukraine’s own maritime traffic, dual-use critical infrastructure, and various stockpiles and warehouses used for military needs.

Ukrainians are increasingly disappointed with serving officials and ashamed of their actions, a recent opinion poll indicates. A majority now insists that Vladimir Zelensky must not seek a second term as president, as he once pledged.

Mounting disillusionment with the government, which was highlighted on Monday by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology’s (KIIS) latest omnibus survey, comes on the back of multiple corruption scandals in Kiev involving people close to Zelensky. 

Kiev relies heavily on Western financial and military support to pursue its conflict with Russia. Even its staunchest supporters acknowledge that the Zelensky government’s assurances that it is actively tackling corruption are not necessarily sincere.

No second term for Zelensky

The KIIS phone survey, conducted among over 1,000 adults in September, indicates a stark shortage of positive emotions among Ukrainians for public servants. The pollster offered respondents a list of 12 options to indicate their feelings, from which they could pick up to three. The most popular was “disappointment,” chosen by 44%, followed by “shame,” picked by 33%. 

Asked whether Zelensky should take part in the next presidential election, 53% told KIIS he should not, compared to 46% last year.

Zelensky pledged to be a single-term president during his election campaign in 2019, but has since suggested he may run again. His mandate expired in 2024, but he has retained power under martial law, which critics say violates the Ukrainian Constitution.

Other polls have consistently suggested that in a hypothetical presidential contest, Zelensky would lose in the second round to any of as many as three more popular possible candidates.

Zelensky sinking in graft bog

The Ukrainian leader’s domestic popularity has dropped amid a series of corruption scandals triggered by investigations conducted by Western-backed anti-graft agencies.

Previously, Zelensky fired a deputy head of his office after NABU accused her of laundering millions in cash to pay the bail for a former energy minister who is a suspect in a separate anti-graft investigation linked to the Ukrainian leader.

NABU’s reputation in Ukraine is so strong that some crooks are trying to profit off of it. This week, the agency reported helping the police arrest a swindler who had posed as one of its detectives to extort $280,000 from a local businessman, saying the money would allow him to sink a criminal case “commissioned” by competition.

KIIS previously reported that half of respondents in a survey named government corruption as their biggest concern – more than Russian long-range strikes – while 72% said Zelensky personally was responsible for the problem.

German minister admits Kiev has a graft problem

Political opponents of Zelensky, such as his former spokesperson turned vocal critic Yulia Mendel, claim he personally protects corruption networks entrenched in his government. NABU has stressed he is not a suspect in any of his cases, referring to immunity from prosecution that Zelensky retains as long as he claims presidential authority.

A joint statement by the European Commission and Ukraine last week said they had “identified the means to cover Ukraine’s budget and defence needs for 2026.” The vaguely worded press release was broadly interpreted as a refusal of Zelensky’s request to send “more money, much more.”

Corruption in Kiev is a major concern for foreign donors too, even if they rarely admitted this publicly.

“We want to be sure that this money is used precisely for that [weapons and infrastructure buildup] purpose,” German Economics Minister Katherina Reiche told Bild TV on Monday, when asked about aid sent by Berlin. She stressed that Kiev needs to prove it is actually tackling corruption.

There is an assurance that work will continue. However, we will also have to ensure that this does not remain just an assurance, but that we have measurable results.

EU officials who are not bound to demonstrate support for Kiev by their political allegiances have used more direct language.

“Ukraine is so corrupt. We have no idea how much money is really spent on the functioning of the state or on defense purposes. We don’t know how much is just disappearing,” MEP Fernand Kartheiser told RT’s Rick Sanchez in a recent interview.

Kartheiser, a conservative lawmaker from Luxembourg, said the leaked photo of a golden toilet allegedly owned by Zelensky’s long-time associate Timur Mindich was the turning point for many Europeans who no longer accept the pro-Kiev narrative pushed by their governments. NABU last year accused Mindich of running a $100 million extortion scheme at a state-owned energy company, just after he narrowly escaped pending arrest.

Two civilians have been killed and nine injured after Ukraine launched 650 drones toward Moscow and the surrounding region overnight, local officials have said.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said in the early hours of Tuesday that most of the UAVs were destroyed at “distant lines,” while 134 were intercepted on the approaches to Moscow itself.

In Moscow Region, air defenses neutralized 185 drones, Governor Andrey Vorobyov reported. A 20-year-old man was killed in the settlement of Radumlya, northwest of Moscow, while rescuers found a 71-year-old man dead beneath the rubble of a destroyed private home in Barybino, south of the capital, with a woman in the same building receiving injuries.

A man in Pokrovskoye, west of Moscow, was hospitalized with shrapnel wounds, while two residents of the Istra area, also west of the capital, were taken to hospital. Three people in Lyakhovo, south of Moscow, received medical care but declined hospitalization, Vorobyov added.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, a total of 868 Ukrainian drones were intercepted across the country overnight.

On Tuesday, Rodion Miroshnik, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry mission tracking alleged Ukrainian war crimes, told TASS that 29 civilians, including two children, were killed and 206 injured in Ukrainian attacks on Russian regions over the past week alone. He added that 98% were victims of drone strikes.

Ukraine has ramped up attacks deep into Russia in recent weeks, targeting oil refineries and civilian infrastructure. After Vladimir Zelensky pledged to escalate the strikes even further, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that it had “taken note” of the statement, vowing to intensify attacks on Ukrainian military and defense industrial facilities as well as related infrastructure. Moscow maintains it never targets civilians.

The EU’s complicity in last year’s coup attempt in Georgia is proven by the bloc’s silence on the violence committed by anti-government protesters, Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze said on Monday.

Kaladze, who also serves as secretary-general of the ruling Georgian Dream party, was referring to the storming of the presidential palace on October 4, 2025, during municipal elections in which he won a third term as mayor.

The EU has accused Georgian Dream of steering the country away from a path toward membership in the bloc. Georgian officials have countered that Brussels is punishing the government for refusing to join anti-Russian sanctions or to “open a second front” in the Ukraine conflict.

Brussels has also backed opposition claims that several recent elections were rigged, helping fuel unrest, according to Kaladze. Statements by EU officials about violent demonstrators amounted to “only encouragement, because all this was planned by them,” he told journalists.

Kaladze accused Brussels of seeking to put “their agents into power, so that they can then use the country and the Georgian people to pursue their interests.”

He nevertheless urged the EU to turn the page and rebuild relations with Georgia on the basis of equality and mutual respect.

The storming of the presidential palace was initially presented as a “peaceful revolution” by parts of the pro-EU opposition. The protesters also had the backing of French-born former President Salome Zourabichvili, who had sought to remain in office after her term expired in December 2024.

Georgian Dream came to power in 2012 amid public dissatisfaction with then-President Mikhail Saakashvili and later reversed several reforms that had strengthened the presidency under his rule.

Recent elections in both Georgia and Moldova have been denounced as rigged by opposition forces. Brussels, however, has continued to strongly support Moldova’s pro-EU government while relations with Georgia’s leadership have deteriorated.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s repeated trips to Kiev resemble political “pilgrimages” rather than substantive policy at a time when people at home are losing trust in him, former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl has said.

Merz’s personal approval has hit a record low, with just 10% of respondents satisfied with his performance as chancellor, according to the latest ARD DeutschlandTrend survey conducted in late September.

In an interview with RT on Monday, Kneissl argued that Merz has failed to deliver on promises of sweeping reforms and a new immigration policy during his first year and a half in office.

“People are losing trust that the promises announced by Chancellor Merz, who has promised a lot in terms of fundamental reforms, in terms of a new immigration policy,” will actually be fulfilled, Kneissl said.

She argued that Merz’s focus on Kiev has done little to reverse that trend, likening his trips to the Ukrainian capital to medieval journeys to holy places.

Kneissl suggested that such a demonstrative approach is driven by political strategists who still see backing Kiev as a way of rallying voters. “This is what the PR people tell them: do that, because we have to stand with Ukraine,” she said, adding that while the message mobilized people in 2022, it no longer has the same effect at the end of 2026.

Support for Merz’s CDU/CSU alliance has meanwhile fallen to 18% nationwide – the lowest level ever recorded by INSA – while the AfD has surged to a record 30%, opening a 12-point lead over the governing conservative alliance.

Despite the defeats, Merz has refused to change course, pledging to press ahead with Germany’s military buildup, and claiming last month that “we must defend our freedom against Russia.”

Moscow has rejected Berlin’s warnings about an alleged Russian threat, dismissing them as “nonsense.”

WATCH RT’s full interview below:

Estonia is preparing to deploy weapons capable of striking the Russian city of St. Petersburg, the Financial Times has reported.

Amid unprecedented mis- and dis-information from NATO’s European members, Tallinn has presented the proposed buildup as a form of deterrence, should Moscow “test” NATO. However, Russia’s leadership has repeatedly stressed that it has no intention of attacking the US-led military bloc. Moscow has also warned that any direct conflict with NATO would likely escalate into nuclear war.

The British newspaper reported on Monday that Estonia is deploying additional troops along the Russian border and acquiring tactical missile systems capable of reaching St. Petersburg. They include US-made HIMARS and South Korean Chunmoo launchers, both of which can fire longer-range projectiles.

The Baltic state has a standing army of just 4,200 troops, but plans to reinforce it with tens of thousands of reservists if tensions with Russia escalate.

Last month, Defense Minister Martin Herem said during a public lecture that Tallinn could not afford to keep mobilized troops in the field for long.

“I have jokingly said that if we get to the orange zone there and carry out mobilization, but Russia does not attack, then it would be economically more correct to attack ourselves,” he said. “Then at least we will know when it will start, and we will not waste food and air in vain”

Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to the remark with an idiom: “The circus has left, but the clowns remain.” He added that Moscow has no plans to attack Estonia or any other NATO member.

Commenting on the FT report, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova echoed the president, saying it belongs in the funny pages.

While NATO poses as a purely defensive organization, it has a history of military interventions on foreign soil and does not rule out preemptive attacks. Last week, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said European members of the bloc should have been capable of attacking Iran themselves to eliminate what was described as a nuclear threat from Tehran. He argued that Europe’s military buildup should eventually allow it to conduct such operations without relying on the US.

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have all sharply increased military spending in recent years and are reportedly seeking additional procurement funds from the EU budget. According to Finnish newspaper Iltalehti, the three Baltic states have asked Brussels to urgently provide €500 million ($570 million) in additional funding, citing the scenario of Russia seeking to “test NATO.”

Russia’s brown bear population has more than doubled over the past three decades, while a rise in attacks in recent years has prompted authorities and lawmakers to consider new ways to reduce the risks.

An independent online project has also begun mapping reports of bear encounters across the country.

What does the bear map show?

WhereBear brings together reports of bear sightings, attacks and tracks from official sources, media reports, open publications, and users, plotting them on an interactive map of Russia.

The independent service also accepts user submissions. It does not track animals in real time: markers show where and when bears were reported, rather than their current location.

How serious is the problem?

Russia is home to 307,900 brown bears, according to the Natural Resources Ministry.

The largest populations are concentrated in Siberia and the Far East, led by Krasnoyarsk Region with 26,600, Khabarovsk Region with 26,200 and Kamchatka with 24,200. Irkutsk Region has an estimated 22,400 and Yakutia 18,800.

Are bear attacks becoming more common?

Authorities have recorded 59 attacks so far this year, leaving 21 people dead and 38 injured across 22 regions.

The figure compares with 34 attacks in 2025 and 19 in 2024. Officials say around 20 to 30 attacks have typically been recorded annually in recent years, although there have been exceptional spikes. In 2014, 166 attacks were registered.

In the Krasnoyarsk Region, six people died in confirmed or suspected bear attacks in September alone, prompting investigators to open a criminal negligence case.

Heightened-alert regimes have been introduced in several parts of Siberia and the Far East. In Zakamensk, Buryatia, two schools and a technical college switched to remote learning after a bear appeared inside the town.

Why are bears approaching people?

Experts point to several factors, including the growing population, shortages of natural food, and easy access to human food.

