Jembob published Sentinel-2 images showing a cleared area of approximately four hectares near the Medik stadium, noting that the site occupies one of the highest points in western Moscow inside the Moscow Ring Road (MKAD). According to his hypothesis, a new S-400 position may be under construction at the site, though he emphasized that this hypothesis still requires confirmation.

The satellite images show several light-colored objects on the cleared territory. However, the resolution of the images is insufficient to determine what exactly is depicted: buildings, construction equipment, or concrete pads for military hardware and radar vehicles.

Mark Krutov wrote that the new S-300 and S-400 positions established in Moscow following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine are generally similar in size and shape to the new site. He cited four facilities ranging from 3.6 to 4.6 hectares as examples. The area of the new Moskvoretsky Park site, according to Jembob’s estimate, is approximately four hectares.

Residents in the Kuntsevo district, where the park is located, began protesting against the tree-clearing on May 24. They reported that workers arrived at the forest near the Medik stadium with chainsaws and heavy machinery, then partially paved the area with asphalt. According to local residents, the construction crew failed to provide any documents authorizing the work.

Responding to questions from protesters, Alexei Alexandrov, the prefect of Moscow's Western Administrative District, said: “A military facility is being built. What else do you need to know?” Police then began detaining protest participants. In footage from the scene, Alexandrov can be heard telling law enforcement officers: “Take everyone to the police station.”

Neither Russia’s Ministry of Defense nor Moscow city authorities have made any public statements about the nature of the facility under construction at the site of the tree-clearing.

The General Staff did not name the plant, but said it produces electronics for Russian missiles and parts for Pantsir-S1 air defense combat vehicles. Earlier on June 22, the independent Russian outlet Astra reported that the Voronezh Semiconductor Devices Plant, known by its Russian abbreviation VZPP-S («ВЗПП‑С»), had been attacked. The Ukrainian monitoring channel Supernova+ published eyewitness videos showing a fire at the facility.

Voronezh Region governor Alexander Gusev announced on his Telegram channel that a missile alert had been declared across the region. He later wrote that Russian air defenses had destroyed “several high-speed aerial targets” over Voronezh.

“Three people are currently known to have been injured, including one in serious condition. Production facilities at one of Voronezh’s enterprises were damaged. The facades and windows of several apartment buildings and a number of cars were also damaged,” Gusev said.

Ukraine’s General Staff also reported that the Dubna Space Communications Center in the Moscow Region had been hit. The press service of Russian Satellite Communications Company, the center’s parent organization, confirmed the attack on the facility.

“There was a massive drone attack. Television broadcasting and communications were not disrupted. Measures are being taken to eliminate the consequences. The center’s personnel were not injured,” the press service said, according to a report by state-controlled news agency TASS.

A missile alert was also declared in the Moscow Region. 

“Eight sailors, including citizens of Turkey and India, were forced to evacuate on a life raft. The vessel sustained significant damage and lost its seaworthiness,” Kuleba said.

The Ukrainian Navy identified the vessel as the dry cargo ship Victress (IMO: 9030498).

“Given the difficult situation and the risk of the fire spreading further, crews of Ukrainian Navy boats carried out a rescue operation to evacuate the crew of the dry cargo vessel. Unfortunately, there were casualties,” the Navy said.

The Navy said the Victress belongs to a Turkish shipowner. According to vessel-tracking data from Starboard Maritime Intelligence reviewed by The Insider, the ship is owned by Victress Shipping Ltd, registered in the Marshall Islands, and operated by the Turkish company Rana Denizcilik Nakliyat.

Kuleba said vessels flying the flags of Palau and Belize were also attacked in the Black Sea. “Fortunately, there were no casualties, and the damaged vessels continued on their way,” he said.

Earlier in June, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that Russia should “avoid any incidents that can ⁠harm [Turkey’s] interests in the Black Sea.”

The sources said daily gasoline output fell from an estimated 120,000 metric tons in March to about 110,000 tons in April and 100,000 tons in May. Production stayed near May levels in early June but fell sharply after two major producers — the Moscow Oil Refinery and TANECO in Tatarstan — halted operations over the past week.

The shutdowns removed about 15,000 tons a day from the market, cutting daily output to roughly 85,000 tons. That is about 25,000 tons below summertime domestic demand, which industry specialists put at a minimum of 110,000 tons a day. Reuters’ sources said refineries with spare capacity can cover only about 5,000 tons of the shortfall.

The gap is being partly covered by supplies from Belarus, estimated by traders at 100,000 to 150,000 tons a month, and by inventories built up by oil companies and independent traders in late winter and early spring. Industry sources also said Russia has begun increasing seaborne gasoline imports.

Reuters’ sources said Russia could boost supplies by lowering fuel quality requirements to the Euro-3 standard. Since December, refiners have been allowed to use up to 42% aromatic compounds, compared with 35% under the Euro-5 standard, potentially boosting gasoline production by as much as 200,000 tons a month.

Other possible measures include resuming the use of monomethylaniline (an octane-boosting additive that has been banned under Euro-5 rules for the past decade) and sending naphtha from simpler refineries to plants where primary processing has stopped but high-octane component units are still running.

Ukrainian drones last attacked the Moscow Oil Refinery in the city’s southeastern district of Kapotnya overnight into June 18. Open source intelligence (OSINT) analysts said the strike hit several key production units at the plant, which supplies up 40% of Moscow’s gasoline, about half of its diesel, and covers up to 70% of the Moscow Region’s demand for gasoline and aviation kerosene. 

One video, which uses the branding of the French outlet Le Figaro, falsely claims that Estonian Reform Party MEP Urmas Paet criticized French businesspeople who had called for the temporary lifting of sanctions on Russia “in order to revive the French economy,” prompting Le Figaro editor-in-chief Alexis Brézet to call him “obsessed with anti-Russian rhetoric.” Neither quote is authentic.

Another video, which Matryoshka presents as content from Polish Television (TVP), concerns Estonian MEP Sven Mikser, who supposedly accused Polish authorities of undermining Ukraine after Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz demanded that Volodymyr Zelensky cancel a decision to name a military unit in honor of the “Heroes of the UPA.”  

Zelensky’s decision did indeed cause a stir. Polish President Karol Nawrocki even stripped the Ukrainian president of the Order of the White Eagle, deeming Zelensky’s action to be a violation of “the duty to uphold the honor of this highest state decoration.” Nawrocki emphasized, however, that Poland continues to support Ukraine in its war against Russia and has no intention of ceasing its assistance. Mikser’s reaction depicted in the video, on the other hand, bears no relation to reality.

Poland’s painful relationship with the UPA dates back to what is known as the Volhynia massacre — the mass killing of Poles in the historical region of Volhynia (the present-day Ukrainian regions of Rivne, Volyn, and part of Ternopil) in 1942–1943. At that time, ethnic Poles who had lived in the area before World War II were killed on orders from the local UPA leadership. Historians estimate the number of Polish victims at between 50,000 and 100,000. Despite multiple attempts at reconciliation and a joint study of these events undertaken by Poland and Ukraine, the event remains a subject of fierce controversy to this day.

Another campaign targeting an Estonian politician — this time EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas — was launched two days earlier. One of the videos, disguised as content from the Estonian outlet Postimees, features a fake quote attributed to Kallas’s predecessor Josep Borrell. He supposedly commented on a planned reform of European diplomacy, stating that he doesn’t “know a single MEP who likes Kaja Kallas,” and described the Baltic states as “the main hotbed of anti-Russian resentment in the EU.” 

As the Financial Times previously reported, citing knowledgeable senior officials, French and German authorities have been discussing a potential reform of the European External Action Service that would strip Kallas of her powers. However, these initiatives are not linked to “anti-Russian sentiment” but to the duplication of functions between the External Action Service, national foreign ministries, and the external relations departments of the European Commission and the European Council. 

The Alliance was founded in 2012 by two cisgender heterosexual people: Natalia Tsymbalova and Sergei Kondrashov. “At the time, the authorities claimed that all heterosexuals supported discrimination against LGBT people. We wanted to show that this was not the case. It was clear that today they were targeting LGBT people, and tomorrow they would target others. That is exactly what ended up happening,” explains Alexei Nazarov, the group’s media coordinator.

After the Supreme Court ruled in November 2023 that the “international LGBT movement” was extremist, more than ten queer organizations were banned in Russia. Those already officially designated as extremist include the Russian LGBT Network, Irida, the transgender support project T9 NSK, the Moscow Community Center, Coming Out, the queer media outlet Parni+, Center T, the LGBT Resource Center, and the Callisto initiative.

The proceedings in those cases, too, were held behind closed doors, meaning that the prosecution’s full reasoning remained unknown until recently. In every case, however, the same document appeared: an expert report prepared by the Nizhny Novgorod Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The report is titled “Identifying Signs of Destructive Activity by a Number of Organizations (Movements) Promoting the Ideology of the International LGBT Social Movement.”

The conclusions drawn in this document form the basis of all court rulings on the matter. “Without this criminological assessment, the Ministry of Justice would not be able to properly substantiate its request [to have an organization declared extremist]. Judges themselves often try to avoid responsibility and do not conduct their own analysis if a case already contains an expert opinion,” explains Maxim Olenichev, a lawyer specializing in LGBT rights cases.

The Insider obtained and reviewed the full text of the document.

“Educational and propaganda-oriented language material”

The document was authored by staff members of the Nizhny Novgorod Academy of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, where the study itself was conducted. The expert report runs to about 50 pages and, according to its authors, is based on an analysis of more than 1,500 screenshots from the websites and social media accounts of LGBT organizations.

The report exists in two nearly identical versions, differing only in the surname of one author and the list of organizations under review. According to its compilers, their purpose is to “confirm or refute” whether the movement is “large-scale,” to determine whether it is engaged in the “transformation” and “destruction of fundamental Russian spiritual and moral values, particularly traditional family values,” and whether it promotes the “exceptionality, superiority, or inferiority of a person” on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Notably, one of the report’s central arguments rests on hidden meanings that its authors claim to find in the informational materials published by LGBT organizations. As the document explains, the experts examined “verbal (textual),” “presuppositional (contextual),” and “subtextual” forms of information. Most often, they identified material as belonging to the latter category, which is defined as “information about certain aspects of an event that is not directly expressed in the text but is nevertheless possessed by participants in the speech event.”

In one version of the report, the term “presupposition” appears seven times, serving as a catch-all justification for attributing hidden meanings to words. For example, when evaluating the title of the “Online Pride Festival for and About LGBT People,” the researchers determined that use of the words “pride” and “person” constituted “the promotion of exceptionality and superiority at the presuppositional level.”

One of the key “negative indicators” of LGBT movements identified by the report is the existence of a “new community language distinct from the state language.” Examples include the use of feminitives in job titles and forms of address, the word “person,” the term “queer,” and various Anglicisms, all of which are presented as evidence of “the promotion of ideas of superiority over other people.”

Any gathering organized by queer organizations was interpreted as posing a threat. The titles of celebratory events were described as promoting “the exceptionality and superiority of LGBT people,” and even tea parties were described as “implicit propaganda” and a means of “recruiting new people.” In the materials of nearly every organization examined, the experts identified what they called “resistance to Russian legislation.” They claimed to find such resistance not only in criticism of government decisions or references to an organization’s “foreign agent” designation, but also in calls for equal rights.

Experts found “resistance to Russian legislation” in the materials of nearly every organization

The sources cited by the report include not only legal texts (the Russian Constitution, its Criminal Code, and similar documents), but also materials whose connection to LGBT issues is far from obvious. “The Criminal Code is, of course, these people’s favorite document. What’s unclear is why they rely on a Criminology textbook from 1984. But the funniest source is probably Revolution 2.0, a documentary novel. The authors also used an explanatory dictionary of the Russian language that includes information on word origins,” noted Yaroslav Sirotkin, leader of the Yaroslavl-based Callisto movement.

How feminine word forms became proof of extremism

While analyzing the collected texts, the experts managed to “discover” links to the LGBT movement even in the most innocuous of phrases. For example, the researchers identified what they described as a “word-formation model” in which suffixes are added to masculine nouns in order to denote that the subject being described is female — a linguistic feature common among Russian speakers of all sexual orientations and outlooks, similar to the way English makes the distinction between “actor” and “actress.” According to the report, queer people use such vocabulary to demonstrate their “superiority.”

The term “queer” and its derivatives — long accepted by LGBT people and the academic community — were described as a “lexical code for entry into the organization.” According to the experts, “queers are people who have not yet decided how to identify themselves and who do not follow traditional values regarding sex and love.” Citing unnamed LGBT activists,the criminologists further claim that there exists a special “ritual of initiation into the queers,” though they provide no details about the supposed ritual entails.

The metaphors “lesbian lioness,” “trans birdie,” “bi bee,” “pan panda,” “asexual koala,” and “gay queer-bear,” according to the authors of the study, are used by queer activists to draw attention to the “LGBTQ+ subculture.” In their assessment of the Callisto organization, meanwhile, the mere use of terms such as “gay,” “lesbian,” “bisexual,” and “transgender” was presented as evidence of “the separateness of the LGBT movement, which seeks uniqueness and superiority over other people who do not belong to LGBTQ+.”

Queer activists supposedly use metaphors such as “lesbian lioness,” “trans birdie,” “bi bee,” “pan panda,” “asexual koala,” and “gay queer-bear” to draw attention to the LGBTQ+ subculture

In their “Report on the Situation of LGBT People in St. Petersburg in 2021,” the experts identified a glossary of terms that, in their view, “soften the perception of the activities of LGBT+ representatives and the characterization of people on the basis of sex, their interests, and the ‘infringement’ of their rights by society and state legislation.”

According to the report, this “new community language, distinct from the state language,” constitutes evidence of “the promotion of ideas of superiority over other people,” as illustrated by terms such as “outing,” “bisexuality,” and “gender dysphoria.” (Notably, “gender dysphoria” is a term that is widely accepted in Russian academic literature.)

The Interior Ministry’s experts managed to discern claims of superiority even in terms that have no direct connection to LGBT people. For example, defining sexualized violence as coercion into sexual acts was said to be presented “without regard for the norms of Russian legislation” and allegedly emphasized the superiority of “queer people over others, who are not allowed to touch them.”

When analyzing the event “Bodily Boundaries: Consent and Agreements, Myths and Prejudices,” the researchers interpreted the phrase “bodily boundaries” as “implicitly referring to sexual touching.” A survey on how comfortable people feel setting boundaries and agreements around physical contact was characterized as “the promotion of sexual deviance and the demonstration of the importance of sexual activity.”

The experts also leveled accusations of a “philological” nature against the queer media outlet Parni+. The project began as the HIV-service initiative Phoenix Plus and grew into a platform that publishes articles about the lives of LGBT people, attracting tens of millions of views each year.

Vadim Vaganov, a journalist with the publication who was designated a “foreign agent” in 2024, described what the authors of the report found objectionable in its materials:

“We wrote that the state is actually waging a campaign against the Russian language and Russian culture. One of our articles was titled Izrossilovanie [a play on words meaning “raped by all things Russian”]. The experts claimed that this headline meant we were attacking the state because we were expressing verbal aggression toward Russia and Russian society.”

According to Vaganov, most of the accusations boil down to the idea that if a person disagrees with the current authorities, they must necessarily “want to overthrow the political system.” Some of the allegations contained in the report were familiar to him from previous proceedings:

“In the administrative cases against me for ‘LGBT propaganda,’ which were churned out over the course of a year, the same language appeared that is now being used in the extremism cases. For example, I wrote that homophobia is terrible and posted a photo with my boyfriend. Law enforcement authorities interpreted that as a ‘threat to national security.’”

“Associations with the colloquial word ‘cop’”

Perhaps the most paradoxical conclusion reached by the experts concerned an organization that no longer exists. The trans mental health project “Person to Person” (Chelovek – cheloveku) was founded in 2014 by psychiatrist Dmitry Isaev. At the time, Isaev also headed a commission for transgender people in St. Petersburg. Through the initiative, he provided psychological support, conducted academic research, and trained other medical professionals.

A representative of a partner organization, Anton (name changed), told The Insider that the project was not public-facing but that its impact was nevertheless considerable: “We did a great deal to help create the simplified certificate for gender transition. Our connections and cooperation with both the medical community and people involved in legal decision-making were instrumental.”

The regulations governing that document were approved by the Russian Ministry of Justice in 2018. However, in 2023, the ministry declared the order to be “no longer in force.” Isaev died in 2022, and the project subsequently suspended its activities.

In their assessment, the authors devote an entire paragraph to the initiative’s name, “The MenTal Health Project Person to Person.” In Russian slang, “ment” means “cop,” and the authors describe the name as a marketing device: “splitting the word and highlighting the letter ‘T’ creates an association in the reader’s mind with the colloquial word ment,” thereby “arousing interest in the message.”

Anton says the document is impossible to take seriously: “How could they mangle the word mental so badly? How do they not know that the letter ‘T’ with an asterisk signifies transgender identity? And this is supposed to be a linguistic analysis?”

The report also draws attention to publications containing “various kinds of articles about the infringement of citizens’ rights,” including coverage of Dmitry Isaev’s dismissal from a university following complaints by critics. These materials, the authors concluded, demonstrated the project’s involvement in “extremist activity.”

According to Anton, the report was prepared unprofessionally: “It’s obvious that a few security-service people sat down and put this together — people who normally deal with things like handwriting analysis. They don’t really understand language, they don’t properly understand criminology, and they have no medical expertise. The whole thing is shockingly poor, completely far-fetched. In short, it’s a commissioned hit job.”

“Celebrations of exceptionality and superiority”

The assessment of T9 NSK, a Novosibirsk-based initiative focused on supporting transgender people, was built around an analysis of its events — “board game night” and “party” — which the experts argued “intrigued the recipient at the subtextual level.” The report notes that the people who promoted the activities were “very active” and “spend time together in interesting ways.” This fact alone, combined with the organization’s “foreign agent” status, was enough for the movement to be characterized as extremist.

A charitable foundation that provides assistance to people living with HIV (its name cannot be disclosed for security reasons) was accused of regularly organizing events with the “fundamental purpose” of “providing assistance, including medical assistance, to people of non-traditional sexual orientation.”

The authors of the report described the meetings, lectures, and support groups organized by the Moscow Community Center (MCC) as “implicit verbal-level LGBT+ propaganda.” In the case of the MCC, these activities were likewise presented as evidence of involvement in “extremism.”

The report’s compilers focused heavily on event titles, which they argued relied on wordplay and advertising techniques and drew attention to opportunities for spending time together. According to the report, the purpose of in-person activities such as board game nights and film clubs was to recruit new people into the community.

The experts’ “indictment” of Callisto, an organization led by “foreign agent” Yaroslav Sirotkin, was based on a list of event titles. For example, when analyzing “Lesbian Visibility Day: Strong, Proud, Equal,” the experts focused on the three adjectives at the end to support the claim that the organizers “glorify lesbian women.” The researchers also used events with titles including “Transgender Day of Remembrance,” “Day of Remembrance for Victims of Transphobia,” and “Trans People and Mobilization” to support their conclusion that queer people “establish their own holidays that reflect their exceptionality and superiority and celebrate their ideological beliefs.”

The experts also argued that extremism was evidenced by the fact that at the LGBT Resource Center it is “safe to be yourself.” The authors of the report interpreted this as implying that a person might be unsafe elsewhere. They disapprovingly wrote that discussions at the organization’s events “create a warm atmosphere of being among one’s own people, of familial closeness and shared everyday life.”

According to the researchers, another indication of extremism was the claim that at the LGBT Resource Center it is “safe to be yourself”

Based on their analysis of the organization’s materials, the experts conclude that participation in support groups helps people in their lives and relationships — a danger given that “the concept of partnership replaces the concept of family.” As a result, the report recommends that the LGBT Resource Center be designated as extremist.

“Missionary activity”

At the very beginning of the report, the authors state that “representatives of the movement demand public space in which to talk about LGBT+ culture” and identify 41 documentary films about queer people, which they say were made in order to “recruit new people into the LGBT organization.” The experts view this as a form of education “at the implicit level,” emphasizing that “small sexual-minority groups teach transgender people, homosexuals, and others how to live.” Music is also characterized as a tool of propaganda — for example, “a song from the Republic of Uzbekistan about two non-binary people.”

Even the mere act of stating biographical details comes in for criticism from the researchers, who cite the apparently unacceptable statement: “My name is Tanya. I am Komi. I am a feminist, and I am a lesbian. And I exist.” As the report explains, “the Komi are a Finno-Ugric people in Russia and the indigenous population of the Komi Republic,” meaning that Tanya’s self-description constituted “educational and propaganda-oriented language material” typical of “the vocabulary used in LGBT+ speech.”

Other ordinary words also raised concerns among the experts. The T9 NSK organization states that “Our mission is to make the world a better place by developing and consolidating T* communities in Siberia and the Russian Federation.” The authors of the report seized on the word “mission,” concluding that “representatives of LGBT movements see themselves as missionaries whose task is to attract the attention of large numbers of people.” This was not an isolated incident: the authors reached a similar conclusion based on the Moscow LGBT Community Center’s use of the phrase “Our mission ensures equality.” (At the same time, the Nizhny Novgorod Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs itself uses the word to describe its own activities.)

“Volunteer” comes in for similar scrutiny. Materials published by one HIV-support foundation ask: “Would you like to become a volunteer?” This is described in the report as “an attempt to expand influence at the verbal level.” The experts further stress that the word “volunteer” is “interpreted without reference to the LGBT subculture, thereby concealing its essence.” They also determined that the “About us” section on the group’s website impermissibly “encourages the recipient to provide financial assistance.”

“Demonstrating resistance to Russia’s communications regulator”

The experts identified oppositional attitudes and criticism of the authorities in materials published by most of the organizations under review. In chats and social media posts associated with the initiative group “Coming Out,” for example, they found what they described as “incitement to unlawful actions.” What prompted this conclusion, according to the report, were statements that 2023 had been a year of intensifying repression in Russia — including against queer people — and that the state could not be trusted. The document explains that “the lexeme ‘repression’…means ‘a punitive measure carried out by state authorities (imprisonment, exile, execution).’”

In legal materials titled “What Will Be Considered Extremism?” and “Putin Commented on LGBT Issues,” the experts discerned “resistance by the LGBT+ group to Russian legislation, specifically to the State Duma’s passage of a law banning adoption by people affiliated with LGBT organizations (movements).” In reality, however, no such law has ever been passed or even considered in Russia. The country’s ban on adoptions instead applies to people in same-sex unions and to citizens of countries where “gender transition” is permitted.

The experts also fault Coming Out for publishing “legal information regarding restrictions on the activities of this movement under Russian law.” On its website, Coming Out did indeed publish a report that contained the sentence: “Since 2008, Coming Out has supported LGBT+ communities in St. Petersburg and drawn attention to LGBT people’s struggle for equal rights.” In the experts’ view, the word “struggle” signifies “angry resistance” and “verbal opposition to state prohibitions.”

According to Kiran (name changed), a representative of the Russian LGBT Network, the organization was accused of “opposing state policy because it advocates equal rights for all people, including queer people.” The Network’s main areas of activity include providing psychological, legal, and emergency assistance to queer people, advocating for their rights, and monitoring discrimination. All of these activities were ultimately cited as indicators of extremism.

According to Kiran, the assessment also contained a great deal of inaccurate information: “For example, we suddenly became the founders of a queer-literature publishing house. They also attributed the organization of LGBT balls in St. Petersburg to us.” Kiran believes this happened because the organization is regarded as a major player in the field and is therefore associated with virtually any public activity carried out by others.

The Callisto movement, from the Yaroslavl region, was described as “actively opposing Russian President V.V. Putin.” According to the expert assessment, this conclusion was based on a Telegram post that referred to a Russian election as a “coronation.” The report concluded that the word choice “conveys contempt for the voting process that resulted in V.V. Putin being elected President of the Russian Federation.” The criminologists also took note of accusations directed at the Russian Supreme Court and the authorities, which they identified in words such as “persecution,” “censorship,” and “unprecedented pressure.” In April 2026, Callisto was designated an extremist organization.

Another foundation that assists LGBT people (its name cannot be disclosed for security reasons and because court proceedings are ongoing) was accused by the report’s authors of engaging in advocacy, monitoring discrimination cases, covering court proceedings, and issuing “calls to fight Russian legislation.” As an example of the latter, the experts cited the headline “Fighting State Queerphobia,” which they claimed demonstrated “the foundation’s opposition to Russian legislation.” According to the report, the term “queerphobia” demonstrates “a negative attitude toward state policy at the legislative level regarding people of non-traditional sexual orientation.”

The experts also objected to criticism of Russia’s law banning gender transition, which activists describe as “transphobic.” According to the report, such a characterization shows a “rejection of the law and a negative assessment of it.” Using the statement, “Under Russia’s influence, the course toward ‘traditional values’ has begun to be adopted by post-Soviet countries such as Belarus and Kazakhstan,” the authors conclude that “traditional values are portrayed as hostile to the subculture and ‘values’ of LGBT+ communities.” Criticism of state media and internet regulatory agency Roskomnadzor’s decision to block a website is characterized in the report as an “explicit demonstration of resistance to Roskomnadzor” and a “negative assessment of the activities of state authorities.”

The researchers also point to various LGBT groups’actions that are characterized as “aimed at destroying fundamental Russian spiritual and moral values and undermining the national security of the Russian Federation.” Among the examples cited were the publication of David France’s documentary Welcome to Chechnya, a recording of the webinar “Teenagers and Queer Identity,” and even a statement that an organization’s mission is to provide “assistance to anyone, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or attitude toward drugs.”

According to the authors, publishing books and reports monitoring the observance of queer people’s rights also contributes to the destruction of spiritual values. Examples include real-life stories of LGBT families, a report on the situation of LGBT people during the pandemic, and support programs for transgender sex workers.

Another purported indicator of extremism was the “production and publication of instructional and propaganda materials.” Under this heading, the experts included UNESCO’s technical guidance on sexuality education, the organization of an “Anti-Stress” support group for men and women, and a discussion club on bodily boundaries.

In conclusion, the report states that the LGBT initiatives under review were created by “ideologues for the purpose of carrying out extremist activities aimed at promoting the exceptionality, superiority, or inferiority of people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity; they possess an extensive organizational structure and pursue the goal of committing extremist offenses.”

According to lawyer Maxim Olenichev, “There is no analysis in the report. And if there is no analysis, no research methodology, and the conclusions are pulled out of thin air, then there is no substantive argumentation to dispute. Conclusions based on that kind of reasoning are automatically unreliable. The document is not evidence.” In practice, however, Russian courts routinely side with prosecutors when it comes to accepting the validity of the report.

Linguistic gender scholars in uniform

All of the authors of the expert report are employees of the Nizhny Novgorod Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs: two colonels, two lieutenant colonels, and one doctor of philological sciences.

Although much of the report is devoted to linguistic analysis, only one of its authors, Elena Beglova, a professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Speech Culture, has formal training in the field. As a linguist, her interests span a wide range of topics, from criminal slang to the etymology of “quadrobists” to the vocabulary used by law enforcement officers.

As The Insider found, Beglova has repeatedly demonstrated an academic interest in queer-related topics. For example, in her article “Means of Verbal Aggression and Its Euphemization in Political Discourse and Public Speech,” she cited propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov’s reaction to Kamala Harris’s interactions with voters, in which he claimed that Harris “could speak freely only about gender transition and LGBT issues.”

In another study devoted to discursive practices in the digital age, Beglova argues that people use unconventional punctuation and spelling in order to “form negative evaluative attitudes,” “express irony,” and “discredit politicians.” As an example, she cites a passage in which a transgender person is referred to using the neuter gender: “In the United States, a transgender swimmer is seeking through the courts to overturn a ban on competing in women’s events. The swimmer(ess) has filed a lawsuit with CAS.”

Author Anna Glukhova, head of the Department of Criminology, previously studied “the image of the police officer through the eyes of Nizhny Novgorod residents.” In 2024, she reflected on whether the internet offers a new opportunity or a source of threats. In the catalog entry for that article, the listed keywords include “Columbine” and “LGBT.” Discussing the consequences of young internet users’ participation in the activities of “destructive” and “extremist” organizations, the legal scholar argues that teenagers may develop an interest in drugs, which is then “supplemented by an interest in erotica and non-traditional sex,” followed by an interest in “extreme leisure activities,” and later by “information about firearms.”

Glukhova’s and Beglova’s colleagues had not previously been noted for any particular scholarly interest in LGBT-related topics. Some of Dmitry Klimov’s work, for example, focuses on sex crimes, including the methods used to recruit people into prostitution and the role of information technologies in the sex industry.

Maxim Stepanov, meanwhile, wrote an article on “information security in the context of the development of modern criminal policy,” in which he quoted a speech by Vladimir Putin arguing that countries that invoke the value of freedom of speech now “prevent the dissemination of objective information and declare alternative viewpoints to be hostile propaganda that must be fought, using methods that are clearly undemocratic.”

The Nizhny Novgorod Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs itself has a mixed reputation. Reviews on Yandex Maps include comments such as: “The male half of the faculty are sexists. They treat people like dirt, and the food is just as bad;” “Girls are repeatedly subjected to unwanted advances at the academy — it’s frightening to send your daughters or sisters there;” and “Not particularly reasonable officers with superiority complexes who assert themselves at the expense of recent high-school graduates, with a sharp divide between the well-connected and everyone else.” On the 2GIS platform, meanwhile, reviewers describe the academy as a prison.

112 questions from the defense

In the case involving the Russian LGBT Network, the defense managed to speak with the “experts” via videoconference. After studying the document, the organization’s lawyers prepared 112 questions for the authors of the criminological assessment. Kiran described their response to The Insider: “They brushed off most of them, claiming they were unrelated to the case under consideration. We received answers to 14 questions.”

In their responses to several of the questions, the experts accused the organization of cooperating with the European Court of Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee. “The voices of queer people are being heard outside Russia, and in their view that runs contrary to the state policy of traditional values,” Kiran said.

After reviewing the assessment, the organization’s legal team concluded that it was “not a scientific analysis but an ideological document.” As Kiran described the situation, the authors’ refusal to appear in court reflects an unwillingness to have their conclusions publicly scrutinized and defended: “Extremism is a very convenient label for this — a label to use against those whom the authorities want to erase, imprison, or ban. Most importantly, it is meant to intimidate people and organizations so that they disappear on their own, isolate themselves, and stop doing anything or speaking out about how bad things are.”

Kiran believes that the cases are heard behind closed doors in St. Petersburg courts in order to hamper the work of defense lawyers. “If you don’t know exactly what you’re being accused of, you can’t properly defend yourself,” he explains. “That’s why the hearings are held in secret and behind closed doors, and everything moves through the courts very quickly.”

Consequences

Despite the often absurd nature of the report’s arguments, the repressive measures it has been used to justify have created serious difficulties for the queer community.

Over the past year, three organizations that assist LGBT people — Egida, the Russian LGBT Network, and Sfera — either temporarily or permanently stopped providing direct and emergency assistance. Because of funding shortages, the closure of support programs, and the risk of being prosecuted for “extremism,” ordinary queer Russians are often unable to obtain assistance either to survive in Russia or to relocate to safer countries.

Because of the prosecutions for “extremism,” ordinary queer Russians are unable to obtain assistance — either to survive in Russia or to leave for safer countries

For example, the destruction of the Center T initiative left thousands of people without support. Since 2020, the organization had assisted transgender and non-binary people.

What began as a small therapy group in Moscow grew into a comprehensive support network. Vetted endocrinologists, psychiatrists, and gynecologists handled more than a thousand requests for assistance. A supportive medical commission issued F64 diagnoses, which enabled people to change their identity documents and begin hormone therapy. A shelter in Moscow accommodated more than 80 people facing crisis situations. A network of city-based chat groups across most regions of Russia brought together 10,000 participants. Mutual Aid Services operated in three cities. And the safe dating project “Queer Matchmaker” helped bring together 141 couples.

However, over the past three years, the organization faced mounting pressure in the form of fines for “propaganda,” designation as a “foreign agent,” the blocking of its website, and finally, in May 2026, designation as an extremist organization based on the Nizhny Novgorod Academy’s expert report.

The campaign against alleged “LGBT extremists” dismantled these support services gradually. In 2023, following the ban on gender transition, Center T was forced to shut down its medical commission due to the fact that providing medical care related to “sex reassignment” had suddenly become a criminal offense. After the “international LGBT movement” was designated as extremist, Center T’s shelter in Moscow was forced to close — neighbors repeatedly called the police, and on one occasion someone attempted to break down the door. The court ruling created a real risk that residents and volunteers could be reported to the authorities for “extremism.”

At the end of 2023, several staff members, including director Yan Dvorkin, opted to emigrate, as all of them faced the threat of criminal prosecution for participation in “extremist activities.” In 2025, the Mutual Aid Service was shut down, and in the spring of 2026, both “Queer Matchmaker” and the network of city chat groups ceased operations. Following the court’s ruling in May, Center T was also compelled to end cooperation with all of its volunteers still residing in Russia.

The court accepted the arguments of the Nizhny Novgorod Academy’s argument  that signs of extremism could be found in the very existence of chat groups, therapy groups, and mutual-aid services. Based on information about emigration routes for trans people published in one of the organization’s channels, the experts argued that the initiative operated in “32 foreign countries.” They further claimed that the terms “trans person” and “non-binary people” were used to “conceal references to people of non-traditional sexual orientation, thereby attracting young people to join LGBTQ+ organizations.”

During the court hearing, a representative of the Ministry of Justice argued that the initiative’s activities constituted a “destructive ideology that influences public consciousness, including that of minors.” Among the allegations leveled against the organization were the “creation of its own lexicon borrowed from the English language” and the “support for guardianship rights of transgender people.” The case also relied on Dvorkin’s personal Telegram posts, including criticism of the actions of the Russian military. As the ministry’s representative put it: “Well, I think the phrase ‘Glory to Ukraine’ speaks for itself.”

According to Maxim Olenichev, the law does not permit personal statements made by members or leaders of an initiative in their private capacity to be treated as the position of the organization as a whole. Nevertheless, after accusing the initiative of harboring oppositional views, the Ministry of Justice representative stated: “This initiative group, Center T, has no right to exist because of the ideology it spreads among the masses… Moreover, its activities are directed against the state system and against the special military operation.”

Despite financial difficulties and mounting repressive restrictions, Center T has adapted to the new reality. The organization has relocated its shelter to Armenia.

What comes next

The activists and human rights advocates interviewed by The Insider are, for the most part, pessimistic about the future. “The problem is that people can barely even get to know one another anymore. They’re afraid and don’t know what to do, so they’ll flee. Queer people often have little money and aren’t prepared for life on their own. But abroad, where they can find community, they adapt. In Russia, things will become very bad and very frightening,” says Anton.

“On the one hand, this is the natural evolution of a dictatorship — they’re just doing it slowly and inefficiently. But it could escalate into harsh persecution with long prison sentences,” says Yan Dvorkin of Center T. “On the other hand, this may be a campaign ahead of the parliamentary elections, designed to channel hatred and public frustration toward ‘some kind of perverts’ while eliminating any form of collective organization. They can detain virtually anyone because proving that you have no connection to LGBT organizations is practically impossible.”

Kiran agrees that the Russian authorities are currently “selling” voters the myth of a victory over an internal enemy: “Once they’ve labeled everyone they wanted to label as extremists, we’ll see a report on Channel One saying that Russia has defeated all LGBT people on its territory.”

Maxim Olenichev believes that existing digital security tools make it possible to continue at least some activities online: “For example, participants can remain anonymous by joining under pseudonyms, keeping their cameras off, and speaking with altered voices. Even if an informant gets into such a group, there is a high probability that they will be unable to identify the participants. People need to think about their safety at all times and use the available tools — that is simply the reality today. Without such precautions, people may be held liable if law enforcement identifies a violation.”

