For months, MAGA Republicans in the House Ways and Means Committee have been targeting BreakThrough News for our editorial judgment and viewpoints they don’t like. The Committee is abusing their powers in a blatant attempt to shut us down. Now, they’ve taken things to another level.
We just received a new letter from Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO). The letter lists the names of our reporters and editors and threatens to individually subpoena each of them to a deposition in Washington if we don’t yield our legal rights, including First Amendment privileges.
Because we’ve held strong in defense of our First Amendment rights, they are now going after our journalists: Rania Khalek, Zoe Alexandra, and Amanda Yee have all been personally named, along with other staff.
We are making an urgent appeal for your support. Stand with us and fight back against Trump’s repression of the press by taking the following steps:
Sign the petition telling the House Ways and Means Committee to stop its attempts to intimidate our journalists. This is a clear abuse of power and an attack on the press that we all need to resist.
Rania Khalek, Zoe Alexandra, Amanda Yee, and the BT staff work around the clock to do critical reporting on the entire world: from West Asia to Africa, across the Americas and Asia. Yet Rep. Smith now wants to drag our reporters to Washington, D.C.
These MAGA politicians, using an old playbook, say anyone challenging their warmongering policies is a “foreign agent” of China. But that’s a lie. Many of their biggest billionaire donors do extensive business in foreign countries, including China. What they’re really trying to do is discredit and destroy anyone that tells the truth to the U.S. public about Trump’s domestic and foreign policies.
BT is an independent news organization, which receives no editorial direction from any outside force. All major donations have come from U.S. organizations, using U.S. financial institutions, and complying with all U.S. laws. We’re audited and file a complete tax return to the IRS every year, just like everyone else.
So what’s this really about? It’s intimidation of the press, pure and simple. MAGA has made it a sport to target critical reporters just for doing their jobs. But unlike huge media outlets like the New York Times or CNN, we aren’t a billion-dollar company with an army of lawyers. We’re relying on grassroots support, and people of conscience who care about free speech, to come to our defense so we can stand strong.
Our lawyers already provided a comprehensive reply to the House Committee in August, pointing out the serious legal flaws in their demands and failures to provide a valid legislative purpose. And like before, Rep. Smith has come back with a new letter with a new legal rationale for the continued harassment. The fact that his explanation keeps shifting shows that the real goal is to target us, and that there is no legitimate legislative purpose. While his Congressional district in Missouri has one of the highest poverty rates in the country, this is how he’s spending his time and taxpayers’ money.
The pressure from the House Ways and Means Committee is escalating. We are a small organization now taking on the power of the federal government and, while they are wrong, we have to take it seriously. We need you to help circulate this alert far and wide, to sign the petition in our defense if you haven’t already, and to make a donation to protect our outlet and the future of independent media.
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After 321 days at sea, the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier (CVN-72) returned to San Diego, with its island superstructure showing rows of silhouettes of ships, drones, and other targets reportedly destroyed during Operation Epic Fury.
The USS Lincoln arrived at Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego on October 8, concluding a long deployment that included extended operations in the Middle East.
Before the USS Abraham Lincoln arrived in San Diego, the US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth presented the carrier crew with the Presidential Unit Citation, the military’s highest unit-level award for valor.
Calling the mission “historic,” Hegseth noted that the carrier conducted “3,693 combat flights, sinking 64 Iranian warships, launching 450 Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles, and shooting down 77 one-way aerial attack drones.”
Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao lauded the carrier crew in a post on X, saying, “Congratulations to @CNV_72 and all of CSG-3 on this well-earned Presidential Unit Citation for their extreme heroism over the last 10 months in defense of our homeland.”
The citation says the defense included 40 days in combat and an “ironclad maritime blockade against Iran in support of Operation Epic Fury.”
During Hegseth’s recent visit to the carrier before it arrived home, he said, “I’m the only thing standing between you and home,” and that his intention was, “Once they pull up to the dock, we’re getting out of the way.”
The Pentagon released an image of Pete Hegseth standing on the deck of the carrier and examining the superstructure, which was stenciled with a list of targets the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group (CSG) destroyed during a 321-day deployment.
