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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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

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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

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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U.S. President Donald Trump wants Russia and Ukraine to sign a peace agreement at the G20 summit in December, sources told The Atlantic.

Trump “has visions of standing between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as they sign a peace deal,” the outlet’s sources said.

To make that happen, The Atlantic reported, Trump is willing to consider strong-arming Ukraine into a deal.

The U.S. president is now “furious at Ukraine, and he wants Zelensky gone,” one of the sources said.

This year’s G20 summit will take place in Miami on December 14–15. Vladimir Putin has been formally invited, but Moscow has yet to confirm whether he will attend.

The United States is making another attempt to restart peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff visited Moscow on October 21 for the first time in many months and held talks with Putin. The day before, Witkoff met with Zelensky in Oslo.

Ukraine peace efforts

• Putin and U.S. envoy Witkoff hold talks in St. Petersburg as Washington pushes a new plan to end the war in Ukraine
• Two presidents, two versions of peace: Trump says Zelensky doesn’t want the war to end. Zelensky says Trump wants Ukraine to give in.
• After Trump and Zelensky meet in New York, Ukrainian president says he hopes war will end ‘before winter’

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A Russian Su-30 fighter jet crashed in the Kaliningrad region during a scheduled training flight, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The ministry said the crew ejected and was evacuated, and that the pilots’ lives are not in danger. It added that the plane came down in an uninhabited area and that the flight was being carried out without ammunition.

The Russian security services-linked Telegram channel Mash reported that the Su-30SM jet came down in a field between the villages of Timofeyevka and Zelenyy Bor, near Chernyakhovsk. The pilots were taken to a military hospital with injuries.

The Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ published video showing the jet coming down near a cemetery.

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Russia’s Presidential Administration has ordered state and Kremlin-aligned media outlets to begin writing about “Putin strikes” on Ukraine, two employees at such outlets told Meduza.

The Presidential Administration’s political bloc sent loyalist media recommendations advising them to report that “the effectiveness and efficiency of Russia’s strikes far exceed what the Ukrainian military has achieved.”

“Our ballistic weapons have performed flawlessly. The Ukrainian regime has lost its most important production and storage sites, where cruise missiles and drones, along with their components, were assembled and stored. ‘Putin strikes’ are far larger in scale and more effective than enemy attacks. We are shutting down the militants’ missile programs, which helps keep Russia’s regions secure,” the guidance document says.

Headlines, comments from servicemen, and articles using the phrase “Putin strikes” indeed appeared this week in major Russian media outlets.

For example, the Russian news website Gazeta.ru published an article with the following subheadline:

“SVO” veteran Konovalov: “Putin strikes” deprive the Ukrainian military of the ability to fight.

The outlet cites Vitaly Konovalov, head of the Association of Veterans of the Russia-Ukraine War in Stavropol Krai, who says the strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure are allegedly aimed at undermining supplies to the Ukrainian military. Notably, Konovalov himself never uses the phrase “Putin strikes.” It appears in the connecting phrases and generalizations added by propagandists.

Novye Izvestia published an article titled “Putin Strikes on Ukraine: Ukrainian Military Left Without Electricity and Weapons.” Rosbalt used the phrase in the headline of a news item titled “Putin Strikes on Ukraine: Ukrainian Military Losing Logistics Hubs, Substations, and Vessels.” It also appears in headlines and articles from Fedpress. Segodnia.ru writes about a “series of “Putin strikes.”” The phrase has even appeared in pro-government Instagram accounts.

A political consultant who works with the Presidential Administration’s political bloc said directly linking Putin to the strikes on Ukraine is meant to try to boost the president’s approval ratings.

According to polls by the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), Putin’s approval rating fell from 75% in July to 71% in early October, while trust in him fell from 74% to 70% over the same period.

“In this case, [the idea is to raise the ratings] among the pro-war, ultra-patriotic segment of society, who need to be shown some successes from the war. To the question “What has been accomplished?” [at the front], the suggested answer is “Putin strikes,” by analogy with the “Stalinist strikes,”” the consultant said.

During Joseph Stalin’s rule, the term “Ten Stalinist Strikes” referred to 10 major Soviet army operations during World War II.

The source told Meduza that it is hard to assess how effective the appearance of “Putin strikes” in the press has been: “Maybe it will have some effect on the older segment [of society].”

