President Trump has repeatedly promised to end the Russia–Ukraine war within 24 hours, though peace talks have made little substantive progress so far. Just as often, he returns to a story about the early days of the full-scale invasion — tweaking a minor detail each time — describing Russian tanks that were advancing on Kyiv but got stuck in the mud.

During a conversation with reporters at the White House on October 20, Trump repeated the story again, this time focusing on one Russian general.

A stupid general for Russia, a very stupid gentleman. They had a thousand tanks riding up a concrete highway. They would have been in Ukraine in four hours, going maximum tank speed, which is 48 miles an hour, to be exact. Nothing to stop them. The war would have been over in one day. And this very stupid general — I have no idea who he is. I doubt he’s still with us. I doubt he’s still living. He decided to hang a right onto the farmland and then take a left and go up to Kyiv, rather than staying on the highway — the concrete highway, perfectly good highway — where they were doing very nicely. It would have been three and a half, four hours, and the whole war would have ended. He ended up getting stuck in the mud.

BBC Russia fact-checked Trump’s claim. According to the outlet, Colonel General Alexander Chayko led Russia’s advance on Kyiv from Belarus in February 2022, and the offensive’s failure had nothing to do with any decision by him to turn off the road.

Ukrainian forces stopped the advance on Kyiv. On February 26, 2022, Ukraine’s military blew up a bridge over the Irpin River on the outskirts of the capital, then destroyed the Kozarovychi dam when Russian forces tried to go around the obstruction. Ukrainian forces also destroyed a column of Russian armored vehicles in Bucha. As the Russian army’s losses mounted, its command brought in reinforcements from Belarus.

After the failed advance, Russian military command removed Chayko as commander and sent him to lead the Russian contingent in Syria. He stayed there until June 2025, a tenure that spanned the coup that forced President Bashar al-Assad to flee to Moscow.

None of this hurt the general’s career, BBC Russia said. He returned to Moscow, became deputy chief of the General Staff, and was later promoted to commander of Russia’s Aerospace Forces.

In August 2026, General Chayko did indeed nearly die: an explosion occurred near the Balzi Rossi restaurant in Moscow, where he was celebrating his 55th birthday and his promotion to the new post. Five people were killed, including Chayko’s son-in-law, and 19 others were injured. Chayko himself was unharmed.

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The Ukrainian command is trying to stop the Russian offensive — the decisive push in the battle for Donbas — on the approaches to the Kramatorsk-Sloviansk urban area. To do this, it has created two operational groupings, both led by veterans of the Azov Brigade: the “Center” grouping, tasked with holding Sloviansk, is commanded by Andriy Biletsky (former commander of the 3rd Army Corps), while the Azov grouping guarding the approaches to Kramatorsk is commanded by Denys Prokopenko (former commander of the 12th National Guard Brigade, which was reconstituted after the 2022 capture of its forces in Mariupol in 2022). Biletsky’s troops have already distinguished themselves with a successful offensive: they pushed Russia’s 20th Army back across the Siverskyi Donets north of Sloviansk, and are now trying to drive back the forces advancing on the city from the east and south. Prokopenko’s task is harder: he took up his new post in the midst of a fresh Russian breakthrough between Dobropillia and Kramatorsk. In this sector, Ukrainian forces are dealing with a full-blown crisis — possibly more serious than the one caused by the Russian breakthrough in the same area 14 months ago. Russian troops have already cut the Dobropillia-Kramatorsk road, are storming the first city, and are pushing toward the outskirts of the second.

Dobropillia

• Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces had fully captured Dobropillia and released several videos of Russian assault troops in the city as evidence. Some of the footage shows clear signs of AI processing (a practice that is becoming more common), though other clips appear genuine. Ukrainian forces, meanwhile, have published videos of their own strikes on Russian forces in Dobropillia.
• Troops advancing from the south have reached the city center, while forces attacking from the east have reached the northern outskirts via the village of Hannivka. A third group is advancing between Dobropillia and the Pokrovsk–Dnipro road, threatening to outflank the entire area from the west. The apparent goal is to drive a wedge between the “Azov” group in Dobropillia and the forces defending the eastern part of the Dnipropetrovsk region, in the area around Mezhova.
• North of the Pokrovsk–Dnipro road, Russian forces have reached Hulive, while to the south they have captured Serhiivka.
• The main danger, though, comes from a Russian breakthrough east of Dobropillia. Russian command has moved additional forces there from the eastern part of the Zaporizhzhia region and repeated, on a much larger scale, a maneuver that failed last year: a large grouping has pushed through to the Dobropillia–Kramatorsk road and now threatens to break through to Kramatorsk’s southwestern outskirts. Russian forces have retaken Kucheriv Yar and part of the large village of Zolotyi Kolodiaz — the same settlements where a Ukrainian counterattack in August 2025, reinforced by large forces redeployed from the Sumy region, halted the well-known Dobropillia breakthrough. Both sides have simultaneously published videos meant to prove they control Zolotyi Kolodiaz, so it remains unclear which side holds the village. Russian forces, however, have already managed to get behind its Ukrainian defenders near Petrivka. Russian forces earlier reached Novoandriivka on the road to Druzhkivka farther east, raising a real threat of a breakthrough directly to Kramatorsk’s southeastern outskirts.
• At the same time, on the opposite flank of the area overseen by Denys Prokopenko’s group — along the front southeast of Kramatorsk — another Russian grouping continues to advance. It is moving around the northern outskirts of Kostiantynivka and Oleksiievo-Druzhkivka, heading generally toward Bilokuzminovka. The terrain there is difficult: Bilokuzminovka is home to a park with cliffs dozens of meters high, backed by a ridge of hills. Even so, Ukrainian forces still have reason to fear a Russian breakthrough toward the airport on Kramatorsk’s southern edge.
• East of Bilokuzminovka, Russian forces have resumed their advance along the Bakhmut–Sloviansk highway, aiming to reach Kramatorsk’s northeastern outskirts.
• Ukrainian command also faces an additional problem: figuring out the plan behind the Russian offensive in the northern Donbas. Ukraine had previously been confident that Russian forces intended to swing deep around the Kramatorsk–Sloviansk urban area from the west and east, forcing Ukrainian troops to retreat under threat of encirclement while avoiding urban combat. Ukrainian command said the western Russian grouping aimed to reach Barvinkove in the Kharkiv region, while the eastern grouping aimed to reach the confluence of the Oskil and Siverskyi Donets rivers near Izyum. However, it now appears Russian command may have another plan as well (and perhaps not only one): to approach Kramatorsk from several directions at once and begin storming the city itself, whose prewar population was 150,000. In that scenario, the battle for neighboring Sloviansk, whose prewar population exceeded 100,000, would begin at the next stage.

Sloviansk and Lyman

• Over several months, Ukraine’s Operation Vivaldi eliminated the threat of a breakthrough by Russia’s 20th Combined Arms Army toward the confluence of the Oskil and Siverskyi Donets rivers near Izyum, as well as Russian attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets near Sviatohirsk.
• Andriy Biletsky’s group has finally confirmed, with video evidence, a long-anticipated development: Russia’s 20th Army has abandoned a large area west of the Chornyi Zherebets River and is now trying to organize a defense along its banks between Torske and Zarichne. Ukrainian assault troops are already operating inside Zarichne but have not yet crossed the river.
• Russian command’s evident task is to defend not only along the river but also the northern flank of the 25th Combined Arms Army, which continues to control the area west of the Chornyi Zherebets all the way to the outskirts of Lyman. This sector matters even more to Russian forces than the 20th Army’s: beyond hopes of capturing Lyman, the 25th Army is meant to support the flank of another Russian grouping operating on the Siverskyi Donets’s southern bank and advancing directly on Sloviansk.
• For now, the 25th Army is holding its territory despite problems on its northern flank near Zarichne and Yampil, and is even trying to advance into Lyman’s residential areas.
• Biletsky’s group, meanwhile, is trying to address the Russian advance on the Siverskyi Donets’s southern bank more radically. The commander received reinforcements for this: two brigades that had previously been fighting in the eastern Zaporizhzhia region. Using these forces, Ukraine’s “Center” group launched a counterattack against Russia’s “South” group, which had previously been advancing on Sloviansk from the east.
• Ukrainian forces tried to retake Rai-Oleksandrivka from Russian assault troops, who had been infiltrating from there into the town of Mykolaivka, 6 kilometers (4 miles) east of Sloviansk, in recent weeks. Ukrainian units appear to have gained a foothold in central Rai-Oleksandrivka, but Russian forces continue to hold the village’s northern outskirts.
• South of Rai-Oleksandrivka, Ukrainian forces have not yet managed to turn the situation around: Russian troops continue to infiltrate between the Siverskyi Donets–Donbas canal and the Bakhmut–Sloviansk road.

