Starzhinskaya took part in the 20th session of the Open-ended Intergovernmental Working Group on Asset Recovery, which was held Nov. 3-5 at the Vienna International Centre. The group is a subsidiary body of the Conference of the States Parties to the UN Convention against Corruption. According to organizers, the meeting was open to representatives of governments and international organizations, but not to nongovernmental observers.

In her remarks, Starzhinskaya said Russia follows a policy of “zero tolerance” toward corruption. According to the Investigative Committee, Russian authorities identified and seized more than $486 million in assets belonging to people accused of corruption in 2026. She also described the Investigative Committee's cooperation with Russian federal financial intelligence agency Rosfinmonitoring, its tools for tracing cryptocurrency transactions, and its efforts to handle more than 6,000 requests for international legal assistance over the course of four years. 

The European Union imposed sanctions on Investigative Committee Chairman Alexander Bastrykin on March 2, 2021. The Council of the EU held him responsible for arbitrary detentions, the prosecution of Alexei Navalny, and the suppression of peaceful protests. In an updated sanctions justification issued in 2023, the EU also cited what it described as systematic repression of Russia’s opposition by the Investigative Committee.

The sanctions have also targeted other officials at the agency. In May 2025, the EU added Investigative Committee officials to its sanctions list who the Council of the EU accused of taking part in fabricating criminal cases against activists, including people associated with Navalny. In practice, Russia’s Investigative Committee has become one of the main institutions carrying out systematic political repression in the country.

Starzhinskaya has regularly attended international events abroad. In March 2026, she wrote on VKontakte about an official trip to New York, where she said she helped draft a new UТ convention. “Everything came together on this trip, and it brought only positive emotions, valuable experience, and a chance to practice legal English!” she wrote. In January, she recalled a December 2025 trip to Vienna that included a visit to the Vienna State Opera. In July 2026, she again posted photographs from the Austrian capital.

Russia’s participation in the UN working group meeting does not formally violate the organization’s rules. Moscow ratified the UN Convention against Corruption in 2006 and remains a party to it. The meeting nevertheless took place at an international venue in Austria despite EU sanctions against the head of the Russian agency whose representative had been invited to speak. 

In September 2026, UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Russia Mariana Katzarova reported that Russian authorities had developed a system of transnational repression targeting its citizens around the world. She said documented cases of Kremlin critics being targeted abroad had increased eightfold since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Katzarova also said the Russian authorities use international legal assistance channels and Interpol notices to pursue critics outside the country.

On Oct. 29, Georgia’s Constitutional Court held another hearing in a case brought by the ruling Georgian Dream party, which seeks to ban the activities of the country's most prominent opposition parties. The lawsuit is radical even by the standards of established autocracies, and it is all the more shocking given the fact that as little as a decade ago Georgia was still considered a democratic success story. And yet, while society staggers under each new assault against normality, the government strikes harder.

The weakening of democratic institutions, restrictions imposed on citizens'  fundamental rights, and the  shrinking space for civil society in Georgia are all interconnected, according to the EU’s 2025 human rights report, published in August. According to the EU, some cases of police brutality against protesters amounted to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment. And no one in power is held accountable. 

Independent media are facing increasingly notably severe restrictions. Amendments to the Law on Broadcasting and the Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence prohibit foreign funding for media outlets, but in the hands of Georgian Dream, they function less as safeguards and more as a convenient justification for punishing journalists who violate the principles of “fairness and confidentiality” in their content.

Sometimes, it really does feel like all of this happened overnight. As recently as 2018, when neighboring Armenia carried out a series of democratic reforms, Georgia was still regarded as the leading democracy in the South Caucasus. As Tigran Amiryan, founder of Armenia's Cultural and Social Narratives Laboratory, wrote in a 2024 article : “For many years, Georgia was a leader in democratic transformation in the South Caucasus. The country’s aspiration to become part of Europe — or at least Eastern Europe — was not merely an ambition of Georgian civil society; it was reflected in a clearly articulated action plan.”

The Georgian Dream party, which came to power in 2012, was suspected from the outset of harboring ties to Moscow. Its founder and leader, Bidzina Ivanishvili, amassed a fortune in Russia through business deals with oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin. According to OCCRP, his family still owns high-value real estate in the Russian capital and holds accounts with Sberbank. The extent to which these connections influence Ivanishvili’s policies remains unclear, however, as the Georgian government continues to formally distance itself from the Kremlin. Georgia, for instance, has yet to restore full diplomatic relations with Russia, which were severed after the 2008 war. There have been worrying signs, however, including the expulsion of Russian opposition activists and journalists. Ivanishvili evidently does not want a falling-out with Moscow. Since 2022, numerous anti-war rallies have been held in Tbilisi and other Georgian cities, but the authorities have consistently refrained from taking a position on the Russia-Ukraine war.

The crackdown has been underway for several years. In October 2021, former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili (who had indeed entered the country illegally after a stint in Ukraine) was arrested in a highly publicized move. In late 2023, Georgia was granted EU candidate status, but by then it was already clear that the government was shifting the country’s political course in the opposite direction. In March of that year, the ruling Georgian Dream party introduced its Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence in parliament. It was immediately dubbed the “Russian law” because of its similarity to Russia’s legislation on “foreign agents.”

Although parliament passed the bill in a first reading, mass protests persuaded the government to withdraw it. Georgia was granted EU candidate status largely thanks to the efforts of civil society — not the actions of the government — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in November 2023.

The following year, Georgian Dream was better prepared to weather its citizenry's resistance. Despite promising not to revive the “Russian law,” it was pushed through parliament. Police responded to the resulting wave of protests with much greater aggression, using special equipment against demonstrators and carrying out mass arrests. For the first time, the authorities also deployed "titushki" — groups of plain clothes hired thugs who attacked activists, journalists, and opposition figures.

Repression intensifies

In the October 2024 parliamentary elections, Georgian Dream won an official 53.93% of the vote, securing 89 of the 150 seats in parliament. However, the election was marked by the the blatant abuse of democratic norms. The authorities mobilized public-sector employees and pensioners, warning them that an opposition victory would lead to the legalization of same-sex marriage and Georgia's entry into the war in Ukraine. Anticipating opposition protests, the authorities brought busloads of government workers and pensioners from across the country to Tbilisi for a counter-rally. Marching down Rustaveli Avenue with EU flags, the participants genuinely believed they were demonstrating against war and gay people while supporting European integration.

Opposition protests did indeed erupt, but not immediately after the election results were announced. Instead, they began a month later when the ruling party announced that it was suspending Georgia’s EU accession process until the end of 2028. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze made the announcement on Nov. 28 in response to a European Parliament resolution condemning “the worsening democratic crisis in Georgia following the parliamentary elections and alleged electoral fraud.” The European Parliament called for new free elections to be held within a year and proposed targeted sanctions.

In late November 2024, during the first days of the renewed protests, demonstrators erected barricades and threw firecrackers at police, who responded with unrestrained force — attacking protesters with water cannons and tear gas and carrying out mass arrests. Opposition leaders and media workers were also subjected to raids and arrests.

According to journalists’ estimates, the authorities arrested nearly 400 people during the first 10 days of the winter protests. Transparency International Georgia now counts 90 political prisoners in the country of 3.8 million. They include journalist Mzia Amaglobeli, sentenced to two years in prison for slapping a police chief, and poet Zviad Ratiani, who received a two-year sentence for “insulting a police officer.” During the mass protests, demonstrators received support from many diplomats and major businesses, but the authorities were prepared for this too — some officials were dismissed, while assistance funds set up by businesspeople to help protesters pay their fines were frozen.

A turning point came on Dec. 14, 2024, when Georgia held its presidential election. Pro-European incumbent Salome Zourabichvili, who had refused to recognize the results of the parliamentary election, was replaced by former footballer Mikheil Kavelashvili, a Georgian Dream loyalist. Zourabichvili initially refused to leave the Presidential Palace but eventually did so on Dec. 29, the day of Kavelashvili’s inauguration.

That same day, Kavelashvili fast-tracked a series of laws targeting protesters. These included a ban on covering one’s face and sharply increased fines for blocking roads and defacing property with graffiti. The Prosecutor General’s Office subsequently launched criminal cases against three organizations providing legal assistance to detained protesters — the Tbilisi Human Rights House, Sapari, and the Social Justice Center — charging them with “sabotage” and “hostile activities on behalf of a foreign power” and freezing their bank accounts.

On the day of his inauguration, the new president banned protesters from covering their faces and sharply increased fines for blocking roads and defacing property with graffiti. The Prosecutor General’s Office also opened criminal cases against human rights organizations over alleged “hostile activities on behalf of a foreign power”

In September 2025, a Georgian court handed down its first high-profile sentences against a group of activists in a case that became known as the “Trial of the Eleven.” All 11 protesters were sentenced to two years in prison under the provision criminalizing group actions that violate public order.

The largest wave of arrests came on Oct. 4, 2025, the day of the municipal elections, when a crowd of demonstrators toppled the metal barriers at the entrance to the Orbeliani Presidential Palace and broke into its courtyard. The authorities immediately branded the incident an “attempted coup,” while Zourabichvili (who was still president at the time) called the storming “a staged incident and a provocation by the regime aimed at discrediting peaceful protest.”

More than 60 protesters were charged with inciting the violent overthrow of the constitutional order, group violence, and seizing or blocking a strategic facility. Fifteen received prison sentences.

President Mikheil Kavelashvili later pardoned three of those arrested to mark the religious holiday of Mariamoba. Pardons on religious holidays are a longstanding practice among the Georgian authorities. For example, in late August 2026, they pardoned Russian national Denis Kulanin, who had also been arrested during the protests, on charges of damaging a police vehicle.

The attempted storming of the Presidential Palace exposed the Georgian opposition’s disorganization and lack of a clear strategy. As human rights activist Marina Meskhi recounted: “I simply couldn’t understand the opposition figures, Paata Burchuladze, for example, who called for the storming. Suppose they had entered the palace. What then? It was unclear what they were trying to achieve. They are now in prison, unable to communicate with anyone, so we cannot even know what they themselves think about what happened.”

One of the political prisoners in the Oct. 4 case is Nana Sander, a Georgian citizen who had lived in Germany for 16 years. She returned to Georgia to join the protests and, as she put it, to “defend the Georgian people’s right to have a voice.” Unlike most other defendants, Sander was charged with more than simply participating in the unrest. She received a seven-year prison sentence for organizing group violence and publicly calling for the violent alteration of the constitutional order or the overthrow of the government. 

The same sentence was handed down to the rally’s actual organizers: opera singer and opposition figure Paata Burchuladze, and politicians Murtaz Zodelava and Irakli Nadiradze. Sander said that she had been beaten in prison, ordered to strip in front of five staff members (including the prison director), and subjected to sexual harassment.

Georgian national Nana Sander, who had emigrated to Germany and was arrested at a protest, was beaten in prison, ordered to strip in front of five staff members, including the prison director, and subjected to sexual harassment

Daily protests continued after the October events. On Jan. 1, 2026, the continuous protest movement reached its 400th day, even if the demonstrations had become much smaller. The last rally to draw thousands of people took place on May 26, 2026, Georgia’s Independence Day. One reason for the decline in attendance was growing exhaustion in the absence of any visible change. “It is very difficult for some people to keep going. We have our own lives, jobs, and children,” one protester said.

Another important factor was the tightening of legislation. The new restrictions go beyond higher fines for wearing masks, using pyrotechnics, and blocking roads: organizing large demonstrations has also become more difficult in practical terms. Under the new laws, organizers of demonstrations “on roadways or in pedestrian zones” must notify the Interior Ministry at least five days in advance. The police then have three days to reschedule or relocate a protest if they believe it could obstruct the movement of “vehicles or pedestrians.”

Nevertheless, protests are still taking place in Georgia, and a large-scale demonstration is expected in late November to mark the second anniversary of the start of the protest movement.

A divided opposition

Following the 2024 elections, all four opposition blocs that cleared the 5% threshold — the Unity National Movement, Coalition for Change, Strong Georgia, and Gakharia for Georgia — refused to recognize the results or take part in the new parliament’s work. In October 2025, however, Gakharia for Georgia reversed course and had 11 of its deputies take their seats in parliament.

The party’s leader, former Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia, went into exile after two criminal cases were opened against him in November 2025. Party representative Giorgi Sharashidze explained the decision to return to parliament by saying that a boycott as a form of protest “had failed to stop Georgian Dream’s machine of evil or prevent the authorities from making decisions that harm the country.”

The other opposition parties, however, continue to boycott parliament. In March 2026, nine of them announced the formation of a united alliance, issuing a joint declaration stating that they would neither recognize the Ivanishvili regime nor participate in institutions that lend it legitimacy. However, six months later, Akhali party secretary Tengo Tevzadze said that the alliance had become dysfunctional, effectively ceasing to exist because of internal disagreements.

One factor undermining the opposition is the sweeping crackdown on its leaders launched by the authorities after Georgian Dream’s victory in the 2024 elections. Nika Melia, a member of the Coalition for Change, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for splashing water on a judge during a preliminary hearing in a case in which he was accused of insulting a police officer. Elene Khoshtaria, leader of the Droa party, received the same sentence for writing “Russian Dream” on an election poster featuring Tbilisi’s mayor. Levan Khabeishvili, chairman of the United National Movement, was sentenced to two years and six months in prison on charges of promising a bribe to a public official and publicly calling for the overthrow of the government.

In September 2026, former Defense Minister and United National Movement leader Giorgi Baramidze was arrested on charges of “treason against the homeland, namely sabotage,” over his remarks about the Georgian-Abkhaz war. Eight other opposition politicians are facing charges in the “sabotage case” — accused of passing information to foreign states, receiving funding for subversive activities from “hostile forces” (prosecution witnesses have named the CIA and USAID), and “radicalizing political protests.” Three of the defendants — Khoshtaria, Melia, and Mikheil Saakashvili himself — are already serving prison sentences in other cases.

These charges echo the government’s public rhetoric about its opponents. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has called the opposition “foreign agents,” while Georgian Dream deputy chairman Levan Machavariani has claimed that the EU is funding a “network of agents” inside the country to foment a revolution.

The prime minister has called the opposition “foreign agents,” while Georgian Dream’s deputy chairman claims that the EU is funding a “network of agents” inside the country to foment a revolution

Machavariani has also accused the EU's “ruling class” of having lost touch with its fundamental values and failing to serve the interests of the European people. He claims that European voters did not give their representatives a mandate to pursue what he described as “far-left, pseudo-liberal ideology,” “LGBT propaganda,” “uncontrolled illegal migration,” or “funding the Russia-Ukraine war until the last Ukrainian.”

Against this backdrop, Georgian Dream has filed a petition with Georgia’s Constitutional Court seeking to ban opposition parties. On Oct. 6, a panel of judges referred the petition to the court’s Plenum for consideration.

Even so, the opposition has failed to agree on a common protest strategy. The Lelo–Strong Georgia bloc is calling for closer cooperation between opposition parties and a renewed campaign in the regions. Tengo Tevzadze, secretary of the Akhali party insists that the opposition needs to mobilize for mass rallies. The United National Movement, meanwhile, is holding smaller demonstrations demanding the release of Mikheil Saakashvili and other political prisoners; they are also urging the United States to pass the MEGOBARI Act, a bill aimed at reassessing U.S. relations with the Georgian authorities.

Foreign nationals face intimidation

Among those sentenced for taking part in the protests are several Russian nationals: Denis Kulanin (who was later pardoned), Anastasia Zinovkina, Artyom Gribul, and Anton Chechin. Although Zinovkina, Gribul, and Chechin are officially serving sentences for drug possession, Transparency International Georgia has included them on its list of political prisoners.

Police arrested Chechin on Dec. 3, 2025, following a protest against the suspension of Georgia’s EU integration process. His lawyer, Giorgi Chkheidze, said that Chechin had also been detained after a protest on Nov. 18, with police officers warning him at that time to “stop and keep quiet.” In September 2025, a Tbilisi court sentenced Chechin to eight years and six months in prison on drug possession charges.

Anastasia Zinovkina and Artyom Gribul were searched and arrested in December of the same year. The prosecution claimed that, according to “operational information from a confidential source,” the two Russians had been distributing drugs at protest rallies.

The police say they found a total of 16 grams of the psychostimulant α-PVP in their pockets. At trial, Gribul said that after being detained, he was put into a car, where police officers took his jacket and slipped a packet of drugs into one of its pockets. Like other detainees, Gribul and Zinovkina had attended protests against the suspension of Georgia’s EU integration process. Before that, they had also taken part in protests in Russia.

During Anastasia Zinovkina’s closing statement, Judge Nino Galustashvili repeatedly interrupted her, preventing her from finishing her speech. However, human rights activists and journalists recorded its key passages, which included Zinovkina's call for mercy toward political prisoners and her vow to continue the political struggle:

“I have always been a brave person. Now I know that mercy exists. I call on you to make a revolution. Love is a revolution, mercy is a revolution — mercy for people whose lives, freedom, health, money, and future are being taken away by these terrorists... They have turned us into martyrs, but I promise I will not give up. I will fight with all my strength, and I am not afraid.”

Georgian nationals were also arrested on drug possession charges following their participation in protests. They included: journalist and Coalition for Change member Nikoloz Katsia, who was detained on his way to a rally on Rustaveli Avenue; Tedo Abramov, who was likewise arrested while heading to a protest; and doctor Giorgi Akhobadze, who had actively participated in the demonstrations and provided medical assistance to people injured by police. Yet while the Georgian activists were acquitted and released, the Russian nationals were convicted.

Georgian activists were acquitted and released, while the Russian nationals were convicted

Marina Meskhi attributes the difference to procedural factors: “The Russians supposedly had neutral witnesses — the interpreters. Drug planting has a long history in Georgia; it happened even under the previous government. Eight people convicted in such cases won at the European Court of Human Rights. Following those rulings, Georgia’s Constitutional Court ruled that arrests in drug-related cases must be video-recorded to prevent evidence from being planted and that neutral witnesses must be present. By using female interpreters as supposedly neutral witnesses, the police circumvented the Constitutional Court’s ruling.”

Besides the Russians, two Ukrainians — Sergey Kukharchuk and Ruslan Sivakov — also became victims of state repression during the protests. Both were sentenced to two years in prison for violating public order.

Stanislav Dmitrievsky, a Russian human rights activist living in Georgia, believes that Zinovkina, Gribul, and Chechin were targeted because of their outspoken political views. “The prosecutor’s office is still offering them the chance to admit guilt and reach a plea deal in exchange for their release. But the young men say they are unwilling to confess to something they did not do and insist that these cases are politically motivated,” he told The Insider. “This is a form of terrorism: choosing a victim simply because they are a convenient target for intimidating everyone else. You no longer see the Russian anti-war community at protests in Georgia. Everyone is intimidated, and everyone understands that their position here is precarious. This case has been a very effective way of targeting Russians and Ukrainians.”

The human rights activist also linked the harsh sentence handed down to Nana Sander to the authorities’ desire to send a message to Georgians living abroad that they should not interfere in the country’s domestic affairs.

“No care, no medication”

Political prisoners in Georgia frequently complain about their conditions of detention. “The women in the prison are living in terrible conditions,” Zinovkina said. “We don't even dream of freedom — all we want is conditions like those in the men's prison in Gldani. We want to see doctors, to be able to buy medication, and to have fresh food available in the prison shop. The cells in the women's prison are about nine square meters — with four beds, a table, a bench, and a bedside cabinet. There is barely any room for the women to move around.”

Marina Meskhi adds that Zinovkina’s back problems prevent her from sleeping on a standard prison mattress: “She has been diagnosed with bulging and herniated discs. Her request for an orthopedic mattress has gone nowhere. It has to be prescribed by a prison doctor, but he refuses to do so. The standard mattresses there are so bad that even someone with a healthy back could develop problems.”

Nana Sander, who is serving her sentence in the same prison, has also spoken about her health problems: “I have heart failure and back pain... They haven't even done an ECG. My jaw was swollen, but they did no X-ray, nothing. They prescribed antibiotics and said the X-ray machine was broken... No care, no examinations, no medication.”

Meskhi also recounts how she tried to send Alexei Navalny’s autobiography to Zinovkina: “I had sent the same book to Denis Kulanin, and it was accepted. But the rules for parcels are much stricter in the women’s prison. In the end, they refused to accept the book because, they said, something had been handwritten in it. What they meant was the phrase ‘Russia will be free’ on the last page, written in Navalny’s own hand. I had to tear out that page.”

“This barrack-room mentality seems to have developed over many years,” Meskhi explains. “Prison staff are used to dealing with ordinary inmates, who generally try not to make demands or complain. Now they have political prisoners, who are more inclined to stand up for their rights. But if you protest, argue, and file complaints, you can get a lot of things moving.”

Drug policy as a symbol of authoritarianism

Drug policy has long been a politically sensitive issue in Georgia. In May 2018, Tbilisi saw the so-called Techno Protest in response to police raids on the city’s nightclubs. Thousands of young people and electronic music fans gathered outside parliament on Rustaveli Avenue, staging a two-day rave featuring DJs and dancing. Eventually, Interior Minister Giorgi Gakharia came out to meet the crowd, apologizing for the police actions and promising an investigation.

The protests did not lead to immediate changes in drug policy but highlighted the need for reform. In the following years, Georgia took steps toward liberalizing its drug laws, including permitting the personal use of marijuana.

However, the country’s shift toward authoritarianism and intensifying repression have been accompanied by a tougher approach. The acquisition and possession of marijuana, previously decriminalized, have once again become subject to harsh penalties. The list of prohibited substances has been expanded, and penalties have been introduced for those refusing to take drug tests.

The crackdown goes beyond legislative changes, with police stepping up street searches. In July, Georgia’s Interior Ministry reported that around 5,000 people had been held liable for drug-related offenses in the first half of 2026, an 85% increase over the same period last year.

According to Davit Kiknadze, head of the Interior Ministry’s Central Criminal Police Department, those detained include both Georgian citizens and foreign nationals. Against this backdrop, reports emerged in August that all 14 prisons in Georgia had run out of space. A total of 1,830 foreign nationals are currently behind bars in the country, accounting for 14.8% of the overall prison population.

Although the available statistics do not establish that law enforcement officers are specifically targeting foreigners, there are indications that this may be happening. In recent months, several have been arrested for carrying prescription medications containing substances banned in Georgia.

In June 2026, police at Tbilisi Airport arrested 22-year-old Canadian national Simon Rowenski. He had arrived in Georgia with a prescription bottle of Adderall, prescribed by his doctor in Canada to treat ADHD. After Rowenski spent two months in detention, his family paid a fine of 30,000 lari (approximately $11,000), and he was released under a plea agreement and allowed to return to Canada. 

A similar case occurred in July 2026, when British national Matthew Roy Desmond entered Georgia carrying prescription painkillers for his back. After three months in custody, Desmond’s lawyers managed to reach a deal with the prosecution, and he was released from the courtroom after agreeing to pay a fine of 100,000 lari (approximately $37,000), followed by deportation from Georgia.

Russians living in Georgia have also reported an increase in police checks, an emigrant who wished to remain anonymous told The Insider:

“Previously, police mainly stopped people who looked unconventional, such as men with dyed hair. Now, it feels as though they stop just about everyone, although men still seem to be the main targets. I've been searched twice in the past few weeks.

The checks have become more intrusive. Police search your backpack, go through your phone, and look at your messages and photos. Presumably, they're looking for correspondence with drug dealers or pictures of drugs. For example, when they were going through my photo gallery, they took an interest in a picture of an avocado seedling. An acquaintance of mine had wanted to give it to someone before leaving the country and had taken a photo of it.”

Society wasn't ready for the crackdown

The speed of the political transformation caught Georgian society off guard, human rights activist Stanislav Dmitrievsky explained:

“After the civil war of the early 1990s, Georgia developed as a democratic state governed by the rule of law, and until 2024, Georgian Dream also stuck to that rhetoric. Then, suddenly, everything changed within a matter of months. In Russia, this process took many years. Until 2012, NGOs operated under relatively normal conditions, and Russian civil society had time to develop the tools it needed to resist and continue its work. Yes, people were harassed and repressed, but that work remained possible until 2022. In Georgia, however, everything collapsed almost overnight.

Working for an NGO had been prestigious in Georgia. It was a well-paid job that carried considerable social standing. There was extensive cooperation with the authorities and many worthwhile joint programs. And then, all of a sudden, the government says: ‘Stop. We're not going to Europe, and anyone who thinks otherwise is an enemy.’ Within a few months, laws were passed that stigmatized the entire independent sector as an enemy. Naturally, people were unprepared for this.

Human rights organizations suddenly faced a whole range of urgent problems — securing funding for organizations under pressure, and dealing with numerous criminal cases and state inspections. There were also administrative cases involving thousands of people. Georgia had grown accustomed to the idea that whenever large numbers of people took to the streets, the authorities had no choice but to respond. But the government behaved just as it does in Russia and Belarus. These are Russian-style rules: you can be hauled off to jail just for standing on the sidewalk. All of this came as a shock.

After the civil war and the wars in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Georgian society had developed a deep aversion to violence. The authorities, however, proved ready to use it. Ukrainians managed to break this cycle during the second Maidan uprising. When the Verkhovna Rada was about to vote on all those copies of Russian laws, tens of thousands of people took to the Maidan and stopped them from being passed. Here, people don't want violence.”

Even the close-knit personal ties characteristic of a small society have not shielded Georgia from the spike in repression. Marina Meskhi attributes this to the ideological indoctrination of the security forces:

“It's the same system as in Russia: a repressive apparatus. The special forces who dispersed the demonstrations are thugs who have been thoroughly brainwashed and ideologically indoctrinated. They've been made to believe that we're all enemies, some kind of foreign agents funded from abroad. And they receive decent salaries and serve the authorities loyally.

Georgia has a poor population living in remote villages where there is no decent education or prospects. People from these communities choose to join the security forces. It's like Russians who go to fight in Ukraine — they do it to escape poverty.”

Who supports Georgian Dream, and why?

Opinion polls conducted ahead of the 2024 elections suggest that, despite the ruling party’s sharp political turn, it still enjoys between 20% and 30% support — a figure well below the 54% it officially received in the elections. Researchers Tamara Khoshtaria of Ilia State University in Tbilisi and Veronika Pfeilstifter of the Institute for Caucasus Studies at the University of Jena analyzed opinion polls and concluded that “those most likely to support the protests are young people (aged 18–34), residents of the capital, supporters of Georgia’s EU accession, and those who distrust pro-government television channels.”

But geography does not tell the whole story. Tamara Khoshtaria identifies media consumption habits as “the most significant factor determining support for a particular party”: viewers of Imedi TV, Rustavi 2, and POSTV are considerably more likely to support Georgian Dream, while viewers of other channels tend to favor opposition parties.”

A study by CRRC-Georgia helps explain why pro-government television coverage resonates with Georgian voters. According to the findings, nearly half of Georgian Dream supporters believe in the existence of a “Global War Party” — a fictional political entity invented by the authorities to describe an international coalition of forces allegedly seeking to drag Georgia into a war with Russia, undermine its sovereignty, and use its territory to advance their own geopolitical interests.

Georgian Dream made extensive use of fears that Georgia could be drawn into a war with Russia during its election campaign. Billboards appeared across the country depicting devastated Ukrainian cities alongside slogans such as “Say no to war! Choose peace!”

Under this logic, the opposition is portrayed as serving foreign interests, while Georgian Dream casts itself as the party that keeps Georgia on its European path while preventing it from being drawn into another armed conflict. 

The façade of a multi-vector foreign policy and a shift toward Russia

The Georgian authorities continue to voice support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Yet Georgia has refused to join most Western sanctions against Russia, and the United States has identified Kremlin agents of influence among Georgian officials.

Back in 2021, Carnegie Europe Caucausus expert Thomas de Waal observed that Georgian Dream's approach to relations with the West followed the models of Azerbaijan and Turkey: control the media, courts, and elections, invoke “Georgian values,” yet maintain working relations with Washington and Brussels, as well as Moscow. After Georgian Dream came to power in 2012, Tbilisi resumed economic ties and some diplomatic contacts with Moscow, a move that researchers Bidzina Lebanidze and Kornely Kakachia attribute to the Georgian elite's conviction that the country had to take Russia's interests into account, even if the rapprochement had to remain discreet due to civil society's opposition to fostering closer ties with the Kremlin.

The situation changed after 2022, when Georgian Dream began moving more openly away from its pro-European course. Erekle Gozalishvili, a researcher at the University of Regensburg, uses the term “pseudo-hedging” to describe the appearance of a multi-vector foreign policy masking an actual shift toward Russia. This does not mean that the Kremlin is running the country, he notes. Rather, closer ties with Russia have proved useful to Georgian Dream as a means of consolidating its grip on power at home.

Per Ekman, a researcher at the Stockholm School of Economics, argues that the Georgian authorities have exploited Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine to manufacture an external enemy capable of justifying the repression of civil society at home. “Russia’s war against Ukraine allowed Georgian Dream to present itself as the party of peace and stability, while portraying anyone critical of the ruling party as seeking to drag Georgia into war,” he concludes.

According to the business outlet Kommersant, the appeal was sent to Putin in mid-October and was forwarded to the government for consideration. One of the publication’s sources claims that the proposal received partial support from the competent deputy prime ministers. Bochkari proposed appointing itself as temporary manager of the two companies, which until 2022 bottled Coca-Cola and other international brands in Russia. The authorities have not yet reported any decision regarding the matter.

