Independent Russian outlets Politzek-Info and SotaVision reported that Yarotsky committed suicide during the night of May 6 to 7 at the IK-7 penal colony in Khadyzhensk, a city in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai. His death was disclosed in a letter from Alexander Nozdrinov, another political prisoner held at the same colony.

According to Nozdrinov, Yarotsky repeatedly complained of pressure from the prison administration, with SotaVision adding that he was forced to work at night despite having health issues.

Yarotsky was first tried in December 2023, when a court sentenced him to 1.5 years in a general-security penal colony for “desecrating a symbol of military glory.” The charge stemmed from a political cartoon he posted on social media depicting Putin, a penis, and a St. George ribbon, which has become a symbol of Victory Day commemorations in modern Russia. The sentence was later overturned, and the case was sent back for retrial.

In the spring of 2025, the artist was sentenced again, this time to 5.5 years in a penal colony. He was convicted of spreading “false information” about the Russian army and “desecrating a symbol of military glory” over a post about Russian battlefield losses in Ukraine.

SotaVision noted that Yarotsky was at least the seventh Russian political prisoner to die behind bars this year. 

The drones in question are those of the Geran (“Geranium”) series — localized Russian versions of the Iranian Shahed. These represent the most widely employed deep-strike loitering munitions used by the Russian military to target Ukrainian infrastructure.

Geran drones are primarily divided into autonomous and manually controlled variants, but the majority fall into the autonomous category, functioning as slow-moving cruise missiles and navigate toward pre-programmed coordinates without human control. However, newer variants featuring direct manual control have emerged, utilizing mesh modems and cameras to maintain a link with ground operators. These variants have been adapted for specialized roles, with some even observed carrying air-to-air missiles or man-portable air-defense systems for engaging Ukrainian aircraft.

To counter the sustained Russian drone campaign, Ukraine has employed a range of measures, from kinetic air defenses to electronic warfare (EW), which targets the satellite navigation systems of Russian drones by jamming and spoofing legitimate satellite signals, causing the navigation of the drone to deviate.

To survive these efforts, Russian drones rely on Controlled Reception Pattern Antennas (CRPAs) for navigation. Unlike standard antennas, CRPAs contain an array of elements, each of which functions as an individual antenna patch. In this manner, a CRPA can identify the direction of incoming jamming and create a blind spot to block the interference while sharpening actual satellite signals, ensuring the drone maintains its course even when targeted by EW systems.

The effectiveness of a CRPA is directly tied to its element count. For instance, a 16 element CRPA can resist jamming from 15 different sources. In Geran UAVs, CRPAs work in tandem with inertial navigation units, which serve as backup systems if the antenna is completely jammed. However, drones cannot rely on inertial measurement alone, as these systems are prone to cumulative drift over hours of flight, requiring correction from the CRPA’s satellite navigation to maintain accuracy. Without these antennas, the Geran is essentially unable to strike targets precisely.

How Chinese companies supply Alabuga with antennas

Harxon Corporation is a large Chinese business specializing in the sale of navigation antennas. By its own count, the company has “over 400 employees and more than 200 partners worldwide.” The firm presents itself as a subsidiary of the U.S. sanctioned BDStar.

Harxon’s online product catalog, aimed at the civilian market, indicates that the product codes for the company’s antennas all begin with HX. Nordsint has documented antennas with the same prefix in the debris of Shahed drones. In particular, these models were labeled for use in "grain combine harvesters.” This tactic is likely used to bypass Chinese export customs, as Chinese law prohibits the export of dual use goods to military users. A model of this name does not appear in Harxon’s public catalog, possibly indicating a hidden model for military clients.

Posing as a supplier for Russian military drone production, Nordsint contacted Harxon asking to purchase CRPAs. Nordsint reached out to Harxon’s official sales email, but received a reply from the personal email of a representative named Masha Wu. Wu expressed a willingness to sell antennas but emphasized that the transaction would be handled under a different company name. “We will use other company for communication and contract signature (not Harxon) because it's sensitive,” wrote Wu. She is identified on LinkedIn as an overseas sales manager at Harxon. 

When asked about the availability of the HXTX9050A, Wu said that the company did not stock the model, but said similar ones were available. Wu subsequently transferred the sale to a representative named Anthony, later identified on an invoice to Nordsint as Anthony Zheng, from a company called NavX Technology Co., Ltd. Due to the restricted nature of anti-jamming solutions, Zheng asked to move the conversation from WeChat to Telegram. Little information exists about NavX as a company. It does not have an online presence, and no official mentions of the company name can be found online apart from business registries, which indicate the company was incorporated in July 2025.

Zheng offered antennas with seven, eight, and 16 channels, designated as models GI004, GI005, and GI006, and provided technical documents for each antenna. A discrepancy appeared in the documentation for the GI006 16-channel antenna, which was internally labeled as the GI015 within the technical specifications. Despite this labeling, the filename of the document remained GI006, and the GI006 designation appears on a final invoice of these antennas.

None of these models exist in online records, and they appear to be manufactured exclusively for military clients. “We will have the normal civilian antennas in the near future. I will share more information when we build up the cooperation” said Zheng. When asked if NavX stocked the HXTX9050A, Zheng said that the “GI005 is smaller and better than HXTX9050A,” indirectly acknowledging the existence of the latter model. According to Zheng, Harxon/NavX CRPAs use almost entirely Chinese made components, with the only foreign components in the system being a cheap Samsung capacitor. Additionally, he mentioned the company was in the process of developing a 32-channel antenna. 

Nordsint placed a bulk order for 200 units, consisting of 100 7-channel antennas, 50 8-channel antennas, and 50 16-channel antennas. The invoice for the antennas identified the seller as Shenzhen NavX Technology Co., Ltd., and the company requested that payment be directed to a VTB Bank account.

Previously, The Insider revealed that this bank serves as a key processing hub for Chinese firms supplying the Russian defence industry. The total cost for this hardware amounted to 5,443,200¥ ($797,188). The cost of each individual antenna was 49,030¥ ($7176) for the 7-channel variant, 55,200¥ ($8,079) for the 8-channel model, and 108,864¥ ($15,934) for the 16-channel version.

The company’s name indicated on the seal appears to be authentic, while the registration number provided does not.

Nordsint cross-referenced the images provided by NavX with photos from Ukrainian auctions featuring captured drone components. In several instances, antennas captured in Ukraine still retained product stickers in Chinese specifically designating the antennas as GI004 and GI006 respectively, the same models sold by Navx. In the case of the 7-channel GI004 antenna, the sticker found in the field is identical to the sticker featured in photos sent by NavX. These stickers indicate in Chinese that the units are “agricultural machinery navigation antenna,” a false label presumably used to bypass Chinese export restrictions, as it is unlikely Russian customs services would understand the associated Chinese text. 

Zheng confirmed the company’s direct involvement with the Russian military. “We are working with Alabuga, so we have to make it confidential,” he said when questioned on the lack of public information regarding NavX.

The Alabuga plant, located inside the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in Tatarstan, is the primary production facility for Russian drones of the Geran and Gerbera varieties. The Gerbera is a simplified version of the Geran and uses a similar radar signature to overwhelm air defenses during attacks, though certain variants are also used in strike and reconnaissance roles. Additionally, markings on antennas contain the prefix ALB, which possibly corresponds to the Alabuga plant. At the time of writing, the GI-006 is the most common 16-channel CRPA found in Russian drones, judging from the relative amount of online listings.

The GI-006 is the most common 16-channel CRPA found in Russian drones

Beyond specifically labeled antennas, numerous other instances of antennas manufactured by the company are found in online listings. The identification of these antennas can be done by comparing internal layouts, case materials, and design elements to known examples.

Harxon’s shell company

Nordsint’s buyer persona questioned Zheng on the relationship between Harxon and NavX. Zheng claimed the two operate as “separate, independent companies.” However, when pressed on whether NavX serves as a rebrand to protect Harxon from sanctions, Zheng wrote that “this angle is correct,” while adding, “but I don’t belong to Harxon anymore.” 

He explained that Harxon was not allowed to sell to military clients, explaining that Harxon would refer to NavX for these cases. “If Harxon has some military project they can't make, [they] will recommend to us.”

When pressed on whether NavX serves as a rebrand to protect Harxon from sanctions, Zheng wrote that “this angle is correct”

Despite Zheng’s claims that NavX and Harxon work as independent companies, online evidence points to NavX acting as a shell company for Harxon’s military sales. Zheng, who signed NavX’s invoice, is identified as the overseas sales manager for Harxon on the e-commerce marketplace made-in-china.com.

Additionally, a facial recognition search of Zheng’s profile pictures on WeChat show that he appears several times on Harxon’s website, as well as at the Intergeo 2023 exhibition with a nametag identifying himself as Anthony Zheng. Furthermore, a Linkedin post made by a Turkish civilian surveying company specifically identifies Anthony Zheng and Masha Wu as representatives of Harxon who visited the company. In 2022, Zheng visited Russia and took part in the Agrosalon exhibition. His Linkedin profile indicates that he has worked for Harxon since 2019.

There are no official mentions of NavX antennas in Russian trade data, nor are there any official instances of the company NavX trading with Russian counterparts. Previously, The Insider reported that between August and September 2024, an Alabuga-based company, Morgan LLC, imported more than $1 million worth of Harxon antennas. The trade data indicate that Chinese and Turkish shell companies as well as Harxon itself acted as exporters. Trade data shows that antennas shipped directly by Harxon had dimensions of 33.4mm x 33.4mm x 7.7mm, which are significantly smaller than CRPA models and close to the size of individual antenna patches. Other shipments from Harxon were specified as “not for military use.” 

Nonetheless, trade data is not a perfect indication of supply, as shipments of sensitive goods are often obfuscated from Russian customs databases or concealed as other components. Additionally, Harxon does sell to legitimate civilian markets in Russia. However, when comparing the indicated value and weight of shipments from Harxon to Alabuga to the value and known weight of invoiced antennas, the figures are more consistent with CRPAs than civilian antennas manufactured by the company.

Harxon continues to participate in the global market. The company took part in the XPONENTIAL Europe 2026 trade fair held in Dusseldorf, Germany in March 2026. The company’s website shows it has authorized distributors in 27 countries, including the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Australia, Brazil, and Japan. Harxon’s parent company BDStar has been under American sanctions since 2024, albeit for reasons unrelated to support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Instead, the firm was added to the list “for their support to the [Chinese] High Altitude Balloon that overflew the United States in February 2023.” 

At the time of writing no countries apart from the United States have sanctioned BDStar, and Harxon is not subject to the restrictive measures of any country, allowing it to continue doing business as usual. Sanctions on the company, of course, would impact the markets in which it can sell its products.

The Insider sent comment requests to Harxon Corporation, VTB Bank, and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the Chinese Embassy in Latvia. The Insider did not receive an immediate reply from Harxon. However, Zheng cleared all Telegram chats with Nordsint’s buyer account after comment requests to Harxon were sent.

The Chinese Embassy stated that it “would like to highlight that China’s position on the Ukraine issue remains consistent and clear. We have worked actively for a ceasefire and to promote peace talks. We never provide lethal weapons to any party to the conflict, and strictly control the exports of dual-use items.”

VTB Bank requested information of the full company name on the invoice, which The Insider provided by email. VTB did not respond further.

With the participation of Andrey Zayakin.

A few months before Canada’s parliamentary elections, the Liberal Party was trailing the Conservatives by 20 percentage points. Virtually no one doubted what the result of the April 2025 vote would be. However, at the very start of his second term that January, Donald Trump launched an attack on Canada’s sovereignty, repeatedly suggesting that the vast country of 41.5 million should become America’s 51st state. Trump imposed 25% tariffs and threatened annexation.

Against this backdrop, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, whom the media had dubbed “the Canadian Trump,” saw his campaign falter. The similarities were real — Poilievre frequently criticized the media and proposed ending funding for public broadcasting. He promoted conspiracy theories claiming that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was involved in a plot with the World Economic Forum, and he presented himself as a defender of “ordinary people” against the elites.

Liberal Party leader Mark Carney built his entire election campaign around confronting Trump, speaking about the man in the White House nearly as often as he brought up his Conservative rival.

In the end, the Trump factor proved decisive in the election. Although both candidates criticized the U.S. president, the Liberal Party’s commitment to maintaining Canada’s independence — both figuratively and literally — helped the incumbents secure victory in a fourth consecutive election. The Liberal Party won 168 seats in parliament. The Conservatives took 144. All other parties combined received 30.

“The United States wants our land, our resources, our water, our country. That will never happen!” Carney declared after the election victory.

A year later, Carney further strengthened his position via by-elections in three regions, after which his party held 174 seats. The Liberals can now pass legislation unimpeded by  the opposition until 2029.

Australia, May 2025

Australia’s election followed a strikingly similar script to Canada’s. The two main contenders were incumbent Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and opposition populist Peter Dutton, who to a significant extent was imitating the U.S. president.

Dutton entered politics from the business world, naming his party Trumpet of Patriots (with the first five letters clearly intended to be capitalized). During the campaign, the candidate promised to make Australia great again while speaking out against migrants, LGBTQ+ people, and, more broadly, policies of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

Dutton named his party Trumpet of Patriots and promised to make Australia great again

All of this, for a time, boosted his political standing. Polls conducted three months before the election predicted that Dutton was destined for the prime minister’s office. However, as in Canada, everything was turned upside down with the start of the tariff wars, and the question of whether the new leader would be able to stand up to Trump became the key issue of the campaign. In the end, despite Dutton’s attempts to distance himself from enthusiasm for Trump’s ideas, Australian voters preferred incumbent Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Party he leads.

Romania, May 2025

In Romania’s 2025 presidential election, the contenders were Bucharest mayor Nicușor Dan and nationalist George Simion, who presented himself as part of the global MAGA camp.

It was the second attempt to hold the election after the results of the first round in 2024 were annulled by Romania’s Constitutional Court over suspicions of Russian interference through the creation of a bot network on TikTok. At that time, far-right populist Călin Georgescu had led after the first round. U.S. Vice President J. D. Vance, in his speech at the 2025 Munich Security Conference, criticized the Romanian court’s decision, giving an additional boost to the right-wing camp in Romanian politics.

Simion said that he “fully agrees with the MAGA ideology,” opposes LGBTQ+ rights and climate policy, and also spoke in favor of the “unification” of Romania with Moldova. Speaking on the War Room podcast hosted by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, the Romanian populist sent greetings to “all our MAGA friends” and portrayed his campaign as part of a global anti-globalist movement.

Simion sent greetings to “all our MAGA friends”

In addition, Simion called for an end to financial and military support for Ukraine and criticized the European Union. Even after the Trump administration introduced new tariffs — which negatively affected Romania — Simion endorsed the move, calling it a “predictable response to the reckless decisions of the European Union.” Although Donald Trump never directly declared support for Simion, this kind of anti-European rhetoric was clearly advantageous to his administration, which has sought to portray the EU as a weak and useless alliance.

However, Simion was defeated at the ballot box. Nicușor Dan won 53.7% at the polls, and the gap between the two candidates was nearly one million votes.

Denmark, March 2026

There were no candidates in Denmark’s parliamentary election who were closely aligned with Trump. Nevertheless, the vote took place against the backdrop of the American president’s renewed threats at the start of 2026 to seize Greenland, which led to rising support for incumbent Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and her Social Democrats, whose support rose overnight from 16% to 21%. Frederiksen decided to seize the opportunity and call an election several months early.

Clashes with Trump lifted support for the party led by Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen from 16% to 21% overnight

In the end, the Social Democrats won 21.9% of the vote. It was the party’s worst result since 1903, but it proved enough to form a coalition (the center-left bloc secured 84 of 179 seats) and keep Frederiksen in office as prime minister.

Hungary, April 2026

The defeat of Viktor Orbán in Hungary’s election was perhaps the most painful setback for the MAGA movement, as Trump had directly declared his support for Orbán several times. Just days before the vote, Vice President J. D. Vance traveled to Budapest specifically to back Orbán, speaking at a rally of his supporters. Before his speech, Vance called Trump, who said he was “a big fan of Viktor” and fully supported him.

In addition, two days before the election, Trump promised to “use the full economic might of the United States” to help the Hungarian economy — provided that Orbán won.

Such direct interference did not help the incumbent, who had been in power since 2010. On the contrary, it sharpened the choice between a European future and continued isolation — after all, Vance explicitly criticized “Brussels bureaucrats” in his speech. This led to record turnout that saw the opposition Tisza Party of Péter Magyar win 138 out of 199 seats in parliament.

The defeat was painful for Trump in part because Orbán had been an important figure for shaping the global MAGA agenda, a kind of model for Europe’s right-wing leaders. In addition, the Trump White House benefited from Orbán’s frequent conflicts with the European Union and from the possibility of using Hungary’s veto power in votes to divide and weaken Europe.

