Russian forces launched a large-scale overnight attack on Ukraine on May 24, using drones, ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as the Oreshnik missile system. A day earlier, officials in Kyiv had warned that Russia was preparing to deploy the weapon following a Ukrainian strike on a college in th…
Apple removed 2,045 apps from the App Store in 2025 at the request of government authorities — in more than half of those cases, at the direction of Roskomnadzor. The figures come from Apple’s annual transparency report, which the independent Russian investigative outlet iStories was among the first…
Russia’s consumer safety watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, has suspended sales of alcoholic products from three Armenian companies.
Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya arrived in Kyiv on the morning of May 25 for her first official visit.
Ukrainian drones struck Russia’s Yaroslavl region overnight on May 25, prompting authorities to close the highway out of the city toward Moscow, regional Governor Mikhail Yevrayev said.
Kazakhstan will not enforce a ruling by the Astana International Financial Centre court that recognized Ukraine’s Naftogaz’s right to collect $1.4 billion from Russia’s Gazprom, Justice Minister Yerlan Sarsenbaev said.
Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev), the former head of the Department of External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, has been detained in the Czech city of Karlovy Vary, according to his Telegram channel.
The Kremlin said director Andrey Zvyagintsev has “no right” to call for an end to Russia’s war with Ukraine.
Russia’s Federal Security Service said magnetic mines were found on the hull of the gas tanker Arrhenius after the vessel arrived at the Russian port of Ust-Luga in the Leningrad region from Antwerp.
Civilian aircraft will be barred from flying below 5,100 meters (16,700 feet) in the Moscow air zone starting in early June, according to the Telegram channel of the Interregional Public Organization of Pilots and Aircraft Owners (AOPA).
Russian officials and bankers are privately debating three likely candidates to succeed Elvira Nabiullina as head of Russia’s central bank, the independent Russian news outlet The Bell reports. Her term expires on June 24, 2027.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry warned that Russian armed forces would strike defense enterprises, “decision-making centers,” and command posts in Kyiv in retaliation for a strike on a dormitory in the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic.
Vladimir Putin has signed a law giving the president authority to deploy the armed forces to protect Russian citizens abroad.
It has long been known that the Russian messenger Max is an unreliable and even dangerous service that constantly spies on its users. But IT specialists continue to find new vulnerabilities and surveillance tools in the app. In mid-May, a user of the IT site Habr shared the results of his own analys…
Thirteen-year-old figure skater Alexander Plushenko is changing his sporting citizenship and will now compete for Azerbaijan. This is a common practice among figure skaters who feel they have little chance of making the Russian national team — they switch to countries where figure skating is less de…
VTB bank chief Andrei Kostin closed his remarks at a conference of the Association of Russian Banks with a joke about an 80-year-old man who visits his doctor to complain about a ringing in his ears. The radio station BFM published video of Kostin’s appearance.
Hungary is withdrawing its notice to leave the International Criminal Court, Prime Minister Peter Magyar announced. He also said Hungary is banning imports of agricultural products from Ukraine.
Security personnel raided the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences as part of a fraud investigation into funds allocated for a translation of Aristotle. The pro-government Telegram channels Zapiski Traditsionalista (“Notes of a Traditionalist”) and AGDChan — the latter linked t…
St. Petersburg State University has ordered students and staff to use the Max messenger as its internal communications platform “for online communication and information sharing,” the independent Russian news outlet T-invariant reported.
Vladimir Putin called a strike on a college dormitory in Starobilsk, in the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (“LNR”), a terrorist attack and ordered Russia’s Defense Ministry to submit proposals for a response.
Independent gas station chains, which handle about 40% of fuel sales in Russia, can no longer restock their gasoline supplies. Chats used by oil traders and managers at those chains are “in a panic,” the independent Russian news outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe reported.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andriy Sibiga, said the full-scale war with Russia has reached a “pivotal moment” and that pressure on Moscow is growing. He spoke at a meeting with NATO foreign ministers in Sweden on May 21.