Speaking at a press conference in Bishkek on September 1, following the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, Vladimir Putin said he had ordered the Russian military to prepare and carry out massive strikes on Ukraine’s energy facilities. “They’re striking our people, so they’ll get a response,” he added.

In mid-October, discussing the Russian army’s strikes on Ukraine, Putin said:

They took the first step. We started responding. Now they’re whining about energy facilities too, and about other targets, including data centers and so on. They started it. They shouldn’t have started it.

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Andrey Pertsev

Vladimir Putin has released U.S. citizen Stephen Hubbard, who had been convicted by a Russian court on mercenary charges. Putin announced the move at the start of his meeting with U.S. presidential envoy Steve Witkoff in St. Petersburg, saying Hubbard is already at Pulkovo Airport. He will likely leave Russia with Witkoff, who is expected to fly to Oslo later that evening.

Hubbard was officially released “as a goodwill gesture,” Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said, responding to a question from journalists about whether the U.S. had given Russia anyone in return. Donald Trump also said the release was unilateral and that Russia had not demanded anything in exchange “out of respect for President Trump.” The U.S. president added that he is now receiving apologetic phone calls from people who had previously demanded that Russia be hit with sanctions.

The Moscow City Court sentenced Hubbard, then 72, in October 2024. According to investigators, the American had lived in Ukraine since 2014 and joined the territorial defense forces in the Kharkiv region in February 2022. Russian forces captured him a month later and charged him with mercenary activity. Prosecutors had sought a seven-year sentence in a penal colony, but the court gave him six years and 10 months. The case was heard over two private hearings. Russian authorities claimed the American had pleaded guilty. Hubbard’s sister said in an interview that he had worked as an English teacher, held pro-Russian views, and did not know how to handle a weapon.

Hubbard was tortured in detention, said Ihor Chychko, a former Ukrainian prisoner of war who had been Hubbard’s cellmate before his sentencing. Chychko said Hubbard, like the Ukrainian servicemen held with him, was beaten, humiliated, and starved. “They constantly beat him, like any of us. They hit him with sticks, batons, and their feet. They set dogs on him, didn’t feed him, and made him crawl through the corridors,” he said. Hubbard himself told him he had also been tortured with electric shocks, according to Chychko.

Hubbard is the second U.S. citizen Russia has released recently. In August, Russia released Robert Gilman, 32, who had been serving a 10-year sentence on charges of attacking law enforcement officers. Gilman had been in custody since January 2022. His release was also officially presented as a goodwill gesture, though journalists called it “suspicious,” saying Moscow was likely trying to secure Trump’s support ahead of a possible resumption of talks with Kyiv.

Sixteen U.S. citizens are serving sentences in Russia, Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service announced in September. Hubbard was the only one of them officially recognized by the State Department as “wrongfully detained.” The human rights organization Global Reach, which helps families of Americans held abroad, believes there are at least five more such wrongful cases. In August, a group of U.S. senators asked the State Department to grant the five that status. On the eve of Hubbard’s release, sources who spoke to ABC News reported that the Trump administration was negotiating a deal that could result in the release of several Americans from custody at once.

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The Kremlin is ready to resume trilateral talks between Russia, the United States, and Ukraine in mid-November, presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said. He spoke after President Vladimir Putin met with Steve Witkoff in St. Petersburg on October 21.

Putin told Witkoff this during their meeting, according to Ushakov. He added that Russia is ready to resume talks “on the main topic,” which “concerns building a security system for Russia and Ukraine after the conflict ends.”

Witkoff, for his part, raised “new approaches” from the European Union and Kyiv, Ushakov said, but “there wasn’t all that much that was useful in them in terms of settling the Ukrainian crisis.”

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Steve Witkoff, the U.S. president’s special envoy, flew to St. Petersburg this morning for a meeting with Vladimir Putin, part of a renewed U.S. effort to restart talks on ending Russia’s war against Ukraine. Jared Kushner, the U.S. president’s son-in-law, who usually accompanies Witkoff on such trips, did not travel to Russia because of illness but is taking part in the meeting by video link.

