A police officer in Yekaterinburg shot a 17-year-old while detaining him on suspicion of setting fire to police vehicles, the Interior Ministry’s Sverdlovsk regional directorate told Vecherniye Vedomosti.
Two police vehicles caught fire on the grounds of Police Station No. 3 overnight on October 15. The teenager was found at the scene. An officer used his service weapon while detaining him, acting “in accordance with the law,” the Interior Ministry said. The teenager was grazed and was not taken to a hospital.
The Investigative Committee said it had opened a criminal investigation into the teenager on suspicion of sabotage. Investigators allege that he set the vehicles on fire “on instructions from handlers” with whom he had been exchanging messages online.
The teenager’s first name is Anatoly. He is a first-year student at a vocational college, training to become a computer operator, and had recently been working part-time as a courier for a cafe. Police had previously placed him under the supervision of juvenile officers for smoking at school.
Police are also looking into whether the teenager was manipulated by scammers.
At least 240 teenagers in Russia have been detained on terrorism or sabotage charges since the start of the war, according to Mediazona’s May 2026 tally. In most cases — 205 — the suspects said they had been looking for an easy way to earn some extra money. Six teenagers committed arson after being manipulated by scammers, while five said they opposed the war. In the remaining cases, the motive was unclear.
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.
St. Petersburg authorities have barred foreign nationals with labor patents, a type of work authorization, from jobs in health care, hairstyling, beauty services, retail, and sports and fitness services. The ban will remain in effect through the end of 2026.
City authorities said the restrictions are needed to “combat off-the-books employment.” The ban does not apply to citizens of Eurasian Economic Union member states (Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan) or to foreign nationals holding work permits rather than labor patents.
City authorities introduced a similar ban for taxi drivers and couriers last year. Those restrictions were extended through 2026.
Russian authorities began tightening migration policy after the March 2024 terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall outside Moscow. Among other measures, they made it harder to obtain Russian residence permits through a fast-track process based on marriage, approved new rules for expelling migrants, and banned schools from admitting migrant children who lack Russian-language proficiency.
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.
Russia’s State Duma has passed a bill in its first reading that would allow conscripts to serve in military units of the Emergencies Ministry’s Federal Fire Service.
An explanatory note accompanying the bill says it would help reduce the service’s “existing staffing shortage.”
The service’s military units are currently deployed only in closed and federal territories and at high-priority and high-security facilities. The bill would expand their area of responsibility in light of the “global geopolitical situation” and “potential threats from unfriendly countries,” as well as to “protect citizens and economic assets,” including “in armed conflict zones.”
Parlamentskaya Gazeta reported that the bill would authorize these units to fight fires and conduct rescue operations in ordinary towns and villages and at civilian facilities.
However, the newspaper said the bill would bar conscripts serving in firefighting units from being sent to the “special military operation” zone or to regions where a counterterrorism operation regime is in effect.
Emergencies Minister Alexander Kurenkov first spoke in February about plans to assign conscripts to serve as firefighters. The ministry hopes this will address problems caused by an “exodus of personnel” due to low pay.
The Interior Ministry and the Federal Penitentiary Service have also reported staffing shortages. iStories reported that these shortages have worsened during the Russia–Ukraine war. People who previously would have joined these agencies are now signing contracts with the Defense Ministry because fighting in the war pays more.
Ukraine strikes targets not only on the front lines and in nearby regions but across Russia. Drones attack oil facilities, warehouses, and data centers across Russia. The strikes often cause major fires.
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.
A court in Kazakhstan has ordered rapper Navai held in pretrial detention for two months in a drug smuggling case, Baza reported. The Korday District Court issued the order against Navai Bakirov on October 15.
Bakirov was detained at a checkpoint on October 14 after drugs were found in his car as he entered Kazakhstan from Kyrgyzstan. Baza reported that officers found 10 grams (about 0.35 ounces) of marijuana, while other sources put the amount at 2.5 grams (about 0.09 ounces) of drugs.
According to Baza, the rapper admitted during questioning that he had bought the drugs in Bishkek.
He was traveling to Kazakhstan to perform at a concert in Astana on October 14.
Kyrgyzstan’s State Border Service has launched an internal inquiry after Navai was detained with drugs following his border crossing, TASS reported. The inquiry aims “to establish all the circumstances surrounding his border screening.” The border service said that if it finds any violations, it will take “appropriate action in accordance with the law” against those responsible.
