The foundation called Dobrokhotov “one of Russia’s most prominent independent journalists,” noting that his biography reflects “how Russia has evolved over the past decades from a relatively liberal society into an authoritarian one, where critical voices are threatened, silenced, or driven into exile.”

The foundation’s executive director, Stefan Seeger, stressed that even in Europe, Russians working to expose the Kremlin’s crimes “remain under threat from Vladimir Putin's long arm and his criminal intelligence services, just as Dobrokhotov does.”

The jury highlighted The Insider’s investigations into Russia’s July 2014 shootdown of flight MH17 over the Donbas, the activities of the Fancy Bear hacking group, the assassination attempts on Sergei Skripal and Alexei Navalny, the murder of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin’s Tiergarten, and the escape of fugitive former Wirecard executive Jan Marsalek from Austria to Russia. The foundation emphasized that these reports were produced “under the most difficult circumstances.”

The shortage of affordable housing is the most pressing problem facing people in European cities, according to a 2025 Eurobarometer survey. The study found that 51% of respondents identified housing as a major concern, ahead of unemployment (33%) and poverty (32%).

An increasing number of Europeans believe they will never be able to buy a home of their own, polls show. The Czech Republic recorded the highest level of pessimism, with 44% of respondents holding this view, followed by Slovenia (39%), Italy (35%), and Ireland (33%). In many cases, housing problems are the result of government policies designed to benefit investors rather than residents.

The housing crisis is also taking a toll on family formation. Young couples increasingly see parenthood as a luxury they cannot afford until they have secure housing. According to a Springer Nature study, the decline in birth rates across the EU since 2010 has been driven in large part by rising rents.

According to Eurofound, the share of employed young adults aged 25–34 in Ireland who were living with their parents because of high housing costs rose from 27% in 2017 to 40% in 2022. The corresponding figure increased by 11 percentage points in Portugal and by 7 percentage points in Spain.

For decades, the right to decent housing has been a cornerstone of Europe's social contract, and the public broadly believes it is the state's responsibility to protect that right. The same Eurobarometer survey found overwhelming support for government intervention: 88% of respondents want to see publicly funded renovation of the housing stock, 83% support direct subsidies for the construction of affordable housing, and 82% favor rent caps.

In March 2026, the European Parliament adopted a sweeping report on the housing crisis that exposed a deep ideological divide in Brussels. On one side, a coalition of center-right, liberal, and conservative lawmakers from the EPP, Renew, and ECR groups says deregulation is the solution. They propose streamlining construction permitting, attracting more private investment and institutional capital, and stepping up efforts to combat the illegal occupation of vacant properties. On the other side, the left and the Greens are calling for stronger social protections. Their platform seeks to recognize access to housing as a fundamental human right, curb speculation by investment funds, and introduce legally binding rent caps across Europe.

How much have housing prices risen?

Between 2010 and 2024, housing prices across the EU rose by 55%, while real household incomes increased by only 10–15%. According to the Deloitte Property Index 2025, Amsterdam ranks as Europe's least affordable housing market — there, the average apartment costs the equivalent of 15.4 years of income, just ahead of Athens (15.3) and Prague (15.0).  In the Netherlands, the monthly mortgage payment on an average home priced at more than €500,000 is about €2,500, while the average after-tax salary is €3,000.

Renting has become more expensive as well. In 2025, the average rent across Europe was 27.8% higher than in 2010. Over the same 15-year period, rents rose by 220% in Estonia, 184% in Lithuania, and 115% in Ireland. The trend in new lease agreements is even more striking: according to the real estate platform Idealista, rents across the EU increased by more than 30% between 2021 and 2025. In Bulgaria, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, and Spain, renting a standard two-bedroom apartment consumes more than 80% of the median salary of a young professional, while in popular tourist destinations the figure often exceeds 100%.

Why prices are rising

The rise in urban housing costs across the European Union has occurred despite an aging and shrinking population. This apparent paradox is explained by the fact that population decline is concentrated mainly in rural and peripheral regions, while major economic centers continue to grow thanks to an influx of both domestic and international migration. The situation is further compounded by changing household patterns: smaller household sizes and a growing share of people living alone require far more separate homes than in the past.

A shortage of supply

The main driver of the crisis is a severe shortage of new housing. According to CBRE, Europe is short about 9.6 million homes, equivalent to roughly 3.5% of the continent's housing stock. The European Commission estimates that meeting demand will require the construction of an additional 650,000 homes every year, requiring annual investment of about €153 billion. The gap between supply and demand continues to widen: between 2022 and 2025, the number of households in Europe's largest cities increased by 3.5%, while the housing stock grew by only 2.1%.

The pace of new building permits suggests that the shortage will not be resolved anytime soon. In 2024, permits either declined or failed to increase in nine of Europe's 12 largest housing markets, and in 2025 only 64% of the required number of homes were built. In Germany, which lacks 1.4 million homes, only about 200,000 are being built each year, even though eliminating the shortfall by 2030 would require annual construction of 400,000 homes.

Why is so little being built? The reasons are structural: inflation has driven up the cost of building materials and labor, permitting procedures remain cumbersome, and local residents often oppose new developments. These challenges are compounded by country-specific obstacles. In the Netherlands, for example, thousands of housing projects have been stalled in the courts because of nitrogen emissions regulations.

Rising demand

The population of major cities continues to grow thanks to migration — both domestic and foreign. According to a Springer Nature study, a 1% increase in population raises housing prices by roughly 0.25%. The influx of refugees after 2022, together with rising labor migration, has put additional pressure on housing markets, particularly in Germany, Poland, and the Baltic states. Migrants themselves are hit harder by the housing crisis than native-born residents. According to 2024 Eurostat data, 33% of people born outside the EU live in overcrowded housing, compared with 13.7% of the native-born population.

Another contributing factor is the changing composition of households. Demographers estimate that the growing number of people living alone, along with a later average age of marriage and a rising divorce rate, creates demand for hundreds of thousands of additional housing units across Europe every year.

Housing as an investment asset

A third driver of the crisis is the growing use of housing as a financial asset. According to a report by the European Central Bank, aggressive property acquisitions by institutional investors are driving up prices, increasing households' mortgage burdens, and weakening the link between wages and housing costs in local markets.

The share of institutional capital in the housing market is growing rapidly. According to JLL, investment in Europe's residential sector increased by 34% in 2024 and by another 22% in 2025, surpassing €70 billion. Foreign investment in residential assets rose by 55%, driven largely by buyers from the United States and Canada. Overall, the sector now accounts for 21% of all investment in Europe — double what it was in 2008.

During the recent period of high inflation, urban real estate has become investors' preferred store of value. Properties are increasingly being purchased to preserve capital against inflation rather than to generate rental income. As a result, part of the housing stock has effectively been taken off the market, with apartments left vacant as investment holdings.

How the crisis is affecting the rental market

The rental market is experiencing many of the same pressures as the homeownership market. Demand there is also rising faster than supply. Kate Everett-Allen, head of European research at Knight Frank, notes that many people who would normally have taken out a mortgage are now looking for rental housing instead. Landlords are also facing inflation, and those who financed their purchases with mortgages have been hit by higher interest rates, prompting them to pass those costs on to tenants.

Landlords, too, are feeling the effects of inflation and passing the costs on to tenants

Some investors prefer to avoid renting out their properties altogether — it has become increasingly difficult to evict tenants who stop paying rent, and as a result, even more properties are being left empty. Others have taken advantage of soaring property prices to lock in gains by selling. In 2024, a record 26% of landlords sold at least one investment property, while only 8% bought new ones.

In 2025, about 93,000 landlords exited the rental market in the United Kingdom, 43% more than the year before. Attractive sale prices, stricter tax rules, and new energy-efficiency requirements encouraged many to sell. As a consequence, average rents increased by 9–12% over the year, and each rental listing attracted about 10 prospective tenants. The United Kingdom is an extreme case, but similar trends can be seen in Germany, the Netherlands, and Ireland.

Short-term rentals are also widely viewed as part of the problem. In tourist destinations, many property owners prefer to rent to visitors, earning enough during the high season to cover their annual costs. Tourism and short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb do contribute to this trend, but their role is often overstated by politicians.

How governments are responding

Addressing the housing crisis has finally been recognized as a top-level policy priority. In December 2025, the European Commission presented the European Affordable Housing Plan, which is built around four pillars: increasing housing supply, attracting investment, supporting the most vulnerable participants in the housing market, and implementing structural reforms. Between 2026 and 2027, the EU plans to mobilize about €10 billion from its budget, while partner financial institutions are expected to raise up to €375 billion by 2029. At the same time, EU-wide rules for short-term rental platforms took effect in May 2026 requiring services such as Airbnb to share data on listings and rental activity with local authorities.

Encouraging home purchases

Governments are using a range of measures to encourage home purchases. France, Poland, Spain, and several others offer subsidized mortgages and financial assistance for young families, while Germany has launched its Climate Loan (KfW) program to support the purchase of energy-efficient homes.

To ease pressure from investment demand, several countries have introduced restrictions on foreign buyers. Portugal has phased out its "golden visa" program for property purchases, describing it as one of the factors making housing less affordable. Denmark and the Netherlands have tightened purchasing rules for non-residents, with cities including Amsterdam now requiring buyers to occupy homes themselves rather than rent them out. The Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary are discussing a tax on vacant investment properties.

Lowering rents

In February 2020, Berlin's authorities took the radical step of freezing rents for 90% of the city's housing stock for five years. The number of apartments available on the open market declined noticeably as a result. In April 2021, however, Germany's Constitutional Court struck down the law.

Barcelona has instead focused on short-term rentals. By 2028, the city plans to revoke about 10,000 tourist rental licenses, significantly shrinking the legal market for short-term accommodations. A similar approach is emerging in Budapest, where residents of the city's 6th District (Terézváros) voted in a referendum to ban short-term rentals through platforms such as Airbnb. Florence has completely halted the registration of new short-term rental properties in its historic center, and Amsterdam and other tourist destinations have also imposed strict limits on the number of nights homeowners may rent out their properties through such platforms.

Vienna has adopted a more systemic approach. Municipal and cooperative housing accounts for about 40–45% of the city's entire housing stock. According to the city authorities, as many as 75–80% of residents meet the income requirements to qualify for such housing. Rents in the municipal sector are significantly below market rates, while long-term, stable lease agreements reduce the risk of displacement and help mitigate the effects of gentrification.

Some governments have also explored giving priority in the rental market to young people who were born and raised in a particular city. This approach is championed by Sinn Féin, which argues that young people should have the right to remain in their own communities. Critics warn, however, that giving preference to "locals" conflicts with the principle of equal opportunity for citizens from other parts of the country, potentially undermining their fundamental right to mobility within the EU.

Why these policies are falling short

Europe's experience paints a discouraging picture. Most of the obvious policy tools have only a limited impact or create new problems. Subsidies and preferential mortgages drive up prices when housing construction fails to keep pace. When governments inject money into a market with a fixed supply, sellers simply raise prices, meaning the subsidy benefits them rather than homebuyers. Rent freezes reduce supply. The legal rental market shrinks, while the gray market expands through unofficial "furniture fees" and dual-contract arrangements.

Restrictions on Airbnb have done little to lower housing costs. In Amsterdam and Barcelona, where short-term rentals have been regulated since 2018–2019, long-term rents have increased by 34% and 37%, respectively. In Barcelona, the number of vacant apartments has grown to roughly eight times the number of properties listed for short-term rentals.

Restrictions on Airbnb have done little to lower housing costs

Reducing the number of short-term rental apartments in Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich did not lead to lower long-term rents. According to the authors of a report by the European Parliament's Special Committee on the Housing Crisis, such restrictions are effective at returning some properties to the local housing stock, but their overall impact on reducing rental and home purchase prices is limited.

Why don't Airbnb restrictions work? Many landlords are reluctant to rent to long-term tenants because of the risks of non-payment and the difficulty of eviction. Instead, they move to other platforms and rent properties on a monthly basis to digital nomads and students. In addition, a study by the IZA and Nova School of Business examining Lisbon found that banning short-term rentals reduces prices only in the neighborhoods directly affected by the restrictions — and by no more than 8–9% — while leaving the broader rental market unchanged. The underlying problem is not Airbnb — it is housing supply.

Europe's experience suggests that the only sustainable way to reduce housing costs is to increase supply on a large scale. That means speeding up the permitting process, developing underused land (including parking lots, abandoned industrial sites, and vacant plots near transport hubs), and taxing vacant investment properties to bring idle housing back onto the market.

"Not in my backyard"

The housing crisis has also become a source of division at the local level, splitting neighborhoods and municipalities into two camps whose names have come to define urban planning debates: "Not In My Backyard" (NIMBY) and "Yes In My Backyard" (YIMBY).

The first movement emerged in the 1970s and is made up largely of homeowners, older residents, and the established middle class. They are not opposed to new housing in principle, but they argue that it should not come at the expense of their quality of life or be built in their immediate neighborhood.

The opposing camp emerged much more recently in response to the housing crisis. It is driven by younger people, long-term renters, urban planners, and progressive economists. Their reasoning is the opposite: if more housing needs to be built, they are willing to accept greater density because cities are suffering from a critical shortage of homes.

From their perspective, unless sparsely populated neighborhoods are developed more intensively, rents will continue to rise and younger generations will never be able to afford housing. At the same time, they are not calling for drab concrete apartment blocks, but for “smart density” — well-designed mid-rise neighborhoods, the repeal of outdated zoning rules, and the transformation of inefficient spaces, parking lots, and abandoned warehouses into vibrant, walkable communities.

The debate plays out on three fronts: finance, psychology, and politics. The NIMBY ideal is preservation. For its supporters, housing is their primary asset, one they expect to keep appreciating. Their activism is concentrated at the local level: they organize as homeowners, hire lawyers, and often block new developments in the courts for years.

The YIMBY vision, by contrast, is that of a vibrant, inclusive "15-minute city" where land is used as efficiently as possible. Politically, the movement expresses itself through street protests against rising housing costs and support for parties that promise to cut red tape around construction. By 2026, Europe's political momentum had shifted toward the YIMBY camp. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, governments have passed legislation preventing municipalities from vetoing housing developments that comply with national housing strategies.

At the same time, it was the NIMBY movement that pushed governments to impose stricter oversight on developers and helped preserve architectural heritage from the excesses of 20th-century modernization. The classic example was the campaign to save Greenwich Village in New York in the 1960s, when the city's master planner, Robert Moses, proposed building a massive 10-lane expressway across Lower Manhattan, demolishing the historic neighborhoods of SoHo and Little Italy in the process.

Local activist Jane Jacobs organized the opposition. Residents staged protests and disrupted public hearings, ultimately forcing the city to abandon the highway project. Jacobs later wrote The Death and Life of Great American Cities, a landmark work that transformed modern thinking about urban planning.

Europe has its own example. In the 1970s, activists saved part of central Amsterdam that city authorities planned to demolish to make way for urban expressways. Local residents and squatters barricaded streets and clashed with police on a large scale, ultimately forcing the government to abandon its plans to remake the city center around the needs of automobiles.

What happens if the problem goes unresolved?

The housing crisis has long since ceased to be merely an economic issue — it has become a political one. In Dublin, the situation has boosted support for the left-wing party Sinn Féin, while in Amsterdam it has fueled the rightward shift associated with Geert Wilders. When governments fail to provide people with access to housing, public trust in the political system erodes, opening the door to political extremism.

The concept of welfare chauvinism is also gaining ground in urban policy — the idea that social benefits should be reserved for "our own people" or "locals" at the expense of outsiders. Traditionally, the term has referred mainly to immigrants, but in the housing debate it is increasingly being applied to people moving from other parts of the same country as well.

Welfare chauvinism — the idea of reserving benefits for "locals" at the expense of outsiders — is increasingly shaping urban policy

When cities such as Dubrovnik or Barcelona give priority to local residents, they create a zero-sum system in which one person's success in securing housing depends directly on someone else's exclusion. Favoring locally born young people is often justified as a way to preserve social cohesion, but in practice it risks producing the opposite effect: cities become closed clubs for either the wealthy or those fortunate enough to have been born there.

Unless the trend is reversed, Europe risks entrenching a new class divide based not on income but on property ownership. Older generations who bought homes in the 1980s and 1990s continue to accumulate wealth as land values rise, while younger people remain trapped in an increasingly expensive cycle of permanent renting. The European Commission's decision to create, for the first time, the post of a dedicated Commissioner for Housing is itself an acknowledgment that the crisis can no longer be solved by relying on national governments alone.

In 2023, a Nizhny Novgorod toolmaking plant opened by Gühring in 2016 came under the management of Mobula, a company owned by Yury Gulyayev, the director of Gühring’s former Russian branch. After the German company’s declared withdrawal, the former hired manager founded a company that immediately reached billion-ruble turnover. Despite claims that the two companies are independent of each other, Mobula’s catalog consists entirely of items from the Gühring KG catalog.

How Russian sellers of Gühring tools are linked to the German company

In February 2024, The Insider reported on the work in Russia of Gühring LLC (ООО «Гюринг»), a subsidiary of Germany’s Gühring KG that was later renamed Instrumentalnaya Kompaniya Gut LLC, or Tool Company Gut. Its parent company, Gühring KG, makes high-precision tools from hard alloys, cermet, and diamond for metalworking. The company’s annual revenue exceeds 1 billion euros, and it employs more than 8,000 people. Despite promises to wind down its Russian business, Gühring KG’s Russian subsidiary imported at least $20.98 million worth of goods into Russia after June 2022, the vast majority of them made by Gühring KG. They included drills, milling cutters, cermet, and threading tools. In October 2024, Tool Company Gut was placed under U.S. sanctions.

Representatives of the German office told The Insider that they had deconsolidated the Russian division. According to Gühring representatives, the term in German commercial law means that a company that had previously been part of a corporate group no longer appears on its balance sheet. They said the parent company had stopped influencing the former branch’s policies or receiving information about its activities, and that the connection between them remained purely formal. The company denied supplying any products to Russia, directly or indirectly.

But the way the deconsolidation was carried out raises questions. Russian court materials show that in February 2022, Gühring LLC had an active contract with the Chelyabinsk Forge-and-Press Plant, or ChKPZ, and later continued deliveries under that contract. ChKPZ produces Hartung heavy-duty semi-trailers with carrying capacities of 26 to 60 metric tons. Russia uses them in its war against Ukraine to move armored vehicles including tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and self-propelled artillery systems, and to deliver heavy engineering or construction equipment to the combat zone. In response to The Insider’s inquiry, Gühring representatives said they had deconsolidated the Russian company on June 30, 2022, and that the German company had lost all rights of influence and control over the Russian company. But Gühring LLC continued supplying ChKPZ while it was still under the German company’s control. The court decision cited above lists an act worth 797,739 rubles and 60 kopecks ($10,300), as well as several specifications totaling more than 950,000 rubles ($12, 250).

Shortly before that, in December 2021, Gühring LLC went to court to recover debt under an earlier contract with the Beriev Taganrog Aviation Scientific and Technical Complex. The company later signed several more supply contracts with plants including Zvezda PJSC, the Dimitrovgrad Foundry Plant, and the M.I. Kalinin Machine-Building Plant PJSC.

If the German side’s claims about deconsolidation are accurate, it means Gühring effectively handed the new owner of the Russian division active contracts with Russian industrial companies along with the toolmaking plant at no cost. (More information on the plants using Gühring products is listed below.)

Despite the statement that ties had been severed, Tool Company Gut continued to receive products from the parent company, handling customs clearance itself. In April 2022, Tool Company Gut filed a declaration of conformity for milling cutters made by Gühring, and in August 2023 it filed two more declarations for metal cabinets with drawers for storing and automatically dispensing tools. The declarations show, among other things, that employees of the former Gühring company continued using email addresses on the Guhring.ru domain.

Independent companies of an independent director

The Insider found two more Russian companies linked to Gühring’s Russian branch. In 2016, Gühring Management GmbH created Yug Instrument LLC (ООО «Юг Инструмент»). The company was located in the same building as Tool Company Gut and used the same contact phone number. Yug Instrument’s revenue rose from 159 million rubles in 2021 to 254 million rubles in 2022, but that figure fell to 38 million rubles in 2023. The company was liquidated in 2024.

But it did not disappear entirely. The same phone number, as well as neighboring premises in the same business center on Zeleny Prospekt, are used by Mobula LLC. That  company’s director and sole beneficiary is Gühring’s Russian branch chief Yury Gulyayev.

By its second year of operation, Mobula’s revenue was nearly double the peak figure recorded by Gühring LLC — 1.292 billion rubles, in 2020. Mobula’s revenue in 2023, its first year of operation, was 803 million rubles. In 2024, the company earned 2.374 billion rubles. And in 2025, it was 1.926 billion rubles. At least part of that revenue came from the sale of original Gühring products. On Dec. 4, 2023, Mobula received a declaration for carbide milling cutters made of high-speed steel with working parts made of artificial diamonds produced by Gühring KG. The suppliers of the German products were India’s Victools Inc. and China’s Shanghai Zhuangyu Mechanical and Electrical Equipment Co., which exported 690 kilograms of Gühring tools to Russia with an invoice value of more than 28 million rubles. In its financial statements, Mobula directly listed Gühring’s Russian subsidiary, Tool Company Gut, as a related party.

The extent of the connection between Gulyayev’s Mobula LLC and the Gühring business is clearest from the two companies’ product ranges. Mobula’s catalog includes the Gühring SuperLine range, sold in Russia under an alternative brand, SuperGut. The item numbers for all SuperGut products are identical to those of Gühring products, and each of the 25 product lines has a direct equivalent in the German company’s original catalog.

The speed of Mobula’s growth points to outside sources of financing far beyond the financial capacity of its sole owner. Yury Gulyayev spent his entire career as a hired employee and, despite an annual income of several million rubles, appeared in the Federal Bailiff Service’s anti-creditor database in 2017 and 2018. One year after Gühring left Russia, Gulyayev was able to create a large-scale business with billion-ruble turnover while relying only minimally on bank loans.

At the same time, Mobula’s main cash inflow came not from trade and business operations but from investment activity — 44.39 billion rubles ($571.6 million) in 2025 alone. The entire sum was recorded under the line “from repayment of loans granted, from sale of debt securities, or rights to claim funds from other persons.” Meanwhile, payments under the financial statement line “other payments,” which usually reflects insignificant payments made by a company, totaled 43.96 billion rubles.

Natalya Mukhina, head of monitoring and assessment at Transparency International Russia, said the most likely explanation for such a cash flow structure is the presence of a large settlement circuit for purchases and resale in wholesale trade, including under agency agreements or other intermediary models serving third parties. In that case, outgoing payments could reflect purchases for the company’s current operations, while corresponding inflows may have been classified as investment activity because of the legal form of the transaction, such as return of placement, repayment of a debt instrument, closure of a claim right, or another short-term financial mechanism.

How a “German” plant continues operating in Nizhny Novgorod

In 2016, two years after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Gühring opened the first part of a plant producing metalworking tools in Nizhny Novgorod. Investment in the launch totaled 6 million euros. Gulyayev, the previously mentioned director of Gühring’s Russian branch, said the plant’s production capacity was 3,000 tools a month with diameters from 2.5 to 33 millimeters. The second and third stages of production were scheduled to launch by 2020.

The plant, built with German funds and German expertise, continues to operate — under the management of Gulyayev’s Mobula LLC. The facility is located at 1 Smirnova St., the same address listed as a service division on Mobula’s website and in the company’s financial statements. The company, founded in 2023, says it has “the largest fleet in Russia of seven-axis CNC grinding machines for producing precision axial metalworking tools.”

The ratio between imported products and tool production in Nizhny Novgorod can be assessed from Mobula’s accounting statements. The total value of the organization’s inventories as of Dec. 31, 2025, was 407 million rubles. Almost 260 million rubles of that was goods purchased for resale, meaning products made by other manufacturers. Finished products of Mobula’s own production were valued at 64 million rubles, while another 83 million rubles were materials for production.

Who uses Gühring products in Russia

Tool Company Gut’s Nizhny Novgorod division is located at 95 Lenin Prospekt, in the same building as the museum of the Gorky Automobile Plant and adjacent to the plant’s territory. Although most deliveries to Russian defense plants are classified, The Insider found more than 280 contracts for the purchase of Gühring products signed by Russian state enterprises, most of which belong to the country’s military-industrial complex.

Although most of those deliveries were made through intermediary firms, their volume and consistency suggest that Gühring knew who the end users of its products were. For example, JSC Salyut Gas Turbine Engineering Research and Production Center first bought tools worth 1.5 million euros directly from Gühring’s branch, then switched to buying them through intermediaries, such as Production and Commercial Firm Tekhnologiya LLC. The plant produces gas turbine aircraft engines for Su-27, Su-30, and Su-33 fighter jets.

Tekhnologiya also replaced Gühring as a supplier for another defense plant, JSC Instrument Design Bureau named after Academician A.G. Shipunov. The Tula-based enterprise is part of the High Precision Systems holding and produces Pantsir-S1 air defense gun-missile systems, BMP-2M Berezhok infantry fighting vehicles, Kornet and Fagot anti-tank missile systems, and Krasnopol-M guided artillery munitions. On June 1, 2016, the Tula plant signed a 721,000-ruble contract with Gühring LLC for the supply of Gühring carbide rods. On Oct. 18, 2017, a 290,000-ruble contract for Gühring milling cutters was signed with Tekhnologiya. The old Gühring intermediary’s website lists products made by the German manufacturer as available.

At least some of the enterprises continued buying Gühring products after the start of the full-scale war. On June 29, 2023, JSC Academician N.A. Pilyugin Research and Production Center of Automation and Instrument Engineering purchased Gühring drills worth 1.3 million rubles. The company makes control systems for rocket and space technology, from Proton launch vehicles to the Topol-M missile system. The same plant signed three more contracts worth 2 million rubles for the purchase of “Gühring tools or equivalents.”

Gühring KG’s response

In response to The Insider’s inquiry, Gühring representatives said the company had deconsolidated its Russian entity on June 30, 2022, and that the German company had lost all rights of influence and control over the Russian firm. Asked about active contracts with defense plants that were transferred to the Russian company’s new owner, Gühring insisted that after deconsolidation it retained no legal or practical means of influencing the former subsidiary.

Gühring said it had checked the two companies that supplied German tools to Mobula. The review found that Gühring’s Indian branch did not supply products to the Indian exporter Victools Inc. The other supplier, China’s Shanghai Zhuangyu Mechanical and Electrical Equipment Co., has worked with Gühring since 2024, but “no violations were identified during the company’s review,” Gühring said.

Asked whether Gühring planned to sue the former head of its branch, who is selling billions of rubles’ worth of German tools, the German company said it could not bring claims against third parties in connection with the matter because it does not conduct commercial activity in Russia.

This article was prepared as part of the MOST project (Media Organizations for Stronger Transnational Journalism), a journalism partnership funded by the Creative Europe program, which supports independent media specializing in international journalism.

According to official data from Rosstat, Russia’s state statistics agency, average gasoline prices across the country rose 3% in the week of June 16-22 — the largest weekly jump in the past 20 years. From June 23 to 29, Rosstat announced, gasoline prices in Russia rose another 1.6%, while diesel fuel rose 2.2%.

The independent outlet Vot Tak reported that the cost of freight deliveries to Russian-occupied Crimea had risen by a factor of between three and six.

Public transportation, taxis, freight, and air travel are getting more expensive

Economist Maksim Blant said gasoline itself was the first thing to rise in price.

“At the price recorded by Rosstat, you cannot actually fill your tank,” Blant said. “That is the price posted at a gas station, even if there is no gasoline there. [Finance Minister Anton] Siluanov was asked about rising gasoline prices, and he said only independent gas stations were raising prices, while chains owned by vertically integrated holdings were keeping prices steady. But at such chains — Gazprom Neft, Lukoil, Rosneft, and so on — there is either no gasoline, or only a limited amount per vehicle. They also do not fill canisters.

Public transport fares have already risen in a number of regions, and taxi drivers are leaving the sector en masse. They simply cannot refuel — the prices at which they can fill up do not pay off against what they earn. Transport companies that carry goods by truck, including from China, have already started warning of higher freight rates, and some have begun reducing the number of trips. The same applies to freight shipments in southern Russia. Air travel is also getting more expensive, partly because of a shortage of jet fuel. That creates some risks, because airports sometimes close during drone raids, and planes may simply be unable to reach their destinations.”

The fuel crisis is affecting all goods in all sectors of the economy

“Freight transport is a significant component of almost every sector of the economy, starting with bread, which has to be delivered, and ending with all other goods,” Blant said. “Transporting bread is unprofitable because bread is cheap and gasoline is expensive. Late last year, bakeries were already saying that under the current price controls on socially important food products, they were beginning to lose money because they are not allowed to raise prices sharply, while transport costs, labor costs, and other expenses are gradually rising, reducing profitability. They deal with it in different ways. Some honestly admit they are starting to use lower-quality flour, and that affects the quality of the bread.

At the end of July, the Central Bank will assess the inflationary consequences for the entire Russian economy. The cheaper your product, the more noticeable transport costs will be in its final price.”

Economist Ruben Enikolopov agreed that higher fuel costs will affect almost all goods.

“Fuel prices affect almost all goods to one degree or another,” Enikolopov said. “Transportation is part of the sales process for any physical item. We will see this in the overall inflation rate. It is difficult to single out particular categories of goods, but it will affect trade between regions first. Long-haul truckers who transport goods are especially sensitive to supply disruptions. so the market will now become unbalanced. When things calm down, fuel prices will rise to levels where there is at least no shortage. But that will be reflected in the cost of almost all goods.”

The budget crisis deepens

Blant said rising fuel prices have a significant impact on Russia’s state budget.

“Previous food crises were extinguished in one way: officials traveled around the world looking for suppliers to fill the Russian market with scarce goods. Something similar is now happening with gasoline. From the very beginning of the strikes, they reached an agreement with Belarus. The scheme works like this: Russian oil companies supply Belarus with oil, then Belarus processes it for a fee and returns gasoline or diesel fuel. They are trying to persuade Kazakhstan to work under the same scheme.

Still, the gap between domestic prices and the prices at which this gasoline will have to be bought is quite large, and it will be compensated from the Russian budget through the so-called fuel damper mechanism, under which the government compensates major oil companies for profits they lose by selling cheap gasoline inside Russia instead of more expensive oil abroad. The same damper will be used to hold down gasoline prices. After the March price increases caused by the war in the Persian Gulf, this fuel damper led to the federal budget being drawn up with a deficit despite excess oil revenues. Now, with low oil prices, using this damper will put even more pressure on Russia’s budget. The hole is already huge, and of this will contribute to the further development of the budget crisis.”

Bond prices have fallen

“Problems on the Russian stock market began after the Central Bank’s last meeting,” Blant said. “The issue is that bonds, including government bonds, fell in price, so the state will have to borrow at much higher rates than in calmer times. Every time the issue of widening the budget hole arises, the cost of borrowing for the state rises, and raising money becomes more difficult. A week ago, the Finance Ministry was forced to cancel an auction for federal loan bonds because investors demanded a yield the ministry could not afford.

In effect, this is another element adding to the financial crisis. The general inflationary backdrop reduces the likelihood that the Central Bank will continue cutting rates, meaning loans will get cheaper more slowly. Heavily indebted Russian companies are waiting for rates to fall so they can refinance on easier terms, but their expectations will be disappointed. The number of defaults on corporate bonds in Russia is rising, and that growth will continue. Everyone is waiting for a rate cut like manna from heaven, but it still does not come... Business elites, the business community, and a significant share of officials are in a state of serious hangover. The fuel crisis is a kind of perfect storm, where every possible problem for Russia converges in one place. Still, the main thing is that there is no end in sight, and that end no longer depends on Putin.”

Prices will remain high even after normalization

Enikolopov said there is little reason to expect fuel prices to fall soon.

“Normalization can be divided into two stages,” he said. “The first is eliminating the shortage — fuel will become available, but at significantly higher prices. The second stage is restoring fuel production and releasing supply. Then prices may possibly go down, but that is still far off. I think we should now expect high fuel prices to stabilize.”