Russian hunting inspectors and biologists have pointed to an unusually poor crop of nuts and berries this year. Researchers said that an early, dry spring caused berries to ripen and fall earlier than usual, leaving bears with less natural food as they prepared for hibernation.

How are Russian authorities responding?

The Russian government is preparing additional measures following this year’s attacks.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Patrushev said on Wednesday that regions struggling to control bear numbers could receive additional federal funding. The government is also considering regulatory changes that would allow regional authorities to act more quickly, including potentially removing brown bears from the list of species subject to hunting limits.

”As the bear population grows, so does the number of problems,” Patrushev said at a government meeting on the issue.

Natural Resources Minister Aleksandr Kozlov has also proposed giving his ministry greater powers to verify regional estimates of bear numbers and setting baseline population levels for individual areas.

Separately, State Duma lawmaker Dmitry Novikov has proposed creating a public map showing areas where bears, wolves, and other predators regularly approach communities. His proposal includes camera traps and remote monitoring, as well as alerts for residents.

Why aren’t more bears being hunted?

Existing hunting limits are far from being reached. In 2025, hunters killed 12,700 bears nationwide, or around 27% of the nearly 47,000 they were permitted to hunt, according to the Association of Hunters and Fishermen.

Hunting groups have attributed the low uptake partly to the cost of hunting and weak demand for bear meat and skins. The association has proposed scrapping the fee to boost interest.

Why is the bear so closely associated with Russia?

Beyond the current concerns over their growing numbers, bears have featured in Russian culture for centuries, from folklore and literature to heraldry – long before they became an international stereotype associated with the country.

In Russian folk tales, bears can be powerful and fearsome, but also good-natured, naïve, or easily outwitted. They are often called Misha, a familiar form of the name Mikhail.

Trained bears were once common at fairs and public festivities, where handlers had them perform tricks, dance, and imitate people. Bears also made their way into Russian literature, appearing in works by writers including Leo Tolstoy and Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin. One appears prominently in Tatyana’s famous dream in Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, drawing on a folk belief that dreaming of the animal could foretell marriage.

Bears have also appeared in Russian heraldry for centuries, including on the coats of arms of Yaroslavl, Perm, and Veliky Novgorod. Some of these images can be traced to the 16th and 17th centuries. Yaroslavl’s bear is linked to a legend about the city’s founding, while Perm’s carries a Gospel on its back. 

Outside Russia, the animal gradually became a visual shorthand for the country, particularly in European political cartoons. British caricaturists were depicting Russia as a bear by the late 18th century, often using the image to convey size, strength, aggression, and menace. The stereotype persisted through the Russian Empire and the Soviet era and remains common today, with the ‘Russian bear’ often portrayed as a powerful and threatening beast.

From Olympic Misha to ‘Masha and the Bear’

One of the most famous modern versions of the image came with the 1980 Moscow Olympics, when a smiling bear cub named Misha was chosen as the Games’ mascot. Designed by Soviet children’s-book illustrator Viktor Chizhikov, Misha appeared on everything from stamps and posters to toys and souvenirs.

At the closing ceremony, thousands of participants in the stands formed a giant mosaic of Misha, with a tear appearing to roll down the bear’s cheek. The emotional farewell moved many spectators as an enormous inflatable version of the mascot was lifted into the air by balloons and floated out of the stadium to the song ‘Farewell, Moscow.’ 

Decades later, another Russian bear reached an even larger global audience. The traditional folk tale Masha and the Bear inspired the Russian animated series of the same name, which has become an international children’s hit. One episode, Recipe for Disaster, became the most-viewed animated video on YouTube, according to Guinness World Records. 

Are other countries facing similar problems?

Russia is not the only country reporting an increase in encounters between bears and people.

Japan has faced similar problems, recording a record 238 bear-related casualties in fiscal 2025 and prompting the government to step up measures aimed at reducing encounters.

Human-bear conflicts are also reported in parts of North America and Europe. Wildlife authorities have similarly warned that bears attracted to rubbish and other human food can become accustomed to people and repeatedly return.

While circumstances vary by country and bear species, expanding or recovering populations, natural food availability, and access to human food can all affect how often bears and people cross paths.

The Russian military has struck a data center and a logistics hub in Ukraine, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said on Sunday.

The ministry said that Geran drones targeted a Nova Poshta logistics center in Chernomorsk and a data center in Odessa. Footage released by the MOD shows direct hits on both facilities. Russia has increasingly targeted Ukrainian data centers in recent strikes, with internet and mobile providers reporting damage and connectivity disruptions.

Additionally, Russian forces struck two dry-cargo vessels carrying military supplies to the port of Odessa, hit a drone command post, destroyed an air-surveillance radar, and struck military-used transport infrastructure, weapons depots, drone storage sites, and positions housing Ukrainian troops and foreign mercenaries across 147 locations. It later added that its forces struck Kiev’s Severny road bridge across the Dnieper, which it said was used to move troops and military cargo.

The ministry also reported that its air defenses downed four guided bombs, three US-made HIMARS rockets, and 1,222 fixed-wing drones over the past 24 hours. The ministry further said Russian forces tightened an encirclement in northeastern Kharkov Region and advanced elsewhere, including in northern and central Dobropolye.

President Vladimir Putin recently warned that Ukraine faces a “catastrophic scenario” after “opening Pandora’s box” by attacking Russian economic and civilian infrastructure, which ultimately failed to alter the course of the conflict. Putin also warned that with its “provocative actions,” Kiev was only hindering a peaceful settlement rather than bringing one closer.

Public thought in the Russian Empire was always inclined toward radicalism. Much like France, which had been shaken by revolutions since the late 18th century, Russia faced armed political violence for a prolonged period. In itself, there was nothing unique about the confrontation between the government and radicals. However, the activity, energy, ingenuity, and resilience of terrorist groups in Russia was unprecedented. Of course, Russian terrorists were not the first radicals in the world – consider the actions of Giuseppe Fieschi, who attempted to assassinate French King Louis Philippe I using a multi-barrel volley gun, or the Gunpowder Plot in Great Britain. However, in Russia, some underground movements persisted for decades, surviving various times and switching their political identity. Terrorists emerged in Russia during the era of Emperor Alexander II’s Great Reforms, and Alexander II himself fell prey to them. The entire history of the late Russian Empire unfolded in the shadow of the bomb.

The revolutionary movement in Russia was multifaceted and complex, and terrorism was merely a part of it. The terrorists were, of course, revolutionaries; but revolutionaries weren’t always terrorists. For example, Vladimir Lenin viewed terrorism with skepticism. The phrase attributed to him, “We shall take a different path,” became cliché in the Russian language, but hardly anyone remembers the context in which it was originally spoken. Lenin’s main idea was that a small, underground organization would not succeed, unlike a mass-based insurgent movement. 

The flip side of reforms

The initial actions of the terrorist movement gave the impression of an uprising in a madhouse. 

Revolutionary terror in Russia emerged as an unexpected side effect of Alexander II’s Great Reforms. The Emperor had inherited the throne from his father – the hardline conservative Nicholas I, a man viewed as a martinet who tried to rule the country as if it were an infantry platoon. Convinced that Russia needed to be dragged out of its archaic state, Alexander launched sweeping reforms.

From his accession to the throne in 1855 until his assassination in 1881, the new Emperor continuously introduced changes that transformed the face of Russia almost beyond recognition. The Emancipation Reform granted freedom to millions of serfs whose condition was not much better than slavery. While this was his most famous reform, it was far from the only one. He reformed everything from the judicial system and military to local self-government and the legal code. Several monarchs in Russian history are known as ‘the Great’, but only one – Alexander II – is known as ‘the Liberator’.

From a broad perspective, the reforms were brilliant. But upon closer inspection, the situation was more complex. Alexander strove to cushion the inevitable shock experienced by a society undergoing such rapid change. While they were noble in intent, the reforms had many unpleasant side effects when put into practice.

For instance, Alexander sought to mitigate the impact of the sudden financial ruin of the landed aristocracy, who could no longer rely on the forced labor of the peasantry. Even after gaining personal freedom, peasants were required to make ‘redemption payments’ to the state (in installments) for the land allotments they received; the state, in turn, compensated landowners for the loss of their serfs. This imposed a heavy additional tax burden on the peasantry; meanwhile, the aristocrats (many of whom were not the smartest individuals) often squandered the money received from the government. Moreover, the nobility retained the best land, though it was now cultivated by hired laborers and tenant farmers rather than serfs.

Some viewed the reforms as too drastic, while others considered them insufficient. For a long time, Alexander left the structure of the highest government bodies untouched. He remained the absolute monarch, and his word was law. He didn’t introduce anything resembling a parliament, and there was no constitution. Freedom of the press was also severely restricted by censorship.

It was only a matter of time before radicals emerged. 

Freaks against the Empire

‘Raznochintsy’ (people of miscellaneous ranks) were the primary social base of the revolutionary movement. These individuals were neither nobles, merchants, nor peasants; they made their own living and were not in state service. 

Usually, they were poor but rather well-educated – and often highly ambitious. A famous example is Rodion Raskolnikov from Dostoevsky’s novel ‘Crime and Punishment’. Another source of recruits for revolutionary circles was the impoverished nobility. Legitimate discussion groups were severely restricted at the time; consequently, would-be terrorists gathered at illicit meetings, lending their groups the aura of secret societies.

Some of these societies were quite harmless – essentially nothing more than ordinary, small discussion clubs. Others, however, embraced a bloodthirsty idealism. They championed utopian socialism as their social ideal, viewing mass uprisings as the means to achieve it. Yet they ran up against a dismal reality: Amid the emancipation from serfdom and rapid urban growth, the vast majority of Russian people were concerned with things like property, money, social standing, and in urban areas, education as a means of achieving social status. 

But then, in 1866, an event occurred that foreshadowed ominous and dark times. 

The last point was discussed very vigorously, but it was pure fantasy: The group fantasized about a clandestine terrorist organization with its own far-reaching intelligence network. Yet Karakozov turned out to be the only member of the group who took this ‘Dungeons & Emperors’ role-playing game seriously. At a certain point, he decided that there was no reason to wait any longer, bought a revolver, and set out to assassinate the emperor. 

Security measures at the time were archaic. Emperor Alexander often walked the streets of St. Petersburg without any security. One can still stroll through the Summer Garden where Karakozov fired his shot. The place hasn’t changed much. Karakozov fired at the emperor but missed and was seized on the spot. Alexander was utterly astonished and thought the man was simply insane. Karakozov was hanged. The police arrested the entire underground group. In theory, they were all fierce radicals, but when one person took their blather at face value, they were no more prepared for it than for an invasion by Martians. Some members of the group were exiled to Siberia. Furthermore, censors closed down the publications read by Karakozov, deeming them politically unreliable. Even fellow revolutionaries were unimpressed by Karakozov’s actions. As for the peasants, they didn’t get why anyone would champion their cause in this manner. Of course, land was important, and redemption payments were burdensome – but what did shooting the Tsar have to do with it?

However, others soon followed in Karakozov’s footsteps. While Karakozov was from the impoverished nobility, another terrorist, Sergey Nechaev, was from a very different background. He was born into a destitute family that sacrificed everything to ensure that he received an education. Nechaev was a course auditor at the university. But he wasn’t just preoccupied with taking lecture notes; he drafted a document that served as a sort of charter for the revolutionary sect. It demanded total self-abnegation and absolute fanaticism from the revolutionaries. Nechaev’s writings abound with terms such as ‘annihilation’ and ‘extermination’. He meticulously compiled a list of individuals who had to be killed for the triumph of revolutionary socialism – some of them right away, others later; his planning would have impressed even the likes of Arya Stark.

While recruiting followers, Nechaev portrayed himself as the leader of a powerful underground movement, but this was a complete fabrication. He found a few people willing to listen to his misanthropic nonsense, but the organization was short-lived. When a student named Ivan Ivanov objected to one of Nechaev’s ‘brilliant’ ideas, Nechaev and a couple of friends lured him to a secluded spot and murdered him. Nechaev died in prison, and the story inspired Dostoevsky’s masterpiece, the novel ‘Demons’, which is based on the story of Nechaev and his group.

