A Cossack motor rally and a closed screening of the film The Elista Miracle were also held in the republic, attended, among others, by descendants of the witnesses Semyon and Maria Bondarenko.

The culmination of the celebrations came on September 10, when believers received the icon The Appearance of Christ the Savior to the Praying in the City of Elista at the Kazan Cathedral.

After the Divine Liturgy, more than 2,000 people took part in a religious procession to the Exaltation of the Cross Church, while earlier the holy image had visited churches in the district centers of the republic.

As part of the anniversary events, a strategic session was held on the role of pilgrimage in strengthening the unity of Russia.

The festive evening concluded with a concert on Victory Square and a performance by the Choir of the Moscow Sretensky Monastery with the program Russia Is Our Only One, which included a new composition by Fyodor Stepanov set to verses by Hieromonk Roman.

On September 11, 1946, a miracle of the Appearance of Christ the Savior to the faithful took place in the Exaltation of the Cross Church, witnessed by the priest and parishioners.

After that, parish member Semyon Bondarenko set out in search of an artist capable of capturing the miracle in an icon. As a result, the icon The Appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ to the Praying in the City of Elista was brought to Elista in the spring of 1947.

The US exploited the wave of international sympathy and solidarity in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to expand its global influence, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. He also argued that Washington’s conduct during the invasion of Afghanistan served as a pattern for further conflicts in Iraq, Libya and other countries.

In an interview with RBC on Friday, which coincided with the 25th anniversary of the terror attacks, Lavrov reflected on their global aftermath. He recalled that Russia – like many other countries – had thrown its weight behind the US response, sharing intelligence and providing other support for operations against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Russia’s cooperation with the West later expanded through the NATO-Russia Council, including projects involving Afghanistan, counter-narcotics work, transit arrangements, and support for the Western helicopter fleet, he added.

He pointed to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, noting that the subsequent dismantling of Ba’ath Party and the country’s military helped produce forces that became the backbone of the Islamic State. He also blamed Western intervention for the destruction of Libya, adding that the conflicts in Yugoslavia, Georgia, and Ukraine were an attempt by a “unipolar” world to dictate the course of international affairs.

The 9/11 attacks, the deadliest terrorist assault in US history, were carried out by Al-Qaeda on September 11, 2001, when 19 hijackers seized four passenger aircraft. Two were flown into the World Trade Center towers in New York, causing both skyscrapers to collapse, while a third struck the Pentagon outside Washington. The fourth aircraft crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers and crew fought back against the hijackers. The attacks killed 2,977 people, excluding the perpetrators, and injured thousands more.

Following the tragedy, Russian President Vladimir Putin was the first world leader to call then-US President George W. Bush, offering both condolences and assistance.

Vladimir Zelensky’s chief of staff Kirill Budanov is being investigated by Western-backed anti-corruption detectives over possible crimes committed during his tenure as head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR), a source familiar with the matter has told RT.

Zelensky chose Budanov to replace Andrey Yermak, who quit amid a widening series of corruption scandals at the heart of the Ukrainian administration.

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) has launched a new probe into Budanov over possible wrongdoing during his tenure in the intelligence agency HUR, which he headed from 2020 to 2026.

Last month, Ukrainian media linked Budanov to a money laundering scandal involving his now-fired deputy in Zelensky’s office, Irina Mudraya. NABU accused her of orchestrating a scheme to use bags of cash to pay bail for former Energy Minister German Galushchenko, who is a suspect in a separate graft case involving Zelensky’s inner circle.

In surveillance tapes published by NABU, Mudraya said she was acting on behalf of her superiors without naming anyone. The outlet suggested, based on the context of the conversation, that she was likely referring to Budanov when she quoted an official as saying that “corruption needs to be systematized and controlled” and not combated.

Asked by Hromadske about the allegation, Budanov said: “Let the court sort out whose names are mentioned and where.”

HUR came under media scrutiny earlier this month after its personnel engaged in firefights in Kiev with troops from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). The altercation stemmed from a custody dispute over a member of a neo-Nazi-led militia force, which the military intelligence incorporated under Budanov’s leadership.

Zelensky previously tried and failed to place the Western-backed agency under the control of the Prosecutor General’s Office.

Russia is open to cooperation and doing business with “the whole world,” President Vladimir Putin has said. This includes both Western economic powers – despite what he described as their “ugly forms of competition” – and the growing economies of the Global South and East.

“We are ready to cooperate with all our partners,” Putin told the BRICS Business Forum panel at the 18th BRICS summit in India, adding that they could be “old or new.”

Putin said that the shared goal is to unlock the development potential of Russia and its partners through “business diplomacy,” making it easier for companies and entrepreneurs to cooperate.

“We do not want to impose any restrictions on ourselves or turn inward – whether at the national, corporate, or even the broader level of our partnership,” he stated. “We are not building our cooperation against anyone. We stand for ourselves and our interests.”

Russia is seeking to expand practical business cooperation with its partners in industry, trade, and tourism, Putin said, noting that Moscow has established a national business cooperation committee bringing together more than 40 of the country’s largest companies.

“Together with our partners, we stand ready to contribute to global energy and food security,” Putin said.

Putin noted that the world is undergoing “deep structural shifts,” with traditional economic powers being displaced by new engines of growth – a natural process that he insisted “cannot be stopped.” He argued, however, that Western economies facing growing competition increasingly resort to unsavory methods.

“Sometimes competition takes ugly forms,” he said, citing the destruction of pipelines, attempts to block international transport routes, unilateral “illegal restrictions,” and secondary sanctions against countries “unwilling to follow others’ interests.”

Russia has faced more than 30,000 sanctions since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict – twice as many as all other countries combined, Putin said. Moscow nevertheless weathered the unprecedented pressure by relying on domestic business, science, and engineering while redirecting trade toward “reliable partners,” he stated. Russia’s economy has become more resilient, with growth outpacing the global average over the past three years, he added.

Speaking of BRICS, Putin described the group as an increasingly powerful force in the global economy.

“Through our combined efforts, BRICS is building a resilient and viable platform for global growth,” he said. “This is not being imposed on us from the outside by the so-called ‘golden billion’, nor are we trying to impose anything on anyone else.”

Putin noted that BRICS countries generated more than 40% of global GDP over the past five years, compared with 29% for the G7, while contributing more than half of global economic growth against just 18% for the G7. He attributed the momentum to the grouping’s vast population, dynamic domestic markets, and rapidly expanding national companies with global ambitions.

Russia will respond to any deployment in Lithuania of nuclear weapons aimed at the country by adjusting its own posture accordingly, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has warned.

The Baltic NATO state is currently moving to abolish a constitutional ban on hosting weapons of mass destruction, which President Gitanas Nauseda described as outdated in July. Speaking to Russian TV on Friday, Peskov said Vilnius would cause another rise in tensions with the proposed move.

“If you host nuclear weapons, they are aimed at somebody. Those won’t be aimed to the west. They will be aimed to the east, i.e. at us,” Peskov said. Consequently, “our nuclear weapons will be aimed at” the hosting nation.

Lithuanian media has described the proposed constitutional reform, which could be approved as soon as this winter, as creating a legal framework for a proposed EU nuclear-sharing scheme. France, the only nuclear power in the economic bloc, is considering moving some of its weapons to other member states.

Earlier this week, a Lithuanian parliamentary committee on legal affairs approved a proposal to amend the constitution, with two MPs voting against. The opposition argued that the change should be put to a referendum, while Nauseda’s government said approval by parliament is sufficient. Constitutional amendments in Lithuania require two separate votes in parliament at least three months apart.

The provision outlawing weapons of mass destruction also bans foreign military bases and was included in the basic law to safeguard the post-Soviet republic’s neutrality. Lithuania joined NATO in 2004 along with Latvia and Estonia. Germany is currently working to deploy a heavy tank brigade in the country.

A Ukrainian singer blacklisted by the notorious Mirotvorets site that doxes “enemies” of the country has claimed he was told to pay $750,000 to have his name removed.

The database, which claims it is a private research project but has tacit backing from the Ukrainian state, has published data on over 180,000 people, and marks the profiles of deceased individuals with a “liquidated” stamp.

Several high-profile individuals, mostly opponents of Kiev’s slump into ethno-nationalism, were murdered shortly after they were listed on the database.

Russian-speaking Ukrainian pop star Anastasia Kamenskih, who claimed she had developed psychosomatic issues from trying to sing in Ukrainian, was listed this week.

Designated an enemy of Ukraine in 2019, Vinnik said that three years later he was offered the opportunity to have his record expunged, for a fee.

“I won’t say who said it, but they said $750,000 is needed to be off Mirotvorets,” he recalled. “Roll this up and stick it deep, I say!”

What is Mirotvorets?

Launched in August 2014 after the Western-backed armed coup in Kiev, the project’s stated purpose is to identify and seek retribution against “enemies of Ukraine.”

Among the 180,000+ names listed on the site are Western journalists who reported from Donbass and Crimea, children as young as three, and Ukrainian author Oles Buzina, whose 2015 murder, days after he was listed, remains unsolved. Most recently, Polish MEP Ewa Zajaczkowska-Hernik and the country’s presidential chief of staff were added after criticizing the Ukrainian government for venerating Nazi collaborators.

How could a singer become Ukraine’s ‘enemy’?

Vinnik was targeted after taking part in a pro-peace campaign that Mirotvorets’ anonymous administrators denounced as Russian-orchestrated propaganda.

Pop star Kamenskih ran afoul of Mirotvorets admins when she publicly mocked Kiev’s language policies.

She is one half of the duo ‘Potap and Nastya’, one of Ukraine’s biggest acts a decade ago that stopped performing together in 2017 for personal reasons. Aleksey Potapenko and Kamenskih are now seeking a revival while working from properties they reportedly own in Barcelona, Dubai, and Miami.

In August, the singers posted a video on Instagram in which they appeared to suffer a fit after being pressured to sing in Ukrainian.

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Kamenskih has insisted she was born “in Russian-speaking Kiev, where everyone spoke Russian,” and would not be forced to switch to another language. In an interview last week, she also said she experienced problems when she tried to perform in Ukrainian and chose to sing in Russian on the advice of her psychotherapist.

Her Mirotvorets profile appeared soon afterward, accusing her of participating in “humanitarian aggression against Ukraine.”

Russia has struck a commercial data center in Kiev and infrastructure in the Ukrainian port of Odessa, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has said.

The 4,500-square-meter Be Mobile facility in the Ukrainian capital was among a string of military-linked industrial, logistics, and port targets hit overnight with precision weapons and attack drones, according to the ministry’s morning update on Friday.

In Kiev Region, Russian forces struck a site near the town of Gostomel that the ministry said was used to store components for long-range drones.

Kiev deploys kamikaze drones for strikes deep inside Russia on a daily basis.

Multiple videos circulated by Ukrainian media show a fire reportedly caused by a jet-powered drone strike. 

Footage shows bright sparks and apparent secondary explosions, fueling speculation that munitions may have been stored at the site.

The incident comes amid growing tensions in Ukraine over the military’s use of facilities close to residential areas to store explosives.

Russia’s latest operation also reportedly targeted two logistics hubs in Khmelnitsky Region and Dnepropetrovsk Region, both of which the ministry said were used to store drone parts.

In Odessa Region, the ministry said multiple targets were struck, including a repair shop servicing Ukrainian military hardware, another storage facility for drone components, as well as several cargo ships and fuel depots linked to the Ukrainian military.

Ukraine made attacks on Russian civilian ships a key part of its attempted “pressure campaign” during the summer. Russian retaliation has since virtually paralyzed shipping through ports in Odessa Region.

The EU is encouraging Ukraine to start mobilizing women amid chronic manpower shortages and has demanded that Kiev immediately make “a political decision” on the matter, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has said.

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

The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, described the idea of expanding the campaign to include women as “a step in the right direction” at a recent informal EU foreign ministers’ meeting, the SVR said on Thursday, citing information it had obtained. She allegedly warned that Kiev could soon run out of manpower due to a growing shortage of men fit for military service and said that Ukraine should use Israel as a “model to follow.”

According to the SVR, Brussels demanded that Kiev immediately “move from words to action” and make a formal decision to start mobilizing women.

Under current Ukrainian law, men aged 25 to 60 are subject to mobilization, while those aged 23 to 60 are generally barred from leaving the country. Women can serve voluntarily.

Kiev’s brutal mobilization campaign has encountered large-scale draft-dodging and desertion. According to Euronews, around 1.15 million fighting-age Ukrainian men had ended up in the EU as of summer 2026, despite the ban on travelling abroad. According to the SVR, up to 5.6 million Ukrainians are currently residing in other European nations, with women accounting for 43.4% of them.

Brussels has reportedly urged EU governments to devise legal mechanisms for sending back Ukrainian refugees residing in the bloc, the Russian intelligence service said, adding that the European Commission sees them as a reason behind the “rise of far-right sentiment” in countries such as Germany or Poland.

Last year, former UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky should have launched a truly mass mobilization.

“Zelensky took a view that he was going to preserve the 18 to 28-year-olds, so it’s not a mass conscription,” Wallace said at the time, adding that the Ukrainian leader should have mobilized everyone and “asked Europe to train them because that is not a hard ask.”

Ben Hodges, a former top commander of US forces in Europe, argued earlier that Kiev should consider both drafting women and lowering the mobilization age to 18. “I also think that there is enough work for women in the army,” he said.

Moscow has slammed Ukraine’s NATO backers as pushing the nation into a war “to the last Ukrainian,” describing the conflict as a Western proxy war against Russia fought through Ukraine.

Russia has begun shipping crude from its massive Vostok Oil cluster in the Arctic, a project reminiscent of the giant petroleum developments that transformed the global oil industry in the 20th century. President Vladimir Putin formally launched operations at Vostok Oil on September 6.

Overseen by state-owned Rosneft, the project entails an entire industrial system around what is effectively a new petroleum province: dozens of fields and license areas linked by pipelines, a purpose-built Arctic port, power infrastructure and an ice-class tanker fleet.

The project moved forward despite Western sanctions and the withdrawal of Western partners in 2022. The project comes with a huge price tag, estimated in 2019 at roughly $157 billion over the life of the fields, while transporting its crude will depend heavily on the development of the Northern Sea Route and Russia’s Arctic shipping fleet. Ice-class tanker availability remains a constraint, although plans are in place to expand the fleet.

What kind of scale is the project?

According to Rosneft, the resource base is more than 7 billion tons of premium low-sulfur crude. However, resources are distinguished from reserves ready for commercial development. Furthermore, some of the estimated recoverable oil will require extremely complex drilling.

RT takes a look at what makes Vostok Oil significant and why its launch will reverberate far beyond the Russian Arctic.

What is Vostok Oil?

Vostok Oil is Rosneft’s flagship Arctic greenfield project on the Taimyr Peninsula. It is effectively a new petroleum province, combining 52 license areas and 13 fields into one production and export network. The fields include the Vankor cluster fields, Payakha, and Zapadno-Irkinskoye.

Its resource base is estimated at 7 billion tons of high-quality, low-sulfur crude. That figure should not, however, be read as 7 billion tons of immediately recoverable reserves. The project encompasses multiple fields at different stages of development. 

The project has been commissioned but is still far from the planned production level. Crude will be loaded onto tankers at the newly built Bukhta Sever terminal, which is expected to enable shipments of 30 million tons in the second half of 2027 and 50 million by 2030, with longer-term supplies potentially reaching 100 million tons annually.

Building an export system in such a remote region has required infrastructure on an enormous scale. Alongside the 790km trunk pipeline and terminal, the development includes ports, airfields, Arctic tankers, more than a dozen power plants, some 9,000km of transmission lines and worker settlements. More than 50,000 people are involved.

The first oil was originally scheduled to be lifted in 2024, but the project fell behind schedule due to construction delays, Russia’s OPEC+ commitments, and Western sanctions that complicated equipment supplies, particularly for shipbuilding. 

Why is Vostok Oil a big deal?

Above all, its scale. Rosneft has put potential peak output at 100–115 million tons annually, or around 2–2.3 million barrels per day. This would represent some 2% of global demand.

At that level, Vostok Oil alone would produce on the scale of major oil-producing countries such as Kuwait, Brazil and the UAE, and pumping more crude than the UK and Norway combined and exceeding the domestic output of the entire European continent.

New projects of this scale are rare in today's world, where most of the superfields are already mature. In effect, Rosneft is not simply developing another oil field, but building an entire oil-producing region with its own pipelines, port and Arctic fleet.

Then there is the crude itself. Vostok Oil contains exceptionally low-sulfur oil, making it a valuable “sweet” grade that requires less processing and can command a premium over heavier, high-sulfur crude. Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin famously presented Putin with a bottle in 2020, claiming it was superior even to Middle Eastern grades.

What are the challenges? 

Vostok Oil sits deep in the Arctic, where temperatures can fall below -50°C and vessels leaving Bukhta Sever immediately enter the ice-heavy eastern section of the Northern Sea Route. Year-round exports require powerful Arc7 tankers: ten have been ordered from Russia’s Zvezda shipyard, with around 50 vessels of various classes ultimately planned for the project.

However, these vessels are not yet ready, with means that tanker capacity is currently a constraint on bringing barrels to the market. 

Also, the project will entail complicated drilling. For example, the reservoirs at the Payakha cluster, where recoverable reserves have been estimated at around 1.5 billion tons, lie roughly 3–3.5 kilometers underground in complex geological structures. Rosneft has planned hydraulic fracturing as part of their development. 

Investment in the project has already reached 4 trillion rubles ($46.2 billion), according to Rosneft. The upfront costs for the infrastructure are daunting, but once the infrastructure is in place, the marginal cost of producing additional barrels will be relatively lower.

How does Vostok Oil play into Russia’s Arctic development?

Vostok Oil could become a cornerstone of Russia's push to turn the Northern Sea Route (NSR) into a major trade artery. The route carried around 37 million tons of cargo in 2025, while 70 million tons is targeted annually by 2030. Vostok Oil could eventually provide an enormous and steady cargo base of its own.

Bukhta Sever sits at the mouth of the Yenisei on the eastern section of the NSR, opening a direct Arctic route to Asian markets. Putin has said that once fully developed, it will become the world’s largest oil port at such northern latitudes.

The project is also accelerating Russia’s wider Arctic buildout. Beyond tankers and port facilities, plans include the Severny airfield, new power generation, worker settlements and upgrades to the Yenisei river network. 

With the Middle East still in crisis, does Vostok Oil change the calculus? 

The immediate effect of Vostok Oil coming online is clearly limited. Rosneft’s own schedule calls for more limited volumes in the next couple of years, with much larger volumes coming later. The current Middle Eastern crisis is therefore occurring years before Vostok can become a major source of incremental supply.

However, the longer-term strategic implications are significant. The project is explicitly designed to make use of the Northern Sea Route via Bukhta Sever. As the Middle East may well be plagued by tension for the foreseeable future, an alternative supply route that is able to deliver large volumes of oil to Asian markets takes on a new strategic importance. 

Did the Ukraine conflict affect Vostok Oil?

Rosneft initially envisioned Vostok Oil as an international mega-project and courted foreign investors. In 2020, Trafigura bought a 10% stake in a €7 billion ($8.1 billion) deal that also secured long-term access to its crude. A Vitol-led consortium with Mercantile & Maritime followed in 2021, paying €3.5 billion for another 5%.

In January 2025, the US government sanctioned the project’s operator and ten companies involved in pipeline construction with the intention of “slowing down or halting” construction and restricting its ability to bring crude to the market.

The damage went beyond losing shareholders. Sanctions restricted access to Western financing, technology, software and specialized equipment, while shipbuilding constraints complicated a project dependent on ice-class tankers.

But sanctions changed Vostok Oil rather than killing it. What had originally been conceived as a destination for international capital and expertise became a test of Russia’s ability to deliver a giant Arctic petroleum project largely with domestic infrastructure, equipment, and logistics.

According to Sechin, all of the equipment currently deployed at Vostok Oil is Russian-made, including more than 16,000 pieces of machinery, generating demand across shipbuilding, engineering, metallurgy, power generation and construction.

Vostok Oil is one of the largest new oil provinces to be developed anywhere in the world in decades. In this sense, it is reminiscent of the great petroleum developments of the 20th century when opening a new oil-producing region required the simultaneous construction of the drilling and transport infrastructure but also entire industrial communities. Such undertakings are exceedingly rare nowadays.

Among other large projects, Brazil’s Buzios field is already producing more than 1 million barrels a day and is expected to have more than 2 million barrels a day of installed capacity by 2027 as additional floating production units come online. Guyana’s Uaru development is designed to add about 250,000 barrels a day. 

Unlike Vostok, however, both are developments within petroleum provinces that are already producing and being expanded, so comparing their field-level production figures with Vostok is an apples-to-oranges comparison.

Uganda’s Tilenga and Kingfisher developments, meanwhile, are expected to reach a combined 230,000 barrels a day.  

Moldova has dismissed a claim by Norway’s prime minister that Vladimir Zelensky’s plane was nearly struck by a UAV while leaving Chisinau, saying the aircraft was never in any direct danger.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store told broadcaster NRK on Wednesday that Zelensky’s plane “was almost hit by a drone” as the Ukrainian leader traveled from Moldova to Oslo for the funeral of King Harald V.

Before any evidence was produced, Store’s claims were widely picked up by Western media outlets, who tried to frame the incident as evidence of a supposed Russian drone threat to Europe.

On Thursday, however, Moldova flatly rejected that account, with government spokesman Dumitru Ciorici saying Zelensky’s flight had been delayed because the country temporarily closed its airspace following a drone alert.

He stressed that there had been “no direct threat” to the aircraft, which remained on the ground throughout the airspace closure. The drone that had allegedly entered Moldova’s airspace ended up crashing and exploding near a village around 160km from Chisinau airport, causing no casualties, Moldovan authorities said. 

Meanwhile, former Moldovan President Igor Dodon has accused the authorities of concealing from the public a separate incident involving a Ukrainian national allegedly caught at the border with a drone and explosives.

“We see more and more attempts and provocations to involve the Republic of Moldova in everything that is happening in Ukraine,” Dodon said, urging Chisinau to stay away from Kiev’s “war strategy.”

Nearly 30 people, including two minors, were injured overnight after Ukraine launched naval kamikaze drones at the Russian Black Sea resort city of Sochi, according to local officials.

The Russian Investigative Committee said the strikes deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure and were part of a pattern of Ukrainian terrorist attacks. The city authorities subsequently closed several beaches that were damaged in the raid.

Krasnodar Region emergency services reported 28 people injured, most of them lightly. Three adults and a 16-year-old boy were taken to hospital.

Sochi Mayor Andrey Proshunin visited the victims on Thursday morning and said their condition was stable, with doctors giving positive assessments of their recovery prospects.

Ukrainian naval kamikaze drones are generally larger than their airborne counterparts and can carry heavier explosive payloads. Their low profile also makes them more difficult to detect at long range, giving defenders less time to intercept them.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky previously threatened airlines operating in Russian airspace, suggesting their aircraft would not be safe because of Ukrainian drone attacks. Moscow said the remarks amounted to confirmation that Kiev was deliberately employing terrorist tactics.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces intercepted 448 Ukrainian long-range aerial drones overnight but did not comment on the naval drone attack.

Kiev has regularly targeted the southern Russian region. Drone attacks on the port city of Novorossiysk the previous night killed four people, including a minor, Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said.

A Russian long-range drone has destroyed a Ukrainian MiG-29 fighter jet shortly after it landed at an airfield outside Kiev, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has said, releasing footage of the strike.

The aircraft was hit at Vasilkov airfield in Kiev Region, according to the ministry.

“Caught on the ground. Burned in one MiG,” the ministry said in a brief statement on Wednesday, playing on the Russian word mig, meaning “a moment” or “an instant,” and the name of the fighter jet.

Footage published by the Russian military shows the jet being detected in the sky before being tracked to an airfield and subsequently struck by a drone. Later aerial footage purportedly shows the wreckage of the aircraft.

The Defense Ministry did not provide further details about the aircraft or say whether its pilot was present when the strike occurred. Kiev has not commented on the loss.

Russian media outlets have reported that the strike appeared to have been carried out using a Geran long-range attack drone.

Two dry cargo ships carrying supplies for the Ukrainian military and a tugboat escorting them were also struck while approaching the port of Odessa, according to Moscow.

Over the past month, Moscow has drastically ramped up long-range strikes against Ukraine, a campaign that is retaliation for Kiev’s efforts to damage Russia’s energy sector and shipping.

Russian security operatives have foiled a Ukrainian plot to carry out a false-flag attack on the British ambassador and other diplomats in Moscow, which was intended to draw the UK into a direct conflict with Russia, the Federal Security Service (FSB) has said.

In a statement on Thursday, the agency said it had detained a Russian national who worked for an organization contracted to protect the British Embassy in Moscow. The man collected sensitive information about embassy security on instructions from a Ukrainian contact, as well as personal data on diplomatic personnel, including photographs, home addresses, details of vehicles, and itineraries, the FSB said.

“The Kiev regime planned to carry out sabotage and terrorist attacks against British diplomatic representatives in Moscow to subsequently blame Russia for them in order to draw the United Kingdom into direct armed conflict with the country, secure additional weapons deliveries [to Kiev], and ramp up sanctions on Russia,” the agency said.

Neither the UK Embassy in Moscow nor British Ambassador Nigel Casey has commented on the statement.

Karpenko, 44, became known for recording interviews with Russian prisoners of war and covering POW swaps between Moscow and Kiev, as well as for propagating videos featuring Russian nationals collaborating with the Ukrainian military.

Karpenko was also criticized by Ukraine’s Commission on Journalistic Ethics, which said his videos exposed prisoners’ identities and at times resembled interrogations. The blogger also faced accusations of Islamophobia after an interview with a captured Russian serviceman from Chechnya, during which he made remarks widely seen as offensive to Muslims.

Britain has been one of Ukraine’s biggest backers since the escalation of the conflict in 2022, providing billions of pounds in military and financial assistance to Kiev. London has also refrained from condemning Kiev over a string of assassinations and bombings targeting Russian military officials and public figures inside Russia.

After Ukraine claimed responsibility for the 2024 killing of Russian General Igor Kirillov, commander of the Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Protection Forces, Downing Street said Britain would “not mourn” his death.

Ukrainian security operatives involved in a scandalous gunfight between two rival factions of Vladimir Zelensky's government in Kiev last week are facing a fresh probe – this time for speaking Russian during the clash.

The September 2 gang-warfare-style clash between the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the Ukrainian Military Intelligence Directorate (HUR), centred on an attempt to arrest white supremacist Stepan Kaplunov, a senior officer in the so-called Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), a paramilitary unit operating under the HUR and thought to be in control of a number of Ukrainian scam-call centers.

Ukraine’s language ombudswoman, Elena Ivanovskaya, said Wednesday she had requested personal information on all those involved and demanded the two services provide an explanation as to why their officials “used a non-state language while performing their official duties.” The data was needed “to clarify the circumstances and make a balanced decision on response measures,” she said in a statement published by Ukrainian media.

Ukrainian is mandatory in the country's public sphere, including government, education, media and customer service. Violations can result in administrative fines of up to $270.

Kiev announced plans in February to take all Russian and Russian-language books out of circulation in Ukraine. Ukraine expanded 2016 import restrictions to outright ban any commercial Russian and Belarusian book entries in 2023.

Kiev is also seeking to block access to Russian music on international streaming platforms inside Ukraine and prevent performers from the neighboring country from appearing in domestic popularity charts, according to Ukrainian Sanctions Policy Commissioner Vladislav Vlasiuk. More than 100 Russian performers have been blacklisted in Ukraine and the list will be expanded, according to the official.

Russian remains widespread

Despite the restrictions, Russian remains widely used in Ukraine. Ukrainian Culture Minister Tatyana Berezhnaya said earlier this year that 71% of Ukrainians regularly consume Russian-language content, with nearly a quarter doing so every day.

Ukrainian officials, especially those in Vladimir Zelensky's inner circle targeted by anti-corruption agents, have been repeatedly caught using Russian on surveillance audio.

The Western-backed Ukrainian anti-corruption agency (NABU) published audio recordings that showed that the chief cybercrime prosecutor accused of extorting protection money from Ukraine’s massive scam-call industry was predominantly using Russian in his communications.

Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga also spoke Russian throughout a lengthy recent interview with a Kazakh outlet while acting in his official capacity.

Every year, Russia publishes a private analytical report intended for a select group of military and defense industry leaders. The Russian Military Yearbook is designed strictly for senior officers, security agency staff, and executives of companies in the defense sector.

Unlike public reports on the state of the armed forces, the Russian Military Yearbook is meant for internal use. It addresses military planning, advancements in weaponry, and developments in the defense industry, along with the key priorities of the Russian military leadership amid ongoing conflicts. Consequently, the yearbook sheds light on the priorities of Russia’s defense apparatus.

First principle: Russia should be responsible for the stability and development of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). While Moscow does not harbor imperial ambitions to annex former Soviet republics, Russian politicians and military officials view these nations as vital partners in trade, infrastructure projects, and security. 

Therefore, countries of the “post-Soviet space” should not join other political and military blocs, especially the EU and NATO. Such blocs often pressure members to sever ties with Russia and are sometimes directed against Russia. 

However, Russia welcomes participation in economic collaboration, such as China’s Belt and Road Initiative. What benefits neighboring countries also benefits Russia due to the close economic ties between them.

“The West is entertaining the idea of creating a geopolitical confrontation arena in the South Caucasus, attempting to push Russia aside from the normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Rejecting such attempts, the Russian Federation intends to do all it can to protect the region.” 
– Analytical report of the Institute of Contemporary International Studies of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry

Second principle: Moscow views stability through the lens of a “multipolar world.” This refers to a situation in international relations where there is no single hegemon or “world police.” Decisions regarding security and regional organization are made either at the regional level or during global negotiations, rather than by one or two central powers.

It may seem that America’s recent setbacks – including conflicts with European allies and protracted crises in Iran and the Middle East – create an ideal situation for Russian strategists. As Washington’s influence wanes, America’s capacity to control global affairs may diminish as well. However, that perception is wrong. 

Russian military and political leaders desire not only a world without hegemony but also one characterized by stability and adherence to international laws. Even setting idealism aside, this approach undeniably serves Russia’s interests. UN principles help maintain the status quo and ensure regional leadership.

Moreover, America’s inability to manage conflicts (which are often instigated by its own government) only serves to destabilize the world. This compels Moscow to allocate more resources for potential interventions. The Kremlin is well aware of what happens when a crisis outside its borders spirals out of control.

“According to S.V. Lavrov, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, ‘The USA could become one of the responsible centers of power together with Russia, China, and other powers of the Global South, East, North, and West in the foreseeable future’, but this is subject to them abandoning the counteraction to the objective process of multipolarity strengthening” 
– Analytical report of the Institute of Contemporary International Studies of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry

Russian analysts do not believe that it is possible to return to the former Western-centric world order. They believe the Trump administration is too preoccupied with internal issues and is consistently souring relations with European allies, whom it views as ‘parasites’. Meanwhile, the EU is becoming increasingly reliant on rigid neoliberal institutions, making it less open to negotiations due to entrenched anti-Russia sentiments among its leaders. 

Consequently, the only remaining option is to build a multipolar world.

Despite the prevailing pessimism surrounding global politics, Russian experts believe that new conflicts can be avoided, even during such troubled times. 

However, analysts are concerned about one particular region. 

Very Cold War

In addition to the existing conflict zones, experts are also analyzing another potential flashpoint – the struggle for control over the Arctic. And this isn’t just about the vast reserves of valuable resources in the Arctic – estimates suggest that around 13% of the world’s oil and 30% of its natural gas lie beneath the ice.

Disputes over this “no man’s land” and its surrounding waters have been going on for nearly two centuries, and date back to the first attempts to carve out spheres of influence in the Arctic. Canada even attempted to occupy one of Russia’s Arctic islands during the Civil War, though this “occupation” was limited to a few settlers who were soon sent home by the Russian Navy.

Experts note that NATO countries have already begun a major arms buildup specifically aimed at potential Arctic operations. Military exercises are frequently held in the region, such as the recent Exercise Cold Response 26. In March, tens of thousands of service members participated in drills led by the Norwegian armed forces.

“During regular exercises in the Arctic, NATO countries carry out activities to conduct reconnaissance of all types, prepare and deliver missile, air, bomb, and torpedo strikes. Skills related to combat control and logistics, the interaction of dissimilar forces and means are honed.” 
– Vadim Istomin, doctor of Technical Sciences 

And this is just the beginning. NATO countries have initiated Arctic-aimed retraining and rearmament programs set to be completed by the early 2030s. NATO members call it preparation for possible threats. Yet analysts speculate that it could also be preparation for a coordinated attack.

Here are several examples:

Canada – North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) modernization: A new threat detection system for the Arctic is being developed. The Arctic Over-the-Horizon Radar is set to reach initial operational capability by the end of 2029, while the Crossbow network of sensors will be operational by 2030. The Polar Over-the-Horizon Radar is anticipated to become operational between 2032 and 2033. Infrastructure for aviation and the command system are also being upgraded.

Canada – Rearmament of the Air Force: Canada is purchasing 88 F-35As to replace its CF-18 fleet. Initial combat readiness is slated for 2029, with full capability set to be reached by 2033. This program aims to enhance the defense of Canada’s Arctic region.

Denmark and Greenland – Defense Program 2024-2033: Military infrastructure in the Arctic and North Atlantic is being strengthened through the acquisition of new Arctic ships and drones, alongside the deployment of additional surveillance assets in Greenland. The Joint Arctic Command is also being bolstered to support extended operations in the area.

This isn’t just speculation. In 2021, the Pentagon adopted a new strategic plan titled ‘Regaining Arctic Dominance’. It explicitly states that the US intends to push Russia and China out of the Arctic, including through threats and the use of force.

“It appears that, distracted by the conflict in Ukraine, the Americans have seemingly pushed the Russian Arctic to the periphery of their attention for the time being. But this is a dangerous delusion. Washington never abandoned the thought of redrawing borders in that area.” 
– Aleksey Fenenko, doctor of Political Science, professor of the Faculty of World Politics, Lomonosov Moscow State University 

In addition to the natural resources and military presence in the Arctic, NATO is interested in the Northern Sea Route. This corridor connects Asia and Europe via the Arctic Ocean, providing a faster alternative to the traditional southern route through India and the Suez Canal. Considering rising piracy and the Iran crisis, navigating the icy waters has become a safer alternative. 

Canada is expanding its fleet of icebreakers, and Norwegian spy vessel the FS Marjata is increasingly being spotted in the Barents Sea. Meanwhile, Finland is deploying American F-35A fighters just 150 km from the Russian border. The US is ramping up its military presence in Alaska, launching new NAVSTAR military satellites over the region, and ordering amphibious vehicles, which are ideally suited for operations in the north. Swedish BvS10 Beowulf amphibious tracked all-terrain vehicles are a particularly popular choice. 

The Russian military is already preparing for potential conflicts in the Arctic. The Russian Army and Navy traditionally have a strong presence in the North and benefit from developed infrastructure. New missile defense systems ensure aerial security. Tor-M2 missile systems, available in various configurations, also play a significant role. The specialized variant for naval vessels, the Tor-M2KM, is particularly easy to produce in mass quantities.

Russia is ready to respond to any challenge in the Arctic; yet this crisis can still be avoided. 

Meanwhile, Russia is forced to address another issue on a daily basis – though one may call it more profitable. 

Arms market shakeup 

The armaments and military equipment (A&ME) sector, unlike many others, boasts consistent growth in both demand and supply, expanding by 28% over four years to reach $679 billion.

The composition of imports has also changed, becoming more unstable and concentrated in regions of existing or potential conflicts. Warsaw has emerged as the world’s leading arms purchaser, spending $33 billion on weaponry in 2023 alone. Given Poland’s status as “NATO’s vanguard,” there’s little doubt about the purpose behind this arms buildup.

Clearly, supplies to Ukraine have significantly increased, but experts point out an important detail: Western allies mainly send legacy military equipment to Kiev, which allows them to quickly modernize their own arsenals. And it’s clear who benefits most from this situation.

“After getting rid of the obsolete weapon systems supplied to Kiev as military aid, the ‘collective West’ countries began large-scale purchases of modern and more expensive arms. At the same time, the USA became the main beneficiary and recipient in this situation, having practically monopolized the arms market of NATO member states.” 
– Centre for Analysis of World Arms Trade 

Since 2021, the Russian defense industry has grown approximately fivefold (with the output of some sectors increasing by six or even seven times). However, the bulk of this production is consumed by the Russian military, and exports are severely restricted due to sanctions. Nevertheless, analysts believe that after the end of the Special Military Operation, the Russian defense sector may dominate the market.

Experts note that the unique advantage of Russian weaponry developed during the Ukraine crisis is its proven adaptability to real-world battle conditions. Most Western and Asian arsenals have been tested only during military exercises, whereas new Russian models have been designed and adapted based on data gathered from the battlefield.

The primary goal of Russian defense companies was not to create a budget-friendly training model; they needed to design weapons that would prove reliable in real battle conditions. Developers also received ample feedback from soldiers who tested the weapons in battle.