The lawyer also has advice for those looking to organize in offline activities: “They should not be organized under the banner of LGBT initiatives, but no one has prohibited queer people from coming together, going hiking, socializing, or engaging in activities that are not formally connected to activism. The state is applying pressure, but for now people can still support one another and preserve horizontal networks. That makes it possible to continue some activities while keeping safety in mind.”

Alexei Nazarov of the Alliance of LGBT People and Heterosexuals for Equality believes it is necessary to acknowledge that “the voice of the LGBT community has been silenced,” however painful that may be. “When LGBT characters are erased from films and books, when absurd cases are brought against booksellers and publishers, when criminal prosecutions are launched and people from gay clubs are imprisoned, there is only so much public advocacy you can do to insist on your rights,” he explains. According to Nazarov, for the time being, the most useful initiatives are those that focus directly on psychological and legal assistance — as well as helping people leave Russia.

For decades, Traber’s name has appeared in investigations into the activities of the Tambovskaya organized crime group, the privatization of St. Petersburg’s major port assets, the oil business, and connections to Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. He has been mentioned in materials from law enforcement agencies in Spain, France, and Monaco, yet until now he never faced serious criminal charges inside Russia.

Traber’s troubles coincide with a major dispute involving the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal (PNT), one of the key petroleum assets of Northwest Russia. After the terminal’s co-owner Sergei Vasilyev fell ill in 2022, a bitter struggle for control over the enterprise developed between three competitors: the Vasilyev family, the heirs of late co-owner Dmitry Skigin (who died in 2003), and the state itself. In 2025, the Skigin family’s stake was nationalized, a decision that Dmitry’s son, Mikhail Skigin, is currently attempting to challenge in Russia’s Supreme Court.

Traber’s links to the terminal go back decades. Despite his claims that he exited Russian business in the late 1990s, former partners, court documents, and journalistic investigations continue to point to his connection with the group of terminal owners.

Officially, however, Traber’s June 17 arrest was not the consequence of his connection to the PNT, but his alleged role in the murder of Alexander Petrov, a man referred to in the Leningrad Region as the “master of Vyborg.”

The master of Vyborg

Alexander Petrov was one of the most influential figures in the Leningrad Region — a businessman, municipal deputy, and co-owner of dozens of enterprises. Journalist Dmitry Zapolsky, who spent many years studying the history of the St. Petersburg underworld, described Petrov as a man who effectively controlled nearby Vyborg. According to sources interviewed by independent outlet Sever.Realii, “Petrov was everywhere in Vyborg,” and the local effect of his death was compared to the consequences that the death of Stalin had for the Soviet Union.

Petrov’s connections also extended to Moscow. One of his largest assets was the Vyborg Shipbuilding Plant, but he did not control the entity outright. Among its co-owners was the Liechtenstein company Lirus Management AG, whose beneficial owner, according to businessman Sergei Kolesnikov, was Vladimir Putin himself. Kolesnikov’s account and the paperwork he provided suggest that the company also participated in the ownership of Putin’s palace in Gelendzhik.

Another co-owner of the Vyborg Shipbuilding Plant was Ilya Traber. Traber and Petrov both belonged to a clique of entrepreneurs that had formed in the late Soviet era around cross-border trade with Finland, conducted via Vyborg. Timber, petroleum products, antiques, and other goods flowed through the region, and many participants in those schemes later rose to prominence in Russian business.

Their descendants gained notoriety in other fields as well. Alexander Petrov’s son, Vitaly Petrov, became Russia’s first Formula 1 driver. In 2012, The Insider drew attention to an NTV report by Vadim Takmenev, filmed at Putin’s Novo-Ogaryovo residence, in which a trophy awarded to the younger Petrov could be seen among the president’s collection of memorabilia.

The man they left alone for 30 years

For decades, Traber appeared to be untouchable. His name emerged in materials from law enforcement agencies in Spain, France, and Monaco, as well as in numerous journalistic investigations. Yet Russian authorities continued to relate to him as if he were a perfectly legitimate businessman. 

In 2018, the lawyer representing Russian MP Vladislav Reznik presented a Spanish court with a certificate from the FSB’s St. Petersburg branch stating that no criminal cases against Traber were being pursued. Nevertheless, as far back as 2009, Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office, acting on an international letter of request, sent Spanish investigators a document characterizing Traber as the “economist of the Tambovsky organized criminal syndicate.”

Traber himself subsequently claimed that such characterizations were the result of a years-long smear campaign that had been orchestrated against him. In December 2024, he was questioned remotely by the Spanish anti-corruption prosecutor’s office as part of a money-laundering case. A copy of the session transcript is in The Insider’s possession.

Throughout the questioning, Traber consistently portrayed himself exclusively as a law-abiding entrepreneur, denying any connection to the Tambovskaya gang and claiming that he had heard of the group’s existence but had never had anything to do with it. Instead, Traber spoke of himself as a pioneer of post-Soviet capitalism. “I am the one who initiated the construction of the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal,” he told the Spanish prosecutors. Traber also stated that he had owned a company managing fuel supply at Pulkovo Airport and entities that controlled networks of petrol stations —most notably Sovex, which in the 1990s obtained an exclusive lease on the fuel supply complex at Pulkovo.

During the questioning, Traber claimed he’d subsequently sold his Russian assets, with his stakes in the seaport passing to Mikhail Lisin and Dmitry Rybolovlev. Meanwhile, the Pulkovo fuel complex went to Lukoil-affiliated structures.

However, numerous episodes from the business history of St. Petersburg show that even after these formal changes of ownership were made, the influence of Traber’s entourage continued to persist.

How Traber built his network

To understand what is so unusual about Traber’s recent arrest, it is necessary to examine the dynamics of St. Petersburg in the early 1990s. It was then that a group of entrepreneurs with ties to organized crime established control over the city’s oil business, port infrastructure, and export flows — a group that would subsequently play a prominent role in the national economy.

At the center of this story were the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal, the company Sovex, the St. Petersburg Fuel Company, and associated foreign structures. In May 1996, then-Deputy Mayor of St. Petersburg Vladimir Putin signed a decree transferring the Pulkovo fuel complex to the company Sovex under a lease agreement.

According to an investigation by The Insider, actual control over the company was exercised by Dmitry Skigin, Ilya Traber, and Sergei Vasilyev. According to former Sovex co-owner Maxim Freidzon, it was Traber who served as the liaison between business figures, the criminal world, and the city administration.

“Traber was the link between [Tambovskaya gang leader Vladimir] Kumarin, Sergei Vasilyev, and the people who worked in the mayor’s office,” Freidzon recounted. Notably, the port was privatized immediately after the murder of Mikhail Manevich, head of St. Petersburg’s Committee for City Property Management (KUGI), in 1997. He was succeeded as KUGI head by German Gref, the current Sberbank chairman. It was under Gref that the city port was privatized in favor of the Liechtenstein entity OBIP, behind which stood Alexei Miller, Ilya Traber, and Vladimir Yakunin. In some St. Petersburg press publications, this privatization — through which the city lost its controlling stake — is described as the result of an unfortunate “secretary’s clerical error.”

Significant financial flows passed through entities linked to Soveks. According to Freidzon, payments from Western airlines for fuel at Pulkovo were routed through a network of foreign companies, including the Liechtenstein offshore firm Horizon International Trading and Monaco-based Sotrama.

It is Sotrama that, many years later, would be at the center of international investigations — this time linked to Dmitry Skigin’s circle, Gazprom, and the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal.

Traber’s partners: Skigin and Vasilyev

For many years, Dmitry Skigin was seen as one of Traber’s closest partners. Skigin, a Tambovskaya-affiliated entrepreneur, was also linked with both the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal and Monaco’s Sotrama. After Skigin’s death in 2003, his business interests were inherited by his children, most notably Mikhail Skigin, who subsequently became one of the largest shareholders in the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal.

Traber did not explain to the Spanish prosecutors which specific entities he employed in order to maintain his connection to the terminal. However, the Traber–Skigin partnership is repeatedly mentioned in documents featured in international investigations.

In particular, The Insider has obtained a Monaco police file from the early 2000s in which Traber and Skigin appear as business partners and crime bosses of the Tambovskaya organized crime group.

Maxim Freidzon, for his part, describes Skigin as the “legitimate business partner of Traber and Vasilyev.” In his account, despite numerous changes in ownership structure, the key assets of St. Petersburg’s “old guard” continued to remain in the same hands. For many years, the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal remained the primary asset.

What the Spanish wiretaps revealed

Additional insight into control over the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal is provided by wiretaps obtained by Spanish police as part of the so-called Russian mafia investigation. Among the figures featured in the recordings were Gennady Petrov and Alexander Malyshev.

Others from Traber’s entourage also regularly appear in the conversations, including former KGB officer Viktor Korytov, whom the St. Petersburg press described as Traber’s right-hand man; Gazprom Neft CEO Alexander Dyukov; and Mikhail Glushchenko, who was convicted in the murder of politician Galina Starovoitova.

In these conversations, Gennady Petrov appears as a middleman who is capable of resolving issues within major companies and state structures. In a recording capturing the conversation with crime boss Andrei Mirych, Petrov explicitly cites his connection to the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal and calls himself its “shadow co-owner.” Petrov also denies making an attempt on Vasilyev’s life in the late 1990s.

The Battle of the Terminal

Vladimir Kumarin, the former head of the Tambovskaya gang, was sentenced to 24 years in prison in 2019 after being charged with the illegal seizure of the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal. According to investigators, Kumarin and his associate Vyacheslav Drokov used forged documents to take control over multiple municipal enterprises in 2005–2006, including the terminal. The findings of the investigation confirm the involvement of the Tambovskaya gang in the seizure of the terminal.

The conflict surrounding the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal entered a new phase after the onset of co-owner Sergei Vasilyev’s illness. In May 2022, he ceased to be listed as a terminal shareholder, and his stake was transferred to his wife, Elena Vasilyeva.

This development disrupted the long-standing balance of power within the company. Dmitry Skigin’s children controlled the other half of the terminal and had historically been responsible for its operational management. However, having gained control of her husband’s stake, Elena Vasilyeva began pushing to change the management structure.

According to St. Petersburg media, she sought to replace the company’s management and also attempted to alter the balance of power on the board of directors. As a result, Mikhail Skigin was not among the candidates for re-election as chairman of the board. The conflict quickly moved into the courtroom.

State authorities soon became involved as well. In 2024, as city outlet Fontanka reported, the St. Petersburg prosecutor’s office received instructions from the Prosecutor General’s Office not to ease oversight of the situation around the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal. At the same time, an inquiry was launched into the circumstances surrounding the transfer of Sergei Vasilyev’s stake to his wife.

An investigation was reopened into the notary who had certified the asset transfer transactions. The next stage was the state’s direct intervention in the terminal’s ownership structure.

In 2025, the Skigin family’s stake was nationalized. Mikhail Skigin called the decision unprecedented and announced his intention to seek its reversal in the Supreme Court. “We are preparing to file a complaint with the Supreme Court. The courts failed to take into account the fact that 50% of the terminal’s shares had belonged to my family since 2003,” he told Delovoy Petersburg.

According to Skigin, the prosecution had only raised the question of the legality of acquiring part of the shares, but in the end the entire 50% family stake was transferred to the state. Following nationalization, the Federal Agency for State Property Management became the terminal’s largest shareholder. The company’s board of directors and CEO were replaced. It is against this backdrop that Ilya Traber’s current detention is taking place.

There is no direct evidence at present linking the criminal case to the corporate conflict surrounding the oil terminal. However, the timing appears noteworthy: a long-standing partner of the Skigin family comes under investigation at precisely the moment when the state completes its redistribution of control over one of St. Petersburg’s main oil assets.

Monaco, Gazprom, and old ties

The oil terminal story does not end in St. Petersburg.

For many years, a network of foreign companies registered in Liechtenstein, Monaco, and other jurisdictions were involved with the terminal. One of the best-known was Monaco-based Sotrama, later renamed CinPit.

It was Sotrama, according to Maxim Freidzon, that processed some of the transactions related to the export of petroleum products and the activities of entities controlled by the Traber-Skigin circle.

In recent years, this entity has once again come to the attention of European law enforcement agencies. In March 2025, the French newspaper Nice Matin reported that the French prosecutor’s office and Monaco authorities were conducting parallel investigations into suspected money laundering through CinPit.

According to the outlet, in February 2025 the company’s Monaco offices were searched. In 2022, as part of the freeze on oligarchs’ assets, France seized the Villa Maria Irina on the Cap-Martin promontory on the Côte d'Azur, which French law enforcement links to Vladimir Putin’s inner circle — specifically to a “close female acquaintance.” According to journalist Robert Eringer, the villa in question belongs to Alina Kabaeva.

To the investigators’ surprise, the villa’s operational management was handled by Yulia (presumably Yulia Angelini) of Sotrama, later CinPit. She was arrested and questioned in 2023.

“It is obvious to us that Gazprom stands behind this company,” a source in Monaco’s judiciary told Nice Matin. The employee found herself at the center of the investigation. According to French journalists, she simultaneously worked within the entities of the former Sotrama and handled matters related to the Villa Maria Irina on the Côte d'Azur.

French investigators believe that this network may have been used to finance not only real estate transactions but also other assets connected to the Russian elites. The Nice Matin article separately emphasizes that Dmitry Skigin’s son Mikhail remained one of the largest shareholders in the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal at the time of publication. In effect, French journalists viewed the oil terminal, CinPit, and the group of companies linked to the Skigins as elements of a single business structure.

However, an even greater degree of interest from Western intelligence services was generated by another figure in this story: Roman Spiridonov. As Nice Matin reports, Spiridonov — the former chief trader of Sotrama and a business partner of Mikhail Skigin’s in St. Petersburg — may be connected to the so-called Russian “shadow fleet” through a company registered in Dubai. Neither Spiridonov himself nor CinPit representatives commented on these allegations.

There is another detail of particular interest: despite numerous changes in the ownership structure, former employees of the company maintained that the real centers of influence within it had not changed. “On paper, the names changed, but in reality the same bosses remain at the helm,” Nice Matin’s sources said, listing Mikhail Skigin, Roman Spiridonov, and Gazprom-affiliated entities.

While these statements prove nothing in and of themselves, they illustrate one of the defining features of the controversy surrounding Traber, Skigin, and the oil terminal. Over the course of three decades, the owners, shareholders, and company names changed multiple times, yet the circle of people connected to the key assets of the old St. Petersburg group remained remarkably stable.

“I simply wanted a decent life!”

Traber gave his most detailed account of events during his questioning by the Spanish anti-corruption prosecutor’s office in December 2024. The interrogation came in connection with a money-laundering investigation linked to the purchase of real estate in Mallorca, and also the so-called Troika case — the largest ever trial against figures from the post-Soviet criminal world, which had been proceeding in Spain for more than ten years.

During the interrogation, Traber consistently denied any connection to organized crime, saying that after serving in the submarine fleet, he had entered legitimate business in the late Soviet period and had since earned money exclusively through entrepreneurial activity.

When answering questions about the origin of his wealth, Traber stated that in the late 1990s he sold his Russian assets and subsequently moved to Europe. According to him, it was with this money that the villa in Mallorca and property in France and Switzerland were acquired.

“I simply wanted a decent life,” he explained to investigators. Some of Traber’s answers, however, raised further questions. He initially stated, for instance, that the funds for the property purchases had come from Greece, where he had been residing and paying taxes. But he later clarified that the money had come from Liechtenstein through an entity he owned.

Traber also denied having any connection to Gennady Petrov after the mid-1990s. According to him, when Petrov had left Russia back in 1996, their paths diverged. Yet numerous publications and investigations in subsequent years indicate that the two continued to be part of the same business circle.

Equally remarkable was Traber’s explanation of his own reputation. When the Spanish judge asked why he had been described as a crime boss in documents from Russian and European law enforcement agencies for decades, Traber offered an unexpected hypothesis. According to him, the root cause of all his problems was a complaint he had filed in the early 1990s about theft at the Russian Museum. It was after that, he claimed, that he acquired powerful enemies within St. Petersburg’s law enforcement agencies.

Subsequently, information about Traber’s alleged connections to organized crime spread first within Russia, then found its way into the investigative materials of Monaco, France, and Spain. Traber maintained that foreign law enforcement agencies had simply been presented with information that had come from Russia and accepted it at face value. The case against him in Spain remains open to this day.

Traber told the Spanish examining judge and investigating prosecutor that Monaco’s authorities had subsequently acknowledged the falseness of their suspicions: “Monaco apologized,” Traber stated. However, The Insider has found no confirmation that Monaco’s authorities ever offered Traber any such apology.

In January 2022, Traber told Fontanka that “if I destroy the Spanish prosecutor, I will be doing a service to my homeland.” He also filed a defamation suit against Spanish national José Grinda González (the prosecutor’s name) in St. Petersburg’s Dzerzhinsky District Court. Records of this case can be found in the court’s database. In Spain, Traber pursued claims through every level of the judiciary, up to and including the Supreme Court, filing defamation suits against the same prosecutor — all while refusing to appear in court himself. The Insider has reviewed these filings.

“In Monaco they also called me a gangster. We have been sorting it out for 14 years. Because the Monaco judge pointed me toward the French police, and for 14 years they have been refusing to disclose the names of those who allegedly passed them information about me back in 1996. They say it would harm the security of France.” Traber also stated that he had filed a complaint against France with the European Court of Human Rights. The Insider found a reference to his application on the ECHR’s website. The case has been joined with 16 other complaints against France and concerns requests for the disclosure of information classified as relating to “state security.”

Combined with his overconfidence, Traber’s international activism may well have been one of the factors behind his arrest in Russia earlier this week. The updated version of Traber’s criminal case in Spain contains his statements about “destroying the prosecutor” — who now travels with bodyguards and in an armored vehicle. By contrast, according to The Insider’s sources, Traber’s close acquaintance and Mallorca neighbor Vladislav Reznik chose an entirely different approach after being acquitted in Spain in 2018: he did not celebrate the victory, give interviews, or demand apologies and compensation.

“China firmly opposes the UK’s imposition of unilateral sanctions, which lack any basis in international law and harm the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies,” the embassy spokesperson stated. Beijing also demanded that the UK “immediately correct its wrongdoings” and pledged to take measures to protect the interests of Chinese businesses.

Among the companies placed under British sanctions was Shenzhen Huaxin Antenna Technology Co Ltd, better known as Harxon Corporation. The UK stated that the company had supplied goods and technologies that were used by Russia to undermine Ukraine’s territorial integrity and independence.

The sanctions were imposed one month after a joint investigation by The Insider and the Nordsint project demonstrated that Harxon was supplying Russia with CRPA anti-jamming antennas — a critical component of the navigation system of Geran (Shahed) drones. The antennas enable the drones to maintain their course despite the operation of Ukrainian electronic warfare systems.

As part of the investigation, a Nordsint correspondent posing as a buyer contacted Harxon’s sales department. Company representative Masha Wu agreed to arrange the delivery of antennas but emphasized that the contract would be drawn up through a different company. Harxon employee Anthony Zheng later joined the negotiations, offering several models of military-grade CRPA antennas and issuing an invoice for nearly $800,000.

During the exchange, Zheng explicitly stated that the company was interacting with the Russian firm Alabuga — the country’s main manufacturer of Geran drones. “We are working with Alabuga, so we have to make it confidential,” he wrote.

Following the release of the investigation, Harxon sent a letter to its partners claiming that Anthony Zheng was not a company employee and that his activities had been conducted in a private capacity. The company also denied any involvement in the manufacture of the GI and HXTX antenna series found in Russian drones shot down over Ukraine.

However, The Insider established that these claims were false. Entries on the Chinese trading platform Made in China that were deleted after the publication of the article listed Zheng as Harxon’s international sales manager. He had also been repeatedly identified as a Harxon representative by the company’s overseas partners. Zheng even worked the Harxon booth at the international exhibition INTERGEO 2023 and was featured in official company photographs from other industry events.

Masha Wu, who had initiated the negotiations over the antenna delivery, was not mentioned in Harxon’s letter. According to her LinkedIn profile, she left the company in May 2026 — after the investigation was published.

The UK government’s sanctions designation cites reasonable grounds to consider Harxon a company that has been involved in supplying technologies facilitating Russian aggression against Ukraine.

In its statement, the Chinese embassy separately emphasized that China “has been committed to promoting peace talks” and “has strictly controlled the export of dual-use items.” However, the investigation by The Insider and Nordsint showed that in order to circumvent Chinese export restrictions, Harxon antennas were being supplied to Russia under the guise of equipment for agricultural machinery.

Published videos show a powerful explosion tearing off the roof of a fuel tank. Notably, one angle captures a contrail characteristic of air defense interceptors, allowing for the missile’s flight trajectory to be deduced.

The launch was allegedly carried out by a Pantsir air defense missile-gun system. The previous day, Ukrainian blogger Denys Kazanskyi had put forward the same theory about a friendly-fire air defense incident.

The hypothesis that a Russian missile struck the tank is supported by the analysis of Russian pro-war Telegram channel Voyenny Osvedomitel (Military Informant), which writes that the footage shows “an anti-aircraft missile (or a MANPADS missile)” hitting the fuel storage facility.

Photos and footage of the torn-off tank roof rising into the air became one of the most widely discussed images following the June 18 nighttime attack on Moscow. According to Russian authorities, the strike was the largest ever Ukrainian drone attack on the Russian capital in the past two years.

Based on published images, the strike on the Kapotnya oil refinery hit several key facilities at the plant simultaneously, marking the third attack on the refinery in less than a month and the second in the past two days.

FSB counterintelligence is sounding the alarm. According to a document obtained by The Insider — marked “top secret” — the number of “approaches” to Russian “secret carriers” has grown severalfold in recent years:

“From 2022 to the present, security agencies have identified 2,874 intelligence actions by foreign special services, compared with only 1,953 enemy intelligence actions from 2017 to 2021.

It has been established that during this period, the largest number of intelligence actions targeting secret carriers were carried out by Ukraine’s special services — 1,960, or more than 50% of the total — indicating a 7.5-fold increase in the activity of Ukrainian special services compared with 2017-2021.

The intelligence targets of Ukraine’s special services included servicemen of the Russian armed forces, employees of the defense industry and nuclear weapons complex, facilities providing operational support along the ‘M’ line, employees of state military administration bodies, the courier communications service and diplomatic corps, the transport sector, and representatives of the scientific, educational, and communications industries.”

According to the FSB, 90% of “recruitment contacts” now take place online, compared with just 6% in 2017. Foreign intelligence services, the FSB said, have been especially interested in Russian citizens traveling abroad:

“In the area of foreign travel, intelligence actions were carried out by the special services of the United States and its NATO allies against people:

• on long-term or short-term foreign business trips;
• employed at Russian organizations under sanctions and aware of sensitive information.

The enemy collects data on Russian citizens of interest by using agent networks, monitoring open sources and electronic industry, and corporate resources.

U.S. intelligence services, using information from ticket booking systems, hotels, and registration for international events, track the arrival of Russian citizens of intelligence interest and create conditions in advance for studying them for recruitment purposes. Priority is given to people who repeatedly travel on official business trips.

To establish personal contact, U.S. intelligence services use border and migration control points at airports, involving local personnel.

When passing through border control, recruitment targets are subjected to harsh interrogations about their professional activities that can include the forced collection of biomaterial, the seizure of documents, communications devices, and computer equipment, and demands for passwords and login credentials for devices and email accounts.

Those being recruited are offered specific incentives for confidential cooperation, such as assistance in obtaining a U.S. visa, or are pressured with threats of visa cancellation. After a comprehensive analysis of the target’s personal and behavioral profile, a decision is made on whether further development is worthwhile, including recruitment.”

According to the FSB, recruiters actively use openly accessible data that Russia’s “secret carriers” post about themselves online.

It is hard to argue with the FSB’s conclusions. Russian officials with access to the state’s most important state secrets do leave many digital traces — sometimes unintentionally, and sometimes by openly posting information about themselves on social media. This applies not only to rank-and-file officials and security officers with access to state secrets, but also to senior figures whose direct duties include overseeing the protection of classified documents. Among the latter is Andrei Kazakov, who until June 12 headed Putin’s records office. 

Secretly, for the whole world

In conversations with relatives, Kazakov called himself the “chief keeper” of the Kremlin’s secrets. And it wasn’t just bluster. More than almost anyone else, Kazakov had access to the Kremlin’s internal workings, the mechanisms behind secret decision-making, and the names of those involved. He often knew about new appointments and high-profile dismissals before others, and he naturally demanded that his subordinates complied with strict secrecy rules. Yet even the simplest of searches turns up almost every imaginable detail about Kazakov himself.

Kazakov was born in 1958 in the Belarusian city of Asipovichy, near Mahilyow. After moving to Moscow, he graduated from a military academy and served as a “secret officer” in the Defense Ministry’s Main Directorate for International Military Cooperation, which is closely linked to the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency. There, he was noticed by Sergey Ivanov, Putin’s longtime colleague from the First Chief Directorate of the Soviet KGB, the foreign intelligence branch. Ivanov was head of the Defense Ministry at the time, a post he held from 2001-2007.

Kazakov then quickly rose to deputy head of the defense minister’s office and, by 2010, was able to afford an apartment in the elite premium-class Smolenskaya Zastava residential complex on Ruzheyny Lane in Moscow’s Khamovniki District.

In 2011, Ivanov became head of the Presidential Executive Office and soon appointed Kazakov to serve as deputy head of his secretariat. Three years later, Kazakov bought an even more expensive and spacious apartment in the Barkli Park residential complex, registered in his daughter’s name. There, Kazakov began ordering home deliveries from Globus Gourmet, an upscale grocery chain. Not only Kazakov himself, but also his relatives acquired expensive cars. Near Mytishchi, in the Voyennosluzhashchy dacha settlement, Kazakov built a mansion. Its garage holds vintage Moskvich and Zhiguli cars, which he proudly shows to guests. The whole family gathers at the mansion for New Year’s Eve, and in summer they celebrate holidays on a yacht on the Pirogovskoye Reservoir.

In 2016, Kazakov moved to the presidential records office, and  in 2020 he replaced its longtime head, Alexander Golublev, who died of complications brought on by COVID-19.

According to a source in the Presidential Executive Office, the new head of the records office began demanding heightened vigilance from subordinates from his first days in the job.

“Andrei Anatolyevich is simply obsessed with secrecy,” the source said. “We are all already under nondisclosure obligations, and on top of that there are constant checks. The atmosphere in the records office is very tense. Informing on one’s colleagues has become the norm. And there is no one to complain to — above him there is only VVP,” the source said, using a common Russian shorthand for “Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.”

“Kazakov is obsessed with secrecy, informing on one’s colleagues has become the norm, and there is no one to complain to — above him there is only Putin”

But Kazakov himself appears not to have followed the secrecy rules he demanded of others. He called GRU chief Igor Kostyukov using ordinary mobile communications and used Gmail, whose data is stored on U.S. servers.

Using ordinary Russian “probiv” bots — semi-legal lookup services that aggregate leaked personal data — it is not difficult to learn the details of Kazakov’s everyday life — from his food preferences (his family tries to buy lactose-free milk) to the identity of his personal dentist (Dmitry Sergeyev of the P.V. Mandryka Central Military Clinical Hospital of Russia’s Defense Ministry).

A family of state-secret keepers

Kazakov also publicly posted photos from family trips to NATO countries. To be fair, after the full-scale invasion, Kazakov’s family began vacationing inside Russia — specifically at the Primorye Grand Resort Hotel in Gelendzhik, Rosa Springs in Sochi, and the five-star Grand Palace hotel in Svetlogorsk.

The last time Kazakov’s family ventured abroad was on Feb. 20, 2022, four days before Russian invasion of Ukraine began. He flew to Serbia for a vacation with his wife, daughter, and granddaughter. Apparently, the official with access to all of Russia’s state secrets understood that this would be his last chance to experience life outside the country.

Kazakov’s family, incidentally, is also involved in the “secrets” business. His son Konstantin is an employee of the Federal Protective Service (FSO), heading the Finance Ministry’s Directorate for the Protection of State Secrets.

Konstantin’s wife, Darya, is also under a state-secrets nondisclosure obligation. She is a doctor by training, but in 2022 her father-in-law got her a job as a consultant in the department that handles classified documents in the presidential directorate for state awards. Hundreds of secret decrees pass through her hands regarding awards for generals of the FSB, SVR, and Defense Ministry, as well as for “heroes” of the “special military operation” and spies carrying out covert operations abroad.

Despite the FSB’s warnings about recruitment during foreign trips, she fearlessly posted photos of travels with her classified husband through Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Spain.

As a farewell before dismissing him earlier this week, Putin decorated Kazakov with the Order “For Merit to the Fatherland,” 3rd class, which the decree said was for “contributions to supporting the activities of the president of the Russian Federation and many years of conscientious work.”

According to maritime tracking information from Starboard Maritime Intelligence, Forwarder is approaching the same area of the English Channel where Smyrtos was detained earlier this week. Published routes show the vessel traveling from the Baltic Sea through the North Sea toward the Atlantic.

The Insider found that a British patrol vessel was also monitoring Forwarder. Maritime tracking data showed the Royal Navy ship had been in the Belgian port of Zeebrugge, but after the tanker appeared near the entrance to the English Channel, it quickly closed the distance to the Russian vessel. The British ship was last following the Forwarder at a distance of about 4.3 nautical miles.

The Russian frigate Admiral Grigorovich is also known to be in the same area of the English Channel that Forwarder was passing. The frigate was previously seen escorting sanctioned “shadow fleet” tankers through the strait.

The frigate’s presence in the channel became known after an incident involving the British pleasure yacht Bright Future. According to Russia’s Defense Ministry, the crew of the Admiral Grigorovich made several attempts to contact the yacht, which the ministry said was approaching the warship in a dangerous manner. After the distance narrowed to 150 meters, the Russian frigate fired warning shots.

Forwarder is sailing with a cargo of oil from the Russian port of Primorsk and lists the Chinese port of Dongying as its final destination. The tanker was previously known as Heng Tai.

According to Ukrainian intelligence, the vessel took part in the shipment of Russian oil and petroleum products while the G7+ price cap mechanism was in effect. In June 2024, the tanker was involved in operations near Greece’s Gulf of Laconia, which is considered to be one of the main hubs for ship-to-ship transfers of Russian oil. The vessel is also reported to have called at Russian ports where oil has been traded above the price cap set by Western countries.

The tanker is linked to Hengtai Shipping Limited. In January 2025, the U.S. imposed sanctions on the company for operating in Russia’s energy sector and separately listed Forwarder as a vessel in which the company has a property interest.

The EU, Switzerland, the UK, Canada, and Ukraine later imposed sanctions on the tanker. In February 2026, Ukraine also imposed sanctions on the vessel’s captain.

The Forwarder’s appearance in the English Channel is notable due to the fact that several other tankers linked to Russia’s “shadow fleet” changed routes following the detention of the Smyrtos. The ships on that list include the Lion I (IMO: 9384069), C Viking (IMO: 9261657), Sona (IMO: 9428358), and Maini (IMO: 9319870).

The Smyrtos was detained overnight June 14 in an operation conducted by Royal Marines and officers from the country’s National Crime Agency (NCA). After British forces boarded the tanker, the vessel was taken under control and moved to an anchorage off England’s southern coast.

According to Ukrainian intelligence, the Smyrtos has been involved in transporting Russian oil and petroleum products since early 2025, mainly from the port of Kozmino in Russia’s Far East.

The English Channel remains one of the most important routes for Russian oil exports from Baltic ports. A significant share of tankers carrying Russian oil from Primorsk and Ust-Luga pass through the corridor. Any risk of detention, inspection, or other restrictive measures could increase shipping costs and force “shadow fleet” operators to use longer routes.

The effects of the strike were visible far beyond the impact sites, even if they remained invisible to the television audience. After an attack on the Moscow Oil Refinery in the district of Kapotnya, thick smoke rose over the southeast regions of the capital. It could be seen from various parts of the city, including the Moscow City business district.

The attack received only a few seconds of coverage in Rossiya 1’s 9 a.m. broadcast. The anchors summarized Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin’s statement about downed drones and a hit on the Moscow refinery. The message was shown on screen as text, and  the channel showed no photographs or footage of the damage. The segment on the attack was squeezed between a report on what the channel called a Ukrainian “terrorist” strike on a bus in the Bryansk region and a report on Russian strikes against Ukraine. The broadcast then turned to Vladimir Putin’s participation in the Russia-ASEAN summit in Kazan.

Channel One also opened its broadcast with a report on the Bryansk Region, devoting about four minutes to a story on injured children. Only afterward did the anchor read Sobyanin’s summary about downed drones and strikes on the Sadovod market and the Moscow refinery, spending about 20 seconds on the item. The channel then briefly reported damage in the Moscow Region, citing governor Andrei Vorobyov, who mentioned a drone hit on a residential building in the town of Zhukovsky and damage to a shopping center. The broadcast then returned to Russian strikes on Ukraine.

NTV did not mention the attack on Moscow at all in its 8 a.m. morning broadcast. The channel focused mainly on the opening of the Russia-ASEAN summit in Kazan. Its report on the forum and Putin’s participation in it took up almost seven minutes of airtime.

Ukrainian open source intelligence (OSINT) projects, for their part, said the strike may have hit production units at the Moscow Oil Refinery, including catalytic cracking and visbreaking facilities. It was the third attack on the facility in less than a month and the second in recent days. Reuters reported that the refinery suspended operations after a previous strike on June 16.

During the raid, all airports in the Moscow aviation hub temporarily suspended operations, leading hundreds of flights to be delayed. Passengers were evacuated from Sheremetyevo Airport, and access to terminals was restricted.

The Telegram channel Astra counted at least five fire sites on the refinery’s grounds. The Ukrainian open source intelligence (OSINT) project CyberBoroshno (lit. “CyberFlour”) reported that hits were recorded at the tank farm, the G-43-107 catalytic cracking unit, the area of the visbreaking unit, and the combined unit that produces methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE, and oligomerate).

An additional analysis was published by Ukrainian channel Dnipro Osint (“Harbuz”), which noted that video from the strike site showed multiple fire sites and at least one detonation of a tank or cistern, based on preliminary geolocation of the fires.

If reports of damage to the catalytic cracking unit are confirmed, it would be the second strike on key production capacity at the Moscow refinery this week alone. Reuters reported that overnight into June 16, Ukrainian drones attacked the refinery’s main crude distillation unit, which accounts for about 53% of the plant’s capacity. The refinery suspended operations after that attack.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported that Russian air defenses shot down 194 drones headed for the capital on the night of June 17-18. Moscow Region governor Andrei Vorobyov said at least 17 people were injured in the attacks, including two children. All four Moscow airports suspended operations, with over 500 flights canceled or delayed.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said at least 992 drones were shot down across the country over the past 24 hours, the highest reported total since 2022.

Catalytic cracking is one of the most important processes in oil refining and is used to produce high-octane gasoline. A visbreaking unit processes heavy oil residues, while MTBE production provides an additive used to raise fuel octane levels. That means the attack may have damaged not only storage tanks but also the refinery’s production infrastructure.

The Moscow Oil Refinery processes up to 11 million tons of oil annually. The plant supplies up to 40% of Moscow’s gasoline, about half of its diesel, and covers up to 70% of the Moscow Region’s demand for gasoline and aviation kerosene.

The movement to break the blockade took on a new character last year with the creation of the global “Sumud” flotilla. Between August and October 2025, as many as 50 small vessels took part in its voyages, and by May of 2026 that number had grown to around 60.

The Arabic word “Sumud” is most commonly translated as “steadfastness.” Since the 1960s, Palestinians have used the term to describe resistance to Israel. But the participants in the recent flotillas are far from exclusively Arab. On the contrary, the majority are left-wing activists from Western countries.

The latest expedition also included two participants from Ukraine: Andriy Movchan and Nina Potarska. Movchan, who also holds Spanish citizenship, has lived in Barcelona for the past 12 years, works in IT, and is involved in the local left-wing movement. It is from Barcelona that the “Sumud” yachts set sail.

