Simon Pirani: What’s Left of the Left When It Comes to Ukraine?

What, really, have socialists learned from the Russian war on Ukraine? Has it changed our understanding of the way that imperialism works? Tell us we were right all along?

Reflecting on the first four years since the invasion, Oleksandr Kyselov, a Ukrainian socialist based in Sweden, wrote in February that Ukrainians found themselves “trying to safeguard our future free from foreign dictates, and simultaneously sacrificing any chances to actually have one”.

Subjected to polarising propaganda, exposed to the attacks by Russian ‘liberators’ on our homes and core infrastructure, watching arrogant sticky-fingered moralising elites surprisingly exempt from ‘common duty’, learning about a striking dependence of our ability to fight back on the political expediencies abroad, we may find out that a fragile ‘least unjust peace’ is the best we can get.

And still, even seeing all of this, too many of the European left are busy stretching familiar old frameworks over a changed world. As if continuing to hope that, should they just deny, condemn, and denounce loudly enough, selectively pontificating about internationalism while reinforcing the borders of their national units, they will be spared the new reality of the world.

This reinforced my scepticism about “the left” as a category. Its historic failure to consider, or draw lessons from, the tragedy of the Syrian revolution, emptied the term of much meaning. That’s how I saw it nine years ago, anyway – and Ukraine has made things worse.

Demonstrators outside a court in Moscow, where Lidia Moniava, founder of a children’s hospice, was on trial for social media posts about the war. Photo from Bereg

This, in turn, raises another question. What about those sections of the “left” claiming to be Marxists? Can we seriously use the term “Marxist” to describe people who, during the largest military conflict of our lifetimes in Europe, have – as Kyselov puts it – kept denying, condemning and denouncing, in the hope of being “spared the new reality”?

I do not have a comprehensive answer to that. But here’s a contribution: comments on a lengthy article about “geopolitical fractures and the Marxist critique of imperialism” by Alex Callinicos, a well-known Marxist writer. I read it, hoping to find the theoretical underpinnings of the political stance of the Socialist Workers Party, of which Callinicos is a member, on the war. The SWP recognises Ukrainians’ right to resist the Russian invasion in words, but opposes it in practice (see Feature 5 below); since 2022, it has called for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine, but did not do so during the eight years (2014–22) that they propped up the tinpot Donbass dictatorships.

Callinicos deals with imperialism as a global phenomenon, referring as examples to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine. My comments focus only on Ukraine, and what that tells us about imperialism generally. Five features of his analysis stood out for me.

Feature 1. Callinicos dissolves the particular into the general.

Callinicos writes:

February 2022 [i.e. the all-out invasion of Ukraine] marked another, more threatening step-change in this conflict [between the western powers on one side and China-Russia on the other], with the outbreak of a major war on the European continent and the polarisation of the state system resulting from the mobilisation of [‘liberal internationalist’ scholar G. John] Ikenberry’s ‘global West’ behind Ukraine and China’s support for Russia. Rather than treat this fracturing of the international system as a series of discrete events, it is better to understand it as a developing global process of confrontation among the main imperialist powers. (My emphasis, SP.)

This is important, methodologically, in my view.

Surely the “global process of confrontation” is actually made up of “a series of discrete events”. Surely, our understanding of any global process has to be rooted in a convincing analysis of its parts. Instead of this, Callinicos proceeds from his understanding of the global process – a clash of imperialist camps – and, where the parts don’t fit, presents a flawed and inaccurate view of them.

Feature 2. Callinicos imagines an “expansion of Russian power” that does not accord with reality.

Callinicos sees Russia not as a declining empire, or as a subimperialist power with aspects of dependence on global capital, but as a would-be great power. He approvingly quotes Sergey Radchenko, who writes that “even though the Soviet Union collapsed under its own weight, its successor, Russia, still eyed a position of prominence in the global order”, and goes on to claim that Putin

[…] used Russia’s position in the global economy as one of the main energy producers to rebuild its military power and geopolitical influence externally.

Callinicos then surveys the activities of the Russian armed forces and the Wagner group in  the Middle East and Africa, and asks, “What made possible this expansion of Russian power into MENA and beyond?” Answer: two “interconnected determinants”: (1) Russia exploited a gap left by the Obama administration’s efforts, after defeat in Iraq, to reduce US involvement in the Middle East; (2) regional powers based in the Middle East (Israel, Saudi Arabia and others) have become more self-assertive “with the emergence of new centres of capital accumulation in the region”; “global energy production adds a further dimension to these interstate manoeuvres”; and “Russia figures as an important partner to Saudi Arabia in the OPEC+ cartel”.

This creates the impression that over the past two decades Russian imperialism has become stronger. In reality, the opposite is true.

First: Russia’s position as a big energy producer is in many respects a source of weakness, not strength. In the early 2000s, Russia consolidated its position in the global economy as a highly dependent exporter of oil, gas and metals. Low oil prices in the 1990s exacerbated the post-Soviet economic crisis; in 2000-08, Russian capitalism strengthened as those prices rose, but the 2008 crash, and falling prices, exposed its extreme vulnerability.

Azerbaijan and its oil had been lost to Russia in the 1990s; in the 2000s it was replaced as the economically dominant power in central Asia by China and the western powers. And it was losing ground to the European powers in Belarus, the Baltic states, and of course Ukraine. The Russian elite was well aware of this and obsessed throughout the 2000s about the dangers of dependence on oil revenues and the need to diversify the economy. That did not happen.

It could be argued that Russia’s dependence on commodities revenues was a key factor that eroded its “great power” status. To suggest, as Callinicos does, that its status as an energy producer enhanced that status is mistaken.

Second: as for Russia’s military adventures in the Middle East and Africa, look how they ended. Bashar al-Assad’s regime was toppled in Syria, in large part because Russia was unable and/or unwilling to provide the military support needed to protect him.

Putin faced the Maidan uprising in Ukraine in 2014 as the leader not of a power gaining in economic or political strength, but of a weakening power that had to compensate for its subordinate position in the global economy, and the fragility of its social base at home, by ramping up nationalist rhetoric and shifting towards a more authoritarian method of rule.

It is noteworthy that Rob Ferguson, another writer in SWP publications, does not share Callinicos’s eccentric view of Russian power. In 2022, he concluded, in an analytical article – with a measure of understatement, but still – that “Russia’s energy and raw material base was still insufficient to overcome the vast disparity in economic and military power with NATO – as well as China”. This, Ferguson argued, “intensified the pressure on the Russian state to demarcate its regional hegemony, putting the question of the states along the Eurasian faultline at the fore of Russia’s concerns”.[1]

Feature 3. Callinicos imagines western military support for Ukraine as a cause, not an effect.

Proceeding from the general (“global process of confrontation”) to the particular (“a discrete series of events”), Callinicos presents a version of one aspect of these events – western military support for Ukraine – that does not bear serious scrutiny. Referring to the all-out invasion of 2022, he writes:

The war itself thus represented a radicalisation of the global struggle that was already developing between Washington, Beijing and Moscow.

He then qualifies that statement, in three sentences that I deal with below (Feature 4), where he acknowledges that “traditional Great Russian nationalism” may have played a part in causing the war, but hastily insisting that it is “no simple struggle for self-determination”. And then he writes:

The US and other Western powers were heavily involved in training and supporting the Ukrainian military from 2014-15 onwards.

Then he quotes newspaper articles detailing cooperation between the Ukrainian intelligence services and the CIA in gathering intelligence on Russia. And then:

The massive surge in weapons supplies to Ukraine by the NATO powers and closely aligned states such as Australia must be seen in this context. From the Western side, the Ukraine conflict has been a proxy war waged to weaken and drain a potential challenger, an inter-imperialist conflict in the kind of terms that Lenin and Luxemburg characterised in the first world war.

This is playing ducks and drakes with reality. Its inclusion in a theoretical article shows how shaky its foundations are.

For a start, the intelligence operations referred to are only one part of a larger picture. From 2014 Ukraine was fighting a war, the prosecution of which required not just intelligence but heavy weapons. It received utterly negligible supplies of these from the western powers until 2022. As the chart shows, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute registered US arms exports to Ukraine as zero until 2015. Note that the chart, sourced from SIPRI’s database, measures exports with the institute’s standard method, the trend-indicator value (TIV).[2] In 2015 US arms supplies to Ukraine were 4 TIVs, compared e.g. with 92 TIVs to Greece and 112 TIVs to Norway. In 2021, when all those CIA agents referred to were well aware of the Russian troop build-up on Ukraine’s border, US arms exports to Ukraine remained negligible: 20 TIVs compared with 39 TIVs to Canada and 139 TIVs to Singapore.

The graph shows US arms exports to Ukraine, with those to Saudi Arabia, Israel and Singapore included for comparison. The table shows the top 20 recipients of US arms exports in 1993–2025; even including three years of war (2022–25), Ukraine only gets to 16th place.

The negligible level of western arms supply to Ukraine between 2014 and 2021, when it was fighting a defensive war against a larger aggressor, was preceded by more than two decades during which (1) in 1994 the US helped to convince Ukraine to give up its nuclear arsenal, (2) NATO accepted eastern European countries into membership, and (3) NATO forces in Europe were substantially reduced from cold war levels (the number of US tanks in Germany fell from 5000 in 1990 to zero in 2013).

Callinicos says the US and UK are “training and supporting the Ukrainian military”, without saying that this “support” included starving Ukraine of weapons supplies. He refers to a “massive surge in weapons supplies”, but omits that this was a reaction to the 2022 invasion. Cause and effect are reversed. Such game-playing does not deserve to be taken seriously. 

Feature 4. Callinicos refers only once, and in passing, to the social dynamics in Ukraine, and in Russia, during the period under discussion.

Having stated that the 2022 invasion was a “radicalisation of the global struggle”, the next three sentences read:

Pace the [“realist” scholars John] Mearsheimer and [Sebastian] Rosato, the Russian invasion seems [“seems”!] not to have been simply an instrumentally rational response to NATO expansion and Ukraine’s increasingly close alignment with the US, but arises also from an ideological investment, certainly on Putin’s part, in traditional Great Russian nationalism that denies Ukraine a distinct identity. The assertion of that identity informed the Ukrainian national mobilisation that helped to block and push back the initial advance on Kyiv. But this war is no simple struggle for self-determination. 

This is the only reference to the Kremlin’s nationalism, and the only reference to Ukrainian society, in the entire article of 12,500+ words.

