According to two Libyan sources cited by the outlet, Ukrainian military personnel are stationed at three bases, including at the air force academy in Misrata, where forces from the Turkish, Italian, and U.S. contingents are also present. Another base, intended for launching drones — including naval drones — is located in the city of Zawiya, 50 kilometers north of the capital, in the area of the Mellitah oil complex. A third, at the headquarters of the Libyan army’s 111th Brigade on the road to Tripoli airport, is used for coordination meetings between Ukrainian forces and the Libyan army.

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The Libyan government has also made a coastal plot of land available to Ukrainian specialists, where an airstrip has been built.

According to RFI, cooperation between Libya and Ukraine began in the fall of 2025. The agreement was signed in October at the initiative of Ukraine’s military attaché in Algeria, Andriy Bayuk. Under the arrangement, Ukrainian military personnel train Libyan forces in the use of drones. The long-term agreement also provides for weapons supplies and investment in Libya’s oil sector.

RFI reported that the attack on the Russian gas carrier Arctic Metagaz involved a Magura V5-type surface drone launched from the base in Zawiya. Ukraine uses uncrewed of this type of boats in operations in the Black Sea (1, 2, 3). The drone hit the vessel’s engine room, causing it to fill with water.

Russia’s Transport Ministry was the first to accuse Ukraine of attacking the Arctic Metagaz. There were 30 Russian sailors on board at the time of the strike, all of whom were evacuated. The ministry insisted the tanker had departed from the port of Murmansk carrying cargo “processed in full compliance with international rules.” Russia’s Maritime Board also said last week that the damage from the attack “must be compensated by the aggressor.”

Earlier this week, news emerged that Libyan personnel had failed to tow the damaged vessel to one of its ports. A cable connecting the Arctic Metagaz to a tugboat snapped due to adverse weather in the Mediterranean, leading Libyan authorities to request that other countries assist it in bringing the vessel under control.

Andrei Matelsky, director of the Belarusian government’s National Center of Legislation and Legal Information, said the document would create new categories of administrative offenses, including those linked to the “propaganda” of homosexuality, transgender identity, childlessness, and pedophilia. The report did not specify the penalties.

More broadly, the bill adds nine new articles to the country’s administrative code and introduces 43 new categories of offenses. It also makes dozens of amendments to existing provisions and revises some penalties, regulating a wide range of areas, from the circulation of digital tokens and mobile communications requirements to the use of official vehicles and participation in international events.

The bill also provides for lighter liability in some cases. For example, legal entities may be exempted from punishment if violations are quickly corrected. Other changes concern the prevention of offenses among minors and the expansion of expedited procedures for reviewing administrative cases.

Officially, the overwhelming majority of the visas — 35,849 of them — were issued for educational purposes. In 2024, that figure was 8,616. Other categories included 266 humanitarian visas, 72 tourist visas, 47 business visas, six private visas and 33 service visas.

At the same time, the data on actual entries differs sharply from the visa statistics. According to Rosstat, which bases its figures on information from the FSB border service, only 295 border crossings by North Korean citizens were recorded in the first quarter of 2025.

The sharp rise in the number of “educational” visas may be linked to the use of study programs as a means of bringing migrant laborers into Russia. The Insider previously found that thousands of North Korean citizens enter Russia on student visas but are in fact employed on construction sites and at industrial enterprises.

According to our investigation, the arrangement makes it possible to circumvent UN sanctions banning the hiring of North Korean workers: formally, they are classified as students undergoing “practical training,” but in reality they work full-time.

Russian authorities have repeatedly spoken about using North Korean citizens for work inside the country. In June 2025, ex-Defense Minister and current Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu said North Korea would send about 6,000 of its citizens to help rebuild Russia’s Kursk Region following a lengthy incursion by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, with 1,000 deminers and 5,000 military builders enlisted for the task.

According to South Korean intelligence, about 15,000 labor migrants from North Korea were already in Russia by May 2025, and a significant share of them work in the Russian Far East.

A UN Security Council resolution adopted in 2017 prohibits countries from hiring North Korean citizens and requires them to repatriate workers already abroad. The restrictions were imposed due to the fact that a significant share of North Korean laborers’ earnings is transferred to the state and used to finance military programs.

The Insider has repeatedly documented Russian snipers’ use of rifles and ammunition made in Western countries. We have also reported on large-scale supplies of firearms and cartridges from the United States and the European Union to Russia through countries in the Eurasian Customs Union, Kyrgyzstan among them.

An Italian in a Brooklyn court and American ammunition for Russian snipers

Manfred Gruber admitted to conspiring to violate U.S. export control laws. According to the prosecutor, Gruber used Italian companies under his control to conceal the Russian end users of the cartridges he was exporting. The involvement of Italian firms made it possible to obtain U.S. export permits; however, in violation of licenses issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce, the cartridges were then sent not to Italian gun stores, but to Russia via Kyrgyzstan.

The court’s press release said Gruber’s accomplice in the scheme was Kyrgyz citizen Sergei Zharnovnikov, who was arrested in Las Vegas in early 2025 and is currently serving a 39-month sentence for weapons smuggling.

The court’s press release did not name the companies involved, but with a high degree of certainty it refers to arms distributor Bignami S.p.A., where Gruber serves as commercial director. (This was also reported by the Washington Tariff & Trade Letter.)

According to court documents, Gruber used a front company in Italy, identified as Italian Company No. 2, to buy ammunition from a manufacturer in Nebraska. The most prominent ammunition maker in Nebraska is Hornady Manufacturing, whose Italian distributor is Bignami.

U.S. investigators found information about the Russian recipient of the ammunition on the phone of Zharnovnikov, who had saved a contract with a Russian company on his device.

Politico Europe reported in 2023 that Hornady ammunition was being smuggled into Russia. In 2024, The Insider, together with investigators from Italy’s IRPI Media, Czechia’s Investigace, and Kazakhstan’s Vlast.kz, identified several additional Russian recipients of the same cartridges. From 2022 to 2024, Hornady ammunition was received by the Russian companies including Arsenal, Artemida, Ve-Kasa, Promtekhnologiya, and Tetis.

On the battlefield, the ammunition was used by snipers from Russia’s Wagner Group, the Espanola brigade, and the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade. The use of American ammunition by Russian troops was shown on Channel One, Russia’s leading state propaganda network: on Dec. 9, 2024, the documentary Snipers. Between Heartbeats featured servicemen from the 155th Brigade using American Desert Tech rifles and Hornady ammunition, recognizable by its distinctive black-and-red branded packaging.

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The U.S. court’s press release describes another episode in which a different Italian company controlled by Gruber purchased a batch of ammunition from a U.S. manufacturer headquartered in Tennessee, then sent it to Kyrgyzstan. This likely refers to Barrett Firearms Manufacturing of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, as ammunition produced by the company was received by the Moscow-based weapons importer Varyag.

In 2016, users on the GunsRu forum recommended the Italian company Bignami as a distributor through which a German Merkel carbine could be ordered for delivery to Russia. Before the full-scale invasion began, Bignami directly exported products to Kolchuga (lit. “Chain Mail”), a company owned by Russian arms baron Mikhail Khubutia.

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The intermediary in Kyrgyzstan

American law enforcement was able to trace Gruber thanks at least in part to the arrest of his Kyrgyz accomplice, Zharnovnikov, who traveled to the U.S. industry trade event Shot Show in early 2025. On Zharnovnikov’s phone, investigators found correspondence with Gruber in which the latter discussed means of avoiding the attention of regulators while smuggling American ammunition to Russia. For example, a batch of 100,000 cartridges was to be split into smaller orders that an Italian company would send to a client in Armenia.

Zharnovnikov himself was sentenced in January 2026 to 39 months in prison. Among the proven violations of export control law was the smuggling of semi-automatic carbines made by an American company in Chesapeake, Virginia, worth $900,000. Analysis by The Insider showed that these were American-made Kriss Vector carbines. Their customs clearance in Kyrgyzstan was handled by Azhy Mamat Company LLC, which is owned by Zharnovnikov. The weapons were received in Russia by Orel LLC, part of Mikhail Khubutia’s group of companies. Later, Orel employees even posted promotional photos of the American carbines on social media.

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Until 2022, Khubutia’s largest official foreign partner was the Beretta holding group. Unofficially, Beretta remains Khubutia’s partner via the firm Russkiy Orel LLC (lit. “Russian Eagle”), as the Italian company Beretta Industrie S.P.A. still owns a 57.95% stake in that arms importer.

In June 2024, after the investigation by The Insider and its partners was published, Washington imposed sanctions on Beretta’s Russian subsidiary, and the Italian intermediary who worked with Khubutia’s companies is now behind bars in the United States. However, despite the actions of U.S. authorities, their Italian and European counterparts have not publicly announced an investigation into the matter.

Human rights defenders interviewed by The Insider note a steady increase in politically motivated cases in the occupied territories of Ukraine, a large portion of which involve “terrorism” charges. Although people can be added to the “list of terrorists and extremists” at different stages of criminal proceedings — sometimes immediately after a case is opened, in other cases after a conviction — the rise in the number of those listed correlates with the number of criminal cases opened based on unfounded suspicions.

According to data from the Memorial human rights project provided to The Insider, the number of Ukrainians subjected to criminal prosecution in politically motivated cases in Russia and the occupied territories has risen significantly in recent years. In 2022, 376 such cases were recorded; in 2023, the figure fell to 295; in 2024, it jumped to 692 cases; and for 2025, 436 cases are currently known (with more likely to come to light as research continues).

Human rights defenders track prosecutions in the occupied territories separately. There, the trend also shows a similar trend: 288 cases in 2022, 246 in 2023, 338 in 2024, and 276 in 2025.

Memorial emphasizes that the decline in figures for 2025 does not reflect the full picture, as information on many criminal cases emerges with delays. Therefore, the 2025 statistics remain incomplete and are expected to be significantly revised during 2026. 

Sergei Davidis, head of the Support Program for Political Prisoners at Memorial, explained to The Insider that there is a significant gap between the statistics on politically motivated criminal cases in Russia and those in the occupied regions of Ukraine:

“In the past two to three years, the number of criminal cases with signs of political motivation in Russia has remained steady at 500 people per quarter. But the occupied territories of Ukraine, including Crimea, have shown a consistent increase. This also applies to prisoners of war, for whom the pace of criminal prosecution is also rising.

In search of objective measurements, we calculated the rate of politically motivated criminal cases per capita. In the occupied territories of Ukraine, this indicator is several times higher than in Russia. By the end of last year, we found that it was roughly five times as high in Crimea, and eight times as high in the newly occupied territories. There is clearly a trend toward harsher measures and the use of more severe charges, with an increasing share of terrorism, treason, and sabotage cases even within Russia.”

Lawyer and human rights defender Nikolai Polozov, who assists persecuted Ukrainians, also told The Insider that he has observed an increase in the use of “terrorism” charges in cases against Ukrainians from the occupied territories. In his view, the course of the war does not correlate with the level of repression against Ukrainians in the occupied areas: “On the contrary, we are seeing an increase in the number of such cases regardless of developments on the front.”

The spill was detected on the morning of April 2 by a coast guard aircraft. According to Swedish officials, the slick stretched roughly 12 km in length. Suspicion soon fell on the tanker Flora 1, with prosecutors and the police launching a preliminary investigation on suspicion of an environmental crime.

According to the authorities in Stockholm, the tanker departed from a port in the Gulf of Finland — likely the Russian port of Ust-Luga — while its final destination remains unknown. Automatic identification system (AIS) data transmitted by the vessel show that on the night of April 2, it made a sharp turn toward Russian territorial waters near Kaliningrad, then returned to the international waters of the Baltic Sea. The signal stopped transmitting on April 3 at around 10:42 a.m. local time off the coast of Sweden, slightly southwest of the port of Ystad.

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According to Ukrainian intelligence, the vessel previously made voyages from Russian ports in the Baltic and Black Seas, periodically turning off its AIS tracker and conducting ship-to-ship (STS) oil transfers near Greece. Ukrainian intelligence also reports that the ship is affiliated with the Indian company Gatik Ship Management, one of the key operators of the so-called “shadow fleet” involved in transporting Russian oil under Western sanctions, and with Galena Ship Management. In 2023, Gatik and several related entities — including Gaurik Ship Management LLP, Caishan Ship Management, Plutos Ship Management, Geras Ship Management, Girik Ship Management, Orion Ship Management LLP, Nautilus Shipping, Ark Seakonnect Ship Management LLC, and Zidan Ship Management — participated in a scheme to reassign vessel management as part of an effort to circumvent sanctions.

Several countries have successively imposed sanctions on the tanker. On February 24, 2025, the United Kingdom implemented restrictions. In June 2025, Canada and Australia followed suit. From July 20, 2025, the European Union applied restrictions, citing the vessel’s involvement in transporting Russian oil and its use of high-risk shipping practices.

On August 12, 2025, Switzerland imposed sanctions, followed by New Zealand on October 30 and Ukraine on December 13. On February 21, 2026, Ukraine imposed personal sanctions against the vessel’s captain.

Owing your life to Tehran

Over the years of the civil war that raged from 2011 through 2024, Syria accumulated enormous debts, primarily to Iran. Tehran’s intervention in the early years of the active phase of the conflict effectively saved Bashar al-Assad, even if only temporarily. There is no publicly available figure for Syria’s debt to the ayatollahs’ regime, but expert estimates range from $30 billion to $50 billion, covering not only direct monetary loans but also supplies of oil, weapons, spare parts for military equipment and industrial equipment, and other goods.

Tehran’s motivation for rescuing the friendly Assad regime went beyond alliance considerations. After the Syrian president fled to Moscow in late 2024 and Iranian diplomats were urgently evacuated, journalists discovered in the looted and deserted Iranian embassy in Damascus a detailed business plan for Syria’s postwar reconstruction, one in which Iranian companies were to play a major part.

Inspired, as the document itself states, by the American Marshall Plan for Europe’s post-World War II economic recovery, the Iranian megaproject envisaged active participation of Islamic Republic entities in building a power plant in Latakia, reviving oil fields abandoned due to the war, developing transport infrastructure, and much more. The plan estimated the prospective return on these investments at a staggering $400 billion. In other words, Tehran planned not only to recoup all the funds it had spent saving the friendly dictatorship, but also to earn a substantial profit.

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However, after the fall of the Assad regime, Tehran has little hope of breaking even on its investment. In his first speech as the victor in the civil war, Ahmed al-Sharaa made it clear that relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran would be fundamentally reconsidered.

“This victory, my brothers, opens a new chapter in the history of the region — a history full of dangers, which turned Syria into a playground for Iranian ambitions, sowed interreligious enmity, and encouraged corruption,” al-Sharaa said in his speech, delivered like a sermon at the Umayyad Mosque in the capital.

Al-Sharaa has barely made any public statements about Syria’s debts to Iran, but then again, neither have Iranian officials. Only once, just days after Assad fled Syria, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said that estimates placing Damascus’ debt to Tehran at even $30 billion were greatly exaggerated and had nothing to do with reality. However, the spokesperson did not specify how much money Iran had actually invested in Syria or how much it now wanted returned.

Moreover, Syria has at least one political force — the admittedly marginal Syrian Liberal Party — that demands the president seek $500 billion in compensation from Iran for the casualties and destruction caused by Iran and Iranian-backed proxies over the course of the civil war.

Overall though, there has been virtually no public communication between the two capitals since the change of power in Syria. Tehran tried to establish ties with the new administration in Damascus, but very soon all official contacts became indirect, always involving intermediaries from Turkey, Qatar, or other Middle Eastern states. The Iranian Foreign Ministry describes these contacts in the vaguest and most general terms, refusing to disclose even the subjects of the negotiations.

Russian military presence in exchange for investments

By contrast, the new Syrian government maintains fairly close contact with another key ally of the fallen regime: Russia. Al-Sharaa regularly hosts Russian officials in Damascus and has even flown to Moscow twice for talks with Vladimir Putin. Such close communication with the man who sent regular forces and mercenaries to Syria — forces responsible for committing egregious war crimes and causing thousands of civilian deaths — is striking.

During his visits to Moscow, al-Sharaa called Russian soil “blessed” and praised Russian soldiers, calling them “noble.” Syrian users on X erupted in criticism of their leader, stating, for example, that Russians had killed more Syrian citizens than Iranians have, going so far as to label their interim president as “Putin’s doormat.”

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However, the Syrian leader is unlikely to harbor deep affection for Vladimir Putin, who bears direct responsibility for the long nightmare of the civil war. Rather, Syria’s leader appears to be trying to use the Russian dictator’s exorbitant geopolitical ambitions to the benefit of his country.

In theory, it is easier for al-Sharaa to reach agreements with the Russians than with the Iranians. Tehran imposed its ideology and faith on Syrians, building Shia religious centers and mosques in a predominantly Sunni country, and even transferring existing religious sites to the Shia clergy. Tehran also attempted to alter the ethnic and religious composition of Syrian cities by mass resettlement of Shia populations from Iran, Lebanon, and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the Russians did not bomb Syria and kill Syrians in order to impose Orthodoxy or bring Slavs to Damascus and Aleppo. Their primary goal was to retain control of the Tartus and Khmeimim military bases — key footholds for the Kremlin’s geopolitical ambitions.

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Russia’s Mediterranean bases in Syria serve as logistical hubs for supplying the Russian Armed Forces’ African Corps and other units operating in countries like Sudan, Niger, and Mali. If Tartus and Khmeimim were no longer under Russian control, the transfer of personnel, equipment, and weaponry to Africa would become far more difficult and expensive — if not impossible. The Kremlin, obsessed with the idea of a multipolar world in which Russia is a major power, sees relinquishing its presence in Syria as a painful defeat and a sign of weakness.

Al-Sharaa is well aware of this, which is why he is doing everything he can to leverage Russia’s desire to keep the bases under its control. Primarily, this could involve the cancellation or restructuring of Damascus’s debt to Moscow, estimated at between $1 billion and $2 billion. In addition, Damascus expects Russia to take an active role in the country’s reconstruction after the devastating civil war. The new government seems willing to tolerate a Russian military presence in exchange for debt forgiveness and investment.

Another topic of negotiations between Damascus and Moscow is the fate of former president Assad, who fled to Russia to escape a tribunal — and most likely execution — at home. In talks with Russian officials, al-Sharaa consistently raises the issue of Assad’s extradition. However, it is possible that by insisting on the fugitive’s handover, the new president is looking to secure additional concessions after Russia refuses to comply.

Confrontation with Israel

Of course, there is more to the story than just money. The new Syrian authorities need to counter Israel’s hostile actions, as its army has occupied several border areas, openly supported opponents of al-Sharaa’s administration, and even bombed targets in central Damascus. The Israelis aim to expand the buffer zone between their territory and lands controlled by al-Sharaa, while also weakening the Syrian army by backing hostile groups within Syria.

The new authorities in Damascus are now seriously discussing with Moscow the possibility of deploying Russian military patrols closer to the Israeli border. The calculation is simple: fearing a conflict with the Kremlin, the Israelis would avoid claiming the areas controlled by Russia or supporting armed groups operating there. For now, however, Moscow has made no concrete promises to Damascus. Negotiations continue — just as Israel’s occupation of part of Syrian territory does.

This occupation appears to have come as a highly unpleasant surprise for the new authorities. Early on in his political career, Al-Sharaa (known at the time as the victorious rebel leader Abu Mohammad al-Julani) had expressed a desire to find common ground with Israel and promised that his country would not pose a threat to the Jewish state. In return, he asked the Israelis to abandon the occupation of the Golan Heights and return this Syrian territory, occupied since 1967, to Damascus under guarantees that no troops or weapons would be stationed there.

For Israel, the issue is extremely sensitive. The Golan Heights have long been officially annexed and, under Israeli law, they are considered an integral part of the state. In 2019, during Donald Trump’s first presidential term, the United States officially recognized this annexation, despite UN resolutions and international law both being on the other side of the dispute.

The strange state of an “absence of peace” that prevailed between Syria and Israel during the eras of Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez, allowed both sides to ignore the issue of territorial claims. The question of the Golan Heights appeared irrelevant in a setting of mutual hatred, lack of a peace agreement, frozen diplomatic contacts, and tensions constantly teetering on the edge of armed conflict. Now Damascus’s willingness to actually make peace and recognize the Jewish state in exchange for Israel’s compliance with international law disrupts the familiar pattern of their bilateral relations.

Israel might not be opposed to the idea of peace with Syria — but not at the cost of returning annexed territory that has long been fully integrated into the national economy. When Israeli cabinet ministers claim they don’t trust the former Al-Qaeda fighter al-Sharaa — and even call for his elimination, saying that “there are no former jihadists” — it is quite possible they fear not so much his extremist past as they do the territorial complications that a peace process would entail.

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To maintain stability, Israel has relied on a strategy of preemptive strikes against any military targets in Syria that could potentially threaten its security. Without abandoning this tactic (as noted above, Israel has already bombed Damascus under the new authorities), the Israelis are also relying on other methods to deter any potential threat from Syria. For example, they supply the Druze separatists in Syria with food and weapons, pay salaries to Druze fighters, assist them with logistics, and provide medical treatment in Israeli hospitals, insisting that this is a way to protect a friendly community from genocide by the new authorities.

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Indeed, many hundreds of Druze fell victim to pogroms in the spring and summer of 2025 at the hands of militants ideologically aligned with the new administration, but the Syrian government condemned the actions of the attackers and launched an investigation into the tragedy. However, the very occurrence of these pogroms gave Israel a pretext to expand its occupation zone in Syria under the guise of saving Druze lives.

Many Druze welcomed Israel’s actions, displaying the Jewish state’s flags on the streets and even beginning to use Hebrew names instead of Arabic ones for the regions where they lived. Several hundred Israeli Druze crossed the border to join the units of their Syrian compatriots.