Movchan’s interest began in 2025, when he watched another flotilla depart and decided that next time he would try to join it. “There was a selection process. In Spain alone, there were nearly a thousand applications,” he told The Insider. “They tried to recruit people with captain’s licenses and maritime experience. They specifically looked for medical professionals who could help during the voyage and provide assistance to victims upon arrival. They recruited teachers to work with children and engineers to help rebuild Gaza. But most of the participants are activists, public figures, and opinion leaders.”

The organizers of the Gaza voyage declared that their goal was not only to deliver humanitarian aid but also to “create a sustainable civilian presence.” As the declaration states: “Teams of doctors, nurses, ecological builders, war-crimes investigators, unarmed civilian protection personnel, and other specialists will come ashore to work alongside the Palestinian people.”

Movchan believes he was chosen because of his active involvement in the Ukrainian pro-Palestinian movement. In the summer of 2025, when a number of international experts began sounding the alarm that a famine had begun in parts of the Gaza Strip (albeit by modifying the standard indicators the UN uses to make such determinations), Movchan decided to organize a pro-Palestinian demonstration outside the Holodomor Museum in Kyiv, even if he did not attend personally:

“Why am I not in Ukraine? I’m not the bravest person. After 12 years of living abroad, I have certain privileges of choice: whether to take part in the war or not.”

As for participation in the flotilla, activists are not required to make any financial contribution, and food and living arrangements are provided after they reach the port at their own expense. Nina Potarska, who lives and works in Canada, got to Spain thanks to the help of a fundraising campaign organized through the European Network of Solidarity with Ukraine. The left-wing organizations that make up the network support the Palestinian cause and were therefore happy to raise money for Potarska’s travel expenses, she explained.

“Eros,” also known as “Jabalia”

Movchan’s candidacy for the flotilla was approved at the last minute. He did not have time to complete all the training sessions, so instead of joining the others in Barcelona, he met them in Sicily.

“There was psychological and medical training. They explained what to do in the event of interception and imprisonment. We were taught about the history of Palestine,” he recalled. “There was also training on gender-based violence. By the way, all sexual relationships were prohibited on the yacht throughout the voyage, and I think that was the right decision. Finally, there was media training — about which issues to highlight and how to present them.”

The prohibition on sexual relationships was introduced for a reason. Shortly before departure, a sex scandal involving the previous flotilla erupted when one of the movement’s leaders, Brazilian activist Thiago Ávila, was accused of a series of unethical sexual encounters with female participants in the mission.

The yacht on which Movchan sailed was named Eros. However, all vessels in the flotilla were also given additional names honoring Palestinian localities. As a result, Eros was also known as Jabalia.

There were ten people on board: three with maritime experience, and the rest public activists. Among them were a Colombian woman campaigning for Indigenous rights, a Palestinian from Syria whose friends had fought against Assad, and an environmental activist from Australia. The yacht’s captain was responsible for maritime operations, while the activists’ activities were overseen by a representative of the organizers. Movchan says he is not authorized to disclose that person’s name.

The yacht also carried humanitarian aid, which occupied half of one cabin. It consisted of non-perishable food and medical supplies. “Naturally, it was more of a symbolic humanitarian aid shipment. You can’t fit much on a yacht,” The Insider’s interviewee acknowledges. “We didn’t purchase it ourselves; it was included in the flotilla’s budget.”

According to Movchan, neither he nor his fellow participants prepared extensively for work inside the Gaza Strip, as they “realistically understood” that the chances of breaching the blockade were close to zero. This contradicts the flotilla’s declaration but aligns with the actual training program. The emphasis was placed on preparing to interact with Israeli military personnel rather than with actual Gazans.

The activists did not prepare extensively for work inside the Gaza Strip because they “realistically understood” that the chances of breaching the blockade were close to zero

Movchan says he very much wanted to reach Gaza. Once there, he hoped to do journalistic work — speaking with local residents and covering the difficult conditions inside the enclave: “I was even thinking about how I would get out afterward. I understood that I only had four weeks of vacation and that if we actually made it to Gaza, I could lose my job. But I wasn’t afraid of that — not everyone gets an opportunity like this.”

Unexpected interception

The flotilla’s organizers expected Israeli forces to stop them somewhere between Cyprus and Gaza. Instead, Israeli troops boarded the yachts before they had even reached Crete. Movchan says that until the very last moment he thought the soldiers were Greek military personnel. He realized his mistake only when a weapon was pointed at him.

According to the activist, no one on the yacht was beaten during the detention. “At sea, they treated us more carefully so that nobody would fall overboard and there would be no casualties.” The detainees were gathered at the bow of the yacht, ordered to kneel, and subjected to searches. The cabins were searched, then the activists were then sent below one at a time to collect their belongings — everything they would need for a month in prison. Movchan was still not convinced he would be kept in custody for that long.

The detainees were transferred to an Israeli vessel, where they underwent questioning and further searches. No physical force was used against Movchan. However, he says that others were forced to move in a crouched position and were pushed around.

There was no physical violence, but detainees were forced to move in a crouched position and were pushed around

Nor does Movchan report any sexual harassment directed at himself or other members of the flotilla. However, after returning home, several activists claimed that they had experienced a total of 15 incidents of sexualized violence at the hands of Israeli personnel, while two female participants from Australia alleged that they had been raped. At the time of publication, no independent evidence or forensic examinations had been made public to substantiate those allegations. The Israeli side maintains that the accusations of sexualized violence “lack any factual basis.”

Movchan was among a group of more than 170 detained activists who were transferred to the custody of Greek authorities almost immediately. Two participants were held for about ten days before also being released. The Ukrainian activist says the experience was highly valuable: “Our goal was not only, or even primarily, to break the illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip. It was to break through a wall of stereotypes. In Ukraine, only the Israeli side of the story is presented.”

The right to impose a blockade

In the view of the “Sumud” flotilla participants, the blockade of Gaza is illegal. Israel, unsurprisingly, argues the opposite. The Israel Defense Forces press office summarizes the Israeli position as follows:

“The maritime area adjacent to Gaza is subject to a naval blockade imposed for security reasons in accordance with international law and is intended to prevent smuggling and terrorist activity that threaten the security of the State of Israel and its civilian population. The legality of the blockade and its enforcement under international law were also recognized by a special committee established by the United Nations for that purpose.”

A naval blockade is a formal concept in international law, defined as a method of warfare that may be employed during an armed conflict but that must nevertheless comply with a number of legal requirements. First and foremost, a blockade needs to be officially declared, as the Israeli action was all the way back on January 3, 2009.

For years, the legality of the Gaza blockade was questioned, primarily because the conflict is not between states but between Israel and Hamas, the terrorist organization that controls the enclave. Douglas Guilfoyle, a professor of international law at the University of New South Wales in Australia, notes that when the parties to a conflict are not states, a naval blockade can be established only if the conflict reaches a sufficiently high level of intensity.

The legality of the Gaza blockade was questioned for years because of the non-state nature of the conflict between Israel and Hamas

However, Wolf Heintschel von Heinegg, a maritime law expert and professor emeritus at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), Germany, counters that Israel’s position is supported by the 2024 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice concerning “Israel's occupation of Palestine.” As von Heinegg explained in an interview with The Insider:

“Occupation is one of the subcategories of an international armed conflict, and Hamas acts as the representative of the Palestinian side. That removes the corresponding question regarding the legality of a naval blockade. However, for such measures to remain lawful, they must meet certain criteria. The most important of these is effectiveness. That means any vessel attempting to breach the blockade must be intercepted.”

This may sound unusual, but as the expert explains the rule originates in British practice dating back to the nineteenth century. At the time, Britain was fond of declaring naval blockades without actually enforcing them in practice. The implication is that if any vessels — even activists’ yachts — are able to cross the blockade line, the legality of the blockade itself could be called into question.

The second basic requirement of a naval blockade is non-discrimination, meaning that it must be applied equally to vessels of all countries. In 1994, a group of experts adopted the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea. Although the document does not have the force of an international treaty and is not universally applied, it states that a blockade must not be intended to starve the civilian population or otherwise use starvation as a method of warfare.

“Israel is not blockading Gaza in order to create famine but to restrict the flow of weapons and ammunition,” von Heinegg points out. “Another interpretation, derived from the Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, concerns expected excessive harm and civilian deaths. In other words, the issue is not the existing situation but the harm that can reasonably be anticipated. And excessive deaths do not simply mean a large number of deaths — they mean a number that is disproportionate to the circumstances.”

In any case, such analysis has little bearing on the current situation in Gaza. Food and medical supplies continue to be delivered by land, and following the ceasefire, the humanitarian situation in the enclave did become less acute. The naval blockade does not affect those supply routes.

Whether there were weapons or other dangerous items on board is, from the standpoint of international law, largely irrelevant. As Douglas Guilfoyle explains:

“If the basis for stopping a vessel is that it is violating or attempting to violate a lawful blockade, the question is not whether it is carrying weapons. The question is whether it is knowingly attempting to enter or leave a blockaded area in defiance of the blockade. That is what distinguishes blockade law from the law of contraband.

The rules on contraband concern whether a neutral vessel is transporting weapons or other goods intended to support the enemy’s military effort and generally require at least reasonable grounds for suspicion. The rule governing blockades operates differently: it prohibits access to the blockaded coastline itself. Therefore, even a vessel carrying only civilians, food, or medical supplies may be regarded as violating the rule if the blockade itself is lawful.”

Since 2010, all flotillas have maintained that their purpose in attempting to break the blockade was to deliver humanitarian cargo to Gaza, but this does not mean that the blockading party is obliged to allow passage, von Heinegg notes. Nor does it mean that such cargo is exempt from inspection.

Guilfoyle adds that international law does not draw a clear formal distinction between a “humanitarian mission,” a “political protest,” and an “attempt to breach a blockade.” A single voyage may simultaneously be all three: carrying humanitarian aid, serving as a political demonstration, and constituting an attempt to break a blockade.

The legal assessment depends primarily on objective circumstances: whether a lawful blockade existed, whether it was properly declared, whether the vessel was aware of it, whether it attempted to cross the blockade line or enter the blockaded zone, and whether the enforcement measures taken were proportionate to the specific situation.

The legality of the detention

Much of the media coverage focused on the fact that the latest “Sumud” flotilla was intercepted far from its intended destination, and the blockade line itself lies a mere 20 nautical miles (37 km) from the Gaza coast. However, professor von Heinegg explains that the interception would have been unlawful only if it had occurred in another state's territorial waters — that is, within 12 nautical miles (22.2 km) of its coastline.

According to the expert, the activists made a major mistake by publicly declaring that their objective was to breach the blockade: “Once that intention had been announced, Israel acquired the legal right to intercept them on the high seas.” By contrast, he considers the actions of the Spanish government unlawful — specifically its 2025 attempt to provide naval escorts for the “Sumud” flotilla.

As for the methods used during the detention, this time there were no violent clashes. The situation was very different in 2010, when an attempt to break the Gaza naval blockade resulted in the deaths of ten people. In that case, the crew of the large vessel Mavi Marmara, which belonged to an NGO linked to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Turkish security structures, put up  armed resistance, and the Israel Defense Forces opened fire.

Israel was widely accused at the time of using excessive force. However, von Heinegg disagrees: “To detain blockade violators, a boarding party must get aboard the vessel and take control of it. During the seizure of the Mavi Marmara, the crew actively resisted. They threw fire extinguishers and other objects at the Israeli soldiers. When the soldiers began descending from helicopters on ropes, they were attacked with steel rods. And being struck with iron bars constitutes an immediate threat to life. If a crew engages in hostile actions, it loses its immunity.”

What followed was a battle of reports. A Turkish investigation placed full responsibility for the incident on Israel, while the Israeli version declared the operation entirely lawful. The final report of the UN Secretary-General’s panel, chaired by Geoffrey Palmer, attempted to satisfy both sides. It upheld the legality of the interception but concluded that the killing of nine people was an excessive response.

Douglas Guilfoyle agrees with that conclusion: Israel had the right to use force, but the force employed was excessive. He notes: “In practice, particularly when civilian vessels and civilian passengers are involved, such an operation should resemble law-enforcement or policing actions more than conventional battlefield combat.”

Participants in the “Sumud” flotilla maintain that they were “illegally abducted” by Israeli security forces. The IDF, for its part, stated that they were “enforcing a lawful naval blockade using recognized and lawful means in accordance with international law.”

Once participants in a blockade-running attempt are detained, they fall under the jurisdiction of the blockading party. Since some flotilla activists are suspected of having links to Hamas, it is entirely legitimate to hold them for investigative purposes, von Heinegg explains. Other participants, however, were released and allowed to return home almost immediately. The same principle applies to detained vessels: a court must decide whether to release them along with their cargo or to confiscate them.

In May 2026, for example, a court in Haifa ruled that 11 vessels from the previous year’s flotilla should be confiscated. The decision was based on the traditional Prize Law of 1864, which, despite its age, remains in force.

To an ordinary observer, the confiscation of a privately owned vessel may seem unusual. Under the law of naval warfare, however, a ship that knowingly violates a lawful blockade has historically been treated not merely as private property but as an instrument used to breach a wartime measure recognized by international law. For that reason, states may not only detain such vessels but also, through a specialized prize court, transfer ownership of them to the state.

Nevertheless, von Heinegg considers the actions of Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who mocked detained flotilla activists and recorded the incidents on video, to be unacceptable: “He humiliated people who were restrained, and that cannot in any way be regarded as humane treatment of detainees.”

Vincent Shebat, a former Israeli military intelligence officer and now an analyst with the nonprofit organization NGO Monitor, also considers Ben-Gvir’s behavior inappropriate. Shebat researches anti-Israel activities by international NGOs and their alleged links to terrorist organizations. He argues that the recent attempts to breach the Gaza blockade differ significantly from similar efforts 15 years ago, both tactically and when it comes to the composition of participants:

“The people aboard the Mavi Marmara were far more aggressive. The context has now changed. There is much more discussion of human rights and humanitarian aid, and the language of human rights advocacy is being used. Participants include members of the European Parliament and NGO activists — not only groups linked to Hamas operating under the guise of NGOs, but also genuine humanitarian organizations. Most of the people on these boats are what some would call ‘useful idiots.’ They are investing their efforts in a public-relations campaign organized by Hamas to portray Israel as inhumane.”

And if the objective really was to generate negative PR about Israel, Shebat adds, then Itamar Ben-Gvir’s actions helped make the activists’ operation a success.

Is the flotilla tied to Hamas?

Some activists and organizations involved in the “Sumud” movement are indeed under sanctions over their alleged links to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. The central figure among them is Saif Abukeshek, a Palestinian activist who holds Spanish citizenship.

Israel says that Abukeshek’s ties to Hamas have been proven based on documents obtained in Gaza. According to the Israeli government’s account, Abukeshek directly controls dozens of vessels in the flotilla through a front company called Cyber Neptune, which appears in Spanish corporate registries listing Saif Abukeshek as its sole manager. He denies, however, that he owns the vessels participating in the flotilla.

Since May 2026, Abukeshek has been subject to U.S. sanctions for supporting Hamas as a member of the General Secretariat of the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad (PCPA). The movement itself was added to U.S. sanctions lists in January of this year. “The strategic and tactical aspects of PCPA’s activities are controlled by Hamas through the appointment of key Hamas-affiliated figures to leadership positions within the organization,” the U.S. Treasury states.

Earlier this year, sanctions were also imposed on Zaher Khaled Hassan Birawi, a British pro-Palestinian activist who helped found of the PCPA and works as an organizer of blockade-running flotillas. Birawi was photographed at events with former Hamas Political Bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in an Israeli strike on his residence in Tehran in July 2024. Birawi participated not only in the “Sumud” campaign but also in the Mavi Marmara’s 2010 attempt to breach the blockade.

Birawi plays a central role in the current campaign, according to another Israeli NGO, the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. The organization’s researchers collect information from open sources and have compiled an extensive dossier on the “Sumud” movement. Representatives of the organization told The Insider that Israel, based on its own intelligence, identified Birawi as a Hamas member as early as 2010. The institute believes that U.S. authorities possess independent evidence linking him to the organization.

Finally, some flotilla leaders openly express their support for Hamas and the Lebanese group Hezbollah. One example is Thiago Ávila (he of the recent sex scandal). In November 2025, Ávila traveled to Beirut to attend the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, describing him as “one of the greatest figures in the region and in the history of the struggle against imperialism.”

Another flotilla leader, Muhammad Nader al-Nouri, has been photographed with Hamas Political Bureau member Ghazi Hamad. In an image from the same collection, two other members of the flotilla’s steering committee, Marouane Ben Ghattaya and Wael Naouar, are shown posing for a group photograph with Hamas representative Yousef Hamdan in Algeria. Also visible in the picture is Ihsan Ataya, a representative of Gaza’s other terrorist organization, Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Of course, U.S. sanctions do not carry decisive weight in European judicial systems. On May 27, a court in Rotterdam acquitted Amin Abu Rashed, one of the flotilla’s organizers in the Netherlands, on some of the charges against him. Prosecutors had sought a four-year prison sentence, alleging that he had raised millions in donations for Hamas.

The court found insufficient evidence that the funds raised by Abu Rashed had been directed to Hamas in Gaza. The judges also decided to “exercise caution” regarding the testimony of the prosecution’s principal expert witness due to the fact that his conclusions relied heavily on Israeli and U.S. reports.

In addition, the Rotterdam court noted that Abu Rashed’s main organization, the Israa Foundation, is not subject to European sanctions, even though the United States imposed sanctions on both the foundation and Abu Rashed himself a year earlier over their alleged ties to Hamas.

In the end, the Palestinian activist was convicted only of sanctions evasion and cooperation with the banned Al Aqsa Foundation. Abu Rashed received a short suspended sentence.

Why not simply let them through?

No one claims that the “Sumud” movement consists entirely of Hamas supporters. It also includes activists from nonprofit organizations, and the flotilla vessels did in fact carry humanitarian aid, even if only in symbolic quantities.

In theory, after inspection and screening, the cargo could have been allowed through the blockade, says maritime law expert von Heinegg:

“If some of the yachts had been permitted by Israel to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, that would not have been considered a breach of the blockade and would not have led to the blockade being deemed ineffective.”

The IDF press office did not answer The Insider’s question as to why Israel did not opt to inspect flotilla participants and humanitarian supplies and allow genuine humanitarian support to then enter Gaza.

Vincent Shebat believes there are two main reasons. First, “if you allow one boat through, next time there will be a thousand.” Second, the Israeli side does not want to “assume responsibility for activists and journalists if something happens to them inside the Gaza Strip.”

The Israeli side does not want to assume responsibility for activists and journalists if something happens to them inside the Gaza Strip

Those concerns are not unfounded. In 2008, at a time when Israel had already begun restricting access to Gaza but had not yet formally declared a blockade, two boats carrying European activists managed to reach the port of Gaza. Among them was Italian activist-journalist Vittorio Arrigoni, the son of the mayor of a small town on Lake Como.

In Gaza, Arrigoni engaged in activist journalism — largely the same kind of work that Ukrainian activist Andriy Movchan had hoped to undertake. But in 2011, Arrigoni was kidnapped by militants from an Islamist group unaffiliated with Hamas. He was tortured and killed.

At the same time, humanitarian aid can be delivered to Gaza without putting anyone’s life at risk. Israeli authorities offered participants in the recent flotillas the opportunity to hand over food and medical supplies in the port of Ashkelon and guaranteed that the cargo would be delivered to its intended recipients. The activists formally declined.

At the same time the maritime expedition was underway, other members of the “Sumud” movement attempted to reach Gaza by land. They were intercepted in Libya, surrounded, and subjected to violence. The local authorities stated that they would transfer the humanitarian aid through the Red Crescent. Activists who refused that arrangement were detained.

But the story is not over. According to project leader Behesti Ismail Songur, the next mission is expected to take place in the coming months. There is little reason, however, to believe that its outcome will be significantly different from that of the previous attempts.

The art of maneuver

By the mid-1990s, it was already clear that the top priority of Lukashenko’s foreign policy would be (re)integration with Russia, the former center of the USSR.  The young president of a small country situated in the heart of Europe hoped to outmanoeuvre the ailing Boris Yeltsin in order to become his successor, this time as president of a Union State comprising Belarus and the Russian Federation. Here, however, Lukashenko miscalculated badly. Vladimir Putin, who would not even entertain the possibility of a partnership with a smaller, weaker ally, took his seat in the Kremlin and sought the complete subjugation of Belarus.

Moscow’s assertive, even imperial, policy under Putin has forced Lukashenko,  himself an autocrat with a deeply Soviet mindset, to become a sort of defender of Belarusian sovereignty in order to hold on to power. 

Moscow’s assertive policy under Putin has forced Lukashenko to become a sort of defender of Belarusian sovereignty in order to hold on to power

Minsk sabotaged progress in the integration process within the Union State while simultaneously seeking alternative directions not only in the political sphere but perhaps above all in the areas of finance and economics in order to reduce its dependence on Russian oil, gas, and trade. Between 2000 and 2020, Minsk cooperated with the European Union and non-European states alike, creating the  enigmatic concept of a “great arc in Belarusian foreign policy.”

Although Russia remained the number one partner (particularly in the military and political spheres), Belarusian diplomacy invested considerable effort in diversification, with the most ambitious objective relating to trade. The aim was to achieve a “balance,” with 30 per cent each allocated to Russia, the EU, and non-European countries. This strategy was not ideal, particularly given the differing approaches to human rights and democracy among the various partners. As a result, the Belarus-EU dialogue would break down every few years, followed by long periods of stagnation and isolation for the regime. Cooperation with partners in Africa, Asia, and South America, on the other hand, was hampered by the high cost of logistics as well as mental and cultural differences. After all, for a small country in Eastern Europe, conquering distant markets and building real political alliances half a world away is no easy task.

The watershed year of 2020

The tragic course of the 2020 presidential election in Belarus — namely Lukashenko’s usurpation of power and the subsequent suppression of the resulting protest movement — led to a radical deterioration in the country’s political and social situation, felt most acutely by the section of society that was most critical of the regime and which was therefore subjected to the harshest repression. It also resulted in the collapse of dialogue with the West. Minsk effectively lost the ability to conduct a meaningful foreign policy towards the EU and the U.S. as a period of unprecedented sanctions and isolation of the regime began. The Belarusian authorities were unable to compensate for the loss of EU markets through increased activity on other continents as reality failed to keep pace with the ambitious declarations emanating from Minsk.

As a result, Belarus’s already significant dependence on Moscow increased substantially. Russia now accounts for around 90 per cent of Belarus’s foreign trade and 100 per cent of its oil and gas supplies. It is also the source of almost all remaining loans to Belarus and provides the majority of foreign investment.

The key factor in the Kremlin’s dominance, however, is the joint Russian-Belarusian aggression against Ukraine. The support Lukashenko gave to Moscow in February 2022 led not only to the loss of the highly lucrative Ukrainian market but also, it seems, irrevocably bound him to Putin. The Belarusian dictator, too, faces charges at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and the country he rules has faced successive packages of sanctions similar to those imposed on Putin’s Russia. Thus, Lukashenko, obsessed with retaining power at any cost, in effect traded a significant portion of his external autonomy in exchange for a guarantee of the Kremlin’s support for the continuation of his absolute rule.

Is Belarus’s foreign policy truly Belarusian?

Russia’s dominance in trade, energy, politics, security, and military cooperation has meant that, in recent years, Belarus has become a de facto satellite of the Kremlin. The degree of dependence is now so high that any strategic actions by Minsk relating to regional security or international policy are either consulted with “Big Brother” or are in fact part of a joint plan, the parameters of which were established on the Russian side rather than the Belarusian. 

Any strategic actions by Minsk relating to regional security or international policy are either consulted with “Big Brother” in Moscow or are part of a joint plan

An example of this is the migration crisis on the border between Belarus and Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia that follows  patterns previously employed on the Russian border with Finland and Norway. Russian modes of behaviour are also evident in the aggressive narrative of the Minsk regime’s media, in its anti-Western (and particularly anti-Polish) historical policy, as well as in statements by the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on current global events. To summarise the issue more succinctly, it can be said that the Belarusian authorities are currently operating in a state of war, having joined the conflict at Moscow’s request (or under its pressure). The struggle is being waged on two fronts: a hybrid battle against the West and a kinetic one against Ukraine, although in the latter case the Belarusian armed forces have not yet been deployed in combat (a fact that by no means implies Belarus’s neutrality).

Having ceded a significant portion of its sovereignty to Russia, Belarus has lost its credibility as an independent actor and player on the international stage. The role of Russian proxy ensures Lukashenko continues to receive political backing from the Kremlin, as well as various subsidies essential to his economy’s survival. Hence the Belarusian leader does not even conceal his coordination with Russia and instead often admits that he has agreed on something with Putin — such as the route and objectives of his tour of African countries in December 2023, which was supposedly intended to be a manifesto of Belarusian foreign policy independence.

Minsk as the “good cop”

An interesting aspect of the joint Russian-Belarusian foreign policy is the thaw in relations between Minsk and Washington that has been observed since the beginning of 2025, when Donald Trump’s return to the White House signalled Washington’s move away from a principled values-based policy towards a transactional approach. From that point on, every issue in American international relations became subject to negotiation and a cost-benefit analysis.

The context of the U.S.-Russian talks, which proceeded with varying intensity, opened up the possibility of parallel negotiations with Minsk — all the more so given that Trump took a personal interest in Belarus, seeing the potential for a quick success by persuading the regime to release at least some of its political prisoners. Still, despite the fact that several rounds of talks between June 2025 and March 2026 led to the release of over 500 prisoners, Lukashenko nevertheless refused to attend the February meeting of the Peace Council established under Trump’s patronage to resolve the situation in the Gaza Strip.

The Belarusian dictator’s caution was likely the result of consultations with Putin, who also declined the invitation. Thus, despite the appearance of autonomy, Lukashenko operates solely within the parameters set by his Russian protector. Washington’s dialogue with Minsk is, in principle, only possible in areas where it does not threaten Russia’s influence in Belarus; in some cases, the cooperation even benefits Moscow, as evidenced in the lifting of the embargo on spare parts for Boeing aircraft for the fleet of the Belarusian airline Belavia, which opens up potential opportunities for re-export to Russia, where such restrictions remain in place. It can therefore be assumed that, should the Russian-American dialogue break down, the regime will almost automatically follow suit, and the U.S. will once again become a target of Belarusian propaganda.

Looking at Minsk’s rhetoric towards the West, one can discern a recurring theme regarding the “peaceful” nature of a country that “will never attack any of its neighbours” and whose aim has always been “harmony and cooperation.” The pacifist tone evident in this narrative, with its focus on good neighbourliness, can only be interpreted as disinformation given Lukashenko’s close alliance with imperial, aggressive Russia. It therefore appears that, as part of the division of tasks between allies, Minsk has been assigned the role of the milder, more conciliatory state — one that, if necessary, can act as a mediator in peace talks. 

Minsk has been assigned the role of the milder, more conciliatory state — one that, if necessary, can act as a mediator in peace talks

Belarusian diplomacy is building on its image of success from 2014–2015, when the Belarusian capital was indeed the venue for talks between European leaders and Putin, culminating in the signing of the Minsk I and Minsk II agreements. The aim of the current maneuver, however, is primarily to create divisions among EU member states: between those ready to accept Minsk’s “friendly” offer and those that can be held responsible for the poor state of relations. In the Belarusian authorities’ calculation, the erosion of European unity in its policy towards the regime could pave the way for the easing of EU sanctions, which are far more painful than U.S. restrictions.

A useful subcontractor

The Ukrainian authorities were quick to recognise the risk of a gradual dismantling of Western sanctions regimes, hence the radical shift in Kyiv’s policy towards Minsk observed since January. In order to discourage its Western partners from improving relations with the regime, the Ukrainian side has in recent months been hyping the alleged threat of military aggression from Belarus — a claim that has no basis in reality but which nevertheless forces Lukashenko to make increasingly frequent assurances of his readiness for war. At the same time, the dictator declares on every possible occasion that he does not actually want war.

Both sides, in Minsk and in Kyiv, know that the scenario of a unilateral Belarusian aggression is unrealistic and that a threat will arise only if Russian units are concentrated in Belarus, as was the case at the turn of 2021 and in 2022. After all, the Belarusian army could field only 15,000-20,000 of its best-trained soldiers for a potential offensive.

The Belarusian army could field only 15,000-20,000 of its best-trained soldiers for a potential offensive in Ukraine

Another significant factor is the pacifist sentiment within Belarusian society — as well as within the army itself, among both soldiers and officers. Aware of this, Putin is unlikely to put pressure on his ally, so as not to inadvertently destabilise the internal situation in Belarus, nor to discredit a loyal satrap who has provided and continues to provide extensive support (logistical, political, propaganda, etc.) for the Russian dictator’s aggression against Ukraine. 

Nevertheless, the trading of accusations continues. This state of affairs is advantageous for the Kremlin as it allows it to maintain a state of uncertainty regarding the risk of an additional northern front opening up in the war with Ukraine, which would pose a serious challenge to the Ukrainian authorities and high command. In light of the arguments set out above, any speculation about the involvement of Belarusian troops in an attack on one or more NATO countries is even further removed from reality. Russia does not appear ready for this either, at least until it has secured a decisive victory in Ukraine.

Paris is currently taking an active approach. Despite the scaling back of French diplomatic activities in Minsk and the lack of any tangible gestures of goodwill from the regime, French diplomats have been heavily engaged in talks with the Belarusian side in recent weeks. According to confirmed media reports, on May 24 Emmanuel Macron telephoned Lukashenko, allegedly attempting to persuade him to “distance” himself from the conflict in Ukraine. Then, in early June, special envoys from Paris travelled to the Belarusian capital, including the head of the French intelligence agency DGSE, Nicolas Lerner. However, media speculation persistently returns to the hypothesis that such interlocutors are merely endeavoring to reach Putin via his closest ally.

Lukashenko’s game, full of contradictions and inconsistencies, only becomes more comprehensible when his actions are seen as part of a hybrid operation planned and carried out jointly with Russia. Crucially, the Kremlin’s strategy — hostile to the West and imperial in nature — is of decisive importance in these actions, while Belarus plays the role of a more or less useful subcontractor.  

Despite having a large fleet deployed in the Indian Ocean, the Americans initially did not seek to enforce a halt on Iranian shipping, probably because of expectations that the regime would rapidly collapse. For weeks after the start of the war, Iranian tankers continued exporting oil and cargo ships continued reaching Iranian ports, some of them even carrying weapons and components used by Iranian factories to produce weapons.

Only on 13 April, five days after the ceasefire came into place, did the U.S. Navy impose a blockade, and even that took a long time to have any tangible effect. In fact, the blockade seems to have been quite an improvised move. In the first 24 hours, sources in the IRGC Navy say, a couple dozen Iranian ships got through, and another dozen followed them in the next 12 hours, including several that were under sanctions. Unloaded tankers trying to get back to Iran were targeted, rather than loaded tankers on their way out of the Persian Gulf — perhaps because the Americans wanted to avoid large oil spills or heavy loss of life. The Iranians threatened to end the ceasefire if any Iranian ship was hit.

According to sources in the IRCG Navy, a couple dozen Iranian ships got through the American blockade in the first 24 hours

Initially, the Americans relied on threats to enforce their edict, but then they began to seize Iranian ships. The first one, the container ship Touska, was taken only on April 19, six days after the start of the blockade. In the following week, four more Iranian ships were seized before the U.S. Navy resorted to stronger forms of coercion. On May 6, the rudder of the Iranian merchant ship Hasna was hit by 20 mm cannon fire in the Gulf of Oman, and over the next two days two more Iranian vessels also came under attack. Then, after a three-week lull, ships sailing under shadow flags started being attacked too.

When the U.S. Navy started hitting Iranian merchant ships, the Iranians started retaliating, launching missiles and drones at U.S. ships. These attacks appear mostly to have been intended as a warning, as they were not of a sufficient scale to saturate the defences of U.S. ships. However, the Americans had achieved their aim: once the threat of violence became credible, the U.S. Navy had much more success in turning ships around, and most captains obliged to follow American instructions despite being ordered by the Iranian authorities to resist such orders. Empty tankers could not make it back to Iran to be reloaded, and by June the blockade was more or less complete as far as ships entering or exiting the Persian Gulf were concerned.

Iran took advantage of the slow U.S. response

Nevertheless, the U.S. delay in implementing its blockade had given  Iran precious extra time. In mid-April, Iran had about 170 million barrels of oil on tankers spread around east and south-east Asia, enough to keep selling oil for 4-5 months even if the blockade was fully implemented. But because the blockade was initially very porous, the amount of Iranian oil stored at sea kept growing, and by late April the trade intelligence firm Kpler was estimating the figure at 190 million barrels.

The U.S. exemption from the sanctions still applied to Iranian oil, and the low supply caused by Iran’s blockade of Hormuz had pushed the price of Iranian oil back to market price levels — which by then were much higher than before the war. Throughout March, April, and most of May, Iran no longer needed to sell oil at discounted prices, although by late May they were again offering discounts to Chinese buyers due to declining Chinese demand caused by high stocks and low margins. Overall, Iranian oil revenue during these 12 weeks was much higher than it had been before the U.S.-Israeli campaign began.

Iranian oil revenue during these 12 weeks was much higher than it had been before the U.S.-Israeli campaign began

Then, as enforcement of the blockade became more effective, the amount of Iranian oil stored on tankers at sea started shrinking. By the first week of June, it had declined to 147 million barrels, but still, considering the fact that by June China had reduced its purchases from Iran to around 1.1 million barrels per day, Tehran still has 4-5 months to go before it hits a financial crisis.

Oil surplus problem

The most immediate problem Iran is facing is the fact that it needs to store the oil it produces but cannot consume or export. As Iran ran out of tankers to load, it started filling its storage tanks on the Kharg island terminal to capacity. By the end of April, a source in the Iranian oil trade was estimating that all storage tanks would be full within 2-3 weeks. After that, he believed that the only options would be shutting down the wells, which the Iranian government would like to avoid at all costs, so as to avoid possible damage, as well as the high costs implicit in restarting the wells.

The tanks on Kharg Island were in fact full by May 13, but another source in the Iranian oil trade noted that some stopgap measures had been developed, such as ushering back into service 41 sea tankers that had been withdrawn from service. These were filled by the first week of June, but by then some old oil tanks on Kharg Island had been fixed and reactivated, adding 10 million extra barrels of storage (which were expected to be filled within 12 days).

Another measure taken by Iran to manage the effects of the blockade has been organising alternative routes via land. One rail route to China via the Caucasus and Central Asia was opened, and it is capable of carrying about 150,000 barrels per day. In addition, a number of truck routes were opened to Turkey, Pakistan, and Afghanistan (though some of the oil moved on these routes appears to have been smuggled). Overall, these truck routes account for another 80-100,000 barrels daily. Such land routes might be developed further, but as noted by a source in the IRGC, it would take a long time to achieve significant results. For a substantial part of Iran’s pre-war exports to move by land, he estimated it would easily take one year.

According to an IRGC source, there are still 270-300,000 BPD that Iran is able to export by sea from the Jask terminal in the Gulf of Oman, typically to India following a route close to the coastline. The total amount exported by Iran is currently in the range of 500,000-550,000 BPD, compared to 1.2-1.4 million before the blockade took effect and the 1.9 million that were being exported before the war began.

Despite the U.S. blockade, Iran retained some of its ability to export oil by sea

Different independent estimates by trade intelligence firms, based on shipping data, showed Iranian exports via sea routes at 209,000-260,000 BPD in May. These figures are quite close to those mentioned above, and the difference can be explained by the fact that Iran now moves oil by sea with ship transponders switched off. Indeed, according to the same IRGC source, plans were drafted for smuggling oil by sea using small ships and boats, although it is not clear whether such plans have been implemented.

