O fim-de-semana começa em festa, no Campo de Sousa Uva que volta a receber a animada Festa do Emigrante, com três noites de música, tradição e convívio.

Dias 7, 8 e 9 | 6.ª feira a domingo

O programa reúne nomes como Jorge Serafim, Filipe Romão, David Brito, Sniffy, Valter Reis, Rock On, DJs e ainda o tradicional Desfile de Vestidos de Chita, celebrando o reencontro de quem regressa à terra nesta época do ano.

Dia 8 | sábado

A manhã começa no Mercado Municipal com mais uma edição dos Sábados no Mercado, e o aroma dos alimentos frescos. A estes junta-se ainda a mostra de artesanato de Luísa Pires e a iniciativa ’A Biblioteca Fora de Si – Se sabe bem… o Mercado Municipal tem!’ com propostas para as suas leituras. Às 11h00, a Galeria Municipal inaugura a exposição ’LUCIFERASIS’, de Cláudia Martins, que ficará patente até 31 de agosto.Ao final do dia, o Largo de São Sebastião ganha nova vida com a Festa do Largo, onde não faltarão boa gastronomia, vinhos, música ao vivo e muita animação.

Dia 9 | domingo

O domingo arranca cedo com o 1.º Trail Entre a Serra e o Mar, que parte às 7h30 do Pavilhão Municipal Dr. José Sousa Pires, desafiando os participantes a descobrir as paisagens do concelho.Pelas 17h00, o São Brás Cineteatro Jaime Pinto recebe o espetáculo de dança ’Final Season 25/26’, da I Am Conteporâneo Fusion, um momento que celebra o talento e criatividade, e que conta com a participação especial da Escola de Dança Municipal de São Brás de Alportel.

Next to rubble and pictures of the deceased, people in Gaza are still getting married. Athar Abu Samra reports on why couples are refusing to delay their nuptials. With so much already lost, and so much still under threat, families in Gaza are seizing moments of joy wherever they can. Marriage ceremonies are no longer what they once were—nor do they express hope in quite the same way—but they have become powerful testaments to resilience.

As I worked on this story, I came to understand that the war has not only transformed weddings in Gaza. It has transformed people’s relationship with time itself. Before the war, marriage followed a familiar sequence. People finished their education, found work, built or rented a home, saved enough money and only then began planning a wedding. Families often postponed marriages until those expectations had been met. But now no one has that luxury — the luxury of time.

I spoke with one mother who had lost several of her children during the war, yet hurried to arrange the marriage of her youngest son. She told me she had always dreamed, like any mother, of watching all of her children grow up, get married, and fill her home with grandchildren. The war had taken much of that dream away, but she was determined not to lose what remained.

This story originally appeared in Professor Richard Wolff’s Substack on July 21, 2026. It is shared here with permission.

Deeply divided by nationalism and deprived of its vast colonies by the last century’s catastrophic two world wars, Western Europe has been in decline ever since. Recently, that decline has become drastic and desperate as Western Europe falls ever further behind — economically, militarily, and politically — today’s two superpowers: the US and China. Mediocre and unpopular leaders reflect Western European decline. They bet and built their careers on accepting junior partner positions vis-à-vis the United States. But Europe’s decline now threatens to split Europe apart. Inside each nation, rich and powerful minorities use their social positions to sustain their wealth and power while the masses bear most of the burdens of decline offloaded onto them by the rich and powerful. The problems flowing from these cumulative developments are approaching points of social explosion. Despite the lessons taught by the two world wars, many Western European leaders once again provoke and prepare for a war, this time against Russia, notwithstanding the awful risks of nuclear weapons. One key question to ask: why is this happening?

From 1945 to 1990, Cold War set Western European nations against the USSR and its Eastern European allies in many ways and on many levels. Yet that war remained cold. In 2026, after more than three decades of post-Cold War peace, a military war between a largely unified Europe (East and West) and post-Soviet Russia seems imminent. Such a war has been prepared by NATO’s growth, its moving eastward toward Russian borders since 1990; by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine; and by the escalations of their hostilities by both Russia and Ukraine since that invasion. War between much of Europe and Russia now looms.

US President Donald Trump used both his presidential terms to distance the United States from its European allies in NATO. Among his provocative, unilateral statements and actions were heavy tariffs on imports from European countries. In exchange for some reduction of those tariffs, Trump demanded and obtained tribute from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (over $1 trillion in committed purchases of liquified natural gas plus investments by Europe in the United States). He also reduced US support for the war against Russia in Ukraine. That war thus became a mostly European project.

As the US withdrew from its former close alliances with Europe, the latter’s leaders developed an increasing hostility toward Russia. They demonized the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin. Where Trump notably lessened hostility to Russia, his European counterparts intensified theirs. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Europe and the US rushed to bolster Ukraine’s defense beyond the huge assistance they had already provided to Ukraine since at least 2014. After February 2022, Europeans provided Ukraine with still more support in finance and weapons. By 2026, many observers in Europe and Russia and beyond predicted a Russo-European war as imminent. Our goal here is to explain why this dangerous situation arose.

World Wars I and II fatally weakened capitalist colonialism. The British, French, German, Dutch, Belgian, Russian and Japanese colonialisms had especially escalated competitive clashes into two catastrophically self-destructive wars. This allowed movements of the colonized people finally to defeat the weakened colonizers and win political independence. The different anticapitalist movements that had blossomed earlier in 19th century Europe allied themselves with anticolonialism especially in the Soviet revolution of 1917 and the Chinese revolution of 1949. A complex, shifting relationship between anticolonialism and anticapitalism continues to evolve in both the Global South and the former colonial powers.

The private capitalist classes atop each colonialist nation had understood the colonies’ importance for their profits and thus for their imperial economies. They went to war in large part to retain their colonies. After the two world wars, they faced, separately and together, momentous challenges to their existence. As their empires dissolved in wars of independence, capitalists’ profits and their national economies were threatened. Worse still was a potential alliance linking ex-colonies, the Comintern nations, and those capitalists’ own domestic socialist and communist parties and unions. Fearing such developments, nothing less than the survival of 20th century European capitalism seemed at stake for European capitalists and their supporters.

To undo this threat, Western Europe appealed to the post-World War II global hegemon: the United States. Within a few years of 1945, the US had scooped up much of what European and Japanese colonialisms had lost. US capitalists moved into newly independent ex-colonies to widen and deepen their economic dependence via the dollar as world currency, through both US trade and investment. European capitalists had to settle for positions as junior partners of their US counterparts, or else lost everything. Europe as a whole followed suit and became the junior partner of the US in most other dimensions (NATO, geopolitics, financial and cultural institutions, etc.).

As the sole heir of all other capitalist colonialisms, the US led and organized capitalism’s counteroffensive against the USSR, socialisms and communisms generally, and their alliances with anti-imperialism in particular. It did so by mobilizing Western Europe, Canada, and Japan as major subordinates in a globally hegemonic bloc. The US could do this because it had suffered far less than any of the other capitalist colonial nations from the two world wars. Indeed, World War II had extracted the US from capitalism’s worst ever crash. Its economy was stronger in 1945 than it had been for many years, whereas in all the former colonizing nations the reverse was the case. That economic strength contributed to its dominant military power.

US hegemony defined itself as a moral crusade against a great evil, the USSR (equated with communism). The US was “the leader of the free world” pitted against an unfree world — the USSR, Eastern Europe, and, after 1949, China. The latter were all demonized as anticapitalist dictatorships, which made them enemies of “democracy” as championed in and by the free world. On that basis, US hegemony followed as the necessary condition to “contain” the unfree world, to prevent its spread. The US-led “free world” could and would guarantee containment by means of global military bases, the world’s greatest military arsenal, ideological campaigns, political isolation, and economic discriminations. The world thus entered into a Cold War between 1945-1990 punctuated by military — hot — wars when the US deemed them necessary (for example, in Korea and Vietnam).

US hegemony also included domestic campaigns inside both Europe and the US aimed at containment. Those campaigns all featured two parts. One was a set of “welfare state” or social democratic benefits for working classes. Leading politicians in North America, Western Europe, and Japan installed those benefits. Many feared that not doing so would influence working classes toward socialism and communism. In the US, this meant perpetuating the 1930s New Deal into the 1970s. Successive leaders, Republican as well as Democratic, added Medicare to Social Security, regularly raised minimum wages, gave special attention to the non-white and non-male victims of systemic discrimination, subsidized higher education via massive public institutions, and subsidized home ownership loans. Such state interventions delivered a much less harsh life for working classes than any prior private capitalism had ever done. Keynesian economics added a scientistic rationale — using monetary and fiscal policies to moderate business cycles — to the political necessity of welfare state expenditures.

The other part of these containment campaigns involved widespread purges of Communists, socialists, and their “fellow travelers.” In the US, a ferocious “anti-communism” project “cleansed” labor unions, schools, mass media, and government of leftist employees. Capitalist employers’ organizations and many individual capitalists collaborated with the state’s repressive campaigns. They mobilized behind Sen. Joseph McCarthy for a few years. His was a particularly extreme version of the old American political style of demonizing political opponents, foreign and domestic, as “of the devil.” The US House of Representatives established an “Un-American Activities Committee.” Such campaigns’ ostensible objective was to destroy the Communist Party. Mass media circuses, newspaper headlines, arrests, prison sentences, deportations, and getting witnesses to betray others — resulting in losing their jobs — were their means. Guilt by association targeted both socialists and independent left-leaning citizens. Purges identified many victims by citing their activities before 1945. It made little difference that at the time those activities (in unions, political parties, schools, churches, and civic associations) were both legal and often patriotically anti-fascist. The systematic repression of the US left after 1945 left deep political scars.

Western Europe dutifully undertook a similarly two-sided project. However, social conditions there imposed different qualities on it anti-Soviet and domestic anti-left campaigns. Europe’s pre-1945 history gave communist and socialist parties and their millions of members much greater social approval than existed in the US. Leftists’ roles in resisting fascism before and during World War II — often heroic — gave them genuine, widespread popularity. They could defend their political views, and themselves, in ways their US counterparts could not. European welfare states were more generous and lasted longer than their US counterparts.

While nothing quite like McCarthyism swept Europe, most Western European nations joined NATO and aligned their foreign policies to the US-led containment agenda. Their defense budgets and capabilities declined, and they relied instead on US military protection. What each European state saved by means of small defense budgets it could then use to provide public services for their working classes. The latter might otherwise have required higher taxes on corporations and the rich (and not only or chiefly on working people). European capitalists supported their welfare states partly because they endorsed containment. Equally important, capitalists supported government social welfare spending because it came not from more taxes on them, but rather from national budgets’ defense savings. The latter were benefits from European subordination to NATO and its US leadership. That subordination included mostly endorsing US hostility toward the USSR, China and all things “communistic.”

For the last 75 years, European politicians who hesitated to embrace the positions and tones consistent with the US-European “consensus” on foreign and domestic policies saw their career opportunities threatened or destroyed. The British sought and found a special role as the closest friend and imitator of the US in this consensus. The rest of Western Europe sometimes mocked Britain’s fawning subordination, but many jealously and secretly approximated it. European capitalists looked longingly at the US’s steadily shrinking welfare state programs that facilitated tax cuts on corporations and the rich. However, those non-Anglo Europeans accepted the political limits that rendered matching the US and UK impossible. They could only hold back the domestic power of their working classes by providing generous social welfare policies. The same was required to make Western Europe a consumerist bulwark against Russia, thereby to contain it and its Eastern European allies.

Breaking from those limits only became thinkable when it was made necessary. This happened when Trump ended the post-1945 US-Europe deal. His “friendliness” with Russia underscored his evident contempt for Western Europe as a junior partner/dependent that was too costly to carry anymore. His trade and tariff wars, pointedly, did not exempt Europe. The tariffs particularly shocked Western European capitalists who had concentrated during reconstruction (1945-1975) on producing goods and services that could compete in the rich US market. The tariffs also occurred just when Trump reduced support for Ukraine in its war with Russia and sharply criticized NATO. For shocked Western European leaders, Trump broke the US-European deals of the post-1945 world.

Ever since 1945, Western European capitalists had set themselves to rebuild their economies by producing goods and services of better quality and/or cheaper than the US output that dominated both the US and other markets. This included some investments in their former colonies, rendering them economically dependent notwithstanding their political independence. The latter became more performative than substantive. It remains that way in many areas. The crucially important exception was the spectacular economic growth of the People’s Republic of China. China’s growth changed everything, and continues to do so. It is transforming the world economy as it takes an ever more powerful place therein.

China’s still-export-driven manufacturing economy competes globally and ever more successfully with what remains of manufacturing in the US and in Europe. China competes, as well as an importer of energy and other inputs. Chinese competition added strains to the European and US economies, which were already struggling to cope with the declines of their empires. Europe already had had a century of decline, whereas the US was new to decline, with many of its citizens steadfastly committed to denial as their coping mechanism of choice.

Western European capitalism had partly offset its decline first by post-war reconstruction, then by explosions of consumer credit. Then, and especially after 1989, Europe welcomed waves of cheap immigrant labor while expanding eastward to re-absorb Eastern Europe into its economic operations, much as it was doing with its former colonies. Pushing NATO eastward and expanding EU membership were the chief mechanisms to accomplish Western Europe’s capitalist neocolonialism. Fantasies swirled about extending those mechanisms eastward to include Russia, perhaps dividing it up into smaller states as manageable as the Eastern European states were. If somehow achieved, that could give Western Europe an immense new geographic expanse to economically colonize. Trump, too, engaged parallel fantasies in his neocolonial gestures toward Panama, Canada, Greenland, Venezuela, Cuba, and Mexico.

The great break in post-World War II US-European relations came with Trump’s combination trade and tariff war designed to “make the US economy great again.” Trump had effectively dedicated his second presidential term, begun in January 2025, to waging this economic war. Another part of that war was a broad turn away from neoliberal globalization and toward a systematic economic nationalism (“America first”). Trump’s blunt message was disengagement. Europe could no longer count on the US to provide it with military protection. Trump depicted Europe as an ally who had betrayed and cheated the US economically. He demanded payments as compensation. Those took the form of buying US liquified natural gas (LNG) for its energy needs plus committing to invest $700 billion or more in the US over a few coming years. Von der Leyen formally acceded to Trump’s demands. Such payments amounted to either tribute or reparations, depending on one’s viewpoint.