New York, November 2025

In addition to foreign elections, Trump has also tried to influence domestic voters. His confrontation with New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani became especially intense.

Ahead of the election, the U.S. president backed Andrew Cuomo, who was running as an independent candidate. Trump took to Truth Social, openly urging voters to support Cuomo. He called Mamdani a “communist,” questioned his citizenship, and hinted at his possible looming arrest. In addition, he threatened to cut federal funding for the city if Mamdani won.

Trump called Mamdani a “communist” and questioned his citizenship

“Whether you personally like Andrew Cuomo or not, you really have no choice. You must vote for him,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, adding that if Mamdani won, New York would experience a complete economic and social collapse.

In the end, Mamdani won 50.4% of the vote against 41.6% for Cuomo. Commenting on the result, Trump said that it had happened only because he himself was not on the ballot.

Scary disapproval ratings

The United States has always been an important ally of Australia and Canada, with trust levels remaining high even during Trump’s first term. However, in 2025 this changed dramatically. According to a poll conducted in March 2025 by the Lowy Institute, the share of Australians who trusted the United States to act responsibly in the world fell to 36% — a full 20 percentage points lower than in 2024 and the lowest level in the past 20 years.

At the same time, Trump was also setting personal records for low trust levels among Australians. In March, 72% of respondents said they were not confident in his ability to do the right thing on major global issues, placing him at roughly the same level as Xi Jinping (though still comfortably better than Vladimir Putin).

A Politico poll conducted at the end of 2025 showed that the American president was unpopular in Europe even among supporters of the same right-wing populist parties that he considers to be his allies. In France and Germany, only one-third of supporters of right-wing parties viewed Trump’s performance positively.

With rare exceptions, Trump’s numbers were poor elsewhere as well. A survey conducted by The Guardian in spring 2025 found low levels of confidence in Trump’s foreign policy among Canadians, Argentines, Brazilians, Mexicans, and a wide range of Europeans.

Different outcomes

Despite the numerous cases recounted above, Trump’s endorsement of a candidate is not always a “kiss of death.” In countries where society traditionally supports conservative ideas — and where Trump’s chaotic foreign policy does not seriously affect national interests — the prospect of closer ties with such a powerful ally as the United States can still work to a candidate’s advantage.

In June 2025, conservative Karol Nawrocki won the second round of Poland’s presidential election after officials in Washington had urged voters to support him. A month before the election, Trump hosted Nawrocki at the White House, and a week before the vote then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited Poland to stump for the conservative candidate.

In October 2025, Trump actively backed Argentina’s incumbent leader Javier Milei ahead of parliamentary elections. During a meeting, Trump called the Argentine president a supporter of MAGA (an abbreviation that also works for Argentina). He also hinted that the United States would halt $20 billion in financial assistance if Milei’s party failed to win a majority.

“If he loses, we are not going to be generous with Argentina,” Trump said openly. In the end, Milei’s La Libertad Avanza won with 39% of the vote.

In December 2025, conservative Honduran presidential candidate Nasry Asfura also won with Trump’s backing. Several days before the vote, Trump said that Asfura was the only Honduran candidate with whom the U.S. administration was prepared to work.

In February 2026, Trump also publicly endorsed Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi ahead of parliamentary elections, calling her a “strong, influential, and wise leader.” He expressed full support for her Liberal Democratic party, which won 316 of 465 seats in the lower house.

America can wait

One of the central ideas of the MAGA movement is “America First.” Under this slogan, Trump imposes trade tariffs and repeatedly promises “great deals” and a “golden age” for the United States. However, such priorities can clearly be a liability when it comes to building an alliance of right-wing politicians around the world. Nationalists, whom Trump often chooses as his allies, find it difficult to publicly befriend someone who threatens their country with higher tariffs or uses economic aid as leverage.

As a result, voters often conclude that they do not care to vote for a Trump-like candidate, but rather for a prospective national leader who is prepared to stand up to him — even if that person is also a populist, albeit of the left-wing variety.

Whether more foreign politicians will distance themselves from Trump in the future will depend on national interests. In countries where U.S. interference in domestic politics is a sensitive issue (as in Europe), an alliance with Trump will clearly be a liability. Nevertheless, where economic or military partnership with the United States is more of an asset (as in Honduras), Trump’s backing may become the key to victory.

According to the report, 37-year-old Alexander Okunev arrived at the memorial, which has a permanently burning gas torch in front of it — the so-called “Eternal Flame” — at around 5 a.m. on Feb. 24, 2025. The date marked the third anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Okunev wrote “No to war” on the snow and set himself on fire. His body was discovered by a passerby only at around 6:40 a.m., even though the monument is supposedly under CCTV surveillance.

Alexander Okunev was not a public activist. He worked as a systems administrator for a company that sold retail equipment, avoided discussing politics, lived alone, and rarely interacted with his colleagues. Acquaintances described him as a withdrawn but kind and helpful person. Several months before the incident, he quit his job and almost completely stopped communicating with others.

After Okunev’s body was discovered, officers from Russia’s Investigative Committee arrived at the scene. The incident was listed in the daily police report, but no details were made public.  According to the reports, the authorities quickly took control of the situation and did everything possible to prevent any publicity. The outlets’ sources said the main priority was to remove the body quickly and erase the message written in the snow. Within a couple of hours, all traces of what had happened had reportedly been eliminated. The officials' main concern appeared to be that the media might learn about the incident.

Who covered up Okunev’s death:

• Elena Dyatlova, the head of the city administration, was informed about the incident and immediately took personal control of the situation.
• She was assisted by Yevgeny Maslov, the head of the local cultural heritage protection service.
• Andrei Yermak, Minister of Culture and Tourism of the Kaliningrad Region, was particularly concerned that the self-immolation took place near a World War II memorial, which he deemed an “excessive symbolic” choice.

Maria Zholobova, a journalist for IStories, noted that she initially could not find any traces of the incident.

“I tried to find out more about this incident, but quickly realized I couldn’t find a single news report. I looked through local communities, searched by keywords — nothing. I even checked court decisions. It seemed strange. An event of this scale seems impossible to cover up. As it turned out, it absolutely can be covered up. The Kaliningrad authorities did everything to make that happen.”

No local media outlets reported on the self-immolation. The information did not appear in Telegram channels or on social media. Okunev’s relatives also did not seek publicity. “What’s the point of publicizing it and talking about it? For what?” one of them said. According to his relatives, in a farewell note, Okunev wrote about wanting to live in a world without war. “He wrote that there is another way. Apparently, he meant a world with peace. And he didn't want to live in the world we have, so he made this decision....” “But we are all aware that world peace is a utopia,” a close friend of Okunev recounted to IStories. The note also suggested that Okunev understood that “most likely, it will not be in the news anywhere, it will not be widely covered.” “But now we know about him,” Zholobova added.

According to the investigation, forensic examinations carried out after the incident found no evidence of external pressure on Okunev. His relatives and colleagues were questioned, but none could explain his decision. “Even if Alexander Okunev’s death had not gone unnoticed, it would hardly have sparked mass protests. Still, it undermines the idea of universal consent to the war [in Russia],” Zholobova noted.

The Kaliningrad city administration, as well as other Russian government agencies, did not respond to the journalists’ requests. The regional Minister of Culture said he was not familiar with the details of the investigation.

Orbán is difficult to compare to other leaders who have also caused considerable irritation in Brussels. These include Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who shifted from a “model” social democrat to a populist, and Poland’s former conservative leaders Beata Szydło and Mateusz Morawiecki of the Law and Justice (PiS) party, known for anti-migration policies and nation-first rhetoric.

Orbán became a symbol of undermining European unity, elevated to the core of his political strategy. He repeatedly crossed both formal and informal “red lines,” building ties with Vladimir Putin, adopting anti-democratic laws, curbing freedom of speech and the judiciary, and effectively accepting — largely in pursuit of personal ambitions — multibillion-euro losses for Hungary through frozen EU funds, reduced investment and reputational damage.

Orbán’s actions at times looked irrational but proved politically effective, forcing major European powers into concessions and scoring points with domestic audiences. His departure marks a turning point, ending a period in which a single politician could exploit veto power to block progress in a union of more than 450 million people, especially during crises.

His defeat also symbolically weakens right-wing Euroskepticism, for which he served as a leading figure. Bloomberg may have moved too quickly in linking Hungary’s election outcome with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s referendum setback on judicial reform and declaring a left-wing resurgence in Europe. But Merz also called it a “serious blow to right-wing populism,” while European People’s Party (EPP) leader Manfred Weber said the far-right had lost a “role model.”

Orbán was not a classic far-right figure but readily used radical right rhetoric. In 2021, his party Fidesz left the EPP and later co-founded the “Patriots for Europe” group in the current European Parliament.

However, a key difference separated Fidesz from its allies — France’s National Rally, Austria’s Freedom Party and Spain’s Vox: only Orbán led a national government. That made him an informal symbol of the success of an anti-European project from within Europe itself.

There is little doubt that Orbán’s defeat is a setback for both Putin and Donald Trump. At the first post-election EU leaders’ meeting in Cyprus, Tusk remarked: “For the first time in years, there are no Russians left in the room,” a thinly veiled reference to Orbán’s pro-Russian stance and leaks of confidential information to Moscow. Putin has lost a “Trojan horse” in the EU, and neither Fico nor anyone else can fully replace him.

Orbán’s defeat is a setback for both Putin and Trump

For a Europe currently in open conflict with Washington, Orbán’s defeat is not merely a jab at Trump. The White House had strongly backed the Fidesz leader ahead of the vote, with Trump praising him and Vice President JD Vance making a last-minute trip to Budapest.

Following the defeat of what U.S. ultraconservatives called an “illiberal democrat,” MAGA ideologues appear genuinely unsettled. Support from across the Atlantic failed to help their preferred “traditionalist European,” highlighting the limits of U.S. influence over European politics — a lesson Trump will have to absorb.

The practical effects of removing what German media dubbed “Europe’s chief blocker” are already visible. Hungary lifted its veto on both the EU’s 20th sanctions package against Moscow and a two-year €90 billion loan to Ukraine.

Although this formally followed the resumption of the Druzhba pipeline — a key demand of Budapest and Bratislava — the timing suggests a link to the expected change in power. It ended months of uncertainty that exposed the weakness of EU institutions and complicated planning for both Brussels and Kyiv.

It is also notable that despite having strong backing from Moscow and Washington, Orbán did not attempt to influence the election outcome through undemocratic means. His reaction resembled that of a democratic leader.

By the night of April 12-13, he had publicly conceded defeat, congratulated Magyar on his victory and called for a sweeping renewal of Fidesz. A few days later, he gave an emotional interview describing feelings of “fatigue, pain and emptiness” and his readiness to organize the transfer of power. It was a sign of the European democratic project’s resilience: even its “chief troublemaker” played by the rules at the defining moment of his career.

The Euroskeptics are still around

The end of Orban’s rule weakened nationalists and strengthened the European Union. Euroskeptics did not hide their disappointment. Philipp Turek, the controversial millionaire and honorary chairman of the right-wing Motorists party, which is part of the current Czech government, was blunt: “I fear we have lost a very strong ally in Europe.”

There is little doubt that Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, like Fico in neighboring Slovakia, understands that the right-wing trend is time-limited, sensitive to changing circumstances, and that populists can lose power just as quickly as they gain it. But Orban and his allies are better understood as a symptom, a reaction to internal developments within the European bloc. EU leadership risks making a serious mistake if it focuses on fighting the symptoms rather than the disease.

In recent years, the idea of a “multi-speed Europe” has gained traction in the EU. The concept was that economically and politically stronger states, like France, Germany, and Italy, would deepen integration more rapidly than weaker states, or those unwilling to speed up their cooperation for various reasons. In principle such a model was meant to enable more efficient consensus-building, without losing time to endless coordination. To paraphrase the idea, a multi-speed Europe already exists, albeit in another form. Even after Orban’s departure, forces that are fundamentally at odds with the current Brussels mainstream remain in power in several European capitals.

The Euroskeptics’ primary tool remains the veto, which any EU member state can use on almost all fundamental decisions, from foreign policy and defense to the budget and EU enlargement. There are only two ways to move from unanimity to majority voting: changing the Treaty on European Union or changing the voting rules in a specific policy area by decision of the European Council. Both require unanimous approval.

Orban made the veto the hallmark of his political style, but he is far from the only leader to have used it. A week after a majority of Hungarians showed Orban the “red card”, a majority of Bulgarians voted in parliamentary elections in a way that allowed Rumen Radev, a retired general and former president, to form a single-party government in the near future. Radev, who supports “dialogue with Russia” and opposes “Eurobureaucrats,” anti-Russian sanctions, arms supplies to Ukraine, and EU enlargement, sees the veto as an important part of Bulgarian sovereignty.

Moreover, the tool is supported not only by Euroskeptics. For pro-European governments in Austria, the Baltic states, and Malta, it is a way to preserve the ability to defend national interests and oppose larger political players. Finding a compromise here will be much harder than agreeing with Magyar on Hungary’s new foreign policy course.

Orban’s defeat was not a knockout blow to Europe’s right-wing populists. Alternative for Germany has only strengthened its position and leads national polls with a record result, several percentage points ahead of Merz’s conservatives. France will hold a presidential election in a year. Emmanuel Macron has already said he will leave politics after his second term ends. The National Rally and its likely presidential candidate, Jordan Bardella, are leading in the polls. Belgian and Austrian far-right parties also lead in their countries.

Orban’s defeat was not a knockout blow to Europe’s right-wing populists

It would be premature to assume that the change of power in Budapest will guarantee effective, substantial, and most importantly, long-term support for Ukraine. Magyar is unlikely to block financial aid to Kyiv in the near future. Hungary may, however, refuse to participate in it. That would, however, allow for clearer and more predictable planning. Still, Germany’s formula of “support for as long as it takes,” which Berlin has used since 2022, does not appeal to everyone. By 2029 at the latest, Brussels will once again have to revisit the issue of multibillion-euro aid for Kyiv.

It may happen even sooner. According to The Wall Street Journal, the 90 billion euros allocated to Ukraine may not be enough, and Kyiv may need an additional 19 billion euros. Against the backdrop of a chain of crises in Europe, the world, and individual European states, as well as tightening national budgets and painful reforms, the number of disgruntled voters will only grow.

It will be even harder to achieve unity on Ukraine’s EU membership. In some ways, Orban’s departure has played a cruel trick on Brussels. Previously, the Hungarian prime minister’s consistent and public “no” served as a kind of alibi for EU leaders. Now Kyiv will likely press its partners with uncomfortable questions more insistently. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has rejected the idea of “symbolic” or “partial” membership for his country.

Morally, there is little to say against the president’s argument: Ukraine is paying a huge price for the right to be part of the European family of nations and is defending Europe. Yet even the boldest observer will struggle to imagine Ukraine’s swift and successful accession to the EU, from the work of negotiating teams to ratification of the final treaty by national parliaments. A forced “neither yes nor no” will inevitably create friction between Kyiv and Brussels.

The farther from Ukraine, the greater the disagreements

Functionally, Orbán’s departure is a victory for a united Europe. Other European leaders close to him in spirit are unlikely to obstruct the majority of initiatives so irrationally and consistently. But the change of power in Budapest does not resolve Europe’s five main challenges.

First, what should be done with Euroskeptics, who represent the interests of at least a quarter of all European voters? There are three strategies: more active preventive EU work inside member states to persuade voters not to give opponents of European unity a mandate to govern, fighting Euroskeptic movements, or trying to integrate them. None of these strategies offers a definitive solution, and each carries drawbacks.

Second, it remains unclear how mainstream European politicians should communicate with voters about continuing increases in spending. Europe is under strain. In Germany, the government is discussing health insurance reform that could significantly raise contributions while cutting services.

Belgium is planning sharp cuts to social spending. France is facing new budget restrictions, while Poland is expected to raise the retirement age. In such circumstances, it is difficult to find the right political language to justify the need for multibillion-euro investments in defense and security, as well as aid to Ukraine.

Third, Merz’s statements that Ukraine will not join the EU quickly are telling, let alone the possible territorial concessions. After Orbán’s defeat, Europe will have to create a new framework for relations with Kyiv and provide more specific answers about the prospect of full membership. This is not merely a dialogue between the 27 EU states and Ukraine.

At least two EU membership candidates, Montenegro and Albania, have held that status since 2010 and 2014, respectively. These countries have diligently fulfilled political, economic, and monetary requirements, carried out numerous reforms, and already advanced far along the path. They should be full participants in the discussion about the order of EU accession.

After Orbán’s defeat, Europe will have to create a new format for relations with Ukraine

Fourth, not everyone in the EU agrees with the bloc’s transformation — in practice, though not acknowledged openly — from a political and economic union into a political and military one. In the fifth year of a major European war, geography still matters: the farther a country is from the battlefield in Ukraine and from Russia, the lower its sense of threat from Moscow. Confrontation with Russia and the necessary rearmament are long-term projects, just like support for Ukraine, if not longer. They require maximum will and resolve from Europeans.

