SpaceX founder Elon Musk ordered restrictions on Ukraineâs use of Starshield, the military version of the Starlink satellite communications system, sources told The Wall Street Journal.
The sources said Muskâs decision caused âpanic in Kyivâ and âconfusion inside the Trump administration.â
As the uproar grew, SpaceX representatives contacted their White House counterparts to agree on a statement saying the company and the Trump administration had coordinated their actions.
Musk and Trump discussed the decision by phone shortly after the Starlink restrictions became public, two sources told The Wall Street Journal. One source said Musk and Trump had also discussed the issue before the decision to impose restrictions.
Some officials say Musk acted unilaterally and Trump gave no specific order. But a source familiar with the situation said Musk had spoken with several senior administration officials, including Trump, before imposing the restrictions.
On October 14, Ukrainian forces reported restrictions on their Starlink satellite communications terminals â specifically, the military version, Starshield. The restrictions disrupted Ukrainian military missions, among other things.
Two days later, Trump said he had not ordered restrictions on Starshield in Ukraine and did not know who could have done so. But The Telegraph, citing four sources, reported that Musk had approached Trump with a proposal to limit Starlink speeds in Ukraine. One of the newspaperâs sources said Trump agreed.
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Donald Trumpâs special envoy Steve Witkoff could âpave the way for a meeting at leadersâ levelâ during talks with Vladimir Putin, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said at a news conference in Oslo.
âSteve Witkoff will fly tomorrow to St. Petersburg where he will be meeting with Russian leadership and exchange ideas from this meeting and the proposals that have been worked on by European and American colleagues, and possibly pave the way for a meeting at leadersâ level,â Støre said.
Politico reported, without quoting Støre directly, that Witkoff would offer Putin direct talks with Trump and Zelensky.
Zelensky said after meeting Witkoff in Oslo that âone of the important ideas is to move to a potential trilateral meeting of the leaders to address the issues that only the leaders can do.â âSteve is going to Russia tomorrow, and letâs see what Putin has to say,â Zelensky added.
When reporters asked Trump whether Putin and Zelensky needed to âbe in the same roomâ to reach a peace agreement, he said: âI mean, [it] depends. They donât have to be in the same room. I guess I can do it another way. Itâs hard for them to be in the same room. I donât care how itâs done.â
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Polish Border Guard officers detained 15 Russian and Belarusian citizens who apparently intended to compete in the world karate championships for youth, junior, and under-21 athletes in Bielsko-BiaĹa.
The detainees â 11 Belarusians and four Russians â entered Poland on tourist visas, which, according to Border Guard spokesperson Szymon MoĹcicki, âdid not match the stated purpose of their stay.â All were ordered to leave the country within eight days.
The karate championships took place from September 14 to 18. Polish authorities had barred Russian athletes from the outset. The Russian Karate Federation said it âhad anticipated this situation and therefore had not recommended that anyone take part in this tournament,â but also âcould not stand in the way of the athletesâ own wishesâ to compete in the event.
The organizers said no Russian athletes had registered by the deadline. As early as October 8, the Polish Karate Union said the Russians would not be coming. Piotr Borys, Polandâs deputy minister of sport and tourism, said Poland had a firm policy of barring Russian athletes from competitions in the country.
The organizers nevertheless expected Russians to try to take part in the tournament. âThatâs why we warned them in advance through our contacts in the sport not to come,â said Polish Karate Union President PaweĹ PoĹtorzecki.
The Russian Karate Federation said it knew about the ban and that the athletes had been expelled because they âentered on visas that did not cover the purpose of their visit.â âWe knew this was how it would turn out. Thatâs why no one from the federation went,â it said.
The Russians being expelled from Poland have not been named. The news outlet Vot Tak reported that students at the Oryol-Karat school were among those who wanted to attend the competition. The schoolâs administrators send aid to Russian troops and organize meetings between children and people who have taken part in the war.
