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.

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

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.

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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.

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.”

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.”

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 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).

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.”

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.”

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.

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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.

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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.

“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.”

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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.

“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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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).

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.”

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.

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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.

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: 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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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 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: 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.

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.

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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.

[[socialnetworks]]

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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In May 2026, a court handed down sentences to physicists Valery Zvegintsev and Vladislav Galkin. This marked the end of the hypersonic scientists case — the largest criminal prosecution of researchers in modern Russia. Over the course of 11 years, 11 physicists fell victim to the security services. Three of them died while under investigation, and five essentially received death sentences. T-invariant reviews the outcome of the hypersonic scientists case and examines what convicted researchers must do to demonstrate their utility to a state that hands them prison terms incompatible with life. The scientists’ idea of reviving the sharashkas [Soviet prison laboratories — T-invariant] has already been time-tested. However, there are also proposals tailored to today’s needs — such as an “under-barrel grenade launcher munition for destroying unmanned aerial vehicles” (Zvegintsev was listed on a patent with this title in November 2025, by which time he had been under investigation for over two years). Meanwhile, young scientists who had planned to build their professional careers in hypersonic research are not only leaving the field but abandoning science altogether.

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The hypersonic case began with a record and ended with one as well. In May 2015, security forces arrested a scientist who set a record as the oldest person charged with high treason. Vladimir Lapygin of the Central Research Institute of Machine Building (TsNIIMash) was 75 years old at the time of his arrest and 79 when he was granted parole. Over the next 11 years, the intelligence services seemed to develop a taste for it. According to human rights advocate and founder of the First Department project Ivan Pavlov, the targets were deliberately chosen to be “easy”: elderly scientists who could be pressured with minimal effort.

On May 5, 2026, that record was significantly broken — the court sentenced the oldest scientist convicted of high treason in Russian history — 82-year-old Valery Zvegintsev. Assuming Zvegintsev survives his 12.5-year term, he will be released at age 93 (taking into account that three years under house arrest count as 1.5 years in prison). This is effectively a death sentence, much like the case of Zvegintsev’s closest institute colleague, Anatoly Maslov, who faces imprisonment until the age of 90.

Vladimir Lapygin headed the aerogasdynamics research center at TsNIIMash (the primary research institute of Roscosmos) and taught at Bauman Moscow State Technical University. When Lapygin was arrested, the university’s then rector Anatoly Aleksandrov claimed the reason involved “certain issues during joint projects with China.” Media outlets reported Lapygin’s arrest only two months later. The scientist was placed under house arrest, a year later, in the fall of 2016, he was transferred to Lefortovo detention center, then received a seven-year sentence and was sent to a penal colony in the Tver region. Lapygin was released on parole in 2020. For the past few years he has been following the verdicts of his colleagues, most of whom he has known personally for decades, occasionally commenting on their criminal cases in the media.

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While still in the detention center, Lapygin wrote a 32-page text titled “How I Became a Chinese Spy.” It begins as follows: “I, Vladimir Ivanovich Lapygin, born in 1940, worked at FSUE TsNIIMash for 46 years and participated in the creation of all launch vehicles, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and re-entry spacecraft developed in the USSR and Russia after 1970.” Case details and other excerpts from this text can be found in a report by human rights defender Zoya Svetova.

Sentences of the Hypersonic Scientists

Following Lapygin’s case, 10 more physicists received sentences under the high treason statute. Seven of them were elderly at the time of their arrest (aged 63 to 79).

Viktor Kudryavtsev, deceased

On July 20, 2018, the FSB arrested 74-year-old TsNIIMash employee Viktor Kudryavtsev on suspicion of high treason. According to the security services, he had transmitted classified information to the Belgian von Kármán Institute for Fluid Dynamics.

After a broad public campaign, the preventive measure was changed from custody to a written undertaking not to leave the area, and the investigation was suspended for medical reasons. In 2021, Kudryavtsev died from complications following cancer treatment (aggravated by the one year and two months he spent in pre-trial detention).

Roman Kovalev, deceased

In June 2019, 56-year-old Roman Kovalev was arrested — deputy head of the Department of Spacecraft at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) and head of the Center for Heat Transfer and Aerogas Dynamics at TsNIIMash, a student of Kudryavtsev.

In June 2020, Moscow City Court sentenced Kovalev to seven years in a maximum-security colony. In April 2022, the scientist was released from serving his sentence on medical grounds. Kovalev had terminal cancer and died two weeks after his release.

Anatoly Gubanov, 12-year sentence

In December 2020, the head of the Aircraft and Rocket Aerodynamics Department at the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (part of the Zhukovsky National Research Center), 63-year-old MIPT Associate Professor Anatoly Gubanov was arrested. The scientist fully admitted his guilt and requested leniency. Defense Attorney Olga Dinze reported that Gubanov had been subjected to severe psychological pressure during the pre-trial stage. In October 2023, the court sentenced him to 12 years in a maximum-security colony.

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Valery Golubkin, 12-year sentence

On the day of Gubanov’s arrest, authorities conducted a search at the home of his subordinate, MIPT associate professor and TsAGI researcher 68-year-old Valery Golubkin. In a letter from the detention center, Golubkin reported that his arrest was linked to the testimony of his supervisor, who had made a deal with the investigation. On June 26, 2023, the Moscow City Court sentenced Golubkin to 12 years in a maximum-security colony. The scientist pleaded not guilty.

Anatoly Maslov, 14-year sentence (start of the “Novosibirsk” case)

In late June 2022, the FSB arrested 75-year-old chief researcher at the Khristianovich Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITAM SB RAS), professor at NSU and NSTU Anatoly Maslov. This marked the beginning of the second, Novosibirsk wave of the hypersonic case. On May 21, 2024, Maslov was sentenced to 14 years. The severity of the sentence was attributed to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent tightening of high treason legislation — as reported by T-invariant. Two months prior to the verdict, Maslov suffered a heart attack while in detention.

Dmitry Kolker, deceased

On June 30, 2022, the FSB arrested 54-year-old researcher at the Institute of Laser Physics SB RAS and Novosibirsk State University Dmitry Kolker on suspicion of high treason. The security services removed the scientist directly from his hospital bed (he had stage IV pancreatic cancer) and transferred him to Lefortovo. On July 2, 2022, Kolker was admitted at Moscow City Clinical Hospital No. 29, and the next day his relatives were informed of his death.

T-INVARIANT FACT SHEET

Dmitry Kolker was a specialist in laser physics, non-linear optics, and spectroscopy. As previously reported by T-invariant, Kolker had no publicly available joint papers with physicists from ITAM, and his recent scientific works were not related to hypersonic research. However, he had another affiliation with the organization Special Technologies LLC [заархивировано — T-invariant], whose main activity is “the development of mid-IR laser sources for guidance and countermeasure systems.” This affiliation was indicated in Kolker’s 2012 publication — exactly at the time when work was underway on an EU Framework Programme project. It is unclear whether Kolker’s work at that time overlapped with that of his ITAM colleagues. However, publications from the same period show that increasing laser frequencies for hypersonic experiments was of interest to them.

Aleksandr Shiplyuk, 15-year sentence

On August 5, 2022, Maslov’s colleague — a 55-year-old ITAM Director Aleksandr Shiplyuk — was arrested and also transferred to Lefortovo prison. At the institute, Shiplyuk headed the “Hypersonic Technologies” laboratory. The prosecution requested the maximum possible sentence of 20 years. On September 3, 2024, Shiplyuk was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Valery Zvegintsev, 12.5-year sentence

The third ITAM researcher to be arrested by the FSB (in April 2023) was 79-year-old Valery Zvegintsev. Only after that did the institute’s staff respond publicly — an open letter in support of the scientists was published on the institute’s website:

“In this situation, we do not only fear for the future of our colleagues. We simply do not understand how to continue doing our job. On the one hand, the primary quality metric of our work under state contracts and projects funded by Russian state foundations and agencies is the degree to which our findings are presented to the broader scientific community, including scientific publications and conference presentations. On the other hand, we see that any paper or presentation can lead to high treason charges. What we are awarded for today and held up as an example to others becomes the basis for criminal prosecution tomorrow.”

The letter was later removed from the ITAM website; it is available in the T-invariant Telegram channel. On May 5, 2026, Valery Zvegintsev was sentenced to 12.5 years in prison.

Vladislav Galkin, 12.5-year sentence

In December 2023, it became known that the Sovetsky District Court in Novosibirsk had arrested 68-year-old Vladislav Galkin, Associate Professor at Tomsk Polytechnic University and a frequent co-author of Valery Zvegintsev and Aleksandr Shiplyuk. He received the same sentence as Zvegintsev on the same day — May 5, 2026.

Sharashkas 2.0 and the Grenade-Launcher Munition

Interestingly, both Zvegintsev and Shiplyuk continued to publish scientific papers even after the criminal cases had been opened and they were arrested. T-invariant drew attention to an unusual 2025 patent that lists Valery Zvegintsev: “Under-Barrel Grenade-Launcher Munition for Destroying Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.” The main authors are Zvegintsev’s colleagues from NSTU. This patent clearly stands out among his usual research areas and reflects work on a highly relevant current priorities.

Aleksandr Shiplyuk — the youngest of those imprisoned hypersonic scientists — is fighting most actively for his life and freedom. His case was tried in closed doors without observers or journalists, and how the prosecution proved the scientist’s guilt is unknown. The judge ordered the return of US dollars, Chinese yuan, and euros seized from him during the investigation. The scientist spent over two years in Lefortovo awaiting his verdict. His family attended the reading of the court’s final ruling. The physicist’s research was focused on the experimental aerothermodynamics of hypersonic flows. “Judging by Shiplyuk’s most cited works (and he has papers in leading international journals), this is entirely fundamental science that has no direct connection to specific aircraft: boundary layer stability, the effect of surface coatings, and minor additives. Another matter is that anything related to hypersonics has long since become a minefield in Russia,” Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Andrey Tsaturyan explained to T-invariant.

The security services failed to “break” Maslov, Shiplyuk, or (as would become clear in 2026) Zvegintsev. Their colleagues from ITAM maintain their innocence and refuse to cooperate with investigators. In contrast, their St. Petersburg colleague, Aleksandr Kuranov, cooperated with the investigation, testified against at least Maslov, and received a seven-year sentence (despite the statutory minimum for high treason being 12 years). According to T-invariant‘s data, Kuranov also testified against Shiplyuk as part of the same pre-trial plea bargain.

“The hypersonic horror continues. It seems FSB investigators have struck gold (in terms of stars on their epaulets) and are diligently mining it. The alchemists’ work of extracting stars out of scientists is an easy job that has been bearing fruit for a decade now, counting from the arrest of Vladimir Lapygin. Back then, members of the Academy of Sciences and many others stood up for him en masse. Today, we are all rather surprised that the staff of the Khristianovich Institute in Novosibirsk were not afraid to stand up for Aleksandr Shiplyuk and his two colleagues,” Andrey Tsaturyan said in the same interview.

As T-invariant has learned, Aleksandr Shiplyuk has been appealing to various authorities with proposals to establish “certain classified research centers, a sort of Soviet-era sharashka.” This came to light through written responses to questions sent to the T-invariant editorial office by Shiplyuk’s daughter, Viktoria.

— What can you tell us about your father’s well-being and emotional state? Which penal colony is he in, and what are his detention conditions?

— Aleksandr Nikolayevich is in the Komi Republic, in the city of Syktyvkar, at Penal Colony No. 25, thousands of kilometers away from home. We have repeatedly petitioned the Federal Penitentiary Service to transfer him closer to home (a right he is legally entitled to), but we received denials. As for his well-being and emotional state — our father is a strong and courageous man; he tries to keep his spirits up and avoid despondency. He works in the sewing facility. A major issue is the total lack of access to specialized or even popular science literature, which is just as vital to him as his day-to-day living conditions.

— How do you evaluate the role of the ITAM staff in supporting your father and other convicted researchers from the institute?

— We are profoundly grateful to the Institute’s leadership and staff for their emotional and financial support. Their kindness is felt at every level, even though their options are limited. For instance, they organize birthday and New Year card collections for the imprisoned staff. Aleksandr Nikolayevich receives numerous letters from the institute, and they help us put together food parcels, among many other things. I want to add that this extends beyond the institute — it is clear that respect, sympathy, and even admiration for our father are only growing. His authority as a scientist, administrator, and human being is stronger than ever. Naturally, this is incredibly important both for him and for us, his family.

— We know about ITAM’s open letter, but were there any other actions taken by scientific leadership at any level to defend the scientists?

— Aleksandr Nikolayevich has repeatedly written appeals to various authorities, offering to apply his knowledge, skills, and qualifications in his relevant field (the sewing facility leaves no room for that). Similar proposals were put forward by several leading experts of the Russian Academy of Sciences regarding Aleksandr Nikolayevich and other experts. The idea of creating classified research centers, a sort of Soviet-era sharashka, seems obvious, but as far as we can see, it has not been implemented in any way.

The desire to revive the sharashkas does surface periodically — both in connection with the arrests of scientists and, for instance, with the sweeping criminal prosecution of the founders of Russia’s supercomputer industry (see T-invariant articles “Sanity Check: How and Why Security Forces Destroyed Russia’s Supercomputer Industry” and “Russian Security Services Intimidate to the Point of Self-Censorship”). However, this idea often meets with skepticism among researchers.

“It is possible, though not simple, to understand why an innocently convicted corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who ran a prestigious Siberian institute before turning 50 and who has likely read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s In the First Circle, would prefer a sharashka over a sewing shop. I do not believe the revival of sharashkas is being seriously considered at the top; however, I cannot rule out that the idea occurred to some of the ‘historical reenactors’ who now find themselves in power,” Andrey Tsaturyan notes.

Some of Shiplyuk’s colleagues view the idea with understanding but little enthusiasm. An ITAM researcher, speaking to T-invariant on the condition of anonymity, believes that the revival of sharashkas is more of a grassroots initiative rather than a top-down demand from the state or security services.

“It seems that in the Soviet era, sharashkas served to shield scientists in critical fields from unwanted contact. The KGB aimed to prevent information leaks, conducting preventive measures and acting preemptively. Today, the FSB does not operate to prevent the disclosure of classified data; rather, it meets its KPIs by presenting arrested scientists as part of some epochal investigation. The state is not particularly concerned with retaining brains, so there is no demand for these Sharashkas 2.0, which require substantial funding. Yet Aleksandr Nikolayevich’s position is understandable. The brain is like a muscle — it needs exercise. Instead of sewing mittens, he could be bringing far greater utility,” the physicist reflects.

Whether his colleagues Maslov and Zvegintsev share Shiplyuk’s ideas remains unknown. However, according to Ivan Pavlov, Zvegintsev’s sentence is far from the harshest possible. “I consider this a good job by the defense. Nowadays, 15 years (like Shiplyuk’s sentence) is the norm, while 12.5 years is a stroke of luck,” Pavlov says.

The human rights advocate also highlights another unusual detail. “What is astonishing about Zvegintsev’s and Galkin’s cases is that they remained under house arrest during the trial, and even more surprisingly, they stayed under house arrest after receiving heavy prison sentences. Usually, defendants are taken into custody right in the courtroom following such verdicts. I believe the authorities are starting to wonder: is this moving in the right direction? Zvegintsev is 82 years old; he might not survive prisoner transit and a penal colony, and the security services cannot ignore this. Scientists — people who faithfully served the regime and forged this defensive shield — got caught in the crossfire. The regime is beginning to question: are we prosecuting the right people, are we making enemies out of the wrong crowd? The problem is that the machine (both propaganda and security) has been set in motion, and stopping it is no easy task. It mows down its own as well. Now it has hit ideologically aligned individuals — a group to which I count the scientists who continue to forge this shield,” Pavlov says.

“The Next Generation of Cruise Missiles”

The subject of combat missiles, including those incorporating hypersonic technologies, remains highly significant for the Kremlin. From May 19 to 21, 2026, drill exercises are taking place (the largest in post-Soviet history, according to the independent outlet Agentsvo) to practice the preparation and deployment of nuclear forces under the threat of aggression, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced. Launches of ballistic and cruise missiles are scheduled. Prior to this, on May 12, 2026, Putin was briefed on the successful test of the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, long referred to in Russian propaganda as a “Doomsday weapon.” It is designed as a silo-based missile capable of carrying Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles. On November 3, 2025, the Kremlin presented awards to the developers of the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile of global range and the Poseidon unmanned underwater vehicle. At the time, official statements explicitly emphasized the role of design bureaus, industrial enterprises, research centers, workers, engineers, and scientists involved in the project, noting that they are collectively developing “the next generation of nuclear-powered cruise missiles, which will eventually become hypersonic.”

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“I fear that hypersonic technologies will suffer the same fate as sparrows in Mao Zedong’s China,” an ITAM scientist worries. This refers to the massive campaign against agricultural pests organized during China’s Great Leap Forward (1958–1961), which led to a population explosion of caterpillars and locusts devouring crops because a critical natural regulator had been removed from the ecosystem. Harvests plummeted, a severe famine ensued, and at least two million people perished.

As T-invariant has learned, immediately following the detention of the three leading ITAM scientists, an initiative group of young researchers from institutes in the Novosibirsk Akademgorodok met with the regional FSB directorate. The meeting was arranged with the assistance of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The researchers sought to clarify the boundaries within which they could safely work to avoid the fate of those accused of high treason. However, they received no clear answers or guidelines, hearing instead something along the lines of: “Just work well and don’t do anything bad.”

Even now, young scientists who intended to build their professional careers in hypersonic research are not only leaving the field but abandoning science altogether. “I personally know three young colleagues who left the institute following the criminal cases against their senior colleagues at ITAM. In all likelihood, there are far more,” a T-invariant source at the institute states. Aleksandr Shiplyuk’s son, who began his career at ITAM, has also transitioned to the IT sector.

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The post The Old to Prison, the Young to the Exit: The Final Verdict in the Hypersonic Scientists Case appeared first on Т-инвариант / T-invariant.

Summary

• The war in Ukraine will eventually end, but probably in a ceasefire that leaves Russia, Europe and America locked in open-ended, low-grade, chaotic confrontation.
• Europe has the greatest stake. It is closest to the conflict and would carry much of the cost should it escalate. America will still have an interest in maintaining stability, but other, more pressing priorities will likely come first.
• American and European policymakers should keep that confrontation stable enough to prevent it from tipping into another war. They should aim for a state of “managed disorder”, where rivalry continues but becomes less likely to escalate.
• They can achieve managed disorder through a staged framework that combines credible deterrence, compartmentalised cooperation and conditional, reversible incentives.
• To succeed, the framework will need to accommodate divisions between America and Europe, and within Europe itself. It will also need to give Ukraine, Russia, China and other players in the region clear incentives to comply with the framework, and clear costs for defecting from it.

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After the ceasefire

It is 2028. The war in Ukraine ended in an uneasy ceasefire eighteen months ago. Russian forces remain in occupied territories, and Ukrainian forces hold defensive positions, armed with American weapons and European money. The ceasefire talks failed to establish either a buffer zone or an observer mission because the parties could not agree on the terms. Europeans have given vaguely formulated “security guarantees” with an ill-defined American backstop, but NATO has no clear presence near the contact line.

One morning, Ukrainian intelligence detects Russian armoured movements towards the ceasefire line. The government in Kyiv claims Russia is preparing for invasion; officials in Moscow insist it is routine repositioning. Within 48 hours, shooting starts and each side blames the other. Russian forces cross the ceasefire line at three points. Calls go out to European capitals and Washington, but no one agrees on what the intelligence shows. The security guarantors reach for the ceasefire documents and find they say different things depending on who is reading them.

Nobody knows what to do—whether NATO should respond militarily, whether European states should act alone, or whether America, focused since 2027 on a series of interventions in Latin America, should engage at all. Nobody has agreed what the rules are, what triggers intervention, what constitutes a proportionate response or who decides.

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The outcome of this scenario is chaos and escalation driven by uncertainty and domestic political pressure. These are the conditions that precede catastrophic wars. The goal of this paper is to help prevent that scenario or, more precisely, to ensure clear answers exist before the shooting starts. The post-war environment in Europe will be unstable in the near term and perhaps for a generation or more because the war will almost certainly end without a genuine peace settlement that resolves key questions of sovereignty, security, power or identity. The wounds are too deep and the sides too evenly matched to agree on a comprehensive peace.

This is not an unusual situation after inconclusive wars. To adapt the historian Michael Howard’s insight, the end of fighting does not itself create peace. Between war and peace lies a large and dangerous space of armistices, frozen conflicts and unstable political settlements. The task for American and European policymakers will be to build enough structure around that dangerous space to prevent it from producing the next war.

America and Europe can do this by transitioning from chaotic confrontation with Russia to “managed disorder”: a state in which rivalry remains, but becomes less vulnerable to accident, panic and domestic political pressure.

To achieve this state of managed disorder, this paper proposes a staged framework built on verification, certification and conditional incentives. The framework would temporarily freeze facts on the ground, but not legitimise them, and give the main actors reason to adhere to agreements. This would help American and European policymakers maintain stability in Europe, defend Ukraine and deter further revisionism while reducing the risk of escalation. It would also give Russia a sense of safety and a seat at the table to discuss European security. Hostility would persist but it would be channelled into rules, limitations and predictable behaviour.

Managed disorder does not imply legitimising territorial conquest or rewarding aggression. It also falls well short of a durable settlement. Importantly, it does not require “trust”, a commodity that is generally lacking in international affairs and particularly in relations with Russia.

However, building such a system will be politically hard. Russia may prefer chaos to managed disorder. Ukraine may reject any arrangement that appears to freeze partition. European states will disagree over deterrence, sanctions, reconstruction, enlargement and engagement with Moscow, and the US may remain indispensable but unreliable. But these are not objections to managed disorder; they are the reasons it is needed. Its purpose is precisely to manage these political pressures through rules, incentives and procedures before a crisis makes improvisation the only option.

This paper traces the hard road to the modest achievement of managed disorder. It first outlines the sources of disorder after the war in Ukraine and why the key players might find managed disorder preferable to the alternatives. It then describes a staged plan to get from a ceasefire in Ukraine to a hopeful but realistic stability. The plan accepts that the future is contingent and will certainly surprise us. It therefore seeks to adapt to circumstances even as it keeps in mind where we want to go and what we want to avoid.  

The sources of post-war disorder

The war in Ukraine is likely to leave relations between Russia, Europe and the United States in significant disorder. A ceasefire, armistice or exhausted pause in the fighting would stop large-scale violence but not settle the question of sovereignty over contested territories. Russian forces will probably remain on Ukrainian territory while Ukraine continues to assert its territorial integrity. Europe will still face a revisionist Russia on its borders and the United States will still have to decide how much of European security it intends to underwrite.

This state of affairs will be the first source of disorder. The ceasefire will probably not resolve any of the geopolitical ambiguity. It will also likely fail to clarify what counts as a violation or establish who monitors the ceasefire, who enforces it and who decides when one side has broken it. This is the central danger of the post-war moment. Although major combat may be absent, every movement of forces, artillery exchange, drone incident, act of sabotage and political crisis in Kyiv or Moscow could result in renewed escalation.

The second source of disorder lie within the West itself. America and Europe will not enter this period as a single strategic actor, even though they will retain important common interests—both will want to prevent a wider war, avoid nuclear escalation and stop Russia from conquering Ukraine outright. For the US, Russia will remain a nuclear power and a disruptive actor, but no longer the organising threat of American strategy. Washington will increasingly focus on China, the Western Hemisphere and the fiscal costs of global leadership. Europe will have no such luxury. Russia will stay a nearby military threat, and Ukraine’s reconstruction will become a European problem. Any failure of deterrence will unfold on Europe’s doorstep.

This divergence means that the Atlantic alliance will become less automatic, even if it does not collapse. The US may remain essential for nuclear deterrence, intelligence, sanctions enforcement and crisis diplomacy with Moscow, but it may also grow less willing to sustain Ukraine’s conventional defence, less patient with European divisions and more tempted by bilateral understandings with Russia that promise quick gains or theatrical success. Europe will fear both American abandonment and American freelancing. It will need Washington to work towards managed disorder, but will no longer be able to count on it to take the lead.

Europe will also generate disorder of its own. The war has produced a rhetorical consensus—Ukraine must survive and Europe must do more for its own defence—that hides deep disagreements. Poland, Sweden and other eastern and northern states will judge any post-war arrangement through the lens of deterrence, vulnerability and Russian deception. Spain, Italy and others will place more weight on stability, fiscal pressures and eventual economic normalisation with Russia. Some governments, such as those in the Baltics, will want to accelerate Ukraine’s integration into the EU and the European defence economy. Yet others, like Poland, will worry that Ukraine’s accession—and its agricultural exports, corruption, security needs—could transform the bloc in ways it cannot control.

These divisions will shape security policy and domestic debates. Russia will try to exploit them. Any post-war arrangement must therefore manage Europe as much as it manages Russia. It must prevent European disunity from becoming an instrument of Russian strategy.

Ukraine itself will form a further source of disorder. It will depend on American and European weapons and money for years after the fighting stops—creating leverage but also resentment. If Ukraine concludes that a post-war order locks in partition while offering only vague promises of future integration, it may resist the whole idea. If Europe concludes that Ukraine is using its support to pursue military aims that Europe cannot sustain, European commitment may fracture. This arrangement, therefore, cannot simply constrain Ukraine. It must give Ukraine a visible future: a defensible state, deepening European integration, reconstruction and a credible non-military path to eventual territorial restoration.