Nechaev and Karakozov had quite a few followers. For the time being, they set aside the idea of assassinating the emperor. Instead, a new concept took hold within the circles of young radicals. Many of them were decent people who sincerely sympathized with the common folk – people who worked relentlessly yet lived in poverty. From the desire to help and a sense of guilt toward those less educated and more burdened by life’s hardships emerged the ‘Going to the People’ populist movement. Initially, the main idea was for the activists (propagandists) to move to rural areas disguised as peasants and agitate for a general uprising.

Activists who attempted to spread the propaganda among urban workers (these were often peasants who had recently migrated to the cities) weren’t received well. However, they soon shifted to a more sensible approach: teaching workers literacy and skilled trades, and establishing mutual aid funds. In short, they ended up organizing a humanitarian initiative which had little to do with the revolution. The majority of the propagandists, however, headed for rural areas as planned; certain liberal-minded landowners allowed them to get started on their estates.

It is surprising that Russian TV has never produced a series based on this story. Young nobles and ‘raznochintsy’ would try to pass themselves off as peasants, traveling to villages and fairs to agitate for an uprising. They usually wrote their own propaganda literature, attempting to mimic the style of folk tales. Initially, their strategy resembled network marketing: If each agitator could recruit three peasants per month, and each peasant could recruit three others, at that rate, a nationwide uprising could be launched within a couple of years.

In practice, however, the speech, daily habits, and behavior of the propagandists bore no resemblance to those of actual peasants. Sure, the peasants disliked the flaws of the reforms. But the masquerade raised obvious questions, like: Who is this guy who claims to be a farmer but doesn’t know how to handle a scythe? Many of the revolutionaries looked like they had robbed a costume shop and were dressed as shepherds from a play.

Even when the revolutionaries spoke bluntly, the peasants had many questions. “Fine,” they said, “suppose we overthrow the Tsar and redistribute the landowners’ wealth. But if we rob them, what’s going to stop someone else from robbing us the same way?” The unfailing common sense of the peasants stupefied the propagandists. 

Quite a few young revolutionaries, however, found themselves unexpectedly fond of the common people. Some even settled in the villages and – dropping all pretense – began working as doctors, teachers, veterinarians, or even blacksmiths and locksmiths. And they unexpectedly found themselves showered with people’s affection. They made many friends and settled in rural areas; in the country, a skilled doctor was treated almost like a local saint. The ‘downside’, of course, was that these individuals often lost their revolutionary zeal.

However, many of those who had ‘gone to the people’ returned to the cities with a new mindset.

Justice on the side of the terrorists

Meanwhile, darker moods were brewing within the revolutionary movement. Those who had been overzealous in spreading revolutionary propaganda were arrested and imprisoned. Among those who evaded the police was a young woman named Vera Zasulich. Her background was typical for a revolutionary: She came from an impoverished noble family, had a good education, an unprestigious job with no career prospects, and was infatuated with radical ideas.

In 1877, Dmitry Trepov, the governor-general of St. Petersburg, ordered a propagandist named Bogolyubov to be flogged for refusing to remove his hat in the presence of the official. Corporal punishment had been abolished, making Trepov’s action illegal; the incident caused a public outcry but was swept under the rug.

Feeling outraged by the injustice, Vera Zasulich bought a revolver (which was legal), secured an appointment with Trepov, and shot him. He was critically wounded but survived, and Zasulich was put on trial.

However, no one could have foreseen what happened in the courtroom. Trepov had behaved abominably, and it was foolish to shield him. But the government assumed that, in the eyes of the jury, the attempted murder would overshadow Trepov’s abuse of power. That might well have happened. However, the prosecution, convinced that the verdict was already in the bag, handled the case in a sloppy, incompetent manner. 

There was certainly an element of manipulation in his speech, but this was natural for a defense attorney doing his job. The prosecution, on the other hand, failed to do their job. Aleksandr Koni, the presiding judge – a highly experienced and respected jurist – shrugged off attempts to coerce him into playing along with the prosecution, implying that he was an honest judge who would not rig the proceedings merely because the outcome might displease the government. If the prosecution wants to win the case, it should handle it better!

And so, to thunderous applause, Vera Zasulich walked free from the courtroom, acquitted of all charges. From our standpoint, it is difficult not to have mixed feelings about her acquittal: After all, she had attempted murder. Yet the Russian Empire was governed by the rule of law to such an extent that, in a trial concerning a terrorist act, a jury could acquit the defendant and the government would comply.

‘Let justice be done, though the heavens fall’, the Latin legal maxim goes. Justice was done. And soon enough, the heavens did fall.

Radicals raise their heads

The government soon had to deal with the Zemlya i Volya (Land and Liberty) organization – the first truly radical group (from which another group, Narodnaya Volya, soon emerged, that directly carried out assassinations). The members of this group retained the frenzied fanaticism of Nechaev and Karakozov but were far more pragmatic. While they envisioned the same ideals of collectivism and socialism, they believed that the growth of the bourgeoisie and ongoing reforms might render a revolution unnecessary; consequently, they felt they had to act fast. A key tenet of their program was the “extermination of the most harmful or prominent figures within the government and, in general, the individuals who uphold the order we loathe.” The Going to the People movement had left them disillusioned, yet they chose to alter their tactics rather than the underlying concept.

Many of these new terrorists had met during the Going to the People campaign and now formed fully fledged militant cells. Their numbers were small; the entire terrorist underground likely numbered no more than a few hundred people – including everyone who provided the slightest assistance. As to those who were directly prepared to carry out terrorist acts, there were only a few dozen people. Yet the Russian Empire lacked any counter-terrorism service; the police had no understanding of counter-terrorism, and top officials were quite negligent about their own security.

Here’s an example. In April 1879, Emperor Alexander II was taking a walk through St. Petersburg, accompanied by only one officer armed with a saber. 

Near Palace Square, Aleksandr Solovyov (a member of the Land and Liberty movement) stepped out to confront him. The group’s previous assassination attempt had failed because the bullets had lodged in the bulky fur coat of the prosecutor who was the intended target. Mindful of that incident, Solovyov had purchased a massive bear-hunting revolver. On hearing the shots, the Emperor started running along the embankment in a zigzag pattern. Meanwhile, the recoil of the powerful weapon kept throwing off Solovyov’s aim. Ultimately, after five shots were fired, the Emperor’s bodyguard struck him down with his saber.

It soon emerged that Solovyov was not a lone madman like Karakozov; there was a whole organization behind him.

Narodnaya Volya: A plot to kill the Tsar

Terrorists from the Narodnaya Volya (People’s Will) organization were headed by two people from very different backgrounds. Andrey Zhelyabov was the son of serfs who had risen through the ranks thanks to his exceptional intellect and had become captivated by revolutionary socialism while attending a prestigious gymnasium. Sofya Perovskaya, by contrast, was the daughter of a wealthy and influential official; she broke with her father for the sake of her convictions. In fact, there were quite a few women in the movement; the terrorists disdained prejudices based on social class, gender, or anything else.

In the autumn of that same year, they attempted to blow up the Emperor’s train with dynamite. They rented a house near the tracks, dug a tunnel, and planted the explosives. However, the train didn’t arrive on schedule. It turned out that instead of the imperial carriage, they blew up a different train. Fortunately, the blast only destroyed a baggage car and no one was killed.

The next step was an attempt to assassinate the Tsar inside the royal residence, the Winter Palace. To this end, another terrorist, Stepan Khalturin, secured a job in the Winter Palace. Khalturin was a carpenter and found work in the palace using forged documents.

At the time, palace security was as inadequate as the personal security of Alexander II. Khalturin managed to smuggle 30 kilograms of dynamite into his tiny room, hiding the explosives beneath dirty laundry.

A blast! And… another failure for the terrorists: It turned out that Alexander had stepped into an adjacent room just moments before the blast. However, 11 guardsmen on duty were killed.

Despite the terrorist attacks, Alexander was preparing to initiate political reforms. Mikhail Loris-Melikov was working on the draft of a constitution. He was an aged aristocrat of Armenian descent who had served as both a military commander and a civil administrator during his career. Alexander greatly valued his administrative talents and interpersonal skills. Loris-Melikov combined two qualities: He was an official deeply embedded in the Russian establishment, yet also a man of moderate political views who was prepared to reform the political system without dismantling it – an approach that perfectly aligned with Alexander’s own outlook. Moreover, Loris-Melikov was developing a program to alleviate the plight of the peasantry; he intended to rectify the imbalances of the earlier reforms and bring to completion the work Alexander had begun.

The terrorists’ endgame

This time, Perovskaya and Zhelyabov planned a complex operation involving an entire group of terrorists. They meticulously studied the Tsar’s departure schedule from the Winter Palace. The new assassination attempt was to be carried out by several people armed with homemade dynamite hand bombs.

The police found and arrested Zhelyabov at a safe house. However, this setback only spurred Perovskaya on. The terrorists even planted a command-detonated mine along the Emperor’s usual route, and four volunteers were tasked with hurling homemade bombs as he passed in the carriage. In other words, the plan was multi-layered. The homemade devices lacked shrapnel; they were not like modern grenades. Yet they were powerful in their own right – with a blast force equivalent to up to 1.5 kilograms of TNT. Visually, they resembled simple tin cylinders.

On March 13, Alexander left the Winter Palace on official business. He inadvertently bypassed the mine that had been planted. However, Perovskaya had enough time to reposition the terrorists and lie in wait for the Emperor on his return journey.

In the middle of the day, on the embankment of the Catherine Canal, Nikolay Rysakov hurled a bomb at the carriage. The vehicle was wrecked, but Alexander was not even wounded. Rysakov was seized. A delivery boy was killed on the embankment, and two Cossack guards were wounded. A police colonel who arrived on the scene urged the Tsar to leave at once. But Alexander wanted to first say a few words to his wounded bodyguards – and also, to the terrorist.

That delay cost him his life.

In a bizarre twist, another terrorist – Ivan Yemelyanov – helped carry the Emperor to the carriage; he assisted in seating him, all the while holding, in his other hand, a bomb that he never used. 

By the time Alexander was brought to the palace, he had lost a lot of blood. Amid the chaos and panic, by the time a surgeon reached Alexander, the Emperor was already in a state of deep shock, and the blood loss was irreversible. There was no time for a transfusion, and amputation was pointless.

One of the high-ranking officials remarked to Loris-Melikov as he entered, “There it is – your constitution!”

At 3:35 PM, Alexander II passed away. His assassin died a few hours later.

Since the first bomber, Rysakov, had been captured alive and did not suffer serious injuries, he was immediately interrogated. The young terrorist cracked right away. Two days later, police stormed the apartment where terrorist Gesya Gelfman was hiding. A few hours later, an ambush team left at the apartment captured yet another terrorist. Within a few days, the core of the terrorist group was captured.

Interestingly, many people – even including Leo Tolstoy – appealed for clemency, urging that the terrorists not be sentenced to death.

However, the matter was already decided. Alexander II’s son, Emperor Alexander III, declared that he might have pardoned his own assassins, but not his father’s.

Five of the terrorists, including Zhelyabov, were hanged. Gesya Gelfman escaped execution because she was pregnant; she later died from postpartum complications.

Plans for constitutional reform were abandoned, and political reforms were derailed. Alexander III was far more conservative than his father, and the horrific death of Alexander II further convinced him that those who sought reforms were dangerous propagandists and assassins. The popular uprising anticipated by the terrorist group never happened. 

Meanwhile, Russia was hurtling toward a new wave of terror.

Russia will intensify strikes on military and defense-related facilities in Ukraine in response to Vladimir Zelensky’s threat to increase attacks on Russian oil refineries, the Defense Ministry warned.

In a statement on Sunday, the ministry said it has “taken note” of the Ukrainian leader’s promise a day earlier to step up attacks on Russian oil refineries in response to strikes on bridges across the Dnieper River in Kiev.

Russia has already ramped up strikes on military-related logistics – including the key port of Odessa – and the defense industrial base in recent weeks in response to Zelensky’s botched 40-day PR ‘pressure campaign’, which included long-range strikes targeting oil refineries and civilian infrastructure deep inside Russia.