Angered by the massacre in Syria, some Lebanese Druze also tried to enter the country. The Lebanese army stopped them, and local Druze leaders, while condemning the violence against their co-religionists, also criticized the separatists in Syria. Walid Jumblatt, leader of one of Lebanon’s most influential Druze clans, stated that Israel is not protecting the Druze but merely using the massacre as a pretext for occupation and interference in Syria’s internal affairs. Jumblatt also advocated for maintaining a unified Syria in which the law protects everyone — a position that broadly aligns with the official Lebanese stance on events.

Relations with Lebanon

Lebanon generally welcomed the change of regime in Syria. With a population of 4 million that was still exhausted from its own civil war, Lebanon had to take in around 1.5 million Syrian refugees after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war. The end of the war allowed many of them to return home, noticeably reducing the strain on Lebanon’s social services and economy.

Moreover, the Assads never had much regard for the sovereignty of their small neighbor. In 1976, at the height of Lebanon’s civil war, Syrian troops occupied a significant portion of the neighboring country, remaining there until 2005. Under pressure from Lebanese protests and Western dissatisfaction with the Syrian military presence in a sovereign state, Bashar Assad was finally forced to withdraw his troops. Still, he continued to treat Lebanon as a “fake” state whose territory, in his view, rightfully belonged to Syria.

Until recently, the idea of annexing Lebanon to Syria had some support even among a fringe of the Lebanese population. The Syrian Social Nationalist Party, which advocates for a “Greater Syria,” operates legally in the country, but since 2022, none of its representatives have been elected to parliament. After Assad’s fall, the party became completely marginal.

Another pro-Assad Lebanese political force, Hezbollah, played a key role in Syria’s civil war on the side of Assad’s army. However, after the regime’s collapse, it found itself in a difficult position. Created and financed by Iran, Hezbollah was left without its key land supply route following the change of power in Damascus.

Predictably, the new Syrian authorities blocked all supply routes from Iran into Lebanon that they could identify, including those used for moving weapons, money, and instructors. As a result, Hezbollah has lost a significant portion of the influence it held during the Assad era.

For al-Sharaa and his government, Hezbollah is an obvious enemy, while for the Lebanese authorities, it is a serious destabilizing factor — the “hand of Iran” in Beirut, alternately dragging Lebanon into another war with Israel or provoking domestic political crises by refusing to comply with cabinet orders to disarm.

Under the new Syrian authorities, who show actual respect for Lebanese sovereignty and focus on eliminating Hezbollah, Damascus’s relations with Beirut have a real chance of warming. However, a true breakthrough has yet to occur — in part due to the history between the heads of state. Lebanon’s president Joseph Aoun was the army general who commanded Lebanese army units on the Syrian border in 2017, defeating forces of ISIS and the al-Nusra Front — commanded at the time by none other than al-Sharaa.

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On another note, Lebanon, with its ethno-religious diversity and absence of a single dominant confessional or national group, has certain misgivings about the Syrian authorities’ preference for privileging the country’s Suni Arab majority. 

Overall, just over a year after the change of power in Damascus, it can be said that none of the more extreme forecasts have come true: neither the grim predictions of skeptics who insisted that Syria would turn into one vast jihadi camp, nor the rosy dreams of the al-Sharaa supporters who claimed Syria would quickly resolve all internal and external crises and win over civil society. The leadership in Damascus faces serious challenges of postwar rebuilding, the need to forge a new national identity, and threats from separatists in border regions. Yet even these challenges pale in comparison to the horrors of the civil war the country has already endured.

Under the new Syrian authorities, relations between Damascus and Beirut have a chance of warming

Israeli cabinet ministers don’t trust al-Sharaa and even call for his elimination, saying that “there are no former jihadists”

The Iranian “Marshall Plan” estimated the prospective returns on investments into Syria’s rebuilding at a staggering $400 billion

Khaled Ghulam, a representative of Libya’s emergency committee handling the incident, called on other countries to assist with towing the vessel. In comments to Russia’s state-controlled news agency RIA Novosti, Ghulam said:

“Given the current weather fluctuations in the Mediterranean, no one can predict what will happen to the tanker. This situation requires competent authorities in Mediterranean countries to follow the example of the Libyan authorities, who have made every effort to bring the tanker under control.” 

Libya’s National Oil Corporation confirmed in late March that the Arctic Metagaz was to be towed to a Libyan port. At the time, the vessel was drifting toward the country’s coast, posing a risk of environmental pollution. According to sources cited by Reuters, an unknown quantity of liquefied gas remains on board, making the vessel potentially dangerous. One of the sources called the ship “a ticking time bomb full of gas.”

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The tanker was damaged on March 3 in the Mediterranean Sea. Russia’s Transport Ministry claimed the attack was carried out by Ukrainian unmanned surface vessels launched from the Libyan coast. There were 30 Russian crew members on board, all of whom were evacuated. The Russian ministry insisted the tanker had departed from the port of Murmansk carrying cargo “processed in full compliance with international regulations.”

“A major meeting took place yesterday in St. Petersburg. Representatives of Cuba were in attendance. Cuba is under a complete blockade, it has been cut off. Where did the oil shipment come from? A vessel of the Russian Federation broke through the blockade. A second one is currently being loaded. We will not abandon the Cuban people in their time of need,” Tsivilev was quoted as saying by Russia’s state-controlled news agency TASS.

Despite the maritime blockade that the U.S. has been enforcing since the start of the year, earlier this week the Russian tanker Anatoly Kolodkin (IMO: 9610808) did indeed reach the port of Matanzas laden 100,000 metric tons of crude oil, which analysts said would provide the island with energy for several weeks.

Washington decided not to intercept the vessel, with President Donald Trump saying he “did not see a problem with it.” Asked whether he was concerned that revenues from these deliveries could help Vladimir Putin, the American president replied:

“How does that help him? He loses one boatload of oil, that’s all… It doesn’t bother me much. It’s not going to have an impact. Cuba is finished. They have a bad regime, they have very bad and corrupt leadership. And whether or not they get a boat of oil is not going to matter. I’d prefer letting it in, whether it’s Russia or anybody else. The people need heat and cooling and all the other things that you need.”

The Anatoly Kolodkin broke the U.S. maritime blockade around Cuba on Monday, March 30. Russia’s Transport Ministry announced that day that the tanker had successfully reached its destination and was preparing to unload its “humanitarian shipment” of crude oil. However, according to data from the vessel-tracking service Starboard Maritime Intelligence, the ship reached port only the following day, Tuesday, March 31. The Anatoly Kolodkin remains in Matanzas as of April 2, 2026.

Pressure on Havana intensified late last year when U.S. forces intercepted a vessel carrying Venezuelan oil bound for Cuba. After seizing Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a military operation on Jan. 3, the U.S. administration demanded an end to fuel deliveries to the island and threatened to impose tariffs on countries supplying oil to Cuba.

“We have been dealing with these issues for quite a long time and are seeing a large number of quarantine-related cases. We receive more than 900 detections of quarantine pests and diseases from Armenia, which significantly complicates our work. For example, decontamination has to be carried out. As for flowers, we have to certify production sites and have tried conducting video inspections,” Dankvert added.

Speaking about animal products, he noted that some nominally Armenian products, such as butter, cheeses, and trout, may also be of non-Armenian origin.

According to Dankvert, the regulator has had to apply a special set of criteria to supplies from Armenia, including stricter rules on product traceability. As a solution, the official suggests integrating food safety monitoring information systems within the Eurasian Economic Union.

Meeting between Pashinyan and Putin

On April 1, Nikol Pashinyan met with Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. At the meeting, the Armenian leader explained the suspension of Yerevan’s CSTO membership by saying that the organization had failed to fulfill its mandate during the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2022, when Azerbaijan took control of the territory, forcing its Armenian population to evacuate under duress.

Armenia’s increasingly close relationship with Europe was discussed separately. Putin said that Russia has a neutral attitude to the cultivation of Armenia’s ties with the EU, but insisted on the need to make corresponding arrangements in advance, as simultaneous membership in the European Union Customs Union (EUCU) and the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) was “impossible.” Pashinyan, in turn, acknowledged the incompatibility of the two blocs, but added that as long as there was an opportunity to combine both options, Yerevan would use it, and that ultimately the choice between the two lies with his country's citizens.

The prime minister stressed that Armenia is a democracy: “Armenia is a democratic country. We have democratic processes for everything. This is already the norm. Some citizens even think there is too much democracy in Armenia… This is a matter of principle for us. Our social networks, for instance, are 100 percent free. There are no restrictions whatsoever.”

Russia’s deputy prime minister is not impressed

After the meeting, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk stressed in an interview with TASS that Yerevan cannot simultaneously be part of both the EUCU  and the EEU, despite Putin’s neutral attitude.

According to Overchuk, Armenia’s European integration has nearly reached the point at which Russia will have to restructure its economic relations with the country. He claims that Russia and Armenia lost $5.1 billion in mutual trade turnover in 2025 due to Yerevan’s efforts to move closer to the EU.

Indeed, starting in 2020, Armenia gradually began to reorient itself toward Western institutions, intensifying cooperation with the EU in the areas of security, economics, and government reform. Against the backdrop of cooling relations with Moscow and distrust toward the CSTO, Yerevan deepened its dialogue with Brussels, signed a Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA), and began the process of adapting to European standards.

Cheremisinova was responding to a question from Yabloko deputy Konstantin Kiselyov regarding library acquisitions. According to Cheremisinova, efforts to rid libraries of books purchased decades ago with money from the Soros Foundation  is part of a nationwide initiative linked to changes in Russian legislation.

“The bulk of the books was purchased in the 1990s. We are now facing changes in legislation. We have to remove some of the books from the collection because they were acquired with Soros money. That accounts for about 30% of our entire collection,” she said.

At the same meeting, the acting head of Yekaterinburg’s culture department, Elena Sokolova, noted that libraries are already facing a shortage of books, and that government funding for replenishing collections is insufficient.

The Soros Foundation was active in Russia until 2003, when its founder, George Soros, announced that he was winding down the foundation’s charitable activities in the country. The foundation’s last project in the Sverdlovsk region involved financing the restoration of the Pavlik Morozov Museum in the village of Gerasimovka.

In 2015, the organization was designated “undesirable” in Russia under the pretext that its activities “posed a threat to the foundations of the Russian constitutional order and state security.” Earlier, members of the State Duma had accused the foundation of “anti-Russian activities,” while the Federation Council placed it on the so-called “patriotic stop list.”

Russia reacts first and foremost to U.S. policy, but Moscow also needs the support of China, North Korea, and Iran to continue its war in Ukraine. Today’s Russian Federation is not a global power in the model of the Soviet Union, but a regional power that is, in fact, playing above its actual weight. Because of its relative weakness, Russia is not a shaper of the global order, but a disrupter.

Vladimir Putin is the master of using the weaknesses of others in order to gain influence, which is why so many of his military operations are hidden, using hybrid warfare as the key tool of Russian influence. Needless to say, asymmetric warfare is typically the tool of weak states or non-state actors, yet Russia is using underhanded methods to create and exploit grey zones in Ukraine, Georgia, and even in Central African countries.

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As a regional power in the post-Soviet region, Putin’s Russia aimed for regional hegemony, creating its own institutional framework through the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). But the war in Ukraine demonstrates that Russia is not capable of imposing its interests — not even along its borders. It is still fighting in the Eastern parts of Ukraine despite investing substantial resources in its army and domestic mobilization.

The limits of Russian power are connected to its economic, technological, and demographic weakness, along with a lack of soft power and overreach in the deployment of hard power. The EEU has not become an alternative economic integration institution analogous to the EU (even if, since 2022, it has served as a tool for sanctions evasion). Moreover, the CSTO has not become an alternative military bloc analogous to NATO, but instead has seen no member state join Russia’s war in Ukraine. As a declining power, Russia will only become weaker in the global competition, a process that is being accelerated by the ongoing conflict.

In this context, the rise of Russia as an actor in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America should be seen as a reaction to a decline in U.S. power. Putin used the opportunities presented by U.S. non-action (and even withdrawal) to intervene in these areas at relatively low cost. Syria is a prime example of how the Russian leadership used the indecisiveness of U.S. president Barack Obama to act, to keep former president Bashar al-Assad in power. Yet even for this successful military operation, Moscow’s forces needed the support of Iran and Tehran’s various proxies on the ground. Elsewhere, the Russian leadership also tried to build alliances with authoritarian leaders to push back against U.S. influences, but now, with the war in Ukraine well into its fifth year, Russia remains stuck in the Donbas.

As a result, Russia has needed to redeploy troops and military equipment from post-Soviet military bases in the South Caucasus and Central Asia, as well as from Syria and African countries. Because of its limited resources, it has to focus on its main priority, which is Ukraine and the post-Soviet region. But even here, its influence is crumbling: Moscow is no longer the key actor in the peace negotiations between Azerbaijan and Armenia, ceding that title to the U.S. and the belligerents themselves. Russia is not even capable of controlling the Black Sea militarily, evidenced by the fact that its ports are challenged by Ukrainian sea drones. Against this background, Central Asian countries are diversifying their economic relations towards Europe, the U.S., the Middle East, and Asia. 

Different goals

To be fair, Russian cooperation with countries like Syria, Iran, and Venezuela was never about alliances but rather about pragmatic interest-oriented policy. In addition to not being a great power, Russia is not a great patron. But it has nevertheless often used its limited resources in the pragmatic, opportunistic pursuit of its own objectives and interests. This involves selling the few Russian products that are still attractive on the global market — those like military equipment and services, energy cooperation, and nuclear power stations. Since 2022, Russia has undoubtedly benefited from its interactions with Iran, gaining drone technology, plus know-how in the spheres of sanctions circumvention and internet control. In return it supplied Iran with a few limited weapons systems — like Yak-130 trainer jets, Mi-28 attack helicopters, and Spartak armored vehicles — but never with advanced platforms such as the S-400 air defense system. Its main interest was never a close alliance with the Iranian regime, but rather the preservation of its own place in the balance of power in the Middle East — a fact that allowed Moscow to maintain good relations with Israel, along with various Arab countries that are important partners for sanctions circumvention and financial cooperation. Although Iran and Russia signed a partnership agreement at the beginning of 2025, it involved no security guarantees and no promises of support in the case of a military conflict. Both countries were very careful not to get dragged into the wars and conflicts of the other.

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The key aim of Russia’s various cooperative arrangements with the world’s other autocracies is to weaken U.S. influence globally. Building an alliance system with the BRICS+ group and Shanghai Cooperation Organization is not about integration or mutual solidarity, but about regime survival and cooperation against the U.S. influence among other mid-level powers. China as a rising great power is the exception here, which is precisely why Beijing — not Moscow — is increasingly dominating these institutions. Russian dependency on China is only growing, as it is Beijing that has become the key technological enabler behind Russia’s drone campaign against Ukraine.

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Again, authoritarian regimes like the one in the Kremlin are primarily concerned with their own survival, but the military and economic support platforms they form with similarly minded dictatorships are still mutually beneficial for the participating parties, even if it should be clear by now that Russia is neither willing nor able to prop up its authoritarian allies in the event that they are faced with existential threats. Only the U.S. is capable of carrying out “special military operations” like the one that removed Nicolas Maduro from power in Venezuela, and for Putin, the ousting of Maduro and the killing of key leaders in Iran provides further confirmation that the main enemy is the U.S., regardless of who might be in the White House.

Russia’s attractiveness

Nevertheless, we should not ignore Russia's remaining capabilities. Moscow still can offer its partners in the Global South cheap resources like oil, gas, fertilizer, and grain, and Putin maintains good personal relations with many leaders — and populations — outside of the Western democratic world. In addition, the Kremlin is a trendsetter with regard to the control of domestic civil society, media, and internet access, and it remains a key player shaping global discourses on the topics of sovereignty and alleged Western malfeasance. Perhaps paradoxically, its relative weakness actually makes it a more attractive potential partner for countries in Africa, Latin America, and South Asia —  after all, it can provide some resources, but it is not capable of dominating these regions the way first-rate powers like the U.S. and China can.

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For the Kremlin, the shift from U.S.-dominated multilateralism towards a status quo characterized by transactional negotiations and flexible coalitions is a positive development — after all, this is the modus operandi of the Russian regime. Putin, operating in survival mode, can react to new circumstances as he sees fit, taking advantage of others’ mistakes, much as he has done with the ongoing events around Iran. Because of the Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. lifted sanctions on Russian oil and fertilizers right at the moment when the Russian government was moving into an economic crisis. In addition, Western military support for Ukraine — especially in the area of air defense — will decrease given that so many resources are suddenly needed in the Middle East. Although there is a growing understanding in Moscow that it might not win the war in Ukraine on the battlefield, it might yet succeed by dividing the U.S. and Europeans while undermining cohesion and resilience inside Ukraine itself — efforts that have benefited from the behavior of the U.S. president himself. Using Trump to force Ukraine into a dysfunctional ceasefire agreement might be the most efficient aim Russia can pursue if it is ultimately to achieve anything resembling success in its seemingly endless war.

Managing decline

Russia is a declining power led by a regime that is prepared to act without scruple and has no vision for the future of the country, but the U.S. and Europe, which are also in a decline, continue to cede their share of global influence, leading to questions about which actor is managing its decline the best. The war in Ukraine was a major mistake by President Putin, but Russia has adapted to the situation created by its full-scale invasion. Putin’s strength is that he still retains enough power to prioritize — Syria, Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba may be nice partners to have, but they are all clearly less important to Putin than Ukraine is.

The military operations ordered by Donald Trump over the past three months have demonstrated the limits of Russian power, yet if Trump fails to topple the regime in Iran, Russia and China will come back to resume their support for the Ayatollahs after the war. In this transactional world, influence and power are relative, alliances are temporary, time is of the essence, and adaptability is absolutely crucial. Unlike Assad, Maduro, and Khamenei, Putin is a survivor. Although the changes in Syria, Venezuela, and Iran might weaken Russia's prestige as a global actor, they do not prevent the Russian president from achieving his key goals: staying in power and weakening the U.S.

The Kremlin is a trendsetter with regard to the control of domestic civil society, media, and internet access, and a key player shaping global discourses on the topics of sovereignty and alleged Western malfeasance

The key aim of Russia’s various cooperative arrangements with the world’s other autocracies is to weaken U.S. influence globally

Vladimir Putin is the master of using the weaknesses of others in order to gain influence

Law enforcement and government oversight agencies are the most widely represented public sector entities on the platform. Prosecutors’ offices have launched Max channels in 86 of Russia’s 89 regions, while the Ministry of Emergency Situations has done so in 88. Regional governments and the federal Ministry of Internal Affairs are lagging, with Max channels up and running in 62 and 58 regions, respectively. The judicial system remains far behind, with only 14 court channels active on Max nationwide (though that list includes the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court of Russia).

Despite the efforts of some government bodies, the audience of the new channels remains largely negligible. Prosecutors’ offices have attracted only around 200 to 300 subscribers each. By comparison, Telegram channels run by regional governments averaged between 20,000 and 30,000 subscribers.

Most Russian government bodies continued to actively maintain their Telegram channels up until the last moment. The Supreme Court of Russia published materials on March 31, and regional governments did the same on the eve of the planned block.

Pro-war bloggers adopted Max more actively than officials, but even among them, the migration has been incomplete. One of the most popular pro-war channels, Rybar, gained around 161,000 subscribers on Max, compared with its roughly 1,155,000 on Telegram. Other “war correspondent” channels show a similar pattern: WarGonzo has about 75,000 on Max versus 700,000 on Telegram, and Sladkov has attracted 116,000 Max users versus 711,000 on Telegram. The latest posts on Max from both were dated March 28, while on Telegram they posted as late as the 31st.

The study concludes that, despite administrative pressure, Max had not become a viable alternative to Telegram in Russia by the time of the planned block — neither for government bodies nor for bloggers and media outlets. Most market participants continue to rely on Telegram as their primary platform.

Earlier, Telegram’s press service told The Insider that it could not confirm reports of negotiations with the Russian government, nor of a possible resumption of the messenger’s services in the country. Instead, it emphasized the idea that the right to privacy and freedom of speech are fundamental and cannot be subject to any negotiations.

If Russia’s colleges fulfill the plan, the front will receive at least 44,000 additional personnel. And if the requirement is extended to vocational schools, the figure would rise to 76,000.

Recruitment efforts at educational institutions have been underway since December, but they intensified in February, according to Faridaily, with the campaign reaching an estimated 200 institutions. Targeted students are expected to sign contracts with Russia’s drone forces, which were designated as a separate branch of the military in the fall of 2025. Internal Ministry of Defense documents that accidentally became publicly available on the websites of several vocational schools stated that these drone units expect to recruit 78,800 people in 2026.

Students are being offered the standard package: state payments and benefits for war participants, state-funded tuition, and the right to continue their studies after their contracts expire. Some universities are adding their own incentives: Moscow State University and Saint Petersburg State University are offering additional cash payments, while Bauman Moscow State Technical University is offering free spa and sanatorium treatment. Even first-year university students are eligible to sign contracts provided that they are at least 18 years old.

University administrators have also begun using academic performance as leverage in the recruitment campaign: students who are struggling academically are threatened with expulsion if they refuse to sign a special one-year contract with the military. If they do sign, however, they can have their academic debt written off and receive a custom learning plan upon return from the front. Human rights advocates warn that the promised “one-year contract” does not exist in Russian law, and that the document in question is legally no different from a standard open-ended military contract.

Recently,  Ryazan Region governor Pavel Malkov ordered all local enterprises — both state-owned and private — to find candidates for contract military service by Sept. 20. The quotas depend on the headcount: companies with 150 to 300 employees must provide two prospective contract soldiers, those with 300 to 500 employees must provide three, and those with more than 500 employees must provide five.

After El Mencho’s assassination, social media platforms were filled with viral videos of the Guadalajara airport shooting, footage of passengers fleeing across the runway at the airport of Puerto Vallarta, and photos of the resort’s downtown area engulfed in flames.

State authorities insisted that all content depicting chaos and unrest in Mexico had been generated using artificial intelligence. However, officials have not yet determined who created it or for what purpose, meaning it is possible the same drug cartels were waging an information war.