Zaporizhzhia region

• As noted above, Ukrainian command was forced to redeploy two brigades to the Sloviansk area from the Zaporizhzhia region — more precisely, from the junction of the Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Dnipropetrovsk regions. They had previously been part of a Ukrainian corps that had spent several months advancing on the northern flank of Russia’s “East” group, which in turn had been moving along the front toward the central districts of the Zaporizhzhia region.
• To organize this offensive, Ukrainian command had redeployed the 7th Air Assault Corps from the Dobropillia area back in late spring, a move that weakened Ukrainian defenses around the town. There was no choice at the time: after capturing Huliaipole in the winter, Russia’s “East” group was rapidly advancing toward Orikhiv, threatening to collapse Ukrainian defenses in the western districts of the Zaporizhzhia region and the eastern part of the Dnipropetrovsk region.
• The 7th Corps’ offensive achieved relatively modest results: the “East” group’s advance on Orikhiv slowed sharply, and Russian command was forced to redeploy forces to its northern flank. However, Ukrainian forces never managed to cut the “East” group’s supply lines or force it to retreat, and Ukrainian command is now being forced to gradually dismantle its strike grouping at the junction of the Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
• Russian forces have also attempted to storm Orikhiv. So far, only forces from the “Dnipro” group are directly involved, since Ukrainian attacks on the northern flank have delayed the “East” group from reaching Orikhiv from the east.
• About a month ago, Russian forces captured Novodanylivka south of Orikhiv, as well as the now-famous village of Mala Tokmachka to the east. Airborne forces redeployed to the area from the reserve simultaneously launched an offensive southwest of Orikhiv, reaching Novoandriivka and Novopavlivka.
• Ukrainian forces have responded with counterattacks. Russian airborne units reportedly may have been pushed out of Novopavlivka, west of Orikhiv, though there is no visual confirmation yet.
• At the same time, east of Orikhiv, Ukrainian forces again attacked Mala Tokmachka from several directions. Published videos show Russian forces holding only part of the village’s center and its southeastern outskirts, including the area around a penal colony whose ruins have already changed hands many times.
• The situation around Orikhiv continues to worsen for Ukrainian forces, however: Russia’s “East” group has resumed its offensive on a broad front toward Orikhiv and the Orikhiv–Novomykhailivka road, previously one of the main Ukrainian supply routes in the area.
• Troops from the “East” group have already infiltrated Omelnyk, north of Mala Tokmachka and 10 kilometers (6 miles) northeast of Orikhiv. Russian forces are advancing not only on Orikhiv itself and its supply routes, but also on Novomykhailivka to the north.
• So far, there are not many Russian assault troops along the Orikhiv–Novomykhailivka road. Ukrainian forces, however, are busy repelling the “Dnipro” group’s attempted storm of the city and apparently lack the strength to dislodge the Russian troops from their positions.

Interactive map

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Meduza’s Razbor (“Explainers”) team

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky responded to the Russian military’s strikes on Kyiv overnight on October 22.

“Three waves of ballistic missiles have been launched at Kyiv by Russian ‘humanitarians’ since yesterday evening. They used 21 missiles. Unfortunately, numerous sites across the city have been hit and damaged,” he wrote on social media.

Zelensky said the strike came “almost immediately after another round of talks” and that it showed “no real change in [Russia’s] attitude toward everything that is happening.” He called on allies to speed up deliveries of air defense systems to Ukraine and increase sanctions pressure on Moscow.

Russian forces struck Kyiv with drones and ballistic missiles overnight on October 22. One person was killed and more than 20 were injured.

The Ukrainian military, in turn, used drones to strike several regions of Russia overnight after the talks, including Moscow and the Moscow region. Two people were injured in New Moscow.

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European Union officials are searching for someone to represent Europe’s position in negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Politico reported that discussion of candidates intensified after U.S. presidential special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Putin in St. Petersburg on October 21.

“President Putin disregards the European Union as an authority,” Czech President Petr Pavel said in an interview with the Axel Springer Global Reporters’ Network, of which Politico is a part.

“He doesn’t want to talk to [European Commission President] Ursula von der Leyen, he doesn’t talk to [the head of European diplomacy] Kaja Kallas. He stopped talking to other European leaders, including [French President] Emmanuel Macron,” he said.

Pavel said the EU needs to “identify a person or a group of people who would speak for Europe.” These don’t necessarily have to be representatives of EU or NATO leadership, he said, but “simply leaders who would be given a mandate by the others to negotiate.”

Finnish President Alexander Stubb is among those being considered as a potential lead negotiator for the EU. European diplomatic sources told Politico that Stubb has “the best relationship with Trump among EU leaders” cited Finland’s long border with Russia as another factor.

Stubb took part in a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Witkoff in Oslo that preceded Witkoff’s trip to Russia, according to Politico. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also attended that meeting and is being considered as a key negotiator for the EU, Politico said. Another candidate is European Council President António Costa.

Sources told Politico that it is critical for the EU to take part in the negotiations as a single entity rather than through the leaders of its individual member states.

Russian President Vladimir Putin previously said that former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, with whom he maintains a friendly relationship, could serve as a negotiator.

WSJ sources reported a few days ago that Putin had proposed a trilateral meeting between the leaders of the U.S. and China to discuss ending the war between Russia and Ukraine. The outlet said EU representatives were not going to be invited to the meeting.

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Russian forces struck Kyiv overnight on October 22 with drones and ballistic missiles.

In the Dniprovskyi district, the strikes damaged homes and vehicles and set residential and non-residential buildings on fire, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said. One person was killed and five others, including a child, were injured. In the Darnytskyi district, the strikes damaged transportation infrastructure.

In the Obolonskyi district, two people were injured. In the Pecherskyi district, eight people, including three children, were injured. In the Holosiivskyi district, six people were injured. The strikes also damaged non-residential buildings, ambulances, and a monastery.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the strikes damaged part of the metro system’s infrastructure at the South Bridge. He did not provide further details.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said the strikes in Kyiv hit “Ukrainian military-industrial facilities involved in the production and storage of long- and medium-range cruise missiles and drones, as well as transportation infrastructure sites.”

In the Odesa region, Russian forces struck a food production facility, Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne reported. A fire broke out, destroying the administrative building. No one was injured.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said the strikes targeted “port infrastructure facilities in the Odesa region and vessels used in the interests of Ukraine’s Armed Forces.”

Russia strikes Kyiv with drones and various types of missiles daily. The latest attack, on October 22, came just hours after U.S. presidential envoy Steve Witkoff traveled to St. Petersburg to meet with Vladimir Putin for talks focused on ending the war between Russia and Ukraine.

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Ukrainian forces attacked several Russian regions with drones overnight on October 22, including Moscow and the surrounding Moscow region. In Voronovo, part of the New Moscow area, two people were injured in the strike.

In Serpukhov, outside Moscow, a strike hit the Defense Ministry’s “75 Arsenal” plant, which produces weapons and ammunition, according to the independent Telegram channel Astra. The Ukrainian Telegram channel Exilenova+ said the strike on the Moscow region involved not only drones but also missiles.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 163 drones were shot down as they approached the city since the evening of October 21. In total, he said, 630 Ukrainian drones were headed toward Moscow and the Moscow region, and most of them were destroyed at “distant frontiers.”

Ukrainian drones also struck Lipetsk. Lipetsk Governor Igor Artamonov said the attack damaged windows and facades of private homes and apartment buildings, as well as a clinic, in the regional capital. A man born in 2001 was injured and hospitalized. Astra reported that the strike sparked a fire on the upper floors of a building in the “Atmosfera” residential complex.

Voronezh Governor Alexander Gusev said 44 drones were shot down overnight over the city of Voronezh and the Voronezh region. Local authorities in the Tula region said 70 Ukrainian drones were destroyed overnight. In Voronezh, the attack damaged the roofs and facades of private homes, apartment buildings, and a public facility. In Tula and the Zaoksky district, private homes sustained damage.

At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.

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Poland has suspended delivery of a large weapons package to Ukraine over the Lviv Regional Council’s decision to declare 2027 the year of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a source told the news outlet RBC Ukraine.

Lviv Regional Council members voted at an October 20 plenary session to declare 2027 the year of the UPA, its commander Roman Shukhevych, and Ukrainian political figure Oleh Olzhych.

The source told RBC Ukraine that the Lviv regional authorities had “managed” to hold the vote just as Poland was preparing to send Ukraine a large military aid package. “Their irresponsible actions have now put delivery of this package on hold. Intensive efforts are underway through back channels to resolve a problem that was created out of nothing,” the source said.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the Lviv Regional Council’s decision “unwise” and said it “harms Ukraine itself.” Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz called the decision unacceptable, saying it “deepens divisions” between the two peoples. “The Ukrainian authorities must distance themselves from this position,” he said.

Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Bosacki said Ukraine had assured Poland that the Lviv Regional Council’s decision would not take effect. He said the resolution had disappeared from the council’s website after Poland intervened.

The Lviv Regional Council’s Facebook post announcing the year of the UPA is now unavailable.

Issues surrounding the Ukrainian Insurgent Army regularly strain relations between Poland and Ukraine. The most recent such dispute arose in the spring of 2026, when Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree awarding the honorary title “Heroes of the UPA” to the Separate Special Operations Center North, part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Special Operations Forces. The decision drew sharp criticism in Poland because UPA fighters took part in the Volhynia massacres of 1943–1944, in which an estimated 30,000 to 60,000 Poles and 20,000 to 30,000 Ukrainians were killed. After Poland condemned the decision, Zelensky promised to open the archives on the Volhynia massacres.

Poland and Ukraine’s UPA dispute

• Poland strips Zelensky of highest honor after Ukrainian army unit is named for controversial WWII fighters; Ukrainian officials return their awards

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Oleg Mikhailov was detained in Moscow on suspicion of “justifying terrorism,” the Telegram channel Novaya Respublika and the BNK news agency reported.

The regional branch of Russia’s Communist Party confirmed his detention to BNK. Novaya Respublika reported that Mikhailov was charged with “justifying terrorism” over a 2024 post about sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky, who was sentenced that year to five years in a penal colony, also for “justifying terrorism.”

Mikhailov is being held in a temporary detention facility. A court will decide on October 22 whether to keep him in custody or impose other restrictions pending trial. The provision he is accused of violating, Part 2 of Article 205.2 of Russia’s Criminal Code, carries a fine or five to seven years in prison, according to Novaya Respublika.

Oleg Mikhailov heads the Communist Party’s regional branch in Komi and is a former member of the republic’s State Council. In September 2021, he won a State Duma seat in a single-member district. After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the European Union, Canada, New Zealand, the United States, and Ukraine imposed sanctions on him. The United States sanctioned him over the passage of a law against “fake news” about the military, even though he had not voted for it.

In the 2026 State Duma election, Mikhailov finished second in the Syktyvkar single-member district, losing to a candidate who had fought in the war. During the campaign, Mikhailov was the only candidate from Komi to call for peace. A month and a half before the vote, there was an attempt to remove him from the ballot.

From Meduza’s archives

• ‘You can always find a crime to charge someone with’ Russian leftist thinker Boris Kagarlitsky faces seven years in prison for ‘justifying terrorism.’ Meduza spoke with his daughter about his arrest.
• Gerrymandering à la russe: To preserve United Russia’s supermajority, the Kremlin is pressuring Communists to sideline their strongest candidates in September’s elections
• The ‘certain nuances’ of prosecuting journalists The Kremlin’s spokesman explains why policing ‘justifications of terrorism’ isn’t an assault on free speech

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October 20, 2026

October 21, 2026

Authorities said the monument had been removed at the request of the Pacific Fleet’s leadership and veterans, who considered it “out of keeping with the themes of the memorials and monuments” along the waterfront.

Officials said the monument was being returned because it did not fit its intended site in Vera i Nadezhda Park. Its dimensions, they said, “do not fully suit the park’s current layout.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly called Solzhenitsyn a “patriot” and a nationalist “in the civilized sense of the word.”

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In July 2026, a group of independent sociologists led by Anna Kuleshova asked Meduza readers how they were feeling in the fifth year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. More than 4,000 people took part in the study: 2,922 live in Russia and have never emigrated, 359 left but returned, and 857 live abroad. The sociologists asked respondents about their anxieties, self-censorship, experiences of emigration and return, life abroad, future plans, and views. At Meduza’s request, Kuleshova discusses the findings.

The sample is representative of neither Russia’s population nor its emigrants. Participants were our readers who chose to complete the questionnaire. Many have a college education and are critical of the authorities; nearly half of the respondents in Russia live in Moscow or St. Petersburg. The figures therefore describe Meduza’s audience specifically, rather than all Russians or everyone who has left.

Despite these limitations, the data allow us to draw reliable conclusions about differences between the groups. Those living in Russia, those who left, and those who returned read the same publication and are similar in age and education, so the differences between them are primarily associated with their experiences of emigration.

This audience matters in its own right: Educated urban residents critical of the authorities accounted for a substantial share of the 2022 emigration wave. The same milieu also produced those who stayed but had once intended to emigrate or simply disagree with the regime.

Obtaining such data through a representative survey is now virtually impossible. There is no sampling frame from which to draw a random sample of emigrants, and conducting a survey like this in Russia today poses too many practical difficulties.

The analysis also draws on material from the study “Novye rossiyskie diaspory v Armenii, Izraile, Kazakhstane, Serbii i Turtsii” (“New Russian Diasporas in Armenia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Serbia, and Turkey”), conducted at the initiative of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation.

What can we say about Russia’s 2022 emigration wave almost five years later?

It will soon be five years since the war began. Much has changed in people’s lives over that time, and plenty of myths, prejudices, and stereotypes have emerged.

Let’s start with a theme Russian propaganda likes to promote: the claim that those who stayed hate those who left, and a broader split in values and views. Every forecast seemed to say that the two Russias — the one that “left” and the one that “stayed” — would stop understanding each other and learn to hate each other. But among Meduza’s audience, about 5% of those living in Russia, including those who left and returned, have negative feelings toward people who left after 2022. By contrast, 87% have positive feelings.

Those who left believe their compatriots in Russia view them more negatively than the figures suggest. It would be more accurate to say that Russian society already had various divisions over values — the war simply made many of them more visible. As one respondent put it: “Everyone already knew what they could say and who they could say it around. Not much has changed in that respect.”

About half of those who left (48–55%) and 39% of those living in Russia believe Russian society views emigrants with suspicion or disapproval. Those who returned see their compatriots’ attitudes toward people like themselves as less hostile than those of other groups: 22% report suspicion or disapproval. Among respondents living in Russia, 89% have not heard of discrimination against people who left and then returned — in hiring, for example. Only about 1% know of such cases among acquaintances or from personal experience.

A good future for Russia is possible, according to 56% of those living in Russia and 48% of those who left. Yet just 0.2% (!) of all respondents are satisfied with the current state of affairs in Russia.

Among those living in Russia, 83% cannot picture their lives in concrete terms more than a year ahead, and 39% cannot see beyond three months. Those living abroad can plan further ahead. But even among those who left in 2022 or later, 63% cannot picture their lives more than a year ahead.

What is life like for different groups of Meduza readers?

Four years after the war and large-scale emigration began in 2022, the Russian diaspora has not become a unified community. The lives of those who left were shaped less by their political and moral convictions than by their financial, intellectual, psychological, social, educational, and other resources, as well as their points of entry into host communities. People who left during this period are often mistakenly called “relokanty,” a Russian term that implies relocating with a job and an employment contract already in place. As a rule, only people working in IT had these, and even in IT, many did not. We are therefore talking more about evacuees: people forced to emigrate who might have qualified for refugee status but whose circumstances denied them that opportunity.

For the overwhelming majority, leaving in 2022 was their first experience of living abroad. Most became emigrants in an emergency, usually with no preparation at all. Of those who left between February and August 2022, 18% returned; among those who left between September and December that year, during mobilization, 38% returned. Of those who returned, 77% would have stayed abroad if they had been able to obtain legal status and find work without major obstacles. And 65% want to leave again.

Meanwhile, 10% of those who left in 2022 or later and still live abroad want to return to Russia. This desire is more common among people with a strong Russian identity, high anxiety, and financial difficulties. The perception that Western countries are pushing Russians out, as well as a lack of legal status, is also associated with thoughts of returning, though the connection is weaker. By contrast, knowing the language of one’s country of residence and working in its local labor market are not associated with a desire to return home. The view that Western countries have a policy of pushing Russians out is shared by 32% of those living in post-Soviet countries and 11% of those living in Western Europe.

Fewer than half of respondents living in Russia (45%) believe most people around them share their views. Among Russians surveyed abroad, 82–84% are confident that they are surrounded by like-minded people.

Why haven’t those who left become a fully formed diaspora?

Those who left after 2022 have indeed not formed a single Russian diaspora. Instead, several parallel communities have emerged, divided by profession, political views, ethnicity, or religion; some overlap.

Sociologist Rogers Brubaker identified three defining features of a diaspora: dispersal, maintenance of group boundaries, and a sustained orientation toward the homeland. The new emigrants meet the first criterion, but the boundaries are drawn within the emigrant population rather than between Russians and locals — for example, between “newcomers” and those who left before the war. Or those who left define themselves in opposition to those who stayed. Leaving is described as a break with Russia rather than a continuation of “Russianness,” whether understood in ethnic or national terms.

