On the night of July 17, the 25th Knesset passed a self-dissolution law that officially ended its term — one of the most contentious in the country’s history, as it encompassed both the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack of 2023 and the wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran that followed in the three years since. The period was also characterized by deep internal divisions in Israeli society over Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempts at judicial reform and disputes regarding ultra-Orthodox military service. The current campaign to elect a new Knesset to grapple with these problems promises to be no less contentious.

Polls so far offer neither the parties in the governing coalition nor the opposition a clear path to a majority, though as of late July some polls gave the Zionist opposition parties — excluding the two Arab lists — a projected 60–61 seats. The governing coalition’s Zionist parties were averaging 34 seats without the ultra-Orthodox and 50–52 with them. However, the picture was somewhat better for the coalition in polls published by Channel 14, which supports Netanyahu: 45 seats without the ultra-Orthodox and 62 with them.

According to some polls, the opposition could win more than 60 seats; according to others, Netanyahu and the ultra-Orthodox could secure that many

The distinction between Arab and ultra-Orthodox parties is important, as both are considered part of the anti-Zionist bloc. Arab parties, naturally, do not consider themselves part of the Jewish national movement. Most ultra-Orthodox Jews, meanwhile, have rejected secular Zionism (the idea that Jews should achieve national self-determination through their own state). As the election campaign heats up, the most serious question concern cooperation between the potential winners and the non-Zionist parties of various stripes — namely,  who is willing to sit with them in the same government and who is not?

Another debate revolves around who considers it permissible to form a government with Likud, led by Netanyahu, and who categorically refuses to sit at the same table as the current prime minister. There is also the reverse question: how stable is the opposition bloc, given diversity that ranges from the far-left Democrats to Avigdor Lieberman’s right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu?

In any case, public opinion polls are constantly shifting, and not all parties have even entered the race yet. As usual, new alliances emerge before elections, and unexpected coalitions may form. Some parties may fail to clear the electoral threshold, leading to a redistribution of seats. And after the election, politicians’ promises never to sit in a government with a particular party may be broken yet again. For example, Naftali Bennett, one of the leaders of the current BeYachad electoral list and a former prime minister, promised in 2021 never to join a coalition with Arab parties, but he later went back on his word, citing the interests of the state and society as his justification for doing so.

A parliamentary majority consists of 61 seats. After the election, the president consults with all the parliamentary factions and asks the lawmaker he believes has the best chance of securing the Knesset’s support to form a government and become prime minister. This is not necessarily the leader of the largest party. In 2021, for example, Bennett became prime minister even though his party held just seven seats — and even then, not all of its members supported the new government.

Moreover, a formal confidence vote can pass without 61 votes in favor. For example, the government formed by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid was approved by a vote of 60–59, with one abstention coming from a lawmaker of the Islamist Ra’am party. The party itself, meanwhile, made history by becoming the first Arab political movement in Israel to sign a coalition agreement with the Zionist camp by supporting the Bennett–Lapid government.

A party can also remain outside the coalition and receive no ministerial posts while supporting the government in confidence and budget votes. In the 1990s, for example, Arab factions helped keep Yitzhak Rabin’s minority government in power without joining it. But for a cabinet to function stably, it generally needs either its own stable coalition or guaranteed outside support. The Bennett–Lapid government, which lacked these requisites, lasted just over a year before announcing its dissolution.

Under the current political configuration, Netanyahu needs the ultra-Orthodox vote to have any hope of maintaining a majority. He may still find allies among smaller parties, but some of these categorically rule out supporting a government led by him or involving his Likud party — at least for now. However, they might agree to compromise in the event that Netanyahu agree to give up the premiership in the name of national unity.

“Kingmakers” – what the ultra-Orthodox want

The ultra-Orthodox are primarily interested in their own agenda, which involves state funding for their communities (including religious education), the sustained authority of rabbinical courts, and exemptions for yeshiva students from military service. They are willing to join forces with any party that best promises to satisfy their demands.

Attempts to reach an agreement on these issues began even before Israel declared its independence. In 1947, David Ben-Gurion, the country’s future first prime minister, promised to preserve the status quo: Saturday would be the official day of rest, state institutions would observe kosher dietary laws, marriages and divorces would remain under the jurisdiction of religious courts, and religious schools would retain their autonomy. In return, Ben-Gurion sought to secure the ultra-Orthodox’s support for the establishment of a Jewish state.

The situation changed dramatically in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1977, the left-wing camp, previously led by Mapai and later by the Labor Party, lost power for the first time. In 1981, Likud and the left-wing bloc won almost identical numbers of seats — 48 and 47, respectively. Neither the right nor the left could count on forming governments exclusively with ideologically like-minded partners, and horse-trading with smaller parties began. The ultra-Orthodox proved particularly useful because, in Israeli political terms, they did not identify with either the right or the left, particularly when it came to the Arab-Israeli conflict and, above all, the Palestinian issue.

Today, the ultra-Orthodox camp is represented by two electoral lists but in fact consists of three parties: Shas, Degel HaTorah, and Agudat Yisrael. Since 1992, the latter two parties have run together under the United Torah Judaism list, which primarily represents Ashkenazi Haredim — descendants of Jews from Central and Eastern Europe. But the list contains two separate party structures, each subordinate to a different rabbinical council.

Agudat Yisrael (“Union of Israel”) consists primarily of Hasidic communities. The party was founded in Poland in 1912 as a movement of Orthodox Jews opposed to secularization and political Zionism. In Israel, the party’s influence is divided among several Hasidic courts, the largest of which have their own rabbis, educational institutions, and political representatives. Final decisions are made by the Council of Torah Sages, which includes leaders of influential Hasidic communities.

Degel HaTorah (“Banner of the Torah”) represents the Lithuanian, or Litvak, tradition. The party was founded in 1988 by Rabbi Elazar Shach after a conflict with the Hasidic leadership of Agudat Yisrael. Its leading religious authorities today are Rabbis Dov Landau and Moshe Hillel Hirsch. Their directives determine how Degel HaTorah lawmakers vote on key issues and which coalition they can join.

The two parties run together in elections because competing separately would put both at risk of failing to clear the 3.25% electoral threshold. Still, within United Torah Judaism, disputes over the allocation of seats, positions, and budgets are constant.

Shas (Sephardim – Torah Guardians) represents another segment of ultra-Orthodox society: Jews whose families originated mainly in the Middle East and North Africa. It was founded in 1984 by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef with the support of Rabbi Shach. One of the reasons for its creation was discrimination against Sephardim within the Ashkenazi system of religious schools, yeshivas, and political organizations. The party’s highest religious body is the Council of Torah Sages.

One of the clearest examples of the rabbis’ influence over the choice of prime minister can be found in the 1990 political crisis known as the “dirty trick.” Labor leader Shimon Peres secured a no-confidence vote against Yitzhak Shamir’s national unity government and attempted to form an alternative coalition with the ultra-Orthodox parties, but the deal fell apart after religious authorities intervened. Rabbi Shach opposed an alliance with the left, and two Agudat Yisrael lawmakers failed to show up for the decisive vote. Peres was unable to form a government, after which Shamir formed a new right-wing coalition.

For many years, however, the Haredim’s alliance with the right was not unconditional. In 1992, Shas joined Yitzhak Rabin’s government alongside Labor and the left-wing Meretz bloc. Labor had 44 seats, Meretz 12, and Shas six, giving the government a 62-seat majority. However, after Shas left the coalition, Rabin’s cabinet became a minority government and depended on outside support from Arab factions.

In 1999, Shas joined Ehud Barak’s center-left government, having by then won a record 17 seats. United Torah Judaism, with five lawmakers, also joined the coalition.

There have also been governments without the ultra-Orthodox. In 2003, Ariel Sharon opted for an alliance with the anti-clerical Shinui party, and in 2013, Netanyahu left Shas and United Torah Judaism in opposition, reaching an agreement with Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett instead. The most recent government without the ultra-Orthodox was the short-lived coalition that formed in 2021.

In the 25th Knesset, Shas and United Torah Judaism had a combined 18 lawmakers, and both remained key partners for the ruling coalition for most of the term. July polls projected the ultra-Orthodox to take between 15 and 17 seats in the October vote, but there is still no guarantee that they will support Netanyahu, who failed to keep too many promises over the past four years.

The ultra-Orthodox’s main grievance

The main complaint Shas and United Torah Judaism have against Netanyahu and their other coalition partners is the failure to pass a law that would guarantee exemptions from military service for yeshiva students (the bill never reached a final vote), who since 1948 have been granted deferments under the principle of “Torah is their vocation.” Initially the provision applied to only about 400 students, but since 1977 there has been no limit on their number. The provision had been enshrined in law several times, but those laws were struck down by the Supreme Court starting in July 2023, though the government subsequently issued a temporary order that yeshiva students not be drafted, hoping to pass a new law.

In June 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that the government could not grant such an exemption on its own and ordered the state to apply the general Military Service Law to the ultra-Orthodox. The army then began sending out draft notices — and later issuing arrest warrants — for conscripts who failed to report. By July 2026, some 72,000 Haredim aged 18 to 24 who were subject to the draft had not enlisted. The resulting arrests triggered mass protests within the community.

By July 2026, some 72,000 Haredim aged 18 to 24 were subject to the draft but had not enlisted

After nearly three years of war — in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, along with continued tensions in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) — the Israeli military is facing a manpower shortage that has placed an enormous burden on reservists. From October 2023 to the present, 27% of reserve soldiers have served a total of 150 to 300 days, while 20% have served more than 300 days. Against this backdrop, the idea that part of society is ignoring their obligation to service has sparked strong negative feelings.

The issue is not simply a demand to send all yeshiva students into the army immediately. Most Arab citizens of Israel are also exempt from the draft, while the IDF already has units adapted to the needs of the ultra-Orthodox, where special kosher requirements and gender segregation are observed. Supporters of the draft see this as proof that integration is possible, while most ultra-Orthodox Jews fear that mass military service would undermine their religious way of life. At the same time, there are concerns that adapting the army to accommodate ultra-Orthodox service could limit opportunities for female soldiers.

The issue, therefore, is much broader. Should the army adapt to the demands of the ultra-Orthodox community, or should the community adapt to the army’s general rules? Can military service be replaced with civilian service, and can that contribution to the nation truly be considered equivalent? And should a particular community be allowed to maintain near-total autonomy if the burden of its protection and funding falls on everyone else? Ultimately, the dispute over military service has become a debate over what the State of Israel should be and what obligations its citizens should have toward it.

In any case, as the election approaches, one element of this complex problem stands out: Netanyahu has alienated the ultra-Orthodox community. Moshe Gafni, the leader of Degel HaTorah, says the previous coalition arrangement will not be repeated after the election, promising: “Before forming any government, we will first pass a military draft law.” Technically, this is possible. The new Knesset can begin legislative work while the outgoing government remains in office, and the ultra-Orthodox parties could delay signing a coalition agreement until after the law they want has been finally passed.

Shas uses less forceful language and has not ruled out siding with the right-wing bloc, but the party’s fundamental demand is the same. Back in May, Shas leader Aryeh Deri said: “We will not join a coalition or government until we resolve the status of those who study Torah.”

The legislative blitz

Once it became clear that fulfilling the ultra-Orthodox’s main demand before the election was impossible, the Knesset entered what Israeli journalists called a “legislative blitz.” In the final days, lawmakers passed a series of laws demanded by the Haredim, who in return agreed to keep parliament working until a date that suited the prime minister by helping Netanyahu pass initiatives he and other coalition members needed. These included weakening the powers of the government’s legal adviser and reforming the media market.

The ultra-Orthodox secured a Basic Law on Torah study, albeit in a heavily watered-down version of the original proposal. Israel does not have a single written constitution — Basic Laws partly serve that role, so even a short declaration formally has constitutional status. The original version equated sustained Torah study with “meaningful service” to the state (that is, military service) and would have allowed it to be taken into account when allocating rights and benefits. This triggered a wave of criticism, including from within the coalition.

The ultra-Orthodox secured a Basic Law on Torah study, albeit in a heavily watered-down version of the original proposal

As a result, the substantive provisions were removed from the text. All that remained was a single provision: “Torah study is a fundamental value of the heritage of the Jewish people and the State of Israel.” For the Haredim, this amounted to historic recognition. Aryeh Deri called the vote “a victory for the Torah world,” while Gafni described it as the creation of “the state’s value compass.” But even within the Haredi community, questions arose as to whether the law had become a consolation prize.

A more effective measure was supposed to be a law suspending the arrest of Haredim who failed to report for military service after receiving draft notices. It barred the military police from detaining yeshiva students, initiating new criminal proceedings against them, or continuing cases already underway. The protection also covered those who reached draft age after the law took effect. Formally, the restrictions were set to remain in place until November 30, but given the election and the transition period, they could have remained in force until the end of January 2027. However, the Haredim did not have time to make use of the law. Less than 24 hours later, the Supreme Court suspended it.

Still, the Haredim did manage to secure some gains. The Knesset repealed the kosher certification reform adopted by the previous government and expanded the possibility of separate education for men and women at universities. Previously, special programs for Haredim existed primarily at the undergraduate level. Now the Council for Higher Education can authorize separate master’s and doctoral programs. At mixed-gender institutions, segregation is permitted in classrooms, and participation must be voluntary. Such programs will be available not only to Haredim but also to other students who cite religious beliefs. To secular Israelis, however, the law amounts to segregation and has further deepened the divide between the opposition and the coalition. For Netanyahu, though, this only works to his advantage, as it increases the chances that the Haredim will remain with him.

Against the backdrop of the heated public debate, the ultra-Orthodox do not have many options, as their agenda does not align with that of many other opposition parties. Asher Medina of Shas, for example, warned against an alliance with the left-wing camp, saying that its “only common denominator is hatred of the Haredim.”

But Israeli politics is known for its unexpected alliances and sudden twists. There are almost three months to go before the election, and the balance of power could change many times before then.

“They recently came up with the possible seizure of our vessels and sale of property stolen from us,” Putin said. “Of course, this [detention of Russian vessels] is nothing other than piracy and robbery. And if this begins to be implemented in practice, we will be forced to respond in kind…where we ourselves consider it necessary and appropriate — anywhere, including in the area of responsibility of the Pacific Fleet.”

Putin has previously described Western actions taken against vessels in Russia’s “shadow fleet” as piracy. He used that term after the tanker Boracay (IMO: 9332810) was detained by the French Navy in September last year. The vessel was released several days later.

This past July, Putin reiterated that view, saying attempts to seize Russian tankers should be treated as piracy.

“In such cases, of course, it is necessary to act carefully, within the framework of international maritime law, but decisively — the way piracy and pirates should be fought,” Putin said at a meeting with the commanders of Russia’s Pacific, Northern, Baltic, and Black Sea fleets, along with those of the Caspian Flotilla.

EU countries periodically detain “shadow fleet” vessels involved in transporting Russian oil, but later release them. In June, the UK detained a Russian tanker in the English Channel for the first time, with British forces and law enforcement personnel boarding the sanctioned tanker Smyrtos (IMO: 9389100).

The EU has authorized its member states to sell Russian oil and petroleum products that their authorities have seized or confiscated, and proceeds from these sales cannot be transferred to Russian citizens, companies, or organizations. The new rules are contained in an EU Council regulation that took effect July 24.

Russian investigators allege that in 2021 and 2022, Zaitsev transferred money to Navalny’s projects at least seven times. Zaitsev does not deny making the donations, saying he personally supported Navalny “because he believed that his anti-corruption work was beneficial.” Asked whether he continued donating to the ACF after the foundation was designated an “extremist organization,” Zaitsev answered: “Most likely, no.”

The Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF, also known by its Russian acronym FBK), is an NGO founded by the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. It investigates corruption by high-ranking Russian government officials and releases its reports in videos that attract millions of views. In 2017, its YouTube expose “He Is Not Dimon To You” (or “Don't Call Him 'Dimon'”) accused then-Prime Minister (and former President) Dmitry Medvedev of misusing an estimated $1.2 billion in state resources.

Another notable investigation, “Putin’s Palace,” released in 2021 shortly after Navalny’s arrest sparked nationwide protests, focused on the massive Black Sea residence that was built for Vladimir Putin using a  complex web of corruption schemes. The property was estimated to have cost in excess of 100 billion rubles (over $1 billion). As of Nov. 27, 2025, the video has amassed 134 million views on YouTube.

The Russian ACF, along with Navalny’s network of regional headquarters, were declared extremist organizations in 2021. Two years earlier, in 2019, the foundation had been designated as a “foreign agent.” In Russia, the Anti-Corruption Foundation was formally liquidated as a legal entity in September 2021. In November 2025, the foundation’s arm in the U.S. —  Anti-Corruption Foundation, Inc. — was designated a “terrorist organization” in Russia.

This is the second criminal case brought against an EUSP lecturer in the past month. Earlier, former university researcher Mikhail Turchenko was accused of spreading “fake news” about the Russian army, a charge Russian authorities use to prosecute statements about the war in Ukraine that contradict the Kremlin’s version of events. According to a report by the independent outlet Novaya Gazeta, Turchenko left Russia in 2022.

Igor Zaitsev holds a candidate of sciences degree in philosophy, roughly equivalent to a Ph.D., and is an associate professor and researcher at Stasis, the European University’s Center for Practical Philosophy.

The European University at St. Petersburg is a private graduate school in the social sciences and humanities and is widely regarded as one of Russia’s few remaining independent universities.

Tankers with “cope cages”

The shipping monitoring service TankerTrackers.com recently reported on the 28-year-old Suezmax tanker Caruzo (IMO: 9137648), which passed through Istanbul with about 1 million barrels of Russian crude oil. The vessel sails under the flag of Sierra Leone. It is under sanctions imposed by the UK, EU, New Zealand, Canada, Switzerland, and Australia, but it has notably avoided any restrictions from the United States. The international NGO Greenpeace also identifies the Caruzo as part of Russia’s “shadow fleet.”

TankerTrackers.com noted that the crew had completely covered the Caruzo’s superstructure with netting, effectively placing themselves inside it. The service said the sailors appeared to be trying to protect themselves from Ukrainian aerial drones.

Additional protection is also visible at the tanker’s stern, where metal structures resembling cages hang from both sides. TankerTrackers.com assessed that these were intended to protect the engine room from naval drone attacks.

Judging by data from the vessel tracking platform Starboard Maritime Intelligence, since July 2025 the ship has been turning off its AIS before entering the Black Sea, making it appear for months as if it were “located” in the Bosphorus.

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR) classifies the Caruzo as a vessel involved in exporting Russian oil and petroleum products in circumvention of the G7 oil embargo and price cap. According to HUR, the tanker has been involved in these shipments since at least October 2023. In January 2024, it took part in a ship-to-ship (STS) oil transfer near the Kerch Strait with sanctioned tankers.

The Caruzo’s routes extend far beyond the Black Sea. The database lists terminals and ports in Turkey, China, India, Malaysia, Morocco, Egypt, and Vietnam, among others. The HUR separately notes that the vessel has called at Russian ports and has been recorded turning off its AIS.

A cargo ship with camouflage

The day before, another unusually protected Russian vessel in Istanbul caught the attention of Murat Fırtına — a Turkish sailor, merchant fleet captain, and author of books about his experience at sea. The Turkish industry outlet HaberDenizde also cited Fırtına’s  observations.

On Aug. 10, Fırtına saw the Russian cargo ship Mechta S (IMO: 8419659) in the port of Haydarpaşa and photographed it from a passing ferry.

The Mechta S, a general cargo ship built in 1987, is about 119 meters long and sails under the Russian flag. It was previously named Sormovskiy-3059 and belongs to the Sormovskiy class of Soviet-designed vessels built for Black Sea and river-sea routes. The ship still operates in the Black Sea basin.

Fırtına’s attention, however, was drawn less by the cargo ship’s specifications than by its unusual paint scheme. The sides, bow, stern, and superstructure of the Mechta S are covered with sharp geometric shapes painted in blue, dark blue, white, and gray.

The captain said the pattern resembled dazzle camouflage, a disruptive naval paint scheme that became widespread during World War I and was also used during World War II.

Historically, such camouflage was not meant to make a vessel invisible. Instead, high-contrast geometric patterns were designed to visually distort the ship’s silhouette, making it harder to determine its size, the location of its bow and stern, its direction of travel, and possible strike points.

Fırtına noted that older photographs of the Mechta S do not show the geometric paint scheme, meaning the vessel received it later.

“Given that even merchant ships in the Black Sea today face threats from unmanned aerial vehicles and naval drones, it cannot be ruled out that this paint scheme is not merely aesthetic, but military camouflage intended to complicate optical detection and targeting of the vessel,” he said.

“Seeing a merchant ship in 2026 in the middle of Istanbul, in Haydarpaşa, looking as if it had stepped off the pages of wartime history, is quite unusual,” he added.

Russia’s Mechta S had not previously appeared on “shadow fleet” lists

Notably, Ukraine has not yet added Mechta S to its list of “shadow fleet” ships, and the vessel has so far avoided sanctions.

Starboard Maritime Intelligence data reviewed by The Insider show that the Mechta S regularly operates in the Black Sea region, with Novorossiysk the most frequently visited port in the vessel’s available history. Starboard recorded 83 calls by the cargo ship at Novorossiysk, totaling more than 72 days. Its route history also includes ports in Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Georgia, Israel, Egypt, Croatia, Cyprus, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan. The service’s data cover 3,294 days (about nine years).

Shortly before the Mechta S was spotted in Istanbul with its unusual paint scheme, the cargo ship had called at Novorossiysk. It then spent a long period in Yalova, one of Turkey’s largest ship-repair centers. According to Starboard, the Mechta S arrived there around July 15 and stayed until Aug. 10, about 26 days. Only after that did the cargo ship appear in Istanbul, where Fırtına photographed it decorated in geometric camouflage. Fırtına himself noted that earlier photos of the Mechta S did not show such a pattern.

Another feature of the vessel’s history involves its significant gaps in AIS data. Over 3,294 days of monitoring, Starboard counted about 930 days and six hours for which no location data were available for the Mechta S — roughly 28% of the period covered by the service.

Starboard also identified several risk factors for the Mechta S. The service could not confirm that the vessel’s declared Russian flag matched the registries it uses, nor could it confirm that the ship was insured through a known P&I club (a protection and indemnity insurer that covers maritime liability). The Mechta S also regularly called at ports in countries with relatively high perceived levels of corruption.

The court found no evidence in the case file constituting grounds for suspicion that Semyon and Tatyana had committed any crime. The ruling also said the Russians had cooperated with Swedish authorities and that police had failed to present convincing facts indicating that the couple had come to the country for purposes other than tourism.

“The mere fact of Russian citizenship and the fact that they speak Russian cannot be grounds for a detention decision,” the defense said in its complaint.

Police had insisted that Semyon and Tatyana posed a threat to Sweden’s internal security and might try to flee if released — arguments which the court found to be unsubstantiated.

The couple were detained on the morning of Aug. 6 while vacationing near the town of Furuvik. The Antiwar Committee previously told The Insider that Semyon and Tatyana had lived in Spain for the past five years and had come to Sweden as tourists. They were traveling with a tent, set up camp by the sea and went fishing.

A private home belonging to a person protected by the Swedish authorities was located near their campsite, something the tourists were not aware of, according to the Antiwar Committee. Security guards at the home called the police. Both the guards and law enforcement officers were reportedly drawn to the couple because they were speaking Russian and had two hiking walkie-talkies.

As The Insider previously reported, the Russians also could not clearly explain to the police why they had chosen that particular place to spend the night. They later told human rights advocates that they enjoy hiking and had decided to camp by the water.

After the detention, police ordered the couple deported, and Semyon and Tatyana were placed in a migration center. The Antiwar Committee said at the time that the decision to detain and deport the couple were based solely on three factors: their Russian accents, the walkie-talkies, and the tourists’ inability to convincingly explain their choice of campsite.

Margarita Kuchusheva, a consul with the Anti-War Committee, told The Insider that the case was not unprecedented: 

“This is not the first case in which Sweden has recognized Russian citizens as a threat to national security. Unfortunately, anti-war Russians sometimes fall under these criteria as well. In this case, [they were] simply a pair of tourists who chose to go on a camping trip. Challenging such a status is extremely difficult, and it can seriously damage a person’s life, such as when one wants to apply for a visa.”

The Antiwar Committee added that Semyon (who works as a game developer) and Tatyana oppose Russia's invasion of Ukraine, do humanitarian work, and help teenage emigres adapt to life abroad. 

The value of the deal was not disclosed. According to Lloyd’s List, both vessels are heading to Alang, India, for scrapping.

“The U.S. government has sold them to us and there was a court order authorizing the sales, but there are complexities, not least the fact that we weren’t really sure who previously owned them,” GMS CEO Anil Sharma told Lloyd’s List.

The Era, which previously sailed under the names Bella 1 and Marinera, was seized by the United States in January between Iceland and the British Isles after a two-week pursuit during which the tanker changed its flag to that of Russia. The vessel’s captain, Georgian citizen Avtandil Kalandadze, was arrested. On Aug. 10, a U.S. court sentenced him to 10 months in prison, to be followed by deportation, for his refusal to obey a U.S. Coast Guard order to stop the ship.

The Lileo, formerly known as Veronica and Galileo, was also seized in January — that time near Venezuela. Washington said the tankers had been used to smuggle oil from Venezuela and Iran.

Kalandadze commanded the Bella 1 from September through late December 2025. The tanker was headed to Venezuela when the Munro tried to stop it as part of a U.S. maritime blockade. The vessel did not comply and crossed the Atlantic, prompting a Coast Guard pursuit.

During the crossing, the tanker changed its name from Bella 1 to Marinera and was re-registered under the Russian flag. On Jan. 7, U.S. forces boarded the vessel between Iceland and the British Isles. The Insider reported at the time that the operation, carried out by the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. military with support from British forces, followed a chase that had lasted for more than two weeks. Media reports said Russian warships and a submarine were also heading to the area, but U.S. forces seized the tanker before they arrived.

As it was being pursued, the Marinera attempted to conceal its route. Satellite data from Starboard Maritime Intelligence provided to The Insider showed no stable AIS signal in the North Atlantic, and the vessel abruptly changed course on the day of the operation.

U.S. prosecutors also alleged that while Kalandadze was commanding the Bella 1, the tanker carried about 1.8 million barrels of Iranian-origin oil to Asia. Prosecutors said the crew turned off AIS and hid the vessel’s name during a ship-to-ship transfer, a practice in which oil or other cargo is moved between vessels at sea — a tactic that can be used to obscure the cargo’s origin. In 2024, the United States imposed sanctions on the registered owner of the Bella 1, Louis Marine Shipholding Enterprises, for carrying sanctioned cargoes on behalf of Hezbollah. U.S. authorities classify the vessel as part of the “shadow fleet,” a term used for tankers that try to evade sanctions or restrictions on oil shipments.

How the vessel is linked to Russia

In a comment to The Insider, maritime shipping expert Mark Douglas noted the tanker’s Russian registration — and Russia’s silence in response to the ship’s seizure:

“What is interesting is that the tanker was supposedly flagged to Russia (following a questionable mid-sea reflagging) but that hasn’t stopped the prosecution, and Russia has stayed very quiet about the whole thing.”

After the seizure, the tanker was towed to the United States. In early June, it returned to sea under the name Era, flying the flag of the Comoros Islands. According to Equasis data, its current owner is listed as Global Marketing Systems, and the vessel’s status is “to be broken up.”

U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed Robert Gilman’s release in a post on Truth Social:

“I am proud to announce that American Citizen Robert Gilman, a former United States Marine, is coming HOME! In a well known Media story, Robert was imprisoned in Russia in 2022, during the Biden Administration. After my discussions with President Vladimir Putin, Russia has agreed to release him, very much on a Humanitarian Basis. We appreciate this decision, and the fact that Russia asked for no one in return — No exchange took place. Robert will land at Andrews Air Force Base, in Washington, D.C., tonight, where my Representatives, some of whom are on the plane with him, will welcome Robert back to THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! I just spoke to him, and he had one request — A GREAT cheeseburger when he lands. I will take care of that!”

According to Reuters’ sources, the United States did not hand over any prisoners to Russia in exchange for Gilman’s release, which followed intensive talks between Russian and U.S. representatives over the weekend. One U.S. official described Moscow’s decision as a “goodwill gesture.”

Last week, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov told officials in the Trump administration that Putin had agreed to sign a decree pardoning Gilman, according to the news agency’s sources. The White House and the U.S. State Department had been seeking Gilman’s release and had asked that he be allowed to leave Russia in order to receive medical treatment.

On Tuesday, Gilman was flown out of Russia on a State Department plane bound for Washington. He was accompanied by his mother, Nina, and four doctors who were there to assess his condition during the flight. A U.S. official who spoke to Gilman told Reuters that he was walking and talking. "All things considered, he seems to be in good shape," the official said.

After arrival on American soil, Gilman was expected to be sent for treatment at a rehabilitation center in San Antonio, Texas.

Five days before his release, Reuters reported that Gilman’s condition may have been critical. Global Reach, an organization representing the Gilman family, said that in late June, when he was transferred from a prison hospital to the psychiatric ward of a civilian hospital, Gilman’s physical state resembled catatonia. His condition was assessed as “dissociative stupor.” According to the organization, Gilman could not communicate, did not open his eyes, and was being fed through a tube.

Gilman was detained in Voronezh in January 2022 after he was removed from a train traveling from Sukhumi to Moscow. Prosecutors said the American, who was intoxicated, kicked a police officer at a police station. Gilman’s father said his son had become unwell and accidentally struck the officer. He said the officer was not injured.

In October 2022, Gilman was sentenced to four and a half years in a penal colony, a Russian prison facility where inmates are usually required to work. In 2023, his sentence was reduced to three and a half years before new cases were opened over alleged attacks on Federal Penitentiary Service staff and an investigator, after which his sentence was increased to ten years. 

According to court documents reviewed by Bloomberg, Séba — who was born in France and previously led a Black nationalist movement there — is linked to Francois van der Merwe, the leader of the South African white nationalist movement Bittereinders. Prosecutors say both men have ties to Russia.

Séba, his son, and van der Merwe were all arrested in Pretoria in April. Prosecutors say they had planned to illegally cross the Limpopo River into Zimbabwe and that Séba had hired guards to help him escape. The guards, however, turned out to be undercover police officers. Authorities seized more than 300,000 South African rand (about $18,500) during the arrest.

According to the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, van der Merwe received money from Moscow to “to assist with the safe escorting and transfer of Mr. Capo Chichi from South Africa to Zimbabwe.” From there, Séba was allegedly to have traveled to Europe to carry out terrorist attacks there and in the UK. “The information also mentioned that the person is trained by the Russians and is extremely dangerous,” the documents said.

Séba is also suspected of taking part in Russian-backed anti-Western propaganda campaigns in Africa, according to Bloomberg. Benin issued an arrest warrant for Séba after he supported the idea of a mutiny on social media. He has also been charged with money laundering and terrorism.

Séba is known as an activist in the anti-French movement in West Africa. In 2017, he was arrested in Senegal and deported. In 2024, he was stripped of his French citizenship amid accusations that he had incited violence against the state. In 2022, the U.S. State Department accused Séba of links to the Wagner Group, the Russian mercenary organization co-founded by the late Yevgeny Prigozhin.

The Bittereinders white nationalist movement also has ties to Russia. Last year, its leader van der Merwe attended a meeting of right-wing organizations in St. Petersburg, alongside Germany’s AfD.

The populists’ central argument — that “forever wars” are ruinous — is shared in part by the second faction, whose leading ideologue is former Pentagon official Elbridge Colby (backed by Senator Josh Hawley). These advocates of strict strategic prioritization argue that America's overstretched defense industrial base cannot sustain its current count of confrontations on multiple fronts and that Washington should thus redeploy its naval forces and advanced technologies to the Indo-Pacific for what they see as an existential struggle with China. Under this scenario, responsibility for Europe's security — and for Ukraine's future — would be shifted onto the Europeans themselves.

Both of these camps are fiercely opposed by the traditional Reaganite hawks, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio (and his predecessor as National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz). They embrace the doctrine of “peace through strength,” arguing that an American retreat from Europe would only signal the kind of weakness that could encourage Beijing to invade Taiwan. Accordingly, they argue that the United States must maintain overwhelming military dominance across all key regions of the world in order to pressure the informal axis of Russia, China, and Iran, while simultaneously pushing NATO allies to increase their defense spending.

The fourth faction, made up of business-oriented investors led by Jared Kushner, seeks to reconcile the financial interests of the Saudi monarchy with a pro-Israel vision of the global order.

At the center of this political cacophony stands Trump himself. A transactional pragmatist, he has shown little hesitation in alternating between these mutually contradictory approaches (his critics like to joke that he invariably echoes the views of whichever adviser spoke to him last). He readily borrows Vance's isolationist rhetoric to mobilize his core electorate and shares Colby's fixation on the threat posed by China, while at the same time deliberately appointing uncompromising hawks to key positions. Critics describe this as foreign policy schizophrenia, whereas supporters argue that Trump has turned the chaos and unpredictability of his own personnel decisions into his greatest political asset.

Restrainers — the new isolationists

The isolationist “restrainers” previously appeared to be the chief intellectual force driving the MAGA movement, and the group's position had seemed unassailable after JD Vance was appointed vice president. However, the Trump administration's military campaigns against Iran exposed a clear fault line within the president’s inner circle, with the isolationists losing out in their confrontation with the Republican Party's traditional hawks — at least when it came to the Middle East.

In addition to Vice President Vance and his longtime media ally Tucker Carlson, this camp has traditionally included Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and a collection of other hardline Trump loyalists in the House of Representatives. Its intellectual backbone consists of organizations such as the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the right wing of the Heritage Foundation, which has sought to provide a theoretical foundation for American neo-isolationism.