Navai Bakirov is best known as a member of HammAli & Navai, a hookah rap duo active from 2016 to 2025. After the duo split up, Bakirov launched a solo career.
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.
Russian authorities did not anticipate Ukrainian strikes on warehouses belonging to the online marketplaces Wildberries and Ozon, Vladimir Putin said at a congress of the business association Business Russia.
“I’m aware of the problems you mentioned — unfortunately, our platforms, Wildberries and Ozon, have come under enemy attack. By the way, they keep taking steps that, frankly, we probably should have anticipated, but we thought those things wouldn’t occur to them. They did,” Putin said in response to Wildberries founder Tatyana Kim, who mentioned Ukrainian strikes on the company’s warehouses.
Putin said that once Russia “starts responding” to such strikes, Ukraine turns “to its sponsors to ask them to put pressure on us and stop us.” He said the same thing happened with energy facilities and called Ukraine’s latest strikes on Russian oil refineries “insignificant.”
Russia has already begun responding to these attacks, Putin said: “They made the first move. We started responding. Now they’re squealing in the same way about energy facilities, too, and about other sites, including data centers and so on. They started it. They shouldn’t have started it.”
This was Putin’s first comment on strikes on data centers, the news outlet Agentstvo reported. The context, however, leaves it unclear whether he meant Ukrainian strikes on Yandex and Sber data centers or similar Russian attacks.
In September, Russia attacked several Ukrainian data centers, and the Russian Defense Ministry threatened Kyiv with a “digital detox.” On October 10, after Ukrainian forces had begun attacking Yandex, Russia struck a data center belonging to the Ukrainian provider Tenet in Odesa and UkrSibbank’s “ATM” facility in Kyiv.
On October 13, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the government was discussing the attacks on Russian data centers. The following day, Putin held a meeting on cybersecurity.
During the public portion of the meeting, Putin said he expected participants to put forward proposals “that will improve digital security.” He said cyberthreats were reaching a new level “against a backdrop of direct and hybrid aggression from abroad.” He did not mention the strikes on data centers.
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.
Russia’s Ministry of Science and Higher Education has proposed requiring tuition-paying university students to pay for their first semester before enrolling, according to a draft ministry order.
Under the draft, applicants would have to sign an enrollment contract and pay for at least one semester to enroll as tuition-paying students.
The ministry’s press office previously said the initiative was “aimed at addressing the problem of ‘phantom’ competition for places.” Applicants can currently sign contracts with several universities at once, “reserving several places for tuition-paying students during admissions and making them unavailable to other applicants.”
“Advance payment will commit applicants to their choice and make the admissions process for tuition-paying students clearer and fairer for everyone involved,” the ministry said.
The proposed rules would take effect on March 1, 2027.
The ministry has also proposed barring expelled students from reenrolling at the same university for five years. The restriction would apply to students expelled “as a disciplinary penalty.”
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.
Rescuers are searching for seven sailors missing after a fire aboard a tanker in Romania’s territorial waters in the Black Sea, Reuters reported.
The San Marino-flagged Wine Trader sent a distress signal at about 7 a.m. on October 15. Of the 12 people aboard, four were rescued and seven remain missing.
That same night, another vessel, the Comoros-flagged chemical tanker Yara J, caught fire in the Black Sea. No one was injured, and the crew managed to put out the fire on its own.
Both ships were anchored off Romania’s coast when the fires broke out, Reuters reported. Local authorities, however, have not yet linked the fires to a Russian drone attack.
At least five other cargo ships have come under drone attack off the coasts of Romania and Bulgaria over the past 10 days, according to Reuters. All those attacks took place outside NATO territorial waters and killed 23 sailors.
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.
Ukraine’s campaign to paralyze airport operations in Russia is “only just getting started,” sources told The Atlantic’s Simon Shuster.
Shuster first reported on plans for the operation, code-named M&M’s, in late August. On September 1, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia’s skies were “becoming extremely dangerous” because “there will simply be drones in Russia’s skies on a scale that has to be taken into account.”
Shuster’s sources now say Ukraine has been trying in recent weeks to disrupt air traffic around Russian airports with long-range drones. But Zelensky has yet to approve the original plan, which called for much more aggressive tactics.
A larger-scale version of the campaign would use AI-guided drones capable of evading Russian air defenses. Mass production of these drones is expected to begin soon, one source told The Atlantic.