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Moscowâs Presnensky District Court sentenced Andrei Melnikov, the former head of Russiaâs Deposit Insurance Agency, to 4.5 years in prison and fined him 900,000 rubles.
Melnikov was convicted of large-scale fraud. The court found that he stole 4 billion rubles through schemes involving the assets of Aquamir, a Novosibirsk water park in receivership administered by the agency.
The court also ruled in favor of Aquamirâs former owners in a civil claim against Melnikov, ordering him to pay about 4.2 billion rubles.
Melnikov pleaded guilty during the proceedings, and his case was heard under an expedited procedure. With credit for time spent in custody, he will be eligible to apply for parole as early as July 2027.
Melnikov was arrested in October 2025. His former deputy, Alexander Popelyukh, who was also under investigation at the time, testified against him. On the day Melnikov was sentenced, Popelyukh received a four-year sentence in a penal colony in a related case involving the theft of 200 million rubles.
Melnikov became head of the Deposit Insurance Agency in 2022 and was still leading it when he was arrested.
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President Donald Trumpâs envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner plan to meet with Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg on October 21, The New York Times reported.
Witkoff and Kushner are expected to take the next step in their efforts to âshow the benefits of deal-making with Mr. Putinâ by securing the release of âa long-held American.â
The report does not identify the American. The Times reported that the only American the U.S. State Department categorizes as âwrongfully detainedâ in Russia is Stephen Hubbard, who fought for the Ukrainian armed forces and was sentenced to six years and 10 months in a penal colony.
On October 20, Trumpâs negotiators met with Volodymyr Zelensky in Oslo. No details of the meeting were available at the time of writing. Witkoff attended in person, while Kushner participated remotely because he had the flu. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Finnish President Alexander Stubb also joined the meeting.
Stephen Hubbard is 72. In October 2024, a Russian court sentenced him to six years and 10 months in a standard-security penal colony on mercenary charges. Investigators alleged that Hubbard joined the territorial defense forces in Izium, in Ukraineâs Kharkiv region, in February 2022 (he had lived there since 2014), but was captured by Russian forces in April and later put on trial.
In April 2025, while the previous U.S. presidential administration was still in office, the State Department called on Russia to release Hubbard.
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Federal Air Transport Agency head Dmitry Yadrov, Transport Minister Andrey Nikitin, First Deputy Finance Minister Irina Okladnikova, and Finance Minister Anton Siluanov in the State Duma on October 20, 2026
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin announced a cabinet reshuffle on October 19. The government will have four new deputy prime ministers and a new transport minister. The State Duma is expected to approve the appointments shortly, after which the Russian president will sign decrees formalizing them. Meduza has compiled the key takeaways from Russian journalists and news outlets covering the reshuffle.
Finance Minister Anton Siluanov will become one of the new deputy prime ministers while retaining his current post. Siluanov, who has led the Finance Ministry since 2011, has served as a deputy prime minister before: From 2018 to 2020, he was first deputy prime minister in Dmitry Medvedevâs cabinet.
Mishustinâs government previously had no deputy prime minister overseeing finance. Experts unanimously see the appointment as strengthening Siluanovâs position. Yet according to Faridaily, Mishustin has long wanted to replace Siluanov as finance minister with someone from his own team, such as Federal Tax Service head Daniil Yegorov.
Commenting on Siluanovâs appointment as deputy prime minister, Mishustinâs spokesman Boris Belyakov said that âas external pressure intensifies, ensuring financial stability, a balanced budget, and efficient spending takes on particular importance.â Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov linked Siluanovâs new post to the need to âcontinue ensuring macroeconomic stability.â
The Bell reported that it remains unclear which agencies will fall under Siluanovâs authority as deputy prime minister. But as one source wryly told Vedomosti, Deputy Prime Minister Siluanov will now certainly be issuing instructions to the Finance Ministry â which will make his job easier.