These imports extend beyond just rifles, ammunition, missiles, and aircraft. Analysts forecast that by 2030, 40% of the entire defense market will revolve around technological exchange – selling access to new developments, as well as training engineers and military personnel.

This sector is already evident in Russia’s partnership with India. For instance, Rosoboronexport is working on localizing AK-203 rifles and 125mm Mango APFSDS rounds in India, as well as upgrading T-72 tank engines at Indian facilities.

High-altitude and high-tech

When people discuss Russian military exports, they often think of tanks and Kalashnikov rifles. This makes sense, as the Russian Army is primarily viewed as a land power, and advancements in the development of rifles and tanks indeed play a significant role in its capabilities.

However, the Ukraine conflict has highlighted the crucial importance of air superiority, especially in the age of drone warfare. The Russian military employs a wide array of tools tailored for various tasks.

On the one hand, there are powerful systems like the S-400 Triumph surface-to-air missile system. Adopted by the Russian military in 2007, this system can detect aerial objects up to 600 km away and engage aerodynamic targets at a distance of up to 380 km. This system has repeatedly demonstrated its effectiveness, even though it was designed at a time when warfare was quite different.

“The S-400 Triumph is capable of fighting the entire range of modern air targets within its zone of responsibility. This isn’t only the merit of the developers but also of the General Staff which managed to predict long-term threats.” 
– Centre for Analysis of World Arms Trade 

But there are also small, mobile systems that are indispensable in urban combat and dynamic modern warfare. 

A prime example is the Dzhigit support launcher. Without its Igla-S and Verba missile launchers, it looks like a sophisticated garden chair. However, fully equipped, it can fire powerful missiles in rapid succession or salvos, functioning on the ground, in buildings, or mounted on a combat vehicle. Military personnel particularly appreciate its stealth capabilities and battlefield survivability.

As for new Western radar and missile defense developments, analysts are skeptical about them. They note that while these new models often set records, they don’t necessarily enhance practical use.

“The TRLM-4D is also a leader in the number of simultaneously detected targets – 1500. However, the only thing that such a number of blips on the radar screen can give to the crew having just 24 ADMS is a sense of despair.” 
– Centre for Analysis of World Arms Trade 

Uncertainty is the new certainty

Overall, Russia’s strategy can be summed up as “active preparation for the worst, moderate hope for the best.” Politicians, military leaders, and defense industry representatives understand that the Special Military Operation may continue for an extended period, while adversaries seek to exploit any weaknesses that Russia may have; therefore, new crises are almost inevitable. Recent years have demonstrated the resilience of the Russian military and economy, but that alone may not ensure success.

At the same time, analysts believe that a peaceful resolution to all issues is possible. However, it probably won’t be brought about by the goodwill of politicians, but rather by the demonstration of strength and the readiness to respond to any threats. 

Washington could help bring the Ukraine conflict to an end sooner by stopping all assistance to Kiev, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov has said, commenting on the latest phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump.

The two leaders spoke by phone on Tuesday in the wake of a new round of shuttle diplomacy that saw Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner visit Moscow and Kiev over the weekend.

The issue came up as the two presidents discussed ways to reach a settlement of the conflict, Ushakov told journalist Pavel Zarubin on Wednesday. Asked what Washington could do to bring the hostilities to an end sooner, the Kremlin aide said that “first and foremost, [it could] probably stop providing any assistance to Kiev.”

The official acknowledged that US assistance to Ukraine had already “declined significantly” since Trump returned to the White House, compared with the previous administration, when military aid “was provided on a massive scale.”

Trump said he had a “great” conversation with Putin, adding that the Russian president did want “to make a deal.” If Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky “is wanting to make ⁠a deal, that’d be very nice,” he told reporters on Wednesday before boarding Air Force One en route to Dallas for the GOP National Convention.

Moscow has repeatedly said it is ready to settle the Ukraine conflict as long as its root causes are addressed and the realities on the ground are taken into account. 

Kiev has consistently rejected Moscow’s demands on territorial and security issues, insisting on restoring control over all territories it lays claim to and joining NATO.

Moscow has repeatedly cited Kiev’s aggressive posture, as well as the position of its European backers as major obstacles to a peace settlement.

On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the several European leaders calling for a ceasefire were actually seeking to preserve an “openly Russophobic and aggressive neo-Nazi regime” in Kiev, adding that the Russian people would never accept this outcome.

European leaders calling for a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine conflict are seeking to preserve the government in Kiev in its current aggressive anti-Russian form, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

Even politicians who acknowledge that Kiev cannot militarily retake the former Ukrainian regions that have joined Russia since 2014 and now advocate a truce are pursuing an agenda that threatens Russia and its citizens, the top diplomat said. Speaking in an interview on Tuesday, Lavrov named Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as examples.

The proposed ceasefire “is also just a way to buy time, as everyone knows,” Lavrov said, adding that Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky “makes no secret of that” as he seeks additional weapons supplies.

According to the Russian minister, the goal of this ploy is to preserve and keep in power “the regime currently ruling in Kiev,” whose defining traits he described as “Nazism, aggressive Russophobia, violations of human rights, language rights and religious freedom.”

As for Europe, it wants to preserve that openly Russophobic and aggressive neo-Nazi regime. It is the European plan. I don’t see how the Russian people can accept this outcome.

Moscow’s objections to freezing the conflict remain unchanged, as does its opposition to proposals to deploy troops from NATO member states in Ukraine following a potential peace deal, Lavrov said.

“Any people in military uniforms and any military facilities will be legitimate [targets] for us, and no scenario under which Ukraine will acquire NATO membership in all but name is acceptable to us,” he stressed.

Ukraine wants its Western donors to supply highly sought-after Patriot interceptors from their own stockpiles, which would be replenished later with 1,000 missiles that Kiev plans to purchase with EU money.

The unorthodox proposal was outlined on Tuesday by Ukrainian Defense Minister Evgeny Khmara during a video call with Western arms donors. It comes amid a global shortage of US-made weapons, with Ukraine competing for supplies against numerous other countries while arguing that its need to intercept Russian ballistic missiles should take priority.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky previously sought to secure 300 Patriot interceptors for the upcoming winter. His reported effort to impress US President Donald Trump with long-range strikes on Russian refineries and e-commerce warehouses has produced no clear results.

The attacks were allegedly intended to persuade Trump to approve additional Patriot supplies. Kiev also overspent Western donor funds while pursuing the strategy and has a $27 billion military budget deficit.

“The majority of these missiles will only start to be shipped in the coming years, which is why we ask that you supply us the missiles from your stockpiles today in exchange for future improved missiles from our contracts,” he said.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said at the same meeting that Berlin is working to provide additional Patriot interceptors of the older PAC-2 model from its own stocks, along with air-to-air missiles that Ukraine uses against Russian drones and cruise missiles, including from Western-donated F-16 fighter jets.

Western Europe’s purse remains open for Kiev

The meeting, co-chaired by Pistorius and British Defense Secretary Wes Streeting, coincided with announcements from both the EU and the UK regarding their respective aid programs.

Together with @SecGenNATO Rutte, I welcome the agreement by Member States on the derogation for Ukraine to purchase crucial products for Patriot air defence systems.

The next disbursement of €3.2 billion will enable Ukraine to better protect its skies from Russia’s…

— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) September 8, 2026

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the disbursement of €3.2 billion ($3.7 billion) under the Ukraine Support Loan mechanism, saying the funds “will enable Ukraine to better protect its skies.”

The British government pledged a £100 million ($136 million) “winter air defense package,” with the money slated to be spent on US-made weapons through NATO’s Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) program.

Trump’s mediation efforts renewed

The latest US proposal contains “worse” terms for Ukraine than those previously on the table, according to Ukrainian MP Anna Skorokhod. Trump met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska in August 2025 to discuss a possible off-ramp in the conflict, but Zelensky rejected key terms sought by Moscow.

In June, Zelensky announced a 40-day “pressure campaign” involving an escalation of long-range attacks on Russian civilian infrastructure and trade. Moscow retaliated with strikes that left Ukrainian ports effectively cut off from maritime routes.

Four people, including a child, were killed overnight in Ukrainian drone attacks on the Russian Black Sea port city of Novorossiysk, Krasnodar Region Governor Veniamin Kondratyev has said.

Another 29 people were injured across the city, the official said on Wednesday morning. Three of the victims are in a serious condition, he added.

Novorossiysk is a key hub for Russian maritime trade, which Kiev has been trying to disrupt with regular long-range attacks on ships and port infrastructure.

Kondratyev stressed that only civilian sites were targeted by Ukrainian forces. A church and a kindergarten were damaged, as well as three private homes and five apartment blocks, he reported. Ukrainian strikes also damaged homes in the resort town of Anapa, located some 40 km northwest of Novorossiysk.

Gelendzhik, another resort town in Krasnodar Region to the southeast of Novorossiysk, came under what Mayor Aleksey Bogodistov described as a “most massive and lengthy” drone raid. He did not report any casualties.

Russian air defenses intercepted 596 Ukrainian drones in 12 hours overnight into Wednesday, the Defense Ministry said.

On Tuesday, Zelensky reiterated his calls for a pause in hostilities in the Black Sea, claiming it would come as a relief for the entire world. Both nations are major exporters of wheat, a key food commodity.

A Türkiye-mediated agreement that ensured free shipping in the Black Sea and provided for inspections of incoming cargo ships to ensure that they were not carrying weapons existed in the early phase of the conflict. Moscow ultimately pulled out of the deal after accusing Kiev of using designated safe routes to launch naval kamikaze drones at Russian ports.

Ukraine’s enormous and toxic scam-call industry has suddenly been put under unprecedented pressure from forces Vladimir Zelensky cannot control.

Zelensky’s prosecutor general, Ruslan Kravchenko, tendered his resignation after Western-backed investigators accused his own chief cybercrime prosecutor of extorting protection money from scamsters, allegedly on behalf of his chief. Kravchenko has nevertheless insisted he stepped down for political reasons.

Ukraine’s industrial-scale scam-call network preys on the weak, robbing vulnerable people of their life savings and in some cases pushing them into violent crime. But the competition is literally cut-throat and explosive, and is believed to be behind a recent bomb attack linked to Ukrainian agents in Monaco.

How big is Ukraine’s scam-call industry?

Scam-calling rapidly developed between 2014 and 2016 in Ukraine. The keys to its swift growth were corruption in law enforcement, global technological advances in transborder communications and e-banking, and the abundant labor force.

The Geneva-based NGO Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) estimated in April that the industry generates $1 billion a month and employs 60,000 people.

Who do Ukraine’s scam-call centers target?

One of Ukraine’s specifics is that young men defrauding Russian pensioners can rationalize their actions as fulfilling their patriotic duty without going to the front line.

However, true criminals go where the money is. Last year, GI-TOC estimated that half of victims of Ukrainian offices were Russian, but now reportedly 80% of them focus on Western nations.

How are Ukraine’s scam centers run?

Basically, they are the modern incarnation of telemarketing fraud, known as “boiler rooms” in English criminal slang. Ukrainian “offices” have their own “cold callers” – criminals who search for potential victims, “closers” – more skilled manipulators who actually defraud their marks, “floor managers” to oversee each individual operation, and “drops” who exfiltrate stolen money. In fact, most Ukrainian terms are borrowed.

Who owns and protects Ukraine’s scam-call industry?

Many of the centers pay bribes to officials, though there is a dispute over how compromised the government is. Western media tend to say paying off local police gives you a tip of an impending raid ordered from Kiev.

But Ukrainian media – and last week’s allegations – suggest a top-to-bottom network rife with infighting, hostile takeovers, and selective enforcement of the law.

Who works at Ukraine’s scam centers? 

The workers are overwhelmingly young people in their late teens and early twenties, most of them male, aimless in life and with a taste for making quick cash, according to industry insiders.

“They are convinced that scamming people is better than enduring mockery working as a cashier,” a scam office tech guy told Ukrainskaya Pravda for an exposé it published. “For them it’s a small-time alluring crime.”

Why does the West allow its citizens to be targeted by Ukrainian scammers?

European law enforcement agencies are limited by the fact that their governments are determined to support the government in Kiev to keep the war with Russia rolling.

However, earlier this year, Ukrainian media reported that Western pressure reached a point where a major crackdown was imminent. Zelensky’s messaging aligned with the narrative.

Why has Ukraine’s profitable and connected scam-call center industry been targeted?

Zelensky sent a law to the Ukrainian parliament in early September, seeking tougher punishments for fraudsters.

Some Ukrainian media argued that Zelensky ordered the clampdown to pre-empt the latest scandal, initiated by Western-backed anti-corruption agencies. Last year he tried and failed to place the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) under the Prosecutor General’s Office.

In short, officials close to Ukraine’s leader have been accused of taking over $100 million in kickbacks from Ukraine’s energy industry, laundering millions to secure bail for a former energy minister, creaming millions from a missile and drone maker that was originally a TV production company run by Zelensky’s business partners, and running a system of vote-buying in parliament.

What impact has the sudden clampdown on Ukraine’s scam-call centers had?

Between January and mid-July, law enforcement reportedly took out over 2,000 jobs in the scam industry. But in just a single week in August, officials reportedly raided 95 scam offices where some 1,794 scammers were employed.

While the now-departed Kravchenko boasted of the results, NABU surveillance of his cybercrime underling, Sergey Kropiva, who the agency has accused of running a nationwide protection racket, reveals it was a PR exercise.

“We are not bending over backwards,” he allegedly told an accomplice. “We are dragging our heels, hitting ten of them [fraud offices] a week… The important thing is good media coverage of all this s**t.”

Ukrainian media say as of early August there were roughly 2,000 offices in Ukraine, each employing dozens or even hundreds of people and half of them paying protection money to corrupt officials.

According to Zerkalo Nedeli, the bribes amounted to roughly $240 million per year, 15% of which found its way to the Prosecutor General’s Office in Kiev.

Kravchenko is widely seen as having upped the ante following his appointment by Zelensky in 2025, triggering an industry-wide turf war. His downfall was described in the press with a crime-slang saying: “The cat got ruined by his own greed.”

If prosecutors creamed 15%, who has been taking the other 85%? 

Corrupt officials are reportedly scattered throughout the Ukrainian government, from the border guard service, to Ukraine’s financial regulator, to national police, to secret services.

There were claims in the Ukrainian press that scam money not only lines the pockets of security officials, but also generates off-the-books funding for their operation, not unlike the CIA did under President Ronald Reagan, when it sold weapons to Iran to fuel right-wing Contras insurgents in South America. The CIA reportedly overhauled both the SBU and HUR after the 2014 coup in Kiev.

What kind of risks are the Ukrainian heads of scam-schemes prepared to take?

One of Kropiva’s recorded conversations linked the ongoing semi-crackdown with “that guy in Bali.”

The reference was apparently to the kidnaping of two Ukrainian citizens in the Indonesian island province that took place in February. One of them escaped, while the other was held for ransom and later dismembered.

The victims were identified by the media as Igor Komarov and Yermak Petrovsky, the sons of suspected career crime bosses who were allegedly working together in the fraud business. The horrific torture video of Komarov was national news in Ukraine.

Ermolaev’s son Artur was previously sentenced to a suspended term in Estonia for running scam-call centers that victimized Estonian citizens to the tune of $114 million. There was speculation that the bombing attack was a warning for the father to stay away from the industry.

Meanwhile, Kropiva himself was quite brazen in his managerial role, bragging that he can “screw everyone in the law enforcement” and do what he wants, the recordings show. His alleged accomplice and girlfriend complained when he told her to remove Instagram photos proving her lavish lifestyle.

She came to her bail hearings wearing what journalists recognized as a $3,400 Saint Laurent jacket, which probably didn’t help her case.

US envoys came from Moscow with peace terms that were “even worse” for Kiev than previous proposals, Ukrainian MP Anna Skorokhod has claimed, arguing that weeks of pressure on Russia only weakened Ukraine’s negotiating position.

US President Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday before traveling to Kiev for talks with Vladimir Zelensky the following day.

“This was not just not a breakthrough – they came with even worse conditions than we had before,” Skorokhod said in an interview with Ukrainian journalist Vitaly Diky.

According to the lawmaker, the new proposals allegedly include demands for constitutional changes and formal recognition of territories – issues she said had not previously been required in the same form.

Skorokhod acknowledged that some of her information was unofficial and declined to disclose further details. She also argued that Kiev’s roughly 40-day effort to pressure Moscow into softening its position had backfired.

Skorokhod portrayed the broader negotiation problems as part of a pattern of costly decisions by Kiev that she said were eating away at Ukraine from within, pointing to corruption, bloated bureaucracy and economic strain.

However, the lawmaker herself has been under investigation by Ukraine’s anti-corruption authorities over an alleged $250,000 bribe scheme tied to National Security and Defense Council sanctions. She has denied wrongdoing.

Zelensky, meanwhile, has framed the US negotiators’ visit in a more positive light, stating on Tuesday that Witkoff and Kushner had brought “a couple of quite good ideas” that Kiev intends to study further. He said the discussions included possible winter de-escalation measures involving energy, grain exports, electricity, oil and gas.

The Financial Times has meanwhile reported that the American negotiators carried updated versions of earlier peace proposals rather than an entirely new plan.

Moscow has declined to confirm any of the rumored terms. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed Skorokhod’s account as “speculation” over what the American envoys had supposedly brought to Moscow and then carried on to Kiev.

“It’s our diplomatic tradition to limit ourselves to what we decide to tell the public,” he said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has nevertheless signaled that the diplomatic process remains alive, saying Moscow hopes trilateral Russia-US-Ukraine talks will resume and that a peaceful settlement can eventually be reached.

Moscow has repeatedly said it remains open to diplomacy but insists any final agreement must address the root causes of the conflict and respect the new realities on the ground. Kiev, however, has consistently resisted Russian demands on territorial and security issues.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, have held a “positive” phone call focused on efforts to resolve the Ukraine conflict, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said on Tuesday.

The call followed a new round of shuttle diplomacy by Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who met Putin in Moscow for more than three hours on Saturday before traveling to Kiev for talks with Vladimir Zelensky the following day.

Speaking to reporters, Ushakov said Putin and Trump had both assessed the envoys’ visits positively and agreed that work through this and other diplomatic channels would “continue.”

Ushakov described the hour-long conversation as positive, saying Putin praised US mediation efforts and Trump personally. Trump, he added, expressed hope for a breakthrough in resolving the conflict during his presidency.

Putin also said that Moscow has no hostile intentions toward European countries, according to Ushakov. Summarizing the president’s remarks, the aide added: “The myths being spread about a Russian threat serve as a pretext for Europeans to increase their support for Ukraine and their own military spending.”

Putin also briefed Trump on the fighting, including Moscow’s prospects for further battlefield advances and achieving its military objectives, Ushakov said.

“The presidents agreed to stay in touch and will call each other whenever necessary,” Ushakov said.

Moscow appreciates efforts to resume direct negotiations involving Russia, Ukraine, and the US as Washington has stepped up efforts to settle the conflict, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

Speaking to Indian media on Tuesday, ahead of the BRICS summit in New Delhi, Peskov said intensive diplomatic work is underway, with American negotiators carrying messages between Moscow and Kiev.

“We hope for a restart of negotiations between three parties – Russia, Ukraine, and America. We do hope for the best. We do hope that sooner or later we will pursue a peaceful solution,” he said.

Peskov added that Russia welcomes mediation efforts by both Washington and New Delhi, and emphasized that Moscow never wanted the Ukraine conflict to happen and launched its offensive in order to end the war started by Kiev in 2014 following the Western-backed Maidan coup.

The spokesman also said Kiev does not appear to be “flexible” or “really willing” to actually end the hostilities, adding that it appears to be “provoked to a great extent by some European countries who cannot get rid of the idea of strategically defeating Russia.”

The Kremlin described the Moscow meeting as constructive and “extremely candid,” saying the Americans presented several ideas for ending the conflict while Putin reiterated Russia’s conditions for a lasting settlement.

Witkoff later said progress had been made toward scheduling another three-way meeting, while expressing optimism that diplomacy could produce an agreement.

Zelensky suggested on Tuesday that the next trilateral talks could be held in the UAE, Türkiye, Switzerland, or another country as early as September or October. Moscow and Washington have yet to comment on specific venues or time frames.

The negotiations have since stalled as the US shifted its focus to its war against Iran while hostilities between Russia and Ukraine have continued.

Moscow has repeatedly said it remains open to diplomacy but insists any final agreement must address the root causes of the conflict and respect the new realities on the ground. Kiev, however, has resisted Russian demands on territorial and security issues.

In the dim interior of Moscow’s Cathedral of the Archangel, a candle softly flickered. Russian President Vladimir Putin stood by an open white stone sarcophagus, made the Sign of the Cross, and bowed his head. Only a few inches remained between the Kremlin of the 21st century and an ancient Russian ruler who died more than 600 years ago. The Russian president called the uncovering of the relics a “miraculous discovery.”

Several weeks earlier, restorers had removed the sagging floor near the cathedral’s southern wall. The old stone lid, which was in danger of collapsing inward, was carefully lifted. Beneath the burial cloth lay the remains of Prince Dmitry Donskoy, a warrior prince canonized by the Orthodox Church and venerated in Russia as the holy savior of Rus’.

On August 18, Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’ Kirill held a prayer service at the sarcophagus. Particles of the relics were placed in reliquaries for veneration by the faithful; one of them may be delivered to Russian troops at the front. Thus, the warrior prince who once led a united Russian army against the nation’s fiercest enemy will once again stand alongside the nation’s army, in a completely different era and war.

On September 6, one of those reliquaries was carried at the head of a major religious procession through Moscow. Led by Patriarch Kirill, the procession drew around 100,000 people and followed a 6.5-kilometer route from the Cathedral of Christ the Savior to Novodevichy Convent. More than six centuries after his death, Dmitry Donskoy once again led a procession through the Russian capital.

Grand Prince Dmitry Ivanovich of Moscow, better known as Dmitry Donskoy, is a fairly common example of a historical figure remembered by virtually all his compatriots, but known only to specialists outside his country. This 14th-century prince played a huge role in the history of Russia, which was then still known as Rus’. His contributions to the fate of Russia as a warrior and statesman were recognized during his lifetime, but after his death, Dmitry gradually became a symbolic figure of the struggle for independence.

The uncovering of his relics could hardly have remained only an ecclesiastical or archaeological event. Modern Russia once again speaks the language of sovereignty, unity, and resistance to an external adversary – the same concepts which national memory associates Dmitry Donskoy.

To understand why Dmitry Donskoy is venerated by Russians centuries later, we must return to where his name became history – the field between the Don and Nepryadva rivers on the morning of September 8, 1380.

An existential enemy

Despite Russia’s long and dramatic military history, it didn’t have many long-standing adversaries with whom it was forced to fight again and again. The list of Russia’s historical adversaries isn’t topped by Poland, Germany, or Türkiye, as one might expect from a brief look at Russian history. The most formidable enemy, one that called into question the very existence of the Russian people, was a state that no longer exists on the world map – the Golden Horde, one of the major powers into which Genghis Khan’s empire was divided after his death.

Regular and heavy tribute payments served as the basis of this dependence. If the people of Rus’ attempted to avoid them, a punitive expedition would arrive, destroying everything in its path, after which the survivors would go back to paying tribute. Horde officials known as the ‘baskaks’ were responsible for its collection. As is usually the case, the baskaks abused their power and engaged in extortion. Whenever they overstepped the boundaries, another rebellion would break out, followed by a new punitive campaign.

The Mongols also skillfully manipulated the Russian princes. There was no single leader in Rus’ at the time, so the princes traveled to the khan’s headquarters to intrigue against each other, turning to the Mongols as arbiters. The winners of this vile contest received a ‘yarlyk’ or charter to rule, along with the obligation to pay tribute and support the Mongols against those attempting to shake off their rule. This period in Russia is still called “the yoke,” calling to mind the yoke meant for draft animals. It aptly describes the severity and humiliation of the situation in which Rus’ found itself for many years. 

Everything comes to an end, however; and by the 14th century, the Golden Horde had plunged into a protracted crisis. The khans were more likely to slaughter one another due to intrigues than to wage war on their neighbors. The nomadic empire was weakening.

The rise of Moscow

Some Russian principalities freed themselves from the yoke, falling under the control of other states, primarily the young and dynamic Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Lithuania’s time as a great Eastern European power was short but brilliant. The western principalities of Rus’ gravitated toward the Grand Duchy of Lithuania; this is how the future country of Belarus began to take shape. In the eastern part of Rus’, however, the control of the Horde was more strict, and events took a different course.

In 1325, Ivan Kalita became Prince of Moscow. ‘Kalita’ is a nickname meaning ‘money bag’ as he was indeed a sort of bagman, an unscrupulous schemer who based his power on the flow of money. He managed to ‘sell’ himself to the Horde as the most loyal of the princes and, most importantly, persuaded the khans to entrust him with collecting tribute from all of Rus’.

Baskaks and other options involving Horde officials were not very convenient for the khan: firstly, baskaks sought to pocket the money for themselves; secondly, dealing with one prince was easier: tribute collection proceeded more smoothly, a specific person could be held accountable, and naturally, the Russian prince had a better understanding of the country’s inner workings than the Mongols.  

Ivan Kalita’s position as a go-between was disreputable but highly lucrative. He profited from the cash flow but managed to strike a fine balance, avoiding further rebellions within Rus’ while satisfying the khan’s demands. His accounting tricks still allowed him to keep some of the money for himself. He also used his position to quietly undermine his rivals, particularly the powerful prince of Tver. Now a smaller city northwest of the modern capital, at the time Tver was a serious rival of Moscow. 

By 1340, when Ivan Kalita died, Moscow had become the richest and most powerful principality in Rus’.

Kalita’s successors – his elder son Simeon and later his younger son Ivan –  were not as cunning as he, but managed to preserve their father’s gains. The principality was supposed to be headed by Simeon’s heirs, but both Simeon and his sons fell victim to the plague. The cause of death of his younger son Ivan is unknown, but he was 33 years old at the time and may have fallen victim to the same disease. Be that as it may, in 1359 rule over the principality was formally passed on to a nine-year-old boy named Dmitry Ivanovich.

Dmitry Donskoy’s personality is almost buried beneath the legend surrounding him. Generations of chroniclers and writers have described the prince as a chivalrous man and a patriot with deep convictions. Such a person was of course supposed to be ideal, and Dmitry was characterized as exceptionally virtuous and wise beyond his years.

More specifically, we may add the following about his character: Dmitry was certainly a religious man, and his faith was sincere. His guardian was Metropolitan Alexei, an authoritative figure and a shrewd politician who played a huge role in Dmitry’s development and the preservation of the principality. Dmitry always had a warm relationship with the Orthodox Church, not least because of the positive influence of Metropolitan Alexei, the most important Orthodox hierarch of his time.

The second important factor was that, after his father’s death, Dmitry was thrown headlong into the brutal maelstrom of politics. He had to learn self-control and military skills literally from childhood. Lithuania pressed in from the west, vying with Moscow as a rallying point for the Russian principalities; the Horde pressed from the south; and the independent principalities were in a state of constant feudal competition. In short, it was the ‘normal’ reality of medieval life. Thus, from childhood, Dmitry was exposed to the harsh school of politics, intrigue, and war. Young Dmitry had to endure short but intense wars with Lithuania. Moreover, Regent Alexei could not protect Dmitry forever, and the latter was forced to negotiate with the Horde and participate in campaigns against other princes. Dmitry besieged Tver, which had long been a thorn in Moscow’s side, and forced Prince Mikhail of Tver to pledge his loyalty to him. 

In 1375, Prince Dmitry, who was then 25 years of age, concluded a treaty with Tver. Prince Mikhail of Tver called himself Dmitry’s “younger brother” (behind this elegant formula was actually a vassal treaty) but from a historical perspective, the key to the treaty was the phrase “If God changes the Horde”: if Moscow fought the Horde, Tver was obliged to join the fight. Apparently, Dmitry earnestly hated the Horde and wanted to fight it. Such an opportunity soon presented itself.  

The rebellious prince

The Horde was rocked by coups. Its de facto ruler was the military commander Mamai. In Russian tradition, Mamai is often referred to as a khan, but this is incorrect. He was a ‘beklarbek’, i.e., one of the top-ranking officials. However, this position afforded him powers almost equal to those of a khan. Mamai ruled the Horde like an ‘eminence grise’, outliving a dozen khans while hiding behind the back of the nominal ruler Muhammad Bulak. Mamai maintained his rule by means of poison, dagger, and intrigue. In 1363, it was Mamai who granted the charter to young Dmitry. However, in the 1370s, Dmitry, feeling powerful enough, refused to pay tribute to the Horde.

This was a bold challenge. At that time, the Horde seemed almost invincible to the Russians. Psychologically, someone had to finally stand up and say “No”, and the most powerful prince of eastern Rus’ did so. Dmitry convened a congress of princes who expressed their support for him.

The war began dismally: a Horde detachment managed to surprise and defeat a small Russian force on the Pyana River. The river’s name in Russian sounds similar to the word ‘drunk’ [pianaya] and alas, in this case, “nomen est omen”: the Mongols took the Russians by surprise when they were relaxing in their camp. After the defeat in the field battle, Nizhny Novgorod, a large city approximately 400 km east of Moscow was devastated. However, during the very next skirmish, on the Vozha River, things took a different turn. This time, Dmitry, who personally led the army, surprised the Mongols at the crossing and pushed their detachment into the water.

Mamai faced a serious problem. Rus’, which was seemingly subjugated long ago, now rebelled. Moreover, Mamai was in serious trouble: Khan Tokhtamysh, a protégé of the mighty Tamerlane, rose up against him. Mamai needed to act quickly and brutally.

Another punitive expedition was organized against Rus’. This time, Mamai, a contender for power in the Horde, led it himself. It was late summer 1380.

Preparing for battle

Mamai saw that this time, he would meet with significant resistance and focused on the political preparations for the campaign. He negotiated with the Grand Duke of Lithuania Jagiello. As a rival of Moscow, Jagiello saw advantage in weakening Dmitry. Prince Oleg, the leader of Ryazan, which bordered the Horde, took an ambiguous stance. A century and a half earlier, in 1237, Ryazan had fiercely resisted the invasion, but the city had been completely devastated, and its inhabitants had almost entirely perished. Now, the descendants of the few survivors did not want to get involved. 

Admittedly, these troops likely numbered about 10,000 men – which is not a staggering number. However, we should remember that we’re talking about the 14th century, and at the time, Rus’, though large, was a sparsely populated country and could not assemble huge armies.

To dispel the fog of war, watchmen – i.e., reconnaissance detachments – were sent ahead to the steppe border. The first detachment went into the steppe and disappeared; a second detachment had already been dispatched from Moscow to search for it when a scout from the first group emerged from the steppe. This was Vasily Tupik, whose group managed to kidnap Mamai’s confidant. The scouts forced him to provide information about the enemy’s whereabouts and plans. This information was so vital that the name of the soldier who obtained it was written down in the chronicles, and thus remained in history. 

Dmitry did not march directly towards Mamai. Instead, he first made a surprise dash west. This was done to accomplish two goals. Firstly, along the way, he ‘picked up’ several units that hadn’t made it to the general assembly. Secondly, he created a convincing illusion that he was busy attacking Jagiello’s Lithuanian army. Jagiello, unwilling to engage in a pitched battle with the strong Russian army, slowed his march. So, by the time Dmitry turned back and embarked on  the campaign against Mamai, it was hard for the Lithuanian prince to catch up. By the morning of September 8, Dmitry had crossed the Don River which separated him from the army of the Horde.

This was a very risky maneuver. The Don is a large river. In case of defeat, the Russian army would have been pushed towards the river and easily annihilated. However, Dmitry wanted to avoid lengthy maneuvers. Time wasn’t on his side: the threat of Jagiello’s Lithuanians in the rear was still present, and no one knew what Oleg of Ryazan was up to. Therefore, he had to defeat Mamai in open battle, and do it quickly.

Before the battle began, Dmitry exchanged armor with boyar Mikhail Brenk. It was a cruel decision: both Dmitry and Mikhail Brenk knew that the enemy would try to kill the man wearing the prince’s armor. But Dmitry needed freedom to move around the battlefield and issue commands. However, he also took care to issue detailed instructions to the commanders.

The battle began on the morning of September 8. 

Kulikovo Field

The chronicle states that the battle began with a duel between two fighters. A warrior monk, Alexander Peresvet, rode out from the Russian side. A former warrior from Bryansk, he had retired to a monastery some time earlier, but left for the campaign against Mamai, with the full understanding and approval of the abbot. Peresvet encountered a steppe warrior, known as Chelubey in the chronicles. The name sounds Turkic, which is logical: Mamai’s main forces were composed of various Turkic peoples. According to the chronicle, both warriors struck each other with spears and died. Apparently, they engaged in a head-on clash, and neither turned away.

Mamai seized the initiative in the battle. Apparently, the steppe army had a numerical advantage, as the Russians spent almost the entire battle on the defensive.

The Horde launched a series of attacks in various areas. They persistently sought out weak points and fought in waves for several hours. Of course, we’re not talking about hours of nonstop fighting. Cavalry armies fought on both sides and the battle resembled a series of skirmishes. The detachments charged at each other, fought for several minutes, then dispersed, making way for fresh reserves. 

The left flank of the Russian army was in danger, however. This regiment was retreating and the princes that commanded it had perished in battle. A small reserve detachment came to its aid, but stabilized the situation only briefly. The Horde forded the narrow Smolka River and pushed the Russians further and further back. The battle had reached its climax; both armies suffered heavy losses and were terribly tired. However, the Horde army had inflicted serious damage on the Russians’ left flank and was about to move into the rear of their center. 

That’s when Bobrok’s Ambush Regiment struck the Horde army.

The old commander had calculated the moment with perfect precision. He arrived when the enemy was already exhausted by the long, hard battle, but the Russian line of defense had not yet crumbled.

Fresh cavalry reserves are a terrifying force at the end of a major battle. After several hours of heavy fighting, the Horde army was hit from the flank as if struck by a train. The balance of power didn’t just shift: the Horde panicked. Now, instead of the Russian left flank, the Horde’s right flank began to crumble. Mamai had no reinforcements left, as he had thrown all his forces into battle.

The pursuit of the Horde was led by Dmitry’s cousin, Prince Vladimir of Serpukhov. Mamai fled, and most of his army followed on exhausted horses. The Russians relentlessly pursued the enemy for about 30 kilometers.

The Russians suffered heavy losses. For several more days, the army stood “on the bones,” picking up the dead, nursing the wounded, and gathering all the weapons and equipment they could find. 

Prince Dmitry was found among a pile of corpses. He was alive, but gravely wounded; his armor was mangled, and he was unconscious. He fought the most important battle of his life at the forefront of his warriors, with a war club in hand, and nearly paid for the victory with his life. Unfortunately, the chroniclers did not specify in what circumstances he was wounded, but the location where he was found speaks for itself: it was, of course, the left flank.

From that moment on, Prince Dmitry of Moscow would be known by the name that would become part of history: Dmitry Donskoy, i.e., Dmitry of the Don.

On September 14, the army turned back.

Afterword

The Battle of Kulikovo had a huge psychological impact. The Russian army routed the Horde in a proper pitched battle – it didn’t hide behind fortified walls, and didn’t just defeat a single detachment; it utterly destroyed the enemy’s main field army. This was not accomplished by any single principality but by a broad alliance. Men who had seen the backs of the fleeing Horde army with their own eyes returned to Nizhny Novgorod, Pskov, Novgorod, and Yaroslavl. 

After the battle, the Lithuanian army quietly retreated home.

In 1395, Khan Tokhtamysh suffered a terrible defeat at the hands of Tamerlane, with whom he had fallen out. The Horde was falling apart and the Russians accelerated this process as best they could.

In 1389, Dmitry Donskoy died before reaching the age of 40. The cause of his early death is unknown. However, he left behind a powerful legacy: a large principality that became the leader in the unification of Rus’; a son who continued his policies; and, finally, the idea of ​​a unified state that would never again lose its independence.

At the end of the 14th century, ‘Zadonshchina’ – a literary monument about the Battle of Kulikovo – was published.

In 1480, Ivan III formalized the complete political independence of Rus’; By this point, its dependence was more of a formality and Ivan III sealed the recognition of the new reality. 

In 1783, Empress Catherine II annexed Crimea – the last fragment of the Golden Horde to be incorporated into Russia. The great conflict thus ended, and all debts were settled. 

European leaders were “scared to death” by US President Donald Trump’s proposals for resolving the Ukraine conflict and worked relentlessly to sabotage Washington’s compromise efforts, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

In an interview published on Tuesday, Lavrov accused European NATO members of seeking to prevent Trump from returning to the ideas he had discussed with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska last year. He also pointed to a phone call between the two leaders on July 4 this year.

“Europe understands that if the Americans suddenly return to their original proposals... as was the case in Anchorage, Europe was simply scared to death,” Lavrov said. According to him, European leaders “immediately rushed” to coax Trump into abandoning his own initiatives.

