However, starting around 2008–2009, Orbán changed his rhetoric, and the former critic became a reliable partner and advocate of Moscow and its ideas. During this period, Orbán served the interests not only of Putin personally, but also of Russian oligarchs and even criminal bosses. This turn to the East was driven by a combination of factors — from Hungary’s deep dependence on Russia in the energy and financial spheres, to Orbán’s past ties with criminal networks, which  the Kremlin could exploit for its own purposes.

On the gas needle

In his more than fifteen years in power, Orbán has deepened Hungary’s dependence on Russia in the energy sector. While the European Union has sought to completely phase out imports of Russian oil and gas, Budapest, on the contrary, has steadily increased its purchases of hydrocarbons from Russia. In 2021, Budapest signed a new contract with Gazprom for the supply of natural gas for a period of fifteen years. As a result, between 2021 and 2025 the share of Russian oil among Hungary’s imports rose from 61% to 93%.

One of the key beneficiaries of Orbán’s cooperation with Putin’s regime is the Hungarian oil and gas company MOL, which owns three large refineries and thousands of filling stations across Europe. Thanks to this company, Hungary has become one of the main European hubs for processing Russian hydrocarbons. Taking advantage of low purchase prices, MOL effectively acts as an intermediary, enabling petroleum products from Russia to reach Western European countries despite the EU embargo.

Taking advantage of low purchase prices, MOL acts as an “intermediary,” enabling petroleum products from Russia to reach Europe

Notably, MOL is not only helping Russia to circumvent European sanctions, it is also working to relieve Moscow’s U.S. sanctions burden.. In January it became known that the Hungarian company intends to buy out Gazprom Neft’s stake in the Serbian oil company NIS in line with American demands. This objective, again, fully aligns with the Kremlin’s interests, as Moscow also uses low energy prices as leverage over the regime of President Aleksandar Vučić in neighboring Serbia. At the very end of March, Putin promised the Serbian leader to extend their gas supply contract at a price lower than that offered to virtually any other customer except Belarus.

Most importantly, Orbán has used Hungary’s dependence on Russian energy resources — a dependence that he himself has helped create — in order to pressure the EU on issues related to support for Ukraine. In particular, the Hungarian prime minister has been blocking European tranches for Kyiv over the halt in oil supplies through the Druzhba pipeline (which Ukraine points out was damaged by a Russian strike). According to Orbán, Hungary will continue to block EU decisions on Ukraine until oil transit via Druzhba is resumed. He has also threatened to stop gas supplies to Ukraine from Hungary.

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Orbán has even built a large part of his election campaign around the controversy surrounding the pipeline, naming Volodymyr Zelensky personally as the main source of ordinary Hungarians’ problems. In the final weeks before the election, he has been portraying Ukraine as the principal external enemy threatening Hungary’s independence, including in the energy sphere. This rhetoric is aimed at a domestic Hungarian audience, but it is hardly a coincidence that it echoes the talking points of Russian foreign policy propaganda, which likewise seeks to discredit Ukraine’s leadership by any means necessary.

In reality, if there is any oil shortage in Hungary, it is linked not to the Russian pipeline but rather to the war waged by the United States and Israel against Iran. The fact is that Hungary and Slovakia (another country connected to Russia by the “Druzhba pipeline”) today have the option of receiving fuel through Croatian ports — in fact, the Croatian pipeline is partly owned by MOL, and in February, Hungary and Slovakia purchased their first batches of oil via this route.

On the one hand, this means they can do without Druzhba. On the other, the war against Iran has made these alternative supplies significantly more expensive. It is therefore no surprise that Orbán, despite having found a substitute for Russian oil, continues to insist to voters that their future is under threat as a result of Ukraine’s supposed stoppage of oil supplies via Druzhba.

Atoms for kickbacks

Oil and gas are not the only elements of the mutually beneficial partnership between Moscow and Budapest. Hungary remains the only EU member state where a truly large-scale project of the Russian state corporation Rosatom is being implemented. The chairman of its supervisory board is Sergei Kiriyenko, first deputy head of the Presidential Administration of Russia. In the Kremlin, Kiriyenk oversees both domestic policy and the use of Russia’s “soft power” abroad. In addition at the end of 2025, former Rosatom manager Vadim Titov became head of the Kremlin’s directorate for strategic partnership and cooperation, which in practice is responsible for external influence and propaganda.

As part of the expansion of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant, built in 1974 according to a Soviet design near the city of Paks in central Hungary, Rosatom has pledged to construct two new power units as part of the “Paks II” project. Rosatom received the right to implement this project without an open tender, immediately raising suspicions of corruption. Construction is financed by a preferential Russian loan of €10 billion (out of a total cost of €12.5 billion). One of the main Hungarian subcontractors, oligarch Lőrinc Mészáros, is a longtime associate of the prime minister,

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Before the start of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, Rosatom had a network of offices across Europe that the Kremlin used as an instrument of “soft power.” The company supplied nuclear fuel to numerous Soviet-built reactors in Eastern and Central Europe, serviced them, and was preparing to construct new power units. However, virtually all of Rosatom’s European projects have since been terminated (many of them even before February 2022).

For example, as early as spring 2021, the Czech Republic removed Rosatom from the list of bidders for the construction of new units at the Dukovany Nuclear Power Plant. This came amid a spy scandal in which Prague accused Russian GRU agents of blowing up ammunition depots near the village of Vrbětice in 2014, an incident that killed two Czech citizens. (The Insider later managed to confirm the validity of these accusations).

Then, in May 2022, Finland terminated its contract with Rosatom for the construction of the Hanhikivi Nuclear Power Plant. In addition, even European states considered relatively close to Russia, such as Slovakia, have been seeking to diversify their nuclear fuel supplies in order to reduce their dependence on Russian uranium.

Nevertheless, thanks to Orbán’s efforts, the Paks Nuclear Power Plant remains the focal point of Russia’s nuclear interests in the EU. If Rosatom succeeds in completing the Paks II project, Budapest will be obliged to repay the loan to Moscow, along with interest. In addition, Hungary will have to purchase nuclear fuel from Russia and pay Russian specialists for the servicing of the plant.

For Moscow, this serves as a guarantee that Orbán will not allow Rosatom to be added to EU sanctions lists, thus enabling the Russian state corporation to procure everything it needs in Europe. It also ensures a long-term financial and technological dependence of Hungary on the Kremlin.

Money from the mafia and possible kompromat

Notably, Orbán’s sharp shift toward pro-Russian rhetoric in the late 2000s coincided with the arrest of one of the most significant figures in the organized criminal underworld: Semyon Mogilevich, who was taken into custody in Moscow in January 2008. In Russia, Mogilevich is best known as the man who controlled the Solntsevskaya organized crime group, and also as one of the organizers of a corrupt scheme involving the export of Russian gas through the company RosUkrEnergo. From the 1990s to the mid-2000s, Mogilevich controlled dozens of criminal groups around the world, from Russia and Eastern Europe all the way to New York. Mogilevich himself lived in Budapest in the 1990s, and according to numerous accounts, he not only paid bribes to the head of the Hungarian police but also helped finance Viktor Orbán’s 1998 election campaign.

The evidence of that relationship did not begin emerging until 2016, when one of Mogilevich’s associates, German citizen Dietmar Clodo, stated in an affidavit that in the mid-1990s he had delivered Mogilevich’s money to various recipients, and that one alleged recipient was the election campaign of the Fidesz party, which Clodo says received a sum of 1 million Deutsche marks (close to $600,000 at the time). Also according to Clodo, everything that took place in his home was recorded by a hidden camera disguised as a book — which the Hungarian press even published a photo of in 1999.

Clodo is not a man whose statements can be taken at face value, even if they were made in an official affidavit. However, these claims were recently confirmed by László Kovács, who was part of Igor Korol’s organized crime group in Budapest during the period in question. According to Kovács, his duties included transporting Mogilevich’s money, and although he never personally met Orbán, some of the sums he delivered in the mid-1990s were intended specifically for the man who is now Hungary’s prime minister. Kovács says Mogilevich spoke about this explicitly in conversations with him.

In the context of the above, a striking coincidence stands out: in 2008, Mogilevich was arrested in Moscow as part of the Arbat Prestige case, but was released in July 2009. Then, in November 2009, Orbán traveled to St. Petersburg and met Putin for the first time, returning to Hungary as an openly pro-Russian politician.

Mogilevich may have rendered another service to the Kremlin, this time in 2013. According to a source cited by The Insider, the agreement between Russia and Hungary on the construction of Paks II was reached “not without his efforts.”

Instructions from Moscow

The Kremlin’s influence over Budapest’s domestic and foreign policy is not limited to Orbán’s anti-Ukrainian rhetoric. For years, his government has given Moscow the opportunity to monitor “sensitive discussions” within the European Union. Russian hackers have been allowed to use the computer networks of Hungary’s Foreign Ministry, and in the run-up to this Sunday’s election, the Kremlin even proposed staging a “self-attack” — a fake assassination attempt against Orbán — as reported by The Washington Post.

In addition, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó has regularly called his counterpart Sergey Lavrov to provide “operational reports,” as The Insider and its reporting partners recently found. This effectively allowed Moscow to be present at the negotiating table during every EU Council of Ministers meeting, as well as to slow down or even block sanctions.

Intercepted phone conversations between Lavrov and Szijjártó, obtained by The Insider in March, indicate that the Hungarian authorities not only lobbied on behalf of the Kremlin’s interests in Europe but also helped resolve the personal issues of Russian oligarchs, in particular Alisher Usmanov. Moreover, Lavrov did not merely act as an intermediary, but referred to himself as a “friend” of the Russian  billionaire.

Specifically, in August 2024, Péter Szijjártó promised to help Lavrov secure the removal of Gulbakhor Ismailova — Usmanov’s sister — from EU sanctions lists, and the European sanctions against her were indeed lifted at Budapest’s insistence in March 2025. In addition, Szijjártó and Lavrov discussed means of shielding a number of Russian banks from sanctions, along with the company 2Rivers, which is involved in selling Russian oil through the infamous “shadow fleet” of tankers.

By Szijjártó’s own admission, he succeeded in removing 72 Russian entities from the sanctions list. However, he was unable to protect 2Rivers — despite asking that the Russians come up with an explanation for the EU as to why such exemptions would serve Hungary’s national interests.

Moscow’s advisers in Budapest

Parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place in Hungary on April 12, and according to independent polls, the ruling Fidesz party is trailing the opposition badly. But the Kremlin is not losing hope. For several months now, Moscow has been conducting an active campaign in the country, engaging in disinformation seeded through bot networks on social media and controlled Telegram channels while also coordinating with local media loyal to Orbán.

Part of this propaganda effort is being coordinated by Tigran Garibyan, minister-counselor at the Russian embassy in Hungary, who work with Russian propagandists in the country while regularly holding meetings with pro-government Hungarian journalists, where he assigns them tasks and instructions. Notably, Garibyan’s brother heads the project finance directorate at the Russian state-owned Promsvyazbank, which has been used as a channel for funding Russia’s recent unsuccessful efforts to subvert elections in Moldova. 

There is also another, less conventional channel through which influence is exerted on Orbán: the Russian Orthodox Church. As The Insider has reported, Orthodox priests at times act as spies and couriers, while church compounds are turned into “safe houses” for Russian agents.

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In Budapest between June 2022 and the end of 2024, the Russian Orthodox Church was represented by the former head of the Department for External Church Relations, Hilarion Alfeyev — who was not only the head of the Budapest–Hungarian diocese, but also a key intermediary between the Kremlin, various oligarchs, and representatives of Orbán’s government. According to the account of his former cell attendant, Georgy Suzuki, Hilarion transported suitcases of cash from Dubai to Hungary and lobbied for the lifting of EU sanctions against Patriarch Kirill and multiple Russian billionaires. He maintained particularly frequent contact with Hungary’s deputy prime minister, Zsolt Semjén, a friend and close associate of Orbán. (Last year, Semjén found himself at the center of a scandal involving abuse of minors in a correctional facility.)

Hilarion himself was also accused of harassment by his former attendant, after which Patriarch Kirill reassigned the metropolitan to Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic. Notably, the first thing Hilarion did in Karlovy Vary was to transfer Russian Orthodox Church property to a Hungarian legal entity, effectively placing it under Orbán’s protection and thereby shielding it from sanctions.

The Telegraph’s journalists tracked the Russian flotilla from aboard the British vessel Royal Charlotte, which was positioned about 15 kilometers (9 miles) off the port of Dover. According to a diagram published by the newspaper, the Admiral Grigorovich accompanied the tankers Universal (IMO 9384306) and Enigma (IMO 9333412). A British Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel — the tanker RFA Tideforce — also followed the Russian frigate.

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Starmer said in late March that he had granted British military personnel and law enforcement officials the authority to detain ships listed under UK sanctions while they are located in the country’s territorial waters. He said the move was necessary to “starve Putin’s war machine of dirty profits.”

So far, however, British forces have not detained any vessels from the “shadow fleet.”

Both Universal and Enigma were added to UK sanctions lists in 2025. In January, the Universal departed from the oil port of Vysotsk in Russia’s Leningrad Region, while the Enigma sailed from the Russian port of Primorsk.

According to analysts cited by The Telegraph, more than 300 vessels linked to Russia’s “shadow fleet” have passed through UK territorial waters since the start of 2026. Experts note that seizing such a large number of tankers would require significant resources, and that British ports have a limited number of berths capable of accommodating vessels of that size.

The Irish Times recently reported that, following Starmer’s announcement, ships from Russia’s “shadow fleet” began avoiding the English Channel, instead taking a longer route into the Atlantic by sailing around Ireland. According to the Irish newspaper’s sources, a significant number of these tankers have been observed off Ireland’s western coast since late March.

The reason for the raid is unknown. It is reported that the newspaper’s lawyers are not being allowed into the office, where several staff members remained as of the time of publication.

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Lawyer Kaloy Akhilgov suggested on his Telegram channel that the raid may be related to a criminal case involving Novaya Gazeta’s publications. Investigators from the Moscow Investigative Committee were present during the search.

“I went to the editorial office. Masked individuals didn’t let me in —they said I’m too notorious to be allowed inside. Not a joke. (Not my style to jostle with them),” Akhilgov wrote.

State-owned outlet RIA Novosti, citing a source in law enforcement, reports that the raids are connected to an investigation into the illegal use of personal data.

Novaya Gazeta was founded in 1993. After the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the newspaper stopped printing issues, and in September 2022, a court revoked its media license.

Novaya Gazeta is being investigated for links to Novaya Gazeta Europe, an outlet that was founded by former Novaya journalists who left Russia, TASS reports. Novaya Gazeta Europe has been designated an “undesirable” organization in Russia.

As IStories writes, the newspaper is also being scrutinized for ties to the Russian Antiwar Committee, labeled as a “terrorist organization” by Russia’s Supreme Court in 2026. The committee includes Kirill Martynov, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta Europe.

The country’s Ministry of Internal Affairs has stated that the criminal proceedings against Novaya Gazeta under Article 272.1 of the Criminal Code (illegal use of personal data) were initiated on March 10.

According to the ministry, police “identified a circle of individuals who requested personal data from illegal information resources.”

Authorities accuse the newspaper of preparing materials “of a negative nature regarding Russian citizens.” It is unknown whether there are any specific suspects in the case.

The Telegram channel “Lentach” has published a RIA Novosti video claiming to show Novaya Gazeta journalist Oleg Roldugin being loaded into a van by masked men wearing civilian clothes.

Reports have also emerged that an ambulance arrived at the offices of Novaya Gazeta. A man was carried out of the building on a stretcher. He is currently receiving medical assistance. The reason for his hospitalization is unknown.

Searches at the newspaper’s offices are still ongoing at the time of publication.

He wrote:

“I left the territory of the Russian Federation under pressure from the Federal Security Service. Twice — in December and in early February — they came to my home with direct threats. The reasons were my refusal to cooperate and my refusal to obtain Russian citizenship. Pressure was applied despite the fact that I possess information sensitive to the state.”

As proof, Olevich published contact information for three alleged security service officers whom he said were involved in the pressure campaign. He said he is now in Greece and is seeking assistance from U.S. authorities.

The Insider was able to confirm that one of the phone numbers does in fact belong to Dmitry Konstantinovich Ushakov, an FSB employee. Another number belongs to Alexander Yevgenyevich Monaenkov, a former volunteer and member of the ruling United Russia party who is now an official in Moscow’s Strogino District.

On Russian television, Olevich was known as a regular commentator on U.S. affairs. In one program in 2021, he said he had moved from the United States to Russia “against his material interests.” As early as 2023, the authors of the Telegram channel Obyknovenny Tsarism (lit. “Ordinary Tsarism”) publicly denounced Olevich, recalling his phrase, “Victory means the swiftest possible end to the special military operation,” which they described as betrayal.

Born in Odesa in 1978, Victor Olevich graduated from the Russian studies department at Temple University in Philadelphia and moved to Moscow in 2010.

In 2023, Ukrainian national Yanina Sokolovska, who had also appeared on Russian propaganda talk shows, faced criminal prosecution and was forced to leave the country. Other prominent talking heads, most notably Sergei Markov and Tetiana Montian, have also faced pressure from the Kremlin. 

European embassy staff attended Thursday’s hearing, RIA Novosti reported. Leonid Solovyov, the lawyer representing Memorial, was not allowed to participate in the proceedings and was removed from the courtroom, the Slovo Zashchite project reported.

On the eve of the possible designation of Memorial as “extremist,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee condemned the then-potential move. The organization urged the Russian authorities to withdraw the corresponding lawsuit, stating: “To designate such an organisation as extremist is an affront to the fundamental values of human dignity and freedom of expression.”

The request by the Russian Ministry of Justice to recognize Memorial as an “extremist organization” became known at the end of March.

This is not the first time the organization has faced persecution from the Kremlin. In 2021, the Memorial Human Rights Center and the International Memorial educational society were liquidated by Russian court decisions. The judge sided with the Prosecutor General’s Office, which accused the organizations of failing to comply with Russia’s law on “foreign agents,” and, in the case of International Memorial, of “distorting historical memory, creating a false image of the USSR, and besmirching the memory of the Great Patriotic War.”

Established in Geneva in 2023, the International Memorial Association was the successor of Memorial’s liquidated Russian entities. This past February, Russia placed it on its list of “undesirable organizations.”

In response to the Supreme Court’s decision, Memorial Human Rights Center has announced a complete cessation of its activities in Russia. The organization emphasizes that no such “International Memorial Public Movement” actually exists — none of the actual structures within the Memorial network bears that name. At the same time, the Center does not rule out that the extremist designation will become a tool for persecuting participants and supporters of various Memorial-related organizations.

According to a statement by the Center’s Council, the organization currently has no staff, no members, and no volunteers in Russia, and it has stopped accepting donations from Russian bank cards in order not to put donors at risk. Outside Russia, the Center intends to continue its human rights work regardless of any decisions by the Russian authorities.

Boris Nadezhdin

Former presidential candidate Boris Nadezhdin was among the first to announce his preparations for the parliamentary campaign. In October 2025, he wrote on his Telegram channel that he was launching a campaign for both the State Duma and the Moscow regional legislature, stating that he would collect signatures in single-mandate districts, as “it is unlikely that any party will risk nominating a candidate” with his platform. He plans to run in the Mytishchi District, No. 123, which includes the Moscow suburbs of Dolgoprudny, Korolyov, and Mytishchi.

On April 6, Nadezhdin said his campaign had effectively begun in February: a campaign headquarters had started work, offices opened in several cities, a supporter base was being built, and events and focus groups were being held to gauge public opinion on issues such as inflation, internet shutdowns, the forced rollout of the state-backed Max messaging app, and the ongoing four-year-long  “special military operation” against Ukraine.

Yekaterina Duntsova’s Rassvet party

The Rassvet party of former presidential candidate Yekaterina Duntsova intends to support candidates with similar views, a party source told The Insider. “There is an intention, but we will be able to say more precisely by the end of April. We need to determine which candidates have reached agreements with parties that can run without collecting signatures,” the source said.

The problem is that Rassvet is not registered with Russia’s Ministry of Justice — in fact,it was denied registration in 2024. Rassvet reapplied in March 2026, but the chances of registering an opposition political structure in Russia are effectively zero.

Rassvet opposes internet blockages, organizes letter-writing evenings in support of political prisoners, takes part in environmental and urban preservation protests, and seeks to operate strictly within the law.

Duntsova herself cannot run in the election due to her designation as a “foreign agent.”

The Yabloko party

The social-liberal party Yabloko, whose history dates back to the early 1990s, announced its intention to take part in the State Duma elections last December. A decision by the party’s federal political committee said the 2026 election is needed not only to preserve its party status and ability to run in federal elections without collecting signatures, but also to promote “the values of peace, humanity, and respect for people, dignity, and human rights.” Since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the party has run under the slogan “For Peace and Freedom.” In comments to The Insider, a party member confirmed that Yabloko plans a major nationwide “for peace” campaign and will also raise the issue of internet disruptions as being one of the direct consequences of the war.

In March, the newspaper Kommersant reported that Yabloko’s federal list could be headed by the party’s 73-year-old co-founder, Grigory Yavlinsky, who received 1.05% of the popular vote in Russia’s 2018 presidential electionю The newspaper said the option was being considered in part because the party’s current chairman, the more charismatic 47-year-old Nikolai Rybakov, has lost the right to run due to an administrative penalty, while some other prominent figures cannot participate due to their own “foreign agent” status or criminal cases.

However, a party source told The Insider that, to their knowledge, Yavlinsky does not plan to run: “We intend to participate, but the configuration of the list is still unclear — different options are being discussed. We are unlikely to disclose them before nominations, which will take place in late June or early July. But as far as I know, Grigory Alexeyevich himself did not plan to run.”

This year, Yabloko does not need to collect signatures, as the party has deputies in three regional legislatures. Asked about the possible nomination of candidates like Nadezhdin or representatives from Rassvet, the source said all candidates are considered individually and must share the party’s values and program.

Notably, at the end of March, controversy erupted around a campaign clip by one of Yabloko’s members. Moscow politician Sergei Mitrokhin posted a video filmed near the Novokuznetskaya metro station in which he criticized what he called the “Asianization” of Moscow. “It feels like Moscow is gradually turning into some kind of Asian city. There’s shawarma everywhere, sherbet, doner bistros, all with a strongly Eastern flavor. I believe Russia is still a European country, and Moscow is one of the European capitals, and Muscovites should receive the full range of services that meet that European standard, not slide into some kind of ‘Asianization,’” Mitrokhin said. The video was later deleted from his channel but it has been reposted by the outlet SOTA.

Mitrokhin later said he had “not expressed his thought very adequately,” explaining that he meant large businesses were displacing neighborhood shops. He added that he has never been a nationalist and considers nationalism harmful to Russia. Yabloko told The Insider that Mitrokhin’s voters differ from typical Yabloko supporters.

The “Candidates’ Headquarters” project

Another initiative focused on the 2026 election, the “Candidates’ Headquarters” project, plans to carry out public opinion research, assess real levels of trust in political parties and lawmakers, and use the data to identify the strongest challenger to the authorities in each district before making recommendations of support. The head of the project, 29-year-old Konstantin Larionov, has already said he is considering running for the State Duma from the Kaluga Region.

Political analyst Mikhail Komin, commenting on the electoral atmosphere, toldThe Insider that a campaign by anti-war candidates makes sense, as it normalizes anti-war positions within the country, demonstrates the existence of a significant anti-war electorate, and undermines both the domestic and international narrative promoted by the Kremlin that Russian society fully supports the war.

“By operating within the legal political field, having a clear anti-war position and making it the foundation of their campaign, each candidate normalizes that position and its expression for part of the Russian electorate.

You don’t have to look far for an example. There is Boris Nadezhdin, who ran in 2024 as an anti-war candidate. He was not allowed to register, but during his campaign many people saw that there are quite a lot of anti-war citizens in Russia and that their views are not as marginal as Russian propaganda and the authorities try to portray them. They also gained experience of collective action by standing in lines to sign their names in support of Nadezhdin.

The mere presence of an anti-war candidate (even one who is not registered), along with the fact that he was supported by both exiled and domestic opposition forces, gave the anti-war discourse a certain degree of legitimacy. This led to a rise in sociological indicators and an increase in the number of people who believe the war should be ended. Independent polling shows that during Nadezhdin’s campaign, the share of people who thought the war should end increased. We see that the anti-war message works and breaks the silence of those who had previously remained quiet.

The second aspect concerns the international dimension of the 2026 State Duma elections. The presence of anti-war candidates — who are determined enough to run despite harsh repression — and of Russians willing to place signatures in support of them shows people in the West that the Kremlin’s narrative of a monolithic pro-war society, which it has promoted since 2022, is not entirely accurate. The more such candidates there are, and the more creatively they demonstrate the number of anti-war Russians, the greater the damage to the image the Kremlin is trying to project — that all of Russian society supports the war and is ready to tighten its belt and keep fighting for territories such as the Donbas or others that Russia has written into its constitution. This primarily damages the Kremlin’s image in the eyes of Western countries and the Global South.”

Although the election campaign has not yet officially begun, the main candidates are already known. Unsurprisingly, all credible polls put Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his Civil Contract party in first place. Why unsurprisingly? Because in Armenia, the incumbent has been considered the favorite in every election cycle.

As for the upcoming vote, 24% of respondents in a poll conducted by the International Republican Institute (IRI) said they were ready to support the prime minister and his political platform. Pashinyan’s current level of support — a mere 13% — may represent an all-time low, but his opponents’ ratings are even lower.

The surprise of this election campaign — even for the Armenian public — is that the leading opposition figure on the eve of the vote has been Russian billionaire and philanthropist Samvel Karapetyan, owner of the Tashir Group, a Moscow-based business conglomerate with assets in retail, real estate, and construction. A year ago, he was barely visible on Armenia’s political scene.

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Karapetyan had always taken an active part in the life of his historic homeland. He met with the country’s leadership, invested money, donated significant sums for the construction and renovation of various facilities, and promoted athletes and cultural figures abroad.

That remained the case until June 17, 2025, when the businessman said:

“What opinion can I have when a small group of people, having forgotten Armenian history and the thousand-year tradition of our Church, attacks it and the Armenian people? I have always stood with the Church and the people and will take a direct part [in resolving the conflict between Pashinyan and the Armenian Apostolic Church]. If politicians fail to deal with this challenge, we will take part in our own way.”

Karapetyan was speaking about the conflict between Nikol Pashinyan and the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC). Since the 2020 war with Azerbaijan (more on this below), Armenia’s prime minister has sought to remove Catholicos of All Armenians Garegin II — the head of the AAC — from office. The formal trigger for Pashinyan’s criticism was information that the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church allegedly has a child, which would amount to a serious violation of church canons.

But the conflict goes far beyond personal accusations. The real reason for the standoff is that the church has consistently refused to support the secular government’s foreign policy line on Nagorno-Karabakh and has regularly issued political statements criticizing the authorities’ actions. The AAC, an influential force inside the country, openly opposed recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan.

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A few hours after his statement in defense of the church, Karapetyan was detained, ultimately spending six months behind bars. In addition, one of the largest companies belonging to him, Electric Networks of Armenia, was nationalized. As a result, the Armenian political game acquired a new player — one who very quickly secured the image of the main opponent of the authorities and of Nikol Pashinyan personally.

According to the aforementioned IRI poll, 9% of respondents are ready to vote for Samvel Karapetyan and his Strong Armenia party. But there is a problem: Karapetyan cannot run for prime minister and will not even be able to obtain a parliamentary seat. The reason is that, in addition to his Armenian citizenship, the businessman holds Russian citizenship and, according to some reports, a Cypriot passport as well. In addition, he has not lived permanently in Armenia in recent years, as required by the country’s Constitution for parliamentary candidates.

Despite this, Strong Armenia says it will still be able to make Karapetyan prime minister. The businessman’s nephew, Narek Karapetyan, who heads the party’s list in the election, said Strong Armenia expects to win the parliamentary vote and amend the relevant article of the Constitution, which would give Samvel Karapetyan the right to be elected.

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According to the polls, one candidate who has virtually no chance of becoming the country’s leader is Armenia’s second president, Robert Kocharyan. His current rating is 3% — this despite winning 21% of the vote as Pashinyan’s main rival in the 2021 elections.

Despite the noticeable decline in his numbers, Kocharyan has elected not to help  Karapetyan improve his standing by pulling out of the race. If Kocharyan’s bloc fails to clear the 8% threshold set for alliances, its votes will in effect be redistributed in favor of political forces that do enter parliament.

The candidates’ trump cards

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Nagorno-Karabakh was internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but in practice it existed outside Baku’s control. When Pashinyan came to power in 2018, his government initially tried to preserve the previous negotiating framework, but when open hostilities broke out in 2020, the war ended in a serious defeat for Armenia that saw part of the territory come under Azerbaijani control.

The total loss of Karabakh in 2023 after the fighting resumed strengthened the view in Yerevan that Moscow was no longer willing to provide its Armenian ally with military support. Against that backdrop, Pashinyan agreed to base the peace process on mutual recognition of territorial integrity within the borders of the former Soviet republics. As a result, the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan began meeting without intermediaries. After initialing a peace agreement, they said the period of conflict between the two countries had come to an end.

It was clear from the beginning that Pashinyan and his ruling Civil Contract party would make the agreements reached with Azerbaijan a centerpiece of the election campaign. But few expected their rhetoric to be so harsh. One need only look at Pashinyan’s statement that if the opposition came to power, a new war would supposedly begin, with all the consequences that would entail:

“There are certain circles in Armenia that, if they come to power, intend to revise the peace agenda. All these forces speak from the position of revising peace, which means an inevitable war shortly after the election, at the latest by autumn.”

The prime minister also appealed to the second main campaign message of the ruling party:

“All these forces themselves do not understand what they are saying. They are voicing texts written by others and cannot claim any official status in Armenia.”

Who those “others” are in the case of Samvel Karapetyan and Robert Kocharyan is not difficult to guess. Armenia’s authorities, at the highest level, are effectively saying that the country’s opposition is controlled by and fully subordinate to Russia. Whether that is true or not is another matter. The fact is, with that statement, official Yerevan is showing that it no longer shies away from confrontation with Moscow and is in effect openly saying that the Kremlin is trying to bring about a change of power in Armenia.

That the authorities are doing everything they can to tie Samvel Karapetyan’s name to Russia and keep that issue at the center of public attention is evident not only from official statements, but also from pro-government media and Telegram channels, where the businessman is often called “a Kremlin agent on a special assignment” and “a pro-Russian oligarch.”

The Putin-Pashinyan meeting

Against that backdrop, with the main players having laid all their cards on the table nearly two months before the election, a communiqué appeared announcing that Nikol Pashinyan was traveling to Russia on a working visit. The news surprised many people, and not only in Armenia. The leaders of the two countries have been meeting and speaking less and less frequently. But, as it turned out, there was plenty to talk about.

First, Vladimir Putin, speaking in the context of a question about Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, reminded Pashinyan that he had recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan. In response, Pashinyan told Putin that he himself had already done so twice. 

Then the Kremlin leader openly began saying that all pro-Russian forces ought to be allowed to take part in Armenia’s election:

“There are many political forces that are pro-Russian... We would very much like all these political parties and politicians to be able to take part in this domestic political work during the elections. Some, I know, are in places of detention, despite the fact that they have Russian passports.”

Although he spoke in the plural, everyone understood that he was talking about one person: Samvel Karapetyan. Pashinyan did not stay silent on that point either, saying that Armenia’s Constitution does not allow a person with dual citizenship to become prime minister.

It was as if the journalists in the room had been allowed to observe the closed-door portion of the talks, and that they had been allowed to record disputes that rulers typically try not to conduct in public. For the first time, the Russian side openly expressed its interest in the Armenian election issue, and there were not even the usual ritual phrases saying that any outcome would be acceptable to the Kremlin.

The talks also showed that Russian official rhetoric has hardened considerably on the eve of the election. If earlier Moscow tried not to make any abrupt moves and did not pay much attention to some of Yerevan’s actions, circumstances have now changed. Nikol Pashinyan was directly warned both about a possible rise in the price of Russian gas and about potential problems with Armenian imports into Russia. Armenia’s prime minister was also told that membership in the Eurasian Economic Union rules out deep integration into the European Union.

And yet Armenia has effectively mapped out a course toward Europe. Pashinyan himself has said so repeatedly.

No Karabakh, no leverage

Pashinyan’s response to the Russian president’s remarks suggests at a minimum that Yerevan is not going to yield to pressure from Moscow, the intensification of which now seems beyond doubt. But is this merely pre-election bravado by Pashinyan, or does Yerevan really have the resources to resist Russia’s influence?

Most likely, one does not exclude the other. Pashinyan clearly wants to show his voters that, even in Moscow, he can say what he says at home in Armenia, where pro-government media blame Russian peacekeepers and the Kremlin for the departure of the Armenian population from Nagorno-Karabakh and write that Russia views Armenia as an outpost while maintaining agents of influence among the opposition.

But Pashinyan’s rhetoric is not driven by domestic political expediency alone. For many years, Armenian-Russian relations were shaped by the Karabakh issue. By winning the first Karabakh war of 1988-1994, Yerevan gained control over territory, but the unrecognized republic also became a lever of influence over Armenia itself. Economically and geopolitically dependent on Moscow, Yerevan could not go against the Kremlin’s wishes without risking a renewal of the hot conflict.

Now, however, Armenia has officially recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan. The so-called Russian peacekeeping forces and the Armenian population have left. The OSCE Minsk Group, in which Russia, the United States, and France had tried jointly to find a peaceful solution, has been dissolved. And absent the very particular problem of the disputed region, there is no main lever of pressure for Russia to exert on Armenia.

Still, Yerevan remains vulnerable economically. About 25% of Armenian exports go to Russia. That includes agricultural goods and value-added products — in other words, sectors that employ large numbers of people. In addition, Armenia receives natural gas and nuclear fuel from Russia.

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At the same time, more as a result of the war in Ukraine than of anything else, Armenia has also in practice rid itself of its former dependence on Russian weapons. Russia’s inability to supply outside arms markets has meant that, over the past few years, Yerevan has completely changed the list of weapons it purchases and, accordingly, its choice of suppliers.

Moreover, Armenia has for the first time received weapons from two NATO countries — France and the United States. Against that backdrop, official Yerevan clearly has no intention of returning to the Russian market.

That is, unless there is a change of power in the country.

Distant European prospects

Against the backdrop of the confrontation between Yerevan and Moscow, which has lasted for more than five years, the European Union has significantly strengthened its position in the South Caucasus. During that time, Armenia has received hundreds of millions of dollars for reforms in various sectors, political support in addressing the Karabakh conflict, and assurances of readiness to begin a process for the country’s accession to the EU.