Europe’s required purchase of US LNG emerged from the Russia-Ukraine war. The economic sanctions of that war (since February 2022) plus the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines (in September 2022) sharply reduced and then ended the flow of cheap energy from Russia into Germany and other parts of Western Europe. Desperate for access to energy, Europe turned increasingly to imports from elsewhere — and especially from the US — at a much higher cost. Meanwhile, steadily growing trade competition from China and more rapid technical innovations achieved in China and the US further squeezed the European economy.

The shock of Trump’s abandonment of Europe as the US economy’s junior partner accelerated Europe’s decline. Once it had been the dominating center of a planet it had colonized. Now it had fallen to a poor third place in a world economy increasingly dominated by what had once been the poor corners of that planet. On one side stood the declining but still strong US; on the other the rising People’s Republic of China. No wonder the Ukraine war drove Russia to declare its identity shifting from European to Asian.

Europe’s political leaders reflected and exemplified its decline. Burnham, Macron, Merz and Meloni especially — like most of their predecessors after 1945 — had built political lives around loyalty and subservience to the post-World War II deal with the US. They relied on the military, financial, and ideological support from the US, on NATO, on the IMF, the World Bank, and myriad NGO missionaries for US “democracy.” They championed their “close alliance” with the US as a key cause of Europe’s prosperity and peace after 1945. Betrayed by Trump, they were forced by Europe’s decline to pay tribute with monies therefore not available to offset that decline. Trump pointedly forced them to begin financing the huge costs of developing their own military defense (already far behind the military capabilities of the US, on one side, and the China-Russia alliance on the other).

Given the deep personal opportunism cultivated in Western European leaders by their subordinate (to the US) situation, they grasped that Trump’s betrayal threatened their careers. Trump’s repeated insults of and disdain for Western Europe risked provoking European voters to turn against leaders seen as slavish toward Trump’s US. Those leaders’ alarm only deepened as much of the US employer class seemed quite supportive of Trump’s anti-Europeanism. Perhaps their greatest fear lay in the possible reactions of European voters once they understood that Trump’s betrayal posed serious economic dangers for them. Voters might ask where the money would come from to finance European rearmament when the US defense umbrella closed. If enhanced, would budget allocations for the military diminish outlays for mass public social services, raise their taxes, or both? Europeans began to wonder out loud whether the Ukraine-Russia war being fought to the last Ukrainian might prefigure a US war with Russia/China fought to the last European. European voters know their social democracy and their peace are fragile. Trump’s betrayal threatens both. How that plays out in European politics provides new opportunities for the left and the right and existential threats to the traditional centrist pro-US political leadership trying desperately to retain power.

Nationalist politicians on the European right see their opportunity. Office-holding conservative leaders (like Burnham, Macron, and Merz, for example) can be voted out via guilt by subordination. They perpetuated the post-World War II programs that made Europe vulnerable to its current economic decline because of their subservience to the US. Western European opportunism now incites the suspicion that maybe it bet on the wrong horse. A similar suspicion now arises in some of the Gulf States in the wake of the US-Israel war on Iran. Having “invited” US military bases to be constructed on their land for security, they now see that those bases actually achieved the opposite. The bases and their host nations have become endangered targets vulnerable to Iranian drones and missiles.

Anticapitalist politicians on the left also see an opportunity. The US was a partner who mostly pushed Europe to the right. The US undid its New Deal sooner and took that undoing further than the Europeans dared to even try to do to their welfare state. 

Among the results of Europe’s left: it abolished the death penalty when the US pointedly did not. Military adventures, including Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Ukraine and Iran, were always started, led, and driven by the US with the Europeans marginally along as “coalitions of the [barely] willing.” Left politicians in Western Europe kept seeking to secure, if not advance, social democratic goals and policies. One way to do that was to limit the US connection as a context for more socialistic development in Europe. The European left positions itself as the way for the mass beneficiaries of the social democratic state to protect it from a US-connected old leadership that always seems to threaten social democracy. Europe’s left likewise rejects the nationalist right politicians because of their pro-capitalist, anti-worker and anti-immigrant tendencies.

Europe’s old US-linked political leaders have now found a way to arrest, or maybe even reverse, Europe’s frightening decline. It is the only way to do that they can see or imagine. That way can, they believe, both keep them in power in the short run and give them a new economic growth opportunity in the longer term. That way provides a convenient public justification for shifting state budget expenditures from public social services to big-business defense firms, from social democracy to pro-employer (pro-capitalist) austerity. By minimizing any extra taxes upon their employer classes, Western European leaders serve them very well. They will cover the costs of rearmament and tribute obligated to the US by diverting funds from the welfare state plus state-guaranteed borrowing plus heightened mass-based taxes, if needed, on working classes. Domestic austerity will be intensified across Western Europe while wages are brought downward toward southern and eastern European levels.

Europe’s leaders believe they can accomplish this by pumping up mass anxiety and fear around urgent preparations for a war against Russia. To that end, they demonize Russia beyond even the levels achieved against Stalin and Stalinism during the Cold War. Those leaders hope that an adequately terrified Europe will keep voting for them for a while. Longer-run hopes entail imagining Russia’s military defeat and consequent de jure or de facto dismemberment. The resulting subunits of old Russia would then offer Western Europe a new colonial opportunity, a vast expanse for profitable investment to obtain food, raw materials, and possibly workers to rejuvenate Western European capitalism. The same Western European leaders who criticize Trump lusting after Denmark’s Greenland indulge parallel lusts after Russia’s geographic expanse.

All wars are overdetermined by both domestic and international causes intertwined. Europe’s current drone and missile warfare against Russia escalated from the Russia’s “special military operation” against Ukraine that began in 2022. Its local overdeterminants began earlier. Local concerns woven into global shifts — NATO toward the east and China toward the west — shaped Russia’s changing international position, concerns, and “red lines.” The whole world watches as China, Russia, and their allies square off against the US and whatever allies it retains. The world sees the wars in Ukraine and Iran today as conflicts among proxies of the two great powers of our time.

The danger inherent in both wars is that Europe or the US or Russia or Israel might resort to nuclear weapons if “existentially” threatened. The question is whether global masses and leaders can recognize the danger. This essay is one effort toward that recognition. The solution is a serious commitment to international collaboration. What began as the League of Nations and was rebuilt as the United Nations needs still another incarnation with real powers and real global respect. Otherwise we risk World War III and its mad, mutual assured destruction.

Holbrook Mohr and Mitch Weiss | The Atavist Magazine | July 2026 | 2,284 words (8 minutes)

This is an excerpt from issue no. 178, “Toxic Lies.”

January 3, 2026

In the isolation ward of a hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, a nurse approaches Ron Fowler’s bed, cell phone extended in her hand.

“You have a call,” she says.

Fowler’s eyes flutter open. He tugs off his oxygen tube and, with trembling fingers, accepts the phone.

“Thanks,” he whispers, before turning his attention to us—the callers.

From his voice it’s clear that something is very wrong; he sounds nothing like his usual self. He’s due the next day to meet us for an interview in Paducah, Kentucky, where he and his friend Chuck Deuschle worked at a uranium-enrichment plant that helped fuel America’s nuclear arsenal. Years ago they blew the whistle on the government and its contractors for poisoning thousands of atomic workers. “Can’t make it,” Fowler chokes out. “Blood clots. Hospital. They may have to remove some toes—if those clots don’t reach my heart first. If they do…” He trails off, the terrible ending hanging in the air.

Fowler, soon to turn 77, is desperate to talk before it’s too late—to pull up the memories one more time and commit them to the historical record. He and Deuschle had both moved to Kentucky to work at the nuclear plant, only to discover a grim secret: The facility was exposing people to dangerously high levels of radiation and toxic chemicals, and had concealed the truth about it from employees and the surrounding community. This went on for decades. Faced with a choice—either walk away or stay and sound the alarm—Fowler and Deuschle returned to work, day after day.

More than thirty years later, lying in the hospital with cancer, Fowler is certain that the plant doomed him to a slow, painful death. At 83, Deuschle is also fighting a serious health issue: an unexplained autoimmune disease. They believe their fellow whistleblowers—Deuschle’s wife, Kay, and their friend Garland “Bud” Jenkins—succumbed to illnesses caused by the plant. Still, they’d do it all again. Someone had to reveal the callous disregard the government and the plant’s operators had shown their own people.

Fowler and Deuschle have never shared their story in full—the details of what it was like to live, breathe, and possibly die from their commitment to the truth. But they want people to know, particularly in light of recent news reports: In August 2025, more than a decade after the plant was shut down, a private firm announced that it planned to revive uranium-enrichment operations there. To Fowler and Deuschle, it seems wrong to begin a new chapter in Paducah’s nuclear story. Many former employees are still seeking compensation for their exposure to radiation. Will future generations of workers be any safer?

Fowler struggles for each breath.

“Time’s up,” the nurse says gently, reaching for the phone. “You need to rest.”

Fowler grips the device tighter.

“Call tomorrow when you meet with Chuck,” he implores. “I’m staying alive until then.” He pauses for a moment. “Just make sure Chuck’s with you. Promise me.”

We promise.

1.

One morning in late 1991, Ron Fowler stood in front of the bathroom mirror, parting his hair to the side and noting the first strands of gray at his temples. His beard was neatly trimmed, his black slacks and white dress shirt crisply pressed. He was ready. Today would be his first day at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, a uranium-enrichment facility about ten miles outside Paducah, Kentucky. This was more than just a job—it was the start of a new life.

Fowler was a health physicist, an expert in the science of radiation protection. For years he’d traveled the country to train workers at nuclear plants in safety protocols. The pay was great, but being on the road weeks at a time had worn him down. When he moved to Paducah in his early forties, Fowler had already lived in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Arkansas. Paducah promised stability: the perfect place to settle through retirement. His wife’s parents even moved from Illinois to be nearby.

After eating breakfast—a sausage patty and a scrambled egg—he kissed his wife, Sandi, goodbye and slipped out the door. He steered his green Oldsmobile Delta 88 through the country roads outside Paducah and let his mind drift back to his childhood in Florence, South Carolina. Life there had been simple. His father, who dropped out of school in the fourth grade, supported the family by working on the railroad. Florence was a place where men had jobs, women tended to the home and children, everyone went to church, and neighbors helped neighbors who fell on hard times. Paducah felt just as close-knit. Folks looked out for one another, and honest labor was rewarded.

Situated on the Ohio River where it meets the Tennessee, Paducah owes its origins to trade; it was founded in 1827 by William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition and named for a powerful Native American tribe. The area is naturally beautiful—the city is surrounded by rolling hills and sprawling plains dotted with ponds. For Fowler, a keen fisherman, it was paradise. Paducah had about 27,000 residents when he arrived. It was big enough to have all the right shops, yet small enough that restaurant owners knew whether regulars preferred barbecue or fried catfish, the local staples.

As Fowler drove, the plant appeared in the distance. It spread over some 3,500 acres—750 of them secured by fences and gates—and sat amid modest homes and farms. The community was proud of this place because of its long history supporting the military. Originally, it was a TNT munitions factory, built during World War II. Later, as Cold War tensions escalated, officials scouted locations for a uranium feed facility to supply weapons-production sites in Piketon, Ohio, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee, with the material required to make nuclear bombs. Paducah native Alben Barkley leveraged his position as Harry S. Truman’s vice president, campaigning aggressively to repurpose the munitions factory in his hometown. He recognized that the project likely would inject billions into the local economy and transform living standards for the region’s blue-collar workforce.

Construction of the nuclear plant began in 1951. By the following year, it was enriching uranium for atomic bombs and the Navy’s nuclear fleet. Rising from the countryside, the gleaming buildings looked like modern marvels, and the economic windfall lifted Paducah residents’ spirits. Meanwhile, employees at the plant—everyone from nuclear technicians to welders, cooks, and janitors—were united in patriotic pride. Their jobs paid well, and the workers believed that they were helping fend off communism. It was no wonder Life magazine printed a photo spread of the site.

As the Cold War thawed, the mission changed but the jobs remained. The plant began recycling materials—gold, among other things—extracted from dismantled atomic weapons while continuing to enrich uranium, now for nuclear power plants instead of bombs. Wages allowed families to buy homes and cars and afford vacations—the American middle-class dream. The plant operated like a self-contained town for its 1,700 employees: It had its own security force, fire department, library, post office, and health clinic. A shuttle service ferried employees around the plant’s grounds. Workers participated in golf leagues and fishing tournaments. The Uranium Enrichment News kept everyone informed about goings-on at the site.

Though the plant was owned by the Department of Energy, it was run by contractors. Union Carbide initially oversaw operations, followed by Martin Marietta, which later merged with Lockheed to become Lockheed Martin. Management changed, but to employees that just meant a different name on their paychecks. The people on the ground were like family—fiercely loyal to one another and to the plant they called the Atomic City.

Fowler smiled as he drove through a security gate into a sprawling lot. He parked by the administrative building and checked in with a secretary, who called someone to escort him to his department. From there he would lead health and safety training sessions. The federal government had known as early as 1944 that radiation was hazardous and had issued policies to limit worker exposure. It was Fowler’s job to help ensure that regulations were enforced, to protect both employees and the surrounding community from contamination.

He had barely settled in when a coworker poked his head in.

“Want to see the place?”

The complex was huge—more than five hundred buildings connected by nearly twenty miles of access roads. Fowler was impressed until, as he rounded a corner on his tour, a yellow triangular sign with the radiation symbol caught his eye. There was no step-off pad in sight. In a nuclear facility, a step-off pad is a buffer zone between a hazardous area and a clean one. Workers at the Paducah site were supposed to remove radiation-tainted clothing and footwear before crossing through these zones to ensure they didn’t unwittingly transfer dangerous materials to other parts of the plant or transport it home with them.

Fowler flagged down a worker leaving the building where the warning sign was posted. “You don’t have a step-off pad down here,” Fowler said. The worker shrugged and said there was nothing to worry about.

“That sign says otherwise,” Fowler said. He explained that protocol required a pad and training for workers so they knew how to use it.

The worker’s expression was unchanged as he walked away.

Fowler’s pulse quickened as he imagined invisible particles on boot soles spreading throughout the plant or, worse, tracking onto kitchen floors or into rooms where children played. He hurried to his division manager’s office. The supervisor listened, then leaned back in his chair and tapped a pen on his desk calendar. He said he’d call a meeting about the issue.