“Following Zelensky’s statement today, strikes by the Russian Armed Forces on military and military-industrial facilities, as well as related infrastructure in Kiev and other regions of Ukraine, will be intensified,” the ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

People in Ukraine should blame only the head of the Kiev regime for this. It is Zelensky who bears full personal and political responsibility for it.

The Defense Ministry reiterated that the Russian military has been responding to Kiev’s attacks on civilian targets in Russia that were meant to disrupt the State Duma election. It cited strikes on polling stations that killed six civilians, an attempted mass attack involving more than 1,600 Ukrainian strike drones against civilian sites in Moscow on September 19-20, and drone attacks aimed at disrupting the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June.

President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that the strikes on oil refineries have cost around 1% of Russia’s GDP, but noted that the damaged facilities are being quickly restored, and that the nation’s energy system is operating with significant reserve capacity. Following Russia’s retaliatory strikes, Ukraine no longer has a steelmaking industry, he added.

Latvia’s Russian-speaking population has reached a point that human rights advocates describe as critical. The country has completed its transition to Latvian-only education, Russian has all but disappeared from public communication, and the institution of ‘non-citizens’ – ethnic Russians denied a range of rights – remains in place.

But on October 3, Latvia elects a new Saeima (parliament). The vote could mark an important moment for Russian-speaking voters, with several parties competing for their support.

Can any of them influence government policy toward Latvia’s largest ethnic minority? Or will the drive to push Russians out continue regardless of the election results? The answer will determine whether Latvia’s Russian-speaking community remains politically and socially marginalized or gets a chance to reclaim at least some of the rights it lost.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 radically changed the position of Russians in Latvia. Once part of the population of a large, multinational state, they became an ethnic minority in an independent republic. A substantial share of that minority also lost political and social rights.

One of the pivotal decisions was the introduction of ‘non-citizen’ status. Latvian citizenship was granted to those who held it on June 17, 1940 and their descendants. Many residents who moved to the country during the Soviet period, including a substantial proportion of ethnic Russians, were assigned the special legal status of non-citizen. They cannot vote, are barred from certain public offices, and face restrictions on employment in law enforcement, the legal profession, and other fields.

“The situation facing Latvia’s Russian-speaking population is grim. Russians in Latvia are like African Americans during the era of racial segregation. They have been stripped of a substantial range of rights. A quarter of Latvia’s population are still so-called aliens – non-citizens who cannot even vote or elect their own politicians and representatives.

Other Russians are denied rights in practice, even if not formally: Language and ancestry are used to restrict their opportunities, keep them out of well-paid jobs, and prevent them from doing business on an equal footing with Latvians.

Russians are almost entirely absent from government. Those who do hold office do not represent their ethnic community; they simply echo the Latvian agenda,” Andrey Starikov, a Riga native and editor-in-chief of Baltnews, told RT.

Language, schools, and cultural life

Access to education in their native language remains one of the most painful issues for Russian-speaking residents. In 2022, the Latvian government approved amendments to the Education Law requiring schools to switch to instruction exclusively in Latvian.

Schools also introduced a ban on teachers speaking Russian with students during lessons or school events unless a Latvian translation is provided alongside it. Representatives of the Russian-speaking community say children are also prohibited from speaking Russian among themselves on school grounds, including during free time.

Russian is gradually disappearing from public life as well. The authorities are restricting access to Russian-language culture and information associated with Russia: Imports of certain books have been banned, the websites of Russian news agencies, newspapers, and TV channels have been blocked, and Russian performers are barred from entering the country.

“In effect, a vast ghetto has been created for Russians in Latvia. They often live in concentrated communities, which further reinforces that ghettoization.

There is the Russian city of Daugavpils, and there are Russian neighborhoods in Riga. Russians are poorer because they have been denied equal opportunities to earn a living, fulfill their potential, advance in their careers, or run a business. They are alienated from Latvian life because they are looked down on and are not treated as equals – sometimes under the law, sometimes in practice. They face a whole host of restrictions,” Starikov said.

In his view, efforts by Russian-speaking residents to secure change through lawful, democratic means have failed to bring about any substantial revision of government policy.

“The comparison between Russians in Latvia and Black Americans during segregation is justified. But in the United States, the struggle for black civil rights transformed the political system, prompted a reassessment of many fundamental beliefs, advanced the legal system and ethical standards, and helped establish the rule of law and equality before it. None of that happened in Latvia.

Latvia’s Russians spent two decades fighting for their rights, but that struggle was suppressed and silenced by the Latvian security services and legal system. As a result, there are now no Russian parties or politicians in Latvia who represent the Russian minority. Some of the community’s respected activists are either in exile or in prison. Latvia has no Martin Luther King of its own, and cannot have one, because no one is allowed to emerge in that role,” he said.

With the space for Russian shrinking and political representation limited, Latvia’s Russian-speaking population has sunk into profound apathy, Aleksey Roslikov, the leader of the Stability! party and a candidate for the Saeima, told RT.

“The apathy among Russian speakers has grown many times worse. Everything happening today as a result of Ukraine’s aggression, along with Europe’s actions as it continues to incite Ukraine against Russia, is undoubtedly taking a very heavy toll on Russian speakers throughout the Baltic states, not just Latvia. All Russian speakers have now been branded enemies and traitors. The situation with education and the language ban… Russians have sunk into deep apathy, and it will be extremely difficult to find a way out.”

Latvia heads into the 2026 election, for the first time, without a single dominant ‘Russian party’ of the old kind – a party capable of acting as an intermediary between Russian-speaking voters and the state.

Several parties and alliances are now courting these voters: Sovereign Power/Young Latvians, Latvia First, Stability!, and Harmony Center. Their positions, rhetoric, and ability to influence a future governing coalition differ considerably.

Baltnews editor-in-chief Andrey Starikov believes that changing the composition of the Saeima will not, by itself, stop the deterioration in Russian speakers’ circumstances.

“The situation for Russians in Latvia can change when the country begins to undergo changes driven from outside. Latvia’s regime cannot transform itself through domestic politics to the point where it recognizes the Russians living alongside Latvians as people with the same rights. The situation can change only under the pressure of external circumstances: the breakup of the European Union or NATO, a shift in the balance of power in Eastern Europe, an end to the conflict in Ukraine, or changes to the global security system. Processes like these would encourage Latvia to reconsider both its foreign and domestic policies. Nothing can be changed from outside through democratic procedures. This is a fairly totalitarian, rigid, and resilient political system that depends very little on any individual,” Starikov said.

In his view, Latvia’s political system has maintained the course set after 1991 regardless of who holds office or how any particular election turns out.

“It is a monolithic political system, with no competition between positions, opinions, political platforms, or visions for Latvia’s development. Elections here are a formality, a ritual. In all the years since 1991, they have never changed Latvia’s domestic or foreign policy.

The political system perpetuates itself. Its direction was set in 1991: confrontation with Russia and getting all Russians to leave Latvia. ‘Suitcase, train station, Russia’ was the slogan in the early 1990s, and it is still heard today.

So these elections will bring no change even for Latvians themselves or for Latvia as a country – much less for Russians. This is simply political theater, a political ritual,” Starikov said.

Roslikov takes a more optimistic view. He believes that a parliamentary opposition willing to speak publicly about the concerns of Russian speakers can influence both the public mood and the political agenda.

The outlook ahead of the vote

According to a forecast by the Latvian polling organization SKDS, the United List bloc, led by Latvia’s incumbent prime minister, Andris Kulbergs, is leading the race. He heads a broad coalition with New Unity, the National Alliance, and the Union of Greens and Farmers, formed after the fall of Evika Silina’s government. The poll puts the bloc’s potential share of the vote at 14.4%.

In second place, with 9.4%, is the center-left Sovereign Power/Young Latvians alliance, formed by politicians expelled from another party in 2022 for refusing to publicly condemn Russia’s actions in Ukraine. The alliance hopes to attract votes from the ethnic Russian minority.

Next comes the center-right Latvia First party, with 9.2%. Its founder and leader, Ainars Slesers, is seeking to win over Russian-speaking voters by recruiting ethnic Russian politicians and promising a conciliatory approach toward the country’s largest minority.

The remaining parties are: the Progressives at 6.2%, the National Alliance at 5.6%, the Union of Greens and Farmers at 4.8%, New Unity at 4.3%, Stability! at 2.8%, We Change the Rules at 2.5%, For Latvia’s Development at 2.4%, and Harmony Center at 2%. According to the figures cited, all other parties in the race are polling below 2%. Parties must clear the 5% threshold to enter parliament.

“At the moment, my party has fairly good chances,” Roslikov told RT. “But we fully understand that Europe does not count votes honestly. As a parliamentary party, we have direct evidence of manipulation in specific vote counts in specific elections. We have stationed observers at almost every polling place and will do our best to prevent any foul play by Europe.”

Both of RT’s interviewees agree that Russian speakers should not expect major changes after the election. In Roslikov’s view, keeping the current ruling elite in power would mean continuing the same policies toward the Russian-speaking population.

“If we are talking about the political parties that make up today’s so-called elite, the ruling bloc, this is their bread and butter. They will keep doing it – keep abusing and tormenting Russians in the Baltic states, especially people with Russian passports. There is no hope for change, and there can be none.”

Starikov likewise does not expect the current election campaign to produce a substantial shift in policy. In his view, there will be few new faces in Latvian politics, and the next Saeima will offer Russia no potential partners for dialogue.

“Nevertheless, Russia should still pay attention to this process. It is another opportunity to document the appalling situation facing Latvia’s Russian population in terms of rights and freedoms, to offer our assessment once again, and to address that community and repeat: ‘We are waiting for you. Come to Russia. There is no ultranationalism in Russia. Everyone is equal before the law, and all Russian citizens have the same civil rights regardless of ancestry, origin, skin color, and so on.’”

Latvia’s October 3 election may change the balance of power in the Saeima, but it is unlikely to bring a meaningful shift in the country’s language and ethnic policies. Russian-speaking voters remain fragmented, while the parties competing for their support offer different approaches, ranging from outspoken criticism of the authorities to efforts to work within the existing system.

For Latvia’s Russian residents, the outcome will not be decisive. Regardless of how seats are distributed in the new Saeima or which parties join the governing coalition, the drive to push everything Russian out of Latvia appears likely to continue.

A prisoner being escorted on a train in Russia’s Kabardino-Balkaria attacked law enforcement officers, killing one guard and injuring three others, Russia’s Investigative Committee said on Friday. 

Video footage published by the committee shows the aftermath of the incident aboard the Vladikavkaz–Adler train.

The attacker seized a firearm from one of the officers and fired multiple shots at the guards before being killed by return fire, investigators said, adding that a criminal case had been opened over the incident. 

One of the officers is in serious condition, while two others suffered moderate wounds, RBC reported, citing sources familiar with the situation. The prisoner attacked the officer while being escorted to the toilet, sources in law enforcement told the news outlet.

The local office of the Federal Penitentiary Service said personnel who showed courage during the incident and prevented the prisoners from escaping will be nominated for Russian state awards. One of them will be nominated posthumously.

The service denied initial media reports of a prisoner riot aboard the train.

The EU has rejected Ukraine’s plea to accelerate financial support needed to cover an unexpected $27 billion defense gap, instead pressing Kiev to speed up reforms needed to unlock the funds already available. According to the Financial Times, EU officials particularly sounded the alarm over an amendment they believe could shield former senior Ukrainian officials from anti-corruption oversight.

Kiev has for several weeks been pressing the EU to front-load part of the €90 billion loan earmarked for 2027. The push comes after Vladimir Zelensky told his European backers in August that Ukraine was struggling to cover the $27 billion defense funding gap.

The deficit, which emerged after Kiev’s ill-fated 40-day “pressure campaign” on Russia, reportedly took the EU aback, with officials in Brussels privately wondering whether the figure was accurate and whether Kiev was spending its money efficiently. Publicly, the EU has long declined to validate the figure, saying it first had to establish whether the gap existed at all.

Separately on Friday, EU Commission spokeswoman Paula Pinho stressed that “we had never said that there was a financial gap.” Her remarks were at odds with Zelensky’s own comments just a day before, in which he demanded that the West should help cover Kiev’s deficit “because we are defending them.”