Russia’s Gini coefficient stood at 0.82 at the end of 2025, slightly behind that of the United Arab Emirates. South Africa and Brazil followed with coefficients of 0.81, Saudi Arabia was in fifth place at 0.77, and the United States was next at 0.77. 

In line with the UBS report, the number of Russia’s wealthiest citizens continues to grow. The number of dollar-denominated millionaires in Russia rose by 5.2% in 2025, reaching 447,000. Alexei Mordashov, the largest shareholder in the metallurgy and mining company Severstal, ranked first among Russian billionaires in Forbes’ 2026 list. Over the course of the year, he became $8.1 billion richer, and his fortune exceeded its prewar level for the first time, reaching $37 billion, compared with $29 billion in 2021. UBS estimates that Russia has 122 dollar billionaires, placing it fifth in the world after the United States, China, India, and Germany.

Russia is also among the world leaders in wealth growth. Since the start of the decade, average real wealth per adult in Russia has risen by 37%. By that measure, Russia trails only South Korea, where growth exceeded 55%. Several developed economies, by contrast, recorded declines in average wealth. The figure fell by 23.2% in the UK, in the Netherlands the drop was 14.4%, and in France it was 4.5%.

Overall, UBS described the past year as one of the strongest in history for global wealth. The total wealth of the world’s population rose by 10.8%, while the number of dollar millionaires reached 57.5 million. Nearly 1 million new millionaires were added over the course of the year, meaning more than 2,680 new millionaires appeared each day on average. The combined wealth of billionaires worldwide rose by nearly 25% on average, and UBS estimated their total number at 3,302 people. The report’s authors cited resilient financial markets and rising real estate prices as the main drivers of wealth growth.

Despite that increase, people with large fortunes remain a small group globally. UBS said only 1.5% of the world’s adult population holds assets worth more than $1 million, while another 15.3% have wealth between $100,000 and $1 million. At the same time, 41.1% of people worldwide have wealth between $10,000 and $100,000, and 42.1% have no more than $10,000.

“Starting from August–September of this year, the company will begin refining crude oil of entirely non-Russian origin. This will open doors to high-margin markets for products manufactured by Black Sea Petroleum,” the statement said.

The BSP statement said the company processed more than 650,000 metric tons of crude in the first six months of the year. Under current plans, it will begin producing road bitumen in the first quarter of 2027 for both the domestic market and export. The plant is also expected to add capacity for aviation fuel production.

In March, BSP CEO and co-founder David Potskhveria said the company planned to replace Russian oil with Turkmen crude and later with supplies from Kazakhstan and other countries. He said the shift was necessary in order to enter the European Union market, but that BSP had faced difficulties arranging the transport of oil from Turkmenistan through Azerbaijan.

The Kulevi refinery, which received its first tanker in October 2025,  is Georgia’s only full-cycle crude oil processing plant. In January 2026, Georgia exported $56 million worth of petroleum products, a 3,300% increase from the same period a year earlier. The Insider previously reported on links between Russia and the family of the refinery’s owner, along with the fact that oil was delivered to the plant by vessels that make up part of its “shadow fleet” — a collection of ageing, poorly maintained tankers that Moscow uses to skirt price restrictions and international sanctions imposed after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In February, the EU promised to include the port of Kulevi in its next package of sanctions against Russia, but it soon reversed the decision. “This initial position has been reassessed following the positive commitments that [Georgia’s] authorities and the port operator have taken,” EU sanctions envoy David O’Sullivan said in a letter to Georgia’s Foreign Ministry.

Fake videos disguised as content from reputable Western media brands push a single narrative: the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) is behind the bombing, and Yermolaiev was targeted because he allegedly planned to testify to Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) regarding the activities of Volodymyr Zelensky. While there is no evidence that Yermolaiev ever intended to cooperate with NABU, the bots repeat this fiction across videos as if it were a fact.

Key narratives of the campaign include:

• Monaco police chief Éric Arella (a real person who has headed the principality’s Public Security Department since September 2024) allegedly stated that “this is not the first time Zelensky has had his opponents killed in Europe.” Arella is quoted as saying that all killings in Europe since 2023 should be viewed “as a single series of crimes” perpetrated by Ukrainian intelligence services. However, there is no independent evidence suggesting that Arella actually said this.
• Polish intelligence allegedly shared data with Monegasque police “proving” the SBU’s involvement in the assassination attempt. The video claims that Poland’s Internal Security Agency announced this on June 30, and that Monaco police purportedly confirmed receiving the information. However, there is no independent evidence suggesting that this actually happened.
• Institute for the Study of War (ISW) president Kimberly Kagan (a real person, who is indeed the founder and head of ISW) allegedly called the assassination attempt “just the beginning of a series of terrorist attacks carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine.” Kagan is quoted as saying that European leaders are “in a corrupt collusion with Zelensky” and “have given him free rein.” However, there is no independent evidence suggesting that Kagan ever said anything of the sort.
• AI tools allegedly “confirmed” Zelensky’s involvement in the assassination attempt. A video attributed to Wired claims that the outlet’s “experts” fed Yermolaiev’s biography to chatbots: ChatGPT supposedly rated the probability of Ukrainian intelligence involvement at 98%, Grok at 99%, and DeepSeek at 100%. However, there is no independent evidence suggesting that Wired did anything of the sort.
• Politico editor-in-chief Jonathan Greenberger (a real journalist who heads the publication) allegedly called the assassination attempt “a slap in the face to Volodymyr Zelensky’s political partners.” Greenberg is quoted as saying that Zelensky “feels he is the top dog in Europe and no one will punish him for what he’s done.” However, there is no independent evidence suggesting that Greenberger said this.
• Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins (a real person) allegedly stated that France was involved in the assassination attempt. A video under the investigative group’s brand claims that French security services “were responsible for smuggling in the explosives,” and that the perpetrator was “an agent of the Security Service of Ukraine who was subsequently evacuated.” Higgins is also quoted as saying that Yermolaiev “was privy to the corruption schemes involving the Ukrainian leader and Emmanuel Macron, which involved the laundering of money from military aid.” However, there is no independent evidence suggesting that Higgins or Bellingcat commented on the incident.

The Insider has links to the original posts and Antibot4Navalny materials confirming that the accounts that posted them belong to the Matryoshka network. The editorial team is not publishing direct links in order to avoid spreading the fakes.

What happened in Monaco?

On the evening of June 29, an explosion occurred in the entryway of a residential building on Rue Révérend Père Louis Frolla in Monaco, near the French border. An unknown individual left a bag containing an explosive device packed with bolts and buckshot at the entrance, then fled. Three people were injured, identified by French media as Yermolaiev himself, his female companion, and his 13-year-old son. The woman suffered serious injuries and was in critical condition; Yermolaiev was stabilized by medics relatively soon after the blast.

Monaco’s Attorney General, Stéphane Thibaut, described the incident as an attempted murder and said the suspect acted alone and remains at large. According to police, he fled to French territory through the border town of Beausoleil. His motive has not been established.

The Ukrainian businessman’s elder son, Artur Yermolayev, was convicted in Estonia this past April for organizing a network of fraudulent call centers that stole more than €100 million from citizens between 2019 and 2022. He reached a plea deal, paid €8.5 million, and left Estonia.

Vadym Yermolaiev himself is a native of Dnipro and founder of the Alef Corporation, one of the city’s largest developers. According to Yermolaiev himself, he renounced his Ukrainian citizenship and has held only a Cypriot passport since 2017. In December 2023, Zelensky imposed sanctions against him, and according to Ukrainian law enforcement, alcohol businesses linked to the businessman re-registered under Russian law after the occupation of Crimea and paid taxes to the Russian budget. Yermolaiev denied the allegation.

What is Matryoshka?

Researchers use the term “Matryoshka” to refer to a Russian cyberoperation involved in the mass spread of disinformation through a coordinated infrastructure of bots, trolls, and anonymous platforms. Its goal is to create artificial information noise and manipulate the perception of events both within Russia and abroad. The Antibot4Navalny project named the operation after the Russian nesting doll, as bots hide inside one another, and fakes spread in layers across different platforms, making the source difficult to trace.

The mechanism operates in two directions. The first is the creation of large numbers of fake profiles that pose as ordinary people, independent media outlets, or think tanks. These accounts generate dozens of posts daily, mimicking local speech patterns. The second is the simultaneous release of identical content across social media. To appear credible, the bots use the logos of well-known Western publications and human rights organizations.

The ship was stopped on March 6 off Sweden's southern coast while traveling from Casablanca to St. Petersburg under the Guinean flag — which Swedish authorities determined that it had no legal right to fly. Following the ships detention, inspectors also discovered numerous technical faults aboard Caffa.

The captain was arrested for using forged maritime certificates but was later released. The cargo ship itself, however, is to be transferred to Ukraine as part of an investigation into the alleged war crime of exporting grain from occupied territories. State prosecutor Håkan Larsson explained the decision as follows: “If the circumstances described by the Ukrainian side were transposed into the Swedish legal system, we believe they would be classified in Sweden as a war crime.”

The reason Caffa was seized and transferred to Ukraine was not its cargo but the false flag it was flying, explains Eugene Kontorovich, a law professor at George Mason University, in an interview with The Insider:

“Using a false flag makes Caffa a stateless vessel and allows it to be detained regardless of its cargo. The seizure of stateless vessels is not unusual. For example, the United States uses this mechanism to combat drug trafficking at sea. In this case, it was applied quite creatively to target Russia's so-called shadow fleet.”

There are grounds to argue that the vessels themselves may be subject to confiscation because they were used to transport illegally exported grain, adds maritime law expert Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg, professor emeritus at European University Viadrina in Germany. “Such an approach would be permissible if the confiscation were carried out by the other party to the conflict. However, I am not convinced that third countries have the authority to do so.”

Ukraine itself has previously confiscated vessels involved in transporting grain from occupied Crimea. However, this is the first time that a court in a European country has issued such a ruling. In any event, officials in Kyiv welcomed the news enthusiastically.

“When our authorities sent Sweden a request for mutual legal assistance, we thought they would simply invite Ukrainian prosecutors to take part in the investigative actions. Instead, they did everything themselves,” says Kateryna Yaresko of the SeaKrime investigative project run by the MyrotvoretsCenter.

Controversy in Israel

SeaKrime volunteers use open-source information and contacts inside ports to track Russia's maritime exports from the occupied territories of Ukraine. With the exception of a few shipments of coal from Mariupol, the cargo is almost always agricultural products. An investigation by Kateryna Yaresko and her colleagues sparked a scandal this spring after a Russian cargo ship carrying Crimean wheat unloaded in Haifa, Israel.

On April 12, the cargo ship Abinsk docked at the Port of Haifa in order to unload 43,765 tons of wheat. The entire shipment was declared as Russian. However, SeaKrime obtained several documents confirming that the grain had in fact originated in occupied Crimea (copies have been reviewed by The Insider).

Under normal circumstances, Abinsk serves as a floating grain elevator in the Kerch Strait. Smaller vessels bring grain from Russian and occupied Ukrainian ports, transferring their cargo to Abinsk directly at sea.

SeaKrime established that the cargo ship Leonid Pestrikov had loaded 7,500 tons of wheat in Kerch before transferring the cargo to Abinsk. Shortly afterward, Abinsk departed for Haifa. Despite protests from Ukraine and a series of reports in Israeli and international media, the vessel was allowed to unload its cargo and sail away without incident.

Abinsk was followed to Haifa by another cargo ship, PANORMITIS — a Greek-owned vessel sailing under the Panamanian flag. According to SeaKrime, part of its cargo had also been loaded from Leonid Pestrikov in an occupied Ukrainian port. This time, however, the investigators had no documentary evidence. According to the official paperwork, the wheat and barley on board were of Russian origin.

Nevertheless, both international and domestic pressure on Israel intensified. Ukraine threatened to seek European sanctions against companies purchasing the grain, and the NGO Israeli Friends of Ukraine organized a protest outside the offices of wholesale grain traders. As a result, the buyer refused the shipment, PANORMITIS was denied entry to the Port of Haifa, and the port of Ashdod announced that it would not accept Russian or Ukrainian grain until it received instructions from the government.

Food dependence

Although there have been growing calls in Israel to stop buying Russian grain altogether, doing so is practically impossible. The Middle East and North Africa have traditionally relied on Russian and Ukrainian grain shipped through the Black Sea. However, following the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukraine redirected much of its exports to Europe, leaving importers with few alternative suppliers.

As recently as 2021, Ukrainian wheat and barley barely reached Europe. By the 2023–2024 marketing year, however, 57% of Ukraine's grain exports were destined for the European Union. In the 2024–2025 season, the EU's share declined to 44% as Ukrainian producers regained access to maritime export routes. Wheat and barley once again began flowing to China, Libya, and the Middle East. Even so, export volumes remain well below their 2021 levels.

Before 2022, Russia and Ukraine combined to account for roughly 30% of global wheat trade, explains Joseph Glauber of the International Food Policy Research Institute:

“Virtually all of that grain moved through the Black Sea before the full-scale invasion. Russia also exported small amounts via the Caspian Sea and overland routes, but those volumes were never significant. Black Sea exports were essential for supplies to North Africa and the Middle East — Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco. Some wheat continued through the Suez Canal to East Africa and Yemen, and even as far as Indonesia and Bangladesh. After the invasion, the geography of Ukraine's grain trade changed. Grain began flowing overland into Europe, through Romania and via river routes.”

Under these circumstances, it is extremely difficult for countries in the Middle East and Africa to stop buying Russian grain. The world's dependence on Black Sea grain has already demonstrated its global impact once before. In 2010, droughts in Russia and Ukraine led to poor harvests and soaring prices – developments widely regarded as one of the factors that contributed to the Arab Spring, As Glauber recalls:

“Yes, there are other suppliers on the market: the United States, Canada, Australia, Argentina, and the European Union. But first, in recent years their share of this region's market has declined in favor of Russia and Ukraine. And second, the United States is currently experiencing drought, and the harvest is expected to be poor.”

At the same time, grain from occupied territories in Ukraine accounts for a relatively small share of Russia's total exports. During the last marketing year (July 2024 through June 2025), Russia exported 53 million metric tons of grain, including 44 million metric tons of wheat. That represents roughly half of the country's harvest: internationally recognized Russian territory, together with occupied Crimea, produced 125.9 million metric tons of grain, including 82.6 million metric tons of wheat. Of that total, occupied Crimea accounted for 1.14 million metric tons of grain.

Russian Agriculture Minister Oksana Lut has said that about 4 million metric tons were harvested in the so-called “new regions” — the occupied parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions. Including occupied Crimea, this means Russia harvested approximately 5.1 million metric tons of grain from the sovereign territory of Ukraine, compared with 124.8 million metric tons harvested within Russia's internationally recognized borders.

Russia harvested approximately 5.1 million metric tons of grain from the occupied territories of Ukraine

If oilseed crops are included as well, then around 30 million metric tons of agricultural products were removed from the occupied territories during the first three years of the war, estimates Taras Vysotskyi, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Economy, Environment, and Agriculture.

Deception and exposure

Russia does everything it can to make wheat and barley from occupied Ukrainian territories indistinguishable from grain harvested within Russia's internationally recognized borders. Regulators in the importing country are supposed to verify certificates of origin, but uncovering the truth is extremely difficult because an elaborate system of falsification has been put in place, Glauber says.

In addition, as early as 2017, Russia began concealing the names of ships entering Crimean ports, covering those sections of the hull with tarps. Kateryna Yaresko recalls:

“This practice exists at the official level. We've heard about it from all kinds of people. Once, I received a message from a complete stranger — apparently a sailor from Sevastopol. He was deeply emotional about it. For a sailor, a ship's name is a source of pride. Seeing a vessel enter port with its name covered by a tarp outraged him.”

The deception is often exposed by the crews themselves. Yaresko recalls one case in which an elderly captain brought a cargo ship into Sevastopol and, following instructions, covered the vessel's name. SeaKrime investigators found his profile on the Russian social network Odnoklassniki, where it turned out the veteran sailor had carefully photographed the entire voyage and shared the pictures with friends. Those images ultimately became evidence in the investigation.

On another occasion, social media searches helped assemble evidence for court proceedings in Lebanon. In 2022, a vessel carrying grain from Feodosia arrived in the country, prompting legal action at Ukraine's request. As Yaresko explains, “The captain claimed that he had entered Feodosia but hadn't loaded any cargo there. Then I found eight videos from the port, filmed on different days by tourists. They clearly showed the ship's draft changing.”

Webcams installed throughout occupied Crimea by the Russian authorities after the peninsula's annexation also proved invaluable. Their footage repeatedly helped investigators demonstrate that ships had been loaded in Crimean ports.

The Russian authorities tried to counter these efforts. At times, the cameras were covered with cloth, and in some cases the images they captured were altered. In October 2022, following the first attacks by Ukrainian naval drones, the cameras were removed altogether.

These Russian efforts have also been accompanied by systematic document forgery. Previously, Russian authorities simply replaced Ukrainian ports of departure with the Russian Port Kavkaz in shipping documents, and at times, the deception became absurd. Again according to Yaresko, “There was one case where a Russian ship carried grain from Feodosia to Port Kavkaz. Yet the paperwork stated that the grain had been transported from Port Kavkaz to Port Kavkaz.”

In the fall of 2022, the Financial Times revealed in an investigation how the document substitution worked. The newspaper found that Russian authorities had simply prepared two separate sets of paperwork for the same wheat shipment. One set, intended for domestic use, confirmed that the grain had been loaded in Berdiansk, in the occupied Zaporizhzhia region. The other, prepared for foreign counterparties, certified that the very same grain had been loaded at Port Kavkaz.

The main falsification method has since changed. Instead of identifying a specific port of loading, shipping documents now state only “One safe port in the Black Sea or the Sea of Azov.” That is precisely how the certificates for Abinsk and PANORMITIS describe their point of origin.

Shipping documents now list only “One safe port in the Black Sea or the Sea of Azov” instead of specifying the actual port of loading

According to Yaresko, similar manipulation occurs with phytosanitary certificates. Rather than naming the specific port of origin, the documents simply state “Russian Federation.”

However, in a recent interview with DW, Ukrainian Deputy Minister Vysotskyi said that Ukraine now has laboratory methods capable of proving that grain carried aboard ships originated in the occupied territories, adding that the technology in question is part of a joint project with the United Kingdom and Lithuania that has collected grain samples from across the areas of Ukraine that Russian physically controls. Each sample contains unique markers linked to the climate, weather, soil composition, and other characteristics of the area where it was grown. Vysotskyi says the project has already built a database that “makes it possible, with a probability close to 100%, to determine whether a particular grain sample originates from a specific territory.” If at least 10% of a shipment comes from occupied territories, the laboratory is able to detect it, he says.

The forensic methodology was developed by the United Kingdom, while the laboratory itself is located in Lithuania. It began operating on a pilot basis in 2024, performing dozens of analyses. However, for the findings to have an impact beyond the laboratory, concrete legal action is required.

Legal status

Ukraine describes any grain coming from the occupied territories as “stolen.” However, some critics stress that a distinction must be made between wheat that has been physically looted from grain elevators — as happened during the early stages of the war — and grain that was simply grown on land occupied by Russia after 2022.

From the standpoint of international law, there is no difference between these two categories, argues Professor Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg:

“If we set aside Russia's position and accept that this is occupied territory, then before turning to maritime law we must first look at the law of occupation. It is governed by the 1907 Convention. Under those rules, grain grown in occupied territory does not become the property of the occupying power. Russia, of course, claims that the proceeds from grain sales benefit the residents of these territories and are used to develop local infrastructure. Even if that were true, it would not give Russia the right to trade in that grain. The harvest from Crimea or the occupied parts of other Ukrainian regions remains the sovereign property of Ukraine.”

Professor Eugene Kontorovich, by contrast, argues that the term “stolen grain” is not entirely appropriate: “An occupying power is subject to certain restrictions on its use of the natural resources of occupied territory. However, under the legal opinion issued by UN Legal Counsel Hans Corell in the case of Western Sahara, it also enjoys rights of usufruct.”

Usufruct (from the Latin usufructus) is an ancient concept dating back to Roman law. It literally means the right to use someone else's property and derive benefit from it without becoming its owner. According to Kontorovich, the concept applies in this case because Russia is not permanently depriving the territory of its natural resource: “Grain is grown and harvested every year. It will either rot in the fields or be harvested.”

International law has never prohibited trade with an occupying power in goods originating from occupied territory, Kontorovich argues. The European Union recognizes this principle and therefore permits imports of agricultural products from Western Sahara, Northern Cyprus, and the West Bank: “No country prohibited the import of wine from Armenian-occupied Nagorno-Karabakh. Of course, there are people who would like international law to prohibit this kind of trade, but no such rule currently exists.”

International law has never prohibited trade with an occupying power in goods originating from occupied territory

Still, University of Reading legal scholar Marko Milanovic is inclined to agree with von Heinegg's position. In Milanovic’s view, the seizure and sale of agricultural products may constitute the war crime of pillage, provided the actions are are carried out for commercial gain.

“The only thing that distinguishes grain and other agricultural products is that they are renewable resources,” Milanovic says. “From a legal standpoint, however, that makes no difference. Any grain grown in occupied Ukrainian territory belongs to the lawful owners of the land, whether private individuals or the state. That owner is neither Russia nor any Russian company.”

Nevertheless, it remains far from clear what countries whose ports receive grain from occupied territories are permitted — or required — to do. According to Professor Milanovic, international law contains neither an explicit authorization nor an explicit prohibition on seizing vessels involved in such trade.

Ukraine can ask the receiving country to confiscate the grain, but this is where the legal gray area begins, as von Heinegg acknowledges: “That third country is under no clear legal obligation to confiscate the cargo before reaching an agreement with the occupied state. The second problem is that it is the cargo, not the vessel, that can be confiscated. Unloading thousands of tons of grain is a lengthy process. Yet there is no legal basis for compelling a ship to dock and unload its cargo.”

At the same time, if Israel, Turkey, or another third country does confiscate the grain at Ukraine's request, Russia would have no legal grounds to bring claims against either the port or the buyer, von Heinegg explains. Above all, responsibility for a vessel rests with its flag state, which is also the party entitled to challenge its seizure. If a cargo ship sails under the Panamanian flag, for example, it would be Panama — not Russia — that would have to contest the confiscation.

Sanctions targeting Russia's “shadow fleet” also occupy a legal gray area because they are unilateral. As von Heinegg adds, “They cannot be adopted through the UN Security Council because of Russia's veto. Let's be frank: the system of collective security no longer functions. Everything depends on the actions of individual countries and how far they are prepared to go. Many countries, particularly in Europe, are willing to go very far.”

Different responses across the Middle East

Europe is not dependent on imports of Russian grain, but nations elsewhere are. As a result, Middle Eastern countries have responded to Ukraine's requests in very different ways.

Kateryna Yaresko recalls how in 2022, immediately after the invasion, grain from the pre-war harvest was still being stored in elevators on territory that came under Russian occupation. It was quickly removed and shipped to Syria and Turkey:

“Ukraine sent a request for mutual legal assistance through the Prosecutor General's Office. The Turks denied entry to some vessels. They often remained anchored outside port for more than a month. There was one unusual case where a ship that had loaded corn in Sevastopol returned and unloaded it there. There were also threats of sanctions against Turkish companies. Many of those companies work with the UN's grain program, and sanctions could have seriously harmed them. On top of that, an extraordinary number of investigative reports were published in the summer of 2022. The coverage put Turkey in an uncomfortable position, and it began taking action.”

Turkey already had a mechanism in place. In 2017, it had adopted an internal memorandum prohibiting the dispatch and receipt of cargoes to and from occupied Crimea. According to Yaresko, Turkish ports accept grain only when the accompanying documentation removes any reasonable doubt that it might have come from the occupied territories of Ukraine.

In another example, the cargo ship, PANORMITIS, which had been turned away in Israel, sailed to Turkey afterward. It was denied permission to unload there as well.

Egypt has taken a different approach. As Yaresko says, “I know that our president spoke with Egypt's president on April 3. He assured Zelensky that Egypt would no longer buy grain from the occupied territories. The day before, on April 2, a ship carrying stolen wheat that had been anchored while awaiting permission to unload turned around and left. That said, several more vessels have sailed to Egypt since then.”

According to Yaresko, attempts to import stolen grain have triggered public backlash not only in Israel, but also in Lebanon: “Lebanon has a highly competitive political environment, and journalists showed great interest in our investigation. One outlet published a story, then another followed. The company that had purchased the grain was in shock. There has never been a case where a ship that we learned was carrying stolen grain was ultimately allowed to unload in Lebanon.”

SeaKrime considers Syria to be the main destination for wheat and barley from the occupied territories. One reason is that Kyiv has no diplomatic relations with Damascus.

Syria was already a major buyer of grain from the occupied territories under the Assad government. It also paid well above market prices. When wheat was selling for $225–250 per metric ton, Syria was paying about $375 per metric ton. Yaresko believes the premium was either a concealed Russian payment for something else or simply the result of corruption.

After the change of power in Syria, the trade temporarily came to a halt, with the bulk carrier Mikhail Nenashev fleeing Tartus before it had even finished unloading. But a few months after the establishment of Ahmed al-Sharaa's regime, Damascus resumed purchases of Ukrainian grain from Russia, Yaresko says. In Syria, these purchases are handled by the state grain operator, meaning they cannot simply be the initiative of private companies.

Wheat from occupied Ukrainian farmland also makes its way to Iran. Some shipments travel across the Caspian Sea, while others pass through the Suez Canal to the Persian Gulf.

Cases of grain from the occupied territories reaching other countries are known, but they tend to be isolated. Individual incidents have involved Libya, the Gulf states, and even one involving Albania. In Yaresko's view, however, the Albanian example was simply an instance of Russian counterparties deceiving their European customers.

A war of attrition

Following the scandal in Haifa, the Israeli side said it was prepared to cooperate with Ukraine on monitoring grain export, a fact that Taras Vysotskyi confirmed in a recent interview. According to Yaresko, the episode also had a positive effect on other countries: “Turkey became more open to cooperation afterward. Yes, we can't always persuade the Turks, but we don't expect to. The main goal is to make this trade commercially unprofitable.”

SeaKrime does not expect to stop Russia's exports of Ukrainian grain altogether. Instead, the project's aim is to make them more difficult and more expensive. Every month that a cargo ship spends sitting in port awaiting a decision costs its owner money, and having to change a vessel's flag is another financial burden.

Since 2018, Ukraine has followed the same procedure whenever a ship called at a Crimean port, Yaresko says. The Ukrainian embassy in the vessel's flag state would seek to have its registration revoked. After that, obtaining a new flag costs about $50,000, she says, and all of the ship's documentation must then be reissued. The process takes about a month. Then, when the renamed vessel returns to Crimea, the cycle begins again.

Such ships are also placed under Ukrainian sanctions, creating problems for them in other ports. The cargo ship Caffa is a case in point. According to Yaresko, once a vessel has been caught transporting Ukrainian grain, it generally ends up specializing in that trade, as scrutiny from importing countries increases regardless of the contents of future cargoes.

In reality, Russia has other ways of moving wheat out of the occupied territories, but they have their drawbacks. Shipments by road and rail are much harder to track, but maritime transport is both cheaper and more efficient. It also serves another purpose: keeping the occupied ports alive. In occupied Feodosia, Kerch, and Berdiansk, the ports are the cities' principal employers, Yaresko notes:

“For them, it's a matter of prestige. People in port cities are acutely aware of the difference. They remember when ships arrived one after another. Now the ports are deteriorating. In Kamyshova Bay in Sevastopol, for example, the grain elevators are no longer operational, so grain is loaded using improvised equipment. In Feodosia, there isn't even a tugboat to bring ships alongside the pier. They have to borrow one from the military or bring one over from Kerch. Sometimes the port asks the company loading the grain to pay the electricity bill. They don't have enough money — not only for repairs, but even for salaries and utility payments.”

Indeed, cargo throughput at ports in the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine has fallen dramatically since the start of the full-scale war. The occupation authorities recently reported that “263,600 metric tons and 211,300 metric tons of cargo were handled through the ports of Mariupol and Berdiansk, respectively, between January and November 2025.” By comparison, in 2019 Mariupol handled 5.9 million metric tons of cargo, while Berdiansk processed nearly 2.1 million metric tons.

Crimea's ports have also gone through several rounds of downsizing. In 2018, more than half of their roughly 6,000 employees were laid off, and another 321 workers were dismissed in 2020.

Under these conditions, normal port operations have broken down. “Normally, a ship can be loaded in a day. But here, they take four or five days. Before that, the vessel sits waiting for anywhere from two weeks to a month,” Yaresko explains. “Then, for security reasons, it may spend another month waiting for military clearance to depart. Once it reaches Syria, it can sit in the destination port for another two weeks. I have serious doubts about the efficiency of these operations.”

Ukrainian investigators see this as, at least in part, the result of their own efforts.

 “It is highly likely that the Kremlin conducted a UAV campaign over Europe. We assess it is likely that Russian-linked vessels and the ‘shadow fleet’ were used as launch/recovery platforms for UAVs as part of the Kremlin’s wider unconventional war on Europe,” the report said.

IISS researchers studied 144 drone incursions into the airspace of 12 NATO countries and Ireland from August 2024 to February 2026. Some incidents forced airports to suspend operations, and on others drones flew over sites housing U.S. nuclear bombs, along with a base for French ballistic missile submarines. About half of the incidents involved military facilities. The report concluded that the campaign was aimed at testing air defense systems that are designed for combating missiles and aircraft but which are less effective at detecting low-flying, small targets.

Most European countries have avoided directly linking the incidents to Russia. However, the report’s authors insist the connection is clear. 

Charlie Edwards, a co-author of the report, told journalists, “We think it is likely that Russia-linked vessels and their shadow fleet were used as maritime launch or recovery or a signal relay platforms.”

Edwards added that significantly less activity had been recorded in the Mediterranean Sea, likely due to the presence of more reliable maritime surveillance systems there, including from U.S. submarines. Louis Byrne, another co-author of the report, said drone sightings virtually stopped once European countries began inspecting and detaining “shadow fleet” vessels. The report described Europe’s response as “uneven” and “fragmented,” with slow attribution and often disproportionate responses, such as using expensive fighter jets against cheap drones.

The UK Ministry of Defense said it takes the protection of military bases seriously. France said it could not confirm the report’s findings, while the Netherlands said it had already taken measures to address the threat.

The Insider has compiled a list of notable statements made by regional authorities regarding the ongoing fuel crisis.

• Krasnodar Region governor Veniamin Kondratyev, Leningrad region governor Alexander Drozdenko, Ivanovo Region head Stanislav Voskresensky, Saratov Region governor Roman Busargin and authorities in Mordovia explained the lines at gas stations by saying drivers had started buying gasoline “just in case.”
• In the Nizhny Novgorod Region, officials said fuel was being bought up en masse by residents of neighboring regions. A similar explanation was given in the Tomsk Region. Novosibirsk Region governor Andrei Travnikov claimed there was no fuel shortage at all and that restrictions had been introduced only to prevent “speculative demand.”
• In Karelia and Udmurtia, along with the Ryazan, Volgograd, and Orenburg regions, disruptions were attributed to high seasonal demand. In the Amur, Kursk, and Omsk regions, officials said restrictions were necessary in order to prevent artificial panic buying.

At the same time, federal and regional media have helped actively spread the argument that “it is like buckwheat” and that the crisis is primarily caused by public panic. Reports increasingly used phrases such as “unfounded panic buying,” “stockpiling gasoline,” and “artificial shortage.”

Major Telegram channels also promoted the claim. A channel run by socialite and popular Russian media figure Ksenia Sobchak — who is notably the goddaughter of Vladimir Putin and the daughter of his former boss, St. Petersburg Governor Anatoly Sobchak — published a post featuring a psychotherapist’s comment under the headline “The psychology of shortages: Why lines at gas stations are growing faster than fuel problems.” The expert explained the situation entirely through the psychology of human behavior.

The spread of the buckwheat narrative soon intensified through reports that Russians had allegedly begun mass buying the grain itself. Telegram channels and regional social media pages then began spreading claims of an emerging buckwheat shortage, accompanied by videos of empty store shelves. Media outlets wrote especially actively about buckwheat shortages on June 27. By June 28, Russia’s largest news agencies, including RIA and TASS, were publishing reports saying that “major Russian retail chains are maintaining a stable assortment of buckwheat groats.”