Financial downside of ending the war

Despite all these efforts, by June it was clear that Iranian oil production levels had to be lowered. The initial plan to close some wells was dropped after oil engineers argued that this could cause serious damage, permanently reducing output. Instead, the engineers reportedly figured out how to reduce oil output by about 30% without shutting wells down, according to a source in the Iranian oil trade. From a total daily output of 3.5 million barrels, the total fell to about 2.4 million barrels in June. Of these, about 1.6 million BPD are consumed internally and, as discussed above, 500,000-550,000 BPD are exported. The 250,000-300,000 excess production is being stored for now, but eventually production may have to be cut further — that is, unless Iran is able to quickly expand the capacity of its land routes.

Unless Iran is able to quickly expand the capacity of its land routes, it will have to further cut production

By early June there were some 67 million barrels of Iranian crude and condensate in storage, according to Kpler estimates. This means that if the Iranians managed to eventually strike a deal with the Americans, they would have enough reserves to export oil at their previous full capacity of 1.9 million BPD for several weeks at least  while they bring production back to full capacity. It is not clear how long it would take to restore full output levels, but the moment the two Hormuz blockades are lifted, oil prices are all but certain to start falling. Paradoxically, therefore, Tehran’s oil revenue might well end up being lower once the war definitely ends, especially if oil sanctions against Iran stay in place.

This explains why Iran has been in no rush to end the standoff. Tehran needs to have oil sanctions lifted permanently if it is to benefit from an agreement, meaning that for the Islamic Republic, a bad peace looks more risky than war.

The Telegram channels Astra and Exilenova+ have published photos and footage of a major fire that broke out on the refinery grounds. Astra counted at least five separate fire hotspots. The Ukrainian OSINT project KiberBoroshno reports that strikes were recorded on the Moscow Refinery’s tank farm, the G-43-107 catalytic cracking unit, the visbreaking unit area, and a facility producing methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) and oligomerate.

The Moscow Refinery had already been attacked overnight into June 16. According to Reuters sources, that strike hit the refinery’s main crude distillation unit, which accounts for 53% of the plant’s processing capacity. Following the attack, the refinery suspended operations. The facility was also targeted in an earlier drone attack in May.

The Kapotnya refinery has a processing capacity of 11 million metric tons of crude oil per year, covering about 40% of Moscow’s fuel needs and 70% of the Moscow Region’s demand for gasoline and jet fuel.

In the town of Zhukovsky near Moscow, a drone struck an apartment building, according to Moscow Region Governor Andrey Vorobyov. No casualties were mentioned in preliminary reports.

According to Mayor Sobyanin, a total of about 180 drones were shot down on approach to Moscow. The Russian Defense Ministry’s morning briefing added that air defense systems intercepted and destroyed 555 Ukrainian UAVs overnight over the Astrakhan, Belgorod, Bryansk, Volgograd, Voronezh, Vladimir, Kaluga, Kursk, Lipetsk, Oryol, Smolensk, Tambov, Tver, Tula, Rostov, and Ryazan regions, as well as Moscow and Moscow Region, annexed Crimea, and the waters of the Sea of Azov.

Elsewhere, a drone attack sparked a fire at an oil depot in Gukovo, in Russia’s Rostov Region. Regional Governor Yury Slyusar reported that one person was killed in Gukovo and two others were injured.

The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) imposed the fine on Sabre Global Technologies due to its relationship with Russian carrier Ural Airlines. Sabre continued providing the Russian airline with access to its global distribution system for seven months after the UK imposed sanctions on Moscow in May 2022.

According to the OFSI, after payment channels involving British banks were suspended, Sabre asked Ural Airlines to send a test payment to one of its nonbank accounts outside the UK, with the intention of concluding future settlements using the alternative method. Sabre voluntarily disclosed the violations.

Overall, the UK government has imposed restrictions on more than 3,000 individuals, legal entities, and vessels. In May, the OFSI fined Deutsche Bank’s London branch 165,000 pounds, and in March it fined Apple’s Irish unit 390,000 pounds for violating financial sanctions against Russia.

On June 16, reports confirmed that the UK would be the first country to include tankers carrying liquefied natural gas in a new sanctions package against Russia. According to the UK government’s website, the new package targeted Russia’s “shadow fleet,” sanctions-evasion schemes, and networks linked to the procurement of Western technology for the Russian military. London said the new restrictions would bring the number of UK-sanctioned vessels linked to Russia’s “shadow fleet” and LNG exports to more than 600.

Sabre Corp. is a U.S. travel technology company that provides software and booking infrastructure to airlines, travel agencies, hotels and other travel businesses. Its global distribution system allows travel agents and online platforms to search fares, book tickets and manage reservations, making Sabre part of the back-end infrastructure behind much of the international travel industry.

“We have gathered extensive evidence as part of the investigation. That evidence is being continuously analyzed. We are collecting all available information — analyzing digital materials, surveillance footage and witness testimony,” he said.

No suspect has yet been identified or detained.

Kozak previously said that an unidentified individual shot Skrepetsky several times between 9:30 and 9:45 a.m. on the morning of June 15. Five wounds were found on the victim’s upper chest and head. Shell casings and one 9 mm bullet were found at the scene.

About an hour before his death, Skrepetsky wrote on his Telegram channel that his latest protest in Berlin — which involved pulling a Russian flag from a slit in the back of his pants before placing it into a trash bin — had resulted in online backlash.

“The trick with the flag really pleased Russian patriots. Various [Chechens] are promising that Kadyrov himself, personally, on Putin’s orders, will rape me,” the artist wrote.

In his work, Skrepetsky regularly mocked Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and his son Adam, depicting them as pigs. He also painted several works showing Ramzan Kadyrov having sex with Vladimir Putin and made a pencil sharpener shaped like a naked Kadyrov positioned down on his knees. The artist recorded several videos showing himself inserting pencils into the sharpener.

As early as 2025, Skrepetsky wrote on his Telegram channel that “bearded [homosexuals] from Kadyrov’s academy have been fighting with me on Instagram all day.” A longtime subscriber to the artist’s work told The Insider on condition of anonymity that Skrepetsky regularly received threats from Chechens on Instagram. In early June, his account on the platform was blocked.

Semyon Skrepetsky moved from Russia to Poland in 2021.

Traber is the closest associate and business partner of Tambovskaya organized crime group leader Vladimir Kumarin (Barsukov), who has been in prison in Russia since 2007. One of the crimes for which Kumarin was convicted involved his group’s corporate takeover of the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal, which supplied fuel to the city’s Pulkovo Airport. In May 1996, St. Petersburg Deputy Mayor Vladimir Putin signed an order to lease the Pulkovo fuel supply complex to the company Sovex (ЗАО «Совэкс»). As an investigation by The Insider revealed in 2017, this company was controlled by the same people as the oil terminal: Traber, Dmitry Skigin, and Sergei Vasiliev. According to Sovex co-founder Maxim Freidzon, Putin demanded a kickback in exchange for the “gift” from the mayor's office and negotiated at length with the principal owner, Skigin, asking for 15% of revenues but ultimately receiving only 4%.

Freidzon also recounted that Traber served as the liaison between the Tambovskaya organized crime group and the St. Petersburg mayor’s office. Skigin transferred all control of the terminal to the gangsters in 1997–1998. When Skigin died in 2003, Tambovskaya gang members orchestrated an assassination attempt on Freidzon. He survived, but the effort succeeded in forcing him out of the business.

Western airlines that used Pulkovo transferred payment for fuel to the Liechtenstein-based offshore firm Horizon International Trading, which owned both Sovex and Monaco-based Sotrama. When Monaco launched an investigation into the Tambovskaya gang’s money laundering activities, a travel ban was imposed on Skigin, who is described in the case materials as “Traber’s man from the Tambovskaya gang.” According to Monaco police, Skigin brought Traber to the Côte d'Azur on multiple occasions. Spain issued an Interpol wanted notice for Traber on suspicion of participation in a criminal organization.

Traber and Vasiliev had remained close to Putin even since. The Insider’s sources named them among guests at the president’s birthday celebrations in 2004 and 2016, where they sat in places of honor.

Wiretaps of Gennady Petrov’s telephone conversations, made public in a Spanish court during proceedings regarding money laundering carried out by Russian nationals linked to the Tambovsko-Malyshevskaya organized crime group, revealed that the “Tambovskies” secured favors not only from Russian officials and members of the security services, but also from Putin personally. More details can be found in The Insider’s courtroom report.

Another investigation by The Insider revealed that one of the Tambovskaya gang’s other key assets, the St. Petersburg Fuel Company (PTK), may also link Traber to Putin, as it was created with the active participation of the St. Petersburg mayor’s office. The company’s CEO, Vladimir Smirnov, served as the first director of the Ozero cooperative, and its vice president was none other than Tambovskaya gang leader Vladimir Kumarin (Barsukov). Immediately after PTK’s creation in 1995, Putin signed Decree No. 292-r “On the Creation of a City Reserve of Motor Fuel,” providing for the purchase of large volumes of fuel from PTK using public funds from the city budget.

Earlier today, in connection with the arrest of Traber, law enforcement officers in St. Petersburg also conducted searches at the home of Gennady Petrov, the leader of the Petrovsko-Malyshevskaya organized crime group, as reported by the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel and iStories. Details of the search at Petrov’s residence are not yet known.

In the 1990s, Petrov moved to Spain, where local law enforcement placed him under surveillance. In 2008, he was detained in Majorca but was later released on bail and returned to Russia.

As The Insider reported, wiretapped conversations revealed that Petrov had conducted business with Major General Sergei Korolev, currently the First Deputy Director of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). Petrov also maintained personal and business relations with St. Petersburg Prosecutor Sergei Litvinenko, and the wiretaps indicated that he was one of the de facto leaders of the United Aircraft Corporation.

During the Spanish court proceedings, Petrov was described as a former KGB officer. It was at the Soviet security agency that he met his “close friend” Vladimir Putin. Novaya Gazeta reported, citing sources, that Petrov may have been an “unofficial informant” of the agency. 

A month after the article was published, Harxon sent a “clarification” to several of the company’s partners. In it, the Harxon claimed Anthony Zheng “is not an employee of our company” and that his business activity was “solely his personal actions and those of his behind-the-scenes associates.” Harxon also denied producing antennas from the GI and HXTX series, saying it strictly follows the law.

The Insider examined Zheng’s employment history and found that Harxon’s claim about his status with the company is false. On Harxon’s page in the Made in China business directory,  Anthony Zheng was directly listed as a sales manager in the company’s international department; notably, that page was deleted after The Insider’s article was published. In addition, last year Kordil Surveying & Engineering Ltd. took to LinkedIn to thank “Harxon Corporation and their representatives Masha Wu and Anthony Zheng” for visiting the company.

Zheng also appeared at Harxon’s booth at the INTERGEO 2023 international trade fair. He appears in the frame at the 33-second mark, looking at his phone. His name is even visible on his badge.

Harxon’s official website also contains a post about GEO Business 2023 with a photo of Anthony Zheng.

References to Zheng’s place of work also remain on the popular aggregator RocketReach. The page is a snapshot of Zheng’s LinkedIn profile, taken after it was deleted following publication of the article.

Masha Wu, who first responded to The Insider’s inquiries and then passed the deal along to Zheng, was not mentioned in Harxon’s response. However, according to her LinkedIn profile, her work at the company ended in May 2026 — after the article was published.

In August 2025, CNN Brasil reported on the disappearance of 25-year-old São Paulo resident Anderson de Oliveira Ferreira. That February, he had traveled to Russia, telling his mother, Helade de Oliveira Medeiros, that he was going to work in private security. By summer, she had learned that her son had in fact gone to fight in Ukraine — on the Russian side. His fellow soldier told Medeiros that Anderson had not returned from a combat mission. He left behind a five-year-old daughter.

Anderson Ferreira was a victim of fraudsters who recruited Brazilians into the Russian army, then misappropriated the payments owed to them. Brazilian nationals Arthur Michel Kreff Avalone and Antonio Vicente de Aguiar Neto offered assistance to Brazilians interested in signing military contracts. Then, upon their arrival in Russia, volunteers were taken to a notary under the pretext of visiting a “military psychologist.” There they were forced to sign a document in Russian: a power of attorney form granting the recruiters access to their bank accounts. As The Insider established, more than ten Brazilians fell for the scheme run by Avalone and Neto.

Helade Medeiros sent The Insider photographs of her son’s military identification tag, along with copies of his passport, military ID, contract with the Russian army, and documents proving that in February 2025 her son had signed a power of attorney in favor of a person named Arthur Michel Kreff Avalone, registered in Moscow at 2 Bolshaya Tulskaya Street, room 95.

The address matches the Shelterz Hostel, which accommodated arriving military volunteers, according to one of the victims of the fraud. The Insider also has screenshots from a banking app proving that Avalone withdrew approximately 2 million rubles ($27,600) from Anderson Ferreira’s account.

Alfredo, another Brazilian who signed a contract with the Russian army through the mediation of Avalone and Neto, said that the fraudsters had stolen $34,500 from him. He provided screenshots from his banking app showing withdrawals made in the name of Avalone, as well as a card registered to his account under the name A DE AGUIAR NETO. Money was also stolen from six more of Alfredo’s fellow soldiers — two of whom, including Anderson Ferreira, were killed in combat.

Another victim of Avalone and Neto was 44-year-old historian Fabio Santos. According to his sister, Terezinha Sedei, Santos went to war “because he always had a great interest in issues of war and geopolitics.” Before his departure, Santos also corresponded with Avalone and Neto. In May 2025 he posted photos from Russia on Instagram, including pictures of him together with Neto. “While cowards flee, the noble seek glory! Mother Russia,” Santos wrote. The recruiter commented: “We’re together, brother!”

Santos last contacted his family on July 11, 2025. According to his relatives, his phone has been in someone else’s possession ever since. Attempts to get a response from the recruiters were similarly unsuccessful.

“The war will be over before you complete training!”

According to Alfredo, he contacted the recruiters through a private Telegram chat that foreigners looking to join the Russian army used in order to exchange information among themselves. The chat was set up in early December 2024.

Alfredo forwarded The Insider voice messages from Avalone in which the recruiter claimed that he and Neto planned to enlist before Dec. 20 of that year, suggesting that all foreigners who could make it to Russia before that date go to the recruitment center together. He also offered to take care of those who arrived later, promising that those who had already enlisted would ask their battalion commander to help the newcomers.

Avalone assured everyone that the war was about to end and that those who came now might not even have to fight: “All you need to do is come to Russia, sign the contract, and the money will come — 100,000 reais [$19,700]. Training starts right away. It's quite possible that while we’re in training, a peace agreement will already have been signed. So let's take advantage of the situation, guys.”

Neto, for his part, spoke about the prospects of obtaining Russian citizenship. “For those willing, there is an opportunity to get citizenship right away. Russia is, in my opinion, the most protected country. One of the best places in the world to live. Russia has a significant advantage in the number of soldiers and artillery. We will be well protected,” he assured everyone.

Visa problems held up Alfredo until February 2025, when he finally reached Russia along with several other Brazilians. Upon arrival, Avalone and Neto immediately took the group to a bank, where Alfredo was issued two bank cards. As it later turned out, a third card had also been linked to his account — and remained with the fraudsters. After the bank, the recruits were taken to the fake “military psychologist,” where their phones were taken away before they were pressured to sign powers of attorney in favor of the recruiters.

“Once we signed the contracts, Avalone and Neto told us we had to pay a million rubles each [$13,800] to be sent to a good location at the front,” Alfredo recalls. “We agreed so as not to quarrel: in a few hours we were supposed to leave for the training center.”

“We were told to pay a million rubles each to be sent to a good location at the front”

Already at the training center, the recruits figured out they had been deceived: “We realized we’d signed powers of attorney in a language we didn’t understand. We looked up the place where they’d taken us. One of my fellow soldiers had a Russian girlfriend. She confirmed that it was a notary’s office.”

Alfredo could not block the bank card that remained with the fraudsters, let alone cancel the power of attorney. “We don’t know if they are continuing to drain our accounts; the army could do nothing to help us,” he said. The Brazilian later filed a complaint with the military prosecutor's office and managed to have a criminal case opened.

Assistance with the contract “in cooperation with the government”

In January 2025, Avalone and Neto created a Telegram channel to recruit volunteers from Portuguese-speaking countries — Brazil, but also Angola — into the Russian army. By the end of March, Avalone reported having recruited more than 50 foreigners into the Russian army. The very first message in the channel emphasized that assistance with military contracts was provided “on a non-profit basis” and in cooperation “directly with the Russian government.”

For people purportedly acting on behalf of the authorities in Moscow, the Brazilian recruiters were remarkably uninformed about Russian specifics. Their public Telegram channel was presented as if it were a secret: “We have no other channels, especially not WhatsApp, which can easily be tracked by the enemy. For those who don't know, Telegram is a Russian app (spies will be in despair). So we only share information here.”

The recruiters presented their public Telegram channel as being secret

The first group of recruits arrived in Moscow in the midst of the New Year holidays, and the military recruitment offices were closed. Avalone and Neto announced in the channel that “due to the Christmas holidays in Russia, the army instructed them to begin recruitment on January 9.”

The fraudsters may indeed have been working in tandem with military recruitment office staff. Starting from Jan. 1, 2025, Russia tightened the rules for purchasing SIM cards for foreigners: suddenly, a personal visit to a mobile phone store and biometric data submission were required. However, Avalone wrote in the channel that “the guys from the recruitment office” had several “trusted contacts” willing to register a SIM card in a recruit’s name remotely.

A Brazilian from Donbas

In addition to Avalone and Neto, the lineup of foreign recruits’ also featured Brazilian mercenary Rodolfo Cunha Cordeiro (call sign ‘MacGyver’), who had been participating in combat operations in Donbas since 2014. Avalone posted interviews with MacGyver on his Instagram page, calling him a “war hero and officer of the Russian army.”

MacGyver is indeed a veteran of the Donbas war and the recipient of numerous “combat merit” awards from the army of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic.” The Insider, however, found no confirmation of his officer status in the Russian army. According to the Ukrainian project InformNapalm, in 2016 Cordeiro served as a sniper-reconnaissance soldier in the Slavyanskaya 1st Separate Motor Rifle Brigade.

One of The Insider’s sources claims that MacGyver was in on the fraudulent scheme organized by Avalone and Neto from the very beginning: “He was streaming on TikTok, talking about this war and encouraging people to join the Russian army. Since he himself was a soldier and assured everyone that everything was fine, many people fell for it.”

When asked by The Insider whether Cordeiro is currently fighting, he replied: “He says so, but we don’t believe it, since his Instagram stories show him living an ordinary life."

From reality show to military recruiter

At the very start of the war in Ukraine, Antonio Neto condemned Russian aggression. On Feb. 25, 2022, the popular Brazilian website Globo published an article titled “After nine years in Russia, a doctor from Rio Grande do Norte decides to return to Brazil following the start of the war in Ukraine.”

The article told the story of Antonio Neto, who had come to Russia to study medicine, lived in a city near the border with Ukraine, and feared shelling. “There are cold wars that are fought through sanctions. We thought this war would be something similar. But no. This is bombardment,” he said. The Brazilian complained that due to bureaucratic delays he could not leave Russia immediately, but he wanted to do so as soon as possible in order “to be in my mother's arms.”

By the beginning of the full-scale war, Neto had already earned a degree from Maykop State Technological University and was completing a residency in plastic surgery at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia. An administrative ruling by the Labinsk court of Krasnodar Krai, issued against Neto in February 2019 after he was cited for drunk driving, stated that Neto was a student at MSTU and, “given his difficult financial circumstances,” requested that the payment of his 30,000-ruble [$413] fine be spread over three months.

By the summer of 2021 the Brazilian’s financial situation had improved: Neto became a participant on the reality show Dom-2, where he announced that he was launching a business with a planned monthly income of at least 500,000 rubles [$6,900]. He showed off a diamond-studded watch.

Arthur Avalone also studied at Maykop University. In a 2017 article — “How to Study in Russia?” — Avalone recounts how he found “a Brazilian student who could help him get into a university for free.” Judging by a photo in the article, this student was Antonio Neto.

In 2024, Avalone began actively posting complimentary videos on social media about Vladimir Putin’s policies, life in Russia, and the benefits of serving in the Russian army. Neto also appears in one of the videos. “Are you going to go serve in the army?” one commenter asks. “Yes, brother. He [Neto] will be a military medic, and I’ll go as a soldier,” Avalone replies, inviting anyone interested to check out his Telegram channel for more information.

Avalone apparently never went to war, continuing to post videos from Moscow parties. Neto, on the other hand, began posting videos in military uniform and carrying weapons starting from February 2025. However, being at the “front” did not prevent him from working as a cosmetologist in Moscow, as evidenced by numerous reviews on the Profi.ru portal. The Insider’s sources note that Neto’s uniform in the videos resembles an airsoft outfit.

“They don't even talk to us”

Neto and Avalone appear to be banking heavily on their “business.” In September 2025, Avalone even registered the local equivalent of a sole proprietorship in São Paulo, with “travel agency” listed as the type of activity. However, by October the fraudsters had vanished without a trace. Their social media accounts have not been updated, their Telegram accounts show a “last seen a long time ago” status, and there have been no reviews of Neto as a doctor on Profi.ru since October 2025.

However, in January 2026, Avalone”s girlfriend, Alina Rybakova, left a comment on her Instagram suggesting that the Brazilian is still in the picture. He had previously given her a dog, and in a reply to a follower who commented on a video she posted featuring the pet, Rybakova wrote: “My boyfriend and I are also like yin and yang, it was he who gave it to me, so it turns out to be a copy of himself :)”

Still, a source for The Insider said that the fraudsters had left Russia and may be in Brazil, making it very difficult to hold them accountable.

After the recruiters disappeared, Rodolfo ‘MacGyver’ attempted to convince the mothers of the missing soldiers they had recruited to sign powers of attorney in his favor — purportedly in order to find out what had happened to their children and to collect insurance payments. The editorial office has voice messages in which one of the women recommends his services to others: “Only if you talk to Rodolfo and sign a power of attorney for him will he find out where your son is.”

According to one mother, the families have indeed failed to obtain any information from Russian officials on their own: “We are being sent from one office to another. They don't even talk to us. Everything is very complicated there. We hired an interpreter, but they didn’t have the information we needed. And now Rodolfo is going to help us.”

The Insider contacted the woman who recorded these messages, but she refused to speak with the publication. The editorial office is aware that several mothers refused to sign a power of attorney for MacGyver and sought qualified legal assistance instead.

“Russian propaganda is at work”

The Insider first made contact with Alfredo in early April 2026. At that time, the serviceman wrote that he would be leaving the combat zone by the middle of the month. He planned to go to Moscow and from there to Brazil “to rest.” On May 15, the Brazilian sent The Insider a photo taken in front of the Cathedral of the Armed Forces in the Moscow region and confirmed that he would soon be flying home.

A source for The Insider in Brazil said that after Avalone and Neto disappeared, recruitment did not stop. He told the story of a mother whose son also went to Russia and has not been in contact. According to the source, this man had been recruited through an agency registered in São Paulo that charged a 50% commission off the recruit’s signing bonus from the Russian Ministry of Defense. In exchange, the agency promised that recruits who signed a contract with its mediation would not be sent to the front lines.

The Insider spoke with Natalia Sekretareva, head of the legal department at the Memorial Human Rights Center, who lives in Brazil. “Beyond the historical love for the Soviet Union, Russian propaganda is at work here,” the lawyer noted. “No one has banned Russia Today, and as far as I know, they produce quality content for South America — not the tabloid propaganda of [Russian domestic television]. You can watch an RT documentary on YouTube and not even realize it was produced by RT. And this propaganda works, to a great extent, even on intelligent, thoughtful people.”

The key problem is linked to the GU-503 (ГУ-503) gyroscope unit, a Soviet-era aviation instrument adapted for the Oreshnik. The unit tracks the missile’s position in flight, but a deviation of even half a degree can lead a missile flying at hypersonic speed to miss its target by dozens of kilometers. According to a letter dated March 18, 2025, the company JSC MZP (АО «МЗП») told its customer that mass production of the GU-503 had stopped, that the technological equipment used to calibrate and test it was developed in the early 1970s, that much of the equipment had failed, and that there was no substitute to replace it with.

That means that even if components are available, factories cannot test the gyroscope’s accuracy before final assembly. Dallas Analytics writes that pressure from Putin to meet tight deadlines forced manufacturers to abandon standard quality control procedures entirely. A forensic examination of debris from Oreshnik missiles recovered in Ukraine found markings on GU-503 units indicating they had been produced in 2025. Dallas Analytics says that this proves a planned modern replacement for the gyroscope was never implemented.

Dallas Analytics says the production problems explain the trajectory of Putin’s public statements. After an Oreshnik strike hit a garage cooperative in Bila Tserkva in May 2026, the Russian president was forced to recast the obvious failure as having been part of the plan all along. At a news conference during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum earlier this month, Putin said the strike on a civilian site was intentional — carried out “for the convenience of observing the accuracy” of the warheads. Putin’s commentary effectively acknowledged that the missile was still in testing, even though he had previously made repeated claims that serial production had begun.

Earlier reports and assessments by open source intelligence (OSINT) analysts indicated the real target of the attack on Bila Tserkva was supposed to be the city’s cargo airfield.

What’s behind the disinfo campaign?

The campaign was triggered by recent statements from U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who announced in May that she will be leaving her post on June 19. On June 12, a press release put out by Gabbard’s office announced the declassification of material related to U.S. government funding for more than 120 biological laboratories in more than 30 countries, including Ukraine.

The U.S. does indeed support scientific work internationally, and attached to the press release was a PDF file containing four pages of presentation slides and other documents outlining details of those efforts. The documents accuse the Biden administration of hiding that information from the American public.

This is not the first time Gabbard has addressed the issue. In 2022, she echoed a well-known Russian propaganda narrative claiming that the very real laboratories in Ukraine were involved in developing biological weapons — a claim with no evidentiary basis. In reality, the “biolabs” are part of international efforts to monitor and control disease outbreaks. Their existence, and Washington’s involvement in funding them, were not a secret. In April 2020, the U.S. State Department publicly said its role in the projects was to help modernize Soviet-era laboratories and monitor pathogens.

A “gift” for the Kremlin

The topic of “American biolabs in Ukraine” remains a popular propaganda narrative in Kremlin-controlled media. Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and even Vladimir Putin, have referred to them on multiple occasions (1, 2, 3, 4).

Unsurprisingly, the Kremlin-linked Matryoshka bot network did not ignore Gabbard’s recent remarks.

What is Matryoshka?

Over the past several days, the network’s bots have published at least six different videos disguised as content from various outlets, including The Insider. The videos address not only U.S. “biolabs,” but also the alleged involvement of other countries in the projects.

In one video presented as coming from the English-language edition of Deutsche Welle, France is falsely accused of “using Ukrainian orphans” to test experimental drugs. The video claims that French Health Minister Stéphanie Rist confirmed this by saying the tests were “fully legal.” Another video, presented as coming from Reporters Without Borders, supposedly “welcomes” the disclosures and transparency of U.S. authorities and says it “expects the same” from the French government.

One video, falsely presented as content from Politico, compares the alleged exposure of a “biolab network” in Ukraine to the world learning the truth about Nazi Germany’s concentration camps.

The fakes also shift blame onto the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Another video claims that organizations and media outlets funded by the agency took part in a campaign against U.S. intelligence and Gabbard personally after they supposedly exposed the “truth” about the laboratories. The outlets and journalists that were claimed to have published such information include Bellingcat, Voice of America, and The Insider’s Christo Grozev.

A separate video impersonating The Insider claims that the disappearance of more than 34,000 people in Ukraine since 2014 is connected to the work of the “biolabs” and that the highest number of disappearances was allegedly recorded in areas where those laboratories operate.

The network is not only faking videos. It is also fabricating front pages of major print outlets, including The Guardian, Le Figaro, and The Globe and Mail. One fake claims that Guardian columnist Simon Tisdall published an article titled “Everything we refer to as Russian disinformation turns out to be true. The confirmation of the existence of biological laboratories in Ukraine is just the beginning.”

The Insider has obtained links to the original posts and materials from AntiBot4Navalny confirming that the accounts that posted them belong to the Matryoshka network. The newsroom is not publishing direct links to the posts to avoid helping spread the disinformation.

Exporters

According to data obtained by The Insider, almost all the fiber-optic cable sent to Russia in 2025 came from two Chinese companies: Foshan Beyond Import and Export and Hubei Guanqun Import and Export. The companies were also listed as fiber manufacturers; however, no such manufacturers exist on the market. Other suppliers accounted for a negligible share, and around $600,000 worth of shipments listed a sender that was hidden in the documentation.

The first company’s name was listed in Russian documents with a deliberately distorted transliteration. In reality, it is called Foshan Bangyang Import and Export Co. Ltd. The distorted name does not necessarily indicate an attempt to conceal the nature of the business. It is more likely a practice common in China, where companies choose English names based on how they sound rather than as an exact translation.

Foshan Bangyang Import and Export Co. Ltd. has an account at China Bank of Communications. In response to an inquiry from The Insider, China Bank of Communications replied: “After careful consideration, our bank has decided not to accept the interview at this time.” This apparently means it declined to comment.

Importer

More than 80% of the fiberglass imported into Russia went to two recipients: individual entrepreneur Yermek Amandykovich Suyundukov and the company Inkab LLC (ООО «Инкаб»).

Suyundukov appears to be a citizen of both Russia and Kazakhstan who is living in Chelyabinsk and is involved in the business of steel trading. The delivery address for the fiber was listed as the territory of the Shusha («Шуша») enterprise near the St. Petersburg customs office in Shushary. In total, Suyundukov imported 120 tons of fiber into Russia from January through March 2025. A drone fiber-optic spool weighs about 2 kilograms, meaning that amount would be enough to provide communications for tens of thousands of drones.

In addition, in the first quarter of last year alone the Kazakh businessman imported 140,000 lithium-ion batteries worth a total of $3.5 million and 50,000 electric motors with a capacity of 1 kilowatt (i.e., a type suitable for drones). During the same period, Suyundukov also imported 65,000 “fiber-optic communication devices,” 450 kilograms of electronic boards for video cameras (each measuring 38 by 38 millimeters), 15,000 optical lenses, and 160 kilograms of propellers.

In Russia, Suyundukov certified equipment matching the profile of his imports: batteries from Dongguan Henghui Electronic Technology, battery chargers from Dilong New Energy Technology Hebei, and machines from Shanghai Rui Tai Photoelectric Technology for winding fiber-optic cable onto drone spools. He also certified specific “old-fashioned Soviet” ONTS-BS-1(2) bayonet connectors. Suyundukov did not respond to The Insider’s inquiries.

Inkab LLC is a major manufacturer of optical cables for civilian use, and drone spools are not formally listed among its products. In 2024, according to VAT data reviewed by The Insider, Inkab LLC had transactions with military enterprises, including JSC VNII Signal and the Tula-based JSC Instrument Design Bureau. A journalist for The Insider called Inkab LLC and was told the company could sell ready-made drone spools.

The Insider’s journalist also found out that the Inkab plant produces not only optical cables for civilian use but also cables for aerostats of the sort that are used by the Russian military to install jammers, relay systems, and surveillance stations. Inkab also makes cable terminations and connectors of any type, from protected to standard models.

An earlier investigation by The Insider and Nordsint found that Chinese companies continue to sell Russian companies critical components for the production of military drones, despite Beijing’s severe restrictions on exports of such goods since 2023. Chinese suppliers have built supply schemes using payments in national currencies through Chinese banks and Russia’s VTB, as well as in cryptocurrency, the SWIFT network, and Western financial systems. The Insider found that most of the Chinese supplier companies listed in invoices for such purchases do not appear in recent customs data, even though some of their goods are already physically present in warehouses in Russia.

Elon Musk has managed to outpace his main artificial intelligence rivals, Anthropic and OpenAI, by becoming the first to complete preparations for an initial public offering (IPO). In effect, Musk has seized from them the opportunity to attract large-scale and scarce investment capital.

The primary purpose of a traditional IPO is to raise public equity capital to scale production, modernize technology, or expand into new markets. Investors, in turn, gain the opportunity to acquire a stake in an operating business in anticipation of future returns, relying on established stock market regulations. However, the listing of Elon Musk’s aerospace corporation SpaceX on the Nasdaq does not conform to these fundamental principles.

SpaceX is the technological leader in its industry, having effectively monopolized the market for commercial orbital launches. Its subsidiary Starlink, which provides Ukraine with communications terminals during the war, has ensured critically important, reliable connectivity and the uninterrupted operation of the country’s government and civilian infrastructure. In 2025, Starlink generated about 60% of the parent company’s $18.7 billion in revenue. Nevertheless, the valuation at which the offering was conducted has raised concerns among independent financial analysts.

Rather than reflecting a reasonable valuation supported by current cash flows, the market is confronting what experts describe as long-term speculative valuation strategy. The SpaceX IPO risks becoming a large-scale mechanism for transferring risk, in which the ultimate buyers of overpriced shares will not be sophisticated venture investors but ordinary citizens, since the structure of the offering in many ways resembles crypto schemes built around AI hype.

The economics of “selling a dream”: a history of unfulfilled promises

According to the company’s own assessment, SpaceX is expected to achieve an astronomical market capitalization of between $1.75 trillion and $1.77 trillion. That would place it among the ten most valuable publicly traded corporations on the planet. To understand how far removed this figure is from economic reality, it is necessary to examine the company’s financial performance during the most recent reporting period.

In 2025, SpaceX generated total revenue of $18.7 billion. At the same time, the corporation recorded a net loss of $4.9 billion. By contrast, all of the world’s five most valuable companies were profitable in 2025. For example, Microsoft ended the year with $128 billion in profit, an increase of 17% compared with 2024. Other technology giants also posted strong results: NVIDIA reported enormous earnings, Apple revamped its strategy, while Alphabet (Google) and Amazon likewise demonstrated high profitability. As a result, a deeply loss-making business valued at nearly one hundred times its annual revenue is arriving on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

A deeply loss-making business valued at nearly one hundred times its annual revenue is arriving on the Nasdaq stock exchange

Starlink’s satellite business did indeed generate an operating profit of $4.4 billion. However, this only means that Musk’s other experimental and research programs consumed and burned through more than $9 billion in a single year. Independent research firm Morningstar estimates SpaceX’s fair value at closer to $780 billion, concluding that the company’s valuation is inflated by more than a factor of two.

To justify such an enormous gap, SpaceX relies on the mechanism of forward-looking statements. The scope of this mechanism was significantly expanded by the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The corporation officially claims that it intends to capture a share of the emerging artificial intelligence market worth more than $28 trillion – a figure comparable to the entire annual GDP of the United States.

These projections include plans to deploy 100 gigawatts of computing data centers in Earth orbit, launch one million satellites, colonize Mars, and build a self-sustaining city there with a population of one million people. At the same time, SpaceX’s management acknowledges in its own filings that it is currently impossible to determine either the timeline or the feasibility of these initiatives because the necessary technologies do not yet exist, as detailed by analysts at The New York Times.

In recent years, Elon Musk has repeatedly been criticized for failing to deliver on public promises. Advertising revenue at the social media platform Twitter (now X), which he owns, fell by roughly one-third instead of achieving the promised threefold increase. The Boring Company’s Hyperloop project of high-speed underground transportation has not progressed beyond receiving verbal approvals. Tesla’s Cybertruck, marketed as being capable of amphibious operation, has not demonstrated the advertised capabilities in practice. Finally, SpaceX itself failed to fulfill a five-year, $2.9 billion contract with NASA to develop a lunar landing vehicle.

Nevertheless, the rules of the modern stock market have changed. Thanks to the businessman's large social media following, investors are increasingly buying into personal faith in a corporate leader rather than financial performance, turning shares into something resembling viral “meme assets.”

Mergers and acquisitions: How troubled AI assets became part of SpaceX

One of the main reasons for rushing the IPO in mid-June 2026 was the urgent need to refinance internal debt across Musk’s business empire, as well as competition for liquidity in the artificial intelligence market, where startups such as OpenAI and Anthropic are also preparing public offerings. To position SpaceX not merely as a space transportation operator but as a leader in the high-tech sector, a large-scale internal corporate restructuring was carried out earlier this year.