The authors of the appeal claim that the foreign owner’s suspension of investment negatively affects the Russian economy and tax revenues. In addition, they cite the global parent company’s support for Ukraine and its sponsorship of sports competitions in which Russian athletes are not allowed to participate. If it receives management, Bochkari promises to invest, among other things, in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine and to fund charity programs.

More than €1 billion in Russian accounts

As The Insider discovered, the foreign owner’s financial documents show that the group’s Russian business continues to accumulate significant cash. According to Coca-Cola HBC’s report, as of July 3, 2026, the group’s Russian subsidiaries, including Multon, held €1.04 billion in cash and cash equivalents – a growth of €190.3 million, or 22.4%, from €850.2 million at the end of 2025.In the same document, Coca-Cola HBC notes that sanctions and other restrictions make it difficult to repatriate profits from Russia.

It should be noted that the €1.04 billion is the combined funds of the group’s Russian subsidiaries, not exclusively of the two companies that Bochkari wants to manage.

Coca-Cola HBC’s latest reporting does not indicate that the Russian business has ceased operations. On Nov. 4, the company stated that in the third quarter, beverage sales volume in Russia grew by a high single-digit percentage year-on-year, generally describing its Russian business as financially self-sufficient.

According to Coca-Cola HBC’s annual report, the group’s revenue in Russia in 2025 amounted to €1.61 billion –  an increase of almost 19%, from €1.36 billion a year earlier. By comparison, Bochkari’s revenue for the same year was 8.64 billion rubles ($106 million). By The Insider’s estimates, the international group’s Russian subsidiaries received roughly 18 times as much revenue as the company claiming management of its assets. However, these are figures for different groups of legal entities.

The lawmaker has already bought a foreign company’s assets after Putin’s intervention

Businessman Vadim Smagin, who owns 97.9% of Bochkari, is also a sitting deputy of the Altai Territory Legislative Assembly from United Russia. According to his official biography, he has worked in the regional parliament since 2011 and in the previous convocation served as deputy chair of the committee on agrarian policy. In September 2026, Smagin again won a seat and joined the United Russia faction in the new parliament.

In September 2026, Smagin acquired the Russian plants of the international company Canpack, which produces aluminum beverage cans. On Dec. 31, 2025, Putin had placed Canpack’s Russian enterprises under the temporary management of another company, Stalelement. In August 2026, the temporary management was lifted, and on Sept. 10, Canpack completed the sale of its Russian assets.

According to Canpack’s official statement, the company received $122 million for its stakes in the former Russian enterprises. It had earlier recognized damages of $354.7 million from the loss of control over them, stressing that this was significantly below its estimate of the assets’ fair market value at the time. As RBC reported, the buyer, Vadim Smagin, did not step in until after the temporary management had been lifted. The introduction of temporary management does not in itself mean a transfer of ownership to the state or to a company it appoints. However, the Canpack example shows that such a decision may be followed by foreign owners choosing to get rid of their Russian assets.

Analysts estimate Multon’s value at no less than 245 billion rubles ($3 billion). Of that, 150 billion rubles ($1.84 billion) is the business itself and 95 billion rubles ($1.16 billion) is cash.

Russian Coca-Cola continued to earn after 2022

After the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Coca-Cola stopped producing its international brands in Russia, but its production facilities continued to operate under local brands; in particular, Dobry Cola went on sale to replace Coca-Cola.

In April 2024, The Insider wrote that Coca-Cola’s Russian subsidiary, Multon Partners, had quadrupled its net profit for 2023, to 10.25 billion rubles ($125.5 million), with revenue reaching 77.3 billion rubles ($946.5 million).

The FMBA was placed under Putin’s direct authority in June 2024 by presidential decree No. 522. The agency, headed by former Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova, had previously reported to the Russian government. Among other responsibilities, the FMBA provides medical services for employees in Russia’s nuclear, space, and defense industries, as well as workers at organizations facing heightened radiation, chemical and biological risks.

Authorities said the university’s transfer was intended to consolidate scientific and educational resources. According to the FMBA, Pirogov University departments already operate at 12 of the agency’s research centers, while the institutions have jointly established 36 academic departments. Areas of cooperation include gene therapy, immunomedicine, neurotechnology, and bioinformatics. Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said the consolidation would help develop educational programs in biomedical and genetic technologies. The FMBA said the university would not become a closed institution serving only the agency.

The transfer comes as Russia develops large-scale state programs in biotechnology and life extension. As The Wall Street Journal reported in May 2026, Russian authorities are funding a $26 billion anti-aging program that includes organ bioprinting, gene therapy, and transplantation of organs from genetically modified animals. The newspaper said the program is overseen by Putin’s daughter Maria Vorontsova, along with Mikhail Kovalchuk, the head of Russia’s Kurchatov Institute, a major state nuclear and scientific research center,

Research in related fields is also underway within the FMBA. The agency’s medical genomics department, for example, studies biological age and the genetic characteristics of aging, while its Center for Biomedical and Additive Technologies works on regenerative medicine and methods for bioprinting organs and tissues.

In September 2025, Putin discussed the possibility of achieving immortality through biotechnology during a hot mic conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. ““With the development of biotechnology, human organs can be continuously transplanted, and people can live younger and younger, and even achieve immortality,” an interpreter was heard translating Putin as saying. “Predictions are, this century, there’s a chance of also living to 150,” Xi replied.

Pestrikov brought a claim in a British court against Alexander Gutin, the former chairman of the Solikamsk Magnesium Plant’s board of directors. The businessman previously told Vedomosti that he was seeking $1 billion in compensation for the loss of his stakes in the Solikamsk Magnesium Plant and the Lovozero Mining and Processing Plant. Both companies were nationalized in 2022 and later came under the control of Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation.

Court documents say Pestrikov accuses Gutin and other former co-owners of the businesses, including Pyotr Kondrashev, Sergei Kirpichev and Timur Starostin, of conspiring to remove him from the firm’s management and to arrange for the transfer of control over the plants to Rosatom. Pestrikov alleges that Gutin, who represented Cyprus-based Canemare Enterprises (the seller of the shares), deliberately structured the transactions in 2015 so that Russian authorities could later declare them unlawful and intervene in the companies’ management. Gutin denies the allegations.

According to the ruling, Pestrikov’s asylum application in France was still pending as of June 25, 2026. It is not known whether he has since been granted asylum.

British judge questions prospect of a fair trial in Russia

Gutin challenged the British court’s jurisdiction, arguing that by the time the legal documents were served on him in October 2025, he was already permanently living in Cyprus. The judge found that documents he provided, including boarding passes, banking records, and information relating to him renting a home, supported his claim that he had moved. The court therefore ruled that service was invalid and set aside the proceedings without considering the conspiracy allegations on their merits.

In the ruling, The Insider found a notable observation by the judge about the Russian justice system. Dias said that although the core circumstances of the dispute were closely connected to Russia, there were serious grounds to believe Pestrikov would not be able to obtain a fair trial there. She described some of Gutin’s arguments to the contrary as weak.

Another detail identified by The Insider in the court records concerns the cost of the failed case. Gutin’s legal expenses exceeded 500,000 pounds. The judge expressed surprise at the size of the bill for what she described as a relatively straightforward procedural dispute and declined to approve the full amount without further review. Pestrikov was nevertheless ordered to make an interim payment of 100,000 pounds to the defendant.

Russia hands Pestrikov eight years in prison in absentia

In 2025, Igor Pestrikov acquired an approximate 25% of the shares in the Solikamsk Magnesium Plant. In May 2022, a court granted a prosecutor’s request to return to the state 89.5% of the plant’s shares that had been owned by four major shareholders. The court found that the plant’s privatization in the 1990s had been unlawful.

In April 2025, the Solikamsk City Court sentenced Pestrikov in absentia to eight years in prison. Prosecutors alleged that he had embezzled 250 million rubles ($3.1 million) belonging to the company and later tried to obtain another 2.5 billion rubles ($30.7 million) under the guise of a buyout of his stake in an affiliated business. Pestrikov was outside Russia, and the criminal case proceeded without him.

The regional publication RBC Perm reported in July 2025 that the criminal case included an Interpol document dated April 19, 2024, which characterized Pestrikov’s prosecution as political and aimed at depriving him of his property rights. A Russian appeals court rejected that assessment and upheld the eight-year sentence.

The nationalization of the Solikamsk Magnesium Plant affected more than its major shareholders. In March 2024, The Insider reported that a court had ordered the seizure of shares from private investors, many of whom had bought them on the stock exchange. The decision was criticized by Russian Central Bank Gov. Elvira Nabiullina and the Moscow Exchange, which warned that it could undermine investor confidence.

The nationalized plant continues supplying raw materials to Europe

After the nationalization, the Solikamsk Magnesium Plant and the Lovozero Mining and Processing Plant became part of Rosatom’s structure. The Lovozero plant mines rare-earth raw materials that are processed in Solikamsk. In October 2026, The Insider reported that the EU had removed the Solikamsk Magnesium Plant and its director, Ruslan Dimukhamedov, from a draft sanctions list at Estonia’s request because of European industry’s dependence on the company’s supplies.

According to the investigative project Sistema, between 2022 and 2024, the Solikamsk Magnesium Plant supplied Estonia’s NPM Silmet with more than $50 million worth of rare-earth raw materials. The company’s products are used in Europe’s automotive, electronics, and aviation industries, as well as in the production of wind turbines.

The license is valid through Feb. 28, 2027 and allows for the completion of a number of transactions that are required before Russian-origin securities can be transferred to MOL Serbia Investment Kft. MOL stated, however, that the license does not allow the deal itself to be completed:

“The licence does not authorise the completion of the transaction resulting in the divestment of Russian ownership and control in NIS. Any such completion would require separate authorisation from OFAC.”

On Nov. 4, Hungarian Foreign Minister Anita Orbán said Budapest expects an agreement on the purchase of the Russian stake in NIS to be made official by Dec. 11. She said all sides are seeking to complete the negotiations before the deadline expires.

On Oct. 21, Serbian First Deputy Prime Minister Siniša Mali said MOL had signed a contract to buy the Russian stake in NIS. Gazprom Neft and Gazprom together own 56.1% of the company, while the Serbian government is expected to increase its stake from 30% to 35% under a shareholder agreement with MOL.

NIS, which owns Serbia’s only oil refinery, was sanctioned by the United States in January 2025. The measures took effect in October 2025 but have since been postponed multiple times.

The identities of those detained have not been disclosed, with authorities saying only that the Polish citizens are between the ages of 25 and 52 and that the Russian woman is 37. Four of the six have been placed under arrest.

Investigators say members of the group were involved in illegally supplying “military-use materials” that could be used in the production of ammunition and weapons. Polish prosecutors said the case involves the export of weapons components — including cartridge cases and bullets — from Poland to Russia without the required permits.

All six have been charged with participating in an organized criminal group. Four have also been charged with working for Russian intelligence.

Investigators believe the group operated from at least June 2023 through December 2025. Members purchased the necessary items, including through online stores, and transported the shipments across the border into Russia’s Kaliningrad Region. They were said to have fitted their vehicles with specially constructed hidden compartments for the smuggling. Border guards intercepted some of the shipments.

The value of the ammunition components illegally exported to Russia is estimated at 2 million zlotys, or about 455,000 euros.

Siemoniak said that since 2024, nearly 100 people have been named as suspects in espionage and sabotage investigations in Poland.

Two years ago, Mulivanov, who was a member of the council of the Latvian Russian Union party, left his home country due to dissatisfaction with government policies. He opposed restrictions on the Russian language and was against the provision of aid to Ukraine. After moving to the Moscow Region, he obtained Russian citizenship and got a job as a courier. According to Mulivanov’s relatives, his employers turned out to be fraudsters, and he was unknowingly involved in transporting stolen money. In April, he was detained in a fraud case and refused to plead guilty.

Acquaintances claim that Mulivanov was tricked into filing an application and signing a contract with the Ministry of Defense around the time of his arrest last spring. His lawyer said:

“Both documents are undated. The dates were put in only now, in October 2026. A signature that is half a year old was processed as if it had been made just the other day.”

On Oct. 28, Mulivanov and his lawyer were told that he was being sent to war and that the fraud case against was being suspended. Both the accused and his defense responded by writing formal refusals.

After a hearing on Oct. 30, Mulivanov was taken to the Russian Investigative Committee, where officials again tried to get his signature. He refused to sign anything without a lawyer present but was apparently put on a bus to Rostov nevertheless. His relatives say he called them from the road.

Mulivanov has type 2 diabetes and suffers from polyneuropathy. According to his defense, he did not undergo an examination by a military medical commission.

As the Moldovan Bureau for Reintegration Policies stated:

“This is a Russian provocation aimed at hindering Moldova’s European integration. We condemn Russia’s actions and will consider possible responses without escalating the situation, given that Russia’s intentions to destabilize Moldova are of a permanent nature. Upon his return, we will apply restrictive measures to Krasnoselsky, including a five-year ban on leaving the country’s territory.”

The Bureau also noted that Krasnoselsky had officially traveled to Russia as part of OSCE-facilitated discussions on supplying Transnistria with natural gas. The agency stressed:

“The problems of gas supply for residents of the left bank of the Dniester and the efforts of the OSCE remain extremely important for the pragmatic management of the situation and the prevention of escalating tensions, as well as for increasing trust between the two banks of the Dniester in order to ensure a sustainable process of reintegration of the Transnistrian region.”

In the awards ceremony video published by the Kremlin, Krasnoselsky is referred to as “president of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic,” even though Moscow does not officially recognize the region’s independence. After receiving the award, the Transnistrian leader expressed gratitude to Putin and Russia. Among other things, he thanked the Russian president on behalf of “the Transnistrian people for peace and for Russia’s peacekeeping mission on the Dniester,” saying:

“On behalf of the people of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic and personally, I congratulate you on National Unity Day. Transnistria is undoubtedly part of the Russian World. When I speak of the Russian World, I speak and think of the Russian civilizational space. We are part of the great Motherland, and it is not our fault that we ended up far away, unfortunately. Nevertheless, we have fully harmonized our legislation with Russia, and all our education standards are entirely Russian. Thanks to your support, graduates of our schools and universities receive Russian certificates and diplomas. In addition, thanks to your support, all the books, specifically Russian books, for our schools have been printed in a timely way. Thank you very much. Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, if you ask any citizen of Transnistria what the Russian World means to them, they will say quite simply: the Russian World is life.”

As the Moldovan human rights association Promo-LEX has reported, starting in 2027 the Transnistrian authorities intend to introduce the use of Russian history textbooks that were composed under the direction of Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky. The measure will apply to schools in the region where Ukrainian is the language of instruction. Officials in Tiraspol have said that using Ukrainian textbooks is impossible “for ideological reasons.” In Russian history textbooks, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is called a “special military operation,” and the occupied territories are called “new regions.”

Newsmaker writes that Krasnoselsky’s second term as president of Transnistria expires in December 2026. Among his possible successors is Vitaly Nyaga, head of the Tiraspol executive committee. His potential rival in the regional election race is local lawmaker Vadim Kravchuk, whom Moldovan President Maia Sandu earlier stripped of Moldovan citizenship.

At the same time, the Swiss government said it would align its measures with the EU’s 21st sanctions package against Russia and Belarus, extending restrictions to 254 additional individuals and organizations. Switzerland also banned transactions with 33 Russian banks, one bank in a third country, 17 financial institutions and cryptocurrency service providers, five companies in third countries, four Russian airports, and two ports. It also imposed restrictions on the purchase, sale, and servicing of 41 vessels linked to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, which is used to circumvent sanctions on Russian oil and other cargo.

Switzerland is not required to automatically follow the EU

Unlike the EU’s member states, Switzerland decides independently which foreign sanctions to adopt. It is not a member of the European Union, and the legal basis for its restrictive measures is its own Embargo Act. The Federal Council, Switzerland’s executive branch, makes decisions separately after assessing whether proposed measures comply with Swiss law, foreign policy interests, and the country’s neutrality policy.

Since 1998, however, Switzerland has in most cases adopted EU sanctions either fully or in part. On Feb. 28, 2022, four days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Federal Council decided to adopt the EU’s initial sanctions packages against Russia. Swiss authorities have separately stressed that doing so did not amount to abandoning neutrality.

In the current case, the government explicitly said that it had removed six people and one company from the sanctions list in line with the EU decision. Switzerland nevertheless retained the ability to adjust other measures independently and has so far declined to add two EU-sanctioned Russian citizens to its list and has declined to impose tighter export controls on 14 companies in third countries. Their names were not disclosed.

What assets are frozen in Switzerland

According to data from the Swiss Bankers Association reviewed by The Insider, Swiss banks managed 9.73 trillion Swiss francs in assets in 2025. Of that total, 2.36 trillion was held in international private wealth management. According to Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), 8.5 billion francs in financial assets belonging to sanctioned individuals and entities were frozen in the country as of July 1, 2026. Fourteen properties, as well as cars, aircraft, works of art, and other valuables, were also blocked.

Removing Usmanov and Fridman from the list could provide grounds for unfreezing some previously restricted assets. Swiss authorities, however, did not disclose the value of the Russian billionaires’  assets that had been subject to such measures.

Why the European Union lifted its restrictions

On Sept. 14, the Financial Times published an article citing sources who said French authorities, under pressure from Azerbaijan, were lobbying for the EU to lift sanctions on Uzbek-Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov. According to the newspaper, removing the sanctions was part of a deal to secure the release of French citizens detained in Azerbaijan.

The European Union removed Usmanov and Fridman from its sanctions list on Sept. 22 but did not explain the specific reasons behind the decision. On Sept 23 Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev pardoned French citizen Martin Ryan, who had been sentenced to 10 years in prison on espionage charges. Ryan was released and returned to France.

The French Foreign Ministry characterized the pardon as the result of “patient and constructive” dialogue with Azerbaijani authorities. Azerbaijan, for its part, rejected allegations that it had sought to pressure France.

According to the FT’s sources, Luxembourg had sought the lifting of sanctions on Fridman. The businessman is seeking around $16 billion in compensation from the country over a dispute pertaining to frozen assets.

Ukraine’s reaction

The European Union’s decision drew criticism in Ukraine, where President Volodymyr Zelensky called the lifting of sanctions on individual Russian oligarchs “self-defeating and counterproductive,” saying pressure on Moscow should be increased rather than eased.

The recipients were listed under the code K-10, which the analysts said is used to designate Iran. Tehran was to receive launch equipment for the missile known as Product 305, or Kh-39. The missiles are typically mounted on helicopters. Each carries a 25-kilogram warhead and an electro-optical seeker, and an operator can also guide the missile while it is in flight.

Export batches of the launchers were scheduled for delivery from late 2024 through December 2025, but it remains unclear whether they were actually shipped. The analysts said photographs allowed them to confirm deliveries of the Russian-supplied helicopters, but based on the images it could not be determined whether the missile launchers themselves had also been sent.

Russia has also shared intelligence with Iran, The Washington Post reported earlier this year. The information may have been used to help target American forces in the Middle East during the ongoing U.S.-Iran war.

Moscow has continued supplying weapons to foreign buyers despite the needs of its own military, as noted by the Financial Times. The deliveries indicate that Russia and Iran have further strengthened their partnership over the course of the war in the Middle East.

The ship’s captain, Russian national Andrei Maksimenko, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. The boatswain, Azerbaijani citizen Vusal Mejidov, was sentenced to two years and 10 months.

Both were found guilty of aggravated criminal damage and will also be required to cover the cost of repairing the cables and the gas pipeline in the gulf, as well as the cost of the investigation into the damage.

The verdict has not yet entered into force and may be appealed, as Maksimenko and Mejidov pleaded not guilty.

The cargo ship Fitburg was detained on Dec. 31, 2025, on suspicion of severing a telecommunications cable between Helsinki and Tallinn. The Fitburg was found near the site of the incident with its anchor chain lowered into the water. About two weeks later, the authorities lifted the arrest of the vessel, but the crew members, the boatswain, and the captain were ordered to be held in custody for the duration of the investigation against them.

Who owned the Russian company

Fontanka’s report mentions only Amos Lieberman. However, The Insider found that the Russian company was owned by both sons of the Israeli politician: Amos Mordechai Lieberman and his brother, Yaakov David Lieberman, known as Kobi. According to corporate registry records, each held a 50% stake in Lamed A.K., which was registered in Moscow on Jan. 24, 2019.

Pavel Kurilenko served as director general from the company’s founding. However, on April 12, 2023, both brothers withdrew as shareholders, leaving Kurilenko as the sole owner. On April 25, 2025, the company changed its name to Welltov LLC while retaining the same registration numbers. Nevertheless, when Hermes began signing contracts with the company, both of Avigdor Lieberman’s sons were still co-owners.

How the company became linked to Patriot Park

Amos Lieberman knew Hermes CEO Yevgeny Mariyev and, investigators believe, helped him obtain and renew contracts to service Defense Ministry facilities in Moscow and Kronstadt, Fontanka reported. Hermes initially worked as a subcontractor, with the main contractor, management company UK BSM, assigning it part of the work. In 2021, Hermes received its first contract to clean the Main Naval Cathedral. The company then began servicing facilities in Moscow, and by 2023 it had gained access to sites in Kronstadt. In 2026, Hermes became a direct contractor, replacing UK BSM.

According to Fontanka, investigators allege that beginning in 2021, Hermes signed and renewed contracts with Welltov that were used to make payments in exchange for assistance securing and extending Defense Ministry contracts. Investigators say the work covered by the agreements was not actually carried out and that the money — the aforementioned 200 million rubles ($2.4 million) — was transferred abroad.

Other episodes in the Patriot Park corruption case

The Patriot Park corruption case involves several episodes tied to senior officials and companies that serviced the Defense Ministry complex. In October 2025, Yevgeny Grigorkin, head of the Kronstadt branch of the ministry’s museum and cathedral complex, was arrested. Investigators said he accepted 15 million rubles ($183,000) in exchange for helping lease more than 2,500 square meters of a military pier to Archeda, a private company, and nearly 5 million rubles ($61,000) for approving maintenance work at branch facilities. In April 2026, a court sentenced Grigorkin to six years in a maximum-security penal colony, fined him 32 million rubles ($391,000) and ordered the confiscation of about 19.8 million rubles ($242,000).

In April 2026, Patriot Park Deputy Director Vitaly Melimuk was detained. Investigators allege he received 18 million rubles ($220,000) from Hermes CEO Yevgeny Mariyev in exchange for assistance securing contracts and other considerations. Russia’s Investigative Committee said that in December 2025, a state customer signed contracts with Hermes worth more than 1.4 billion rubles ($17.1 million) for comprehensive engineering, technical, and sanitation services at the park outside Moscow and at its branch in Kronstadt.

In October 2026, Hermes CEO Mariyev and Patriot Park head Igor Vasilyev were placed under house arrest in connection with the bribery case. According to Fontanka, Vasilyev is accused of receiving 80 million rubles ($978,000) from the head of Hermes. Patriot Park deputy directors Sergei Fedosov and Alexei Pavlyukov were also detained, while Vladimir Naon, head of general contractor UK BSM, was placed under house arrest.

What else is known about the Lieberman family’s business

Amos and Kobi Lieberman had previously drawn scrutiny from Israeli journalists over their business dealings involving Russia. In February 2024, TheMarker published an investigation by journalist Gur Megiddo into the business activities of Lieberman’s sons. Among other things, it examined the operations of the Russian company Lamed A.K. Holdings Russia Ltd, which acted as an intermediary in export deals from Israel to Russia.

According to the journalist, entities connected to the brothers supplied products from Israeli manufacturers to Russia, including equipment made by Elbit Systems. The investigation also cited a deal involving the delivery of ventilators to Russia during the coronavirus pandemic. The journalist alleged that some shipments continued after international sanctions were imposed on Russia. Elbit denied involvement in the transactions described.

Avigdor Lieberman called the report baseless at the time and said he had never contacted anyone in Israel or abroad regarding his sons’ business activities. He added that he was proud of their entrepreneurial work.

Avigdor Lieberman is currently a member of the Israeli Knesset and the chairman of the Yisrael Beiteinu (“Israel Our Home”) party. He has served at various times as Israel’s foreign, defense, and finance minister. The party’s official website lists him as having three children: daughter Michal and sons Kobi and Amos.

What does the commander of the Leningrad Naval Base have to do with it?

Fontanka linked the new testimony to the recent arrest of Alexei Suglobov, commander of the Baltic Fleet’s Leningrad Naval Base. Suglobov was detained on Oct. 21 in Kronstadt while allegedly accepting 1.5 million rubles ($18,000). Alexei Ionov, head of the Defense Ministry’s naval engineering service, is also a defendant in the bribery case.

Fontanka noted that Patriot Park has not been mentioned in the case materials concerning Suglobov. The outlet said his position would have brought him into contact with managers at the Defense Ministry complex and that he may have information relevant to its operations. Fontanka also reported that Suglobov is prepared to enter into a pretrial cooperation agreement with investigators.

The Insider previously found that Suglobov had already been serving as acting commander of the Leningrad Naval Base in August 2023, more than two years before his permanent appointment. The case involving the alleged use of military land for sand extraction and the dumping of construction waste was already the second corruption investigation of its kind in Russia’s Leningrad region within a year.

According to the spreadsheet, the debt more than doubled over four months, rising from 1.48 billion rubles ($18.1 million) in January to 3.13 billion rubles by May 1. Payments were overdue to 66,300 workers. Nearly 94% of that total was owed by organizations that lacked sufficient funds of their own to pay wages. Another 1.32 billion rubles ($16.1 million) consisted of debts dating back to before the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022.

In another letter released by the hackers, Rosstat instructed officials to exclude data from the Russian-occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions from nationwide Russian statistics. Information from those territories was to be provided only to government bodies for official use and was not to be published or shared with third parties.

Other released materials include industrial production statistics for the Donetsk Region for 2025, a table showing shipment volumes and average prices for Russian exports in October 2025, registered deaths in Krasnoyarsk Krai in June 2023, and estimates of the population in the Russian-occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia Region for 2024 and in the Donetsk Region for 2023. 

Another document shows that Donetskstat, the regional statistics agency operating under Russian control in occupied Donetsk, continued to provide nonpublic statistics to local authorities. In response to a request from the Donetsk city administration, the agency provided figures for April 2026: average monthly gross pay at organizations employing more than 15 people was 79,000 rubles ($965). A note at the end of the document specifically states that such information is provided to state and municipal authorities for official use only and may not be published or passed to third parties.

The Cyber Partisans say that over the course of six months, they gained access to approximately 25,000 computers on Rosstat’s internal network and downloaded several terabytes’ worth of documents. They also say they obtained a database of deaths registered among Russian citizens since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine (through August 2026). The group has not yet completed its count of people killed as a result of combat operations. The eight files that have been released so far represent only a small portion of the material the group says it obtained.

The Insider recently reported on the Rosstat breach. The agency confirmed that it had been targeted by cyberattacks but said it had found no evidence that its databases had been compromised or that information protected by law had been taken.

In February 2026, The Insider also reported that Rosstat’s published wage-arrears data excluded the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine. The documents released by the hackers now provide a glimpse into some of the figures that had been left out of Russia’s nationwide statistics.

The Air Serbia plane was scheduled to operate a regular flight, JU134, from Belgrade to Moscow at about 6:48 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 3. Roughly two hours later, the aircraft reached southern Lithuania, where it was turned around. It returned to Belgrade at about 10 p.m.

On board were Serbia’s former Deputy Prime Minister and Movement of Socialists leader Aleksandar Vulin, Serbian People’s Party (SNP) founder Nenad Popović, and director of the Srbijagas state-owned gas company Dušan Bajatović.

According to Nova, the order to turn the plane around came from the head of corporate security at Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla airport and was issued on the grounds that Vulin had managed to board the aircraft without undergoing a security screening. It is unclear how. The flight reservation database also showed no ticket for him on that flight, although it did show that he had traveled to Moscow shortly before the Sept. 21-22 elections.

Popović had also bought tickets to Moscow for every day after the election through Nov. 7, suggesting he may have expected that he would need to leave the country but did not know exactly when.

Serbian opposition figures had earlier hinted that they knew about the Vučić allies’ plans for a departure from Belgrade. As the head of the country’s Democratic Party Srđan Milivojević asked rhetorically on social media a few hours before the flight:

“And who is fleeing to Moscow by plane tonight at 6:30 p.m.?”

Vulin and Bajatović later confirmed media reports that they had been on the plane with Popović. The former deputy prime minister called allegations that he had violated security procedures “lies,” while Bajatović said his trip was connected to negotiations over gas supplies and problems with payment transactions following the recent closure of Alta Bank in Serbia.

The plane eventually landed in Moscow on the morning of Nov. 4, with Vulin later posting a video address on Instagram recorded in central Moscow. In it, he said he had “not fled” Serbia but had come to Russia for a series of meetings related to gas deals.

Aleksandar Vulin served as deputy prime minister in the final years of Vučić’s presidency. Before that, he headed Serbia’s Interior Ministry and later its Defense Ministry, and from 2022 to 2023 led the country’s Security Intelligence Agency (BIA) — Serbia’s main civilian security and intelligence service. Vulin has long been known for his pro-Russian positions and for organizing surveillance of opposition activists in Belgrade. In 2021, he provided Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev with recordings of conversations involving Russian opposition activists in Serbia. Those recordings may have contributed to the arrest and conviction of Andrei Pivovarov, the former head of the opposition group Open Russia.