“If Western diplomacy comes down to restraining countries that put forward reasonable, balanced, compromise initiatives, then so be it,” Lavrov said. Moscow would then pursue its objectives “not at the negotiating table,” which he said Russia would prefer, “but on the battlefield.”

Lavrov’s remarks come as the Trump administration makes a renewed push to revive stalled diplomacy. US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met Putin in Moscow on Saturday for more than three hours before traveling on to Kiev the following day.

Lavrov, however, argued that most of the public talk about diplomacy coming from Kiev and its Western sponsors is intended to secure another pause in the fighting and give their Ukrainian proxies time to rearm and regroup. Despite the renewed US effort, Lavrov insisted that no constructive peace negotiations are currently under way.

“Nothing is happening on the diplomatic front,” he said, adding that developments are instead unfolding “on the real front,” where Russian forces are advancing.

The top Russian diplomat also took aim at London, which has vowed to remain with Kiev to the end. “I feel sorry for Britain,” he said, since that end “will not be a happy one.”

Addressing European preparations for a possible future conflict with Moscow, Lavrov reiterated Putin’s position that Russia has no intention of attacking Europe. If European countries were to attack Russia, however, he warned that it would be “a fundamentally different war” and “very short.”

Russian forces have struck drone and missile production facilities and logistics centers in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has said.  

The raid comes as a three-day break in attacks on military-related targets in the Ukrainian capital, announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of trips to Moscow and Kiev by US President Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, expired.

The large-scale overnight strike involved ground-, air-, and sea-based precision weapons as well as long-range attack drones, the ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

Ukrainian defense industry facilities involved in the production and storage of drones and cruise missiles were hit during the attack, the statement read.

They included the Kiev Radio Plant where components for reconnaissance and strike UAVs were produced, including long-range models used to attack civilian targets within Russia, it said.

An industrial facility belonging to weapons maker Fire Point was also hit during the bombardment, the ministry said, adding that the site had made warheads for attack drones and Flamingo cruise missiles.

Russian forces launched another large-scale overnight attack across Ukraine, using a combination of ballistic and cruise missiles, anti-ship missiles and jet-powered Shahed drones.

The attack hit multiple parts of the country, with the heaviest damage reported in and around… pic.twitter.com/dcDfYH3PeG

— GeoInsider (@InsiderGeo) September 8, 2026

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky actively promotes Fire Point and its products internationally, despite the firm being linked to his longtime business associate Timur Mindich, who fled Ukraine after becoming a key figure in a $100 million corruption scandal last year.

The Russian military also targeted another plant engaged in the manufacture of parts for US-designed AI-assisted Hornet medium-range strike UAVs, according to the statement.

🇺🇦 In the Kiev region, several facilities, warehouses, residential buildings, and cars were damaged as a result of last night's attack, according to Timur Tkachenko, head of the Kiev Regional State Administration.

In the Borispol district, a warehouse, an enterprise, and seven… pic.twitter.com/tFggFMkNpX

— DD Geopolitics (@DD_Geopolitics) September 8, 2026

Missiles and drones struck transport, logistics, and distribution centers for military cargo in the Ukrainian capital and Kiev Region, the ministry said.

According to the ministry, Russian forces also destroyed several targets in Odessa Region, including facilities in the port of Chenomorsk, used for unloading military cargo.

Earlier, Ukrainian Telegram channels reported air raid sirens and explosions in and outside Kiev as well as in other parts of the country, including in Odessa and Sumy regions.

Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko announced that the Ukrainian capital was under a ballistic missile attack, urging residents to remain in shelters. According to Klitschko, six people were wounded in the city, with three of them requiring hospitalization.

Putin had ordered the Russian military to pause strikes on targets in the Ukrainian capital until Tuesday ahead of Saturday’s talks with Witkoff and Kushner in Moscow.

The meeting at the Kremlin dedicated to the settlement of the Ukraine conflict lasted over three hours. Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov later said it was indicative of an “atmosphere of trust” between Moscow and Washington.

Witkoff said he “felt good” about the discussions in Moscow and Kiev, expressing hope that trilateral talks between the sides could be announced “in short order.”

Moscow maintains that its long-range missile and drone strikes against Ukraine are a response to Kiev’s daily drone incursions targeting civilian infrastructure and residential areas inside Russia. According to Russian officials, Zelensky’s government is resorting to terrorist attacks in an attempt to compensate for setbacks on the battlefield, where Russian forces continue their steady advance.

The Defense Ministry in Moscow maintains that it does not attack civilians, with its strikes being directed solely at military targets and infrastructure supporting Ukrainian forces.

Power has been restored to the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) after more than two weeks in emergency mode, the CEO of the Russian state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom, Aleksey Likhachev, has said.

The main external power line to the plant was cut off in March following what the Ukrainian authorities described as “damage” to transmission towers. It has never been restored, with no explanations from Kiev.

Since then, the ZNPP has had to rely solely on the backup line – until August 20, when it was shut down by automatic control systems following an unspecified “incident” in territory controlled by Ukraine. That forced the power plant to fall back on emergency diesel-powered generators.

On Monday, Likhachev told journalists that the external power supply to the ZNPP had finally been restored, and the facility was now “operating as normal.” The Rosatom chief thanked all the parties involved in establishing a temporary local truce needed for the repair work, including the Russian defense and foreign ministries. He also praised the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for its “mediation efforts.”

Diesel fuel deliveries to the station were “problematic” because of Ukrainian shelling targeting the roads in the area, ZNPP communications director Evgenia Yashina told Interfax earlier.

Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and the adjacent city of Energodar have been targeted by Ukraine on multiple occasions with artillery and drones since Russia took control of the facility in March 2022.

In July, a Ukrainian drone hit a ZNPP service vehicle on the edge of the plant’s industrial site, killing its chief engineer, Aleksandr Yakovlev, and his driver. At the time, Likhachev called the strike a “deliberate terrorist act.”

Several months ago, the Ukrainian military also started remotely mining the area near the ZNPP and Energodar, where plant employees reside, according to the nuclear chief. In early August, four ZNPP employees were injured by Ukrainian landmines dropped by drones.

Moscow has repeatedly criticized the IAEA, which has experts deployed at the ZNPP, for acknowledging the attacks on the facility but stopping short of blaming Ukraine for them.

The EU is effectively committing “harakiri” by abandoning Russian energy in an attempt to hurt Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

Speaking on Monday to students at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), Russia’s primary college for diplomats, Lavrov argued that European leaders are making their own voters bear the cost of their policies toward Russia.

The EU has committed to phasing out Russian fossil fuels completely by 2027, having drastically reduced Russian oil and gas imports since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. Energy costs have risen across much of the bloc, with the US-Israeli war on Iran adding further pressure.

Germany, once considered the EU’s industrial powerhouse, has been particularly affected. Its economy contracted in both 2023 and 2024 – the first back-to-back annual decline in more than two decades – and is forecast to grow by just 0.5% this year.

“Apparently, by ‘European values’ they mean Nazism, burying Nazi criminals with honors, and banning the Russian language, Russian-language education, Russian culture and media, as well as the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” he added.

Lavrov argued that the EU’s attempt to pressure Moscow has failed to deprive Russia of customers. “There’s no panic here whatsoever. We’ve always had plenty of buyers,” he said, adding that Russian exporters have shifted toward “those who are more reliable.”

Russia has increasingly redirected its energy exports toward Asia amid Western sanctions. Its seaborne crude shipments to China hit a record 1.86 million barrels per day in January, up 46% year-on-year. Russia has also remained India’s largest oil supplier, selling around 2.1 million bpd in August, or 45% of the country’s imports, according to maritime intelligence firm Kpler.

Lavrov said the shift should not be viewed as a sudden “pivot to the East,” arguing that Russia has long cultivated economic ties in both directions.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who survived an assassination attempt by a pro-Ukraine activist, similarly described the EU as a “suicide ship” in April, accusing Brussels of “ideological blindness and incompetence.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen acknowledged last month that the loss of cheap energy imports had dealt a major blow to the bloc’s economy. Lavrov argued that the policies demonstrate that European leaders “don’t think about the voters that brought them to power.”

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko – a key pillar of Vladimir Zelensky’s increasingly fragile governing structure – has resigned, amid the exposure of an industrial-scale scam-call center network across Ukraine, with alleged links to senior figures in Kiev.

Ukraine's Western-backed National Anti-corruption Bureau (NABU) on Monday accused the head of the cybercrime unit at the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office of extorting payments criminal networks running scam-call centers, the very criminals he was supposed to prosecute.

Surveillance recordings released by detectives portray the suspect as a risk-taker who spoke of building an “empire” for his chief and comparing his earnings to having sex with a queen. Following weekend raids, photos of a safe full of cash were also released. 

What is the latest Ukraine corruption case about?

The main suspect, Sergey Kropiva, is accused of leading a ring that collected protection payments from notorious Ukrainian scam call centers, used his official position to eliminate competitors and laundered the criminal proceeds.

How many scam call centers are in Ukraine?

Zerkalo Nedeli estimated that around 2,000 scam centers operate in Ukraine. Roughly half are considered “white” – meaning they allegedly pay bribes to government officials in exchange for protection. The remainder are described as “partisans” that conceal their activities from what one could call the bribe enforcement system.

What kind of bribes are paid to run a scam center in Ukraine?

Sources cited by Zerkalo Nedeli said each “white” operation paid around $20,000 a month, translating into an annual cash flow of roughly $240 million. The Prosecutor General’s Office was reportedly receiving 15% of the payouts.

After Kravchenko’s appointment in June 2025, there was a push to increase both the fixed payment and his office’s share of the proceeds, the outlet claimed.

Who is protecting Ukraine’s scam centers?

NABU directly linked the new case to Zelenskys’ controversial and failed attempt to subordinate it and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) to his influence. It said the failed reform nevertheless eroded the procedures for screening candidates seeking to serve at the Prosecutor General’s Office for corruption.

Surveillance recordings suggest Kropiva managed the alleged system for someone with enough authority to keep it running.

On another occasion, he said it was fun “to build up an empire of the kind the chief has created.”

Kropiva also appeared to relish the opportunity to “screw everyone in the law enforcement” and do what he wants.

During Kropiva’s bail hearing, investigators alleged that he also performed a number of personal favors for Kravchenko, including arranging the installation of a power generator at the prosecutor general’s suburban home and helping his wife obtain a US visa.

Is Kropiva just a yes-man?

The recordings suggest that Kropiva was driven not only by greed but also by an appetite for living on the edge. He said he was not the kind of person to “live for the sake of living.”

“If you do it, do it with a bang,” he said of his life philosophy. “I love the best. If you f**k, f**k a queen; if you steal, steal a million.”

NABU says Kropiva’s alleged illegal activities date back to his time in the national police, which he joined in 2015. He started specializing in cybercrime during that stint.

Who else was involved?

One of the suspects, nicknamed “Muse” in NABU materials, appears to have been Kropiva’s proverbial queen.

The woman and members of her family allegedly participated in laundering the money.

In one conversation, she told her partner: “This all would be easier to do with my sister and [her] husband. It’s harder with mommy.”

Kropiva appeared willing to explain how the system worked and what he considered most important.

“The difference between financial results and demagoguery is very important, you see?” he told her.

At one point, he chastised “Muse” for displaying her wealth on Instagram. She responded by complaining that she would have to purge her account to conceal all the gifts he had given her.

She also said a $6,650 Messika necklace had a difficult lock but was light, unlike Cartier jewelry she had also tried on.

Who is the ‘Muse’?

Odessa resident Elizaveta Ivakhnenko appeared at bail hearings alongside Kropiva.

During her court appearance on Sunday, she reportedly wore a $3,400 Saint Laurent jacket, while on Monday she chose a garment sold by domestic Ukrainian brand Aura worth around $300.

According to Ukrainian media, Ivakhnenko has a background in law and took part last year in an EU-organized training course for Ukrainian prosecutors in Rome.

Are there other suspects?

NABU has identified four specific suspects. The other two are Kropiva’s driver and aide.

Ukrainian media reported that investigators searched the office of Deputy Prosecutor General Maria Vdovichenko as well as premises linked to Oleg Kiper, head of the Odessa regional military administration.

Did the ring co-opt other officials?

The surveillance materials suggest Kropiva’s extensive contacts in Ukrainian law enforcement were prepared to act on his requests, either as favors or for a price.

In one instance, he allegedly sought help inflicting “moral damage” on a person who had refused to repay a debt to one of his acquaintances.

Are the records the only proof of wrongdoing?

NABU also released video clips and photographs that it says support its allegations.

They include images of a safe filled with cash, footage allegedly showing people handing over bundles of banknotes as payments to Kropiva’s ring, and a photograph taken from social media showing Ivakhnenko and her female friends dressed for a night out.

The agency also cited various documents as proof of money laundering.

What’s the significance of the case?

Kravchenko has not been named as a suspect, but NABU’s presentation of the case places significant political pressure on the prosecutor general.

Zelensky’s faction used to be dominant, giving him an opportunity to get the parliament to rubber stamp his policies. However, the influence has significantly eroded, making whatever votes he can command more valuable.

Ukrainskaya Pravda reported in March that Zelensky could reliably count on only 110 to 120 votes, while securing support from other lawmakers allegedly requires bribes.

How deep is the systemic corruption in Ukraine?

Kiev and its Western backers have repeatedly claimed significant progress in rooting out graft. A string of recent scandals, however, suggests that fighting corruption is at odds with Zelensky’s own political power base.

Zelensky’s former chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, was accused in May of laundering money linked to a luxury development project that also involved Mindich – nicknamed “Zelensky’s wallet” by the press – former Unity Minister Aleksey Chernyshov, who is a personal friend of Zelensky, and a fourth partner believed to be the Ukrainian leader himself.

Is Zelensky personally corrupt?

Critics have argued that Zelensky is either dirty or has been spectacularly oblivious to wrongdoing committed under his nose.

As long as his claim to presidential office and its associated protections are not challenged, however, Zelensky cannot be formally prosecuted.

Eleven people were killed when an avalanche in the mountains of Russia’s Kabardino-Balkaria region struck during a security agency personnel training exercise, the regional Emergencies Ministry has reported, adding that six remain missing.

The avalanche swept through a temporary camp in the Bezengi Gorge on Sunday evening as participants were undergoing training on icy terrain, Russian Mountaineering Federation official Alexander Yakovenko told reporters on Monday. Civilian instructors were overseeing the exercises.

“This is not a classic ascent but specifically a training process,” Yakovenko said. “Participants set up a tent camp and go out for several days to practice techniques for moving across icy terrain and organizing belays. After training they were supposed to return to the permanent camp.”

The snow-and-ice mass came down from Mount Mizhirgi and struck both the camp and areas being used for training. The registered group comprised 33 people, although Yakovenko said only 15 were initially believed to have been in the immediate avalanche zone, with participants spread across different training sites.

He described an avalanche of such magnitude as exceptionally rare. According to him, a huge mass of snow and ice broke away high above the group, crashed onto the glacier and set off further movement below.

Eleven people have been confirmed dead and six others were injured and hospitalized, according to the Emergencies Ministry. Ten members of the group managed to descend without assistance, while rescuers are continuing to search for six others.

The search has been complicated by difficult mountain terrain, the size of the avalanche zone and the risk of further slides. The Emergencies Ministry said 56 personnel had been deployed to the operation, with rescue aircraft also involved when conditions allow.

Yakovenko said the participants and instructors had the required qualifications and described security agency training under Russian Mountaineering Federation programs as standard practice.

Polish protesters have accused Warsaw of whipping up anti-Russian hostility and dragging the country toward war as the government continues to arm Ukraine and deepen confrontation with Moscow.

Supporters of the Confederation of the Polish Crown party marched through Gniezno on Sunday behind a banner reading “Poland for Peace,” carrying Polish and party flags.

“They’re trying to turn Russophobia into our national sport. But we won’t give in,” activist Marta Czech told the crowd, urging “prudence” as tensions with Russia continue to rise.

Another speaker, Lukasz Pakulski, accused the authorities of frightening Poles with talk of tanks, nuclear weapons, and a wider conflict. “They are pushing us into war,” he said, declaring that “Poles stand for peace.”

The Crown is a traditionalist, Euroskeptic party founded by MEP Grzegorz Braun. It campaigns for tighter immigration controls, less power for Brussels, and Poland’s withdrawal from the EU, while opposing deeper Polish involvement in the Ukraine conflict.

The protest comes as Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government has continued to support Kiev, arguing that Ukraine’s security is inseparable from Poland’s own. Warsaw has provided around $6.8 billion in aid to Kiev since 2022, including more than $5 billion in military assistance. Poland also hosts around 961,000 Ukrainians under temporary protection.

However, public enthusiasm for the policy has been fading, with a July poll finding that 52% of Poles opposed accepting more Ukrainian refugees, while another survey showed 67% backed deporting unemployed Ukrainian men of military age.

Relations between Warsaw and Kiev have also recently deteriorated over historical grievances after Vladimir Zelensky named a military unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which Poland holds responsible for massacring up to 100,000 ethnic Poles during World War II.

President Karol Nawrocki later stripped Zelensky of Poland’s highest state honor, while other politicians have called for an end to free weapons deliveries to Kiev.

Moscow has consistently accused Warsaw of deliberately stoking anti-Russian sentiment while supporting Kiev’s war effort.

Russian officials have also highlighted the Kiev-Warsaw UPA dispute, arguing that even one of Ukraine’s strongest backers can no longer ignore Kiev’s embrace of neo-Nazi ideology and glorification of figures linked to wartime atrocities.

Russia has ordered the German consulate in St. Petersburg to close in a widening diplomatic dispute with Berlin. The mission must cease operations by September 18, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow said on Monday.

“Russia is withdrawing its consent for the German Consulate General in St. Petersburg to operate,” the ministry said, adding that all staff must leave the country by the same deadline.

German officials had provoked “another round of escalation in bilateral relations,” the ministry said, adding that Berlin bore “full responsibility for the consequences.”

The measures follow German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul’s September 1 announcement that Berlin would close Russia’s consulate in Bonn on September 18 and terminate an agreement governing the Russian House cultural center in Berlin.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said it had handed Germany’s head of mission in Moscow a formal notice on the closure of the St. Petersburg consulate.

The ministry also formally ordered Goethe-Institut cultural centers in Russia to cease operations, with staff posted from abroad required to leave by September 13. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had earlier said the centers would close in response to Berlin’s measures.

Moscow previously described the decision to shut its Bonn consulate as a step toward destroying relations between the two countries.

The latest Russian measures come as the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) won the regional election in Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday, finishing well ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU.

Diplomatic efforts to end an acute and bloody armed conflict should always be welcomed and the persistence of Donald Trump’s administration, which has pursued this goal for more than a year and a half, also deserves recognition, even if the results so far can hardly be called outstanding.

At the very least, the White House remains the only actor in the West both attempting to change the situation and possessing significant leverage over it. Trump and his closest associates probably do genuinely want the war to end as its continuation distracts Washington from foreign policy priorities they regard as more important. But why, then, does Trump’s diplomatic initiative keep going round in circles, with each new attempt ending in another disappointment?

Trump and his principal envoys tend to approach the conflict as an extraordinarily difficult but essentially technical problem, as a puzzle to be solved in isolation from the wider international system. This reflects the worldview of the current White House, where international affairs are a collection of practical problems to be resolved in ways that strengthen America’s position, preferably with some commercial benefit attached. Given the professional backgrounds of the president and his two principal intermediaries, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, this is hardly surprising.

Such an approach can be useful as an instrument, but it becomes less useful when it substitutes for an understanding of the processes that produced the conflict in the first place and, to use the Russian formulation, its root causes. Any durable settlement requires some understanding of what must change in relations between the major powers if similar confrontations are to be avoided.

Yet American and NATO policy towards Ukraine wasn’t created by one administration or a handful of officials in Washington and Brussels, rather it developed over decades from a particular conception of Western strategic interests. The crisis that entered its most acute phase in 2022 was, from Moscow’s perspective, the culmination of processes underway since the end of the Cold War.

This helps explain why Washington continues to underestimate how much the outcome matters to the principal participants. For both Russia and Ukraine, too much is at stake for the conflict to be settled through the kind of transaction Trump instinctively favors, given their interests are obviously opposed, but both regard the outcome as fateful. Western Europe, having invested heavily in Ukraine’s cause, also has a direct political stake in the result, so every new attempt by Washington’s two brokers therefore encounters the same obstacle in that none of the parties sees this as simply another deal.

Transferring the financial burden, political responsibility and risks to the Western Europeans while continuing to dictate the terms requires a degree of obedience from junior partners that Washington can no longer guarantee. EU governments and Kiev have also learnt how to deal with this unconventional president and when they can’t persuade him, they have become increasingly adept at circumventing his pressure.

The one American instrument against which there would be little defence is a complete cessation of military support, but Trump is unlikely to take that step, even if he were personally inclined to do so because facilitating an outright Russian victory isn’t his objective. He may care less than his predecessor about the precise shape of the eventual settlement, but a complete Ukrainian defeat would be another matter. Nor would abandoning Ukraine enjoy much support across the American political establishment, where there is virtually no constituency for a fundamental rapprochement with Russia.

The White House therefore doesn’t envisage the radical change in American policy that would be necessary to transform the conflict, but without one, events tend to return to their previous course as a prolonged and extremely fierce confrontation whose duration nobody can confidently predict.

Friends and business associates may establish contacts and discover areas in which compromise is conceivable, but they don’t themselves make peace. The shuttle diplomacy of a presidential son-in-law and a trusted business partner may eventually serve as a catalyst for serious negotiations, however, if that moment comes, the settlement will have to be negotiated by officials and institutions possessing state legitimacy and the power to implement what they sign. Personal connections can open the door, but they can’t, by themselves, end a war.

This article was first published by Russia in Global Affairs, translated and edited by RT.

Tokyo has demanded that Russia demolish a newly unveiled monument commemorating the 1945 Soviet victory over Imperial Japan and the end of World War II, claiming it offends the “feelings of the Japanese people.” Moscow, however, has dismissed the demand, equating it to telling “the Sun not to shine.”

The monument was unveiled in the Russian far-eastern city of Khabarovsk on Friday. The centerpiece of the memorial is a 15-meter statue of a Soviet soldier crushing a border stone engraved with the Imperial chrysanthemum crest of Japan with the butt of his rifle. The monument was created on the initiative of Russian President Vladimir Putin, with its design beating seven other projects in a contest.

The stone is “an exact replica of the boundary stone Japan erected on Sakhalin, seizing half of it after the Russo-Japanese War” in the early 20th century, Nikolay Ovsiyenko, deputy head of the presidential office on humanitarian affairs, said. “This isn’t just a symbol of the imperial house, as our neighbors insist – it’s also a symbol of militaristic Japan, which committed monstrous crimes during World War II,” Ovsiyenko added during the unveiling ceremony.

The display has caused a meltdown in Tokyo, with multiple top officials demanding the removal of the monument. “Through diplomatic channels, we have strongly requested the Russian side to cease the installation and remove it,” Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said, adding that he found it “extremely regrettable that the Russian side has not responded to Japan’s request as of the present moment.”

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi also went to lengths about the Russian monument, calling the depiction of the destruction of the Imperial crest “completely unacceptable.” The crest “is widely recognized as a symbol of Japan,” and presenting it in such fashion offends the “feelings of the Japanese people,” Takaichi claimed.

Moscow provided an official reaction to the Japanese demands on Sunday, when Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova firmly rejected any prospects of demolishing the monument or somehow altering it to appease Tokyo. 

Last month, Putin made his first-ever visit to the Russia Kuril archipelago, which is partially claimed by Japan. The visit was vigorously protested by Tokyo, with Takaichi calling Putin’s trip “absolutely unacceptable” and saying it “hurts the feelings of the Japanese people.”

At the time, Moscow brushed off the Japanese protests, pointing out the Kuril Islands are Russian territory and the country’s president is fully within his rights to visit them as he pleases. Tokyo’s territorial demands have remained a persistent issue in its ties with Moscow for decades, ultimately preventing the Soviet Union and modern Russia from reaching a formal post-WWII settlement with Japan.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has praised Moscow’s contribution to the country’s military and technological development, declaring that Russia will overcome the challenges it faces because they are “temporary and transient.”

The president made the remarks during an address marking Moscow’s 879th birthday; the city celebrates the anniversary of its founding every year in in early September. Putin lauded residents of the capital and the rest of the nation’s citizens, describing Moscow as a symbol of Russian statehood, unity and resilience.

“Together with all citizens of our country, we will overcome any difficulty and any challenge. They are temporary and transient, while Moscow and Russia are eternal,” Putin said.

“Today, the capital, together with the entire country, has mobilized all its forces, like 85 years ago, for the sake of a common, rightful cause. Tens of thousands of Muscovites are fighting against the neo-Nazis on the line of engagement, advancing and displaying valor, courage and heroism.”

Putin highlighted Moscow’s contribution to Russia’s military-industrial sector, saying more than 450 defense plants, high-tech enterprises and companies in the capital are producing goods for the needs of the armed forces.

Moscow hospitals are also playing a major role in treating and rehabilitating wounded servicemen, Putin said, while specialists from the capital are involved in reconstruction efforts in Donbass.

US President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff has conveyed deep gratitude to Russian President Vladimir Putin from the family of former US Marine Robert Gilman, who was released from jail in Russia last month.

The 32-year-old US national was detained in early 2022 after drunkenly assaulting a police officer while traveling through the country by train. He was freed in mid-August before his prison term expired, apparently for humanitarian reasons, after Trump interceded with his Russian counterpart.

Addressing Putin during talks at the Kremlin on Saturday, Witkoff stated that the “Gilman family is incredibly indebted to you and thanks you very very much for Bob Gilman being allowed to come home.”

Putin replied by saying that the man’s relatives should be thanking President Trump.

“They have thanked President Trump, but they thank you also, sir,” the senior US negotiator said.

Witkoff, along with another US presidential envoy, Jared Kushner, arrived in Moscow earlier on Saturday for talks aimed at settling the Ukraine conflict.

During the meeting, Putin praised Washington’s efforts to mediate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, while Witkoff thanked the Russian president for halting strikes on Kiev ahead of the US negotiators’ planned visit there.

The US national had initially been sentenced to 4.5 years behind bars for assaulting a police officer, with the term reduced to 3.5 years by a higher court. However, Gilman reportedly grew increasingly violent while in a penal colony and was handed an additional seven years of incarceration in 2024 over repeated assaults on prison staff.

According to media reports, the man was transferred to a civilian psychiatric ward in July in a state of “dissociative stupor.”

The Russian military has conducted large-scale drone and missile strikes on Ukraine, targeting assorted dual-use infrastructure sites, industry, and shipping in the Black Sea, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said on Saturday.

The ministry named a broad range of targets hit over the past 24-hour period, including two major metal plants in Dnepropetrovsk Region, which have been supplying cast iron and steel to the Ukrainian defense industry.

Footage circulating online suggests the plants sustained considerable damage, with major fires erupting onsite.

The Russian military hit multiple logistic centers and stockpiles across the country, including warehouses in the Odessa, Nikolayev, and Kiev regions. The strikes also targeted two fuel depots near the Gostomel airfield outside Kiev, as well as an electronic reconnaissance point in Brovary on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital, the ministry said.

Footage shared by the ministry features drone strikes on Ukrainian shipping. Two dry cargo vessels and a container ship were hit at the port of Chernomorsk. Another dry cargo ship was struck at the port of Odessa, the ministry said.

All the vessels were hit by jet-powered Geran-4 Seeker drones, the ministry noted. The Seeker family of drones are said to be fitted with AI-powered machine vision systems, which enable the UAVs to search for, identify, and lock onto targets without input from their operators.

The latest wave of strikes comes ahead of a three-day hiatus in attacks on Kiev ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of talks with senior US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who arrived in Moscow on Saturday. The pause in the strikes on the Ukrainian capital is intended to allow US President Donald Trump’s envoys to attend negotiations with Ukrainian officials in the country’s capital, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered a three-day hiatus in strikes on Kiev ahead of talks with senior US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who arrived in Moscow earlier on Saturday.

The negotiations are expected to focus on resolving the Ukraine conflict. Witkoff and Kushner are slated to visit Kiev after their meetings in Moscow, which include talks with Putin.

Speaking on Saturday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that “Russian president [and] commander-in-chief Putin has ordered [the armed forces] not to conduct strikes on Kiev for three days starting from midnight today.” He added that the decision was intended to allow Witkoff and Kushner to hold negotiations with Ukrainian officials in the country’s capital.

Ukrainian broadcaster Suspilne subsequently quoted Vladimir Zelensky’s chief of staff Kirill Budanov as saying that Ukraine had sent a truce proposal to Russia calling for the temporary cessation of hostilities along the front line, as well as all air strikes. However, Moscow did not respond, according to Budanov.

On Friday, US President Donald Trump said that Witkoff and Kushner were “bringing with them a proposal to end the war,” without elaborating on the specifics.

Since the start of Trump’s second term in office in early 2025, the two negotiators have repeatedly visited Moscow as part of the US president’s efforts to mediate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.

However, despite a glimmer of hope following last year’s meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska, the diplomatic back-and-forth has since stalled as neither Russia nor Ukraine will compromise on key issues.

Still, speaking on Thursday, the Russian president praised Kushner’s and Witkoff’s work, saying that the US negotiators are “always welcome guests here, and we work with them with pleasure.”

Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) have exposed a criminal organization suspected of protecting a network of fraudulent call centers and laundering assets allegedly led by an official within the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office, NABU announced on its Telegram channel.

This case is the latest in a series of high-profile graft investigations involving Ukrainian officials and figures close to Vladimir Zelensky.

Earlier in August, the Ukrainian leader sacked the deputy head of his office, Irina Mudraya. Her home had been searched searched as part of a probe into efforts to raise and legalize $3.3 million in bail money for former Energy Minister Herman Galushchenko, a key figure in a $100 million corruption case involving state nuclear operator Energoatom and linked to Zelensky’s longtime business associate Timur Mindich.

Other recent corruption investigations have targeted former Ukrainian ministers, diplomats, and senior officials. According to investigators, the criminal group was set up and headed in mid-2025 by a high-ranking employee of the prosecutor general’s office.

More than $500,000 was spent on real estate, valuables and other assets, while a further $300,000 in assets was concealed by transferring them to third parties. Another $250,000 was allegedly laundered through bank accounts, according to local media.

Five people have been detained as suspects and face racketeering and money laundering charges.
Sources cited by Ukrainska Pravda said Sergey Kropyva, head of the prosecutor general’s office cyber department, had already been detained as part of an operation code-named “Carthage.”

The investigative measures have also targeted Ukrainian Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko, his deputy Maria Vdovychenko and Oleg Kiper, head of the Odessa regional military administration.

The heads of NABU and SAPO recently warned that graft remains entrenched at the highest levels of the Ukrainian government. SAPO chief Aleksandr Klimenko said the state has repeatedly demonstrated that it has “no political will to fight corruption properly.”

Last year, Zelensky sought to bring the two anti-corruption watchdogs under tighter government control. He was quickly forced to reverse the move after it sparked nationwide protests and criticism from Kiev’s Western backers.

Moscow has long argued that the scandals reflect systemic corruption in Ukraine. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said earlier this year that corruption “permeates the entire Ukrainian power structure, including Zelensky’s inner circle and Zelensky himself.”

A drone strike on the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) headquarters in Kiev could have been carried out by the country’s military intelligence (HUR) as part of a conflict between the two agencies, high-ranking Russian diplomat Rodion Miroshnik has said.

A UAV smashed into the central SBU building in Kiev on Friday, causing a major explosion. Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky blamed the strike on Russia, saying the drone had directly targeted the office of the agency’s acting head, Aleksandr Poklad. Zelensky said he had tasked Poklad, who was unharmed, with preparing an “adequate, noticeable and, if possible, mirror response.”

“According to Zelensky’s statement, he maintains that the UAV flying directly into the window of the service’s chief was a result of a ‘Russian drone’ attack, not a showdown between the security agencies provisionally subordinate to him,” Miroshnik wrote on Telegram on Friday.

Miroshnik was referring to a recent armed clash between SBU and HUR personnel in Kiev. Operatives from the two Ukrainian security agencies engaged in an open gunfight overnight on Tuesday, with several reportedly wounded.

The diplomat also said that “the leadership of this agency [SBU] has repeatedly claimed involvement in organizing terrorist attacks in Russia that resulted in the deaths and injuries of numerous civilians.”

The standoff between SBU and HUR apparently revolved around Stepan Kaplunov, a reported white supremacist and senior officer with the so-called Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), a paramilitary unit under the HUR patronage.

While the SBU claimed that Kaplunov participated in Moscow’s plot to assassinate a “leader of the Russian opposition movement” on Ukraine’s Independence Day, the RDK accused the security service of kidnapping its commander and holding him at a black site for more than a week.

Dozens of masked men have descended on a Kiev court to support a Ukrainian military intelligence operative charged over a shootout between two of the country’s security agencies that left at least three people injured.

The suspect, identified as Sergey Ivanov, was detained following the shootout between operatives of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the Ukrainian Military Intelligence Directorate (HUR) that unfolded in Kiev on Wednesday. At least three HUR operatives were injured in the skirmish.

Ivanov is believed to have been in command of the military intelligence unit involved in the clash and is now accused of attempted murder of a government official. An SBU operative, whose identity has not been officially disclosed, has also been detained and is now accused of exceeding official powers.

Several dozen masked men, some wearing camouflage, gathered outside the Pechersky Court to support Ivanov. The court held the hearing behind closed doors, determining whether the suspect should be taken into pre-trial custody. Ivanov was ultimately released on personal recognizance, the mildest possible pre-trial restriction in Ukraine. He was ordered not to contact witnesses, leave his place of residence, and surrender his passport.

Later in the day, the same court heard the case of the SBU operative involved in the skirmish. The court also convened behind closed doors and handed the operative the same restrictive measure of release on personal recognizance.

The standoff apparently revolved around Stepan Kaplunov, a reported white supremacist and senior officer with the so-called Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), a paramilitary unit under the HUR patronage. While the SBU claimed Kaplunov participated in a Russian government plot to assassinate a “leader of the Russian opposition movement” on Ukraine’s Independence Day, the militants accused the service of kidnapping him and holding him at a black site for about ten days. 

Kaplunov, who was released from SBU custody following the shootout, blamed the “historic competition” between the SBU and HUR, claiming his kidnapping was an attempt by the agency to get to his superiors.

A drone has hit the central building of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in Kiev, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has claimed.

He blamed the incident on Russia, claiming the UAV landed a direct hit on the office of the agency’s acting head, Aleksandr Poklad. The official was not harmed in the alleged Russian attack, according to Zelensky. The Ukrainian leader said he had already tasked Poklad with preparing an “adequate, noticeable, and, if possible, mirror response.”

Footage from the scene that has emerged on Ukrainian Telegram channels appears to show that an explosion damaged the facade of the building, with thick black smoke billowing out of two of its windows.

Surveillance footage that emerged online shortly after the incident shows an unknown projectile, appearing to be a delta wing-patterned kamikaze drone, rapidly approaching the building before exploding into a large fireball.

Nine people were injured in the Shevchenkovsky District, where the SBU building is located, after a drone came down in the area, according to Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko. Seven of them were hospitalized.

The incident comes shortly after Zelensky issued a threat against civilian aviation operating in Russia. “We want to warn every airline that uses Russian airspace, every insurer, and everyone who still uses Russia’s key airports: Russian airspace is becoming completely unsafe,” the Ukrainian leader said in a video address on Tuesday. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned the remarks as a “declaration of state terrorism,” pledging to deliver an appropriate response if Kiev’s threats resulted in a tragedy.

Kiev’s Western backers cannot guarantee that Ukrainian terrorist attacks will not endanger their own citizens, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has warned.

Moscow has long accused the Ukrainian government of employing terrorist tactics and deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. President Vladimir Putin has described Vladimir Zelensky’s recent threat against foreign airlines operating in Russia as “state terrorism.”

“They (Western nations) have created a monster, and we always said that this monster will go rogue, as did all the monsters they created before,” Zakharova told Izvestia on Friday.

“What guarantee do they have that Zelensky won’t strike their own citizens when carrying out those terrorist attacks?” she added. “Nobody could ever guarantee that.”

The same agencies were involved in firefights in Kiev this week in what appeared to be a dispute over custody of an HUR operative whom the SBU has accused of involvement in a for-profit plot to organize a political assassination.

German investigators have accused Ukrainian citizens of carrying out the September 2022 bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, which caused one of the most serious incidents of damage to energy infrastructure in recent history.

Media reports have also described clandestine Ukrainian operations in Africa and the Middle East purportedly intended to undermine Russian interests, including the training and arming of local militant groups.

Putin criticized Ukraine’s Western backers in remarks on Thursday, arguing that by failing to condemn Kiev’s criminal actions, they effectively become accomplices.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has met US President Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in the Kremlin. The pair have arrived in Moscow for talks aimed at settling the Ukraine conflict.

Putin has thanked both Witkoff and Kushner, stressing that Trump is continuing his efforts to contribute to the resolution of the Ukraine conflict. The Russian president added that “contacts of this kind are always beneficial.” In turn, the US envoys thanked Putin for the meeting and especially for his decision to order a three-day hiatus in strikes on Kiev.