The faction's electoral base is made up of the disillusioned working class of America's Rust Belt who most eagerly consume content from the movement’s  sprawling network of alternative media outlets and far-right activists. Weary of “forever wars,” this faction has even found common cause with left-wing anti-imperialists (like Tulsi Gabbard).

The isolationists' immediate objectives have always been highly practical. They seek to block all financial and military aid to Kyiv, force America's European NATO allies to pay for their own security, and redirect the resulting savings toward securing the southern border. Over the longer term, however, the group aims to dismantle the global security architecture created after World War II, replacing it with rigid economic protectionism and sweeping tariffs. Their ideal is to turn the United States into a self-sufficient “fortress” that attacks foreign markets with tariffs rather than missiles. Achieving that vision would require the complete abandonment of the Republican party’s Reagan-era legacy of internationalism.

The isolationists' ideal is to turn the United States into a self-sufficient “fortress,” attacking foreign markets with tariffs rather than missiles

In their struggle for influence, the restrainers work closely with right-wing populist leaders in Europe, above all former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. They also rely on the backing of tech billionaires led by Elon Musk, who shares the group’s skepticism toward Washington's global commitments.

Their principal adversaries are the traditional Washington establishment, the defense-industrial complex, and the powerful pro-Israel lobby represented by the Republican Jewish Coalition. Within the administration itself, they have been engaged in an unrelenting bureaucratic struggle with the globalist hawks led by Rubio and Waltz — who ultimately seized the initiative by drawing the White House into a major military escalation in the Middle East.

Recent events have led to a de facto split within the isolationist camp itself. Tucker Carlson, who publicly denounced the strikes on Iran as a vile and immoral decision driven by Benjamin Netanyahu's manipulation, has definitively broken with Trump, saying he deeply regrets his past support for the president. Like Marjorie Taylor Greene, his dramatic split launched a public debate over the potential creation of an independent political movement.

At the same time, JD Vance has been forced to play an extremely careful game of internal politics, balancing loyalty to his boss against his own presidential ambitions for 2028. In his public appearances, the vice president has had to defend Trump's hard-line policy on Iran while assuring the press that he does not take orders from Carlson.

Trump himself, driven solely by transactional calculations and a desire for quick geopolitical victories, has for now pushed the restrainers to the sidelines. Responding to Carlson's criticism, he remarked that the real MAGA movement supports the president’s decisive actions — making it clear that the isolationist agenda has lost at least some of its influence to Washington’s familiar advocates of military force.

Prioritizers — strategic prioritizers with an anti-China focus

The faction of prioritizers, which has become the intellectual backbone of the Defense Department during Donald Trump's second term, represents the most pragmatic — and, for America's European allies, the most troubling — wing of the revamped Republican foreign policy establishment.

Unlike the outright isolationists, who dream of retreating behind America's borders, this camp thinks in terms of geopolitical “realism.” Its leading figures include Elbridge Colby (the grandson of a former CIA director), who serves as the Pentagon's under secretary of defense for policy, and populist Senator Josh Hawley. The group's ideological core also includes Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, under whose nominal leadership Colby has effectively taken the lead in shaping America's new National Defense Strategy. Other prominent members include former Rep. Mike Gallagher, along with analysts at the Marathon Initiative, a think tank co-founded by Colby.

The faction's principal financial backers come from Silicon Valley's conservative wing, most notably venture capitalists such as Peter Thiel and Palmer Luckey, (founder of the defense startup Anduril). They are interested in redirecting government contracts toward artificial intelligence, satellite reconnaissance, and autonomous combat systems capable of competing with China.

The prioritizers' immediate tactical objectives involve suspending the deployment of purportedly scarce U.S. resources currently going to Ukraine and Europe and directing them towards Asia instead. In the short term, they seek to freeze all secondary conflicts in order to rapidly redeploy American aircraft carriers, air defense systems, and precision-guided missile capabilities to the Taiwan Strait.

Their long-term strategic objective is to prevent Beijing from establishing hegemony in Asia and to carry out a sweeping economic and technological decoupling that would completely cut China off from Western intellectual and financial resources. To that end, Hawley has introduced legislation in the Senate calling for a radical separation of American and Chinese artificial intelligence capabilities, banning all U.S. investment in China, and imposing severe penalties on American corporations that transfer technology there. In the prioritizers’ worldview, the European Union is seen not as a historic ally bound to the United States by shared values, but as a geopolitical free rider and potential economic competitor that must be forced to achieve full strategic autonomy, even if doing so leads to the collapse of transatlantic unity.

The prioritizers' long-term strategic objective is to prevent Beijing from achieving hegemony in Asia

On the international stage, the prioritizers are working to develop an architecture of bilateral partnerships, working closely with Australia through the AUKUS alliance, as well as with Japan and Taiwan. Colby has demanded unequivocal commitments from these partners to commit substantial resources in the event of a conflict with China — including by engaging in the fight directly.

At the same time, the prioritizers are engaged in two relentless bureaucratic struggles back in Washington — defending themselves against the globalist hawks led by Rubio, and supporting Congressional efforts to investigate major technology companies such as Meta over senior executives’ secret concessions to the Chinese Communist Party, made in order to preserve their access to Asian markets.

Colby and his team are now fully focused on implementing a new doctrine of flexible realism. They have been traveling to regional summits, where they have sought to build barriers against China's expanding influence by forcing America's allies to choose sides.

The group has retained Trump's favor because it provides the president with an ideal intellectual justification for his distrust of European leaders. At the same time, however, its narrow strategic focus and reluctance to divert attention to other regions periodically irritate the White House — especially when Trump becomes captivated by dramatic escalations in the Middle East that call for a classic display of imperial power rather than the long-term planning required for a decades-long technological competition with China.

Primacists — Washington's global hawks

The primacist faction, or global hawks, represents the Reaganite neoconservative wing of the Republican Party. Despite fierce resistance from the isolationists, this group has staged an impressive bureaucratic comeback during Donald Trump's second term. Its leading figures include Rubio and Waltz, along with former National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and influential Republicans on key congressional committees, including Michael McCaul and Mike Turner.

The faction's intellectual and financial foundation rests on the traditional American defense-industrial complex (represented by giants such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon), the old guard of the intelligence community, and the influential pro-Israel lobby (including the Republican Jewish Coalition). They see the primacists as the last line of defense against a complete American withdrawal from the world's key geopolitical flashpoints.

The global hawks' immediate tactical objectives center on projecting overwhelming military power and containing Washington's principal adversaries through direct escalation. This was clearly reflected in their role as the leading advocates of the military campaign against Iran and the large-scale strikes in Venezuela in early 2026.

Over the long term, the primacists seek to preserve total U.S. dominance across all three critical regions — Europe, Asia, and the Middle East — and they believe any concession to Russia or Iran would immediately encourage China to move against Taiwan. To that end, they are reshaping America's traditional alliances, promoting concepts such as the “Shield of the Americas” while demanding that European NATO members assume full operational responsibility for the continent's security while continuing to act under American leadership.

The hawks seek to preserve total U.S. dominance across all three critical regions: Europe, Asia, and the Middle East

On the international stage, the primacists closely coordinate with Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel and with right-wing Latin American regimes while simultaneously waging an intense behind-the-scenes struggle in Washington. Their principal rivals remain JD Vance’s restrainers (who accuse the hawks of dragging the United States into endless proxy wars) and Elbridge Colby's camp of Asia-focused pragmatists (who argue that Washington should abandon Europe in order to concentrate on Taiwan).

Rubio's team is currently consumed with managing the aftermath of the strikes on Iran, shaping a new security architecture in South America, and protecting the Pentagon’s bureaucracy from the influence of the prioritizers. The global hawks enjoy Trump's favor only so long as their operations deliver quick, headline-grabbing victories that benefit the president politically — like the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro in January.  Their influence nevertheless remains precarious, as Trump could pivot back toward isolationism if protracted military campaigns begin to damage his domestic approval ratings.

The sudden death of Sen. Lindsey Graham on July 11 — just days after his tenth visit to Kyiv, came as a profound shock to the global hawks. Graham consistently championed the neoconservative doctrine of "peace through strength,” steadfastly supported Ukraine, advocated for maximum pressure on Iran, and regarded NATO as one of America's most important strategic assets, firmly rejecting calls to scale back the country's global presence. Graham's unique strength lay in his remarkable ability to translate geopolitical strategy into the “language of deals” that Trump understood best. For example, he successfully lobbied for continued aid to Kyiv by pragmatically emphasizing Ukraine's lithium and titanium reserves, arguing that they could not be allowed to fall into the hands of Moscow or Beijing. Through countless rounds of "golf diplomacy," the senator effectively implanted traditional hawkish ideas directly into the president's thinking, skillfully counterbalancing the influence of Vance's radical isolationists.

Shortly before his death, Graham had even secured White House approval for a new package of sanctions against Russia. His passing, however, has created a critical vacuum: deprived of their most effective political negotiator, the hawks now risk ceding control of U.S. foreign policy to the isolationists.

Developers — New York dealmakers

The faction of transactional business pragmatists — the so-called “developer diplomacy” team led by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner — has emerged as the most secretive and financially driven center of influence in U.S. foreign policy. Kushner's official appointment in February 2026 to the newly created position of special envoy for peace formalized what had previously been an informal network. In addition to Kushner, the group includes his closest partner and ally, New York real estate magnate Steve Witkoff, who simultaneously serves as special envoy for the Middle East and as the administration's chief negotiator with the Kremlin.

The team is backed by the sovereign wealth funds of the Gulf states — above all Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. It also enjoys financial support from the ruling elites of the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, which view Kushner and Witkoff as reliable interlocutors capable of converting American geopolitical influence into concrete investment projects.

The developers' immediate tactical objectives are centered on concluding the highly sensitive backchannel negotiations between the United States and Iran. Working through intermediaries in Doha and Oman, Kushner and Witkoff are seeking to finalize the terms of a nuclear agreement while launching large-scale postwar reconstruction projects in the Gaza Strip that would transform its ruins into potentially lucrative waterfront real estate. The group's long-term strategy is to replace traditional alliances and international institutions with a network of cross-border commercial consortia, in which regional stability would be guaranteed not by an American military presence but by the intertwining of capital from authoritarian regimes and Western investors.

The group's long-term strategy is to replace traditional alliances and international institutions with a network of cross-border commercial consortia

On the international stage, they work closely with the Gulf monarchies and Israel's right-wing government. At the same time, they are engaged in an intense behind-the-scenes struggle against Rubio’s global hawks, who view Kushner's business-oriented approach as a threat to U.S. national security, as the developers’ approach exhibits a willingness to accommodate authoritarian regimes in pursuit of personal gain.

In Washington, Kushner's team is under a barrage of investigations by congressional Democrats and watchdog organizations such as CREW, which accuse the envoys of unprecedented conflicts of interest. By mid-2026, the assets under the management of Kushner's investment firm, Affinity Partners, had surpassed $6 billion — much of it coming from foreign governments with which Kushner was simultaneously conducting official negotiations on behalf of the White House. At the same time, Witkoff has been accused of promoting the cryptocurrency venture World Liberty Financial (launched together with Trump's sons) to Middle Eastern sovereign investors.

Kushner and Witkoff are currently preoccupied with preserving the fragile June 2026 ceasefire with Tehran in order to prevent repeated regional exchanges of fire from derailing the technical consultations taking place in Qatar. Despite mounting criticism and legal scrutiny, Kushner remains under Trump's protection. His ability to package geopolitical crises into business proposals that resonate with the president — combined with the administration's disregard for the bureaucratic conventions of old Washington — has been enough to turn him into Trump’s personal envoy.

At the same time, however, the lack of meaningful diplomatic experience on the Kushner-Witkoff team has undermined their initiatives. That has been particularly evident in Moscow, where transactional business deals have proven ineffective against the Kremlin's uncompromising imperial ambitions.

The battle of Washington's power centers

By the middle of 2026, the internal struggle over foreign policy within the Trump administration had escalated into an all-out battle for survival. Each of the four factions has sought to secure its own independent sources of power, reducing its dependence on the president's shifting preferences. The primacists (global hawks) led by Marco Rubio and Robert O'Brien possess the deepest institutional roots and the strongest external backing. They are supported by the traditional American defense-industrial complex, the Republican Party's old establishment, and powerful lobbying organizations such as AIPAC.

The prioritizers (Asia-focused hawks) led by Elbridge Colby and Josh Hawley have built a very different power base. They rely on Silicon Valley's defense-tech ecosystem and billionaires such as Peter Thiel and Palmer Luckey, who finance startups developing autonomous drones and artificial intelligence systems for the Pentagon.

The restrainers (isolationists) led by JD Vance draw their strength directly from the right-wing populist media empires of Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson, giving them direct access to the MAGA grassroots.

And the developers (business world “pragmatists”) led by Jared Kushner stand out as a genuinely transnational force, with support coming not from American institutions but from the multibillion-dollar sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

This diversification of political and financial resources directly shapes the standing of each faction's leaders among ordinary Americans as the country approaches the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 presidential race.

Marco Rubio remains the most popular figure among moderate conservatives and independent voters, embodying a sense of stability and traditional American strength. By contrast, JD Vance, despite serving as vice president and being regarded as Trump's likely successor (at least by the party's more radical wing), remains a deeply polarizing figure with very high unfavorability ratings among centrists. His ally Tucker Carlson, meanwhile, commands enormous but highly polarizing popularity, making him more of a media kingmaker than a plausible electoral candidate.

The prioritizers' intellectual leader, Elbridge Colby, is virtually unknown to the broader public. He deliberately avoids electoral politics, preferring to work behind the scenes at the Department of Defense. Jared Kushner, meanwhile, consistently ranks among America's least popular and least trusted political figures due to allegations of nepotism and his cynical blending of public office with private business interests.

The bureaucratic and ideological confrontation among these factions has intensified with each passing month as the battle to inherit Trump's political legacy in 2028 rages on. Vance is attempting to use the vice presidency to purge the party apparatus of the Republican old guard. His position, however, has been significantly weakened by Tucker Carlson's open break with the administration.

Rubio and O'Brien quickly moved to exploit that split. Through loyal allies on congressional committees, they are seeking to convince Trump that only their vision of global American primacy can guarantee the Republican party victories at the ballot box.

Colby's prioritizers are pursuing a more subtle strategy, trying to establish confrontation with China as a permanent pillar of U.S. national security doctrine — one that would outlast any future president. Kushner, meanwhile, has largely distanced himself from electoral politics, focusing instead on locking in his Middle Eastern business deals before Trump leaves the Oval Office.

On the question of Israel, Rubio's primacists and Kushner's business diplomats alike advocate unwavering support for Jerusalem. Kushner, in particular, views a firmly pro-Israel policy as the foundation for bringing Saudi Arabia into his broader economic projects. The prioritizers, by contrast, are considerably less enthusiastic about supporting Israel, arguing that Washington should remain focused on Taiwan. The isolationist wing surrounding Carlson has gone even further, launching sharp attacks on Benjamin Netanyahu that accuse the Israeli prime minister of manipulating the U.S. military in order to drag America into a major Middle Eastern war.

The differences between the factions are also evident in their responses to less visible crises. One example of this behind-the-scenes struggle has been the debate over Trump's repeated threats to launch direct military or missile strikes against Mexican drug cartels on Mexican territory. This hard-line proposal has been enthusiastically embraced by the isolationists around JD Vance, who see it as the literal embodiment of the promise to defend America's borders. They are joined by Rubio’s global hawks, who view military action in Latin America as a classic demonstration of American power inside Washington's geopolitical backyard. Colby's Asia-focused hawks, however, have expressed frustration with such plans, arguing that drawing the Pentagon into a prolonged and resource-intensive counterterrorism campaign on America's doorstep would tie up scarce intelligence assets, special operations forces, and logistical capabilities that are critically needed to deter China in the Taiwan Strait.

An equally fierce conceptual clash is unfolding over technological protectionism and the regulation of artificial intelligence. In this arena, Colby's prioritizers, backed by Silicon Valley defense technology advocates, argue that American defense-tech startups should be granted maximum regulatory freedom while cutting China off from access to advanced semiconductors in order to win the next-generation global arms race. This military-technological approach is directly opposed by Jared Kushner's camp, which views artificial intelligence not as a doomsday weapon but as an unprecedented commercial opportunity. The group is currently working to channel billions of dollars from the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates into the construction of massive data centers. Such commercial opportunism on the part of the president's son-in-law has infuriated national security hawks of every stripe, who accuse Kushner of being willing to place the critical infrastructure of the future under the de facto control of authoritarian Gulf monarchies for the sake of personal financial gain.

In the long run, experts generally regard Colby's prioritizers as the faction with the greatest staying power. Their narrow focus on the technological competition with China aligns closely with the broad consensus among America's traditional conservatives and the intelligence community.

Rubio's global hawks, for their part, are widely regarded as highly effective bureaucratic operators, capable of skillfully managing the machinery of government. Their vision of the United States as the global policeman, however, is increasingly viewed as outdated and is rapidly losing support within a changing Republican Party.

Kushner's faction, by contrast, is generally seen as having only short-term, opportunistic potential — capable of delivering high-profile but fragile diplomatic successes that could quickly unravel in the face of any major systemic crisis.

Experts assign the lowest marks for governing capacity to the isolationists led by Vance and Carlson. Their overwhelming dependence on Trump's personal favor, along with their internal divisions and lack of experienced personnel to fill senior government positions, leave them highly vulnerable to the institutional weight of Washington's traditional bureaucracy, which has repeatedly managed to reassert control over the actual conduct of White House policy.

Zelensky’s visit to Belgrade took place Saturday, Aug. 8. During the meeting, the two leaders discussed European integration, humanitarian aid, and mutual support.

Vučić assured Zelensky that Ukraine can always count on Belgrade’s backing when it comes to Kyiv’s pursuit of EU membership. More concretely, Belgrade will also allocate around 2 million euros to help restore Ukraine’s energy sector. Zelensky, in turn, said he hoped that “Serbia’s path to the EU will accelerate.”

Vučić also repeated his earlier statements that Serbia supports Ukraine’s territorial integrity and that there are “no buts” on that issue.

Reaction to the visit was mixed. Pro-government media avoided detailed coverage, while activists from the “Serbs for Russians” initiative (known in Serbian as “Srbi za Ruse”), held a protest in the center of Belgrade replete with Russian tricolor flags and portraits of Vladimir Putin.

At a soccer match held the same day, fans of Red Star Belgrade displayed a banner reading: “While you are hosting a Nazi in Belgrade, Serbs are bleeding in crucified Kosovo!” The wording reflects pro-Russian propaganda narratives that falsely portray Ukraine’s government as Nazi, as well as Serbian nationalist rhetoric over Kosovo, whose independence Serbia does not recognize.

Belgrade-based political analyst Djokic told The Insider that the visit itself gives Vučić an opportunity to “demonstrate” to the European Union that he is ready to accommodate European concerns to the extent he believes his domestic political constraints will allow. At the same time, Djokic said, Vučić’s position on Ukraine is essentially aligned with that of Brussels — save for his refusal to impose sanctions on Russia.

“For Russia, this will undoubtedly be painful in terms of prestige, but Moscow currently has no real means to change the situation in Serbia,” Djokic said. “It will have to accept it. At the same time, Vučić’s goal remains the same: to stay a perpetual candidate for EU membership, never bringing the matter to actual accession to the European Union, while also not breaking ties with Brussels.”

For Kyiv, the visit is valuable, as it preserves cooperation in the energy sector via the aid package proposed by Belgrade and because of possible indirect arms supplies, which are extremely important for Ukraine.

In May, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Taras Kachka paid an official visit to Belgrade. It was the second visit to Serbia by a Ukrainian official of that rank since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Vučić visited Kyiv in July to attend the Southeast Europe-Ukraine summit. After the trip, he promised Ukraine additional financial, medical, and energy assistance. At the same time, however, Vučić said he had refused to sign a joint declaration calling for increased pressure on Moscow.

Komin is director of research at the Center for Advanced Governance, a Russian policy research organization.

In his view, the initial decision to register Yabloko may have been made by the presidential administration’s domestic policy department, which oversees Russian election campaigns. Komin said the Kremlin may first have studied closed-door polling and focus group results, including reactions to Yabloko’s main campaign slogan, “For Peace and Freedom.”

“I think that [the presidential administration] looked at some polling that they themselves commission and conduct, and that we do not see publicly,” Komin said. “They tested the slogans that Yabloko was planning to use in focus groups — ‘For Peace and Freedom.’ They looked at the results and understood that the polling showed a fairly small number of votes.”

According to Komin, the presidential administration may have assumed that Yabloko’s vote share could be kept below the 5% necessary for representation in the State Duma — and even below the 3% required to qualify for state funding — via a combination of propaganda, administrative mobilization, and vote-rigging. In that scenario, Yabloko’s participation in the election could itself have benefited the Kremlin, as a defeat for the only registered party with an anti-war platform would have allowed the authorities to present the results as evidence that calls for peace had little public support.

“They realized it would be better to let Yabloko in and make an example of it during the campaign, to show that a very limited number of people support the slogan ‘For Peace and Freedom,’ and that this social group is marginal,” Komin said. “It is a safe way to demonstrate that society is in fact consolidated around the idea of war.”

Komin said that, under that scenario, a strong result for the ruling United Russia party would take on additional significance. The authorities could use it as confirmation of public support for continuing the war, thereby giving the Kremlin extra political legitimacy to implement post-election decisions that would more directly affect the public.

Komin cited the possibility of a new wave of mobilization into the Russian army as one possible example.

“We know that the prospect of mobilization in one form or another is now being actively discussed: hidden mobilization, mobilization into [the] drone forces, mobilization in the form of rotation, or some other options,” he said. “Perhaps such broad legitimacy for the idea of the war is needed for other decisions as well — not only mobilization, but decisions that affect the population more directly and influence people’s social well-being.”

Komin said the initial plan may therefore have been to allow Yabloko to run, ensure its defeat, and then present the election results to Vladimir Putin as proof that society was consolidated around the continuation of the war. Such a course of events could have expanded the space for more radical decisions the Kremlin considers necessary to change the trajectory of events on the battlefield in Ukraine.

According to Komin, the civilian wing of the presidential administration, associated with Sergei Kiriyenko and the domestic policy department, initially approved of Yabloko taking part in the election. But the security wing, which Komin links primarily to the FSB’s Second Service and its head, Alexei Sedov, may have viewed the party’s presence on the ballot as too dangerous.

“Russia’s security structures favor cutting off risks through repression and bans,” Komin said. “The civilian administration more often takes the position that risks are better managed by creating a more complex picture and applying more complex solutions. And those protect against risks much better than blunt bans.”

Komin said Yabloko’s registration and then removal suggest that such a competition really did take place behind the scenes, likening it to the Kremlin’s decision to block Telegram. According to Komin, the civilian wing of the presidential administration opposed blocking the messaging service (or at least opposed making such a move before the election), while security officials took a harder line. Komin also attributes Telegram founder Pavel Durov’s addition to Russia’s list of extremists to developments in the internal Russian power struggle.

Komin sees the State Duma campaign of anti-war politician Boris Nadezhdin, who was barred from running in Russia’s 2024 presidential election, as another similar episode. In his view, the civilian administration may have planned simply to deny Nadezhdin’s registration over problems with signatures, while security officials saw that scenario as too risky after lines of people seeking to support his nomination formed across the country.

“They saw those lines for Nadezhdin last time and did not want to create them under any circumstances,” Komin said. “So they opened the relevant cases against him, which prevented him from running and campaigning, and then pushed him out of the country.”

Nadezhin has fled Russia and now lives in France.

Komin stressed that these political developments do not represent a split inside the government so much as they signal the presence of competition between two approaches to controlling the political space. In his assessment, the advantage has increasingly gone to the security services.

“This is actually not a very good signal, because we see that in all these decisions, at least the ones we know about, the security services are winning,” Komin said. “That means repression as a tool will develop and expand.”

Komin said the presidential administration’s policy approach, which involved preserving a more complex and manageable political landscape rather than relying on direct bans, is clearly falling out of favor with the Kremlin as the full-scale war in Ukraine rages well into its fifth year.

At the hearing, Rodina representatives described those claims in greater detail, arguing, for example, that a photograph of the Hiroshima bombing on Yabloko’s website violated the copyright of the U.S. Army, and that images generated with ChatGPT violated the rights of its developer, OpenAI. No evidence was presented suggesting that the copyright holders themselves ever filed any complaints over the alleged violations.

At the hearing, Yabloko chairman Nikolai Rybakov quoted Vladimir Putin on the need for a ceasefire in the war, saying Yabloko’s position did not contradict the president’s words.

“I want to draw your attention to a quote from President Putin: ‘... We proposed options and rational solutions that could suit everyone in America, Europe, Asia — throughout the world. We believe that it would be worth returning to their substantive discussion in order to formalize the conditions under which a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine can be achieved — and the sooner, the better.’

So yes, the factual situation is that the Yabloko party believes negotiations are needed, President Putin believes negotiations are needed, and the administrative plaintiff believes this is extremism!”

Before the hearing, dozens of Yabloko supporters gathered outside the Supreme Court. The party’s press office said at least 500 were waiting in line to be allowed in for the proceedings. Yabloko chairman Rybakov and Moscow branch head Kirill Goncharov came to the courthouse as well, but Goncharov was not allowed into the courtroom.

During the protests, police vans arrived outside the courthouse. Some supporters brought apples, a reference to the party’s name and symbol, and chanted pro-Yabloko slogans. At least two young women carrying Yabloko leaflets were taken away “for a conversation” by OMON riot police.

Rodina’s lawsuit was heard by Judge Vyacheslav Kirillov, who previously dissolved the Civil Initiative party, which nominated Boris Nadezhdin for the 2024 presidential election. Kirillov also ruled to designate the International Memorial Public Movement as extremist.

Rodina filed the lawsuit against Yabloko on Aug. 7. Aside from the copyright allegations, Rodina’s representatives argued that Yabloko’s election posts on blocked social media platforms violated campaign rules. The lawsuit equated Yabloko’s anti-war position with calls to violate Russia’s territorial integrity, and its statements against political repression and censorship with extremism.

Yabloko was the only registered party running in the September State Duma election with an anti-war platform. Its campaign slogan is “For Peace and Freedom.”

Rodina chairman Alexei Zhuravlyov, who currently serves as deputy head of the State Duma Defense Committee, had earlier called Yabloko members “national traitors” who should be “driven out” of the election campaign. Representatives of other parties also joined the criticism, with Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky calling for Yabloko to be declared an “undesirable organization,” a Russian legal designation that effectively bans a group’s activities and can lead to criminal prosecution for those who cooperate with it in any way.

Russian opposition figures abroad, including Alexei Navalny’s widow Yulia Navalnaya, had previously spoken out in support of Yabloko. The party distanced itself from those statements, saying that such statements from abroad could lead to candidates being removed from elections in Russia.

Earlier this summer, several Yabloko candidates were denied registration for elections to the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly. Election officials later rejected the party’s entire list. Yabloko was also barred from running in the city council election in Petrozavodsk, the capital of Karelia.

The facility belongs to EMCO, a defense company owned by Bulgarian businessman Emilian Gebrev — a repeated target of operations suspected to have been carried out by the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency. The Insider, together with Bellingcat and Der Spiegel, investigated an attempt by GRU officers to poison Gebrev in 2015, as well as explosions at ammunition depots that held munitions intended in part for Ukraine.

Dencho Minev, the mayor of nearby Tryavna, said the fire inside the warehouse compound had been extinguished. All workers were evacuated on EMCO buses. The area was cordoned off, and an operational headquarters was set up at the scene with emergency and law enforcement services present.

The fire spread to forested areas near the facility. Because of the heavy smoke, authorities urged residents of nearby settlements to close windows, use protective masks, and avoid going outside unless necessary. Officials planned to install a mobile air-quality monitoring station in the town of Plachkovtsi. The BG-ALERT emergency warning system was activated in the Gabrovo region. A road near the turnoff to the village of Armyankovtsi was closed. Residents of settlements near the plant were evacuated as a precaution.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation. Bulgarian authorities’ preliminary assessment is that the incident was accidental, not sabotage. Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev said the causes were “most likely internal.”

The incident came two days after another explosion in Bulgaria. On Aug. 8, the country’s prime minister said a drone that had flown in from Romania exploded in Bulgaria approximately one kilometer from a compressor station on the Trans-Balkan gas pipeline.

Bulgaria’s Defense Ministry said it was most likely a Ukrainian Maya decoy drone. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said that if the device did belong to Ukraine, it had reached Bulgarian territory unintentionally. Kyiv said it was ready to cooperate with Sofia to establish the circumstances of the incident.

Explosions have hit Gebrev’s warehouses before

The latest fire is far from the first such incident at facilities linked to Gebrev.

In 2014, explosions rang out at warehouses in the Czech village of Vrbetice that contained EMCO ammunition. Two people were killed. Czech authorities later accused officers from GRU Unit 29155 of organizing the act of sabotage. The Insider and Bellingcat investigated the operation in detail and established that the officers who were likely involved subsequently participated in subsequent Russian military intelligence operations in Europe.

In August 2022, a fire broke out at an EMCO arms warehouse near the Bulgarian city of Karnobat. Gebrev said at the time that he considered it to be the result of deliberate arson, ruling out “human error.”

In June 2023, explosions again occurred at the same complex near Karnobat. Local residents reported several powerful blasts at about 1 a.m. No one was injured. The site was closed for an investigation.

The Insider noted at the time that the incidents were taking place against the backdrop of a yearslong series of GRU operations against Gebrev and his business. According to investigations by The Insider and Bellingcat, officers from the GRU’s Unit 29155 tracked the businessman during a period when his company was linked to ammunition supplies to Ukraine. The 2014 explosions at warehouses in Vrbetice were followed by the attempt to poison Gebrev himself in Bulgaria in 2015.

How GRU officers tried to poison Gebrev

In April 2015, Gebrev suddenly lost consciousness during a reception in Sofia, and his son and one of EMCO’s senior executives developed symptoms of severe poisoning. All three had been at the company’s office that morning.

The University of Helsinki laboratory later detected traces of two organophosphates in Gebrev’s body, indicating poisoning with a nerve agent from the Novichok family.

The Insider, Bellingcat, and Der Spiegel established that at least seven GRU officers from Unit 29155 likely took part in the operation against Gebrev. CCTV footage near Gebrev’s office identified GRU officer Denis Sergeev, who used documents in the name of Sergei Fedotov. In 2018, he was also in Britain at the time of the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal.

Investigators established that a group of GRU officers traveled to Bulgaria at least three times. The first group arrived in February 2015, two months before the poisoning. The second was in the country at the time of the attack — Sergeev and two other suspected GRU officers arrived April 24 and left Bulgaria on April 28, the day Gebrev was poisoned. In May, Sergeev again traveled to the country, after which Gebrev’s condition sharply worsened again, leading to his hospitalization.

The precise motive for the attack has never been definitively established. EMCO exported weapons, supplying arms to Georgia during the 2008 war. In later investigations, The Insider linked the GRU’s interest in Gebrev to ammunition supplies to Ukraine after Russia began its aggression there in 2014.

The count covers only the officially published staff of the Russian Embassy and Russian missions to international organizations. Administrative and technical staff were not included. Some of the identified links are confirmed by previous places of service or employment, while others are based on registered addresses, information about relatives, and other indirect indicators.

Of the 48 employees of the Russian Embassy, at least eight showed signs of links to intelligence agencies. Counselor Evgenii Ambrosii is registered at an SVR departmental building on Vilniusskaya Street in Moscow. Attaché Aleksandr Sobolev received income from military unit 21247, which corresponds to the Foreign Intelligence Academy. Alexander Paloyan received income from SVR military unit 33949.

First Secretary Alexander Golovashkin, military attaché Alexey Fokin, and attaché Stanislav Aleksandridi are linked to GRU addresses and units (Aleksandridi listed the military intelligence headquarters on Khoroshevskoye Highway in Moscow, while Fokin was registered on the grounds of the Senezh Special Purpose Center). Attaché Dmitrii Kramarev worked in the 2000s at the Atlas Scientific and Technical Center, which at the time was under the FSB.

Ambrosii and Golovashkin had already appeared in The Insider’s previous investigation into Russian intelligence activity in Austria. Ambrosii supervised the SVR’s Vienna station on the political intelligence track, while Golovashkin served at the GRU’s Moscow Intelligence Center before arriving in Vienna. In March 2024, a source in Austria’s Foreign Ministry told The Insider that both had been added to the list of personae non gratae. The Insider found that they still appear among embassy staff in the Austrian Foreign Ministry directory updated in August 2026.

Of the 22 employees of Russia’s mission to the OSCE, links to intelligence agencies are suspected in seven cases. Four figures — Counselors Anton Momatyuk and Vitaly Kozlov, First Secretary Sergei Kildyashov, and Second Secretary Alexei Silantyev — used addresses of facilities linked to the GRU and military education. Three other employees previously worked at Defense Ministry institutions or listed addresses belonging to the General Staff, military academies, and military units.

Among 47 employees of Russian missions to other international organizations, signs of links to intelligence agencies were found in five cases. Three of them work at the IAEA. In particular, Sergei Berezin was registered on the grounds of the GRU’s Central Special Communications Hub, while Grigory Krivenchenko received income from military unit 52025, a nuclear weapons arsenal in Mozhaysk. Two other diplomats with possible links to military intelligence represent Russia at U.N. institutions.

Vienna remains one of the most important centers of Russian intelligence activity in Europe. The Financial Times previously reported that Russian diplomatic facilities in the city have become Moscow’s largest signals intelligence platform in the West. According to Austria’s intelligence service, Russian diplomatic missions in Vienna employ around 500 individuals when staff members (who are not included in public lists) are counted. Up to one-third of these nominally lower-level figures may also be involved in espionage.