Callinicos does not even discuss the idea that the social turbulence reflected in the Maidan – from socially progressive, to pro-European, to outright reactionary – needs examining. Nor the social dynamics in Russia that have pushed the elite towards an authoritarian, near-fascist style of rule, and – in the view of many Marxist writers – towards all-out war.

Callinicos acknowledges that Ukraine’s assertion of “a distinct identity” “informed the national mobilisation”, but does not comment on what the significance of that might be, either historically or in the twenty-first century. He writes that the war is “no simple struggle for self-determination” (not many wars are “simple”), but only to return to his erroneous portrayal of the extent of western involvement.

This is where dissolving the particular into the general (see Feature 1 above) becomes a problem.

Would you look at Brexit as part of the “developing global process of confrontation among the main imperialist powers”, without also considering the social dynamics in the UK – the advance of neo-liberalism, the surge of right-wing populism, the travails of the labour movement, the effects of de-industrialisation and dependence on financial and service industries?

Would you look at the Malvinas war as part of the “developing global process of confrontation among the main imperialist powers”, without also considering the class struggles in Thatcher’s Britain and Galtieri’s Argentina?

What, then, is the credibility of an “analysis” of the Russian war on Ukraine that starts from a preconception about the “global process of confrontation”, and fails to mention the class struggle and other forms of social change in either Russia or Ukraine?

This approach says something about the development of Marxism, in my view. The stated aim of Callinicos’s article is to show how the Marxist critique of imperialism “can encompass empirically aspects of the present conjuncture that liberalism and realism are unable to account for”. He does not explain why the social forces at work in Ukraine, and in Russia, should not be treated as one of these aspects.

This not only holes his argument below the water-line in the ways I have mentioned. It also misses an important opportunity to engage with the body of serious Marxist scholarship – by Ilya Matveev (Russia), Daria Saburova (Ukraine), Yassin al-Haj Saleh (Syria), Kavita Krishnan and Rohini Hensman (India)[3] and many others – who see these social forces, and the Kremlin’s reaction to them, as central to the causes of the Russian war.

It would be a cheap shot to criticise Callinicos or anyone else for something they have not written, and that is not my point. Rather, that the reluctance to engage with other Marxists can only obstruct the development of Marxism as a living body of ideas.

Feature 5. Callinicos separates analysis from politics.

Of course many Marxists working in universities have in recent decades increasingly detached analysis of politically urgent issues from political commentary that might inform the labour movement and social movements. So this is a much wider problem than one for Callinicos alone. But in his article, published by a non-academic socialist journal, he takes this to an extreme.

The SWP, of which Callinicos is a member, (i) between 2014 and 2022, made no call for the withdrawal of Russian troops, and raised no challenge to those “lefts” who vigorously supported the Russian-backed tinpot dictatorships in the Donbas,[4] (ii) condemned the Russian invasion of 2022, but, along with post-Stalinists, portrayed NATO expansion as its primary cause, (iii) acknowledged the right of Ukrainians to defend themselves from invasion in words, but opposed it in practice, and (iv) supported calls in the UK labour movement to end arms supplies to Ukraine.

A drone workshop. Photo from Solidarity Collectives

It is worth considering what the SWP actually means by the Ukrainian people’s “right to resist the invasion”, as a statement by the international network they belong to put it, since this is combined with a demand on western governments for “no arms shipments to Ukraine!”

How are people to resist an invasion, without arms from western governments? Some people favour arms provided by civil society (inevitably a tiny supply compared to what the state provides). And so Ukrainians living abroad, and civil society groups, have raised millions of euros to support civil defence (drone factories, medical supplies, etc). Trade unionists and e.g. anarchist groups participate – but the SWP does not.[5]  

For some SWP members, the “right to resist the invasion” does not even extend as far as the right to ask for weapons, let alone to receive them.

For example, SWP members worked hard but unsuccessfully to defeat a resolution passed by the National Education Union conference in April last year, supporting not the export of arms to Ukraine by the UK government but “the right of Ukraine to self-defence and to resist Putin’s occupation, including the right to seek arms to defend itself”.

Similarly, when the Universities and Colleges Union conference decided in 2024 to endorse an appeal by the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine to western governments to send military aid, SWP members sought through conference procedure to block that call from being heard.[6]

Of what does the “right to resist the invasion” consist, if not of the right to ask for weapons, be it from western governments, Ukrainians abroad, or anyone else? This is not just about politics, but about socialist morality.

Callinicos does not comment on this in his article. Its function, rather, is to provide these damaging, and I would say immoral, politics, with a “theoretical” justification: the fragile, general assertions about the “global process of confrontation”, the false picture of Russian imperialism, the reversal of cause and effect, and the blank spot where society should be.

In my view, the development of Marxism as a meaningful approach to the problems that capitalism is throwing at us in the twenty-first century will mean rejecting this kind of imposition of political dogma on to analysis – what Kyselov calls “stretching familiar old frameworks over a changed world”. 7 September 2026

□ Thanks to Links journal for reposting this article.

[1] Robert Ferguson, “Imperialism, war and the Eurasian faultline”, International Socialism 175, June 2022.

[2] SIPRI has over decades of research developed the TIV as a common unit, “based on the known unit production costs of a core set of weapons and intended to represent the transfer of military resources rather than the financial value of the transfer”. There is a full explanation here.

[3] See, for example, Ilya Matveev, “The War in Ukraine and Russian Capital: from military-economic to full military imperialism” (Alameda Institute, 2023) and “Between Political and Economic Imperialism: Russia’s Shifting Global Strategy” (Journal of Labour and Society, 2021); Daria Saburova, Travailleuses de la résistance. Les classes populaires ukrainiennes face à la guerre (Autonomies, 2024); Yassin al-Haj Saleh, “Why Ukraine is a Syrian Cause” (Dawn, 2022); Kavita Krishnan, “Our indifference to Ukraine did harm to our struggle in India”, Commons, 2023; Rohini Hensman, Indefensible: Democracy, Counterrevolution, and the Rhetoric of Anti-Imperialism (Haymarket, 2018).

[4] In 2014, Eamonn McCann, for many years a leading figure in the SWP’s sister organisation in Ireland, argued that, with regard to Ukraine, “If we have to take sides […] Ireland should side with the Russians”. For the SWP’s newspaper, war crimes by Russia and its allies, e.g. the shooting down of the MH17 civilian aircraft, were to be blamed on “imperialist rivalry” (see also here and here).     

[5] I expressed my own view of these difficult issues e.g. here.

[6] For those interested in trade unions’ arcane conference procedures, see motion 29 (moved by pro-Ukrainian activists) and amendment 29A (moved by SWP members) here.

Source: Simon Pirani, “Russian empire, social dynamics and where Marxism goes from here,” People and Nature, 7 September 2026

The Realities of Russia’s Brutal War Against Ukraine and Europe

Independent war journalist and streamer Dylan Burns joins hosts Ryan Geddie and Adam Gurri to talk about his experience embedding in Ukraine since the early months of the war. They discuss his journalistic heroes, how radically the battlefield has changed since 2022 (and what it means to be “the most transparent battlefield in history”), the politics of military and foreign policy, and Dylan’s personal and professional history.

Source: Out of the Jaws (Liberal Currents), YouTube, 25 September 2026

Yesterday I had a very interesting discussion with students after class. I wanted to hear their takes on the war and the prospects for peace.

I began with the way a lot of surveys ask whether they would prefer Ukraine to negotiate a ceasefire or keep fighting. Those questions don’t do much unless you specify what “negotiations” and “peace” are supposed to mean, and the students were quick: what do you mean, negotiated ceasefire? Is that actually peace?

Now, these are highly educated kids at one of the best institutions in Ukraine, so I was not surprised they would flag it. By the same token, they are not like the rest of the population so their answers might not be necessarily representative. What they did with the question only made that clearer.

I said, fair enough, let’s make it concrete. The Ukrainian government has proposed an unconditional ceasefire, which would mean freezing the war on the line of contact and leaving Russia in possession of what it has already taken. The Russians have rejected that more than once. But suppose, for some reason, they accepted. Would you support a settlement on those terms?

That is when it got interesting. What followed was about ten minutes of analysis I am not going to reproduce.

The first thing, they said, is that a ceasefire is not necessarily peace. The Russians want more than they have, and so would likely come back for it after they recover. They put that more as a fact than as a forecast. I said we cannot really know what they would do. They said we can, because they have done it more than once already, and lied about not doing it, so they cannot be trusted. They were also very skeptical that Western security guarantees would actually function.

So the question became what happens in the period between a ceasefire and a Russian attempt to finish the job.

Both sides would try to prepare, but on the balance Russia would have the advantage. It could prepare better and faster, and fighting, if it resumed, would start from a worse position for Ukraine than the one it is in now.

I asked them to spell out why they thought a pause would favor Russia.

The Russian economy is larger, and they can produce most of what they need, while Ukraine is very dependent on foreign finance. If there is a ceasefire, sanctions get looser, and Russia can do all of this more successfully than it can during the war. The world is already losing interest in Ukraine — they said that flatly, though you could hear the bitterness under it — and if the war stops, the attention goes with it, the money dries up, and the West starts making deals with Russia again.

Taking the pressure of the war off would also make domestic corruption worse. They already steal, but the necessities of the war still limit them. In a peace, that limit is gone, preparedness gets worse because of it, and although the military would try to keep things from sliding too far, the politicians and the businessmen are a different problem.

They also said this is not the only view they hear. Some people they know just want to go about their lives without getting bombed. Those people favor peace and do not much care where the line ends up.

I said the Russians want to limit the size of the army.

That produced laughter. It was the one thing they seemed sure would not happen, if only because they see the army as the only reason to hope things can still get better.

Still, I said, there is a lot of uncertainty in how any of this would develop. Russia might come out of a ceasefire in worse shape. The Europeans might not just switch back to dealing with it. They might invest a great deal in Ukraine; there would be opportunities for sizeable returns.

True, they said. There is uncertainty, so you cannot be sure. But the Russians have shown they cannot be trusted, we all know how politicians work, and we understand that some people in the West already have an interest in cutting deals with Russia, so on balance they thought the trajectory that does not favor Ukraine was the more likely one.

Since they would not support a ceasefire along the line of control without some serious protection against the war starting again, I said I was guessing they also would not support giving up the rest of Donbas without a fight.

They would not.

But, I said, what if after another year of fighting you lose it anyway? Would it not make more sense to give it up now?

That, they said, is another big uncertainty. Who knows whether they can take it. They have been trying for a while.

So what is the hope, then?

They shrugged.

Don’t know.

That something will change.

I didn’t have a better answer.

