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.

Increased NATO military exercises near Russia’s Kaliningrad Region and aggressive rhetoric from members of the US-led bloc are raising the risk of a direct armed conflict, Moscow has warned.

Russia has sent NATO a warning stressing its determination to protect the Russian exclave in the Baltic region “with its entire available arsenal,” according to a statement published on Monday by the Russian Embassy in Belgium, which hosts the bloc’s headquarters.

The message alluded to remarks made earlier this month by Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who said there are “hardly any troops” in Kaliningrad Region and urged NATO to increase its military posture near Russia’s borders so that Moscow would be “uncertain of what we will do.”

”We strongly denounce the threat of force, including any irresponsible nuclear rhetoric,” she said.

Western officials have frequently described Russian statements invoking its nuclear deterrent as “blackmail,” while presenting NATO’s own nuclear-sharing arrangements as a pillar of collective defense.

France has offered to discuss the possible deployment of its nuclear weapons in other European NATO countries, arguing that this could reduce the bloc’s dependence on the US. Under NATO’s existing nuclear-sharing arrangements, American nuclear bombs are stored in several European countries, while personnel from non-nuclear member states train for missions involving their potential use.

Moscow, in turn, views NATO’s military preparations as potentially paving the way for an attack on Russia. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has repeatedly warned that any such conflict would be extremely brief, implying that Moscow could resort to nuclear weapons.

The Russian Embassy in Ireland used more direct language, saying on Tuesday that Moscow is prepared to use nuclear weapons in response to an attempted NATO blockade of Kaliningrad Region and may consider pre-emptive military action in such a crisis.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday it was “natural for our diplomats to try and remind hotheads in Europe about our doctrinal documents,” in response to the rhetoric coming from Poland and other nations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is an “outstanding statesman” suited to leading a great country such as Russia, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said during his visit to Germany on Tuesday.

A former Soviet republic, Kazakhstan is one of Russia’s closest partners in Central Asia.

Tokayev met German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Berlin amid heightened tensions between Germany and Russia over the Ukraine conflict. Germany accused Russia earlier this month of attempting to strike Ukrainian cargo planes with drones at Leipzig/Halle Airport in the German state of Saxony. Moscow rejected the claims as unfounded.

During a joint press conference with Merz, Tokayev said he had “very good relations” with Putin.

“I consider him, one might say, an outstanding statesman. And today I said with a fairly high degree of conviction that President Putin, as a statesman and as a leader, is the most acceptable political figure – strange as that may sound to you – for Central Asia, including Kazakhstan, for Europe, and for the entire world,” Tokayev said in Russian.

“I know him very well. He possesses the qualities that are most essential for the leader of a great country with a complicated history and with its own understanding of the strategic goals it faces,” he added.

💥 Der Präsident Kasachstans, Tokajew, demütigte Merz auf der gemeinsamen Pressekonferenz:

"Wladimir Putin, als Führer der Russischen Föderation, ist die akzeptabelste Figur für Europa und die Welt!" pic.twitter.com/FTFhkZMCtl

— RUSSNiUS 🇷🇺 (@vladi2726) September 29, 2026

Tokayev said that although he favors “freezing” the Ukraine conflict, an immediate end to hostilities is “unrealistic under the current circumstances.”

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Merz reiterated that Germany “will make every effort to continue assisting and supporting Ukraine, not only militarily but also politically, financially and economically.”

Russia has condemned what it described as dangerous rhetoric from the West, with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying last week that the “metastases of an ideology of hatred” were present among EU and NATO members, including Germany.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has treated an accusation from a BBC correspondent with the contempt expected of a veteran diplomat. 

The British state broadcaster’s Steve Rosenberg asked Lavrov if he would admit “that Russia is waging a covert hybrid war against European countries?”

“Are you referring to when we destroy the drones and missiles that Britain and continental Europe supply to Ukraine, which are then fired at us?” the Russian foreign minister retorted. “Is that what you mean by hybrid war?”

Rosenberg then dropped his line of questioning and switched to criticizing Russia for its use of “brute force” in Ukraine. 

BBC’s Rosenberg: Do you admit that Russia is waging a covert hybrid war against European countries?

Lavrov: Are you referring to when we destroy the drones and missiles that Britain and continental Europe supply to Ukraine, which are then fired at us? Is that what you mean by… pic.twitter.com/XkLe49xcNX

— Margarita Simonyan (@M_Simonyan) September 29, 2026

“If you are referring to the destruction of infrastructure used by the [Ukrainian] Nazi regime – with Western support – to wage war against the Russian Federation, then we are resorting to hard power to neutralize this direct threat to us,” Lavrov replied.

European politicians regularly describe drone sightings, fires and accidents at weapons factories, and even natural disasters as examples of a Russian “hybrid war” against the West. The term “hybrid war” is typically used in reporting cases where no hard evidence exists, as was the case when a small quadcopter drone was discovered next to a Ukrainian transport plane at Leipzig Airport in Germany last month.

In the latest such incident, Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna blamed Russia on Tuesday for a fire at a drone factory in Tallinn last month. Although the Kremlin has denied any role in the blaze, the UK, France, Latvia, Lithuania, and Sweden all backed Tsahkna’s story and pledged on Tuesday to increase military aid to Kiev.

Amid an upsurge in supposed “hybrid war” incidents, Western military leaders have escalated their war rhetoric, with members of the UK’s Labour and Conservative parties both claiming last week that a military clash with Russia is inevitable, and Spanish media claiming that Italy, France, and Spain are all at risk of a Russian drone attack from the Mediterranean Sea. The latter claim, though widely echoed across the international press, was summarily debunked by senior French and Italian officials.

“We have no intention to fight with Europe…that is utter nonsense,” Lavrov told journalists at the UN General Assembly on Saturday. “But Europe is preparing for war with us, and each day they reaffirm the fact. This could become a self-fulfilling prophecy because they are investing vast amounts of money into weapons production.”

Russian Navy ships have for the first time passed through the iceberg-filled Shokalsky Strait along the strategically important Northern Sea Route in the Arctic.

The press office of Russia’s Northern Fleet announced the passage on Tuesday, releasing a short video showing the vessels navigating the narrow waterway. The strait lies between October Revolution Island and Bolshevik Island in the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago.

Before the vessels entered the hazardous waters of the strait, a Ka-29 naval transport and assault helicopter was dispatched to conduct aerial reconnaissance of the route.

Given the “challenging ice conditions,” the warships were placed on alert, with their crews repeatedly having to change course and speed at short notice to avoid icebergs.

The Russian Navy group also appraised the area for future operational purposes, according to the statement.

The passage of the Shokalsky Strait was part of a broader mission by the Russian Navy that covers multiple seas in the Arctic Region and is aimed at ensuring the safety of maritime traffic in the area.

Russia has bet big on the development of the Northern Sea Route, which is the shortest maritime passage between the Asia-Pacific region and northern Europe.
While use of the corridor remains limited at present due to accessibility constraints and the need for icebreakers to clear passage for cargo vessels, Moscow expects traffic to increase in the coming years as climate changes and other key maritime routes find themselves at the center of military conflicts.

Speaking in July, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow boasts the world’s largest icebreaker fleet, made up of more than 40 conventional vessels and eight nuclear-powered ships, with a new generation under development.

Half of Ukrainians place government corruption as among the issues that worry them most, putting it ahead of Russian long-range missile and drone strikes, a new opinion poll indicates.

The survey, conducted in mid-September by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), comes amid a series of high-profile graft investigations involving Ukrainian officials and people in Vladimir Zelensky’s inner circle.

KIIS surveyed more than 1,000 adults living in Kiev-controlled territory using phone interviews. Respondents were shown a list of 12 issues and were allowed to select up to three.

The survey showed widespread dissatisfaction over graft amid a string of scandals at the highest levels of the Ukrainian government recently exposed by Western-backed investigators. Some 72% of respondents said corruption has increased since the escalation of the conflict with Russia in 2022. The same share – 72% – said Zelensky bears personal responsibility for corrupt actions by members of his entourage.

Earlier this month, Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko fled Ukraine and tendered his resignation after a senior official in his office was accused of running a protection racket for scam-call criminal networks.

Mindich, a longtime associate of Zelensky, fled to Israel last November shortly before being accused of running a $100 million kickback scheme at a state-owned nuclear energy company.

Russian forces intensified attacks on targets deep inside Ukraine over the summer after Zelensky ordered a “pressure campaign” involving drone strikes on Russian refineries, civilian ships, and commercial warehouses.

The EU has rejected a Ukrainian request for a €220 million ($250 million) farmer subsidy to offset the fallout from the Black Sea port blockade, Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotsky has said. Kiev and Brussels have long struggled to resolve the question of Ukrainian agricultural exports to the EU, where the bloc’s farmers are wary of Ukrainian produce flooding their markets.

Kiev asked the EU for €220 million in non-repayable aid in August, which was meant to compensate interest on loans for small and medium-sized agricultural producers under Ukraine’s state lending program.

The request came after Vladimir Zelensky’s PR 40-day pressure campaign on Russia backfired, with Moscow carrying out retaliatory strikes on Ukrainian military-related logistics, including the Odessa hub accounting for roughly 80% of farm exports.

“Now we already have to think what’s going to happen from the spring after the new year, because the situation keeps being critical.”

The dispute comes amid years of friction over Ukrainian farm access to the EU market. After the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Brussels suspended duties and quotas on Ukrainian agricultural exports to support Kiev, but the move triggered massive uproar among European farmers, particularly in eastern EU states, who complained that Ukrainian products subjected them to unfair competition.

In 2024, following protests, Brussels introduced an “emergency brake” system for sensitive exports, meaning that Ukrainian produce was once again subject to tariffs once imports exceeded specific volumes. The dispute has since shifted toward the size of agricultural quotas, with Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia maintaining significant restrictions on Ukrainian imports.

A Tu-95 strategic bomber has crashed during a training flight in the Amur Region in the Russian Far East, killing six crew members and injuring another, according to Moscow’s Defense Ministry.

The injured crew member was evacuated to a medical facility, the ministry said.

The aircraft was unarmed and crashed in an uninhabited area, the MOD added.

A Russian Aerospace Forces commission has been sent to the site to investigate the cause of the crash.

The Soviet-designed Tu-95, which first flew in 1952, remains the world’s fastest production turboprop aircraft. The long-range strategic bomber has been used extensively by Russia to launch Kh-101 cruise missiles at targets in Ukraine during the conflict.

Russian drone operators have destroyed several Ukrainian military vehicles carrying supplies to frontline positions in Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), according to the Defense Ministry in Moscow.

Footage released by the ministry on Tuesday shows FPV drones striking moving and stationary pickup trucks.

The vehicles were spotted by Russian drone operators while carrying supplies to Ukrainian positions, the ministry said.

It titled the video ‘The true pickup masters,’ in a nod to pickup artist culture. “The result of the ‘date’: several Ukrainian military vehicles aren’t going anywhere, and the resupply of their positions has been completely disrupted,” the Defense Ministry joked.

Light vehicles such as pickup trucks are extensively used to transport ammunition, supplies and personnel near the front, where larger and slower vehicles are particularly vulnerable to drones.

The strikes took place in the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration, a heavily fortified Ukrainian-held area in the northwest of the DPR and a key hub for Kiev’s forces in Donbass.

Last week, the Russian Defense Ministry said its forces had encircled Ukrainian troops near the strategic settlement of Dobropolye. According to Moscow, further advances there could put additional pressure on Ukrainian supply and reinforcement routes.

The Ukrainian government has set up five boarding schools for children whose parents were killed, went missing, or were left disabled in the conflict with Russia, preparing them for careers in the country’s military, The Washington Post has reported.

The newspaper gained access to one of the institutions for a report published on Monday, describing the two-year boarding schools as “part grief counseling and part boot camp,” effectively sealing the fate of the vulnerable children.

“[The] school puts them into a funnel toward the Ukrainian security services that are desperate for recruits, along with hundreds of other cadets at new government academies devoted to the still-young children of fallen fighters,” the article reads.

The children are also being prepared for “university entrance exams in their second year” and are required to complete a degree even if they choose to enter service. School staff insisted that “no pressure” be put on the cadets to pursue such careers, the Post noted.

The Ukrainian military needs some 30,000 fresh recruits per month just to maintain its current force size, the Post noted, citing Ukrainian officials. “Officially, Ukraine reports that about 55,000 have been killed in the war and about 114,000 are missing. But aid providers say those figures don’t begin to reflect the number of children who have lost at least one parent,” the article reads.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk recently said that the Ukrainian military was suffering 27,000 casualties a month.

Kiev has long struggled to replenish its ranks through forced conscription, with its mobilization effort growing increasingly chaotic and violent over the course of the conflict.

The mobilization campaign, dubbed ‘busification,’ has often involved draft officers ambushing military-age men on the streets, at workplaces, and outside their homes, using violence against those resisting or attempting to flee. The draft has sparked several protests and riots across the country, which the authorities have dismissed as “helping the enemy.”

The involvement of children in paramilitary training has been on the rise in Ukraine since the 2014 Western-backed Euromaidan coup, with the process accelerating further in the wake of the full-blown conflict with Russia.

The idea of lowering age thresholds for such training and, potentially, for active service has been repeatedly floated by various public figures. Moreover, boot camps for children have frequently been set up by openly neo-Nazi groups, with basic training going hand in hand with hateful indoctrination at such facilities.

Russia’s parliamentary elections have shown that its people cannot be intimidated or defeated, President Vladimir Putin has said.