In 2024, Vulin received what was described as an “FSB order for cooperation” in Moscow, honoring his “professionalism” in addition to his work with the Russian security service.

Vulin’s tenure as deputy prime minister was brief, lasting from May 2024 to April 2025. Shortly before leaving the government, he was criticized by the EU enlargement commissioner over his pro-Russian stance. In March of 2025, he thanked Russia for helping Serbia “fight a color revolution” in reference to the large-scale student protests that had swept the country. Vulin had already been under U.S. sanctions since 2023.

Nenad Popović is the founder of the right-wing Serbian People’s Party. He currently serves as a minister without portfolio in Serbia’s government. In 2017, he was described as possibly being the country’s wealthiest politician thanks to a fortune built in part through business interests in Russia. Popović owns ABS Electro, a Russian electrical-engineering and industrial equipment group. Like Vulin, Popović is under U.S. sanctions.

Dušan Bajatović has headed state-owned Srbijagas since 2008. He was also recently appointed Russia’s honorary consul in Novi Sad.

Serbia’s snap parliamentary elections in late October were won by the protest-driven student movement, with the Student List securing an outright majority in the National Assembly. Shortly before the vote, Vučić resigned as president, and on election day, he conceded the defeat of his Serbian Progressive Party. 

Speaking about other possible sources of gas for Hungary, Orbán mentioned the Vertical Gas Corridor, which carries Azeri natural gas and regasified LNG from Greece to Bulgaria, Romania, and Moldova. According to the country’s Foreign Minister, Hungary could also receive fuel via this route.

Budapest also seeks to cease its purchases of Russian oil, Orbán said, explaining that the country’s largest oil and gas company, MOL, is working to adapt its refining capacity. It aims to secure supplies of non-Russian oil, for example through the Croatian JANAF pipeline.

“So if we look at the regional energy infrastructure related to natural gas and crude oil, at energy security in general, we will see that Hungary can play a very important stabilizing role, acting as a transit territory and distribution hub for both natural gas and crude oil. We have the largest storage capacity; we are connected to six countries; we can supply other countries too, and in the oil sector MOL’s role is decisive in the region. We hope that thanks to the elections in Serbia, Hungary will become a strategic partner in the region for the United States.”

According to Orbán, negotiations on access to the JANAF pipeline could progress faster if a deal between MOL and the Serbian oil company NIS is finalized. Russia’s Gazprom Neft still holds a controlling stake in NIS — 44.85%. On Oct. 20, Serbian Finance Minister Siniša Mali told Bloomberg Adria TV that an agreement had been signed to transfer the Russian company’s share to MOL; however, the next day, the MOL Group stated that the document had not yet been signed.

Hungary’s stance on Russian energy resources changed after the opposition Tisza party came to power in May 2026. The previous government of Viktor Orbán opposed giving up Russian gas. This past February, Hungary filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Justice challenging the REPowerEU regulation, which provides for a complete ban on Russian gas imports in 2027.

“Sirens, songs, and tears of joy. What happened on Serbia’s streets showed just how much of a burden Aleksandar Vučić had become for the citizens of his own country. People’s faces showed relief, as though they had thrown off shackles and could walk freely again. No one organized this joy. There were no buses, handouts, or lists needed. It came after the man who captured the state and turned the daily humiliation of citizens into a method of government admitted defeat. We are tired of a state where one person decides who is a patriot, who is a traitor, who is allowed to speak, and whose life should be destroyed. Now there must be accountability for violence, abuses, persecution, and public money spent to preserve one man’s personal power...” Hundreds of similar reports from Serbia have circulated around the world in recent days.

Vučić’s defeat, despite his extensive use of state resources that included near-total control over much of the media, election bodies, and the judicial system reminded many of events in the fall of 2000, when mass protests brought down the regime of Slobodan Milošević.

Media outlets and experts have also drawn comparisons with Hungary’s former prime minister Viktor Orbán, who until recently had seemed politically untouchable. Those striking parallels, however, do not answer the central question: after power has been taken from Vučić, can it be retained? The atmosphere is tense, and people want swift justice. But institutions cannot be created and reformed quickly, analysts caution.

Musical chairs gone wrong

For Vučić, the risky “seat-switching maneuver” was essentially the only option left after nearly two years of mass protests, which erupted following the deaths of 16 people at the Novi Sad railway station. Growing public anger could not be suppressed either by accusations that students were terrorists or by the alleged use of a “sound weapon” against protesters.

In the past, Vučić had repeatedly turned to snap elections to reaffirm his dominance and overwhelm familiar opponents from Serbia’s traditional liberal opposition. But the decentralized student movement, with little political experience and no well-known leaders, proved much harder to defeat.

Running under the slogan “Serbia or the Mafia,” the students absorbed much of the electorate. At the same time, they refused to cooperate with opposition parties, arguing that those parties were themselves part of Serbia’s entrenched political system.

A presidential election is also due in the coming months, and Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party, or SNS, will try to advance its own candidate. The task will be difficult: The former president’s personal ability to control domestic political processes and the state apparatus has been sharply diminished, while the protest movement has reached the Republic Electoral Commission itself. Several commission members accused the body of pressure and dishonesty and demanded an apology over the failure to open enough polling stations abroad, forcing many voters to travel hundreds of kilometers to cast ballots.

Will Vučić delay the transfer of power?

In the Oct. 25 election, the Student List — Students Win movement received 52.54% of the vote, giving it about 140 seats in the 250-seat parliament. Vučić’s United Serbia coalition received 39.29%, goog for 103 seats. The remaining seven seats went to parties representing national minorities.

All other political forces, including the Socialist Party, Vučić’s longtime coalition partner, failed to cross the 3% parliamentary threshold. It was the first time in 30 years that the Socialists — led until 2000 by Slobodan Milošević and later by his former spokesman Ivica Dačić — failed to win parliamentary representation.

The protest movement’s victory has opened a window of opportunity, but it is not exactly a  wide one. The winners have no experience governing the country, while state institutions remain under the influence of Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party. Candidates for prime minister and other cabinet posts have not yet been presented, and forming a government could take months.

Candidates for prime minister and Cabinet posts have not yet been presented, and forming Serbia’s new government could take months

Vučić’s team could also delay the transfer of power, creating the risk of a deeper crisis. Vučić, for his part, has accepted no personal responsibility for the state of the country. He blamed his defeat on independent media, unnamed European countries, and the “American deep state.”

After Oct. 25, Vučić’s political influence shifted from near-absolute dominance to opposition leadership. He still heads a large parliamentary bloc and can count on the loyalty of a substantial share of voters. His rapid concession surprised many and may have been a tactical move intended to reduce his immediate risks and preserve a political future for himself and his allies.

Vučić’s associates have already promoted claims of supposed “revolutionary terror” and a “witch hunt” aimed at eliminating him. In reality, no member of Vučić’s team has been physically attacked, arrested, or placed on a wanted list. Demands for the dismissal of senior officials who served the old system hardly match such sweeping claims. Even after the election, acting president Ana Brnabić, a Vučić ally, appeared confident enough to trade insults with passersby on the streets — and even to challenge them to arrest her.

There are, however, more prominent potential targets for investigation. The allegations against Vučić himself and Finance Minister Siniša Mali include abuse of office, corruption, financial wrongdoing, and unlawful pardons, among other matters. One of the most politically explosive cases reaching the highest levels is the investigation into the reconstruction of the Novi Sad railway station — where the fatal collapse that sparked the protest movement occurred.

Another major corruption controversy centers on the removal of cultural heritage protections from the former Yugoslav General Staff complex in Belgrade, which was bombed by NATO in 1999. The move was made to clear the way for a hotel project backed by Jared Kushner; however, Trump’s son-in-law withdrew from the $500 million project amid the controversy, and an investigation into alleged document falsification involving Culture Minister Nikola Selaković remains open.

From protest politics to governing

“Vučić and his team cannot be trusted for a second until a new government is formed. This is a mafia structure, not simply a group of citizens who lost an election,” critics of the old government warn.

The first priority, experts say, should be establishing control over the police and military and removing Vučić loyalists from leadership positions, even as those officials try to negotiate and issue threats. The next step would be appointing professionals to senior posts.

Despite its historic victory, the Student List faces numerous challenges. Vučić has already threatened that members of his party would “self-organize” if state authorities failed to respond to an Oct. 26 incursion by a group of people into the studio of the pro-Vučić television channel Informer, and critics interpreted the statement as a dangerous threat — even an announcement that vigilante groups could be formed to deal with protesters. Vučić’s remarks were particularly striking given that he still retains considerable influence over the security services.

In addition, internal disagreements among the winners could emerge quickly as well because of their ideological diversity, which ranges from pro-Western liberals to nationalists.

One possible candidate for prime minister is Ilija Srđanović, a cardiologist from Novi Sad who headed the Student List. However, it remains entirely unclear who might take over key departments such as the Interior Ministry, Finance Ministry and Justice Ministry. Those appointments could become the subject of bitter disputes.

The formation of the executive branch will take place in the middle of another election campaign, meaning the new government’s real program is unlikely to take shape fully until after the presidential election.

The new authorities may also face pressure from the European Union, Serbia’s largest investor and source of financial assistance, and also from Russia, which supplies the country with gas. Serbia has no long-term contract with Gazprom and discounted supplies are currently renewed every three months.

A flicker of friendship

Moscow’s response to Vučić’s defeat has combined official restraint from the Kremlin with approving commentary in some pro-government Russian circles. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow highly valued Vučić’s contribution to Russian-Serbian relations, and the Kremlin expressed its hope that he would continue supporting bilateral ties from the opposition benches. Moscow also said it hoped Serbia’s new political forces would understand that constructive cooperation with Russia was in Serbia’s interests.

Some Russian commentators welcomed Vučić’s defeat. For example, the nationalist outlet Tsargrad described the change of power as liberation from a “false patriot” who had maneuvered between Russia and the West.

Although some observers (like Vučić himself) have suggested that the new government could begin reassessing relations with Moscow, this remains speculation. For now, there is little basis for expecting a major shift in Belgrade’s long-standing foreign policy of maintaining relations with all major powers — the EU, the United States, Russia, and China.

It is far from certain that Serbia’s new government will seek to reassess relations with Moscow

Vučić is clearly trying to push his opponents into confrontation with both Russia and the United States. Until recently, he controlled much of Serbia’s pro-Russian electorate and counted closer relations with the United States under Trump among his achievements.

This summer, the United States and Serbia announced the launch of a strategic dialogue. The initiative was intended to open the way for closer cooperation in foreign policy and defense, as well as a larger U.S. presence in Serbia’s energy sector. That, in turn, could help the country reduce its dependence on Russian oil and gas.

Washington is unlikely to care greatly who ultimately takes Vučić’s place. Moscow, however, may be tempted to intervene as its influence in the Balkans continues to shrink. After the collapse of Vučić’s team, the Kremlin effectively has no obvious political partner of comparable stature in Serbia.

Not such a valuable ally

Vučić successfully cultivated an image, where useful, of being a “Kremlin ally,” but his policies were never truly pro-Russian. Public displays of closeness to Moscow and admiration for Putin’s power never translated into recognition of Russia’s annexation of Crimea or abandonment of Serbia’s EU ambitions.

Vučić had no intention of trading the European Union, which accounts for roughly two-thirds of Serbia’s foreign trade, in favor of a Eurasian alternative that simply could not offer comparable economic opportunities, goods, or technology. His favored eastern partner has long been China, and the warm reception given to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Belgrade this summer could even be described, using the language of Russian diplomacy, as a “stab in the back” to Moscow.

Serbia’s principal contacts with the Kremlin in recent years have taken place at a lower level, through Minister for International Economic Cooperation Nenad Popović and Aleksandar Vulin, chairman of the supervisory board of state-owned Srbijagas. Both have been under U.S. sanctions since 2023.

The United States accuses Vulin of links to organized crime and drug trafficking, as well as corrupt dealings that “facilitated Russia’s malign activities.” Popović, who owns numerous companies in Serbia and Russia, was accused by U.S. authorities of “embezzlement and tax schemes.”

The fact that Serbia did not impose sanctions on Russia was a source of satisfaction for the Kremlin in recent years, as it prevented the West from presenting a completely united anti-Russian front in Europe. But it produced little tangible benefit: since 2022, trade between Russia and Serbia has fallen by nearly half, to $2.3 billion.

In practical terms, relations between the two countries have reached one of their lowest points. That is especially true after the future of Serbian oil company NIS — which is 44.85% owned by Gazprom Neft — was thrown into doubt. The United States imposed sanctions and demanded the complete removal of Russian capital from the company’s ownership. Negotiations have continued over a possible purchase of the Russian stake by Hungary’s MOL oil and gas group.

Direct intervention in Serbia or an attempt to help Vučić return to power would be disadvantageous for the Kremlin. The Student List does not hold an explicitly anti-Russian position, and Vučić himself has recognized the legitimacy of the election results. Russia’s ability to influence Serbia’s political scene is also extremely limited, partly because Serbia is geographically separated from Russia and surrounded by NATO and EU states.

Moscow could nevertheless use Vučić as a strong pro-Russian counterweight to the new government. The Kremlin still has its traditional tools of influence, from the propaganda outlets Sputnik and RT to the energy lever, which allows Moscow to offer discounts or raise prices as it sees fit. 

The content, which features fabricated images of foreign newspaper front pages, is designed to resemble outlets and organizations including France 24 and Euronews, as well as the Human Rights Watch group and even the United Nations. All of the posts center on an incident that took place Nov. 2 in the village of Petropavlivska Borshchahivka outside Kyiv, where local residents said dozens of military personnel had been discovered in the basement of a private home.

Videos circulated by Matryoshka claim that a secret prison was uncovered in the Kyiv Region on Nov. 2, where members of the Azov unit allegedly held dozens of military personnel — along with a 14-year-old boy who showed signs of beatings and torture. The bot network adds further unverified claims, including allegations of mass graves and the involvement of Ukrainian intelligence. Several videos also claim that protests are being planned in France to demand an end to aid for Ukraine. The posts encourage viewers to share the videos with their relatives and friends.

The main fabricated narratives include:

• Azov fighters allegedly kidnapped Europeans for ransom and then killed them. A video bearing the logo of Polish broadcaster TVP World claims that two Polish citizens may have been among those held in the “secret prison.” The kidnappers allegedly demanded 30,000 euros for their release, but contact with the hostages was lost after the money was handed over. The video also claims that two French volunteers who fought on Ukraine’s side may have been kidnapped.
• A video styled as a Human Rights Watch report claims that hundreds of secret prisons operate in Ukraine. Citing the rights organization, it alleges that hidden basements are used for torture, killings, and blackmail.
• French publication Franc-Tireur is falsely presented as reporting that a mass grave containing the bodies of 64 people was discovered on the grounds of a purported secret prison in the Kyiv Region.
• A video designed to look like a Euronews report claims that Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Ukrainian president’s office, knew of the existence of secret prisons in the country. Its creators allege that European partners repeatedly warned Kyiv that disclosure of information about torture could undermine support for Ukraine among EU countries.
• Another video, styled as material from the UN initiative “Stop Rape Now — UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict,” claims that the supposedly “freed” 14-year-old boy was also subjected to sexual violence. The creators allege that such crimes were routinely committed in “secret prisons” and that people in France now intend to demand that President Emmanuel Macron’s government stop funding Ukraine.

At the same time, images are being circulated that imitate the front pages of Western publications, including La Croix and Libération, falsely claiming to present evidence of “crimes committed by Volodymyr Zelensky.” The Israeli publication The Jerusalem Report is even falsely portrayed as reporting on a “revival of Nazism” in Ukraine.

The Insider has links to the original posts and materials provided by Bot Blocker confirming that the accounts that published them belong to the Matryoshka network. The newsroom is not publishing direct links in order to avoid helping spread the false material.

What is Matryoshka?

Antibot4Navalny’s researchers coined the name Matryoshka to describe a Russian operation that produces and spreads fake stories through a coordinated infrastructure of bots, trolls, and anonymous platforms. Its aim is to create artificial information “noise” and manipulate perceptions of events both inside Russia and abroad. The Antibot4Navalny project named the operation after the eponymous Russian nesting doll — the bots hide behind one another, and disinformation is spread in layers across different platforms, making the source harder to identify.

The mechanism works in two ways. First, it creates large numbers of fake profiles posing as ordinary people, independent media outlets, or think tanks. These accounts generate dozens of posts a day, imitating local styles of speech. Second, identical content is launched simultaneously across multiple social media platforms. In order to appear convincing, the bots use the logos of well-known Western media outlets and human rights groups.

The document shows that prosecutors are asking the court to dismiss the case with prejudice, meaning the same charges could not be brought against Petrova again.

According to prosecutors, their main reason for seeking to dismiss the case was the significant resources required to continue pursuing it. Petrova’s lawyers had argued that she was being selectively prosecuted. In spring 2026, the court agreed to examine those claims and ordered prosecutors to provide information about other passengers who had similarly failed to declare biological materials comparable to the embryos, as well as records of similar customs inspections.

Prosecutors concluded that locating and producing the information would require substantial time and resources. The government ultimately decided that “resource costs of continuing this prosecution outweigh the public interest in its resolution.” Prosecutors nevertheless maintained that the charges against Petrova had been justified.

Petrova worked at Harvard Medical School and had lived in the United States since 2023. She was detained in February 2025 after arriving in Boston from France. In her luggage, customs officers found a box containing embryos of clawed frogs, which she said she was transporting at the request of her research supervisor. Petrova had not declared the samples; she later said in an interview that she did not know she was required to do so.

In June 2025, Petrova was released on bail. That same month, a grand jury found sufficient evidence to indict her on a smuggling charge. She was also charged with making false statements and concealing material facts. The smuggling charge carried a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. The additional charges carried up to five years in prison and fines of the same amount.

The equipment installed in the interactive panels allows a microphone to be activated remotely by a server command and to record what is happening in a classroom. Teachers and students have not been officially informed that lessons may be recorded. School administrators may have been notified informally, however, because teachers have circulated rumors about the capabilities of the new panels.

Since 2022, Moscow schools have installed the Moscow Electronic School operating system on interactive panels and computers. It is a Linux distribution built on the ROSA Linux package base.

Meanwhile, an rpm package called mesh-agent-lesson-log has two versions. The first was titled “Agent for Audio Recording of a Lesson” and was not widely installed. The current version, called “Agent Ensures Conduct of a Lesson,” no longer mentions audio recording in its name. “On three boards in different schools, dnf history shows the package being installed and updated from August through October 2026,” the GitHub post said.

A source in Moscow’s education sector told Mediazona that audio-recording devices are also installed in laptops that are used as part of the MosTech ecosystem supplied to schools. According to the source, the recordings were intended to be processed by artificial intelligence, but the results have so far been deemed unsatisfactory, and the neural network is expected to undergo further training with human participation. Officially, the recordings are intended to compare schools’ calendar-based curriculum plans with what is actually taught during lessons.

Two other Turkish citizens were arrested in Baden-Württemberg in October in connection with the same case and are currently facing extradition proceedings. Investigators allege that the third suspect instructed the other two men to set fire to the Starlink station in Poland. He has been charged with organizing a terrorist attack.

Polish authorities believe Russian intelligence services were behind the attack on the Starlink facility, which provides communications support — including for the Ukrainian military. Der Spiegel, citing sources in several countries, reported that investigators suspect the Turkish criminal group Daltons (Daltonlar) may have carried out the act of sabotage on orders from Moscow.

The gang’s suspected leader, Beratcan Gökdemir, was detained in Russia in 2024. Turkey sought his extradition, but German intelligence officials said Russian authorities later released him and placed him under their protection. It remains unclear whether Gökdemir is still in Russia.

In late October, Lithuanian police said they had established a connection between arson attacks on Starlink equipment in Lithuania, Bulgaria and Poland. Investigators said the same two men carried out the attacks in Lithuania and Bulgaria, and that the perpetrators of the arson in Poland were also linked to them.

According to the data cited by Lisitsyna, great crested grebes died in the largest numbers — about 10,300, which accounts for more than three-quarters of the recorded deaths. Another 1,022 of the killed birds belonged to nine different endangered species.

On Oct.15, the Commercial Court of Krasnodar Territory fully upheld a lawsuit by the regional Ministry of Natural Resources against Volgatransneft, Kamatransoil, and Kama Shipping. The defendants were ordered to pay a combined 34.22 billion rubles ($423 million) in environmental damage and another 30.7 million rubles ($379,000) in losses to the Krasnodar Territory budget.

Almost all of the environmental damage, 34.12 billion rubles’ worth ($421 million) — or about 99.7% of the overall total — is for harm to the habitat of endangered species protected at the regional level. The direct damage from the deaths of protected birds was estimated at approximately 93.4 million rubles ($1.15 million). The amount also includes damage to game resources and to the soils of the Solyonoye Lake nature reserve, according to the court ruling reviewed by The Insider.

Even before the ruling, Volgatransneft tried to challenge the methodology used to calculate damages, arguing that regional authorities have no power to set such rules independently. However, in March the Krasnodar Territory Court rejected the company’s claims, finding the methodology lawful.

Courts had earlier ordered the tanker owners to pay 84.94 billion rubles ($1.05 billion) for damage to the aquatic environment of the Black Sea. Volgatransneft, which owned the tanker Volgoneft-239, accounted for 35.48 billion rubles ($438 million). Another 49.46 billion rubles ($611 million) was ordered to be paid jointly by Kamatransoil and Kama Shipping, which are linked to the tanker Volgoneft-212. Including the October ruling, the total compensation in the three court cases has reached 119.2 billion rubles ($1.47 billion).

However, collecting this money will be extremely difficult. As The Insider found, the companies held responsible for the disaster have minimal assets. Bankruptcy proceedings were initiated against two of them, and bailiffs have repeatedly terminated enforcement proceedings due to the fact that the debtors have no property.

In an earlier investigation, The Insider also established that the tankers were carrying fuel oil owned by Rosneft. The company was simultaneously the owner of the cargo, the shipper, and the consignee — and yet it was not named as a defendant in the main lawsuits for compensation of environmental damage. Moreover, both tankers were beyond their permitted service life, and the documents of one of the vessels had been suspended.

The tankers Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239 were wrecked on Dec. 15, 2024, during a storm in the Kerch Strait. According to the Russian Transportation Ministry, approximately 2,400 metric tons of fuel oil entered the sea. The petroleum products polluted the coasts of Krasnodar Territory and annexed Crimea. Thousands of volunteers took part in efforts to rescue birds and clean affected beaches.

The fallout of the accident persists almost two years later. In September 2026, as The Insider found, satellite images continued to show oil slicks near the sunken parts of the tankers, despite statements by Russian authorities that all of the fuel oil had been pumped out.

According to Razvozhayev, energy infrastructure facilities outside Sevastopol were attacked again overnight into Nov. 3. The authorities did not specify which energy facilities were damaged or when stable power supply would be restored. The city receives most of its electricity from outside, and the volume of incoming power, the governor admitted, is not sufficient even for the “two by six” schedule.

Late on Nov. 2, energy workers announced that all restrictions had been lifted. At 11:37 p.m., the dispatcher of the Black Sea Regional Dispatch Office gave the command to reconnect all consumers. However, after the overnight attack, the restrictions had to be reintroduced, and it turned out to be impossible to provide even the level of service promised by the previous schedule.

Power outages also affected other areas of occupied Crimea. According to reports from Krymenergo, consumers in towns including Saki, Alushta, Yevpatoriya, and Feodosia were left without electricity. In Alushta, rolling blackouts were introduced because of reduced available capacity. In Yevpatoriya, the power outages led to a drop in pressure in the water supply system. Energy workers are carrying out emergency repairs, but the exact timeframe for eliminating the consequences is not yet known.

The current restrictions followed a large-scale power outage on Oct. 24. After an attack on energy infrastructure outside Sevastopol, a significant part of the city went dark. The monitoring channel Krymsky Veter suggested that the damage may have affected the Taman substation, but no independent confirmation of that hypothesis is available.

On the evening of Oct. 24, Razvozhayev said that about 40% of the city was receiving electricity, and that the remaining consumers were being reconnected. On Oct. 25, the power supply was temporarily restored, and on Oct. 26, Razvozhayev promised that the outage schedules would soon be canceled entirely, with public transportation and city lighting returning to normal operation. However, after an overload hit the grids again, the authorities switched to a schedule of “three hours with power, three without” before once again returning to the “two out of eight” regime on Oct. 27.

A similar situation already occurred in the summer. Mass outages on the peninsula began on June 21, and on June 24, after another attack, Sevastopol was almost completely left without electricity. Trolleybuses stopped running in the city, some daycare centers temporarily cut back their operations, and water supply was disrupted. Subsequently, the Russian authorities declared a regional-level state of emergency in Crimea and Sevastopol.

The next month, the energy crisis recurred. On July 12, Sevastopol was put on the “two to six” schedule, and after a new strike on July 14, the restrictions tightened. On July 17, the authorities abandoned the fixed schedule due to insufficient capacity. Power was subsequently restored, but towards the end of September, after about a month without restrictions, the city was again placed on the “two to six” schedule. Crimea’s power system remains dependent on electricity supplied from mainland Russia.

The Insider learned that Uglev died Oct. 26. In recent years, he had lived in the southern Russian resort city of Anapa.

His name became widely known in 2018 when the biochemist gave a series of interviews following the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, England. Uglev also spoke extensively to the media about the properties of Novichok after Navalny was poisoned in 2020.

“While responsible for the development of the powerful toxin, in later years he was an outspoken critic of its use to target civilians. Uglev openly contradicted the Kremlin denials in both the Skripal and Navalny cases,” The Insider’s lead investigator Christo Grozev wrote on X.

Uglev advised The Insider during investigations into the use of Novichok by the Russian security services. Among them was The Insider and Bellingcat’s 2020 investigation into who produces Novichok in Russia and how it is manufactured.

Vladimir Uglev was born Sept. 20, 1946, in Kirovsk, Russia. In 1975, he graduated from the Dmitry Mendeleev Moscow Institute of Chemical Technology with a degree in the chemistry and technology of biologically active substances. From 1975 to 1990, he worked as a senior researcher at the Volsk branch of GosNIIOKhT, the State Scientific Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology, which was involved in the development of chemical warfare agents.

As The Insider previously reported, before Russia’s declared destruction of its chemical weapons stockpile, substances from the Novichok family were also developed at the Russian Defense Ministry’s 33rd Central Scientific Research and Testing Institute in Shikhany-2, a closed military settlement in the Saratov Region. Uglev worked there on some of the earliest Novichok agents until 1990.

Novichok is a family of highly toxic organophosphorus nerve agents developed as chemical weapons. Agents from this group are prohibited under the Chemical Weapons Convention and are subject to controls by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

Jiangxi Guangbo is a resident of the Russian-Chinese Business Park in St. Petersburg and cooperates with Nanchang Hangkong University in Jiangxi, China. The PRC introduced restrictions on drone exports in 2023, meaning the company’s activities appear to contradict Beijing’s publicly stated policy.

Interceptor drones and fiber optics for torpedoes

On June 16, 2026, Jiangxi Guangbo Optoelectronic Technology published a report on its Telegram channel about its participation in Fleet 2026, an exhibition organized by the Russian Defense Ministry and Russia’s Maritime Board. The event included a conference titled “Exports and International Cooperation in Unmanned Maritime Systems,” and Jiangxi Guangbo representatives offered Russian military customers three products: the HJ-7 drone, a fiber-optic communications system, and an inertial navigation system.

According to the company, the HJ-7 was developed as a high-speed unmanned interceptor and can also be used as a strike drone. Promotional materials list a maximum speed of 450 kilometers per hour, a range of 15 kilometers, and a warhead weighing up to 500 grams. Jiangxi Guangbo says the drone can automatically detect and track a target and destroy it — either through a direct hit or by being programmed to detonate remotely. In addition to the HJ-7, the company offers a five-inch AI-equipped interceptor drone designed “for modern air defense missions.” It is a lighter aircraft with a claimed speed of up to 350 kilometers per hour and target recognition at a distance of 200 to 300 meters.

Visually similar drones with comparable technical specifications and an advertised AI target-guidance function are available via the Russian online marketplace Wildberries. The listed manufacturer is a company whose Chinese name translates as “Sasha Drone Shop.” Its product range includes drone detectors, backpack-mounted drone jammers, anti-drone guns, and dozens of types of interceptor drones.

In the summer of 2026, the Ekipirovka Expert marketplace began selling a lightweight drone called the Shershen, or “Hornet,” that visually resembles Jiangxi Guangbo’s product. On the Russian Soyuzvoentorg website, a similar interceptor drone is sold under the Yastreb, or “Hawk,” brand.

Samuel Bendett, an adviser specializing in unmanned systems at the U.S. Center for Naval Analyses, said the use of such interceptors could give the Russian military an additional advantage — provided it obtained enough drones, trained a sufficient number of operators, and integrated information about threats and interceptions into the broader operational picture.

A significant number of components in the Chinese interceptor were produced in the United States and Europe. The Arm Cortex-A72/A53 CPU cores and Mali-G52 GPU in its Chinese-made Rockchip processor are based on Arm architecture. Other components include a BME280 temperature, pressure and humidity sensor from Germany’s Bosch Sensortec; a nine-axis BNO086 inertial measurement unit developed by Bosch and U.S.-based CEVA; an STM32H7 processor and M41T62 real-time clock chip made by STMicroelectronics; and an AT24C02 EEPROM memory chip manufactured in the United States.