In order to alleviate public concern, a full news conference was organized with Stanislav Bogdanov, the head of Russia’s Association of Omnichannel Retail Companies, or AKORT. Afterward, federal media outlets almost simultaneously reported that buckwheat stocks were sufficient and that no shortage was expected.

In less than a month, Peskov’s argument had grown into a full-scale information campaign. First, the Kremlin suggested explaining the fuel crisis as “unfounded panic buying.” Then governors and ministers began repeating the claim. Federal and regional media and major Telegram channels later expanded on it. As a result, public discussion came to focus not only on the gasoline shortage but also on a possible shortage of buckwheat itself — even though buckwheat had originally been cited as an example of baseless panic.

The attack on the Ukrainian capital began on the evening of July 1 and lasted for several hours. Ukraine’s Air Force said Russia launched 570 aerial targets during the attack, including nearly 500 drones. The Russian military also fired 24 Iskander ballistic missiles and about 50 cruise missiles of various types at Kyiv.

The missiles included four Zircon hypersonic guided missiles, which were designed primarily to target ships. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, citing intelligence data, had warned the day before that Russia was preparing a new massive strike.

The Shevchenkivskyi district in central Kyiv was hit hardest. A building housing an ambulance substation was damaged there. Five medics and drivers were injured, including a paramedic who is in extremely serious condition. In the same district, falling debris set fire to a market and the roof of a hotel.

In the Darnytskyi district, floors one through six of a nine-story apartment building were destroyed, and a five-story residential building was partly destroyed. In the Desnianskyi District, a nine-story building was damaged, trapping residents inside. In the Holosiivskyi District, the roof of a high-rise building caught fire, while warehouses burned in the Obolonskyi District.

July 3 has been declared a day of mourning in Ukraine.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said the strike on Kyiv had been carried out in response to what it called Ukrainian “terrorist attacks” on civilian infrastructure in Russia. It claimed the targets were facilities connected with the Ukrainian defense industry and fuel and energy infrastructure in Kyiv and the Kyiv Region, as well as military airfield infrastructure in the Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava, Cherkasy, Chernihiv, and Kyiv regions.

According to the ministry, the sites hit included the Radionix plant, Athlon Avia, the state-owned Antonov enterprise, the Kyiv Radio Plant, Trymen-Ukraine, PV Group Ukraine, the MLP-Chaika logistics center, the Grandterminal fuel depot, and various gas distribution stations.

In early June,  a similar combined drone and missile attack killed six people in Kyiv and injured 81, including three children.

From Jan. 1 to June 13, the Moscow Exchange index fell by 9%, while the overall decline in the course of 2025 amounted to 4%. The exchange is also recording a sharp spike in bond defaults. While the first half of 2025 saw only 26 defaults involving three issuers, as of mid-June the figure for 2026 had already reached 164 across 16 entities (both figures exclude technical defaults, where companies did ultimately pay their debts after a brief delay).

In the first half of 2026, the Moscow Exchange recorded 164 bond defaults across 16 companies

Profit declines and growing losses are observed in almost all sectors except banking. The Insider examined a selection of leading companies in each of the key areas of the economy, excluding state-dominated segments such as the defense and semi-defense industries, infrastructure monopolies, and oil and gas companies. In the services sector, the focus was on retail chains, banks, and construction companies; in the industrial sector, it was on food production, automotive manufacturing, metallurgy, and chemicals.

Sales are there, but profits aren’t

Russia’s largest retail holding company, X5 (Pyaterochka, Perekrestok, and Chizhik food stores), saw revenue grow 19% in 2025, but its net profit fell 14% due to rising costs. X5’s annual report features a dedicated section on macroeconomics and consumer behavior, and it offers some telling assessments.

Amid the optimistic language that echoes Russian government rhetoric, some critical observations slip through: high borrowing costs have reduced business investment capacity; companies were forced to optimize labor costs and cut staffing demand (already felt in late 2025); and high interest rates are prompting consumers to save more and spend less.

The report’s authors note that ”the persistently unstable socioeconomic situation of recent years has triggered a shift in Russians’ consumer habits and strengthened the trend toward rational consumption.” For example, the “downtrading trend” has intensified, with shoppers gravitating away from supermarkets and hypermarkets toward cheaper neighborhood stores and hard discounters.

Economic instability has intensified the “downtrading trend” — a preference for cheaper neighborhood stores and hard discounters

X5’s own hard-discount chain, Chizhik, posted 63% revenue growth for the year, while mid-range Pyaterochka saw growth of just 16%, and the more expensive Perekrestok only 8%. In the first quarter of 2026, the group’s performance deteriorated further: net profit fell 27.6% year-on-year, the number of Perekrestok stores declined for the first time, and foot traffic dropped as well. This means revenue is growing only due to a higher average receipt (the inflation component) and the opening of new stores — primarily of the down-market Chizhik variety.

Russia’s second-largest retail company, Magnit (which owns the Magnit and Dixy chains), has fared even worse. In the spring of 2025, it acquired a controlling stake in the higher-end Azbuka Vkusa grocery chain and carried out a record investment program, expanding its store count by nearly 2,000 in a year — funded by large, expensive loans. Amid weak consumer demand, the move failed to pay off.

True, the group’s operating profit for the year remained substantial at 70.5 billion rubles ($904.4 million), corresponding to a 2% margin (all figures below are presented before the application of IFRS 16). However, its net financial expenses more than tripled — from 24.5 to 82.3 billion rubles ($314.3 million to $1,055.7 million) — wiping out all of that profit. The result was a net loss of 16.6 billion rubles ($213 million), compared to a 50 billion ruble ($641.4 million) profit in 2024. Magnit’s net debt nearly doubled over the year, reaching 496 billion rubles ($6.36 billion), and exceeds 1 trillion rubles ($12.8 billion) when asset revaluation adjustments are taken into account. Magnit’s ambitious gamble has left the company’s future directly dependent on the cost of its debt.

Only banks are doing well (and far from all of them)

Sberbank is among the lucky ones feeling good this year: it grew net profit by 8% in 2025 and reported 17% year-on-year growth in the first quarter of 2026. Both interest income and interest expenses declined, but expenses fell faster, meaning the margin expanded. Asset yield dropped from 17% to 15% over the year, while the cost of funds fell from 13% to 10%.

It turns out that rates for Sberbank depositors are falling faster than for borrowers: Russia’s largest bank continues to take money from individuals and lend it to corporate clients. The public holds 34 trillion rubles ($436.2 billion) at Sberbank, while owing only 20 trillion ($256.6 billion, with two-thirds of that figure coming in the form of mortgage loans). The reverse is true for corporations: their deposits at Sberbank total just 16 trillion rubles ($205.2 billion), while loans extended to businesses have reached 32 trillion rubles ($410.5 billion).

Russia’s second-largest banking group, VTB, has fared worse. While Sberbank’s net interest margin exceeded 6% in the most recent reported quarter, VTB’s reached only 2.5%. The cost-to-income ratio (CIR) is 27% at the more automated Sberbank versus 39% at VTB. Administrative and management expenses remain a serious problem for VTB: they grew 17% over the year, largely canceling out a fourfold increase in net interest income.

The yield on interest-bearing assets fell from 16% to 14.5%, while the cost of interest-bearing liabilities dropped from 16% to 12%. As a result, VTB’s net interest margin, which had been at a critically low 0.7% a year ago, has grown by a factor of more than three. However, the bank cut deposit rates and alienated some depositors. As a result, retail funds at the country’s second-largest bank are shrinking, while they continue to grow at Sberbank.

Construction: debt, nationalization, and transparency issues

While Russia’s largest developer, Samolet Group, posted a net profit of 8 billion rubles ($102.2 million) in 2024, a year later it recorded a 2 billion ruble ($25.6 million) net loss. The causes include the cancellation of mass subsidized mortgages, rising debt servicing costs, and the write-off of investment in the Kvartal Maryino project, which was nationalized in a closed-door court proceeding following a claim from the Prosecutor General’s Office. Adjusted profit (excluding one-time factors) came to 2.5 billion rubles ($31.9 million) — one-third of what it was a year before.

Beyond the nationalization of Kvartal Maryino, Samolet faced other troubles. In March 2025, disgruntled customers stormed one of the company’s Moscow offices in protest over a three-month delay in handing over the keys to apartments they had purchased. In February 2026, the developer appealed to the government for support to ease its financial burden. In early May, the company allowed a technical default on its bonds.

The overall effect was clear. Samolet shares were trading at 400 rubles ($5.11) at the end of May 2026, compared to 1,200 rubles ($15.34) a year earlier and 3,100 rubles ($39.62) the year before that. Over two years, the company has lost approximately 87% of its value.

Samolet Group, one of Russia’s largest developers, appealed to the government for support to reduce its financial burden

Another leader in the construction sector, PIK, has fared better, relatively speaking: shares lost only 50% over the past two years. Although PIK reported massive profit growth in 2025 — to 69 billion rubles ($881.8 million) from 29 billion ($371.3 million) the year before — a closer look at the figures shows that revenue grew just 13% and operating profit by 24%. PIK’s profit growth is explained by a sharp increase in financial (interest) income and a reduction in expenses. In short, abandoned investment in its least profitable projects and redirected funds toward debt repayment and building up liquidity.

PIK’s active construction volume as of June 1 stood at 3.9 million square meters, down from 4.5 million a year earlier — a logical contraction ahead of the looming market downturn.

Meanwhile, PIK has recently been observed taking actions that are hostile to minority investors. The company’s largest shareholder, Sergei Gordeyev, sold his shares to an unknown buyer, the entire board of directors was replaced, no dividends have been paid since 2021, and in 2025 the company officially scrapped its dividend policy. The performance section on the company’s website has not been updated since 2020. This disregard for shareholder interests raises suspicion that PIK’s financial reporting may also be embellished.

Food industry’s first losses

Russia’s largest food and beverage producer is the local PepsiCo subsidiary, which launched its operations back in the 1970s, long before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The company has maintained its position in the Russian market ever since, and revenue continued to grow in 2025 as well. Profit is still increasing, though at a slower pace than before.

In addition, Lay’s snacks, Wimm-Bill-Dann dairy products, and beverages that are now sold under Russian brand names remain in demand. In this sector, abandoning large-scale advertising campaigns has actually had a positive effect on profitability. Russian-origin food companies, however, are faring worse.

The Rusagro Group ranks first in Russia for sunflower oil and mayonnaise production, and second for pork and sugar. In 2025 the company reported an 18% increase in annual revenue, but profit fell from 32 billion rubles ($409.7 million) to 20 billion rubles ($256 million), a decline of 37.5%. The main reason, according to the CEO’s comments, is the rising cost of loans, even subsidized ones.

Meanwhile, Rusagro founder Vadim Moshkovich has been under arrest for more than a year, his shares have been nationalized, and the company has come under state management. For the first quarter 2026, only operational results have been published: revenue grew by just 3%, which is below the inflation rate.

In 2025, the second oil and fat industry giant, Efko (Sloboda and Altero brands), recorded a loss for the first time in its history — approximately 6 billion rubles ($76.8 million), compared with a profit of 7 billion ($89.6 million) the previous year. According to the company’s official statement, the reasons include the high and unpredictable export duty on sunflower oil, the strengthening ruble, logistical constraints on the railway to the Black Sea port of Taman, and expensive loans resulting from the high key interest rate. Efko’s interest expense increased by 14 billion rubles ($179.2 million) — precisely the difference between its 2024 and 2025 financial results. Meanwhile, the company continues to pursue investment projects, including with borrowed funds.

Importantly, Russian vegetable oil producers sell no more than one-third of their output on the domestic market. The rest is exported to countries in Asia and Africa, primarily to India via the Black Sea. As a result, any factor that harms Russian exports — from an expensive ruble and new duties to Ukrainian drone strikes on ports and roads — has a direct effect on the profitability of food companies.

Automotive sector: secrets and losses

Russia’s largest automaker, AvtoVAZ, is a non-public company. It is 100% state-owned and is not required to publish financial results. Management stated only that the 2025 results were break-even, despite Lada sales falling by 26%.

Until recently, the company was not expecting annual net profit until 2028. It was precisely this gloomy forecast that helped secure an extension of tax benefits for the automotive giant from the Samara Region authorities, enabling the company to “reduce excess borrowing and meet its obligations.” AvtoVAZ representatives described the start of 2026 as the worst months for the Russian automotive market in 20 years.

KamAZ’s reports are more informative: revenue fell by just over 3%, while a modest profit (0.7 billion rubles, or $8.9 million, in 2024 under IFRS) turned into a loss of 43 billion rubles ($547.8 million) for 2025. Q1 2026 results are only available under Russian accounting standards (RAS): KamAZ continues to operate at a loss, though this loss (9.2 billion rubles) is 26.3% lower than that of the same period last year. Debts are also rising: accounts payable grew 45.2% over the year and are now comparable to annual revenue, while interest expenses amount to approximately 10 billion rubles ($127.4 million) per quarter. Due to its debt burden, the company has cut its investment program and will have to abandon the development of several business lines.

“We decided that we would continue investing, but we have of course sharply reduced this year’s investment portfolio. That is, we are not starting any new projects and are focused exclusively on the K5 product. And, of course, there is the maintenance of equipment, buildings, and facilities... Overall, we effectively cut the investment budget by a factor of three. We were forced to close part of our R&D work that was aimed at the longer-term future,” explained KamAZ CEO Sergei Kogogin.

“We obviously need to increase our profitability to cope with the debt burden. Think about it: the K5 mainline tractor was sold for 10–11 million rubles [$127,400-140,000] in 2022, and today we sell it for 7.5 million rubles [$95,500]. How can we make money? Costs have risen sharply over this period, but the price has fallen,” the KamAZ chief said.

Magnitogorsk in the red, Cherepovets with collapsing profits

The Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MMK) group reported that in 2025 pig iron output fell 4%, steel production dropped 9%, and steel product sales in tonnage fell 7%, including a 15% decline in premium products. Revenue contracted by nearly 21%, and instead of the net profit of 80 billion rubles ($1,019 million) recorded in 2024, a net loss of nearly 15 billion rubles ($191 million) was posted. Free cash flow shrank by a factor of five.

According to the company, the poor results were connected to a slowdown in domestic business activity and deteriorating market conditions amid high interest rates and difficult macroeconomic conditions. Steel production was also specifically affected by difficulties in the Turkish economy.

In the first quarter of 2026, MMK’s position continued to worsen: year-on-year pig iron output was 9% higher, but steel production was 5% lower, the tonnage of steel product sales fell 7%, and premium product sales dropped by 10%. Revenue was down by nearly 19%, and the net profit of 3 billion rubles ($38.2 million) recorded in the first quarter of 2025 turned into a net loss of nearly 1.4 billion rubles ($17.8 million).

The company again attributes this to “continued deceleration in Russian business activity” and “negative trends in the Russian steel market.” MMK has chosen a strategy of cutting capital expenditures, paying down debt, and accumulating liquid assets, but whether the state will allow it to continue doing so remains an open question.

MMK has chosen a strategy of cutting capital expenditures, paying down debt, and accumulating liquid assets

Unlike MMK, Severstal managed to end 2025 with a profit — albeit a greatly diminished one. In 2024, the company was 150 billion rubles ($1.9 billion) in the black, while in 2025 that figure fell to 32 billion ($407.7 million). Revenue fell 14%, even as pig iron production grew 12%, steel production rose 4%, and steel product sales increased 4% (when measured in tonnage).

The Cherepovets-based company attributes the deterioration to falling steel prices, which have moved against the broader inflationary trend. Steel demand has contracted “due to the Central Bank’s high key rate and limited availability of market lending in construction and machine-building, as well as the deferral of infrastructure projects to later periods.”

Severstal’s free cash flow turned negative over the year, with the company citing its large-scale investment program as the reason. Also telling is the shift in the sales mix: the share of semi-finished products increased while that of high-value-added products declined.

Similar trends were observed in the first quarter of 2026. Year-on-year revenue was 19% lower, and net profit nearly vanished, amounting to just 57 million rubles ($267 million) versus 21 billion rubles ($725 million) a year earlier. Negative free cash flow increased, reaching minus 40 billion rubles ($508.7 million) for the quarter compared to minus 33 billion rubles ($419.7 million) a year earlier. At the same time, investments from the major program had to be cut by 34% (to 29 billion rubles, or $368.9 million), and cash on hand for January–March 2026 fell from 38 billion to 5 billion rubles ($483.4 million to $63.6 million). The culprits are falling steel product prices, declining demand for large-diameter pipes, and an overall drop in domestic market demand.

Despite these troubles, Severstal’s largest shareholder, Alexei Mordashov, ranks first in Forbes’s 2026 list of Russian billionaires: his wealth grew by $8.1 billion over the year, and his net worth exceeded its pre-war level for the first time, reaching $37 billion compared to $29 billion in 2021.

Non-ferrous metals: survival depends on size of debt

Russian production of nickel, copper, aluminum, and gold is not as dependent on the domestic market as the steel industry is, so downward trends here are less pronounced.

Norilsk Nickel, which exports more than 80% of its output (approximately 50% to China), ended 2025 with roughly the same financial results as it showed in 2024. Net profit rose 22% in ruble terms and 36% in dollar terms, but the primary driver was exchange rate differences.

Norilsk Nickel’s main owner, Vladimir Potanin, ranks second in the Russian Forbes list, right behind Mordashov. His net worth grew by $5.4 billion in 2025, reaching $29.7 billion — surpassing his personal record of $27 billion set in 2021.

The En+ group — which encompasses the aluminum holding company Rusal and the large hydropower plants associated with it — saw its profit shrink from $1.4 billion in 2024 to $235 million in 2025, even as revenue increased by approximately 20%. Profit from core operations fell only 7%, but most of it was consumed by interest payments — an item of expenses that grew by 42%. Operating profit in 2024 still amounted to approximately $1.4 billion, but interest payments absorbed nearly $1.2 billion of that figure. Nevertheless, the net worth of principal shareholder Oleg Deripaska — who ranks 26th in the latest Russian Forbes list — nearly doubled over the year, from $4 billion to $7.6 billion (in 2021 it was $3.8 billion).

Russia’s largest gold mining company, Polyus, earned more profit than Norilsk Nickel and En+ combined. Although gold sales in ounces declined 18% in 2025, dollar revenue rose by 19%, though revenue in rubles grew by only 2.5%.

The cost of producing gold nearly doubled, reaching $739 per ounce, and the company’s average selling price is roughly 25% below the world market price due to forced discounts. However, it still exceeds $3,400 per ounce, ensuring a healthy margin. Profit barely changed, increasing by only 3%.

Polyus is investing actively, particularly in the development of the Sukhoi Log deposit: the total investment in that project alone stood at roughly two-thirds of annual profit, while dividends consumed roughly half of profit, meaning the company’s cash position declined.

Fertilizers are no longer massively profitable

Among Russia’s chemical companies, the largest profits in 2024 were earned by SIBUR (196 billion rubles, or $2.5 billion), MHK EuroChem (111 billion rubles, or $1.4 billion ), and PhosAgro (85 billion rubles, or $1.1 billion).

Overall, fertilizer producers are still the biggest beneficiaries of the war. When Russian natural gas was cut off from world markets, the cost of this key input rose for foreign fertilizer producers, while their Russian counterparts continued to enjoy cheap gas, boosting their competitiveness. Russian fertilizer exports have risen to record levels — and would have risen further still had the state not imposed high duties on them.

As a result, the performance of individual companies looks uneven. SIBUR’s 2025 financial results are paradoxical: revenue fell 10% and net debt rose 21.5%, yet net profit increased by 4.5%. The company itself notes that its results were affected by the strengthening ruble — costs are primarily ruble-denominated, while revenue has an export component. The increase in net profit is entirely attributable to the revaluation of foreign-currency debt obligations due to exchange rate differences.

MHK EuroChem, like SIBUR, is a private company and neglects the timely publication of its financial reports. The largest fertilizer producer has yet to disclose its 2025 figures, but its closest rival by size, PhosAgro, reported that 2025 revenue was up 13% from 2024 and that net profit grew 35%.

Again, however, this relative success in 2025 may simply have come thanks mainly to exchange rate differences. In the first quarter of 2026, year-on-year revenue was 18% lower, while the cost of goods sold was 16% higher. Operating profit contracted by a factor of almost 2.4, and what remained was consumed by interest payments and exchange rate losses. As a result, PhosAgro’s net profit for the quarter was negligible — just 221 million rubles ($2.8 million) compared to nearly 47 billion rubles ($598 million) in the same quarter of the previous year.  Consequently, the company cancelled the payment of its final dividends for 2025. From late March to mid-June, its share price fell by approximately 20%.

In general, the Central Bank’s policy of promoting expensive credit is extremely painful for Russia’s large businesses, which are typically heavily indebted. Across eight key sectors — excluding energy, transport, and the defense industry — The Insider examined 18 leading companies that have disclosed data on the dynamics of their financial results. Five of them are currently operating at a loss, and the primary factor in most cases has been high interest payments.

Another seven companies continue to operate profitably but acknowledge declining revenue or net profit, and AvtoVAZ and PIK lack the transparency to render their positive reporting credible. Only four corporate giants continue to grow their profits under the current conditions: Sberbank, Polyus, Norilsk Nickel, and PepsiCo.

Export-oriented enterprises, if they are not overburdened with debt and do not suffer too badly from sanctions, are generally better off than those operating in a shrinking Russian market. The survival formula in conditions bordering on recession is simple: avoid risk, do not count on a demand recovery or cheap credit, urgently cut capital expenditures (or even the overall scale of operations), pay down debt, and stockpile cash. But such actions themselves push the economy toward a more pronounced crisis and are decidedly unwelcome to the government.

A dilemma emerges: either demonstrate solidarity with the state’s official optimism and face the risk of bankruptcy, or show skepticism and risk incurring the wrath of the authorities. Two companies mentioned in this review have already suffered from arbitrary nationalization, meaning the threats that the security-bureaucratic machine poses to business can be as serious as the objective economic factors. 

According to the Viasna Human Rights Center, 28 of those pardoned are political prisoners. The Belarusian government’s press release states that they were convicted of “crimes of an extremist nature.”

It is claimed that they had petitioned for pardons and, as part of the process, admitted their guilt. The names of those pardoned have not been disclosed.

Some pardons in the country are issued in exchange for the lifting of foreign sanctions. Last December, for instance, Belarusian authorities pardoned 123 people in exchange for the removal of sanctions on Belarusian potash. Among them were Maria Kalesnikava, Ales Bialiatski, and Viktar Babaryka.

NIIFI specializes in the development and production of physical measurement sensors for space and rocket technology. Ukraine’s General Staff states that the enterprise manufactures sensors for cruise and ballistic missiles (Kalibr, Kh-101) and components for aircraft onboard systems (Su-34, Su-35, and Tu-95MS). The company, which is part of the Russian Space Systems, a Roscosmos subsidiary, has been under U.S. sanctions since January 2025.

The fact of the fire at NIIFI has been confirmed by OSINT analysis from Exilnova+ and Astra. According to the latter, the Mayak electrical substation, located near the Mayak pulp and paper mill, was also struck.

Penza Region Governor Oleg Melnichenko reported a drone attack on the region on the morning of July 1. According to Melnichenko, debris from a downed drone damaged power lines and fell on an unfinished building.

Marahrens said that while he was documenting the tanker’s passage through the Fehmarn Belt strait with politicians and journalists, the German coast guard vessel Bayreuth approached. Then the Russian corvette Soobrazitelny — hull number 531 — arrived from the east at high speed.

“Had a chance today to experience first hand how much tension the  shadow fleet creates in the Baltic,” Marahrens wrote. “The RF-531 hadn't been escorting the Kira K, but came to its aid at high speed from the East. We knew Russian navy vessels are in the area for this purpose. Hearing ‘Here speaks Russian war ship 531, stay away from the Kira K' over radio made this very tangible.”

According to data from the vessel monitoring platform Starboard Maritime Intelligence, the tanker Kira K left the Russian oil port of Primorsk on June 28. After the incident described by Marahrens, it continued crossing the Baltic Sea towards the Danish Straits. 

According to Ukraine’s HUR military intelligence agency, Kira K is used to export Russian oil from the country’s Baltic ports to India and other countries, often while switching off its AIS signal — the automatic identification system that transmits a vessel’s identity, location, course, and speed. The international environmental organization Greenpeace also classifies the vessel as being part of Russia’s “shadow fleet,” a collection of aging ships that help sanctioned producers like Russia export oil at rates closer to market value.

According to the UK-based shipping analytics firm Lloyd’s List, Kira K is regularly used for ship-to-ship oil transfers. The tanker is under sanctions imposed by the UK, Canada, Australia, the EU, Switzerland, New Zealand, and Ukraine. In February 2026, Ukraine also imposed sanctions on the vessel’s captain.

The post said the school’s sewing group, called “Igolochka,” or “Little Needle,” made “a batch of sewn items for fighters from a regiment from Udmurtia in the special military operation zone.” 

“Girls in the fifth and sixth grades worked tirelessly for two weeks,” the post read. “The girls made their own modest contribution to helping people in need. These items will be sent to the front and will be useful to the fighters.”

Igolochka received two letters of thanks for the work — one from the medical service of the Udmurt Regiment and another from the group Help the Front Izhevsk («Помощь фронту Ижевск»). Judging by the published photographs, the schoolgirls sewed men’s underwear.

It is not the first known case of children being involved in supplying basic items for the Russian army. The Insider previously reported that in Primorsky Krai, a region in Russia’s Far East, students at special-needs schools and boarding schools were enlisted to sew balaclavas, neck warmers, and “friend-or-foe” armbands for Russian soldiers, doing so under the guise of a contest. In Labytnangi, students in sixth through 10th grade sewed balaclavas and warm clothing for service members after school. After Vladimir Putin announced Russia’s “partial mobilization” in September 2022, schoolchildren in Penza were pulled out of class to prepare accommodation for men drafted into the army, while parents at Russian kindergartens were asked to knit socks for participants in the war.

The Insider has reviewed documents showing that the IC investigated the men under articles covering abuse of office and the commission of violent sexual acts. Investigator Ilshat Cheremshantsev issued the decision not to prosecute on June 11, writing that “It is not possible to determine whether unlawful actions were committed against Miftakhov.” Miftakhov’s defense team received the document only two weeks later. 

In early May, Miftakhov reported that on April 21, shortly after he was transferred to IK-18 Polar Owl in Kharp, prison employees and two inmates tortured him for several hours in an administrative building. Miftakhov said they beat the soles of his feet with a wooden mallet, threatened him with sexualized violence, threatened to dunk him in a sewage manhole, blocked his breathing, and then tortured him with electric shocks. He said they played music at full volume to drown out his screams.

Investigators concluded that the torture allegations could not be substantiated. They cited the absence of visible injuries, the absence of complaints in prison logs, and the absence of records showing that force had been used against Miftakhov. Investigators also appear not to have attempted to identify all of the figures who Miftakhov named in his description of the alleged incident. For example, the document does not mention an employee whom Miftakhov identified as Alexei Viktorovich. Miftakhov said the man entered the office while he was being threatened with sexualized violence; after speaking with him, Miftakhov said, he was carried to a sewage manhole and threatened with being dunked into it.

The decision also does not mention two other employees whom Miftakhov said entered the office after the electric-shock torture had been administered in order to demand that he obey the administration. Investigators also did not allow to personally identify or confront those whom he named as participants in the torture.

The Investigative Committee reviewed video only from a camera in the “bathhouse area” for April 20-22. The investigator said the footage showed that Miftakhov was not limping and had no visible injuries. Despite a request from the defense, investigators did not attempt to obtain footage from the quarantine unit where Miftakhov was held, nor footage that would have shown him limping after the torture. They also did not request footage from body cameras worn by prison employees.

As part of the review, investigators questioned several prisoners. Most said they knew nothing about any violence committed against Miftakhov. However, one prisoner, Sergei Martynov, said that after arriving at the prison colony in late April, Miftakhov told him that people at IK-18 “beat and torture with electric shocks.” Martynov did not see the torture himself and did not ask Miftakhov for details.

The first examination of Miftakhov for injuries recorded in the decision was carried out May 5, two weeks after the alleged torture. A May 14 forensic examination found two abrasions on his left forearm but said they had appeared four to ten days before the examination, meaning after April 21. On May 12, investigators inspected the administrative building where Miftakhov said he was tortured — 21 days after the events he described.

“In view of irreconcilable contradictions in the explanations of these persons, the absence of other eyewitnesses, the absence of bodily injuries on A.F. Miftakhov, the absence of the objects with which bodily injuries were inflicted on A.F. Miftakhov, and the absence of any other evidence, it is not possible to determine whether unlawful actions were committed against A.F. Miftakhov,” Cheremshantsev wrote in the decision not to bring charges.

At the same time, the decision made it possible to identify two more people who correspond to those Miftakhov had mentioned: operative Yevgeny and prisoner Mikhail. The Insider previously identified IK-18 employees Mikhail Sobolev and Pavel Kiselev, whom Miftakhov directly named as participants in the torture.

Operative Yevgeny Taraev: A torturer and a father of four

Among the employees Miftakhov named as participants in the torture was an operative named Yevgeny. Miftakhov said that after the beatings and threats of sexualized violence, he was carried to the second floor of the operations department. Pavel Kiselev and an employee named Yevgeny were there. Wires were attached to Miftakhov’s legs, and electric current was then run through his body. At the end of the process, Miftakhov said, it was Yevgeny who ordered the wires removed and the tape binding him cut.

Miftakhov could not provide the employee’s last name. In the Investigative Committee decision, his testimony is cited with a patronymic: “Yevgeny Adzhayevich.” Investigators questioned Yevgeny Adzhayevich Taraev, a senior operative at IK-18. He confirmed that on April 21 and 22 he spoke with Miftakhov in an operations department office on the second floor of the administrative building — the place where Miftakhov said he had been carried after the first round of torture.

Taraev denied using physical force or psychological pressure against Miftakhov. He says the conversations were “introductory.”

Yevgeny Taraev is a 41-year-old native of Kalmykia. In the phone book of one contact, he is listed as “Yevgeny Taraev Oper Department IK-18.” Taraev has four children, ages 6, 12, 15, and 17.

According to leaked database records, Taraev has worked at IK-18 Polar Owl since at least 2018. In 2022, his income from the prison colony was 1.55 million rubles ($15,500). Before moving to Kharp, he served at IK-2 in the settlement of Yashkul in Kalmykia. In a 2010 declaration by the regional branch of the Federal Penitentiary Service, or FSIN, Taraev is listed as a junior inspector in that colony’s supervision unit.

Yevgeny’s older brother, Sergei Taraev, also worked in the FSIN system. In the same declaration, he is listed as a junior inspector in the supervision unit at IK-2. Sergei Taraev later moved to the Federal Bailiff Service in Kalmykia. A 2023 publication by the regional bailiff service describes him as a bailiff responsible for maintaining order in the courtoom.

Prisoner Mikhail Byatets: Repeat offender and “chief rooster”

According to Miftakhov’s account, the second prisoner who took part in the torture (alongside Bulanov) was a man named Mikhail. Miftakhov did not know his last name but said the prisoner had low status in the prison hierarchy but was the senior figure among the “outcasts” of the prison population — a so-called “chief rooster.”

In Russian prison slang, “rooster” (petukh) is a deeply degrading term for an inmate placed in the lowest caste of the prison hierarchy. It is usually associated with sexualized humiliation, coercion, or sexual “defilement.” Under informal prison rules, such prisoners are treated as untouchable by others.

Miftakhov said Mikhail taped his legs together, hit him in the groin, took part in threats of sexualized violence, brought his face close to an open sewage manhole, and later covered his mouth with a towel during the electric-shock torture.

“They pulled down my pants and underwear… Mikhail began smearing cream on my anus with his fingers. At some point it stopped, but they continued threatening that they would take turns penetrating me,” Miftakhov said.

Although Miftakhov gave only a first name, the Investigative Committee checked a specific prisoner, Mikhail Byatets, for involvement in the torture. The investigator obtained an explanation from Byatets and questioned several inmates from the unit where Bulanov and Byatets are held, asking whether they had heard that the two men had beaten other prisoners.