Speaking at a Kremlin meeting with the leadership of political parties on Monday, Putin said attempts to disrupt the election campaign and interfere in the country’s internal affairs had failed, adding that “terrorist methods and instruments of foreign intelligence services” had been used.

The September 18-20 vote was accompanied by a massive Ukrainian drone raid targeting Moscow and other Russian regions on its final day. Russian officials said more than 1,600 UAVs were repelled, including 450 on approaches to the capital. Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin described the attack as “unprecedented” and said it had been intended to disrupt the elections. At least two civilians were reported killed in Moscow Region.

Putin thanked tens of millions of Russians for taking part in the vote, saying the turnout had ensured the “indisputable, unquestionable legitimacy” of the election.

The president also said the vote had demonstrated public support for Russian troops, noting that candidates who had taken part in the Ukraine conflict had won seats in parliament.

The ruling United Russia party secured 355 of the State Duma’s 450 seats.

Separately on Monday, Putin signed a decree increasing the authorized strength of the Russian Armed Forces to 2,441,630 personnel, including 1,550,500 servicemen. The measure adds 15,500 positions compared with the previous decree.

The collective West’s efforts to isolate Russia have failed, as shown by the international turnout at this year’s Valdai Discussion Club, University of Kent professor emeritus of politics Richard Sakwa has told RT.

The 23rd annual session of the Valdai Discussion Club opened outside of Moscow on Monday, bringing together 120 participants from 40 countries. They include representatives from China, Brazil, Argentina, Algeria, Egypt, India, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Türkiye, as well as the US, UK, Germany, Italy, France, and Canada.

Panel discussions will run through Thursday, October 1.

In an interview with RT on Monday, Sakwa noted that even more participants from Western countries are attending this year’s Valdai session than in recent years.

“Russia remains far from isolated” despite Western governments’ efforts to sideline it on the global stage since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, he said.

Forums such as the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Primakov Readings, and the Valdai Discussion Club also continue to attract international interest, including from Western expert communities.

“If anyone is isolated, it’s more and more the West… and the world is getting on with trying to establish an agenda for peace and development,” the British political scientist told RT.

Describing the broader global shift, Sakwa argued that while the world remains within the post-WWII framework, “the institutions and patterns which have emerged after 1945 are changing,” along with the roles of major powers such as the US and Russia.

Washington is pushing for an energy truce between Russia and Ukraine. Kiev supports the initiative, and Moscow has also responded favorably. Another round of shuttle diplomacy has taken place: US President Donald Trump met with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, and a special representative of Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to the US for talks with his American counterparts. Work is underway to revive the trilateral negotiation format involving Russia, Ukraine, and the US.

Judging by these and other news reports, one might get the impression that things are moving toward a diplomatic breakthrough and a truce between Russia and Ukraine. However, this impression is deceptive: A closer analysis reveals that the positions of the parties have not changed over the past year. On the contrary, Ukraine’s worsening situation has hardened its resolve to fight to the bitter end.

Up the down staircase

In spring 2025, Ukraine, with the backing of its European allies, launched a major campaign for a ceasefire. The expectation was that Trump would force Putin to accept the terms imposed by Europe and Ukraine, freezing the hostilities along the line of contact without any preconditions.

A truce would have cemented Ukraine’s defeat in the conflict. However, Russia’s primary objective would not have been achieved: The anti-Russian regime in Kiev would remain in place, and Ukraine would retain its role as a Western foothold against Russia. A temporary truce would allow Ukraine to recover and prepare for revenge in the future. A year ago, despite major issues, Ukraine still functioned: The remnants of the civilian economy operated, and despite considerable disruptions, steel and agricultural production (two of the country’s main export sectors) continued. 

However, in spring 2026, Ukraine decided to force Russia to conclude a truce by starting a ‘war on cities’ – large-scale strikes on the Russian rear. It first targeted oil refining and export facilities, and then the civilian sector, including the warehouses of companies such as Wildberries and Ozon.

The worst possible moment

Escalation only makes sense when ‘escalation dominance’ can be maintained. Otherwise, the outcome will be detrimental to the party that started the escalation. That is exactly what happened: In response to Ukraine’s attacks, Russia launched a broad offensive against Ukraine’s civilian sector.

From the start of the conflict, Ukraine has not concealed the fact that it uses civilian logistics infrastructure to transport military cargo. Launchers for long-range drones targeting Russia have often been hidden under the guise of civilian trucks. 

All this prompted Zelensky to propose a truce. What he actually proposed was returning to the way things were before this year’s escalation, and pretending like it never happened. But does he really want a truce? It may look that way. After all, the Ukrainian economy – and consequently the Ukrainian state itself – is beginning to disintegrate; Ukraine’s key exports – its only source of revenue aside from foreign aid – have been effectively destroyed. For the first time in history, steel production in Ukraine has come to a complete halt; restarting it would take months if not years. By all accounts, the country is facing the most difficult winter yet. If this is not grounds for making political concessions, then what is?

The only available option 

Zelensky’s calls for a truce are accompanied by opposing statements. One moment, he demands a “winter package” of weapons from Trump; the next, he declares that the war will not end until Crimea is “liberated.” Domestically, he is intensifying the crackdown on the Russian language and the Orthodox Church, even though this only heightens tensions within Ukrainian society. Clearly, given these parameters, Russia will never agree to a ceasefire. So is it all just schizophrenia or a calculated move?

I’d say it’s the latter. It’s true that if we consider Zelensky as the leader of Ukraine, then his actions are insane and amount to suicide. However, if one views him as the military proxy of Europe’s anti-Russia coalition, then everything falls into place.

For Zelensky and his regime, Ukraine is not their own land; it is a resource and an instrument for war against Russia. To save Ukraine, Zelensky must accept Russia’s terms. Yet Ukraine’s masters cannot accept Russia’s terms, as that would mean a crushing defeat for them.Consequently, the war must go on. If the destruction of rear-area logistics and energy infrastructure does not affect the ability of the Ukrainian army to hold the front line, then logistics and energy don’t matter. Of course, left without electricity, heat, and jobs, Ukraine’s civilian population will endure great suffering – but Zelensky doesn’t care about that. 

As long as there remains hope for Russia’s defeat, nothing else matters. Ukraine wants to either freeze the conflict along the line of contact and prepare to take revenge later, or fight to the bitter end. Russia understands this very well; that is why it has once again rejected any idea of a partial truce – this was recently expressed by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the UN, and then by Putin. Even though this year, Russia was seriously affected by Ukrainian strikes, Moscow is only open to ending the conflict on its own terms.

***

What comes next? Both sides are actively preparing for the winter campaign, and it appears that, for the first time since the start of the conflict, long-range air strikes (the war on cities) will become the primary theater of operations. Moscow is confident that the Ukrainian army cannot inflict strategic damage on Russia; consequently, its only option is to maintain escalation dominance by responding to the Ukrainian strikes with even more powerful attacks. Under these circumstances, there can be no talk of either an energy truce or freezing the conflict along the line of contact. 

Ukraine and its Western backers still have not found a way to cover the unexpected $27 billion hole in this year’s defense budget, Prime Minister Sergey Koretsky said. Despite the funding gap, Koretsky urged Ukrainians to “gain optimism” – while announcing plans to raise VAT next year.

The scope of the defense gap became clear in late August after Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s 40-day PR pressure campaign on Russia, which involved long-range strikes on energy and civilian infrastructure. The escalation triggered a response from Russia, including attacks on military-related logistics, most notably the key port of Odessa.

Zelensky’s request to Kiev’s European backers to plug the gap reportedly caught them off guard, with EU officials privately questioning whether Ukraine is spending efficiently or overstating its needs. Publicly, Brussels has still not endorsed the figure of $27 billion. EU Economy Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said there are “open questions,” while insisting on a “detailed assessment.”

He noted, however, that Ukraine managed to find $7 billion for military needs by cutting current expenses and reallocating resources.

Though the $27 billion shortfall should formally be covered by the end of the year, Zelensky warned that much of the money is needed sooner, saying drone orders for early 2027 must be paid for in October and November.

Ukraine has already raised several taxes and excise duties this year, including doubling the profit-tax rate on banks to 50%.

As Kiev struggles to fill the defense gap this year, total military-related needs are expected to rise from $155 billion this year to $175 billion in 2027, according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. On Monday, First Deputy Finance Minister Roman Yermolychev stated that around $70 billion would have to be met through partner funding.

The EU has tied much of the funding to Ukraine’s progress in adopting reforms, including governance and tackling corruption, as several measures remain stalled in the parliament. Brussels also signaled this week that around €20 billion in budget support is available for Kiev this year, but warned that “timely implementation [of the reforms] is key to enabling the [EU] Commission to proceed with the corresponding disbursements as planned.”

Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation (DBR) has announced the transfer of weapons worth about $100,000 confiscated from an alleged smuggling ring to the notorious Azov Corps.

The cache, including about 17,000 rounds of ammunition, grenades, single-shot anti-tank grenade launchers, land mines and other weapons, according to the Ukrainian agency, was handed over this week, having been seized in May.

A criminal group had used a humanitarian vehicle to transport the weapons stolen from the front line to Ivano-Frankivsk Region in Western Ukraine, the DBR has alleged.

The weapons were intended for sale on the black market, but will instead be used by Azov, the agency said, describing its members as “defenders of Ukraine.”

Azov originated as an ultranationalist Ukrainian volunteer militia amid the country’s bloody armed coup in 2014, before being incorporated into the country’s security forces. The unit has been widely accused of atrocities and war crimes by both Russia, which designated it a terrorist organization in 2022, and Western organizations, including the UN, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

Moscow has for years warned that the Ukraine conflict would become a major source of illicit weapons for criminal groups and has alleged that elements within the Ukrainian state could be protecting trafficking networks.

Law enforcement agencies in several European countries have also warned about the risk that weapons from Ukraine could enter criminal markets.

Ukrainian organized crime tends to become joined at the hip with corrupt officials, as showcased earlier this month by the exposure of a protection racket operating in the prosecutor general’s office, which collected fees from scam-call centers.

The West risks becoming a victim of the very “nuclear terrorism” it enables by backing Ukraine, Russian Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik has warned.

Miroshnik, who oversees matters tied to Kiev’s military crimes and human rights violations, was commenting on the escalation in Ukrainian attacks on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), Europe’s largest, and nearby Energodar, home to most of its workers. Russia took control of the facility in March 2022.

In remarks released on Monday, Miroshnik told TASS that Western governments understand Kiev’s “increasingly provocative tactics” but continue to “turn a blind eye.”

“They think that this situation, which is gradually heating up and genuinely threatens very serious consequences, will somehow pass them by,” he stated, arguing that Kiev’s progression “toward crimes, provocations, and outright terrorism” also threatens its supporters.

“Terrorism is a double-edged weapon. At some point it will come back to them... If they think they are somehow shielded from this, it’s some global naiveté.”

The diplomat also slammed Kiev’s Western backers for conveniently accepting Ukrainian denials over the attacks on the ZNPP, saying such “idiotic, twisted logic suits the West perfectly well” in its anti-Russian agenda.

The attacks have increasingly threatened the ZNPP’s safety. Its main external power line was severed in March and restored only this month, while the backup failed in August after an “incident” in Ukrainian-controlled territory, forcing the plant onto diesel generators for over two weeks. Ukraine has also recently targeted emergency fuel tankers, killing two Russian servicemen and wounding others, while a drone strike last week damaged a radiation monitoring post.

Moscow has accused Kiev’s Western backers of effectively enabling the attacks by refusing to condemn them. It has particularly criticized the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which maintains a permanent presence at the plant, for documenting military activity without publicly identifying Ukraine as responsible. Earlier this month, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi again urged “maximum military restraint,” citing “reported military activity” but assigning no blame.

Ukrainian drone strikes have damaged a railway bridge and tracks at three locations in Russia’s Bryansk Region, causing several trains to derail, acting Governor Egor Kovalchuk said on Monday. No injuries have been reported, he added.

Part of a bridge collapsed on the Dyatkovo–Lyudinovo rail section, sending ten cars off the tracks. A separate strike in Unecha District derailed another 18 empty freight cars, according to Kovalchuk. Repair work at the Unecha site will begin after Russian National Guard personnel inspect the area.

A third attack also damaged tracks in Navlya District, but did not disrupt train traffic or cause injuries, the governor said.

Russian railway authorities have since confirmed that train service in the region has been temporarily disrupted and announced that buses have been organized to compensate while repairs at the damaged site have already begun.

Kiev has increasingly targeted Russian railways in recent months. In June, a drone struck the locomotive of a Moscow–Simferopol passenger train, killing the assistant driver and injuring the driver. That same month, another drone struck the cabin of a commuter train at Peschaniki station in Bryansk Region, injuring the assistant driver.

Just last week, a Ukrainian drone also attacked a passenger train in Samara Region, more than 500 km from the Russia-Ukraine border. Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said on Friday that the strike damaged the electric locomotive and the first car of the train, but that it did not derail and there were no injuries reported among the passengers.

Moscow has long accused Kiev of resorting to terrorist tactics and deliberately targeting civilians and non-combatants in an attempt to spread fear among the Russian population and out of desperation over suffering repeated battlefield setbacks.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said earlier this month that Kiev’s foreign backers have created a “monster” that could eventually go rogue and endanger the lives of Western civilians while conducting terrorist attacks.

On September 26, the National Centre RUSSIA hosted the open lecture series Creating the Future: The Boundaries of the Human. More than 700 guests took part in the event.