That does not mean Yerevan will have a chance of becoming a full member anytime soon, but the process has clearly begun. The country’s parliament has even adopted a law “On the beginning of the process of the Republic of Armenia’s accession to the EU,” and Pashinyan has repeatedly said that his country is ready to deepen its ties with Europe to whatever extent the EU itself considers appropriate.

It is notable that against that backdrop, as well as because of the outcome of the 2020 war in Karabakh, the number of pro-European citizens in Armenia has grown. The logic is simple: if Armenia, after gaining independence, placed its bet on Russia and built its security system around it, but ultimately lost the 2020 war, then that was the wrong policy. The number of citizens in favor of Europe and against Russia rose further after September 2021, when Azerbaijan attacked Armenia’s sovereign territory and Yerevan appealed to the Collective Security Treaty Organization for help but did not receive it. Since then, the country has effectively frozen its membership in the military bloc.

Russia’s standing in Armenia dropped sharply precisely after the 2020 war. As recently as 2019, about 93% of citizens described relations with Russia as good. Five years later, however, 41% of respondents said Russia was a threat to political security.

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This shift in attitudes toward Armenia’s former main ally is especially important on the eve of the election. The broader fear that, if Samvel Karapetyan’s political platform wins, Armenia will once again reorient itself toward Russia may well work against him — and most likely will.

On the other side, Pashinyan’s pro-European rhetoric is likely to bring his party additional votes. By February 2026, support in Armenia for joining the European Union had reached a record 72%,  the highest figure recorded since the International Republican Institute began polling in Armenia.

The U.S. and Turkey factors

If six years ago the United States was considered a complete outsider in the struggle for influence in the South Caucasus, the picture is now the exact opposite. In August of last year, the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan traveled to the White House, where they signed a special declaration in the presence of Donald Trump. The document not only set out the Armenian-Azerbaijani agenda, but also marked the beginning of the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” initiative, or TRIPP. The route is meant to connect Azerbaijan with its exclave, the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, via a special road running through Armenian territory.

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The implementation of that project could also help Armenia normalize relations with Turkey. The border between the two countries has been closed for more than 30 years, a legacy of Ankara’s support for Baku all the way back in the first Karabakh war. Now, however, with the conflict over, Yerevan wants all the region’s borders opened, and the two neighbors have already begun reconstructing customs infrastructure and have signed several agreements.

So far there has been no landmark breakthrough in Turkish-Armenian relations, but Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party says there will be one if it manages to remain in power. The “Trump Route” and the Turkey factor, contrary to long-standing stereotypes, are also important political assets for Pashinyan as the election approaches.

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Whatever the outcome, Armenia’s June vote is shaping up as a contest not just between individual politicians, but between competing visions of the country’s foreign policy orientation for years to come. Pashinyan is asking voters to stay the course he has already set: close the chapter on Karabakh, complete the peace process with Azerbaijan, reduce dependence on Moscow, and speed up Armenia’s rapprochement with Europe and the United States. His opponents argue for a different path: a review of what they see as overly rapid concessions, the preservation of traditional ties with Russia, and a more cautious approach to the new regional order.

For this very reason, the campaign is unfolding in an atmosphere in which domestic debate has almost completely merged with a geopolitical choice. For the first time in many years, the struggle for parliamentary seats in Yerevan has in effect turned into an argument over what kind of country Armenia will be after Karabakh: part of a new Western configuration for the South Caucasus, or a state that will try to rebuild an allied relationship with Russia.

The “Trump Route” and the Turkey factor are also important political assets in Nikol Pashinyan’s hands in the upcoming election

In 2024, 41% of respondents in Armenia said Russia was a threat to the country’s political security

Yerevan remains vulnerable economically, as close to 25% of Armenian exports are sent to Russia

Strong Armenia expects to win the parliamentary vote and amend the Constitution to give Samvel Karapetyan the right to be elected PM

The six defendants are:

• former coordinator of Vesna’s St. Petersburg branch Yevgeny Zateyev, who received 6 years and 2 months;
• Anna Arkhipova, a former employee of the movement’s media department, who received 12 years;
• Yabloko activist Vasily Neustroyev, who received 10 years;
• Pavel Sinelnikov, the former “executive secretary” of the movement, who received 7.5 years;
• Yan Ksenzhepolsky, a former member of the movement’s Federal Coordinating Council, who received 11 years;
• And activist Valentin Khoroshenin, who received 6 years and 2 months.

The youth movement Vesna was founded in St. Petersburg in 2013. After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, its members called on Russians to take part in nonviolent anti-war protests. Later that year, the movement was designated “extremist” by the Russian authorities, allowing the state to accuse the defendants in the Vesna case of taking part in an “extremist” community, along with several other charges ranging from the alleged spread of “fake” information about the Russian army to public calls for activity endangering national security.

As noted by the human rights project OVD-Info, the most serious charges were brought against activist Anna Arkhipova. State investigators accused her under seven criminal charges at once, including spreading false information about the Russian army, organizing the work of an extremist community, and incitement to mass unrest.

The first investigative actions in the Vesna case began in May 2022. The six former Vesna activists sentenced earlier today were placed in custody in 2023 due to anti-war posts published on the movement’s social media accounts. One of the defendants, Valentin Khoroshenin, admitted guilt and gave testimony against the others, according to media reports. In total, about 20 people are involved in the case, including some who managed to leave Russia before being arrested.

According to the agency, the price of Urals crude loaded at the Baltic port of Primorsk reached $116.05 a barrel on April 2. That price, which does not include transportation costs, is nearly twice as high as the average price of $59 a barrel that is built into Russia’s state budget for this year.

Prices for cargoes loaded at Primorsk are the highest for the crude since 2013, when it traded at $113 to $115 a barrel.

The price for oil loaded at the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk was slightly lower, at $114.45 a barrel.

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In February, before the start of the joint Israeli-U.S. operation against Iran, the average export price of Russian oil was $41.5 a barrel.

Amid the current energy shortage, the United States also temporarily lifted restrictions on deals involving Russian oil loaded onto ships before March 12. Economist Vladislav Inozemtsev recently told The Insider that Russia is “benefiting from this war in every respect." Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said in late March that the country was selling oil and petroleum products at zero discount, or even at a premium due to stronger demand.

The price of Brent crude has also jumped above $100 a barrel, with futures trading above the $110 mark on Tuesday. In late March, Reuters reported that traders have been “piling into options betting Brent crude will surge to an all-time high of at least $150 a barrel by the end of April” amid the escalating conflict in the Middle East.

Economic observer Maksim Blant told The Insider that developments in the market can already be seen as the start of an energy crisis, and that its consequences could affect the entire global economy:

“There is a risk that global inflation will continue and that developing countries will run out of dollars to buy energy and service their foreign debt. That could lead to a crisis similar to the one in 1997-1998. The risk is growing of faster global inflation and a drop in industrial production — first in energy-intensive sectors, and then in the rest. There is a risk of a financial crisis because of a wave of sovereign and corporate defaults. Social and political upheavals are possible, along the lines of the Arab Spring, along with the rise of radicals to power, including in Europe. Ultimately, a deep global economic crisis will also crush demand for raw materials. In short, nothing good for anyone.”

The document does not specify any potential adversaries, but the mention of aircraft and drones clearly points to the source of the threat. After all, no one other than the United States uses combat aviation to strike targets on Iraqi territory.

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The order was published shortly after the Americans bombed the local headquarters of the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq’s Anbar Province, killing at least 15 people. Pro-Trump American media outlets described the victims as “terrorists” and blamed them for recent attacks on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad and several other American facilities in Iraq. Official Baghdad, however, insists that the dead were active-duty regular army personnel, unlawfully attacked by the Americans without any declaration of war.

Paradoxically, both Washington and Baghdad are right. Kataib Hezbollah, a group within the Popular Mobilization Forces that is ideologically close to the original Hezbollah, claimed responsibility for a recent FPV drone attack on an American base near the Iraqi capital, and this group plus its allied factions (including, most likely, those whose members were killed in the bombing of Anbar Province) have carried out dozens of attacks on American targets in the country. From the American perspective, they are indeed terrorists.

At the same time, Kataib Hezbollah and more than 60 similar groups officially belong to the Popular Mobilization Forces, which are part of Iraq’s national armed forces. That means officials in Baghdad are also correct when they say that the Americans are bombing active-duty soldiers and officers of the Iraqi army. It may be difficult to remember, but only 10 years ago, the Americans were fighting alongside them against a common enemy: the Islamic State.

Echoes of the civil war

After the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the civil war that followed, the Americans dismantled the Iraqi army and intelligence services and purged Saddam-era officials at all levels. As a result, Iraq became weak, decentralized, and fragmented. The federal authorities were unable to restore order even in areas near Baghdad, let alone in more distant provinces.

The situation was further complicated by the hostile relations between Iraq’s various ethno-religious communities: Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, Yazidis, and Christians. These communities largely assumed the functions of the state, including when it came to issues of security and defense. Every village and every city neighborhood sprouted their own militias, mini-armies tasked with protecting residents from hostile neighbors and criminals.

Some of these groups came under American patronage, most notably Sunni militias collectively known as the “Sons of Iraq.” The main mission of these groups was to counter Al-Qaeda, which was then rightly seen in Washington as the main security threat in the region as a whole.

Iran, meanwhile, sought to expand its influence in Iraq as part of an effort to prevent the neighboring country from becoming a satellite of the United States. For this reason, Iran also invested in Iraqi militias and even made them one of its main tools for manipulating Iraqi politics.

The ayatollahs bought weapons and equipment for the Iraqis, paid militants’ salaries, and trained them — mostly fellow Shiites, of course, but also several Christian, Yazidi, and even Sunni groups.

There were also some curious overlaps. Local authorities sent large numbers of Shiites from pro-Iranian movements into the “Wolf Brigade,” an American-created police special forces unit that included members of the openly anti-American Badr Organization. Most Shiite groups, however, were fully oriented toward Tehran right from the outset.

In effect, these were units of Iran’s armed forces made up of Iraqi citizens. The Iraqi government, led for many years by the pro-Iranian prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, simply turned a blind eye to Tehran’s activities in its rear.

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Incidentally, many in Iraq accuse the Shiite Nouri al-Maliki of pursuing policies that marginalized Sunnis, thus contributing to the rise of the Islamic State — a group that portrayed itself as a force protecting Sunnis from “lawless heretics.”

The advance of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in 2014 changed the fate of the entire region, in addition to that of the Iraqi militias. The Iraqi government quickly got rid of the toxic al-Maliki and called on the numerous militias to support the federal army and join a new formation, known as the Popular Mobilization Forces.

The supreme leader of Iraq’s Shiites, Ali al-Sistani, declared that his fellow believers should heed the government’s calls. And they did, increasing the size of the Iraqi army by tens of thousands of troops and giving the top military command the ability to deploy them as it saw fit.

The Popular Mobilization Forces, together with units of the Iraqi army, the Kurdish Peshmerga militia, and Western allies, fought heavy battles against Islamic State for several years. In a number of critical operations, such as the offensive on Mosul in 2016, the Popular Mobilization Forces acted alongside American troops, forming a united front with them.

Also in 2016, Iraq’s federal government ordered dozens of militias to be incorporated into the national armed forces as a separate military structure, officially making the Popular Mobilization Forces part of the national army.

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In exchange for submitting to Baghdad, the groups within the Popular Mobilization Forces received legal status, army salaries, ranks, pensions, state compensation for injuries, and free medical care in military hospitals. Although they accepted that offer from Baghdad, the Popular Mobilization Forces did not turn away from Tehran.

As a result, Iraq’s armed forces came to include units that were officially under Baghdad’s control, yet ideologically and politically aligned with Iran, all while retaining an unprecedented degree of autonomy. The aforementioned Kataib Hezbollah warned shortly before the American-Israeli strike on Iran that it would defend the Islamic Republic — even though official Baghdad maintains a stance of strict neutrality and non-intervention in conflicts beyond its borders.

Almost like IRCG

As a result, the Iraqi government and its current prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, to whom the Popular Mobilization Forces are formally subordinate, are in a difficult position. Al-Sudani cannot order the Iran-aligned and generously funded militias to stop attacking American targets, despite his clear desire to keep the country from being drawn into another large-scale war.

Even though he can issue the orders, he knows full well that they will be ignored — at least by the largest and most combat-capable militias. Not even the risk of losing Iraqi benefits and salaries will stop them. Iran and the businesses run under its protection by fighters from pro-Iranian militias in their downtime fully compensate them for any losses.

Similar to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which controls the most profitable sectors of its country’s economy and profits from smuggling and other illegal activities, the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq have become more than just an armed formation.

The conglomerate Muhandis General Company, created by Kataib Hezbollah, is involved in construction, logistics, and agriculture. It also launders money for its parent organization and for the IRGC. Because of this, the conglomerate has been placed under U.S. sanctions.

Falih al-Fayyadh, the commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces, is also under sanctions. The Americans have accused him of “gross human rights abuses” in connection with the extreme brutality shown by his subordinates while suppressing anti-government protests.

The Americans are doing everything possible to prevent the Iraqi parliament from passing a long-standing bill to grant al-Fayyadh a ministerial post in the federal government and legalize his business entities. Under this law, the Popular Mobilization Forces would also gain the right to earn off-budget income — in very significant amounts.

While around $3.5 billion is allocated annually from the state budget to the Popular Mobilization Forces, their business activities — including illegal ones — generate roughly $10 billion. This money goes toward weapons and equipment for groups that the Americans consider a threat to their national security.

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Under U.S. pressure, the Iraqi government is dragging out the adoption of the new law. However, officials also have no desire to quarrel with the Popular Mobilization Forces either — which helps explain why they have allowed them to return fire in response to American attacks, even if this permission was little more than a symbolic gesture.

If the Popular Mobilization Forces could shoot down American aircraft, they would do so even without government consent. For Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, this was a safe opportunity to demonstrate his resolve to the largely anti-American population, as the Popular Mobilization Forces simply do not have air defense systems capable of countering modern American aviation.

Everyone out!

On their own, the Popular Mobilization Forces do not have the manpower or the equipment to wage a full-scale war against U.S. forces in the region. But at the same time, radicals from pro-Iranian militias are clearly trying to draw Iraq into a larger war with the Americans by launching missile and drone strikes on U.S. targets. If the Americans begin large-scale bombings in Iraq, other branches of the armed forces could end up being pulled into the conflict — and eventually the entire nation.

This scenario plays right into Iran’s hands, diverting U.S. forces and attention towards a new major front and threatening the Americans with another protracted war in the Middle East. Prime Minister al-Sudani does not want war, but he cannot get rid of the Popular Mobilization Forces, which are pushing the country toward open confrontation with the Americans.

These militias enjoy the support of the country’s Shiite majority, have representatives in parliament, and are perceived as heroes who defeated the Islamic State. Any attempt to dismantle them could spark a new civil war. As surprising as it may seem, the Iraqi government finds it easier to pressure the Americans than the fighters of the nominally subordinate Popular Mobilization Forces. The cabinet rightly believes that if there are no U.S. military facilities on Iraqi soil that could be targeted by the Popular Mobilization Forces, Iraq will not face the risk of being drawn into a new full-scale war.

A few years ago, Baghdad and Washington agreed on schedules for the withdrawal of American troops sent to Iraq in 2014 to fight the Islamic State. Under these plans, the last American soldier is set to return home in the fall of 2026. The prime minister is now pushing to accelerate the process and evacuate all U.S. troops from Iraq ahead of schedule. He also emphasizes that since January all remaining U.S. personnel in the country have been stationed in Iraqi Kurdistan, an area where the federal government’s authority is limited.

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The Americans have not commented on the updated withdrawal schedule of their troops (although other NATO forces have already been quickly redeployed from Iraq to Italy). U.S. units remain near the city of Erbil in Kurdistan, but they are not engaging in large-scale combat against the Popular Mobilization Forces and apparently have no plans to start. Instead, American forces are relying on targeted strikes against the headquarters of the most radical militias in order to contain the activity of pro-Iranian forces in Iraq without escalating the situation to a full-scale confrontation.

Despite all the risks, this third American-Iraqi war will most likely remain a low-intensity conflict, without cities flattened by carpet bombing or large-scale guerrilla movements. It will amount to exchanges of missile and drone strikes and ominous statements from both sides, ending on its own once the American forces leave Iraq again.

The Iraqi prime minister insists on accelerating the early evacuation of all U.S. troops from Iraq

While the Popular Mobilization Forces receive around $3.5 billion annually from the state budget, their business activities, including illegal ones, generate roughly $10 billion

In effect, the Badr Organization is a unit of Iran’s armed forces made up of Iraqi citizens

In late 2022, an elderly man from North Carolina returned home from Nepal, where he had been visiting family. He soon fell ill with what seemed to be a routine bacterial infection. He was treated at one of the best clinics in the United States, and doctors gave him their strongest antibiotics. But the E. coli that caused the infection turned out to be resistant to all available drugs. The man died. “Antibiotic resistance is a real problem that, with little or no warning, can affect the lives of any of us at any time,” Vance Fowler, the man’s treating physician and an infectious disease specialist at Duke Health, said. “We don’t have enough drugs.”

This is far from the first such case. In 2017, in the state of Nevada, a 70-year-old woman died from a Klebsiella bacterium that proved resistant to all 26 antibiotics available in the United States. Doctors could do nothing.

Stories like these no longer shock infectious disease specialists. “I have had the sad duty to have to tell a patient that we couldn’t [offer] chemotherapy for their cancer, or [give them] a joint replacement or a heart transplant, because they had an infection that was resistant to antibiotics,” says Helen Boucher, dean of the medical school at Tufts University School of Medicine.

All of this resembles a dystopia, but it is the reality of the past decade. Now, the scale of the problem has been precisely measured.

Every sixth infection is untreatable

As early as 2023, roughly one in six bacterial infections worldwide did not respond to treatment with standard antibiotics. This figure was first established by experts from the WHO’s Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (GLASS), who analyzed more than 23 million confirmed cases of infections from 104 countries.

In 2023, roughly one in six bacterial infections worldwide did not respond to treatment with standard antibiotics

In other words, if 60 bacterial infections are identified in a hospital in a given day, around 10 of them are caused by bacteria against which standard antibiotics no longer work. Doctors are being forced to look for emergency alternative treatment options — and these are becoming increasingly scarce.

Previously, specialists possessed only partial assessments of the situation: reports from individual countries and hospitals, data on specific bacteria, or mortality projections. However, in 2015, the World Health Organization created the global GLASS surveillance system, which has since been collecting and systematizing data worldwide.

What was measured and how

GLASS specialists examined 23 million confirmed cases of infections from 104 countries. They focused on eight main types of bacteria that cause four common types of infections: bloodstream infections (sepsis), intestinal infections, urinary tract infections, and gonorrhea.

In simple terms, when a person was admitted to a hospital with an infection, doctors first determined which bacterium had caused the illness. They then tested which antibiotics worked against it and which no longer did. All these data from dozens of countries were transmitted to the international GLASS system, which collected them in one place.

In total, experts obtained 93 “infection type – bacterium – antibiotic” combinations and, using statistical modeling, calculated adjusted estimates of resistance to 22 antibiotics. It is precisely on this vast database – more than 23 million cases – that the figure emerged: every sixth confirmed bacterial infection worldwide turned out to be resistant to antibiotics.

Where the problem is most acute

Antibiotic resistance varies significantly by region. The worst situation is in Southeast Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean countries,where around every third recorded infection is resistant, while in Africa, roughly every fifth infection is resistant. According to a 2024 study in The Lancet, the largest number of deaths from antibiotic-resistant infections is expected in South Asia – in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, where 11.8 million deaths from such infections are projected between 2025 and 2050.

The World Health Organization directly states that antibiotic resistance is more common and grows faster in areas where healthcare systems lack the capacity for diagnosis and treatment.

Antibiotic resistance is more common and grows faster where healthcare systems lack the capacity for diagnosis and treatment

Why is the situation worse in some regions than in others? First, weak laboratory capacity: when it is not possible to quickly determine which bacterium caused the illness, doctors prescribe antibiotics “blindly,” thereby accelerating the emergence of resistant bacteria. Second, medications: even if a diagnosis is made, a patient may be prescribed an antibiotic that already works poorly against local bacteria simply because there is no alternative. Third, weak oversight: in hospitals where hygiene rules are poorly observed and infection control is lacking, resistant bacteria spread more quickly.

“Nightmare bacteria”: E. coli and Klebsiella

Among all resistant bacteria, two worry doctors the most: E. coli (Escherichia coli) and Klebsiella pneumoniae, a bacterium that can cause pneumonia and bloodstream infections. These two alone are most often responsible for severe infections that do not respond to treatment.

Both bacteria belong to the so-called Gram-negative group, meaning that they have a special protective outer membrane that many antibiotics struggle to penetrate. According to global estimates, more than 40% of isolated E. coli samples and over 55% of Klebsiella samples are already resistant to third-generation cephalosporins — the sort of antibiotics that doctors have long used as the main treatment for such infections, a kind of “first line of defense.”

In Africa, resistance to these drugs already exceeds 70%. Even more alarming, however, is the fact that “last-resort antibiotics” are also becoming ineffective. This refers to carbapenems, which are reserved for the most severe cases, in which standard treatments are powerless.

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In September 2025, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published an alarming report: the number of carbapenem-resistant infections in the United States rose by 69% from 2019 to 2023. An especially dangerous type of such bacteria — those carrying the NDM gene, which destroys even carbapenems — showed an increase of 461%. Doctors have dubbed them “nightmare bacteria” due to the fact that there are virtually no effective drugs left against them.

Gonorrhea, one of the most common sexually transmitted infections, also risks becoming incurable. According to World Health Organization data from November 2025, resistance of gonococcus to ceftriaxone, the last recommended antibiotic, increased from 0.8% in 2022 to 5% in 2024. In some countries in Southeast Asia, the increase has been sixfold. At present, only one class of antibiotics remains effective against gonorrhea.

Not just a problem for the seriously ill

Antibiotic resistance is a common problem that affects routine medical procedures. Antibiotics are needed for any surgery: cesarean sections, cancer treatment, organ transplants — any instance in which the body is weakened and vulnerable to infection. If antibiotics stop working, all these routine medical procedures become life-threatening.

If antibiotics do not work, routine medical procedures become life-threatening

Here is a simple example: urinary tract infections (cystitis) are one of the most common reasons for visiting a doctor, especially among women. In the past, such infections were easily treated with a pill. But in the United States, the resistance to antibiotics of bacteria causing cystitis increased by more than 50% from 2013 to 2019. More and more patients with ordinary cystitis now have to be hospitalized and treated with intravenous antibiotics.

The World Health Organization emphasizes that without effective antibiotics, medical interventions such as organ transplants, cesarean sections, chemotherapy, and diabetes treatment would become significantly more dangerous.

The economic implications are enormous. In the European Union alone, antibiotic resistance costs about €11.7 billion per year due to treatment expenses and productivity losses.

39 million deaths by 2050

In September 2024, The Lancet published the largest study in the history of the problem — an analysis of data from 204 countries over 30 years. The results were alarming: from 1990 to 2021, more than one million people died each year from antibiotic-resistant infections. By 2050, if nothing changes, the annual death toll will increase to 1.91 million. In total, more than 39 million people could die from such infections between 2025 and 2050. Already, more people die from antibiotic-resistant infections each year than from HIV/AIDS and malaria combined.

The greatest burden will fall on the elderly, as mortality from resistant infections among people over 70 has increased by more than 80% over the past 30 years and will continue to rise. Among children under five, however, the situation has improved, with mortality cut in half thanks to vaccination and improved sanitation. According to researchers’ estimates, improving the quality of medical care and access to antibiotics could save up to 92 million lives over the same period.

The GLASS report shows a global trend, but it is still too early to determine whether it provides a complete picture worldwide. From 2016 to 2023, the number of participating countries increased more than fourfold from 25 to 104, but nearly half of the world’s countries still have not submitted any data at all. And among those that have, many still lack sufficiently developed surveillance systems for the data to be considered fully reliable.

The paradox is that the most affected regions produce the poorest data, simply because they lack laboratories and specialists. This means that the real situation is most likely even worse than the report suggests.

What is being done: new drugs and early signs of hope

Amid all these alarming data, there is some encouraging news. In December 2025, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Zoliflodacin – the first new antibiotic for treating gonorrhea in decades. It belongs to an entirely new class of drugs and works differently from all existing antibiotics. This is important because gonorrhea has already learned to withstand all currently available medications.

However, the development of new antibiotics is lagging behind the pace at which resistance is spreading. According to a 2026 report by the Access to Medicine Foundation, only 60 antibiotic development projects are being conducted by major pharmaceutical companies in 2026, compared to 92 in 2021. And there is a particularly acute shortage of medicines for children: only 5 of the 35 drugs in development are intended for those under five.

Why accurate data matter

It may seem that precise figures are a concern only for scientists. In reality, they determine which antibiotics a country will purchase, what recommendations doctors will receive, and where funding allocated to address the problem will go.

Surveillance data allow countries to more accurately procure antibiotics and diagnostic tools, revise clinical guidelines, and establish rational antibiotic use. This is precisely why the World Health Organization is developing the GLASS system: it sets unified standards, ensures data are comparable, and makes it possible to track where and in which bacteria resistance is growing most rapidly.

Antibiotic resistance is not only a concern for doctors and scientists. And there are a few simple steps everyone can take in order to mitigate the problem:

• Refrain from taking antibiotics for every cold or acute respiratory viral infection. Antibiotics do not work against viruses – they help only with bacterial infections. Every unnecessary use of antibiotics “trains” bacteria to become resistant.
• If a doctor prescribes antibiotics, complete the full course. Do not stop treatment as soon as you feel better. An incomplete course allows the most resistant bacteria to survive.
• Do not share antibiotics with others.
• Get vaccinated. Vaccination prevents infections and therefore reduces the need for antibiotics.

Time to act

In the past, antibiotic resistance was discussed in abstract terms — everyone knew it existed somewhere, but there were no precise figures quantifying the scale of the problem. Now there are, and they show that this is not some distant threat of the future, but a reality that doctors are already facing today when treating pneumonia, intestinal infections, cystitis, gonorrhea, and postoperative complications.

“Antimicrobial resistance is outpacing advances in modern medicine, threatening the health of families worldwide,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization, said. From this point on, the conversation about the future of antibiotics will be a conversation about the present of medicine.

The party did not specify the reasons for the decision. In March, however, Krieger-Dadaev was in Russia’s Chechnya, visiting the capital city of Grozny and his native village of Samashki. As IStories previously reported, he attended a session of the republic’s parliament with head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov and presented a Luftwaffe dagger bearing a Nazi-era swastika to Chechnya’s deputy prime minister, Akhmed Dudaev.

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Krieger also met with Zamid Chalaev, commander of the Akhmat Kadyrov Police Special Regiment. Chalaev has been linked by the media to extrajudicial killings in the region. In addition, Krieger participated in an automatic rifle training session with Chechen special forces instructor Husen Alkhanov.

It is unknown whether Krieger-Dadaev remains in Chechnya or if he plans to return to Germany. He previously claimed to hold dual citizenship of Russia and Germany.

This past December, Noah Krieger was the subject of an investigation by IStories and Correctiv. Journalists established that Krieger’s real name is Murad Dadaev and that he is a native of Chechnya. He used to promote pro-Kremlin narratives within the AfD and ran a popular Instagram blog. After the investigation was published, he was evicted from a rented villa in Hanover, where local party cell meetings were held. As it turned out, he had not been paying rent and had occupied the building without the owner’s consent.

Murad's brother, Suleyman Dadaev, was convicted in Austria in the case of the murder of former Kadyrov bodyguard Umar Israilov, who was killed in Vienna in 2009. According to IStories, in Germany Krieger also maintained contacts with members of the Chechen diaspora who are connected to Kadyrov’s circle and criminal networks.

In 2025, the AfD had already taken disciplinary measures against other party members over their ties to Russia. Hamburg parliament member Robert Risch was expelled from the faction after attending a congress of far-right and neo-Nazi organizations in Saint Petersburg that was organized by billionaire Konstantin Malofeev, who helped sponsor the Russian forces that invaded Crimea and Donbas in 2014.

According to the case files, the GRU targeted routers that did not comply with modern security protocols. After gaining access to the devices, the hackers redirected their traffic through a pre-established network of DNS servers. The devices were then used to collect passwords, authentication tokens, and other sensitive information, including emails. During the operation, more than 100 servers were blocked and hundreds of routers in Ukraine alone were removed from the control of the Russian intelligence service.

“The enemy intended to use the obtained data in cyberattacks, information sabotage, and for intelligence gathering. Of particular interest to Russian intelligence was correspondence between employees and military personnel of government agencies, units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces, and enterprises in the defense-industrial complex,” the SBU stated.

Meanwhile, the FBI stated that personnel from the 85th Main Special Service Center of the Russian Defense Ministry (Military Unit 26165), described as the GRU’s hacking division, have been collecting login credentials and exploiting router vulnerabilities worldwide since at least 2024. The FBI noted that this activity has been carried out by the hacking group APT28, also known as Fancy Bear and Forest Blizzard.

Last year, the United Kingdom accused APT28 of conducting a large-scale cyber operation aimed at tracking deliveries of Western aid to Ukraine. According to a joint report by the UK National Cyber Security Centre, U.S. intelligence agencies, and several European countries, GRU hackers gained access to more than 10,000 cameras located near military facilities, railway hubs, and border crossings.

In 2017, The Insider proved that the APT28 group included personnel from GRU Military Unit 26165. A year later, this was confirmed by the U.S. Department of Justice, which formally indicted the hackers. APT28’s most infamous operation was the 2016 hack of Democratic Party servers, carried out to help Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton in that year’s presidential election. Trump did not hide the fact that he had used information obtained through the hack for his own political purposes.

APT28 carried out cyberattacks against the White House and other targets in the United States, as well as against the foreign ministries of the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Norway, the Netherlands, and other countries, along with the defense ministries of Denmark, Italy, and Germany, plus the Bundestag, NATO, the OSCE, the IOC, WADA, the investigative team examining the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, and several foreign media outlets, including TV5Monde and Al Jazeera. The same hackers also targeted dozens of Russian opposition figures, NGO members, and journalists, including staff of The Insider, as independently confirmed by four information security companies.

According to the Lithuanian investigation, the group targeted two people: a 46-year-old Russian activist from an “independent Russian republic” who had received political asylum in Lithuania, and a Lithuanian political adviser known for anti-Russian statements and actions. Neither killing took place. Lithuanian police detained several suspects on March 12, 2025, before the plan could be carried out.

Investigators say members of the group gathered information on the potential victims, followed them, photographed them, and filmed them. Under the hood of the car of the Lithuanian political adviser, Voria reported, investigators found a tracking device that had been used to monitor his movements. In addition, according to the investigation, one of the suspects may have gained unauthorized access to the Russian activist’s electronic systems.

The indictment reviewed by Voria names several citizens of multiple countries, including one Georgian citizen, one Ukrainian citizen, two Belarusian citizens, two Lithuanian citizens, and at least four people linked to Greece (three Greek citizens and one person holding dual Greek and Russian citizenship). Voria separately noted that the Greece-linked suspects, judging by the case materials, were not the main organizers. The 55-year-old man detained in Thessaloniki is described as an ethnic Greek originally from Georgia, but his citizenship was not reported.

Investigators consider the main suspects to be the people who coordinated surveillance of both targets and prepared the killings. According to the investigation, the direct perpetrators were to be paid 40,000 euros. The reports differ, however, on the payment promised to the organizer. Voria said it was 10,000 euros, while Delfi reported 50,000 euros. Both reports agree that 5,000 euros had already been transferred for the initial stage of preparation, which involved documents and travel to Lithuania.

The 55-year-old man detained in Thessaloniki is accused of arranging the transfer of that money through intermediaries. In addition, according to Voria, on Feb. 20, 2025, two Greeks from Georgia sent money through an international transfer system with an office on Aristotelous Square in Thessaloniki to another ethnic Greek from Russia. One of those senders was later detained.

Another suspect with a Greek name is said to have helped recover part of the money. And a different Greece-linked suspect is alleged to have found and contacted a Lithuanian who was supposed to obtain a weapon for the killing, though that plan was never completed. A more important role, Voria reported, may have been played by the suspect with dual Greek and Russian citizenship.

According to the Greek outlet, a key participant in the case may be in another European country, believed to be Germany. The investigation is continuing elsewhere in Europe, and Lithuanian law enforcement agencies have not ruled out further arrests.

A court in Greece has already approved the detained man’s extradition to Lithuania, but he is challenging the decision and plans to appeal to Greece’s Supreme Court. He denies the accusations and says his life would be in danger if he were extradited to Lithuania.

British cybersecurity experts have observed that alleged Russian threat actors are targeting routers manufactured by MikroTik and TP-Link. Once they gain access to the devices, the hackers modify their settings so that outgoing internet traffic is routed through servers under their control. Attacks of this kind put victims at risk of credential theft, data manipulation, and broader system compromise, the NCSC warning states.

Paul Chichester, the center’s chief operating officer, said the malicious activity clearly demonstrates that vulnerabilities in widely used network devices can be exploited by hostile actors. Alongside the NCSC publication, the U.S. company Lumen Technologies released its own study of APT28’s router-hacking campaign. Experts identified thousands of potential victims residing in at least 120 countries. The report states:

“These operations primarily targeted government agencies — including ministries of foreign affairs, law enforcement and third-party email providers.”

As Bloomberg reports, last month the U.S. Federal Communications Commission banned the sale of new foreign-made consumer routers in the country, calling them a “supply-chain vulnerability” that could pose a “severe cybersecurity risk that could be leveraged to immediately and severely disrupt U.S. critical infrastructure and directly harm U.S. persons.”

Last year, France accused GRU hackers from the APT28 group of attacks on its critical infrastructure, as detailed in the CERT-FR report covering 2021 to 2024. It was established that the group is linked to GRU unit 26165 — information later confirmed by the U.S. Department of Justice, which filed official charges against its members.