Investors had previously provided Musk with roughly $7 billion to finance the acquisition of Twitter. The structure of these transactions and the capital raising involved were covered in detail by major business media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and CNBC. After a radical shift in the platform’s policies led to an exodus of major advertisers and a decline in the asset’s valuation, these same holdings were converted into equity in a new artificial intelligence startup, xAI.

In February of this year, xAI, together with all of its liabilities and the social media platform X under its control, was absorbed by SpaceX. For accounting purposes, xAI was assigned a valuation of $250 billion in the transaction, which was paid for with newly issued SpaceX shares. Shareholders of xAI, which includes X (formerly Twitter), were likely pleased with the merger, as the social media platform under Musk’s leadership never generated the profits that had been promised. By converting these holdings into SpaceX shares, investors gained an opportunity to recoup their losses.

Some SpaceX investors, by contrast, believe that the merger granted xAI investors a larger stake in the combined company than they deserved. As a result of the transaction, xAI investors received roughly 20% of the merged entity’s shares, sparking intense debate in the market. Details of the deal can be found in reporting by The Guardian and investigations by The Wall Street Journal (a copy of the article is available in the web archive).

According to analysts, the transaction resembles an exercise in artificial valuation inflation. xAI’s flagship product, the Grok chatbot, lacks an substantial standalone user base, while the IPO prospectus effectively counts users of the X platform as customers of the AI service. Moreover, after the deal was completed, Musk himself acknowledged that xAI’s software required a complete overhaul.

At present, the financial performance of this structure appears viable only because of a computing-capacity leasing agreement with rival firm Anthropic, which pays $1.25 billion per month. Incorporating these debt-laden and financially unstable divisions into SpaceX enabled the holding company’s overall valuation to be inflated, while the $80 billion raised through the IPO will be used not for space exploration but to cover existing obligations, including a recent $20 billion bridge loan.

The most critical aspect of the upcoming IPO, affecting millions of ordinary investors, is the unprecedented change in regulatory rules implemented by Nasdaq itself. In an effort to beat the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in the competition to host the largest listing in history, Nasdaq’s management made sweeping concessions to the issuer.

A special “fast track” was introduced for ultra-large companies – so-called megacaps with valuations of around $1 trillion or more. Under the new rules, SpaceX will be added to the Nasdaq 100 index just 15 trading days after its market debut. Previously, the rules required a lengthy “seasoning” period and liquidity assessment for newly listed shares, which could last up to a year. In addition, the standard requirement that at least 10% of a company’s total equity be floated on the public market was waived for SpaceX; the company will offer only 5% of its shares. These actions by Nasdaq have already drawn sharp criticism from prominent market participants, including Michael Burry.

The standard requirement that at least 10% of a company’s total equity be floated on the public market was waived for SpaceX – the company will offer only 5% of its shares

The risk inherent in this arrangement lies in the mechanics of modern passive investing. Roughly half of the U.S. stock market is now controlled by index mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which are managed by automated algorithms. The sole purpose of these funds is to mirror the composition and weighting of companies within an index, completely disregarding their actual valuation or profitability.

The inclusion of SpaceX in the index requires these funds to purchase SpaceX shares automatically and on a large-scale at what may be their peak valuation, using money entrusted by investors. Following Nasdaq’s lead, similar rule changes are now being considered by index providers FTSE Russell and S&P. As a result, even citizens who never intended to buy Musk’s stock directly may find their retirement savings automatically used to provide liquidity for the offering.

Silicon Valley's culture of mutual protection: Lessons from WeWork and the role of investment bankers

The current developments surrounding SpaceX reflect a deeper distortion within Silicon Valley’s venture capital ecosystem, where an insulated system of mutual financing and loss socialization has emerged. The largest players – investment banks, venture capital funds, and technology entrepreneurs – have created a model in which the failure of one project is offset through the aggressive marketing of the next.

A vivid example of this system is the story of the coworking startup WeWork. The company, whose manifesto grandly promised to “elevate the world’s consciousness,” inflated its valuation to $47 billion before collapsing into bankruptcy, leaving outside investors with enormous losses. Meanwhile, its founder departed with a personal fortune of $1.7 billion and soon succeeded in raising another $350 million from leading venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz for a new venture. A similar example of this cycle of impunity can be found in fintech company Bolt. In 2025, its board of directors reinstated Ryan Breslow as chief executive officer, despite the fact that he had previously stepped down amid allegations that corporate metrics had been falsified.

In the case of SpaceX, the key American financial conglomerates – Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, and Citigroup – are serving as underwriters and lead managers of the offering. They have a direct interest in maintaining the company’s elevated valuation, as their underwriting fees are tied directly to the amount of capital raised. The same financial institutions that previously provided financing for the acquisition of Twitter are now being paid to manage the SpaceX IPO, completing a cycle in which capital circulates within the same network of participants.

Secondary markets and risks for retail investors: How to protect capital

An additional source of risk is the large and opaque secondary market that developed around SpaceX shares during the years the company remained private. Because direct purchases of equity stakes were restricted by the issuer’s stringent internal rules, outside investors relied on special-purpose vehicles (SPVs) to gain exposure to the company.

Demand for SpaceX shares led to the creation of multilayered ownership structures involving as many as five intermediaries, each collecting its own fees. As a result, many pre-IPO investors are far from certain about the exact nature of the assets they legally own.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s experience investigating financial crimes shows that enthusiasm surrounding Musk’s companies has repeatedly attracted fraudsters. In late 2023, a financier was sentenced to a lengthy prison term after defrauding investors of approximately $6 million by selling nonexistent stakes in SpaceX. In December of last year, authorities arrested investor Giovanni Pennetta, who had established a fraudulent structure to trade shares in defense contractor Anduril. When SpaceX begins trading publicly, many retail holders of such proxy investment vehicles may encounter legal complications or discover that they have no claim to actual underlying assets at all.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s experience investigating financial crimes shows that enthusiasm surrounding Musk’s companies has repeatedly attracted fraudsters.

The primary risk to the broader market may emerge 180 days after the IPO, when the statutory lock-up period for early insiders and senior executives expires. Once they are legally able to cash out, major private funds may begin selling shares on a large scale, locking in multibillion-dollar profits. Passive index funds, however, constrained by Nasdaq’s rules, will be required to continue holding these potentially declining securities on their books, with losses ultimately borne by ordinary participants in pension programs.

The only effective legal means of protecting capital in such a situation, according to proponents of this view, is through case law and active oversight by institutional investors. For example, Danish pension fund AkademikerPension officially announced a complete boycott of the SpaceX IPO, citing unacceptable regulatory and financial risks.

Financial experts recommend that private investors promptly contact their pension providers and asset managers to request limits on investments in high-risk, unaudited mega-cap issuers until their valuations undergo a full market correction. In an environment where traditional market oversight mechanisms have been weakened, safeguarding savings increasingly becomes the direct responsibility of investors themselves.

According to the experts' report, malicious actors could exploit the unreliability of these systems in order to cause explosions or oil spills, making shadow fleet tankers even more dangerous to sailors and the environment than was previously understood.

“We’ve known for years that the dark fleet posed significant physical risks, because we knew they were operating old ships, they weren’t maintaining them,” said Rear Adm. Jason Tama, head of the Coast Guard’s Cyber Command. “But what we didn’t know until these boardings was what type of cyber risks were aboard these ships.”

It was found that the vessels are often equipped with communication systems providing constant internet connectivity, allowing tanker owners and operators to remotely interfere with shipboard systems using remote desktop applications such as AnyDesk and TeamViewer. At least one case was identified in which digital data was deleted remotely after U.S. personnel boarded the vessel.

Some tankers were also discovered to be operating pirated software infected with malware. Moreover, the infected computers are connected to the vessels’ critical operational and navigational systems.

“For a vessel that’s carrying tens of millions of gallons of crude oil, which is highly volatile, there’s always a risk of fire explosion,” Tama said. “The atmosphere in the tanks has to be very carefully managed to ensure that you’re not going to get a situation where there’s a fire explosion. And then there’s always a risk of an oil spill.”

Several tankers were found to have multiple AIS devices installed. In one case, specialists found equipment that allowed switching between several vessel names when transmitting a location signal. Such equipment allows shadow fleet ships to conceal their true route.

The Coast Guard report confirms that the detained tankers were not accidentally involved in sanctions evasion but were deliberately designed for illegal activity, Michelle Wiese Bockmann, senior maritime intelligence analyst at Windward AI, told the WSJ.

In December 2025, the United States launched a global campaign against the shadow fleet, seizing vessels carrying Russian, Iranian, and Venezuelan oil at sea. On June 14, the United Kingdom detained a Russian shadow fleet tanker in the English Channel for the first time.

Among the senior GRU officers, London listed:

• Nikolai Sazhin
• Ruslan Koshkin
• Alexander Votchenko
• Sergei Mazurik
• Alexander Matrosov
• Roman Gaivoronsky
• Dmitry Zubkov
• Stanislav Popov
• Konstantin Strafilov
• and Maxim Mamontov

The UK government links some of them (including Mamontov and Popov) to sanctions evasion schemes focused on the procurement of foreign-made equipment and military technologies via shell companies.

Also sanctioned were several Russian companies and banks, including Yandex Bank and Wildberries Bank, as well as two companies linked to the A7 crypto payment system, which was created by Promsvyazbank and fugitive Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor.

The new sanctions also targeted Russia's “shadow fleet,” specifically LNG-carrying tankers. It is noted that the United Kingdom is the first G7 country to impose sanctions on a range of LNG tankers acquired by Russia to service the sanctioned Arctic LNG-2 project.

The attack on Moscow’s core oil refinery was confirmed by mayor Sergei Sobyanin, who stated on his Telegram channel that a total of around 60 drones had been intercepted on approach to the city. One of the drones, however, “damaged a facility on the territory of the Moscow Refinery.” No casualties have been reported.

Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ reports that the strike hit the Kapotnya Refinery, and that a fire broke out at its primary oil distillation unit ELOU AVT-6 — the “heart of the plant.” 

Eyewitnesses are posting photos and videos of the fire.

The Moscow Refinery (MNPZ) is the key fuel producer for the capital and the surrounding Moscow Region. The facility belongs to Gazprom Neft PJSC and has been targeted by drones on multiple occasions. Following a massive drone attack on Moscow in mid-May, the refinery temporarily suspended operations.

Other Russian regions also came under drone attack overnight into June 16. Authorities in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai reported a fire at an oil depot, purportedly caused by “falling debris from a UAV.” No casualties were mentioned. 

On June 12, Russia Day, Skrepetsky staged what turned out to be his final performance. Outside the Russian Embassy in Berlin, he pulled a Russian flag from a slit in the back of his pants and threw it into a trash bin. He then walked near the embassy with a painting showing Stalin holding an infant Putin. Skrepetsky wore bast shoes (traditional Russian peasant footwear made of woven bark), an ushanka fur hat, and an orange-and-black St. George’s ribbon (a Russian military symbol that has become associated with pro-Kremlin support for the war against Ukraine).

Three days later, around an hour before he was killed, Skrepetsky wrote on his Telegram channel that the protest in Berlin had “really pleased Russian patriots,” who responded with threats of sexual assault. The satirist posted a screenshot of a comment that read: “Kadyrov will personally rape you on Putin’s orders after the war. And finding you is a six-second job. So, get ready. By the way, don't forget the lube.”

Skrepetsky was a Russian artist, blogger, and political émigré who relocated to Poland in 2021. In his artwork and public actions, he mocked Vladimir Putin, the Russian authorities, and the war against Ukraine. He also took part in protests against the Belarusian regime of Alexander Lukashenko. 

On Monday, June 15, a London court convicted two men over their involvement in the arson attacks on Starmer’s property:

• On May 8, 2025, a burning Toyota that had previously belonged to Starmer was found in London.
• Three days later, unknown attackers set fire to an apartment in the London borough of Islington where Starmer had lived several years earlier.
• On May 12, attackers set fire to the door of a house in north London. The property belonged to the British prime minister, but his sister-in-law and her family were living there at the time.

Three people were detained in the case, and earlier today a jury found two of them guilty: Roman Lavrynovych, a 22-year-old Ukrainian citizen, and Stanislav Carpiuc, a 27-year-old Romanian citizen of Ukrainian origin. Another suspect, Petro Pochynok, was acquitted.

According to the journalistic investigation, Lavrynovych was recruited by an unidentified Russian-speaking handler who went by the Telegram nickname “El Money.” The handler promised his Ukrainian recruit money in exchange  for carrying out various tasks, from putting up posters and making graffiti to carrying out arson attacks. After the final fire, El Money wrote to Lavrynovych that he had “attacked the home of a very high-ranking person in Britain” and that he “needed to leave the city.” Lavrynovych was arrested soon afterward.

The Russian handler

Prosecutors did not disclose El Money’s identity, but the BBC has identified him as 23-year-old Evgeny Lyukshin. The outlet described him as the “son of a senior Russian official” and a “young Russian diplomat,” adding that Lyukshin’s father had previously served as a counselor at the Russian Embassy in Denmark. The younger Lyukshin studied at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), Russia’s elite diplomatic university.

The Insider established that Evgeny Lyukshin is indeed the son of Alexander Evgenyevich Lyukshin, a chief adviser at the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Situation and Crisis Center. Both father and son are registered in Moscow at 91 Profsoyuznaya St., one of the sites where departmental apartments were issued to SVR employees. The movements of Alexander Lyukshin’s car also point to a connection with the SVR.

The BBC also published several photos of the younger Lyukshin. In one, he appears with “future diplomats” who attended courses run by Rybar, one of Russia’s largest pro-war media projects. The channel was founded by Mikhail Zvinchuk, a former employee of the Russian Defense Ministry’s press office. In the group photo, Lyukshin’s face is blurred, but it is visible in another photo. The Insider confirmed that the facial features of the person identified by the BBC match those of the Foreign Ministry official’s son.

The BBC reported that the El Money account was in chats linked to Rybar or Wagner Group, and that in some messages the account claimed to have access to NATO and CIA documents because his father had worked in Europe.

At the same time, the younger Lyukshin’s personal account shows a very different side of his life — one that looks like the typical life of an undergraduate. For example, in his free time, Lyukshin attends parties with other MGIMO students. Using the IONA service, The Insider found a mention of Evgeny Lyukshin in a friend’s channel. The friend shared Lyukshin’s contact details and wrote that he was “looking for a beautiful girl with a ponytail and brown pants from MGIMO” whom he had seen at a concert.

The Insider’s correspondent wrote to Evgeny Lyukshin, but he had not responded by the time of publication.

Fake far-right movements

Lyukshin recruited Lavrynovych in late 2024 after finding him in a group for Ukrainians seeking work in Britain. At first, he paid Lavrynovych to put up posters around London advertising the activist far-right group Direct Action, a group that the Financial Times and the BBC discovered was only pretending to be British. In reality, the movement was run by people in Russia who used VPNs to conceal their location.

The Russia-based organizers also ran the group’s social media accounts. On its X page and Telegram channels, for example, the movement offered money to followers for setting fire to police cars. However, Direct Action’s Russian-speaking authors sometimes made mistakes that exposed them, such as accidentally inserting Cyrillic characters into English-language posts or publishing posts indicating that they were in a Russian time zone.

Direct Action was also behind a series of anti-Islamic graffiti incidents in early 2025. Lavrynovych admitted in court that he took part in two such actions. By the time El Money offered him pecuniary compensation to set fire to Starmer’s car and homes, the two had been working together for about seven months.

Direct Action emerged after the start of the war in Ukraine and is also suspected of attacks on Swedish government institutions and banks, government bodies in Spain, and agencies in other NATO countries. The Financial Times linked it to resources affiliated with the hacker group NoName057(16).

The European Union was completely unprepared for a large-scale war on the continent — psychologically even more than militarily. In February 2022, Brussels appears to have had no contingency plans for such a scenario. However, since the situation was so unambiguous —  there was a clear aggressor and a clear victim of aggression — choosing sides was quick and straightforward. As a result, Russian Central Bank assets were frozen almost immediately, sanctions were quick to follow, and a price cap on Russian oil was eventually also introduced. The military response, though less swift, took the form of new collective security concepts, greater integration of EU member states' defense industries, and the creation of defense programs such as EDIP, SAFE, and EDF. However, the most serious difficulties emerged in what should have been the European Union's strongest facet of the geopolitical game: diplomatic efforts to end the war.

Brussels' approach to negotiations has undergone three major transformations.

The first stage (and the longest) lasted until the end of 2024. During this period, Europe ceded the initiative entirely to the United States while leaving Kyiv to determine what outcome to the conflict would be acceptable. An informal axiom took hold: "What works for Ukraine works for us." Accordingly, the EU consistently backed the Peace Formula that was put forward by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in late 2022.

In the early weeks of the war, a few European leaders — France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Olaf Scholz, Austria’s Karl Nehammer — maintained cautious contact with their counterpart in Russia, but even these sporadic conversations came to an end after the disclosure of the Russian atrocities committed in Bucha. After that, the only European leader to visit Moscow was Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, and then only in 2024, when his country held the rotating presidency of the EU.

European contacts with Ukraine were, of course, far more frequent and friendly, but they were only barely more effective. Several conferences, including the Swiss Global Peace Summit in June 2024, helped create a favorable diplomatic environment for Ukraine and kept the ongoing war in the public eye, but these produced few tangible results. Even the usually optimistic Der Spiegel focused its coverage largely on the summit's positive optics rather than on any concrete achievements.

Europe’s second stage coincided with Donald Trump's return to the White House — and its consequences for transatlantic solidarity and European security. Europe was not yet prepared to fully step out of Washington's shadow to begin making a decisive contribution to ending the bloodshed in Ukraine, but it had nevertheless begun to develop an agenda of its own.

Trump's inconsistency, his overt attempts to court Putin, and his efforts to place equal responsibility on both sides for their failure to reach a deal alarmed Brussels, and the “Spirit of Anchorage” prompted Europeans to act by publicly backing Zelensky at the White House on Aug. 18, 2025 — firmly rejecting the idea of "a fragile peace in exchange for territorial concessions" and signing security guarantee agreements with Ukraine.

Trump's inconsistency and his overt attempts to court Putin genuinely alarmed Brussels

Later that year, the EU openly torpedoed Trump's 28-point peace plan and, for the first time, proposed an alternative document that transformed the original American proposal beyond recognition. In January 2026, a number of European states declared their readiness to deploy military contingents along a future demarcation line. Meanwhile, the "Coalition of the Willing" put forward a range of possible frameworks for the deployment of European peacekeepers in Ukraine.

Negotiations with Russia were no longer rejected outright, yet Russia itself was not explicitly named. This approach was reflected, for example, in the policy paper “Future of the European Security Architecture,” published by the European Parliament's research service and available here.

The third stage is still developing.

The transformation of the EU's position is evident in the statements of one of the Kremlin's most consistent critics, Finnish President Alexander Stubb. Helsinki has significant experience managing relations with Moscow, and it harbors very real concerns about its own security. As recently as late 2025, Stubb argued that in order to be able to offer Ukraine serious security guarantees, Europe would have to be prepared to fight Russia. And yet, by May of 2026, he was calling for direct talks with Russia so as not to leave the diplomatic field exclusively to Trump.

The European Union's response to Putin's suggestion that former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder should serve as Europe's chief negotiator was equally revealing. Unsurprisingly, Schröder's candidacy was met with near-unanimous rejection across the EU, with Berlin describing the proposal as an element of Russia's "hybrid warfare." Still, no leading European figure rejected the idea of negotiations with Russia over a possible settlement to the war in Ukraine. On the contrary, since late May, Europe's leading politicians and experts have increasingly stressed the need for negotiations and their readiness to engage in them, even discussing specific candidates for the role of the EU's chief representative.

At a meeting in May, the EU’s foreign ministers stressed the need to foster negotiations, and this month, reports about a "window for dialogue between the European Union and Russia" have appeared. According to sources within the German government, even German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, one of Putin's most outspoken opponents, has declared that European participation in negotiations with Russia is necessary.

Consensus and newfound confidence

What has prompted European leaders to change their attitude toward potential negotiations with Russia? The answer involves a combination of factors, but the biggest one is Ukraine itself, which has mounted a sustained campaign of large-scale strikes against the Russian military’s logistical networks.

The Kremlin's central wager on a war of attrition against a smaller opponent is now beginning to work against Russia. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) praised Kyiv's new strategy, which was also endorsed by France's leading think tank. Combined with Russia's evident military weakness and economic fragility, Europeans see an opportunity to begin serious negotiations — nothing like the rounds held in early 2026, which German analysts openly described as a "theater for Trump."

Traditionally, the main internal European obstacle to participation in negotiations is objection from the bloc’s smaller member states. Historical experience and a sober assessment of their own capabilities gave them ample reason to fear that Europe's heavyweights would strike a deal with Putin behind their backs and without regard for their interests. Now however, those concerns now appear to have been dispelled, and a consolidated continent is seeking to speak in a "common European voice" — meaning the combined efforts of the EU and the United Kingdom.

"The common European voice" – meaning the EU together with the United Kingdom – is becoming the only viable option for negotiations

Zelensky is acting in concert with his European partners. In his recent letter to Putin, the Ukrainian president not only declared his readiness to negotiate directly with the Russian dictator, but also explicitly identified Europe as a necessary participant in the process.

It was clear from the outset that Putin would reject Zelensky's proposal. Now, however, Ukraine and Europe have irrefutable counterarguments to use against those who accuse Kyiv and its allies of failing to make a sufficiently determined effort to resolve the conflict through diplomacy.

In practical terms, EU leaders would risk little by entering potential negotiations. The joint statement issued in London by the E3 and Ukraine already signals a different role for Europe in the negotiating process. For now, the document resembles previous statements in terms of its specifics, but its tone is markedly firmer. It refers to the contact line only as a starting point for future negotiations and explicitly links the fate of frozen Russian assets to the Kremlin's future conduct. Moscow will undoubtedly recognize the document's central message: the next offer will be worse for you.

Finally, by becoming more active in the peace process, Europe is expanding its geopolitical influence and further emancipating itself from the United States. Moscow has fully inherited the Soviet tendency to dismiss America's European allies, regarding only Washington as its true equal. The European Union remained Russia's largest trading partner, yet in the Kremlin's view, it was the Americans who conducted "high politics" on behalf of the West.

That attitude contributed to Brussels' lack of confidence in its own capabilities. Now, however, Europe appears to be shedding its hesitation. Major geopolitical actors must be able to put out fires on their own borders without waiting for help from elsewhere. If the EU is learning how to address the challenges of war by effectively supporting Ukraine and strengthening its own defense capabilities, it must also learn how to address the challenges of peace.

Washington's blessing

Trump's June "sort it out yourselves" response following Putin's rejection of Zelensky's message marked the culmination of a 15-month period of often chaotic efforts by the new U.S. administration to secure at least a ceasefire in the Russian-Ukrainian war. Having built the foreign policy component of his election campaign around criticism of Joe Biden’s support for Ukraine, Trump inherited a political burden he could neither carry comfortably nor discard, becoming a hostage to his own ambitions.

It is possible that Trump's team lacked sufficient expertise on the region and the conflict itself. His first presidency came after the annexation of Crimea and during a period of relative stagnation in the Donbas war. Trump's remarks about the conflict during his first four years in office were few and far between, even if it was indeed his decision that supplied Ukraine with Javelin anti-tank missile systems.

It appears that Trump never had a concrete plan for ending the war. Instead, he relied on a familiar business tactic: applying pressure to both sides in the hope that one of them would prove more willing to compromise.

Ukraine, as the "weaker side" in the American president's view, received the greater share of that pressure. After receiving Putin and bringing the two delegations to the negotiating table, Trump was unable to break the deadlock. Kyiv and Moscow staged what amounted to a performance for an audience in Washington, while the Kremlin continued to insist on terms that were clearly unacceptable to Ukraine, as they were tantamount to capitulation.

Then, in the fall of 2025, Trump began to argue that Europe should take the lead in providing security guarantees to Ukraine. He was now insisting that the EU's role extend beyond that of a diligent patron covering NATO contributions and financing weapons for Kyiv. Europe, in his view, should also become a geopolitical actor capable of negotiating peace and overseeing the implementation of any agreements if facilitated.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio's speech at the Munich Security Conference in February was intended, at least in part, to encourage Europe to join the efforts to end the war in Ukraine, and by May he acknowledged that the U.S.-led negotiations had reached a dead end. Trump and his entourage no longer see any prospect of a breakthrough in the negotiating process and are therefore trying to devote as little attention as possible to an issue that has become politically toxic for them. The U.S. president, who once relished talking about ending the war, now openly avoids giving direct answers about Washington's role in a future peace settlement.

Against the backdrop of the serious challenges facing both the Republicans and Trump ahead of the approaching midterm elections, the White House is eager to avoid another mistake. For that reason, any European initiative aimed at advancing negotiations is likely to be received very positively in Washington — at least until November.

Ending the war

Bringing the bloodshed in Ukraine to an end through diplomacy is impossible without Putin's consent. For now, both he and his principal spokesmen, Dmitry Peskov and Yuri Ushakov, continue to insist that Russia should be gifted Ukrainian territories that remain under Kyiv's control. Europe understands that the moment for negotiations has not yet arrived and speaks in terms of "months" rather than weeks before talks can begin.

But the nature of the war is changing, above all because of the Ukrainian military's successful strategy of disabling key elements of Russia's logistics networks, energy infrastructure, and defense industry. This is prompting even European skeptics to reassess the possible outcome of the conflict, strengthening Ukraine’s negotiating position. Whereas Europe previously focused on acting as Ukraine's advocate while simultaneously trying to prevent a Russian-American deal running counter to Kyiv's interests, traditional diplomacy may now move to the forefront.

Europe's motivation remains unchanged, and it is far from altruistic: Brussels seeks not only to protect Ukraine, end the war on the continent, and contain Russian aggression, but also to safeguard its own security, lay the foundations for a new collective security architecture, and prevent an even larger migration crisis.

Brussels seeks not only to protect Ukraine, but also to safeguard itself

Military, financial, and humanitarian support for Ukraine remain the priority, and Europe is becoming increasingly effective at providing them. In addition, against the backdrop of a change of government in Hungary, a more conciliatory stance from Slovakia's leadership, and a Czech government pursuing a less anti-European course than many had expected, Europe has achieved a greater degree of foreign policy unity, making it easier to support Ukraine effectively and to adopt new sanctions packages on an accelerated basis. The United States has effectively given Europe a free hand to try to end the war in Ukraine, and here it is difficult to disagree with former German Chancellor Angela Merkel that “Europe's strength and sovereignty are two sides of the same coin: defense capability and diplomacy.”

The Insider previously reported on Kuzichev’s frequent trips to Europe. The document was adopted under the EU sanctions regime against Russia’s “destabilizing activities.” The Council of the EU said those listed were involved in spreading Russian propaganda and disinformation, justifying the war against Ukraine, or helping promote Kremlin narratives abroad. The sanctions freeze any assets they hold in the European Union and bar European citizens and companies from providing them with funds or economic resources.

Shevkunov is listed in the document as a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan of Simferopol and Crimea, head of the Crimean Metropolia, and deputy chair of the Public Council under Russia’s Education Ministry. In its sanctions justification, the Council of the EU alleged that Shevkunov had spread Russian propaganda and disinformation about supposed “Nazism” in Ukraine, denied the fact of Ukrainian sovereignty, and justified Russia’s invasion as necessary, defensive, and “divinely sanctioned.” The EU also cited his sermons, media platforms, state cultural projects, and fundraising for Russian troops in occupied Crimea.

Kuzichev was listed as a television and radio host, columnist, and producer. His most notable role is as a host of the political talk show “Time Will Tell” on Channel One. The document described him as a “prominent Russian propagandist” who justifies the war against Ukraine, portrays Ukraine as an aggressive and repressive state, and supports Russia’s military actions, including strikes and targeted killings, as necessary and justified.

In 2025, The Insider reported that Kuzichev, despite his anti-Western rhetoric, regularly traveled to Europe. According to the investigation, which was based on a leaked Russian database of border crossing information, his most frequent European destination was Paris, though he also visited Amsterdam, Barcelona, and Venice. Kuzichev was not yet under EU sanctions at the time.

In addition to Shevkunov and Kuzichev, the sanctions list includes:

• Maria Dudko, director of the PR agency Bezgranichnye (lit. “Limitless”). The Council of the EU said the agency was financed through Russia’s Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives and worked with Western influencers who amplified Kremlin narratives and pro-war propaganda.
• Alexandra Jost, also known as Sasha Jost, a blogger and influencer who runs the accounts Sasha Meets Russia and Sasha and Russia. The EU said she used cultural content as cover to spread pro-war and pro-Kremlin propaganda to Western audiences, received money from RT, and obtained grants through structures linked to Limitless.
• Roman Antonovsky, a commentator, propagandist, and author of the Telegram channel “Sons of Monarchy.” Antonovsky is also linked to the pro-Kremlin Orthodox nationalist media outlet Tsargrad. The Council of the EU accused him of spreading anti-Ukrainian propaganda, denying Ukrainian statehood, and promoting the concepts of the “Russian world,” “Malorossiya” (lit. “Little Russia”), and “Novorossiya.” The “Russian world” is a Kremlin-backed ideological concept portraying Russian-speaking and Orthodox communities as part of Moscow’s sphere of influence, “Malorossiya” is an imperial-era term for Ukraine, and “Novorossiya” (lit. “New Russia”) is a historical term that Russian nationalists use to denote parts of southern and eastern Ukraine.
• Pavel Astakhov, a lawyer, television host and former Russian presidential children’s rights commissioner. The document said he supported the annexation of Crimea, traveled to occupied areas of Donbas without the consent of Ukrainian authorities, and promoted narratives through the media that justified violations of Ukraine’s sovereignty.
• Olga Kiriy, a journalist and producer at RT Documentary. The Council of the EU described her as the author and producer of propaganda films that justify the war against Ukraine and portray Ukraine as a “fascist” or “toxic” state. The document noted that her work has been distributed outside Russia as well as inside the country.
• Igor Maltsev, a columnist for RT, Life, and Kommersant, as well as a writer, commentator, and television host. The EU said he spreads propaganda and disinformation, justifies the occupation of Ukrainian territories, glorifies Russian troops, and promotes false narratives about Kyiv and the Ukrainian army.
• Maria Volkonskaya, editor-in-chief of Krymskaya Gazeta (lit. “Crimean Newspaper”), a newspaper controlled by the Russia-installed authorities in occupied Crimea. The Council of the EU said she spreads anti-Ukrainian propaganda, dehumanizes Ukrainians, presents Ukrainian authorities as illegitimate or extremist, and tries to undermine international support for Ukraine.
• Kirill Fedorov, a military blogger, author of the Telegram channel “War. History of Weapons” and a host on Solovyov Live, the YouTube channel run by well-known propagandist Vladimir Solovyov. The EU said Fedorov describes occupied Ukrainian territories as “liberated,” raises money for Russian military units, and uses those fundraisers to promote pro-war narratives.

The only organization sanctioned was the Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives. The Council of the EU said the fund, created by a decree fromVladimir Putin, awarded grants to projects supporting the war against Ukraine and financed the PR agency Limitless, which the EU said worked with Western influencers to spread Kremlin narratives.

Police said Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was stopped on the evening of June 13 after arriving in the UK. He was questioned under Schedule 3 of the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 and was later released without charge.

Robinson said the detention lasted around three hours. The document he posted says Schedule 3 allows border officials to stop, question, and search people to determine whether they may be involved in “hostile activity.” The powers can be used without requiring suspicion that a person has committed a crime.

In recent days, Robinson had posted videos from Moscow, where he met Elon Musk’s father, Errol. He also actively commented on a knife attack in Belfast and shared information about the ensuing protests in Northern Ireland, some of which escalated into anti-migrant riots.

The unrest in Belfast broke out last week after a 30-year-old Sudanese citizen with legal refugee status in the UK stabbed a local resident. Video of the attack spread quickly on social media, prompting far-right activists to call for citizens to take to the streets. In several parts of the city, protesters set fire to public transportation objects, along with homes where migrants lived.

Robinson called the incident “yet another invader attack on our people” and joined the call for mass action. Elon Musk, for his part, reposted content listing gathering points for protesters across Northern Ireland. Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, also commented on the events, claiming that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s policies “fuel conflicts.”

Tommy Robinson is one of the best-known figures in Britain’s far-right. In October 2024, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for contempt of court after violating a court order barring him from repeating defamatory claims about a Syrian schoolboy who had faced racist bullying. Robinson characterized that prosecution as an attempt to restrict free speech.

According to the published results, three political forces entered the 105-seat parliament:

• Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party won 49.745% of the vote, giving it 64 seats.
• The Strong Armenia bloc, led by Russian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, won 23.271%, giving it 29 seats.
• The Armenia bloc of former President Robert Kocharyan won 9.923%, giving it 12 seats.

The Prosperous Armenia party of pro-Russian businessman Gagik Tsarukyan won 3.9893% of the vote, falling short of the 4% threshold required to enter parliament.

Turnout in the June 7 elections totaled 58.9%, or 1,476,769 voters, with a total of 19 political forces taking part. Votes cast for parties and blocs that failed to clear the 4% threshold will be redistributed among the parties that entered parliament, allowing Civil Contract to retain a parliamentary majority and form a government on its own despite failing to break the 50% barrier.

A few days after the elections, news emerged that Tsarukyan had been charged in a criminal tax evasion case and was barred from leaving Armenia. The Insider has reported on the businessman’s close ties to Russian authorities.

Four people were killed in the strikes on Kyiv, and at least 23 others were injured, including a child. Buildings were damaged in nine districts of the city, and 26 fires broke out in total.

While rescue crews were trying to extinguish the fire at the Dormition Cathedral, Russian forces launched another strike affecting the nearby Mystetskyi Arsenal museum complex. The fire there covered 1,000 square meters. One workshop at the Oleksandr Dovzhenko Film Studio was also destroyed.

Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra was hit by a missile from a U.S.-made Patriot air defense system. Ukraine uses Patriot systems to intercept Russian missile attacks.

In total, Russian forces launched 70 missiles and more than 600 drones at Ukraine overnight, according to a statement by President Volodymyr Zelensky. More than 60 of the missiles targeted Kyiv, he said.

In Kharkiv, rescue workers from the State Emergency Service were killed in a double tap strike while extinguishing a fire. Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said a total of five people were killed in the city: four rescuers and a civil protection specialist from the Kharkiv regional military administration.

The grounds of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra came under fire for the first time during the full-scale invasion this past January.

Judging by the multitude of joint projects involving Chinese capital investment in Serbia, Vučić’s task is to help Beijing open a window into Europe. His warm reception by Xi suggests he is performing that role reasonably well. Serbia is among China’s main European partners in the Belt and Road Initiative, which Beijing is using to expand control over sea and land routes in Asia, Africa, and Europe. Meanwhile, observers in Beijing noted that Vučić appeared emphatically confident, demonstrating independence in his choice of foreign policy partners.

The main event of his political career

In recent years, China has crowded out Belgrade’s longtime economic partners, moving closer to Germany, which still leads the list. According to Serbian data, overall trade with China grew by a factor of 6.7 from 2012 to 2025, while Serbian exports to China increased by a factor of 333. In dollar terms, bilateral trade in 2025 reached $9.36 billion, while exports from Serbia amounted to only $2.1 billion.

Serbia’s trade volume with China rose by a factor of 6.7 from 2012 to 2025, while Serbian exports to China went up by a factor of 333

Cooperation now covers more and more areas, including military technology. In fact, Serbia is the only European country currently buying weapons from China. According to media reports, Serbia’s defense industry imported 240 million euros’ worth of goods from China in 2024 and 2025, and last year, troops from the two countries held their first joint exercises — in northern China’s Hebei province.

Vučić calls his country’s cooperation with China “ironclad” and characterizes his May visit to Beijing as “the most important” of his political career. China’s leadership called it “historic.” More than 30 agreements were announced, intended to help Serbia attract new multimillion-dollar investments.

