Iranians have suffered such extensive economic blows in recent years that their situation would not qualify as good even if an agreement is reached soon to decisively end the current conflict. Consider where Iran was before the damages on key economic sites caused by the Israeli-American bombing of 13,000 targets in Iran.

Last November, President Masoud Pezeshkian warned that the entire capital might have to be evacuated due to acute water shortages. After years of excessive consumption and dam construction, the country was thrown into crisis when the most recent cycle of periodic droughts hit. In addition, for months before the war, electricity was cut off in major cities for hours at a time, sometimes with no warning. According to Ahmad Moradi, a member of the parliamentary energy committee, the national grid now has a shortfall of 20,000 megawatts due to “insufficient generation capacity, problems at power stations, and aging transmission lines.” Many apartment buildings in Iran have had to purchase generators to guard against the elevators suddenly not working. 

Even before the war, Iranians faced shortages of water, electricity, and gas

That’s not the end of the problems. Natural gas shortages this past winter forced authorities to close industrial plants powered by gas and cut the wages of factory workers. The low rates charged for natural gas, oil, and electricity contributed to excessive consumption. When supplies were cut, firms stopped paying, which left energy producers unable to afford to upgrade their aging and inefficient facilities and transmission lines. According to the 2025 Statistical Review of World Energy, Iran depends on natural gas for 69% of its total energy, higher than any country other than Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan (Russia is also quite reliant on natural gas, using it for 54% of its total energy supply). Electrical generation, industrial use, and household heating are the main consumers, with minor exports to Turkey and Iraq. Providing adequate natural gas during the winter has long been a problem. Electrical generating facilities using gas are almost all dual-capable, meaning they can burn various types of fuel oil in winter when gas supplies run short. However, this feature makes these facilities less efficient and causes severe pollution. Cutting off industrial users during cold spells has also been a problem. Iran has long had inadequate facilities to stockpile gas during the summer (when demand is lower) for use during the winter.

All of these problems have gotten worse in recent years, and the continuing failure of the government to address these problems is a sign of how badly Iranian governments have done at managing the economy. When warning about a potential shut-off of gas for homes, Pezeshkian’s proposed remedy for the shortage bordered on satire: “I wear warm clothes at home. Other people can do that too.” (Notably, he grew up in Iran's Azerbaijan region, where winter temperatures can reach 40 degrees below zero.) When power stations ran short of natural gas, they had to turn to burning heavy fuel oil in place of gas. As a result, urban pollution became so bad that this past winter many schools were forced to close for temporary periods that sometimes lasted upwards of 50 days.

Iran now spends $6 billion per year on gasoline imports due to smuggling and overconsumption. The Iranian Navy (regular and Revolutionary Guard) frequently intercept ships carrying smuggled gasoline. There are allegations that various officials are involved in the smuggling, but little clear evidence has emerged. Much of the smuggling appears to be done by entrepreneurs — the classical stereotype of Iranians being that many are active traders.

Fears of protests such as those in 2019 led the government to keep the price of gasoline in local currency steady for years even as inflation raged. At long last, President Pezeshkian proposed raising prices a few months ago, but only to levels that are still less than 5 percent of what is paid in neighboring countries. Clearly, that money could be better spent on improving the dire electricity and water situations instead.

The regime spends more than it takes in

Iran has long insisted that any deal with the United States must include extensive sanctions relief. However, even if we imagine that Washington unexpectedly agreed to lift all sanctions on Iran (something extremely unlikely), Iran’s regime-dominated business environment would still remain deeply corrupt and foreigners would remain subject to arbitrary arrest. In short, external measures alone will never convince outside investors to provide the funds needed for fixing the country’s electricity, water, and gas sectors.

U.S. pressure has led governments and banks in several countries to partly or fully restrict Iran’s access to assets that totaled $100 billion at one point, mostly from oil sales. Reports suggest Washington has offered to grant Tehran access to some of those funds as part of a potential deal covering the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranian nuclear program. However, Tehran had serious problems benefiting from similar U.S. offers in the past. Financial institutions were still leery of Iran, not least because of warnings from the multinational Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which reasonably concluded that the Islamic Republic is a high-risk jurisdiction rife with money laundering and terrorism financing.

Being a classical economist, I would argue that inflation in Iran is a monetary phenomenon — that is, the basic cause is that the Central Bank of Iran tolerates (or even encourages) a rapid increase in the money supply. The main reason for the rapid increase is that banks lend vast sums to the government for government-ordered projects.

Government projects in Iran are financed by bank loans, which leads to rising inflation

In other words, the Iranian government spends vastly more than it takes in, and it does so because of projects that it mandates, such as toll roads built with bank financing, or through spending by the IRGC. Some of that government spending is designed to forestall possible protests, which is precisely why the ridiculous amounts spent on subsidizing gasoline consumption continue to be allocated.

Iran also complains about the UN sanctions that were reimposed last year after the European powers invoked the “snapback” provision in the 2015 nuclear deal, which said those sanctions would be automatically reimposed whenever one of the signatories to the deal complained that Iran was not living up to its provisions. However, UN sanctions are not having much impact because Iran does not trade much with industrialized countries. Before the snapback, the EU reported $2 billion in annual imports from Iran (about half goods and half services) and $5 billion in exports (80% goods, 20% services). Even Tehran’s trade with its strategic partner in Moscow is relatively small: Russian imports were $700 million in 2023, while its exports were $1.5 billion.

On the economic front, many Iranians look to the free-market exchange rate as an indicator of how things are actually going. A decade ago, that rate was 32,000 rials per dollar; today, it is a whopping 1,530,000 (it was 930,000 in late February before the war). The average annual devaluation of 47% owes much to inflation, which has averaged about 40% per year and is exacerbated by the massive government deficit (itself a function of lower oil income and high off-budget spending). 

No wonder Iranians, who cannot find dollars to buy on the free market, are on track to purchase more than 500,000 gold coins this year (a traditional hedge against inflation, sold by the Central Bank at auction prices up to 30% higher than their intrinsic metal value). These and other examples of incompetence by self-styled technocrats have led many to question whether the men making policy decisions in Tehran know what they are talking about, including on foreign policy.

Collapse in GDP

These economic problems come after several years when things were actually going pretty well. According to IMF data, in the five years from 2020 through 2024, Iran’s GDP grew at an average of 4.4% a year. By comparison, the United States grew at an average of 2.3% a year, with European numbers coming in even lower.

But more recently, the situation has become increasingly difficult. The IMF reports that Iran’s GDP shrank by 1.5% in 2025, and even pre-war the IMF forecast that it would fall another 6.1% in 2026. Due to the war, this figure could well exceed 10%. The war damage, estimated by the Iranian government at $270 billion (not including damage to military installations), will make the situation much worse. Some of Iran’s most important economic facilities, such as petrochemical complexes and steel mills, have been knocked out of action, and major road and rail bridges have been destroyed. Some war-torn countries, however, have recovered faster than many estimated at first. I think Iran can do the same, and therefore it could limit the GDP fall to low double-digits instead of some of the higher figures (e.g., 20%) being mooted. Certainly more than the 6.1% the IMF estimated pre-war.

The Iranian government estimates the war damage at $270 billion

The country, which had reduced unemployment from a peak of 14% in 2010 to 8% in 2025, has now lost at least 1 million jobs directly because of the war. Aware that mass layoffs have been occurring, the Iranian government is discussing grants to smaller businesses and bank loans to larger ones which limit how many workers they let go.  However, those programs seem likely to cover costs for a few months at most, whereas many firms fear the drop-off in demand and the supply problems will last much longer. Unemployment had been headed down in recent years, mostly because of the sharp decline in birth rates in the 1990s meant many fewer people joining the labor force.  Still, women's participation in the labor force remains abysmally low at around 10-12%, or one-third the level in Saudi Arabia. Now, there will be much pressure to expel Afghans, at least 1.5 million have been forced out in the last year but probably 2.5 million remain, providing much of the lower-income labor. Iranian economist Hadi Kahalzadeh has warned that 10 million to 12 million jobs — about half of Iran’s workforce — are at risk.

To be sure, Iran looks set to continue exporting a full 1.5 million barrels of oil a day, including what it can sell from the floating storage it had off Asian coastlines when the war began. And the price of oil will be higher this year than last. That said, the few tens of billions of extra income Iran might earn from higher oil exports will not even begin to cover all the war damage.

Even if Iran succeeded in collecting a $2-per-barrel toll from a renewed 12 million barrels a day of oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz, that would still amount to less than $9 billion a year (given that Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. will continue to use their pipelines, avoiding the Strait).

Of course, it is important to bear in mind that Iran is less dependent on oil than it used to be. In 1983-1984, the IMF reported that oil constituted 98% of the country’s total exports. In 2022-2023, however, Iran’s Customs Administration reported that non-oil exports had reached $53 billion, substantially more than oil sales. Admittedly, this figure is distorted because Iran, like the United States and the World Trade Organization, classifies its several billion dollars’ worth of condensate exports as non-oil exports, even though they are essentially a type of oil. Yet even if condensates are subtracted, Iran’s non-oil exports alone come close to equaling its $60 billion in total imports.

Oil production is 100% controlled by the state, mostly through the National Iranian Oil Company, while natural gas liquids and condensates come through companies producing natural gas. Exports are tightly controlled by the state, which hides the channels it uses in order to better evade sanctions. Iran uses a host of intermediary companies to assist in that evasion — some of which have been found to be siphoning off large sums, leading to several multibillion dollar scandals. Quite a lot of the exports are done, as permitted by the authorities, by entities owned by or controlled by the Revolutionary Guards and their allies, with the revenue accruing to the Guards directly rather than going through the state budget.

Oil exports are tightly controlled by the state, which hides the channels it uses in order to better evade sanctions

The government also makes small amounts from local sales of oil products, but low prices keep the revenue very low — typically, the sales revenue is not even enough to pay the cost of refining and distribution. The government claims that oil revenue is less than tax revenue (each being around 40-45% of the budget, with privatization proceeds also important), but that significantly understates the fiscal importance of oil revenue given that substantial sums are earned by the Guards from selling the oil they are allocated.

In short, Iran’s economic situation was poor before the war – bad enough that the regime resorted to using deadly force to put down the resulting protests(the authorities acknowledge killing 3,000 protestors on Jan. 8, while outside estimates put the death toll much higher). The war will only worsen the economic problems. How Iranians will react is the big question. 

The Ukrainian outlet Sport.ua reported that all previously blocked accounts were restored, including the tournament’s official channel.

The Insider confirmed that the streamers’ accounts had been unbanned. Alabuga banners were removed from the channels.

Twitch blocked about 15 channels promoting Alabuga on April 25. Sports outlets initially said the bans would last 30 days, but the accounts were restored after three days.

Anti-war YouTube users and bloggers are also circulating a list of creators who promoted Alabuga. The list’s description says the videos “create a false impression of Alabuga’s activities as exclusively educational or technological” and that creators who ran the ads, knowingly or not, help justify the militarization of education and human rights violations.

“I don’t have a specific goal. Ideally, of course, these accounts would be blocked, but I would also be satisfied if Alabuga advertising on YouTube stopped completely. I’m just trying to document it, while others can handle the complaints, restrictions, and so on,” the list’s author told The Insider.

Alabuga Polytech is located in the Alabuga special economic zone in Russia’s Tatarstan region. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, production of Iranian-designed Shahed attack drones — known in their Russian-made versions as Geran, or “Geranium” — was set up at the college, with the involvement of underage students. The college is under U.S. and EU sanctions.

In March, the independent science-focused outlet T-invariant reported that Alabuga Polytech and the Alabuga SEZ had launched a major advertising campaign to recruit college students to assemble attack drones.

The outlet said it obtained nearly 6.5 gigabytes of promotional videos in which underage students openly discuss working in drone production. It said the materials marked the first time Alabuga-linked ads directly mentioned combat drone assembly; notably, they showed workshops featuring the distinctive black drones.

In one video, a 16-year-old first-year student says she expects to start earning a significant salary next year by assembling drones, and that her parents are proud of her. Another student says he already earns 150,000 rubles ($1,900) a month by working as an incoming inspection specialist at the “largest drone production plant in the world.” Another participant in the videos says his father called him “a real man” after he began working at the factory. The archive was titled “Lodki” (lit. “Boats”) — a term open source intelligence (OSINT) researchers say Alabuga has used for several years to disguise its production of combat drones.

The Southern District Military Court is one of Russia’s key judicial institutions handling criminal cases against Ukrainian citizens. Russian authorities give the court jurisdiction over cases from occupied Ukrainian territories, making it responsible for many cases against Ukrainians detained by Russian security forces or captured in combat zones.

The cases involve terrorism-related articles of Russia’s Criminal Code, ranging from “justifying terrorism” to “an act of international terrorism.”

Parubets Analytics’ dataset covers cases under Articles 205, 205.1, 205.2, 205.3, 205.4, 205.5 and 361 of Russia’s Criminal Code submitted to the Southern District Military Court between Oct. 29, 2020, and March 4, 2026. The dataset includes 1,727 defendants. In early March, 7.5% of their names were hidden. By the end of April, that share had risen above 60%.

Kirill Parubets, the founder of Parubets Analytics, told The Insider that the Southern District Military Court’s database has largely kept cases involving the “public justification of terrorism” and “assistance to terrorist activity” available to the public. At the same time, all cases involving “terrorist acts,” “training for terrorist activity,” “organizing a terrorist community,” “participation in a terrorist organization,” and “acts of international terrorism” have been concealed.

Among the hidden entries, the largest share consists of cases involving the “organization of a terrorist community.” In some case files, alongside “terrorism”-related charges, an article on “high treason” is also listed. As Parubets clarified, these are specifically cases in which “high treason” is combined with terrorism charges.

As Parubets told The Insider, the main changes to the database occurred between March 15 and March 20, 2026. Prior to that, the Southern District Military Court had been one of Russia’s most transparent district military courts. According to Parubets Analytics data for 2024, only 28 out of 429 entries, or 6.5%, were hidden. By comparison, in the 2nd Western District Military Court, 240 out of 241 entries were already hidden at that time, and in the 1st Eastern District Military Court, 90 out of 91 were concealed.

After the March changes, the Southern District Military Court became one of the most closed courts for terrorism-related cases, along with the 2nd Western and 1st Eastern District Military Courts. Parubets said the situation in other district military courts has remained largely unchanged..

Parubets Analytics compared two database extracts from the Southern District Military Court – as of March 4 and April 24, 2026. The researchers considered only cases submitted before March 4 in order to exclude the impact of new entries. A record was considered anonymized if the defendant’s name appeared in the first extract but was replaced with the label “Information hidden” in the second.

The calculations were based on defendants rather than cases, Parubets explained. A single criminal case may involve multiple defendants, meaning that one case can generate several entries in the court’s database.

An analysis of the court database found that the Southern District Military Court issued at least 1,138 verdicts in such cases from the start of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine through April 2026.

Parubets Analytics earlier calculated that, as of mid-March 2026, Russia had charged at least 2,278 Ukrainian citizens with “terrorism” and “extremism.” At least 1,417 had been jailed, 879 were considered missing, and fewer than 1%, or 56 people, had been exchanged.

The Russian authorities have not officially explained the widespread concealment of names. Parubets Analytics said anonymizing defendants in terrorism and related treason cases may be intended to reduce transparency and hinder the analysis of politically motivated prosecutions.

“The need for us to provide real meaningful deterrence, remains essential…just maintaining the ‘capable status quo’ is simply not good enough. This need has come into focus as threats have developed and evolved over the last decade – but it became irrefutable in 2022 with Russia’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine,” Jenkins said.

Jenkins said the combined naval forces of the UK and its allies would be “operating common systems and platforms, shared digital networks, logistics and stockpiles.” The allied fleets would be commanded from London.

The new alliance is expected to be created on the basis of the Joint Expeditionary Force, or JEF, which includes forces from Britain, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway. The alliance is expected to be fully combat-ready by 2029. Jenkins said the partnership among northern European countries “must now deepen and evolve…if we are to generate the collective combat power necessary to provide conventional deterrence along our open sea border with Russia.”

In late March, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that he had authorized Britain’s military to detain sanctioned ships from Russia’s “shadow fleet.” Since then, however, no such detentions have taken place. Reuters recently counted that at least 98 ships under UK sanctions passed through British waters over the past month, roughly the same number as in previous months.

In 1978, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi addressed the nation amid unprecedented protests, pledging to end repression and corruption, restore social justice, and hold free elections. At the same time, however, he announced the appointment of a military government.

By that point, societal trust in the Shah had already been irreparably eroded. Nationalists and the moderate opposition were alienated by the new government, led by a general, while the left wing of the protests saw the Shah’s speech as an attempt to co-opt their agenda. Finally, the Shiite clergy interpreted Pahlavi’s actions as a desperate attempt to save the flailing monarchy. These factions formed an anti-Shah coalition.

The most prominent voice in it belonged to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who was backed by a network of mosques, but also by “the bazaar” — a network of major and mid-sized merchants, intermediaries, and moneylenders. They provided financial and organizational backing to the Ayatollah’s supporters while Khomeini himself coordinated the protests from his place of exile in Paris.

Khomeini advocated the creation of an Islamic government under the supervision of a faqih — an expert in Islamic law. At the time, the concept was still vague, and coalition allies often did not fully realize how far Khomeini was willing to go.  

Allies within the coalition often did not realize how far Khomeini was willing to go

Another major force was the National Front, which relied primarily on the educated middle class and students. It can be described as the main liberal-democratic force within the protests, seeking to restore parliamentary power and liberate Iran from external pressure. Among its leaders was Shapour Bakhtiar, who would later become prime minister under the Shah’s rule as a result of a compromise with the monarchy.

The National Front was also closely associated with the Freedom Movement of Iran, led by Mehdi Bazargan, Yadollah Sahabi, and Mahmoud Taleghani. However, unlike the National Front, they had a more religious orientation, advocating a form of Islamic democracy.

The coalition also included a fairly fragmented spectrum of left-wing forces: the communist Tudeh Party, the Maoist Peykar group, the Marxist Fadaiyan-e-Khalq, and the left-Islamist underground People's Mojahedin, which waged an armed struggle against the Shah’s regime. There was no consensus within this wing on how Iran should develop. Some envisioned building socialism grounded in Islam, while others sought to establish a “people's” system — one in which the revolutionary forces would naturally play a leading role.

In short, the opposition was anything but a unified front.

A shot at democratization

In 1978, Pahlavi was forced to make concessions to the protesters, releasing political prisoners and appointing National Front leader Bakhtiar as prime minister. In a meeting with the Shah, Bakhtiar reportedly said: “Your father killed my father, and you imprisoned me. I should have no personal loyalty to your regime. But I am convinced that Iran will not be ready for a democratic republic for at least another 50 years… At present, however, our most crucial task is to stop these barbarians.”

Shapour Bakhtiar to the Shah: “Your father killed my father, and you imprisoned me. However, our most crucial task is to stop these barbarians”

He was referring to the Islamists, whom they ultimately failed to stop. In January 1979, the Shah was persuaded by his entourage to “take a vacation.” Once he did, newspapers — the same ones that had been allowed to resume publication just a couple of months earlier by Bakhtiar’s liberal government — ran headlines reading “The Shah Leaves.” Demonstrators interpreted this as an announcement of the monarchy’s fall, and the protests quickly became too large for the regime to repress.

When Khomeini arrived in Tehran on February 1, he was greeted by a crowd of millions. Western journalists asked the Ayatollah what he felt after returning from 14 years of exile. Khomeini replied, “Nothing.” Within ten days, he seized power, accompanied by the handful of close associates who would form the backbone of the new government.

A knife without a blade

Bakhtiar was still prime minister at the time of Khomeini’s return and still enjoyed the loyalty of the army. On February 10, the staunch opponent of the Islamists declared martial law and imposed a curfew, but he was too late. The protesters simply ignored the authorities’ orders, and the very next day, the army declared its neutrality. February 11 marks the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Bakhtiar, who from exile came to lead the movement for Iran’s democratization and the abolition of the Islamic Republic, was assassinated in France in 1991.

Despite his fate, one could say Bakhtiar was lucky. In Tehran, the insurgents were executing high-ranking Iranian officials and military officers, both serving and former, by firing squad on the roof of the school where Khomeini had set up his temporary headquarters. They even shot the former head of the SAVAK intelligence service, who had once persuaded the Shah to spare the Ayatollah and replace his verdict of execution with exile.

After seizing power, participants in the revolutionary coalition began to divide up positions within the state apparatus and bureaucracy. Mehdi Bazargan of the Freedom Movement headed the provisional government, and his cabinet included representatives of the moderate nationalists and Islamic liberals. The left had no place in the new government and became the first faction to move into opposition to the new regime.

At the same time, Khomeini and his allies were building an informal power vertical. The Revolutionary Council, composed mainly of clerics, became the core political center, while control was exercised through Revolutionary Committees and courts. The former replaced the police and rounded up dissenters, while the latter swiftly processed executions, without excessive bureaucracy. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) also emerged as an alternative structure — a paramilitary organization directly subordinate to Khomeini.

The fatal step for the “moderate” government was its discreet attempt to normalize relations with the United States. On Nov. 4, 1979, Bazargan met in Algiers with U.S. presidential adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. The publication of photographs showing the prime minister, the defense minister, and the foreign minister alongside a senior American official caused a scandal in Iran, and Bazargan’s attempt to preserve a diplomatic channel of communication with the United States failed.

On the same day, radical-minded students seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 66 hostages. Following Khomeini’s lead, they demanded the extradition of the Shah. The American authorities refused, and Khomeini’s son held a major press conference inside the embassy, stating that the students’ actions were supported by the entire Iranian people. The Ayatollah called the seizure another revolution — this time against America.

Within a few hours, Bazargan announced the resignation of the provisional government. All power passed to the Revolutionary Council, and Khomeini began preparations for a referendum on a new constitution.

The provisional government had put together a draft that did not afford the clergy any special role. To fix that, the Islamists convened an Assembly of Experts, which almost entirely rewrote the text in order to enshrine the principle of Velayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist), according to which the state must be governed by a religious authority. The people then voted in favor of the revised draft.

The constitution enshrines the principle proposed by the Ayatollah — Velayat-e Faqih — according to which the state must be governed by a religious authority

At that point, the confrontation between Khomeini and the secular opposition effectively came to an end. Bazargan later moved into the moderate opposition and was even elected to the Majlis, where he continued to advocate for multiparty politics, respect for civil liberties, and limits on the role of the clergy in public governance.

In 1985, the former prime minister even attempted to run for president. The ayatollahs did not allow him to participate in the election.

The first president

In 1979, Iran adopted the new constitution establishing a hierarchy of theocratic and republican institutions. Khomeini became the Rahbar — a lifelong and irremovable Supreme Leader with the broadest possible powers. He controlled the security forces, appointed all key officials, and set the country’s overall policy.

Operational governance was the responsibility of the president, elected by popular vote, and the prime minister, elected by the Majlis. This institutional arrangement quickly led to internal conflict.

In 1980, Iran held its first presidential election, which Abolhassan Banisadr, the former economy minister and an ally of Khomeini’s since the days of his exile in Paris, won by a wide margin. Banisadr was not a cleric, and he had sharply criticized the seizure of the U.S. Embassy back in the early days of the revolution.

At first, the president enjoyed strong support from the Ayatollah and was immediately granted the powers of commander-in-chief. However, Banisadr had won 75.6% of the vote, and over time the president began to use his popularity in an attempt to create an alternative center of power.

Such a president did not suit the Islamic Republican Party (IRP), which held a parliamentary majority and, as a result, leverage over the prime minister and the government. The party was led by influential clerics, including Ayatollah Mohammad Hossein Beheshti, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and the future Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.

Party members viewed the president as a ceremonial figure whose duties were limited to receiving ambassadors and awarding medals. However, Banisadr publicly described himself as the principal representative of the Supreme Leader’s will. He openly criticized the IRP and refused to endorse Mohammad-Ali Rajai, the prime minister imposed on him by the Majlis.

After the war with Iraq began in 1980, the president tried to take command of the armed forces. However, the Majlis prevented Banisadr from acting as a full commander-in-chief and imposed its own decisions on him. At the same time, the president was blamed for the army’s multiple failures on the front.

Khomeini tried to remain above the conflict and called on both sides in the domestic power struggle to end inter-institutional disputes, but in April 1981, Prime Minister Rajai and the president clashed over who held executive authority. The constitution did not provide a clear answer, so the dispute was no longer just about the roles of two politicians, but about the model of the state itself.   

At that point, the Supreme Leader sided with the prime minister and parliament. In June, the Majlis initiated impeachment proceedings. In the absence of an established procedure, the rules were effectively created on the spot. Parliament declared Banisadr politically incompetent to serve as president, and the day after the session, Khomeini signed a decree removing him from office, followed by an order for his arrest.

In response, the former president called on the people to resist what he described as a dictatorship. However, his attempt at inspiring an uprising was unsuccessful. In Tehran, large crowds did indeed take to the streets, but the demonstration ended in a confrontation with the IRGC. Upwards of 50 people were killed and around 1,000 were arrested. Realizing that power would not be returned to him without armed struggle, Banisadr went into hiding while still working to build a coalition against Khomeini.

The authorities responded by executing many of his supporters. Banisadr himself, disguised in military uniform, made his way onto an airfield, from where he fled to France aboard a hijacked aircraft together with Iranian Air Force Colonel Behzad Moezi (the same pilot who had flown the Shah out of the country in 1979).

The first president of the Islamic Republic died after a long life in exile only in 2021, long after any prospects of democratization in Iran had faded away. Eight years after Banisadr’s flight, Khomeini initiated a revision of the constitution and strengthened the role of the president while abolishing the office of prime minister. However, this move also coincided with a further expansion of the Supreme Leader’s powers.

The last prime minister

After Banisadr’s removal, a wave of terrorist attacks swept across Iran. Responsibility was attributed to his allied left-wing radical group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), who were dissatisfied both with the strengthening of the prime minister’s position and with clerical rule. On June 27, 1981, a bomb hidden in a tape recorder exploded near Ali Khamenei while he was giving a speech at a mosque; his right arm was left paralyzed for life.

The following day, an explosion shook the headquarters of the IRP, killing Ayatollah Beheshti and more than 70 other senior officials. Two months later, another attack killed the new president, Rajai, and the prime minister.  

By decapitating the regime, the Mojahedin sought to pave the way for a new mass uprising. Instead, their efforts led to an even deeper entrenchment of the clergy within the state apparatus. Whereas Khomeini had previously preferred to see secular figures serve as president and prime minister, he now turned to another ayatollah: Ali Khamenei. However, the president remained a weak, ceremonial figure, and the Majlis made technocrat Mir Hossein Mousavi, an architect by training, prime minister. His long-running conflict with Khamenei helped shape the regime as we know it today.

Amid the ongoing war with Iraq, Mousavi launched an overhaul of the economy, introducing greater state control, along with penalties for speculation. In doing so, he encroached on both the bazaar and the conservative clergy. Under the cabinet, agencies began to emerge that allowed economic policy to be carried out without any oversight from the president.

In 1985, Khamenei was re-elected as president and, exploiting ambiguities in the constitution, attempted to remove Mousavi. He argued that the president was the only member of the executive branch directly elected by the people and therefore accountable to society for shortcomings in areas such as national security, housing, and employment. These problems, he claimed, could only be addressed by selecting an appropriate cabinet. Notably, similar arguments had previously been made by Banisadr, who had been forced into exile.

However, Khomeini sided with Mousavi, as the Supreme Leader considered it unwise to replace the prime minister during wartime. Khamenei then asked Khomeini to formally confirm the prime minister’s authority in a separate document. However, Khomeini believed that a public statement of support for the head of government was sufficient. He handled it through diplomacy: while expressing support for Mousavi, he added that, under the constitution, the final decision still rested with the president.

The ambiguity of the decision allowed Khamenei’s supporters to stage another challenge. Ninety-nine right-wing members of parliament came out in support of the president, openly contesting the will of the rahbar for the first time. One of the deputies even asked for 270 bracelets to be brought from Khomeini’s residence to the Majlis, hinting at the parliament’s lack of independence.

One of the deputies asked for 270 bracelets to be brought to the Majlis from Khomeini’s residence, hinting at the parliament’s lack of independence

No sanctions were imposed on the deputies at the time, but the conflict dragged on. Only in 1989, in the final weeks of his life, did Khomeini initiate a constitutional revision aimed at resolving the controversy. The amendments abolished the post of prime minister and transferred a significant portion of its powers to the president. Thus, Mousavi became the last prime minister of the Islamic Republic.

“We must behead some people and cut out the tongues of others”

In 1989, after Khomeini’s death, debates arose over whether a new Supreme Leader was even needed, but in the end Ali Khamenei was elected to the role, which he held until an Israeli airstrike killed him earlier this year. Notably, it was under his rule in the 1990s that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps emerged as a political force, opposed by what would become the reformist camp. 

In 1997, Mohammad Khatami became president of Iran. One of the most notable moments in his political career prior to the presidency was his forced resignation as Minister of Culture, a position in which he had promoted a relatively liberal line that called for easing censorship restrictions in the press and cinema. Dozens of new publications emerged openly discussing sensitive political issues, including the foundations of the Islamic Republic and the limits of its leaders’ power.

Under Khatami, film licenses were granted to movies exploring themes that openly irritated conservatives. For example, Time of Love, which addressed the topic of marital infidelity, caused outrage. Director Mohsen Makhmalbaf shot it in Turkey with Turkish actors, but this did not spare him from accusations of undermining revolutionary and moral norms. Soon after, conservative criticism also shifted toward Khatami’s ministry, which had allowed such a film to reach theaters.

Newspapers, the clergy, and members of parliament launched a campaign against Khatami, but he still spoke in defense of the film. By stating that artistic value should be determined by specialists rather than the clergy, he effectively challenged the conservatives. In the end, however, he lost this battle and, under mounting pressure, resigned. 

“The artistic value of a film should be determined by specialists, not the clergy,” said Iranian reformist President Khatami

Voters, primarily young people and intellectuals, saw Khatami’s presidency as a chance for reform — and did promote reforms intended to gradually change the system from within, by transforming it toward strengthening and developing civil society. However, most of his reforms were met with resistance.

Khatami ultimately failed to expand the powers of the presidency, strengthen oversight of constitutional compliance, or curtail the authority of the Guardian Council, which supervised elections and could arbitrarily disqualify candidates. His real success lies in the public sphere, where he facilitated greater participation of women and educated youth in politics. This, along with growing press freedom, increasingly irritated the IRGC, which began to intervene more frequently in the ideological sphere.

In 1998, journalists obtained a recording of a closed-door speech by IRGC Commander-in-Chief Yahya Rahim Safavi, who linked Khatami’s allies to the banned People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran and described reformist newspapers as a threat to national security. A direct threat was made: “We should slit the throats of some and cut the tongues of others. The sword is our language.”

The IRGC later claimed that the remarks had been taken out of context, but the full version was nevertheless never released. Khamenei soon joined the criticism of the press, stating that newspapers were abusing their freedom and straying from Islamic principles. Notably, while criticizing the media, not once did the Supreme Leader mention Khatami's name.

In January 1999, Khatami established a commission to investigate a series of murders of dissidents and politicians and compelled the security services to acknowledge their responsibility for such acts of violence. Eighteen people were arrested on charges of extrajudicial killings, and 15 were found guilty. However, Khatami did not get to follow through on these verdicts. The investigation never established who had given the orders to the agents. Two years later, the cases were sent for review, and the sentences, including two death penalties, were reduced.

The confrontation between reformists and conservatives intensified in July 1999, when the newspaper Salam published a letter from a senior intelligence official outlining plans to tighten control over the press.

The newspaper was accused of publishing a classified document and was quickly shut down by court order. That same night, police and the paramilitary Basij militia, part of the IRGC, raided Tehran University, one of the hubs of the opposition. In response, students launched a sit-in protest, which was also suppressed by force.

The protests — the largest since 1979 — were becoming increasingly radical. Clashes with security forces were no longer limited to Tehran but spread to other major cities. At one point, Khatami received a letter signed by 24 IRGC commanders, in which the organization explicitly stated its intention to intervene in domestic politics:

“Mr. President, if you do not make a revolutionary decision today and fulfill your Islamic and national duty, tomorrow will be too late, and the problems will become so intractable that they will be beyond imagination. In conclusion, with all due respect to Your Excellency, we declare: our patience has run out, and we are no longer willing to tolerate your inaction.”

Khatami backed down and publicly called on students to disperse, thereby stripping them of any political backing. The president also did nothing to prevent the crackdown on the reformist press that followed shortly thereafter.