Colonel Zarudnev was born in 1977 in the city of Volzhsk in Russia’s Volgograd Region. He began his service in the GRU’s 232nd Separate Special-Purpose Radio Battalion (Military Unit 30734), located in the city of Ostrogozhsk in the Voronezh Region. The unit’s personnel engaged in electronic intelligence and supplied intercepted data to the General Staff. In 2011, he enrolled in the Frunze Military Academy, and enforcement orders from Russia’s Federal Bailiff Service regarding loan debts and traffic fines were sent to his address at the officers’ dormitory, address 4 Devichye Pole Lane. After graduating from the academy, Zarudnev successfully passed tests and special screenings before enrolling in the 2nd Faculty of Agent-Operational Intelligence at the Military-Diplomatic Academy (MDA), which trains officers for service in military attaché offices. As shown by flight records, Zarudnev began flying regularly to Hungary starting in 2015.

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Over the course of 10 years of espionage, Zarudnev has built up a large network of agents within the Hungarian army and intelligence services, as well as among politicians and public figures. A source from the GRU shared some details with The Insider about the resident agent’s life in Budapest:

“As far as I know, Alexei Alexandrovich has very good operational results in this country, and they value him at Khoroshevka [GRU headquarters]. I think that if Orbán wins, Zarudnev will be promoted to general — even if he had a very hard time learning Hungarian. Misha Zhevagin from our residency in Hungary tutored him, and they were, as they say, thick as thieves. They would often gather over a cup of tea and sing ‘And on his chest shone a medal for the city of Budapest.’ Unfortunately, Misha messed up somewhere along the line and was transferred to Kyrgyzstan as an advisor to the ambassador.”

Military Attaché Zarudnev is often seen at official events at the Russian Embassy — laying wreaths at the graves of Soviet soldiers and greeting holiday guests alongside Ambassador Yevgeny Stanislavov. He is also involved in restoring military burial sites, building ties with Hungarian officials and military personnel in the process.

Among the local activists who regularly attend events featuring Colonel Zarudnev are the leader of the “Hungarian Circle of Peace” Endre Shimo, who promotes pro-Kremlin narratives. Others include the head of the Hungarian League of Anti-Fascists, Tamás Hirschler, as well as the former Hungarian ambassador to Russia, György Gilyán.

The latter heads the “Hungary-Russia” Society for Culture and Friendship and participates in the work of the “Russian World” Foundation, led by Vyacheslav Nikonov, the grandson of Stalin’s People’s Commissar Vyacheslav Molotov and the leader of the group of Duma deputies that recently visited Washington. On top of everything else, Gilyán visits Russia as a foreign observer for various elections, noting their “high level of organization and transparency.”

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Among the other “friends of the Kremlin,” it is worth noting the head of the local branch of the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society (IOPS), Tamás Serbin, and his deputy, Mikhail Shubik, who frequently fly to Russia and report to IOPS head Sergei Stepashin (Russia’s former prime minister and the head of the FSB from 1994 to 1995) on the work they have done.

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Meanwhile, as The Insider has discovered, the Zarudnev family has its own skeletons in the closet. In 2009, Colonel Zarudnev’s wife Natalia was listed on Russia’s federal wanted list under two counts of criminal activity: “giving false testimony” and “commercial bribery” (as part of criminal case No. 26451).

The case was initiated by the Tambov Regional Department of Internal Affairs, but it was not possible to ascertain the details. Zarudneva previously worked at Giprozdrav-Region LLC, the Stimul Charitable Society for the Disabled, and Moscow School No. 1409. She is now assigned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As for how the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ HR department failed to notice these details, one can only speculate.

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Zarudneva’s deputy, GRU Major Vadim Yurchenko (who also graduated from the 2nd Faculty of the Military Academy) is also involved in the campaign. He oversees veterans’ organizations in Hungary and is a frequent guest at the Russian-language “Alphabet” school in Budapest. Yurchenko hands out St. George’s ribbons to children and tells them how bravely Russian soldiers are fighting the “Nazis” in Ukraine. The school receives its funding from the “Alfavit” Foundation, which is headed by one Rita Khasanova, a native of Kazan.

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Sergei Lelyuk, the Russian Federation’s trade representative in Hungary, also seems to have been brought into the “election race.” Colonel Lelyuk is actually a career officer in the GRU, beginning his service in the Main Missile and Artillery Directorate of the Ministry of Defense (Military Unit 64176). After graduating from the Military Academy, Lelyuk was sent to Switzerland, then transferred to Budapest as a trade representative. His phone records are full of numbers belonging to other such “trade representatives,” and he himself is listed in his colleagues’ phones as “Sergei Crypto.”

The Insider examined Colonel Zarudnev’s phone records and discovered the numbers of career GRU officers from Military Unit 45807 (i.e. those spying under diplomatic cover at other Russian embassies). The list includes the number of Tigran Garibyan, Minister Counselor at the Russian Embassy in Budapest. He is the son-in-law of the late Viktor Zimin, a long-time head of the Republic of Khakassia who earned the nickname “the Kremlin’s chief huntsman.”

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In Khakassia, Zimin built the elite “Karatash” resort, which was closed to outsiders and nicknamed “Disneyland” by locals. Putin, along with an entourage that might include former bodyguard Alexei Dyumin, ex-Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, and various governors, MPs, and intelligence generals, would come to “Disneyland” to hunt, grill meat, and relax in the sauna. Important state matters and personnel appointments were discussed over vodka in the steam room.

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Thanks to his father-in-law’s connections, Garibyan was admitted to the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), and after graduation, he was placed in the central apparatus of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Since 2006, he has regularly flown to Budapest, and since 2019, he has consistently served as an interpreter during Putin’s negotiations with Orbán. In 2023, the “hunter’s father-in-law” was appointed Minister Counselor to the Russian diplomatic mission, becoming Putin’s “overseer” for Hungary.

“Thanks to his connections in the Kremlin, Tigran Levonovich is the top dog at the embassy, while Ambassador Stanislavov plays the role of a figurehead. Everyone at the embassy understands that if the opposition wins, Stanislavov will be made the scapegoat, and his long-standing friendship with Presidential Advisor [Yuri] Ushakov, with whom they worked at the UN, won’t help him,” a Foreign Ministry official told The Insider.

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A recent article by The Washington Post reported that Garibyan is actively involved in the Kremlin’s campaign to support Orbán and his Fidesz party, instructing pro-government Hungarian journalists on how to convince voters that Orbán is the only candidate capable of defending Hungary’s sovereignty.

In his propaganda work, Garibyan relies on the experience of Ekaterina Nedzvetskaya, an expert on Hungary and the embassy's first secretary. She is the daughter of Valentin Nedzvetsky, a renowned literary scholar and Moscow State University professor who died in 2014. At the embassy, ​​Nedzvetskaya monitors social media and local media outlets and promotes pro-Kremlin content.

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Incidentally, Ekaterina's husband, 62-year-old Mikhail Kulyasov, is also in Budapest. Embassy staff call him “the most mysterious figure” and do not know what he does, but both Colonel Zarudnev and Garibyan appear to treat him with great respect. Kulyasov does not hold any official position at the diplomatic mission, yet he has been assigned a personal vehicle.

This is because, as The Insider has discovered, Kulyasov is a foreign intelligence officer and heads the SVR’s residency in Hungary. In 1993, he graduated from the SVR Academy (Military Unit 21247) and spent several years spying under the cover of a Russian trade representative in EU countries. After that, he was assigned to Rosoboronexport, Russia’s state-owned intermediary for international trade in military and dual-use products.

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Hungarian counterintelligence may have identified Kulyasov long ago, but it appears to have been barred from taking operational action against him.

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Garibyan’s team also includes TASS correspondent Ivan Lebedev and VGTRK correspondent Denis Davydov, who broadcast reports about how the “courageous” Orban refused to take part in Europe’s wave of so-called anti-Russian hysteria. Both had previously worked in the United States before being reassigned to Budapest. In 2024, Putin awarded Lebedev the Medal of the Order “For Merit to the Fatherland,” Second Class, “for his major contribution to the development of Russian journalism.”

Davydov, another pro-Kremlin journalist, began his professional career in Kazan, then worked for the propaganda outlets Life.ru, the Mir TV channel, the Izvestia newspaper, and the Daily Storm internet portal. He directed the documentary “People of Alpha” about the FSB’s eponymous special forces section. He recently received an apartment near the GRU complex on Khoroshevskoye Avenue in Moscow.

Putin, Alexei Dyumin, Sergei Shoigu, and various governors, MPs, and intelligence generals would all come to “Disneyland” to hunt, grill meat, and relax in the sauna

From 1.5 trillion to 180 billion rubles

The name “Sfera” (lit. “Sphere”) was first mentioned by Vladimir Putin in June 2018, the day after Roscosmos presented a project for a multi-satellite broadband internet constellation called “Efir” (“Ether”). Comments quickly appeared online suggesting that the president had simply confused the names and said “Sfera” instead of “Efir.” However, Roscosmos officials hurried to explain that Sfera was an all-in-one comprehensive system — internet, satellite imaging, and navigation — while Efir was only its internet component. It seemed that Roscosmos had decided to gather virtually all new civilian satellite projects into Sfera, regardless of their purpose, design, or orbit.

The first cost estimates for Sfera were initially announced at 300 billion rubles, but this appears to have been an estimate for Efir alone, because Roscosmos said it expected to attract “extra-budgetary financing,” meaning the project’s real cost would have been higher. The estimate for Sfera later rose to 1.5 trillion rubles, which was meant to cover the production and launch of 640 satellites by 2030. Later, the amount was cut to 800 billion rubles. Throughout the prewar years, the expected funding for Sfera kept shrinking, as did the promised number of satellites.

Roscosmos saw Sfera as one of the pillars of its development over the coming decade, and the project was expected to keep design bureaus, industrial enterprises, and rocket production facilities busy. But the ambitions of the space sector were constantly restrained by Russia’s Finance Ministry.

By 2022, Roscosmos had estimated the project’s cost at 180 billion rubles for 162 satellites through 2030. The government promised to allocate 95 billion rubles, but has so far managed to provide only 40 billion over three years.

Efir is dead, long live Sfera

The planned 162 satellites were roughly equal to the number of active Russian spacecraft already in orbit. In other words, Sfera could more accurately be described as a 10-year program to renew Russia’s satellite constellation, rather than as a monumental new unified system.

Usually, a constellation refers to satellites with the same function and design, controlled by a single operator. However, the Roscosmos Sfera project also included, for example, Yamal and Smotr spacecraft from the formally independent Gazprom Space Systems project. The Ministry of Digital Development-operated Express satellites were also part of the plan, even though that ministry is separate from Roscosmos. Some of the projects placed inside Sfera duplicate one another, while others compete with one another.

From the moment Sfera was announced, the proposed makeup of the system was constantly changing. First, the navigation system GLONASS was excluded from the project, apparently because of its military role. Given the success of Starlink and OneWeb on the one hand, and the sanctions imposed on Roscosmos after the 2014 annexation of Crimea on the other, it became clear that Efir had no commercial prospects on the world market. Russia’s domestic market, meanwhile, was too narrow for the system to ever pay for itself. Even such supposedly “extra-budgetary” investors as VEB and Gazprom refused to invest in Efir, and the project was effectively shut down in 2021.

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Roscosmos hoped that Sfera would receive financing from new national programs tied to Russia’s digitalization and Arctic development. At the same time, when asked directly about whether the project could ever survive without government subsidies, Roscosmos representatives responded with vague talk about new jobs, an infrastructure project, and its multiplier and synergy effects. In other words, even at an early stage and in peacetime, Sfera was never intended to become a commercial rival to Starlink.

Although Efir failed to win support, the task of broadband internet access remained within Sfera, as did satellite imaging projects. By the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Sfera consisted of 10 projects: five telecommunications systems and five for Earth observation.

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Roscosmos did not disclose how the 40 billion rubles allocated to Sfera were spent, but the most likely explanation is that the money was put toward building and launching geostationary Express satellites for the Digital Development Ministry. Even so, the first launch was the small Skif-D prototype. When it finally went up in October 2022, Roscosmos rushed to report that Sfera was beginning to move from concept to reality.

The death of Skif

The Skif satellite constellation project emerged on the initiative of Zond-Holding LLC as a Russian version of the international O3b system. The difference lay in orbit inclination: the O3b’s orbit is close to the equator, while the Russian version was projected to run “across it” in a near-polar orbit. Plans called for six to 12 satellites, depending on the geographic area of use. If Skif were used only within Russia and other northern countries, six satellites would be enough. If global coverage were the goal, 12 would be needed.

That seems like a very small number compared with Starlink’s thousands of satellites, but there is a major difference in orbital altitude — Starlink operates at 550 kilometers, while Skif satellites were set to orbit at 8,070 kilometers. That height difference also affects the size of ground stations. Skif requires antennas 1.8 and 2.4 meters in diameter, meaning its likely customers are not individual users, but mobile operators, remote settlements, and passenger ships. Such an antenna could not be mounted even on a large drone.

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Skif faced obvious obstacles even before the war in Ukraine. The first six Skif satellites could have provided stable communications only to the sparsely populated northern regions of the world, which represent too small a market. Launching the next six satellites would have made sense only if there had been confirmed international demand for the first generation. But the advance of global competitors and the tightening of sanctions in 2022 left Skif with virtually no chance of survival.

The Skif project was not included in the national “Space” project that began in 2025, and it has effectively been shut down.

The fate of “Marathon IoT”

The same fate awaited another ambitious project that Roscosmos once promoted with pride. Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems, a major Russian manufacturer, had been actively working on a Sfera-related project called Marathon IoT — a low-orbit, multi-satellite “internet of things” system intended to transmit small volumes of data, above all telemetry from instruments, aircraft, ships, cars, and the like. The satellites, weighing about 50 kilograms each, were supposed to be assembled in series like Starlink satellites, something no one in Russia had done before.

In 2022, Roscosmos released upbeat videos hailing the start of mass production. After the shutdown of Efir, Marathon IoT was supposed to become the largest constellation within Sfera. The plan called for launching 264 satellites, with the first useful operations in an experimental mode expected in 2025. Last year, however, the project was effectively shut down after being excluded from the national Space project.

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What remained were only the high-orbit Express, Express-RV, and Yamal projects, which Roscosmos does not actually own or operate, serving only as a contractor for the Digital Development Ministry and Gazprom.

Express and Yamal are geostationary communications and television broadcasting systems. Their satellites are meant to operate in high circular orbit, about 36,000 kilometers above Earth. At that altitude, a satellite effectively hangs over the planet’s surface and acts as a stationary relay.

Express-RV is a more complex system, requiring movable antennas that track the satellite as it slowly moves relative to Earth along a highly elliptical orbit.

Geostationary communications systems work better in southern regions, while a highly elliptical system is better suited to northern regions and the Arctic. In all cases, using such systems on the ground requires bulky receiving stations that are unsuitable for combat use or for controlling medium-size or small drones. In short, despite having Starlink as a potential model to copy, Roscosmos went in a different direction.

Bureau 1440

In 2020, a company called Megafon 1440 effectively began developing its own version of Starlink. It started as a project office within Russian telecoms operator Megafon, where newly hired specialists worked to determine the most effective and competitive architecture for a satellite constellation. As the project advanced, the team developed a clearer understanding of the Russian industry’s technical capabilities, the space sector’s limits, and the needs of potential customers.

Megafon invested 6 billion rubles in the project over the first two years. That allowed the company to recruit a strong young team and offer salaries that were competitive even when compared with the compensation on offer at Russian IT giants such as Yandex and Mail.Ru. The company’s effective hiring policy led the head of Roscosmos to openly complain in a speech to the State Duma in 2024 that private companies were “taking the best people.”

In 2022, after the start of the full-scale war, Megafon was sanctioned by the U.S. government. As a result, its satellite-building division was turned into a separate legal entity, Bureau 1440, and transferred into the X Holding group. X Holding manufactures and supplies equipment for mobile operators, but it is also involved in internet monitoring and blocking systems in Russia and, according to some reports, is linked to the FSB.

In 2023, Bureau 1440 launched three satellites from the Rassvet-1 series into space as part of an effort to test the performance of its spacecraft, propulsion systems, and telecommunications payload. The tests were successful. The next generation, Rassvet-2, also consisting of three satellites, was launched and tested in 2024. This time, the company was carrying out a trial run for advanced inter-satellite laser communication technology, which is meant to improve the stability of the entire system by making it less dependent on ground stations. The tests were once again successful.

Under current plans, the Rassvet constellation is projected to include 250 satellites by 2027, 750 by 2030, and 900 by 2035. That is significantly fewer than the American Starlink system has now, meaning it would be more accurate to compare Rassvet to the international OneWeb project, which currently has about 650 satellites.

Starlink is aimed primarily at the mass consumer, and the provision of the services it offers requires high capacity from the constellation and the ability to work with large numbers of users on the ground. In order to meet the company’s constantly growing demand, new launches are a necessity. Starlink also offers a small, inexpensive ground terminal, which has proved especially valuable in wartime, including for operating large drones.

OneWeb, by contrast, is oriented toward larger customers: transport and telecommunications companies, along with banks and governments. Its terminals are therefore larger and more expensive, making them unsuitable for combat drones.

Bureau 1440 initially sought to emulate the OneWeb business model, providing services for state-owned airline Aeroflot and railway company Russian Railways. Today, however, the company’s main customer is clearly Russia’s Defense Ministry. It can be expected that plans for Rassvet will be revised in the direction of Starlink, both in terms of the number of satellites and the technology of ground terminals.

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After completing tests of the satellites’ key systems, Bureau 1440 scheduled the first launch of a large group of 16 Rassvet spacecraft from Plesetsk for the end of 2025. These were supposed to begin forming a full-fledged constellation. However, the launch was postponed to 2026, reportedly because the satellites were not ready. According to rumors, “captured” parts from OneWeb satellites that Roscosmos left at Baikonur in February 2022 after breaking a launch contract were used to build the first batch.

At the beginning of 2026, after Russian forces in Ukraine lost access to Starlink, the military’s need for domestic alternatives became acute. That means Bureau 1440 can be certain that orders will come.

Financing is also not a problem. Under the national Data Economy project, Bureau 1440 has been promised 102.8 billion rubles from the federal budget. In addition, the company has allocated 329 billion rubles of its own funds to the project through 2030.

Now the well-resourced Bureau 1440 team will have to overcome the next technological barrier: scaling up. Given the prevalence of U.S. and European sanctions on modern microelectronics, and amid a shortage of available electronic components (which are needed first and foremost by Russia’s military industry to make modern weapons), setting up serial production of satellites will be an extremely difficult task.

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Today, serial satellite production has been mastered by only a few American and Chinese companies: Starlink and OneWeb, Qianfan and Guowang. Roscosmos never managed to do it with Marathon IoT, even if some of its less-than-successful experiences may provide useful lessons for Bureau 1440.

Still, the pace of Rassvet’s deployment clearly falls short of what Russia’s Defense Ministry needs. At the same time, Elon Musk’s decision to help Ukraine cut off Russian troops’ access to Starlink has made the development of a domestic alternative an even higher priority for the Kremlin.

Meanwhile, the Roscosmos Sfera project, conceived in peacetime largely for civilian use, is receding into the shadows. Such initiatives are of little interest to a militarized state that looks set to remain at war for the foreseeable future. 

Plans for Rassvet will be revised in the direction of Starlink, both in terms of the number of satellites and the technology of ground terminals

After the shutdown of Efir, Marathon IoT was supposed to become the largest constellation within Sfera

Even such supposedly “extra-budgetary” investors as VEB and Gazprom refused to invest in Efir

Since 2012, the incomes of Russian doctors and teachers have been determined by Vladimir Putin’s “May decrees” of 2012, in which the president ordered that the average salary of school teachers be brought up to the regional average. For doctors, university lecturers, and researchers, an even higher bar was set — 200% of the regional average salary, to be reached by 2018. As early as 2017, Putin reported that at least 93% of the stated targets had been achieved, and the decrees formally remain in force — even if the authorities now prefer not to mention them publicly.

In the 1990s, doctors and teachers fell victim to an empty treasury and had numerous justifiable grievances with the system, and even in the 2000s, despite rising oil prices, schools and clinics still received negligible funding. After the “May decrees,” public-sector wages finally increased, although this was achieved not only through higher budget allocations, but also thanks to a heavier workload: public-sector workers were compelled to put in overtime and deal with constantly changing rules, all under the guidance of strict top-down oversight.

After the “May decrees,” public-sector wages rose, but workers faced overtime, constantly changing rules, and strict top-down oversight

The decrees were part of Vladimir Putin’s 2012 election campaign, and when he sought another presidential term in 2018, he reported that the targets had largely been met, introducing a new set of “May decrees” with different goals. Nevertheless, the previous decrees were never repealed, and official statistical monitoring of their implementation continued. At the same time, both in official rhetoric and in public attention, the “May decrees” lost their former prominence. A chart based on Google Trends data shows that with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, they were largely forgotten. Interest in the topic returned only in 2024, when Putin was again “re-elected” and issued a third series of “May decrees.” Meanwhile, starting in 2020, the ratio of teachers’ and doctors’ salaries to the national average began to slide back toward its previous levels.

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After the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the authorities oscillated between periods characterized by the slogans “everything for the front” and “life as usual,” but in 2025–2026 the motto “macroeconomic stability above all” ultimately took precedence. By adopting a 2026 budget featuring minimal spending growth, the Kremlin seemed to identify inflation as the main economic threat and thus declared a freeze on expenditures — even, nominally at least, when it came to military spending. For the private sector, this has meant higher taxes and fewer government contracts, while for those employed in state institutions, it has meant even greater administrative pressure. In real terms, spending on healthcare and education has declined since the start of the full-scale war, making it clear that the requirements of the “May decrees” have been definitively abandoned.

War is no decree

Formally, from 2015 to 2020, the “May decrees” pertaining to teachers’ pay were largely met from 2015 to 2020, and for doctors the same held true from 2019 through 2022. In specific regions, however, the situation varied widely, with some outliers consistently failing to reach the targets.

During the full-scale invasion, amid labor shortages in the industrial sector and massive resources devoted to the defense sector, the national average salary surged by 75%, crossing the threshold of 100,000 rubles ($1,248) per month in 2025.

In order to formally comply with the May decrees, regional budgets would have had to raise doctors’ and teachers’ salaries by the same 75%. However, regional budgets — which account for 73% of school funding while also financing regional hospitals — proved unable to do so.

What has been happening to doctors’ salaries

According to 2025 data, the average monthly salary of doctors in the mandatory health insurance system amounted to 147,000 rubles ($1,834), an increase of 12%. “The indicators correspond to the targets set by the presidential decrees,” claims Ilya Balanin, Chairman of Russia’s Federal Compulsory Medical Insurance Fund. The problem is, Balanin’s statement is not true. In order to meet the decree, the average salary should have exceeded 200,000 rubles ($2,495).

One method of “meeting” the decrees has been the mass exclusion of orderlies and junior nurses from the category of medical workers by reclassifying them as cleaners or technical staff. Formally, this reduces the number of public-sector employees covered by the decrees, making it possible to redistribute the wage fund in favor of doctors. But in the real world, of course, such measures only serve to reduce the quality of patient care.

Rising prices for imported medical supplies and original-brand medicines further limit hospitals’ ability to index wages. In 2025–2026, the budgets of treatment and preventive care facilities finally slipped into deficit.

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In addition, higher pay is often achieved simply by increasing doctors’ workload. “On average, a district general practitioner works 1.5 full-time equivalents instead of the recommended 1.2. Each is responsible for 2,800 people — 65% more than the established norm of 1,700. These are people assigned to a single general practitioner within their district,” the project “If to Be Precise” noted.

What has been happening to teachers’ salaries

According to a report by Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, titled “Teacher at the Crossroads of the Russian Labor Market 2025,” in recent years the number of teachers in Russia’s public schools has been declining, while the number of students has been growing, the result of both demographic trends and political decisions.

In the 2010-2011 school year, there were 13.57 million schoolchildren in Russia, and by 2024-2025, that figure had reached 17.99 million, in line with predictable demographic waves. Nevertheless, the increase was not taken into account when hiring teachers, and the peak has already passed. By the start of the 2025-2026 school year, the number of children had declined to 17.54 million, and from now until 2038 it is expected to continue decreasing.

The “May decrees” may have set federally directed salary targets for teachers, but schools are funded primarily at the regional level. In the structure of budget financing for general education institutions in 2024, 73% of such funds came from regional budgets, 18% from local governments, and only 9% from the federal center.

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In essence, Vladimir Putin’s 2012 decrees imposed new spending obligations on the regions without giving them the means to generate additional revenue — whether from their own tax intake or from federal transfers.

The regions solved this problem in the simplest way available to them, at least from an arithmetic standpoint: if teachers’ average salaries needed to rise even though funding for wages had not increased, then staff would have to be cut. Needless to say, reducing the number of teachers while the number of students grows increases the workload for those who remain, and the heavier the workload, the fewer people are willing to take such jobs. In 2016, the average Russian teacher was working 1.22 full-time equivalents — already excessive — and by the end of 2024, it had reached an average of 1.44. At the start of the 2025-2026 school year, the figure in large cities was as high as 1.5.

The outflow of teachers is uneven across regions and localities. In the country as a whole the number of teachers declined by only 0.5% between 2016 and 2024, but in rural areas it fell by 9.7%, while in cities it actually increased by 5.2%. The fastest decline has been in Mordovia, where the number of teachers dropped by 17.9%, while staffing levels fell by more than 10% in the republics of Bashkortostan and Komi, as well as in the Kirov, Kurgan, Oryol, Pskov, Smolensk, Tambov, and Ulyanovsk regions, and in the Jewish Autonomous Region and the Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

The Ministry of Education and Science continues to place new obligations on teachers. As the authors of the Higher School of Economics report note, requirements for educators have expanded significantly over the past decade. The professional standard “Teacher,” which codifies these requirements, is constantly being updated, especially in the section concerning homeroom teachers. Teachers are expected not only to conduct lessons, but also to supervise breaks, manage classrooms, and participate in state examinations and methodological activities. There are also requirements related to implementing an “individual approach,” working with parents, educational and upbringing activities, and “innovation,” including digitalization. Even if all this is done at a minimum level, merely for reporting purposes, there is catastrophically little time. A school teacher often works more than 46 hours a week, and up to 17 of those are spent filling out plans and reports.

“Exhausted by an unbearable workload, teachers continue to quit; they are replaced by people off the street whose qualifications at least roughly meet the requirements,” the teachers’ union “Uchitel” commented on this trend.

Looking at specific subjects, the fastest decline has been among chemistry teachers (down 10% nationwide over eight years), as well as physics and computer science teachers (down 6%). The outflow is especially pronounced among mid-career specialists. Over eight years, their share has fallen from 66.8% to 60.9%. At the same time, compared with the 2016-2017 school year, the share of teachers under 35 has barely changed (rising from 22.2% to 22.7%). The proportion of teachers over 60, meanwhile, has increased significantly — from 11% to 16.4%. Across the country as a whole, one in six school teachers is now of retirement age or close to it. In three regions — Pskov, Smolensk, and Kalmykia — the share of such teachers exceeds 25%.

One in six teachers in Russia is either of retirement or close to it

Among subject matter areas, mathematics teachers are the most overburdened. By the end of 2024, there were 1.6 full-time equivalents per teacher, and by September 2025, that figure had already risen to 1.75. In total, staffing schedules at state general education schools provide for 1.6 million teaching positions, even though there are only around 1 million teachers. In other words, the personnel shortage exceeds half a million people. Yet the authorities have no intention of eliminating it: officially, only 16,400 positions are recognized as vacant. The rest are expected to be covered by “multi-role” staff.

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Officially, every school is supposed to have at least one teacher of computer science, physics, geography, and biology, and 90% of institutions should also employ a chemistry teacher. In reality, 24% of schools operate without computer science teachers, 15% without physics teachers, 14% without geography teachers, 12% without biology teachers, and as many as 36% without chemistry teachers. The shortage has been noticed even by the authorities: at the end of 2024, State Duma deputy Oksana Dmitrieva stated that 23% of schools lack physics teachers and 43% lack chemistry teachers.

The increase observed over the past year is linked to the recruitment of university students, who are brought into schools before actually completing their studies. This practice began in 2020, but at the time it applied only to teaching majors who had passed intermediate assessments for three years of study. In July 2025, amendments to the law on education extended the practice to all other fields. Students who have completed three years and studied the basics of teaching can now work in schools.

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The correspondence between a graduate’s specialty and the subject they teach is determined by the employer — that is, with a school principal’s approval, even a law graduate can be assigned to teach chemistry in the event of a shortage. The amendment entered into force on August 11. The explanatory note to the bill read like a retelling of a Federal Protective Service survey on the shortage of teachers.

Moscow’s largest pedagogical university, Moscow City University, announced that starting from the third year it will introduce a special flexible schedule for students, enabling them to combine their studies with work in schools. In addition, in 2026 around 2,000 university students will, for the first time, be involved in monitoring the Unified State Exam (since 2025, parents of school students have also taken part).

No inconvenient numbers

Since teachers’ workloads likely cannot be increased significantly further, continued growth in their wages is also not possible without an actual increase infunding. Rosstat’s monitoring of the implementation of the “May decrees” on salaries had previously been updated at least four times a year. However, the most recent data available cover only January–June 2024.

This can be explained either by a serious breakdown in statistical data collection or by the authorities’ reluctance to communicate unpleasant news to the public. (Details of this surge in secrecy were compiled by the project “To Be Precise.”)

The average salary of Russian teachers in 2025 can only be estimated, based on data for the “Education” sector and an adjustment coefficient. The average monthly nominal wage in the sector was 63,000 rubles ($786) in 2024 and 71,000 rubles ($886) in 2025. Teachers in state general education schools account for less than half of all employees in the sector (which also includes university and college instructors, as well as administrative and technical staff). In 2024, they earned 9.4% more than the sectoral average — 68,900 rubles ($860) per month.

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If we assume that in 2025 school teachers also earned 9.4% more than other education sector employees, their average salary would come to 78,000 rubles ($973) — below the national average monthly nominal wage of 100,000 rubles ($1,248), and thus not in line with the 2012 decrees.

Teachers’ salaries are still below the national average

While Rosstat and the Ministry of Education remain silent, the teachers’ union “Uchitel” is publishing complaints from educators about declining incomes. Since the start of the 2025-2026 school year, additional payments for teachers have been reduced or abolished in eight regions. These include rural bonuses, seniority and qualification payments, and extra pay for managing classrooms or grading assignments. Reports have come from the Ryazan, Tula, Oryol, Orenburg, and Irkutsk regions, from Bashkortostan and Karelia, and from the Khabarovsk and Krasnodar territories.

Overall, both education and healthcare have lost out as a result of the invasion of Ukraine. Before February of 2022, teachers’ salaries stood at 76% of the national average; now they are at 71%. In healthcare and social services, the figure has fallen from 89% to 81%. The figure has increased only in agriculture, clothing manufacturing, and the military-industrial sector. Public-sector workers, meanwhile, are becoming unaffordable for a state that refuses to cut military spending. For Vladimir Putin, undermining his own “May decrees” appears to be the lesser evil.

On March 2, two days after U.S. and Israeli forces began striking targets inside Iran, Hezbollah entered the war by taking the fight directly to Israel, surprising those analysts who had expected the Iranian proxy force to limit itself to statements of support for Tehran. Such assumptions were linked to Lebanon’s domestic situation, a product of the 2023–2024 war between Israel and Hezbollah in which Lebanon had once again been turned into a battlefield, sparking sharp criticism within the country and raising the question of Hezbollah’s domestic legitimacy.

The day Hezbollah resumed its fight with Israel, Lebanese president General Joseph Aoun, together with Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, adopted the country’s first-ever plan to disarm the Shiite group. Lebanon cautiously referred to this process as “transferring” all weapons held by various militias into the hands of the state.

The government claims it had even completed the disarmament in areas up to the Litani River days before the outbreak of the war in Iran. However, as subsequent events showed, its efforts were largely symbolic. Hezbollah managed to retain part of its weapons in the border regions, not to mention its fighters, most of whom are residents of the south — i.e. below the Litani River.

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Nevertheless, after the war against Iran began, experts generally believed that Hezbollah would not enter a new conflict, as the wider Lebanese population had not yet forgiven the group for the damage caused by its previous military campaign. Many sources in Lebanon still claim that Hezbollah’s political leadership, including Secretary-General Naim Qassem, may not have known about the military wing’s decision to shell Israel early last month. Given that Hezbollah chose to sit out the war between Israel and Iran in June 2025, there were hopes that the same would hold true this time.

Israel, however, held no illusions. In late January, experts at the Alma Research and Education Center wrote that Hezbollah would enter any fighting if ordered to do so by Iran's supreme leader. In 2025, such a directive never came. Now the situation has changed, and the war has taken on an existential character for both the Iranian regime and for Hezbollah. In Lebanon itself, however, the shock was immense. No one outside of the Shiite movement wanted or expected a war.

Rising from the ashes

By entering the war, Hezbollah gave Israel a reason to finish what was started in the previous round of confrontation (even if Israel had never fully stopped). After the ceasefire agreement was signed in November 2024, the Israeli Air Force continued to carry out targeted strikes against Hezbollah facilities under the pretext that the group was violating the ceasefire.

However, despite Israel’s actions and the Lebanese government’s efforts in recent months, reports are increasingly emerging that Hezbollah is working to replenish its missile capabilities while also reorganizing its military and political apparatus. After all, in 2024 Israel eliminated the movement’s Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah, along with several other key figures.

According to Alma, by 2024 Hezbollah had about 75,000 rockets and missiles of all types and ranges — a significant decrease from 2023, when INSS reported that the group’s arsenal included 150,000–200,000 rockets to go along with 50,000 to 100,000 fighters. In 2021, Hassan Nasrallah had spoken of 100,000 rockets.

Current estimates from Israeli think tanks put Hezbollah’s missile and rocket arsenal at around 25,000 units, and most of these are of the short- and medium-range type. In addition, the group possesses a limited number of ballistic missiles capable of covering considerable distances, and there have already been multiple examples of Hezbollah’s missiles reaching the center and south of Israel, up to the Gaza Strip. In addition, the group is estimated to have 1,000-2,000 drones.

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Over the past year, Hezbollah has focused on weapons production — an objective necessitated by the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Damascus in December 2024. Before that, Hezbollah had made itself at home in Syria for more than ten years, transporting both drugs and weapons through the country. After Ahmed al-Sharaa came to power, however, Hezbollah was forced to leave.

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Obtaining weapons from Iran also became more difficult, although Tehran still found ways to replenish Hezbollah’s arsenal by sea through Turkey, and it continues funding the group. This past November, the Israeli news outlet Ynet, citing the U.S. Department of the Treasury, reported that Iran had transferred roughly $1 billion to Hezbollah since the beginning of 2025.