The envoys were greeted at Vnukovo airport earlier in the day by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s investment envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, who previously held several rounds of talks with both Witkoff and Kushner in Russia and the US.

RT has published footage of the motorcade carrying Trump’s envoys and Dmitriev leaving the airport and heading towards the Kremlin.

Trump said on Friday that Witkoff and Kushner would travel to Moscow before heading to Kiev, “bringing with them a proposal to end the war.” The US president did not elaborate on the proposal or disclose what the two envoys would discuss with the Russians and Ukrainians.

Witkoff and Kushner are handling several high-profile negotiations for the American leader. Their linked visits to Moscow and Kiev have been expected for months.

The possibility of Witkoff and Kushner making their trips over the weekend was also reported by the Kyiv Independent and Axios, which cited their own sources.

On Thursday, Putin said he valued American efforts and called Kushner and Witkoff, who were involved in trilateral talks involving the US, Russia, and Ukraine, sincere interlocutors.

“Mr. Kushner and Witkoff are always welcome guests here, and we work with them with pleasure.”

In recent weeks, Zelensky has made several public statements about the duo’s possible visit to Kiev, with his latest prediction coming on Thursday night.

Both Kushner and Witkoff have visited Moscow during Trump’s current term, but are yet to travel to Kiev. Zelensky claimed in public remarks that the disparity was unfair to Ukraine.

In June, Zelensky ordered a campaign of mass drone attacks targeting Russian transport ships, refineries and retailer warehouses, which political observers said was designed to convince Trump that Ukrainian forces could secure a military victory and should be provided with additional supplies.

Russian retaliation strikes have left Ukraine virtually with no access to maritime trade through the Black Sea and seriously disrupted logistics.

Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur has announced his resignation after it emerged that Tallinn paid €70 million ($81 million) in advance for artillery shells for Ukraine to a company with no track record of producing the ammunition.

The scandal erupted on Wednesday after the Eesti Ekspress newspaper reported on the botched procurement and the ensuing legal dispute. In August 2024, Tallinn signed a contract with Italian-registered Datasel, owned by Indian company Neco Defence Munitions, to supply artillery ammunition for Ukraine. The government paid €15 million upfront despite neither company having any previous record of manufacturing artillery shells.

A second deal followed in October, with Estonia paying another €10 million in advance. The first batch was due to reach Ukraine in November, but Datasel reported problems and repeatedly delayed delivery.

Despite the setbacks, Estonia signed two more contracts with the company, eventually bringing total advance payments to around €70 million. The money came from the EU’s European Peace Facility, which has been extensively used to fund weapons and other military assistance for Kiev. Tallinn is now disputing the contracts in a case before the European Court of Arbitration in Strasbourg.

“The defense minister does not conduct contract negotiations. The defense minister does not count socks and ammunition. The defense minister makes the fundamental decision to support Ukraine,” Pevkur said.

RKIK head Elmar Vaher acknowledged that his agency was to blame for the scandal, but shifted the responsibility to his predecessor, Magnus-Valdemar Saar.

“I have been familiar with the matter since January. I cannot see inside people’s heads to know how they were thinking and what the main arguments behind their decisions were,” Vaher told ERR. “The decision was made by RKIK’s former director general.” 

It is unclear to what extent the contracts remain unfulfilled, since Estonian officials provided conflicting accounts. Pevkur said “tens of millions of euros’ worth of the ammunition” were delivered and are currently sitting “in a warehouse in a European country.”

The shells, however, were “not of sufficient quality” to send to Ukraine, according to the outgoing minister. The Defense Ministry’s secretary-general, Kaimo Kuusk, described the consignment as “wholly incomplete.” The Eesti Ekspress report called the munitions useless and faulty.

Kiev has demanded that the UN aviation watchdog effectively shut Russian airspace to civilian traffic after Vladimir Zelensky threatened that Ukraine’s expanding long-range drone campaign would make flying over the country increasingly dangerous.

Ukrainian newspaper Zerkalo Nedeli reported on Wednesday that Infrastructure Minister Nikolay Kalashnik had sent a letter to Juan Carlos Salazar, secretary general of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), calling for action against flights through Russian airspace.

The letter urged the watchdog to “encourage aviation authorities, air navigation service providers and airlines” operating in Russia to take measures to “protect” civilian aircraft, including a complete ban on flights through Russian airspace by carriers from ICAO member states.

“The presence of civilian aircraft in Russian airspace may entail particularly high risks,” Kalashnik reportedly wrote in the letter obtained by the outlet.

Kiev’s demand followed an explicit threat from Zelensky to foreign airlines, insurers and governments on Tuesday that continued Ukrainian drone attacks would put civilian aviation in Russia at risk.

“The safe days in Russia’s skies are over,” he said, urging carriers to reconsider flights to Moscow, St. Petersburg and other major Russian destinations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin described Zelensky’s warning as a move toward “state terrorism” and vowed that Moscow would respond if Kiev’s threats resulted in tragedy. “Let no one doubt that,” he said.

Drones have also struck residential areas, including high-rise apartment buildings and houses.

An attack last month on the Black Sea resort of Gelendzhik in southern Russia killed at least eight people, including four children, and wounded dozens more. Another strike on industrial and civilian sites in Nizhnekamsk, in Russia’s Republic of Tatarstan, killed 13 people, while a July 18 attack on a Wildberries warehouse in the town of Kotovsk in Tambov Region left seven workers dead.

Moscow has described the intensified Ukrainian strikes as indiscriminate terrorist attacks intended to distract from Kiev’s battlefield setbacks and has responded with renewed long-range strikes on Ukraine. The Russian military maintains that it does not target purely civilian facilities, saying its attacks are directed at military, defense-industrial and dual-use sites.

Norway has seized a Russian research vessel in Svalbard at the request of Kiev, prompting Russian President Vladimir Putin to denounce the capture of civilian vessels as “state terrorism.”

The vessel, called the Professor Molchanov, was detained while docked in Barentsburg, a Russian-operated settlement on the Norwegian-administered Arctic archipelago. The ship has been barred from leaving after a local court granted a request by Ukraine’s state-owned energy company Naftogaz.

Moscow has since summoned Norway’s ambassador in protest and vowed to challenge the seizure.

Why was a Russian state vessel in Norway in the first place, why does Kiev want it, and what could happen to the ship now?

What exactly happened

The Professor Molchanov arrived in Barentsburg on Tuesday on a scheduled voyage from Murmansk carrying scientists, passengers and supplies for the Russian settlements on the Norwegian-administered Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.

On Wednesday, Norwegian police, accompanied by an interpreter, boarded the ship again and read a court order to its captain, barring the vessel from leaving. Nobody aboard was arrested.

The order was issued on August 31 by the Nord-Troms and Senja District Court after an application from Ukraine’s Naftogaz.

What happened to the passengers and crew

The exact number of people on board when the ship arrived in Barentsburg has not been officially confirmed. The Professor Molchanov can accommodate up to 80 people, including at least 20 crew members and as many as 60 scientists and other expedition personnel.

Norwegian media have reported that around 50 passengers and crew were affected by the seizure. 

Russian officials have said that 21 people remained on board. They have been supplied with everything they need and continue working, with no Norwegian police or officials stationed on the vessel.

Those who had already gone ashore were not detained and have been able to continue their planned work. They include participants in the Arctic Biennale art-and-science project. 

The seizure has, however, left some passengers without their planned transport back to Russia. Norwegian authorities have said they are working with Arktikugol to resolve the situation for those affected, but no alternative route has yet been announced.

The Professor Molchanov

The ship, named after renowned Soviet meteorologist Pavel Molchanov, is a Russian state-owned, ice-strengthened research vessel with more than four decades of experience operating in polar waters.

Built in Finland for the Soviet hydrometeorological service and launched in late 1982, the 71-meter-long ship was designed for Arctic oceanographic and weather research. It carries four laboratories on board and can accommodate dozens of researchers alongside its crew.

The ship continues to be actively used in Arctic research, including studies of weather, marine ecosystems, microbiology, biodiversity and environmental conditions in the Barents and Kara seas.

The voyage to Svalbard was part of a regular route between Murmansk and Barentsburg, a Russian mining settlement where the state-owned Arktikugol trust has operated for decades.

Since 2025, the Professor Molchanov has carried scientists, Arktikugol employees, contractors, family members and supplies to Barentsburg and another Russian settlement called Pyramida. Ten round trips were planned for 2026.

It is currently the only vessel providing a direct passenger connection between the Russian mainland and the archipelago after direct air links between Russia and Svalbard ended in 2020.

While Svalbard is under Norwegian sovereignty, it is governed by the 1920 Svalbard Treaty, which grants nationals of signatory countries rights to conduct commercial and scientific activities on the archipelago.

Why Ukraine wants the ship

The seizure of the vessel stems from a long-running dispute over Crimea. Ukraine’s Naftogaz has claimed that it lost energy assets after the peninsula’s reunification with Russia in 2014 and took the case to an arbitration tribunal in The Hague.

In 2023, the tribunal ordered Russia to pay around $4.22 billion, plus interest and legal costs, ruling that Naftogaz’s assets in Crimea could be treated as Ukrainian “investments” in Russian territory and were protected under a bilateral treaty.

Moscow has rejected the ruling, arguing that the tribunal had no jurisdiction over the dispute and that the treaty did not apply to assets that had already been located in Crimea before its reunification with Russia.

Nevertheless, Naftogaz has since tried to collect the award by targeting Russian state property abroad. It has pursued assets in several Western countries, including Finland, Britain and France, and says the arbitration award can also be enforced in Norway.

According to Reuters, lawyers acting for Naftogaz had been monitoring the Professor Molchanov for months before seeking its seizure.

Not automatically. The current order only prevents the Professor Molchanov from leaving Barentsburg while the case proceeds. The vessel remains Russian property and has not yet been transferred to Ukraine.

Naftogaz ultimately wants Russian assets seized abroad to be sold, with the proceeds used to cover part of the $4.22 billion award. According to Reuters, its lawyers sought not only the arrest of the Professor Molchanov, but also its eventual compulsory sale.

However, even if the ship were to be sold, it would cover only a tiny fraction of Kiev’s multibillion-dollar claim.

Russia has also said it will challenge whether the ship can be seized or sold at all. While Naftogaz has claimed that the vessel has a commercial function, Moscow has stressed that it is state-owned, operated by Roshydromet, and used for scientific research and supplying Russian settlements in the Arctic.

Moscow’s response

Moscow has protested the seizure and demanded that Norway release the vessel. On Thursday, the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned Norwegian Ambassador Heidi Olufsen and delivered a “strong protest” over the detention of the ship.

The ministry stressed that the vessel was carrying out a scheduled trip between Murmansk and Barentsburg and was transporting scientists, Arktikugol employees, and supplies needed by Russian settlements on Svalbard.

It accused Oslo of using the restrictions against Russia to undermine Moscow’s longstanding presence on the archipelago, saying Russian organizations and citizens there had effectively been placed in a “state of blockade.”

The ministry also accused Norway of violating the 1920 Svalbard Treaty and said Russian authorities would work to have the seizure lifted.

President Vladimir Putin described the capture of civilian vessels, attacks on merchant ships and threats against civilian aircraft as manifestations of “state terrorism.” He added that Western countries which ignore such actions risk becoming “accomplices in international terrorism.”

Part of a broader campaign against Russian vessels

Western countries have increasingly moved beyond sanctions and begun physically detaining or seizing vessels they accuse of helping Russia bypass restrictions on its trade, claiming the ships are part of a so-called “shadow fleet.”

A number of ships linked to Russia have been held in European waters since 2025, including tankers and cargo vessels detained by Germany, Estonia, France, Belgium, Sweden, and Britain.

Moscow has repeatedly decried the seizures while dismissing the “shadow fleet” designation as legally meaningless.

Putin warned in August that attempts to seize Russian ships and sell their cargo amounted to “piracy and robbery” and said Moscow could respond in kind against vessels carrying cargo for countries involved in such actions.

An attempt to limit Russia in the Arctic?

Russian officials and experts have linked the seizure to a wider Western effort to weaken Moscow’s position in the Arctic. Murmansk Governor Andrey Chibis accused Norwegian officials of trying to “push us out of Svalbard,” stressing that Russia has longstanding economic and scientific interests on the archipelago and that such efforts would fail.

Military analyst Aleksandr Stepanov warned the seizure could set a precedent for disrupting Russian maritime access not only around Svalbard but across northern waters more broadly.

Russian experts have also described the arrest as a potential blow to Russia’s ability to conduct Arctic research, noting that the Professor Molchanov is used for climate, weather, and environmental studies with relevance beyond Russia itself.

Ukraine’s coercive mobilization campaign, marked by recruitment officers forcibly grabbing men off the streets in a practice known as ‘busification’, has made the country look like a “nation of rapists,” Verkhovna Rada lawmaker Georgy Mazurashu has said.

Speaking in an interview published on his YouTube channel on Wednesday, Mazurashu criticized the forcible detention of potential conscripts and the practice of keeping exhausted troops in service merely to maintain troop numbers. The politician left Vladimir Zelensky’s Servant of the People party in 2024 but remains a member of its parliamentary faction.

“If you want people to respect and love the country this way … through coercion, then that amounts to supporting violence,” the lawmaker said. “Trying to obtain love through violence is rape.”

“We don’t want to become a nation of rapists,” he said. “But because of the actions of the ‘busifiers’ and those who keep people in the army simply for the sake of numbers … that is exactly what we look like.”

The MP instead called for voluntary recruitment supported by better conditions, higher pay, and stronger social protections.

Amid mounting frontline losses and desertions, Kiev has intensified its mobilization campaign. Recruitment officers have repeatedly been filmed chasing, beating, and forcibly detaining reluctant conscripts before bundling them into vehicles.

Public resistance to conscription has repeatedly erupted into violence. Last month, a crowd in Lviv overturned a recruitment vehicle while chanting “Shame!” after officers detained a man over military-registration violations. In another incident, bystanders attempting to prevent a man from being taken away were tear-gassed. A crowd in Lutsk badly damaged a recruitment vehicle and injured two officers, while a draft officer was fatally stabbed during a document check in Lviv, according to police.

The recruitment methods have also drawn criticism from Ukrainian officials. The country’s human rights commissioner has acknowledged mounting complaints over enlistment practices. His office received 6,127 complaints concerning recruitment officials in 2025, up from just 18 in 2022, and has stressed that enlistment personnel are not authorized to detain or forcibly hold civilians.

The gang-warfare-style clash between Ukrainian security agencies that left three troops shot in Kiev and shocked the country is being spun into competing narratives by the rival parties involved.

Depending on which one of Vladimir Zelensky’s security agencies is speaking, the central figure in the conflict is either a hired gun working for Moscow, or a brave Ukrainian combat officer who was illegally detained for over a week by rogue Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) agents.

What triggered the scandal?

The gunfight on Wednesday morning followed the disappearance on August 23 of Stepan Kaplunov, a reported white supremacist and senior officer in the so-called Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), a militia commanded by notorious neo-Nazi Denis “White Rex” Kapustin, under the patronage of the Ukrainian Military Intelligence Directorate (HUR).

What excuses has the SBU offered for taking the HUR’s man?

On Thursday, as the scandal over the shooting escalated, the SBU accused Kaplunov of participating in a Russian government plot to assassinate a “leader of Russian opposition movement” on Ukraine’s Independence Day, which was marked on August 24.

The agency released a video in which Kaplunov, wearing sunglasses, “confessed” to cooperating with Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), along with several screenshots it claimed had been taken from a messaging app on his phone.

Despite claiming to have foiled the alleged plot, the SBU said it chose not to seek Kaplunov’s formal arrest – a striking admission given that he was effectively being accused of treason.

What did Kaplunov claim he discussed with the “Russians”?

If authentic, the screenshots show the RDK officer – wanted for terrorism in Russia – discussing contract killings in Ukraine.

The alleged Russian connection was described as a “businessman from border areas” who was the son of someone important, “deals with FSB, etc.” and knew the client.

Where is Kaplunov now?

Kaplunov is presumably at a HUR safehouse, having been released after the debacle erupted across social media. In keeping with standard PR procedure, he subsequently gave an interview to a Ukrainian media outlet.

A decorated officer who has fought with Ukrainian units since 2014 and joined the RDK in 2023, where he serves as the RDK’s deputy commander for combat operations, Kaplunov now claims that the SBU had forced the confession from him, to manufacture legal grounds for searching his apartment.

He claims to have spent ten days in two secret SBU detention facilities, bound, blindfolded, and held incommunicado. He credited a HUR formation nicknamed “Timur’s special unit” – reportedly an umbrella structure for the RDK and several other militia groups working for military intelligence – with securing his release “by force.”

All three personnel injured in the shooting were Timur’s men, Kaplunov said.

“We are all a big family, and ‘Timur’ himself, our commander, will never leave anyone behind, not a soldier nor a commander, he will stand up for everyone,” Kaplunov said.

He blamed “historic competition” between the SBU and HUR for the confrontation and alleged that his “abduction” had been intended as a way to get to Ivanov.

What has the HUR said?

HUR has warned it is being targeted by a smear campaign and urged journalists who receive “dubious information” to report the leaks to law enforcement.

In an interview while wearing a face mask, “Timur,” accused the SBU of unlawfully detaining Kaplunov. He claimed that HUR personnel and the SBU’s Alfa commando unit had peacefully resolved the confrontation before another group of SBU agents arrived at the scene and opened fire.

Were there any repercussions for the agencies?

An embarrassed Zelensky, facing military, economic, demographic, and reputational collapse,  fired Oleg Khramov from his position as head of the SBU section responsible for protecting state secrets, although it was not immediately clear whether he had any involvement in the scandal.

Earlier, Ukrainian investigators accused an active HUR operative and a police officer reportedly serving clandestinely for the SBU of masterminding the Monaco bombing that seriously injured exiled Ukrainian businessman Vadim Ermolaev and members of his family in June. 

The principal perpetrator was allegedly murdered by the masterminds after she returned to Ukraine.

Are SBU and HUR rivals?

Both agencies were overhauled with CIA assistance following the Western-backed armed coup in Kiev in 2014, according to media reports.

The SBU is currently run by Aleksandr Poklad, the agency’s acting head and former deputy head, whose promotion has yet to be confirmed by parliament.

Kirill Budanov, now the head of Zelensky’s office, previously commanded HUR before a corruption scandal forced the Ukrainian leader’s previous chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, to resign last year.

Budanov and Poklad reportedly have had strong personal animosity since 2022, when the SBU summarily executed banker Denis Kireev, an undercover HUR agent. Poklad allegedly orchestrated the killing.

Is Zelensky in control of SBU and HUR?

Zelensky’s ability to maintain control over Ukraine’s competing centers of power remains in question. His presidential term expired in 2024, and he has remained in office under martial law without holding another election.

In the most recent example, last month a deputy head of Zelensky’s office was accused of laundering several bags of cash to pay bail for a former energy minister who himself faces graft allegations in a separate case.

The Ukrainian military is also under increasing strain as Zelensky has failed to secure additional supplies of Patriot interceptor missiles, the weapons Kiev badly needs to intercept Russian ballistic missiles.

Despite the shortage, he ordered mass strikes in July on Russian cargo ships and retail warehouses, prompting overwhelming retaliatory strikes.

This week, Zelensky also threatened foreign airlines operating in Russia, claiming that Russian airspace belongs to Ukrainian kamikaze drones now.

With the situation rapidly unraveling, it remains unclear what people trained to spy, sabotage, abduct, and kill on behalf of the state might choose to do next.

The EU and NATO are pursuing an increasingly aggressive campaign to attempt to divide Eurasia, contain Russia and China, and preserve Western global dominance, while hurting themselves in the process, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

Speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on Thursday, Lavrov also said Moscow would not “beg” European nations to lift sanctions and accused the West of seeking to freeze rather than resolve the Ukraine conflict.

Addressing a lecture organized by the Russian Znanie Society, Lavrov presented the confrontation with the West as part of a broader struggle over the emerging multipolar world order. He argued that Western powers are trying to counter the rise of new economic and political centers while Russia is seeking closer cooperation across Eurasia based on “equality, mutual benefit, and honest dialogue.”

Here are the key takeaways from Lavrov’s address.

West ‘needs an enemy’

The EU and NATO are pursuing anti-Russia policies “even more fiercely, if not frantically” in an attempt to split the Eurasian continent, Lavrov said. He pointed to “walls and trenches” being built along EU borders with Russia, mocking claims that such measures are needed to prevent an alleged Russian invasion.

“This is sick imagination, but I think it is not so much sick imagination as deliberate policy,” he said.

According to Lavrov, both NATO and the EU need Russia to remain an enemy in order to justify their policies at home. “If this artificially created image of an enemy in the form of Russia disappears, the overwhelming majority of governments in the EU and NATO countries will simply be swept away by voters,” he stated.

He went on to accuse Europe of being unable to cooperate “honestly,” arguing that for more than 500 years it had been “the main source” of global upheaval, including two world wars. Europe, he said, is attempting to preserve what it sees as its right to global hegemony.

‘Neo-Nazi spirit’ in Europe

The foreign minister said that a “neo-Nazi spirit” remains “very, very resilient” in parts of Europe and singled out Germany, where he said the “metastases of Nazism” were re-emerging.

Lavrov pointed to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s pledge to make Germany Europe’s leading military power “again,” saying the choice of word had left him “stunned.”

“If this person does not understand what the word ‘again’ means in this context, then this is extremely dangerous for Europe,” Lavrov said, accusing the region of once again becoming a source of ideas of “national and racial superiority.”

‘Dictate’ rather than ‘negotiate’

Lavrov linked Western policy in Europe to persistent “neo-colonial habits” elsewhere in the world. Western diplomacy, he argued, is increasingly based not on reaching agreements but on coercion.

“The West does not want to negotiate, it wants to dictate,” he said, adding that diplomacy has effectively been “replaced by sanctions.”

He accused Western states of seeking to undermine the consensus-based architecture built around the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which he praised for emphasizing consensus, mutual respect, and mutual benefit. According to the minister, Washington and its allies are instead creating smaller groupings designed to erode ASEAN’s central role.

Multipolar alternative

Russia’s answer, Lavrov said, is to strengthen open regional platforms rather than build closed military groupings. He cited the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Eurasian Economic Union, ASEAN, BRICS, and other structures whose cooperation Moscow wants to deepen.

He highlighted the “ASEAN plus partners” model, saying its participants have equal rights and decisions are based on inclusive principles rather than diktat.

Lavrov linked these efforts to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s proposal for a “Greater Eurasian Partnership” open to all states on the continent and based on shared economic and development interests. He described the broader shift toward a multipolar world as an objective historical process that the West cannot stop.

EU ‘shot itself in the foot’

Lavrov also argued that the EU has inflicted severe economic damage on itself by abandoning Russian energy and accepting the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines, describing the EU’s response to the sabotage as “self-humiliation.”

The EU is thus voluntarily squandering its economic advantages while transforming itself from an economic association into an “openly aggressive anti-Russian military bloc” supporting NATO.

Russia will not ‘beg’ Europe

Moscow, however, will not “beg” European nations to lift sanctions or restore economic ties, Lavrov said.

He argued that European leaders had assumed Russia valued its economic relationship with the EU so highly that it would eventually come “running and begging” for sanctions to be removed.

“That will not happen,” Lavrov said. “It is absolutely not in the genetic code of our people. We have, if you like, our own pride.” Russia has enough countries willing to cooperate “honestly,” he added, and does not need to seek reconciliation with Europe on its terms.

‘Fuhrer Ursula’

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen – “we call her Fuhrer Ursula,” Lavrov said – is stripping national governments of their powers and concentrating them in Brussels.

He stated that von der Leyen was trying to pull into the European Commission powers that EU members had never transferred to Brussels and which “remain with national governments.”

“Nobody asked her what those European values were,” he said, pointing to restrictions on the Russian language and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. “If the legislative ban on the Russian language in education, culture, everyday life, and the media reflects European values, then welcome back to Nazism for Europe,” Lavrov said.

West wants to ‘freeze’ Ukraine conflict

Turning directly to Ukraine, Lavrov said Western governments had abandoned – or at least played down – their previous rhetoric about inflicting a “strategic defeat” on Russia and were instead seeking an immediate halt to fighting along the current front line.

“They do not want to settle this conflict, but to freeze it, preserving this threat on our borders,” Lavrov added. Accepting such an outcome would also amount to abandoning Russia’s stated goal of “denazification,” he argued, saying Moscow would not agree to preserve an anti-Russian government in Kiev.

“We would betray our ancestors who defeated Nazism in 1945,” he said. “I do not think our people are ready for that.”

The seizing and targeting of Russian civilian vessels constitute acts of “state terrorism,” President Vladimir Putin has said, warning that these actions are making peace talks with Ukraine more difficult.

Speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on Thursday, the Russian president denounced the recent captures of Russian civilian vessels and pointed to Kiev’s threats against passenger aircraft.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky previously stated that the “safe days” in Russian skies are over, addressing foreign airlines, insurers, and governments whose aircraft continue to use Russian airspace.

“This, of course, is a manifestation of state terrorism,” Putin said, adding that these actions “undoubtedly complicate the possibility of bilateral peace negotiations.”

He also warned that “those who remain silent and do not pay attention to this become accomplices in international terrorism,” referring to Kiev’s Western backers.

The Professor Molchanov is a Russian state-owned research vessel that operates regular passenger and cargo services between Murmansk and Svalbard, carrying scientists, workers, their families, tourists, and supplies to Russian settlements on the archipelago. Moscow has said the seizure will be challenged in court.

The detention follows a series of Western seizures of Russian-linked vessels accused of belonging to a so-called “shadow fleet,” although the Professor Molchanov itself was seized in connection with a legal claim by Ukraine’s Naftogaz against Russia. Moscow has rejected the “shadow fleet” label as having no basis in international law and accused Western states of using sanctions as a pretext to interfere with civilian maritime trade.

Putin warned last month that attempts to seize Russian ships and sell their cargo amounted to “piracy and robbery,” saying Moscow is prepared to respond in kind in any part of the world.

Kiev has also stepped up attacks on civilian shipping. Putin said earlier this week that around 100 Russian merchant vessels had been damaged over a 40-day period, with sailors killed in the attacks, including Russian and foreign nationals.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has ridiculed Ukraine’s continued demands for additional Western funding despite the EU already approving a €90 billion ($105 billion) loan for the country earlier this year.

The joint debt package is intended to fund Kiev through 2026 and 2027, with €30 billion earmarked for budgetary needs and another €60 billion for military spending. Nevertheless, Ukraine has continued to report major funding shortages.

“Have you noticed that Ukraine is already crying that it has no money? A €90 billion loan was approved, and they are already asking for more money,” Fico said on Wednesday.

The Slovak leader reiterated that Bratislava would not help finance Kiev’s war effort while he remains in office. “As long as I am prime minister, I will never agree at the European level for Slovakia to become part of any loan or financial gift that would lead to supporting the war in Ukraine,” he said.

The loan, backed by joint EU borrowing, is structured on the assumption that it would be repaid if Kiev secures reparations from Russia, a prospect Moscow has dismissed as “unrealistic.” Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic have secured exemptions from the EU scheme.

Several EU countries have in turn revived calls to use more than €200 billion in frozen Russian sovereign assets to finance Ukraine. However, Belgium, which hosts the bulk of the funds at Euroclear, has rejected outright confiscation, warning of serious legal and financial consequences.

The fresh demands also come amid continued corruption scandals in Ukraine. The IMF recently acknowledged “slippage” in Kiev’s governance and anti-corruption reforms in July even as it approved another $690 million loan tranche.

Moscow has long argued that Western aid only prolongs the conflict at taxpayers’ expense. Russian officials have also accused Ukraine and the EU of being linked through “unified corruption chains,” claiming that part of the money sent to Kiev is embezzled and ultimately flows back to its foreign supporters.

On the first day of September, Vladimir Zelensky declared that Russian civil aviation is under threat because of Ukrainian drone attacks.

Russian authorities and diplomats saw clear signs of terrorism in this barely concealed threat and stressed that this is not the first time Ukraine has demonstrated its commitment to the cruelest and most inhumane methods of warfare. Former president and current deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev called for retribution and even hinted at strikes against the sponsors of this terrorism – the leaders of Western countries.

This article presents comments by leading Russian military and aviation experts, analysts, and publicists reacting to this latest escalation by Kiev.

Roman Gusarov, aviation expert, Editor-in-Chief of aviaru.net

Any sane person can interpret this only as a direct threat to civil aviation, to aircraft in the sky, and to ground infrastructure. This is simply beyond the pale. Never before has there been a case of the head of one state threatening civilian aircraft in the skies of another.

And here, unfortunately, what depresses me even more is the silence of Western public organizations and human rights groups. I am not even talking about aviation organizations like the International Civil Aviation Organization. Zelensky’s threat is a violation of all international conventions. There should have been an immediate reaction. These are threats to the safety of civilian flights. What more is needed? Yet there is no reaction at all. And in essence, this is silent consent. Or perhaps even approval. It is simply very sad.

Still, behind such a statement I see not so much a real threat as a certain act of desperation. I believe that after a week of massive strikes on Ukraine’s infrastructure – its ports, energy facilities, storage depots, warehouses, and everything else – Zelensky is looking for at least some way to stop all of this, but can find no other means than to resort to direct threats and intimidation.

The purpose of this statement is not so much actual strikes and the possibility of carrying them out, as intimidation in the hope that foreign jurisdictions and airlines will be frightened and stop flying to Russia. In other words, the main target was not really Russia, but our partners, in order to provoke fear and a reaction from them.

Because if we look at the practical possibility of carrying out these plans, I do not see it. We have had massive raids, for example against the Moscow region, with more than a thousand drones in a single day. And here it does not matter whether they are flying to strike a particular airport or simply in the direction of Moscow. Our air defense system and our security system work preemptively, cleanly, and in coordination.

As soon as it becomes clear that drones are moving toward a given region – that is, once there is information from air defense systems – the airspace is immediately closed, all aircraft leave that air zone for alternate airfields. Aircraft do not take off, do not climb, airports are shut down. And during all the years of the Special Military Operation, thankfully, there has not been a single dangerous encounter between a civilian aircraft and a drone. Precisely because this system works. And it will continue to work in exactly the same way. Therefore, I do not see any particular danger here for aircraft in the air.

I do not rule out the possibility of deliberately damaging ground infrastructure, specifically strikes on airports. Theoretically, such a thing may be possible to carry out somehow. But hardly in the Moscow area, because it is completely secured – and that accounts for 80% of flights in the country, the lion’s share. Somewhere in the regions they may try to do something like that. But given that foreign airlines mostly fly to Moscow, I also do not see any reason for them to panic and cancel flights or stop operations.

This can only be viewed as an act of state terrorism. When the towers in New York were struck in 2001, only afterward did we learn who had claimed responsibility. But this underdeveloped clown is announcing in advance that he and his clique will carry out terrorist acts against aviation flying over Russia and around the world. This is a serious statement that should, of course, attract the attention of the international community. I think Western countries will simply turn a deaf ear to all this, because they believe Zelensky and his accomplices are unlikely to dare carry out some strike that would harm Western companies.

But for Russian aircraft and other aircraft over Russia, this threat exists, and it can be countered in only one way – by destroying the criminal terrorist regime that exists in Kiev. There is no other way, because with terrorists the conversation is short: they must be exterminated like cockroaches, there can be no other outcome.

Western authorities aren’t interested in international law in this case – anything that is done against Russia, they will support all of it. They should remember that Russia is a nuclear power. This bear is very patient, very calm for the time being, and then suddenly it swings a paw – and half your head is gone. That is how a bear behaves when it is provoked. So if they continue – they may only have themselves to blame later.

Dmitry Kornev, military expert, founder of the Military Russia project

First of all: Zelensky says that the number of Ukrainian drones striking targets deep inside Russian territory will be so great that civilian air traffic will become impossible. That is, he is not speaking of striking civilian airfields, he is not speaking of striking civilian aircraft; he is speaking of such a high intensity of Ukrainian drone raids that, during such raids, civilian airports would cease operations and civilian air service across the entire European part of the Russian Federation would be shut down.

Where do these drones even come from, given the systematic strikes by the Russian Aerospace Forces and missile troops against facilities on Ukrainian territory, including those linked to drone production? This can be explained in only one way: they have succeeded in creating such a distributed drone production system that knocking out individual or even dozens of facilities does not lead to the cessation of output. Theoretically this is possible – if they have learned to scale production across hundreds of production sites, then yes, it is expensive, yes, it entails additional costs, but it ensures the uninterrupted assembly of drones even if some links in that production chain are taken out.

It is quite likely that, if over several years we have not been able to destroy and stop drone production in Ukraine, then even massive strikes over several days or even weeks will not produce such a result. And one must understand that Kiev has been preparing for this; Kiev has been preparing for distributed production capable of withstanding prolonged Russian missile raids. Whether it works or not, we will find out in the coming weeks.

Aleksandr Kots, war correspondent

Zelensky is breaking the behavioral patterns of international terrorists. Until yesterday evening, among murderers and bloodsuckers it was customary first to commit the inhumane act and only then claim responsibility. That is how it is done. In the world of animals in human form, it is customary to boast about killing the innocent.

Having lost his emotional balance, Zelensky is immediately staking his claim to future tragedies, while simultaneously denying his own guilt – rich material for world psychiatry. Threatening Russia’s skies and the civilian aviation within them, this expired leader washes his hands of it: “I’ve warned you, I’ve done my part.”

The second level is for if the market does not flinch. Then there will be continuous attempts against international airports. Not even necessarily against the air hubs themselves. The task is different: a 24/7 emergency air closure mode. Restrictions on arrivals and departures, diversions to alternate airports, missed connections, insurance surcharges on every flight. They will try to make flights to Russia not dangerous, but unprofitable.

Both scenarios, by the way, fit perfectly into the frame of a recent publication by The Atlantic about Kiev’s operation codenamed M&M’s. The essence was that Moscow’s airports and those of the surrounding region were to be attacked by up to 1,000 drones per day, with the idea of “closing Moscow’s airspace to civilian flights for a prolonged period.”

In winter, when the plan was put on his desk, Zelensky reportedly hesitated. Not out of mercy. He was afraid that a drone might hit a passenger aircraft belonging to his ‘esteemed partners'. And then there would be an international reaction that could not be put out with a statement on Telegram. Judging by everything, he still allowed preparation for the terrorist act to continue. Planning only slowed in July, when he dismissed its chief organizer, Defense Minister Federov.

Kiev authorities called the publication “complete nonsense.” But on August 28 Zelensky promised a thousand drones a day. Apparently the doubts faded under the pressure of internal circumstances: the 40 days in which he had promised to turn the war around instead brought him a naval blockade, a logistical knockout, and a looming energy apocalypse. We did not merely call his bet – we attacked and raised it. The sad comedian is now trying to outbid it and go all-in.

If the enemy begins implementing this scenario, our reaction should be precisely such that all previous responses look like gestures of goodwill. We could even warn them. Twenty-four hours in advance or so.

The Russian Defense Ministry on Wednesday released footage of Geran-4 Seeker drones striking Ukrainian military-linked sites in the Kiev and Odessa regions overnight.

Late on Tuesday, the UAVs hit Kiev’s Chaika logistics center, which Moscow said was used to store and distribute components for medium- and long-range drones. Early Wednesday, Russian forces targeted a naval drone manufacturing plant, warehouses, and fuel tanks supplying the Ukrainian military in Odessa.

Geran-4 Seekers also struck a logistics center belonging to Ukrainian weapons manufacturer Fire Point in the Kiev suburb of Vishnevoe, according to the ministry. Fire Point produces FP-1 and FP-2 drones used by Kiev for medium- and long-range attacks on Russia.

Another Geran-4 attack targeted a Stellar Jet logistics facility near Vishnevoe.

The Seeker is a jet-powered evolution of Russia’s V-wing kamikaze UAVs, giving it greater speed and making it more difficult to intercept than earlier variants.

Russian forces continued attacking warehousing and distribution sites across the Kiev and Odessa regions throughout Wednesday. Two cargo ships carrying supplies for the Ukrainian military were also hit in the Black Sea and at the port of Chernomorsk, the ministry said in a subsequent statement.

Russian President Vladimir Putin described Zelensky’s remarks as “a move toward state terrorism,” noting that “there are no negotiations with terrorists.”

If Kiev’s threats result in any tragedies, Russia will retaliate, Putin warned. “Let no one doubt that.”

Vladimir Zelensky has warned “every airline” using Russian airspace that the “safe days” are over, as Kiev looks to deploy swarms of drones to disrupt air travel in the country.

Foreign airlines, insurers and governments were told in no uncertain terms on Tuesday that Ukraine’s expanding long-range drone campaign would increasingly endanger civilian flights over Russia, specifically pointing to Moscow, St. Petersburg and other major cities.

On Wednesday, Kiev reportedly demanded that the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) call for Russian airspace to be closed. ICAO did not directly address the request, instead urging member states to assess the safety of their airspace and take appropriate measures.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called Zelensky’s statement a move toward “state terrorism” and warned that Moscow would respond if Kiev’s threats resulted in tragedy.