At the same Fleet 2026 exhibition, Jiangxi Guangbo promoted fiber-optic communications as technology that is “particularly suitable for underwater systems and torpedo weapons.” The company offered “deep technical cooperation with Russian partners — including joint development and the creation of solutions for specific combat missions.”

Jiangxi Guangbo offers fiber-optic cable in lengths of up to 100 kilometers, along with the machines that are used to wind it onto spools. This technology could allow the Russian military to substantially increase the operating range of fiber-optic drones, which are resistant to electronic warfare thanks to the fact that they communicate through a physical cable rather than a radio link. However, Bendett said the drawbacks of longer fiber-optic lines could outweigh the benefits, as a larger spool would increase the drone’s weight and reduce its speed and maneuverability.

Jiangxi Guangbo’s operations in Russia

Guangbo’s Russian-language Telegram channel was created in May 2026. In its first promotional post, a company representative wrote that he was based in St. Petersburg and that the company specialized in “fiber-optic systems protecting unmanned aerial vehicles from communications interference.” The channel initially advertised fiber-optic spools, fiber-optic gyroscopes, and navigation modules. By June, its product range had expanded to include complete strike and interceptor drones.

In addition to Fleet 2026, the company took part in Drone Expo 2026 in Kazan, which was organized with support from Russia’s Ministry of Industry and Trade, the National Technology Initiative Foundation, and the Federal Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems. In September 2026, Jiangxi Guangbo also attended the International Technology Congress — ITC 2026 — at the Russian Defense Ministry’s Patriot Park.

Jiangxi Guangbo has a representative office in St. Petersburg staffed by at least three employees. It invites buyers to its premises in Russia and organizes remote tours of its production facilities in China.

Beyond the online marketplaces selling interceptor drones, The Insider identified another buyer of the Chinese company’s products. On June 26, 2026, Moscow-based Smart Opt Trading LLC received a Eurasian Economic Union declaration of conformity for customs clearance of a Jiangxi Guangbo Opto-Tech fiber-optic spool containing 30 kilometers of fiber.

How an FSB supplier sells Chinese drones as Russian-made products

The most widely marketed interceptor drones among those visually similar to Jiangxi Guangbo’s products are sold under the Strizh brand. They are available on Russian marketplaces including AlcorTactical, Mobismart, Russian Caliber, and Ekipirovka Expert, among others. Like its Chinese analogue, the Strizh has a torpedo-shaped fuselage with four motor pods mounted on external booms, similar 915 MHz and 2.4 GHz frequencies, a flight range of up to 15 kilometers, and a service ceiling of up to 5,000 meters; however, the Strizh’s advertised payload capacity and speed are lower than those of the Chinese model. As in the Chinese commercial offer, the dimensions of the supposedly Russian-made drone are — unusually — given in inches. Prices vary from 229,000 rubles ($2,800) for a five-inch Strizh on Mobismart to 355,000 rubles ($4,350) for the same drone on Russian Caliber.

Mobismart lists NPP NTT LLC as the manufacturer of the Strizh drones. The company is owned in equal shares by Irina Andropova and Tamara Romanenkova, who previously each held 12% stakes in STC LLC. STC produces Orlan drones and has been sanctioned by the United States and the European Union. NPP NTT is also linked to another legal entity associated with the Orlan manufacturer — Technologies of Radio Control JSC, which is also under U.S. and EU sanctions. NPP NTT’s registered address matches the address of a separate division of Technologies of Radio Control, while the founders of Technologies of Radio Control are relatives of NPP NTT’s former owners. The sanctioning of one Russian company did not prevent its owners from continuing to purchase equipment abroad through another legal entity and supplying it to Russian defense plants and security agencies.

NPP NTT has held contracts with the FSO, FSB, and Defense Ministry since 2012, and in recent years is has become a major supplier to the manufacturer of Geran drones and the FSB’s Center for Special Technology. According to a ruling by the Arbitration Court of the Republic of Tatarstan, NPP NTT signed a supply contract with Alabuga Special Economic Zone JSC under which it delivered 280 million rubles’ worth ($3.4 million) of computing equipment between December 2025 and March 2026 alone.

The FSB’s 11th Center for Special Technology, which is part of the agency’s Scientific and Technical Service, filed six lawsuits against NPP NTT in 2024 and 2025 over the performance of contracts worth a combined total of more than 65 million rubles ($796,000).

NPP NTT’s website and product declarations confirm that the company makes counter-drone systems, including products sold under the Strizh brand. During 2025, NPP NTT registered declarations for a stationary multichannel counter-UAV system, a handheld multichannel counter-UAV system, and a 360-degree surveillance radar. Products listed on the company’s website include the stationary Strizh-3 counter-drone system.

The grammar in the Strizh instruction manual suggests it was written by someone for whom Russian is not a native language, and promotional videos appear to have been filmed in China. One example published on Mobismart showing the interceptor in use was filmed in the same setting and features the same drone operator as a promotional video posted by Jiangxi Guangbo on June 4, 2026. It features vegetation unusual for St. Petersburg, and the visual similarity of the drones shown in the videos and the operator’s identical clothing — including a gray face covering — indicate that both clips were filmed under the same circumstances.

How the company’s links to Chinese state institutions conflict with Beijing’s public position

Jiangxi Guangbo lists the Russian-Chinese Business Park at 174 Ligovsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg as its Russian address. Legally, the project is a private initiative, but its activities are deeply integrated with Chinese state institutions. The business park was founded and is headed by Chen Zhigang, who also leads the St. Petersburg branch of the Union of Chinese Entrepreneurs in Russia — an organization that closely coordinates with the Chinese Embassy and China’s Ministry of Commerce to support Chinese businesses abroad. The business park officially identifies one of its core missions as advancing Beijing’s state-backed Belt and Road Initiative and linking it with the Eurasian Economic Union, a Russia-led economic bloc that also includes Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan. Projects of this level in China are coordinated with party and government bodies, and the business park regularly hosts meetings with official delegations from Chinese provinces, representatives of Chinese government ministries, and diplomats from the Chinese Consulate General in St. Petersburg.

Jiangxi Guangbo’s public statements have repeatedly referred to support from various Chinese government bodies. On Aug. 20, 2026, the company posted a video report from an official media outlet in Jiujiang, Jiangxi province, on its Telegram channel. “Thanks to our own research and development, we hold a leading technical position across the optoelectronic communications industry. For continuous innovation and product upgrades, we receive priority support from local government authorities,” the accompanying text read.

In an Aug. 18, 2026, post, Jiangxi Guangbo also said that it “works closely with Nanchang Hangkong University in science and technology, continuously improving optical-fiber technology.” Nanchang Hangkong University is a public university with a school of instrumentation and optoelectronic engineering and historic ties to China’s aviation-industry education system. The university is not itself a defense manufacturer, but it can serve as a source of technical personnel for the company’s work on inertial navigation and drone-guidance systems.

The company’s presence at the 7th Russian-Chinese Entrepreneurs Forum, a state-backed bilateral business summit attended by officials from both countries, offers further evidence that its activities are coordinated with Chinese government institutions.

At the same time, Guangbo’s public activity in Russia appears to conflict with Beijing’s export policy and its declared neutrality. Since Sept. 1, 2023, China has prohibited the export of civilian drones for military use and imposed licensing controls on certain drones and components with potential military applications, including engines, thermal-imaging equipment, laser and radio-frequency modules, and counter-drone systems. To obtain an export license, a supplier must disclose information about the end user and the intended use of the product.

Since that announcement, the number of confirmed killed has risen to 31, and it is expected to rise as search-and-rescue operations continue.

“The enemy deliberately struck the community with a FAB-3000, hitting people who had simply come to receive humanitarian aid,” Fedorov wrote. 

“The Russians are proving again and again that they hate Ukraine and everything in it. If Russia truly wanted de-escalation, then now, after Oleshky, there was a moment when humanitarian steps could have continued. We proposed this. But Russia continues the killings,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote late on Nov. 2.

Zelensky was referring to a limited six-day ceasefire around the Russian-occupied town Oleshky that was brokered with the involvement of U.S. first lady Melania Trump and Pope Leo XIV. The pause in hostilities allowed roads to be cleared of mines, humanitarian supplies to enter the town, and nearly 800 residents to be evacuated. Ukrainian and Russian officials said both sides upheld their commitments during the localized ceasefire, which expired on Nov. 1.

Russian aircraft struck Komyshuvakha in the Zaporizhzhia District several times beginning on the morning of Nov. 2. A school building being used as a humanitarian aid distribution point for local residents was hit. At least 10 aerial bombs were dropped on the settlement, including on a shelter where people had taken cover. Zelensky said classes had long since been cancelled at the school due to Komyshuvakha’s proximity to the front line; the building and its shelter were instead being used for humanitarian work, with aid distributed there every Monday. He said several bombs were dropped as people arrived, followed by another wave that struck the shelter.

Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said two rescue workers and four police officers were among those killed.

By the morning of Nov. 3, acting regional governor Mykhailo Semikin said 48 people were still listed as missing and five had been injured as crews continued searching the rubble. The Zaporizhzhia Region declared Nov. 3 a day of mourning for the victims.

Yevrayev confirmed damage to the refinery’s infrastructure, saying debris from downed drones shattered windows in several apartment buildings and private homes and damaged vehicles. Authorities temporarily closed the M-8 highway out of Yaroslavl toward Moscow during the attack. Traffic was later restored.

Independent Russian outlet Astra counted at least five major fire sites and two smaller ones on the refinery grounds. The Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ also published videos showing the blaze. It remains unclear which parts of the facility were damaged.

According to the governor, the latest attack was larger than previous strikes. During an Aug. 6 attack, Russian authorities said 93 drones had been shot down, while on Sept. 17 they reported 65. The numbers have not been independently verified.

As The Insider previously calculated, the Yaroslavl refinery had experienced at least eight fires following drone attacks as of Aug. 28: on March 28, April 26, May 8 and 22, July 6 and 16, and Aug. 6 and 28. Another fire occurred Sept. 17. The latest incident was therefore at least the 10th at the plant in 2026.

The September attack forced YANOS to halt oil processing entirely, Reuters reported, citing four industry sources. The strike damaged the AVT-3 primary crude distillation unit, which has a capacity of 17,100 metric tons per day and accounted for about 40% of the refinery’s output capacity. Another unit, AVT-4, with a capacity of 14,300 tons per day (33% of capacity), was already under repair after the Aug. 28 strike. Together, the damaged equipment represented nearly three-quarters of the refinery’s primary processing capacity.

Slavneft-YANOS is one of Russia’s five largest oil refineries. According to company data, its installed capacity is 15 million metric tons of crude per year. The plant produces gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, lubricants, and other petroleum products. It is owned by Slavneft, which is jointly controlled on a 50-50 basis by Rosneft and Gazprom Neft.

There has been no information so far on the extent of the damage caused by the Nov. 3 attack or its possible effect on oil processing. The refinery itself has not publicly commented on the consequences of the latest strike.

After a pause in mid-October, Ukrainian drones have struck Russian oil infrastructure for five consecutive nights. The latest wave began Oct. 30 with a strike on the Novokuibyshevsk refinery in the Samara Region. A fire broke out Oct. 31 after an attack on an industrial area in Ufa that includes refineries run by the Rosneft subsidiary Bashneft. On Nov. 1, drones targeted Kstovo in the Nizhny Novgorod Region, home to the Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez refinery. The following day, the Samara line production and dispatch station operated by Transneft came under attack. The Insider confirmed a fire at the site using data from NASA’s FIRMS satellite-based fire monitoring system. After the strike, Kazakhstan temporarily suspended oil shipments through the Atyrau-Samara pipeline.

Russia’s “northern delivery” is a seasonal supply system for remote communities that lack year-round transport links. Fuel, food, and medicine are shipped mainly by river and sea during the summer and over temporary roads across frozen ground and waterways in winter. Between those seasons, settlements depend on stored supplies and air deliveries.

“They didn’t manage to bring everything in by river, so now they’ll transport it by truck over the winter roads,” one source told The Insider.

Yakutia’s authorities say the overall delivery plan is 95.1% complete; however, the republic-wide figure does not indicate how much fuel reached individual districts. Data presented during an October discussion in the regional parliament showed that only 72.4% of the planned coal and petroleum products had been delivered along the Yana River and 61.3% along the Indigirka. Dmitry Ammosov, head of the Momsky District, warned that local boiler plants could be forced to shut down. On Nov. 1, however, officials said existing petroleum reserves would last until the winter roads opened.

In Evenkia, the last river shipment to Tura arrived in late July. Vessels were unable to reach the settlement because of insufficient water levels on the Lower Tunguska River. Stores began running short of vegetables, dairy products, and other goods, while some subsidized food items were rationed to limited quantities per customer. Authorities opened a criminal negligence case over the shortages.

According to an Oct. 29 report by Newslab, more than 85 metric tons of food had been delivered by air since mid-September. Beginning in November, regional carrier KrasAvia plans to increase the frequency of flights and remove seats from An-26 aircraft so each plane can carry up to four tons of cargo.

Purchasing and transportation under the northern delivery program are handled by municipal utilities, trading companies, and freight carriers. Government support includes federal budget loans to regional authorities and regional subsidies. Politician Vladimir Milov told The Insider that public funding is capped in advance and may not cover actual increases in procurement prices.

Authorities in both regions blamed disruptions to river deliveries on low water levels: in Yakutia, they complicated shipments along Arctic rivers, while in Evenkia, vessels were unable to navigate the Lower Tunguska.

Still, economist Nikolai Kulbaka said low water levels alone do not explain the shortages:

“Falling river levels are a real cause of difficulties, but they cannot be blamed for all the consequences. Low water is a known risk for the northern delivery system. Water levels cannot be predicted precisely, but supply planning should take into account a shortened navigation season, reserve stocks, and alternative delivery methods.”

In Yakutia, the natural constraints were compounded by a shortage of tugboats, disruptions to coal shipments from the Dzhebariki-Khaya mine, and unpaid debts. As of Oct. 20, the state-owned housing and utilities company GUP ZhKKh Yakutii owed the Lena United River Shipping Company 2.225 billion rubles ($27.3 million). Yakutugol denied responsibility for the supply failure, citing nearly 489 million rubles ($6.0 million) in unpaid utility debts and delays in providing barges for loading.

The additional cost of completing deliveries in Yakutia has been estimated at more than 1.4 billion rubles ($17.2 million). Kulbaka said supply problems require stable budget funding:

“A loan helps pay for purchases in advance if the money is later recouped through sales. But a permanent gap between the high cost of delivery and a price residents can afford cannot be solved with loans. That requires predictable subsidies and a stable division of costs between the federal government and the regions.”

Milov suggested that the funds allocated to the programs may have fallen short because procurement costs rose:

“Clearly, prices are rising faster — especially fuel prices — and it is clear they couldn’t fit everything within the allocated sums. The Finance Ministry is looking for places to cut costs and keep the deficit at least within its current limits.”

The additional delivery costs ultimately affect residents, but the consequences of a failed supply operation go beyond higher prices, Kulbaka said:

“People’s losses are not limited to money. They also include waiting in line, poorer nutrition, and being unable to buy essential goods when they are needed. So even keeping prices affordable for a small subsidized batch does not mean the supply problem has been solved.”

The court statement alleged that Slanovskaya opposed Russia’s war in Ukraine and secretly cooperated with the Main Counterintelligence Directorate of Moldova’s Security and Intelligence Service, more commonly known by its Romanian abbreviation SIS (Serviciul de Informații și Securitate). 

Russian authorities said the photographs she provided could have been used by Ukraine to prepare sabotage operations and other actions against the Russian military. No evidence supporting that claim has been made public.

The Insider identified the convicted woman from a video taken at her sentencing, where the judge states her name and date of birth: Natalia Petrovna Slanovskaya, born March 21, 1961. Her name is redacted in the publicly available case file for criminal case No. 2-118/2026. Court records show the case reached the Krasnodar Regional Court on Aug. 24. The first hearing was held Sept. 14, and the sentence was handed down Nov. 2. The case was heard by Judge Vladimir Gorban.

The Insider found that Slanovskaya was born in the village of Gorodishche in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic and lived in Moscow. According to a résumé found in open-source records, she worked as an economist at Progressive Biomedical Technologies and was seeking work as an economist or accountant. Available border-crossing records also show that she traveled to Moldova and Ukraine before the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, including trips to Chișinău between 2014 and 2020.

It is not known whether Slanovskaya pleaded guilty. Authorities also have not disclosed when she was detained or what evidence of her alleged cooperation with Moldovan counterintelligence was presented to the court.

In June 2026, Moldovan authorities detained a Russian citizen at the border whom they identified as an officer of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). Moldova’s SIS said he had planned to enter Transnistria posing as a tourist in order to collect information about the security zone along the Dniester River. The SIS also alleged that from 2017 to 2019 he had engaged in subversive activity in Moldova while using a Russian diplomatic passport.

In April 2026, Russia released two employees of Moldova’s Intelligence and Security Service who had been detained in Moscow in June 2025. They were returned as part of a multilateral exchange in which Moscow received Alexandru Bălan, a former deputy director of Moldova’s intelligence service who was accused of passing classified documents to the Belarusian KGB; Russian citizen Nina Popova, the wife of a Russian serviceman stationed in Transnistria; and Hermitage Museum employee Alexander Butyagin, who had been detained in Poland at Ukraine’s request. As part of the same exchange, Belarus released Polish journalist Andrzej Poczobut, who had been imprisoned since 2021.

According to the latest figures from polling aggregator RealClearPolitics, Democratic candidates lead the generic congressional ballot with more than 51% support, compared with less than 43% for Republicans. Democrats are ahead in all major polls, even the size of their lead varies state-by-state and race-by-race.

In the Senate, Democrats are fighting to hold on to seats they already control in states such as Michigan, Georgia, and New Hampshire. But Republicans are in even greater trouble: even in Texas, where Democrats have not won a statewide race in more than 30 years, James Talarico is narrowly leading Republican Ken Paxton in the polls. Among those publicly urging voters to support Talarico is the brother of former Republican President George W. Bush (Neil, not Jeb).

An unexpectedly tight race has also emerged in Alaska — and even in Kansas, which has not elected a Democratic senator in 94 years. 

Three interconnected issues are eroding support for the party in power: inflation, fuel prices, and the war in Iran. In addition, roughly half of voters are concerned about government inefficiency and the state of healthcare, where prices are rising significantly faster than overall inflation.

Corruption has also become a major issue for voters. According to a recent Fox News poll, 60% of respondents are “extremely concerned” about it.

Ultimately, all these problems come back to Donald Trump, who drove up fuel prices by launching the war with Iran. Unsurprisingly, Trump's average approval rating has plunged to a record low of 36%, and more than 60% of Americans openly disapprove of his performance. Nevertheless, according to Forbes, the president has increased his fortune by at least $2.7 billion since winning the 2024 election. 

The scale of the Democrats’ potential gains remains unclear. The Senate races to watch most closely are in Maine, North Carolina, and Ohio, where Democrats have high hopes of flipping Republican-held seats. Victories in Texas, Alaska or Kansas would signal a decisive Democratic triumph. Conversely, losses in Michigan or New Hampshire would sharply diminish their chances of taking control of the Senate.

Electoral geography works against Democrats

Dissatisfaction with the president does not automatically translate into support for Democrats at the ballot box. A lead in the polls does not necessarily translate into congressional seats, especially given that the current electoral map favors Republicans, who currently hold 53 of the Senate’s 100 seats.

Democrats need to flip at least four Republican-held seats, as a 50–50 split would still leave Republicans in control given that Vice President JD Vance can cast the tie-breaking vote as president of the Senate. Republicans are most vulnerable in Maine, North Carolina, and Ohio. 

Republicans are most vulnerable in Maine, North Carolina and Ohio. Even such strongholds as Texas, Alaska and Kansas are now at risk

Unlike the Senate, where only a portion of the seats are contested, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for election. Over the past two years, a number of states controlled by the president’s party have undergone gerrymandering. Estimates suggest that Republicans expected to gain an additional 15–16 seats through this strategy, butDemocrats responded in kind in states they control and are counting on securing six additional seats by diluting the Republican vote.

However, gerrymandering has a weakness: it depends on a particular balance of support between the two major parties. If Democrats win over a majority of undecided voters and some traditional Republican supporters, the advantage Republicans have engineered in the newly drawn districts could disappear.

In Texas, for example, Republicans had hoped to gain five additional seats, but three of those are already under threat as Democratic support grows. A case in point is the 35th Congressional District in San Antonio. Trump carried the district by roughly 10 percentage points in 2024, but Democrat Johnny Garcia has emerged as an unexpectedly strong challenger to Republican Carlos De La Cruz.

Voter turnout will also be crucial to the Democrats' chances for victory. According to a recent Pew Research Center poll, among those who say they intend to vote, 59% support Democrats and just 35% favor Republican candidates. But how much of this advantage will hold up on Election Day remains unclear.

Trump as a political liability

The Republicans’ biggest problem is their own unpopular president. Although Republican candidates profess loyalty to Trump, many are trying to distance themselves from him. According to Reuters, candidates in 41 of 62 competitive districts disagree with the president on key issues.

According to the Associated Press, Democrats have mentioned Trump more than 180,000 times in their ads, seeking to pin his policies on their opponents. Democrats see their best chance of success in turning the election into a referendum on Trump rather than a series of separate contests between candidates.

Republicans are trying to avoid mentioning Trump altogether, spending less than 1% of their advertising budget on ads that mention him

Republicans have a clear advantage, however, when it comes to campaign financing. According to the Financial Times, they have spent around $1.3 billion during this election cycle, compared with $800 million spent by Democrats. The Republican National Committee still has more than $680 million in campaign funds available, compared with $480 million for its Democratic counterpart.

Ultrawealthy businesspeople play a major role in financing the campaigns. The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has contributed nearly half a billion dollars to Republican campaigns. He was Trump’s biggest donor in 2024 and took part in the purge of federal agencies before falling out with the president, then reconciling with him. Musk’s critics argue that a Republican victory would help him preserve and expand government contracts for his companies, SpaceX chief among them. 

Democrats also have plenty of wealthy donors, but even when taken togetehr, their two biggest benefactors, George Soros and Michael Bloomberg, have spent less than half as much as Musk has contributed to Republicans. The disparity is evident in individual races as well. In Texas, which has shifted from a solidly conservative state to a battleground, Republicans have spent nearly $240 million on Ken Paxton’s campaign – more than five times what Democrats have spent backing James Talarico, who betting markets favor to win.

Democrats vs. Democrats

Despite favorable public opinion, Democrats face a serious problem: the party is deeply divided. It has no single, widely recognized leader, and one is unlikely to emerge until the 2028 presidential primaries.

Over the past year and a half, Democratic leaders in Congress have failed to find effective ways to counter Trump’s policies. Moreover, both major parties are essentially big-tent organizations encompassing a wide range of often conflicting ideologies.

Moderates are looking for ways to reform the existing system, particularly economic policy and healthcare. The growing democratic socialist movement is calling for more radical changes to the economy and society. Mainstream Democrats favor economic regulation and higher taxes on the wealthy, while their left-wing counterparts advocate bringing entire industries back into public ownership and redistributing wealth. Mainstream Democrats want to expand the existing healthcare system, which leaves many people without coverage, while democratic socialists are calling for universal health insurance.

The party establishment supports NATO, military alliances, and aid to Israel, while the left wing wants to scale back America's role in international affairs and end military assistance to Netanyahu’s government.

A case in point is the contrast between two Senate candidates: James Talarico in Texas and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. They differ on a number of key issues, including immigration, economic policy, energy subsidies, and support for Israel. It would be difficult to imagine a Muslim candidate like El-Sayed running in Texas, let alone being in a position to win statewide. 

Although radical ideas appeal to many voters, the socialists’ electoral results have so far been underwhelming. Their candidates have won primaries in only seven of the 25 districts where they stood for election.

What's at stake

If Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives, they promise to investigate alleged corruption involving Trump and his inner circle and launch impeachment proceedings against several senior officials, above all the unpopular Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

There is less agreement on whether to impeach Trump himself. The House of Representatives voted to impeach him twice during his first term, but he was acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate.

Even if Democrats secure a majority in the Senate this time, they are unlikely to muster the two-thirds vote needed to remove Trump from office. Moreover, the opposition itself risks splitting apart: individual factions could stage a mutiny, making their support for party leaders conditional on their demands being met. This could make it difficult for Democrats to present a united front against Trump, even with a majority.

Democrats may struggle to present a united front against Trump, even with a majority

Overall, if the opposition wins control of the Senate, it will be able to block budgetary initiatives and appointments to key posts. Even without impeachment, this would significantly constrain Trump, who has so far made many decisions without consulting even his own party.

The attack occurred about 25 nautical miles (46 kilometers) northeast of the Omani city of Khasab, according to a Reuters report citing maritime security sources. A small boat approached the tanker, and unidentified attackers attached two limpet mines to its port side. The explosions caused a fire in the engine room that temporarily disabled the vessel.

There were 27 crew members aboard, all Indian citizens. None were injured. The fire was extinguished and the tanker later resumed its voyage. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

According to open source intelligence (OSINT) analysts, Louise 1 was carrying approximately 1 million barrels of Saudi oil at the time of the attack. There has been no independent confirmation of the cargo’s origin or volume.

The Louise 1 is a Suezmax-class tanker built in 2004, with a deadweight tonnage of around 159,000 metric tons.

According to data from the ship tracking platform Starboard Maritime Intelligence reviewed by The Insider, the tanker has regularly called at Russian oil ports, including Primorsk, Novorossiysk, and Ust-Luga. The database records 36 visits to Russian ports since May 2020. The vessel’s registered owner is listed as Panama-based Aquarius Maritime Ventures SA, its operator as UAE-registered PRY Shipping LLC, and its technical manager as India’s Anagha Ship Management.

The latest AIS (Automatic Identification System) signal available in the archived Starboard report was received on Sept. 28, 2026, near the coast of the United Arab Emirates, close to Khor Fakkan. However, the absence of subsequent data makes it impossible to establish the tanker’s route immediately before the attack.

According to data from Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR), Louise 1 carried nearly 735,000 barrels of Russian Urals crude from the port of Primorsk in February 2026, delivered more than 1 million barrels from Novorossiysk to India in March, and transported another 1 million-plus barrels of Russian oil in May, including shipments linked to the Russian oil company Lukoil. Ukraine imposed sanctions on the tanker on Feb. 12, 2026.

OSINT analysts also say that in 2024, Louise 1 received 4.65 million barrels of Iranian oil in 16 ship-to-ship (STS) transfer operations.

In July 2026, the Louise 1 was attacked by Ukrainian naval drones in the Black Sea. As The Insider reported at the time, the tanker was being used to transport Russian oil in circumvention of Western sanctions. Video of the July attack was later released.

The move was not unprecedented. In 2017–2018, the first Trump administration delayed implementation of the CAATSA sanctions against Russia, despite the law having been approved by majorities in both chambers of Congress. Still, Trump’s latest pro-Kremlin move has heightened tensions between the branches of government ahead of America's mid-term elections, and tens of millions of Democratic voters are hoping their ballots will enable Congress to exert direct influence over the president’s actions for the remainder of his final term in the Oval Office.

One of the main points of contention is military support for Ukraine and economic pressure on Moscow, but the struggle over the balance of powers also extends to other issues: ties with the EU and NATO, arms supplies to Taiwan, and domestic policy issues including security along the southern border, immigration rules, and changes to tax legislation. But will a Democratic majority in Congress be able to impose its will on the president across all of these fronts? Probably not.

Can a Democratic majority in Congress impose its will on the president? Probably not

The legislative and executive branches of the United States government are independent and often at odds. Congress controls the federal budget and passes laws, but the legislature has no administrative machinery of its own to enforce them. Capitol Hill cannot directly manage the Department of Defense, Customs and Border Protection, the Internal Revenue Service, or the diplomatic corps, as these agencies fall under the purview of the White House.

As a result of this division of powers, legislation passed by Congress amounts to little more than a blueprint. Whether it involves allocating funds for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, financing additional border patrols in Texas, or regulating tariffs, implementation requires the cooperation of the executive branch. Even when Congress manages to override a presidential veto, the law is handed over to agencies whose heads — loyal to the White House — have the legal and bureaucratic means to delay, revise, or limit its implementation.

Trump won't be removed from office

Congress’s dealings with the U.S. president are often associated with the threat of impeachment. In practice, however, impeachment has become more of a symbolic weapon than a genuine political threat. Once an opposition party secures a simple majority — 218 seats in the House of Representatives — it can initiate impeachment proceedings against the president and members of his cabinet. Actually removing them from office, however, is virtually impossible.

Over the entire course of the nation's history, the House of Representatives has impeached presidents four times: Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998, and Donald Trump in 2019 and 2021. Cabinet officials have faced impeachment only twice: Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876 and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas in 2024. None of these proceedings resulted in removal from office, and that precedent is extremely unlikely to be broken anytime in the foreseeable future given the fact that removing an official from office requires 67 votes in the Senate. Even under the rosiest of election scenarios, the Democrats are not expected to top 55 seats — and reaching that total would involve flipping control in states like Texas (likely) and South Carolina (unlikely but still possible).