Russia will create the most obvious source of disorder, but not necessarily through renewed invasion. Moscow may accept a ceasefire because it believes time is on its side. It may calculate that Ukraine will become politically divided, that European publics will tire, that American attention will wander and that sanctions will erode. It may use the pause in fighting to rebuild forces, probe American and European resolve, influence European politics and normalise its gains—all while formally conceding nothing. A ceasefire may therefore mark not the end of Russian revisionism, but its movement into a different register.

American and European policymakers should not assume Russia fears disorder the way they do. Disorder may serve Russian purposes. Ambiguity can help Moscow test thresholds. For instance, hybrid operations impose costs on the West while preserving deniability. Political interference can weaken European unity without triggering a military response. For America and Europe, deterring a second invasion of Ukraine may well be the easier task; the harder one will be to curb Russia’s appetite for exploiting turbulence around Europe’s borders.

The post-war order will also face regional spillover. Ukraine will remain the epicentre of the confrontation with Russia, but Moldova, the Black Sea and the Arctic could face intensified coercion too. Africa and the Middle East may offer Russia opportunities to punish Europe indirectly through migration, mercenary activity, energy disruption or political leverage. A system that manages only the line of contact in Ukraine will not contain all of the disorder stemming from the conflict.

China will add another layer of complexity. Its economic weight can cushion Russia from Western pressure, but Beijing’s interest in stability also constrains Moscow’s options.

The final source of disorder will come from the absence of accepted leaders. During the cold war, the US claimed and largely exercised the role of Western leader. That world will not return. Europe cannot yet replace America: the EU cannot speak with the speed or unity of a state. NATO can deter, but it cannot resolve every political dispute a bad ceasefire creates. Individual European leaders may speak to officials in Moscow, Washington or Kyiv, but none can credibly represent the whole continent. In that vacuum, others will try to manage the disorder: private envoys, Gulf intermediaries, business figures, transactional American negotiators or ad hoc coalitions formed in crisis. Without rules, the system will fill with middlemen.

These sources of disorder will keep producing flashpoints that risk a return to war. Maintaining stability in post-conflict Europe will take conscious, active management. A comprehensive settlement to the Russia question remains out of reach for now, so the aim should be to prevent a bad and incomplete peace from decaying into a more dangerous confrontation.

The incentives that will shape a settlement

Managed disorder will hold together only as long as its incentives do. America and Europe, Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and China each bring different interests, so the system of managed disorder must align incompatible motives around a limited common interest: avoiding a return to uncontrolled war.

Ukraine is the hinge

Stabilising and strengthening Ukraine is the foundation of the entire system. For that, Ukraine must want to comply with it rather than be forced to because it needs American and European money and weapons to rebuild itself and deter Russia. The benefits need to be tangible and politically defensible at home. Therefore, in addition to sustained military aid, joint defence production and reconstruction funding, a stable system must offer Ukraine a path into the EU and a credible route to recovering lost territory without renewed fighting. Ukraine will not abide by the rules of managed disorder if it experiences it only as a restraint on its actions rather than as a route to a stronger Ukrainian state.

The main part of that route goes through EU membership. Europe should tie the pace of Ukraine’s accession—market access, regulatory alignment, reconstruction funding—to its conduct within this system. Cooperation opens the door; obstruction closes it. No Ukrainian government can afford to turn its back on a European future.

That pull is real, but it has limits. EU membership is economic and political; the bloc’s mutual-assistance clause, Article 42.7, carries none of NATO’s integrated command structure or binding defence commitments. However, Ukrainian officials under domestic pressure may present accession as delivering that protection anyway, leaving the public expecting a NATO-style military response that Article 42.7 was never built to provide. Any actual security guarantee will need its own separate instrument with defined triggers, scope and decision-making process.

In any case, Ukraine will benefit more from sustained American and European military aid, joint defence production and a homegrown arms industry than from any ambiguous or unenforceable security guarantee. The country will need artillery, air defence, drones and the factories to build them for decades to come. But offensive or long-range systems—capable of striking deep into Russian territory—should come from Western allies only if Russia attacks again, keeping the line between defending Ukraine and arming it for renewed war visible to Moscow and to sceptical Western publics.

Ukraine’s own expanding arms industry will blur that line. Washington and European capitals can condition their weapons transfers, but they cannot control what Ukraine builds. To manage disorder, therefore, they should tie reconstruction, defence-industrial cooperation and military assistance to rules about defensive posture and escalation.

The territorial question needs careful handling. A settlement must preserve Ukraine’s claim to the occupied lands—legally, politically and morally. Refusing to recognise Russia’s conquests should remain a core principle. But America and Europe must be honest too: Ukraine cannot retake its territory by force. Restoration will come through Ukrainian resilience, European integration, legal non-recognition, diplomacy and long-term shifts in the balance of power—not a bet on a better war later. Ukraine can keep hoping for its territory back without believing that another war is the way to get it.

Coalition dynamics will shape compliance with managed disorder too. Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia—Ukraine’s strongest backers—will have to be part of any difficult trade-offs. If these countries can support a compromise, Ukrainian leaders can argue that managed disorder strengthens Ukraine rather than abandons it, and western European governments can show that restraint does not mean appeasement. If they oppose it, critics in Kyiv and across Europe will portray the arrangement as a deal made over Ukraine’s head and at the expense of Europe’s most vulnerable states. In that case, neither Ukrainian nor European leaders could easily sell compliance at home.

In the end, Western policymakers must design Ukraine’s decision space, not just hope it will make the right decisions. They must show that cooperation delivers EU integration, reconstruction, military assistance, long-term deterrence and a path to restoring territory by weakening Russia over time—West Germany pulled off exactly that with the East, decades later. Obstruction delivers economic stagnation, dwindling aid, isolation and an indefinite war footing with nothing to show for it. The goal is to make cooperation the rational, defensible choice for any government in Kyiv.

Russia’s calculations

This paper does not assume that Moscow wants peace or even managed disorder. The only assumption is that a ceasefire would reveal some Russian interest in pausing large-scale war. The task is to exploit that pause to make restraint more attractive to Moscow than going back to war.

The logic is structured choice. Russia should know exactly what it gets for playing by the rules and what it loses for breaking them. If Russia complies, the rewards should be tangible—for instance, sanctions relief is immediate but reversible. If Russia violates the rules, the costs should be just as immediate—for example, suspended sanctions snap back automatically.

Military realities can reinforce this logic. The war has cost Russia dearly in soldiers, equipment, ammunition and political attention. Yet Russian weakness should not lull the US and Europe into assuming that Moscow’s appetite for aggression has diminished. Russia’s calculation will change only if Ukraine, armed by Europe, can defend itself. A second full-scale invasion would offer no easy win. Russia would confront a better-prepared Ukraine, a more fortified eastern flank and a Western sanctions system built to escalate rather than merely restore previous penalties.

Economic incentives can also matter, though they will not by themselves drive Russian policy. The Kremlin has shown it will sacrifice prosperity for war and ideology. But Russians value access to markets, targeted relief and the ability to travel, which shape interests inside the system, especially once the immediate demands of wartime mobilisation recede. Sanctions can thus create constituencies for restraint. Relief should remain selective, staged and reversible. It should reward observable behaviour, not political promises. And it should be designed so that renewed escalation hurts the specific people and networks that benefit from playing along.

None of this guarantees Russian cooperation. Moscow may still conclude that exploitable disorder serves it better than regulated confrontation, particularly if it can strike a bilateral understanding with Washington over Europe’s head. Western policymakers should therefore expect Russian violations and aim to narrow Russia’s room to exploit ambiguity.

Moscow does not need to like managed disorder to live with it. It only needs to face a world in which restraint brings some gains and cheating brings higher costs. Of course, the Russian government has not always responded to such incentives. No amount of pressure guarantees good behaviour. All any arrangement can do is make every alternative worse.

Turkey as a partner

Turkey belongs in this system because the Black Sea cannot be managed without it. Ankara controls access to the Black Sea through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles Straits, has direct interests in maritime security and commerce, and has maintained working channels with both Russia and Ukraine throughout the war. Any post-war arrangement that touches naval access, grain routes, energy transport, Russian warship movements, or the security of Ukraine’s southern coast will require Turkish participation. Ankara can either reinforce the framework or complicate it. Managed disorder should therefore treat Turkey as a necessary regional partner.

China in the background

The other major power shaping Russia’s future options is China. The two are not formal allies, but their partnership is more than a marriage of convenience. Russia needs China for markets, technology, diplomatic cover and long-term economic resilience. Moscow’s options depend as much on what Beijing will tolerate as on what Washington and European capitals will permit.

China need not endorse managed disorder for its interests to tacitly reinforce it. Beijing benefits from a stable Russia that checks American and European power, but not from a Russia that collapses or continually destabilises Europe. Endless war raises energy prices, invites secondary sanctions and risks escalation that could disrupt China’s own growth and global positioning. A structured post-war settlement that freezes borders, channels competition and conditions economic reintegration offers China predictability without forcing political alignment. If American and European sanctions tie relief to Russian conduct and penalises circumvention, Beijing may find it cheaper to let the system work than to help Russia rearm—provided the system leaves Russia viable as a geopolitical ally for China and a source of natural resources.

Economic interests pull in the same direction. Beijing values access to European markets and reconstruction opportunities in Ukraine. Western leaders should therefore make clear that stability unlocks better China-Europe economic ties, while a collapse of managed disorder would push Europe toward militarisation, protectionism and tighter technological coordination with the United States. China can benefit from this arrangement without choosing between Europe and Russia, so long as it prefers predictability and stability to escalation and sanctions spirals.

Managed disorder also needs a China clause. If Russia uses China to rearm and restock its munitions, the consequences cannot fall on Moscow alone. Europe should tighten its China policy, deepen coordination with America and target Chinese firms enabling violations with economic pressure. China must understand that helping Russia evade these rules costs Beijing more than it benefits it, while tolerating stability keeps the door to European markets open.

In this sense, China is neither an adversary nor an essential partner, but a structural constraint that can reinforce, undermine or passively enable whatever security order emerges in Europe. A system that links market access to stability, invites selective Chinese participation and penalises circumvention turns Beijing, intentionally or not, into a stakeholder in restraint.

The path to managed disorder

How the war in Ukraine ends will go a long way towards deciding the path to managed disorder. A fully disarmed or “neutralised” Ukraine is unacceptable to Kyiv and unsustainable for Europe. A permanently offensive Ukraine capable of striking deep into Russian territory would risk escalation and be unacceptable to Moscow. The same would be true if Ukraine were to host Western troops.

Between these poles lies the most workable model: a defensible, resilient Ukraine that is armed to deter, but not configured for offensive operations. This “steel porcupine” posture follows the same logic as cold war West Germany: strong enough to make conquest costly but not positioned as a launchpad for offensive war. It separates Ukraine’s legal and political claim to territorial restoration from the military means that could reignite the war, without conceding Russia’s territorial gains.

Europe is likely to bear long-term responsibility for Ukraine’s rebuilding, military assistance and eventual integration into European institutions. Even a supportive United States may commit fewer resources over time. A framework for managed disorder must ensure that Europe can sustain Ukrainian security on its own if America steps back, while leaving room for deeper US involvement should political conditions allow.

To reach that state, American and European policymakers will need to work amid mistrust, division and partial compliance. They must create a system in which Ukrainian restraint earns visible progress, and Russian violations bring consequences and compliance rewards. Importantly, they should also ensure European disagreement does not become paralysis and American involvement strengthens the system without owning it.

Designing around a divided West

Washington and European capitals share core interests yet diverge in priorities, attention and risk tolerance. The challenge will be to design a system that can operate with those differences built in.

America

A future American administration, whether populist or merely pragmatic, is likely to approach Russia as a file to manage rather than a sustained strategic priority beyond its nuclear dimension. To the extent it figures in US strategic calculations, Russia is more likely to be seen as part of America’s larger competition with China. Commitments to European security that once seemed permanent will depend on electoral cycles and budgetary politics.

That is why managed disorder should rely on European initiative and pre-agreed processes rather than sustained American focus: durability must be built into the mechanism itself, not assumed from Washington’s resolve.

Europe

European nations will see the landscape through a nearer lens. Russia is not a distant power but a neighbour capable of altering borders by force. European governments agree that Ukraine must survive yet disagree on what survival means: integrated or merely defended, heavily armed or cautiously defensible, anchored fully to Europe or held at strategic arm’s length. Populist and anti-migrant parties are often averse to sustained defence expenditure and will sometimes be open to friendly relations with Russia.

Given the European disagreements and the American focus on China, a genuine transatlantic consensus on a post-war order is unlikely to emerge. What is achievable and necessary is interoperability: a structure in which Europe and the US can act together when aligned and continue functioning when they are not. A framework to achieve managed disorder will therefore need to do two things. First, its stages, tracks and certification mechanisms should be designed to keep working whether or not Washington and European capitals are pulling in the same direction. Second, it should be designed for a permanently divided Europe. Its purpose should be to prevent disagreement from becoming paralysis.

That means creating a European core group: a few countries that can negotiate sanctions positions, military support thresholds, monitoring standards and responses to Russian violations before each crisis arrives. It should include the countries with the greatest military weight, financial capacity and geographic exposure—France, Germany, Poland and the UK, as well as the Nordic and Baltic states. The core group should drive the security logic; EU institutions should anchor the economic, sanctions, enlargement and legitimacy logic.

How to stop Russia from setting the security debate

Russia will seek to widen any post-war process beyond the line of contact in Ukraine. It will want to discuss NATO enlargement, American and Western European basing, missile deployments, military exercises, the Black Sea and the military balance along its western frontier. Europe and the US should expect these demands, but they should neither dismiss them reflexively nor accept them on Russia’s terms. Some issues do raise genuine risks of miscalculation between Russia and NATO. Large military exercises near borders, missile deployments, ambiguous troop movements, air and naval incidents, cyber operations against critical infrastructure and uncontrolled activity in the Black Sea can create crises regardless of the justice of the underlying political claims.

To stop Russia from setting the terms of the debate, European leaders should pursue two distinct negotiations. The first would revolve around the ceasefire and subsequent security arrangement in Ukraine, and must preserve Ukraine as a principal actor. The second concerns the wider Russia-Europe security environment and must prevent either Moscow or Washington from treating Europe as an object of negotiation. Russia will try to conflate the two tracks so that it can use NATO-Russia talks to extract constraints on Ukraine or claim that whatever Kyiv gives up, the West gave up too. European policymakers should resist this and keep the two discussions separate, though separation also has risks: if either track collapses, the other will suffer because both tracks are needed to ensure regional security. The first maintains immediate stability along the line of contact between Russia and Ukraine; the second tackles the wider geopolitics.

Russia will prefer to discuss regional security with America rather than with Europe. It will try to cast Europe as the object of negotiation, not a participant in it. If the American leadership is distracted by other priorities or tempted by bilateral deals with Moscow, it might even support that Russian position. The answer for Europe is to define the terms of engagement with Russia in advance, with frontline states fully involved and with clear limits on what can and cannot be negotiated.

To do that, Europeans need the core group to define common positions before the United States and Russia enter any serious dialogue. European leaders cannot prevent every American side channel with Moscow, but they can limit the damage by insisting in advance on the principles that should govern any regional security conversation. These might include no recognition of territorial conquest, no Russian veto over its neighbours’ alliance decisions, no limits on Ukraine’s sovereign choices and no economic relief without behavioural restraint.

This regional security agenda will make many European leaders uncomfortable. Frontline states will fear that any discussion of basing, exercises, missiles or notification requirements gives Moscow a path back to influence over their security. They have reason to worry. Russia has used previous security conversations to claim rights over its neighbours. It has, for example, consistently used the indivisible security clause of the 1999 Charter for European Security to assert that it has the right to deny its neighbours membership in Western security organisations such as NATO. Despite this record, to exclude regional security from the framework would leave Moscow free to raise it bilaterally with Washington or exploit it during crises.

Regional security therefore is one of the central tests of managed disorder. If the US and Europe refuse to discuss it at all, Russia will use the refusal to justify probing, escalating and direct talks with America over Europe’s head. If they discuss it on Moscow’s terms, it will legitimise coercion and weaken the states most exposed to its power. The only viable course lies between those failures: to create a framework that channels Russian security demands into reciprocal, verifiable and limited mechanisms.

A framework for managed disorder

Every actor has reason to tolerate managed disorder over the alternatives, but tolerance does not sustain itself; it has to be built into rules. Managed disorder therefore rests on at least three mutually reinforcing principles:

Separate where necessary: Europe should first reduce its exposure to Russia with stronger defences and less dependence on Russian energy. Ukraine should tie itself economically more closely to Europe and be able to hold its ground militarily. Effective deterrence is a precondition for any dialogue.

Compartmentalise where you can: Certain issues—nuclear risk, Arctic exploitation, climate change and counter-proliferation—are in everyone’s interest to manage together. Even Russia wants to avoid, say, nuclear war or environmental collapse. The parties should fence such issues off from more neuralgic ones, such as Ukrainian sovereignty, to prevent crises from cascading into areas of mutual benefit. Cooperation here is a limited and mutually beneficial transaction, not the embryo of a broader relationship.

Make engagement conditional: Russia should earn sanctions relief, diplomatic reintegration and economic access by meeting specific, verifiable benchmarks. These rewards should be reversible and calibrated, so that, for Russia, compliance pays and violations are costly. This system does not require faith—just working mechanisms.

Within these pillars, Europe can emphasise defensive resilience and sanctions, while America manages nuclear and global issues. Both are compatible with the same architecture, if properly sequenced.

The stages of managed disorder

Managed disorder will not arrive by some grand bargain. It must grow semi-organically from whatever unsatisfactory deal ends the Ukraine conflict. Progress will be uneven and contingent: each stage will require stability in the previous one and give Russia incentives to value restraint over escalation. Optimistically, it will take years to move from ceasefire management to durable rules, and probably a decade or more before habits, institutions and political constituencies for restraint begin to take root. The framework will thus also need to “fail well” in the sense that Ukraine and Europe need to be able to bounce back if there is a setback.

The sequencing below shows how war-termination mechanisms can become stabilisation tools, then arms-control practice, then institutions. This is deliberate. America and Europe should commit openly to this trajectory, making clear that progress depends on Russia sticking to core principles. Even so, however technical the criteria for moving from one stage to the next may look, all the parties will accept progress only if their domestic politics allow it.

Stage 0: Secure a ceasefire (prerequisite)

A ceasefire, negotiated principally between Ukraine and Russia, is the prerequisite for everything that follows. It would be good if that ceasefire laid the groundwork for a more stable peace, but experience suggests that it will only nod in that direction and leave much unsaid. In the end, the purpose of a ceasefire is to stop the shooting rather than to ensure permanent peace. In Ukraine, that would be an accomplishment in itself and would at least open the door to the more sustainable process outlined below.

Stage 1: Freeze the status quo (~years 0-2 after ceasefire)

The first phase is about preventing a return to large-scale violence, preserving Ukraine’s survival and creating minimum conditions for a wider managed confrontation. It should embed the principle that behaviour has consequences. Monitoring and verification should come first—they enable later agreements by normalising inspections, data exchanges and the idea of measurable compliance. Those, in turn, provide the basis for rewarding Russian restraint.

This phase should establish baseline rules and mechanisms.

Military movements

• No renewed large-scale offensive action.
• No forcible changes to a clearly delineated line of control.
• No systematic attacks on European critical infrastructure.
• No escalatory hybrid campaign against EU or NATO states.
• Restrictions on long-range missiles and strike platforms near the line of contact.

The goal is to contain friction along the line of control and normalise external verification so that incidents do not spiral.

Communication and monitoring

• Humanitarian corridors and prisoner-of-war exchanges as first channels of dialogue.
• A Russian-Ukrainian military hotline with protocols for reporting ceasefire violations, troop movements, drone incidents and humanitarian emergencies.
• A joint or tripartite monitoring mechanism, potentially with UN endorsement even if not UN-staffed.

Monitoring in this phase should not be confused with Western intelligence assessments. A ceasefire mechanism needs visible procedures that both Russia and Ukraine can invoke when incidents occur. The American and European governments will also rely on classified intelligence, satellite imagery and Ukrainian reporting to assess whether Russia is preparing to attack again, but Russia need not accept those assessments for America and Europe to act on them. The two systems serve different purposes: the ceasefire mechanism manages incidents and referees disputes; intelligence assessments guide deterrence and enforcement.

Administrative

• A process for property claims, compensation and occupied-territory inventories.

Property claims will likely be one of the war’s most politically corrosive legacies. The framework must acknowledge them early, even if it cannot resolve them. Ukrainians have lost homes, businesses and land in occupied territories. Russian state assets and other linked private assets are frozen or seized across Europe. European nationals, companies and institutions have outstanding claims from pre-war investments. Left unaddressed, these grievances will curdle into domestic pressure against any government trying to sustain the framework. Experience from other post-conflict settlements suggests that unresolved property claims only get harder to settle and easier for spoilers to exploit the longer they sit.

This stage should therefore set up a dedicated arbitration channel for property claims, compensation and an inventory of assets in occupied territories. It should give affected populations a visible, legitimate process they can trust to address their claims eventually, even if immediate restitution is impossible. Otherwise, these issues become structural weaknesses that Russia, populist parties or affected lobbies can later exploit to fracture European cohesion.

No formal milestone marks the end of Stage 1—readiness to advance is a practical judgement. Triggers for progression to the next stage could include six to twelve months without major violations, inspectors consistently granted access or functioning communication demonstrated during minor incidents.

Stage 2: Stabilise the front (~years 2-4)

Once violence subsides, the next task is to keep it that way. This requires partial demilitarisation and transparency along the Ukraine-Russia and NATO-Russia contact lines. The logic resembles the earliest cold war confidence-building measures: small, technical arrangements that reduce risk without requiring political alignment.

Two tracks

Stage 2 creates, as noted, the two parallel negotiation tracks with Russia: one on the Ukraine-Russia contact line, Track A, and the other on NATO-Russia, Track B. Progress or failure in one track should have no bearing on the other, and the scope of Track B explicitly excludes Ukraine’s sovereign choices. Ukraine should be consulted before any Track B arrangement that materially affects its security. It should have no veto over NATO decisions, but it should not be treated as an object of them either.

The purpose of the negotiations would be to make the signs towards confrontation easier to read. Russia should be able to tell which US and European actions reflect routine deterrence from those signalling preparation for escalation, just as America and Europe need a clear read on which Russian moves stay within declared force posture and which mark renewed aggression. Ukraine, in turn, should know what kinds of Russian movements will trigger US and European responses—and frontline European states should trust that de-escalation measures will not come at their expense. The framework seeks to reduce the danger that military ambiguity becomes political panic.

Transparency measures and limits on destabilising deployments would increase predictability without weakening deterrence. The test is practical: a measure belongs in the framework if it reduces miscalculation while preserving the ability to defend Ukraine and NATO territory.

Examples of measures for each track include:

Track A—Contact line management (Ukraine-Russia, Western-facilitated)

• Reduced-force and weapon-limited zones on both sides of the line of contact.
• Restrictions on long-range strike systems or designated platforms near the line.
• Direct communication channels between local Ukrainian and Russian commanders, with agreed protocols for use during incidents.
• On-the-ground monitoring and inspection access, potentially with neutral observers.
• Verified pullbacks of heavy artillery or long-range systems from designated exclusion belts.

Track B—NATO-Russia military transparency (NATO-led, Ukraine consulted)

• Advance notification of exercises above a defined unit size along NATO’s eastern flank.
• Hotlines between NATO and Russian military commands with agreed rules of use.
• Observer arrangements for major exercises under agreed formats.
• Early data exchange on force levels and positions where this increases predictability without weakening deterrence.
• Technology-enabled transparency—such as satellite imagery, opensource intelligence aggregation, pattern detection—to support rather than replace agreed notification and inspection procedures.
• A restart of American-Russian strategic stability talks. 

Crisis channels

Stage 2 should also expand crisis communications into separate channels, each with a limited purpose. A Ukraine-Russia channel should manage incidents along the line of contact. Exercises, air and naval encounters, forward deployments and missile notifications would run through a separate NATO-Russia military channel. A political channel—bringing together the European core group, the US, Ukraine and Russia—should handle cases that risk triggering sanctions snapback or military escalation. And the Black Sea requires a fourth channel, covering naval movements, commercial shipping, mine clearance, port access and other maritime incidents, with Turkey centrally involved.

The Black Sea requires special attention. Ukraine’s security depends on its land frontier as much as it does on Odesa—the country’s principal port and the conduit for the bulk of its grain exports, without which Ukraine would be cut off from global maritime trade. Turkey’s control of the Black Sea and its diplomatic channels to both Moscow and Kyiv make it indispensable here.

These channels should be linked by notification rules but should not be merged into a single negotiation. Their value lies precisely in compartmentalisation: failure in one channel should not bring down the rest.

Overall, these measures create predictability rather than normality. The metrics are practical: fewer surprises, lower risk of misinterpretation, calmer borders. Communication at the tactical level buys stability at the strategic one. The aim of the monitoring is to make suspicious behaviour visible enough, early enough that American and European governments can respond before ambiguity becomes paralysis.

Informal progression to Stage 3 could follow after 9–18 months of ceasefire compliance, a functioning inspection regime or verified pullbacks of heavy artillery or long-range systems from designated exclusion belts.

Stage 3: Manage deterrence (~years 4-7)

If stabilisation holds, America and Europe should shift their focus from military capability to deterrence. The relationship with Russia may remain adversarial, but it must be clear why and, within limits, predictable.