The Atlantic reported in August that Mykhailo Fedorov, who was defense minister when the original plan was drawn up, actively pushed for it. Work on the plan was reportedly suspended after his dismissal in July.
Moscow’s airports began suspending operations more frequently in October. During the first 14 days of the month, the four airports were closed for a combined 101 hours, according to calculations by Agentstvo, compared with just 46 hours in all of September. Overnight into October 14, all of Moscow’s airports were closed for a record seven consecutive hours.
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.
Ukraine has run out of missiles for its U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems, CNN reported, citing a source familiar with the situation.
The source said Ukrainian forces intercepted almost none of the missiles in the latest ballistic missile attack overnight into October 14 “due to lack of the (interceptor) missiles.”
Russian ballistic missiles hit three power plants in Kyiv and energy infrastructure in Kharkiv during the attack.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been warning for months that a shortage of Patriot missiles undermines the country’s ability to defend itself, especially ahead of an expected increase in attacks on energy infrastructure this winter. In August, Zelensky said he was making “millions” of phone calls to secure supplies and that Ukraine had only a tenth of the interceptor stockpile it needed.
On October 15, Zelensky said Ukraine would resume strikes on Russian oil refineries because Moscow had continued its attacks during the three days Kyiv refrained from attacks at the request of the United States. He suggested he could soften his position in exchange for additional Patriot missiles.
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.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Japanese authorities do not engage in espionage in Russia, responding to the detention of Hokkaido Shimbun correspondent Yuki Imai in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.
“Nothing of the sort happened. Right now, protecting Japanese citizens is extremely important, and that is where we intend to focus our efforts,” Takaichi said, as quoted by The Japan Times.
She said Japanese authorities do not yet know exactly what Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) is accusing the journalist of.
“Every country has different laws, so we don’t yet know the details of what they are calling the charges. Nevertheless, Japan will firmly state its position,” the prime minister said.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said the Japanese government had not yet been able to contact Imai but was working to arrange a meeting with him “as soon as possible.”
On October 13, the FSB said it had detained Japanese journalist Yuki Imai in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. The agency alleged that, at the direction of Japanese intelligence, he had gathered data on the number of Kuril Islands residents who had been mobilized or had volunteered to fight in the war in Ukraine. After his detention, the Japanese Foreign Ministry summoned Russia’s ambassador to Japan, Nikolai Nozdrev.
Imai had recently published reports on State Duma elections and the unveiling of a monument in Khabarovsk commemorating the Soviet Union’s victory over Japan. He had also written about strengthening ties between Russia and North Korea. On his most recent trip, he visited Primorsky Krai, with stops in Vladivostok and Nakhodka and a visit to a children’s arts center there. He interviewed Russian-speaking residents of Japan and reported on life in the Russian Far East, the Soviet-Japanese War, and friendship between Russia and Japan.
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.
The Sverdlovsky District Court in Kostroma fined Andrey Tarasov, a former State Duma candidate for the Yabloko Party, 1,000 rubles for “displaying extremist symbols” under Article 20.3, Part 1, of Russia’s Code of Administrative Offenses.
Tarasov said on his VKontakte page that he was cited for an administrative offense over a photo of him wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “I’m against the party of crooks and thieves” and a drawing of a person kicking a bear.
An expert assessment commissioned for the proceedings says that “Alexey Navalny is considered the creator of the ‘party of crooks and thieves’ meme” and that the slogan was later used “in the context of the Anti-Corruption Foundation’s (FBK) activities.” Tarasov published excerpts of the assessment.
By calling United Russia the party of crooks, “the FBK was not simply criticizing it — it was delegitimizing the ruling party in voters’ eyes,” said the expert enlisted by the Interior Ministry. She said the slogan on the T-shirt “identifies the person wearing it as an opposition supporter.”
Tarasov plans to appeal the court’s ruling.
Ahead of the September elections, Sergey Shpotin, secretary of the Communist Party’s Kostroma regional committee, complained on his Telegram channel about Tarasov’s T-shirt with the slogan “I’m against the party of crooks and thieves.” He said: “Rank-and-file Communist Party members get dragged into court, fined, have their doors broken down, and face persecution for telling the truth about the ‘party of crooks and thieves.’ But this ‘new liberal’ gets away with absolutely everything!”
Tarasov previously headed the regional Communist Party branch’s public liaison office and ran several times as its candidate for a single-member district seat in the regional legislature. But in 2026, he had a public falling-out with his Communist Party colleagues. He went on to run for Yabloko in that year’s parliamentary elections, finishing third in his single-member district.