In May 2026, Austria expelled three Russian diplomats, accusing them of intelligence activity. Austrian authorities did not disclose their names.

Russian investigators said they had opened a criminal case into what they described as a terrorist attack, alleging that Ukraine had struck residential areas and that a child was among the dead.

Tatarstan declared a day of mourning. Additional medical teams were deployed to Nizhnekamsk from the nearby city of Naberezhnye Chelny.

The independent Russian outlet Astra conducted an open source intelligence (OSINT) analysis of one of the published videos and concluded that the Nizhnekamskneftekhim plant was likely attacked. Footage filmed by local residents showed a fire and a column of smoke rising above the industrial zone. The site of the strike had not been officially confirmed at the time Astra released its analysis.

Later, Ukraine’s General Staff confirmed on Telegram that it targeted the TANECO refinery in Nizhnekamsk, while other strikes hit a repair workshop in Khrustalnyi in Ukraine’s Luhansk Region, a logistics warehouse in Novoselivka, and a field artillery depot in Boieve in the Donetsk Region.

The General Staff also clarified the results of previous attacks. It said an AVT-6 crude distillation unit was damaged at the Ilsky refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar Region on Aug. 8, while on Aug. 3 nine aviation fuel tanks were destroyed and two aircraft hangars damaged at the Hvardiiske airfield in annexed Crimea.

Last night’s attack extended beyond Tatarstan. Russia’s Defense Ministry said 456 drones were intercepted over 16 Russian regions and annexed Crimea. The ministry did not say how many drones were intercepted over Tatarstan itself.

Ukraine has intensified strikes on Russian oil refineries in recent months, contributing to severe fuel shortages across many parts of Russia and Russian-occupied Ukraine, though authorities claim that most early disruptions have been resolved.

Kyiv says the campaign is intended to make ordinary Russians feel the cost of Moscow’s war. Russia has turned to fuel imports from countries like Belarus and South Korea to shore up supplies.

Nizhnekamskneftekhim, one of Europe’s largest petrochemical plants, is part of the Sibur holding company. It produces rubber, plastics, ethylene, and other petrochemical products. It ranks among the world’s 10 largest producers of synthetic rubber.

The Nizhnekamsk industrial zone, which also contains the TANECO and TAIF-NK oil refineries, has been attacked by Ukraine several times. In June, Ukraine’s General Staff said it had struck both refineries, and The Insider detected a fire in the industrial zone using data from the satellite-based fire monitoring system NASA FIRMS. In early July, Astra speculated that a drone captured on video had crashed on the grounds of TAIF-NK.

“We have begun returning [our] specialists to the construction site of the Bushehr nuclear power plant. The first five engineering and technical staff members have already arrived at our residential settlement and begun carrying out their professional duties,” Likhachev said, adding that a total of 25 Russian specialists are now at the plant.

Rosatom reported in early April that it was evacuating its employees and their families from Bushehr.

“We are completing the planned evacuation of our employees. More than 200 people will leave the plant this week — this is the final group,” Likhachev said at the time.

The Russians were evacuated after the United States and Israel launched a military operation against Iran in late February. Iranian authorities reported shelling at the nuclear plant on several occasions.

Bushehr, Iran’s first nuclear power plant, was built with Russian involvement in the southern city of Bushehr. Its first reactor was completed in 2013, while the second and third units are still under construction. As of 2025, approximately 500 Russians were working there.

The decision was made in July after a meeting chaired by Russia’s Deputy Transport Minister Vladimir Poteshkin, who oversees the aviation sector. Aviatorshchina said the meeting focused on flight safety in the Moscow terminal control area, which covers air traffic around the Russian capital’s airports.

In late July, the Kremlin-aligned business newspaper Kommersant reported that Rosaviatsiya, Russia’s civil aviation agency, had lowered the maximum flight altitude near Moscow airports to 4,900 meters, down from the previous range of 8,250-8,550 meters, and banned transit flights over Moscow and the surrounding Moscow Region. The restrictions were explained on safety grounds amid ongoing Ukrainian attacks on Russian infrastructure.

In February, Karen Novitsky, a pilot with the Novosibirsk-based airline S7, wrote on his Telegram channel that the company had banned crew members from “taking photos or videos while the aircraft is taxiing, taking off, or landing.”

The ministry said the agreement was the result of negotiations that lasted 18 months. Under the document, Syria will take over management of civilian facilities, including Hmeimim airport and the commercial vessel pier at the port of Tartus, in order to gradually integrate them into the country’s civilian infrastructure.

The memorandum provides for a three-month transition period, after which the new arrangements will take effect.

Russia’s Hmeimim air base, along with the Tartus naval facility, are located in Syria’s Latakia province on the Mediterranean coast. After the fall of Bashar Assad’s regime in December 2024, Russia began withdrawing its forces and equipment from Syria. In late 2024 and early 2025, significant amounts of weapons and military hardware were removed from the naval base in Tartus.

In January, Reuters reported that Russia had also begun withdrawing troops from the Qamishli air base in northeastern Syria. According to the agency, some personnel and equipment were being transferred to Hmeimim, while others were returning to Russia.

Reuters also reported that Moscow was trying to repurpose Tartus for commercial use, writing that the Syrian company Rus Line, together with its Russian partners, is preparing to create a logistics hub at the port of Tartus for transshipping Russian cargo, including grain, coal, timber, and steel. 

Since 2005, Moscow has hosted the Moscow International Biennale of Contemporary Art, while in 2014 St. Petersburg hosted the major European contemporary art biennial Manifesta 10 as part of the state-sponsored Year of Culture program.

Russian art was also widely exhibited abroad. In 2005–2006, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York hosted the exhibition RUSSIA!, showcasing landmark Russian art ranging from Andrei Rublev’s icons to Socialist Realism and contemporary works. During those years, the state not only refrained from interfering with the development of the contemporary art industry but actively supported it.

The situation changed dramatically after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On February 25, 2022, several thousand artists signed an open letter calling for the war to be stopped. But in early March, after the government adopted a law criminalizing the spread of so-called “fake news” about the Russian army, the publication Spectate removed both the text of the letter and the list of signatories.

Among the first artists to fall victim to the new laws was Sasha Skochilenko. She was arrested in March 2022 under the “fake news” statute after attempting to replace supermarket price tags with stickers containing information about the actions of the Russian military in Ukraine. She was released only in August 2024, as part of a major international prisoner exchange.

Against the backdrop of the new bans and restrictions, some artists chose to leave the country. One of them was Pavel Otdelnov, who in 2022 published his politically charged “Scenes from a Nightmare” series before relocating to the United Kingdom.

In September 2022, searches were carried out at the homes of Maksim Evstropov and Kristina Bubentsova, members of the art collective Party of the Dead. Citing a law enforcement source, the outlet Peterburgsky Format reported that the searches were conducted as part of a criminal investigation into actions that were suspected to have “insulted the feelings of [religious] believers.” The members of Party of the Dead later explained on their VKontakte page that the case had been prompted by their Easter post containing “an unflattering statement about Patriarch Kirill, who supports the war and kisses the president’s ass.”

On the same day, searches were also conducted at the homes of artists Dmitry Vilensky and Olga Tsaplya of the collective “What Is to Be Done?” The founders of the DK Rozy cultural center and the School of Engaged Art, where Evstropov had taught for the previous several years, also got visits from the authorities.

Evstropov, Vilensky, and Tsaplya all left Russia after the searches, and in June 2023, the “What Is to Be Done?” collective announced that it was closing the DK Rozy space and ending the work of the School of Engaged Art. At the same time, the artists introduced a new initiative, the What Is to Be Done Mutual Aid Fund, intended to support both artists who remained in Russia and those who found themselves in difficult circumstances abroad. Assistance is provided through personal and confidential channels, though the artists noted that they are still “severely restricted in their ability to spend Western grant funding inside Russia” — meaning that the mutual aid effort is financed from their own resources.

The growing crackdown

As the war continued, state repression spread to a much broader circle of artists. In March 2024, searches were carried out in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Yekaterinburg, Perm, and Ulyanovsk. The authorities linked the operation to an investigation into Pyotr Verzilov, a member of the art collective Pussy Riot who left Russia in 2020 before taking up arms for Ukraine. Some of the artists questioned in the probe said they had never even met Verzilov.

According to independent outlet Mediazona, searches were conducted at the homes of at least 20 people, including performance artist Katrin Nenasheva, two additional members of the Party of the Dead collective, Pussy Riot members Margarita Konovalova (Rita Flores), Olga Kuracheva, and Olga Pakhtusova, as well as artist Anatoly Osmolovsky, a co-founder of the Baza Institute. Searches were also conducted at the home of a female acquaintance of the artist Philippenzo, who had left Russia after a criminal case was opened against him on charges of “vandalism motivated by political hatred,” stemming from his street artwork Izrossilovanie. Some of the artists were detained by police as witnesses in the Verzilov case but were released shortly afterward.

In September 2024, searches were carried out at the Baza Institute of Contemporary Art, located on the grounds of Moscow's Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art. Following the searches, Baza director Svetlana Baskova announced that the institution would close: “We realized that we didn't want the people close to us — our students and those who were planning to enroll — to suffer because of this. We simply don't know what may await them. That's why we stopped accepting new students.”

At the same time, Baskova said she did not know why the searches had been conducted: “There was nothing prohibited at the institute. Perhaps some people simply don't like contemporary art. It seems to speak a different language, one that may be difficult to understand and can appear provocative.”

“Some people simply don't like contemporary art: it speaks a different language, one that is difficult to understand and seems provocative”

In an interview with Meduza, Baskova and Osmolovsky said that officers had come to search the institute under Article 228 of the Russian Criminal Code, which covers drug offenses. However, the real reasons for the search remain unclear. Art theorist Boris Klyushnikov, who taught at Baza, told The Insider that Osmolovsky had long irritated the authorities: “He is associated with actionism — he embodies actionism — and that's why they cracked down on Baza.” According to Klyushnikov, that wave of searches was particularly harsh: “They even tortured people to make them hand over our teaching materials.”

Another target of state repression has been the festival culture associated with contemporary art. The festival Kholod i Ogonyok (lit. Cold and Flame), a Russian counterpart to Burning Man, was targeted in a raid by the nationalist group Russian Community, which described the event as “a festival of sodomites and drug addicts.”

Other contemporary art festivals have also faced pressure from state and pro-government actors. In August 2024, security forces shut down the independent contemporary art festival Naiznanku in the Moscow region. Officers ordered participants to leave immediately, threatening to call in a special police unit. They said the reason for the operation was the “unauthorized holding of a mass public event.”

Informants and blacklists

In recent years, the security services have sought to tighten their control over major art institutions using a hybrid system in which denunciations by activists against unwanted participants in exhibitions and festivals are combined with on-site oversight by security service personnel. Irina (name changed for security reasons), a curator who works with several Moscow galleries, told The Insider that the state’s efforts are very thorough:

“The censorship is total. For example, every contemporary art fair, even if it's privately owned and commercial, is inspected by the state. Organizers are required to provide FSB curators with a list of every artist participating in the fair. First they check the names, and then, the day before the opening, the curators come to the venue and inspect the works themselves. If they don't like a particular piece, they can have it removed. They may object to the subject matter. Say you've painted a she-devil — they might take it down. They may not like the colors either. Yellow and blue are an instant ban.”

Irina said that, as a result, “self-censorship has also reached incredible levels,” as all artists, even those with no connection whatsoever to social or political issues, fear that their works could be removed.

Aleksandra (name changed for security reasons), the founder of a contemporary art gallery in Moscow, said that FSB officers themselves compile blacklists of artists — and it is not only public opponents of the war who are targeted:

“I get the impression these lists are compiled based on whether you know someone the authorities dislike. You can barely know another artist, post a social media ‘story’ with them, and end up on the list yourself. But you get used to it. You live with the fact that there's a file on you.”

Asked what legal grounds FSB officers cite when exerting such pressure, The Insider's sources responded with bewilderment: “We've reached the point where they're simply told to shut something down, and it gets shut down without explanation,” said Dmitry (name changed for security reasons), a curator from a major Russian city.

If an institution's management refuses to compromise, however, its leaders themselves may face persecution and dismissal. This is what happened to Nailya Allakhverdiyeva, the director of the PERMM Museum of Contemporary Art. She led the museum for ten years but was forced to resign under the combined pressure of the FSB and various conservative activist groups.

The initial trigger for the campaign against Allakhverdiyeva was a meeting she held with the British consul. Threats from activists affiliated with the Young Guard and other organizations soon followed, with questions as to why the museum was not staging “exhibitions about the Special Military Operation.” This campaign was followed by searches and interrogations. In 2024, Allakhverdiyeva resigned from the museum and left Russia. In the summer of 2025, she was placed on the country’s wanted list in connection with a criminal case over allegedly offending the feelings of believers.

The curator Dmitry said that, in his experience, the biggest problems are caused not by state officials but by informants:

“Every region has its own group of informants. They identify the participants in a particular event, comb through their social media to see what they've said about the war or the LGBTQ community, and look for ties to international institutions. Then comes a wave of denunciations. In my city, for example, this is done by a pro-government Telegram channel. One way or another, this work is coordinated by the state. As a result, institutions often postpone or cancel events. Recently they denounced a book festival held at GES-2, and it worked: many events at the festival were canceled, and the staff member overseeing it was fired.”

At the same time, Dmitry said there is also a more grassroots level of denunciations and intimidation:

“Last fall there was a peak in denunciations, and all sorts of people were sending me threats. When I looked through their social media accounts, it turned out they weren't even from my region. They were former servicemen from elsewhere who seem to spend their time monitoring people, apparently deriving some additional aesthetic pleasure from it. If you look at all the posts in these denunciation channels reposting events they dislike, you'll see countless outraged comments. People promise to file complaints with the prosecutor's office, and then you just sit there waiting for it to happen. I received dozens of threats like that. But if these people really wanted to have me imprisoned, they would have taken a closer look at what I do and found articles of the Criminal Code that actually fit.”

Some artists themselves have also become informants. Aleksandra said that one former student of the Baza Institute, which closed after the searches, has gained an unfortunate reputation within the art community:

“After the searches, she got very scared and immediately switched sides. She started painting little birch trees. But on top of that, she's making everyone's life miserable — she goes to every exhibition and reports people. She wanted to report me too, and I told her I'd report her as well. There aren't many people like that, but they do exist.”

Aleksandra believes these artists are primarily trying to shield themselves from possible repression. At the same time, she said, no one pays much attention to this particular artist's activities anymore: “People just say, ‘To hell with her.’ She's reported everyone — the Zverev Center, Garage — but the state doesn't seem to pay any attention either.”

How cultural institutions are responding

It is impossible to determine how many events have been shut down because of state pressure — many projects are canceled at the planning stage, while most bans are imposed through informal instructions from officials and security services or through pressure from pro-government activists. Even so, the fact that many events have been canceled has become public knowledge.

In 2022, an exhibition by artist Grisha Bruskin at the New Tretyakov Gallery closed ahead of schedule after complaints from activists and inspections by Russia's Ministry of Culture, which claimed to have found “anti-state” messages in the works.

In 2023, an exhibition by Rostislav Lebedev at the VS_Unio gallery was subjected to sweeping censorship immediately before its opening. Around 30 of the artist's works were removed, while the name of prominent independent curator Andrei Erofeev was completely deleted from promotional materials and press releases.

That same year, the Russian Museum canceled an exhibition marking the 65th birthday of Timur Novikov (an iconic artist of the perestroika era) just one day before its opening. The decision has been attributed to the museum's new director, Alla Manilova.

In the summer of 2024, ART4, Moscow's first private museum of contemporary art, closed after one a performance by artist Sergei Pakhomov provoked fierce criticism from pro-government activists affiliated with the ultranationalist NOD movement.

The same year, the Department of the Latest Trends at the Tretyakov Gallery was shut down, while the New Tretyakov Gallery ended its exhibition program. In effect, these developments marked the end of the possibility of exhibiting contemporary artistic practice at the country's principal national museum.

Dmitry believes that organizations can still resist the efforts of informants. He cited a two-year-old example from his own work curating a major project at a regional center for contemporary art. Since he knew he was being monitored, his involvement was not mentioned in any of the announcements that went out before the exhibition opened — only in the catalog, which visitors could see at the event itself. “In that sense, I acted behind the scenes. The chances of any informants actually coming to the exhibition were very small, so you could say we outsmarted them,” Dmitry recalled.

According to the curator, however, institutions have responded to the new reality in different ways:

“There are also more unpleasant cases involving institutional self-censorship. For example, in 2025 the artist Blue Pencil was preparing an exhibition at the Arsenal museum in Nizhny Novgorod, but the institution got so frightened that it didn't mention his name anywhere at all. Yet some time later, Individuum published Blue Pencil's book, a manifesto dealing precisely with censorship. And nothing happened! This is a constant pattern: institutional directors try to assess the risks, and they often overreact.”

Commenting on the dismissal of a staff member from GES-2, Moscow art gallery founder Aleksandra said that when faced with state pressure, major cultural institutions are reluctant to stand up for either their employees or for artists:

“Institutions behave according to the principle, ‘I'm just a kitty – what can I do?’ In my view, GES-2 today is the most clear embodiment of what institutions devoted to culture and the arts look like under Putin. Artists who, let's say, don't take a clear public stance, are eager to get in because that's where the money, exhibitions, and opportunities are. But the situation is similar at other major institutions as well. People cling to their salaries, and you can understand why — an institution will not defend one of its employees, even if they've worked there for a thousand years. You shouldn't expect any sense of decency.”

Pressure can also take a more overtly coercive form. One of the clearest recent examples occurred in May 2026 at the Kontur photography fair in Nizhny Novgorod. A day before the opening, unidentified people arrived at the venue and covered the booth displaying photographer Alexander Gronsky's work with white fabric. Gronsky is best known for his series of photographs exploring how the war has transformed Russian cities.

“On the night before the opening, stern men in suits convincingly suggested a new exhibition design,” Gronsky wrote. In the comments on the photographer's post, people joked that the men in suits had “created a new trend” and that the artwork had only benefited from their intervention.

Dmitry also said that foreign artists visiting Russia can become victims of censorship restrictions:

“Last year, one institution held an open competition for participation in an exhibition. The curators selected an excellent Chinese artist. He flew in, and then information came from the FSB that he had taken part in protest actions in China, so he had to be banished immediately. The artist spent literally six hours in Russia — he had only just checked into his hotel — and then he was sent back because the FSB had looked into his background a little too late.”

Not everyone involved in the art world, however, is overly concerned by the new restrictions. Veronika (name changed for security reasons), an artist and curator, said that while preparing a contemporary art fair in a major Russian city, she did not dwell on the risks or censor the works herself:

“Of course, we thought security officers might show up, but what could we do? Most of the artists taking part were people I already knew, so I had a rough idea of what kind of works they might bring. We selected the artists and organized the shared booths, but we didn't inspect every piece they intended to exhibit. It was obvious enough that nobody was going to hang a swastika or LGBT symbols on the wall. Of course, anything is possible, but if something like that had appeared, we would have removed it immediately.”

Veronika added that curators often deal with such situations on the spot. There have been cases in which exhibition organizers removed works at the request of security officers — but after the uninvited visitors left the venue, the works were put back on display or quietly sold under the counter.

How artists are responding

The atmosphere has had a profound impact on Russia's contemporary art scene. The Insider's sources say that fewer and fewer works even attempt to allude to the country's political or social situation.

But at the same time, other genres have emerged. Curator Irina says that “there's now a trend toward depicting children, with a huge number of works centered on family — apparently as a nod to traditional values.” “Nostalgia, old photographs — honestly, I'm completely tired of all that,” she adds.

There's now a trend toward depicting children, with a huge number of works centered on family – apparently as a nod to traditional values

Art theorist Boris Klyushnikov described the 2024 searches of artists' homes as a turning point: “I think we've entered a kind of Putinist formalism. It was after the Verzilov case that they split art into politically engaged contemporary art and everything else. Formalist art, on the other hand, is actually encouraged.”

Klyushnikov believes this is connected to the Putin-era elite's appetite for collecting art: “They go to fairs like Blazar, Cosmoscow, and so on. And what's being sold there now is art that's almost entirely formalist — a kind of zombie formalism.”

Curator Irina says that purchasing power in Russia has declined sharply, and buyers are disappearing as the country's middle class grows significantly poorer. Those who have benefitted from the war economically tend to be members of the elite and civil servants, and artists can often only sell the sorts of work that appeal to those buyers.

“That's what makes it doubly amusing when major galleries try to hint, in Aesopian language, that they're against the war while making their money almost exclusively from government officials and lawmakers,” Irina says. “Artists who work with major institutions while talking about independent art are, let's say, not telling the whole story. Because all the major sponsors and patrons still left in Russia are, one way or another, connected to the war.”

Irina offers a telling example of how artists are adapting to the new market:

“A man and his wife, who is an artist, decided to market her work to Russia's energy industry. She started painting power lines and energy infrastructure. After finishing the paintings, she put on a kokoshnik and wore it to Russian art fairs, partly funded by the government, such as Art Russia. Those kinds of works sell for millions [of rubles]. And portraits of Putin also sell very well.”

According to The Insider's sources, some artists are still trying to comment on contemporary reality through Aesopian language. “You can, for example, title an exhibition Freedom, Openness, or Dialogue,” Dmitry remarks ironically. Others, much as they did in Soviet times, have retreated into the underground, though the audience for this sort of semi-public art has naturally become much smaller. Some artists, Dmitry says, seek out little-known venues on the outskirts of cities and try to ignore censorship.

Artist and curator Veronika also told The Insider about works that rely on allusion and metaphor to address current events: “The people I know who work with political themes do so in a very indirect way. They turn to metaphor or what you might call ‘conceptual neutrality.’ An outside viewer looking at such a work wouldn't understand anything, and the accompanying text sometimes exists in two versions: a neutral public explanation and a more candid text intended for a narrow circle of people.”

As an example, the artist cites a work involving the performance of anthems based on Alexander Brener's letter opposing the war in Chechnya. The anthems themselves are performed in languages other than Russian, while the accompanying public text merely states that “the lyrics are based on Alexander Brener's 1995 letter to Khudozhestvenny Zhurnal.”

Another escapist means of avoiding censorship is to stage an exhibition devoted to a past era. “We've organized exhibitions about the 1960s and the 1920s. In such cases, there's no censorship — after all, we're talking about long-gone times,” Dmitry says.

As Dmitry explains, university instructors teaching contemporary art have increasingly shifted their focus to technological art and media art: “These fields are geared toward producing a very specific kind of knowledge that doesn't necessarily intersect directly with the political context. But even these people are afraid that their work could come under threat.”

An artist from St. Petersburg, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Insider how the city's contemporary art scene has become commercialized in recent years: “Art fairs and sales — that's what St. Petersburg lives on now. It feels like everyone is exhausted and focused on producing things that can be churned out and sold. We've lost the sense of play — I think we've forgotten why we're doing any of this in the first place. And, of course, so many artists have left, and those people are deeply missed.”

“Everyone is exhausted and focused on producing things that can be churned out and sold. We've lost the sense of play, and we've forgotten why we're doing any of this”

The artist links these changes to the risk of searches and arrests: “We've been crushed by this repression. There's a feeling that if someone creates something out of the ordinary, the searches will come afterward. Nobody wants to take that risk. Of course, there are still some deeply underground, punk spaces where anti-war statements can appear. But in terms of audience, it's what you'd call the very bottom layer of the internet.”

Some artists and curators, however, take a more optimistic view of the situation. Aleksandra believes that it is still possible to work as an artist and create free, experimental art in today's Russia:

“You simply understand from the outset that you've been excluded from the institutional sphere. Nobody is going to support you financially — you'll be making art with your own money. But maybe that's actually a good thing, because no one will be dictating the terms. Artists, including graduates of the Rodchenko School and the Joseph Backstein Institute of Contemporary Art, continue to produce works on a wide range of subjects, including the war and the militarization of society. You just have to accept that this kind of art will reach a much narrower audience.”

Living under this hybrid form of pressure has given rise to complex strategies of resistance. Dmitry said that although he continues to work on public events, he periodically has to reduce his visibility. It all depends on how active the informants are: “It's a kind of cat-and-mouse game. It's obvious that if I become more visible, the pressure from them will increase as well. You have to strike a balance between doing something and doing nothing.”

Art theorist Klyushnikov pointed to another emerging trend: the growth of self-organized educational initiatives in contemporary art: “In a way, art has become a cover for these collective gatherings. People simply need to talk, although political conversations happen as well. Art history has become especially important because you can show a work from, say, the First World War and discuss it, while everyone understands what you're really talking about.”

Europe's strategic autonomy remains constrained due to the fact that it cannot independently manufacture, upgrade, or operate key weapons systems without political approval and technological support from the United States. The primary tool Washington uses to control Europe's defense industry is its International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Originally intended to protect defense technologies, the regime has evolved into a tool for suppressing competition. Its key feature is the "see-through principle": if a weapon or military system contains even a minor American-made component, it falls under U.S. jurisdiction, meaning that exporting, upgrading, or even moving such equipment within a country requires approval from the U.S. State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC). Washington has used this domestic legislation to block (1, 2) the delivery of France's Falcon Eye satellites to the UAE and SCALP missiles for Egypt's Rafale fighter jets.

The U.S. system for supplying defense equipment and technology to other countries through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program has also become excessively politicized. By selling platforms such as F-35 fighter jets and Patriot air defense systems, Washington gains the ability to exert its influence over ongoing conflicts and to affect diplomatic disputes by depriving buyers of strategic flexibility.

Another U.S. law, the CLOUD Act, enacted in 2018, poses a direct challenge to data sovereignty by allowing U.S. authorities to access data stored on the servers of American companies even when those servers are physically located in Europe. Software such as the ODIN system used for the F-35 is contractually tied to updates provided from the United States. In theory, this means Washington could restrict the use of such weapons by suspending software support or halting the supply of spare parts.

As a result, Germany and other EU countries have begun developing their own regulatory frameworks. The EU's response to ITAR has taken the form of new defense regulations, which encourage European companies to eliminate American technology from their supply chains altogether. For the time being, however, European contractors seeking export licenses are still required to disclose detailed technical information about their systems to U.S. regulatory authorities, creating the risk that commercially sensitive information could be exposed (and potentially facilitating industrial espionage).

Still, not every problem stems from U.S. legislation or deliberate political pressure. Sometimes, the United States simply does not have enough munitions to meet both its own needs and those of its European allies. A case in point is the supply crisis involving Tomahawk cruise missiles. After expending more than 1,000 of them in the Middle East, Washington threatened to freeze Germany's order for 400 more before agreeing after negotiations to resume deliveries in August. As a result, Germany was left without the deterrent capability it had expected to acquire. Berlin had nowhere else to turn, however, as a European equivalent is not expected to become available until 2030.

Europe also lacks sufficient capabilities in space, where the continent’s militaries remain heavily dependent on U.S. navigation (GPS), communications (Starlink), and satellite intelligence systems. In logistics, they face an acute shortage of military transport aircraft and aerial refueling tankers, forcing them to rely on the United States here as well.

American-made weapons account for about 58% of all defense equipment purchased by European NATO members from suppliers outside the alliance. This dependence significantly weakens Europe's bargaining position, a fact that Washington has leveraged in trade negotiations. The dependence also has a financial cost: vast sums flow to American defense contractors instead of supporting Europe's own military industry.

Currently, EU member states spend as much as 78% of their defense procurement budgets on purchases from suppliers outside the bloc, and as a result of the rapid rearmament of recent years, the share of defense procurement sourced from within the EU has fallen from 62% to a historic low of around 44%. Even within that internal market, member states award as much as 75–80% of contracts to their own domestic manufacturers rather than to companies elsewhere in the EU. As a consequence, the United States — which accounts for roughly 63% of all European defense imports from outside the bloc (well ahead of suppliers from the UK and South Korea) — effectively delivers nearly half of Europe's overall arsenal. In response, Brussels has set itself the ambitious goal of bringing at least 50% of defense contracts back to the European market by 2030.

The battle for independence begins

ITAR-free status, indicating that a product contains no American-made components whatsoever, has ceased to be merely a marketing advantage — it has become a requirement in many defense programs. Both the European Defence Fund (EDF) and the ReArm Europe initiative take the absence of U.S. components into account when evaluating projects, and as a result, proposed systems that rely on American technology are far less likely to receive funding. Germany's Ministry of Defense imposed a strict requirement in its competition to replace the G36 rifle: the winning design must not contain any components subject to ITAR. Denmark, meanwhile, deliberately chose the European SAMP/T air defense system over the U.S.-made Patriot to avoid the risks associated with American export controls (and Trump's claims to Greenland).

The MICA guided missile, produced by the French defense giant MBDA, is already manufactured without any American-made components, giving the company complete freedom to export it on the global market. Similarly, Lithuania's Tactical Photonics has developed an ultra-light laser target designator for drones weighing less than two kilograms. According to the company, it outperforms the 15-kilogram system produced by U.S. firm L3Harris Wescam, costs half as much, and does not require authorization from the U.S. State Department.

The long-range ground-launched THUNDART missile system, developed by France's MBDA and Safran (and successfully demonstrated in April 2026) has likewise been built without American-made components. Similar ambitions underpin the Eurodrone program, the first major unmanned aircraft designed and built entirely by Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. Its first test launch, intended to validate the missile's design and propulsion system, took place on April 14. Particularly important to the project's independence is the Catalyst engine produced by Avio Aero, which was specifically designed to remain outside the scope of ITAR restrictions.

Finnish company Agate Sensors has won a contract from Sweden's defense procurement agency and is deploying software-defined spectral imaging chips. The technology reduces the EU defense sector's dependence on the U.S. and Taiwan for advanced microelectronics and optical sensors. Edgewing, a joint venture between the UK's BAE Systems, Italy's Leonardo, and Japan's Mitsubishi, has secured a $6.14 billion contract to develop a next-generation fighter aircraft by 2035. The funding will cover the first 18 months of work, during which the companies will complete the aircraft's concept assessment phase under the trilateral Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) before moving on to detailed design and engineering.

If the ITAR-free standard becomes widespread, Europe's defense industry could become genuinely competitive, allowing the continent to build a security architecture insulated from political pressure from Washington. However, significant obstacles remain.

Fragmentation, capital flight, and industrial inertia

Europe's quest for military sovereignty is being held back by the fragmentation of defense procurement across the EU. The United States relies on a single standardized platform, and its defense market functions as a monopsony with the Pentagon functioning as the sole customer, setting standards and ensuring system integration. As a result, the U.S. concentrates its resources on a single tank platform — the M1 Abrams, in several variants such as the M1A1 and M1A2 — manufactured by the country's only remaining tank production line.

The EU, by contrast, consists of 27 separate national markets, each with its own budget, planning cycle, procurement requirements, and "national champions" that governments seek to support in order to preserve jobs, technological expertise, and tax revenues. Germany relies on the Leopard 2, manufactured by KNDS and Rheinmetall, while France has long backed production of its own Leclerc tank. Poland and other Eastern European countries continue to operate numerous variants of Soviet-designed platforms.

Europe has repeatedly attempted to develop a common main battle tank, but those efforts have foundered over disputes concerning intellectual property and technological constraints. The current flagship project, the Main Ground Combat System (MGCS), which is intended to replace both the Leopard and the Leclerc, is currently stalled due to competition between German and French defense companies.

In short, Europe's defense industry has become a “collection of boutiques” — a wide variety of equipment is produced in small batches, preventing manufacturers from achieving economies of scale. As the author of the article “Too Much Spending, Too Little Defense” argues, the real problem is not the overall size of the EU's defense budget but its excessive fragmentation. Europe spends more than €300 billion on defense each year — roughly on par with China and second only to the U.S.

Yet this volume of outlays does not translate into equivalent strategic capability due to the fact that each EU member state seeks to channel contracts to its own domestic manufacturers. In a recent report — “Why Consolidate the European Defence Industry?” — published by the Jacques Delors Institute, the authors argue that a "collection of isolated industrial bases" is incapable of meeting the demands of prolonged, high-intensity warfare. They call for the urgent consolidation of the European defense industry in order to create pan-European industrial champions. Under the current arrangement, the EU derives 30-40% less defense capability for every euro it spends than it would if it functioned as a genuinely unified state.

Europe’s financial sector is another weak link. Because of a shortage of venture capital, the bloc’s most promising deep-tech companies are often forced to seek funding from American investors, increasing the risk of losing control over strategically important assets. The pool of capital available to developers of advanced technologies is further constrained by stringent regulation and the conservative strategies of European financiers and pension funds.

Staff shortages and high electricity prices further undermine the competitiveness of Europe's defense industry. For many small and medium-sized enterprises, the gap between developing a prototype and launching mass production is impossible to bridge, while major defense contractors — including Germany's Rheinmetall, the Franco-German KNDS Group, the UK's BAE Systems, and the pan-European missile consortium MBDA — already have order books filled for the next six years. Unless Europe fundamentally reforms its procurement system and abandons overly demanding technical specifications, its defense industry risks being unprepared for a potential conflict with Russia — one that Germany's defense minister and the intelligence services of NATO's European members believe could erupt as soon as 2029.

This creates a fundamental dilemma: on the one hand, Europe needs to rearm immediately, pushing governments to buy off-the-shelf weapons from the United States. On the other, it must build up its own defense-industrial capabilities.

Governments often opt for off-the-shelf U.S. purchases as the least risky option, undermining investment in European projects

In France, President Emmanuel Macron remains the leading advocate of a unified European defense policy, but even he faces domestic constraints. The French military establishment firmly rejects any attempts by the European Commission to define the country's defense requirements, viewing the defense sphere as a matter of national sovereignty. And even more far-reaching changes could come if the National Rally (Rassemblement National, RN) comes to power. Because of its ideological opposition to transferring sovereign authority to Brussels, an RN government would, according to Marine Le Pen herself, "kill" joint European defense projects such as the MGCS tank program.