That night at home, Fowler sat at the kitchen table watching Sandi cook. Normally, he’d have been joking with his wife about her limited culinary range—she often made breakfast for dinner—but tonight his mind was elsewhere. The sizzle from the stove filled the silence between them.

Sandi knew something was wrong. In the years since they first met at a bar in Joliet, Illinois, she’d become attuned to her husband’s moods. Despite his imposing frame—six foot two, 245 pounds—Fowler had always been the gentle sort and quick to laugh. Their courtship progressed quickly, and within four months of meeting Fowler had moved in to her family’s home in Aurora. They married there so her father, a former school principal paralyzed from a stroke, could attend.

“What is it, Ron?” Sandi asked, spatula in hand.

He sighed. “Something’s not right at work.”

“What do you mean?”

“The way they treat radiation—like it can’t hurt them. No precautions,” Fowler said.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Sandi replied, frowning.

“I know.” Fowler shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Uranium is a silvery-white radioactive metal. More than 99 percent of it found in nature is U-238, and the rest is U-235, an isotope that can sustain the chain reactions needed to fuel nuclear power production and atomic weapons. Enrichment is the process of increasing the concentration of U-235 in a supply of uranium. At different points, enrichment produces one powder Paducah workers called black oxide—not to be confused with the coating of the same name applied to some metals to improve corrosion resistance—and another, uranium tetraflouride, that’s known as green salt. Eventually, uranium hexafluoride, a colorless crystalline solid, is heated into a gas that’s pushed through microscopic porous barriers. This process, called gaseous diffusion, separates U-235 from U-238; at plants like the one in Paducah, it’s done hundreds of times in a cascade until the desired enrichment level is reached.

Uranium enrichment is hazardous business. Fowler knew that any leak, spill, or accident at the Paducah plant could damage kidneys and lungs, irritate skin, and increase cancer risk. More insidiously, simple mistakes or oversights by workers could have that same result. During his first few weeks on the job, Fowler explored the plant on his own, and what he found unsettled him. Employees worked in radioactive areas without protective suits or masks. Some couldn’t read and might not understand warning signs. People left the site after their shifts without changing clothes or showering, likely conveying radioactive dust home to their families. Some workers even warmed their lunch on top of machines in hazardous areas.

Fowler knew that things needed to change, and quickly. He took his concerns to the plant manager, Steve Polston, who heard him out and then called a meeting about step-off pads—the very issue Fowler had flagged on his first day. At the meeting, Fowler outlined the safety gaps he’d observed at the plant, but it seemed to him as though the senior managers in the room could barely feign interest. He heard what would become something of a refrain: “We’ve been doing it this way for years.” He was also told that Department of Energy officials visited the site regularly and hadn’t raised concerns.

More worried than ever, Fowler spent the next several months developing new safety protocols. He beamed with satisfaction as he handed the plan to Polston. In the period that followed, however, he became frustrated with how officials implemented the measures. Even when company-issued safety equipment was made available, Fowler noticed that much of it was obsolete. And he watched in disbelief as employees poked holes in respirator masks to smoke while working.

“I’m not making progress,” he told Sandi one night between sips from a can of Miller Lite. “No one is listening.” He likened his work to “scooping water out of the ocean.”

Sandi, who had studied his training manual to understand his work, gently touched his arm. “Be patient,” she suggested. “Maybe you just have to get to know the people better.”

Fowler’s shoulders dropped. “It seems like more than that,” he said.

A Levante questa sera, mercoledì 5 agosto 2026, live alle 18,30, Margherita Furlan dialoga con Antonio Mazzeo e Paolo Borgognone.
Washington annuncia di essere a poche ore da un’intesa provvisoria di sessanta giorni sulla riapertura dello Stretto di Hormuz. Nelle stesse ore un’inchiesta di Reuters rivela che cinque mesi di guerra hanno prosciugato quasi per intero le scorte americane di missili tattici a lungo raggio. E a Roma, dentro l’ambasciata degli Stati Uniti, si chiude il settimo round dei colloqui fra Israele e Libano.
Tre notizie che i telegiornali raccontano separate. Le leggiamo come un solo movimento: la potenza egemone consuma, l’Europa paga, l’Italia presta il territorio. Il magazzino è vuoto, e la diplomazia improvvisa di Washington somiglia molto a un inventario.
AFFRONTIAMO INSIEME
L’accordo su Hormuz e chi tratta davvero con chi: Teheran ribadisce che il negoziato è con l’Oman e non con Washington
L’inchiesta sugli arsenali americani esauriti e cosa significa per la deterrenza verso Russia e Cina
Le comunicazioni di Giorgetti alla Camera: 21,7 miliardi per la difesa e 14,4 per l’energia, con la flessibilità energetica incastrata dentro la clausola militare
I 14,9 miliardi del fondo europeo SAFE, prestiti da restituire, e lo scontro sul mandato parlamentare
Roma sede del negoziato Israele-Libano mentre l’Idf costruisce nuove basi nel sud del Paese dei cedri
Cosa resta della tradizione di sovranità mediterranea da Mattei a Moro a Craxi
Perché la borsa festeggia insieme la pace sullo Stretto e il titolo della prima azienda italiana della difesa
LIBRI DEGLI OSPITI
Antonio Mazzeo
La scuola va alla guerra. Inchiesta sulla militarizzazione dell’istruzione in Italia, Manifestolibri
I padrini del ponte. Affari di mafia sullo stretto di Messina
Sicilia armata. Basi, missili, strategie nell’isola portaerei della NATO
Il MUOStro di Niscemi. Per le guerre globali del XXI secolo
Paolo Borgognone
Populismo e «democrazia illiberale», Il Cerchio, 2023
La dottrina Stranamore, La Vela, 2022
Goodbye globalism!, Il Cerchio, 2022
Storia alternativa dell’Iran islamico, Oaks Editrice, 2019
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#geopolitics, #war, #news, #iran, #hormuz, #trump, #putin

L'articolo 🔴 MAGAZZINO VUOTO | LEVANTE proviene da Casa del Sole TV.

The war in Iran began five months ago. Headline news about the conflict tends to focus on when and how it might end. In the meantime, the impacts of the conflict are felt worldwide—by drivers, farmers, business owners, and families. The Associated Press shares the stories of seven people suffering because of the war. Among them is Edgar Funelas, a jeepney driver in the Philippines who lives with his ten-year-old daughter:

He uses laundry soap—harsher, but cheaper—to wash his body and his clothes in the same motion, stretching what little money he has. Even before the war in Iran, he was living on the margins. A fire took their home and their belongings, forcing them to move into the brightly colored minibus he drove.

He’d hoped to be able to rent a room by now. Then diesel prices surged, and he could no longer afford the fuel to run his jeepney.

He hasn’t earned a single peso in days. There will be no breakfast. Hunger gnaws, but it’s the small rituals of privacy that he misses most: to be able to wash out of sight, to sleep behind walls, to keep his desperation from being laid bare.

Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced the establishment of an inter-ministerial group responsible for scientific research and the development of a legal framework for the potential deployment of nuclear energy. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is championing small modular reactors. The country could reportedly participate in an investment round for the French EDF’s Nuward. The […]

The post Greece to set up nuclear energy committee, says PM Mitsotakis appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.

On 9 October 1917, during the Third Battle of Ypres, a battalion of Australian soldiers entered a place known as Celtic Wood, near Passchendaele in West Flanders, Belgium, to attack German positions. Most were never seen again. Of the 85 men to raid Celtic Wood, just 14 made it back to their lines. The rest vanished without a trace. The fate of the lost battalion has remained one of the greatest enigmas of Australia's Great War.

The battlefield in Poelcapelle, Belgium. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Billions of dollars (UnlimPhotos)

Since the outbreak of the US-Israeli conflict with Iran in late February 2026, the six largest Wall Street banks have posted one blockbuster quarter after another. It’s a paradox that isn’t really one: market volatility — the very thing savers and businesses dread — is precisely what trading desks feed on.

Numbers That Boggle the Mind

On July 14, 2026, five of the biggest US banks reported earnings on the same day, and the results surprised even the most bullish analysts. JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank by assets, posted quarterly profit of $16.9 billion, once again driven by its equities trading division, which “took advantage of market volatility triggered by the war in Iran.” Revenue in that division jumped 35% year-over-year, and equity markets revenue soared 86%.

According to several financial outlets, JPMorgan’s profit — including gains on its equity holdings — actually came close to $21 billion for the quarter, an all-time record for the bank.

Goldman Sachs was no exception: the investment bank also handily beat forecasts, lifted both by conflict-driven volatility and by SpaceX’s record-breaking IPO, which Goldman co-led. Its merger-advisory fees rose 55%, and in the first half of 2026 alone it advised on $1.2 trillion in announced mergers and acquisitions — an unprecedented pace for any investment bank, putting it $425 billion ahead of its nearest rival.

All told, in the second quarter of 2026 alone, the five biggest banks combined (JPMorgan, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Wells Fargo) posted roughly $49 billion in combined profit. In the first quarter, the six largest US banks — those five plus Morgan Stanley — had already collectively booked nearly $48 billion in profit, well above year-earlier levels.

Why Does War Benefit the Banks?

The mechanism is no mystery to market professionals, even if it startles the general public. A trading floor doesn’t make money when markets are calm — it makes money when they move. Every geopolitical jolt — a military strike, a rumored ceasefire, a partial closure of the Strait of Hormuz — triggers waves of buying and selling across stocks, currencies and commodities. Every transaction generates fees.

Since the first US-Israeli strikes on February 28, 2026, bond, oil and stock markets have swung wildly with each twist of the conflict and every dashed hope of a truce. That chronic instability has directly fueled investment banks’ trading revenues.

On top of that comes an indirect effect: the war slowed, then unleashed in waves, mergers-and-acquisitions activity and IPOs — two highly lucrative businesses for investment banks, which collect substantial advisory fees on every deal.

Goldman Sachs itself acknowledges as much in black and white in its quarterly financial report filed with the US securities regulator (SEC): the Iranian conflict has had “significant implications for the global economy,” combining disrupted oil supply, higher oil prices and heightened equity-market volatility — precisely the ingredients of the trading desk’s playbook.

A Paradox That Goes Beyond the Banks

This phenomenon isn’t confined to the banking sector. Major oil companies — especially European majors with large trading arms, such as TotalEnergies — have seen profits surge on the back of price swings following the partial closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a route for roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and gas. Defense contractors, for their part, are reporting record order backlogs, led by Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman, buoyed by allied nations rearming.

Meanwhile, households and non-financial businesses bear the flip side of that same volatility: higher energy prices, costlier freight, and mounting uncertainty for long-term investment. The conflict has thus become a vast transfer of wealth, in which the very instability harming the real economy is simultaneously enriching a handful of financial and industrial players positioned to capitalize on it.

At a Glance

• Q1 2026: the six largest US banks combined for nearly $48 billion in profit.
• Q2 2026: five of them posted roughly $49 billion in combined quarterly profit.
• JPMorgan: record quarterly profit of nearly $21 billion (including gains).
• Goldman Sachs: M&A advisory fees up 55%, with its M&A backlog at a five-year high.
• Mechanism: market volatility, driven by the twists and turns of the US-Israeli conflict with Iran since February 28, 2026, has mechanically boosted investment banks’ trading and advisory revenues.

L’article Iran War: Wall Street’s Quiet Jackpot est apparu en premier sur FrenchDailyNews.

On July 29, the Moscow City Court is set to hand down its verdict against Darya Shipacheva, author of books and podcasts about chronic pain. The prosecution of this science journalist and feminist activist illustrates a new pattern in how Russia’s repressive machine operates. Treason cases involving money transfers to Ukraine — like those involving donations to Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) — have been fast-tracked: closing arguments in cases seeking 12-year sentences now take just one hearing, lasting only an hour and a half. And online stalking (in Shipacheva’s case, by activists from the misogynistic Men’s State movement) can be enough to trigger a criminal case, including under repressive charges like treason.

After fifteen months in pretrial detention centers in Rostov-on-Don and Moscow, journalist Darya Shipacheva was formally charged with treason at her first court hearing, held on July 27 in the Moscow City Court. As reported in Mediazona, closing arguments lasted just an hour and a half, after which the prosecution requested a 12-year prison sentence. The trial was held behind closed doors. The defense asked the court to take into account Shipacheva’s admission of guilt and cooperation with the investigation. T-invariant spoke to Shipacheva’s friends and fellow students and learned that the treason charge stemmed from a money transfer to Ukraine. “Darya was born in Ukraine and has a lot of family there. As far as we know, investigators reclassified one of her transfers — made to a civilian — and built the case on it,” one of Shipacheva’s acquaintances told us. Another source told T-invariant that the transfer in question went to a relative.

Top news on scientists’ work and experiences during the war, along with videos and infographics — subscribe to the T-invariant Telegram channel to stay up to date.

Darya Shipacheva is a well-known science journalist, the author of books and podcasts on medical topics, and a graduate student in ITMO University’s Health Sciences master’s program (focused on public health). Darya was detained on April 23, 2025, and taken to a pretrial detention center in Rostov-on-Don, where she spent more than a year before being moved for the last few weeks to Lefortovo [a Moscow detention facility run by the FSB, long used to hold high-profile political prisoners — T-invariant] — a detail that was confirmed to T-invariant by five sources close to Shipacheva.

“We were supposed to meet on Zoom to go over some issues with our thesis projects, and Dasha didn’t show up. She was always so motivated and punctual that we knew right away something was wrong. It turned out she’d been detained a few days earlier. We were all baffled as to why she’d been taken straight to Rostov. We assumed that’s where they send people suspected of collaborating with Ukraine, people facing treason charges, and Ukrainian POWs,” recalls a fellow student of Darya’s.

According to T-invariant’s sources, Darya’s phone stayed online for a long time after her detention. “We saw that activity and realized her devices were now controlled by ‘Comrade Major’ [Russian slang for FSB surveillance — T-invariant], and that all our messages were exposed. It was terrifying. We put the word out — delete everything immediately,” one of T-invariant’s sources said.