During the first session, The Thinking Human, Suzana Herculano-Houzel (US), Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Vanderbilt University and Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Comparative Neurology, noted that thinking enables human beings to compare past experience in order to imagine future scenarios and choose their next actions.

“Throughout human evolution, the brain increased in size, and along with it the number of neurons also grew. Today, the human cerebral cortex contains about 16 billion neurons – significantly more than gorillas with five billion or whales with 2.4 billion. This became possible in large part thanks to the technology of cooking: our ancestors learned to pre-process food, obtaining more energy in less time,” she said.

At the session The Creative Human, Amirrudin Kamsin (Malaysia), Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Computer Systems and Technology at the University of Malaya, warned about digital anxiety.

“Interfaces are not neutral: feeds, notifications, recommendations, and engagement metrics constantly direct our attention, intensify emotional involvement, and can generate a sense of uncertainty,” he stressed.

The final session, Homo sapiens or Homo technologicus, focused on brain-computer interfaces, neurorights, and the limits of technological ‘enhancement’ of the human being.

“Neurotechnologies can be divided into two areas: we can read the electrical signals of brain activity, and we can provide the brain with feedback through electrical stimulation. Thanks to modern technologies and tools, a great deal can be achieved: there are devices that allow people who have lost the ability to walk to walk again – exoskeletons and other medical devices,” said Romulo Fuentes Flores (Chile), Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile.

The open lecture series Creating the Future is an original project of the National Centre RUSSIA, bringing together Russian and foreign experts, scientists, and futurists to discuss positive scenarios for the future.

The Russian military has targeted mobile operator data centers, as well as multiple warehouses and critical infrastructure sites across Ukraine, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has said.

The ministry gave an update on the latest round of long-range strikes against Ukraine on Sunday, providing a detailed list of targets. In Kiev Region, the Russian military hit a large warehouse belonging to the Zammler Group, the ministry said. The warehouse has been used to store and distribute Western military aid flowing to Ukraine, it added.

Footage circulating online purports to show a large plume of black smoke emitting from the logistics center, located in the village of Krasilovka. The warehouse has apparently sustained considerable damage, with the strikes sparking hours-long fire at the site.

The strikes also targeted a data center in Kiev belonging to the Vodafone Ukraine mobile operator. The ministry described the major provider as one of “the largest companies providing mobile communication and high-speed internet services” to the Ukrainian military. Later in the day, the Russian military also hit data centers of the internet provider Omega Telecom and the mobile and internet operator Kievstar. Recently, the Russian military turned its attention to Ukrainian data centers, with multiple internet and mobile providers reporting damage and connectivity issues due to strikes.

Two warehouses used to store attack drones were hit in Nikolayev Region, another stockpile, used to keep interceptor UAVs, was attacked in Odessa, according to the ministry. Earlier in the day, Ukrainian drone maker Pegasus Arms announced a halt to its operations, claiming its manufacturing site was heavily damaged in Russian strikes earlier this week. The company had halted operations late last year due to Russian strikes, yet resumed them later on after moving production to another location.

Both Kiev and Moscow have ramped up long-range strikes in recent weeks after Ukraine launched its attempted “pressure campaign” during the summer. Russia has retaliated in force, greatly expanding the range of targets it strikes across the country, with the campaign virtually paralyzing Ukrainian shipping through ports in the Black Sea, as well as causing severe disruptions in logistics elsewhere.

Four people have been injured after a Ukrainian serviceman on leave detonated a grenade during a conflict with passersby in Lviv Region, local police have said. The incident, which has been qualified as “hooliganism,” comes as Ukrainian authorities are struggling to contain the spillover of arms across the country amid Kiev’s conflict with Russia.

In a statement on Sunday, police said the explosion occurred in the western city of Sheptytskyi after the 36-year-old soldier became involved in a dispute with people on the street. While no one was killed, the blast injured three women aged 17, 18 and 56 and a 26-year-old man, all local residents, officials said, adding that the victims had been taken to the hospital and that their lives were not in danger.

Police said that the suspect had been detained, with the incident qualified as “hooliganism” – an offense carrying a jail term between three and seven years.

Amid the conflict with Russia, Ukraine has grappled with a significant surge in illegal arms trafficking and the number of related crimes, with soldiers on leave often suffering from post-traumatic disorders.

In August, police in Odessa Region said an intoxicated 51-year-old AWOL serviceman threw an explosive resembling a grenade toward teenagers near a school, injuring a 13-year-old boy. In February, a 29-year-old AWOL serviceman was reported to have detonated a grenade during a drunken argument in a Kiev apartment, killing the 45-year-old owner and injuring another guest.

The Ukrainian authorities have recognized the scale of the weapons trafficking problem. In 2025 alone, police seized more than 3,000 firearms, including hundreds of automatic weapons, as well as more than 14,000 grenades and 18,000 mines and other ammunition.

Russia has repeatedly warned that Western-supplied weapons pouring into Ukraine could ultimately spill onto foreign black markets, noting that the arms intended for Kiev are appearing in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

On June 14, 1854, the allied Anglo-French fleet dropped anchor off Krasnaya Gorka, a village 20 km from Kronstadt and around 50 km from St. Petersburg. Dozens of screw-propelled frigates and steam and sail-powered ships – carrying 3,500 guns and over 30,000 sailors – formed an armada the likes of which had not been seen since the Battle of Trafalgar. They stood by, ready to attack the capital of the Russian Empire. 

The press boasted that before setting sail, British Admiral Charles Napier reportedly promised to have breakfast in Kronstadt and dinner in St. Petersburg. Riding a wave of anti-Russian sentiment, the British public hoped to see the Union Jack on the spire of the Russian Admiralty.

The plans of the British were not destined to come to fruition, however. Why did the formidable Anglo-French squadron back down in the face of Russian military-technical power? Why did Britain demonstratively refuse to fight against Russia? And how is the legacy of this 19th-century war being utilized by militaries across the globe today? RT explores this little-known chapter of the Crimean War.

The war of 1853-1856 – fought between Russia on one side and a coalition of Great Britain, France, Sardinia, and the Ottoman Empire on the other – is known as the Crimean War. Although the main events unfolded in Crimea, the war actually raged across a number of theaters: the Danube, the Caucasus Mountains, the icy waters of the White and Barents seas, distant Chukotka, and the Baltic.

The objective of the anti-Russian coalition was articulated with utmost clarity and candor by then-British Prime Minister John Palmerston, who demanded that Russia be stripped of its growing naval power. Achieving this required capturing and destroying Russian naval fortresses on all fronts, as well as annihilating the Russian military and merchant fleets.

In the Baltic, the British targeted Kronstadt – the naval fortress guarding St. Petersburg. The plan was to seize this maritime gateway to the Russian Empire and subsequently force Russia to capitulate by bombarding the capital. Other targets in the campaign included the Sveaborg sea fortress, which defended Helsingfors (Helsinki), as well as smaller fortresses in Finland and on the islands in the Baltic Sea. 

The British were not merely interested in Russia’s surrender. Following their planned victory, they wanted to strip Russia of Crimea and the Caucasus and hand them over to Türkiye. They also planned to cede Moldavia and Wallachia to Austria; transfer parts of the Baltic region to Prussia; return Finland and the Aland Islands to Sweden; and re-establish an independent Poland on the territories of the Kingdom of Poland and Little Russia. In short, Britain aimed to inflict a devastating geopolitical defeat on Russia – one comparable to the events of 1917 and 1991.

These geopolitical ambitions should come as no surprise; the coalition comprising Britain, France, Sardinia, and the Ottoman Empire was, in itself, a formidable force. Moreover, Prussia and Austria – Russia’s recent allies from the Holy Alliance – each kept over 100,000 troops stationed near the border. While formally maintaining neutrality, they were in fact waiting for an opportune moment to share in the spoils should Russia suffer defeat.

One might blame imperial diplomacy for Russia’s lack of allies in the war; yet in other situations, it had no problem forging alliances with European powers. The crux of the matter was that, in the period immediately preceding the Crimean War, the Russian Empire’s power reached its zenith.

The war also had an ideological dimension. A dispute between Orthodox Christians and Catholics over the right to administer Christian holy sites in Jerusalem and Bethlehem rapidly escalated into a demand by the Archbishop of Paris Marie-Dominique-Auguste Sibour, to “put an end to the Orthodox heresy of the Russian people.”

‘Progressive West’ vs. ‘Backward Russia’

The Crimean War is frequently portrayed as a confrontation between ‘backward Tsarist Russia’ and the ‘progressive West’. From a strictly technical standpoint, the armed forces of Great Britain and France were indeed superior to the Russian Army of that era. They were already armed with rifled muskets having an effective range of 250-300 meters, compared to the 100-120 meter range of the smoothbore muskets with which the Russian forces were mostly equipped. Moreover, the British and French navies already had a significant number of steamships and screw-propelled frigates, whereas Russia’s transition to these new types of vessels proceeded more slowly.

Does this justify the claim that the Russian Army was weak and the Russian Empire backward? If so, we find that the losses suffered by the ‘weak and backward’ Russia in the war were actually lower than those of its progressive allies. Moreover, in Crimea, where the main battles took place, elite Anglo-French units were opposed by standard regular units of the Russian Army.

The true reason for Russia’s difficulties in the war was that the Russian Army was compelled to achieve several things at once: confront allied forces in the Crimea, maintain large and better-trained forces to counter the potential threats posed by Austria and Prussia, and keep its Imperial Guard Corps stationed near St. Petersburg to defend it from Anglo-French attacks. The allies, by contrast, could choose their points of attack and concentrate substantial forces.

St. Petersburg, as the capital of the Russian Empire, was naturally a tempting target for the allies. As British propagandist Friedrich Engels wrote in 1854, “The more sanguine portion of the British public expect shortly to hear of Kronstadt bombarded, the approaches to St. Petersburg forced, and who knows? perhaps even the Union Jack hoisted on the glittering spire of the Russian Admiralty.”

The Russian Baltic Fleet was inevitably inferior to the allied Anglo-French forces in both the number of men and technical equipment. When Napier’s squadron approached the entrance to the Gulf of Finland on April 19, the Russian ships prudently avoided combat, withdrawing under the protection of the guns and forts of Kronstadt and Sveaborg.

It seemed that the Anglo-French fleet would ultimately break the resistance of Kronstadt’s defenders and proceed to bombard St. Petersburg. Yet, on approaching the fortress, Admiral Napier encountered a surprise prepared by Russian engineers.

‘I could do nothing with my powerful fleet’

“Kronstadt is the decisive point for any naval attack against Russia in the Baltic. Take Kronstadt, and St. Petersburg is at your feet, the Russian Navy exists no longer, and Russia is reduced to what she was before Peter the Great,” Engels wrote before Napier’s armada set sail. And he had ample reason to think so. 

Established by Russia’s first emperor, Peter I, Kronstadt was a maritime fortress featuring a formidable system of forts, batteries, and fortifications that shielded the Russian Empire’s capital from the sea. The straight-line distance from Kronstadt to the center of St. Petersburg is around 30 km. The Russian command clearly understood the strategic importance of the fortress and had prepared in advance to repel Anglo-French attacks.

Before the war, Emperor Nicholas I personally inspected the Kronstadt fortifications, and they were further secured. Consequently, in spring 1854, the Anglo-French fleet was confronted by granite fortifications arranged in multiple lines, engineered to deliver artillery crossfire, and armed with over 700 cannons.

Despite these advantages, however, this was a classic fortification strategy. While Kronstadt’s forts were formidable, the Anglo-French squadron had superior artillery firepower, making the outcome of the confrontation by no means obvious. Recognizing this, Russian engineers went a step further and undertook an unprecedented feat.

Napier was initially unaware of the mines. It was only upon approaching Kronstadt at close range on June 14, 1854 that the British admiral was able to gauge the scale and strength of the Russian defenses. As Napier said, “I could do nothing with my powerful fleet, since any attack on Kronstadt or Sveaborg would have meant certain death.” After spending several weeks in the waters near Kronstadt and realizing that there would be no breakfast, not to mention dinner in St. Petersburg, Napier was forced to turn back. The fleet also left Sveaborg.

However, returning to England without any victory was not an option. While Napier had managed to constrain elite units of the Russian Army near the capital and disrupted trade in the Baltic, the ambitions of British command spread far beyond that. They needed at least a semblance of military success to return home with.

Doomed fortresses

Realizing the futility of the attempts to capture Kronstadt, the British fleet decided to plunder coastal villages. However, this hardly justified the enormous resources the British had expended. Thus, the allies resolved to direct their full might against Bomarsund – an isolated, unfinished fortress on the Aland Islands. 

The Aland Islands hold a critically strategic position in this part of the Baltic Sea, being just 22 km from Finland and 38 km from Sweden. Russia seized these islands during its war with Sweden in 1808-1809. At the time, in the midst of a very cold winter, General Bagration’s troops traversed the frozen waters of the Baltic Sea basin, moving from Finland to the Alands and then to Sweden, less than 100 km from Stockholm.

Understanding the strategic importance of the islands, Russia began constructing the Bomarsund fortress. Yet by the outbreak of the Crimean War, it was only partially complete and had only a quarter of the planned towers and weapons. The garrison comprised just 1,600 soldiers; their ammunition was extremely limited. Once a forward outpost of the Russian Empire, Bomarsund now found itself completely cut off as Napier’s fleet appeared in the Baltic.