Four pillars

Serbia’s foreign policy still rests on four pillars: the United States, Russia, China, and the European Union, with membership in the latter remaining a key strategic goal.

In recent years, Serbia has had to constantly balance between partners, protecting itself from the damaging effects of the war in Ukraine while advancing its own interests. Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Serbia’s integration into the EU has slowed, mainly because of Vučić’s refusal to join Western sanctions efforts.

Indeed, the Kremlin’s confrontation with the West has created many problems for Belgrade. Serbia buys Russian gas but also needs financial support, investment, and security guarantees for Serbs still living in Kosovo. Resolving those issues depends mainly on Washington and the European Union, which are unhappy with Belgrade’s opaque ties to Moscow and its excessive energy dependence on Russia.

The Kremlin’s confrontation with the West has created many headaches for Belgrade

Under the circumstances, Serbia’s  relationship with China has become a source of stability, with some even calling friendship with Beijing a “safe harbor.” Still, Belgrade’s Western partners are unhappy with China’s expansion in the Balkans, especially when it comes to questions of corruption, the use of forced labor, and environmental pollution. Brussels also points to a lack of transparency: all Chinese infrastructure projects in Serbia have been adopted without tenders, merely on the basis of direct state agreements.

Belgrade’s growing borrowing is also raising concerns. The main loans for infrastructure projects have come from the Export-Import Bank of China (China Exim Bank). Serbia’s debt to the bank is estimated at 2.8 billion euros, or 11% of its total external debt.

No. 577 and a “shared future” in a new era

Vučić has developed his own way of dealing with the worlds’ economic powers, showing gratitude, offering flattery, and producing internet-friendly moments. In China, he has even been given a playful nickname — the number 577, which sounds similar to his surname in Chinese. He learned about the moniker while signing a basketball.

During a visit to China six years ago, Vučić delivered a short address in Chinese. The video drew hundreds of thousands of views and inspired jokes and memes, bringing Chinese-Serbian cooperation a shot of public goodwill. 

Still, many in the Balkans continue to see China as an alien civilization, and Vučić’s domestic opponents say he made a serious mistake several years ago by signing a free trade agreement with the country. Their concern, they say, is not cooperation itself but the unequal terms behind it. The opposition has also asked pointedly what values Vučić shares with China’s Communist Party: one-party rule, censorship, the arrest of human rights activists, or the use of tanks against students?

The sarcastic remarks are an open reference to Vučić’s increasingly authoritarian style of rule, as for a second year in a row he has been unable to bring mass protests under control. One of the largest rallies coincided with his visit to China.

The protests have continued since Nov. 1, 2024, when the collapse of a canopy at the railway station in Novi Sad killed 16 people — the disaster occurred after the building had been renovated by a consortium of Chinese companies. Vučić, nevertheless, has managed to hold on to power and continues to express his readiness to build a “Chinese-Serbia community with a shared future.”

From roads and factories to dancing robots

The process did not begin with Vučić. In 2009 Serbia’s then-President Boris Tadić signed a strategic partnership agreement in Beijing. The first major investments followed Xi Jinping’s visit to Belgrade in 2016, when the Chinese bought Serbia’s largest steel plant, Železara Smederevo, for 46 million euros (it is now called HBIS Serbia). Before the Chinese entered the picture, U.S. investors had shown interest in the loss-making plant, which has its own port on the Danube, but the deal did not work out.

One of the key Chinese investment projects in Serbia is Linglong’s tire factory in Zrenjanin, a city in the country’s northern province of Vojvodina. The plant, worth $990 million and capable of producing 13 million tires a year, is the Chinese manufacturer’s first major facility in Europe. In total, Serbia has several dozen large production sites involving Chinese capital, employing about 40,000 people.

Chinese businesses are also actively investing in transport corridors and railways linking Belgrade with European capitals. Such projects include the Danube Corridor and the Belgrade-Budapest high-speed railway.

Chinese companies are also building metro infrastructure in Belgrade and rapidly constructing the EXPO 2027 exhibition complex ahead of the first such event to be held anywhere in the former Yugoslavia. The expo complex is being created as a multifunctional space and, in addition to exhibition halls, will include commercial, hotel, and residential facilities.

Also of note, while in China Vučić was shown advanced developments in artificial intelligence and humanoid robotics. The robots even danced for the guest of honor while their creators expressed hopes that Serbia could become one of Europe’s main centers for producing them.

Vučić’s enthusiasm for Chinese technologies and investment leads to an obvious question: given Belgrade’s deepening relationship with Beijing, what areas of cooperation remain for Moscow to fill? 

Who Russia negotiates with in Serbia

Before February 2022, Vučić openly sympathized with the Kremlin and even stressed Putin’s superiority over other world leaders (especially when communicating with a Russian audience). As a result, Vučić consistently received discounts on Russian natural gas and regularly held military exercises with Moscow’s forces (even if he complained that he didn’t have enough money to buy Russian S-400 missile systems).

Such displays led Vučić to be seen as a Kremlin ally when it came to Moscow’s efforts to undermine EU influence in the Balkans. In reality, however, Vučić is focused on receiving whatever benefit he can via cooperation with all potential partners. He never intended to exchange ties with the European Union, which accounts for two-thirds of Serbia’s foreign trade, for a Eurasian future that clearly cannot offer comparable opportunities when it comes to investment, trade, and technological exchange.

Therefore, it should come as little surprise that since 2022 Serbia has not hosted any senior Russian officials, and Vučić himself no longer travels to Moscow. These days, contacts take place at a lower level, with Serbian Energy Minister Dubravka Đedović Handanović and International Economic Cooperation Minister Nenad Popović attending events like the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum earlier this month. Before them, Aleksandar Vulin, chairman of the supervisory board of the state company Srbijagas, visited Moscow. Popović and Vulin are the Russian authorities’ most frequent Serbian interlocutors, and in recompense for their efforts, both have found themselves included on U.S. sanctions lists since 2023.

Vučić no longer travels to Moscow, but contacts still take place at a lower level

Vulin previously headed Serbia’s Security Intelligence Agency, and before that he served as the country’s defense minister and interior minister. The United States has accused him of having ties to organized crime and drug trafficking, along with participation in corrupt deals that “facilitated Russia’s malign activities.”

Popović, who owns numerous companies in Serbia and Russia, was accused by the U.S. of “corruption and tax fraud.”

No NIS and no strategic partnership

Belgrade’s refusal to impose sanctions on Russia has flattered the Kremlin’s ego in recent years, allowing Moscow to claim that it prevented the West from building a united anti-Russian front in Europe. Still, the Serbian exception has brought the Kremlin little practical benefit. Since 2022, trade between Russia and Serbia has fallen by nearly half, to $2.3 billion, and although Serbia still considers Russia a “reliable partner in gas supplies,” Belgrade receives only short-term, three-month contracts (even though Serbian authorities had hoped to sign a three-year agreement in 2025).

In effect, relations between the two countries have reached a low point, a status all the more evident now that the future of energy giant NIS, Russia’s main asset in the Balkans, has been thrown into doubt. After buying a controlling stake in the company in 2008 and 2009, Gazprom Neft turned the loss-making enterprise into a profitable corporation. However, U.S. sanctions, accompanied by demands that Russian capital be excluded from the company’s ownership structure, have led to talks aimed at selling Gazprom’s stake to the Hungarian company MOL.

Although the rhetoric remains positive, real cooperation is clearly on the decline. During Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko’s April visit to Belgrade, Serbia confirmed its readiness to expand cooperation with Moscow, though without offering any  specifics. The Serbian Foreign Ministry’s statement on the event stood out mainly for what it lacked: the word “strategic,” which Belgrade now actively uses to describe its relations with China, Israel, and even the United States.

That last point should be especially painful for Moscow, especially given its past efforts to present itself as the main defender of Serbian interests on the international stage, eagerly exploiting NATO’s 1999 bombing of Belgrade and the subsequent separation of Kosovo from Serbia for propagandistic purposes. Now though, if the war in Ukraine drags on, Serbia will have to rethink its relationship with the Kremlin even more deeply in order to avoid jeopardizing ties with its actual financial donors and security guarantors in the Balkans.

Modern ground robotic systems trace their origins to experiments conducted more than a century ago, when the first simple remote-control systems emerged. In 1903, Spanish engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo created a device called El Telekino, which received commands via radio waves and converted them into mechanical actions.

The forerunners of modern combat systems were radio-controlled teleoperated tanks like the Soviet TT-26, developed in the 1930s. In the 1980s, following the Chornobyl nuclear disaster, specialized remotely operated vehicles began to appear for use in hazardous zones. In the mid 2010s, Russian robotic systems Uran-9 and Uran-6 were tested during military operations in Syria. The obtained operational experience informed the development of more advanced models, such as the NRTK Kuryer (NRTK is the Russian abbreviation for GRS).

A key driver behind the rapid development of ground robots during the Russia-Ukraine war has been the near-impenetrable “kill zone” stretching dozens of kilometers on both sides of the frontline, the result of extensive aerial drone use by both sides. The first GRS operator companies in the Defense Forces of Ukraine (DFU) appeared as early as the first half of 2024, while the Russian armed forces began catching up considerably later. Critical logistics challenges were among the main reasons for the sharp rise in the prominence of GRS in 2025, but an additional driver was the personnel shortage caused by failures of mobilization policies and widespread desertion.

In order to further prioritize the preservation of soldiers’ lives, tech-savvy Ukrainian commanders began delegating as many frontline tasks as possible to robots. Notably, given the one-time compensation of 15 million hryvnias (around $340,000) paid for each fallen AFU fighter, a soldier’s life costs the state far more than a robot. If the soldier survives, the same amount could buy and deploy around 35 robots on a combat mission. 

A soldier’s life costs the state far more than a robot

Russia’s circumstances are similar. The one-time payment upon the death of a serviceman in the so-called “special military operation” amounts to 13.9 million rubles plus a regional component of 1 to 3 million rubles (totaling between $206,000 and $234,000) — equivalent to the cost of 15–17 NRTK Kuryer chassis.

Ukrainian authorities have been consistently incentivizing the use of technological solutions. In September 2025, Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov (now the Minister of Defense) announced that e-points under the Army of Drones Bonus program would be awarded not only for striking enemy targets but also for logistics operations carried out with the use of GRS.

To earn e-points, units need to document the completion of a mission and submit confirmation to the system, just as they do when striking enemy targets with drones. Troops can use the accumulated points to order new GRS systems tailored to their unit’s needs. At the time, 10 types of robotic systems were available for points on the Brave1 Market platform; now there are around 90.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense Procurement Agency has signed contracts with GRS manufacturers to enable the swift supply of systems on order for military units under the Army of Drones Bonus program.

The DFU owes much of the scaling of ground drone use to Robert ‘Madyar’ Brovdi, the commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces. As early as the summer of 2025, he identified the “deployment of ground robotic systems as the primary logistics tool for delivering munitions, drones, and peripherals to operators at positions.” Moreover, the expansion of Unmanned Systems Forces units to the regiment and brigade level brought the GRS subunits within them to a qualitatively new level.

In early April 2026, Ukraine's Ministry of Defense declared its intention to reduce the risks to personnel by transferring frontline logistics tasks to ground robotic systems where possible. While only 67 DFU units were using GRS for missions in November 2025, by March 2026 that number had grown to 167.

In April, GRS completed more than 10,000 missions at the front, compared to just 2,900 in November 2025. In April, Defense Minister Fedorov set a goal of outsourcing 100% of frontline logistics to robotic systems, and the DFU plans to replace up to 30% of its personnel in the most challenging sections of the front with robots by the end of 2026.

On April 15, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense announced the introduction of drone assault units that integrate aerial and ground drones with infantry. According to official assessments, this approach has proven effective in the South Donetsk sector, where these new units have liberated significant territory since February.

Ukraine is deploying drone assault units that combine ground and aerial drones

The ministry also revealed plans to contract 25,000 GRS in the first half of 2026 — twice as many as in all of 2025. Additionally, a GRS competence center under the Ministry of Defense will be established, intended as the sole platform for interaction between manufacturers and the military and a catalyst for the deployment of robotic systems at the front. This year, manufacturers will receive contracts for 2027, enabling them to plan production and ensure the necessary supply volumes.

The industry’s rapid progress is also evidenced by a special competition for GRS manufacturers held in Kyiv in February 2026. During the trials, robotic platforms had to navigate obstacles, orient themselves in terrain, and locate and film special markers placed in trees.

GRS missions at the front

Defense Minister Fedorov noted in April that the GRS segment had become one of the most dynamic areas of defense tech in Ukraine. At the start of the full-scale war, the country had to build this industry from scratch; now it has since grown into a fully-fledged market with more than 280 companies.

Ukraine’s GRS segment has grown into a fully-fledged market with more than 280 companies

The DFU is seeing an ever larger number of successful GRS deployments for missions involving logistics, evacuation, assault, mining, and demining, and GRS are also used as mobile EW platforms and for launching FPV drones. Major Volodymyr Rovensky, an officer in the Ground Systems Development Section of the Unmanned Systems Command at Army Command, reported that 47% of all GRS missions involve logistics and evacuation, around 25% involve engineering tasks, and the remainder involve combat operations and special objectives.

GRS are critically important for logistics tasks such as delivering water, ammunition, and mines to the line of contact. These vehicles were first used on a large scale during the Battle of Pokrovsk, where intense drone surveillance made unit rotations exceptionally risky. As a result, soldiers often remained at their positions for weeks, sometimes even months.

According to the Unmanned Systems Directorate of the 7th Corps of the AFU’s Air Assault Forces, GRS accounted for around 90% of all logistics in certain areas of the Pokrovsk sector. The Termit robot, resembling a small turretless tank and capable of carrying around 200 kilograms of cargo, delivered water, fuel, and ammunition to troops.

GRS themselves, however, remain highly vulnerable to UAVs and mines. Other challenges include their limited range, insufficient terrain mobility, and significant thermal emissions — at low temperatures, a robot appears as a bright red target on surveillance devices. Near Pokrovsk, a single logistics platform survived for an average of just two sorties. Yet this is precisely the point of robotic logistics: machines taking the hit instead of people.

GRS are increasingly being used to evacuate wounded soldiers, civilians, and even other unmanned vehicles. One of the most notable operations was carried out in November 2025 by the 1st Separate Medical Battalion using an original GRS called MAUL, developed within the unit and equipped with an armored capsule. In this case, 33 days had passed from the moment of injury. Over that time, six unsuccessful evacuation attempts had been made in which Ukrainian forces had lost six robotic platforms. The seriously wounded soldier was being evacuated from a settlement under Russian control. During the successful attempt, the GRS hit an anti-personnel mine but continued moving on a damaged wheel. The platform also came under UAV attack, but the armored capsule protected the soldier inside. In all, the GRS covered a distance of 64 kilometers, 37 of them after sustaining damage from the mine explosion.

During such missions, operators maintain constant communication with the wounded soldier. Servicemen of the 92nd Separate Assault Brigade of the AFU recall a case in which a soldier who was being evacuated pulled out a grenade — for unknown reasons — and held it in his hands for part of the journey. Communications operators talked to the wounded man, trying to calm him down. The soldier was ultimately delivered safely to a secure area, where medical personnel picked him up.

In March 2026, a Sirko-S1 GRS serving with the 100th Separate Mechanized Brigade was returning from a logistics mission in Kostiantynivka in the Donetsk Region (geotagged). While en route, it discovered a group of soldiers, one of whom was wounded. Pulling up closer, the robot took the wounded soldier on board and delivered him to the evacuation point at maximum speed.

Footage is also available of a joint evacuation operation carried out by the Skelia 425th Separate Assault Regiment and the 1st Separate Medical Battalion in late May. A wounded soldier who was semi-encircled was evacuated using a GRS fitted with an armored capsule. During the mission, the robot ran over two anti-personnel mines but managed to continue moving and successfully reached its destination.

The Lava Unmanned Systems Regiment of the Khartia Corps evacuated three wounded soldiers in one go on a single ground robotic system. Although the mission took place in winter under constant shelling, the operators managed to evacuate a soldier in critical condition and two others with less severe injuries. While in transit, the wounded soldiers assisted the GRS operators by watching the sky to warn of approaching Russian drones and clearing mud and ice from the robot's camera.

GRS are also used to rescue civilians from areas that are under constant bombardment. Soldiers of the 60th Mechanized and 3rd Separate Assault Brigades evacuated a 77-year-old woman from the combat zone using a robotic platform capable of carrying her belongings. The elderly woman had left her village on crutches, apparently intending to evacuate on her own, but fell by the roadside. She was spotted by a drone, and a robot was sent to assist her. To help the woman understand she was being rescued, the GRS had “Babusya, sidai!” (“Grandma, get in!” in Ukrainian) written on it. The evacuation to safety was successful.

GRS are used to rescue civilians from frontline areas

Paratroopers of the 25th Separate Sicheslav Airborne Brigade of the 7th Airborne Assault Forces Corps evacuated another elderly woman who did not want to end up under Russian occupation from the town of Dobropillia north of Pokrovsk. The mission was complicated by constant shelling and the threat of drone strikes, and in this case two soldiers also took part. Some of the evacuee’s belongings were loaded onto a GRS, but the woman herself had to walk several kilometers, taking cover from Russian drones along with the troops.

In the Lyman sector, soldiers of the 3rd Army Corps used a GRS to evacuate four civilians from the gray zone. The elderly residents of a frontline village required assistance, and one of the women was wounded. The evacuation took place in stages: the civilians were first transported by GRS, then by boat before finally being handed over to medical personnel.

The Kholodnyi Yar 93rd Separate Mechanized Brigade adapted ground drones to evacuate damaged GRS and UAVs from the frontline, effectively turning them into robotic recovery vehicles. To evacuate damaged equipment, GRS are fitted with additional engineering equipment, such as a mechanized tow system for hauling other GRS and mechanized forks for recovering UAVs. The forks allow crews to pick up fallen drones, including heavy hexacopters of the Vampire type, known on the Russian side as Baba Yaga. The brigade notes that even drones damaged beyond repair can still be harvested for spare parts.

Similar footage was published by other Ukrainian units. For example, a soldier from the HUR’s Khymera unit published a video of a GRS evacuating another disabled robotic system from the battlefield. Meanwhile, soldiers of the Combat Hawks Unmanned Systems Battalion of the 25th Sicheslav Brigade, 7th Airborne Assault Corps, demonstrated how they evacuate damaged UAVs in the Pokrovsk area.

GRS are indispensable for mining and demining operations. “A single Termit drone managed to lay more than 1,500 anti-tank mines before the Russians destroyed it with a barrage of FPV drones,” said Maksym Vasylchenko, co-founder and CEO of Ukrainian GRS manufacturer Tencore.

For reconnaissance tasks, a robotic system can be deployed to forward positions for several days, continuously monitoring the situation and relaying information to DFU units. Using GRS for reconnaissance reduces risks to personnel, as a robot is significantly harder to detect and track than a human reconnaissance team. The Ukrainian tracked ground reconnaissance and relay system Plyushch can “sit in ambush” for four days and monitor the movements of enemy units.

The 93rd Separate Mechanized Brigade documented an episode involving the destruction of a Russian mechanized column near Kostiantynivka in which a ground robotic reconnaissance system played a key role. Russian forces attempted to advance under fog, counting on the reduced effectiveness of Ukrainian UAVs. However, a GRS scout detected the moving vehicles and relayed target coordinates to FPV drone operators, which successfully struck the Russian column.

A GRS combat deployment similar to the one described by Zelensky — though still involving active infantry participation — occurred in the summer of 2025 in the Kharkiv Region, becoming one of the first known cases of ground robots storming a position. The 3rd Separate Assault Brigade was tasked with establishing full control over a fortified Russian shelter. Infantry groups were positioned approximately five kilometers from the target, and the assault began with the deployment of two ground suicide robots and UAVs. One robot destroyed the entrance to the Russian position, after which the second began approaching the shelter. In response, Russian soldiers signaled their surrender by raising a cardboard sign. Drones escorted two Russian soldiers to the nearest Ukrainian position, where they were taken prisoner. Ukrainian infantry then took control of the fortification without firing a single shot.

Ukrainian media covered another notable case of GRS use in April. In the village of Ternuvate on the border of Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions, a GRS equipped with a machine gun opened fire on a building sheltering Russian assault troops, forcing them to surrender. The soldiers came out with their hands raised and lay down on the ground in front of the robot.

A Droid TW 12.7 GRS by Ukrainian company DevDroid, operated by the NC13 assault GRS company of the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade, held a position on one section of the front for roughly six weeks. According to the unit commander, the machine-gun-equipped GRS was tasked with controlling an intersection in a village through which Russian forces regularly attempted to conduct attacks. Every morning for a month and a half, operators deployed the robotic system on combat duty and brought it back in the evening. During that time, the Droid TW 12.7 successfully completed several fire missions against the enemy, and Russian forces never managed to pass through that section.

The first documented case of armored vehicle destruction by a ground drone in combat was described in December 2025 by Mykhailo Fedorov. Ukrainian forces received intelligence on the planned route of Russian assault troops and promptly deployed a Droid TW 12.7 GRS equipped with an M2 Browning machine gun, digital communications, Starlink, and LTE. The robot took up its position and waited for the Russian MT-LB. Opening fire on the frontal section, the drone disabled the vehicle’s control system, causing it to lose control, then shot up the troop compartment. Later, reconnaissance UAVs of the 5th Separate Assault Brigade recorded the results of the ambush: a disabled vehicle and the bodies of several killed Russian soldiers in a tree line.

In February 2026, the special operations company of the Lava Unmanned Systems Regiment of the Khartia Corps conducted a clearing operation against Russian infantry in Kupiansk using ground robotic systems. Both armed GRS and suicide robots loaded with hundreds of kilograms of explosives were used to strike Russian positions held by ten soldiers. Once the positions were fully cleared, Ukrainian units could occupy them.

During fighting in the Kupiansk sector in late May, soldiers of the 115th Separate Mechanized Brigade cleared the village of Novoplatonivka in the Kharkiv Region. During the operation, a GRS provided support and fire cover for the assault group.

In addition, Ratel Robotics has unveiled the Ratel H system with a new module: a drone launch platform capable of transporting UAVs to dangerous areas and launching them without operators at the launch position. The use of fiber-optic control combined with a ground carrier reduces UAV vulnerability to electronic warfare tools and provides a more stable control link during combat operations. Russian pro-war channel Military Informant demonstrated the deployment of such a GRS at the line of contact.

EW modules mounted on GRSs create a “dome” to protect personnel and equipment from FPV drones and loitering munitions. In May, Serhii ‘Flash’ Beskrestnov reported that Russian forces are widely using robotic systems outfitted with EW systems and positioned in front of Russian troops with their antennas facing rearward in order to suppress Ukrainian drones that fly past them.

Russian vs. Ukrainian GRS

In the meantime, Russia is also advancing its drone innovations. The Russian Armed Forces’ use of a new generation of GRS first became known in 2023. For about a year, they underwent combat trials — carrying supplies, evacuating the wounded or killed, and sometimes serving as suicide drones. Most of the systems in use at the time were modified Chinese robots, but by 2024, the situation began to change. Russia’s military acquired its first domestically developed serial-production GRS, and the tracked NTRK Kuryer, an analog of Ukraine’s Termit, soon became one of the most widespread GRS in the Russian army. 

Propagandists report that thousands of such platforms have allegedly transferred to dozens of units. The system regularly appears in videos in various configurations: originally it existed in logistics and combat versions — the latter outfitted with a machine gun or an automatic 30mm AGS-17 grenade launcher. Subsequent modifications featured EW systems and capabilities for mining, demining, and smoke screen deployment.

Other GRS have also appeared alongside it: the tracked Impuls-M, Omich, Bogomol, the wheeled Depesha, and the Chelnok heavy tug. State Watch has identified 32 Russian GRS models, with legal entities established for 29 of the manufacturers. Combat use in the war against Ukraine has been documented for at least 20 GRS types.

Sanctions restrictions barely affect the Russian companies supplying robotic systems to the front. Of the 20 identified manufacturers, 10 are under U.S. sanctions, nine under Ukrainian sanctions, and three under EU sanctions. Still, the manufacturers are able to source components from the rest of the world, primarily from China.

Russia’s armed forces have 32 GRS models in their arsenal, with combat use documented for at least 20

The main pitfall for Russia’s frontline GRS deployment is communications. Russian troops previously actively used Starlink terminals, which provide stable communications with an unlimited range. However, after unregistered terminals operating on the territory of Ukraine were blocked in February 2026, most Russian units had to revert to radio-channel control, which has limited range and stability due to terrain distortion and Ukrainian EW. To compensate, Russian forces attempt to set up signal repeaters to create a mesh network and send Mavic drones to escort vehicles.

Fiber-optic communications are also used, despite the risk of cable breakage. In some cases, operators are forced to stay with the robotic system to control it, which effectively negates the very premise of a robotic system — operator safety.

The relatively low scale of GRS use by Russian forces is confirmed by recorded losses. According to the Oryx and Válka.online portals, which count vehicle losses based on published photos and videos, at least 71 Russian GRSs had been knocked out by April 1. To compare, Ukraine lost 207 ground drones, indicating their far more extensive use. The use of horses and other pack animals by Russian forces also indirectly points to challenges when it comes to finding technical solutions for frontline logistics.

Russian pro-war observers acknowledge that Russia’s armed forces are lagging behind Ukraine in adopting new technologies. Alexei Chadayev, head of the Ushkuynik Research and Production Center, admitted to a decline in GRS use while the Ukrainian army expands its deployment of ground drones. Beyond the communications problems following Starlink’s disconnection, which resulted in robots regularly losing their signal in any low-lying terrain,  the situation is made even worse by military bureaucracy and commanders’ fear of losing expensive but slow equipment that is vulnerable to enemy FPV drones. In the field, robots have yet to be treated as expendable, meaning that from an operational perspective it is easier for a commander to risk a soldier's life than to risk a valuable piece of equipment.

To remedy the situation, Chadayev proposed launching mass production to reduce robot costs, deploying a digital communications network over the combat zone using aerostats, reinforcing platform protection to make hunting GRS economically unprofitable for the enemy, expanding robot functionality for EW and air defense tasks, and shifting from training individual operators to working up entire unmanned supply units at rear training grounds.

The future of ground drones

As of now Ukraine is comfortably in the lead when it comes to the scale and intensity of GRS application for military purposes. In response, the Russian side will likely focus on mass production and scaling of several basic GRS models. Victor Pavlov, founder of the GRS school of Ukraine’s Third Army Corps, said that according to Ukrainian intelligence, Russia selected several GRS models for serial production in 2025. However, he cautions that despite Ukraine’s superiority over Russia in the development and deployment of ground robots, Russia has a different advantage: a more centralized defense industry.

In Russia, once specific models are selected, production ramps up quickly. Enterprises are given clear targets, a doctrine of use is developed, and mass personnel training is organized. As a result, technologies that are adopted with a delay are subsequently used on a significantly larger scale. The growth of Russia’s Unmanned Systems Forces may also contribute to this development: according to Ukrainian intelligence, their strength stood at around 101,000 personnel in early April 2026, with plans to expand to 165,500 by year’s end.

Meanwhile, communications remain the key constraint on the large-scale deployment of ground robotic systems. As a CIT expert who wished to remain anonymous noted, on the front line, ground drones without a reliable control channel lose their effectiveness. In his view, Russia’s armed forces will not have an alternative to Starlink comparable in capability and communications stability in the foreseeable future.

He also notes that in terms of the number of GRS, the Russian army will likely achieve formal parity and find various workarounds for communications. However, the gap in real effectiveness will likely persist due to problems with control channels.

Military expert Kyrylo Mykhailov emphasizes that ground drones are particularly sensitive to any obstacles between the operator and the platform, and the use of aerial relays makes the control system vulnerable to Ukrainian interceptor drones. He also points out that as GRS become increasingly important for tasks involving excessive risk to personnel (in logistics, evacuation, mining, and the search for “waiting” drones), their dependence on batteries and communications channels will increase. At this stage, these technologies are not sufficiently developed to allow them to fully replace infantry.

The CIT expert agrees that the scale of ground robotic system use at the front will continue to grow, primarily in the area of logistics, but their capabilities in direct combat operations remain limited for now.

The regulation, which is still awaiting formal approval from the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament, will allow member states to establish “return hubs” outside the bloc’s borders — in practice, detention centers located in foreign countries, where people whose asylum claims have been rejected may be detained during the appeals process preceding deportation.

The bill provides for the introduction of entry bans against deportees that are virtually unlimited in duration. Moreover, it will allow EU member states to negotiate returns to “unrecognized third countries.” This provision opens the door to cooperation, for example, with the Taliban in the context of the forced removal of Afghan nationals.

Perhaps the most controversial potential provision of the legislation involves the authorization of home searches, which could be conducted without a warrant in private residences and “other relevant premises” to locate people subject to deportation orders. For now, this specific provision has been removed from the text adopted by the European Parliament, but it remains part of the ongoing negotiations.

Several weeks before the vote, more than one hundred nongovernmental organizations, including Amnesty International, Doctors of the World, PICUM, and Caritas Europe, signed a joint open letter sharply criticizing the regulation and comparing the emerging framework to the regulatory environment enjoyed by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, better known as ICE.

Return or expulsion?

The new regulation is one of the most far-reaching migration bills in the history of the EU. For simplicity, it can be divided into four main components.

First, it establishes return hubs, allowing EU countries to deport undocumented migrants to third countries unconnected in any way to the deportee’s previous life.  As lawyer Maria-Teresa Gil-Bazo notes, this represents a fundamental departure from previous practice: “Until now, EU Member States could only detain irregularly present migrants as a last resort under specific circumstances.” Return hubs, by contrast, would move detention outside the EU’s borders — beyond the reach of the legal safeguards that exist within the EU.

The Commissioner for Human Rights for the Council of Europe, Michael O’Flaherty, has warned that this approach risks creating human rights “black holes,” and Amnesty International researcher Olivia Sundberg Diez, citing numerous studies, echoes O’Flaherty’s concerns. She argues that the approach deliberately creates opportunities for automatic — and, therefore, often unlawful — detention in third countries, violating the internationally recognized right to freedom of movement and the prohibition against the forced return of refugees.

The European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), drawing on years of research in Turkey, Greece, and Poland, has concluded that the purpose of the new legislation is to “deter” migrants by discouraging them from attempting to enter the European Union in the first place. However, ECPR notes that detention and confinement often fail to reduce the desire to migrate.

At the same time, researchers have found that agreements with third countries create corrupt structures that subject migrants to suffering and encourage the use of migration centers as a source of off-the-books profits for state and non-state actors outside the EU. Countries and companies involved in such arrangements — such as Albania in the case of an Italian experiment — earn substantial sums by using migration as a bargaining chip.

Second, the regulation allows detention for up to 24 months. Current EU legislation limits detention to 18 months, and only in exceptional cases. Extending detention to two years for adults and applying the measure to families with children represents a dramatic escalation. Amnesty International and other human rights advocates argue that the move is being driven by nothing more than a desire to demonstrate cruelty. Indeed, the academic literature on migration simply does not provide convincing evidence that longer periods of detention correlate with higher return rates. By contrast, there is substantial evidence showing that prolonged detention causes serious psychological harm, especially to children.

The third element is the obligation to cooperate, yet another legally dubious provision, as it requires people subject to return orders to actively cooperate with the authorities who are seeking to deport them by providing information, attending meetings, and complying with procedures. The criteria for determining a “failure to cooperate” has been deliberately left as vague as possible in the draft text. Notably, the amendment applies even to people who are not subject to deportation in the first place — for example, because they face persecution, have serious health conditions, or because their country of origin refuses to accept them. As noted in an analysis by CEPS, such people “will be sanctioned for failing to facilitate a removal that legally cannot take place.” Human rights advocates argue that the bill would hold people liable for refusing to help the government unjustifiably punish them, amounting to a flagrant violation of human rights.

Another proposal concerns the sharing of refugees’ medical data. A joint analysis by PICUM and Doctors of the World identified a provision allowing medical information to be shared with law enforcement agencies and third countries for the purposes of deportation. First and foremost, human rights advocates and medical professionals argue that this violates European data protection laws, particularly the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It also creates real health risks that are well documented in the academic literature: when people fear that seeking medical care could lead to their deportation, they simply stop seeking treatment. In the European context, such a provision would all but inevitably lead to the spread of infectious diseases, unmanaged chronic illnesses, and preventable deaths among communities that are already among the most vulnerable on the continent.

When people fear that a visit to the doctor could lead to deportation, they simply stop seeking medical care

Last but not least, more than 100 NGOs have signed a letter warning that the inclusion of the aforementioned warrantless search provision would effectively turn the EU into a replica of Donald Trump’s America, at least where migration policy is concerned. “We cannot be outraged by ICE in the United States while also supporting these practices in Europe,” says PICUM Director Michele LeVoy.

ICE as a model of effectiveness

Over the past year, European politicians — in general, from parties that did not support the Return Regulation — have publicly expressed concern about the activities of ICE on European soil. This past February, when ICE agents were deployed to provide security for Americans attending the Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina, demonstrations erupted across northern Italy, and several Members of the European Parliament supported the demonstrators by saying that the American move was unacceptable. Yet at the very same time, in committee rooms and in the corridors of the European Parliament, lawmakers were drafting and debating a regulation that effectively seeks to “import” U.S. migration policy.

Thirty-two people died at the hands of ICE in 2025, and in January 2026 Minneapolis residents Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti were killed by federal immigration officers amid local opposition to their deployment. According to an analysis by NPR, the agency’s large-scale deportation operations have cost American cities millions of dollars and strained police department resources. Public health researchers have found that the presence of ICE officers discourages people from seeking medical care, using food assistance programs, and attending school.

Racial minorities, needless to say, bear a disproportionate share of the burden. Workplace raids targeting undocumented migrants discourage workers from reporting wage theft, unsafe working conditions, and human trafficking. Moreover, public funds that should be spent protecting workers’ rights are instead diverted to financing ICE. This, in turn, contributes to worsening labor conditions in those segments of the economy where undocumented workers are most heavily concentrated.

Nevertheless, reporting from across the continent shows that Europe is, in practice, already building its own version of the American system. According to a report published by a coalition of humanitarian organizations in February 2026, European immigration officers carry out an average of 221 pushbacks per day. More than 80,000 such efforts were documented in 2025, primarily in Italy, Poland, Bulgaria, and Latvia.

“Men, women and children — including individuals with critical medical conditions — are routinely subjected to beatings, attacks by police dogs, forced stripping, forced river crossings, and theft of personal belongings,” the report states.

In 2024, Belgium adopted a law allowing the EU border agency Frontex to operate within the country, raising concerns about the expansion of the agency’s role in domestic law enforcement.

Flor Didier of the Belgian human rights organization 11.11.11 characterized the contradiction by noting: “The images [from the U.S.] are shocking and the outrage is justified. But where is that same moral clarity when European border authorities abuse, rob, and let people die?”

As Amnesty International’s Sundberg Diez writes: “Europe has a level of institutional and judicial independence, as well as respect for human rights, that cannot be ignored. But the underlying political impulse is the same, and I fear the human consequences will be as well.”

Albania as a testing ground

Before the European Parliament voted on the Return Regulation this past March, an offshore return hub in Albania was already testing the practice of holding detained migrants outside the EU. The experiment was Italian, and judging from various assessments, its results were unsuccessful.

The agreement on detention facilities, signed by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama in 2023, was presented by official Rome as a revolution in European migration policy. The project was intended to speed up the processing of asylum claims from refugees originating in “safe countries.”

Two facilities — a processing center in Shengjin and a detention center in Gjader — were built on Albanian territory under Italian jurisdiction. The project was estimated to cost approximately €830 million over five years. Its stated goal was to move asylum processing outside Italy and accelerate the return of rejected applicants from so-called “safe countries of origin.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was quick to praise the deal as an example of “out-of-the-box thinking,” despite criticism and concerns raised by human rights organizations within the EU. However, what followed was a lengthy and highly visible lesson in how hastily conceived populist plans can collide with legal and logistical realities. First, as human rights advocates had predicted, Italian and European judges repeatedly refused to recognize the legality of holding migrants in Albania. Following a ruling by the European Court in 2025, a country can be considered safe for asylum purposes only if it is safe for everyone without exception. On that basis, Italian judges ruled that most of the asylum seekers transferred to Albania should not have been held there.