On August 19, 2020, police detained Darya Shipacheva — then the author of the Telegram channel ‘We Are the Khachaturyan Sisters’ — for holding a solo picket under the #ЗаЮлю (‘For Yulia’) hashtag [a campaign in support of artist Yulia Tsvetkova, prosecuted at the time over her body-positive art — T-invariant]. That same day, Moscow’s Meshchansky Court fined Shipacheva 10,000 rubles. Photos showing that Darya had been sitting alone in an empty square during the picket — making clear there was no question of a mass gathering — were not admitted as evidence; the judge ruled that ‘the arresting officers’ own written testimony is sufficient to establish guilt.’ Photo: Telegram channel ‘Ya/My Yulia Tsvetkova’ [I/We Are Yulia Tsvetkova]

According to several of Shipacheva’s friends and fellow students, before her detention the journalist had been receiving online threats from supporters of the so-called Men’s State movement over the feminist views she voiced online. “One of the last messages read: ‘We’re digging up dirt on you, they’ll come for you soon.’ Then, based on activity on her Facebook, Telegram, and Instagram accounts, she realized how serious the threats were and started scrubbing her public information, changing her usernames and passwords, and setting her Facebook and Instagram accounts to private,” one of Shipacheva’s friends told us.

“In those days she was bracing for an attack from those shady characters who’d been threatening her online. She told me about it at the time, but she never shared the actual messages or threats with me — she was trying to spare us additional stress,” said another friend of Shipacheva’s.

BACKGROUND

Men’s State is a Russian movement whose activists harass and target women, children, ethnic minorities, and LGBT people. It was founded in 2016 by Vladislav Pozdnyakov as a closed VKontakte community. On October 18, 2021, the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Court designated Men’s State an extremist organization and banned its activities in Russia. According to unconfirmed reports, Pozdnyakov has since left the country. Information about his current activities is inconsistent: he is linked to several Telegram channels (the best known being “Pozdnyakov 3.0”), sells ads and paid access to his private channels (such as “Bottle”), and supports Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

According to fellow students and instructors, Darya Shipacheva was an remarkably active, motivated student with excellent academic performance. She was detained just as she was finishing her thesis, at the very end of her master’s program. At the request of the defense, the court received strong character references from ITMO. “A very good student — hardworking, serious. One of the best in her cohort,” an ITMO associate professor told T-invariant. From 2019 to 2025, the journalist was a freelance contributor covering medical topics for Forbes Russia and worked with several other outlets, including Zdorovye Mail.ru, Mail.ru’s health section, RBC, Lenta.ru, Reminder, and Takie Dela.

“As far as we know, these almost a year and a half in pretrial detention passed without major incidents. Dasha received books, various items, and letters, and she had visits with family. She’s in a rough emotional state, of course. As far as I know, she was also against making this public, since she worried it might lead to a harsher sentence. But recently she asked us to invite journalists to the verdict hearing,” a friend of the journalist’s told us.

“It’s extremely difficult for her in pretrial detention — Dasha lives with chronic pain. That’s actually what she studied: she wrote a No Panic about it and hosted a podcast called Life Is Pain. She turned her own pain into meaningful, informative work that has helped a lot of people,” said another friend of Shipacheva’s.

From April 2025 until July 28, 2026, there was no publicly available information about Shipacheva’s detention, criminal case, or the investigation against her. According to T-invariant’s sources, this was a decision made by her family and by the court-appointed attorney. The lawyer later changed, but the approach to public communication stayed the same. Since late 2025, the lawyer has changed again, and the journalist is now defended by Oleg Ivankovich. According to Shipacheva’s friends, it was Ivankovich who developed her entire defense strategy and arranged for her to get medication. Ivankovich did not respond to messages or calls from T-invariant’s correspondent.

[[socialnetworks]]

Darya Shipacheva is now trying to complete her master’s thesis from behind bars and still hopes to defend her thesis.

As T-invariant has reported, the timelines for “political” criminal cases have shortened significantly in recent months. Mathematician Andrey Dymov, for instance, was sentenced to three and a half years in a penal colony for a 3,500-ruble donation to ACF less than a month after his criminal case was initiated — after just two hearings. According to defense lawyers, this “fast-track justice” is driven by the sheer volume of treason and extremism-financing cases, which has led to an informal decision to speed up both investigations and trials.

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The post A Verdict by Men’s State: <em>T-invariant</em> uncovers the details of Darya Shipacheva’s treason case appeared first on Т-инвариант / T-invariant.

YouTube, TikTok and Twitch are blocking ads en masse for the Alabuga Special Economic Zone, which recruits young people to assemble combat UAVs. Yet Tatarstan’s efficient managers have relaunched the recruitment campaign – through the proxy project Stalin’s Falcons, the Dronecon cyber tournaments with million-ruble prizes, and the game Drone Battle: Ukraine. Details in a T-invariant investigation.

Alabuga SEZ CEO Timur Shagivaleev has registered a patent for an “assessment tool in game form: the multiplayer online strategy Drone Battle: Ukraine.” The strategy is available on its website in three languages: Russian, English and Chinese. According to the Whois service, the dronewars.su domain is registered to the Alabuga SEZ.

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Shagivaleev is listed as the author of three more patents for various game-based “assessment tools.” According to Elibrary, all of them have zero citations. Another patent in his name covers software for conducting and analyzing mass assessments – the Alabuga HR platform. Shagivaleev is under sanctions from most countries in the Western coalition and appears on Ukrainian sanctions lists under the category “engineers of aggression.” At the same time, Shagivaleev did not add himself to patents related to UAV technologies that were registered by other SEZ employees or outside engineers (in Russia, the practice of adding a manager to patents and other intellectual-property documents is common).

Shagivaleev’s deputy for new production, Sergey Alekseev, is listed first among the authors of a patent for a “civilian unmanned aerial vehicle.” Less is known about Alekseev than about his boss. Judging by the widely discussed 2023 investigation by Protokol, which exposed the involvement of teenagers in assembling Shaheds at Alabuga, Alekseev appears to be the main advocate of the company’s signature method of motivating students to deliver results: punishing them by shooting them with paintballs. Looking at the outline of this “civilian” UAV, one can easily recognize the shape of the Shahed loitering munition, also known as the Geran-2. Little information is available about the other patent authors; only Mikhail Zavyalov has an obvious connection to the UAV industry. In all of the patents mentioned above, the rights holder is the Alabuga SEZ.

The abstract to Shagivaleev’s patent (for some reason, Alabuga SEZ chief accountant Anastasia Zyryanova is also listed as a co-author) states that “the main purpose of the program is to familiarize users with the situation in the special military operation zone through a training tool in game format, and to develop tactical and strategic planning among participants in game sessions.” Drone Battle: Ukraine is described as “a training simulator in the form of a multifunctional interactive web application with multiplayer support.” The first recorded uses date to 2025.

T-INVARIANT BACKGROUND

Who is hacking Alabuga’s production and propaganda machine?

On June 27, 2026, it became known that the Alabuga SEZ website had been hacked. Hackers from Black Spark claimed responsibility and said they had obtained a database of employees and supply chains. For several days, the site displayed a Black Spark placeholder page (what it looked like can now be seen here). By July 1, the site had been restored. In spring and summer 2026, an active campaign was under way to block Alabuga advertising; on June 19, the AlabugaGate project announced that almost no integrations remained on YouTube – nearly all had been removed or blocked. Earlier, in May 2026, information appeared that “Alabuga is Ukraine’s No. 1 target for 2026”; according to the Ukrainian Telegram channel Strategic Aviation, “preparation for the operation to destroy it has been under way for several years and may become one of the largest in the war.”

The active phase of the advertising campaign for Drone Battle: Ukraine began in spring 2026 and is still ongoing. T-invariant obtained a commercial proposal that advertising agencies are sending to YouTubers with million-strong audiences. According to the brief, the target audience for the ads is “men aged 18 to 45, GEO: all of Russia (mainly up to 1,500 km from Tatarstan).”

Alabuga’s management uses this multiplayer game to recruit people as UAV operators, mainly through its proxy project Stalin’s Falcons. The project’s slogan: “Our grandfathers developed and produced the best weapons in the world and used them to beat the fascists. Now it’s our turn.”

Left to right: Timur Shagivaleev, VTB head Andrey Kostin, Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov, and a Stalin statue at the opening of Alabuga Polytech headquarters. Photo: Alabuga SEZ press service.

T-INVARIANT BACKGROUND

Timur Shagivaleev was born on January 28, 1978. He graduated from MGIMO. Since September 2011, he has served as CEO of the Alabuga SEZ. In 2023, he presented Russian officials and state banker Andrey Kostin with a 25-year, 491-trillion-ruble development project for Alabuga that envisaged colonizing four of Jupiter’s moons and incorporating them into the SEZ. According to the presentation, the colonization of Jupiter’s moon Callisto would include the development of biotechnology for human cloning, genome editing, and extending human life to 700 years. At the ceremonial signing of the plan at Alabuga, VTB head Kostin and Russian First Deputy Finance Minister Irina Okladnikova added their signatures (see T-invariant’s detailed analysis of the megaproject).

In February 2026, Radio Liberty published a major story on Stalin’s Falcons. Its journalists concluded that this Alabuga SEZ project was more likely serving PR and HR goals – attracting people “to the special military operation” and to drone assembly – than directly participating in hostilities. Stalin’s Falcons openly campaign among students. As T-invariant previously reported, on April 20, 2026, HSE University hosted a drone-piloting tournament organized by Stalin’s Falcons. To take part, students had to pass a preliminary selection specifically in the Drone Battle: Ukraine simulator. The university’s social-media groups published instructions (here and below, T-invariant preserves the authors’ spelling and punctuation):

“The procedure is simple:

– register on the platform: dronewars.su/ru

– complete 10 training chapters

– win a single-player game in Real Time mode, playing for the Russian Federation

After that, access to ranked games will open – this is your pass to the next stage.”

Stalin’s Falcons tournament at HSE University. Photo: T-invariant.

The competition took place in the atrium of HSE University’s main building on Pokrovsky Boulevard in Moscow. Interestingly, in the report “A Duel of the New Era” on HSE’s website, the press office removed the word “Ukraine” from the name of the simulator.

“Drone Battle is designed as a tactical simulator in which the player commands a UAV troops unit. The player has FPV infantry, vehicles and support stations at their disposal. The objective depends on the scenario: capture the enemy headquarters and hold it for one day of game time, or occupy a neutral base and hold it for five days. After the competition, representatives of Stalin’s Falcons spoke with students and explained how service in UAV troops works today,” the article said.

The Drone Battle: Ukraine simulator is also a key part of the large Dronecon cyber tournaments held in Tatarstan with support from the Alabuga SEZ and Stalin’s Falcons.

“The cyberbattle of the year: Russia’s largest tournament from Stalin’s Falcons!” is how major public pages, Z-bloggers and war correspondents advertise the event (see 1, 2, 3). So far, at least four large multi-day events have taken place: the tournament on April 11-13, 2025; the tournament on February 23-27, 2026; the tournament on April 11-13, 2026; and the tournament on May 8-14, 2026. Cyber athletes were invited to Tatarstan for these events, with all travel, accommodation, meals and entertainment covered, and the organizers did not stint on major rewards. The prize fund of the first tournament was announced at 18 million rubles, while the following tournaments offered 15 million rubles.

The first tournament organized by Stalin’s Falcons. Photo: Stalin’s Falcons Telegram channel.

The February tournament made the loudest splash in the media, on social networks and on YouTube. It was won by the esports player “Grisha Putin,” who received a check for 3.5 million rubles. He is Russia’s most popular Z-streamer; his second nickname is “Cyberwarrior of the Special Military Operation.” His real name is Grigory Korolev, and he is a student at St. Petersburg State University (in a recent interview, he said he was on the verge of expulsion for poor academic performance and was considering signing a contract with the UAV troops). Grisha Putin regularly draws huge audiences to cyber tournaments, including with Western streamers, and actively promotes the Z agenda in the global gaming community. The streamer says he raises millions of rubles from sympathetic foreign gamers for combat drones for the Russian army. One of the most popular lots is personalized shells, rockets, mines and UAVs: Grisha Putin arranges for Russian soldiers to write foreigners’ wishes on munitions and send photo and video reports (for example, it was reported that an Arab man allegedly asked them to write about his beloved cat).

Russia’s best-known Z-esports player Grisha Putin (second from left) celebrates his victory. Photo: “Grisha Putin’s Bunker” Telegram channel.

In press releases from Stalin’s Falcons, Grisha Putin describes his impressions as follows:

“Video games have long been more than youth entertainment. Many countries use them to promote their historical truth, thereby educating young people and giving them their point of view. Russia has begun releasing its own video games with support from the Internet Development Institute. I have already highlighted new domestic games such as the first game about the special military operation, Squad 22: ZOV by SPN Studio, Sparta 2035 by Lipsar Studio, and Gomel Bogatyrs by Playing Cats Studio. As for the Dronecon tournament by Stalin’s Falcons, it is an excellent example of drawing gamers who play popular global strategy games into the latest technologies of warfare. Gamers have skills in strategic thinking, game planning and instant reaction to partners’ actions. This is a unique and already very well prepared contingent for working with real-world projects.”

Grisha Putin at the tournament. Photo: “Grisha Putin’s Bunker” Telegram channel.

This is how Stalin’s Falcons describe the rules for participation:

1. You must submit an application on the website and choose a track.

2. Contact the tournament organizers for further interaction.

3. Complete the training in the Drone Battle simulation and play a single-player game for the Russian Federation – https://dronewars.su/ru. Send confirmation of completing the training to the organizers.

4. Collect a package of documents (passport, taxpayer identification number, SNILS) to create a participant card and verify the data. The tournament is held on a closed and guarded site to ensure the safety of participants and guests.

5. Confirm your participation in the tournament after your participant card has been approved.

6. Receive your tickets before the tournament and arrive.

You can expect paid transfer and accommodation; a fair prize fund; and the opportunity to receive an offer from Stalin’s Falcons.

The total advertising campaign has not gone unnoticed. Reviews by participants can be found on review sites. There is also feedback about the “closed and guarded site”:

“The tournament is not a scam, I was there myself. The only thing is that for those seven days you’re basically in prison: there’s almost no connection, you can’t leave the site, you’re supervised, and you sign nondisclosure documents about what you saw. On the plus side, they feed you for free and the food is tasty :), and they also give you their merch (the merch is really cool, in my opinion, but if your size is M, it’s better to try to get into the line first; those sizes are in short supply). There are different disciplines: instead of HoI, I had War Thunder; maybe the next tournament will have HoI. There are several disciplines: War Thunder (in my case), GeoGuessr, Drone Battle and FPV flights (first in a simulator, then on a real one). Points are counted in total. If you win first place in one discipline but are eliminated from all the others, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get prize money. By the way, Alabuga covers the tax on the prize.”