Fifth, the loss of the premiership by Europe’s leading Trump ally was a rebuke to the U.S. administration and a signal to the American president’s circle, but in practice it does nothing to shape the EU’s strategy toward the United States. Trump starts military conflicts without consulting European allies and does not account for the risks they face. Washington has once again questioned the value of U.S. membership in NATO and threatened Spain with expulsion from the alliance over its refusal to cooperate in the war against Iran.

Although NATO’s founding documents do not provide for expelling members, the risk of the American “umbrella” collapsing before Europe can ensure its own security is not so small. The EU has learned to push back firmly against the United States, as the conflict over Greenland showed, but in the second year of Trump’s presidency it still appears to lack a clear strategy for relations with the White House and for confronting Trumpism as a phenomenon.

Europe’s main “bad guy” is gone, giving the EU a chance to increase its consolidation, effectiveness, and ultimately, agency. But the challenges facing the largest democratic union of states in world history remain very much in place.

The slim young man with short darkish blond hair appears harmless in his FBI “Most Wanted” photo. But Vladislav Borovkov, a member of Russia’s most notorious black ops unit, stands accused of "criminal cyber activities," specifically using malicious software to disable critical infrastructure in more than a dozen Western countries.

GRU Unit 29155, the Russian military intelligence grouping to which Borovkov belongs, is behind some of the boldest kinetic operations carried out against NATO interests over the past decade and a half. It has poisoned defectors and arms dealers, bombed ammunition and weapons depots, suborned the Taliban to kill U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, and likely deployed directed energy attacks against U.S. spies and diplomats, causing them to experience Anomalous Health Incidents, or “Havana Syndrome.”

Borovkov doesn’t have much of a biography beyond what the U.S. Department of Justice included in his indictment, only that he started his professional career as a cyberoperative immediately after finishing university. (The Insider reported on 29155’s hacking unit in 2025.)  In Borovkov’s case, however, higher education was itself a revealing bullet point on his c.v. — the school he attended, Moscow’s Bauman University, is a kind of Hogwarts for Russian spooks.

Located about four kilometers from Red Square, Bauman’s monumental main building stretches for hundreds of meters along the bank of the Yauza, a small tributary of the Moskva River.

The Insider, together with Le Monde, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, Delfi, and VSquare, has analyzed more than 2,000 internal documents from Bauman University. They provide deep new insight into one of Russia’s many spy schools. The trove includes curricula, contracts, propaganda material, presentations, photos from classes, and lists of students, graduates, and teachers  from the years 2022 to 2024.

According to one Western intelligence official, the collection, leaked by an anonymous source, amounts to a “yearbook directory for incoming GRU operatives.”

Since its founding in 1830, Bauman University has been one of Russia's most renowned technical universities, the equivalent of MIT — with an emphasis on computer science and an enrollment upwards of 30,000. "Courage, will, work, persistence" is its motto.

But the university has a function beyond just training Russia’s next generation of coders. Nestled within the transparent degree programs, from mechanical engineering to aerospace technology, is a secret faculty with the deliberately meaningless title of Department 4, also known as “Special Training.” Here students are prepared to become officers, hackers, saboteurs for the GRU.

The spy school is divided into three “military specializations.” One of them, bearing the code 093400 and the name “Special Service for Intelligence,” is where undergraduates are taught information warfare, electronic reconnaissance, and IT-related special competencies. The GRU directly influences the course curriculum by  defining qualification requirements, approving candidates, and signing off on academic expenses.

Some of the highest-ranking hackers from Russian military intelligence are also on staff as lecturers, and much of the curriculum reads as if it were written by the intelligence officers themselves. “It is fair to say that companies, universities, and educational staff involved in this process are complicit in developing and supporting Russia’s hybrid warfare capabilities, and therefore, could also be subject to countermeasures, such as sanctions,” an analyst at the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats told The Insider.

Some of the highest-ranking hackers from Russian military intelligence are on staff as lecturers, and much of the curriculum reads as if it were written by the intelligence officers themselves

For instance, anyone taking the course “Defense Against Technical Reconnaissance” learns — in a total of 144 hours over the course of two semesters — the complete toolkit of modern hackers. This includes all digital burglary tools for breaking into foreign servers, from simple spearphishing attempts to exploiting known IT vulnerabilities to more sophisticated Trojan horse viruses. There are also “penetration testing with viruses,” i.e. hacking exercises. Module 6 is dedicated entirely to computer viruses, and the final assignment is to program one’s own bespoke malware.

Tools and techniques for waging Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are also part of the curriculum. Customers of the Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s national rail operator, recently had to contend with such an attack, in which countless computers organized in botnets automatically access online providers, crippling the app for several hours. In 2007, a Russian-linked DDoS swarm hobbled Estonia’s government and banking sectors, leading to the Baltic country’s reinvention as one of NATO’s main hubs for cybersecurity.

The worst cyberattack in history was also perpetrated by a GRU team whose ranks are filled with notable Department 4 graduates. In 2017 “NotPetya” (aka “Sandworm”), launched by Unit 74455, affected more than 160 countries and shut down operations by Danish shipping company Maersk and U.S. pharmaceutical giant Merck, not to mention mission-critical hospital computers in Pennsylvania, at a cost of almost a billion dollars. Other victims of Sandworm have included Ukraine’s power grid, state treasury, and finance ministry, a host of Georgian government and privately-run websites and television stations, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, and French President Emmanuel Macron’s political campaign.

The worst cyberattack in history, “NotPetya” in 2017, was also perpetrated by a GRU team whose ranks are filled with notable Department 4 graduates

One of the hacking unit’s newest and youngest recruits is Alexei Kondrashov, who graduated from Bauman’s Department 4 in 2024 with the rank of lieutenant. In photos on the Russian social network VK, he is shown sporting a Justin Bieber hairstyle and beanie hat. “The end of the school year - let's burn the textbooks!" he posted in Russian. Only one image hints at what’s to come: Kondrashov is running through a forest with a rifle at what looks like a military summer camp. Sandworm was his first job out of school.

Kondrashov did not reply to The Insider’s request for comment.

In 2024, a total of 1,563 reservists and 429 prospective contract officers studied at the department, specializing in 14 military areas. They all underwent basic training, and photos from the training camps show several camouflage-clad young men — some of them overweight —  in combat gear struggling on climbing poles and doing shooting exercises with a pistol.

A three-page document contains strict rules for basic training: all participants must have neat haircuts, be clean-shaven, and remain substance-free for a full calendar month, "including beer and many other things of the good life." Fraternization and sex are strictly forbidden.

Anyone who survives basic training moves on to a course in espionage technology taught by Department 4’s deputy head, Lieutenant Colonel Kirill Stupakov. In a 34-page PowerPoint presentation for one of his lectures, various methods are depicted for how telephones can be tapped or conversations in opposite buildings can be eavesdropped on using directional microphones. One slide shows a smoke detector in which a small camera is hidden. For spying over long distances, Stupakov recommends a high-quality spotting scope from Nikon.

In another three-hour teaching unit, Stupakov instructs trainees in countersurveillance, and how to detect bugs and other listening devices.

Stupakov, born in 1982, isn’t just a peddler of theory; he’s an experienced practitioner. Records show he studied radio technology at a military university in Cherepovets, about 186 miles north of Moscow. Between 2004 and 2008, he was registered at an address attributed to GRU Unit 61230, which specializes in signals intelligence. In the following years, he worked at several military academies and has been working at the Military Training Center since at least 2018. In 2022, according to another document, that he signed a three-year contract with GRU Unit 45807.

Internal evaluations paint the picture of a model officer: Stupakov is "purposeful," "disciplined," and "energetic," with "excellent physical fitness," "pronounced leadership quality," and "high professionalism."

Be that as it may, in private Telegram chats that The Insider and Der Spiegel were able to analyze, he is quite garrulous about what he sees as the severe shortcomings of his own leadership. He mocks ex-President Dmitry Medvedev as an alcoholic, calls Vladimir Putin an “old man" and insults the Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov as a "stupid cunt." Stupakov looks upon the war against Ukraine with pessimism, complaining about high losses and prophesying that the conflict will "end badly for us."

Stupakov and his colleagues hammer completely different messages into their students, of course. The "special [military] operation" in Ukraine, as Moscow euphemistically calls its war of aggression, was "inevitable" due to the “nationalists and neo-Nazis” ruling in Kyiv, the teaching materials insist. A daily newsletter circulating at the university spreads slogans of perseverance: "Strike our enemies as our fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers did."

Bauman’s GRU hackers

Stupakov brought several of the GRU’s highest-ranking hackers onto his teaching team. An exam session preparation letter dated February 16, 2024 is initialed and signed by "V. Netyksho” — Viktor Netyksho, the GRU general who was in charge of Unit 26165, or “Fancy Bear,” back in 2016, when it was busy stealing emails from the Democratic National Committee. In July 2018, Netyksho was indicted, along with 11 other GRU operatives, by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller for “committing federal crimes that were intended to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.” 

Another letter bears the signature of Yuri Shikolenko, a high-ranking GRU officer who has been sanctioned by the UK since July 2025 for his role in numerous cyberattacks.

Stupakov, Netyksho and Shikolenko did not answer The Insider’s request for comment on this story.

Department 4 has a particular interest in the United States, especially when it comes to countermanding America’s military and intelligence capabilities. Its lecturers teach young cadres how the CIA, FBI, and NSA work. One lecture is devoted entirely to the field equipment in use by the U.S. Army.

Department 4 has a particular interest in the United States, especially when it comes to countermanding America’s military and intelligence capabilities

The department also keeps up to date with military technology and the changing landscape of war in the 21st century. On a 54-page PowerPoint slide, different drone types are listed, including the U.S. “Switchblade 300,” the British “Black Hornet” reconnaissance drone, and the vertically-launching German “Vector.” All, not coincidentally, are now in use by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Students also do coursework on the protected computer networks of the United States Department of Defense, namely on how to "exploit vulnerabilities" using Metasploit, an open-source cybersecurity platform identified in recent cyberattacks against Ukrainian government sites.

How systematically the Russian leadership is working to undermine Western societies with fake news and propaganda can be seen from a 31-page Department 4 seminar overview. For advanced students, the group seminar "Developing a Propaganda Campaign" is mandatory. The task description for the practical exercise: "Create a social video for any topic using manipulation, pressure, and hidden propaganda to promote or refute 'hot' topic." The title of another lecture is: "Propaganda, Agitation, Manipulation, and Persuasion."

Internships at sanctioned state companies

Like any tech-oriented Western university, Bauman acts as a clearinghouse for new talent to the private and public sectors. Department 4 students undertake internships in GRU units within Russian state-owned enterprises. One of these,"Granit," a specialist in the rehabilitation of air defense systems, was sanctioned by the European Union in February 2024 for its support of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. "Malakhit," a St. Petersburg-based marine engineering company involved in Russia’s submarine industry, has also taken on Department 4 interns. The company was sanctioned by both the EU and United States for its role in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Somehow, other entities fielding Department 4 students, such as the "Gamma" research center on information systems protection, or the "Dolomit" hydrocarbon concern in Dagestan, have gone unsanctioned.

Last April, the Russian head of state paid a visit to Bauman’s campus, gladhanding its undergraduates and discussing the nation’s developments in quantum technologies and space exploration. No mention was made of Department 4 or its unique curriculum. “You have everything it takes to be competitive,” Vladimir Putin told the students.

The economic burden of population outflows lies primarily with the countries of origin. According to an IMF analysis, the departure of 20 million people from Eastern Europe (roughly 5.5% of the total population) between 1995 and 2013 led to an 8-percentage-point decline in population growth, a 6-percentage-point drop in labor productivity, and a slowdown in economic growth of 0.6–0.9 percentage points per year. Social spending consumed 6.2 percentage points more of the GDP than it would have if healthy, working-age citizens had remained in the country. A 1-percentage-point increase in emigration led to a 4.4% rise in the tax burden on those who remained.

India's experience demonstrates how the emigration of highly skilled workers can result in an estimated 2.5% annual loss in tax revenue. In the IT sector alone, these losses are estimated at $15–20 billion per year, while the country’s total losses from “brain drain” may reach $160 billion annually.

The outflow of talent from India reduces the country’s tax revenues by about 2.5% annually. In the IT sector alone, losses amount to $15–20 billion per year

More than 7% of India’s IT graduates move abroad. For the most prestigious colleges, this number is much higher. 31% from the Indian Institute of Technology’s Bombay branch, and nearly 50% from its Kharagpur campus.

The most educated and successful individuals are more likely to emigrate. While only 5.2% of Russia’s scientists are internationally mobile, they account for 28% of citations — a metric commonly used to measure research productivity. Until 2008, Russia’s emigration was composed primarily of these specialists. Although some returned after completing their studies abroad, the most productive scientists left permanently. Many specialists return home after encountering significant professional or social barriers to establishing themselves in the West; however, even they have a higher citation rate than those who never attempted to emigrate.

Highly educated migrants often experience 'brain waste,' filling roles that do not utilise their full professional capacity and generating less economic value for the destination country than they would have at home. According to 2021 data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), this applies to about one-third of highly skilled migrants worldwide — roughly twice the rate among native-born populations. The highest levels of this mismatch are recorded in South Korea (73%), Canada (57%), and Costa Rica (56%).

Amid the global trend for population ageing, the outflow of skilled workers hits the healthcare sector hardest in poorer countries. According to the World Health Organisation, in 2021–2023, approximately 89,000 doctors and 257,000 nurses from countries already facing critical healthcare staff shortages were working in OECD countries.

Amid the global trend for population ageing, the outflow of skilled workers hits the healthcare sector hardest in poorer countries

From 2010 to 2020, the share of foreign medical professionals in eight OECD countries with an already high density of doctors per capita grew from 32% to 36%. Universal health coverage requires a minimum of 20.7 doctors per 10,000 people. While Europe has 43 doctors per 10,000 people, Africa only has two.

Official statistics from Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Health show that over the past five years, the country has lost at least 16,000 medical professionals due to emigration. At the same time, Nigeria itself has only 55,000 licensed doctors for a population of more than 200 million — roughly one doctor per 4,000 patients.

In some African and Latin American countries, more than half the healthcare professionals have emigrated: 77% in Liberia and 54% in Guyana. In 2020, 12% of all nurses worldwide were working outside their countries of origin.

As a result, researchers estimate that developing countries collectively lose about $16 billion a year due to the migration of doctors to developed countries. Kenya, for one, loses roughly $500,000 per year for each emigrating doctor and $339,000 for each nurse.

Positive impact

Emigrants do not abandon the lives they led in their home countries after leaving. Roughly 30% of them return within 20 years, bringing back contacts, skills, knowledge, and money for investment. As such, emigrants from the former Yugoslavia who returned in the first half of the 2000s contributed about 6% to the growth of exports from their countries, thanks to connections and experience gained abroad. The rapid growth of India’s IT sector in the 1990s and 2000s was driven in part by members of the diaspora, who had founded major IT companies and venture capital funds and had the contacts and expertise to build these businesses and bring them to the global market.

Those living abroad transfer knowledge and technology, attract or make investments, and stimulate international trade. In India, the startup ecosystem continues to receive a significant share of funding from the diaspora abroad. Additionally, emigrants offer access to advanced technologies for their compatriots, helping accelerate the country’s development.

Emigrants transfer knowledge and technology to their home countries, attract or make investments themselves, and stimulate international trade

According to research, a 10% increase in immigration boosts trade volume between the destination country and the country of origin by 1–2%. In the case of the United States, a 1% increase in immigrants from a given country raises U.S. investment in that country by 0.35–0.42%. For highly educated immigrants, this rate can reach 0.41–0.52%.

Those who move abroad increase the visibility and productivity of their compatriots at home. Chinese scientists who emigrated made a major contribution to China’s rise as a global science leader between 2000 and 2015 by collaborating on research with colleagues who stayed in the country.

69% of all papers involving Chinese researchers included at least one member of the diaspora as a co-author, which doubled their citation rate. As a result of the increased citation rate, within a single generation, Chinese science moved away from the periphery and came closer to the level seen in the United States.

A similar situation is observed among European scientists in the United States. After moving to the global hub of science, they begin to file patents 42% more often than their counterparts in Europe. At the same time, if one co-author leaves, the productivity of those who remain increases by about 18%.

Overall, if the European Union tried to rein in emigration by lowering taxes for returnees, it would gain about 5% growth in the short term, but lose 6% after 25 years. By contrast, doubling the number of migrants from the EU to the United States would increase productivity in both economies by about 9%.