Subsequently, Hegseth published another image showing the full extent of the markings, with “Operation Epic Fury” written above rows of ship and drone silhouettes (seen below).
File: USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) aircraft carrier arrived at San Diego featuring kill markings
The carrier’s arrival with these markings aligns with the US Navy’s long-standing practice of recording unit or group combat results after major operations.
Observers counted approximately 174 markings on the island superstructure. These traditional victory symbols are attributed to Carrier Strike Group 3’s collective actions, including carrier air-wing sorties, destroyer operations, Tomahawk launches, and air-defense engagements.
What Targets Did The Lincoln CSG Neutralize?
The visible markings include silhouettes representing 23 anti-ship missiles, 34 surface ships, 122 unmanned aerial vehicles, 10 submarines, and what appears to be a large bomb marked “1403.”
The aircraft carrier features 34 kill marks of surface ships neutralized in the sixth month of the conflict in the region. Although official information is scarce, these targets could include warships, corvettes, and even unmanned surface vessels used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) publicly confirmed the destruction of several ships. Some high-profile targets include the Shahid Bagheri carrier, the IRIS Makran forward base ship, the Jamaran-class corvettes, and all four Shahid Soleimani-class catamaran missile corvettes.
The US Navy also neutralized multiple Bayandor-class corvettes and other frigates, several fast-attack craft and missile boats, at least 16 mine-laying vessels, and multiple auxiliaries and support vessels.
It is hard to say which of these vessels the Lincoln carrier group neutralized, but reports say the group operated in the Arabian Sea and, at times, closer to the Gulf of Oman during the early phase of Operation Epic Fury.
The group could have struck these targets with Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from escort Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, such as the USS Spruance, USS Michael Murphy, and USS Frank E. Petersen, or with F-35C Lightning IIs and F/A-18E/F Super Hornets from the carrier’s air wing.
The aircraft carrier features about 100+ triangular silhouettes that resemble the Shahed-136 one-way attack drones that were extensively deployed by the IRGC in its strikes on US military assets. However, they could also potentially reference other similar kamikaze drones, given Tehran’s massive inventory of these low-cost assets.
The escort ships—the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers doubling as critical air-defense assets alongside the aircraft carrier-could have downed these drones. These state-of-the-art warships are equipped with the Aegis Combat System to detect, track, and engage drones at medium to long range with Standard Missiles such as the SM-2 or SM-6, and the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM).
The carrier itself has self-defense systems such as the RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missiles (RAM) and the Phalanx Close-In Weapon System (CIWS). Furthermore, F-35s and Super Hornets operating from the carrier may have shot down some of these incoming drones.
Notably, the island carries 23 missile silhouettes. Hegseth credited the strike group with destroying 21 anti-ship cruise missiles. The citation does not say whether those were stopped by escort ships, by F-35s and Super Hornets, or by the carrier’s own Rolling Airframe Missiles and Phalanx guns.
File: US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth assessing the kill markings on USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier
USS Abraham Lincoln also prominently features 10 submarines, which is unsurprising given that US CENTCOM focused on decimating Iran’s Russian-built Kilo-class and other submarines during the conflict.
For example, a Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet that flew from the USS Abraham Lincoln on combat missions in the Iran war was spotted with submarine kill markings earlier. Jeff Rojas photographed the aircraft, which belongs to VFA-41, a Navy fighter squadron known as the “Black Aces,” on October 1.
How the aircraft destroyed an Iranian submarine is unclear, but Rojas said, “I assume that it was dry-docked and they dropped a laser-guided bomb.”
The US missiles damaged many Iranian submarines, including some produced indigenously, that were docked in ports during early bombardment, but neither the Navy nor CENTCOM has publicly claimed that Navy fighter jets were involved.c
Instead, the US military earlier said it used air-launched AGM-114 Hellfire laser-guided missiles, probably fired from MQ-9 Reaper drones, and ground-launched Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) short-range ballistic missiles against submarines in particular.
However, the CSG may have taken out at least some of these submarine targets with Tomahawk missiles.