This stage should distinguish rearmament from deployment. At first, it should leave Europe, Ukraine and Russia to rebuild their armed forces. Capping rearmament outright would be unpopular, difficult to verify and potentially damaging to deterrence. The early aim is narrower: to curb the most destabilising forms of rearmament by regulating where forces are placed, how movements are notified, which exercises require observers, which long-range systems create escalation risks and what kinds of external assistance to Russia would trigger penalties. In short, managed disorder should allow rearmament but make it less surprising, less offensive in posture and less likely to spark a crisis.

Hybrid activity is a harder problem because Moscow has made it part of its regional strategy. Disinformation and cyberattacks cannot be managed through traditional arms control. The US and Europe cannot negotiate a clean cyber or hybrid non-aggression pact with Russia, but they can set conditions for participation in a wider framework. Russia cannot stop the drone war in Ukraine while continuing an infrastructure war across Europe and still expect sanctions relief and cooperation. A reduction in major hybrid attacks should become part of the price of entry into the framework.

This will require clear thresholds. Not every disinformation campaign warrants a crisis response, and not every cyber incident will carry a signature that all governments accept. But hybrid attacks on critical infrastructure, electoral processes, or political figures should carry consequences when evidence reaches agreed standards. The US and Europe should create a certification process that assesses such activity and links it to sanctions, diplomatic access and the pace of wider engagement. Attribution will remain contested, but the absence of perfect attribution cannot excuse permanent grey-zone coercion.

Both sets of rules—on rearmament and on hybrid activity—belong to the same emerging arms-control agenda, which could include:

1. Geographically bounded force ceilings near Ukraine and NATO’s eastern flank.
2. Reciprocal notification of major troop movements and exercises.
3. Observer access to certain drills under agreed formats.
4. A dialogue on missile deployments and dual-use systems, initially without formal treaties.
5. Additional transparency measures for storage or deployment locations of sensitive weapons.
6. Agreed thresholds for major hybrid activity, including sabotage of critical infrastructure, coercive migration operations, cyber operations against essential services and attacks on defence production, linked to certification and penalties rather than formal arms-control limits.

The US would lead this part because of nuclear considerations, while Europe anchors the conventional posture. Russia may well test boundaries, so deterrence must remain credible. But even imperfect predictability is safer than total opacity.

Triggers for informal progression to the next stage could include routine functioning of transparency mechanisms, no large undisclosed deployments near the line or political space inside EU and US capitals for conditional economic measures.

Stage 4: Build cooperation silos (begins early; matures over 7-10 years)

Cooperation in limited areas can help keep the wider framework from collapsing. Even after a ceasefire in Ukraine, Russia will still be able to destabilise Europe indirectly through hybrid operations within European borders and its wider neighbourhood. A managed framework will therefore need to go beyond Ukraine without assuming that cooperation in one domain signals goodwill or leads to broader reconciliation.

The purpose of functional cooperation is twofold. First, it can give Russia limited, visible benefits from predictable behaviour. Moscow values status, access and the recognition that it is an indispensable interlocutor. Carefully chosen cooperation channels can provide these at relatively low cost, provided they remain conditional and reversible. Second, such channels can reduce Russia’s incentive to use theatres outside Europe as pressure points. If Russia gains a stake in, say, Arctic safety, it may have more to lose from turning it into a battlefield.

The US and Europe should choose these areas carefully. Cooperation should start soon after a ceasefire wherever interests overlap. It can include humanitarian and economic essentials—fertiliser and food exports, prisoner-of-war exchanges—alongside maritime and safety measures such as Black Sea commercial shipping and nuclear safety. The early purpose is to improve people’s safety and daily lives rather than to preserve the peace. If the framework holds, functional cooperation can institutionalise and spread into two further clusters: maritime and Arctic cooperation, such as search-and-rescue and maritime deconfliction; and technical safety cooperation, such as space debris monitoring, counter-proliferation and climate and environmental data exchange.

The Arctic presents a distinct challenge. Before the war, it was one of the few spaces where Russia, America and Europe cooperated despite wider tensions, but that cooperation has since collapsed. Finland and Sweden’s accession to NATO, Russia’s militarisation of the High North, competition over energy and shipping routes, and Chinese interest in Arctic access have turned the region into a sharper theatre of rivalry. A functional Arctic track could help prevent accidents, manage search-and-rescue obligations, preserve basic environmental data exchange, and reduce the risk that military incidents in the High North spill into wider confrontation.

Functional cooperation could also help manage the Black Sea, building on the channel already established in Stage 2. The aim should be to cut the risk that a naval incident spirals into a wider escalation.

These channels should also serve as tests of Russian behaviour. Russia cannot expect cooperation in the Arctic while sabotaging European energy infrastructure, or maritime deconfliction while strangling Ukraine’s economy in the Black Sea. Functional cooperation should therefore rest on a spoiler clause: major destabilisation in one domain should cut benefits in others, though minor incidents, such as temporary denial of port access, should not automatically break compartmentalised cooperation. The point is to preserve communication during confrontation, but without allowing these channels to become sanctuaries for Russian bad behaviour. A standing certification mechanism should assess whether Russian actions remain compatible with continued participation; major violations, such as sabotage of critical infrastructure or using mercenary forces to destabilise European interests abroad, should trigger wider consequences.

Functional silos can also discipline European divisions by allowing limited contact with Russia where it serves security, while preventing that contact from becoming a general political thaw. This distinction lets hardline states accept narrow, security-driven engagement without conceding that Russia has been forgiven, while allowing more accommodating states to engage practically without waiting for a broader reconciliation that may never come. Silos also give European publics a clear rationale: certain risks require communication even among enemies.

The task for the bilateral re-engagement is to prevent unconditional normalisation by channelling it: bilateral contacts should be registered, reported to the core group where security-relevant and subject to spoiler clauses. Left unmanaged, bilateral contacts could become the pathway through which sanctions erode and Europe fragments.

China may play a limited role in this stage in areas where its interests—Arctic access, nuclear stability, maritime trade—align with predictability. Beijing will understand that stability preserves the economic access it values; Russian defection narrows it.

After a sustained period of compliance, the framework should offer Russia visible but reversible dividends for restraint: expanded diplomatic channels, ministerial-level meetings, greater facilitation of agricultural and fertiliser exports, enhanced participation in Black Sea or nuclear-safety mechanisms, and broader bilateral contacts. The aim is to show that restraint changes the terms of engagement.

The trigger for the next stage might be two to four years of stable front lines, deterrence and transparency mechanisms working as intended, and proof that narrow cooperation holds without spilling over or being exploited.

Stage 5: Institutionalise managed disorder (> 10 years)

If earlier stages mature and survive disruptions, an institutional architecture can begin to consolidate. Many elements may start earlier but will take shape over the long term. Institutionalisation marks a recognition that competition must be permanently managed. This day may never arrive, but it matters as an aspiration. Comparable cold war institutions took 25 years or more to emerge. For example, the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) was launched in the early 1970s but it only became a standing institution, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), in 1995.

Potential forms for institutions include:

• A US-Europe-Russia Risk Reduction Commission meeting at ministerial and military-to-military levels.
• A modular arms-control instrument replacing parts of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces frameworks, eventually bringing in other countries—notably China.
• A dual-track diplomatic structure: Washington–Moscow for nuclear or global issues; Europe–Moscow for regional security and Ukraine arrangements.
• A standing crisis-management protocol with predefined escalation control steps.
• An institutional layer consolidating the crisis channels of earlier stages, created through standing bodies, regularised military contacts and agreed evidentiary standards.

This stage is ambitious, uncertain and far off. It would require political durability inside Russia, Ukraine, the US and Europe. But it should remain visible as the horizon. The framework must offer a picture of a stable destination even if the road there is long.

The path to stability runs through this framework; it structures a rivalry that will continue whether we prepare for it or not. The logic is incremental: ceasefire enables monitoring, monitoring enables transparency, transparency enables limits, limits enable rules, rules enable institutions. Each step must be earned through behaviour, not granted on faith. None of this works, however, if Europe cannot act as one.

How to overcome division paralysis in Europe

European cohesion will require a system that stops any single state from vetoing responses that the group has already agreed. The model should borrow from the Iran nuclear deal of 2015: participating states determine upfront what counts as a violation and what counts as a compliance milestone. Those criteria, once set, cannot be revised downward. The states most exposed to Russian pressure would write their red lines into the rules before the politics of the moment can erode them. A standing committee of the participating states then decides by qualified majority whether Russia has met a given criterion. If it has, the agreed reward or penalty follows automatically—unless a majority votes to block it.

This process flips the usual logic. The current system requires consensus to impose a snapback or advance a tranche of sanctions relief; the new one will require consensus to waive either. A hypothetical pro-Russian Hungarian or Slovak government seeking to delay consequences will need to openly vote to do so and bear public responsibility for that choice, rather than block it quietly through procedural abstention. Similarly, a frontline state such as Poland or a Baltic country will need to find a majority to block rewards once Russia demonstrably meets an agreed milestone. Frontline states appear to lose power here, but their red lines have already been written into the rules.

Spelling out in advance which consequences are appropriate for a breach would also help keep Europe united: cautious states will not tolerate escalation over every minor incident, and hawkish ones will not tolerate impunity for major violations. Proportionality will keep both cautious and hawkish states invested in the framework, rather than defecting to national responses. A three-tier system would make this balance work: minor procedural breaches might suspend talks or freeze a tranche of sanctions relief; material violations—such as denial of inspection access—may trigger limited snapback; major ones, such as attacks on defence production, should trigger full enforcement. This governance mechanism is only part of what will enable Europe to act cohesively within the framework; practical principles must also operate across every stage, beginning with crisis communication.

Operating rules

Several rules should apply throughout the framework. Managed disorder cannot rest on hopeful assumptions about Russian restraint or rationality. The framework must treat future violations as probable and place the burden on Russia to prove it is complying, not on America or Europe to show that it is not. In practice, that means adopting a presumption-of-violation approach: if, say, Russia denies inspectors access to a missile site, the refusal counts as a breach and triggers penalties. Sanctions relief, military deployments and cooperation channels continue only when Russia’s behaviour is visible and verifiable. If Moscow wants the benefits of a more predictable relationship, it must make compliance easy to see.

Crisis communication should begin from the outset. In a post-war environment, contact matters more than cooperation. Channels should allow the parties to clarify incidents and prevent local violence from escalating. These channels should be compartmentalised—for example, a line-of-contact mechanism should not depend on progress in NATO-Russia talks—so no single crisis can consume the whole framework.

Technology can help in this process, but monitoring cannot depend on it alone. Surveillance, satellite imagery, financial tracking, customs data, open-source intelligence and AI-assisted pattern detection can all improve visibility. But they cannot substitute for political judgment, agreed evidentiary standards and negotiated consequences.

In all stages, sanctions relief should be tied to periodic certification rather than ad hoc diplomacy. The certification mechanism described above—which includes the EU, the US, Ukraine and relevant European core group states—should govern the pace of sanctions relief, the triggering of snapback provisions, and the determination of whether conditions for stage progression have been met. It cannot eliminate political discretion, as that is impossible, but it can narrow it by defining operational and measurable criteria as precisely as possible. If Russia blocks inspections, moves forces without notification, conducts major hybrid attacks or violates agreed military limits, the default should be suspension or reversal of relief unless participating governments decide otherwise.

Why the alternatives are worse

Managed disorder will make no one happy. It will not deliver justice for Ukraine, reconciliation with Russia, strategic autonomy for Europe, or a restored US-European consensus on Russia. It will leave many questions unresolved and many grievances intact. But the relevant comparison is not with an ideal peace that cannot exist. The relevant comparison is with the conceivable alternatives. All of them are worse than managed disorder.

The alternatives below are ideal types. Few policymakers advocate for any of them in pure form. But examining each in isolation reveals why none can resolve the underlying problem and why mixing them without a governing framework tends to magnify their worst features.

The first alternative is regime change in Moscow. Many Europeans and Americans have concluded that no stable order with Russia can exist while Vladimir Putin or a Putinist system remains in power—a view with real force, given how central revisionism, militarism and hostility to the West have become to the current government’s legitimacy. But as a strategy, regime change offers no credible path from the world we inhabit to the world we want. Neither the US nor Europe can engineer a liberal transition in Moscow or build a European security order on the assumption that Russia will soon become a different country. Nor can they rely on sanctions, battlefield losses or elite discontent to produce a more palatable successor. A Russia after Putin could become less aggressive, but it could also become more nationalist, more chaotic or more determined to prove that the war was not lost.

The second alternative is permanent isolation. This approach would contain Russia through sanctions, diplomatic exclusion and military pressure. It has obvious appeal. Russia should pay a lasting price for aggression. But isolation alone will not manage the next phase. Sanctions will erode without a political strategy. European governments will divide over costs and enforcement. China, Turkey, the Gulf states and others will create channels around US and European pressure. Russia will adapt and wait for fatigue in the US and Europe. Permanent isolation may punish Russia, but it will not by itself create rules for regional security or Ukraine’s defence.

The third alternative is normalisation. This approach would treat a ceasefire as the end of the problem and move quickly toward restored diplomatic channels, trade and a wider European conversation with Moscow. Some governments and firms will want this as soon as large-scale fighting stops. They will argue that Europe needs stability to recover and a way to stop Russia from becoming still more dependent on China. Some engagement with Moscow will eventually prove necessary. But normalisation without conditions would reward aggression without securing restraint. It would tell Russia that conquest brings only a temporary crisis followed by eventual reintegration. It would weaken Ukraine, divide Europe and invite Moscow to test whether another round of coercion might yield another round of concessions. Engagement has value only when it forms part of a structure of leverage. Without that structure, it becomes appeasement by exhaustion.

The fourth alternative is unmanaged confrontation. This outcome is the most likely default because it requires no decision. Europe and America would continue to arm Ukraine unevenly, maintain sanctions haphazardly, talk to Russia episodically and respond to crises as they arise. NATO would reinforce some areas, neglect others and debate deployments after Russia tests them, leaving Ukraine dependent yet insecure. Russia, meanwhile, would keep probing European defences with hybrid tactics, even as Washington cuts its own deals with Moscow. European governments might denounce such freelancing while failing to offer a coherent alternative. In this world, rivalry persists and even grows, and no one sets the rules.

Unmanaged confrontation gives Russia more ambiguity to exploit, gives the United States more room to improvise over Europe’s head, and hands European governments more opportunities to defect from common positions. It also leaves Ukraine with less clarity about what the US and Europe will support and what they will not. Every crisis becomes a test of will, credibility and domestic politics. The result would not be principled firmness. It would be recurrent improvisation under pressure.

These alternatives also share a deeper flaw. Each assumes that one element of the problem can solve the whole: Russian transformation, Russian isolation, Russian reintegration or Western toughness. None can. The post-war confrontation will require deterrence and dialogue, punishment and incentives, European unity and coalitions of the willing, Ukrainian agency, American involvement and European hedging. Any strategy that chooses only one side of these tensions will collapse when reality supplies the other.

An operating system for a bad peace

If this trajectory does not take hold, the alternative is easy to imagine because it resembles the past decade: a ceasefire that freezes rather than manages the conflict, Russia regrouping and probing again when the balance shifts, Europe tiring under sanctions and domestic cost, the US distracted and inconsistent, and Ukraine trapped in recurrent wars. In such a world, escalation would be governed by crises rather than rules, and could arrive suddenly, triggered by accident, misunderstanding or opportunity.

America and Europe cannot choose a world without Russia, nor can they wish away their own disunity. But both Europeans and Americans can choose whether to confront Russia through chaos or through structure. Managed disorder is a strategy for containing escalation, preserving Ukrainian sovereignty, limiting Russian coercion and ensuring that rivalry remains predictable rather than world-ending.

The path forward begins in Ukraine. If policymakers treat war termination as the end of the problem, they will fail to respond to broader Russian concerns and leave Europe vulnerable to the next Russian offensive. If they instead treat war termination as the opening phase of a long process, they can shape the incentives and capacities that will govern the next decade.

A structured adversarial framework, rooted in credible deterrence and bounded by conditional cooperation, is the best available foundation. Managed disorder is not permanent peace, reconciliation or a just settlement. It is an operating system for a bad peace.

About the authors

Jeremy Shapiro is the research director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. His areas of focus include US foreign policy and transatlantic relations.

Samuel Charap is Distinguished Chair in Russia and Eurasia Policy and a senior political scientist at RAND. His research interests include the foreign policies of Russia and the former Soviet states; European and Eurasian regional security; and US-Russia deterrence, strategic stability and arms control.

Bob Deen is the General Director of the Netherlands Institute for International Relations “Clingendael” and specialises in matters of European security, with a focus on Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Before joining Clingendael in 2020, he worked as Head of Section and Senior Adviser to the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities.

Hiski Haukkala is the director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. He is also an adjunct professor of international relations at Tampere University and a senior research associate at RAND Europe. He is the author of numerous books and articles on EU foreign policy, Russia and International Relations.

Ivan Krastev is chair of the Centre for Liberal Strategies, Sofia, and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna. He is the author of “Is It Tomorrow Yet? Paradoxes of the Pandemic”, among many other publications.

Hanna Notte is the director of the Eurasia programme at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Based in Berlin, she has written extensively about Russian foreign policy and is the author of We Shall Outlast Them: Putin’s Global Campaign to Defeat the West (W. W. Norton & Co).

Jim O’Brien is a distinguished visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He previously served as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in the Biden administration.

Acknowledgments

This paper is the collaborative product of a working group that met several times over the course of more than a year, comprising the authors above and Michael Kimmage of the Kennan Institute. Jeremy Shapiro took the pen on this paper, but the working group shaped, debated and contributed to it in essential ways. All of the members of the working group except Michael Kimmage fully endorse the paper.

The authors would also like to thank Kat Fytatzi for her patient and incisive editing. Kat’s editing was painful, but in exactly the right way. Nastassia Zenovich applied her usual genius for the graphical representation of extremely verbal ideas to a paper that badly needed it. She has our eternal gratitude. We’d also like to thank the Andrew Carnegie Foundation for the funding and patience that made this project possible.

Source

By Gospa News Editorial Staff

Versione Sintetica in Italiano

Since today, therefore, this War Daily Summary will no longer contain news only on the war (and related geopolitical issue) in the Middle East, but also on the war in Ukraine and any other international conflicts.

NEW ONGOING DAILY UPDATES ON WARS IN VIDEO (since August 2026)

Trump threatens to bomb Oman if it ‘gets in the way’ of Strait of Hormuz talks with Iran

WARS in VIDEO (August 2026). TRUMP THREATENS TO BOMB OMAN. If it interferes with Iran over control of the Strait of Hormuz. Children’s Massacre in Lebanon

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EXCLUSIVE MILITARY – GEOPOLITICAL INVESTIGATIONS

ASYMMETRIC WAR BETWEEN ZELENSKY AND PUTIN

Ukraine Drones funded by EU to Kill Russian Civilians, Moscow Missiles to Target Weapons Industries

Brief analysis by Fabio G.C. Carisio on August, 17, 2026

While the Russian Army continues to advance on the battlefield in Donbas, consolidating its military positions—predicting its complete annexation within a year—the Russian Aerospace Forces are engaged in an asymmetric strategic war against Kiev’s air force.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, using drones paid for by European Union citizens and built in a covert partnership with the US Pentagon and EU countries, continues to target Russia’s energy infrastructure and civilian buildings in a vain attempt to provoke a rebellion among the Russian population, as military bases are too well-protected to be attacked.

In the last few hours, more than a thousand kamikaze drones have been launched, killing at least six Russian civilians and seriously damaging the Wildberries (Russian Amazon) online distribution centers alone.

Without having to contend with the costs borne by the European Union, the leader of the pro-Nazi Zelensky regime can waste drones at will on massacres of civilians, as recently happened in Nizhnekamsk.

It should not be forgotten that European politicians and media censored or at least severely obscured the massacre of Russian schoolgirls that occurred on May 21, 2026, when more than one drone, using the lethal double-tap tactic, struck a dormitory in Starobelsk, in the Lugansk People’s Republic, which confederated with Russia after a popular plebiscite.

While Russian President Vladimir Putin, who could level much of Kiev in a single night with undetectable hypersonic missiles, to avoid a massacre of “Ukrainian brothers,” limits himself to striking the military and energy infrastructure that is bringing Ukraine’s military apparatus to its knees, increasingly short of Patriot air defense rockets.

Vital – 21 RUSSIAN STUDENTS KIILLED in Dombas by “Double-Tap” of Wave of Kiev Drones as Zionist-Style. RT Investigation

But the escalation triggered by Zelensky, with the applause of US President Trump, has inevitably led Russia to raise the level of retaliation and also include civilian targets, such as ships in the port of Odessa.

As long as European, American, and Zionist leaders speculate on the Weapons Lobby, the conflict in Ukraine can only continue to escalate toward a total “preventive” war, like that waged by Israel and the US against Iran, and desired by NATO and, above all, Great Britain against Russia.

Until Putin loses patience and carries out a massacre in Kiev… But from that moment on, thanks to vile Western propaganda, every day will be a good day for the start of World War III.

WEAPONS LOBBY – 20. HUGE BUSINESS OF ZIONIST TRUMP’s WARMONGERS. How a German Industry Became the Golden Goose for the US

The evidence presented in this analysis is documented in the exclusive investigations published below and in the last week’s updates below.

Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio – founder and director of Gospa News

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ZIONISTS’ Neverending WAR CRIMES, as GENOCIDES. Iran: “US, Israel GUILTY of gravest MASSACRES since 1949”.

Latest Children’s Murdering in Lebanon, Minab and Qeshm

READ MORE IN THE INVESTIGATIVE ANALYSIS BELOW

ZIONISTS’ Neverending WAR CRIMES, as GENOCIDES. Iran: “US, Israel GUILTY of gravest MASSACRES since 1949”. Children’s Murdering in Lebanon, Qeshm, Minab

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MI6 in Damascus and Russia Agrees to train Al Qaeda Militia on the Coast

Russia miscalculated the longevity of their sphere of influence in Syria

ANALYSIS BY VANESSA BEELEY IN THE POST BELOW

ASSAD SENTENCED TO DEATH by JIHADIST GOVT. After MI6 in Damascus to meet Al Jolani, Russia Agrees to train Al Qaeda Militia on the Coast

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“I WILL NEVER SERVE THE UNITED STATES OF ISRAEL”. Disruptive Analysis by Scott Ritter.

Ex US Navy Intel Official on Trump-Netanyahu Affairs

READ IN THE POST BELOW

“I WILL NEVER SERVE THE UNITED STATES OF ISRAEL”. Disruptive Analysis by Scott Ritter, Ex US Navy Intel Official, on Trump-Netanyahu Affairs

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MI5 Intelligence Chiefs Secretly Lobbied UK government to designate IRGC as ‘Terrorist’ Organization

READ MORE IN THE POST BELOW

MI5 Intelligence Chiefs Secretly Lobbied UK government to designate IRGC as ‘Terrorist’ Organization

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Carlson & Waters: “HOW US, UK, EU and NATO are Triggering WORLD WAR III”.

The BOJO Fake-Peace Plan in Ukraine to Provoke Russia

GEOPOLITICAL AND MILITARY ANALYSIS IN THE POST BELOW

Carlson & Waters (VIDEO): “HOW US, UK, EU and NATO are Triggering WORLD WAR III”. The BOJO Fake-Peace Plan in Ukraine to Provoke Russia

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THE SYRIAN WHITE HELMETS INVADE VENEZUELA.

To Assist Final Western Regime-Change? (VIDEO) Kit Klarenberg Investigation

FULL INVESTIGATION AND VIDEOS IN THE POST BELOW

THE SYRIAN WHITE HELMETS INVADE VENEZUELA. To Assist Final Western Regime-Change? (VIDEO) Kit Klarenberg Investigation

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WEAPONS LOBBY – 22. “UKRAINE is a TESTING GROUND‘ for AI WARFARE and EU-NATO ARMS”.

Russian Intel Chief Claimed, US General confirmed it!

FULL INVESTIGATION AND VIDEOS IN THE POST BELOW

WEAPONS LOBBY – 22. “UKRAINE is a TESTING GROUND‘ for AI WARFARE and EU-NATO ARMS” Russian Intel Chief Claimed, US General confirmed it!

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US Sen. GRAHAM’s Mysterious Death after Zelensky Meeting (3 VIDEO). Scott Ritter: “A Most Sinful Man”.

Netanyahu: “We have Lost a Great Friend (VIDEO)”

READ POST BELOW

US Sen. GRAHAM’s Mysterious Death after Zelensky Meeting and Drone Check (3 VIDEO). Scott Ritter: “A Most Sinful Man”. Netanyahu: “We have Lost a Great Friend”

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The US MILITARY OCCUPATION of the Indian Ocean “Zone of Peace”

Among BioWarfare, Geoengineering and Directed Energy Weapons

READ FULL INVESTIGATION BELOW

The US MILITARY OCCUPATION of the Indian Ocean “Zone of Peace” among BioWarfare, Geoengineering and Directed Energy Weapons

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Related Breaking News – The FIDEL CASTRO’s DISTURBING “PROPHECY” on VENEZUELA EARTHQUAKE

He forecast that a seismic event could have been triggered with HAARP Dangerous US Military Tests

READ FULL INVESTIGATION BELOW

The FIDEL CASTRO’s DISTURBING “PROPHECY” on VENEZUELA EARTHQUAKE triggered with HAARP Dangerous US Military Tests

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DEVIL NETANYAHU’s HOLOCAUST. Explosive UN findings: “Israel DELIBERATELY TARGETED Gaza CHILDREN”

ALL DETAILS IN THE POST BELOW

DEVIL NETANYAHU’s HOLOCAUST. Explosive UN findings: “Israel DELIBERATELY TARGETED Gaza CHILDREN”

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UKRAINE BIOLABS – 11. “NATO Lethal BIOWEAPONS Ongoing Program”.