Kirill Dmitriev, the Russian president’s special representative, met Witkoff at Pulkovo Airport. The meeting with Putin began around noon Moscow time at Konstantinovsky Palace, and its opening was open to the press. Witkoff thanked Putin for agreeing to the “diesel deal” and said he hoped the Russian president would consider resuming trilateral talks. He also said he had brought documents outlining approaches to a peaceful settlement.

Putin announced that Russia had released U.S. citizen Stephen Hubbard, who had fought for Ukraine’s armed forces. After he fell into Russian captivity, a court sentenced him to nearly seven years in prison on charges of mercenary activity.

Witkoff met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Oslo the day before his meeting with Putin. The talks also included Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, and representatives from the EU, NATO, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Poland. Kushner took part in the meeting online.

After the talks, Stubb said they had made “real progress on two levels”: in the short term and in a broader context. He said the discussions touched on key issues including air defense, energy facilities, and the possibility of a partial ceasefire.

Zelensky said Ukraine and the West have “clear ideas about how to achieve peace,” including organizing a trilateral meeting with Trump, Putin, and Zelensky himself “to resolve issues that only leaders can resolve.”

Moscow has repeatedly said it sees the point of that meeting only in the final stages of negotiations. After the talks in Oslo, Trump said he believes Putin and Zelensky do not “don’t have to be in the same room” at a trilateral meeting.

Sources cited by Axios said the discussions in Oslo focused on drafting a framework agreement to end the war, which would then be proposed to Russia. The outlet reported that the parties made “meaningful progress” and reached a “strong alignment at the working level” on further steps. Axios sources said Kushner again asked Ukraine at the meeting to halt strikes on Russian oil refineries.

Witkoff is expected to leave Moscow later today and return to Oslo, where he will meet again with Norwegian Prime Minister Støre to brief him on his talks with Putin.

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Meduza

Vladimir Putin met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang in St. Petersburg on the afternoon of October 21.

At the start of the meeting, during the portion open to the press, Putin asked Li to “say hello” to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Earlier on October 21, Putin met with U.S. presidential special envoy Steve Witkoff to discuss options for ending the war between Russia and Ukraine.

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Update. Vladimir Putin, speaking at a meeting with Steve Witkoff, said the first tanker carrying diesel fuel “will leave in two to three days.” Russia is preparing to send several tankers to the U.S. at once as part of the diesel deal, with the first shipment carrying 40,000 tons of diesel, Putin added.

Russia’s first diesel fuel shipment to the United States is scheduled for Thursday, October 22, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said.

The signing of the relevant contract is “in its final stage,” he said, adding that further shipments of diesel fuel “will follow.”

Novak also said Russia could fully restore its diesel fuel export volumes by the end of 2026, with shipments currently resuming “within the capabilities of our oil refineries.”

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin held a phone call on October 9, after which they announced that Russia and the United States had agreed to supply Russian diesel fuel to the American and global markets. The U.S. Treasury Department issued a temporary license allowing Russian diesel fuel to reach the global market despite U.S. sanctions. Trump said the two sides agreed on the “immediate” delivery of more than 300,000 tons of Russian diesel. Russia will supply another 500,000 tons in November, followed by an additional million tons.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the Russia–U.S. diesel deal an “investment in war.”

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The Russian business daily Kommersant reported that major sellers’ share of sales on the Russian e-commerce platform Ozon rose to 60% by the end of summer 2026, citing data from MPStats Data.

At the start of the year, Wildberries, another Russian online retailer, led in this metric. In January, Wildberries accounted for 57.54% of sales in the segment, compared with 42.46% for Ozon.

Experts attribute the shift to Ukrainian drone strikes that hit Wildberries’ logistics facilities harder than Ozon’s, though Ozon’s warehouses were also attacked.

Wildberries representatives said these assessments do not reflect the full market picture and fail to account for differences in how various categories of sellers operate. “According to our data, sales figures for major sellers on Wildberries remain stable and may show only minor fluctuations,” the company said.

Ozon did not comment.

Since mid-summer, Ukraine has carried out drone strikes on Wildberries warehouses across Russia. Ozon’s logistics facilities have also come under attack since August. Ukraine has said the marketplaces are used to supply “sanctioned components for the production of drones and navigation equipment.”

As of early August, drone strikes had caused an estimated hundreds of billions of rubles in damage to Wildberries and its sellers.

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