Most details, including specific individual ship sinkings by Lincoln CSG platforms or the exact methods used, rely on official claims and open-source analysis rather than independent battle-damage assessments available in the public domain.
Interestingly, the number of targets the War Secretary cited in his address differs significantly from the number of kill markings visible on the flattop. Neither the United States Navy nor the Department of War (DoW) has clarified why the flattop bears only 34 surface ship kill marks, even though Hegseth counted 64 in his address, or why the carrier lists 106 drones while Hegseth’s estimate was far more conservative at just 77.
Although these markings are often symbolic or selective rather than a strict, audited one-to-one accounting of every engagement, a reason for the discrepancy is awaited.
A Mission Marred With Chaos
The carrier’s prolonged deployment garnered national attention after Stars and Stripes, the news outlet affiliated with the US Armed Forces, reported on deteriorating conditions aboard the carrier, a major mental health crisis, and worsening living conditions in August 2026.
“Interviews with active-duty sailors and family members, along with dozens of public social media comments and posts by crew members, describe sailors struggling with exhaustion and declining morale, including reports of suicidal thoughts and at least one instance where a crew member was prevented from jumping overboard,” the report underlined.
After this explosive disclosure caused a stir and exposed the Pentagon, War Secretary Pete Hegseth, Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao, and CENTCOM leadership dismissed much of the coverage as misrepresented or dishonest, while acknowledging challenges of extended deployments. Nonetheless, the report and the public reaction paved the way for the carrier’s return and a stopover in Thailand last month, giving the crew much-needed respite
The Secretary of War also pushed back against the allegations of the Navy being stretched thin and a crisis about the carrier, including reports of eight sailors who attempted suicide. “Lincoln into some sort of a symbol, a symbol of dysfunction or a symbol of low morale or a symbol of a failed mission,” Hegseth said, adding, “what makes the US military and the US. Navy and all these sailors different is that you adapt and that you’re resilient and you overcome — you finish the mission nonetheless.”
That said, aircraft carriers have been instrumental in the Iran War, which has dragged on for months despite periods of lull and negotiations. Two carriers—the USS George Washington and USS George H.W. Bush—are currently deployed in the theatre, with a third, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, expected to arrive later this month amid a spike in tensions.
Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari13 (at) outlook.com
COLOMBO –- Wildlife enthusiast Pathum Bandara watched Kavantissa, believed to be Sri Lanka’s tallest living tusker, moving gently through the landscape on Sept. 20 around Galgamuwa in the island’s northwestern dry zone, a well-known human-elephant conflict zone. The following day, Bandara noticed that the elephant was limping. A closer look revealed a gunshot wound on his right foreleg, close to the knee. The discovery was alarming because an untreated gunshot wound could become infected and cause severe trauma, potentially threatening an elephant’s ability to walk, feed and survive. The Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) dispatched a team to treat the elephant. DWC’s veterinary surgeon Isuru Hewakottage said Kavantissa was sedated to enable the cleaning and treatment of the wound. He received several rounds of powerful antibiotics and remains under observation. Following treatment, Kavantissa has begun moving between small forest patches, sometimes crossing human settlements and the well-known elephant passage near Galgamuwa. The tusker appeared to be recovering but became aggressive after the gunshot injury, sometimes even chasing villagers and wildlife officers, exposing the tusker to renewed threats including the possibility of being fired at, Bandara told Mongabay. Iconic tusker Kavantissa, left, with Sankha, a young elephant, photographed in 2022. Sankha had a mobility restriction caused by a previous gunshot injury and died after falling into a pit. Image courtesy of Pathum Bandara. Bandara recalls the plight of another young tusker once closely associated with Kavantissa. Sankha, a young tusker, was about half Kavantissa’s age and was often seen together during…This article was originally published on Mongabay
A newly updated Congressional Research Service (CRS) report counts 81 US military aircraft as lost or damaged in the ongoing conflict with Iran. EurAsian Times analyzes the losses Tehran sustained during the ongoing conflict.
The latest figure is nearly double the 42 aircraft the Congressional Research Service tallied in a May 2026 report, as the EurAsian Times reported at the time.