Source: Branislav Slantchev (Facebook), 24 September 2026. Thanks to AL for the heads-up.

Marc Polymeropoulos and Michael Weiss examine the growing Russian threat in Europe, separating the real danger of Russian sabotage and state terrorism from the media panic over a potential Russian invasion of NATO territory. They discuss the intelligence briefing that sparked concerns across Europe, how the assessment has since been revised downward, and why Russia’s escalating sabotage campaign could still lead to a dangerous mass-casualty event. They also examine how Europe can respond to Russian aggression, the role of NATO and Article 5, and why Russia may be testing how willing the West is to push back.

Source: The Bulwark (YouTube), 25 September 2026

Images of Michael Weiss, Branislav Slantchev, and Dylan Burns, above, courtesy of Wikipedia, UC San Diego, and Instagram

New Charges Against Russian Resistance Hero Ruslan Siddiqi

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) is preparing a new case, for high treason, against Ruslan Siddiqi, the Russian-Italian anarchist serving a 29-year sentence for sabotaging a train carrying munitions to the Ukrainian front.

Siddiqi was convicted in May last year, and the Military Court of Appeal upheld the sentence on 1 July this year. In 2023 he blew up railway tracks in the Ryazan region, derailing a freight train carrying munitions, and organised a drone attack on the Dyagilevo military airfield.

Ruslan Siddiqi in court last year

Siddiqi confessed to these actions and told the court he sees himself as a partisan, opposing Russia’s war on Ukraine. He denied a further charge of preparing another attack. He was tortured extensively during questioning, but the authorities have refused to investigate.

Fires of Freedom, who give legal and other support to Siddiqi, said that, although he should have been transferred to prison after conviction, he is being held at a pre-trial detention centre (SIZO) in Ryazan. Transfer has now been delayed because of the new case.

Here is a Facebook post about the new charges by Ivan Astashin, who campaigns in defence of political prisoners, translated by Giuliano Vivaldi:

“Isn’t that enough for them?” is the first thought that automatically springs to mind upon hearing the news of a new criminal case against anarchist Ruslan Siddiqi, who has already been sentenced to 29 years in prison for two anti-war acts of sabotage and has now also been charged with treason.

And yet for the security forces, everything is much more mundane, has a more practical raison d’etre. The sentence itself plays no role here.

It was the Investigative Committee [a federal agency answerable directly to the Kremlin] who took on the first case against Ruslan. And not just some district department, but the central bureau of the Investigative Committee — or, to be precise, the department for investigating war crimes, genocide, and the rehabilitation of Nazism, which [Investigative Committee chairman Aleksandr] Bastrykin established in 2022.

At the same time, under the Code of Criminal Procedure, only the Federal Security Service (FSB) can investigate cases of high treason. So if the Investigative Committee had “discovered” signs of high treason in Ruslan’s actions, it would have had to hand the case over to the security services.

Naturally, the Investigative Committee did not want to give such a juicy case to anyone else, so they “didn’t discover” high treason, but only terrorism, terrorism, and once again terrorism … which the Investigative Committee has the right to investigate on an equal footing with the FSB.

At the same time, the version that Ruslan was cooperating with Ukrainian military intelligence, which has now become the basis of the treason charge, was always foregrounded. Indeed, it was one of the central elements of the prosecution’s case.

The investigation explicitly proceeded on the assumption that Siddiqi coordinated his actions with representatives of Ukraine’s Chief Directorate of Intelligence. It was precisely through this framework that his actions were classified, among other things, as having been committed by an “organised group”.

So the evidence on which the FSB is now building a new treason case was already there in the materials of the first case. But turning this evidence into a separate charge based on the violation of Article 275 [on high treason] would have meant transferring the case to another agency, the FSB.

The central office of the Investigative Committee took on a high-profile case, “investigated” it itself, gathered the “evidence” itself, brought nine (!) criminal charges, and saw the case through to a conviction. There was absolutely no reason for it to hand such a case over to another agency.

Now the Investigative Committee’s work is finished. The verdict has been handed down; the appeal has been heard. And this is where the baton is already passed to the FSB Directorate for the Ryazan region.

For them, it’s a perfect case. The accused is already in custody. The skeleton of the case has been assembled by colleagues from another agency. All that remains is to rewrite the Investigative Committee’s material to fit the structure of the article of the criminal code on treason, and receive a ready-made crime against state security that has already been “solved”.

I have already told a similar story about Aleksander Leleko: he was convicted as a teenager for setting fire to railway relay cabinets, and several years later the FSB began reworking those same events into a new treason case. [Leleko, from the small Siberian town of Sharypovo, was arrested in 2023, then aged 16, and sentenced to six-and-a-half years. In April this year it was reported that he was in prison hospital, and being administered psychtropic drugs, while investigators sought to put together the new case.]

Therefore, the question “Really, is 29 years not enough for them?” hardly makes sense here. It’s not about the sentence, but about the crime-solving rate, which our investigative authorities so badly need to improve. Especially now, when generals are being blown up and shot at home.

This situation illustrates my point very well that a repressive system has rules. It can produce an utterly monstrous result, but internally it still remains a bureaucratic machine with jurisdictional boundaries, departmental interests, reporting requirements, and its own rules.

An all-powerful security official cannot simply take any desirable article of the Criminal Code and put it into his casework. Even when the decision to imprison someone has already been taken, you still have to properly document who exactly is supposed to imprison them and under which article.

Perhaps, in Ruslan’s case, there also exists a more personal motivation on the part of the Ryazan security services officers. They could not find Ruslan after the first action, caught him only three weeks after the second, and subjected him to brutal torture.

But a much more mundane and so perhaps more frightening mechanism is quite enough to explain the emergence of a new case: the agency needed a criminal case of its own; a ready-made defendant was available with a “body of evidence” already sitting on their desk.

For the security agencies, the people involved in these cases are primarily numbers in a report, not human beings.

□ Fires of Freedom, which supports Ruslan, is on Telegram (Russian only). In English, there are reports on Ruslan Siddiqi’s case, and information about how to give support, on the Autonomous Action site e.g. here, here and here. Ivan Astashin was interviewed here.

□ Ruslan Siddiqi’s final statement in court, and letters describing his anti-war action and arrest, are included in the book Voices Against Putin’s War, free to download here. The letters were published by the Russian Reader here.

Source: “Russia: jailed anti-war partisan Ruslan Siddiqi faces new treason charges,” People and Nature, 14 September 2026. Thanks to my comrades Giuliano Vivaldi and Simon Pirani for producing this important bulletin and encouraging me to repost it. }}}}}trr

How to Vote Safely

How to Vote Safely: A “First Aid Kit” from OVD-Info

Hello, dear friend!

Elections for State Duma representatives will take place 18–20 September 2026, and in some regions there will also be regional and municipal elections.

As with other public events in Russia, it is good to prepare ahead of time. We know that Russians are already encountering pressure at work, and security forces are paying visits to activists at home. Even just going to the polling station can raise concerns, since police will be on duty there.

In order to help you to feel calmer and to lower possible risks, this edition of “First Aid Kit” [Aptechka] has gathered some basic recommendations: 

  • what to do if you are being forced to vote a certain way at work;
  • how to prepare to go to the polling station, including when voting from abroad;
  • how to prepare for interactions with police and possible detainment.

If you know other people who also need this information, read this “First Aid Kit” and tell them what you learned. You should only forward this email to people whom you completely trust: the Russian authorities consider OVD-Info an “extremist organization,” so it can be dangerous to publicly share our publications.

⛔ If you are being forced to vote at work

There can be attempts to force people who work in government agencies and institutions, and even in private companies, students, members of the military, and other people to take part in elections, register for remote e-voting, come to a polling station on a particular day or prove that they voted for a specific candidate by means of a photograph or screenshot.

All of these things are against the law and violate your electoral rights. Participation in elections is free and voluntary, and voting must be secret (articles 3 and 7 of the federal law “On particular guarantees to electoral rights and the right to take part in referenda for citizens of the Russian Federation”). The law directly prohibits forcing a person to participate or not participate in elections and interfering with their free volition.

Forcing someone to vote and violating the secrecy of voting is a serious crime. Depending on the circumstances these actions can fall under article 141 of the Russian Constitution.

If you encounter pressure, try to document it. This can be useful when reporting this kind of activity:

  • save your emails and screenshots;
  • write down the content of the conversation, the date and time;
  • when possible, make audio recordings.

If you are unable to fight back and your employer is demanding a photo of your ballot, you can use the “Galochka” bot. It can generate a photo with a vote for the candidate required by your employer.

❗If you attract attention from the police

In the lead-up to societally significant events and in their aftermath, the security forces sometimes conduct so-called “prophylactic measures”: they can come to your house, call you in for a prophylactic conversation, or issue a precaution.

A precaution is an official demand to not do what the authorities consider to be illegal.  For instance, it can be issued in response to assumed participation in voting at noon on Sundays.

It is important to understand and remember the basic rules of behavior around these “prophylactics”: 

  • you are not obliged to let security forces into your home — a prophylactic does not allow for forced entry;
  • identify the officers (ask for their names and official identification), and ask why they have come;
  • if a precaution is going to be issued to you, you can refuse to open the door, or ask to be summoned officially to the police station or sent an official summons by mail;
  • while talking with officers remember your right not to bear witness against yourself or your family— this is guaranteed by article 51 of the Constitution;
  • only answer the questions that are asked and do not provide personal information that could harm you;
  • do not insult the security forces and do not use force against them.

Remember that a precaution is a form of intimidation. The law meanwhile does not provide for individual liability for noncompliance with the precaution.

Preparing for the Polling Station

In advance of election day it’s worth taking care of some practical matters, regardless of whether you plan to vote in Russia or in another country.

✔️ Figure out where and how you will vote

Find out ahead of time which polling station you can vote at. If you need to switch polling stations or vote electronically, get your application in no later than 14 September.

  • If you are voting in Russia, you can find out where your polling station is on the Central Electoral Commission website.
  • If you want to vote somewhere other than your place of registration, apply at the State Services site. They also have information about different ways to apply.
  • If you plan to vote online, check to make sure remote voting is accessible in your region.
  • If you’re voting in another country, check the address and working hours of the polling station on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs site—you don’t have to apply to vote at polling stations abroad.

✔️ Prepare Your Phone

Police officers are present at polling stations. Their primary task is the protection of public order. But it is possible that if you are filming, they might notice you and try to take your phone away. For this reason it’s important to ensure its security ahead of time.