By 2005, when his second presidential term came to an end, a significant portion of Khatami’s reforms had been either blocked or rolled back. However, young Iranians’ desire to participate in politics and debate the country’s path did not disappear, and in 2009, a new crisis led to another large-scale wave of demonstrations.

A green light

Khatami did not run in the 2009 elections, instead giving way to Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Iran’s former (and last) prime minister and a long-time opponent of Khamenei. Mousavi was backed by other reformists as well, but he did not receive the informal approval of the Supreme Leader, thereby breaking a convention that had taken shape under Khomeini.

Historian Siavush Randjbar-Daemi writes that this was due not only to Mousavi’s strained relationship with Khamenei, but also to the rahbar’s clear sympathies for the incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In such a situation, Mousavi could well have received a polite refusal. Nevertheless, the authorities allowed him to take part in the election, which became the most open and liberal since the Islamic Revolution. Candidates had the opportunity to put up posters, hold rallies, and campaign on social media. Mousavi's distinctively green identity later gave its name to the opposition Green Movement.

A significant role in the campaign belonged to Mousavi's wife, Zahra Rahnavard, who had served as the editor of women’s magazines in the 1980s. By the time of the election campaign she was working as a university rector, and she made advocacy for women's empowerment a separate item of the campaign agenda, winning over younger audiences — something her 67-year-old husband, whose political career had peaked in the 1980s, could not have achieved.

Even more radical than Mousavi at the time was another reformist candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, who openly called for revising the constitution, loosening control over the press, and limiting the powers of the Guardian Council, which oversaw candidate eligibility.

In response, Ahmadinejad broke another electoral taboo in Iran: he began publicly attacking not only his rivals but also former presidents, including Khatami, accusing them of corruption. In the meantime, he tried to present himself as a people's candidate, even at the risk of displeasing Khamenei. Nevertheless, he did not lose the Supreme Leader’s support.

According to official data, Ahmadinejad won the election on June 12, 2009, with 62% of the vote, and the results were almost immediately endorsed by Khamenei. However, Mousavi refused to recognize the outcome and declared himself the winner. His supporters, along with those of Karroubi, were convinced that the election had been rigged, and within three days, on June 15, hundreds of thousands of people had taken to the streets.

After four days of street confrontations, Khamenei once again confirmed the official election results and stated that any further protests would constitute a direct challenge to his authority. This did not stop the protesters. The IRGC and special police then opened fire on demonstrators. Amnesty International reported dozens of deaths and thousands of arrests.

In the end, the reformist camp was almost entirely pushed out of state institutions, while the positions of Khamenei and the security forces only strengthened. Later, Ahmadinejad himself would also enter into conflict with the Supreme Leader, leading to a similar outcome: a weaker presidency and even more power for the Supreme Leader.

Multi-tier and shockproof

All the major intra-elite conflicts of the Islamic Republic, from the dismantling of Bazargan’s government and the exile of Banisadr, to Khamenei’s confrontation with Mousavi, the stifling of Khatami’s reforms, and the suppression of the Green Movement, have ended in a similarly grim way. The clerical regime is multi-tiered, but it is not a conventional hierarchy; rather, it is a complex system with numerous overlapping institutions and security structures that monitor and check one another.

In essence, each body and institution grew out of the old conflict between the permanent and the replaceable parts of the regime. And although it may seem that all power is concentrated in the hands of the rahbar, it can in fact shift between different actors and be distributed across various institutions.

This system is highly resilient, and so far neither external forces nor the Iranian people, — who have repeatedly taken to the streets in protest — have been able to seriously undermine it, let alone dismantle.

The security apparatus is a system. If any officer were given free rein to do whatever they wanted, the system would become unmanageable, breaking down into feudal fiefdoms. That is why, on the one hand, security forces are expected to “crack down” and “crush,” while on the other, they must squeeze all of these repressive measures into the letter of existing law — or at least to repress while leaving no evidence of violations.

This logic is especially evident in the routine operations of the state’s agents. Even where a decision about a specific individual has already been made unofficially, the system still constructs a formal legal framework around it.

One of the most characteristic tools is back-to-back arrests. It might seem that the almighty security forces could immediately detain a person on criminal charges, but instead they keep their targets locked up for weeks or months on formal administrative charges such as “petty hooliganism” or “disobedience,” using this time to examine the person’s devices, conduct interrogations, apply pressure, and assemble an “evidentiary base” that will later, at least formally, be legally impeccable. In this way, administrative detention becomes a convenient method of buying time to build a criminal case.

Administrative detention is a convenient method of buying time to build a criminal case

Pre-investigation checks serve a similar function. Formally, full-fledged investigative actions are not allowed before a criminal case is opened. In practice, however, these checks are used as a workaround: under the guise of a “premises inspection,” security forces enter apartments, seize devices, gain access to correspondence, and effectively conduct searches outside the procedural safeguards stipulated by law. The person being searched has not been formally named as the target of an investigation, meaning they have no legal right to demand access to a lawyer. Yet the entire procedure is documented as lawful.

Finally, an extensive evidentiary framework is constructed within the criminal case itself. Dozens of pages of correspondence, expert assessments, and witness testimonies — including those of anonymous witnesses — are assembled in a way that formally substantiates the charges brought. Even if the evidence is obtained under pressure or through questionable procedures, it is enshrined in official documents and becomes part of the “established” version of events that is presented in court.

The same thing happens within the penitentiary system. Every placement in a punishment cell is backed by staff reports, witness statements, notes from supervisors and psychologists, a medical assessment, and, finally, a decision by the disciplinary commission.

Supervisory bodies and courts play the same game. Prosecutors conduct inspections, request heaps of documentation, receive it, and reach the predictable conclusion that everything is “lawful and justified” — because on paper, everything really is lawful and justified.

At the same time, if an investigator makes a “mistake,” the prosecutor’s office will not approve the indictment and will return it “for revision.” The investigator will, of course, correct the paperwork, and the case will eventually go to court. All of this, however, concerns only the formal side of the case.

Torture and coercion are still outside the law. But even here, security forces can take advantage of systemic loopholes. Such practices typically follow certain patterns: torture most often occurs in a grey zone during arrest, during the search, or while the detainee is being transported for questioning by an investigator. In most cases, security officers act in a way that leaves no physical evidence of abuse — hence the popularity of electric shock torture in Russia. If traces do remain and the use of force must be explained, the official narrative is almost always the same: the detainee allegedly resisted, tried to attack law enforcement officers, or attempted to escape.

What is all this theater for? The authorities need a system that is predictable, controllable, and compliant with the law. Everything must be backed with paperwork or done in a way that makes it impossible to prove that it was done otherwise. 

The authorities need a system that is predictable, controllable, and compliant with the law

The purpose of this system is, on the one hand, to make repression consistent, and on the other, to protect security officials from one another, since they themselves are not above the law. Security officers regularly become defendants in criminal cases for abuse of office, including the use of torture. It is a fate that befalls those who fail to create sufficient “legal” justifications for the use of violence or who leave traces. Not everyone who commits torture is punished — only those who fail to conceal or properly document it.

Strangely, Russia continues to meet many of the criteria set out for the rule of law. In my experience, overturned verdicts, reduced sentences, successful appeals against prison administrations, and findings of unlawful detention most often occur not because of the factual circumstances, but due to procedural violations — when security forces or courts make errors in the paperwork, or when they fail to conceal irrefutable evidence of torture, such as video footage.

The same logic applies to lawmaking, including the drafting of various orders and instructions. Whereas at the lower level cases are fitted to the law, at the top level the law is adapted to already established practice.

This was exactly what happened with the transfer of pretrial detention centers to the Federal Security Service (FSB). Lefortovo, “Shpalerka,” and other pretrial detention centers administered by the Federal Penitentiary Service were already de facto under FSB control. At times, lawyers would file complaints in court over the denial of access to their clients or unlawful searches. This created complications, as the law was not on the side of the detention facilities. With formal subordination to the FSB, however, it becomes possible to issue departmental orders or instructions that make it much easier to justify virtually any form of abuse.

The same applies to regular amendments expanding the powers of the FSB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the National Guard. As a rule, security services already exercise these powers in practice. But problems arise when repression intensifies and human rights defenders begin to challenge such actions en masse. In response, the law is quickly changed so that courts do not “slap the hands” of loyal servants of the state. In a large state, this is easier than issuing some kind of informal instruction to judges across the country.

In other words, instead of a boundary between law and lawlessness, what we see in Russia is their amalgamation. At the level of casework, security agencies fit violence into the law by drawing up reports, collecting “evidence,” and constructing a legal basis for decisions that have already been made. At the state level, the opposite happens: the law is adjusted to accommodate the violence, expand powers, formalize practices, and close gaps for legal intervention in the operation of the system.

The law is adjusted to accommodate violence, expand state powers, formalize practices, and close gaps for legal intervention in the operation of the system

As a result, what emerges is not chaos or unchecked lawlessness, but a structured system in which formal legality actually increases the scale of repression. As a result, in Russia, one can simultaneously observe both blatantly fabricated cases with vast volumes of “evidence,” and court decisions that, from a formal standpoint, appear to be procedurally sound.

In Russia, the law is a tool of state power, one that is capable of formalizing, protecting, and reproducing the violence inflicted on citizens by the regime’s appointed agents of repression. Uninstitutionalized power, by contrast, is characterized by one-off arbitrariness— it is dependent on the individual officer and can easily slip out of control. Effectively unchecked power packaged in several layers of formal procedural rules, on the other hand, allows for a system that is simultaneously repressive and manageable. It is precisely the type of system we observe in Russia today.

On April 27, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Kremlin would later announce how many invitations had been sent and which foreign leaders had already confirmed plans to attend the May 9 parade on Red Square. Earlier media reports said leaders of 20 countries would attend, but Peskov said he “knew nothing about such a figure.”

On April 4, presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said a number of foreign politicians planned to visit Moscow for the May 9 celebrations. He did not name the guests.

Leaders of three CIS member states have already announced plans to take part: Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Kyrgyzstan’s President Sadyr Japarov.

Badra Gunba and Alan Gagloev, leaders of the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, also are expected to attend. Milorad Dodik, leader of the ruling party in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Republika Srpska, has said he plans to attend as well.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico will also attend, Ushakov confirmed April 29. The state-controlled agency RIA Novosti earlier reported, citing diplomatic sources, that Fico would travel to Moscow by car after the Baltic states closed their airspace to his flight.

Fico himself has said he will not take part in the military parade but plans to lay flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to honor Soviet soldiers who died liberating Slovakia from fascism, according to RIA Novosti.

Last year, the Victory Day parade was attended by leaders of 27 countries, including China, Serbia, Venezuela, Brazil, Cuba, Armenia, Egypt, Vietnam, Ethiopia and partially recognized Palestine. A diplomatic representative of Israel also attended last year’s parade, while the U.S. ambassador ignored the invitation.

On April 29, Russia’s Ministry of Defense confirmed that Moscow’s Victory Day parade will be held without military vehicles for the first time in 18 years “because of the current operational situation.” In Nizhny Novgorod, the celebration was canceled altogether “because of security requirements,” while authorities in the Voronezh Region, which borders Ukraine’s Luhansk Region, canceled the fireworks display that usually takes place at the end of the holiday.

In recent months, Ukraine has regularly used drones to attack Russian industrial and energy infrastructure.

Ukraine’s General Staff said the vessel was hit while drifting with its AIS signal off about 210 kilometers, or 130 miles, southeast of Tuapse in Russia’s Krasnodar Region. The vessel was not carrying cargo, and Ukrainian officials believe the Marquise was waiting to receive an oil transfer from another ship.

The strikes hit the tanker’s stern, near its propeller-rudder system, and its engine room. The extent of the damage is still being assessed.

The Marquise, which currently sails under the flag of Cameroon, is on sanctions lists maintained by the European Union, the UK, Ukraine, Switzerland and Canada.

Data from the vessel tracking platform Starboard Maritime Intelligence reviewed by The Insider confirm that the Marquise is in the Black Sea. The tanker’s recorded route shows its AIS signal disappeared from time to time, transmitted clearly false coordinates or was jammed by electronic warfare systems.

Late last year, Russia-linked vessels were attacked in the Black and Caspian seas. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) later claimed responsibility for attacks on the “shadow fleet.”

A large fire has burned at the Tuapse oil refinery for two weeks after repeated Ukrainian drone attacks targeting the Rosneft-run facility. “Black rain” — precipitation mixed with residue from burning oil — has fallen in the city, and all schools and kindergartens have been closed.

Top health official Anna Popova claimed earlier today that there are “no health risks” for local residents despite measurements from her own agency, consumer watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, indicating elevated concentrations of harmful substances such as benzene in the air.

The latest fire broke out overnight April 28 after drone debris fell on the oil refinery, which is run by state-owned oil corporation Rosneft. A state of emergency has been declared in the Tuapse District, with 60 people evacuated from nearby homes.

However, Rospotrebnadzor’s own earlier measurements recorded levels of harmful substances above permitted limits. According to the agency’s data from April 21, benzene, xylene and soot levels in the air were two to three times above the legal threshold. For several days, local residents have reported “black rain” — precipitation mixed with the byproducts of burning oil — as well as black residue and an oily film on surfaces across town.

A report from April 29 said the most recent tests showed “a slight exceedance of the maximum one-time permissible concentration of benzene in the air.”

Environmentalists warn that the toxic combustion products pose a serious health threat. Vladimir Slivyak, co-chair of the environmental NGO Ecodefense!, told The Insider that fires similar to the one in Tuapse fires produce toxic and carcinogenic substances, and that benzene is a Class 1 carcinogen that can cause cancer. People with respiratory illnesses are especially vulnerable.

Environmentalists say smoke from the fire spread beyond Tuapse and reached the cities of Anapa, Sochi and Stavropol. Wild and stray animals have also been affected, with toxic substances damaging birds’ feathers and entering their bodies.

The memorial columns bearing the names of the fallen are intended to remind the Russian authorities that they are indebted to North Korea, experts interviewed by NK Pro said.

According to NATO, in 2024 North Korea sent 11,000 troops to Russia, who took part in battles against the Armed Forces of Ukraine during their incursion into Russia's Kursk Region. About 1,500 of them were killed and 3,500 were wounded. In early 2025, Pyongyang sent another 3,500 soldiers to assist Moscow.

In April, a memorial complex and the Museum of Combat Feats at the Overseas Military Operations were opened in the North Korean capital. From the Russian side, the ceremony was attended by State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin and Defense Minister Andrey Belousov. Volodin read out a message from Vladimir Putin, which said that North Korean soldiers had “shown exceptional courage” and that their assistance would “forever remain in the heart of every Russian citizen.”

Law enforcement officers also searched “the premises of the accused and a person who was not suspected of the crime.” The arrest warrant says Sergei K. is suspected of passing information to a senior intelligence officer in Moscow. They had been in contact since at least May 2025.

“This included, for example, information on the Federal Republic of Germany's military support for Ukraine and on the German arms and defense industry – especially on companies that develop drones and robots. Sergej K. also repeatedly forwarded photos of public buildings in Berlin or of military convoys on highways, including the convoy of a NATO state. In addition, he informed his contact at the secret service about suitable sabotage objects in Germany and offered to recruit more people for a sabotage and espionage force,” the statement said.

Sources told Der Spiegel that most of the information Sergei K. passed to Russia was publicly available and that there were no signs he had actually planned acts of sabotage. He likely contacted Russian intelligence services for ideological reasons.

The previous day, reports confirmed that German law enforcement officers had searched the home of a 43-year-old Lithuanian citizen who had lived in the country for several years. He is suspected of installing video cameras at a railway station in Minden to monitor weapons deliveries intended for Ukraine.

They said drones operated by Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces hit two Russian helicopters — a Mi-28 and a Mi-17 — near the village of Babki in the Voronezh Region, about 152 kilometers (94 miles), from the Ukrainian border. The open source intelligence (OSINT) channel Dnipro Osint ⟨Harbuz⟩ published the exact coordinates of the strike. At least one person was killed in the attack, according to the MADYAR channel, run by Unmanned Systems Forces commander Robert  "Madyar" Brovdi, which said the person can be seen in the video.

Separately, Ukraine’s 429th “Achilles” Unmanned Systems Brigade said it destroyed a Russian Nebo-M radar system near the settlement of Ukolovo, at the junction of the Belgorod and Kursk regions, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the border with Ukraine. Ukrainian forces said the strike hit the most vulnerable part of the system, making its further use impossible. The Nebo-M radar can cost up to $100 million, according to estimates previously cited by media outlets and Ukraine’s General Staff. Russian officials have not commented on the reported strikes.

The Nebo-M is a mobile, multifunctional radar system designed to detect aerodynamic and ballistic targets at medium and high altitudes. It can detect aircraft at distances of up to 500 to 600 kilometers (310 to 370 miles), ballistic targets at up to about 1,500 kilometers (930 miles), as well as low-observable and small targets, including drones and cruise missiles.

Russian Nebo-M radar systems have previously been targeted by Ukrainian strikes. On May 28, 2024, a Nebo-M system was hit near Luhansk, and in October of that year, Ukrainian forces also said they destroyed a Nebo-M radar using an ATACMS missile, though the exact location of the strike was not disclosed.

“Students of [the] Suvorov military and Nakhimov schools, cadet corps, as well as the military equipment column, will not participate in this year’s military parade because of the current operational situation,” the ministry said.

Aircraft will fly over Red Square, the ministry said. The marching column will include service members from universities representing all branches and separate arms of the Russian Armed Forces.

Russia has held the Victory Day parade annually since 1995. Heavy military equipment was first used in the parade in 2008. This year will be the first in 18 years that the parade is held without it.

The Victory Day parade was earlier canceled in the city of Nizhny Novgorod, over 270 miles east of Moscow, “because of security requirements,” while local authorities in the Voronezh Region — which shares a border with the Luhansk Region of Ukraine — canceled the firework display which usually mark the end of Victory Day. The Immortal Regiment, a march where participants carry portraits of relatives who fought or died in World War II, will be held online.

In recent months, Ukraine has regularly used drones to attack Russian industrial and energy infrastructure.

LSEG tracking data showed that 63 vessels passed through the English Channel within 22 kilometers, or about 14 miles, of the coastline. Another 35 passed through Britain’s exclusive economic zone, which extends up to 370 kilometers, or about 230 miles, from the coast, mostly around northern Scotland.

About two weeks after Starmer’s announcement, The Telegraph reported that the Russian Black Sea Fleet frigate Admiral Grigorovich was escorting “shadow fleet” tankers through the English Channel.

Britain’s sanctions list includes 544 vessels linked to Russia’s “shadow fleet,” which transports Russian oil in an effort to bypass Western sanctions.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quick to respond: “We hear you, we hear you!” In reply, Bonya posted a social media video in which she tearfully expressed her gratitude to the Russian authorities.

The exchange unfolded amid growing internet restrictions in Russia. Putin had given the green light to a massive effort — involving the FSB, the Digital Development Ministry, the presidential administration, and major tech firms VK, Yandex, Sberbank, and Rostelecom — to rapidly make the state-controlled messenger “Max” the dominant app in use by Russians, to tighten control over the use of VPNs, and to push out foreign platforms. However, once that rollout began, things started breaking down, with payment systems, delivery services, and car-sharing platforms experiencing extended outages. Meanwhile, the authorities began warning the public that they would track users who displayed unusually heavy VPN traffic.

The public was certainly not happy, but they largely put up with it. And the authorities didn’t let up: “We’re going to charge for VPNs,” they said. The public became upset a second time, but still said nothing. The third time, the dragon slithered down the mountain and said: “It’s time for our own patriotic ‘Tinder,’ approved through state services platform Gosuslugi.” Only then did the public let out a loud, strangled groan.

At that point, the presidential administration began brainstorming: somehow, this move had to be justified to the masses. But how? On orders from Putin’s Chief of Staff Alexei Gromov, Putin’s unofficial personal reporter Pavel Zarubin crept up to FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov with a camera crew while the domestic spy chief was sitting in the front row at yet another meeting. Ever the gentleman, Zarubin crouched down with the microphone, while the cameraman lay on the floor in order to frame a shot that would capture both men’s faces — and not their shoes. The septuagenarian Bortnikov, for his part, also showed a certain tact and flexibility, lowering his head toward his knees.

In a cheerful, optimistic whisper, Zarubin asked Bortnikov: “What is the cause of the people’s suffering?” Bortnikov’s answer went something like this: “There’s no other way. Ukrainian intelligence and the British puppeteers behind them are collecting all kinds of information at will. There’s a war on, and that can’t be allowed. Restrictions have to be endured for the common good.”

This, essentially, is where “Bonya” appeared. Loyal IT specialists suddenly perked up and said, as reported by The Bell: “Before, our cybersecurity colleagues from the FSB came to the meetings, and we all worked together peacefully. They’re not attending the meetings anymore, they’ve been replaced by the FSB’s Second Service!”

At this point, Gen. Sedov stirred. “Who in our meeting is talking to The Bell?” he must have shouted. “Bring me the wiretaps!”

And that’s where the people’s groans took the shape of “Victoria Anatolyevna Bonya, born in 1979, place of residence: Monaco.”

After that, the spectacle began to heat up. Putin invoked “socks” — the old wartime idea that everyone in the rear should help the front (even if they live in Monaco). The message was clear: while Rostec can make tanks and guns, Bonya can at least knit something useful in the fight against trench foot.

Pro-Kremlin commentator Vladimir Solovyov launched into an abusive tirade against Bonya, dragging Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni into it as well. That, in turn, provoked outrage among wealthy Moscow circles, who seemed to hear in the propagandist’s insults accusations aimed at them, too.

Meanwhile, as if to mock FSB chief Bortnikov’s calls for tighter cybersecurity, Ukrainian hackers broke into a government Zoom meeting on the drone program. The message was hard to miss: build your “sovereign AI” if you can, but remember that people will still ask it awkward questions — and the answers may not flatter the Kremlin.

At that point, the chaos seemed to take a break as all concerned parties began trying to read the signals.

Some saw Bonya as the voice of Rublyovka — Russia’s wealthy elite — and especially of the wives of powerful men. Surveillance and wiretapping are one thing; Moscow high society has long known how to live with that. But losing the ability to call their daughters at Cambridge was another matter entirely.

Others saw something different: the alliance behind the digital crackdown had broken down, and the FSB appareated to have overreached. In this reading, Bonya was not speaking only for herself, but for startled technocrats at Sberbank and Rostelecom as well. The FSB’s Second Service, critics say, is not built for cybersecurity. It is built for repression — all they know how to do is poison people. And digital control requires something subtler than brute force (or chemical nerve agents).

Even the ultrapatriotic camp seemed confused, openly admitting that there was disorder at the top and that the men in charge have no actual idea what’s happening.

Psychotherapists might say everyone had simply “overheated”: springtime nerves, mass hysteria, “induced delusion.” Then Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek appeared at a conference in Italy to declare: “This is the end of the world.”

If thirty years ago Francis Fukuyama could speak of the “end of history” in the Hegelian, secular sense — that the mission of the Enlightenment had ended in a complete victory for liberal modernity — Žižek last week was striking a higher note: Trump and Putin, he suggested, are two horsemen of the Apocalypse, and soon the Whore of Babylon will come in riding the Beast. In the face of this horror, Žižek says, we must retreat into the early Christian catacombs and wait it out there, fortified by Europe’s heritage — because there is no other.

Where Bonya goes from here is anyone’s guess. Will she disappear into the ranks of Russia’s New People party — the “alternative” to United Russia — ahead of nationwide parliamentary elections scheduled for September? Or will she step onto the pan-European stage as the leader of a new Russian feminism? Or will she simply make a quiet return to lifestyle vlogging?

The answer is not the point. The point is that Bonya has become a signal. Economists who once said the Russian system was stable are now saying something is wrong. Political analysts are saying the regime has reached a turning point.

If we look at Bonya as an eruption of the Russian collective unconscious, what is this dream about?

It is about the fact that, in the fifth year of the war, Putin’s “power vertical” has finally turned into horizontal sludge. The “tsar” has become “grandpa.” The bureaucracy sits in its nests, with its beaks open, asking “where and why are we fighting next?” The old answers no longer work, and the “spirit of Anchorage” has withered away.

The regime must take on a new form — its answer to four years of war. Most likely, that answer will come from “induced delusion,” collective overheating, and the rapid decay of the government’s once-rational technocratic core. All the system can produce now are demands for “positive content” and patriotic gestures like “knitting socks.” There is no path from here to any rationality, old or new.

All the system can produce now are demands for “positive content” and patriotic gestures like “knitting socks”

Oh, Bonya, Bonya. How frightening you are as a symbol of Russia’s transition, its bifurcation — or, in simpler terms, its fork in the road. You are the wounded bird crying one last “nevermore” before the sludge of the regime enters its final, terminal phase.

War in the Middle East

Speaking to Reuters, UAE Energy Minister Suhail Mohamed al-Mazrouei described the exit as a policy decision, made “after a careful look at current and future policies related to level of production,” and linked it to the depletion of the country’s strategic reserves.

The move comes amid the joint U.S.-Israeli operation against Iran, which has been ongoing since late February. The conflict has disrupted shipping in the region, particularly through the Strait of Hormuz, a key corridor for facilitating oil exports from countries in the Persian Gulf.

Reuters noted that the UAE’s decision followed criticism of other Arab states. On Monday, presidential diplomatic adviser Anwar Gargash accused them of doing too little to protect infrastructure from Iranian attacks, which have repeatedly targeted refineries and energy facilities.

“The GCC's stance was the weakest historically, considering the nature of the attack and the threat it posed to everyone,” Gargash said. “I expected such a weak stance from the Arab League… But I don't expect it from the GCC, and I am surprised by it,” he told a conference in Dubai.

The beginning of the end for the “oil cartel”

OPEC has existed since 1960, and the UAE joined in 1967. Its exit could deal a serious blow to oil-exporting countries and, in effect, to the group’s leader, Saudi Arabia. Analysts at Rystad Energy told The Insider that OPEC’s effectiveness has always depended on members’ willingness to limit supply, with the UAE playing a key role. With production capacity of about 4.8 million barrels per day and plans to expand, its departure removes a major lever of market influence.

“The timing tells you something about where the oil market is going. With demand nearing a peak, the calculation for producers with low-cost barrels is changing fast, and waiting your turn inside a quota system starts to look like leaving money on the table. Saudi Arabia is now left doing more of the heavy lifting on price stability, and the market loses one of the few shock absorbers it had left,” the analysts wrote in comments to The Insider.

Rystad Energy described the UAE’s exit as a “significant shift.” Alongside Saudi Arabia, the UAE was one of the few countries with substantial spare capacity, allowing the group to respond to supply disruptions. Its departure weakens OPEC’s ability to balance supply and demand.

In the short term, the impact may be limited by geopolitical tensions and supply disruptions, including in the Strait of Hormuz. But in the longer term, “structurally weaker OPEC, with less spare capacity concentrated within the group, will find it increasingly difficult to calibrate supply and stabilize prices.”

The analysts said OPEC+ still has the ability to respond to temporary crises by shifting supply over time. But as demand peaks and declines, producers’ incentives change. Countries with spare capacity may prefer boosting output and defending market share rather than adhering to quotas. In this context, the UAE is well positioned to pursue such a strategy outside OPEC.

The move also raises questions about Saudi Arabia’s role as the market’s key stabilizer, especially if it must shoulder a disproportionate burden. Overall, the analysts said, the net effect of the UAE’s exit points to “a more fragmented supply landscape and a potentially more volatile oil market over time.”

Carole Nakhle, CEO of Crystol Energy and secretary-general of the Arab Energy Club, told The Insider that in the short term prices will primarily be driven by the war involving Iran and associated supply risks. The UAE’s exit is secondary for now, and in the long term, the market will assess it alongside other factors such as global demand, supply developments in countries like Venezuela, and OPEC+ policy. The UAE’s ability to increase output outside quotas is just one factor, and its impact on prices will depend on how these dynamics evolve.

“[The UAE’s exit] is significant, both symbolically and practically. The UAE is a major producer and its departure can indicate internal tensions over quotas and compliance. That said, OPEC’s membership has changed over time. [Could this prompt other countries to leave the agreement?] It may encourage some members to reassess their position, particularly those dissatisfied with quotas. However, few have the capacity or strategic flexibility of the UAE to follow through.”

She added that Saudi Arabia’s role will become even more central, while the UAE, by being outside OPEC, will gain more freedom to maximize output, potentially prioritizing market share over price stability.

Nakhle, like Rystad Energy’s analysts, said Saudi Arabia will have to take on greater responsibility for managing supply and stabilizing the market, while facing increased pressure as the group’s main “anchor.”

The UAE, outside OPEC, will have more freedom to maximize returns from its expanded capacity, which could mean prioritizing market share over price management. Whether that leads to aggressive production growth will depend on market conditions, Nakhle said, but the risk of increased competition and downward pressure on prices will clearly rise.

OPEC will remain an important market player, Nakhle said. Although the departure of a major producer reduces the group’s overall weight, it could also simplify internal decision-making.

Financial analyst Maksim Blant, speaking to The Insider, called the UAE’s exit “the beginning of the end of the oil cartel” that has long played a major role in setting global oil prices.

“Right now, as the UAE quite correctly noted, OPEC’s role and influence on the global market have declined. That applies above all to Arab countries that depend on shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.

As a result, OPEC’s share of the global market has plummeted. Broadly speaking, while the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked, it makes little sense to say OPEC controls anything or has any meaningful influence. On the other hand, everything depends on how long the war in the Persian Gulf lasts. In theory, there had been forecasts that once the Strait of Hormuz was unblocked, OPEC would try to restore its influence on the global oil market, drive down oil prices, and push all its competitors out of the market.”

However, Blant said that, judging by the UAE’s statement, there is no consensus inside OPEC on how to act after Hormuz is unblocked. Abu Dhabi has likely decided it will be easier to make up lost wartime revenue on its own.

Sergey Vakulenko, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, made a similar point. He noted that the UAE had planned to increase oil production, something that is very difficult under OPEC membership. He said that, for the bloc itself, Abu Dhabi’s departure means a weaker position.

“Without the UAE, OPEC will be significantly weakened: other major producers — Iran and Iraq — did not have any substantial spare capacity. That role was mainly played by the UAE and Saudi Arabia. If the UAE begins producing oil at full capacity and gives up the role of oil market regulator, that responsibility will fall mainly on Saudi Arabia.”

Economist Ruben Enikolopov said it is far more advantageous for a state not to comply with limits on prices and volumes of oil sales and instead try to sell more oil at current prices, “counting on everyone else to bear the costs associated with maintaining high prices.”

“That’s why maintaining such cartels is actually a very difficult undertaking. It’s even surprising that OPEC has held out for so long, especially given that relations among its members are sometimes absolutely antagonistic from a political standpoint,” the expert concluded.

Given the war, the UAE’s decision is broadly logical, Israeli political analyst Mikhail Pellivert said, noting that Iran is also an OPEC member.

“It hardly makes sense to be part of the same organization as a country that has attacked you and continues to threaten you. Second, there are political circumstances. The UAE is distancing itself from the Saudis — and, understandably, from Iran — and moving closer to Israel and the U.S. This is forcing them to behave differently; they are thinking about how to free themselves from constraints, rather than being bound by certain restrictions, such as quotas… I would call this a distancing from Saudi Arabia and a rapprochement with Trump and Israel. And this fits into the logic of recent years: [the logic] of the destruction of old institutions, the old world order, and old alliances, and the emergence of new ones in their place.”

How will this affect oil prices?

Analysts note that the UAE’s move means less stability in the oil market going forward. However, it also means that the market will likely return closer to its “market state,” says Blant. Enikolopov agrees that the UAE’s exit from OPEC will likely lower prices in the long term.

Nakhle said volatility is now driven mainly by geopolitical risks, above all the war involving Iran. The UAE’s departure may add some uncertainty over future supply policy, but its effect on volatility will depend on how production decisions change — both by the UAE and by OPEC+ as a whole.

Tatiana Mitrova, an expert on global energy markets, said this is a warning sign for Russia.

“The UAE’s departure from OPEC+ right now matters not so much because of its immediate impact on the physical market, but as a signal that agreement within the alliance is weakening over quotas, strategy, and the very meaning of collective restrictions. While Hormuz remains closed, the Emirates physically cannot sharply increase exports: the bypass route through Fujairah, which is already fully loaded, does not replace its normal export system.

But once logistics normalize, this step may become much more significant: one of the strongest and most ambitious producers is effectively showing that it is ready to play by its own rules. For Russia, this is an alarming signal — not because it will immediately lose revenue, but because the mechanism of collective market management through which OPEC+ influenced prices is becoming less stable.”