In any case, authorities in certain areas took very real steps to avert a potential escalation of the situation. Guadalajara switched schools to remote learning, banned mass events, blocked roads, and halted public transport. Although the restrictions were lifted days later, the question remains whether the government forces truly restored order, or if the CJNG and its allies simply paused their activities.

The sides may have even reached some form of tacit agreement, as an uneasy calm has persisted in the country since the latest wave of unrest died down. There is still no clear answer as to how security will be ensured during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which Mexico is set to host together with the United States and Canada this summer.

According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), Mexico is the most dangerous country in the world for civilians, second only to Palestine. The 2025 Conflict Index shows that of the 8,070 violent incidents recorded in Mexico over the past 12 months, 77% were directed against civilians.

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The events following the killing of El Mencho sharpened the long-debated question of whether the government in Mexico City is capable of ensuring public safety across the country. According to a LATAM Pulse survey conducted by AtlasIntel and Bloomberg this past November, 51% of Mexicans listed corruption as being among the country’s main problems, with 45% naming “insecurity, crime, and drug trafficking” (inflation finished third, at 36%).

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Mexican drug cartels blur the lines between organized crime and irregular armed conflict, and in clashes between the criminal gangs and security forces — as well as in territorial conflicts among rival groups — civilians are the primary victims. Institutional corruption and the infiltration of the mafia into government and judicial bodies weaken the state’s ability to combat drug cartels, undermining public trust in the authorities. Even more striking is the scale of impunity in Mexico: although cases are opened for 94% of crimes, fewer than 1% are solved.

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Additionally, according to government statistics, more than half of the country’s population qualifies as “poor,” with inadequate access to education, healthcare, or employment. This grim reality is the main reason why many young people are willing to join the ranks of the drug cartels.

Failed or mob-controlled?

Mexico has often been called a failed state. In 2024, Uruguayan President José Mujica characterized Mexico’s government institutions as “completely out of control and corrupt to the core” (though he retracted those remarks the following day after the Uruguayan ambassador was summoned to the Mexican Foreign Ministry). And in 2017, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro stated that Mexico had become a “failed state, dominated by violence, inequality, and drug trafficking” (although Maduro’s comments would have proven more apt as a description of his own country).

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Mexico is described as a “failed state” so often that a game called Failed State Mexico has even appeared on Roblox, offering players the chance to take part in “epic battles” in the city center, choosing sides between law enforcement and criminal groups.

Still, calling Mexico a failed state is clearly an exaggeration. After all, elections are held, parties and presidents change, and rights and freedoms exist. However, the protection of citizens’ safety varies greatly from state to state.

According to its Constitution, Mexico is a federal republic consisting of 31 states and one federal district (the capital, Mexico City). Each state has its own constitution, government, governor, and state congress. The country covers nearly 2 million square kilometers and has a population of 130 million. The states differ significantly in terms of economic development, culture, and climate. The north is more industrialized and has closer ties to the United States, while the south is agricultural, with a poorer population.

The influence of drug cartels remains one of the key factors affecting security, with the situation worst in states located near the Pacific coast and along the 3,141 kilometer border with the United States. These areas are used as drug smuggling routes and also host major synthetic drug production facilities.

Last year, the United States included terrorism as a security factor in its travel recommendations for those heading to Mexico, the first time such a warning had been issued. According to the State Department, the threat affects 29 states and Mexico City. Only two southern states — Campeche and Yucatán — are considered safe for travel.

In an official warning, Washington explains that Mexico faces a high rate of violent crime — homicides, kidnappings, carjackings, and assaults — and a risk of terrorist attacks. The “Do Not Travel” category includes the states of Colima, Guerrero, Michoacán, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas, Zacatecas, and Coahuila.

In turn, Mexican authorities classify Colima, Morelos, Sinaloa, Baja California, and Guanajuato as the most dangerous states. However, this assessment is based primarily on the number of homicides per capita, rather than the overall level of security. The situation is volatile, not only due to clashes between drug cartels and the government, but also as a consequence of criminal groups fighting over territory.

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A decade-old Stanford University study asserts that Mexican police are largely under the control of criminal organizations, describing the “penetration of organized crime into state structures.” Government authority is effectively absent in some areas, especially those affected by violence, with drug cartels quickly filling the vacuum.

At the same time, the fight against the most prominent drug lords and cartels does not lead to the defeat of crime, but rather to its dispersion. The criminal groups employ various methods — from bribing the authorities to helping locals resolve disputes and find work— thereby winning the hearts and minds of thousands of supporters, some of whom later become professional fighters. As a result, in some Mexican states, drug cartels have already established parallel power structures alongside official institutions, effectively overseeing some cities and even regions. In short, Mexico is effectively a mafia state.

Drug war chronicles

The Mexican cartels did not emerge overnight. By the 1980s, they had developed sufficiently to begin participating in the smuggling of drugs from Colombia, forming an alliance with the Colombian cartel that at the time dominated the region, operating under the leadership of the world’s largest drug trafficker, Pablo Escobar.

By the late 1990s, Mexican criminal groups began engaging directly in the drug trade themselves, transforming Mexico from a transit country to a major producer of marijuana, methamphetamine, and heroin for the U.S. and European markets. Several politicians who promised to fight the traffickers were assassinated, while several who opted for deliberate inaction were accused of enjoying ties to the cartels. The issue became an integral part of Mexico’s political life. However, at that time, the number of victims was still no more than a few hundred murder victims per year.

In the late 1920s, Mexico became a “cartel democracy” — a term that has no actual connection to the drug trade. For 71 years (from 1929 to 2000), the Institutional Revolutionary Party held unchallenged power, ruling through a cartel-like collusion among politicians and other major stakeholders, organized criminals among them.

This tacit agreement was broken after Vicente Fox, of the right-wing National Action Party (PAN), won the presidential election in 2000. For the first time, incumbent governors and local officials were replaced, meaning drug lords had to figure out how to bribe the new representatives, effectively ending the country’s illusory stability. The resulting power struggle was accompanied by an unprecedented wave of violence.

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Sanho Tree, a drug policy expert at the Washington DC-based Institute for Policy Studies, explains: “From a citizen's point of view, it is better to have a couple of big players and alliances rather than a checker board of a bunch of smaller cartels fighting amongst each other. The only thing worse than organized crime is disorganized crime.”

Fox was succeeded as president in 2006 by Felipe Calderón, also of the PAN. The new head of state officially declared a war on the cartels, deploying the armed forces in the fight. Calderón sent 6,500 federal troops to the state of Michoacán to put an end to the violence perpetrated by drug lords there. However, the results were disappointing. According to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), Calderón’s six-year campaign against organized crime (2006–2012) resulted in 121,683 violent deaths, yet criminal activity remained as prevalent as ever. In addition to those killed in the war against the cartels, around 30,000 people simply went missing.

“Hugs, not bullets”

Elected in 2018, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, representing the left-wing National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), declared an end to the war on the cartels with the slogan “hugs, not bullets” (abrazos, no balazos). AMLO’s intent was to focus on the root causes of violence by addressing poverty through social programs and the creation of economic opportunities for young people.

Although the approach attracted its share of criticism, UN experts also point to the futility of the punitive efforts to drug control that Mexican authorities had applied for decades. They cite negative consequences such as mass arrests, increased drug-related crime and violence, growth in illicit drug production, and the stigmatization and discrimination of entire communities.

However, addressing Mexico’s social issues will still take decades. Meanwhile, violence continues on city streets, making public safety the country’s most pressing challenge. Despite the change in tone, the number of victims of drug cartels has not decreased since the authorities’ shift to the “hugs” approach.

According to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), 31,062 homicides were recorded in the country in 2023, an average of 85 victims per day. The total number of violent deaths in Mexico from 2012 to early 2026 has topped the staggering figure of 350,000.

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Mexico’s current president, Claudia Sheinbaum, also of the left-wing MORENA party, largely followed the moderate approach of her predecessor. Moreover, she stated that the violence following El Mencho’s death cannot be classified as acts of terrorism, since that crime is defined by different standards under the Mexican Penal Code. This perception clearly does not align with that of Donald Trump’s White House, which has designated drug cartels, including the New Generation Jalisco Cartel, as terrorist organizations.

Needless to say, such measures will not stop the flow of fentanyl across Mexico’s northern border. As long as there is demand for drugs in the U.S., the fight against drug cartels in Mexico cannot be effective. Despite the seizure of tons of drugs, the destruction of production labs, and the high-profile takedowns of capos like El Mencho, the roots of the cartels remain untouched. One capo is simply replaced by another.

Prospects of foreign intervention

U.S. pressure on Mexico is evident in all of Trump’s statements. On Jan. 4, the day after U.S. forces removed Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro from Caracas, Trump said of Sheinbaum: “Every time I spoke with her, I offered to send troops.” However, according to the American president, his Mexican counterpart declined the offer: “ She's concerned. She's a little afraid. The cartels are running Mexico, whether you like it or not.”

On Febr. 23, Trump called Sheinbaum to discuss details of the military operation to eliminate El Mencho. She noted the high level of cooperation and information exchange between the agencies of both countries: “I told him how the operation had gone, that we had received intelligence assistance from the United States.”

While it remains unclear what role Washington played in the plan, in his annual State of the Union address on Feb. 24 Trump took credit for the elimination of El Mencho: “We've also taken down one of the most sinister cartel kingpins of all. You saw that yesterday.” Earlier, White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt officially stated: “The Trump Administration also commends and thanks the Mexican military for their cooperation and successful execution of this operation.”

In turn, billionaire Elon Musk, who had once again aligned himself with Trump, wrote on X about the Mexican president after El Mencho’s elimination: “She’s just saying what her cartel bosses tell her to say.” Following this, Sheinbaum stated that she was considering the possibility of suing Musk. Such legal action is unlikely to achieve anything, but the episode is yet another indication of the complex relationship between Mexico and its northern neighbor.

Another important aspect of this “cooperation under pressure” is Mexico’s readiness to extradite its citizens who face drug trafficking charges in the United States. From February 2025 to January 2026, Mexico handed over 92 alleged cartel leaders, who now face criminal charges of drug trafficking, murder, money laundering, kidnapping, and involvement in organized crime. Undoubtedly, this too is done under pressure from Trump, who demands concrete results from Mexico in the fight against illegal drug trafficking.

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To bypass the formal extradition process, Mexico relies on its National Security Law, which permits the extradition of citizens who stand accused of engaging in espionage, sabotage, terrorism, rebellion, treason, or actions that hinder the government’s fight against organized crime. The latter provision allows for a fairly broad interpretation, and drug cartel capos are generally regarded as individuals who pose a threat to national well-being, enabling Mexico’s Ministry of Security to carry out their direct extradition.

This legal solution was reached amid prior efforts to overcome the deadlock caused by multiple extradition requests submitted by the United States. For years, drug lords and their lawyers managed to delay court proceedings. In 2024, then-U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar criticized judges who had stalled the extradition process for more than ten years for brothers Miguel and Omar Treviño Morales, known as Z-40 and Z-42, leaders of the Los Zetas cartel.

The extradition treaty between the United States and Mexico, in effect since 1974, stipulates that the requesting country cannot impose the death penalty on those being extradited. After several rounds of negotiations, Washington indeed committed not to seek the death penalty for any of the prisoners handed over under this direct agreement, which bypasses the standard extradition procedures and appellate review.

Experts warn that this practice sets a dangerous precedent. Santiago Aguirre Espinosa, a scholar at the Ibero-American University, argues that it has no legal basis, despite the application of the National Security Law, the Palermo Convention on Transnational Organized Crime, Article 89 of the Mexican Constitution, and recent decisions by the Ministry of Security and the National Security Council.

“The decisions to send Mexicans to the U.S. are not extraditions and do not meet the legal requirements for extradition. It is something entirely different. How can they be described, and what is their legal basis? I think the government has used various terms: they called it sending, transferring, and some analysts even referred to it as deportation. However, deporting citizens is prohibited by Article 22 of the Mexican Constitution,” Aguirre Espinosa said.

In his view, the crucial point is that these individuals were sent away without due legal process, without the opportunity to defend themselves or appeal to prevent their transfer. In this case, there is no doubt about the drug lords’ guilt. But the question arises: what will happen if, in the future, someone else creates other problems for the state? Could this extralegal mechanism be used again?

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi does not appear to be concerned with these legal nuances. On Jan. 21, 2026, after the latest transfer of Mexicans to the U.S., she stated: “This is another landmark achievement in the Trump Administration’s mission to destroy the cartels. These 37 cartel members — including terrorists from the Sinaloa Cartel, CJNG, and others — will now pay for their crimes against the American people on American soil.”

The elimination of El Mencho, which marked the start of a new phase of the “war,” also raised many questions. He did not die in a shootout but rather in a helicopter while being transported to a hospital. Mexican senator Lilly Téllez of the National Action Party alleged that the killing of the CJNG leader was done in order “to protect politicians connected to drug trafficking.” Téllez believes that the Mexican military had the capability to carry out a “surgical operation” that would have seen El Mencho captured alive and sent to prison so that he could reveal his connections with politicians.

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On March 2, El Mencho was buried in a cemetery in suburban Guadalajara in a gilded coffin. A large crowd, protected by the state’s security forces, turned out for the occasion. Many attendees wore masks, and the funeral wreaths bore no ribbons with written condolences, nor the names of the senders. Within a few hours, narcocorridos — songs in the popular Mexican folk music genre of corrido — appeared on social media and YouTube commemorating El Mencho’s death. The capo is gone; the cartel lives on.

The number of murders in Mexico from 2012 to early 2026 has exceeded 350,000

For the first time, incumbent governors and local officials were replaced, and drug lords had to bribe the new ones

Mexico is effectively a mafia state

Cases are opened for 94% of crimes, but fewer than 1% are solved

The outlet cites the accounts of two former political prisoners: Andrei (name changed) and Ilya Dubsky. Both were released and deported by the Belarusian authorities on Sept. 11, 2025, as part of a group of 50 political prisoners.

According to Andrei, he discovered that his passport had been invalidated while checking the Ministry of Internal Affairs database to see whether he had been placed on the country’s wanted list. The document was supposed to remain valid until 2031.

Likewise, Ilya Dubsky told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that he checked his passport on March 30 and found that it had been invalidated. He was also issued a ban on entering Belarus.

“You could say that I have effectively been stripped of my citizenship. I don’t care what they did there. Let them go crazy. Yes, it will cause some inconvenience... Without a passport, I can’t travel to another country — from Lithuania to Poland, for example. And if I use my Belarusian passport, I could face administrative liability, or perhaps even criminal charges,” the outlet quoted him as saying.

Both former political prisoners now live in Lithuania. According to Dubsky, he knows of at least 16 other Belarusians who have found themselves in a similar situation. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports that such cases have been confirmed by other political prisoners, without naming them.

The most recent release of political prisoners in Belarus took place on March 19, when the press service of Alexander Lukashenko reported the pardon of 250 people — fifteen of whom were deported, according to the human rights center Viasna. In what has become a familiar pattern, the release coincided with the visit of a U.S. delegation to Minsk. Both the September release of 52 prisoners and the December release of 123 coincided with similar visits. Also as in both of those cases, Washington reciprocated by easing its sanctions pressure on Minsk. 

In his statement, Szijjártó alleged that his phone calls were being intercepted by “foreign intelligence services, with the active involvement of Hungarian journalists,” and added that the investigation merely proved “that I say the same publicly as I do on the phone.”

He also repeated his position on sanctions against Russia, saying he considers the European Union’s policy to be a “failure” that is “causing more harm to the EU than to Russia.” According to Szijjártó, Budapest will not support restrictions against companies and individuals important to Hungary’s energy security, and it intends to maintain that position going forward.

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Earlier today, The Insider, along with its investigative partners FRONTSTORY, VSquare, Delfi Estonia, and ICJK, published an investigation based on the transcripts and audio recordings of phone conversations between Szijjártó and Lavrov. In them, the Hungarian foreign minister promised to work to remove a number of Russian individuals from sanctions lists, including the relatives of billionaire Alisher Usmanov. Szijjártó also provided his Russian counterpart with details of closed discussions within EU institutions.

The joint investigation showed that Hungary and Slovakia blocked or delayed the adoption of EU sanctions packages targeting Russian interests while simultaneously seeking exemptions allowing them to continue purchasing Russian natural resources. In one of the conversations, Szijjártó told a Russian official that he was “doing his best” to have the 18th sanctions package repealed and even asked for arguments he could use in order to justify his stance by appealing Hungary’s national interest.

Who synthesized the poison

In mid-February, a joint statement issued by Sweden, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and the Netherlands confirmed that multiple independent laboratories had detected the alkaloid epibatidine, one of the most lethal poisons found in nature, in biological samples belonging to the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

As The Insider has previously reported, the synthesis of this poison in Russia was carried out by scientists from the State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology and the Signal Scientific Center — the same institutions where the Novichok nerve agent that was used against Sergei and Yulia Skripal in 2018 and against Navalny himself in 2020 was produced.

How exactly these scientists synthesized epibatidine and what reagents may have been used can be inferred from a number of articles they have published (details here). Igor Yuryevich Babkin and Sergey Evgenyevich Galan of the Signal Scientific Center are among the authors of a paper devoted to a method for detecting epibatidine in blood (though in the paper they are listed as employees of the “High Technology Laboratory" (OOO "Laboratoriya vysokikh tekhnologii"), which previously supplied reagents to Signal).

While Babkin and Galan both hold advanced degrees, their dissertations are classified and are therefore not publicly available. Babkin’s, titled “Synthesis and evaluation of the properties of physiologically active polyfluorinated 7-azanorbornanes,” was defended in the specialty 20.02.23: “The damaging effects of special types of weapons.”

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Other co-authors of the article on epibatidine also defended dissertations in the same specialty as Babkin. For example, Colonel Mikhail Gutsalyuk of the State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology, completed a thesis titled “Synthesis of physiologically active polyfluorinated bicyclic compounds with sulfur-containing substituents.”

The Insider spoke with a Russian chemist who is familiar with the work of Signal employees, worked on the synthesis of bicyclic compounds, and served as a consultant to one of the Western laboratories during the chemical analysis of Navalny’s biological samples. As that chemist explained:

“Epibatidine belongs specifically to the azanorbornanes that Babkin studied in his dissertation. He began working on this topic (bicycloheptanes, epibatidine derivatives) back in the mid-1990s, when he was studying at the Military Academy of Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Defense, where this was handled by the third department.”

Igor Babkin pretended not to understand The Insider's question when called by a journalist from The Insider.

Galan’s academic history is also of note. In addition to his research on epibatidine, he published notable scientific work in collaboration with the GRU’s leading poisoning specialist Sergey Chepur (whom The Insider has previously written about) in the study “Investigation of the psycholeptic effects of kappa-opioid agonists,” in which they examined a substance that drives rats into despair. The aim was to determine doses that make rats resign themselves to their fate — for example, by not actively attempting to swim when subjected to forced swimming.

At one time Galan also worked on nanoforms of drugs, which are intended, in theory, to deliver a compound more effectively to its biological target. A relatively recent article (2019) by Galan deals with an opioid receptor agonist tested as an analgesic; however, its analgesic effect began at doses of 200 mcg/kg, while toxic effects appeared at 3 mcg/kg.

Sergey Galan did not answer a call from a journalist with The Insider.

Where reagents for the poison were purchased

The creators of epibatidine had to source reagents from somewhere, and The Insider examined which Russian companies ordered reagents and auxiliary substances in 2022–2023 for the synthesis described in a 2013 article by the State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology.

More details on methodology and substances.

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Of the 12 substances required for the synthesis according to the scheme described by Russian chemists in the above-referenced 2013 article, two were not imported into Russia by anyone. Of the remaining ten, some are very common while others are rare. The Insider selected those companies that imported at least four components — there were seven in total, but only four of them imported the key component for creating the bicyclic compound: 1,8-diazabicyclo[5.4.0]undec-7-ene.

As the Russian chemist mentioned above explained further to The Insider:

“All of these substances can be called marker reagents, but it is precisely 1,8-diazabicyclo[5.4.0]undec-7-ene that is the most important among them. Someone might even call it a precursor, but that would be incorrect, since a precursor is the base to which another substance is added to obtain the target compound, so in this case we are dealing with that second substance. Among all the other reagents, which may include ordinary solvents, this is the most reliable marker.”

After examining the call records of employees at the four companies that had imported 1,8-diazabicyclo[5.4.0]undec-7-ene, The Insider found that managers of one of them — ABCR Chemi Rus — were in regular contact with employees of the Signal Scientific Center (and occasionally also with the State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology and the Central Scientific Research Institute of Chemistry and Mechanics, both of which have been linked to the production of Novichok and other chemical weapons). These contacts were not with random staff members, but specifically with Igor Babkin, a co-author of the article on epibatidine.

For example, Babkin spoke repeatedly over an extended period with Liliya Ansarovna Sabirova, Deputy General Director and Commercial Director of ABCR Chemi Rus LLC, and with sales manager Alexei Valentinovich Kiselev, who is also responsible for completing customs declarations at ABCR Chemi Rus.

Igor Viktorovich Zavarzin, the head of the High Technology Laboratory associated with Signal, was also in contact with employees of ABCR Chemi Rus  — namely with its general director, Tatyana Danilova. In his main position, Zavarzin heads the Laboratory of Steroid Chemistry at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and is the most established academic scientist in this group, with a large number of publications. According to the Russian pension fund, he also held an official position at Signal — even if, in a conversation with The Insider, he stated that he had never worked there, was not acquainted with Babkin, and that only “long ago someone from his staff published a joint article with him.”

In fact, however, it was not merely “someone from his staff” who co-authored a 2017 article with Babkin. Zavarzin himself was a co-author (though prominent scientists sometimes forget publications they consider minor, especially those published with many contributors). In any case, Zavarzin’s connection to Signal is confirmed not only by collaboration between Signal employees and his High Technology Laboratory, but also by his regular calls with Signal’s chief research scientist — one of the co-authors of articles on epibatidine — Georgy Nazarov.