The decision does not explain what evidence led investigators to conclude that the Mikhail mentioned by Miftakhov was Byatets, and it does not say that any identification procedure or confrontation was carried out. Byatets works in the bath and laundry complex of the IK-18 administrative building — the same place where Miftakhov said the torture began. Byatets denies knowing Miftakhov or using force against him. He suggested Miftakhov may have seen him in the building and could have remembered his name from his chest badge.

Byatets is a 43-year-old native of Dnipro who is registered on social media as “Misha Saiman.” He has been convicted several times. A 2014 verdict issued by the Noyabrsk City Court lists four previous convictions, including for robbery and car theft. According to the court, he and an accomplice attacked a taxi driver, hit him on the head with a wooden bat, threatened him with a knife, took his money, and forced him into the trunk. The court found that Byatets’ actions constituted a dangerous repeat offense and sentenced him to five years in a high-security prison colony.

After his release, Byatets again found himself in the dock. In 2021, he was sentenced to 10 years in a high-security prison colony for attempted large-scale drug trafficking. The court found that he had placed five drug “dead drops” in Noyabrsk and planned to send their coordinates to buyers through Telegram. In that case, too, the court found that Byatets was a dangerous repeat offender.

How a Moscow State University graduate student ended up in an Arctic prison colony

Azat Miftakhov, a Moscow State University graduate student, mathematician, and anarchist, was first arrested in 2019. In January 2021, he was sentenced to six years in a general-regime penal colony in a case involving an attack on an office of the ruling United Russia party in Moscow. Investigators said Miftakhov and other anarchists broke a window and threw a smoke bomb inside. He denied any guilt.

In September 2023, on the day he was due to be released, Miftakhov was detained again outside the prison gates, this time in a case alleging “justification of terrorism.” Authorities claimed that in a conversation with another prisoner, Miftakhov expressed approval of an explosion at the FSB office in Arkhangelsk. The other prisoner, who later became the prosecution’s key witness, was later killed fighting in Ukraine.

In the second case, Miftakhov was sentenced to four years in prison and was ordered to spend the first 2.5 years in a prison-type facility and the rest of the term in a high-security penal colony. After serving time in a prison in Dimitrovgrad, he was transferred to IK-18 Polar Owl in the Arctic settlement of Kharp, a facility located down the road from IK-3 Polar Wolf, where opposition politician and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny was murdered by the Russian state in February 2024.

While in custody, Miftakhov repeatedly reported being pressured by the authorities. In 2023, he said that after his first arrest, FSB officers used intimate photos against him and arranged for other prisoners to move him into the lowest prison caste, known as the “offended” — a stigmatized category in the informal Russian prison hierarchy often associated with sexualized humiliation and abuse. In November 2024, Miftakhov’s outside support group said his safety in the Dimitrovgrad prison was under threat from of a cellmate with a severe mental health condition. Miftakhov spent almost all of 2025 in solitary confinement.

Police said the man was detained at a bus station in the country’s capital city of Harare while accompanying one of the recruits, who was supposed to travel to Russia via South Africa. Law enforcement officials said the suspect was carrying Russian electronic visas and hotel booking confirmations for five people.

Police said the recruits would be “forced to take part in the armed conflict” between Russia and Ukraine. Authorities identified the detained man’s alleged accomplice as a Russian citizen known only as Roman. He is wanted by police.

In March, Zimbabwean Information Minister Jenfan Muswere said 15 Zimbabwean citizens had died after being recruited to fight in Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. He said Zimbabwean authorities were seeking the return of 66 of its citizens.

In February, the research collective All Eyes on Wagner published the names of 1,417 citizens from 35 African countries who had been recruited for the war in Ukraine between January 2023 and September 2025. Of those, 316 had been killed. Earlier this year, Ukrainian authorities said they had identified more than 1,780 citizens of 36 African countries who had fought in the Russian army.

In mid-May, Estonia’s border guard service photographed the vessel in the Baltic Sea. Images provided to the outlet Delfi show two 12.7 mm Kord heavy machine guns — one on each side of the wheelhouse. Sandbags were placed near the firing positions. The investigation’s authors said the photos were taken near the Estonian island of Hiiumaa as the vessel was heading toward Russia’s Leningrad Region.

The Marshal Vasilevskiy is owned and operated by Gazprom Flot LLC. Vessel-tracking systems classify it as a gas tanker, but it is designed as a floating regasification unit (meaning it can transport LNG and convert it back into gas after mooring at a terminal). The vessel is believed to function as a backup supply route for the Kaliningrad Region in the event that pipeline transit through Lithuania is halted.

The Dossier Center found that since August 2025, between eight and 12 passengers have been on board the Marshal Vasilevskiy during each voyage — about half of them linked to the FSB, Rosgvardia, or the Russian military. In late May and early June, five of the ship’s passengers used military IDs as travel documents.

Experts interviewed by the journalists said single machine guns are of little use against aerial drones. However, they could be used against maritime drones, though a Delfi source from the intelligence service of one Baltic country said it would be difficult for Ukraine to covertly launch such a drone in the Baltic Sea. The source said the weapons may be intended to serve as a deterrent for any Western countries interested in inspecting or detaining the ship.

In March 2026, the Russian gas carrier Arctic Metagaz, which was transporting LNG from the Arctic LNG 2 project, was attacked by a maritime drone in the Mediterranean Sea. The blast caused a fire on board, and the crew was evacuated. The gas carrier, still loaded with LNG, drifted without a crew for several days before it was towed toward the coast of Libya.

Moreover, the quality of investment is deteriorating. Spending on machinery and equipment accounted for 34% of total investment, down from last year, signaling a shift toward less productive forms of capital. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak specified that the bulk of the decline — 307 billion rubles — came from the country's largest companies, including Irkutsk Oil Company, Arctic LNG 2, and Gazprom. Only Rosneft increased its investment, adding 18 billion rubles.

These figures did not trigger panic. On the surface, the rest of the economy does not appear to be doing too badly: the GDP decline seen at the beginning of the year gave way to modest growth (0.3% in January–April); unemployment remained at a record low (2.2% in April); real disposable incomes rose by 1.5% in the first quarter; retail trade turnover increased by 4.3% in January–April; real wages in March were 8.1% higher than a year earlier; and industrial output grew by 1.9% in April.

Yet there are good reasons for serious concern. Investment in fixed capital is one of the key drivers of long-term economic growth. Without it, there can be no expansion of production capacity, no gains in labor productivity, and no technological modernization.

Why investment in fixed capital matters

If companies are not building new facilities and buying new machinery today, there will be no new jobs, no expansion of production, and no gains in competitiveness tomorrow. In this sense, investment is no less important than current GDP growth, the key interest rate, or inflation.

Inflation tells us how much goods and services increased in price yesterday. It is a lagging indicator that merely reflects imbalances that have already emerged. The key interest rate is a policy tool whose effects on the economy are delayed by nine to eighteen months, according to the Bank of Russia. GDP, meanwhile, is the result of past investment — it shows what is happening in the economy right now, but it does not answer the question of what will happen tomorrow.

Investment, by contrast, is tomorrow's GDP. It is a classic leading economic indicator with a long forecasting, meaning it changes before the economy itself does, and its impact can be felt for years to come. While business confidence and PMI (Purchasing Managers' Index) surveys typically anticipate turning points in the business cycle by one to three months and the Composite Leading Indicator (CLI) provides a three- to six-month outlook, investment offers a window three to five years into the future. When a company decides to build a new factory, it is planning for the relatively distant future. That is why falling investment today is a signal that the economy is heading toward stagnation down the line.

Today's decline in investment means economic stagnation five years from now

This warning is already being reinforced by other, shorter-term leading indicators. According to the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting (CMASF), Russia’s investment goods supply index in the first quarter of 2026 was 2.7% lower than in the fourth quarter of 2025. The center's analysts noted: "The decline in January, apparently caused by unusually cold and snowy weather in European Russia, was not offset in either February or March."

The current level of investment activity is below not only that of 2024 (by 16%) but also the crisis months of 2022 that followed the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. By the end of 2025, Russia’s supply of investment goods was down 14% from its level of mid-2024, and it has continued to fall since then.

The Composite Leading Indicator (CLI) for entering a recession reached 0.52 in February — nearly three times the critical threshold of 0.18 and, therefore, a serious warning that economic trouble lies ahead. In March, the latest month for which calculations are available, the indicator declined to 0.46 but remained well above the critical threshold.

On the other side, however, a different indicator suggests that any downturn is unlikely to be prolonged. The Russian construction sector has shown tentative signs of improvement, with CMASF analysts pointing to March as evidence of "a rebound trend." At the same time, they cautioned that "so far this represents only a partial recovery from January's slump; it is clearly premature to conclude that housing demand is rebounding thanks to money flowing out of bank deposits or that conditions in the sector are improving."

All of the leading indicators — construction, the investment goods supply index, the Composite Leading Indicator, PMI surveys, and business sentiment surveys — still suggest that the Russian economy has not bottomed out, and investment, as the leading indicator with the longest forecasting horizon, offers the clearest warning of future stagnation. In three to five years, when existing productive assets wear out and insufficient new capacity has been built to replace them, the economy could enter a tailspin.

What caused the decline in investment?

The slowdown is the result of several factors: expensive borrowing, pervasive uncertainty, cuts in public investment, the high-base effect, and labor shortages.

Factor 1. The cost of money and the lack of affordable credit

Experts at the Pyotr Stolypin Institute for Growth Economics conclude that the private corporate investment cycle has been effectively frozen by the high key interest rate, which suppresses investment through two channels: borrowing costs and deposit yields.

The main obstacle to investment is the high cost of credit. From November 2024 through June 2025, the Bank of Russia kept its key interest rate at 21%, with the average rate for 2025 reaching 19.27%. Although it has since been gradually reduced to 14.25%, borrowing remains prohibitively expensive. The average profitability of Russian businesses is only 10–12%.

In other words, at current interest rates, borrowed funds cost more than the returns generated by most investment projects. Taking out loans to expand production therefore makes little economic sense — virtually all of the potential profit is absorbed by interest payments, leaving businesses with little incentive to commit to long-term investment.

At the same time, high deposit rates also undermine the appeal of investment. Dmitry Belousov, deputy director of the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting (CMASF), argues that investment projects become economically viable in Russia when interest rates are at a rate of around 7–8%. "We have created a situation where it is easier and safer to keep money in bank accounts or invest it in OFZ government bonds than to commit it to investment projects whose payback is uncertain," Belousov explains.

High borrowing costs make investment projects unprofitable, leaving businesses with a stronger incentive to keep their money in bank deposits instead

As Alexander Shokhin, head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, observed: "A high interest rate, a strong ruble, high taxes, uncertainty over property rights, and other factors taken together cannot, under current conditions, support business activity or long-term investment."

Back in 2025, Abrau-Durso president Pavel Titov warned that such a monetary policy "does not allow for any meaningful investment." Even retail investors, he argued, prefer bank deposits under these conditions rather than investing in the real economy.

Factor 2. Nationalization, sanctions, and an uneven playing field

Large companies can obtain subsidized loans through government support programs and have access to project financing via VEB.RF and the National Wealth Fund, but small and medium-sized businesses face a fundamentally different reality. According to an Opora Russia survey conducted among 6,600 SMEs, about 80% do not plan to invest in 2026 because they cannot secure financing. As Opora’s president, Alexander Kalinin, stressed: "For many businesses, the question now is not how to grow but how to survive."

Business surveys from the Bank of Russia likewise show that expected demand is only the second most important factor holding back investment — the first is economic uncertainty. According to the central bank's latest Enterprise Monitoring report, investment activity in the first quarter of 2026 fell to average levels last seen at the beginning of 2022, and for the second quarter of 2026, businesses expect the weakest investment growth since the fourth quarter of 2019.

Survey data from manufacturers collected by the Institute of Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences confirm that the problem runs deeper than expensive credit alone. For 40% of respondents, capital investment plans are not determined by interest rates. Instead, the main obstacles are macroeconomic uncertainty and the lack of access to necessary equipment — the latter being a clear result of economic sanctions.

Meanwhile, the term "macroeconomic uncertainty" encompasses more than the risk of further tax increases or cuts in government procurement. It also includes the growing threat of large-scale nationalization.

Factor 3. Labor shortages

Another major factor is the shortage of workers. As noted above, unemployment remains around its historic low of 2.2%, and government officials point to this as one of their main arguments for claiming that the economy is neither in recession nor overheating. However, that does not negate the fact that Russia is experiencing a shortage of skilled workers.

Official estimates put the labor shortage at around 1.5 million people, and some experts believe the true figure is substantially higher. In particular, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs forecasts that the country's labor shortage will reach 3 million people by the end of the decade.

Factor 4. The high-base effect

The Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, which describes the 14.3% decline as an expected correction, argues that investment in fixed capital increased by nearly 40% between 2021 and 2024, meaning that the current downturn is, to a large extent, the result of a high comparison base. The ministry also cautions against attaching too much significance to the first quarter, which typically accounts for only about 16% of annual investment. Maxim Oreshkin called the investment figures "very bad" but likewise attributed them in part to the high-base effect.

Maxim Reshetnikov described 2026 as a period of "a pause in investment growth" following the exceptionally high level accumulated in previous years. Experts at the Pyotr Stolypin Institute for Growth Economics concur with the ministry’s conclusions while adding two other important factors: tighter monetary policy and the increase in the value-added tax (VAT) from 20% to 22% on January 1, 2026.

Factor 5. A decline in government investment spending

The government sharply increased the share of public investment during the pandemic, pushing the state's contribution to fixed capital investment to a peak of 20.5% in 2022 (it had been 16.3% in 2019). By the end of 2025, however, this so-called fiscal impulse had fallen to 15.2%. According to the Pyotr Stolypin Institute, the decline reflects shifting government priorities and the reallocation of budget spending.

Meanwhile, the share of investment financed from companies' own funds rose from 53% in 2022 to 63% in 2026, while the share financed through bank loans increased from 10% to 14%. In other words, the businesses that continue to invest are largely those with substantial cash reserves, access to subsidized credit, or sufficient profits to service loans at market interest rates.

Investment is not only declining; it is also changing — and not for the better. According to the Institute for Complex Strategic Studies (ICSS), the rapid expansion of investment between 2021 and 2024 was not accompanied by a comparable increase in the commissioning of fixed assets — that is, new buildings, structures, and equipment. And indeed, Rosstat data show that the commissioning of fixed assets, measured in constant prices, declined by 9% in 2023 and by a further 4.3% in 2024.

Over the past five years, the commissioning of fixed assets increased by just 11.8%, compared with a 34.7% rise in fixed capital investment — the first time such a wide divergence between the two indicators has ever been observed in Russia.

This points to longer construction timelines, as investment is recorded in official statistics as expenditures are incurred, whereas fixed assets are counted only once projects have been completed and put into operation. It also suggests that investment is shifting away from expanding production capacity toward preserving existing assets. As the Institute for Complex Strategic Studies (ICSS) argues, companies are increasingly reconstructing existing facilities instead of building new ones.

Also, importantly, an increasing number of businesses are investing in measures aimed at "reducing the risk of production capacity being taken out of service," or "ensuring production security." In other words, rather than purchasing new machinery, more and more companies are spending money on air defense systems or drones for the war. As the ICSS report notes, "Part of investment is being directed toward projects that will not result in the creation of new fixed assets (security-related upgrades, dual-use infrastructure, and facilities that fall outside standard statistical accounting)."

Businesses are purchasing air defense systems and drones instead of machine tools – investment is being directed toward security rather than expanding productive capacity

All of this is accelerating the aging of Russia's capital stock. Even before the start of the full-scale war, the country's equipment was already in poor condition. According to Rosstat, fully depreciated fixed assets — those which have been completely written off through depreciation and carry little or no book value — accounted for 22% of the economy's total fixed assets in 2021, the latest year for which Rosstat has published data. In other words, nearly one in every five fixed assets in the Russian economy had reached the end of its service life.

The situation is even worse when it comes to the state of machinery and equipment. The share of fully depreciated machinery increased from 27% in 2017 to 30% in 2020–2021, and between 2017 and 2024, the wear and tear on machinery and equipment increased across most sectors of the economy. In manufacturing, for example, the depreciation rate rose from 57.7% to 63%.

What investment money can no longer buy

While the statistics paint the broader picture, postponed and canceled projects show what those abstract percentages mean in practice. Here are just a few examples of projects that are already running out of investment funding.

Russian Railways: investment program cut for the second consecutive year

The investment program of Russian Railways (RZD) is one of the clearest indicators of infrastructure investment in Russia. It amounted to 1.5 trillion rubles in 2024 but was cut to 891 billion rubles in 2025. In 2026, it was trimmed to 714 billion rubles, and two-thirds of that funding will be spent merely on maintaining existing infrastructure and ensuring transport safety. leaving only 162 billion rubles for the purchase of new rolling stock.

The company hopes to acquire 400 locomotives, but in  2025 it spent 260 billion rubles to purchase the same number. Transmashholding, the manufacturer, has already said that it cannot deliver that order within the proposed budget. "Mathematically, given inflation and rising prices, we as the manufacturer simply do not see how this can work, and we will not fit within that figure," said Georgy Zobov, the company's head of business development.

Russian Railways is facing a severe locomotive shortage, and meeting the targets set out in Russia's transport strategy requires the acquisition of 523 new locomotives each year.

KamAZ: investment budget cut by two-thirds

The retrenchment has also reached the flagships of Russia's automotive industry. According to Sergey Kogogin, the investment budget of KamAZ for 2026 was cut by nearly two-thirds because of rising debt and the continuing crisis in the heavy truck market.

"Just imagine: in 2022, the K5 long-haul tractor unit sold for 10–11 million rubles. Today, we sell it for 7.5 million rubles. How are we supposed to make money? Over that period, our costs have risen sharply, while the price has fallen," the KamAZ chief said.

By the end of the year, KamAZ had posted a record net loss of 43 billion rubles. The cuts affected part of the company's research and development program aimed at long-term projects, leaving funding only for the continued development of the K5 truck line.

Lena River bridge: a symbol of postponed ambitions

Plans to build a bridge across the Lena River near Yakutsk have been under discussion since 1985. Yakutsk is Russia’s only regional administrative center without year-round overland access to the federal highway network. The Lena Bridge was included in the national development program for the Russian Far East as a major capital investment project and was also added to Russia's five-year road construction plan.

Initially, in 2020, the bridge was expected to cost 83 billion rubles. The estimate rose to 176 billion rubles in the fall of 2022 before being revised down to 130 billion rubles, where it has remained despite inflation. Construction began in 2024 but has progressed slowly. According to local media, the bridge is unlikely to be completed until government priorities shift "from defense needs to civilian sectors."

Lithography projects fall victim to budget constraints

At the end of 2025, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation canceled several tenders related to the development of materials for lithography systems capable of manufacturing chips with process nodes of 90 nanometers and below. These technologies are critical for producing domestically designed processors and other microelectronics.

One of the first projects to be scrapped was a 1.6 billion ruble tender to establish the pilot-scale domestic production of calcium fluoride crystals for optical components capable of being used in ultraviolet photolithography. The ministry also canceled a 400 million ruble project to develop crystals for laser optical isolators.

Another abandoned tender, worth 800 million rubles, was intended to develop a manufacturing process for tantalum capacitor powders, a material used to produce the anodes of oxide-semiconductor and oxide-electrolytic porous tantalum capacitors.

Sources attribute these cancellations to budget shortfalls. Russia's electronic equipment development program faces a funding gap of 33.1 billion rubles for 2026–2028. As CNews reports, funding has been redirected toward projects that the government considers higher priorities.

Investment in agriculture continues to decline

According to the Bank of Russia, investment in fixed capital in the agricultural sector fell by 3.6% year over year in 2025. In March of that year, Russia had about 2,100 investment projects in agriculture and the food industry with a combined value of 4.3 trillion rubles. A year later, that number had dropped to 1,500 projects worth a total of 4.1 trillion rubles. The main reason is the high cost of borrowing, as the terms of subsidized investment loans were tightened in 2025. As a result, Miratorg cut its investment spending in half — to 10 billion rubles in 2025. Its president, Viktor Linnik, explained: "We have not halted a single existing project, but neither have we launched any major new ones."

True, according to Rosstat's preliminary estimates, labor productivity at large and medium-sized companies rose by 1.7% in the first quarter of 2026 after declining by 0.5% over the course of 2025. However, improvement reflects workers putting in more intensive labor — through overtime and heavier workloads — rather than gains driven by technological modernization.

At the same time, in March 2026 real wages surged by 8.1% year-on-year — meaning wages are rising faster than productivity, creating inflationary pressure. Without new investment in equipment and automation, productivity will soon hit its ceiling, leaving the economy with little room for further growth.

Will investment return?

Surveys by the Institute of Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences (INP RAS) show that industrial companies' investment plans remained unchanged from April to May, at minus 13 points. This is an improvement from March but still firmly in pessimistic territory. The Ministry of Economic Development itself has acknowledged that this year's decline will be three times steeper than previously expected: in May, it revised its forecast from –0.5% down to –1.5%. Still, the ministry expects investment growth to resume in 2027, projecting a 2% increase after a two-year pause.

The most pessimistic outlook comes from the ICSS. Its experts conclude that the 2.3% decline in investment recorded in 2025 may mark the beginning of an investment winter in the Russian economy. Moreover, "if current trends persist, the investment downturn in 2026 could prove even more severe" than the Ministry of Economic Development currently forecasts.

The investment pause may signal the beginning of an "investment winter" in the Russian economy

The Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, which represents Russia's largest businesses and whose members account for the bulk of the country's investment, also believes the decline could exceed the official forecast. As Alexander Shokhin noted, "Many sensitive sectors, including digital solutions and robotics, are not merely being put on hold — they are being put into a deep freeze."

What happens if investment does not recover?

If the current investment pause drags on, the economy will begin running down the productive capacity created in earlier years, much of which is already heavily worn out. Without investment in new equipment and the modernization of production lines, these assets will gradually fall into disrepair. As a result, within three to five years the economy could face not merely slower growth but an outright decline in its physical productive capacity.

Another consequence will be a widening technological gap. As ICSS notes, the quality of Russia's fixed assets is also deteriorating, while their technological sophistication has stagnated. The gap separating Russia from the world’s technological leaders — China, the United States, and the countries of the European Union — will therefore continue to widen. At a time when sanctions have made imports of advanced equipment increasingly difficult, this will translate into lower-quality output and reduced production of finished goods.

As history shows, investment pauses tend to become prolonged unless they are accompanied by systemic measures to reduce the cost of capital and establish clear, predictable rules for business. For now, there is little reason to expect such changes in Russia. As a result, the country risks facing either a repeat of the investment collapse of the 1990s.

Lessons from history

Four examples best illustrate the point: there is a direct relationship between capital investment and future growth.

Japan: the "lost decade"

In 1992, Japan's financial bubble burst. The market value of the country's financial assets fell by 1,000 trillion yen, and over the following decade the Nikkei 225 index dropped to a 27-year low.

What was the main cause? Research shows that the answer was stagnating investment, particularly private investment in fixed capital. Japanese companies stopped investing in new equipment, instead paying down debt and repairing their balance sheets — a classic example of what economists call an "uncertainty trap." As a result, Japan's real GDP grew by an average of just 1.14% per year between 1995 and 2002, the weakest performance among the G7 economies.

The "lost decade" eventually became a "lost twenty years," and then a "lost thirty years." When an investment pause drags on for years, a temporary downturn can turn into structural stagnation from which recovery becomes extremely difficult.

South Korea: the "Miracle on the Han River"

In 1960, South Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world, with GDP per capita of only about $79.

After coming to power in 1961, General Park Chung Hee made industrialization and large-scale investment the centerpiece of his economic strategy. Export revenues reached $100 million in November 1964 and $10 billion by 1977. The investment rate increased from 8.6% of GDP in 1960 to 29% in 1988. GDP grew at an average annual rate of 8.4% during the 1960s, 9% in the 1970s, and 9.7% in the 1980s. By 1995, exports had surpassed $100 billion.

By the end of the century, per capita income had reached $33,000. It is a vivid demonstration that capital investment is an investment in the future.

China: investment paid off

China steadily increased capital investment over the course of several decades. Between 1960 and 2011, the share of the country’s GDP dedicated to investment rose from 16% to a historic high of 46%, and despite a relative decline, it remains one of the country's key engines of growth. However, the composition of investment is changing to focus on the spheres of energy, industrial modernization, and high technology.

The Chinese model also has its downsides. Debt levels continue to rise, and generating each additional unit of GDP requires ever greater borrowing. Experts expect the share of investment in China's GDP will continue to gradually decline. Even so, Beijing’s experience demonstrates how sustained capital investment can propel a country to rapid economic development.

Russia: the investment collapse of the 1990s

During the 1990s, investment in fixed capital in Russia fell to what economists described as an "extraordinarily low level," dropping from around 40% in 1990 to just 21% by 1998.

Investment gradually recovered during the 2000s, but companies continued to consume the productive capacity inherited from the Soviet era without creating new capacity to replace it. The country now appears to be on the verge of repeating that experience.

The superyacht passed through Danish waters on the evening of Monday, June 29, according to data from the vessel-tracking service MarineTraffic cited by DR.

Starboard Maritime Intelligence data analyzed by The Insider shows Graceful appeared on radar June 28 north of the German coast. It has now entered the Skagerrak, the strait between Denmark and southern Norway.

The yacht’s destination is listed as Istanbul.

Graceful’s appearance on vessel-tracking services — and off Denmark — was unexpected. The yacht’s AIS transmitter had been switched off since late August 2022. Since then, however, it has been seen several times in the Baltic Sea — near St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad and off the coast of Estonia.

Graceful did not appear alone. Putin’s yacht is being escorted by the patrol boat Voevoda and a Russian destroyer, which can also be seen in satellite images.

The superyacht Graceful was built in 2014 at Sevmash, Russia’s largest shipyard. It is only one of several yachts that media reports have tied to Putin. In 2023, the investigative team of the late Alexei Navalny reported that Graceful had undergone major renovations in order to meet the “growing demands of its owner.”

ABW officers and border guards recently detained nine Ukrainian citizens and two Belarusian citizens in Warsaw, Wroclaw, Krakow, Zakopane, and Bydgoszcz. Polish authorities have ordered their immediate deportation.

Investigators said the detainees had links to Russian and Belarusian intelligence services. Since the fall of 2025, the group had recruited and paid Ukrainian refugees in Poland to take part in demonstrations.

The ABW said the organizers gradually built influence within the Ukrainian refugee community before pushing its members to participate in protests centered on emotionally charged issues including corruption scandals and developments in Ukrainian domestic politics. The agency described the activity as falling below the threshold of conventional aggression, calling it a hybrid operation aimed at undermining public trust and inflaming tensions while using people fleeing the war as tools of Russian influence.

The Russian-language outlet Vot Tak previously reported that Polish security services had uncovered networks using fake job ads to recruit Ukrainians and Belarusians to carry out acts of sabotage and subversion. Since 2022, the ABW has opened 71 criminal cases involving these networks.

“As for strikes on critical infrastructure in general and energy infrastructure in particular, of course these strikes on our infrastructure facilities create problems. That is obvious. We are now seeing a certain shortage, but it is not critical,” Putin said before adding that Crimea’s fuel reserves are sufficient for only a few more days. “As for supplies of energy resources to Crimea, the monthly need — the minister reported this to me — is 70,000 metric tons. Crimea now has reserves for several days, but the needs will be met. We will increase these supplies both overland and by sea. I am confident this task will be solved.”

Putin then claimed that Ukrainian strikes on Russian infrastructure are being carried out “to create self-doubt among us, doubt in our strength, and even better, to cause a split in Russian society and force Russia to suspend, at least for a short time, the advance of our troops along the line of contact and create conditions for the start of a negotiation process on terms favorable to themselves, that is, to our adversary… We will not give them that chance. This is all the more important because all these terrorist sorties do not affect the situation at the front in any way.”

Putin said the Russian authorities plan to take several steps to address the fuel shortage:

• “Quickly and significantly increase production of the most in-demand air defense systems.”
• “Bring facilities out of repairs faster, arrange the necessary volume of imports and reliably cover these [oil refining] facilities.”
• “Coordinate the work of all levels and structures involved in repelling attacks by unmanned aerial vehicles and missiles on our infrastructure.”

Putin claimed that Ukrainian authorities had proposed a deal whereby both sides would halt strikes deep inside enemy territory, saying:

“It is clear why this proposal is being made: because our retaliatory strikes deep inside Ukrainian territory are much more powerful, sensitive, and, frankly, destructive, and they lead to truly serious consequences for the Kyiv regime. Another proposal is to limit combat operations to only four territories — that is, to conduct combat operations only in the Kherson region, Zaporizhzhia region, the Donetsk People’s Republic, and the Luhansk People’s Republic, and to stop combat operations in all other territories. 

It is also clear why: because if we agree to this, it would allow the Ukrainian armed forces to withdraw their troops from the Mykolaiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, and Sumy regions, as well as from some sections of the state border, and redeploy those units to the four regions named above. 

In conditions of a catastrophic shortage of personnel in the Ukrainian armed forces, they apparently believe this could save them. But saving the Kyiv regime is not part of our plans, even if we treat every proposal coming from that side with attention — and I say this now without any irony.”

The “Donetsk People’s Republic” and “Luhansk People’s Republic” are Russian-backed entities in occupied eastern Ukraine. Moscow claims to have annexed them, along with the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. However, the annexations are illegal and not internationally recognized, and Russia does not fully control all of the territory it claims.

When asked by the correspondent whether the United States had changed its position on the war in Ukraine under pressure from the European Union, Putin said he did not believe that was the case. Putin called Trump “a more than mature and experienced politician” and said Moscow was ready to “continue negotiations and discuss all the details.” He said the Kremlin was waiting for U.S. negotiators to arrive, adding that a delegation had not been to Russia since January.

In late March, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv was ready for an “energy ceasefire, saying: “I emphasize once again: If Russia is ready not to strike Ukrainian energy facilities, we will not strike their energy facilities. We are ready to discuss any ceasefire.”

Russia’s list of property under “temporary management” appeared in April 2023 in response to actions by foreign states — primarily sanctions — that Moscow deemed to be “unfriendly and contrary to international law.”The mechanism allows Russia to place real estate, securities, and stakes in Russian companies owned by people or entities from “unfriendly” countries under temporary management, usually by Rosimushchestvo.

The first assets affected were foreign stakes in the energy company Unipro, owned by Germany’s Uniper SA, and the generating company Fortum, owned by the Dutch company Fortum.

Glavprodukt, a well-known canned food producer, was transferred to Rosimushchestvo in October 2024.At the time, the state took over management of 100% stakes in Glavprodukt, the Baltic Canning Plant, United Canning Plants, Orelprodukt, and the Verkhovye Dairy and Canning Plant. All were owned by Promselkhozinvest LLC, which was founded by the American corporation Universal Beverage Company. Russian authorities cited the owner’s U.S. origin as the reason for intervention.

Later, in July 2025, a court ordered the holding’s assets nationalized.

Despite those formal changes, Glavprodukt remained listed under Rosimushchestvo’s temporary management. The new presidential decree removes Glavprodukt and stakes in other companies in the holding from the external management system.

Formally, this may mean the holding has been definitively transferred to state control — no longer temporarily, but permanently — with a possible sale to follow. In February, Glavprodukt’s management company was changed to RSHB-Finance LLC, a structure linked to the Russian Agricultural Bank.

A similar process occurred in connection with JSC Danone Russia, a subsidiary of the French dairy giant. Foreign-owned stakes in the company were transferred to Rosimushchestvo in July 2023, and the decision was canceled in March 2024. Two months later, Danone’s Russian assets were sold to a company from Tatarstan.

Read more about the takeover of Glavprodukt in our report.

According to Tatyana Lunina, her husband had driven to Moscow the day before, then stopped responding to calls. Police came overnight to the family’s home in the village of Lizinovka in the Rossoshansky District of Russia’s Voronezh Region. They seized “everything they found: flash drives, computers, laptops, a disk, nunchucks,” she said. Lunina said she was home with two children and did not see a search warrant.