Alexandra Prokopenko, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin, wrote that making Siluanov a deputy prime minister represents âa return to a familiar arrangement, not preparation for a moveâ toward replacing the prime minister. She wrote that Alexey Kudrin also served as deputy prime minister and finance minister simultaneously. âThe more interesting question is how responsibilities will be divided,â she wrote. If Siluanov oversees the economy as a whole â currently Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novakâs responsibility â âthatâs a real power gain. If not, itâs a title on top of the authority he already has.â
Other appointments are also being linked to Siluanovâs growing influence. His first deputy at the Finance Ministry, 41-year-old Irina Okladnikova, will become the governmentâs chief of staff, also with the rank of deputy prime minister. At the Finance Ministry, Okladnikova was responsible for drafting and implementing the federal budget. According to Kommersant, she will now oversee how efficiently budget funds are spent, manage the national debt, and build up the National Wealth Fund. The Bell reported that these were previously all tools âthat Mishustinâs team could use to keep an eye on the Finance Ministry.â
The Bell linked these personnel decisions to the fact that Russiaâs war against Ukraine is costing far more than budgeted. Kommersant noted that recent federal budgets looked relatively balanced on paper, but spending rose in practice. The outlet suggested that expanded powers might allow Siluanov to rein in spending.
Anton Siluanov and Irina Okladnikova
As government chief of staff, Okladnikova will replace Dmitry Grigorenko, who is considered one of the officials closest to Mishustin. At the time of publication, there had been no official announcement about Grigorenkoâs next job. Sources who spoke to Vedomosti and RBC said he could be headed to Sber. Experts see Grigorenkoâs departure as weakening Mishustinâs position. The chief of staff decides which proposals reach the prime minister. Previously, business representatives had a chance to secure changes to Finance Ministry proposals before they reached the prime ministerâs desk for signature, The Bell reported. Now the post will go to someone âwho personally drafted the current budget and argued in the Duma for the right to spend and borrow beyond what the law allows.â
Faridaily wrote, however, that Grigorenkoâs departure and the appointment of new deputy prime ministers do not make Mishustin a âlame duck.â The Russian president has long tried to keep Mishustin from becoming too powerful, the outlet wrote, but âthe prime minister will certainly have somewhat fewer opportunities to push through his decisions, including on funding and personnel.â
Prokopenko wrote that Grigorenko âhad strained relations with virtually every cabinet member.â In her view, his departure from the government âmay be part of a deal Mishustin agreed to.â
Another new deputy prime minister is Primorsky Krai Governor Oleg Kozhemyako. He will replace Yuri Trutnev, who has served as deputy prime minister and presidential envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District for 13 years. Kozhemyako is not considered close to Mishustin, Faridaily reported. According to RBC, Trutnev, 70, decided to leave the government on his own. The outletâs sources said the envoyâs job requires frequent flights to the Far East, and Trutnev now âneeds to recover.â RBCâs sources expect him to take a job in the presidential administration as an aide to the president.
The fourth new deputy prime minister is Andrey Nikitin, who has led the Transport Ministry since July 2025. Nikitin replaced Vitaly Savelyev as deputy prime minister. Savelyev became a deputy speaker of the newly elected State Duma. Nikitin will continue to oversee transport in his new post. Dmitry Yadrov, who has headed the Federal Air Transport Agency since September 2023, has been nominated as transport minister. Yadrovâs replacement has not yet been announced. Sources reported as early as September that Nikitin would be named deputy prime minister for transport.
State Duma committees have already endorsed the nominees for deputy prime minister. Commenting on Siluanovâs new post, State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said, in part: âThe Finance Ministry is doing a fairly effective job handling the issues before it.â
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Scientists and university faculty in Russia are increasingly facing prosecution for financing âextremismâ through donations to the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), Mediazona reported.
More than 10 such cases have reached Moscow courts in the past six months, the outlet found. The 4th Department of Directorate P within the Fourth Service of the Federal Security Service (FSB) initiated at least three cases against scientists.