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In his conversation with The Insider, Zavarzin similarly denied that he had spoken with Danilova, even though call records indicate that he did so repeatedly, as did the director of his “High Technology and Innovations Laboratory ("OOO Laboratoriya vysokikh tekhnologii i innovatsii"), Svetlana Sadikova.

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Notably, although Zavarzin denied knowing Danilova and working with Babkin, he ended the conversation with The Insider with the remark: “You are building a case like an experienced investigator. All of this is nonsense. Nothing like this exists or ever existed. It’s all lies. You should be very ashamed that you are going to slander respectable people.” How he could have known that people with whom, by his own account, he was not acquainted, were not involved in anything nefarious — and what, exactly, “did not exist” — he did not explain.

Georgy Nazarov declined to comment in a conversation with a journalist from The Insider.

The general director of ABCR Chemi Rus LLC, Tatyana Danilova, told The Insider that her company has no dealings with the Signal Scientific Center, insisted that she is not acquainted with Igor Babkin, and stated that her company does not import triphenylphosphine into Russia due to the fact that the reagent is “under sanctions” (which was not the case in 2023), after which she ended the conversation.

Liliya Sabirova did non answer to a call from The Insider.

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German management: We trust our partners, but we'll close the Russian subsidiary

ABCR Chemi Rus is 90% owned by the German parent company abcr GmbH, with the remaining stakes held by its managers Tatyana Danilova and Liliya Sabirova (5% each). The director of the German company is Dr. Jan Hans Alfred Schuricht, and its sole shareholder is abcr group GmbH.

Up until March 17, the German company’s website indicated that its Russian division was part of its team and included photographs of employees of ABCR Chemi Rus LLC. After an inquiry and a phone call from The Insider to Germany, the website suddenly stopped working, and a few days later all references to Russian employees disappeared from it.

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Jan Hans Alfred Schuricht, director of the parent company, told The Insider that he intends to close the Russian division.

He also claimed that he complies with all legal restrictions and that “after 2018” he did not supply anything to the Signal Scientific Center. He said that the subsidiary ABCR Chemi Rus LLC supplies reagents from abcr GmbH to Russian universities. Schuricht added that while the German parent company is not required to conduct full due diligence on all clients of its subsidiary ABCR Chemi Rus LLC and does not influence the selection of its clients, the compliance department of abcr GmbH nevertheless carries out random checks of all clients of ABCR Chemi Rus LLC to determine whether they were selected in accordance with embargo regulations. At the same time, abcr GmbH is not in a position to verify the “military activities” of Russian companies not sanctioned by the German authorities. The company has not received dividends from its Russian subsidiary since 2020 and is generally considering the possibility of shutting it down.

Full response by Jan Schuricht

At The Insider’s request, Jan Schuricht reviewed specific shipments from the company’s warehouse in Germany of triphenylphosphine and 1,8-diazabicyclo[5.4.0]undec-7-ene carried out in 2023. He claims that these reagents were intended for Ural Federal University. 

The Insider has obtained invoices for goods allegedly issued by ABCR Chemi Rus to Ural Federal University. These invoices bear all the hallmarks of forgery: there is no contract number (even though the procurement should have been carried out under a government contract), and there are no delivery note numbers linked to that contract.

Documents also came into the possession of The Insider that were presented as contracts between ABCR Chemi Rus and Ural Federal University for the supply of these chemicals. However, they bear signs of crude forgery: they lack the parties’ signatures, there are no organization requisites, and there is no government procurement or state contract number.

Additionally, The Insider obtained documents presented as invoices for payment issued by ABCR Chemi Rus to Ural Federal University, which also show signs of falsification: at least one of them was dated a month earlier than the substance left the warehouse in Germany. Thus, the appearance of Ural Federal University in this story looks like an attempt to cover up the interaction between ABCR Chemi Rus LLC and Scientific Center Signal.

The Insider also found no calls in the billing records of ABCR's management with employees of Ural Federal University. Finally, it remains unclear how triphenylphosphine could have been intended for the university if ABCR’s general director Danilova had claimed that ABCR Chemi Rus LLC did not procure this reagent at all because it was “under sanctions.”

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Dr. Schuricht also stated that, according to colleagues he consulted, there had been no contacts between Babkin and employees of ABCR Chemi Rus “after 2018.” However, the 2020-2024 billing records of ABCR Chemi Rus stakeholder Sabirova and sales manager Kiselev show such contacts. Schuricht could not explain why.

Schuricht did add that stakeholder Danilova did not deny having contacts with Zavarzin, stating that the latter is a well-known and respected scientist who procures chemicals for his “university” (apparently referring to the Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences). Schuricht also maintained that he continues to trust the employees of the Russian company:

“As the CEO of the parent company, I must first take them at their word. Since I also know Liliya and Tatyana well, I have no doubt that they have found themselves at the center of this unfortunate story purely by chance.”

German lawyers interviewed by The Insider said that if publicly available information shows a scientific center produces and supplies poisons for political killings, and that if a supplier, understanding its reagents could be used to make a murder weapon, ignores that information and continues providing the center with reagents, that could be interpreted as complicity in a crime.

The Insider also contacted Alexei Kiselev of ABCR Chemi Rus, who handled customs clearance and had repeatedly been in contact with Babkin from Signal. Kiselev was unable to confirm or deny from memory the deliveries of the substances in question in 2023; regarding Babkin and Signal, he said they had worked with Signal 8–10 years ago. He was also unable to recall any cooperation with Ural Federal University offhand.

The Insider has sent all available information about ABCR Chemi Rus's cooperation with Russian producers of poisons used in political assassinations to German law enforcement authorities.

On the morning of Feb. 28, Israeli and U.S. forces launched what they called a “preemptive strike” on Iranian territory. In Israel, the operation was named “Lion’s Roar.” In the United States, it was called “Epic Fury.”

In essence, both were a continuation of Israel’s operation “A People Like a Lion,” which was carried out from June 13 to June 24, 2025. As part of that campaign, the Americans conducted their own one-day operation, “Midnight Hammer,” striking key nuclear facilities inside Iran. The Insider analyzed the outcome of those operations in a separate report.

In April and October 2024, Iran and Israel exchanged two rounds of long-range strikes. As a result, in Iran the current war was named “True Promise 4,” a reference to the previous three “promises” of April and October 2024 and in June 2025.

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In a statement posted on Truth Social on Feb. 28, Donald Trump called Iran “the number one state sponsor of terrorism in the world” and also blamed the leadership in Tehran for the deaths of tens of thousands of Iranian citizens during the mass protests that engulfed the country in recent months. The U.S. president outlined several specific goals for :

• to “flatten” the Iranian missile industry,
• destroy its navy,
• neutralize “terrorist proxies” in the region,
• undermine the current regime’s ability to obtain nuclear weapons.

Trump also urged Iranians to “take power into their own hands” in order to bring about a fundamental change in Iran’s political system.

The United States committed 50,000 personnel, 200 aircraft, and two full carrier strike groups to the operation against Iran. The campaign has notably involved every type of long-range strategic bomber in the U.S. Air Force’s arsenal, including the B-2, B-1 Lancer, and B-52H.

Israel has deployed an air grouping of comparable size. According to the Israeli Air Force, Feb. 28 saw the largest air operation in its history, with more than 200 aircraft striking more than 500 targets.

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According to The Military Balance, Iran’s armed forces had more than 600,000 personnel before the war, including nearly 200,000 in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The air force included about 250 combat aircraft, though most were hopelessly outdated relics such as F-4 and F-5 fighter jets.

Similarly, the navy mentioned by Trump had fewer than 10 major surface combatants, several dozen patrol and missile boats, a few non-operational Russian-built Project 877 Paltus submarines, mini-submarines, and exotic vessels such as drone carriers and missile catamarans. The main threat to the U.S.-Israeli coalition came from Iran’s missile forces — and its drones.

“Major combat operation” and “we haven’t even started”

Since the start of the campaign against Iran, U.S. officials have seemed almost deliberately to echo Russian rhetoric about Moscow’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. In particular, the war has been turned into a “major combat operation” that is supposedly “ahead of schedule.” Donald Trump also described the opening phase of the war by saying “we haven’t even started hitting them hard” while pointing to an allegedly imminent Iranian attack as a pretext for launching it.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also used language reminiscent of Vladimir Putin’s, saying the United States “did not start this war...but we are finishing it,” and that it plans to “achieve  [all of its] objectives.” On March 5, 2026, The New Yorker published a cartoon that closely echoed a meme widely circulated on Russian social media at the start of the war against Ukraine — a Leo Tolstoy reference highlighting the absurdity of the euphemisms used by governments to avoid calling war by its name.

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On the Israeli side, the rhetoric has often taken on an apocalyptic tone. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he and Trump were “saving the world” and fighting the “yoke of tyranny” in the name of “humanity.”

Even so, the war against Iran is not popular in either the United States or Europe. Even the most favorable polls show that at least half of Americans do not support the Trump administration’s actions. In Europe, support for the fighting is even lower.

Interim results of the campaign in Iran

Over the course of the first three weeks, the U.S.-Israeli coalition carried out more than 15,000 strikes on various targets in Iran. In the first week alone, U.S. forces hit 2,000 targets, twice the comparable number for the Iraq campaign of 2003. The pace and intensity of the attacks have been made possible by the broad use of AI systems. After the 12-day war in June 2025, much of Iran’s air defense and missile defense infrastructure had already been knocked out, meaning this time the task of achieving air superiority was completed on the first day.

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The main result of the opening phase of the military operation was the decapitation of Iran’s military and political leadership, as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the very first wave of strikes — along with Defense Council secretary Adm. Ali Shamkhani, IRGC commander Gen. Mohammad Pakpour, armed forces chief of staff Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi, and Defense Minister Gen. Aziz Nasirzadeh. It appears that the Israeli airstrike hit the complex housing Khamenei’s residence, where a session of the defense council was under way.

Khamenei’s second son, Mojtaba Khamenei, who was selected to replace his father, has still not appeared in public, apparently because he suffered serious injuries in that attack. Later, Ali Larijani, the most influential surviving Iranian politician, was killed, as were Basij commander Gholamreza Soleimani and Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib.

According to statements from Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, any successor to Khamenei would immediately become the target of a new strike, and the U.S. State Department has offered a reward for information on Mojtaba Khamenei and other leading figures of the Iranian regime.

As for the purely military side, coalition forces have inflicted critical damage on Iran’s navy, air defenses, and air force. Visually confirmed losses include 38 ships and submarines, meaning the Iranian fleet has effectively ceased to exist. Iran has also verifiably lost 34 combat aircraft and three helicopters, more than 30 air defense systems (including missile batteries and radars), and about 40 missile launchers. Targets linked to Iran’s nuclear program and its security apparatus are also being struck.

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A number of milestone events have taken place over the relatively short span of the fighting in Iran.

• For the first time in history, an F-35 fifth-generation fighter shot down a manned combat aircraft, specifically a Yak-130 trainer-combat jet over Tehran.
• For the first time in combat, the United States has used PrSM ballistic missiles, developed as a replacement for ATACMS.
• For the first time since 1982, a nuclear submarine sank a warship with a torpedo when the USS Charlotte fired on the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena off the coast of Sri Lanka. Of Dena’s crew of 136, only 32 sailors survived.

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For now, the category of targets that appears to be the most “protected” is Iran’s oil and gas infrastructure. Judging by available information, there are some differences on this issue between the American and Israeli leaderships. As far as can be discerned, the United States sees attacks on Iran’s oil export infrastructure as a measure of last resort. On the night of March 14, U.S. forces struck Kharg Island, which is involved in up to 90% of Iran’s oil exports, but the Americans pointedly chose only military targets.

How the Iranian military is responding

Since Feb. 28, Iranian forces have been carrying out a campaign of strikes using missiles and loitering munitions against Israel, U.S. bases, and America’s Middle Eastern allies. Iran’s targets have included purely civilian objects and energy infrastructure. Nevertheless, more than a dozen U.S. bases and the radars, communications equipment, and vehicles stationed there are also known to have been hit. Attacks by Iran and its Shiite allies in the region have affected 13 countries, including Cyprus and Turkey.

Overall, the scale of missile and drone use has been much smaller than expected. Only in the first days was Iran able to sustain launches of hundreds of long-range strike weapons, while current figures amount to only dozens per day. Available estimates, however, mostly do not take into account attacks on U.S. bases and rely on admittedly incomplete official reports from neighboring Arab states.

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Judging by the intensity and geography of the retaliatory strikes, command over Iran’s security structures has indeed been disrupted, which is why Tehran’s missile attacks have had an often symbolic and chaotic character, as evidenced by strikes hitting hotels, residential complexes, diplomatic buildings, and airports. It is highly likely that this is what Iran’s concept of “mosaic defense” looks like in practice, with the country’s civilian administration and military command operating in as decentralized a manner as possible — effectively autonomously. At the same time, even raids of this relatively limited scale have required a colossal expenditure of air defense assets from the Gulf states that came under Iranian attack.

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The U.S.-Israeli coalition’s losses over three weeks of war are limited for an operation of this scale. The United States has officially reported 13 service members killed and more than 300 wounded. Among the dead were six crew members killed in the crash of a KC-135 tanker aircraft, likely after a mid-air collision with another U.S. aircraft.

The most painful American losses of materiel have come from friendly fire. On March 2, three F-15E aircraft were mistakenly shot down over Kuwait in a single day, likely by a Kuwaiti F/A-18. All six crew members ejected safely.

Another five tanker aircraft may have been damaged in missile strikes on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. Iranian air defenses also managed to hit a U.S. F-35, but the aircraft made it back to one of the American bases in the region to make an emergency landing.

What has proved truly effective is Iran’s campaign of strikes on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The IRGC declared the strait closed to vessel traffic on Feb. 28, and about 20 commercial vessels have been struck since then.

Awaiting a ground operation

Donald Trump is demanding Iran’s unconditional surrender, but so far there are no signs that the leadership in Tehran is ready to agree. After the death of Ali Larijani and given the unclear status of Mojtaba Khamenei, it is not fully clear who would even be in a position to offer up unconditional surrender. Nor are there any visible signs that the current regime is becoming less stable. Even if transformation is taking place behind the scenes, it is more likely to result in the appearance of a military junta than of a potential negotiating partner for Washington.

Meanwhile, the costs of the “major combat operation” are rising rapidly for the Trump administration, U.S. allies, and the global economy as a whole. The pace of American military spending now exceeds $1 billion a day, and the Pentagon is preparing to ask Congress for an additional $200 billion. Attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz and strikes on energy infrastructure in the region have put 20% of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies at risk, along with 10% to 20% of petroleum product supplies. According to expert estimates, the Iranian military is capable of blocking shipping through the Strait of Hormuz for months.

Under these conditions, some form of ground operation is looking increasingly likely. At first, the main scenario involved Kurdish forces from Syria and Iraq, backed by the United States, invading western areas of Iran, which are predominantly populated by Kurds. Later, the scenarios under discussion expanded to include U.S. forces seizing the previously mentioned Kharg Island and carrying out raids deep into Iranian territory to remove stockpiles of enriched uranium, the whereabouts of which remain unknown.

The 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit is now heading toward the Persian Gulf. Its movement from the Okinawa area began on March 13, and it includes the USS Tripoli (LHA-7), USS San Diego (LPD-22), and USS New Orleans (LPD-18). On March 20, reports also confirmed that the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit had departed San Diego aboard the USS Boxer (LHD-4), USS Comstock (LSD-45), and USS Portland (LPD-27). Each group includes more than 2,000 Marines, as well as F-35A aircraft and CV-22 tiltrotor aircraft.

The 11th Expeditionary Unit arrived in Tripoli on March 28, increasing the chances that the conflict moves into a ground phase.

The pace and intensity of the attacks on Iran have been made possible by the broad use of AI systems

The campaign has involved every type of long-range strategic bomber in the U.S. Air Force’s arsenal, including the B-2, B-1 Lancer, and B-52H

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“I am calling on the request of Alisher”

Just an hour after Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó arrived in Budapest from St. Petersburg on August 30, 2024, he received a phone call from his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. Lavrov said Szijjártó had been quoted all over the Russian media following his visit.

“Did I say something wrong?” Szijjártó nervously inquired.

“No, no, no. They were just saying that you are pragmatically fighting for the interests of your country.”

The reason for Lavrov’s call was a request: the Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov was looking to have his sister, Gulbahor Ismailova, removed from EU sanctions lists and Szijjártó had promised to help. Usmanov, a Russian-Uzbekistani tycoon, amassed his wealth in mining, industry, telecoms, and media. He has been described as one of Putin’s favorite businesspersons, one with “particularly close ties” to the Russian president.

“Look, I am calling on the request of Alisher and he just asked me to remind you that you were doing something about his sister,” Lavrov said.

“Yeah, absolutely,” Szijjártó answered. “The thing is the following, that together with the Slovaks we are submitting a proposal to the European Union to delist her. We will submit it next week and as the new review period is going to be started it's gonna be put on the agenda and we will do our best in order to get her off.”

Lavrov was happy and expressed his appreciation for Szijjártó’s “support and your fight for equality in all fields.”

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The main purpose of the conversation accomplished, Lavrov and Szijjártó proceeded to bond over their shared disdain of the European Union, particularly countries with a pro-Ukraine orientation.

Both criticized Josep Borrell, then the EU’s High Representative of Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, whom Lavrov called his “biggest disappointment” and Szijjártó disparagingly characterized as the “European Biden.” The Spanish socialist, Lavrov noted, had been far more “reasonable” when he only represented the interests of Madrid as foreign minister, prior to his appointment to the European Commission, in which capacity a commissioner cannot prioritize his native country over the bloc in general. “So you cannot, you cannot name your country, but you must name your gender, right?” an incredulous Lavrov asked of Szijjártó, who had summarized these bureaucratic protocols.

Before hanging up, the Hungarian cooed about the new Gazprom headquarters he’d visited in Russia, adding, “I am always at your disposal.”

Seven months later, Ismailova was removed from the EU sanctions list.

Transcripts and the audio recording of the Lavrov-Szijjártó call were obtained and confirmed by a consortium of investigative news outlets consisting of VSquare, FRONTSTORY, Delfi Estonia, The Insider, and the Investigative Center of Ján Kuciak (ICJK). We confirmed it independently with sources in more than one country and additionally consulted the authenticity of the audio recording with Cauth.AI, members of WITNESS Deepfake Rapid Response Force.

The Hungarian Kim Philby

This call between the two foreign ministers, one of several between 2023 and 2025, highlights the exceeding comity between Szijjártó, who represents an EU and NATO member, and Lavrov, who represents a nation that has invaded and occupied a European country while waging a hybrid war that includes acts of arson and sabotage carried out against countries on NATO’s eastern flank. The calls traffic in sensitive information about the internal deliberations of both Budapest and Brussels, which are doubtless of interest to the Kremlin. They also provide clearcut evidence of how Russia is secretly behind the efforts of Hungary and Slovakia to hinder EU sanctions against Russian individuals or entities.

In his exchanges with Lavrov, Szijjártó comes across as deferential, bordering on obsequious. “If you remove names and show these conversations to any case officer, he will swear that this is a transcript of an intelligence officer working his asset,” one senior European intelligence officer said after reviewing a printout of the conversations.

Transcripts and the audio recording of the Lavrov-Szijjártó call, as well as Szijjártó's calls with other Russian government officials, were obtained and confirmed by a consortium of investigative news outlets consisting of VSquare, FRONTSTORY, Delfi Estonia, The Insider, and the Investigative Center of Ján Kuciak (ICJK). We confirmed it independently with sources in more than one country and additionally consulted the authenticity of the audio recording with Cauth.AI, members of WITNESS Deepfake Rapid Response Force.

The apparent willingness of Szijjártó, as a high official of the Hungarian government, to quietly act in Russia’s interests at the EU level may help explain why Moscow is investing significant effort in keeping Viktor Orbán and his pro-Kremlin Fidesz party in power.

Independent polling suggests Orbán is trailing badly ahead of the April 12 parliamentary election, with the center-right Tisza party, led by challenger Péter Magyar, holding a strong lead. As Orbán’s campaign struggles, Russia is reportedly stepping in to assist in covert ways, too. According to VSquare’s earlier report, the Kremlin has assigned Sergey Kiriyenko – a deputy chief of staff to Vladimir Putin and a key architect of Russia’s political influence operations – to covertly support Orbán’s campaign. Kiriyenko previously played an integral role in shaping election interference activities in Moldova.

At the same time, Orbán’s campaign has increasingly echoed Kremlin narratives: staging provocations against Ukraine and accusing opposition figures and critics of acting as Ukrainian proxies or spies while dismissing or ridiculing allegations of their own ties to Russia.

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Szijjártó’s chumminess with Lavrov, while previously alluded to in the press, has never before been documented with leaked phone calls demonstrating the full extent of their collusiveness.

Apart from delivering on what he was asked to do, Szijjártó routinely kept Lavrov informed of details of supposedly confidential discussions by European diplomats.

For instance, in the same August 30, 2024 call with Lavrov, just after their discussion about delisting Ismailova, Szijjártó also revealed the details of the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting that he participated in the day before.

“And that was crazy, you know, when Landsbergis said that we contribute 12% of each rockets and missiles,” Szijjártó told Lavrov, referring to Lithuania’s then-foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, who had argued that Russia partly finances its war through gas and oil profits from European customers such as Hungary and Slovakia.

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“I said, my friend, you are not right, because the Europeans contribute much more… it's not only the Slovaks and us who are buying gas and oil from Russia directly but all of you who are buying the same from them through…India, Kazakhstan.”

When reached for comment, Landsbergis confirmed the behind-the-scenes details of the EU foreign ministers’ meeting. “I can verify that this is a real exchange during one of the Foreign Affairs Councils,” Landsbergis said. “It seems that all this time Putin had, and still has, a mole in all European and NATO official meetings. If the integrity of these meetings is to be maintained, it would be appropriate to ban Hungary from all of them. Every generation has a Kim Philby” – a reference to the notorious Cold War-era KGB spy in the British Secret Intelligence Service. “Apparently Péter Szijjártó is playing the role with enthusiasm.”