Tatyana Lunina later wrote on the Russian social network VK that her husband was “alive and well” and that he had asked others to refrain from publishing information about him, giving interviews, or responding to comments. A post later appeared on Lunin’s Telegram channel under the name of its administrator, a family acquaintance. It said Tatyana Lunina had reported that her husband had been “held administratively liable and detained for 11 days.” There is still no information regarding the article of Russia’s administrative code under which Lunin was charged, nor about the court that ordered his arrest.

On June 25, Lunin published a video appeal to Putin that drew more than 15 million views in two days. The veteran said Russian soldiers were being subjected to torture and abuse by their commanders for refusing to carry out “stupid and suicidal” orders — or for their refusal to hand over money to their superiors. Lunin demanded a “live audience” with Putin, saying:

“If I do not come to the Kremlin soon and appear live on the air next to you, the army will turn its weapons against the Kremlin.”

In the same video, Lunin claimed he was relaying a message he had received from people he described as representatives of the Russian Defense Ministry and unnamed security agencies. There is no confirmation that officials from those agencies met with him or passed along such a message.

Lunin previously said he had been invited to Moscow to discuss problems facing Russian soldiers. The independent Russian investigative outlet Agentstvo reported that Lunin fought in the Sudoplatov volunteer battalion, where he commanded a reconnaissance unit.

“For several months, we worked inside the system. During that time, we downloaded the database of all employees, their relatives, places of residence, supply chains, and more,” the message said.

The group also claimed it had left “hundreds of surprises” in new batches of “Geraniums,” saying the drones would “explode” during launch preparations. “Geranium,” or Geran-2, is Russia’s name for modified Iranian-designed Shahed-type attack drones it uses in strikes on Ukraine.

“This is our response to the use of 15-year-old children to assemble deadly drones. And in Alabuga, they are proud of that. We already have lists of everyone involved. Some, after a short conversation, agreed to help us get into production. There is now a major panic in Alabuga. They had to physically shut down their servers, and FSB officers are checking everyone who may have been involved in the system breach,” the message said.

The hacker group’s claim could not be independently confirmed. Representatives of the Alabuga special economic zone have not commented. The website is now operating normally.

The Alabuga special economic zone is located in Tatarstan’s Yelabuga District. Before the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it was developed as a largely civilian industrial site with its own educational project, Alabuga Polytech. After some foreign companies left and staff shortages emerged, the SEZ’s management shifted its focus to defense contracts.

Alabuga thus became a production site for Shahed-type attack drones. Journalists and human rights groups have reported that Alabuga Polytech students, including minors, were recruited to work in drone assembly. The plant has also recruited South African women to work at the facility.

Thanks to Alabuga’s lucrative defense contracts, the Yelabuga District recently became Tatarstan’s highest-paying locality, with average monthly salaries at large and medium-sized enterprises rising 72% — to 217,000 rubles (just under $2,700 at current exchange rates). Because of its drone production, Alabuga has repeatedly been targeted by Ukrainian attacks. In April 2024, Ukrainian drones struck a dormitory complex housing employees and students linked to drone assembly.

According to some detractors, most of the real administrative work in the city was carried out by the mayor’s talented and diligent deputies. Critics also argue that Burnham simply benefited from the region's already favorable business climate and the industriousness of its residents — that he mainly chaired meetings, cut ceremonial ribbons, and made high-profile statements to score political points as part of a larger plan to boost his candidacy for the highest office in the country.  In any event, Burnham is on his way to 10 Downing Street, the office of the British prime minister.

In Manchester, Burnham mostly chaired meetings, cut ribbons, and made headline-grabbing statements, critics say

He has never made much effort to conceal his ambitions or his desire for power. After graduating from the University of Cambridge with a degree in English literature, he moved almost immediately into politics, editing trade union publications before becoming an aide to Labour MP Tessa Jowell. Burnham quickly rose through the party ranks, winning election to Parliament in 2001 and serving in the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, though never in a senior position.

In short, Burnham is the sort of politician whom critics tend to dismiss as a consummate political operator — someone who has never experienced what it means to hold an ordinary job and earn a regular paycheck. They argue that spending an entire career inside the artificial bubble of politics inevitably distorts one's perception of the real world.

That said, there is no doubt that Burnham — telegenic, charismatic, and quick-witted — is a highly gifted politician. An excellent public speaker, he always seems to know exactly what each audience wants to hear. In this respect, he stands in stark contrast to the reserved, overly serious Keir Starmer, whose poor communication skills alienated both colleagues and the wider public, many of whom regarded him as a dull, almost dim-witted bore.

In reality, the outgoing prime minister was anything but unintelligent. His success in purging the Labour Party of the toxic legacy left by the hard-left zealot Jeremy Corbyn and his allies was no small achievement. But his legacy will indeed be rather dull, matching his tenure.

Once Starmer became prime minister, he failed to win the backing of his own party and committed a series of political missteps. The most consequential came even before he took office, when Labour's election manifesto categorically pledged not to raise income taxes, VAT, or employees' National Insurance contributions. The promise was intended to help secure Labour’s victory at the polls, but in reality, the party almost certainly would have won anyway, as voters were primarily eager to end the Conservatives' fourteen years in power. By making that ill-considered pledge, Starmer and his cabinet set a trap for themselves: the government still needed to find revenue, and so the burden was simply shifted onto businesses. The result dealt a painful blow not only to small and medium-sized enterprises but to the economy as a whole.

Other mistakes were less significant, but they revealed a lack of political instinct and damaged both the government's reputation and Starmer's personal standing. One particularly ill-judged move was an attempt to strip 10 million pensioners of their winter fuel payments. The savings to the state budget would have been negligible, but the political cost proved enormous. Faced with a furious public backlash, the government hastily reversed the decision. By then, however, Starmer had already acquired the image of an almost heartless leader, while the opposition mocked him for his weakness. His own parliamentary party increasingly began to undermine him, blocking Starmer’s efforts to curb soaring welfare spending.

Then came the scandal involving senior Labour figure Peter Mandelson, whom Starmer had unwisely appointed to serve as ambassador to the United States. Documents published in America revealed that Mandelson had maintained close, friendly ties with Jeffrey Epstein, the notorious sex trafficker who catered to the rich and powerful. It had already seemed that Starmer was simply surviving from setback to setback, and the Manelson affair proved to be the final straw.

But not all mistakes are created equal. Liz Truss, for example, who occupied 10 Downing street for less than two months in the fall of 2022, nearly bankrupted the country through reckless and economically illiterate policies. Boris Johnson, who held the job from 2019-2022, made a series of disastrous blunders during the COVID-19 lockdowns, not to mention his role in determining the clearly unfavorable terms of Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. And Brexit itself was the result of David Cameron's grave political miscalculations. Compared with those failures, it is difficult to understand how Starmer, of all people, ended up becoming the most unpopular prime minister in British history.

For Britons, however, the more pressing question is what Andy Burnham's arrival in Downing Street will mean for the country's future. Labour's backbench MPs greeted Burnham’s appearance in the House of Commons with unmistakable enthusiasm, and it is clear they expect him to steer the party sharply to the left. Burnham himself once argued that both Labour and Britain had taken the wrong path beginning in the 1980s, a position that many interpreted as a promise to return the country to the pre-Thatcher era of powerful trade unions, nationalization, and extensive state regulation and control.

Such a course of action, however, is difficult to imagine in practice. Burnham comes across as a rational and calculating politician — one who is in no hurry to disappoint his supporters within the party. He is so popular within Labour (which itself enjoys an overwhelming majority in Parliament) that he really could fundamentally reshape the country. Yet almost nothing is known about his plans or his program, and he remains enigmatically silent.

The bee tattoo on Burnham's arm, which he likes to casually display to journalists, is meant to symbolize not only his ties to the north of England (he was born in Liverpool) but also his commitment to the North's austere work ethic. The bee, after all, is portrayed as fearless and willing to sacrifice itself for the common good. But what does that symbolism mean in practice? Does it herald a genuine turn toward socialism — a transformation that would amount to a political earthquake? Or should it simply be dismissed as yet another public relations flourish by a gifted political communicator?

Burnham has virtually no foreign policy experience, while commentators point out that if his predecessor excelled in any area, it was international affairs. Starmer significantly improved Britain's relations with the European Union and played an important role in coordinating Europe's support for Ukraine. It would be unfortunate if those gains were lost under the new prime minister.

Burnham was once a staunch opponent of Brexit and hinted that Britain should eventually seek to rejoin the European Union. Still, when he decided to contest the parliamentary by-election in Makerfield, a constituency with strong pro-Brexit sentiment, he swiftly changed his position, declaring that reopening the issue would be a mistake that would only deepen the country's divisions. In the vote, even opponents of the Labour government — including nationalists backing the Reform UK party of Nigel Farage — rallied behind Burnham, delivering him nearly 55% at the polls. After all, the real objective behind Burnham’s run was hardly concealed: to get rid of Starmer and his government by entering parliament, then standing for the leadership of the governing party.

During the campaign, Burnham did not utter a word about foreign policy. Before that, however, he had made a number of noteworthy statements on some of the world's most contentious issues. On the Middle East, Burnham disappointed left-wing supporters by refusing to describe Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip as genocide but was among the first in the Labour Party to publicly call for a ceasefire, contradicting the government's official position at the time. Starmer argued that it was inappropriate to demand that Israel cease its operations while Hamas continued to hold hostages, remained in control of Gaza, and was preparing further terrorist attacks.

On another occasion, Burnham sharply condemned the construction of what he called "illegal settlements" in the West Bank, while in the same breath strongly criticizing the terrorist organization Hamas. He belonged to the Labour Friends of Israel group, yet also visited the West Bank as part of a delegation organized by the Council for Arab-British Understanding. As in so many other areas, he sought to project the image of a balanced and impartial politician.

Burnham has also spoken unflatteringly about Donald Trump, expressing hope that the "toxic style of American politics" would not take hold in Britain. At the same time, however, he supported Starmer's decision to adopt an openly deferential tone toward the White House, even as that approach drew fierce criticism at home.

There is one issue, however, on which Burnham has taken an unequivocal stance: Russia's war against Ukraine. As early as 2023, he described the conflict as "an illegal Russian invasion…that has turned millions of people into refugees." Then, in February 2024, he declared, "We must not forget Ukraine," and this past spring Burnham warmly welcomed the mayors of Lviv and Bucha to Manchester. Together with other northern English mayors, he played an active role in establishing the Unity for Ukraine initiative, which helps Ukrainian refugees find employment, learn English, and organize activities for their children. "We will support you for as long as it takes," the mayor of Manchester told his Ukrainian guests.

By all indications, Ukraine will not be forgotten under the new prime minister. If nothing else, the politically astute populist Burnham understands that British public opinion remains firmly committed to supporting Ukraine and resisting Russian aggression. In that regard, the course set by Boris Johnson and continued by Keir Starmer looks set to remain unchanged. Moscow is unlikely to have any illusions on that score.

The politically astute populist Burnham knows that British public opinion remains firmly committed to supporting Ukraine

The Labour left had expected Burnham to embrace their calls for cuts in defense spending, a cause championed so vigorously by Jeremy Corbyn. Instead, the prime minister-in-waiting surprised everyone once again, suggesting that he might kill two birds with one stone by reducing spending on unemployment benefits while creating additional jobs in the defense industry. Whether such a plan is actually feasible remains unclear, but to voters it sounded both unexpected and ingenious.

The new leader may yet surprise the country with other unorthodox ideas. Britain, it seems, is prepared to give him that chance — even if 65% of those surveyed say they know almost nothing about him.

Historically, every major outbreak of syphilis and gonorrhea has coincided with war, mass migration, poverty, and other socioeconomic disruptions. One of the first large-scale syphilis epidemics swept across Europe at the end of the 15th century, coinciding with the Italian campaign of King Charles VIII of France in 1494–1495. Vast armies accompanied by mercenaries, merchants, and prostitutes created ideal conditions for the spread of infection.

During the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, urban growth, population migration, and changing lifestyles were accompanied by a new wave of STIs. In major European cities, syphilis and gonorrhea affected between 5% and 20% of the population.

STIs were a particular concern for governments during wartime. During World War I, for example, venereal diseases sidelined 18,000 soldiers per day in the U.S. Army.

European states have long attempted to address the problem by restricting prostitution. Special registries were established, mandatory medical examinations were carried out, and infected people were isolated. Control and surveillance measures were directed primarily at women, who at the time were regarded as the main source of the problem. Men, despite playing a key role in spreading infection, were largely outside the reach of both public health surveillance and religious control. Because of the social and religious stigma attached to STIs, many affected people were reluctant to seek help, thereby contributing to the continued spread of disease.

In 1928, Alexander Fleming isolated penicillin, and in the 1940s, Oxford University scientists Howard Florey and Ernst Chain developed effective methods for its purification, paving the way for the drug's widespread medical use.

The advent of antibiotics proved decisive in the fight against bacterial infections, including STIs. As late as 1943, treatment for gonorrhea required a 30-day stay in a hospital, but by 1944 the course of treatment had been reduced to five days and could be administered without hospitalization.

As late as 1943, treatment for gonorrhea required a 30-day stay in a hospital, but by 1944 the course of treatment had been reduced to just five days

In the postwar decades, syphilis rates in Europe declined sharply, driven not only by the spread of antibiotics but also by the widespread adoption of contraception (particularly latex condoms), as well as the expansion of public healthcare systems. Large-scale testing and treatment programs were introduced, and the cost of medical care fell. Some countries also imposed criminal penalties for knowingly transmitting STIs. In the Soviet Union, and later in Russia, criminal liability exists for the intentional transmission of sexually transmitted infections.

Following the introduction of penicillin and the dramatic decline in infection rates after World War II, many came to believe that the problem of STIs was becoming a thing of the past. However, during the 1960s and 1970s, researchers began to document a renewed rise in STI incidence. Some scholars have linked this trend to sweeping changes in social norms, including a lower starting age for sexual activity and increased urban mobility.

The decline in STI rates during that period was also influenced by the HIV epidemic that swept across the world in the 1980s. The emergence of the deadly new infection dramatically increased public awareness of the risks of transmission. Many countries launched large-scale campaigns promoting safer sex, and condom use became significantly more widespread. As a result, the prevalence of certain STIs temporarily declined in some countries.

The situation in the Soviet Union was more tightly controlled. By the 1960s and 1970s, the country had developed an extensive network of dermatovenerology clinics and a system of mandatory epidemiological surveillance. The state actively traced the contacts of infected people, introduced long-term medical monitoring, and carried out mass preventive screenings. This model was rigid and largely incompatible with modern notions of medical confidentiality, but when it came to controlling infection rates it remained effective for many years.

The Soviet model was rigid and largely incompatible with modern notions of medical confidentiality, but it was effective

During the 1990s, Europe experienced an uneven epidemiological landscape with regard to STIs. Following the collapse of the socialist bloc and sweeping socioeconomic changes, countries across the region began to develop along different trajectories. The sharpest increase in syphilis rates was recorded in the former Soviet republics, particularly Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.

Epidemiologists attributed this surge to several concurrent processes: rising poverty, mass migration, the breakdown of established healthcare systems, the reduction of prevention programs, and broader changes in social and living conditions.

In Western Europe, the situation was more favorable. During the first half of the 1990s, the Scandinavian countries — Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark — experienced declining gonorrhea rates. By the end of the decade, however, researchers began to identify new pockets of growth in the United Kingdom as well as in the Netherlands.

Experts linked these developments not only to patterns of sexual behavior but also to differences in access to diagnostic services, the effectiveness of healthcare systems, and the quality of epidemiological surveillance. Some countries maintained robust systems of prevention and early detection, while others were undergoing profound social and economic transformations that were directly reflected in disease trends.

The end of fear of HIV

The current STI surge is the result of several independent processes overlapping with one another, each of which either altered people's behavior or weakened healthcare systems. Together, they have created the conditions for a sustained increase in infection rates that has now lasted for more than a decade.

On June 5, 1981, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a brief report that changed the course of medical history. It told the story of five young, previously healthy gay men in Los Angeles who had developed a rare form of pneumonia, Pneumocystis carinii, which was virtually unseen in people with normal immune systems. Two of them had already died, and doctors did not understand what was happening. Reports of similar cases soon emerged from New York and San Francisco, and a year later the new disease was finally given a name: AIDS.

Emerging at the height of the sexual revolution, which had already transformed the intimate behavior of an entire generation, the mysterious virus triggered a wave of fear. The disease was killing young, healthy people, and there was no treatment. Governments launched large-scale campaigns promoting safer sex.

In 1986, U.S. Surgeon General Vice Admiral C. Everett Koop published a brochure explaining the very real risks of unprotected sex. In 1987 the United Kingdom released a special brochure targeting heterosexual teenagers — Love Carefully: Use a Condom — openly promoting condoms as a tool for protection against a disease.

The impact of these campaigns was twofold. Their primary goal was to curb the spread of HIV, but they also helped reduce the incidence of other STIs. Prevention programs in the 1980s increased overall condom use by roughly 25%, as the fear of death proved to be a more powerful regulator of sexual behavior than any previous campaign against gonorrhea or syphilis.

Then, in 1996, everything changed with the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART, or ART) for the treatment of HIV infection. Typically, the process combines three or four drugs that suppress viral replication, restore immune function, and transform HIV into a manageable chronic condition.

The arrival of ART was a medical triumph, but it simultaneously removed the principal behavioral deterrent: fear. This, in all likelihood, contributed to a renewed increase in the incidence of other sexually transmitted infections.

The advent of ART was a medical triumph that reduced fear of HIV and, in all likelihood, contributed to rising STI rates

As early as 2004, a group of Brazilian researchers led by Benoît Mâsse confirmed this mechanism through mathematical modeling. Between 0% and 55% of new bacterial STI cases could be attributed to the widespread adoption of ART within the population, driven by a relatively modest increase in risky behavior at the population level. In other words, even a small collective shift in behavior, multiplied across an entire population, can produce a substantial epidemiological effect.

"When was the last time you saw a large-scale government campaign promoting condoms as a means of protection against HIV and other STIs among men who have sex with men (MSM)?" researchers ask rhetorically. In their view, such campaigns have largely disappeared from public health agendas, meaning a new generation is growing up without fully appreciating the importance of safer sex.

HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis and “risk compensation”

The next turning point came with the advent of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) — the preventive use of antiretroviral drugs by HIV-negative people to reduce the risk of acquiring the infection.

PrEP is widely used among men who have sex with men (MSM), sex workers, and HIV-negative partners of HIV-positive people. Researchers at the University of Melbourne documented a phenomenon known as “risk compensation” among PrEP users: reliable protection against HIV was accompanied by reduced condom use and rising STI rates.

Additionally, a Madrid study conducted between 2017 and 2019 among MSM found that risk compensation manifested primarily through less frequent condom use during anal sex, while the number of sexual partners and the use of psychoactive substances remained stable. At the same time, STI incidence within the group was very high, particularly for rectal gonorrhea and chlamydia.

However, the relationship cannot be reduced to a simple cause-and-effect link. Danish researchers led by Frederik Engsig conducted a cohort study between 2019 and 2022 and found that a 35% increase in STI incidence was associated with PrEP use, but the rise in cases began 10–20 weeks before participants started taking the medication. This suggests that people often seek PrEP not before, but during periods of increased sexual activity. In addition, PrEP tends to attract groups that already face a higher baseline risk of infection.

Chemsex

A closely related factor is the rise of chemsex — the deliberate use of psychoactive substances to enhance sexual experiences. Chemsex, as well as slamsex (the injection of psychoactive substances before sex), also increases the risk of STI transmission.

The trend is particularly evident in Spain. Researchers from Hospital Clínic de Barcelona estimated that 89% of PrEPusers reported using psychoactive substances, substantially higher than the figures from England (38.5%) and the Netherlands (41%). Austrian researchers found that, when compared with people who did not use psychoactive substances during sex, those who engaged in chemsex experienced higher rates of gonorrhea (38% versus 21%) and syphilis (17% versus 5%).

Funding cuts after the 2008 financial crisis

Alongside changes in behavior, public health response systems were also weakening. The 2008 financial crisis triggered a wave of cuts to public healthcare spending across Europe and North America just as the epidemiological burden was beginning to increase.

In the United Kingdom, reductions in funding for sexual health services resulted in the reduction in services from specialized clinics. Budget cuts also eliminated positions for contact tracers — specialists trained to notify and encourage the sexual partners of infected patients to undergo testing. Outreach services for high-risk groups — including sex workers and MSM — were likewise scaled back.

The post-COVID rebound

The COVID-19 pandemic created a brief illusion of improvement. In 2020, STI incidence fell sharply across Europe, primarily because of restrictions on movement and reduced access to diagnostic services. In reality, however, transmission appears not to have stopped during this period, but instead continued  largely undetected. Once the restrictions were lifted, reported case numbers began to climb rapidly.

Actual transmission of infection during the COVID-19 pandemic appears not to have stopped but simply went undetected

In 2021, for example, Spain experienced a sharp surge in reported STI cases: gonorrhea increased by 49%, HIV by 45%, chlamydia by 39%, and syphilis by 32%. A similar pattern was observed in England, where health authorities recorded a pronounced and widespread increase in gonorrhea diagnoses, particularly among people aged 15–24.

Importantly, the post-pandemic rise was not limited to traditionally high-risk groups. Among young people — especially women aged 20–24 — the reported rates of gonorrhea rose by nearly 200% between 2021 and 2023. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control attributes this trend to changes in sexual behavior during the post-pandemic period (even if the mechanisms behind this shift remain insufficiently understood).

Dating apps

The role of online dating platforms remains a frequently cited but difficult-to-verify factor. Such apps have dramatically lowered the barriers to finding sexual partners and may facilitate the formation of large sexual networks. However, it is statistically difficult to isolate their independent contribution to STI transmission dynamics.

App use correlates with a wide range of other behavioral variables, and as tempting as it may be to single out this factor, the ECDC does not do so.

Overexposed and invisible: A portrait of the epidemic across groups

The current STI wave has emerged at the intersection of behavioral changes facilitated by new biomedical tools, the structural weakening of prevention systems, and the post-pandemic disruption.

The first thing to note in the ECDC's reports is that MSM are disproportionately represented in European STI statistics. According to the ECDC, they account for 62% of gonorrhea cases and 69% of syphilis cases reported across the EU/EEA. Does this mean that MSM experience these infections seven times more often than the rest of the population? Not necessarily. More likely, they are tested at higher rates than members of other groups.

PrEP monitoring protocols require mandatory STI testing every three months, and in most European countries this schedule is embedded in national guidelines. Of the 29 EU/EEA countries that submitted data to the ECDC's 2024 monitoring program, 19 have policies mandating regular asymptomatic screening for all three major bacterial STIs among PrEP users. Because MSM are considered a higher-risk group, they receive greater medical attention. As a result, they are, in a sense, overrepresented in surveillance data.

The concentration of cases in certain countries supports this interpretation. Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, and France account for a disproportionately large share of Europe's gonorrhea and syphilis cases. These countries exhibit a specific combination of factors: well-developed PrEP infrastructures, high rates of chemsex among PrEP users, active LGBTQ+ tourism, and open sexual health systems with low barriers to care. The result is exceptionally high case detection. Spain, with 11,556 syphilis cases, and Germany, with 9,509 cases in 2024, lead the European statistics.

Against the backdrop of MSM data, the statistics for women appear much more reassuring: 69% of syphilis cases in the EU are reported among men and only 31% among women. This distribution is often interpreted as evidence that women are less affected by the disease.

However, these statistics may be influenced by the fact that infections are detected less frequently in women, as well as by the way STIs manifest in female patients. Gonorrhea and syphilis in women are asymptomatic or present with only mild clinical symptoms in 50–80% of cases.

In most instances, a woman infected with gonorrhea will experience no symptoms that would prompt her to seek medical care. This means that symptom-driven testing — the primary route of case detection for most adults — works poorly for women. The only reliable way to determine the true burden of disease is to actively include women in screening programs, particularly during pregnancy.

Of the 29 EU/EEA countries that provided data to the ECDC, 27 have policies requiring syphilis screening during the first trimester of pregnancy — often, this is the only routine point of contact women have with STI testing systems. Outside pregnancy, routine STI screening for women does not exist in most European countries. Testing is typically ordered when symptoms appear or on an individual basis, but not systematically — unlike the situation for MSM.

Chlamydia is an exception. According to the ECDC, chlamydia is detected far more frequently in women than either syphilis or gonorrhea, and women are nearly at parity with men in reported cases. This is largely because chlamydia has long been incorporated into gynecological screening programs in many countries.

Congenital syphilis statistics have also begun to rise, and their distribution across Europe is far from uniform. According to the ECDC, four countries — Hungary, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, and Portugal — account for a disproportionately large share of all reported cases in the EU/EEA.

Bulgaria has recorded the highest number of congenital syphilis cases. The infection is concentrated primarily within the Roma community. Although Roma account for only 4% of the population, they represented 35% of all syphilis cases identified in the study. More than half of those infected (55%) were women, and 14% of them were pregnant.

This is a population with limited access to healthcare, a high degree of social exclusion, and chronic distrust of state institutions. As a result, prenatal screening programs that could interrupt vertical transmission often fail to reach them.

A similar pattern can be observed in the Netherlands among migrant women working in the sex industry. Researchers at the Dutch Ministry of Health have documented substantially higher rates of syphilis in this group than among Dutch-born women. At the same time, they are far less likely to return for follow-up care. In other words, infections are detected but not systematically monitored, leaving treatment outcomes unknown.

The situation in Portugal is particularly troubling. The country has one of the highest national rates of congenital syphilis in Europe — 17.5 cases per 100,000 live births. This far exceeds the World Health Organization's elimination target, which requires a rate of no more than one case per 100,000 live births. To prevent mother-to-child transmission as effectively as possible, the WHO calls for syphilis testing coverage among pregnant women to exceed 95%. Portugal falls short of this target, with coverage gaps of around 50% among vulnerable population groups.

Women from marginalized communities, migrant women (the ECDC report notes that more than half of pregnant women diagnosed with syphilis in Portugal were born outside the country), and low-income women often do not receive prenatal care early in pregnancy and lack access to treatment.

Another almost entirely invisible group is victims of human trafficking. By definition, no comprehensive European data exist for this population: these are people who are being deliberately hidden from institutions, including healthcare systems. The limited studies available in the literature report STI rates among trafficking victims that are between 22 and 111 times higher than those observed in the general population. However, since this group falls outside registries and screening programs, its contribution to overall disease trends cannot be reliably estimated.

A detection crisis

From a medical standpoint, STIs have long ceased to be a particularly complex problem. The main treatment — benzathine penicillin — has been used for decades and remains the gold standard of therapy. STIs are relatively easy to diagnose, and in the case of syphilis, mother-to-child transmission can be prevented through timely testing and treatment during pregnancy. As a result, the current rise in STI rates is increasingly viewed not only as a medical issue but also as an organizational one.

Data from the ECDC show that STI prevention systems across Europe remain highly uneven. Of the 29 EU and European Economic Area countries that submitted data for the 2024 monitoring exercise, nearly half continue to charge at least part of the population a fee for STI testing.

Meanwhile, PrEP users typically undergo routine screening every three months as part of their medical follow-up, whereas for other groups access to testing depends on national healthcare systems and insurance coverage arrangements.

A similar situation exists when it comes to congenital syphilis prevention programs. Fifteen European countries do not have policies requiring repeat syphilis testing during the third trimester of pregnancy for women in high-risk groups. Only a handful of countries were able to provide complete data on screening uptake among pregnant women. And even fewer could supply accurate statistics on actual screening coverage. ECDC experts explicitly describe a critical reporting gap that makes it impossible to identify failures in the system in time to prevent transmission of the infection to newborns.

The problems extend beyond diagnostics. In recent years, eight European countries have reported shortages of benzathine penicillin, and shortages of this critically important medication are linked to vulnerabilities in global supply chains, particularly dependence on China.

At the same time, many national STI prevention strategies have been updated more slowly than recommended by international organizations. The WHO’s “Global Health Sector Strategies on HIV, Viral Hepatitis, and STIs” set an interim goal of updating and adapting national guidelines and programs in all participating countries by the middle of the decade. However, ECDC monitoring found that most countries still rely on outdated policy documents or address STIs only as a secondary component of broader HIV programs. This dilutes the focus on bacterial STIs and reduces funding dedicated to combating them.

Many of the measures that experts consider most effective do not require technological breakthroughs. These include expanding access to testing, introducing repeat screening for pregnant women in high-risk groups, integrating STI diagnostics into routine healthcare, and reaching populations that are less likely to engage with healthcare systems. According to experts, prevention and early detection are far less costly than treating the severe complications that can result from these infections.

Prevention and early detection of infection are far less costly than treating severe complications of disease

This is why, amid the broader rise in STI rates, the ECDC considers the increase in congenital syphilis cases to be the most alarming finding in the 2024 data. The number of reported cases in the EU/EEA rose from 78 in 2023 to 140 in 2024 — nearly doubling in a single year and reaching the highest level recorded since European surveillance began in the 1990s.

In modern medicine, such cases are often viewed not only as medical events but also as indicators of how well a healthcare system is functioning. Behind each diagnosis typically lies a chain of missed opportunities — delayed testing, late entry into prenatal care, or lack of access to healthcare services.

Ivanov was one of the most prominent Russian officials of the Putin era. He was born in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, graduated from the philology department at Leningrad State University, and later completed the KGB’s Higher Courses in Minsk and the Soviet KGB’s Red Banner Institute outside Moscow. From the mid-1970s, Ivanov served in the state security agencies, including in posts abroad. He had known Vladimir Putin since their time in the Leningrad KGB.

In the late 1990s, Ivanov was deputy director of the FSB, Russia’s domestic security service, when Putin headed the agency. After Putin came to power, Ivanov became the secretary of Russia’s Security Council. In 2001, he was appointed defense minister. He later served as deputy prime minister and first deputy prime minister, overseeing the defense industry. From 2011 to 2016, he served as head of the presidential administration, a powerful Kremlin post often described as the president’s chief of staff.

In 2007, Ivanov was widely seen as one of the most likely successors to Putin as president. The Kremlin ultimately backed Dmitry Medvedev instead.

After leaving the presidential administration in 2016, Ivanov served as Putin’s special representative for environmental protection, ecology and transport. In 2026, Putin dismissed him from that post and later removed him from the Security Council.

Ivanov was under sanctions imposed by the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and several other countries.

Long before the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, a handful of American officials made note of him in their memoirs. In 2011, former National Security Advisor (2001-2005) and Secretary of State (2005-2009) Condoleezza Rice published No Higher Honor, where she wrote of Ivanov:

“Sergei was tough and somewhat suspicious of the United States, but he was dependable. He never told me that he would do something that he did not do. He was an unfailing conduit to Putin on the most sensitive matters through changes in positions and titles…[and] our channel remained the most important and discreet one between the White House and the Kremlin… Owing to our long association, I was able to talk with him candidly. He was no Jeffersonian democrat, but he was — and still is — a modernizer. That was always the true divide in Russia: Slavophiles versus modernizers, not democrats versus authoritarians… Ivanov, it turned out, was one of the two men whom Vladimir Putin pitted against each other to decide who would succeed him as president. Ivanov would lose.”

Additionally, in 2018, future CIA Director (2021-2025) and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia (2005-2008) William Burns published a diplomacy handbook, The Back Channel,  that described Ivanov as:

“…a longtime friend and former KGB colleague of Putin. A fluent English speaker, able to charm or bludgeon as circumstances required, Ivanov had aspirations to succeed Putin…[but] his steely personality and ambition unsettled others in Putin’s orbit, and the fact that he had been a far more accomplished KGB officer than his friend may have unsettled Putin a little too… As 2007 drew to a close, Putin finally tipped his hand and declared he would support Medvedev as his successor in the March 2008 presidential election. The logic of that choice became clearer in the next couple of months, as rumors swirled that Putin would remain in government as prime minister — perfectly acceptable under the Russian constitution. It made sense to have the more malleable and less experienced Medvedev as his partner in the new “tandem” arrangement; it was hard to see Sergei Ivanov being comfortable in that role, or Putin comfortable with him.”