In the summer of 2021, the Moscow City Court declared the FBK an “extremist organization.” Authorities regularly open criminal investigations over donations to the FBK, and defendants in these cases receive lengthy prison sentences.
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.
Rosfinmonitoring, Russia’s financial monitoring agency, has added journalist and commentator Alexander Nevzorov to its list of “terrorists and extremists.”
Nevzorov left Russia shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. In 2022, Russian authorities designated him a “foreign agent.” In 2023, a Moscow court sentenced him in absentia to eight years in prison on charges of spreading “fake news” about the military.
A Russian court also declared Nevzorov and his wife, Lydia, an “extremist association.” They were added to the terrorist and extremist registry as an association. In spring 2025, authorities opened a criminal investigation into the couple for allegedly financing extremism by collecting donations 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.
Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office has dropped its lawsuit seeking to seize the assets of International Chess Federation (FIDE) President Timur Turlov for the Russian state.
Deputy Prosecutor General Igor Tkachev filed a motion to withdraw the lawsuit with Moscow’s Tverskoy District Court, which was hearing the case.
The Prosecutor General’s Office filed the lawsuit in early October against Turlov, a Kazakhstani businessman, and Freedom Finance, the holding company he founded. Sources cited by Kommersant linked the lawsuit to Turlov’s donations to humanitarian projects in Ukraine.
The lawsuit was filed shortly after Turlov was elected president of FIDE. He succeeded former Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, who had been placed under EU sanctions.
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.
German authorities have expelled a 21-year-old Russian citizen of Yazidi origin, the local outlet ND reported, citing human rights advocates. He had faced deportation to Russia but was ultimately allowed to leave voluntarily for Armenia.
ND identified the young man as Artur. He had lived with his family in Bielefeld, in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, since he was 10. Artur planned to begin vocational training in the summer of 2026 and applied for a residence permit on that basis. Before he could sign a training contract, immigration authorities unexpectedly ordered him to leave for Russia.
On October 8, Artur was detained pending deportation to Russia. But human rights advocates who tried to stop his deportation said he does not speak Russian and would face military conscription there.
Authorities ultimately allowed Artur to leave Germany voluntarily for Armenia on condition that he depart that same day.
Artem Klyga, head of the legal department at the Conscientious Objectors’ Movement, told the outlet Ekho that people at risk of being sent to war by Russia currently have very little chance of obtaining protection in European countries.
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.
Aftermath of a Russian strike on Kyiv. October 14, 2026
Ukraine is resuming strikes on Russian oil refineries, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced.
Zelensky said Ukraine had held off on striking Russian oil refineries for three days at the request of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Russia, meanwhile, had not honored the so-called energy ceasefire, Zelensky said, continuing to strike Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and killing about 100 civilians over the past week.
“The block [on attacking refineries] is out. We’re done,” the Ukrainian president said in an interview with the Financial Times published Thursday morning, October 15.
The first strike by Ukraine’s military after the pause appears to have hit the Ryazan oil refinery. The plant, owned by Rosneft, is one of the key fuel suppliers for Moscow and the Moscow region.
Ryazan Governor Pavel Malkov announced the morning of October 15 that classes had been canceled in 14 schools and 25 kindergartens in Ryazan because of “a mass drone attack on the region.” The Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ published a photo early that morning showing a flare over the Ryazan oil refinery, suggesting it was linked to the drone attack.
Authorities in the Ryazan region confirmed the strikes, saying a fire had broken out at the refinery. Malkov also said that “a warehouse and vehicles on the grounds of another enterprise in Ryazan” had been damaged. He declined to give further details, adding that the damage was being assessed.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Ukraine’s military attacked the Ryazan oil refinery with 69 drones and four Flamingo cruise missiles. The Russian military said it had shot down the drones and missiles, but added that “a fire broke out at the refinery as a result of falling drone debris.”
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Wednesday afternoon, October 14, that Ukrainian forces had struck two oil refineries, one in the Saratov region and one in the Ryazan region. “We see that the Ukrainian side is not showing any movement toward an energy ceasefire,” he said. At the time, authorities in the Ryazan region and eyewitnesses had not reported any strike on the refinery there, and Novak’s claim about a strike on an oil refinery in the Saratov region remains unconfirmed.
Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov, commenting on Zelensky’s remarks about resuming strikes, referred to Novak’s statement. According to Peskov, there had been no moratorium on Ukraine’s part, and strikes on Russian oil refineries and energy facilities had continued throughout this period. “There is nothing new here,” Peskov said, once again accusing Ukrainian authorities and Zelensky personally of “not wanting to make peace.”
War in photos. Aftermath of a Russian strike on Kyiv.
Russian forces struck Kyiv with drones and missiles overnight on October 14, killing three people and injuring about 20. A nine-story apartment building caught fire in the Desnianskyi District as a result of the strike.
Fire at an apartment building in the Desnianskyi District after a Russian strike. October 14, 2026
Kyiv residents near their home, damaged in the Russian attack. October 14, 2026A worker with Ukraine’s State Emergency Service at the site of one of the Russian strikes on Kyiv. October 12, 2026. Ukrainian President Zelensky said that allies had not shared information about the impending attack.77-year-old Stanislav in his apartment, which burned after a Russian strike on Kyiv. October 14, 2026
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.
Russia has nearly completed construction of a major new base for launching jet-powered drones near the Ukrainian border in just six weeks, Reuters reported, citing satellite imagery.
The base is being built in the Rostov region. As of August 31, the site was still an empty field, Reuters said. It now holds a sprawling complex spanning an area equal to 126 soccer fields.
Mike Monnik, founder of the private intelligence firm DroneSec, said the images suggest the base is designed to launch the newest jet-powered Geran-4 and Geran-5 drones. Eight launch pads sit in the western part of the complex.
Monnik estimated the base could support the launch of about 100 jet-powered drones a day and said it will likely become fully operational within “a matter of weeks.”
Russia has started actively using jet-powered drones to strike Ukraine in recent months. Unlike classic drones, they offer a significant increase in range and speed. They are harder to shoot down than ordinary drones, since they are too fast for specialized electric-motor interceptors.
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.
Russian streaming platforms Kion and Okko are airing Klim Kozinsky’s new series Noon, based on Beetle in the Anthill, a novel by Soviet science fiction writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. The story belongs to their Noon Universe, a vision of a prosperous future in which humanity has achieved communism and made contact with extraterrestrial civilizations. But this utopian world is far from perfect: intelligence agencies still call the shots on Earth, and people have yet to learn to trust one another. Critic Anton Khitrov reviews the novel’s first screen adaptation.
Strugatsky adaptations are new cinematic fairy tales
The 2010s were a quiet decade for screen adaptations of the Strugatsky brothers’ work. Aleksei German’s long-gestating film Hard to Be a God came out in 2013, and only short films followed. Foreign directors and producers showed little interest in the Soviet science fiction writers. Television director Alan Taylor, known for his work on Game of Thrones and other projects, once set out to adapt Roadside Picnic, but could not sell the idea to producers. Russian film and television studios rarely tackled science fiction either: the genre is expensive and difficult to shoot, and audiences have grown accustomed to the production standards of Hollywood, HBO, and Netflix.
By the mid-2020s, though, the Strugatskys were enjoying a revival. The series Hard to Be a God ends on October 15. Noon, based on the novel Beetle in the Anthill, premiered two weeks earlier. The feature film Dead Mountaineer’s Inn, starring Yevgeny Tsyganov, is set to come out in January. At least one more series is in development: The Wish Machine, based on Roadside Picnic (Alan Taylor is not involved in this project).
The reason for this surge of interest remains unclear. There is no anniversary to mark, and the books have not entered the public domain. The various projects have different producers, and no single hit — like Cheburashka, which touched off a wave of imitators — appeared in theaters or on streaming services to set off a similar trend. Nor did the Strugatskys become noticeably more relevant in the 2020s than they were in the 2010s. The most plausible explanation is that production capacity has finally caught up with the demands of science fiction, and a familiar name in the credits lowers commercial risk.
Noon is a special case, though. Producer Danila Sharapov told Kinopoisk the project took 18 years to go from concept to premiere. If it succeeds, the team hopes to adapt other novels from the Noon Universe series as well.
The series director, Klim Kozinsky, has had an unconventional career. He studied theater directing under avant-garde director Boris Yukhananov at his Studio of Individual Directing and assisted international stars of experimental theater at the Electrotheatre Stanislavsky: Theodoros Terzopoulos and Romeo Castellucci. His film and stage work often engages with philosophical texts. In 2016 he staged Idiotologiya “Idiotology,” which combined Dostoevsky with Gottfried Leibniz, and in 2017 he released the animated film Tetragrammaton, whose characters included thinkers ranging from Thomas Aquinas to Ludwig Wittgenstein. Like other students of Yukhananov — Dmitry Troitsky and Alexander Dulerain — he later moved into mainstream television.