People who emigrated in 2022 were condemned by those who had left earlier, for example, immediately after the annexation of Crimea; those fleeing mobilization were condemned by those who left Russia as soon as the full-scale war began; the 2024–2025 wave was condemned by people who had been abroad since 2022, and so on.

Other sources of solidarity took the place of national belonging: profession, a shared fate, and religion. Profession is the main organizing principle, especially in IT, design, media, and the creative industries. This is reinforced by the narrative that “the best people left” and by comparisons with the Philosophers’ Ship of 1922. Professional communities often bring together Russian-speaking professionals of all nationalities rather than Russian citizens specifically. What connects them is their profession and the Russian language, rather than Russian citizenship or their country of origin.

As sociologists Peter Baehr and Viktor Vakhshtein use the term, a community of shared fate is a group united by a common threat. “We’re in the same boat,” but we’re not victims — we’re people who take an active role in shaping our lives. Some even romanticize this turn in their lives. But there is a downside: alienation from those who stayed, who, in respondents’ words, “live in a different information bubble.”

Some who left rediscovered their identities as Tatars, Bashkirs, or Jews, setting aside Russian citizenship as a defining feature. These identities provide the most support where they fit with the host country’s culture: in Israel for Jews, and in Turkey for Turkic peoples. For example, Bashkir communities in Turkey and Kazakhstan help with housing, work, and joint business ventures.

These bonds of solidarity function as economic infrastructure. Professional networks give rise to migrant economies, coffee shops, coworking spaces, salons, IT hubs, and cross-border partnerships between Russians who have moved to different countries. They help those still in Russia find clients, handle paperwork, and deal with other work-related matters.

But the same selectivity that makes these networks effective shuts out outsiders. A journalist in Kazakhstan would like to change careers but doesn’t know how to afford six months of retraining. A waitress in Astana, listening to IT workers at a party discuss investments and moving to Italy, realizes that such prospects are out of her reach. In Serbia, “Russian establishments” charge “Moscow prices” that many of their compatriots cannot afford. Emigration reproduces, and sometimes deepens, the inequalities of prewar Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Access to work, housing, and advice depends not only on a person’s human capital and the host country’s laws but also on their place within these overlapping yet partly disconnected networks of solidarity.

---

Hi, I’m N.

I report for Meduza from inside Russia. I could go to prison for my work. To stay safe, I have to follow strict security protocols. I know my lawyer’s phone number by heart. And, of course, my articles are published anonymously. 

Working for an independent news outlet while still living in Russia feels like something out of a spy film. My friends know me by one name. My colleagues and sources know me by another. But sometimes there’s a glitch. At a close friend’s birthday party, someone I don’t know reaches out to shake my hand. “Hi, I’m Lyosha.” It takes me a few seconds to decide how to introduce myself. Do I use my real name or my pseudonym? I’m trying to figure out whether this is someone I might one day end up writing about. 

What I do is journalism in exile, even though I’m not in exile myself. I have the rare opportunity to do uncensored, on-the-ground reporting in Russia. Please support Meduza so I can continue this work.

---

What do the different survey groups have in common, and how do they differ?

We compared those living in Russia, those who left, and those who left and returned across several measures.

Judging by anxiety levels, life inside Russia appears more stressful, despite all the problems Russians face abroad. Average overall anxiety among those living in Russia is 7.7 out of 10, compared with 6.0–6.4 among those living abroad.

Those living abroad are significantly less anxious about their personal safety: 3.0 compared with 7.2 in Russia. Yet their anxiety about Russia’s political situation remains high: 7.3 abroad compared with 8.9 in Russia.

Among respondents living in Russia, 95% reported at least one form of self-censorship. Between 66% and 72% do not discuss politics with colleagues or people they do not know well, and this proportion is the same among people with different views.

Those who returned differ little from those who never left in either anxiety levels or self-censorship. They are more afraid of losing the ability to leave the country than those who have never left.

Abroad, rates of self-censorship are one-half to one-quarter of those in Russia. For example, 40% avoid discussing politics with colleagues, compared with 69% in Russia; 12% are cautious about using their phones in public, compared with 43% in Russia. After 2022, respondents living in Russia all but stopped expressing their views publicly; no more than 3% take part in protests. Meanwhile, 18% began reading independent media only after 2022.

On either side of the border, people avoid contentious subjects with loved ones at almost the same rate: 33% versus 35%. Silence helps preserve family relationships, and emigration does not eliminate the need for it.

Do many readers living in Russia want to emigrate in 2026?

Yes. More than half of respondents living in Russia want to leave, but half of that group rate their chances of leaving in the next 12 months at 0–2 out of 10. Their political views differ little from those of others who want to leave, but they are older and have fewer resources to make the move, less savings, and weaker English.

Respondents who do not want to leave Russia are by no means always loyal to the authorities. Only 4% agree that Russia’s leadership protects the country’s interests, and just 1% say they are satisfied with the current state of affairs in Russia. What distinguishes them from those who want to leave is their connection to the country, rather than their attitude toward the authorities. Of this group, 65% see Russia as the community they identify with most, compared with 42% of those who want to leave; 71% believe Russia can have a good future, compared with 45% of those who want to leave.

Where did those who left Russia after 2022 move?

People in the 2022 wave went where they could enter immediately, rather than where life would be better. Their first destinations were Georgia (13.7%), Turkey (11.2%), Kazakhstan (11.1%), Armenia (10.1%), and Serbia (7.1%). All five could be entered without a visa or much preparation. Only about one in four went to Europe, including Eastern Europe and the Baltic states — those who had a visa, a residence permit, or other grounds for entry.

Using Everett Lee’s classic “push-pull” framework, we can see that people in the 2022 wave cite push factors more often than prewar emigrants do. Shock at the outbreak of war was cited by 65.3% of those who left, and the threat of mobilization by 61%. Yet this wave is not uniform. It contains two large subwaves that can be described as distinct phenomena.

• The February subwave, from February to August 2022, accounted for about a third of the wave. These emigrants left of their own conviction, “voting with their feet,” and were more often prepared for the move. Women make up 43% of this group. Compared with the mobilization subwave, a larger share speak English at the B2–C1 level (73% versus 58%), and a larger share have enough savings for six months (44%). Almost one in four left because their employer moved its operations abroad. In spring 2022, a substantial share of departures were organized through relocation programs, primarily in IT. Of respondents in this subwave, 27% went directly to Europe.
• Those in the mobilization subwave, from September to December 2022, fled the threat of mobilization. It was cited as the decisive reason for leaving by 80%, compared with 46% in the “February wave.” This subwave has the highest proportion of men — women make up 29% — and fewer resources: Only 36% had enough savings for six months. More than half chose post-Soviet countries as their first destination, while 13% went directly to the EU.

Both groups cited political reasons: opposition to the country’s direction (83%), inability to speak freely (81%), and unwillingness to live in a country at war (79%). The subwaves differed in the circumstances of their departure rather than their views. Some left “with a job lined up”; others fled through the nearest open border within a matter of days. These subwaves still differ in legal status, country of residence, and the proportion who returned, though not in optimism or anxiety levels.

It’s also important to remember that both subwaves included people who left to preserve their businesses, set up parallel imports, or study, as well as people driven by a wide range of personal motives and circumstances.

Where have Meduza readers who left settled?

Over the past four years, Russians who left after February 2022 have gradually moved toward Europe. But the widely circulated image of an emigrant who moved straight to the EU and obtained a residence permit there applies to only a fifth of this wave. Most either still live outside Europe (39%) or have already returned to Russia (28%). Meanwhile, one in five of those still abroad lacks legal status.

About half of those who left have lived in more than one country; one in five has lived in three or more. This mobility conceals deep social inequality. Of those who went straight to Western Europe, 96% stayed there. Of those who started in visa-free countries, only a quarter made it to Europe.

In economic sociology, this is called path dependence: An early choice narrows all subsequent ones. For many, their first destination became less a springboard than a rut. A “temporary” stay in Georgia or Armenia eventually became permanent residence.

Much of this depended on host countries’ policies. Armenia and Serbia, for example, took a relatively lenient approach. They sought both to make newcomers comfortable and to benefit from their arrival, without making it drastically harder to stay.

Kazakhstan, however, ended border runs in January 2023 in an effort to stop being a transit country. And starting in early 2023, Turkey began denying Russians residence permits en masse without explanation. Israel initially offered a quick route to legal status under the Law of Return, but ended its emergency repatriation program for Russian and Belarusian citizens in April 2023.

The outcome was predictable. Where governments treated newcomers leniently, stable communities and migrant businesses emerged, although some people still live in the gray area of tourist status. Where conditions for staying grew stricter, planning horizons shrank, and people either moved on to other countries or returned to Russia. Decisions by foreign governments, not only by Russia’s, shaped the lives of Russians who left.