The jump from 42 to 81 most likely reflects updated reporting and newly available public information.
In addition to the Congress research figures, two other reports published by the Congressional Budget Office and the Pentagon’s inspector general had earlier provided deep insights into the war. The latest CRS report reportedly cited that data.
“As of August 1, 2026, the armed conflict with Iran has cost DoD approximately $38 billion. That amount reflects the costs of replacing expended munitions and equipment lost in battle, increased flying hours, other operations, and increased fuel costs,” the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) stated in the report last month.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s IG report estimated the US campaign cost $33.4 billion between February 28 and June 30, with at least $22.3 billion spent on munitions alone.
Citing information published by the CBO, the latest CRS states that the overall cost of the lost aircraft is between $1.9 billion and $3.3 billion, depending on the Pentagon’s replacement costs. However, CNN News was informed by some unidentified sources that the cost of the war is much higher–at least $45 billion–excluding damage to US infrastructure and bases spread across the Gulf, repeatedly struck by Iranian forces.
The revised losses in the Congress report include manned aircraft, helicopters, and drones, though it clarifies that the total is not a count of destroyed aircraft, adding that some damaged aircraft may have returned to active service after repairs.
It lists 12 F-15E jets as destroyed/damaged, up from four F-15E Strike Eagle Fighter jets listed in the May 2026 report. The US lost three F-15E fighters in a friendly-fire incident related to the Kuwait Air Force aircraft, whereas the fourth was downed by Iran using shoulder-mounted air defense systems, as previously noted by the EurAsian Times.
Wreckage of the USAF’s F-15E published by Iranian media after downing the jet in April 2026 (Via X)
Both CBO and IG reports also earlier listed just four F-15E losses. Therefore, the eight F-15Es mentioned in the new report are likely the jets that were damaged in an Iranian strike on the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan in September 2026. Citing an unidentified US official, Reuters earlier reported that Iran had struck an A-10 Warthog, leaving it with a missing wing, while eight F-15s sustained light damage and were returned to service.
The latest list also includes the F-35A, the US Air Force’s most prized and expensive stealth fighter. The CBO report had earlier noted that replacing/repairing the aircraft would cost $120 million, without saying whether it would be written off or repaired.
Although some OSINT observers at the time believed this acknowledged the F-35 loss, others warned that the CBO was only recording the repair cost while leaving room for a potential replacement.
Furthermore, the latest list also reiterates the loss of the E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS), which was struck and damaged while on the ground at Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, during an Iranian missile and drone attack.
However, instead of merely reporting the loss, it expressed concern about losing this highly specialized aircraft and the far-reaching effects it could have on the USAF.
“Congress may assess whether losses in certain high-demand platforms that are aging and limited in number, such as the E-3 Sentry, create capability gaps or increase risk in other theaters,” it stated.
A USAF E-3 Sentry damaged in Iran’s strikes
Notably, the US Air Force has only 16 of these critical AWACS remaining in its inventory, and losing each could disproportionately affect American combat posture in the Western Pacific, where the threat of war with China is never off the table.
Another newly listed loss on the updated CRS is the US Navy’s MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter, which did not appear in the May 2026 list. On July 1, an MH-60S Sea Hawk from a George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier made an emergency landing in the Arabian Sea, although the Navy ruled out hostile action at the time.
Most of the rise since May is attributed to drones. The report now counts 45 MQ-9 Reapers lost, up from 24 in its May report. This is also a considerable increase from the 30 Reaper losses cited in the IG report. Furthermore, a US Army AH-64 Apache that was shot down over the Strait of Hormuz in June 2026 has also found its name on the list.
Notably, the newly published report raises several issues for Congress to address, including whether the Pentagon provides enough detail about the losses for lawmakers to assess the consequences and potential solutions.
CRS notes that the Department of Defense’s reporting on the losses has been limited or vague, especially since even the September 2026 Lead Inspector General report relied in part on earlier CRS open-source tallies rather than providing a fully independent, comprehensive public accounting.
What Did Iran Lose In The War?