So think ahead about what device to bring along:

  • If you think you have a high risk of being detained, use a back-up phone and prepare it according to our manual. Turn off your main phone and leave it at home.
  • If you bring your main phone with you, update the operating system and all the apps. Protect your phone with a strong password (at least 8 characters — number, case-sensitive letters, and special symbols). It’s also good to turn on an augmented security mode: in iOS — Lockdown Mode, in Android — Advanced Android Protection. If the security forces are trying to take your phone, try to turn it off. These are general recommendations, not only for elections.
  • Don’t save any data in your phone’s memory that could create greater risks for you.

✔️ Remember the Basic Rules for Interacting with Police

  • Try to stay calm and avoid conflict
  • Do not insult police officers and do not resist them physically — even touching a uniform could turn into a criminal case.
  • Ask the police officer to identify themselves and show their badge. If possible, write down this information on a piece of paper. Ask politely why the officer is speaking with you.
  • If the officer tells you to come with them or tries to take you somewhere, ask directly: “Are you arresting me?”
  • If you are indeed being arrested and/or taken to a police vehicle or police station: call your people and/or your lawyer as soon as possible, tell them what happened and ask for help.
  • Read our manual about how to behave with police officers ahead of time.

✔️ When Voting Abroad

Outside of Russia you won’t be dealing with Russian police, but visiting the Russian consulate or embassy also requires preparation.

  • If you’re worried about your data, it’s better not to have your main phone on you. But whatever device you bring along, you should make sure to do the latest update (of its operating system and all apps), password-protect it (at least 8 characters — number, case-sensitive letters, and special symbols) and turn it off before entering the foreign mission.
  • Take along your international passport, since you might not be allowed to vote with your internal passport while abroad. 
  • Remember that the conulate or embassy employees cannot detain or interrogate visitors, even if a criminal case has been opened against that person in the Russian Federation. 
  • Meanwhile, it might be dangerous for some people to visit a Russian foreign mission. For instance, if you have refugee status or have requested asylum, your host country could refuse you protection because of contact with the Russian government.
  • If you are afraid to visit a polling station abroad or cannot get there for other reasons, check to see if you have access to remote electronic voting and apply for it no later than 14 September. For online voting you will need a VPN with a Russian IP-address.
  • Remember that Russian foreign mission employees can be present in the polling station and can record video. If you are displaying symbols prohibited in Russia, these photographs could later end up with the Russian security forces.

While voting both in Russia and abroad, any number of situations can arise. We have prepared a master manual for preparing for elections. It contains practical advice for decreasing your risks and how to act if things go downhill. Read it ahead of time.

If you think you might be detained or arrested

On voting day, the security forces might alerted by publications online, public expressions of support for a candidate or party, picketing, arguments with election officials or attempts to oppose violations. But you can experience persecution due to just how you are dressed or if you happen to visit the polling station when a protest is underway.

If you believe that you might be detained or even arrested, you should prepare in advance:

  • read our “ideal detainee” manual;
  • understand what to do if you are charged with an arrestable offense;
  • find and save contact info for a lawyer;
  • if you don’t have a lawyer, and you or a person close to you is arrested, use our manuals and document templates;
  • ask a trusted person to save our contact info: Telegram bot @ovdinfobot and info@ovdinfo.org. We can’t find you a lawyer, but we can help consult about your situation and record the facts around the violations of your rights.

Take Care of Yourself

Being informed and prepared do not guarantee you won’t have problems with the system, but they do help you to feel calmer and to avoid making things worse if something goes wrong. We will be here for the duration of the voting period.

  • On 18 September, from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Moscow Time, we will hold an election consultation day. Send any questions to our bot @OvdinfoBot, and an expert will provide detailed recommendations.
  • We’re also available every day to advise you on issues such as pressure on election observers and election commission members, coercion to vote, detentions and the issuance of summonses at polling stations, warnings issued to activists, and other matters.

OVD-Info continues its work despite the pressure. If you are outside Russia and do not plan to travel there, please support us by donating using foreign bank cards or secure cryptocurrency.

If you decide to donate but also plan to travel to Russia at some point, be sure to read about the risks and the instructions for interacting with border guards. Additionally, you can get advice on preparing for your trip via @ovdinfobot or at info@ovdinfo.org.

Source: OVD-Info newsletter, 12 September 2026. Translated by the Fabulous AM. I owe you one—or three. }}}}]} trr

Russia’s parliamentary election for the first time includes residents of regions that Moscow illegally annexed from Ukraine after the start of its full-scale invasion more than 4 1/2 years ago, part of Kremlin efforts to cement its gains.

Officials in Kyiv vigorously denounced the action as illegal, and a human rights activist described residents there as being coerced to participate in the election.

While the vote across Russia started Friday and lasts until Sunday to help boost turnout, balloting actually has been underway in the annexed parts of Ukraine and some areas on the Russian side of the border since the end of last month. Officials cited security reasons for the extended period.

Russian authorities say the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia territories, often referred to by Moscow officials as the “new regions,” have over 3.5 million voters. They were annexed by Russia in September 2022, despite not fully being under Moscow’s control. The move has not been recognized internationally.

At one polling station in the Russian-held part of the Donetsk region, voters dropped their ballots in a box as an armed Russian soldier stood nearby and watched.

Putin stressed the importance of voting in the regions

In a speech Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized the importance of voting in those regions for the State Duma, the lower house of parliament. Residents there will be voting for the Duma “for the first time since their reunification with Russia.”

He noted that Russian soldiers involved in the fighting will also vote.

Voting is also taking place in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014.

The first wartime election to the State Duma is intended to secure the Kremlin’s political dominance and showcase public support for the war.

“Your choice and resolve will once again demonstrate that millions of people stand behind our fighters, that we are a united people, bound by shared values, historical memory and love for the Motherland and that nobody can divide or intimidate us, undermine our statehood and political system,” Putin said.

Ukraine urges other countries not to recognize the vote

Authorities in Kyiv called the voting in those territories illegal and urged foreign governments and international organizations not to recognize the election. They warned Ukrainians that taking part in organizing the vote could carry criminal liability.

A coalition of nine Ukrainian human rights groups called on residents of the Russia-held territories to stay away from the polls.

“We urge residents of the temporarily occupied territories, above all, to protect their lives and health and to look after their own safety,” the coalition said in a statement. “Holding Russian elections in the temporarily occupied territories is an attempt to use the electoral process to legitimize the Russian occupation and the attempted annexation of Ukrainian territories.”

European Commission spokesperson Christian Wigand said the voting in Russian-held regions represented “another blatant violation of international law. The European Union does not, and will never recognize either the holding of these so-called elections, sham elections, in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine or their results.”

Activists describe coercion to vote

Violeta Artemchuk, coordinator of the Donbas SOS human rights group who was among those who signed the statement, said members of local election commissions were going house to house, escorted by Russian troops and security agents, to force people to vote.

Moscow-appointed authorities exert pressure on residents, threatening those who work in the public sector with dismissal if they fail to vote and making pensions and other social payments conditional on participating, Artemchuk said.

“For instance, if a person with a disability or a pensioner relies on social assistance and does not take part in the ‘voting,’ they could be added to a list of individuals deemed ‘disloyal’ to the so-called authorities and subsequently deprived of their benefits or humanitarian assistance,” she said.

Volodymyr Fesenko, a political analyst with the Kyiv-based Penta Center, emphasized that “elections held at gunpoint are a farce.”

“The very fact that voting takes place amid endless shelling and bombing reflects the Kremlin’s attitude toward the people and the electoral process in the occupied territories,” Fesenko told The Associated Press.

“It’s nothing short of a mockery. Any electoral procedures conducted by the Russian occupation authorities have nothing to do with democracy,” he said.

Source: “Russia holds parliamentary vote in areas it seized from Ukraine in the war,” KCRA 3 News (via AP), 19 September

Something I Learned Today: Drones, Diesel, and Don Jr.’s Russian Bankroller

Just as Ukraine was learning how to parry Russia’s drone attacks, Moscow has moved the goal posts with a new generation of innovative jet-powered weapons.

New Geran drones and Banderol cruise missiles are lethal reminders that Russia still has the resources and supply chains to field fresh threats, this time packed with advanced electronics that allow them to find targets accurately and evade interception. Crucially, the leap forward was enabled in large part by components sourced from China, in violation of international sanctions, say Ukraine and others, based in part on wreckage from the few shot down so far.

China has said it regulates exports of technologies that could be used in war. 

Russia’s new and relatively inexpensive weapons show its military remains adaptable and innovative, say analysts and diplomats. Russia developed and fielded both weapons within a couple of years by modifying earlier models, combat-testing them and quickly starting mass production, say analysts.

In doing that, Moscow stole a march on its adversaries. Ukraine has shown it can move quickly—it developed one of the first effective jet drones—but lacks production resources and much capacity to think beyond the near future. 

The U.S. and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, meanwhile, are struggling to increase production of vital arms such as Patriot interceptors. Western governments are also grappling with how to accelerate turning innovations into mass-produced equipment.

“Here in the West, we tend to underestimate Russia, but they can go very fast from idea and experimentation to production,” said Kateryna Bondar, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Wadhwani AI Center in Washington. “This loop is something Western militaries should learn from Russia.”

Russia has largely directed its weapons at Ukraine, part of a campaign against civilian life and infrastructure. Some Russian drones and missiles have also entered NATO airspace, either accidentally due to electronic warfare or intentionally in an attempt to probe NATO defenses. Either way, say military analysts, NATO must learn from—and be ready for—Russia’s ability to unleash a range of aerial weapons at different altitudes, speeds and cost levels.

Moscow’s developments also directly affect the U.S. because Russia, Iran and North Korea share military know-how. Innovations from the war in Ukraine are appearing in America’s war with Iran and vice versa.

Moscow has managed to field its new weapons despite Ukraine’s increasingly damaging strikes on critical nodes in Russia’s economy. President Vladimir Putin has used his iron grip on the country to largely reorient it behind his conquest of Ukraine, allowing him to funnel cash from the budget and state-owned banks into the defense sector. He has mobilized in a way that NATO’s democracies haven’t considered doing since World War II.

Banderol and Geran both address a need for cheap yet capable one-way weapons—an economic middle ground that Ukraine and Western countries are also pursuing. The new weapons are a mix of upgraded low-end arms and simplified high-end ones. They each represent a different mix of cost, range, speed, explosive power and ability to reach a target without interception.

Banderol and Geran-5 are both estimated to cost around $100,000 each. High-end U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles and comparable Russian models cost more than $2 million each.