If we consider their first destination, their current country, and whether they returned, this wave divides into four groups:

• Those who went straight to Europe, usually through a relocation program for skilled workers
• Those who reached Europe through transit countries
• Those who settled outside the EU
• Those who were forced to return to Russia

How are Meduza readers feeling abroad?

Those who have stayed abroad have integrated into their host communities to a degree. Of these respondents, 80% have legal status — a temporary or permanent residence permit, or citizenship — while 36% speak the country’s language at B1 level or above, and 33% work in the local labor market. Another 31% work exclusively in the international market, for employers or clients in other countries. Another 17% work for Russia-based employers or clients despite living abroad.

About a third of those still abroad (34%) look to the future with hope and optimism, while 27% experience high anxiety. An intense fear of being forced to return, rated 8–10 out of 10, is reported by 46%. It is more common among those without legal status (56% versus 42%) and those in worse financial circumstances (53% versus 42%).

What troubles emigrants most is precarity: the feeling that everything they have built could be lost at any moment. Their fear comes down to this: “What if I have to go back?” For example, their residence permit might not be renewed, a relative in Russia might become seriously ill, or they might lose the job that enables them to maintain legal status abroad, among other possibilities.

Conditions are worst in post-Soviet countries. There, roughly a third have legal status (39%, compared with 96% in Western Europe); in some countries, rates of refusal to open bank accounts or continue providing banking services can reach 74%. Fear of being forced to return compounds these difficulties. People also often face suspicion and prejudice in their host countries.

All this feels like a double blow to those who sold their only home in Russia, leaving themselves without a home, yet gained neither a sense of belonging nor social protection in their host country. Moving on becomes increasingly difficult for them, while returning home usually entails real risks and losses: Many have already publicly expressed their views on social media and taken part in antiwar protests.

Sociologist Abdelmalek Sayad described the migrant’s condition as a “double absence”: A person no longer belongs to the place they left and does not yet belong to the place they have arrived in. This is precisely the position of the 2022 emigrants. Among those who emigrated in 2022, 30% are ready to say of Russia, “This is no longer part of my life,” compared with 39% of longer-established emigrants. But this distancing happens gradually, rather than immediately upon crossing the border.

There is also a sizable group for whom emigration has been a gift: the start of a new life. Their prevailing mood is a general sense of upheaval mixed with hope, rather than despair.

What about those who left Russia after 2022 but eventually returned?

More than a quarter of the 2022 wave returned to Russia (28%): one in six of the “February” emigrants (18%) and more than a third of those who left during mobilization (38%). Those who returned have the fewest resources of any part of the wave. Their English is weakest, their savings are smallest, and they were more likely than others to start in transit countries.

They cite the following reasons for returning:

• Financial difficulties: 43%
• Missing loved ones: 36%
• Inability to find work: 31%
• Liking life in Russia: 29%
• Inability to obtain legal status: 25%
• Having planned a temporary stay from the outset: 24%

The central question is whether they would have stayed abroad if they had been able to resolve their financial and legal-status problems. Two-thirds of those who returned (65%) would like to leave again.

There are two competing interpretations in return migration theory. In one, returning means achieving a goal: You earned money, learned something, and came back. In the other, it means failure — an inability to establish yourself. Sociologist Jean-Pierre Cassarino linked the outcome to a migrant’s “preparedness”: their resources and the degree to which they left voluntarily. The returnees among our respondents fall into the second category. As a rule, they returned because they could not overcome barriers created by host countries, rather than because they preferred Russia.

Meanwhile, among those who have not returned but are considering it, the desire to return is also associated with Russian identity: a sense that Russia is “where I belong.” Among those with a strong sense of belonging to Russia, 17% want to return, compared with 4% of those with a weak sense of belonging.

Actually returning, however, is associated with practical difficulties: a lack of work, problems obtaining legal status, or a shortage of money. Those who returned resemble people who want to leave but cannot yet do so, rather than people who never wanted to leave. Most were unable to establish themselves abroad; they did not change their minds about Russia and the current regime.

Some simply ran out of money. Others were given an ultimatum by their Russian employer — “Come back or we’ll fire you” — and never found a job in their host country. Others found themselves unable to access medical care. With a couple of exceptions, no one in our sample described returning as a reconciliation with their homeland.

Since returning, they have shown anxiety levels indistinguishable from those of people who never left, and they practice slightly more self-censorship to protect themselves. But there is one difference: They are more afraid of losing the ability to leave (75% versus 65%).

So what does our survey tell us about the “wartime” emigration wave?

The wave of emigration after 2022 was driven by push factors. Where people end up is determined by host countries’ policies and visa rules, rather than by their life plans or ideas about an ideal place to live. People went wherever they were allowed in, and the greater the urgency, the narrower their choices.

An emigrant’s well-being depends above all on how secure their status is. Their greatest anxiety stems from the uncertainty surrounding their lives and their inability to make long-term plans. We might say that moving does not restore a sense that the world is a secure place.

What a person wants — to leave, return, or stay — is most often determined by their sense of belonging to Russia. But what actually happens to them is determined by money, immigration status, professional skills, and foreign-language proficiency.

The new emigrants do not unite around a national identity; they connect mainly through Telegram chats. People come together around their professions and a sense of shared fate, rather than Russian citizenship or Russia as their country of origin. Each network provides “insiders” with jobs, clients, and protection while shutting out “outsiders.” Instead of leveling the playing field, solidarity reinforces inequalities by creating another layer of unequal access to resources.

Russian emigration

• Russians are leaving the country again amid fears of another mobilization. In Georgia, Serbia, and Armenia, the housing rush has already begun.
• Russians are leaving again, amid repression, economic strain, Ukrainian drone attacks, and rumors of another wave of mobilization. This time, earlier émigrés have left them a roadmap.
• Russians who fled after the 2022 mobilization tell Meduza how they rebuilt their lives abroad — and what they’ve lost along the way

At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.

If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.

To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.

Anna Kuleshova

U.S. Vice President JD Vance backed President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, who called Vladimir Putin a “humanist.”

After meeting with Putin in St. Petersburg, Witkoff thanked the Russian president for releasing U.S. citizen Stephen Hubbard, who was convicted in Russia of serving as a mercenary. Witkoff said: “You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that. I commend you, and I thank you again.”

American journalists later asked Vance whether he agreed with Witkoff’s remarks.

Q: Witkoff called Putin 'a humanitarian' for agreeing to release Stephen Hubbard. Do you agree with that?

JD VANCE: I agree with Steve Witkoff saying something nice to a person who just released an American hostage. pic.twitter.com/BV7MnDxApp

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 21, 2026

I agree with Steve Witkoff saying something nice to a person who just released an American hostage. Whether you agree with the underlying sentiment or not, Steve Witkoff is a diplomat. His job is to go over there and get a job done. I care much less about what Steve said and about the fact that he is bringing an American hostage home to his family.

Vance said Americans “should all be celebrating” Hubbard’s return, “not be complaining about what [he] said in order to get it done.”

Witkoff and Putin met the day after Witkoff held talks with Volodymyr Zelensky and representatives of European countries in Oslo. Witkoff brought new Ukrainian and European proposals for ending the war to the meeting in Russia.

After the meeting, the Kremlin said it was ready to resume trilateral talks with the United States and Ukraine between November 10 and 19 (after the U.S. midterm elections). However, Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov said the EU’s and Kyiv’s “new approaches” contained “not all that much that was useful for a settlement in Ukraine.”

Read more

• Who is Stephen Hubbard, the American Putin just freed?
• Putin and U.S. envoy Witkoff hold talks in St. Petersburg as Washington pushes a new plan to end the war in Ukraine
• U.S. pushes to revive Ukraine–Russia talks after Witkoff and Kushner meet Zelensky in Kyiv

At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.

If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.

To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.

Russia’s Interior Ministry has placed Dmitry Bastrakov, the founder of the Chernaya Sotnya (Black Hundred) publishing house and its affiliated far-right Listva bookstores, on its wanted list, Mediazona reported.

The listing does not specify what criminal offense Bastrakov is wanted for. According to iStories, leaked records indicate that by 2024, authorities had opened a criminal investigation into his alleged absence without leave under Article 337, Part 5, of Russia’s Criminal Code.

iStories reported that Bastrakov was most likely added to a list of service members absent without leave when his Tyl-22 team was placed under the command of another military unit of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in 2023.

The Telegram news channel Ostorozhno, Novosti also reported, citing several sources familiar with the situation, that Bastrakov may be wanted for absence without leave.