Between October 2024 and January 2025, a total of 73 people were transferred to the facilities. Then Italian courts ordered all of them to be returned to Italy.

Later, a study conducted by an Italian university found that a single bed space in Albania cost Italy more than €153,000 — several times more than the €21,000 for a comparable place in a facility in Italy. More than €600 million was spent to set up centers designed to process 3,000 migrants per month. They now stand largely empty.

A single bed space for a migrant in Albania cost Italy more than €153,000, compared with €21,000 for a comparable facility in Italy

In addition, the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture warned that the Italy–Albania model calls into question the entire premise of processing migrants outside the country. Despite the enormous financial costs, conditions in the facilities were reportedly dire. The Italian government responded to these criticisms by using the centers exclusively for repatriations, with Meloni telling journalists that she was “determined” to press ahead.

In November 2025, delegations from Germany and the Netherlands visited the center in Gjader to assess the feasibility of establishing similar facilities of their own. According to a source cited by the Heinrich Böll Foundation, several delegations expressed interest in the “possibility of renting parts of the camp.”

If ultimately adopted, the Return Regulation would effectively create the legal architecture that Meloni’s lawyers have been fighting for in court since 2024, as it would expand the concept of a “safe third country” in a way designed to effectively shield member states from responsibility for any harm suffered by refugees as a result of their return. This would provide the entire offshore-hub model with an EU-wide legal foundation that no judge in an individual member state could unilaterally block. As a result, Italy’s experiment in Albania — widely criticized as being expensive, ineffective, and inconsistent with established legal norms — would become a model for the European Union as a whole.

Data manipulation to shape policy

The new legislation was built around a single, seemingly alarming statistic: only about 20% of migrants who receive a deportation order in the EU are actually removed from its territory. This figure has been repeatedly cited — in speeches, press releases, and even the explanatory memorandum accompanying the regulation itself — as evidence that the current system is failing and that more radical new tools are urgently needed.

The problem, according to experts, is that this figure neither reflects reality nor provides meaningful insight. The Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) notes that migrants are routinely counted multiple times across different member states — for example, upon entry and then again at their place of residence, during informal movements between countries, or because of differing legal statuses in different jurisdictions — a fact that significantly inflates the denominator.

More importantly, many return orders are formally issued in cases where deportation was impossible or unlawful from the outset. As a CEPS analysis concluded, the low enforcement rate “reflects, in large part, legal constraints that no reform can override.”

Experts in migration policy have been making the same argument for years. Research conducted as part of the EU-funded FAiRproject at Erasmus University Rotterdam found that “policy measures such as EU agreements or accelerated residence permit decisions have relatively little impact on deportation outcomes.”

The factors that determine whether a rejected asylum seeker leaves the host country are far more often personal and contextual — for example, age, conditions in the country of origin, and economic circumstances. “Even in the most favorable scenarios, most rejected asylum seekers either remain in the Netherlands or migrate onward,” says researcher Arjen Leerkes.

Professor Hein de Haas of the University of Amsterdam led DEMIG, a five-year initiative funded by the European Research Council. De Haas has devoted his career to documenting what he calls the “fact-free” nature of migration policymaking, and his project produced some of the world’s largest migration databases while showing that restrictive migration policies often produce negative unintended consequences.

“Migration is a highly politicized topic,” he writes. Because migration policy is often tied to electoral success or failure, lawmakers and political parties do not prioritize evidence-based policymaking. Instead, they simply want to appear decisive.

Specifically, de Haas argues that while restrictive policies may reduce new immigration flows, they also reduce emigration through what is known as the reverse-flow substitution effect, as overly harsh policies actually disincentivize existing migrants to leave a country. For example, if obtaining the right to reside in a certain state requires a lengthy and difficult process, then people are reluctant to leave and risk having to start from scratch again, even when there are economic incentives to emigrate.

The same principle discourages migrants from returning home and instead pushes them toward permanent settlement. The risk of losing the ability to re-enter and thus become stranded in their country of origin may simply be too great a barrier to exit. In other words, visas and other restrictions can produce effects that are the exact opposite of those they are intended to achieve.

There is also a broader structural dimension to the issue — one that the new regulation largely ignores. The EU-funded I-CLAIM project describes how irregular migration is often the result not of “weak borders” but of the normal and predictable functioning of the rules governing Europe’s labor market. As noted in a CEPS analysis, in states where a migrant worker’s visa is tied to a single sponsoring employer, the constant threat of deportation functions as a deliberate mechanism of labor control, as it pressures workers to tolerate poor working conditions and violations of labor rights rather than risk losing their legal status in the country.

The constant threat of deportation functions as a deliberate mechanism of labor control

None of these arguments are addressed in the Return Regulation, which contains no mechanism for regularizing the status of people trapped in administrative limbo, provides no safeguards for access to healthcare or education, and offers no route out of irregular status other than deportation. Instead, the legislation attempts to address a symptom that emerges at the very end of the process — the presence of undocumented people — while ignoring the underlying cause.

Unfounded panic

Beyond the specific provisions of the regulation, there is also serious reason to doubt that the “problem” the legislation is intended to solve is actually of sufficient concert to warrant such a measure. For years, the political narrative surrounding migration in Europe has been shaped by a striking gap between perceived and actual numbers.

For example, a 2025 YouGov survey conducted in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Denmark, and Poland found that Europeans significantly overestimate the number of undocumented migrants in their countries. It showed that most respondents believe that there are more undocumented migrants in their country than legal migrants — the exact opposite of reality. In France, for example, the actual number is roughly thirteen times lower than respondents believe. The image of a continent besieged by undocumented immigration and overwhelmed by crime is politically constructed (and The Insider has previously written about this anti-immigration theater and the shaky foundations on which it rests).

Nevertheless, this misperception has proven remarkably resilient. A Eurobarometer survey conducted in the fall of 2025 found that immigration ranked as the second most important issue facing EU citizens, with 20% of respondents identifying it as one of their primary concerns.

Even more revealing is what emerges when survey results are broken down by demographic group. Data from the European Social Survey (ESS) for 2023 and 2024, analyzed by the Berlin Institute for Futures Research, showed that younger Europeans consistently hold more positive views of immigration than older generations. The same pattern is observed among people with higher levels of education, who also tend to view immigration more favorably.

A Eurobarometer survey conducted in the fall of 2025 found that immigration ranked as the EU’s second most important issue, cited by 20% of respondents

Claire Kumar, a senior researcher at the Belgian research center ODI Europe, argues that there is a disconnect between what politicians say about public attitudes toward migration and what the data actually show. As research indicates, people’s views on migration are generally stable starting from youth and are rooted in deeply held values.

What fluctuates far more dramatically, Kumar argues, is the salience of immigration in a given person’s current conception of their world — whether the public perceives it as one of the most pressing issues facing society or whether it remains largely ignored, despite the facts on the ground remaining largely the same. That perception depends heavily on media coverage and political narratives.

Far-right parties have been particularly successful not so much in changing public opinion on immigration itself as in keeping the issue at the center of the political agenda regardless of underlying trends. As a result, the political environment remains in a constant state of perceived emergency irrespective of what is actually happening on the ground.

The (not-so-)centrist coalition

To understand where the new regulation may lead, it is necessary to recall what has happened to the European Parliament’s governing coalition over the past two years. The collection of movements that backed Ursula von der Leyen’s reelection in July 2024 — the European People’s Party (EPP), the Socialists and Democrats, Renew Europe, and the Greens — was always, in the words of an analyst at the European Policy Centre, an incoherent grouping held together only by a vaguely worded “Statement of Cooperation.” The agreement among them was signed out of necessity — and only after the vote confirming von der Leyen. The Greens joined the vote late and reluctantly, the Socialists and Democrats had their respective reservations, and Renew Europe was internally divided.

For her part, von der Leyen told Parliament that she would work only with parties that shared pro-European values, supported the rule of law (including international law), and backed Ukraine. She vowed that she would stand firm against the far right: “The center is holding,” declared von der Leyen after her reelection.

Throughout 2024 and 2025, EPP leader Manfred Weber, the Bavarian politician who became the most influential figure in European parliamentary politics and who had long aspired to lead the European Commission, began systematically building an alternative majority with the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), the Patriots for Europe, and Europe of Sovereign Nations, taking advantage each time their respective negotiations with centrist parties reached an impasse. The EPP has now voted alongside far-right groups more than 20 times. In March 2026 alone, the informal EPP-far right coalition voted together on the Return Regulation, on calls to block a report on the implementation of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, and on a proposal to streamline the rules governing artificial intelligence.

The migration vote became all the more controversial when it emerged that EPP lawmakers had in fact coordinated their actions with representatives of multiple far-right parties using a WhatsApp chat. Participants exchanged draft texts and voting strategies through the messaging app — coordination that took place outside the formal negotiating process, which was supposed to involve members of the EPP’s centrist partners in the ruling coalition. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz publicly criticized Weber over the matter, though Weber continues to deny that he knew about the chat.

The result is that Europe’s political “center” is moving closer to the right at each successive stage, and in the process its policies become increasingly difficult to distinguish from those of the far right. This is not a new observation. The strategy of centrist accommodation toward the far right has long been widely debated, and The Insider has previously written in detail about where such a trajectory can lead.

Professor Claudia Wiesner of the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS) summarized one of the central concerns as follows:

“If the major faction in the European Parliament collaborates with groups that have previously acted against these principles and the rule of law, it will create a legitimacy problem for the EU. How can citizens trust von der Leyen’s commitment to defending democracy when she collaborates with Giorgia Meloni, who is undermining media liberty in Italy?”

Alternative approaches are possible

The academic literature on migration policy provides a clear evidence base regarding which measures can actually help address problems associated with “irregular” immigration. The answer is not raids, prolonged detention, or offshore holding centers. Rather, the evidence points toward voluntary return programs combined with substantial reintegration support.

An analysis by the Center for Global Development, which examined existing assisted voluntary return programs, found that in the United Kingdom such models cost an average of £1,000 per refugee, compared with approximately £15,000 for a forced return. Germany’s StarthilfePlus program, for example, provided financial and professional reintegration support to more than 15,000 people. Follow-up surveys found that 85% of returnees were satisfied with the program, while only 5% were actively preparing to migrate again.

Voluntary return programs cost the United Kingdom an average of £1,000 per migrant, compared with £15,000 for deportation

Spain’s new migrant regularization program, which has drawn sharp criticism from the EPP in the European Parliament, may in practice achieve precisely what the new EU regulation states that it seeks to accomplish, as it has reduced the number of people living in the country under irregular status, increased the number of working, tax-paying residents, and done so at far lower cost than intensive migration-enforcement measures. Center-right governments in Greece and Portugal have, somewhat surprisingly, used similar approaches, and the evidence demonstrating their effectiveness is substantial. Many researchers conclude that a permanent EU-wide regularization program for migrants would be an effective policy tool.

Predictably, none of this is reflected in the Return Regulation. Measures that reduce irregular migration through regularization are entirely unacceptable to the far right (and now to part of the political center as well), because they can be portrayed as encouraging and prolonging the “migration crisis.”

Where Europe is heading

Migration policy does not exist in a vacuum. The Return Regulation is only one element of a much broader trend within the EU.

Academic studies of the 2024 European Parliament elections show that the rise of the radical right has coincided with a significant decline in support for liberal-democratic values, leading to a reality in which the EPP and parties to its right now hold more than 50% of the seats in Parliament.

The “cordon sanitaire” against far-right influence that von der Leyen had pledged to defend has in practice been dismantled through joint votes and coordination like the WhatsApp incident of March 2026.

Rosa Balfour, director of Carnegie Europe, warns that EU institutions may begin overlooking the deterioration of democratic standards within member states if doing so becomes necessary to retain far-right support. Under such a scenario, the EU’s ability to enforce its own legal mechanisms — the very tools that were previously used to constrain leaders such as former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — would be fundamentally weakened.

In 2025, von der Leyen told Parliament that “unity” was of “absolutely critical importance.” Members of the Commission were concerned about fragmentation and polarization, while diplomats from member states complained that Parliament was unable to act quickly and decisively. A year later, the results are evident: Parliament does indeed operate more cohesively, but only in the interests of the political right.

As for the detention regulation itself, trilogue negotiations between Parliament and the Council are expected to move quickly. On the main issues — return hubs, extended detention periods, entry bans, and cooperation obligations — disagreements are minimal. The principal unresolved question is whether the Council’s provision authorizing home searches will remain in the final version of the regulation. Civil society groups believe that this risk remains real, as the EPP has not objected to the provision, and some member states within the Council want it adopted.

Once finalized, the regulation will have to be implemented by 27 member states with very different administrative capacities and political environments, and if adopted, its implementation is likely to be uneven. It will also almost certainly face legal challenges in national courts and, very likely, once again before the European Court, which will have to determine whether the new legislative framework has resolved the legal problems that undermined the Italy–Albania agreement.

EU legal experts have issued internal warnings that the regulation may be incompatible with the Charter of Fundamental Rights and could violate international law. So far, however, those warnings — like the protests of numerous human rights organizations — have had little effect.

The Cameroon-flagged tanker LION I (IMO: 9384069), which had been traveling through the Mediterranean toward the Atlantic, made a sharp turn before approaching the English Channel and headed toward Ireland. It will likely bypass the islands through the North Atlantic. Its AIS destination was listed as “for orders,” a shipping term meaning the vessel is awaiting further instructions, making it impossible to determine the final destination.

Another tanker, the Sierra Leone-flagged C VIKING (IMO: 9261657), also unexpectedly changed course in the North Atlantic and headed toward Ireland. Its destination was also listed as “for orders.”

A third vessel that changed course was SONA (IMO: 9428358), also sailing under the flag of Sierra Leone. Starboard Maritime Intelligence data indicates it was traveling from the Gulf of Finland, likely from the port of Vistino, toward Port Said, Egypt, but deviated from its route toward the English Channel.

The Cameroon-flagged tanker MAINI (IMO: 9319870) also changed course. It had been traveling in the North Sea from Primorsk, with Port Said, Egypt, listed as its destination.

Several vessels under U.S. and EU sanctions that are sailing under the Russian flag, rather than under third-country flags, continue to pass through the English Channel. They include the tanker KRASNOYARSK (IMO: 9312896) and the cargo ship ADLER (IMO: 9179854).

• According to Ukrainian intelligence, LION I was involved in exporting Russian oil and petroleum products from the port of Primorsk in 2025. Since May 2025, the tanker’s owner and commercial manager has been Seychelles-registered Kario Maritime Inc., while its technical manager is China’s Mo Chou Hu Shipmanagement Co. The vessel is under sanctions imposed by the European Union, Britain, Switzerland, Canada and Ukraine.
• Ukrainian intelligence says C VIKING was used to transport Russian oil from Russian ports, switching off its AIS and carrying out ship-to-ship oil transfers. It also reportedly called at the port of Kamysh-Burun in occupied Crimea. The vessel is under sanctions imposed by Britain, the EU, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Ukraine and New Zealand.
• According to Ukrainian intelligence, SONA was involved in exporting Russian oil and petroleum products from ports in Russia’s Pacific region. The vessel is linked to Indian company Galena Ship Management, which is affiliated with Gatik Ship Management, one of the largest operators of Russia’s “shadow fleet.” SONA is under sanctions imposed by the UK, EU, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Ukraine and New Zealand. Ukraine also imposed sanctions on the vessel’s captain in February 2026.
• Ukrainian intelligence says MAINI is involved in transporting Russian oil in circumvention of Western restrictions and is linked to Galena Ship Management, the Indian company affiliated with Gatik Ship Management. The vessel has been used to export Russian oil to third countries, including with its AIS switched off. Greenpeace also identifies the MAINI as part of Russia’s “shadow fleet.” The tanker is under sanctions imposed by the UK, EU, Switzerland, Canada, Australia and Ukraine.

The route changes came shortly after Royal Marines and officers from the National Crime Agency (NCA) boarded the tanker Smyrtos in the English Channel in the early hours June 14. The vessel was detained and later moved to an anchorage off England’s southern coast.

According to Ukrainian intelligence, Smyrtos has been involved in transporting Russian oil and petroleum products since early 2025, mainly from the port of Kozmino in Russia’s Far East. The vessel is under sanctions imposed by the EU, UK, Switzerland, Canada and Ukraine.

The English Channel remains one of the key maritime corridors between the Baltic Sea and global markets, with a significant share of tankers carrying Russian oil from Baltic ports traditionally passing through the route. Any risk of detention or inspection could force “shadow fleet” operators to look for longer and more expensive delivery routes.

The operation targeted the sanctioned tanker Smyrtos (IMO: 9389100). In the early hours of June 14, Royal Marines and officers from the National Crime Agency (NCA), boarded the vessel in the English Channel, with the operation lasting close to six hours and involving Chinook, Merlin Mk4 and Wildcat helicopters, a Royal Air Force P-8 Poseidon patrol aircraft and the ships HMS Sutherland and HMS Ledbury.

According to the IMO GISIS database, Smyrtos remains registered under the flag of Cameroon. Data from the vessel tracking platform Starboard Maritime Intelligence indicated that the tanker had been anchored in the Gulf of Finland with its automatic identification system (AIS) switched off since at least June 5 and had likely entered the port of Ust-Luga in Russia’s northern Leningrad Region, which was listed as its destination at the time. During the anchorage, the tanker’s draft changed, which usually indicates cargo operations and likely means the vessel was loaded.

Starboard Maritime Intelligence’s data shows the tanker left the anchorage area on June 7 and began moving west toward Port Said in Egypt. On June 11, the vessel left the Baltic Sea, later reaching the English Channel, where it was detained by British forces.

After the inspection, the vessel will be moved to an anchorage off England’s southern coast, where it will remain under British authorities’ supervision during the investigation.

According to Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, the tanker Smyrtos was used to transport Russian oil and petroleum products under existing G7 and EU restrictions and the price cap mechanism. Ukrainian officials say the vessel has been involved in exporting Russian petroleum products since at least March 2025, mainly on routes from the port of Kozmino in Russia’s Far East.

Over the past year, several countries have placed the vessel under sanctions. The European Union added the tanker to its sanctions list July 20, 2025, citing the transport of Russian oil and the use of high-risk shipping practices. Sanctions were later imposed by Switzerland on Aug. 12, 2025, the UK on Oct. 15, 2025, Ukraine on Dec. 13, 2025, and Canada on Feb. 19, 2026.

Ukrainian intelligence also links the tanker to Seychelles-registered Daira Shipping Ltd. and Singapore-based manager Crest Maritime Pte Ltd., whose fleet includes other vessels involved in exporting Russian petroleum products.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the operation “yet another blow to Russia” and said it should serve as a warning to those helping finance the war against Ukraine.

“This successful operation delivers yet another blow to Russia and reminds those fueling Putin's war in Ukraine that we will not let them hide,” Starmer wrote on X.

Defense Secretary Dan Jarvis said Russia uses the “shadow fleet” to finance the ongoing invasion and that the UK authorities’ actions are aimed at cutting those revenues. According to the UK government, Russia’s “shadow fleet” is made up of over 700 vessels that carry about 75% of Russian oil shipped in circumvention of international sanctions, with the proceeds from the shipments used to finance the production of missiles and drones used in the war against Ukraine.

The British government said the operation was carried out in accordance with international and domestic law. In March, Keir Starmer authorized Britain’s armed forces and law enforcement agencies to inspect and detain UK-sanctioned “shadow fleet” vessels in the country’s territorial waters. Hundreds of “shadow fleet” ships passed through the English Channel since the announcement, with Russian Navy ships, such as the Black Sea Fleet frigate Admiral Grigorovich, escorting some tankers during their voyages.

One of the ships previously involved in the escorts, the corvette Boikiy, was struck by Ukrainian drones on June 3 while in a dry dock in the port of Kronstadt outside St. Petersburg. Open source intelligence (OSINT) analysts have suggested the ship may be decommissioned due to the amount of damage it sustained in the attack.

The UK MoD said the June 14 operation was “conducted in close coordination” with France and was the first such operation led by London.

According to Stryukov, who was taken prisoner in the spring of 2022 following the Battle of Mariupol, the abuse began during the POW’s transfer to the detention facility. He states that newly arrived prisoners were beaten with batons and electric shockers, dogs were set on them, and any request for medical assistance was used by his captors as a pretext for further beatings.

After their arrival at the facility, Stryukov recounts, inmates were prohibited from moving freely around the cell, talking, or even raising their heads. Violations were punished with beatings, he says.

The most severe ordeal, according to Stryukov, involved interrogations in a room on the third floor of the detention center, which the prisoners called the torture chamber. During these interrogations, they were beaten and tortured with electric shocks in order to extort confessions that they had murdered civilians. As Stryukov recalls, the torture could last for hours. When he refused to incriminate himself and his commander, a TA-57 field telephone was connected to his genitals and used as an electric torture device. After hours of abuse, Stryukov signed a confession. On the basis of that document, he was subsequently sentenced to 24 years in prison.

Similar testimony was also provided by former Azov Regiment soldier Ostap Zhydachevsky, who was held in Kamyshin from 2023 to 2025. He said that during interrogations, wires were connected to prisoners’ body parts, and they were shocked with electricity while simultaneously being struck with fists, feet, and batons. According to him, a 60-year-old Azov fighter died after one such episode.

“You could hear people’s screams from that room around the clock,” Zhydachevsky recalls. Ukrainian prisoners of war were also regularly forced to sing the Russian national anthem, listen to songs by the propagandist performer Shaman, shout slogans in support of Russia, and renounce the use of the Ukrainian language.

Both former prisoners described the living conditions as inhumane: “The soups were just plain water. The food was very bland, sometimes undercooked. They could divide a loaf of bread into 18 pieces. I left captivity weighing 55 kilograms — before the war, with a height of 175 centimeters, I weighed 30 more.”

The prison staff viewed the abuse of inmates as “fighting their own war,” says Stryukov: “They would probably come home and say: ‘I defended the country, I beat the Ukrops [Russian slur for Ukrainians] in prison.’ And I'm standing there starved, emaciated, on my knees, hands behind my head — and they're beating me. Was it to show that they are stronger?! That's not a fair fight.”

As Zhydachevsky adds, “They only had one motivation to beat us: they considered us fascists and Nazis.”  Nevertheless, he noted that the administration regularly tried to persuade Ukrainian prisoners of war to sign contracts with the Russian army in exchange for Russian citizenship and an end to the torture.

During the nearly two years he spent in the Kamyshin detention center, Zhydachevsky recalls, outside inspections were carried out only twice: one by representatives of the Russian ombudsman, and another by the Red Cross. In preparation for the first, chocolate, clothing, and paper were brought into the cells, but immediately after the officials’ departure everything was taken back. The administration prepared even more carefully for the foreign delegation giving the cells a cosmetic makeover and distributing books, board games, and hygiene items. Prisoners with severe injuries sustained from the beatings and torture were transferred to a separate cell that was not shown to the inspectors. After the delegation left, the conditions of detention returned to their previous state.

The deaths of several prisoners of war have been documented at Kamyshin’s Pre-Trial Detention Center No. 2. Maria Klimik, head of the military rights protection unit at the group Media Initiative for Human Rights, told Vot Tak that since the beginning of the full-scale war, at least seven Ukrainian servicemembers have died there. According to her, the causes of death included tuberculosis, blood poisoning, and heart failure — none of which can be separated from the conditions of abusive incarceration that the deceased suffered.

The daughter of Azov Regiment military medic Oleksandr Krokhmalyuk, who died after being held at the Kamyshin detention center, believes her father was killed. After his body was handed over to Ukraine, experts recorded broken ribs, chest injuries, and other damage. According to human rights defenders, Russia often transfers the bodies of deceased prisoners of war years after their death, complicating efforts to investigate the true circumstances of their deaths.

It was previously reported that Ukrainian prisoner of war Mykola Skyba, a defender of Mariupol and a serviceman of the National Guard of Ukraine, died at Pre-Trial Detention Center No. 2 in Kamyshin. After leaving Mariupol's Azovstal steelworks in May 2022, he ended up in Russian captivity and was subsequently held in Kamyshin. Although the official cause of his death was recorded as pneumonia and extreme exhaustion, relatives and Ukrainian officials attribute his death to the lack of medical care and the conditions of detention in captivity.

Pre-Trial Detention Center No. 2 in Kamyshin is also mentioned in a report by the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. Released prisoners spoke of the use of electric shockers, regular beatings, and violent interrogations there. Among the facility's staff, former prisoners repeatedly mentioned a person they called “Inspector Mikhailov.”

Reports of abuse of Ukrainian prisoners had previously come from other Russian detention facilities as well. A former Ukrainian prisoner of war with the call sign ‘Bryytva,’ who was held at Pre-Trial Detention Center No. 2 in Taganrog, told the outlet Slidstvo.Info that journalist Viktoria Roshchyna, who was captured in 2023, was subjected to constant pressure and was placed in solitary confinement several times for requesting psychological help. According to the soldier, after one such episode the journalist attempted to take her own life. In September 2024, Roshchyna died in Russian captivity. When her body was returned to Ukraine, experts found signs of extreme exhaustion, along with numerous physical injuries. Of particular note, her occipital bone had been broken while she was held at the Taganrog pre-trial detention center, as was reported by Ukraine’s Deputy Head of the National Police Department Dmytro Shevchuk.

In May 2026, Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets stated that the Ukrainian side had documented 695 types of torture and other forms of ill-treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russian captivity. The deaths of 406 Ukrainian fighters in Russian captivity have been officially confirmed.

Gold has become one of Russia’s most important export commodities since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In 2024, the country remained the world’s second-largest gold producer after China. Amid problems in the oil and gas sector and given record global prices for the precious metal, revenues for gold mining companies continued to rise despite sanctions.

But Maria Casey, a Russian industry expert whose name has been changed for security reasons, told The Insider that it would be wrong to conclude that Russian gold production actually rose by nearly 45% in a single year. “It’s all about terminology,” she said.

Casey explained that international organizations assess the amount of gold that was actually produced and entered the market, while Russia’s Natural Resources Ministry publishes data on gold contained in mined rock, or mineral raw material. Due to losses during mining and processing, the figures can differ by dozens of percentage points, which means it is incorrect to directly compare the Russian extraction figure of 480 to 485 tons in 2025 with international estimates of production the previous year, which come in at about 330 tons.

Casey said the Natural Resources Ministry stopped disclosing gold production data in absolute terms after 2022, switching instead to extraction figures. The two concepts are not interchangeable.

“The extraction figure means how much precious metal was lifted from the subsoil and how much of the reserves was written off. Production means how much gold was successfully extracted from ore or placer deposits and then refined,” she said.

That distinction was visible in official statistics before authorities stopped publishing production data. A state report titled “On the State and Use of Mineral Resources of the Russian Federation in 2021” claimed that gold extraction from the subsoil had risen by 2.6%, to 438.1 tons. The report said the increase was linked to planned productivity growth at complex deposits and at placer sites. But metal production from mineral raw material amounted to only 322 tons. The gap between extraction and production therefore exceeded 100 tons.

The same report noted that from 2012 to 2021, gold extraction from the subsoil in Russia increased by a factor of 1.5, while gold production from mineral raw material rose by only 57%. Casey noted that this reality further demonstrates the fact that the figures measure different things and cannot be directly compared.

Much of the gap is explained by the specifics of the mining industry. About 75% to 80% of Russia’s gold is mined at ore deposits, but due to geological conditions not all gold-bearing ore can be extracted. Some ore is also mixed with waste rock during overburden removal, the process of stripping upper layers of soil and rock to access the ore body.

In the industry, this process is called dilution. In open-pit mining, losses can range from 5% to 20%, while underground mining losses can reach 35%. Such losses are operational and are included at the deposit development planning stage.

There are also technological limits. Modern processing methods do not make it economically viable to extract all the precious metal contained in ore. Depending on ore composition and the technology used, gold recovery can range from around 50% all the way up to 95%.

“So it turns out that from a ton of ore reserves in the subsoil that initially contains, for example, one gram of gold, the final output is approximately 0.3 to 0.9 grams,” Casey said.

The technological cycle creates an additional gap between extraction and production. For example, in heap leaching, the process of extracting gold can take more than a year. In that case, reserves are already counted as mined, but the final metal has not yet been produced. Some companies also deliberately stockpile mined ore for future processing, for example while waiting for plant upgrades or more efficient extraction technologies.

“In the end, the difference between extraction and production volumes averages 30% or more,” Casey said. “This applies not only to Russian subsoil users. In global practice, the figure is no smaller, and often higher, depending on the technologies used.”

At the same time, Casey said there is real potential for growth in Russian gold mining. Polyus, the country’s largest gold producer, has said it plans to nearly double annual metal production over the next five years, with aims to bring it up to 186 tons. The main driver of growth is expected to be the launch of full-scale development at the Sukhoi Log deposit in the Irkutsk Region.

Polyus is also preparing to develop the Chulbatkan deposit in the Khabarovsk Region, which could produce more than 9 tons of gold per year. The Baimsky mining and processing plant in Chukotka expects to produce about 15 tons of the precious metal annually once it reaches full capacity. Rosatom has said it plans to mine up to 12 tons of gold a year in northern Russia. The Seligdar holding is preparing to develop the Kyuchus deposit in Arctic Yakutia, which could produce about 10 tons of gold annually. ALROSA also expects to produce more than 3 tons of gold a year at the Degdekan deposit in the Far East (at present, it mines gold only at placer deposits or as a byproduct).

Casey said other Russian companies, particularly in the country’s eastern regions, have also announced expansion plans. “This means that by 2030, the country will pass the 400-ton mark and may become the world’s largest gold producer,” she said.

Prosecutors said Labin played a key role in sending more than 400 tons of cargo to Russia, including sensors that are used to detect explosions and chemicals such as yttrium oxide, which is used in high-tech manufacturing. The court ruled that the transport of aluminum oxide — the largest category of cargo by volume — was not a criminal offense, but nevertheless classified Labin’s overall conduct as a “political crime.” Investigators said Labin and a Brussels businessman falsified customs documents and routed shipments through companies in Turkey, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan as part of an effort to conceal their final destination.

Labin’s son, Ruslan Labin, whom prosecutors said acted as an intermediary, was sentenced in absentia to six years in prison, and the court ordered his immediate arrest. Viktor Labin’s lawyer, Stanislas Eskenazi, told Politico that the exported chemical itself was not prohibited and called the sentence unusually harsh, saying he believed that it was the result of his client’s Russian origin.

The Insider investigated Viktor Labin’s activities in early 2024 and found that he was a GRU officer who had settled in Brussels, home to the headquarters of the European Commission and NATO. Through his Belgian companies, Labin supplied Russia’s military-industrial complex with coordinate-measuring machines, which are essential for weapons production. His family avoided European sanctions despite openly supporting the war against Ukraine on social media. The prosecutor who handled the case said the investigation’s findings confirmed The Insider’s conclusions.

Labin was arrested in February 2026. Belgian police had searched his home in June 2025, after which he was taken into custody. The first hearing in the case was held on Feb. 26 of this year.

Local outlet Delfi said its journalists flagged the issue and contacted the organizers. The Moscow Times has reported that Xzibit put on at least three concerts in Russia in 2025, and open-source information shows that he performed at Moscow’s VK Stadium last December and at Luzhniki Stadium in the fall of 2024.

The Riga concert was canceled after information about the rapper’s Russia performances was passed to Latvian authorities. Coyote Fly said it respects the authorities’ position but had no information indicating that Xzibit’s Russia shows “were political in nature.”

The club said that after the incident it would vet artists more carefully and review musicians’ public activity before making future bookings.

Xzibit, born Alvin Nathaniel Joiner, is an American rapper, actor, and television host from Los Angeles. He rose to prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000s with albums like Restless and collaborations with artists including Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Eminem. He is also widely known as the host of MTV’s car-makeover show Pimp My Ride.

The videos deleted from other channels included both recent uploads and some posted as far back as 2022. Among them was a video by automotive blogger Stas Asafyev that had around 8 million views. Videos were removed from channels with millions of subscribers, as well as from smaller creators. The channels affected include telblog.net, KUB, Anthony American, SHTREBUKH, Stas Asafyev, and PARADEEVICH CHILL. Gubanov also published a screenshot saying one of the videos had been removed “because of a legal complaint.”

Judging by copies preserved in the Web Archive, all the deleted videos contained advertising integrations for Alabuga or Alabuga Polytech. Some of the removed videos even included links to Alabuga in their descriptions. At the same time, other YouTube videos with similar advertisements remain available. It is not yet possible to determine whether this was a one-off action or the start of systematic moderation. There is currently no information about channel-wide bans, as only individual videos have been removed.

The Insider previously reported that anti-war activists and bloggers had begun circulating a list of YouTube creators who advertised Alabuga and its associated polytechnic school. The list includes bloggers who published sponsored integrations without mentioning reports that students may have been involved in producing attack drones. As of now, the list includes 472 bloggers with a combined audience of more than 531 million subscribers.

Gubanov told The Insider that YouTube, like Twitch, may be taking into account Alabuga’s sanctions status and the risks associated with promoting an organization that appears on sanctions lists. TikTok had earlier begun removing videos advertising Alabuga. At least 122 videos were blocked, along with the pages of several major creators, including Sasha Otesayy, Regina WTF, Yan Shaimukhametov, and Sofia Raikunova.

On April 27, reports confirmed that Twitch had blocked more than a dozen Russian accounts that streamed from an Alabuga Polytech tournament and carried advertising for it. According to Esports.ru, the reason was the fact that the venue is under EU sanctions.

Alabuga Polytech is located in the Alabuga special economic zone in Tatarstan. Earlier investigations by Current Time, T-invariant, and The Insider reported that students at the center are involved in drone production, including of the Shahed-type drones that are used in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The college’s advertisements from recent years have featured students openly describing their work in drone production and showing drone assembly workshops.

The central storyline of the fake narrative is the real hacking of Tchap, a French government messaging app that the bots use as a “source” for fabricated leaks. Videos branded with the logos of Western media outlets spread several narratives:

• One fabricated video claims that “leaked” correspondence by France’s defense minister confirmed that Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan had agreed to turn his country into a “military foothold” against Russia. In one video, Alexis Brézet, the real editor-in-chief of French outlet Le Figaro, is falsely quoted as saying that “whereas previously all this was merely rumours and unconfirmed insider information, we now have direct confirmation.”
• Another fake video attributed to Libération claims that French Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin, who has held the post since October 2025, discussed in Tchap that after Armenia had been “used,” Turkey and Azerbaijan would be able to “devour” it. The fake claims that Vautrin “mocked” the fact that Armenians had been “sold the idea of EU membership” and that French authorities are supposedly “in possession of plans drawn up by Turkey and Azerbaijan to annex parts of Armenia.”
• A third narrative claims France spent 120 million euros to rig the election in favor of Pashinyan and his Civil Contract party, and another 120 million to 150 million euros to interfere in Moldova’s elections. In a video using France 24 branding, Thibaut Bruttin, the real director general of Reporters Without Borders, is falsely quoted as saying French officials “factored in Nikol Pashinyan’s corruption [when discussing the allocation of funds” and expected him and his party to “embezzle the money allocated to them for vote rigging.”
• The bots also claim that French officials used “the same manipulation technologies in Armenia as they did in Moldova,” alleging that 40,000 Greeks “were granted citizenship in exchange for money and were brought to Armenia via Turkey.”
• Another fake, attributed to the investigative group Bellingcat — and using The Insider’s logo — claims that the son of Olivier Decottignies, France’s ambassador to Armenia since 2023, raped two underage Armenian girls in 2025 and that the case was covered up “at the highest level.” The video claims French officials referred to the victims in correspondence as “a pair of animals [that] simply ended up in the slaughterhouse,” presenting this as the “standard tone used by French officials when discussing Armenia and its citizens.”
• A separate video with the Spiegel TV logo claims Emmanuel Macron was furious over the election results because Pashinyan had been “misleading the French elite for a year” by “claiming his approval rating was no less than 61%” (he won with 49.85% of the overall vote). In the video, Fritz Scharpf, a real German political scientist and honorary director of the Max Planck Institute, is falsely quoted as saying that media outlets such as Euronews “have hailed this as a historic victory,” even though the result is “dismal” given the "appalling scale of electoral fraud perpetrated by the Civil Contract party.”
• Another video attributed to the German news portal t-online claims Vautrin called Armenians “savages” in the leaked correspondence. It also falsely attributes to German journalist Lars Wienand an argument that France “has never abandoned its colonial policies.”