The countries of Eastern Europe and the Baltic states regard NATO (read: the United States) as the ultimate guarantor of their security against Russia, and they fear that "strategic autonomy" would weaken the transatlantic alliance. Poland is rearming more aggressively than any other European country, but it is doing so almost entirely through purchases from the United States and South Korea. This reflects not only a profound sense of existential threat but also the desire of right-wing political forces to prevent deeper European integration. If the Trump administration were to impose steep tariffs — for example, on semiconductors or similar technologies — or insist that higher European defense spending be directed exclusively toward American-made weapons, several EU member states could withdraw from initiatives aimed at strengthening European strategic autonomy in order to preserve access to the American "security umbrella," experts warn.

The result is another paradox. On the one hand, Trump's approach is pushing Europe toward greater strategic autonomy. On the other, it is driving some countries — especially those on NATO's eastern flank — toward a split with their European neighbors as they seek to appease Washington through large-scale purchases of American weapons lest the Pentagon cut back its troop presence in Europe.

The expert report “Achieving European Defence Autonomy,” produced by Germany’s Kiel Institute, identifies ten key technological and operational capability gaps that Europe must close in order to become a truly independent defense producer:

• Command and control systems
• Robotic systems
• Long-range precision strike capabilities and sixth-generation air combat systems
• Layered air and missile defense
• Satellite intelligence and communications
• Sovereign access to space
• Persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR)
• Military cloud infrastructure, software, and artificial intelligence
• Strategic airlift and operational support
• Electronic warfare (EW) and suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD)

According to the report's authors, achieving these objectives will require investment of approximately €500 billion over the next decade, as well as a complete overhaul of Europe's fragmented defense procurement market.

A new strategy and financial leverage

Europe's response to these challenges is the European Defence Industrial Strategy (EDIS) and the accompanying European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP). Together, they set an ambitious target: by 2030, at least 50% of defense procurement should come from manufacturers based within the EU. Their main financial instrument is the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) initiative — a €150 billion EU defense fund established in May 2025 to support large-scale rearmament. It provides member states with long-term, low-interest loans to invest in expanding defense production capacity. In return, it imposes a strict condition: components supplied by countries outside the EU may account for no more than 35% of any funded project.

Another important innovation is the shift to "capacity contracts" — a new procurement model under which governments pay not for the number of weapons delivered but for maintaining production lines that are ready for immediate expansion. The idea is to ensure that industry can rapidly increase output in the event of a crisis, moving the defense sector away from a "just-in-time" model toward a "just-in-case" one.

Public budgets alone will not be enough to provide the additional €800 billion required under the Readiness 2030 program (formerly ReArm Europe). Until recently, the defense sector was widely regarded as an undesirable destination for investment due to strict environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards. Those rules effectively stigmatized arms manufacturing and discouraged investment funds from financing it. That approach is now changing, as investment in security is increasingly viewed as both legitimate and necessary.

In addition, the defense sector needs to accelerate the adoption of dual-use commercial technologies in fields such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and robotics, bypassing the traditionally slow certification process.

Finally, stronger institutional coordination is needed, with a clear division of responsibilities between the EU and NATO. The alliance would continue to define military requirements and interoperability standards, while the European Union would serve as the industrial and financial coordinator, taking responsibility for infrastructure, military mobility, and energy security. To speed up decision-making, Europe should rely on "coalitions of the willing" made up of leading member states — for example, with France leading work on long-range strike systems and Germany on air defense — rather than trying to involve all 27 EU countries in every project.

To speed up decision-making, Europe should rely on "coalitions of the willing" made up of leading member states instead of involving all 27 countries in every project

The adopted Readiness 2030 plan includes a requirement to establish such coalitions around key defense priorities. The goal is to avoid bureaucratic paralysis in Brussels and vetoes by individual member states. Analysts at European think tanks (for example, in BeHorizon's research on a "two-speed Europe") argue that the requirement for unanimity among all 27 member states has become one of the greatest threats to European security. They broadly agree that "multi-speed integration" is the only way to quickly expand defense production and coordinate procurement. Small groups of countries can make decisions several times faster, sign multi-billion-euro arms procurement contracts, and then extend those initiatives to the rest of the bloc after the product is ready.

Europe in space

Protecting space infrastructure is regarded as one of the EU's top priorities. Plans include developing sovereign communications systems, expanding space surveillance capabilities, and introducing active space defense mechanisms.

To end its critical dependence on U.S. systems such as Starlink and GPS, Europe is pursuing an ambitious strategy to build its own “space shield” replete with sovereign satellite constellations. Additionally, the IRIS² project, with a budget of more than €10.6 billion, is intended to provide highly secure communications for government institutions and the military. The EU also plans to further develop its Galileo navigation system and Copernicus Earth observation program while obtaining military certification for both. Germany, meanwhile, is investing approximately €10 billion in its own constellation of 100 low Earth orbit satellites under the SATCOM Stage 4 program, often described as Germany's "military Starlink."

But satellites alone are not enough. The EU is therefore developing a space situational awareness system capable of detecting threats and responding to them. This includes the Odin's Eye II project for early warning of missile launches and the TWISTER program, which is designed to intercept threats using space-based surveillance. The private sector is also playing an increasingly important role. For example, Digantara is building an independent space intelligence and monitoring infrastructure for the EU.

Experts argue that Europe must move beyond passive monitoring toward active space defense while making its orbital infrastructure more resilient. That means protecting it against cyberattacks and potential physical threats, as well as establishing clear operational, military, and legal mechanisms for mutual assistance in the event of an attack on a member state’s satellites. To extend operational lifespans and reduce vulnerability, Europe is also developing on-orbit servicing technologies like the OrbitAID project, which would enable satellites to be refueled in orbit and maneuvered to evade threats.

Finally, effective defense is impossible without the ability to rapidly replace lost assets. To that end, Europe is working to secure sovereign access to space. In the future, the Ariane 6 heavy-lift launch vehicle will be complemented by a fleet of privately operated commercial micro- and small launch vehicles. The initiative is still in its early stages, with large-scale deployment planned for 2028–2030. The strategy calls for a shift toward "responsive launch" capabilities through long-term contracts with innovative small-launch providers such as India's Agnikul Cosmos — not an EU technology, but also not an American one. This would allow Europe to rapidly put replacement satellites into orbit whenever damaged ones need to be replaced. Total investment in Europe's "space shield" and the associated communications and intelligence infrastructure is estimated at more than €50 billion over the next decade.

Ukraine as a laboratory

Ukraine is playing a particularly important role in accelerating innovation in at least three ways: as a battlefield testing ground for next-generation technologies, as a catalyst for the transformation of Europe's defense industry, and as a source of new standards for digitally enabled warfare.

The EU–Ukraine security commitments adopted in June 2024 formalized industrial cooperation, bringing Ukraine into the market as a "special partner" whose defense industry is being integrated into Europe's industrial base even before the country joins the EU. This integration is enshrined in the EU's foundational “White Paper for European Defence — Readiness 2030,” as well as in the official European Defence Industrial Strategy. A dedicated EU–Ukraine Task Force on Defence Industrial Cooperation under the European Commission is intended to transform the urgent requirements of the battlefield into long-term, large-scale European defense production.

Ukraine's combat experience has demonstrated that modern military technologies — including drones, electronic warfare systems, and artificial intelligence — become obsolete within weeks rather than decades after making first contact with the enemy. That means Europe's defense bureaucracy will have to move to software update cycles measured in weeks while significantly accelerating its own adoption of new technologies. Ukraine has become a "living laboratory," where Western startups test their new wares under the conditions of a real high-intensity war, helping to shorten development cycles from years to months. At the same time, the integration of Ukraine's defense industry into the European ecosystem provides access to unique battlefield data and operational experience in an environment dominated by intensive electronic warfare.

Ukraine's experience has shown that modern military systems—drones, electronic warfare capabilities, and AI—become obsolete within weeks rather than decades

Ukraine's Delta battlefield management system has become the architectural benchmark for new European C2 (Command and Control) standards. It has demonstrated that data from satellites, drones, and radar systems can be integrated into a single secure network capable of functioning even under heavy communications jamming.

Ukraine has also demonstrated the effectiveness of deploying inexpensive autonomous systems at scale, producing as many as 200,000 FPV drones per month. That experience has informed European plans to build the capacity to manufacture millions of drones and munitions annually.

Cooperation with Ukraine is also helping Europe overcome its own constraints in production speed and scale. European companies, including Germany's Quantum Systems and various Dutch drone manufacturers, have either already established joint drone production facilities in Ukraine or entered into close manufacturing partnerships with Ukrainian firms. These complex production and logistics arrangements illustrate the depth of the emerging industrial integration.

For example, the Czech company Czechoslovak Group manufactures fuzes and propellant charges for 155 mm artillery shells, while final assembly is carried out in Ukraine. This arrangement speeds up deliveries and reduces the burden on European production facilities.

Ukraine has also learned to replace critical components itself. One example is its use of lithium battery cells produced by South Korea's Samsung instead of Chinese-made varieties — a shift that aligns with the EU's own effort to reduce dependence on China. Ukrainian manufacturers assemble these individual cells into complete battery packs (for example, in 6S2P configurations), which are used in three key defense applications: drones, electronic warfare, and portable frontline power systems. Until recently, Chinese suppliers accounted for as much as 90% of the battery component market. However, Beijing has since imposed strict export controls on drone components.

Why not just wait for Trump to leave?

Many European policymakers hope that once Donald Trump leaves office, transatlantic relations will return to normalcy. However, experts argue that such expectations are both strategically risky and, most likely, unfounded. The changes in U.S. policy are not temporary but deeply structural. They reflect not only the preferences of a particular president but also broader shifts in Washington's overall priorities. Speaking at the European Defence Agency's annual conference, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas stated that "Europe is no longer Washington's center of gravity, and this shift is structural rather than temporary." One of the fundamental drivers of this reality is the irreversible reorientation of U.S. strategic priorities toward the Indo-Pacific, geared towards long-term competition with China. Regardless of who occupies the White House, that shift will continue to divert American resources and attention away from Europe.

U.S. policy is also constrained by a growing budget deficit and record levels of national debt. Ironically, America's record defense budget is no longer being used primarily to sustain its long-established global military posture, but rather to fund a sweeping technological modernization in preparation for a possible future conflict with China. Maintaining a worldwide network of roughly 750 military bases across 80 countries costs the United States an estimated $55–80 billion each year. Against the backdrop of mounting fiscal pressures, that global footprint has become a prime target for cost-cutting. This raises doubts about Washington's ability to maintain its military presence around the world on its current scale. As a result, any U.S. administration is likely to demand a more robust sharing of the defense burden from its European allies.

America's record defense budget is being channeled into sweeping technological modernization in preparation for a possible future war with China

An equally important factor is the use of defense dependence as a political lever. American-made weapons account for more than 58% of all defense imports by European NATO members, giving Washington enormous leverage in trade negotiations for goods of all sorts — even a more friendly U.S. administration is unlikely to voluntarily give up such an advantage.

Long-term dependence is also built into contracts for highly sophisticated systems such as the F-35, locking customers into U.S. support well into the 2080s. That dependence is maintained through proprietary software, mandatory updates, and the supply of spare parts — all of which remain under American control. This mechanism is embedded in the architecture of modern weapons systems themselves and will not disappear regardless of who wins the next election. As a result, hopes for a simple return to the "good old days" are illusory, leaving Europe little choice but to accelerate the development of its own sovereign defense industry.

Several influential political forces nevertheless favor preserving the current model — strengthening ties with the United States rather than accelerating Europe's drive for defense independence. According to multiple sources, Berlin long regarded NATO as the cornerstone of European security and genuinely hoped that U.S. support for the alliance would return to normal after Trump's presidency. With the election of Chancellor Friedrich Merz, however, Germany has adopted a more hardline foreign policy approach that it describes as "new realism." Even so, Berlin continues to hedge its bets by maintaining close ties to the American defense complex.

This approach is shared across much of Eastern and Northern Europe, including in Poland, the Baltic states, Romania, and the Czech Republic. These countries regard the United States as the only viable guarantor of their security in the face of the Russian threat and genuinely fear that talk of "strategic autonomy" could ultimately trigger a real withdrawal of U.S. forces from the continent — a prospect they see as an existential threat.

The clearest example of a country pursuing a purely transactional relationship with the United States is Poland. Warsaw has purchased American Abrams tanks, HIMARS rocket systems, and F-35 fighter jets, largely bypassing joint European defense projects.

The defense industry as a driver of growth

Investment in defense sovereignty — €500 billion over the next decade, or about 0.25% of the EU's projected GDP during that period — is more than a security expenditure. It amounts to a comprehensive project of European reindustrialization. Its main engine will be the technologies developed for military purposes, ranging from sovereign AI (such as that developed by Mistral AI and Helsing) to quantum sensors and space launch systems like Ariane 6. These technologies are expected to spill over into the civilian economy. European policymakers hope that this will reduce the bloc's high-tech trade deficit with the U.S. and China while restoring the EU's position as a global industrial leader.

After SpaceX completed 170 launches in 2025, Europe has been forced to accelerate the development of its own launch vehicles to secure independent access to orbit. Hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the deep-tech sector, together with a shift toward modular microfactories for ammunition production (such as those being developed by the Dutch organization TNO), are expected to reduce dependence on unstable global supply chains for raw materials. Ideally, defense procurement will create guaranteed demand, enabling startups to scale up within the EU and enter global markets with products free from ITAR restrictions. In this way, investment in a European "innovation ecosystem" is intended to become the foundation of long-term economic prosperity and technological independence.

In principle, Europe already possesses all the prerequisites for genuine strategic autonomy: abundant capital, advanced technologies, and a deep industrial tradition. Trends emerging in 2026 suggest that technological sovereignty in military platforms, munitions, and software-defined systems is achievable within the next five to seven years. The real bottleneck is political will — the ability to consolidate fragmented national efforts and overcome national self-interest in the name of collective security. Without a unified decision-making system in times of crisis, even the most advanced weapons risk coming off as ineffective.

Building a sovereign European defense architecture is more than a military challenge. It is the European Union's ultimate test of maturity as a global power. The success of this transformation will determine not only the security of Europe's borders but also its long-term economic vitality.

Denis, farmer, Voronezh Region

All my equipment runs on diesel — combines, tractors, trucks that haul the harvest out of the fields, loaders (including front-loaders) — absolutely everything. Diesel now costs 120–130 rubles ($1.5-1.6) per liter wholesale; farmers, when they drew up their budget roadmaps, were counting on 70. Do the math — fuel prices almost doubled.

Drones don’t hit our facilities as often as in the neighboring Kursk and Belgorod regions. But a missile blasted our plant about three weeks ago. I immediately grabbed my bike and rode over to see it.

The harvest hasn’t come to a standstill anywhere here. But the harvest isn’t even the point. The real trouble will start in the fall, when fall fieldwork begins. A tractor with a plow burns 600–800 liters per shift. And that’s just one tractor.

Nobody really knows what to do next. There are options: instead of plowing, you can disc the fields. This technique saves a lot of fuel but will negatively affect the future harvest.

Due to state control of prices, the harvest is unlikely to yield bigger profits. Wheat prices are holding, but production costs have likely tripled. A farmer can’t set their own prices — there’s almost no export market, and bread is a strategically important commodity, so prices are strictly fixed. There’s no way around it.

There’s almost no point in farming anymore. It gets worse every year. But abandoning the land isn’t an option either: if you leave it for even a couple of months, it’s ruined — weeds take over. Leave it for more than a year, and it’s overgrown with bushes. Clearing bushes from a hundred hectares is an enormous undertaking. Nobody can do that on their own.

You could, of course, lease the land to a holding company. But this year is the most critical one. I’m sure many won’t make it through. Economists on YouTube say that if the strikes continue, something close to a food crisis could begin. I don’t believe that — the stores still have everything, and the big holding companies will cover all needs with room to spare. But for private farmers, the crisis is already here.

We’re bracing ourselves for things to get worse, for the strikes to intensify. Rallying around Putin for him to “squeeze” Ukraine — only a handful of eccentrics say that now. Everyone is just waiting for “de-Putinization.” And, most importantly, even those who did not believe in it have changed their minds. Before, everyone was sure Putin wasn’t going anywhere. That feeling is gone now.

Everyone is just waiting for “de-Putinization” — even those who did not believe in it

In that sense, things have gotten a bit easier. We go to various events. I play poker, and while nobody used to breathe a word about any of this at the table — everyone just played cards — now they openly tell that “old man” to go to hell. That never used to happen. Before, there were those who always cursed him — people like you, liberal journalists — and the rest stayed quiet, at best. Now nobody stays quiet. My take: he’s got no good way out anymore.

“People are developing a negative reaction to troops in the city”

Yegor, construction worker, Belgorod Region

My business partner has two KamAZ trucks constantly in service. He calls to complain, saying: ‘There’s no work, we probably need to go our separate ways.’ Lindor got hit, and four large enterprises on Sumskaya Street stopped operating. After much difficulty, they managed to restore power in a week — it’s hard to imagine what resources were needed for four enterprises like that.

And now we’ve been struck with diesel shortages. Before, he used to get fuel any way he could — some shady suppliers would bring it, or soldiers. Now no one has anything to offer — the soldiers themselves are looking to buy. They’re handing out 60 liters per day per vehicle, and that’s nothing.  KamAZ trucks consume on a completely different scale; it’s a drop in the bucket.

Diesel is rationed: government institutions, the military, security forces, and farmers get priority, otherwise everything would grind to a halt. On the other hand, we have relatives who are well-off farmers. They grow beets and wheat and have several combine harvesters — a well-run operation. They’re allocated 27 tons of diesel. They say it’s more than enough. I asked them to give me a ton. No problem, they said; if you need more, I’ll give you more.

Things have somewhat improved with gasoline, but not a hundred percent. Today I saw a huge line at Dalnyaya Igumenka — an enormous queue, even though I used to fill up there without any issues. Gas stations are still getting hit. The station near Stroitel got struck; the Lukoil station got struck. A rocket hit the Teboil on Sumskaya, killing a female attendant. Then the station was rebuilt — and got hit again. The Rosneft near the car wash under the bridge got hit too. And the Rosneft in Bolkhovets also got hit.

In short, city gas stations are getting hit hard, so it makes sense to fuel up somewhere out in the countryside, outside of town. That actually works better for me: I drive out in the evening to a rural station, fill up the tank, fill a jerry can — no problem.

After the latest strikes, many people are driving around with walkie-talkies. I’m thinking of charging mine and relearning how to use it — I haven’t picked it up since 2022. Someone sent me the military frequency they use to broadcast attack warnings. That’s the most up-to-date information right now, so I’ll use it. Because if they start launching direct strikes on the city again, that’ll be it.

As for the mood, the temperature has genuinely changed. People are less and less afraid, speaking out more sharply. The fear is starting to disappear. Before, only anonymous accounts on social media would dare to make sharp statements about the authorities, but now real, non-anonymous accounts are posting them.

The mood is clear: the authorities are clamping down and filtering the media, but people have adapted somehow, communicating through their own channels, and the overall level of discontent keeps growing. You can’t bail out the sea with a sieve, and you can’t block everything. People are discussing what’s happening in Krasnodar, in Voronezh. Everyone is saying the same thing right now: [the Kremlin’s United Russia Party] will get nothing in September [when parliamentary elections are held].

Talk of mobilization, of everyone going to the trenches, of a possible attack on Europe to escalate the conflict — these are very different conversations from 2022–23. And interestingly, nobody remembers anymore what they themselves were saying two years ago. It turns out everyone was against the war. Everyone suddenly recalls that they supposedly always said it wasn’t needed, that they all have relatives in Ukraine, that we are one people.

Everyone suddenly recalls that they supposedly always said the war wasn’t needed, that they all have relatives in Ukraine, that we are one people

I may not be entirely right, but people are developing a negative reaction to troops in the city. They wander around looking disheveled, pull up to shops in dirty, beat-up vehicles, and carry weapons everywhere. It hasn’t really manifested overtly yet — I just see that people find it unpleasant. There’s a Pyaterochka [supermarket] nearby — they’re always going in there and grabbing bread with their hands. People are already asking: what kind of guardians are they, if at least one civilian is killed every day?

The new regional governor Shuvaev is nowhere to be seen. In the comments people are no longer shy. They write: “You bastards are dividing up the money while we’re getting screwed to the fullest extent.” Nikolskoye is under constant shelling, and they’ve changed the public transport route there. The bus now only goes as far as Tavrovo, and beyond that it’s on foot. Some people work in Nikolskoye, but it’s unclear how they’re supposed to get there. And nobody has declared a state of emergency.

“Crimea is dying as a tourist region”

Ivan, works in the tourism industry, Crimea

I’ve lived in Crimea since birth, in a resort town. I used to work in education, now in tourism. For many years I’ve had no other income — my livelihood depends on outsiders coming here. Last year was good, but this year is just bleak. It’s so hard that words can’t describe it. All our travel agencies are on the brink. We pool resources to put together tour buses, but even those run half-empty. I now work two or three days a week at most. Things were still manageable in mid-June, but from the end of June it got completely awful.

We don’t really have attacks as such: it’s a resort town, and any military bases that were here were destroyed long ago. But they’re hitting the power grid. Naturally, there are fuel problems. Tourists are hardly coming, because how would they get here? On horseback?

This year we can still make it through, but if next year is the same, then it’s off to the breadline. I have absolutely no interest in moving to Russia. I’m not a Russian — I’m a native Crimean. That’s my position on the matter.

Some feel the same way and want no part of Russia here. But we don’t know their names, because everyone keeps their mouths shut — it’s very dangerous, someone might report you. I have an acquaintance who has been held in Lefortovo prison without trial or investigation for nearly two years. No official charges have been brought against him. Informally, they are accusing him of treason — he said something wrong in a private conversation.

It’s a true state of limbo here — neither raw nor cooked. You don’t know what comes next. What better outcome can you hope for? If Ukraine achieves its goals, it will be very painful — Russia will lose everything. It’s unlikely Ukraine will stop shelling Crimea and let it bloom into a paradise — they’re bombing oil refineries, marketplaces, and so on. They’re bombing the Belgorod Region. Why would Ukraine suddenly stop any of that? The chances are zero.

And the idea that everyone will stop at some line of contact — you’d have to put on rose-colored glasses to believe that. Maybe some people believe things will settle down, but in my view, those people have a screw loose.

Crimea is dying as a tourist region. We had a team member who used to sell 150–170 tickets a day. Now she goes five days without work — not a single ticket. As I said, I work a couple of days a week, and all the rest of the time is a slow-burning depression — I don’t want to leave the house. Sometimes you go to the sea just to have some distraction. When winter comes, it’ll be completely unbearable.

Tourist buses are traveling to the mainland to refuel. But the gas stations aren’t located right at the Kerch Strait Bridge — you have to drive another hundred kilometers or so, to Temryuk, toward Krasnodar. So you have to spend three hundred liters to fill four hundred. Not exactly ideal. And there are queues there too. As far as I understand, Russia has major gasoline problems as well. We recently had 95-octane at 265 rubles per liter.

Everyone has switched to bicycles. Once my colleague and I decided to go have coffee — there was no work anyway. When we got to the coffee shop, we couldn’t park our bikes: before, all the spots were empty, but now there are ten bikes at every rack. All the bike shops and repair shops are packed with bicycles — those are the businesses that are doing well. But it’s the only exception; for everyone else, things are very grim.

My mobile internet barely works, and the landline doesn’t work without power. Yalta had a three-day blackout, and Alushta had a five-day outage. All business — not just online sales, but ordinary trade in ice cream or meat — just goes to hell. You can’t really run an ice cream stand on diesel or gasoline at three hundred rubles a liter.

We have a bread factory in Crimea that makes the “best white brick loaf in the world.” It’s sold without packaging or bags, just sitting hot on the shelves. Last year it cost 22 rubles — now it’s 42.

Local authorities say the pretty phrase: “Trust official sources.” The implication is that anything that contradicts the official version will be suppressed. On Instagram, whenever people write something, bots immediately swarm in to say that everything here is wonderful.

Is there resentment toward Moscow for abandoning us, for setting us up? The Putinists don’t understand anything and shout things like: “Vladimir Vladimirovich is protecting us from NATO.” It’s a collective form of madness. They don’t understand that nobody gives a damn about Crimea, and nobody is going to solve its problems.

[Occupation administration head Sergei] Aksyonov occasionally speaks up and says: ‘there won’t be fuel, there won’t be fuel.’ Guys, in France they’d have already rioted and turned all of Crimea upside down if they were in our situation. Even on the mainland, people are already being told: ‘guys, buy your own generators, protect your own marketplaces, shops, and properties.’ What does that tell you? You can all go to hell, pardon my French. Nobody in Moscow plans to do anything for the people.

They promised 4.3 billion rubles in aid to the tourism cluster, but I can’t even imagine how that money could be distributed. To whom — hotels, travel agencies, private entrepreneurs who hosted vacationers, mini-hotel owners, shops? How is this going to work? It’s ridiculous.

In some villages, power was cut for several days. Krymenergo said: ‘those without power for 48 hours would receive compensation — 15,000 rubles [$184].’ People’s refrigerators burned out, lots of food spoiled. They started paying out compensation, and then they started doing the following: cutting the power for one day,23 hours, and 50 minutes, then turning it on for ten minutes — and that’s it. Formally, less than 48 hours have passed, so no compensation is owed. Very clever.

My colleague is having a meltdown. I say: ‘what are you throwing tantrums for? Do you have a time machine to undo everything, to change something? Do you want to give yourself a stroke? The food went bad — well, what can you do? There’s no money — are you going to earn it by panicking?’ We’ll chew on grass if we have to. If there’s no gas or electricity, we’ll cut down some trees and chop firewood.

Still, sometimes I give in too. Today I said I wanted chicken broth, herring, Russian salad, a pastry, compote, and a shot of vodka. Everyone immediately figured out from the list of dishes that it was a wake — one for the country’s most important comrade. That’s the kind of wake I’m looking forward to.

The other day some tourists from Belgorod came by and said it’s a luxury resort here compared to what’s going on back home — very calm. ‘Say no more,’ I said. I don’t bring up these topics with tourists at all. Things are indeed relatively calm here. They just cut the power, and nothing else happens. But I think the people who travel to Crimea to vacation right now are out of their minds.

Tourists from Belgorod say that compared to what’s happening at home, Crimea is a luxury resort

One night, about 70 drones flew in from Ukraine. I heard that a military unit near Bakhchisaray got obliterated. The southern coast of Crimea was left without water, electricity, and internet — meaning many of the drones got through.

Life over the past months has changed so much that we are in a constant state of uncertainty, constantly bracing for the worst. We had no electricity back in 2016 either, but we survived. And Russia helped back then. I think now Ukraine is deliberately targeting power stations to drive Russian troops out of Crimea, destroying air defense and military units so they can’t resist. In other words, they’re preparing the ground for a physical entry into Crimea. That’s why they’re knocking out all the energy infrastructure, literally to zero. This is sort of logical: war can’t be a one-sided game.

Gleeful comments from Ukrainians do not sting. Since we stayed silent, since we were cowardly in 2014, we have only ourselves to blame. We betrayed our homeland for reasons nobody can explain.

The sanctions target Alexander Dyukarev, general director of the Krasnoyarsk Machine-Building Plant; Ramil Badgutdinov, head of the Serpukhov Metallist Plant; Sergey Bashkov, director of IRZ-Svyaz LLC; Sergey Bessonov, general director of Aeromax LLC; and Viktor Ivanov, general director of the Scientific Research Institute of Precision Instruments. The restrictions include asset freezes, a ban on providing the listed individuals with money or other economic resources, and a ban on entering EU countries.

Aleksandr Dyukarev was sanctioned over his role as the head of Krasmash, which is involved in the production of ballistic missiles that include the RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile system. The plant itself has been under EU sanctions since October 2025, as The Insider reported at the time. Krasmash is part of Roscosmos, Russia’s state space corporation, and also produces R-29RMU2 Sineva ballistic missiles for submarines.

Dyukarev became head of the plant on May 25, 2026. The Krasnoyarsk branch of the Union of Machine Builders said he graduated from the Siberian State Aerospace University and rose through Krasmash from foreman to deputy general director for production. His predecessor, Alexander Gavrilov, had been arrested on charges of embezzlement shortly before Dyukarev’s appointment.

In late July, The Insider also reported that Russia had declared the Sarmat ready before the necessary protocols had actually been completed. According to Dallas Analytics, a Ukrainian intelligence firm that studied internal Russian defense industry documents, production of the missile system also faced a shortage of specialized transport. Of the seven known Sarmat tests, only the first, in April 2022, was fully successful.

The second individual listed in the new sanctions document, Ramil Badgutdinov, heads the Serpukhov Metallist Plant. According to the Council of the EU, the company produces precision electromechanical components, including systems used in ballistic missiles for the Iskander-M system. The EU added the plant itself to its sanctions list in June 2026.

As The Insider reported at the time, Metallist produces gyro motors, gyro blocks, and precision electromechanical sensors. According to the EU’s explanation, the enterprise is involved in producing the 9B918 navigation system for the 9M723 missile used by the Iskander-M system.

Further down the list, Sergey Bashkov heads IRZ-Svyaz LLC. The Council of the EU decision says the company produces switching systems, mainly for navigation receivers, and that its handiwork is used in Orlan-10 and Takhion drones. The company also supplies components to Russian defense firms, including the Votkinsk Plant, which produces Iskander-M missiles, and that it holds licenses for the production and repair of various weapons and military equipment.

Sergey Bessonov is general director of Aeromax LLC, which develops software along with helicopter-style drones of the SH-3000, SH-750, SH-450 and SH-350 varieties. The Council of the EU document says the company is developing 11 types of drones in all, and that its customers have included Gazprom Neft, Russian Post, and Moscow’s Department of Information Technologies.

In 2023, The Insider reported that Aeromax had taken up space at the unmanned aircraft systems center in Moscow’s Rudnevo technopark, and that two of the company’s uncertified models, the SH-350 and SH-450, crashed more often than others during test flights in the Tomsk region and during a Russian Post experiment.

Viktor Ivanov heads the Scientific Research Institute of Precision Instruments, which is part of the Roscosmos state space corporation. The Council of the EU says the institute supplies special equipment and services to Russia’s Defense Ministry and Ministry of Emergency Situations and is involved in creating the Kasatka-R satellite radar reconnaissance system for the Russian military.

Semyon and Tatyana were resting on the seashore near the town of Furuvik during a hiking trip when they were approached by police, who had been called by security guards from a private home near the spot where the Russians had pitched their tent.

According to the Antiwar Committee, the grounds for the detention — and for the Swedish government’s subsequent deportation order — were the couple’s Russian accents and their possession of two tourist walkie-talkies. The Russians were also unable to clearly explain to police why they had chosen that specific place to spend the night. Later, they told rights defenders that they “like hiking and decided to spend the night by the water.”

Semyon and Tatyana are now being held in a deportation detention center. Margarita Kuchusheva, a consul with the Antiwar Committee, shared the details of their case with The Insider:

“This is not the first case in which Sweden has recognized Russian citizens as a threat to national security. Unfortunately, anti-war Russians sometimes fall under these criteria as well. In this case, [they were] simply a pair of tourists who chose to go on a camping trip.

Challenging such a status is extremely difficult, and it can seriously damage a person’s life, such as when one wants to apply for a visa. The consuls of the Anti-War Committee will help Semyon and Tatyana have this status removed and leave safely for Spain.”

The Antiwar Committee added that Semyon (who works as a game developer) and Tatyana oppose Russia's invasion of Ukraine, do humanitarian work, and help teenage emigres adapt to life abroad. 

According to rights groups cited by the news agency, the 32-year-old Gilman has been regularly abused in the penal colony, complaining of torture and injections of psychoactive drugs.

In late June, Gilman fell into a dissociative stupor, a trauma-related condition in which a person becomes partly or completely immobilized. He was transferred from a prison hospital to the psychiatric ward of a civilian hospital. Neither the U.S. consul general nor Gilman’s lawyer was allowed to visit him there.

Russian media reported in early July that Gilman had indeed been transferred to a hospital due to “deteriorating health.” His exact diagnosis, however, was not announced.

Eric Lebson, a representative of the rights group Global Reach, said Gilman is now being fed through a tube. His sister believes he may be close to death.

A senior U.S. official told Reuters that the White House “is closely tracking Mr. Gilman's case and has made repeated, concerted outreach to the Russians calling for his return to the United States.”

Gilman is a U.S. citizen and former Marine. He was detained in Voronezh, about 340 miles south of Moscow, in January 2022. Later that year he was sentenced to four and a half years in a prison colony after being accused of fighting with a Russian police officer at a train station. The sentence was later reduced by one year.

Then, in the fall of 2024, Gilman was sentenced to another seven years in a high-security prison colony in cases involving alleged attacks on prison employees and a state investigator.

Reuters reported that Gilman is one of at least 10 Americans known to be imprisoned in Russia.

The maximum compensation will be 50,000 rubles (just over $600) per item, but no more than 100,000 rubles ($1,200) for a single insured event. The insurance company will determine the exact payout after a seller files a claim. Up to 14 days are allotted for reviewing the claim and transferring the money.

“As with other risks, insurance coverage applies during delivery, storage at pickup points, and return logistics in the event of a refusal, return, or non-purchase of an order. Charges for this type of insurance are also made once a day as a single total. Nothing changes in financial reports,” the terms say.

Sellers will not be able to receive payouts under the program for unordered goods destroyed in recent strikes on warehouses. Wildberries may separately compensate their value at its own discretion, but sellers cannot receive payment from both the marketplace and the insurance company for the same item.