Iranian authorities have offered only limited, selective figures on their own military and civilian casualties and have not published a comprehensive accounting of equipment destroyed during Operation Epic Fury launched by the US in coordination with Israel.
Iran has nothing equivalent to the CRS list. Open-source counts already disagree: one tracker puts Iranian aircraft losses above 90 airframes, mostly transports and tankers, while a narrower documented list counts 43.
Open-source trackers have recorded dozens of Iranian aircraft—combat jets, transports, tankers, trainers, and helicopters—destroyed primarily on the ground at air bases early in the campaign, although a few were downed in air.
In the initial days of the war, two Iranian fighters, a Northrop F-5 and a F-4 Phantom II, were destroyed in an Israeli strike at Tabriz Shahid Madani International Airport. Around the same time, the US destroyed two Iranian Sukhoi Su-22 aircraft at Shiraz Shahid Dastgheib Airport, along with two Lockheed C-130 Hercules and an Il-76 transport aircraft.
CENTCOM released footage of the two Su-22s. Satellite imagery was later cited for the two C-130s and the Il-76 at the same airfield. Further Phantom losses have been reported at the 3rd Tactical Air Base in Hamadan, but not documented to the same standard.
A Qatari Air Force Boeing F-15QA shot down two Iranian low-flying Sukhoi Su-24 tactical bombers on March 2, 2026, after they failed to react to radio warnings.
In the second week of March 2026, Israel said it had destroyed multiple IRIAF F-14 Tomcats in a massive air strike on Isfahan Airport, and 16 aircraft used by the IRGC Quds Force at Mehrabad International Airport were also struck. At the time, experts posited that these strikes may have wiped out the entire Tomcat fleet, particularly since some of these jets had already been destroyed in the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June 2025.
Historian Tom Cooper estimated that only about 10 Tomcats were flyable when the war began, compared with roughly 35 still listed on paper.
Satellite imagery confirmed at least two, and probably three, destroyed at Isfahan; some higher counts include airframes later described as wooden decoys. Iranian state media released footage on June 10 of an F-14 returning from a mission, so the “fleet finished” claim did not hold.
At Mehrabad, imagery after the Israeli strikes showed damage to at least 17 aircraft, including a Boeing 747 and a Harbin Y-12. Separate open-source lists also record Boeing 707 and 747 tankers destroyed at airfields between March and April.
An Israeli Air Force F-35I “Adir” stealth fighter jet shot down an Iranian YAK-130 aircraft over Tehran on March 4, as the EurAsian Times reported. On March 10, videos documenting the demolition of a Lockheed C-130 Hercules, a Lockheed P-3 Orion, and an Il-76 at Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani Airport in Kerman, Iran, were released by CENTCOM.
Later that month, reports also surfaced of Iranian J-7 fighter jets and Bell 214 helicopters. In addition to these, several Iranian drones–deployed on a large scale–were shot down by US forces, although these were mainly one-way attack platforms.
Those drone losses are the hardest to count. Many were expendable one-way airframes, and neither side has published a reconciled total. Iran also claimed shootdowns of Israeli drones, including Heron and Hermes airframes, in early March; those claims are likewise unreconciled.
Iran has not released an official inventory of destroyed ships, but the sinking of IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean became one of the starkest and most unforgettable symbols of the US war against Iran, especially since it was the first such sinking since World War Two.
Dena was a Moudge-class frigate, sunk on March 4 about 19 nautical miles off Galle, Sri Lanka, while returning from India’s International Fleet Review. The US said the Los Angeles-class submarine USS Charlotte fired two Mark 48 torpedoes and one hit. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed a US submarine carried out the strike.
Sri Lanka recovered 32 survivors; Iran later put the dead at 104. Some reports said the ship carried no operational armament because of the exercise, and that its Bell 212 was not aboard.
The accurate historical marker is narrower than “first sinking since World War Two”: first ship sunk by a US submarine since 1945, and first submarine sinking in combat since ARA General Belgrano in 1982. India and Sri Lanka both joined the search.