Evidence from 3 New Russian & US INTEL VIDEOS by FSB Chief, Ritter (ex US Navy), Gabbard (ODNI)

ALL DETAILS IN THE INVESTIGATION BELOW

UKRAINE BIOLABS – 11. “NATO Lethal BIOWEAPONS Ongoing Program”. Evidence from 3 New Russian & US INTEL VIDEOS by FSB Chief, Ritter (ex US Navy), Gabbard (ODNI)

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IntelDrop – “ISRAEL ASKED FB to CENSOR Iran War Content” The Intercept unveils 

Help Us to Fight vs Zionist Censorship on All Social

ALL DETAILS IN THE INVESTIGATION BELOW

IntelDrop – “ISRAEL ASKED FB to CENSOR Iran War Content” The Intercept unveils. Help Us to Fight vs Zionist Censorship on All Social

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PENTAGON’s BIOLABS in UKRAINE, COVID-19 BIOWEAPON & MOSSAD-EPSTEIN Ring (video).

Sensational Revelations by a US Military Whistleblower on Gabbard-ODNI Dossier

PENTAGON’s BIOLABS in UKRAINE, COVID-19 BIOWEAPON & MOSSAD-EPSTEIN Ring (video). Sensational Revelations by a US Military Whistleblower on Gabbard-ODNI Dossier

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WEAPONS LOBBY – 21. SCHOOLGIRLS’ Massacre in Donbas by DRONE of Ex CIA CHIEF POMPEO.

Behind UAV FP-1 the Satanic Kiev Gang of Corruption, funded by SOROS’ Coup too

READ MORE IN THE INVESTIGATION BELOW

WEAPONS LOBBY – 21. NATO’s WarCrimes! Attack to Moscow, SCHOOLGIRLS’ Massacre by DRONE of Ex CIA Chief POMPEO. Behind UAV FP-1 the Satanic Kiev Gang of Corruption funded by SOROS too

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“ISRAEL ADDED in the UN’s BLACKLIST OF PERPETRATORS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN WAR”.

Tel Aviv Ambassador said on X (VIDEO) All Previous Dossier about

“The UN added Israel to a blacklist of perpetrators of sexual violence in conflict. We are done with the Secretary-General’s lies. Equating the democratic State of Israel with Hamas terrorists is a new low. Israel protects its citizens while Hamas massacres, rapes, and kidnaps”.

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danonm said in a post on X. In the post below all the previous dossier on this topic.

“ISRAEL added in the UN’s BLACKLIST of Perpetrators of SEXUAL VIOLENCE in WAR”. Ambassador said (VIDEO). France urges to investigate on Flotilla abuse by Israel

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WARS  & GEOPOLITICS Updates in Video

Updates on AUGUST, 17, Breaking News in Video

BREAKING NEWS – Trump threatens to bomb Oman if it ‘gets in the way’ of Strait of Hormuz talks with Iran

President Donald Trump threatened in an interview with Fox News to bomb Oman if it interferes in a potential deal with Iran over control of the Strait of Hormuz, the news outlet reported.

Oman has been negotiating with Tehran over the vital shipping route, where maritime traffic has nearly ground to a halt as talks on ending the U.S. war with Iran have stalled.

Below the CNN Breaking News keynotes about:

• Threat to Oman: President Donald Trump warned of an attack on Oman if it “gets in the way” of efforts in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump previously threatened the US ally in May.

• Iran agreement expires: The 60-day deadline for the two sides to reach a deal toward ending the conflict has now passed. Trump again said he is in no rush and claimed his administration has established a direct backchannel with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the IRGC denies.

• Main priority: The president reiterated that the top goal in the war is preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, undercutting advisers who say keeping oil prices low is an important priority.

• Gaza ceasefire plan: Meanwhile, after Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today for over four hours, Kushner said Hamas could disarm soon but indicated the US would support further Israeli military action in Gaza if not.

«US President Donald Trump threatened today to attack Oman if it interferes with US efforts in the Strait of Hormuz, as the conflict with Iran continues and a two-month window for peace talks expires without a clear path to end the war» CNN has reported in a video.

Trump’s comments come as the 60-day window for peace talks between the US and Iran, agreed to in June, closed Monday without any concrete plans announced for the war to end. Meanwhile, Iran said Monday that its talks with Oman regarding the Strait of Hormuz are complex but continuing.

In the latest days POTUS said that he wants to declare the Strait of Hormuz a U.S. territory: “I’ll Never Apologize” War Crimes

Ukraine again Failed to Shoot Down a Single Ballistic or Hypersonic Missile last Night

Ukraine again Failed to Shoot Down a Single Ballistic or Hypersonic Missile last Night

This follows from the summary of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Air Force Ukraine was attacked on the last night (August 16, 2026) nby Onyx, Iskander-M, S-400, KN-23 and Kh-59/69 missiles, as well as 106 drones.

3 FOOTAGES IN ONE VIDEO – legenda below

1st Footage – Kiev on fire after the heavy strikes which hit also the market of book in retaliation to the yet another attack on a distribution center of Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer with two million visitors a day.

2nd footage – Russian troops are delivering precision strikes on Ukraine’s military and fuel infrastructure

In the Kiev-controlled part of the Zaporizhia region, a gas station and related equipment were hit. The fact of the attack was confirmed by the head of the regional military administration, Ivan Fedorov. In the north of the Kharkiv region, the Russian Aerospace Forces are launching guided aerial bombs at enemy positions and fortifications. This is reported by local publications.
Direct hits to infrastructure facilities were recorded in Sumy, and large fires broke out in the affected areas. A massive raid by unmanned aerial vehicles continues in the Odessa region, explosions are heard in Sanzheyka. Systematic attacks on the fuel infrastructure leave the Ukrainian army without fuel at a time when the Western allies are reporting on the supply of new batches of weapons that have nothing to refuel.

3d footage – Russian FAB-500s level Ukrainian drone hub

The Russian forces сonducted a strike on the Ukrainian National Guard’s drone command post in the settlement of Dobropolye in the Donetsk People’s Republic using four FAB-500 high-explosive aerial bombs, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said.

Russian forces strike defense industry facilities, oil refinery, steel plant

Russian forces struck defense industry facilities in Kiev, the Kremenchug oil refinery and a steel plant in Krivoy Rog, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

“Russian forces struck Fire Point in Kiev, a company producing components, warheads and solid-fuel boosters for Flamingo ground-launched cruise missiles. Russian troops also struck Ukrdefense Company in Kiev, which produces components for strike drones, Khrushch interceptor drones and Garpiya air defense drones,” the Defense Ministry said.

Below the previous attack on Fire Point facility launched one week ago

Russian forces struck the Kremenchug oil refinery in the Poltava Region, where the remaining storage tanks continue handling fuel and lubricants supplied from abroad. The Russian military struck steelmaking facilities in Krivoy Rog in the Dnepropetrovsk Region, producing rolled steel for weapons and military equipment.

Russian forces also struck a dry cargo ship carrying military equipment for Ukrainian forces at the port of Odessa, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

WEAPONS LOBBY – 21. NATO’s WarCrimes! Attack to Moscow, SCHOOLGIRLS’ Massacre by DRONE of Ex CIA Chief POMPEO. Behind UAV FP-1 the Satanic Kiev Gang of Corruption funded by SOROS too

Russian forces hit Ukrainian uncrewed boats production facility

Russian drones struck facilities for the production and storage of components for uncrewed boats used by Ukraine to attack Russian coastal cities, ships and infrastructure facilities in the Black Sea, the Russian defense ministry said.

“During the day, Russian attack unmanned aerial vehicles struck in the settlement of Belgorod-Dnestrovsky (40 kilometers southwest of Odessa): a production facility and a depot holding warheads and components for uncrewed boats used to attack ships and energy infrastructure facilities in the Black Sea, and Russian cities on the Black Sea coast,” it said.

Russian forces hit three dry cargo ships, two tankers at Odessa port

Russian forces struck three dry cargo ships and two tankers, as well as fuel tanks at the port of Odessa, the Russian defense ministry said.

“Three dry cargo ships and two sea-going tankers used to deliver military cargoes and fuels for the Ukrainian army, as well as fuel tanks and warehouses holding military products were struck at the port of Odessa,” it said.

Russian air defenses down 822 Ukrainian drones overnight

Russian air defenses intercepted and destroyed 822 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones over Russian regions and the Black and Azov Seas overnight (august, 16, 2026), the Russian Defense Ministry said.

“Russian air defense forces intercepted and destroyed 822 Ukrainian fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles over Belgorod, Bryansk, Vladimir, Volgograd, Voronezh, Kaluga, Kursk, Lipetsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Oryol, Rostov, Ryazan, Tambov and Tula regions, the Moscow Region, the Krasnodar Region and the Republic of Crimea, as well as over the Azov and Black Seas, from 8 p.m. Moscow time (5 p.m. GMT) on August 15 to 8 a.m. Moscow time (5 a.m. GMT) on August 16,” the Defense Ministry said.

Three killed, one injured in drone attack on Russia’s Rostov Region

Three people were killed and one more was injured in a drone attack on southern Russia’s Rostov Region, Governor Yury Slyusar reported.

“Last night, three people were killed as a result of an aerial attack on the Rostov Region, and one more has been hospitalized with injuries,” he wrote on Max channel.

More than 150 UAVs were destroyed over three cities and nine districts in the region in the Ukrainian attack, the official added.

Below the previous UAV attacks on Russia town of Nizhenekamsk wichiu killed 11 civilians including children

Three injured as Moscow comes under massive drone attack

Three people were injured in a drone attack near the Moscow Automobile Ring Road (MKAD), according to Mayor Sergey Sobyanin.

“Defense Ministry air defense capabilities have downed another nine drones targeting Moscow. Three people were injured near MKAD, they are being given all necessary assistance. Emergency specialists are working at the scene where [drone] debris fell,” Sobyanin wrote on Max channel.

Since midnight (August,16,2026), as many as 132 unmanned aerial vehicles flying toward the Russian capital have been shot down, calculations by TASS based on the mayor’s posts show.

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Updates on AUGUST, 16, Breaking News in Video

Elon Musk’s Starlink promised faster data for US Drone, Iran’s air defenses promised faster downing

Iranian state television is showing, for the first time, evidence that Elon Musk’s “Starlink” devices are being used in U.S. military drones.

The IRGC is now displaying wreckage from 171 downed US and Israeli aircraft and drones — including MQ-9 Reapers, Hermes 900s, an F-15 fighter jet, and Starlink modems recovered from the wreckage.

Saudi-linked port halts operations following attacks by Yemeni armed forces (Houthis)

Yemen’s Mokha port has suspended commercial and maritime operations after the Yemeni armed forces targeted it with more than 25 missiles in recent days, the port’s director said on Saturday.

The attacks killed seven people and caused an estimated $16 million in losses, the director told a news conference.

Mokha is a Red Sea port near the Bab al-Mandeb strait, a strategic chokepoint connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and a key route for international shipping.

The port is controlled by Saudi-linked mercenaries. It has a smaller cargo capacity than Yemen’s main ports of Aden and Hodeidah, according to Iranian Press TV.

On Friday, spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree said in a statement that the armed forces subjected Saudi Arabia-linked targets to fresh heavy strikes.

He added that the servicemen targeted “warships belonging to its (Riyadh’s) tools and mercenaries in the al-Mokha area, using a large number of ballistic missiles.”

Hezbollah: Israeli Occupation’s Continued Attacks on Lebanon will receive an Appropriate Response

Hezbollah condemned on Saturday the major Israeli enemy’s escalation in southern Lebanon, affirming the Israeli occupation army carried out brutal massacres against civilians and warning that continued attacks and violations of Lebanese sovereignty would be met with an appropriate response, Al Manar Lebanese TV has reported.

In a statement, Hezbollah said Lebanese residents woke at dawn to an aggressive escalation and a brutal massacre allegedly carried out by the criminal Zionist enemy against civilians in the south. It said Israeli strikes targeted a home on the outskirts of the southern town of Ansar and a building in Deir Al-Zahrani, killing 11 people, including women and children, and wounding 12 others.

“Those grave crimes add to Israel’s long record of “massacres, crimes, and the shedding of Lebanese blood, as well as the destruction of homes, the bulldozing of farmland, and the erasure of entire villages,” the statement read.

Hezbollah said responsibility for the Israeli enemy’s continued aggression and violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty rested with the Israeli government and the United States, which it accused of providing Israel with political and military backing and cover.

At the same time, the group called on the Lebanese authorities to explore every available means to halt the Israeli attacks rather than persist with the humiliating direct negotiations and offer “Israel” free concessions, despite the Israeli enemy’s repeated crimes and attacks, as well as its openly stated aggressive and expansionist intentions toward Lebanon.

The Lebanese Parents of Child Martyrs Association on Saturday condemned a new Israeli massacre in the southern town of Ansar that killed a family of six, including four children, and called on Lebanese authorities to document the attack and pursue accountability through regional and international legal channels.

«In a statement, the association condemned the Israeli occupation army’s pre-dawn attack on a family in Ansar on August 15, 2026, which killed Ali Al-Hajj Hassan, his wife, Zeinab Nassereddine, and their children Zahraa, Hassan, Hussein, and Abbas» Al Manar Lebanese TV has reported.

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Updates on AUGUST, 14-15, Breaking News in Video

Aoun, Salam condemn Israeli massacres in South Lebanon

Israeli forces carried out a series of airstrikes and attacks across South Lebanon on Saturday, killing at least nine people and wounding 11 in the past 24 hours, according to Al Mayadeen’s correspondent, citing the Lebanese Health Ministry.

Our correspondent reported that an Israeli strike on Deir al-Zahrani targeted a building along the town’s main highway. Ambulances rushed to the scene amid initial reports of a massacre, while rescue teams worked to assess the casualties and search for survivors.

The Health Ministry reported that the preliminary toll from the Deir al-Zahrani attack stood at two martyrs and nine wounded, bringing the reported toll from the two attacks to at least nine martyrs and 11 wounded.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned on Saturday the Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon, stressing that these violations constitute a “clear message to the negotiating process and to US efforts aimed at implementing the framework agreement”.

For his part, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam described the Israeli escalation since dawn as “extremely dangerous”, saying that the strikes and heavy bombardment targeting Nabatieh, Ansar, Deir al-Zahrani, and neighboring villages were undermining efforts to establish stability in the South, as he posted on his X account.

The Israeli escalation began with an Israeli airstrike on an inhabited home in Ansar, in the Nabatieh district, killing seven people, including three children and two women, while two others were wounded, according to the Health Ministry.

Houthis used 6 ballistic missiles in al-Makha attack, Yemen army says

Trump wants to declare the Strait of Hormuz a U.S. territory: “I’ll Never Apologize” War Crimes

Trump wants to declare the Strait of Hormuz a US territory

Donald Trump said that after the completion of the military operation against Iran, he intends to declare the Strait of Hormuz the territory of the United States.

“After we finish defeating Iran … pretty soon I will declare the Strait of Hormuz the territory of the United States,” the American president said, adding that the United States allegedly already controls the passage of ships through the strait.

Meanwhile, a large-scale oil spill was reported in the Strait of Hormuz after a missile strike on the Minoan Pioneer bulk carrier. The oil slick spread over more than 300 km, an area comparable to about 40,000 football fields.

“I’ll never apologize. I did the right thing” — Trump on his war-crime spree in Iran

Don told Americans to show some patience and PAY MORE for gas while he bombs more girls in Iran as part of his ego play.

“What we’re doing is a great service for — not only for ourselves, for the world,” the failed emperor declared.

Russian attacks hit 11 locations across Ukraine as grain ports come under fire

Cities across Ukraine are facing near-daily Russian attacks, with 11 locations hit overnight on Thursday, including Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Odesa and Kramatorsk.

Several people were killed and more than two dozen wounded, including children. Ukraine says more than 100 drones were launched, but it is no longer releasing figures for missiles used, citing security concerns and shortages of interceptor missiles.

Ukraine’s grain industry is also suffering from repeated Russian attacks on ports. Hundreds of vessels have been targeted by both sides in the Black Sea over the past month, prompting Ukraine to propose a ceasefire covering civilian vessels.

Kyiv says this would allow ports to reopen and farmers to export their harvest during a crucial period. Russia has not yet responded to the proposal.

These attacks came in retaliation for the ongoing lethal attacks on civilian buildings launched by the Ukrainian military.

Russian Armed Forces liberate Rybalskyoe in Zaporozhye Region

The Russian Armed Forces liberated Rybalskyoe in the Zaporozhye Region within 24 hours, the Defense Ministry reported.

“As a result of decisive actions by units of the Battlegroup East, the village of Rybalskoye in the Zaporozhye Region has been liberated,” the statement reads.

The liberation of Rybalskoye in the Zaporozhye region allowed the Battlegroup East to expand its zone of control northwest of Novoye Pole and continue its advance, the ministry added.

“During the fighting, units of the Battlegroup East broke through the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ defenses. The enemy suffered losses of up to a company of personnel. Seven armored combat vehicles, 10 vehicles, 13 ground robotic systems, and more than 20 R-18 heavy hexacopters were destroyed. The liberation of Rybalskyoe allowed units of the Battlegroup East to expand their zone of control northwest of Novoye Pole and continue their advance in the special military operation zone in the Zaporpzhye region,” the ministry said.

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Updates on AUGUST, 12-13, Breaking News in Video

US Ambassador to Israel: “Settler Siege of Palestinian Homes Is Terrorism”

“The actions of those who carried out this horrific act of terrorism, aimed at intimidating and harassing this family, are abhorrent,” the US ambassador to Israel wrote on X, referring to Israeli settlers besieging the home of two Palestinian families in Qusra, in the West Bank.

“There is no excuse for such violent behavior,” Mike Huckabee wrote on X. Among the homes targeted is one owned by a US citizen.

The Israeli army (IDF) has reversed its decision to evacuate Palestinian families whose homes are under siege by settlers in the West Bank village of Qusra, near Nablus, for several days.

The public broadcaster Kan reported, specifying that the commander of the IDF Central Command, General Avi Blot, ordered that soldiers enter only unoccupied homes.

The decision, Kan emphasizes, follows criticism of Israel for its handling of the situation in Qusra. The IDF had initially asked residents of the besieged homes, as well as other residences, to leave their homes for a few days in anticipation of a military operation in the area.

COLONI ISRAELIANI KILLER sul TG1 DIVENTANO “ESCURSIONISTI”. Sdegno Social contro la Disinformazione RAI sul Massacro di Palestinesi a Tell

Israeli settlers lay siege to Palestinian family with two daughters

Armed Israeli settlers and Israeli occupation forces have besieged two Palestinian families in their homes since the weekend in an effort to usurp their properties in the West Bank village of Qusra through intimidation.

On Sunday afternoon, armed settlers and Israeli soldiers surrounded Yousef Hassan’s home, erecting a tent just outside and effectively trapping him inside with his wife and their two young daughters, leaving the family confined as the intimidation campaign unfolded around them.

The Israeli men gathered only meters from the location where 28-year-old Amir Moatasem Odeh was killed by a settler in March. Another attacker stabbed Odeh’s father. No arrests have been made in connection with the killing and assault.

“Every night, the settlers throw stones, use obscene language, and shout during the night. We are living in a state of terror,” Hassan said.

‘We will not withdraw’: Katz on Israeli forces in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza

Israeli War Minister Katz openly declared that Israeli forces intend to maintain a long-term occupation of areas in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza, ruling out withdrawal from what “Israel” has designated as so-called “security zones” and ordering the military to prepare for a prolonged presence.

Katz made the remarks on Wednesday during a visit to Israeli occupation forces deployed inside southern Lebanon, according to Israeli media platform Divuhim Online, as senior commanders discussed military preparations for a possible future confrontation with the Lebanese Resistance.

“The Israeli army is here to stay in the security zones in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza and to protect the entire State of Israel,” Katz said. “We are up above and they are down below. I have instructed the Israeli army to take all necessary steps to prepare for a long-term presence in the area.”

Final Countdown to Complete 1948’s Nakba. Israeli Govt admits the ZioNazi Genocide’s Goal: Depopulate Gaza Strip

The declaration comes almost two months after Lebanon and “Israel” agreed to a US-sponsored framework involving the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, the disarmament of Hezbollah, and the deployment of the Lebanese Army, beginning in designated test areas known as “pilot zones.”

«His remarks provide an unusually explicit articulation of an Israeli policy increasingly centered on maintaining military control beyond occupied Palestine’s internationally recognized borders, under the pretext of creating buffer or “security” zones.» Al Mayadeen Lebanese TV freported. 

https://gospanews.net/en/2023/12/08/the-greater-israel-scheme-and-its-global-power-play-a-delusional-recipe-for-armageddon/

Such declarations reinforce longstanding warnings that Israeli military expansion is not intended as a temporary security measure, but as an effort to entrench occupation and impose new realities by force.

IRGC: No Ship Can Safely Pass through Strait of Hormuz without Iran’s Permission

Spokesperson for the Central Headquarters of Khatam al-Anbiya (PBUH) affirmed that no ship can pass safely through the Strait of Hormuz without Iranian permission and supervision.

The Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters is the highest operational military command center of the Islamic Republic of Iran Armed Forces, located in Tehran.

Washington’s baseless claims about the normal movement of ships through Hormuz are nothing but lies, he added.

Meanwhile, hte head of the Basij Mobilization Group, Hojjatoleslam Hussein Taeb, said, “The Americans ignited a war in the Strait of Hormuz to change the balance of power, but they were defeated once again.”

He added, “The Strait of Hormuz is under the administration and control of the Islamic Republic, and Iran continues its path in complete security and stability.

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Updates on AUGUST, 11, Breaking News in Video

HUNTER BIDEN to Carlson: “Bibi Netanyahu evil incarnate…”

HUNTER BIDEN: ‘If it’s antisemitic to point out that Bibi Netanyahu evil incarnate… don’t know what to say to people anymore… just open your eyes’

TUCKER: ‘It’s such an obvious lie’

HUNTER: ‘How is it possible that they’re dividing us on things like that?’

TUCKER: ‘I agree’

Russian armed forces launched a coordinated attack on defense facilities in Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia

The Russian armed forces launched a coordinated attack on defense industry facilities and transportation and logistics hubs in Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia, according to a statement from the Ministry of Defense.

The video shows the aftermath of one of the attacks in Kyiv.

Defense Ministry’s statement  quoting by TASS:

“The Russian Armed Forces carried out a coordinated overnight strike using ground-based precision-guided weapons, resulting in the destruction of military-industrial facilities and transport and logistics centers in the cities of Kiev and Zaporozhye” the military said in a statement

The ministry later revealed in another statement that the targets of the overnight strike were successfully hit.

The Russian Armed Forces struck a Nova Post logistics terminal in Kiev, an automated compound storing and distributing dual-use goods, including components for long- and medium-range UAV production, robotic vehicles and electronic warfare systems.

Russian servicemen also hit the Kiev-3 transport and logistics center, also known as San-park, a large warehouse facility of approximately 50,000 square meters that stored up to 15,000 attack FPV drones, including those equipped with thermal imaging cameras, such as Beshket, Spuk, Komik-A, and Gorobets, as well as ground control stations and related components.

The Russian Armed Forces struck the Zaporozhstal steel mill (PJSC Zaporizhstal), a part of the Metinvest Group.

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Updates on AUGUST, 10, Breaking News in Video

Iran Links Hormuz Reopening to End of US Blockade

Spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry Esmaeil Baghaei said the Strait of Hormuz will not reopen as long as the US maintains its naval blockade against Iran, stressing that Washington must end and make amends for its “destructive actions” before further steps can be discussed.

Speaking at a weekly press conference on Monday, Baghaei said the closure of the Strait of Hormuz was a result of the US and Israeli military aggression against Iran.

He noted that negotiations between Iran and Oman over a shipping route are naturally a bilateral matter involving the two coastal states.

The spokesman stressed that reopening the Strait of Hormuz depends on the conditions imposed on Iran and the waterway by the US and the Zionist regime, saying that the necessary conditions for reopening do not exist while the US naval blockade remains in place.

“As long as the US naval blockade continues, the necessary conditions for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz do not exist,” Baghaei stated. He added that it is up to the US to stop and make amends for its destructive actions so that the sides could then discuss the next steps.

Asked about the possibility of Iran imposing transit fees on vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz, Baghaei said discussions on such details are still underway and that Iran is not currently discussing the issue.

Drone attack on Nizhnekamsk kills thirteen people killed, including child

he number of people killed as a result of the drone attack on facilities in Nizhnekamsk has increased to 13, the press service of the head of Tatarstan told journalists.

Russian Investigative Committee Spokeswoman, Svetlana Petrenko, told TASS that a child was among those killed. Industrial and civilian facilities in Nizhnekamsk came under a large-scale drone strike, causing fatalities.

According to the investigation, Ukraine used drones to strike residential areas and industrial facilities in Nizhnekamsk.