After expanding coverage, Wildberries increased the cost of insurance. Since Aug. 7, the rate ranges from 1.96% to 5.6% of the item’s price, depending on the category. Previously, the minimum rate was 1.4% and the maximum was 4%.

For sellers already using the service, the rate will change automatically. The fee is charged after each order is placed, regardless of whether the buyer ultimately purchases the item. If the same item is ordered five times but purchased only once, the seller will pay insurance on all five orders.

Wildberries launched its order insurance service in February 2025. During testing, there was a single rate of 1.4% of the item’s value. The rate was later divided by category: 1.4% for electronics and household appliances, 4% for clothing, footwear, and accessories, and 2% for other goods.

Shortly before the wave of Ukrainian strikes began in mid-July, Wildberries added drone attacks, shelling, and explosions to its list of “force majeure” events, allowing the marketplace to avoid liability for lost goods, The Insider reported. The company still promised voluntary partial compensation, but some sellers said the first payouts were far below their losses.

By Aug. 3, the value of destroyed goods was estimated at between 215 billion and 280 billion rubles ($2.6 billion to $3.4 billion). One seller, who lost around 5 million rubles in goods ($61,000), received 1,980 rubles ($24) from Wildberries; another, with losses of 738,000 rubles ($9,000), received about 41,000 rubles ($500).

In December 2025, a man named Sergei N. approached Thumann’s home in the Lower Bavarian town of Strasskirchen, filming the building’s entrance on his phone and photographing the nameplate listing its residents. German intelligence had received a tip from their foreign counterparts indicating that Thumann presented an elevated threat risk.

Bavarian police detained Sergei N. and seized his phones, but they failed to decrypt the data during the period in which they could keep him in custody. Only later was it established that he had been in contact with Russian intelligence officers — and that he had also attempted to surveil Thumann’s father to determine the son’s whereabouts. By that point, Sergei N. had already left for Spain with his family, but surveillance of the younger Thumann was continued by Romanian national Alla S., who lived in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Both were detained in March 2026 — Sergei in Spain, and Alla in Germany. Neither was a career intelligence officer. Instead, investigators consider them to be “disposable agents” — vulnerable individuals recruited online. The actual assassination, according to investigators, was to be carried out by other operatives. The Federal Court of Justice judge did not include the murder plot theory in the arrest warrant, which only cites suspicion of espionage activity.

Thumann founded Donaustahl in 2019, and since 2023, the company has been manufacturing drones. He speaks publicly and forcefully about Russia, writing on his LinkedIn page:

“Russia does not want peace. It wants to destroy the West.”

The entrepreneur is currently under heightened security protection and hints that attending public events has become dangerous for him, telling his followers that “for certain reasons” he is unable to attend trade shows.

Additionally, according to Die Zeit, another defense company is on the radar of Russian intelligence, and investigators cannot rule out the possibility that its director’s life is also at risk (though further details remain classified). Notably, on June 11, Serbian border guards stopped a truck at the Serbian-Hungarian border that was carrying explosives in concealed compartments. The drivers’ phones contained contacts with Russian intelligence officers, and the truck’s destination was Bavaria, where Quantum Systems and Helsing operate, alongside Donaustahl. A court in the Serbian city of Subotica confirmed to Die Zeit that suspects Danilo B. and Slobodan D. are in pretrial detention.

BILD had previously reported on the detention of two alleged “disposable agents” carrying an explosive device at the Serbian-Hungarian border. As early as 2024, reports emerged that Russian agents had been surveilling Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger, and Berlin operates on the assumption that such assignments could not have been made without the Kremlin’s approval.

Lang said the political decision to install the systems at airports was made “at the speed of light” following several drone-related incidents in Berlin last year. But he added the incident at Leipzig-Halle clearly showed the need to speed up protective measures. The BDL head cautioned that “absolute security is impossible,” but promised that by the end of 2026, eight German airports classified as critical infrastructure — Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Cologne-Bonn, Leipzig-Halle, Munich, and Stuttgart — would be equipped with the latest anti-drone systems.

On Aug. 5, Leipzig-Halle Airport was forced to suspend operations after a drone with a detonator was found on the runway near a Ukrainian An-124 cargo plane. German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the people behind the incident were “not amateurs” but instead had planned their operation “extremely professionally.” He said the incident reflected a “new level of threat,” because drones carrying explosives had not previously been recorded at German airports. A foreign state could be behind the incident, he said.

German media reported on Aug. 6 that Leipzig airport “may have narrowly avoided a catastrophe,” as the Ukrainian aircraft in question was loaded with ammunition.

ARD’s news program Tagesschau noted that Leipzig/Halle Airport is a key hub for Western arms deliveries to Ukraine. In July 2024, a package exploded there shortly before it was to be loaded onto a DHL aircraft. Related blasts also occurred in a truck in Poland and at a warehouse in the UK.

In connection with those incidents, Lithuanian authorities charged 15 suspects, including citizens of Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Ukraine. Lithuania’s Prosecutor General’s Office linked the incidents to Russian military intelligence. Five defendants are now on trial in Poland over the series of explosions, which were allegedly carried out on behalf of Russian intelligence services.

Tagesschau said drone sightings near German airports have become more frequent, with 145 disruptions recorded in the first half of 2026 alone.

Starting in 2027, Russian authorities will also be able to buy up to 30% more medicines, medical devices, and consumables from an existing supplier without holding a new tender.

In public, the amendments were presented mainly as a way to simplify procurement for Russia’s regions. But an expert on Russian state procurement who spoke to The Insider noted that the new rules apply to all state and municipal customers, including federal agencies. In the expert’s assessment, many of the amendments close gaps in Federal Law 44-FZ, Russia’s main law governing public procurement, which previously had to be bypassed through supplemental agreements.

“The main changes take effect Oct. 1, 2026, except for the rule on splitting contracts, which takes effect from the date of publication and applies retroactively,” the expert said. “Although the bill was publicly linked to simplifying procurement for Russian regions, in reality it applies to all customers at any level, including federal and municipal ones. Here is what will change:

1. Goods may now be replaced during the execution of contract. If a supplier cannot deliver a specific brand due to sanctions or logistical disruptions, it may offer an equivalent with the same characteristics. Changing the country of origin is now also allowed, subject to the national regime. Law 44-FZ did not account for the possibility that the same product could be manufactured at different production sites — for example, the same model of printer may be produced in Vietnam and Malaysia. A supplier previously could not list all possible production locations in its bid, making it formally impossible to change the country of origin of the goods. In practice, parties had to invent supplemental agreements that claimed a fictitious improvement in the product’s characteristics. That problem in the law’s legal drafting has now been resolved.
2. For medicines, medical devices, and consumables, the option to increase the volume by 30% becomes a permanent rule. But lawmakers have specified that the price can be changed only once. Cascade supplemental agreements within the 10% price increase limit — for example, first by 3%, then by another 2% — will no longer be allowed during the execution of a contract, and that is completely illogical.
3. The price of a volume-free contract — when a product is being purchased but the exact volume of consumption cannot be predicted, such as food for a hospital or spare parts for vehicles — may be increased within 10%. The issue of lowering per-unit prices has not yet been resolved.
4. In requests for quotations, it is now possible to submit protocols of disagreements to contracts. Previously, if procurement documentation contained legal drafting defects, clearly erroneous provisions could not be removed from the contract, and the situation had to be resolved with the customer through supplemental agreements after contracting — something not all customers agreed to. The initial maximum contract price threshold for purchases from small businesses has been raised from 20 million to 30 million rubles. That is consistent with the logic of Law 44-FZ and the current economic realities.
5. In closed procurements carried out by decision of a medical commission, trade names may now be specified. The period for approving a contract with a single supplier has been shortened from eight to five working days. That is also a clear step forward compared with the previous rules in this area.
6. The law now directly establishes that several contracts with one supplier are permissible as part of small purchases. This removes the risk of accusations of contract splitting in cases where one large procurement procedure objectively cannot be held. Since unintentional contract splitting often led to cases before the Federal Antimonopoly Service — and even criminal cases, especially in state defense procurement contracts — the situation is moving toward greater logic and legal justification.”

The amendments were initiated by Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko. In early July, she proposed temporarily suspending Law 44-FZ, or at least some of its provisions, saying corrupt officials had learned to circumvent the law while conscientious officials faced difficulties and lost time.

After the amendments were adopted, Matviyenko said they would “significantly ease” the work of regional leaders, adding that a working group would be created to prepare further changes to the public procurement law.

“This is a drastic increase, indicating a deterioration of the vessel’s condition. Satellite imagery analysis suggests that the oil spill covered 45 square kilometres up until 26 July. By 2 August it had expanded to around 150 square kilometres, and imagery from 4 August indicates that it now extends across roughly 600 square kilometres,” Greenpeace environmental disaster expert Nina Noelle said.

Greenpeace MENA campaigner Hanen Keskes said the oil threatens sea turtles and birds that use the Al Hallaniyat archipelago, near where the spill occurred, as a nesting site.

As The Insider previously reported, the tanker Caroline Bezengi (IMO 9224439), which ran aground off the coast of Oman in June, has become the source of an ongoing oil spill. The vessel, which has a deadweight tonnage of 159,168 tons and is 274 meters long, is grounded off Al Qibliyah island. The tanker ran aground on June 12 after a series of explosions, the cause of which remains unknown.

The formal owner of the Cameroon-flagged tanker is Rentoor Shipmanagement, a company registered in Shanghai. As an investigation by The Insider previously found, the Caroline Bezengi belongs to a group of tankers linked to the Cyprus-based company Lagosmarine Ltd. Those vessels regularly carried Russian oil from Primorsk, Ust-Luga, and Kozmino to India and China.

The investigation found that Caroline Bezengi’s routes coincided with shipments of oil bought from Russia’s Surgutneftegaz by Dubai-based companies linked to Latvian citizen Aleksejs Haļavins at prices above the G7 price cap. 

Lagosmarine Ltd was later sanctioned by the United States and Ukraine. Caroline Bezengi is under sanctions from the European Union, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

After the start of what the Iranians call the 40 Day War, only China and Russia were providing Tehran with any military equipment and technology. As far as it has been possible to establish, these were all military sales, not grants. Initially, to the chagrin of the Iranians, both Beijing and Moscow largely limited themselves to continuing to fulfil existing contracts, largely consisting of components for missiles and drones produced in Iran, along with spare parts for Russian and Chinese equipment already in service with the Iranian armed forces.

After the start of what the Iranians call the 40 Day War, only China and Russia were providing Tehran with any military equipment and technology

The main exception was China’s agreement to supply Iran with satellite intelligence, replacing Tehran’s reliance on GPS with a new dependence on the BeiDou guidance system. Various sources in the Iranian military establishment acknowledge that over the course of the 40 Day War, China appears to have provided Iran with intelligence on the location of U.S. assets in the Gulf. Russia too appears to have shared some intelligence. In addition, sometime after the initial American onslaught, the Russians started providing parts necessary for repairing damaged S-300 batteries — similar to what they had already done after the 12 Day War of June 2025 — while the Chinese started providing parts for their equivalent HQ-9B system, whose batteries were also hit hard in the first few days of the 40 Day War.

Faster missile deliveries

The Iranians repeatedly appealed to Russia and China for speeded-up deliveries of recently ordered equipment. IRGC sources indicate that the Russians agreed to accelerate the fulfilment of a contract signed before the start of the war for the delivery of Moscow’s most modern shoulder-fired anti-aircraft system, the Verba (SA-29), which was initially scheduled to be delivered from 2027 onwards. Around 50 launchers were delivered just before 28 February 2026, along with a supply of missiles. The Chinese, for their part, agreed to speed up deliveries of CM-302 anti-ship missiles at the beginning of March and delivered a first batch in mid-April — before the U.S. blockade had begun affecting Iranian ports facing the Indian Ocean. The Russians also delivered six Mi-28 attack helicopters in February, but it is not clear whether this delivery was accelerated relative to the initial schedule.

The Iranians also sought new contracts for additional supplies — not only weapons systems but in fact primarily more advanced spy satellite capabilities and components for missiles and drones. They also explored the possibility of sales of advanced anti-aircraft missiles, including Russian long-range anti-aircraft S-400 missiles. A source in Iran’s air defence says that Iran has approached China for HQ-9Cs, a more advanced version of the HQ-9Bs already used (very ineffectively) by Iran in the 40 Day War. Another air defence source had reported the sale of medium-range anti-aircraft systems HQ-16Bs to Iran — with quick delivery — but so far there is no confirmation from Iranian sources of any shipments having actually taken place. Negotiations over the purchase of J-10C fighters with China were reportedly still ongoing in June.

Iran sought to secure contracts for the supply of more advanced weapons

In any case, long-range systems and combat aircraft would take so long to acquire and integrate into Iran’s air defense network that they could not have an impact on the ongoing confrontation, even if it were to last several more months. As indicated by sources in Iran’s air force, while Russia recently informed Iran about being ready to deliver the first twenty of the Su-35s that Tehran ordered in 2023, the Iranians decided to delay the shipment due to the resumption of hostilities with the Americans. The new fighters would have been so vulnerable to U.S. airstrikes once in Iran that they simply could have been incinerated before even making it to the underground facilities that have so far sheltered the bulk of the Iranian air force. Even as the equipment necessary to maintain and operate the new planes started arriving in Iran, the Su-35s served Iran’s interest best by waiting in Russia.

Simple but effective solutions

Thus, the Iranians prioritised purchases of equipment that they could rush into service. Even though Tehran already had thousands of shoulder-fired portable short-range anti-aircraft missiles in its arsenal, they added even more thanks to the simple fact that they could be integrated in a matter of days. Having ordered the Russian Verba (as mentioned above), they also urgently sought Chinese equipment of the same class. An IRGC source indicated that the Chinese started delivering FN-6 shoulder-fired anti-aircraft systems in May, but it is not clear when the order was placed. Given that the FN-6s are now rather antiquated, it is possible that these were not new production stocks, but stored systems. Iran kept seeking more advanced models, and on July 29 Reuters reported that Iran and China had signed a contract for the delivery of FN-16 (an improvement of the FN-6) and of the modern QW-12 shoulder-fired anti-aircraft systems. An IRGC source confirmed that deliveries would start as soon as August.

Another example of resources that Iran was able to usher into service promptly is drone technology. Throughout the 40 Day War, IRGC sources frequently noted that the Iranians had approached the Russians multiple times regarding the technology Moscow employs on drones such as the Geran-2s and -3s. The Iranians have always privately acknowledged that they lagged seriously behind in terms of electronic countermeasures, hence their interest in Russian solutions. However, until mid-June, the Russians did not agree to share the technology, according to IRGC sources.

Unexpected support

During the 15 days of clashes that followed the collapse of the MoU that had been signed on 17 June, however, two important developments took place, according to IRGC sources. The Russians started providing advanced electronic components for drones and missiles, in particular countermeasures such as the Kometa-M anti-jamming system, which the Iranians integrated on their drones within days and resulted in much greater effectiveness in the strikes carried out during this period. And the Russians also provided electronic countermeasures for ballistic missiles that work to confuse enemy anti-aircraft systems.

Again according to IRGC sources, another important development involved the Chinese loaning one of their military satellites to Iran, thereby giving Tehran’s forces the capability to monitor developments in the region in real time and to deliver ballistic missiles on target at very short notice. The combined effect of these innovations was greater than anything else Russia or China had provided to Iran up to that point and resulted in greater Iranian effectiveness.

China loaned one of its military satellites to Iran in an unprecedented move

It was thus China and not Russia that provided satellite intelligence, according to Iranian accounts, although it was indeed Russia that supplied improved anti-jamming and other technologies. The most ground-breaking development among these was no doubt China’s satellite loan (given that transferring drone technology is by now a very well-established practice worldwide). Lending a military satellite to Iran is in fact certainly a first for China — and not only for China — signalling a rising degree of commitment from Beijing to prevent an undesired outcome to the conflict. It is possible, even likely, that Russia’s and China’s moves were coordinated, given that they occurred almost simultaneously.

Russia and China’s motives

It is not clear what exactly convinced Russia and China to take actions that they had avoided back when Iran was under much greater pressure in the middle of the 40 Day War. IRGC sources say that diplomatic contacts are ongoing between Beijing and Tehran. The Chinese are trying to convince the Iranians to accept Pakistani mediation to end the conflict with the U.S., they say, but the Iranians say they will never trust the Americans again after having been cheated multiple times already. The Iranians are asking the Chinese to become guarantors of a future agreement with the Americans, as a necessary precondition for the Iranians to sign anything. There is no indication as to what the Chinese are considering, but the satellite loan, plus the continuing deliveries of military parts and equipment, seem to suggest that China is gradually getting more involved.

In practice, however, it is hard to see how China could offer Iran any credible guarantee of enforcement for any deal struck with the Trump administration without establishing a direct military presence in the Gulf. That is probably the last thing the Trump administration would like to see, and it is not even clear that Iran itself would want Chinese military forces stationed on its territory, let alone that China would consider such an effort to be worth the cost. 

A scenario in which China becomes Iran's security guarantor is the one the U.S. would most like to avoid

Two other possible reasons for Russia and China to get engaged more deeply on Iran’s side are the resilience shown by the Islamic Republic, which makes supporting it a more convincing proposition, and the desire to let Washington know that American attempts to coerce its way out of a difficult predicament will backfire. For Russia, an additional reason could be to send Washington the message that Moscow has plenty of room for retaliation if the U.S. were to extend the level of their support for Ukraine. These different rationales for supporting Iran are not mutually incompatible and could all apply in some measure.

The Russians consider the intelligence provided to Kyiv by the U.S. to be a key factor enabling Ukraine to evade Russian air defenses when carrying out strikes on a range of targets deep in the enemy’s rear. There have even been media reports claiming that back in March Putin offered Trump a trade: ending Russian support for Iran in exchange for the cessation of such U.S. help to Ukraine. Trump did not show much interest, so it might be that Putin decided to raise the stakes.

On Nov. 27, 2025, the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced eight people to life in prison, describing them collectively as an organized group recruited by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) to blow up the Kerch Strait Bridge on Oct. 8, 2022, when a truck bomb exploded at 6:03 a.m. Moscow time. The explosives were concealed inside a shipment of polyethylene film. They detonated the morning after Vladimir Putin celebrated his 70th birthday.

The bridge bombing operation was carried out by taxi driver Denis Kovach and his associate, ex-convict and smuggler Mikhail Tsyurkalo. Both men are currently wanted.

Notably, investigators and those convicted describe the initial steps the same way. In the summer of 2022, 55-year-old farmer Roman Solomko found himself in a difficult situation. A year earlier he had ordered an expensive ammonium sulfate processing line from China to be delivered to Kherson through the port of Odesa.

However, after the war began, Solomko and his enterprise, APK Green Line, ended up in the occupied part of the Kherson Region, making that delivery route impossible. After consulting with Crimean businessmen, Solomko decided to bring in the equipment via Georgia — first to the port of Poti, then overland through Crimea to his property in the Kherson Region.

“I went to Georgia with my neighbor Denis Kovach. Kovach had been to Georgia many times, as he was involved in illegally transporting people from Ukraine to Georgia. He could provide physical support,” Solomko said in his first testimony (the transcript is in The Insider’s possession).

As Solomko explained to investigators, his neighbor wasn’t a close friend, but since Kovach worked as a taxi driver, they could at least take turns driving. In addition, Kovach had the experience to be able to back him up in negotiations with Georgian brokers and help with the loading of the equipment line.

“He’s that neighbor who works as a taxi driver. Beer belly, not athletic. Could give you a lift somewhere. His hand was injured in an accident. The man did his job, and I paid him. Kovach was always looking to earn money,” Solomko explained.

But Kovach never once got behind the wheel. He spent several weeks in Georgia living on Solomko’s money and constantly calling his friend Mikhail Tsyurkalo, with whom he had done years of prison time in the Zhytomyr Region. “In Georgia, Denis kept him informed of our every step, every detail — which irritated me enormously,” Solomko later complained during interrogations.

According to database leaks, Tsyurkalo is now 51 years old. In 2005, he was convicted of armed robbery and car theft. Kovach and Tsyurkalo were cellmates in the penal colony for about ten years. According to Solomko’s testimony, Kovach recounted to him how he and Tsyurkalo had organized a plastics recycling operation and a painting workshop behind bars, reportedly earning between $5,000 and $10,000 a month. “The prison warden was on our payroll,” Kovach allegedly boasted to his friend (from the interrogation transcript).

The prospect of clearing the cargo through customs and delivering it to occupied Kherson greatly interested Tsyurkalo. He began persuading Kovach to help him transport several truckloads of construction film to Crimea, saying there was an excellent regular buyer willing to pay good money. Kovach’s cut could be around $3,000 per truck.

According to Solomko, Kovach jumped at the idea of working with his old partner again — and for good money. “About Denis, I can say that he’s lazy, doesn’t like to work hard, was always on the lookout for easy money. Denis is very greedy and brazen. You can’t trust him with serious work — he’s more of an executor than an organizer,” Solomko said about the taxi driver (from the interrogation transcript).

Kovach even talked Solomko into a contact with Tsyurkalo. “Mikhail said he was practically the top smuggler in all of Europe. Clearly he was joking, but apparently he wanted to seem very important,” Solomko told interrogators.

In the end, Solomko gave Kovach the contact details of his Georgian broker, Levan Benashvili, and Kovach set about organizing the film transport.

Tsyurkalo bought Kovach a plane ticket, and Kovach flew to Czechia — to discuss their joint venture with his former partner, whom he hadn’t seen in eight years. Then he went back to Georgia to meet the first truck carrying the film.

A roundabout route

The explosives-laden cargo traveled from Bulgaria to Georgia, then on to Armenia for customs clearance, and then back — in transit through Georgia to the Verkhny Lars crossing. According to the investigation’s theory, this convoluted route was designed by the AFU to obscure the trail and avoid a thorough inspection at the Russian border.

According to one of the convicts, customs clearance in Armenia was indeed easier, as both Armenia and Russia are members of the Eurasian Customs Union. Later in court, several Russian customs officials also confirmed that this had been a normal route at the time.

Solomko’s Georgian connection — broker Levan Benashvili, currently also wanted — handled customs clearance and cargo delivery within Russia. Notably, when he helped Solomko bring his fertilizer processing line into Russia, the order was placed under LLC Leader, registered using fraudulent documents that placed its official address in the bathroom of an office building in Moscow. Benashvili later dispatched the truck from Tsyurkalo in the same way. In the documents, the recipient was also listed as LLC Leader.

The order was placed under a company with a fake registered address located in the bathroom of an office building in Moscow

The bridge bombing operation was carried out on a very tight timeline. It was only in mid-August that Tsyurkalo learned of a possible route, and by September 2022 he had already arranged for the explosives-laden cargo — disguised as polyethylene film — to be delivered to the port of Poti. According to the cover story, Tsyurkalo needed to transport 22 tons of film worth €35,000 to Crimea for a certain “Ivan Ivanych.”

On Sept. 25, the Georgian broker found a driver — 39-year-old Artur Terchanyan, who had dual Armenian-Georgian citizenship. He was born in Armenia, but his family later moved to Georgia due to the Nagorno-Karabakh war. Terchanyan started working as a truck driver at age 19, and from 2008 onward he made regular work trips to Russia.

According to transcripts of messages and voice notes Terchanyan exchanged on WhatsApp with a female dispatcher, various brokers, and farmers, he drove to the border in a laid-back mood, joking and marveling at the enormous queue of a thousand vehicles waiting to exit from the Russian side. At the time, Russia had launched a nationwide mobilization effort, and potential conscripts were fleeing to Georgia through the Verkhny Lars checkpoint.

Terchanyan’s truck was X-rayed and inspected twice: at customs in Armenia and then at the Verkhny Lars checkpoint on the Russian side. Neither time did the cargo raise any suspicion. Upon arriving in the Russian town of Armavir on Oct. 6, Terchanyan even parked the explosives-laden truck right outside his sister’s house, where he spent the night. The following day, he unloaded the goods at the warehouse of the Agro-Business company, owned by brothers Artem and Georgy Azatyan. 

The Georgian brokers refused to enter Crimea for political reasons, and so the cargo had to be transshipped in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai. To get help with that leg of the route, Solomko turned to an old friend — farmer Vladimir Zlob from the Kherson region, who had been supplying him with fruit and vegetables and could also help with loading goods. Zlob in turn reached out to businessman Artem Azatyan.

Solomko insists he would not have worked with Tsyurkalo, but that he couldn’t bring himself to say no to Kovach when he came to him in a panic, begging for help with finding new trucks for the transshipment — this time to Crimea. As all the prisoners explain, farmers are constantly helping each other out.

The farming brotherhood

In his numerous statements during the investigation, Artem Azatyan recounts that he met Zlob in the spring of 2022. Due to the war, thousands of farmers from occupied Ukrainian territories had begun moving grain to sell in Crimea, forming a massive informal market there.

Azatyan bought soy from Zlob and his business partners for his Agro-Business enterprise — which included several warehouses, a processing facility, and garages on a three-hectare site — boasted an annual turnover of 140 million rubles ($1.7 million). Technically, his older brother Georgy was listed as director, while Artem was listed as legal counsel, but in practice the brothers ran the business together.

In September 2022, Zlob asked Artem Azatyan a favor — to transship a processing equipment line at the warehouse for Solomko, and then reload some film for a buyer in Crimea. “I agreed because there was nothing complicated about it,” Azatyan said during one of the interrogations. Moreover, he himself regularly used similar services from other farmers or warehouse owners in the region.

On Oct. 6 and 7, when Terchanyan arrived for unloading, Artem wasn’t on site, and his brother Georgy met the truck. According to the case materials, Georgy was furious that Artem was again helping out some farmer for free, and even called him to complain. But he still allowed the truck to be unloaded.

One day before the explosion

Two more defendants, Alexander Bylin and Vladimir Antipov, were drawn into the story two days before the explosion. At Solomko’s request, Zlob reached out to them to find a new truck and driver to take the film to Crimea — to “Ivan Ivanych.” The customer himself had been calling for several days by then, asking where his film was.

Later on in the interrogations, Bylin said he had spent many years working as a lawyer, then started trading fruit and organizing truckload logistics. He immediately got to work. Through his colleague, St. Petersburg-based logistics manager Vladimir Antipov, Bylin quickly found a new truck that would take the film to Crimea — and bring back goods for him on the return trip.

For helping find the truck, he and Antipov were set to earn 5,000 rubles ($62) each. As Bylin later said, all he did was call the first logistics contact he knew, and that person happened to pick up. This phrase — about getting caught up in the case by chance — is repeated by most of the defendants.

The phrase about getting caught up in the case by chance is constantly repeated by most of the defendants

Antipov fairly quickly found a new driver, 52-year-old Makhir Yusubov from Adygea. Antipov chose his truck because his bid was the cheapest on the market — around 50,000 rubles ($620).

Yusubov arrived for loading on Oct. 7. At around 10 p.m. he set off toward Crimea — to a customer who didn’t exist, at a delivery address that, in fact, was a random building in Simferopol.

The driver Yusubov and four other people in a nearby vehicle were killed in the explosion. The bridge sustained serious damage, causing a complete stoppage of traffic for a day. Fuel tanks on a train standing on the railway tracks on the bridge also caught fire. Private homes on the Kerch side sustained damage.

A few days later, another person entered the story as a defendant: Dmitry Tyazhelykh, an entrepreneur from Lipetsk. Tyazhelykh rented out mobile phone numbers, and it was one of his numbers that the mysterious Ivan Ivanych had used to coordinate the operation.

We know you’re innocent — just be patient

According to the case materials, after the explosion none of the future defendants tried to flee. Everyone went about their normal business. Even Terchanyan, who was on his way back to Georgia, didn’t rush to cross the border with an empty truck — he took on additional cargo and joined the queue at customs.

Moreover, on the morning of Oct. 8, it took all of the defendants several hours to figure out that the truck with explosives had been “their” vehicle. The explosion had disrupted logistics routes, and many of the defendants were busy trying either to reroute their trucks via ferry — joining a queue of a thousand vehicles — or to find warehouses for transshipment or temporary storage.

“We had no sense of any connection to what was happening. The news showed that something had happened on the bridge. But we were clueless,” one of the convicts recounts.

It was only when Federal Security Service (FSB) officers began calling them and operatives arrived to search their homes and businesses that they realized the situation was far more serious. Zlob and the Azatyan brothers were asked to come to the offices of the FSB and Investigative Committee. Terchanyan was found on his way to Verkhny Lars.

According to the convicts, Solomko was in the Kherson Region at the time of the attack. When he found out, he called the FSB himself and asked what he should do. “They advised him to find the nearest Investigative Committee office and ask to be questioned,” one of the convicts recounts.

By the evening of Oct. 8, everyone had been released, and on the morning of Oct. 9 investigators asked everyone connected to the truck’s dispatch — including even warehouse workers in Armavir — to come to Simferopol, where each was questioned again. Terchanyan was brought there as well.

“Then the head of the investigative team from Moscow came out and said: we have no complaints about you — you’re witnesses, you were kept in the dark,” one participant in the case recounts. “Everyone was asked to take a polygraph test, to remain in contact, and not to leave Crimea — and was released again. They thanked everyone a hundred times for their help.”

The head of the investigative team from Moscow said: we have no complaints about you — you are witnesses, you were kept in the dark

For the next few days, the “witnesses” stayed in a hotel in Simferopol at their own expense. Then, on Oct. 12, five of them were detained: Solomko, Zlob, the Azatyan brothers, and Terchanyan. In the following weeks, Antipov, Bylin, and Tyazhelykh were also arrested. Kovach was outside Russia at the time.

“This was a shock to us. A minute ago we were free people, and now we’re being accused of terrorism? But the investigators reassured us. They said we’d just have to sit for a while — a month or two. But there was no reason to worry. They let us call our families and tell them the news,” the defendants say.

“It was clear to everyone that we were being detained in response to the public outcry. Just a few days before our arrest we had seen a report in which [Investigative Committee head Alexander] Bastrykin briefed the president, saying that citizens of Russia, Ukraine, and Armenia had been detained for helping carry out the attack. We hadn’t even imagined at the time that he was talking about us,” one of the convicts recounts.

Over the years leading up to the verdict, investigators repeatedly told the defendants: we understand you’re innocent, just be patient, we’ll check everything, the fuss will die down, we’ll sort it all out.

What were the charges?

What the investigation found

The investigation was conducted by a team of 60 detectives. They questioned around a hundred witnesses (although the majority of these were residents of homes damaged in Kerch). The investigators also commissioned roughly 100 expert examinations, including studies establishing damage to the bridge, post-mortem examinations of the bodies of the deceased, assessments of property damage sustained by victims, and blast forensics aimed at finding traces of explosive substances on surfaces.

The official account of what exactly exploded on the bridge and how it had been detonated, however, appeared in the case materials only after an interview with Vasyl Malyuk, who at the time headed the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

What exploded?

“You get the feeling they tailored the version to fit the Ukrainians’ statement. The blast forensics examination, conducted two months after the interview, established exactly what Malyuk had described. Yet the case has many gaps. For example, Armenian customs stated that an X-ray could not have missed hidden explosives.”

Testifying in court, Crimean customs chief Alexander Krasnozhon also expressed doubts about the official account. When asked whether metal elements could be concealed behind film, he replied that it was impossible.

According to participants in the case, even the exact weight of the cargo is a topic for debate. The figure of 22 tons of construction film cited in the case materials is taken from the accompanying documents. However, the scales on the Crimean Bridge malfunctioned when Yusubov’s truck drove over them. Loaders at the Armavir warehouse, meanwhile, said the film pallets weighed less.

“We all basically expected that at some point [the security forces] would decide that the case was too flawed — no motive, no causal link. And that one day they’d release us from pretrial detention, or right in the courtroom,” one of the defendants says.

“Throughout the investigation, I kept hearing from the agents that they knew I wasn’t guilty, but they had orders from above to put us away. I said the prosecutor’s office would never let a case like this through — there wasn’t a single piece of evidence of guilt. The reply was: ‘It’s all been decided up there already.’ I didn’t want to believe it, so I didn’t. I kept hoping the court would save us — innocent people cannot be convicted, that’s absurd,” another convict recounts.

Guilty because they “could not have failed to understand”

In February 2025, the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don, presided over by Judge Valery Opanasenko, began hearing the criminal case. At the prosecution’s request, the proceedings were closed to the public.

As one of the convicts recounts: “The court sessions went on, and we just dozed off. Nearly a hundred witnesses were questioned, but none of them had anything to do with us. And the line of questioning was as though we were being accused of tax evasion or some kind of illegal commercial activity. Nobody was asked: do you have any connection to the security services? Did anyone offer you anything, recruit you, or give you any kind of incentive?”

“At the trial, my confidence in a fair outcome faded with every new hearing. Instead of examining what truly mattered, instead of ordering the necessary expert examinations, the judge was interested in whether I paid my taxes and how many times I had violated traffic laws,” another defendant says.

According to participants in the case, neither the court nor the prosecution was interested in establishing any facts. They were simply going through the motions. Solomko initially refused to testify, then at the end of the trial unexpectedly filed a motion to be questioned — but the court did not even bother to hear him.

On Nov. 27, 2025, Judge Opanasenko found all defendants guilty of carrying out a terrorist act on the orders of Ukrainian intelligence services. As evidence of guilt, the court cited the argument that the defendants, given their higher education and years of business experience, “could not have failed to understand” that something was wrong with the cargo — all the more so since it had a UA sticker on it.

Quote from the verdict

“When we received the documents, the wording was exactly the same as in the indictment. To everyone involved in the investigation, it was obvious that we had nothing to do with it. Everyone expressed their condolences and sympathy and said they had no power to influence the process. Any other person could have been in our place,” the defendants say.