Furthermore, the US forces destroyed 17 Iranian warships, including a submarine, in the early days of the conflict, as the EurAsian Times reported at the time. These numbers likely climbed in the weeks leading up to the April 7 ceasefire and may have risen further after hostilities broke out in July 2026.
In fact, The Aviationist recently published photos of an F-35C that returned from the theatre bearing markings of three submarines, a surface combatant, a Shahed-type drone, an artillery piece, and several ground-based launchers.
Those markings record claimed engagements. They are not a confirmed naval order of battle.
Over the months, US forces have repeatedly endorsed destroying or damaging Iranian Navy and coastal targets, with Donald Trump alleging that the whole force had been wiped out.
Open-source reporting has suggested that a large portion of Iranian air defenses that are part of a meticulously built layered network, including the S-300, Bavar-373, Khorad-15, to name a few, were also destroyed in US and Israeli strikes. Additionally, both the US and Israel claimed to have destroyed several ballistic missile launchers in the initial days.
Israel said one early wave put more than 25 fighters against over 35 missile storage and launch sites around Tabriz and Kermanshah. Without a pre-war inventory or a public battle-damage assessment, none of these claims can be turned into a share of the force destroyed. Mobile launchers are the largest gap: a struck site is not proof the missile was in it.
That said, these figures are not fully confirmed, as Tehran has not officially published its losses.
Nonetheless, despite suffering major losses throughout the war, Iran has survived, dealing a blow to joint US-Israeli aspirations of completely destroying its ballistic missile or even the Nuclear program.
Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari13 (at) outlook.com
T-invariant presents the latest regular report Chronicle of the Persecution of Scientists No. 37, dated September 30, 2026. The Russian government has approved the Concept for the Development of Mathematical Sciences through 2036. One of the key issues the Concept highlights is restricted access to international scientific and technical information. Below, we briefly comment on what access to foreign journals looks like today and what is at stake.
Update, October 5, 2026: Our full commentary on the Concept for the Development of Mathematical Sciences through 2036 is available here.
In this Chronicle, we will say a few words about how this “restricted access” has less to do with science than with the repressive policies of a state that interferes with scientists’ normal work.
Mathematics has always been — and still is — one indivisible whole. There is no such thing as “sovereign” or “national” mathematics. Any attempt at isolation inevitably leads to rapid decline. Mathematicians in Russia need to read the work of mathematicians in America and Europe. But the reverse is also true: even during the Cold War, Western mathematicians tried to keep up their collaboration with Soviet colleagues, and the major Soviet mathematical journals were translated into English.
In the internet age, one would think nothing could stop scientists from sharing their knowledge and results. Yet since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine in 2022, the situation has grown increasingly difficult. The dialogue is breaking down.
As T-invariantreported, starting January 1, 2027, Pleiades Publishing, which works with Springer Nature, will stop producing English-language versions of 108 Russian academic journals. According to the Pleiades catalog, these include Doklady Mathematics, Mathematical Notes, and Proceedings of the Steklov Institute of Mathematics. It is unclear who will translate these journals or whether they will remain indexed in international databases. Meanwhile, the English versions of Sbornik: Mathematics, Izvestiya: Mathematics, and Russian Mathematical Surveys, published jointly with the London Mathematical Society, were suspended back in 2022.
Many Russian mathematicians are fluent in English and could, in principle, submit their papers directly to international journals. But the sanctions policies of many publishers, combined with the policies of the Russian authorities, make this difficult and even risky (T-invariant examined this situation in detail in “Black Mark in the ‘White List’”).
T-invariant has written about the “Yaroslavl admins,” who were fined in cases brought by the FSB. Here is a quick recap. Website administrators at as many as four universities in Yaroslavl were fined. The cases were initiated by the FSB Directorate for the Yaroslavl Region. The university employees were accused of hosting on their websites materials and dissertations in which FSB officers had found references to publications linked to “undesirable” organizations [foreign and international organizations banned in Russia; any involvement with them is punishable by law — T-invariant]. The case against Yaroslav Renin centered on a dissertation that cited Yale University, which has been declared “undesirable.” The Prosecutor General’s Office has also declared Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, and Tufts University undesirable. All of these universities have strong math departments. Some very serious mathematicians work there. And they publish papers.