As for Hezbollah’s fighters, Alma estimates that the group has 40,000–50,000 active combatants, with another 30,000–50,000 reservists who could be called upon. In other words, there have been no major changes compared with 2024. Arab sources indicate that in 2024 Hezbollah lost around 4,000 fighters, while another 1,500 went missing.

Bet on decentralized command

Perhaps the biggest change seen since 2024 has been in Hezbollah’s tactics. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) worked intensively in this area after Israel eliminated the Lebanese group’s leadership in 2024. Since then, the IRGC has effectively taken control of Hezbollah, particularly of its military wing.

According to Reuters, upwards of one hundred IRGC officers were operating in Lebanon until recently, working on reshaping Hezbollah’s strategy in preparation for a new war. In particular, they focused on developing decentralized command in which small units would be ready to operate independently, without relying on orders from the center. Operational secrecy was also increased, and a plan was developed for missile strikes on Israel to be launched simultaneously from Iran and Lebanon — a scenario first carried out on March 11.

Reports of the IRGC’s increased activity in Lebanon are not limited to anonymous sources. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) periodically report the killing of IRGC officers on Lebanese territory. The presence of Tehran’s representatives has also been confirmed by the Lebanese authorities, and one of the Lebanese government’s first decisions at the start of the war was to ban IRGC activity in the country with a demand that all individuals connected to the organization leave, even if they held diplomatic passports. In addition, the visa-free regime for Iranian citizens was abolished, prompting about 150 Iranians to depart Beirut on a Russian flight. Iran claimed that the passengers were diplomats, women, and children, but some were clearly IRGC members.

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Nevertheless, many IRGC officers remain in Lebanon and continue to oversee the course of the fighting. Some of them even hold Lebanese passports.

Overall, Hezbollah’s new military leadership, which replaced the eliminated old guard, is far more radical than its predecessors. It is prepared to fight to the end. The political leadership has little say in the matter, as it has yet to earn any real authority. Without battlefield victories or political achievements to his name thus far, Naim Qassem does not enjoy the same unquestioned support that Hassan Nasrallah once did. Still, he should not be underestimated.

Limited ground operation

Against this backdrop, in mid-March Israel launched a limited ground operation in Lebanon. Initially, it mainly targeted Hezbollah’s infrastructure in the border areas — primarily weapons depots and tunnels leading from Lebanon into Israel. Progress has been slow and cautious, though in some areas Israeli forces have already reached the Litani River, and in recent days, several operations were carried out north of the Litani.

The main task of the ground forces is indeed to clear territory up to the southern part of the Litani River (approximately 20–30 km from the Israel-Lebanon border line), thereby ensuring the safety of northern Israeli residents. At present, Israel has effectively isolated this area from the rest of Lebanon by destroying the main bridges across the river. “Hundreds of thousands of residents of southern Lebanon who were evacuated will not return south of the Litani River until the safety of residents in northern Israel is ensured,” said Israel’s defense minister Israel Katz.

According to Katz, the operation aims “to create a defensive buffer and eliminate threats to settlements.” It is modeled on IDF actions in the Gaza Strip around Rafah and Beit Hanoun following the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023.  Needless to say, creating a buffer zone involves demolishing entire villages.

Israel’s operations are not limited to the border areas. Since the beginning of March, the Israel Air Force has also been striking Hezbollah-linked targets in Beirut and in the Beqaa Valley, located in the east of the country along the border with Syria. The goal is the maximal destruction of Hezbollah’s empire. Strikes target not only weapons depots and headquarters but also economic infrastructure, such as Hezbollah’s bank branches and fuel stations — anything that helps the organization generate revenue and thereby survive. According to Israeli data, Hezbollah has suffered roughly $100 million in direct losses during the current war.

Ultimately, Israel seeks one thing: the complete disarmament of Hezbollah. At the same time, security forces understand that this will not be quick or easy. After the 2024 war, Hezbollah fighters changed their tactics. Instead of concentrating on the frontline at the border as before, its fighters are falling back to the second line of villages in southern Lebanon, preparing to drag out the battle. Hezbollah’s main positions north of the Litani River and in the Beqaa Valley remain, providing strategic depth for operations. South of the Litani, deployments have been concentrated mainly at weapons depots and launch infrastructure for mortars and short-range rockets.

In this context, Israel faces serious questions: how far should it advance into Lebanon, and for how long? Occupying southern Lebanon will require significant effort and could lead to an increase in casualties, as the IDF knows from experience. Meanwhile, even if Israeli troops are present on the ground in the south, Hezbollah will remain in other areas of Lebanon, and airstrikes may not be enough to solve this problem. Israeli analysts increasingly maintain that the presence of the IDF in southern Lebanon “will last at least several months, and possibly years.”

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On the Arab side, however, there is some hope — albeit fragile — that Israel is merely threatening occupation in order to pressure the Lebanese government to finally declare Hezbollah illegal. However, the Lebanese authorities cannot deal with Hezbollah on their own. The government’s resources are very limited, even if, unlike in similar situations in the past, the leadership in Beirut has begun to demonstrate some real political will.

Caught between two fires

Immediately after Hezbollah entered the war on March 2, the Cabinet of Lebanon banned the movement’s military activities. In addition, state media were advised against quoting statements from the group and its leaders, and were told to avoid using the term “resistance forces” — the label Hezbollah and other groups connected to Iran adopt to describe themselves, claiming their goal is to fight Israel.

The government also instructed the army and security services to prevent rocket and drone launches toward Israel and to take action in the event of violations. Several Hezbollah members were arrested. But such efforts are nowhere close to enough.

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As a result, Lebanon has found itself caught between two fires. On the one hand, even the smallest incident could trigger a civil war. Lebanese armed forces commander Rodolphe Haykal has already warned of a possible split within the army, a significant portion of which is made up of Shiites. This is one of the reasons why the army was unable to clear Hezbollah weapons from the south. In some cases, soldiers made arrangements with militants regarding what they would hand over and what areas should be ignored. On the other hand, Lebanon fears the expansion of the Israeli military offensive and the occupation of the border region.

One of the most telling events in this struggle was the withdrawal on March 24 of the accreditation of Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mohammad Reza Sheibani, who did not even have time to assume his duties, having arrived in Beirut just two days before the war. Hezbollah, along with the Shia movement Amal and the Supreme Islamic Shia Council, opposed this milestone decision by the Lebanese government.

Tehran also refused to comply. On March 30, the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that Sheibani would continue his work in Beirut, even though the deadline for his departure had already passed. The question is what steps Beirut will take in response after already having issued a clear challenge to Iran.

The French-language Lebanese outlet L’Orient-Le Jour summed up the situation on March 25, writing:  “For Hezbollah’s opponents, Iran is doomed to lose this war. Even if it manages to reach an agreement with the United States, for Tehran this would mean abandoning its plans in the region and its support for allies. In their view, expelling the ambassador fits this logic. Hezbollah, for its part, sees this as an attempt by some Lebanese forces to anticipate the outcome of the conflict and prepare for the postwar period. This includes recognizing the group as a terrorist organization, dismantling its structure, and banning any political activity.”

Hezbollah was already on the verge of a complete ban by the government. At a dedicated cabinet meeting, a fierce confrontation emerged between representatives of different Lebanese factions. In the end, the ban applied only to military activity, but that does not mean the issue will not return, especially given the international pressure on Lebanon.

For its part, Beirut has asked mediators to persuade Israel to halt military operations for at least a month, promising to resolve the issue of Hezbollah during that time. However, Israel and the United States believed that negotiations made no sense as long as the Lebanese authorities had not declared the group illegal. As a result, the negotiation process stalled. The Israeli side refused to agree to a ceasefire for talks, while Lebanon also faced domestic controversy.

According to Lebanese media, Iran instructed Hezbollah to reject the initiative of President Joseph Aoun to begin direct negotiations with Israel, while Tehran presumably intends to use this war to partially restore its influence, uniting the various fronts by insisting on a regional ceasefire rather than negotiating over a halt to U.S.-Israeli strikes against Iran itself.

Incidentally, Lebanon’s speaker of parliament Nabih Berri told Asharq Al-Awsat that he hoped leaked reports “about the imminent conclusion of an Iranian-American deal prove to be true.” Berri hopes for “a comprehensive agreement that will include an end to the Israeli war in Lebanon.” The publication emphasizes that Tehran gave Beirut “a clear promise” to include Lebanon in any agreement that would end the war with the United States and Israel.

However, Israel and the United States are trying to keep the two fronts separated. Washington is pretending that the developments in Lebanon are of no concern, while in Israel there is hope that even if Washington opts to stop military operations against Iran, this will not affect the Lebanese campaign.

The Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf are not interested in allowing Tehran to bring peace to Lebanon either, fearing — quite reasonably — that the Iranian regime could once again become the dominant external player in Beirut. All of them hope for the weakening of Hezbollah and are effectively allowing Israel to do the dirty work. However, they also fear an Israeli occupation and an expansion of the ground operation, especially amid rising casualties and other humanitarian consequences.

At present, the death toll in Lebanon has exceeded 1,000 people, according to the country’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between Hezbollah fighters and civilians in its casualty lists. Meanwhile, more than one million people have become refugees in a country with an overall population of just under six million.

Rebuilding after the fighting ultimately comes to an end will require an enormous infusion of resources, and dealing with whatever remains of Hezbollah after the current conflict is unlikely to be an easy task. Mediators will pressure Beirut to deal with the terrorists, but at the same time, no one will be in a hurry to invest money in Lebanon amid justifiable fears of another war.

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Declaring Hezbollah illegal on paper is possible, but such a move will do nothing to shrink the movement’s support base among Lebanon’s Shiite population, which accounts for about 40% of the country’s residents. Although the ongoing war is feeding dissatisfaction among Shiites as well, Hezbollah still has tens of thousands of loyalists who, if necessary, would take to the streets and even attempt a coup to alter the political balance of power. Moreover, Israeli strikes on civilian infrastructure and the expansion of military operations could increase support for Hezbollah, creating a vicious circle.

In the end, everything still comes down to Iran. The regime in Tehran is not likely to fall in the near future, but the question remains: will it retain the ability to continue supporting regional proxies like Hezbollah? Sources in the Israeli security services say the results of the campaign against Iran are directly damaging the group, meaning that whatever answer eventually emerges, Hezbollah will not come out of the war in the same form it entered the fighting.

Dealing with whatever remains of Hezbollah after the current conflict is unlikely to be an easy task for the Lebanese government

One of the Lebanese government’s first decisions at the start of the war was to ban IRGC activity in the country

Hezbollah’s rocket and missile arsenal is estimated at roughly 25,000 units — mostly of the short- and medium-range variety

Regional authorities said this morning that 22 drones had been shot down. Ukrainian monitoring channels reported (1, 2) that the port of Ust-Luga itself was among the targets. Ukraine’s General Staff confirmed the strike, saying it targeted a terminal linked to Russia’s state pipeline operator Transneft-Baltika. Preliminary information indicated that three storage tanks were hit.

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The Ukrainian open source intelligence project Oko Hora said that nearly a third of the port’s oil storage tanks had been damaged in the series of attacks. Over the past two weeks, the port has been hit six times, driving shipments of Russian oil through the Baltic Sea down to their lowest levels since 2022.

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Because of the Ukrainian strikes, the ports of Ust-Luga and Primorsk were unable to receive and load fuel for close to two weeks. However, on April 5, Bloomberg reported that loading of crude oil at Ust-Luga had resumed.

On April 6, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused the Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — of opening their airspace to Ukrainian drones, saying Moscow had issued them a special warning.

“These countries were given an appropriate warning. If the regimes of these countries are smart enough, they will listen. If not, they will face a response,” she said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Russia’s pro-war bloggers reacted mockingly to Zakharova’s statement, particularly against the backdrop of the most recent attack (1, 2, 3).

“We’re waiting for a new special warning, but this time with the spokeswoman making a zigzag exit — that should look scarier,” wrote military blogger Vladimir Romanov.

Over the past month, Ukraine has sharply stepped up attacks on Russian oil infrastructure. Reuters has reported that this has cut the country’s export capacity by about 1 million barrels per day — approximately one-fifth of the total.

Both arrests took place as part of a broad wave of persecution targeting activists advocating for the rights of Indigenous peoples. Leongardt and Egereva are accused of participating in the activities of the “Aborigen Forum” — an informal network of activists and experts representing the Indigenous peoples of Russia’s North, Siberia, and Far East — which the Russian authorities classify as a “terrorist organization” under Article 205.5 of Russia’s Criminal Code, the support team said. The maximum penalty under that charge is 20 years in prison.

On Dec. 18, the court placed both women in custody on charges of participating in the activities of a terrorist organization. Their time in pretrial detention was later extended, and the case remains under investigation.

Natalya Leongardt has spent more than 20 years defending the rights of Indigenous minority peoples of the Russian North, Siberia, and the Far East. Since 2005, she has worked on educational and human rights projects and has taken part in numerous international programs and fellowships. From 2011 to 2013, she worked with the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON) and completed fellowships at UN-affiliated organizations in Geneva.

In June 2024, Aborigen Forum was designated “extremist” by the Russian authorities. Then, in November of that year, it was designated a terrorist organization. After the first ruling, the group announced that it was dissolving.

Egereva and Leongardt were not the only members of the group to draw the attention of Russian authorities. St. Petersburg publicist Maksim Kuzakhmetov has been arrested in absentia in connection with the same case. Court documents show that the investigation covers several charges at once, including participation in a terrorist organization, calls for separatism, and spreading false information about the Russian army.

Daria Egereva has been recognized as a political prisoner by Russia’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights organization, Memorial.

Those records show that in September 2025 Melnikava bought a one-room apartment in a building on Lyubimova Avenue with an area of 33.8 square meters. Prices for similar apartments in that area range from 208,000 Belarusian rubles (about $71,000) to 240,000 Belarusian rubles (about $82,000).

In January 2026, Melnikava bought another apartment, this one 91.8 square meters in size (though in the documents it is also listed as a one-room apartment). It is located in the Mayak Minska residential complex on Petr Mstislavets Street.

In March 2026, Melnikava also became the sole owner of yet another Minsk apartment, one that she had jointly owned with her now ex-husband. Zerkalo reported that ownership was transferred to her under an agreement dividing the couple’s shared property following a divorce that was filed during Melnikava’s time in Warsaw. The apartment had been placed under arrest in 2024 as part of a criminal case against 257 participants in the then-upcoming elections to the Belarusian opposition’s Coordination Council; however, that measure was lifted in February 2026.

As previously reported by The Insider, about a year after Melnikava abruptly left Poland, where she had lived since 2021, she was photographed at a fitness center in Minsk. The images were posted to Instagram stories on March 16 by trainer Galina Kazantseva, and several people familiar with Melnikava confirmed her identity. A tattoo on her left arm, partially visible in one of the photos, supports their authenticity. Shortly afterward, her father told journalists she had been in Belarus “for quite a while,” though he said he had not seen her or her children in person for a long time.

As The Insider’s investigators previously found, Anzhalika Melnikava disappeared from her home in Warsaw shortly after being elected speaker of the Belarusian opposition’s Coordination Council. After leaving Poland, Melnikava spent several days in London, Sri Lanka, and the United Arab Emirates before returning to Belarus. At the same time, she withdrew approximately $150,000 from the account of the Białoruś Liberty foundation, which had received grants to support the work of the Coordination Council. As The Insider found, since at least 2023 Melnikava had been in a relationship with Belarusian KGB officer Alexei Lobeev, who was using a cover passport in the name of “Aliaksei Hardzeyeu” (or “Alexei Gordeev” in the Russian transliteration).

My name is László Kovács. I was born in 1963 in Ukraine, but my father is Hungarian, and I speak Hungarian fluently. I am a professional athlete, a bodybuilder, but in the 1990s, it was necessary to earn a living somehow, and in 1994 my childhood friend Alexander Kirichanin and I started a small business buying vodka in Hungary and selling it in Ukraine.

We were not allowed to trade in peace for long. At one point, while Kirichanin and I were having lunch in a pizzeria in Budapest, Igor Korol sat down with his men — about eight of them. Then it began: “Who are you? This is our city. We control everything here. Everyone pays us.” I said, “Maybe everyone pays, but we will not.” Korol tried to force my head down to the table, but he failed — at that time I weighed about 110 kilograms. One of his associates stabbed me with a knife. The wound was not deep, but there was a lot of blood. The argument continued, and I had no intention of backing down.

Then Korol told me that my behavior had impressed him. He knew that I spoke Hungarian, while he and all his men had moved from Ukraine without knowing a word of Hungarian, so they needed a translator. In the end, Korol offered me a job.

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Korol’s group was mainly engaged in extorting nightclubs for protection money. Almost everyone paid — either to Korol or to a rival Ukrainian group led by Leonid Stitsyura. Both groups were subordinate to Semion Mogilevich — “Seva,” as he was called — who at that time was at the height of his power, the boss of bosses. He lived in Budapest then and hardly ever left his luxurious, lavishly furnished old house on Benczúr Street. Food and women were brought to him there. All information flowed there, and all decisions were made there. Seva had groups everywhere: the Solntsevo group in Russia, as well as groups across Ukraine and in the United States, though I only knew about that from hearsay.

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Although Seva was the boss, Korol did not pay him anything. For Seva, protection payments from nightclubs were small change. They did not interest him. He was focused on much more serious operations with profits in the millions. For example, they added dye to diesel fuel and sold it as heating oil, which at the time was not subject to taxation — the dye could later be easily removed, allowing them to save millions in taxes. Seva ran this business together with Hungary’s chief of police at the time, Sándor Pintér.

Seva’s connection with Pintér was not limited to business. As head of the police, Pintér could make any criminal case disappear, and Mogilevich regularly paid him for those services. These payments had to be made often, once or twice a week, because Budapest in the 1990s was like Chicago a century ago. Hardly a week went by without someone being shot or blown up. I know about these bribes very well, because I myself acted as a courier.

Igor Korol and I would go to Mogilevich’s office, where he would hand Igor a small package (usually amounts of $50,000-$100,000, though I never counted it). After that, I had to deliver it to “Shoni Bácsi” — that was Pintér’s nickname, meaning “Uncle Shoni.” I would go to a designated spot: most often on Wesselényi Street, but sometimes on Petőfi Sándor Street. A car would pull up at the corner, usually a dark blue Škoda. I would get into the back seat where Pintér was already sitting, hand him the package, and get out at the next corner. We did not even talk. At most we exchanged a few words.

They somehow arranged in advance what the money was for, and I was not told the details, although sometimes I could guess. A murder would take place, then money would be passed through me. Of course, I drew my own conclusions. For example, I remember a Ukrainian guy named Slavik. He was shot through the window of his car, and when I delivered money to Pintér afterward, I assumed it was to have the case closed. That was only my guess, but the case was indeed closed.

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Sometimes I was also instructed to deliver money to another man, named Dietmar Clodo. He was a German of Jewish origin who rented a house in the small town of Szentendre, not far from Budapest. I did not visit him very often, perhaps six to eight times. I would enter the hallway, hand over the money, exchange a few words in Hungarian, and leave. Only later did I learn that he had set up an explosives workshop in his house. When I began to recall the dates of my visits, I realized that each time, within about a week afterward, there was some kind of explosion.

“The biggest explosion in central Budapest was organized by Pintér himself”

At times, Pintér did not just help make cases disappear — he also personally organized killings. In 1995, for example, he had a conflict with the businessman József Prisztás, who was involved in real estate. At the time, Prisztás was one of the richest people in Hungary. Pintér had his eye on one of Prisztás’s buildings, but Prisztás was a very tough and independent man — he never worked with the police, handled all his problems himself, and feared no one. He refused to sell the building, and very tense negotiations began.

Prisztás invited Igor Korol along with a couple of his men for protection. I was there as a translator. This took place in the Fifth District, at the Korona Hotel. On Pintér’s side was his close associate Tamás Portik, who, together with Pintér, had been involved in the diesel scheme and later handled all the dirty work for him. Portik also came with several of his men, and the conversation was extremely tense. Everyone left the table dissatisfied. Portik said there would be serious consequences: “Shoni Bácsi will be very unhappy with your refusal.”

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About two weeks later, Prisztás was getting into his car — he had an expensive jeep and traveled without security — and as soon as he opened the door and put one foot inside, a cyclist riding past fired a silenced pistol and shot him in the head. Later, the court established that the perpetrator was József Roháč, a Slovak citizen who worked as Portik’s hitman.

Another victim of Pintér’s was József Boros. He had been an associate of Pintér, Portik, and Mogilevich in the diesel business and knew everything about everyone. In 1998, he gave a video statement in which he laid everything out — with names, events, and dates. At the end, he said that there was one more person, the main participant in all these events, whose name he would not yet reveal. It was clear to everyone that he meant Pintér, the head of the police.

Boros was promised that the recording would not be made public, but within a few days it had spread across Budapest — I had it myself. What followed was the same pattern: Pintér gave the order to Portik, and Portik tasked Roháč. Roháč planted a bomb in an old abandoned Fiat that had long been standing in the city center, not far from Boros’s office. Boros always walked to work along the same route, and when he passed the Fiat, Roháč, who was waiting nearby in the bushes, pressed the button.

The explosion was horrific. Nothing remained of Boros. His lawyer was also killed, along with two passersby, and dozens of people were injured. It was in the very center of the city. The surrounding buildings looked as if they had been bombed from the air.

“Large sums were meant for Orbán”

As I already said, the bundles of money were usually small, but in 1997 much larger sums began to appear: $300,000, half a million, and once Mogilevich handed over a large leather sports bag containing one million dollars. All these large sums were intended for “Vitya” — that is what Mogilevich called Orbán. Orbán and Pintér were already close at that time, and this was no secret to anyone. Still, neither of them ever appeared at Mogilevich’s office — at least, I never saw them there.

In 1998, parliamentary elections were scheduled, and Seva was, of course, counting on Orbán’s rise to power to give him complete freedom of action. At first, it seemed that everything was going according to his plan. In 1998, when Orbán won, he immediately made Pintér minister of the interior.

Seva treated Hungarians in general with open contempt, and politicians in particular. Orbán was no exception. Seva could easily say something like, “That stinking Magyar lives off my money, he’ll do what I say, or I’ll f*ck him up.” I do not know all the details of their relationship — only what was discussed in my presence during meetings between Igor Korol and Mogilevich. Igor was generally very laconic, whereas Seva liked to talk.

When Orbán was running as an opposition figure, all those bombings and killings that outraged society helped boost his ratings. But once he came to power, his former associates and sponsors became an obstacle, and with the help of that same Pintér, he quickly got rid of them, putting them all behind bars. Mogilevich himself was also forced to leave Hungary. As far as I know, he moved to Russia.

Could the Russian authorities have made use of the compromising material that Mogilevich has on Orbán? I do not have reliable information about that, but I think they certainly could.

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“The stairs were flooded with my blood”

In 1998, I fell out with Igor Korol. It all started when my childhood friend, Sasha Kirichanin — the same one I had started the vodka business with — called me and, in a trembling voice, asked me to come to him immediately. He named a small town outside Budapest.

I found him badly beaten, with broken ribs. His car, his watch, and his money had been taken, and he had been told to come up with another $100,000, with threats to slaughter his entire family if he didn’t.

Of course, after that I immediately went to Igor Korol and confronted him. I said: “We have a relationship based on trust. You act as if we are friends. I looked after your wife at the maternity hospital. I have always helped you. And you allow this to happen to my friend? He replied in a cynical tone: “That’s how I decided.”

Then I offered him my own car, which was better and more expensive than the one they had stolen, so that he could take mine and return Kirichanin’s. Igor refused and even acted as if my offer offended him.

I knew which one of Igor’s men had taken the car, and I knew where he lived. I went there, dragged him out of the car, got behind the wheel myself, and returned it to Kirichanin.

A few hours later I got a call — not from Igor himself, but from his men. They demanded a meeting. We met, and they said: “Since you think you’re such a hero, then hand over your own car as well.” That’s when I snapped. I said: “You should have taken it when I offered it. Now you will get nothing.”

After that Igor started calling me, threatening me. I told him: “Stop pushing me, because don’t forget that I know a lot. If you keep pushing, you and Pintér will end up in prison.”

I understood that this would have consequences, but I thought the worst they would do was smash my car. Instead, on December 23, two men got into my car. One looped a garrote around my neck, and the other began stabbing me with a knife. At first I resisted, but then it became clear that I would not get out of the car alive, so I pretended to faint. I heard one of them say to the other in Russian something like, “The job is done,” and they left.

“One looped a garrote around my neck, and the other began stabbing me with a knife. It became clear that I wouldn’t get out of the car alive, so I pretended to faint”

They had hit an artery, and the blood was flowing out. With my last strength, I made it to my apartment on the fifth floor. The stairs were flooded with my blood. Once I got inside, I began to lose consciousness. Later I was told it was a miracle that I survived, because I had lost 3.5 liters of blood. For an ordinary person, that would have been fatal, but because I was a bodybuilder, weighing about 120 kilograms, and had a lot of substances in my system — steroids and so on — that saved me.

In the end, I not only survived but recovered, and within a year I was already competing again. I completely shifted to sports: preparing others for competitions, selling sports nutrition products, and earning a decent living. Oddly enough, Korol and his men stopped bothering me.

Then, in 2001, Igor Korol pushed out another close associate of his — Igor Radchenko — and Radchenko asked me to take him into my business. I said I would agree on the condition that he tell me how everything had happened, and he told me everything as it was, including that Igor Korol had been the one who initiated the attempt on my life.

That completely set me off again. I started calling Korol, demanding a personal meeting, hurling the harshest insults at him. Under normal circumstances, even a fraction of that would have been enough for him to kill me, but instead he tried to calm me down, asked me to drop the matter, even changed his phone numbers. Then one of his associates asked me to stop, because our phones were being monitored, and if we actually met, the police would simply swoop in on us. In the end, Korol was prevented from reentering Hungary when he tried to return from abroad. And it was the same for everyone who was involved in organized crime: some were expelled from the country, others were imprisoned.

Eventually it was my turn as well. At the behest of Sándor Pintér, I was sentenced to seven years in prison on a fabricated charge. I was accused of kidnapping, even though there were witnesses who testified in court that I had kidnapped no one. While I was in prison, investigators came to see me and wanted me to tell them everything. I explained to them: “You understand that Sándor Pintér is essentially your superior. If you think you can act on any information I give you, then you are very naive.”

However, when the government in Hungary changes, I will absolutely testify in court. I very much want to look Sándor Pintér in the eyes.

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According to Brovdi, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) planned and coordinated the operation, which was executed by the Unmanned Systems Forces. “The extent of the damage is being determined by intelligence,” he said, adding that the self-elevating jackup drilling rig Sivash was hit as part of the same attack.

Brovdi initially wrote that the frigate which came under attack was the Admiral Grigorovich, but later updated the post. The Admiral Makarov, like the Admiral Grigorovich, is a Project 11356R frigate. Russia’s navy has only three such ships in service. The frigates are capable of carrying Kalibr cruise missiles, which are used in strikes on Ukraine.

The third Project 11356R frigate, the Admiral Essen, was damaged during an attack on port infrastructure in Novorossiysk on the night of March 2.

On April 6, Krasnodar Region governor Veniamin Kondratyev reported that the area had been under a massive Ukrainian drone attack since the morning of April 5. Eight people in Novorossiysk were injured, including two children.

The head of Serbia’s Military Security Agency (VBA), Lt. Gen. Đuro Jovanić, said he had been warning President Aleksandar Vučić and the country’s leadership for months about possible attacks on the country’s gas infrastructure, but his warnings were met with skepticism, according to a report by Euronews Srbija. According to Jovanić, the operation to detect explosives near the gas pipeline in the municipality of Kanjiža was preceded by serious intelligence work. The VBA had information that a person with military training “from a group of migrants” intended to carry out an act of sabotage. Jovanić said the suspect would be detained.

“For months, we have been pointing out to the Commander-in-Chief, President Aleksandar Vučić, as well as the state leadership, that something like this could happen today. To be honest, we encountered skepticism, disapproval, disagreement — just as we did when we had to present the relevant data about the threat to gas infrastructure,” he said.

The VBA chief also commented on claims that Serbian authorities had staged the attempted bombing in order to later blame Ukrainians, an allegation raised by Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry and the Hungarian opposition. Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi called the incident a Russian false-flag operation aimed at influencing Hungary’s upcoming parliamentary election.

Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar, for his part, said many people had predicted in advance that such an incident would occur on a Serbian gas pipeline. Reuters, citing a former Hungarian intelligence officer, also reported that Hungarian security services had in recent days discussed a sabotage scenario in Serbia as a potential tool for influencing the elections. Jovanić rejected those accusations while characterizing any  claims that Serbian military personnel had planted the explosives themselves in order to frame Ukraine as disinformation.

Yesterday, Serbian President Vučić wrote on Instagram that Serbian military and police had found “high-powered explosives” and devices for activating them near the gas pipeline through which Russian gas flows via Serbia to Hungary. After a phone call with Vučić, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán wrote on Facebook that he had convened an emergency meeting of the Defense Council.

After the meeting, Orbán claimed that “according to the available information, sabotage was being prepared,” adding that “Ukraine has been trying for years to cut Europe off from Russian energy.” Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said directly that the incident “fits into a series of Ukrainian attacks” on the transit of Russian gas and oil to Europe, comparing it to the Nord Stream explosions in 2022.

Belgrade-based political scientist Aleksandar Jokić told The Insider that “it’s all a game; there was no sabotage”:

“It’s simply a way to help Orbán ahead of the elections. Vucic provided a plausible narrative that Orban picked up on. But Vucic didn’t blame Ukraine for this because he doesn’t want to get into a conflict with Europe. The Serbian leader did Orban a favor, but didn’t want to jeopardize relations with Brussels. Orban’s entire campaign is built on bashing Ukraine.”

A source in the Irish security services described the number of “shadow fleet” vessels recently passing through Ireland’s exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, as unprecedented. According to sources in military circles, five of the tankers were moving south in an organized group through the EEZ. The newspaper’s sources believe the ships chose that route to avoid the threat of detention in British waters.

According to figures cited by the Irish Times, the vessels were carrying approximately 4 million barrels of Russian oil. All five tankers are on European Union sanctions lists: Vokki (IMO 9434890), Tiburon (IMO 9283291), Aktros (IMO 9257814), Bullar (IMO 9389679) and Deneb (IMO 9301524). According to the vessel-tracking service Starboard Maritime Intelligence, all of the tankers are currently near Gibraltar. Vokki, Aktros, Bullar, and Deneb are all heading for Port Said, Egypt, while Tiburon is bound for Singapore.

In addition to the group of five, several more sanctioned tankers passed through the EEZ during the week, with the Russian fishing vessel Ester also transiting the zone. In 2023, Norwegian authorities found espionage equipment on board the Ester and accused the vessel of secretly conducting maritime reconnaissance.

The shift in traffic follows from the UK government’s March 25 authorization to allow British military personnel and law enforcement officers to detain sanctioned vessels transiting the country’s territorial waters. “Putin is rubbing his hands at the war in the Middle East because he thinks higher oil prices will let him line his pockets. That’s why we’re going after his shadow fleet even harder, not just keeping Britain safe but starving Putin’s war machine of the dirty profits that fund his barbaric campaign in Ukraine,” commented UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

The Irish government has also recently said it intends to begin inspections of sanctioned vessels. Amendments to legislation are now being drafted to give Ireland’s maritime agencies additional powers to inspect ships at sea.

Experts cite the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz as the main reason for the surge, as the blockade of the Middle Eastern waterway removed a significant portion of diesel from the global market. Buyers began actively drawing down stockpiles, with reserves at the Fujairah port (UAE) falling by 36% in March, to 13.3 million barrels.

As RBC reports, an additional incentive for the increase in Russian exports was the temporary easing of American sanctions, after which importers no longer feared being hit with secondary restrictions. Washington temporarily lifted sanctions on Russian oil and petroleum products loaded onto ships before March 12; the license is valid until April 11.

In the meantime, Ukraine is actively striking the ports from which Russian diesel is shipped. Starting from March 23, the ports of Primorsk and Ust-Luga have repeatedly come under drone attack, bringing their current combined oil exports to their lowest level since 2022.

According to Dmitry Kasatkin of Kasatkin Consulting, the need to restore port infrastructure threatens to reduce Russia’s Baltic diesel exports in April by 30–50% compared to March. While Black Sea terminals such as Novorossiysk or Taman offer an alternative, the transition will take time and drive up costs. Kasatkin estimates that at most 15–20% of the disrupted shipments can be redirected, and the remainder will have to be absorbed by the domestic market, putting pressure on wholesale diesel prices within the country.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported conflicting data indicating that Russian seaborne exports of diesel and gasoil fell by 3% in March compared with February, to around 3.06 million tons. Market sources and LSEG attribute the decline to systematic attacks by Ukrainian drones on key port terminals.

Under Orbán, Hungary has turned from a frontrunner of democratic transformation in Central Europe into a semi-authoritarian countermodel — one widely perceived by nationalist and other radical-right forces throughout the West as a blueprint for how to undermine liberal democracy and establish a system of political rule sustained by a skewed political playing field.

Of course, becoming an illiberal countermodel has its consequences: the degradation of democracy has turned Hungary into one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in the European Union, making it a Trojan horse for authoritarian great-power interests, with primary loyalties to the Kremlin, Beijing, and, since January 2025, also to the Trump administration.

In April 2026, however, a historical window of opportunity appears to be opening after 16 years of Orbán’s rule — one promising democratic change, normalization, and reorientation toward the West. With Péter Magyar’s opposition party “Respect and Freedom” (Tisza) holding a double-digit advantage in the polls, it is worth taking a broader look at the Hungarian political landscape, the campaign itself, and the international environment in which it is taking place. All of these factors will significantly influence whether Hungarian society is ultimately able to seize this democratic opportunity, or whether Hungary’s autocratization and strategic geopolitical reorientation toward the East will receive a renewed mandate under Orbán’s rule.

The “Magyar phenomenon” and the renewal of Hungarian opposition

This is not the first time that the Hungarian opposition is topping Orbán’s incumbent Fidesz party in the polls; the same happened in the late summer and early fall of 2021, during the run-up to the 2022 elections.

However, today’s Hungarian opposition could not be more different from the alternative on offer four years ago. This time, Fidesz is not facing a motley crew of small parties ranging from the radical right to progressive liberals and social democrats, entangled in infighting due to their particular interests and led by a prime ministerial candidate without a real party or power base. Instead Magyar’s Tisza is a solid, unified party led by a charismatic leader.

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Since its establishment in early 2024, Tisza has practically wiped out Hungary’s old opposition. This has been possible for three main reasons.