Judge Opanasenko went even further. He noted in the verdict that all the defendants had committed various violations in their everyday lives — whether working without the necessary permits, underpaying their taxes, or violating traffic violations. He then sentenced them all to life in prison.

Quote from the verdict

Meanwhile, not a single customs officer, inspector, or security service representative was held accountable.

I am not a convicted criminal — I am a hostage of the war

The Insider asked the convicts how they reacted to the verdict and how they are coping with the prospect of a life sentence. We cannot specify who gave which answer, so we will refer to them as “the first convict” and “the second convict.”

The first convict:

We have been convicted of one of the most serious crimes — a crime to which we have absolutely no connection. And the people who put us in the dock know this perfectly well.

We lived for three years with a sword hanging over our heads. Living in that state permanently, a person becomes apathetic, burns out psychologically — all that’s left inside is just embers. The mind pushes away thoughts and memories of family, of life, of everything bright.

And so when the verdict was read out, we felt nothing at all. I think it showed on our faces. And whether it’s a life sentence or 30 years— it doesn’t make much of a difference. The accusation of terrorism and the murder of five people is itself already a terrible punishment, and a heavy cross we bear without guilt.

There is no sense that this is for life. Not because I don’t grasp the seriousness of what’s happening, but because I know I’m innocent, and my suffering and imprisonment is not the serving of a sentence— it is the external consequence of someone’s political decisions. I am not a convicted criminal — I am more of a hostage of the war.

What makes life bearable is the firm knowledge that the truth is on our side. For us to be free — even tomorrow — all it would take is for a court to issue a ruling based on Russian law. And given that the court’s decision was political, any release, in whatever legal form, would also have to be a political decision.

The second convict:

At trial, my confidence in a fair outcome faded with every new session. Everything was arranged so that I couldn’t defend myself. So the verdict didn’t come as a surprise — it was the final confirmation of what I had been told from the very beginning: everything had been decided in advance.

There is no sense that this is “for life.” And I don’t think that sense will come. Because I’m innocent and cannot accept this verdict as final. That is precisely what keeps me going. All my family and loved ones know this and support me. Before I encountered this system myself, I couldn’t have imagined things were this bad — that black is called white, and nothing comes of it. But the knowledge that the truth is on my side keeps me from breaking down.

Unfortunately, this judicial and investigative system has been built up over years, so there is no reason to expect an acquittal or any change in the situation anytime soon. I can now say unequivocally that there was collusion between the investigation, the prosecution, and the court.

All that remains is to wait and hope that sooner or later a competent court will emerge that is capable of delivering a truly fair ruling based on the case materials — rather than following someone’s instructions. In my case, there is nothing to look for to achieve an acquittal: it is enough to honestly read what is already in the file.

Sobyanin made the comments in an interview that aired on the Rossiya 24 television channel, as per Interfax.

Sobyanin, who heads the federal list of the Kremlin-affiliated United Russia party ahead of September’s State Duma elections, continued:

“We constantly hear talk that the entire economy must be mobilized, turned toward war and so on. But the modern economy is built differently. If there is no civilian economy, no taxes, no household income, the political situation will be completely different, and then we will not achieve success in the war. To kill life, to kill a normal economy, is to kill the country altogether. So these are unnecessary, worthless conversations by people who do not understand how a modern economy and a modern war work.”

The mayor added that modern war is fought “on two fronts”: the battlefield itself and via the maintenance of “a healthy, stable national economy,” without which victory is impossible.

Sobyanin’s statement came a day after lawmakers in the State Duma again raised the need for a mobilization-based economic model. Nikolai Arefyev, first deputy chairman of the lower house’s economic policy committee, said Russia’s economy should have been made a mobilization economy “long ago,” while Andrei Kolesnik, a member of the defense committee, called for a shift “onto military rails,” using a Russian phrase that means placing the economy on a war footing.

At the same time, in late July Russia’s Central Bank lowered its forecast for GDP growth in 2026 to between 0% and 1%, while the Economic Development Ministry estimated that economic growth slowed to an annualized 0.3% in May.

Additional pressure is coming from the fuel crisis: due to Ukraine’s sustained drone strikes against Russia’s oil refineries, output of petroleum products fell 21.8% in June year-on-year, while dozens of regions imposed restrictions on the sale of gasoline.

According to Janis Kluge, a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Russia’s war spending reached a record 5.9 trillion rubles in the first quarter of 2026, almost 30% more than a year earlier. The authorities’ earlier budget plans had projected a reduction in defense spending.

The hackers intercepted DNS and HTTP traffic on networks that use guest Wi-Fi login pages and redirected users through their own infrastructure (DNS is the system that directs internet traffic to the correct websites, while HTTP is the basic protocol used to load web pages). By posing as browser or operating system updates, the attackers delivered malware to victims. They also used ClickFix techniques — fake error messages that tell users to run a “verification” script — to trick victims into downloading and launching malware.

The attacks were detected not only in hotels, but also in conference centers and other shared venues used by high-profile visitors.

Several tools were used in the campaign. The main one was CornFlake, a remote-access Trojan written in the Go programming language. It records keystrokes, takes screenshots, turns on a microphone and webcam, and steals passwords and session tokens (which can allow access to an online account without requiring a password again).

A second tool, the PowerShell-based ChocoShell infostealer, targeted cookies, saved passwords, Microsoft 365 tokens, and Wi-Fi passwords. Operators controlled infected devices through a web panel called FruitStone. According to Microsoft, artificial intelligence helped carry out a significant share of the operations.

In the U.S. and the UK, Midnight Blizzard has been linked to Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR. The group typically targets governments, diplomatic missions, nongovernmental organizations, and technology companies in the U.S. and Europe. Its goal is to collect intelligence in support of Russian foreign policy.

“Midnight Blizzard is consistent and persistent in their operational targeting, and their objectives rarely change. Their focus is to collect intelligence through longstanding and dedicated espionage in support of Russian foreign policy interests,” the report read.

Anthropic and OpenAI assisted Microsoft with the investigation. There are also signs that the hackers are trying to infect Android devices.

Microsoft advises treating hotel, conference, and airport Wi-Fi as unsafe, using mobile internet where possible and avoiding updates offered through pop-up windows or Wi-Fi login pages.

Earlier, employees of U.S. defense companies and scientists studying nuclear fusion were targeted by Russian hackers from the Laundry Bear group, also known as Void Blizzard. The cybersecurity company Proofpoint reported that their email services had been compromised.

The German news program Tagesschau, citing NDR, WDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung, reported that according to a police report, an “unknown substance,” possibly of an “explosive” nature, was attached to the drone found by airport staff. The outlets also confirmed that the drone was located near the Ukrainian An-124, as Bild first reported.

As a result of the incident, airport operations were temporarily suspended, and aircraft, including civilian planes, had to use alternate routes.

After the airport was closed, another cargo aircraft was unable to land in Leipzig. It was diverted to Hanover, but while in the air over Leipzig airport, it collided with another unknown object “at an altitude of several hundred meters.” In Hannover, police recorded minor damage to the front of the aircraft. Lower Saxony police are treating the incident as a possible state security offense.

German news program Tagesschau noted that Leipzig/Halle Airport is a key hub for Western arms deliveries to Ukraine. Two years ago, a package exploded there shortly before it was to be loaded onto a DHL aircraft. And in 2024, explosive devices were found in packages handled by DHL and DPD. Related blasts also occurred in a truck in Poland and at a warehouse in the UK.

In connection with those incidents, Lithuanian authorities charged 15 suspects, including citizens of Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Ukraine. Lithuania’s Prosecutor General’s Office linked the incidents to Russian military intelligence. Five defendants are now on trial in Poland over a series of explosions allegedly carried out on behalf of Russian intelligence services.

Tagesschau said drone sightings near German airports have become more frequent, with 145 disruptions recorded in the first half of 2026 alone. 

The Russian state-controlled news agency TASS also reported the assassination attempt on Tkachuk.

“He is in intensive care in serious condition. Doctors are fighting for his life,” a source in the emergency services told the state news agency.

The Russian authorities have launched a criminal case based on charges of “murder committed in a generally dangerous manner,” which in Russian legal practice is often used when an attack, such as a bombing, could endanger bystanders as well as the intended target.

UralDronZavod, based in Russia’s Sverdlovsk Region, produces Upyr (lit. “Ghoul”) FPV drones used in the war against Ukraine. As The Insider previously reported, Tkachuk began developing a military drone in 2020. In 2022 and 2023, he and his associates used donations to build a workshop, with TASS calling Tkachuk’s project a “Russian startup of the ‘special military operation’ period.”

In less than a full year of operations in 2023, UralDronZavod reported revenue of 3.6 million rubles and even ended the year with a small profit.

Judging by production videos published by Tkachuk and Russian military bloggers, much of the Upyr’s frame is made on a 3D printer. Tkachuk claimed that by March 2024, the drone was 60% assembled from Russian-made parts. UralDronZavod was placed under European Union sanctions in December 2024.

The attack was the second in recent weeks targeting a Russian drone maker. On July 29, Andrei Cherezov, developer of the Ovod FPV drones, also used in the war in Ukraine, was shot in the entrance of a residential building in Tula, according to Russia’s Investigative Committee. Cherezov was wounded.

For now, the battle to succeed Trump is shaping up to be a contest between Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Judging by leaks to the media, Trump appears to be taking considerable pleasure in watching the rivalry between his subordinates take shape.

In February, the president was reportedly asking numerous friends and associates, “JD or Marco?” By June, however, he appeared to have put Vance back in the lead. “The president is now saying, ‘JD looks great, right?’” an anonymous White House source told Axios. Rubio, meanwhile, is reportedly being groomed for a role in a future Vance administration. That said, the balance between the two leading contenders could shift many times before the election.

Vance, still only 41, can at least plausibly claim the mantle of Trump's ideological heir, and he is expected to draw support from MAGA activists, younger Republicans, post-liberals, and the New Right. He would likely preserve Trump's coalition largely in its current form — meaning his greatest weakness is that he would also inherit much of the political responsibility for the shortcomings of Trump's presidency.

Rubio, 55, is a skilled administrator who has amassed far more formal power than Vance, simultaneously serving as Secretary of State and as acting National Security Advisor. On top of that, he has effectively become a kind of governor-general of Venezuela, a result of the Jan. 3 raid that captured Nicolás Maduro and flew him to New York to face drug trafficking charges. on Jan. 3. Rubio is popular among older Republicans, traditional conservatives, foreign policy hawks, and the party's donors. If anyone is capable of restoring a more traditional, institutional Republican Party after Trump, it is Rubio.

Unsurprisingly, however, his greatest weakness is his past criticism of Trump, which he now appears to be paying for with increasingly overt sycophancy. According to the New York Times, Rubio flatters Trump more than anyone else in the administration. At times, it borders on the absurd. One persistent rumor, for example, claims that Trump gave Rubio a pair of shoes in the wrong size, which the Secretary of State is supposedly expected to wear to work.

Rubio flatters Trump more than anyone else in the administration – sometimes to an almost absurd degree

Still, Vance seems to flatter Trump only slightly less often than Rubio — and he, too, has reportedly received a pair of shoes from the president. As for their size, no one seems to know.

In both cases, in fact, the contrast with their earlier views of the president is striking. In 2016, Rubio called Trump a “con man” and argued that he could not be trusted with the nation's nuclear arsenal. Vance was even harsher, calling Trump “an idiot” and comparing him to Hitler. Both now prefer not to revisit those remarks.

The public personas Rubio and Vance have adopted conceal far more complex backgrounds and political trajectories. Both men had to reinvent themselves in order to enter Trump’s inner circle, and as a result, if elected president either of them could substantially reshape Trumpism once the mantle of the MAGA movement is truly theirs. For now, however, neither appears to have much choice but to keep flattering the boss.

The story of the Catholic “children”

According to reports, Trump refers to Vance and Rubio simply as “the kids,” underscoring his patronizing and somewhat demeaning attitude toward his current favorites. Yet judging by their careers, neither man is much of a child.

Rubio is the son of Cuban immigrants — a maid and a casino worker. In his youth, Rubio spent several years in the Mormon Church before returning to Catholicism, the traditional faith of much of Latin America.

As a young man, he hoped to become a professional athlete and married a former cheerleader. Until his election to the Senate, he lived perilously close to bankruptcy. At one point, for example, he was burdened with roughly $100,000 in student loan debt. Only an $800,000 advance for his political memoir helped him overcome his financial difficulties.

Rubio was one of Trump's principal rivals in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries and even earned the derisive nickname “Little Marco.” Incidentally, while serving in the Senate, Rubio was also among the politicians who persistently pressed the government to declassify information on UFOs — something the Trump administration is now doing.

Vance was born into a troubled family in the Rust Belt. Over the course of his life, he changed his surname twice — first from his father's to his stepfather's, and later back to his grandfather's. He began his career as a journalist in the U.S. Marine Corps before graduating from Yale Law School, where he met his future wife, the daughter of Indian immigrants.

Vance’s memoir about his difficult childhood, Hillbilly Elegy, was adapted into a film before he entered politics. Vance later worked in biotechnology and founded an investment firm called Narya Capital, named after Gandalf's ring in The Lord of the Rings.

Like Rubio, Vance is Catholic, although he converted to the faith as an adult. He was elected to the Senate from Ohio in 2022 and completed his rapid political ascent two years later when Trump chose him as his running mate ahead of the 2024 election.

Vance and Rubio currently enjoy Trump's favor. But it is worth remembering that Trump has a long history of changing his mind about those politically closest to him. By the end of his first term, more than 90% of his top appointees had already left his administration — a record level of turnover.

Today, for example, Trump wants nothing to do with his former Vice President Mike Pence or with other former favorites, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley. During the first year and a half of the current administration alone, a string of senior officials have already lost their posts: National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. All of them started out as rising stars of the Republican administration before becoming casualties of political scandals.

However loyal Rubio and Vance may be, personal loyalty in Trump's world is merely a prerequisite — not a guarantee of survival. Favorites must remain useful, avoid provoking Trump's anger, and constantly adapt to his ever-shifting initiatives, which can change several times in a single week.

Reluctant rivals

Their status as Trump's favorites has forced Vance and Rubio into competition with one another, and the war with Iran provided an opportunity for those differences to come into the open. Rubio, a longtime foreign policy hawk and steadfast supporter of Israel, became the public face of the military campaign. Vance, by contrast, made sure that reports of his skepticism toward the operation found their way into the press, even as he continued to publicly backTrump's decision to launch the war. Whether as a reward or as punishment, Trump appointed Vance to the unenviable role of chief negotiator with Iran this past June.

In addition, Vance followed Trump in taking the politically risky step of criticizing the Israeli government, an act that many members of the American political establishment still equate with antisemitism. For example, Vance said that Israeli strikes on civilian infrastructure in Lebanon were undermining peace negotiations. Rubio, by contrast, continued to back the Israeli government even when his position diverged from that of the administration.

In any event, the ongoing, inconclusive conflict with Iran has not produced a clear winner in the struggle for influence between Rubio and Vance. Instead, the war seems to have strengthened both potential MAGA heirs — in the eyes of Trump, if not in the eyes of the electorate as a whole. Rubio was at the height of his influence during the period of active military operations, while the subsequent diplomatic pause brought Vance to the forefront.

The war with Iran has not produced a winner in the struggle for influence between Rubio and Vance

The conflict could also shape future fundraising prospects for both contenders — and for the Republican Party as a whole. Rubio is backed by traditional Republican donors, evangelical Christians, and the foreign policy establishment, all of whom support Israel for different reasons. Vance, by contrast, is more popular among younger supporters of the America First movement, where negative views of Israeli policy are becoming increasingly common.

These, however, are secondary considerations. The bigger problem is that the prolonged war has become a political time bomb for both contenders. By late July, only about one-third of Americans supported the conflict. That could make it difficult for either of Trump's would-be successors to fend off accusations of being complicit in it.

Successors by office

Whoever ultimately wins the 2028 Republican primary will have to deal with the legacy Trump’s presidency has left among more moderate voters. Many of Trump's signature initiatives have ended either in outright failure or in declining public support, political damage, and reputational costs for the party as a whole.

The sweeping tariffs imposed on imports from around the world were effectively dismantled by the Supreme Court. The mass deportation policy, which initially enjoyed overall approval, led to highly publicized immigration raids and the deaths of several people at the hands of immigration officers, triggering widespread public discontent. The concentration of power in the president's hands sparked large-scale protests under the slogan “No Kings!” Peace negotiations over Ukraine produced no results. Even the war with Iran turned into such a protracted and unsuccessful campaign that it became the least popular conflict in the history of U.S. polling.

Formally, both Rubio and Vance can claim to be Trump's institutional successors. Six former Secretaries of State have gone on to become president (although none has done so since the 19th century, and fifteen Vice Presidents have gone on to hold the highest office in the land (although the last time a term-limited president managed to help his vice president win the general election was in 1988, when Ronald Reagan was succeeded by George H. W. Bush). In any case, serving as Vice President guarantees neither election to the presidency nor even nomination by one's own party.

A president's personal popularity, in short, is difficult to pass on to a successor.

The Republican bench

The field of potential 2028 Republican candidates extends well beyond the two obvious heirs. It is still too early for anyone to formally declare their candidacy, but there are certain moves that often signal presidential ambitions, and figures other than Vance and Rubio are already making them.

For example, libertarian Senator Rand Paul has already visited Iowa and South Carolina, the first two states on the Republican primary calendar. Paul is one of the few Republicans who has openly opposed Trump's budget initiatives. In addition, former Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has also been making trips to early-voting states, including Iowa and North Carolina, while strengthening his ties with leading conservative constituencies.

Another Trump critic, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, has been meeting with major Republican donors in California, Texas, and Florida. Arkansas Governor and former Trump press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is expected to visit Iowa soon and has already traveled to states like Tennessee and Texas. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas — Trump's last major rival in the 2016 Republican primaries — and Senator Tim Scott, currently the only Black Republican in the Senate, have also been actively promoting their political brands.

The weight of Trump's legacy could give candidates outside his administration a chance to seize the nomination in 2028

Former South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem could also enter the race. Before Trump accepted her resignation as Secretary of Homeland Security, Noem actively promoted herself at taxpayers' expense. And former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is running for governor of the key swing state of Ohio, while Ron DeSantis already governs another pivotal state, Florida.

Finally, two of Trump's former favorites — his first-term CIA Director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley — have yet to reveal their plans. The political burden that Trump's presidency is almost certain to leave behind gives politicians unconnected to his administration at least a small opportunity to secure the Republican nomination in 2028. For that reason, none of these potential contenders can be dismissed outright.

After all, more than two years remain before the election. Vance could lose influence, just as Trump's previous vice president, Mike Pence, eventually did. Rubio could even lose his position as Secretary of State, much as Rex Tillerson was ousted after serving less than a year in the post during Trump's first term. And even if both men retain their current positions, they are by no means guaranteed the support of today's Republican voters.

What is certain, however, is that the weight of Trump's presidency will shape how voters view any would-be successor. In the end, a presidential heir is determined more by political circumstances and personal popularity than by the endorsement of an outgoing head of state. However dominant Trump may be within the Republican Party, it will ultimately be the voters — not Trump himself — who decide the party's presidential nominee.

According to a report by local outlet Prospekt Mira, the price of gasoline at stations run by Krasnoyarsknefteprodukt, or KNP, rose sharply on Aug. 4 — from 67 rubles to 91 rubles per liter for AI-95, a common grade of premium gasoline in Russia. Prices for other grades of gasoline and for diesel also jumped.

“Prices at a KNP gas station just changed before the eyes of a Prospekt Mira employee… In literally one minute, AI-92 and AI-95 rose by 24 rubles, and diesel by 21 rubles,” the outlet wrote.

Earlier, on the evening of Aug. 2, prices at KNP gas stations in Krasnoyarsk had fallen just as sharply: AI-95 dropped from 91 rubles to 67 rubles, and AI-92 from 87 rubles to 53 rubles. Putin visited the city on Aug. 3. That day, traffic and parking were restricted on several streets, and driving schools were barred from holding lessons.

KNP explained the short-term price cut as the result of a temporary improvement in logistics and the arrival of additional fuel supplies.

Notably, a similar price pattern accompanied Putin’s trip to Irkutsk two weeks earlier, when the price of AI-95 at one large local gas station fell by 12.6 rubles on July 24.

The Krasnoyarsk regional government owns a controlling stake in KNP. In mid-July, the chain restricted regular sales of AI-95 and began selling it using coupons, citing instability in the wholesale market, along with supply disruptions. Some Krasnoyarsk gas stations had no gasoline available, while at some privately-owned stations the price of AI-95 reached 135 rubles per liter.

Russia has been experiencing an acute fuel crisis in recent months amid Ukrainian drone strikes on the country’s oil refineries. The campaign has managed to knock out almost half of Russia’s nominal refining capacity and one-third of its actual refining capacity. According to official data, from May to June 2026 the price of AI-92 gasoline rose 7.3% from the previous month, AI-95 rose 6.7%, and AI-98 rose 3.1%. Compared with June 2025, fuel prices at gas stations were up by 19.9%.

“Import-substituted” is the Russian term for replacing foreign-made parts and systems with domestic alternatives, a policy Moscow has accelerated due to Western sanctions.

“The aircraft reached an altitude of 6,000 meters and an indicated airspeed of 600 kph. The crew checked stability, controllability in various configurations, and the operation of Russian-made onboard systems. The aircraft performed well, and the flight assignment was completed in full,” Rostec said.

The Irkutsk Aviation Plant is preparing serial production of the aircraft, with the first batch said to consist of 18 planes. The Kremlin-aligned business newspaper Vedomosti wrote that the MC-21-310 has now completed half of its certification flights. Rostec previously said it planned to produce 36 MC-21 aircraft annually, with deliveries expected to begin in the second half of 2027.

Aviation expert Andrei Menshenin told The Insider that it is more accurate for now to speak of the beginning of the process of mastering serial production, not full-scale serial output.

“The first flight of a serial aircraft is an important milestone, but the program still has to confirm production stability and complete the remaining certification procedures,” Menshenin said. “This is an important stage because the aircraft being tested has already been assembled using technology as close as possible to the one that will be used for aircraft delivered to airlines. Unlike prototypes, this tests not only the design but also the readiness of the production line.

The serial configuration still needs to complete testing, receive all necessary amendments to the certificate, confirm production reliability, and transfer the first aircraft to customers. The plan for 18 aircraft looks ambitious. It is achievable, but only if there are no serious delays in component supplies and production.

The main risk today is completing the import substitution program. The MC-21 was initially created as a broad international cooperation project using a large number of foreign systems and components. After sanctions were imposed, many of them had to be replaced with Russian equivalents, or else sourced from new suppliers. This concerns not only engines and avionics, but many other systems, including cabin equipment. So the key question now is whether the entire supply chain can ensure stable production of fully equipped aircraft in the planned volumes. Risks also remain in completing certification and bringing production up to the announced pace.”

David Kaminski-Morrow, air transport editor at FlightGlobal, explained that the start of serial production is the point at which aircraft begin to be built to a single “blueprint” approved by regulators for delivery to customers. As he told The Insider:

“Aircraft manufacturers initially build prototypes which serve as test platforms and used to resolve issues or refine particular aspects of the design, including matters relating to production. As this work converges towards a final, acceptable design, it is not unusual for a manufacturer to begin constructing several ‘serial’ aircraft, once it is confident that any outstanding changes to the the design will be minimal.

The import-substituted MC-21 aircraft which has just made its first flight is a ‘production standard’ aircraft, which Rostec hopes will serve as the blueprint for the first batch of serial production – although, of course, the aircraft still needs to secure certification, the approval necessary before these ‘production standard’ aircraft can be delivered to customers.

The first flight of any modified design is significant, but this one is particularly important because it’s representative of the aircraft that Rostec hopes to deliver to customers. Much of the basic flight-test work will have been carried out by the prototypes already, and testing of this latest aircraft will focus on finer details to ensure that the aircraft is ready for the demands of airline operations. Not a lot of detail has emerged over the specific technical milestones, although Rostec said in May that one-third of the certification flights had been completed, which suggests a substantial amount of work still to complete. 

Certification is a complex process, and import-substitution means there are multiple new systems which have been introduced since the original MC-21 design, and all of this must be taken into consideration.

Certification of the MC-21 is the most immediate challenge – nothing will be delivered to customers until this is achieved. The next challenge will be to start delivering the aircraft, and seeing how it performs in actual airline service, and whether any teething problems can be addressed quickly and efficiently. Rostec will also need to ensure it can ramp-up production once certification is achieved, because there is a pressing need for capacity among Russian airlines, and Russian aircraft production rates tend to be very low compared with other manufacturers such as Airbus and Boeing. This will test the ability of Russian supply chains to manufacture systems and components in sufficient numbers if MC-21 production rates are to reach the sort of levels previously mentioned by Rostec and United Aircraft Corporation.

While there are 18 aircraft in various states of assembly, it is hard to estimate how long it will take before all of them are finished, delivered, and flying. Early-build aircraft also tend to be suboptimal (designs improve as experience increases), and the MC-21 is particularly challenged because it has undergone a lot of late changes that weren't originally intended, and the extent to which the aircraft will meet airline customers' expectations is yet to become clear.”

The videos are styled to resemble reports from major French news outlets including BFM, RFI, Le Parisien, AFP, France 24, Le Figaro, Libération, and Le Monde. Each ends with the same conclusion: “the scandal will weaken Attal’s standing ahead of the 2027 presidential election.” However, the “scandal” in question differs from message to message. As the bots variously allege:

• Attal said that due to Islam’s many prohibitions, there are actually “more homosexuals among Muslims than in any other religious group.” In response to the made-up quote, the bot campaign invented the following response from Chems-Eddine Hafiz, rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris: “An openly gay man is mistaking his wishes for reality. Perhaps Mr. Attal would like there to be many perverts like himself amongst Muslims, but that is not actually the case.”
• The campaign claims that the politician’s father, Yves Attal, died of a cocaine overdose in 2015 and that Attal himself suffers from drug addiction. One video alleges that police “documented offenses” committed by Attal while under the influence of drugs, but that the records were later destroyed. Addiction specialist Laurent Karila is falsely quoted as saying that a child of a long-term drug addict has “a 90% chance of becoming a drug addict.”
• Attal is falsely claimed to have Parkinson’s disease, “like the American actor Michael J. Fox.” According to the bots, this was “confirmed” by a leak from Paris’s Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital after hackers supposedly breached its database and published 3% of its records, which happened to include Attal’s medical file. François Vidal, editor-in-chief of Les Echos, is falsely quoted as saying: “I was going to vote for him, but it’s now clear that Mr. Attal needs a rest rather than getting involved in political games.”
• The campaign claims that Attal “oversees candidate selection” at the Sciences Po Institute of Political Studies, shaping “a political elite loyal to Macron.” The allegation is attributed to a supposed former lecturer at the institution, Arnaud Boutté, while France 24 is falsely said to have “verified 5% of the information, and even that sample proved entirely accurate.”
• Attal is falsely portrayed as calling for undocumented migrants not to be evicted from vacant homes and describing the influx of migrants from Morocco into Spain as “a great blessing.” Le Figaro editor-in-chief Alexis Brézet is falsely quoted as saying that Attal is “a complete idiot if he sincerely believes these people will come to France to work rather than to steal, kill, and sell drugs.”
• The campaign claims that Attal’s father’s foundation has become “one of the largest private sponsors of the Israeli army,” transferring €24 million in 2025. Al Jazeera editor Ahmed Sheikh is falsely quoted as saying that the sum “would have been enough to kill far more than a thousand Palestinian children,” while Libération director Sonia Delesalle-Stolper is falsely quoted as accusing Attal of “hypocrisy,” claiming that “deep down he hates the Islamic world just as his father did.”
• The bots claim that the anti-corruption organization Anticor lost its accreditation because of an investigation into the use of Attal’s father’s foundation to “launder” funds that had been “stolen from military aid programs for Ukraine.” Le Monde director Jérôme Fenoglio is falsely quoted as saying, “Gabriel Attal’s father must be turning in his grave right now. He’s turning because his son stole billions, not trillions.”

The bots use some real facts as a framework for their fabrications. Attal is indeed openly gay and was in a civil partnership with politician Stéphane Séjourné for many years. As education minister in 2023, he did ban the traditional Muslim abaya in French schools. And the anti-corruption organization Anticor did lose its accreditation in 2023 — but as a result of a court ruling, with no connection whatsoever to Attal’s father’s foundation.

In addition, Attal’s father, film producer Yves Attal, did die in 2015, but there is no evidence to support claims that he died of an overdose. Nor is there any evidence that Gabriel Attal has Parkinson’s disease, suffers from drug addiction, or made the statements about migrants attributed to him.

The Insider has obtained links to the original posts and materials provided by the Antibot4Navalny project, confirming that the accounts which published them belong to the Matryoshka bot network. The newsroom is not publishing direct links in order to avoid amplifying the disinformation.

The campaign ahead of the 2027 presidential election

Attal officially announced his presidential bid on May 22, 2026, during a visit to the commune of Mur-de-Barrez in the Aveyron department. With Macron constitutionally barred from seeking a third term, the former prime minister and current secretary-general the Renaissance party is widely regarded as the president’s political heir. Within the centrist camp, Attal is expected to compete with Édouard Philippe, who announced his own candidacy back in September 2024.

The campaign against Attal is the first large-scale Matryoshka operation targeting France’s 2027 presidential election, though the network has repeatedly targeted France in the past. Earlier, it spread false claims about “leaked correspondence” from the hacked government messaging platform Tchap, falsely attributing to Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin plans to turn Armenia into “a military foothold against Russia.”

What is Matryoshka?

Researchers use the name “Matryoshka” to describe a Russian influence operation that spreads disinformation on a massive scale through a coordinated infrastructure of bots, trolls, and anonymous online platforms. Its goal is to generate artificial information noise and manipulate public perception of events both in Russia and abroad. The Antibot4Navalny project dubbed the operation “Matryoshka” after the traditional Russian nesting doll: its bots conceal one another, while false narratives are propagated in layers across multiple platforms, making it difficult to trace the original source.

The operation itself creates large numbers of fake accounts posing as ordinary people, independent media outlets, and think tanks. These accounts publish dozens of posts each day, imitating local language and writing styles. Next, it launches identical content simultaneously across social media platforms. To make the disinformation appear credible, the bots use the logos of well-known Western media outlets and human rights organizations.

Captured deposit in Ukraine

Russia’s plans to fully localize the production of lithium-ion batteries by 2030 were announced just a couple of weeks after Russian forces captured the Ukrainian village of Shevchenko, which happens to hold the only major lithium deposit under Russia’s physical control.

Ukraine long considered this lithium deposit to offer real potential for development, with Kyiv’s State Service of Geology and Mineral Resources estimating the lithium oxide content of local rock at 1.24%. For comparison, major deposits in Australia, where lithium is also primarily extracted from minerals, have a lithium oxide content of approximately 1–3%.

Russia was so eager to seize the deposit that the first reports of its capture appeared as early as January 2025. In reality, however, Russian forces did not bring it under control until half a year later.

Russia was so eager to seize the deposit that it announced its capture six months before actually establishing control

Russia does not mine lithium domestically in quantities sufficient for independent battery production. Before the start of the full-scale war, lithium was procured from Chile (in carbonate form) via the companies Albemarle Limitada and SQM. It was then processed into lithium hydroxide before being re-exported. However, a few years ago this business shut down, and Chinese companies stepped in to help Russia build a battery industry.

According to estimates from the Conflict Intelligence Team, drones are the most lethal weapon of war in Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, responsible for 42% of civilian deaths (in 2025) and more than 80% of military casualties (2026). At the front, FPV drones are the primary offensive weapon and the main tool for controlling the “infiltration zone.”

As The Insider previously reported, Russia assembles FPV drones primarily from Chinese parts on a construction-set basis — an approach that formally violates Chinese law, since Beijing prohibits the export of military components to both Russia and Ukraine. FPV drones require electric motors, flight controllers, fiber optics, and batteries.

Russia is not yet able to produce certain basic drone components — lithium-ion batteries in particular — in a commercially viable, efficient, and timely manner. But it is steadily moving in that direction.

Growth in electrolyte supplies

Lithium-ion batteries use a specific electrolyte based on lithium hexafluorophosphate or tetrafluoroborate. The Insider found that in the first quarter of 2025, Russia imported more than 6.6 metric tons of lithium-ion battery electrolyte and tetrafluoroborate (expressed as electrolyte equivalent), suggesting annual imports of around 26 metric tons.

The share of lithium hexafluorophosphate electrolyte in the finished product is approximately 15% of the battery’s total weight. Assuming a typical battery weighs roughly 1 kilogram, 26 tons of electrolyte would be sufficient to manufacture batteries for approximately 150,000 FPV drones.

To compare, in 2024 Russia imported 9 metric tons of electrolyte and hexafluorophosphate (expressed as electrolyte equivalent); in 2023, the figure was 12 tons; and in 2022, it was only 4 tons. The recent growth may indicate a serious ramping-up of the country’s battery industry.

The main manufacturers of the imported products were the Chinese companies Huizhou Capchem Chemicals, Jiujiang Tinci Materials Technology, Weifang Tianyuan Battery Material, and Huzhou Kunlun Enchem Battery Materials. The suppliers were Shenzhen Capchem Technology, Shanghai Ginger Logistics International, Hainan Goodwin Trade, and Gensync Chem.

The primary Russian importer of electrolytes for lithium-ion batteries was Obruch DV LLC. Recently, electrolytes have also been imported by AK Rigel JSC, NPO Lenergomash LLC, and Uraltekhimport LLC.