Doubling the number of migrants from the EU to the United States would increase productivity in both economies by about 9%

Some researchers argue that even authoritarian regimes could benefit from leaders who were educated in Western countries. Upon coming to power at home, such leaders could temporarily improve the country’s democracy index. Even North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, who studied in Switzerland, has promoted women to senior positions within the party apparatus. He is also rumored to be preparing his daughter as his potential successor.

Emigrants from Moldova send substantial remittances back home, accounting for about 12–16% of the country’s GDP (over the 30 years since the collapse of the USSR, 40% of the population has left the country). They also actively vote in elections, significantly contributing to the country’s pro-European orientation. Political emigration can directly support domestic opposition through resources and advocacy efforts.

At the same time, evidence is also emerging that migrants living in countries experiencing a rise in right-wing populism may contribute to democratic erosion in their home countries by voting for such politicians from abroad. Similar examples can be found among Latin American diasporas in the United States, as well as among migrants from Sweden and Romania, who tend to vote for right-wing populist candidates in their home countries more actively than their compatriots who remain there.

Money sent back home

Remittances — money transfers sent home by diaspora communities — remain the most important channel through which migrants influence their countries of origin. According to the World Bank, in 2023 these reached $740 billion, of which $656 billion were sent to developing countries — an amount that exceeded both foreign direct investment flowing into these countries and international aid, the latter by a factor of three.

Migrants send 20–50% of their income back to their home countries, and remittances are received by around 800 million people. The most active senders are women, those who have family members in their home country, and those planning to return. Highly educated migrants tend to send remittances less frequently, and after about 10 years in the host country, the amount sent per person begins to decline.

India, which loses up to $160 billion a year due to the emigration of skilled workers, receives about $120 billion back in remittances — the largest flow of such transfers in the world. A similar situation exists in Latin America: the IMF estimates that a 1-percentage-point increase in emigration leads to a 0.29% decline in GDP, but remittances from the diaspora offset this by an amount equivalent to 0.19% of GDP.

However, the effect can vary by region, and some countries tend to lose more than they gain. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, a 1% increase in remittances leads to a 0.53% loss in GDP. Researchers suggest that the effect depends on whether a country’s financial institutions allow diaspora money to be channeled into investment and production, rather than being used solely for consumption.

India, which loses up to $160 billion a year due to the emigration of skilled workers, receives about $120 billion back in remittances — the largest flow of such transfers in the world

On average, roughly 75% of remittances are spent on consumption (food, clothing, and other immediate needs). The remaining funds are invested in education and health (that is, human capital), housing, and business. Remittances can even improve school attendance rates and reduce child mortality. Those who have emigrated also serve as role models, encouraging those who remain to work and study harder and for longer periods.

This effect primarily concerns close relatives. As data on families of Filipino migrants show, children whose fathers have emigrated are 24% more likely to go to college. In other words, migration indirectly improves the quality of human capital in countries of origin, since not all those who prepare for international employment actually emigrate.

Remittances can also be non-monetary. Migrants send back technologies, political culture, and social norms from their host countries to their native societies. A study in Burkina Faso found that returning migrants and members of the diaspora introduced new public health practices into rural communities (such as handwashing and waste management) and worked to improve housing conditions and local infrastructure.

The most notable outcome was the development of prenatal and postnatal care and malaria prevention. In Armenia, during the COVID-19 pandemic, families of migrants who had moved to the Czech Republic actively promoted Western sanitary practices at home and encouraged elderly relatives to follow safety measures, despite the government's policy of downplaying the threat. They demonstrated significantly greater caution than their neighbors who had no relatives abroad.

For many countries, diaspora remittances make up a significant share of national income. Tajikistan ranks second by the share of remittances as a percentage of GDP (39%), receiving $4.6 billion — an amount comparable to half of its state budget revenue. About a quarter of the country’s citizens work abroad, with 95–98% of them in Russia. However, Moscow’s anti-immigrant campaign could threaten regional stability given that frustrated, unemployed populations are an easy target for recruitment by terrorist organizations.

For many countries, diaspora remittances make up a significant share of national income

Ukraine is also a major recipient of remittances, ranking among the top 15 countries globally by total inflows. In 2023, it received about $15 billion from its diaspora, equivalent to 8.5% of the country’s GDP. In 2022, remittances reached $16.8 billion. For comparison, Russia received just over $10 billion in remittances in 2020, or about 0.7% of its GDP. More recent estimates for Russia are unavailable, as bank transfers from the European Union have been blocked and cash flows are difficult to track.

Some advanced economies, such as France and Germany, are also major recipients of remittances. A significant share of these funds likely comes from their citizens working in an even more developed country — Switzerland, for instance — while living and spending their income in their home countries.

Why people leave and why they return

Research suggests that migrants bring the greatest benefit to their home country when they maintain ties to it and return, or plan to return — they contribute more money, knowledge, and skills. But what influences one's decision to leave or to come back?

In the past decade, some Eastern European countries have welcomed back a significant share of citizens who left after the collapse of the socialist bloc. In particular, Poland and the Baltic states have experienced either increasing remigration or even a situation in which the number of people returning is more than those who left. In 2016, about 2.5 million Poles were living abroad, but by 2025, around one million had returned to their homeland.

Citizens of Eastern European countries largely emigrated due to poverty and a lack of jobs. Data from Lithuania show that the pace of emigration directly correlates with unemployment rates. At the same time, the departure of surplus labor eased pressure on the labor market, pushing wages upward. A 1-percentage-point increase in emigration led to a 0.67% rise in wages, with the effect being more pronounced in groups that accounted for the largest share of outflows — most notably young workers.

Some researchers believe that rising labor costs reduced the competitiveness of Eastern European economies. Nevertheless, improvements in economic conditions, lower unemployment, and rising wages have led people to return. This trend was also supported by Brexit, which triggered economic difficulties in the United Kingdom. The UK’s economic difficulties were also caused by the energy crisis at the start of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine, which, in turn, contributed to a recession in Germany.

Since emigration is often driven by unemployment caused by insufficient capital investment, some countries deliberately design their education systems with the expectation that “surplus” labor will work abroad and send back remittances that can be invested in development. The Philippines is often cited as an example: some 238,000 Filipino nurses work overseas — more than from India, Poland, and the United Kingdom combined, generating around $8 billion in remittances, which accounts for roughly 2% of the country’s GDP. 

Some countries deliberately design their education systems with the expectation that “surplus” labor will work abroad and send back remittances that can be invested in development

China also trains more healthcare workers than it can employ domestically, partly due to underinvestment in its healthcare system. In some cases, the state assists these professionals in finding jobs abroad, taking a commission of about 10–15% of their salaries in return.

Faced with the departure of a significant share of the population, governments could become concerned with demographic decline, a shrinking tax base, and the need to improve domestic institutions in an effort to attract citizens back. 

Researchers have concluded that this effect increases as emigration rises, up to the point where about 20% of the population has left. After that, it begins to decline, becoming negative as soon as 47.4% of residents have emigrated, at which point institutions tend to deteriorate. When too many people leave, the preferences of the median voter shift, politicians lose incentives to pursue reforms, and the influence of emigrants, as well as the government’s desire to attract them back, becomes insufficient to drive institutional improvement.

What Russia has lost and gained

Throughout its history, Russia has experienced at least five major waves of emigration. For many years, it has been both among the leading host countries and countries of origin. According to UN estimates, 7.6 million immigrants were living in Russia in 2024 (compared with 11.2 million in 2020), while 11 million Russians were living abroad. However, data after 2020 lack precision since the latest censuses were conducted during the pandemic and later in wartime. The total number of Russian emigrants and their descendants may reach 25–30 million people. Most of them live in post-Soviet countries, the U. S., Israel, and Germany.

The migration wave that began after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine is often described as one of the largest in the country’s history. According to various estimates, between 500,000 and 1.3 million people left Russia in the first year of the war alone. However, this surge aligns with the peak of a broader wave that had begun in the first half of the 2010s amid election fraud, protests, and economic stagnation. In the decade preceding the full-scale war, more than 3 million people left Russia.

The country has been losing mostly young, educated, economically active people. According to OutRush, a project studying the current migration wave, Russians who left after the full-scale invasion have an average age of 33. Roughly 86% of emigrants are under 45, and nearly half are between 25 and 34. Around 80% of those who left have higher education, 43% work in IT, and another 21% in culture and science. For comparison, the median age in Russia is 40.5 years, and only 27% of the population has a degree.

Economists warned even before the war that emigration harms the already unbalanced demographics of a rapidly aging country, reduces the tax base, and slows technological progress due to “brain drain.” The IT sector alone lost about 10% of its employees in 2022.

At the same time, many of those who left after the start of the war continue to work for Russian companies and follow domestic news. Three-quarters of the recent emigrants are ready to consider returning if the war ends and the political situation improves.

Russian migrants could transfer money, experience, and technology back to their home country; however, Moscow’s isolationist policies and Western sanctions have largely limited these opportunities. At the same time, this has also slowed further losses of human capital in Russia.

The longer the conflict continues, the greater the gap between migrants and their homeland will become, and the likelihood of their return will become lower. However, an end to the war — and especially a change in the ruling regime — could play a significant role in restoring Russia’s international ties, rebuilding trade, and transferring knowledge and technology.

The March 5 incident involved currency and precious metals that were being transported from Austria to Ukraine. At the time, two armored cash-in-transit vehicles and seven bank employees were detained on Hungarian territory. The vehicles were later returned, but the cash and gold remained in Hungary. Ukrainian authorities said Hungary was holding around $40 million, €35 million (over $41 million), and 9 kilograms of bank gold.

Hungarian authorities said they suspected possible money laundering and launched an investigation. Oschadbank said that the transport was a routine operation carried out under a contract with Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank International.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said that the shipment had been processed in full compliance with all international regulations and that the Hungarian side had been notified about the procedure in advance. Despite that, Kyiv said the cash-in-transit staff, who were listed aswitnesses, were held for more than a day in handcuffs and blindfolds. Ukraine also reported problems with the detainees’ access to medical care.

On March 6, Hungary deported all the bank employees and banned them from entering the Schengen Area for three years.

Hungarian authorities had earlier said that the seized currency and gold would remain in the country during an investigation into their origin and intended use.

According to the Hungarian outlet Telex, Minister of Construction and Transport János Lázár linked the situation to tensions between Budapest and Kyiv over the suspension of oil deliveries via the Druzhba pipeline. He said that Hungary did not intend to return the funds until the situation was resolved and described the transport of large sums of cash as “suspicious.”

Now, according to Zelensky, the seized assets have been returned to Ukraine. The terms of the return have not been disclosed.

In Miftakhov’s account, IK-18 employee Mikhail Sobolev appears as one of the main perpetrators of the torture. Miftakhov said Sobolev summoned two inmates who knocked him to the floor, tied him up with tape, and began beating him. Miftakhov says Sobolev personally sat on his back, causing him to suffocate and lose consciousness, hit him on the head, pinched his nose and mouth shut, and took part in threats to rape him and dunk him into a sewer manhole.

According to Miftakhov, Pavel Kiselev was on the second floor of the operations department, where the political prisoner was taken after the first round of torture. There, wires were attached to the prisoner’s toes, and he was tortured with electric shocks while loud music was played to drown out his screams. Miftakhov named Kiselev among the officers present in the room during the torture.

Mikhail Sobolev

The Insider independently confirmed that 40-year-old Mikhail Sobolev from Tyumen works at IK-18, the Polar Owl prison colony in Kharp. According to leaked online databases, Sobolev has served as a FSIN officer at the colony since at least 2022, when his yearly income from IK-18 totaled 1,176,092 rubles (approximately $16,000 at current exchange rates).

Sobolev likely first joined the Federal Penitentiary Service in the summer of 2016, at IK-2 in Tyumen. Traces of his work at that colony appear through at least 2019. Before that, in 2015, Sobolev worked for the private security company Strazh. In 2020, he apparently moved to Kharp: that was when his first links to addresses in the village appeared, while links to addresses in Tyumen ended.

Sobolev’s profile on the Russian social network VK lists the Tyumen Institute for Advanced Training of Interior Ministry Employees under the “Education” section, while the status on his page reads: “Life is beautiful!!!” Among his subscriptions are his employer, the Federal Penitentiary Service directorate for the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, and the communities “Corporation of Evil” and “Moonshiners.”

Mikhail Sobolev’s wife, Viktoria Soboleva, also works in the penitentiary system. In 2022, she served at IK-3, known as Polar Wolf, a prison colony in Kharp where Alexei Navalny was killed in 2024. However, in 2024, Viktoria Soboleva was already listed on the official VK page of the Federal Penitentiary Service directorate for the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District as an employee of IK-18 Polar Owl.

The Sobolevs have two children: a 10-year-old son and a 4-year-old daughter. Their son has taken part in Federal Penitentiary Service departmental competitions from an early age. In 2024, he was named best reciter in the “Artistic Word” talent contest for the children of penitentiary system employees. The contest, according to the Federal Penitentiary Service directorate for the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, was held in part “to foster patriotism and civic consciousness, strengthen the authority of the family and traditional family values, and build interest in service at institutions and bodies of the penitentiary system.” At the time, the Sobolevs’ 8-year-old son performed the poem “Shield of the Russian State.”

Pavel Kiselev

The Insider was also able to identify the second man in Miftakhov’s account as Pavel Pavlovich Kiselev, a 35-year-old native of the city of Tavda in the Sverdlovsk Region.

Kiselev has long worked in the Federal Penitentiary Service. According to leaked databases, in 2016-2017 he was linked to IK-5 Metallostroy in St. Petersburg, then worked in institutions under FSIN’s directorate in the Sverdlovsk Region. From 2018 to 2020, he received income from IK-19 in his native Tavda, and from 2020 to 2022 from IK-24 in the village of Azanka in the Tavda District. At IK-24, Kiselev held the post of senior operative officer. In 2022, his income at that colony totaled 754,966 rubles (just over $10,000 at current exchange rates).

Kiselev has been linked to Kharp since 2023. He and his daughter, born in 2016, are mentioned on the VK page of the local elementary school. In February 2026, Kiselev attended a school event wearing the uniform of a Federal Penitentiary Service captain. In the school’s post, he was called “an example of a worthy man and caring father raising two wonderful daughters.” The post was later reposted by the official page of the Federal Penitentiary Service directorate for the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District.

Kiselev’s wife,42-year-old Yana Zachinyayeva, is a native of the eastern German city of Dresden. Unlike Mikhail Sobolev’s spouse, she does not work for the Federal Penitentiary Service. Leaked databases also reveal that Zachinyayeva was placed on Russia’s federal wanted list in 2005 after allegedly fleeing investigation and trial in a drug trafficking case.

Zachinyayeva now works in beauty services in Kharp. Her page describes her as a “certified specialist in manicures, pedicures and polymer wax depilation” with five years of experience, and lists her workplace in Kharp’s Molodezhny quarter. Kiselev and Zachinyayeva have two daughters, aged 8 and 9.

A torture colony

Headed by 49-year-old Lt. Col. Alexander Tsybulsky, IK-18 “Polar Owl” in Kharp has long been regarded as one of Russia’s most brutal penal colonies. It primarily holds prisoners serving life sentences, but also has a maximum-security section, where Miftakhov was transferred. Over the years, reports from Polar Owl have described “torture cells,” where prisoners are subjected to abuse at the hands of other inmates on orders from the prison administration as a means of pressure or intimidation.

One of the most high-profile cases involved the mass coercion of confessions. In 2014, a court in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District found former senior operative Yuri Sandrkin of IK-18 and convict Vadim Zhuravlev guilty in a case involving coercion of confessions from prisoners. Under their pressure, Polar Owl inmates confessed to involvement in 190 high-profile crimes, including the killings of journalists Anna Politkovskaya and Paul Klebnikov, as well as Akhmad Kadyrov, the father of Chechnya’s current leader Ramzan Kadyrov. It later emerged that the confessions were false self-incriminations.

Independent outlet Novaya Gazeta reported that IK-18 had created a “conveyor belt” for producing false confessions. Prisoners were forced to write confessions under threats that they would be transferred to cells with “lower-status” inmates or to the aforementioned “torture cells.” Some prisoners said they were beaten and tortured. The court found Sandrkin guilty of abuse of office involving violence or threats of violence and sentenced him to 3.5 years in a general-security penal colony. Zhuravlev received four years, but the sentence did not affect his actual term, as he was already serving life.

Another well-known episode involved the case of neo-Nazi Alexei Voevodin, known by the nickname “SVR” (the acronym for Russia’s foreign intelligence agency), who was sentenced to life in prison for a series of killings motivated by racism and xenophobia. In 2021, Voevodin, inmate Alexander Ageyev, and IK-18 operative Igor Nesterenko went on trial in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District. Voevodin and Ageyev were accused of murdering a cellmate with particular cruelty, causing serious bodily harm to other prisoners, and torture. Nesterenko was charged with abuse of office and organizing prisoner torture.