Ukraine lost 11 locomotives, having received 41 blows to the railway infrastructure

The Ukrainian railway company Ukrzaliznytsia officially called the past days one of the most difficult and destructive weeks in its history. In five years, the country’s transport infrastructure has been attacked 41 times.

11 locomotives were damaged and disabled, tracks and station facilities used for military transportation were destroyed.

Passengers from trains had to be evacuated 350 times due to threats and arrivals. The loss of a key locomotive fleet and the constant destruction of tracks cause critical damage to the entire transport system of the country.

YAF-HOUTIS announce targeting of Saudi-backed factions in Mokha

The strikes by the Yemeni Armed Forces (aka Houtis) on Al-Mukha and Marib decimated Saudi officers and their troop concentrations, targeting a heavy and medium weapons depot alongside a secret storage facility, a senior Yemeni source told Al Mayadeen‘s correspondent in Sanaa.

Yemeni Armed Forces spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree said the operation, carried out using a large number of ballistic missiles and drones, came in response to Saudi Arabia’s continued mobilization of its proxies, its supply of weapons and equipment to them, and its ongoing attacks along the western coast and in Taiz governorate aimed at deterring the Yemeni people from confronting the blockade and aggression imposed on them for the past 12 years.

“The strikes were precise and caused extensive damage to the equipment and weapons, killing and wounding dozens, including Saudi nationals”,Saree said on Telegram.

The Yemeni Armed Forces reaffirmed their commitment to the declared equation of “blockade for blockade and escalation for escalation,” vowing to continue targeting any military buildup directed against the Yemeni people and the free governorates.

The strike on Mokha is the second operation carried out by the YAF on Sunday. Earlier in the day, the YAF announced that they targeted a Saudi Aramco refinery in Jizan with a drone, stating that the operation comes as a response to Saudi drone incursions into Yemeni airspace.

Saree announced that the forces successfully targeted the Aramco refinery in Jizan with a drone, achieving a precise hit. He said the operation came in response to Saudi drone incursions into the airspace of Yemen’s Saada and Hajjah provinces.

The announcement came after Saudi Arabia’s Energy Ministry reported earlier that a fire had broken out at a facility belonging to Saudi Aramco’s refinery in Jizan, southwestern Saudi Arabia. The ministry said Aramco’s industrial security firefighting teams extinguished the fire and that there were no injuries.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman pays tribute to journalists killed in Iran, Lebanon, Palestine

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Updates on AUGUST, 9, Breaking News in Video

Israel rejects 15-point Gaza document, not to withdraw until Hamas disarms — Netanyahu

Israel rejects the 15-point document on Gaza and will not withdraw its forces until Hamas is genuinely disarmed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the start of the government’s weekly meeting.

“Israel does not accept the 15-point document. The Israel Defense Forces will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is disarmed. And when I say the disarming of Hamas, it means heavy weaponry, lighter weaponry, all weaponry. We are talking about genuine disarmament, not fictitious disarmament,”Netanyahu said, according to his office.

“Right now, we are talking with the Americans about this issue. They have ideas, some of which are acceptable to us and some of which are unacceptable, and we know how to stand firm against these things,” he added.

Israel will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons regardless of whether Washington and Tehran reach an agreement, Netanyahu said. “I greatly appreciate the historical partnership with the US against Iran’s attempts to acquire nuclear weapons. And I wish to emphasize once again: with or without an agreement, as long as I am prime minister, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon,” he said.

Iranian TV Airs Footage of Captured US and Israeli Aircraft

Footage appears to show a drone, aircraft parts, and other machinery.

This week, US media reports said that Washington faces depleted missile stockpiles—including long-range and air-defense systems—following the conflict with Iran, a claim the White House denied. The developments follow a war of words after Donald Trump said the two sides were talking again, which Tehran rejected.

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Updates on AUGUST, 7-8, Breaking News in Video

Russian MOD: “Plant Producing Warheads for Flamingo Missiles Hit in Kiev” – VIDEO

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Updates on AUGUST, 6, Breaking News in Video

Yemeni Armed Forces (Houtis) launch large-scale op. against Saudi troop concentrations

The Yemeni Armed Forces (aka Houtis army) carried out a large-scale military operation against Saudi military reinforcements, reporting hundreds of casualties and significant material damage, the YAF spokesperson, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, announced.

The Yemeni military spokesperson said the operation was a response to continued Saudi actions, stating that “in light of the criminal Saudi enemy’s persistence in continuing the siege and aggression against our dear Yemeni people for nearly 12 years, our Armed Forces monitored large Saudi military concentrations that were in their final stages, aimed at escalating against the free provinces and the Yemeni people to deter them from their position on ending the unjust siege.”

The operation, according to the YAF, resulted in:

• the killing and wounding of hundreds of “Saudi enemy mercenaries”
• the destruction and burning of a large number of Saudi enemy camps, concentrations, weapons depots, and military equipment in the al-Wadi’ah area, east of the country
• the destruction of a large number of military vehicles stationed at the targeted bases

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis have confirmed targeting multiple Yemeni Emergency Forces camps in the Marib and Hadramout governorates, including in the Ruwaik, Al-Abr and Al Thaniyah areas.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree says the group used “a large number of ballistic missiles and drones” to destroy and burn campgrounds, troop concentrations, depots, weapons and military vehicles.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels have killed at least 30 government soldiers and injured 15 in missile attacks on Yemeni military camps in Hadramout and Marib governorates, government sources told Al Jazeera.

Service fees for transit through Strait of Hormuz to depend on services provided

The fees for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz will vary based on the services rendered by Iran and Oman, according to a report by Fars News Agency, citing a source within the Iranian Foreign Ministry.

The source dismissed recent reports of disagreements between Iran and Oman over the percentage of cargo value – specifically, a tariff of 7% versus 3% – to be used as transit fees, stating these claims are false.

“Payments by vessels will depend on multiple factors, including the scope of services we can provide,” the official emphasized.

Previously, Reuters reported that Iran and Oman are engaged in negotiations to introduce transit fees ranging from 3% to 7% of the declared cargo value, as part of efforts to restore shipping through the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

Russian forces strike Ukrainian army’s infrastructure sites, logistics centers in past day

Russian forces struck infrastructure sites and logistics centers used by the Ukrainian army and its deployment areas over the past 24 hours in the special military operation in Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported.

“Operational/tactical aircraft, attack unmanned aerial vehicles, missile troops and artillery of the Russian groups of forces struck fuel and energy and transport infrastructure, logistics centers used by the Ukrainian army, sites for the storage of attack unmanned aerial vehicles, and also temporary deployment areas of Ukrainian armed formations and foreign mercenaries in 155 locations,” the ministry said.

The Ukrainian army lost roughly 1,395 troops in battles with Russian forces in all the frontline areas over the past 24 hours, according to the latest data on the special military operation in Ukraine released by Russia’s Defense Ministry.

UNICEF says one child killed per day in Gaza since ‘ceasefire’

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Updates on AUGUST, 4-5, Breaking News in Video

A massive overnight strike on Kiev and the Kiev region by Russian Armed Forces – 3 VIDEOS

On the night of August 5, the Russian Armed Forces hit seven large logistics centers in Ukraine. The Russian ballistic missile attack on the region surrounding Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, has killed at least 14 people and injured 27 others, the city’s military administration said.

The strikes early on Wednesday morning come after at least 27 people were killed in separate attacks in both Ukraine and Russia earlier this week, with the five-year-long conflict showing no signs of slowing down.

The Russian Ministry of Defense has revealed details of a massive overnight strike on Kiev and the Kiev region. High-precision ground-based weapons and long-range attack drones have hit transport, logistics and distribution centers involved in the storage, production and supply of equipment and components in the interests of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

In the capital of Ukraine, the goals were:

• MLP-Chaika is a warehouse complex for storing components for medium and long—range UAVs.
• The innovative Novaya Pochta terminal is an automated sorting hub for dual—use goods, including components for assembling drones, robotic systems and electronic warfare.
• Trans-Logistics is an enterprise for the production of various modifications of drones and the storage of logistical assets of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
• The Epicenter warehouse is a large automated order processing center with dual—use goods and parts for creating UAVs.

In the territory of the Kiev region, the following targets were hit:

• Brovary Terminal — storage of components for drones, including foreign-made ones;
• Raben Ukraine is a key hub for the distribution of parts for various types of drones;
• The Novaya Pochta sorting complex in Brovary is a storage facility for aircraft—type vehicles and their spare parts.

In addition, three dry cargo ships delivering weapons and military equipment for the Armed Forces of Ukraine were hit in the sea south of Odessa.

Death toll among minors from Kiev’s attack on Gelendzhik up to 4

The death toll among minors from Ukraine’s attack near Gelendzhik has risen to four, Russian childerns’ rights ombudswoman Maria Lvova-Belova said.

“An awful tragedy. Ukraine’s aggression. By now, we have reports about four killed children, three more children are in hospitals. One child has been operated on, two others are being examined, they have shrapnel wounds,” she told reporters.

According to earlier reports, the attack on Gelendzhik killed seven people, including three children, and left 58 people injured.

Casualties, fire at Wildberries sorting center, 475 UAVs: aftermath of drone attacks

Russian air defenses intercepted and destroyed 475 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions, as well as over the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov overnight, the Defense Ministry reported.

In the Tula Region, one person was injured as a result of a drone attack, and a fire broke out at the Wildberries sorting center.

According to its statement, the drones were shot down over the Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Kaluga, Kursk, Lipetsk, Oryol, Rostov, Ryazan, Saratov, Smolensk, Tula, Ulyanovsk, Krasnodar, Tatarstan and Moscow Regions, Crimea, as well as over the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.

Gaza Healthy Ministry reports 6 martyred, toll exceeds 900 since truce

Six Palestinians were martyred and eight others were injured over 24 hours as Israeli attacks on the besieged enclave continue despite the declared ceasefire, the Health Ministry in Gaza announced on Monday.

According to the Ministry, the victims included five people martyred in new Israeli attacks and one who succumbed to previous injuries.

The Ministry added that a number of victims remain trapped under rubble or stranded on roads and in inaccessible areas, as ambulance and civil defence crews continue to face difficulties reaching them.

The Health Ministry said the number of Palestinians killed since the announcement of the ceasefire on October 11 has risen to 904, while 2,713 others have been injured. Authorities also reported that the bodies of 777 Palestinians have been recovered during the same period.

According to the latest figures released by the Ministry, the cumulative death toll since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, has reached 72,797, in addition to 172,821 injuries.

ZIONISTs’ “SLAPS” Even to POPE: Catholics Persecution in Gaza! UN: “Over 100 Children Killed” during Fake Truce (VIDEOs)”.

Israeli forces continue their relentless attacks across the Gaza Strip despite the announcement of a ceasefire agreement, amid ongoing destruction and humanitarian deterioration throughout the enclave.

Israel kills 19 (4 children) in Gaza as attacks escalate despite latest Trump plan

On August, 2, Israeli forces have killed at least 19 Palestinians in Gaza, despite United States President Donald Trump announcing a plan he described as a “monumental step” towards peace and security in the shattered enclave.

Medical sources said that 14 Palestinians, including four children, have been killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip since dawn on Sunday.

The deaths on Sunday included three people killed in an air raid on a residential apartment in Al-Sousi Tower in western Gaza City – Abdullah Abu Taif, 33, his pregnant wife, Abeer Anan, 29, and their five-year-old son, Azzam – according to medical sources at Al-Shifa Hospital.

An attack on an apartment in al-Qarara, northwest of the city of Khan Younis, killed three members of the Al-Hams family – father Mahmoud, 38, his wife, Fatima, 37, and their young daughter. Three others were wounded, medical sources at Nasser Hospital said.

Kamu Abu Muailiq, 68, and his wife, Huda, 59, were killed in an attack on their home near Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, medics said. In the same area, two brothers were killed as they rode a motorbike.

In northern Gaza, a Palestinian was killed after being directly targeted in the Jabalia refugee camp. In al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, one Palestinian was killed, and five others were wounded in an Israeli attack on a tent.

Two Palestinians, including one, were killed in an Israeli drone attack on a tent for displaced people in the Remal neighbourhood, west of Gaza City. Four others were killed in a strike on a vehicle in Gaza City.

The Israeli attacks since dawn caused the largest daily death toll in weeks, according to Palestinian health officials.

Gaza families bury 112 people recovered nearly three years after Israeli strikes: 44 Kids and 43 women among martyrs

Palestinians on Tuesday buried 112 members of a single clan killed in Israeli air strikes in November 2023, after their remains were recovered from beneath the rubble last month. Relatives of the Abu Shari’a and al-Hasayna family gathered in Gaza City to bid a final farewell to their loved ones, whose bodies lay in rows draped in Palestinian flags.

For many, it was a moment of both relief and renewed grief after nearly 1,000 days of waiting to recover the bodies of their relatives.

“There is a feeling of both pain and joy,” Amer Abu Shari’a, who lost relatives in the attack, told Middle East Eye. “Joy because we will bury and honour these martyrs after three years. But the sorrow has returned, as if the massacre happened today.”

On August, 4, Gaza and Palestine bid farewell to the largest funeral procession of martyrs in all of Palestinian history. Around 112 martyrs have been recovered from beneath their homes after nearly three years of war.

Today, the Al-Hassaneh and Abu Sharia families are burying 112 martyrs out of 308 family members who were killed and later recovered. Does the world see 44 children in a single funeral? Does it see 43 women?

Does it witness these scenes and still remain silent These are scenes from Gaza scenes that will forever remain in the history of Palestine.

Iran-Oman Strait of Hormuz corridor talks enter new phase despite US obstruction

The ongoing negotiations between Iran and Oman regarding the future operational arrangements for the Strait of Hormuz represent a pivotal moment in the region’s strategic landscape amid the US destabilising activities, Iranian Press Tv has reported.

These discussions, which began in the very first days following the Iran-US ceasefire on April 8 and entered a more serious phase after the June 18 agreement to end the imposed war, are a testament to Iran’s commitment to diplomatic engagement and its determination to safeguard its legitimate sovereign rights.

However, what should have been a straightforward bilateral process between two littoral states has been systematically disrupted and derailed by the United States and certain regional actors acting in concert with Washington (below the videos of latest US attack on July, 30). 

Their obstructionism has not only delayed a mutually beneficial outcome but has also exposed the hollow nature of American influence in a region where Iran’s strategic interests are paramount and non-negotiable, a senior Iranian official aware of the details of ongoing negotiations told Press TV.

Yemeni forces strike vital target inside Saudi Najran Airport with drone

The Yemeni Armed Forces have struck a strategic installation inside Najran Regional Airport in southern Saudi Arabia, in response to the Riyadh regime’s ongoing aggression and blockade against their homeland.

Brigadier General Yahya Saree, spokesperson for Yemen’s Armed Forces, said on Tuesday afternoon that Yemeni military units targeted the vital target with a domestically-developed kamikaze drone. Saree noted that the retaliatory strike attained its desired objectives successfully.

He emphasized that the attack was a retaliation for Saudi Arabia’s violation of Yemeni airspace over the northern provinces of Sa’ada and Hajjah with unmanned aerial vehicles.

“We warn the Saudi enemy that any violation of our airspace will not go unanswered and unpunished,” Saree emphasized.

On July 20, the Sana’a government declared a maritime blockade against Saudi Arabia, stating that its authorities have enforced “an unjust and oppressive siege” on Yemen for almost 12 years, “looting our resources and enforcing a total blockade.”

Since then, the Yemeni Armed Forces said they have launched attacks on Saudi vessels in the Red Sea.

Yemen’s Houthis claim missile attack on Saudi oil tanker in Red Sea

The Houthis from the Yemeni Ansar Allah rebel movement have used ballistic missiles to hit a Saudi oil tanker Wafa in the northern part of the Red Sea, Houthi Military Spokesman Yahya Saria stated.

According to him, rebels “struck a Saudi oil tanker Wafa in the northern part of the Red Sea near [the port city of] Yanbu using several ballistic missiles.” Saria said the strike was accurate.

Indian cargo ship sinks near Yemen after Red Sea attack, crew rescued

An Indian cargo ship sank near Yemeni territorial waters after an attack in the Red Sea, but all 14 crew members were rescued by the Yemeni Coast Guard, India’s Shipping Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said on Tuesday.

The vessel, identified as the Faize Noore Oliya, was struck by a projectile near Yemeni waters, causing it to capsize and sink, according to Sonowal.

“Indian MSV Faize Noore Oliya has been hit by a projectile near Yemeni waters, causing the vessel to capsize and sink. India strongly condemns this unprovoked attack on the defenseless mechanised sailing vessel. The safety of our people is our supreme priority & I am relieved to inform that ALL 14 seafarers (including 13 Indians) have been safely rescued by the Yemeni Coast Guard,” Sonowal wrote on X.

Earlier on Tuesday, Yemeni news portal HYemen24 reported that the Yemeni Coast Guard of the Saudi-affiliated Yemeni government had rescued the crew of an Indian cargo ship after it came under attack by a booby-trapped boat in the Red Sea.

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Updates on AUGUST, 2, Breaking News in Video

VITAL FOOTAGE: Massive Explosions in Kiev after 25 Russian missiles were fired including hypersonic Iskander and Zircon

While Western-backed forces continue to strike at shopping malls in Russia, such as Wildberries and now Ozon the Russian military space forces are intensifying their bombing, not propaganda, but military, against targets in the enemy’s military-industrial complex.

Last night, Russian troops attacked several Ukrainian areas, with virtually no effective air defense from Western-backed forces.

More than 25 Russian precision-guided missiles were fired at Kiev alone, including Iskander-M ballistic missiles and Zircon hypersonic missiles, which hit targets in the capital of Ukraine and its suburbs (Vasilkov, Boyarka) without encountering effective air defenses, as has been the case for several days. Only one anti-aircraft missile was launched that night, but it failed to intercept the target. Even Zelensky was forced to admit this (probably in order to better request new military assistance in this area):

“Ukraine’s air defense system was able to intercept only one ballistic missile during the massive Russian attack on Kiev last night.”

Russian Wildberries Warehouse Raid, Fire Breaks Out

Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retail platform, has been targeted again by Ukrainian forces: a logistics facility in the Samara region was hit, according to TASS. A fire broke out following the attack. According to initial reports, there were no injuries.

The Russian Defense Ministry announced that it destroyed 635 Ukrainian drones on the night of Saturday to Sunday in several regions of its territory and in annexed Crimea. In a statement published on the Russian state-run messaging app Max, the ministry stated that “overnight, air defense assets in action intercepted and destroyed 635 Ukrainian fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles.”

Moscow, bomb at party for Russian general, many Killed and Wounded

A private party organized in the center of the Russian capital to celebrate a high-ranking officer has turned into carnage. At least three people were killed and 21 injured in the explosion that occurred this evening outside the Balzi Rossi restaurant on Kudrinskaya Square in Moscow.

According to News-Pravda the death toll from the explosion at the entrance to the Balzi Rossi restaurant on Kudrinskaya Square has risen to five that include the woman who tried to bring in the explosive device, the security guard, and a cafe customer.

Among the guests at the event was General Alexander Chaiko, appointed to command the Russian Air Force just a month and a half ago.

According to the Interior Ministry, the explosion occurred at about 08:10 p.m. (05:10 p.m. GMT) near a summer cafe near house No. 1 on Kudrinskaya Square. According to the NAC, an unknown woman tried to bring an improvised explosive device there, but a guard stopped her.

An explosive device, a 1 kg TNT bomb filled with metal balls, detonated at the entrance to the Balzi Rossi restaurant. The device was in the possession of a “suicide bomber” who was probably used “in the dark.” As a result of the explosion, she died on the spot, her fragments were captured on video.

The Shadow of the Ukrainian Secret Services behind the Terrorist Attack

Investigators and criminologists of the Investigative Committee are working at the site of the explosion, the Investigative Committee said.

The police and Russia’s National Guard Rosgvardiya restricted access near the residential high-rise on Kudrinskaya Square, where the blast took place, a TASS correspondent reported.

The attack is part of a long series of targeted actions that, since the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine in 2022, have targeted senior officials, military leaders, and prominent public figures close to the Kremlin.

NATO-KIEV TERRORISM RAISES THE SHOT. Russia’s Chemical Defense Chief KILLED after Discovering Lethal Viruses Built in Ukraine by US. Pentagon’s Expert confirms

Over the past four years, several generals and Russian administration officials based in the occupied territories have been victims of bombings and ambushes claimed or attributed to Kiev’s intelligence services with the help of NATO’s 007 and in particular of the British military counterspionage MI6 vvery active in the conflict as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is an agent of London, as also confirmed by high-profile arrests.

Russian RAID in UKRAINE! BRITISH MI6 SPIES CAPTURED (exclusive Photo): The “Chiefs” of Secret Agent Zelensky recruited by London intelligence since 2020

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Updates on AUGUST, 1st, Breaking News in Video

NYT, TASS confirm Gospa News scoop: “US used aerial bomb weighing almost ton to hit apartment building in Iran”

«The US military used one of its most powerful non-nuclear bombs to strike a residential building on the Iranian island of Qeshm, killing three people on Thursday night, The New York Times reported, quoting satellite imagery and an expert opinion»

TASS Russian news agency has reported confirming the first report by Gospa News International on July, 30 (read below update “Two children rescued from the rubble of the Trump’s Evil Bombs – VIDEO”) which specified that bunker-busting explosives had been used to destroy two family homes.

It said that the diameter of the crater and fragments of ammunition indicate the use of a heavy MK-84 aerial bomb weighing 2,000 pounds (about 907 kg). The newspaper said that it was not possible to find any evidence of military installations nearby. The strike was carried out in a densely populated area, the newspaper adds.

Captain Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for the US Central Command (CENTCOM), told The New York Times that the US military leadership is aware of the strike and is looking into it. He also said the United States never targets civilians.

Russian forces destroyed a large Ukrainian ammunition depot in Ukrainian-occupied Kramatorsk.

Russian forces destroyed a large Ukrainian ammunition depot in Ukrainian-occupied Kramatorsk. The depot, carefully concealed by Ukrainian militants, was struck by two loitering munitions. The detonation of the munitions lasted for several hours. Several Ukrainian air defense systems were also hit in Kramatorsk.

In the Sumy region, at least ten FAB strikes with UMPK-based missiles and at least 45 Geran/Lancet/Molniya/FPV strikes were carried out over the past 24 hours.

Meanwhile, in the Kharkiv region, at least 11 guided bomb strikes, two MLRS/OTRK strikes, and at least 56 Geran/Lancet/Molniya/FPV strikes were carried out over the same period. Additionally, morning Geran and FAB strikes “visited” the outskirts of Illichivsk (Chornomorsk) in the Odessa region and Vasylkivka in the Dnipropetrovsk region.

It is also reported that new modifications of the Geranium family of attack UAVs are recently equipped with a laser rangefinder. The laser rangefinder is designed to partially implement the air-to-air detonation function of the warhead.

During the final stages of flight (during a dive or approach to a target), the rangefinder measures the exact distance to the ground or object in real time, after which, upon reaching the optimal altitude, the electronics initiate the detonation of the munition in mid-air. Air-to-air detonation of a high-explosive fragmentation charge significantly increases the area of ​​destruction caused by the fragmentation. Thus, unlike the contact detonation of a kamikaze UAV’s warhead, air-to-air detonation covers a larger area.

Russian missile attack kills three in Ukraine’s Kyiv

A Russian missile attack has killed at least three people in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and injured 15 others, the city’s mayor said.

The strikes hit early on Saturday, triggering more than a dozen explosions that reverberated across the city, witnesses told the Reuters news agency. Kiev was battered by “Iskander-M” and “Zircon” missiles.

Residents were trapped in damaged buildings in the Shevchenkivskyi and Solomyanskyi districts, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. All 15 injured people, including two boys aged 13 and 17, were hospitalised, with one in serious condition.

Fires and damage were also reported in several other districts of the capital, including burning warehouses in Darnytskyi and debris falling on buildings in Holosiivskyi. Emergency services remain on the scene as rescue efforts continue.

Russia has stepped up its attacks on Kyiv in recent months, taking advantage of Ukraine’s shortage of air defences capable of shooting down ballistic missiles.

Russian forces hit over 80 vessels involved in cargo deliveries for Ukrainian army in July

Russian forces struck more than 80 seagoing vessels in Ukrainian ports and at sea that were involved in delivering cargo for the Ukrainian military, according to TASS estimates based on Russian Defense Ministry data.

Among them were two dry cargo ships, a sea ferry transporting military cargo and a screening boat hit in overnight group strikes on July 12, according to the ministry. On the same day, the ministry released footage that showed Geran-4 Seeker drones destroying a seiner converted to launch unmanned boats, a patrol boat, a ferry and a dry cargo ship.

According to the ministry, Russian forces struck 24 seagoing vessels used by the Ukrainian military during the week of July 11-17, including 14 dry cargo ships and one tanker.

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Updates on JULY, 31, Breaking News in Video

Military F-35B fighter jet crashes and burns at California Marine Corps base

Pentagon Weighs Kuwait Pullback as War on Iran Redefines Regional Posture

The United States is reportedly reassessing the scale of its military footprint in Kuwait, with officials weighing a potential drawdown of forces amid shifting dynamics in the ongoing conflict with Iran, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Citing sources familiar with the deliberations, the newspaper reported that the Pentagon’s strategic review comes as Kuwaiti officials have underscored the need for an unambiguous security commitment from Washington, stressing that any reduction in U.S. personnel must not undermine the Gulf state’s defensive capabilities.

The reported deliberations highlight a delicate balancing act for Washington as it seeks to adjust its regional posture while reassuring key Gulf allies of its continued commitment to their defense.