Suppose the calls in the Concept for the Development of Mathematical Sciences through 2036 are heeded, and Russian scientists gain official access to the work of their colleagues at Yale. What are they supposed to do with that access? They won’t even be able to cite a single paper.
The situation is deeply alarming for Russian mathematicians: Russian journals and papers are becoming inaccessible in the West, while citing Western ones is becoming extremely risky. Say you cite a perfectly permissible journal today — one affiliated with Princeton University, for instance — and tomorrow the Prosecutor General’s Office declares Princeton “undesirable.” Your paper, or even your dissertation, will then have to be either rewritten or simply thrown in the trash. Why take that risk? Better to play it safe and not cite these potentially dangerous Western journals — or, better still, not read them at all.
September 10, 2026. Tatyana Kudryavtseva, a professor at Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, was forced to resign after 30 years at the university over old Instagram posts containing “extremist symbols” [e.g., a photo of graffiti depicting Alexei Navalny — T-invariant]. She announced this on her page on the Russian social network VKontakte.
September 4, 2026. Russia’s Ministry of Justice added bioinformatics professor Tatiana Tatarinova to its register of foreign agents. According to the ministry, Tatarinova spread false information about decisions by the Russian authorities and about Russia’s electoral system, and also collaborated with foreign agents and distributed their materials, RBC reports.
July 31, 2026. Igor Zaitsev was detained on criminal charges of financing extremist activity, according to the Interior Ministry’s Main Directorate and the FSB Directorate for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region. The scientist faces up to eight years in prison, RBC reports.
August 29, 2026. The Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences in Montenegro has been added to the list of undesirable organizations on the Ministry of Justice website, T-invariant reports.
September 16, 2026. The Supreme Court of the Komi Republic [a region in northwestern Russia — T-invariant] sentenced Nikolai Zyuzev to seven years in a strict-regime penal colony in a case over developing a “project directed against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation,” Mediazona reports. Zyuzev allegedly received more than €2 million from 12 organizations, including Germany’s Hanns Seidel Foundation and the German Council on Foreign Relations. “Zyuzev fully admitted his guilt in the crime he was charged with and exposed the other individuals involved,” the FSB press release states. FSB officials claim that Zyuzev was convicted of high treason (Article 275 of the Russian Criminal Code). Yet a year ago, he was detained and sent to a pretrial detention center on charges of confidential cooperation with foreigners (Article 275.1 of the Criminal Code).
September 15, 2026. Moscow’s Zyuzinsky District Court sentenced Pavel Syutkin to six years in a general-regime penal colony for spreading military “fakes” [i.e., “knowingly false information” about the Russian army — T-invariant], a Mediazona correspondent in the courtroom reports. The trial was held behind closed doors. Prosecutors had sought an eight-year sentence.
September 4, 2026. Moscow’s Gagarinsky District Court fined Ekaterina Zhuravskaya in an administrative case over ties to an “undesirable” organization, Mediazona reports. The case was brought over links she posted on X (formerly Twitter) to materials from Deutsche Welle, The Insider, Radio Liberty, TV Rain, and Meduza — seven posts in total, published between December 2024 and May 2026.
September 3, 2026. Misha Verbitsky was dismissed from IMPA, the Brazilian institute where he worked, over his LiveJournal posts, T-invariant reports. The editors have obtained the letter notifying him of the decision. It does not specify which posts led to his dismissal.
August 19, 2026. The Interior Ministry put Vasilina Orlova on its wanted list, Mediazona reports.
Her entry in the Interior Ministry’s database states that she is wanted under a criminal statute. It had not previously been reported that a criminal case had been opened against her. In 2024, Orlova was fined on an administrative charge of participating in the activities of an “undesirable” organization. The charge stemmed from the anthropologist’s online participation in the Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum, held in Tokyo in 2023.
We can have joy as we pursue holiness because we know, despite our ups and downs, the Spirit is working through us to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ. One thing you will hear at least once in your life as a Christian is this: “Christianity is so restricting; it’s so boring;... Continue Reading
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