A runway-style show at a Stalin’s Falcons tournament. Photo: Stalin’s Falcons Telegram channel.

t is difficult to name the exact number of people the organizers managed to attract to their events. Radio Liberty journalists wrote in February 2026 that only a few photographs from Dronecon could be found online: some were taken on the grounds of Alabuga Polytech, and others inside the premises of the Zarnitsa production association in Kazan. At the time, Radio Liberty found only one independent piece of evidence that the tournament had actually taken place: the Higher School of Petroleum in Almetyevsk reported on its website that one of its students had participated in Dronecon. He confirmed to journalists that he had gone to the tournament, called it “cool,” but noted that far fewer than the announced thousand people had taken part in Dronecon. The note is still available today.

[[socialnetworks]]

Radio Liberty also described in detail that many links can be found between Stalin’s Falcons and Alabuga, but no real traces can be found of the Falcons operating as a combat unit, nor of people connected to the unit beyond recruiters and marketers. Stalin’s Falcons have never been mentioned as a combat unit in reports by the Russian Defense Ministry or in federal media. Russian “war correspondents” write about the Falcons only in advertising posts. In addition, Radio Liberty found numerous negative reviews from people who had tried to join Stalin’s Falcons through recruiters.

The Ukrainian outlet 24 Kanal also published a major investigation into the Falcons. Its journalists concluded that Stalin’s Falcons look like “an element of a sprawling network where technology, information operations and controlled PR are combined.”

“In modern war, Russia is building not only combat units, but entire media systems of influence that operate simultaneously in the military, digital and public spheres,” the journalists conclude.

Thus, Timur Shagivaleev has managed to prove to the Kremlin his important role in supplying the key resource of modern warfare – UAVs – as well as the people who will assemble and then operate them. And while the whole world already knows about Alabuga as a physical point on the map where instruments of death are produced, far less is known about the cyber-Alabuga that Shagivaleev and other “Putin’s Falcons” from the Alabuga SEZ are building in parallel. Given the current shortage of personnel for the combat-drone industry, the task of recruiting young people online looks like no less important a national project than keeping the death factory in Tatarstan running. As T-invariant wrote earlier, “esports players are admitted without competition.” That was the headline of an article published by Tatar-inform at the height of the student recruitment campaign.

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The post Putin’s Falcons. Alabuga’s CEO patented a game called Drone Battle: Ukraine, while his deputy patented the war’s main drone appeared first on Т-инвариант / T-invariant.

An experimental physicist originally from Russia is now one of the most undesirable applicants on the global academic job market. Even IT specialists and theoreticians find it easier to secure employment than those who actually know how to turn lab concepts into working experiments. In Europe, the primary legal barrier is a sweeping expansion of European export control legislation regarding dual-use technologies, enacted in September 2025. The underlying bureaucratic logic dictates that since resources are insufficient to separate safe Russians from untrustworthy ones, it is simpler to exclude everyone. Consequently, anti-war students who fled Russia in 2022–2023 are finding themselves blacklisted by Western companies and universities, forcing them to move to China and Arab nations. T-invariant shares the story of scientist Nikita Asmedianov, a clear example of this unfolding crisis.

Nikita Asmedianov. Photo: from personal archive

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The Last Ticket

Nikita Asmedianov comes from Kuytun, a small working-class settlement in the Irkutsk Oblast, where trains barely slow down long enough for passengers to jump aboard and head toward major cities. He earned his higher education at Novosibirsk State University (NSU). Nikita spent eight years in Siberia’s scientific capital before deciding to leave Russia. A year before the war even began, he was already sending out his CV to various foreign universities once a week. In August 2022, he applied to the Technion — Israel Institute of Technology. Then, on September 22 — just one day after the mobilization was declared in Russia — an invitation came from Professor Yakov Krasik at the Technion’s Plasma Physics Laboratory. The letter said that the PhD program would start in October. However, Nikita decided not to wait for October and left the country on September 25.

“Back then at NSU, about a third of the students, graduate students, and professors fled Russia. Some returned later, some didn’t, but it was a mass exodus at the time.”

To get to Israel, Nikita decided to wait things out for three weeks in Kazakhstan. He distributed his belongings among friends in Novosibirsk, sold a few items, and gave others away for free. He didn’t even submit a resignation letter to the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics (BINP, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences), where he had worked for six years — he just dropped everything and got on a train to Omsk.

“I bought the very last ticket and managed to get from Omsk to Petropavl in Kazakhstan. At the station in Petropavl, there was some kind of actor, hired either by the FSB or the local administration, screaming at the top of his lungs: ‘Nobody wants you here in Kazakhstan, you won’t be able to rent an apartment, go back, what are you doing here?’ The entire station was packed with migrants, there was nowhere to stand or sit, everyone was scrambling to exchange money and buy local SIM cards.”

Nikita spent several nights sleeping at train stations in towns along the route until he finally reached Astana. There, an acquaintance of Yakov Krasik helped him find a place in a hostel. A bit later, a friend of Nikita’s mother was found in Almaty, and after a difficult struggle to secure a bus ticket, he went to stay with her.

“She let me stay at her place; in return, I looked after her child, cooked, and helped around the house. That’s how I lived for another two weeks in a wonderful city that felt culturally much more comfortable to me than Novosibirsk.”

Two weeks later, Nikita flew to Istanbul, and then on to Israel to join Professor Yakov Krasik.

PREVIOUSLY IN T-INVARIANT

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“I Formed as an International Scientist in Israel”

At the Technion lab, Nikita received a very warm welcome and was given a dorm room.

“Yakov tested my capabilities, assessed me at first, and gave me his papers to read to help me master the technical language. Within a couple of months, he had already defined my dissertation topic. He told me everything would be great, that after four years of my PhD, I could stay on as a postdoc for another two and a half years. He also mentioned the advantages of living in Israel, suggesting it would be good for me to marry here to get citizenship. I understood that there was no other way to continue working in Israel; I even tried to get married, but it just didn’t work out.”

In his very first months under Yakov Krasik’s guidance, Nikita published his first paper, which continues to be widely read and cited today. Over his four years in the doctoral program, Nikita ran dozens of experiments, published 14 papers co-authored with colleagues, and completed his dissertation on high-energy-density physics.

“I designed wires and foils in simulation software and fabricated them myself, which we then exploded using electrical generators. I calibrated and repaired those generators myself. If necessary, I could build any of them from scratch — just by finding the parts, ordering them, and assembleing it. In parallel, I developed a hydrodynamic simulation for extreme conditions based on Professor Krasik’s research. I managed to refine it to such an efficient operating state that it requires no heavy computing hardware. Meaning, you can run it on any “toaster” (a basic PC), and it will compute everything you need for any thermal explosion. For instance, if you know the input power profile delivered to an exploding object, it will calculate how the object itself burst, expanded, and how its surroundings were destroyed. My software can solve most problems encountered in explosion engineering.”

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Such applications are indispensable in geological exploration and petrochemical processing, given that certain oil derivatives can only be synthesized under these explosive conditions. They are also exceptionally critical for materials science under extreme environments. For instance, testing how a material behaves under immense pressure and temperature can be achieved either experimentally on the generator Nikita and his colleagues built, or through this computer simulation. Naturally, these studies have military applications as well, though Nikita never participated in such projects. This requires special security clearance, involves a certain bureaucratic process. Nobody would offer it to a PhD student without Jewish roots or Israeli citizenship.

“I only engaged in open research, so I can present any formula or chart at any conference without needing extra permits.”

Security concerns have shut Nikita out of more than just military projects. For over a year, he has received job inquiries from Israeli universities, corporations, and startups. Tel Aviv University, Ben-Gurion University, and the Weizmann Institute of Science have all extended invitations, but a Russian passport puts an end to any long-term prospects in Israel.

At the facility in Hamburg. Photo: from personal archive

“Right now at the Technion, a new laboratory is opening up, and they are hiring students who worked under my supervision. Julien Fuchs, who runs the lab, would gladly take me on, but local security agencies have so thoroughly intimidated him that he now goes out of his way to avoid Russian grad students — he steers clear of us altogether, just so he won’t have to face our questions or deal with our bewilderment.”

Once it became clear that finding work in Israel without citizenship was impossible, Nikita began sending his resume to European collaborators he had worked with during his PhD and shared publications with — including the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble and the European XFEL in Hamburg. Yet no responses came from there either. Yakov Krasik also tried to help his student secure a position in various countries. But what used to work quite seamlessly has now become impossible — not a single brilliant scientific paper proved capable of overcoming the black spot of a Russian passport.

Finally, Nikita had a stroke of luck — he was invited to join a French startup.

T-INVARIANT BRIEFING

Export Control in European Universities

Export control serves as a mechanism to prevent the transfer of dual-use technologies to sanctioned states. Since 2025, it has been extended to cover students from Russia, China, and Iran. Academic institutions are restricting access to courses in cybersecurity, cryptography, IT security, and other sensitive tech fields. A striking case is the University of Bonn, where 65 Russian master’s students were barred from an entire track in Communication Management. Similar restrictions are being enacted across Norway, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, and other European countries.

On paper, universities point to European and domestic regulations aimed at non-proliferation of military tech. In practice, however, this frequently plays out as passport discrimination: checking citizenship and background history, banning official enrollment, and withholding credits, even when lecture materials remain publicly accessible. Critics brand this as overcompliance and an infringement on academic freedom, given that education itself is not directly subject to EU sanctions.

The Dangerous Russian

Nikita’s breakthrough came via a fellow Siberian, who had completed his PhD in Paris and transitioned into the high-tech industry. It was he who recommended the young scientist as a unique experimentalist for a new startup spearheaded by Catherine Pépin.

“Vladimir and I had worked together at both the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics and the BINP. He handled the theory, while I ran the experiments. He put me in touch with Catherine directly; she quickly conducted an interview and realized I possessed genuine hands-on experience running experiments on the exact system required. We actually began working even before she could send over a formal contract because she was in a massive rush. The startup’s goals were highly ambitious, and the deadlines were extremely tight.”

[[socialnetworks]]

Pépin’s company was tackling a problem in nuclear energy, specifically in the field of “open magnetic traps.” This represents arguably the most environmentally safe type of nuclear reactor possible. They find applications both in clean energy generation and in beam therapy for cancer treatment. These traps operate similarly to gas turbines, but at stellar temperatures — on the order of 100 million degrees Celsius. Fresh, unburned gas (typically hydrogen) is injected into them, quickly blending with the already burning gas, heating up to the required temperatures, and reacting to release immense energy, which is then fed into the consumer grid via a conversion system. Thanks to this continuous stream, combustion byproducts are expelled immediately, making the whole cycle non-stop. Today, this is the most powerful energy source known to science, with fuel that can be sourced on virtually any planet. China, for instance, has a project focused on mining fuel for precisely this type of reactor — on the Moon. This line of research originated back during the Manhattan Project, yet today this energy niche is being actively advanced in only a handful of countries — Japan, South Korea, China, the United States, and Russia (specifically in Novosibirsk). One such gas-dynamic trap at the BINP was managed by Petr Bagryansky, under whom Nikita studied.

Photo: from personal archive

“I joined his team almost immediately after starting at the Budker Institute. The work was fascinating: I mastered both vacuum and gas systems, including handling explosive, hazardous gases, all while strictly adhering to safety protocols. They trained me thoroughly, explaining precisely what the consequences would be in the event of an error. Because of that, I work with extreme caution, taking zero risks. These were pure, classic experiments. It was under Bagryansky that I gained the experience to develop this entire system from the ground up, and with some minor support from colleagues, I could fully replicate a gas-dynamic trap system. It’s a massive facility, the size of a standard thermal power plant. In essence, it is a power plant, albeit significantly more complex and hotter. And I partially reproduced it for Catherine’s project. She wanted to launch an open trap project so that France could develop a parallel energy infrastructure alongside the well-known tokamaks. There is hope that the output of the resulting reactor will suffice to synthesize automotive fuel. Essentially, the system would yield enough energy to capture ambient carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and utilize it for fuel synthesis. This is why a massive commercial potential was embedded within these experiments.”

As soon as the offer from Pépin’s company arrived, Nikita submitted all his documentation to the French consulate in Tel Aviv and applied for an EU Blue Card. The second Iran war was at its peak back then. To make it in time for the brief reception hours, Nikita drove over 90 kilometers from Haifa to Tel Aviv amidst rocket fire. His documents were accepted immediately. However, two months later, a rejection arrived: “Pursuant to laws L421-7 and L421-25, you pose a risk to the people of France.” The consul simply shrugged: “I have nothing to tell you. I wasn’t given any explanation. But you are entitled to file an appeal.” Utilizing assistance from friends and AI tools, Nikita drafted an appeal and mailed it to the Nantes administrative court at the address specified in the letter.

“After I was denied the visa, Catherine provided moral support and helped me obtain a recommendation letter from the director of the CNRS. But then, out of nowhere, she dismissed all Russian personnel, including my colleague Vladimir, who had already been working with her for several months. She also rescinded my offer, as well as the offer extended to Vlad, another Russian physicist and Technion graduate student whom she had planned to hire alongside me for the startup. He received a visa refusal with the exact same wording, stating he posed a threat to France.”

Then Catherine sent us a letter that read: ‘Dear Nikita and Vladislav, we would like to write and express our immense gratitude for your contributions to the project. Over the past few months, we did our utmost to brainstorm every possible aspect of the project with you. We made good progress, but we have decided to look for experimentalists within the CEA and the VEST project instead. We hope to cross paths again in the future and support each other’s work. In the meantime, I am withdrawing your offers.’ Word has it she did this under heavy pressure following conversations with French security services.

Currently, Nikita is awaiting the ruling from the Nantes court and delaying his PhD defense at the Technion as much as humanly possible — because once he defends, he will be required to leave Israel. He has no desire to return to Russia. Consequently, he is gearing up for several interviews with universities and companies in countries where a red Russian passport is still acceptable. On his calendar are upcoming interviews in China. Meanwhile, his laboratory colleague Vlad has just secured a job offer in the United Arab Emirates.

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The post The Passport Black Spot: How Dual-Use Restrictions Are Sending Russian Scientists to China appeared first on Т-инвариант / T-invariant.