Pivovarov was detained May 31, 2021, at Pulkovo airport in St. Petersburg. Investigators confiscated his iPhone 12 and MacBook. He did not consent to a search of the devices and did not hand over passwords. The devices were returned to his lawyer only in 2023. In July 2022, a court sentenced Pivovarov to four years in a penal colony on a charge of “carrying out the activities of an undesirable organization,” a Russian legal designation used to ban and criminalize work with foreign or foreign-linked groups deemed a threat by the authorities. He was released Aug. 1, 2024, as part of a prisoner exchange.

Citizen Lab’s findings are supported by a document produced by the Russian authorities themselves: expert report No. 1269-17, prepared by the Interior Ministry’s Forensic Expert Center at the request of the country’s Investigative Committee. The report explicitly states that Cellebrite’s UFED Physical Analyzer and UFED 4PC were used. Security officers extracted data from WhatsApp, Telegram, and Viber on the phone and searched it for references to Open Russia, as well as the names of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Anastasia Burakova, and Pivovarov’s partner, Tatyana Usmanova.

Russian security officers were unable to access Pivovarov’s MacBook because disk encryption blocked data extraction, according to the Interior Ministry report. Citizen Lab separately noted that Cellebrite continued to be used by Russian authorities for political prosecutions even after the company said in March 2021 that it had canceled contracts with Russian and Belarusian customers. The Insider has previously reported that Russian security agencies continued using UFED despite Cellebrite’s stated halt in sales.

In response to Citizen Lab’s request for comment, Cellebrite said:

“Any use of legacy Cellebrite hardware in Russia after March 2021 is entirely unauthorized. The Cellebrite hardware previously sold, prior to March 2021, would now be incompatible with modern devices and would operate without our technical support, our consent, or any legal sanction from Cellebrite. Rapid technology advances render legacy digital forensic hardware and software ineffective within a short period of time. Russia remains permanently on our restricted-customer list.”

Three more tankers are now heading toward the Channel. Most “shadow fleet” tankers, however, are still choosing to avoid the route entirely, according to data from the ship tracking platform Starboard Maritime Intelligence analyzed by The Insider.

Context

Overnight into June 14, Royal Marines and officers from the National Crime Agency, or NCA, boarded and detained the tanker Smyrtos (IMO 9389100) in the English Channel. The tanker is under sanctions imposed by the UK, the EU, the United States, and several other countries. It was the first such operation by British authorities against a vessel from Russia’s “shadow fleet.”

Immediately after the seizure of the vessel, several tankers changed course and began going north around the UK and Ireland when sailing between the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, avoiding the English Channel. Subsequent data, however, shows that “shadow fleet” operators have not stopped using the channel entirely.

Which ships passed through the English Channel or are heading there

The vessels that have already passed through include tankers sanctioned by several Western countries, along with others that have not yet been added to sanctions lists despite their involvement in the shipment of Russian oil and petroleum products.

The following vessels continue operating without sanctions:

• CHEM NICHOLAS (IMO 9374416)
• WAN HE (IMO 9248461)
• ANNA MARIA P (IMO 9288368)

According to Ukrainian intelligence, all three vessels have taken part in the export of Russian oil or petroleum products after the G7 and EU oil embargo and price cap policy were introduced.

Several other vessels are under Ukrainian sanctions only, including:

• CHRYSTAL SKY (IMO 9334569)
• PASIPHAE (IMO 9289518)
• ETERNAL (IMO 9273351)

At the same time, tankers under sanctions imposed by the UK, the EU, the United States, and other Western countries continue to pass through the English Channel, including:

• FORWARDER (IMO 9419448)
• NASLEDIE (IMO 9293002)
• DINASTY (IMO 9311622)
• ALMOND (IMO 9385142)
• PROGRESS (IMO 9306627)

Three more vessels are now heading toward the English Channel. The first two are under Ukrainian sanctions, while the third is under sanctions imposed by the UK, the EU, the United States, Switzerland, Canada, and Ukraine:

• ARINA (IMO 9248813)
• ZHUO YUAN (IMO 9408683)
• BOND (IMO 9412335)

According to the British military, some Russian “shadow fleet” tankers passing through the English Channel are being escorted by the Russian Black Sea Fleet frigate Admiral Grigorovich. The Royal Navy has been tracking the frigate almost continuously since late April. Several media outlets have reported that the vessel has periodically experienced fuel problems and has effectively been drifting in the English Channel. To remain near British shores for extended periods, Admiral Grigorovich refuels at sea using the repair ship PM-82, according to reports from signals intelligence (SIGINT) specialists.

Most ships bypass the English Channel

At the same time, some operators chose to avoid the English Channel after the detention of the Smyrtos. The Insider can report that since June 14, at least 29 Russian “shadow fleet” tankers have bypassed the UK and Ireland while sailing from the Atlantic Ocean back to Russian Baltic Sea ports, choosing a much longer route in order to avoid the Channel.

Three additional tankers that bypassed the UK from the west through the Atlantic were not included in the count because they did not turn into the Baltic Sea but instead sailed to Murmansk, a route for which passage through the English Channel is not essential.

“We prepared the foundation, poured the pedestal, and overlaid it with granite. The sculptural group depicting Joseph Stalin and Ivan Bardin is being created by architect Ilya Korotchenko, who won the design competition. We will pay tribute to the people thanks to whom a metallurgical plant appeared in Cherepovets,” governor Georgy Filimonov said.

The monument was designed by sculptor Ilya Korotchenko. Filimonov previously said he personally monitored its creation and discussed details with the sculptor.

“Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin and Ivan Pavlovich Bardin played a special role in Cherepovets’ development into one of the country’s largest metallurgical centers. In 1940, a decision was made to create a metallurgical base in the northwest of the Soviet Union, and the project became possible thanks to the work of academician Bardin. The monument will be a symbol of respect for the city’s history, its industrial strength, and the people who stood at the origins of its development,” Filimonov said.

The Vologda outlet 35MEDIA, meanwhile, noted that Bardin had adopted the children of colleagues who were repressed under Stalin’s rule, which saw millions of people imprisoned, deported, or executed. According to official data, 3.8 million people were convicted in cases handled by the OGPU, NKVD, and MVD — successive Soviet security and internal affairs agencies — from 1930 to 1953, while 800,000 people were executed from 1923 to 1953. Historians say those figures are several times lower than the real toll.

The database of victims of Soviet political repression compiled by the Russian human rights organization Memorial contains nearly 4 million names; however, the group has estimated that this represents no more than a quarter of those who formally qualify as victims under Russia’s rehabilitation law.

“We suggest that Cherepovets tour guides carefully study the biography of the outstanding Soviet metallurgist before the opening of the monument to Stalin and Bardin,” 35MEDIA wrote. “After all, they will have to answer uncomfortable questions from city visitors about Bardin, who adopted 11 children of his repressed colleagues.”

Since the start of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has seen a growing revival of Stalin monuments and imagery. In late 2024, a monument to Stalin was unveiled in Vologda, the capital of the region where Cherepovets is located. Judging by governor Filimonov’s social media posts, he brings foreign delegations to lay flowers at the sculpture. A Stalin monument removed during de-Stalinization was also recreated at Moscow’s Taganskaya metro station in 2025.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has reported that Russia only had a handful of Stalin monuments when Putin came to power, but it now has well over 100. At the same time, memorials to victims of Stalinist repression have come under pressure or been removed, including a monument in the Siberian city of Tomsk — its dismantling drew protests from several European states this past April.

The GULAG History Museum in Moscow, Russia’s only state-run museum dedicated to documenting Soviet repression, was shut down in 2024 over alleged fire safety violations. Its main exposition was later dismantled, and the museum recently reopened under a new name and theme: the “Museum of Memory of the Victims of the Genocide of the Soviet People.” It focuses on Nazi crimes committed in occupied Soviet territories during World War II, including punitive operations, the siege of Leningrad, and the destruction of cultural heritage. Staff were told the museum planned to draw parallels between World War II and Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine. 

“The system’s logistics links are now being reconfigured to meet current needs,” Novak said. “Balancing the market will take some time.”

At the same time, the Kremlin is considering temporarily banning diesel exports by producers in order to redirect additional volumes to the domestic market. Novak said the issue would be discussed at a meeting later in the day. The ban could last several months.

Authorities had earlier introduced a full ban on gasoline and jet fuel exports and prepared changes to tax legislation intended to encourage an increase in the provision of domestic fuel supplies. Oil companies, the government says, have boosted production and deliveries, while scheduled refinery maintenance has been postponed.

Despite official claims that fuel reserves are sufficient, reports of disruptions, lines, limits on gasoline sales, and bans on selling fuel into canisters have come from more than 80 Russian regions.

According to The Insider’s calculations, as of June 25, official regionwide fuel-sale restrictions were in place in 32 Russian regions, as well as in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine. Including local measures in individual cities, districts, and towns, official restrictions had been recorded in 43 regions and occupied territories. In all, restrictions or disruptions had been reported in at least 83 regions and occupied territories.

The restrictions most often involve bans on selling fuel into canisters, as well as limits on refueling — usually up to 20 to 40 liters of gasoline and up to 80 liters of diesel per vehicle. In some regions, a separate limit of up to 200 liters of diesel has been set for trucks along highways. Authorities in several regions have also introduced priority fuel supplies for government services, agricultural enterprises, and critical infrastructure.

The situation is worst in occupied parts of Ukraine. In Crimea and Sevastopol, Russian occupation authorities have imposed a complete ban on fuel sales to the public. Regional officials generally do not publicly link the crisis to Ukraine’s ongoing strike campaign against Russian oil refineries and fuel depots. Instead, they cite “logistics restructuring,” changes to supply routes, seasonal demand, or panic buying. In some regions, officials effectively shift responsibility to gas station chains themselves. One of the main official explanations is “panic demand.”

“Damage was recorded to a power line and an industrial facility in Novomoskovsk,” regional governor Dmitry Milyaev wrote on Telegram. He said a residential building was damaged in the Shchyokino District and a woman was injured.

The Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ reported that the target of the attack was the Azot chemical plant in Novomoskovsk. NASA’s FIRMS fire-monitoring service also detected a fire on the grounds of the Novomoskovsk state district power plant. Local residents reported power outages.

Independent Russian outlet Astra, citing local residents, reported that numerous explosions were heard in Novomoskovsk overnight. Azot had already been attacked overnight into June 14, when a fire broke out at the site.

According to the company’s website, Novomoskovsk Joint Stock Company Azot is Russia’s largest producer of ammonia and nitrogen fertilizers. The plant produces mineral fertilizers, ammonia, organic plastics and resins, chlorine, caustic soda, calcium chloride, concentrated and high-purity nitric acid, argon, and methanol. The company is part of the EuroChem holding.

The Novomoskovsk power plant is a branch of Azot. It has an installed electric capacity of 233.7 megawatts and a thermal capacity of 302.4 gigacalories per hour. The plant supplies heat and hot water to 60% of the city’s residential buildings and to social infrastructure sites.

In its morning briefing, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Russian air defenses had intercepted and destroyed 660 Ukrainian drones overnight over the Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk, Oryol, Kaluga, Lipetsk, Rostov, Voronezh, Tula, Ryazan, and Astrakhan regions, as well as over the Moscow Region, annexed Crimea, and the Black and Azov seas.

Macron’s statement was published on his official X account, where he also posted video of the operation to seize the vessel.

“The French Navy intercepted the tanker Deliver on Tuesday as it transited off the coast of Sicily in violation of maritime law.

This latest action against the shadow fleet, conducted just days after a similar operation by the United Kingdom, illustrates the resolve of the Europeans. We will not allow the shadow fleet to evade sanctions and fund Russia's war effort.

Europe is determined. It will pursue all necessary efforts to increase the cost of the war for Russia and enable the emergence of a robust and lasting peace in Ukraine,” the tweet read.

France’s Mediterranean maritime prefecture said the issue concerned the legality of the vessel’s flag use. According to open-source data, the tanker was sailing under the flag of Cameroon.

The use of a false flag is a frequent practice used by “shadow fleet” tankers. These vessels are harder to track, and without registration in any recognized jurisdiction there is effectively no state guaranteeing the safety and legality of their navigation. However, The Insider found that analysts at Equasis and Starboard Maritime Intelligence had not flagged the tanker as suspected of using a false flag. The validity of its insurance, however, is in question.

France’s Mediterranean maritime prefecture confirmed that the vessel was detained Tuesday, June 23. The case is now being handled by the Marseille prosecutor’s office, and the vessel is being escorted to an anchorage.

It is impossible to track the ship’s route following its detention. According to data from Starboard Maritime Intelligence, the vessel switched off its transponder on June 23 and disappeared from radar that morning.

The tanker left the Russian port of Primorsk on June 5. It is under sanctions imposed by the EU, the UK, Switzerland, Canada, and New Zealand over its links to Russia’s “shadow fleet.”

Macron’s tweet also mentioned a “similar operation by the UK,” likely referring to the interception and seizure of the tanker Smyrtos in the English channel overnight into June 14. The Insider observed that other “shadow fleet” vessels in the strait began turning around and changing routes after that operation.

On June 21, the Swiss town of Bürgenstock hosted the first in-person meeting between U.S. and Iranian delegations to be held since April. It took two months to return to square one: to start negotiating the conditions for converting a temporary ceasefire agreement into a permanent one.

Thanks to the mediators, the sides could at least build their dialogue on the memorandum of understanding, which provides for another two months to resolve outstanding issues. Still, success is not guaranteed. Donald Trump continues to threaten Tehran with force unless it acts as Washington expects.

The negotiations will not be easy and could collapse at any moment. Iran and the U.S. still have many disagreements and hold divergent views of the situation. But for now, the Iranians have obtained what seemed unthinkable when active hostilities were suspended two months ago: a promise of enormous financial benefits in exchange for minimal obligations. At least, that is what the language of the memorandum suggests.

The Iranians obtained what had previously seemed unthinkable — a promise of enormous financial benefits in exchange for minimal obligations

Initially, the U.S. sought to compel Iran to abandon its nuclear program, ballistic missiles, and support for regional proxies, including Lebanese Hezbollah, the Houthis’ Ansar Allah, and Shia factions in Iraq. When diplomacy failed, force was employed. On Feb. 28, the U.S. joined Israel in attacking Iran. At that time, the idea appeared to be that military action would weaken the regime of the ayatollahs sufficiently to set the stage for a change of power.

Over the course of nearly six weeks of war, the U.S. eliminated Iran’s top figures: Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Basij militia, and more than a dozen other significant members of the country’s political and military elite. The damage inflicted on the country’s nuclear program is believed to have set it back by several years at the very least. In addition, conservative estimates by Israeli intelligence suggest that the allies destroyed approximately half of Iran’s ballistic missiles and launch systems and put the facilities that produce them out of commission.

However, the unambiguous military success has not been backed by any political or military actions capable of actually weakening the Iranian regime. On the contrary, President Trump has thus far been working more toward strengthening and legitimizing it. The regime has survived and, under the Memorandum, expects to see the lifting of the oil embargo, the gradual removal of sanctions, and the creation of an investment fund of no less than $300 billion. There are no guarantees that this money will go towards peaceful means, rather than toward rebuilding the military capabilities of Iran and its regional proxies.

The unambiguous military success has not been backed by any political or military strategy for weakening the Iranian regime

The Trump administration insists that Iran will receive all of the promised benefits only in exchange for concessions during the upcoming 60-day detailed negotiations, which are slated to discuss Iran’s nuclear program, the future of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, and other contentious issues.

“This agreement envisions that if the Iranians stop supporting terrorism and commit to a long-term inspection regime that allows us to say with confidence that they will never again obtain nuclear weapons, then we will be able to reduce sanctions,” U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance said in an interview with CBN News ahead of the meeting in Switzerland.

However, after the first day of negotiations, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced: “Oil and petrochem exports are waived, blockade lifted, some frozen assets released, and major reconstruction and development plan launched for Iran.”

The negotiations could end in failure, of course, and the financial flows to Iran could be cut off again. For now, however, Iran is clearly winning. The U.S. and Trump personally have allowed Tehran to dictate its terms and blackmail Washington with near impunity. There are few things the Iranian regime cannot weather — as long as the U.S. lacks a workable strategy and, above all, the resolve to change that regime.

The instrument of Iranian blackmail has been the Strait of Hormuz, which the IRGC alternately opens and declares closed — as happened just before the start of the Swiss talks. Under the circumstances, Israel has simultaneously become a target of  Iranian blackmail and a convenient scapegoat for Trump’s failure to reach an acceptable deal.

The Lebanon factor

The memorandum signed by the U.S. and Iran explicitly requires the cessation of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and commits the parties to ensuring its territorial integrity and sovereignty. On the first day of the Swiss talks, a decision was made to create a conflict prevention mechanism with the assistance of mediators in order to ensure compliance with the cessation of hostilities in Lebanon. 

Neither the Memorandum nor the mechanism mentions Israel or Hezbollah, with which Israel is at war. But while Iran can effectively represent Hezbollah’s interests, the interests of the U.S. are by no means identical to those of Israel. The upshot is that the Tehran delegation gets to sit across the table from America as an equal partner, while Israel has to make do with indirect instructions from Washington.

The Tehran delegation gets to sit across table as an equal partner, while Israel has to make do with indirect instructions from Washington

Military operations in Lebanon began all the way back on March 2, when Hezbollah entered the war on Iran’s side and attacked the Jewish state. Israel seized the opportunity to complete what it had begun during the previous round of confrontation with Hezbollah in 2023–2024.

There was hope that a weakened Iran would lose its ability to support its Lebanese proxy, allowing Israeli efforts to significantly weaken the group — all the more so given that Lebanon’s current president and prime minister are opposed to Hezbollah and were prepared, with outside support, to attempt to curtail its political influence. Across several rounds of confrontation with Israel since October 2023, Hezbollah had already lost a significant portion of its long-range missiles, heavy rockets, and approximately one-third of its fighters and commanders. Kilometers of tunnels leading to the Israeli border have been discovered and destroyed.

But military infrastructure can be rebuilt, especially if Iran receives resources for itself and its allies. Israel’s task is to prevent a repeat of the 2006 scenario, when after the Second Lebanon War a prolonged lull set in, allowing Hezbollah to build up its strength right on Israel’s border. The group was even preparing a plan to infiltrate the territory of the Jewish state, similar to what the Palestinian group Hamas carried out in October 2023, when thousands of terrorists massacred residents of Israeli communities.

Now, importantly, the Lebanon question has become inseparable from the issue of Iran, a fact that gives Tehran added leverage. After all, what would prevent Iran and other regional forces from dictating terms regarding the situation in Gaza and the broader Palestinian question?

Here it is important to remember who mediated between Washington and Tehran: Qatar and Pakistan are in the spotlight, but behind them also stand Turkey and Saudi Arabia, which are also actively working on Lebanon and Gaza alongside other regional players. Even the UAE, which cooperates closely with Israel, will not take its side on questions related to those conflicts.

Syria has also sharply increased its activity. Trump himself offered Damascus a significant role in the future settlement in Lebanon, declaring that President Ahmed al-Sharaa would handle Hezbollah better than Israel could. However, Damascus has made it clear that military intervention is not in its plans. 

Trump declared that Syria’s Ahmed al-Sharaa would handle Hezbollah better than Israel has

At the same time, Syrians speak of the emergence of numerous regional economic cooperation projects that would connect the region through Syria. Israel could find itself left out of this process despite Trump’s plans to link Asia and Europe through the Middle East under the Abraham Accords — the series of agreements normalizing relations between the Jewish state and Muslim-majority countries.

Indeed, the U.S. attempted to decouple the Lebanon question from Iran back in April when Tehran demanded that the ceasefire be extended to Lebanon as well. At that point, Washington initiated Israeli-Lebanese negotiations, but nothing came of them. Hezbollah refused to be party to any agreement with Israel unless the deal involved the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon. Israel, for its part, demanded guarantees of Hezbollah’s disarmament — something the group would never have agreed to.

In the end, Iran made a ceasefire in Lebanon a precondition for any progress in negotiations with the U.S., prompting more threats from Trump. However, with the approaching midterm congressional elections ahead, few believe he will abandon the deal with Iran given the political threat that another spike in gasoline prices would pose. According to a Gallup poll, in early June only 34% of Americans approved of military action against Iran.

How far have U.S. and Israeli interests diverged?

Israel understood from the outset that the war in Iran would last only as long as Trump’s patience held out. However, it did not expect the conflict to result in a memorandum so favorable to Iran, nor that Israel’s interests would be so obviously disregarded.

At several points over the course of Trump’s second term in the White House, media reports have noted a cooling between him and Netanyahu. Each time that has happened, the tension subsided and the two states resumed acting in concert. Now, however, the personal interests of Trump and Netanyahu have unquestionably diverged.

Like the U.S., Israel is preparing for elections this fall, and according to a poll conducted June 17–20 by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem jointly with the Agam Institute, 92.1% of Israelis believe that the Islamic Republic has won the war. Even among voters supporting the right-wing bloc led by Netanyahu, 93.1% hold this view, and overall, 72.5% of respondents said they do not believe the prime minister’s claim that Israel achieved significant successes or eliminated an existential threat.

92.1% of Israelis believe Iran won the war

Nevertheless, according to the weekly Maariv poll published on June 19, Netanyahu still scored higher than other candidates in response to the question of which Israeli politician is best suited to serve as prime minister, beating out Naftali Bennett by a score of 43% to 41%. At the same time, according to the same poll, the ruling coalition led by Netanyahu would hold 49 seats in the Knesset, while the opposition bloc could potentially win 61 mandates (not counting Arab parties).

Public opinion is, of course, volatile. Several months remain until the elections, which will most likely take place around October 20. Between now and then, the security situation and regional landscape could shift dramatically in either direction.

For now, the opposition is reminding Netanyahu about his claims that an Israeli prime minister must be able to say “no” even to the U.S. president, and that he presented himself as the only figure capable of doing so. Convincing Israelis that this is indeed the case has now become a difficult task.

One cannot help but recall Volodymyr Zelensky’s February 2025 meeting with Trump in the Oval Office, when the Ukrainian president began pushing back against his hosts. But the situations do differ in some respects. In the case of Ukraine, Trump had no personal stake. A ceasefire between Kyiv and Moscow would have earned him the laurels of a peacemaker, but failure would cost him nothing (even if he had previously promised to end the conflict “in one day”). Israel’s actions in Lebanon, in contrast, have a direct impact on whether the U.S.-Iran deal will be implemented — meaning that the fate of shipments through the Strait of Hormuz hangs in the balance. At this point, oil flows, stock market indices, and voter sentiment are the American president’s primary concern.

Against the backdrop of the U.S.-Iran talks, Israeli authorities have stated that they do not intend to withdraw their forces from Lebanon. However, a reduction is indeed possible.

Some Israeli experts believe that following the American logic may have its benefits, particularly given the absence of viable alternatives. After all, Hezbollah’s disarmament is only possible to achieve through force, and that would require a prolonged occupation of Lebanon — a task the Israeli army, exhausted after nearly three years of war on multiple fronts, may be less than prepared to undertake.

Accordingly, some Israeli voices favor avoiding open confrontation with Trump while still trying to preserve their freedom for maneuver in southern Lebanon in order to continue dismantling Hezbollah’s infrastructure and prevent shelling and incursions into Israeli territory. In parallel, Israel should act in concert with a Lebanese government that, for once, is also hostile to Hezbollah. Beirut needs the opportunity to build Lebanese army units capable of confronting the Shia group if it is to take control of the situation on the ground.

In practice, Iran and Hezbollah are currently ahead on points, but the final result will depend on whether the Iranian regime ultimately receives the resources needed to rebuild. Israel views a new round of confrontation with Iran as an inevitable, if not immediate, development. The only real question is what state of readiness the various parties will be in when that day comes.

Will the lessons of this war be learned? Can a strategy be developed for overthrowing the ayatollahs’ regime without plunging the region into chaos? For Israel, no viable answer to the second question exists. Trump, for his part, still believes in the power of deals and the might of his threats.

More than half of those convicted also faced “terrorism” and “sabotage” charges in addition to treason and espionage. In nearly 70% of cases, court records concealed the personal data of those convicted. In at least two cases, defendants were sent for compulsory treatment — one in the Omsk region and one in the occupied part of Ukraine’s Donetsk region. In the Orenburg region, a defendant died before a verdict was issued.

Of the 110 people convicted, 26 were Ukrainian citizens. In the first quarter of the year, verdicts in treason and espionage cases were issued by a total of 40 courts in Russia and in the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, including seven military courts.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, more than 1,100 people have been convicted in Russia on charges of treason, espionage, confidential cooperation with foreigners, and aiding the enemy. For comparison, a total of 170 people were convicted on such charges from 1997 through 2021.

In her remarks, the deputy minister mentioned “foreign agents.” According to her, libraries are now putting an emphasis on ensuring that books and other publications from foreign agents who “undermine spiritual and moral values” do not end up in curated selections, such as Russian libraries’ offerings of contemporary fiction.

Alekseyeva’s stated goal is “to prevent destructive and unacceptable content from entering library collections”:

“The Lenin Russian State Library is working on creating a special restricted storage area — a closed repository for literature that was present on our historical territories and was of a destructive nature,” Alekseyeva said at the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum (SPILF).

Alekseyeva described the presence of books by “foreign agents” on library shelves as a “problem” for library staff, saying they need to “maintain a balance between protecting national interests and providing access to knowledge.”

At the end of last year, it emerged that a special restricted repository for “Russophobic” literature — seized from Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine — was being created at the Russian State Library. In a conversation with The Insider, a former high-ranking library official suggested that the main purpose of such a project was embezzlement of funds. 

The tanker is currently anchored off the coast of Weymouth, a town in southwest England. After the investigation is completed, the vessel is likely to be released and could return to Russia, the newspaper’s sources said.

Officials, however, believe the 98,000 metric tons of Urals crude on board now legally belong to the UK. The British government can dispose of the cargo, including by selling it. The market value of that volume of Urals crude is estimated at 35 million pounds, or about 40 million euros.

Potential plans to sell the cargo are still in an early stage of discussion, but those talks already envision using the proceeds to provide financial support to Kyiv. The money could be transferred directly to Ukraine or used to finance defense companies.

Another option is for the oil to be refined in the UK and used to generate electricity for homes across the country. The legal details of the matter remain unclear, including how fuel held as state property would be transferred to an energy company.

On June 14, Smyrtos became the first “shadow fleet” tanker to be detained by the UK in the English Channel. Its captain has been charged with sanctions evasion and remains in custody. The next court hearing is scheduled for July 16.

The freeze applies to EPK — New Technologies LLC, EPK Volzhsky JSC, EPK Samara JSC, EPK Kuznitsa LLC, EPK Saratov JSC and EPK Trading House LLC. According to Kommersant, officials from the Prosecutor General’s Office seized documents at EPK Samara JSC (the former Aviation Bearing Plant), and EPK Kuznitsa LLC. EPK neither confirmed nor denied the information when asked by the newspaper.

A Kommersant source in the oversight agency said the account freeze could be linked to a possible seizure of assets in favor of the state over alleged serious violations at the enterprises. The Samara region prosecutor’s office has not commented publicly.

In the spring of 2023, reports confirmed that businessman Alexander Moskalenko had sold EPK’s key Russian assets to the Industrial Innovation Fund. It is not known who now stands behind the fund, as industry outlets noting that the closed-end nature of the fund’s setup “strongly protects information about an organization’s ultimate beneficiaries.” Moskalenko retained the plant in Stepnogorsk and Kazakhstan, along with a stake in EPK-Brenko, which produces cartridge bearings. Moskalenko is a business partner of former EPK beneficiary Oleg Savchenko, who resigned as a State Duma MP on May 22, 2025.

The Insider previously reported that Russia’s bearing market remains heavily dependent on imports and reexport schemes. Chinese bearings are often sold as Russian-made, while sanctions have driven up prices for Western-made bearings by an average factor of 2.5 and extended delivery times to between six and nine months.

Russia produced more than 700 million bearings a year in 1991, but output was fewer than 100 million in 2024. Only about 20 million bearings a year are made through a full domestic production cycle. The Union of Bearing Manufacturers says Russian-made products account for about 23% of the domestic market.

Bearings are critical for railways, machine building, and the defense industry. Even before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, industry specialists warned that a break with Western suppliers could leave Russia short of several types of high-load bearings.

The assets of another manufacturer, SPZ-4 LLC, had previously been frozen in Samara. State investigators said the company’s owners supplied defense enterprises with cheap counterfeit Chinese goods passed off as their own bearings.

Most of the imported weapons were hunting shotguns. But hundreds of sniper rifles and military shotguns were also brought into Russia. By 2025 at the latest, Russian troops had begun using Benelli shotguns to counter FPV drones. Tikka and Sako sniper rifles, produced by Beretta Holding’s factory in Finland, are also actively used by Russian marksmen.

In February 2024, The Insider and IRPI Media published a joint investigation showing that the European arms holding company Beretta owned Russian Eagle LLC, a major Russian weapons importer. The United States later sanctioned Beretta’s Russian subsidiary and arrested two intermediaries who supplied weapons through Kyrgyzstan. Despite these developments, no investigation into the smuggling allegations was opened in Italy or in the European Union. When Beretta’s CEO was asked at a February 2026 parliamentary hearing about arms smuggling to Russia, the session was closed immediately after the question was posed.

Amid this lack of official interest, companies linked to Beretta’s Russian business partner Mikhail Khubutia continue to receive the holding company’s weapons. The most recent known shipment was processed in April 2026.

Production, ownership, management

According to Beretta Holding’s 2022 corporate governance and ownership report, Beretta Holding CEO Pietro Gussalli Beretta held senior positions that year in 19 other organizations. One of them was Russian Eagle LLC, a Russian arms importer in which Beretta Holding still owns a 57% stake.

Taken together, the documents show that in 2022 the Russian company was managed with the participation of the head of Beretta Holding and received weapons produced by the holding company. From March to September 2022, Russian Eagle imported 3,919 weapons made by Italy’s Benelli Armi S.p.A., Fabbrica d’Armi Pietro Beretta S.p.A. and Turkey’s Stoeger Silah Sanayi A.S., which is also part of Beretta Holding.

Although most of the imported firearms were smoothbore hunting shotguns, more than 1,000 units could be used by both civilian and military shooters. According to data from Russia’s Federal Accreditation Agency, Russian Eagle imported 1,164 Franchi Horizon bolt-action rifles in .308 Win and .30-06 Springfield calibers. Those calibers were originally developed for military use but later became common among civilian shooters.

In total, from March 2022 through February 2024, Russian arms importers registered at least 15,337 weapons made by Western companies. Nearly 40% of them — 6,064 units — were produced by factories belonging to Beretta Holding: Benelli Armi, Fabbrica d’Armi Pietro Beretta, Beretta Benelli Ibérica, Sako Limited, and Stoeger Silah Sanayi. After The Insider and IRPI Media published their investigation into the smuggling of European weapons, the Russian Federal Accreditation Agency stopped publishing data for several customs commodity codes, rendering precise figures for later periods unavailable.

Benelli and Tikka in the Russian military

From February through August 2022, Russian Eagle also imported hundreds of Benelli semiautomatic shotguns: 173 M2 models, 35 M3 models and 120 M4 models. These shotguns are widely used by military and security forces around the world. The M4 was created at the request of the U.S. Army Armaments Research, Development, and Engineering Center (ARDEC) and is used by the armies of the UK and the U.S., as well as the Spanish Marine Corps.

In addition, since at least 2025, Benelli M4 shotguns have also been used by Russian troops. Last November, Russia’s Armed Forces held a military tactical shooting championship at Patriot Park outside of Moscow. On each team, one of the four participants was armed with a smoothbore weapon used to counter drones. Some shooters preferred Italian Benelli shotguns to the Russian-made MP-155 produced by the Kalashnikov concern. The Benelli M4 stands out in photos from the competition because of its pistol grip and distinctive telescopic stock.

Even Russia’s Federal Protective Service (FSO) — the agency responsible for protecting the country’s top officials, including Vladimir Putin — has adopted the practice of using smoothbore firearms against FPV drones (despite being far from the front). At the annual Victory Day parade this past May 9, security officers could be seen carrying Benelli M2 shotguns. When commenters on one pro-war blog asked why the bodyguards of Russia’s top officials were using Italian weapons instead of Kalashnikov’s MP-155, more pragmatic users referenced the superior shooting qualities of the imported models.