Geran drones began as versions of relatively slow, propeller-driven Iranian Shahed drones, which Ukraine has become adept at intercepting after heavy investment in equipment and training to counter the threat. Russian engineers, through successive iterations, added speed and survivability thanks to better electronics for navigation and communications, overcoming much of Ukraine’s defenses.

DroneSec analysts concur with Ukrainian assessments that Russia relies heavily on Chinese components including jet engines, navigation computers and communications electronics.

“Russia is critically dependent on Chinese components” for its drone program, said Monnik.

Most of the Chinese gear is commercially available, so-called dual-use components made for civilian or military applications, say analysts. Russian engineers are skilled at exploiting off-the-shelf equipment to maximum benefit, such as in creating antennas that thwart electronic countermeasures and communication networks that overcome jamming. 

Once designs are adopted, Russian companies quickly move to large-scale production, which fulfills another strategic goal of all sides today: volume. Since the Cold War, the U.S. and its rivals have largely pursued expensive, exquisite weapons systems, which proved effective in limited conflicts.

“Now we see that mass is a huge part of success,” said Bondar.

For Ukraine, Moscow’s advances are confounding because it also faces Russian ballistic missiles, which carry massive explosive payloads and are especially difficult to intercept. Russia is also pummeling Ukrainian troops with glide bombs dropped from warplanes, which Ukraine has almost no way to stop. The pounding threatens Kyiv’s ability to maintain its front lines.

“While the drones are a problem, by far the biggest problem for Ukraine is glide bombs,” said Justin Bronk, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank.

For the U.S. and its allies, Russia’s improved drones create an economic headache. American forces in the Persian Gulf and NATO have resorted to using expensive equipment like Patriots and jet fighters to intercept inexpensive drones and missiles. Kyiv and Western governments are seeking cheaper ways to thwart low-cost attacks.

Western military-tech companies that have been developing interceptors for propeller drones are scrambling to create faster models. Merops interceptors, produced by a company backed by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and deployed by U.S. forces both along NATO’s eastern flank and in the Persian Gulf, are now being redesigned in a jet-powered version. Auterion, a leading software supplier to Ukrainian drone makers, is working with partners on high-speed propeller interceptors and jet-powered ones, said CEO Lorenz Meier.

Sourcing inexpensive jet engines for interceptors is a big challenge for the West. Chinese jet engines for Gerans cost $45,000 or less, DroneSec estimates, and defenders generally fire several interceptors at each incoming weapon.

Blurred lines among classes of weapons call for defenses that are more integrated and prepared for a spectrum of threats aiming to overwhelm air defenses, say military specialists. Bronk said NATO would be well served to set up a specialized multinational counterdrone force that constantly trains to down all kinds of drones and missiles. He said this could be done using relatively affordable equipment like radar-guided antiaircraft cannons and simple jet planes used to train combat pilots.

“It’s not an inherently difficult problem,” said Bronk. “It’s just not one we’re optimized for.”

U.S. and NATO officials say they are tackling the problem.

“We must apply and adapt all available tools and capabilities to the realities we face today,” said Army Col. Martin O’Donnell, spokesman for NATO’s top military commander, Air Force Gen. Alexus Grynkewich. He said that NATO members at their recent summit pledged to invest more than $40 billion over five years in counterdrone capabilities.

Anticipating future development waves will be critical, said Bondar. She noted that Ukraine has had indications for several years that Russia was working on jet-powered drones and inexpensive cruise missiles, yet Kyiv has been unprepared for their large-scale use.

“It was obvious quite a while ago that we’d end up here,” said Bondar. “I’m surprised everyone is surprised.”

Source: Daniel Michaels, “Russia Is Churning Out Smart, Cheap New Weapons Faster Than Ukraine or the U.S.,” Wall Street Journal, 13 September 2026. I am paid subscriber to the digital edition of this newspaper, and so I am happy to share articles like this with my own readers. }}}}} trr

As wars in the Middle East and Ukraine drive the price of diesel to record highs, inflation-weary consumers can expect to pay more for practically everything.

As of Friday, the average retail price of diesel fuel stood at $6.06 per gallon, according to AAA, up from $3.71 a year ago.

The New England average price is virtually identical to the national average, but far lower than that in California, which at $7.98 is the highest in the nation.

“It makes us a lot more expensive than we used to be,” said Charlie Itz, president of Itz-Ohlson Transport, a trucking company in Lynnfield.

It’s happening because, even though the US is the world’s leading producer of diesel, much of the nation’s production is exported to countries that can no longer obtain fuel from refineries in the Middle East or Russia due to military conflicts.

“The United States is experiencing this because it’s part of a global, interconnected market,” said Mason Hamilton, vice president of economics and research at the American Petroleum Institute, or API.

The pervasive effects from those higher prices shows up across the economy. On Friday the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that inflation for August ran at a 3.4 percent annual clip, with gas and fuel oil major culprits in keeping consumer prices elevated.

Consumers usually pay closer attention to gasoline prices, which climbed 3.9 percent last month according to Friday’s inflation report.But diesel is just as vital to the US economy, because it’s the primary fuel for the large trucks and freight trains that deliver most of the nation’s goods. Diesel also powers many seagoing ships. Higher diesel pricesmean we pay more for products shipped to homes and retail stores.

Moreover, the price of diesel has climbed much faster than that of gasoline, which is up by about $1 a gallon from last year. That’s largely because many US refineries are optimized to produce gasoline, helping to keep prices in check.

It all means higher fuel prices for truckers such as the independent contractors who drive for Itz-Ohlson Transport.

The company mostly handles short-range jobs, like moving shipping containers in and out of the Port of Boston. The company charges a base rate of $401 for trips within 30 miles of the port, then adds a surcharge to cover the cost of diesel. In March, the surcharge stood at 38 percent of the base rate, or $152. Now it’s up to 57 percent, or $228.

“Our customers are pretty understanding,” said Itz. “I think they’re resigned.”

Costly diesel is bad news for James Knott, chief executive of Riverdale Mills, a Northbridge-based maker of steel wire mesh used in products ranging from fences to lobster traps.

“High diesel costs affect us at virtually every stage of the supply chain,” said Knott. The company uses steel from US and Canadian suppliers, then ships its wire mesh to customers throughout the US and around the world.

When diesel gets more expensive, “those costs do not simply disappear,” Knott said. “Manufacturers must absorb them, find efficiencies elsewhere, or eventually pass some portion along to customers.”

Dean Croke, principal industry analyst at DAT Freight & Analytics, an online marketplace for truckers and shippers, said the impact of higher diesel may depend on the value of the goods being shipped. For instance, if a company is shipping costly computers, a price increase to cover fuel is hardly worth noticing. “A few hundred dollars of fuel,” said Croke, “is like a rounding error.”

But it’s a different story with lower-cost products shipped over long distances, he said. Consumers can expect to pay a significant fuel premium for iceberg lettuce shipped from California, for instance.

While the nominal price is the highest on record, diesel is still going for well below the all-time high reached during the 2008 financial crisis, which after adjusting for inflation to today’s dollars, topped out at $7.20, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

The diesel price hikes have arrived just as the US trucking industry had begun to recover from a four-year slump. A spike in demand that began during the COVID pandemic put hundreds of thousands of new drivers on the roads. But demand fell again, pushing down the price of truck deliveries and driving many small- and medium-sized truckers out of business.

Croke said the slump would be even worse if not for the recent surge in construction of data centers to support artificial intelligence systems.These huge buildings require thousands of truckloads of construction materials and electronic gear.

“Absent that,” said Croke, “demand would be way down.”

But the trucking market has begun to recover, as a shortage of workers means fewer trucks on the road. One major reason: the Trump administration’s crackdown on noncitizen drivers, who now must have visas that allow them to workand prove they speak English well enough to drive safely on US highways. The Department of Transportation estimates that enforcing those standards will force 200,000 drivers off the roads. That’s around 9 percent of the 2.2 million tractor-trailer drivers in the US workforce, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“We’re seeing the largest single-driver-removal event in modern history,” said Croke.

As a result, spot rates for shipping a truckload of merchandise have hit their highest levels in four years. And now, the cost of diesel is driving prices even higher.

The increase stems from tight supplies worldwide. The 2022 diesel price spike was driven by a halt in US purchases of diesel fuel from Russia. The European Union followed suit. But Russia was still able to sell its oil in other countries including Turkey and Brazil.

In all, Russia once exported over 800,000 barrels of diesel per day, making it the world’s second-largest exporter after the United States, which increased shipments to the EU to cover for lost Russian oil.

But this year Ukrainian airstrikes against Russian refineries have forced Russia to halt virtually all diesel exports. That means a big decline in worldwide diesel production, and upward pressure on prices.

The battle over the Strait of Hormuz has also had an impact. A Goldman Sachs analyst recently estimated that despite US government efforts to keep the strait open, shipments of refined oil products like gasoline and diesel are only at 35 percent of their prewar levels.

And then in March, China, a major exporter of diesel to Asian markets, halted all foreign sales to protect its domestic supply, though the Chinese government this summer allowed some exports to resume.

The US produces over 5 million barrels a day of distillate fuel oil, which includes diesel and home heating oil. That’s more than any other nation.

But there’s no way to open the tap any wider. “Basically every single refinery in the United States right now is running full out,” said Hamilton of API.

And much of their output is exported to Europe and Latin America. The US imports millions of barrels as well, with, ironically, much of New England’s diesel coming from Canada, with whom President Trump has just started a massive trade war. So far, diesel has not been caught up in the tit-for-tat retaliations by either country.

In short, the market for diesel is global and supply shortfalls anywhere lead to high prices everywhere, even in New England.

Source: Hiawatha Bray, “Diesel prices soar past $6 a gallon, affecting the cost of nearly everything else,” Boston Globe, 11 September 2026. I am paid subscriber to the digital edition of this newspaper, and so I am happy to share articles like this with my own readers. }}}}} trr

U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to halt strikes on Russian oil refineries and other infrastructure used to produce and distribute diesel, saying the attacks are causing a global shortage. He spoke after diesel prices in the U.S. hit a record on Friday, soaring past $6 a gallon on average.

Ukraine has for months been targeting Russia’s oil and gas industry with long-range strikes, prompting fuel rationing across the country and causing Moscow to ban diesel exports in July, removing supplies from the already tight global market.

But the global crunch also came after the war on Iran curtailed oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.

Fuel prices are weighing on Americans as they prepare to vote in midterm elections in November.

Trump was asked by a reporter if he had spoken with Zelenskyy following his recent conversation with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. He responded by calling on Zelenskyy to halt strikes against Russia.