By the beginning of Vladimir Putin’s new presidential term in 2030, Russia’s fastest-growing neurotechnology company promises to begin developing solutions for maintaining mental health and cognitive function, as well as technologies for stimulating brain neuroplasticity and managing emotional states — specifically, “fear, happiness levels, and motivation.” Research and development are being handled by scientists at Moscow State University’s AI Research Institute, which is headed by Putin’s daughter, Katerina Tikhonova. Neiry Group already enjoys substantial support from both state development institutions and private investors, notably from billionaire Vladimir Potanin and other major Russian investors operating through closed-end mutual funds. What is at stake is extending life expectancy and improving quality of life in old age — a topic that deeply concerns the Russian President, though he is certainly not alone in this interest. With such positioning, Neiry expects to secure significantly more funding, according to T-invariant’s sources in the Russian venture capital market.

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From Rats to Humans

The MSU AI Research Institute has become a strategic partner for Neiry Group, which plans to move “from mass microchipping of animals to the first experimental human neurochip implant surgeries.” The institute houses an invasive neural interface development laboratory where joint research with Neiry is conducted. The company and its founder, Alexander Panov, participated actively in the recent St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). In the “Know Our Own” zone, as part of the “Minute of Techno-Glory,” Neiry’s booth operated alongside “The Welder Catherine,” Lapochka lemonade, Infomaximum, and other Russian brands. At the forum, the company announced a new funding round and even more ambitious plans than before (see previous T-invariant article on remote-controlled bio-drone pigeons and “conquering the world with neurotechnology”).

This new phase of active fundraising has shed light on the sources of funding used to consolidate Russian neurotechnology companies around Neiry. Meanwhile, an aggressive PR campaign has revealed what Neiry intends to do next.

“Just so you know, my co-founder of Neiry is Katerina Tikhonova, the idea for an AI-chipped rat came from Mikhail Kovalchuk, and our ambassador is Vladimir Putin!
*according to foreign agents, extremists, and Navalny’s idiots”

From the Telegram channel of Neiry founder and CEO Alexander Panov

In its investor presentation on the Aurora platform, Neiry listed six organizations as investors: Interros holding company, the Voskhod Fund, the NTI Fund, JSС Mira AI Capital, SPEC Investment, and the Seed Investment Fund. However, in the presentation on its own website, Neiry has omitted Interros, owned by billionaire Vladimir Potanin. As a reminder, the holding company is under US and Canadian sanctions, while Potanin himself has been on the US sanctions list since 2018, and after 2022 was sanctioned by Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. The Voskhod Fund was created by Interros and was sanctioned by the US in 2023.

Neiry raised a significant portion of its capital from state development institutions. Judging by the presentation, the NTI Fund was its first public investor. Among the third-round investors is the Seed Investment Fund (Russian abbreviation$nbsp;— FPI), displaying the old logo of the Russian Venture Company (RVC). Yet back in 2019, RVC announced the closure of its subsidiary funds (including FPI), and in 2021 it was reported that RVC had been integrated into the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF).

Founder and CEO of Neiry Alexander Panov. Photo: Forbes.

Meanwhile, FPI remains legally registered. This is likely due to the administrative peculiarities of RVC’s reorganization and the convoluted nature of winding up legal entities, especially of this type, according to a former RVC employee who spoke with T-invariant. There is no record of any substantive activity by FPI over the last 8–10 years — a fact confirmed to T-invariant by two former FPI employees.

Sources say it is difficult to explain why FPI appears in the “Neiry Group’s Capital” section of the investor presentation. “Perhaps it refers to some earlier investments in one of the neurotechnology companies that became part of Neiry, or maybe it’s somehow connected to RDIF, which now holds what used to be called RVC or was part of it,” suggests a former RVC employee. T-invariant sent an inquiry to Neiry Group to clarify this information, but no response has been received yet.

T-INVARIANT BACKGROUND INFO

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) is a sovereign wealth fund established in 2011 by the Russian government to attract foreign capital into the Russian economy and co-invest in key projects. RDIF and its CEO, Kirill Dmitriev, were added to all major sanctions lists within days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine (February 28, 2022, by the US; March 1, by the UK; and shortly after by the EU). Kirill Dmitriev has headed the fund since its founding. Today, he is one of the key Russian negotiators in economic and political dialogue with the US under the Trump administration.

During these active negotiations, a project for a tunnel across the Bering Strait (Chukotka–Alaska) was proposed. The fund and its founder have always been inclined toward mega-projects. In 2016, the fund invested in Hyperloop One, a company developing a high-speed vacuum train based on Elon Musk’s design. The deal’s value and terms remain unknown (though after the project collapsed, all investments were lost). In 2017, Kirill Dmitriev announced that RDIF would invest in the construction of Neom, the “city of the future” in Saudi Arabia. Dmitriev’s wife is Natalya Popova, a friend of Katerina Tikhonova and her deputy at Innopraktika (for more details, see the article “The ‘Single Perimeter’ State Corporation: How Putin’s Daughter and Her Fashion-Model Friend Decided to Turn Innopraktika into an Integrator for All High-Tech Companies”).

The remaining two public investors are JSC Mira AI Capital and SPEC Investment. These companies have not been included in sanctions lists. Alexey Mariza, the founder and former CEO of Mira AI Capital, also serves as the chief operating officer of Neuroroga. In 2025, during its third funding round, Neiry acquired a 50% + 1 share stake in Neuroroga. Consequently, Mira AI Capital’s investments now flow into both the parent company (Neiry) and its subsidiary (Neuroroga). The founder of SPEC Investment is the Minerva-Capital closed-end mutual fund with a 99.93% stake; this fund is managed by JSC AF Capital Management Company (known as JSC Veter Management until January 10, 2025).

The strategic partnership with Katerina Tikhonova’s institute serves as a signal of political priority and provides access to the largest pools of capital. Potanin’s funds provide financing, while VTB Bank — represented by its Deputy Chairman of the Management Board, Vadim Kulik — gives Neiry prominent visibility at the major Data Fusion conference (hosted by the state bank in collaboration with Tikhonova’s Innopraktika foundation) In 2025, Kulik personally moderated a panel titled “Neurotechnologies: The Race for the Future.” Judging by the list of participants, Neiry is the company driving this race — specifically, Neiry founder and CEO Alexander Panov, Chief Scientific Officer Mikhail Lebedev, and laboratory head Vasily Popkov (both scientists are key figures at the MSU AI Research Institute). Such high-level PR support is not even available to Russia’s largest and longest-established neurotechnology companies, such as Motorika, which specializes in functional cybernetic limb prostheses, neuroimplants, and medical device distribution (Motorika has received direct investment from RDIF and has completed a pre-IPO round).

“The development of neurotechnologies, which Neiry is engaged in, can be viewed as a tool of geopolitical competition, and the state’s current position regarding limited regulation of AI development allows for growth in all directions,” stated VTB Deputy Chairman Vadim Kulik.

The new, fourth funding round was split into two parts: a “public” round and one for professional investors. The round for retail investors ran from March 10 to April 24. The price per share was set at 5,250 rubles [~$70]. The minimum investment for retail investors was 152,250 rubles [~$2000], equivalent to purchasing 29 shares. On his Telegram channel, Panov said that over 200 individual investors became shareholders within three weeks of the campaign. In another post, he mentioned that Neiry “raised 100+ MILLION [~$1,3m] in funding” within five days of targeting individual investors — this is currently the only public information available on the financial results of the 2026 funding round. Looking ahead, he noted that from May through the end of 2026, participation in the round would be restricted “only to strategic partners and institutional funds with a minimum investment size of 100 million rubles [~$1,3m].”

Ultimately, according to the investor presentation, Neiry Group’s valuation is projected to reach 8 billion rubles [~$100m] by the end of 2026. Following that, an IPO is planned for 2028.

On-Demand Happiness

It is expected that 50% of the funds raised will be allocated toward accelerating research and developing invasive neural interfaces to treat neurological and psychiatric disorders, as well as enhancing cognitive abilities. This will culminate in the mass production of PUSIN — the “Personal Universal System of Invasive Stimulation.” Another 30% of the investment will be used to acquire other neurotechnology companies, with the remaining 20% dedicated to international market expansion, clinical trials, and related overhead costs.

The company’s website states that Neiry operates four proprietary surgical units, has performed over 500 successful animal surgeries, and is slated to begin human trials in 2026. The company has already announced recruitment for a study on deep brain stimulation (DBS) for patients with treatment-resistant depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. This procedure involves implanting electrodes into specific brain regions to deliver stimulation, thereby mitigating symptoms. This is not a novel development — neuromodulation and neurostimulation techniques have long been used worldwide, for instance, in treating Parkinson’s disease. These routine procedures will likely serve as a “warm-up” for future, more invasive and complex devices — namely, brain-computer interfaces (BCIs).

Neiry’s flagship development is PUSIN. According to the company’s investor presentation, it will enable users to control gadgets using thoughts alone, as well as modulate their emotional state — for example, inducing feelings of happiness and improving sleep quality. Neiry expects practical applications of neurointerfaces to materialize around 2030–2035. During 2026–2027, the plan involves refining surgical procedures using Medtronic neurostimulators, for which proprietary clinics will be launched, alongside upgrading PUSIN following animal trials. The period between 2027 and 2030 will see the first human PUSIN neuroimplantation and technology optimization. Following this, the company plans to develop and roll out technologies for maintaining mental health and cognitive functions, alongside managing emotional states like fear, happiness, and motivation.

“Even though Neiry is probably ALREADY THE LARGEST PRIVATE PROJECT in the country by number of investors, valuation, and growth rate, I predict that our deep tech fan club will add several hundred more investors over the next three weeks. This means we will be able to do more, go deeper, and chip everyone even more aggressively, advancing our scientific, engineering, and product development all in the name of profit margins and saving human civilization.”

From Alexander Panov’s Telegram channel

Overall, according to Neiry’s strategy, the company’s primary focus areas include developing BCIs (such as PUSIN), invasive stimulators for psychiatric disorders, and non-invasive neurodiagnostic devices (wearable EEG units, psycho-emotional monitoring systems, etc.).

The company believes that neurotechnology development in Russia is hindered by numerous legislative loopholes, outdated regulations that require overhaul, an obsolete educational framework for training personnel, and rigid device testing requirements — arguing that special rules should be established for the development and testing of “breakthrough” devices.

On his channel and at other events (such as a strategy session NeuroNet — an industry association of neurotechnology companies) Panov’s rhetoric has become increasingly hardline. He argues that to outcompete the US and China, which currently lead the industry and can deploy massive capital, Russia needs to win on the regulatory front: “Designate a few regions in the country where ANY neuroimplantations are permitted based on an agreement with the patient/user. This simple fix would provide a massive boost to neuroscience and neurotechnology, and startups from all over the world would start moving here. Zero budget expenditure, massive benefits. We already have a huge list of clients ready to go.”

“We are making filthy money by cutting back on marketing, just because everyone writes about us (for free!)”

From Alexander Panov’s Telegram channel

Erection Subscriptions

While CEO Alexander Panov handles PR promotion personally, the entire team follows closely in his wake. Neiry initially began communicating its results by leaning into blatant clickbait. For instance, in 2024, a press release titled “Introducing a rat that is smarter than most people” circulated across media outlets. This referred to the presentation of the first results of Project Pythia — where scientists and developers claimed to have connected a rat’s brain to artificial intelligence “for the first time in the world.”

Pythia — a rat whose brain is connected to AI. Image: Neiry website.

In a recent interview, Panov discusses another acquisition: the company Neuroroga. In his words, a cow is a milk-producing machine that should yield as much as possible, but this machine has its own agency — for instance, deciding when to eat. To yield more milk, a cow needs to eat more. The management of a dairy farm approached them with a request: design a button that forces the cow to start feeding when pressed. Panov calls this a “cow subscription” — the technology works on a subscription basis: the cow has a neuroimplant installed in its brain that remains active as long as the farm pays the subscription fee. When payments stop, the stimulator shuts off, and the cow reverts to being a normal cow.

[[socialnetworks]]

According to Panov’s speculation on his Telegram channel, these smart cows yield 15% more milk. Yet the same smart cows, featured in the investor presentation, are claimed to yield up to 30% more.

It is likely safer to rely on the 15% figure — as that was the percentage that ultimately ended up on the label of the milk bottle designed by Artemy Lebedev Studio.

Packaging of the limited-edition “Neuromilk from the neurofarm”. Image: artlebedev.ru.

In the spring of 2026, Neiry’s bio-drone pigeons generated such intense blowback that the company now refrains from mentioning the topic altogether; Panov did not breathe a single word about it even during his most extensive and detailed interview with the business outlet Inc. The “cow subscription” and spy pigeons have been left behind. The PR focus has shifted entirely to human enhancement. In the interview, Panov talks at length about how he intends to sell a “happiness subscription” and an “erection subscription.” The only thing left is to officially put that human’s name in the project roadmap.

In that same interview with Inc., Panov mentions — whether jokingly or seriously — that certain products of the company are vetted by an “assigned officer from the Russian Orthodox Church.” Whether the journalist is genuinely surprised or just playing along is unclear. Either way, the desired effect was achieved: The Edinorog [Unicorn], a Telegram channel covering business, is seriously seeking confirmation of this from investor companies and ROC officials.

“I want to emphasize something very important: the 21st century will be the century of neurotechnology. Globally, it will mirror how the 20th century was defined by nuclear tech. It will spark a similar scientific race. Nations will compete in neurotechnology to make their citizens’ lives longer, better, and more efficient. Initially, this will be a matter of safeguarding public health, not through pharmaceutical means, but electroceutical ones. It will assist individuals with treatment-resistant depression, Parkinsonism, epilepsy, and several other conditions… But soon after, states will begin competing to have more upgraded people… The world will witness a race for a new kind of human. We call it homo superior — a human integrated with computers on a fundamentally new level. Such individuals will have the capacity to interface with computers and artificial intelligence in real time,” Alexander Panov says, outlining these prospects in his interview.

Twenty years ago, using a similar line of reasoning, Mikhail Kovalchuk secured roughly 180 billion rubles [$2,4b] from Vladimir Putin to develop nanotechnology. The objective was clear — leapfrog the West through fast-paced nano development. The funds were spent on various needs with varying degrees of efficiency, yet a domestic nanotechnology industry never materialized in Russia. The new visionary, Panov, outlines a far more ambitious goal — outliving the West via neurotechnology. And, judging by how the PR campaign is unfolding, there is every indication that it will meet the same fate as the grand “nano-project.” That said, few experts surveyed by T-invariant expressed any regret over this, arriving at a consensus: “It’s better they blow money on a happiness button, an erection lever, flying cows, and milk-yielding pigeons than on the war.”