That analogy goes slightly deeper than mere rhetorical flourish. Philby and Szijjártó both received the highest Soviet or Russian award that can be given to a foreigner: the Order of Friendship. Szijjártó’s was officially awarded by Vladimir Putin, but physically bestowed upon him by Lavrov on December 30, 2021.

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Striking off names

Szijjártó’s efforts to get Usmanov’s sibling delisted from EU sanctions was not the only case in which he worked to relax economic penalties on well-connected Russians. Ismailova was removed alongside Russian businessman Viatcheslav Moshe Kantor and the country’s sports minister, Mikhail Degtyaryov. As reported by RFE in March 2025, the move came after Hungary and Slovakia threatened to block the six-month extension of EU sanctions – including asset freezes and visa bans – targeting Russian-linked entities and individuals (Lavrov among them).

A European diplomat closely involved in the sanctions negotiations among the 27 EU member states said that, while it has long been suspected that Hungary and Slovakia had been leaking details of negotiations to Moscow, it was valuable that there was now hard evidence to prove it.

“Hungary is clearly fulfilling political orders from Russia,” this source said when reporters showed them parts of the transcripts of the two ministers’ phone calls.

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While the EU has sanctioned about 2,700 Russian citizens and entities due to their role in enabling Russia to conduct its full-scale war against Ukraine, the bloc must vote every six months on whether to extend the sanctions. Decisions are made by consensus, meaning all 27 member states must agree. This gives Hungary outsized leverage, as it can threaten to block the continuation of the entire sanctions regime if specific people are not delisted.

The same European diplomat, talking to the reporters on the condition of anonymity in order to be able to reveal details of the process, said that Hungary and Slovakia usually start the negotiations with a longer list of Russian names they demand to be delisted. “They don’t use legal arguments, they just say they don’t want those people on the sanctions list for political reasons,” the source explained.

As negotiations progress, Budapest and Bratislava usually whittle their list down to only two or three people, as was the case with Ismailova, Kantor, and Degtyaryov.

Ismailova is one of Usmanov’s two sisters. She has been sanctioned by the UK, United States, Ukraine, and Estonia. Tallinn re-sanctioned her after she was removed from the EU list at Hungary and Slovakia’s orchestration.

Usmanov himself is sanctioned by a host of jurisdictions including the EU, the United States, Canada, and the UK as a result of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In its Russian Asset Tracker, OCCRP linked the oligarch to more than a dozen luxury properties across Europe, as well as to bank accounts, boats, and aircraft. According to that project, the minimum value of Usmanov’s assets exceeds $3.4 billion.

A representative of Usmanov’s told OCCRP at the time that he had never benefited from the Russian government, nor from the privatization of state holdings. The representative said that Usmanov’s capital was obtained solely through transparent investment and asset management, adding that the ownership of most of Usmanov’s properties had been transferred to his family, and that he could only use them on a rental basis.

Joachim Nikolaus Steinhöfel, the Hamburg-based legal representative for Usmanov and Ismailova, declined to answer questions about the nature of the discussion between Lavrov and Szijjártó about his clients. “Your questions are based on the impermissible assumption that my clients were somehow aware of confidential conversations allegedly held between third parties,” Steinhöfel wrote in an email, adding that “in recent years, many prominent contemporary political leaders have spoken out regarding the need to lift the sanctions against A. Usmanov. This applies even more to the lifting of sanctions against his sister, who was subjected to these measures in an absurd manner solely due to her family ties.”

Steinhöfel also mentioned that over the past four years, Usmanov has won more than twenty court cases against media outlets, public figures, and politicians “who disseminated various false statements about him.”

Since being sanctioned, Usmanov and his two sisters have taken extensive efforts to relieve themselves of the burden, going so far as to file lawsuits against media outlets.  His other sister, Saodat Narzieva, managed to get her name off the EU list after just five months.

With Russia, Hungary, and Slovakia having succeeded with Ismailova’s delisting last year, the only remaining sibling is Usmanov himself.

During the latest round of sanctions extension negotiations in March, Slovakia and Hungary continued to press the bloc to have him removed as well.

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“This time the negotiations went through Friday night until early Saturday morning on March 14, when Slovakia finally said it agreed to prolong the sanctions with Usmanov’s and [Mikhail] Fridman’s names on the list,” according to the EU diplomat quoted earlier.

If the 27 member states hadn't agreed to this by March 15, sanctions against all 2,700 people and entities would have expired.

In their efforts to get the Usmanov family back into international markets, Hungarians and Slovaks are supported by a powerful non-EU ally. At the beginning of March, before the key round of the latest negotiations, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a letter to Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, calling him “a dear friend.”

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Erdogan praised Usmanov’s transparency and charitable nature: “he supported cultural, humanitarian, and sporting projects promoting the opening of Central Asian countries to the West, while also making a significant contribution to strengthening human ties within the Turkic world.”

The Turkish President also informed Fico about joint letters that the Organisation of Turkic States, along with the leaders of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Uzbekistan, sent to then then-President of the EU Council, Charles Michel, and to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. “I also took initiatives with certain EU leaders,” added Erdogan, calling the sanctions against Usmanov and his family members an ”unfair practice.” 

The EU diplomat involved in the EU’s sanctions negotiations confirmed that the letter to get Usmanov off of the list in the last round of sanctions negotiations was submitted by Slovakia and signed by Erdogan. Hungary supported delisting both Usmanov and Fridman, the Russian billionaire who co-founded the financial giant Alfa Group.

“I find it peculiar that third countries want to influence the EU's sanctions decisions and their orders are presented by Hungary or Slovakia,” the diplomat said. “The EU conducts legal assessments to decide about sanctioning but then we will have a political order to withdraw one or another name from the list. The EU needs to make those decisions itself.”

"Negotiations on the regular semi-annual review of the sanctions regime for undermining Ukraine’s territorial integrity concluded on March 15, 2026,” the Slovakian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement to the consortium partners. It declined to “comment on or disclose details of its negotiating positions or those of other member states, as the negotiations are confidential." The office of the Slovak prime minister Robert Fico did not comment on our questions.

Fighting sanctions

Economic relief for Ismailova and Usmanov isn’t the only case in which Hungary secretly acted on the Kremlin’s behalf in Brussels.

We have obtained material on a separate conversation in which Szijjártó reported to another high-ranking Russian official, Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin, that he was doing his best to “repeal” a crucial EU sanctions package targeting Russia’s shadow fleet of false-flagged oil tankers — the means by which Moscow evades Western energy sanctions.

In one conversation with Sorokin, a London-educated former Morgan Stanley banker and Putin’s “secret weapon” in blunting Western energy sanctions, Szijjártó offered to remove Russian banks proposed for designation by the EU. Szijjártó even asked the Russian to provide him with arguments as to why doing so would be in Hungary’s interest.

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In a June 30, 2025 phone call with Sorokin, Szijjártó complained that the EU refused to show him documents related to the proposed sanctioning of 2Rivers, a Dubai-based company trading in Russian oil. “[B]ecause they say that there is no clear Hungarian interest that they can identify, and therefore Hungary cannot legally ask them to be removed from the list,” Szijjártó elaborated after Sorokin asked why Budapest was cut out of the loop.

According to the EU, 2Rivers, formerly known as Coral Energy, has been one of the key players in selling Russian oil via its own shadow fleet of tankers and concealing the origin of crude from Russian state energy giant Rosneft, now under U.S. sanctions. 2Rivers then sells the crude above the internationally capped oil price and feeds Russia’s war machine with vital revenue. In December 2024, the UK sanctioned 2Rivers and its oil trading network.

It is unclear what interest Hungary – a landlocked country that receives oil through pipelines – could have in trying to preserve Russia’s shadow fleet operations. But the benefit to Russia is obvious.

After reporting that he was unsuccessful with 2Rivers, Szijjártó shared details with Sorokin on where the then-ongoing negotiations on the EU’s 18th sanctions package stood.

The Hungarian foreign minister explained to the Russian official that the vote was not yet on the agenda thanks to a postponement arranged by Hungary and Slovakia, one that would remain in effect until the EU agreed to “make an exception” for those countries and “allow us to continue buying Russian gas and oil.”

The 18th sanctions package was proposed by the European Commission on June 10, 2025, but Szijjártó announced publicly on June 23 that Hungary and Slovakia were blocking it. Officially, he claimed that this was “in response to European Union plans to phase out Russian energy imports.” In his call with Sorokin a week later, however, Szijjártó talked very differently about Hungary’s real activities and goals in Brussels.

Szijjártó told Sorokin that he was fighting against the whole sanctions package and trying to save as many Russian entities as possible. “I’m doing my best to have it repealed. The thing is that I have already removed 72 [entities] from the list, but there were 128. I'm trying to continue, but I have to say that this is in the interest of Hungary,” Szijjártó said.

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It is not clear from the conversation exactly what 72 and 128 Russian entities Szijjártó referred to.

“If they [Sorokin’s staff] can help me identify the direct and negative effects on Hungary, I would be very grateful,” he added, “because if I can show something like that, you would give me a completely different opportunity.”

The call is proof that the Hungarian foreign minister not only uses Russian-authored talking points when attempting to dilute EU penalties on Russia — he actively seeks them out from Russian  officials.

According to Kinga Redłowska, a leading sanctions expert and the Head of CFS Europe at the London-based think tank RUSI, “Legally it remains a politically legitimate basis for a Member State to withhold consent in a unanimity-based system. Hungary’s use of this argument serves a dual purpose. Domestically, it allows Viktor Orbán to reinforce an anti-Ukrainian narrative. At the EU level, it provides leverage to extract concessions in unrelated areas, such as EU funding or rule-of-law disputes.”

While this strategy may help Orban and his embattled government, enabling an aggressive neighbor to capture and hold more sovereign European land runs counter to Hungary’s national interest. “Weakening sanctions risks bolstering Russia’s war economy, undermining the broader security interests of all EU member states, including Hungary itself.”

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The conversation between Szijjártó and Sorokin also touched on Russian banks that were in the crosshairs of the EU’s 18th sanctions package. “[S]hare the names of those banks with me, I can check if they are on the list or not, I’ll check the legal grounds and then I’ll do my best,” Szijjártó told Sorokin. “I know they want to put Sankt Petersburg Bank on the list, which I managed to remove; they also wanted to put another bank related to the Paks project on the list, and I managed to remove it.”

After weeks of delays by Hungary and Slovakia, the European Union finally adopted its 18th sanctions package on July 18, 2025. 2Rivers was included in the package, prompting it to begin the process of dissolution. The measures also dealt a significant blow to Russia’s shadow fleet and its efforts to circumvent oil sanctions.

However, it remains unclear how much greater the impact might have been without Szijjártó’s efforts.

In March 2026, the Washington Post reported that Szijjártó has been regularly sharing information over the phone with Lavrov during breaks in EU talks, almost in real time. “Every single EU meeting for years has basically had Moscow behind the table,” a European security official told the Post, which did not have the verbatim transcripts of these calls.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Gabrielius Landsbergis, the former Lithuanian foreign minister, almost immediately confirmed the Post’s reporting. “The news that Orbán’s people inform Moscow about EU Council meetings in every detail shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. We’ve had our suspicions about that for a long time. That’s one reason why I take the floor only when strictly necessary and say just as much as necessary,” Tusk posted to X.

In March 2026, Politico reported that “the EU is limiting the flow of confidential material to Hungary and leaders are meeting in smaller groups.”

Hungary’s government dismissed such reports as “pro-Ukrainian propaganda”, while Szijjártó, who acknowledged frequent communication with Lavrov, said the Post article on his alleged leaks is “fake news.”

This strategy appears to be backfiring. Szijjártó was recently booed by protesters at a campaign event, with shouts of “traitor” and “Russian spy” leveled at him. All an angry Szijjártó could shout back was that the hecklers would have to pay three times as much for gas and oil if it weren’t coming from Russia.

Neither Lavrov nor Szijjártó replied to requests for comment on this investigation.

Hungary’s interference in EU sanctions policy began within months of Russia’s full-scale invasion, and what started as isolated vetoes hardened over four years into a systematic, semi-institutionalised lobbying effort for Kremlin-linked figures — later joined by Slovakia.

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In June 2022, Hungary held the entire sixth EU sanctions package hostage — including the landmark partial Russian oil embargo — until Patriarch Kirill, a former KGB agent and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, was removed from the list, with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán personally intervening on the grounds of “religious freedom.”

From 2022 onwards, Hungary also began blocking Latvia’s repeated attempts to add Iskander Makhmudov and Andrei Bokarev — the billionaire co-owners of Transmashholding, a producer of components for infantry combat vehicles since the onset of the war. Latvian diplomats attributed this move to Transmashholding’s existing joint ventures in Hungary with companies linked to the man who would become Hungary’s minister of defense, Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky.

The full stakes of that protection became clearer in March 2026, when The Insider and Der Spiegel revealed that Bokarev was the “ideological architect and principal backer” of Center 795 — a secret assassination directorate established by Russian General Staff order in December 2022, staffed by elite GRU and FSB veterans and embedded inside the Kalashnikov Concern in order to use its payroll and facilities as cover.

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In February 2024, Hungary failed in its attempt to delist oligarchs Usmanov, Kantor, and Nikita Mazepin — a former Formula 1 pilot and the son of fertilizer and chemicals tycoon Dmitry Mazepin — from the individual sanctions list. The following month, Slovakia secured the removal of Jozef Hambálek, a Slovak national and European head of the Russian nationalist Night Wolves motorcycle club, in what was described as a transactional swap: Slovakia backed Hungary’s broader list in exchange for Budapest supporting Hambálek’s removal.

In September 2024, Hungary finally secured the removal of Nikita Mazepin, while Violetta Prigozhina – the mother of the late Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin – was also removed from the list (though there is no indication that the latter was at Hungary's request). In December 2024, Hungary again saved Patriarch Kirill from sanctions, along with Russia’s UN Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia.

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In February 2025, Hungary extracted another Kirill exemption during negotiations on the 16th EU sanctions package, as well as saving the Russian Olympic Committee and two Russian football clubs (CSKA Moscow and FC Rostov) from sanctions. Viktor Orbán’s government then went on – with Slovakia’s support – to succeed in the already mentioned removal of Kantor, Degtyaryov, and Ismailova from the EU’s sanctions list in March 2025.

In February 2026, Hungary vetoed the entire 20th sanctions package outright — the first time Budapest had gone that far — blocking new restrictive measures that had been intended to mark the fourth anniversary of the invasion while citing a dispute over oil flows through the Druzhba pipeline. Both Viktor Orbán and Robert Fico use the issue of the Druzhba disruption for domestic political campaigning purposes.

Most recently, in March 2026, Slovakia threatened to veto the six-month renewal of the entire existing individual sanctions list unless Usmanov and Fridman were immediately removed. However, EU diplomats called what came next one of the strangest U-turns they had witnessed: Bratislava, backing down without securing the removal of either. Hungary, likewise, dropped its list of seven names.

“Hungary is clearly fulfilling political orders from Russia,” a European diplomat said when reporters showed them parts of the transcripts of the two ministers’ phone calls.

Hungary’s interference in EU sanctions policy began within months of Russia’s full-scale invasion, and what started as isolated vetoes hardened over four years into a systematic, semi-institutionalised lobbying effort for Kremlin-linked figures.

“I've already removed 72 [Russian entities] from the list, but there were 128. I'm trying to continue, but I have to say that this is in the interest of Hungary,” Szijjártó told Russia's Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin.

“Weakening sanctions risks bolstering Russia’s war economy, undermining the broader security interests of all EU member states, including Hungary itself.”

The 39-year-old Chen Zhangjie was convicted under a charge of refusing to comply with lawful orders from the authorities. The sentence matched the position taken by prosecutors at a hearing on Feb. 23.

The incident in question took place on Sept. 27, 2025 in international waters off the island of Ushant in the Atlantic. French military personnel stopped the tanker, which was sailing without a visible flag, but the captain refused to allow unimpeded access for an inspection. According to deputy prosecutor Gabriel Rollin, that refusal forced the sailors to carry out “a dangerous maneuver capable of causing an accident.” Two employees of a Russian private security company — the Moran Security Group — were on board, reportedly to monitor the crew and gather intelligence.

The tanker, which was carrying Russian oil to India despite being under sanctions, had been flying the false flag of Benin. The vessel was also suspected of involvement in drone launches that disrupted operations at Danish airports in September 2025 (though that episode was not part of the French court’s proceedings). The captain’s lawyer argued that the case did not fall under French jurisdiction, asserting that under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), an incident in international waters should be handled by a Chinese court. The French court rejected those arguments. The tanker, now renamed Phoenix, is currently sailing under a Russian flag.

The tanker involved in the incident has repeatedly changed its name and flag, a standard practice used by Russia’s “shadow fleet” to make both the vessel and its owners harder to track. In April 2025, the same ship, then named Kiwala and sailing under the flag of Djibouti, was temporarily detained by Estonian authorities after it was found not to be listed in any registry. It then re-registered under the flag of Benin and changed its name to Boracay before being detained by France in the English Channel in September.

Earlier on Monday, Vladimir Putin and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić held a “constructive” phone call in which they discussed bilateral ties, including those in the energy, oil and gas, and nuclear sectors. Following the call, Vučić said he had agreed to extend the gas supply contract with Russia for three months on favorable terms and claimed Serbia would become the second- or third-cheapest country in Europe in terms of natural gas prices for consumers.

“It was very important for me, and I thanked President Putin for this, that we received another three-month extension of the gas contract on very favorable terms,” Vučić told reporters in Belgrade. “We…pay between $320 and $330 (per 1,000 cubic meters). So the extension is, under the same conditions, 6 million cubic meters of gas per day…and if more gas is needed, ​it will allow us that kind of flexibility,” the Serbian president explained.

Last month, Vučić said Serbia, which is seeking membership in the European Union, wants to diversify its energy supplies away from Russia, aiming to secure about 20% of its needs through the EU’s joint gas-purchasing program, which it joined last year. However, in recent weeks the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran has left Europe with little spare capacity. On March 20, Serbia cut excise duties on crude oil in an effort to calm the domestic market and soften the impact of the conflict.

Serbia’s state gas company, Srbijagas, imports gas from Russia’s Gazprom. The two companies jointly own a gas storage facility with a total capacity of 450 million cubic meters in the town of Banatski Dvor in northern Serbia.

Serbia also pays for additional gas storage in neighboring Hungary. Gazprom and its subsidiary Gazprom Neft, with 44.9% and 11.3%, hold a majority stake in Serbia’s U.S.-sanctioned oil company Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS), though they are required to divest by May 22.

On Jan. 19, Hungary’s MOL and the UAE’s ADNOC signed an agreement with the Russian companies to buy their stakes in NIS, pending approval from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. The deal with the Russian company would grant MOL control of Serbia's only oil refinery, located in Pancevo.

Moscow’s Meshchansky District Court also sentenced Ekaterina Wagner, who was detained at the protest, to 15 days in jail. She was charged with “disobeying police” and “violating the established procedure for holding a public event.”

According to reporting by the independent outlet Mediazona, the same court sentenced three men — Yaroslav Polyakov, Mikael Markaryan, and a man whose family requested his name stay out of the public domain — to 15 days behind bars on the same charges of “disobeying police,” bringing the total amount of protesters jailed in Moscow earlier today to seven.

According to Wagner’s lawyer, her client did not take part in any unauthorized actions and had simply been out walking with her nephews. One of them, Artur Wagner, has a second-degree disability. He was detained together with his aunt but was later released. Artur said that officers threatened to beat him and to “sit him on a bottle” — referring to a commonly used form of sexualized torture or humiliation — at the police station and record it on video. As a result, the defense says, Artur was forced under pressure to testify against his aunt, saying she had “urged him to go to the protest.” It was also reported that his bank card was taken.

Azarochkin’s lawyer said his client was beaten by police officers in a vehicle. After the court hearing, Azarochkin managed to call his girlfriend and said he was continuing to be beaten in a police transport van. The Moscow police deny that claim.

Shelestov told the court that at the police station officers called him a protest coordinator, demanded that he unlock his phone, and spent an hour examining its contents. Shelestov stressed that he had nothing to do with organizing the rally.

Susanna said she had simply been standing in the square and had not shouted any slogans. According to her, the police report said she had used obscene language, which she denied. She also said the court refused to review body camera footage that could have supported her account.

In all, at least 18 people were detained at nationwide protests against internet blockages, according to a report by the rights group OVD-Info. The group said 13 were detained in Moscow, two in St. Petersburg, two in Kaluga, and one in Voronezh. Among those detained were four minors. Two people were beaten. According to the independent outlet SotaVision, one of those detained in Moscow came to the square carrying a placard reading “No to war.”

Authorized rallies against internet shutdowns had been planned across Russia for March 29, but local authorities banned all of the announced demonstrations. By The Insider’s count, at least six organizers have been jailed — two were detained and four others came under pressure.

The nationwide protests scheduled for March 29 were announced by Dmitry Kisiyev, the former head of opposition politician Boris Nadezhdin’s campaign headquarters. His team filed requests to hold demonstrations in 28 cities across 17 regions. At the same time, the Telegram channel and chat “Scarlet Swan” attempted to hold rallies in Moscow and St. Petersburg around the same issue.  Despite the authorities’ bans, protests still took place in several Russian cities.

A city under air siege

Dubai, a city long seen as a symbol of stability and safety, is now living under regular air raid alerts and the constant operation of air defense systems.

The latest round of escalation began at the end of the third week of the ongoing war with Iran, when Tehran’s forces launched missile strikes on the Israeli cities of Dimona and Arad and attacked other countries in the region. The UAE came under attack as well. According to estimates from the Financial Times, it has become Iran’s most heavily shelled neighbor since the joint US-Israeli operation commenced on Feb. 28.