Back in 2011, Uraltekhimport signed a contract to supply equipment for the project “Reconstruction of the Chemical Power Sources and Special-Purpose Battery Production Complex” under the federal targeted program “Development of the Defense-Industrial Complex.” In recent years, its main counterparty was Uralelement JSC, which is owned by the Tactical Missiles Corporation (through MPO Gidropribor Concern JSC).

In addition, Uraltekhimport also imported battery trays, along with cathode material from Tianjin Guoan Mengguli New Materials Science & Technology and anode material from Shanghai Shanshan New Material. The company also procured Shenzhen Hongrui Keji polypropylene separators and drying ovens. This list is essentially a complete set of components for battery assembly — the only missing items being aluminum and copper electrodes (which are presumably sourced domestically). In all other respects, the “localization” here is organized like a construction set: all materials and equipment are brought in from China and then assembled into a finished product at facilities inside Russia.

The fact that Uraltekhimport is specifically interested in drone-related equipment can also be inferred from the purchases of thin sheets of a magnesium (90%) and aluminum alloy, which are used in aviation to manufacture lightweight yet sturdy airframes.

Cathode material

Ready-to-use cathode material for batteries consists of a mixture of oxides of lithium, cobalt, and other metals. Imports of cobalt oxide intended for the battery industry amounted to 5.8 metric tons per quarter in 2025, against 400 kilograms per quarter the previous year. In other words, imports grew by a factor of 15 in just one year. The main buyers were Obruch DV LLC and Tradecom LLC.

In 2025, Russia brought in 93 metric tons of pure lithium hydroxide and 130 metric tons of carbonate per quarter. The latter was imported both as lithium carbonate for construction purposes (a cement-setting accelerator) and for the battery industry. Battery-grade lithium carbonate imports amounted to 80 metric tons.

The main manufacturer of battery-grade lithium carbonate imported into Russia was Sichuan Zhiyuan Lithium Industries Inc. The buyer was reseller company Promtorg-Invest LLC. Based on the approximate weight of a typical drone battery and the proportion of lithium in it, the lithium feedstock supplied could have been sufficient for several hundred thousand batteries.

Uraltekhimport and its partners appear to be attempting to work with primary raw materials. As for the production localization announced by Rosatom at the RENERA factory in Neman, Kaliningrad Region, this effort currently looks like it is in a relatively early stage of development. The company has purchased ready-made lithium-ion battery cells in South Korea from its subsidiary Enertech International (56 metric tons in the first quarter of 2025 alone) and assembled them into battery packs. Judging from the purchase of drying ovens from the Korean company Jktech, the Russian side appears intent on developing fully domestic production as quickly as possible.

However, pro-war propagandists add a caveat: the plant in Neman is “not yet” geared toward producing “defense-grade batteries.” The factory, they say, will manufacture traction batteries for electric vehicles and batteries for stationary energy storage systems.

In short, a sharp two-year rise — by a factor of ten or more — in imports of electrolyte and cathode material allows us to say with confidence that Russia’s battery industry is emerging, starting practically from scratch. Moreover, its actual development is, in all likelihood, even outpacing the triumphalist announcements of regional officials. One can only assume they are afraid of falling under additional sanctions before the production process can be fully established. 

The rules of mobilization record-keeping

Last month, at least three major Russian business publications — Business.ru, Glavbukh, and Rossiysky Nalogoviy Kurier — published similar materials. As The Insider noted, all of them provide detailed guidelines for employers on maintaining mobilization records in 2026, as well as information on how to respond to summonses and mobilization notices issued to employees. The publications also elaborated on the mechanisms of accountability for violations of the military registration procedure.

A Prosecutor General’s order issued this past May also introduces a higher level of military record-keeping accountability for HR officers and managers. The authorities have thus apparently decided to shift some of the responsibility for the mobilization effort onto employers.

The result of general anxiety

The experts interviewed by The Insider agree these articles are the business community’s reaction to the numerous reports in the media and on social networks that Russian authorities are preparing a second wave of mobilization after the State Duma elections this September. 

Mobilization in the fall of 2026? What we know so far

The Call to Conscience project notes that such messages can be interpreted as preparation for businesses or organizations but suspects that the recent articles merely represent “a response to the general expectation of a ‘new wave’ rather than any ‘insider’ information from businesses.”

Still, not only private companies are preparing for a possible new wave of mobilization, says Timofey Vaskin, head of the legal department of the School of the Conscript human rights group:

“I think it is obvious that businesses have started preparing for a new wave of mobilization. And not just businesses. If you analyze the agency’s data, you can see that government bodies, corporations, and institutions are also preparing for the draft. They are all bracing themselves for a new wave.

It is hard to say what is driving the activity of recent weeks and months. One can assume that government institutions received information from above, from higher authorities, that there is a risk of mobilization, and that administrative preparation is needed.” 

In the case of businesses, the explanation is simpler, Vaskin says. Accountants and HR professionals hear the same rumors as everyone else in society, and so the journals that exist in order to keep them up-to-date professionally responded to public sentiment by publishing updated instructions on military record-keeping:

“These are private projects, and they try to publish things that resonate with their audience. So I think their materials were not inspired by some signals about mobilization they may have received, but by their presence in the same information space as you and I. Their behavior is a reaction to the state of the information space.”

Based on the presence of such articles in business publications alone, emphasizes Ivan Chuvilyaev, press secretary of the Get Lost project, it does not follow that mobilization is set to occur: “Neither does this follow from the insertion of mobilization notices, or from the presence of the ‘Mobilization’ module in the registry, or from posts by pro-war bloggers. Are they testing the waters? Yes. Are they preparing? In that case, Rossiiskaya Gazeta would be writing: ‘the bill has been submitted for consideration, the amendments are such and such.’” And as the Movement of Conscientious Refuseniks summarizes the situation: “The publication of mobilization guidelines is the result of general anxiety and public sentiment. This idea is in the air. Job postings for mobilization specialists are a reaction of businesses to increased fines and general anxiety. Companies are trying to lay down a safety net where a fall is clearly easy.” 

A new wave

It is impossible to say for certain whether Russian authorities are preparing a possible second wave of mobilization. However, experts interviewed by The Insider point to several indirect signs. One of them is the hiring of military record-keeping experts by both private and public-sector entities. Still, perhaps the main sign involves changes in legislation, such as the aforementioned Prosecutor General’s order of this past May, which transfers primary oversight of military record-keeping from military enlistment offices to the prosecutor’s office.

Broader changes have affected the law on military service, but these have been in force since 2023. They relate primarily to the summons registry. As the Call to Conscience project notes:

“The registry is running at full capacity; reservists have been receiving summonses en masse since spring — you could call this preparation. But of course, we don’t know for sure.”

The bureaucratic machinery of the state is “undoubtedly” preparing for a new wave, says Timofey Vaskin, head of the legal department of the School of the Conscript:

“We can see this from the drills held several months ago in regional governments. We saw that mobilization notices began to be mass-inserted into men’s files. We see that men are being summoned en masse to update their military registration data. Various regions and government bodies are introducing minor changes to regulations and incorporating provisions on mobilization. For instance, there was news about changes at the National Guard. The Prosecutor General’s Office has issued a new decree strengthening oversight of military record-keeping. Either in the Sverdlovsk Region or someplace else they introduced amendments related to the mobilization period. We can see that the bureaucratic machinery wants to approach a possible mobilization fully prepared.”

Human rights advocates interviewed by The Insider also note that in recent months they have recorded a surge in requests for consultations on the topic of a possible mobilization. As Vaskin continues: “Private-practice lawyers in Russia are writing that they can no longer keep up with advising people in connection with rumors about mobilization, and that the number of requests for paid services is growing.”

The preparatory measures in and of themselves do not necessarily mean the mobilization campaign will be carried out — at least not in the way it unfolded in 2022. The Movement of Conscientious Refuseniks states:

“In general, we do not believe there will be a mobilization along the lines of the fall of 2022. Administrative resources will be heavily taxed by the elections, and engaging them to conduct mobilization will place serious strain on the system. In addition, over the past four years, numerous legislative measures have been adopted to make a similar mobilization unnecessary. But one should not completely rule out an irrational — from the system’s standpoint — decision by one well-known individual based on personal motives.”

Vaskin again sums up: “No matter how we approach it, the overall situation on the battlefield invites the conclusion that the state needs mobilization. It would address both the need for drone troops and the manning of combat units. The state needs to increase the number of military personnel, so from a substantive standpoint I have no arguments against [the possibility of mobilization].”

Why all the talk about mobilization?

When discussing a possible new wave of mobilization, government sources cited by several media outlets pointed to declining rates of contract enlistment in the Russian army.

In early June Janis Kluge, a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, analyzed federal budget data and concluded that in the first quarter of 2026, a daily average of 800 people signed a contract — the lowest figure in three years. He also noted, however, that this number increased somewhat in the second quarter.

Nevertheless, journalists’ sources from various regions noted difficulties with contract recruitment. In late 2025, an extensive military recruitment campaign was also launched at colleges in hopes of attracting students by making promises of rear-area service and fixed-term contracts, supposedly for just one year. In practice, however, “special” contracts for students turned out to be ordinary open-ended contract service, as human rights advocates pointed out.

It is difficult to assess the degree of the shortage of servicemen in the Russian armed forces, but human rights advocates note that recruitment practices have become increasingly “coercive” of late. As the Movement of Conscientious Refuseniks explains:

“People are being recruited through the regular conscription (including by coercing newly conscripted soldiers to sign contracts), targeted raids on socially vulnerable citizens, and through a comparatively new practice — threats of revocation of acquired citizenship and recruitment at Temporary Detention Centers for Foreign Nationals. Would they be so active in doing this if the number of volunteers remained at 2024 levels? Probably not. After all, these recruitment methods come with their own costs.”

The Insider’s sources in the Call to Conscience project cite security forces’ raids in Penza (1, 2), calling these cases “a new level of coercion”:

“Before, the first to be taken were vulnerable people — the homeless, those with addictions, and migrants. One could say this signals a worsening of the recruitment situation. A quick scan of popular online forums shows that whereas one or two years ago some saw contract service as an opportunity for easy money, people are now aware that the risks are far greater.”

One area where recruitment can be assessed objectively is drone troops. In mid-July, Deputy Defense Minister Alexei Krivoruchko reported that 8,000 drone specialists had been trained in the first half of the year. However, previous reports suggest that the total plan was to recruit around 78,000 people for drone unit service — that is, roughly 34,000 in the first six months. In effect, the defense ministry has acknowledged that this endeavor failed.

“The problem is obvious, and there is no solution. You can’t recruit people into drone troops with money or propaganda. The only option left is to make people join — that is, through mobilization. That’s a fairly strong argument in favor,” says Vaskin. “The arguments against are almost all in the realm of political risks for the state: society will react negatively. But how this will manifest itself is hard to say.”

The effectiveness of mobilization as such still remains in question, especially given the experience of 2022, when the state swept up mental health patients and people from other exempted categories. Now, however, with new legislation in place — including the electronic military registration system — mobilization could become quite an effective tool, says Vaskin:

“The system will be able to easily identify men of the right age, with military experience and a military occupational specialty, in order to try to mobilize them specifically. Mobilization could work, but everything depends on how it is organized. In 2022, they grabbed whoever showed up. What will a new wave look like? No one can tell.”

According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Copernicus program, Europe is warming faster than any other part of the world. Since the 1980s, temperatures across the continent have been rising at roughly twice the average global rate. Compared with the pre-industrial era, Europe's average temperature has already increased by 2.5°C, while the long-term global average increase is only now approaching 1.5°C. While in many parts of the world global warming is still often described as a problem of the future, in Europe it has already become a reality.

The rise in average temperatures is not limited to a gradual upward shift in long-term averages. One of the most visible and dangerous consequences of global warming is the increasing frequency of heat waves — prolonged periods of abnormally hot weather.

There is no universally accepted, strict definition of the term given the fact that what constitutes extreme heat depends on the local climate. However, the scale can be illustrated by the WMO's definition:

"A heat wave is a period of more than five consecutive days during which the daily maximum air temperature exceeds the average maximum temperature for those days by 5°C or more (with the baseline climate typically defined as the 1961–1990 or 1991–2020 reference period)."

The defining characteristic of a heat wave is the accumulation of excess heat during both the day and the night. When nighttime temperatures remain high, neither the human body nor the urban environment has enough time to cool down, sharply increasing health risks while placing additional strain on infrastructure.

Global climate projections point to an irreversible increase in the frequency, intensity, and duration of heat waves. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), if global warming reaches 1.5°C — a threshold the planet is now approaching — extreme heat events of the sort that occurred only once every 50 years during the pre-industrial era will become 8.6 times more frequent. If overall warming reaches 2°C, they will occur 13.9 times more often.

Europe, where temperatures have risen by 0.56°C per decade over the past 30 years, is among the regions at the greatest risk. The latest reports from the Copernicus program indicate that extreme heat waves — such as the record-early episodes this past May and June — are becoming the new climate normal.

According to IPCC projections, by 2050 around 50% of Europe's population could be exposed to a high or very high risk of heat stress during the summer months, and the most severe impacts are likely to be felt in large cities due to  the urban heat island effect.

By 2050, around 50% of Europe's population could face a high or very high risk of heat stress during the summer

The scientific community has been raising the alarm about this for decades. European countries, it would seem, have had ample time to prepare for the new conditions. Yet nearly every major heat wave still turns into an emergency: mortality rises, homes overheat, transportation systems are disrupted, and authorities scramble to open cooling centers and issue public health guidance.

So why does a continent that is warming faster than most other regions of the world repeatedly find itself unprepared for extreme heat?

The problem is not simply the warming itself. The climate is changing far more rapidly than cities, buildings, laws, and people's everyday habits can adapt to. It is precisely this gap between the new climate reality and existing infrastructure that has become one of the main reasons Europe remains so vulnerable to heat waves.

Many solutions that until quite recently worked perfectly well in Europe's relatively cool climate have unexpectedly become sources of additional risk. Some of these challenges require large-scale urban redevelopment, while others can be addressed much more simply by changing daily habits, social norms, and approaches to organizing everyday life.

The inherited city

When discussing Europe's lack of preparedness for extreme heat, the first things that usually come to mind are the lack of air conditioning and the aging housing stock. But the problem begins much earlier — with the very morphology of the urban environment. European cities were historically shaped in a temperate climate, where the main priorities were protection from cold, wind, and rain. Today, that same urban fabric amplifies the effects of extreme heat.

Older European cities were built from materials designed to retain warmth. Traditional building materials — brick, granite paving stones, and dark roof tiles — have high thermal inertia and thermal mass. During the day, they absorb and store large amounts of solar heat, then release it slowly after sunset.

As a result, nighttime temperatures in the centers of Paris, London, Rome, and Berlin can be 10-12°C higher than in the surrounding green suburbs — a manifestation of the urban heat island effect. Under these conditions, people are effectively trapped inside a giant “thermos.” As a result, their bodies do not get the nighttime relief they need, leading to a sharp increase in heat-related deaths.

People are effectively trapped inside a giant "thermos": their bodies do not get the nighttime relief they need, leading to a sharp increase in heat-related deaths

For example, Baron Haussmann's reconstruction of Paris in the third quarter of the 19th century made the city brighter and more spacious while improving sanitation and ventilation. However, the zinc roofs and limestone facades that cover most of the city's buildings have high heat capacity and low albedo, making its historic architecture a major heat reservoir. Rooftops there can reach temperatures of up to 80°C.

The geometry of streets and historic city centers often makes the problem even worse. They were laid out long before the advent of automobiles, designed for pedestrian and horse-drawn traffic. Buildings often stand directly adjacent to one another, and the narrow street network creates an urban canyon effect: while the streets provide abundant shade, their narrow corridors also block natural ventilation and airflows that could otherwise cool the city. Sunlight entering these canyons is repeatedly reflected off building walls, concentrating heat at street level — where people live and move.

The paradox is particularly evident when comparing different parts of Europe. The narrow, winding streets of Prague's Old Town might seem ideally suited to shielding people from the summer sun. Yet climate studies show that in Central Europe this medieval street pattern works against residents: at night, urban canyons prevent heat from dissipating and trap hot air close to the ground.

In southern Europe, by contrast, the Moorish quarters of Seville and Córdoba were designed according to bioclimatic principles. Their narrow alleys are deliberately interrupted by wider openings, creating a Venturi effect — the physical acceleration of airflow that produces cooling breezes even on still days.

This natural ventilation system is complemented by a tradition of interior patios with fountains and the widespread use of whitewashed walls, which reflect up to 90% of incoming solar radiation. Spaniards also make extensive use of toldos — large fabric awnings that completely shield streets from direct sunlight.

In short, southern cities were originally designed as living, breathing environments that protected their residents from the sun, whereas many northern cities are now turning into stifling stone heat traps.

There are, however, positive examples. One is the modern approach to bioclimatic urban planning in the German city of Stuttgart. The city lies in a valley where hot air can easily become trapped. Decades ago, local authorities began preserving special ventilation corridors (Luftleitbahnen) — undeveloped hillsides that allow cooler nighttime air to flow into the city center.

Today, every major construction project in Stuttgart is assessed for its impact on air circulation. Buildings may not be erected perpendicular to nighttime airflow, while the surrounding hills are protected from high-rise development, allowing them to continue serving as the city's natural air conditioners.

The great paving-over

The centuries-old urban fabric of Europe's historic urban centers was further transformed in the 20th century by more aggressive development trends. Industrialization and the boom in automobile ownership led cities to pave over vast areas with asphalt, replacing dirt roads and green spaces with parking lots and expansive paved squares. Asphalt intensifies artificial drought conditions and also has a very low albedo, causing it to heat up to extreme temperatures under direct sunlight.

In 2025, a major study conducted in Lisbon found that cars parked on asphalt  (especially dark-colored ones) act as additional radiators. The researchers showed that replacing dark-colored vehicles with lighter-colored ones or installing shade structures over parking lots could reduce ambient air temperatures by several degrees.

Bringing moisture back to the city

The widespread paving-over of cities also entrenched a flawed philosophy of water management. For centuries, European engineers designed cities to be as dry as possible — stormwater was channeled off streets, small streams were buried in underground culverts, and rivers were confined within concrete embankments.

Today, these practices have deprived cities of their most effective natural defense against extreme heat: moisture. Because drainage systems remove water almost immediately, rainfall never has a chance to soak into the ground. In the most heavily urbanized areas, the share of impervious surfaces often exceeds 50%, and in city centers it can be considerably higher. This disrupts the natural water balance and dramatically reduces cities' ability to adapt to heat waves.

Many cities are now rethinking this approach. Berlin, for example, historically had a high degree of surface sealing, particularly in the central district of Mitte. Now, however, the city is implementing the Sponge City (Schwammstadt) concept. Authorities are deliberately removing old asphalt, uncovering streams that were buried in the 20th century, and creating "rain gardens" — shallow, vegetated depressions that collect runoff from surrounding streets, allowing the water to remain in the city and help cool it during the summer.

In cities with limited water resources and extensive surface sealing, there is also a critical shortage of trees and other vegetation. Greenery is often concentrated in parks but is largely absent from ordinary streets and neighborhoods, depriving most areas of the benefits of evapotranspiration — the process by which moisture evaporates through the leaves of plants. Because evaporation absorbs heat, it naturally cools the surrounding air. According to climate measurements, a single large, healthy tree can provide a cooling effect that is equivalent to several air conditioners (all while consuming no electricity and releasing no additional heat into the urban environment). Deprived of the ability to "breathe" and evaporate water, Europe's dried-out cities become vast reservoirs of heat.

A single large, healthy tree can provide cooling equivalent to several air conditioners

The problem is compounded by the fact that even open water in European city centers remains constrained by outdated engineering principles. Fountains and ornamental ponds were originally designed primarily as elements of urban beautification or as means of ensuring the water supply, but in order to have a measurable effect on the surrounding temperature, their surface area must be large — climate modeling shows that urban water bodies can consistently cool a radius of up to 400 meters, but only if their total surface area exceeds a threshold of 3.4 hectares. In other words, a traditional fountain with jets shooting upward — such as Rome's famous Trevi Fountain — does little to lower street-level temperatures.

Modern climate adaptation standards call for a complete redesign of such spaces, replacing traditional fountains with fine-mist spray systems or shallow reflecting pools. For example, the layer of water in Bordeaux's famous Miroir d'eau is only 2 centimeters deep, yet its vast surface area maximizes evaporation, while built-in nozzles turn the water into a cooling mist every few minutes, lowering temperatures across the square by several degrees.

However, because of bureaucratic hurdles, high costs, and historic preservation laws, European municipalities have been slow to modernize their most iconic landmarks, leaving their stone plazas to bake in the summer heat.

Wealthy green suburbs and overheated working-class neighborhoods

Many of these risks are distributed unevenly across the urban landscape, exposing a pattern of thermal and social inequality. Affluent historic districts in European capitals, while not immune to the challenges created by centuries-old urban planning, have long retained abundant trees, shaded courtyards, and parks.

By contrast, former industrial outskirts, social housing estates, and postwar neighborhoods were often built according to a principle of maximizing land use — with buildings packed tightly together and asphalt and concrete dominating the landscape. As a result, during peak heat, temperatures in working-class neighborhoods can be several degrees higher than in affluent, greener suburbs.

During peak heat, temperatures in working-class neighborhoods can be several degrees higher than in affluent, greener areas

Research from Europe's largest cities confirms this pattern. Analysts at the Bank of France found a strong correlation between lower incomes and residence in Paris's park-deficient neighborhoods, where heat stress is greatest. In Madrid, simultaneous temperature measurements revealed a striking 15°C difference between affluent, tree-lined suburbs and the city's vegetation-poor working-class neighborhoods. Meanwhile, NASA thermal satellite imagery showed that during the summer of 2023, London’s five poorest areas were, on average, 3.3°C hotter than its five wealthiest boroughs.

As a result, heat waves are no longer merely a weather phenomenon, but a spatial crisis in which urban planning decisions made decades ago leave some residents far better protected than others.

The winter logic of the European home

After escaping the heat of the city streets, people naturally expect to find relief indoors. Yet in many European cities, the opposite happens: during prolonged heat waves, buildings themselves become heat reservoirs, as much of Europe's housing stock was designed to solve the opposite problem: retaining as much heat as possible during the winter.

Thick brick and stone walls have a high thermal mass, meaning that during the day their walls absorb heat and then slowly release it at night. Amidst a prolonged heat wave, however, the entire structure gradually heats up to such a degree that it no longer cools off at night and instead begins to radiate the accumulated heat back into its interior. As a result, indoor temperatures may continue to rise even without any further increase in outdoor air temperatures, and the indoor temperature peak often does not coincide with the hottest part of the day outside. Imagine someone who has already overheated outdoors during an extreme heat wave, only to return at night to even harsher conditions inside their own home.

One of the most effective ways to reduce this risk is nighttime ventilation, but this is often severely constrained. For centuries, European architects sought to protect homes from drafts and heat loss. Later, this philosophy was reinforced by energy-efficiency standards: insulated façades and airtight windows became the norm. Yet the very features that helped people survive winter have proved poorly suited to today's hotter summers.

For decades, architects in Northern Europe did not regard the sun as a major engineering challenge. Panoramic windows and fully glazed façades not only improved natural lighting but also came to symbolize openness and modernity, while protection against overheating remained a secondary concern. Under today's climate conditions, however, this design philosophy has become a thermal catastrophe.

Designs featuring panoramic windows and fully glazed façades have turned into a thermal catastrophe

Ordinary glass allows solar radiation to pass freely into buildings, where it is converted into heat, creating the familiar greenhouse effect. Modern office towers and apartments with floor-to-ceiling windows facing south or west are particularly vulnerable. One of the best-known examples is London's financial district, where overheating in glass-clad buildings has become an engineering challenge in its own right.

In the Mediterranean, by contrast, a different principle has long prevailed: sunlight should be stopped before it enters the building. That is why modern buildings there use external shading systems, ventilated façades, and specially coated glass.

The same principle underlies much older solutions — wooden shutters, awnings, and deep overhangs, which have protected homes from overheating for centuries. By contrast, interior blinds in sweltering cities such as London or Berlin effectively become household radiators, trapping solar heat indoors and accelerating the overheating of rooms.

A striking symbol of this architectural vulnerability is London's Walkie Talkie skyscraper (20 Fenchurch Street). Its curved glass façade proved so susceptible to solar radiation that the reflected sunlight — dubbed "death rays" — literally melted objects on the street below. The building has since become one of the most famous examples of the problems associated with fully glazed architecture. Research shows that, as the urban heat island effect intensifies amid the rise in overall temperatures, cooling such office buildings requires ever greater amounts of energy.

In Seville, by contrast, modern office buildings are increasingly incorporating double-skin ventilated façades that leave an air cavity between the building's outer and inner layers, allowing air to circulate continuously and cool the structure before heat can penetrate the interior. One example is the headquarters of the Andalusian Energy Agency.

A regulatory dead end

Many of the consequences of these architectural traps could be mitigated with relatively simple measures. In many cases, however, the obstacle is not technology but regulation. Across Europe, historic buildings and entire city districts are protected under strict cultural heritage legislation.

This creates a paradox: the very rules designed to preserve the historic character of European cities are increasingly coming into conflict with the need to adapt those same cities to a changing climate.

One of the simplest ways to reduce heat absorption is to use light-colored finishes with high solar reflectance. In Southern Europe, whitewashed façades have helped keep buildings cool for centuries. In most historic districts of Central Europe, however, façade colors are considered an integral part of the protected architectural ensemble, and changing them without authorization — even to improve resilience to extreme heat — is generally not permitted.

Moreover, some architectural trends have only made the problem worse. While owners of historic buildings are often prohibited from repainting façades in more reflective colors, contemporary architecture has frequently embraced materials and color palettes that intensify overheating. In recent decades, dark gray and anthracite façades have become increasingly common in European architecture. Yet such surfaces absorb significantly more solar energy, becoming additional sources of heat in the urban environment.

Contemporary architecture has often embraced materials and color palettes that intensify overheating – including dark gray and anthracite façades

The final and perhaps clearest sign of Europe's inability to adapt is the crisis of artificial cooling. For decades, air conditioning in Central and Northern Europe was regarded as an unnecessary luxury. Today, it has become a basic tool for survival, yet the same formidable legal and infrastructural barrier stands in the way. Municipal regulations in Paris, Vienna, Prague, and Florence either prohibit the installation of outdoor air-conditioning units on the façades of historic buildings or require lengthy and complicated approval procedures. Attempts by residents to install AC units without the required permits often result in hefty fines and legal action.

This regulatory trap is especially difficult for people living on the top floors — such as occupants of Paris's famous chambres de bonne or attic apartments in Rome. Located directly beneath roofs that can reach temperatures of 80°C, these dwellings absorb heat from above while their massive walls warm them from below. Residents are left with few legal options: efficient split-system air conditioners are often prohibited, while portable air conditioners that vent through an open window are far less effective, require windows to remain partially open, and can place a critical strain on aging electrical grids that were never designed to handle such loads.

One might assume that allowing the widespread use of air conditioning would solve Europe's heat problem. But while an air conditioner can cool an individual apartment, it cannot cool an entire city. It is a local solution, both spatially and temporally. Widespread air conditioning increases electricity demand, releases waste heat back into the streets, and thereby intensifies the urban heat island effect.

In the end, Europe's heat crisis is the result of far more than the simple lack of air conditioning. The deeper problem is that its homes, streets, building regulations, and prevailing ideas of what makes a good city were all shaped in an era when Europe's climate was much cooler. Virtually every aspect of the built environment was designed for a climate that no longer exists, and adapting to this new reality will require more than mere technological fixes. Instead, in addition to changes in architecture and legislation, it also demands an adaptation in everyday practices. The longer those changes are delayed, the more each successive summer will become an ordeal for millions of urban residents.

Schulmann said the guidance is being distributed in Defense Ministry hospitals. She said the advice presented in the document advises against the sorts of behaviors practiced by senior Russian military officials who have been targeted at public and in their personal vehicles.

The document is titled “Standard briefing for a serviceman, civilian employee, and members of his family on actions to take upon receiving information about a planned assassination attempt.” It says the recommendations are based on the experience of security agencies and are intended for Defense Ministry and National Guard personnel who have received information about a threat of physical reprisals “from Ukrainian intelligence services.”

The authors of the guidance claim Ukrainian intelligence services obtain personal data on military personnel and their family members from journalistic reports, social media, and messaging apps, then study the potential target’s daily routine, travel routes, and place of residence before choosing a method of attack.

The guidance recommends that military personnel:

• Stop publishing personal information on social media and delete information that could reveal their home address or departmental affiliation.
• Change mobile phone numbers and physical phones, and only answer calls from known numbers.
• Change their usual way of life and even alter their appearance — for example, by wearing glasses, growing a beard, changing their hairstyle, or changing their style of clothing.
• Regularly change travel routes, avoid repeated daily routines, and stop using apps that record geolocation, including fitness trackers and smartwatches.
• Be cautious around people who appear repeatedly along their route and of attempts by strangers to photograph them or their vehicle.

A separate section is devoted to cars. Military personnel are advised to avoid using personal vehicles when possible, keep their cars away from home and under surveillance cameras, and inspect them before every trip for possible explosives. The guidance lists likely places where explosive devices could be planted — under the vehicle, in wheel arches or near the car — as well as possible methods of detonation: when the engine starts, when doors are opened, by timer or remotely.

The document also advises personnel to stop using delivery services, refuse packages from unknown senders, avoid taking elevators with strangers, and reinforce entrance doors while equipping them with a peephole, chain, and bolt. For those living on ground floors, window bars or protective film are also recommended.

Military personnel are also advised to acquire self-defense tools, including pepper spray, stun guns, or less-lethal weapons, and to practice repelling an attack. The instructions conclude by recommending that personnel familiarize family members with the guidance, conduct “situational exercises” with them, and determine in advance how to contact security officers to pass on information in emergencies.

Assassination attempts on senior Russian military figures

On the evening of Aug. 1, an explosion tore through the Moscow restaurant Balzi Rossi, where a birthday celebration for Russian Aerospace Forces commander-in-chief Alexander Chaiko was underway. Several people were killed in the explosion, and more than 20 were wounded; Chaiko does not appear to have been among them..

In June 2026, Lieutenant General Damir Davydov, head of the Defense Ministry’s Main Missile and Artillery Directorate, was killed in a car bombing in Balashikha, near Moscow. He was responsible for supplying the Russian army with ammunition.

In February 2026, an assassination attempt was carried out in Moscow against Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev, the first deputy head of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency. He was shot several times and wounded, but survived.

In December 2025, Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, head of the Russian General Staff’s Operational Training Directorate, was killed when a car bomb exploded in southern Moscow.

In May 2025, Zaur Gurtsiyev, who took part in the capture of Mariupol before becoming deputy head of the city administration, was killed in an explosion in Stavropol in southern Russia.

In April 2025, Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy head of the General Staff’s Main Operational Directorate, was killed in a car bombing in Balashikha, near Moscow.

In December 2024, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of the Russian armed forces’ radiation, chemical, and biological defense troops, was killed by a bomb planted in a scooter near a residential apartment block in Moscow.

In November 2024, Captain Valery Trankovsky, chief of staff of the Black Sea Fleet’s 41st Brigade of Missile Boats, was killed in a car bombing in Sevastopol.

In October 2024, Colonel Nikita Klenkov, deputy commander of the Russian Special Operations Forces training center, was shot dead in Solnechnogorsk, near Moscow, shortly after returning from the war in Ukraine.

In September 2024, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said Colonel Alexei Kolomeitsev, commander of the Russian Defense Ministry’s 924th State Center for Unmanned Aviation, had been killed in the Moscow region. The Russian authorities did not confirm his death, and the pro-war project WarGonzo claimed Kolomeitsev was alive and retired.

In July 2024, there were reports that a car belonging to GRU officer Andrei Torgashov had been blown up. It later emerged that another man with the same surname had been injured, and Torgashov himself said he had not been the target of an attack.

The earliest high-profile case of this kind was the killing of Stanislav Rzhitsky, a former commander of the Krasnodar submarine. In July 2023, he was shot dead during a morning run in Krasnodar, where he was serving as deputy head of the city department for mobilization work. Russian and Ukrainian citizen Sergei Denisenko was convicted of the killing.

The outlet said the tankers are most likely carrying oil produced at Russia’s Arctic fields. Among the vessels currently waiting in the Kara Sea, The Barents Observer identified the oil tankers Jupiter (IMO 9397535), Vostochny Prospect (IMO 9866392) and Saga (IMO 9318553). According to vessel-tracking data, the nuclear icebreaker Sibir was in the eastern Kara Sea in early August, while the icebreakers Ural and Yakutia were in the East Siberian Sea.

After reviewing data from the vessel tracking platform Starboard Maritime Intelligence, The Insider found that, in addition to those vessels, the following tankers were also located close to one another in the Kara Sea: Pamir (IMO 9276028), NP Dikson (IMO 9255270), Hyperion (IMO 9322968), Liteyny Prospect (IMO 9256078), Ligovsky Prospect (IMO 9256066), Viktor Bakaev (IMO 9610810) and Jagger (IMO 9354301).

As previously reported, Russia is increasing liquefied natural gas (LNG) production at the Arctic LNG 2 plant on the Gydan Peninsula, with markets in Asia — especially China — seen as the prospective buyers. Moscow is also increasing oil shipments along this route, as tankers traveling in the north are not yet under threat from Ukrainian drones, The Barents Observer noted. Russia still lacks enough icebreakers, but it is working to expand the necessary infrastructure.

In December of last year, it became known that the Zvezda Shipbuilding Complex had handed over to a customer the first LNG carrier ever built entirely in Russia. Rosneft’s press service said the Alexey Kosygin (IMO 9904546), which can break through ice up to 2 meters thick, would be the lead vessel for the Arctic LNG 2 project.