Kozinsky made his first series, Mental, a dramedy about a con artist, together with Dulerain. He went on to release two more television projects: Clinic 13, a supernatural drama set in a hospital, and Pervyi nomer “Issue One,” a workplace drama about the glossy magazine industry based on a script by Sergei Minayev. Noon marks his debut in science fiction.
‘Noon’ reflects its time: in some ways, it’s a series about PTSD
Beetle in the Anthill was published in 1979. It carries noticeably less idealism than the Strugatskys’ earlier works from the era of Khrushchev’s Thaw, since it focuses on intelligence agencies that remain loyal to old methods — secrecy, control, and violence — even in a prosperous future society.
The novel’s narrator, Maxim Kammerer — familiar to readers from another Strugatskys novel, The Inhabited Island — works for COMCON-2, the main Earth intelligence agency of the 22nd century. The head of COMCON-2, the vigilant Rudolf Sikorsky, orders Kammerer to put a man named Lev Abalkin under surveillance. Abalkin had abandoned his post in space, apparently killed a colleague, and secretly returned to Earth, where he now rushes from place to place, tracking down old acquaintances and trying to uncover some kind of secret. Before deserting, Abalkin worked as a Progressor, infiltrating less advanced extraterrestrial civilizations to promote their development. His report on a mission to the planet Hope provides another storyline in the novel.
The best thing about Noon is its trio of lead characters. Like the creators of Hard to Be a God, the people behind Noon could not resist paying homage to Aleksei German, bringing in Leonid Yarmolnik, who played Don Rumata in German’s film. This time, instead of a brief cameo, Yarmolnik got a full-fledged role as the powerful Sikorsky. Yuri Kolokolnikov plays a restrained Kammerer, while Maxim Matveyev plays an expressive Abalkin. Preparing to portray a character who had served in hot spots in space, Matveyev studied material about people with PTSD, and his performance turned out to be unexpectedly topical. All three actors are convincing — which, unfortunately, cannot be said for either the supporting characters or the setting as a whole.
The series’ world lacks both originality and logic
Writing science fiction is, in a sense, undoubtedly easier than filming it. Take architecture: the Strugatskys did not need to specify what buildings looked like on a thriving future Earth or on the post-apocalyptic planet Hope. They exist in the story, but readers are free to imagine them however they like.
Architecture is nothing, though. The Strugatsky brothers introduced entire intelligent races into their plots without describing them in detail. The Tagorans, a fairly significant faction in the Noon Universe series, are a case in point: all readers know about their biology is that they once went through a larval stage in their development, until they fixed their own genes.
A screen adaptation is another matter. Filmmakers have to design everything, from the Museum of Extraterrestrial Cultures, where the key events of Beetle in the Anthill take place, to the Tagorans themselves. In its attempt to build a convincing world on screen, Noon falls short not only of contemporary Hollywood science fiction filmmakers like James Cameron or Denis Villeneuve but even of Georgy Daneliya’s low-budget Kin-dza-dza, in which the production designers built an entire alien civilization — a parodic one, but a complete one — out of scrap metal.
In Kozinsky’s series, the setting feels like an afterthought. The Moscow of the future consists of snow-white high-rises of impractical shapes topped with colossal statues (some locations were shot on site: the COMCON interior, for instance, is the Zilart museum, while the exterior is the Garage museum). The planet struck by catastrophe is a gray, rocky desert. The enemy base is a black, spiked pyramid. The aliens differ from humans mostly in the color and texture of their skin, much like in Star Trek — a classic, though one that first aired half a century ago. The future in Noon is so derivative and so shamelessly computer-generated that it is simply impossible to believe in it.
How a fictional world looks is, without question, a fundamental question for science fiction film. But how that world works matters just as much — and the series has problems there too.
Consider one example. Because Beetle in the Anthill is a novel about intelligence agencies and, more broadly, about access to information, the Strugatskys worked out in meticulous detail how secret operations at COMCON-2 function. The series discards nearly all of the rules the writers invented and offers none in their place.