Any impeachment proceeding that fails to secure a two-thirds vote from the senators present is guaranteed to end in acquittal

In practice, the limitations of impeachment are offset by Congress's strongest instrument of leverate: the so-called “power of the purse.” Congress is responsible for assembling packages of financial and military assistance for allies and mandating cuts the budgets of federal agencies. The president must spend appropriated funds strictly on the programs for which they were designated and cannot unilaterally freeze them or redirect them to serve his own political ends. Under this system, the real battle between the branches of government is fought behind closed doors in congressional appropriations committees.

When the White House resorts to bureaucratic manoeuvres to delay or sabotage programs it opposes, Congress can respond with “financial strangulation,” in which lawmakers try to tie the administration's hands by passing legislation that spells out in minute detail exactly what the government may spend money on, within what time frame, and under what rules. Yet even then, a president acting in bad faith and determined to get his way has a range of legal and semi-legal tools that can be used to indefinitely delay the implementation of congressional directives.

The result is a perpetual tug-of-war: Congress draws up increasingly detailed rules, while White House lawyers and financial officials look for ways around them. Both sides have leverage, of course, but the president tends to have more of it. 

What a simple majority can do

By exercising Congress’s exclusive control over federal spending, a simple majority in the House of Representatives can earmark billions of budget dollars for weapons purchases for the Ukrainian military. Congress can also pass legislation barring the White House from unilaterally lifting sanctions on Russian banks, its energy sector, or the shadow fleet. With control over both chambers, a Democratic majority can prevent the White House from redirecting such funds towards its own domestic policy priorities (for example, building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border). 

However, given that the vast majority of bills are subject to the threat of a Senate filibuster — which requires 60 votes to break — Republicans will retain some leverage even in the likely event that they lose their majorities in both chambers. 

Beyond controlling federal spending, a congressional majority gains access to investigative and personnel powers. Chairmanships of relevant committees give lawmakers quasi-judicial authority, chief among them the power to issue subpoenas. When a committee orders senior State Department or Treasury officials to appear at hearings or produce confidential records, the officials in question face legal consequences in the event that they ignore the demand. 

Refusing to testify or to turn over correspondence can constitute a criminal offense — contempt of Congress, which is theoretically punishable by up to a year in prison. Meanwhile, 51 votes in the Senate give the majority the power to block nominees it considers unsuitable or excessively radical for positions such as federal judgeships, deputy cabinet posts, and ambassadorships.

Still, even if a sweeping bill providing military aid for Kyiv and laying out restrictions on the Russian economy were to pass both chambers, the president would still have ample opportunity to sabotage its provisions.

The presidential veto

If the president firmly opposes a bill, he can exercise his veto power and send it back to Capitol Hill. The Constitution gives Congress a way to overcome a veto, but doing so requires a two-thirds majority in both chambers. Given the deep partisan divisions, securing such a consensus is virtually impossible, so a presidential veto usually kills an initiative outright.

Lawmakers, of course, are aware of this mathematical obstacle, and they have developed another strategy for overcoming presidential resistance. Controversial initiatives, including military aid packages for allies and new sanctions regimes, are deliberately incorporated into major pieces of legislation — such as the annual defense budget or a bill funding the federal government. 

These are known as must-pass bills, and since the president has no line-item veto power, he must either sign the bill with its unwelcome geopolitical provisions intact or else refuse to approve the entire federal budget. The latter option inevitably triggers a government shutdown — forcing federal agencies to suspend operations, closing national parks, and halting pay to hundreds of thousands of U.S. military personnel, border agents, and federal employees.

The president has no line-item veto and cannot strike individual provisions he opposes

The prospect of such a serious domestic crisis and the accompanying political fallout usually forces the president to back down and sign the legislation. But given Trump's confrontational style and the Democrats' emphasis on their responsibility to the country, it is likely that they, rather than the president, will end up being the party that makes the most concessions.

Alongside the threat of a government shutdown, Congress has another powerful instrument of financial pressure: a vote to raise the federal debt ceiling. Refusing to raise the borrowing limit threatens to trigger a technical U.S. default, a collapse in the Treasury bond market, and panic on Wall Street. By attaching military aid for Ukraine or economic sanctions against Russia to a debt-ceiling bill, Democrats could try to corner the White House, betting that Trump would not risk sending the stock market into a tailspin.

But the executive branch has a range of ways to circumvent even this ultimatum. As a first step, the Treasury Department can resort to “extraordinary measures,” shifting funds between government accounts and buying the White House up to six months of breathing room without congressional involvement. Once those measures are exhausted, the White House could order the Treasury Department to prioritize payments at its discretion — fore example, by continuing to pay interest to Treasury bondholders out of current tax revenues while freezing domestic social programs and shifting the blame for the crisis onto uncooperative lawmakers. 

Ultimately, the winner will be whichever side has the nerve to inflict real economic damage on the country in pursuit of its policy objectives. At present, there is little doubt that Trump is the most cynical player on the American political stage.

How the administration can sabotage laws

Even when a bill successfully passes both chambers of Congress, the executive branch has a formidable arsenal of tools to block its implementation without resorting to a presidential veto. The simplest is to invoke national security exemptions.

In most sanctions and defense legislation, lawmakers traditionally leave the president a loophole allowing him to suspend certain provisions if they are deemed to threaten U.S. strategic interests. This is precisely the mechanism Trump used in October 2026 to the block energy sanctions against Russia contained in the “Sanctions from Hell” bill. Using the same rationale, the White House could halt the transfer of missile systems already approved for delivery to Kyiv byciting critically depleted Pentagon stockpiles and the resulting threat to U.S. defense capabilities.

If a new law contains no such loopholes, the administration can resort to outright violations of existing legislation (specifically of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which prohibits the White House from unilaterally withholding appropriated funds and requires the executive branch to spend them strictly for the purposes authorized by Congress). The president could deliberately ignore this requirement and order funding for Ukraine to be frozen, temporarily blocking assistance while the dispute moves through potentially lengthy court proceedings. 

An equally effective tactic involves good old-fashioned bureaucratic red tape. Implementation of a law can become bogged down in endless interagency reviews and additional audits. Historical precedents include the freeze on military aid to Ukraine in 2018–2019, ostensibly pending a review of corruption in the country. At the time, the State Department and Treasury spent months delaying the imposition of mandatory anti-Russian sanctions under the CAATSA law.

The main instrument for orchestrating such delays is the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Little known to the general public, this agency acts as the president's chief accountant. Not a single dollar in military funding can be released by the Treasury without OMB officials signing off on it. In 2019, it was OMB Deputy Director Michael Duffey who, acting on instructions from the Oval Office, marked the box labeled “freeze,” halting military deliveries authorized by Congress with a single stroke of his pen.

Even when financial and bureaucratic obstacles have been overcome, the president still has levers of pressure at the logistical and diplomatic levels. Acting as commander-in-chief, he can order the Department of Defense to suspend training programs for foreign military personnel or delay the issuance of export licenses required for arms shipments abroad. As a final obstacle, the Pentagon can cite a lack of available transport aircraft to move military equipment to Europe. 

These are not the only tools the White House has at its disposal. When Congress sends the president a budget packed with various restrictions, he can formally sign it, avoiding a government shutdown, while simultaneously issuing an official memorandum to his administration declaring that specific provisions of the law — such as a requirement to deliver weapons to Kyiv within 30 days — unconstitutionally encroach upon his exclusive powers as commander-in-chief. George W. Bush used just such a maneuver to circumvent congressional restrictions in 2005 after Congress attached the McCain Amendment — prohibiting torture and cruel treatment of detainees held at U.S. military bases — to the must-pass defense budget. In effect, Bush told his subordinates that if national security required harsh interrogation methods, Congress's blanket prohibition should be treated as merely advisory.

In 2017, Congress passed the previously mentioned CAATSA, which imposed mandatory sanctions on Russia and restricted the White House's ability to lift them without congressional approval. Facing the prospect of a veto override, Trump signed the legislation but immediately issued a statement declaring several of its provisions blatantly unconstitutional. He explicitly argued that Congress's attempts to dictate the timing of diplomatic decisions encroached on the president's exclusive authority, thereby giving the Treasury and State Departments legal cover to delay the implementation of sanctions past the deadlines set by lawmakers.

Forcing administration officials to cooperate

Although Congress has virtually no chance of successfully prosecuting the U.S. president in the event that he refuses their subpoenas, but Congress has several ways to punish officials for refusing to testify — and the president's pardon power, which he would undoubtedly seek to invoke, does not cover all of them. 

The most common option is conventional criminal prosecution. When an official refuses to respond to a subpoena or to produce documents, Congress votes to hold them in contempt and refers the matter to the Department of Justice for prosecution. 

This, however, is where presidential protection works most effectively. First, Prosecutors are subordinate to the president, and historically the Justice Department has simply refused to bring charges against sitting administration officials, citing the separation of powers. Second, even if the case reaches court, contempt of Congress is a federal criminal offense, meaning the president has full constitutional authority to pardon — even preemptively, before a verdict is handed down.

To circumvent this obstacle, Congress can file a civil lawsuit. Rather than asking the Justice Department to send an official to prison, lawmakers take the matter to federal court themselves. If a judge hears the case and issues an order compelling the official to produce the documents, continued defiance can then be treated as civil contempt, an offense that the Supreme Court has ruled the president has no power to pardon.

In practice, however, no federal judge has ever jailed a sitting cabinet secretary over an institutional dispute between Congress and the White House. Instead, invoking the separation of powers, courts have limited themselves to fines or declaratory rulings, avoiding the physical detention of senior government officials.

In theory, since presidential pardons offer no protection against charges of violating state laws, Congress can refer its investigative findings to state attorneys general. Lawmakers can also summon senior executives from banks, trading firms, and insurance companies involved in the logistics of Russian diesel shipments to testify, threatening to revoke their licenses. But the White House can counter these measures, too, by blocking cooperation between government agencies and congressional committees, by invoking executive privilege, by shifting investigations to Justice Department agencies loyal to the president, and by granting confidential security assurances or special exemptions to private entities involved in evading sanctions.

There is also a more radical means of applying pressure, one invoked only during acute political crises: Congress's inherent contempt power. In the early days of the American republic, Congress would send its own sergeant-at-arms to physically arrest a defiant cabinet official, bring them to the Capitol, and lock them in a designated room. Because this is not a criminal punishment but an internal congressional enforcement mechanism, the president's pardon power does not apply at all.

Congress sent its own sergeant-at-arms to physically arrest a defiant cabinet official, bring them to the Capitol, and lock them in a designated room

Congress has not exercised its inherent contempt power to make arrests since the 1930s, and today, if an armed House sergeant-at-arms attempted to arrest the secretary of defense or secretary of state, he would inevitably encounter the federal agents assigned to protect them. Such an attempt would trigger a direct physical confrontation between the security forces of the two branches of government, precipitating an unprecedented constitutional crisis.

Thus, although members of the president’s cabinet enjoy no absolute immunity, the capacity of Congress to punish them for non-compliance with the law is limited. Additionally, the Democrats are unlikely to have the nerve to take such unprecedented steps, whereas few doubt Trump’s willingness to disregard every conceivable norm and provoke conflicts on an unprecedented scale.

An all-out Senate blockade

The Senate has another powerful lever: it alone has the authority to confirm appointments to all key federal positions, from cabinet secretaries and agency heads to ambassadors, federal judges, and senior military officers. However, it has little power over officials already confirmed by a previous Senate, as removing them through impeachment would require the same seemingly unattainable 67 votes.

Still, in the event of vacacancies, the president would have to resort to legal loopholes when faced with a hostile Senate. One option is to appoint “acting” officials, whose terms are limited by law but can potentially be extended through a range of controversial maneuvers. Trump is likely to rely on this approach, knowing that legal challenges to his actions could take months or even years to resolve via the courts.

The Senate has another weapon at its disposal: refusing to confirm any of the president’s nominees. Every administration needs Senate confirmation for thousands of appointments, ranging from ambassadors and federal judges to deputy secretaries overseeing logistics and finance. Under the system envisioned by the Founding Fathers, a Senate that refuses to hold confirmation hearings can effectively paralyze the machinery of government. The assumption is that a president cannot run a trillion-dollar economy with just a handful of advisers and will eventually have to trade the unfreezing of the budget for confirmation of his nominees.

The threat that courts might invalidate decisions made by officials whose appointments had not been confirmed by the Senate sometimes prompts the president’s staff to abandon straightforward reliance on “acting” appointments and devise elaborate workarounds involving fictitious positions, delegated signing authority, and retroactive ratification of documents.

When judges began overturning decisions made by unlawfully appointed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials in 2020, the department began formally delegating signing authority to lower-level employees. The president’s appointee continued to make the policy decisions, but the documents bore the signature of a duly authorized official whose authority the courts did not question. Meanwhile, White House lawyers began inventing positions for loyalists that had no basis in law.

For example, in 2019, Ken Cuccinelli did not have the required tenure to be legally appointed acting deputy secretary. However, to circumvent the restrictions, officials created a fictitious position for him: “Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Deputy Secretary.” This allowed him to sidestep the time limits imposed by the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA) and oversee immigration policy while the courts spent months examining the legality of the arrangement.

In some cases involving key departments, the administration exploits conflicts between federal statutes. During a leadership crisis at the Department of Justice in 2018, Trump appointed Matthew Whitaker acting attorney general under the general provisions of the FVRA. The opposition and several states filed lawsuits arguing that, under the department’s own governing statute, the position should instead go to Rod Rosenstein, the Senate-confirmed deputy attorney general. While the courts spent months resolving the conflict, Whitaker remained in charge of the department.

If a court ultimately rules that an appointment was unlawful and invalidates an official’s directives, the White House resorts to retroactive ratification. In September 2020, a court ruled that Chad Wolf had illegally headed the Department of Homeland Security and struck down his directives. In response, the administration briefly installed Peter Gaynor, whose place in the official line of succession was beyond question, as acting head of the department. He signed a memorandum formally ratifying all of Wolf’s previous directives, then immediately delegated his authority back to Wolf. It took the court several months to resolve the issue, and by then, Trump had found new ways to push through his appointments.

At the highest judicial level, the administration’s main weapon has been emergency applications to the Supreme Court, handled through what is known as the “shadow docket.” When federal judges issue preliminary injunctions blocking presidential orders on procedural grounds, the White House turns directly to the Supreme Court, seeking to lift those injunctions temporarily to allow its policies to take effect while lengthy appeals proceed.

The scale of this practice has changed dramatically in recent years. Under George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the Justice Department sought emergency stays of lower-court rulings a total of just eight times over the course of 16 years. The Trump administration, by contrast, made more than 40 such applications, and in 28 cases, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority sided with the administration, either fully or in part. This allowed Trump to implement controversial policies on immigration restrictions, government spending, and the rollback of environmental regulations, despite lower courts having blocked them.

A war of all against all

The presidential veto is likely to become Trump’s default response to congressional legislation. He is prepared to reject any Democratic initiative that runs counter to his political vision, shifting the blame for a possible government shutdown or stock market panic onto lawmakers. However, Trump’s uncompromising approach often alienates moderate Republicans. Bipartisan coalitions have already emerged in Congress, including Republicans such as Senator Tom Tillis and Representative Don Bacon, who openly criticize concessions to Russia and call for renewed support for U.S. allies.

The most optimistic scenario for Ukraine is that Democrats will persuade enough Republicans to support aid to Kyiv to enable them to put effective pressure on Trump. After all, the president’s approval ratings are low, and his political career is entering its lame duck phase. In 2028, the Republican Party will already have to answer plenty of uncomfortable questions from voters as the Trump era draws to a close, and removing the Ukraine issue from that list might appeal to several Republican lawmakers.

The most optimistic scenario for Ukraine is that Democrats will persuade enough Republicans to support aid to Kyiv

In particular, Senators and representatives from politically competitive states and districts will increasingly join Democrats in voting to override presidential vetoes on issues of national security, tariffs, and the preservation of alliances (similar to what happened in 2017, when Congress passed the CAATSA sanctions law with 98 votes in the Senate and 419 in the House).

Over the next two years, the confrontation between the legislative and executive branches is likely to shift increasingly to the courts. By forcing lawmakers to seek judicial remedies, the president will move the battle onto terrain where the judiciary, particularly the Supreme Court, leans conservative. For Ukraine and America’s other international partners, this means that billions of dollars in approved aid could remain blocked for years while the two branches of government fight out their differences. The advantage in this struggle will go to whoever has the nerve, audacity, and cynicism to press ahead regardless of the consequences. As the events of the past two years have shown, that is Donald Trump.

The wrecks of the Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239 tankers in December 2024 were only one of a series of environmental crises in the Black Sea region linked to Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine. Others include pollution caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, vegetable oil spills following strikes on ports, and the impact of military operations on marine wildlife.

Who was responsible

In the case of the Black Sea disaster, Russia was obligated to comply with a range of international obligations it had undertaken. Articles 94 and 194 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) require states to prevent and respond to marine pollution, and articles 204 and 205 require governments to observe, measure, and analyze risks to the marine environment and publish monitoring results. In practice, however, it was Greenpeace that carried out the monitoring and satellite-image analysis.

The International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) provides for sanctions and investigations following maritime accidents. Responsibility for enforcing those requirements rested with the harbor master of Port Kavkaz, the Russian Classification Society (RCS), and the Kerch Strait Vessel Traffic Service (VTS). The RCS is a federal autonomous institution under Russia’s Transport Ministry that classifies and provides technical oversight of inland and river vessels and mixed “river-sea” vessels. It is required to record restrictions on operating areas and seasonal regulations in a vessel’s classification documents and verify that actual operating conditions comply with the vessel’s class.

In practice, the RCS failed to enforce those restrictions. The Volgoneft-212’s classification documents permitted it to operate in the Black Sea only through Oct. 31, before harsher winter weather set it. The owner of the Volgoneft-239 listed a similar restriction through Nov. 20.

Independent environmentalist Dmitry Lisitsyn and environmental lawyer Natalya Lisitsyna noted that the Volgoneft-239 was listed in the RCS register with vessel status “08 — Documents suspended.” That meant the tanker was not legally permitted to go to sea at all. Nevertheless, despite having invalid documents, the vessel loaded 4,300 metric tons of petroleum product at the port of Azov and then sailed off to deliver the cargo. The Volgoneft-212, meanwhile, remained at sea after its permitted operating season had expired.

The Volgoneft-239 arrived at Port Kavkaz on Nov. 6 but received no instructions from the charterer about where to unload, remaining at the port’s Anchorage No. 453 until Nov. 30. The vessel’s owner contacted several agencies, including the RCS, but instead of halting the operation of a ship without valid documents, the RCS said it was prepared to consider extending the vessel’s permitted operating season in the area.

The second authority that should have prevented the tankers from remaining at sea during a storm was the Kerch Strait VTS, operated by the state-owned Rosmorport company. The service coordinates vessel movements and anchorage, requests information about ships’ navigation-area restrictions, and provides relevant information to the harbor master.

On Nov. 18, 2024, a VTS operator allowed the Volgoneft-212 to anchor at Anchorage No. 453 outside the port’s waters. On Dec. 3, the service approved an anchorage for the tanker in the Black Sea — outside its permitted navigation area.

As winds intensified, both Volgoneft tankers sheltered near Cape Yantarny on the Taman Peninsula before the VTS instructed them to move to the Zavetnoye vessel shelter near Cape Takil on the Crimean Peninsula. While the ships were already underway, the service informed them that there was no room at the shelter and directed the Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239 to another location near Cape Takil.

On the morning of Dec. 15, winds strengthened to 25 meters per second, and waves reached four meters. Both tankers were wrecked.

The harbor master of Port Kavkaz is responsible for setting the daily schedule for vessel movements and placement in the port area. In December 2024, that position was held by Yevgeny Skorchenko.

The Volgoneft-212 submitted a prior request to be allowed to enter the port on Nov. 18. The document noted the seasonal restrictions and the prohibition on operating in the Black Sea after October. Despite those restrictions, an employee of the State Port Control Inspectorate accepted the application, and the daily movement schedule was later approved. Neither the RCS, the VTS nor the harbor master ordered the Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239 out of prohibited waters, canceled their schedules, or barred them from anchoring.

Neither the RCS, the VTS, nor the harbor master ordered the two vessels out of prohibited waters, canceled their schedules, or barred them from anchoring

The systemic nature of the problem is underscored by the fact that 50 other mixed river-sea vessels — with O-PR, M-PR and M-SP classifications — were sheltering from the storm alongside the two tankers near Cape Yantarny. For most of them, operating in the Kerch Strait in December carried significant risk.

Just two days after the wrecks, another tanker, the Volgoneft-109, issued a distress signal near Port Kavkaz. The vessel suffered damage to a cargo tank but was able to anchor safely.

The role of Russian regulators in creating the conditions for the accident is also documented in an investigation by the independent outlet Important Stories, which found that another 11 Volgoneft-class tankers went to sea in late 2024 and the first month of 2025 despite restrictions in their classification certificates. At least 44 Volgoneft tankers unloaded at Port Kavkaz during that period. In other words, roughly one in four vessels operated on the route in violation of established technical standards.

How the government tried to clean up the spill

After the tanker wrecks, Russian authorities attempted to contain the damage but never fully eliminated the source of the pollution. During the first week, nothing was done to limit the spread of petroleum products. For the Volgoneft-212, the installation of booms began on Dec. 20, 2024 — but only after heavy fuel oil leaks had been detected.

In the case of the Volgoneft-239, it was not until Dec. 28 — 13 days after the wreck — that the first 250 meters of containment booms were installed around the stern section of the vessel, which had run aground near Cape Panagia.

Installation of the booms, which eventually extended just over two kilometers, was not completed until Jan. 13, 2025. By then, patches of mazut — a heavy residual fuel oil commonly used in Russia and other former Soviet countries — had been recorded not only along the Kerch Peninsula but in six municipalities in Russian-annexed Crimea, from Yalta to Feodosia. In Sevastopol, severe pollution during that period caused large numbers of dead European anchovies to wash ashore.

Authorities largely focused on collecting contaminated sand from beaches while heavy fuel oil continued leaking from submerged sections of the vessels. The first attempts to address the source of the pollution itself came only a month after the accident. On Jan. 17, 2025, workers began pumping fuel oil from the grounded stern section of the Volgoneft-239. That work was completed in the spring.

The first attempt to address the source of the pollution itself came only a month after the accident

The main sections of the tankers that sank in the Kerch Strait remained unsealed throughout the warm season of 2025. The first of three cofferdams — protective structures installed over the submerged wreckage — was initially scheduled for Oct. 10, but  installation was only completed a year after the accident — on Dec. 12, 2025. In February 2026, the government allocated up to 5.8 billion rubles ($72.3 million) to manufacture and install additional cofferdams and carry out related work.

On Aug. 21, 2026, a Russian government commission announced the pumping of heavy fuel oil from the sunken tanker fragments had been completed. Independent observers, however, cautioned that the “completion of pumping” only meant Russian authorities had stopped the work — not that the leaks had ended.

The Sky Eye monitoring channel published a series of satellite images taken between Sept. 4 and Sept. 21, 2026. The images clearly show slicks extending from the cofferdams built over the submerged bow and stern sections of the Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239.

Why the entire Black Sea region was affected

The area where the two tankers sank lies within the Black Sea’s main current system. Known as the Rim Current, it is a large cyclonic circulation that moves counterclockwise around the sea: eastward along Turkey toward Georgia, and west and southwest from the Kerch Strait and Crimea toward Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, and the Bosporus. As a result, heavy fuel oil from the wrecks did not remain near Russia’s coast but spread through the wider basin.

In June 2025, a team of researchers from Ukraine, Japan, and Singapore published an OpenDrift model, which concluded that heavy fuel oil had entered the main current and could have reached the coasts of every Black Sea country. As of the time of publication, they had already identified more than 80 cases of petroleum pollution recorded during the first six months after the accident.

In addition to specific reports of contamination, The Insider analyzed satellite-monitoring data published by Greenpeace CEE and SkyTruth covering the exclusive economic zones of Bulgaria and Romania. The images show that the total area of petroleum slicks increased tenfold from January to May 2025.

Satellite images show that the area covered by petroleum slicks increased tenfold from January to May 2025

In Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone, an image from Dec. 21, 2024, showed a single slick covering 1.59 square kilometers. By Jan. 20, 2025, a new slick covering 15.77 square kilometers had been detected. Pollution in Bulgaria’s EEZ peaked in late April and early May, and slicks totaling 32.79 square kilometers were recorded on April 25 — by May 14, their total area had risen to 78.99 square kilometers.

Reports of contamination in late January are consistent with mathematical modeling showing that heavy fuel oil can move an average of 15 to 25 kilometers per day depending on Black Sea hydrodynamics. On that basis, fuel-oil fractions could have traveled from the Kerch Strait toward Odesa and onward to the Bulgarian and Turkish coasts over the course of two to three months.

Heavy fuel oil thickens as it cools, forming clumps that can remain suspended in the water column or settle on the seabed. As the water warms or when storms occur, the oil can begin to move again, rising toward the surface. The oil’s winter thickening followed by spring warming was likely behind the large slicks detected in Bulgarian and Romanian waters. Nevertheless, authorities in both countries avoided making any public accusations against Russia when heavy fuel oil pollution began approaching their shores.

On March 4, 2025, black, sticky and viscous petroleum deposits were found along a 100- to 150-meter stretch of Eforie Nord beach in Romania. The deposits followed the surf line, strongly indicating that they had been carried ashore by the sea. Staff from the Dobrogea-Litoral Water Basin Administration (ABADL) took samples and carried out cleanup work.

On March 31, 2025, inspectors found 1.5 metric tons of a mixture of sand and petroleum products on a beach in Varna, Bulgaria. They confirmed that the pollution came from the sea rather than from a source on land, but after inspections of 12 vessels in the Port of Varna, no source was identified. Prosecutors in Varna brought no charges, concluding that the pollution was not large-scale and had not caused significant environmental damage. Nevertheless, new contamination continued to be recorded for more than three weeks.

Government officials in Black Sea countries said vessels were a likely source of the pollution. For example, when Romanian ABADL director Stelică Hagi commented in October 2025 on the possible causes of the large petroleum slicks, he cited ships failing to comply with environmental requirements. Notably, photographs from Romanian and Bulgarian beaches clearly show streaks, patches, and clumps characteristic of heavy fuel oil rather than the thin film or rainbow sheen associated with oily bilge water discharged from engine rooms.

Beginning in January 2025, environmentalists in Georgia and Turkey found birds coated in heavy fuel oil, with volunteers reporting such finds along the coast from Gonio to Ureki, including in Batumi, Kobuleti, Poti, and Anaklia. In early January 2025, traces of oil were also observed on beaches and on birds’ feathers along the Turkish coast between Sinop and Trabzon. The early reports were likely linked to seasonal bird migration. Petroleum products themselves were then documented on the coast of Abkhazia in July 2025.

The gap between obligations and action

Only chemical analysis of samples would establish that Bulgarian and Romanian beaches were contaminated specifically by heavy fuel oil from the Volgoneft tankers. Such analyses were either not conducted, or their results were not officially published.

Still, the timing of the contamination is consistent with the OpenDrift transport model, and the characteristic viscous black deposits are visually distinct from the thin films and rainbow sheens typical of bilge-water discharges from ships.

Reports of heavy fuel oil pollution did not stop in spring 2025, with dozens of new cases being recorded throughout 2025 and 2026. Between June 1 and June 30 alone, regional environmental inspectorates in Burgas and Varna and the Black Sea Basin Directorate received more than 200 reports of heavy fuel oil contamination on beaches in 11 municipalities: Tsarevo, Sozopol, Primorsko, Burgas, Pomorie, Nessebar, Byala, Varna, Shabla, Avren, and Kavarna. Once again, no specific source was identified, even if authorities were able to rule out contamination caused by a land-based source.

Government agencies in Ukraine, Romania, and Bulgaria — including foreign ministries, environmental ministries, maritime administrations, and environmental inspectorates — should have documented the pollution and its possible connection to the wreck, sent diplomatic notes and requests for information to Russia, collected and preserved samples, satellite imagery, and AIS vessel-tracking data, contacted the International Maritime Organization, the U.N. Environment Programme, and the Black Sea Commission, and demanded that Russia investigate, impose sanctions, and provide compensation.

In practice, however, Romania and Bulgaria publicly limited themselves to noting that the pollution originated at sea and did not conduct comprehensive monitoring. Ukraine was the only Black Sea country to document the pollution and appeal to international institutions.

How the war increased cetacean deaths

The environmental impact of the heavy fuel oil spill, other pollution, and the ongoing invasion can be seen particularly clearly in cetacean deaths. Cetaceans sit near the top of the Black Sea food chain. Three endemic subspecies live in its waters: the Black Sea harbor porpoise, the Black Sea bottlenose dolphin, and the Black Sea common dolphin.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species, the Black Sea harbor porpoise and bottlenose dolphin are classified as endangered (EN), while the Black Sea common dolphin is classified as vulnerable (VU). The most reliable scientific estimate available, produced by the EU’s ASI/CeNoBS project in 2019, put the Black Sea population at around 60,400 common dolphins, 26,462 bottlenose dolphins, and 29,465 harbor porpoises.

Before the full-scale war, the main human-caused source of cetacean deaths was accidental entanglement in commercial fishing nets targeting other species. Between 11,800 and 16,200 harbor porpoises alone died this way each year — between 4.6% and 17.2% of the species’ population, depending on the estimate used. However, Russia’s aggression and disregard for environmental protection created a range of additional threats.