By coincidence or not, several months earlier Beretta Holding’s military division, Beretta Defense Technologies, unveiled a new Drone Guardian self-loading shotgun for countering drones. The only difference between the new weapon and the shotguns used by Russian troops is the presence of a holographic sight, which helps acquire targets faster.

Another Beretta Holding factory, Finland’s Sako Limited, produces weapons no less important to the Russian military: hunting firearms and sniper rifles under the Sako and Tikka brands. Finnish rifles in modern long-range calibers surpass Kalashnikov-made weapons in range and accuracy while remaining more affordable than British and American brands. Both Sako and Tikka rifles are in demand among Russian snipers. At the Russian Sniping Cup held in Sterlitamak on Aug. 24-25, 2024, several shooters could be seen using rifles from the two Finnish brands. Sako TRG-22 rifles are also used by SOBR, the special rapid-response unit of the Interior Ministry of Belarus.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Orel LLC imported at least 136 rifles produced by Sako Limited. Orel is owned by Ilya Khubutia, the son of Beretta’s business partner. Other major importers of weapons from the Finnish factory included Alliance LLC, Artemida, ItalRuzhye and Okhotnik, which imported 397, 48, 76 and 81 rifles, respectively.

Arrests in the United States, silence in Europe

In December 2024, a joint investigation by The Insider, Czechia’s Investigace.cz, Italy’s IRPI Media and Kazakhstan’s vlast.kz described several arrangements that allowed Western weapons and ammunition to continue reaching Russia. The response by regulators on each  side of the Atlantic was sharply different.

The United States sanctioned Beretta’s Russian company, Russian Eagle LLC, in June 2024. In late January 2025, Kyrgyzstan’s State Committee for National Security — likely acting on a tip from counterparts in the U.S. — arrested a gang member who had been bringing disassembled U.S.-made firearms into Russia. Several days later, Kyrgyz citizen Sergei Zharnovnikov was arrested in the United States. His firm, Azhy Mamat Company LLC, supplied Russia with U.S.-made KRISS Vector and Kel-Tec carbines, as well as Austrian Glock pistols. Another of Zharnovnikov’s accomplices was arrested later. Then, on  March 30, 2026, Italian citizen Manfred Gruber appeared in federal court in Brooklyn, ultimately pleading guilty to smuggling more than $540,000 worth of ammunition.

The trail of the last two men leads to Beretta’s Russian partner, Mikhail Khubutia. Before the full-scale war, Khubutia’s company, Kolchuga — literally translated as “chain mail” — worked directly with Manfred Gruber’s Bignami S.p.A. In 2022 and 2023, Orel LLC, owned by Khubutia’s son, received the previously mentioned Glock pistols and KRISS Vector carbines from Zharnovnikov’s company. One might have expected European regulators to respond even more decisively than their U.S. counterparts. In practice, however, the opposite has happened.

In February 2024, IRPI Media sent requests that included thousands of serial numbers of weapons delivered to Russia. Italy’s Financial Security Committee (CSF), whose duties include “monitoring the functioning of the system for preventing and countering the activities of countries that threaten international peace and security,” told IRPI Media that it was “not competent in matters of imposing arms embargoes.” The economy, foreign, and defense ministries did not respond to the outlet’s requests.

On Feb. 18, 2026, the security commission of the Italian Chamber of Deputies held a hearing on national security and new threats. Beretta S.p.A. President Franco Gussalli Beretta and Beretta S.p.A. CEO Carlo Ferlito answered legislators’ questions. When lawmaker Marco Pellegrini asked them about the smuggling of the holding company’s weapons to Russia, they assured him that no more than 15 hunting shotguns had reached Russia since the start of Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. When Pellegrini followed up by asking about thousands of weapons, including sniper rifles, the chair effectively closed the session. Below is a transcript of the final minutes:

Marco Pellegrini: “...I just wanted to make it clear that obviously I would never have asked the question if I had gathered, from reading newspaper articles, that the number of rifles was limited to fifteen units. I, on the other hand, had the opportunity to read – the source is IrpiMedia.eu, so maybe someone from Beretta will be able to verify it – an article that spoke of over six thousand rifles and pistols and, among other things, also sniper rifles, as well as 1 million and more ammunition. I remain curious about Beretta’s control over the importer.”

Antonio Minardo, chair: “Thank you. If there are no other requests to speak, I thank the colleagues present and our guests for their answers…I therefore declare the hearing closed.”

Since then, new shipments of European weapons continue to flow to Moscow. Data on the latest shipment of the holding company’s weapons date to this past spring. On March 17, Kolchuga LLC, owned by Rafik Yetumyan (a nominal owner for Mikhail Khubutia and Beretta’s partner in Russian Eagle), received 30 Benelli Argo-E carbines in .308 Win and 10 carbines of the same model in .30-06 Springfield.

In response to The Insider’s request for comment, Beretta Holding representatives said they “reject any attempt to distort our group’s position or undermine its reputation.” The representatives said Russian Eagle LLC “was excluded from consolidated reporting as soon as this became legally and practically possible” — without specifying the date of that exclusion. Beretta said all companies in the group had ceased commercial activity with the Russian market. Commenting on certificates of conformity issued by a government agency, Beretta referred to increasingly frequent cases of counterfeit goods being sold and fabricated, and of misleading images being published.

“This temporary measure is being introduced at the request of owners of gas station networks in Moscow and the Moscow Region. To ensure uninterrupted fuel supplies to gas stations, drivers of fuel tanker trucks may enter the city around the clock and travel without obtaining a freight permit. Fuel truck drivers will not be fined for lacking a permit,” the statement said.

Under the rules that were previously in force, truck drivers whose vehicles were above the maximum permitted weight of 3.5 metric tons were required to obtain special permits to travel around the city.

In mid-June, Ukrainian drones twice attacked the Moscow Oil Refinery, which supplies around 40% of Moscow’s gasoline, half of its diesel, and meets 70% of the Moscow Region’s demand for gasoline and jet fuel. After the first attack took place overnight into June 16, Reuters reported that the plant’s main crude distillation unit, which accounts for 53% of its capacity, had been hit. After the second strike, which took place overnight into June 18, open source intelligence (OSINT) analysts reported hits on the refinery’s tank farm and several other key units.

Several Russian regions have imposed restrictions on fuel sales as shortages continue to affect an increasing number of areas, including the Saratov, Omsk, Tomsk, Voronezh, Novosibirsk, and Penza regions, the Khanty-Mansi autonomous district, as well as the cities  of Vladivostok and St. Petersburg.

Fuel sales have been halted completely in illegally annexed Crimea and Sevastopol, while restrictions have also been introduced in the Russian-occupied areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, where purchases are capped at 30 liters and 20 liters, respectively.

Any army remains effective only as long as ammunition, fuel, food, and reinforcements continue to reach the front without interruption. That is why, in recent months, Ukrainian forces have increasingly targeted not trenches and fortifications, but roads, bridges, railway junctions, depots, and trucks in Russia’s rear areas.

Since late spring these attacks have evolved into a distinct campaign that Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense dubbed a “Logistics Lockdown.” Its objective is the systematic disruption of supplies to Russian forces in the occupied territories.

“Over the past several months, we have quadrupled the destruction of enemy logistics, depots, equipment, command posts, and supply routes at operational depth. A clear pattern is already emerging: the more Russian logistics are destroyed, the fewer assault operations take place along the line of contact,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said.

An additional 5 billion hryvnias ($113 million) is being allocated directly to military units for the purchase of modern middle-strike systems through the e-points program, and according to Fedorov, direct procurement has already begun. At the same time, the Ministry of Defense is launching centralized tenders to acquire a large batch of such strike systems.

For strikes against Russian logistics, Ukraine employs FP-2, Bulava, RAM-2X, Darts, and, since the spring of 2026, the Behemoth, Baton, and Hornet drones. According to estimates by the OSINT team Tochnyi, the Ukrainian Defense Forces use at least 14 different types of middle-strike UAVs. Within the framework of the current campaign, their primary mission is not one-off attacks against individual targets but the systematic hunting of trucks, fuel tankers, trains, and other supply assets on which the Russian military directly depends.

The logic is straightforward: the farther a logistics facility is located from the front line, the more cargo is concentrated there and the larger the area Russia must protect with countermeasures such as electronic warfare systems, anti-drone nets, observation posts, interceptor drones, and mobile air defense teams. Near the line of contact, the destruction of a vehicle carrying fuel canisters may mean the loss of roughly 40 liters of fuel, whereas the destruction of a tanker truck deep in the rear can result in the loss of several tons.

This is why strikes on routes passing through Rostov-on-Don, Mariupol, and Donetsk, as well as along the roads leading into the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia Region and annexed Crimea, are already causing fuel shortages and may be reducing the overall tempo of Russian operations.

Particular attention should be paid to the Hornet drone, which entered service with the Ukrainian Defense Forces in the spring of 2026. It is produced by Swift Beat LLC (formerly Perennial Autonomy), a company founded by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. In its basic configuration, the Hornet is a tactical UAV with a flight range of around 50 kilometers. However, Ukrainian units are modifying the communications systems and overall configuration of the drones, turning them into operational-level strike assets, according to an officer of the unmanned systems unit of the 1st Corps of Ukraine’s National Guard “Azov,” who spoke to The War Zone.

A U.S.-made Hornet drone plays a particularly important role in the campaign of strikes against Russian rear areas

With a total weight of 15 kilograms, the Hornet carries a 4–5 kilogram warhead. Communications are handled through Starlink terminals and other undisclosed systems, while artificial intelligence is used during the terminal phase of flight, assisting with targeting, navigation, orientation, and target recognition.

The drone’s built-in AI module with machine vision increases the probability of hitting a target even if communications are lost. Technically, the entire engagement process can be carried out without human involvement, but the developer states that the final decision to strike remains with the operator.

The pro-Russian Telegram channel Voyennyy Osvedomitel claims that in May 2026 alone, anti-aircraft drones operated by the Rubikon Center shot down a combined total of approximately 150 Hornet, RAM-2X, and Baton UAVs. The overwhelming majority of those downed — approximately 70% — were American-made Hornets.

The scale of the current campaign extends far beyond strikes on logistics. Since January 2026, the OSINT researcher known as Clément Molin has geolocated more than 1,000 strikes against Russian targets. According to the researcher’s calculations, about 7% of the strikes targeted air defense systems, 20% targeted vehicles, and 35% targeted warehouses, (1, 2), and fuel and energy infrastructure facilities (1, 2, 3).

Earlier this year, Ukrainian strikes on air defense systems, radar installations, and electronic warfare complexes in the occupied territories forced Russia to relocate these assets deeper in the rear. Moreover, fearing they could become the next target of a Ukrainian drone, Russian crews reportedly expended anti-aircraft missiles liberally, further depleting their already limited stocks.

By May, however, the focus had shifted. Whereas Ukrainian drone operators had previously concentrated primarily on air defense assets, they are now conducting large-scale hunts for military vehicles and fuel tankers.

Statistics from the past several months confirm this shift. From the beginning of May 2026 through June 20, Ukrainian forces carried out more than 500 strikes against Russian trucks and other vehicles, according to calculations by Clément Molin, destroying 90 Russian trucks and other vehicles on June 19, 20, and 21 alone.

One of the first routes to come under attack was the R-280 “Novorossiya” highway running from Rostov-on-Don to Crimea via occupied Mariupol, Berdiansk, and Melitopol. The main objective of Ukrainian forces in this operation is to disrupt military logistics, effectively severing overland supply routes to Crimea.

The Ukrainian Defense Forces first attempted to cut the “land corridor” to the occupied peninsula during their counteroffensive of summer 2023 by focusing their main thrust near Robotyne in the Zaporizhzhia Region. According to a report by the Royal United Services Institute, the original concept of the counteroffensive envisioned breaking through Russian defenses along a 30-kilometer section of the front, isolating Tokmak within a week, and then exploiting the breakthrough by advancing south toward Melitopol. However, those objectives were not achieved due to a combination of strategic, operational, and tactical factors.

Ukrainian forces first attempted to sever the “land corridor” to Crimea in the summer of 2023

First, Western military aid arrived more slowly and in smaller quantities than required to implement the original plan, and many Ukrainian units did not have sufficient time to fully master the newly supplied equipment. Second, the Ukrainian command distributed its forces across several directions rather than concentrating them on the main axis of attack, thereby reducing the pace of the offensive. Third, Russian forces had a good understanding of the likely direction of the offensive and were therefore able to prepare a deeply layered defense in advance.

The large-scale use of Russian FPV drones also played a significant role. Following a trip to the front in 2023, military analysts Michael Kofman, Rob Lee, Konrad Muzyka, and Franz-Stefan Gady described the impact of these systems. After the initial Ukrainian attack plan fell behind schedule, Kyiv’s forces lost operational momentum, allowing the Russian side to redeploy reserves and thwart the attempt to break through to the Sea of Azov.

Ukraine’s Defense Forces are now systematically pursuing a very different approach: cutting Crimea off from its supply routes. According to Robert “Madyar” Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, before the start of the current campaign average daily traffic on the R-280 highway amounted to 11,000 vehicles, including 3,800 trucks. However, by early June, those figures had fallen to 6,500 and 1,100 respectively.

The geography of the campaign is gradually expanding. In addition to occupied Zaporizhzhia Region and Crimea, roads in the Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson Regions have come under attack, along with the bridges and railway lines that Russian forces regularly use to transport military supplies. According to an analysis by the Ukrainian OSINT project KiberBoroshno, since the start of the campaign in mid-May chats and monitoring groups in occupied territories have shown a tenfold increase in posts about drones activity near roads.

Ukrainian UAVs are not only attacking Russian transport but are also being used to lay mines on roads remotely. Baba Yaga and FP-2 drones drop motion-activated mines onto roadways and along highways. As a result, on May 29 occupation authorities were forced to close a section of the Novorossiya highway near the border between Kherson Region and Zaporizhzhia Region for nearly an entire day. “The widespread use of mines on roads is far more likely to cause a transportation collapse and highway closures than simply targeted kamikaze-drone strikes against vehicles,” the pro-Russian Telegram channel Voyennyy Osvedomitel commented following the incident.

The high intensity of middle-strike operations has also been made possible by the growing number of units involved. Whereas such missions were previously conducted only by specialized organizations such as Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces and Military Intelligence Directorate, now there are at least 26 such units, according to Tochnyi’s estimate (1, 2, 3, 4).

A video published in early June by the 475th Separate Assault Regiment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Code 9.2, documented 40 strikes against multiple targets in Russia’s operational rear. Most of the vehicles shown are not trucks but unarmored vehicles used for frontline logistics. The footage also appears to show approximately 34 Russian soldiers being hit.

Clément Molin concludes that the campaign is targeting not only cargo trucks but also vehicles used by units deployed closer to the front line. The researcher notes that unarmored vehicles are often more consequential targets than MRAPs, as they play a critical role in sustaining frontline operations. The intensity of the attacks continues to increase and, in his assessment, is already complicating Russian logistics to the point that the effects may soon begin to affect the offensive capabilities of Russian forces.

Roads of war

Russian supply operations in the occupied territories rely on several key logistics corridors linking the front line with rear bases and the territory of Russia. These routes are used to deliver ammunition, fuel, equipment, and reinforcements to frontline units.

Luhansk remains one of Russian forces’ most important logistics hubs, with a significant portion of supplies for the units operating around Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, and Kostiantynivka passing through the city. For this reason, Ukrainian strikes on targets near the Izvaryne checkpoint, a border crossing located on the road from mainland Russia to the occupied city of Luhansk, have had a notable impact on the fight along the Lyman axis.

Equally important is the railway running parallel to the highway and the nearby road and rail bridges across the Siverskyi Donets River in Kamensk-Shakhtinsky. One of the main supply routes supporting the Russian offensive against Kostiantynivka runs through Yenakiieve, Horlivka, and onward to Toretsk. The logistics hub in Horlivka is of particular importance in this regard, according to analysis by Clément Molin.

Ukraine’s 20th Unmanned Systems Brigade K-2 released footage of strikes along the Yenakiieve–Horlivka highway and reported that during the first ten days of June, the unit hit 216 pieces of light and heavy vehicle equipment, compared with 344 during the entire month of May. Cutting the road from Horlivka would reduce Russian pressure on Kostiantynivka from the south and allow Ukrainian forces to concentrate on repelling attacks from other directions.

An alternative route supplying the Russian forces advancing on Kostiantynivka runs from Donetsk, and the same hub also supports operations in the Pokrovsk direction. In addition, a route from Donetsk through Kurakhove leads to the front-line sector at the junction of the Donetsk Region and the Dnipropetrovsk Region, where Ukrainian forces are conducting counterattacks. In May, according to DeepState, Kyiv’s forces recaptured 46 square kilometers in this area, and strikes against the Donetsk ring road are intended to support further advances.

There is also another route from Russia to Kurakhove, ruining from the border to Mariupol, where drones operated by the 1st Corps of Ukraine’s National Guard “Azov” reportedly appeared in the skies in May 2026. From there, the route turns onto the Mariupol–Donetsk highway, where Clément Molin also identified several strikes against Russian trucks. The situation on this highway was highlighted by military correspondent Vladimir Romanov, who recorded a video address from behind the wheel.

The same route can also be used to reach the area around Pokrovsk, where Ukrainian forces continue to conduct counterattacks around Huliaipole, where one of Russia’s main offensive operations is being conducted. It is here that Russian forces are attempting to advance northeast of Orikhiv in order to bypass Mala Tokmachka, capture Orikhiv, and then continue their advance toward Zaporizhzhia.

Because Russia’s Dnepr Group of Forces has been bogged down near Orikhiv — and is reportedly even retreating near Stepnohirsk — Russian commanders are placing their main hopes on the Vostok Group of Forces, which is pushing forward from the direction of Huliaipole while simultaneously repelling Ukrainian counterattacks farther north. The entire logistics network supporting this grouping is centered on Velyka Novosilka, and part of the route leading there runs along the Donetsk–Mariupol highway. The closer the route comes to the front line, the easier it becomes for unmanned systems units to strike vehicles moving along it.

According to Clément Molin, if attacks on these highways continue at their current pace, then by the end of summer Russian forces on the front line could face a serious shortage of ammunition, fuel, food, medical supplies, and communications equipment, directly affecting the combat effectiveness of units.

In response to the intensified attacks on logistics, Russian forces are employing both traditional countermeasures (interceptor drones, jammers, additional mobile fire groups, fuel tanker escorts) and more unconventional methods such as: painting trucks in black-and-white “zebra” stripes in an attempt to deceive drone machine-vision systems, covering fuel tankers with wooden planks, disguising military Ural trucks as civilian vehicles while forgetting to replace their military license plates, and using civilian transport to deliver fuel to military units (1, 2).

Russian forces have also shifted to moving at night and searching for alternate routes that drones have not yet covered. The effectiveness of such measures, however, appears limited. At night, vehicles remain clearly visible through thermal-imaging cameras mounted on drones, while the painted “zebra” camouflage intended to fool AI systems reportedly does not work, especially when the UAV is being controlled by a human operator. Meanwhile, “safe” alternate routes often increase transport distances by a factor of 1.7 to 2.1 and are typically discovered by Ukrainian intelligence within “3 to 5 days,” according to the Telegram channel Dark Forest Outcome.

Current consequences of the strikes on logistics

Strikes on logistics will eventually affect the combat effectiveness of the Russian military. Reduced deliveries of fuel and equipment lower the intensity of transportation in the near rear, while fuel shortages affect even systems that at first glance appear unrelated to transport.

For example, charging the batteries of FPV drones requires generators, which in turn require fuel. Disruptions to logistics therefore gradually reduce the number of drones operating in the air and diminish the ability of Russian units to conduct reconnaissance and carry out strikes.

According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which analyzed materials published by the Atesh occupation-resistance movement, Russian troops from the 337th Air Assault Regiment of the Dnepr Group of Forces are being withdrawn from the Kinburn Spit because Ukrainian strikes on logistics routes have disrupted supplies. Ukrainian Southern Defense Forces spokesman Vladyslav Voloshyn neither confirmed nor denied the report in comments cited by UNIAN, but he did concur that Russian forces on the spit are experiencing disruptions in the delivery of fuel and generators.

Still, the consequences of Ukraine’s strike campaign have been most visible in rear areas. Restrictions (1, 2, 3) and fuel ration coupons for civilians have already been introduced in occupied territories, as well as in Russia’s Belgorod Region and Kursk Region. In Krasnodar Krai, fuel sales were temporarily suspended at 15 gas stations, and on June 14, military correspondent Vladimir Romanov reported gasoline shortages at filling stations in the Donetsk “People’s Republic.”

So far, the consequences of Ukrainian strikes on logistics have been most visible in rear areas

The situation is most acute in Crimea, where Ukrainian strikes have reportedly created a fuel shortage. There are two principal ways of delivering fuel to Crimea: by ferry or overland via the Novorossiya highway route (which includes a railway). As Alexander Talipov, an advisor to the head of Crimea, explained: “For security reasons, fuel tankers do not travel across the Crimean Bridge.”

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, the Kerch Strait Bridge has been one of the Ukrainian military’s primary targets, coming under attack from mining operations and strikes by missiles, surface uncrewed boats, underwater drones, and one truck bomb, which set fire to fuel tank cars on a passing train and caused the partial collapse of two roadway spans.

The bridge has withstood all of these attacks, but its structure may have sustained damage that could limit the permissible load on its supports. At present, according to the Russian Ministry of Transport, only passenger vehicles and trucks weighing no more than 1.5 tons are permitted to use the crossing. The Crimean authorities claim that these restrictions are intended to “ensure safe passage for people and preserve the transport crossing itself.” Rail traffic also continues to operate under limitations.

The only significant regular maritime logistics route is the Kerch ferry crossing, which continues to operate primarily during daylight hours and remains dependent on weather conditions and the absence of security-related limitations. The first Ukrainian attempts to disrupt its operation were undertaken in 2024, when missile strikes damaged the cargo ferries Avangard and Slavyanin and sank the cargo ferry Conro Trader RORO, which was transporting 30 fuel tank cars.

The attacks resumed this past March, when Ukrainian drones again damaged the Avangard and Slavyanin. In April another strike followed against the Slavyanin, which by that time was the only operational cargo ferry on the route.

Following strikes in the early morning hours of June 21, the authorities announced a temporary suspension of all ferry traffic across the Kerch crossing and advised freight drivers to use an alternative route running overland into Crimea through the occupied territories.

Ukrainian forces have also carried out strikes against port infrastructure on the Sea of Azov (1, 2, 3). Although maritime transport cannot fully replace rail or road transit through the “land corridor,” it provides an important backup logistics option. Strikes on ferries and ports therefore represent a systematic effort to reduce the number of alternative supply routes available to Russian forces in southern Ukraine.

On the night of June 10, Ukraine’s Defense Forces reportedly struck a convoy of 50 Russian trucks carrying fuel and ammunition near Armyansk. Because the Chonhar Bridge and the bridge connecting Henichesk to the Arabat Spit had previously been damaged (1, 2), Russian forces had concentrated a large number of trucks along the highway section running through Armyansk. According to the report, this made them an easy target for drone operators from the 1st Separate Assault Regiment.

“This operation would not have been possible if other units had not been striking Mariupol and the road to Berdiansk. It was precisely this pressure that forced the units operating on the Huliaipole axis to switch from supply routes through Mariupol to routes through Crimea,” emphasized regiment commander Dmytro Filatov.

Since the beginning of June, bridges linking Crimea and Kherson Region have come under regular attack. Some have been heavily damaged, while others have sustained numerous smaller perforations that prevent the transport of heavy cargo across them.

The pro-war Telegram channel ZAPISKI VETERANA 🇷🇺writes that the targeted bridges are used by Russia’s southern grouping for military logistics. Meanwhile,  the pro-Russian Telegram channel Osvedomitel complains about how, “In practice, the enemy’s systematic strikes against bridges on the Crimean isthmus have made the overland route to the peninsula at the very least severely constrained and, at worst, temporarily unusable,”

Clément Molin notes that pontoon crossings have been erected near the damaged bridges in Armyansk and Chonhar, pointing out that traffic moves much more slowly over pontoons than over conventional bridges. As a result, bottlenecks form, making it easier to conduct further attacks, including strikes targeting the pontoon crossings themselves.

As of mid-June 2026, the three principal routes linking Crimea with the occupied part of Kherson Region — via Armyansk, Henichesk, and Chonhar — had been seriously damaged. The bridge over the North Crimean Canal near Armyansk, which reportedly sustained four penetrations, is now bypassed by a temporary embankment crossing that has been constructed nearby. Traffic on the bridges at Henichesk and Chonhar is restricted, with most heavy freight traffic being redirected onto pontoon crossings. At the same time, additional embankment routes are being built near these bridges.

In short, the “land corridor” to Crimea has not been completely severed, but its carrying capacity is gradually declining. Supply traffic continues to move via temporary infrastructure that increases delivery times and makes logistics more vulnerable to future attacks.

The “land corridor” to Crimea has not been completely severed, but its carrying capacity is gradually declining.

Ukrainian strikes have also targeted the railway lines linking Crimea with Russia. After the attack on a locomotive hauling the Moscow–Simferopol train on June 8, the Crimean authorities introduced a ban on passenger train operations during nighttime hours. The occupation authorities in the Donetsk and Luhansk “People’s Republics” later did the same.

Overall, from March through the end of May 2026, 28 strikes against locomotives and freight trains were recorded in occupied territories, according to calculations by the Tochnyi project. These included eight strikes in Crimea, 11 in the occupied part of Luhansk Region, six in the occupied part of Donetsk Region, five in occupied Zaporizhzhia Region, and five in Russia’s border areas (three in Bryansk Region and two in Kursk Region).

As a result of the attacks in May, rail traffic was temporarily suspended between Donetsk and Yasynuvata, causing disruptions on routes serving Debaltseve, Ilovaisk, and Mariupol.

The fuel shortage, along with strikes on infrastructure and military facilities in Crimea, is already affecting the tourism sector, which supports a significant portion of the local economy. According to booking platforms, the number of new hotel reservations in Crimea fell by roughly one-third between late May and early June, while up to 80% of previously paid bookings were canceled.

As Kommersant reports, data from the hotel booking management system Travelline show that hotel reservations from May 24 to June 6 declined by 31% year-on-year in Crimea and by 40% in Sevastopol. During the same period, 79% of bookings in Crimea and 71% in Sevastopol were canceled. In an apparent effort not to discourage the remaining tourists, the authorities in Sevastopol changed the procedure for issuing air-raid alerts, which are now signaled by three short sounds.

Since the beginning of June, strict limits on gasoline sales have been repeatedly imposed in Crimea. At most gas stations, customers could already purchase no more than 20 liters per visit, and the most recent strikes reportedly led to a complete suspension of gasoline sales to civilians.

Fuel is not the only commodity in short supply. In grocery chains, products including sugar, flour, grains, and cooking oil, were sold under restrictions. According to officials (1, 2), however, these measures were merely a response to unfounded panic buying.

In any case, Crimea’s “minister of industry and trade,” Anushavan Agadzhanyan, acknowledged that after attacks on the Novorossiya highway, authorities had to take special measures to ensure that companies delivering food and medicines received fuel supplies. A special coordination mechanism was established under which distributors submitted information about their vehicles and fuel requirements, while officials coordinated refueling arrangements with gas stations. According to Agadzhanyan, these measures prevented disruptions in food deliveries to the peninsula.

What comes next?

At the current rate of Ukrainian strikes, Clément Molin expects that Russian units on the front line could begin facing shortages of food, ammunition, and reinforcements by the end of the summer. In an interview with Reuters, Ukraine’s unmanned systems forces commander Brovdi outlined ambitious plans: “We will isolate Crimea. We will create conditions that make it extremely difficult for any serviceman or defense-industry worker to remain in Crimea, in the temporarily occupied territories, or to use the access routes leading to them.”

An expert from the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), who requested anonymity, believes it is still too early to speak of a noticeable impact in the situation at the front as a result of these strikes on the routes supplying Crimea. The expert notes that the most intense fighting is currently taking place in more northern sectors of the front, where supplies move through Donetsk and Horlivka. In addition, the Russian military has been confronting a broad range of challenges since the beginning of the year, meaning that even if strikes against rear-area infrastructure begin producing tangible effects, it may be difficult to distinguish their impact from that of other contributing factors.

The expert added that significant effects are likely to emerge only if the intensity of the attacks increases severalfold, particularly against roads and logistics hubs that support Russian offensive groupings on the Siversk salient and the Pokrovsk axis. In its current form, the campaign remains insufficient to produce such results.

The CIT expert emphasizes that the current campaign to isolate Crimea is aimed primarily at political rather than purely military objectives, and that a blockade of the peninsula is unlikely to have a major impact on the position of Russian forces at the front. More important, in this context, is demonstrating Crimea’s vulnerability by disrupting the tourist season and increasing public dissatisfaction.

However, military analyst Kirill Mikhailov disagrees with that assessment. He argues that strikes against the logistics corridor to Crimea have direct military significance, as they constrain alternative supply routes for the Dnepr Group of Forces on the Orikhiv sector of the Zaporizhzhia front, which remains one of the key areas of the war, particularly in light of Ukrainian counterattacks near Stepnohirsk. Russian units continue offensive operations south of Orikhiv, including in the area of Mala Tokmachka. As a result, the reliability of logistics in this sector takes on particular importance.

Traber was arrested in June in connection with the murder of Alexander Petrov, a criminally connected businessman and deputy of the Vyborg City Council, who was shot dead in 2020. Arrested alongside Traber were his long-standing partner Vladimir Danilenko, former professional boxer Alisultan Nadirbegov, and Said Saladinov. Investigators believe that  Nadirbegov and Saladinov were the perpetrators of the murder.

While still in Ukrainian captivity, Lykov gave a nearly three-hour interview to blogger Dmytro Karpenko in which he spoke about his criminal record and time in prison, his work in Traber’s circle, and his acquaintance with Danilenko. Russian investigators later added a portion of this interview to the Traber case file.

After returning to Russia as part of a prisoner exchange in the spring of 2025, Lykov was questioned as a witness. He stated that Danilenko had offered him the job of eliminating Petrov, but that he had refused. Danilenko then found other perpetrators, according to Lykov. Lykov also stated that he had met two men from Dagestan, had driven them to a restaurant, and had overheard conversations about a payment of 50 million rubles ($667,500).

In the interview with Karpenko, Lykov said he had signed a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense planning to give himself up to the Ukrainian side, admitted to hating Russia, and claimed he wanted to stay in Ukraine. However, Russian investigators, according to Fontanka, focused on the portion of his account dealing with Traber, Danilenko, Petrov, and the alleged contract killing.

The outlet reports that Lykov may genuinely have had connections to the individuals in the case: a person with Lykov’s name served time in the same penal colony as Danilenko in the 1980s and worked as Traber’s driver in the 2020s. According to Fontanka, a significant part of the case against Traber rests specifically on Lykov’s testimony.

In its “Putin’s 4%” investigation, The Insider reported that Ilya Traber and Sergei Vasilyev controlled the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal, which exported petroleum products from the Kirishi refinery. The money that these Kremlin-connected “upstanding” businessmen earned at Russian ports was laundered through entities in Monaco and Liechtenstein, and the frontmen running those firms did business with friends of Putin, including Gennady Timchenko and Vladimir Yakunin.

In 2016, Spain placed Traber on an international wanted list on suspicion of participation in a criminal organization. Meanwhile, both Traber and Vasilyev are known to have been honorable guests at Putin’s birthday celebrations.

The authors cross-referenced the public portion of the list with databases from the human rights organisations Memorial, OVD-Info, and If There Were No War, as well as with court records and Interpol’s public database. They emphasize that 23.5% is a minimum estimate: for 66.8% of those on the list, publicly available information is insufficient to determine the grounds for their prosecution.