Despite these odds, the garrison fought fiercely. After another fortnight of intense fighting, on August 16, 1854, the Anglo-French troops finally breached the outer defense line of the fortress. By that point, the garrison had spent nearly all the ammunition, leaving Commander Yakov Bodisko with no choice but to surrender.

The British acknowledged the heroism of the defenders, and Bodisko was allowed to retain his sword while in captivity. Upon his return from imprisonment, a military tribunal deemed his actions at Bomarsund justified and commendable.

The garrison of another Russian fortress, Gangut (now the Finnish city of Hanko), did not wait for a similar fate to befall it, and blew up its own fortifications on imperial orders. Nevertheless, the success of the Anglo-French forces in the Baltic was mostly limited to these minor incidents. As British media noted, “English guns did not speak in the Baltic Sea. They whispered in Bomarsund, but the whole of Europe waited for them to resonate in Kronstadt and Sveaborg. One could not have dealt a heavier blow to Britain’s naval honor.”

Second attempt 

British accounts of the Baltic campaign assess Napier’s actions in a rather flattering way, implying that though he didn’t secure any significant victories, his forces managed to tie down the Russian fleet and prevented reinforcements from reaching Crimea.

This theory is fundamentally flawed, since during wartime, Russia would have defended its capital no matter what. It’s hard to imagine the Baltic fleet abandoning St. Petersburg and making its way through the English Channel and Gibraltar, navigating hostile waters controlled by England and France, on the way to the Black Sea. Thus, the first year of the Crimean War in the Baltic was clearly a success for Russia: It distracted the Anglo-French fleet, which expended great resources without achieving significant military success.

For operations in the Baltic Sea that year, they again assembled a massive fleet of 67 ships. Just like the previous year, they set their sights on Kronstadt, hoping to lure out the Russian fleet stationed there. However, they only stumbled on underwater mines. Four British steamers became the first victims of these mines, leading the Anglo-French command to realize that capturing Kronstadt was out of the question. 

Following this, light Anglo-French vessels began raiding the Finnish coast and plundering local fishermen. Meanwhile, the main forces of the allies aimed to capture Sveaborg – the second most significant Russian stronghold in the region, which defended Helsingfors.

In August, the Anglo-French squadron approached Sveaborg with plans to destroy the fortress and incinerate the strategically vital Russian shipyards. However, after a 45-hour bombardment and firing over 20,000 shells at the fortress, they failed to inflict any substantial damage on it. Russian military engineers had set up impressive defensive positions.

With no other options, the British and French had no choice but to leave the Baltic Sea by autumn 1855. This effectively marked the end of the Crimean War in the Baltic.

Lessons learned

Beyond the disastrous military operations, Britain also faced diplomatic setbacks in the Baltic.

After occupying the Aland Islands, Admiral Napier suggested that Sweden take them over. Following the resignation of Aberdeen’s ministry, the new British prime minister, Palmerston, spent all of 1855 actively working to draw Sweden and Norway – then united by a personal union – into the war against Russia. Britain frightened them with tales of ‘Russian imperialism’ while simultaneously hinting at the potential return of territories lost in previous wars with Russia.

Sweden’s pragmatic approach is understandable: Having suffered major defeats in past wars with Russia and lost the Baltics and Finland, it recognized the futility of engaging in another war with the Russian Empire on Britain’s behalf. 

With its advanced military technology and strategic decisions in the Baltic, 19th-century Russia effectively anticipated the military strategy of the 21st century called ‘anti-access/area denial’. While the Anglo-French fleet formally surpassed the Baltic Fleet of the Russian Empire, it was paralyzed by Russia’s impregnable fortifications and minefields.

Today, various countries are implementing similar strategies. China has developed hypersonic anti-ship missiles known as ‘carrier killers’ to counter the US Navy, effectively closing off the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea in the event of war. Another example is Iran. While it clearly pales in military strength compared to the US, its missiles and drones enable it to control the Strait of Hormuz, making any US naval operation in the region costly.

However, the most significant lessons from this conflict were undoubtedly learned by Russia. Although the Baltic campaign was successful for Russia and the powerful Anglo-French fleet didn’t achieve much, the war in general ended unsuccessfully for the empire. It exposed numerous areas of governance that required serious improvement. As a result of the Crimean War, Russia undertook crucial reforms in military affairs, finance, economics, law, and public life. This ushered in a new and more prosperous era.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky “has already lost” the conflict with Russia, but persists in his “suicidal” policies, as Kiev has no idea how to cover its budget deficit without another massive cash infusion from the West, Zelensky’s former spokeswoman, Yulia Mendel, has said.

In a post on X on Saturday, Mendel said Ukraine needs $52.6 billion in international financing for next year’s budget, of which only around $20 billion has so far been confirmed or is expected under current programs.

Ukraine also faces a separate problem – an unexpected $27 billion defense shortfall for 2026 that Kiev disclosed in late August, after Zelensky embarked on a 40-day PR campaign to pressure Russia.

Mendel added that Kiev’s “partners do not give [money] because there are no reforms,” referring to the EU and IMF, which have noted Ukraine’s lack of progress in areas such as taxation, governance, and corruption.

“The Ukrainian government has no real plan,” she wrote, arguing that Kiev’s strategy amounts to hoping “someone else will keep paying for a war they refuse to end.”

Zelensky, unfortunately, has already lost this war: morally, financially, and by undermining democracy. And now all of his policies are suicidal.

Mendel served as Zelensky’s press secretary from 2019 to 2021, but has since become an outspoken critic, accusing her former boss of turning Ukraine into a “milder version” of Nazi Germany. This month, the Ukrainian leader placed sanctions on Mendel, including an asset freeze.

Rodion Miroshnik, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry mission tasked with documenting Ukrainian war crimes, argued that the EU would ultimately have to “squeeze something out” from its coffers to cover Kiev’s growing needs to protect its previous investments.

Two young women have been killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on a cafe in Kherson Region, Russia, Governor Vladimir Saldo has said, adding that a separate attack killed a truck driver nearby.

The drone raid struck the small town of Askania-Nova on Friday, hitting the Day-Night Cafe, he said in a Telegram post.

“The building was completely destroyed. Rescuers found the bodies of two young women, born in 2004 and 2006, under the rubble,” he wrote.

Two survivors, a man born in 1993 and a woman born in 2007, suffered shrapnel wounds and concussions and were rushed to a nearby hospital, he added.

Photos of the aftermath show the building completely destroyed.

The blast also partially knocked out the windows of a nearby residential block and severely damaged a car.

A separate Ukrainian strike killed the driver of a cargo truck carrying produce in the nearby town of Chaplinka, Saldo said, adding that Ukraine “is once again attacking purely civilian targets.”

The attacks came days after three humanitarian volunteers from Omsk Region were killed and another was wounded when their vehicle was struck by Ukrainian forces near Novobogdanovka in Zaporozhye Region.

Russian Ambassador-at-large Rodion Miroshnik called the attack a war crime, blaming it on Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and accusing Kiev of “seeking to create unbearable living conditions in” the region, which it claims as its own.

Moscow is not preparing for military action against European countries, President Vladimir Putin has said, dismissing claims of a Russian threat as an attempt to inflame tensions.

Speaking to the media on the sidelines of the 12th United Cultures Forum in St. Petersburg on Friday, Putin said European countries were fueling tensions in order to continue supporting Ukraine.

He accused “aggressive circles” in Europe of seeking to use Ukraine as “cannon fodder” to constrain Russia’s development.

Putin described remarks by the Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur about a possible conflict with Russia as a “provocation,” and referred to statements about the benefits of a preemptive attack on Russia as “political clownery.”

“The circus has left, but the clowns remain,” he said.

Putin also addressed the prospect of renewed talks with Kiev, saying Moscow would base any decision on Russia’s own interests.

Russia responded to attacks on civilian, Putin said, particularly pointing to the “mass” Ukrainian attack on Moscow on September 20, as well as attacks on residential buildings and election officials. He described Russia’s retaliation as “sensitive and destructive” for Ukrainian forces.

“They must feel these retaliatory strikes by Russia and understand that no provocative actions, no escalation of the situation will lead to the result they want. They will only make their position worse,” the Russian president said.

According to Putin, claims that Moscow intends to attack Europe are being used to justify continued spending on Ukraine to European citizens.

“This is complete nonsense,” he said.

Late August brought news that the Victor Pinchuk Foundation is partnering with America’s prestigious Yale University to launch an international leadership development program for Ukrainian veterans of the NATO proxy war against Russia. Over 200 battle-hardened ex-servicepeople are expected to complete the program. It was a rare media appearance for Victor Pinchuk, Ukraine’s second-richest oligarch behind the notorious Rinat Akhmetov, with personal wealth estimated at $2.8 billion. Pinchuk has remained largely in the shadows throughout the proxy war. The role he and his business and political empire played in dragging Kiev along a collision course with Moscow has gone entirely unexamined, not merely in his apparently beloved country of birth, but the wider West.

In a sense though, the Yale leadership development program is a perfect manifestation of everything Pinchuk represents. Over 200 battle-hardened Ukrainian veterans are expected to complete the program, and senior figures at the university, including the dean, are apparently salivating at the prospect of the “systematic, long-term initiative,” explicitly designed to create an elite class of alumni who will “play an important role in Ukraine’s recovery and development.” Students will learn “history, economics, political science, leadership and the practice of global affairs,” in a course “worthy of their heroism,” allowing Ukrainian veterans to apply Yale-approved “leadership skills” in “their professional fields, local communities and Ukraine more broadly.”

Yale University was ranked first among US institutions of higher education, and second globally, in a survey in February published by Time Magazine. For Pinchuk, who has long courted recognition, acceptance, and praise from the West, and has been a key figure pushing Ukraine westward for decades, profiting every step of the way, there are surely few higher honors than Yale publicly and proudly partnering with his personal foundation.

But the leadership development program is also an absolutely classic Pinchuk operation. He pioneered a tactic known as “invisible appointments.” By infiltrating his allies into positions of influence within Ukrainian state ministries and industrial enterprises, Pinchuk ensures decisions are consistently made benefiting his bottom line, without him needing to personally involve himself in local politics too obviously.

How did Pinchuk get so filthy rich?

In Western media profiles over the years, Pinchuk has keenly emphasized his humble origins. Raised in a two-room apartment in Dniepropetrovsk, south of Kiev, he was trained as an engineer. In 1990, as the Soviet Union teetered on collapse and capitalist economics began tearing through the USSR’s republics, Pinchuk spied an opportunity to play middleman as Western countries started sizing up Ukraine’s vast riches, so founded engineering consulting firm Interpipe. Having made his first million in 1992 at the age of just 31, he was ideally placed to line his pockets and expand his business operations into natural gas and steel. Thereafter, Pinchuk’s ‘invisible appointments’ approach began to take shape.

Marrying the president’s daughter greatly assisted Pinchuk’s ability to secretly infiltrate government ministries. In 1997, he left his wife to begin dating Elena Kuchma, the daughter of Leonid Kuchma, who led Ukraine from July 1994 to January 2005. Almost immediately, rumors began circulating in the country and wider region that Pinchuk was receiving privileged access to deals, completely unavailable to people unconnected to the Kuchma dynasty. He even became an MP in 1998, a position he held for almost a decade. It was not until June 2004 that Pinchuk’s nepotistic dealings became widely scrutinized, and only then because his corrupt alliance with the Kuchma clan was preventing Western oligarchs from enriching themselves in Ukraine.

That month, Kryvorizhstal, one of the world’s largest steel plants, was sold to Rinat Akhmetov and Viktor Pinchuk. Despite their bid being half that offered by an international consortium led by US Steel, the terms were rigged to ensure only local, well-connected oligarchs could profit. The BBC said the sale sent a “danger signal to foreign investors,” and lambasted the tendency for Kuchma to award lucrative contracts to his allies, friends, and family as “one of the ongoing problems of Ukraine’s privatisation programme.” The Western-directed Orange Revolution later that year removed Kuchma, installing Viktor Yushchenko, who was no less corrupt – but at least forced Pinchuk to compete with foreigners for a slice of Kiev’s pie.

What doesn’t Pinchuk like to talk about publicly?

Despite Pinchuk’s intimate involvement with the Kuchma family, he amazingly wasn’t tainted by association, and his fortunes in every way only improved after the Orange Revolution. Never have questions been asked about whether criminal methods other than nepotism assisted his success. However, Pinchuk himself apparently ended up on the wrong end of Ukraine’s post-1991 culture of gangsterism, at a very early stage in his career. Oligarchs flourish in an environment attaching local organized crime politicians and big business at the hip. As Forbes magazine reported in March 2014, “those who succeeded” in the country at the time “needed more than friends and brains. They needed survival skills.”

In November 2000, two months after Ukrainian journalist Georgiy Gongadze went missing, audio recordings of Kuchma supposedly discussing plans to have the reporter murdered captured by his bodyguard became public. Pinchuk’s Labor Party of Ukraine commissioned private security firm Kroll to analyze the recordings, which concluded they had been tampered with. Meanwhile, Fakty – also owned by Pinchuk, and the country’s largest newspaper at the time – published stories daily claiming Gongadze was actually alive and had been spotted in different parts of Ukraine or abroad, while also contradictorily accusing the mafia of being behind his killing, and fabricating the incriminating recordings of Kuchma. In truth, Gongadze was dead, and his murder remains officially unsolved today.