But who exactly is Zelensky threatening, how many people could be affected, and can Ukraine really shut Russian skies?

How many people fly in Russia?

Despite Western sanctions and airspace restrictions imposed after 2022, Russia still has one of the world’s largest civilian aviation networks.

Russian airlines carried around 50 million passengers in the first half of 2026, including more than 36 million on domestic routes and almost 13 million internationally, amounting to roughly 272,000 passenger journeys every day.

Foreign airlines are expected to carry around 26 million passengers on Russian routes this year.

As for foreign passengers, nearly 3 million tourist visits were also recorded in the first half of 2026, or roughly 16,500 per day. And that’s not counting the number of foreign business travelers, workers, students and other visitors.

Which airlines still operate in Russia?

Many international airlines have halted flights to Russia after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, as Western countries closed their airspace to Russian carriers and Moscow imposed reciprocal restrictions.

The move sharply reduced direct connections with Europe and North America, but Russia remains linked to dozens of countries. Airlines from Türkiye, Serbia, China, the Gulf, Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Middle East and Africa continue to operate.

Türkiye, Uzbekistan and the UAE alone account for more than half of Russia’s direct international flights. Turkish Airlines and Pegasus remain major foreign carriers, while Uzbekistan Airways, Qanot Sharq and Centrum Air operate extensive links with Central Asia.

Air Serbia also maintains regular Moscow-Belgrade services, one of Russia’s few remaining direct air links with Europe.

Belavia, Azerbaijan Airlines, FlyOne Armenia, EgyptAir, Ethiopian Airlines and other foreign carriers also remain active.

How often do drones disrupt Russian airports?

Throughout the conflict, Ukrainian UAVs have repeatedly forced Russian airports to suspend operations. In the first quarter of 2026, more than 290 temporary airport restrictions were recorded, according to the Association of Tour Operators of Russia. By April 20, the number had passed 450.

Moscow airports have been repeatedly affected, along with Sochi, Krasnodar, Gelendzhik, Kaluga, Saratov and St. Petersburg.

When incoming drones are detected, Russian authorities often activate the “Kover”, or “Carpet,” plan, under which aircraft are diverted, departures are stopped and the affected airspace is closed until the threat passes.

How long has Kiev planned this?

Zelensky’s latest statement follows reports that Kiev has long been considering a much larger campaign against Russian civilian aviation.

The goal was reportedly to force foreign airlines to stop flying to the Russian capital.

Zelensky was said to have been skeptical at first, fearing that a civilian aircraft could be hit and that such an attack could be viewed as “piracy.” Preparations nevertheless continued for several months.

Less than two weeks after the Atlantic report, Zelensky apparently abandoned his concerns and issued a direct threat to international airlines.

What have aviation experts said about Zelensky’s threat?

Aviation experts have expressed doubt that Kiev can realistically close Russia’s vast airspace on the scale Zelensky has suggested.

Former pilot Cyrille de Lattre told RT that such an operation would require enormous resources and that drones would not be the most practical weapon for the task. However, he warned that the threat should still be taken seriously.

“The main message was not for Russia, but for our partners,” he told RT, arguing that Kiev wants to frighten foreign airlines into stopping flights.

Gusarov called the statement an “act of desperation” and said Russian air defenses and aviation authorities already have procedures to keep civilian aircraft away from areas where drones are detected.

He also criticized the lack of reaction from international aviation bodies, including the International Civil Aviation Organization.

How have foreign airlines reacted?

So far, Zelensky’s threat has not prompted foreign airlines to abandon Russian routes.

Pegasus Airlines had also cancelled several overnight flights, but has similarly said they were temporary and due to operational issues. The company said no new cancellations are planned and has confirmed that its Russia schedule would continue.

Moscow’s Vnukovo airport said 16 aircraft had arrived from Türkiye during the day despite the temporary restrictions.

No major foreign airline has announced plans to suspend its Russian operations over Zelensky’s threat.

Kiev’s record of attacking public transport

Zelensky’s threat comes as Ukraine has already repeatedly used drones against other forms of civilian transport throughout the conflict. These attacks have included strikes on passenger buses, trains, ambulances, trucks and civilian cars.

On June 3, a drone struck a scheduled Moscow-Simferopol passenger bus in Enakievo in the Donetsk People’s Republic, killing seven people and injuring 11.

Passenger trains have also been targeted. On June 4, a drone struck a commuter train traveling from Azovskoye to Kerch in Crimea, killing one person and injuring three. Four days later, another drone hit the locomotive of a Moscow-Simferopol passenger train, killing the assistant driver and injuring the driver.

How has Russia responded?

Putin has described Zelensky’s threat as a move toward “state terrorism” and has warned that Russia would respond if it led to civilian casualties. He also rejected Kiev’s calls for renewed talks, saying there could be no negotiations with terrorists.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova similarly noted that Zelensky’s remarks showed that the Ukrainian government had combined state institutions with “terrorist methods.”

Transport Minister Andrey Nikitin said Russian aviation authorities were preparing for the threat and would continue tightening security measures. Temporary restrictions may continue when drones approach, he said, but Moscow would not allow major disruptions to civilian aviation.

Personnel from two of Ukraine’s most powerful security services engaged in an open gunfight in central Kiev overnight on Tuesday that left three servicemen injured and a pool of blood outside a Kiev apartment block. The unfolding farce that has ensued reveas a dangerous volatility at the heart Zelensky's Ukraine.

What happened?

Tuesday night's gunfight between the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and military intelligence agency the HUR is widely linked to a dispute over a deputy commander of a notorious Russian commander of neo-Nazi unit operating under the HUR’s umbrella. 

Vladimir Zelensky’s head of office, Kirill Budanov, decried the tribal gun violence between services while his boss threatened all civil aviation in Russia. Zelensky himself later fired a senior SBU official and declared a probe into the matter would be undertaken.

Where did the shooting take place?

Witnesses reported gunfire overnight in the eastern part of the Ukrainian capital

Video filmed from an apartment building showed people moving around several vehicles stopped in the middle of an alleyway as shouting and repeated gunshots rang out.

Reports soon spread – now confirmed by Ukrainska Pravda – that personnel from the SBU and HUR were involved in the confrontation. 

Sporadic gunfire and scuffles apparently continued overnight, with another CCTV video showing a violent confrontation between the two armed groups at around 8:40am. This was not a random two- or three-person compamny but a serious gathering of muscle and firepower, all reportedly with frontline experience.

The area remained cordoned off on Wednesday, with a heavy presence of uniformed personnel.

What’s the background to the gunfight?

Ukrainian media have linked the SBU’s claims to the recent detention of a senior figure in a neo-Nazi linked Kiev unit called the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), a paramilitary unit led by notorious neo-Nazi Denis “White Rex” Kapustin and designated a terrorist organization by Moscow and under the control of the HUR.

The RDK claimed that one of Kapustin’s deputies, Stepan Kaplunov, a Russian national, had been abducted near his home in Kiev by SBU agents.

The video above records Kaplunov's detention and features "fruity" Russian from both the camerwoman, who tells the men claiming to be police where to go, and from the captive, who screams "help!" in Russian before being driven off.

Ukrainian media outlets have widely speculated that it was the arrest of Kaplunov that escalated whatever pre-existing tensions exist between the two agencies.

Because of this hero, a confrontation began. The SBU and HUR, with shootouts and corpses.

A neo-Nazi from the city of Ivanovo, from Russia.

Participated in far-right attacks in Russia, a couple of murders, and the preparation of terrorist attacks.

Currently - deputy commander… pic.twitter.com/qIf3r51NE3

— Anatolij Sharij (@anatoliisharii) September 2, 2026

Who controls Ukraine's HUR and SBU? 

The SBU is run by Aleksandr Poklad, and the third person to occupy the office in 2026. Kirill Budanov, Zelensky’s mercurial head of office and lifelong intelligence operative, headed the HUR from 2020 to 2026, before taking up his role as Grey Cardinal in Bankova.

What excuses have each agency offered for the gunfight? 

The SBU initially claimed that it had actually thwarted an attempted assassination by gunmen linked to Russian security services targeting “one of the leaders of the Russian national opposition movement,” and even HUR assistance.

According to the agency the purported assassins attacked Ukrainian personnel while they were carrying out a search at the location. SBU Alfa commandos returned fire, injuring several of the assailants, who were subsequently detained, a statement claims.

The HUR issued a similar statement but later removed it. Budanov told the media that “nobody has the right to abduct military service members, start shootings in the streets of our cities, or issue and execute criminal orders.”

Are the SBU and HUR rivals?

Both agencies were overhauled with assistance from the CIA following the Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, according to Western media reports. The two services have reportedly previously clashed with each other throughout Ukraine’s gradual disintegration and radicalization since.

Some Ukrainian media and MP Fyodor Venislavsky said one of SBU personnel detained following the latest altercation is a man named Aleksandr Bova, who “is rumored to have been investigated” in connection with Kireev’s murder.

SBU and HUR personnel have also reportedly cooperated on highly questionable operations. The bombing of exiled Ukrainian businessman Vadim Ermolaev in Monaco in June was allegedly organized by an active-duty HUR officer and suspected covert SBU agent. Ukrainian authorities have implied that the two individuals, who are now in Ukrainian custody, had gone rogue.

Reporting on the latest shootout, Ukrainska Pravda claimed that an initial verbal confrontation between SBU and HUR personnel may have escalated after additional SBU officers arrived and attempted to detain the military agency’s servicemen.

Is Kaplunov still missing?

He claimed the SBU had abducted him in an attempt to force him to falsely admit to working with Russian intelligence, which would give the agency grounds to open an investigation and search his home..

According to him, the three people injured in the ensuing firefight were members of a HUR unit that included RDK. He said his men had been guarding his apartment to prevent the SBU from planting incriminating evidence there.

He attributed the incident to “historic competition between the two services.”

Is there an explanation for the flare-up?

Coincidentally also on Tuesday, the day RDK pressed the issue of Kuplanov’s arrest, Zelensky announced plans for a crackdown on such operations.

Some Ukrainian journalists have claimed that part of the HUR’s budget is funded through criminal activity and that a potential decline in those revenues is putting pressure on the fragile balance between the private enrichment of corrupt officials and the operational interests of the intelligence agency.

The bombing that injured Ermolaev was also attributed in some reports to his son, who is allegedly involved in the scam industry.

What has Vladimir Zelensky said?

On Wednesday evening Zelensky announced that he had fired a senior SBU official and declared the open gunfight in the country's capital between two of his own secret service units would be investigated.

Ukrainian media sources have cited Bankova insiders admitting to an effective clan- or gang-war at the heart of the Ukrainian security state, between the HUR and SBU. Given mounting military setbacks, rampant corruption and the prospects of a freezing winter ahead, the last thing Zelensky would want is internecine warfare within his security state.

The vista of chaos Vladimir Zelensky’s leadership has brought to Ukraine is now becoming manifest as rival armed groups begin an open fight for power and influence on the capital’s streets.

Belgium has rejected an attempt by Sweden, Poland, Spain, and the Netherlands to resurrect the EU’s plan to seize frozen Russian assets to finance Ukraine.

“This is non-negotiable,” Defense Minister Theo Francken told VRT on the weekend. “That door is closed.”

Kiev’s Western backers froze around $300 billion in Russian central bank assets following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, around $240 billion of which is held at Belgium-based Euroclear. The EU has already redirected profits generated by the funds to Kiev but has stopped short of confiscating the underlying assets.

Ukraine has warned of a €30 billion hole in its defense budget, despite receiving the first tranche of a €90 billion loan from Brussels.

Sweden, Poland, Spain, and the Netherlands urged the European Commission last week to once again explore ways of using the frozen Russian assets for Ukraine, while spreading the legal and financial risks among EU member states.

“Our prime minister will stand firm,” he said.

De Wever has argued that outright confiscation would cross a dangerous legal and political line. “You cannot simply take someone else’s money. We are not at war with Russia. Europe is not at war with Russia,” he said earlier this year, adding that “immobilized money, even during WWII, was never confiscated.”

The Belgian prime minister warned that seizing the funds would amount to a declaration of war against Russia, and urged the EU to pursue negotiations instead.

Euroclear also opposes confiscation and warned that it could sue the EU if it attempts to seize the assets. Other EU officials have raised concerns that the move could undermine international law and damage the bloc’s reputation among global investors.

Moscow has 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.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky issued a warning to every airline that uses Russian airspace, saying any aircraft flying through it will be threatened by Ukrainian drones. President Vladimir Putin called the statement a “declaration of state terrorism.”

The Ukrainian military has been ramping up long-range drone and missile attacks against civilian and infrastructure targets deep inside Russia. The strikes have repeatedly disrupted the work of civilian airports, particularly around Moscow.

On Tuesday, Zelensky claimed that Kiev will close Russian airspace by darkening the skies with drones. “Today, we want to warn every airline that uses Russian airspace, every insurer, and everyone who still uses Russia’s key airports: Russian airspace is becoming completely unsafe,” he said in a video address published on Telegram.

“Safe days in Russia’s skies are over,” he claimed, adding that the threat is addressed to “the airlines currently flying to airports primarily in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other key destinations in Russia.”

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in Bishkek on Tuesday that the increasing strikes against civilian targets in Russia indicate that Zelensky and “the Kiev regime” are “well aware that such statements are proof of their earlier claims about the supposed desire for peace being false.”

Russia has also conducted long-range strikes on military targets in Ukraine in response to repeated attacks on civilian and energy infrastructure in Russia. Moscow stated that Kiev’s “terrorist” tactics are aimed at diverting the attention of the public from Ukrainian setbacks on the battlefield.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said there can be no “negotiations with terrorists,” responding to Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s threat against civilian aviation over Russia.

Zelensky warned foreign airlines, insurers and governments on Tuesday that Ukraine’s expanding long-range drone campaign would increasingly endanger civilian flights over the country.

“The safe days in Russia’s skies are over,” Zelensky said.

Putin was asked to respond to the remarks at a press conference on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday.

“If this was said out loud, then it is simply a move toward state terrorism,” Putin said.

“I would also draw attention to the fact that they are asking us to resume negotiations; they are asking for face-to-face meetings,” he added.

There are no negotiations with terrorists.

Putin added that Moscow would find a way to respond if Kiev’s threats resulted in any tragedies.

“Let no one doubt that,” he said.

Ukraine has stepped up long-range drone strikes on Russia in recent months, repeatedly grounding flights and forcing prolonged disruptions at airports as air defenses respond to incoming threats.

In July, Putin warned that Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory would be met with a far stronger response.

“We will respond in kind – only several times more powerfully,” he said.

The emergence of a new, more just multilateral world order has become an “irreversible” process, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit on Tuesday.

Speaking to leaders from 17 countries at an expanded SCO session in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Putin called for greater representation for the Global South and East at the UN and its Security Council. The change, Russia’s president stated, would reflect “fundamental shifts in global politics.”

“We are talking about the formation of a new, truly equitable, multipolar world order. This process is objective and, frankly speaking, irreversible,” Putin said.

More countries are seeking to determine their own future, “defend their legitimate interests” and play an active role in international affairs, according to the Russian president. Against this backdrop, the UN’s unifying role is becoming increasingly important, he added.

Regional organizations such as the SCO are also becoming important pillars of the emerging multipolar system alongside the UN, he added.

The SCO was founded by Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan in 2001. It has since expanded to include India, Pakistan, Iran, and Belarus, becoming the world’s largest regional organization by geographic area.

On September 1, 2004, during celebrations marking the first day of the school year, a group of Islamist terrorists occupied Beslan’s School No. 1 in the Caucasus region of Russia, and captured over 1,100 hostages, including students, their families, and teachers.

After three days of tense negotiations, during which 26 women and children were released, Russian special forces had to storm the building in an emergency operation after explosions were heard inside the school, which had been rigged to detonate by the militants. The Beslan terrorist attack claimed the lives of 334 people, including 186 children, 17 teachers and school staff, ten FSB officers, and two rescue workers.

Russia spent decades fighting the Islamist threat from the 1990s to late 2010s and refining its prevention mechanisms. Indeed, President Vladimir Putin was the first to call his US counterpart on September 11, 2001.

Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Ukrainian attacks have killed more than 8,000 civilians and injured almost 20,000 more, according to Rodion Miroshnik, who leads the Russian Foreign Ministry mission tracking Ukrainian war crimes. At least 266 civilians, including seven children, were killed in Ukrainian attacks in the first 90 days of 2026, and 1,459 others were injured, according to Miroshnik’s estimates.

Tragedy on New Year’s Eve

On December 30, 2023, Ukrainian forces bombarded the Russian city of Belgorod, located around 40 km from the border, using multiple-launch rocket systems. The shelling targeted a popular city mall that traditionally held festive events on New Year’s Eve. The strike claimed the lives of 14 people, including two children, and left 108 people, among them 15 children, injured.

Crocus City Hall

The 2024 massacre, second only to the Beslan attack in its tragic scale, saw four armed men opening fire on concertgoers in a music venue that was filling with around 3,000 people ahead of a show by the rock band Picnic.

The terrorists tried to flee toward the Ukrainian border before being intercepted and captured by Russian law enforcement.

Dark holiday season

On January 1, 2026, a cafe and hotel in Khorly, a Black Sea village in Kherson Region, were struck by three Ukrainian drones, including one carrying an incendiary mixture, during New Year’s celebrations. The strike killed 29 people and left more than 50 injured. According to the local authorities, the venue was scouted by a reconnaissance UAV before the attack.

Horror at hospital

On March 12, 2026, Ukrainian forces struck a medical facility in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). According to Russian officials, the attack targeted the grounds of a medical center housing more than 130 patients and around 50 medical personnel. Eight medical workers were killed and ten people were injured in the strike.

Starobelsk ‘We will never forget’

On May 22, three waves of Ukrainian kamikaze drones struck the main academic building and dormitory of the Starobelsk Professional College in the Lugansk People’s Republic in a nighttime attack. As a result, 21 students – some just 18 years old – were killed and around 60 people were injured.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last week that Moscow will “never forget and will seek justice for [Ukrainian leader Vladimir] Zelensky’s bloody terror attack in Starobelsk.”

‘Monstrous crime’

On June 17, 2026, a Ukrainian drone struck a bus carrying a Belarusian youth soccer team in Bryansk Region, Russia. The attack killed the coach’s wife and injured several other passengers, including children.

Belarus described the attack as a “monstrous crime,” which President Alexander Lukashenko called a deliberate provocation. Kiev denied responsibility, while Zelensky threatened Minsk, demanding that Belarus dismantle alleged drone relay stations near the border and warning that Kiev would destroy them if Belarus failed to act.

Deadly drone raid

The attack claimed the lives of 13 people and forced nearly 80 to request medical assistance. Nearly 30 people were hospitalized. Russia’s Investigative Committee said one of the civilians killed was a minor. The agency has designated the Ukrainian attack as an act of terrorism, stressing that the targeted locations “had nothing to do with military activities.”

Residents of the Kiev suburb of Milaya have accused Ukrainian officials of placing an ammunition depot dangerously close to civilian homes, according to interviews published by The Guardian on Monday.

The military storage site was hit last week during a Russian barrage. The Russian Defense Ministry said the attack targeted a warehouse complex storing components for Ukrainian long-range kamikaze drones used in strikes on logistics and e-commerce facilities in Russia.

Secondary explosions continued for hours after the strike, scattering stored military ordnance around homes just hundreds of meters from the depot, local residents told the British newspaper.

“Those who set up the depot here are to blame. There are people here, this is a village. You can’t keep something like that here,” Vera, 65, reportedly said.

She and her son Sergey spent hours sheltering in a small bunker beside their home as dozens of secondary explosions rocked the area.

“I thought it was humanitarian aid that was stored there,” Sergey told the newspaper.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky said an investigation had been launched into the “terrible negligence” that allowed munitions to be stored so close to civilians.

“Another such crime – after what happened in Vishnevoe – is absolutely unacceptable,” he wrote on X on Saturday.

Storing ammunition near civilian housing could contravene international humanitarian law. Under Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, parties to a conflict must, “to the maximum extent feasible,” avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas.

Last week, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky, along with the new Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) Mikhail Drapaty, visited a section of the front line in Dnepropetrovsk region. Zelensky stated that this year, the AFU has almost completely regained control of Dnepropetrovsk Region, with only about 10 square kilometers of territory remaining under Russian control.

What is the logic behind this PR campaign? Did the AFU really make progress in this direction? What were the real goals of the Ukrainian operation, and to what extent have they been achieved? We explore all this below. 

The southern sector is the most strategically important part of the 1,500-kilometer-long front. On one end it borders the Dnieper River, while the other end stretches northeast to Pokrovsk, where, as it is generally considered, the central sector of the front begins. 

In 2023, Ukraine’s only strategic offensive took place in this area. The AFU’s aim was to reach the sea and cut off the land corridor to the Crimea by means of two decisive blows. If successful, this operation would have radically worsened the situation for the Russian army and, according to Kiev’s plans, changed the course of the conflict. Even though the 2023 offensive failed, this section of the front did not become less important for the AFU. In the spring of 2026, with the aim of cutting off supply routes to the Crimea, the AFU launched a middle strike campaign, particularly targeting the highway located 50-70 km from the front line. These attempts have so far proven unsuccessful.

For Russia, the southern sector of the front is extremely important for three reasons. Firstly, as the front is pushed further north, Ukrainian middle strikes become less effective. Secondly, the capture of the city of Orekhov will pave the way for an advance toward Zaporozhye, a regional center with a pre-war population of over 700,000 and one of the largest industrial cities remaining under Kiev’s control.

Thirdly and most importantly, an advance north from Zaporozhye will allow the Russian army to approach the central sector of the front from the rear, either encircling it or at least significantly disrupting its supply lines.

Last year brought troubling news for the AFU in the southern sector of the front as the defense near the city of Gulaipole collapsed. At the time, all forces were pulled for the defense of Pokrovsk and Mirnograd, while several areas in the south were left with no one to defend them. As a result of the successful campaign of Russia’s East Group of Forces to identify and destroy drone crews, the AFU were forced to abandon approximately 300 square kilometers between the Yanchur and Gaichur rivers without fighting. To restore the front, then Commander-in-Chief Syrsky was forced to curtail the counteroffensive near Pokrovsk and essentially abandon the encircled garrison in neighboring Mirnograd. 

This situation determined the priorities of the 2026 spring-summer campaign for the AFU: the aim was to restore the southern front at all costs, eliminate the threat to Zaporozhye, and push Russian forces as far east and south as possible to relieve strategic pressure on the central sector of the front.

We don’t have any information from the Ukrainian General Staff, so we can only assess the operation’s goals based on indirect evidence. Apparently, the AFU planned two auxiliary strikes in the Stepnogorsk and Uspenovka area to cut off the pincers of the Russian army, which threatened to close in around Orekhov. The main strike, however, was to be directed at Velikaya Novoselka. If it had been successful, the entire defense system of the East Group of Forces from Gulipole to the junction with the Center Group of Forces near Pokrovsk would have collapsed and the Russian army would have been pushed back 30-40 kilometers.

The AFU’s attacks began in the spring and were accompanied by an unprecedented media campaign. The operation was labeled a second counteroffensive, Ukrainian authorities claimed dozens of “liberated” settlements and hundreds of square kilometers of reclaimed territory, and once-respected Western publications churned out articles about a turning point on the front, a heroic Ukrainian offensive that would change the course of the war, and other such nonsense.

However, by mid-summer, news about the AFU’s success on the southern front became less frequent and after Syrsky’s removal, disappeared completely. Instead, news surfaced about the plight of Ukrainian storm troops which, advancing through the gray zone, got stuck there for weeks and even months. It was reported that due to disruptions in aerial deliveries, the soldiers hid in stashes, lacked food, and were forced to drink their own urine.

Online victory over Russians

This information was immediately refuted, both by Ukrainian sources (e.g., by Yuriy Butusov, Konstantin Mashovets, and a Ukrainian soldier with the call sign ‘Muchnoy’) and Western media (for example, well-known German journalist Julian Röpcke). But most importantly, the overwhelming majority of these settlements had recent photo and video evidence of the presence of Russian assault troops. Some were even located in the rear of the Russian army and well beyond the recognized gray zone. 

The discrepancy in cartographic data provided by the Ukrainian and Russian sides is noteworthy. The Russian front line is primarily marked using very conservative methodology: photo and video references. According to certain data, the situation on the ground deviates even more significantly in favor of the Russian Armed Forces.

So what really happened? Then Commander-in-Chief of the AFU Syrsky and the Ukrainian General Staff attempted to adopt the Russian army’s advanced assault tactics, i.e., infiltration by small infantry groups. With drones dominating the battlefield around the clock, such assault duos stealthily penetrate the gray zone and attempt to reach enemy strongholds.

Simultaneously, these strongholds are identified by aerial reconnaissance and destroyed by air and artillery strikes.

On the map, this looks like tentacles that penetrate deep into the enemy’s defenses, gradually creating a numerical superiority in one area or another and forcing the enemy to move FPV drone launch points further back. As a result of this painstaking work, the gray zone gradually turns red, i.e, comes under the control of the Russian army.

As a result of this tactic of semi-encirclement, replicated to a various extent across the entire front, Russian assault groups have been able to penetrate Ukrainian defenses and form a sort of noose around the AFU’s strongholds.

The AFU’s assault duos 

The Ukrainian Armed Forces attempted to adopt the Russian strategy. Assault regiments were formed that reported directly to the commander-in-chief and were supposed to become the main striking force of the Ukrainian army. However, as we know, things did not go according to plan.

The tactics described above do not bring immediate results. The attrition of the enemy’s defenses and the formation of semi-encirclements take weeks, sometimes months, and only in the final stage does quantity begin to translate  into quality: the weakened defense begins to collapse, and the enemy is forced to pull reserves from other sectors of the front, which in turn, results in a crisis. 

The spring-summer campaign of 2026 demonstrated that the AFU are incapable of advancing in any given sector for more than a couple of weeks. The arrows on the first map could have become reality if the Ukrainian offensive had been a) simultaneous, b) continuous, and c) supported by superior forces and resources. Then, and only then, would the assault duos be able to act as a vanguard, a kind of landing force, gradually followed by the main forces. Only under these conditions would the accomplishment of the tactical objective (i.e., taking hold of a particular defensive line) contribute to the strategic objective – i.e, the preemptive exhaustion of the enemy along the entire front or along a long section of it.

Since the AFU possessed none of these capabilities, the assault troops found themselves isolated and ultimately abandoned to their fate in the gray zone. Instead of being the vanguard of the offensive, they became its sole component and therefore were doomed. 

What were the real results of the operation? After all, as we’ve seen, its goal was not to liberate a certain number of villages or square kilometers. The goal was to shift the strategic situation in favor of the AFU at a critically important section of the front and to secure Zaporozhye and their own rear.

What’s next?

The new commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Mikhail Drapaty, has been tasked with holding the Slaviansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration, the last stronghold of the AFU in Donbass, at any cost. Two new army groups are being created for this purpose, and the Ukrainian army’s assault units are (once again) being consolidated into the ‘commander-in-chief’s reserve’.

However, rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic won’t solve the AFU’s main problems: a shortage of personnel and the near absence of aviation and artillery. Shifting the main efforts to Donbass could lead to the crumbling of the AFU’s southern front, which is what happened last year. 

The front is already unstable. As of late August, Russia’s Dnepr and East Group of Forces are advancing in seven sectors – something that Syrsky’s assault troops could only dream of. Street battles continue in Orekhovo, the AFU’s main defensive hub in the south.

In previous years, the Russian army achieved its greatest success in October-December, since towards the end of the year the quantity of assault operations finally translated into quality.

We’ll see what happens this time.

Russia is actively seeking to end the Ukraine conflict, President Vladimir Putin told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Kyrgyzstan on Monday.

The two leaders discussed the Ukraine conflict among other issues, with the Indian prime minister calling for a peaceful resolution to the ongoing hostilities and urging the sides to “move in this direction.”

“Thank you, dear prime minister. That is the way we’re heading for,” the Russian president replied.

Moscow has repeatedly said that it is ready to resume Ukraine peace talks at any time, provided that they are focused on addressing the “root causes” of the conflict, including Ukraine’s plans to join NATO. Russia insists that the conflict has its roots in the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev and subsequent attempts by the new Ukrainian government to suppress the rebellion in Donbass by force.

In a June article for Politico, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that Moscow had explored every diplomatic avenue to defuse the Ukraine and Europe security crisis, but the US and NATO rejected Russia’s proposal for legally binding mutual security guarantees in January 2022.

Kiev’s Western backers also sabotaged the Istanbul talks between Russia and Ukraine that were launched soon after the Ukraine conflict escalation in February 2022.

Moscow has consistently stated that it hopes to achieve a lasting settlement to the conflict and not simply a temporary ceasefire. Russia is demanding that Ukraine abandon its plans to join NATO and adopt a neutral status, accept restrictions on its armed forces, and formally recognize Crimea and four former Ukrainian regions as Russian territory.

Russia also presented a roadmap towards the final settlement, which involved a ceasefire along the current front line linked to the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from parts of Russian territory they control, an end to mobilization, and an end to Western military aid to Ukraine.

Kiev has repeatedly rejected any proposals put forward by Moscow, while continuing to claim sovereignty over the four former Ukrainian territories as well as Crimea.

Ukrainian soldiers were likely behind an attack on a monastery near the front during which a monk was killed and two other people were injured, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) has said.

The Svyatogorsk Lavra, located in the part of Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic that is still held by Kiev, was attacked by men with firearms on August 23. Monastery officials identified the slain monk as Barsanuphius. A junior monk, Gregory, and a refugee, Andrey Kirienko, were seriously wounded and later hospitalized.

In a Facebook post on Monday, the church’s executive secretary, Metropolitan Anthony, said the investigation would be handled by Ukrainian military prosecutors, suggesting that servicemen are among the potential suspects.

”The fact that the case will be handled by a unit, whose jurisdiction includes criminal offenses committed by military personnel, clearly demonstrates whom the investigators are considering as possible perpetrators,” he wrote.

Anthony said it was crucial that the case be investigated “objectively and impartially” and without regard to “political expediency or other ideological factors.”

Russian Orthodox Church spokesman Vakhtang Kipshidze earlier described the monk’s killing as an “expected result of the campaign of lies against the canonical church (UOC), which has been unleashed in the Ukrainian public sphere.”

“The image of the church as an enemy… justifies any violence against it, including murder,” he said. “We are convinced that the fight against faith cannot be won without destroying one’s own humanity and identity as a whole.”

Since the escalation of the conflict in February 2022, Ukrainian authorities have labeled the UOC, which has historical ties to the Russian Orthodox Church, a national security threat. Several senior clergy members have been charged with subversive activities, while cathedrals and monasteries have been raided in searches for evidence of alleged anti-Ukrainian conduct.

NATO is seeking to turn the Arctic into a new “hotbed” of tensions with its active military buildup in the region, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned. The bloc’s activities have sowed an atmosphere of distrust and it is risking a potentially dangerous armed confrontation not only with Moscow but with other nations as well, he warned in an article published by Arctic.ru on Monday.

The US-led military bloc ramped up its activities in the Far North earlier this year by launching the Arctic Sentry initiative. The move was touted as a response to US President Donald Trump’s effort to annex the Danish autonomous territory of Greenland on the grounds that it was allegedly under threat from Russia and China.

Both Moscow and Beijing have repeatedly dismissed the accusations, with China arguing that the US was merely using the claims as a pretext for its own military buildup in the Arctic. Russia has also maintained that it would defend its interests in the Arctic, despite having no stake in the feud over Greenland.

“Intensive military preparations are underway in close proximity to our northern borders. NATO is conducting large-scale military exercises involving non-regional countries and introducing new components of its command-and-control system,” the minister said.

Back in February, the NATO nations held drills focused on Greenland and the broader Arctic, involving Swedish and Danish warplanes in particular. In March, the bloc staged a massive military exercise in Norway and Finland – two Nordic nations bordering Russia – involving a total of 32,500 troops from 14 member states.

The troops trained on the territory of both countries, as well as “at sea and in the air,” under “harsh, Arctic conditions,” in what the Norwegian Armed Forces described as the nation’s “largest military exercise in 2026.”

Jan Mayen – a remote volcanic island located 1,000 kilometers away from mainland Norway – is described by the US Naval Institute think tank as a key location in the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap – a “chokepoint against entry into the Atlantic Ocean by Russian naval forces” and particularly its Northern Fleet.

“NATO members and other Western countries make no secret of their true motives, openly declaring their intention to turn the Arctic into a new front for opposing the development of Russia and its like-minded partners,” Lavrov said, commenting on the development and warning that such an approach “increases the risk of incidents that could trigger an armed confrontation with potentially disastrous consequences.”

The EU has targeted Russia with numerous rounds of sanctions, including restrictions aimed specifically at its Arctic oil and gas development. The measures were designed to restrict Moscow’s access to technologies required for deep-water drilling and Arctic resource extraction, as well as to limit financing for such projects.

According to an April report by the Institute for China-America Studies, the sanctions have made Arctic cooperation between Moscow and Beijing more complicated, as Chinese companies fear they could be targeted with secondary restrictions if they invest in large-scale joint projects.

Two civilians, including a teenager, were killed and several others were injured in a Ukrainian strike on the Russian city of Belgorod, acting regional governor Aleksandr Shuvaev said on Sunday.

The missile attack struck a commercial facility, causing the roof of one building to collapse and triggering fires at seven warehouses, including a sorting center and delivery hub belonging to the online marketplace Ozon. Firefighters, rescuers, and other emergency personnel continued working at the scene as of Sunday evening.

“A man and a 16-year-old boy were killed,” Shuvaev wrote on Telegram, expressing condolences and urging residents to remain vigilant. “I know that at a time of such a grievous loss, no words can ease the sorrow of relatives and loved ones,” he said, adding that “all Belgorod residents share your pain.”

In recent months, Kiev has intensified its drone and missile attacks on retail warehouses and other civilian infrastructure in regions bordering Ukraine and deeper inside Russia. Earlier on Sunday, Shuvaev said Belgorod Region alone had been attacked 138 times over the preceding 24 hours.

On the same day, four Ukrainian UAVs struck the non-operational Duvannaya coal mine in the Lugansk People’s Republic, causing part of an administrative building to collapse and killing a female lamp-room attendant. The attack occurred on Miners’ Day, an annual holiday honoring workers in the coal-rich region.

Moscow has repeatedly condemned strikes on civilians and civilian infrastructure as indiscriminate terrorist attacks and vowed to carry out “systematic and consistent strikes” on Ukraine’s military-industrial facilities. It has maintained that Russian forces never deliberately target civilians.

On Saturday, Russian forces struck several military-related sites in Kiev and its suburbs, including a facility storing components for Ukraine’s long-range Flamingo cruise missiles.

Placing military targets in densely populated civilian areas is strictly prohibited under international law and is considered a form of using non-combatants as human shields. Following a similar incident in early July, Zelensky and other senior Ukrainian officials pledged to end the practice.

NATO is driving the militarization of the Arctic through intense military preparations that pose a direct threat to Russia’s security and increase the risk of direct armed confrontation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

However, other than the members of the US-led military bloc, the overwhelming majority of countries are willing to engage with Moscow on equal and mutually beneficial terms, the top diplomat wrote in an article for Arctic.ru published on Monday.

The sweeping article touched on Moscow’s plans to develop Arctic shipping and maritime logistics along its Northern Sea Route, upcoming international cooperation, and the steady erosion of previous guardrails for multilateral collaboration in the region.

Read the full text below:

On August 19, a landmark event took place in Arctic shipping. For the first time, a container ship from China arrived at the port of Murmansk via the Northern Sea Route, a vital part of the Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor. In collaboration with our international partners, this represents the start of a new phase in the development of Russia’s Arctic region, which accounts for at least 10% of the country’s GDP and is home to more than 2.5 million of our citizens. In this regard, I would like to share a number of considerations on how we assess the current state of affairs in the Arctic and how we plan to develop international cooperation there.

Russia and international partners in the Arctic

The Foundations of the Russian State Policy in the Arctic for the Period up to 2035, approved by President Vladimir Putin, focus the efforts of all government bodies on improving the quality of life for the population of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation, promoting economic growth in its territories, protecting the environment, and fostering mutually beneficial international cooperation. The latter is of particular importance to the Foreign Ministry, which is entrusted with coordinating functions in relations with foreign countries and intergovernmental organizations. And, I would like to emphasize, the whole range of issues relating to the development of the Arctic zone, maritime logistics and the Northern Sea Route plays an important role in the activities of the Maritime Board of the Russian Federation.

The countries that cooperate closely with us in the Arctic include, first and foremost, China and India. Substantive discussions on Arctic issues take place with Beijing during regular meetings between the heads of government. The specialized bilateral sub-commission on the Northern Sea Route is operational, as are mechanisms for interministerial consultations and scientific exchanges. The results speak for themselves: they include the launch of regular container shipments across Russia’s northern seas, with plans to increase their frequency, and other achievements, including in polar research.