Bastrakov founded Chernaya Sotnya in 2013 with Timur Venkov. In a 2022 interview, Bastrakov said he had been traveling to the Donbas since 2014 and founded Tyl-22 after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022. The humanitarian project helps both civilians and Russian soldiers on the front lines. Mediazona reported that Bastrakov’s Telegram channel does not make clear whether he is currently in Russia or abroad, but as recently as September, his associates posted a photo of him at a religious procession in Moscow.

The Listva bookstores are part of Chernaya Sotnya and are very popular among the far right. Listva regularly hosted events with Russian “war correspondents,” pro-war writers, and Donbas separatist leaders.

From Meduza’s archives

• ‘Better than ending up under a bush in Ukraine’ How Russian army deserters are getting themselves sent to prison to avoid being sent back to war
• What happened to the Russians Putin mobilized four years ago? Meduza follows two of them — one still at the front, the other now a deserter in Spain.
• ‘Expected to serve in any conditions’ How Russia is using new, stricter laws to prosecute soldiers who leave the front

At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.

If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.

To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.

The case of medical journalist Darya Shipacheva, sentenced to 12 years in a penal colony for treason in July 2026, drew widespread attention. A photograph of her in handcuffs in the courtroom spread across social media. Her trial was held behind closed doors, and almost nothing was known about the substance of the charges. BBC Russian has learned exactly what led to her conviction. Meduza summarizes its findings.

Shipacheva raised money for Ukraine’s armed forces on behalf of Ukrainian blogger Vasilisa Levchenko, BBC Russian reported. According to investigators, Shipacheva transferred more than 1.5 million rubles to Levchenko.

Darya Shipacheva is 35. Before her arrest, she wrote about medicine, health, and feminism for RBC, Takie Dela, Wonderzine, and Forbes Woman. She also published a book about medicine and health, “Bez paniki” (“Don’t Panic”). As an activist, she organized demonstrations in support of the Khachaturyan sisters and feminist activist Yulia Tsvetkova. She also volunteered at a residential school for children with autism spectrum disorder.

After the war began, Shipacheva chose to stay in Russia. She called Moscow her home and wasn’t considering emigrating. Still, a friend said, she had noticed the security services taking an interest in her. When she traveled abroad, border guards asked why she had been born in Ukraine. Shortly before her arrest, a stranger warned her that people would “soon come” for her.

Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Vasilisa Levchenko ran a Russian-language psychology blog and had about 60,000 Instagram followers, including some in Russia. After the invasion, she began collecting donations for Ukraine’s armed forces through her Sberbank account. According to the BBC, Russian followers who “felt ashamed” sent her more than a million rubles in the first few days.

In May 2022, Russian propagandists took notice of the fundraising. Sberbank later blocked Levchenko’s card, and Rosfinmonitoring, Russia’s financial monitoring agency, subsequently added her to its list of terrorists and extremists. Shipacheva, who did not know Levchenko personally, then offered to collect donations through her own bank account. According to investigators, Shipacheva raised 1.558 million rubles and transferred the money to Levchenko in cryptocurrency.

In letters to BBC journalists, Shipacheva wrote that concern for her family had driven her decision. She was born in Kharkiv but spent most of her life in Russia. She still has relatives in Ukraine, and her cousin serves in the Ukrainian military.

“I faced an unbearable choice: Supporting one homeland meant betraying the other. I chose to support those who, in my view, are the injured party,” Shipacheva wrote. She emphasized that she had raised money for first-aid kits, jackets, and sleeping bags.

Shipacheva said she realized she would end up in prison as soon as she was detained. There was no point denying it, she said — the officers “had all the evidence.” She pleaded guilty “out of fear and weakness” and signed a pretrial cooperation agreement after being threatened with 18 years in prison.

A transfer “to a Sberbank card belonging to a Ukrainian blogger” may also have been the basis for another criminal prosecution. IT consultant Nina Slobodchikova was sentenced to 12 years for treason over a transfer of 5,000 rubles. Although Slobodchikova declined to tell journalists whom she had sent the money to, her account matches the circumstances of Levchenko’s fundraising, the BBC reported.

Shipacheva hopes to be included in a prisoner exchange and is counting on Levchenko’s help. In letters to her friends, she asks them to let Levchenko know that she has been sentenced to 12 years. “Remind Vasilisa — maybe she’ll put in a word for her somewhere. It would be good if Vasilisa remembered her,” acquaintances of Shipacheva told the BBC.

BBC journalists reached out to Levchenko. She confirmed that Shipacheva had followed her blog but said she had not known her personally. Levchenko declined to answer any other questions. “I don’t see any point in this. I don’t do volunteer work anymore,” she wrote, before blocking the BBC correspondent.

At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.

If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.

To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.

The election of a new head of the International Chess Federation (FIDE) has sparked a political scandal in Ukraine. Ukraine’s national chess federation criticized the choice of Timur Turlov, a Kazakhstani businessman who lived and did business in Russia for many years. But Turlov received unexpected support from Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of President Zelensky’s office. A week later, Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office withdrew its lawsuit seeking to seize Turlov’s income for the Russian state. Writing for Meduza, Ukrainian journalist Konstantin Skorkin explains everything that is known about FIDE’s leadership changes and the events that followed.

How the FIDE presidential election unfolded

Many international sports federations readily recruit influential businesspeople and politicians to lead them, using their connections to secure support and funding for their sports. For example, Sebastian Coe, a former member of Britain’s House of Lords, heads the International Association of Athletics Federations; Swedish billionaire Johan Eliasch leads the International Ski and Snowboard Federation; and French politician David Lappartient heads the International Cycling Union.

For the past two decades, FIDE has been led by Russians. Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russians’ presence in international sports has often been seen as legitimizing the aggressor state. Some members of Russia’s elite have left international sports federations because of sanctions. Billionaire Vladimir Lisin, for example, no longer heads the International Shooting Sport Federation.

Others have held on to their positions. Alisher Usmanov, who had headed the International Fencing Federation since 2008, temporarily stepped aside in 2022 to keep the personal sanctions imposed on him from affecting the federation’s work. Just two years later, however, Usmanov won reelection.

The chess world has been home to a particularly large number of influential Russians. From 1995 to 2018, FIDE was headed by Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who was president of the republic of Kalmykia when he was elected. Ilyumzhinov sought to make Elista, which hosted international chess tournaments, a global center for chess. In the late 1990s, a complex called City Chess was even built near the city.

In 2018, FIDE’s leadership called on Ilyumzhinov to resign: He had been placed under U.S. sanctions, which were hurting the federation’s work. Ilyumzhinov refused to leave voluntarily, however, and FIDE’s ethics commission had to remove him.

His successor was another Russian politician, former Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, who had served in the leadership of the Russian Chess Federation. By the time he was elected head of FIDE, he was already chairman of the supervisory board of the Russian Agricultural Bank.

Dvorkovich is the son of the well-known chess coach Vladimir Dvorkovich, who was part of the coaching team that trained world chess champions Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov.

The younger Dvorkovich led the world chess federation until July, when, like his predecessor, he was placed on a sanctions list — in his case, the EU’s, for “publicly supporting the actions of the Russian Federation” — and was forced to step away from FIDE’s leadership.

Earlier that year, in February, Ukraine had sanctioned the former deputy prime minister for supporting “Russian aggression,” along with nine Russian athletes.

The Ukrainian president’s website says the sanctions list was drawn up in response to a petition by Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych. During the 2026 Winter Olympics, Heraskevych was disqualified for wearing a helmet bearing portraits of Ukrainian athletes killed during the war. Dvorkovich’s name, however, did not appear in Heraskevych’s petition, which was published on the Ukrainian government’s website.

The former FIDE head currently holds no government or political posts. Since leaving the chess federation, he has been working as a professor at the New Economic School in Russia. It recently emerged that Dvorkovich plans to challenge the European sanctions in an EU court.

Russia’s FIDE membership was suspended in June because the Chess Federation of Russia had established branches in occupied Ukrainian territory: the Donbas and the annexed parts of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

The election for a new FIDE president took place in September in Samarkand. Ilyumzhinov tried to run again but did not even make the official list of candidates.

Three candidates made the list:

• Vadim Rosenstein: A German businessman and founder of the WR Chess team, born in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, who holds Russian and German citizenship
• Jan Henric Buettner: A German businessman who invests heavily in chess championships
• Timur Turlov: A Kazakhstani businessman of Russian origin who has headed Kazakhstan’s chess federation since 2023

Delegates from FIDE’s national member federations elect its president. Delegates from 196 of the 202 countries eligible to vote officially registered for the election in Samarkand and received ballots.

Turlov and Rosenstein received the most votes in the first round. In the second round, Turlov won 110 votes to Rosenstein’s 85, with one FIDE delegate abstaining.

Who is Timur Turlov?

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Timur Turlov was among the Russian businesspeople who tried to distance themselves from Russia.