First, the old opposition had suffered from a growing legitimacy crisis. After failing to pose a serious challenge to Orbán for three consecutive elections, their existence was perceived by a growing number of Hungarian citizens not as a threat to the regime, but as a guarantee of its survival.

Second, due to the country’s miserable economic growth, declining public services, and increasingly unsustainable public finances, the Orbán regime lost its authority in the economic sphere — the main reason why many voters had supported the party in the past. This his given rise to a more widespread protest-vote sentiment in Hungarian society, with millions of people eager to support any reasonably credible challenger to the regime’s continued rule.

Third, the emergence of a talented political entrepreneur fundamentally reshaped political communication and constituency-building in Hungary. Péter Magyar and Tisza succeeded where other opposition parties had failed since 2010 by building a stable support base outside Budapest and the country’s other large urban centers. They have convincingly linked the issue of strategic corruption under Fidesz to the everyday socioeconomic concerns of citizens from all walks of life.

In addition, as a moderate, center-right political force, Tisza has credibly used nationalistic mobilization and appealed to conservative voters in the countryside — something that had long remained out of the reach of progressive, urban opposition parties. This enabled Tisza to penetrate mid-sized and smaller cities — the heartland of the Fidesz electorate.

Based on polling data, Fidesz has only been able to retain its advantage in villages and rural areas, where the system of paternalistic dependencies created by the party provides both motivation and material incentives for voters.  

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In short, the slow degradation of the regime, its poor governance, and the revival of Hungarian opposition politics have resulted in the current political opening. However, it is the skillful political performance of Tisza and Péter Magyar that could be the key factor pushing the opposition over the top in 2026 after its failure of 2022.

The take of two campaigns

The election campaigns of Tisza and Fidesz are running as if they are taking place in completely parallel realities, their respective narratives barely reflecting on each other.

The communication of Tisza has a predominantly domestic focus, revolving around the issues of corruption, the incompetence of Fidesz’s governance, economic stagnation, and the desolate state of healthcare, education, and public transportation.

In the field of European and foreign affairs, Tisza’s stated aim is the normalization of relations with Hungary’s key European and NATO allies — abandoning the veto-wielding politics of Fidesz and regaining Hungary’s status as a credible, trustworthy, and constructive player on the international stage. Based on its election manifesto, Tisza would prioritize joining the European Public Prosecutor’s Office and securing the release of suspended EU funds that were frozen due to rule-of-law deficiencies stemming from the high-level corruption of Orbán’s Hungary.

In contrast, the election campaign of Fidesz is almost exclusively internationally focused. It is based on the claim that Ukraine poses a clear threat to the sovereignty and security of Hungary, particularly in the spheres of energy supply security. The ruling party also pushes the narrative that Ukraine, various EU institutions, and the Hungarian opposition are colluding on a plan to manipulate the election results in order to bring a Ukraine-friendly government to power in Budapest. In this context, just like in 2022, the Hungarian opposition is not portrayed as an independent political actor, but is almost exclusively depicted by Fidesz propaganda outlets as a group of foreign agents and puppets. In this context, factual nuances — such as the fact that Tisza and Péter Magyar cannot actually be considered Ukraine-friendly political forces — are deliberately left aside in order not to challenge the internal coherence and argumentative logic of government propaganda.

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Since 2014, Fidesz has been campaigning on the concept that Hungary faces an external threat. That year, the “enemy” was the EU, along with international financial institutions such as the IMF. In 2018, it was the EU and the various foundations and civil society organizations linked to George Soros, which were alleged to be fueling mass migration to Europe. In 2022, the war in Europe served as the external threat, with the Hungarian opposition and the EU portrayed as colluding to drag Hungary into the fight on the side of Kyiv.

In 2026, facing the sort of domestic challenge not seen since 2006, Fidesz has reverted to its most recent successful strategy: fearmongering around the war and accusing opponents of dragging Hungary into it. The campaign has included claims that, if the opposition wins at the polls on April 12, they will be ready to send Hungarian men to the front to defend Ukraine.

However, the most interesting aspect of the Fidesz campaign is the fact that it quite simply is not working. While the sudden escalation in Hungarian–Ukrainian bilateral tensions following the hijacking of an official Ukrainian money transport on Hungarian territory threatened to derail the domestically focused Tisza campaign and communication strategy, a look at the polling numbers over the past few weeks suggests that Fidesz’s demonization of the authorities in Kyiv has not aided them domestically.

The almost exclusively Ukraine-focused campaign apparently does not resonate with Hungarian voters, and it is difficult to understand why Fidesz is apparently doubling down on a dysfunctional strategy. The ruling party remains path-dependent instead of reflecting and adapting in light of the underperformance of its campaign strategy. 

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In a similar manner, while the leaked phone conversations between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Hungarian counterpart Péter Szijjártó shed light on the subservient nature of Szijjártó’s relationship with his Russian counterpart, they are unlikely to significantly change the campaign dynamics in Budapest. The leaks provided very relevant evidence, but they did not offer any fundamentally new information about Szijjártó’s diplomatic qualities. For most opposition voters, Szijjártó’s relationship with Russia amounted to betrayal even before the recordings of his conversations with Lavrov came to light, while for Fidesz voters, the Hungarian foreign minister is still seen as fighting for the country’s real interests, particularly with regard to energy supply security.

The leaks pose the greatest challenge for Szijjártó’s EU counterparts, for whom maintaining a working relationship with him will become an even more uncomfortable task in the event that Fidesz is unexpectedly re-elected.

The international environment of the Hungarian elections

There is certainly some irony in the claims of the Hungarian government, which has actively undermined and hampered Ukrainian national security ever since 2017, when Budapest started blocking NATO-Ukraine Commission meetings. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of 2022, Hungary has regularly delayed and blocked EU financial aid packages and reimbursements for Member States under the European Peace Facility, watered down sanctions packages against Russia, and increased its fossil fuel dependency on the Kremlin, contributing to the financing of the Russian war effort.

Obviously, the halt in oil transit via the Druzhba pipeline following Russian air attacks on Jan. 27, as well as the resulting unfortunate comment of Volodymyr Zelensky’s that was widely interpreted as a personal threat to Orbán, contributed to the further deterioration in bilateral relations between Hungary and Ukraine. However, with time Kyiv also realized that this escalatory spiral runs counter to its strategic interests, as it is only feeding the Fidesz campaign.

At the EU level, the Hungarian government is currently blocking both a 90 billion euro financial aid package for Ukraine and the bloc’s 20th sanctions package against Russia. While Budapest’s actions are widely perceived as aimed at maintaining leverage over Kyiv as part of an effort to force the relaunch of oil transit via the Druzhba pipeline, in reality the Orbán government’s policies are also serving the strategic interests of the Kremlin.

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A continuation of Fidesz rule would almost certainly mean a continuation of Budapest’s anti-Ukraine initiatives. If Orbán is able to turn the campaign around and win on April 12 without the help of massive irregularities, his main lesson learned will be that his anti-Ukrainian mobilization was successful. Moreover, the situation may be even worse in the event of an authoritarian scenario in which anti-democratic practices succeed in keeping the regime in power. In such a situation, Orbán would become further isolated from the EU mainstream and even more dependent on support and recognition from Russia, China, and the Trump administration. Considering that Russia’s overwhelming interest is to block the loan package to Ukraine, Orbán could have little choice but to continue complying with Moscow’s requests.

A reasonable reset and de-escalation in Hungarian-Ukrainian bilateral relations can only be expected in the case of an opposition victory. Tisza is certainly not a pro-Ukrainian political force, and it will clearly refrain from providing military aid to Ukraine, but a normalization of the relationship is clearly in its interest — particularly if it comes with a relaunch of oil transit via Druzhba and the development of an acceptable and realistic energy diversification plan that could allow Budapest to phase out Russian energy imports in the longer run without the risk of supply or price shocks.

Still, due to the likelihood that a Tisza victory would lead Fidesz to initiate extensive recounting and administrative remedy procedures, Ukraine’s international partners should be prepared to wait for quite some time after April 12 before the new government in Budapest is in a position to reverse Orbán-era policies. 

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Regarding future relations with Russia under a Tisza government, the jury is still out. Restoring relations with EU and NATO partners and withdrawing from the blockade and veto policies of the Orbán regime is a central promise of Tisza’s election manifesto. Needless to say, such a shift would certainly result in a cooling of relations with the Kremlin, making Budapest a much less attractive partner in the eyes of Vladimir Putin. The Tisza election manifesto also contains some very bold political objectives, such as the revision of the loan and construction contracts of the Paks II nuclear power plant project. Furthermore, Tisza’s candidate for foreign minister, Anita Orbán (no relation to the prime minister), calls for energy diversification away from Russian sources.

However, even a hypothetical Péter Magyar-led government would not be interested in an abrupt cut of energy relations with Russia, as this could cause supply security issues, particularly in the area of natural gas. Budapest’s interest will remain a managed phase-out of Russian fossil fuel energy, which in some way requires a minimum level of cooperation from Russia. This reality will continue to provide certain leverage for the Kremlin, resulting in a pragmatic rather than overtly anti-Russian foreign policy under a new government in Budapest.

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The same pragmatism can be expected toward the Trump administration. While the current White House has repeatedly endorsed Prime Minister Orbán during the election campaign, it is clear that the Hungarian public is not impressed by international support for the Orbán regime, whether originating from the European radical-right Patriot party family or from the MAGA universe in the United States. A new Hungarian government will remain dependent on the U.S. — not only as a security provider within NATO, but also as an energy partner during the process of diversification away from Russian resources.

Furthermore, American stakeholders outside the ideologically motivated core of the Trump administration (which views Orbán as a key ideological ally in weakening EU unity) may also recognize that on many issues such as China, a Tisza government may be much more aligned with U.S. strategic interests than the Orbán regime has been. This may be one reason why Washington is not going beyond symbolic endorsements of Orbán and is not betting all its cards on a potentially losing alternative.     

The uneven playing field

With all these strategic calculi in mind, the main question of the Hungarian elections is whether the process will remain reasonably free. Hungary had its last free and fair election sixteen years ago, in 2010, and since then, official election observation missions of OSCE-ODIHR have consistently labelled Hungarian elections as “free but not fair.”

However, in contrast to previous elections, this time dissatisfaction with the Orbán regime appears to be high enough that not even the tilted playing field will be enough to save Fidesz from its political fate.

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The first-past-the-post electoral system in single-member districts, along with the so-called “winner compensation” mechanism, provides extra advantages to the political party with the most overall support. In recent cycles, this has been Fidesz; however, based on current polling data, it is now Tisza. The situation is also less clear regarding the gerrymandered nature of the districts. This used to provide a 5% advantage for Fidesz as long as its opponent was a largely urbanized, progressive movement. But when faced with a centrist, conservative, right-leaning political opponent that is able to make inroads into the traditionally Fidesz-dominated countryside, the impact of gerrymandering may also be lower than in the past. Mail ballots from ethnic Hungarians in neighboring countries will continue to serve Fidesz well, as will campaign regulations and political control over the billboard market, but this will not undercut a Tisza government majority provided that the party is able to win with at least a 7% percentage point advantage.

Against this background, if the elections remain free, a democratic change in government is likely. In light of the level of state capture and the amount of public resources placed under partisan control in the form of private foundations, one could conclude that Prime Minister Orbán could risk losing an election while keeping the option open for a democratic return. However, due to their entanglement in high-level corruption, a central question for many oligarchs and acolytes of the regime is whether a change in government would result in their prosecution. With Fidesz-related oligarchs already moving their assets out of Hungary, this is evidently an existential question for many of them. Under these circumstances, it cannot be excluded that the April 12 Hungarian election might become the European Union’s first ever rigged election, with far-reaching consequences for the democratic integrity and decision-making processes of the bloc.

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In such a scenario, reactions from both Brussels and Hungarian society will be crucial in determining Hungary’s future trajectory — democratic or authoritarian. For EU stakeholders, it is essential that they prepare for such an eventuality. Regarding Hungarian society, it is equally essential that any attempts at authoritarian election manipulation face determined social opposition and widespread protests. What opposition politicians need to understand in such a context is that they are entering a marathon.

Prime Minister Orbán may have learned from his close partners in places like Georgia and Serbia that even the most intense social protests can be effectively weathered by incumbents — provided that they have sufficient stamina and external support. This will likely be Orbán’s strategy as well. There will certainly be no Ukrainian-style Maidan revolution in Hungary, as neither Hungarian society nor the police or military will be prepared and motivated to use force.

Therefore, months of Serbia-like peaceful protests are the most likely outcome in the event of election fraud (or of a constitutional coup d’état). Such a movement will only be able to steer Hungary back onto a democratic path if its demonstrations of popular legitimacy are sufficiently strong, determined, and sustained domestically, and if it is accompanied by EU pressure exerted on Orbán in the event that he makes the wrong decision at this critical historical juncture.   

It cannot be excluded that the April 12 vote in Hungary might become the European Union’s first ever rigged election

Even a hypothetical Péter Magyar-led government would not be interested in an abrupt cut of energy relations with Russia

A reasonable reset and de-escalation in Hungarian-Ukrainian bilateral relations can only be expected in the case of an opposition victory

The Hungarian government is blocking both a 90 billion euro financial aid package for Ukraine and the bloc’s 20th sanctions package against Russia, effectively serving the strategic interests of the Kremlin

The most interesting aspect of the Fidesz campaign is the fact that it quite simply is not working

The election campaign of Fidesz is based on the claim that Ukraine poses a clear threat to the sovereignty and security of Hungary

This time, Fidesz is not facing a motley crew of small parties — Magyar’s Tisza is a solid, unified party led by a charismatic leader

Bagehot is now being quoted again, this time in connection with the reform of the House of Lords, which is finally expelling hereditary aristocratic peers from its ranks. At present, the chamber consists of 840 members: 733 life peers, 84 hereditary peers, and 23 Lords Spiritual (representatives of the Church of England).

In fact, hereditary peers effectively signed their own political death warrant back in 1999. Until then, they had formed a majority in the chamber, but they obediently agreed to a reform under which only 92 peers would retain their seats. Even then, it was widely understood that this was a temporary compromise on the way to a complete “clear-out.”

A farewell to the peers

Now, 27 years later, it has finally happened: only 15 hereditary peers have been “pardoned” via conversion into life members of the House of Lords, and even these will no longer be able to pass their seats on to their children. This may represent a landmark historic event; however, the quality of the process leaves much to be desired.

On the one hand, the right to sit in Parliament and influence the passage of laws simply as the chance result of having been born into a privileged family represented a glaring anachronism. “Nothing illustrates how broken our political system is quite like the House of Lords,” says Alice Jeffrey of Unlock Democracy in an assessment that many British commentators and ordinary citizens alike would readily second.

All opinion polls show that an overwhelming majority has long considered reform of the upper chamber necessary, as the institution of hereditary peers has clearly outlived its historical lifespan. The only country besides the United Kingdom in which parliamentary seats were inherited was Lesotho, where 22 tribal chiefs participate in lawmaking alongside elected deputies.

Yet the urgency of the moment can obscure the broader historical picture. The bicameral system has played a crucial role in the country’s history, ensuring a high degree of adaptability that allowed the governing system to evolve gradually and peacefully, facilitating the smooth transfer of power and influence from old elites to new ones.

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British parliamentarianism began precisely with the House of Lords, which emerged from the Magnum Concilium (the Great Council) that advised monarchs in the Middle Ages. The council was composed primarily of church figures and the high nobility.

Monarchs often preferred to ignore opinions they did not like, and eventually the barons rebelled. In 1215, they forced the king to accept the Magna Carta, which limited the monarch’s power, introduced the concept of the rule of law, established specific liberties, guaranteed the right to a fair trial, and restricted taxation.

It was a truly revolutionary step in the history of the entire Western world, setting a crucial precedent. Initially, these freedoms and rights applied only to the nobility, but after the abolition of serfdom in the 16th century, they were gradually extended to the entire population of the country.

The division into two chambers took place in the 14th century, when representatives of counties and boroughs began to meet separately from clerical leaders and the nobility. This is how the House of Commons emerged. It was a highly important and progressive step in the country’s evolution, even if the aristocracy sitting in the House of Lords retained greater influence in governing the country. However, that influence was already waning.

During the English Civil War (1642-1649), the House of Lords largely sided with Parliament rather than the royal court. The House of Lords also played an important role in organizing Parliament’s war effort against Charles I, and oversaw judicial proceedings, including trials of royalists. At the same time, it often clashed with the more radical House of Commons, advocating for a negotiated settlement with the king. For this, Oliver Cromwell took revenge after becoming dictator, and the chamber was abolished when England became a republic.

The House of Lords was restored after the restoration of the monarchy. What is noteworthy, however, is that from that point on, the superiority of the lower chamber — the House of Commons — was firmly established both in practice and in law. One might have expected that, with the republican enemies defeated and the usurper Cromwell executed, everything would return to the old order, with the lower chamber stripped of any actual power (if not abolished outright). But nothing of the sort happened. Cool calculation prevailed, along with an understanding that preventing new revolutionary upheavals required a balance among the branches of power that corresponded to the actual alignment of forces in society.

Since then, Britain has learned to avoid upheavals and revolutions, with the House of Lords acquiring a new and important role: the upper chamber could review legislation more calmly, without haste, in a measured and independent manner, without direct political pressure from the government or even public opinion. However, as early as 1911, the House of Lords lost its veto power, which was replaced by the right to delay legislation — initially for two years, and later for just one year.

Today the public is once again dissatisfied, believing that the reform of the House of Lords has come too late and is being implemented poorly. Only three percent of Britons approve of how it has been carried out.

The expulsion of hereditary peers may appear to be a triumph of justice, but it cannot be called a triumph of democracy, nor even of common sense. It seems likely, in fact, to reduce the effectiveness of governance in the country.

The problem is that the old aristocracy has not been replaced by elected representatives of the British public, but by appointees — put bluntly, cronies. According to Lord Hamilton, once the hereditary peers are gone, the chamber will consist mainly of “political chancers, like me, and donors and members of the blob of one sort or another.”

According to Lord Hamilton, once the hereditary peers are gone, the chamber will consist mainly of “political chancers, like me, and donors and members of the blob of one sort or another”

Lord Hamilton, while self-depricatingly witty, is not entirely right. There are still some independent figures among the members of the chamber, appointed not on the basis of party affiliation or patronage, but in recognition of their evident merits to society. Their specialized knowledge in various fields allow them to make a genuine contribution to parliamentary work and lawmaking. However, they are a minority, constituting only around 20% of the body. The majority, meanwhile, are either former politicians or those same cronies who have, in one way or another, earned the gratitude of a sitting prime minister or one of the major parties.

Money vs. competence

Some commentators go so far as to describe the House of Lords as the embodiment of corruption: baronial titles and the seats that come with them are openly sold in exchange for donations to the campaign funds of leading parties. The twenty largest donors in the chamber (mostly representing the Conservatives) have collectively donated £92 million.

Consider two recent examples of appointed peers: Peter Mandelson and Michelle Mone. The former was a prominent Labour politician and held ministerial posts in the cabinet of Tony Blair. After stepping down, he received the title of baron and a seat in the House of Lords — this despite questions concerning the somewhat dubious terms of a loan he had received, and later about excessively close contacts with Russian oligarchs. Ignoring warnings from the country’s intelligence services, Prime Minister Keir Starmer brought Mandelson back into public life and appointed him to serve as ambassador to the United States.

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But soon Peter Mandelson was forced to resign from that post as well when his close contacts with the disgraced American fixer and trafficker Jeffrey Epstein came to light. Mandelson also had to leave the House of Lords in scandal, while the prime minister was left to apologize humbly to the country for his lapse in judgement.

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The situation with Baroness Michelle Mone is equally troubling. Having received her title from the Conservative Party in 2015, for several years she served as a kind of public face for the Tories. But during the COVID-19 pandemic it emerged that her husband’s company, PPE Medpro, had received contracts worth £200 million from the Conservative government to supply personal protective equipment, some of which turned out to be defective. This drew the attention of activists concerned that the most lucrative deals were being awarded to companies whose executives or owners had ties to the party. From 2020 to 2023, the baroness flatly denied that she or her husband had any connection to these contracts, but in January 2022, Mone announced that she was taking leave from the House of Lords in order to “clear her name.”

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Then, in December 2023, Mone suddenly admitted that she had been connected to PPE Medpro and had directly benefited from the contract. She said she had lied because she “wanted to protect her family.” In October 2025, a court ruled that the company must pay the United Kingdom government £122 million plus interest for breaching a contract to supply surgical gowns during the pandemic. A criminal investigation into the company is ongoing.

How many more such barons and baronesses, who received their titles and seats in Parliament thanks to various connections in government and party circles, are now sitting on the famous crimson benches? One may hope that most appointed peers are neither fraudsters nor criminals, but it is hardly reasonable to expect this group to make a significant contribution to public affairs. Age, too, does not lend itself to active work: 56% of peers are over 70, and roughly one in four is over 80.

56% of peers are over 70, and roughly one in four is over 80

In other words, the reform as implemented contains no democratic substance, since members of the chamber are not elected but appointed. Nor does it offer much practical benefit, as in its current composition, the chamber is unlikely to function more effectively than before. Quite the opposite. After all, the now-abolished aristocratic peers were sometimes of real use. At times, they demonstrated complete independence from those in power and could raise persuasive objections, pointing out errors and oversights in draft legislation. Appointees, by contrast, are usually too dependent on their political patrons to do anything of the sort.

It is noteworthy that the House of Lords Appointments Commission (HOLAC) rejected eight candidates put forward by Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the time of his departure from office. Johnson, like some of his predecessors, had often ignored the commission’s objections, taking advantage of the fact that, by law, the final decision rests with the head of government. Only a change in party leadership to Rishi Sunak prevented the questionable nominees from joining the upper chamber.

Still, several of Johnson’s other nominees did make it into the House of Lords. Among them is one particularly striking figure: Charlotte Owen, who had worked for just over a year as one of Johnson’s aides, performing duties not much different from those of a secretary.

“She is a blank slate. She has done virtually nothing of note. She has no clearly articulated views on anything. All her achievements combined would hardly fill a full 280-character tweet. And yet she will now sit as a member of the legislature, making and revising laws for all of us for the rest of her life. And since she was only 29 at the time of her appointment, this could last a solid 50 years. We cannot remove her from office. And we will have to shell out £332 a day every time she crosses the threshold of the House of Lords, plus travel expenses and subsidized meals… I suppose this is what is called parliamentary sovereignty,” journalist Alan Rusbridger writes with evident sarcasm.

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Alas, Owen’s case is far from unique. Having rid itself of hereditary peers, the House of Lords is now overcrowded with people whose competence in lawmaking, to put it mildly, raises serious doubts.

No hope for real reform

Meanwhile, a solution to the problem of the upper chamber has long been known and was widely discussed as early as the beginning of this century. One of the most popular options is to make it a two-thirds elected body, with members chosen under a proportional rather than a majoritarian system.

The remaining portion could be appointed by a commission independent of the government, selecting the most distinguished figures in science, culture, law, and other fields. They could bring to parliamentary work not only their expertise and life experience, but also a commitment to ideals of public service rather than to political gamesmanship. And no more guaranteed lifetime sinecures. Terms in the chamber should be reasonably limited.

Sadly, the current authorities lack the political will to push through such an obvious reform, and therefore there is not the slightest hope that it will take place in the foreseeable future. This is a manifestation of the deep crisis affecting the system of governance as a whole. British politics has become too deeply mired in the thicket of a two-party majoritarian system, one in which neither group offers a coherent program that it is actually capable of implementing.

Nights in Lebanon are still cool. On the streets of the ancient port city of Sidon, located 48 kilometers from Beirut, people who fled from the south and areas where Hezbollah holds sway are sleeping outdoors. Heavy downpours periodically hit the city, soaking all of the mattresses, blankets, and clothes left out in the open.

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According to the latest data from the UN, the number of internally displaced people in the country of 5.8 million has exceeded 830,000. Evacuations have affected Beirut’s southern suburbs, the northern part of the Beqaa Valley, and all areas south of the Litani River along the Israeli border, home to around half a million people. Centers set up across the country to house the internally displaced are overcrowded. At least 14,000 Lebanese have fled to Syria.

The current humanitarian crisis is the result of renewed fighting in the region. The previous conflict ended in November 2024, when Hezbollah — a Shiite organization linked to Iran and designated as a terrorist group by many countries — agreed to a ceasefire with Israel.

However, both sides periodically accused each other of violating the truce, and following new joint strikes by the United States and Israel against Iran in late February, Hezbollah launched a series of rocket attacks on Israel. In response, the Israeli army resumed fire and announced the start of a ground operation against the group’s infrastructure in southern Lebanon.

Between three worlds

Lebanon is a multi-confessional country — and a deeply polarized one. By law, power is divided among Shiites, Sunnis, and Christians: the president is a Maronite Christian, the prime minister is a Sunni, and the speaker of parliament is a Shiite. In reality, however, this formal division does not correspond to the country’s modern social makeup, and it does not reflect its current political balance. As Arabist Ksenia Svetlova points out, the exact proportions of Shiites, Sunnis, and Christians are unknown, as the last census in the country was conducted in 1932. “

Fatima, a Shiite who asked that her real name not be disclosed, was born on the Lebanese–Israeli border in one of the areas that has now become part of the front line. Her family first lost their home during the 2006 war. It took twelve years to rebuild. Then, in 2024, the house was destroyed a second time. During the current escalation, Fatima’s father lost all of his work equipment, making it impossible for him to earn a living.

“Right now, the situation in Lebanon is very difficult for almost all of my friends. Regardless of whether people support the war or not, its consequences affect everyone,” Fatima, who notes a rise in distrust and hostility toward Shiites in general, says.

Shiites, who form the backbone of Hezbollah, are considered to be one of the most politically and militarily organized groups in the country, and many of them sympathize with Iran. Arabist Svetlova describes Hezbollah as a state within a state: the organization has its own financial structures, hospitals, and networks for distributing humanitarian and financial aid, and it creates jobs. Among Sunnis and Christians, she says, some look to Saudi Arabia, while others orient themselves toward Western countries.

According to Fatima, those Shiites who try to distance themselves from the activities of Hezbollah — which is often designated as a terrorist group outside Lebanon — face the greatest difficulties, as they are left to deal with their problems on their own. Tensions have been exacerbated due to the fact that so many Shiites have fled the south, which has no bomb shelters or basements where people can hide from rocket fire. Two days after Hezbollah attacked Israeli territory, Tel Aviv called on all residents of areas south of the Litani River to leave.

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Ralph Atrash, a Lebanese Christian, says that most refugees are housed in schools and public buildings provided by the state, while others rent accommodation, also often in overcrowded conditions. At the same time, many people sleep on the streets — they can be seen in the Tayouneh district in southern Beirut, near the city center, as well as in the city of Sidon.

“People who have ended up on the streets shelter in tents. These protect them against the rain, but not from strong winds and heavy downpours. Some spend the night in cars,” Atrash says.

At the same time, as Fatima points out, Hezbollah members can afford expensive apartments and hotels: “Recently, Israel struck a rented apartment in Hazmieh. It turned out that it had been rented by a Hezbollah member along with his wife and mother — they were paying $3,000 a month in rent.”

According to The Insider’s sources, among the displaced are both Lebanese and Syrians who fled to Lebanon because of the civil war in Syria, which began in 2011. As Middle East expert and NEST Centre specialist Ruslan Suleimanov explains, some Syrian refugees arrived relatively recently, after the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024. These people remain in Lebanon because they fear retaliation from the new authorities in Damascus over their past cooperation with Assad’s government.

Children and pregnant women are in an especially dire situation. According to UNICEF, there are around 286,000 children among the displaced, including approximately 275 who have been injured. Estimates from UNFPA suggest that around 11,600 pregnant women are at heightened risk. Some have been forced to give birth right on the streets.

Fatima says that displaced people are mainly helped by restaurants and charitable organizations, which distribute food and clothing. “Overall, they are going through this much like the residents of Gaza, but with greater dignity and fewer complaints: on social media, some Hezbollah supporters even say they are proud to live in tents,” she says.

Proximity to Hezbollah is deadly

Lebanese Christian Atrash says that residents of some areas of Mount Lebanon are afraid to take in displaced people because of their possible links to Hezbollah:

“People fear that Hezbollah militants could infiltrate from Shiite areas along with the displaced. This could lead to IDF strikes on Christian, Sunni, or Druze areas of Lebanon. For example, the municipality of Jounieh, the administrative center of Lebanon’s Keserwan district, does not allow housing to be rented to suspected Hezbollah members, citing the government, which on March 2 banned the movement’s military activities. In Christian villages in Keserwan, local youth patrol the streets to prevent any suspicious activity by refugees from among Hezbollah supporters.”

According to the latest data from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, since March 2 at least 886 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon, including at least 111 children. Lebanese authorities reported around 1,800 injured as of mid-March. The strikes have destroyed hundreds of residential buildings and civilian infrastructure facilities, including medical institutions.

Atrash explains that the true number of civilian casualties is difficult to determine, as the Lebanese authorities do not report how many of those killed were Hezbollah members. Hezbollah itself does not disclose this figure either (although it publishes individual obituaries almost daily). According to the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) Chief of the General Staff Eyal Zamir, more than 400 fighters from the group have been killed since March 2:

“Many civilians were killed because they were near Hezbollah infrastructure or its members. Military experts say that the IDF uses high-precision guided bombs such as GBU, as well as Hellfire missiles or Spike guided missiles. These weapons are used to strike infrastructure, vehicles, and personnel. When civilians are near these targets, they unfortunately also come under attack.”

In Israel itself, the number of killed and wounded by Hezbollah fire remains low, thanks to air defense systems, the prevalence of advanced warning, and a well-developed shelter infrastructure. Nevertheless, one Israeli woman was killed by shelling from Lebanon, another civilian was mistakenly killed by IDF fire, and two Israeli soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon. Dozens more have been injured, and many homes have been damaged.

Different worlds: refugees and locals

At the same time, everyday life largely continues in other parts of the country. According to Atrash, some schools and universities have switched to remote learning, and some companies have moved employees to remote work. However, in safer areas, people continue to go to their jobs, even if the overall atmosphere remains tense.

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“Of course, the level of danger is higher than usual. I believe this will be the last war with Hezbollah, and this time its outcome will be decisive. The situation is extremely unstable, but part of Lebanon lies outside the danger zone, so many expats are returning to see their families in these areas,” he explains.

This will be the last war with Hezbollah —  this time its outcome will be decisive for Lebanon’s future

Atrash himself recently returned to Beirut from Paris, where he worked as an adviser to a member of the French parliament on the national defense committee: “I accepted an offer to work in Lebanon, at a Lebanese-American media outlet. My home country has a chance to rid itself of Hezbollah and its allies, and I very much hope to help with that.”

Hezbollah helps only its own

The Insider’s sources describe the economic situation in the country as difficult: prices for gasoline and public transportation have risen, as have the costs of goods, services, and housing.

Fatima says that many in the Shiite community are now struggling to find work. Against the backdrop of the skyrocketing cost of living, they are forced to “survive on benefits” provided by Hezbollah and affiliated charitable organizations. For its part, Hezbollah’s revenues are primarily derived from drug trafficking and Iranian subsidies.

Recently, however, the payments made by the group to Lebanese Shiites have declined significantly. Fatima says that displaced Shiite families previously received around $200–300 per month, which was enough to cover rent. Now most donations are directed to the widows of Hezbollah fighters and their children, while other Shiites receive little or nothing.

Most donations are directed to the widows of Hezbollah fighters and their children

“The amount of benefits often depends on the level of personal connections. People directly linked to Hezbollah can afford more expensive housing – $500 a month or more,” the young woman says. “About two weeks before the start of the current Israeli–Iranian war, families in the south received around $1,000, although before that no aid had been provided for a long time. Hezbollah did this to restore the support and loyalty of its ‘fan base.’ And unfortunately, it worked very well yet again, despite the fighting.”

Fatima also stresses the fact that representatives of other confessions who were forced to leave their homes because of the war received no financial assistance from Hezbollah: “That’s all there is to say about claims that this war is being fought ‘for all of Lebanon.’”

Disappointment and resilience

Public sentiment in Lebanon varies widely based on experience and group affiliation. Ralph Atrash explains that people want stability and the chance to build a better future, but they fear a prolonged war. Young people, he says, are torn between the desire to emigrate and a sense of duty to their homeland.

“On the one hand, many young people want to leave the country in search of a stable life. On the other — especially among Christian youth — there is a belief that if they leave, the country will disappear, and the dream of a free Lebanon will be lost,” Atrash says. “It is a mixture of disappointment and resilience at the same time. You have to be Lebanese to understand it.”

Especially among Christian youth, there is a belief that if they leave, the country will disappear and the dream of a free Lebanon will be lost

According to Atrash, attitudes toward Hezbollah have changed in Lebanon in recent years. Whereas some segments of society previously accepted the movement as a Lebanese force, more and more people now see it as an instrument of Iran. Against this backdrop, even the idea of a peace agreement with Israel — once taboo — is beginning to be discussed openly among Christians and Muslims alike. Such a deal is increasingly seen as desirable if it can ensure security and economic recovery.

At the same time, Middle East expert Ruslan Suleimanov notes that while it is difficult to say exactly how many Lebanese people truly support Hezbollah, they remain a significant minority. “One can say with certainty that the majority of the population is against Hezbollah getting involved in conflicts. As soon as it starts fighting Israel, all of Lebanon suffers,” Suleimanov emphasizes.

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Fatima says that in Lebanon there are radical supporters of Hezbollah from different religions and confessions — something especially visible on social media. At the same time, she notes that the willingness to fight among Lebanese people is extremely low: “Radicals limit themselves to statements on social media. Even many members of Hezbollah itself have recently been leaving the group and hiding with their families away from the war.”

She believes that the government is “effectively absent,” as “officials confine themselves to statements without taking real steps. People on the ground do not want anything of Hezbollah to remain, even in politics. But the government seems intent on preserving its hegemony in Lebanon by keeping its political wing in power and shielding its military wing from accusations of treason and terrorism.”

As experts note, the Lebanese government has so far failed to push Hezbollah back from the Litani River, as required by UN Security Council Resolution 1701 of 2006. The organization is far stronger than the Lebanese army in terms of weaponry and the size of its mobilization base.

“In Lebanon, because of the fragmentation of society, each community has always feared that the army would become a tool in the hands of other communities, and so they have quite deliberately kept it weak… Lebanese people themselves, by and large, do not believe that the army in its current state can quickly transform and defeat Hezbollah,” explains Arabist Ksenia Svetlova.