Blant said the development is negative for Russia’s budget and oil exporters, as production costs are rising with the depletion of older fields.

He added that it also poses challenges for fiscal policy. In the past, excess revenue from high oil prices was directed into foreign currency reserves and later used when prices declined. That mechanism has effectively broken down and can be considered defunct, he said, with no alternative in place to stabilize budget revenues or support oil companies. As a result, he said, the current situation undermines the stability of Russia’s finances.

The list is being amplified by Alexei Gubanov, better known by his blogger name Jesus, but also known as JesusAVGN. Gubanov, who opposes Putin’s war in Ukraine and who has been designated as a “foreign agent” in Russia, previously drew attention to an Alabuga Polytech-linked tournament on Twitch, helping to publicize the names of streamers who promoted the center. Those streamers were later banned.

Who is on the list

The description of the list says these videos “create a false impression of Alabuga’s activities as exclusively educational or technological,” and that bloggers who placed the ads, knowingly or not, help justify the militarization of education and human rights violations.

At the time of publication, the list included 472 bloggers with a combined 531.6 million subscribers. Some advertising videos about Alabuga were published quite some time ago. For example, blogger HiMan, who has about 19.5 million subscribers, posted a report about the college three years ago. The video has not been deleted or changed.

The list’s author told The Insider that he tries to include all videos advertising Alabuga Polytech published since 2022, but that the main criterion is whether there is proof the video contained an ad. He said the evidence includes saved WebArchive pages with descriptions and links, as well as subtitles that directly mention the advertising integration.

According to the author, if bloggers quickly delete ads or cut them out of videos, it becomes difficult to document them, as YouTube updates subtitles and third-party services do not always preserve the data in time. He cited blogger Deadp47 as an example, saying the creator cut out the ad in question after publication and reuploaded the video. In some other cases, he said, the past presence of an ad can be judged only by indirect signs, such as user comments.

“I don’t have a specific goal. Ideally, of course, these accounts would be blocked, but I would also be satisfied if Alabuga advertising on YouTube stopped completely. I’m just trying to document it, while others can handle the complaints, restrictions, and so on,” the list’s author told The Insider.

How it worked on Twitch

On April 27, Twitch blocked more than a dozen Russian accounts after they streamed an Alabuga Polytech tournament and carried related advertising. Esports.ru reported that the formal reason was the venue’s inclusion under EU sanctions, which limits the platform’s ability to promote it. The bans were set for 30 days, pending a final decision by moderators.

How students are forced to assemble combat drones

The Alabuga Polytech educational center is located in the Alabuga special economic zone in Russia’s Tatarstan. In 2024, the independent outlet Current Time published an investigation presenting evidence that the polytechnic hires foreign students, including from neighboring Kazakhstan, as interns to assemble drones that are later used in attacks on Ukraine. The polytechnic’s own students also assemble drones.

In March, the independent science-focused outlet T-invariant reported that Alabuga Polytech and the Alabuga special economic zone had launched a major advertising campaign to recruit college students to assemble Iranian-designed Shahed one-way attack drones, whose Russian-manufactured variants are known as the “Geran” (meaning "Geranium").

The outlet said it obtained nearly 6.5 gigabytes of promotional videos in which underage students openly discuss working in drone production. It said the materials marked the first time Alabuga-linked ads directly mentioned combat drone assembly; notably, they showed workshops featuring the distinctive black drones.

In one video, a 16-year-old first-year student says she expects to start earning a significant salary next year by assembling drones, and that her parents are proud of her. Another student says he already earns 150,000 rubles ($1,900) a month by working as an incoming inspection specialist at the “largest drone production plant in the world.” Another participant in the videos says his father called him “a real man” after he began working at the factory. The archive was titled “Lodki” (lit. “Boats”) — a term open source intelligence (OSINT) researchers say Alabuga has used for several years to disguise its production of combat drones.

The Insider established that at least some of these teenagers are indeed students at Alabuga Polytech, and that they are from various regions of Russia, including Tatarstan and Moscow.

It is also reported that an advertising agency offered bloggers paid integrations using these videos. According to one blogger, companies looking to post a 25-second advertisement in this format must pay influencers between 250,000 ($3,200) and 1.5 million rubles ($19,000), depending on the size of the channel’s audience. While such compensation from companies looking to promote their product is not uncommon, the blogger said this was  the first time a potential advertiser had specifically made mention of Shahed drone production. By his estimate, tens of millions of rubles are spent on a campaign of this kind. One promotional post using these videos has already appeared on the pro-war “Rybar” channel, which has an audience of more than 1.5 million subscribers.

The investigation analyzed configurations — commands with attack parameters — that the organizers sent to connected devices from 2023 to 2026. They found that before July 2025, the hackers sent an average of around 6,300 attack commands per month. After that, the monthly average rose to 7,708. On average, about 300 attacks a month were successful, leaving websites temporarily unavailable to users.

From July 14 to 17, 2025, law enforcement agencies from Switzerland, the United States, and several EU countries carried out a large-scale operation in which they seized more than 100 of the group’s servers, conducted 24 searches, questioned 13 people, and issued seven arrest warrants. More than 1,000 others also received police warnings about liability for cybercrimes. Nevertheless, the attacks resumed within days — and even became more frequent, suggesting the law enforcement operation failed.

The targets included companies, banks, and government institutions in Western countries. In November 2025, websites belonging to several Danish government agencies, political parties, and media outlets were hit at once. As a result, local elections in Denmark came under threat: organizers stocked up on generators and flashlights, fearing power outages, though the situation did not go that far.

The attacks are carried out using a special program called DDoSia, which the group’s volunteer helpers install on their devices. The software generates hundreds of automated requests a day. For each request, a user can receive a reward in the project’s internal game currency, called decoins, which can then be exchanged for the TON cryptocurrency and later converted into real money through third-party apps. For example, a user can receive 50 decoins for 500,000 successful attacks in a day. One decoin is worth around 2.4 cents, and a single device infected with DDoSia can make up to several million requests a day, posing a serious threat to websites. The app is advertised on Telegram channels with offers to earn money in a “hacker online game” while “helping Russia on the information front.”

Europol believes the app’s developers and the group’s coordinators are two Russians: 39-year-old Mikhail Burlakov and 36-year-old Maxim Lupin. According to leaked data, both live in Moscow. Lupin heads the Center for the Study and Network Monitoring of the Youth Environment, known as TsISM, while Burlakov is his deputy. In that capacity, Lupin has taken part in meetings of the Presidential Council and a State Council commission, as well as the Congress of Young Scientists, which Vladimir Putin also attended.

On April 25, 31-year-old Cole Thomas Allen opened fire with a shotgun at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Russian security agencies responsible for hybrid operations used the incident to shape a narrative for Western audiences alleging that Ukraine and its supporters were involved in the attack.

Antibot4Navalny’s researchers identified at least nine categories of falsehood spread by the Matryoshka bot network during the campaign:

• Radicalization “related” to Ukraine. One video bearing the USA Today logo claims Allen was repeatedly reprimanded at his job at a tutoring company due to “his obsessive Ukrainian propaganda.” The fabricated video adds that he donated more than $20,000 to Ukraine, “hung Ukrainian flags,” and was interested in joining Ukraine’s armed forces. To support the claim of “pro-Ukrainian radicalization,” the bots cite “political scientist Roger Griffin,” who supposedly claimed that Allen was a “staunch supporter of Ukraine and the Democrats” who served as a “catalyst for radicalization.” Griffin said no such thing.
• Fake quote from Eliot Higgins. Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins is falsely quoted in a video posing as content from the BBC as saying that “European intelligence services will use a notorious supporter of Ukraine within the U.S. to try to eliminate President Trump.” According to the clip, Higgins is alleged to have repeatedly warned that European leaders were ready to take “extreme measures” due to Trump’s stance on Greenland and Iran.
• Fake quote from Pedro Pascal. A video claims the actor “expressed support” for the shooter and said Trump was to blame for the attack because he refused to help Ukraine.
• “Ukrainian employees” at the hotel. A video attributed to CNN claims the FBI is searching for two Ukrainians — father and son Dmytro and Valeriy Tomenko, who allegedly worked at the Washington Hilton as housekeepers — and says they “may have provided” the shooter with a floor plan.
• Fake Armenian reaction. Nazeli Baghdasaryan, the Armenian prime minister’s press secretary, is falsely portrayed as posting a message mocking Trump after the assassination attempt, while Armenia’s ambassador was supposedly summoned by the U.S. State Department.
• ICE raids on Ukrainian refugees. Another claim says Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry condemned supposed raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at shelters for Ukrainians after the assassination attempt because “the shooter allegedly had accomplices among Ukrainian refugees.” The fake story claims "there are entire groups of Ukrainians who may be planning violent acts against U.S. authorities.”
• A Ukrainian accomplice. Another fake reel, posing as content from The Washington Post, claims Allen’s phone contained correspondence with a certain “Dmytro Rymarenko,” who allegedly entered the United States through the Mexican border with two other Ukrainians — the aforementioned Dmitry and Valery Tomenko who were apparently employed by the Washington Hilton. All three are supposedly wanted by U.S. authorities.
• TikTok flash mob. The campaign claims Ukrainian users are “flooding” the platform with photos of the shooter under the hashtag #NextTime. “Political scientist Andrzej Gil” is quoted as saying Ukrainians “are lamenting the failure of the assassination attempt” and that “the same fate awaits all of Ukraine’s supporters.”
• A note “to save an entire nation.” Citing the New York Post, the campaign claims a note was found in the shooter’s car “declaring that he is ready to become a martyr to restore justice.” In the supposed note, Allen accused Trump of “leaving Ukraine to its fate” and explained his actions as being an attempt to “save an entire nation.” The reel alleged that Allen “intended to take his own life, which is why he left a suicide note in the car.”

The videos are spread posing as content from Western media outlets, government agencies, and international organizations to create an illusion of credibility.

What is Matryoshka?

Matryoshka is a Kremlin-linked network of bots, trolls, and coordinated anonymous platforms specializing in the mass spread of disinformation. Its key tool is short vertical videos made to look like content from authoritative Western media outlets and organizations. Such videos are posted simultaneously on X, Telegram, Bluesky, and in closed chats.

As previously reported by The Insider, the Matryoshka network is part of a broader system of disinformation operations linked to the Russian authorities and security services. After the collapse of structures associated with Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin’s “troll factory,” the coordination of these campaigns moved to the Russian presidential administration. The work is overseen by senior officials, including Sergei Kiriyenko.

Content creation has been outsourced to private contractors, including the Social Design Agency and its affiliated entities. These organizations develop disinformation-oriented content aimed at foreign audiences, including fake news, memes, and videos.

Russian intelligence services, particularly the GRU, play a separate role. Disinfo operations may involve officers under diplomatic cover, as well as foreign intermediaries and recruited participants. Several campaigns, including one known as Storm-1516, have been directly linked to these entities.

The release was part of a U.S.-brokered prisoner exchange involving Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine. It came amid a broader effort to draw Belarus closer to the West, with talks led by Donald Trump’s special envoy to Belarus, John Coale.

Among those freed in Belarus was journalist and Union of Poles activist Andrzej Poczobut, who was arrested in March 2021 and sentenced in 2023 to eight years in prison. According to Belarusian state news agency BelTA, Poczobut was included in the exchange “in view of a personal request” to Alexander Lukashenko from Poczobut’s mother. Poczobut is a co-winner of the 2025 Sakharov prize, alongside Mzia Amaglobeli from Georgia, who is currently serving a two-year sentence on political grounds. The award was bestowed in absentia, with European Parliament president Roberta Metsola hailing both as “two journalists whose courage shines as a beacon for all who refuse to be silenced.” 

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirmed Poczobut’s release, posting a photo of him on social media and writing: “Andrzej Poczobut is free! Welcome to your Polish home, my friend.”

The FSB also said Belarus handed over two “officers of the Moldovan security services.”

The exchange took place April 28 at the Pererov-Belovezha crossing on the Belarusian-Polish border. The Belarusian KGB said its intelligence service and Poland’s Foreign Intelligence Agency took part in the operation. The “five for five” swap saw people convicted of espionage in Belarus and Russia exchanged for five citizens detained in EU countries and other states.

Belarusian state media said 10 people in total were freed in the exchange — citizens of multiple countries who were “given the opportunity to reunite with their families.” They also claimed some of the individuals included in the swap were Belarusian citizens who had carried out “particularly important tasks in the interests of national security,” and that Lukashenko’s had personally worked to secure their release.

In 2024, Polish national Poczobut was one of the notable figures who was not included in the largest prisoner exchange between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War — this despite the fact that Russian intelligence officer Pavel Rubtsov (also known as Pablo González), who had been held in Poland, was handed over to Russia at the request of the United States. On the day of the exchange, John Coale, the U.S. president’s special envoy for Belarus, held several meetings in Warsaw, including with Polish President Karol Nawrocki and Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski. The content of the talks was not officially disclosed.

Meanwhile, a Polish citizen remains imprisoned in the self-proclaimed “Luhansk People’s Republic.” In April, the “republic’s” “Supreme Court” sentenced 47-year-old Krzysztof Flaczek to 13 years in a maximum-security penal colony on charges of mercenarism. According to the court, he came to the combat zone “for material reward” and fought on the side of Ukraine before being captured by Russian forces.

Butyagin’s arrest

Alexander Butyagin, head of the Northern Black Sea archaeology sector in the Hermitage Museum’s Department of the Ancient World, was detained in Warsaw in December at Ukraine’s request. At the time of his arrest, he was traveling in Europe and giving lectures. Ukrainian authorities accuse him of conducting illegal archaeological work in annexed Crimea, particularly at the site of the ancient city of Myrmekion in Kerch. Investigators say Butyagin was involved in the destruction of cultural heritage sites on the peninsula, with damage estimated at more than 200 million hryvnias ($4.8 million).

The archaeologist has worked at excavations in Myrmekion since the 1980s. Colleagues previously noted that before 2014, he had received permits from Ukrainian authorities to do work on the peninsula, but after Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, that was no longer possible.

On March 18, a court in Warsaw had approved Butyagin’s extradition to Ukraine, but that process was never carried out.

No casualties have been reported in the latest fire, and the scale of the damage is currently unknown. NASA satellites detected a fire in the area of the Tuapse refinery, as indicated by data from the agency’s FIRMS service.

Telegram channels published footage of the fire at the facility (1, 2). Ostorozhno Novosti, citing local residents, reported that the drone attack lasted several hours. Surveillance camera footage published by the independent outlet Astra showed a thick plume of smoke rising from the site of the fire.

Residents of homes near the facility were urged to evacuate “because of the threat of the fire spreading,” wrote Tuapse mayor Sergei Boyko.

The broadcaster RTVI published video of the fire in the city several hours after the first reports of the attack broke. According to the outlet’s correspondent, “two or three” new tanks at the Tuapse refinery that had not previously been hit were burning. Ostorozhno Novosti reported that the smoke plume was visible from the resort of Krasnaya Polyana, located near  the resort city of Sochi.

This is the third attack on the Tuapse refinery in the past 12 days. The facility was first hit on April 16. Several days later, an oil slick was spotted near the city’s port, with the regional emergency headquarters saying at the time that the spill was caused by the drone attack. The previous fire at the marine terminal in Tuapse began overnight April 20 after another Ukrainian drone attack. After that, “black rain” — precipitation mixed with the byproducts of burning oil — began falling across the city. That fire took four days to extinguish.

After the April 28 attack, a correspondent for the independent environment-focused Russian outlet Kedr recorded black streams in the Tuapse River that “differ sharply from the color of the water and look like petroleum products.”

Kim Jong Un mentioned the practice of suicide at the unveiling of a memorial in Pyongyang dedicated to North Korean soldiers killed in Russia’s war against Ukraine. He referred at least twice to soldiers who carried out “self-blasting” to avoid capture, calling them “heroes who unhesitatingly opted for self-blasting, suicide attack, in order to defend the great honor... did not expect any compensation, though they performed distinguished feats. They died a heroic death.”

Western officials had previously stated that North Korean soldiers were committing suicide on the battlefield to avoid capture by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In late 2024, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said there had been several cases in which North Korean soldiers took their own lives to avoid capture — “likely out of fear of reprisal against their families in North Korea in the event that they’re captured.”

In addition, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in December 2024 that Russian troops and North Korean commanders were “doing everything” to ensure that the soldiers could not be taken prisoner:

“We see that Russian military personnel and North Korean supervisors are not at all interested in the survival of North Koreans. Everything is done in a way that makes it impossible for us to take Koreans prisoner: [the wounded] are finished off — there have been such cases. And the Russians send them into assaults with minimal protection.”

However, prior to Kim’s comments, there had been no official confirmation of the practice.

On April 26, Pyongyang hosted a ceremony to unveil a memorial complex and museum dedicated to North Korean soldiers who took part in combat operations against the Ukrainian army. In 2024 alone, North Korea sent about 11,000 troops to Russia to participate in the fighting, of whom, according to NATO, around 1,500 were killed. North Korean authorities only confirmed the deployment of their troops in 2025, saying their forces were carrying out a “sacred mission.” 

On Jan. 27, 2026, in Irkutsk, 32-year-old Roman Michurin, a participant in the war against Ukraine, decided to ambush his wife. Because of constant beatings and abuse, she had sought refuge at the crisis center of the Obereg charitable foundation. The center helps women with children facing hardship. Roman did not find his wife that day. Instead, he came across 42-year-old Elena, his wife’s roommate at the crisis center.

Threatening her with a knife, Roman took Elena hostage and forcibly led her to his apartment. Law enforcement officers who responded to the call kept Michurin’s apartment under siege for five hours, negotiating with him, urging him to surrender and return to the front. In response, he demanded that they shoot his wife and send him a video of her dying. In the end, Roman strangled Elena and then surrendered to police. Elena’s two daughters, aged six and twelve, were left orphaned.

Roman Michurin committed his first murder at age 15, stabbing his neighbor to death in a communal apartment. Michurin was later tried three more times for violence, drug possession, and property damage. Each time, he received a suspended sentence. Women who knew Michurin describe his extraordinary jealousy and brutality.

When yet another criminal case was opened against Roman Michurin for attempting to strangle a girlfriend who had decided to leave him, he feared receiving a real prison sentence and chose instead to volunteer for the war against Ukraine. Several months later, he was wounded by shrapnel. After recovering in a military hospital, he was supposed to undergo a medical review and return to the front. But Michurin deserted and went back to Irkutsk, where he worked as a driver and married again.

Driven by jealousy, Michurin beat his new wife until her entire back was covered in bruises. He also strangled her with a cord. On one occasion, he plunged a knife into her leg. The woman repeatedly tried to escape her abusive husband, leaving him for the Obereg crisis center together with her child from a previous marriage, but each time she returned to Michurin.

Driven by jealousy, Michurin beat his new wife until her entire back was covered in bruises, strangled her with a cord, and stabbed her with a knife

Staff at the center reported the unstable man to police at least ten times, but officers limited their actions to preventive talks. The woman herself did not file complaints against Michurin out of both fear and a desire to keep the family together, according to Obereg director Alexander Sobolev. Remarkably, Michurin’s case failed to interest even the military prosecutor’s office, which confirmed to Obereg staff that Roman was wanted but communicated that the authorities had no desire to search for him independently.

Then came the tragedy involving Elena, after which people began talking about Obereg far beyond Irkutsk Oblast. Still, those who personally knew Roman Michurin doubt that he will be punished for the killing. They are convinced that he will once again sign up for service on the front, then return to Irkutsk Oblast and continue “to beat and kill.”

What happened in Irkutsk is illustrative of a larger fact: the Russian state is not taking effective measures to combat domestic violence. As a result, thousands of women lose their lives and health every year. The country lacks shelters where a woman in difficult circumstances can seek refuge, and police do not provide adequate security even for the few facilities that do exist.

Human rights advocates expect that in the coming years, hundreds of thousands of people with severe psychological trauma will return from the war, leading to a colossal surge in domestic violence.

The state is on the side of abusers

Experts interviewed by The Insider agree that official data on domestic violence do not reflect the true scale of the problem in Russia. The country has no law on the prevention of domestic violence and, accordingly, no official definition of what should be considered domestic violence.

Crimes against women only appear in the Interior Ministry’s official reports on “family and domestic violence” in the event that the perpetrator and victim are legally married. Cases that do not end in a court conviction are also excluded from the statistics. Back in 2017, Vladimir Putin partially decriminalized domestic battery, reclassifying it as an administrative offense provided that the violence caused no consequences and was committed for the first time.

In the absence of reliable official statistics, experts must gather the data themselves. As part of the Algorithm of Light project, specialists from the Consortium of Women’s Non-Governmental Organizations analyzed court practice in cases involving murder and the infliction of grievous bodily harm.

According to their data, in 2022–2023 at least 2,284 women — 66% of all female murder victims in the country — died as a result of domestic violence. In the overwhelming majority of cases (2,123 verdicts), the woman was killed by her partner.

These figures, as analyzed by Algorithm of Light, have remained more or less stable since 2011 — with the exception of a short-term spike in 2020–2021, when COVID lockdowns saw the share of women killed as a result of domestic violence rise to 70.9–71.7% of female murder victims. It follows that the most dangerous place for a woman in Russia is her own home.

The most dangerous place for a woman in Russia is her own home

At the same time, domestic violence results in murder only in extreme cases. Stalking, threats to life and health, beatings, and sexualized violence are situations activists defending women’s rights encounter far more often.

“The number of people turning to us has grown,” says Russian human rights advocate Sofya (surname withheld for safety reasons). “And requests related to violence in partner and family relationships still predominate. On the other hand, judging by my practice, women more often refuse to see the process through and file complaints less frequently. They no longer trust the system. They fear publicity will lead to bullying.”

Law enforcement agencies are indeed reluctant to open such cases and sometimes even side with offenders, Sofya says:

“Many times we have encountered situations where police refused to accept complaints about beatings. In the end, through appeals to the prosecutor’s office and to the police chief, it is still possible to challenge those refusals. Then a criminal case is opened. But how many such cases would ever be opened without the help of human rights advocates?

“The Interior Ministry may deliberately fill out statistical reporting forms improperly, and some things disappear altogether. Yet all of that is what forms the overall picture of domestic violence. So the real situation is far worse than we imagine.”

The North Caucasus as the center of domestic violence

At the beginning of 2025, the Ad Rem project, which helps women and children in situations involving violence and discrimination, presented a report based on an analysis of 75 specific cases from human rights advocates, as well as a series of interviews with lawyers, attorneys, and crisis center staff. The overwhelming majority of cases handled by the Ad Rem team — 72 out of 75 — concerned the North Caucasus regions of Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ingushetia.

Human rights advocates concluded that state bodies, instead of protecting women from violence, systematically side with their abusers. In the North Caucasus, women are beaten and tortured, forced into marriage, and blackmailed with the threat of losing their children.

Because of regional specifics, courts almost always side with the father in divorce proceedings. In effect, a unified mechanism has formed there consisting of courts, guardianship authorities, bailiffs, and the muftiate — all of whom help abusers deprive their victims of freedom.

If a woman turns to the police, law enforcement authorities are far more likely to side not with the victim but with her parents and husband. If she tries to flee, she will be declared wanted as a missing person. As a lawyer from Ad Rem who specializes in women’s cases explained to The Insider, in such situations neither “a video statement by the woman herself saying she left voluntarily, nor the fact that she is an adult, nor her complaint, nor her personal visit to the police matters – all of it is ignored, and she is baselessly declared missing.”

If a woman turns to police, they are far more likely to side not with the victim, but with her parents and husband

Often, criminal cases are opened against women who flee based on false accusations that they have absconded with money or jewelry. That is exactly what relatives did to 21-year-old Aina Mankiyeva from Ingushetia, who is visually impaired. In April 2025, she fled her home after enduring constant beatings. Her mother responded by filing a complaint accusing her of stealing 20,000 rubles ($266). Aina was detained in Moscow and could have been sent back home had human rights advocates and the press not succeeded in generating a major public campaign in her support.

Of course, not all stories have such a positive ending. In the summer of 2023, police detained 26-year-old Seda Suleimanova on the suspicion she had stolen her mother’s jewelry when fleeing Grozny, where she was about to be forced into marriage. In the end, police returned her to Chechnya, where she appears to have ended up becoming the victim of an “honor killing.”

In October 2025, a 23-year-old Chechen woman named Aishat Baimuradova was killed in Yerevan after fleeing violence — including sexualized abuse — that she had endured since childhood. As human rights advocates found, Aishat was a distant relative of Ramzan Kadyrov, and her husband trained Chechen military personnel in shooting.

Systematic pressure in the North Caucasus is directed not only against women themselves, but also at human rights advocates and activists who dare to help victims. For example, one rights advocate told Ad Rem that the husband of a woman she helped several years ago has continued to harass her with denunciations and threats.

The advocate has also been threatened with having her son’s head cut off, and reminded that those issuing the warnings know which school her granddaughter attends. The source does not believe anyone will actually follow through, but receiving such threats is disturbing in itself.

The rights advocate has been threatened that her son’s head will be cut off, and is reminded that those issuing the warning know which school her granddaughter attends

Specialists at Ad Rem also warn of a looming rise in domestic violence tied to the return of participants in the war against Ukraine. Monitoring organizations have not yet recorded a surge in related appeals — as Ad Rem explains, this trend will become fully visible only after a full demobilization. However, women abused by veterans already fear criminal punishment for “discrediting” the army and do not believe the state will protect them after more men return from the front.

Experts are particularly concerned by legal mechanisms created in 2023 that allow defendants and convicted offenders in criminal cases to completely avoid punishment by signing up for the war. As Sofya explains:

“In our practice, there have been more requests connected with the inability to hold participants in the so-called ‘special military operation’ accountable. Such people return home after being wounded, then begin stalking, beating people, and smashing windows. Police do nothing in these situations, and investigators say they can do nothing because these people go back to the front after preemptively renewing their contracts. There are cases when a person sends threats from the front itself. One young woman, for example, received various disturbing WhatsApp messages from her former husband while he was in the combat zone.”

How a shelter works and whom it protects

An important factor in combating domestic violence is the availability of shelters. According to various estimates, the number of crisis centers currently operating in Russia does not exceed 150. That is an order of magnitude less than what is needed for a country of 140 million people.

The shortage is exacerbated by the fact that shelters are unevenly distributed across the country. For example, across all of Yakutia, only the women-and-children shelter run by the Children of Sakha-Asia foundation is operating. Previously, victims of domestic violence were also assisted by the “You Are Not Alone, Yakutia Is With You” community. But on April 1, 2026, that center announced its closure due to a lack of resources. According to the interactive map of the Aistenok project, only one crisis center for women — with only 15 beds — exists in the entire Komi Republic, and only two operate across the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug.

State-run and private centers have their own particular features. Private ones suffer more from a critical lack of funding, while in state-run centers, highly conservative psychologists may try to persuade a woman to reconcile with her husband and preserve the family even in cases of extremely abusive relationships. In shelters affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church, a priest may even replace a psychologist. State centers often also refuse HIV positive victims, and in Moscow only those with permanent registration and residency permits are accepted.

The director of one Russian shelter, Inga (name changes for security reasons), has worked in the field since the early 2010s. She notes that, contrary to stereotypes, women seeking help most often do not come from marginalized social groups. Among them are doctors, nurses, lawyers, designers, as well as refugees or migrants who cannot be admitted to a state crisis center because they lack registration. Women from poorer social strata, by contrast, more often endure violence for as long as possible in an effort to preserve the family.

“We work with a fairly broad range of survivors: these may be women subjected to violence in marriage, victims of trafficking, and people who have found themselves in situations where there is a threat to life,” she says. “After 2022, funding declined sharply because international organizations left our market, and in general it became dangerous to work with them. Competition for Russian grants, meanwhile, has increased enormously. People work – and often overwork – for very small salaries or purely out of personal commitment. We are trying to survive. What else are we supposed to do?”

At present, Inga’s organization handles between 45 and 60 relevant requests each month. Since 2022, the number of monthly requests has increased by roughly 30–40%, while the number of places in the shelter has remained unchanged. Those who cannot be accommodated are referred to state-run facilities. Over the past eight months, however, those centers have begun responding that they have no vacancies left.

Since 2022, the number of monthly requests for placement in a shelter has increased by roughly 30-40%

Another trend Inga says she cannot ignore is the growing number of women seeking help who are dealing with psychiatric problems. She is inclined to link this directly to the fact that COVID lockdowns, followed by the start of the full-scale war, seriously undermined Russians’ mental health. The stress associated with domestic abuse, along with the financial insecurity women often face when leaving an abuser, clearly does not contribute to emotional stability.

Inga says with regret that the shelter simply lacks the resources to help such women:

“It is difficult for such a resident to live in a shelter because everyone around her seems like an enemy or a traitor who has gone over to the side of her abuser. They fall into paranoid states and feel they are constantly being watched. We do not know what to do about this, and unfortunately the trend is only increasing.

“People do not want to deal with the state psychiatric system or enter inpatient care because they fear losing their driver’s licenses and being deprived of employment opportunities. It is a sad story. And besides: if the husband turned out to be an abuser, and the woman breaks down and needs hospitalization, where will the children go during that time? Children cannot stay here without their mother.”

According to Inga, this shelter has also had to hide the wives of soldiers during their husbands’ leave, as well as women whose spouses were discharged from the military for health reasons: “Such a person can create living conditions that are impossible to endure. Returning from the war, he may bring weapons with him. There have already been threats to throw a grenade.”

The center also warns women that they have no right to disclose the shelter’s address to the husbands they fled. But there have been cases when residents violated this rule: “Then we ask the woman either to follow the protocols or to leave the shelter, because otherwise she is putting not only herself, but all of us in danger.”

After the tragedy in Irkutsk, administrators of many shelters across Russia are experiencing similar fears. The centers do not have the money to fully ensure the safety of their residents. In most cases, all they can do is install an emergency panic button.

Repression against activists

Domestic violence is not only a Russian problem. In 2011, 46 European countries signed the Istanbul Convention on combating domestic violence (though Turkey and Latvia later withdrew). One of the key recommendations of this document is to provide 24-hour support hotlines. Russia refused to become a signatory because, in the view of authorities in the country, the convention’s provisions do not correspond to “traditional moral and family values.”

Andrey Klishas, head of the Russian Federation Council’s committee on constitutional legislation and state building, said that the country has not found a way to combat domestic violence that satisfies all segments of society. The adoption of stronger legislation, according to the senator, is viewed by many as state interference in family affairs and could even harm victims more than help them:

“When a man beat a woman and received a huge fine, and then the fine was taken from the family budget and handed to the state, how did that help the woman? Or let us imagine he was sent to a penal colony. And then what does she do with his children? How much will he earn in the colony? How will he support the family?”

Shelter director Inga notes that the arguments closely resemble the fears of juvenile justice that unite many Russian conservatives:

“People are very afraid of state interference in the family, that it will come and take someone away — that children will go complain to juvenile authorities that their parents did not buy them a smartphone, and then officials will come and remove the children. All of that is, of course, complete nonsense. Domestic violence is not about some fight simply happening. There are families in which a husband and wife fight, but such a man would not be called an abuser, because the spouses are on equal footing and neither fears the other. Domestic violence is always about power, psychological coercion, and control, when the abuser begins treating the victim as an object.”

Sometimes abusers spend years creating a situation in which the victim becomes completely financially and emotionally dependent on them. At first, the abuser courts a woman very affectionately, but then gradually isolates her from family and friends, and finally begins beating her. This process is usually drawn out over a long period, and helping someone caught in such a situation is hardly possible without a system of accessible shelters.

Russian authorities are not only decriminalizing domestic violence and blocking bills aimed at combating it, but also persecuting activists who work with its victims. In December 2020, Nasiliu.net (lit. “no to violence”), the country’s largest organization defending victims of domestic violence, was designated a “foreign agent.” The organization’s head, Anna Rivina, claimed that the move was motivated largely by Russian authorities’ displeasure at the foundation’s lobbying in support of a domestic violence law.

In February 2023, Rivina herself was also designated as a “foreign agent.” Nasiliu.net did its best to continue operating despite being cut off from every source of funding except donations. Then, in October 2025, the foundation was forced to announce its closure, after which a group of former employees accused Rivina herself of systematic psychological abuse and creating intolerable working conditions.

“Initially, things worked like this for us: if you worked for a charitable organization providing assistance, then you could no longer speak publicly on political issues,” says feminist activist Leda Garina, organizer of the Rebra Evy project. “And since 2022, any activity at all has begun to be suppressed.” For example, in February of this year, Otkrytoe Prostranstvo, an important counseling center, was designated a “foreign agent.”