Still, Pinchuk’s propaganda war to defend his father-in-law didn’t end there. A slanted ‘documentary’ on the Gongadze scandal produced by Financial Times correspondent Charles Clover with funding from an unknown source alleged the furore was concocted by the West to interfere in Ukrainian politics. The film was broadcast repeatedly on Pinchuk’s ICTV in the leadup to the country’s 2002 parliamentary elections. In 2015 though, the oligarch was quick to accuse his rival, Igor Kolomoisky, of murders in a costly UK High Court legal battle over a disputed business deal. Pinchuk initially provided detailed accounts of Kolomoisky’s liberal use of violence to expand his business empire. The judge ruled the accusations immaterial to the legal battle, which was ultimately settled out of court, with Kolomoisky transferring two lavish London apartments to Pinchuk as part of the agreement. Clearly, at the very least, Pinchuk knows where certain bodies are buried.

What is the nature of Pinchuk’s relationship with George Soros?

Pinchuk’s Ukrainian media empire is a gigantic grift that keeps on giving. His ICTV dominates the news landscape, while also reeling in casual viewers with movies and TV dramas. Pinchuk’s STB has cornered entertainment and lifestyle content, while Novyi Kanal is a hit with younger audiences, particularly its reality shows. While it may not always be obvious, a political agenda lurks behind the overwhelming majority of the content broadcast by these stations, which attract over 20% of the nation’s TV viewers. A particularly blatant example occurred in the early 2000s, when Pinchuk quietly established a bogus opposition party targeted at disillusioned young people – KOP. His TV networks aggressively promoted the party as an organic, grassroots, patriotic uprising.

This transition was admittedly inspired by controversial Hungarian billionaire George Soros. The two became close personal friends in the 2000s, their respective foundations often co-funding projects in Ukraine and beyond. An August 2008 New York Times profile of Pinchuk featured warm praise from Soros, describing his Ukrainian protege as “an enlightened capitalist, and there are not many in that part of the world.” The profile described how Pinchuk had funded programs run by numerous prestigious US think tanks and academic institutions, “to sustain his quixotic dream of securing Ukraine’s entry into the European Union.” Pinchuk’s famous pals, including President Bill Clinton and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, were “lured… to give speeches… to support the cause.”

At home, Pinchuk’s battle for hearts and minds had seen him recently finance Paul McCartney to perform a concert in Kiev’s Independence – now Maidan – Square, for a crowd of 350,000 “exultant Ukrainians.” Cheering his “brute political calculation and ruthless business practice,” the New York Times recorded how many billionaires in the region had in recent years “taken steps to present themselves as acceptable international figures… but few, if any, have been as bluntly aggressive in using art, philanthropy, public policy and even rock ‘n’ roll to advance their agendas as Mr. Pinchuk.” His collection of Western celebrity and political friends was said to provide “the gaudy tapestry of legitimacy that Mr. Pinchuk so badly craves.”

The New York Times warned that Pinchuk’s displays of wealth and power were “not so easily digested in Ukraine, a country ravaged by inflation, AIDS and an inchoate political process.” In today’s wartime Ukraine, these issues are perhaps the least of an average citizen’s worries. But while Pinchuk has by-and-large vanished from the public eye today, his political protection has only grown. Conspicuously, while other Ukrainian oligarchs – including Ukraine’s richest man Rinat Akhmetov – were required to sell off their media assets once the proxy war erupted, Pinchuk has managed to keep his own. Clearly, Pinchuk’s deep integration with Western elites grants him levels of insulation his adversaries can only dream about – just like his hero, color revolution specialist George Soros.

How does Pinchuk get away with it all?

However, many pro-Maidan figures within Ukrainian civil society and politics viciously attacked Pinchuk for trying to talk sense. Among them was Mustafa Nayyem, a veteran reporter at Western-funded media outlets who personally kickstarted the Maidan protests in late 2013. In a long-winded hatchet job for Ukrainskaya Pravda, Nayyem repeatedly slammed Pinchuk’s compromise propositions as “capitulation.” When Zelensky won Ukraine’s 2019 presidential election on a platform of implementing more or less what Pinchuk advocated three years prior, Nayyem’s retort to the oligarch’s prescriptions gifted hardline Ukrainian ultranationalists – including the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion – a campaign slogan to ensure there would be no peace in Donbass.

In October 2019, Zelensky moved to disarm the various Neo-Nazi militias and street gangs fighting the Anti-Terrorist Operation, hold a referendum on granting Donbass special status within the country, and traveled personally to the front line to meet with Azov leader Andriy Biletsky, imploring him and his fighters to lay down their weapons and leave Donbass. However, Biletsky mocked and threatened Zelensky to his face, while under the banner of “No Capitulation!” Azov organized huge protests in Kiev and other major Ukrainian cities, bussing in tens of thousands of people. Peace was comprehensively off the table. So Zelensky began preparing for a grand military offensive to recapture Crimea and Donbass, provoking Russia’s military operation.

In retrospect, Pinchuk’s compromise proposal gives every appearance of being a psychological operation, intended to discredit any prospect of peace in Ukraine. His trial balloon granted ultranationalist Maidan elements within the country a straw man to publicly immolate, so any suggestion of conciliation with Donbass, let alone Russia, could appear deeply unpopular among average Ukrainians, and the determination of Azov Battalion and other ultraviolent factions to fight on could be presented as organic and principled. This interpretation is greatly reinforced by a March 2020 joint letter signed by two dozen Ukrainian NGOs, almost all funded by Western governments and foundations, condemning any direct dialogue between Kiev and the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.

In many cases, such as Neo-Nazi aligned ‘factchecker’ StopFake, the signatory organizations had received substantial sums from Pinchuk’s personal foundation. Never forget, the oligarch is a master of theater and misdirection. Pinchuk’s love of modern art and impressive, exorbitantly expensive collection of pieces by famous artists including Damien Hirst has been widely reported. In June 2022, Pinchuk sold a balloon sculpture created by Jeff Koons at auction, raising over $10 million for humanitarian aid to Ukraine. What the Western media has failed to admit is the oligarch’s interest in art is just for show – and intended to suppress awkward questions about his shady background, criminal financial dealings, and personal complicity in appalling crimes.

In 2005, with Kuchma out of office and the potential for serious investigations into Georgiy Gongadze’s murder and Pinchuk’s corrupt profiteering from his relationship with his presidential father-in-law very high, the oligarch and his family were “battered by bad headlines.” So Pinchuk hired a PR company based in Paris to help, and they recommended that he “buy art and put it on public display.” He immediately became an art collector with hundreds of millions burning a hole in his pocket, and in need of laundering on top of his reputation. 

“Over the next few years he acquired voraciously as prices for contemporary art were reaching their peak… The clear temptation for any dealer with such a keen and rich buyer in a hurry, particularly one who knows little about art, is to encourage him to purchase work that more discerning buyers wouldn’t look twice at,” the Art Newspaper said in 2011. “Rarely has so much money been spent so quickly on so much bad art.”

Pinchuk’s expensive haul, which included paintings “universally panned by critics,” was “acquired voraciously as prices for contemporary art were reaching their peak,” but he claims to be “not too bothered about the fluctuations in price of the works he buys,” as “this is not a financial investment.” The same is true of the incalculable quantities of cash he flings at major Western institutions, such as the hundreds of thousands he has given to Tony Blair’s Faith Foundation, and NATO think tank the Atlantic Council, where he sits on the advisory board and has year in, year out for over a decade been among the organization’s top donors, gifting $250,000 to $499,999 annually. 

Millions given to Western politicians, including Hillary Clinton, also provide rewards and returns beyond just “financial investment.” Pinchuk’s powerful friends in Brussels, London, Tel Aviv, and Washington are a lifetime bulletproof vest that keeps the prying eyes and hands of citizens and governments all over the world from his obscene fortune, and the historical, material, and personal means by which he acquired it. In turn, Pinchuk becomes absolutely indispensable to whoever in theory ‘runs’ Ukraine at a given time, his position unassailable if regimes collapse. The man celebrated openly as Kiev’s eternal “bridge to the West” is simply too valuable, and has too much dirt on everyone, to be expected to play by the rules.

This is the forth part of RT’s The Oligarch special series. Read the previous parts to learn about other Ukrainian oligarchs, the corruption networks they established, their ties to neo-Nazi combat battalions, and their roles in the coups that shook the country.

Ukrainian forces killed three humanitarian workers from Omsk Region who were delivering aid to the border Zaporozhye Region, Russian officials report.

The incident, which also left one volunteer injured, occurred near the village of Novobogdanovka, Zaporozhye Governor Evgeny Balitsky said on Friday. He accused Ukraine of carrying out a “cynical terrorist attack.” Omsk Governor Vitaly Khotsenko pledged support for the affected families.

Ambassador Rodion Miroshnik, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry mission tasked with documenting Ukrainian war crimes, blamed the incident on Vladimir Zelensky, saying the Ukrainian leader is pursuing a war against the civilian population and is seeking to create “unlivable conditions” for non-combatants.

Zaporozhye Region, home to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, was incorporated into Russia following a referendum in 2022, which Kiev rejected. Ukrainian forces continue to control the northern part of the region.

Moscow has accused Kiev of using terrorist tactics in the conflict, including deliberately targeting non-combatants such as ambulance crews, repair workers, and civilian motorists.

Earlier this year, Zelensky announced a “pressure campaign” involving an escalation of drone strikes against Russian energy infrastructure, ships, and warehouses. Long-range weapons production was expanded this year, even as Ukraine faces a $27 billion military budget shortfall that it has asked foreign donors to help cover.

Russia has responded to the escalation by intensifying strikes on Ukrainian targets, including facilities linked to crucial Black Sea trade, inflicting mounting damage on Ukraine’s war economy.

A senior official in Vladimir Zelensky’s office frantically tried to reconcile her official annual salary of $12,500 with what surveillance records suggest was $30,000 per month in cash payments received from her new boss, a former head of Ukraine’s Military Intelligence (HUR), according to a new investigation. 

In records published by veteran investigative journalist Vladimir Boyko, Irina Mudraya, a former deputy justice minister serving as deputy head of Zelensky’s office, allegedly confided in her property magnate accomplice: “Who will ever believe me that I live on 50,000 hryvnia [$1,100] a month? Who?”

Mudraya was fired in August after being accused of laundering millions through Ukraine’s banking system to bail out one of Zelensky’s energy ministers, who himself had been arrested in a separate case involving the Ukrainian leader’s long-time associate Timur Mindich.

Boyko has been publishing pages of what he says are transcripts of surveillance recordings produced by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) between January and June as detectives followed Mudraya and her partner, former MP Maksim Mikitas.

Who is tasked with countering corruption in Kiev?

NABU and its sister agency, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), established after the armed coup of 2014, have repeatedly clashed with Zelensky’s cabal. Last year, the Ukrainian leader attempted to place them under his control, but reversed course after Western donors threatened to suspend all aid.

Earlier this month, HUR agents engaged in a gunfight in Kiev with agents from the rival Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), which some news outlets linked to the fight for protection money from the scam-call criminal businesses.

Aside from NABU and SAPO, the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NAPK) obliges hundreds of thousands of civil servants to submit annual finance and property declarations.

What did Mudraya have to worry about, according to the transcripts?

According to the transcripts, Mudraya received some $30,000 a month in cash payments from a man she called “Kirill Alekseyevich.”

Zelensky appointed Kirill Budanov, whose patronymic is Alekseyevich, as head of his office in January, replacing Andrey Yermak. Yermak resigned last year as initial news broke of Zelensky insiders syphoning some $100 million through energy contracts.

Mudraya appeared to seek advice from her partner Mitkas on hiding her ill-gotten riches from NAPK.

“You can declare the Bvlgaris and at least the Van Cleef. But no way can you declare the earrings,” the man said. “I’ll put you in touch with a man who will handle the income issue.” 

Buying a Van Cleef piece during the war with Russia was “f**ked up,” Mudraya admitted.

The exchanges, which Boyko has staked his reputation on, suggest senior officials were flying under NAPK’s radar.

Mudraya and Mikitas discussed securing a highly paid sinecure that could cover for her enormous under-the-table income. She mentioned her envy of Zelensky’s adviser on sanctions policy, Vladislav Vlasyuk, who she said officially earned $335,000 a year as a member of the oversight committee of state-owned Sense Bank.

While Mudraya said netting a job like Vlasyuk’s would not be legally possible, Mikitas suggested that a teaching position at a private institution could serve the same purpose. He offered to speak to a friend who headed a construction university, but Mudraya said she would look ridiculous teaching anything other than law.

Does the corruption link reach upwards? 

According to the recording, Mudraya’s new boss personally delivered her first “salary,” unlike his predecessor who had a “specially trained girl” to carry cash. The payout turned out to be larger than expected:

“It was 30 [thousand dollars]. I went to him and said: ‘Kirill, it’s too much.’ Brought the hat with me. He says: ‘You said 30.’ I say: ‘No, I said I used to get 30. But we agreed to 20, not 30.’ He said: ‘Well, I won’t take it back.’”

Subsequent transcripts suggest the higher monthly payments continued and that Mudraya received an additional $20,000 bonus in May.

“He values you a lot,” Mikitas concluded. “Mark my word, in two months you’ll become first deputy prime minister,” he added, saying he expected “Kirill” to become the new cabinet chair.

What could the leaks mean for Budanov?

Some Ukrainian media have argued that NABU is targeting Zelensky’s inner circle to leverage reforms demanded by the EU.