Police in an unidentified Russian region filed reports against a 13-year-old boy on charges of “LGBT promotion” and displaying extremist symbols, the independent Russian news outlet Mediazona reported.
A committee of Russia’s State Duma has recommended advancing a bill that would make Russian citizens liable for “committing offenses against Russia’s interests abroad.”
Ukraine’s General Staff has dismissed Russian claims that Ukrainian forces struck civilian infrastructure in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine as “manipulative.”
Thirty-five students were injured when a strike hit a college building and dormitory in Starobilsk, in the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Luhansk region, according to local officials.
Ukrainian drones struck Yaroslavl overnight on May 22, prompting authorities to close the road toward Moscow at the intersection of Moskovsky Prospekt and the Southwestern Ring Road.
Vladimir Putin’s approval rating fell to its lowest point in a year in mid-May, according to a poll whose results were presented on May 22 by one of Russia’s leading polling organizations, the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM).
A Ukrainian drone strike in the early hours of May 20 knocked out the main crude distillation unit at the Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez refinery in Kstovo, Nizhny Novgorod region, the Reuters news agency reported, citing two industry sources familiar with the situation.
Russia’s Figure Skating Federation has granted 13-year-old skater Alexander Plushenko permission to compete for Azerbaijan, the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported, citing sources. Plushenko could represent Azerbaijan at international competitions as early as next season, the agency said.
Workers have begun pulling up the plastic lavender from Lubyanka Square, an installation that drew divided reactions from Muscovites. The Russian news outlet Msk1.ru published video footage from the square showing the artificial flowers being replaced with pots of what appear to be live plants.
Over the past several days, Russian Telegram channels and pro-Kremlin commentators have reported that several people connected to the Spiritual Administration of Muslims (SAM) of Russia have been detained. It has been officially confirmed that two people were detained: the Mufti of Mordovia, Rail As…
A Russian strike on Dnipro wounded at least 14 people, Dnipropetrovsk region administration head Oleksandr Hanzha said.
A Moscow lawyer named Igor Popovsky has been detained on fraud charges, according to the Russian security services-linked Telegram channels Baza and 112 and the Federal Investigative Committee, which has not identified the detainee by name.
The Astana International Financial Centre Court authorized enforcement on Kazakhstan’s territory of an international arbitration ruling ordering Gazprom to pay $1.4 billion to Ukraine’s Naftogaz.
Russia and Belarus launched a joint nuclear forces exercise on the afternoon of May 21. Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko watched via video link.
Three sources in Russia’s telecom industry told the Russian business news outlet RBC that the deadline for introducing an additional charge for mobile data consumption of more than 15 gigabytes of international traffic per month would be delayed.
Three Russian Railways employees were killed when a Ukrainian drone struck a switcher locomotive at Unecha station in the Bryansk region, the company said.
The Kremlin sees no risk of a fuel shortage from Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil refineries, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys gave a wide-ranging interview that drew sharp criticism from Russian politicians over his remarks about Kaliningrad. Moscow called his words “madness.” The interview was published in the Swiss newspaper Neue Zurcher Zeitung on May 18. Here is what the mini…
Two people were killed and several others wounded in a Ukrainian drone strike on Syzran, Samara region Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said, without providing further details.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said troops delivered munitions to field positions of a missile brigade in Belarus as part of nuclear exercises.
Two schools in the Tomsk region have banned students from wearing clothing with foreign-language inscriptions.
Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping held talks in Beijing on May 20. The two leaders signed roughly 40 documents, including a joint declaration “on the formation of a multipolar world and international relations of a new type” and a joint statement “on further strengthening comprehensive partnership and s…
Latvia’s National Armed Forces (NBS) reported that at least one drone had entered the country’s airspace — the third consecutive day such an incident has occurred.
Ukraine’s Security Service announced “enhanced security measures” across the country’s northern regions to “prevent enemy infiltration” and head off sabotage in border areas.
China will extend visa-free entry for Russian citizens through December 31, 2027, Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun announced on May 20.