The Rebra Evy project had its own support center. It provided psychological assistance and hosted numerous events in different formats: feminist schools, traveling universities, film festivals, performance training, lectures, and support groups for women who had faced violence.

“All of that is impossible to do online,” says Leda Garina. “And besides, two weeks before the war began, we came under surveillance. People were constantly hanging around nearby, and it was clear that if we did not leave and close the space immediately, we would face serious problems.”

Under the new political reality, the activist says, with feminism effectively criminalized, some organizations have managed to adapt and preserve their work inside Russia. Shelters continue to operate because they make no political statements and in no way interfere with the state.

The situation is more complicated for LGBT shelters. Organizations of that kind have to disguise themselves in a way that makes them appear as harmless as possible – up to and including as knitting clubs. “That does not mean LGBT people will be unable to get support. It means they will have to search very hard for it,” the source explains.

Despite the obstacles imposed by the state, the issue matters to Russians. A petition titled “Adopt a Law on Combating Domestic Violence,” written by lawyer Polina Burlakova, gathered the 100,000 signatures required on the Russian Public Initiative (ROI) platform for federal-level consideration. Feminists from different Russian cities responded to the initiative by posting photographs with signs in support of Burlakova.

The ROI expert council assessed the initiative positively, sending recommendations to the Ministry of Justice of Russia, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, and other relevant agencies to introduce protective orders for survivors of violence. If the measures are adopted, people convicted of such crimes would be legally prohibited from approaching their victims.

Russia ranked third in military spending globally, behind the United States and China, which spent $954 billion and $336 billion, respectively. U.S. spending fell by 7.5%, a drop analysts linked to the absence of new financial aid packages for Ukraine. They expect U.S. defense spending to rise in the future. China, meanwhile, increased spending by 7.4%, continuing a growth pattern that has lasted more than three decades.

Ukraine ranked seventh last year amid the ongoing Russian invasion, with $84.1 billion in military spending — a 20% year-on-year increase bringing the total to 40% of the country’s GDP.

Combined military spending by all countries tracked by SIPRI rose by 2.9%, exceeding $2.8 trillion. SIPRI said the main driver of the growth was European NATO members. Germany led among them, ranking fourth worldwide with $114 billion in spending, up 24%. Spain’s spending jumped 50% to $40.2 billion.

However, as SIPRI senior researcher Diego Lopes da Silva noted, traditional U.S. allies around the world showed a similar trend:

“U.S. allies in Asia and Oceania such as Australia, Japan, and the Philippines are spending more on their militaries, not only due to long-standing regional tensions but also due to growing uncertainty over U.S. support. As in Europe, U.S. allies in Asia and Oceania are also under pressure from the Trump administration to spend more on their militaries.”

Despite active regional conflicts, countries in the Middle East kept spending stable, with total expenditures coming in at an estimated $218 billion in 2025, just 0.1% higher than in 2024. Israel and Iran actually spent 4.9% and 5.6% less on defense than in the previous year, respectively, while most neighboring countries increased their spending.

“Despite the recent conflicts, Iran’s military spending decreased in real terms due to economic difficulties. However, official figures almost certainly understate the true level of Iran’s spending — Iran also uses off-budget oil revenues to finance its military, including the production of missiles and drones,” commented Zubaida Karim, a researcher with the SIPRI Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme. 

The suspects were detained in March 2025. Investigators say the group planned to kill Bashkir activist Ruslan Gabbasov, who had received political asylum in Lithuania, and a Lithuanian political adviser known for his anti-Russian rhetoric. The alleged killers were promised a total of €40,000, while the organizer was promised €50,000. Members of the group followed the potential victims, photographed and filmed them, and installed a listening device in the political adviser’s car.

The case involves citizens of Greece, Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania.

"We are witnessing hybrid-style crimes against European Union countries, their national security, and persons who act in support of Ukraine," Briginas told reporters.

Police also believe the same suspects were behind an arson attack in Bulgaria on military equipment bound for Ukraine, and that they also conducted espionage targeting the Greek military.

In April 2026, at Vilnius’ request, authorities in Thessaloniki detained an unnamed 55-year-old suspect who is described as an ethnic Greek who lived in the Republic of Georgia. A court subsequently ordered his extradition to Lithuania. Investigators believe the man helped finance the operation by transferring €5,000 through intermediaries.

Bashkir activist Gabbasov later publicly confirmed that he was the target of the assassination plot. He said the planned killing was preceded by repeated attempts to lure him back to Russia, including through the arrest of his brother, Rustam Fararitdinov, with an offer to release him in exchange for the activist’s return. Gabbasov said that on the day the attack was allegedly planned, a hitman was waiting for him near his home as he returned with his wife and 5-year-old son. 

This is not the first Russian intelligence operation uncovered in Lithuania. In 2025, a Lithuanian court handed down a 40-month prison sentence to an 18-year-old Ukrainian man who set fire to an IKEA warehouse in Vilnius while acting in the interests of Russian security services.

By placing part of its fleet in the civilian registry, the Defense Ministry can bypass restrictions imposed on military aircraft. International law requires complex and easily traceable permits for military aircraft to cross national borders and bars them from using commercial airports. However, Russian aircraft, posing as civilian charter flights, transport military cargo to major transit hubs in the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and African countries, the investigation alleged. In 2023, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned the 223rd Flight Unit for transporting Wagner mercenaries, weapons, and resources through Syria, Sudan, Mali, and the Central African Republic. The 224th Flight Unit and its Director General, Vladimir Mikheychik, were sanctioned over the use of nominally civilian Il-76 aircraft to move ballistic missiles from North Korea to Russia.

State squadrons are only part of a broader shadow logistics network, the investigators found. Dallas-Analytics published documents that it said proved the use of private civilian airlines for military purposes. In particular, Aviacon Zitotrans transported military helicopters to Laos in 2020, missile systems and warheads to India in 2022, and “dangerous goods” to Syria in 2023. The carrier also helped move military cargo from Russia to China on behalf of key Russian defense companies and delivered electronic equipment from Uganda for the Almaz-Antey concern.

“What the extreme operational tempo of the war in Ukraine has done is massively accelerate this systemic integration. Beyond direct contracting for the military authorities, commercial air freight operators like Aviacon Zitotrans are now deeply embedded in the supply chains of heavily sanctioned state enterprises responsible for manufacturing critical military hardware and munitions,” Dallas-Analytics wrote.

The network of private airlines involved in military tasks also includes Abakan Air, Volga-Dnepr, and Gelix Airlines, among others. The Russian Defense Ministry also regularly charters aircraft from major civilian companies to rapidly move troops, the investigators said. Those include Ural Airlines, which transported military personnel to closed transit hubs in Rostov-on-Don and annexed Simferopol.

Civilian cargo aircraft used for Russian Defense Ministry transport are also often parked near military sites, air defense systems, or tactical aviation units. At facilities such as Koltsovo in Yekaterinburg, the line between an ordinary passenger airport and a military logistics zone is blurred. At such locations, civilian infrastructure is effectively used as cover for military transport, posing risks to ordinary passengers, crews, and ground staff, the article noted.

Dallas-Analytics reported that sanctioned Russian cargo aircraft still receive maintenance, fuel, and access to transit infrastructure in a number of countries that have not joined Western sanctions. That allows them to preserve routes and effectively continue operating in the interests of Russian military logistics.

One of the researchers interviewed by T-invariant says he has spent the past two years asking colleagues at MSU’s Research Computing Center “what is going on over at Tikhonova’s,” but they “just shrug — they’re not allowed in there.” Access to the machine is limited to a narrow circle of staff within the ecosystem itself, while Lomonosov-2, the university’s older supercomputer, which is available to other specialists, is outdated and regularly breaks down.

T-invariant found that the MSU-270, worth at least $37.4 million, was assembled from Nvidia equipment purchased through a Chinese intermediary. In the tender documentation, the components were listed under the nonexistent brand SOLAR PEAK, but their specifications clearly identify them as Nvidia products — despite the company itself ending all product sales, shipments, and business operations in Russia in 2022.

In March, VTB Bank, the financial partner of MSU’s AI ecosystem, began introducing Chinese GPUs across all key AI-related processes: computer vision, text analysis, speech recognition, and generative models. According to the bank’s deputy president Vadim Kulik, testing has demonstrated the high performance of the Chinese processors without significant modifications. At the Data Fusion Awards forum in April, MSU’s AI Institute received a VTB award for “cooperation on a new AI project in China” — the details of the project were not publicly disclosed.

Deripaska provides funding for the faculty’s educational functions through the Volnoe Delo foundation, his best-known charitable organization. Two of the billionaire’s other foundations, Intelleсt and Basis, had also supported the AI center and institute, as well as programs for students in other university departments. Deripaska was one of the key speakers at the April 21 presentation, quoted by all major federal TV channels, and even featured on the Vremya program with Yekaterina Andreyeva. According to T-invariant, his initiatives clearly received approval from above.

According to the outlet, the entire structure is managed by Tikhonova, who oversees MSU’s AI research center, the MSU AI Institute, the MSU-270 supercomputer, and the Faculty of AI, which opened on April 21, 2026. Among the ecosystem’s developments is a gait analysis system designed to detect psycho-emotional disorders with a claimed accuracy of over 80%, as well as drones and robotics created jointly with the Shenzhen MSU–BIT University in China. Tikhonova has headed the MSU AI Institute since 2020.

Fighting continues despite claims of “control”

After the anti-government attacks began on April 25, gunfire continued the next day in the garrison town of Kati, near Bamako. That suggests the clashes had not ended, despite authorities’ claims that control had been restored.

A three-day nighttime curfew has been imposed in the capital, and witnesses said the streets remained empty. Authorities say the situation has stabilized, but continuing gunfire and security operations point to persistent tensions.

Defense Minister Sadio Camara confirmed dead

Several international media outlets reported the death of Mali’s defense minister, Sadio Camara. Reuters, citing the French outlet RFI, reported that he was killed in an attack by Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaida-linked group, on his residence at the Kati military base.

The agency later reported that Camara’s death had also been confirmed by his relatives, and that a journalist linked to the family had written about it on Facebook.

Camara was considered one of the key figures in the military junta and an architect of its security policy, which included cooperation with Russian security structures.

A jihadist-Tuareg alliance: The largest operation in years

The April 25 attacks were among the largest operations against Mali’s authorities in recent years. Responsibility was claimed by JNIM, which is linked to al-Qaida, and the Tuareg Front for the Liberation of Azawad.

The Associated Press noted that this was the first time Tuareg rebels had openly confirmed joint action with jihadists. Strikes were carried out simultaneously against the capital, military sites, and cities in the north, including Kidal, Gao, and Mopti.

An Africa expert interviewed by The Insider said the attacks stood out for their unprecedented coordination, indicating that planning was carried out among different groups:

“These are the largest attacks since 2012 — a number of civilian and military sites in different parts of the country were attacked, including in the capital, and hundreds of fighters took part. It was also an operation unprecedented in its coordination: joint actions and operations had taken place before, but never on such a nationwide scale. It was undoubtedly preceded by political agreements, negotiations, and compromises among the groups.”

Kidal: Disputed control and a Russian withdrawal

The northern Malian city of Kidal remains one of the key points of uncertainty after the attacks. The Tuareg Front for the Liberation of Azawad said its forces had retaken control of the city, a former rebel stronghold that came under the control of government forces and their allies in 2023.

Rebel representatives initially said an agreement was reached during the fighting that allowed Russian mercenaries to leave one of the besieged camps in the Kidal area.

Russian pro-war Z-channels then began spreading reports about the evacuation of Russian Defense Ministry Africa Corps units from Kidal. Earlier, pro-Russian forces denied claims, circulated by Western media citing the Tuareg Front for the Liberation of Azawad, that rebels had captured Kidal.

Several Russian Telegram channels supportive of the country’s war in Ukraine quoted what they described as the Africa Corps’ “direct participant in the events in Mali”:

“For 24 hours, we kept the enemy away from us. Thousands of fighters surrounded two small outlying strongpoints… And the main strongpoint is now under siege in Kidal. And for courage and heroism, you could say, we simply reached an agreement that they would hand over our guys. They won’t finish them off or kill them. They appreciated their courage and allowed them to be taken to the strongpoint, to Kidal…

“They tore into them for a full day. Not without losses, of course — a helicopter was shot down, and this and that… But there is a problem in Kidal. They are now cut off from the outside world. Something has to be done, something has to be figured out. Two thousand fighters have surrounded them, and there are now 200 Spartans there, alone. One-on-one with fate. No aircraft can fly in, no one can get to them. For now, there is no way to help.”

At the same time, Telegram channels linked to the Africa Corps and the Wagner private military company published video of a column of Russian equipment moving as fighters cheered. The channels claimed it showed the “evacuation of wounded personnel and heavy Africa Corps equipment from Kidal’s southern base.” The footage features at least 20 pieces of equipment, including a Grad multiple-launch rocket system.

Later, the Telegram channel “White Dudes in Africa 🌴,” which is linked to the Wagner Group, wrote that Mali’s armed forces and the Africa Corps had left Kidal after recovering the bodies of killed Russians.

In their press releases, neither Russia’s Foreign Ministry nor the Russian Embassy in Mali made any mention of the Defense Ministry’s Africa Corps taking part in the fighting. The main Africa Corps Telegram channel was outraged at the omission, calling the ministry’s position “ambiguous.”

The Africa Corps later officially confirmed its withdrawal from Kidal on its Telegram channel:

"In accordance with a joint decision by the leadership of the Republic of Mali, units of the African Corps that were stationed and engaged in combat in the town of Kidal ⁠have withdrawn from the area alongside Malian Army personnel.

Wounded servicemen and heavy equipment were evacuated first. Personnel continue to carry out their assigned combat mission. The situation in ⁠the Republic of Mali remains difficult."

The aforementioned Africa expert told The Insider that “symbolically, the loss of Kidal is painful; its recapture in 2023 was a sign that the regime was strengthening, restoring control over the country and had something to show its supporters.”

Africa Corps: Fighting and conflicting accounts

Telegram channels linked to the Russian Defense Ministry’s Africa Corps claimed Russian troops helped repel attacks in Bamako, Kati, and other areas in the north of the country. Their reports described fighting involving hundreds of militants and support for the Malian army, including from the air. They also acknowledged that some personnel were wounded.

At the same time, the reports said that during the fighting near Kidal, some “outlying posts” were evacuated, with units withdrawing to other positions. That points to heavy clashes and the loss of territorial control in select areas.

Possible equipment and personnel losses were also reported by the Russian pro-war Telegram channel Fighterbomber, which is linked to retired pilot Ilya Tumanov. According to the channel, a Russian helicopter was shot down in Mali, and the crew and the group on board were killed. The preliminary cause was said to be ground fire.

The Russian Foreign Ministry, however, did not mention the participation of Russian forces in its statement released after the start of the attacks, saying the assaults had been repelled by Mali’s Armed Forces and that no Russians had been injured.

The Africa Corps later officially confirmed its withdrawal from Kidal on its Telegram channel:

"In accordance with a joint decision by the leadership of the Republic of Mali, units of the African Corps that were stationed and engaged in combat in the town of Kidal ⁠have withdrawn from the area alongside Malian Army personnel.

Wounded servicemen and heavy equipment were evacuated first. Personnel continue to carry out their assigned combat mission. The situation in ⁠the Republic of Mali remains difficult."

The Africa expert told The Insider that the militants had urged Russian forces to stay out of the fighting:

“In their statements, anti-government forces asked Russians to ‘refrain’ from taking part in combat, apparently hoping, in the event of success now or in the near future, not to seriously damage relations with Moscow. JNIM, in particular, asked Moscow in a written communiqué to stay aside for the sake of ‘balanced future relations.’ I think this is an attempt of sorts to repeat the Syrian scenario.”

What it changes: A blow to the junta and risk of new escalation

The April 25-26 attacks were the most serious challenge that the military junta of Assimi Goita had faced in years. Even if authorities retain control over the capital and key sites, the very fact of coordinated strikes on Bamako and other regions, along with the possible death of the defense minister, points to the regime’s high vulnerability.

The Africa expert interviewed by The Insider said that despite local rebel successes, government forces retain a military advantage, above all because of their superiority in aviation, drones, and outside support. At the same time, the scale and coordination of the attacks show that anti-government forces are capable of carrying out operations on a national level.

The situation remains uncertain. There are no precise figures on losses suffered by either side, and control over several cities, including Kidal, remains disputed. 

“The war gave meaning back to my generation,” Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov once said, speaking of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Of course, Solovyov is not the only Russian who feels this way, but he is still in a relatively small minority — which is why the war is being fought by hired contract soldiers, and why the compensation package being offered to new recruits requires frequent increases,even as many regional budgets are in a dire state.

It is commonly believed that in earlier times, during the age of nation-states, war became the business of the whole people: internal quarrels and contradictions were set aside, and different social groups united to confront the enemy. “The natural patriotism of peasants and nobles extinguished class contradictions and mutual struggle, giving the war the nationwide character of a Patriotic War,” writes historian Mikhail Suslov about the War of 1812.

Suslov, who teaches at the Perm Military Institute of the National Guard Troops (formerly a military academy), insists that, at that time, everyone was united by the “value of the state” in defense of which disputes could be postponed and, if necessary, life itself sacrificed. Soldiers in 1812 may not even have known the word “state,” and they gave their lives not for that abstraction but more likely “for faith, tsar, and fatherland.” Yet even then, some peasants were instead waiting for the arrival of Napoleon Bonaparte as a liberator from serfdom. It was hardly so simple, even in those days, to set class contradictions aside, despite active efforts by tsarist propaganda to portray the war as a unifying, nation-forming event.

Now things are even more complicated. One explanation is that younger generations no longer see the state as something worth fighting for. As sociologist Ronald Inglehart described the current state of affairs, the widespread acceptance of “self-expression values” like personal growth, freedom, and creativity render people less willing to sacrifice their lives for abstract ideas. But whatever the cause, in many countries around the world, young people are increasingly unwilling to serve in the military or to risk their health and lives for the sake of their country.

The spread of hedonism worldwide makes people less willing to sacrifice their lives for abstract ideas

These same factors have also weakened the rally-around-the-flag effect. In March–April 2026, when war broke out in the Middle East, there was no sign in either the United States, Iran, or Israel of internal conflicts easing or of unity consolidating. Instead, in March Donald Trump’s approval rating declined from 40% to a new low of 36% (it had been 47% in January 2025). In Iran, under a dictatorial regime and amid internet shutdowns lasting for a month and a half, measuring public sentiment is impossible; however, there are no signs that society’s widespread grievances against the ayatollahs have been forgotten after protests against them brought millions into the streets in January.

Israel: war is a necessity, not an achievement of the ruling coalition

In Israel, during March and early April, the popularity of Benjamin Netanyahu and the parties in his coalition declined slightly — not because Israelis are dissatisfied with the war, but because many were disappointed that a ceasefire was announced before the war’s goals had been achieved. Approval of Netanyahu’s performance as prime minister fell during the war from 40% to 34%. Most Israelis see the war against Iran and Hezbollah as a necessity, but do not regard it as an achievement of the ruling coalition or a matter of party politics.

For Israel, war with Iran has an existential character. The destruction of Israel is an official goal of the ruling regime in Tehran, reaffirmed in numerous statements over several decades (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8). For many years Iran has supported virtually every armed group in the region engaged in terrorist activity against Israel.

For many years Iran has supported virtually every armed group in the region engaged in terrorist activity against Israel

Therefore, although Israel remains a polarized society, it is obvious to virtually everyone in the country that reducing Iran’s military capabilities is a necessary condition for the state’s survival. Which is why the war itself enjoyed broad popular support, with 78% of Jewish Israelis in favor of continuing combat operations against Iran as of late March.

At the same time, the main points of internal tension – regarding judicial reform, obligatory military service, and state policy regarding Gaza, Judea, and Samaria – remained contentious even during the war and pose a serious challenge to Netanyahu and his political allies ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for this October.

United States: Trump is a bigger enemy than distant Iran

The situation in the United States is entirely different: the war with Iran did not become popular there. At the beginning of March, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, 27% supported an attack on Iran, while 43% were opposed. By mid-March, according to a YouGov/The Economist poll, only 33% were in favor and 55% were against. By early April, the figures in another Reuters/Ipsos survey showed 35% approval and 60% disapproval, while YouGov/The Economist poll had 34% in favor and 53% against.

It follows that Donald Trump entered into war with Iran with a very low level of public support. By comparison, at the start of the war in Afghanistan in 2001, 92% of respondents supported military action, while support for the 2003 war in Iraq initially stood at 71%.

Unlike Israel, for the United States the war with Iran did not become a matter of bipartisan consensus. A month after the attack began, it was supported by 74% of Republicans and 7% of Democrats. Amid broader disapproval of Trump’s decision to attack Iran 88% of Democrats opposed the operation, while 71% of Republicans supported it.

Attitudes toward Israel, America’s ally in the war with Iran, are similarly shaped by party affiliation. Israel is viewed negatively by 80% of respondents who lean Democratic but by only 41% of Republicans. It is therefore unsurprising that 16% of Democrats and 73% of Republicans approve of Trump’s policies regarding U.S.–Israel relations. The rest of U.S. foreign policy has also become a victim of partisan division. For example, Trump’s decisions regarding Ukraine and Russia are approved by 60% of Republicans and 7% of Democrats, while on Iran Trump enjoys 66% approval from co-partisans and the same 7% figure from his political opponents.

It seems that more than half of U.S. citizens simply reflexively reject anything Donald Trump does. For them, he is a far greater enemy than distant Iran, China, or Russia. For example, Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist and outspoken Democrat, calls Trump a terrorist. Could he feel sympathy for any action Trump takes? The answer is obvious.

The public split in the United States has proved so all-encompassing that the country has effectively lost the ability to pursue a coherent foreign policy. Historians compare today’s polarization in the United States with the period of the American Civil War (even if the country today is still only divided in a political sense).

The split in the United States has become so deep that the country can no longer conduct a truly national foreign policy

Polarization has reached an extreme level, says Thomas Carothers, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. There is no unity on any issue: instead, when it comes to questions regarding Europe, Russia, Israel, Iran, and Venezuela, there are clearly delineated Republican and Democratic views, though it must be stressed that this by no means implies that the United States is moving toward an actual civil war.

Russia: either admit total defeat or keep fighting

It isn’t just Americans who are divided over their government’s foreign policy. Many in the Russian opposition, driven into exile or forced deep underground since 2022, hate the Putin regime and wish not for their country’s victory but for its defeat in the war with Ukraine. Some opposition figures help Ukrainians through various foundations and volunteer networks; others take part in fundraising campaigns to support the Ukrainian armed forces, actions that automatically qualify them as “traitors” back home.

Having lost the battle for Russia’s future and paid for it with exile, many opposition activists now hope for Vladimir Putin’s military defeat. Similar sentiments are also held by a minority inside the country. However, to openly express such views makes individuals vulnerable to the harshest forms of repression.

Having lost the battle for Russia’s future and paid for it with exile, many opposition activists now hope for Vladimir Putin’s military defeat

This resembles the situation of a civil war, when the losing side in a domestic political battle place their hopes on armed confrontation backed by support from abroad. They have exhausted political means of resolving the situation, meaning the only choice they have is to either admit total defeat or to continue the fight.

In order to pursue the latter course, strong allies outside the country are needed. During civil wars, opposing sides do not consider it shameful to solicit and accept outside assistance, since they are powerless to improve their position through internal struggle alone. When it is impossible to achieve more by one’s own efforts, national unity recedes into the background, giving way to political alliances that cross borders. During the Spanish Civil War, the Francoists were aided by Germany and Italy, while the Republicans were backed by the Soviet Union and a collection of 35,000 anti-fascist volunteers from 52 countries.

Iran: protest during war means certain death

The position of the Iranian opposition is in many ways similar to that of the Russian opposition. In both countries, the authorities resort to harsh repression, the domestic opposition is disorganized and intimidated, and émigrés have little leverage over events back home. Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi enjoys a certain degree of popularity among Iranians but can do little to actually affect the situation on the ground. Part of the Iranian opposition, like part of the Russian opposition, wants its country to be defeated in war, seeing no other way to change the regime.

The war in the Middle East began a month and a half after the brutal suppression of protests that had seen 1.5 million people in Tehran take part and more than 5 million nationwide. According to reports from the Iranian opposition, between 30,000 and 37,000 protesters were killed (1, 2, 3). Even the Iranian government acknowledged around 3,000 victims, while the human rights group HRANA documented more than 7,000 deaths.

Against this backdrop, at first opposition-minded Iranians both inside and outside the country welcomed the U.S.-Israeli attack on the Iranian regime and the elimination of its leaders. However, the protests that Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu were likely hoping for in the early days of the conflict did not materialize — likely because, for Iranians, taking to the streets would have meant certain death, as the police declared that protesters would be treated as enemies. At the same time, the Iranian authorities repeatedly organized demonstrations in support of the regime.

When a destructive war is underway, one that also targets civilian infrastructure, it is very difficult for the population to side with the “enemies” wreaking the havoc. Iranian authorities were also helped by careless statements from Trump, who alienated potential allies by threatening to bomb Iran “back into the Stone Age.”

Iranian authorities were helped by careless statements from Donald Trump, who threatened to bomb Iran “back into the Stone Age”

Coordination among the opposition was also hindered by the near-total absence of internet access in Iran beginning on February 28, the extreme brutality with which the authorities suppressed the uprising, and the opposition’s lack of organization and any plan for resisting regime repression.

And yet there is no doubt that a significant part of the Iranian opposition remains hostile to the rule of the ayatollahs and will return to confronting it when the opportunity arises. War with the United States and Israel does not make the Iranian opposition love a repressive regime. Likewise, the war with Ukraine does not make the Russian opposition more favorably disposed toward Vladimir Putin, while the war with Iran only increases dissatisfaction with Trump in the United States.

War for survival

In short, in many cases domestic political conflicts matter more to people than their country’s struggle against an external enemy, even if the intensity of that internal struggle varies by circumstance. In Iran, the years of deadly tension between protesters and the regime could reasonably be described as a civil war. The Russian case, meanwhile, is closer to that of Turkey, where confrontation is less overt. In the United States, the intensity of political conflict is rising, but what this struggle will lead to amid declining Republican popularity will become truly clear only when presidential elections are held in 2028.

By contrast, in Israel and Ukraine, interstate wars are not viewed through the prism of civil conflict, but as genuinely popular struggles for national survival. In both countries there are people who consider the wars waged by their states unjust, but they are in a clear minority.

Overall, the “rally around the flag” effect only seems to apply when a country’s survival is truly threatened — hence the low levels of support shown by American and Russians for their respective foreign military operations.

Notably, the current war in the Middle East is not existential for Iran either: neither the United States nor Israel has plans to occupy the Islamic Republic. The war could easily call into question the survival of the regime of the ayatollahs, but not of Iran as a political nation, which is why that regime continues to face opposition domestically.

A completely different hierarchy between foreign and domestic politics exists in Israel and Ukraine. There, domestic political disagreements do not overshadow war. As with Israelis, citizens of Ukraine after 2022 do not need to be persuaded: if the country does not fight Russia, it will not survive. Therefore, defense against Russian aggression enjoys widespread support regardless of which party ordinary citizens might favor at the polls. However, when peace ultimately returns, domestic political disputes are certain to reemerge.

Visual evidence shows damage to pumping stations, the railway oil-loading rack, technological pipelines, and piping junctions. The refinery itself, however, showed no visible damage.

Exilenova+ noted that the tank farm serves as a buffer for the facility’s entire logistics system, and that striking it caused fires that damaged adjacent infrastructure. According to the Ukrainian OSINT project Oko Hora (“Eye of Horus”), which analyzed various satellite images, of the 46 total tanks at the site, 24 were destroyed, four were damaged, and 18 showed no visible signs of damage.

The fire at the marine terminal in Tuapse broke out overnight April 20 after a Ukrainian drone attack. The strikes hit the tank farm of a refinery operated by state-owned oil giant Rosneft, Russia’s largest petroleum producer. One person was killed and another was injured. A previous fire that broke out after a drone attack overnight April 16 was extinguished only in the afternoon of April 19. At that time, drone strikes set technological equipment on fire at the Rosneft refinery and marine terminal.

On April 19, an oil slick was spotted near the port of Tuapse, with the regional emergency headquarters saying the spill was caused by the April 16 drone attack. Regional authorities said specialists estimated the contaminated area at about 10,000 square meters. The emergency headquarters said oil products had entered the Tuapse River, but that the pollution there was contained.

After the latest attack, “black rain” began falling in Tuapse — precipitation mixed with combustion products from burning oil. Rospotrebnadzor measurements taken on the evening of April 21 registered benzene, xylene, and soot levels in the air at two to three times above permitted limits. Local residents said “everything around was covered with an oily film and black pellets.” Smog from the fire reached the cities of Anapa, Sochi, and Stavropol.

As The Insider previously reported, compounds formed during combustion pose a direct threat to human health, and benzene can cause cancer. For birds and stray dogs caught in the “oil rain,” the exposure can be deadly.

At the ceremony, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivered a speech, saying that North Korean and Russian troops “fought in the same trench, shoulder to shoulder” and achieved successes that, according to him, played a key role in “preventing the revival of fascism and the military ambitions of hegemonic forces.”

From the Russian side, the event was attended by State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin and Defense Minister Andrey Belousov. Volodin read out a greeting from Vladimir Putin, who stated that North Korean servicemen had “shown exceptional courage” and that their exploits would “forever remain in the hearts of every Russian citizen.”

After the ceremony, Volodin and Kim toured the museum and laid flowers at the memorial wall. In the guest book, Volodin wrote that the memorial complex is a “symbol of Russian–Korean combat brotherhood” and thanked North Korea for its assistance in “the liberation of the Kursk Region from Ukrainian neo-Nazis and foreign mercenaries.”

The memorial complex is reportedly dedicated to servicemen of the Korean People’s Army who took part in combat operations in Russia’s Kursk region.

According to NATO, North Korea previously sent around 11,000 troops to Russia to take part in the fighting following Ukraine’s August 2024 incursion into the Kursk region. Around 1,500 North Korean soldiers were killed and another 3,500 wounded. NATO also reported that Pyongyang later dispatched additional units.

In addition to sending troops, North Korea has supplied Russia with weapons and provided military assistance worth billions of dollars. According to an assessment by South Korea’s Institute for National Security Strategy, the total value of such support between 2023 and 2025 ranged from $7.7 billion to $14.6 billion. The report notes that Russia has mainly made payments by transferring military technologies and components. A significant part of the goods going from North Korea to Russia have consisted of ammunition.

Investigators have been able to partially document the origin of the cargo, Yaresko said. The vessel LEONID PESTRIKOV (IMO: 9922122) loaded 954.56 tons of wheat and 6,087.68 tons of barley in occupied Berdiansk between April 7 and 15, and on April 18 it transshipped the grain onto PANORMITIS at an anchorage near the Russian port of Temryuk. The cargo documents were issued in a Russian port, which LEONID PESTRIKOV had entered with a full hold before the transshipment.

This scheme is a deliberate choice: Berdiansk has no customs post, and reprocessing through Temryuk makes it possible to conceal the actual port of loading. The exporter is the company Petrokhleb-Kuban, which, according to SeaKrime, is regularly involved in exporting grain from the occupied territories.

PANORMITIS was anchored in Russian territorial waters and did not formally cross Ukraine’s state border, Yaresko writes. The violations were committed by the vessels that delivered the grain to it.

According to data from vessel-tracking service Starboard Maritime Intelligence that was reviewed by The Insider, anomalies appear in PANORMITIS’s track between April 5 and 20. Sections of the route show the AIS signal disappearing or reporting unreliable coordinates: track lines run across land while the vessel is shown moving at non-zero speed — typical signs of signal jamming or spoofing. The anomalies coincide with periods when the track indicates movement between Russian ports and Feodosiia in occupied Crimea, transit in the Kerch Strait, and activity near the Russian-occupied Azov port city of Berdiansk.

This is the second consecutive voyage of this kind to Haifa. The previous one involved the vessel ABINSK (IMO: 9303869) — at that time, Israel refused Ukraine’s request for international legal assistance. According to SeaKrime, this points to a systemic nature of the problem.

Criminal proceedings have been launched in Ukraine over the export of grain from the occupied territories.

Chinese investors’ interest in doing business in Crimea emerged even before Russia’s annexation of the peninsula in 2014. In December 2013, the Ukrainian government signed a memorandum on economic cooperation with a Chinese canal building company belonging to multimillionaire Wang Jing. The firm is known for its ambitious plan to build a shipping canal in Nicaragua that was meant to compete with the Panama Canal — and to advance China’s geopolitical interests.