Born in Moscow, he graduated from the Tsiolkovsky Russian State Technological University (MATI) and began his business career as a trader for Moscow companies operating on the U.S. stock market. In 2008, Turlov founded Freedom Finance, which gave clients access to U.S. stock market infrastructure, including initial public offerings.

In 2012, he opened a subsidiary in Kazakhstan and began doing business there. In 2015, he established Freedom Holding Corp., registered in Nevada. It brought together the Russian and Kazakhstani Freedom Finance companies, the Freedom24 app, and Freedom Finance Bank. Turlov became the main shareholder. Freedom Finance Kazakhstan Bank joined the holding company in 2020, followed in 2021 by Freedom Finance Insurance, a group of Kazakhstani insurance companies.

In October 2019, Turlov listed Freedom Holding Corp. on Nasdaq. It became the first financial institution from the Commonwealth of Independent States to be listed on the exchange.

In January 2021, Turlov’s holding company acquired Prime Executions Inc., a U.S. broker-dealer registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This gave the holding company’s clients direct access to the U.S. market. That same year, Turlov entered the Forbes global billionaires list in 1,517th place, with a fortune of $2.1 billion.

In June 2022, Turlov obtained Kazakhstani citizenship. To do so, he had to give up his Russian passport and the “offshore” passport he had previously obtained from St. Kitts and Nevis. At the same time, he announced that he was ending his business ties with Russia. By October 2022, the company’s Russian operations had been transferred to co-founder and Deputy CEO Maxim Povalishin. The deal was worth $140 million; the company soon rebranded as Tsifra.

According to Forbes Kazakhstan, Turlov ranks second among the country’s richest people and sixth among its most influential. In December 2025, he expanded his influence by acquiring the Kazakhstani telecommunications operator Transtelecom. Around the same time, his holding company began publishing a local edition of the glossy magazine Tatler.

After 2022, Turlov became involved in charitable projects in Kazakhstan. In spring 2023, he founded Kazakhstan’s QJ League for youth soccer and became chairman of its board of trustees. Late that year, Turlov launched Qalam, an online publication “devoted to the history and culture of the world as seen from Kazakhstan and Central Asia.”

His company spent a total of $66 million on charity in 2023, its representatives said.

Severing his business ties with Russia, however, did not help Turlov avoid sanctions. In October 2022, Ukraine placed him and his holding company’s Ukrainian subsidiary on its sanctions list alongside other figures in Russian or Russia-linked businesses. More than 2,500 individuals and 1,300 companies were sanctioned at the time. Others listed alongside Turlov included businessmen Mikhail Fridman, Oleg Deripaska, and Alexey Mordashov; pro-Russian Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk; and members of Alexander Lukashenko’s circle.

Turlov called his inclusion on the sanctions list “a clerical error.” The company promised to challenge it, though it took no concrete steps to do so. In 2023, Hindenburg Research investigated Freedom Holding Corp. and accused it of evading sanctions. The holding company’s shares fell 8% as a result. The investigation also drew the attention of the SEC, which launched its own inquiry. In January 2024, Freedom Holding Corp. commissioned an independent review that refuted Hindenburg’s findings.

Turlov has been involved in chess since January 2023, when he became head of Kazakhstan’s federation. He told journalists that he regularly plays as an amateur on Chess.com. “I try to enjoy the game itself,” Turlov said. “I’m not out to prove anything to anyone in chess.”

Why Ukraine’s federation opposed Turlov’s election as FIDE president — and where Mykhailo Podolyak comes in

The news outlet Agentstvo, citing an acquaintance of Turlov’s, reported that he has close ties to Kazakhstani President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and “does nothing without his approval.” In July, the outlet reported, Kazakhstan’s president met with Vladimir Putin and asked him to help Turlov win the FIDE election. Another source told Agentstvo that Putin agreed. After Turlov won the FIDE presidential election, Tokayev personally congratulated him.

Turlov’s victory sparked another scandal. The Ukrainian Chess Federation issued a statement saying it did not support his candidacy. It had initially nominated its own candidate, federation head Oleksandr Kamyshin, an outside adviser to Ukraine’s president and a former minister for strategic industries. Kamyshin, however, declined to run, saying his “priority during the war is developing chess in Ukraine.”

The FIDE presidential election uses a secret ballot, and it is not known whom the Ukrainian delegate voted for. Champion, Ukrainska Pravda’s sports website, reported that Ukraine’s federation most likely supported Buettner, who failed to reach the second round, because Ukrainian media also suspected Turlov’s main rival, Rosenstein, of doing business with Russia.

According to the news outlet UNIAN, revenue at 2R Integra, a company linked to Rosenstein’s family, grew roughly 40-fold after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and its website advertised services for supplying industrial equipment and electronics to Russia in circumvention of sanctions.

After Turlov’s victory, he received unexpected support from Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of the Ukrainian president’s office. At the new FIDE president’s invitation, Podolyak became a vice president. Indian grandmaster and former world champion Viswanathan Anand became first vice president.

The alliance between Turlov and Podolyak came as a surprise for several reasons.

First, there had been no previous public reports of contact between the Kazakhstani businessman and the Ukrainian adviser. They also had no business ties or known history of political cooperation.

Second, Podolyak had no connection to the chess world and had never expressed an interest in the game. Discussing his new post in interviews, he gave an exclusively political rationale: He wanted to use the vice presidency to reduce Russian influence in the chess world while leaving sporting matters to the Ukrainian Chess Federation.

Yet it was with the Ukrainian Chess Federation that his relationship soured. Turlov arranged the appointment without involving the national federation, which sharply condemned Podolyak’s decision. The federation said it had received no offer to nominate a Ukrainian representative to the new FIDE head’s team, and its regional organizations sent a letter of protest to President Zelensky. The letter said:

By working with sanctioned individuals [Turlov — Meduza], Mykhailo Podolyak is legitimizing Russians’ presence in FIDE’s leadership and helping Russia maintain its influence over international chess. This undoes the efforts of Ukrainian chess players who have spent years fighting that influence.

Podolyak, in turn, criticized the Ukrainian Chess Federation for its “passive stance.” In his view, its officials had not done enough to counter Russian influence within FIDE. “They weren’t involved at all in getting rid of Dvorkovich’s team. They did absolutely nothing. Not publicly, not behind the scenes,” Podolyak said.

Ukrainian Chess Federation Vice President Volodymyr Kovalchuk maintains that Turlov is part of Dvorkovich’s team and simply “swapped in” for the sanctioned Russian. In Kovalchuk’s view, Podolyak helped legitimize this “castling” maneuver. Kovalchuk believes that “nothing will change” under Turlov:

Only the name has changed — Turlov will replace Dvorkovich. But I’m sure Dvorkovich will keep handling all of FIDE’s affairs. The entire Russian team is still there, and Dvorkovich will be the one actually running things, while Turlov will keep running his business. After all, he’s a Russian oligarch who made his money in Russia and is now investing it in Kazakhstan.

One detail supporting Kovalchuk’s prediction is the appointment of former Russian Sports Minister Alexander Kolobov as second vice president.

Podolyak continued to defend Turlov, calling Ukraine’s sanctions against the businessman “strange.” “When the full-scale invasion began, he became a Kazakhstani citizen and left Russia — which, unfortunately, still exists — behind for good. He also invested in humanitarian programs in Ukraine for a long time,” Podolyak said on Instagram.

Citing sources, Kommersant reported that Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office moved in early October to have Turlov declared an “extremist” and his Russian assets confiscated over that humanitarian support. Law enforcement officials cited Freedom Holding’s transfer of 2 million euros for humanitarian aid to Ukraine. The money was intended to buy ambulances. A representative for Turlov said the businessman no longer had any assets in Russia.

In mid-October, it emerged that the Prosecutor General’s Office had withdrawn its lawsuit and the court had dismissed the case against Turlov. A representative of the prosecutor’s office did not give a reason for the decision.

In Ukraine, sanctions against Turlov’s company have begun to ease. In January 2025, Zelensky issued a decree allowing Ukrainian clients of Turlov’s brokerage to recover their assets. Their accounts had been frozen when sanctions were imposed three years earlier on the company, through which Ukrainians invested in government bonds and other securities.

For now, however, lifting the sanctions entirely is not on the table. Although the restrictions against Turlov were imposed for five years and expire in late 2027, his holding company acknowledges in its annual report that there is no guarantee he will be removed from the sanctions list.

At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.

If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.

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Konstantin Skorkin

Russia’s Supreme Court has ruled that a Russian man does not have to return his daughter to her mother in France, even though he took the child to Russia without permission, Kommersant reported.