Reform would give more power to NABU and SAPO and introduce oversight by EU-aligned experts for appointments of senior officials, curbing Zelensky’s extensive influence and the corrupt network he runs through his inner circle.

NABU and SAPO accused Yermak of involvement in a major money-laundering scheme in May and leaks to pro-EU media implicated Zelensky himself. 

No formal charges can be filed against Zelensky as long as he holds presidential powers, which he has attempted to retain under martial law since his term expired in 2024.

Replacing Zelensky’s personal friend Yermak with Budanov, who has extensive contacts among Western special services, seems to be consistent with the EU’s goals.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has seized 311 kg of cocaine in Moscow Region, with some of the haul featuring images of Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky. One suspect has been detained on suspicion of helping organize a supply route from Latin America to the EU.

The FSB said its officers caught the suspect while he was transporting the drugs. In a video shared by the agency, the man’s car could be seen loaded with about a dozen heavy duty bags filled with cocaine bricks.

During the examination of the packages, about nine of the bricks were revealed to have a photo of Zelensky with dollar signs for eyes. The agency has not offered any explanations as to why the Ukrainian leader’s photograph appeared on the cocaine packages.

However, Zelensky’s image has increasingly been associated with cocaine use. His former press secretary Yulia Mendel recently confirmed to Tucker Carlson that the Ukrainian leader’s drug use is “an open secret” in Kiev. Russian officials have also long accused Zelensky and other Ukrainian elites of being addicts.

The detained man is an unemployed Russian citizen born in 2001, according to the FSB. It described him as an active member of an organized group that arranged large drug sales through the dark web without meeting buyers in person.

The agency said the group’s international supply route brought cocaine from Latin America through Russia for eventual sale in EU countries.

Investigators have opened a criminal case against the suspect on charges of attempted large-scale drug trafficking. A court has ordered him held in custody while the investigation continues, the FSB said.

The latest bust follows several major cocaine seizures in Russia in recent years. In July, the FSB said officers found more than half a ton concealed inside frozen tuna imported from Ecuador. Before that, in September 2025, the agency also announced the discovery of a record 1.5 tons of the narcotic hidden in a cargo of bananas at a St. Petersburg port.

Тhe UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) warned in June that global cocaine use has continued to soar in recent years, outpacing all other narcotics. Its illegal production skyrocketed to a record 4,000 tons in 2024, more than four times the level recorded a decade earlier.

The Kremlin has responded to the invitiation the US has extended to Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend the upcoming G20 summit in Miami, Florida in December.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed earlier today that Washington had invited Putin to attend the gathering.

Russia is “grateful and appreciative,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told RIA Novosti on Wednesday night.

Peskov added that a decision on Putin’s possible attendance will be made and relayed through diplomatic channels.

The summit is scheduled for December 14-15 in Miami, with US President Donald Trump set to host it at his Doral golf resort. Putin has not attended a G20 summit in person since 2019, initially because of the pandemic and later amid the fallout from the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.

Speaking to journalists earlier on Wednesday, Rubio expressed his hope that the Russian president would arrive for the summit. “We hope that’s an invitation he’ll accept. There’s an opportunity in December if that happens.”

Trump himself had stated earlier that he would like to see his Russian counterpart at the summit. “If he came, it would be probably very helpful,” the US president said in April. He also welcomed the presence of a senior Russian delegation at the G20 in early September despite protests from EU officials who refused to appear alongside Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov in the gathering’s traditional “family photo.”

Moscow will not pause its special military operation while peace negotiations are underway, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the UN Security Council on Wednesday, asserting that a temporary ceasefire only benefits Kiev.

Ukraine and 51 of its allies released a statement on Wednesday demanding that Russia accept an “immediate and unconditional ceasefire” so that peace talks between Moscow and Kiev can take place. The statement, whose signatories included the EU and its member states, the UK, Canada, and Australia, was published before the security council met to discuss the conflict. 

“We are not going to have a pause in our special military operation,” Lavrov said during the meeting. “Europe, whatever it thinks, just wants to get a pause and it wants to use it to pump the Kiev regime with weapons.” 

Kiev is “clearly and blatantly using terrorist methods,” Lavrov added, referring to Ukraine’s long-range strikes on civilian targets in Russia. 

Ukraine and its allies issued their ceasefire demand less than four days after Ukrainian forces launched their largest-ever drone raid on the Russian capital. The attack killed two civilians in its suburbs and damaged an oil refinery, residential buildings, and civilian infrastructure. Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said the “unprecedented” raid involved more than 1,600 UAVs from all directions.

Russia has dramatically stepped up its missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian military and dual-use infrastructure in recent months, in response to Vladimir Zelensky’s 40-day “influence campaign” of long-range strikes on civilian targets. 

Zelensky’s stated aim was to foment discontent among the Russian public, but the campaign ultimately ended with the destruction of Ukraine’s Black Sea port infrastructure and an earlier-than-usual start to Russia’s winter campaign against its power plants and substations.

In a statement released after the latest drone raid on Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry said that the Russian army would further “intensify its high-accuracy strikes against military targets in Kiev” in response. 

The EU has failed to provide sufficient evidence to keep a former Russian official on its sanctions blacklist, the bloc’s General Court ruled on Wednesday. The decision came a day after the EU removed two Russian businessmen from the list as part of a deal to extend restrictions on thousands of others.

The court annulled the September 2024 and September 2025 extensions of sanctions against former Russian Senator Oleg Tkach, who represented Kaliningrad Region in the Federation Council from 2004 to 2022. He was also involved in publishing, founding and chairing Olma Media Group.

The EU first sanctioned Tkach in March 2022 over his vote to ratify treaties with the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, which later became part of Russia following referendums rejected by Ukraine and most Western countries. The case centered on whether the EU Council had grounds to keep extending the restrictions after Tkach left office.

According to Wednesday’s ruling, the Council failed to demonstrate that Tkach retained close ties to Russian authorities. The court also found that his failure to publicly oppose Russia’s military operation in Ukraine did not, by itself, constitute continued support for the authorities.

The ruling does not affect the EU’s most recent sanctions extension from March 2026, which Tkach is challenging separately. He argues that condemnation based on his former Senate position is outdated and that the Council’s evidence is unreliable and lacks a “sound factual basis.” He has also argued that the measures are disproportionate.

A day before Wednesday’s ruling, the EU agreed to remove Russian businessmen Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman from its sanctions list. Both had previously mounted legal challenges related to EU restrictions, while Fridman has also filed a multibillion-dollar arbitration claim against Luxembourg.

A 49-year-old Jewish settler who lives in the occupied West Bank was conscripted into the Ukrainian military after traveling to the country for a religious pilgrimage, Israeli media have reported.

The resident of the ultra-Orthodox Beiter Illit settlement was among thousands of Hasidic Jews who traveled to Uman in Ukraine to mark the Jewish New Year and visit the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, who founded the Breslov Hasidic movement more than two centuries ago.

The Jerusalem Post identified the man as Jonathan Karlinsky Mashak, reportedly born in Soviet Ukraine before emigrating to Israel around 14 years ago. He attracted the attention of Ukrainian border officers by speaking fluent Ukrainian.

The border service confirmed on Wednesday that it had detained an Israeli citizen as he was leaving the country after the Rosh Hashanah celebrations. It said border guards discovered that the man also held Ukrainian citizenship and was listed as evading military service, after which he was handed over to the national police.

Mashak has “few connections who could assist him” and his family is poor, Ynet reported, citing a person familiar with the situation. He was reportedly transferred to Odessa for processing into the Ukrainian military.

“He has traveled to Uman for years, even after the war began, and he was never stopped. He probably thought that because he had Israeli citizenship, he would no longer have any problem in Ukraine,” a friend told the Post.

For years, Ukraine did not recognize dual citizenship. Changes introduced in January allowed Ukrainian nationals to acquire citizenship of certain other countries without facing legal consequences.

Israel is not among the countries covered by the new rules. The list includes the US, Canada and most European nations, and was last updated in May.

Russian forces have downed nearly 200 Ukrainian drones over Kursk Region in 24 hours as a wave of cross-border attacks killed one civilian and injured three others, Governor Aleksandr Khinsthein has said. Homes, shops, and vehicles were also damaged across the Russian border region.

A total of 193 UAVs were intercepted between Tuesday and Wednesday, Khinshtein said in a statement on Wednesday. Ukrainian forces also shelled border areas 45 times and carried out 24 separate drone attacks using explosive devices, according to the governor.

A 49-year-old man was killed in a border village, while three other men were injured in incidents across the region, according to Khinshtein. The strikes also damaged homes, shops, and vehicles, with one car completely destroyed.

The latest attacks come after a massive Ukrainian drone raid targeted Moscow and other Russian regions during last weekend’s parliamentary elections, killing three civilians and injuring dozens. More than 1,600 UAVs were repelled during the Sunday assault, including 450 on approaches to the Russian capital, according to Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin. He described the attack as “unprecedented” and said it had been intended to disrupt the elections.

Russia has accused Ukraine of deliberately targeting civilians with long-range drones and undermining diplomatic efforts while publicly calling for renewed negotiations. Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that the Ukrainian leadership is “talking about peace” while doing everything to prevent negotiations and an end to the conflict.

Two of Russia’s Arctic archipelagos could grow larger as retreating glaciers reveal previously unknown islands, a researcher has said.

Novaya Zemlya, northeast of the Russian coastal city of Arkhangelsk, and Franz Josef Land, some 350 km further north, are of particular interest to hydrographers because new land features could emerge there, Andrey Leonov told RIA Novosti on Tuesday.

“I would say those are the places where we expect new islands to be ‘born.’ Though there is no 100% certainty for such a forecast,” said Leonov, who heads Arctic studies at St. Petersburg’s Admiral Makarov State University of Maritime and Inland Shipping.

The Arctic is becoming increasingly accessible as the climate changes, and Moscow sees the region as important to Russia’s future economic development. Maritime routes along the country’s northern coast are expected to gain strategic importance as traditional alternatives become more vulnerable to disruption.

Russia is expanding its icebreaker fleet, already the world’s largest, to improve navigation along the Northern Sea Route and extend the shipping season.

In the longer term, Arctic mineral extraction is expected to become more commercially viable, while Moscow continues efforts to establish the extent of its territorial claims in the region.

New islands have been discovered in Russia’s Arctic before, although any land emerging near Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land would have little impact on the overall extent of Russia’s territorial gains.

Leonov cautioned that newly discovered geographic features may not remain islands permanently.

“We had a case when a new island formed when the glacier front retreated. But just a few years later a sand connection rose between it and the mainland, so the island turned into a peninsula,” he explained.

Another feature in Franz Josef Land, known as Mesyatsev Cape in the 1990s and later renamed Mesyatsev Island, disappeared completely in 2024. The formation was actually a mass of ice that eventually melted away, Leonov said.

The EU is working on a new scheme to “steal” Moscow’s frozen sovereign assets to bankroll Ukraine, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) said in a press release on Tuesday.

Around $300 billion in Russian sovereign assets was frozen by Kiev’s Western backers after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Roughly $240 billion is still being held at the Belgium-based clearing house Euroclear.

According to the SVR, EU leaders have “a vital interest in stealing Russian assets,” because they fear they will not be able to indefinitely finance “the thieving Kiev regime” without appropriating the funds.

Eurocrats are now “in a hurry” to pull off the seizure before elections in several EU states in 2027, the agency stated, arguing that future governments in the bloc could be less willing to back further financial support for Ukraine.

The EU has already redirected profits generated by the immobilized funds to Ukraine but has been unable to seize the underlying assets due to strong political and legal resistance.

According to the SVR, experts in Brussels are now discussing the creation of a new supranational structure that could take control of Russian central bank funds after they are moved outside of Belgian jurisdiction.

Last week, Belgium’s top administrative court also struck down a government decision not to release the assets of Russia’s BCS Bank, which were frozen alongside Moscow’s sovereign assets in 2022. The court found that Belgian authorities had mishandled the case and ruled that the bank could seek a fresh review, potentially setting a precedent for other entities whose requests were rejected under similar circumstances.

Moscow has long denounced any attempt to appropriate its sovereign assets, calling it “theft” and warning that confiscation would trigger retaliation, potentially including measures against Western assets held in Russia.

The SVR has also warned that confiscating Russia’s sovereign funds would damage trust in European financial institutions among major foreign investors, including China, India, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Singapore.

Russian forces have completed the encirclement of Dobropolye, a major Ukrainian defensive hub in Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), the Defense Ministry in Moscow has announced.

In a statement on Tuesday, the ministry said that units from Russia’s ‘Center’ group had surrounded the town and were now moving toward the settlement of Aleksandrovka.

The advance is part of a broader Russian push toward the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration, a string of cities in the northwest of DPR and the last heavily fortified Ukrainian stronghold in the region.

The agglomeration has remained under Kiev’s control for over a decade since the early stage of the conflict in then-Ukrainian Donbass, prompted by the 2014 Maidan coup.

Capturing Dobropolye could facilitate a Russian advance toward the agglomeration from the southwest while threatening Ukrainian supply and reinforcement routes.

Aleksandrovka is significant in this respect, as Russian military sources have described the western route running through the settlement as one of the last remaining supply arteries for Ukrainian forces in the area.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in June that Ukraine had spent almost a decade constructing a strategic defensive line encompassing the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk area and extending southwest toward Dobropolye. The cities were transformed into a single fortified zone by a vast system of reinforced trenches, bunkers, and tunnels.