The Fourth Service is also known as the Economic Security Service. The Dossier Center previously reported that officers in Directorate P provide âcounterintelligence support for industryâ and oversee state technology corporations including Rostec, Rusnano, and Roscosmos. One scientist who spoke to Mediazona said the FSBâs Fourth Service also oversees Skoltech and HSE University.
Among the scientists sentenced to prison is Sofya Rozenfeld, who holds a Doctor of Sciences degree in biology, Russiaâs highest academic degree, and specializes in Arctic birds. Mediazona reported that her case file includes testimony from an officer with the Center E anti-extremism unit. The officer said he had received âpreliminary inquiry materialsâ concerning Rozenfeld from the 4th Department of Directorate P within the FSBâs Fourth Service. The materials said the scientist âmay be involved in financing the FBK.â This FSB unit is also mentioned in other cases against scientists over donations to the FBK.
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European Parliament Vice President Pina Picierno announced a hunger strike to âdraw international attentionâ to the situation in Oleshky, a city in the occupied part of Ukraineâs Kherson region.
Picierno called on humanitarian organizations and governments to take notice of her protest.
âWe must demand an immediate humanitarian truce, the entry of food and medicines, and the possibility of safely evacuating civilians who wish to leave the city,â she said.
Oleshky is under Russian control. For months, its residents have been without electricity, food, and adequate medical care amid relentless shelling from both sides. Leaving the city is nearly impossible because most roads out are mined.
Several days ago, Pope Leo XIV called Russian President Vladimir Putin to ask him to ensure that humanitarian aid could reach the city and residents could be evacuated. Soon afterward, Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian Parliamentâs human rights commissioner, confirmed that Kyiv and Moscow were working to resolve the situation. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov later confirmed this as well.
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The building where Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko owns an apartment is exempt from the scheduled power outages that affect most city residents, the news outlet Slidstvo.Info reported.
Klitschkoâs apartment is in central Kyiv, in a building constructed in 1901 at 30/10 Bohdan Khmelnytsky Street.
In response to an inquiry from Slidstvo.Info, DTEK Kyiv Grids said the building and 10 other residential buildings are connected to a critical infrastructure facility. The company receives its list of critical infrastructure facilities from the Kyiv City Military Administration.
âUnder this connection arrangement, the residential buildings are an additional load on the facility and therefore cannot be disconnected separately from it during scheduled power outages,â DTEK said in its response.
In 2013, Klitschko said he had decided to buy the 225-square-meter (2,420-square-foot) apartment in the building after winning a fight in 1999.
Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities have introduced scheduled power outages due to constant Russian strikes on energy infrastructure. These attacks have intensified as colder weather approaches â Russian forces strike Kyiv almost every night.
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Lawmakers have submitted a bill to Russiaâs State Duma that would increase criminal penalties for calls to mass riots, one of its authors, Vasily Piskarev, said.
Under current Russian law, inciting riots carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison. The bill would raise that to four years.
Calls to riot made online would become a separate criminal offense carrying a sentence of up to six years in prison.
âOur adversaries â the collective West and the fugitive criminals, relocants, and foreign agents under its control â are not giving up their attempts to provoke our citizens into taking part in various provocations and dragging them into committing crimes,â Piskarev said, explaining the need for the legislative changes.
The bill has already received favorable reviews from the government and Russiaâs Supreme Court.
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European leaders are rethinking their approach to the Kremlin, Financial Times foreign affairs columnist Gideon Rachman writes. More politicians in the European Union now agree that negotiations with Vladimir Putin should not remain the exclusive prerogative of the United States. European countries could soon open their own talks with the Kremlin. Channels of communication are already in place, he says.
EU policy toward Russia has rested on two main pillars until now: support for Ukraine and sanctions. European leaders have tried to shape the negotiations by influencing Donald Trumpâs position, but those efforts are growing less effective. Europe also fears Trump is more interested in business deals with Moscow than in security issues.