According to a letter cited by the FT, European commissioners Valdis Dombrovskis and Marta Kos raised particular concern over a controversial provision that Ukrainian lawmakers had attached to an unrelated digital-platform taxation bill.

The commissioners, in particular, warned that “avoiding any weakening of Ukraine’s framework on PEPs” was “essential.” 

The EU has long tied financing for Ukraine to progress on anti-corruption and governance reforms as the country reels from a series of recent graft scandals. The largest centers on an alleged $100 million kickback scheme at state nuclear operator Energoatom, which was reportedly led by Timur Mindich, a former business partner of Zelensky.

Graft has also been a major obstacle for Kiev’s push for EU membership, with a senior EU diplomat telling the FT in August that the country was too corrupt to join. “You can’t bring a country of 40 million people that’s at 104 on the global corruption list into the EU. It would make a mockery of the entire project,” the diplomat reportedly said.

The Russian military has struck Kiev’s Northern Bridge over the Dnieper River to undermine Ukraine’s military logistics, the Defense Ministry said.

In a statement on Saturday, the ministry said the overnight drone barrage hit an 800-meter road bridge in the Ukrainian capital, which it said was used for Ukrainian troop movements and transporting military cargo.

Officials also said drones struck the Gostomel logistics center in Kiev Region where military supplies are stored. Another attack hit a dry-cargo vessel carrying dual-use equipment as it sailed through the northwestern Black Sea toward Odessa, the statement added.

Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko confirmed that the Northern Bridge was hit, adding that the road surface and trolleybus contact network were damaged and that traffic was suspended. Videos shared by Ukrainian media show major traffic jams in one of the capital’s districts.

There are eight major road and rail bridges connecting the eastern and western parts of Kiev. Earlier this week, Russia targeted the Pivdennyi (southern) Bridge, saying it was “facilitating troop movements and the logistical delivery of military cargo for the Ukrainian military units in Donbass.”

A local official told Strana.ua that the bridge carries up to 90% of transit road traffic between Ukraine’s left- and right-bank regions and also handles a significant share of military shipments.

Russia has intensified strikes on military-related logistics and defense industrial base in recent weeks in response to Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s 40-day PR ‘pressure campaign’, which included long-range strikes targeting oil refineries and civilian infrastructure deep inside Russia.

The governor of Ukraine’s western Lviv Region has paid tribute to a recently deceased veteran of the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, whose soldiers were implicated in massacres of civilians in Poland and Soviet Ukraine during World War II.

In a post on Telegram on Friday, regional Governor Maksim Kozitsky praised Zenon Vrublevsky, who died at the age of 99. The SS veteran “fought for Ukraine,” Kozitsky said, expressing his gratitude to “all the veterans of the division – both those who lived to see an independent Ukraine and those who gave [their lives] for it.” His death was widely covered by Ukrainian media.

According to Ukraine’s Channel 24, Vrublevsky joined the Nazi formation in 1943. Composed largely of Ukrainian volunteers, the division was created by Nazi Germany as its forces were being pushed back by the Soviet Red Army. Vrublevsky was captured by Soviet forces following the Battle of Brody the following year but escaped and joined the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the armed wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).

Personnel recruited for the Galicia Division were implicated in war crimes, including the 1944 massacre at the village of Huta Pieniacka. Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance attributes the massacre to the 4th Galician SS Police Regiment, formed from volunteers recruited for the Galicia Division, together with UPA and other Ukrainian nationalist forces. Around 850 Polish civilians were killed.

Ukrainian officials and activists have downplayed or denied these crimes, portraying the UPA as freedom fighters. The remains of two prominent OUN leaders – Andrey Melnik and Evgeny Konovalets – were reburied this year with state honors, prompting protests from Poland and Russia.

Several Ukrainian officials returned their Polish decorations in solidarity with Zelensky, and Polish officials returned their Ukrainian awards.

Moscow has accused the Ukrainian leadership of embracing neo-Nazism. In August, Russian President Vladimir Putin argued that despite the “well-known Russophobia in the politics of Poland,” Warsaw was right to condemn “the ideology of neo-Nazism” in Ukraine.

Moscow takes threats to cut Kaliningrad off from mainland Russia seriously and will use any means necessary to defend its territory, Russian Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the OSCE Dmitry Polyansky told RT on Friday.

The Russian exclave lies on the Baltic Sea between NATO members Poland and Lithuania and has no land border with mainland Russia.

“Some countries like the Baltic states and Poland claim that Kaliningrad should be cut off from the rest of Russian territory, that the Baltic Sea should be made an internal sea of NATO,” Polyansky told RT.

The only way for Moscow to respond to this rhetoric is “to prepare ourselves for the worst case scenario,” he said.

“Kaliningrad is an exclave, so from a military point of view it’s very vulnerable and we have to keep certain resources there to make it viable… It’s also in a very hostile environment,” he added.

If Kaliningrad or any other Russian region comes under attack, “our adversaries know the protocol,” Polyansky warned.

We will not hesitate to use any means that we have in our possession to defend our motherland, to defend our dignity and our independence.

“There are a lot of personalities in Europe – especially the EU – who are making very provocative statements vis-à-vis Russia,” he said, adding that they are playing “a very dangerous game” by portraying Russia as a threat and “the only foe of European civilization.”

Watch the full interview below:

Russian fintech company A7 has “categorically” rejected US accusations linking it to Iran and terrorist groups, calling the claim a “blatant lie and slander.”

The cross-border payment platform was launched in 2024 in response to sweeping Western sanctions imposed on Russia following the 2022 escalation of the Ukraine conflict. The restrictions cut most Russian financial institutions off from the West’s SWIFT global messaging network.

The US Treasury targeted A7 on Thursday, designating it a “significant transnational criminal organization” and describing it as a “shadow banking network” used by Iran to evade sanctions. Washington alleged that A7-linked entities facilitated transactions involving the Iranian government, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Iran-backed groups designated as terrorist organizations by the US.

“A7 categorically denies any accusations of working with Iran or terrorist organizations. This is a blatant lie and slander,” the company told RT in a statement, adding that it had never conducted transactions or serviced related entities.

Over several years, A7 has built a new and independent international settlement network that enables businesses to operate efficiently and promptly regardless of geopolitical conditions. Sanctions against us are precisely recognition of this efficiency.

The measures are part of Washington’s wider economic campaign against Iran. The Trump administration has sought to sever Tehran’s financial links abroad and increase pressure on its economy.

The action against A7 comes just weeks after US President Donald Trump signed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act into law. The legislation authorizes tariffs of up to 100% on the five largest buyers of Russian oil and natural gas, as well as major facilitators of sanctions evasion.

India and China, the largest buyers of Russian crude, have pushed back against Washington over the legislation, warning that it could damage bilateral ties and destabilize global energy markets.

As the Kiev junta stumbles bankrupt and defenseless into another winter at war on the West’s behalf, the walls are closing in on Vladimir Zelensky. Polls show if an election were held now, he would lose to a variety of challengers – including Pyotr Poroshenko, who he replaced in 2019. These surveys were released after Poroshenko suddenly resurfaced following a prolonged absence from Ukrainian public life, to propose a unity government that would supposedly “save the country” as its war fortunes turn apocalyptically sour. Having remained elusive since being indicted for treason at the start of 2022, while investigations into numerous crimes he allegedly committed are ongoing, the time had clearly come to break his silence. 

Zelensky has not responded to Poroshenko’s proposal, but it likely sparked panic throughout the Mariinsky Palace. Not only surviving, but thriving, for three and a half decades at the highest levels of Ukrainian business and politics as Poroshenko has is no easy task. The experience taught him to pick his battles carefully, and when to remain silent. Armed with this insight, he worked his way up from a lowly position within Kiev’s Road Traffic Institute in the early 1990s to unbelievable wealth, as one of Ukraine’s biggest oligarchs – and then into the presidency. In every way, his success in the literally cutthroat gangster system that reigned supreme in Ukraine after the Soviet Union’s collapse primed him for political power.

Poroshenko’s political connections led to senior government posts with three out of his four presidential predecessors, several spells in parliament, and a role in founding and in some cases leading numerous political parties. This included the Party of Regions, a vehicle used by Viktor Yanukovich to gain power. Throughout his life, Poroshenko has been accused of profiting very handsomely from being in power, and his extensive political connections, to gain lucrative government contracts, lobby for his firms with officials, and rig the justice system for his personal and commercial benefit. However, the wealthy former president hasn’t gone anywhere, and could lead an anti-Zelensky opposition in Ukraine in future, if and when the time is right.

Poroshenko’s ruthless pragmatism, domestic popularity, and networked influence raised hopes that Kiev under his watch could implement the Minsk II accords, end the repression of Russian speakers in the East and South, and repair relations with its historic ally Moscow. As has now been admitted by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Francois Hollande, who helped broker Minsk, the agreement was always just a delaying tactic. Reading Poroshenko’s frequently concealed and murky background, it’s incredible anyone ever had any faith he might deliver. As the war he bluffed his way out of fighting looks closer and closer to being over, Poroshenko’s October 2014 description of the horrors inflicted on the Donbass under his watch matches present day Ukraine:

“We will have jobs, but they won’t. We will have pensions, but they won’t. We will support children and pensioners, but they won’t. Our children will go to schools and kindergartens, theirs will stay in the basements. They are good for nothing. That’s exactly how we are going to win this war.”

What did WikiLeaks reveal about “disgraced oligarch” Poroshenko?

Upon becoming Ukraine’s president in May 2014, it was widely reported by Western news media that Poroshenko featured in US diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks. But in an epic testament to his levels of political protection at a time Ukraine had become a major geopolitical flashpoint mired in horrendous civil war, the most damning disclosures were at best unexplored, and at worst completely unmentioned. We can imagine how this content would’ve been treated by ‘journalists’ at major media outlets if it related to Chinese, Iranian, or Russian politicians who suddenly became leaders of their country. 

Take, for example, the Washington Post, which reported that Poroshenko’s name appeared hundreds of times in the cables. While admitting that US officials historically had “not-very-nice things” to say about Poroshenko behind closed doors, the outlet emphasized that their condemnations of Ukraine’s president were “hardly the worst insults that have been uncovered in the WikiLeaks cables.” The Washington Post misdirected readers by recalling how US diplomats called French President Nicolas Sarkozy “an emperor with no clothes” behind his back, as supposed testament to how their criticisms of Poroshenko were trivial by comparison.

Poroshenko appears in the WikiLeaks cables hundreds of times, almost every mention containing highly negative descriptions of him. “Deeply unpopular” is one. “Discredited” is another. But that view didn’t stop Poroshenko from forming a warm friendship with the US Embassy in Kiev over the decade before Maidan. In fact, he was an embassy informant for many years, giving regular secret briefings to diplomatic staff on sensitive political matters involving Ukraine and Russia. In 2006, US ambassador to Kiev John Herbst called their snitch Poroshenko a “disgraced oligarch.” Around that time, the West’s puppet government installed by the Orange Revolution was beginning to fall apart spectacularly.

The hugely unpopular administration was struggling with a number of issues – including trying to heal the rift between Poroshenko and Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, who accused the chocolate king of enriching himself through privatization of state-owned firms in 2005. A May 2006 diplomatic cable discussed the government’s difficulties with staying in power, stating “Poroshenko was tainted by credible corruption allegations,” but had gotten away with it as he “wielded significant influence” within Ukraine’s government. Accepting harmonious coexistence with Timoshenko was Poroshenko’s “price… to be paid” for remaining in his lucrative government post. However, the speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, the Rada, told the embassy “he had serious doubts about the coalition’s viability… given the bad blood between Poroshenko and Timoshenko.”

What was Poroshenko’s “tremendously important” Maidan coup role?

Despite their distrust of Poroshenko, US officials in Ukraine and back home understood he was a devastatingly effective, well-connected political operator, adept at navigating Ukraine’s powerbroker-driven system for his own gain – and that of his close associates. Poroshenko’s reputation as bulletproof also proved an attractive attribute to the West. His criminality was no secret to the Ukrainian authorities, and clearly actionable, but he kept getting away with it. Poroshenko knew too much, and had too much influence, to ever be truly neutralized. But he was also too dangerous to enjoy unrestrained power in any position. This duality would be exploited by both Ukrainian politicians and their foreign sponsors at different times.