Four major clusters of threats

Military operations

Petroleum spills

Destruction of the Kakhovka dam in June 2023

Vegetable oil spills following strikes on port infrastructure

The effect of those four factors on cetacean mortality can be estimated only partially. The most specific scientific assessment was published in a study presented at the 34th conference of the European Cetacean Society. Data collected by 20 scientists from Black Sea countries recorded 913 cetacean strandings from January through October 2022: 297 in Turkey, 277 in Bulgaria, 203 in Romania, 124 in Ukraine, and 12 in Georgia. That was at least twice the average recorded in previous years.

A more alarming estimate comes from Ivan Rusev, head of the scientific department at Ukraine’s Tuzly Estuaries National Nature Park, who said that around 2,500 carcasses were found along the coast in 2022. Using an estimate by U.S. researchers that only about 5% of dead animals wash ashore, he estimated that at least 50,000 cetaceans died during the first year of the invasion and more than 120,000 over the course of the full-scale war.

At least 50,000 cetaceans may have died in the Black Sea during the first year of the full-scale war and more than 120,000 over the course of the invasion

Available data reliably show that cetacean mortality doubled during the first year of the full-scale war, while expert estimates suggest that even more animals died after the tanker wrecks. While Russia’s military operations and petroleum spills are damaging the entire Black Sea ecosystem, most Black Sea countries are documenting only a limited share of that damage.

All Black Sea countries except for Russia have ratified ACCOBAMS — the Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans of the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and contiguous Atlantic area — requiring them to protect cetacean habitats, conduct monitoring, and investigate mass deaths. In Bulgaria and Romania, bottlenose dolphins and harbor porpoises are listed in Annex II of the EU Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC. All cetaceans are subject to the strict protection requirements of Annex IV of the directive.

The gap between commitments on paper and action in practice is visible at the data-collection stage. Bulgaria, Romania, and Ukraine submit data on discovered cetaceans to the ACCOBAMS stranding database, but even in Romania, where the PONTICCET project conducts postmortem research, samples are collected inconsistently. In one group of nine stranded cetaceans, for example, gastrointestinal samples were taken from only two; the remaining animals received only external examinations.

Experts point to several major gaps among countries not directly involved in the fighting. Georgia and Turkey supplied no data to the ACCOBAMS database for 2025, and necropsies remain incomplete. There is also no basin-wide system for comparing causes of death with pollution, bycatch, and military factors.

In 2024 and 2025, ACCOBAMS recommended that countries strengthen national stranding networks, cooperate with its emergency task force, and expand their capacity to conduct postmortem examinations. The recommendations amount to an acknowledgment that current implementation is inadequate. As a result, in the fifth year of the full-scale war, it is still impossible to reliably determine how many marine mammals died because of heavy fuel oil and how many because of military activity.

How Rosneft stayed out of the main lawsuits

Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources, known as Rosprirodnadzor, estimated the environmental damage caused by the December 2024 spills at 84.94 billion rubles ($1.05 billion). The figure is necessarily incomplete because it covers only Russian territory and Russian-occupied territory, excluding Ukraine and other Black Sea countries.

Actual spending on the cleanup was almost nine times lower than the agency’s damage estimate. According to The Insider’s calculations, which were based on Russian government funding decisions, less than 10 billion rubles ($124.2 million) was spent on cleanup, monitoring, examination of the wreckage and construction of the cofferdams. Yet even those smaller costs are unlikely to be recovered from the parties responsible for the accident.

Less than 10 billion rubles was spent on cleanup, monitoring, wreck inspections and cofferdams, compared with an estimated 85 billion rubles in damage

The court found the tankers’ formal owners liable for the damage, even though their assets were clearly insufficient to cover it. In the case of the Volgoneft-212, the court ordered Kamatrasoil LLC and Kama Shipping LLC to pay 49.46 billion rubles ($614.4 billion).

At the time of publication, 179 enforcement proceedings had been registered against Kamatrasoil. In 60 cases, bailiffs were unable to locate the company, and in another 73 they reported that the debtor “has no property.” On July 27, 2026, the Perm Region Arbitration Court accepted a bankruptcy petition filed by the tax authorities against Kama Shipping over 65.7 million rubles ($816.2 million) in debt.

In the case of the Volgoneft-239, the defendant was Volgatransneft CJSC. Since September 2025, bailiffs have repeatedly returned enforcement cases against the company, saying they could not establish “the location of the debtor or its property.”

Since June 2026, three proceedings have been closed “because the debtor was declared bankrupt” (although no corresponding information had appeared in the bankruptcy register as of publication). Another 87 enforcement proceedings against the company had previously been closed. In 20 of those cases, the tanker owner “had no property,” while in 18 bailiffs were unable to locate the debtor.

The principal beneficiary of a system in which a fifty-year-old tanker with expired documents can go to sea while nominal companies are left as defendants in subsequent lawsuits is Russia’s largest oil producer, Rosneft, headed by Igor Sechin.

Rosneft owned the heavy fuel oil being transported aboard both Volgoneft tankers, and  both vessels were chartered by Rosnefteflot JSC, a company within the Rosneft group. Although the charterer delayed unloading the vessels for more than a month after they arrived near Port Kavkaz, Rosnefteflot was named neither as a defendant nor as a third party in the lawsuits.

Rosneft owned the heavy fuel oil carried by both Volgoneft tankers, while Rosnefteflot JSC chartered the vessels

Igor Sechin has been a close personal associate of Vladimir Putin’s for decades. Sechin met Putin while working at the Leningrad City Council and served under him on the St. Petersburg mayor’s office Committee for External Relations from 1990 to 1996. He later became deputy head of the presidential administration and chief executive of Rosneft.

Sechin’s position in Russia’s informal power hierarchy is illustrated by the fact that journalists have dubbed the Sixth Service of the Federal Security Service’s Internal Security Directorate “Sechin’s special forces.” In disputes with oligarchs and officials, Sechin has repeatedly relied on security agencies in cases that resulted in arrests. Sechin’s own salary is several times higher than those of comparable executives in other countries, totaling 4.5 billion rubles ($55.9) a year, or about 18.5 million rubles ($235,000) per working day.

Beyond informal ties, financial flows directly connect Sechin’s business interests with Putin’s family. Rosneft subsidiary Arctic Research Center provided more than 600 million rubles ($7.5 million) to the Innopraktika foundation run by Putin’s daughter Katerina Tikhonova. In addition, Marat Kabaev — the father of Alina Kabaeva, widely reported to be Putin’s partner and the mother of his children — also became a co-owner of Taimyr Oil, a major Rosneft contractor.

Notably, the amount Russian authorities spent cleaning up the heavy fuel oil released by the Volgoneft tankers was less than 20% of the value of Sechin’s yacht.

A winery near the polluted coast

One of the key figures involved in the circumstances that kept the tankers in the Black Sea from their arrival in early November until mid-December was Andrei Bogatenkov, then the acting CEO of Rosnefteflot JSC.

Rosnefteflot transports Rosneft petroleum products by sea and river. According to industry media, during the navigation season the company uses more than 150 river-sea tankers and tug-and-barge units to move fuel from refineries. Rosnefteflot chartered both tankers involved in the disaster. Bogatenkov’s responsibilities included vessel selection and transportation safety.

A year after the tanker disaster, Bogatenkov returned to the Asian market, where he had previously worked, joining the board of Indian refiner Nayara Energy (formerly Essar Oil) in 2025 as a nonexecutive director.

Nayara Energy owns India’s second-largest refinery and a retail network, boasting more than 6,000 gas stations. Its largest shareholders are Rosneft itself, through Singapore-based Rosneft Singapore Pte. Limited, and Kesani Enterprises Company Limited, each with a 49% share. Kesani is owned by Singapore-based Trafigura and Russian investment company United Capital Partners.

Andrei’s wife, Nadiya Bogatenkova, is the sole owner of eight companies with combined assets worth 161 million rubles ($2.0 million). Four of the firms are involved in viticulture and winemaking in Russian-occupied Crimea, while one, Sarsona Bay, is an agricultural enterprise that owns a winery project of the same name in Sevastopol.

In an ironic twist, Nadiya planted the family’s first vineyards not far from beaches polluted by heavy fuel oil carried by her husband’s company. Sarsona’s first four hectares of vines were planted near Belbek airfield in 2025. Lyubimovka beach lies only several hundred meters from Belbek, and Crimea’s emergency services were still removing patches of heavy fuel oil there in May 2026.

In an ironic twist, Nadiya planted the family’s first vineyards near beaches polluted by heavy fuel oil carried by her husband’s company

Nevertheless, the Bogatenkov family’s plans appear unaffected. While Andrei works in India, Nadiya is preparing to plant another 10 hectares of vineyards in Krasny Mak near Bakhchysarai.

EU sanctions on Crimea have not brought a halt to the couple’s initiatives either. French oenologist Rodrigo Leite consulted on the planting, while Crimean winemakers use barrels made by French cooperage Cadus, whose exports to Russia have been prohibited since 2022.

For 2027, the Bogatenkovs are planning construction of a winery and a “high-end agritourism cluster” with a 20-room boutique hotel and restaurant. The project’s architect is Alexander Balabin, who previously designed the Skalisty Bereg winery for Dmitry Medvedev.

The Black Sea connects its countries through shared currents, but not through a shared system of accountability. Without comparative testing of samples, investigations into wildlife deaths, and interstate claims, damage remains unproven in court, and those responsible for the ecological disaster remain out of reach of international justice. Cleaning beaches is necessary, but it cannot replace other essential steps: identifying the source of the pollution and holding those responsible accountable.

This investigation was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe.

Rosstat, for its part, announced that it had found no evidence that its databases were compromised or that legally protected information had been exfiltrated:

“From Oct. 29 through Nov. 1, Rosstat’s information resources were subjected to targeted destructive cyberattacks. The infrastructure functioned as designed: Monitoring systems promptly detected suspicious activity, allowing specialists to begin responding quickly.”

The agency added that information security specialists, working with law enforcement, were determining how the attackers gained access and identifying the sources of the attack. During the night of Nov. 1, the logos of the hacker groups appeared on Rosstat’s federal website and on the websites of its regional offices. The hackers also posted messages, including one in Belarusian reading, “No one will escape responsibility.” The original site was restored by morning.

What the hackers claim

Silent Crow said in a statement that the attackers gained access to the infrastructure of Rosstat’s central office, its regional branches, and its Main Interregional Center for the Processing and Dissemination of Statistical Information. The group said it obtained access to domain controllers — systems that manage user accounts and access permissions within a corporate network — as well as virtualization servers running VMware ESXi, oVirt, and zVirt.

Among the data it claims to have stolen, the group listed databases containing demographic and economic statistics, census materials, and documents marked “for official use only,” a Russian classification generally applied to sensitive but nonclassified government information. The hackers said they extracted about 2 TB of documents in that category alone. They also named several internal Rosstat information systems, including one called “Demography,” along with the agency’s electronic document management system.

Silent Crow separately said it obtained “information relating to Russian military losses during the war against Ukraine, including data contained in Rosstat systems.” The hackers did not specify what those documents contained.

What information Rosstat may hold on military losses

Rosstat does process mortality data, including deaths resulting from military operations, The Insider found. According to Rosstat’s official methodology, medical death certificates are among the sources used to determine causes of death. The listed causes explicitly include “injuries resulting from military operations.”

As early as 2019, The Insider reported that in 2018, Rosstat’s statistics included a new category tallying people killed as a result of military operations; there were four that year. A Rosstat representative said at the time that the information was received in anonymized form from Russia’s civil registry system, known as ZAGS, while the cause of death was determined by a medical institution.

In recent years, however, Russian authorities have increasingly restricted public access to demographic data. As the data journalism project Yesli Byt Tochnym (lit. “To Be Precise”)  found, Rosstat stopped publishing final statistics on causes of death in 2024. Then, in 2025, many figures on births, deaths, marriages, and divorces also disappeared from public access.

Overall, at least 168 datasets disappeared from publicly available statistical collections, including information on civil servants’ salaries, social benefits, and recipients of state assistance. The removed indicators also included data that could be used to indirectly assess the consequences of the war, including the number of combat veterans and funeral payments.

The same groups previously claimed attacks on Aeroflot and Rosreestr

Silent Crow and Belarusian Cyber Partisans previously claimed responsibility for a major breach of Aeroflot’s computer systems that occurred in late July 2025. The attack caused dozens of flight cancellations and disrupted the airline’s operations. The hackers said at the time that they had spent about a year inside Aeroflot’s corporate network, stolen 22 TB of information, and destroyed thousands of servers. As The Insider reported at the time, Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office confirmed that a cyberattack had caused the disruption and said the office had opened a criminal case under the statute covering unlawful access to computer information.

In January 2025, Silent Crow also claimed to have hacked Rosreestr, Russia’s federal property registry. The group said it gained access to a database containing 2 billion records on property owners and published about 82,000 rows containing Russians’ personal information. Rosreestr denied that a leak had occurred, but journalists from the independent outlet Agentstvo checked a random sample of 15 people and confirmed that the published information was authentic.

On July 21, 2026, Russia’s Supreme Court designated both groups as “extremist” organizations. In the court’s official statement, Silent Crow was described as a pro-Ukrainian hacking group, while Belarusian Cyber Partisans was described as an organization linked to the Belarusian opposition movement Supratsiŭ, whose name means “Resistance” in Belarusian.

The Belarusian Cyber Partisans have also previously hacked information systems belonging to Belarusian government agencies. Materials obtained in those breaches have been used in journalistic investigations.

“The issue of the Su-35 was discussed several years ago, and we carried out the necessary preparations at that time. Pilot training was also completed, and there were no problems with that. These aircraft were supposed to arrive before the war. We will receive them after the war,” Akraminia said. The Iranian army spokesperson added that the country intends to continue purchasing advanced combat aircraft abroad. He said foreign weapons would give Iran access to advanced technology and that the country’s air force would be better equipped once the war ends.

Akraminia did not say how many Su-35s Iran has ordered, which batch he was referring to, or when they were expected to arrive. Russia has not publicly commented on his latest statement.

Su-35 deliveries were promised in 2023

In January 2023, Shahriar Heydari, a member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said the Su-35s ordered from Russia would arrive at the beginning of the next Iranian year (which started on March 21). He also said Iran had ordered Russian air defense systems, missile systems, and helicopters. The Insider reported on those plans at the time.

According to information published by the Israeli publication i24NEWS in late 2022, citing intelligence sources, the original deal may have involved 24 aircraft built for Egypt, which later withdrew from the agreement.

In January 2025, Ali Shadmani, deputy chief of Iran’s Armed Forces General Staff, confirmed that Iran had purchased Su-35s from Russia. Reuters noted, however, that the general did not say how many aircraft had been ordered, when they would be transferred, or whether any deliveries had already taken place.

In November 2024, German aviation publication Flug Revue reported that the first two Su-35SEs had been handed over to Iran. According to journalist Babak Taghvaee, the planes were transferred to the Iranian military on Nov. 18 at an aircraft plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur in Russia’s Far East and were then disassembled and transported to Tehran aboard an An-124 cargo plane. The publication said Iran’s original order had been expanded from 25 to 50 fighters.

However, there has been no independent confirmation that the aircraft arrived in Iran. In April 2025, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said reports of the first two Su-35 deliveries were not supported by satellite imagery or other open-source visual evidence. The institute said its analysts had, however, confirmed by satellite imagery that Algeria had received the same type of fighter from Russia.

In late 2025, Antonio Giustozzi, a senior research fellow at the UK’s Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), wrote in a column for The Insider explaining that documents had emerged indicating Russia and Iran agreed as early as 2022 on the sale of 48 Su-35s. Sources in the Iranian armed forces said preparations to fulfill the contract began that same year, with Iranian pilots and technical personnel undergoing training in Russia. The sources said Tehran was initially expected to receive 24 aircraft from the batch that was previously intended for Egypt, followed by another 24 newly built fighters in 2026-2027.

Iran previously postponed the delivery of 20 fighter jets

In July, Flug Revue reported that around 20 fighters believed to have been built for Iran remained on Russian territory. One reason cited for the delay in delivery was damage to an air base in Hamadan, where the new aircraft were expected to be stationed. According to the publication, Russia expected to have about 30 Su-35SEs ready for Tehran by early 2027.

Then in August 2026, in another column for The Insider, Giustozzi cited sources in the Iranian Air Force who said that Tehran had delayed accepting 20 Russian Su-35s despite Moscow’s readiness to deliver them in the second half of July. According to his sources, Iran feared the U.S. military would destroy the new fighters before they could be moved into underground shelters. Tehran therefore preferred to temporarily leave the aircraft in Russia, even as the equipment necessary to operate and maintain the Su-35s had already begun arriving in Iran.

Iranian military spokesperson Akraminia’s latest statement is consistent with information previously published by The Insider about the delivery delays. However, because the general did not specify how many aircraft Iran is still expecting, it is impossible to confirm whether he was referring to the same batch of 20 Su-35s mentioned by Giustozzi. The status of the two fighters that Flug Revue reported as delivered in 2024 also remains unclear.

The Su-35 is a Russian multirole fighter that Moscow classifies as a “4++ generation” aircraft. It is designed for air-to-air combat and strikes against ground targets. For Iran’s air force, much of which still consists of aging U.S.-made aircraft acquired before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Su-35 is expected to become one of the central elements of efforts to modernize its combat aviation.

Then, around three hours later, Russians were targeted with similar warnings after hackers breached the mobile app of Russia’s Ministry of Emergencies and used it to spread false warnings about the supposed launch of nuclear warheads across the country. Similar messages appeared in the ministry’s official regional channels and operational headquarters channels.

The ministry confirmed the cyberattack. At around 2:45 a.m. Moscow time, users of the Emergencies Ministry app began receiving notifications about the launch of nuclear warheads on P1-SUN delivery systems. The authors of the messages urged Russians to stock up on three weeks’ worth of food and take shelter in basements. The text was accompanied by profanity. Identical warnings appeared in at least ten regions, including St. Petersburg, the Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Tyumen, Tula, Chelyabinsk, and Belgorod regions, Perm and Stavropol territories, and Bashkortostan. The messages were also spread through the ministry’s channels on the Max and Telegram messengers.

The P1-SUN mentioned by the hackers does exist — but it is a Ukrainian interceptor drone made by SkyFall and designed to destroy Russian attack drones.

The Russian Ministry of Emergencies said that specialists are fixing the vulnerability in the mobile app and restoring its operation. At the same time, the ministry claims that the cyberattack did not affect the main public warning system. According to the ministry, sirens, loudspeakers, text message alerts, and television and radio broadcasting are operating normally. The ministry describes the mobile app as an auxiliary information channel. It did not disclose the number of users who received the false warnings or technical details of the hack.

The developers of Ukraine’s Povitriana Tryvoha app confirmed the unauthorized interference in its operation and temporarily disabled push notifications, and the developers of eTryvoga had to temporarily suspend the automatic transmission of warnings. Later, both services began restoring operations. Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said that the nationwide alert system continues to work.

It remains unknown who is behind the two cyberattacks. Despite the similarity of the false warnings and the short interval between the incidents, there is so far no confirmation that the hacks in Russia and Ukraine were organized by the same people.

Hackers have interfered with Russian emergency alert channels before. In February 2023, false air raid warnings sounded via radio and television in several regions of Russia and in annexed Crimea, with the Emergencies Ministry stating that its servers had been hacked. The Insider later noted that, according to Russian outlet Vedomosti, the attackers had spoofed the signal from the Yamal-402 satellite, which is owned by Gazprom Space Systems.

The Ukrainian humanitarian mission to Oleshky was led by Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian parliament’s commissioner for human rights, who personally arrived in the occupied city on Oct. 30, making him the highest-ranking Ukrainian official to visit Russian-controlled territory since the start of the full-scale invasion. Lubinets reached Oleshky by traveling through Belarus, Russia, and occupied Crimea, and took part in the humanitarian operation alongside Russian human rights commissioner Yana Lantratova. After returning to Ukraine, he acknowledged that he had been worried about how the trip would end: “I’m happy that I’m back. I’ll say that honestly. You understand, it is always difficult to be the first to take such a step.”

The evacuees told The Insider that the past year had been the hardest period of the Russian occupation. With roads mined and the constant threat of shelling and drone attacks, many residents were unable to leave the city. Food deliveries had almost stopped, medical care was unavailable, and some residents survived on stored supplies and vegetables grown in their own gardens. Those arriving on the buses appeared exhausted, and many had lost significant weight.

One elderly evacuee, who will turn 80 in two weeks, told The Insider that he had lost 20 kilograms (44 pounds) during the blockade. He said residents had previously received humanitarian aid including pasta, salt, and grains, but over the past year those distributions had been reduced to two cans of condensed milk a month. Eventually, even that help ceased. The man said his health had deteriorated and that he lacked necessary medication.

Another evacuee, Tetiana Vasylivna, said her house was flooded almost to the chimney after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in June 2023. Her family managed to leave only minutes before floodwaters cut off the road. When they returned three weeks later, they found that little beyond the building’s main walls remained. After rebuilding the house, the family again found itself in danger: Over the past year, the city was largely cut off from the outside world, and trips to buy food became potentially deadly because of land mines.

“Oleh was driving recently and hit a mine. He had helped us raise the ceiling. He died instantly,” the woman said. She also described several acquaintances who were wounded and other residents who were killed. She said Russian soldiers sometimes took food from local residents, beat them, and threatened them with violence. Tatyana Vasilyevna said Russian servicemen shot dead a family she knew after a dispute over food.

Another evacuee told The Insider that Russian troops took her husband away in 2022. She has had no information about him since, adding that relatives were made to understand that continuing to search for him could be dangerous and that approaching Russian institutions with Ukrainian documents was effectively impossible. She also described the disappearance of an elderly neighbor — the woman stopped leaving her home, and when neighbors went to check on her, they found the doors open and her belongings untouched; but the resident herself was gone.

With no electricity, Oleshky residents cooked food on makeshift brick stoves and relied on generators and solar panels. Communications barely functioned. One woman told The Insider that residents sometimes had to search for a long time to find a place where they could call relatives, while some people went without contact for weeks or months.

Evacuees said they remained unsure until the last moment whether they would be able to reach Ukraine safely. Many feared Russian “filtration” procedures — security screenings used by Russian authorities in occupied Ukrainian territories that can include questioning, document checks, and searches leading to potential detention. Tetiana Vasylivna said she was even afraid to board the plane because she feared the Russian side might stage a false-flag attack during the flight. She said, however, that there was no filtration during this evacuation — passengers were checked before boarding the plane and then allowed to continue into Belarus and Ukraine. Women interviewed by The Insider stressed that there was no direct coercion during the evacuation and thanked U.S. first lady Melania Trump for helping organize the operation.

According to The Insider correspondent’s estimate, between 700 and 1,000 people remained in Oleshky after the evacuation. They include children, elderly residents, and people with limited mobility. Many refused to leave because they feared a possible attack or did not want to abandon their homes. One evacuee said that after seeing the success of the first evacuation, more people would probably agree to leave if another round were organized.

The evacuation became possible after an agreement on a temporary ceasefire in the Oleshky area was brokered with the involvement of Melania Trump. The “regime of silence” — a term commonly used in Russian and Ukrainian official language for a temporary suspension of hostilities — has been in effect since Oct. 27 and was due to end on the evening of Nov. 1. Residents who chose to travel to Ukraine were first taken to the Russian resort city of Anapa, then flown to Gomel in Belarus, from where they continued on by bus to the Ukrainian border.

Before the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Oleshky had a population of about 24,000. In September, The Insider reported on a humanitarian crisis in the city, where residents were left without electricity, water, food, and medicine. 

Mashovets runs an Instagram page with more than 5,000 followers. His profile lists travel, aviation, railways, transportation, and architecture among his interests, and a significant share of his more than 2,000 posts feature trains, airplanes, and other vehicles. He has published photographs of trains in Germany, Estonia, and Hungary, among other countries. The images appear on his account going back to at least 2023. Mashovets also uploaded photographs of trains taken in various countries to the specialized website RailGallery. Search-engine results still show references to those posts (although the pages themselves can no longer be opened).

Mashovets also communicated with other railway enthusiasts on RailGallery. In a discussion indexed by search engines and dated March 2026, he described meeting the driver of a locomotive he had photographed in Germany. Mashovets said he contacted the driver through Instagram and met him again during a later trip to the country. “Behind every ‘piece of metal’ in the frame are people,” Mashovets wrote.

RailGallery itself stopped operating on Oct. 15 amid criminal proceedings against its administrators in Russia. Moscow’s Dorogomilovsky District Court ordered Denis Yeskov and Anatoly Nagornov to be held in custody in a case involving alleged unlawful interference with critical information infrastructure. Investigators accuse them of illegally obtaining information belonging to an organization and protected as a commercial secret, copying it and publishing it on their website. They face five to 10 years in prison. In 2023, photographs from RailGallery were used in an investigation by the Dossier Center into Vladimir Putin’s alleged armored train.

According to Sukhorukova, her brother traveled to Poland on a business trip and stopped responding on the evening of Oct. 25. His relatives did not know where he was until they read about the detention in a local Polish newspaper. She said that even 72 hours after his arrest, he had not been allowed to call his family. The family itself contacted the Russian Embassy.

As Sukhorukova wrote: 

“Those who know Sasha understand how absurd and frightening this accusation sounds. Photographing railway transport has been his longtime hobby, going back to his youth. His Facebook page has millions of photographs of trains, railway cars, and airplanes. This is his hobby, not some kind of secret activity.”

The Insider sent Sukhorukova questions about the circumstances of Mashovets’ detention and his work. As of the time of publication, she had read the message but had not responded.

As Polish outlet RMF24 previously reported, Mashovets was detained in the city of Świdnica, in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, while photographing passing trains and railway infrastructure. Police officers providing security at a soccer match noticed a Volkswagen parked near a railroad crossing. According to police, the driver quickly drove away after seeing the patrol. He was later found near another railway facility, where officers said he again tried to return to his vehicle when police appeared.

Police found professional photography equipment in his possession. According to the Polish prosecutor’s office, searches of Mashovets’ car and apartment uncovered cameras, phones, laptops, a tablet, external drives, memory cards, and four Russian passports. Investigators said the electronic devices contained hundreds of thousands of files, including photographs of railways, train stations, airports, and telecommunications infrastructure in Poland and other countries. Polish Interior Ministry spokesperson Karolina Gałecka said police seized 250,000 photographs.

Investigators accuse Mashovets of participating in the activities of a foreign intelligence service. According to law enforcement authorities, he collected images of transport infrastructure and industrial facilities for transfer to foreign intelligence. Mashovets pleaded not guilty. On Oct. 28, a court ordered him held in pretrial detention for three months. The charge carries a minimum sentence of five years in prison.

Agentic AI is a new kind of AI product that repurposes the same language technologies used for consumer products like chatbots in order to solve complicated tasks without human oversight. AI agents are empowered with tools to help them accomplish their tasks — like the ability to run computer programs and access the internet. Given a task, an agent can generate a plan, iteratively call upon tools to perform actions according to this plan, receive feedback based on these actions, adjust its plan according to the feedback, and continue to act until its task is complete. AI companies hope to market these agents as fully-automated replacements for human knowledge workers. But the agents don’t always work as intended.

Since July, there has been an explosion of reports of rogue agent hacking incidents from major AI developers. OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Meta have all confirmed incidents of hacking as they develop and test increasingly capable agentic AI technologies. Incidents occurred as early as January, with notable targets including the Australian government’s health data portal, U.S. government websites, and Wikimedia projects. In one test run by the UK’s AI Security Institute, an agent attempted to sneak malicious code into a collaborative software project by posing as a human contributor. Media outlets have reported breathlessly on these incidents (often using analogies borrowed from science fiction), and industry insiders have expressed highly publicized cataclysmic fears about the ongoing development of AI technology. But what kinds of incidents can we expect moving forward? And what broader risks should readers be concerned about?

In one test run, an agent attempted to sneak malicious code into a project by posing as a human contributor

A reasonable observer following these developments might question the prudence of developing AI technology at all. This question seems largely moot. The economic incentives to develop AI are extraordinary, and despite recent discussions of pacing or slowing the development of AI, concrete proposals require substantive global coordination. It is unclear how society would better prepare itself for AI given a more protracted timeline. Slowing the development of AI could even accelerate the impact of AI on society in the event that the major AI developers were to shift their focus to deploying and capitalizing upon current AI technology rather than devoting resources to research and development. The apparent economic value of AI is itself an argument for the prospective benefits AI is poised to deliver, and a more nuanced argument must weigh these economic benefits against the externalities of AI risks, including rogue AI agents like the ones making headlines.

An end to digital equilibrium

Cybersecurity incidents are not a new phenomenon, nor are computer programs that act beyond the intent of their creators. In 1988, a year before the invention of the World Wide Web, the Morris worm spread across the internet, crippling thousands of computers. This worm was not intended to cause damage, but due to a miscalculation in its programming, the worm replicated too aggressively and brought infected systems to a crawl. Computer viruses and exploits proliferated with the growth of the internet, and over time computer security settled into an uneasy equilibrium. Companies and governments invest just enough money in cybersecurity to avoid being punished for negligence, while nefarious hackers look for high-value targets with weak enough security to be worth their time to exploit. AI agents upset this equilibrium.