The Ukrainian-Chinese project envisioned construction of a deepwater port in Crimea and Chinese participation in the reconstruction of the fishing port in Sevastopol. The first phase of investment was to total $3 billion. Wang Jing, owner of Beijing Interoceanic Canal Investment Management Co. Ltd., said that the project would turn Crimea into “an economic and transport hub of the Maritime Silk Road.”

Even then, some Ukrainian experts believed this was the first step in a large-scale Chinese plan for expansion: first a port in Crimea, then leases of agricultural land in Ukraine’s south, ending with the country becoming an agricultural appendage of China. Crimean environmentalists also opposed the project, but at the time, the Maidan protest movement had already begun, and President Viktor Yanukovych needed to attract money to Ukraine from any source still willing to invest.

The events that followed – the confrontation on the Maidan, Yanukovych’s flight to Russia, and Russia’s intervention in Crimea – put an end to this large-scale Chinese venture. In June 2014, Beijing Interoceanic Canal Investment Management Co. Ltd. said it was no longer pursuing any projects in Crimea, and Russian attempts to attract Chinese investors for construction of the Kerch Bridge also ended in failure — none of them wanted to come under Western sanctions. Between 2014 and 2022, Russian media periodically reported that Chinese companies were ready to participate in infrastructure projects on the annexed peninsula, but nothing moved beyond talk.

The situation began to change after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, when cooperation between Moscow and Beijing reached a new level. As early as November 2023, The Washington Post reported that Russia and China were in talks to build a transport tunnel under the Kerch Strait — a militarily significant potential project, given that on July 17, 2023, Ukrainian forces successfully attacked the Crimean Bridge with a naval drone.

At the time, Moscow and Beijing jointly denied the American newspaper’s report. Nevertheless, stories about the possible involvement of Chinese companies in infrastructure projects in Crimea began appearing ever more frequently. In 2025, Ukrainian intelligence said that the occupation authorities in Crimea wanted to attract Chinese investment for construction of the Kerch seaport and expansion of the infrastructure of the military base at Lake Donuzlav. In 2025, the Panama-flagged vessel Heng Yang 9, owned by Guangxi Changhai Shipping, repeatedly entered the port of Sevastopol with its transponder switched off. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry lodged a protest with China over the matter.

The Chinese side, fearing secondary sanctions, is in no rush to openly invest in the infrastructure of annexed Crimea. However, there is information suggesting that, at a minimum, Beijing is highly interested in the peninsula. In fact, it may already be covertly cooperating with Russia in the Black Sea basin.

There is information suggesting that, at a minimum, Beijing is highly interested in the peninsula

A report by the Extrema Ratio initiative, which tracks China’s global expansion, notes:

“China's interest in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov extends beyond mere support for Russia in Crimea, fitting into the broader Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) strategy and presenting potential dual-use implications…

Any infrastructure development in these regions, even if nominally commercial or civilian, inherently supports and enhances Russia's military and logistical capabilities. This aligns with China's strategic partnership with Russia, especially given Russia's increasing dependence on China for critical military technology and components following Western sanctions.”

A Chinese quarry and “Katyusha” amid the ruins of Mariupol

In the summer of 2022, the authorities of the Donetsk “People’s Republic” began showing interest in the abandoned Karan Quarry near the village of Myrne in the Donetsk Region’s Volnovakha District — an area that had been under Ukrainian control before the start of the full-scale war. The quarry had produced crushed stone for construction, but operations there ceased in 2008. In August 2022, the processing plant began to be restored, and by October the relaunch of the Karan Quarry was officially announced.

In November 2023, the head of the occupation government, Russian official Yevgeny Solntsev, said that the Karan Quarry had signed cooperation agreements with two Chinese enterprises: Amma Construction Machinery Co. Ltd., a factory producing rock-grinding equipment, and Zhongxin Heavy Industry Machinery Co., Ltd., which makes crushing and screening equipment. The signing took place at the “Republic’s” representative office in Moscow.

Local residents began referring to the Karan Quarry as “the Chinese quarry.” Crushed stone extracted there is used for construction across the occupied territories of Ukraine, where the Russian authorities have announced large-scale “reconstruction” projects following the destruction wrought by their “liberation.”

The Ukrainian publication Realnaya Gazeta, which since 2014 has featured the work of journalists from Donbas who were forced to leave their home region, conducted its own investigation into cooperation between the authorities of the “People’s Republic” and Chinese companies. According to the outlet, the companies named by Solntsev – Amma Construction Machinery Co. Ltd. and Zhongxin Heavy Industry Machinery Co., Ltd. – are actively doing business in Russia, including with the Kamensky Crushed Stone Plant in Rostov Region.

The likely intermediary was Zhang Jingwei, a postgraduate student at Southern Federal University engaged in developing defense technologies for the Russian army. For example, it was reported that he created an improved neural-network model for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), making it possible to speed up real-time detection of small objects. Zhang Jingwei was named a winner of the “Leaders of Russia” competition overseen by Sergei Kiriyenko, first deputy head of the Russian presidential administration.

Realnaya Gazeta editor-in-chief Andriy Dikhtyarenko told The Insider that this kind of intermediary role illustrates the mechanics of Chinese penetration into the occupied territories.

“Zhang Jingwei studies and works at a university in Rostov. He is also the head of the local Chinese community association, and he serves as an intermediary between the DPR and Chinese firms from his home province. While official Chinese state structures appear to keep their distance – major state corporations do not want to risk sanctions – medium-sized private businesses are being given the green light to organize joint projects in the occupied territories of Ukraine.”

Without drawing much attention to their presence (had it not been for the vanity of local officials, these investments might have gone entirely unnoticed), Chinese companies are taking part in infrastructure projects. In addition to the Donetsk quarry, Dikhtyarenko explains that Chinese mining equipment is being supplied to the Belorechenskaya mine in Luhansk Region, one of the few profitable mines in the occupied territories. “The restoration of industry under occupation is already being financed with Chinese money. Without China, Russia has no ability to rebuild all this quickly,” the journalist explains.

According to Dikhtyarenko, this cooperation has a significant political dimension: “There is also an exchange of experience among propagandists. Staff from Luhansk propaganda outlets, for example, are actively invited on familiarization trips to China, where they are given tours of drone manufacturing plants.”

As an example in the other direction, Dikhtyarenko cites the visit to Mariupol by Chinese blogger and singer Wang Fang in 2023: “At the same time, her husband, an official, did not go to Mariupol. He waited for his wife in Rostov, and afterward they held a joint press conference.” During the visit, Wang Fang sang “Katyusha” on the ruins of the Mariupol Drama Theater, which had been destroyed in a Russian airstrike. Her trip prompted a protest from Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry.

Collaboration with a Chinese accent

For the occupation authorities of the “DPR,” cooperation with China is an important way to increase their own standing within the bureaucratic hierarchy. In April 2024, Solntsev attended the 1st Russia-China Construction Forum in Harbin, organized by the All-Russian Center for National Construction Policy, together with the Harbin regional government.

“We discussed with colleagues opportunities for launching and modernizing our metallurgical enterprises,” Solntsev said. He also announced plans to cooperate on the “reconstruction of Donbas” with two Chinese construction companies – Genertec International Co Ltd and China Xinxing Group Co Ltd – though no official contracts were signed.

Plans for cooperation with China are also being drawn up by the occupation government of Zaporizhzhia Region. As acting Economic Development Minister Yuri Guskov said: “Zaporizhzhia Region, as a new region of the Russian Federation, plans to actively cooperate with Chinese businesses. Our grain is of the highest quality, and Chinese consumers will undoubtedly appreciate it. We will actively use people-to-people diplomacy to promote our products.” In reality, however, little came of the initiative.

Another story is better known: in Melitopol, a Chinese businessman nearly had his cherry-processing plant seized. The company, Eurofruit, was founded in 2015 by Shanghai investor Zheng Feng. But after the region’s occupation, the plant caught the eye of influential local businessman Sergei Zhelev, who was cooperating with the Russian authorities. The Chinese owner had to rush to Melitopol to protect his investment.

There has also been room for farce. In July 2025, the authorities of the Luhansk “People’s Republic” announced a visit by a delegation of Chinese investors. It soon emerged, however, that they were not Chinese at all. The supposed “investors from China” turned out to be businessmen from Voronezh of Vietnamese and Azerbaijani origin.

In July 2025, the authorities of the “LPR” reported a visit by a delegation of Chinese investors — but they turned out to be businessmen from Voronezh

In July 2025, Russia’s Promsvyazbank (PSB) organized a trip to China for representatives of ten companies from the occupied territories of Ukraine, winners of the nationwide domestic producers’ competition “Know Ours.” PSB, the first major Russian bank to open offices in Russian-annexed Ukrainian regions, is an important element of the occupation structure.

In 2018, PSB was nationalized and has since become the main lender to Russia’s defense-industrial complex, handling up to 70 percent of state defense procurement orders. The bank is headed by Pyotr Fradkov, son of former prime minister and ex-chief of foreign intelligence Mikhail Fradkov. Since 2022, the bank has been under sanctions from all major Western countries.

China’s penetration into the occupied part of Ukraine has also been aided by Viktor Medvedchuk, formerly Ukraine’s leading pro-Russian politician and a personal associate of Putin’s. Medvedchuk was actively involved in joint business projects with China even while serving as a Ukrainian lawmaker, and companies linked to him and his business partner Taras Kozak had been building a cable car on the Russian-Chinese border near Blagoveshchensk and Heihe since 2020.

Medvedchuk was also actively involved in the coal trade in the “LPR-DPR” through the company Donskiye Ugli, which he controlled and which became one of the key beneficiaries of the local coal industry from 2021 onward. After the start of the full-scale war, Donskiye Ugli expanded rapidly, taking control of mines in occupied parts of Donbas and then supplying coal to China disguised as “Russian” product. However, because of China’s reduction in purchases of Russian coal and the company’s overall inefficiency, in 2006 Medvedchuk’s business found itself burdened with debts of 2 billion rubles ($26.6 million).

Medvedchuk’s business is involved not only in exports to China, but also in imports, as companies linked to him supplied Donbas with vehicles from the Chinese subsidiary of the German concern Daimler Truck.

Belt and Road

The process of Chinese expansion into Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory has not yet reached a large scale. “China is watching closely,” as one “LPR” official put it. But it is gradually becoming systematic, with ever more Chinese companies entering the occupied territories and building ties with local elites. For China, this is also a test of the resilience of sanctions, with private companies scouting the ground for the eventual arrival of the PRC’s state-backed corporate giants.

China is testing the strength of sanctions, while private companies are reconnoitering the ground for the arrival of state-backed giants

Beyond purely economic considerations, geopolitics is also crucial. Crimea plays a key role in the Black Sea region, while the southeastern territories of Ukraine serve as a strategic bridgehead for expansion into Eastern Europe. For China, this penetration is part of a global strategy to build a Eurasian logistics corridor.

This logic is reflected in Russia’s construction of the Rostov-Mariupol-Melitopol-Crimea highway (the so-called “Novorossiya” highway), which could be linked to the Europe-Western China international transport corridor, a joint project of Russia, China, and Kazakhstan. Notably, construction of the “Novorossiya” highway is using crushed stone from the aforementioned “Chinese” quarry in the Donetsk Region.

Another important motive for China is access to resources, above all deposits of rare earth elements. According to Ukrainian estimates, half of Ukraine’s rare earth metal deposits are located in areas under Russian occupation.

For example, the Donetsk Region contains deposits of lithium and titanium, as well as Ukraine’s only integrated source of zirconium. Over time, all of this could end up in the hands of Chinese developers, particularly given the fact that Russia lacks the technology and resources to extract all of it on its own.

The same can be said of the occupied part of Ukraine’s economy as a whole. As long as the occupiers’ resources are consumed by waging war and preserving regime stability, China’s presence on these lands is likely to keep growing.

Direct democracy

In January 2026, the Spanish government approved a program to legalize undocumented – that is, in effect, illegal – migrants who have lived in the country for more than five months and have no criminal record. The program is expected to affect between 500,000 and 800,000 people. They will be granted one-year residence permits with the option of renewal, provided that they have legal employment.

The measure had been debated in the country since 2021, when a so-called "popular legislative initiative" emerged. In Spain, this is a process in which bills are drafted not by lawmakers but by citizens and the broader public. For parliament to consider such an initiative, at least 500,000 signatures must be collected. That is what happened in April 2024, when more than 700,000 people backed the migrant legalization program. More than 900 NGOs, trade unions, businesses, and even the Catholic Church joined the campaign.

The bill was stalled in parliament, however, as the ruling Socialist Party feared losing voter support if it backed the measure. A solution was found only in 2026, when the migrant legalization plan was issued in the form of a royal decree, which does not require parliamentary ratification.

The great replacement

In January 2026, speaking at a rally in Zaragoza, Irene Montero, Member of the European Parliament from Spain’s left-wing Podemos party, said that she "would like the replacement theory to be true" because it "would be possible to replace fascists and racists with migrants and workers."

The great replacement theory is a far-right conspiracy theory built around the claim that elites seek to replace the white population of Western countries with more hardworking migrants who lack civil rights. The theory became especially popular amid the rise in populist anti-immigrant rhetoric that has swept the Western world over the past decade. Among prominent figures who have hinted at its validity are Elon Musk, Charlie Kirk, Tucker Carlson, Giorgia Meloni, and Viktor Orbán. Montero’s statement immediately provoked a reaction from adherents of the theory, who argued that Podemos had admitted that bringing about the great replacement was in fact its goal.

Similar stories, incidentally, were spread by the Le Pen family about the French Socialists as early as the 1990s. In reality, of course, migrants legalized under the Spanish decree will not be able to obtain citizenship for at least ten years, and, as The Insider has previously written, it is far from certain that, once they become citizens, they will support left-wing parties and pro-migration policies.

At the same time, in some regions of Spain, native-born residents are indeed becoming a minority. Throughout the 21st century, the country has actively received migrants. The number of foreigners living in Spain has risen from fewer than 1 million people (or about 2 percent of the population) in 2000 to nearly 10 million (or almost 20 percent) in 2026.

The number of foreigners living in Spain has risen from 2 percent of the population in 2000 to nearly 20 percent in 2026

The largest diaspora is Moroccan, numbering more than one million. However, the biggest migration flow today – nearly half of the total – comes from countries in Latin America which, like Morocco, were once colonies of Spain.

Spain is also popular among European retirees and remote workers from wealthier countries – Britons, French, Germans, Dutch, and Belgians, and other Europeans. They account for roughly one million people in migration statistics.

Another million are labor migrants from Romania and Bulgaria, which joined the European Union in 2007. Finally, an increasingly visible group consists of migrants from Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus fleeing war and repression – they now number more than half a million.

In such a situation, speaking of the replacement of the white race seems especially strange, since it means ignoring the fact that the main migrant flow comes either from European countries or from Latin American countries that were historically settled by Europeans and remain culturally close to Spain.

Demographic transition

Responding to criticism of the government’s decision to legalize undocumented migrants,  Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez wrote in a column for The New York Times:

"Western countries need people. Today, population growth continues in only a few Western nations. If they do not accept migrants, they face rapid population decline that will make it impossible to keep their economies and public services afloat. GDP will stagnate, and healthcare and pension systems will come under threat. Neither artificial intelligence nor robots – at least in the short and medium term – are capable of compensating for this. The only way to avoid decline is to integrate migrants as orderly and effectively as possible."

Indeed, over the past several centuries the world has been undergoing a process that American demographer Frank Notestein described in 1945 as the "demographic transition."

Notestein identified four stages of this process. In the first, birth rates and death rates were both high. Women had many children, but infants often died, and many children did not survive to adulthood. People regularly died from disease and malnutrition, with the result that population growth was extremely slow.

The Industrial Revolution, which began in the 18th century, radically changed this situation, ushering in the second stage. Labor productivity rose sharply, especially in agriculture. This led to explosive population growth and migration into cities. As a result, industrially developed European countries began conquering and settling much of the surrounding world, even as they themselves faced shortages of land and housing for their growing populations.

In the third stage, mortality continued to decline, largely thanks to advances in medicine that reduced deaths caused by infections and disease, thereby increasing life expectancy. But birth rates also began to fall. Now that children were more likely to survive, people no longer needed to have so many kids in order to ensure the continuation of the family line. Children also became more expensive to raise. Before the transition, rural families could involve children in agricultural work from an early age. In an industrial society, however, children could no longer be immediately integrated into productive labor, which increasingly required at least basic education. In a developed postindustrial economy, education takes up an even larger share of life, making it more costly.

As a result, in the fourth stage birth rates and death rates stabilize at equally low levels roughly consistent with replacement, meaning the demographic explosion triggered by the Industrial Revolution comes to an end.

Notably, this pattern applies not only to developed Western countries. As the achievements of industrialization spread across all human societies, they all face the same problem of lower birth rates amid an aging population. According to demographers’ forecasts, by the end of the 21st century the world’s population is expected to stop growing, leveling off at around 10 billion people. At present it is still increasing – mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa and in Asia (with the exception of the Far East). But growth in those regions is already slowing as well.

To a large extent, it is precisely this trend that has fueled panicked debates claiming that LGBTQ+ people will lead humanity to extinction and that society must therefore unite around the defense of "traditional values." Supporters of this view believe that restricting freedom and interfering in people’s private lives would restore high birth rates.

However, the desired results cannot be achieved without a radical decline in education levels and citizens’ productivity — i.e., by bringing about a deterioration in quality of life and life expectancy. Moreover, the traditional society that existed before the demographic transition was characterized by the same slow population growth as the modern society after it, the major difference being that populations of developed countries of the 21st century are larger, healthier, and more productive than those of the pre-industrial period.

The real way to raise birth rates does not involve a struggle against abortion and LGBTQ+ people, but instead involves supporting mothers, fighting inequality, and investing in affordable education. Some studies show that at a certain level of development, fertility rates stop falling and begin to rise again. For example, data on Russian households show that the likelihood of having children increases when incomes rise, life satisfaction improves, and confidence in the future grows.

Experience of Spain, Japan, and South Korea

For now, populations everywhere are aging, and the generation of retirees is becoming a burden on younger people, whose numbers are steadily shrinking. At the same time, longer life expectancy and a larger elderly population increase demand for low-skilled healthcare workers. All developed societies face exactly the dilemma described by Pedro Sánchez: either admit migrants to rebalance this mismatch — which means dealing with cultural backlash, integration challenges, higher social spending on healthcare and education, and rising housing costs – or else experience stagnation and decline inside tightened borders.

Spain and Japan offer excellent case studies in the two approaches. Over the past three years, Spain’s economy has been among the fastest-growing in Europe. Poverty and inequality have fallen to their lowest levels since 2008, while unemployment has dropped below 10 percent for the first time in two decades. At the same time, one in every three jobs created in the European Union is being created there, unsurprisingly given that increased migration generally contributes to job creation rather than job losses (as The Insider wrote here).

Over the past two decades, regardless of changes in governing parties, Spain has admitted millions of migrants. Japan, by contrast, has preserved a highly closed and ethnically homogeneous character. During that period, Japan’s population fell by 5.5 million people, to 123 million, and the country dropped in the global GDP ranking from 2nd place – which it held from 1988 to 2010 – to 4th. Its position in GDP per capita rankings also declined sharply: from 5th place in the mid-1990s, when the working-age population reached its peak, to 40th place.

The country also suffers from chronic labor shortages comparable to those in Russia: throughout the 2020s, unemployment in Japan has remained around 2.6 percent (in Russia it currently stands at 2.2 percent).

According to IMF forecasts, over the next forty years Japan’s population will shrink by a quarter, and the process of depopulation itself will "consume" 0.8 percent of annual economic growth.

A similar situation awaits South Korea. The former colony of Japan entered the phase of industrialization later and has not yet passed the peak of its working-age population. Its economy is still growing at a rapid pace, but since 2020 the rate of growth has begun to slow.

Demographers and economists are sounding the alarm. South Korea’s birth rate has long been among the lowest in the world, and by the end of the decade it will face exactly the same problems as Japan. The Korea Development Institute forecasts that in the 2040s the country will enter a prolonged period of recession.

 The demographic crises facing Japan and South Korea are likely to be even more severe than those experienced in Western societies. The both joined the industrial race later and until recently had virtually no systems of state social support, instead adhering to traditionalist norms in which the family provided for the individual, while women managed the household rather than entering the labor market. Social spending was viewed as a luxury that diverted resources away from growth. As a result, both countries encountered rising inequality and housing shortages that reduced citizens’ willingness to have children. In addition, they remained closed, monoethnic societies that admitted virtually no migrants.

The demographic crisis has forced governments in Tokyo and Seoul to reconsider their policy approaches. Both countries have sought to encourage women and older people to enter the labor market, launched costly family programs aimed at raising birth rates, and even decided to attract limited numbers of migrants. Whereas twenty years ago each of them had fewer than one million migrants, South Korea now has nearly 3 million foreign residents, while Japan has almost 4 million.

Both countries initially sought above all to attract descendants of their former compatriots who had resettled abroad. Thus, Japan first received mainly migrants from Korea, Taiwan, and parts of China that had once been under Japanese colonial rule; later came descendants of Japanese settlers from Brazil and Peru; and then residents of Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia – territories occupied by Japan during World War II.

South Korea never had colonies of its own and therefore primarily attracted descendants of Korean settlers from China and the former USSR. Later, however, it shifted toward attracting workers who were seen as comparatively culturally close: Buryats, Filipinos, and Vietnamese, to name a few.

Because urbanization encouraged many women to move to cities, men living in rural areas of South Korea faced a shortage of prospective brides. As a result, municipalities began supporting programs to import young women from abroad. Consequently, over the past fifteen years, marriages with foreign female citizens have consistently accounted for about 10 percent of all marriages concluded in South Korea.

Costs of migration

Such changes, naturally, do not go unnoticed. The inflow of migrants puts pressure on infrastructure and the housing market, while also leading to intercultural conflicts that vary in severity depending on the difference between the traditions and customs of migrants and those of the local population.

In Tokyo, there were protests against the arrival of Egyptians, while in Japan’s Saitama Prefecture there were protests against Kurds. In the city of Sanjō, selected by the Japan International Cooperation Agency for joint projects with Ghana, demonstrations by local residents against the influx of migrants led to the cancellation of a visit by official representatives from Accra.

The influence of Japanese isolationism is also visible in politics. In the 2025 election, the Sanseitō party, founded in 2020, won 12.6 percent of the vote, becoming the first far-right movement in the history of Japanese democracy to receive double digit electoral support. A year later, the Liberal Democratic Party won snap parliamentary elections with a record result, securing a constitutional majority in parliament, but it did so under the leadership of conservative nationalist Sanae Takaichi, who advocates "traditional values," abandoning pacifist policies, and tightening migration policy.

A similar situation exists in South Korea. In 2018, the mass arrival of Yemeni migrants to Jeju Island, which Yemenis could visit at the time without a visa, led to a tightening of the rules for tourists and stricter rules for granting refugee status. In 2025, the authorities of the shipbuilding cities of Geoje and Ulsan opposed increases in quotas for foreign workers, citing pressure on infrastructure despite labor shortages.

Elsewhere, countries that offer their citizens generous social benefits have also faced a dilemma when it comes to opening their borders. The Scandinavian countries have remained relatively closed off to migration, largely because the social obligations assumed by the state proved greater than the benefits of acquiring new working-age residents.

Quite simply, the social systems of many developed Western countries are not prepared to receive labor migrants, even though employment itself promotes integration and helps prevent rises in crime. For example, welfare systems in the Scandinavian countries are structured in such a way that for many migrants it is more advantageous to live on generous benefits than to take jobs paying the minimum wage. It is precisely this aspect of benefit systems, along with the cost of their bureaucratic administration, that supporters of replacing all benefits with a universal basic income criticize most often. Another major obstacle to integration is that asylum seekers generally have no right to work until their refugee status is approved.

However, cuts to refugee benefits in Denmark had negative effects. At first, they did indeed push refugees to find work and doubled their incomes and employment levels, exactly as the reform’s authors had intended. But in the long run, the effect of the cuts faded: after five years, employment fell again, poverty increased, and crime rose along with it. The academic performance of refugees’ children also declined, and later in adult life they had lower incomes and were more likely to commit crimes.

Sweden long assumed the role of a "humanitarian superpower," and the country has accepted large numbers of refugees. However, this category of migrant is far more difficult to integrate than people who move specifically in search of work. Their average age is higher, which reduces their value to the labor market. Refugees’ culture often differs substantially from that of the host country. Moreover, they are frequently traumatized by the circumstances that forced them to flee, which weakens their capacity for integration and increases the likelihood of criminal behavior, leaving them disproportionately dependent on welfare benefits.

As a consequence, Sweden was unable to absorb the enormous number of migrants it accepted. Today, one in five residents of the country is foreign-born, but migrants are far more likely than natives to be unemployed, accounting for nearly half of all jobless people in the country.

Sweden was unable to absorb the enormous number of migrants it accepted

Crime in Sweden increased. Moreover, it became one of the few countries where the children of migrants commit more crimes than their parents. As a result, after the refugee influxes of 2015 and 2022, Sweden adopted a stricter migration policy, largely copying the Danish model.

According to estimates by the National Institute of Economic Research of Sweden, between 1983 and 1988 the overall contribution of migrants to the economy was positive, but from then until 2022, it was negative. Once the migrants of the 2015 wave had become part of Swedish society and the integration process itself had improved, it turned positive again.

In the United States, amid attempts by the administration of Donald Trump to restrict migration, calculations of the costs and benefits of migration are also now widespread. According to data from the conservative-libertarian Cato Institute, from 1994 to 2023 migrants contributed $14.5 trillion more to the U.S. economy than was spent on them. This helped reduce the federal budget deficit by roughly one-third.

However, the traditionally conservative Manhattan Institute forecasts that over the next thirty years, undocumented and low-skilled migrants, and especially the parents of migrants, will have an overall negative effect on the American economy. Gains are expected only from skilled migrants.

At the same time, according to estimates by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, the inflow of undocumented migrants in 2021–2024 led to higher GDP, employment, consumption, and investment, while having no effect on inflation or wages, whereas the decline of that flow in 2025 slowed GDP growth by 0.75–1 percentage point.

An alternative to migration could be a sound demographic policy. However, in an era when having children has become very expensive, the only way to raise birth rates is to create conditions in which parents feel confident about the future and believe they can afford more kids. The past several decades, however, have been marked by a sharp rise in the concentration of wealth and inequality. Without addressing these problems, migration will not solve the demographic challenges of modern countries – it will only postpone the crisis.

On April 13, Volodymyr Zelensky wrote Telegram that Ukrainian military expertise is in demand in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf countries. “At this stage, Ukraine is engaged in security talks with Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Qatar, Jordan, Turkey, Syria, Oman, Kuwait, and Bahrain. There are requests regarding cooperation with Iraq,” Zelensky announced, adding that he had discussed the matter with National Security and Defense Council Secretary Rustem Umerov.

And the Middle East isn’t the only global hotspot where Ukraine is getting involved. “There is serious interest from African states. We are preparing the groundwork for deeper security agreements in Europe as well — we expect to achieve results as early as this week,” the Ukrainian president wrote. On April 14, a strategic agreement was signed with Germany.

The Telegram statement offered an outline of Zelensky’s two recent visits to the Middle East — one in late March and another in early April. The first trip included talks with the rulers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Jordan, while the second took him to Turkey and Syria.

Following talks with Riyadh and Doha, 10-year strategic military cooperation agreements were signed, while documents with Abu Dhabi and Amman are still being prepared. In Damascus, discussions focused on strengthening food security, exchanging military experience, and coping with the consequences of the war in the region. In Turkey, alongside the regional situation, the topic of a Russian-Ukrainian settlement was also raised.

The catalyst for Zelensky’s intensive round of meetings was, of course, the war in Iran. At the request of Trump and various Arab leaders, Kyiv sent more than 200 specialists to the Middle East to help repel attacks by Iranian drones and to train local militaries to do the same.

Cooperation in this area is planned to continue after the war as well, with Zelensky proposing to share Ukraine’s experience in addressing maritime security challenges. This is especially relevant given Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz.

The partnership agreements also envisage attracting Arab investment in Ukrainian technologies, particularly when it comes to drone production. In addition, Ukraine is counting on financial assistance, energy cooperation (including diesel fuel supplies), and political support from the Gulf states. According to Zelensky’s aforementioned post Kyiv is ready to help regional supporters of Ukrainian statehood “promptly and effectively.”

The Middle East between Moscow and Kyiv

Kyiv had, of course, sought political support in the East before as well. In the summer of 2022, several months after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv turned its attention to regions where its presence had previously been minimal, appointing diplomat Maksym Subkh as the country’s special representative for the Middle East and Africa. After serving in that post for three years, Subkh became Ukraine’s ambassador to Kuwait.

Over the past four years, Ukraine’s contacts with the Middle East and Africa have increased markedly, with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar repeatedly acting as mediators between Moscow and Kyiv in negotiations around prisoner exchanges and the return of Ukrainian children to their homeland.

The Gulf states have also served as a venue for talks. A year ago, Saudi Arabia first hosted Russian-American discussions, and then Ukrainian-American negotiations. Then, in January and February of this year, Abu Dhabi hosted two rounds of trilateral talks involving high-level representatives from Kyiv, Moscow, and Washington.

The relationship has certainly become less one-sided. At the Arab League summit in the summer of 2023, Zelensky tried to convey Ukraine’s concerns to those gathered in Jeddah. Now he has come to the Middle East not as a petitioner, but as an equal partner with something to offer. That said, this does not mean the Arabs will choose between Moscow and Kyiv — instead, they will prefer to use their relationships with both belligerents to their own advantage.

Zelensky has come to the Middle East for the first time not as a petitioner, but as an equal partner

Will Kyiv be able to preserve its beneficial ties with the Persian Gulf states after the end of the war with Iran? The London-based Arab Weekly, which in most cases reflects the position of the ruling elites in the UAE and partly Saudi Arabia, calls this “the million-dollar question,” given that there are hard limits on what Ukraine can achieve in the region.

In the view of the article’s author, the Gulf states will not join sanctions against Russia and will not expel Russian companies. After all, Russia remains a major supplier of wheat, an important source of capital for Dubai’s economy, and, as one of the world’s largest oil exporters, an indispensable partner in coordinating global energy policy within OPEC+. “These structural advantages, built over decades, cannot be undone by drone deals alone,” the author emphasizes.

According to him, the Gulf states are not eager to pick sides, but at the same time, Ukraine is playing its cards skillfully: “If the air forces of the Gulf states integrate Ukrainian interceptors into their air defense systems, and if Gulf investors finance Ukrainian factories, then severing relations will become more difficult.”

In the region, there are concerns that for Zelensky, the war with Iran is not a separate conflict but merely another front in the ongoing conflict betweenRussia and Ukraine. Unsurprisingly, the Arabs do not want to become involved in that fight, just as they did not want to be drawn into the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. “Even if Ukrainian drones prove more effective – and that requires further investigation and confirmation – they will not change the course of the war,” the Qatar-linked publication Al-Araby Al-Jadeed wrote back in March. The article urged the Gulf states to exercise caution when evaluating Zelensky’s proposals, citing Israel as an example of a state “which knows it is foolish to provoke Putin.”

No explanation was given for this, but it is worth recalling that Israel, despite some cooling in relations with Russia after the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022 and the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, 2023, continues to maintain contacts with Moscow and was slow to provide military assistance to Kyiv. Nevertheless, last year it became known that Israel had transferred Patriot surface-to-air missile systems to Ukraine.

It should be noted that the issue of Israel also arises in the context of Zelensky’s visit to Damascus. “Syria needs an air defense system, but Israel apparently objects to the presence of Turkish systems there, while the West refuses to allow Russia to supply Syria with these weapons, so alternatives are needed,” Abdel Wahab Assi, director of the research unit at the Jusoor Center, told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed. According to him, in this context Ukraine appears to be a suitable supplier for air defense systems and electronic warfare systems alike.

More broadly, Arab media note that Zelensky’s visit to Damascus took place under Ankara’s supervision — an aircraft from the Turkish president’s fleet was used for the Ukrainian leader’s flight to Syria, a trip that saw Zelensky accompanied by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. In addition to bilateral talks between Syria and Ukraine, trilateral negotiations were also held between Zelensky, Fidan, and Syria’s Ahmed al-Sharaa.

An aircraft belonging to the Turkish president was used for Zelensky’s flight to Syria

This was the first ever visit by a Ukrainian president to Syria. Relations between Kyiv and Damascus were strained after Moscow came to the aid of Bashar al-Assad in 2015, and when Syria recognized the independence of the Russian-occupied Donetsk and Luhansk “People’s Republics” in 2022, any remaining ties were severed altogether.