“Mr. Zelenskyy has to do one thing. He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia,” Trump told reporters on the sidelines of the Irish Open, which is being played at his Doonbeg golf club.

“We spoke to Mr. Zelenskyy about it. There are plenty of other targets. Don’t hit diesel fuel, because that’s hurting, that’s hurting the world,” he said.

According to a report published Friday by the International Energy Agency, net exports of diesel and gasoil from the Gulf countries in August stood at “just over a quarter” of what they were before the war on Iran began in February.

“Disruptions to Russia’s refining system and a near-halt to product exports following intensified Ukrainian attacks have compounded these losses,” the IEA wrote. It added that in February, combined next exports of diesel and gasoil from the Gulf and Russia “accounted for almost 45% of global seaborne trade.”

Kyiv says Russia’s oil industry both funds and directly fuels Moscow’s more than four-year-old invasion of Ukraine.

Russia has ramped up its air campaign against Ukraine in recent weeks, using ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones to pierce Ukraine’s defenses. Moscow’s attacks have targeted Ukraine’s power grid ahead of winter in what officials say is meant to demoralize civilians.

Civilians were killed and injured overnight into Sunday as Russia and Ukraine exchanged large-scale drone strikes.

Two people were killed and 14 more wounded near an oil and industrial hub in Russia’s Tatarstan, according to local officials, while Ukrainian authorities reported on Russian drones pummeling the Black Sea port of Odesa and starting a fire near a border crossing with Poland.

The two Russian civilians died after a drone slammed into a tree near their parked car in the city of Nizhnekamsk, according to the office of regional head Rustam Minnikhanov. Nizhnekamsk houses a key cluster of oil refineries and other industrial plants. Mayor Radmir Belyaev said that a fire had broken out at an unspecified “enterprise.”

Ukraine also claimed to have hit a major oil refinery in Slavyansk-on-Kuban, in Russia’s Krasnodar region near Crimea. The Defense Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU) agency said its drones struck a key oil processing unit and the refinery’s tank farm overnight into Sunday.

Krasnodar authorities said the strike on “an enterprise” in Slavyansk-on-Kuban injured three people and damaged an oil pipeline.

Russian forces shot down 389 Ukrainian drones during the night, Russia’s defense ministry said Sunday.

In Ukraine, at least nine people were injured in a “massive” Russian nighttime attack on Odesa, according to Serhii Lysak from the city’s military administration. Odesa is home to Ukraine’s main port hub on the Black Sea and has faced sustained drone and missile strikes, with Kyiv accusing Moscow of trying to choke off its exports.

A Russian drone attack on Saturday struck a residential high-rise in Odesa, killing two people and injuring 26 others, Ukrainian officials said.

Russian overnight strikes also pounded western Ukraine, though there were no immediate reports of casualties. One drone set fire to a gas station near the Yahodyn-Dorohusk border crossing with Poland, according to Ukraine’s top diplomat and a spokesperson for the local customs force.

“This is Putin’s terror ‘knocking’ directly on the doors of the EU and NATO. Russian barbarians are at your gate, dear partners,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X.

Ukraine’s border crossings with Poland are a conduit for much of the military and humanitarian aid sent by Western allies.

Valentyna Chernysh, a spokesperson for the Volyn Customs Office, told The Associated Press that the Yahodyn crossing was intact and no one was harmed.

Earlier this week, two people died when Russian drones hit the Starokozache border crossing between Ukraine and Moldova on Tuesday. The following day a “direct threat” to a Polish-Ukrainian crossing point was avoided due to the cooperation between Warsaw and Kyiv, according to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

Ukraine’s air force said its air defenses shot down or suppressed 409 Russian drones of various types overnight, including a newer jet-powered version that is faster and more difficult to intercept. It said Russia had attacked Ukraine with 453 drones in total.

Source: “Trump calls on Ukraine to halt strikes on Russian diesel fuel, citing a global shortage,” Associated Press (via ABC News), 13 September 2026

On May 24, Donald Trump Jr. was celebrating in the Bahamas, as scantily clad dancers in stilettos and sailor caps performed for him and his guests. It was the last night of his wedding, a lavish, three-day party held across a pair of ultra-exclusive private islands. A five-tier funfetti cake had been airlifted in from Florida, and helicopters and seaplanes descended on the islands before guests settled into their oceanfront villas. That night on the beach, Trump Jr. lifted his bride into the air while fireworks launched from a barge over the sea.

“It was everything we dreamed of and more,” his wife later wrote on Instagram.

That dream was heavily funded by a secret benefactor: Umar Kremlev, a Russian oligarch close to President Vladimir Putin.

Kremlev footed the bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars of wedding expenses, according to records reviewed by ProPublica and interviews with three people familiar with the event. The oligarch paid to rent out one of the private islands, where a reception was held and where guests slept. He also covered other big-ticket items, like the fireworks show, and his team helped plan the event. Kremlev is the head of the International Boxing Association, a scandal-plagued sports group that has been financed by the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom. The wedding payments came from an IBA-affiliated entity in Dubai that the boxing association uses for financial transactions.

The guest list numbered around 50. It included Trump Jr.’s brother-in-law Jared Kushner, Eric Trump — and Kremlev, an imposing man with a shaved head who speaks limited English. The oligarch was part of a large group whose presence puzzled other attendees. They sometimes stood off by themselves, speaking Russian.

“It was really small, like, just really close friends,” Trump Jr. later said on his podcast. “Tried to keep it really tight. And it was just awesome.”

Kremlev’s previously unreported relationship with Trump Jr. represents an extraordinary development: a member of Putin’s circle financially supporting the president’s son and gaining intimate access to the Trump family. For a decade, Putin’s government, regarded as a chief adversary of the U.S., has been accused of efforts to influence American elections. Attempts by Russia to make inroads with the Trumps before the 2016 election exploded into controversy that dogged much of the president’s first term.

National security experts expressed alarm at Trump Jr. accepting the oligarch’s largesse, saying it raised an urgent question: What motivated Kremlev to spend a fortune cultivating the connection? 

“If I’m paying for your wedding, at some point, you’re going to owe me something,” said Frank Montoya Jr., a retired career FBI official who held senior counterintelligence roles. Oligarchs like Kremlev often act in coordination with the Russian government. While it’s unclear if that happened here, Trump Jr. put himself in a precarious position, Montoya said. “This should be unthinkable for the son of the president. End of story.”

Holden Triplett, who served as Trump’s counterintelligence director on the National Security Council during his first term, said Russian intelligence frequently seeks to build ties with U.S. government officials and their family members. “Money is a tried-and-true method to gain access,” said Triplett, who also worked for the FBI in Moscow.

In the days leading up to Trump Jr.’s wedding, Kremlev was in China as part of the delegation accompanying Putin, according to Chinese state media. The month before, Putin had bestowed him with a state honor, the Order of Friendship. The Ukrainian government has imposed sanctions on Kremlev personally, citing his closeness to Putin and Russian security services.

It’s not clear why Kremlev helped pay for Trump Jr.’s wedding. The men appear to have met only recently. Public reporting suggests Trump Jr. could have afforded it himself, with Forbes recently estimating his net worth at roughly $300 million. 

In response to detailed questions, a spokesperson for Trump Jr. did not dispute the wedding payments from Kremlev. “Umar is a personal friend of Don,” he said. The spokesman said that Kremlev is “not someone he has a business relationship with” and that the men met through a mutual friend in the hunting world and bonded over their love of boxing and the outdoors.

A spokesperson for Trump Jr.’s brother Eric said of Kremlev: “Eric has absolutely no clue who this person is, nor has never heard his name.” 

In a statement, Kremlev’s press office said, “Mr. Kremlev and Mr. Trump Jr have a friendly relationship” and they first met “a couple of years ago.”

The press office described Kremlev as a businessman and philanthropist, adding, “Mr. Kremlev has never discussed political matters with any of his American friends and acquaintances,” including Trump Jr. They said the boxing organization itself did not incur expenses for the wedding but did not comment on the payments from the Dubai entity. The press office also said that when Putin and Kremlev were in China recently, Kremlev was not part of Putin’s “official delegation.”

Kushner, who has been helping lead the U.S. government’s negotiations with Russia over Ukraine, did not respond to requests for comment. The White House and the Russian government did not respond either.

The revelations come as Trump Jr. has emerged as a political power center in his own right. Beloved by the MAGA base, he reportedly played an active role in vetting White House cabinet picks for Trump’s second term and was dubbed his father’s “most essential political adviser” by The Wall Street Journal. “I certainly don’t think I’d be sitting here as the VP nominee without Don’s help,” Vice President JD Vance told the outlet in late 2024.

This account is based on records and interviews with dozens of current and former IBA officials and contractors, wedding attendees and other people in Trump Jr.’s and Kremlev’s circles.

Trump Jr. exchanged vows with socialite Bettina Anderson on a private island that was featured in “Pirates of the Caribbean” and the 2006 James Bond movie “Casino Royale.” They had their first dance on a second private island nearby that can rent for around $100,000 a night, paid for by Kremlev. The company that put on the fireworks display charges around $70,000 for such shows. (Kremlev did not attend the ceremony itself, which was held on the first day and had just 18 guests, Trump Jr.’s spokesperson said.)

The atmosphere was Monte Carlo meets frat party — helicopters in and out, a beachside DJ set, beer pong tournaments. One day, the men went spearfishing. Artisans at the London fashion house Safiyaa spent 150 hours embroidering Anderson’s bespoke silk reception outfit. The president’s son had undergone treatment to better define his jawline for the occasion.

Some longtime friends of Trump Jr. told associates they were disappointed not to be invited, though a few of his closest business partners — executives at the Trump family crypto company, World Liberty Financial, and the venture capital firm 1789 Capital — did make the cut. President Trump himself skipped it. (“He’d like me to go, but it’s going to be just a small, little private affair,” the president told reporters beforehand. “I said, you know, this is not good timing for me.”) But many of the guests were immediate family of the bride and groom.

That made the large contingent of Russians all the more conspicuous. “What are they doing here?” one person recalled thinking. At least one of the Russian guests had been with Kremlev on his China trip: Alexander Lagutin, a businessperson who has served in senior roles at a Russian defense contractor and a state-backed energy company. Kremlev’s right hand at the IBA, Elena Sobol, attended the wedding too. 