T-invariant was unable to find scientists willing to offer a substantive evaluation of Neiry’s prospective plans or its investor presentation. One typical reaction was: “There was a major neurotechnology science conference recently. Throughout the entire event, I didn’t hear a single soul discuss their developments or anything related to them,” an interlocutor told the editorial team. As T-invariant previously pointed out, no peer-reviewed scientific papers detailing the mechanisms of Neiry’s neuroimplants in either animals or humans have been published. In the most famous video of the trials, the bio-drone pigeons merely fly left or right upon receiving a command, and nothing more. Perhaps an “assigned ROC officer” has no need for verified data published in peer-reviewed journals, given that the R&D outcomes are evaluated not by venture capital experts, but the main patient himself and his inner circle.

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The academic community has launched a signature campaign in support of the philosopher Svetlana Mesyats. She has been charged with fraud on an especially large scale, an accusation that can carry a sentence of up to ten years in prison. Svetlana Mesyats’s prosecution fits the pattern of other criminal cases targeting Russian scholars who have returned to the country. Marina Bykova, a professor at North Carolina State University, reflects on whether public support from the anti-war opposition is useful or dangerous.

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On May 29, the academic community issued an open letter in support of Svetlana Mesyats. Its author is Andrei Rodin, an associate member of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).

The signature campaign on Change.org was organized by Michael Chase, a specialist in ancient Greek, Roman, medieval, and Islamic philosophy, until recently a senior research fellow at the Jean Pépin Centre, an adjunct professor in the Department of Greek and Roman Studies at the University of Victoria, and a visiting fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. At the time of publication, more than 350 signatures had been collected.

As a reminder, on May 19, 2026, several employees of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IF RAS) were summoned for questioning by the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. The country’s main institute of philosophy was suspected of violations in preparing a complete scholarly edition of Aristotle’s works with scholarly commentary, including translations of treatises that had not previously been published. The project’s director, the internationally renowned philosopher and scholar of ancient thought Svetlana Mesyats, was placed under house arrest by Moscow’s Tverskoy District Court.

The judge who issued the decision on the measure of restraint was Alexei Krivoruchko, who had taken part in the cases of Sergei Magnitsky and Alexei Navalny. That fact alone points to the political undercurrent of the case. Especially since, according to colleagues, she had been the target of political denunciations long before her arrest. T-invariant asked the philosopher and professor Marina Bykova, who is well acquainted with the situation around the IF RAS, to comment.

T-INVARIANT BACKGROUND

Marina Bykova is a Russian and American philosopher. She defended her Candidate of Sciences dissertation in 1985 and her Doctor of Sciences dissertation in 1993. She is a professor at North Carolina State University and editor-in-chief of the journal Studies in East European Thought. She worked at the IF RAS from 1986 to 1993 and continued to collaborate actively with the Institute after leaving it.

Svetlana Mesyats holds a Candidate of Sciences degree in philosophy. Since 1999 she has worked at the IF RAS, where she is a senior research fellow and deputy head of the Department of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy. She has taught at the Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH) and the State Academic University for the Humanities (GAUGN). She is the author and co-author of entries and articles in the Great Russian Encyclopedia, the Orthodox Encyclopedia, and other authoritative publications. She is the head of the project to prepare a new academic edition of Aristotle’s collected works in Russian, “The Legacy of Aristotle.”

Marina Bykova. Photo: NC State University

Marina Bykova: Svetlana Mesyats is one of those people who clearly and publicly articulated her anti-war position as early as 2022. That earns deep respect. Soon after the invasion she left Russia, but several months later she returned to Moscow and continued her work at the IF RAS. For the past ten to twelve years, together with a group of fellow scholars of ancient philosophy, Svetlana has been working on Aristotle — particularly on translating and commenting on his texts.

In that sense, her project to publish Aristotle’s collected works would have been a completely logical culmination of this work. But projects of this kind cannot be completed in six years, or even in ten. I myself had the chance to take part in a bilingual Russian-German project to publish Kant’s major works, and I understand very well what such projects involve, how labor-intensive they are, and how much time they require.

Svetlana Mesyats is a scholar of international standing. Work on Aristotle’s collected works is, in essence, an ongoing research project lasting decades. A four-volume edition of Aristotle was published back in the Soviet period, but it was not a complete collected works. Now the earlier translations are being refined, and new ones are being added. To interrupt this work would be a direct loss for scholarship and culture. Can the scholarly community influence the fate of a unique specialist who has come under attack from the repressive machine?

MB: There are only a handful of scholars of ancient philosophy in the world at Svetlana’s level. People who are capable of translating philosophical texts from dead languages are specialists of the very highest class. In addition, one must not forget that Aristotle wrote in technically complex language, and to render his texts in accessible philosophical language without losing important nuances of his thought is a special gift. Not everyone is capable of it.

I began asking myself about public support for Svetlana Mesyats literally immediately after her detention, and I discussed the question in a small circle of colleagues now living in the West. When, in 2021, the Institute of Philosophy protested the appointment of an acting director, we immediately published a major statement in my journal. I managed to mobilize the Western philosophical community: we collected signatures, sent the statement to Moscow, and it was published on the Institute’s website. According to the Institute’s administration, it had a serious impact. But today’s situation is fundamentally different from the one that existed five years ago. Today, the West and Western scholars have been declared enemies. Russian colleagues are openly afraid to communicate even with those of us who have ended up in the West. They are explicitly forbidden to do so, and only a few dare — and then only in secret. So we have to ask ourselves whether our support might do harm.

Through my personal channels, I reached out to colleagues at the Institute and received a frank response: “Please, just not now — no support from the international philosophical community or from the anti-war opposition.” They hope that if Svetlana’s case does not gain international resonance, it may all end with a fine. Whether I agree with that position is a separate question, but it is difficult simply to ignore such a request.

Could attempts to help make the victim’s situation worse? This question arises constantly when political persecution in Russia is at issue. Could other people connected to those who allow themselves to speak too openly suffer as well? According to Marina Bykova, Putin’s regime has built a system in which even those outside Russia cannot speak freely — in particular, they cannot freely support colleagues who have effectively become hostages.

MB: The truth is that we are now limited in what we can do in relation to what is happening in Russia. But, thank God, we can at least speak openly and formulate our position both on the war and on what is happening inside Russia itself. And we do speak — at least some of us do. But part of the emigration remains silent for subjective reasons: some have elderly parents in Russia, some have an apartment there. The same is happening inside the country. By no means are all former colleagues pro-Putin. Many are critical both of the regime and of the war, but they have switched to Aesopian language.

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While uncertainty remains about the intentions of the repressive agencies, it often really does make sense to keep quiet so as not to interfere with the lawyers’ work. However, on May 29, Svetlana Mesyats was charged under Part 4 of Article 159 of the Russian Criminal Code, fraud on an especially large scale, which carries a maximum penalty of up to ten years in prison. It now seems obvious that silence will not help Svetlana preserve her freedom in this political case disguised as an economic one.

MB: Yulia Sineokaya, in the interview she gave to T-invariant, said that at the moment this is an economic case, but that it will turn into a political one. I believe, however, that this case was political from the very beginning and remains so. It is a continuing attack on the Institute and on the liberal-minded colleagues who work there. As I wrote in my recent article, the regime’s task is to break the Institute, subordinate it, and once again turn philosophy into an ideology that legitimizes and serves the regime.

In this exchange from afar, there is in fact no contradiction, because in Russia political persecutions are often framed as ordinary criminal cases. The criminal cases against Navalny are an example. In recent years, however, investigators have often added political charges to such accusations during the trial itself. It is then that the case becomes political in form — but that means it was political from the start.

From outside the country, it is difficult to judge how reasonable it is to adhere to a strategy of silence. Yet there are examples in which intervention by the international academic community clearly did not harm the accused scholars. A vivid example is the case of Sergei Abramov, a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a leading specialist in supercomputers, who was arrested in 2023 for donations to the Anti-Corruption Foundation.

Several prominent members of the Russian Academy of Sciences spoke out in defense of the scholar, including academicians Mikhail Danilov and Yuri Popkov, as well as corresponding member Vladimir Arlazarov. The American Physical Society issued an open letter in support of Abramov. The informal “July 1” club of academicians also made a cautious statement.

The National Supercomputing Forum sent a collective petition by its participants in support of Sergei Abramov to a number of authorities, from the FSB investigative department to the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation. In the end, the two-year trial in Abramov’s case concluded with a fine of 150,000 rubles.

The case of Oleg Kabov in Novosibirsk is another example, one even more similar to Svetlana Mesyats’s case. Kabov, a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and head of the Laboratory for Intensification of Heat Transfer Processes at the Institute of Thermophysics of the Siberian Branch of the RAS, was accused of fraud on an especially large scale under the same Part 4 of Article 159 of the Russian Criminal Code. The scholar was accused of paying bonuses to employees, even though experts claimed that only 37.76 percent of the state assignment had been completed and that the results of the work contained no scientific novelty.

The American Physical Society again spoke out in support of Oleg Kabov, sending letters to RAS President Gennady Krasnikov and to Valery Falkov, Russia’s Minister of Science and Higher Education. In the end, the court limited itself to a suspended sentence without restriction of freedom and compensation for the seven-million-ruble “damage” to the Ministry of Education and Science.

Of course, in both of these cases, the relatively favorable outcome was, above all, the achievement of the lawyers. Still, we can see that publicity and support, including international support, did not get in the way.

[[socialnetworks]]

The author and signatories believe that Svetlana Mesyats’s arrest is the result of a years-long struggle for control over the IF RAS, one episode of which T-invariant has already covered. “Svetlana, who has never held senior administrative positions either in the Academy of Sciences or in other organizations, has become a victim of this continuing confrontation despite not having taken an active part in it herself. The accusation of misusing funds allocated for a scholarly project on ancient Greek philosophy appears completely implausible,” the open letter says.

Svetlana Mesyats is not the first scholar to become a victim of persecution after returning to Russia. Last year, the philosopher Nikolai Zyuzev, a specialist on Pitirim Sorokin, was charged with treason. Zyuzev, who had long lived in Canada and received Canadian citizenship back in 2008, was arrested during a visit to relatives. He remains under arrest.

The case of Svetlana Mesyats is an alarming signal for the academic community, confirming a pattern of persecution against scholars who come to Russia from abroad. Although the formal grounds for the arrest were economic claims, colleagues and experts regard the accusation as politically motivated. For that reason, in Svetlana Mesyats’s case, broad public attention may increase the chance of avoiding imprisonment.

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The post Does Silence Save? Philosophers Launch an Open Letter in Defense of Svetlana Mesyats appeared first on Т-инвариант / T-invariant.

For the second time this month, a scientist has been convicted of donating to the Anti-Corruption Foundation. However, the two trials unfolded in vastly different ways. Mathematician Andrey Dymov was sentenced to three and a half years in a penal colony after just two hearings. Meanwhile, the case of physicist Evgeny Onishchenko dragged on for a considerable time and concluded with a sentence that is quite lenient by today’s standards: a year and a half of forced labor. Preliminary evidence suggests that authorities have decided to strip defense attorneys of the time needed to defend those who donated to Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF).

Mathematician Andrey Dymov was tried for donating 3,500 rubles [less than $50 — T-invariant] to the ACF. The faculty member at the HSE University Department of Mathematics and the Steklov Mathematical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (MIAN) was found guilty of financing extremism (Part 1 of Article 282.3 of the Criminal Code) — the case docket is available on the official portal of Moscow courts.

“They took him away about a month ago, and it was quite a spectacle: masked men broke down the door to his apartment. Later, he was released for a while under travel restrictions,” a source familiar with Dymov’s prosecution told T-invariant.

The case was initiated on April 30, 2026, and the sentence was handed down as early as May 25, with the scientist taken into custody right in the courtroom. “We were in shock, we didn’t expect him to be arrested immediately,” Dymov’s colleagues shared with T-invariant.

“I take Andrey Viktorovich’s probability theory class and emailed him a question just this Monday, but he didn’t reply. And then I saw the news on Tuesday morning. I am shocked. What is even going on? It’s horrible,” comments a student from the HSE University Faculty of Mathematics.

“It’s a high-speed train, a total express. Unusually fast,” a scientist who previously went through a similar criminal prosecution told T-invariant. His own case, however, lasted 20 times longer.

Judging by the mathematician’s profile on the HSE University website, Dymov had been with the institution since 2015 and possessed all the hallmarks of a highly successful academic career. Since 2018, he regularly received bonuses for publishing in peer-reviewed international journals, as well as for papers in List A journals, and was repeatedly named one of the university’s best teachers (in 2022, 2024, and 2025).

In his profile on the Math-Net portal, he listed non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and the theory of dynamical systems as his primary research interests. Shortly before his arrest, Dymov had presented at several scientific conferences.

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Dymov made his last donation to the ACF back in 2021, one source told T-invariant. According to Mediazona, Dymov set up a recurring donation on August 5, 2021. His workplace provided positive character references. Mediazona also reports that Dymov had sent 5,000 rubles to the Pravmir fund [an Orthodox Christian charity — T-invariant] to help victims of a flood in Dagestan and 30,000 rubles to the “Children of Donbas” program.

Defense witnesses included Sergey Gorchinsky, Deputy Director for Research at MIAN, alongside several colleagues from the HSE University Faculty of Mathematics.

Dymov’s case moved so rapidly that his colleagues and department heads at HSE University and MIAN likely lacked the time to build a solid defense strategy or compile and submit a sufficient volume of character references in his favor. The case docket lists only two court sessions, one of which had to be postponed because witnesses failed to appear.

An analysis of cases involving donations to the ACF reveals that defendants usually face harsh sentences for modest contributions of just a few thousand rubles. At times, it appears as though there is an unwritten “rate”: one year in prison for every thousand rubles donated.

Yet there are exceptions. 54-year-old Evgeny Onishchenko, head of the Employees’ Union at the Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (FIAN), was sentenced to a year and a half of forced labor, despite the prosecution demanding four years in a penal colony. He was accused of transferring 5,000 rubles to the ACF in August 2021. Mediazona reported this on May 14.