According to case materials, Voevodin said that after arriving at Polar Owl, an operative offered him to “help the administration manage prisoners” — meaning inmates who complained about the administration or violated internal rules. In exchange, Voevodin said, he was promised everyday privileges. According to his testimony, the “help” involved him and Ageyev beating prisoners placed in their cell, sometimes with a bar of laundry soap wrapped in a towel.

One prisoner, Vladimir Zakharkin, died after such a beating. He had previously complained about incarceration conditions and won a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights, which awarded him 21,000 euros in compensation. After that, Zakharkin hired lawyers and continued filing complaints. According to the version set out in the case materials, he was placed in a cell with Voevodin and Ageyev, where he was beaten and died the same day.

According to FIRMS fire-monitoring data reviewed by The Insider, the fire at the refinery was still burning as of this morning. Satellites detected at least two fire hotspots, one of them on the territory of the refinery’s flare system – a critical safety system used to dispose of flammable gases and vapors.

The refinery had previously come under drone attack in late March, when about 25 drones struck the facility, sparking fires, damaging primary oil processing units, and destroying a 5,000-cubic-meter storage tank. Reuters reported that Kirishinefteorgsintez halted operations after the strikes. According to the agency, the plant processed about 17.5 million tons of oil in 2024, amounting to 6.6% of Russia’s total refining capacity.

The city of Kirishi is about 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, from St. Petersburg and Veliky Novgorod.

Since late March, Ukraine has also regularly attacked Russia’s key oil ports in the Leningrad Region: Ust-Luga and Primorsk. Both ports have temporarily suspended the loading of crude oil amid the strikes.

The proceedings in Zvegintsev and Galkin’s case had been held behind closed doors since the fall of 2024.

Valery Zvegintsev, a researcher at the Khristianovich Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and founder of the High-Speed Aerogasdynamics Laboratory, was detained in Novosibirsk in 2023. His colleague and co-author from Tomsk, Vladislav Galkin, was detained later. Both were charged with treason, reportedly over a paper on gas dynamics they had published in a foreign journal.

In 2024, courts sentenced two other scientists from the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics on treason charges. Former institute director Alexander Shiplyuk received 15 years in prison, while former chief researcher Anatoly Maslov was sentenced to 14 years.

In the spring of 2023, researchers at the institute wrote an open letter in defense of their arrested colleagues, warning of an “impending collapse” of Russian aerodynamics science:

“The materials of all three criminal cases are closed to the public; however, we know from open sources that the actions for which our colleagues may spend the rest of their lives behind bars amount to what is considered worldwide, including in Russia, to be essential to research integrity and quality: presenting at international seminars and conferences, publishing papers in top-tier journals, and participating in international research projects.”

According to the scientists, they do not see how one can continue working in an environment where “any article or presentation could become grounds for charges of treason.”

Rumen Radev was first elected president of Bulgaria in January 2017. Since then, the country has held nine parliamentary elections — eight of them in the past five years. A range of parties has emerged victorious: the systemically pro-European but corruption-tainted GERB party; the staunchly liberal, pro-Western “We Continue the Change”; and the loosely defined protest party “There Is Such a People,” led by entertainer Slavi Trifonov, which failed to form a ruling coalition. During periods when Bulgaria lacked a parliamentary majority, President Radev appointed “caretaker” governments, effectively consolidating power in what is formally a parliamentary republic. But this did not prevent him from remaining the country’s most popular politician.

Radev had been labeled “pro-Russian” even before taking office. He dismissed the claim, saying: “I am a NATO general and have devoted my entire life to ensuring Bulgaria is a strong and active member of the alliance.” In 2026, Radev’s Progressive Bulgaria party claimed much of the former electorate of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), the successor to the country’s communist party.

A “last hope” candidate

Voters expect a miracle from the former general and president — much as they once did from Bulgaria’s last monarch, Simeon II, who was deposed by communists in 1946 before making a sensational political comeback by winning parliamentary elections in 2001. A quarter-century later, Progressive Bulgaria is set to secure about 130 seats in parliament, compared with 120 for Simeon’s movement in 2001.

Simeon’s “miracle” faded when the monarch-turned-democrat lost public trust. Radev, by contrast, is seen as a “last hope” candidate. Many Bulgarians believe previous governments either failed to tackle organized crime or were themselves part of it. For nearly a decade, Radev remained above the fray, maintaining strong approval ratings. Now, in his new role as prime minister, he will have to confront the issue directly.

Radev is seen as a “last hope” candidate that will have to confront the issue of organized crime

One of Progressive Bulgaria’s key campaign promises involves judicial reform, but implementing such measures requires a constitutional majority — three-quarters of parliament, meaning 180 out of the body’s 240 seats. Radev’s party secured an impressive 130, but even that figure is still well short of the needed mark.A “softer” option exists — two-thirds, or 160 votes — but it involves a more complex and lengthy process and cannot be used for the most fundamental issues. Again though, even that threshold is out of reach for the three-party coalition led by Radev.

Besides Progressive Bulgaria, four other parties entered parliament. Two of them — GERB and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms — are widely seen as representing entrenched oligarchic interests and have been opposed to judicial reform. Radev said before the election that cooperation with them would be impossible.

Another party, the hardline Euroskeptic and pro-Russian Revival, is too toxic for Radev, who has reaffirmed Bulgaria’s European course. In any case, Revival holds only 12 seats — not enough to make a difference. That leaves the liberals: a complex alliance between “We Continue the Change” and the smaller, diverse Democratic Bulgaria coalition. Although Radev criticized both during the campaign, he has not ruled out cooperation with either now that the election is over.

Business over ideology

However cooperation between Progressive Bulgaria and the liberal bloc is structured — whether through a formal coalition or issue-based voting — the liberals are unlikely to allow the new prime minister to abandon support for Ukraine or move significantly closer to Russia.

At the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Bulgaria was governed by Kiril Petkov’s “We Continue the Change,” and support from Sofia proved crucial to Kyiv in the early months of the war, helping to cover a significant diesel fuel shortage after Russian strikes on Ukrainian refineries and depots. It also supplied large numbers of 152 mm artillery shells and Soviet-standard small arms ammunition, as Bulgaria is the largest producer of such munitions outside Russia.

These arms shipments had been taking place quietly since 2014, becoming public mainly through incidents such as the poisoning of Bulgarian arms dealer Emilian Gebrev with Novichok or explosions at weapons depots in the Czech village of Vrbětice, where Bulgarian munitions were reportedly stored.

In 2022, there were also discussions about transferring Bulgaria’s MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine. The move is widely believed to have been blocked by then-President Radev. While Poland and Slovakia later sent their jets, Bulgaria did not.

In practice, decisions on Bulgarian arms transfers are made by the government, which largely ignored Radev’s warnings about being drawn into the war. Still, the MiGs were not sent, in part because, as a former air force commander, Radev was seen as an authoritative voice on the issue. He argued that Bulgaria had no “spare” aircraft.

As prime minister, Radev is likely to adopt a position similar to that of Slovakia’s Robert Fico: no free military aid to Ukraine, but existing commercial contracts will be fulfilled, and new ones may be signed.

For Kyiv, such a stance is acceptable. Larger European powers provide financial support, defense manufacturers fulfill paid orders, and Bulgaria’s surplus Soviet-era stockpiles have largely been depleted.

Radev is also unlikely to pursue any anti-Ukrainian actions along the lines of Hungary’s Orban-era use of vetoes on EU decisions.  First, Bulgaria is highly dependent on EU funding — more so than Hungary. Second, potential coalition partners from the liberal bloc would exert pressure.

Russia, meanwhile, is unlikely to mobilize significant domestic pressure against Radev, as his political movement has already absorbed much of the Euroskeptic electorate. Nor is he likely to align himself with Europe’s pro-Kremlin, Trump-friendly forces. Direct appeals to the United States would also be difficult, given that Trump has shown little affinity for center-left politicians like Radev.

More reliable with Europe

Radev is pragmatic. His statements about the need to build relations with Russia based on mutual respect and equality, and about the desirability of restoring full Russian oil and gas supplies to Europe, are worth noting. Without taking Viktor Orban’s radical position, Bulgaria’s incoming PM would like to receive material benefits in exchange for a willingness to gently promote Moscow’s interests in the European Union.

Bulgaria’s incoming PM would like to receive material benefits in exchange for a willingness to gently promote Moscow’s interests in the EU

But here, too, his room for maneuver is sharply limited. Bulgaria’s economic contacts with Russia have seriously deteriorated. Sofia abandoned construction of the South Stream gas pipeline in 2014 under pressure from the European Commission. Gazprom Neft is present mainly through a small Gazprom-branded network of gas stations registered through a European jurisdiction. Lukoil’s petrochemical plant in Burgas, the largest refinery in the Balkans, has fallen under U.S. sanctions — it is being prepared for sale and cannot be “saved” from that fate by the national government. Meanwhile, resuming construction of the Belene nuclear power plant with Rosatom’s involvement is unlikely, both for economic reasons and because of the positions of the United States and the EU.

Bulgaria has also received substantial compensation from the EU over the past 12 years in order to help counteract the negative economic effects of joining sanctions against Russia, particularly in the energy and agricultural sectors. The country has learned that it is easier and safer to seek additional European funds than to try to revive risky business with Russia.

That means the main audience for the future prime minister’s rhetoric about rapprochement with Russia may not be the Kremlin at all. Ideologically, such rhetoric is likely aimed at domestic voters who shifted their support from Euroskeptic parties over to Radev. Pragmatically, the incoming prime minister’s words are being indirectly aimed at Brussels, which may be expected to offer new incentives to keep Bulgaria in its orbit.

On April 21 — likely the day after he arrived in Kharp — Miftakhov was taken at about 1 p.m. to the administration building, where the operational department is located. Polar Owl prisoners call the place the “Lubyanka,” a reference to the Moscow headquarters of the Soviet Union’s KGB and its successor agency, Russia’s FSB. Miftakhov said he was met there by two convicts: one with the surname Bulanov and another named Mikhail. They brought him to a toilet and ordered him to clean it, but he refused.

Miftakhov was then taken into an office where prison employee Mikhail Sobolev was present. Miftakhov said the conversation lasted about one and a half hours. At first, Sobolev seemed to him like a “calm, reasonable person,” but he kept saying that Miftakhov had to do everything the administration told him to do, including cleaning the toilet in the operational department.

“Then, when I refused again, he either pressed some button or made a call, after which those two convicts ran into the office. They knocked me to the floor. Bulanov sat on my torso. ... Mikhail sat on my legs and began wrapping them with tape. ... Mikhail hit me several times in the groin with his fist to make me stop resisting,” Miftakhov said.

According to Miftakhov, the attackers also tied his hands with tape. After that, they turned him onto his stomach, and Sobolev sat on top of him. At that point, Bulanov began hitting his heels with a wooden hammer.

“I started screaming in pain. ... It hurt, and at the same time I could hardly breathe. I began choking and losing consciousness. When my screams grew quieter, Bulanov stopped hitting my heels. They waited until I came to, and then they started hitting my heels again and pressing down on my back, and it was hard for me to breathe.”

The Insider has independently confirmed that 40-year-old Mikhail Sobolev from Tyumen works at IK-18 “Polar Owl.” Data from leaked online databases suggests that his monthly income in 2022 amounted to roughly 100,000 rubles a month (just over $1,300 at current rates). Sobolev’s status on the social network VK reads “life is beautiful!!!”, and his subscriptions include his employer, the official account of FSIN in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, and the communities called “Corporation of Evil,” and “Moonshiners.”

“They threatened to take turns penetrating me”

When Miftakhov again began losing consciousness, Sobolev and the convicts stopped the beating but immediately began threatening to rape him.

“They pulled down my pants and underwear. ... Mikhail began spreading cream on my anus with his fingers. At some point he stopped, but they continued threatening to take turns penetrating me.”

At that moment, a staff member whom others called “Alexei Viktorovich” entered the office. Miftakhov said the man saw him lying there with his pants down.

“Alexei Viktorovich” and the sewer hatch

“Alexei Viktorovich” spoke briefly with Sobolev. A few minutes later, Miftakhov was carried from the office into a hallway, where he said he was threatened with being dipped into a sewage hatch.

“They [Bulanov and Mikhail] brought my face close to the waste, and when my face was two centimeters away, they pulled me back and carried me back into the office.”

Miftakhov said the abuse then continued, and he was slapped, stepped on, and again threatened with rape. He said Bulanov, Mikhail, and Sobolev all took part in the beating in the office.

Miftakhov said Sobolev then struck him about 100 times on the head with his palm, before pinching his nose and covering his mouth until he began to suffocate.

Loud music drowns out screams during electric shocks

After that, Miftakhov, still bound with tape, was carried to the second floor of the operational department, where operatives Pavel Kiselev and Yevgeny (last name unknown) joined the torturers. Miftakhov was placed on his stomach, and wires were attached to his toes.

“Then Bulanov turned on the current. I screamed. He said: ‘Ah, the bitch squealed.’ After that, they turned on the current for even longer. The pain was so terrible that I began screaming at the top of my lungs.”

To drown out his screams, Bulanov and Mikhail turned on pop music at full volume. The electric shock torture then continued.

“As soon as I started screaming, Mikhail pressed a towel to my mouth. It was very painful and frightening. When I began losing consciousness, they turned off the current. Half a minute later, they turned it on again, and this continued for some time,” Miftakhov said.

He said he was then turned over and placed on the floor, leaning against a couch. The wires were still attached to his feet. The operatives began trying to convince him that he was required to follow all administration orders, but Miftakhov refused. The current was then switched on again, and the torture was repeated after each refusal.

After that, Yevgeny ordered the wires removed from Miftakhov and the tape binding him cut off. He was allowed to put on his underwear and pants. Then, he said, two more prison guards entered the office. They also demanded that he obey any orders from the administration. Miftakhov continued to refuse.

By the end of the workday, the political prisoner was taken back to the quarantine room. Yevgeny, according to Miftakhov, promised to speak with him again the next day. After returning to quarantine, Miftakhov felt the effects of the torture: his heels, groin, and calves hurt badly.

A new case, pressure, and a transfer to Kharp

Azat Miftakhov, a graduate student at Moscow State University, was first arrested in 2019. In January 2021, he was sentenced to six years in a general-security penal colony on hooliganism charges. Investigators said that in January 2018, Miftakhov and a group of anarchists broke a window at an office of the ruling United Russia party in Moscow and threw a smoke bomb inside. He denied any wrongdoing.

In September 2023, Miftakhov was released, but was detained again as he left the colony — this time in a case involving the alleged “justification of terrorism.” The case was based on an alleged conversation between Miftakhov and another prisoner, who later served as the prosecution’s main witness and was subsequently killed in the war in Ukraine.

In the second case, Miftakhov was sentenced to four years in prison. He was to spend the first two and a half years in prison and the rest in a maximum-security penal colony. After completing the prison portion of his sentence, Miftakhov was transferred from a prison in Yelets to Penal Colony No. 18 (IK-18), known as Polar Owl, in the remote settlement of Kharp, nearly 40 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

While in custody, Miftakhov has regularly faced pressure and threats. In 2023, he said that after his 2019 arrest, the FSB used his intimate photographs to discredit him in the eyes of other prisoners and demote him to the lowest prison caste, known as the “offended.” His wife, Elena Gorban, said this worsened his position in the colony and led to additional difficulties and conflicts. In November 2024, Miftakhov’s support group said his safety in a prison in Dimitrovgrad was under threat because of a cellmate with a severe mental condition. Miftakhov spent almost all of 2025 in solitary confinement.

IK-18 “Polar Owl” is considered one of Russia’s most remote and harshest colonies. It is primarily intended for convicts serving life sentences, though it also has a maximum-security section, where Miftakhov was sent. Former political prisoner and human rights expert Ivan Astashin has reported that Polar Owl, along with Black Dolphin and White Swan, has a reputation as a torture prison. Prisoner Vladimir Zakharkin, who had complained to the European Court of Human Rights about the incarceration conditions, was killed in the colony: other prisoners beat him to death on orders from the administration. Opposition politician Alexei Navalny was murdered in the nearby Kharp Penal Colony No. 3 (IK-3), known as “Polar Wolf.”

As Alexandra Zapolskaya, a member of Solidarité FreeAzat — an association created  in France in 2023 by Russian and French trade union and political activists — told The Insider, French lawmakers and activists are concerned about Miftakhov’s transfer:

“The news of Azat’s transfer to Kharp came as a shock for us. On April 25, we held an emergency meeting in Paris, bringing together everyone who cares to join our fight for his freedom. Many people attended, including members of the French parliament. We are now structuring the solidarity campaign. We understand that only international publicity and frequent lawyer visits can protect Azat. The latter requires money. We urge everyone to contribute to the fight for him.