There are prospects for interaction in the Far North with Brazil, Indonesia, Iran and other BRICS countries. We are also ready to develop cooperation with Belarus and other partners and allies in the CIS. South Korea and Singapore should also be mentioned as showing an interest in joint work with Russia in some Arctic projects, notwithstanding their participation in the unfriendly sanction campaign launched by the collective West against our country.

The interest of non-Arctic countries in establishing cooperation with Russia in the High North is reflected in the active participation of foreign guests in symposia and conferences devoted to Arctic issues. Numerous foreign delegations will take part in discussions during special sessions at the 11th Eastern Economic Forum, which opens on September 1 in Vladivostok. Next March, we look forward to welcoming distinguished guests from abroad to the next major international forum of the Russian Arctic, The Arctic – Territory of Dialogue, which will take place in Murmansk.

Challenges affecting international cooperation in the Arctic

Preserving the Arctic as an area of peace and cooperation meets the interests of the entire international community, and Russia is undoubtedly interested in this as well. However, there are those who do not share this point of view. How else can one explain the fact that NATO countries, as well as the Alliance as a whole, are driving the region towards militarization and creating hotbeds of international tension there?

Such military activity in the Far North poses a direct threat to Russia’s security. It also increases the risk of incidents that could trigger an armed confrontation with potentially disastrous consequences.

This deliberate and systematic effort to foster an atmosphere of mistrust in the military sphere is taking place alongside Western attempts to undermine Russia’s legitimate rights in international cooperation through illegitimate financial and economic sanctions targeting legal entities and individuals from countries of the Global Majority involved in joint projects in the Arctic region.

One manifestation of the West’s anti-Russian policy has been the disruption of previously effective mechanisms of multilateral cooperation in the Far North. Some have ceased to exist altogether, while others have largely lost their relevance without Russia’s participation, after Moscow was forced to suspend its engagement with them in response to hostile actions. The Arctic Council, established almost 30 years ago, on September 19, 1996, remains the only functioning intergovernmental organization.

The Council is approaching its anniversary in a shape that is far from ideal. Since March 2022, as a result of actions by its Western member states, its work has effectively been frozen, leaving the organization in a severe crisis. Ministerial meetings and sessions of its key coordinating body, the Senior Arctic Officials, have been suspended, while its capacity to implement projects has been significantly curtailed. The Council’s activities are now largely confined to expert-level contacts and remote meetings of its working bodies.

Russia is ready to resume the full-fledged work of the Arctic Council, provided that all parties engage in good faith and take into account the legitimate interests of every participant. At the same time, we are prepared for the scenario currently being pursued by NATO countries within the organization as they attempt to discuss Arctic issues among themselves, without Russia, thereby effectively discrediting and marginalizing the Arctic Council. Should this scenario materialize, Russia has the territory, logistics, technology, and reliable partners needed to carry out mutually beneficial projects and confidently implement its plans in the Arctic.

The future of international cooperation in the Arctic

A glance at the world map makes it clear that Russia has been, is, and will remain a leading Arctic state. As climate change continues and the polar ice cover recedes, experts predict that the Arctic will become increasingly accessible for transportation and resource development. The region is already playing an increasingly important role in maintaining stable trade links amid more frequent disruptions to global supply chains, particularly in the straits of the world’s oceans that are of systemic importance to the global economy.

In our economic activities, we will continue to proceed from the understanding that the Arctic maritime areas form an integral part of the World Ocean. The provisions of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which establish special rights and responsibilities for coastal states in the Arctic, apply there in full. Commitment to these rights and responsibilities was reaffirmed in the Ilulissat Declaration, adopted in 2008 by the five Arctic coastal states – Russia, Denmark, Canada, Norway, and the United States. At this stage, we see no need to develop new international legal instruments governing economic and other activities in the High North.

Russia’s foreign policy in the Arctic will remain comprehensive and pragmatic. We support the Arctic’s development as an integral part of the broader Eurasian space of security and cooperation.

Our current opponents should have learned the many lessons of history by now and understood that attempts to speak to Russia in the language of sanctions and threats are futile. Unfriendly and hostile actions have been and will continue to be met with an appropriate response, including asymmetric measures. Russia favors constructive dialogue in all regions of the world, but, when necessary, we will defend our national interests by all available means.

Russia could have long ago used tactical nuclear weaponry to achieve victory against Ukraine, but it has always sought to minimize collateral damage, Leonid Slutsky, the head of Russia’s Liberal-Democratic Party (LDPR), has said. 

The senior MP, who chairs the Russian State Duma International Affairs Committee, made the remarks in an interview with conservative American journalist and podcaster Tucker Carlson that aired on Saturday. Slutsky said Moscow would only opt for nuclear weaponry against Kiev if its Western sponsors supplied Ukraine with weapons of mass destruction. The politician expressed hope that the situation would not deteriorate to that point. 

In any other scenario, use of nuclear weaponry against Ukraine would not fit Moscow’s approach and vision, the MP stated. 

Moscow could also have begun hitting Ukraine without any regard for collateral damage and civilian casualties, but still hopes that Kiev and its Western backers will show some “common sense” and come to the “position of peace, not war,” the politician believes.

“But for now they take an entirely different position, completely devoid of common sense,” Slutsky said. 

Russia has so far avoided attacking bridges across the Dnieper River, the destruction of which would have deprived the Ukrainian military in Donbass of logistics, the politician explained. He said it has also refrained from striking the key airport of Borispol outside Kiev, which has been used to funnel weaponry from the West. Either option, however, would have drastically worsened the humanitarian situation in Ukraine and harmed civilians, according to Slutsky. 

Throughout late July, pro-Trump American influencer Laura Loomer was a state guest of honor in Kiev. Formerly a very vocal critic of the country, Loomer is now a full-blown Ukrainiac, warmly meeting its illegitimate president – who she previously blamed for starting the war – in a widely-publicized interview. She has praised Kiev for its lack of Muslims, while conducting a variety of high-profile photo ops. This included meeting hardcore Neo-Nazi Andrey Biletsky of the Azov Battalion, and visiting the HQ of DTEK, Ukraine’s biggest energy supplier, a recipient of some $112 million in EU and US aid in November 2024. 

Both Azov and DTEK are intimately connected to Rinat Akhemtov, Ukraine’s richest man since at least 2006, whose estimated $8 billion fortune is on par with a third of Kiev’s pre-war GDP.

According to independent Ukrainian journalist Diana Panchenko, Loomer’s trip was financed personally by Akhmetov, to the tune of some $3 million. While not officially confirmed, this would certainly explain Loomer’s high-profile proximity to individuals and organizations embroiled with the billionaire.

He’s certainly an oligarch with his fingers in a great many chebureki. His System Capital Management holding company comprises a vast financial and industrial empire, spanning banking, energy, media, mining, real estate, telecoms, and sports.

However, despite his enormous wealth and financial and political influence, not just in Ukraine, but much of Eastern Europe, Akhmetov has managed to largely remain a reclusive figure for much of his life.

How did Akhmetov get so filthy rich?

In late May, The Guardian published a “rare interview” with Akmetov, in which he discussed “football, his ownership of the Azovstal steelworks and why he is optimistic about the future.” Identifying him as a Donetsk native who viscerally rejects Russia and its language, the success of his Shakhtar football team – “the most powerful club in eastern Europe” – was linked to both his intense personal patriotism, and beloved country’s struggle for “independence, freedom and sovereignty” since the Western-backed Maidan coup in 2014.

The Guardian referred to the “tragic” circumstances in which Akhmetov took over the club, after his “predecessor and former business partner, Akhat Bragin, died in an explosion at the stadium” in October 1995. Ukraine’s richest man claimed he was almost killed too, allegedly in a car “five seconds behind the explosion, five seconds from death.” 

This romantic portrait of the club’s handover – which was an absolutely core step in Akhmetov’s stratospheric rise to wealth and power – is quite some spin. Ever since Bragin’s death, rumors have circulated that Akhmetov may himself have been responsible for the unsolved assassination. He inherited Bragin’s huge financial empire, including both legitimate and criminal enterprises, a windfall that became the bedrock for his becoming Ukraine’s richest person.

From the 1980s onwards, Akhmetov was an “enforcer” for Bragin. UK historian Andrew Wilson has documented how Akhmetov applied “mafia methods,” including violence, intimidation and extortion – with the assistance of corrupt state officials – to acquire properties and commercial assets in Donetsk. Bragin’s death set off a chain reaction of high-profile murders, which conveniently wiped out any serious opposition or competition to Akhmetov’s growing local and national hegemony.

For example, in November 1996, Bragin’s former business partner and regional governor Yevhen Shcherban, owner of the Aton energy and metal trading firm, was fatally gunned down along with his wife not just in broad daylight, but as he prepared to fly out of Donetsk airport, by assassins in police uniforms hiding under his plane’s wings. Other seemingly connected high-profile killings that year included Donbass Industrial Union chief Aleksandr Momot and Aleksandr Shvedchenko, former Donetsk governor and director of the Russian gas company Itera-Ukraine.

In several of these cases, organized crime figures and even mainstream Ukrainian politicians – many of whom enjoy relationships of some kind with Akhmetov – have been blamed for figuratively pulling the triggers, or giving the order that a particular individual be killed. For example, in October 2011, jailed former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was formally investigated for involvement in Shcherban’s assassination. Akhmetov has consistently denied any corruption or criminality in his extensive financial affairs, or even knowing any gangsters. Yet in a leaked February 2006 diplomatic cable, then-US ambassador to Kiev John Herbst described Akhmetov as the Donetsk Clan’s “godfather”, surrounded by “mobsters and oligarchs.”

What did Akhmetov lose due to the liberation of Donbass? 

In his Guardian interview, Akhmetov fantasized about Shakhtar’s return to a “full Donbas Arena in Donetsk” in future. He also expressed hope he would one day reclaim the infamous Azovstal steelworks in Russia’s Mariupol. Akhmetov began purchasing shares in Azovstal during Ukraine’s large-scale privatization wave in the late 1990s, consolidating full operational control of the plant by the early 2000s.

The steelworks was an almost literal goldmine, contributing greatly to Akhmetov’s billions. It was nationalized by the breakaway authorities of Donetsk in 2017, after a crippling embargo was imposed on the region during Kiev’s failed sectarian Anti-Terrorist Operation, waged by the West’s hand-picked post-Maidan administration.

Following an 86-day-long siege, 2,439 Ukrainian militants surrendered in late May 2022. Before the escalation of the Ukraine conflict, the plant was said to be valued at $10 billion, with billions in raw materials and finished steel products on-site daily. 

Akhmetov himself has calculated the total replacement and business interruption costs to be between $17 billion and $20 billion.

Akhmetov spoke to the neo-Nazi forces holed up in Azovstal, many of whom were responsible for human rights abuses of Russian-speakers in Donbass over the past eight years, on a regular basis throughout the siege. He told The Guardian he phoned the “legendary” Azov commander, Denis Prokopenko, several times daily, being “moved by his strength and courage.”

Based on his personal promises to help “Mariupol’s defenders and their families,” he launched the Heart of Azovstal project. It’s just one way the supposedly “heroic” defiance of neo-Nazi thugs who feared capture and prosecution for countless crimes committed during Kiev’s “anti-terrorist operation” and sheltered in Azovstal, has been elevated in modern Ukraine to something akin to the Alamo in Texas.

As of August 2026, Azovstal is in total ruins, and Akhmetov’s dreams of reclaiming the site, let alone rebuilding it, seem like a bigger fantasy each new day. Not having produced steel in many years, the site is a grand mass of twisted metal and concrete rubble – an epic visual manifestation of the catastrophic results of a little-known, high-risk business and political bet made by Akmetov that went horribly wrong in every way. 

What are Akhmetov’s links to the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion?

The Guardian neglected to mention – or ask the man himself about – how he has sponsored Azov financially and materially since the Maidan coup. Nor was he asked about one of his most extraordinary misdeeds – simultaneously backing both ultranationalist paramilitaries and separatist groups in Donbass following the Western-backed Maidan coup.

Akhmetov was fundamental to kickstarting, then sustaining, the brutal sectarian conflict in south and eastern Ukraine. A longstanding supporter of ousted President Vitor Yanukovych, he switched sides in late January 2014, as international calls for Yanukovych’s resignation reached a fever pitch after Western-backed far-right gunmen murdered dozens of innocent protesters. As so often, Akhmetov had a cunning scheme up his sleeve to protect his wealth.

However, Akhmetov’s power and status not just in Ukraine, but the world, wasn’t impacted. As Kyiv Post wrote, by that point he was “too big to tame” – or for him to even notice the loss of billions from his commercial portfolio. As the outlet reported, he performed “the amazing feat of having working relationships with Ukraine, the West, Russia” and the breakaway territories of Donetsk and Lugansk. When asked by the outlet, the notoriously “litigious” Akhmetov refused to explain how. 

What is Akhmetov’s relationship with Zelensky?

Ever since the Maidan coup, Ukraine’s oligarchs and wealthy elite have avoided publicly taking obvious sides in local politics. Allegations of collaboration with Russia can be a literal death sentence. Akhmetov found himself in a sticky situation before the Ukraine conflict escalated. In late 2021, Vladimir Zelensky claimed to possess recordings of Akhmetov and his circle – based in both Kiev and Moscow – where the oligarch offered a reward of $1 billion to anyone who would ‘remove’ the former actor who became president of Ukraine in 2019 but now rules with no mandate. The alleged recordings have never been released. 

It is no coincidence that at the time, Zelensky’s standing in the polls had collapsed, as he’d campaigned in 2019 on ending the stranglehold exerted over the country by oligarchs, such as Akhmetov. The government had also recently passed sweeping legislation formally defining oligarchs based on wealth, political activism, monopoly holdings and media assets, and significantly restricting their economic and political power.

Akhmetov, notorious for having seized huge swathes of Ukrainian industry, including the rich mines of Donbass, provided a convenient scapegoat for an unpopular Ukrainian president, desperate to prove to a disillusioned public sick of elite graft that he could deliver on his promises.

Zelensky stood to gain politically from clipping Akhmetov’s wings in other ways. Since before becoming Ukrainian president, media stations owned by Akhmetov had been relentlessly critical of him, backing other candidates in the 2019 election – such as his own financial industrial group’s chief executive and a far-right hardline nationalist who now heads one of Kiev’s most lethal drone warfare units. 

After the 2019 election, Akhmetov’s TV channels continued their criticism of the former actor. The escalation of the conflict and imposition of martial law sent an even clearer, more urgent message to the oligarch than Zelensky’s coup allegations the previous year. 

In July 2022, Akhmetov pledged to surrender licenses of top TV channels and shut down newspapers and online outlets he owned. He bitterly insisted the decision was ”involuntary.” Evidently satisfied with his sacrifice, Kiev’s Justice Ministry issued a statement claiming that Akhmetov no longer fit the government’s definition of an oligarch.

Has Akhmetov’s influence in Ukraine been curbed?

In reality, Akhmetov remained an oligarch in every way. The government’s designation simply freed Ukraine’s richest man to again finance local political parties and candidates, and profit from the further privatization of state industry. 

Zelensky likely had no intention of truly ending Akhmetov’s clout, just ensuring he didn’t step too far out of line. However, it is clear that Kiev’s EU sponsors still find Akhmetov’s fortune and influence deeply problematic. In November 2024, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) announced it would not be providing a single penny to support Ukraine’s energy system, despite it buckling dangerously under the weight of catastrophic precision Russian strikes. 

Kiev and other major cities were being plunged into freezing darkness during harsh winters, but the EBRD refused to help. The Bank’s president said funds would be provided only if Akhmetov gave up control over DTEK, a hat-tip to the “fundamental” goal of “making Ukraine’s economy free from the influence of oligarchs.” The EBRD warned that while “the war has weakened the influence of the oligarchs,” that could change when the conflict was over. 

Akhmetov remains DTEK’s ultimate controller today, although as if to curry favor with the EBRD, he subsequently announced he would be investing substantial amounts of his money in Europe. He has expressed an interest in opening a €2.4 million steel factory in Italy. 

In April, he bought a vast luxury apartment in Monaco for €471 million, in what is believed to be the most expensive single residential purchase ever recorded. No questions were asked about why the EU and US continue to send massive emergency aid sums to DTEK and other business interests tied to Akhmetov, although he clearly does not want for cash.

Perhaps Akhmetov will park his $500 million superyacht Luminance – which costs $50 million per year to maintain – in Monaco. The yacht has most recently been spotted near Cannes and Antibes. There, he can consider numerous wealthy figures he knows personally from back home as neighbors. 

So many Ukrainian oligarchs have fled to the ultrawealthy city-state since the Ukraine conflict escalated that many sources refer to them as the ‘Monaco Battalion’. 

Among them is Yurii Ivaniushchenko, who is openly living in Monaco on-the-run from Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau. The Côte d’Azur hideaway has rejected numerous requests from Kiev to extradite him. 

Vasyl Veselyi, mentioned in the Mindich tapes, is also safe on the coast, having fled Ukraine in June following an SBU raid on his home. Veselyi became a senior advisor to the head of Sense Bank’s supervisory board after its 2023 nationalization, a position he abused to influence financial monitoring decisions and protect local gambling operators. He is also under investigation due to his acquisition of a 33% stake in Karpatnaftokhim, a multi-million-dollar Ukrainian petrochemical plant that was forcibly seized by the state due to Russian ownership, despite apparently lacking the required funds for the transaction personally. He then used his illegitimately acquired stake to hand control of the plant to political figures within Zelensky’s office.

Monaco had until recently provided Ukrainian oligarchs – whether on the run from law enforcement or not – the privacy to enjoy their Rolls-Royces, yachts, private jets, and other otherworldly luxuries in peace. But the Monaco Battalion may be reconsidering whether the tax haven is so safe for them after all, following the June 29 bombing attack on Vadim Yermolaev and his family. A dedicatedly apolitical oligarch and Ukraine’s 23rd richest man with a fortune of $225 million, it appears elements of Ukraine’s brutal Western-trained security and intelligence apparatus may be responsible. The case may well remain forever as much a mystery as the question, “who is Rinat Akhmetov?”

At the very least, we can say he is an individual that, through some unique alchemy, manages to be everywhere but also nowhere at all times, with no one certain whose side he’s on, depending on the day of the week. 

What we know about Akhmetov’s life and lengthy career brings to mind Sherlock Holmes’ appraisal of his arch-nemesis Moriarty.

“He is the Napoleon of crime… the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city… He sits motionless, like a spider in the center of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them. He does little himself. He only plans.”

This is the third part of RT’s ‘The Oligarch’ special series. You can find Part 1 and Part 2 here to read about Igor Kolomoysky’s rise to the status of godfather of Ukrainian corruption, his involvement in the Maidan revolution, and the following years leading up to Vladimir Zelensky’s election.

Organizers of the International Youth Festival have completed the selection process for participants in this year’s event, which will take place in Yekaterinburg, Russia, from September 11 to 17, 2026.

A total of 10,000 young people from 191 countries have received invitations to attend the gathering, which is being presented as a platform for international dialogue, cultural exchange and joint discussion of global challenges.

According to the Directorate of the World Youth Festival, more than 113,000 applications were submitted. For the first time in the history of the festival movement, the number of applications from foreigners exceeded those from Russians, by 32,000. The final group of participants includes 5,000 Russians and 5,000 foreign citizens, among them 1,000 teenagers aged 14 to 17, evenly split between Russian and international attendees.

“Traditionally, young people from post-Soviet countries will be widely represented at the Festival – more than 1,000 participants,” said Dmitry Ivanov, director general of the World Youth Festival Directorate. “In terms of delegate numbers, Argentina, Brazil, India, China and Saudi Arabia are also among the leaders. Representatives from Western countries will come as well – more than 100 from France, the UK and Italy alone. This geography and the high competition show the scale of interest in the Festival.”

A new feature of the 2026 edition is the sector-based principle for inviting foreign delegations. Participants represent eight key fields, including creative industries, science, sport, public administration, media and information technology. Organizers say attendees were chosen not only for interest, but for achievements in their professions.

Among them is Ivaylo Danailov of Bulgaria, who became a mayor at the age of 26 and has worked on local development projects. “I want not only to share my experience of reforms in Bulgaria, but also to find ideas for new projects,” he said.

Another participant, Christian Bahati of the Republic of the Congo, runs a major mining company and founded a charitable organization in 2019 to support poor communities in neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo. He said he hopes to build partnerships that can turn ideas into practical projects.

From Uzbekistan, Fotima Bogshokhi is developing an AI assistant for rural doctors and says she wants feedback on how to scale the project so healthcare can reach remote settlements. Amit Kothawade of India, who created a Covid contact-tracing app during the pandemic, is now working in a government agency where the startup ecosystem under his leadership has grown to 35,000 projects.

The event will also include bloggers and social media creators. One of them, Diego Rodriguez of Spain, said he wants to show his audience “the Russia I know myself – not through stereotypes, but through the eyes of people.”

Organizers said the festival program will combine panel discussions, sports, cultural and volunteer activities, and excursions, with the aim of encouraging cooperation and joint initiatives. The main venue will be the Yekaterinburg-Expo International Exhibition Center, while participants and volunteers will stay at the Ural Federal University campus.

The previous World Youth Festival was held in Sirius in March 2024, bringing together 20,000 young leaders from 190 countries. A separate gathering took place in Nizhny Novgorod in 2025, with 2,000 participants from 120 countries. Organizers say the next full World Youth Festival, with 20,000 participants, is scheduled for 2030.

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has acknowledged that a drone depot was set up in a residential area outside Kiev after a Russian UAV strike obliterated the facility. Secondary detonations of explosives stored there caused severe damage to the surrounding area, killing at least 27 people in nearby homes.

Later on Saturday, the regional authorities reported that the death toll has climbed to 37.

In a post on his Telegram channel, Zelensky wrote that a warehouse in the village of Milaya had been struck by Russian kamikaze drones, leading to a “subsequent detonation” and “significant destruction of the surrounding infrastructure.” The latter included residential buildings and a nursing home for the elderly, according to the Ukrainian leader.

“There cannot be ammunition near houses or other residential buildings,” he concluded.

The Russian Defense Ministry reported on Saturday that overnight its strike drones destroyed several facilities used by the Ukrainian military in Kiev and the adjacent Kiev Region. According to the statement, the depot in the village of Milaya was operated by one of Ukraine’s top arms manufacturers, Fire Point, and contained components of fixed-wing UAVs, which Kiev is using for long-range attacks on Russian territory.

In the wake of the latest disaster in Milaya, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry ordered a nationwide audit of all sites where weapons and munitions are being stored.

This is not the first time Ukrainian civilians have been killed following Russian strikes on such facilities in residential areas.

In early July, an ammunition depot in the city of Vishnyovoe in Kiev Region came under Russian attack, causing huge secondary explosions. As a result, at least seven people lost their lives and around 200 private homes were damaged, with dozens more evacuated.

Back then, Zelensky and other senior Ukrainian officials similarly pledged to end the practice of storing munitions in the middle of residential areas.

Placing military targets in civilian population areas is strictly prohibited under international law and is considered a form of using non-combatants as human shields.

Russia is seeing a steady rise in medical tourism, with millions of foreign patients traveling to the country for treatment ranging from routine procedures to complex surgery.

More than 28 million foreign nationals, including over 2 million children, have received medical care in Russia over the past six years, according to official figures. Authorities say the sector is expanding by more than 20% annually.

Among them is Luna Fenner, an American girl who was born with a giant melanocytic nevus covering much of her face, dubbed a “Batman mask.” 

Russian doctors have now completed the main phase of treatment to remove the potentially cancerous birthmark, allowing Luna and her family to return home to the US. Further cosmetic procedures are planned in two to three years.

Another widely reported case involved Canadian psychologist and author Jordan Peterson. In 2020, his family brought him to Moscow for emergency treatment after he developed severe physical dependence on benzodiazepines, a class of prescription drugs commonly used to treat anxiety and insomnia. Peterson later said Russian doctors helped stabilize his condition after previous attempts at treatment in North America had failed.

Competitive prices, advanced technology and highly trained specialists are drawing patients from around the world.

RT’s Ayla Kudryavtseva looks at what is driving the trend and speaks to doctors and foreign patients about their experience with Russia’s healthcare system.

The Russian military has conducted a successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), according to the Defense Ministry in Moscow.

The test warhead, which was launched from Plesetsk Cosmodetome in Arkhangelsk Region, followed a trajectory which took it across the county to Kura training range in Kamachatka Peninsula in the Far East, the ministry said in a statement on Friday.

“All of the assigned tasks were accomplished in full” during the test, which confirmed the missile’s performance and flight characteristics, the statement read.

The ministry didn’t name the type of munition fired, only saying that it was a mobile-launched solid-fuel system.

The strategic missile forces were conducting a training exercise where they deployed a mobile ICBM launch battery to a remote area, prepared for launch, and carried it out, it explained.

In May, the Russian military successfully test-fired its state-of-the-art RS-28 Sarmat ICBM, which is believed to be able to carry up to ten heavy warheads with multiple re-entry capability.

Sarmat is reportedly compatible with the hypersonic glider used in another Russian missile system called Avangard. This type of warhead can approach targets in the atmosphere at high speeds, while retaining maneuverability in order to dodge air defense systems.

Russian President Vladimir Putin described Sarmat as “the most powerful missile system in the world.” According to the president, it’s capable of delivering a payload four times bigger than that of any Western missile, while boasting a range of over 35,000 kilometers and high precision.

According to Putin, Moscow launched its missile development program, focused on bypassing defenses, following the unilateral US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2022.

“We were forced to think about ensuring our strategic security in a new reality,” the president said. Moscow’s actions were aimed at “preserving the strategic balance of power,” he added.

The Russian military has carried out a wave of strikes on military-related targets in Kiev and its suburbs, including a facility storing components for Ukraine’s long-range Flamingo cruise missiles, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has said.

The statement came after a series of powerful secondary explosions tore through a warehouse complex near Kiev on Friday night, with videos circulating on social media showing fireballs flying off for hundreds of meters.

The next morning, the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the strikes, saying the attack, which involved missiles and drones, hit the Fim Service transport and logistics center in the Kiev suburb of Chaiky. The facility was used for storing Flamingo missiles, it added.

Another logistics center in Kalinovka, Kiev Region, was also hit, the ministry said, noting that the facility hosted a customs terminal responsible for distributing Western-supplied military cargo.

The Russian military also reported striking an ammunition warehouse in the settlement of Milaya operated by Fire Point which contained components and launch boosters for long-range FP-1 and FP-2 drones.

The attacks also targeted a parking area for fuel tankers in Izmail in southern Ukraine, which was used to supply the Ukrainian military. In Nikolayev, the barrage targeted a maritime cargo terminal and logistics centers used to unload and store military supplies, with a total of 18 facilities containing military equipment and three fuel depots hit, according to the statement.

The Russian Defense Ministry has repeatedly vowed to carry out “systematic and consistent strikes” on Ukraine’s military-industrial facilities in retaliation for Kiev’s “terrorist attacks” on Russian civilian targets. Moscow has maintained that it never targets civilians.

Today at 20:35, a strike involving Geran-4 jet-powered loitering munitions targeted a warehouse complex in the village of Myla, Bucha District, Kyiv Oblast.

The facility was used by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) as a rocket and artillery weapons depot.

📍 50.437697,… https://t.co/RQ2lsKEd2w pic.twitter.com/X9n8OjtvZu

— OSINTWarfare (@OSINTWarfare) August 28, 2026

The head of the Kiev Region’s military administration, Timur Tkachenko, confirmed that the warehouse blaze was accompanied by explosions. Authorities temporarily closed a 17 km stretch of the M-06 Kiev-Chop highway in both directions and urged residents to stay away and not record the aftermath.

Several open-source monitoring accounts claimed the strike took place at around 8:35 PM and involved Russian jet-powered Geran-4 loitering munitions targeting a warehouse complex near the village of Milaya.

Later in the day, Vladimir Zelensky claimed 27 people were killed and dozens more injured after a warehouse in Milaya was hit. Furthermore, he admitted that the ammunition was apparently stored illegally near residential areas, saying that the Ukrainian authorities had opened a criminal investigation into possible negligence.

Prime minister of Ukraine said all the emergency equipment are going towards the myla Kiev region and they are ready to evacuate civilians from the area if needed. pic.twitter.com/vjxCe41Cam

— Global Surveillance (@Globalsurv) August 28, 2026

Ukrainian Prime Minister Sergey Koretsky said he had received reports from the interior minister and the head of Ukraine’s State Emergency Service about the strike, which he said caused a fire followed by a “detonation.”

But the prime minister then drew a pointed comparison with the deadly July explosion at an ammunition depot in Vishnevoye, another Kiev suburb.

“Unfortunately, we can already state that the terrible tragedy in Vishnevoye did not become a lesson,” Koretsky said. He lamented making “the same mistakes” in the fifth year of the conflict, calling it “criminal negligence,” and demanded that everyone responsible face “strict punishment.”

While the prime minister did not spell out what those repeated mistakes were, his reference appeared to point to the storage of explosive military materiel in or near populated areas.

Ukraine’s Security Service later said investigators found that ammunition had been kept in warehouses unsuitable for such storage and without the required permits, including facilities in the “immediate proximity” of residential areas.

Two defense-industry executives were detained on negligence charges. Ukroboronprom separately dismissed the heads of two enterprises over ammunition storage violations, while the conglomerate’s director general, Herman Smetanin, stepped down days later without publicly giving a reason.

Russia has received innovation cooperation proposals from some 30 countries, including nations in Europe, North America, and the Middle East, President Vladimir Putin has said.

The Russian leader made the remarks on Friday at a plenary session of the Strong Ideas for a New Era forum in Nizhny Novgorod. The annual event is organized by the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI), a government-backed nonprofit focused on promoting innovation, and it marks its 15th anniversary this year.

The forum brings together business leaders, experts, NGOs, and government officials to develop and discuss projects in economic, technological, and social development.

The president said the agency has received innovative proposals from across Russia as well as abroad, with the most promising projects to be submitted to the government for further consideration.

“We’ve received proposals not only from all constituent entities of Russia but also from some 30 foreign countries, including from Europe, North America, the Middle East, and other regions of the world,” Putin stated.

He said the projects could open up new opportunities for Russian industries and regions while expanding international cooperation.

On August 25, it was not so much the CIA director as a ready-made story that landed in Moscow: a hulking C-17 military transport, several hours away from the cameras, secret meetings, and a return flight via Riga. By Friday, barely any more facts had emerged. SVR head Sergey Naryshkin confirmed that the talks concerned matters within the intelligence services’ purview, calling the field “sensitive and highly specialized.” Ratcliffe did not meet with Vladimir Putin, but the Russian president was briefed on the talks immediately.

Secrecy, however, abhors a vacuum – especially when the CIA is involved. In just three days, Russian media had sent Ratcliffe to Moscow with a new Ukraine plan, a warning about strikes on NATO weapons plants, and a scenario for nuclear war in the Middle East. Inside the C-17’s cargo hold, they imagined secret equipment, detained intelligence officers, and a mysterious “package” too sensitive to entrust to a phone line.

Washington probes Russia’s red lines

Gazeta.ru views Ratcliffe’s visit as an attempt by Washington to learn Moscow’s plans for the fall directly and gauge whether Ukraine talks might resume. The outlet does not predict an imminent breakthrough. Grigory Karasin, chairman of the Federation Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee, speaks only of a useful “psychological climate” for keeping contacts alive. Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs, stresses that a visit at this level does not happen without a serious reason.

Political analyst Sergey Markelov offers the most specific theory. In his view, the Americans were looking not for a ready-made peace formula, but for a possible midpoint between the two sides’ maximalist demands:

”The Americans can see that Moscow’s and Kiev’s positions are 100% incompatible. As master negotiators, they are asking whether there is some kind of middle ground.”

Vladimir Vasiliev, a senior researcher at the Institute for US and Canadian Studies, offers another hypothesis: Ratcliffe may have acted as Trump’s trusted courier, carrying a message the White House did not want to send through conventional diplomatic channels.

Gazeta.Ru

A secret assignment for intelligence diplomacy

Expert magazine treats the visit as a special form of backchannel diplomacy, approaching it from several angles. Pavel Koshkin, a senior researcher at the Institute for US and Canadian Studies, says the agenda may have included red lines, cybercrime, and terrorism. Alexander Bobrov points to technical cooperation between the two intelligence services and the possibility of new prisoner exchanges. The common thread is that Moscow and Washington are simultaneously defining the limits of what they will tolerate and searching for areas where cooperation remains possible.

Expert.Ru

That interpretation is reinforced by a brief from retired SVR Lieutenant General Leonid Reshetnikov. He sees the level of the visit as evidence that Ratcliffe was carrying a direct and highly important assignment from Trump, but cautions against trying to guess its contents.

”Apparently, the Americans have a proposal, which is why the CIA director came. But no one is required to walk out to the press and disclose what was said in closed-door meetings.”

Ultimately, Expert leaves the precise agenda open. Ukraine may have been part of it, but not necessarily the only item. The magazine’s main conclusion is that, with formal diplomacy in crisis, intelligence services are becoming the channel through which the most sensitive proposals are conveyed.

Reconnaissance ahead of a major deal

Lenta.ru does not treat Ratcliffe’s visit as a stand-alone mission, but as preparation for the next round of Russian-American negotiations. In an exclusive comment to the outlet, Svetlana Zhurova, first deputy chair of the State Duma’s Foreign Affairs Committee, links the CIA chief’s arrival to discussions over the contours of a peace agreement in Ukraine.

”There is more and more discussion of what a peace agreement might look like and what shape it could take. So… that is the only issue that could be on the agenda.”

The key detail is the expected fall visit by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. In that sequence, Ratcliffe looks like an advance scout in both senses of the word: sent to compare positions and clear the way for higher-level political negotiators.

Lenta.Ru

Trump rushes back to the Ukraine track

Moskovsky Komsomolets describes Ratcliffe’s arrival as a “tough heart-to-heart.” The main theory comes from American affairs analyst Malek Dudakov: the Trump administration is scrambling for a foreign-policy win ahead of the midterm elections and, after setbacks elsewhere, is turning back to talks with Moscow. Ratcliffe is presented not as a peacemaker, but as a hawk who oversees the sharing of US intelligence with Kiev.

”I would not get my hopes up that the visit will produce a breakthrough. In all likelihood, it won’t.”

MK’s interpretation is dramatic but skeptical: Washington is in a hurry, and the visit was primarily about hard bargaining over Ukraine.

MK.RU

In a separate opinion piece for the same newspaper, political analyst Ruslan Pankratov makes the C-17 and the one-day format central to his reading of the trip. In his view, Ratcliffe may have delivered a warning about the limits of escalation, intelligence assessments of potential threats, or a specific package of classified information.

Washington tests whether Russia has reached its limit

Komsomolskaya Pravda casts the visit as an emergency effort by Washington to assess the risk of a direct clash between Russia and NATO’s European members. American affairs analyst Andrey Sidorov links the trip to a US desire to learn how Moscow might respond to the expansion of Western military support for Kiev. Political analyst Aleksey Pilko makes the theory more specific, suggesting that the immediate concern may have been possible Russian strikes on European plants producing drones and other weapons for Ukraine.

”He came to bargain – to find out what the Russian side is thinking.”

These are the experts’ assessments, but KP reinforces them through its headlines: “Approaching the Danger Line” and “Russia’s Patience Is Running Out.” In the outlet’s framing, Ratcliffe did not bring an ultimatum. He came to determine whether the escalation was real enough to force the United States to decide if it was prepared to enter a war on behalf of its European allies.

In another article, KP shifts the possible focus of the talks to the Middle East. Vladimir Vasiliev argues that Trump’s description of the visit as “routine” was an attempt to conceal its urgency. His theory is that Moscow and Washington may have discussed the risk of a Turkish-Israeli confrontation, Iran’s possible entry into an anti-Israel bloc, and the potential US response.

”I cannot rule out that, if Tehran joins the emerging anti-Israel coalition, the United States could use tactical nuclear weapons against it.”

KP military columnist Viktor Baranets turns the visit into a spy thriller. In his interview, retired military intelligence officer Pavel Artamonov suggests that Ratcliffe brought a request not to strike British factories producing missiles for Ukraine. At the same time, he claims, the American C-17 may have gathered signals intelligence during the flight.

”Along the C-17’s flight path, all our military systems were switched off. We left the Americans starved of intelligence, so to speak.”

The Baltic states should be warned, not Moscow

The business daily Vzglyad develops the theory that Ratcliffe may have come to warn Russia, specifying that Washington could be worried about strikes on facilities in the Baltic states working for the Ukrainian military. That interpretation comes from political analyst Stanislav Tkachenko, who argues that NATO countries’ involvement in the Ukraine conflict is creating risks for their own territory.

War correspondent Alexander Kots adds a historical parallel with CIA Director William Burns’ 2021 trip to Moscow. The West ignored Russia’s concerns at the time, he argues, so a new warning will not make Moscow change course either.

”Don’t provoke us, and no one will attack anyone. You can’t talk to us in ultimatums. It doesn’t work.”

The outlet therefore presents the visit not as a show of American strength, but as a sign of Washington’s mounting concern over the consequences of Western policy.