[[socialnetworks]]

Both scientists — Andrey Dymov and Evgeny Onishchenko — did not exclusively donate to “extremists” (according to Mediazona, Onishchenko had also transferred money to the Russian military). Among the theories explaining why the sentences turned out so differently, there is one theory (currently being verified by the T-invariant editorial team) that due to the overwhelming volume of cases opened regarding ACF donations (according to unconfirmed reports, there are currently about 16,000 criminal cases in Russia related to ACF donations), an unwritten directive was issued to fast-track investigations and judicial proceedings. Therefore, criminal cases initiated in previous years regarding ACF donations were investigated and tried longer, giving defense attorneys and defendants more opportunities to mount a defense. Today, there is simply no time left for the defense.

The swift prosecution of Dymov is not the first instance of mathematicians from HSE University being targeted. In December 2025, a treason case was opened against Leonid Kats, a research assistant at the HSE University Faculty of Mathematics’ Research and Educational Laboratory of Complex Networks, Hypergraphs and Their Applications. However, as T-invariant revealed, the FSB had been tracking Kats for a long time, whereas Dymov’s conviction is just another of the hundreds of cases involving ACF donations (the exact numbers vary; Mediazona reports 225 known convictions).

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The post “It’s a high-speed train, an express”: Criminal case against HSE University mathematician Andrey Dymov lasted less than a month appeared first on Т-инвариант / T-invariant.

The Russian-American Science Association (RASA) expresses its strong support for Olga Orlova, Editor-in-Chief of T-invariant, who has been designated by the authorities of the Russian Federation as a “foreign agent.”

Olga Orlova is an outstanding science journalist and a Candidate of Philological Sciences, widely recognized for her work covering science, education, and public outreach in the Russian language. Her distinguished professional career includes serving as a science columnist for prominent Russian-language media outlets such as Polit.ru, Russkii Zhurnal, and Radio Svoboda. For many years, she hosted the popular science program Hamburg Account on Russian Public Television.

Following the start of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, Olga left the country and founded the international project T-invariant, which quickly became one of the leading Russian-language media platforms covering science and scientists during wartime. T-invariant publications are republished daily by dozens of Russian and international media outlets and serve as an important source of information about scientists in both Russian and global contexts.

The inclusion of Olga Orlova in the “foreign agents” registry continues the practice of political persecution by the Russian state targeting independent participants in the Russian-language discourse on science and education. This practice aims to undermine international scientific collaboration, isolate scientists within Russia, and exert pressure on members of the intellectual community abroad.

Previously, Russian authorities have designated a number of well-known American scholars of Russian and Soviet origin as “foreign agents,” and have also labeled several American and European universities and organizations—including RASA—as “undesirable organizations.”

As a U.S.-based non-profit organization, RASA considers such practices incompatible with the principles of freedom and directed against scientists and science journalists in the free world. We call on the U.S. government to take note of these actions and to provide necessary support to scholars and journalists facing political persecution.

We call on international media, the academic community, universities, and scientific organizations in the United States, Europe, and other democratic countries  to show solidarity  with Olga Orlova,  and with Russian-speaking scholars and journalists who have become targets of political pressure and intimidation.

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Targeting Aristotle: The “Philosophers’ Case” Started Over Economics but Will End in Politics

On May 19, at 6:00 a.m., masked security forces raided the homes of staff of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IP RAS). About ten people were taken in for questioning by the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. Several people, including the institute’s director, 87-year-old academician Abdusalam Guseynov, were interrogated until 11:00 p.m. The formal pretext for the assault on the country’s leading institute of philosophy involves alleged violations in implementing the project “Aristotle’s Heritage (Preparation of Aristotle’s Complete Works).” The project’s head, Svetlana Messiats, was placed under house arrest. For nearly four days, there has been no information regarding the whereabouts of several employees, including academician Andrey Smirnov, who headed IP RAS until 2021. According to T-invariant, the criminal case was initiated in March 2026, though the conflict surrounding the institute began as early as December 2021. T-invariant has repeatedly reported that right-wing conservatives — such as the philosopher Aleksandr Dugin and the Orthodox billionaire Konstantin Malofeev — attempted to seize control of IP RAS by pushing for the appointment of Anatoly Chernyaev as director. T-invariant discussed the details of this new “philosophers’ case” with Yulia Sineokaya, a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and former deputy director of IP RAS, who is now labeled a “foreign agent” in Russia and serves as president of the Independent Institute of Philosophy (IPHI) in Paris. In her view, unlike in 2021, no one will step in to prevent the destruction of the academic organization this time — and a case that currently appears to be financial on the surface will quickly turn political.

T-invariant: How and when did this philosophers’ case begin? What do you know about it?

Yulia Sineokaya. Photo: prof-ras.ru

Yulia Sineokaya: It all started on May 19. At six in the morning, they showed up at the homes of those involved in the Aristotle project and confiscated all their electronics: computers, laptops, and phones. They arrived at the institute around 10:00 a.m., took several people away for interrogation, and examined the equipment there as well. The project in question involves preparing a new edition of Aristotle’s complete works. Work on this project ran from 2018 to 2024, after which it was closed. Obviously, this is an immense undertaking, and no volumes have yet been published, but the project’s mandate did not promise immediate publication — only preparation. The scholars were translating texts and holding seminars to discuss the translations and materials. The work was progressing at a normal pace for an academic institution. This wasn’t a separate grant; scholars received their regular salaries and simply worked on this project as part of their regular state assignment. It was approved by both the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the Russian Academy of Sciences. Every report since 2018 was approved by officials, and everything was perfectly fine. They did not receive any extra money at all for this work.

Framing this as a financial crime is completely wrong. This is a political case. They were desperate to find something to tarnish the Institute’s reputation, found nothing, and so they latched onto Aristotle. If you look at the project reports, which are still publicly available on the Institute’s website, they explicitly state that existing Russian translations of Aristotle are outdated; he hasn’t been retranslated in a very long time, with the last collected works published back in the 1980s. The texts need to be translated anew into modern Russian. The team began working on this gradually. It is common knowledge that preparing annotated translations of classical philosophers takes decades. The fact that a complete set of collected works didn’t appear in six years is entirely normal.

T-i: Did it take that long during the Soviet era too?

YS: Yes. You can churn out sloppy work quickly, but our colleagues at the Institute aimed to produce rigorous scholarship.

Svetlana Messiats. Photo: website of the A.F. Losev Memorial Museum

BACKGROUND

Svetlana Messiats holds a Candidate of Sciences degree [PhD equivalent — T-invariant] in Philosophy. The topic of her dissertation research was “Aristotelian Physics in Neoplatonism: Proclus’ Elementa Physica.” She spent two days in a temporary detention facility before being placed under house arrest. According to data from the Moscow City Court, Messiats is charged with fraud committed by an organized group or on an particularly large scale (exceeding 1 million rubles [$14k] — Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code). The court hearing regarding her pre-trial restrictions took place on May 21. This charge carries a mandatory prison sentence of up to 10 years. Svetlana Messiats’ case is being handled by the same investigator who handled the cases against Sergey Zuev, the former rector of the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences [Shaninka — T-invariant], and Vladimir Mau, the former rector of RANEPA.

T-i: What is the role of former IP RAS employee Anatoly Chernyaev here? Some sources suggest that the case is directly linked to an informant report he filed.

YS: Chernyaev is an informant, that’s a fact. But I don’t think this current move was his own initiative. Several government agencies, including the Investigative Committee, have been targeting the Institute. Several audits took place after the invasion of Ukraine began. One of the investigation teams grew interested in the reports on this project. Although today’s case was officially opened in March, they have been fishing for a pretext since 2021. I believe that in the run-up to the war, they wanted to replace the leadership with figures who were more ideologically aligned, in order to prepare society for war. As for Chernyaev, there was an attempt to stage a hostile takeover of the Institute in December 2021. Konstantin Malofeev, Aleksandr Dugin, and Olga Zinovieva tried to seize the Institute and install Chernyaev as director, but he only lasted about a week. Chernyaev is just a pawn. He is not a clever man and decides nothing; he merely leaks information to them. In 2021–2022, we managed to defend the Institute. Now we are seeing the second attempt. It was Chernyaev who leaked the news about the raids and detentions. The very text he circulated was first published by Dugin on his Telegram channel. He wrote that Messiats was “behind bars,” even though Svetlana was already under house arrest at home.

T-i: What exactly is the formal grievance against IP RAS?

YS: The security forces went through the documentation they seized during their audits of the Institute and apparently found some sort of discrepancy. I don’t know exactly what happened, but judging by the materials on the Institute’s website, I assume the auditors noticed the mention of Parva naturalia — Aristotle’s collection of short treatises on natural philosophy, parts of which were translated into Russian. During the first phase of the project (2018–2021), the team managed to complete several translations. In the second phase, they planned to translate several more. However, they might not have explicitly specified in the reports that these were new texts, simply labeling the section Parva naturalia again. The auditors likely assumed this was duplicate reporting for the same work. My guess is that the authorities have two formal grievances — that the collected works have not been published and that the team reported twice for Parva naturalia — but I don’t know the precise details of the charges.

T-i: What can be said for certain about the roles of Malofeev, Dugin, and Zinovieva?

YS: Just look at the misleading, offensive articles they publish on the platforms of the Zinoviev Club and what is published on the Tsargrad TV channel and its website. For instance, Zinovieva held two press conferences at TASS in 2024. First, they dealt with those who were easier targets — those who had left the country. Now they have turned their attention to those who stayed behind.

PREVIOUSLY IN T-INVARIANT

Yulia Sineokaya: “The Longer the War Drags On, the More Difficult the Ultimate Reunion Will Be”

“Ghouls Always Fear the Light.” Who Wants to Declare an Entire Academic Institute an “Enemy of the People,” and Why?

T-i: We know that the director of IP RAS, academician Abdusalam Guseynov, who is 87 years old, was taken in for questioning. He is not giving statements to the media. Do you know how he endured the interrogation?

YS: I don’t know firsthand, but I imagine it must be incredibly difficult at his age. Masked men showed up at his home at six in the morning too, and he was the last one to be released — around 11:00 p.m. He and I haven’t been in touch since I resigned from the Institute. Word is that he is holding up with great dignity. The following day, he came to the institute and briefed staff on the situation.

T-i: Were all the detainees put through interrogations that long?

YS: Many were let go much sooner. Word is that Polina Gadzhikurbanova, the scientific secretary, was interrogated multiple times. In fact, the authorities brought the entire human resources department and every single philosopher involved in the Aristotle project led by Svetlana Messiats to the Investigative Committee. Anyone who had published anything or was listed in the reports was brought in.

T-i: What does the staff intend to do next?

YS: I am no longer on the staff, but obviously, their priority will be to protect their colleagues and clear the Institute’s reputation. Judging by the outcries from the far-right, it’s highly possible that more severe charges will emerge. The financial allegations are completely contrived, but it gave them a foot in the door, and from here they will try to manufacture something more serious. As past experience shows, they will be looking for a political angle.

T-i: What do you mean by a political angle? Chernyaev previously accused the Institute’s leadership of “LGBT propaganda,” destroying the institution of the family, and undermining “the very foundations of marital relations.” Will they be looking into gender studies and LGBTQ+ topics?

YS: No, that is completely absurd and misses the mark. It’s much more likely to be about opposition to the war.

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T-i: The post attributed to Chernyaev claims that academician Andrey Smirnov managed to flee the country.

YS: No one knows where he is or what has happened to him right now. Academician Smirnov was the director of IP RAS from 2016 until December 2021, during the period when the project was underway at the Institute. In late December 2021, an administrative coup took place at the Institute when Chernyaev was installed as director for a week. After that, on December 30, 2021, academician Guseynov took over as director; he currently serves as acting director.

T-i: How many employees are currently unreachable?

YS: Several people, including academician Smirnov. As far as I know, as of now, no one knows what has happened to them.

T-INVARIANT BACKGROUND

Who is behind the attack on IP RAS

Anatoly Chernyaev — the ousted acting director of the Institute.

Aleksandr Dugin — a notorious right-wing ideologue and director of the Ivan Ilyin Higher Political School at the Russian State University for the Humanities (RGGU).

Konstantin Malofeev — founder of the Tsargrad TV channel, ultra-Orthodox tycoon, and husband of Russia’s Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova.

Olga Zinovieva — widow of the philosopher and Soviet dissident Aleksandr Zinoviev, and head of the Aleksandr Zinoviev International Scientific and Educational Center at Moscow State University (MSU).

Context

In 2024, T-invariant reported that Olga Zinovieva had repeatedly made public calls to dismantle the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. On January 15, 2024, the TASS news agency hosted a press conference titled “The Sovereignty of Russian Philosophy: Westernizers vs. Slavophiles at the Institute of Philosophy RAS.” Among the participants was Anatoly Chernyaev, who served as a leading research fellow at the Institute from 2016 to 2023.

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Zinovieva’s rhetoric at the time was remarkably harsh even by current standards; she branded the Institute of Philosophy “a horrific abscess — a haven for scoundrels and traitors” and demanded that all employees be subjected to polygraph tests to check their loyalty. Other participants at the press conference echoed her sentiments. However, what mattered as much as what was said was where it took place. The TASS press center had become a platform closely aligned with the Kremlin’s official line long before the war. For this reason, many Russian philosophers and analysts viewed the airing of such fringe rhetoric in such an prominent venue as the opening salvo of a major state campaign against the Institute of Philosophy RAS.

The calls to dismantle the Institute began before the press conference and were triggered by the dismissal of Anatoly Chernyaev on December 21, 2023. On December 22, 2021, Chernyaev had been appointed acting director of IP RAS by order of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. Although that decision was revoked on December 28, he remained on the institute’s staff until his eventual firing in 2023. The institute later published an official clarification explaining his dismissal.

According to data from Novaya Gazeta Europe, the May 19 raids also targeted the homes of:

The Media Campaign Against the Institute

Chernyaev’s short-lived appointment had been preceded by a targeted smear campaign against several IP RAS scholars, orchestrated by media outlets controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin and Konstantin Malofeev’s Tsargrad TV. Following the failed leadership transition, the campaign only intensified. The nationalist newspaper Zavtra also joined the fray, claiming that Chernyaev’s conflict with the staff was political: “Chernyaev has repeatedly criticized the stance of IP RAS, many of whose employees have not only failed to support the special military operation but have also established Russophobic centers abroad.” Around the same time, Sergey Mironov, leader of the A Just Russia party, announced he would petition Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov and Minister of Science and Higher Education Valery Falkov to investigate the legality of Chernyaev’s dismissal.

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