As of March 27, the UAE’s air defense systems had intercepted 378 ballistic missiles, 15 cruise missiles, and 1,835 drones. The overwhelming majority have been aimed at Dubai, with the airport and seaports suffering the most.

Explosions can be heard in various parts of the city, gradually becoming part of everyday life. At the same time, public discussion of what is happening is limited: the authorities have reminded residents of their liability for publications that could harm “national unity or the reputation of the state,” prompting some social media users to begin deleting videos showing the moments of impact.

“It's not like anything is falling on our heads,” says Svetlana, who moved to Dubai four years ago, shortly after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “Most of the strikes hit hotels, possibly because they supposedly think CIA people might be staying there — and even then, we are talking about the upper floors. Frankly, the authorities are now more worried about what we post on social media than about the fact that we are being bombed. Even before, you could not openly express your disagreement with anything, and now even stating facts can cause problems.”

On the first day of the war, Svetlana recalls, she was walking with friends in the Jumeirah Beach Residence area when they saw a drone crash into the luxury hotel Fairmont The Palm. Svetlana and her friends were on the beach when it happened. A few minutes before the strike, they heard gunfire connected to Ramadan celebrations. Soon after, an explosion followed, which eyewitnesses at first mistook for another festive cannon shot.

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“Alarms go off on our phones, louder than the explosions themselves. We’ve started turning on airplane mode for the night so we don’t jump up in panic. Lately, they've started sending silent notifications about air defense activity during the night. Otherwise, the alarm sound is very unpleasant — it can scare anyone. You’re sitting with your phone, reading the news, and suddenly it starts blaring like a siren.”

The text of the notifications advises residents to leave the streets, return home, and stay away from windows. In practice, however, people react differently to the alerts. In the first days, some residents panicked and went down to underground parking lots, Svetlana says. Now, she adds, many have stopped taking the warnings seriously: in areas like Dubai Marina, traditionally called “the Russian district,” the threat feels lower, as locals doubt anyone would suspect CIA personnel are there.

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Dmitry, who moved to Dubai from Russia with his wife and two young children in 2022, says it was the scariest at the very beginning:

“It was only frightening in the first few days. Now the regular strikes have become background noise. In recent days, the intensity has dropped significantly. We get one or two emergency alerts during the day and another one or two at night. Sometimes, a minute or two after the alert, you can hear not very loud explosions in the sky.”

Like many other residents, his family has developed their own ritual for the alerts. According to Dmitry, he and his children wait out the air raids in the bathroom.

“The children bring pillows and blankets, make themselves a little nest, and lie there with tablets and phones. The younger one also brings the parrot’s cage and the dog — and we all sit there, waiting until the all-clear message comes. The kids are scared. The youngest doesn’t want to sleep alone and, after every emergency alert, runs to the bathroom to hide. They ask if we know when it will end and why this is happening to us at all — we live a peaceful life and don’t bother anyone. We try to calm them, saying we just need to wait and that everything will end sooner or later.”

Some residents, however, have chosen to leave, and several of these explain their decision on social media. A Threads user who lived in Dubai wrote:

“We ran away from Dubai. And we’re still in shock. We hadn’t planned to leave at all. The story began with our one-year apartment lease coming to an end. We were calmly packing our things, looking for a new place. But at some point, everything suddenly changed. The situation kept everyone on edge. Then a message came that the entire school in Dubai was moving to online learning. Plus, our parents were very anxious — they didn’t want us to stay there.”

Dmitry confirms that changes in the education system have indeed become part of the new reality. According to him, in the first weeks after the holidays, schools switched to online instruction. “It feels like this will continue until the end of the school year,” he says.

Nevertheless, most people living in Dubai do not plan to leave. According to Svetlana, the departures are mostly isolated cases.

“We don’t see any reason to leave. Some do panic, but they are a small minority. Some have left for Oman, abandoning their cats and dogs. But we feel safe — on the very first day, we saw how effectively the air defense works. We were sitting at Bluewaters, where hundreds of missiles and drones were heading, and everything was intercepted,” she says.

An economy on hold

Nevertheless, life in Dubai has indeed changed substantially as a result of the Iranian attacks. The biggest impact has been on the economy — primarily in the sphere of tourism, real estate, and business. Last year, the UAE led the world in the volume of foreign direct investment relative to GDP, but now some investors are moving their assets elsewhere. According to market players, such discussions are taking place most notably among investors from Asia.

In the meantime, the real estate market is cooling. Monthly rental prices have dropped, and the number of property sales transactions since the beginning of March has shrunk by 31% year on year (and by more than 50% compared to the previous month). Brokers and journalists are in agreement that the market is beginning to slump.

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“The Dubai market is being cleansed. Businesses have suffered. Cost optimization is underway. The situation largely resembles the pre- and post-pandemic period, including when it comes to pricing policies. We’ve been through this before. Those who know how to wait and adapt will survive. Speculators and opportunists have left, and more of them will leave,” writes Elena Fetisova, a host at Novoie Radio Moldova.

Broker Antonina Trokhimenko gives a similar assessment while emphasizing that this is not yet a full market collapse:

“Dubai has become sort of quiet. Businesses have slumped. There are fewer transactions. People are starting to get nervous. There’s a lot of talk about distressed deals. But the truth is that 80% of them aren’t distressed. They are either illiquid properties that no one wanted, projects that were originally overvalued, or just attempts to sell anything in a declining market. And yes, brokers now will sell everything, because they also need to survive. It’s important to understand that the market hasn’t collapsed — it’s cooling. But this is just the beginning.”

Amid declining activity, brokers themselves are leaving the market. A Threads user who works in real estate (handle: senior.nastya) describes what’s happening as a mismatch of expectations and reality:

“I moved here over a year ago to start from scratch — no connections, no client base. Deals started coming in. I got my license, moved out of a shared apartment into my own place, got a driver’s license. I felt like everything was just beginning. And then February 28 happened, and my phone blew up: ‘The market will collapse, go back to Moscow.’ Many packed their bags and left — some to Bali, some back to Saratov.”

According to other market participants, the outflow is noticeable even in professional chatrooms. Broker Oleg Fomichev notes that activity has dropped sharply. Whereas previously around 200 users in a group of 800 were online on weekdays, now there are only about 50.

The drop in demand is also affecting the hospitality industry. Even luxury hotels have started offering discounts and special promotions for locals. Address Beach Resort in the JBR area is offering discounts of up to 30% from March 5 to April 30. According to Hotel Drops Dubai, a service that tracks prices at four- and five-star accommodations, maximum discounts at some properties exceed 50%.

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At the same time, hotel staff report a drop in occupancy and mandatory measures imposed by employers.

“Our hotel has barely any guests left, and many staff members have been sent on unpaid leave. Mine is at least until March 31, without any guarantees,” an employee of Jumeirah Al Qasr hotel writes. Other industry workers report similar situations.

Layoffs have also affected the entertainment and service sectors. Arina, who moved to Dubai from Kazakhstan five months ago, says she and a few of her colleagues lost their jobs on the same day.

“I worked at a club, but the company closed because there are no tourists. I will try to find another job. If I can’t, I’ll go back home. I hope the situation improves by September,” she says.

“They fired our entire team,” says Ekaterina, who worked in customer support.

“Us too — after a month of leave,” adds another user.

Amid the overall decline in activity, everyday life in the city is also changing. Dubai, usually packed with tourists, is noticeably quiet.

“The city has become significantly emptier: you can see that tourists have left and new ones haven’t arrived. The waterfronts and beaches look deserted. There are fewer people in shopping malls, and restaurants and shops have started offering discounts. There’s almost no traffic on the roads. Fuel prices haven’t changed, and Tesla Supercharger stations have become free,” says Dmitry.

At the same time, he adds, there is no talk of mass business closures: the infrastructure continues to operate, only with fewer visitors and lower revenue.

The structure of city life has also changed. In a city whose vibe has long been determined by crowds of tourists, this role now belongs mainly to residents. According to Svetlana, areas like JBR and Dubai Marina have noticeably fewer people on the streets, precisely because these are “Russian” districts typically populated by vacationers. Locals, meanwhile, prefer to spend their time in beach clubs.

The Anatoly Kolodkin, which departed the Russian port of Primorsk on March 8, arrived in the Cuban port of Matanzas earlier today and was awaiting to be unloaded, according to a report by the state-controlled news agency TASS, citing the Russian Ministry of Transport.

“The Russian tanker ‘Anatoly Kolodkin,’ carrying a humanitarian shipment of 100,000 tons of crude oil, has arrived in Cuba,” the statement said.

As of the morning of March 30, Starboard Maritime Intelligence data indicated that the vessel was about 30 kilometers off the coast of Cuba and was approaching the island. The tanker is part of Russia’s “shadow fleet” and has been under U.S. sanctions since 2024.

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The New York Times reported that the U.S. Coast Guard took no action to detain the tanker because it had received no such order, according to a source cited by the newspaper. Why the White House decided not to intercept the vessel remains unclear.

Analysts quoted by the Times said deliveries of Russian oil would ease Cuba’s fuel crisis by providing the island with energy supplies for several more weeks. It would also reduce pressure on the Cuban government, which has faced escalating threats from Washington.

U.S. President Donald Trump, speaking to reporters, in effect confirmed that the United States had allowed the Russian tanker to deliver oil to Cuba.

“If a country wants to send some oil into Cuba right now, I have no problem with that, whether it’s Russia or [anybody else],” he said while speaking to the press aboard Air Force One.

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Trump added that Russian oil supplies to the island did not concern him. Asked whether he feared they would help Vladimir Putin, he replied:

“How does that help him? He loses one boatload of oil, that’s all… It doesn’t bother me much. It’s not going to have an impact. Cuba is finished, they have a bad regime, they have very bad and corrupt leadership. And whether or not they get a boat of oil is not going to matter. I’d prefer letting it in, whether it’s Russia or anybody else. The people need heat and cooling and all the other things that you need.”

If the Anatoly Kolodkin reaches a Cuban port, it will mark the first delivery of energy supplies to Cuba in several months. It is not the only vessel that sought to deliver oil to the island: the tanker Sea Horse (IMO 9262584) loaded about 200,000 barrels of Russian gasoil off the coast of Cyprus back in February, but later changed its destination and is now off the coast of Venezuela, where it arrived on March 27.

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Pressure on Havana has increased since late last year, when U.S. forces intercepted a vessel carrying Venezuelan oil to Cuba. After U.S. forces took Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro into custody on Jan. 3, the Trump administration demanded that fuel deliveries to Cuba stop, threatening tariffs against countries supplying oil to Cuba. Mexico subsequently halted such exports.

In an effort to ease the pressure on international energy markets caused by the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, Washington has permitted deals involving Russian oil that was loaded onto vessels before March 12. The U.S. Treasury later issued a new license restricting transactions involving Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and the illegally occupied and annexed territories of Ukraine.

FlightAware data indicated that the deportees arrived at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport on Egypt Air flight 729 at 15:53 local time on Sunday, March 29.

According to Russian America for Democracy in Russia, several dozen Russian citizens from five or six immigration detention centers across the United States were gathered for the flight. Transfers to the detention center in Alexandria began about a week before their scheduled departure.

The organization said the U.S. government also attempted to deport people supported by its “Detentions” project. However, thanks to intervention by human rights advocates, numerous appeals, and coordination with lawyers, those people were removed from the flight and remain in the United States.

The organization also reported harsh transfer conditions, with people transported in shackles, spending many hours without being able to sit down, sleeping on the floor, and waiting for departure in overcrowded rooms. The conditions at the airport in Alexandria were said to be better than during transit.

According to Russian America for Democracy in Russia, Saturday’s deportation flight was the second since the start of 2026. In 2025, The Insider counted at least four such deportation flights removing large numbers of Russian citizens from the United States.

The United States began deporting large numbers of Russian citizens — including asylum seekers who had opposed the invasion of Ukraine and who face repression at the hands of the Kremlin — after Trump’s return to office in January 2025. Upon arrival in Moscow, deportees are questioned by FSB officers. Some have been taken into custody — or even handed military draft notices — right at the airport. According to statistics made public by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), 127 Russian citizens were deported from the United States in 2025. Human rights advocates estimate that about 1,000 more remain in immigration detention awaiting decisions.

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According to TASS, the ban is to remain in place through July 31, although sources cited by RBC said the duration of the measure was not discussed at the meeting. As of the time of publication, the decision had not been officially confirmed.

The move would mark a return to strict restrictions that have already been used before. At the end of January 2026, the Russian government partially lifted the ban on gasoline exports for major fuel producers while keeping it in place for traders and small refineries. Now the restrictions are again set to apply to all exporters without exception.

Deputy Prime Minister Novak said as recently as March 26 that such a step was possible and stressed that the priority remained supplying the domestic market with fuel while keeping prices in check at a moment when fuel shortages caused by the ongoing conflict in Iran have made exports even more attractive to companies.

The decision to ban exports comes against the backdrop of rising gasoline prices inside Russia itself. According to the St. Petersburg Exchange, benchmark prices for 92-octane gasoline (AI-92) and 95-octane gasoline (AI-95) have risen by about 11% since early March.

At the same time, fuel sales on the exchange have been falling. According to the National Exchange Price Agency, gasoline sales dropped to 31,200 tons on March 26, down from more than 50,000 tons at the beginning of the month. The fall in 95-octane gasoline sales was especially sharp.

In previous years, restrictions on fuel exports were introduced as an anti-crisis measure. A full ban was first imposed in September 2023 in connection with a sharp rise in prices connected to gasoline shortages. Experts say there is no clear sign of an outright gasoline shortage in Russia as of today, but the market remains vulnerable. Amid high global energy prices, exports are more profitable than domestic deliveries, and the Kremlin is using export restrictions and the fuel damping mechanism to keep prices under control inside the country.

The Guardian reported that Rumiantsev, 23, was convicted of causing bodily harm and of perverting the course of justice. He was acquitted on one count of rape and intentional strangulation, and another of rape and assault.

During the trial, Rumiantsev — described as a “trained fighter” — admitted that he had been jealous of the victim because of her friendship with Barron Trump, whom she had met on social media.

The incident that resulted in the Russian man’s arrest took place in January 2025. According to Barron Trump, who later gave a statement to British police, he called his friend on FaceTime on Jan. 28, 2025, and contacted the authorities shortly thereafter.

In an email to police, Barron Trump wrote: “The individual who picked up the phone was a shirtless man with darkish hair, although I didn’t get a good look, this view lasted maybe one second and I was racing with adrenaline. The camera was then flipped to the victim getting hit while crying, stating something in Russian. The guy had hung up. This whole interaction lasted five to seven seconds.”

The victim later said she believed Rumiantsev had deliberately answered the call on her phone to show Barron that he was “punishing” her.

In a transcript of the emergency call released by the Crown Prosecution Service, Trump said: “I’m calling from the U.S., uh, I just got a call from a girl, you know, she’s getting beat up.”

Investigators said the assault lasted about an hour. The victim, whose name has not been disclosed, told jurors that Barron Trump’s intervention saved her life.

“Today, for the first time in close to a 1/4 century, 5 members of Congress (bipartisan) met with 5 members of the Russian Duma to discuss peace and bilateral relations. As representatives of the world’s two greatest nuclear super powers, we owe our citizens open dialogue, ideas, and open lines of communication. We will continue to foster this dialogue and push for peace in support of this admins push for peace, as well as economic opportunity.”

Photographs published by Luna show that the Russian delegation included:

• State Duma Deputy Speaker Boris Chernyshov of the nationalist LDPR party,
• former Russian ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov,
• first deputy chairman of the State Duma committee on international affairs Vyacheslav Nikonov,
• former speedskater and United Russia lawmaker Svetlana Zhurova, who also serves on the international affairs committee,
• and A Just Russia — For Truth lawmaker and economist Mikhail Delyagin.

The American side included Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Wisconsin Republican Derrick Van Orden, Arizona Republican Eli Crane, and Texas Democrat Vicente Gonzalez Jr.

Delyagin wrote on his Telegram channel that preparations for the visit had been underway since last year “behind closed doors, in order to avoid provocations by forces seeking to drag the United States into expanded support for Ukraine.” He said the makeup of the delegation had been determined by the “country’s leadership,” and that a return visit would most likely take place before mid-July. He also said members of the Russian delegation had been temporarily removed from U.S. sanctions lists to facilitate the trip to Washington, adding that the advance issuance of visas showed the Trump administration’s “strong interest” in “normalizing relations.”

“We did not avoid sharp and fundamental issues, including both Ukraine and Iran. A broad range of topics was discussed: from student exchanges, sports and visa issuance, to investment and technology,” Delyagin wrote.

Svetlana Zhurova told the Russian broadcaster RTVI that the meeting also addressed diplomatic property, direct flights, and the possible creation in Congress of a “friendship group” responsible for restoring relations with Russia.

The delegations exchanged symbolic gifts. The Russian lawmakers received souvenir challenge coins from Luna and socks depicting U.S. President Donald Trump that were produced during his 2024 campaign. The Americans, among other things, received from the Russians a postcard signed by participants in the Apollo-Soyuz space mission. The first meetings between the delegations took place on March 26 at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington and at the residence of the Russian ambassador to the United States. Meetings with U.S. officials and analysts were scheduled for Friday. The guests were also given a tour of the Capitol.

Diplomatic contacts between Russia and the United States regarding the war in Ukraine have been put on hold because of the start of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. The last round of trilateral talks on Ukraine took place Feb. 17-18 in Geneva. The next stage, which had been planned for early March, did not take place.

According to a correspondent for The Insider who was present at the farewell ceremony, the coffin was carried out by men in black, believed to be funeral service workers, and was immediately loaded into a vehicle. This occurred in the back courtyard, meaning that those present could observe what was happening only from a distance. 

As noted by Novaya Gazeta Europe, the funeral had to be postponed as Baymuradova's relatives in Chechnya did not respond to requests to take charge of her body, and was attended by just 20 mourners.

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An error was also made on the plaque placed at the grave. Instead of the surname “Baymuradova,” which appears in the documents, the plaque bears the surname “Alikhanova.” The mistake apparently stemmed from the name of Aishat’s father, Alikhan. The plaque is temporary. The NC SOS (North Caucasus SOS) crisis group said the installation of a headstone would be the responsibility of relatives and concerned members of the public.

Aishat Baymuradova's body was found on Oct. 19, 2025, in the apartment in Yerevan where she lived after fleeing Chechnya. According to investigators, the cause of her death was mechanical asphyxiation (though Armenia’s Investigative Committee said this could not be determined with absolute certainty). Her body also showed hemorrhages and signs of blunt force trauma, as well as injuries that may have been caused by burning.

According to relatives and human rights advocates, Baymuradova had been subjected to abuse within her family since childhood, including sexualized violence. At age 17, she was married — not by her own volition — and people who knew her say she also faced abuse in that marriage. Baymuradova left a child behind in Chechnya, fleeing with the help of human rights activists who assist women from the North Caucasus.

In February, Armenia’s Investigative Committee named two Russian citizens, Karina Iminova and Said-Khamzat Baisarov, as suspects in the murder case and placed them on Interpol’s wanted list, although Armenian authorities believe both have since returned to Russia, where they are unlikely to face legal consequences. Investigators believe Baymuradova was strangled on Oct. 16 by Iminova and Baisarov, acting on the instructions of “an unidentified person,” after the pair befriended her on Instagram and lured her to an apartment in Yerevan, where police later found her dead.

Although Iminova had told Baymuradova that she too had fled to Yerevan from Dagestan — another conservative, Muslim-majority region in Russia’s North Caucasus — she was later found to have close ties to Chechen security forces. Several of her social media followers were also found to have connections to Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed head of Chechnya.

As The Insider previously found, Baysarov spent at least a year in a Moscow pretrial detention center from 2018 to 2019 in a case under Article 205.1, Part 1.1 of the country’s criminal code, which covers “aiding terrorist activity.” However, there is no publicly available information about the case having been heard in court, nor about any verdict being issued. Baysarov is not listed in Russia’s federal register of terrorists and extremists, suggesting that the case was dropped.

Russian oil terminals at the ports of Ust-Luga and Primorsk in the Gulf of Finland were hit by a new attack overnight on March 27, according to several Telegram and Twitter channels that published videos and photos from the sites (1, 2, 3).

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The open source intelligence (OSINT) project CyberBoroshno geolocated footage from some of the videos, identifying viewpoints from the town of Vyborg (showing fires emanating from the port of Primorsk) and from Narva (showing the same from the port of Ust-Luga). The group said the strikes on the ports appeared to have been carried out almost simultaneously. Reports described multiple explosions and detonations near the facilities, with the glow from fires visible for dozens of kilometers.

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Additional confirmation of the fires comes from NASA’s FIRMS service, which tracks thermal anomalies in the areas of the ports.

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The attacks mark the fourth consecutive night of strikes on Russian oil infrastructure in the Baltic Sea region. On March 23, drones attacked the port of Primorsk, with local authorities saying the resulting fire was contained only on March 25.

Both Ust-Luga and Primorsk, key hubs for Russian oil and petroleum exports via the Baltic Sea, reportedly suspended operations as a result of the March 23 attack.

At least 40% of Russia’s oil export capacity is offline, according to recent calculations by Reuters — the result of Ukrainian drone strikes, the seizure of tankers by Western countries, and damage caused to the Druzhba pipeline by Russian strikes on Ukrainian territory.

The disruption amounts to the most severe hit to Russian oil supplies in the country’s modern history. It comes just as oil prices have risen above $100 a barrel amid the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.

According to sources who spoke with The Bell, Putin told those attending the meeting that he intended to continue the war. “He said, ‘we’re going to continue fighting,’” one of The Bell’s sources summarized Putin as saying. Another said the discussion centered on Russia advancing to the administrative borders of Ukraine’s Donetsk Region. Putin then suggested that Russia’s business leaders make voluntary contributions to aid in those efforts. According to one of The Bell’s sources, the idea to elicit support from the business community came from Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin, who had sent Putin a letter ahead of the meeting proposing to “shake down business in a difficult time for the country.”