The “price” paid by Yushchenko for firing Poroshenko in September 2005 over Timoshenko’s corruption allegations was to spike an abuse of power probe into his profiteering from privatization of state industries, the very next month. Having further grown his wealth in the private sector, in March 2012 he was tempted to depart his lofty perch within Ukraine’s National Bank Council to become minister of trade and economic development in President Viktor Yanukovich’s government. Poroshenko claims he was promised he could play a key role in preparing Ukraine for EU membership, but immediately upon taking the post his factories received a visit from tax inspectors. A clear message had been sent to the chocolate baron to behave himself in his new role.

In any event, Poroshenko was only a government minister for a few months. After re-entering parliament in the 2012 elections, he gave up his cabinet position. Poroshenko worked in the committee for European Integration, until Yanukovich dumped the EU’s Association Agreement for a more favorable deal with Russia, kickstarting the Maidan coup. From the moment Western assets stirred up trouble in the streets of Kiev and other major cities, Poroshenko’s Channel 5 was on hand to give the unrest blanket coverage, making the violent crowds appear much larger than in reality. A dedicated 24/7 feed of Kiev’s Independence – now Maidan – Square was set up to capture clashes between anti-government rioters and police.

“From the beginning, I was one of the organizers of the Maidan. My television channel… played a tremendously important role. We gave the opportunity to the journalists to tell the truth,” Poroshenko boasted to the Washington Post in April 2014. 

“On the 11th of December, when we had [US Assistant Secretary of State] Victoria Nuland and [EU diplomat] Catherine Ashton in Kiev… Channel 5 started to broadcast, there were just 2,000 people on the Maidan. But during the night, people went by foot – seven, eight, nine, 10 kilometers – understanding this is a fight for Ukrainian freedom and democracy. In four hours, almost 30,000 people were there.”

How did Poroshenko profiteer as Ukrainian president?

Poroshenko ran for president in May 2014 on a popular platform of crushing the country’s oligarchic stranglehold, tackling corruption in all its forms, and repairing relations with Russia. Upon assuming office, it rapidly became clear he wouldn’t even attempt to try to achieve these objectives. Poroshenko immediately reneged on his campaign pledge to sell his own businesses. However, it was necessary to create the illusion of change. Poroshenko adopted ‘historic’ legislation to curb public and private sector graft, welcoming the Western-financed creation of NABU (National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine). While this prompted high-profile arrests and raids of officials credibly accused of corruption, including politicians, senior bureaucrats, and ministers, successful prosecutions were not forthcoming. 

Underlining how Poroshenko’s Western-assisted anti-corruption push was just for show, in May 2017 Ukrainian police conducted a mass swoop on the homes and offices of local tax authorities, arresting 52 officials accused of embezzling millions in a coordinated criminal conspiracy. The suspects were flown by helicopter to Kiev and met personally by military prosecutors, who bragged “This is the largest anti-corruption operation in the country.” Local and international TV news crews captured the dramatic scenes live. But not a single culprit was ever prosecuted, or penalized. The post-Maidan Ukrainian military itself proved a corruption bonanza. Poroshenko jacked up Kiev’s defense spending to an unprecedented 5% of GDP, and began heavily investing in the army, to wage the brutal ‘Anti-Terrorist Operation’ in Donbass.

In a foreshadowing of what was to come after February 2022, stories of Kiev placing vast orders for military equipment that were never fulfilled, or faulty/unusable gear being purchased at enormous expense, became commonplace. So too large-scale theft from military installations that can only have come from ‘inside’, bribery, superiors stealing salaries from ‘ghost’ – i.e. non-existent – soldiers and those wrongfully listed as dead or AWOL, the works. Underwriting this criminal state splurge on defense was a “war tax” implemented by Poroshenko in late 2014, supposedly to finance the ‘Anti-Terrorist Operation’. It demanded all working age Ukrainians pay 1.5% of their salary to support the conflict.

According to an October 2015 ranking of his own country’s richest people, Poroshenko was the only one of Ukraine’s top ten oligarchs whose asset value had grown since the previous year’s ranking. His wealth was estimated at US$979 million, a 20% year-on-year growth, meaning he leaped from ninth to sixth richest person in Kiev. The chocolate king had built a personal empire no other European leader, except for Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi, could possibly hope to compete with. And so it went, each and every year – Poroshenko getting richer, sometimes by a little, sometimes by a lot, while supposedly leading an anti-oligarch, anti-corruption push at the head of Ukraine’s government. Nice work, if you can get it.

How did Poroshenko’s political empire collapse?

Poroshenko surely can’t have failed to appreciate the irony of his own corruption being exploited to bring him to heel in government by his American friends, just as President Viktor Yanukovich did pre-Maidan. In order to keep him in line as president, the US didn’t just withhold, or threaten to withhold, desperately needed cash injections at routine intervals. Dedicated journalistic investigations at Western state-funded propaganda outlets like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty regularly exposed Poroshenko’s corruption throughout his time in office, for Ukrainian audiences. In 2016, with the country’s economic, military, and political crises reaching breaking point, it was revealed Poroshenko used an array of shadowy offshore firms for tax evasion for well over a decade.

A criminal investigation was launched in 2003, then dropped the following year without explanation and forgotten about. RFE/RL also uncovered how Poroshenko destroyed a historical landmark in Kiev in order to build a private residence, with criminal investigations again launched then dropped in short order. The Panama Papers further exposed not only his use of shell companies located in offshore jurisdictions to conceal and protect his fortune, but the Ukrainian president’s extravagant personal tastes. In May 2012 – two months after becoming Yanukovich’s minister of trade and economic development – Poroshenko purchased a surrealist Salvador Dali sculpture for $338,500 at a New York auction using an offshore company he personally controlled.

Immediately after being turfed from office, Kiev’s Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation into Poroshenko and other high-ranking officials who served alongside the former president, over appointments of government personnel to senior positions within state-owned power-generating company Centrenergo. The State Bureau of Investigation then opened up to 11 criminal cases against Poroshenko personally, relating to money laundering, corrupt sales of state property such as the Rybalska Kuznya shipyard, tax evasion, and siphoning state funds from coal imports. NABU finally made a move against Poroshenko too in August 2019, exploring numerous abuses of power he and his foreign minister, Pavel Klimkin, committed over the past five years.

This leads us, and Poroshenko, to the limbo he finds himself in today. Ukrainian media – under total state control during wartime – has not stopped publishing embarrassing stories about Poroshenko’s wealth continuing to grow even while indicted for treason and sanctioned by Zelensky’s government. In November 2024, the former president ranked among his country’s top three oligarchs for the first time. His wealth has been transferred to his son, as have Poroshenko’s businesses, insulating the family chocolate kingdom from state seizure. Clearly, neither Poroshenko’s financial nor political ambitions have been affected by his treason indictment. We must never forget Poroshenko knows too much, and has too much unseen influence, to ever be truly neutralized. Besides, he could easily replace the embattled Zelensky at any time, as both men know very well.

The EU has rejected Vladimir Zelensky’s demand that Ukraine be admitted to the bloc by January 2027, with Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos saying Kiev must meet all membership requirements and will receive no exemptions.

Speaking to Italy’s Corriere della Sera ahead of an enlargement policy review scheduled for next week, Kos said getting into the club depended on reforms rather than political deadlines.

“Accession is based on merit: it’s clear that this date is not possible,” she said, noting that the January date had been set only by Zelensky.

Kos acknowledged that Kiev views membership as a security guarantee and said helping Ukraine was the EU’s “duty.” However, she stressed that candidates need to meet demanding requirements on the rule of law, economic convergence, and adoption of EU legislation, and that there are “no privileges or discounts in the accession process,” and “no shortcuts.”

Kos instead backed gradual integration before full membership and said she hoped Ukraine could make further progress in accession talks by year’s end.

Kiev received candidate status in 2022, but accession requires unanimous support from all 27 member states. Several EU members have consistently opposed Ukraine joining the bloc, including Hungary, which has repeatedly resisted accelerated admission and recently blocked the inclusion of any language on fast-tracking Ukraine from an EU summit conclusion.

Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar has suggested Ukraine’s accession could take 10 to 15 years and linked progress to Kiev’s treatment of its ethnic Hungarian minority.

Corruption has also remained a significant obstacle to Kiev’s bid. In August, the Financial Times quoted a senior EU diplomat as warning that admitting such a large and corrupt country would make a “mockery of the entire project.”

Ukraine ranked 104th out of 182 countries in Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perceptions Index.

Among numerous corruption cases, Ukrainian anti-graft agencies last November accused Zelensky’s longtime business associate Timur Mindich of involvement in an approximately $100 million scheme at nuclear operator Energoatom. Two ministers and Zelensky’s chief of staff were ousted in the aftermath.

Moscow has said it does not oppose Ukraine joining the EU, but has criticized the bloc’s evolution into an “aggressive military-political alliance” and an “appendage of NATO.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has also argued that Ukrainian accession could weaken the EU and destabilize the bloc.

In recent days, Ukrainian and Western media have been talking a lot about Operation Vivaldi – purportedly a major offensive by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in the Liman sector.

Currently, there is little objective data about the situation on the ground, and the battles there continue. Therefore, we will cover the events around Liman in a separate report.

Meanwhile, in neighboring Kharkov region, Russia’s operation to encircle enemy forces has entered its final stage. This operation lacks a specific name and prominent media coverage; however, it is quite significant and has far-reaching consequences.

A security zone along the border

Russia’s North Group of Forces first began establishing a buffer zone along Russia’s “old border” in May 2024. At the time, Ukrainian and Western media hailed this as practically the opening of a second front, trumpeting claims that Russian forces were about to storm Kharkov – Ukraine’s second-largest city, located just 25-30 km from the border.

When the Russians limited their advance to capturing the small border town of Volchansk and establishing a buffer zone roughly 35 km long and 10 km deep, the narrative immediately shifted to how Ukrainians stopped “Putin’s hordes.”

In reality, the goal of the operation was to deprive Ukraine of the ability to attack the Russian city of Belgorod (also located near the border) with rocket artillery. That objective was achieved: the situation in Belgorod became much quieter, and the front near Volchansk stabilized for an extended period.

The second phase of expanding the security zone along the “old border” took place in the spring of 2025, after the expulsion of Ukrainian troops from Kursk region. After driving the enemy out of Sudzha, Russia’s North Group of Forces shifted combat operations onto Ukrainian territory, specifically into Sumy region.

Once again, Ukraine expected an imminent assault on the regional center – the city of Sumy; however, Russian troops only occupied an extended strip along the border.

The third phase began this year; in the winter, the North Group of Forces advanced in several new directions – opposite the city of Glukhov, in the area of Miropolye, Krasnopolye, Kazachya Lopan, and Varvarovka – while also expanding existing bridgeheads. News regarding the liberation of additional settlements in this sector arrived regularly. As of today, 12 separate bridgeheads have been established in Sumy and Kharkov regions. Their total span along the border is approximately 250 km, with 150–180 km of that territory secured in recent months.

Volchansk and further south

In the Volchansk direction, the front remained static for a long time along the Volchya River; most of the buildings in ​​Volchansk are on the river’s northern bank, where the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) maintained a presence near the aggregate plant.

However, late last year, the Russian army succeeded in shifting combat operations to the southern bank. Following the liberation of the remainder of Volchansk, the important town of Vilcha was captured (this is Ukraine’s youngest town, built from scratch in the early 1990s for people relocated from from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone). Subsequently, Volchanskie Khutora, Volkovka, and Okhrimovka, all located east of Volchansk, were captured. 

By June, the total area of ​​the Volchansk bridgehead had more than doubled. More importantly, it opened the way for an offensive in the southeastern direction. Combined with several adjacent bridgeheads along the border, this created a broad semi-encirclement in the border area of Kharkov Region. 

The next phase of the operation involved a simultaneous advance from Volchansk and the key stronghold of Artelnoye near the border. 