Azat’s case alone shows the full darkness of Russian repression. But darkness is not eternal, and solidarity is stronger than repression.”

Funds to support Miftakhov’s lawyers and legal defense team can be transferred:

• through the Solidarité FreeAzat form for euro transfers;
• via PayPal at firesoffreedom@protonmail.com with the note “for Azat”;

to the Russian Sberbank card 5469 3800 5929 3380, registered to Elena Anatolyevna Gorban (Горбань Елена Анатольевна). Those sending money to the Russian card are asked to list the purpose of the transfer as “gift” («дарение»).

Vienna suspects Moscow is using numerous satellite dishes installed on diplomatic buildings for surveillance. Reuters reported that the antennas have long attracted the attention of Austria’s domestic intelligence service, which has warned that the equipment may be used to intercept communications.

The Financial Times previously reported that Russian diplomatic sites in Vienna had become Russia’s largest signals intelligence platform in the West. As the key site, the outlet names the so-called “Russencity,” a nine-hectare complex on the eastern bank of the Danube with the multistory building of Russia’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations at its center.

The Insider also previously found that Russia’s Embassy in Vienna is effectively used as an intelligence hub. The Reisnerstrasse complex employs dozens of staff with diplomatic passports linked to the SVR, GRU, and FSB, and the site is used, among other things, to coordinate operations in other European countries. In October 2025, The Insider revealed the identities of so-called “journalists under cover” after they arrived in Austria following the expulsion of Russian consular staff from Munich.

Viennese engineer enthusiasts from the group NomenNescio spent two years photographing the complex’s roofs in high resolution and found that most of the dishes were aimed at four geostationary satellites: Eutelsat 3B, Eutelsat 10B, SES-5, and Rascom QAF1. The satellites provide communications between Africa and Europe. Special attachments installed in front of the receivers allow signals to be “probed” across a much wider range than standard equipment.

This past March, Chayko was added to the European Union’s sanctions list among nine people held responsible for the Bucha massacre — the mass killing of civilians and prisoners of war in the city of Bucha just outside Kyiv in March 2022. The Council of the EU’s press release said Chayko was “the most senior Russian military officer on the ground in Ukraine at the outset of the full-scale invasion” who was the “lead commander in Ukraine when Russian troops entered Bucha.”

Chayko commanded the Vostok (lit. “East”) group of forces and, in that role, oversaw the Russian offensive on Kyiv from Belarus. At the time, he was commander of Russia’s Eastern Military District.

After the start of the war in Donbas in 2014, Chayko oversaw the covert transfer of troops across the Russian-Ukrainian border. In 2016, Vladimir Putin appointed him commander of all airborne troops. In 2017, he was among the first Russian officials to be sanctioned by Ukraine.

Chayko also took part in Russia’s military operations in Syria in 2020-2022. Under his command, Russian and Syrian forces captured the city of Kobani, a Russian air base was established in Qamishli, and the Damascus-Aleppo highway was reopened in early 2020. After a brief stint as commander of Russia’s Eastern Military District in November 2021 - July 2022, Chayko returned to Syria. After the overthrow of Bashar Assad in December 2024, he continued to be listed as commander of the Russian grouping in Syria.

Russian pro-war circles reacted negatively to Chayko’s appointment. Andrei Filatov, a “war correspondent” for the propaganda channel RT, shared a link to the news on his Telegram channel with the comment: “Want a total clusterf**k? Here it comes.” Filatov’s comment was reposted by military expert Maxim Klimov and war blogger Rostislav Mokrenko.

Most defendants — 156 — were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison. Thirty-one received 15 to 20 years, 29 received 5 to 10 years, and two were sentenced to life.  Nearly 90% of those convicted are men. A quarter of the cases involve people ages 18 to 24, and 12 defendants are teenagers ages 14 to 17. Among those sentenced are five civil servants and 12 military personnel.

The Insider calculated that convictions rose by more than 460% over two years. According to the Supreme Court’s Judicial Department, 145 people were convicted of treason in 2024, compared with 39 in 2023. Ivan Pavlov, a lawyer and founder of the human rights project Pervy Otdel (lit. “Department One”), told The Insider that the official figures are consistently understated:

“It seems to me that at some point someone in the presidential administration realized that these figures — such large numbers of convictions for serious crimes against the state — were compromising the state itself. And so they decided to slightly understate them. ‘Slightly’ meaning by half. I have no other explanation.”

According to Pervy Otdel, 2025 has become a record year for convictions on “spying” charges, including treason, espionage, confidential cooperation with foreigners, and assisting an adversary. As many as 468 people were convicted, including not only political activists, but also students, IT workers, teachers, entrepreneurs, and residents of occupied Ukrainian territories. The youngest person charged with treason was 17 at the time of arrest, the oldest was 80, and at least four people were sentenced to life in prison in 2025.

Russia’s Supreme Court said 14 people were sentenced on espionage charges last year, up 55% over two years but down 39% from 2024. Another 29 were convicted in cases involving cooperation with foreigners, up 38% from 2024.

The Judicial Department earlier removed from public access court statistics on cases heard in courts of general jurisdiction, commercial courts, and by justices of the peace. According to a notice on the agency’s website, this information is “temporarily unavailable.”

Peru’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said another citizen is scheduled to return on May 3, with six more expected on May 4. They departed Moscow with help from embassy staff. The return of two others has not yet been finalized, but authorities expect to arrange it in the coming days.

Peru’s Prosecutor’s Office earlier launched a preliminary investigation into suspected human trafficking. According to the investigation, Peruvian citizens may have been lured to Russia with promises of jobs in security and other sectors, and after arrival were allegedly coerced into taking part in combat operations against Ukraine. The Prosecutor’s Office requested information from Peru’s Foreign Ministry and immigration authorities, and has also begun interviewing witnesses as part of the probe.

Peruvian media reported that relatives of missing people had appealed to authorities for their return. RPP cited the account of Lila Abarca Pimentel, wife of 27-year-old Alberto Ayala Eguren, who said her husband was promised a security job in Russia and a $25,000 bonus but was later held at military bases, beaten, and threatened with prison after signing a contract in Russian.

La República reported, citing family lawyer Marcelo Tataje Pecol, that relatives have informed authorities about 135 missing Peruvians and another 250 potential cases. According to Pecol, people were recruited via social media with promises of jobs as security guards, cooks, drivers, or engineers, with salaries of up to $4,000 per month and bonuses of up to $20,000. Once they arrived in Russia, their passports were allegedly confiscated, and they were sent to fight in Ukraine.

The devices receive signals from multiple satellites and allow users to watch Ukrainian television channels. The report’s authors said one-third of Crimea’s residents use such receivers, while only 17% of residents have licensed satellite receivers and 49% do not have access to satellite television.

“The more access respondents have to alternative content, the more often their opinions differ from the ‘average,’ grow more negative, and become less stable,” the report warns.

Following the meeting, Russia’s Ministry of Digital Development was instructed to assess the scale of use of these devices and address their prevalence. The ministry noted that bans on the sale and use of similar equipment had previously been introduced in Russian-occupied parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions of Ukraine. No such restrictions are currently in place in Crimea.

The bans were accompanied by equipment replacement programs. Under the “Russian World” project, residents receive free satellite dishes carrying Russian TV channels in exchange for giving up “Gorynych” devices. Occupation-controlled media said tens of thousands of such antennas have been installed in the Luhansk Region alone, while more than 25,000 equipment sets were replaced in the Donetsk region in 2024.

Media market sources cited by Kommersant link the prevalence of “Gorynych” devices in Crimea to the absence of similar replacement programs, a shortage of legitimate satellite services, and user habits formed before 2014. Some residents were also unwilling to pay for subscriptions.

At the end of April, Russia banned the import of foreign satellite communications equipment, including Starlink terminals, for six months, citing national security concerns.

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, one consequence was a mass exodus of Russians who opposed the war or feared mobilization. Later, among those fleeing the country were veterans who had managed to desert the military. Some of them did not have passports, which sharply limited the list of countries they could enter.

Legalizing their status in other countries was never easy for anti-war Russians, and over the past year the situation has deteriorated significantly. Media outlets and social media increasingly carry reports of Russians being denied asylum, deported and even detained for possible extradition. In most cases, however, this is not specifically about persecution of Russian citizens — attitudes toward migrants in general have changed.

In the United States, about 1,000 asylum seekers with Russian citizenship have faced the threat of deportation, and the first flights to Russia — routed through third countries — took place last summer. In Croatia, applicants from the Russian North Caucasus are being denied protection in large numbers, while in Germany courts have issued negative rulings even in military desertion cases that rights advocates describe as “ironclad.” Kazakhstan, too, has already expelled people who clearly faced criminal liability in Russia. And Moscow is trying to use Interpol databases and lists of “terrorists and extremists” to pursue disfavored citizens, creating problems even for those who hold another country’s passport.

In the United States, about 1,000 asylum seekers with Russian citizenship have faced the threat of deportation

The Russian authorities have also helped fuel panicked rumors about the threat of mass deportations of anti-war émigrés. However, rights advocates stress, the situation is not actually as bad as the Russian government says it is. The alarming picture that had emerged by 2026 is made up of many unrelated factors, not a single coordinated campaign. At the same time, in some countries the authorities’ attitude toward Russians who fled war and repression has indeed changed. According to rights advocates, the situation has worsened most noticeably in Kazakhstan and the United States, but Russian émigrés in Germany, Croatia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Bulgaria, and some other countries are also encountering new problems.

Germany

Russians are increasingly facing difficulties in Europe. This shift is especially visible in Germany, which, while still remaining a “safe haven” for many, has taken a much tougher stance on migration since the change of government in May 2025. The policies pursued under Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his team in an attempt to appeal to right-wing populist sentiment in the country are even frequently compared with what took place in the United States under Donald Trump. And although the scale of the process in Germany still does not match that across the Atlantic, it is hard to miss the indiscriminate approach of the German government.

For example, Germany has now effectively halted its humanitarian visa program for Russians. The authorities cite the need to ease pressure on the budget and the social system. Yet fewer than 3,000 Russians arrived in the country through the humanitarian visa program over four years of war, far fewer than the number of migrants in other categories.

In Germany, people who had previously received approval for humanitarian visas still have not been able to have them placed in their passports.

“We fought for a long time to secure humanitarian visas for the Moskalyovs in an exceptional case. I know that Germany’s Foreign Ministry made every effort to get the visas issued, but the Interior Ministry blocked the decision, and the interior minister did not sign the approval, so we applied for French humanitarian visas for them and brought them to France. The authorities say humanitarian admission will remain only for absolutely exceptional cases. But the Moskalyovs’ case is exceptional, and they still were not given visas. A group of opposition figures — Ilya Yashin, Andrei Pivovarov, and representatives of Free Russia — specifically went to the CDU/CSU party congress to discuss the possibility of resuming the humanitarian program, but they also got a negative response,” the inTransit staff member said.

In January 2026, the story of Russian army deserter Georgy Avaliani spread widely in the media. The Moscow construction engineer had ended up in the war in Ukraine against his will, was subjected to torture, and deserted three times. He managed to get to Europe, eventually reached Germany, and applied for asylum there. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, known as BAMF, examined the case on its merits but rejected Avaliani and his family, concluding that he faced no danger in Russia. To justify its decision, BAMF cited a statement by former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu that mobilization in Russia had ended in October 2022.

In addition, an official at the agency cast doubt on the existence of “torture basements” in the Russian military. Rights advocates say Avaliani’s case is not unique and that BAMF is issuing template denials without examining the details of each case, changing only the applicants’ personal data in its decisions. European bureaucratic bodies have repeatedly cited statements by Russian authorities that mobilization has ended, Aleksandr Solovyov, coordinator of the Anti-War Committee project Consuls, told The Insider: “The decisions regularly say that applicants face nothing in Russia, so they should go back.”

In March, Russian-language media widely reported a story by the independent exiled outlet Echo saying Germany had begun deporting anti-war Russians through third countries, in some cases explaining its decisions by the “absence” of mobilization in Russia.

Previously, local authorities had not used such a practice, as there are no direct flights between the two countries. However, Russians are now sometimes being expelled under escort through Belgrade or Yerevan. Among those deported are LGBTQ+ activists, anti-war Russians, and people who donated money to organizations that Russia considers “banned” or “terrorist.”

The situation is partly the result of the peculiarities of German bureaucracy. Until the end of 2023, Berlin made an exception by allowing people to apply for freelancer visas. That meant a person with a credible fear of returning to Russia could come to Germany even on a standard tourist Schengen visa issued by any country and then legally prolong their stay without much trouble, inTransit said. Many Russians took advantage of that option. But local authorities later abandoned the practice.

As a result, instead of residence permits, Berlin’s migration office began issuing applicants “Duldung,” a status granting a temporary suspension of deportation. If a person found permanent work, they could legalize their stay. In addition, Duldung documents were routinely extended. But in August 2025 their issuance also stopped, and people began receiving deportation orders. Usually, a person was given time — about four months — to leave Germany voluntarily. However, deportation police began showing up just a couple of weeks later and escorting them to Russia through third countries.

Even so, rights advocates stress that it is still not accurate to speak of mass deportations. Maria Krasova, a lawyer for the inTransit project, told The Insider that the process is better described as “random”:

“There are no signs of a systematic pattern — the deportations are not linked, for example, to antisocial behavior, offenses, gender, or length of stay. In Germany the situation is complicated by several factors: public fatigue and the high social burden on society, as reflected in the election results; the sluggishness of the law enforcement apparatus; an opaque decision-making process on asylum; and the inaccessibility and often ineffectiveness of legal protection systems for asylum seekers. In Berlin, for example, the situation is made worse by an obvious lack of cooperation and any sensible division of responsibilities between BAMF and LEA, the Berlin foreigners’ authority.”

That said, the relatively small number of the deportations is unlikely to make life easier for those unlucky enough to become candidates for a growing list of “individual” cases. In mid-March, police detained 26-year-old Ilya Shkolny and placed him in pretrial detention in Hof, Bavaria.

In Russia, the young man had taken part in protests, volunteered in Alexei Navalny’s political campaigns, donated money to Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF), and served on the committee of the Moscow branch of the Libertarian Party of Russia. He arrived in Germany in June 2022 on a tourist visa.

Ilya, who speaks German at a C1 level, enrolled in a master’s program at the University of Bayreuth, married German citizen Ansuela, with whom he had been in a relationship since 2019, and applied for asylum. He was denied on the grounds that there was no mobilization in Russia. He then applied for a residence permit based on marriage and was denied again.

“The migration office said that because Ilya had not been granted asylum, his risks were ‘irrelevant’ and he should return to Russia and apply for a marriage visa from there. Returning to Russia was impossible for Ilya — he faced a clear danger there,” inTransit said.

In March 2025, German authorities prepared to deport the Russian, accusing him of crossing the border on the “wrong visa.” At the same time, the university was ready to offer Ilya a job. In addition to rights advocates, local politicians also joined efforts to prevent Shkolny’s deportation to Russia. Krasova said this case clearly appears to be an administrative error.

The inTransit coordinator, in turn, stressed that defending people already being held in deportation detention is extremely difficult, and that a person cannot cope alone, or even with the help of German lawyers:

“We gathered new circumstances confirming the risks and a new body of evidence based on our experience. A year ago, we defended a person in Denmark whose entry in the Khimera database was marked ‘extremist, ACF.’ We argued that he would face danger in Russia, relying on letters from organizations such as Transparency International, letters from Russian investigative journalists specializing in Khimera and, most importantly, academic publications by the Russian Interior Ministry Academy. Those publications describe in detail how the database is used in operational work to collect information and identify oppositionists, extremists, political activists, and so on. Eighty percent of operational departments are connected to it. This is an extremely important corroboration that no applicant could collect on their own. On that basis, we filed an urgent request with the court to halt the deportation — and another asylum application. The court decided that the risks were indeed high and ordered BAMF to review his case again.”

According to Echo, Germany forcibly deported 126 Russians in 2025, while another 1,748 Russian citizens are listed in statistics as having “left voluntarily.” At the same time, rights advocates stress that this is not about the targeted presecution of Russians — the new approach of the German authorities affects almost all migrants with uncertain status.

Other European countries

The number of deportations is likely to rise in the near future — and not only in Germany. In February, the European Parliament approved a unified list of “safe third countries,” a measure intended to simplify procedures for denying refugee status and carrying out deportations. How that will work in practice, however, remains unclear. As The Insider’s sources note, there are a number of European countries where Russians are not advised to seek asylum. They include Croatia, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Bulgaria.

In the Netherlands and Sweden, asylum seekers often have to wait for decisions in refugee camps under psychologically and physically harsh conditions, while Bulgaria and Croatia have openly shown that they do not want to grant asylum to Russians.