In any direct talks, Putin could be offered two options for ending the war, Rachman writes: freezing the conflict along the front line in exchange for a guarantee that Ukraine will not join NATO, or ceding all of the Donbas to Moscowâs control, after which Kyiv could join the alliance.
Meanwhile, relations between Kyiv and Washington are going through a new crisis, triggered by an energy crisis and Trumpâs push to lower diesel prices ahead of the midterm elections to Congress.
Trump has repeatedly urged Ukraine to stop striking Russian oil refineries and declare an energy truce. After diplomatic failure, he struck a deal with Moscow on diesel supplies. Volodymyr Zelensky said the United States had âchosen the sideâ of Russia. Trump responded that it was easier for him to reach an agreement with Putin than with Zelensky, adding that Ukraine needs to hold elections.
Relations between the two leaders are at their âlowest pointâ since the clash in the Oval Office in 2025, the WSJ writes. The latest exchange took place a day earlier: Trump accused Zelensky of not wanting to end the war, while Zelensky said Ukraine is being pressured to capitulate.
Amid this, U.S. Vice President JD Vance has spoken out against Ukraine joining NATO: âWe donât have a formal alliance as far as I know with Ukraine. Theyâre not in NATO. I donât think that they should be in NATO,â he said. Vance also refused to call Kyiv an ally of Washington, saying they have âdivergent interests from time to time.â
War in photographs. Komyshuvakha.
Residents of Komyshuvakha, a front-line village in the Zaporizhzhia region, are being evacuated because of the threat of Russian drone strikes. These photos were taken October 19, 2026.
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South Korea will recall part of its diplomatic staff from Ukraine amid a scandal over the transfer of North Korean prisoners of war to Seoul, Yonhap reported.
South Koreaâs Foreign Ministry said it made the decision because Kyiv had not taken âpositive stepsâ to resolve the diplomatic conflict.
It also said ongoing Russian airstrikes are complicating efforts to protect its diplomatic staff.
The diplomatic scandal between South Korea and Ukraine began after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said publicly that Kyiv had handed over two North Korean prisoners of war to South Korea. Seoul said the arrangement had been private, and that Ukraine itself had initiated it.
After the incident, Seoul demanded an official apology. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha offered it only during diplomatic consultations, not publicly, which South Korea considered insufficient. In early October, Seoul recalled its ambassador from Ukraine.
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Russian rapper Navai Bakirov, known as Navai, has been released from a pretrial detention center in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstani police told the Russian state news agency TASS that the criminal case against him on drug smuggling charges was dropped in light of his âactive repentance.â The prosecutorâs office has already approved the decision to drop the case.
Bakirov was detained on October 14 at a checkpoint on the border with Kyrgyzstan as he entered Kazakhstan, after drugs were found in his car. Baza, a Russian security services-linked Telegram channel, reported that 10 grams (0.35 ounces) of marijuana were found in the car, while other sources cited 2.5 grams (0.09 ounces) of drugs. During questioning, the outlet reported, the rapper said he had bought the drugs in Bishkek.
Bakirov was traveling to Kazakhstan to perform a concert in Astana on October 14.
The Kordai District Court on October 15 authorized the arrest of Bakirov for two months.
Navai Bakirov is best known primarily as a member of the duo HammAli & Navai, which performed hookah rap and existed from 2016 to 2025. After the duo broke up, Bakirov began a solo career.
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Ukrainian drones struck Russiaâs Tambov region overnight on October 20, sparking a fire at one of the facilities, the regionâs governor, Yevgeny Pervyshev, said. He declined to elaborate, saying only that no one was injured.
Ukraineâs Exilenova+ monitoring project and OSINT analysts from the independent Telegram channel Astra believe the drones struck the Nikolskoye linear production and dispatching station (LPDS) in Michurinsky District.