The Rosfinmonitoring list is not limited to individuals who have been convicted on charges of terrorism or extremism — it also includes suspects and defendants in such cases whose cases have not yet resulted in a verdict. Following amendments that entered into force in June 2025, grounds for inclusion on the list can also include charges of spreading false information about the army or “discrediting” it, provided that investigators determine the actions were motivated by political, ideological, national, or social hatred.

According to the researchers’ estimates, before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine politically motivated cases accounted for approximately 9% of annual new additions to the list. After February 2022, however, their share rose to 34%, and in 2024 it peaked at 41%. In the meantime, the overall rate at which new names are added to the list has nearly tripled.

Members of religious communities that are disfavored by the state make people especially vulnerable to politically motivated prosecution. A total of 1,165 people, including 601 Jehovah’s Witnesses and 415 alleged members of the  Islamic party Hizb ut-Tahrir face such charges. The report’s authors note that Hizb ut-Tahrir is not on the European Union’s or the United States’ terrorist lists, and that prosecutions of its alleged members in Russia are frequently connected with individuals’ possession of religious literature or participation in religious discussions, rather than with acts of violence.

The authors categorized another 1,052 people as defendants in cases of property damage and arson, acts which have increasingly been treated as terrorism or sabotage since the fall of 2022. A significant share of cases in this category are linked to anti-war protests that, according to the report, caused no casualties and resulted in limited damage.

The researchers separately identified 956 people who were prosecuted for anti-war speech and activism, as well as 852 Ukrainian military personnel and prisoners of war charged by Russian authorities under terrorism statutes. The list also includes staff and supporters of the late Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, along with journalists, human rights defenders, LGBTQ+ community members, and indigenous peoples’ activists.

At the time of the study, the Rosfinmonitoring list contained 17,050 “extremists” and 4,491 “terrorists.” The report argues that Russia’s definitions of these categories are substantially broader than international ones: prosecution for “extremism” in Russia does not require accusations that a suspect made any calls to violence, and some of the organizations designated as “terrorist” are not involved in armed activity.

The authors also analyzed 803 organizations on the list: 247 “terrorist” ones and 556 in the “extremist” category. In their assessment, in 679 of these instances, or 84.6%, there is no publicly available evidence of the accused engaging in violent activity or making calls for it. This group included religious associations, regional and anti-colonialism movements, media outlets, human rights organizations, and civic initiatives.

The report notes that inclusion on Russia’s list of “terrorists and extremists” has no legal force outside of the country. The authors do warn of possible risks associated with the use of Rosfinmonitoring data in international compliance systems; however, there have been no confirmed cases of entities or individuals having their EU bank accounts blocked solely on the basis of inclusion in this list.

Grizdak is no run-of-the-mill intelligence officer. From 1998 to 2004, he kept a registered address at Michurinsky Prospekt 25, a Moscow apartment block that happens to be home to two of the FSB assassins responsible for poisoning the late Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny.

Grizdak did not respond to The Insider’s request for comment on this story, but after receiving the request he did scrub his Telegram account of all content.

Grizdak was born January 6, 1982 in the city of Sverdlovsk and currently carries a passport bearing the number 4513 /050102. As a Spetsnaz officer, he was attached to Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov’s Akhmat Battalion and later to the Wagner Group, a private military company founded by the late oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin. Between 2014 and 2016, he also made at least four trips to the United States, prompting questions of how a Russian intelligence officer with extensive military training was allowed into the country in the midst of Moscow’s first invasion of Ukraine.

Since Feb. 28, 2022, Grizdak has regularly posted gun-related content to the “GriD Shoot'n'fun” Telegram channel, where he has appeared in selfies with fellow gun enthusiasts including prominent Russian military blogger “Razvedos.”

An Italian blog post from 2017 describing the arrival of Russian mercenaries in Syria features a photograph of Grizdak himself, along with speculation that “the mercenaries are believed to belong to Russia's largest private military company…the Wagner Group.” 

Of course, while the photo could have been taken from elsewhere, Grizdak’s phone number was indeed stored by several contacts who used the word Syria (“Сирия”) to contextualize their acquaintance.

Then, between 2020 and 2023, Grizdak began taking near-monthly flights to and from the Chechen capital of Grozny — all while maintaining an address on ul. Kadyrova 38 in the city of Gudermes, the home of the Russian Special Forces University and the site of a major Russian military training center.

As for Lane, the only publicly available biographical details that are even semi-promising come from a June 2024 article published by mythdetector.com, which described her as “an American actress of Georgian origin and UNIFYD TV host” — the online channel of a movement that describes itself as a “worldwide, spiritual faith-based organization that serves humankind through initiatives that seek to enlighten, inspire and unite people across the globe.”

Lane’s personal website offers “Journalism Master Classes Online” at a price of $150 an hour and “Life Coaching” sessions for a comparatively modest $109, but the “Who is Elizabeth Lane?” section provides no concrete information, describing her simply as “one of America's most uncompromising voices in investigative journalism, fearlessly diving into the world of international politics and diplomatic affairs.”

Iza Bendianishvili, the future Elizabeth Lane, was born on November 6, 1991, in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic — a month and a half before the collapse of the Soviet Union rendered the country the independent Republic of Georgia. Little is known about the next thirty years in the life of Lane/Bendianishvili, but in 2022 and 2023 she travelled to Russia, posting a cartwheeling photograph taken on Red Square to her Instagram page.

The oldest entry on her ElizabethLaneLive Patreon page, an article titled “Globalists Are Targeting Scientists,” was published on February 16, 2024. Over the next three months there were a total of four more posts, ending on May 17 of that year with an edition headlined “CIA's Secret Operations You Need to Know About.” It was only in April of 2025 that Lane’s oldest video on the page, “Dr. Fauci,” appears. That offering was followed up in June with “Blackrock!” Then, starting from November 17, 2025 (“Exposing the Council on Foreign Relations”), she began putting out episodes almost daily right up until April 29, 2026 (“War in Iran & JD Vance”). 

Activity on Lane’s YouTube channel (Elizabeth Lane TV) accelerated more or less in tandem with the spike in posts on her Patreon account. Her YouTube debut on September 9, 2025 involved a poorly staged fifteen-minute investigative documentary titled “The Death of Hitler: Truth or Cover-Up?” As the hostess introduces the topic:

“Is it possible that Hitler died in the bunker? Of course. It could be that it's as simple as him shooting himself in the head and dying. But there are many details ,and this is why this show exists. This is why ‘Exposed’ exists: because details that were never answered. This is where we gather all the evidence that we can find and figure out what really happened, right? Did Hitler die in that bunker, or did he survive?”

As of June 10, 2026, that offering had only 1,497 views.

However, Lane’s second post, published on October 9, 2025, has attracted an audience of 314,227. Its title: “Off The Record with Elizabeth Lane: Tucker Carlson Unfiltered.”

For one reason or another, the former Fox News presenter turned online provocateur who marveled over Moscow’s Auchan supermarkets during his visit to interview Putin in 2024 effectively agreed to advertise Lane to his audience of millions — and to do so by going on her show.

In an X comment, Lane claimed the backstory was completely innocuous: Kiriakou, a former CIA officer who went to prison for exposing the identity of an undercover American spy and then went to work for Russian state media outlet Sputnik, put them in touch, and the rest developed organically from there. On May 14, 2026, she wrote:

“Zionists are crashing out. This is why everyone thinks you people are absolutely stupid... A friend of mine, the very well-known John Kiriakou, introduced me to Tucker. John is a great man who went to prison and sacrificed a lot to tell Americans the truth about our government torturing people. When John connected us, I asked Tucker for advice as someone far more experienced and professional in journalism than I was. Then after some time I had the audacity to ask him for an interview, and he agreed. That’s who Tucker is. Unlike a lot of you, who only sit down with know [sic] propagandists because you want something out of it, Tucker sat down with someone relatively unknown simply because he’s genuine like that.”

Whatever Carlson’s actual motivation might have been, Lane’s subsequent 44 episodes tended to attract audiences in the mere quadruple figures — hardly the click count of a super influencer. True, her joint release with Kiriakou on February 18, 2026 —  “Skinwalker Ranch, UFOs, USOs and Secret Projects” — brought in 184,800 clicks, but her only truly viral output was a May 14 joint release titled “Candace Owens on Charlie Kirk, The Daily Wire, TPUSA, and Emmanuel Macron” which garnered 834,162 views — a rather modest showing by the standards of Owens herself, but a major record for Lane. For comparison’s sake, Owens’ stream following her return from a well-publicized trip to Moscow brought in well over two million views.

Unlike many of her American acquaintances in the right-wing infotainment space, Lane has conspicuously little to say about Russia, its president, and its ongoing invasion of Ukraine. But there are exceptions.

On December 22, 2022, she released “A very personal episode!” in which she declared: “America is the cancer of the world… And I always say like, most Americans don't understand, Russia is on your side, guys. Russia is doing what you should have done with all your guns, with Second Amendments, like, fight your government, get rid of them, get rid of the cancer. ‘Oh, you're, you're saying that we should use guns and like, are you calling for violence?’ Yeah, I'm actually, I'm calling for violence. How are you going to fight a fucking monster with a stick when that monster is armed with AK-47 or even better, with a fucking tank? So how are you gonna do that? You gonna do it with a stick? Or maybe with your peaceful protests. Yeah, sure, that will work, because that worked so well so far."

In a separate video posted to Rumble three years ago, Lane described Ukraine using language that almost perfectly mirrors Western discourse on Russia (8:45-9:23): “I also speak to some Ukrainians that I know — very, very good friends of mine. People need to know this. We speak through private [chats], let's say WhatsApp. And their answer is, ‘I'm so sorry, Lizzie, I can't speak about this.’ Like, they are so scared — if they are pro-Russian, or if they just want the war to end — that they can't express their opinion. Because they are stuck in Kyiv. They cannot leave — especially guys, they cannot leave. I mean, what is this other than a dictatorship?”

Notably, that conversation featured Mira Terada, a Russian national who in 2021 returned to her homeland after serving a stint in an American prison for money laundering (in connection with a cocaine trafficking scheme). In Moscow, Terada ended up running a Kremlin-backed disinformation operation overseen by none other than Yevgeny Prigozhin, the late patron of Grizdak’s Wagner Group.

Terada’s “Foundation for Battling Injustice” (R-FBI) teamed up with Storm-1516 to run influence operations ahead of Germany’s 2024 parliamentary elections and also published fabricated a seemingly endless stream of “investigations” like this one, which claimed to have “discovered evidence of the existence of a secret scheme for the disposal of bodies of deceased Ukrainian Armed Forces servicemen by processing them into meat products for sale on the domestic market.”

Lane, for her part, does not appear to enjoy anything like the close professional relationship Terada has with the Russian state. Instead, Lane’s ties to the country are more personal. In her "A very personal episode!" video, which was cross-posted to Patreon on April 5, 2023, Lane herself offered up an interesting tangent (1:12:38-1:13:31): “If you noticed, no Russian special ops officer is famous. They are not interested [in it]. I even said to my boyfriend, 'you know, like, hey, people make millions out of this shit.' I said to him, 'like, why do you not try to do this stuff? You could be like a millionaire.' And he was like, 'I did not become a special ops officer to put it out there and say like how awesome I am — look at me, I can kill people.’ This is a job that is not very honorable. He understood so much, that this job carries so much guilt. But this is not how Navy Seals see it. Navy Seals are like 'Look at me, I'm a Navy Seal.' Like they were the most broken people in the world.”

In that episode, she also explained: "So I went to Russia, I met my sources... I talked to a few Russian soldiers, a few special ops officers, and, well, in my time in Russia, I fell in love with one of them, and we started a relationship.”

Lane did not name the aforementioned Dmitry Grizdak as her boyfriend, but he was one of two former special forces officers whom she interviewed as part of a since-deleted podcast episode originally posted to YouTube on April 28, 2023. The other was former Navy SEAL Joseph Schmidt III, who appeared on the podcast as “Jay Smith.” Schmidt also moonlights as a porn star called “Jay Voom” and has appeared in at least 29 adult films alongside his fellow porn star wife. Their filmography includes works such as “Apple Smashing Lap Dance” and “Strippers Come Home Horny from the Club.”

When counter-extremism researcher Ryan Mauro questioned Lane about the unpublished video, she responded with a voice message explaining that its exposure “would put an innocent man’s life in danger in Russia, who did not do anything wrong.” Lane sent Mauro several voice messages, in fact, accusing him of working with CIA and Mossad, while also threatening to complain about him to the FBI. 

Reports that the missile which would eventually become Sarmat was under development began in 2011. A former chief of staff of the Strategic Rocket Forces gave a quote saying that development of a new, heavy liquid propellant missile was underway and that it was being developed by the Makeyev Design Bureau. The choice of Makayev was curious, as the bureau was focused on submarine-launched ballistic missiles at the time. 

Reports that the missile which would eventually become Sarmat was under development began 15 years ago — in 2011

However, given that the Yangel Design Bureau that had had made the SS-18 series during the Soviet era was now located in independent Ukraine, it was no longer an option. Meanwhile, NPOmash, the original proponent of the new missile, had too many other projects.

Thus Makayev got the contract. The missile was originally supposed to be deployed by 2020. Clearly, that deadline was not met.

The choice to have Makayev lead the project may have contributed to Sarmat’s problems with development. Makayev had never designed a missile that large, nor had they designed a land-based missile since the time of the Cold War-era Scud-B. There were several delays in the ejection tests of the new missile, but in 2017 a set of successful pop up tests were conducted and in 2018 the cold launch ejection system was validated. The first flight test of the missile did not occur until 2022 — a full two years after the missile was supposed to have been deployed. In short, it is clear that a program is not going well when a major fire breaks out at the production plant and the Minister of Defense says he “will demand weekly reports on the progress with development.”

Despite a successful first flight test, problems continued to plague the Sarmat program. The second flight test in 2023 merely failed, while the third flight test in 2024 failed spectacularly when the missile exploded after ejection from the silo, causing serious damage to the test infrastructure at Plessetsk and leaving a large crater. The destruction of the silo itself indicates the missile was ejected properly, but its engine failed to ignite, causing it to fall back into the silo, whereupon the propellant detonated. This is reminiscent of the first R-36M2 Voevoda test launch in 1986, which failed in the exact same way when the main engine failed to start.

Considering this rocky development cycle, Makayev and the Strategic Rocket Forces must have let out a collective sigh of relief after the reportedly successful test in mid-May. But why persist with such a troubled program? There are three clear reasons — one organizational and two strategic.

Competition defines strategy

As I alluded to earlier, the organizational politics of Russian missile procurement can be nasty. Indeed, during the late 1960s competition within the defense industry was so intense that it was dubbed the “little civil war.” While the situation is likely not as severe now as it was then, internal competition and the bureaucratic power of the liquid propellant missile design bureaus provide some of the impetus for these kinds of missile systems.

As mentioned earlier, it seems NPOmash was the biggest advocate within the defense industry for a new, large liquid propellant system, but it got edged out by Makayev. Of course, the plan was opposed by the leadership of the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology, which  produces solid propellant ICBMs that compete with the liquids, underscoring the fraught nature of the Russian missile industry. The NPOmash leadership argued against creating a dependence on solid-fuelled systems and gestured towards Russia’s traditional strength in liquid-propellant missiles. What becomes clear looking at the drama is that these are large, powerful firms with competing interests and different people who are dependent on them. To some extent, elements of the Russian modernization program reflect their individual preferences.

Internal competition and the bureaucratic power of Russia’s liquid propellant missile design bureaus provide some of the impetus for these kinds of missile systems

However, it would be incorrect to solely chalk Sarmat up to the prerogatives of the Russian missile industry, powerful as its players may be. Sarmat also fills important roles in the Russian strategic nuclear force. The first is that it helps with target coverage. Given its massive size, Sarmat, like its predecessor the SS-18 Satan, can deliver lots of warheads. Previously, the Voevoda was thought to carry only five warheads in order to help keep the Russians compliant with New START; however, now that the treaty has expired, Russia could return to the R-36M2’s regular loading of ten warheads, in addition to added missile defense countermeasures.

The independent targeting of the warheads makes it quite powerful as a counterforce weapon, as each SS-18 could hit 10 enemy missiles. Given the resource constraints faced both by the Soviets of old and by the Russians of today, large MIRVed missiles are an efficient way to cover large target sets, as they have since the SS-9/R-36 variants came online in the early 1970s. 

New old threats

Beyond covering target sets, Sarmat is part of Russia’s effort to break down U.S. homeland missile defenses. Ever since Washington left the ABM treaty in 2002, the Russians have had to face the problem of defeating a slowly expanding American homeland defense network. When the Russians decided to pursue Sarmat in the early 2010s, that defense consisted of 30 Ground-Based Interceptors in Alaska as part of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system. However, the missile defense problem for the Russians has only grown since then. By 2017 the GMD system had expanded to 40 GBIs in Alaska and four in California, and those interceptors will soon be replaced with the Next Generation Interceptor, each of which will carry multiple kill vehicles in order to target several warheads. This more robust GMD system could be complemented by Aegis missile defense systems or even space-based interceptors as part of Donald Trump’s Golden Dome for America program.

Sarmat is often described as “Son of Satan,” as Satan was the name the U.S. Intelligence Community assigned to the SS-18. However, Sarmat may bear more similarities to its grandfather, the SS-9, than to its immediate predecessor. The role Sarmat plays in defeating U.S. defenses is twofold, and both resemble the way the SS-9 was used in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

First, Sarmat can oversaturate defenses, and some current (albeit uncertain) reports indicate Sarmat will have a max warhead loading similar to that of the R-36M2, which carries 10 reentry vehicles. Current shot doctrine for the GMD system likely assigns at least two — and probably four — interceptors to each incoming warhead. This doubling up of interceptors means it would take only one or two fully loaded Sarmats to consume all of America’s dedicated midcourse interceptors. 

It would take only one or two fully loaded Sarmats to consume all of America’s dedicated midcourse interceptors

Moreover, this attrition does not account for the various missile defense countermeasures the heavy ICBM might carry, such as chaff clouds, various simulation and antisimulation decoys, and jammers, which may cause each Sarmat to demand even more interceptors. While this resembles how the SS-18 would have defeated U.S. defenses, it also bears similarities to the innovations of the SS-9, the first Soviet missile to carry multiple reentry vehicles. And as that system’s accuracy and technological foundation improved, independently targetable reentry vehicles became a feature.

Second, Sarmat can go around obstacles. In 2018, Putin announced a panoply of exotic systems — nuclear-armed nuclear-powered cruise missile, a nuclear torpedo, and hypersonic glide vehicles, in addition to Sarmat — that were designed to defeat U.S. missile defenses in diverse ways. In his comments after the most recent test, Putin stated that Sarmat had a range of 35,000 km and would be able to target the U.S. from the south, rather than going over the North Pole like most ICBMs. Given the fact that the majority of U.S. early warning radars and missile defenses are oriented northward, a southern shot would circumvent America’s missile defense architecture.

The southern shot capability may seem like a novel development — one that the SS-18 clearly lacked — but it is actually a feature taken out of the SS-9’s playbook. In the mid-1960s, as the U.S. began getting serious about missile defenses, the Soviets sought a response. Their solution was a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System added to some variants of the SS-9, which became the SS-9 Mod 3 and the R-36O. Instead of following a ballistic trajectory to its target, the FOBS would place its reentry vehicle into orbit, like a satellite. Once it arrived over the target, a reentry burn would deorbit the reentry vehicle.

The Soviet FOBS could attack the U.S. from the south, like the Sarmat, in order to avoid American radars. Indeed, some reports indicate that Sarmat may be armed with a FOBS, just like its progenitor. FOBS had been banned by the SALT II agreement signed by President Carter and General Secretary Brezhnev in 1979. That agreement never went into force, as Carter withdrew it from consideration by the Senate after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; however, both parties largely adhered to its limits until 1986.

Back into the arms race

Will Sarmat be ready for “combat duty” by the end of this year as Putin indicated? Given the track record of the program, my guess is probably not. While construction is underway at the 62nd Missile Division at Uzhur to upgrade Voevoda silos for Sarmat, they will likely only be filled once the missile is actually ready for deployment, which may demand several additional  flight tests. Whenever it is finally deployed, be it this year, next year, or a later date, Sarmat will embody a retread of Soviet thinking rather than some profound breakthrough or innovation. It reflects an industrial preference for large, liquid-propellant missiles. It draws upon tried and true methods for defeating the resurgent problem of American missile defenses. It is even suffering from the same problems in testing that plagued its predecessors. 

Whenever it is finally deployed, be it this year, next year, or a later date, Sarmat will embody a retread of Soviet thinking rather than some profound breakthrough or innovation

While it would be unwise not to take it seriously as a threat to the U.S., it would also be incorrect to characterize it as a novel one. If Sarmat is symbolic of anything, it is the return of some of the most dangerous dynamics of the Cold War arms race — organizational interests synergizing with the arms competition between offensive and defensive systems to produce precarity in the strategic balance. One can only hope we are prudent enough today to temper this competition sufficiently to avoid calamity, as the U.S. and the Soviet Union were able to do back then.

Pyongyang had insisted on opening the bridge by June 19, the second anniversary of the signing of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty between North Korea and Russia. Despite tight deadlines and shortages of funding and materials, North Korea built customs and quarantine facilities, laid the bridge deck, and paved access roads. Ьore than two months after an April 21 ceremony linking the bridge spans, however, Russia still had not completed construction on its side.

“Our officials are beside themselves with frustration that the Tumen River bridge opening, which we pushed hard to achieve on the second anniversary of the Korea-Russia treaty, has been delayed due to Russia’s pathetic construction problems,” the outlet’s source in North Korea said.

In response, on June 19 the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea sent a directive to the Rason city party committee and the General Bureau of Border Security to revise the opening schedule and reorganize the border zone. North Korea estimates that it will take another year before all planned facilities are fully completed and regular traffic can begin to use the bridge.

Daily NK said the delay is further complicated by a diplomatic dispute. At a recent summit involving North Korean officials, China raised the issue of waterborne passage through the mouth of the Tumen River to the Sea of Japan. The new bridge’s low clearance is one obstacle, as it limits the movement of large ships. The source said Pyongyang is considering using the construction delay as leverage with Beijing to push for the opening of the Sinuiju-Dandong bridge over the Yalu River, which has been completed but has remained closed for years.

The bridge over the Tumen River is intended to connect North Korea’s Rason with Khasan in Russia’s Primorsky Krai. It would be the first road crossing between the countries, supplementing the existing rail link. It is expected to significantly increase freight traffic between North Korea and Russia, reduce Pyongyang’s dependence on rail transport, and expand people-to-people contacts.

Satellite analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) estimated in November 2025 that the bridge and related infrastructure were expected to open in the first quarter of 2026, but that deadline was later pushed back.

According to Starboard Maritime Intelligence data reviewed by The Insider, the vessel’s route began appearing with noticeable deviations after it entered the Baltic Sea. The tanker’s track showed abrupt changes in position and sections that did not match normal vessel movement.

The auonsson OSINT account suggested the cause could be interference with, or spoofing of, satellite navigation signals — known as GPS spoofing — which is regularly recorded near Russia’s Kaliningrad region. The account said ships’ navigation systems usually return to normal after leaving the affected area; however, in the case of Pate, the consequences appeared to last longer. As of the afternoon of June 23, the tanker’s navigation systems still had not recovered. Auonsson joked that the ship appeared to have suffered a severe “concussion” or “intoxication.”

According to Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, Pate is involved in exports of Russian oil and petroleum products that bypass restrictions imposed by the G7 and its partners. Ukrainian intelligence says the vessel has been used for shipments from Russian Baltic Sea ports, switching off its AIS and manipulating navigation systems near the port of Ust-Luga. Greenpeace also classifies the ship as part of the shadow fleet.

Since 2025, Pate has been sanctioned by a number of Western countries. The UK imposed restrictions on the vessel in May 2025, followed by Canada in June, the EU in July, Switzerland in August, and Australia in September. Ukraine added the tanker to its sanctions list in December 2025.

According to Ukraine, the tanker is linked to the Indian company Orion Ship Management LLP, which has been connected to “shadow fleet operator” Gatik Ship Management. After Western sanctions were imposed In 2022 and 2023, Gatik became one of the world’s largest carriers of Russian oil. Ukrainian intelligence says Orion Ship Management LLP was part of a group of companies that stepped in to provide ship management services after previous providers declined due to the risk of sanctions.

Judging by the vessel’s movement data, Pate did not pass through the English Channel. Instead, the tanker sailed around Britain and Ireland, choosing a significantly longer route to reach the Atlantic Ocean. On June 14, the tanker Smyrtos (IMO: 9389100), which is also linked to Russian oil shipments, was detained in the English Channel after Royal Marines and officers from the National Crime Agency (NCA) boarded the vessel.

The English Channel has been one of the most important routes for Russian oil exports from Primorsk and Ust-Luga, meaning any risk of detention, inspection, or other restrictive measures can increase shipping costs by forcing shadow fleet operators to use longer alternatives. For now, The Insider found that only vessels sailing under the Russian flag, rather than third-country flags, are passing through the English Channel — and they are doing so under escort by Russian warships. Other vessels have changed routes to avoid the Channel altogether.

Time is no longer an ally

The most significant changes in the balance of powers at the negotiating table are, predictably, the result of developments on the battlefield. Since the start of the year, the Russian offensive has stalled across all sectors. The Russian army continues to maintain a numerical advantage in manpower and equipment, and it still achieves local successes in certain sections of the front. But the pace of advance has proven substantially lower than the forecasts drawn up in the fall and winter.

A slowdown in the Russian offensive after the New Year holidays was observed in both 2024 and 2025. In previous years, however, Russian forces managed to achieve operational breakthroughs in May and regain the initiative before winter. In 2026, this did not happen.

One of the reasons has been the further robotization of the fighting. The mass deployment of unmanned systems of all types is gradually turning the front into a space of continuous surveillance and targeting. Amassing forces — not only for large operations but even for the smallest offensive actions — is becoming increasingly difficult. Any movement of vehicles and troops is quickly detected, and the density of drone strikes has grown significantly on both sides.

The situation in the Russian rear has also changed. In recent months, the range, frequency, and effectiveness of Ukrainian deep strikes have increased sharply. Targets have included defense industry enterprises, oil refineries, logistics hubs, ammunition depots, military airfields, and energy infrastructure.

While the direct economic impact of Ukrainian attacks should not be overstated at this point, a near-universal shortage of gasoline and diesel fuel has already become a daily reality for ordinary Russians. Factory shutdowns, additional security costs, outlays for the repair of damaged facilities, and regular disruptions to airport operations are imposing increasingly tangible costs on the Russian economy.

Another implication of Ukraine’s growing ability to bring the war deeper and deeper into Russian territory is a visible change in public sentiment. For a long time, the Russian authorities managed to persuade the population that the war was something distant, exerting almost no effect on daily life. Today, sustaining that illusion is becoming increasingly difficult.

Against this backdrop, news quickly spreads that can be interpreted as signs of growing discontent within Russia. There is no question yet of any organized resistance to the Kremlin’s policies. However, cautious signals are being heard with increasing frequency from business, regional elites, and even certain figures within the federal establishment who are concerned about the consequences of a prolonged war. And even the not-entirely-loyalist statements of some bloggers — such as Victoria Bonya — are being perceived by a portion of Russians as a sign that there is hope for an imminent change of course.

Getting through to Putin

All of these circumstances appear to have convinced Kyiv that Moscow may be more interested in negotiations than its habitually uncompromising official rhetoric would suggest.

Having lost the ability to make contact through American intermediaries, Volodymyr Zelensky conveyed his proposal for a personal meeting with Vladimir Putin through a certain Russian businessman. The contact was not publicized, and the mission itself most likely was not intended to be made public.

However, Putin himself unexpectedly disclosed this meeting — organized by Roman Abramovich — during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). In effect, the Kremlin revealed the existence of a back channel that had been designed to remain private. Perhaps the Russian president wished to signal his lack of interest in the proposal and to underscore his confidence in Russia’s position.

After this, the Ukrainian side shifted to open pressure. Against the backdrop of Ukrainian strikes carried out against facilities in St. Petersburg on the opening day of the SPIEF, Zelensky published a pointed address to Putin reiterating his direct call for a personal meeting.

By that point, however, the master of the Kremlin was hardly the primary intended audience of the open letter. Instead, in practice, the missive was addressed to the Russian elites, Ukraine’s Western allies, and, in all likelihood, to Donald Trump himself. Kyiv sought to demonstrate its readiness for negotiations while simultaneously demonstrating Moscow’s refusal to engage in political dialogue. The response — beyond Putin’s direct rejection — was a new wave of mass strikes on Ukrainian cities and facilities that clearly hold no military significance.

Trump returns

Ukraine and its European partners had hoped to use the G7 summit to proclaim a consolidated position in light of the effective absence of the U.S. from the Russia–Ukraine track. It did not go as planned.

Literally on the eve of the summit, Trump announced that he had reached a deal with Tehran and declared his intention to once again actively engage in the negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow. Phone calls between the American leader and both Putin and Zelensky followed.

This development prompted mixed feelings in Kyiv and several European capitals. On the one hand, a swift diplomatic breakthrough is extremely difficult to achieve without American involvement. On the other, efforts to increase the pressure on Moscow seemed to be more coherent absent Washington’s participation.

The approach of the White House to resolving the Russia–Ukraine conflict remains unclear. Trump’s trusted envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner — whose visit to Kyiv had previously been discussed publicly — never made it to the Ukrainian capital. Instead, new reports emerged about the possibility that they would once again travel to Moscow. 

The approach of the White House to resolving the Russia–Ukraine conflict remains unclear

At the same time, statements in support of Ukraine have now begun to come not only from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, but also from other members of the Trump administration. For the first time, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has begun deploying rhetoric that is favorable toward Kyiv. Furthermore, the U.S. is expected to unblock a military aid package worth approximately $400 million that was previously suspended by the Pentagon.

American politicians may have finally been convinced of Moscow’s unwillingness to compromise. However, another possibility is that the White House has been impressed by Ukraine’s demonstration of real strength — and of the cards it holds. Finally, some Western outlets describe the White House’s pro-Ukraine drift as a concession to Europe made in exchange for support on America’s plan for ending the Middle East conflict.

As a result, G7 participants agreed to intensify their pressure on the Russian economy and increase arms deliveries to Ukraine, while Trump pledged to reimpose sanctions on Russian oil that had been temporarily lifted amid fuel shortages resulting from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz wrote on Twitter following the meetings: “There may be a chance for peace for the first time.” It was also reported that an aide to European Council President António Costa had already made contact with Russian representatives twice.

Will there be a meeting?

For months now, Volodymyr Zelensky has consistently sought to negotiate directly with his Russian counterpart. Putin has not formally ruled out such a possibility. However, all statements from Russian officials amount to the same thing: a meeting does not make sense until the essential parameters of a peace deal have been agreed upon. In other words, the Kremlin would be prepared to formalize an acceptable outcome, but it is in no mood to search for a compromise. In more straightforward terms: Putin is ready to personally receive Ukraine’s surrender.

Putin is ready to personally receive Ukraine’s surrender

European mediators clearly lack the weight to shift this position. Neither Macron, nor Starmer, nor even Erdogan is capable of compelling Putin to accept a negotiating format that does not suit him.

Which is where Trump comes in. “Such a meeting could be organized in the United States in a format that would make it significantly more difficult for Putin to refuse, at least when it comes to President Trump,” Zelensky explained in a June 15 Telegram address. Russia, in turn, reacted with complaints that the mythical “spirit of Anchorage” is gradually dissolving in the waters of Lake Geneva, on whose shores the G7 summit took place.

Ukraine is confidently demonstrating its ability to adapt to the changed nature of combat operations and to strike Russia with increasingly painful blows. G7 leaders agree that Russia is not winning the war and that it is losing the initiative. European states are consolidating after beginning to perceive the outcome of the war as a matter of their own security.

However, the equation has two more variables: Donald Trump, who is capable of changing his position literally day-to-day,  and Vladimir Putin, who has made the war against Ukraine the central political project of what remains of his life. Thus far, Putin has stubbornly refused to seriously consider a deal, and a year ago, it was still widely accepted that time was working in Russia’s favor. Now though, that conviction is far less widespread. It remains to be seen if that actually makes a difference in the Russian dictator’s calculus.