Vadim Pokrovsky, a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences who spent his career fighting AIDS, has died at 71.
Timur Mindich, a businessman and close associate of Volodymyr Zelensky who is the central figure in the Energoatom embezzlement case, has gone to court to challenge a Ukrainian presidential decree imposing sanctions on him, filed November 13, 2025.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met in Beijing on the morning of May 20.
Ukrainian drones struck Kstovo, a city in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region, overnight on May 20. Astra published footage showing the drones flying near residential buildings.
A Russian strike on Dnipro overnight on May 20 killed two people and wounded six others, three of them critically, Oleksandr Hanzha, the head of the regional military administration, said. A food warehouse and private homes were also damaged, he added.
Lithuania’s Defense Ministry declared a “yellow” alert on the morning of May 20 after a drone approached from Belarus — a level indicating an attack was considered likely, though not the highest, “red” level, which would indicate an attack was underway, the news outlet Delfi reported.
In the early hours of May 17, Ukraine launched a massive drone strike on the Moscow area, killing three people and wounding 16. Two districts of the capital were hit: Kapotnya and Zelenograd. The first is home to a large oil refinery; the second houses several strategic facilities linked to Russia’s…
Armed men wearing masks and camouflage and carrying sledgehammers stormed the offices of the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets on May 19, looking for the Consortium of Medical Technology, the paper’s chief financial officer, Yekaterina Chereshnikova, said.
State Duma deputy Sergei Neverov has dropped out of the United Russia primary in the Smolensk single-member district. A second candidate then followed — Artem Kornyuchenkov, a deputy on the Smolensk City Council and a veteran of the war in Ukraine.
Arian Romanovsky, the former editor-in-chief of Tatler’s Russian edition who was convicted of extorting Rostec head Sergei Chemezov, has been released from prison.
TikTok has banned a wave of accounts that promoted “Alabuga Polytech” in Tatarstan. Blogger Alexey Gubanov was among the first to flag the bans.
On May 19, Latvia’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian Embassy’s chargé d’affaires ad interim, Dmitry Kasatkin, and lodged a formal protest against Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service for claiming that Ukraine plans to launch drones from Latvian territory.
Director Andrey Zvyagintsev premiered his new film Minotaur at the 79th Cannes Film Festival — his first feature in nearly a decade.
Russia’s Armed Forces are conducting nuclear readiness drills from May 19 to 21, simulating conditions of an imminent threat of aggression, the Defense Ministry announced.
Residents of the Beryozovy neighborhood outside Irkutsk have asked Russia’s Foreign Ministry to appeal to Chinese President Xi Jinping to build them a school “within the framework of ethnocultural diversity and the active development of cultural ties with China.”
A State Duma deputy from the Novosibirsk region representing Russia’s Communist Party (KPRF) said Russia must bring the war in Ukraine to “the swiftest possible end” because the country’s economy “won’t survive a prolonged special military operation.” The deputy, Renat Suleymanov, made the remarks i…
Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) said Ukrainian forces are planning to launch drones against targets in Russia from Latvian territory.
The Russian ruble was the world’s best-performing currency against the U.S. dollar in the second quarter of 2026, the Bloomberg news agency reported.
Estonian air defense forces shot down a drone over Lake Vortsjärv on the morning of May 19 after it entered the country’s airspace, Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur told Delfi. “This is the first time we have shot down a drone ourselves,” he said.
Ukraine has apologized to Estonia after a drone entered Estonian airspace and was shot down by a fighter jet. Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi posted the apology on social media platform X.
About 200 Russian military personnel trained in China in late 2025 under a secret bilateral agreement, Reuters reported, citing documents and sources in three European intelligence services.
Russian Orthodox Church priests held a prayer service in Perm and drove through the city with the “Permskaya” icon of the Mother of God to protect it from Ukrainian drone attacks, the pro-Kremlin Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda – Perm reported, citing the local diocese.