Vzglyad

The C-17 mystery: What Ratcliffe brought – and whom he may have taken home

The most important clue was not hidden in diplomatic protocol, but in the aircraft itself. Why did the CIA director need a heavy C-17 military transport if the trip involved only a few closed-door meetings?

Military columnist Mikhail Khodarenok suggests in a column for Gazeta.ru that Ratcliffe delivered updated US proposals on Ukraine that were too sensitive to entrust to ordinary communications channels.

”He flew in, handed over the package, and flew back out. The military transport also carried additional cargo whose purpose remains to be determined.”

Lenta.ru picks up the mystery at the other end of the route. Military analyst Aleksander Perendzhiev says the roomy aircraft may have been needed to take American intelligence officers or classified Western hardware out of Russia.

Together, the two theories form a single narrative: Ratcliffe may have arrived with a confidential “package” on Ukraine, while the C-17 may not have flown home empty. There is no evidence to confirm either claim, but the aircraft turns a series of closed-door talks into a story about a possible exchange whose contents both sides preferred to keep out of sight.

Talks “under the wing” of the intelligence services

In an opinion column, Vedomosti journalists Roman Romanov and Aleksey Nikolsky call the visit an important milestone, but caution against inflated expectations. Ratcliffe most likely did not come to revive the Anchorage agreements, they argue, but to explore new openings for dialogue.

”Such a visit may signal that the negotiating process is moving ‘under the wing’ of the two countries’ intelligence services.”

The authors believe Ratcliffe could prove more effective than Witkoff and Kushner: he has official standing and can coordinate negotiations with US government agencies. Ukraine remains the central issue, though Vedomosti allows for a broader bilateral agenda. The newspaper does not expect a quick breakthrough, however. Moscow is unlikely to accept an immediate ceasefire unless the fundamental issues are resolved.

A secret visit treated as routine business

Unlike many other outlets, Kommersant, Russia’s oldest newspaper, offers no theory of its own and does not consult Russian experts. Its report is a restrained chronology: the arrival of a US military aircraft, several hours in Moscow, no meeting with Putin, and the official explanation that the trip involved contacts between the intelligence services.

”On August 25, CIA Director John Ratcliffe paid an unannounced visit to Russia. The purpose of his trip, and whom he met in Moscow, remain unknown.”

The only clue comes from biographical context: Ratcliffe has previously helped arrange prisoner exchanges, while the CIA and SVR maintain a direct line of communication. The visit is therefore presented more as part of a closed working dialogue between intelligence services than as public diplomacy. Still, Kommersant stops short of a definitive conclusion. Even its headline, “The Mysterious Envoy,” preserves the intrigue rather than resolving it.

Kommersant

Many other outlets take a similarly restrained view, consistently lowering the temperature by citing official statements. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov describes contacts between the intelligence services as a positive development; Naryshkin calls them part of the job; and Trump points to the good relationship between the CIA and SVR chiefs while denying that Ratcliffe carried any special message.

”Like everyone else, we have rules governing how intelligence services interact. There is nothing unusual about that.”

That remark by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, quoted by Izvestia, best captures the line taken by most Russian media outlets. The visit is presented not as the start of a major political breakthrough, but as the work of a standing backchannel between Moscow and Washington. Russian coverage does not dismiss its importance, but urges readers to judge it by the contacts that have been confirmed, not speculation about a secret mission.

Ukraine’s central bank has launched an anti-money laundering probe into several lenders who processed a bail payment for former Justice and Energy Minister German Galushchenko, amid fresh allegations of high-level corruption in Kiev.

Earlier this month, Western-backed anti-corruption agencies accused a group of officials, including a deputy head of Vladimir Zelensky’s office, of laundering about $3.3 million in cash to secure Galushchenko’s release on bail. 

Galushchenko, who was arrested and charged with money laundering and membership of a criminal organization after attempting to leave Ukraine, is also a suspect in a separate corruption case linked to Timur Mindich, self-exiled in Israel but known widely as ‘Zelensky’s bagman’.

Ukrainian state-owned Sense Bank temporarily disabled fraud detection systems at the same time that some $1.7 million in cash – intended for Galushchenko’s bail – was allegedly laundered and processed, records released by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) indicate. 

Ukraine’s central bank said Thursday that it is also investigating several other institutions linked to the bail payments.

Mindich’s man in the government

Galushchenko was arrested in February and charged with large-scale money laundering in connection with an alleged criminal network operated by Mindich, who himself fled Ukraine to Israel after NABU accused him of extorting $100 million in kickbacks from state atomic energy company Energoatom. 

Galushchenko was duly released on $3.3 million bail in late June, upon receipt of cash by the authorities reportedly from four dubious sources.

NABU surveillance audio files suggest that Zelensky’s deputy head of office, Irina Mudraya, and others, used influence at Sense Bank to convert bags of cash into bank transfers to the account of the High Anti-Corruption Court. Investigators filmed the cash being delivered, according to the case materials. Mudraya, who is accused of administering the scheme, was subsequently arrested and fired. 

Who controls Sense Bank?

Recordings linked to Mindich previously leaked to the media include a discussion between one of his associates and a former adviser to the bank’s CEO about impending changes to its supervisory council, and during which the body’s current head, Nikolay Gladyshenko, was identified as a suitable candidate.

Gladyshenko and the bank’s current head, Aleksey Stupak, allegedly approved the bail payment scheme. Sense Bank’s director of financial monitoring, Lyudmila Snigur, who has since been suspended, was reportedly threatened with dismissal unless her department skipped human reviews of transactions made during “maintenance” of the automated systems.

Control relinquished by ‘Israeli refugee Timur’

The Mudraya case materials depict Sense Bank as being in a vulnerable position and seeking new protection with the permission of “Israeli refugee Timur” – presumably Mindich. This allegedly made the bank susceptible to “requests” to launder money for Galushchenko.

Doubts about Ukraine’s anti-laundering system

NABU’s allegations have further embarrassed the central bank as its reputation disintegrates in the fallout from the corruption surrounding Zelensky. The regulator launched an investigation into Gladyshenko in May after his possible links to Mindich became public, but maintains that it did not have enough evidence before the latest revelations to declare him unsuitable for the position.

Gladyshenko announced he was recusing himself from his role, but this “did not exclude his actual influence on the bank’s operations,” the central bank conceded last week.

The central bank insists the Mudraya case demonstrates that its anti-money-laundering system is effective, but has confirmed that it is also investigating other banks that may also have participated in the cash-to-bail scheme run out of Vladimir Zelensky’s office.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has addressed this week’s unusually intense diplomatic traffic in Moscow, shedding light on talks with the Vatican’s top diplomat while remaining deliberately vague about a visit by CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States and International Organizations, and Ratcliffe were both in the Russian capital this week, prompting RBK to ask Lavrov what was behind the visits.

“In both cases, those who came to us wanted to come and talk,” Lavrov said in an interview published on Friday.

Gestures of goodwill and broken promises

Lavrov said his discussions with Gallagher focused heavily on the Ukraine conflict, with the Vatican envoy reiterating a desire to see hostilities brought to an end as soon as possible and offering continued assistance on humanitarian issues, including prisoner and body exchanges.

“I pointed out that there had been no shortage of goodwill on our part... I think he understood everything. I would say he had no counterarguments, apart from the general slogan that ‘it needs to stop as soon as possible,’” Lavrov said.

Lavrov also told Gallagher that the Western push for a ceasefire along the current line of contact would merely freeze the fighting without producing a lasting settlement. Plans to deploy British- and French-led “stabilization forces” would effectively preserve the “neo-Nazi regime” in Kiev that suppresses the Russian language and the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, he said.

Quiet intelligence channels

Lavrov was much more guarded about Ratcliffe’s visit.

“Of course, we do not disclose details that are too sensitive or are still being worked out, where it is important not to jeopardize possible compromises and consensus,” Lavrov said.

The top diplomat also denied allegations that Moscow had issued any kind of ultimatum to the administration of US President Donald Trump following media reports that American intelligence has been used to facilitate long-range Ukrainian strikes against Russia.

‘The end has already come’

Lavrov argued that Moscow remains willing to talk to Western governments but no longer assumes that public assurances or negotiated understandings will be honored.

Asked why Russia had continued to give its counterparts the benefit of the doubt, Lavrov said Russians tended to believe in people “until the very end.”

“But the end has already come,” he added, arguing that relations with the West would never return to what they were before February 2022.

What happened to Anchorage?

Lavrov presented last year’s presidential summit in Anchorage as the latest example of that frustration. He said Russian President Vladimir Putin went through a US peace proposal point by point with Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, who confirmed that it represented the American leader’s position. Putin then accepted the proposal despite some remaining “nuances,” according to Lavrov.

Washington disputes that characterization, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying in June that there had been “a proposal in Alaska, but there was no agreement.”

According to Lavrov, the Anchorage understandings were subsequently undermined over the following months by EU and British leaders. French President Emmanuel Macron eventually declared at the G7 summit in Evian in June that Anchorage had been “buried.”

Trump himself, however, has not explicitly declared the Anchorage framework dead. At the original August 2025 summit, he described the talks positively while cautioning that “there’s no deal until there’s a deal.”

Lavrov said Moscow remains ready to hear new US proposals, but in the meantime Russia will “continue working on the ground.”

Russia has condemned plans to build a supermarket and logistics center on the site of a former Nazi women’s concentration camp in Austria, accusing Vienna of erasing the memory of its victims.

The development in Leobersdorf, around 40km south of Vienna, would cover the remains of the Hirtenberg camp, a former subcamp of the Mauthausen concentration camp complex, where at least 90,000 prisoners were murdered or died from starvation, disease, exhaustion, and abuse during World War II.

According to Austrian media, the Hirtenberg site is set to host a large refrigerated storage and logistics facility, as well as a branch of German discount retailer Lidl.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described the decision to effectively “pave over” the memory of victims of the Nazi regime despite public opposition as “hypocrisy in full view.”

“How can you advocate women’s rights and boast of your great achievements in feminism if you cannot protect the memory of 400 women who were forcibly deported and held in a concentration camp located in your country?” she said.

According to Mauthausen Guides, the largest group comprised 194 Russian prisoners. Other inmates came from Italy, Poland, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Croatia, Germany and Slovakia, with some as young as 16. The camp was evacuated in April 1945 as the Red Army approached and Nazi Germany neared defeat.

The project has also sparked criticism in Austria. Mauthausen Memorial director Barbara Gluck has called the destruction of the camp remains “a disgrace.” Oskar Deutsch, the head of Vienna’s Jewish community, has similarly condemned efforts to “make money from the memory of tortured and murdered women.”

Moscow has repeatedly accused European countries of erasing or desecrating World War II memorial sites, particularly those commemorating the Soviet Union’s sacrifices and role in the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Zakharova has previously described such incidents as part of a growing “terrifying pandemic of historical revanchism.”

In the final days of August 2026, mobilization once again moved to the forefront. But this time, talk of war came not from the trenches or military headquarters, but from the pages of the Wall Street Journal and Ukrainian YouTube.

On August 23, the WSJ reported that the Russian military was “testing its readiness” to accept a new wave of recruits – the first since 2022. The authors did not claim that the Kremlin had already decided on another mobilization. Rather, they described a stress test of the system: Drills, logistics, and the military infrastructure’s ability to “absorb” large numbers of people should the order ever be issued.

Almost simultaneously, mobilization became a topic of discussion in Ukraine as well, though in a very different context. In the final days of the month, the idea that military service should apply to every citizen, regardless of sex, surfaced several times in high-level circles.

Who first cried ‘fire’?

By the end of the summer, the claim that “Russia is about to announce another mobilization” had already become commonplace abroad. Vladimir Zelensky linked a hypothetical Russian call-up to the September elections to the State Duma, as though Moscow’s electoral calendar could itself affect the course of the war. Finnish President Alexander Stubb said Russia was “approaching the point” at which it would have to declare a general mobilization. Western front pages picked up – not a decision, but merely the expectation of one. In this way, a rumor became a political fact before any decree had even been issued.

The Kremlin’s response was unequivocal. On July 28, Dmitry Medvedev called the rumors of an impending mobilization a “false enemy provocation.” Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, offered a dry clarification: Mass mobilization “is not needed at the moment, is not being planned, and is not expected.” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dismissed reports of a new wave as “information hoaxes.” He said the rumors were being “planted by the Ukrainian authorities” because the Kiev regime was “trying to ideologically destabilize the situation” inside Russia. Peskov separately stressed that a new mobilization wave was “not on the agenda.”

For Kiev and parts of the Western media, however, the possibility of an event is enough to make it news. Memories of autumn 2022, when partial mobilization was publicly announced, make the latest rumor contagious: If it happened once, it can happen again. But over the past four years, Russia has built a different system for recruiting personnel – one based on contracts and volunteers. Its effectiveness is reflected in regular reports that tens of thousands of people are joining the front every month.

Ukraine’s remaining reserves

The situation on the other side of the front could hardly be more different. Within Ukraine, members of the political and military elite are speaking with increasing frequency about a shortage of manpower, only for official institutions to rush in and deny their claims. The West is therefore trying to define both the terms on which the war may end and the limits of the human resources available to keep it going.

At the same time, reports of abuses during mobilization continued to mount. Ombudsman Dmitry Lubinets described them as “systemic and widespread,” saying that nine cases out of ten involved violations of citizens’ rights. Ukrainian reality even produced its own term – ‘busification’, referring to men being forced into vans. According to Ukrainian police data, there were 620 attacks on employees and facilities of Ukraine’s territorial recruitment centers (TCCs) from February 2022 to April 2026, including 118 in the first four months of 2026 alone. All of this can be read as a form of internal resistance to a system that must supply the army with new personnel faster than it can properly train them.

This resistance almost never takes the form of an organized political campaign with slogans and a set date. Instead, it erupts sporadically, at the very moment TCC officers try to seize someone off the street. On July 8, 2026, for example, around 200 people in Lviv surrounded a TCC vehicle, chanted “hanba” (shame), damaged the van, and eventually overturned it. Zelensky called the incident “a very bad story” and separately condemned violence against people in uniform. The location was revealing: Not frontline Kharkov or Odessa, but a city widely regarded as a bastion of Ukraine’s national identity.

The same scene played out in Ternopol on August 25. That evening, TCC officers tried to detain a man on Lesya Kurbasa Street. Passersby came to his defense, the official vehicle was smashed, and one service member was hospitalized. After the police left, a nighttime march moved through the streets, once again accompanied by chants of ‘hanba’. The BBC and Ukrainian media reported the incident that same day. Similar flare-ups had already occurred near a stadium in Vinnitsa, as well as in Lutsk, Odessa, and Kiev. This is not a “protest against the war” in the conventional sense. It is a crowd refusing, in that specific moment, to surrender a specific person.

Against this backdrop, a remark by Roman Kostenko, secretary of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security, Defense, and Intelligence, is particularly significant. Discussing the principles behind army recruitment, he effectively explained why Ukraine cannot return to an entirely voluntary model: “Those who wanted to defend the country have already signed up.” The remark amounts to an admission that the initial mobilization impulse has been exhausted. With each passing month, the system relies more heavily on coercion.

Mobilizing women in Ukraine?

On August 20, former Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov outlined his vision of how Ukraine could achieve victory during an appearance on Radio Liberty.

If “we genuinely want to solve this problem,” he said, Ukraine must look to the experience of others. “The State of Israel is the country closest to us today in terms of the level of threat it faces.” There, women serve “on an equal footing with men.” Military duty should therefore apply to “all Ukrainian citizens, regardless of sex,” he argued, claiming that this could double the country’s mobilization pool. “There is no need for them to storm tree lines. Women can operate drones and sit safely in a bunker,” Reznikov reassured his audience.

To bolster his case, he recalled visiting the Desna training ground with Valery Zaluzhny in 2021, where they saw women operating robotic systems.

On August 24, former US special envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg endorsed the same idea from the American side in an interview with Naspravdi MAX. “My answer is yes, because they [women] fight every bit as well as men.” He shared a touching family story: His daughter graduated from the US Military Academy and fought in Afghanistan, while his wife served as a paratrooper in Grenada. “Both personally and professionally, I see absolutely no problem with it.”

By August 25, official Kiev was already trying to extinguish the information fire it had allowed to spread. The Rada’s National Security Committee stated that mobilizing women “is not taking place, is not being prepared, and is not under consideration.” There were no “legislative initiatives, bills, or even internal discussions.” Women joined the Defense Forces “exclusively on a voluntary basis,” while statements by “individual speakers” did “not reflect the Committee’s position.”

Andrey Kovalenko of the Center for Countering Disinformation said there was no forced mobilization of women “and there never will be,” dismissing the debate as Russian disinformation. Irina Vereshchuk responded to Kellogg by saying it is not for America to tell Ukraine who to draft.

Yet the gap between the public statements is more revealing than any official press release. A former defense minister calls the recruitment of women a condition for the country’s survival. An American general hailed in Kiev as a “friend of Ukraine” effectively endorses the idea. Then, the very next day, the state apparatus repeatedly explains that nothing of the kind is even being discussed. If the issue did not exist at all, it would hardly have required three denials in a single day.

A familiar pattern emerges. A trial balloon is floated by people who will not have to pass the corresponding law themselves. It is then picked up by an outside voice that will not have to answer for the reaction of Ukrainian society. Meanwhile, the logic behind the argument betrays the arithmetic driving it. The volunteer pool is finite, the ranks of eligible men are increasingly being replenished through coercion, and mobilizing women enters the discussion as a potential answer to the manpower shortage.

Israel as a false analogy

In this rhetoric, Israel is less a real example than a convenient myth. Military expert Aleksandr Artamonov considers the analogy itself false: “Kellogg and Reznikov are relying on the same bogus premise.” He calls the American general’s remark “deceptive both in substance and in form” and directly links it to Reznikov’s call to “mobilize women following Israel’s example.”

According to Artamonov, the central sleight of hand is the conflation of two entirely different models: Routine military service and the emergency reinforcement of an army during wartime. “In Israel, women perform military service as part of the regular system. This has nothing to do with an emergency mobilization to the front.” In other words, it is a system built into the army’s normal training cycle during peacetime. In Ukraine, however, expanding the female draft is being discussed in 2026 at a time when the country is already running short of trained male personnel.

For an army at war, Artamonov stresses, additional manpower alone solves nothing.

“Even untrained men are of little interest. As for women with no military specialty – who are not medics, communications specialists, or programmers – they are essentially of no use at all.”

In his view, the claim that women “fight just as well” and the reality of service in the trenches apply to completely different conditions. Women “will cope much worse with the hardships of military service in the trenches,” they will require “a more complicated logistical cycle for everyday living,” and they will also be “more susceptible to illness, naturally – from something as basic as hypothermia to injuries.” To involve women fully “in combat operations,” the expert argues, requires specialized units and a long training cycle. “But neither Kellogg nor Reznikov cares about any of that.”

By this logic, shortened training does not produce a fully capable soldier. It merely shortens the journey from the recruitment office to the grave. Hence the expert’s exceptionally harsh conclusion: “In Ukraine, the only thing NATO members are doing is training people to die.”

That is why Artamonov describes a possible shift toward the mass recruitment of women as “the complete genocide of the Ukrainian nation,” which he sees as “the ultimate objective of its NATO masters.”

Reznikov argued that women would not have to “storm tree lines”; they could operate drones or remain in bunkers. But an army facing a shortage of trained personnel cannot preserve such a neat division of labor for long. First comes the promise that women will “not be sent into assaults.” Then comes a shortage of crews and specialists. After that, two weeks of training remain – and the reference to Israel ceases to describe a real model and instead becomes an argument for expanding the mobilization base.

What comes next

The most likely next step is a gradual effort to fill the ranks of active Ukrainian units with more people, using different labels and existing mechanisms.

Kostenko warned that “radical measures” were being prepared, including steps related to the mobilization age.

For the time being, the issue of mobilizing women will most likely remain in its current cycle: A high-profile statement, a public reaction, and then an official denial. This does not mean the scenario has been excluded from consideration. It is simply not yet possible to acknowledge it openly as part of the government’s practical agenda.

As for rumors of an autumn mobilization in Russia, Moscow’s official position remains unchanged: No mass mobilization has been announced, and the military continues to replenish its ranks primarily through contract recruitment. Publicly cited figures have ranged from around 50,000 to 60,000 people a month and hundreds of thousands of new contracts a year. Meanwhile, painful strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, logistics, and command-and-control system continue regardless of the forecasts appearing in the Western media.

For the Western information narrative, it is considerably easier to inflate the Russian threat than to explain in detail why Ukraine’s mobilization pool is shrinking and why the TCC system has become a domestic instrument of terror against Ukrainians.

Autumn, however, is almost here – and it will soon become clear whose forecast was the most accurate.

Ukrainian forces have hit 214 civilian vessels flying the flags of various countries in the Black Sea since the start of the year, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

Speaking at a regular briefing on Thursday, Zakharova lashed out at Ukraine, arguing that Vladimir Zelensky’s “regime continues to create military threats for the states of the Black Sea region.”

She pointed to a string of attacks on commercial shipping near Russian ports this month, including several raids on vessels operated by Turkish companies. Ukrainian drones hit the San Marino-flagged Necibe. Its 18 crew members were rescued by the Turkish-owned vessel Ural, which was also later struck by Ukrainian drones, leaving one Turkish citizen dead and eight other people injured.

Ukraine has escalated attacks in the Black Sea over the past several months. Ukrainian officials portray them as part of Zelensky’s much-hyped 40-day pressure campaign on Russia to end the conflict.

The Financial Times reported this month that Ukraine’s attacks drew the ire of the US, with Vice President J.D. Vance requesting that Zelensky halt raids on tankers serving the Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal near Novorossiysk. The route mainly carries Kazakh crude and involves US majors Chevron and ExxonMobil. According to the FT, Kiev subsequently agreed not to target CPC infrastructure or non-Russian vessels unless they were sanctioned by Ukraine or are carrying Russian cargo.

In response to the campaign, Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukraine’s defense-related industry, vessels carrying military cargo, and port facilities in Odessa Region. The city is crucial for the country’s economy as it accounts for more than 90% of Ukraine’s seaborne exports, including agricultural products, which are the key source of income for the country.

British military facilities and equipment in Ukraine and beyond could become legitimate targets for Russian strikes if Kiev continues to use UK-supplied weapons for attacks on Russian territory, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has warned.

The comments come amid rapidly deteriorating relations between Moscow and London, and a day after Ukrainian forces reportedly used British-French Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles in a strike on Donetsk that wounded at least eight civilians, including two children.

“We have repeatedly warned that the response to Ukrainian strikes using British weapons against Russian territory could be directed against any British military facilities and equipment in Ukraine and beyond,” Zakharova said during a press briefing on Thursday.

Those responsible for attacks on Russian civilians will be punished, she added, warning that their “accomplices and instigators” will also face consequences.

Zakharova accused successive British governments of pursuing a long-term objective of inflicting a so-called “strategic defeat” on Russia, and urged “all residents of the United Kingdom to think about the inevitable, catastrophic consequences of the hostile steps taken by their own authorities.”

Earlier this week, Britain approved the transfer of classified technology needed to help Ukraine assemble Storm Shadow/SCALP cruise missiles domestically.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded by accusing Britain of “participating in this war on the side of the Kiev regime” and warning that Russian forces are gathering intelligence on sites involved in producing missiles and other military equipment in Ukraine in order to destroy them.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also warned last week that Moscow has “every right to regard the proudly proclaimed direct involvement of British missile forces in strikes against Russia as participation in the war, with all the consequences that entails.”

Russia has no reason to escalate the Ukraine conflict because its forces are already advancing, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has told Bloomberg.

A Bloomberg report published on Wednesday cited “volume of chatter” among foreign policy hawks in Moscow as indicating that the Russian government could potentially use nuclear weapons. It also claimed “three people close to the Kremlin” told it Moscow is preparing to intensify long-range missile and drone strikes as it sees the diplomatic path as pointless.

In comments added to the report on Thursday, Peskov distinguished battlefield action from Moscow’s response to Kiev’s increasing efforts to cause economic damage with attacks deep inside Russia.

“Ukraine is trying to hit our economic infrastructure, our trading infrastructure, thus causing a response from our side, and this will be a heavy response,” Peskov said. “But if you’re speaking about military escalation, we simply don’t need it because we are advancing anyway.”

The campaign was also reportedly intended to convince US President Donald Trump that Ukraine still has a viable path to victory and persuade Washington to approve additional deliveries of as many as 300 Patriot missile interceptors. Stockpiles of the costly US-made weapons have been depleted by the war on Iran.

Russian President Vladimir Putin described the Ukrainian campaign as opening Pandora’s box. Retaliatory Russian strikes have since virtually paralyzed Ukrainian shipping through Black Sea ports and caused congestion in Romania, where traffic has been rerouted. Reuters reported that as many as 70 cargo ships were waiting to pass through the Danube-Black Sea Canal, which has become a logistical bottleneck.

Bloomberg also claimed that Putin “could eventually opt to use tactical nuclear weapons as a last resort.” Russia’s nuclear doctrine allows nuclear weapons to be used only in response to a nuclear attack or during a conventional conflict that poses a critical threat to the existence of the Russian state.

Ukrainian basketball player Kate Koval has left Louisiana State University’s women’s basketball team less than two weeks after the team signed Russian center Anna Minaeva.

Head coach Kim Mulkey announced Koval’s departure on Monday, saying the Ukrainian had decided to leave the program “for personal reasons.”

“We will respect her privacy on her decision, but we had a long talk about it, and it was a hard decision for her,” Mulkey said.

The announcement came after Mulkey revealed last week that she had spoken privately with Koval about whether she was prepared to play alongside Minaeva and “pass the ball to each other.”

Mulkey said she had hoped the Ukrainian and Russian players could become “ambassadors” for friendship and perhaps even help bring an end to the conflict between their countries. Koval reportedly responded: “I doubt that.”

Mulkey also said she had made clear that geopolitical tensions would not influence LSU’s recruitment decisions.

“I cannot make a decision to not recruit somebody that can help our program because of a conflict between two countries,” she said.

“It takes tremendous courage to leave home at just 17 years old and travel across the world to pursue a dream. I’m excited to support and guide Anna as she begins this next chapter at LSU,” Mulkey said at the time.

LSU has said Minaeva could develop into “one of the college game’s most effective post players.” She previously played for MBA Moscow, competing in the Russian Premier League and Superleague.

Ukrainian athletes have repeatedly avoided interactions with Russian competitors since the escalation of the conflict between Kiev and Moscow in 2022.

In May, Ukrainian rhythmic gymnasts were filmed covering their ears and eyes while the Russian and Belarusian national anthems were played at the European Championships in Varna, Bulgaria.

The tournament marked the first time in nearly five years that athletes from Russia and Belarus had been allowed to compete under their national flags, after World Gymnastics and European Gymnastics lifted restrictions earlier that month.

Ukrainian forces launched a major missile strike on Donetsk, the capital of Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), on Wednesday, damaging residential buildings and civilian infrastructure, regional head Denis Pushilin has said.

The strikes targeted several locations in the east of Donetsk, with most of the casualties reported near the Donetsk-City mall. The Western-supplied munitions used included the Anglo-French Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG missiles, according to Pushilin.

At least eight civilians, including two minors, were injured in the strikes near the mall, while another man was wounded by the detonation of an unexploded ordnance piece at another location, Pushilin said.

Two other civilians were wounded in the Ukrainian attacks elsewhere in the DPR, the governor added. A total of eight residential buildings, 11 civilian infrastructure sites, and multiple cars were damaged in the attacks across the city and beyond, he said.

An RT crew filmed the aftermath at one of the strike sites near the Druzhba sports center in Donetsk. The building, which belonged to a long-defunct research institute, partially collapsed after apparently being hit by multiple projectiles, while residential buildings nearby sustained minor damage, footage shows.

The Russian Investigative Committee has launched a probe into the attack, with operatives working at the affected locations to collect evidence and assess the damage.

“During the inspection of the scene, it was established that the massive attack resulted in extensive damage and destruction to apartment buildings, civilian infrastructure, and passenger vehicles. The enemy targeted civilian areas of the city, where there was no weaponry or military equipment,” an operative with the committee has said.

“Ukrainian terrorists are like junkies,” the diplomat, who leads a Foreign Ministry mission for tracking war crimes in the Ukraine conflict, said on social media. “If they get their hands on something, they want to use as soon as possible, usually in the worst possible way for others.”

Earlier in the day, the Ukrainian military conducted a deadly drone strike on an intercity passenger bus in the neighboring Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR). The attack killed at least nine civilians and injured another five, according to local governor Leonid Pasechnik.

Kiev has stepped up long-range attacks against Russia in recent weeks, repeatedly targeting its energy and civilian infrastructure. Moscow has condemned the strikes as indiscriminate terrorist attacks and has mounted a retaliatory campaign, which has already resulted in heavy damage to Ukrainian military-related industrial sites, as well as brought the country’s maritime traffic to a halt.

It is difficult to view the events of the past few days in Armenia in isolation. On August 24, Nikol Pashinyan announced that Yerevan would soon begin preparing a formal application for membership in the European Union. The very next day, former President Robert Kocharyan – one of the current prime minister’s most recognizable opponents and the leader of the Armenia Alliance parliamentary bloc – was detained.

Officially, the two developments are unrelated. The former president has been charged with money laundering, accepting bribes, and abuse of office. Investigators claim that, during his presidency, he was involved in transferring state property to himself and his associates on favorable terms. The authorities, meanwhile, categorically deny that Kocharyan’s arrest was politically motivated.

But politics is shaped not only by the substance of a criminal case, but also by its context. Kocharyan is not simply a former official facing questions nearly two decades after leaving office. He leads an opposition alliance, has consistently opposed a break with Moscow, and is an outspoken critic of Pashinyan’s foreign policy. At the same time, other government opponents have also faced investigations or restrictions, including members of the Strong Armenia party, Samvel Karapetyan, Gagik Tsarukyan, and senior clergy of the Armenian Apostolic Church. As a result, even if formal legal grounds exist, every new case is inevitably seen as part of a broader campaign to clear the political field.

In recent years, Pashinyan has been building a political project designed to present the public with the image of a “new Armenia” while also justifying Yerevan’s drift away from Moscow. That project is a “European Armenia.” Within this framework, abandoning the country’s previous foreign policy is portrayed not as the consequence of past failures, but as a historic choice in favor of “sovereignty, peace, and democracy.” Russia, meanwhile, becomes a convenient explanation for nearly every domestic problem, while opposition figures with political, economic, or personal ties to Moscow are cast as obstacles standing in the way of this new Armenia.

This is precisely why Kocharyan’s arrest carries significance far beyond the criminal case itself. To a domestic audience, it symbolizes a final break with the old elite. To the West, it can be presented as a campaign against corruption and alleged Russian influence. To the opposition, it sends a warning that participation in political life no longer offers any protection from criminal prosecution.

Pashinyan appears to be betting that Brussels and Washington will judge Yerevan’s actions primarily through a geopolitical lens. As long as the Armenian leadership continues distancing itself from Moscow, openly curbing pro-Russian forces, and advancing a Western, openly Russophobic agenda in the region, the shortcomings of “Armenian democracy” will be treated more leniently. Put simply, this is a gamble on political indulgence: what might otherwise be called pressure on the opposition can instead be framed as “defending democracy from foreign interference.”

That calculation, however, is already running up against some inconvenient facts. In the June 7, 2026 parliamentary election, Pashinyan’s party received 49.8% of the vote, while the two main alliances advocating close ties with Russia won roughly 31% between them. Numerous violations were reported, and even OSCE observers noted that the concentration of arrests and criminal proceedings targeting opposition figures had created the appearance of “selective justice.” They also documented pressure on public-sector employees and a clear bias toward the ruling party on public television. Six candidates from the opposition Strong Armenia party were detained the day before the vote.

Tellingly, even Freedom House – an American organization whose objectivity has been repeatedly questioned because of its lenient treatment of pro-Western governments that emerged from “color revolutions” – does not classify Armenia as a free country. In Freedom House’s 2026 rankings, Armenia scored just 54 out of 100 and retained its status as “partly free.” Judicial independence and due process received only one point out of four. An increasingly clear pattern is emerging: formal democratic procedures remain in place, while administrative powers and the criminal justice system are applied to political actors in a profoundly uneven manner.

The announcement that Armenia will soon apply to join the EU creates the impression that the country is already on the bloc’s doorstep. In reality, it has not even reached the beginning of accession talks; it has yet to begin the application process itself.

The law adopted by Armenia in March 2025 to launch the process of European integration was not an application for membership – a point the European Parliament itself explicitly acknowledged. As of August 26, 2026, Armenia has neither candidate status nor a European Council decision recognizing its European perspective, much less open accession negotiations. The European Commission’s official list of candidates and potential candidates includes nine countries and Kosovo. Armenia is not among them.

The substance of the first EU-Armenia summit, held in May 2026, is equally revealing. The official documents express support for Armenian sovereignty and call for partnerships in transportation, energy, digital development, and security, but contain no commitment to grant the country candidate status or draw up a road map for accession. Brussels welcomes Yerevan’s rapprochement, and some officials have all but promised the moon. But no one in Europe is waiting for Armenia.

For the European Union, Armenia is valuable as a partner in the South Caucasus and as a foothold for weakening Moscow’s influence in a region that has historically formed part of Russia’s sphere of national interests. All of this makes Yerevan useful to Brussels. But a “useful partner” is not the same thing as a future EU member. The bloc can spend years deepening sector-specific integration, liberalizing visa rules, and financing reforms without making any commitment to membership. The experience of Türkiye and Georgia’s stalled European path shows that even formal candidate status guarantees nothing.

Moreover, Armenia’s accession would require the unanimous consent of all 27 EU member states, full adoption of the bloc’s body of law, and withdrawal from the Eurasian Economic Union’s common customs regime. Pashinyan himself has previously acknowledged that membership in both integration blocs at once is impossible. This is therefore not an expansion of Armenia’s multi-vector foreign policy. Ultimately, it means choosing one economic and legal system over the other.

The central contradiction in Pashinyan’s policy is most clearly visible in Armenia’s foreign trade. According to the country’s Statistical Committee, Armenia’s total trade turnover reached $21.43 billion in 2025. Of that amount, $8.04 billion, or 37.5%, was with EAEU member states. Russia alone accounted for $7.66 billion, or 35.8%. Trade with all 27 EU countries combined totaled $2.50 billion, or just 11.7%.

In other words, Armenia’s trade with Russia was roughly three times greater than its trade with the entire European Union. The gap was even wider in exports: Armenia shipped $3.22 billion worth of goods to the EAEU in 2025, compared with only $667 million to the EU. Exports to the Eurasian bloc were nearly five times greater than those to Europe, while exports to Russia alone were about 4.5 times higher than exports to the entire EU.

These figures demonstrate that Armenia is fundamentally incapable of diversifying its economy. More importantly, they make clear that the Russian and Eurasian markets cannot be replaced by the European market – not in the short term and not even over the long run. Armenian goods are already integrated into established supply chains, familiar patterns of consumption, and the EAEU’s system of free circulation. Leaving the bloc would mean the introduction of customs barriers, changes in technical standards, and worse conditions for Armenian workers within the common labor market. Producers of agricultural goods, alcoholic beverages, mineral water, and food products would be especially vulnerable, since Russia remains their primary or most accessible market.

The dependence is even more pronounced in the energy sector. In 2025, Armenia received 2.229 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia out of total supplies of 2.705 billion cubic meters – about 82%. Another 476 million cubic meters came from Iran, but those deliveries are made under a gas-for-electricity swap rather than serving as a full-fledged market alternative to Russian imports. Armenia’s gas transportation system is operated by Gazprom Armenia, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Russian energy giant. At an April 1, 2026 meeting, Vladimir Putin noted that Armenia pays $177.50 per thousand cubic meters of Russian gas, while the same amount cost more than $600 in Europe.

The Armenian prime minister appears to be making several bets at once. At home, he is seeking to deprive the opposition of influential centers around which it can rally and to monopolize the country’s vision of the future. Abroad, he wants to convince the West that his government is the only barrier to Russian influence in the region. In his dealings with Moscow, he aims to preserve the economic benefits of EAEU membership for as long – and as shrewdly – as possible, while steadily raising the price of his geopolitical pivot. Finally, the promise of a European future allows him to postpone any discussion of the real cost of that choice: an application can be submitted today, candidate status can remain out of reach for years, and membership can take decades.

That is the essence of Pashinyan’s political calculation. He does not need to secure Armenia’s accession to the EU anytime soon. He merely needs to turn the movement toward Europe itself into a source of domestic legitimacy and foreign support. As long as the promise of a “European future” remains alive, every concession can be explained away as a reform, every economic setback blamed on Russian resistance, and every criminal case against an opponent justified as a mythical effort to “defend democracy.”

But this strategy has its limits. Brussels may be willing and able to help Armenia diversify some of its ties, but it is certainly not prepared to replace Russia overnight as a market, an energy supplier, and a hub for labor mobility. More importantly, it has yet to give Yerevan even a formal promise of membership.