Since the wedding, the Trumps have released scores of photos and videos of the festivities. While they show many of the guests, the Russians have been absent from all of them. (The top of Kremlev’s head is visible in the back of one group photo posted on Instagram by a friend of the bride.) After the party was over, on his “Triggered” podcast, Trump Jr. emphasized the event’s privacy: “The people that were there — if you’re on that list, you weren’t talking.”

In 2009, Umar Kremlev did not yet exist.

He was in his late 20s, with a criminal record for extortion and battery, still going by his birth name, Umar Lutfulloyev, according to the Russian independent news outlet Proekt. But he was about to rapidly ascend in Russia to a position of wealth and influence, with the help of a powerful friend. (“Mr. Kremlev has a completely clean legal record,” his press office said.)

In 2010, he changed his name to Kremlev. He soon joined a Russian government-backed biker gang called the Night Wolves, eventually taking a leadership role, according to news reports. That is what first brought him close to Alexei Rubezhnoi, who now leads Putin’s presidential security service, Proekt reported. In 2017, Kremlev took over the Russian Boxing Federation, after Rubezhnoi personally intervened to put him at the helm.

In 2020, Kremlev became president of the IBA. The association was something akin to FIFA but for boxing and had long overseen the sport in the Olympics. But it had been beset by corruption allegations and was on the brink of insolvency. Kremlev brought money to the table from Gazprom, the state-owned company that operates as an arm of Putin’s government. Gazprom publicly became the IBA’s financial backer, filling its coffers with tens of millions of dollars.

Former high-level IBA officials said that Kremlev had a clear political agenda. “Umar is guided by Putin. It was using the sport for soft political power,” a former IBA board member told ProPublica. “It’s geopolitics. That it’s boxing is just happenstance.” Kremlev, 43, is also heavily involved in an organization called Healthy Fatherland, run by his 23-year-old wife’s twin sister. The group — which promotes healthy eating and youth sports — is under Ukrainian sanctions for its alleged role in a program of abducting Ukrainian children from occupied territories and relocating them under the guise of “rehabilitation.” (Healthy Fatherland did not respond to a request for comment.)

Kremlev’s cozy relationship with the government has made him rich. Putin used the levers of the state to make Kremlev a dominant player in the Russian sports betting industry, according to Proekt, and one of his companies was chosen to operate the national lottery. After Putin nationalized Russia’s largest car dealership company in 2023, Kremlev became the owner of that too.

He now flaunts that wealth through his boisterous public persona. In one video Kremlev posted on social media, he surprises a young mother by giving her a free car. In another, he criticizes his young female aide’s outfit as not feminine enough and makes her change. He shadowboxes with ostriches and brings in celebrities like Rick Ross and Naomi Campbell for IBA events; he praises Stalin and rides private jets.

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the U.S. began to indict Russian oligarchs and seize yachts and other assets. Kremlev repeatedly told associates he was worried about being targeted by a U.S. government probe, according to a person close to IBA leadership. “He was very afraid of American sanctions,” the person added. (Kremlev does not appear on public U.S. sanction lists.)

With the business environment in Europe growing more hostile to Russia, Kremlev moved much of the IBA’s operations from Switzerland to the United Arab Emirates. A new Dubai entity, IB Challenger, would later pay wedding expenses for Trump Jr. The current sources of the IBA’s funds are murky, and, in recent years, top executives have given conflicting accounts of the status of its relationship with Gazprom. (Kremlev’s press office told ProPublica the IBA’s sponsorship contract with Gazprom “expired long ago.”) People close to the organization said they understood that its money still comes from Russia.

In 2023, the International Olympic Committee stripped Kremlev’s IBA of its role organizing Olympic boxing. It has cited a host of governance issues and the group’s refusal to “transparently explain the sources of its financing or to explain its full financial dependency, at the time, on a single state-owned company.” 

It was a major setback that deprived the IBA of a key source of its international influence. Kremlev has raged against the Olympic committee ever since and has said that his IBA predecessor, who he blames for the problems, “must be shot.”

Kremlev saw a potential ally in President Trump. After Trump’s second inauguration, in January 2025, Kremlev sent an open letter to the president asking him to look into the Olympic committee’s actions in advance of the 2028 Los Angeles Games. “We look forward with great optimism to the possibility of working together to make the Olympic movement great again,” he wrote.

In September 2025, the IBA brought in Trump Jr. for a panel discussion in Istanbul about boxing. With his then-girlfriend, Anderson, sitting offstage, he criticized transgender women competing in women’s sports and reminisced about watching Saturday night fights as a child. Trump Jr. shared the stage with Kremlev, the boxer Manny Pacquiao and Muhammad Ali’s daughter Rasheda. (Trump Jr.’s spokesperson said he was not paid for the appearance and was already in Turkey for an unrelated event.)

The president’s son had reason to be attuned to the sensitivity of cozying up with a Putin associate, especially while his father navigates the Russia-Ukraine war. Trump Jr.’s June 2016 meeting with a Russian attorney in Trump Tower became a major focus of the Robert Mueller investigation.

The Trump Tower meeting was arranged after an email offering Trump Jr. damaging information about Hillary Clinton as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” Trump Jr. famously responded, “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.” Trump Jr. later dismissed the matter as a “witch hunt,” and the Mueller report concluded that there was not enough evidence to convict him of a crime.

Recently, Kremlev has been working to expand into the U.S. market. In July, his group hosted a bare-knuckle boxing event in Miami, a chance to showcase a particularly bloody form of the sport in which contenders fight without gloves. But the debut was overshadowed when manosphere influencer Andrew Tate, who the IBA had brought in to host, was arrested by U.S. Marshals outside the arena. (Tate is facing rape and sex trafficking charges in the United Kingdom, which he has denied.)

Much about Kremlev’s relationship with Trump Jr., and where it is headed, remains unknown. In a press release after the Istanbul panel, the IBA hinted there was more to come. 

“President Kremlev and Donald Trump Jr made it clear – this alliance will not remain symbolic,” the press release read. “More joint initiatives will follow.”

Do you have any information we should know about Donald Trump Jr., his businesses or Umar Kremlev? Justin Elliott can be reached by email at justin@propublica.org and by Signal or WhatsApp at 774-826-6240. Brett Murphy can be reached by email brett.murphy@propublica.org and by Signal or WhatsApp at 508-523-5195. Josh Kaplan can be reached by email at joshua.kaplan@propublica.org and by Signal or WhatsApp at 734-834-9383.

Source: Justin Elliott et al., “Donald Trump Jr.’s Bahamas Wedding Was Secretly Bankrolled by Russian Oligarch Close to Putin,” Pro Publica, 14 September 2026. I just made a donation to ProPublica to thank them for this and other groundbreaking investigations they have published over the years. }}}}} trr

Going Underground

Film Photo Shoots at Rastvoritel (“Solution”)!

You can book a photo shoot in our pre-revolutionary retro-vintage interiors. You can see sample photos in this post.

– We love simple, semi-amateur, raw photos, although we always take our work professionally, of course.

– Our photos capture the natural essence of the moment and look fundamentally simple yet truly authentic.

– We shoot on film and enjoy experimenting. But we can also do more organized shoots.

– Our shoot will turn out great no matter what. Of course, we can’t always predict a perfect result, but that’s the essence of art.

We shoot with Zenit 11, Zenit S, Olympus, and Premier cameras.

🚩To discuss details and book a shoot, message us directly at @rastvoritel__

Rastvoritel Underground Art Gallery

📷 photos by @lena_eterna and @majestic_primitive_art

#saintpetersburg
#photography
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Source: Rastvoritel (Instagram), 7 September 2026. Translated by the Russian Reader

KYIV, Ukraine – It’s the last evening of my vacation.

I’m sitting in a taxi taking me to the Lviv railway station so I can return to Kyiv, and I can’t hold back my tears.

It’s not that I’m sad about returning to work and my normal routine. But when I get home, I know I won’t be able to sleep in my own bed. Once a cozy little nest, my own bed is now a place of constant fear, where even the deepest sleep comes at the risk of a ballistic missile or drone attack. I don’t trust monitoring channels anymore. I don’t trust anyone, except this primal fear that fills every cell of my body as soon as it starts getting dark.

And this fear is warranted. Russia has spent the whole summer launching large-scale ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv, taking advantage of Ukraine’s shortage of interceptors. They also used drones, including jet-powered Shaheds. Russia ramped up its missile production and also relies on North Korean missiles to intensify the attacks.

On top of that, Moscow seems to be adopting a new tactic, launching jet-powered drones throughout the whole day to paralyze the entire city. On August 27, there were 13 air raid alerts in Kyiv — a record-setting number of attacks lasting more than half a day. Since then, the attacks have been almost non-stop.

Basements and underground parking garages no longer feel safe enough. That’s why more and more Kyiv residents have started spending the night in the metro, often heading down there even before an air raid alert is issued.

A person checks a smartphone and others sleep as they take shelter overnight in a Kyiv metro station. Photo by Serhii Okunev/AFP via Getty Images and The Counteroffensive

Even when there’s no attack, people would rather spend a night in the metro than wake up suddenly to explosions in their own bed, unprotected.

Zoriana can’t sleep well anymore as the constant threat takes its toll

Night strikes started happening more and more in July.

I took the first few nights of ballistic attacks as something I simply had to accept. Last year, Russia had also stepped up its attacks on Kyiv during the summer, so I was mentally prepared for it.

But this time, they started using ballistic missiles more often.

I told myself that they would run out soon, since ballistic missiles are very expensive, while flinching at every new explosion in my bathroom.

But it only got worse.

Notifications about air raid alerts have become useless, as they only give two minutes before the first explosions, which can mean an endless night of hundreds of those two-minute windows and lots of panicked running.

So I couldn’t sleep well anymore.

My psychologist suggested breathing exercises and a ritual to help me calm down. But when I tried that, all I could hear was how hard my heart was beating.

That’s how my bed turned into a place of tormented waiting. Waiting for loud explosions and … my own death.

So I started going to the metro, regardless of whether there are air raid alerts or not.

Mariana wasn’t afraid of air raid alerts until this summer

I used to be pretty calm about air raid alerts. I went to the basement only a few times at the beginning of the war, when every alert was new and seemed scary and dangerous. But luckily, my hometown of Vinnytsia didn’t get attacked much. So I stopped going to the shelter and just continued on with my life, despite sometimes hearing the sounds of faraway explosions.

When I moved to Kyiv in 2023, I was a bit more cautious.

At night, the corridor became my sleeping spot during attacks. And although the explosions became more frequent, I still didn’t care enough to disrupt my sleep and go somewhere safer to hide.