Whereas people commit cybercrimes for financial incentives, agents operate based on different and sometimes inscrutable incentives. Agents are trained to perform tasks using a process called reinforcement learning, by which they collect rewards for performing certain actions and learn behaviors that maximize their rewards. The OpenAI agents that hacked Hugging Face were trained with rewards for accomplishing tasks, and they were implicitly rewarded for the persistence of their efforts. When OpenAI began testing these agents, they made a miscalculation. Some of the tasks they set for their agents were impossible, and yet these agents persisted according to their training, finding ways to communicate with each other and to access the internet. They reasoned that Hugging Face’s servers might contain helpful information about their tasks, and so around 700 of these agents collaborated to commit a crime: hacking Hugging Face in an effort to pass their tests. Committing a crime to cheat on an inconsequential test is insane behavior, so a company like Hugging Face could be forgiven for not investing more in cyber defenses against such a curiously motivated attack.

Whereas people commit cybercrimes for financial incentives, agents operate based on different and sometimes inscrutable incentives

Moving forward, we can expect to see a proliferation of AI hacking — both intentional hacking performed by nefarious actors with AI assistance, and also unintentional hacking performed by rogue AI agents acting beyond the intent of their principals. Because the current equilibrium between hackers and cyber defenders will be upended, we may see spectacular and consequential disruptions before we find a new equilibrium. On a personal level, I would be reluctant to hold no-recourse financial assets like cryptocurrencies or smart contracts, which present a rewarding digital target to hackers and are difficult or impossible to recover through courts after an incident. It is possible that courts and legal processes themselves could be overwhelmed by an increasing volume of cases related to digital scams and cybercrimes, a problem that could be exacerbated by the fact that AI tools are decreasing the costs of filing a lawsuit. 

Every company and institution will have to re-evaluate its threat assessments and cybersecurity investments in light of AI agents. How bad will this get? And are there even greater risks on the horizon?

Two types of threats

One way to think about the risks of AI is to distinguish between the risks of AI acting with undesirable side effects and the risks of AI performing exactly as intended (as the recent wave of rogue AI hacking incidents highlighted). No one at OpenAI instructed their agents to hack Hugging Face, nor would they have knowingly authorized this action. And yet, their agents were implicitly rewarded for taking illegal action in pursuit of their explicit goal. Rogue AI is also a familiar trope from science fiction stories in which humans entirely lose control over their AI technologies. Many insiders within the AI industry itself express pessimism about humanity’s ability to properly reward and control increasingly intelligent systems, fueling broader discussion of the risks of rogue AI.

Agents were implicitly rewarded for taking illegal action in pursuit of their explicit goal

There are also risks of AI performing exactly as intended. While various companies’ AI agents were busy hacking this summer, researchers at these same companies were working to prevent human customers from using their AI products to assist with hacking. AI companies invest substantial resources into training and monitoring their AI products to prevent people from using them to assist in illegal or distasteful acts. Indeed, OpenAI’s agents were only able to hack Hugging Face because they were operating without safeguards in order to test their unrestricted agentic cybersecurity capabilities. One of OpenAI’s competitors, Anthropic, released a detailed report in September describing efforts by people to use their AI technology to assist in hacking, mass surveillance, conventional and biological weapons development, scams, and other nefarious activities. This summer, the New York Times reported on Boko Haram using AI to assist with terrorist activities. In early October, a South Korean bank was compromised by AI agents under the direction of an unsophisticated human actor, and more sophisticated actors have used agents to automate attacks against dozens of websites.

One way to manage the risks of nefarious people misusing AI is centralized control. Engineers and researchers at responsible AI companies are hard at work building safeguards that identify malicious use of AI services and refuse to offer assistance. If we confine AI to a small number of platforms and subject these platforms to close monitoring and oversight, the risk of misuse can be managed. I am much less confident, however, that we can agree on a universal set of principles that define misuse. Anthropic illustrated this difficulty in March, when the company refused to allow the U.S. government to integrate their AI into fully autonomous weapons. The government disagreed, and designated Anthropic a national security risk.

Control and decentralization

The current conversation around AI safety is dominated by concerns about uncontrolled and undesirable side effects of AI systems. Prominent voices in the AI community fear that AI could rapidly and dramatically train itself to achieve ever higher levels of intelligence. They fear that AI could use that intelligence to escape all safeguards and controls in pursuit of mis-specified rewards, going rogue with catastrophic consequences for humanity. These concerns are widespread among the founders and earliest employees of the major AI companies, and they permeate the culture of these institutions. This pessimism might surprise an outsider, but in the early days at OpenAI, fearmongering and engineering work were symbiotic. Prophecies of doom are only credible if the AI technology itself is impressive, and these expressions of fear were a shorthand way to convey AI’s power to early investors.

Loss of control is a risk to be managed, and it will be managed in the long run. An AI agent that goes rogue is a bad product, meaning companies have market incentives to improve control. I don’t discount the risk of harm in the short run, and governments may step in to create additional regulatory control requirements, especially if agents instigate serious incidents. However, prophecies of doom rest on a naive theory of power: the belief that intelligence has unbounded utility for acquiring power and influence. This belief is rooted in the analogy that just as humans rule over less intelligent species, superintelligent AI could conquer or even extinguish humanity. Nevertheless, beyond a sufficient level of intelligence, I don’t see evidence that intellect is helpful for the acquisition or exercise of power. Powerful people use money and influence to delegate work to intelligent actors in the service of their ambitions. These actors will increasingly be AI agents, which won’t have the moral qualms of human workers.

An AI agent that goes rogue is a bad product, meaning companies have market incentives to improve control

I am much more concerned about misuse of AI by centralized platforms themselves, and also by governments. Centralization addresses the risks of AI by surrendering to a small elite uncontested control over some of the most powerful tools for surveillance, propaganda, and economic output in human history. This requires trust in institutions that cannot be assured by engineering. I am therefore encouraged by the diversity of AI technologies under development internationally, which challenge this centralization of power. Diversity and competition are the essence of a liberal response to the risks of AI, in contrast to the tempting authoritarian impulse to lock everything down. Notably, Hugging Face was unable to use American AI technology to analyze its security breach by OpenAI, because cybersecurity analysis is locked down in OpenAI’s public products in order to prevent their use for hacking. And so, Hugging Face used a Chinese model to do the analysis instead.

The diversity of AI technologies under development internationally challenges the centralization of power

The consequences of diverse and decentralized AI technology will be chaotic, disruptive, and sometimes painful. As more facts emerged from the Hugging Face incident this summer, it is now clear that OpenAI was reckless with its security practices in the agentic cybersecurity tests that led to the hack. It’s easy to say that OpenAI should have been more careful, and society should indeed demand more care. I hope that institutions like OpenAI can be held accountable for criminal actions, and that we don’t permit people and organizations to disclaim agency or intent when their AI agents commit crimes. But with an intensive and pluralistic buildout of AI infrastructure, we can expect to see more incidents with greater consequences and greater negligence moving forward. Nevertheless, this seems like a brighter vision for the future than centralized, closely monitored technology reliant on corruptible benevolent oversight.

The Russian Equestrian Federation is headed by Marina Sechina, the former wife of Rosneft chief Igor Sechin. She has led the federation since 2016 and was reelected to a third term in October 2024.

Before 2022, one of the main goals for Russian riders and horse owners was participation in international competitions. Horses were often kept and trained in Europe, and Russian riders regularly competed in Spain, Italy, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, however, equestrian sport was affected by sanctions and international restrictions.

In 2022, the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) suspended Russian and Belarusian athletes, horses, and officials from international competitions, though it later eased the restrictions, allowing them to compete individually under neutral status. To qualify, an athlete must not be under contract with the Russian or Belarusian armed forces or national security agencies and must not publicly support the war. Neutral participants compete without a national flag and do not formally represent the Russian Federation.

In June 2025, Maria Gref, the daughter of Sberbank CEO German Gref, received neutral status. Her father is under sanctions imposed by the EU, the United States, the United Kingdom, and several other countries. To obtain the status, Maria Gref signed a declaration confirming that she met FEI criteria, including that she did not support the war.

Cheap only on paper

The issue is not only whether Russian athletes can compete, but also where they can obtain high-quality sport horses, since exports of such animals to Russia from the EU are prohibited. As The Insider found, however, bringing a horse into Russia is not particularly difficult.

According to customs records, eight elite-breed horses were brought into Russia from Europe in 2024. Additionally, several other European-origin horses returned to Russia after competitions in Uzbekistan, but those imports had a lawful basis.

According to customs records, eight elite-breed horses were brought into Russia from Europe in 2024

Four breeding horses arrived from Lithuania on Feb. 3, 2024. The recipient and contract holder was Moscow-registered Horse Expert LLC, whose primary business is horse transportation. The sender was listed as an unnamed Lithuanian company acting on behalf of Samat Lesbekovich Lesbekov — a methodologist at an equestrian school in Kyrgyzstan and a steward at international competitions.

One of the horses, a black purebred Spanish stallion named CALIFA CLVI, was born in Spain in 2019. Its invoice value was listed as 2,000 euros. In Spain, the horse took part in national breed shows but was not registered as a sport horse in the FEI database. It is also not listed as a sport horse in the Russian Equestrian Federation database.

The second horse was a bay Oldenburg stallion born in 2023. The declaration does not give its name but lists a microchip number — DE 418180523123 — which shows that the horse was bred by the Oldenburg Association for Sport Horse Breeding in Germany.

The organization, headed by Paul Schockemöhle, specializes in breeding elite sport horses for show jumping and eventing, disciplines in which horses negotiate obstacles. According to the declaration, the horse’s invoice value was 1,800 euros.

The third horse was a bay Oldenburg mare born in 2022, microchip number DE418180532822, with an invoice value of 1,800 euros. Its chip likewise indicates that it is an elite sport horse bred for show jumping or eventing.

The fourth was RUBIO AG, a bay stallion born in Spain in 2021. Its invoice value was listed as 2,000 euros. The stallion does not appear to have competed in either Spain or Russia.

A horse sales expert told The Insider that CALIFA CLVI could be worth between 20,000 and 70,000 euros. The animal’s health, however, plays a major role in determining its value. If a veterinary examination found a serious malady, that could indeed reduce the horse’s value to the 2,000 euros listed on the invoice.

Importantly, Ilya Shumanov, managing partner of the investigations bureau TriTrace Investigations, noted that even the declared prices of 1,800 and 2,000 euros are far above the EU’s 300-euro export threshold:

“The February shipment appears, based on its characteristics, to fall under the EU sanctions ban. Breeding horses under the relevant commodity code are included on the list of luxury goods. Describing the horses as intended for breeding creates no exemption for such transactions and does not remove them from the sanctions regime.”

Four more horses arrived in Russia from Latvia on Aug. 31 and Sept. 3, 2024. Both customs declarations appear suspicious.

The sender was well-known international trainer Yulia Katok, who also breeds and sells sport horses. The recipient was Bitrade LLC, a company in Russia’s Saratov region that specializes in transportation.

The declarations describe the animals as recreational, sport, and pedigree horses originating in Germany. The invoice value for both shipments was listed as zero rubles, while their customs values were 201,524.40 rubles ($2,500) and 198,522.60 rubles ($2,450), respectively. The declarations do not list the horses’ names, microchip numbers, or the legal basis for their import.

Shumanov said the shipments may have involved horses being returned after previously leaving Russia.

“It looks as though the horses were exported from the Eurasian Economic Union and then returned, with the original shipment treated as an error. In principle, that should still be restricted under EU sanctions decisions.”

Leaving no customs trail

In 2025, Russian customs stopped adding data to databases available to customs brokers. The horses themselves, however, continued — and still continue — to appear in Russian stables. Registration records for some can be found in the database of the Russian Equestrian Federation.

In December 2025, for example, the federation issued a Russian passport to a Dutch Warmblood gelding named Nilavsco Keizersberg. The federation’s website says the horse belongs to Veronika Prigozhina, the younger daughter of the late Wagner mercenary group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Nilavcko Keizersberg was born in the Netherlands in 2018. According to the FEI database, through late October 2025 the horse competed in international show-jumping events with a Spanish rider, most recently in Valencia, Spain.

In July 2026, the Dutch gelding competed in Russia for the first time with Veronika Prigozhina at the Leningrad Region Governor’s Cup. For three consecutive days, the pair finished 13th on courses with obstacles 120 and 130 centimeters high. By August, however, their results had improved, and Prigozhina and her horse won a regional competition.

The 21-year-old Prigozhina also competes on other horses: Cascallo B, Ditara, and Fauna KG. Before 2022, she competed on them in Europe, but after the war began the horses were moved to Russia. Her FEI profile states that she is barred from international competitions “until further notice.”

Diana Ilyumzhinova, the wife of former Kalmykia leader Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, also brought a horse to Russia in 2025. She trains in dressage at the elite Otrada equestrian complex outside Moscow and owns two other horses with a combined estimated value of about 200,000 euros.

Her new horse, DoorHan, is an Oldenburg stallion born in Germany in 2020. The FEI database contains no record of the stallion competing internationally, though it may have competed at the national level. According to the Russian Equestrian Federation database, DoorHan received a Russian passport in April 2025. That July, he made his debut with Ilyumzhinova at the Moscow dressage championship and immediately took first place in the young-horse category.

A year earlier, a Westphalian stallion named Diamond, born in the Czech Republic in 2020, received a Russian passport. The horse belongs to Daria Gusakova, who holds Russia’s “Candidate for Master of Sport” athletic rank (a Soviet-era classification still used in Russia) and competes with him in show jumping. Gusakova trains at a youth sports school in the Moscow region.

In 2023, the Russian Equestrian Federation issued a passport to Total Match, a Dutch Warmblood gelding born in the Netherlands. Since 2025, he has regularly competed in dressage at Prix St. Georges and Intermediate level with rider Yekaterina Zoshchuk. She trains at the premium Novy Vek club near Novaya Riga, an affluent suburban corridor west of Moscow.

In May 2026, Zoshchuk received neutral status, allowing the Russian rider to compete internationally without the country’s flag or anthem. According to the FEI database, she has not yet competed internationally.

As of late May, the FEI had approved neutral status for 174 representatives of Russian equestrian sport.

How the horses are brought in

The Insider spoke with trainers and athletes from Russia, Ukraine, and the EU. They said horses continue to be brought into Russia through Lithuania and Kazakhstan. Transportation costs about 10,000 to 12,000 euros, including delivery from origin to destination and customs fees. Veterinary certificates are charged separately.

Horses are brought into Russia through Lithuania and Kazakhstan, at a transportation cost of about 10,000 to 12,000 euros

There can be difficulties at the border. One trainer from a Moscow-area club said a client’s horse, imported in mid-August, spent two and a half months at the Lithuanian border. Another source told The Insider of a delay lasting about six weeks.

“They bring them through Lithuania and Belarus, yes. It costs around 10,000. The only thing is that they periodically shut the whole thing down, so there’s a chance the horse won’t go anywhere at all, or it can sit there for several weeks or longer,” one source said.

Market participants said many European breeders and riders have refused on principle to sell horses to Russia since the full-scale invasion began. Others, however, care primarily about the money.

Vladislav Netyaev of Transparency International Russia said information about imported horses may be entirely absent from customs databases for several reasons: records involving influential people may have been deliberately removed, customs officials may have intentionally entered a different commodity code, or the horse may have been imported under the guise of another type of cargo.

Buying in Europe, delivering to Russia

GetHorse is one of the best-known services helping Russian riders find elite horses in Europe. It was founded by equestrian athlete Alisa Yermakova (now Alisa Mukhanova). According to the project’s website, she initially traveled to Europe to buy sport horses for herself before expanding the service to help clients select horses and arrange paperwork and transportation.

The website also outlines the buying process. Clients provide Alisa with their preferred breed, age, training level, and other criteria, and she sends suitable options within two weeks. A trip is then arranged to view the horses in person.

The trip typically lasts three days and includes visits to several stables. Alisa also offers access to an expert who can assess the horses and help the buyer choose. The selected horse undergoes a veterinary examination, and after payment, professional transporters deliver it to Russia. Alisa says she handles the veterinary and customs paperwork.

A correspondent for The Insider contacted Alisa Yermakova while posing as a prospective buyer. Yermakova said she would send a selection of horses from Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark and arrange a trip to view them, but later stopped responding.

How sellers evade sanctions — and what penalties they face

Linda Zilberte, an expert in European law and an attorney in Amsterdam, stressed that the purchase of a horse by a Russian citizen inside the EU followed by shipment to Russia violates EU Regulation 2022/428, explaining that under the regulation, the ban applies not only to purebred breeding horses but also to racehorses, show-jumping and dressage horses, as well as ordinary riding and recreational horses.

Zilberte described three methods sellers and buyers may use to carry out such transactions.

First, a horse may be purchased in the EU by a citizen of a third country, who then transports it to Russia through Lithuania or another EU country bordering Russia. Such an intermediary would, of course, conceal the fact that the seller knows the identity of the actual Russian beneficiary. This would be considered sanctions circumvention. The same applies to an EU-based buyer who subsequently hands the horse to a transporter outside the EU for delivery to Russia.

Second, the seller may state a different final purpose in the customs declaration — breeding, participation in competitions, or veterinary treatment abroad — in order to conceal the horse’s true destination. Presenting the transaction not as a sale but as a gift, lease or temporary export for competition, followed by failure to return the horse, would fall into the same category. Such strategies may work because shipments involving live animals can receive less scrutiny than goods or financial transactions. They would nevertheless still violate the regulation.

Third, the parties may simply get lucky. Unlike ordinary goods or weapons, horses are living animals and are primarily subject to veterinary border controls rather than specialized customs checks for sanctions compliance. Customs authorities may therefore simply fail to connect the horse’s transit with applicable sanctions restrictions.

As a result of the gathering, the parties adopted three main documents: the final declaration of the summit, a declaration on cooperation in the civilian use of AI, and the action plan of the Russia–Africa partnership forum for 2027–2029. In addition, more than 60 official agreements were signed at the summit and at the parallel economic and humanitarian forum, Russian presidential adviser Anton Kobyakov announced via Telegram.

Countering sanctions, “rewriting of history,” and colonial legacies

A significant part of the final declaration is devoted to international politics. Russia and the African states in attendance agreed to oppose the blocking and seizure of sovereign assets, as well as to resist outside political and economic pressure. The parties intend to coordinate their positions when it comes to sanctions against African countries.

The summit participants also agreed to counter attempts at “rewriting and falsifying history.” These and other provisions are included in the final declaration, which consists of 101 points.

Another area will be assessing the damage “inflicted on African states during the colonial period.” Russian scientists are already developing a methodology for such assessment jointly with African colleagues. Preliminary results should be presented in 2027, and a special research laboratory is expected to open in Uganda in November 2026.

In his speech on Oct. 28, Vladimir Putin accused Western countries of trying to preserve Africa’s economic dependence and impose new debt obligations on it. The Russian president claimed that Moscow is ready to transfer technology and foster production on the continent.

African Union Commission Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf stressed in his speech that African states are interested in developing local industry and gaining access to international capital. He also called for reforming the U.N. Security Council by expanding African representation.

Military cooperation and fight against terrorism

Putin stated that Russia has intergovernmental agreements on military and military-technical cooperation in effect with 45 African states, noting that Moscow trains African servicemen and law enforcement officers at Russian educational institutions.

In the final statements, the parties reaffirmed their intention to expand cooperation in the fight against terrorism and extremism, counter the use of new technologies by terrorist organizations, and develop joint security mechanisms.

Special attention was paid to the Sahel states: Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. Commenting on the statement of Assimi Goïta, the head of Mali’s military government, Putin stressed the global importance of resolving the situation in the Sahel.

Russia’s military presence in the region has expanded in recent years. After the Wagner Group wound down its activities following the death of founder Yevgeny Prigozhin in August 2023, Russia's state-run Africa Corps stepped in to take over the role in several African states. Russian military units currently operate in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and the Central African Republic.

Two days ahead of the summit, African branches of Amnesty International appealed to its participants with a call to demand that Moscow stop the deceptive and coercive recruitment of citizens of African states to take part in the war against Ukraine. Human rights activists claim that Russia recruits foreigners under the guise of employment and then sends them to the front.

AI, space, and control over technology

The summit participants devoted a separate declaration to cooperation in AI — to promote equal and fair access to safe AI technologies, the development of joint educational programs, and capacity-building efforts. Satellite communications and the use of space were discussed separately.

According to Putin, approximately 40,000 students from African countries are studying in Russia, and Moscow is expanding training programs for foreign civil servants, including in the digitalization of public administration. Putin also characterized Russia as being one of three countries with full digital sovereignty — a claim The Insider has examined in its Antifake section.

Precious metals, nuclear power plants, and trade

The economic part of the summit focused on energy, transportation, agriculture, and the mining and processing of minerals.

Russia’s Rusal and the state-owned Ghana Integrated Aluminium Development Corporation agreed to create two joint ventures in Ghana. The companies plan to develop the Nyinahini deposit with annual output of up to 5 million metric tons of bauxite and build an alumina refinery with a capacity of 1.2 million metric tons per year, with Rusal receiving controlling stakes in both ventures. Reuters notes that the company is seeking to reduce its dependence on external suppliers of raw materials after losing part of its supplies from Ukraine and Australia in 2022.

Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama also announced the start of negotiations with Rosatom on building the country’s first nuclear power plant.

According to Putin, Russia’s trade with African countries reached $27 billion in 2025, and since 2023 Moscow has opened eight new embassies on the continent. In the near future, Botswana, Seychelles, and Togo intend to open diplomatic missions of their own in the Russian capital.

Putin also said that in the first nine months of 2026, Russia had supplied African countries with 13 million tons of agricultural products. Deliveries of mineral fertilizers, he said, exceeded 2.2 million tons this year, compared with 1.5 million tons for all of last year.

Trade with Africa remains significantly below the level promised by Putin

Despite claims of successful cooperation, Russia’s trade with Africa has not yet reached the level that Putin promised at the first summit in 2019. As Chatham House notes, the Russian leader set a goal of bringing trade turnover to $40 billion; however, in 2025, it totaled only $27 billion. For comparison, also according to data cited by Chatham House, China’s trade with African countries reached $348 billion in 2025, and the European Union’s was about $395 billion.

At the same time, Russia continues to expand its political and military presence on the continent. Earlier, The Insider described how Moscow uses cooperation with African governments to gain access to natural resources and strengthen its influence in international organizations.

Six days before the current summit, The Insider identified a GRU officer who in April 2025 infiltrated the diplomatic residence of the African Union in Ethiopia. He turned out to be Alexander Dubikov, who worked undercover as an assistant to the Russian military attaché and is linked to hackers from the Sandworm group. The incident occurred at a compound used by the current chairperson of the African Union Commission, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, who also took part in the Moscow summit.

Dialogue with Europe, possible war, and situation in the Baltic Sea

At the press conference following the summit, Putin took questions about relations with Europe. Commenting on his Oct. 27 phone call with Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, Putin said the European leaders themselves initiated the call, stressing that they were acting in their national capacity, not on behalf of the European Union. Despite being critical of his counterparts, Putin called the conversation the right step and supported attempts to restore dialogue with European countries.

Nevertheless, Putin said that Russia is ready for war with Europe, even if it does not seek one. He criticized statements by European politicians about the need to prepare for a possible military conflict by 2030 and expressed confidence that Russia cannot be dealt a strategic defeat. “If it goes too far, there will be no winner at all,” he commented, adding that Russia remembers the lessons of the First and Second World Wars and is doing everything it can to prevent reliving them.

Finally, Putin touched on the situation in the Baltic Sea, which he had discussed with the leaders of Finland and Norway. According to Putin, his Nordic interlocutors had invoked the need to comply with international maritime law. Putin supported their position but warned that a situation similar to what is happening in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz could develop in the Baltic. Russia, according to him, does not want such a development but is ready to respond to any challenge.

On Oct. 25, police detained a woman who had come to lay flowers at the Solovetsky Stone. According to the legal rights project Slovo Zashchite (lit. “Word to the Defense”), she was taken to the Kitai-Gorod police station, where officers threatened to charge her with disobeying police. The official reason for her detention was not disclosed.

State Duma MP Andrei Lugovoi, best known for his role in the 2006 death-by-polonium of Russian intelligence defector Alexander Litvinenko, also came to the memorial on the morning of Oct. 29. According to the Telegram channel Ostorozhno Novosti, he had hoped to encounter the U.S. or British ambassador and present a figurine of an Indian sepoy — a reference to India’s colonial past and the soldiers who served in the British imperial army. However, he did not manage to meet any of the diplomats.

Where commemorations were held in Russia

Public events honoring victims of political repression were planned in several Russian cities. In the Irkutsk Region, activists organized a reading of victims’ names at a memorial in Pivovarikha. Organizers invited residents to submit the names of relatives who suffered at the hands of Soviet repression even if their descendants could not attend the ceremony themselves.

In Kirov, the regional branch of the liberal Yabloko party received approval from city authorities for an Oct. 30 rally at the Solovetsky Stone on Morozovskaya Street.

A similar event was authorized in Veliky Novgorod, where participants planned to gather near the entrance to the 30 Years of October Park, to read the names of victims, and to express support for today’s political prisoners.

In St. Petersburg, a ceremony took place on the morning of Oct. 30, drawing several dozen attendees, including Yabloko members, city officials, lawmakers, ordinary residents, and representatives of foreign diplomatic missions. The event proceeded peacefully, with participants laying flowers and wreaths at the Solovetsky Stone. An additional ceremony and reading of names was scheduled later that day at the Levashovo Memorial Cemetery, a site of mass graves containing victims of Stalinist terror.

Commemorative events were also announced in the city of Kopeysk in the Chelyabinsk Region, where a rally was scheduled for Oct. 30 at the monument to victims of repression, and in Tolyatti in the Samara Region, where city authorities planned a flower-laying ceremony in the city’s Central District Park.

Yabloko also organized a separate 11-hour reading marathon titled “People, Do Not Kill Each Other!” on Oct. 30, bringing together participants from dozens of Russian regions. In Moscow, people could join the readings at the party’s headquarters.

The international “Returning the Names” initiative on Oct. 29 also brought together participants in more than 100 cities around the world. Readings were held both in person and remotely, with organizers running an hourslong online broadcast. In 2025, the event took place in 150 cities.

How authorities restricted the commemorations

The first “Returning the Names” ceremony was held in Moscow on Oct. 29, 2007, at the initiative of Memorial. Participants gathered at the Solovetsky Stone and took turns reading the names, occupations, and execution dates of victims of Stalinist terror.

One of the event’s creators was Elena Zhemkova, executive director of International Memorial. She said organizers had initially hoped to read all 40,000 known names of Moscow residents who had been executed. However, doing so would have required continuous readings around the clock for several weeks.

The mass gathering took place annually until 2020, when it was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, even after the epidemiological situation eased in subsequent years, Moscow authorities continued citing public health restrictions when refusing authorization for the gathering. In October 2024, Russia’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor blocked the Returning the Names website. Organizers nevertheless continued the readings in other formats, including online.

What happened to Memorial’s members

In December 2021, Russian courts ordered the liquidation of International Memorial and the Memorial Human Rights Center. In 2022, Memorial became one of the recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize, with Jan Rachinsky accepting the award in Oslo.

On April 9, 2026, after a case that was heard behind closed doors, Russia’s Supreme Court designated the International Memorial movement as “extremist” and banned its activities across the country. That same day, the Memorial Human Rights Defense Center announced that it was ending all activities inside Russia.

By then, many of the organization’s employees and leaders had already emigrated. Elena Zhemkova left Russia in 2023 and continues her human rights work in Germany. Russian authorities placed her on the “foreign agents” register in June 2025. Rachinsky and other Memorial representatives, including historian Irina Shcherbakova, have received the same designation.

In February 2026, Russian authorities also declared two Memorial organizations abroad “undesirable”: the International Memorial Association in Switzerland and Zukunft Memorial in Germany. Under Russian law, the designation effectively bans the named group from conducting any activities in Russia and can create legal liability for anyone working with the “undesirable organization.”

Yury Dmitriev, a researcher of Soviet repression and former head of Memorial’s branch in Karelia, continues to serve a 15-year prison sentence. Dmitriev helped discover mass graves of victims of Stalin-era executions at Sandarmokh in Karelia. In September 2026, he was hospitalized in a prison medical facility.

According to Absoliutno Nadiine Dzherelo:

“On Oct. 29, 2026, at Akhtubinsk airfield, a Russian Su-57 fifth-generation multirole fighter caught fire — and burned completely — as a result of an abnormal situation during engine startup.

This is already the fourth Su-57 [to have been damaged or destroyed] in 2026: two were hit in the spring at Shagol airfield, and another was shot down by ‘friendly’ fire on July 23 in the Moscow Region. Considering that production is at most four aircraft per year, the quota has already been met.”

Satellite images published by the project show apparent burn marks at a parking spot used by an Su-57.

Another Ukrainian OSINT project, Oko Hora ✙ News and Analytics, reported that Russian aviation losses in October 2026 totaled 11 fighter aircraft and one helicopter. Two additional Su-34 fighter-bombers were partially damaged, according to the project.

As The Insider reported earlier this year, on July 23 an Su-57 crashed near the village of Lutsino in the Moscow region during a training flight. Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed the loss of the aircraft at the time. Before that, several Su-57s were reported damaged at Shagol airfield in the Chelyabinsk Region, about 1,700 kilometer (1,050 miles) from the border with Ukraine.

The Su-57 is Russia’s newest multirole fighter and is classified by Moscow as a fifth-generation combat aircraft. It made its first flight in 2010 and is considered the most advanced fighter in service with the Russian Aerospace Forces. According to open-source data, Russia had about 30 Su-57s in service at the beginning of 2025.