In 2023, media reports appeared that the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry (HUR) was operating in Syria against Russian forces, primarily the Wagner Group. In addition, after the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, various outlets claimed that the terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which led the offensive on Damascus, had received around 150 drones from Ukrainian intelligence.

Kyiv has never officially confirmed this, but the role of drones during the final fight between Syrian armed groups and Assad’s army was highly visible, meaning Ahmed al-Sharaa, who traded his role as head of HTS for the post of Syria’s new president, certainly knows how useful Ukrainian assistance can be. At the same time, as Syrian experts emphasize, the development of relations between Damascus and Kyiv cannot be permitted to come at the expense of interaction with Moscow, which has also courted al-Sharaa’s government despite its prior years-long opposition to HTS during the Syrian civil war.

A second front in Africa

Syria was not the first distant arena for confrontation between Russia and Ukraine. According to The Washington Post, several HUR operations in South Africa aimed at disrupting arms supplies to Russia. In particular, in December 2022, HUR agents discovered that the Russian cargo vessel Lady R had docked at the Simon’s Town naval base to receive a shipment of weapons. HUR passed this information to Washington, and the U.S. ambassador in Pretoria publicly protested to the South African authorities. According to the Post’s sources, HUR agents also disrupted the transfer of weapons from South Africa by a Russian cargo aircraft.

Among other striking examples was the attack by Tuareg rebels in the summer of 2024 on a Wagner Group convoy in Mali. HUR hinted at involvement in that operation, after which Mali severed diplomatic relations with Kyiv, accusing it of supporting militants. In turn, Russian diplomats accused Ukraine of opening a “second front” in Africa.

Mali severed diplomatic relations with Kyiv, accusing it of supporting separatists

Even earlier, reports emerged of a possible confrontation between Ukraine’s HUR and the Wagner Group in Sudan. In September 2023, a CNN investigation pointed to the “Ukrainian style” of drone strikes against units of the Rapid Support Forces, which were said to be receiving support from the Wagner Group in their fight against the Sudanese army. In video footage obtained by CNN, Ukrainian text could be seen on the drone controller. Experts also noted that the tactic used – drones diving directly onto targets – was highly unusual for Sudan and for the African region as a whole.

Additionally, in the summer of 2023, Ukraine helped Sudanese military leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan leave the besieged capital of Khartoum. As The Wall Street Journal notes, al-Burhan had secretly supplied weapons to Kyiv after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

As a result, several weeks after al-Burhan made his appeal for help, Ukrainian special forces landed in Sudan and joined the fighting. The article noted that for Ukraine, deploying troops to Africa was “part of a strategy to disrupt Russia’s military and economic operations abroad, raise the cost of war for Moscow, and position itself as a bulwark against Russian incursions, including in regions where the West is reluctant to intervene directly.”

That confrontation continues to this day. Ukrainian military personnel are deployed in western Libya, according to an investigation by Radio France International (RFI), published in early April and devoted to a “shadow war unfolding on the African continent between Kyiv and Moscow.”

In particular, on March 4, 2026, Russia accused Ukrainian and British intelligence of attacking the Russian LNG tanker Arctic Metagaz off the coast of Libya. Russia’s Transport Ministry said it had been attacked by Ukrainian drone boats “from the Libyan coast.” The vessel is part of Russia’s “shadow fleet” and was sailing through the Mediterranean toward Egypt’s Port Said with a load of liquefied natural gas. According to Ukrainian intelligence, the vessel was also involved in transporting gas from Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 project to the Chinese terminal at Beihai.

The case of the Arctic Metagaz is not the only example. In December 2025, Ukrainian media, citing a source in the Security Service of Ukraine, reported an unprecedented long-range operation – an attack by aerial drone on the Russian “shadow fleet” tanker Qendil, which at the time was in neutral waters between Greece and Libya.

According to RFI, more than 200 Ukrainian military officers and experts are currently stationed in Libya under an agreement with Abdel Hamid Dbeibah, head of the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU). It is reported that the Ukrainian military is present at three locations. The first is on the grounds of the Air Force Academy in Misrata, where forces from the Turkish, Italian, and U.S. Africa Commands are stationed, along with a British intelligence center. The second base, near the coastal city of Zawiya, has been used to launch aerial and naval drones. And the third base, located at the headquarters of the Libyan army’s 111th Brigade near the airport in Tripoli, is where coordination meetings between the militaries of the two countries take place, with Abdul Salam al-Zoubi representing the Libyan side.

RFI notes that the agreement between Kyiv and Tripoli on a Ukrainian presence in Libya was reached through Ukraine’s military attaché in Algeria, General Andriy Bayuk, in October 2025. In return, Ukrainian specialists are training Libyans to operate drones. It is also claimed that the long-term agreement provides for arms sales and Ukrainian investment in Libya’s oil sector.

Of course, no official announcement has been made about the signing of any agreement on Ukrainian-Libyan military cooperation. However, reports regarding drone purchases and the arrival of Ukrainian experts in Libya began appearing in Libyan media as early as August 2025. For example, Nasser Ammar, head of Tripoli’s operational headquarters and the Directorate for Security and Operational Information, accused Dbeibah of using Ukrainian drones to settle scores with militia leaders opposed to him.

At the time, Ammar said that more than 20 combat drones and another 20 reconnaissance drones were stationed on the grounds of Tripoli’s old international airport. According to him, 12 Ukrainian experts had arrived in Libya to train personnel in assembling and operating these aircraft. The names of Abdul Salam al-Zoubi and Andriy Bayuk were also mentioned at the time in connection with the story.

It was claimed that 12 Ukrainian experts had arrived in Libya to train personnel in the assembly and operation of reconnaissance drones

Libyan journalists claimed that some of the drones were smuggled into Libya through Algeria with the help of intermediaries in Azerbaijan. According to media reports, in October 2025 these allegations became the subject of an investigation by the Libyan prosecutor general’s office into the activities of Al-Zoubi. However, it is unclear what has become of that investigation, and Al-Zoubi remains in his post.

Notably, most of the publications that appeared in 2025 on this subject came from opponents of Dbeibah, such as the Cairo-based Future Center, an analytical platform focused on regional issues. In October 2025, the center’s website quoted expert Anas al-Zeidani as saying that Ukraine’s initial benefit from selling drones to the government in Tripoli was purely financial in nature, but that given the appearance of Ukrainian specialists in Libya, the cooperation could evolve into something more substantial.

“It can be said that this deal is being carried out on the basis of an informal agreement between Ukraine and the United States,” al-Zeidani said, explaining that some of the drones are being supplied to armed groups “to counter the Russian presence in Libya” in line with Western plans.

The issue of the presence of Ukrainian military personnel in Libya reemerged in the Arab media space after the Arctic Metagaz incident and drew heavily on the work done by RFI in early April. The Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat not only reprinted the French outlet’s report, but also developed the story further.

Among the questions raised in the Saudi article was whether Libya would become “an arena of direct competition between Russia and Ukraine” given Russia’s longstanding military presence in eastern Libya. Since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in 2011, Libya has remained fragmented, with  Libyan National Army Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar largely controlling the east of the country.

The author also draws attention to the intensification in early April of contacts between Russia’s ambassador to Libya, Aidar Aganin, and Libyan military and political figures in Tripoli, including a meeting with Abdul Salam al-Zoubi. Of course, such contacts should not come as a surprise given that Moscow maintains relations with all sides in the Libyan conflict. The article also expresses the view that Dbeibah’s government “will not take steps that could draw it into the conflict” between Moscow and Kyiv.

In short, Tripoli is unlikely to differ from other Arab capitals when it comes to balancing its relationships with Kyiv and Moscow. It cooperates with Ukraine when necessary, but does not turn away from Russia either. At the same time, Libya fears a “hot confrontation” on its own territory — as practice shows, such outcomes are not always possible to avoid.

The main reason why the new history textbook written by Vladimir Medinsky and Anatoly Torkunov is so notable is that it is the first which will be mandatory for all Russian high school students. Until September 2023, Russian schools independently selected textbooks from a Ministry of Education list that included different series offering multiple approaches and interpretations. By introducing the unified Medinsky–Torkunov tome, the state secured for itself a monopoly on accepted truth — at least when it comes to the version of Russian history that children are to be taught.

Of course, the Kremlin’s fight for history extends beyond the classroom. On a societal level, the subject of World War II — particularly its origins and the full role played by the Soviet Union — is so sensitive that the expression of alternative views can lead to criminal prosecution.

The subject of World War II is so sensitive that expressing alternative views can lead to criminal prosecution

The main provision is Article 354.1 of the Russian Criminal Code ("Rehabilitation of Nazism"). Under its current wording, punishable acts include: denying facts established by the Nuremberg Tribunal, approving Nazi crimes, and publicly disseminating knowingly false information, whether about the policies of the USSR during World War II or about the actions of its soldiers. Under the circumstances, fairly basic criticism of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact or of Stalin’s wartime repressions could easily be interpreted as a criminal act.

In addition to the criminal provision, there is a special administrative article – 13.48 of the Russian Code of Administrative Offenses. It directly punishes the public equating of the goals, decisions, and actions of the leadership, command, and servicemen of the USSR with the goals, decisions, and actions of Nazi Germany and the Axis countries, as well as denying the decisive role of the Soviet people in defeating Nazi Germany and the humanitarian mission of the USSR in liberating the countries of Europe. In other words, it makes any comparison of Hitler’s and Stalin’s various crimes an illegal act.

Unsurprisingly, the Russian state is using its instruments in the educational and legal spheres to promote the version of history most convenient for itself, while suppressing any alternative viewpoints or critical assessments regarding the darkest periods of Russian history.

One such difficult and controversial episode is Stalin’s foreign policy in the year 1939, when the Soviet Union reached an agreement with the Third Reich on the division of Eastern Europe. After that, the USSR seized eastern Poland, annexed the Baltic states, and attacked Finland. The Russian authorities have consistently sought to portray these actions as justified and necessary, and to punish those who think and speak otherwise.

It is important to note that, before the unified history textbook, there were many others that described twentieth-century events — and Stalin’s foreign policy in particular — in completely different ways. One of the best examples is an 11th-grade textbook by Andrei Levandovsky, Yuri Shchetinov, and Sergei Mironenko, published in 2013 as part of Moscow State University’s “To School” series.

Poland was preparing an attack on the USSR

The 10th-grade history textbook by Medinsky and Torkunov promotes a consistently negative image of Poland while emphasizing that "the USSR was interested in peaceful development, expanding trade ties with Western European states and the United States," but "the threat of war forced the USSR to take measures to strengthen its security" (pp. 276–277). At the same time, it directly states that "until 1933, Poland was considered the main threat," as it was engaged in conspicuously unspecified "subversive activity against the USSR”  (p. 276).

Again unsurprisingly, the Medinsky-Torkunov textbook remains perfectly silent on the fact that the Soviet Union itself engaged in subversive activity in Poland, spreading illegal propaganda, doing intelligence work, planting agents among the populations of the border regions, and coordinating Polish communist structures through the Comintern. And of course, Moscow’s capacity for carrying out such influence operations was in fact incomparably greater than Warsaw’s.

In places, the textbook describes Poland as nothing less than an ally of Germany, citing a certain "Hitler–Piłsudski Pact" (p. 276). In actual history, the document in question is known by its more prosaic name: the Polish–German Declaration on the Non-Use of Force. Signed on January 26, 1934, the agreement effectively normalized relations between the two states after a period fraught with border disputes arising from the Treaty of Versailles. In Russia, however, the document is referred to specifically as the "Hitler–Piłsudski Pact," a construction remarkably similar to that of the "Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact."

The Polish–German declaration stipulated the development of peaceful relations between the two countries and the renunciation of force in resolving any disputes between Poland and Germany. If examined on its merits, this document is more appropriately compared with the Soviet–Polish non-aggression treaty concluded in 1932.

Paradoxically, the text of the Soviet–Polish non-aggression treaty was far more specific and binding on both sides. In it, the USSR and Poland not only agreed not to use military force against one another, but also pledged not to assist a third power if it started a war against one of the treaty’s signatories. If these two agreements are compared, Poland could actually be seen as a loose ally of the USSR.

Skeptics may object that the public portion of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact also appeared peaceable, saving all of its notorious provisions for the secret protocol. The problem is, the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact have been verified and published, while nothing of the sort has been found in connection with the Polish-German Declaration.

Historians have certainly looked for evidence of a potential Nazi-Polish plot to wage war against the Soviet Union. For example, German military historian Rolf-Dieter Müller, in his work Enemy in the East: Hitler’s Secret Plans to Invade the Soviet Union, describes in detail how the Germans did indeed probe the Polish position regarding a possible alliance against the USSR, especially after the 1934 declaration was signed. The chief advocate of this initiative on the German side was Hermann Göring, who repeatedly visited Poland in 1935–1938. Germany made various proposals, ranging from benevolent neutrality to Polish participation in the Anti-Comintern Pact. The Polish side consistently rejected them precisely because it feared that Moscow might choose to interpret such actions as a violation of the 1932 non-aggression treaty between the USSR and Poland.

In short, the Medinsky-Torkunov textbook’s claim that Poland was Hitler’s ally is false and absurd. However, it serves its purpose: preparing students to accept the idea that Poland’s pre-war actions were so threatening that it was necessary for Stalin to agree to divide up the country with Hitler.

The claim that Poland was Hitler’s ally is false and absurd, but it plants the idea that the Poles deserved their fate

The next episode in the textbook leading up to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact is connected with the Munich Agreement of 1938, under which Poland did in fact issue an ultimatum to Czechoslovakia, obtaining the Teschen region. After quoting Churchill, who called Poland the "hyena of Europe," the textbook’s authors suddenly state that "in Moscow, it was well known that Poland harbored plans to seize Soviet territory and to act as Hitler’s ally" (p. 279).

This is a direct falsehood. As noted above, Polish politicians consistently rejected proposals from Nazi Germany to cooperate against the USSR, and the Czechoslovak crisis did not change that reality. The last German proposal for Poland to join the Anti-Comintern Pact was made in January 1939, and Poland rejected it.

As if contrasting the Soviet Union with Poland, the textbook’s authors emphasize that "among the major European powers, only the USSR had not concluded agreements with the Third Reich until the end of August 1939" (p. 279). Yet the USSR and Germany already had a non-aggression and neutrality treaty, signed in 1926, renewed in 1931, and remaining in force until the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in August 1939.

Both Stalin and Hitler had the option to renounce that treaty at any moment. However, that did not happen.

To repeat, Russian schoolchildren were not always subjected to such skewed versions of history. For example, the 2013 “To School” textbook described the events of August 1939 by writing:

"The main gain from the non-aggression pact, in J. V. Stalin’s view, was the strategic pause obtained by the USSR. From his perspective, Moscow’s withdrawal from active European politics gave the coming war a purely imperialist character. The class enemies of the Soviet state would mutually exhaust their strength, while the Soviet Union itself gained the opportunity to move its own borders westward (in accordance with the secret agreement with Germany on spheres of influence) and buy time to strengthen its military-economic potential."

Needless to say, there was no mention in that textbook of Poland as Germany’s ally, let alone of Polish plans to partition the USSR.

"If we had not gone in first, there would have been bases of the Third Reich there"

Interestingly, one of the most notable moments of the new textbook occurs in its account of Germany’s preparations in to invade Poland. The authors write that "the task of the USSR was, if not to prevent this war, then at least to delay its outbreak," adding that "the USSR knew Germany was preparing to invade Poland, and then the Baltic states" (p. 281).

However, instead of making efforts to aid Poland and the Baltic countries in their moment of need, Stalin entered negotiations with Hitler – and signed the secret protocol dividing up the Nazi and Soviet spheres of influence in Eastern Europe. As the textbook delicately phrases it, "through the formula accepted in diplomatic practice at the time ('sphere of interests'), the Soviet Union warned Hitler that it did not intend to allow Germany to occupy these territories" (p. 282). This passage looks even more absurd when one simply reads the following chapters of the tome and learns that the Soviet Union then occupied these territories itself.

The final flourish of the partition portion is the claim that "the treaty allowed the USSR to postpone a German attack for almost two years" (p. 283). Simply put, the  figures contradict such a conclusion. The Wehrmacht force from which Stalin supposedly wanted to protect himself (and which invaded Poland on September 1, 1939), consisted of 1.5 million men, 2,800 tanks, and around 2,000 aircraft. The Polish army consisted of 1.3 million men, 870 tanks and tankettes, and more than 820 aircraft.

On September 17, 1939, the USSR sent into eastern Poland the forces of the Ukrainian and Belorussian Fronts, numbering 617,600 men, 4,736 tanks, and around 2,600 aircraft. In manpower they were smaller than the German forces, but they significantly surpassed them in tanks and aviation. And this was only part of the Red Army. Its total strength grew from 1.9 million men in February 1939 to 5.2 million by September 20 of that year.

In September 1939, the USSR possessed a significant military advantage over Germany. Therefore, the decision to divide spheres of influence and occupy eastern Poland cannot be explained solely by the idea of a threat from Hitler and the attendant need to postpone war as long as possible. On the contrary, Stalin consciously agreed to the partition of Poland while holding substantial leverage and securing major concessions from Hitler.

Stalin consciously agreed to the partition of Poland while holding substantial leverage and securing major concessions from Hitler

This argument about preventive occupation is once again "brilliantly" employed in the textbook in the context of the annexation of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. The authors unabashedly write that "after France, the Baltic region could have become Hitler’s next direction of aggression,” adding that "the possible transfer of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia under German protectorate or the seizure of their territory by the Germans would have meant that Hitler’s invasion armies could be deployed in the immediate vicinity of Leningrad and Moscow" (p. 289).

The 2013 textbook, by contrast, directly links the USSR’s territorial claims against its neighbors to the Soviet–German agreement on the division of spheres of influence (p. 181), rather than to the oft-invoked German threat.

"Referendums" and accession to the USSR

Both in the case of the eastern Polish territories, which became "Western Belorussia" and "Western Ukraine" within the USSR, and in the case of the Baltic republics, the new textbook justifies the seizure by appealing to popular will of the people in the territories themselves, as if the citizens of eastern Poland and the Baltic states wanted to join the USSR and voted for it in a free and open referendum.

It is notable that the Medinsky–Torkunov textbook provides no evidence that, before the events of 1939–1940, the inhabitants of eastern Poland or the Baltic republics had expressed any desire to become Soviet citizens. Instead, the textbook’s authors simply write on page 286 that "in October 1939, the People’s Assemblies of Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia, formed as a result of nationwide elections, adopted declarations on reunification with the Ukrainian and Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republics."

The book once again unsurprisingly says nothing about the fact that the decision to create "People’s Assemblies" in the occupied territories of Poland was not made spontaneously by local residents themselves, but at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party in Moscow on October 1, 1939. Moreover, the range of tasks these "assemblies" were to address was determined in advance:

1. approve the transfer of landlords’ lands to peasant committees;
2. decide the nature of the new authority, that is, whether it should be Soviet or bourgeois;
3. decide the question of accession to the USSR, that is, the incorporation of the Ukrainian regions into the Ukrainian SSR and the Belorussian regions into the Belorussian SSR;
4. decide the question of nationalizing banks and large industry.

The elections to these "People’s Assemblies" were organized in such a way that, formally, the right to nominate candidates belonged to peasant committees and meetings of workers and intellectuals. In practice, however, all these structures acted under the full political control of the Soviet military-political administration. Each meeting nominated only a single candidate, and attempts to nominate alternative figures were suppressed. Criticism of official candidates was branded provocation and counterrevolutionary agitation. As a result, voters were not choosing among competing politicians, but merely approving appointees of the occupation administration.

To ensure that the electoral process was truly "free" and "nationwide," thousands of agitators from the Soviet Union were sent into the seized territories of Poland. In addition, all political parties, public organizations, and cultural-educational associations that had operated in independent Poland were immediately dissolved after the entry of Soviet troops. Under such "democratic" conditions, the "nationwide elected" assemblies brilliantly fulfilled their task, unanimously adopting documents on accession to the USSR on October 29, 1939.

In a similar way, "popular support" for the annexation of the Baltic republics was secured. The textbook’s authors state quite directly on page 289 that:

"The Soviet government presented the Baltic states with demands for a change of government, the holding of democratic parliamentary elections, and the deployment of additional Soviet troop contingents. These conditions were accepted. In the elections held in July 1940, pro-Soviet forces were victorious. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were proclaimed Soviet republics and petitioned to be admitted into the Soviet Union, which was formalized by decrees of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR."

Yet again, the official textbook conveniently overlooks a few key details. Indeed, in the autumn of 1939, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, under pressure from the USSR, signed mutual assistance treaties that provided for the deployment of Soviet military bases and troop contingents on their territory (up to 25,000 men in Estonia and Latvia, and around 20,000 in Lithuania). Already in October–December 1939, the de facto entry of Soviet troops into these countries began.

Then, in June 1940, the USSR presented ultimatums to all three Baltic countries, accusing them of violating the treaties and demanding the formation of new governments and the admission of additional Soviet troops. These demands were accepted, and on June 15-17, 1940, larger Red Army contingents entered Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, ensuring full military control over the countries. Pro-Soviet governments were formed with Soviet backing, and waves of deportees began flowing to Siberia.

Extraordinary "parliamentary elections" were held on July 14–15, 1940. Only the pro-communist "Working People’s Blocs" were allowed to participate, and the results were striking in their Bolshevik bluntness: in Estonia, 92.8 percent voted for the Union of Working People; in Lithuania, 99.19 percent; in Latvia, 97.8 percent. Later that month, "parliaments" elected on this basis proclaimed the creation of Soviet republics and joined the USSR.

The results were striking in their Bolshevik bluntness: in Estonia, 92.8 percent voted for the Union of Working People; in Lithuania, 99.19 percent; in Latvia, 97.8 percent

In the 2013 history textbook, the annexation of Poland’s eastern territories was described briefly and to the point, without the decorative façade of "People’s Assemblies": "On September 17, 1939, Soviet troops entered the eastern lands of Poland, which had suffered complete defeat at the hands of Germany. Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia were annexed to the USSR" (p. 181).

The USSR’s policy toward the Baltic states was also described fairly truthfully:

"In September–October 1939, the Stalinist leadership imposed 'mutual assistance treaties' on Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, under which they granted the USSR military bases on their territory. The following year, 'elections' were held to the Seimas of Lithuania and Latvia and to the State Council of Estonia. Candidates put forward by the communist parties and vetted by Soviet security services took part in them. Parliaments elected in this way petitioned for their countries to be admitted into the USSR. In August 1940, this request was granted, and the USSR gained three new 'socialist republics.'"

No mention of losses, but "serious shortcomings in the Red Army's training were revealed"

In describing Stalin’s foreign policy, the authors of the new textbook ran into a clear embarrassment over the history of the Soviet–Finnish (Winter) War of 1939–1940. Stalin’s original version, though false, was internally consistent in its own way: bourgeois Finland attacked a Soviet border post near the village of Mainila, after which the Soviet Union, as the victim of aggression, responded with all its might to the provocation of the White Finns.

With Medinsky and Torkunov, everything turned out far more muddled. On page 287, it is stated that "to thwart Hitler’s plans to turn Finland into a springboard for aggression against the USSR, Stalin repeatedly proposed that the Finnish government exchange part of the Karelian Isthmus, where the border lay only 32 kilometers from Leningrad, for Soviet Karelia territories twice as large in area."

When it comes to the exchange of territories, the textbook’s authors naively forget to mention that the land Stalin lay claim to contained Finnish defensive fortifications. Moving the border northward would have meant leaving Finland defenseless before the Soviet Union, which had already partitioned Poland with Hitler, sent troops into the Baltic republics, and effectively established control over them. Finland, however, chose to resist such pressure – the country was prepared to defend its sovereignty with weapons in hand.

As if reinforcing the justification for the USSR’s war against Finland, the textbook’s authors note that Finland (much like Poland) had "long and actively cooperated with Germany" (p. 287). From the Soviet side, it is somewhat strange to level such an accusation against anyone, given that it was the USSR that by then had signed a pact with Germany to divide Eastern Europe, followed by the Treaty of Friendship and Border with Germany (September 28, 1939).

Under the secret protocol of the latter, Finland fell within the Soviet sphere of interest, and Germany had no intention of standing up for it. Moreover, it was Britain and France that were prepared to support Finland — as of 1939 Helsinki was oriented far more toward them than toward Germany.

Under the secret protocol, Finland fell within the Soviet sphere of interest, and Germany had no intention whatsoever of standing up for it

At the time, Finland was buying anti-aircraft guns from Germany and planes from Britain. What is especially notable is that as soon as the USSR attacked Finland, Germany immediately halted all arms deliveries to the Finns, notifying the Soviet side of this decision in December 1939. Simply put, the textbook authors’ attempt to portray the Finns of 1939 as Hitler’s allies is highly unconvincing.

The account of the start of military operations against Finland in November 1939 turned out to be extremely concise, with the authors briefly noting that "the command of the Red Army underestimated the strength of the Finnish fortifications" and that "the troops proved insufficient for a breakthrough" (p. 278). They do not mention the clear advantages in manpower and equipment that the Soviet side possessed, even when only taking into account assets on the Karelian Isthmus.

Page 288 of the textbook is devoted to the foreign-policy consequences of the Soviet attack on Finland. The authors write:

"As a consequence of the outbreak of hostilities, relations between the USSR and Britain and France deteriorated. The general staffs of these countries, while continuing to refrain from active military operations against Germany, developed plans for aerial bombardment of the Caucasus oil fields and for sending an expeditionary corps to assist the Finnish army. The Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations, which finally turned that organization into a fiction."

The League of Nations, created after World War I, did not merely expel the USSR – it called on member states to support Finland. In that sense, the military measures planned by Britain and France in support of Finland had not only strategic logic, but also a literal basis in international law.

It is worth recalling once again that at that time the USSR was supplying the Third Reich with raw materials (oil, iron ore, and manganese), cooperating with Hitler in the partition of Poland, and maintaining a friendship treaty with Nazi Germany. In light of these circumstances, the textbook authors’ attempt to portray Britain and France as the warmongers appears, to put it mildly, awkward.

The textbook then notes that by February 1940 "the Finnish army had exhausted its capacity for resistance" (p. 288). In March 1940, peace was signed between the USSR and Finland. The textbook does not explain why the USSR did not advance further given that the Finnish army supposedly no longer had the ability to fight.

Interestingly, the answer lies in the historical fact that it was precisely in February–March 1940 that the military leadership of Britain and France had decided to intervene in the war on Finland’s side and began preparing an expeditionary corps (Plan R3). Troops were being loaded onto ships at the very moment the peace treaty between Finland and the USSR was signed in Moscow.

In the textbook, incidentally, the initiative for peace negotiations is attributed to the Finnish side, whereas in reality the first probing on the matter was begun by Sweden in January 1940, acting at the Soviet Union’s behest. Helsinki did not agree to peace at that stage, and only in March — when Finland had indeed suffered substantial casualties and lost part of its fortifications, and at a moment when the USSR was facing the threat of Britain and France entering the war — were the sides able to compromise on peace.

During the 105 days of war, the USSR lost 131,476 men killed and missing, while Finland suffered 26,000 killed and 44,000 wounded. The textbook says not a word about this relative disbalance, merely noting (p. 288) that "serious shortcomings in the training and equipment of the Red Army were revealed."

The contrast with how the 2013 history textbook described the events of the Soviet–Finnish War is notable (p. 181):

"In November 1939, the Soviet leadership provoked a war with Finland and immediately formed a puppet government of 'people’s' Finland headed by Comintern figure O. V. Kuusinen. Military operations were accompanied by heavy losses for the Red Army (almost 127,000 killed and dead of wounds, against 48,000 on the Finnish side). In addition, the war caused serious foreign-policy complications for Moscow. In December 1939, the USSR was expelled from the League of Nations as an aggressor state. Britain, France, and the United States were preparing military aid for Finland. Under these circumstances, J. V. Stalin did not dare march on Helsinki. The Sovietization of Finland failed."

Textbooks are no place for debate

Modern instruments of Russian foreign policy — claiming to be the victim of aggression, justifying occupation as a preventive measure, and conducting controlled elections and referendums – are inherited from the traditions of Stalin’s foreign policy of the 1930s.

One might argue that the Russian Federation is not the Soviet Union, but instead of condemning Soviet crimes and learning from the repressive past, the Russian political elite of today embraced the role of legal successor to both the victories and the crimes of the USSR, adopting the worst Soviet traditions and retroactively justifying any and all actions taken by the Soviet leadership. This legacy is fully reflected in the unified history textbook, which not only feeds Russian teenagers historical falsehoods, but also leaves no room for self-criticism or scholarly debate.

Yekaterinburg lies nearly 2,000 kilometers (over 1,200 miles) from the front line and had not previously recorded a drone strike.

According to local media reports, the building in question is the Trinity residential complex on Khokhryakova Street in the city center. Published footage indicates the drone hit the upper part of the high-rise, around the 25th to 30th floors. Residents were evacuated, with some sent to temporary accommodation centers. Many ran out of the building with little more than their documents.

“Everyone is under stress. They are not saying anything yet. Everyone was sent to a school. They gave everyone food and water. We really hope to get back home. We have no belongings with us. We only had time to take our passports. We actually thought it was an earthquake. You watch the news and think this is happening somewhere else and will never affect us. If someone had told me yesterday that this would happen to our residential complex, I would not have believed it,” one resident told local outlet E1.

Residents have not yet been allowed to return to their apartments. Investigators are working at the scene.

Authorities did not warn people living in Yekaterinburg of the drone threat, local residents said. Subscribers of some mobile operators received text alerts, but only after the strike. The city’s Koltsovo Airport halted operations about 20 minutes before the drone struck.

Maxim Ivanov, a State Duma MP from the Sverdlovsk Region, urged people to stop viewing the region as a safe area far from the front line and called for an alert system to be set up to warn people of impending attacks.

“This mindset that we live ‘in the rear’ and that this does not concern us must become a thing of the past. There had been strikes on neighboring regions; now, unfortunately, the time has come to respond in Yekaterinburg as well. If anyone thinks that we remain safe because we are 2,000 kilometers away, that is no longer true in today’s situation. People must take their duties seriously, including alerts. If the warning system did not work, then it apparently has not actually been properly set up,” he said.

It is currently unknown where the drone was launched from or what exactly the target was. The independent Russian outlet Astra reported that there are no obvious military facilities near the site of the strike. Kyiv has not commented on the incident. Saturday’s attack marked the first recorded drone strike in the Sverdlovsk Region, though neighboring regions have already reported detecting or being struck with drones. Local authorities have reported strikes in the Chelyabinsk and Tyumen regions, as well as Perm Krai and the Republic of Bashkortostan.

He called the current crisis the most serious supply disruption in the history of the global oil market, more serious than the crises of 1973, 1979, and 2022 combined. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), which in January had forecast global growth of 3.3% in 2026, is revising its projections downward. IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva warned of the asymmetric effects the crisis will have on poorer, energy-importing countries and said that “even in the best case, there will be no neat and clean return to the status quo ante.”

Europe is struggling, but does not want Russian oil

The European Union entered the Iran crisis burdened by two problems: on the one hand, heavy dependence on imported energy resources; on the other, limited room for fiscal maneuver after the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2022 energy shock, and sharply increased military spending over the past four years.

Speaking before the European Parliament’s committee on economic and financial affairs, European economy commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis warned that even if a ceasefire in the Middle East holds, GDP growth in the EU for 2026 will still fall by 0.4 percentage points, while inflation will rise by 1 percentage point. If fighting resumes, the hit to economic growth will total 0.6 percentage points, while price growth will increase by a full 1.5 percentage points. “[It is] clear that we are facing a stagflationary shock,” Dombrovskis said in an interview with the Financial Times.

The European economy risks facing a stagflationary shock if the war in the Middle East drags on

For now, the second, less optimistic scenario appears far more likely. To understand why, it is enough to look at conditions in the fuel market.

About 30% of Europe’s jet fuel imports traditionally come from the Persian Gulf. At the beginning of April, jet fuel was trading at more than $1,800 a ton, 120% above its pre-crisis level. That forced at least four major Italian airports to ration aviation kerosene as stocks rapidly dwindled, while Scandinavian airline SAS canceled about 1,000 flights in April.

Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary said the carrier would be forced to consider canceling some flights and cutting capacity this summer if fuel shortages continue.

ACI Europe, the airport industry group representing more than 600 airports handling over 95% of the EU’s commercial air traffic, sent a letter to European commissioners on April 9 with a blunt warning: if transit through the Strait of Hormuz does not resume on a stable basis within the next three weeks, a systemic shortage of jet fuel will become a reality.