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However, she says that until recently Lebanon did not have a government that was interested in reforming the army. She describes the country’s president, General Joseph Aoun, who came to power in 2025, and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, as “progressive forces,” and believes that Israel, alongside its military actions against Hezbollah, should also support the current Lebanese government, as should Western and Arab countries.

Still, despite these limited notes of optimism, Lebanese civilians once again find themselves caught up in a war that is not their own. Acting as a parallel authority, Hezbollah is entering a new conflict with Israel, once again leaving people without homes and jobs, while the country’s economy plunges into yet another downturn. Judging by the accounts of The Insider’s sources, Hezbollah is beginning to lose support in society, a development that could lead to significant changes in Lebanon in the medium term — provided, of course, that the organization is not allowed to recover its strength yet again.

According to two Libyan sources cited by the outlet, Ukrainian military personnel are stationed at three bases, including at the air force academy in Misrata, where forces from the Turkish, Italian, and U.S. contingents are also present. Another base, intended for launching drones — including naval drones — is located in the city of Zawiya, 50 kilometers north of the capital, in the area of the Mellitah oil complex. A third, at the headquarters of the Libyan army’s 111th Brigade on the road to Tripoli airport, is used for coordination meetings between Ukrainian forces and the Libyan army.

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The Libyan government has also made a coastal plot of land available to Ukrainian specialists, where an airstrip has been built.

According to RFI, cooperation between Libya and Ukraine began in the fall of 2025. The agreement was signed in October at the initiative of Ukraine’s military attaché in Algeria, Andriy Bayuk. Under the arrangement, Ukrainian military personnel train Libyan forces in the use of drones. The long-term agreement also provides for weapons supplies and investment in Libya’s oil sector.

RFI reported that the attack on the Russian gas carrier Arctic Metagaz involved a Magura V5-type surface drone launched from the base in Zawiya. Ukraine uses uncrewed of this type of boats in operations in the Black Sea (1, 2, 3). The drone hit the vessel’s engine room, causing it to fill with water.

Russia’s Transport Ministry was the first to accuse Ukraine of attacking the Arctic Metagaz. There were 30 Russian sailors on board at the time of the strike, all of whom were evacuated. The ministry insisted the tanker had departed from the port of Murmansk carrying cargo “processed in full compliance with international rules.” Russia’s Maritime Board also said last week that the damage from the attack “must be compensated by the aggressor.”

Earlier this week, news emerged that Libyan personnel had failed to tow the damaged vessel to one of its ports. A cable connecting the Arctic Metagaz to a tugboat snapped due to adverse weather in the Mediterranean, leading Libyan authorities to request that other countries assist it in bringing the vessel under control.

Andrei Matelsky, director of the Belarusian government’s National Center of Legislation and Legal Information, said the document would create new categories of administrative offenses, including those linked to the “propaganda” of homosexuality, transgender identity, childlessness, and pedophilia. The report did not specify the penalties.

More broadly, the bill adds nine new articles to the country’s administrative code and introduces 43 new categories of offenses. It also makes dozens of amendments to existing provisions and revises some penalties, regulating a wide range of areas, from the circulation of digital tokens and mobile communications requirements to the use of official vehicles and participation in international events.

The bill also provides for lighter liability in some cases. For example, legal entities may be exempted from punishment if violations are quickly corrected. Other changes concern the prevention of offenses among minors and the expansion of expedited procedures for reviewing administrative cases.

Officially, the overwhelming majority of the visas — 35,849 of them — were issued for educational purposes. In 2024, that figure was 8,616. Other categories included 266 humanitarian visas, 72 tourist visas, 47 business visas, six private visas and 33 service visas.

At the same time, the data on actual entries differs sharply from the visa statistics. According to Rosstat, which bases its figures on information from the FSB border service, only 295 border crossings by North Korean citizens were recorded in the first quarter of 2025.

The sharp rise in the number of “educational” visas may be linked to the use of study programs as a means of bringing migrant laborers into Russia. The Insider previously found that thousands of North Korean citizens enter Russia on student visas but are in fact employed on construction sites and at industrial enterprises.

According to our investigation, the arrangement makes it possible to circumvent UN sanctions banning the hiring of North Korean workers: formally, they are classified as students undergoing “practical training,” but in reality they work full-time.

Russian authorities have repeatedly spoken about using North Korean citizens for work inside the country. In June 2025, ex-Defense Minister and current Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu said North Korea would send about 6,000 of its citizens to help rebuild Russia’s Kursk Region following a lengthy incursion by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, with 1,000 deminers and 5,000 military builders enlisted for the task.

According to South Korean intelligence, about 15,000 labor migrants from North Korea were already in Russia by May 2025, and a significant share of them work in the Russian Far East.

A UN Security Council resolution adopted in 2017 prohibits countries from hiring North Korean citizens and requires them to repatriate workers already abroad. The restrictions were imposed due to the fact that a significant share of North Korean laborers’ earnings is transferred to the state and used to finance military programs.

The Insider has repeatedly documented Russian snipers’ use of rifles and ammunition made in Western countries. We have also reported on large-scale supplies of firearms and cartridges from the United States and the European Union to Russia through countries in the Eurasian Customs Union, Kyrgyzstan among them.

An Italian in a Brooklyn court and American ammunition for Russian snipers

Manfred Gruber admitted to conspiring to violate U.S. export control laws. According to the prosecutor, Gruber used Italian companies under his control to conceal the Russian end users of the cartridges he was exporting. The involvement of Italian firms made it possible to obtain U.S. export permits; however, in violation of licenses issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce, the cartridges were then sent not to Italian gun stores, but to Russia via Kyrgyzstan.

The court’s press release said Gruber’s accomplice in the scheme was Kyrgyz citizen Sergei Zharnovnikov, who was arrested in Las Vegas in early 2025 and is currently serving a 39-month sentence for weapons smuggling.

The court’s press release did not name the companies involved, but with a high degree of certainty it refers to arms distributor Bignami S.p.A., where Gruber serves as commercial director. (This was also reported by the Washington Tariff & Trade Letter.)

According to court documents, Gruber used a front company in Italy, identified as Italian Company No. 2, to buy ammunition from a manufacturer in Nebraska. The most prominent ammunition maker in Nebraska is Hornady Manufacturing, whose Italian distributor is Bignami.

U.S. investigators found information about the Russian recipient of the ammunition on the phone of Zharnovnikov, who had saved a contract with a Russian company on his device.

Politico Europe reported in 2023 that Hornady ammunition was being smuggled into Russia. In 2024, The Insider, together with investigators from Italy’s IRPI Media, Czechia’s Investigace, and Kazakhstan’s Vlast.kz, identified several additional Russian recipients of the same cartridges. From 2022 to 2024, Hornady ammunition was received by the Russian companies including Arsenal, Artemida, Ve-Kasa, Promtekhnologiya, and Tetis.

On the battlefield, the ammunition was used by snipers from Russia’s Wagner Group, the Espanola brigade, and the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade. The use of American ammunition by Russian troops was shown on Channel One, Russia’s leading state propaganda network: on Dec. 9, 2024, the documentary Snipers. Between Heartbeats featured servicemen from the 155th Brigade using American Desert Tech rifles and Hornady ammunition, recognizable by its distinctive black-and-red branded packaging.

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The U.S. court’s press release describes another episode in which a different Italian company controlled by Gruber purchased a batch of ammunition from a U.S. manufacturer headquartered in Tennessee, then sent it to Kyrgyzstan. This likely refers to Barrett Firearms Manufacturing of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, as ammunition produced by the company was received by the Moscow-based weapons importer Varyag.

In 2016, users on the GunsRu forum recommended the Italian company Bignami as a distributor through which a German Merkel carbine could be ordered for delivery to Russia. Before the full-scale invasion began, Bignami directly exported products to Kolchuga (lit. “Chain Mail”), a company owned by Russian arms baron Mikhail Khubutia.

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The intermediary in Kyrgyzstan

American law enforcement was able to trace Gruber thanks at least in part to the arrest of his Kyrgyz accomplice, Zharnovnikov, who traveled to the U.S. industry trade event Shot Show in early 2025. On Zharnovnikov’s phone, investigators found correspondence with Gruber in which the latter discussed means of avoiding the attention of regulators while smuggling American ammunition to Russia. For example, a batch of 100,000 cartridges was to be split into smaller orders that an Italian company would send to a client in Armenia.

Zharnovnikov himself was sentenced in January 2026 to 39 months in prison. Among the proven violations of export control law was the smuggling of semi-automatic carbines made by an American company in Chesapeake, Virginia, worth $900,000. Analysis by The Insider showed that these were American-made Kriss Vector carbines. Their customs clearance in Kyrgyzstan was handled by Azhy Mamat Company LLC, which is owned by Zharnovnikov. The weapons were received in Russia by Orel LLC, part of Mikhail Khubutia’s group of companies. Later, Orel employees even posted promotional photos of the American carbines on social media.

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Until 2022, Khubutia’s largest official foreign partner was the Beretta holding group. Unofficially, Beretta remains Khubutia’s partner via the firm Russkiy Orel LLC (lit. “Russian Eagle”), as the Italian company Beretta Industrie S.P.A. still owns a 57.95% stake in that arms importer.

In June 2024, after the investigation by The Insider and its partners was published, Washington imposed sanctions on Beretta’s Russian subsidiary, and the Italian intermediary who worked with Khubutia’s companies is now behind bars in the United States. However, despite the actions of U.S. authorities, their Italian and European counterparts have not publicly announced an investigation into the matter.

Human rights defenders interviewed by The Insider note a steady increase in politically motivated cases in the occupied territories of Ukraine, a large portion of which involve “terrorism” charges. Although people can be added to the “list of terrorists and extremists” at different stages of criminal proceedings — sometimes immediately after a case is opened, in other cases after a conviction — the rise in the number of those listed correlates with the number of criminal cases opened based on unfounded suspicions.

According to data from the Memorial human rights project provided to The Insider, the number of Ukrainians subjected to criminal prosecution in politically motivated cases in Russia and the occupied territories has risen significantly in recent years. In 2022, 376 such cases were recorded; in 2023, the figure fell to 295; in 2024, it jumped to 692 cases; and for 2025, 436 cases are currently known (with more likely to come to light as research continues).

Human rights defenders track prosecutions in the occupied territories separately. There, the trend also shows a similar trend: 288 cases in 2022, 246 in 2023, 338 in 2024, and 276 in 2025.

Memorial emphasizes that the decline in figures for 2025 does not reflect the full picture, as information on many criminal cases emerges with delays. Therefore, the 2025 statistics remain incomplete and are expected to be significantly revised during 2026. 

Sergei Davidis, head of the Support Program for Political Prisoners at Memorial, explained to The Insider that there is a significant gap between the statistics on politically motivated criminal cases in Russia and those in the occupied regions of Ukraine:

“In the past two to three years, the number of criminal cases with signs of political motivation in Russia has remained steady at 500 people per quarter. But the occupied territories of Ukraine, including Crimea, have shown a consistent increase. This also applies to prisoners of war, for whom the pace of criminal prosecution is also rising.

In search of objective measurements, we calculated the rate of politically motivated criminal cases per capita. In the occupied territories of Ukraine, this indicator is several times higher than in Russia. By the end of last year, we found that it was roughly five times as high in Crimea, and eight times as high in the newly occupied territories. There is clearly a trend toward harsher measures and the use of more severe charges, with an increasing share of terrorism, treason, and sabotage cases even within Russia.”

Lawyer and human rights defender Nikolai Polozov, who assists persecuted Ukrainians, also told The Insider that he has observed an increase in the use of “terrorism” charges in cases against Ukrainians from the occupied territories. In his view, the course of the war does not correlate with the level of repression against Ukrainians in the occupied areas: “On the contrary, we are seeing an increase in the number of such cases regardless of developments on the front.”

The spill was detected on the morning of April 2 by a coast guard aircraft. According to Swedish officials, the slick stretched roughly 12 km in length. Suspicion soon fell on the tanker Flora 1, with prosecutors and the police launching a preliminary investigation on suspicion of an environmental crime.

According to the authorities in Stockholm, the tanker departed from a port in the Gulf of Finland — likely the Russian port of Ust-Luga — while its final destination remains unknown. Automatic identification system (AIS) data transmitted by the vessel show that on the night of April 2, it made a sharp turn toward Russian territorial waters near Kaliningrad, then returned to the international waters of the Baltic Sea. The signal stopped transmitting on April 3 at around 10:42 a.m. local time off the coast of Sweden, slightly southwest of the port of Ystad.

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According to Ukrainian intelligence, the vessel previously made voyages from Russian ports in the Baltic and Black Seas, periodically turning off its AIS tracker and conducting ship-to-ship (STS) oil transfers near Greece. Ukrainian intelligence also reports that the ship is affiliated with the Indian company Gatik Ship Management, one of the key operators of the so-called “shadow fleet” involved in transporting Russian oil under Western sanctions, and with Galena Ship Management. In 2023, Gatik and several related entities — including Gaurik Ship Management LLP, Caishan Ship Management, Plutos Ship Management, Geras Ship Management, Girik Ship Management, Orion Ship Management LLP, Nautilus Shipping, Ark Seakonnect Ship Management LLC, and Zidan Ship Management — participated in a scheme to reassign vessel management as part of an effort to circumvent sanctions.

Several countries have successively imposed sanctions on the tanker. On February 24, 2025, the United Kingdom implemented restrictions. In June 2025, Canada and Australia followed suit. From July 20, 2025, the European Union applied restrictions, citing the vessel’s involvement in transporting Russian oil and its use of high-risk shipping practices.

On August 12, 2025, Switzerland imposed sanctions, followed by New Zealand on October 30 and Ukraine on December 13. On February 21, 2026, Ukraine imposed personal sanctions against the vessel’s captain.

Owing your life to Tehran

Over the years of the civil war that raged from 2011 through 2024, Syria accumulated enormous debts, primarily to Iran. Tehran’s intervention in the early years of the active phase of the conflict effectively saved Bashar al-Assad, even if only temporarily. There is no publicly available figure for Syria’s debt to the ayatollahs’ regime, but expert estimates range from $30 billion to $50 billion, covering not only direct monetary loans but also supplies of oil, weapons, spare parts for military equipment and industrial equipment, and other goods.

Tehran’s motivation for rescuing the friendly Assad regime went beyond alliance considerations. After the Syrian president fled to Moscow in late 2024 and Iranian diplomats were urgently evacuated, journalists discovered in the looted and deserted Iranian embassy in Damascus a detailed business plan for Syria’s postwar reconstruction, one in which Iranian companies were to play a major part.

Inspired, as the document itself states, by the American Marshall Plan for Europe’s post-World War II economic recovery, the Iranian megaproject envisaged active participation of Islamic Republic entities in building a power plant in Latakia, reviving oil fields abandoned due to the war, developing transport infrastructure, and much more. The plan estimated the prospective return on these investments at a staggering $400 billion. In other words, Tehran planned not only to recoup all the funds it had spent saving the friendly dictatorship, but also to earn a substantial profit.

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However, after the fall of the Assad regime, Tehran has little hope of breaking even on its investment. In his first speech as the victor in the civil war, Ahmed al-Sharaa made it clear that relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran would be fundamentally reconsidered.

“This victory, my brothers, opens a new chapter in the history of the region — a history full of dangers, which turned Syria into a playground for Iranian ambitions, sowed interreligious enmity, and encouraged corruption,” al-Sharaa said in his speech, delivered like a sermon at the Umayyad Mosque in the capital.

Al-Sharaa has barely made any public statements about Syria’s debts to Iran, but then again, neither have Iranian officials. Only once, just days after Assad fled Syria, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said that estimates placing Damascus’ debt to Tehran at even $30 billion were greatly exaggerated and had nothing to do with reality. However, the spokesperson did not specify how much money Iran had actually invested in Syria or how much it now wanted returned.

Moreover, Syria has at least one political force — the admittedly marginal Syrian Liberal Party — that demands the president seek $500 billion in compensation from Iran for the casualties and destruction caused by Iran and Iranian-backed proxies over the course of the civil war.

Overall though, there has been virtually no public communication between the two capitals since the change of power in Syria. Tehran tried to establish ties with the new administration in Damascus, but very soon all official contacts became indirect, always involving intermediaries from Turkey, Qatar, or other Middle Eastern states. The Iranian Foreign Ministry describes these contacts in the vaguest and most general terms, refusing to disclose even the subjects of the negotiations.

Russian military presence in exchange for investments

By contrast, the new Syrian government maintains fairly close contact with another key ally of the fallen regime: Russia. Al-Sharaa regularly hosts Russian officials in Damascus and has even flown to Moscow twice for talks with Vladimir Putin. Such close communication with the man who sent regular forces and mercenaries to Syria — forces responsible for committing egregious war crimes and causing thousands of civilian deaths — is striking.

During his visits to Moscow, al-Sharaa called Russian soil “blessed” and praised Russian soldiers, calling them “noble.” Syrian users on X erupted in criticism of their leader, stating, for example, that Russians had killed more Syrian citizens than Iranians have, going so far as to label their interim president as “Putin’s doormat.”

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However, the Syrian leader is unlikely to harbor deep affection for Vladimir Putin, who bears direct responsibility for the long nightmare of the civil war. Rather, Syria’s leader appears to be trying to use the Russian dictator’s exorbitant geopolitical ambitions to the benefit of his country.

In theory, it is easier for al-Sharaa to reach agreements with the Russians than with the Iranians. Tehran imposed its ideology and faith on Syrians, building Shia religious centers and mosques in a predominantly Sunni country, and even transferring existing religious sites to the Shia clergy. Tehran also attempted to alter the ethnic and religious composition of Syrian cities by mass resettlement of Shia populations from Iran, Lebanon, and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the Russians did not bomb Syria and kill Syrians in order to impose Orthodoxy or bring Slavs to Damascus and Aleppo. Their primary goal was to retain control of the Tartus and Khmeimim military bases — key footholds for the Kremlin’s geopolitical ambitions.

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Russia’s Mediterranean bases in Syria serve as logistical hubs for supplying the Russian Armed Forces’ African Corps and other units operating in countries like Sudan, Niger, and Mali. If Tartus and Khmeimim were no longer under Russian control, the transfer of personnel, equipment, and weaponry to Africa would become far more difficult and expensive — if not impossible. The Kremlin, obsessed with the idea of a multipolar world in which Russia is a major power, sees relinquishing its presence in Syria as a painful defeat and a sign of weakness.

Al-Sharaa is well aware of this, which is why he is doing everything he can to leverage Russia’s desire to keep the bases under its control. Primarily, this could involve the cancellation or restructuring of Damascus’s debt to Moscow, estimated at between $1 billion and $2 billion. In addition, Damascus expects Russia to take an active role in the country’s reconstruction after the devastating civil war. The new government seems willing to tolerate a Russian military presence in exchange for debt forgiveness and investment.

Another topic of negotiations between Damascus and Moscow is the fate of former president Assad, who fled to Russia to escape a tribunal — and most likely execution — at home. In talks with Russian officials, al-Sharaa consistently raises the issue of Assad’s extradition. However, it is possible that by insisting on the fugitive’s handover, the new president is looking to secure additional concessions after Russia refuses to comply.

Confrontation with Israel

Of course, there is more to the story than just money. The new Syrian authorities need to counter Israel’s hostile actions, as its army has occupied several border areas, openly supported opponents of al-Sharaa’s administration, and even bombed targets in central Damascus. The Israelis aim to expand the buffer zone between their territory and lands controlled by al-Sharaa, while also weakening the Syrian army by backing hostile groups within Syria.

The new authorities in Damascus are now seriously discussing with Moscow the possibility of deploying Russian military patrols closer to the Israeli border. The calculation is simple: fearing a conflict with the Kremlin, the Israelis would avoid claiming the areas controlled by Russia or supporting armed groups operating there. For now, however, Moscow has made no concrete promises to Damascus. Negotiations continue — just as Israel’s occupation of part of Syrian territory does.

This occupation appears to have come as a highly unpleasant surprise for the new authorities. Early on in his political career, Al-Sharaa (known at the time as the victorious rebel leader Abu Mohammad al-Julani) had expressed a desire to find common ground with Israel and promised that his country would not pose a threat to the Jewish state. In return, he asked the Israelis to abandon the occupation of the Golan Heights and return this Syrian territory, occupied since 1967, to Damascus under guarantees that no troops or weapons would be stationed there.

For Israel, the issue is extremely sensitive. The Golan Heights have long been officially annexed and, under Israeli law, they are considered an integral part of the state. In 2019, during Donald Trump’s first presidential term, the United States officially recognized this annexation, despite UN resolutions and international law both being on the other side of the dispute.

The strange state of an “absence of peace” that prevailed between Syria and Israel during the eras of Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez, allowed both sides to ignore the issue of territorial claims. The question of the Golan Heights appeared irrelevant in a setting of mutual hatred, lack of a peace agreement, frozen diplomatic contacts, and tensions constantly teetering on the edge of armed conflict. Now Damascus’s willingness to actually make peace and recognize the Jewish state in exchange for Israel’s compliance with international law disrupts the familiar pattern of their bilateral relations.

Israel might not be opposed to the idea of peace with Syria — but not at the cost of returning annexed territory that has long been fully integrated into the national economy. When Israeli cabinet ministers claim they don’t trust the former Al-Qaeda fighter al-Sharaa — and even call for his elimination, saying that “there are no former jihadists” — it is quite possible they fear not so much his extremist past as they do the territorial complications that a peace process would entail.

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To maintain stability, Israel has relied on a strategy of preemptive strikes against any military targets in Syria that could potentially threaten its security. Without abandoning this tactic (as noted above, Israel has already bombed Damascus under the new authorities), the Israelis are also relying on other methods to deter any potential threat from Syria. For example, they supply the Druze separatists in Syria with food and weapons, pay salaries to Druze fighters, assist them with logistics, and provide medical treatment in Israeli hospitals, insisting that this is a way to protect a friendly community from genocide by the new authorities.

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Indeed, many hundreds of Druze fell victim to pogroms in the spring and summer of 2025 at the hands of militants ideologically aligned with the new administration, but the Syrian government condemned the actions of the attackers and launched an investigation into the tragedy. However, the very occurrence of these pogroms gave Israel a pretext to expand its occupation zone in Syria under the guise of saving Druze lives.

Many Druze welcomed Israel’s actions, displaying the Jewish state’s flags on the streets and even beginning to use Hebrew names instead of Arabic ones for the regions where they lived. Several hundred Israeli Druze crossed the border to join the units of their Syrian compatriots.

Angered by the massacre in Syria, some Lebanese Druze also tried to enter the country. The Lebanese army stopped them, and local Druze leaders, while condemning the violence against their co-religionists, also criticized the separatists in Syria. Walid Jumblatt, leader of one of Lebanon’s most influential Druze clans, stated that Israel is not protecting the Druze but merely using the massacre as a pretext for occupation and interference in Syria’s internal affairs. Jumblatt also advocated for maintaining a unified Syria in which the law protects everyone — a position that broadly aligns with the official Lebanese stance on events.

Relations with Lebanon

Lebanon generally welcomed the change of regime in Syria. With a population of 4 million that was still exhausted from its own civil war, Lebanon had to take in around 1.5 million Syrian refugees after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war. The end of the war allowed many of them to return home, noticeably reducing the strain on Lebanon’s social services and economy.

Moreover, the Assads never had much regard for the sovereignty of their small neighbor. In 1976, at the height of Lebanon’s civil war, Syrian troops occupied a significant portion of the neighboring country, remaining there until 2005. Under pressure from Lebanese protests and Western dissatisfaction with the Syrian military presence in a sovereign state, Bashar Assad was finally forced to withdraw his troops. Still, he continued to treat Lebanon as a “fake” state whose territory, in his view, rightfully belonged to Syria.

Until recently, the idea of annexing Lebanon to Syria had some support even among a fringe of the Lebanese population. The Syrian Social Nationalist Party, which advocates for a “Greater Syria,” operates legally in the country, but since 2022, none of its representatives have been elected to parliament. After Assad’s fall, the party became completely marginal.

Another pro-Assad Lebanese political force, Hezbollah, played a key role in Syria’s civil war on the side of Assad’s army. However, after the regime’s collapse, it found itself in a difficult position. Created and financed by Iran, Hezbollah was left without its key land supply route following the change of power in Damascus.

Predictably, the new Syrian authorities blocked all supply routes from Iran into Lebanon that they could identify, including those used for moving weapons, money, and instructors. As a result, Hezbollah has lost a significant portion of the influence it held during the Assad era.

For al-Sharaa and his government, Hezbollah is an obvious enemy, while for the Lebanese authorities, it is a serious destabilizing factor — the “hand of Iran” in Beirut, alternately dragging Lebanon into another war with Israel or provoking domestic political crises by refusing to comply with cabinet orders to disarm.

Under the new Syrian authorities, who show actual respect for Lebanese sovereignty and focus on eliminating Hezbollah, Damascus’s relations with Beirut have a real chance of warming. However, a true breakthrough has yet to occur — in part due to the history between the heads of state. Lebanon’s president Joseph Aoun was the army general who commanded Lebanese army units on the Syrian border in 2017, defeating forces of ISIS and the al-Nusra Front — commanded at the time by none other than al-Sharaa.

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On another note, Lebanon, with its ethno-religious diversity and absence of a single dominant confessional or national group, has certain misgivings about the Syrian authorities’ preference for privileging the country’s Suni Arab majority. 

Overall, just over a year after the change of power in Damascus, it can be said that none of the more extreme forecasts have come true: neither the grim predictions of skeptics who insisted that Syria would turn into one vast jihadi camp, nor the rosy dreams of the al-Sharaa supporters who claimed Syria would quickly resolve all internal and external crises and win over civil society. The leadership in Damascus faces serious challenges of postwar rebuilding, the need to forge a new national identity, and threats from separatists in border regions. Yet even these challenges pale in comparison to the horrors of the civil war the country has already endured.

Under the new Syrian authorities, relations between Damascus and Beirut have a chance of warming

Israeli cabinet ministers don’t trust al-Sharaa and even call for his elimination, saying that “there are no former jihadists”

The Iranian “Marshall Plan” estimated the prospective returns on investments into Syria’s rebuilding at a staggering $400 billion

Khaled Ghulam, a representative of Libya’s emergency committee handling the incident, called on other countries to assist with towing the vessel. In comments to Russia’s state-controlled news agency RIA Novosti, Ghulam said:

“Given the current weather fluctuations in the Mediterranean, no one can predict what will happen to the tanker. This situation requires competent authorities in Mediterranean countries to follow the example of the Libyan authorities, who have made every effort to bring the tanker under control.” 

Libya’s National Oil Corporation confirmed in late March that the Arctic Metagaz was to be towed to a Libyan port. At the time, the vessel was drifting toward the country’s coast, posing a risk of environmental pollution. According to sources cited by Reuters, an unknown quantity of liquefied gas remains on board, making the vessel potentially dangerous. One of the sources called the ship “a ticking time bomb full of gas.”

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The tanker was damaged on March 3 in the Mediterranean Sea. Russia’s Transport Ministry claimed the attack was carried out by Ukrainian unmanned surface vessels launched from the Libyan coast. There were 30 Russian crew members on board, all of whom were evacuated. The Russian ministry insisted the tanker had departed from the port of Murmansk carrying cargo “processed in full compliance with international regulations.”

“A major meeting took place yesterday in St. Petersburg. Representatives of Cuba were in attendance. Cuba is under a complete blockade, it has been cut off. Where did the oil shipment come from? A vessel of the Russian Federation broke through the blockade. A second one is currently being loaded. We will not abandon the Cuban people in their time of need,” Tsivilev was quoted as saying by Russia’s state-controlled news agency TASS.

Despite the maritime blockade that the U.S. has been enforcing since the start of the year, earlier this week the Russian tanker Anatoly Kolodkin (IMO: 9610808) did indeed reach the port of Matanzas laden 100,000 metric tons of crude oil, which analysts said would provide the island with energy for several weeks.

Washington decided not to intercept the vessel, with President Donald Trump saying he “did not see a problem with it.” Asked whether he was concerned that revenues from these deliveries could help Vladimir Putin, the American president replied:

“How does that help him? He loses one boatload of oil, that’s all… It doesn’t bother me much. It’s not going to have an impact. Cuba is finished. They have a bad regime, they have very bad and corrupt leadership. And whether or not they get a boat of oil is not going to matter. I’d prefer letting it in, whether it’s Russia or anybody else. The people need heat and cooling and all the other things that you need.”

The Anatoly Kolodkin broke the U.S. maritime blockade around Cuba on Monday, March 30. Russia’s Transport Ministry announced that day that the tanker had successfully reached its destination and was preparing to unload its “humanitarian shipment” of crude oil. However, according to data from the vessel-tracking service Starboard Maritime Intelligence, the ship reached port only the following day, Tuesday, March 31. The Anatoly Kolodkin remains in Matanzas as of April 2, 2026.

Pressure on Havana intensified late last year when U.S. forces intercepted a vessel carrying Venezuelan oil bound for Cuba. After seizing Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a military operation on Jan. 3, the U.S. administration demanded an end to fuel deliveries to the island and threatened to impose tariffs on countries supplying oil to Cuba.

“We have been dealing with these issues for quite a long time and are seeing a large number of quarantine-related cases. We receive more than 900 detections of quarantine pests and diseases from Armenia, which significantly complicates our work. For example, decontamination has to be carried out. As for flowers, we have to certify production sites and have tried conducting video inspections,” Dankvert added.

Speaking about animal products, he noted that some nominally Armenian products, such as butter, cheeses, and trout, may also be of non-Armenian origin.

According to Dankvert, the regulator has had to apply a special set of criteria to supplies from Armenia, including stricter rules on product traceability. As a solution, the official suggests integrating food safety monitoring information systems within the Eurasian Economic Union.

Meeting between Pashinyan and Putin

On April 1, Nikol Pashinyan met with Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. At the meeting, the Armenian leader explained the suspension of Yerevan’s CSTO membership by saying that the organization had failed to fulfill its mandate during the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2022, when Azerbaijan took control of the territory, forcing its Armenian population to evacuate under duress.

Armenia’s increasingly close relationship with Europe was discussed separately. Putin said that Russia has a neutral attitude to the cultivation of Armenia’s ties with the EU, but insisted on the need to make corresponding arrangements in advance, as simultaneous membership in the European Union Customs Union (EUCU) and the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) was “impossible.” Pashinyan, in turn, acknowledged the incompatibility of the two blocs, but added that as long as there was an opportunity to combine both options, Yerevan would use it, and that ultimately the choice between the two lies with his country's citizens.

The prime minister stressed that Armenia is a democracy: “Armenia is a democratic country. We have democratic processes for everything. This is already the norm. Some citizens even think there is too much democracy in Armenia… This is a matter of principle for us. Our social networks, for instance, are 100 percent free. There are no restrictions whatsoever.”

Russia’s deputy prime minister is not impressed

After the meeting, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk stressed in an interview with TASS that Yerevan cannot simultaneously be part of both the EUCU  and the EEU, despite Putin’s neutral attitude.

According to Overchuk, Armenia’s European integration has nearly reached the point at which Russia will have to restructure its economic relations with the country. He claims that Russia and Armenia lost $5.1 billion in mutual trade turnover in 2025 due to Yerevan’s efforts to move closer to the EU.

Indeed, starting in 2020, Armenia gradually began to reorient itself toward Western institutions, intensifying cooperation with the EU in the areas of security, economics, and government reform. Against the backdrop of cooling relations with Moscow and distrust toward the CSTO, Yerevan deepened its dialogue with Brussels, signed a Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA), and began the process of adapting to European standards.

Cheremisinova was responding to a question from Yabloko deputy Konstantin Kiselyov regarding library acquisitions. According to Cheremisinova, efforts to rid libraries of books purchased decades ago with money from the Soros Foundation  is part of a nationwide initiative linked to changes in Russian legislation.

“The bulk of the books was purchased in the 1990s. We are now facing changes in legislation. We have to remove some of the books from the collection because they were acquired with Soros money. That accounts for about 30% of our entire collection,” she said.

At the same meeting, the acting head of Yekaterinburg’s culture department, Elena Sokolova, noted that libraries are already facing a shortage of books, and that government funding for replenishing collections is insufficient.

The Soros Foundation was active in Russia until 2003, when its founder, George Soros, announced that he was winding down the foundation’s charitable activities in the country. The foundation’s last project in the Sverdlovsk region involved financing the restoration of the Pavlik Morozov Museum in the village of Gerasimovka.

In 2015, the organization was designated “undesirable” in Russia under the pretext that its activities “posed a threat to the foundations of the Russian constitutional order and state security.” Earlier, members of the State Duma had accused the foundation of “anti-Russian activities,” while the Federation Council placed it on the so-called “patriotic stop list.”

Russia reacts first and foremost to U.S. policy, but Moscow also needs the support of China, North Korea, and Iran to continue its war in Ukraine. Today’s Russian Federation is not a global power in the model of the Soviet Union, but a regional power that is, in fact, playing above its actual weight. Because of its relative weakness, Russia is not a shaper of the global order, but a disrupter.

Vladimir Putin is the master of using the weaknesses of others in order to gain influence, which is why so many of his military operations are hidden, using hybrid warfare as the key tool of Russian influence. Needless to say, asymmetric warfare is typically the tool of weak states or non-state actors, yet Russia is using underhanded methods to create and exploit grey zones in Ukraine, Georgia, and even in Central African countries.

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As a regional power in the post-Soviet region, Putin’s Russia aimed for regional hegemony, creating its own institutional framework through the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). But the war in Ukraine demonstrates that Russia is not capable of imposing its interests — not even along its borders. It is still fighting in the Eastern parts of Ukraine despite investing substantial resources in its army and domestic mobilization.

The limits of Russian power are connected to its economic, technological, and demographic weakness, along with a lack of soft power and overreach in the deployment of hard power. The EEU has not become an alternative economic integration institution analogous to the EU (even if, since 2022, it has served as a tool for sanctions evasion). Moreover, the CSTO has not become an alternative military bloc analogous to NATO, but instead has seen no member state join Russia’s war in Ukraine. As a declining power, Russia will only become weaker in the global competition, a process that is being accelerated by the ongoing conflict.

In this context, the rise of Russia as an actor in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America should be seen as a reaction to a decline in U.S. power. Putin used the opportunities presented by U.S. non-action (and even withdrawal) to intervene in these areas at relatively low cost. Syria is a prime example of how the Russian leadership used the indecisiveness of U.S. president Barack Obama to act, to keep former president Bashar al-Assad in power. Yet even for this successful military operation, Moscow’s forces needed the support of Iran and Tehran’s various proxies on the ground. Elsewhere, the Russian leadership also tried to build alliances with authoritarian leaders to push back against U.S. influences, but now, with the war in Ukraine well into its fifth year, Russia remains stuck in the Donbas.