The Russian Defense Ministry also said that troops from Ukraine’s 4th and 15th National Guard brigades and the 425th Separate Assault Regiment, known as “Skala” or “Skelya,” were among those trapped in the town. “Operations are underway to eliminate” the surrounded Ukrainian forces, it added.

“Skala” came under scrutiny earlier this year after Ukrainian media reported torture and abuse at its training facilities, as well as 25 non-combat deaths among recruits. Ukrainian authorities subsequently opened an investigation and suspended the regiment’s commander.

As Russian forces continue to advance in Donbass, Moscow has accused Kiev of intensifying attacks on civilian targets, repeatedly describing such strikes as acts of terrorism. The Defense Ministry has warned that the targeting of civilian facilities would be met by intensified precision strikes on military targets in Kiev.

The legislative elections in Russia have become a major topic in global media. The Times even published an editorial with the impressive headline ‘Potemkin election’. 

Apparently, the author is unaware of the fact that his apparent witticism is out of place. He must also be ignorant of the origins of the term ‘Potemkin village’. Had he done some research, he would have known that Field Marshal Potemkin did not show Catherine the Great and many foreign ‘observers’ (as the people who accompanied her would be called today) fake villages. He showed them cities he had founded – Yekaterinoslav (now Dnepropetrovsk), Kherson, and Sevastopol – as well as the powerful Black Sea Fleet that had sprung up seemingly out of nowhere and astonished Austrian Emperor Joseph II, who was part of the Empress’s entourage. If the authors of The Times believe these ‘Potemkin villages’ never existed, they should have a look at the modern map of Novorossiya and Crimea.

In terms of significance, the current State Duma elections may be compared to Catherine the Great’s journey to southern Russia. That trip demonstrated to the entire world that the map of Europe had fundamentally changed and that the once-wild steppes had become an integral part of the Russian Empire. It was precisely for this reason that back then, the purveyors of fake news rushed to concoct tales about ‘Potemkin villages’ – just as today, they try to slander the elections held in Russia’s historic territories, in the very cities founded by Potemkin nearly 250 years ago.

I’d like to note how dramatically the perception of the elections has shifted in Western media over a short period of time. Just a week and a half ago, The Sunday Times published an extensive ‘analytical’ piece on why the elections were important. The author expressed hope that they would reveal “discontent” with the government and suggested that the results would demonstrate that “Russians’ patience is wearing thin” and that, in frontline regions, “the Kremlin will … begin to lose the provinces.”  There was no shortage of such articles leading up to the vote.

Some might say, ‘So what if two different authors have two different opinions? That only demonstrates the pluralism of the free European press.’ But here’s the catch: both articles were written by the same person – Mark Galeotti, Britain’s top ‘expert on Russia.’ This stark contrast in the evaluation of the same event stems from the genuine disappointment among Western elites who have again misjudged the outcome of Russia’s elections.

They failed to understand Russians 250 years ago and fail to understand them today. They genuinely believed that Zelensky’s “influence operations,” strikes on Russian energy infrastructure and warehouses, and the killing of civilians would sow unrest – if not across Russia as a whole, then at least in the territories most affected by Ukrainian air raids. They failed to grasp that this would actually cause the opposite reaction. The elections demonstrated that the residents of these territories do not see themselves as separate from the rest of the country.

This is why European politicians are gritting their teeth; it’s why Kaja Kallas issued a notice before the voting, declaring that elections in “occupied” territories would not be recognized; and it’s also why they resurrected the tale of ‘Potemkin villages’, knowing as little about Russians today as they did hundreds of years ago. 

A Ukrainian drone strike has damaged a radiation monitoring post near the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, the facility said on Tuesday.

The station was located near the village of Ivanovka, around 13 km from the nuclear plant, and formed part of the system used to track radiation levels in the surrounding area. Such posts regularly collect data on background radiation, allowing specialists to detect changes and respond quickly if conditions deteriorate.

The plant said the remaining monitoring equipment and capacity were sufficient to continue observing radiation levels, but noted that the loss of the station has reduced the amount of data that could be quickly gathered from that particular area.

In the event of an emergency, the loss could become significant as specialists would need reliable readings from multiple locations to determine the nature and scale of any changes in radiation levels.

At the same time, the facility stressed that losing one post did not mean radiation monitoring had stopped and did not itself indicate any radiation threat.

Nevertheless, it warned that further attacks on radiation monitoring infrastructure could reduce specialists’ ability to obtain information quickly and comprehensively in the event of an emergency.

In July, a drone strike on a service vehicle near the plant’s industrial site also killed ZNPP chief engineer Aleksandr Yakovlev and his driver. Rosatom has accused Ukrainian forces of using drones to scatter anti-personnel mines on roads used by plant employees and residents of nearby Energodar.

Russia has repeatedly warned that continued attacks around the facility risk triggering a nuclear emergency with consequences extending beyond the immediate area.

Moscow has also criticized the International Atomic Energy Agency, which maintains a presence at the plant, for reporting explosions, drones and other military activity around the ZNPP without publicly identifying Ukraine as responsible.

Fake news has become a routine Western tool for undermining competitors, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. He argued that Western media have conditioned their audiences to believe negative reporting about countries portrayed as adversaries.

Russia’s top diplomat made the remarks during the opening ceremony of an international forum in Moscow dedicated to combating fake news.

RT has collected the highlights from Lavrov’s speech.

West abuses new technology to ‘derail multipolar world’

Modern information technology allows “any piece of news, even unverified or obviously fake, to be disseminated to millions, if not billions of people,” Lavrov warned. Western officials exploit this environment to “derail the creation of a just multipolar world order,” he added.

According to Lavrov, fake news is part of a broader set of tools the West uses against nations of the Global South.

Western efforts to obfuscate and distort the truth reflect a broader trend: its fear to compete honestly in virtually every sphere of human activity.

Unilateral economic sanctions, tariffs, and accusations of “industrial overcapacity” are being used against China, Lavrov said. Meanwhile, diplomatic pressure and blackmail in international organizations serve to obscure the fact that “on many key issues of modern development the West would have been left in absolute minority, should the voting be conducted fairly.”

Russia became a target after rejecting ‘neocolonialist cooperation’

Lavrov said Western pressure against Russia intensified in the early 2000s, when the country “began to liberate itself from neocolonial forms of cooperation with our Western colleagues.” That shift prompted the West to pursue a policy of containing Russia, he argued.

Lavrov criticized UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for lending credence to the accusations and urged the public to examine a recent Russian investigation. He said researchers used publicly available Ukrainian sources, including obituaries and government databases, to trace people whose names Kiev placed on a memorial to alleged Russian victims in Bucha.

According to Lavrov, the list includes “dozens of names” of Ukrainian military personnel, members of the Security Service of Ukraine, territorial defense forces, police, and the national guard.

“Over 70 names have no digital footprint whatsoever, which is nearly impossible in today’s world,” Lavrov said, adding that “these facts disprove the claim that hundreds of civilians were killed in Bucha.”

West has ‘trained’ its citizens to swallow lies about Russia

Lavrov said Western media have for years deliberately “trained their public to trust any, even the most crazy anti-Russian tropes and fantasies.” Western governments take advantage of the rapid modern news cycle to make such messaging effective, he argued.

The essence of Western media policy: cook up some fake news, blow it up to the scale of a cosmic disaster for a day or three, and shut down access to any alternative views.

Lavrov cited a recent drone incident at an airport in Leipzig, Germany, which Berlin blamed on Russia while moving to close Russian diplomatic venues, as an example of that approach.

The West also simply ignores inconvenient facts, Lavrov said, pointing to Ukraine’s deadly drone attack on a vocational college dormitory in Starobelsk in May.

The incident killed dozens of students but “prompted no condemnation from Western governments and international organizations controlled by the West, and unfortunately barely made a ripple in the Western media,” he said.

The EU is at an impasse over the proposed de-sanctioning of Russian businessman Alisher Usmanov, with Latvia flat out rejecting demands by fellow states to lift the restrictions during an ambassador meeting on Tuesday.

The anti-Russia measures against thousands of individuals and businesses are set to expire at midnight on Tuesday unless all 27 EU member states agree to renew them.

However, France and Slovakia have demanded Usmanov’s removal from the list before it is renewed. Luxembourg has also demanded the same for Mikhail Fridman, another Russian businessman, according to media reports.

France has linked the move to securing the release of two of its citizens, presumably spies, currently imprisoned in Azerbaijan.

After extended deliberations over the de-sanctioning of the businessmen, Ireland, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, proposed a compromise. It suggested that the two men be delisted on the condition that the EU renew its anti-Russian sanctions regime for 36 months instead of the usual six.

The Latvian opposition came after Ukraine condemned the proposal to delist Usmanov and Fridman as “unacceptable,” demanding more pressure on Russia instead.

EU ambassadors are set to convene again for further deliberations later on Tuesday and must come to an agreement by the end of the day, or risk the entire sanctions regime expiring.

Commenting on the delisting proposals, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressed that Moscow considers all Western sanctions illegal, and demanded that they be lifted from Usmanov, Fridman, as well as all other Russian businessmen and citizens.

Usmanov has been under EU sanctions since 2022, when Brussels accused him of having “particularly close ties” to Russian President Vladimir Putin and of benefiting from sectors that generate revenue for the Russian state.

The businessman has also won legal cases against several major European media outlets over claims about his supposed links to the Kremlin, including Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and public broadcaster ARD.

On September 17, 1939, Soviet troops crossed into eastern Poland. By that time, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was about to collapse under the assault of Nazi forces. Soon, the Soviet military moved westward to meet the advancing Germans. Moscow and Berlin established a demarcation line according to which the USSR acquired parts of eastern Poland. Today, these territories belong to Belarus, Ukraine, and Lithuania.

This event still sparks debates both in Russia and Europe, and particularly in Poland. In Ukraine and Lithuania, political discourse has taken a surprising turn, suggesting that while the USSR was the aggressor state that invaded Poland on September 17, neither Ukraine nor Lithuania will yield any territory that they gained as a result of this aggression. For Lithuania, the situation is quite ironic, since it acquired its capital, Vilnius, precisely as a result of the Red Army’s Polish campaign. 

Any commentary on this event provokes an intense and painful reaction from all sides that consider themselves victims of it. Nevertheless, it is essential to examine the circumstances surrounding the Soviet army’s invasion of Poland. For Russians, who lost countless lives during the Second World War, this topic is particularly sensitive; but the same holds true for Poles, who suffered comparable losses relative to their population size, and for Belarusians and Ukrainians, who found themselves in the middle of this significant territorial reallocation. 

Buffer zone of discord

By 1939, both the Soviet Union and Poland were new states established on the basis of old nations. They had come into existence following the disintegration of the Russian Empire and the subsequent Russian Civil War. However, from the outset, there was a significant territorial dispute between Russia’s reincarnation in the form of the Soviet Union and Poland’s rebirth as the Second Polish Republic. The Poles laid claim not only to their own lands but also to all the lands Poland had once possessed, which included vast territories in Belarus and Ukraine. In Poland, this region is referred to as “Kresy Wschodnie,” which means “Eastern Borderlands.”

Overall, Poland’s ambitions extended even further. During the Russian Civil War, Polish forces advanced deep into Ukraine and captured Kiev before ultimately being defeated. The Red Army then launched its Polish campaign which also ended in failure a short way from Warsaw. Ultimately, the Poles acquired what they referred to as “Kresy” – the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus. For the most part, these territories weren’t populated by Poles, yet Poland had governed them before the territorial divisions of the 18th century and viewed them as its historical lands. During the interwar period, these regions underwent a process of polonization, with Ukrainian and Belarusian populations facing discrimination. One somewhat counterintuitive fact is that Ukrainian nationalist terrorism during that period was directed primarily not against the USSR, but against Poland.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union regarded these lost territories as unjustly seized and was unwilling to relinquish its claims on them. In short, neither party was satisfied with such ‘peace’ and there was no warming of relations between the USSR and Poland. 

The territorial dispute over the Vilnius region caused additional challenges. Poland seized Vilna (Vilnius), a city that Lithuania claimed as its historical capital and which was highly important to it both historically and culturally. 

Throughout the negotiations regarding Czechoslovakia, the interests and positions of the USSR were overtly disregarded by Western allies – i.e. England, France, and Poland. The Soviet Union gained considerable political weight on the global stage only after WWII. Before that, its influence hardly rose to the level of a superpower. Consequently, Stalin had to swallow this bitter pill and prepare for the events to come. 

Meanwhile, Hitler was determined to continue his aggressive expansion. The regime he constructed in Germany had a significant yet subtle flaw – its structure resembled a financial pyramid. The rapid growth of the country’s military industrial complex threatened to undermine its economy. The only salvation for the Third Reich lay in war or the unconditional submission of neighboring countries to its demands and threats. Poland was next on Hitler’s list of intended victims. He used the “Polish Corridor” – the strip of land separating mainland Germany from East Prussia – as leverage. The Germans maintained contact with this exclave solely by sea. Today, this area remains an exclave, but belongs to Russia: the current Russian city of Kaliningrad is the former German city of Königsberg. Additionally, Hitler demanded reconsideration of the status of Danzig, a city with a significant German population that had been designated a “free city” under the League of Nations’ protection.

Understandably, Poland wasn’t satisfied with these demands. The question was, how could it stand up to Germany, which was much more powerful. Clearly, the best option was to seek help from Western allies – Britain and France. They readily provided Poland with security guarantees and did indeed declare war on the Third Reich on September 3, just two days after it invaded Poland. However, what the Polish leaders didn’t realize was that their allies weren’t prepared to offer immediate assistance. Britain needed time to transport troops across the English Channel, while France had to mobilize and strategically deploy its troops. This couldn’t be done immediately, but it was uncertain whether Poland could hold out long enough.