Russians will have nonstop service to 31–32 countries this summer — 25% fewer than airlines offered in their winter schedules and a third of what the Soviet Union provided during the Iron Curtain era, the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR) said.
Dagestan’s Supreme Court has sentenced former State Duma deputy Magomed Gadzhiyev in absentia to life in a maximum-security prison for organizing a double murder and extortion, the press service of Dagestan’s courts reported. He was also fined 900,000 rubles.
Prosecutors in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District found no violations of political prisoner Azat Miftakhov’s rights, despite his reports of torture at Penal Colony No. 18 “Polyarnaya Sova,” his support group said.
Municipal workers in Yekaterinburg have painted over a “Game over” graffiti mural near a residential building recently struck by a Ukrainian drone. The image — depicting a girl in VR goggles holding a controller — appeared on May 16.
The assets of Russia’s central bank frozen at the Belgian depositary Euroclear under international sanctions remain blocked, Euroclear said in a statement.
Growth in Russia’s online grocery sales slowed sharply in the first quarter of 2026, the Russian business daily Kommersant reported, citing figures from the information and consulting agency Infoline.
Russia’s Supreme Court has received its first lawsuit challenging a law that restricts benefits for the unmarried partners of fallen Russian soldiers, the Russian business daily Kommersant reported.
Belarus’s Defense Ministry has announced exercises for units responsible for the combat use and logistical support of nuclear weapons.
Ukrainian drones struck Tuapse in the early hours of April 16 — the first in a series of large-scale attacks on the Tuapse oil refinery and the Rosneft marine terminal that together caused an environmental disaster in the city.
Alexander Butyagin, a St. Petersburg archaeologist and Hermitage Museum researcher, was arrested in Warsaw in late 2025. He was detained at Ukraine’s request, which alleges that after 2014 he conducted illegal excavations in Crimea and destroyed a cultural heritage site. In April, the archaeologist …
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov urged reporters to “pay particular attention to the unrelenting strikes by Ukraine’s armed forces using drones against civilian targets and civilian infrastructure in various Russian cities and towns,” according to the Telegram channel Vy Slushali (“You Were Listening…
A 45-year-old entrepreneur from the Leningrad region climbed onto the Great Imperial Throne at the Hermitage on May 17, sat down, and read aloud an address to Vladimir Putin. The St. Petersburg-based news outlet Fontanka and other outlets reported on the incident.
Many Russian soldiers unwilling to fight in Ukraine are deserting and then turning themselves in, seeking prosecution and imprisonment to avoid being sent back to the front. As the independent Russian news outlet Mediazona reports, some are even hiring lawyers to persuade investigators to open crimi…
Russia’s national television networks almost entirely ignored the largest Ukrainian drone attack on the Moscow area since the start of the war. The attack, which took place overnight on May 17, killed three people and wounded 16 more. Several days before the strike, Moscow authorities introduced a b…
Residents near the village of Samane in Lithuania’s northeastern Utena district found a Ukrainian drone in a field, the Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT reported, citing the Crisis Management Center.
In the early hours of May 17, Ukrainian drones attacked Moscow and the Moscow region. Ukrainian channels have called the strike on the capital region the largest since the start of the full-scale war. Moscow and regional authorities say three people were killed and 16 were injured. Two oil industry …
The Moscow Choral Synagogue has invited its congregants to appear in a four-part television series about Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Joseph Stalin.
Russia’s three main state television channels — Channel One, Russia-1, and NTV — played down one of the largest Ukrainian drone strikes on Moscow, the independent Russian investigative outlet Agentstvo reported on May 17.
Russian forces struck Dnipro with missiles overnight on May 18, damaging apartment buildings, private homes, a religious institution, a university, and an industrial facility, said Oleksandr Hanzha, the head of the regional military administration.
The International Gymnastics Federation has lifted its ban on athletes from Russia and Belarus, allowing them to compete under their national flag and anthem. The restrictions had been in place since February 2022.
Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court has approved a 140 million hryvnia bail for Andriy Yermak, the former chief of staff to the Ukrainian president, the Ukrainian news agency UNIAN reported.