In the novel, Kammerer searches for Abalkin alone, since Sikorsky does not trust the other agents, and questions witnesses by posing as a journalist. In the series, Kolokolnikov’s character works with an assistant and does not bother with any cover story. That is far from the most glaring breach of secrecy in the show; the most glaring one cannot be described without spoilers.
Breaking COMCON-2‘s own protocols would be one thing, but the creators sometimes dispense with basic human logic altogether. “If Abalkin shows up, let me know,” Kammerer asks a female witness, then leaves the room without giving her a business card or any way to reach him. “For the next lesson, prepare a report on the Wanderers,” a teacher tells the students before sending them home — apparently expecting everyone to turn up with the same report. The manager of the resort where Abalkin is staying sees through a window that Abalkin is armed and calls emergency services, but when he spots a woman entering Abalkin’s room, he hangs up with visible relief. “It’s good that woman showed up. She distracted him,” he later explains to Kammerer.
The characters in the series behave oddly and speak just as strangely. “By the way, what’s happening with my new petition to COMCON’s leadership about returning to Earth?” Abalkin presses his captain. One COMCON agent complains to a colleague: “He’s keeping secrets from you too? He’s in love with you!” Plot-relevant information is never dropped subtly; instead, it is spelled out in the middle of dialogue so the viewer never has to guess at anything. The Strugatskys, by contrast, held to the opposite principle, withholding explanations from the reader until the very end.
The creators of the adaptation got rid of the talking dogs. That was a mistake.
One of the visual effects creators behind The Avengerssaid in an interview that the film’s success depended largely on how believable Hulk turned out to be — the only one of the six lead characters who does not look human.
The same holds for the Beetle in the Anthill adaptation: it can be judged by how it portrays the golovan Shchekn, Lev Abalkin’s friend and partner in the novel.
In the novel’s terminology, golovans are a “cynoid race” — in plain terms, intelligent talking dogs that emerged on the planet Saraksh “as a result of radiation mutations.” As long as they stay silent, they look almost exactly like Earth dogs, apart from a somewhat larger head (hence the name) and less expressive facial movements, which makes it hard for humans to read their thoughts.
There are plenty of ways to portray a talking dog on screen: a puppet, makeup, CGI, or an actual trained dog. The creators of the series rejected all of them. A dog-headed humanoid, makeup artist Irina Leshko explained in an interview, would come across as a character from either a fairy tale or a horror film. So the golovans in the series became a humanoid race, and creating Shchekn required no CGI, just makeup — excellent makeup, it should be said. But something essential was lost along the way.
Golovans don’t simply appear in the novel because it is space science fiction, a genre that more or less requires aliens. For the Strugatskys, they are strange, unpredictable creatures, fundamentally incomprehensible, onto whom humans project their own notions of intelligence and culture. Golovans have no folklore of their own, for instance, but enterprising humans have learned to fake it, since people readily believe that talking dogs must have created their own epic — something like the Kalevala or the Elder Edda.
This is an important motif in the novel: people tend to judge everyone by themselves. Confronted with the mysterious, superior civilization of the Wanderers, Earth’s leaders suspect they are dealing with colonizers — a conclusion shaped by humanity’s own history.
The only character in Beetle in the Anthill capable of friendship with another form of intelligence is Lev Abalkin, the first Earthling to go on a space mission with a golovan partner. It is no accident that, as a child, he dreamed of becoming a zoopsychologist rather than a Progressor — that specialty was forced on him. The Strugatskys’ Abalkin is an outsider, drawn to everything nonhuman because he finds no understanding among people. His caretakers and superiors make clear that the limitations of the human mind show up not only in dealings with aliens but in interactions with fellow humans as well.
In short, Shchekn’s canine appearance is not just a matter of design: the uniquely close relationship between Lev Abalkin and a creature utterly unlike him is, in a sense, the key to the entire novel.
In the series, all of this subtext is lost. Kozinsky’s Shchekn is essentially just a person with an unusual appearance. The director cast Black actor Nikita Tau Naledi in the role, apparently deciding his look was “alien” enough. Judging by the white dreadlocks the golovan wears, the creators of the series seem to see no real difference between African cultures and extraterrestrial ones.
The Shchekn of the screen adaptation is not the haughty, stubborn creature with mysterious motives from the book. He is a loyal friend and an artless truth-teller, not especially civilized but good-natured by nature. Literary scholars call this archetype the “noble savage” (the best-known example being Friday from Robinson Crusoe). The irony is hard to miss: for once, a Black actor plays a major role in a prominent Russian series, yet the team behind the project has nothing to offer him beyond an outdated colonial trope.