Some participants took action immediately. Billionaire Suleiman Kerimov, according to two sources cited by The Bell, pledged to contribute 100 billion rubles ($1.2 billion) to the budget. According to The Financial Times, steel magnate Oleg Deripaska has also agreed to make a contribution.

The RSPP congress also saw an awkward moment when a technical glitch prevented the Russian national anthem from playing at the opening. The union’s head, Alexander Shokhin, began singing it a cappella, prompting the entire audience to join in.

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A day after the report from The Bell was published, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded, claiming: “It is not true that this came from Igor Sechin. It is not true that there was talk of money for the special military operation. It is not true that Putin made such a request.”

Peskov did confirm that such an initiative had been discussed at Putin’s closed-door meeting with business leaders. However, in the Kremlin press secretary’s telling, it had been proposed by one of the participants, and that Putin had merely “welcomed” the proposal. 

Russians are coming up with an increasing number of unconventional ways to communicate as access to Telegram in the country is restricted, mobile internet is shut down in a range of cities, and foreign messaging services are blocked. The Insider counted 10 unexpected solutions.

Cat feeder

On March 24, Alina, a Moscow native living in Bali, posted an Instagram video showing how she called her parents back in Russia through an automatic cat feeder. “Not POV, but real: it’s 2026, everything is blocked, and you’re talking to your parents in Russia through a cat feeder,” she wrote.

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Avito

A St. Petersburg resident corresponded with friends through a classified ad on the online marketplace Avito, which is included on the Russian government’s “whitelists” and remains accessible even during internet restrictions. The ad in question was nominally posted by a user who was looking for a new home for a cat. However, the description clarified that the animal already had owners and that the page itself was being used as a chat.

“My friends have a link to this ad. When the internet works only through whitelists, we correspond there — like I’m doing with you now,” the author of the ad told the outlet Rotonda.

After news of the ad spread, Avito removed the cat listing and subjected the woman’s account to a review. The platform’s press service said the ad violated the site’s rules, as it did not contain an offer to sell a real good or service.

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Excel spreadsheets

People in Russia are also known to be communicating via Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. One such spreadsheet was created by the science and technology-themed Telegram channel Concertzaal, with users commenting on the channel’s posts there.

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Photos and Notes apps

On March 11, the publication High-Tech Mail published instructions on how to correspond with loved ones through the Photos app on an iPhone using the Shared Albums feature. The comments under uploaded pictures can function as a full-fledged chat: messages arrive with notifications, are sorted by time, and can even be deleted. In a similar way, people can also correspond through an iPhone’s Notes app.

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Gaming apps

There have also been cases of people messaging through gaming apps. Travel blogger Elnar Mansurov, for example, posted an Instagram video titled “How to stay in touch without VPN and Telegram: greetings from 2026.” In it, he explains in detail how to correspond through the Chess app.

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Pagers, walkie-talkies and landline phones

Finally, there are the less creative options: pagers, walkie-talkies, and landline phones. In mid-March, Russian media reported that Russians had begun buying these items in large numbers. According to the newspaper Vedomosti, sales of walkie-talkies on the Wildberries online marketplace have risen by 27%, purchases of landline phones are up 25%, and pagers are up 73%.

“To further strengthen our efforts to counter Russia’s sanctions evasion, Canada is adding 100 more vessels from Russia’s shadow fleet to its sanctions list,” the Mar. 26 statement on the ministry’s website read.

The document notes that Russia continues to rely on oil and gas revenues to fund its military operations in Ukraine, using a network of vessels and auxiliary organizations — primarily oil tankers — to transport sanctioned goods and raw materials, including crude oil.

The ministry emphasized that its sanctions are aimed at limiting Russia’s ability to finance the war while minimizing harm to the civilian population.

Canada, the U.S., the U.K., and other Western countries have repeatedly imposed sanctions on the “shadow fleet” and have been seizing such vessels with increasing frequency..

Russia’s “shadow fleet” consists of hundreds of aging tankers, formally owned by offshore companies and often sailing under false flags. The Kremlin and affiliated traders use the fleet to circumvent sanctions, including the price cap on Russian oil. According to the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), in the first nine months of 2025 alone, over 100 Russian vessels used false flags to transport around 11 million tons of oil worth €4.7 billion.

The complaint against the prime minister was filed by Branislav Gröhling, leader of the liberal Freedom and Solidarity party, who says the document points to possible serious crimes related to the prime minister’s actions, including abuse of power, treason, and breach of duty in the management of another’s property.

The complaint was processed by the Office of the Attorney General after first being sent to the regional prosecutor’s office, then to the police. According to Gröhling, more than 13,000 people supported his submission, which he called “the largest criminal complaint in Slovakia’s history.”

In recent weeks, both Fico and Hungary’s Viktor Orban have accused Ukraine of impeding the supply of Russian energy to Europe. Transit of Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline to Hungary and Slovakia was indeed halted in January following damage caused by a Russian strike. In Hungary, however, the disruption has been portrayed not as a technical issue, but as the result of political pressure being exerted against Budapest ahead of upcoming parliamentary elections. At the end of February, Hungary blocked a €90 billion EU loan to Ukraine.

Hungary and Slovakia have oil reserves and can also receive supplies via the Adria pipeline from Croatia, the EU reported. However, alternative sources are more expensive. Prices have also been affected by the ongoing war in the Middle East.

Under Swedish law, violating the sanctions regime can result in fines or imprisonment, especially if it involves large sums of money or trade in dual-use goods. Kubal deputy CEO Jonas Eriksson confirmed that the investigation is ongoing, adding that the company is cooperating with the authorities and providing all necessary information.

The investigation is being conducted by the Swedish Prosecution Authority. Prosecutor Sara Nilsson stated that the case concerns suspected crimes that could harm the security of Sweden and Europe. She emphasized that the case is at an early stage, adding that it is complex and large in scope.

Earlier, Sweden’s Centre Party called for the nationalization of the Kubal aluminum plant. The press office of the Russian company Rusal, which is controlled by oligarch Oleg Deripaska, expressed hopes for a “balanced and reasonable approach from EU authorities.”

“The restriction was introduced on the basis of a decision by the operational headquarters of Russia’s Agriculture Ministry, which oversees supplies of nitrogen fertilizers to agricultural producers and the procedure for fulfilling them. Amid growing export demand for nitrogen fertilizers, suspending overseas shipments will make it possible to prioritize the needs of the domestic market during the spring fieldwork period and ensure that it proceeds without disruption,” the ministry said in a press release.

On Feb. 25, a Ukrainian drone attack shut down the Dorogobuzh chemical plant in Russia’s western Smolensk Region. The plant is part of the Acron Group, a mineral fertilizer producer which produces ammonium nitrate. Regional governor Vasily Anokhin said the ammonia unit is expected to restart by May, while the ammonium nitrate production unit is scheduled to resume operations by the end of June.

Dorogobuzh produces 5% of all mineral fertilizers made in Russia, accounting for 11% of all ammonium nitrate production (the fertilizer most in demand on the domestic market) as well as 9% of Azofoska, a nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium fertilizer.

Exports of nitrogen and compound fertilizers from Russia have been subject to quotas since December 2021.

On Feb. 18, 2026, the Russian and Iranian navies held joint exercises in the Gulf of Oman. On the Russian side, the Baltic Fleet corvette Stoikiy and its accompanying tanker Yelnya took part in the after previously visiting the Omani port of Muscat. On the Iranian side were the frigate Alvand, the missile boat Neyze, and the corvette Shahid Sayyad Shirazi. (A Chinese squadron was also expected to arrive in the Gulf, but Beijing pulled out of the exercises at the last moment.)

According to the official account put out by Russia’s Defense Ministry, Iranian and Russian sailors jointly ran drills focused on communications and ensuring the safety of civilian shipping. In reality, the exercises rehearsed possible scenarios for blocking sea lanes and attacking a mock enemy.

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The end of the exercise was marked by a joint tea party. The sides exchanged commemorative souvenirs and assured one another of their strong military friendship. Many understood that a major war could soon begin and that the sailors might be seeing each other alive for the last time. The mood among those present was correspondingly somber.

Among those in attendance was 37-year-old GRU Lt. Col. Yuly Deryabin, a senior aide to the military attaché at the Russian Embassy in Iran. Deryabin arrived in Tehran in August 2023 and led a group of advisers on the operation of the latest Russian-supplied Resonance-NE radar systems, which are capable of detecting targets including ballistic missiles and stealth aircraft at a distance of up to 1,100 kilometers.

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Radar systems specialist

Deryabin was invited to serve in the GRU after graduating from the Frunze Combined Arms Academy in Moscow in 2014. Later, he studied at the Military Diplomatic Academy’s agent-operational intelligence faculty,which trains officers for military attaché posts.

Deryabin is a co-author of the patent “Radar Station With Inverse Synthetic Aperture and Two-Level Neural Network Target Recognition.” According to the patent abstract, the system “belongs to the category of radar devices and is intended to determine the classes and types of airborne targets from range profiles and two-dimensional radar images on the basis of a neural network method.” (The technology is not exactly new; similar inventions have already been in use by the U.S. military and NATO forces for several years.)

After graduating from the “spy” academy, Deryabin completed further courses at the 106th Air Defense Training Center in Orenburg. He was then assigned to the GRU residency in Afghanistan, flying to the country several times.

For example, travel records show that in 2019 Deryabin accompanied Alexander Kononov, an officer from the GRU 170th Operational Coordination Center’s (OKTs) military unit 46179, to Kabul. OKTs is part of the Defense Ministry’s Special Control Service and is responsible for monitoring seismic and radiation conditions both near Russia’s borders and around the world. Among their various tasks, OKTs personnel track the atomic ambitions of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, monitor the situation at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine (in the guise of civilian specialists), and serve on site at nuclear facilities in Iran.

In 2021, when the U.S. hastily withdrew its forces from Afghanistan, Deryabin was sent to Kabul again, where he studied captured weapons that had fallen into the hands of the Taliban. He was mainly interested in the missiles and loitering munitions that the Americans had left behind. Two additional Russian Foreign Ministry employees, Yevgeny Yegorov and Alfat Urumbayev, arrived in Afghanistan together with Deryabin. What the diplomats were doing in Kabul remains a mystery, but in April 2023 Putin decorated both men with medals “For Courage.”

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Deryabin and his colleagues remained active in the Middle East even as Russia’s war in Ukraine continued to eat up a substantial portion of the military’s resources. A source for The Insider at the Russian Embassy in Tehran said Russian intelligence learned in advance about the looming U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iran:

“As early as Feb. 25, Ambassador Alexei Dedov convened a general meeting and announced an urgent evacuation. Chaos ensued, and everything was done in a rush. On March 2, all the women and children, school teachers, and Rosatom employees, a total of 147 people, were transported to Azerbaijan, where they boarded a plane provided by the Ministry of Emergency Situations. It’s an eight-hour bus ride [from Tehran] to Lankaran, then another three and a half hours by plane to Zhukovsky Airport [in Moscow].”

On Feb. 28, when the United States and Israel launched massive strikes on Iran, the Russian Resonance-NE air defense systems overseen by Deryabin were among their first targets. In all, military experts estimate that 90% of Iran’s missile and anti-aircraft systems and radars were destroyed, including the latest Chinese HQ-9B and YLC-8B systems, which had been advertised as “stealth aircraft killers.” As a result, the Iranian military no longer had any need for consultant Deryabin’s advice.

Incidentally, the Iranian frigate Alvand, which took part in the joint military exercises with Russia, has already been sunk, and the destruction of the missile boat Neyze and the corvette Shahid Sayyad Shirazi appears to be only a matter of time.

A love since childhood

Among the evacuated employees of the Russian Embassy was Deryabin’s wife, Maria, who took an empty ant farm back to Moscow in diplomatic baggage, leaving its roughly 1,000 prior inhabitants behind. 

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As The Insider found, Deryabin’s love of insects was instilled in him by his father, Albert, who until the mid-2000s worked as an engineer at a shipbuilding plant in the northern town of Severodvinsk before — to the surprise of relatives and friends alike — suddenly giving up everything to settle in the abandoned village of Anosinki in the Smolensk Region, where he founded a “Birch Bark Museum” while living in a Baba Yaga-style hut.  Local television even aired a report about him.

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The recluse himself did not watch television, rejected the expertise of doctors, and treated himself with folk remedies. In May 2021, a group of travelers from St. Petersburg visited the museum. After they left, the elder Deryabin fell ill with COVID-19. Because of poor communications and impassable roads, an ambulance could not reach him in time, and he died.

The younger Deryabin set up his first home ant colony in the top-secret dormitory of the Military Diplomatic Academy in Moscow, at 52 Narodnogo Opolcheniya Street, where he established a trade in insects. The academy’s leadership either did not know about his side business or else simply chose to look the other way.

Australian Diacamma ants are back on the market

Among Moscow’s ant traders, Deryabin is a highly visible figure. The Insider obtained several text messages sent to Deryabin by other dealers in live insects: “Australian Diacamma ants available for sale, call now. The ‘Heel’ formicarium is an excellent solution for both beginners and experienced breeders. The formicarium consists of a nest and a large arena. The nest has three modules. Each module consists of two living chambers and a humidifying chamber.”

Deryabin’s money transfers also show that he ordered special equipment and feed for the ants.

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Most likely, the GRU officer brought exotic specimens back from his foreign postings. Transporting rare ants without special authorization from sanitary control and customs is strictly prohibited, but the military attaché appears to have used his diplomatic immunity, and his baggage was not inspected.

Incidentally, the trade in smuggled ants can be quite lucrative. On Russia’s black market, for example, a Laotian Diacamma orbiculatum queen and 30 worker ants cost more than 100,000 rubles ($1,200). The price for a Messor arenarius queen and 40 members of the “service staff,” a species found in Israel, North Africa, and Saudi Arabia, comes in at a still substantial 30,000 rubles ($365). An Egyptian harvester ant costs 15,000 rubles ($180), while a colony of African predatory ants, Camponotus cf. fellah, sells for 9,000 ($110) rubles.

Lt. Col. Deryabin hid his costly live cargo in the bunker of the Russian Embassy in Tehran, where staff shelter from airstrikes. The Insider can report that he placed the ants in test tubes and empty bottles of mineral water, but the ants nevertheless began dying en masse.

The military attaché asked Igor Dyomkin, a GRU resident in Iran whose activities were previously covered by The Insider, to let him take the remainder of the colony back to Moscow. But Dyomkin refused, citing the difficult operational situation.

The ruble is not the first

In September, Russia’s financial system will enter a new technological era: the country’s largest banks and retailers will be required to ensure acceptance of the digital ruble, which the Bank of Russia is promoting as a tool of “convenience and low cost.”

The idea of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) is not new. Economists were discussing the concept as far back as the 1980s, with Nobel laureate James Tobin proposing a new type of account fully backed by reserves at the central bank in order to protect savings from risks. However, for a long time there was no convenient technical basis with which to implement such ideas. That aspect emerged only after the success of Bitcoin, when officials realized they, too, could use distributed ledger technology (or its centralized imitations) to regain control over money flows that had partially moved into the gray zones of the crypto world. Today, around 100 countries are exploring options for introducing CBDCs.

Options for introducing digital currencies are being explored by nearly 100 countries

The first country to launch its own digital currency into full-scale operation was the Bahamas in 2020, but it is not only tiny island nations that are pursuing such projects. China had been testing similar initiatives as early as 2014, and in 2025 the People’s Bank of China officially announced the launch of Renminbi Digital — the most extensive instrument of financial control in the world.

Russia’s model of a “two-tier retail system,” in which the central bank issues currency and commercial banks act as technical intermediaries, is almost entirely copied from the Chinese one. For Beijing, this project has become an effective means of combatting the monopoly power of private platforms such as Alipay and WeChat, as well as a tool of social engineering. Thanks to the “digital wallet,” the state can see every transaction its citizens make in real time.

The “digital euro” is also being actively discussed, but the project is facing fierce resistance from human rights advocates defending the privacy of citizens and businesses. Meanwhile, the United States is treating the “digital dollar” with extreme caution, as the country’s strong banking lobby understands that the introduction of a CBDC will undermine a business model based on fees and liquidity.

Digital, but not crypto

When the Bank of Russia presented its first concept for the digital ruble in 2021, it looked like a response to the hype surrounding cryptocurrencies. The project description included terms typical of that sphere, such as “distributed ledgers” and “smart contracts.” At the same time, the key feature of cryptocurrencies — decentralization — is absent from the digital ruble.

A classic blockchain is built on the principle of having no central authority, meaning that no one can unilaterally cancel a transaction. The digital ruble platform, by contrast, is a closed ledger with different levels of access rights for different participants. The Bank of Russia is the sole owner of the “master node,” the single operator of the platform that issues money and controls the entire database. Technically, it is a system with cryptographic protection, but with an absolute “right of veto” held by the regulator. If the central bank decides that a transaction was incorrect, it can annul it.

If the central bank decides that a transaction made in digital rubles was incorrect, it can annul it

Under the current system, non-cash money in a bank account represents a claim by a client on a commercial bank, which is supervised by the Bank of Russia. The digital ruble, however, is a direct liability of the central bank, with a mechanism for uniquely identifying each unit (a discrete token with an individual serial number). In this set-up, commercial banks act merely as “access nodes,” responsible only for authentication and transmitting instructions. The central bank uses elements of distributed ledger technology to synchronize data between its internal servers, but crucially, it retains the status of an administrator with full rights.

No panacea for corruption

When it comes to the state budget, the digital ruble is expected to simplify financial management and significantly speed up settlements. “Citizens and businesses will be able to receive assistance from the state faster, which is especially important in emergency situations,” the Bank of Russia wrote in its 2025 project status report.

Still, no one is promising to eliminate corruption. Instead, officials speak only of increasing the transparency of budget transactions, which is supposed to reduce “risks of abuse.” As Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina explained in October: “We recently conducted a successful experiment with payments in digital rubles under contracts for capital construction, where control over the targeted use of budget funds is critically important. What is the advantage of the digital ruble platform here? Our technologies make it possible, at the program level, to determine who can be paid and for what — specific contractors, subcontractors, for concrete, for employees’ salaries, and so on. It is also possible to determine at what moment the payment should be made — for example, upon receiving confirmation from the state system that the work has been accepted.”

In other words, if every ruble is “colored,” and if its path is visible to the central bank, it is supposedly impossible to steal it. However, this in itself does not signify the end of corruption, as smart contracts can be used not only for legitimate purposes but also in automating complex schemes to conceal evidence of crimes, experts from the International Monetary Fund warn. A ruble can be “colored” programmatically for the purchase of construction materials, but the same cannot be done with an invoice. Schemes involving inflated estimates, fictitious work completion reports, and the purchase of low-quality materials at premium prices will hardly be affected by the introduction of a digital currency. The central bank will transfer digital rubles to the “cement supplier” once the state customer confirms that the service has been performed, but this does not mean financial authorities have verified whether the materials were actually delivered to the construction site or whether they met the specifications stated in the contract.

Smart contracts can be used not only for legitimate purposes but also in complex schemes to conceal evidence of crimes

If a digital currency is introduced in countries that already have a high level of systemic corruption (like Russia), it may even become a tool of selective prosecution, as noted in a report by the International Coalition Against Illicit Economies (ICAIE). If access to the transaction database is controlled by a narrow group of central bank officials, they may manipulate records or conceal operations, making external auditing even more difficult, ICAIE believes.

In short, the digital ruble is more likely to become an instrument of selective transparency than of actual reform. In authoritarian regimes, the system will see all transfers of the opposition but remain “blind” to dubious transactions made by loyalists. And since the registry is fully controlled by the central bank, the Kremlin will also gain the ability to preemptively block the accounts of those attempting to investigate corruption.

The transition from the theory of financial transparency to the real tracking of violations is possible only under conditions of an independent judiciary and a free civil society. In their absence, digital currencies act only as a more advanced means of state control over the population, ICAIE experts conclude.

No cashback

For users, the transition to the digital ruble will mean losing familiar perks. For example, bank cashback is not a gift to the client, but part of the commission that the store pays for processing a transaction. In the digital ruble system, tariffs for businesses are fixed at 0.3%, several times lower than market rates. In such a model, the intermediary bank simply has no source from which to pay rewards to clients. As a result, the declared convenience and “absolute reliability” of the state wallet come at the cost of consumers’ real income.

In addition, unlike deposits in commercial banks, digital rubles held in accounts at the Bank of Russia will not generate profit for their owners.

Unlike deposits in commercial banks, digital rubles held in accounts at the central bank will not generate profit for their owners

People will also have to give up part of their freedoms. Since January 2026, the digital ruble has been introduced on a pilot basis for a number of social payments, and digitalization allows the state to use technical means to restrict how money is used. For example, there are discussions about blocking people’s ability to place bets with bookmakers or to purchase alcohol. A separate subject of debate is maternity capital, which is sometimes cashed out through complex schemes. The digital ruble will make this impossible, as the system simply will not “recognize” a non-designated merchant code.

Any debt, traffic fine, or tax arrears will be written off from a digital wallet automatically. Mandatory write-offs already exist, but they require time in order to process requests from bailiffs. The platform of the Bank of Russia is always transparent to the state, meaning that in conditions of a budget deficit, calling in debts could become a convenient mechanism for increasing the collection of payments.

Control can even be exerted posthumously. The introduction of a system of “digital testamentary orders” means that the transfer of assets to heirs will now also depend on the regulator’s approval. Blocking inheritance for “unreliable” relatives in this system is possible with a single click, creating additional risks for any Russians who might be at risk for inclusion on the country’s ever-expanding lists of “foreign agents” and “extremists.”

Trillion-ruble losses for banks

For the banking system, the introduction of the digital ruble is a problem far deeper than the loss of marketing tools. Financial institutions anticipate a large-scale withdrawal of liquidity, because when money moves from people’s current accounts into digital wallets on the central bank’s platform, it will leave the balance sheets of commercial banks. The scale of this outflow could amount to trillions of rubles.