As Anna Orlova, an investigator with the Arctic nonprofit Arctida, previously told The Insider, the arrival of the Alexey Kosygin will allow Novatek, the operator of the Arctic LNG 2 project, to export liquefied gas year-round, reducing technical risks and costs. Arctida experts suggested the vessel would transfer LNG to “shadow fleet” tankers that are unable to pass through Arctic ice.

“‘Shadow fleet’ vessels without ice-class capabilities cannot navigate the Northern Sea Route eastward in winter, so the only route for delivering Russian LNG to Asia remains either around Europe via the Suez Canal or around Africa,” Orlova said. “Using the Alexey Kosygin for the entire route would be economically inefficient, as most of the route lies through open water, where a vessel with a heavy hull like the Alexey Kosygin's is slower and less fuel-efficient than conventional ships. Instead, a ‘shuttle’ strategy may be employed, with the Alexey Kosygin acting as an icebreaker shuttle that loads at the Utrenny terminal and navigates the challenging ice stretch of the Kara Sea to Murmansk.”

Then, in February 2022, Radev predicted that it would only be a matter of days before Putin’s forces marched down Kyiv’s Khreschatyk boulevard. And after winning last April’s general election, one of his first moves was to veto EU sanctions against the Russian Orthodox Church’s Patriarch Kirill and Lukoil’s founder and largest shareholder Vagit Alikperov. In doing so, Bulgaria assumed the role formerly played by Hungary under Viktor Orban, who appears to have found a worthy successor in Sofia.

This is not necessarily how Radev and his entourage see things. “I’d rather draw a parallel with Peter Magyar,” said Slavi Vassilev, a former analyst turned prominent member of the governing Progressive Bulgaria (PB) party. Radev rose to power not because he promised a radical shift in foreign policy, but because he styled himself as a viable alternative to a corrupt mainstream personified by Boyko Borisov, the leader of the centre-right GERB party, and to Delyan Peevski, a shady tycoon who is in charge of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) and has been sanctioned by the U.S. and the UK. Externally, PB’s official line stresses commitment to Bulgaria’s EU and NATO membership, albeit with caveats about national interest.

“Bulgaria won’t shoot itself in the leg”

“Bulgaria won’t shoot itself in the leg,” is how Radev justified protecting Alikperov. After all, the Lukoil-owned Neftochim refinery next to the Black Sea city of Burgas, the largest oil-processing facility in Southeast Europe outside of Greece and Turkey, is one of Bulgaria’s top companies. Sofia also bailed out Iskander Makhmutov, an Uzbek-born Russian billionaire, due to the fact that his Transmashholding turned out to be indispensable for the smooth running of the Bulgarian capital’s metro.

For the rest of the EU, trading a carve-out for Bulgarian acquiescence to the bloc’s 21st sanctions package, as well as the broader policy on Ukraine, is probably a deal worth taking. In contrast to Orban, Radev did not block the start of accession negotiations with Kyiv, and Bulgaria has gone along with the 90 billion euro aid package for Ukraine too (though in fairness, it was the caretaker cabinet of Andrey Gyurov, not Radev, voting “yes” in Brussels at the end of April). And Radev was prudent enough not to turn up in Moscow for the annual Victory Day parade on May 9, even if many of his dyed-in-the-wool Russophile fans would have applauded him had he done so. 

The “pro-Russian” Radev was prudent enough not to turn up in Moscow for the annual Victory Day parade on May 9

Symbolic moves such as keeping Patriarch Kirill off the EU blacklist cater to the latter constituency, largely made up of defectors from the far-right Revival (Vazdrazdhane) and from the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP, heir to the pre-1989 communists). To play to the gallery, the government is giving full-throated support to calls for direct EU talks with Russia and to restoring at least some economic ties.

Between Moscow and Brussels

All in all, Radev has thus far pulled off a balancing act. He is not straying far from the Brussels consensus but is nevertheless creating an appearance that he is doing everything he can to reset relations with Moscow — all in the interest of peace in Ukraine and in Europe, of course.

Truth be told, PB is still learning how to manage the above balancing act. In both the campaign and the immediate aftermath of the April elections, they pumped up expectations that Bulgaria would revise its course on Ukraine. On 9 June, Defence Minister Dimitar Stoyanov declared that Sofia was halting arms deliveries to Kyiv, and the same message was repeated by Radev, who added that Bulgaria had been suffering economic losses because of the war. However, the day after, the government clarified that sales to Ukraine, as opposed to donations from army stocks, were to carry on as normal.

Thanks to its legacy defence-industrial complex, Bulgaria is a leading provider of artillery shells to the Ukrainian armed forces, supplying up to one-third their needs in the first months of the full-scale invasion. Its exports through third countries are booming in a similar way. In 2025, for instance, Bulgaria delivered 22 T-72 tanks, 40 MT-LB tracked transporters, two HMMWV armored vehicles, one BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicle, and 38 D-30 122mm howitzers to the Czech Republic. The UK received 18 self-propelled 2S1 Gvozdika howitzers, three MT-LB transporters, and three BS-3 100mm anti-tank guns.

Chances are these systems made their way to Ukraine as well. During his tenure as caretaker prime minister earlier this year, Gyurov traveled to Kyiv to sign a long delayed defence cooperation deal with Ukraine. It has not been cancelled by Radev’s team. In other words, the image of a U-turn presented in some headlines does not fully match reality. 

Bulgaria is a leading provider of artillery shells to the Ukrainian armed forces, supplying up to one-third their needs in the first months of the full-scale invasion

Bulgaria’s attitude to the so-called Coalition of the Willing offers another case in point. During his trip to Paris to attend the July 14 Bastille Day parade, Radev declined to join the informal grouping’s meeting, dismissing the format as irrelevant to European security and saying that Bulgaria has no place in a coalition that is “insisting on continuous financial and military aid to Ukraine.”

But then, on July 15, Bulgarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Velislava Petrova took part in the annual Ukraine-Southeast Europe Summit in Kyiv, where participants hailed the Coalition of the Willing as “an effective mechanism for supporting Ukraine, including in terms of providing Ukraine with robust and legally binding security guarantees.”

All attendees bar Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who declined to sign the declaration, expressed their “readiness to enhance…participation in [the Coalition’s] work.” So Bulgaria is like Schroedinger’s proverbial cat: both outside the coalition and within it.

An “ally of Russia” without Russia

If Radev’s objective in all this diplomatic zig-zagging is to curry favor with Russia, he is demonstrably failing. Speaking to RIA Novosti, an unnamed diplomat from the Russian embassy in Sofia put it rather bluntly: “Bulgaria continues to be one of the sponsors of the Kyiv regime, supplying it with vast quantities of weapons and ammunition both directly and through third countries. It has also committed to providing logistical routes in the regime's interest, sustaining its resilience through supplies of energy resources and electricity, and expanding military-technical cooperation." 

Despite all of Radev’s rhetoric in support of Russia, the Kremlin still sees Bulgaria as “one of the sponsors of the Kyiv regime”

Radev is currently the closest thing Russians have to an ally in the EU. But judging from the tone of Moscow’s officials, they certainly expect more.

Moscow’s scepticism is something Radev can live with. He has scored points with someone who matters more: Donald Trump. On July 22, the Bulgarian parliament endorsed the stationing of tanker refuelling aircraft at the Bezmer military base. Radev was previously vocally opposed to U.S. military access to Bulgarian infrastructure — indeed, in May, he stated that refuelling planes had to leave the Vasil Levsky airport in Sofia if the U.S. continued to refuse to grant Bulgarians visa-free travel — but as of now, Radev has agreed to move them to Bezmer, in eastern Bulgaria, winning praise by Trump himself on Truth Social (even if no commitment on visas appears to be forthcoming).

Importantly, Trump’s goodwill gives the Bulgarian government some wiggle room on Lukoil Neftochim. Since blacklisting Lukoil last October, the U.S. has repeatedly granted waivers to the Russian firm’s Bulgarian subsidiaries, meaning Lukoil (or, rather, its Switzerland-based subsidiary Litasco) can retain the valuable asset, as well as its network of storage facilities and filling stations. Bulgaria is no longer dependent on Russian natural gas, with Gazprom cutting deliveries in 2022, but it is still entangled into energy trading networks centred in Russia. 

Radev’s prospects at home

Radev’s vision for Bulgarian foreign policy is based on the premise that juggling EU membership, ties with Trump, and pragmatism vis-à-vis Russia is a winning formula. He brands it as a defense of national sovereignty, alleging that previous administrations were run by “yes men.” But the substance is not all that different from what Borisov and Peevski stood for in their day, when the TurkStream pipeline was built in record time.

However, GERB and DPS changed their tune after the full-scale invasion — not least as a way to build a coalition with the staunchly pro-Western forces in the liberal camp around the Democratic Bulgaria coalition and Continuing the Change party. Currently, Radev and PB’s pro-Russian rhetoric, which blames Europe and Ukraine rather than Putin for fuelling the war, sets them apart from much of the opposition (Vazdrazhdane excepted).

For now, such talk is primarily for domestic consumption, and there will be more of it in the months to come. Bulgaria is heading into presidential elections, and the current head of state, Iliana Yotova, who served as Radev’s vice president in both his terms, champions the PB line. That opens space for the opposition — whether the kleptocrats or the liberals — to throw their weight behind hardline pro-Ukraine and pro-EU/NATO candidates such as Andrey Gyurov. 

Radev and PB’s pro-Russian rhetoric is primarily for domestic consumption

With a solid parliamentary majority, Radev is strong but not unassailable. The recently passed state budget stoked fears of rising public debt and, in due course, a hard landing in the economy after a period of consumption-driven overheating that saw the EU Council open an excess deficit procedure against Bulgaria. Radev has not really delivered on promises to wage an uncompromising war on institutionalised corruption either. Yotova might still win, but she too could find reasons to distance herself from an unpopular government. There is only one direction Radev’s ratings are likely to move from now on: down. Not because of foreign policy, but due to bread and butter issues.

In the 13 years since its founding, the AfD has not only achieved significant electoral success but has also tried in every way to present itself as an “ordinary” German political force. The party says it merely offers “a different approach” to certain domestic and foreign policy issues — without radicalism and certainly without challenging Germany’s constitutional order. Alice Weidel, AfD’s co-chair, describes the party as “libertarian and conservative.” Nevertheless, ahead of elections in eastern Germany, the AfD continues to divide the country. And yet, its “normalization strategy” appears to be bearing fruit.

An “ordinary” party or radicals?

In early July, the quiet Thuringian town of Erfurt took on the look of a major capital hosting a G20 summit: tens of thousands of protesters were blocking streets and clashing with the police.The reason was simple: the city hosted the AfD’s party congress, where the movement elected its new leadership and set its future strategy. Coincidentally or not, exactly 100 years earlier to the day, the second congress of the Nazi Party took place in nearby Weimar, where, among other things, the Hitler Youth was created.

AfD, of course, categorically denied any parallels and insisted it was a coincidence, saying the necessary venue was available only during that period. Weidel denounced what she called attempts “to intimidate the AfD and disrupt its democratic work.”

At the congress itself, the party leadership carefully swept unwanted topics under the rug. One example was a proposal by the leader of the party’s far-right wing, Björn Höcke, to allow activists from groups officially recognized as extremist to hold AfD membership. The decision was left to the new presidium, which will discuss the idea “as part of its ongoing work” — away from television cameras.

Delegates radiated optimism and openly said they were ready to take power at the first opportunity. AfD politicians are undoubtedly exaggerating their own potential. By speaking of a “road to victory” — a phrase repeated several times at the congress — they appear to be trying to consolidate their electorate and pressure wavering voters. The AfD has led nationwide polls for four months, but its current 26% to 28% clearly would not be enough to form a government on its own.

Germany’s “firewall” still exists, and none of the leaders of democratic parliamentary parties has allowed for the possibility of cooperation with the far right. The most dramatic state-level challenge for AfD’s opponents is in Saxony-Anhalt, where the party has consistently polled above 40% — putting it on the brink of taking power.

In the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD has consistently polled above 40%

Despite the 50,000 people who protested in Erfurt against the far-right party’s congress, it is hard not to spot a new trend in German society. The AfD is no longer a party whose supporters avoid speaking openly for fear of disapproving looks from friends, neighbors, and colleagues. Rather, it has become a part of Germany’s everyday life.

In some eastern regions, it has even become a Volkspartei — the German term for a major political force enjoying broad electoral support, ties to different social groups, and a wide policy reach. Since the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, that informal title has belonged only to two parties: the Christian Democratic Union, or CDU, and the Social Democratic Party, or SPD.

The AfD is no longer a party whose supporters avoid speaking openly for fear of disapproving looks from friends, neighbors, and colleagues. It has become part of German everyday life

The AfD’s “normalization” is accelerating, and five main factors are driving it.

First are the party’s electoral achievements and polling numbers. The AfD has repeatedly finished second in elections at different levels, won in Thuringia, and now leads in national polls. The argument that it is unacceptable to “ignore the will of a third of voters” is appearing more and more often in the media and in statements by politicians who previously did not countenance the AfD. The party’s successes are beginning to be recognized as an objective reality that must be taken into account in the name of “public calm” and “stability in the country.” This creates a temptation to “acknowledge the obvious” and to try to reach an agreement with “moderate” groups inside the party in exchange for dismantling the firewall.

Second is current data on the AfD’s electorate. A new Berlin study shows the party is no longer supported merely by “a group of radicals” and parts of the protest electorate that joined them. It now boasts a stable cohort of support consisting at least 20% of the electorate. Previously, these voters’ motivation was often negative — disfavoring the “ruling elites” more strongly than they actually cared for the AfD and its policy positions. Now, however, policy-driven AfD supporters account for two-thirds of the party’s current rating, and allegiance to the movement is no longer an eastern German phenomenon. A poll after the March elections in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate, where the AfD’s position is among its weakest in Germany, showed that 32% of far-right voters supported the party because they backed its political demands. These data suggest that the AfD has built a political foundation capable of enduring for the long term.

Third is political expediency. The AfD’s opponents are finding it increasingly difficult to create coalitions without it, especially given that the CDU has also pledged not to cooperate with Die Linke (lit. “The Left”), which conservatives criticize for insufficiently distancing itself from the legacy of East Germany. The combined rating of the federal governing parties is now only 35%. In Saxony and Thuringia, minority governments are already in power —  forced to seek much-needed votes from other party factions. In Thuringia, the Cabinet even includes allies of the far-left politician Sahra Wagenknecht.

Relatively new forms of cooperation within the democratic spectrum — such as alliances between former irreconcilable opponents like the conservatives and the Greens — are not enough to solve the problem. Such a government is operating in Schleswig-Holstein, a region where the AfD is relatively weak and the state premier is the charismatic Christian Democrat Daniel Günther (who also plays a notable role at the federal level). But despite his popularity, the CDU’s rating in the state has fallen from 43% to 27% over the past four years.

In Thuringia, the state-level ruling coalition is still only one vote shy of a majority, which makes it relatively easy to “find” sufficient support for passing policy measures. In Saxony, however, it lacks 10 votes, making the passage of bills noticeably more complicated. There are lessons here for Saxony-Anhalt, where after the September elections the winner may find itself dozens of lawmakers short of a majority. This trend is forcing many conservative politicians to consider altering the “firewall” strategy of containing the AfD. They are faced with a dilemma: form a potentially better-functioning state government while legitimizing the far right, or face constant turbulence in state-level legislatures (while cooperating with so-called “communists” of the left wing).

Fourth is the behavior of other political players. The SPD, the Greens, and The Left remain united in rejecting cooperation with the AfD, but signals from within the CDU are less clear. The party leadership — chairman Friedrich Merz, secretary-general Carsten Linnemann, and the federal executive board that supports them — has not changed its position, continuing to view the AfD as a threat to democracy, in addition to being its main political opponent. At lower levels, however, conservatives are divided. Until recently, voices calling for a “pragmatic approach” to the AfD were marginal. But lately they have gained strength.

CDU Bundestag member Saskia Ludwig openly proposed “selective cooperation” with the AfD, arguing that such a move reflected “the will of voters” who vote “right of center.” Andreas Bühl, head of the conservative faction in the Thuringian state parliament — where the AfD came first in elections two years ago — says debate over a “new relationship” with the AfD is “correct.” His brother Markus is, incidentally, a Bundestag lawmaker from the AfD. Former CDU secretary-general Peter Tauber (who has close ties to big business), parts of the party’s business wing in Brandenburg, and a number of municipal branches in the east have also demanded some form of revision to the CDU’s position regarding the AfD. Party leaders have so far managed to “put out the fire” — for example, in Brandenburg, higher-level politicians adopted a resolution affirming commitment to the firewall — but it is hard not to notice the growing momentum inside conservative and right-conservative segments of German politics.

Analysts are seriously discussing the possibility of a split in the CDU faction in the Saxony-Anhalt parliament immediately after elections in the event that the party leadership refuses to cooperate with the AfD. Some lawmakers could even leave the faction and support a situational majority with the far right.

A new threat has also come from the far-left flank. Until recently, Wagenknecht’s party opposed cooperation with the AfD. However, Wagenknecht’s recent direct offer of “situational cooperation” to Weidel could create an even more complicated political reality — one in which a government without the AfD becomes impossible in the east.

Fifth and finally, the broader public debate in Germany has been shifting noticeably to the right, effectively “normalizing” many of the AfD’s unchanged radical positions. National identity, patriotism, Germany’s right to have strong armed forces, and opposition to migration and refugees are all now openly discussed in a very different way than they were a decade ago. 

The broader public debate in Germany has been shifting noticeably to the right, effectively “normalizing” many of the AfD’s positions

When visitors to the CDU website are greeted by the slogan “Stop illegal migration and effectively control borders,” and the government reports on deportations and supports narrowing the right to asylum, voters’ sensitivity to the AfD is noticeably reduced. After all, the party is essentially “talking about the same thing,” perhaps “only more radically.”

Strategy and reality

In 2018, when Merz was running for CDU chairman, he promised to “halve” the AfD’s rating. In 2024, as party leader, he repeated that pledge. After becoming chancellor, Merz named fighting the AfD among his top priorities.

The plan worked almost exactly in reverse. In 2018, the AfD was polling at upwards of 14%, which at the time seemed troublingly high. Six years later, polling institutes recorded support for the AfD at 20%. Now, in the second year of Merz’s chancellorship, the party is polling at 28%. In the 2017 Bundestag election, the far right won 5 million votes; in the 2025 election, it won 8.5 million. In 10 years, the number of party members has tripled. What went wrong?

After winning early parliamentary elections, in no small part thanks to right-conservative voters wavering between the CDU and AfD, Merz made systematic efforts to weaken his main opponent. For the chancellor, this appears to have become not only a matter of political expediency but also of personal conviction. Merz’s team used a mixed strategy that, by the standards of political science, seemed promising. 

On the one hand, Merz signaled unconditional commitment to the firewall. When asked about the possibility of any cooperation with radicals, he answered briefly: “Forget it!” The chancellor’s principled position and his clear signals that AfD politicians are not patriotic conservatives but populists operating on the edge of constitutional norms were supposed to appeal to right-of-center voters. Merz was not afraid to talk about his own mistakes and acknowledged the success of the AfD’s public relations campaigns in certain political niches, such as criticism of Germany’s migration policy and economic agenda. At the same time, coalition party speakers, showing little diplomatic restraint, attacked the AfD across a full range of sensitive issues, including the closeness of many of its politicians to Russia. CDU lawmaker Mark Heinrichmann called the AfD a “pro-Russian sleeper cell,” while his SPD colleague Sonja Eichwede called its members “accomplices of Russian interests.”

CDU and SPD lawmakers called the AfD a “pro-Russian sleeper cell” and labeled them the “accomplices of Russian interests”

On the other hand, Merz worked hard to seize the initiative from his opponents in the two areas most sensitive to swing voters: migration and the economy. The government passed laws restricting the entry and stay of foreigners, strengthened border controls, and simplified deportation procedures. Conservatives and Social Democrats actively sent the message that they, not AfD, could overcome any current difficulties (the economic crisis, the shortage of highly qualified specialists, capital flight, and excessive bureaucracy) by deploying their extensive political experience and democratic procedures rather than by resorting to populism.

But none of these measures produced the desired effect, and neither did a whole range of challenges that had nothing to do with the Merz government’s efforts to weaken the party. AfD’s rating continued to grow despite the party being classified as right-wing extremist, despite allegations that the leaders of its 2024 party list misused funds and cooperated with Russian and Chinese intelligence services, and despite revelations of nepotism involving the hiring of close and distant relatives for highly paid jobs in parliamentary structures. 

Merz failed to convince active and potential AfD supporters that he could respond to current challenges in the way voters would like. By trying to beat the AfD on its own playing field, the chancellor placed himself in a losing position. When passing laws, regulations, and directives, conservatives take many factors into account: their own values, the views of coalition partners, the feasibility of proposals, public opinion, and the legality of their desired moves at the national, European, and international levels.

The AfD operates without these constraints. When the chancellor spoke of changing the “appearance of cities” in the context of migration debates, he not only failed to score points with AfD voters (who are by now closely tied to the party and “choose the original,” as German political slang puts it) — he also came into conflict with his potential allies in the fight against the AfD. Centrists, center-left voters, and leftists saw Merz as an “AfD-lite,” while the SPD came under even heavier criticism for working with him in a coalition government.

Paradoxically, Merz directly addressed AfD voters only at a news conference on July 15 of this year, urging them to look closely at the government’s work and assess it dispassionately, regardless of ideological preferences. In practice, such an approach is unlikely to work due to the fact that AfD supporters are highly ideological.

Merz also has not gained allies among determined AfD opponents in civil society, who are calling for the party to be banned — or at least for a petition to be filed with the Constitutional Court to examine whether AfD’s program and political actions comply with the foundations of Germany’s democratic order. Such a filing can be made by one of three institutions: the federal government, the Bundestag, or the Bundesrat (the upper house of Germany’s parliament). The conservatives and Social Democrats have enough votes to gather the required support, but this has still not happened.

The CDU is not even ready to support softer initiatives, such as stripping the AfD of state funding or imposing a partial, regional ban — for example, in Thuringia, where the local branch has been classified as being the most right-wing extremist. The conservatives’ motives are clear. They fear that an application to the Constitutional Court could fail due to insufficient evidence that the AfD poses a threat, and that such a failure would only further strengthen the far-right party. Conservative voters might also punish “banners,” a label usually associated with the left. But the government’s passivity is perceived by the AfD’s core electorate as weakness — even helplessness. 

Finally, Merz has so far been unable to outplay Weidel emotionally or rhetorically. AfD is skillfully using the crisis, appealing to voters’ expansive reactions, dissatisfaction, and irritation with the situation in Germany and the world. A potential AfD sympathizer compares the party’s “colorful speakers” with the uncontroversially dry Merz, who is indeed fond of complex explanations. Weidel attacks the chancellor in parliament with deliberately simplistic charges: “Merz is fighting the opposition instead of fighting for Germany.”

“Merz is fighting the opposition instead of fighting for Germany,” says the AfD leader

Her faction colleague Bernd Baumann tries to instill in conservative voters the idea of Merz’s “pseudo-conservatism”: “During the election campaign, he promised us he would put an end to the left-wing dreamers. And what did he do after the election? The first thing he did was form a coalition with the left-wing dreamers.”

A historic crossroads

Germany’s current situation is not unique in Europe. Strong far-right parties have existed for decades in other countries on the continent. Their representatives govern regions, serve as mayors and have even entered national governments in six countries. Often, right-wing radicals have lost power, been forced to compromise in order to enter coalitions with conservatives and centrists, or simply transformed into more moderate political forces. But Germany has important distinguishing features.

The AfD began as a small movement of Euroskeptics, right-conservative university professors, and third-tier CDU politicians who no longer wanted to serve as a “right-wing lightning rod” inside their own party. A chain of events — from global crises to serious mistakes by Germany’s “classic” political players — turned the AfD into a significant political force. After a series of internal upheavals, the party moved ever farther to the right. Today, there is no longer any hope that Alice Weidel will turn into a new Giorgia Meloni. Neither her party colleagues nor the party’s voters, who have very specific expectations, would allow it.

Until recently, one common theory held that it benefited the AfD to remain in “permanent opposition” — criticizing the government, holding parliamentary seats but in essence taking responsibility for nothing. It is now clear, however, that the AfD is seriously seeking power. Its leaders are buoyed by success at a moment when public trust in the governing coalition has reached a historic low, the government has no clear plan to fight its main opponent, the economy is stagnating, a bloody war continues in eastern Europe, and a growing number of Germans are disillusioned not only with parties but with state institutions. A recent poll gave the AfD another advantage, showing that more than half of respondents support fully closing the borders to refugees — 62% believe those arriving in the country do not need asylum but are merely seeking social benefits.

The party leadership does not hide its intention to continue pursuing “normalization through elections.” Its most ambitious declared goal is to become the governing party after the 2029 parliamentary elections. In Saxony-Anhalt, the party will obtain power in one form or another — either through a single-party government, or through a situational majority in the event that no coalition can be formed. A party that leads a region, joins the Bundesrat, and sends state ministers to federal conferences can no longer be ignored: it automatically becomes acceptable to deal with.

There is no universal recipe for preventing such a development. But the government still has a chance if it recognizes the fundamental changes in German politics and can establish an open dialogue with society beyond comfortable offices, including with AfD voters and leftists. The AfD cannot be beaten with slogans alone.

Germany is the key state in the European Union — its political, economic, and now military backbone. A Germany with the AfD in power, standing on positions of national selfishness and isolationism, abandoning sanctions against Russia, threatening the cancellation of aid to Ukraine, and fighting against the creation of a common European security architecture, would cost the whole continent dearly.

The researchers examined job postings for seafarers published over a two-year period. Some of the ads explicitly state that employees were being sought for the Sovcomflot group of companies, but instructed applicants to send their CVs to an email address with the techshipman.com domain rather than the company’s official address at scf-group.com.

According to Kharon, nearly two dozen formally distinct shipping companies — registered in Russia, Hong Kong, the UAE, Oman, and the Seychelles — used these addresses. Each of these entities owned or operated at least one vessel under sanctions. Seven operators worked with at least ten sanctioned vessels each.

Among the domain’s users was Dubai-based Moonlight Shipmanagement, which oversaw 27 sanctioned vessels. St. Petersburg-based company Idas, which is not itself currently subject to Western restrictions, owns or manages ten sanctioned tankers. The techshipman.com email was also used by at least five entities within the Sovcomflot group, including South Fleet and Invest Fleet, which have been sanctioned by the EU.

Some formally independent companies shared not only the same domain but also identical email addresses. For example, the same address appeared in the documents of a Seychelles-registered company and the Russian company North Fleet, part of the Sovcomflot group. Three Omani companies owning sanctioned tankers also shared a common address featuring a name that matched that of the manager of all three firms.

The connection between techshipman.com and Sovcomflot had been identified before. In August 2025, Ukrainian firm Dallas Analytics published a letter allegedly sent by an employee of Sovcomflot’s fleet management division to the captain of a purported shadow fleet tanker. The letter came from an address on the techshipman.com domain. After journalists reached out for comment, Sovcomflot’s job postings featuring techshipman.com addresses disappeared from Telegram.

The shadow fleet consists of hundreds of tankers that transport Russian oil in circumvention of sanctions and the G7 price cap. The fleet’s owners and operators regularly change vessel names, countries of registration, addresses, and flags. The use of formally independent companies allows the real organizers of the shipments to remain concealed and enables tankers to be quickly re-registered after each successive owner is added to sanctions lists.

Sovcomflot is also under U.S., EU, and UK sanctions. The company has previously denied that its vessels belong to the shadow fleet and has described the restrictions as politically motivated. A similar system was previously uncovered by the Financial Times. In February, the outlet identified 48 formally independent companies using a different shared email server. They were linked to Russian oil shipments worth more than $90 billion.

The Insider has previously reported on other indicators linking shadow fleet entities to Sovcomflot. One article focused on the companies New Fleet Ltd. and North Fleet Ltd., which acquired ownership of some of the sanctioned tankers transferred to the Russian flag. The companies’ registered addresses coincided with the address of Sovcomflot’s St. Petersburg division.

The footage shows a tracked platform emerging from a building and performing several maneuvers. No visible weapons can be seen on the platform, and the video does not make it possible to determine the specific tasks for which the robot was being tested.

As The Insider previously reported, the Kurier has become one of the most widespread ground robotic platforms in the Russian military. It has logistics and combat modifications and can be outfitted with a machine gun, an automatic grenade launcher, electronic warfare equipment, and mine-laying gear.

Back in August 2022, The Insider published footage showing Russian military trucks entering the territory of the ZNPP.

The outlet’s sources at the time reported the deployment of equipment, ammunition, and several hundred Russian military personnel near the reactor units. Later, plant employees recounted how Russian military personnel had stored ammunition near the turbines and had access to the reactor unit rooms.

Article 56 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions requires parties to a conflict to avoid placing military facilities near nuclear power plants (though an exception is permitted provided that military assets in the area are there solely to provide for the defense of the plant).

IAEA pillars for ensuring nuclear safety and security during an armed conflict also stipulate that the ZNPP must not be used as a base or depot for heavy weapons or as a basing location for military personnel capable of attacking from the plant. On July 30, the agency reported an increase in military activity in the area of the ZNPP and the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Enerhodar, describing the situation as a serious threat to nuclear safety.

However, experts interviewed by The Insider say that confusion remains regarding which facility was hit — the drone struck not the export infrastructure, but a floating terminal used to import gas into Egypt. At the same time, however, they say the attack may have carried symbolic significance.

What happened

On July 29, a drone struck the FSRU (floating storage and regasification unit) Energos Winter, which was moored at the port of Damietta. The ensuing fire spread to the nearby LNG carrier GasLog Salem. Energos Winter is owned by the U.S. company Energos Infrastructure and is leased to the state-owned Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company.

Egyptian authorities said only that the fire had been caused by an unidentified drone. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. According to Egypt's Ministry of Petroleum, there were no fatalities or injuries.

Following the attack, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that the incident could have been an Israeli false flag operation.

"We all need to be vigilant regarding Israeli false flag plots and operations aimed at undermining peace in the region," he wrote on X.

Araghchi also stressed that Egypt is "an important friend and strategic partner" of Iran and that its security is of great importance to Tehran.

A source in the Israel Defense Forces, meanwhile, said the accusations against Israel were baseless.

Reuters reported that the incident heightened concerns over shipping security around the Suez Canal, one of the world's most important maritime trade routes. After traffic through the Strait of Hormuz dropped sharply because of the war in Iran, the Suez Canal became one of the principal routes for Saudi oil exports. Following the attack, the London marine insurance market expanded its high-risk zone in the Red Sea, and Saudi Arabia announced the creation of an international coalition to protect maritime shipping.

Why the theory of retaliation against Ukraine emerged

According to media reports (1, 2), two days before the strike, Iranian state television aired a segment titled “What could be the targets of Iran's retaliation against Ukraine?”

Among the potential targets mentioned was the port of Damietta. The presenters claimed that the LNG terminal was a major export hub supplying gas to Europe. Iranian state media also warned of possible strikes on infrastructure connected to oil and gas exports to the European market.

After the attack, Reuters reported that some analysts viewed the incident as a possible Iranian response to a Ukrainian strike on an Iran-linked vessel in the Caspian Sea. The maritime security analytics firm Windward reached a similar conclusion. In its assessment, the attack appeared more consistent with an independent Iranian operation than with an action by the Houthis. The company argued that the strike signaled an expansion of the conflict's geographic scope — from the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea into the eastern Mediterranean.

At the same time, according to The New York Times, two Iranian officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the attack was intended to demonstrate Iran's ability, if it chose to do so, to cause far greater disruption to global shipping and energy supplies. They did not specify whether the operation had been carried out directly by Iran or by one of its allied groups.

Experts: The facility that was attacked did not export gas to Europe

However, gas infrastructure experts interviewed by The Insider say the target of the attack was not export infrastructure at all.

Alex Froley, an analyst at the Independent Commodity Intelligence Service (ICIS), explained to The Insider that the object damaged in the strike is not connected to the port’s export infrastructure:

"Energos Winter is used to convert liquefied natural gas back into its gaseous form before feeding it into Egypt's gas transmission system for Egyptian consumers. GasLog Salem was intended to serve as additional floating LNG storage to support imports through Energos Winter.”

Froley emphasized that the facility that liquefies natural gas for export is a completely separate installation.

Anne-Sophie Corbeau, a research scholar at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy, reached the same conclusion, saying that Damietta is home to two separate LNG facilities that are often confused:

"Energos Winter is an import terminal. Egypt has become a major LNG importer because of declining domestic gas production. This facility does not export LNG."

Corbeau told The Insider that a separate onshore LNG export plant, commissioned in 2005, is located nearby. Its design capacity is about 5.2 million metric tons per year — the same figure cited by Iranian media. However, she said the export plant is currently largely idle:

"Because of problems with domestic gas production, the export terminal is barely being used — there have been no LNG export shipments from it since 2024."

As a result, she said, the attack could not have had a direct impact on gas supplies to Europe:

"This attack has no direct or immediate impact on Europe because it was the import terminal that was targeted. The consequences are felt primarily by Egypt, which now faces greater difficulties importing LNG."

Corbeau's assessment is indirectly supported by Reuters, which noted that Egypt is no longer a major exporter of natural gas. As a result, the attack is unlikely to have the same impact on global energy markets as similar incidents elsewhere in the Middle East.

But the strike may still have carried a political message

At the same time, Corbeau does not rule out the idea that the strike carried symbolic significance.

According to her, development of Cyprus's Cronos gas field was recently announced, with production expected to begin in 2028. Once output starts, the gas is expected to be exported through the onshore LNG plant at Damietta — "so this could potentially have been a signal."

At the same time, she stressed that it is still impossible to draw conclusions about the motives of those behind the attack.