The creators were afraid of being accused of an inaccurate adaptation. But inaccuracy isn’t the problem.
What makes Noon unique is the disclaimer that opens every episode — a rare case of a project all but begging the source material’s fan base for mercy. “The series’ plot does not match the original text by the authors,” the creators warn, “but it was developed with respect for the original work of these great Soviet writers.”
Strugatsky fans are, to put it mildly, a demanding audience. But the problem with both new adaptations — Noon and Hard to Be a God alike — is not deviation from the text. Adapting half-century-old science fiction without taking some liberties is impossible; the Strugatskys, for instance, never imagined smartphones, and their 22nd-century videophone is so bulky it has to be “dragged,” not carried, from room to room. The real problem is simplification standing in for interpretation: the setting is simpler, the dialogue is simpler, the meanings are simpler.
The Strugatskys are being flattened into an average, Western-style work of contemporary science fiction. Noon calls Moscow the center of humanity, and the entire Earth, according to the creators’ concept, speaks Russian. No explanation is offered for why, but the premise alone apparently qualifies the project as patriotic science fiction — it is not for nothing that the Internet Development Institute backed both new Strugatsky adaptations. Genuine patriotism, if it really was called for, would have meant trying to create something original and worthy of the source material, rather than turning it into Star Trek.
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.
On the morning of October 14, Ukrainian soldiers began reporting restrictions on Starshield, the military version of the Starlink satellite network that is essential for maintaining contact with drones moving at high speed. Serhii Beskrestnov, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, said “this action can’t be a coincidence and is connected to the current political situation,” referring to the conflict between Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump. On the morning of October 15, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said the system was working again. At the same time, no one in the United States has taken responsibility for the outage. Here is a brief summary of the various versions of what happened.
Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine. It’s their decision. It’s a big mistake. This decision will bring a lot of human losses. People will die if the attacks continue and Starlink doesn’t work. I hope that it’s a mistake, maybe a huge technical problem. We’re asking them to turn it back on. That would be fair.
Elon Musk, head of SpaceX (the satellite operator behind Starlink). Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.
The White House, anonymously. The U.S. presidential administration has nothing to do with the disruptions to Starlink’s operation.
The White House, officially. Declined to answer questions about Starlink. The president and his team remain committed to continuing to play a constructive role in ending the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Thom Tillis, U.S. senator. I’m not holding my breath for Defense Secretary Hegseth to offer transparency, so we’ll be asking the DOD Inspector General to initiate an investigation and report back to Congress and the American People. At best, this was an unacceptable error or lapse, and at worst a conscience decision to clear the field for a Russian attack.
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.
European Union leaders plan to urge Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to tone down his public criticism of Donald Trump, the Financial Times reported, citing sources.
The EU fears that Zelensky’s increasingly sharp remarks about Trump could further strain the already tense relations between Washington and Kyiv.
“It might be true, but it doesn’t always need to be said out loud,” one of the Financial Times’ sources said.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Zelensky criticized Trump’s diesel deal with Russia, condemned the U.S. decision to stop sharing intelligence, and said the American president sympathizes with autocrats and very wealthy people: “He [Trump] speaks about it openly and loudly that he loves such people and he respects such people. Because for him people who can be leaders 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, it means they can be very strong.”
Zelensky said that although Ukraine has stopped striking oil refineries, it has still received no American warnings about Russian ballistic missile attacks. He also said Starlink terminal service had been restricted, and rejected the suggestion that the problems were caused by any malfunction. “It was not a technical problem, it was the will,” he said.
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.
Starshield — the military version of Starlink — is fully operational again for Ukrainian forces, a source at Ukraine’s Defense Ministry told Ukrinform.
“As of today, Starshield has resumed working on the move, and it continues to operate, we’re seeing confirmation of this in reports from military units,” the source told the agency.
The source assured that Ukraine’s Defense Ministry is in contact with partners to determine the causes and circumstances of the restrictions.
RBC-Ukraine sources within Ukraine’s Defense Ministry also reported that Starshield service had resumed.
Ukrainian officials and military personnel began reporting problems with Starshield on the morning of October 14.
News of the restrictions on Starshield emerged amid a crisis in relations between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Washington did not officially confirm that it had imposed any restrictions. SpaceX head Elon Musk, for his part, said only the Pentagon could restrict the system’s operation.
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.
Login