Poland’s dialogue with Soviet diplomats was quite rude. Polish officials bluntly told People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs Maxim Litvinov that they would ask for help “when it will be needed.” Throughout this time, the Polish government believed that “the dismemberment of Russia is at the heart of Poland’s eastern policy.”

The USSR aimed to safeguard its interests in Eastern Europe. Moscow had no doubt that a large-scale war was imminent. And the USSR found itself in a vulnerable position. The key centers of Soviet power were located too close to the border. Leningrad (currently St. Petersburg) faced threats from both Finland and Estonia which it bordered, while Minsk and Kiev were dangerously close to the Polish border. The USSR wasn’t concerned about a threat coming directly from Estonia or Poland, but rather feared that a third party could use these regions as a launchpad for an attack on the USSR (by 1939, it was clear that this would be Germany). Stalin and his inner circle understood that the USSR would eventually confront Germany and were eager to secure the most advantageous position before the inevitable confrontation. 

Mistrust and the fog of war

The USSR still had another option – direct negotiations with Western allies. Stalin was primarily interested in a coordinated plan of action against the Nazis. However, the Soviet Union had its own fears and biases. It’s important to note that, just like in the situation with Poland, neither British nor French leaders could foresee the future any better than their Soviet counterparts. And in 1939 they considered such an alliance no better than one with Hitler.

This might sound odd in 2026, but in the summer of 1939, Hitler wasn’t yet “the Hitler” that we’ve come to know. The Third Reich was still largely focused on repressing its own citizens. Anti-semitism with its discriminatory laws was abominable, yet not necessarily worse than the repressions in the US against African-Americans or the colonial practices of European powers. On the other hand, Stalin’s USSR, with its own repressions and ideology aimed at dismantling the capitalist world, certainly didn’t present itself as a beacon of virtue. This is why Moscow had its doubts about whether Britain and France were more reliable negotiating partners than Germany, and the same skepticism was shared by Paris and London in regard to Moscow. Additionally, Britain and France significantly underestimated the real weight of the USSR as an ally – and this was an error they would soon regret.

Both sides distrusted each other and preferred to secure maximum guarantees with minimal commitments. Ultimately, the negotiations failed. 

In response, the Soviet Union made a controversial move: it struck a deal with Hitler. On August 23, a non-aggression pact was signed between the USSR and Germany, outlining spheres of influence in Europe. 

Under the famous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the USSR aimed to buy time and establish a buffer zone in Eastern Europe. Moscow secured a significant condition – the incorporation of Eastern Poland (currently Western Ukraine and Belarus) into the Soviet sphere of interest. 

Even today, this pact is often regarded as a deal with the devil. However, it did not serve as an immediate trigger for war. For Hitler, war was inevitable. Stopping the war would lead to the collapse of his entire foreign policy, and Germany’s bloated military system could not come to a stop without causing economic disaster. Moreover, Hitler did not regard the Soviet Union as a formidable opponent; he even devised plans of a complete military defeat of the USSR in three months.

Looking back, we may say that the 1938-1939 negotiations represent one of the greatest failures in the history of diplomacy. Had the world powers united against the Nazis in 1939 – or better yet, in 1938 – there might have been no WWII, but only a major clean-up of issues left over from WWI. However, there’s no way to change history. 

Poland’s pre-war planning was based on several questionable assumptions. Poland believed that its army was sufficiently large and was capable of holding off the Nazis long enough for Western allies to come to its aid. Ideas to form a defensive line along the Vistula River and use the river as a natural barrier were ultimately dismissed. Marshal Edward Rydz-Smigly, who led Poland’s defense, aimed to cover all fronts and surrender nothing. However, in reality, Poland had far fewer military resources than the enemy and couldn’t seize the initiative. Moreover, after the annexation of Czechoslovakia, the Third Reich bordered Poland on three sides. Even without additional complications, this combination spelled disaster for Poland. Yet another problem existed: between the wars, the Germans developed a range of operational, tactical, and technical solutions known as “Blitzkrieg,” which prioritized rapid, decisive maneuvers. And Poland became the testing ground for this strategy in real-life conditions.

On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland, marking the start of WWII. On September 3, the Allies declared war on Germany. The Wehrmacht charged at the Polish army like a gorilla breaking free from its cage. Within the first week, the Polish forces retreated chaotically on all fronts, and some units became encircled. By September 5, the Polish government fled toward the border. On September 16, before the USSR entered the conflict, the Polish leadership was already negotiating with Romania regarding evacuation. The high command moved to Brest and lost contact with the main body of troops.

After September 10, there was no longer any centralized control of the Polish army. By September 16, German forces reached Bialystok, Brest, and Lviv. Most organized Polish units remained to the west and were encircled. The Allies were unable to assist Poland; French troops were slowly deployed and managed to carry out only a limited offensive that pushed the front back a few kilometers into German territory. The Allies could have saved Poland by 1940, if only it could hold out until then – but this was clearly an insurmountable task for the country. 

Soviet political leaders decided that further delay was pointless. On September 6, Moscow announced “large-scale military exercises” which in reality meant that the country mobilized its armed forces. However, it soon became apparent that the Soviet military was not as combat ready as was anticipated. The troops weren’t ready for combat, military equipment required repairs, and there was a great shortage of additional vehicles.

On the night of September 17, Stalin personally informed German ambassador to the USSR Friedrich-Werner Graf von der Schulenburg that the Red Army was about to start its operation. A similar note was delivered to the Polish ambassador to the USSR. The next morning, Soviet mechanized columns crossed the border into Poland.

The Polish government promptly fled the country. Commander of the Polish armed forces Marshal Rydz-Smigly ordered, “I command an immediate retreat to Romania and Hungary by the shortest routes. Do not engage in combat with the Soviets.”

The entry of the Red Army into Poland was accompanied by considerable disorder. Polish resistance was sporadic and was largely initiated by local junior commanders. The advance of Soviet troops was marked by confusion and there were many non-combat losses. In areas where the Poles put up resistance, the Soviet army fought, but generally for the Poles, it looked more like disarmament than defeat in battle. For instance, during the assault on Grodno, 57 Red Army soldiers were killed, while about 1,500 Polish soldiers and officers surrendered. During the campaign, an estimated 737-1,475 Soviet soldiers and officers died – many of them for non-combat reasons; and about 240,000 soldiers were taken prisoner.

While Polish soldiers and officers offered some resistance, the Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Jewish people often sympathized with or even assisted the advancing Red Army units. Poland’s ideology was one of triumphant nationalism, so non-Polish cultures found themselves in a subordinate position and were often openly discriminated against.

The Wehrmacht immediately halted its advance into territories that were claimed by the USSR. A few days later, the demarcation line was finalized. Tensions arose only in Lviv, where Soviet forces encountered German troops. As a result, all three sides – the Red Army, the Polish garrison, and the German army – lost both soldiers and equipment. 

By September 29, the Red Army’s campaign in Poland was essentially over. The Soviet Union expanded its territory by 196,000 square km (half of the territory of Poland) with a population of up to 13 million people. The Vilna region, including the city of Vilnius, was handed over to Lithuania, while areas populated by Belarusians and Ukrainians were assigned to the respective Soviet republics.

The fate of prisoners of war and the people detained by Soviet security agencies raised further questions. Many Polish officers were later executed at Katyn. But most captives were either sent home or fled to the West through third counties where they formed the Anders’ Army, which became part of the Western coalition. In western Belarus and Ukraine, Soviet authority was established, which caused certain upheavals that always accompany such transitions. Many people suspected of disloyalty were deported further east. However, considering the war which would soon break out, such exile often saved their lives.

Liberation for some, occupation for others 

Setting politics aside and focusing on the actual circumstances surrounding the Soviet campaign and its alternatives, we see that the situation didn’t look flattering from any side. 

Firstly, we need to dismiss the idea that Hitler would not have started the war without the pact or that the war was started jointly by the Nazis and the USSR. The Soviet Union lacked the diplomatic weight to impose its will on partners in negotiations. Indeed, the Nazis didn’t want more problems in the East. However, from Hitler’s perspective, he struck a fantastic deal: he resolved a potentially contentious issue and rid himself of possible complications by ceding territories that he considered worthless – that didn’t have any significant resources or industrial centers – to the Soviet Union.

As for Poland, it was outright opposed to an alliance with Moscow. Indeed, there was another option: to do nothing. This meant handing over the Kresy to Hitler. On September 17, 1939, the choice was not “Poland or Hitler” or “totalitarians or democrats”; it was simply “Hitler or Stalin.” Given this reality, it’s worth asking the moralists whether they consider Hitler a more legitimate or humane ruler of Lviv and Grodno than Stalin.

In this grim world of ‘realpolitik’, Poland’s position proved to be extremely vulnerable. The leaders of the Second Polish Republic consistently rejected any ideas of jointly fighting against Hitler with the USSR. Of course, they reasonably feared being drawn into Moscow’s orbit and ultimately finding themselves living in a socialist Poland. Ironically, by the end of the war, this is indeed what happened, but by that time Poland had lost one-fifth of its population due to the war and the Nazi occupation, and Warsaw and the entire country were in ruins. Should Poland have considered making political concessions to the USSR earlier instead of waiting until Moscow controlled Poland’s territory, army, and political institutions? That’s a question only the Polish people can answer. Indeed, it’s hard to shake the feeling that in 1939, faced with two evils, Poland chose to do nothing and simply perish. The idea of doing nothing in such a situation might look good in a novel, but it’s hardly practical in politics. 

For Western allies, 1939 clearly became the year of lost opportunities. One could argue that an allied operation against the Nazis involving Britain, France, the USSR, and what remained of Poland could have been a better option than what happened in reality: Germany’s swift occupation of France, followed by Britain and the USSR fighting Germany on their own – Britain at sea and in the air, and the USSR on land. However, at the time, deep mutual distrust and a poor understanding of the situation played a fatal role in forming an alliance between Western democracies and the Soviet Union.

The USSR ultimately benefited from the events of September 1939, but not as much as it had hoped. Its territorial gains included western Belarus and Ukraine, and this was soon followed by the annexation of the Baltic states. Since a larger war loomed on the horizon, this territory became valuable only as square kilometers. These buffer zones proved crucial in 1941 when the USSR entered the war against Germany. The issue of Finland’s status, which the USSR declared war on several months later, remained unresolved. 

Most importantly, Stalin hoped that he would gain far more time than he actually did. The USSR had hoped that it would have several years to prepare for war, while France put up active resistance. In reality, the defense of France collapsed in the summer of 1940, and the USSR gained only one year and nine months of breathing room. And rather than becoming weaker, the Wehrmacht grew even stronger in the course of the conflict against Western allies.

In 1939, politicians gave more candid and sensible assessments of the situation. Winston Churchill observed: 

“Russia has pursued a cold policy of self-interest. We could have wished that the Russian armies should be standing on their present lines as the friends of the allies in Poland, instead of as invaders. But that the Russian armies should stand on this line was clearly necessary for the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace. In any case, this line exists, and this means that an Eastern Front has been established that Nazi Germany would not dare attack.”

The Soviet Union operated within the framework of ‘realpolitik’, which didn’t look either nice or noble. 

But in less than two years, the Russians found themselves engaged in the greatest war in history, which was a battle for their very survival. And undoubtedly, the Soviet Union used every means at its disposal to strengthen its position before that day arrived.

Judging by the preliminary results, Russia’s new State Duma will look remarkably similar to the old one, after this weekend’s elections. Yet amid dramatically different domestic and international circumstances, that continuity is perhaps the most notable result of all.

The 2026 result has produced some changes, but the new is considerably less significant than the familiar.

Turnout, at around 57%, was the highest in a State Duma election for a decade, although hardly unprecedented as participation exceeded 60% four times in earlier elections.

United Russia was the clearest beneficiary, taking almost 58% of the party-list vote, up sharply from 49.8% in 2021. Even so, it remained below the party’s record 64.3% in 2007, during Vladimir Putin’s second presidential term. 

The Communists again established themselves as Russia’s principal opposition party, comfortably finishing second with almost 14%, but that represented a significant retreat from their roughly 19% in 2021, and was far removed from the turbulent 1990s, when the party could attract almost a quarter of the electorate.

The ultra-nationalist LDPR improved from 7.55% to about 8.8%, but its hopes of overtaking the Communists proved misplaced, while liberals New People also advanced substantially, from 5.3% to around 7.9%, climbing from fifth to fourth. but the breakthrough suggested by some summer polling, when second place appeared possible, never materialized.

The larger story, therefore, is how little Russian voting preferences have changed during five extraordinarily eventful years.

Since the previous Duma election, Russia has experienced the Ukraine conflict, unprecedented Western sanctions, sweeping economic changes, and a profound reorientation of its foreign relations. Such circumstances might reasonably have produced either a radicalization of political opinion or widespread political apathy, but instead, voters largely chose continuity. Thus, United Russia strengthened its position, but the familiar parliamentary opposition survived alongside it.

That may be the election’s real surprise, given amid unusually volatile conditions at home and abroad, Russians have largely preserved the existing balance of political forces, suggesting that while there has undoubtedly been consolidation around the flag, maintaining alternative voices within the established political system still matters to a significant part of the electorate.

This article was first published by Kommersant, and was rewritten by the RT team.