“After three years, we will see that around 2–4 trillion rubles will be transferred into the digital ruble. These funds will cease to be available for lending, which will ultimately lead to a liquidity shortage and, as a consequence, higher interest rates,” Anatoly Popov, deputy chairman of the management board of Sberbank, explained all the way back in 2020.

In other words, banks will lose their cheapest source of lending — balances held in people’s accounts. To fill this gap, they will have to borrow at the key rate from the Bank of Russia, driving up the price businesses and households pay to borrow money.

The National Rating Agency has estimated the positive effect of digitalization for the economy by 2031 at 260 billion rubles annually, due to reduced transaction costs. But for bankers, this means a reduction in net interest margins.

In effect, the launch of the digital ruble amounts to a soft nationalization of bank liabilities. Money will cease to operate within the private credit market, transforming commercial banks from full-fledged financial institutions into mere operators of mobile applications.

Technological risks

Behind the promise of instant payments lies the problem of performance “bottlenecks” in the platform. Unlike decentralized systems, the digital ruble is tied to a single validator in the form of the Bank of Russia, which will have to accommodate every purchase made in the country using the new currency.

Given Russia’s current shortage of high-performance chips, building an infrastructure capable of handling such a massive financial flow appears to be a near-impossible task. According to a central bank report, from the start of testing the digital ruble through mid-2025, fewer than 100,000 transactions were conducted, and there are risks that under peak loads the centralized registry will simply freeze. In the conventional banking system, the failure of one player does not paralyze the country. However, a failure of the digital ruble platform would instantly leave all Russians without access to their money.

This reality is all the more important given that the system is likely to become a target for hacker attacks. As experts at Kept (formerly KPMG) explain: “Despite the high security standards of the central bank platform, funds in the form of digital rubles are exposed to the risk of attacks by malicious actors who may gain remote access and carry out operations using social engineering, phishing, and malware. The very introduction of the digital ruble and low awareness of the relevant regulations may trigger a surge in fraudulent activity — offers to exchange funds in bank accounts into digital rubles at a favorable rate, speculation about the need for urgent mandatory conversion of cash, and so on.”

What the digital ruble is really for

From the perspective of the Russian authorities, perhaps the most useful function of the digital currency is its potential use in international settlements. “The Bank of Russia is developing cooperation with foreign financial market regulators. Thus, with a number of friendly countries, possible options for the bilateral integration of national platforms are being discussed,” the central bank writes. Issues related to the use of digital currencies are also being worked out within BRICS organization, and the idea of a “BRICS gateway” — where the digital ruble would be exchanged directly for a digital yuan, bypassing SWIFT — looks like a potentially promising solution for circumventing sanctions.

International transfers using digital currencies can indeed be instantaneous, and they are available around the clock, notes the International Monetary Fund. For legitimate users, this is convenient, and for criminals it also creates an opportunity to quickly move funds out of the jurisdiction of one country into another, bypassing traditional banking checks that usually take several days. If such a system comes into existence, law enforcement agencies will have much less time to freeze suspicious accounts (and countries where standards are the most lax will attract a disproportionate share of criminals to their digital infrastructure).

Without global coordination and unified identification rules, digital currencies may become a tool for the rapid and anonymous cross-border movement of illicit capital, the IMF warns. This fact goes at least some way in explaining why EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas proposed that European institutions  preemptively block the use of the digital ruble.

“I can point out an interesting trend: we've seen a significant increase in requests for landline installations. That's because people have realized that it's a very reliable and high-quality way to communicate. Every home should have one,” he said.

The increase is most visible in cities where there are disruptions in mobile service, and “there are many such regions,” Oseyevsky said. According to him, even “many very respected people” now want a home phone. He also compared a landline to a fire extinguisher, saying “it should be in every home.”

Oseyevsky told reporters that Telegram traffic in Russia “is dying right now,” while WhatsApp traffic is “dead.”

“There's virtually no WhatsApp traffic at all. Something might pop up there every few hours or days, but there's practically no traffic. That's why WhatsApp is dead, and Telegram is dying right now. We can see that foreign messaging apps — one is dead, the other is dying — while Max is growing, growing rapidly in terms of traffic,” he added.

Vladimir Putin also took part in the RSPP meeting. His speech was preceded by opening remarks from the union’s head, Alexander Shokhin, who complained that restrictions on mobile internet had complicated life for businesses and ordinary people.

“We certainly understand that these issues relate to national security and the need to ensure that whitelisted websites continue to operate. However, given the widespread use of mobile technology in our daily lives, we hope that a systematic and balanced solution can be found here, although we realize that this is no easy task,” he said.

Putin did not respond to Shokhin’s remarks in any way, nor did he mention the ongoing internet and cell service blackouts affecting multiple Russian regions.

In recent months, Russian authorities have tightened their control over the internet, blocking popular services and censorship-circumvention tools while periodically restricting mobile internet access in various parts of the country. A recent multi-week internet and cell service shutdown in Moscow caused over 5 billion rubles ($61.4 million) in losses for the city’s businesses, with locals actively searching for walkie-talkies, paper maps, and wired internet to cope with the outages. MPs in Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, ran into the same connectivity and communications outages as their fellow citizens, with many going to a nearby bank branch to try and catch a signal.

Mobile internet began working again in central Moscow on March 24 following more than two weeks of restrictions. The move was directly approved by the FSB, according to Sarkis Darbinyan, a cyber lawyer who spoke with The Insider.

“The internet was switched back on because, most likely, the FSB decided the threat was gone. What threat the chekists feared, we still do not know. Maybe it really was drones, or maybe something else,” the expert said.

Russian officials claim the measures have been undertaken for security reasons, including the threat of Ukrainian drone attacks.

The fine stemmed from a livestream Alontseva broadcast on the social media platform VK, in which she spoke crudely about the benefits that could be gained if her spouse went to war and was killed:

“Just think what a f***ing great payoff [it will be]: kindergarten benefits, school benefits, a monthly allowance as a military spouse. F**k, we’ll really be living the f***ing life. We’ll go to the seaside. And then he’ll get killed there, knock on wood. We’ll buy a house or something.”

Alontseva also said she was considering sending her partner to war after first “registering the children under him.”

In the police report, officers described Alontseva’s actions as follows: “A Slavic-looking girl (a Russian woman) laughingly talks about how one can get rich off a serviceman by marrying him and sending him to the ‘special military operation.’”

In court, Alontseva admitted her guilt and said she had expressed her opinion “in the heat of the moment.” She said she deleted the recording of the livestream, but that she continues to receive negative comments.

The idea of pressuring one’s husband to join the army for the sake of the benefits package on offer appears to be widespread enough that, over the past year, at least two bills have been introduced in Russia’s State Duma to protect servicemen from so-called “black widows” — women accused of marrying men who are fighting in the war or are preparing to sign a contract in order to receive cash payments from the Russian state.

This past December, the nationalist LDPR party proposed punishing such women for entering into sham marriages with Russian soldiers. Then, in February 2026, a group of lawmakers from the Communist Party and senator Airat Gibatdinov proposed allowing the parents of fallen soldiers to have the deceased’s marriage declared fictitious within six months of the death.

By The Insider’s count, rallies in support of a free internet have been banned in at least 13 Russian cities in recent weeks.

In the Vladimir Region’s town of Murom, local authorities demanded that a demonstration planned for April 1 be cancelled due to a supposed drone threat.

Authorities in Krasnodar revoked permission for a rally scheduled for March 28 — one that had been initiated by the local branch of the Russian Communist Party. According to a report by Kommersant citing regional party secretary Alexander Safronov, officials changed their minds due to the “difficult operational situation” created by air raid alerts. Organizers had planned to gather up to 200 people to demonstrate in defense of free speech and against government efforts aimed at censorship, blocking, and throttling internet services.

A demonstration against internet restrictions in Volgograd was banned for the same reason. The application for the rally had been submitted by a 20-year-old resident of the neighboring city of Volzhsky. She estimated that close to 200 people were set to gather at Metallurgov Square, but officials proposed postponing the event until “after the situation stabilizes and the level of danger goes down.”

In Perm, a rally was canceled two hours before it was set to begin, according to a report by the regional branch of opposition politician Yekaterina Duntsova’s unregistered Rassvet (lit. “Dawn”) party. The city administration claimed the existence of a “potential emergency situation” at the site of the rally. Despite the cancellation, about 50 people showed up at the appointed time, with two of them being detained and taken to a police station because they were carrying placards protesting the internet restrictions.

Permission to protest was also revoked in the Siberian city of Irkutsk. A rally planned for March 1 involving about 300 participants had been organized by the local branch of the Yabloko party. It was initially approved before officials later said they had “identified significant public attention to the upcoming event.” According to them, an increase in the number of participants threatened public safety.

Supporters of the opposition politician Boris Nadezhdin, meanwhile, were denied permission to hold demonstrations in support of a free internet in five towns in the Moscow Region: Krasnogorsk, Dolgoprudny, Khimki, Korolyov, and Mytishchi. According to Nadezhdin, local officials justified the bans by citing the risk of the spread of COVID-19.

In Moscow and St. Petersburg, requests by the anonymous Aliy Lebed (lit. “Scarlet Swan”) movement to hold demonstrations were not approved. The group, which launched a Telegram channel in mid-March, recently ran a large online campaign calling on Russians to take part in internet freedom protests on March 29. The independent outlet Verstka reported that several of the Aliy Lebed channel’s administrators are between the ages of 14 and 20. On March 23, a second channel with the same name appeared on Telegram; its authors said they had “made a serious mistake” by giving associates of pro-war blogger Vladislav Pozdnyakov access to the first channel, allegedly resulting in “his subordinates gaining control [over the channel] and posting a fake fundraiser in our name.”

In recent months, Russian authorities have tightened their control over the internet, blocking popular services and censorship-circumvention tools while periodically restricting mobile internet access in multiple regions. A recent multi-week internet and cell service shutdown in Moscow caused over 5 billion rubles ($61.4 million) in losses for the city’s businesses, with locals actively searching for walkie-talkies, paper maps, and wired internet to cope with the outages. MPs in Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, ran into the same connectivity and communications outages as their fellow citizens, with many going to a nearby bank branch to try and catch a signal.

Mobile internet began working again in central Moscow on March 24 following more than two weeks of restrictions. The move was directly approved by the FSB, according to Sarkis Darbinyan, a cyber lawyer who spoke with The Insider.

“The internet was switched back on because, most likely, the FSB decided the threat was gone. What threat the chekists feared, we still do not know. Maybe it really was drones, or maybe something else,” the expert said.

Russian officials claim the measures have been undertaken for security reasons, including the threat of Ukrainian drone attacks.

Based on images from March 23 and 24, they assessed that five or six fuel storage tanks may have been destroyed in the fire. They also noted that the smoke plume was far larger than initially estimated, extending for more than 200 kilometers (just over 124 miles) rather than the 35 kilometers (21.7 miles) previously reported.

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After reviewing satellite images of the port of Ust-Luga taken on March 26, the experts said signs of burning remain visible, though cloud cover has so far obscured details.

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Primorsk — one of the key ports for Russian oil exports in the Gulf of Finland — was struck by drones on March 23. Reports later emerged of an attack on Ust-Luga, another important part of Russia’s energy export infrastructure. The Insider was able to confirm the authenticity of videos showing a large fire at the port, while analysts from the open source intelligence (OSINT) project GeoConfirmed verified its exact location.

Prosecutors had asked the court to ban the film “in the interests of an indefinite circle of persons.” They sought to restrict access to it at three web addresses: VK Video, Yandex.kz, and Motion Video.

According to the prosecution, “the content of the film is shaped through overall militarization,” and it expresses a “negative attitude toward the special military operation and the current authorities.” Prosecutors added that a white-blue-white flag shown in the film amounted to “propaganda of extremism and terrorism,” as the flag is considered a symbol of the Freedom of Russia Legion.

Separately, prosecutors noted that the film shows the faces of minors without permission from their parents. Last week, Russia’s Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights sent appeals to the organizers of the Academy Awards and to UNESCO Director-General Khaled El-Enany complaining about the use of footage of Russian schoolchildren in the documentary without the consent of their parents or legal guardians.

The documentary Mr. Nobody Against Putin was directed by Pavel Talankin and David Borenstein. At the center of the story is Talankin himself, a schoolteacher and videographer from the town of Karabash in Russia’s Chelyabinsk Region. Prior to the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Talankin already worked as the school’s videographer. After the start of the invasion, he continued to film life inside the school, documenting the growing ideological push in the Russian educational system as mandatory “patriotic” lessons were introduced, signs of militarization appeared, and the state ramped up pressure on students and teachers.

In 2024, Talankin fled Russia, taking the footage with him. With Borenstein’s help, it was turned into a documentary film. Mr. Nobody Against Putin premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in the United States in 2025, where it received a Special Jury Award. The film also won a BAFTA. This marks the third time in recent years that a film critical of the Russian government has won the award, following Navalny in 2023 and 20 Days in Mariupol in 2024.

In March, the film won the Oscar for best documentary feature.

Several Ukrainian Telegram channels, as well as a large Russian Telegram channel that reports on the country’s shipping and seafaring industry, have published videos (1, 2, 3) that they say show a fire at the Baltic port of Ust-Luga in Russia’s Leningrad Region.

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The location of the footage is confirmed by comparison with publicly available satellite images, as the videos show distinctive storage tanks and industrial installations that match the port’s infrastructure. The presence of a fire in the area has also been detected by NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), a free web mapping platform which tracks thermal anomalies.

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On March 25, Ukrainian channels published photos of a burning port with ships visible in the background, claiming the location was Ust-Luga. In one of the images, the word “Capital” can be seen on the side of a vessel. These markings are used on tankers operated by CAPITAL SHIP MANAGEMENT CORP., whose fleet includes 17 vessels, The Insider found.

One of the company’s tankers, AISOPOS (IMO: 9987029), was in Ust-Luga the day before and carries the same “Capital” marking on its hull. As of March 26 at 11:40 a.m. Moscow time (4:40 a.m. EDT), it had last transmitted an AIS signal about an hour and a half prior. The open source intelligence (OSINT) project GeoConfirmed said it had verified the location and that the site is indeed Ust-Luga (location).

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On the eve of March 25, the same outlet confirmed the attack on Ust-Luga, posting video filmed from a different angle.

At least 40% of Russia’s oil export capacity is offline according to recent calculations by the Reuters news agency — the result of Ukrainian drone strikes, the seizure of tankers by Western countries, and damage caused to the Druzhba pipeline by Russian strikes on Ukrainian territory.

The disruption amounts to the most severe hit to Russian oil supplies in the country’s modern history. It comes just as oil prices have risen above $100 a barrel amid the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.

It is unclear exactly when the attack on the vessel took place. Data from the ship-tracking service MarineTraffic suggests the tanker significantly reduced its speed near the Bosphorus on the evening of March 25.

NTV said the captain’s bridge was damaged, and that the engine room was flooded with water. None of the 27 crew members were injured.

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The tanker departed from Novorossiysk on March 22 carrying 1 million barrels of Russian Urals crude, according to a report by Bloomberg.

The vessel was sailing under the flag of Sierra Leone, while its manager is the Turkish company Pergamon Denizcilik Isletmeler. The tanker itself is under European Union and UK sanctions for its suspected role in Russia’s “shadow fleet.”

“Putin is rubbing his hands at the war in the Middle East because he thinks higher oil prices will let him line his pockets. That’s why we’re going after his shadow fleet even harder, not just keeping Britain safe but starving Putin’s war machine of the dirty profits that fund his barbaric campaign in Ukraine,” Starmer said.

Starmer is due in Helsinki for a Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) summit on March 26. The topics of regional security and possible measures to counter Russian aggression are expected to be discussed.

“A number of JEF allies, including Finland, Sweden, and Estonia, have carried out recent operations against suspected illegal shadow fleet vessels in the Baltic, closing off critical maritime routes to Russia’s malign operation,” the statement continued, adding that the Royal Navy has helped allies track several “shadow fleet” vessels in recent weeks, enabling them to be intercepted in European and Mediterranean waters.

The English Channel is one of the waterways that Britain is closing to vessels under sanctions. The UK government said it expects the move to force operators to “divert to longer, financially painful routes, or risk being detained by British forces.”

The UK military has been monitoring the “shadow fleet” for several years. After a successful U.S. operation to seize the tanker Bella 1 (IMO 9230880) was carried out with British support in early January, ministers ordered plans to be drawn up for similar operations against other Russian “shadow fleet” ships.

The note from Iran’s Foreign Ministry was sent as early as Sunday, March 15. It said civilian vessels may use the Strait of Hormuz provided that they coordinate passage with Tehran in advance:

"Non-hostile vessels, ​including those belonging to or associated with other States, may — provided ​that they neither participate in nor support acts of aggression against Iran and ‌fully ⁠comply with the declared safety and security regulations — benefit from safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz in coordination with the competent Iranian authorities," it read.

The Financial Times also reported on the note.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi later clarified that passage was allowed for ships from countries that Tehran “determined are our friends.” He listed China, Russia, India, Iraq and Pakistan as examples. “There is no reason to allow our enemy to cross the strait,” Iran’s Tasnim news agency quoted him as saying.

Since the start of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has largely ground to a halt due to the threat of attacks on commercial vessels. Under normal circumstances, around one-fifth of global oil and liquefied gas trade passes through the strait.

In recent days, however, Iran has allowed a small number of vessels to pass through the Strait of Hormuz via a corridor near Larak Island. The industry publication Lloyd’s List reported earlier this week that at least 20 vessels were known to have used the route — most were from Greece, though others were from India, Pakistan, Syria, and Iran. There has also been at least one known case in which a container ship owned by a Chinese company paid Iran for safe passage.

Over the past four weeks (ending March 22), Russian exporters shipped 3.6 million barrels per day, and from March 16 to 22 alone, 37 tankers moved 28.5 million barrels of Russian oil. Since deliveries to India resumed, Russia has been exporting 1.4 million barrels a day to the country.

As economist Vladislav Inozemtsev of the Center for Analysis and Strategies in Europe told The Insider, if current oil prices persist until the summer, Moscow may avoid running a federal budget deficit. However, Russia is still highly unlikely to salvage its struggling economy.

“Russia is benefiting from this war in every respect. While the average oil export price in February was $41.5 per barrel, on certain days in March it exceeded $100. Admittedly, contracts are concluded with a certain delay, and what was sold in March will be shipped and paid for in April. But I believe in March we will likely see a 60% increase in oil exports in dollar terms — and a 90% increase in April, compared to February.

The surge will bring substantial revenue to the budget, which already received about 400 billion rubles, or roughly $4.7 billion, in oil and gas revenues in February. I have no doubt that the new deals will add at least another $3–4 billion.

If these prices persist until June, the budget adopted last year will be balanced  — or perhaps even in a better state than planned. There will be no excessive deficit. In addition to rising oil prices, a weaker ruble will also contribute.

The question is whether this will affect the Russian economy. I would say not. True, revenues will increase, but they will all be used to cover the deficit instead of bringing about any significant improvement. There will be no tax relief or reductions. All of the extra money will go toward balancing the budget, and whatever is left will be directed to the war. The situation is similar to that of 2023, when the budget saw significant additional revenues, but they were all allocated to the military by the end of the year. We will likely see the same outcome again. The surplus will help the budget, but not the economy.”

For his part, Vladimir Putin said on March 23 that oil companies should use the windfall revenues from high oil prices to repay debts: “Russian oil and gas companies should consider directing additional income from rising global hydrocarbon prices toward reducing their debt burden and repaying obligations to domestic banks.” The central bank supported the idea, commenting that “this is indeed a very reasonable approach in the current situation.”

Meanwhile, according to economist Ruben Enikolopov of Pompeu Fabra University, oil prices would need to remain above $100 per barrel in order to close the gap in the Russian budget.

“Naturally, rising prices will help the budget. The question is how large that money is compared to the budget gap. If prices remain above $100 per barrel, that would be good news for the Russian budget. I am not sure this will help the Russian economy, because it has significant problems — even Putin has acknowledged an economic contraction. Oil money cannot plug this gap. This is a very important factor, and the question is how long such prices will last. The [Iran] conflict is unpredictable, as there is no logic to it.”

According to the police, at least one of those detained holds U.S. citizenship. Two of the suspects have been charged with a terrorist act and participation in a terrorist group.

Police stated that the court fully granted the prosecutor’s motion to continue holding the suspects, as all three were recognized to pose a risk of flight, collusion, and continued criminal activity. Law enforcement officials stressed that there are currently no signs of a new threat to the public; however, the search for other suspects is ongoing, in cooperation with foreign partners.

One of the defendants shouted “Free Palestine!” to journalists, while supporters gathered outside the courthouse with Palestinian flags and keffiyehs. As the defendants were being escorted out of the building, the protesters shouted words of encouragement to them. Czech authorities have not yet disclosed the identities of the suspects, apart from their citizenship.

On the same day, the Earthquake Faction, the group that claimed responsibility for the arson, released a second communiqué. It demanded that LPP Holding publicly sever all ties with Israel’s Elbit Systems by April 20 and that it condemn the “occupation of Palestine,” threatening to publish allegedly stolen internal company documents if the firm did not comply. LPP Holding had previously denied cooperating with Elbit Systems or producing drones for Israel at the site that suffered the arson attack. In its latest statement, LPP asserted that the damaged buildings housed no production equipment for Elbit drones nor for its own MTS drones, but instead contained administrative and warehouse spaces, as well as facilities for the production and modernization of other equipment. The company said it had complied with security requirements and, following the attack, strengthened security measures.

Meanwhile, Earthquake Faction’s claims about the theft of “classified” documents remain unconfirmed. While a video does show attackers taking papers from desks, there is no evidence of their value or content.

The company has stated that the fire did not affect the supply of MTS 40 strike drones to Ukraine. According to Czech media, the damage may amount to several million dollars. Investigators are treating the incident as a terrorist act.