Rights advocates are aware of a case in which a person won in court in Bulgaria, but the migration authorities still refused to legalize his status. Croatia, for its part, has not approved a single asylum request from Russian deserters during the entire war in Ukraine. If an applicant is also from the North Caucasus, he may even face detention and extradition to Russia.

Croatia is not a lone case. On March 20, for example, Estonia deported a Chechen asylum seeker to Russia even though he faced danger there. The young man, whose name has not been disclosed for security reasons, was deprived of adequate legal assistance and was unable to defend his rights, advocates say.

In addition, deserters who signed contracts with the Russian military are treated with particular suspicion in Europe. “The main problem for people applying for refugee status is that often even those who genuinely deserve it put together their documents incorrectly or describe their case improperly. Many come to us only after their first rejection. That makes the process harder. That is why we strongly advise contacting rights advocates before applying,” Solovyov said.

Deserters who signed contracts with the Russian military are treated with particular suspicion in Europe

Margarita Kuchusheva, a consul with the Anti-War Committee, told The Insider that it would be inaccurate to speak of a tightening of European policy specifically toward Russian asylum seekers. There is now a large backlog in the EU of people who arrived in 2022-2023 and, by 2026, have gone through all the bureaucratic stages: a first rejection, a first appeal, a second appeal, and so on. Technically, the time has simply come for final decisions in their cases, which may create the impression that the situation has worsened.

Even so, the statistics are troubling. The outlet Verstka pointed to Eurostat data showing that in 2025 EU states issued 10,415 orders for Russian citizens to leave their territory — the highest figure in the past five years. That was nearly double the level seen in 2021, just before the start of the war. In 2025, the EU deported 38% more Russians than in 2024. The data, however, do not make it possible to determine how many of the deportees had cases similar to Avaliani or Shkolny.

In short, despite a sufficient number of examples in which Russians facing serious danger at home were threatened with deportation, the situation in the EU is, perhaps, still one of the most favorable overall. Deportations of people who would face serious danger in Russia, if they do occur, remain isolated cases for now. In addition, European authorities often give potential deportees sufficient time to leave the country on their own. Still, such allowances do not change the fact that, overall, the situation of Russians who left the country for political reasons after 2022 is becoming objectively more difficult.

United States: Detained, deported, sent back to Russia

In the United States, the decline of the refugee reception system was helped along by the arrival in power of the Republican administration led by Donald Trump. Anti-war Russians also became victims of Washington’s declared crusade against migrants. At the same time, Aleksandr Solovyov, coordinator of the Anti-War Committee’s Consuls project, told The Insider that although there are indeed many deportations from the United States, “not every flight is full of Russians, and those being deported are far from always political activists who face danger in Russia.”

“Unfortunately, there are many people who, it seems, came in search of a better life. They filed documents that either contained falsehoods or did not provide sufficient grounds for asylum. Another matter is that there really are activists among those being deported who should under no circumstances be sent back. But it would also be wrong to say that the United States is deporting hundreds of anti-war Russians,” Solovyov said.

Sergei Vlasov, head of the U.S.-based nonprofit Russian Refugee Foundation and a former Moscow municipal deputy, also told The Insider that among Russians seeking asylum in the United States there are quite a few who “came for a better life.”

According to him, attitudes toward Russians seeking asylum began to worsen even under Joe Biden. After all, it was in June 2024 when American authorities decided to more closely screen Russian citizens crossing the border from Mexico. In practice, almost all asylum seekers with Russian passports began to be sent to immigration jails, or “detentions,” although previously most had been released pending a decision in their case. After Trump returned to power, immigration judges at those facilities began, in Vlasov’s words, “denying everyone and sending everyone home.”

“Judges in detention facilities are usually former prosecutors or ICE employees who are used to working within the system and carrying out orders. They are obviously biased,” the head of the Russian Refugee Foundation said. “Let’s say there are 10 cases, and only a couple have real grounds. But now even those cases may be cut down. A person has no criminal record and has been checked against all international databases. So why not release him so he can fight his case in his own state, where judges are less biased? Instead, they are kept for a year or even longer in immigration jails, where the attitude is completely different.”

In the rights advocate’s view, obtaining asylum in the United States under current conditions requires “a very strong case with real documents and a clear story.” As Vlasov continued, “The old way — arriving with a single administrative offense on your record and sitting around waiting — no longer works. And I absolutely would not recommend trying to enter through the Mexican border right now, because that means a 100% chance of ending up in jail and before a biased court.”

Obtaining asylum in the United States under current conditions requires “a very strong case with real documents and a clear story”

Even so, even Russia’s asylum seekers with “strong cases” have fallen victim to the U.S. administration’s chaotic campaign against migrants. One of the most shocking cases involved Perm activist Leonid Melekhin, who was deported from the United States and then placed in pretrial detention in Russia on charges of “justifying terrorism” based on his ties to Alexei Navalny’s organization. Melekhin crossed the Mexican border in August 2024, essentially right after the Biden administration introduced the practice of placing Russian asylum seekers in immigration detention centers.

Another drama is unfolding right now for spouses Elizaveta and Dmitry. She had openly opposed Russia’s repressive laws targeting LGBTQ+ people, while he is a Ukrainian from the currently occupied territories. According to Elizaveta, they applied for asylum in the United States within the required time limits and submitted all necessary evidence, documents, and letters of support. At one hearing, the judge said she had no further questions about the case. But later, at the prosecution’s request, the hearing was postponed so the couple could provide original internal passports, a military ID, and documents showing past employment. Before the next hearing, the prosecution filed a motion to dismiss the case without consideration, and the court granted it. Rights advocates say Elizaveta and Dmitry now need to file an appeal or face deportation to Russia.

Three stories of people deported from the U.S.

The Insider spoke with three Russians who, like Melekhin, ended up in U.S. immigration jails and were then deported to Russia. All three managed to avoid arrest once back home.

Anti-war activist Andrei Sakharov left Russia for Georgia in 2022, spent eight months in Mexico in 2024, and from there finally managed to enter the United States legally with his wife after getting a slot in the CBP One app. After arriving on American soil, however, they were immediately handcuffed and forced to sign documents saying they had crossed the border illegally.

“My wife was held at the border for 17 days, me for 10, even though they have posters up there saying the maximum period for that kind of detention is three days,” Sakharov said. According to him, some staff in immigration jails enjoy humiliating people: “On the day I was leaving, I asked the officer on duty if I could say goodbye to my wife — she could see me, she was standing there crying. He just smiled and said, ‘No.’ I started arguing, and they told me I was nobody here and should shut up.”

Andrei had evidence of his opposition activity going back to the 2010s, but his lawyers did not submit the required documents in time. The judge agreed to wait, but postponed the hearing on his case for three months. During that time, U.S. immigration policy became much harsher. Andrei was denied protection.

Fearing forced deportation, he asked to be deported himself, hoping to avoid ending up in Russia. And in fact, during a layover, a Moroccan officer helped the couple buy tickets to Istanbul. In the end, they found themselves back in Mexico, where their dog had been waiting for them the whole time. Andrei now plans to legalize his status there, turning down offers to apply for humanitarian visas in Europe.

Two other people The Insider spoke with, Pavel and Yelena, flew to Mexico in September 2024 and waited about five months for a CBP One slot to cross the border legally. But after Trump returned to power in January 2025, everything changed abruptly: the app was shut down, already approved appointments were canceled, and the National Guard was deployed to the border.

“We were in shock, but in early February we still decided to go the old way — by car,” Pavel said. “There were nine of us in the vehicle. On Feb. 8, we crossed the border on the first try. Police ran up, put handcuffs on us and took us in for processing.”

In the United States, they were sent to different detention facilities — Pavel to one in California, Yelena to one in Louisiana. At first, they were told that everyone arriving after Jan. 20, 2025, would be deported. Later, Pavel underwent an interview under the Convention Against Torture screening process, which he passed successfully: he had previously been detained at protests, had donated to FBK, and had even been reported to police by his own father because of his anti-war stance. Yelena, however, was denied, and despite the judge’s promise to give the couple a “second chance,” she was soon being prepared for deportation. Pavel asked that they be sent out together.

The couple ended up back in Russia, but managed to avoid detention and leave again — this time for Europe. Pavel and Yelena are now in France, studying the language and hoping to fully legalize their status. “Here they don’t put you in any jail, they give you social housing, a little money, and food packages,” Pavel said of their new country.

Another of The Insider’s interviewees, Yevgeny, had taken part in opposition protests since 2017, had been detained once, and joined protests in 2022 during the first days of the war in Ukraine. In May 2023, Yevgeny and his wife flew to Mexico to apply for political asylum in the United States. At the border crossing they were separated: his wife was released, while Yevgeny was sent to an immigration detention center in California.

During his confinement, he was moved through seven detention facilities, two of which, he said, were real prisons. People from former Soviet countries, unlike citizens of other states, went months without receiving any information about their status, Yevgeny recalled. It later emerged that his case would be heard by a judge known for having a minimal rate of approval in cases involving asylum claims. On top of that, Yevgeny himself made a mistake by deciding to file the paperwork on his own. The documents were delivered to the court one day late, meaning he lost the chance to wait for a decision in freedom.

At Yevgeny’s final hearing, the judge said he saw no threats to the asylum seeker if he were to return to Russia. Yevgeny tried to challenge the ruling, but soon faced a choice: remain in jail for another year or two while waiting for a decision in his wife’s case, or agree to removal and return later if her case succeeded. Yevgeny chose deportation, and his flight was set for May 1, 2025. During a layover in Morocco, the Russian caused a commotion, flatly refusing to fly to Moscow and demanding that his passport be returned so he could leave for another country. Despite threats from airport staff and even police involvement, he managed to fly to Istanbul and then to Astana, where he stayed with relatives.

At the final hearing, the judge said he saw no threats to the asylum seeker if he were to return to Russia

“I’m in Kazakhstan now, and my wife is in the United States,” Yevgeny said. “I have no doubt everything will be fine. We have a good lawyer, a good judge. But it’s frightening to stay in Kazakhstan for long. The situation here is changing for the worse, and I’ll probably have to move somewhere else.”

In late March, it became known that another deportation flight carrying dozens of Russians had left the United States for Moscow via Cairo.

The persecution of Russians in Kazakhstan

The second country where rights advocates say conditions have worsened for anti-war Russians is Kazakhstan. At the start of the war in Ukraine, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev publicly criticized the Kremlin’s actions. In September 2022, amid the flight of hundreds of thousands of Russians escaping mobilization, he instructed the government to “show concern for them and ensure their safety,” as “most of them are forced to leave because of the hopeless situation they face.” At that time, Tokayev called the situation a “political and humanitarian crisis.”

Thanks to Tokayev’s rhetoric, Kazakhstan gained a reputation as a relatively safe country for a quick move. But it soon became clear that the republic was unlikely to remain a “quiet haven” for anti-war Russians. By the end of 2022, the first reports had already appeared of deserters being deported. One of them was Federal Protective Service officer Mikhail Zhilin, who fled Russia during mobilization and was sent back home. He was later sentenced by the Barnaul garrison military court to 6.5 years in a maximum-security penal colony.

At the start of the war in Ukraine, President Tokayev publicly criticized the Kremlin’s actions, so Kazakhstan gained a reputation as a relatively safe country for a quick move

In 2023, Kazakhstan continued detaining and deporting military personnel who did not want to take part in what Russia calls its “special military operation.” Moreover, Russian security officers began operating inside the country: in Astana, they detained former contract serviceman Kamil Kasimov.

Some anti-war Russians tried to obtain asylum in Kazakhstan, but rights advocates say doing so is virtually impossible. Since the republic declared independence, there has been almost only one known case of refugee status being approved — and that was back in the 1990s. Instead, authorities drag out the process of denying asylum, giving the person time, with the help of rights advocates, to leave for a third country.

In recent months, however, that arrangement has begun to break down badly, and Kazakh security services have shown increased interest in Russian migrants. In January 2026, Crimea native Aleksandr Kachkurkin, who worked as an IT developer, was sent from Kazakhstan to Russia.

The formal grounds for his deportation were two administrative citations — for jaywalking and for smoking hookah indoors. An extradition process that usually drags on for weeks or even months took only a few hours in his case. In Russia, Kachkurkin was immediately detained and taken to Moscow’s Meshchansky District Court, which ordered him jailed on charges of “high treason.”

At the end of January 2026, at Russia’s request, Kazakhstan’s Prosecutor General’s Office approved the expulsion of Chechen opposition activist Mansur Movlayev, who had been tortured in his homeland. The authorities issued that decision in violation of their own law — Movlayev had a hearing scheduled for Feb. 11 to appeal the denial of refugee status.

Thanks to the efforts of rights advocates, the activist has not yet been sent to Russia, but he has been denied protection. His lawyers plan to appeal. At the same time, Movlayev is being held in pretrial detention, which means he cannot leave for a third country. A serious threat hangs over him: in Chechnya he would almost certainly face torture and possibly extrajudicial execution.

In yet another case, in February Kazakhstan granted Russia’s request to extradite Yulia Yemelyanova, a former employee of Alexei Navalny’s headquarters, who was detained Aug. 31, 2025 at Almaty airport while changing planes for a flight to Vietnam. To avoid extradition, she tried to obtain asylum in Kazakhstan. The country’s Prosecutor General’s Office had guaranteed that the question of handing her over would not be considered until all procedures related to her asylum application were completed. Rights advocates managed to slow her extradition, but on Feb. 27 a court denied her asylum.

Commenting on Yemelyanova’s case, the Anti-War Committee’s Margarita Kuchusheva said that Kazakhstan had not actually approved the extradition request under the article Russia had cited in requesting her surrender. “Legally, it is absolute nonsense. That alone is a monstrous procedural error,” she said. Kuchusheva also told The Insider that the court announced the extradition ruling at a closed session without the lawyers present: “The court refused to provide us with either a written or oral decision. All of this shows that such cases are handled very poorly. Political decisions are being made, and the process itself goes far beyond any bounds of jurisprudence.”

Rights advocates stress that the risks for opposition-minded Russians in Kazakhstan have grown so significant that it should not be considered even as a transit country. “Many people think transit is safe. No — now you shouldn’t go anywhere near Kazakhstan at all,” Kuchusheva said. For those already in the republic, rights advocates advise relocating elsewhere, if possible.

In March, Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee opened an investigation into forged temporary residence permits in the country. Reports appeared in the media citing anonymous rights advocates claiming this portended the “mass deportations” of anti-war Russians; however, lawyers interviewed by The Insider explained that buyers of fake documents are treated in as witnesses in such cases and do not actually bear criminal liability, even if other factors may in fact lead to their expulsion, particularly if they have lived in the country illegally for more than a year. In any case, rights advocates advise anyone who used such schemes to leave Kazakhstan, especially if they face persecution in Russia.

Difficulties of travel

It is all but impossible to draw up a single map of safe and unsafe countries for Russian citizens given the nuances in each individual case. Still, the rights advocates The Insider spoke with identified several states where even transit carries serious risks: Azerbaijan, Belarus, Venezuela, Vietnam, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Cambodia, China, Cuba, Kyrgyzstan, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, and Uzbekistan.

Overall, no country in the former Soviet space can be considered safe for Russian opposition figures, but Armenia and Georgia are still often the best option for those who cannot get to Europe. Armenian Parliament Speaker Alen Simonyan has said his country will not hand over Russians persecuted for political reasons. At the same time, the republic remains closely tied to Russia in legal terms, meaning there is always a risk that a person listed in the unified wanted database could be detained. There have also been known cases of deserters being abducted by Russian security forces, and it is especially dangerous for Russians on the run to appear near the Russian military base in Gyumri.

Overall, no country in the former Soviet space can be considered safe for Russian opposition figures, but Armenia and Georgia are still often the best option

At the same time, since the start of the war in Ukraine, Armenia has not extradited a single Russian citizen for political reasons. The greater risk is becoming stuck in the republic for an extended period while proceedings drag on. In that event, a person is left in limbo and forced to rely on the goodwill of Armenian officials. One example is that of activist Ilfat Gareyev, from Tatarstan, who has been stranded in Armenia because of a Russian extradition request.

Even so, in the words of Kuchusheva: “So far Armenia is holding up well. There have been no systemic violations on their part.”

Georgia has not openly extradited Russian political activists so far, but there have been known cases of abductions and unlawful removals. The domestic political situation there is also having a negative effect, as the authorities have leaned toward a more pro-Russian course and rhetoric in recent years. There have been incidents in which anti-war Russians who took part in local protests or were “simply active” were barred from entering the country.

“Sometimes people leave for personal reasons and then are not allowed back in. We haven’t yet seen extraditions, but we do not advise staying there for the long term,” Kuchusheva said.

In March, Georgia expelled Russian artist Konstantin Rachkovsky, who had tried to obtain asylum, even as his wife remains in the country. And now Mikhail Timofeyev, a former aide to ex-Khabarovsk region governor Sergei Furgal, has been detained in Tbilisi. He has already been denied political asylum, and local authorities are expected to make a decision regarding extradition soon.