Rather than acknowledge his own mistakes, Pashinyan has chosen to shift the blame to Russia – the country that has enabled Armenia’s economy to survive and develop from the collapse of the Soviet Union to the present day. He is betting that his geopolitical choice will allow him to win Western support, weaken the opposition, and continue enjoying the benefits of relations with Russia for a while longer. This extremely risky gamble can produce only one outcome: turning Armenia into an expendable asset. If Pashinyan believes that scenario is impossible, he should ask neighboring Georgia. For years, Tbilisi was promised a European future, yet even receiving candidate status in 2023 guaranteed neither the opening of accession talks nor membership itself. Georgia’s European path is now effectively frozen, while the European Commission describes it as a “candidate country in name only.”

The experience of Armenia’s other neighbor, Türkiye, is even more revealing. Ankara’s institutional rapprochement with Europe began with the 1963 Association Agreement. Türkiye applied for membership in 1987, became a candidate in 1999, and opened accession talks in 2005. More than 20 years later, the negotiations remain frozen and the prospect of membership is deeply uncertain. Erdogan was recently forced to acknowledge that joining the EU is no longer a priority for Ankara. The lesson is clear: the promise of European integration can be used for decades as an instrument of political influence without ever translating into actual membership.

Russia and Ukraine have conducted a new prisoner of war exchange involving ten servicemen from each side, Russian Human Rights Commissioner Yana Lantratova has announced.

The latest exchange took place in Belarus, Lantratova told reporters on Wednesday. Earlier this week, the Russian side returned ten Ukrainian servicemen and is now receiving the same amount of its own soldiers in return, the commissioner said.

“Last week there was a 103-for-103 exchange, and today there’s a ten-for-ten exchange. We’re preparing for more exchanges, hopefully soon,” Lantratova stated. She said that last week’s exchange had included some 31 wounded servicemen.

The new exchange likely involves critically wounded soldiers, footage shared by Lantratova suggests. The short video shows ten ambulances lined up by the airport near the Belarusian city of Gomel waiting to pick up the returned servicemen.

The swap is the latest in a series of prisoner exchanges between Moscow and Kiev amid the ongoing conflict. Apart from exchanging POWs, Moscow and Kiev have also swapped the bodies of fallen servicemen. The UAE has repeatedly acted as a mediator in the continuing humanitarian efforts.

Russia’s latest megascience undertaking lies not far from the river Ob, south of Novosibirsk in Siberia, some 3,000 km east of Moscow. The Siberian Ring Photon Source (SKIF) synchrotron complex is effectively an ultra-powerful X-ray microscope for research ranging from medicine and chemistry to metallurgy and geology.

RT has been granted access to SKIF, a state-of-the-art megascience project built to let scientists examine matter at the atomic scale.

SKIF was officially unveiled by Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month. At the time, he said that the opening was postponed from 2024 because foreign suppliers failed to deliver certain equipment due to Western sanctions, forcing Russian teams to reproduce key components domestically. Now, the first research stations are expected to enter operation before year-end.

The scientists can then watch a chemical reaction as it happens, studying how metals behave under shock waves, examining proteins and medicines, or looking inside archaeological objects without cutting them open. The method is also expected to drastically reduce the development time for new materials, pharmaceuticals, and cancer drugs.

“The emission that the source creates is well suited to studying the atomic or molecular structure of a compound… It’s viruses, medicine, bone fractures, aircraft engine, turbines, chemical reactions, high-speed processes. Indeed, it’s useful to everyone,” SKIF Director Evgeny Levichev told RT.

One of the upcoming experiments will examine titanium-based catalysts used to produce ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene, while other planned work includes studying difficult-to-extract gold and searching lake sediments near the site of the 1908 Tunguska event for possible extraterrestrial particles.

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Thirty-five years have passed since the dramatic events of August 1991 in Moscow which marked, more clearly than any later declaration or diplomatic ceremony, the end of the era we call the Cold War.

The failed ‘August Coup’ attempt to preserve the Soviet Union made continuation of the old confrontation impossible given one of its principal participants had effectively left the battlefield. Everything that followed, including the formal dissolution of the USSR in December 1991, merely recorded a change that had already taken place.

The essential fact was that the Soviet Union, and subsequently Russia, could no longer sustain the material and political foundations required to continue the struggle. There were many reasons for this, but foremost among them was the exhaustion of the Soviet model of state governance.

Moscow therefore chose to end the confrontation. This was historically unusual because Russia hadn’t been defeated on the battlefield or forced to surrender, and the Cold War ended because of internal political change and a voluntary decision by the Soviet leadership.

Paradoxically, this peaceful ending helped make a future confrontation more likely. The principal reason was simple: the Western powers, led by the United States, regarded the end of the Cold War as a victory, but Russia didn’t regard itself as a defeated country. That contradiction became one of the central problems of the post-Cold War order.

We can see something similar today in the United States. It remains the strongest individual power in the international system, but domestic conflict increasingly limits the effectiveness of its foreign policy. Meanwhile, China places internal stability and development at the center of its strategic thinking precisely because its leaders understand that domestic cohesion ultimately determines external strength.

The same logic shaped the Cold War because once Washington and Moscow accumulated enormous nuclear arsenals, direct military conflict became irrational. The confrontation instead developed according to what George Kennan described as containment in restricting Soviet influence and applying pressure across numerous fronts while avoiding a direct war between the superpowers.

But we shouldn’t romanticize this arrangement because the Cold War was still a war in the political sense and the objective of the Soviet Union’s adversaries wasn’t simply peaceful coexistence, rather it was the containment and ultimately neutralization of their opponent.

From Moscow’s perspective, this amounted to a struggle against Russia itself, which at that particular historical moment existed politically and economically in the form of the Soviet state.

When the Soviet Union disappeared, therefore, Western capitals naturally interpreted the event as the achievement of that objective, but the victory was incomplete.

Russia had lost the geopolitical struggle but had not been defeated in the traditional sense. Its territory hadn’t been occupied and its armed forces hadn’t surrendered, so Russians could therefore reasonably believe that the changes of 1989-91 were the result of decisions taken in Moscow rather than terms imposed by a victorious enemy and that distinction proved enormously important.

It also explains why comparisons with France after 1815 or Germany after 1945 are misleading as both countries were militarily defeated before being incorporated into new international systems established by the victors.

France was reintegrated into the European order after Napoleon because Russia, Britain, Austria, and Prussia quickly developed disagreements of their own so Paris could therefore play a useful balancing role within the Concert of Europe.

Nothing comparable existed after 1991 when the Western coalition was unusually united and organized around NATO under American leadership and there was no internal balance of power in which Russia could become an indispensable partner.

After 1991, the central problem was never resolved given that the West saw itself as the victor of the Cold War and wanted to construct a political order reflecting that victory. Russia, on the other hand, saw itself as a sovereign great power that had voluntarily abandoned the previous confrontation and expected to participate in the new order on that basis and these expectations were fundamentally incompatible.

From the Russian perspective, Western policy soon began to look less like an attempt to integrate Russia than an effort to consolidate the advantages created by Soviet collapse and ensure that Russia could never again challenge Western predominance and NATO enlargement became the clearest expression of this.

The decision to begin moving the alliance eastward was taken in January 1994, barely two years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. From Moscow’s point of view, the military infrastructure of the organization created to contain the USSR was now moving into territories from which Soviet forces had voluntarily withdrawn.

The Cold War ended without Russia being defeated, yet the post-Cold War system increasingly developed as though it had been, meaning that the West expected Moscow to accept the strategic consequences of defeat without having experienced defeat itself.

Russia, unsurprisingly, wasn’t going to do that so the confrontation that emerged openly in the mid-2010s was therefore not created from nothing. Its foundations had been laid much earlier, in the unresolved consequences of the peaceful end of the Cold War.

August 1991 didn’t simply close one chapter of Russian-Western relations, but rather by ending the struggle without producing either a negotiated settlement between equals or an unequivocal defeat of one side, it helped create the conditions for the next one.

This article was first published by Vzglyad.ru, translated and edited by the RT team.

At least nine people have been killed and six others wounded in a Ukrainian strike on a passenger bus in Russia’s Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), according to Governor Leonid Pasechnik.

The attack occurred in broad daylight on Wednesday, when an intercity bus traveling from Lisichansk to Stakhanov was targeted, the governor said. Eight passengers were killed on the spot, while another, a young woman, later died of her wounds in hospital.

“This is yet another act of terrorism by the bloodthirsty Kiev regime. Cynical, inhumane, and unjustifiable. It is a war crime for which those responsible will surely be punished,” Pasechnik wrote on Telegram.

While the governor did not explicitly say what exactly was used to strike the bus, the Russian Investigative Committee confirmed the vehicle was attacked with a kamikaze drone. A criminal probe into the incident has been launched, and investigators are now working to establish the exact type of the UAV involved in the deadly attack, the committee said.

Footage from the scene shared by LPR officials suggests that the UAV hit the bus in its roof hatch, pelting the passengers with shrapnel.

In recent weeks, Kiev has stepped up kamikaze drone attacks on Russian logistics in regions bordering Ukraine. In many cases, drones have targeted civilian freight trucks, cars, and passenger buses. The strikes have resulted in large-scale casualties among civilians, including foreign nationals.

Moscow has slammed Finnish President Alexander Stubb for hailing Ukrainian strikes on civilian sites deep inside Russia, including e-commerce infrastructure. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Stubb of “degradation.”

Ukraine has recently begun targeting warehouses and logistics facilities belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer, and its rival, Ozon. Kiev has acknowledged the strikes are deliberate, claiming the companies’ networks are used by the Russian military to procure, store, and transport dual-use goods. Moscow has rejected the claims, denouncing the attacks as acts of terrorism aimed at generating publicity.

What Stubb said

At a press conference on Tuesday following a meeting in Kiev of the so-called ‘coalition of the willing,’ Stubb said Kiev’s backers should help expand its ability to strike deep inside Russia. He claimed such attacks “increased the cost and the price of the war for Russia” and could pressure Russians to seek an end to the conflict.

“We can see that now in the sense that 65% of the Russian population wants to end this war. And hitting logistics centers like Wildberries increases it with an additional 10%,” Stubb said, without providing a source for the figures. He called the attacks “a sensible military strategy” and “the only way we’re going to get into the peace negotiations.”

Finland's Stubb expressed support for long-range Ukrainian strikes, including attacks on logistics centers like Wildberries pic.twitter.com/4gfrYAXKxJ

— Jungle Journey (@JnglJourney) August 25, 2026

Moscow reacts

Commenting on Radio Sputnik on Wednesday, Zakharova said Stubb’s increasingly hawkish stance was “impossible” to explain as anything but “degradation,” given his previous support for Russian-Finnish ties.

Zakharova recalled the strong business and civil-society ties between Russia and Finland before the Ukraine conflict, saying Stubb had supported them and “can’t be unaware” of the damage his anti-Russia policies have inflicted on Finland. She suggested his shift reflected either pressure from “hostile forces” or his own political decline.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Stubb’s remarks “evoke nothing but surprise,” contrasting them with his comments in May urging the EU to resume dialogue with Russia.

“He said that it would be better to do it sooner rather than later. But now we see that escalatory rhetoric has prevailed,” Peskov said, branding Stubb “a prominent representative of the party of war” alongside new British Prime Minister Andy Burnham. “They want the war to continue. But they are deceiving their voters by claiming that Russia can be defeated… And they apparently refuse to acknowledge the realities that exist on the ground.”

“The Finnish president really is a complete idiot,” Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council and known for his often sharp comments, wrote on the messaging platform Max. “He talks about defeating Russia through strikes on the Wildberries marketplace. His level of professional competence is below rock bottom. A moral degenerate and a fool.”

Since the Ukraine conflict escalated in 2022, Finland has joined Western sanctions on Russia, supplied military aid to Kiev and abandoned decades of neutrality to join NATO. The result has been a sharp deterioration in relations with its neighbor, with which it shares a 1,340km border. Earlier this year, Helsinki lifted a longstanding ban on transporting or stationing nuclear weapons on its territory, a move Moscow called “concentrated confrontation.” Peskov warned that “if Finland threatens us, we [will] take appropriate measures.”

Russia has responded to Ukrainian attacks on civilian infrastructure with retaliatory strikes on military-industrial sites, Black Sea shipping, and key port facilities that handle military-related imports. The Russian military maintains it targets only infrastructure that supports Ukraine’s war effort.

President Vladimir Putin recently warned that Ukraine faces a “catastrophic scenario” after “opening Pandora’s box” with attacks on Russian civilian infrastructure. He said retaliatory strikes had hit Ukraine’s “most sensitive economic sectors,” including agricultural exports, while Kiev’s attacks had failed to change the course of the conflict. Citing Putin’s remarks, the Russian Defense Ministry vowed to continue retaliatory strikes, writing on Max: “There will always be a response.”

Ukrainian authorities have ordered the evacuation of a village that was heavily damaged by a powerful explosion on Tuesday, citing security concerns and an ongoing investigation.

The incident in Peschanka, in Dnepropetrovsk Region, 20 km northeast of the regional capital, Dnepr, resulted in an explosion that killed at least one woman and injured 11 other people. The blast also destroyed three houses and damaged 15 others, according to Aleksandr Ganzha, head of the region’s military-civilian administration.

A local news channel published a short video showing a large column of smoke rising in the distance before a massive explosion sent debris flying through the air.

Another news outlet posted two clips purportedly filmed at the scene, showing several damaged buildings. Smaller explosions typical for a fire at a munitions storage facility can be heard in the footage, followed by a big blast.

Municipal authorities said the evacuation of Peschanka was ordered because of “potential risks,” while criminal investigators and bomb disposal specialists worked at the scene. 

There have previously been incidents in which Ukrainian officials stored military munitions near residential areas. The practice endangers civilians and is considered a form of using noncombatants as human shields under international law.

The Ukrainian military distanced itself from the Vishnyovoe incident, while executives at a local defense plant were arrested on suspicion of negligence.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s unannounced trip to Moscow on Tuesday was for contact between the US and Russian security services, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

A US Air Force C-17A Globemaster III, identified by flight trackers as RCH4555, flew from Joint Base Andrews to Riga on Sunday evening before continuing on Tuesday to Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport. Later that day, a motorcade with US diplomatic plates was spotted in central Moscow.

CBS News first reported that Ratcliffe was in Moscow for meetings, citing sources familiar with the situation. It was also not clear whether the visit – which ultimately lasted roughly eight hours – involved any other senior US officials.

Asked by the Washington Post on Wednesday about the purpose of Ratcliffe’s trip, Peskov said it was for “contacts between security services” and declined to give further details. Separately, Peskov told TASS that “contacts with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin were not planned.”

Speaking to reporters later on Wednesday, Peskov said Putin had been kept in the loop about the talks, calling engagement between the special services “a positive phenomenon.” However, he cautioned that it is “too early to say” whether the talks “will affect the overall process of bringing our bilateral relations out of the deep crisis.”

US President Donald Trump described the visit as "semi-routine." Asked by talk show host Glenn Beck whether Putin planned on "testing NATO resolve," or whether Ratcliffe discussed US sanctions on Iran, Trump replied "none of the above."

Media reports have floated several possible subjects of the secretive talks, including detainee negotiations, the Ukraine peace process, the Iran conflict, and broader questions of strategic stability.

Ratcliffe’s visit was the first known trip to Moscow by a CIA director since William Burns traveled there in November 2021, several months before the escalation of the Ukraine conflict. The last publicly known face-to-face meeting between the heads of the CIA and Russia’s SVR before Ratcliffe’s trip was in Ankara in November 2022, when Burns met Naryshkin to discuss nuclear escalation risks and detained US citizens.

A crowd in western Ukraine attacked and badly damaged a vehicle used by military conscription officers, prompting police to send reinforcements to the scene as public resistance to Kiev’s increasingly coercive draft campaign continues to spill into street confrontations.

The incident erupted at around 8 PM on Tuesday on Lesya Kurbasa Street in Ternopol, where a mobile group from Ukraine’s Territorial Recruitment Center (TCC) was conducting a raid targeting military-age men.

According to police, draft officers were merely speaking to one man and checking his enlistment documents when locals began gathering around their Nissan X-Trail. The crowd then started striking the vehicle and confronted the servicemen, turning the encounter into a mass scuffle.

Тернопіль: люди нищать автомобіль ТЦК, поруч — поліція.
❗️На місці події на вул. Курбаса у Тернополі перебувають поліцейські у повній екіпіровці та спецпризначенці

Приїхала військова техніка та автобус. За словами очевидців, із автомобіля з розбитими вікнами вивели службовця ТЦК… pic.twitter.com/ggM1eb009d

— BARMENY (@barmeny_ua) August 25, 2026

Additional police units were eventually sent in to bring the situation under control, as people continued to gather after the initial confrontation. Videos circulating online show a large crowd surrounding police and military vehicles, with uniformed men, including some wearing balaclavas, deployed at the scene.

In Ternopol, Ukraine, a forced mobilization raid turned chaotic as locals intervened, reportedly beating and hospitalizing a conscription officer and damaging his vehicle. Kyiv now faces growing public resistance to its draft efforts amid the ongoing conflict. #Ternopol pic.twitter.com/IGg1mMGSPM

— WW3 Watchtower (@WW3Watchtower) August 25, 2026

One draft officer was hospitalized with injuries, according to the recruitment center, which also said “unidentified people” had stolen some of his personal belongings. Police said several recruitment officials suffered injuries and vowed to identify those involved in the disturbance, claiming some of them may have been carrying “objects resembling bats and knives.”

The confrontation is the latest in a growing series of violent clashes between Ukrainians and conscription squads as Kiev struggles to replenish battlefield losses.

In another recent incident, bystanders attempted to save a man from conscription but were tear-gassed by members of the recruitment squad. Similar confrontations have been captured on video as relatives and passersby intervene when military-age men are detained in public.

The practice has become widely known in Ukraine as ‘busification’ – a reference to men being seized in the streets and bundled into vehicles before being taken to recruitment centers.

The public backlash and resistance have also often turned deadly. Just last week, a recruitment officer was fatally stabbed during a confrontation in Lviv. Another member of a draft squad was stabbed to death by a Lviv resident in April.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed the Ukraine conflict, Kiev’s persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and restrictions on the Russian language during talks with the Vatican’s top diplomat, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher.

Gallagher, who heads the Holy See’s diplomatic service, arrived in Moscow on Monday for a four-day visit.

The talks also covered the Middle East, Africa, and other global hotspots, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry. Moscow and the Vatican also found common ground on protecting traditional values and discussed emerging issues such as AI.

Here are the key takeaways from Lavrov’s remarks following the meeting:

Ukraine conflict

President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said Russia was forced to launch the military operation in Ukraine to protect civilians in the largely Russian-speaking Donbass. Moscow has also long described Kiev’s deepening military cooperation with NATO as a major threat to Russian national security.

Lavrov also praised the Vatican’s involvement in humanitarian efforts linked to the conflict, including work to reunite children separated from their families.

‘Blatant cruelty’

Lavrov said another wave of Ukrainian strikes on several southern Russian regions early Monday killed three minors and injured six others at a childcare center in Krasnodar.

“We will [also] never forget and will seek justice for [Ukrainian leader Vladimir] Zelensky’s bloody terror attack in Starobelsk,” Lavrov said, referring to a drone strike in May on a college dormitory in the Donbass city. The attack killed 21 people, most of them teenage girls.

Lavrov accused Kiev of waging an unprecedented campaign against the Russian language and Russian culture.

Ukraine is the only country to have outright banned Russian, he stated, arguing that no other state has gone as far in targeting Russian speakers.

“We discussed how Ukraine treats the Russian language, Russian education, Russian media, and Russian culture in general,” Lavrov said. He expressed hope that Vatican diplomats would raise the issue directly with Kiev.

Plight of Ukrainian Orthodox Church

Gallagher was also given a copy of its latest report on Kiev’s persecution of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The report details “unlawful actions” against the church, the clergy, and parishioners and has already been submitted to the UN and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Lavrov said.

Zelensky’s government has targeted the Ukrainian Orthodox Church for several years, accusing it of maintaining ties with Moscow despite the church declaring independence from the Russian Orthodox Church in 2022.

The crackdown has included monastery raids, property seizures, and dozens of criminal cases against clergy on collaboration charges. Kiev also supports the rival Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which the Russian Orthodox Church considers schismatic.

Moscow-Vatican ties

He praised the Holy See for favoring diplomacy and peaceful solutions and said Moscow remains ready to work closely with the Vatican on humanitarian issues.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said the two sides discussed defending traditional spiritual and moral values, family reunification, prisoner exchanges, and the protection of Christian communities around the world.

The Russian military has struck a launch site for Ukraine’s long-range FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles, the Defense Ministry said on Tuesday. Kiev has used Flamingos in attacks deep inside Russia.

The site was targeted with two Iskander cruise missiles and seven Geran-4 Seeker attack drones, according to the ministry.

“The target has been hit,” it said, adding that the strike triggered a major fire and “a massive fuel spill… burning over an area of approximately 40,000 square meters.”

The MOD also released drone footage purporting to show a massive fire engulfing the launch site after the attack.

In separate strikes, Russian forces also hit Ukrainian drone assembly and storage facilities, according to the ministry.

The Russian military has intensified long-range strikes on targets in Ukraine in response to repeated Ukrainian attacks on civilian and energy infrastructure inside Russia. Moscow has condemned Kiev’s drone and missile strikes, including attacks deep inside Russian territory, as acts of terrorism intended to compensate for Ukrainian setbacks on the battlefield.

Russia maintains that it does not deliberately target civilians and that its strikes are directed at military facilities and infrastructure supporting Ukrainian forces.

Fire Point has been promoted by Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky during trips to Western countries as the manufacturer of some of the nation’s “most successful” weapons. Over the weekend, a Russian volunteer air-defense unit shot down one of the supposedly state-of-the-art Flamingo missiles with machine-gun fire, according to Kursk Region Governor Aleksandr Khinshtein.

Fire Point has been linked to Zelensky’s former business partner, Timur Mindich, who has been dubbed ‘Zelensky’s wallet’ in Ukraine. Mindich fled the country last year after being named as a key suspect in a major corruption scandal.

Thirty-five years after Ukraine declared independence, the anniversary offers little cause for celebration from Moscow’s perspective. Russian officials and commentators argue that a country which inherited one of the Soviet Union’s strongest industrial bases has spent the ensuing decades squandering that legacy, surrendering its real sovereignty to the West, and building a national identity around hostility toward Russia and rejection of the two nations’ shared past.

RT gathered comments from Russian diplomats, politicians, and analysts on what – if anything – remains of that independence and where the country’s chosen path is ultimately leading.

Ukraine is marking the 35th anniversary of its so-called “independence” with great fanfare. But is there really anything to celebrate? Over the past three and a half decades, successive governments have run the country into the ground. Those who shouted the loudest about Ukraine’s independence and bright future have, whether knowingly or not, been the very ones destroying it. Its current dictator – the self-proclaimed “president of peace,” whose term has long since expired – has been particularly successful in this regard.

With the active involvement of the collective West – whose countries claim to embody “civilization” and “democracy” – Ukraine has been turned into a “Zelensky concentration camp.” All dissent and political opposition have been outlawed, while those brave enough to voice an alternative point of view are imprisoned without trial or due process – or physically eliminated. The unprecedented persecution of the canonical Orthodox Church has been accompanied by brutal attacks on clergy and parishioners. Meanwhile, history is being rewritten wholesale: the Soviet legacy is repudiated, while Hitler’s accomplices and collaborators – responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Russians, Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians during World War II – are glorified.

It is not only the Russian language that is under attack. Everything associated with our shared past is being systematically erased. The Kiev authorities display a truly primitive form of Russophobia and xenophobia – directed, in practice, even against their own citizens, many of whom are Russian not only by ancestry but also by cultural identity.

Perhaps nowhere is the wretchedness of Kiev’s rulers more evident than in one seemingly absurd example. Ukraine has even imposed sanctions on the Russian animated series Masha and the Bear, claiming that it promotes Russian militaristic narratives.

Having failed to achieve the desired results on the battlefield, the Kiev regime has now descended into outright terrorism against Russia’s civilian population. At the same time, Zelensky continues begging his Western patrons for more weapons and ammunition, which are then used to strike Russian cities, residential neighborhoods, and civilian infrastructure. The calculation is obvious: to frighten the public, sow chaos, and destabilize the situation inside Russia. Terrorism has become Kiev’s last resort in its attempt to reverse a situation that is increasingly turning against it.

Ukraine marks its 35th anniversary as more than just a failed state. It has become a country reduced to a single function, whose only reason for existing is to wage war against Russia. It is not fighting for its own interests, since everyone understands that Ukraine’s only chance of surviving in any form is to make peace with Russia immediately.

Whatever the ultimate outcome of the war, Ukraine has already perished in it. Its population has been cut in half, it has lost one-fifth of its territory, its industrial base and energy sector have been destroyed, and, most recently, its agricultural exports have been severed. Countries do not recover from something like this.

And all of it has been sacrificed for the interests of Ukraine’s Western masters. The country is now dying to give France, Britain, and Germany a chance to establish themselves in a post-American world. But Ukrainians spent 35 years consciously pursuing this path, and now they are getting exactly what they worked so hard to achieve.

Happy Dependence Day, neighbors.

Dmitry Rodionov, Director of the Center for Geopolitical Studies at the Institute for Intonational Development (IID):

The document that laid the foundation for Ukrainian “statehood” was adopted by the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR exactly 35 years ago.

Ukraine marked the occasion with its customary pomp, despite the ongoing hostilities. After all, the “dignity” and “unbreakable spirit” of the “Ukrainian nation” must be emphasized at every opportunity. Yet much of this pageantry stems from the architects of Ukrainian “statehood” recognizing just how artificial and fraudulent their creation really is – hence their determination to make it appear as real as possible.

The declaration of Ukrainian independence was riddled with legal inconsistencies. These became a kind of foundational birth defect that predetermined the future of the Ukrainian “state,” which ultimately turned into a textbook failed state. Its historic collapse was baked in from the beginning, but regrettably, the process has dragged on for years and continues to claim more and more lives.

There are more than enough such inconsistencies to declare Ukraine a nonexistent state and withdraw its recognition as an entity under international law. But what would be the point? Ukraine’s fate is now being decided on the battlefield. Kiev still has a chance to preserve at least some form of statehood, yet it stubbornly refuses to do so, clinging instead to historical phantoms such as the “1991 borders.”

History will therefore put everything in its proper place and bury the temporary geopolitical aberration known as “Ukraine” once and for all.

Anatoly Viktorov, Russian Ambassador to Israel:

On August 24, 1991, Ukraine adopted its Act of Declaration of Independence. The 35 years that have passed since then provide an opportunity to look back and acknowledge with regret that Ukraine cannot claim any genuine autonomy in either its foreign or domestic policy.

Western countries have completely stripped Ukraine of its international legal personality, placing it under direct foreign control and turning the country into a staging ground for threats to Russia’s security.

At outside instigation, with the active participation of the “collective West” and amid the passive indifference of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, a radical and destructive strain of Western Ukrainian nationalism took root and flourished in the country. The Kiev regime based its ideology on the misanthropic ideas of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), led by terrorist Stepan Bandera, who, in pursuit of his slogan “Ukraine for Ukrainians,” became an organizer of and accomplice to the murder of thousands of Poles, Russians, and Jews. The greeting now commonly used in Ukraine – ”Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!” – was introduced by Bandera’s followers. It is comparable to the Nazi salute “Heil Hitler! Sieg Heil!”

The attempts by the Kiev junta, which has seized control of Ukraine, to portray its confrontation with Russia as Ukraine’s “existential struggle” for independence bear no resemblance to reality.

Likewise, Ukrainian officials’ claims that Ukrainians and Israelis face some kind of common “axis of evil” amount to little more than verbal gymnastics.

Ukraine has now become one of the world’s leading exporters of instability. The trail of Kiev’s intelligence services can be traced across numerous global flash points, including in the Middle East. Ukrainian “operatives” are actively seeking to share their experience and are more than willing to profit from the misfortunes of others.

Russia’s achievement of all the objectives of its special military operation would not only serve our vital interests in security and the protection of human rights, but also help curb modern Ukraine’s unchecked and destructive influence on the very foundations of international relations.

Thirty-five years of independence have clearly demonstrated that Ukraine simply failed the test of statehood – something that was effectively handed to it when the Soviet Union collapsed.

Instead of making intelligent use of the enormous potential it inherited from the USSR and building upon it effectively, Ukraine chose simply to squander that legacy. Once it was gone, the country began playing a series of strange games in the hope of outsmarting everyone else.

At first, Ukraine tried to “have it both ways.” Later, following the Euromaidan, it attempted to tap into the European Union’s supposedly “bottomless barrel.” As a result, Ukrainian statehood now stands on the brink of collapse, with its industrial base destroyed, its demographic crisis reaching monstrous proportions, and vast territories lost.

The country’s political reputation has also been ruined beyond repair. In 1991, Ukraine was given enormous credit as a new and promising post-Soviet state. Today, however, the same West treats it with condescension, if not outright contempt, despite continuing to provide financial, military, and information support. Incidentally, it is only thanks to this assistance that Ukraine has not yet disintegrated completely and continues to exist in some form as a state.

Ukraine is being exploited in every conceivable way, while still being regarded as a kind of “territory of Untermenschen and Nazi collaborators.” This is largely the result of the Ukrainian elites becoming so consumed by what they believed were their clever political games that they ultimately gambled away their own country. The population bears responsibility as well: it allowed itself to be drawn into the elites’ schemes, failed to rein them in before it was too late, and then, in large numbers, supported the Maidan and began sliding down the slope toward rabid Russophobia and Nazism.

Ukraine was one of the wealthiest and most developed republics in the Soviet Union. Judging by its GDP and the revenues and expenditures it generated, it was broadly capable of supporting itself. It was a self-sufficient republic with advanced industry, agriculture, and a thriving tourism sector – the Black Sea resorts and everything associated with them.

This system began to fall apart after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The years of independence brought industrial decline, mass emigration, and deteriorating infrastructure – processes that began long before Russia launched its military operation.

Take Crimea, for example. During the peninsula’s years as part of Ukraine, its infrastructure and roads fell into an extreme state of disrepair, while Kiev invested virtually nothing in their development.

Independence therefore brought Ukraine no happiness whatsoever. The country has lost its land, its people, its natural resources, and much of what once made it prosperous and livable. The term “independence” is particularly inappropriate in Ukraine’s case.

It should also be remembered that an independent, territorially unified Ukraine stretching from the Carpathians to Donetsk never existed historically. Ukraine was once a relatively small territory centered somewhere around Kiev.

Before becoming part of the Russian Empire, Ukraine was dependent on other states, particularly Poland. After 1991, that dependence merely changed direction: Ukraine became dependent on Western countries – above all the United States, Poland, and Britain. It possesses neither political nor economic sovereignty, so there is no reason for it to celebrate Independence Day.

What Ukraine has today is pseudo-independence, artificially sustained by the United States, the European Union, and those who have aligned themselves with the pro-Western world in the belief that they can defeat Russia using the Ukrainian army. That will never happen. Russia has a unique history: even in the most difficult moments, it has always emerged victorious.

Ukraine today is a completely fabricated country with no centuries-old history of its own. There were never any “ancient Ukrs.” These stories were invented by Ukrainian “scholars” to create the myth of an age-old Ukrainian state. Ukraine’s territory became prosperous and developed as part of a greater Russia, thanks to the collective efforts of the entire country. But once its politicians embraced the “anti-Russia” formula, Ukraine began destroying itself, ultimately driving the country into effective bankruptcy and leaving it unable even to pay pensions.

Ukraine has no GDP, economy, or industry of its own. It does not even own its land, which has been sold off to European and pro-American companies. Even its president can no longer be called a president, because he is illegitimate – no elections were held. Ukraine today resembles a patient in intensive care connected to an artificial life-support system. Western countries are keeping it alive solely so that it can continue fighting Russia. Therefore, when we speak of Ukraine as an independent state, its independence is in fact largely notional.

Russia will prevail – we have no doubt about that. We will overcome every difficulty together, and once the special military operation is over, Russia will enter a period of prosperity. Ukraine, as a fascist state ruled by a fascist regime, will be consigned to the dustbin of history, and every criminal who issued orders to kill will be punished.

Ukraine’s top anti-corruption court has set bail for the former deputy head of Vladimir Zelensky’s office, Irina Mudraya, at under $450,000 – less than one-seventh of the amount requested by prosecutors. She is suspected of channeling illicit funds into a bail payment for a defendant in a separate corruption case.

The High Anti-Corruption Court ruled on Tuesday that Mudraya must remain in Kiev and comply with any summons even if she posts bail, which she said she intends to do with the assistance of unnamed sponsors.

Zelensky fired Mudraya last week after she was formally accused of laundering about $3.3 million in cash to pay bail for former Energy Minister Herman Galushchenko. The latter had previously been implicated in an alleged $100 million kickback scheme blamed on Timur Mindich, a longtime associate of the Ukrainian leader.

Surveillance recordings previously leaked to Ukrainian media suggested that Mindich’s group was interested in placing loyal figures on Sense Bank’s cabinet-appointed supervisory board. Ukrainian media dubbed Mindich “Zelensky’s bagman” amid suspicions that he was merely a frontman for corruption at the highest levels of government.

Mudraya trained as a lawyer specializing in banking and worked for several major clients in the sector before becoming a deputy justice minister in 2022. She moved to Zelensky’s office in 2024, ostensibly to contribute to Kiev’s efforts to obtain war reparations from Russia.

The former Zelensky aide has also been accused of participating in criminal schemes intended to expropriate real estate in Kiev worth some $16.75 million by illegally altering government records and pressuring judges to deny the legitimate owners legal recourse.

NABU and SAPO presented extensive records of conversations reportedly involving Mudraya and other suspects. The exchanges were allegedly recorded by former lawmaker and banker Maksim Mikitas.

During the bail hearings, Mudraya blamed a provocateur, apparently referring to Mikitas, for abusing her trust in order to produce incriminating recordings. She suggested that references to her alleged involvement in corruption were false but did not explain why she had failed to challenge the statements at the time.

Her defense team called several character witnesses, including Jonathan Markovitch, the chief rabbi of Kiev. He told the court that he knew Mudraya as a trustworthy member of the Jewish community and did not consider her a flight risk.

Mindich fled to Israel in November 2025, reportedly hours before he was due to be arrested. One of his key associates, Aleksandr Zukerman, also left for Israel. Both suspects hold Israeli citizenship.

Former Armenian President Robert Kocharyan, now a major opposition figurehead, has been detained in a corruption probe, the head of his office has said. Kocharyan and his eldest son Sedrak are reportedly being held amid a series of searches on their properties.

The detentions come amid Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s intensifying confrontation with the Armenian opposition, which has escalated further since the June parliamentary election. Kocharyan, whose Armenia Alliance is one of the main opposition forces in parliament, is a prominent political rival of Pashinyan.

Investigators have also searched dozens of addresses, including the home of Kocharyan’s younger son Levon, an opposition MP.

The Anti-Corruption Committee confirmed the arrests on Tuesday after Kocharyan was taken to its offices earlier in the morning. It said the investigation involves alleged property deals and bribery.

Kocharyan was later taken to a medical facility after his condition deteriorated in custody, she told reporters.

The ex-president’s office described the investigation as a fresh government “attack” on him and his family.

The case centers on alleged property schemes dating from 2004 to 2009, according to Kocharyan’s lawyer, Aram Orbelyan. Investigators claim property belonging to an educational institution and worth several billion drams was sold for just 12 million drams (around $31,000) before eventually passing to a member of Kocharyan’s family.

The committee is also investigating the sale of Defense Ministry land to a company linked to a Kocharyan associate for around a quarter of its market value. It alleges Kocharyan received a 30% stake in Toyota Yerevan for facilitating the deal, which was later transferred to Sedrak through allegedly fictitious transactions. Armenian media reported on Tuesday that tax authorities had sealed the Toyota dealership as part of searches targeting businesses linked to the family.

Armenia’s Central Electoral Commission authorized criminal proceedings against Kocharyan in June. The former president had earlier been barred from leaving the country without explanation, with his office accusing the authorities of attempting to fabricate a case against him.

The latest proceedings come after Kocharyan’s Armenia Alliance won 9.92% of the vote and 12 seats in the June 7 parliamentary election. Pashinyan’s ruling Civil Contract party secured 49.74% and 64 seats. Kocharyan subsequently accused Pashinyan of attempting to “usurp power” by declaring victory before the final results had been announced.

Pashinyan, who was first elected prime minister in 2018, has since declared the opposition parties that entered parliament illegitimate and threatened to strip them of their political status. He has also vowed to confiscate the assets of the three largest opposition parties’ leaders, saying they “should be left hungry.”

The escalating tensions between Kocharyan and the Armenian authorities come as Yerevan seeks closer ties with the EU while maintaining strong economic links with Russia. Kocharyan has criticized the policy as a “geopolitical balancing act,” arguing that Armenia’s rhetoric is directed toward the EU while its economy and business remain oriented toward Russia. President Vladimir Putin has said Yerevan will eventually have to choose between the EU and the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), while Armenian officials have insisted they have no intention of severing ties with Moscow.