The specific deadline is the beginning of May — the height of preparations ahead of peak summer traffic. Some EU member states have jet fuel reserves sufficient for only eight to 10 days, reported Italian daily Corriere della Sera, citing sources among EU jet fuel suppliers and airlines.

Some EU member states have jet fuel reserves sufficient for only eight to 10 days

Air transport generates 851 billion euros in GDP and supports 14 million jobs in European economies. A physical fuel shortage is not an abstract price risk but a direct threat to the entire sector.

Dombrovskis reminded lawmakers that during the previous energy crisis, governments spent about 1% of GDP on non-targeted price subsidies and fuel tax breaks. This time, the European Commission insists, support must be targeted, temporary, and moderate. VAT on diesel can be cut for a quarter, but not for a year — and only if the benefit reaches transport operators rather than getting trapped in hedge funds. In any case, high debt and high interest rates leave only a narrow corridor for maneuver.

Despite signs of a deepening crisis, there is little reason to expect the European embargo on Russian oil supplies, in force since late 2022, to be lifted. In January, a ban took effect on imports of petroleum products made from Russian crude in third countries such as India and Turkey, and after the outbreak of the war in Iran, the  European Commission stated in no uncertain terms its principled opposition to making up for lost supply through the use of Russian sources.

The crushing victory of Hungary’s opposition in the April 12 parliamentary election was also significant, as it removed the main obstacle to the 20th package of sanctions against Russia, which Viktor Orban’s government had blocked in February. One provision in that package is a full ban on European companies providing maritime transportation services for Russian oil to third countries, replacing the more flexible price cap.

At his first news conference, Hungarian opposition leader Peter Magyar acknowledged that Budapest’s dependence on Russian energy resources would remain for some time, but he also stressed the need to diversify supplies.

More broadly, the Middle East crisis appears likely to give fresh momentum to calls in Europe for diversification, wider adoption of renewable energy, and a parallel reduction in hydrocarbon consumption.

Why Russia’s oil windfall will not last long

Unlike Europe and other major importers, Russia is actually benefiting from the Strait of Hormuz crisis — for now. Unexpectedly, the blockade has turned Russian oil from a toxic asset into a sought-after and liquid commodity, one for which U.S. sanctions were even temporarily eased. India increased imports of Russian oil in March to their highest level since June 2023, and the Philippines bought ESPO crude for the first time in five years.

Clearly, the spike in interest is the result of the absence of obvious alternatives, meaning once prices normalize, demand will fall. The U.S. Treasury has extended General License GL 134A to cover Russian oil loaded onto tankers before April 17, but it is not clear whether a new extension will follow that update. 

Still, the crisis has come at a particularly opportune moment for Russia’s increasingly strained budget. In the first quarter of 2026, Russia’s oil and gas revenues fell 45.4% year-on-year. The country’s federal budget deficit for January through March totaled 4.58 trillion rubles, already exceeding the planned figure for the full year. The average price of Urals crude used by the Finance Ministry for tax purposes fell in February to $44.59 a barrel, against a budget benchmark of $59.

March reversed the downward trend: Urals rose to $77 a barrel, and April revenues (which are calculated based on March data) from the mineral extraction tax alone could reach $9 billion, or about 700 billion rubles, according to Reuters, twice the level seen in March. However, it is unclear how long high prices will hold, and Russian authorities still have few reasons for optimism in the medium term.

First, persistently high oil prices over a long period would increase recessionary pressure in importing countries, including in the world’s largest economies. That would inevitably lead to a fall in overall demand and, accordingly, falling prices themselves. For example, it took Brent’s spot price from early September 2008 — about $100 a barrel — two and a half years to return to its previous levels.

Second, both the expected and already partly realized deficit in Russia’s federal budget is so large that excess revenues earned over just a few months clearly will not be enough to cover it. In particular, planned spending this year on defense, national security, social policy, and debt servicing totals 27.8 trillion rubles out of a 44.1 trillion-ruble budget. Those items cannot be cut, which helps explain why the Economic Development Ministry projects a deficit budget through 2042.

The deficit in Russia’s federal budget is so large that excess revenues earned over just a few months clearly will not be enough to cover it

Third, the structural weakness of Russian oil exports after 2022 lies not in physical volumes (which will be discussed below), but in the gap between price and actual revenue. Before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Urals traded at a discount to Brent of $1 to $2 a barrel. In 2024 and 2025, that gap was about $15. And after British and U.S. sanctions were imposed against four of Russia’s largest oil producers and exporters — Rosneft, Lukoil, Gazprom Neft, and Surgutneftegas — it exceeded $20 a barrel in some transactions.

Since the beginning of March, the discount has been either minimal or even negative —meaning Urals has traded at a premium to Brent — but that is a temporary result of the high prices caused by the current shock. As long as Russia and its “shadow fleet” remain under sweeping Western sanctions and embargoes, downward price pressure on Urals will persist.

The Economist has also reported that tankers in Russia’s “shadow fleet” lose 30% to 70% of their productivity after sanctions are imposed, sharply increasing transaction costs. According to estimates by the KSE Institute at the Kyiv School of Economics, sanctions caused $166 billion in losses to Russian oil exports from March 2022 through November 2025. At the same time, sanctions did not undermine physical shipment volumes: crude oil exports in 2025 totaled about 4.8 million barrels a day, virtually unchanged year over year.

Fourth, Ukrainian strikes on Russian port infrastructure have exposed a vulnerability that Western sanctions failed to create over all these years: the physical blocking of exports. By March 25, about 40% of Russia’s oil export capacity — around 2 million barrels a day — had been temporarily knocked out. As a result, shipments of naphtha from Ust-Luga fell 74% in the final week of the month.

Reuters described the development as the most serious disruption of oil supplies in Russia’s modern history. The strategic significance is clear: Kyiv is depriving Moscow of the ability to monetize favorable price conditions precisely at the moment when they are most advantageous — even if, by early April, half of that degraded capacity had been restored.

Kyiv is depriving Moscow of the ability to monetize favorable price conditions precisely at the moment when they are most advantageous

It is difficult to say whether Ukraine will be able to inflict comparable damage on a regular basis. Given the scale of the recent attacks, the Russian side will of course try to strengthen defenses at key infrastructure sites. But Ukraine now certainly knows which targets it needs to strike first.

In the longer run, a sustained Urals price anywhere below $50 a barrel would be painful for Moscow economically. In the event of a global recession or de-escalation in the Middle East, Brent could return to $55 to $60 a barrel, and Urals, with its usual discount, would end up in the $35 to $45 range.

According to calculations published last year by Re:Russia, under that scenario the budget deficit would reach 6 trillion rubles, or 3% of GDP, instead of the planned 1.6%. Financing that gap would require either borrowing at the central bank’s double-digit rate, or simply issuing more money. Both options are toxic for an economy where food inflation already exceeds 20%.

What happens with and without Iranian oil

According to Bloomberg’s calculations, exports of Iranian Light crude were bringing Tehran about $139 million a day in March. Stable shipment volumes, combined with a jump in prices and a sharp narrowing of the discount to Brent (from more than $10 to just $2.10 a barrel) gave Iran roughly $25 million a day more in revenue than it was bringing in during the month of February.

While competitors stood in line at the closed gates of the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian tankers were passing through it without obstruction. But Iran faces the same structural limitations as Russia. Persistently high prices accelerate recession in importing countries and inevitably suppress demand.

Even under current conditions, Iranian oil is sold mainly to China’s independent refineries — the so-called teapots — which traditionally buy more than 80% of Iran’s exports. This is a buyer’s market with hard pricing leverage.

Once global prices fall, the structural discount will return to its previous levels. For decades, Iran has offered buyers substantial discounts in order to sustain exports. To evade sanctions, it has used a range of schemes, from ship-to-ship transfers in neutral waters with AIS transponders switched off to payments routed outside the U.S. financial system. The transaction costs associated with those methods exert downward pressure on Iranian oil profits in the same way the costs of Russia’s “shadow fleet” lower  Russia’s revenue from the sale of Urals.

There is, however, a fundamental difference: Iran’s “shadow” exports are physically dependent on a geographic chokepoint that Tehran itself decided to use as a weapon. The Strait of Hormuz is both a lever of pressure and a bottleneck for Iran’s own supplies.

Iran’s “shadow” exports are physically dependent on a geographic chokepoint that Tehran itself decided to use as a weapon

The crisis shows no sign of abating. Talks in Islamabad on April 12 broke up after the U.S. delegation, led by Vice President JD Vance, spent almost a full day failing to secure Iran’s agreement to abandon its nuclear program and meet the White House’s other demands. As a result, Donald Trump announced a naval blockade of the strait, and since then, the passage of dozens of ships has been blocked. Strikes on Iran’s oil infrastructure have not yet become a priority for Washington, likely because they would drive prices even higher. But the military logic of the conflict makes that scenario increasingly less hypothetical.

“The ban on Latvian schoolchildren communicating with each other in Russian is the policy of the Nazis, who prohibited people from using their language on ethnic or national grounds, said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.

Earlier, Riga City Council member Aleksejs Roslikov told RIA Novosti in an interview that schoolchildren in Latvia have been banned from speaking Russian to each other on school premises, even during free time.

‘Nazis. Nazis have always banned people, on ethnic or national grounds, from practicing their culture and history, from using their language, and have restricted all freedoms on national grounds,’ she said during the briefing.

At the same time, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson emphasized that this discriminatory policy is prohibited by the Nuremberg Tribunal and international law.”

The previous day, the former leader of Latvia’s “For Stability!” party, the above-mentioned Aleksejs Roslikovs, indeed told RIA Novosti about a ban on speaking Russian in Latvian schools, even outside of class time:

“Many radically minded Latvian politicians already say that Russian is a language for the kitchen — meaning: talk among yourselves at home. Naturally, several laws have been adopted. For example, students are no longer allowed, even in their free time, to speak any language other than the state language among themselves on school premises.”

However, in reality, no such law exists in Latvia. Roslikovs was apparently prompted to make this statement by a widely discussed 2024 case, when a school in the city of Jurmala adopted internal rules requiring students to speak only Latvian on school premises. In September 2024, the Latvian public media portal LSM+ wrote:

“After the start of the school year, LSM+ learned of de facto bans in compulsory education schools on students using any non-state language for personal communication at school. In at least one case, such a requirement was formally documented — included in the school’s mandatory ‘Internal Regulations’ among other ‘Student Duties.’ In the document, the school is referred to as an ‘Institution,’ and one of the student’s duties is formulated as follows:

‘In the Institution (during lessons and breaks) and at events organized by the Institution (excursions, class evenings, etc.), as well as when representing the school outside it, to use the state language established in the Republic of Latvia — the Latvian language.’

These same rules also provide for various disciplinary measures for failure to fulfill duties, ranging from an oral warning, escalating to a formal reprimand entered into the student’s personal file, and even involvement of the Orphan’s Court (*term in Latvia, a specific municipal institution responsible for guardianship and custody matters, i.e., the child welfare authority).”

The decision by the Jurmala school led to a public debate in Latvia, with senior officials commenting on the matter before the then Minister of Education, Anda Čakša, came out and described the restriction as excessive. The Office of the Ombudsman of Latvia then deemed the ban unlawful. As office representative Ruta Siliņa explained:

“The school has a duty to develop internal rules. But there is a limit; there are areas they are not allowed to regulate, such as private communication between two students. The law does not permit them to interfere in this sphere. The school can only decide on matters it is authorized to regulate, not all matters in the world. For instance, at school, two friends are privately discussing something important to them during a break. They may use whatever language is most convenient for them.”

In an official response to the inquiry from LSM+ the Ombudsman’s Office stated:

“Private communication between students during breaks, before or after lessons, should be left to the students’ own discretion. The school has no grounds to restrict the language of communication in these cases. Students, as private individuals, may do anything that is not prohibited by regulatory acts. External regulations do not restrict the use of languages in private communication between people who wish to communicate in a particular language. Article 2(3) of the State Language Law stipulates that the law does not apply to the use of languages in informal communication among residents of Latvia. Communication between students during a break is informal communication; therefore, during breaks, students must be allowed to speak to each other in the language of their choice, and this issue should not be regulated…

The obligation set out in the school’s internal rules to use the Latvian language even in private communication outside class time is considered excessively restrictive.”

Following the recommendations of the Ombudsman’s Office, the school revised its internal regulations. The story about the ban on the Russian language would have ended there had the fugitive MP Roslikovs not brought it up again over a year later, presenting an internal restriction in an individual school as a Latvian law.

Aleksejs Roslikovs was the leader of a party that primarily relied on the votes of Russian-speaking voters sympathetic to Putin’s regime. In June 2025, while serving as a member of the Latvian parliament (Saeima), he made an obscene gesture from the parliamentary rostrum and had to be removed from the chamber.

Latvia has opened a case against Roslikovs on charges of inciting national and ethnic hatred. The prosecution argues that he deliberately used fabricated claims, portraying the Latvian authorities as hostile toward Russian speakers and suggesting that repressions were being prepared. A court hearing in Roslikovs’s case was scheduled for early April, but in March he received permission from the court to travel to a conference in Switzerland, after which he did not return to Latvia and instead settled in Belarus.

Jury members noted that they are committed to the “defense of human rights,” while the Biennale itself emphasized that the jury acts independently.

As Reuters notes, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin over the deportation of Ukrainian children, as well as for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.

On March 4, the organizers of the Venice Biennale published a press release listing Russia among the event’s participants. According to the statement, the Russian pavilion will present a project titled “The Tree Is Rooted in the Sky,” featuring at least 38 artists and musicians. Russia has not taken part in the Biennale since the start of its full-scale war against Ukraine.

The decision to allow Russia back into the cultural space has drawn criticism from Ukraine and its allies, and the European Commission notified the organizers of the Venice Biennale of its intention to suspend or cancel a €2 million grant following the decision to admit Russia. In addition, Russian opposition artists and activists have announced plans to hold anti-war protest actions at the exhibition.

In a conversation with The Insider, artist Anton Litvin, who participated in the Russian pavilion at the 2005 Venice Biennale, fully supported the jury’s decision to exclude Russia from consideration for prizes:

“One can only welcome this decision. Notably, this year’s jury is made up only of women. Unfortunately, the jury does not have the authority to ban national pavilions from participating in the Biennale. Russia’s participation is a personal decision made by the Biennale’s director, so the jury has done the most it could — it will simply ignore the national pavilions and artists of Russia and Israel. We, on the contrary, will not ignore them, but will stage protest actions in front of the Russian pavilion. 

It is important to add that the jury members are highly respected professionals in the world of contemporary art, and their refusal to play by the Biennale leadership’s rules — and their choice to emphasize ethics and human rights — does them credit.”

This year’s Venice Biennale will take place from May 9 to November 22.

A total of 276 personnel and 77 pieces of equipment have been deployed to fight the new fire. The smoke is worst in the Grozneft, Sortirovka, and Zvyozdny neighborhoods, and in parts of Tuapse’s Central District.

Vladimir Slivyak, co-chair of the environmental group Ecodefense! (“Ekozashschita!”), told The Insider that compounds formed during combustion pose a direct health risk, and pointed specifically to the carcinogenic effects of benzene:

“In general, toxic and carcinogenic substances are formed during combustion. In this case, there are an extremely large number of such substances, and they are especially dangerous for people with respiratory illnesses, such as bronchitis or asthma. Benzene is a Class 1 carcinogen. It can cause cancer, for example leukemia.”

Due to rainy conditions, air quality was not measured on April 22. However, the effects became visible to the naked eye several days earlier, when black residue began settling on surfaces across the city. Residents said “everything around was covered with an oily film and black pellets,” a claim also reported by the local emergency response headquarters.

Environmentalists said smog from the fire reached the cities of Anapa, Sochi, and Stavropol. The independent outlet Important Stories reported that birds and stray dogs were caught in the “oil rain,” with toxic substances damaging feathers and entering animals’ bodies, potentially killing them.

A WHO study shows that inhaling benzene is toxic to humans and increases the long-term risk of cancer. Greenpeace says smoke from fires like the one in Tuapse poses a particular danger to people with respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, as well to as older people and children. Environmentalists advise residents of the hardest-hit areas to stay indoors with windows and doors closed when possible and to wear FFP3 or FFP2 respirators outside, changing them every one to two hours. The organization recommends keeping pets indoors and not allowing them to drink from puddles or bodies of water.

The fire at the marine terminal broke out on the night of April 20 after Ukrainian drones attacked the port in Tuapse. The strikes hit the tank farm of a refinery operated by state-owned company Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil producer. One person was killed and another was injured. A previous fire that broke out after a drone attack overnight on April 16 was extinguished only on the afternoon of April 19. 

Removal under the 25th Amendment

The war with Iran quickly became a heavy burden for the White House. The first month of military operations cost the U.S. budget $31 billion, not counting damage to military facilities and lost equipment. In the draft federal budget for 2027, the Trump administration proposed a 44% increase in defense spending, raising the total to $1.5 trillion. If adopted, defense expenditures would constitute 4.5% of GDP. On top of that, last year Congress approved a $150 billion increase in the Pentagon budget as part of the “Big Beautiful Bill.”

The first month of military operations alone cost the U.S. budget $31 billion

Because of the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, oil prices surged sharply, followed by fuel price growth inside the United States. The average price of gasoline rose from $3.17 per gallon a year ago to over $4.00 today, while diesel climbed to nearly $5.70. This is driving up transportation costs for various goods and adding further inflationary pressure to the economy as a whole.

The White House has still failed to clearly explain to Americans the logic and objectives of the war, while public support from the outset was at a record low compared with other U.S. armed conflicts. According to polling, an average of 53% of Americans oppose the war, while only 38% support it.

Since commencing military action, Trump’s approval rating has fallen to their lowest levels since his return to the White House. Pollsters report that 56% of Americans disapprove of his policies, while in some surveys that figure already exceeds 60%.

After the publication of his statement about destroying Iranian civilization, more than 70 Democratic Congressmen called for the invocation of the 25th Amendment, which allows a president to be removed from office if he is unable to discharge the duties of the office. Most notably, those calls were joined by former Republican firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene, far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and conservative activist Candace Owens, even if, among sitting Republican politicians and members of Congress, the idea found no support.

Notably, since its adoption in 1967, the 25th Amendment has indeed been used four times — always at the initiative of the presidents themselves, when they were about to undergo surgery or another medical procedure requiring anesthesia, after which they resumed their powers.The amendment does indeed allow the vice president, with the consent of the cabinet, to declare the president incapacitated and strip him of his powers, but the president can reclaim his authority by sending Congress a letter stating that he is fit for office. In that case, Congress would decide the dispute, and removing the president would require a two-thirds vote in both chambers — an even more onerous requirement than that for impeachment and removal, which requires a majority vote in Congress followed by support of 67 Senators.

It is extremely difficult to imagine such a scenario now. Vice President J. D. Vance and members of the administration remain loyal to Donald Trump and are unlikely to so much as attempt to initiate a palace coup, not even one carried out through constitutional means.

Equally unrealistic are calls for Trump’s removal from office via impeachment. Even if Democrats win the midterm congressional elections in November 2026, Republican senators remain loyal to the president, including on questions of war, as shown by the opposition’s unsuccessful attempts to pass one antiwar resolution after another. This means that impeachment proceedings against Trump would almost certainly fail to gain the necessary two-thirds majority in the Senate, just as attempts in 2019 and 2021 failed.

Still, although Trump is unlikely to face removal from office, it is clear that the war with Iran is causing obvious reputational damage to the president. According to polling, the war is supported by 77% of Republicans and 90% of those who identify with the MAGA movement, and Trump’s approval rating among them remains in the 80–90% range. But it is becoming increasingly difficult to win over ordinary voters who believed Trump’s 2024 promise not to start new wars. This reality is all the more important with midterm elections approaching in November.

Face of the war

Trump’s decision to move toward negotiations showed that the United States failed to achieve its war aims through military means. Even Fox News, known for its support of the president, has reluctantly acknowledged this.

Iran’s ruling regime withstood the strikes, while even more hardline politicians linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) took leading positions within it. Nuclear facilities were damaged, but the country still possesses stockpiles of enriched uranium. Iran’s missile forces and other military units, despite significant losses, are still capable of inflicting substantial damage on the United States and its allies in the Middle East. And now there is the new problem of the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran is now readily using to blackmail the entire global economy.

The limited nature of the president’s military options had been outlined by General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. However, Trump was persuaded otherwise by Benjamin Netanyahu. Several weeks before the war began, the Israeli prime minister flew to Washington, D.C.. In the White House Situation Room, Netanyahu presented a briefing that argued Israel and the United States together could quickly inflict a military defeat on Iran, triggering unrest inside the country and bringing down the ruling regime.

At the same time, the CIA director called such a scenario a “farce,” while Secretary of State Marco Rubio bluntly described it as “nonsense.” Vice President J. D. Vance also did not support the plan. After the war had already begun, Joe Kent, head of the National Counterterrorism Committee, resigned from the administration in protest, accusing Israel and its lobby in Washington of provoking the conflict.

The CIA director called the scenario of an attack on Iran a “farce,” while Secretary of State Marco Rubio bluntly described it as “nonsense”

In essence, the only major supporter of war with Iran among officials in the Trump administration turned out to be Pentagon head Pete Hegseth, who became the main public face of the war, regularly reporting at press conferences on the successes of the American military and the imminent capitulation of the Iranian regime. He also rebuked journalists for what he said was insufficiently patriotic coverage of the conflict, repeatedly claiming that Iran’s air defenses had been completely destroyed, even though in early April the Iranians shot down two American aircraft.

Some members of the administration reproached Hegseth for misleading not only Americans, but Trump himself with overly optimistic statements. “Pete is not speaking truth to the president,” journalists quoted one administration official as saying. “As a result, the president is out there repeating misleading information.”

Purge at the Pentagon

Hegseth now fears he could become the scapegoat for the failures of the military campaign. Ahead of the midterm congressional elections, Trump has begun gradually ridding himself of the most scandal-plagued and controversial members of his administration, such as former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and former Attorney General Pam Bondi. The press quickly began speculating over who might be next. Alongside FBI Director Kash Patel and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Hegseth’s name has also been mentioned with notable frequency.

Hegseth fears that he could become the scapegoat for the failures of the military campaign

The secretary himself is obsessed with fighting leaks to the press. Even though the Pentagon’s information policies were ruled unlawful by a court, they effectively remain in practice today. After restrictive accreditation rules were introduced for journalists, nearly all outlets — from NPR and The New York Times to Fox News and The Daily Caller — left the Pentagon press pool.

Only fringe conservative media outlets agreed to work under the new conditions. Among them were Lindell TV, founded by pillow magnate and fierce 2020 election “truther” Mike Lindell; YouTuber Tim Pool, who received payments linked to RT; the websites Gateway Pundit, The Post Millennial, Human Events, The National Pulse, and RedState; the YouTube channel of conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA; and the blog Washington Reporter. Of these, only Gateway Pundit and RedState rank among America’s top 20 most visited conservative media outlets.

Hegseth’s persistent demands for absolute loyalty have also undermined trust in the secretary among his subordinates. Desperately trying to find the sources of Pentagon leaks, Hegseth and his lawyer Tim Parlatore began administering lie detector tests to military personnel and staff. After numerous complaints, the White House demanded that Hegseth stop the polygraph testing.

The defense secretary has also been far from consistent in his decisions, which has further hurt his standing within the military. Last summer, Hegseth initially refused to promote General Douglas Sims, then agreed after an inquiry showed Sims had no connection to the leaks, only to reverse himself again. Ultimately, Sims resigned after 34 years of military service.

Also last summer, Hegseth dismissed Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, over a “loss of confidence.” In June, Kruse’s agency had prepared a preliminary report on U.S. strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. The document, which was soon leaked to the press, said the strikes had only delayed Iran’s nuclear program by several months, contradicting the White House’s official version that the sites had been completely destroyed.

Because of suspicions of disloyalty, Hegseth also began carrying out purges among the senior officer corps, with women and members of racial minorities often serving as the targets. The first to be dismissed was Charles Q. Brown Jr., the second Black general to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff after Colin Powell.

Others who lost their posts included Navy and Coast Guard chiefs Lisa Franchetti and Linda Fagan, as well as General Jennifer Short, Navy Reserve chief Nancy Lacore, and Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield — all of them women. Rear Admiral Michael Donnelly was denied appointment as commander of the United States Seventh Fleet after reports in conservative media that seven years earlier he had authorized a drag show aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76).

Even the outbreak of a new war did not halt the dismissals. In early April, Hegseth demanded that U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Randy George step down. He had been appointed by Joe Biden in 2023 and confirmed by the United States Senate. Before that, he served as senior military assistant to Biden-era Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and earlier commanded troops during the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Dismissed alongside him were General David Hodne, who headed Army Futures and Transformation Command, and the Army’s chief chaplain, Major General William Green.

Since taking over at the Pentagon, Hegseth has dismissed more than two dozen generals and admirals. He reshaped almost the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff, which consists of the eight highest-ranking military officers, replacing six of them. By the secretary’s order, nine four- and five-star generals left the armed forces — equal to the number who had been dismissed over the previous 150 years.

Hegseth dismissed nine four- and five-star generals — the same number U.S. presidents dismissed over the past 150 years

Hegseth has grown wary of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, whom he views as a potential successor. Last year, the defense secretary secured Driscoll’s removal from negotiations with Ukraine after he visited Kyiv together with General Randy George. He also sought Driscoll’s dismissal, attempting to replace him with his aide Sean Parnell. However, Vice President J. D. Vance came to Driscoll’s defense — after all, the relationship between the two goes all the way back to their days together at Yale Law School.

Last summer, Hegseth’s chief of staff Ricky Buria demanded that Driscoll reverse a decision to appoint Major General Antoinette Gant, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, as commander of the Military District of Washington. Its commander often performs ceremonial duties, and Buria supposedly told Driscoll that Trump would not want to stand next to a “Black female officer” at official events. Driscoll was forced to complain to the White House, where he received support, forcing Hegseth to back down.

Hegseth has also launched a sweeping reform of the officer selection system, entrusting the process to retired Brigadier General Anthony Tata, who called President Barack Obama a “terrorist leader” and a Muslim who supports Iran. Because of those comments, Tata withdrew his name from consideration for a senior Pentagon post in 2020, with Senate hearings canceled half an hour before they were due to begin.

Soon after launching the personnel overhaul, Hegseth ordered the closure of a program designed to ensure that all officers, regardless of race or gender, had an equal opportunity to compete for senior posts. The Command Assessment Program was introduced on a pilot basis during Trump’s first term and became established under Joe Biden. It supplemented traditional personnel evaluations with expert assessments and double-blind interviews.

The secretary banned service members from taking courses at or cooperating with leading American universities and think tanks, which he denounced as breeding grounds of left-wing ideology. Under Hegseth’s leadership, regular prayers in support of the armed forces are now held inside the Pentagon. During one such prayer gathering, Hegseth, instead of quoting the Bible, recited a monologue by Samuel L. Jackson’s character from Pulp Fiction, in which he recites a fictional passage of scripture.

Experts and former military officers note that the new Pentagon leadership’s obsession with culture wars and politically motivated purges is negatively affecting the effectiveness of the armed forces and their ability to respond to new threats. The demand for loyalty at the expense of professionalism may also lead the country’s political leadership to receive an increasingly distorted picture of events, affecting its decisions.

As The Insider has repeatedly reported, Russia has used Kyrgyzstan as a transit point for importing various types of European-made equipment, including machines that are then used for defense production.

For example, Kyrgyz company Interstyle Plus and its Russian partner Alliance LLC were already under U.S. sanctions over their role in procuring Czech machine tools. The Insider found that the founders of Interstyle Plus and Alliance LLC had personal ties: both were fishing enthusiasts and competed on the same fishing team.

KLC Group SIA, a company registered in Jurmala and founded by Latvian national Roberts Kalve, also exported $1.3 million worth of Western-made industrial automation equipment to Russia in 2024. According to documents, the shipments went through Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The actual buyers were two linked companies: ITC and ITC-Project, which then sold the equipment to Russian factories.

The Financial Times reported on March 2, citing the First Deputy Chairman of Kyrgyzstan's Cabinet of Ministers, that the country planned to sue the EU if it imposed sanctions on Bishkek over the re-export of dual-use goods to Russia. In comments to The Insider, however, Amangeldiev denied that Kyrgyzstan was ready to sue the EU, saying there had been a misunderstanding and that Kyrgyz authorities were instead prepared to take measures against companies supplying Moscow with sanctioned goods.

The new sanctions also targeted a Kyrgyz organization that operates a crypto exchange handling large volumes of A7A5, a ruble-pegged stablecoin backed by deposits at Russia’s Promsvyazbank, which is under EU, U.S., and British sanctions.

The EU’s 19th sanctions package, adopted in October 2025, had already imposed restrictions on A7A5, its Kyrgyz issuer, and the operator of the platform where it is traded.

The token was created by A7, a cross-border payments company linked to exiled Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor. The Insider previously reported that A7 and related entities help Russian businesses make international payments despite the complications introduced by sanctions.

Among them are eight companies from The Insider’s investigation into drone manufacturers in Russia: TsUGAM, Tekhnodron JSC, Arkhangel-Center LLC, ATLANT AERO LLC, Gaskar Group LLC, Astron Optical-Mechanical Design Bureau JSC, Aero-HIT LLC and Simbirsk Design Bureau Piranha LLC, as well as TsUGAM director Olga Sokolova. (SKB Piranha LLC, which produces up to 10,000 FPV drones a month, had already been sanctioned by the United States after a separate investigation by The Insider.)

The full document, published on the Council of Europe’s website, lists the areas covered by the new restrictions:

Energy and the “shadow fleet”

• A legal framework has been created for a future ban on maritime services for the transport of Russian oil and petroleum products, in coordination with the G7 and the price-cap coalition. Several media outlets had earlier reported that the 20th package was initially expected to include a full ban on transporting Russian oil, but the introduction of such a measure was postponed. 
• Targeted sanctions have been imposed on 36 “designations” connected to Russia’s oil sector, affecting operations from exploration and production to refining and transportation.
• Another 46 “shadow fleet” vessels were barred from entering EU ports and from receiving a wide range of services, bringing the total number of such vessels under restrictions to 632.
• Mandatory compliance requirements were introduced for the sale of tankers in order to make it harder for Russia to expand its “shadow fleet.”
• Maintenance and other services for Russian LNG tankers and icebreakers were banned.
• Starting in January 2027, LNG terminal services will be banned for Russian entities or companies under Russian control.
• Transactions were banned with the Russian ports of Murmansk and Tuapse, as well as the oil terminal at Indonesia’s Karimun port, as these facilities have been used as part of Russia’s efforts to circumvent the price cap.

Finance and cryptocurrencies

• A transaction ban was imposed on 20 Russian banks.
• Similar restrictions were imposed on four financial institutions from third countries for helping evade sanctions or for ties to Russia’s SPFS interbank messaging system.
• For the first time, restrictions were imposed on a Kyrgyz entity trading in the A7A5 stablecoin, which Russia uses to evade sanctions.
• A full sectoral ban applies to Russian crypto providers and platforms that enable the transfer and exchange of crypto assets.
• Transactions involving the RUBx cryptocurrency and any EU support for the development of the digital ruble were banned.
• Netting transactions with Russian agents were banned.

Military-industrial complex

• Sanctions were imposed on 58 companies and related individuals involved in the development and production of Russian military goods, including drones.
• Restrictions also targeted 16 entities from China, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Belarus that supplied dual-use goods or weapons to Russia’s defense industry.
• Export restrictions were expanded to 60 new companies, including entities from China (including Hong Kong), Turkey, and the UAE.

Trade

• Exports of CNC machine tools and radio equipment to Kyrgyzstan were banned due to  the high risk of re-export to Russia.
• Export restrictions to Russia were imposed on laboratory glassware, high-performance lubricants, energy-intensive substances, chemicals, vulcanized rubber products, steel products, metalworking tools, and industrial tractors worth more than 360 million euros.
• Import restrictions were expanded to cover Russian raw materials, metals, certain minerals, scrap metal, chemicals, vulcanized rubber products, and tanned furs worth more than 570 million euros.
• A quota was introduced on ammonia imports.

Accountability and propaganda

• Five individual people and one organization involved in the deportation and forced transfer of Ukrainian children were added to the sanctions list. Four people involved in the appropriation of Ukrainian cultural heritage were separately targeted.
• Four propagandists were sanctioned, including RT Deputy Editor-in-Chief Anton Anisimov.

Other measures

• Cybersecurity services may no longer be provided to Russia.
• The broadcasting ban was extended to mirror websites of banned entities.
• Requirements for tracking the origin of diamonds were tightened; importers must now confirm that stones were not mined or processed in Russia.
• Legal tools were introduced to protect European companies from violations of their intellectual property rights and unlawful expropriation in Russia.