The case concerns Veronika Tishkova, a Ukrainian citizen who married Russian citizen Alexey Yermakov in 2018. They lived in Kyiv, where their daughter was born. The couple divorced in 2021, and the child stayed with her mother. Shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, Tishkova moved to France with her 3-year-old daughter, while Yermakov remained in Ukraine.

In June 2023, he asked a Kyiv court to order his former wife to bring their daughter to Ukraine every six weeks. The court denied his request.

Yermakov also took legal action against his former wife in France. In April 2024, he consented to the child’s living permanently in France. The following March, he asked for permission to take his daughter on vacation to Turkey and Slovakia, promising the court he would return her in two weeks. He did not. It soon emerged that he had taken the child to Russia.

In July 2025, Tishkova asked a court in Novosibirsk to order her daughter’s return. During the proceedings, the girl was granted Russian citizenship at her father’s request. The court nevertheless sided with Tishkova and ordered Yermakov to return the child to France under the Hague Convention. Higher courts rejected Yermakov’s appeals.

He then appealed to Russia’s Supreme Court, which ruled in his favor in July 2026. The court found that the girl had adjusted to life in Russia and that moving to France could therefore adversely affect her. It cited an article of the Hague Convention that allows courts to refuse to return a child “if there is a grave risk that his or her return would expose the child to physical or psychological harm.” The court also said the girl has Russian citizenship and that France is an “unfriendly” country and a member of NATO and the European Union.

Tishkova challenged the ruling, which is now under review by the Supreme Court’s Presidium. Her lawyer, Dmitry Litvinsky, said the Supreme Court had “put its own political interpretation of the situation above the applicable law.” Andrey Targashov, Yermakov’s lawyer, said the court’s position was “in line with international practice.”

At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.

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A Palace for Veterans of the Special Military Operation will open in Yekaterininsky Park in Moscow’s Meshchansky district, Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said.

The new facility will be created by converting the War Veterans’ Social Rehabilitation Center, which is currently being renovated. Work is scheduled to finish by the end of 2027.

Sobyanin said the palace would bring recovery and rehabilitation services together in a fully equipped complex. “The key idea behind the new approach is to combine active social reintegration with advanced rehabilitation methods without taking people away from their jobs and families. That is why the emphasis is on flexible, daytime, and short-term programs,” he said.

In February 2026, Sobyanin outlined plans to improve Yekaterininsky Park. He also mentioned the War Veterans’ Social Rehabilitation Center in the park, where “combat veterans, including those who served in the special military operation, undergo rehabilitation.” “With this in mind, improvements to Yekaterininsky Park will include making the park fully accessible for veterans,” the mayor wrote.

From Meduza’s archives

• ‘He survived war but not rehabilitation’ An employee at a rehab center describes caring for Russian soldiers returning from the front
• ‘The system could collapse’ A ceasefire would mean hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers returning home. Moscow is bracing for chaos.
• Fighting their way to the front A Kremlin-backed foundation provides war veterans with electric wheelchairs and housing. Orphans and people with disabilities are left to fend for themselves.

At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.

If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.

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The State Duma has approved all of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s nominees for a government reshuffle.

• Anton Siluanov will become deputy prime minister while remaining finance minister.
• Oleg Kozhemyako, the governor of Primorsky Krai, will become deputy prime minister and presidential envoy to the Far East, replacing Yury Trutnev.
• Transport Minister Andrey Nikitin will become deputy prime minister overseeing transport.
• Dmitry Yadrov, the head of Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency, will become transport minister.
• Irina Okladnikova, the first deputy finance minister, will become deputy prime minister and government chief of staff, replacing Dmitry Grigorenko.

Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin announced the Russian government reshuffle on October 19. Vladimir Putin backed the proposal. Experts say Siluanov’s new role and the appointment of his first deputy at the Finance Ministry, Irina Okladnikova, point to Siluanov’s growing influence. Dmitry Grigorenko, whom Okladnikova will replace, is considered one of the officials closest to Mishustin.

At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.

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Valery Kachin, a geodesist from Birobidzhan who was sentenced in January 2025 to 14 years in a penal colony for treason, has begun a dry hunger strike at Pretrial Detention Center No. 1 in Izhevsk, the human rights group Department One (Pervy Otdel) reported.

In a letter from the detention center, Kachin, 39, said he had stopped eating and drinking after staff tormented and physically assaulted him. He said he has been held continuously in a punishment cell: After an initial seven days, he was given another 10 days, followed by two consecutive 15-day terms. He said staff force him to raise and lower a heavy bed by himself, even though he is not required to do so. He said staff also conduct nighttime inspections and confiscate personal belongings from his cell.

“This morning, after we traded insults, they forced me to the floor. I bruised my face on the floor, and my elbows and knees are scraped. I started a hunger strike this morning — no water or food. Tell everyone,” he wrote, according to Pervy Otdel.

Kachin is 182 centimeters (about 6 feet) tall and weighs just 60 kilograms (132 pounds), the group said.

Kachin previously began a dry hunger strike in September 2025 at Penal Colony No. 8, known as Khokhryaki, in Udmurtia. He went on that strike after spending 60 days in a punishment cell. He said that while there, he was unable to keep to the vegan diet he has followed for 14 years. He had received food assistance from Vegan Peredachki (Vegan Care Packages), an initiative whose volunteers arrange vegan meals for political prisoners, but prisoners in punishment cells cannot receive care packages.

Kachin’s case became public in December 2022. On January 27, 2025, the Birobidzhan City Court sentenced him to 14 years in a high-security prison. He was then transferred to a penal colony in Udmurtia.

Kachin last worked as a junior researcher at the Bastak Nature Reserve in Birobidzhan. The news outlet Ostorozhno, Novosti reported that he had used social media to voice support for Alexei Navalny and the protests in Belarus and to speak out against the war in Ukraine.

At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.

If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.

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A magistrate’s court in Moscow’s Tagansky district fined blogger Yekaterina Kuznetsova 30,000 rubles for an administrative offense involving abuse of media freedom under Part 9 of Article 13.15 of Russia’s Code of Administrative Offenses, the news outlets Ostorozhno, Novosti and Mediazona reported.

The citation stemmed from a June 2026 post on Kuznetsova’s Telegram channel, Ne marginalny kontent, which has 15,000 subscribers. She shared a news item about Telegram being unblocked, writing, “Friends, looks like I’ve got some good news,” followed by a statement from Russia’s communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, about fully unblocking the messaging app in the summer of 2020.

Kuznetsova soon received a notice from Roskomnadzor demanding that she delete the post for spreading false information on a matter of public importance.

Roskomnadzor concluded that Kuznetsova “presents old, accurate information as fresh, current news.” The regulator said the post could mislead readers and lead to widespread public disorder.

Internet blocking in Russia

• Telegram is one of the last messaging apps in Russia that the state doesn’t control. Did the Kremlin just block it for good?
• To block or not to block Will Roskomnadzor actually restrict access to major sites like YouTube for ‘censoring’ Russian content?

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Donald Trump’s deal with the Kremlin to supply diesel to the global market is unlikely to lower prices substantially, analysts and market participants interviewed by Reuters said. The promised quantities are too small, and Ukrainian attacks are preventing Russia from increasing production.

Trump said Russia would immediately supply 300,000 metric tons of diesel (2.25 million barrels), followed by another 500,000 metric tons in November and 1 million metric tons “immediately thereafter.” Spread over a month, the first shipment would amount to about 73,000 barrels a day.

That is too little to lower prices noticeably, experts warned. Analytics firm Kpler estimates that at least 400,000 additional barrels of diesel a day are needed. Consulting firm Baringa puts the minimum even higher, at 850,000 barrels a day.

“The diesel that Putin was going to sell, they were going to make it available to the global market one way or the other. The only difference is how much of it the U.S. was going to get,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said over the weekend. Trump initially said the supplies would go to the U.S. and global markets, but later clarified that the shipments would not go specifically to the U.S.

The Energy Policy Research Foundation calculated that Russia would need to produce an additional 384,000 to 509,000 barrels of diesel a day. The country currently produces about 1.4 million barrels a day and consumes roughly 1.2 million domestically, leaving only a small surplus for export.

“We question whether Russia’s refineries could even support an increase in exports with, by some estimates, up to 45% of Russia’s refining capacity currently offline,” Baringa said.

If Ukrainian attacks on refineries stopped, the facilities could begin repairs and eventually ramp up output, but that is unlikely to happen before the end of the year, sources told Reuters.

Russian oil and diesel

• Trump’s diesel deal with Putin, a rebuke from Brussels, and a squabble over Europe’s enormous Russian energy bill
• ‘We’re being used as a front,’ Zelensky says of Trump’s diesel deal with Putin
• ‘We’re done,’ Zelensky says, as Ukraine resumes strikes on Russian oil refineries. The Kremlin claims the attacks never stopped.

At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.

If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.

To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.