As a result, Russia has needed to redeploy troops and military equipment from post-Soviet military bases in the South Caucasus and Central Asia, as well as from Syria and African countries. Because of its limited resources, it has to focus on its main priority, which is Ukraine and the post-Soviet region. But even here, its influence is crumbling: Moscow is no longer the key actor in the peace negotiations between Azerbaijan and Armenia, ceding that title to the U.S. and the belligerents themselves. Russia is not even capable of controlling the Black Sea militarily, evidenced by the fact that its ports are challenged by Ukrainian sea drones. Against this background, Central Asian countries are diversifying their economic relations towards Europe, the U.S., the Middle East, and Asia. 

Different goals

To be fair, Russian cooperation with countries like Syria, Iran, and Venezuela was never about alliances but rather about pragmatic interest-oriented policy. In addition to not being a great power, Russia is not a great patron. But it has nevertheless often used its limited resources in the pragmatic, opportunistic pursuit of its own objectives and interests. This involves selling the few Russian products that are still attractive on the global market — those like military equipment and services, energy cooperation, and nuclear power stations. Since 2022, Russia has undoubtedly benefited from its interactions with Iran, gaining drone technology, plus know-how in the spheres of sanctions circumvention and internet control. In return it supplied Iran with a few limited weapons systems — like Yak-130 trainer jets, Mi-28 attack helicopters, and Spartak armored vehicles — but never with advanced platforms such as the S-400 air defense system. Its main interest was never a close alliance with the Iranian regime, but rather the preservation of its own place in the balance of power in the Middle East — a fact that allowed Moscow to maintain good relations with Israel, along with various Arab countries that are important partners for sanctions circumvention and financial cooperation. Although Iran and Russia signed a partnership agreement at the beginning of 2025, it involved no security guarantees and no promises of support in the case of a military conflict. Both countries were very careful not to get dragged into the wars and conflicts of the other.

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The key aim of Russia’s various cooperative arrangements with the world’s other autocracies is to weaken U.S. influence globally. Building an alliance system with the BRICS+ group and Shanghai Cooperation Organization is not about integration or mutual solidarity, but about regime survival and cooperation against the U.S. influence among other mid-level powers. China as a rising great power is the exception here, which is precisely why Beijing — not Moscow — is increasingly dominating these institutions. Russian dependency on China is only growing, as it is Beijing that has become the key technological enabler behind Russia’s drone campaign against Ukraine.

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Again, authoritarian regimes like the one in the Kremlin are primarily concerned with their own survival, but the military and economic support platforms they form with similarly minded dictatorships are still mutually beneficial for the participating parties, even if it should be clear by now that Russia is neither willing nor able to prop up its authoritarian allies in the event that they are faced with existential threats. Only the U.S. is capable of carrying out “special military operations” like the one that removed Nicolas Maduro from power in Venezuela, and for Putin, the ousting of Maduro and the killing of key leaders in Iran provides further confirmation that the main enemy is the U.S., regardless of who might be in the White House.

Russia’s attractiveness

Nevertheless, we should not ignore Russia's remaining capabilities. Moscow still can offer its partners in the Global South cheap resources like oil, gas, fertilizer, and grain, and Putin maintains good personal relations with many leaders — and populations — outside of the Western democratic world. In addition, the Kremlin is a trendsetter with regard to the control of domestic civil society, media, and internet access, and it remains a key player shaping global discourses on the topics of sovereignty and alleged Western malfeasance. Perhaps paradoxically, its relative weakness actually makes it a more attractive potential partner for countries in Africa, Latin America, and South Asia —  after all, it can provide some resources, but it is not capable of dominating these regions the way first-rate powers like the U.S. and China can.

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For the Kremlin, the shift from U.S.-dominated multilateralism towards a status quo characterized by transactional negotiations and flexible coalitions is a positive development — after all, this is the modus operandi of the Russian regime. Putin, operating in survival mode, can react to new circumstances as he sees fit, taking advantage of others’ mistakes, much as he has done with the ongoing events around Iran. Because of the Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. lifted sanctions on Russian oil and fertilizers right at the moment when the Russian government was moving into an economic crisis. In addition, Western military support for Ukraine — especially in the area of air defense — will decrease given that so many resources are suddenly needed in the Middle East. Although there is a growing understanding in Moscow that it might not win the war in Ukraine on the battlefield, it might yet succeed by dividing the U.S. and Europeans while undermining cohesion and resilience inside Ukraine itself — efforts that have benefited from the behavior of the U.S. president himself. Using Trump to force Ukraine into a dysfunctional ceasefire agreement might be the most efficient aim Russia can pursue if it is ultimately to achieve anything resembling success in its seemingly endless war.

Managing decline

Russia is a declining power led by a regime that is prepared to act without scruple and has no vision for the future of the country, but the U.S. and Europe, which are also in a decline, continue to cede their share of global influence, leading to questions about which actor is managing its decline the best. The war in Ukraine was a major mistake by President Putin, but Russia has adapted to the situation created by its full-scale invasion. Putin’s strength is that he still retains enough power to prioritize — Syria, Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba may be nice partners to have, but they are all clearly less important to Putin than Ukraine is.

The military operations ordered by Donald Trump over the past three months have demonstrated the limits of Russian power, yet if Trump fails to topple the regime in Iran, Russia and China will come back to resume their support for the Ayatollahs after the war. In this transactional world, influence and power are relative, alliances are temporary, time is of the essence, and adaptability is absolutely crucial. Unlike Assad, Maduro, and Khamenei, Putin is a survivor. Although the changes in Syria, Venezuela, and Iran might weaken Russia's prestige as a global actor, they do not prevent the Russian president from achieving his key goals: staying in power and weakening the U.S.

The Kremlin is a trendsetter with regard to the control of domestic civil society, media, and internet access, and a key player shaping global discourses on the topics of sovereignty and alleged Western malfeasance

The key aim of Russia’s various cooperative arrangements with the world’s other autocracies is to weaken U.S. influence globally

Vladimir Putin is the master of using the weaknesses of others in order to gain influence

Law enforcement and government oversight agencies are the most widely represented public sector entities on the platform. Prosecutors’ offices have launched Max channels in 86 of Russia’s 89 regions, while the Ministry of Emergency Situations has done so in 88. Regional governments and the federal Ministry of Internal Affairs are lagging, with Max channels up and running in 62 and 58 regions, respectively. The judicial system remains far behind, with only 14 court channels active on Max nationwide (though that list includes the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court of Russia).

Despite the efforts of some government bodies, the audience of the new channels remains largely negligible. Prosecutors’ offices have attracted only around 200 to 300 subscribers each. By comparison, Telegram channels run by regional governments averaged between 20,000 and 30,000 subscribers.

Most Russian government bodies continued to actively maintain their Telegram channels up until the last moment. The Supreme Court of Russia published materials on March 31, and regional governments did the same on the eve of the planned block.

Pro-war bloggers adopted Max more actively than officials, but even among them, the migration has been incomplete. One of the most popular pro-war channels, Rybar, gained around 161,000 subscribers on Max, compared with its roughly 1,155,000 on Telegram. Other “war correspondent” channels show a similar pattern: WarGonzo has about 75,000 on Max versus 700,000 on Telegram, and Sladkov has attracted 116,000 Max users versus 711,000 on Telegram. The latest posts on Max from both were dated March 28, while on Telegram they posted as late as the 31st.

The study concludes that, despite administrative pressure, Max had not become a viable alternative to Telegram in Russia by the time of the planned block — neither for government bodies nor for bloggers and media outlets. Most market participants continue to rely on Telegram as their primary platform.

Earlier, Telegram’s press service told The Insider that it could not confirm reports of negotiations with the Russian government, nor of a possible resumption of the messenger’s services in the country. Instead, it emphasized the idea that the right to privacy and freedom of speech are fundamental and cannot be subject to any negotiations.

If Russia’s colleges fulfill the plan, the front will receive at least 44,000 additional personnel. And if the requirement is extended to vocational schools, the figure would rise to 76,000.

Recruitment efforts at educational institutions have been underway since December, but they intensified in February, according to Faridaily, with the campaign reaching an estimated 200 institutions. Targeted students are expected to sign contracts with Russia’s drone forces, which were designated as a separate branch of the military in the fall of 2025. Internal Ministry of Defense documents that accidentally became publicly available on the websites of several vocational schools stated that these drone units expect to recruit 78,800 people in 2026.

Students are being offered the standard package: state payments and benefits for war participants, state-funded tuition, and the right to continue their studies after their contracts expire. Some universities are adding their own incentives: Moscow State University and Saint Petersburg State University are offering additional cash payments, while Bauman Moscow State Technical University is offering free spa and sanatorium treatment. Even first-year university students are eligible to sign contracts provided that they are at least 18 years old.

University administrators have also begun using academic performance as leverage in the recruitment campaign: students who are struggling academically are threatened with expulsion if they refuse to sign a special one-year contract with the military. If they do sign, however, they can have their academic debt written off and receive a custom learning plan upon return from the front. Human rights advocates warn that the promised “one-year contract” does not exist in Russian law, and that the document in question is legally no different from a standard open-ended military contract.

Recently,  Ryazan Region governor Pavel Malkov ordered all local enterprises — both state-owned and private — to find candidates for contract military service by Sept. 20. The quotas depend on the headcount: companies with 150 to 300 employees must provide two prospective contract soldiers, those with 300 to 500 employees must provide three, and those with more than 500 employees must provide five.

After El Mencho’s assassination, social media platforms were filled with viral videos of the Guadalajara airport shooting, footage of passengers fleeing across the runway at the airport of Puerto Vallarta, and photos of the resort’s downtown area engulfed in flames.

State authorities insisted that all content depicting chaos and unrest in Mexico had been generated using artificial intelligence. However, officials have not yet determined who created it or for what purpose, meaning it is possible the same drug cartels were waging an information war.

In any case, authorities in certain areas took very real steps to avert a potential escalation of the situation. Guadalajara switched schools to remote learning, banned mass events, blocked roads, and halted public transport. Although the restrictions were lifted days later, the question remains whether the government forces truly restored order, or if the CJNG and its allies simply paused their activities.

The sides may have even reached some form of tacit agreement, as an uneasy calm has persisted in the country since the latest wave of unrest died down. There is still no clear answer as to how security will be ensured during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which Mexico is set to host together with the United States and Canada this summer.

According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), Mexico is the most dangerous country in the world for civilians, second only to Palestine. The 2025 Conflict Index shows that of the 8,070 violent incidents recorded in Mexico over the past 12 months, 77% were directed against civilians.

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The events following the killing of El Mencho sharpened the long-debated question of whether the government in Mexico City is capable of ensuring public safety across the country. According to a LATAM Pulse survey conducted by AtlasIntel and Bloomberg this past November, 51% of Mexicans listed corruption as being among the country’s main problems, with 45% naming “insecurity, crime, and drug trafficking” (inflation finished third, at 36%).

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Mexican drug cartels blur the lines between organized crime and irregular armed conflict, and in clashes between the criminal gangs and security forces — as well as in territorial conflicts among rival groups — civilians are the primary victims. Institutional corruption and the infiltration of the mafia into government and judicial bodies weaken the state’s ability to combat drug cartels, undermining public trust in the authorities. Even more striking is the scale of impunity in Mexico: although cases are opened for 94% of crimes, fewer than 1% are solved.

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Additionally, according to government statistics, more than half of the country’s population qualifies as “poor,” with inadequate access to education, healthcare, or employment. This grim reality is the main reason why many young people are willing to join the ranks of the drug cartels.

Failed or mob-controlled?

Mexico has often been called a failed state. In 2024, Uruguayan President José Mujica characterized Mexico’s government institutions as “completely out of control and corrupt to the core” (though he retracted those remarks the following day after the Uruguayan ambassador was summoned to the Mexican Foreign Ministry). And in 2017, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro stated that Mexico had become a “failed state, dominated by violence, inequality, and drug trafficking” (although Maduro’s comments would have proven more apt as a description of his own country).

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Mexico is described as a “failed state” so often that a game called Failed State Mexico has even appeared on Roblox, offering players the chance to take part in “epic battles” in the city center, choosing sides between law enforcement and criminal groups.

Still, calling Mexico a failed state is clearly an exaggeration. After all, elections are held, parties and presidents change, and rights and freedoms exist. However, the protection of citizens’ safety varies greatly from state to state.

According to its Constitution, Mexico is a federal republic consisting of 31 states and one federal district (the capital, Mexico City). Each state has its own constitution, government, governor, and state congress. The country covers nearly 2 million square kilometers and has a population of 130 million. The states differ significantly in terms of economic development, culture, and climate. The north is more industrialized and has closer ties to the United States, while the south is agricultural, with a poorer population.

The influence of drug cartels remains one of the key factors affecting security, with the situation worst in states located near the Pacific coast and along the 3,141 kilometer border with the United States. These areas are used as drug smuggling routes and also host major synthetic drug production facilities.

Last year, the United States included terrorism as a security factor in its travel recommendations for those heading to Mexico, the first time such a warning had been issued. According to the State Department, the threat affects 29 states and Mexico City. Only two southern states — Campeche and Yucatán — are considered safe for travel.

In an official warning, Washington explains that Mexico faces a high rate of violent crime — homicides, kidnappings, carjackings, and assaults — and a risk of terrorist attacks. The “Do Not Travel” category includes the states of Colima, Guerrero, Michoacán, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas, Zacatecas, and Coahuila.

In turn, Mexican authorities classify Colima, Morelos, Sinaloa, Baja California, and Guanajuato as the most dangerous states. However, this assessment is based primarily on the number of homicides per capita, rather than the overall level of security. The situation is volatile, not only due to clashes between drug cartels and the government, but also as a consequence of criminal groups fighting over territory.

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A decade-old Stanford University study asserts that Mexican police are largely under the control of criminal organizations, describing the “penetration of organized crime into state structures.” Government authority is effectively absent in some areas, especially those affected by violence, with drug cartels quickly filling the vacuum.

At the same time, the fight against the most prominent drug lords and cartels does not lead to the defeat of crime, but rather to its dispersion. The criminal groups employ various methods — from bribing the authorities to helping locals resolve disputes and find work— thereby winning the hearts and minds of thousands of supporters, some of whom later become professional fighters. As a result, in some Mexican states, drug cartels have already established parallel power structures alongside official institutions, effectively overseeing some cities and even regions. In short, Mexico is effectively a mafia state.

Drug war chronicles

The Mexican cartels did not emerge overnight. By the 1980s, they had developed sufficiently to begin participating in the smuggling of drugs from Colombia, forming an alliance with the Colombian cartel that at the time dominated the region, operating under the leadership of the world’s largest drug trafficker, Pablo Escobar.

By the late 1990s, Mexican criminal groups began engaging directly in the drug trade themselves, transforming Mexico from a transit country to a major producer of marijuana, methamphetamine, and heroin for the U.S. and European markets. Several politicians who promised to fight the traffickers were assassinated, while several who opted for deliberate inaction were accused of enjoying ties to the cartels. The issue became an integral part of Mexico’s political life. However, at that time, the number of victims was still no more than a few hundred murder victims per year.

In the late 1920s, Mexico became a “cartel democracy” — a term that has no actual connection to the drug trade. For 71 years (from 1929 to 2000), the Institutional Revolutionary Party held unchallenged power, ruling through a cartel-like collusion among politicians and other major stakeholders, organized criminals among them.

This tacit agreement was broken after Vicente Fox, of the right-wing National Action Party (PAN), won the presidential election in 2000. For the first time, incumbent governors and local officials were replaced, meaning drug lords had to figure out how to bribe the new representatives, effectively ending the country’s illusory stability. The resulting power struggle was accompanied by an unprecedented wave of violence.

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Sanho Tree, a drug policy expert at the Washington DC-based Institute for Policy Studies, explains: “From a citizen's point of view, it is better to have a couple of big players and alliances rather than a checker board of a bunch of smaller cartels fighting amongst each other. The only thing worse than organized crime is disorganized crime.”

Fox was succeeded as president in 2006 by Felipe Calderón, also of the PAN. The new head of state officially declared a war on the cartels, deploying the armed forces in the fight. Calderón sent 6,500 federal troops to the state of Michoacán to put an end to the violence perpetrated by drug lords there. However, the results were disappointing. According to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), Calderón’s six-year campaign against organized crime (2006–2012) resulted in 121,683 violent deaths, yet criminal activity remained as prevalent as ever. In addition to those killed in the war against the cartels, around 30,000 people simply went missing.

“Hugs, not bullets”

Elected in 2018, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, representing the left-wing National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), declared an end to the war on the cartels with the slogan “hugs, not bullets” (abrazos, no balazos). AMLO’s intent was to focus on the root causes of violence by addressing poverty through social programs and the creation of economic opportunities for young people.

Although the approach attracted its share of criticism, UN experts also point to the futility of the punitive efforts to drug control that Mexican authorities had applied for decades. They cite negative consequences such as mass arrests, increased drug-related crime and violence, growth in illicit drug production, and the stigmatization and discrimination of entire communities.

However, addressing Mexico’s social issues will still take decades. Meanwhile, violence continues on city streets, making public safety the country’s most pressing challenge. Despite the change in tone, the number of victims of drug cartels has not decreased since the authorities’ shift to the “hugs” approach.

According to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), 31,062 homicides were recorded in the country in 2023, an average of 85 victims per day. The total number of violent deaths in Mexico from 2012 to early 2026 has topped the staggering figure of 350,000.

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Mexico’s current president, Claudia Sheinbaum, also of the left-wing MORENA party, largely followed the moderate approach of her predecessor. Moreover, she stated that the violence following El Mencho’s death cannot be classified as acts of terrorism, since that crime is defined by different standards under the Mexican Penal Code. This perception clearly does not align with that of Donald Trump’s White House, which has designated drug cartels, including the New Generation Jalisco Cartel, as terrorist organizations.

Needless to say, such measures will not stop the flow of fentanyl across Mexico’s northern border. As long as there is demand for drugs in the U.S., the fight against drug cartels in Mexico cannot be effective. Despite the seizure of tons of drugs, the destruction of production labs, and the high-profile takedowns of capos like El Mencho, the roots of the cartels remain untouched. One capo is simply replaced by another.

Prospects of foreign intervention

U.S. pressure on Mexico is evident in all of Trump’s statements. On Jan. 4, the day after U.S. forces removed Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro from Caracas, Trump said of Sheinbaum: “Every time I spoke with her, I offered to send troops.” However, according to the American president, his Mexican counterpart declined the offer: “ She's concerned. She's a little afraid. The cartels are running Mexico, whether you like it or not.”

On Febr. 23, Trump called Sheinbaum to discuss details of the military operation to eliminate El Mencho. She noted the high level of cooperation and information exchange between the agencies of both countries: “I told him how the operation had gone, that we had received intelligence assistance from the United States.”

While it remains unclear what role Washington played in the plan, in his annual State of the Union address on Feb. 24 Trump took credit for the elimination of El Mencho: “We've also taken down one of the most sinister cartel kingpins of all. You saw that yesterday.” Earlier, White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt officially stated: “The Trump Administration also commends and thanks the Mexican military for their cooperation and successful execution of this operation.”

In turn, billionaire Elon Musk, who had once again aligned himself with Trump, wrote on X about the Mexican president after El Mencho’s elimination: “She’s just saying what her cartel bosses tell her to say.” Following this, Sheinbaum stated that she was considering the possibility of suing Musk. Such legal action is unlikely to achieve anything, but the episode is yet another indication of the complex relationship between Mexico and its northern neighbor.

Another important aspect of this “cooperation under pressure” is Mexico’s readiness to extradite its citizens who face drug trafficking charges in the United States. From February 2025 to January 2026, Mexico handed over 92 alleged cartel leaders, who now face criminal charges of drug trafficking, murder, money laundering, kidnapping, and involvement in organized crime. Undoubtedly, this too is done under pressure from Trump, who demands concrete results from Mexico in the fight against illegal drug trafficking.

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To bypass the formal extradition process, Mexico relies on its National Security Law, which permits the extradition of citizens who stand accused of engaging in espionage, sabotage, terrorism, rebellion, treason, or actions that hinder the government’s fight against organized crime. The latter provision allows for a fairly broad interpretation, and drug cartel capos are generally regarded as individuals who pose a threat to national well-being, enabling Mexico’s Ministry of Security to carry out their direct extradition.

This legal solution was reached amid prior efforts to overcome the deadlock caused by multiple extradition requests submitted by the United States. For years, drug lords and their lawyers managed to delay court proceedings. In 2024, then-U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar criticized judges who had stalled the extradition process for more than ten years for brothers Miguel and Omar Treviño Morales, known as Z-40 and Z-42, leaders of the Los Zetas cartel.

The extradition treaty between the United States and Mexico, in effect since 1974, stipulates that the requesting country cannot impose the death penalty on those being extradited. After several rounds of negotiations, Washington indeed committed not to seek the death penalty for any of the prisoners handed over under this direct agreement, which bypasses the standard extradition procedures and appellate review.

Experts warn that this practice sets a dangerous precedent. Santiago Aguirre Espinosa, a scholar at the Ibero-American University, argues that it has no legal basis, despite the application of the National Security Law, the Palermo Convention on Transnational Organized Crime, Article 89 of the Mexican Constitution, and recent decisions by the Ministry of Security and the National Security Council.

“The decisions to send Mexicans to the U.S. are not extraditions and do not meet the legal requirements for extradition. It is something entirely different. How can they be described, and what is their legal basis? I think the government has used various terms: they called it sending, transferring, and some analysts even referred to it as deportation. However, deporting citizens is prohibited by Article 22 of the Mexican Constitution,” Aguirre Espinosa said.

In his view, the crucial point is that these individuals were sent away without due legal process, without the opportunity to defend themselves or appeal to prevent their transfer. In this case, there is no doubt about the drug lords’ guilt. But the question arises: what will happen if, in the future, someone else creates other problems for the state? Could this extralegal mechanism be used again?

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi does not appear to be concerned with these legal nuances. On Jan. 21, 2026, after the latest transfer of Mexicans to the U.S., she stated: “This is another landmark achievement in the Trump Administration’s mission to destroy the cartels. These 37 cartel members — including terrorists from the Sinaloa Cartel, CJNG, and others — will now pay for their crimes against the American people on American soil.”

The elimination of El Mencho, which marked the start of a new phase of the “war,” also raised many questions. He did not die in a shootout but rather in a helicopter while being transported to a hospital. Mexican senator Lilly Téllez of the National Action Party alleged that the killing of the CJNG leader was done in order “to protect politicians connected to drug trafficking.” Téllez believes that the Mexican military had the capability to carry out a “surgical operation” that would have seen El Mencho captured alive and sent to prison so that he could reveal his connections with politicians.

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On March 2, El Mencho was buried in a cemetery in suburban Guadalajara in a gilded coffin. A large crowd, protected by the state’s security forces, turned out for the occasion. Many attendees wore masks, and the funeral wreaths bore no ribbons with written condolences, nor the names of the senders. Within a few hours, narcocorridos — songs in the popular Mexican folk music genre of corrido — appeared on social media and YouTube commemorating El Mencho’s death. The capo is gone; the cartel lives on.

The number of murders in Mexico from 2012 to early 2026 has exceeded 350,000

For the first time, incumbent governors and local officials were replaced, and drug lords had to bribe the new ones

Mexico is effectively a mafia state

Cases are opened for 94% of crimes, but fewer than 1% are solved

The outlet cites the accounts of two former political prisoners: Andrei (name changed) and Ilya Dubsky. Both were released and deported by the Belarusian authorities on Sept. 11, 2025, as part of a group of 50 political prisoners.

According to Andrei, he discovered that his passport had been invalidated while checking the Ministry of Internal Affairs database to see whether he had been placed on the country’s wanted list. The document was supposed to remain valid until 2031.

Likewise, Ilya Dubsky told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that he checked his passport on March 30 and found that it had been invalidated. He was also issued a ban on entering Belarus.

“You could say that I have effectively been stripped of my citizenship. I don’t care what they did there. Let them go crazy. Yes, it will cause some inconvenience... Without a passport, I can’t travel to another country — from Lithuania to Poland, for example. And if I use my Belarusian passport, I could face administrative liability, or perhaps even criminal charges,” the outlet quoted him as saying.

Both former political prisoners now live in Lithuania. According to Dubsky, he knows of at least 16 other Belarusians who have found themselves in a similar situation. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports that such cases have been confirmed by other political prisoners, without naming them.

The most recent release of political prisoners in Belarus took place on March 19, when the press service of Alexander Lukashenko reported the pardon of 250 people — fifteen of whom were deported, according to the human rights center Viasna. In what has become a familiar pattern, the release coincided with the visit of a U.S. delegation to Minsk. Both the September release of 52 prisoners and the December release of 123 coincided with similar visits. Also as in both of those cases, Washington reciprocated by easing its sanctions pressure on Minsk. 

In his statement, Szijjártó alleged that his phone calls were being intercepted by “foreign intelligence services, with the active involvement of Hungarian journalists,” and added that the investigation merely proved “that I say the same publicly as I do on the phone.”

He also repeated his position on sanctions against Russia, saying he considers the European Union’s policy to be a “failure” that is “causing more harm to the EU than to Russia.” According to Szijjártó, Budapest will not support restrictions against companies and individuals important to Hungary’s energy security, and it intends to maintain that position going forward.

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Earlier today, The Insider, along with its investigative partners FRONTSTORY, VSquare, Delfi Estonia, and ICJK, published an investigation based on the transcripts and audio recordings of phone conversations between Szijjártó and Lavrov. In them, the Hungarian foreign minister promised to work to remove a number of Russian individuals from sanctions lists, including the relatives of billionaire Alisher Usmanov. Szijjártó also provided his Russian counterpart with details of closed discussions within EU institutions.

The joint investigation showed that Hungary and Slovakia blocked or delayed the adoption of EU sanctions packages targeting Russian interests while simultaneously seeking exemptions allowing them to continue purchasing Russian natural resources. In one of the conversations, Szijjártó told a Russian official that he was “doing his best” to have the 18th sanctions package repealed and even asked for arguments he could use in order to justify his stance by appealing Hungary’s national interest.

Who synthesized the poison

In mid-February, a joint statement issued by Sweden, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and the Netherlands confirmed that multiple independent laboratories had detected the alkaloid epibatidine, one of the most lethal poisons found in nature, in biological samples belonging to the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

As The Insider has previously reported, the synthesis of this poison in Russia was carried out by scientists from the State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology and the Signal Scientific Center — the same institutions where the Novichok nerve agent that was used against Sergei and Yulia Skripal in 2018 and against Navalny himself in 2020 was produced.

How exactly these scientists synthesized epibatidine and what reagents may have been used can be inferred from a number of articles they have published (details here). Igor Yuryevich Babkin and Sergey Evgenyevich Galan of the Signal Scientific Center are among the authors of a paper devoted to a method for detecting epibatidine in blood (though in the paper they are listed as employees of the “High Technology Laboratory" (OOO "Laboratoriya vysokikh tekhnologii"), which previously supplied reagents to Signal).

While Babkin and Galan both hold advanced degrees, their dissertations are classified and are therefore not publicly available. Babkin’s, titled “Synthesis and evaluation of the properties of physiologically active polyfluorinated 7-azanorbornanes,” was defended in the specialty 20.02.23: “The damaging effects of special types of weapons.”

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Other co-authors of the article on epibatidine also defended dissertations in the same specialty as Babkin. For example, Colonel Mikhail Gutsalyuk of the State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology, completed a thesis titled “Synthesis of physiologically active polyfluorinated bicyclic compounds with sulfur-containing substituents.”

The Insider spoke with a Russian chemist who is familiar with the work of Signal employees, worked on the synthesis of bicyclic compounds, and served as a consultant to one of the Western laboratories during the chemical analysis of Navalny’s biological samples. As that chemist explained:

“Epibatidine belongs specifically to the azanorbornanes that Babkin studied in his dissertation. He began working on this topic (bicycloheptanes, epibatidine derivatives) back in the mid-1990s, when he was studying at the Military Academy of Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Defense, where this was handled by the third department.”

Igor Babkin pretended not to understand The Insider's question when called by a journalist from The Insider.

Galan’s academic history is also of note. In addition to his research on epibatidine, he published notable scientific work in collaboration with the GRU’s leading poisoning specialist Sergey Chepur (whom The Insider has previously written about) in the study “Investigation of the psycholeptic effects of kappa-opioid agonists,” in which they examined a substance that drives rats into despair. The aim was to determine doses that make rats resign themselves to their fate — for example, by not actively attempting to swim when subjected to forced swimming.

At one time Galan also worked on nanoforms of drugs, which are intended, in theory, to deliver a compound more effectively to its biological target. A relatively recent article (2019) by Galan deals with an opioid receptor agonist tested as an analgesic; however, its analgesic effect began at doses of 200 mcg/kg, while toxic effects appeared at 3 mcg/kg.

Sergey Galan did not answer a call from a journalist with The Insider.

Where reagents for the poison were purchased

The creators of epibatidine had to source reagents from somewhere, and The Insider examined which Russian companies ordered reagents and auxiliary substances in 2022–2023 for the synthesis described in a 2013 article by the State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology.

More details on methodology and substances.

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Of the 12 substances required for the synthesis according to the scheme described by Russian chemists in the above-referenced 2013 article, two were not imported into Russia by anyone. Of the remaining ten, some are very common while others are rare. The Insider selected those companies that imported at least four components — there were seven in total, but only four of them imported the key component for creating the bicyclic compound: 1,8-diazabicyclo[5.4.0]undec-7-ene.

As the Russian chemist mentioned above explained further to The Insider:

“All of these substances can be called marker reagents, but it is precisely 1,8-diazabicyclo[5.4.0]undec-7-ene that is the most important among them. Someone might even call it a precursor, but that would be incorrect, since a precursor is the base to which another substance is added to obtain the target compound, so in this case we are dealing with that second substance. Among all the other reagents, which may include ordinary solvents, this is the most reliable marker.”

After examining the call records of employees at the four companies that had imported 1,8-diazabicyclo[5.4.0]undec-7-ene, The Insider found that managers of one of them — ABCR Chemi Rus — were in regular contact with employees of the Signal Scientific Center (and occasionally also with the State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology and the Central Scientific Research Institute of Chemistry and Mechanics, both of which have been linked to the production of Novichok and other chemical weapons). These contacts were not with random staff members, but specifically with Igor Babkin, a co-author of the article on epibatidine.

For example, Babkin spoke repeatedly over an extended period with Liliya Ansarovna Sabirova, Deputy General Director and Commercial Director of ABCR Chemi Rus LLC, and with sales manager Alexei Valentinovich Kiselev, who is also responsible for completing customs declarations at ABCR Chemi Rus.

Igor Viktorovich Zavarzin, the head of the High Technology Laboratory associated with Signal, was also in contact with employees of ABCR Chemi Rus  — namely with its general director, Tatyana Danilova. In his main position, Zavarzin heads the Laboratory of Steroid Chemistry at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and is the most established academic scientist in this group, with a large number of publications. According to the Russian pension fund, he also held an official position at Signal — even if, in a conversation with The Insider, he stated that he had never worked there, was not acquainted with Babkin, and that only “long ago someone from his staff published a joint article with him.”

In fact, however, it was not merely “someone from his staff” who co-authored a 2017 article with Babkin. Zavarzin himself was a co-author (though prominent scientists sometimes forget publications they consider minor, especially those published with many contributors). In any case, Zavarzin’s connection to Signal is confirmed not only by collaboration between Signal employees and his High Technology Laboratory, but also by his regular calls with Signal’s chief research scientist — one of the co-authors of articles on epibatidine — Georgy Nazarov.

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In his conversation with The Insider, Zavarzin similarly denied that he had spoken with Danilova, even though call records indicate that he did so repeatedly, as did the director of his “High Technology and Innovations Laboratory ("OOO Laboratoriya vysokikh tekhnologii i innovatsii"), Svetlana Sadikova.

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Notably, although Zavarzin denied knowing Danilova and working with Babkin, he ended the conversation with The Insider with the remark: “You are building a case like an experienced investigator. All of this is nonsense. Nothing like this exists or ever existed. It’s all lies. You should be very ashamed that you are going to slander respectable people.” How he could have known that people with whom, by his own account, he was not acquainted, were not involved in anything nefarious — and what, exactly, “did not exist” — he did not explain.

Georgy Nazarov declined to comment in a conversation with a journalist from The Insider.

The general director of ABCR Chemi Rus LLC, Tatyana Danilova, told The Insider that her company has no dealings with the Signal Scientific Center, insisted that she is not acquainted with Igor Babkin, and stated that her company does not import triphenylphosphine into Russia due to the fact that the reagent is “under sanctions” (which was not the case in 2023), after which she ended the conversation.

Liliya Sabirova did non answer to a call from The Insider.

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German management: We trust our partners, but we'll close the Russian subsidiary

ABCR Chemi Rus is 90% owned by the German parent company abcr GmbH, with the remaining stakes held by its managers Tatyana Danilova and Liliya Sabirova (5% each). The director of the German company is Dr. Jan Hans Alfred Schuricht, and its sole shareholder is abcr group GmbH.

Up until March 17, the German company’s website indicated that its Russian division was part of its team and included photographs of employees of ABCR Chemi Rus LLC. After an inquiry and a phone call from The Insider to Germany, the website suddenly stopped working, and a few days later all references to Russian employees disappeared from it.

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Jan Hans Alfred Schuricht, director of the parent company, told The Insider that he intends to close the Russian division.

He also claimed that he complies with all legal restrictions and that “after 2018” he did not supply anything to the Signal Scientific Center. He said that the subsidiary ABCR Chemi Rus LLC supplies reagents from abcr GmbH to Russian universities. Schuricht added that while the German parent company is not required to conduct full due diligence on all clients of its subsidiary ABCR Chemi Rus LLC and does not influence the selection of its clients, the compliance department of abcr GmbH nevertheless carries out random checks of all clients of ABCR Chemi Rus LLC to determine whether they were selected in accordance with embargo regulations. At the same time, abcr GmbH is not in a position to verify the “military activities” of Russian companies not sanctioned by the German authorities. The company has not received dividends from its Russian subsidiary since 2020 and is generally considering the possibility of shutting it down.

Full response by Jan Schuricht

At The Insider’s request, Jan Schuricht reviewed specific shipments from the company’s warehouse in Germany of triphenylphosphine and 1,8-diazabicyclo[5.4.0]undec-7-ene carried out in 2023. He claims that these reagents were intended for Ural Federal University. 