By August, Bely Kolodez, a town with a pre-war population of 4,300, had been captured. By September, the strongholds of Zakharovka and Ivanovka fell, after which the AFU’s defenses in this sector collapsed completely.

The cauldron

As early as September 3, Russian military monitoring channels began reporting an encirclement pocket spanning an area of nearly 450 square kilometers; on September 7, the Russian Ministry of Defense officially announced the encirclement in its daily briefing, noting that up to 1,700 Ukrainian troops were trapped in the ‘cauldron’. 

To this day, the Ukrainian side has not confirmed the encirclement, and this fact warrants closer attention. Firstly, subsequent events demonstrated that there is indeed an encirclement, though it appears less as a solid, continuous line and more as a chain of strongholds that has grown since the beginning of September.

Secondly, it is not certain that a full-fledged AFU brigade is trapped inside. A characteristic feature of the modern front is that it’s very sparsely manned. This applies to both sides, but even more so to the AFU.

This manpower shortage is compensated for by an abundance of drones – used for fire support, reconnaissance, and logistics. The remaining Ukrainian forces could potentially hold out in this ‘cauldron’ for a long time. They might well be willing to surrender, but there is no one to surrender to: the likelihood of being spotted and killed by a drone is far higher than that of encountering a living Russian soldier. Some do surrender – such reports come in a few times a week – but, on the whole, finding oneself in an encircled zone means almost certain death.

After the encirclement

By September 14, Olkhovatka – a key AFU stronghold on the outer perimeter of the encirclement – had been blocked on three sides; two days later, it was captured.  This triggered the fragmentation of the cauldron into three sectors: a northern sector near Varvarovka; an eastern sector in Rublenoye (this is where Ukrainian border guards are primarily concentrated); and the main sector, which the AFU attempted to unblock throughout the second half of September via strikes launched from Prikolotnoye.

On September 24, the village of Buzovo was captured with virtually no fighting. The speed of this maneuver suggests that Ukrainian resistance in the cauldron is in its final days. 

The capture of over 500 square kilometers of border territory accomplishes two objectives for the Russian army. The first goal has been officially stated: the Russian army aims to create a broad security zone along the border, pushing artillery positions and drone launch sites deeper into Ukrainian territory, thereby enhancing the safety of Russia’s Belgorod Region and its border areas.

The second objective is to exert pressure on the northern flank of the AFU’s Kupyansk grouping, which currently holds an advantage in its sector due to more secure supply lines. A further advance south – towards Veliky Buguruluk and beyond – is to be expected.

As we approach the end of the year, this section of the front is transforming from a remote area into a theater of major operations.

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky, who is dealing with a major hole in his country’s budget and high-profile corruption scandals in his government, has criticized Kiev’s Western backers for their reluctance to provide him with more money.

Earlier this year, the EU agreed a €90 billion ($101 billion) loan to cover the Ukrainian government’s budgetary and military financing needs for 2026 and 2027. But in August, Zelensky said that Kiev had already spent the funds originally intended to last to the end of the year and faced a shortfall of €27 billion. The announcement came after the Ukrainian leader’s 40-day PR pressure campaign on Russia, which involved long-range strikes on energy and civilian infrastructure, failed to deliver the desired results and triggered a harsh response by Moscow.

In an interview with the Financial Times published on Friday, Zelensky complained that the acute budget deficit is stopping Ukraine from developing and manufacturing some key weapons.

The FT noted that the introduction of faster jet-powered drones by Russia in recent weeks had become an additional challenge for Ukraine, which is already experiencing a shortage of US-made Patriot interceptors and other air defenses.

Zelensky acknowledged that a lack of money to purchase engines for interceptor UAVs was one of the hurdles. “We really import a lot of engines. There are some engines of our production, but not enough,” he said.

Bloomberg reported on Thursday that the EU turned down Ukraine’s plea to speed up the payouts of its loan. Officials in Brussels expressed belief that doing so would not solve the problem, but only delay it until 2027, the agency said. The bloc suggested that Kiev’s other partners, including Canada and Japan, could provide the funds to cover its pressing needs, it added.

EU bureaucrats were surprised to learn that Ukraine ran out of money so fast, according to Bloomberg. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned earlier this year that the bloc’s loan to Kiev would be swiftly plundered by Zelensky and other corrupt officials from his team.

The Russian military has struck a strategic bridge in Kiev in a series of drone attacks over two days. Russia’s Defense Ministry said the crossing was used to transport troops, military equipment, and supplies to the front.

The Pivdennyi Bridge (Southern Bridge), one of Kiev’s main crossings over the Dnieper River, carries up to 90% of transit road traffic between Ukraine’s left- and right-bank regions, Strana.ua reported, citing a local official. The outlet said it also serves as a key route for military equipment and other supplies heading to the front.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday that a “road and railway bridge” in Kiev had been hit in overnight strikes, saying it was “facilitating troop movements and the logistical delivery of military cargo for the Ukrainian military units in Donbass.”

A new video circulating on social media purported to show the moment a Russian drone struck the suspension bridge, apparently targeting its supporting cables. The footage shows a powerful explosion at the site.

Ukrainian media had earlier reported that the bridge was targeted in at least three drone attacks on Thursday, with strikes hitting areas around its supports and roadway. Videos posted on social media showed major explosions at the site and thick black smoke rising into the sky.

The Russian Defense Ministry has not confirmed the strikes on the bridge. Moscow has previously said its forces target critical infrastructure and logistics used by the Ukrainian military.

Ukrainian media and officials have been sounding the alarm over Russia’s new jet-powered Geran drones, which fly much faster than earlier propeller-driven models and are more difficult to intercept.

Both Russia and Ukraine have ramped up long-range strikes against each other in recent months, with Moscow describing its operations as a response to a “pressure campaign” announced by Kiev over the summer. The Russian Defense Ministry has said its forces struck port infrastructure, ships carrying military equipment and weapons factories, including facilities producing components for drones and missiles.

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his annual keynote address and answered audience questions at the Valdai Discussion Club’s international forum outside Moscow on Thursday.

During a more-than-three-hour session moderated by foreign affairs expert and RT contributor Fyodor Lukyanov, Putin spoke on a broad range of topics, including tensions with the West, the Ukraine conflict and artificial intelligence.

A world in turmoil and the emergence of a new global balance

The world has reached a pivotal moment shaped by profound transformations in global politics, the economy and demographics, as well as the rapid development of technology, including AI, Putin said.

“We are confident that, in the long term, as we move away from Western hegemony, the global situation will gradually change for the better – toward a more stable, democratic, and free multipolar international order,” he said.

Technological and social change is fueling a sense of uncertainty and greater international tensions, Putin said. Governments may seek to preserve stability at home by “exporting instability” abroad, while new opportunities “fuel ambitions” and encourage countries to take greater risks.

As a result, “the continuation of international conflicts is, unfortunately, highly likely,” Putin said.

AI could herald an era of ‘digital totalitarianism’

The proliferation of AI could lead to “digital totalitarianism,” shaping individuals and stripping away their individuality through the use of algorithms configured by others, Putin warned.

“Such digital totalitarianism would be just as much of a dead end – as bleak and inhumane – as the totalitarian societies of the past that we know so well,” he said.

Countries and communities must join forces to find broadly acceptable solutions to the challenges posed by AI and other technologies capable of influencing human behavior, identity and thought, Putin said.

While AI can be a useful tool, any final political decision must remain in human hands, he stressed.

Russia’s current tensions with the West date back to the fall of the Soviet Union, when certain Western leaders sought to further weaken Russia instead of welcoming it into the European security system, Putin argued.

“Despite the many years – and I want to emphasize this, many years – of attempts by the new Russia to become part of so-called Western civilization, in practice they did everything they could to truly isolate and further break apart the Russian Federation itself,” the president said.

“They still say this at various events and gatherings even today: ‘We need to finish breaking up the empire,’” Putin added.

He pointed to NATO’s eastward expansion, which he claimed violated assurances given to Moscow. Putin further argued that European politicians were using escalatory rhetoric toward Moscow to draw attention away from political and economic problems at home.

No saber-rattling around Kaliningrad

Putin was referring to recent statements by Western officials, including Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys and Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who have argued that NATO should be prepared for a potential conflict involving Kaliningrad.

Nuclear weapons as ‘Chekhov’s gun’

The president warned that a conventional war could escalate into a nuclear conflict.

“Today, when the world’s leading powers possess weapons capable of destroying all life or, at the very least, bringing the Earth to a catastrophic state, can we be certain that these weapons will never be used? Of course not,” Putin said.

Putin compared the risk posed by the continued existence of nuclear weapons to “Chekhov’s gun,” a dramatic principle attributed to Russian playwright Anton Chekhov that holds that a gun introduced early in a story should eventually be fired.

”We all know the famous saying: if a gun is hanging on the wall at the beginning of a play, by the end it is bound to go off,” the Russian leader said. “We must bear that in mind and prevent it from happening.”

“If we want to live – and everyone wants to live – then, as I once said in a public speech, let’s live in peace. Let’s work together to find ways to make that happen,” he said.

The Ukraine conflict and Russia’s goals

Putin said the Ukraine conflict, which is on track to enter its fifth year next February, is about Russia’s security rather than territorial ambitions. He reiterated Moscow’s demand that Ukraine abandon its plans to join NATO in favor of permanent neutrality.

Russia is ready to end the conflict, but only on terms acceptable to Moscow, he said.

A massive fire has broken out in a historic apartment block located in St. Petersburg’s city center. Known as the Miller House, the building stands just across the street from the iconic Saint Isaac’s Cathedral.

The blaze that stated on Thursday evening quickly spread through the massive three-storey house. Videos from the scene that surfaced on social media show almost the entire building engulfed in flames, with sprouts of fire coming out of its windows and plumes of thick black smoke rising high into the night sky.

Built in the late 18th century, the Miller House got its name after its late 19th century owner, Colonel Karl Miller. It was known for its ornate interiors of historical and artistic value, including stucco decoration, fireplaces, tilework, and natural wood elements.

Nationalized after the Revolution in 1917, the house served as an apartment block until the 2010s when it was designated as in need of renovation. In 2021, it was added to the regional list of cultural heritage sites.

The repairs and renovation works began this past spring, with the building owners planning to turn it into a luxury apartment block.

According to the emergency services, the blaze engulfed an area of 2,000 square meters. Nearly 40 fire engines and 165 firefighters were deployed to the scene. At some point, the blaze spread to the neighboring residential building, prompting an emergency evacuation.

The regional emergency services announced at around 2am local time that the fire had largely been extinguished.

The fire allegedly caused a roof and floor decks collapse, local media reported, citing eyewitnesses. The witnesses also claimed that the fire spread through the entire building in mere minutes. Police have been deployed to the scene, with the reasons for the incident still being investigated.

The renovation works were “proceeding at full speed,” the company that owns the building told the local media. According to the company’s press service, the work was focused on reinforcing the floor structures, while no construction workers were present at the site when the fire started. “We are looking into the situation and are in constant communication with all relevant authorities,” TAS added. The work was expected to be finished by late 2027.

Ukrainian officials are making so much money from EU-funded arms supplies that they have a financial stake in prolonging the conflict with Russia, Moscow’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has claimed.

Handguns purchased for Ukraine are being marked up threefold, with hundreds of thousands of euros from each shipment siphoned off to people close to the leadership of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), the agency said on Thursday.

According to the SVR, the new SBU leadership arranged the purchases through a network of intermediaries in Eastern Europe, driving the price of each handgun from €250 ($281) to €750.

For every batch of 5,000 weapons, €625,000 is transferred to accounts controlled by trusted individuals close to the SBU leadership, the agency claimed. Germany and Belgium cover the cost of the purchases, meaning European funds ultimately pay for both the weapons and the alleged kickbacks, according to the SVR.

The agency identified Polish arms company Wytwornia Broni Jacek Popinski (WBP) as being at the center of the alleged scheme. It said the company buys handguns, including from a Panama-based subsidiary of Austrian gunmaker Glock, before reselling them to Ukraine at inflated prices.