Below a video of previous Iranian attack on US Base in Kuwait

Hamas agree draft peace plan, as Israeli settlers raid West Bank

• The Board of Peace – the international body established to oversee Gaza’s governance – said Hamas has agreed to a roadmap to disarm and implement the next phases of the ceasefire.
• Hamas official Ghazi Hamad said disarmament is tied to full Israeli withdrawal from areas occupied over the past months, as the group will not implement any step of the Gaza peace deal if Israeli forces do not fulfil their obligations.
• The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) said it is ready to “assume its responsibilities” in Gaza, to ensure that the roadmap leads to “practical steps that have a tangible impact on citizens’ daily lives”.

• An Israeli drone strike hit the Karama area in Gaza City and another targeted a group of people standing next to Khadija mosque as the Israeli military continues to attack the Strip.
• At least 11 Palestinians have been injured during attacks by Israeli forces and settlers in Nablus and several surrounding villages.

At least 10 Palestinians, including 4 children, injured in Israeli raid on Nablus

IRGC avenges Qeshm massacre; targets Azraq base, destroys 3 US F-35s

Three US F-35 fighter jets were destroyed and three others sustained heavy damage in a missile attack on Azraq Air Base in Jordan, the IRGC’s Public Relations Department announced, framing the operation as retaliation for US aggression on residential homes on Iran’s Qeshm Island.

“We will punish the aggressor today,” the IRGC said in a statement, explaining that the operation was carried out in response to American aggression in the early hours of the day.

The statement added that US forces used bases in Jordan to launch bunker-buster bombs at two residential homes on Qeshm Island, killing a father, a mother, and one of their children and injuring two other children.

IRGC Strikes US Bases in Kuwait, Bahrain

The IRGC said Thursday it destroyed two drone hangars and a fuel storage facility at the US Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait in its latest retaliatory strikes, according to Al Manar TV.

According to the statement, the operation was carried out as part of what the IRGC described as the “punishment of the aggressor.” It added that the IRGC Aerospace Force and Ground Force continue military operations against US forces while nationwide public gatherings in Iran persist.

The statement also said that public rallies have continued for 150 consecutive nights, describing their purpose as demanding “revenge for the blood of the martyred Imam” and “the expulsion of American aggressors from the region.”

The suicide drones of the Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran targeted the electricity generators, navigation system, and the administrative and support buildings “belonging to the terrorist U.S. Army at Sheikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain”.

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Updates on JULY, 30, Breaking News in Video

Russian Forces Pummel Ukrainian Airfields, Defense Plants, and Logistics Nodes

Ukrainian drones attack Wildberries warehouse in Penza Region, one person hurt

Ukrainian drones attacked a Wildberries warehouse in the Penza Region, leaving preliminarily one person injured, the Region’s Governor Oleg Melnichenko said.

“Enemy drones carried out a terrorist attack on a Wildberries warehouse. According to preliminary reports, one person was injured. Around 200 employees were evacuated,” he wrote on messaging app Max.

According to the governor, the attack caused a fire, which is being extinguished.

Two children rescued from the rubble of the Trump’s Evil Bombs – VIDEO

Two children were rescued and taken to hospital after a US strike hit a family home on Qeshm Island, while efforts continue to reach three relatives trapped beneath the rubble.

This attack confirms once again that US President Donald Trump’s War Department makes no distinction between military and civilian targets.

Beyond their relevance as a war crime, these attacks aimed at terrorizing the Iranian population in the hope of a revolution have no strategic military utility whatsoever and confirm the failure of the Trump administration’s wars, costly in terms of money and human lives of American soldiers.

After approximately 7,000 deaths since the start of the war in Iran, Trump can finally be accused of war crimes and genocide like his ally Netanyahu…

The Minab school massacre in Iran has not even slightly touched the evil pig heart of the American president.

The FIRST MASSACRE made by AI & TRUMP in the HUMAN HISTORY. FT: “Schoolgirls Killing in Iran by US Missiles shows the Artificial Intelligence Dangers”

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Breaking: US Launches Airstrikes in Iran – VIDEO

A new round of fighting emerging in Iran this week brought a new player that could change the game entirely.

U.S. forces launched new airstrikes against Iran on Wednesday, U.S. Central Command announced, while earlier, and for the first time, the Saudi Arabian military joined with the U.S. in striking Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, The Associated Press reported.

And, according to Fox News, a former deputy CENTCOM commander said those developments and others could signify Iran being pushed to a “tipping point.”

US forces have hit several locations in Ahvaz in southwestern Khuzestan province, with power outages reported in some parts of the city, according to Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency.

At least seven locations in the city were hit, the IRIB state broadcaster added. It also said explosions were heard in the cities of Shadegan, Arvandkenar, and Abadan in Khuzestan province.

US completes new wave of strikes on Iran — CENTCOM Footage

Iraqi president denounces deadly US-Saudi aggression on Hashd al-Sha’abi bases – VIDEO

Iraqi President Nizar Amedi has categorically denounced joint Saudi-US strikes on positions of Popular Mobilization Forces (PMU), commonly known as Hashd al-Sha’abi, across the country, which have killed at least 20 resistance fighters and wounded 32 others (details below in the yesterday updates).

Amedi, in a strongly worded statement released on Tuesday, condemned the aerial assaults “as an unacceptable act, a flagrant violation of Iraqi sovereignty, and entirely contrary to international law and the United Nations Charter.”

“We reiterate our vehement opposition to the use of Iraqi soil or a military field to launch attacks against neighboring countries. We call on all parties to respect Iraq’s sovereignty and refrain from any action that undermines its security and stability,” the Iraqi presidency said.

Iraq’s Islamic Resistance: Our Response to US Enemy is Inevitable, Saudi Arabia may be also Attacked

Islamic Resistance in Iraq issued on Monday a statement which categorically denied any involvement in attacks against the Saudi entity or its facilities, affirming that the response to the US aggression is inevitable, Al Manar Tv has reported.

«After the Islamic Resistance categorically denied any involvement in attacks against the Saudi entity or its facilities, the American enemy committed a new crime by targeting members of the Popular Mobilization Forces and a convoy serving the visitors of Imam Hussein (peace be upon him) in the holy city of Karbala, resulting in dozens of martyrs and wounded» the statement read.

«We affirm without doubt that the Saudi regime has never been, and never will be, anything other than a treacherous dagger and a corrupt tool directed by the White House and its suspicious intelligence agencies. Just as it once mobilized its capabilities to dispatch suicide bombers to shed Iraqi blood, today it has once again renewed its contract of subservience to carry out the crimes and directives of its masters in an attempt to undermine the will of our proud people».

So these are the decisions:

1. We grant the government authorities that demanded the Resistance disarm until the 23rd of Safar (August, 6 – ed) to demonstrate what actions they will take.
2. In order to safeguard the security of the visitors of Imam Hussein (peace be upon him) and the honorable Arbaeen service processions, and to prevent any disruption to the blessed Arbaeen pilgrimage before its completion, our response against the American enemy is inevitable and may also target its instruments in Saudi Arabia whenever circumstances require.

Iran condemns ‘criminal’ US-Saudi strikes on Iraq,: “A plot to widen regional war” during sacred Arbaeen Procession 

The Iranian Foreign Ministry has issued a fierce condemnation of joint airstrikes by the United States and Saudi Arabia on Iraq (details below in the yesterday updates), Iranian Press TV has reported.

Tehran says the attacks were a blatant violation of Baghdad’s sovereignty and a deliberate attempt by Washington and the Zionist regime to widen the regional war.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the Foreign Ministry specifically highlighted the “criminal and anti-human” targeting of official state facilities and service stations dedicated to the millions of pilgrims participating in the sacred Arbaeen procession.

ARBAEEN EVENT: The Huge SHIA PILGRIMAGE Told by a Devoted Irani Writer in the Day of Khamenei Funeral

“The Foreign Ministry of the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns in the strongest terms the aggressive attacks by the United States and Saudi Arabia on several areas in Iraq, including against facilities and sites belonging to official Iraqi institutions, as well as the mawakib and stations of Arbaeen pilgrims.”

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Updates on JULY, 29, Breaking News in Video

Around 800,000 weapons intended for Ukraine end up on black market

About 800,000 units of weapons and ammunition have gone missing in Ukraine, ending up on the European black market, the Il Fatto quotidiano newspaper reported, citing that most of this arsenal comes from European military supplies.

The newspaper noted that since 2022, as many as 780,465 pieces of weapons have disappeared or have been stolen, with 149,000 of them in the first five months of this year alone.

Palermo Prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia told the anti-mafia commission that most of these weapons end up on the European market, catching the attention of the Italian mafia group Cosa Nostra.

The newspaper also emphasized that European countries providing military aid to Ukraine prefer to hide the details of their supplies to Kiev, making it harder for police officers to track the flow of weapons.

WEAPONS LOBBY – 19. EU’s MAD REARM by VON DER LEYEN to ENRICH GERMAN DEFENSE INDUSTRY. Rheinmetall 202 % in one Year, + 52 % in two Weeks

US-Saudi air strikes kill at least 20 Iraqi fighters. PMF a ‘significant infringement of Iraqi sovereignty’

Israeli airstrike destroys Gaza City mosque near displacement camp. Several Injured

Video footage captures an Israeli airstrike hitting Al-Muttaqin Mosque in Gaza City, next to Yarmouk Stadium, where dozens of displaced people are sheltering in tents.

The strike triggered a powerful explosion that destroyed the mosque and serious injured several Palestinians.

IRGC hits US airbase in Jordan with ballistic missiles, halts trespassing ships in Strait of Hormuz

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has staged a retaliatory ballistic missile strike against an American airbase in Jordan, besides halting three trespassing vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.

“In response to the aggressive actions of the child-killing US military, the brave fighters of the IRGC’s Aerospace Force launched several ballistic missiles at a US airbase and the US military’s Central Command’s headquarters in Jordan,” the Corps said in a statement in early Wednesday.

“As long as threats against the Islamic Republic continue and the unlawful and hostile actions of US forces against our interests persist, resistance will also continue,”it added.

The Jordanian Armed Forces says its air defences “dealt with five missiles coming from Iran that targeted the kingdom’s territory” at dawn today. It said the missiles were intercepted and shot down.

The United States has perpetrated numerous violations against Iranian territory since April 7, when US President Donald Trump announced a unilateral ceasefire in the latest bout of wholesale American-Israeli aggression targeting the Islamic Republic.

The violations continued even after Washington and Tehran signed a Pakistan-mediated memorandum of understanding last month, whose first clause had clearly mandated cessation of aggression on all fronts.

The video below shows US soldiers running to shelter in one of the recent strikes on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, Jordan

Iran rejects Oman proposal for joint oversight over Strait of Hormuz

Yemeni Armed Forces Target Saudi Oil Tanker

The Yemeni Armed Forces carried out a military operation targeting the Saudi oil tanker (NCC GHAZAL) for violating the maritime navigation ban imposed on the Saudi enemy and for ignoring warning calls, the spokesman General Yahya Saree said according to Al-Manar English Website.

The operation was conducted with a number of ballistic missiles and forced it to retreat and turn back, by the grace of God, he added.

The Armed Forces affirmed their continued implementation of the maritime blockade decision against the Saudi enemy, under the equation of “siege for siege” and “comprehensive escalation for comprehensive escalation”.

Thirty-seven commodity vessels passed through the Bab al-Mandeb strait yesterday, marking the highest daily count since July 19, when the Houthis declared a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea, Reuters reports, citing shipping data.

Saudi Arabia accuses Iran-aligned groups of ‘irresponsible escalatory’ attacks

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Defence has confirmed launching retaliatory attacks against Iran-backed groups in Iraq, saying those strikes were coordinated with the US Central Command.

It says they were in response to drone attacks on its territory, in the oil-producing regions, in particular. Now, those regions have been targeted pretty relentlessly throughout the course of this war since it started in February. And that’s all part of Iran’s strategy to try and push up the oil price and disrupt energy supplies.

The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the timing of the drone attacks was really unfortunate, because GCC countries and Jordan had been trying to work collectively to try and de-escalate tensions during this five-day pause in hostilities. But they said “Iran-affiliated terrorist militias” chose the “irresponsible escalatory” approach.

Russia attacks on the port, marine, fuel and storage infrastructure of Ukraine used to Military goals

The Russian armed forces continued attacks on the port, marine, fuel and storage infrastructure of Ukraine, used in the interests of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

In the border areas, calculations of the Geran drones destroyed gas stations in Mena, Chernihiv region, and Petropavlovsk, Kharkiv region. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the facilities were used to supply Ukrainian units with fuel.

On the outskirts of the village of Nikitovka, Sumy region, a Geran-4 Seeker drone struck an enemy attack UAV storage and launch site.

Strikes were also carried out on Ukrainian ports and naval vessels involved in the transportation of military goods.

More details in the description of the video in the Rumble Channel of Gospa News

Another Gas station hit with a glide bomb in Zaporozhye

Gas station hit with a glide bomb in Zaporozhye. Since may the Russian Aerospace Force has struck more than 200 gas and oil station (see update on July, 11) in retaliation of the previous attacks on civilian infrastructures unleashed by Kiev Army.

Senate confirms Clayton as new director of intelligence

The Senate voted along party lines to approve President Donald Trump’s choice for the next director of national intelligence, Jay Clayton.

Jay Clayton, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the US intelligence community who was confirmed in a 51-47 vote on Tuesday night, steps into his new job inheriting a diminished office whose authority and relevance are at a historic low point.

The new Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) succeeds Bill Pulte, a combative and controversial housing executive with no national security experience whom Trump installed as acting director for a 40-day tenure.

Clayton, whose legal career centered on corporate law before serving as a US attorney under Trump, must now chart a course for an organization that struggled with its mandate even before Donald Trump and his allies made it their top “Deep State” target.

Bombshell! ODNI (Gabbard Video) ACCUSES FAUCI of Pandemic’s SARS-COV-2 MANMADE with China. New Declassified Files by US IC

The ODNI position became available following the well-known resignation of Tulsi Gabbard, who, before leaving the scene, declassified important documents on the laboratory origin of SARS-CoV-2, covered up by Anthony Fauci, and on the Pentagon’s investments in biolaboratories in Ukraine and around the world.

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Updates on JULY, 26-27, Breaking News in Video

VIDEO – Houthis drones targeted Saudi’s crude oil infrastructure. KSA reserves ‘right to respond’ 

Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen say they have targeted a number of “sensitive” crude oil supplies and transport sites linking eastern Saudi Arabia to the Red Sea city of Yanbu.

Spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, announced a drone attack on oil infrastructure in eastern Saudi Arabia and Yanbu.

“By the grace of God, a number of sensitive targets and positions related to the supply and transport of crude oil from eastern Saudi Arabia to Yanbu were targeted with a number of drones. This came in response to the penetration of Yemeni airspace by drones belonging to the Saudi enemy.”

Infact, Yemen Houthi forces have before claimed they shot down a Saudi reconnaissance drone over northwestern Yemen (footage below or here).

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Updates on JULY, 25, Breaking News in Video

“Hundreds of Victims”: A Ukrainian Journalist on the Attack on an Exhibition in Kapitanovka

ICC prosecutor Karim Khan removed over ‘political’ sex abuse claims

The Assembly of States Parties of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has voted to remove prosecutor Karim Khan over sexual misconduct allegations, his legal team has confirmed, suggesting that the move was “political”.

The vote on Friday came as the ICC faces backlash from the United States and Israel after Khan issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his then-Defence Minister Yoav Gallant in 2024.

Tayab Ali, head of Khan’s legal team, noted that a judicial panel had “unanimously” determined that findings by the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services “did not establish misconduct or breach of duty by Mr Khan under the relevant legal framework”.

The administration of President Donald Trump had imposed sanctions on Khan and several other ICC officials and judges over the Netanyahu warrant. “The decision has grave implications beyond Mr Khan’s individual case,” said Ali.

“The independence of the International Criminal Court depends upon its elected officials being protected from removal through processes that are political, procedurally unfair or inconsistent with the findings of independent judicial bodies.”

The lawyer added that Khan was removed “by an executive vote while under sanctions and while the Court is under immense political pressure”.

Ali added that the decision by the Assembly of States Parties “does not follow the evidence or the findings of the only judicial determination in this matter”.

1,472 Civilians, including 45 Children, killed in Ukrainian attacks across Russia since 2022 — top investigator

Ukrainian attacks have targeted 54 Russian regions since 2022, killing nearly 1,500 people, including 45 children, Russian Investigative Committee Chairman Alexander Bastrykin said.

“Since 2022, investigators have opened 5,347 criminal cases involving attacks on 54 Russian regions outside the special military operation zone. The cases document artillery and missile strikes, drone attacks, and cross-border incursions carried out by Ukrainian nationalists,” he told TASS in an interview ahead of Russia’s Investigative Officers’ Day.

He said the attacks have killed 1,472 civilians, including 45 children, and injured 6,754 people, including 405 minors.

At least 256 children killed by Ukrainian forces in DPR

A total of 256 children have been killed in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) as a result of Ukrainian aggression that began in 2014, the republic’s human rights commissioner Darya Morozova has told TASS.

“Since 2014, a total of 256 children have been killed on the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic as a result of aggression on the part of Ukrainian armed groups,” she said in the run-up to the Remembrance Day of child victims of the conflict in Donbass. “Every such loss is an irreparable tragedy for families and all our people.”

The ombudsperson added that a total of 1,076 children have been wounded in the reported period.

The Remembrance Day of child victims of the conflict in Donbass is marked annually on July 27. The date was established by the head of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Denis Pushilin. The date commemorates a massive Ukrainian shelling attack on Gorlovka, which left 22 civilians dead, including 23-year-old Kristina Zhuk, who died holding her ten-months-old daughter.

VIDEO – Russian Heavy Strike on UAV Exhibition near Kiev: 10 Killed

A Russian missile strike targeted the CSA Open Air testing ground in Kapitonovka, Buchansky district, outside Kiev, where a UAV technology demonstration was underway.
Present were leading drone developers, manufacturers, and representatives of the Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces and special services planning strikes on Russian territory.

• Casualties: 10 killed, dozens wounded. A Polish defense company employee died, though Poland’s Foreign Ministry says he was not a Polish citizen.
• Damage: Fires destroyed 3 private homes and 8 cars. 23 homes, 2 hotels, a restaurant, and 34 vehicles were damaged.

The Russian Armed Forces carried out a strike using high-precision long-range weapons on a facility in a suburb of Kiev where Ukrainian-and foreign-made unmanned aerial vehicles, including advanced models, that are used in strikes on civilian facilities in Russia were demonstrated, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

At the time of the strike, drone developers, officials of Ukraine’s unmanned systems command, as well as the special services that plan attacks on Russia were present at the facility, the ministry said.

WEAPONS LOBBY – 21. NATO’s WarCrimes! Attack to Moscow, SCHOOLGIRLS’ Massacre by DRONE of Ex CIA Chief POMPEO. Behind UAV FP-1 the Satanic Kiev Gang of Corruption funded by SOROS too

According to the Ukrainian Council of Gunsmiths (a defense industry association), the strike targeted an area “where representatives of the Ukrainian defense industry were present.” Several people were killer and wounded, it said.

The council also said that information about the participants’ whereabouts had not been disclosed publicly. Valery Borovik, founder of the defense manufacturer First Contact, reported a “very serious strike” on the training ground where weapons were located.

Ukraine’s attack on Kirov, six civilians killed

Six people have been killed and 26 more injured in a Ukrainian missile attack on an enterprise in Kirov, the region’s Governor Alexander Sokolov reported on messaging app Max.

On the morning of July 24, a plant in Kirov came under a missile attack, Sokolov reported. Emergency response services are working at the site.

According to the latest information, six people were killed and 26 injured in the attack. All the injured are receiving medical assistance – from outpatient treatment to hospitalization, the region’s governor noted.

Twelve of those injured in the Ukrainian attack on Kirov were taken to hospitals, fourteen others received outpatient assistance, aide to the Russian health minister Alexey Kuznetsov said.

Zelensky says appointed Drapaty as new commander-in-chief instead of Syrsky

Vladimir Zelensky said he has appointed Mikhail Drapaty as the new commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army to replace Alexander Syrsky, whose resignation many Ukrainian politicians and protesters have been demanding for a week.

“It was decided that Mikhail Drapaty will be the new commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed force,” he said in a video address posted on his Telegram channel.

Along with Syrsky, Zelensky dismissed Chief of the General Staff Andrey Gnatov. “Today, we discussed with Alexander Syrsky and Andrey Gnatov future service arrangements and the proper handover of responsibilities,” he said.

OIC condemns escalating colonist terrorism and Israeli occupation crimes against Palestinians

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) condemned the escalating terrorism by Israeli colonists and the crimes committed against the Palestinian people under the protection of Israeli occupation forces, including the latest attacks in the towns of Tell in Nablus Governorate and Deir Jarir in Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate, as well as the ongoing attacks in the Gaza Strip that have resulted in dozens of Palestinians killed and injured.

In a statement issued on Friday, the organization denounced the continued attacks by colonists against unarmed Palestinian civilians, including the destruction of property, the burning of agricultural lands and homes, and the theft of livestock, amid the escalating pace of colonial expansion.

Final Countdown to Complete 1948’s Nakba. Israeli Govt admits the ZioNazi Genocide’s Goal: Depopulate Gaza Strip

The OIC warned of the dangers of this serious escalation, describing it as a blatant violation of international humanitarian law, relevant international legitimacy resolutions, and the advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice.

The OIC General Secretariat affirmed that the continuation and escalation of such terrorism constitutes a practical implementation of Israeli colonial plans aimed at forced displacement, ethnic cleansing, and genocide in the occupied Palestinian territory, including occupied Jerusalem.

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Updates on JULY, 24, Breaking News in Video

Footage documents IOF-backed settler massacre of four Palestinians 

Footage documents Israeli settlers assaulting Palestinians in the West Bank town of Tell and committing a massacre. As shown in the video, armed Israeli settlers, protected by the IOF, are seen pointing their guns at unarmed Palestinians as they stormed their land before one managed to snatch a rifle to defend himself as he was being assaulted.

The Israelis opened fire, killing at least four Palestinians and injuring four others, including three critically, amid the raid on the town. In the ensuing confrontation, one Israeli officer was killed and three other Israelis were injured.

As oil soars, experts watch Red Sea tankers for clarity on Houthi blockade

As oil prices hit $100 a barrel on Thursday, experts say they are watching to see which vessels Yemen’s Houthis allow to pass through in the Red Sea as that will indicate how the crude market trends.

Brent futures rose $6.58 or 6.96 percent, to $100.65 a barrel, exceeding $100 for the first time since late May.

That was on the back of the Iran-aligned Houthis saying they were cutting off the passage Riyadh had been using to ship parts of its crude oil once Iran closed theStrait of Hormuz to retaliate against United States and Israel attacks.

On Monday, the Yemeni group declared a naval blockade on shipments from Saudi Arabia and said they would target Saudi, Israeli, and United States-linked tankers in the Bab el-Mandeb, which links the Red sea to the Indian Ocean.

On Thursday, the Houthis attacked two Saudi Arabian oil tankers, the group said, with a Saudi news agency later confirming that one of the two vessels was set ablaze.

It is not clear if the second one was also hit, according to marine analysis firm, Windward.

“The Houthis are quite mercurial and there is no complete clarity on what the blockade means,” said Michelle Bockmann, a senior maritime intelligence analyst at Windward.

More details on the Houtis attack to two Saudi oil tankers in the yesterday updates

VIDEO – Iran strikes back: IRGC hits US bases, assets in Jordan, Kuwait

In response to the ongoing US aggression against Iran, the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) said it had carried out drone attacks targeting US military facilities in Kuwait and Jordan.

These strikes resulted in the destruction of strategic fuel reserves, major ammunition and supply depots, helicopter maintenance facilities, and critical air defense assets, including Patriot missile systems, a THAAD radar unit, C-RAM systems, and MQ-9 drone hangars. Additionally, troop quarters and communications infrastructure supporting these foreign forces were directly targeted.

In detail, the IRGC said its forces targeted Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, destroying a large military equipment depot, a Patriot air defense system, and a hangar housing US MQ-9 drones. It also said attacks on Al-Udairi Camp, where US forces are stationed, killed and wounded several personnel and caused severe damage to several helicopters and drones.

US military assets at Camp Doha and Camp Arifjan were also targeted.

Video Shows Iranian Multiple Missile Strike on U.S. Air Base

A video has emerged online showing the impact of a cassette warhead from an Iranian ballistic missile on a U.S. air base. The video is reportedly filmed at a U.S. air base in Kuwait. The authenticity of the video has not yet been confirmed. Source: Telegram “CyberspecNews” via News-Pravda

US attacks Iran for 13th night as Trump threatens ‘bigger’ strikes

The United States military has said it bombed Iran for the 13th consecutive night after President Donald Trump threatened more intense attacks on the country amid risk of further escalation.

The Middle East-based Central Command (CENTCOM) of the US military said early on Friday that it targeted “Iranian military command centers, drone storage facilities, communication networks, coastal surveillance sites, and maritime capabilities”.

VIDEO – Four people were killed and five others injured as a result of the 13th US strike on the Iran

Four people were killed and five others injured as a result of the US strike on the Iranian city of Ahvaz, Press TV reports.