The Insider has obtained invoices for goods allegedly issued by ABCR Chemi Rus to Ural Federal University. These invoices bear all the hallmarks of forgery: there is no contract number (even though the procurement should have been carried out under a government contract), and there are no delivery note numbers linked to that contract.

Documents also came into the possession of The Insider that were presented as contracts between ABCR Chemi Rus and Ural Federal University for the supply of these chemicals. However, they bear signs of crude forgery: they lack the parties’ signatures, there are no organization requisites, and there is no government procurement or state contract number.

Additionally, The Insider obtained documents presented as invoices for payment issued by ABCR Chemi Rus to Ural Federal University, which also show signs of falsification: at least one of them was dated a month earlier than the substance left the warehouse in Germany. Thus, the appearance of Ural Federal University in this story looks like an attempt to cover up the interaction between ABCR Chemi Rus LLC and Scientific Center Signal.

The Insider also found no calls in the billing records of ABCR's management with employees of Ural Federal University. Finally, it remains unclear how triphenylphosphine could have been intended for the university if ABCR’s general director Danilova had claimed that ABCR Chemi Rus LLC did not procure this reagent at all because it was “under sanctions.”

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Dr. Schuricht also stated that, according to colleagues he consulted, there had been no contacts between Babkin and employees of ABCR Chemi Rus “after 2018.” However, the 2020-2024 billing records of ABCR Chemi Rus stakeholder Sabirova and sales manager Kiselev show such contacts. Schuricht could not explain why.

Schuricht did add that stakeholder Danilova did not deny having contacts with Zavarzin, stating that the latter is a well-known and respected scientist who procures chemicals for his “university” (apparently referring to the Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences). Schuricht also maintained that he continues to trust the employees of the Russian company:

“As the CEO of the parent company, I must first take them at their word. Since I also know Liliya and Tatyana well, I have no doubt that they have found themselves at the center of this unfortunate story purely by chance.”

German lawyers interviewed by The Insider said that if publicly available information shows a scientific center produces and supplies poisons for political killings, and that if a supplier, understanding its reagents could be used to make a murder weapon, ignores that information and continues providing the center with reagents, that could be interpreted as complicity in a crime.

The Insider also contacted Alexei Kiselev of ABCR Chemi Rus, who handled customs clearance and had repeatedly been in contact with Babkin from Signal. Kiselev was unable to confirm or deny from memory the deliveries of the substances in question in 2023; regarding Babkin and Signal, he said they had worked with Signal 8–10 years ago. He was also unable to recall any cooperation with Ural Federal University offhand.

The Insider has sent all available information about ABCR Chemi Rus's cooperation with Russian producers of poisons used in political assassinations to German law enforcement authorities.

On the morning of Feb. 28, Israeli and U.S. forces launched what they called a “preemptive strike” on Iranian territory. In Israel, the operation was named “Lion’s Roar.” In the United States, it was called “Epic Fury.”

In essence, both were a continuation of Israel’s operation “A People Like a Lion,” which was carried out from June 13 to June 24, 2025. As part of that campaign, the Americans conducted their own one-day operation, “Midnight Hammer,” striking key nuclear facilities inside Iran. The Insider analyzed the outcome of those operations in a separate report.

In April and October 2024, Iran and Israel exchanged two rounds of long-range strikes. As a result, in Iran the current war was named “True Promise 4,” a reference to the previous three “promises” of April and October 2024 and in June 2025.

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In a statement posted on Truth Social on Feb. 28, Donald Trump called Iran “the number one state sponsor of terrorism in the world” and also blamed the leadership in Tehran for the deaths of tens of thousands of Iranian citizens during the mass protests that engulfed the country in recent months. The U.S. president outlined several specific goals for :

• to “flatten” the Iranian missile industry,
• destroy its navy,
• neutralize “terrorist proxies” in the region,
• undermine the current regime’s ability to obtain nuclear weapons.

Trump also urged Iranians to “take power into their own hands” in order to bring about a fundamental change in Iran’s political system.

The United States committed 50,000 personnel, 200 aircraft, and two full carrier strike groups to the operation against Iran. The campaign has notably involved every type of long-range strategic bomber in the U.S. Air Force’s arsenal, including the B-2, B-1 Lancer, and B-52H.

Israel has deployed an air grouping of comparable size. According to the Israeli Air Force, Feb. 28 saw the largest air operation in its history, with more than 200 aircraft striking more than 500 targets.

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According to The Military Balance, Iran’s armed forces had more than 600,000 personnel before the war, including nearly 200,000 in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The air force included about 250 combat aircraft, though most were hopelessly outdated relics such as F-4 and F-5 fighter jets.

Similarly, the navy mentioned by Trump had fewer than 10 major surface combatants, several dozen patrol and missile boats, a few non-operational Russian-built Project 877 Paltus submarines, mini-submarines, and exotic vessels such as drone carriers and missile catamarans. The main threat to the U.S.-Israeli coalition came from Iran’s missile forces — and its drones.

“Major combat operation” and “we haven’t even started”

Since the start of the campaign against Iran, U.S. officials have seemed almost deliberately to echo Russian rhetoric about Moscow’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. In particular, the war has been turned into a “major combat operation” that is supposedly “ahead of schedule.” Donald Trump also described the opening phase of the war by saying “we haven’t even started hitting them hard” while pointing to an allegedly imminent Iranian attack as a pretext for launching it.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also used language reminiscent of Vladimir Putin’s, saying the United States “did not start this war...but we are finishing it,” and that it plans to “achieve  [all of its] objectives.” On March 5, 2026, The New Yorker published a cartoon that closely echoed a meme widely circulated on Russian social media at the start of the war against Ukraine — a Leo Tolstoy reference highlighting the absurdity of the euphemisms used by governments to avoid calling war by its name.

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On the Israeli side, the rhetoric has often taken on an apocalyptic tone. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he and Trump were “saving the world” and fighting the “yoke of tyranny” in the name of “humanity.”

Even so, the war against Iran is not popular in either the United States or Europe. Even the most favorable polls show that at least half of Americans do not support the Trump administration’s actions. In Europe, support for the fighting is even lower.

Interim results of the campaign in Iran

Over the course of the first three weeks, the U.S.-Israeli coalition carried out more than 15,000 strikes on various targets in Iran. In the first week alone, U.S. forces hit 2,000 targets, twice the comparable number for the Iraq campaign of 2003. The pace and intensity of the attacks have been made possible by the broad use of AI systems. After the 12-day war in June 2025, much of Iran’s air defense and missile defense infrastructure had already been knocked out, meaning this time the task of achieving air superiority was completed on the first day.

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The main result of the opening phase of the military operation was the decapitation of Iran’s military and political leadership, as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the very first wave of strikes — along with Defense Council secretary Adm. Ali Shamkhani, IRGC commander Gen. Mohammad Pakpour, armed forces chief of staff Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi, and Defense Minister Gen. Aziz Nasirzadeh. It appears that the Israeli airstrike hit the complex housing Khamenei’s residence, where a session of the defense council was under way.

Khamenei’s second son, Mojtaba Khamenei, who was selected to replace his father, has still not appeared in public, apparently because he suffered serious injuries in that attack. Later, Ali Larijani, the most influential surviving Iranian politician, was killed, as were Basij commander Gholamreza Soleimani and Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib.

According to statements from Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, any successor to Khamenei would immediately become the target of a new strike, and the U.S. State Department has offered a reward for information on Mojtaba Khamenei and other leading figures of the Iranian regime.

As for the purely military side, coalition forces have inflicted critical damage on Iran’s navy, air defenses, and air force. Visually confirmed losses include 38 ships and submarines, meaning the Iranian fleet has effectively ceased to exist. Iran has also verifiably lost 34 combat aircraft and three helicopters, more than 30 air defense systems (including missile batteries and radars), and about 40 missile launchers. Targets linked to Iran’s nuclear program and its security apparatus are also being struck.

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A number of milestone events have taken place over the relatively short span of the fighting in Iran.

• For the first time in history, an F-35 fifth-generation fighter shot down a manned combat aircraft, specifically a Yak-130 trainer-combat jet over Tehran.
• For the first time in combat, the United States has used PrSM ballistic missiles, developed as a replacement for ATACMS.
• For the first time since 1982, a nuclear submarine sank a warship with a torpedo when the USS Charlotte fired on the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena off the coast of Sri Lanka. Of Dena’s crew of 136, only 32 sailors survived.

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For now, the category of targets that appears to be the most “protected” is Iran’s oil and gas infrastructure. Judging by available information, there are some differences on this issue between the American and Israeli leaderships. As far as can be discerned, the United States sees attacks on Iran’s oil export infrastructure as a measure of last resort. On the night of March 14, U.S. forces struck Kharg Island, which is involved in up to 90% of Iran’s oil exports, but the Americans pointedly chose only military targets.

How the Iranian military is responding

Since Feb. 28, Iranian forces have been carrying out a campaign of strikes using missiles and loitering munitions against Israel, U.S. bases, and America’s Middle Eastern allies. Iran’s targets have included purely civilian objects and energy infrastructure. Nevertheless, more than a dozen U.S. bases and the radars, communications equipment, and vehicles stationed there are also known to have been hit. Attacks by Iran and its Shiite allies in the region have affected 13 countries, including Cyprus and Turkey.

Overall, the scale of missile and drone use has been much smaller than expected. Only in the first days was Iran able to sustain launches of hundreds of long-range strike weapons, while current figures amount to only dozens per day. Available estimates, however, mostly do not take into account attacks on U.S. bases and rely on admittedly incomplete official reports from neighboring Arab states.

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Judging by the intensity and geography of the retaliatory strikes, command over Iran’s security structures has indeed been disrupted, which is why Tehran’s missile attacks have had an often symbolic and chaotic character, as evidenced by strikes hitting hotels, residential complexes, diplomatic buildings, and airports. It is highly likely that this is what Iran’s concept of “mosaic defense” looks like in practice, with the country’s civilian administration and military command operating in as decentralized a manner as possible — effectively autonomously. At the same time, even raids of this relatively limited scale have required a colossal expenditure of air defense assets from the Gulf states that came under Iranian attack.

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The U.S.-Israeli coalition’s losses over three weeks of war are limited for an operation of this scale. The United States has officially reported 13 service members killed and more than 300 wounded. Among the dead were six crew members killed in the crash of a KC-135 tanker aircraft, likely after a mid-air collision with another U.S. aircraft.

The most painful American losses of materiel have come from friendly fire. On March 2, three F-15E aircraft were mistakenly shot down over Kuwait in a single day, likely by a Kuwaiti F/A-18. All six crew members ejected safely.

Another five tanker aircraft may have been damaged in missile strikes on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. Iranian air defenses also managed to hit a U.S. F-35, but the aircraft made it back to one of the American bases in the region to make an emergency landing.

What has proved truly effective is Iran’s campaign of strikes on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The IRGC declared the strait closed to vessel traffic on Feb. 28, and about 20 commercial vessels have been struck since then.

Awaiting a ground operation

Donald Trump is demanding Iran’s unconditional surrender, but so far there are no signs that the leadership in Tehran is ready to agree. After the death of Ali Larijani and given the unclear status of Mojtaba Khamenei, it is not fully clear who would even be in a position to offer up unconditional surrender. Nor are there any visible signs that the current regime is becoming less stable. Even if transformation is taking place behind the scenes, it is more likely to result in the appearance of a military junta than of a potential negotiating partner for Washington.

Meanwhile, the costs of the “major combat operation” are rising rapidly for the Trump administration, U.S. allies, and the global economy as a whole. The pace of American military spending now exceeds $1 billion a day, and the Pentagon is preparing to ask Congress for an additional $200 billion. Attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz and strikes on energy infrastructure in the region have put 20% of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies at risk, along with 10% to 20% of petroleum product supplies. According to expert estimates, the Iranian military is capable of blocking shipping through the Strait of Hormuz for months.

Under these conditions, some form of ground operation is looking increasingly likely. At first, the main scenario involved Kurdish forces from Syria and Iraq, backed by the United States, invading western areas of Iran, which are predominantly populated by Kurds. Later, the scenarios under discussion expanded to include U.S. forces seizing the previously mentioned Kharg Island and carrying out raids deep into Iranian territory to remove stockpiles of enriched uranium, the whereabouts of which remain unknown.

The 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit is now heading toward the Persian Gulf. Its movement from the Okinawa area began on March 13, and it includes the USS Tripoli (LHA-7), USS San Diego (LPD-22), and USS New Orleans (LPD-18). On March 20, reports also confirmed that the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit had departed San Diego aboard the USS Boxer (LHD-4), USS Comstock (LSD-45), and USS Portland (LPD-27). Each group includes more than 2,000 Marines, as well as F-35A aircraft and CV-22 tiltrotor aircraft.

The 11th Expeditionary Unit arrived in Tripoli on March 28, increasing the chances that the conflict moves into a ground phase.

The pace and intensity of the attacks on Iran have been made possible by the broad use of AI systems

The campaign has involved every type of long-range strategic bomber in the U.S. Air Force’s arsenal, including the B-2, B-1 Lancer, and B-52H

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“I am calling on the request of Alisher”

Just an hour after Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó arrived in Budapest from St. Petersburg on August 30, 2024, he received a phone call from his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. Lavrov said Szijjártó had been quoted all over the Russian media following his visit.

“Did I say something wrong?” Szijjártó nervously inquired.

“No, no, no. They were just saying that you are pragmatically fighting for the interests of your country.”

The reason for Lavrov’s call was a request: the Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov was looking to have his sister, Gulbahor Ismailova, removed from EU sanctions lists and Szijjártó had promised to help. Usmanov, a Russian-Uzbekistani tycoon, amassed his wealth in mining, industry, telecoms, and media. He has been described as one of Putin’s favorite businesspersons, one with “particularly close ties” to the Russian president.

“Look, I am calling on the request of Alisher and he just asked me to remind you that you were doing something about his sister,” Lavrov said.

“Yeah, absolutely,” Szijjártó answered. “The thing is the following, that together with the Slovaks we are submitting a proposal to the European Union to delist her. We will submit it next week and as the new review period is going to be started it's gonna be put on the agenda and we will do our best in order to get her off.”

Lavrov was happy and expressed his appreciation for Szijjártó’s “support and your fight for equality in all fields.”

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The main purpose of the conversation accomplished, Lavrov and Szijjártó proceeded to bond over their shared disdain of the European Union, particularly countries with a pro-Ukraine orientation.

Both criticized Josep Borrell, then the EU’s High Representative of Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, whom Lavrov called his “biggest disappointment” and Szijjártó disparagingly characterized as the “European Biden.” The Spanish socialist, Lavrov noted, had been far more “reasonable” when he only represented the interests of Madrid as foreign minister, prior to his appointment to the European Commission, in which capacity a commissioner cannot prioritize his native country over the bloc in general. “So you cannot, you cannot name your country, but you must name your gender, right?” an incredulous Lavrov asked of Szijjártó, who had summarized these bureaucratic protocols.

Before hanging up, the Hungarian cooed about the new Gazprom headquarters he’d visited in Russia, adding, “I am always at your disposal.”

Seven months later, Ismailova was removed from the EU sanctions list.

Transcripts and the audio recording of the Lavrov-Szijjártó call were obtained and confirmed by a consortium of investigative news outlets consisting of VSquare, FRONTSTORY, Delfi Estonia, The Insider, and the Investigative Center of Ján Kuciak (ICJK). We confirmed it independently with sources in more than one country and additionally consulted the authenticity of the audio recording with Cauth.AI, members of WITNESS Deepfake Rapid Response Force.

The Hungarian Kim Philby

This call between the two foreign ministers, one of several between 2023 and 2025, highlights the exceeding comity between Szijjártó, who represents an EU and NATO member, and Lavrov, who represents a nation that has invaded and occupied a European country while waging a hybrid war that includes acts of arson and sabotage carried out against countries on NATO’s eastern flank. The calls traffic in sensitive information about the internal deliberations of both Budapest and Brussels, which are doubtless of interest to the Kremlin. They also provide clearcut evidence of how Russia is secretly behind the efforts of Hungary and Slovakia to hinder EU sanctions against Russian individuals or entities.

In his exchanges with Lavrov, Szijjártó comes across as deferential, bordering on obsequious. “If you remove names and show these conversations to any case officer, he will swear that this is a transcript of an intelligence officer working his asset,” one senior European intelligence officer said after reviewing a printout of the conversations.

Transcripts and the audio recording of the Lavrov-Szijjártó call, as well as Szijjártó's calls with other Russian government officials, were obtained and confirmed by a consortium of investigative news outlets consisting of VSquare, FRONTSTORY, Delfi Estonia, The Insider, and the Investigative Center of Ján Kuciak (ICJK). We confirmed it independently with sources in more than one country and additionally consulted the authenticity of the audio recording with Cauth.AI, members of WITNESS Deepfake Rapid Response Force.

The apparent willingness of Szijjártó, as a high official of the Hungarian government, to quietly act in Russia’s interests at the EU level may help explain why Moscow is investing significant effort in keeping Viktor Orbán and his pro-Kremlin Fidesz party in power.

Independent polling suggests Orbán is trailing badly ahead of the April 12 parliamentary election, with the center-right Tisza party, led by challenger Péter Magyar, holding a strong lead. As Orbán’s campaign struggles, Russia is reportedly stepping in to assist in covert ways, too. According to VSquare’s earlier report, the Kremlin has assigned Sergey Kiriyenko – a deputy chief of staff to Vladimir Putin and a key architect of Russia’s political influence operations – to covertly support Orbán’s campaign. Kiriyenko previously played an integral role in shaping election interference activities in Moldova.

At the same time, Orbán’s campaign has increasingly echoed Kremlin narratives: staging provocations against Ukraine and accusing opposition figures and critics of acting as Ukrainian proxies or spies while dismissing or ridiculing allegations of their own ties to Russia.

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Szijjártó’s chumminess with Lavrov, while previously alluded to in the press, has never before been documented with leaked phone calls demonstrating the full extent of their collusiveness.

Apart from delivering on what he was asked to do, Szijjártó routinely kept Lavrov informed of details of supposedly confidential discussions by European diplomats.

For instance, in the same August 30, 2024 call with Lavrov, just after their discussion about delisting Ismailova, Szijjártó also revealed the details of the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting that he participated in the day before.

“And that was crazy, you know, when Landsbergis said that we contribute 12% of each rockets and missiles,” Szijjártó told Lavrov, referring to Lithuania’s then-foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, who had argued that Russia partly finances its war through gas and oil profits from European customers such as Hungary and Slovakia.

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“I said, my friend, you are not right, because the Europeans contribute much more… it's not only the Slovaks and us who are buying gas and oil from Russia directly but all of you who are buying the same from them through…India, Kazakhstan.”

When reached for comment, Landsbergis confirmed the behind-the-scenes details of the EU foreign ministers’ meeting. “I can verify that this is a real exchange during one of the Foreign Affairs Councils,” Landsbergis said. “It seems that all this time Putin had, and still has, a mole in all European and NATO official meetings. If the integrity of these meetings is to be maintained, it would be appropriate to ban Hungary from all of them. Every generation has a Kim Philby” – a reference to the notorious Cold War-era KGB spy in the British Secret Intelligence Service. “Apparently Péter Szijjártó is playing the role with enthusiasm.”

That analogy goes slightly deeper than mere rhetorical flourish. Philby and Szijjártó both received the highest Soviet or Russian award that can be given to a foreigner: the Order of Friendship. Szijjártó’s was officially awarded by Vladimir Putin, but physically bestowed upon him by Lavrov on December 30, 2021.

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Striking off names

Szijjártó’s efforts to get Usmanov’s sibling delisted from EU sanctions was not the only case in which he worked to relax economic penalties on well-connected Russians. Ismailova was removed alongside Russian businessman Viatcheslav Moshe Kantor and the country’s sports minister, Mikhail Degtyaryov. As reported by RFE in March 2025, the move came after Hungary and Slovakia threatened to block the six-month extension of EU sanctions – including asset freezes and visa bans – targeting Russian-linked entities and individuals (Lavrov among them).

A European diplomat closely involved in the sanctions negotiations among the 27 EU member states said that, while it has long been suspected that Hungary and Slovakia had been leaking details of negotiations to Moscow, it was valuable that there was now hard evidence to prove it.

“Hungary is clearly fulfilling political orders from Russia,” this source said when reporters showed them parts of the transcripts of the two ministers’ phone calls.

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While the EU has sanctioned about 2,700 Russian citizens and entities due to their role in enabling Russia to conduct its full-scale war against Ukraine, the bloc must vote every six months on whether to extend the sanctions. Decisions are made by consensus, meaning all 27 member states must agree. This gives Hungary outsized leverage, as it can threaten to block the continuation of the entire sanctions regime if specific people are not delisted.

The same European diplomat, talking to the reporters on the condition of anonymity in order to be able to reveal details of the process, said that Hungary and Slovakia usually start the negotiations with a longer list of Russian names they demand to be delisted. “They don’t use legal arguments, they just say they don’t want those people on the sanctions list for political reasons,” the source explained.

As negotiations progress, Budapest and Bratislava usually whittle their list down to only two or three people, as was the case with Ismailova, Kantor, and Degtyaryov.

Ismailova is one of Usmanov’s two sisters. She has been sanctioned by the UK, United States, Ukraine, and Estonia. Tallinn re-sanctioned her after she was removed from the EU list at Hungary and Slovakia’s orchestration.

Usmanov himself is sanctioned by a host of jurisdictions including the EU, the United States, Canada, and the UK as a result of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In its Russian Asset Tracker, OCCRP linked the oligarch to more than a dozen luxury properties across Europe, as well as to bank accounts, boats, and aircraft. According to that project, the minimum value of Usmanov’s assets exceeds $3.4 billion.

A representative of Usmanov’s told OCCRP at the time that he had never benefited from the Russian government, nor from the privatization of state holdings. The representative said that Usmanov’s capital was obtained solely through transparent investment and asset management, adding that the ownership of most of Usmanov’s properties had been transferred to his family, and that he could only use them on a rental basis.

Joachim Nikolaus Steinhöfel, the Hamburg-based legal representative for Usmanov and Ismailova, declined to answer questions about the nature of the discussion between Lavrov and Szijjártó about his clients. “Your questions are based on the impermissible assumption that my clients were somehow aware of confidential conversations allegedly held between third parties,” Steinhöfel wrote in an email, adding that “in recent years, many prominent contemporary political leaders have spoken out regarding the need to lift the sanctions against A. Usmanov. This applies even more to the lifting of sanctions against his sister, who was subjected to these measures in an absurd manner solely due to her family ties.”

Steinhöfel also mentioned that over the past four years, Usmanov has won more than twenty court cases against media outlets, public figures, and politicians “who disseminated various false statements about him.”

Since being sanctioned, Usmanov and his two sisters have taken extensive efforts to relieve themselves of the burden, going so far as to file lawsuits against media outlets.  His other sister, Saodat Narzieva, managed to get her name off the EU list after just five months.

With Russia, Hungary, and Slovakia having succeeded with Ismailova’s delisting last year, the only remaining sibling is Usmanov himself.

During the latest round of sanctions extension negotiations in March, Slovakia and Hungary continued to press the bloc to have him removed as well.

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“This time the negotiations went through Friday night until early Saturday morning on March 14, when Slovakia finally said it agreed to prolong the sanctions with Usmanov’s and [Mikhail] Fridman’s names on the list,” according to the EU diplomat quoted earlier.

If the 27 member states hadn't agreed to this by March 15, sanctions against all 2,700 people and entities would have expired.

In their efforts to get the Usmanov family back into international markets, Hungarians and Slovaks are supported by a powerful non-EU ally. At the beginning of March, before the key round of the latest negotiations, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a letter to Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, calling him “a dear friend.”

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Erdogan praised Usmanov’s transparency and charitable nature: “he supported cultural, humanitarian, and sporting projects promoting the opening of Central Asian countries to the West, while also making a significant contribution to strengthening human ties within the Turkic world.”

The Turkish President also informed Fico about joint letters that the Organisation of Turkic States, along with the leaders of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Uzbekistan, sent to then then-President of the EU Council, Charles Michel, and to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. “I also took initiatives with certain EU leaders,” added Erdogan, calling the sanctions against Usmanov and his family members an ”unfair practice.” 

The EU diplomat involved in the EU’s sanctions negotiations confirmed that the letter to get Usmanov off of the list in the last round of sanctions negotiations was submitted by Slovakia and signed by Erdogan. Hungary supported delisting both Usmanov and Fridman, the Russian billionaire who co-founded the financial giant Alfa Group.

“I find it peculiar that third countries want to influence the EU's sanctions decisions and their orders are presented by Hungary or Slovakia,” the diplomat said. “The EU conducts legal assessments to decide about sanctioning but then we will have a political order to withdraw one or another name from the list. The EU needs to make those decisions itself.”

"Negotiations on the regular semi-annual review of the sanctions regime for undermining Ukraine’s territorial integrity concluded on March 15, 2026,” the Slovakian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement to the consortium partners. It declined to “comment on or disclose details of its negotiating positions or those of other member states, as the negotiations are confidential." The office of the Slovak prime minister Robert Fico did not comment on our questions.

Fighting sanctions

Economic relief for Ismailova and Usmanov isn’t the only case in which Hungary secretly acted on the Kremlin’s behalf in Brussels.

We have obtained material on a separate conversation in which Szijjártó reported to another high-ranking Russian official, Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin, that he was doing his best to “repeal” a crucial EU sanctions package targeting Russia’s shadow fleet of false-flagged oil tankers — the means by which Moscow evades Western energy sanctions.

In one conversation with Sorokin, a London-educated former Morgan Stanley banker and Putin’s “secret weapon” in blunting Western energy sanctions, Szijjártó offered to remove Russian banks proposed for designation by the EU. Szijjártó even asked the Russian to provide him with arguments as to why doing so would be in Hungary’s interest.

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In a June 30, 2025 phone call with Sorokin, Szijjártó complained that the EU refused to show him documents related to the proposed sanctioning of 2Rivers, a Dubai-based company trading in Russian oil. “[B]ecause they say that there is no clear Hungarian interest that they can identify, and therefore Hungary cannot legally ask them to be removed from the list,” Szijjártó elaborated after Sorokin asked why Budapest was cut out of the loop.

According to the EU, 2Rivers, formerly known as Coral Energy, has been one of the key players in selling Russian oil via its own shadow fleet of tankers and concealing the origin of crude from Russian state energy giant Rosneft, now under U.S. sanctions. 2Rivers then sells the crude above the internationally capped oil price and feeds Russia’s war machine with vital revenue. In December 2024, the UK sanctioned 2Rivers and its oil trading network.

It is unclear what interest Hungary – a landlocked country that receives oil through pipelines – could have in trying to preserve Russia’s shadow fleet operations. But the benefit to Russia is obvious.

After reporting that he was unsuccessful with 2Rivers, Szijjártó shared details with Sorokin on where the then-ongoing negotiations on the EU’s 18th sanctions package stood.

The Hungarian foreign minister explained to the Russian official that the vote was not yet on the agenda thanks to a postponement arranged by Hungary and Slovakia, one that would remain in effect until the EU agreed to “make an exception” for those countries and “allow us to continue buying Russian gas and oil.”

The 18th sanctions package was proposed by the European Commission on June 10, 2025, but Szijjártó announced publicly on June 23 that Hungary and Slovakia were blocking it. Officially, he claimed that this was “in response to European Union plans to phase out Russian energy imports.” In his call with Sorokin a week later, however, Szijjártó talked very differently about Hungary’s real activities and goals in Brussels.

Szijjártó told Sorokin that he was fighting against the whole sanctions package and trying to save as many Russian entities as possible. “I’m doing my best to have it repealed. The thing is that I have already removed 72 [entities] from the list, but there were 128. I'm trying to continue, but I have to say that this is in the interest of Hungary,” Szijjártó said.

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It is not clear from the conversation exactly what 72 and 128 Russian entities Szijjártó referred to.

“If they [Sorokin’s staff] can help me identify the direct and negative effects on Hungary, I would be very grateful,” he added, “because if I can show something like that, you would give me a completely different opportunity.”

The call is proof that the Hungarian foreign minister not only uses Russian-authored talking points when attempting to dilute EU penalties on Russia — he actively seeks them out from Russian  officials.

According to Kinga Redłowska, a leading sanctions expert and the Head of CFS Europe at the London-based think tank RUSI, “Legally it remains a politically legitimate basis for a Member State to withhold consent in a unanimity-based system. Hungary’s use of this argument serves a dual purpose. Domestically, it allows Viktor Orbán to reinforce an anti-Ukrainian narrative. At the EU level, it provides leverage to extract concessions in unrelated areas, such as EU funding or rule-of-law disputes.”

While this strategy may help Orban and his embattled government, enabling an aggressive neighbor to capture and hold more sovereign European land runs counter to Hungary’s national interest. “Weakening sanctions risks bolstering Russia’s war economy, undermining the broader security interests of all EU member states, including Hungary itself.”

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The conversation between Szijjártó and Sorokin also touched on Russian banks that were in the crosshairs of the EU’s 18th sanctions package. “[S]hare the names of those banks with me, I can check if they are on the list or not, I’ll check the legal grounds and then I’ll do my best,” Szijjártó told Sorokin. “I know they want to put Sankt Petersburg Bank on the list, which I managed to remove; they also wanted to put another bank related to the Paks project on the list, and I managed to remove it.”

After weeks of delays by Hungary and Slovakia, the European Union finally adopted its 18th sanctions package on July 18, 2025. 2Rivers was included in the package, prompting it to begin the process of dissolution. The measures also dealt a significant blow to Russia’s shadow fleet and its efforts to circumvent oil sanctions.

However, it remains unclear how much greater the impact might have been without Szijjártó’s efforts.

In March 2026, the Washington Post reported that Szijjártó has been regularly sharing information over the phone with Lavrov during breaks in EU talks, almost in real time. “Every single EU meeting for years has basically had Moscow behind the table,” a European security official told the Post, which did not have the verbatim transcripts of these calls.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Gabrielius Landsbergis, the former Lithuanian foreign minister, almost immediately confirmed the Post’s reporting. “The news that Orbán’s people inform Moscow about EU Council meetings in every detail shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. We’ve had our suspicions about that for a long time. That’s one reason why I take the floor only when strictly necessary and say just as much as necessary,” Tusk posted to X.

In March 2026, Politico reported that “the EU is limiting the flow of confidential material to Hungary and leaders are meeting in smaller groups.”

Hungary’s government dismissed such reports as “pro-Ukrainian propaganda”, while Szijjártó, who acknowledged frequent communication with Lavrov, said the Post article on his alleged leaks is “fake news.”

This strategy appears to be backfiring. Szijjártó was recently booed by protesters at a campaign event, with shouts of “traitor” and “Russian spy” leveled at him. All an angry Szijjártó could shout back was that the hecklers would have to pay three times as much for gas and oil if it weren’t coming from Russia.

Neither Lavrov nor Szijjártó replied to requests for comment on this investigation.

Hungary’s interference in EU sanctions policy began within months of Russia’s full-scale invasion, and what started as isolated vetoes hardened over four years into a systematic, semi-institutionalised lobbying effort for Kremlin-linked figures — later joined by Slovakia.

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In June 2022, Hungary held the entire sixth EU sanctions package hostage — including the landmark partial Russian oil embargo — until Patriarch Kirill, a former KGB agent and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, was removed from the list, with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán personally intervening on the grounds of “religious freedom.”

From 2022 onwards, Hungary also began blocking Latvia’s repeated attempts to add Iskander Makhmudov and Andrei Bokarev — the billionaire co-owners of Transmashholding, a producer of components for infantry combat vehicles since the onset of the war. Latvian diplomats attributed this move to Transmashholding’s existing joint ventures in Hungary with companies linked to the man who would become Hungary’s minister of defense, Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky.

The full stakes of that protection became clearer in March 2026, when The Insider and Der Spiegel revealed that Bokarev was the “ideological architect and principal backer” of Center 795 — a secret assassination directorate established by Russian General Staff order in December 2022, staffed by elite GRU and FSB veterans and embedded inside the Kalashnikov Concern in order to use its payroll and facilities as cover.

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In February 2024, Hungary failed in its attempt to delist oligarchs Usmanov, Kantor, and Nikita Mazepin — a former Formula 1 pilot and the son of fertilizer and chemicals tycoon Dmitry Mazepin — from the individual sanctions list. The following month, Slovakia secured the removal of Jozef Hambálek, a Slovak national and European head of the Russian nationalist Night Wolves motorcycle club, in what was described as a transactional swap: Slovakia backed Hungary’s broader list in exchange for Budapest supporting Hambálek’s removal.

In September 2024, Hungary finally secured the removal of Nikita Mazepin, while Violetta Prigozhina – the mother of the late Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin – was also removed from the list (though there is no indication that the latter was at Hungary's request). In December 2024, Hungary again saved Patriarch Kirill from sanctions, along with Russia’s UN Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia.

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In February 2025, Hungary extracted another Kirill exemption during negotiations on the 16th EU sanctions package, as well as saving the Russian Olympic Committee and two Russian football clubs (CSKA Moscow and FC Rostov) from sanctions. Viktor Orbán’s government then went on – with Slovakia’s support – to succeed in the already mentioned removal of Kantor, Degtyaryov, and Ismailova from the EU’s sanctions list in March 2025.

In February 2026, Hungary vetoed the entire 20th sanctions package outright — the first time Budapest had gone that far — blocking new restrictive measures that had been intended to mark the fourth anniversary of the invasion while citing a dispute over oil flows through the Druzhba pipeline. Both Viktor Orbán and Robert Fico use the issue of the Druzhba disruption for domestic political campaigning purposes.

Most recently, in March 2026, Slovakia threatened to veto the six-month renewal of the entire existing individual sanctions list unless Usmanov and Fridman were immediately removed. However, EU diplomats called what came next one of the strangest U-turns they had witnessed: Bratislava, backing down without securing the removal of either. Hungary, likewise, dropped its list of seven names.

“Hungary is clearly fulfilling political orders from Russia,” a European diplomat said when reporters showed them parts of the transcripts of the two ministers’ phone calls.

Hungary’s interference in EU sanctions policy began within months of Russia’s full-scale invasion, and what started as isolated vetoes hardened over four years into a systematic, semi-institutionalised lobbying effort for Kremlin-linked figures.

“I've already removed 72 [Russian entities] from the list, but there were 128. I'm trying to continue, but I have to say that this is in the interest of Hungary,” Szijjártó told Russia's Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin.

“Weakening sanctions risks bolstering Russia’s war economy, undermining the broader security interests of all EU member states, including Hungary itself.”