Another element of the campaign involves fake covers and screenshots of Western media outlets. The bots are spreading fabricated Euronews screenshots with the headline “The battle of wills has been lost,” France 24 pages saying “Prime Minister Pashinyan has ceded the initiative to Armenia’s opposition forces,” DW pages saying “Pashinyan is passing off failure as victory,” and fake June 9 front pages of French newspapers, with Libération purportedly claiming “Pashinyan loses his advantage,” La Croix that “Election results destroy Pashinyan’s hopes,” and Le Parisien that the election was marked by “Corruption, blackmail, fraud.” All follow the theme that the elections were supposedly a failure for Pashinyan and a disappointment for his European partners.

Armenia’s elections and the Tchap hack

In reality, Civil Contract won the June 7 elections with 49.85% of the vote, taking 64 out of the 105 seats in parliament, enough to form a government on its own. However, the party does not have a two-thirds constitutional majority, and the bots exploit that real fact by portraying the result as a “failure.”

The Tchap hack that the bots use as the basis for the fakes was also real. On June 7, the day of Armenia’s elections, France’s cybersecurity agency ANSSI recorded a hack of the government messenger through a compromised account. The hackers claimed they had stolen 13.5 gigabytes of data, including more than 643,000 messages and information on 73,000 accounts. French authorities stressed that the attacker gained access only to public rooms, while private conversations protected by end-to-end encryption were not affected. There have been no confirmed leaks in the published data involving Armenia, nor have there been any credible reports of election fraud.

The Insider has links to the original posts and materials from Bot Blocker confirming that the accounts that published them belong to the Matryoshka network. The newsroom is not publishing direct links to avoid helping spread the disinformation.

What is Matryoshka?

Researchers use the name Matryoshka for a Russian operation that spreads fake stories on a massive scale using a coordinated infrastructure of bots, trolls and anonymous platforms. Its aim is to create artificial information noise and manipulate perceptions of events both in Russia and abroad. Antibot4Navalny named the operation “Matryoshka” after the Russian nesting doll, with the bots hiding behind one another, and disinformation being spread in layers across different platforms, making the original source harder to identify.

The mechanism works in two directions. The first is the creation of large numbers of fake profiles that pose as ordinary people, independent media outlets, or think tanks. These accounts generate dozens of posts a day, copying local speech patterns. The second is the simultaneous launch of identical content on X (formerly Twitter), Telegram, Bluesky, and closed chats. To appear convincing, the bots use the logos of well-known Western media outlets and human rights organizations.

New rules for processing asylum applications will come into effect in the European Union on June 12. They are part of the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, a reform package adopted by the Council of the EU in May 2024.

One of the key elements of the reform is a new regulation governing the procedure for granting international protection. It is intended to replace the previous system in which the national laws of member states governed procedures in line with an EU directive that set a general framework.

At present, asylum applications in the EU are reviewed under the regular procedure, or in some cases under an accelerated one. Until now, the use of accelerated procedures has largely remained an option to be used at the discretion of member states. The new regulation makes accelerated review mandatory for several categories of applicants.

One such category is citizens of a country whose average EU recognition rate for international protection is 20% or lower. In such cases, review deadlines are significantly shortened — down to three months. Exiled Russian politician and former political prisoner Andrei Pivovarov warned that this could affect the quality of case reviews, deprive applicants of the chance to provide additional arguments, and ultimately lead to more rejections.

Russia falls below the 20% threshold

The European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) told The Insider that the agency itself does not decide which countries fall under the 20% threshold. EUAA representatives said Eurostat compiles the list based on statistical data. The agency noted that every asylum application in the EU must be reviewed individually.

“We have, in fact, published a series of Country of Origin Information reports on the Russian Federation, most recently in December 2025, which impartially outline the situation of various political and social groups and developments pertaining to military service. Regardless of the 20% threshold, under European law, all asylum applications must always be assessed based on their individual merits. This does not change,” the agency said.

Russia is included in Eurostat’s published list of countries whose citizens have a first-instance recognition rate for international protection of 20% or lower, with a rate of 18.1%, according to the official list obtained by The Insider.

According to Eurostat’s official response to The Insider, the list was compiled specifically for the purpose of applying the results to the EU’s new asylum procedure regulation. It is used to determine whether applications from citizens of a given country may be reviewed under an accelerated or border procedure.

Eurostat said the indicator is calculated based on first-instance decisions on asylum applications. The agency’s database separately includes data on final decisions after appeals, but the list linked to the new regulation uses first-instance statistics.

Rights advocates dispute the logic of the EU’s new approach

Activists say Russia’s rate hovers around 20% but formally falls short of it. Rights advocate Daria Dudley told The Insider that the logic behind the policy change is extremely flawed:

“Instead of reconsidering the practice in which even applicants from countries with harsh dictatorships and armed conflicts — such as Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, or the Democratic Republic of Congo — consistently show extremely low asylum recognition rates in the EU, the European Union is finally cementing this absurd logic in its new migration legislation,” Dudley said.

“Based on international protection recognition statistics, a list is being formed of about 70 countries with rates of 20% or lower, whose citizens are subject to an accelerated review procedure, including at the border.

This means that an applicant from any of these countries may go through an accelerated border procedure. In a very compressed time frame and without legal assistance, the burden falls on the applicant to prove that they genuinely face political persecution because of their civic or political activity.

Russia is also on this list, with a recognition rate of 18.1%, despite severe political repression, a huge number of political prisoners, and criminal prosecutions up to being labeled an ‘extremist’ or ‘traitor’ for an anti-war position or refusal to take part in the criminal war against Ukraine.

The EU’s new migration rules are a victory of absurdity over common sense, a complete disregard for human lives and human dignity, and a clear indifference to its own statements about supporting Ukraine, human rights, and the rule of law.

In trying to save money on the migration system and perhaps redirect funds to defense, the European Union is essentially shooting itself in the foot and destroying what it has spent decades building with such difficulty. It is clear that through the new migration legislation, the EU will very quickly, before our eyes, move toward a harsh American model with mass detentions and a legal vacuum for migrants, including Russians.”

The regulation provides exceptions for certain categories of applicants for whom overall country statistics do not reflect real risks. Pivovarov said that is why, on behalf of the “Consuls” of the Anti-War Committee of Russia, he sent an appeal to EUAA Executive Director Nina Gregori. In the appeal, he asks the agency to prepare separate Country Guidance on Russia and, until it is issued, to release interim clarification on which categories of Russians should not automatically be placed in accelerated or border procedures.

Pivovarov said the categories include political activists, people facing anti-war or “extremism” cases, journalists, human rights defenders, “foreign agents,” members of the LGBTQ+ community, members of religious minorities including Jehovah’s Witnesses, draft evaders, deserters, and women from the North Caucasus who have suffered gender-based violence.

“Russian cases cannot be assessed only by overall statistics. Politically persecuted and vulnerable groups must have a full review procedure, not an accelerated one,” he said.

Rights advocates say that if the procedure becomes accelerated, applicants may effectively lose the chance to “submit documents later.” For that reason, even people with strong cases must now seek help from human rights defenders or lawyers as early as possible.

“This device here is called a ‘node,’” says radio enthusiast Sergey (name changed for security reasons), holding out a rectangular box with a thick antenna on the side.

Sergey lays two such boxes on the table in front of him — one purple and one orange. Using these devices, he can exchange short text messages with other node owners over radio waves without relying on the internet or cellular networks.

The radio communication standard that makes this possible is called LoRa (short for “Long Range”). It allows the transmission of small data packets over distances of up to 15 kilometers under ideal conditions and up to five kilometers in urban areas. LoRa transmitters are integrated on a single board with the ESP32 microcontroller, which can connect to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, allowing them to be used for the Internet of Things.

Using a technology known as Meshtastic, nodes are linked together into a single decentralized network, thereby extending the signal range. The technology was developed in the early 2020s by American engineer Kevin Hester to help people stay connected far from cellular towers.

Today, Meshtastic is an open-source project whose development is supported by tens of thousands of people around the world, from ravers and “preppers” to volunteers helping victims of natural disasters.

Sergey is around 30 years old. He lives in northern Moscow and is passionate about the science behind communications. After watching videos by Dmitry Pobedinsky, who in September 2025 released a viral video titled “This Will Save You When They Block the ENTIRE INTERNET,” Sergey decided to assemble a device that would allow him to survive a “digital apocalypse.”

ESP32 LoRa devices supporting Meshtastic technology are freely available on all major online marketplaces. For around 10,000 rubles ($140), it is possible to buy a fully assembled gadget with a built-in keyboard and a full display, while a bare digital board that can be used to assemble a radio device independently costs around 2,000 rubles ($28).

“This is the Hercules Heltec V3 model,” Sergey explains. “It’s the most common one and fairly cheap. There are more powerful models that consume less battery power, but they’re more expensive. These little antennas came bundled with the board, but people recommend replacing them because they’re too weak. I ordered the case separately and soldered in a battery as well — those are bought separately too. In principle, you don’t even have to do any of that: the board itself is already ready to use, and if you don’t have a battery, you can power it with a power bank.”

Once the device is ready, the user needs to download the latest version of the software from the official Meshtastic website, along with the Android or Apple app in order to pair the radio module with a smartphone. The application also has a web version for Chrome-based browsers. However, from the perspective of many Meshtastic users, that somewhat undermines the “purity of the experiment,” since their primary interest is communication without the internet.

When the Meshtastic app is launched for the first time, users select their country and configure region-specific settings (which can easily be found in specialized Telegram chats). These settings determine the frequency range in which the device will operate.

Communication via Meshtastic is not regulated by the government as long as it takes place within the unlicensed 868 MHz frequency band. In addition, the transmitter itself must not exceed 25 mW in power — otherwise, it must be registered with Roskomnadzor and the user must obtain an official amateur radio license. Transmitters exceeding 100 mWare prohibited altogether.

Once all the setup steps are completed, the device turns into a fully functional node. Messages typed on a smartphone are transmitted to the node via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi and then relayed over radio waves across the network. At the same time, the messages are protected from outside access through end-to-end encryption, just like in modern messaging apps.

Messages arriving at your node undergo the reverse conversion from radio signal into digital data, allowing you to read them on your smartphone. And if the gadget has a keyboard and screen, messages can be written and sent directly from the device itself.

Using the Meshtastic app, users can correspond via private chat with acquaintances who have their own nodes, or else communicate in a public channel where messages are visible to everyone. The app’s map also shows which nodes are operating nearby, and it is possible to create a private channel for communication and by sharing an access key with selected invitees.

In order for a message to travel across a large city, the mesh-network principle comes into play. “Look,” Sergey says, sketching a diagram on a sheet of paper. “I want to send a message to you, but we’re out of each other’s range. So we need a third person — let’s call him Matvey — whose device can receive my message. Matvey himself can’t read it because it’s encrypted, but his node forwards the message onward and records that a relay took place. From Matvey, the message goes to Boris, whose device forwards it further, recording that it is now the third relay in the chain. And so on.”

The maximum number of “hops” a message can make between sender and recipient is set to three by default, though it can be manually increased to seven. The limit was introduced by the developers in order to prevent endlessly “hopping” messages from clogging up the communication channel.

“The connection works within a single city and the nearby Moscow suburbs,” Sergey explains, “but unfortunately, you can’t send a message from Moscow to Tver. I read about an enthusiast in Stavropol Krai who climbed a mountain and transmitted a message over 130 kilometers, but that was a record, and he was standing on a mountaintop with a very powerful antenna.”

In Stavropol Krai, an enthusiast climbed a mountain and transmitted a message over 130 kilometers – a record

With the node Sergey lent me, I return home and join the chatter in Moscow’s public Meshtastic chat. Most users here are interested in whether their signal is getting through and, if so, how many “hops” it has travelled. “Testing a stub antenna, can anyone hear me?” one user asks. “I can only break through onto the airwaves with a pole the size of a Jedi sword. In other (better-off) neighborhoods I can message from ground level,” another reports.

But conversations also drift into ordinary everyday topics. People chat about work, joke around, complain about their memory getting worse with age, wish other users “good night,” or write phrases like “Good morning to the cellblock” (a slang greeting associated with prison culture).

Some of the exchanges come through only in fragments, suggesting either that the quality of the connection is imperfect or that my own user settings still leave much to be desired.

Building bridges

According to the official map maintained by the OneMesh project, Meshtastic communities are currently active in dozens of Russian cities. At the time of writing, the number of active nodes that had connected to the network at least once within the previous 14 days exceeded 12,500. The largest concentration — more than 3,200 — was recorded in Moscow and the surrounding region. St. Petersburg ranked second with nearly 2,000 nodes, followed by Yekaterinburg (just under 600), Novosibirsk (around 480), and Ryazan (415).

Journalists have already noted the predictable surge of interest in Meshtastic amid mobile internet shutdowns in various parts of Russia. For now, however, most Russian owners of LoRa devices do not appear to view their activity merely as a form of amateur radio hobbyism.

Still, the technology offers far broader possibilities than simple messaging. For example, a node can be used as a “bridge” between a mesh network and the regular internet, and it is easy to find online accounts from Meshtastic enthusiasts who have configured their nodes to send and read email. Some have even managed to receive fresh posts from their Telegram feeds on a node, as blogger Techno Minimalist did using a Raspberry Pi single-board computer roughly the size of a bank card (such devices are typically used for teaching programming).

Techno Minimalist wrote a script that allows a node connected to the internet at his home using a Raspberry Pi to automatically query Telegram for new posts from channels he follows. The node then forwards those posts to the portable node he carries around the city. As a result, the blogger no longer has to worry that a mobile internet shutdown might cause him to miss interesting updates.

“I can read channels, load the latest posts, and scroll through them — without videos or pictures, of course. I implemented transliteration so the screen can fit twice as many characters. It’s also possible to set it up to receive private messages and send back replies,” Techno Minimalist wrote in a post that went viral.

At the same time, IT expert and digital rights advocate Gennady (name changed for security reasons)  cautions against excessive optimism about Meshtastic’s potential to substitute for internet access during shutdowns. He emphasizes that the very configuration of LoRa radio modules is designed for low-power operation so as not to interfere with gate remotes, alarm systems, and other devices functioning on the same frequencies. According to him, all claims about transmitting messages through Meshtastic over distances of dozens of kilometers remain theoretical calculations that cannot realistically be achieved in practice.

“When you send a message across seven ‘hops’ in Moscow, one of those intermediate hops will inevitably involve the internet,” Gennady argues. “Roughly speaking, I’m sitting at home, and two hops away from me there’s a relay node that pushes the message onto the internet, then it resurfaces somewhere else. But once the internet disappears entirely, your node will only be able to communicate with other nodes that are within direct line of sight, meaning even to communicate across neighboring streets in areas with high-rise buildings, we would have to violate Roskomnadzor regulations, because LoRa devices based on the ESP32 are supposed to operate at low power and with non-amplified antennas. That’s why they’re sold with those little ‘stubs,’ those tiny antennas.”

Together with his colleagues, Gennady calculated how many LoRa devices would theoretically be required to transmit a message into Moscow from abroad under ideal conditions. They arrived at a figure of around 200 “hops.”

Implementing such a setup in practice is physically impossible. Even within Moscow’s city limits the system faces difficulties: hundreds of nodes scattered across a metropolis not only expand the mesh network’s coverage but also interfere with one another, distorting communication. “Unfortunately, Meshtastic is basically a toy — a fun little novelty,” Gennady says. “Even dial-up internet as it existed, say, in 1991, vastly surpasses any network that could be built on Meshtastic in terms of speed and capacity.”

Gennady notes, however, that there are better alternatives: “Beyond Meshtastic, there are more advanced solutions worth mentioning that can run on the same radio devices. These are the MeshCore and Reticulum projects. People are experimenting, and perhaps at the next stage of technological development all this amateur radio activity will amount to something meaningful. In the beautiful Russia of the future, once sanctions are lifted, we may turn out to be more technologically prepared than the guys in California who are currently pouring money into startups and accelerators.”

“In the beautiful Russia of the future, once sanctions are lifted, we may turn out to be more technologically prepared than the guys in California”

MeshCore is a relatively new protocol for linking LoRa devices into a unified network. It was introduced to the public in early 2025 by Australian developer Scott Powell. The basic operating principles remain the same. However, MeshCore introduces a clear distinction between ordinary user nodes (called companions) and relay devices (known as repeaters).

Unlike in Meshtastic, companions do not send messages directly to one another; instead, communication passes through a repeater that is responsible for intelligent route selection, with users choosing during setup whether to configure a LoRa device as a companion or as a repeater. This network configuration has significantly expanded the system’s coverage, allowing MeshCore to support data transmission over as many as 64 “hops.”

Using around 300 repeaters placed at elevated points in mountainous terrain, MeshCore volunteers have managed to establish a communication line stretching roughly 640 kilometers between Vancouver, Canada and Eugene, Oregon. Cross-border transmission between the two cities can be accomplished in just 12 “hops,” without any intermediate connection to the internet.

Another major test that MeshCore passed was the large-scale blackout in Berlin earlier this year. After an arson attack against a cable bridge, tens of thousands of homes were left without electricity and heating for several days. The blackout was accompanied by a communications outage, leaving people unable to contact their relatives through conventional means. However, LoRa radio modules running the MeshCore protocol continued operating and withstood the sudden surge in demand.

The Telegram channel of MeshCore enthusiasts in Russia reported that the first repeaters began operating in Moscow and Kazan as early as late 2025. Just a couple of months of development proved sufficient to cover the entire Russian capital and the surrounding region with the network, and at present, the “Meshkartel” project shows around 1,800 active receivers on its map of Russia, with 679 of them located in Moscow.

The Reticulum networking tool makes it possible to combine many different types of devices and data transmission methods — computers connected by cable, phones operating via Bluetooth, portable radio stations — into a single “web” capable of functioning at extremely low connection speeds. The ambitious goal of its creator, engineer Mark Qvist, is to build a fully decentralized alternative to the internet as we know it.

As Qvist himself explains, “we don’t need one big network layered on top of the internet, but many networks connected in countless ways. We need thousands of networks without kill switches and control mechanisms, and we need to tie them together both through and beyond the internet.”

“We don’t need one big network layered on top of the internet, but many networks connected in countless ways.”

It is difficult to reliably determine how widespread this technology is in Russia, but according to Gennady, there are rumors that Moscow alone already has more registered Reticulum nodes than all of the United Kingdom.

Interest among Russians in mesh networks, including the MeshCore project, is indeed growing noticeably, says Ksenia Yermoshina, a UX designer for the Delta.Chat messenger and an enthusiast of mesh-network development:

“If you look at maps of users of these tools, you can see that there are already many antennas and that the network density is high — and not only in large cities. People are sharing knowledge with one another, and there are many mesh-network guides circulating online. Moreover, bridges are being created between MeshCore and Delta.Chat and between Delta.Chat and Meshtastic. Hybrids are emerging that allow users of ordinary communication tools to interact with people in mesh networks and vice versa. I think the future belongs precisely to such projects. In principle, this bridge-building is the direction in which communication in Russia may develop under whitelist restrictions.”

Messengers via Bluetooth and email

Communication without an internet connection does not necessarily require intermediary specialized radio devices. It can also be organized via messengers that are capable of transmitting data via Bluetooth. The main problem with such applications is the extremely limited range of Bluetooth itself, which extends to several dozen meters at best. However, this limitation can be addressed through the previously described method of linking smartphones into a mesh network.

In the summer of 2025, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey introduced the BitChat messenger, which operates using precisely this technology. BitChat has no central servers and it requires neither registration nor SIM cards. The service assigns users a random nickname when first launched, which they can later change. Messages sent through BitChat exist nowhere except on the user’s own device, and the developers implemented a number of technical measures intended to make user identification as difficult as possible.

Earlier this year, BitChat served as the primary means of communication for participants in mass protests in Uganda. The demonstrations erupted after the country’s incumbent leader, 81-year-old Yoweri Museveni, declared himself the winner of his seventh consecutive presidential election.

The developers of BitChat expressed support for the protesters and called on “every Ugandan programmer” to join the project’s development. They also released an update allowing not only smartphones but also LoRa radio modules to function as communication nodes for the messenger.

Another way to preserve digital communication amid deliberate “jamming” from the authorities is to use the Delta.Chat messenger, which still requires an internet connection. However, because Delta.Chat operates using email protocols, it is extremely difficult for the state to block the messenger without disabling email delivery services altogether.

Delta.Chat can be configured to work through a regular email account, though the developers recommend using their dedicated chatmail relays instead. These employ encryption, collect no user information, and store messages only temporarily, while a user’s device is offline. The application automatically assigns a relay to the user on first launch, though it can also be changed manually if desired.

Delta.Chat performed successfully during internet shutdowns in Iran thanks to the fact that the local IT community had begun preparing for a “digital collapse” long before it occurred. “Iran has very strong programmers, developers, and advocates of free software,” Ksenia Yermoshina says. “From the information reaching us, several hundred chatmail relays had already been set up there in advance. And they weren’t just deploying relays — they were also experimenting with how the system functioned in general, including adding transport layers that we ourselves do not support.”

The messenger is now gaining an audience among Russian users as an application capable of “outsmarting” whitelist restrictions. By following instructions available online, it is relatively easy to configure a Mail.ru or Yandex Mail inbox for use as a Delta.Chat account. After that, users can continue communicating through the messenger, with Mail.ru or Yandex mail delivering the messages as ordinary emails. However, the providers themselves cannot read the correspondence because, as Yermoshina puts it, it appears to them as “a heap of encrypted gibberish.”

Delta.Chat is gaining an audience in Russia as an application capable of “outsmarting” whitelist restrictions

This method of communication is relatively safe, but it cannot be used if a person participates in large group chats using their Delta.Chat account. In that case, Mail.ru services will simply detect that messages are being sent and received too frequently and will automatically block the mailbox as if protecting it from spam activity. As Yermoshina explains:

“In normal times, when whitelist restrictions are not active, I always advise people to use our chatmail relays. There are many of them, and their number keeps growing. A great deal of work is being done to make them more resilient. They are maintained by an international community, audited for security, and designed for very high-threat scenarios — situations where police burst into a data center and physically seize the machine hosting everything. We put enormous effort into ensuring that in such a situation the police would find nothing unencrypted, no data from which they could reconstruct a social graph or detain anyone. So once again, use our chatmail relays, and keep a Mail.ru inbox in reserve for a ‘doomsday’ scenario.”

“When things go bad”

“If things go bad in Russia, then absolutely everything people have prepared locally will matter,” Yermoshina stresses. “As the example of Iran shows, people will use any working solution to contact one another and make sure their relatives are alive. They won’t be in some kind of ‘luxury’ situation where they can afford to be picky or selective about communication tools.”

In a relatively optimistic scenario, expert Gennady believes Russians will continue building local mesh networks during shutdowns. He emphasises that although such systems cannot transmit data over large distances, constructing a network within one’s own neighborhood is entirely realistic, and that developing technical literacy in the process is worthwhile all by itself.

The obvious problem is that the state may decide to intervene. Roskomnadzor’s structure includes the “Main Radio Frequency Center,” which is far more competent in the field of monitoring radio communication than Roskomnadzor itself is when it comes to internet censorship.

“If you’ve watched Soviet films about the Nazis, you may remember scenes where some intelligence operative is tapping out a message in Morse code while vehicles with rotating rooftop antennas drive through the streets trying to triangulate his position. Well, if you go to Roskomnadzor’s office in Butovo, you’ll see exactly that kind of vehicle parked nearby, with an antenna on the roof. All these blocks of media outlets, ‘undesirable organization’ labels, and fines for data leaks came later. Their core expertise is radio direction-finding, and there’s no reason to believe they’ve lost that capability,” Gennady explains.

“Roskomnadzor’s core expertise is radio direction-finding, and there is no reason to believe they’ve lost that capability”

To understand what truly harsh state control over radio communications might look like, Gennady points to the high-profile case involving “radio amateurs” currently unfolding in Belarus. The country’s security services announced that they had uncovered a large network of “radio spies” who allegedly connected to official frequencies on behalf of foreign intelligence services and extracted data critical to national security — including conversations at military airfields, information about air defense positions, and details of Alexander Lukashenko’s travel routes.

As a result, the Belarusian KGB confiscated more than 500 pieces of radio equipment and “held accountable” over 50 amateur radio operators. Seven people were charged with “treason” and “espionage,” offenses that can carry penalties up to and including death.

Journalists were able to establish that the detained were registered amateur radio operators who had passed a difficult state examination and obtained licenses. According to a theory advanced by Belarusian scientist and longtime radio enthusiast Sergey Besarab, if the detainees really did gain access to the security services’ closed communications, it was not out of malicious intent but because the officials themselves had failed to encrypt them properly: “Lukashenko’s guards were poorly educated savages who simply bought cheap junk and communicated through it, so these people are guilty only of having heard those conversations on their receivers.”

Speaking of the situation in Russia, Gennady says: “The radio frequency spectrum is a very limited resource that is not difficult for the state to control. Lukashenko has obviously moved far ahead of the Russian Federation in this respect, but we could slide in the same direction too. I’m old enough, for example, to remember when 5 GHz Wi-Fi routers were prohibited for civilian use [the State Commission for Radio Frequencies granted permission for their use at the end of 2011]. This whole story of restricting access to radio frequencies was gradually relaxed over time, but now the process has reversed direction, and I fear we are heading back toward Soviet-style communications legislation.”

When asked about where things might go from here, Gennady adds: “In conditions of a total internet shutdown, nothing will work — no VPN Generator, no Delta.Chat, no CENO browser will save you from a shutdown. If, under such conditions, someone offers you internet access, then they’re scammers. It’s as impossible as accessing the internet from a phone switched to airplane mode. But as long as at least some ‘holes’ remain, some traffic will still get through.”

Specialists currently prefer not to discuss the possible technical solutions openly, even though “beta versions” of them already exist. But they say these tools will not resemble ordinary VPNs with suspicious foreign IP addresses but will instead evolve toward fully disguising traffic to fit within whitelist restrictions.

“And the best thing you can do right now to preserve internet access,” Gennady advises, “is ask a friend in the West to buy hosting for you and provide a home computer so that you can build your own small VPN using a nonstandard protocol and prepare to tunnel traffic through the MAX messenger or via email.”

Yet despite the country maintaining high production and export volumes, the profitability of Russia’s gas and coal industries has declined significantly over the years of the full-scale war against Ukraine, a fact confirmed by two recent GreenThinkTank.life studies authored by Russia’s former Deputy Minister of Energy Vladimir Milov, environmental expert Arthur Bakuriani, and coal industry researcher Anton Lementuev. Their review examines how Russia’s gas and coal sectors survived four years of sanctions and the loss of the European market.

The analysts concluded that deliveries to China have not and cannot offset the loss of the European market, and that maintaining exports increasingly requires government support, tax breaks, and subsidies. At the same time, the authorities have been gradually loosening environmental oversight and restricting access to information about the two industries’ environmental impact.

Natural gas: China has yet to replace Europe in volume

Of all the wartime blows to Russia’s energy sector, the loss of the European gas market has been the most painful. The report’s authors highlight a paradox: gas, which the Kremlin had used for years as a tool of geopolitical pressure on Europe, ultimately backfired on Russia itself. The attempt to trigger an energy crisis in the EU, the invasion of Ukraine, and the subsequent Western sanctions pushed European countries to accelerate their move away from Russian gas. As a result, by 2025 pipeline gas exports to Europe had fallen to a historic low of around 18 billion cubic meters per year.

Before that, Europe was buying nearly half of all Russian pipeline gas. For decades European consumers had been the primary source of revenue for Gazprom. After the invasion of Ukraine, however, the situation changed dramatically. According to the study’s authors, EU imports of Russian gas have fallen by more than 80%, and Russia's share of the European market dropped from 45% to 11–12%.

The Kremlin had counted on China to replace the lost European market. Exports via the Power of Siberia pipeline grew rapidly — from 10.4 billion cubic meters in 2021 to nearly 39 billion cubic meters in 2025. But it was not enough.

First, the volumes are not comparable. Before the war, Russia was supplying Europe and Turkey with around 185 billion cubic meters of gas per year. Even after several years of growth, the Chinese direction offset only a small fraction of those losses. Second, China buys Russian gas at much lower prices. Whereas European customers had for decades been willing to pay a premium for reliable supply, Beijing is exploiting Moscow’s weakened position by dictating its own terms, the report states.

There is also a third problem: the gas that used to flow to Europe was produced mainly in Western Siberia. The Power of Siberia pipeline, however, draws on entirely different fields in the east of the country. As a result, a vast portion of the infrastructure built to serve the European market is now underutilized or has lost its original purpose.

To address this problem, Russia has for years been promoting the Power of Siberia 2 project, which would link Western Siberian fields to China via Mongolia. But the project's economics are coming under increasing scrutiny, analysts note. Construction costs are estimated in the tens of billions of dollars, while Gazprom’s revenues are falling. According to the study’s authors, the company’s profitability has nearly halved in recent years — from around $9.3 per barrel of oil equivalent in 2021 to $5.3 by 2025.

Exports of liquefied natural gas provide some relief. In 2024, Russia shipped a record 33.6 million tons of LNG to foreign markets. But the sector has run into different problems: sanctions against new projects, along with technology shortages. As a result, plans for a sharp increase in LNG exports are now in doubt.

Even so, the gas industry remains one of the state’s largest sources of revenue. According to the analysts, Gazprom and Novatek account for one-tenth of federal budget revenues and transfer approximately $50 billion in taxes to the state each year. Furthermore, the researchers calculate that the two companies’ tax contributions are roughly equivalent to a third of Russia's official defense spending.

That is why the state continues to support the industry even as profitability declines. Ordinary Russians pay the price, as the authorities have started raising domestic gas prices more rapidly. Whereas tariffs for households and businesses used to grow at roughly the same rate as prices for other goods and services, since 2022 gas prices have been rising noticeably faster.

Coal: China has yet to replace Europe in net profit

While the main blow to Russia’s gas sector was the loss of a key sales market, the coal industry managed to preserve export volumes but lost a significant share of its profits.

Before the full-scale war, Europe was among the largest buyers of Russian coal (also accounting for the highest profits) thanks to high prices and relatively short logistics. Having lost that market, companies began shifting en masse to Asia. In 2025, Russia mined roughly 443 million metric tons of coal and exported 211 million tons, retaining its place among the world’s three largest exporters.

Yet the industry’s financial performance over the same period deteriorated sharply. In 2025, the cumulative losses of the Russian coal industry reached 408 billion rubles, and according to the authors, the total losses of coal companies since the start of the full-scale war have exceeded 2.5 trillion rubles. The blow was particularly severe for Kuzbass, the country’s main coal-mining region. Corporate income tax revenues to the regional budget stood at 143 billion rubles in 2022, but by 2025 they had fallen to 29.9 billion. Many companies began laying off workers, and regional authorities were forced to cut payments to contract soldiers heading to the war in Ukraine.

After the loss of Europe, China became the Russian coal industry’s main hope. The Chinese market did help Russian coal producers avert a catastrophe in 2022–2023. Before long, however, it became clear that China had no intention of serving as the savior of the Russian coal industry. Average export revenue from sales of Russian coal to China was around $142 per ton in 2023; by 2025 it had fallen to $92. At the same time, China introduced import duties on Russian coal and continued to expand its own production.

Critically, Russian coal is not indispensable for China. Even in the best years, Russia's share of Chinese imports did not exceed one-quarter of the market. China can easily replace some of those supplies with coal from Australia, Indonesia, or its own production.

The analysts also point to another factor. While Russia is trying to entrench itself in the Chinese coal market, China itself is expanding renewables at an accelerating pace. In 2025 alone, the country brought online 452 GW of new solar, wind, and hydroelectric capacity — nearly one and a half times the total installed capacity of Russia’s entire power system.

Exports dependent on state support

Another shared feature of the Russian gas and coal industries is their growing dependence on the state. Coal accounts for less than 1% of Russian GDP, yet it takes up nearly a third of all Russian Railways freight traffic and relies heavily on subsidized rail logistics. Most deposits are located thousands of kilometers from ports, and after the loss of the European market, coal has to travel even further to reach China and other Asian countries. If freight were charged at full cost, a significant portion of exports would become economically unviable. The state therefore effectively sustains the sector through discounted rail tariffs and guaranteed coal freight quotas.

According to the report’s authors, Russian Railways’ losses from coal haulage amounted to 127 billion rubles in 2024 alone. Over the past decade, such shipments have cost the rail monopoly 436 billion rubles in damages. In addition, the government grants coal producers tax deferrals and other forms of support.

The gas sector depends on the state differently. Having lost a share of export revenues, it is increasingly relying on the domestic market. To offset the losses, the authorities have accelerated increases in domestic gas tariffs, in effect shifting part of the costs onto Russian consumers.

Cutting costs at nature’s expense

The authors note that since the start of the full-scale war, Russian authorities have been consistently weakening environmental requirements for industries. Where the state previously at least attempted to promote investment in reducing environmental damage, its priorities have now shifted toward maintaining production and exports.

This is especially visible in the coal sector. More than three-quarters of Russian coal is extracted by open-pit mining — the cheapest and the most destructive method. In 2023, the coal industry produced around 6 billion tons of waste. As an example, the authors cite Kiselyovsk in Kuzbass, where more than half of the residents are exposed to high coal dust pollution.

In the gas sector, the problem takes a different form. Here it is primarily a matter of declining transparency. In 2025, Gazprom discontinued publication of its sustainability report, and access to some information on environmental impacts became restricted.

Methane and disappearing data

Both reports place a particular emphasis on methane emissions. This gas traps heat in the atmosphere roughly 80 times as effectively as carbon dioxide in the first 20 years after release, making it one of the main drivers of rapid climate change.

According to the GreenThinkTank coal industry report, Russia remains one of the world’s largest emitters of methane. Precise emission estimates, however, differ considerably. Russia’s official reporting puts methane emissions at approximately 9 million tons per year, while the International Energy Agency estimates methane emissions from the oil, gas, and coal sector alone at approximately 14 million tons annually.

Coal mining is of particular concern to the authors. Methane is released from coal seams during extraction and frequently escapes into the atmosphere. The highest levels of such emissions are recorded in the Kemerovo Region — the country's coal-mining center — followed by the Komi Republic, Novosibirsk Region, Krasnoyarsk Krai, and Yakutia. According to expert estimates, coal enterprises in Kuzbass release more than 2 billion cubic meters of methane into the atmosphere each year.

Independent monitoring of such emissions is becoming increasingly difficult, as parts of the statistical data have been classified since the start of the war. The authors also draw attention to changes in Russia’s climate reporting. In 2024–2025, the authorities introduced a new methodology for calculating greenhouse gas emissions, which caused the official estimate of the country's net emissions to fall by approximately 30%. The report's authors believe that the drop in emissions reported on paper was primarily the result of a revision of the counting formulas rather than of any actual changes in industrial operations.

The gas report notes that in 2025, Gazprom discontinued publication of its sustainability report, which had previously contained data on the company’s emissions and environmental impact. Whereas in the early 2020s the debate focused on how much methane Russian companies were emitting, a different question is now increasingly being raised: who can actually verify this data? As statistics are closed off and public reporting is curtailed, international databases and satellite observations are becoming the primary sources of information on emissions.