The Central Command of the US Armed Forces said that the strikes were carried out on Iranian military command centers, drone depots, communications centers, coastal surveillance points and marine facilities. According to the American side, the purpose of the operation was to reduce the threat to civilian sailors and commercial vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

The footage of the Central Command of the US Armed Forces shows the moments of strikes against targets in Iran.

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Updates on JULY, 23, Breaking News in Video

Yemen renews strikes on Saudi ships violating blockade in Red Sea

The Yemeni Armed Forces announced a military operation targeting two Saudi oil tankers (link video), identified as “ENCELIA” and “LAYLA”, noting that the vessels had violated a ban imposed by the Yemeni side.

Yemeni Armed Forces spokesperson Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said the operation was carried out using a number of ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as drones, adding that the strikes accurately hit their targets.

Saree said the operation came as part of ongoing maritime operations, adding that the Yemeni Armed Forces had also forced approximately 10 ships to retreat and return.

He said the Yemeni Armed Forces would continue their maritime operations against the Saudi enemy and maintain a “blockade for blockade” response. 

The Yemeni Armed Forces spokesperson warned Saudi Arabia against carrying out any blunders or aggression against Yemen, saying any such action would be met with major operations deep inside Saudi territory.

Iranian Forces Will Target Oil, Gas, Electricity, and Economic Infrastructure in Region

Khatam Al-Anbiya (PBUH) Headquarters issued on Wednesday a statement, affirming that the rogue, criminal, child-killing American president has once again threatened to target Iran’s infrastructure, according to Al Manar Lebanese TV.

“In accordance with last night’s warning, it is announced that the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Should any vessel be permitted to transit the Strait, it must do so only through the designated route and in accordance with the arrangements previously announced.”

“Should the United States carry out its threats, the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran will not allow a single drop of oil to be exported. The oil, gas, electricity, and economic infrastructure throughout the region will also be targeted (Link video)”, the statement affirmed.

“The repeated threats of criminal America and its terrorist military will result in nothing but the expansion of the war throughout the region and even beyond.”

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Updates on JULY, 22, Breaking News in Video

US President Trump accepts coffins with the bodies of American soldiers killed in the Middle East

US President Donald Trump salutes as the 4 US soldiers killed by Iranian strikes are brought back home.

Iran’s military says it attacks US bases in Kuwait, Jordan and Bahrain

The Iranian Army announced on Wednesday that it had carried out an intensive drone attack targeting ammunition depots and logistical equipment belonging to the US Army’s Ground Forces Command at Doha Camp in western Kuwait, as part of the 21st phase of Operation Saeqeh.

The Iranian military said the operation came in response to repeated attacks by the United States against areas in Iran.

According to the Iranian Army statement, Doha Camp is one of the largest and most important US military bases in western Kuwait and serves as a logistical hub supporting US forces deployed across West Asia.

A statement from Iran’s military says Jordan’s Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Azraq and Bahrain’s Isa Air Base have been targeted with drones.

“The army targeted the ‘housing and welfare buildings’ and ‘equipment warehouses’ of the terrorist US army at the Azraq base in Jordan with drones in the morning,” the statement, cited by the Mehr News Agency, said.

“[Drones] also targeted the ‘large equipment warehouses and sheds’ and the ‘heavy aircraft maintenance and repair sheds’ of the child-killing and criminal US army at the Sheikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain.”

Iran’s attack on Amazon infrastructure in Bahrain raises questions about Pentagon AI ops

The IRGC Aerospace Force has launched a barrage of cruise missiles against Amazon’s central data infrastructure in Bahrain, leaving the facility destroyed.

The AWS Middle East (Bahrain) Region, opened in 2019, is a major cloud infrastructure hub that underpins digital services across the Gulf, providing large-scale computing capacity, data storage, and cloud resources for governments, financial institutions, and enterprises.

It’s not the first time that Iran has targeted the Amazon infrastructure:

In March, drone strikes on Amazon Web Services data centers in the UAE caused outages for apps and digital services, with a Bahrain facility also sustaining damage

️ In April, the IRGC warned of potential attacks against Microsoft, Google, Apple, Meta, Oracle, Intel, HP, IBM, Cisco, Dell, Palantir and Nvidia assets in the Middle East

On April 1 an Iranian drone hit an Amazon data center in Bahrain, according to the Financial Times. On April 2, Iranian forces attacked an Oracle facility in Dubai.

CBS VIDEO – Nearly 100 U.S. soldiers injured in Iranian strikes this month, Pentagon says

Almost 100 U.S. service members have been injured, with most returning to duty, in Iranian strikes in the Middle East this month, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told CBS News.

VIDEO – Hegseth called a ‘failure’ as he reveals $37.5bn cost of war

The war on Iran has cost the US $37.5bn so far, the defence secretary says, an increase of nearly $8bn since the last public estimate.

Pete Hegseth told lawmakers that the figure also included anticipated costs through to September 30.

This is the first time that Hegseth, who appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee along with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, has publicly faced questions from lawmakers since the US military started attacking Iran again earlier this month.

VIDEO – British interests in Middle East may become military target for Iran

British interests in the Middle East region may become a legitimate military target for Iran if London joins the US war against the Islamic Republic, a high-ranking Iranian source has told TASS.

“If media reports about the decision of the new British Prime Minister [Andy Burnham] to participate in the US war against Iran are confirmed, then, in addition to political and legal consequences, all British interests in the region will be added to the list of targets of Iran’s powerful armed forces,” the agency’s source said.

The source also recalled that “Britain has already once experienced the implementation of Iran’s threats during the 40-day war.”

According to Bloomberg, quoted by Fox TV, New UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham has just APPROVED the US military launching strikes against Iran from UK bases.

Oil prices climb to $92 a barrel

Oil prices are continuing their upward trajectory, with Brent crude futures gaining $1, or 1.1 percent, to $92.01 per barrel as of 03:30 GMT. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude went up 82 cents, or 1.0 percent, to trade at $85.16.

The gains came after oil settled at a five-week high on Tuesday, according to Reuters, in the wake of US forces attacking targets in southern and western Iran, and Iran striking US facilities in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan. Brent futures closed at $91.01 per barrel on Tuesday, while WTI settled at $84.91.

️ VIDEO – US completes 11th consecutive night of strikes on Iran — CENTCOM

The Pentagon says it targeted military operations centers, maritime capabilities, aircraft hangars, drone storage, and logistics infrastructure.

It was yet another night of escalation and exchange of fire between Iran and the US, as we witnessed the continuation of air strikes targeting cities across Iran.

First and foremost, we know that sounds related to the activation of the air defence system here in the capital were heard. In Tabriz, located in the northwest of the country, attacks were reported targeting a military base. We also know that, in Khuzestan province, in the three cities of Omidiyeh, Mahshahr and Behbahan, explosions were reported.

Moving on, explosions were heard in the city of Sirik, which is very important as it oversees the Strait of Hormuz. Further strikes were also reported in Chabahar and Konarak in the southeastern Sistan province.

Similarly, air strikes were reported in the cities of Bushehr, Kangavar, Kabudarahang and in areas in the vicinity of the city of Baneh in Kurdistan province for the very first time.

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Updates on JULY, 21, Breaking News in Video

IRGC declares ‘dark night for US radars’; Army strikes three bases in Kuwait

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says it has destroyed multiple US military radar and communications facilities in the region, while the Army reports drone strikes on three US bases in Kuwait in ongoing retaliation for American violations.

The announcements were made in a series of statements issued early Tuesday, describing the latest phases of the IRGC’s Operation Nasr- (Victory) 2 and the Army’s Operation Sa’eqeh (Lightning) in response to the United States’ renewed aggression against the Islamic Republic.

In its first statement, the IRGC said the second phase of wave 24 of Operation Nasr-2 targeted infrastructure supporting US military air defense operations in Kuwait. The Corps said the latest phase was staged “to clear the way by eliminating obstacles to large-scale air and missile operations” against American targets in the region.

According to the statement, missiles and drones struck and destroyed a long-range radar site, a communications center, satellite reception systems, and a missile defense radar belonging to the “child-killing US military” stationed in Kuwait. The IRGC also said an MQ-9 drone hangar at Ali al-Salem Airbase was hit in the country, adding that several drones were either destroyed or severely damaged as a result.

New satellite imagery confirms Iranian strikes hit the US Airbase Muwaffaq Salti in Jordan

Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) announced on Tuesday that its Aerospace Force had launched a missile strike against a US military base in Jordan, confirming that the attack “destroyed a missile defense radar system and an F-15 aircraft”.

New satellite imagery confirms at least two Iranian strikes hit the base, with two more suspected elsewhere. Two aircraft hangars were damaged and a hit occurred near personnel quarters.

Casualties: 3 US servicemen killed (2 confirmed dead, 1 initially MIA, remains later found). At least 4 wounded and evacuated to hospitals.

Equipment losses: A critical AN/TPY-2 X-band radar (THAAD component) was destroyed by a Shahed kamikaze drone early in Operation Epic Fury (Feb 28, 2026). The base hosts US F-16s, F-15Es, and reconnaissance systems.

IRGC-linked sources claim local agents aided the strikes, possibly to provoke a witch hunt within Jordanian intelligence, seen by Tehran as Tel Aviv allies.

Tehran attacks Gulf states, Jordan; 2 Hormuz tankers on fire

Iran continues retaliatory attacks across the region after a 10th consecutive night of US bombing, with the Revolutionary Guard saying it targeted US assets in Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait.

“Massive fires” broke out on two tankers that “took an unsafe route” in the Strait of Hormuz, says the IRGC. The IRGC said rescue teams are evacuating the crews of the vessels.

It again warned shipping companies to safeguard the health of their sailors, not to trust “false information from the US military” and avoid routes it described as “dangerous”. It wants ships to use a route closer to its shores.

The White House says strikes on Iran will continue until Trump decides otherwise

The White House says strikes on Iran will continue until Trump decides otherwise but diplomatic talks between the two nations are ongoing.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) concluded a new series of strikes against Iran at 9:00 PM Eastern time on July 20th.

U.S. forces targeted Iranian military command and control facilities, naval capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and air defense systems, with the aim of disrupting Iran’s ability to continue attacking commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

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Updates on JULY, 20, Breaking News in Video

US renews strikes on Iran as another soldier confirmed killed in Iraq

The US military says it has completed its ninth consecutive night of strikes against Iran, targeting command centres, air defence sites, maritime assets, missile facilities, and communications networks.

A US service member has died in northern Iraq after a controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian drone, according to CENTCOM. Another body was found in Jordan, but not yet identified.

VIDEO – The United States has launched a series of massive strikes against Iran.

Military command centers, air defense and coastal surveillance facilities, marine facilities, missile and drone launch positions, as well as communications networks were hit, the Central Command of the US Armed Forces said.

Before the strike, Trump said that this attack was dedicated to the memory of three American servicemen who died in the Middle East.

According to WP sources, Washington is on the verge of returning to a full-scale war with Iran.

IRGC conducts high-fatality, destructive strikes on regional US targets

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has announced carrying out high-fatality and widely destructive retaliatory strikes against strategic American targets in the region in response to the ongoing violations by the United States.

The IRGC made the announcements in successive statements on Monday, during which it detailed strikes targeting American assets in Jordan and Kuwait as part of the 21st and 22nd waves of its Operation Nasr-2 (Victory-2).

IRGC: “20 hangars destroyed, dozens of US forces killed”

The 21st wave saw the IRGC carry out precision strikes leading to “the destruction of 20 hangars used to station troops of the child-killing US military in the al-Azraq area” in Jordan, which also resulted in “the deaths of dozens of American terrorist forces.”

The Corps thanked the Jordanian public and members of the country’s armed forces for providing it with intelligence that facilitated the reprisal.

Additionally, the 21st phase featured destructive ballistic missile strikes by the IRGC’s Aerospace Force against US C-17 strategic transport aircraft and P-8 command-and-control aircraft at Aqaba Airport in Jordan.

In a separate statement, the IRGC announced conducting the 22nd wave of Operation Nasr-2, saying it had struck multiple US military facilities at Ali al-Salem Airbase in Kuwait.

According to the second statement, an American early warning radar system was “completely destroyed” in a drone strike, while aviation equipment, a spare-parts hangar, and an MQ-9 drone shelter were also hit, causing several drones to catch fire.

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Updates on JULY, 19, Breaking News in Video

Zelensky again requests air defense missiles amid massive strike on Kiev

Vladimir Zelensky stated that the strike on Kiev on the night of July 19 was one of the most massive and again requested ammunition for air defense systems.

“One of the most massive ballistic attacks on Kiev,” he wrote on his Telegram channel, adding that “interceptors are needed every day.” According to him, the cleanup of the consequences of the explosions that rocked Kiev tonight continues. “More than 600 rescuers have been deployed,” Zelensky wrote.

“Overnight, Russia conducted one of its largest ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv. The enemy launched more than 40 missiles of various types – most of them against the capital – and 120 attack drones.” President Volodymyr Zelensky took stock of the attack on the Ukrainian capital overnight in a post on

Ukrainian authorities regularly complain about a shortage of ammunition for the air defense systems in service with the Ukrainian Armed Forces and ask Western countries to increase supplies of the relevant weapons.

Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry reported the strike on several Kiev-based enterprises producing military equipment for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Russia’s Overnight Missile Assault Leaves Kyiv Burning

Russia launched an overnight ballistic missile attack on Kyiv, triggering powerful explosions and fires across multiple parts of the Ukrainian capital.

Ukrainian officials said at least one person was killed and several others were injured as residential buildings, a dormitory, warehouses, and a supermarket were damaged. Emergency crews responded as the attack left widespread destruction.

Foreign sailors posted videos of their arrivals at a port in the Odesa region

On July, 18 large-scale, combined attacks by the Russian Armed Forces on Ukrainian Black Sea port infrastructure, which have been ongoing for several weeks, are gradually leading to a blockade of maritime traffic. After the Kyiv regime began massively attacking Ukrainian civilian vessels in the Black and Azov Seas, the Russian military is mirroring this.

The Russian Ministry of Defense regularly reports attacks on vessels that still risk sailing to Ukrainian ports. All of them are sailing under the flags of third countries, and the sailors are mostly citizens of other countries. However, the cargo carried in their holds is military-grade. Therefore, the ships are a legitimate target for the Russian Armed Forces.

As a result of our army’s actions, maritime traffic at the ports of Odesa Oblast and Mykolaiv has already fallen by more than a third. This has been noted by both Western analytical resources and Ukrainian media. Insurance costs for ships and cargo exported from Ukrainian ports have risen sharply.

This represents almost the entire export of Ukrainian grain and other agricultural products. As a result, foreign shipowners and chartering companies have begun to cancel existing contracts en masse.

Excerpt by Alexander Grigoryev from https://en.topwar.ru

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Updates on JULY, 18, Breaking News in Video

The number of victims of recent US strikes on Iran has exceeded 50 people, more than 500 injured.

According to the head of the press service of the Iranian Ministry of Health Hossein Kermanpour, the number of victims continues to grow. One of the most devastating was the strike on the seawater desalination plant in the Bongji district of the Hormozgan province. Tasnim news agency reported that the attack completely destroyed a pumping station and a transformer substation, shutting down the company.

The plant’s capacity was 3,150 cubic meters of water per day. As a result, 20 villages with a population of about 10,000 people were left without drinking water. Local authorities report that restoration work is underway at the facility. The representative of the Ministry of Health stressed that attacks on civilian infrastructure worsen the humanitarian situation in the region.

IRGC: “Two American fighter jets and three aircraft completely destroyed during attack to US Base in Jordan”

The Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) conducted a simultaneous missile and drone strike against a US base in Azraq, Jordan, targeting fighter shelters and a large parking ramp, according to the IRGC’s Public Relations Office.

In a statement, the IRGC reported that the operation was carried out in the early morning hours as part of the 20th wave of Operation Nasr 2. The strike was launched in response to the US aggression the previous night, the statement said.

 “With a crushing and simultaneous missile and drone attack on the fighter shelters and a large parking ramp at the American base in Azraq, Jordan,” the IRGC said, “at least two American fighter jets and three American aircraft were completely destroyed while inflicting major damage on a number of others.”

IRGC announces strikes on Kuwait, Bahrain, destroys data intel center

Earlier on Saturday, the IRGC announced that its naval forces carried out drone and missile strikes on US targets in Kuwait and Bahrain.

In a statement, the IRGC said that its naval forces, in the 19th wave of Operation Nasr 2, carried out drone and missile strikes on “a fuel support pier for the US fleet at Kuwait’s Al Ahmadi port” and “a gathering point for enemy combat aircraft at Sheikh Isa in Bahrain.”

The statement added that its forces destroyed “a US data intelligence center in Bahrain known as Batelco” and also destroyed “a US signals and telecommunications center in Kuwait.”

Another power and desalination plant, the second, has been hit by an Iranian attack in Kuwait. The Kuwaiti Ministry of Electricity announced the attack in a statement.

The Kuwait Fire Service said several of its men and a worker were injured while fighting fires at two sites following Iranian attacks this morning.

Tehran launched ballistic missile at US base in Saudi Arabia

Iran has launched a ballistic missile at a US base in Saudi Arabia, marking Tehran’s first direct attack on the Gulf country in nearly four months, according to Axios, citing a US official.

The last time Iran struck a target in Saudi Arabia was in early April, during an attack on the Jubail petrochemical complex. No further details were provided about the attack or its target.

US and Iran exchange deadly attacks for 7th night

• US Central Command says it launched its seventh consecutive night of strikes on Iran.
• The southern cities of Sirik, Bushehr and Bandar Abbas have reportedly been targeted, along with Qeshm Island and the central city of Yazd.
• The IRGC has said that two oil tankers exploded after trying to pass through minefields in the southern Strait of Hormuz, a claim the US military has denied.
• Naval mines are underwater explosives designed to damage or sink ships.
• Back in April, the IRGC provided a map showing an approved passage through the Strait of Hormuz due to “the likelihood of the presence of various types of antiship mines in the main traffic zone”.
• This has meant that ships wanting to avoid the potential risk of mines in southern waters closer to Oman have had to pass through routes to the north, closer to Iran.Under the agreement reached between the US and Iran last month, which has now broken down, Iran had agreed to remove mines from the waterway.

IRGC Navy has released drone footage showing the attack on an oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz

US CENTCOM footage showing US military personnel intercepting and inspecting a ship

CENTCOM has released new footage showing US military personnel intercepting and inspecting a ship under the blockade of Iran imposed by the Trump administration.

The statement said that the operation was carried out in order to ensure that the ship “complies” with the restrictions set by the United States.

Updates on JULY, 17, Breaking News in Video

US aggressive acts against Iran constitute war crimes: Iran envoy to UN

Iran’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations has condemned the United States’ continued military attacks on Iranian territory, stating that the systematic targeting of civilian infrastructure constitutes “serious violations of international humanitarian law” and amounts to “war crimes” for which Washington bears full international responsibility, Iranian Press TV has reported.

In a letter addressed to the UN Security Council and Secretary-General António Guterres, Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani detailed a wave of US attacks carried out between July 8 and July 16, targeting southern provinces, coastal cities, and ports along the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.

According to the letter, US strikes have hit Bandar Abbas, Bushehr, Ahvaz, Chabahar, Konarak, Jask, Sirik, Iranshahr, Abu Musa Island, Greater Tunb Island, and in the early hours of July 16, the cities of Shiraz, Khorramabad, Semnan, Urmia, and Hamedan.

The United States carried out a fresh wave of military strikes on Iran’s southern regions late Thursday and into Friday, hitting civilian infrastructure including bridges, a railway station, and residential neighborhoods.

In Hormozgan province, American airstrikes targeted three bridges in Khmer county, including the crucial Khmer Bridge connecting Bandar Abbas to Lar in Fars province.

Iranian army claims drone strikes on US military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain

US military completes major wave of strikes against Iran, CENTCOM says

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Updates on JULY, 16, Breaking News in Video

VIDEO – Hundreds of patients flee as US bombs near Iran cancer hospital

VIDEO – Russian Armed Forces have destroyed almost half of Ukraine’s port infrastructure

The Russian Armed Forces have destroyed almost half of Ukraine’s port infrastructure in the past two weeks. The ports of Odessa and Yuzhny were under attack — the country’s export and import capabilities have already dropped by 40%.

13 dry cargo ships connected to Ukrainian ports were hit. The strikes also hit the infrastructure of the ports of Odessa and Yuzhny, where military cargo and fuel were stored. When crossing by sea to the ports of the Odessa region, a naval vessel and a high-speed boat of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were hit.

Currently, four official vessels remain under the flag of Ukraine: one of the last active ones is the Mekhanik Cherevko, which is located in Burgas, Bulgaria. The rest have either not been in touch for a long time, or are working on the Danube. (read more here in the video description inside Rumble Channel)

VIDEO – Iran says targeted US military sites in Kuwait, Jordan

Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) said Thursday it targeted US military infrastructure in Kuwait and Jordan while also announcing the downing of an American MQ-9 drone over southwestern Iran, as fighting between Tehran and Washington continued to escalate.

According to the IRGC, Iranian forces struck the early warning radar of the C-RAM air defense system at Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, in addition to a gathering of US troops.

The IRGC also announced that it had shot down an American MQ-9 drone over the city of Andimeshk in Khuzestan Province, describing the operation as a response to overnight US attacks on parts of Iran’s southern coastline.

The Iranian army said it had targeted the fixed radar site, communications system, and fuel storage facilities at the US-operated Al Azraq Air Base in Jordan using suicide drones. The strike was described as part of Iran’s response to the US attack on an army barracks in Iranshahr.

Earlier, IRGC spokesperson Hossein Mohebi said Iranian military operations are currently focused on destroying US offensive infrastructure throughout the region.

“The enemy should not think that it is capable of continuing the current equation of the fighting and turning the war into a war of attrition.”

Iran threatens to ‘crush’ regional infrastructure if US attacks Iranian infrastructure

VIDEO – US attacks northern Iran and Hamadan province overnight

The US military has completed another series of strikes on Iran, according to the US Central Command. The strikes included the city of Bandar Abbas.

The IRIB state broadcaster is reporting an “enemy attack” in Kabudarahang county, in the western Hamadan province. Earlier, Iranian media reported attacks on the northern city of Semnan and said air defences were also activated in Tehran.

It was last week that we saw the US attack northern Iran for the first time since the memorandum of understanding was signed, or indeed, after the ceasefire was reached on April 8.

The first strike was in Aqqala, where a railway bridge was attacked.

US military carries out another wave of strikes

The US military has launched a second wave of strikes against Iran, with CENTCOM saying they “are targeting Iranian military capabilities used to threaten vessels freely transiting through the Strait of Hormuz”.

Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna joins live from Washington, DC. He says US forces have launched strikes against Iran for a fifth consecutive day, targeting sites linked to Iran’s military control of the Strait of Hormuz and efforts to disrupt shipping through the strategic waterway.

Iran’s top negotiator and parliamentary Speaker Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf says the country has “never welcomed war, nor do we now”, adding that “we must always be prepared for battle and stand firm to protect our national security and interests”.

Here’s what happened yesterday, July, 15, 2026 according to Al jazeera

• Explosions were reported late on Wednesday on Iran’s Qeshm Island, Bandar Abbas, and locations in Sistan-Baluchistan province.
• US forces enforced naval blockade measures against Iran by stopping three Iran-bound vessels.
• Iranian army said the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until US accepts Iranian rules.
• Five drone attacks were reported across Erbil in northern Iraq.
• Kuwait’s Defence Ministry said it intercepted 21 Iranian drones.
• Iran’s top negotiator called for a “non-partisan” approach in handling war and talks with the US.
• UN chief said he is “deeply concerned” by recent US-Iran escalation.
• Iran had summoned the British ambassador over IRGC ban.

VIDEO Iranian Children’s Cancer Hospital Evacuated after US Missiles Hit a Medical Complex

Residents of Ahvaz have reported hearing multiple explosions after US strikes on several parts of the southwestern Iranian city, including the vicinity of a hospital treating cancer patients, particularly children undergoing chemotherapy.

According to Fars News Agency, several projectiles struck the area near Baqaei Hospital during the attacks on Wednesday.

Medical personnel, assisted by patients’ families, were evacuating the facility and relocating patients who had been frightened by the explosions. Initial assessments indicated that patients from the medical center would be transferred to another healthcare facility.

Ahvaz University of Medical Sciences, meanwhile, announced that, following enemy attacks on the city and explosions in areas adjacent to the hospital, the facility “has been temporarily taken out of service to ensure the safety of patients and staff.”

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Previous Updates on Middle East Warfare

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IRAN-US WAR. Naval Battle for Hormuz. Domicide: new Kind of Zionist War Crimes in Lebanon: ‘Israel’ demolishes entire Villages

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Previous Updates on Ukraine War

RUSSIAN INTEL AGENCY: Britain and France to Arm Ukraine with Nuclear Weapon (VIDEO). Starmer Ready to Activate the Shady Military Pact with Zelensky

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“NATO’s LIES ON MEDITERRANEAN WARS FOR GAS”. Exclusive Interview to Former Interpol EU Officer

While much of the media industry focused on the churn of headlines, we became increasingly interested in the undercurrents beneath them: the hidden systems, infrastructures and ideologies shaping events across borders and over time.

Again and again, our reporting led us back to the same realization: for a long time, the struggle over information was understood primarily as a question of censorship or access. Who controls information? Who gets to publish? Who gets silenced?

Those questions still matter. But they no longer fully describe the world we live in.