Akhtubinsk is also home to the Russian military’s 929th State Flight Test Center, one of the country’s main facilities for testing and evaluating military aircraft. Ukraine has previously succeeded in damaging Su-57s. In June 2024, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency reported a strike on the Akhtubinsk airfield that damaged at least one Su-57. Pro-war Russian military Telegram channels also acknowledged damage to an aircraft at the time.

The man was detained during a police operation securing a soccer match in Świdnica. He was sitting in a Volkswagen parked near a railroad crossing when officers approached. Police said he backed up and drove away, then was found near another railway site. He was standing beside the car and appeared visibly nervous when he saw the officers again, before trying to get back inside.

Police said they found professional photography equipment, mobile phones, laptops, external hard drives, and several identity documents in his possession.

The Russian citizen was ordered to be held in pretrial detention for three months. Tomasz Siemoniak, Poland’s coordinator for intelligence and security services, said the detention and arrest of a Russian citizen engaged in such activity was unusual:

“The fact that a Russian citizen was detained is rather exceptional. All such activities have always been accompanied by prior reconnaissance and information gathering. This is evidence that Russia plans, prepares, and carries out hybrid sabotage operations.”

The suspects are two men in their early 20s who live in Germany. One holds German and Turkish citizenship, while the other holds German and Serbian citizenship. They arrived in Lithuania shortly before the arson attack, which took place overnight into Oct. 18, and left the country afterward. According to local broadcaster LRT, Lithuanian police deputy chief Saulius Briginas said the suspects had no ties to Lithuania and traveled there specifically to carry out the attack.

Both men were detained in Duisburg, Germany, on Oct. 23 under European arrest warrants issued by Bulgaria in connection with an earlier arson attack on Starlink equipment near Sofia. Bulgarian news agency BTA previously reported that the suspects are 19-year-olds Zeka Islam and Tirpan Beytulla. Bulgarian authorities accuse them of setting fire to the Plana satellite communications station on Oct. 9. Three antennas were completely destroyed and five others were damaged.

Different perpetrators carried out the Sept. 23 attack in Poland, but Lithuanian police say they were connected to the suspects in the incidents in Lithuania and Bulgaria. At least four people have been detained in Poland in connection with the arson investigation.

On Oct. 27, Lithuanian prosecutors formally named Islam and Beytulla as suspects in a case involving the creation of and participation in a terrorist group, entering the country for terrorist purposes, and carrying out a terrorist attack that could have caused serious consequences. Prosecutor Nerijus Puškorius said creating or participating in a terrorist group alone carries a prison sentence of five to 15 years. A decision on whether the two men will be extradited to Lithuania has not yet been made.

During the attack in Vilnius, a fire broke out on the grounds of the Delska data center, but it was quickly extinguished by a security guard. The Starlink equipment was not damaged and service was not interrupted. The Insider previously reported that U.S. company SpaceX rents premises from the Lithuanian operator and that infrastructure at the site supports nine satellite antennas whose communications are used in part by Ukraine.

Lithuanian Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius had previously described the attack as being part of Russia’s hybrid warfare operations, and investigators have also said they are examining possible ties between the suspects and Russia. Briginas said the series of attacks may have been intended to disrupt European Starlink infrastructure in a way that could affect communications in Ukraine. The investigation is continuing, however, and authorities have not yet established the ultimate motive of the attack.

As was previously reported by Der Spiegel, suspects detained in connection with the Starlink arson in Poland have been linked to the Turkish criminal group Daltons. According to the German outlet, the group’s suspected leader, Beratcan Gökdemir, was detained in Russia in 2024 but was later released by Russian authorities and placed under their protection. On Oct. 28, 85 suspected members of the Daltons gang were reportedly detained in Turkey.

According to the latest data reported by Binance, the total damage amounts to approximately $6.3 billion. If the figure is confirmed, it will be the largest cryptocurrency theft in history. The exchange claims it has managed to freeze about $3 billion of the stolen funds, meaning the hackers will not be able to transfer or cash out those specific tokens. A preliminary investigation showed that the incident may be linked to the hacking of a DevOps engineer’s laptop.

Experts at the cybersecurity companies TRM Labs and Pangolin Intelligence believe the theft was carried out by the North Korean hacker group TraderTraitor, The Wall Street Journal writes. TRM senior investigator Nick Carlsen told the newspaper that, together with colleagues from Pangolin Intelligence, he compared the hackers’ activity on the blockchain with data collected in investigations of other North Korea-linked attacks. “It is definitely North Korea,” Carlsen said.

The previous record for cryptocurrency theft was set in 2025, when hackers stole $1.5 billion from the crypto exchange Bybit. The FBI concluded that the North Korean group TraderTraitor was also behind that crime.

“On November 9th, we will turn off the lights in the home where we have lived for 30 years, shut down our servers, and leave. The newspaper no longer exists. The Russian authorities and the Russian security services have forced our editorial team to cease its operations,” the statement read.

The journalists expressly blame Russia’s security services, the Ministry of Justice, and the prosecutor’s office, those who “privatized the state and usurped power”:

“Stop comforting yourselves by saying 'this isn’t Stalin’s 1930s,' or arguing that repressions are merely 'digital' in nature. These are state-sponsored repressions. It is human beings — not digits — who are dying in prison cells. Period. Human life has lost its meaning.”

The editorial team also thanked its readers. The newspaper’s last issue, which was being prepared for publication, will still be released.

The editorial team also said that it continues to face financial restrictions, with private companies and banks refusing to provide services allowing for the receipt of donations, citing “internal corporate rules.” These refusals are linked to pressure from Russian security services.

The Anna Politkovskaya Museum, located in her former office, will close along with the newspaper.

Novaya Gazeta was founded in 1993 by a group of journalists including Dmitry Muratov, who would hold the post of the newspaper’s editor-in-chief throughout most of its history, sharing the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021. In March 2022, shortly after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the newspaper suspended its print edition because of warnings from the consumer rights watchdog Roskomnadzor. In September 2022, a court revoked its registration as a media outlet, but it had continued to publish up until now.

Humanity’s historical experience shows that new technologies and automation do not bring about total unemployment. Studies of long-term labor market trends confirm the benefits of automation.

In the U.S., for example, in the year 1900, 41% of all workers were employed in the agricultural sector, but by 2000, this figure had fallen to 2%. Without question, the appearance of combines and other specialized machinery drove people out of the fields, but they did not simply become unemployed. Instead, they moved to factories and the service sector, which were growing rapidly at the time. In addition, mechanization sharply lowered food prices, leaving more money to be devoted to satisfying other needs.

In another example, the invention of the standard shipping container in the 1950s cut the cost of loading one metric ton of cargo from $5.86 to $0.16, and the profession of dockworker disappeared almost entirely. However, shipping became so cheap that its positive impact on world trade exceeded that of all postwar international agreements combined.

After that, the advent of personal computers led to the closure of typing pools, and with the appearance of automatic telephone exchanges, telephone switchboard operators disappeared. At the same time, however, tens of millions of new jobs were created: for programmers, systems analysts, marketers, and designers.

Data gathered by Our World in Data show that from the start of the common era up to 1820, average world income per person remained within the range of 1,100–1,300 international dollars a year. The turning point came during the Industrial Revolution — thanks to the mechanization of labor, output outpaced population growth for the first time. As a result, in the two centuries that followed, global GDP per capita grew by a factor of 15, to exceed $18,000.

In the countries that spearheaded industrialization (Great Britain, and then the U.S. and Western European nations), the gap turned out to be even more impressive, with per capita GDP growing 25–30 times from 1820 to today (from $2,000–$3,000 to a present-day $60,000–$75,000).

Contrary to stereotypes, statistics show that the multiple growth of output over the past two centuries was accompanied not by increased “exploitation of workers,” but by a steady reduction in working hours and an increase in paid leisure.

In the 19th century, the prevailing opinion was that factory production had to rely on continuous and exhausting labor. In the 1870s, the working day in Europe and the U.S. usually lasted 10–12 hours, with a six-day workweek and no right to vacation. Workers agreed to such conditions simply because the alternative of peasant labor in the fields was even less attractive.

However, as mechanization and automation progressed, this trajectory changed. Today, in most developed economies, average working time has almost halved, with a standard five-day 40-hour workweek (and as low as 35 in some countries). Benefits appeared that did not exist in the preindustrial era: paid vacation and maternity leave, sick leave, public holidays, a ban on child labor, and old-age pensions.

So what is the origin of the fear that the development of algorithms will leave almost half of the planet’s population without work? This is a misunderstood estimate released in 2013 by University of Oxford researchers, who argued that 47% of jobs in the U.S. are at risk of disappearing because of AI. However, the researchers themselves stressed that 47% is merely the share of work tasks that computers are technically capable of performing, and not at all a forecast that half of people would actually be laid off. In other words, researchers examined the fundamental possibility of replacing a human with an algorithm in individual operations, not real job losses.

Later, OECD researchers approached the question by breaking down each occupation into specific repetitive operations. Having studied the structure of work of thousands of workers in 21 developed countries, the researchers found that people holding seemingly identical positions often perform fundamentally different tasks. Their calculation showed that the real risk of full replacement by machines applies not to 47%, but to only 9% of jobs, ranging from 6% in South Korea to 12% in Austria. For the vast majority of people, technology does not abolish an entire profession but takes over routine functions and complements human labor.

The real risk of full replacement by machines applies not to 47% but to only 9% of jobs, ranging from 6% in South Korea to 12% in Austria

In the history of the world, no country has achieved sustained growth in its population’s incomes without regularly adopting major technical inventions, such as the steam engine, electricity, the internal combustion engine, and computers. But technology is not the only growth factor, as it delivers results only when combined with quality education, intelligent investment, and functioning government institutions. After all, a transition period is always accompanied by difficulties that require effective management.

How AI is changing the labor market

Artificial intelligence largely repeats the path of earlier technological revolutions, but it features several fundamental differences. The main similarity is that technologies rarely destroy professions instantly. Any job consists of many small operations, and a machine that performs two or three of them cannot replace the human specialist completely.

Experts at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) stress that automating individual tasks changes the structure of the workday, as its calculations showed that 27% of jobs in developed countries are in occupations with a high share of potentially automatable operations. However, even in those, algorithms take over only 20% to 40% of specific routine duties, while tasks requiring critical judgment, communication, and personal responsibility remain with humans, who continue to be responsible for goal-setting and decision-making in disputed or nonstandard situations.

Humans continue to be responsible for goal-setting and decision-making in disputed or nonstandard situations

The link between falling costs and rising demand is clearly visible in the market for language translation and digital services. According to industry associations, the appearance of machine translation systems cut the cost of rough processing one page of text by more than 70%. However, rather than destroying the translator’s profession, it led to a significant increase in the volume of material processed: companies began translating dozens of times more internal documentation, instructions, and customer reviews. As a result, overall employment in localization and editing grew, shifting from mechanical translation to review, semantic adaptation, and fact-checking.

The falling price of services such as writing software code and performing legal and financial consulting tasks makes them accessible to those who could not afford them in the past. As a result, the market expands, and demand for labor remains.

Just like previous technologies, AI needs time to lead to an explosive rise in macroeconomic indicators. Economist Paul David described this pattern in a 1990 study by using the electrification of factories as an example. Three decades passed between the appearance of reliable electric motors in the 1880s and the surge in labor productivity in U.S. manufacturing. The share of electrified factories exceeded 50% only by 1920, and for many years annual growth in factory output did not exceed 1.5%.

At first, enterprises simply replaced the old steam boiler with a single electric motor, keeping the existing layout and belt drives in place. The real leap in productivity — to a record 5% a year — began only when factory owners rebuilt the environment from scratch, erecting spacious single-story shops, connecting an individual motor to each machine, and training managers in new work schemes.

The good news for us is, the adaptation process for today’s office and service workers is far milder than the upheaval of past eras. And this is an important difference between the adoption of AI and that of classical technologies. In the 19th century, the mass departure of illiterate peasants to factories was accompanied by severe disruption of everyday life and required the creation of school education.

Today, the threshold for changing career paths within the services and information sector is incomparably lower. Most specialists already possess basic literacy, as well as business communication and information-search skills, allowing them to master adjacent fields without the need to spend years retraining.

AI also differs from earlier technologies in that the algorithms themselves help people master new duties, taking on the role of a personal instructor. Studies of software assistants in corporate support showed that by using model prompts, even the least experienced employees tend to reach the level of qualified specialists in just two months rather than the previous transition time of six months, and the speed and success of their task resolution rose by 34%.

A micro effect and faith in the future

To assess the impact of AI on the modern economy objectively, researchers divide the available data into three different levels.

The first is direct measurements inside individual enterprises, where it is possible to empirically compare the performance of employees with and without a neural network.

The second is general statistics of national labor markets in the first years after the appearance of mass chatbots, showing changes in real wages, hours worked, and the hiring process.

The third is predictive macroeconomic calculations that model the technology’s impact on aggregate productivity and the country’s GDP years ahead.

The most accurate evidence of real productivity growth today has been obtained at the first level. A study published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics analyzed the work of a tech giant’s customer support department. The authors observed 5,172 employees and processed 3 million conversations during the phased rollout of a software assistant based on the GPT-3 model. In the baseline calculation, the number of successfully resolved inquiries per hour rose by 15%. The program essentially accumulated the best phrasing of experienced specialists and passed it on to newcomers.

PwC calculated that productivity growth is 40% higher in the companies that are most exposed to AI. Since 2022, the leaders in corporate AI use have tripled their lead in labor productivity growth over those that have barely adopted it. A link was also established with growth in wages and headcount, which both grow faster in companies where AI is widely used.  

If we turn to labor market data for the first years of ChatGPT’s existence, the macroeconomic picture looks more restrained. Researchers studied survey data and the official state employment register in Denmark, presenting their findings in a paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The analysis showed that although employees began actively using algorithms for tasks and rated their convenience positively, this had no statistically significant effect on their earnings or recorded working hours over the first two years.

At the same time, a study by the Stanford University Digital Economy Lab recorded a worrying trend in the U.S. labor market. While no mass layoffs have been observed, employment of people aged 22 to 25 in the occupations most exposed to automation has been lagging noticeably behind that of other fields.

By June 2026, the hiring gap with occupations less affected by the technology had reached 19%, though the Stanford authors stress that this link is descriptive and does not in itself prove the negative impact of algorithms. However, it still suggests that many young specialists are having a problematic start to their careers.

In long-term macroeconomic scenarios, researchers’ conclusions vary substantially. The OECD’s 2024 model suggests that the use of AI could bring the U.S. economy an additional annual labor productivity gain of 0.4–0.9 percentage points in ten years’ time. However, economist Daron Acemoglu offers a much more cautious estimate. By his baseline calculations, the increase in total factor productivity (TFP) over the decade will not exceed 0.66% — that is, less than 0.1% a year. Still, taking into account investment in fixed capital, the impact on overall GDP should be somewhat higher, Acemoglu notes.

To compare these models, it is important to use a single indicator: the OECD’s corresponding TFP calculation projects from 0.25 to 0.6 percentage points of additional growth each year — noticeably higher than Acemoglu’s estimate.

This discrepancy in figures illustrates the subject of present-day debates. Economists no longer argue about whether algorithms can speed up specific intellectual operations. After all, at the level of individual work tasks, the productivity gain has already been reliably recorded and measured. The main question now is how quickly and to what extent the benefit from innovative software at individual workplaces can translate to the national level.

In aggregate indicators — real wages, the number of jobs, and GDP growth — the effect has been barely noticeable. This inconsistency forces researchers to be more conservative in their forecasts, but this does not mean that the technology will not become the basis for powerful long-term development.

How robots close the demographic hole

The optimistic scenario for adopting artificial intelligence does not mean that the labor market will automatically adjust to the new conditions. A positive result is possible only through a combination of objective demographic processes and well-considered actions by the government and business, which can soften the loss of jobs and help people find new roles in the economy.

The demographic crisis in developed countries has become the most important backdrop for current automation. According to Employment Outlook 2025, the working-age population has begun to decline in many OECD countries. According to demographic forecasts, by 2030 the number of people aged 20 to 64 in European Union countries will fall by more than 10 million. In Japan and Germany, a shortage of workers is already holding back business development.

Under these conditions, adopting software algorithms helps maintain production volumes despite the growing shortage of personnel. However, the deficit of employees is distributed extremely unevenly across sectors and regions, affecting health care, home nursing care, construction, and technical trades most acutely. Meanwhile, generative models are most actively adopted in the corporate sector, marketing, basic programming, and workflow management.

Generative models are most actively adopted in the corporate sector, marketing, basic programming, and workflow management

An acute shortage of nurses or workers does not guarantee that a laid-off office analyst or lawyer can easily change profession and fill such a vacancy, meaning that the development of solutions to the imbalance in workforce availability across sectors requires a targeted government policy. Restrictions on the adoption of AI are not the answer, as attempts to ban technologies or force enterprises to keep unneeded jobs only slow productivity growth across the whole country.

An effective strategy consists of supporting specialists during their transition by providing guaranteed income insurance upon job loss, free retraining programs, and compensation of relocation costs to regions with high demand for personnel. For example, in Denmark about 20% of workers change profession or employer every year, but thanks to targeted payments and short-term retraining courses, this process does not lead to prolonged unemployment or a social crisis.

Young specialists require special attention. Since neural networks are taking over the drafting of simple reports, data collection, and the writing of initial code, the customary chain of internships is beginning to break. As studies show, when entry-level tasks disappear, companies need to rebuild their on-the-job training and mentoring programs. Instead of routine manual work, students and interns are taught to check generated results, set tasks for algorithms, and coordinate work chains.

Finally, a key role in distributing the benefits brought by new technologies belongs to market competition. If advanced models and infrastructure end up concentrated in the hands of a few monopolies, the savings from lower costs will remain inside these corporations in the form of excess profits. By contrast, active rivalry between companies forces businesses to lower selling prices for goods and services for end consumers.

Economic history shows that the decline in the cost of computing and communications in the late 20th century was the result of market competition — consumers got higher-quality and cheaper hardware and services, which in turn expanded the overall market and created new jobs in adjacent sectors.

In 2004, William Nordhaus calculated that thanks to market competition, the creators of new technologies capture only about 2% of the total economic value of their innovations, while the remaining 98% “flows” to consumers, who get much cheaper and better products — and therefore a higher purchasing power.

The authors of another study proved mathematically that the fall in prices of computer components (caused by progress in semiconductors and competition among manufacturers) triggered an avalanche-like accumulation of capital across the entire economy: in banking, logistics, trade, and media. This did not reduce aggregate demand for labor but led to an employment boom in adjacent sectors like distribution and applied software development.

How productivity turns into prosperity

A person’s well-being is determined by their real, not nominal, income. If algorithms lower the cost of a service without reducing its quality, the consumer benefits even if they do not receive a pay raise, because the same amount of money buys more. Here it is more appropriate to speak of relative cost: specific goods and services become cheaper compared with what they would have cost without the adoption of new tools.

Whether cost savings are reflected in the consumer price depends on external conditions — above all market competition, the absence of artificial scarcity, and the buyer’s real ability to switch to another supplier.

As already mentioned, from the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th, working time fell sharply in developed countries, but then the reduction slowed and almost stopped as society on the whole opted to direct further efficiency growth not toward a larger share of free time but toward the volume and quality of consumption (sophisticated medicine, higher education, electronics, improved housing, and the service sector).

High productivity opens room for wage growth. However, the median wage of an ordinary worker will not necessarily rise at the same pace. An OECD study showed that in 24 developed countries between 1995 and 2014, the gap between growth in labor productivity and growth in the real median wage averaged 13%. Productivity rose by about 28%, while median pay for workers rose by only 15%.

The study notes a fall in labor’s share of national income and a rise in market concentration — that is, high returns on capital go to a narrow circle of those who control the algorithms, computing power, databases, or the business that adopts the technologies. On the other hand, the development of technology creates new areas of activity that complement automated systems. If demand for people with scarce skills in such adjacent tasks grows, this helps sustain the overall level of employment and pay.

The fact that automation does not simply replace people but creates complementary tasks was shown by an MIT study. About 60% of all jobs in today’s developed economies did not exist at all in 1940. In fact, they arose directly as a result of technological growth.

A win for everyone or just for the chosen few?

Debates about who will benefit from the spread of artificial intelligence are dominated by two opposing views. Some consider growing inequality an inevitable consequence of the use of algorithms, while others attribute it solely to government policy. In reality though, the result depends on the joint action of technology players and public institutions.

The aforementioned Acemoglu and fellow economist Pascual Restrepo studied the impact of automation on the labor market in detail. In their 2022 paper, they showed that 50% to 70% of the growth in wage inequality in the U.S. over the period from 1980 to 2016 was linked to technological displacement — a situation in which machines and software replaced people in routine operations.

Computer systems do indeed devalue repetitive labor, but at the same time they raise the value of other skills, such as the ability to set a task correctly, to double-check a machine’s result, to take on legal or professional responsibility, and to communicate effectively with people. The adoption of algorithms stimulates demand for specialists who prepare quality data, train and adapt systems for narrow industries, or coordinate complex automated processes.

Another important change concerns the concentration of capital. Training large models and maintaining server infrastructure require billions in investment, which gives a gigantic head start to a small number of technology corporations. This monopoly, of course, is not guaranteed to last. The emergence of open and lightweight architectures, as well as a sharp drop in the cost of computing, creates accessible alternatives and prevents a narrow circle of players from closing off the market completely.

The viability of open-source architectures proves that total monopolization of the AI market is unlikely, and the gap in performance between commercial giants and open systems has rapidly narrowed on key benchmarks (MMLU, HumanEval). This democratization is confirmed by statistics: by March 2026, total downloads of open AI models on Hugging Face reached 2 billion — an almost sixfold rise from the 340 million recorded a year earlier.

Today there is no need to pay for a ChatGPT subscription or other popular neural networks every month. Powerful artificial intelligence can be downloaded from the internet and run on a laptop retailing for $1,500. Such a program will work solely on your computer’s resources and deliver results on a par with paid services. The rule here is simple: the more powerful your “hardware,” the smarter and more complex a model you can install on it.

This opens huge opportunities for business. Any company can install free neural network models on its servers and build powerful, customized AI tools for its tasks without depending on giant corporations or purchasing expensive access. Everything works on-premises, securely and under full control. Thus open source forms a powerful market counterweight, turning basic AI tools into publicly available infrastructure.

Any company can install free neural network models on its servers and build powerful, customized AI tools for its tasks

Under such circumstances, antitrust regulation decides whether competition ultimately forces companies to lower prices for buyers or allows them to retain technological rent in the form of excess profits. Labor market rules are equally important — where there are strong trade unions, a transparent system of collective agreements, and a clear minimum wage level, the gain from productivity reaches ordinary workers faster. The experience of the Nordic countries shows that, with the same level of digital tool adoption as in the U.S., developed labor institutions keep income inequality at a significantly lower level.

The transition to new kinds of activity requires support from the tax system and social insurance. Accessible retraining programs allow people whose professional tasks are being automated to master adjacent fields without a catastrophic drop in income. An example is the Danish flexible employment system (flexicurity), in which ease of hiring and firing is combined with high government payments during the job search and mandatory training in new specialties.

Finally, rules of professional responsibility and quality control are critically important in industries such as health care, education, and law. Clear standards prevent service providers from lowering quality to save money, which protects consumers from the hidden costs of automation.

Studies show that high levels of technology adoption do not necessarily lead to income polarization, as inequality is consistently lower in high-tech states than in commodity-based countries. A high Economic Complexity Index, reflecting the diversity and technological knowledge intensity of the goods produced, usually means a lower level of income inequality. A high-tech economy requires distributed human capital, whereas a commodity-based one concentrates wealth around narrow rent-extraction chokepoints.

Countries with the highest density of technology and complex industrial production (Germany, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Nordic states) keep the Gini coefficient after taxes and transfers in the range of 0.26–0.33. However, large resource exporters (the oil monarchies of the Persian Gulf when migrants are counted, commodity economies of Latin America, and also Nigeria and Angola) show a Gini coefficient at the level of 0.42–0.55 and higher, with a colossal gap between the top decile and the rest of the population.

Overall, the history of technological development shows one stable pattern: the advent of more efficient tools has invariably made society richer as a whole. Even when entire professions became a thing of the past and individual workers had to change occupations or go without work, the resulting standard of living, the availability of goods, and the quality of everyday life for the majority invariably rose.

The foundation for well-founded optimism about artificial intelligence is built precisely on this proven mechanism. When new solutions make it possible to achieve the same or a better result at lower total cost, the economy gets a real surplus of resources. Even if it does not take advantage of the opportunity, society at least gains the chance to direct this surplus where it is needed most: raising the quality of medicine and education, increasing the affordability of goods, developing public services, and increasing free time. Attempts to hold on to every familiar job and preserve obsolete labor operations have historically always led to a dead end. Instead, adaptability is the key to prosperity.

According to the rights group’s figures, four people died under such circumstances in 2022, 10 in 2023, 26 in 2024, and 13 in 2025. In the first 10 months of 2026, 16 deaths had already been recorded. Of the 69 people who died, 63 were men and six were women, with an average age of around 51. The youngest were 18-year-old Ukrainians Daniil Dakhov and Pavel Grimak, who were abducted by Russian security forces in occupied Melitopol. The oldest was 81-year-old scientist Valery Mitko, who was accused of treason and died while under house arrest.

The rights group identified illness and the lack of timely medical care as the leading causes of death, accounting for 29 cases. Ten are believed to have died by suicide or in circumstances resembling suicide. The causes of eight deaths remain unknown. The report separately examines the death of pianist Pavel Kushnir after a hunger strike and the murder of opposition politician Alexei Navalny in an Arctic penal colony.

Memorial’s figures do not include everyone killed during operations by Russian security services since February 2022. As calculated by the independent investigative outlet Important Stories, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) had reported killing 87 people during detention operations between the start of the war and July 2026. In most cases, the agency claimed those killed had been preparing acts of sabotage on behalf of Ukrainian intelligence services. In other cases, the Russian authorities alleged that the deceased had links to Islamist terrorist organizations. The figures cannot simply be added to Memorial’s statistics as the studies cover different categories of deaths but may overlap.

Of the 16 deaths Memorial recorded in 2026, 10 were linked to illness and the absence of necessary medical care. The report describes judges and Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) staff ignoring complaints from seriously ill prisoners. One case involved 64-year-old Oleg Tyryshkin, who was sentenced to two years in a penal colony over a comment posted on VK, Russia’s largest social network. During an appeal hearing held by video link in March 2025, Tyryshkin lay down on the floor of his cell because he was unable to stand. A medic at the pretrial detention center said all his vital signs were normal, and the judge accused him of pretending. In February 2026, Tyryshkin died in a hospital after suffering a heart attack.

Another prisoner, 46-year-old Sergei Sviridov, had a progressive form of cancer, but courts denied his release three times despite requests from prison doctors. One of the courts’ arguments was that he had no family members who could care for him if he were released. Authorities agreed to free him only after he fell into a coma and could no longer breathe on his own. Two weeks later, on June 12, 2026, Sviridov died in a hospice.

The rights group devoted a separate section of the report to Ukrainian citizens who died after being detained by Russian security forces. Among them was journalist Viktoria Roshchyna, who died in September 2024 after being held in Russian detention facilities. After her body was returned to Ukraine, experts found signs of torture and discovered that several of her internal organs were missing. Memorial stressed that its study does not include statistics for the countless Ukrainians held outside formal criminal proceedings. The number of deaths among that group may be significantly higher, but information about such cases is almost entirely unavailable.

The report’s authors said even official claims that prisoners died by suicide cannot be treated as reliable without independent verification. As one example, they cited the death of musician Anatoly Berezikov, who told his lawyer before his death that security officers had tortured him with electric shocks and threatened to kill him and make it look like a suicide. Authorities later declared suicide to be the official cause of death.

Memorial places responsibility for the deaths of victims of political repression not only on security officers and prison staff, but also on investigators, judges, doctors, and the Russian authorities more broadly. The report includes a list of all 69 people by name, along with the circumstances of their persecution and deaths.

The letter, reviewed by Reuters, said Uganda’s embassy in Moscow had been able to confirm the deaths of 11 of its citizens, and another 16 are presumed dead: their whereabouts could not be established, their bodies have not been found, and they are not listed among the prisoners of war being held by Ukraine. The embassy said it received the information from Russia’s Foreign Ministry through a formal diplomatic communication known as a verbal note, or note verbale. Reuters said a Ugandan Foreign Ministry spokesperson confirmed the authenticity of the letter.

The Insider has also reported that Russia is sharply expanding recruitment in African countries, increasingly targeting states with lower incomes and weaker democratic institutions. After Kenya and South Africa issued warnings and moved to curb recruitment, Russia stepped up enlistment in Burundi, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, and multiple other countries. In the first nine months of 2026, the Russian military signed contracts with 699 Burundian citizens, compared with 30 in all of 2025. In Zimbabwe, the number recruited over the same periods rose from 65 to 530.

According to data from Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, 45,900 citizens of foreign countries and unrecognized territories had signed contracts with the Russian military as of Oct. 1, 2026. They included 5,400 people from 43 African countries, or about 12% of all identified foreign recruits. In the first nine months of 2026, Russia recruited 16,200 foreigners, according to Ukrainian figures, more than the 16,000 recruited during all of 2025.