Three new listings also concern the military-industrial complex of Belarus, the Lukashenko regime, and a Chinese state-owned enterprise. The sanctions regime against Belarus was extended until Feb. 28, 2027.

The collection of individuals and companies added to the sanctions lists include:

• Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the Hermitage Museum
• Sergei Obryvalin, Russia’s first deputy culture minister
• Timati, whose real name is Timur Yunusov, a rapper and entrepreneur
• Vladimir Lepin, chief designer at the Kalashnikov concern
• Alexei Rtishchev, head of Russia’s radiation, chemical and biological defense troops
• Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology
• Slavneft and related entities, including Bashneft and several oil refineries
• Gazprom LNG Technologies and Gazpromneft Marine Bunker
• Timur Shagivaleyev, director general of the Alabuga special economic zone (SEZ), which produces Geran drones
• Ilya Shcherbovich, head of United Capital Partners, which has invested in oil refining jointly with Rosneft
• Anton Anisimov, deputy editor-in-chief of RT and editor-in-chief of Sputnik
• Andrei Marchenko, deputy head of Russia’s radiation, chemical and biological defense troops
• The Krasnozavodsk Chemical Plant, which produces explosives and ammunition
• The Krasnoyarsk Machine-Building Plant, or Krasmash, which produces Sarmat ballistic missiles
• NPO Avtomatiki named after Semikhatov, which makes components for the Bulava and Sineva intercontinental ballistic missiles
• Promsintez in Chapayevsk, which produces TNT and explosives
• CJSC TengriCoin of Kyrgyzstan, which trades the A7A5 stablecoin through Promsvyazbank
• Soglasie, an insurer of “shadow fleet” tankers
• Altrum Group FZCO of the UAE, which manages a significant part of the “shadow fleet” and controls 2Rivers Group
• Fyodor Chudinov, a boxer and lawmaker linked to the Night Wolves motorcycle club
• China’s ETS Solutions, which The Insider reported on in 2024, was also sanctioned.

The European Commission presented the draft 20th sanctions package in February. Its adoption was delayed by Hungary’s veto, which blocked the package until Ukraine resumed deliveries of Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline. Those deliveries resumed April 23.

The case file includes an expert opinion that cites materials published on the site as evidence of its “extremist” activity: articles about queer people and LGBT families in Russian regions, discrimination monitoring data, and a webinar featuring a psychologist and a lawyer discussing the law banning “LGBT propaganda.”

As Parni Plus journalist Vadim Vaganov told The Insider, the editorial team does not plan to cease operations, but going forward it will take security even more seriously, both for contributors living in Russia and for its audience.

“This news did not come as a surprise. Our media outlet has long irritated the authorities. We have not gone underground; we have not stopped publishing; we never stopped speaking with our audience; and we are still helping people — despite the long period of pressure on us. Both the outlet itself and individual team members have already been designated ‘foreign agents.’ In the past year alone, our team has been fined more than two million rubles [$26,500]. I personally have already received six fines for so-called [LGBT] propaganda.

As you can see, the pressure has not stopped us, and I believe this fact particularly irritates the state. So they have decided to move to the next step: to label us ‘extremists.’ The risks are greater, of course. But LGBTQ+ people are still in need of information and our support. In a situation like this, this need only becomes more acute. So we will certainly continue our work. The main question for us now is how to carry on our activities in a way that ensures our audience's safety.

We have contributors in Russia, and this cooperation is very important to us. We understand the risks involved and have long been working with different pressure scenarios in mind. We have security protocols in place, we try to take into account all possible designations and consequences, and now, of course, we will be even more careful in how we organize this work going forward.”

Parni Plus editor-in-chief Yevgeny Pisemsky added that repression in Russia operates “like an endless meat grinder”:

“Their goal is not just to punish, but to wear you down to the point where you don’t even have the strength to draw a breath. Since 2020, our LGBTQ+ media outlet has been living through an endless sequence of court hearings, police reports, and appeals… This is a meticulously coordinated attempt to force us into silence, to turn us into faceless shadows, to erase the very possibility of being open. But we will not shut down now. Even under the weight of fines and amid an acute funding crisis, we remain one of the few media outlets that continues to work for LGBTQ+ people in Russia, refusing to pretend that they do not exist. Being labeled extremists did not come as a surprise to us — we prepared thoroughly, and those for whom it was dangerous to stay in Russia have left.”

In November 2023, Russia’s Supreme Court declared the non-existent “international LGBT movement” to be extremist. In April 2025, for the first time, the Ministry of Justice named a specific individual whom the Russian authorities consider to be a member of this “movement”: Parni Plus journalist Vadim Vaganov. 

A turning point for the Russian publishing industry came in May 2025, when three employees of Popcorn Books and Individuum, both Eksmo–AST group publishing houses, were arrested on charges of “extremism.” The crackdown on the book market had begun earlier, but after the attack on publishers, pressure increased sharply. Independent bookstores, such as Moscow’s Podpisnye Izdaniya and Falanster, started being hit with fines.

According to the investigation, Popcorn Books and Individuum continued to publish and sell books that “promote LGBT ideology” despite the bans that had recently come into force. A year later, the detained employees remain under house arrest awaiting trial. Popcorn Books announced its closure in January 2026, while Individuum continues to operate.

More and more restrictions

Since 2022, Russian stores have taken down roughly 600 book titles for censorship reasons, according to Agentstvo. The peak came in February 2024, when the marketplace Megamarket pulled 252 books from sale due to the law on “LGBT propaganda.” Most of the affected works were not contemporary Russian titles, but books by authors like Oscar Wilde, Stephen King, Haruki Murakami, and even Fyodor Dostoevsky (Netochka Nezvanova).

In February 2024, Megamarket pulled 252 books from sale due to the law on “LGBT propaganda,” including works by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Oscar Wilde, and Stephen King

A spike in self-censorship followed the aforementioned “publishers’ case,” when 153 more titles were withdrawn from stores. Most were pulled at the initiative of the publishers, with a slightly smaller share removed by the retailers themselves. Among the offending titles were works by Fredrik Backman, John Boyne, and Ursula K. Le Guin, as well as 26 books published by Elena Shubina Editorial (part of AST), including novels by Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Alexey Salnikov, and Alla Gorbunova. The main reason for the withdrawals was their presentation of a “positive portrayal of LGBT ideas or the presence of LGBT-themed episodes.”

However, LGBT-related content is far from the only subject area under increasing scrutiny from the state. In late February 2026, media outlets published a letter that had been sent to the Russian Book Union from the country’s Main Directorate for Drug Control of Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs. The letter recommends taking note of a glossary of drug-user slang compiled by affiliated experts and to prevent the appearance of such terms in print. The list contains roughly 800 words drawn from a variety of reference materials (including one dissertation abstract).

Then, starting March 1, new restrictions came into force in Russia. Books containing references to narcotic substances can no longer be sold to persons under 18, and for adults they may only be sold in sealed plastic packaging, with special “18+” labels and the following warning: “Illegal consumption of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances, and their analogues is harmful to health; their illegal circulation is prohibited and entails liability under the law.”

These rules apply to any books that so much as mention prohibited substances, meaning they affect tens of thousands of publications. Photos of classic literature with warning labels have already circulated online, with works from 19th-century classic Alexander Pushkin to World War II-era poet Olga Berggolts being slapped with the advisory note. The label on a book by Berggolts in the Falanster bookstore appeared after writer Roman Osminkin posted an excerpt from the poet's memoir on Facebook:

“Everything would have been fine — if only that damned tooth hadn’t started hurting again — as painfully as in childhood. I swallow all kinds of painkillers, including luminal, and that makes it a little easier, but makes me feel drowsy, like a stunned zander.”

Luminal is a barbiturate with strong sedative, hypnotic, and anticonvulsant effects. Since 2013, it has been classified in Russia as a controlled substance that can cause dependence.

On the subject of the March ban, Falanster owner Boris Kupriyanov wrote that although the new restrictions are sweeping in nature, the government's attention to narcotic substances is just one episode in a broader censorship landscape:

“You can still buy books about folk beliefs, but not about witches who believe in Satan, let alone books on Satanism. Books that mention people with non-traditional sexuality cannot be sold at all, without any exceptions, even if they paint such individuals in a negative light.”

Security forces do, in fact, carry out occasional raids in search of “satanic” literature. In St. Petersburg, a court banned four such titles following a prosecutor’s lawsuit.

Earlier, books by writers labeled “foreign agents” began disappearing from stores and libraries. Although there is no formal ban on their sale (only special packaging requirements), some sellers choose to err on the side of caution.

However, if the share of “prohibited content” in a book is minimal, it has the chance to see the light of day. Publishers typically redact offending passages, replacing them with black rectangles or ellipses, sometimes adding a note explaining that the passage was removed in accordance with Russian law.

In the Ad Marginem edition of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Coming of Age (La Vieillesse), a passage discussing the play Casina by the Roman playwright Titus Maccius Plautus was removed. The text reads: “In the Casina, Stalinon sprinkles himself with scent to make himself agreeable to a girl beloved by his son,” followed by a blacked-out rectangle. In the original, the censored sentence describes how the father is outwitted and finds another man in bed instead of his son’s beloved: “He hopes to find her in bed, but a man is put into it in her place.”

Another example is Collected Stories by Susan Sontag, also published by Ad Marginem. In Baby, a reflection on a high school student — “We always feel that Baby is hiding something from us. That he's ashamed,” — is interrupted by another black rectangle. In the original, the continuation reads: “…particularly the crush he had on his journalism teacher, Mr. Berg.”

Even books dealing with topics historically connected to homosexual culture now effectively ignore this layer of the story. One example is Maria Aboronova’s Intimate Greece, published by the MIF publishing house with the subtitle “Zeus’s infidelities, abductions of women, and fearless Amazons.”

On the very first pages, the author placed a disclaimer stating that the work does not claim to reflect reality: “When the topic is the status of women, people often expect sensationalism, headlines, and revelations. I may disappoint some readers right away, but there will be none of that in this book. First of all, because it does not attempt to cover the entire body of knowledge about the status of women in Ancient Greece, but only a few myths, analyzed from the perspective of how the ancient Greeks understood them. It would be inappropriate to draw serious conclusions about society as a whole based on a handful of examples.”

Intimate Greece is a successful attempt to hide an elephant in the room: a reader will learn many details about the private lives of ancient Greeks (in one polis, a divorce could be initiated by the husband’s father, while in another, a father could sell his daughter into slavery), but they will not see a single word about its homosexual dimension.

Reasons for the pressure

Kupriyanov outlines several interpretations of events currently circulating within the publishing community. The first, which he dismisses as the least relevant, involves the possible incompetence of the government agencies tasked with enforcing the new bans. The second is that the state is seeking to create an environment in which any bookstore or publishing house can be shut down at any moment — “a kind of warning to all players that we are watching you, so don’t step out of line, because you’ll have only yourselves to blame.” The third is that the government is attempting to create conditions for shutting down the entire retail book trade: “After all, it’s easier to control two large marketplaces than hundreds of small and medium-sized bookstores.”

But Kupriyanov himself favors a fourth version: that the pressure on the book industry has been triggered by a group of literary figures who are trying to accelerate the planned transfer of the industry from the Ministry of Digital Development to the Ministry of Culture:

“Some literary figures and sympathetic copywriters want to demonstrate their influence over the authorities. They want to attract the government’s attention. A group of writers is very eager to carry out the authorities’ directives. They are appealing to the Soviet model, but only to one side of it: the privileges and benefits for a select few.”

Kupriyanov mentions one “aspiring classic” who believes that “no state ideology is possible without literature” — a not-so-subtle reference to author Zakhar Prilepin, who actively cooperates with the Ministry of Culture. At the same time, Kupriyanov believes that such initiatives are unlikely to facilitate the transfer of the sector to the Ministry of Culture given that independent publishing is not of notable interest to the ministry.

Nikolai (name changed), who works with several independent Russian publishing houses specializing in fiction, believes that the new wave of bans is coming from two directions. On the one hand, it reflects a consistent national strategy and the aspirations of patriotic and conservative groups such as the Union of February 24, and on the other, it is promoted by local “trigger-happy” enthusiasts.

Nikolai recalls an incident that took place at the state-affiliated Reading Russia festival, where he was selling books:

“A man comes over, browses the shelves for a long time, chats with the shop assistants — and then suddenly stumbles across a book about gender. Something instantly snaps in his head, and he starts being hostile with the staff. He even calls the police, but the two officers who arrive brush him off, because they clearly don’t want to deal with ‘LGBT propaganda’ at a state festival. And this happens quite often.”

Publishers’ response to the bans

The Russian book market is highly monopolized, with the Eksmo–AST group producing a significant share of titles. However, Russia has hundreds of small publishing houses, often releasing less popular and more radical literature. While large holding companies have sufficient resources to deal with the new restrictions — by maintaining their own expert review systems, restructuring their publishing policies to meet state requirements, and paying fines when they are imposed — smaller publishers face much greater difficulties. Some of them have simply chosen to shut down.

As early as December 2024, the publishing house No Kidding Press, which specialized in translated experimental prose, mostly written by women, announced its closure. Among the reasons for the decision, the publisher cited blocked distribution channels, blacklistings from book fairs, and the development of a general environment in which its continuing operation had become unsafe. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine that books from this publishing house — most of which often touch on “non-traditional” values — would have escaped the scrutiny of the authorities.

Although the biggest players continue to operate, the difficulties associated with increased state control fall on the shoulders of ordinary employees. This is how Anna (name changed), an editor in one of the popular imprints of a major Russian publishing house, describes the situation:

“My segment is monitored especially closely — popular literature, often read by young women. It all started two years ago, when the first censorship directives began coming from management. One book had a gay character, but back then it was enough that he was not the main character. Later it turned out he was not supposed to be a positive character either. The storyline featuring the well-known ‘gay friend’ trope had to be changed at the last moment, with him becoming a ‘MILF hunter.’” 

Additional workload caused by tightened state control falls on the shoulders of ordinary employees

A similar case was reported to The Insider by an employee of Podpisnye Izdaniya. The bookstore’s publishing arm has been unable to release a book for three years, because just as the title was ready for print, a new set of restrictions came into force — and this pattern repeated itself several times.

Anna says that over time the number of internal bans in her company has only increased: anything even remotely connected to LGBT themes has become prohibited, including even negative and jocular references. She also recalls the description of a threesome sex scene, and how any suggestion that one man interacted with another during sex had to be removed in light of the new restrictions.

Similar edits have also been made in books that mention drugs. In one case, drugs were replaced with sleeping pills, but the ban even applies to fictional substances. Anna says the publisher may have to replace “soma” from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, as well as genetic modification drugs appearing in other works of science fiction.

According to Anna, the situation changed significantly after the arrests of publishers last year:

“The arrests triggered major changes inside the holding. Many imprints were closed or refocused. Oversight and censorship practices were also introduced, such as an AI agent where you can upload a text and receive a summary of problematic passages. At first, the screening only covered LGBT content, but it was then extended to include drugs, pornography, childfree ideology, and pedophilia. Naturally, the AI often malfunctions, so a special commission was introduced, with heads of departments meeting weekly to discuss controversial passages. Without AI analysis, you cannot submit a manuscript for publication.”

After the AI screening, Anna says, the text is proofread by literary editors. This is followed by negotiations with the author about changes to the text or cuts. But as Anna explains, this is not the most alarming part of her new job responsibilities:

“We, the editors, have all signed a document agreeing that we assume liabilities related to the publication of materials. I think this is the publishing house trying to incentivize employees to carry out all these checks.”

Even though the new measures were met with discontent from editors, the publishing house issued an ultimatum, Anna says: if you don’t like it, you're free to leave. Several editors did resign, but the majority accepted the new rules, especially since management emphasized that these measures would help safeguard the publisher against problems in the future.

The publishing house gave employees an ultimatum: if you don’t want to assume liability for publication, you are free to leave

Anna says that authors usually resist censorship-related changes, but she has always managed to persuade them to accept the edits. The publisher’s stance toward authors is no less strict than toward employees: if an author does not agree to the revisions, the book will not be published. However, while losing an individual author is not a major problem for the holding company, negotiations with best-selling authors take longer and require a detailed explanation of the risks involved.

A brand manager at a major publishing house (who asked to remain anonymous) brought up the case of Roxy Dunn’s As Young As This, which Loft planned to publish absent several censored passages. “The rights holder prohibited cutting the text, and the book was never released. The cover was ready, bloggers had started promoting it, but then it suddenly disappeared from all websites,” he says.

A translator of Japanese literature shared a similar case with The Insider: “Japanese publishers are usually willing to cooperate with Russia, although I know, for example, that Haruki Murakami is against censorship cuts, which is why his new book was never translated.”

As the translator adds:

“Everything starts with reviewing. I used to review books, since publishers need to decide whether to buy rights or not, and they don’t know the language. Earlier, we had a separate item about the presence of LGBT content and questionable elements. But now it’s stricter: as I filled out a review form recently, there were questions like, ‘From a parent’s perspective, do you think this book could harm a child?’”

The translator also told The Insider that among her peers an active debate is ongoing about who should be responsible for identifying “subversive content.” As she explains, “There is a general consensus that this is not the translator’s job; the translator’s job is to report it. However, translation contracts sometimes include clauses such as ‘the translator guarantees that their work does not violate the laws of the Russian Federation.’”

The interviewee said she has personally encountered censorship: “When we published Sympathy Tower Tokyo by Rie Qudan, some small details were changed. Things like ‘N. became pregnant at 14 and wanted to commit suicide’ — that one wasn’t removed, but was softened. At the same time, I translated a detective novel that included an entire scene in a gay bar, but it stayed intact. In general, I occasionally come across LGBT references in translated Japanese books that I read.”

The impact of bans on bookstores

The situation of bookstores is further complicated by legal uncertainty. For example, in early March 2026, Artem Faustov, co-founder of the bookstore Vse Svobodny, was fined 50,000 rubles ($670) for selling Fredrik Backman’s Beartown even though an expert review by the Russian Book Union had concluded that the book contained nothing prohibited. 

The situation of bookstores is further complicated by legal uncertainty

Employees of Vse Svobodny say they had removed the book from sale in December 2025 almost immediately after news broke that the Chitai-Gorod bookstore chain had been fined for carrying the title, but it was still purchased by a customer, who filed a report. As Vse Svobodny wrote on social media, the same buyer had also reported on another St. Petersburg bookstore.

The new labeling regulations do not appear to be fully coherent either. Irina, an employee of an independent bookstore, describes the consequences of the new restrictions:

“The new law on prohibited substances seems like complete madness, because it is extremely difficult, if it is even possible, for a small team to carry out all the required procedures, especially given that it is not always clear which books may mention such substances and what exactly is meant by the references. As usual, the wording is far too broad.”

According to The Insider’s interviewee: “We have to identify some titles ourselves, since not all publishers send lists. In general, a huge number of books fall under the new restrictions, and unfortunately, we cannot label them all, no matter how hard we try. An independent publisher wrote that they can only clearly remember one book, and that everything else from them would have to be checked manually.”

Although the bookstore where Irina works has not been fined over titles containing prohibited content, cases involving other stores have prompted it to take precautions. For example, the shop removed Olivia Laing’s Everybody and Susan Sontag’s On Women from sale after the Podpisnye Izdaniya bookstore was fined for carrying them.

Books that have not yet come to the attention of the authorities are also being pulled from sale. Irina says that, as a precaution, staff removed all books from Kolonna Publications — a publisher specializing in avant-garde fiction by such authors as William S. Burroughs, Pierre Guyotat, Kathy Acker, and Georges Bataille: “Some of their books definitely can no longer be sold, but just in case, we removed everything. And it seems we are not the only ones. People constantly look for these books in the store and ask about them.” Previously, staff could sell such books discreetly to trusted customers, but after an incident in another bookstore, where a seemingly “like-minded” customer reported an employee who sold them a “questionable” book, the store abandoned this practice and permanently removed the titles from sale.

After a seemingly “like-minded” customer reported a staff member who had sold them a “questionable” book under the counter, the store abandoned this practice

Another reason for caution is the occasional undercover visits by officials to events held in the bookstore. According to Irina, it is often easy to tell that such a visitor is not an ordinary customer: their appearance and behavior usually stand out against the background of other attendees.

The return of samizdat

The new legislative environment calls for creative operating strategies. One of the interviewees describes an increasingly widespread return of samizdat (lit. “self-publishing”) — clandestine replication and distribution of prohibited literature, a practice that dates back to the era of Soviet censorship:

“The emerging samizdat projects completely ignore the usual, illusory logic that a publishing house needs to be registered, that it needs to place orders with a printing house, and so on. In fact, all you need is a printer at home. You buy another printer, a paper cutter, an industrial stapler — and that’s it, you are your own publisher. If you can also do your own layout, then you essentially have a full production cycle in your living room.”

He added that such practices are best suited for projects publishing underground literature, whether the restricted work was originally written in Russian or if it has been translated. Since print runs for such books are small in any case, for readers the final product is practically indistinguishable from books printed in a professional print shop.

Tamizdat helping to bypass censorship

Publishers who have left Russia are now printing books that are banned in the country itself — a practice commonly referred to as tamizdat (lit. “publishing there”). Georgy Urushadze, the founder of Freedom Letters, often takes on books that are prohibited in Russia:

“We publish everything that is banned in Russia almost immediately — for example, [Vladimir] Sorokin’s The Heritage. We will soon publish [Alexander] Genis’s books that have been removed from sale in Russia. We have also published two books featuring selected titles from the newspaper Sobesednik and the magazine Gorbi — they were designated ‘foreign agents’ and forced to shut down. We preserve these texts for history. We have also released full versions of books that were published in Russia in censored form.”

Urushadze notes that Freedom Letters makes every effort to ensure its titles reach Russian readers. Sometimes the publisher brings books in from abroad, and sometimes it prints them in Russia. The decision on which approach to take is made on a case-by-case basis: “Whether we print or import depends on the situation, which changes daily. We printed [Sergei Davydov's] Springfield and [Ivan Filippov's] Mouse in Moscow — until they were banned by the Prosecutor General himself, and part of the print runs were destroyed. But we continued to sell these books even after the ban.”

A matter of compromise: those who leave and those who stay

The need to censor books inevitably raises questions in the publishing industry about the cost of compromise and whether censorship is justified at all. One of the most high-profile scandals highlighting this issue is connected to a collection of poems by Anna Gorenko, an émigré writer who died in Israel in 1999.

The Moscow-based Vyrgorod publishing house released this collection with ellipses replacing potentially sensitive passages in the poems. A striking example of such cuts is found in the poem “I Caught You and Was Caught…,” in which two words were replaced with ellipses. Those words were “bisexual” and “drug addict.”

Gorenko wrote extensively about topics that are now banned in Russia, and she died of a drug overdose. As the researcher Ilya Kukulin noted in his article on the case, “This is how they published a book by a poet who valued freedom above all and rejected all taboos during her lifetime.”

Kukulin acknowledges that the decision to publish redacted texts is itself controversial:

“The cost of self-censorship in each specific case is a very painful question. It brings us dangerously close to the debate about the permissibility of compromises with a repressive regime in order to ‘preserve institutions.’ I agree with those who argue that in such compromises, ‘preserving institutions’ very quickly becomes an end in itself, and in most cases all that remains of the institution is its former name — and not always even that.”

Public reaction to the publisher’s decision to release the book with ellipses was mixed. An employee of another Moscow-based publisher specializing in popular literature who spoke to The Insider believes that Vyrgorod is overcautious and is “falling to the ground before the shot is fired.”

However, poet and prose writer Yevgeny Nikitin came to the publishers’ defense:

“Boris Kutenkov publishes this series with his own money in a country where you can go to jail for it. That makes all claims against him somewhat questionable. The brackets marking omitted words make the gaps visible — and thereby make visible the repressive apparatus that compels the creation of such gaps in the first place. Criticizing this compromise effectively means leaving Russian publishers with a choice between silence and prison.”

Kukulin believes that this dispute exposes the tension created by the asymmetry between the cultural opportunities available to those who have left Russia and those who have remained. Instead of engaging in spats on social media, Kukulin suggests that those who have left the country — and who thus have much greater freedom for public speech — focus on “responding to this publication with reflections on what Gorenko’s poetry means today for the development of Russian literature in the context of the current aggression against Ukraine and the new wave of emigration.” By doing so, censored literature can serve as a means for those outside Russia to better understand the effects of repression inside the country.

In early March, large-scale outages affected Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other major cities across Russia. At that time, the restrictions were also accompanied by disruptions to Telegram and other services. The restrictions drew criticism even from pro-government circles, including pro-war bloggers and media outlets loyal to the Kremlin.

Public frustration was one factor behind a decline in the Russian authorities’ approval ratings. Bloomberg reported in mid-April that the Kremlin might reconsider its position on internet restrictions amid concern they could hurt Putin’s domestic standing. His latest remarks, however, suggest the policy of tight control will remain in place.

According to Putin, the restrictions are most often linked to the prevention of terrorist attacks, and “ensuring people’s safety will always be the priority.” He added that citizens should at least be informed of the shutdowns after the fact, although advance warnings are not always possible because, he claimed, they could interfere with the work of law enforcement and security services, as “the criminals are also listening.”

He also said there is a need to create a mechanism to ensure the uninterrupted operation of “life-supporting services” during mobile internet shutdowns. According to Putin, access to Russia’s state services portal, payment systems, and doctor appointment services should remain available even under restrictions. He said the technological capabilities to provide for this already exist.

In effect, this means further development of the so-called “whitelist” system — a collection of websites and services pre-approved by the state that are allowed to continue operating when a shutdown is in effect. Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said earlier that services for monitoring glucose levels for diabetes patients were to be included on such lists. As The Insider reported last year, internet shutdowns have prevented parents of children with diabetes from remotely monitoring blood sugar levels, increasing the risk of serious complications.

Those services were later added to the list, but with one caveat: CareLink systems made by Medtronic — the leading supplier of insulin pumps on the Russian market — were not included.

On April 20, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen and Republican Thom Tillis of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee announced that they had urged Meta and Google to do more to counter Russian interference in Armenia’s upcoming parliamentary elections. Researchers from Antibot4Navalny, which tracks the activity of Russian bot networks on social media, shared their latest findings about Matryoshka with The Insider.

Among the falsehoods being circulated are:

• A fake video portraying Canada’s Foreign Ministry as opposing the senators’ letter, falsely claiming that officials in Ottawa had warned Washington that “in an attempt to weaken Europe, the U.S. will spark yet another conflict, and this time, waves of Armenian refugees will flood not only Europe but also Canada.”
• Another falsely claims the senators had a corrupt motive, alleging they were personally buying up farmland in Armenia with help from incumbent Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
• In another fabrication, bots attributed a made-up quote to Bloomberg News editor-in-chief John Micklethwait, portraying him as accusing the senators of “hypocrisy” and “stating that the senators are talking about non-existent Russian disinformation while ignoring the fake news spread by Nikol Pashinyan and his supporters.”
• Another fake casts France’s VIGINUM agency, which monitors foreign digital interference, as siding with the Kremlin. It falsely says the agency called the Senate letter “blatant interference,” that it found “no evidence whatsoever” of Russian disinformation over the course of five years, and that it concluded all identified campaigns were false-flag operations orchestrated by Ukraine, Moldova, France, and Germany. The same fabrication also claims VIGINUM is suing the Senate committee in an international court.
• A separate fake post cites a nonexistent report by Canada’s CTV News accusing Pashinyan of “conducting a disinformation campaign for over a year” and alleging that the government of Canada called on “international experts to join the monitoring of the elections in Armenia to prevent manipulation by Nikol Pashinyan and his party.”
• Another video, falsely attributed to Wired magazine, claims a real tactic used by the Russian propaganda group Storm-1516 is instead being exploited by Armenian authorities, who are said to be manipulating search results through a network of “thousands of fake websites”.
• The network’s bots have also promoted the views of made-up “independent experts” who claim the government in Yerevan is “adopting the strategy used by Moldova, which helped Maia Sandu secure victory in 2025,” supposedly by “leveraging Meta and Alphabet platforms to influence the outcome of the democratic process.”
• In another fabrication, Kris Jenner, the matriarch of the Kardashian family, which has Armenian roots, is portrayed as urging Washington to “stay out of Armenia’s affairs” and “suggest [the White House] focus on truly important matters — the war in the Middle East, which they promised us would be over in a couple of days.”

The videos feature the logos of Western media outlets, government institutions, and international organizations in order to create an illusion of credibility. A defining feature of the current wave involves the inversion of real events, taking the facts of the Senate letter, VIGINUM’s work, and the tactics of Storm-1516, and turning them upside down while disseminating them in the guise of authentic sources. 

The senators’ letter and Armenia’s upcoming election

On April 17, U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Thom Tillis sent letters to Facebook parent company Meta and Google parent Alphabet urging them to devote resources to countering Russian interference in Armenia’s upcoming parliamentary elections, which are scheduled for June 7. According to independent experts cited in the letters, Russia is adapting its tactics from past efforts in Moldova for use against Armenia. The letters cite data showing that more than 100 Facebook pages with manipulative content and at least 17 YouTube channels promoting disinformation about the upcoming vote have been identified in Armenia.

Among the issues at stake in the upcoming Armenian vote is the political future of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. His approval rating, according to the International Republican Institute, does not exceed 24%; however, the opposition remains fragmented and is no less unpopular. The central question of the campaign is the fate of a peace agreement with Azerbaijan, the framework version of which Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev initiated in Washington with Trump’s mediation in August 2025.

After talks between Putin and Pashinyan in Moscow on April 1 ended in a public dispute, the Russian regulator moved to revoke the license of a distributor of Armenian brandy — a highly popular drink in Russia and one of Armenia’s major exports.

What is Matryoshka?

“Matryoshka” is a Kremlin-linked network of bots, trolls, and coordinated anonymous media resources specializing in large-scale disinformation campaigns. Its hallmark tools are short vertical videos styled to look like material from respected Western media outlets and organizations, launched simultaneously on X, Telegram, Bluesky, and in closed group chats.

The Antibot4Navalny project coined the operation’s name, describing the structure of the disinfo campaign as being layered like a matryoshka doll: each “doll” hides another, with one set of bots masking others and disinformation circulating on multiple platforms and channels, making it harder to trace.

Matryoshka's Armenia campaign, which began in October 2025, is likely to become the longest-running operation in the network’s history, according to Antibot4Navalny. The previous record was held by Matryoshka’s operation in Moldova.

Police found “various suspicious objects” in their car, including forged identity papers, cameras, a drone, GPS trackers, and radios, along with several mobile phones and SIM cards.

Authorities accused the men of carrying out espionage activities aimed at organizing acts of sabotage, and also of obtaining forged documents. Investigators said the suspects were “acting on behalf of a group or institution outside Germany.”

In October, a court in Munich sentenced a man with German and Russian citizenship to six years in prison on charges of spying and preparing acts of sabotage on behalf of Russia. Several other trials are currently underway in Germany involving people suspected of carrying out similar acts on behalf of Moscow.

Data from vessel-tracking systems indicate that the latest development occurred on the evening of April 22. The accompanying tug, Maridive 701 (IMO: 9590266), left the area at about 9:40 p.m. local time, or 10:40 p.m. Moscow time. Efforts to tow the tanker have been ongoing since April 9. The disabled vessel poses risks of collision, grounding, and a potential environmental disaster. The tanker is currently drifting about 90 nautical miles off the Libyan coast.

The Arctic Metagaz was damaged in early March off the coast of Libya. The vessel was attacked by a Ukrainian uncrewed Magura V5 boat, a drone variant Ukraine uses in operations in the Black Sea, according to a report by French outlet RFI. The drone was believed to have been launched from a base in the Libyan city of Zawiya and struck the vessel’s engine room, causing it to flood.

Russian authorities blamed Ukraine for the attack. The Transport Ministry said 30 Russian sailors were on board, all of whom were evacuated after the strike. The ministry also said the vessel had departed from Murmansk with cargo documented in accordance with international rules. Russia’s Maritime Board said the damage from the attack “must be compensated by the aggressor.”

Sanctions against the Arctic Metagaz

The United States imposed sanctions on Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 project in November 2023, followed by the UK in February 2024. Washington expanded those measures on Aug. 23, 2024, sanctioning seven LNG tankers supporting Arctic LNG 2 and other prospective Russian energy projects. The list of affected vessels included the Arctic Metagaz.

The European Union and Switzerland joined those sanctions in February and March 2025, respectively. Canada sanctioned the vessel on Feb. 21, 2025, and New Zealand followed suit on June 19, 2025.