Today, the struggle over information is about who builds the systems through which reality is organized, distributed and trusted. From state propaganda to algorithmic feeds, from platform monopolies to AI-generated noise, the battle is not over facts. It is over the infrastructures that determine which narratives spread, which voices are amplified and which communities remain connected.

Over the past year, these questions led to a collaboration between Coda and The Continent, the pan-African newspaper founded in Johannesburg by Simon Allison and Sipho Kings. Although our reporting emerges from very different histories and geographies, we found ourselves arriving at remarkably similar conclusions about power, fragmentation and the future of journalism in an age of informational instability.

This two-chapter essay is the beginning of that collaboration, and marks the start of a new project called The Atlas. Pilot edition is available here — please feel free to share with friends, family and colleagues, preferably in its entirety.

In Chapter One, I return to the world of my Soviet childhood: propaganda, samizdat and the search for trustworthy signals through noise.

In Chapter Two, The Continent co-founder Simon Allison presents the Parable of Sinn Sisamouth: the story of how some of the greatest songs ever written were nearly lost, and then found, and then lost again. 

Taken together, these essays ask what journalism becomes in a world where information is no longer organized primarily to inform, but to capture attention, manufacture reaction and shape perception at planetary scale.

The Atlas grows out of that question.

Chapter One: Through the Static

Whenever I am asked why I decided to become a journalist, an image from my childhood pops into my head. It’s dusk. I am 10, sitting in the kitchen with my mom. She is glued to a shortwave radio. Outside, the Soviet Union is on the cusp of collapse. Georgia, where we are, is on the brink of civil war. We didn’t use the term back then, but fake news was all we got through official channels. Real news — coming from the West — felt like a lifeline. I was in awe of the crackling radio that held my mother’s full attention. I wanted to become that voice.

Years later, I got my dream job at the BBC and spent much of my adult life moving between wars, uprisings and authoritarian states. Again and again, I found myself in places where truth was contested terrain: Baghdad, Damascus, Donetsk, Sana’a. But over time I realized something fundamental had changed. Modern authoritarianism no longer relied primarily on suppressing information. It had discovered something more effective.

Information could simply be drowned out by static.

That realization became stark for me in eastern Ukraine in the summer of 2014. I arrived in a field of bright yellow sunflowers where the bodies from Flight MH17 still lay scattered across the ground. A Russian missile had blown the passenger plane out of the sky, killing all 298 people on board. Yet almost immediately, the Kremlin flooded the information space with competing explanations. It was a Ukrainian fighter jet. A failed assassination attempt on Putin. The plane had been filled with corpses before takeoff. Each theory contradicted the next, but that hardly mattered. The point was not to persuade, it was to exhaust. It was to create so much noise that truth itself began to feel unstable.

Over the following years, I watched versions of the same logic spread far beyond Russia. Social platforms transformed public conversation into a permanent stream of outrage, performance and distraction, collapsing vastly different kinds of information into the same endless feed. War footage, propaganda, conspiracy theories, journalism and gossip all began competing inside systems designed not to inform people but to capture and hold attention.

Noise became the new censorship.

And increasingly, I found myself thinking about the world of my childhood again. Not because history was repeating itself neatly, but because the emotional landscape felt strangely familiar: confusion, exhaustion, distrust, the constant sense that reality itself was becoming slippery. Back then, people searched desperately for clear signals through the static of Soviet propaganda. Today, we are drowning in a different kind of static, but the instinct, the search for clarity feels remarkably similar.

In the Soviet Union, people developed ways of navigating that confusion. Among my strongest memories from that time is the sound of my parents’ typewriter late at night. Friends would pass around copies of banned Soviet literature and my parents would sit at the kitchen table all night, retyping them page by page so they could be shared again. It was my first encounter with samizdat, although I didn’t know the word then.

Looking back now, what strikes me is that samizdat was never simply about forbidden texts. It was about building trusted alternative systems of circulation when official systems had lost credibility.

At Coda, we have spent years building journalism against the logic of noise. We slowed stories down. We followed themes instead of headlines. We built a reporting system designed to connect events across borders and over time, helping readers see patterns instead of fragments. But as our globally distributed newsroom adapted to an increasingly fractured information landscape, it became clear that journalism alone was not enough. Distribution shapes understanding as much as reporting does.

Around the same time, in Johannesburg, Simon Allison, Sipho Kings and their team were building something that challenged many of the assumptions dominating digital media. The Continent, their pan-African newspaper, spreads largely through direct sharing networks: passed from reader to reader rather than pushed by algorithms.

Different histories had brought us to remarkably similar questions. What does journalism look like when trust is collapsing, attention is fragmented and the systems that carry information have themselves become instruments of power?

Out of that convergence came The Atlas: a new publication that brings together Coda’s methodology of following systems across borders and over time with The Continent’s radically distributed model for reaching readers beyond algorithmic feeds.

The Atlas is built on a shared conviction: as fragmentation, distrust and informational overload spread across the world, some of the clearest ways through will come from places that have already spent decades navigating propaganda, instability and contested reality. Places once treated as peripheral are becoming essential to understanding the defining question of this age: how can meaning survive systems designed to overwhelm it.

Chapter Two: The second silencing of Sinn Sisamouth

Imagine if your favourite song disappeared, forever. 

Almost every album I have ever loved was recommended to me by my friend An-Rui. A few months ago, he sent me a track by the undisputed King of Khmer Music, the Golden Voice, the Cambodian Elvis himself – Sinn Sisamouth.

I had never heard of him.

I didn’t respond at first, so he nudged me. That night, after the kids were asleep, I put on my headphones, sat in the garden and immediately lost myself in Cambodia’s psychedelic rock scene of the 1960s and ‘70s. I don’t know enough about music to explain exactly what I fell in love with, but within weeks I was, according to Spotify, among the top one percent of Sinn Sisamouth listeners worldwide.

An-Rui had added a note to his recommendation. “the songs are happy but since i know what his fate was and i don’t understand the words, it sounds incredibly sad to me”.

The story goes something like this: A small-town boy with an extraordinary voice moves to the big city, and conquers all before him. He writes hundreds of songs, bridging Khmer musical traditions with new western influences: jazz, rock & roll, bossa nova, blues, the Beatles, and, of course, Elvis Presley. He toured the country. He toured the world. He made music with an actual King, Norodom Sihanouk, and became Cambodia’s most beloved rockstar.

Then, in 1975, the Khmer Rouge seized power. In the course of committing a genocide, the communist regime disappeared Sinn Sisamouth, and banned his music. He has never been seen, or heard from, again.

But his music never died. It lived on brittle records, hidden for generations under floorboards. It lived on scratchy cassettes, passed hand to hand among the diaspora.

It was only decades later that his music was digitised and remastered, and made available on streaming platforms to the likes of me.

When I listen to Sinn Sisamouth, I can’t help but think about how easily we could have lost his masterpieces entirely. And I wonder what else might have been lost that we have not been able to recover.

And then it happened again.

There’s a particular track that I like to play in my car, where I can turn the bass up as high as it goes. I was driving one afternoon and looked for it on Spotify. It was gone, even though the rest of the album was there. 

I looked again on my laptop at home. Nothing. Gone from Spotify. Gone from Apple Music. Gone from YouTube. Like it had never been there in the first place. I started to wonder if I had gone crazy, and maybe imagined the song entirely. And then I started to panic: What if I never heard it again?

Eventually, I found a bootleg YouTube version, using a different transliteration of the Khmer title – Kanlang Pnheu Pran, instead of Konlong Phner Bran. Before I tracked that down, I had to wade through dozens of AI-generated Sinn Sisamouth ‘cover versions’, all uploaded to YouTube within the last few months. If I had never heard it before, I would never have been able to tell which was the original.

It’s not unusual for songs to disappear from the Internet, especially when the music is from non-English-speaking countries. I’ve had similar experiences with the music of Sharhabil Ahmed, the Sudanese jazz legend, and Ethiopia’s Tilahun “The Voice” Gessesse.

In fact, it’s not unusual for other kinds of information to disappear from the internet; to be edited after the fact; or to be simply lost among all the digital noise. Digital information is incredibly precarious, and becoming more so by the day. AI slop is taking over social media platforms. Algorithms determine what information we can and can’t see, shaping our cultural and political preferences. And powerful interests are becoming increasingly bold when it comes to brazenly manipulating information in their favour – or, of even greater concern, restricting the flow of information across borders.

Amazon changes the contents of books on people’s Kindles without telling anyone. News websites quietly alter critical stories, post-publication, to remove evidence of wrongdoing (my favourite example: the Financial Express published a story critical of India’s richest family; only to replace it with a glorified press release a few days later. They neglected to amend the URL, however, which contains the original headline). Governments shut down internet access on a whim, or legislate which apps and websites are available to specific populations.

For journalism, this is an existential threat. Our job is not just to hold power to account – it is also to write the first draft of history. But if we can’t preserve that first draft, or distribute it effectively, then what, exactly, is the point?

The Continent and Coda Story are working together to try something different. We want to publish news about the world, produced and verified by humans, that cannot be edited after the fact; and to distribute it in a way that dramatically decreases our reliance on unaccountable algorithms or search engine optimisation. The Atlas — pilot edition available here — is our answer to the precarity of information online. It’s a work in progress.

Stay tuned: if we’re going to succeed, we’ll need your help. And if we do succeed, the secret of our success will be those very same transnational networks that kept the music of Sinn Sisamouth alive. Communities of like-minded people, of friends and families will always find a way to stay connected, no matter how vast the distances between them, or how great the obstacles. So what does a global newspaper look like if we design it with exactly these communities in mind?

As soon as I found that bootleg on YouTube, I ripped an MP3 copy and sent it to An-Rui on Signal. “KEEP THIS SAFE,” I told him. I don’t know what happened to the song on Spotify, or if it is ever coming back. But I can’t take the risk of never hearing that bassline again. And here it is, in case you want to hear it too.

The post The new samizdat appeared first on Coda Story.

My name is Darina,” says an elfin teen, ponytail pulled through the back of her cap, and “next year I’ll be earning 150,000 rubles (nearly $2,000) a month.” Darina works at what she calls “the world’s largest drone factory,” helping to assemble versions of the Iranian Shahed drone. “My parents are proud of me. Wanna do the same?” She asks as she advertises a polytechnic in Tatarstan. The Russian government, in the face of war and looming demographic disaster, has been relaxing child labor laws since 2022, making it easier to put 14-year-olds to work. Now, legislators are open about the need to reform “outdated” restrictions on employing minors in industries that were “considered dangerous 20 years ago.” Drone production is not the only part of the war effort to which teenagers are being recruited. This month in a “content camp” in Moscow, soldiers and state media propagandists trained 120-plus teens on how to make videos, use AI, and grow their audiences as aspiring influencers. Vladislav Golovin, a former soldier and a leader of Russia’s Young Army Cadets National Movement, said the program had “created a huge team of kids who understand how to broadcast government values.” 

But many young people, subject to year-round conscription, subject to internet shut downs and subject to surveillance, have little desire to spread propaganda. Instead, according to Google Trends data, growing numbers of Russians are seeking information on how to emigrate. A new exodus would accelerate Russia’s deep demographic crisis. Already, up to a million people are thought to have left Russia since the full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. According to one recent count, nearly 210,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the war with Ukraine, with other estimates suggesting over 1.2 million casualties, including 325,000 deaths. And Russian fertility rates are the lowest they have been for 200 years. Anton Kotyakov, the labor minister, has told Vladimir Putin that the country faces a labor shortage of 11 million people by 2030.

So concerning is this crisis that Rosstat, the national statistics agency, has stopped publishing monthly demographic data. State officials and local governors have been told to compete to come up with the most innovative solutions to a seemingly intractable problem. The pressure on Russian officials and the Kremlin is leading to desperate measures, including guidance from the Russian health ministry that women who say they do not want to have children should be referred to a psychologist. Nothing the Russian state has tried has worked, from financial incentives (extended even to schoolgirls under 18) to banning advertising that supposedly promotes “child-free” lifestyles and so-called “LGBTQ propaganda.”   

Alongside “anti-woke” policies disguised as family values, is rising xenophobia and anti-immigrant rhetoric that has led to a marked decline in the number of foreigners living in Russia. The Kremlin’s anti-migrant policies include a new system to monitor migrant workers through biometric registration, location tracking, and intensified police oversight. The Russian parliament is currently debating enhancing the number of offences that can be punished by deportation or substantially increased fines. Much of it is targeted at Russia’s Central Asian migrants who make up an overwhelming majority of immigrant labor. Some Central Asian governments, notably Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, have now urged their citizens to think twice about going to Russia for work. 

Russia has been publicizing political stunts such as its “shared values visa” in which applicants from 46, largely developed, nations are given temporary residence permits if they profess to support “traditional Russian values.” The visa, the Kremlin has said, is “Russia’s response to what it perceives as the harmful effects of Western neoliberal policies.” But only a tiny fraction of the immigrants Russia needs will be Westerners who apply for such a visa; instead, Russia has been diversifying its pool of migrant workers by looking further east. Around 72,000 work permits were issued to Indian nationals in 2025, up from just 5,000 in 2021. Russian officials have signaled they are ready to accept “unlimited” numbers of workers from South Asian countries like India, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar.

While the Kremlin is looking to South Asia and Africa to address its immediate need for workers (and soldiers), the ambition in the longer term is to boost Russian birthr rates, despite the signal failure of ongoing attempts. 

In the U.S., there have been several moves borrowed from the Kremlin’s playbook, including the restriction of abortion, the attempt to deny women birth control, and even alarm at the fall in teen pregnancies. But data released this month showed that women in the U.S. gave birth to 710,000 fewer babies in 2025 than they did in 2007, a reflection of two decades of steadily dropping birth rates. Russian demographer Salavat Abylkalikov, at the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies in Germany, says “if the birth rate has fallen below the level of simple reproduction, it is almost impossible to raise it back.” Especially when financial incentives cover just a fraction of childcare costs. 

In any case, Abylkalikov says, “in Russia, death is much more profitable than birth: in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, the government provides around 1,000,000 rubles (about $12,000) for each child, but if one person goes to war and dies, the family receives up to 12 million rubles in total. That's more than $120,000. This is the economy of death.” The evidence, from countries like Russia, Hungary and the U.S., is that appeals to tradition, to religion and to female “responsibility” do not work, when support for families is limited. And while migration is an obvious fix to demographic questions everywhere, it’s politically toxic.

Russia knows it is hurtling towards demographic doom but can do little to halt the momentum. Its policies are riddled with inconsistencies — a strong line in anti-migration rhetoric and bullying, while being forced to import workers and soldiers from Asia and Africa; a patriarchal view of women’s roles, mostly confined to the domestic, while increasingly reliant on women to take the jobs of the men who are fighting and dying in Putin's war; and encouraging more women to give birth, while employing children to build drones. With family values like these, no wonder young Russians are hesitant to procreate.

The post Teens making drones: Russia’s demographic collapse appeared first on Coda Story.

Someone recently asked me what mark out of 10 I’d give for the efforts of governments to tackle financial crime. It got me thinking about that one bright spot of recent times — the West’s response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine four years ago — and how it is now looking. Back in 2022, a lot of us were pleasantly surprised by the speed and ambition with which Western governments sanctioned the Russian government, state-owned companies and wealthy individuals. While Western pressure did not prevent the war, the asset freezes did impose a real cost on those conducting it. Four years on, however, those sanctions are beginning to look a bit shopsoiled. If they began at 7/10, they’re now scoring a lot lower.

There are reasons for this: Donald Trump does not appear particularly interested in Ukraine; the now former Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán has been snarling things up; and so on, as laid out in this analysis from Tom Keatinge. To make things worse, Trump’s latest adventure in Iran has pushed the oil prices sharply higher, earning more money for Russia while also giving Trump cover to lift sanctions, a temporary measure he has recently extended.

Keatinge argues that European countries need to be far more focussed on going after Russia’s payment mechanisms, particularly digital. “The extent to which crypto activity supports Russia’s war effort is clear,” he writes, “yet repeated initiatives to elevate the importance of opening a concerted line of effort on this issue are ignored. This must change.”

I agree, though it won’t be easy, considering the diffuse crypto ecosystem, and the increasing sophistication of Russian involvement in it. As long as Telegram is willing to host markets, the markets will continue to function to some extent whatever Western countries do (see the story of Xinbi, a Chinese-language hub for illicit crypto.) However, it does look like someone somewhere has lost patience with the ease with which Russia is funding itself.

“The sanctioned Russia-linked cryptoasset exchange Grinex announced an immediate suspension of its operations, citing a ‘large-scale cyberattack,’” reports Elliptic. According to the statement, which Kyrgyzstan-registered Grinex posted on Telegram, it lost around $13 million worth of USDT in the hack, blaming the theft on Western intelligence agencies.

“Today the attempts to destabilise our fatherland’s financial sector hit a new level, with the direct theft of the assets of Russian citizens and companies with the involvement of complex cyberattacks,” the statement said. Grinex is the successor to Garantex, which was shut down just over a year ago after years of effort by Western law enforcement. I would be surprised if Western countries had decided to take direct action against Grinex, as the exchange claims they did. Westerners tend to be a bit too legalistic for this kind of smash-and-grab, and I would expect any operation to more closely resemble what worked a year ago, conducted with Tether’s cooperation.

Instead, I suspect this attack is the work of hacktivists, perhaps working for or with the Ukrainians. Whatever the answer, it is embarrassing for the Russians, shows their crypto-security is not impregnable, and has made a noticeable dent in trading volumes of the A7A5 ruble-denominated stablecoin, which has become a key sanctions evasion tool. Three birds with one stone.

The important point is that sanctions were never supposed to be permanent: they are a foreign policy tool, not a law enforcement one. Hundreds of billions of Russian-owned dollars are languishing in various frozen bank accounts, and Western countries need to start thinking about what to do with them. They can confiscate them, investigate them or — if they’re feeling brave — use their potential return as leverage to persuade wealthy Russians to break with the Kremlin. What they shouldn’t do is leave them as they are to gather dust.

Hopefully, now that Orbán is out of the way, European countries will be able to take firmer collective action but they also need to be imaginative, and to start behaving as if they actually want Ukraine to win, rather than just not lose.

A defeat for transparency 

Of course, the United States will have a lot to say about that too, and what it ends up saying about how to tackle the Russian crypto operations will depend on what happens in the midterm elections this year. So, it strikes me as a big deal that crypto firms are once more pouring tens of millions of dollars into campaign vehicles in their quest for, what they euphemistically refer to as, “regulatory clarity.” Among them, of course, is Tether.

If you’re wondering quite how it’s possible to spend that much money on elections, I draw your attention once more to the great Integrity Index, with its records for who’s been spending what. It boggles my mind that, for example, the three Democratic rivals to the Republicans’ Susan Collins for the Maine Senate seat have raised more than $17 million just for the primary. Collins herself has raised over $10.5 million. There really shouldn’t be that much money in politics.

Besides, when it comes to value for money, investing in court cases beats investing in politics every day of the week. I don’t know how much the (ironically) anonymous plaintiffs in the 2022 case against corporate transparency in Luxembourg paid their lawyers, but its effects just seem to keep compounding to the benefit of those who want to hide their wealth from society. 

The European Union’s retreat from revealing the ownership of shell companies has given cover for Britain’s tax havens as they resisted efforts from London to force them to open up their own corporate registries. It looks like those efforts may have finally failed. “We are committed to full transparency, but I don’t think there will be any turning back,” said the British Virgin Islands’ Junior Minister for Financial Services Lorna Smith in comments confirming that the islands are in fact very much not committed to full transparency.

A version of this story was published in this week’s Oligarchy newsletter. Sign up here.

The post Why Europe must disable Russia’s crypto ecosystem appeared first on Coda Story.

In 2016, when Peter Thiel killed Gawker, he insisted that he wasn’t attacking journalism writ large. 

On the contrary, he told the New York Times, he’d spent $10 million secretly backing Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against the news outlet because: “I saw Gawker pioneer a unique and incredibly damaging way of getting attention by bullying people even when there was no connection with the public interest… if I didn’t think Gawker was unique, I wouldn’t have done any of this. If the entire media was more or less like this, this would be like trying to boil the ocean.” 

10 years later with the aid of an “AI tribunal,” a team of intelligence and law enforcement veterans, and a political climate vastly more hostile to press freedom, he is trying to do exactly that, bypassing the courts, short-circuiting the first amendment, and making it much, much cheaper to indulge in the quasi legal harassment of journalists.

Objection.ai is a new startup funded by Thiel, and cofounded by Aron D’Souza, who worked closely with him on the Gawker case. It promises “a fast affordable way to challenge statements in the media.” Anyone can file an objection, which will trigger an investigation by a team hired, the company says, from the CIA, FBI, and British intelligence agencies. Targeted outlets and reporters will have an opportunity to respond, and the results will be fed to an AI model, which will render a verdict. The complainant, and the target, are asked to agree to binding arbitration, with an unspecified range of potential consequences. Financial details are vague, but the company has said the process will cost around $2,000 — far less than the retainer of a crisis communications expert.

An initial slate of cases includes objections against the New York Times, for reporting on how Thiel’s fellow traveller David Sacks, former PayPal chief operating officer and Donald Trump’s former “AI and Crypto Czar,” uses his White House position to benefit Silicon Valley connections; The Wall Street Journal for its revelations about the doodle contributed by Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein’s birthday book (a case recently dismissed by a federal judge); and British reporter Hannah Broughton for an aggregated story in the UK tabloid the Mirror about allegations that Amazon workers were told to continue working while a colleague lay dead on the warehouse floor. A smattering of social media provocateurs (Candace Owens) and politicians (Bernie Sanders) round out the roster, but the aggregate effect is indisputable: Thiel’s animus was about journalism all along. Indeed, the Objection.ai team couldn't be clearer about that.

“Gawker was not unique,” writes D’Souza on the company’s website. “It was simply the first large media company to be tested against reality in the age of clicks, outrage, and algorithmic amplification. Since then, the same structural failure has spread everywhere.”

“Peter Thiel and I … did not just fight Gawker,” he goes on. “ — We demonstrated that facts still mattered if someone was willing to enforce them.”

This is worse than revisionism. D’Souza is banking on everyone having forgotten that the Hulk Hogan case had nothing to do with “reality.” It was undisputed that the sex tape published by Gawker was real. The original suit, which failed, was for copyright infringement and the ultimate $140 million award that bankrupted the company was for invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional harm. 

This foundational lie is important, because it is a warning against the temptation to engage Objection.ai on the merits. It would be easy enough to conduct a good faith debate to take at face value D’Souza’s argument that tech platforms and algorithms amplify false claims to millions, that courts are expensive and slow, media ombuds toothless, and fact-checkers partisan. And it would not be hard to demonstrate that he is harnessing widely shared concerns about a disordered information environment to mobilize support for an AI powered justice system controlled by a hyperpartisan private company with a track record of attacking the very institutions that are holding the line on consensus reality.

It would also be a mistake. There is nothing good faith about this effort. Rather, it is classic Thiel: an attempt to hack the principles of accountability, and turn them against journalism. Leave it to his less sophisticated Silicon Valley peers to rail against the media, create in house news outlets or buy them. The PayPal co-founder is going for the heart of the system, and financing infrastructure that will enable anyone who can afford a used Honda Civic to launch a harassment campaign, cloaked in the language of legitimate investigation. James O’Keefe, but with the judicial rather than journalistic process as its governing metaphor.

It will be tempting, too, to question the likely financial sustainability of Objection. That will be the least of its founders' concerns. The for-profit structure supports a story about the company’s purpose. It may work, or not, but its goals are nonfinancial. We reached out to Thiel for comment on Objection.ai before publication and will update this article as soon as he responds.

Providing funding, alongside Thiel, is Balaji Srinivasan, the investor and author of “The Network State,” a book about social networks with “a sense of national consciousness” replacing the nation state. He once outlined an early version of the Objection.ai model in an email to the far right theorist Curtis Yarvin about dealing with critical coverage. "If things get hot,” he suggested “it may be interesting to sic the Dark Enlightenment audience on a single vulnerable hostile reporter to dox them and turn them inside out with hostile reporting sent to *their* advertisers/friends/contacts."

These men understand the limits of the Gawker verdict’s impact. It bankrupted the company, a personal victory for Thiel, but perhaps the least important outcome of the case. At a more systemic level, it struck fear into the hearts of media insurers and newsroom counsel, focusing attention on third party litigation finance as potential threat. 

If people with limitless resources could sponsor litigation against news organizations they disliked, constitutional protections would be no match for the sheer cost and complexity of defense.

Now, they’ve found an AI-assisted way to supercharge those effects. 

The Gawker case routed around the First Amendment by relying on a privacy claim. Objection.ai does so by building a hallucination of the legal process. Any journalist foolish enough to agree to binding arbitration by the company probably deserves what they get, but that will be a vanishingly small minority. For those who don’t, a phone call, or a knock on the door from a former FBI agent, or defense intelligence operative, will be chilling, and an ex-parte verdict rendered by Thiel’s custom-tuned AI will act as a cudgel on social media and via traditional PR. Journalists will be assigned a “trust score” to act as an additional goad.

In an environment of less peril for press freedom, it might be easy to laugh off Objection.ai as the confection of a thin-skinned millenarian. Right now, with the crony capture of broadcast news far advanced, swathes of the tech community openly hostile to journalism, and the White House onside, it would be wise to take it seriously. That starts with seeing it for what it is, and refusing to engage with a process which, unlike the real courts, Peter Thiel has no legal power to compel. 

The post Peter Thiel is building a parallel justice system — Powered by AI appeared first on Coda Story.