The Nikolskoye LPDS is a key node in the Druzhba trunk oil pipeline system. The station receives, stores, pumps, and transits oil and petroleum products, with a capacity of up to 300,000 tons of oil per day.
Ukrainian drones struck the Nikolskoye LPDS at least twice during the summer of 2025.
Ukrainian forces have struck Russian oil refineries repeatedly over the past several months, a campaign that has become one of the main drivers of the countryâs fuel crisis.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused the United States of deliberately delaying deliveries of interceptor missiles that NATO countries have already paid for, Axios reported, citing a transcript of a video call between Zelensky and American senators.
According to Zelensky, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has deliberately withheld approval for deliveries of Patriot interceptors and AIM-9X missiles for NASAMS air defense systems. Kyiv, he said, has almost no American missiles left.
All of this suggests that some political decision has been made to slow down support for us. We want to understand what is happening, why itâs happening, and where all of this is heading.
He also reiterated that Ukraine failed on three occasions over the past week to receive U.S. warnings about Russian ballistic missile strikes, and that the American satellite systems Starlink and its military version, Starshield, have been partially restricted.
Axios reported that representatives of both parties took part in the meeting with Zelensky. Republican Senator Thom Tillis said Congress âremains committed to standing with Ukraine and our European allies to end Russiaâs brutal aggression and secure lasting peace.â
Democrat Richard Blumenthal also stressed that âbipartisan support for Ukraine was clear and unequivocal,â He assured that senators would express it through their âupcoming action.â
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Russian retailers want a special legal regime that would take effect during mass outages in state information systems, known as GIS, according to the Russian business daily Kommersant. The proposal appears in a letter that the Association of Internet Trade Companies, or AKIT, sent to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.
AKIT proposes letting retailers record data they cannot transmit promptly and send it once the infrastructure is restored. The letterâs authors also argue for backup methods of data transmission and say sellers should not be penalized for missed deadlines during the âemergency mode.â
AKIT also believes Russia could temporarily allow the storage and processing of Russiansâ personal data in âfriendlyâ countries. Currently, personal data can only be processed and stored inside Russia.
AKIT drafted the letter after Ukrainian drones struck data centers belonging to Yandex and Sberbank. The association said the attacks did not cause major disruptions in retail at the time, but argued that a special regime should be established in case of force majeure. Rusprodsoyuz, which represents major food producers, said isolated outages did occur, forcing some companies to halt operations and switch to paper records. The letter includes several other proposals that AKIT did not disclose.
The Economy Ministry and the Finance Ministry told Kommersant that AKITâs letter âwill be reviewed in accordance with the established procedure.â
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Donald Trumpâs special envoy Steve Witkoff plans to meet soon with Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin, Reuters and Axios correspondent Barak Ravid reported, citing sources.
Witkoff will travel to Oslo this week (October 19 to 25) for another round of talks on ending the war in Ukraine, Reuters reported. Zelensky will also attend, along with representatives of Norway, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Poland, the European Union, and NATO.
Sources told Reuters and Ravid that Witkoff plans to visit Russia afterward to meet with Putin. The timing of that visit is unknown.
Witkoff plans to present Putin with ideas for ending the war developed jointly with Ukraine and European partners, Ravid reported. The talks may also address the release of 73-year-old American Stephen Hubbard from a Russian penal colony. In October 2024, a Russian court sentenced Hubbard to six years and 10 months in a medium-security prison on charges of serving as a mercenary.
Trumpâs negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met with a Ukrainian delegation in Miami on October 9. That same day, Trump spoke with Putin by phone. Afterward, Trump said Russia would supply diesel fuel to the U.S. and global markets under a âdiesel deal.â The U.S.âUkraine talks were scheduled for October 9 and 10 but ended early, after the first day. Witkoff and Kushner were expected to travel to Moscow afterward, but the visit was postponed.