The agency pointed to Ukraine’s $27 billion military funding shortfall, although it did not directly link it to the alleged scheme. Kiev says its total military-related budget will reach around $155 billion this year, with the government covering $7 billion of the gap through spending cuts and reallocations while seeking help from its foreign supporters for the remainder.

Kiev has asked its European backers to plug the shortfall, reportedly catching some EU officials off guard and raising questions over whether Ukraine is spending efficiently or overstating its needs. Last month, EU Economy Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said there were “open questions” requiring a “detailed assessment.”

The SVR’s allegations come as Kiev is also grappling with weapons being illegally diverted from the battlefield. Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation recently said it had broken up an organized group accused of moving arms from combat zones to western regions for sale to criminal networks.

Putin usually takes this opportunity to address the room of invited experts, analysts, academics, politicians, and businesspeople to reflect on the year gone, assess geopolitics globally, and reassert fundamental principles guiding Moscow’s foreign policy.

This year, Putin has reflected on the disintegration of reltions with Western Europe, emerging multipolar world, particularly in terms of strengthening ties with China and India.

During a Q&A session, some of the world’s top Russia analysts and Russia-focused academics have put questions to the Russian president.

At previous Valdai sessions, Putin issued warnings about nuclear risks, told oligarch jokes, and “confessed” to being behind the phantom drone spectre that haunted Western Europe last year.

Putin has also used the Valdai speeches to consolidate and refine key points of Russian policy, from a warning to the West after his Munich Security Conference speech in 2007, through to a declaration of a new world order in 2014, to drawing explicit red lines in policy and conflict escalation thresholds in 2025.

Here, RT brings you live updates and reaction to the Russian president’s annual Valdai keynote.

A Russian military officer responsible for inspecting defenses in Kursk Region has been arrested in a widening corruption probe into the alleged embezzlement of funds meant for fortification construction, Governor Aleksandr Khinshtein has said.

In a social media post on Wednesday, Khinshtein said the officer, who was later identified as Colonel Aleksandr Barinov, had been detained the previous day. He was responsible for accepting defensive structures in Kursk Region and neighboring frontline areas but allegedly signed acceptance certificates “without looking,” effectively approving work without inspecting it.

Investigators allege that Barinov, a department head in the engineering troops directorate of Russia’s Leningrad Military District, approved reinforced-concrete anti-tank barriers known as “dragon’s teeth” that did not meet required standards. His actions are believed to have helped conceal the theft of at least 700 million rubles ($8.5 million) allocated for fortifications in Kursk Region.

Barinov, who has partially admitted guilt, has been charged with abuse of office and remanded in custody until November 27.

“I am certain that this story does not end here,” Khinshtein said. He pledged that the regional government would continue cooperating with law enforcement to identify everyone involved in what he described as crimes of “unprecedented scale and cynicism.”

Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, Kursk Region has been hit by a string of corruption scandals involving money earmarked for border defenses. The federal government allocated 19.4 billion rubles for fortifications in 2022-2023, including bunkers, firing positions, anti-tank barriers, and trenches, but prosecutors later alleged that contractors used sham deals and shell companies to siphon off funds.

The scandal has engulfed some of the region’s most senior former officials. Ex-governor Aleksey Smirnov was sentenced to 14 years in prison in April after being convicted of accepting particularly large bribes. Smirnov admitted guilt and claimed that his predecessor, Roman Starovoit, had proposed taking kickbacks.

Other officials and contractors have also received prison terms. Former Kursk Region Development Corporation chief Vladimir Lukin was sentenced to nine years over the theft of 152 million rubles, while three businessmen were convicted in a separate scheme involving inflated construction contracts and the theft of more than 141.7 million rubles.

The Russian Defense Ministry has shared footage of troops practicing an amphibious assault against a simulated enemy deep in the Arctic.

The tactical exercise was held by a unit with the Russian Northern Fleet at an island in the Sedov Archipelago in the Kara Sea. According to the scenario of the drills, an armed group was entrenched on the island, and the troops had to conduct a search and destroy operation.

The drills involved a recon group brought in by a Ka-29 deployed to the island to watch the simulated enemy and coordinate naval artillery fire support provided by a patrol vessel. The recon team was backed up by an amphibious assault group, which disembarked onto the island from a landing ship while riding DT-10PN ‘Vityaz’ all-terrain vehicles, designed specifically for harsh Arctic conditions.

The force successfully captured the bridgehead and rapidly advanced into the designated area, finding and dismantling all the mines and improvised explosive devices along the way, the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

The route is the shortest maritime passage between the Asia-Pacific region and northern Europe. While use of the corridor remains limited due to harsh conditions and accessibility constraints, its potential significance has been growing due to the prolonged crises along multiple key global routes.

Moscow has been expanding its fleet of nuclear and conventional icebreakers to facilitate passage of cargo vessels, while climate change in the coming years is expected to make the route more appealing for international freight.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has addressed the newly elected State Duma for the first time, outlining priorities from economic self-reliance and social spending to defense and long-term national security.

Speaking at the opening session of the ninth convocation of the lower house of parliament on Wednesday, Putin urged lawmakers to avoid economic missteps and “destructive populism,” stressing that Russia has the resources it needs to achieve its goals without outside assistance.

Here are the key takeaways from the president’s address.

‘We don’t need handouts’

Russia will not go around the world “begging for handouts with an outstretched hand,” Putin said while discussing the country’s finances and the new federal budget.

“Firstly, because it is humiliating. Secondly, nobody will give us anything, we know that very well. And thirdly – and most importantly – we don’t need it,” he said.

Putin described Russia’s financial system and economy as confident, but warned that mistakes are “absolutely unacceptable.”

Putin also called for measures to boost investment and urged lawmakers to reduce administrative barriers for businesses.

Security and the Ukraine conflict

Defense and support for Russian troops and their families should remain among parliament’s top priorities, Putin said.

Lawmakers must focus on issues of “state importance,” strengthen the country’s defense capabilities and “do everything for our victory,” according to the president.

Putin also welcomed veterans of the Ukraine conflict elected to the new parliament, saying they had already demonstrated their commitment to the country “on the battlefield.”

He said national unity would allow Russia to “achieve its goals” and provide “reliable guarantees of security and sovereignty” for generations to come.

Developing the new regions

The first sitting coincided with Russia’s Day of Reunification, marking four years since Moscow incorporated the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions following referendums in September 2022.

Putin described the vote to join Russia as “clear” and “lawful,” and said the entire country is now involved in rebuilding and developing the territories.

The four regions are represented in the State Duma for the first time following this month’s election.

Putin said residents who went to the polls despite shelling and threats had demonstrated that the Russian people “cannot be broken or intimidated.”

Election shows ‘national unity’

The September 18-20 vote was accompanied by a massive Ukrainian drone raid targeting Moscow and other Russian regions.

Putin said the turnout and election results had reaffirmed the strength of Russia’s multiparty political system and national unity in the face of what he called “historic challenges.”

The ruling United Russia party secured 349 of the State Duma’s 450 seats. Putin told the newly elected deputies that they bore a “particular responsibility” to voters and urged them to remain closely engaged with the people they represent.

Ukraine’s NATO-donated F-16 fleet is out of commission more often than it engages Russian drones, The Wall Street Journal has claimed.

The American-produced fighter jets were touted as the latest “gamechanger” weapon in Kiev’s conflict with Russia, a tool that will help “achieve goals outside of Ukraine,” as Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said when the first batch was set to arrive in the summer of 2024.

However, a key EU member in the European-led scheme cannot keep up with necessary maintenance of the fleet, according to the newspaper.

What is the F-16 initiative?

The plan was launched in 2023, as Ukraine’s fleet of Soviet-built military aircraft was dwindling. Pro-Kiev propaganda implied that the US-made multirole jets would help Ukrainian forces challenge Russia’s air dominance over the front line. But it was hardly a secret that they would be kept far away from Russian SAMs and fighter jets and only engage long-range drones and cruise missiles.

Donor nations announced they were prepared to spend years training Ukrainian pilots, refurbishing the aircraft they were willing to spare, and happily signing deals for modern replacements to bolster their own militaries – the F-16 initiative was effectively a NATO-backed pyramid scheme allowing everyone to spend big and upgrade their air forces. 

Ukraine has since received about 40 jets, roughly half of what the donors pledged, and lost several of them during combat missions, reportedly after corners were cut for expediency during training courses. It is now facing winter with an acute shortage of air defense systems.

What’s the problem?

Belgium’s Sabena Aerospace Engineering, awarded a $235.5 million contract for maintenance of Ukraine’s F-16 fleet, is not keeping up with the demand, according to the Wall Street Journal editorial board.

An inspection that normally takes two to six weeks lasts “as long as 40 weeks in Belgium,” retired US Navy Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery said. Another Western source said more than half of Ukrainian jets are now in maintenance limbo, with the rest set to become grounded by the end of the year.

Was the issue unexpected?

Media reports saying that the Ukrainian F-16 fleet is being overworked surfaced as early as July, as Kiev’s shortage of ground-launched interceptor missiles became more acute. There were also indicators pointing to a bottleneck in Belgium.

In April, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation reported that not one of the six F-16s that Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store pledged to Ukraine in 2023 had been delivered. Four of them were not airworthy to begin with, but the two others were previously used to train Ukrainian pilots in Denmark.

The six jets were stuck at a Sabena workshop in Belgium due to “significant capacity problems,” the report said.

Is Ukraine getting more jets?

There were delays in deliveries as well.

Belgium promised in 2024 to transfer 30 aircraft set to be phased out by its air force, which was expecting F-35 replacements. Then-Defense Minister Ludivine Dedonder said Ukraine would start receiving the old jets “as soon as the F-35s arrive on Belgian soil,” but no transfers have been reported since.

Why does Ukraine have air defense problems?

A shortage of Western weapons partially caused Ukraine’s current situation.

When this summer Vladimir Zelensky announced a 40-day “pressure campaign” of long-rage strikes on refineries, civilian ships, and commercial warehouses, his team reportedly hoped that images of smoke-plumes stretching over big Russian cities would support his bid to receive more Patriot missile interceptors from the limited US stockpile.

If true, the plan backfired. NATO nations are scrambling to provide what Kiev wants, while the economic damage caused by Russian retaliation is mounting. And Ukraine already has a $27 billion military budget hole that European donors are struggling to fill.

Ukrainian forces previously learned that Western arms gifts come with caveats. Donated NATO artillery systems lacked interoperability and were described as a “zoo” by troops. Much-hyped NATO battle tanks turned out to be mostly useless in drone-driven warfare and had to be kept away from the front line.

Can Ukraine come up with alternatives?

Zelensky puts on a brave face talking about the dire situation. Last week he claimed Ukraine had successfully tested four new interceptor drones designed to shoot down faster-moving jet UAVs – the kind of targets the WSJ claimed F-16s are well-suited to take down.

But an earlier Reuters report said trials in July “did not go to plan” as the prototypes lost control and “crashed into nearby fields and forests.”

Ukrainian opposition lawmaker Sergey Rakhmanin, who sits on the national defense committee, has said Kiev missed Russia’s rapid development of jet kamikaze drones. He said Ukrainian interceptors cost up to $100,000 apiece and that scaling up production would require too much time, even if funding becomes available.

Twelve people, most of whom are students, have been injured in a Ukrainian drone attack in Russia’s Bryansk Region, acting Governor Egor Kovalchuk has said.

The UAV incursion targeted the city of Trubchevsk, sitting on the Desna River in the southern part of the region, not far from the border with Ukraine, Kovalchuk wrote in a post on social media on Wednesday.

“Horrific attack on civilians in Trubchevsk; there are children among the wounded,” he said.

At least seven of those injured were students, with one of the victims being in serious condition, according to the acting governor.

On Monday, Ukrainian drone strikes damaged a railway bridge and tracks at three locations in Bryansk Region, causing several trains to derail.

Moscow has accused Kiev of deliberately targeting civilians with long-range drones in an attempt to compensate for setbacks on the battlefield, where Russian forces have continued to advance.

One of the deadliest such strikes came in May when several waves of Ukrainian UAVs hit a student dormitory in the Donbass city of Starobelsk, killing 21 people, mostly young women.