How the power balance has shifted

A major problem is that, given how the Americans and the Israelis have kept targeting military and political leaders throughout the war, the power map of the Islamic Republic is far from clear — often, even to senior Iranian officials.

The appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father raised more questions than it answered. Mojtaba has a reputation for holding more radical views than his father, although distinguishing personal persuasions from the institutional role of mediator among factions and personalities in Ali Khamenei’s decision-making is not easy.

The real issue, in any case, is what role Mojtaba is really playing. While it is understandable that he might never appear in public, he has made no appearance on video or audio either. While sources within the regime all agree that he was seriously wounded in the same strike that killed his father, as well as his wife and daughter, many started believing that he is not able to function at all. 

While sources within the regime all agree that he was seriously wounded in the same strike that killed his father, many started believing that he is not able to function at all

Very few individuals have had access to Mojtaba, and for almost two months the only policymaker among them was Ahmad Wahidi, the head of the Revolutionary Guards. Among those who questioned Wahidi’s account of Mojtaba’s thinking were also leading Iranian government figures, such as President Pezeshkian himself. According to sources within the Revolutionary Guards, Pezeshkian repeatedly questioned Wahidi’s account and requested direct access to Mojtaba or, failing that, at least video or audio messages from the new Supreme Leader, stating his views on specific issues. After much resistance, a regime source said he and several other senior officials were finally able to meet Mojtaba face to face in late April to discuss policy.

The fact that Pezeshkian has to beg Wahidi for access to the Supreme Leader says a lot about the expanded power and role of the Revolutionary Guards, who manage the entire war effort through the Military Council. The growing dominance of the Revolutionary Guards is also boosted by their ability to operate in a decentralised way. The moment the air campaign against Iran was launched on February 28, the Revolutionary Guards switched to a decentralised command and control system that allowed them to continue operating much more effectively than other military agencies, especially the Iranian army and air force. Their relatively strong performance has legitimized the Guards’ leadership role in the war.

None of this means, however, that the Revolutionary Guards are in full control. Despite the public bravado, the Guards’ leadership and rank-and-file know full well that there is widespread opposition to the regime within Iran, even if U.S.-Israeli attacks on targets including hospitals, civilian infrastructure, and even historical monuments quickly made it clear that the air campaign was not aimed at “liberating” Iran from the Islamic Republic, but at weakening the Iranian state and its economic and military potential, perhaps up to the point of causing its implosion.

Sources within the Revolutionary Guards are all well aware that any rise in patriotic sentiments will not last much beyond the end of the war, especially if Iran’s economic degradation continues. This seems to be a recurrent theme even at internal Guards briefings: the stress is on the need to ensure that the Islamic Republic finishes the conflict while it still has the resources to rebuild, otherwise the regime might not survive the resulting peace.

The IRGC’s leadership and rank-and-file know full well that there is widespread opposition to the regime within Iran, and any rise in patriotic sentiments will not last much beyond the end of the war

Iranian government sources put the damage inflicted on Iran so far at $260 billion, and when it comes to the need to find the resources to rebuild, everybody in Teheran agrees. However, the government believes that taking a softer approach in negotiations could isolate the Americans, avoid additional damage to infrastructure, and deliver a deal faster. By contrast, the Guards believe that in order to convince Trump and Netanyahu to end the war on terms acceptable to Tehran, Iran has to show that it can keep going regardless of the mounting costs.

Negotiations between factions and agencies

The Guards believe that the regime must show a united front to its enemies, even if the hardliners’ criticism of reformist politicians at home hints at the existence of internal divisions. Araghchi's occasional tweets, diverging from the line agreed behind closed doors, always draw the worst reactions from the Revolutionary Guards, such as when, immediately after the ceasefire was agreed, the president announced the opening of the Strait of Hormuz without clearly stating the conditions attached to the move — namely the screening measures and fees that the Guards had lobbied for.

And yet, the sometimes bitter internal debates between decision-makers at the top of the regime still seem to be accepted as a fact of life, even by the Guards. Aside from Wahidi — probably the most powerful man in Iran at the moment, given Mojtaba’s unclear status — other key players aligned with the Guards include Mohsen Rezaee (currently an adviser to Mojtaba) and Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr (the new Head of the Supreme National Security Council). While these men lobby for hardline outcomes, often what is finally decided is a compromise between their positions and those of the Pezeshkian camp, who is keener to keep the negotiations channel open in order to secure some way out of the conflict. 

The sometimes bitter internal debates between decision-makers at the top of the regime still seem to be accepted as a fact of life

While Pezeshkian and Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi position themselves as doves, the regime’s positions mostly reflect the views of conservative politicians, such as Ali Larijani (until his killing on 17 March) and Mohammed Bagher Qalibaf, the Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly. While these two are often described as completely aligned with the Revolutionary Guards, sources within the latter describe how Larijani and Qalibaf often advocated policies very different from what the Guards pushed for. Larijani reportedly mediated between the Guards and the government in an effort to secure agreement on a radical offer concerning a “zero stockpile” uranium enrichment program, which was made to the U.S. just before the start of the war during the negotiations in Oman. Later, it was Qalibaf who mediated between hardliners and doves to get the ceasefire approved.

The Guards know it is all quite shaky

The reason why the Guards consent to negotiating with the Pezeshkian government is something deeper than mere respect for the institutions of the Islamic Republic. Their awareness of the shaky foundations of the Islamic Republic makes it clear to them that they need to have Pezeshkian’s moderate reformists on board, despite the hardliners’ misgivings about politicians of all stripes. When President Trump alleged that diplomatic exchanges were going on in the run-up to the ceasefire agreement, the Guards ridiculed those claims, not only in public but also in internal meetings. “There is no way somebody within the government might be talking to the Americans without us knowing,” insisted a source within the Guards. Later, however, the Guards’ intelligence department figured out that Qalibaf had indeed been communicating with the Americans via the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Pakistani mediators. However upset and even humiliated they may have been, the Guards ended up accepting the fait accompli and giving up their opposition to the ceasefire.

The IRGC is making compromises with more moderate factions, as it is aware of the shaky foundations of the Islamic Republic

If the Guards do not have total control today, what should outsiders make of their imposition of Mojtaba as the new Supreme Leader? Sources within the Guards acknowledge that they spared no effort to push their candidate — Mojtaba — to the top. When the selection of the recently deceased Supreme Leader’s son encountered resistance within the ranks of the Experts Council, the Guards did not hesitate to aggressively lobby for him, going so far as to distribute financial incentives to the members of the Council. Sources within the Guards argue that for them it was essential to have Mojataba in charge in order to make sure that the Supreme Leader leaned towards the Guards rather than towards those softies in the government. Critics of the Guards argued that Mojtaba was unfit for the role and possibly sidelined, and that the Guards were fabricating statements and orders in his name. They eventually forced the Guards to give at least the most senior civilian officials some access to him — though as long as the war continues, the Guards may still get away with manipulating the situation..

The big question is what will happen if the war ends. At that point, the flaws in Mojtaba’s selection to the top job will become apparent — all the more so if it turns out he really is physically unable to perform his role.

The contours of a possible deal

Despite the American violations, Israel’s bombings of Lebanon, and misunderstandings over the re-opening of Hormuz, the Revolutionary Guards’ leadership reluctantly accepted the ceasefire — and even its extensions. They have also warmed up to some possible concessions concerning Iran’s 400+ kg of uranium enriched to 60%, with sources saying that they would be ready to accept handing over half of the amount to a third country for safekeeping. The Guards have so far refused concessions concerning the status of Hormuz, seeking to retain control over the waterway in order to raise funds for the reconstruction of Iran and, quite possibly, to assert Iranian dominance in the Gulf. They also seek to retain control over uranium enrichment for civilian purposes, support for the Axis of Resistance, and Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal.

Judging from what one can infer from the snippets of the internal discussions that sources within the regime are able to provide, the status of Hormuz might be negotiable, with the Guards emphasizing that the aim is to raise cash for reconstruction. Of course, the abolition of the international sanctions regime and the return of Iran’s frozen funds abroad could work just as well in this regard, with the added benefit of being at least somewhat more acceptable internationally. 

Sources within the regime say the IRGC is ready to discuss the status of the Strait of Hormuz if it helps secure funding for the country’s reconstruction

While the Guards seemingly did not stop Larijani and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from offering “zero stockpiling” of fissile material before the war started, they now argue that Iran’s negotiating position has considerably strengthened, and they therefore oppose this concession. On the other hand, the U.S. still demands the dismantling of the entire nuclear programme, so the Guards might be aiming for a trade-off.

Agreeing on Iran’s ballistic missiles, whose range and number the Americans want to see curtailed, is going to be one of the toughest hurdles. The Guards know full well that the missiles are Iran’s only real deterrent left — and if anything, they want more of them, with better capabilities and longer range. The range of the missiles is really only an Israeli concern, but while Trump managed to get Israel to implement a ceasefire in Lebanon, forcing Netanyahu to swallow the status quo concerning the missiles might be too much, especially given the advances in precision and penetration capacity that the Iranians have been making.

Iranian support for the Axis of Resistance is perhaps somewhat easier to discuss. The Guards will never agree to reducing support, but given the weakening of the Axis in recent years and the logistical problems caused by the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, perhaps some ambiguous formula can be worked out even here.

Fake videos using the branding of Western media outlets and think tanks are spreading several narratives online:

• A video bearing the logo of the Institute for the Study of War claims that since 2022, Kyiv has “sold $60 billion worth of weapons received as aid from its strategic partners on the black market.” The weapons supposedly “ended up in the hands of armed groups around the world, including Hamas and Colombian drug cartels.” The video includes fabricated remarks attributed to political scientist Brenda Shaffer, a real energy expert at the Atlantic Council: “These weapons are even being found in Brazil’s favelas.”
• A video using the Al Jazeera logo falsely attributes a statement to Ahmed Al-Sheikh, the outlet’s former editor-in-chief and now an adviser to its board, not its current editor-in-chief. The fabricated quote says: “The grain dispute pales in comparison to the fact that Ukrainian fraudsters stole $1.5 billion from Israeli citizens in 2025.” The video also claims Israeli police uncovered at least 15,000 fraud cases directly linked to Ukrainian banks.
• Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko is falsely portrayed as accusing Israel of supplying defective generators. In a video with the United24 logo, he is quoted as saying: “Only one in 10 generators was in working order — just 10%. Ukraine, as always, managed on its own.”
• German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius is falsely portrayed as saying Ukraine’s complaints about Israel are worsening antisemitism in Germany. A video bearing the logo of public broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) claims Ukrainian refugees “are already displaying extremely high levels of antisemitism” and that Zelensky’s statements are “effectively giving them the green light.” It claims that in 2026 alone, more than 4,000 Jews were attacked by Ukrainian refugees in Germany.
• French police are falsely portrayed as advising Jews to “exercise increased caution” because of Ukrainian refugees. In the video, attributed to Le Figaro, Paris Police Prefect Patrice Faure, a real official appointed in October 2025, is falsely quoted as saying: “First and foremost, I would advise Jews not to speak publicly about their origins or the country they come from, so as not to inadvertently provoke a conflict.”
• Ukrainian authorities are falsely depicted as planning to restrict Israeli pilgrims’ access to Uman, a city in central Ukraine that is a major pilgrimage site for followers of Breslov Hasidism. A video bearing the Euronews logo claims that sources close to the presidential office said officials were discussing a ban on Israeli pilgrims visiting Uman in September 2026.
• Ukrainian activists are falsely accused of attacking Jewish bakeries and pastry shops on Rue des Rosiers in Paris. A video with the AFP logo claims the attackers smashed windows and destroyed equipment and goods. It says they declared: “We deprived the Jews of bread, just as Israel deprives Ukraine of bread.” The video claims police arrested four people and that at least 12 were involved in the attacks.
• Canadian Jews are falsely portrayed as supporting Kabbalist Rabbi Yosef Dayan in his decision to place a Pulsa diNura curse on Volodymyr Zelensky. A video with the La Presse logo claims Dayan, a real Israeli rabbi who had previously placed a Kabbalistic curse on prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon, cast the curse, known as the “lash of fire,” against the Ukrainian president. “Kabbalistic teachings hold that the person cursed will die within a year of the curse being cast,” the video claims. The clips then adds that Dayan supposedly “received support from Canadian rabbis.”
• Zsolt Balla, the Bundeswehr’s chief military rabbi, a real official appointed in 2021, is falsely portrayed as saying that Ukraine’s “corrupt leadership should shut up.” In a video bearing the logo of French outlet RFI, he is quoted as saying: “Either they should finally tell the whole world about how they all bought property with money stolen at the expense of Ukrainian soldiers’ lives, or they should shut up.”

The Insider has obtained links to the original tweets and posts provided by Antibot4Navalny. These confirm that the accounts spreading the disinformation narratives belong to the Matryoshka network. The Insider is not publishing these links so as to avoid the further dissemination of disinformation.

The Ukraine-Israel grain dispute

On April 28, 2026, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Israel of accepting ships carrying grain stolen by Russia from occupied Ukrainian territories. Kyiv said the Russian vessel Abinsk entered the port of Haifa earlier in April carrying wheat from occupied territories. Ukraine warned Israeli authorities, but the ship was allowed to unload the grain and leave Haifa in mid-April.

On April 29, the Panamanian-flagged Panormitis arrived in waters near Haifa carrying more than 6,200 tons of wheat and 19,000 tons of barley. Ukrainian Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko said the grain had been partly loaded in Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine. Kyiv demanded that Israel seize the vessel, take grain samples and question crew members. Zelensky wrote on X:

“In any normal country, purchasing stolen goods is an act that entails legal liability. This applies, in particular, to grain stolen by Russia…This is not – and cannot be – legitimate business.”

He threatened sanctions against those trying to profit from the transport of stolen grain.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar then accused Ukraine of what he called “Twitter diplomacy,” saying Kyiv had not provided sufficient evidence to support its claim of the grain being stolen, with the relevant legal request to seize the vessel submitted only late on the evening of April 29.

An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told CNN that Israel cannot seize the shipment without due process. The official said there is an “established mutual legal assistance protocol” according to which Ukraine’s attorney general would have to file a legal assistance request, provide evidence and coordinate with Israeli police to stop the vessel.

An investigation by the Israeli outlet Haaretz found that at least four shipments of illegal grain arrived in Israel in 2026. According to the report, such shipments have continued since 2023, with the total number exceeding 30. Kyiv estimates that since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Russia has stolen at least 15 million tons of Ukrainian grain.

The European Union said it had contacted Israel regarding a Russian “shadow fleet” vessel carrying stolen grain, adding that it is ready to impose sanctions on individuals and entities in third countries that help finance Russia’s war against Ukraine.

What is Matryoshka?

Antibot4Navalny’s researchers use the name “Matryoshka” to describe a Russian operation that mass-distributes fakes through a coordinated infrastructure of bots, trolls and anonymous platforms. Its goal is to create artificial waves of information and manipulate perceptions of events both inside Russia and abroad. Antibot4Navalny coined the operation’s name, describing the structure as being layered like a matryoshka doll: each “doll” hides another, with one set of bots masking others and disinformation circulating on multiple platforms and channels, making it harder to trace.

The operation includes several core components. The first is the creation of numerous bot accounts styled as real users, research initiatives, and independent regional media outlets. These accounts generate dozens — sometimes hundreds — of posts daily, mimicking local language, tone, and context. The second component involves the coordinated dissemination of fake stories across multiple platforms, such as X (Twitter), Telegram, Bluesky, and closed chat groups. The bots use logos of Western media outlets or human rights organizations in order to make their posts appear credible.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The regime spends more than it takes in

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Collapse in GDP

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

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

The Iranian government estimates the war damage at $270 billion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A shot at democratization

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

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

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

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

A knife without a blade

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The first president

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The last prime minister

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A green light

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Multi-tier and shockproof

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

War in the Middle East

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

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

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

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

The beginning of the end for the “oil cartel”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How will this affect oil prices?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who is on the list

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

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

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

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

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

How it worked on Twitch

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

How students are forced to assemble combat drones

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is Matryoshka?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Butyagin’s arrest

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The state is on the side of abusers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The North Caucasus as the center of domestic violence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How a shelter works and whom it protects

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Repression against activists

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fighting continues despite claims of “control”

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

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

Defense Minister Sadio Camara confirmed dead

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

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

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

A jihadist-Tuareg alliance: The largest operation in years

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

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

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

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

Kidal: Disputed control and a Russian withdrawal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Africa Corps: Fighting and conflicting accounts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

United States: Trump is a bigger enemy than distant Iran

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Russia: either admit total defeat or keep fighting

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

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

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

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

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

Iran: protest during war means certain death

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

War for survival

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

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

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

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

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