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A monument to writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn has been removed from Korabelnaya Embankment in central Vladivostok. It will be installed in the Park of Faith and Hope in the coming days, city officials told Interfax.
Plans to move the monument to the park became public in early March. The Pacific Fleetâs leadership and veterans proposed the move, saying the monument was âout of keeping with the themes of the memorials and monumentsâ on the embankment.
Vladivostok officials said the sculpture was not a designated cultural heritage site and that the Council for Culture and the Arts had decided to relocate it.
City officials said there had been âa lot of criticism from historians and local history experts, who pointed out that Solzhenitsyn arrived in Vladivostok by plane and that a monument to him on the embankment among warships was out of place.â
The bronze monument, more than 2.6 meters tall, was unveiled in central Vladivostok on September 2, 2015. Sculptor Pyotr Chegodayev created it. The writerâs son, Yermolai Solzhenitsyn, attended the unveiling.
Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia in May 1994, flying to Magadan and then to Vladivostok before traveling to Moscow by train.
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Russian forces struck a building used for manufacturing and storage in the Obukhiv district of Ukraineâs Kyiv region overnight on October 20. The building caught fire, the State Emergency Service said.
Three people were killed, and six others were injured.
Two more people were killed and two were injured in a Russian attack on the Khmelnytskyi region on the evening of October 19. Two businesses and multiple private homes were also damaged.
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FSB footage of the detention of a Japanese journalist accused of espionage, displayed on a smartphone screen. October 13, 2026
After Russiaâs full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Federal Security Service, or FSB, began posting far more short videos online showing the detention of people facing political prosecution in Russia. The videos are often staged to intimidate government opponents and show off the security serviceâs effectiveness and power, according to a study by Memorialâs Support for Political Prisoners project. The researchers analyzed 70 criminal cases in which those facing prosecution appeared in such videos.
After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, mentions of the FSB on the Telegram channels of the Russian state-run propaganda outlets TASS and RIA Novosti increased two- to threefold, Memorial found. The share of posts mentioning the FSB that included videos also nearly doubled over the course of the war.
Memorial said these videos cannot be treated as reliable accounts of events: Detention footage may contradict detaineesâ testimony in criminal case files, and recorded confessions are often obtained through torture. The human rights advocates see them primarily as propaganda videos that reveal a great deal about the security service itself.
Memorial identified five recurring elements in the videos: surveillance footage, the arrest, the results of a search or inspection, the detaineeâs transfer, and a confession.
Surveillance footage appears in only six of the 70 cases studied. Filming a suspect committing an alleged crime before detaining them is difficult, and the results arenât dramatic enough, the human rights advocates said. Memorial emphasized that all six cases using such footage were based on FSB entrapment operations.
Security officers try to make the arrests look as violent and dramatic as possible. They throw suspects to the floor, twist their arms behind their backs, and grab them by the hair. Memorial estimates that roughly a quarter of these scenes are staged. Camera operators often arrive before the officers, and detainees behave unnaturally on camera: For example, they ignore approaching armed officers until the last moment or answer their questions without missing a beat right after hitting the ground.
Filming rarely wraps up in a single take, so officers prefer to film detentions in deserted places. In these videos, suspects can be seen walking past garages or across open fields. Confessions are recorded over and over until the officers are satisfied with the tone and wording.
Officers use both torture and deception to get detainees to take part in filming. Crimean artist Bohdan Ziza said FSB officers filmed at least five versions of his confession and apology. He said they beat him when they felt his remorse was not sincere enough, and that the script was revised each time and cleared again with their superiors.
FSB officers told Donetsk resident Georgy Tabuyev he would get just two years in prison if he unpacked a parcel containing explosives on camera. Tabuyev agreed but ended up receiving a 14-year prison sentence. The video was never published.
The human rights advocates believe these staged videos have become a tool of political repression in their own right. The FSB uses them to try to intimidate government opponents, create a sense that the security services control everything, and impose its own version of events.
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