Russia’s largest nationalist organization, Russkaya Obshchina — whose members target migrants and LGBTQ+ people — is funded by foundations linked to pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Mikheyev and billionaire Igor Khudokormov. BBC Eye journalists reached that conclusion after reviewing the organiz…
Ukrainian drones struck Ryazan overnight on May 15. Governor Pavel Malkov said two multi-story residential buildings in the city were damaged, and drone debris fell on the grounds of an industrial facility. Four people were killed, including a child, and 12 more were injured. The strike sparked a fi…
Pussy Riot has been added to the list of “terrorists and extremists” maintained by Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service. The independent Russian news outlet Vot Tak was among the first to notice the change.
Russian online marketplaces saw user activity and sales decline after they began blocking VPN users in April, the Russian business daily Kommersant reported, citing a study by Digital Budget.
Andriy Yermak, the former head of the Ukrainian president’s office, will remain in pretrial detention through the weekend — bail has not yet been posted on his behalf, the Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainska Pravda reports.
A Russian court has sentenced two men to lengthy prison terms in a plot to poison food supplies bound for fighters of “Espanyola”, the Telegram news channel Ostorozhno Novosti reported. Nikita Krasilnikov, 22, received 16 years, while Rinat Ilyin, 20, received 15.
Vladimir Putin has signed a presidential decree opening a simplified path to Russian citizenship for residents of Transnistria, the breakaway republic within Moldova’s internationally recognized borders.
Russia’s Supreme Court has submitted a bill to the State Duma that would reduce prison sentences for acquiring and storing drugs in large and especially large quantities without intent to distribute. The bill has been published on the lower house’s website.
Child welfare authorities in the Irkutsk region removed five children from their mother’s care after she filmed herself performing oral sex on her six-year-old son while her adult boyfriend also participated, journalist Ksenia Sobchak and the independent news outlet People of Baikal reported.
A Ukrainian Armed Forces drone struck a multi-story residential building in Russia’s Belgorod region, the local emergency operations center reported on Friday. The Telegram channel Pepel (Ashes) identified the building as being on Vokzalnaya Street.
A new poll by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM), published on May 15, put the president’s approval at 66.8% for the period from May 4 to 10 — up 1.2 percentage points from the previous poll, which covered April 13–19.
Two days after the end of a truce that ran from May 9 to 11, Russian forces launched a massive strike on Ukraine, deploying 670 attack drones and 56 missiles. In Kyiv’s Darnytskyi district, a section of a residential building — floors one through nine — collapsed in the attack, destroying 18 apartme…
The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers, meeting in Chisinau, approved an agreement to establish a steering committee for the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine.
Russia and Ukraine each returned 205 prisoners, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced on Friday.
Nina Litvinova, a longtime Russian dissident and human rights activist, took her own life in Moscow. Journalist Masha Slonim, Litvinova’s cousin, published an excerpt from her suicide note on Facebook on May 14.
A Moscow arbitration court has ordered the Belgian depositary Euroclear to pay 18.17 trillion rubles (200 billion euros) in damages, fully granting Russia’s central bank’s claim, Sergei Savelyev, a representative of the defendant, told the Russian business outlet RBC.
Russia’s war against Ukraine has begun to affect Northern Europe directly. Ukrainian forces launch drones against Russian oil refineries in the St. Petersburg region almost daily, and those drones are increasingly appearing in the airspace of the Baltic states and Finland. Russian pro-war social med…
Colonel General Alexander Lapin, who commanded the Central and Leningrad military districts, is under consideration to serve as chairman of the defense committee in the incoming State Duma, the Russian business daily Kommersant reports, citing sources in the lower house of parliament and in United R…
Some 209,000 small and medium-sized businesses closed in Russia between January and March 2026 — nearly 9% more than in the same period of 2025, Forbes Russia reported, citing data from the business analytics service Kontur.Focus. Russia has a total of 6.9 million such businesses.