But constantly seeing news of residential buildings completely ruined after massive attacks on Kyiv made me feel like the corridor was not enough. So in June, I started going to the shelter.

Zoriana wonders why she pays rent when she sleeps in the metro every night

People can go into the metro and stay overnight even without an air raid alert. Of course, you can wait and go once the alert starts, but I definitely can’t make it there in two minutes — the approximate time of a ballistic missile’s approach.

That’s why, at 10 p.m. every day, I have to decide whether or not to spend the night in the metro.

Without an attack warning, there aren’t that many people in the metro — typically around 30. I have already started to recognize a few familiar faces, and every evening we exchange a tired smile. But when there’s word of a massive attack coming, there’s not even enough room to drop a pin.

I have a separate warm tracksuit that I sleep in at the metro, my own folding bed, a comfortable pillow and a blanket. I always bring a thermos of tea, too.

But the constant thoughts never go away: maybe it will be quiet and I can stay home; maybe it won’t, and then it will be sheer terror.

Mariana sleeps better on hard school chairs than in a cozy bed at home

When I go home by metro at night, I see some people preparing to sleep there. They set up an improvised camp using mats, pillows and blankets. But even the metro can’t guarantee us complete safety.

At the end of July, the vestibule of the Lukianivska metro station, which I always use when commuting to my university, was damaged. At the time, people were sheltering there from the attack.

Since the closest metro station is 15 minutes from where I live, I go to the basement of a nearby school. I always bring a bottle of water and a sleeping bag with a pillow — they help me feel a little bit more comfortable while lying on hard school chairs.

I constantly check the Telegram channels that monitor incoming attacks, while other people in the basement whisper among themselves or snore. I hear the explosions outside, but it seems like the missiles can’t reach me in the shelter.

Eventually exhaustion gets the better of me and I fall into a restless sleep until I hear the all-clear signal. But I don’t leave the shelter right away. The thought of having to come back again because of another attack makes me stay until 4 a.m., the time when I for some reason feel that the threat is over.

With drones being launched constantly now, there’s no period of time that is truly safe. A new alert can come at any time, day or night. And when that happens, I’m too exhausted to care. I stay in my corridor and listen to the explosions, just hoping that I’ll be lucky and not get hit.

I’m consumed by only anxiety and exhaustion now, and whichever feeling is more intense at any given time is what dictates how I respond.

Zoriana fears this living nightmare made her a bad person

For the past two months, I haven’t been able to rest at all. There are no weekends or weekdays anymore, only day and night. Days filled with anxiety about my life. Nights full of fear and uncertainty.

And, strangely, I felt the worst when there was no attack. Exhausted, I walked home from the metro at 6 a.m. after taking shelter there overnight. That was when I caught myself thinking that I was sorry there had been no attack. I had wasted my night, and they hadn’t even bombed us. A second later, I burst into tears over that intrusive thought. How could I be disappointed that there was no attack? Am I really such a horrible person?

That was when I realized how much this is destroying me, dissolving everything joyful and bright that I had spent years filling my soul with.

It has been two weeks since my vacation ended, and I have slept alone in my apartment only twice.

I am still in Kyiv, trying to keep living my life. For how long? We’ll see.

And even as I write this right now, I’m packing my things for another night in the metro.

Source: Zoriana Semenovych and Mariana Stadnyk, “Why pay rent just to sleep in the metro,” The Counteroffensive with Tim Mak, 10 September 2026. As a paying subscriber to this Substack-based journal, I’m happy to share it with my own readers occasionally. ||||| TRR

The Georgy Pirogov Case and Russia’s High Treason Epidemic

Georgy Pirogov. Photo: FSB Public Relations Centre/TASS/ZUMA Press/Scanpix/LETA via Novaya Gazeta Europe

Two years ago, Georgy Pirogov, a Russian man who had moved abroad after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, disappeared in Uzbekistan. He later resurfaced in a Moscow pre-trial detention centre. In July 2026, he was convicted of treason, and last week, the Federal Security Service (FSB) announced that the verdict had entered into force. The agency accused Pirogov of spying for Polish military intelligence and providing financial support to Ukraine’s military. According to the human rights group Department One, Pirogov says he was injected with an unknown substance before his removal from Uzbekistan. Novaya Gazeta Europe examines what we know about the case.

In early July, the Moscow City Court sentenced Georgy Pirogov to 23 years in prison followed by two more years of movement restrictions and a fine of 800,000 rubles (€8,100). Pirogov had left Russia via the United Arab Emirates after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and settled in Georgia, where he worked as an industrial climber before travelling to Uzbekistan for work. His relatives lost contact with him on 6 July 2024, and his abandoned car was later found in the Uzbek city of Nukus. Just two days later, on 8 July 2024, a Moscow district court sent him to pre-trial detention.

According to an FSB press release, Pirogov “independently established contact” in April 2022 with a representative of Polish military intelligence and was tasked with gathering classified information about advanced weapons systems used by Russian forces against Ukraine. Russian investigators allege he obtained data on missile systems, as well as personal details of individuals with access to state secrets, through defence industry contacts. Prosecutors also claim he transferred cryptocurrency to fund Ukraine’s military, purchased military equipment, and arranged its delivery from Poland to Ukraine.

Information about Pirogov’s life is hard to come by. Two videos of him are publicly available: one from 2024, filmed in Uzbekistan, in which he describes the harsh conditions of his work, and another, undated, that shows him after his arrest ”confirming” to FSB interrogators that he had gathered information.

Novaya Gazeta Europe reviewed the social media profiles of several of Pirogov’s relatives and found no political posts, aside from a petition his sister shared five years ago on Change.org concerning a small-scale land dispute near Moscow. Records from Georgia’s National Statistics Office indicate that, until 2024, a man named Georgy Pirogov served as director and co-owner of the Namaste Hostel in Tbilisi. The hostel’s Facebook and Instagram pages feature photos and videos of a man closely resembling the Pirogov convicted in Moscow, and the accounts stopped updating around the time of his disappearance, though the hostel itself continues to operate. Its representatives did not respond to a request for comment.

Novaya Gazeta Europe found three documents connected to Pirogov’s case in a public legal database: two attempts by his lawyer to appeal his pre-trial detention order before the Moscow City Court, and a separate appeal against the seizure of his property. None of the motions succeeded.

Court documents show that Pirogov has elderly parents, holds a university degree, is unmarried, and had no prior criminal record. His lawyer said that Pirogov had “actively assisted in uncovering and investigating the crime” and had confessed, and that, contrary to the prosecution’s portrayal of him as a Polish spy stealing data for Ukraine’s armed forces, “no socially dangerous consequences” had resulted from his actions.

“The entire case behind the accusation [that he was working for Polish intelligence] was built on an FSB sting operation. Agents posed as one of his acquaintances and communicated with Pirogov under that person’s identity; the authorities later classified those exchanges as treason,” Yevgeny Smirnov, a lawyer with Department One, told Novaya Gazeta Europe. He said it remains unknown to what extent the FSB coordinated Pirogov’s abduction in Uzbekistan with the country’s own security services.

“They took him the simplest way possible — FSB officers flew in, detained him, injected him with some substance, and brought him to Moscow,” Smirnov said, adding that this account came from Pirogov himself, who gave it to explain how he ended up back in Russia after his arrest. The account raises questions: the substance would presumably have been meant to make Pirogov compliant with his abductors’ instructions, yet he would also have needed to appear sufficiently lucid to avoid arousing the suspicion of Uzbek border guards as he boarded the plane.

Smirnov noted that the charge brought against Pirogov has become commonplace in Russia. “[Charges of] treason in the form of espionage are extremely widespread right now — photographing military sites, sending data about military personnel, these things are now classified as treason,” he said.

Source: Alexander Leonidovich, “Drugged and disappeared,” Novaya Gazeta Europe, 18 August 2026

The legal framework inside Russia has undergone a fundamental shift since the expansion of wartime legislation.

Charges of high treason and espionage, once rare, are now systematically deployed as standard instruments of domestic policy. The handling of these cases by the Russian judiciary is characterised by near-total secrecy, with the vast majority of trials held behind closed doors and resulting in lengthy penal colony sentences.

This data compiled by @one_dept documents the accelerating rate of these convictions. While the individual metrics are detailed in the slides, the broader picture reflects a judicial system restructured to neutralise dissent.

Swipe through for the key data points.

Source: Memorial.Prisoners (Instagram), 2 September 2026

Lida Moniava: A Heroine of Our Time

Lida Moniava (Facebook via Moscow Times)

Lida Moniava, a prominent advocate for critically ill children’s care, has been charged with spreading false information about the military, her attorney told Russian media on Wednesday.

Moniava was arrested following a police search of her home in Moscow earlier in the day and questioned by officials from the Investigative Committee, Russia’s top investigative body.

Moscow’s Simonovsky District Court is expected to rule on pre-trial detention measures, her attorney told the news outlet RBC.

The charge of spreading false information about the military carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

Moniava is the founder of the Moscow-based charity Lighthouse, which operates hospices for seriously ill children and young adults in the Russian capital and surrounding region.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moniava created a foundation that provided shelter, medical supplies and food to people fleeing from the war. The organization also later helped Armenians fleeing from conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as Russians displaced from the Kursk and Belgorod regions.

That foundation suspended operations last September due to the dwindling number of refugees arriving in Moscow and the Moscow region.

Moniava was previously detained in January and in February. She was fined 45,000 rubles ($520) after being found guilty of “discrediting” the Russian military in posts on Telegram.

Despite facing pressure from the authorities, Moniava has refused to leave Russia.

“If I leave, critically ill children will end up in nursing homes and intensive care units for longer periods. Knowing that, I doubt I could live happily in some other country,” she wrote earlier this year.

Source: “Children’s Hospice Founder Arrested and Charged Over ‘War Fakes,'” Moscow Times, 2 September 2026

Lidia Moniava is being forced out of Russia. First, her hospice was slapped with an administrative fine. Then she was threatened with criminal prosecution. Next, a criminal case was launched against her, her home was searched, and she was interrogated. Now, the court has sentenced her to non-custodial remand. It’s the standard playbook: we’re about to lock you up, so hurry and leave; take advantage of this last chance. In unison with the punitive organs, the lucky political émigrés are chiming in, “Run, Lida, run!” Escape is the very essence of their political activism. Fleeing is their means of survival.

Forcing an undesirable person to leave is the best option for the authorities. That much is obvious. But it is also obvious that this “undesirable person” has a different set of values, different views on life and on her place in it. She cannot abandon a cause she considers important; she cannot betray the people who have placed their trust in her, the people she cares for. Personal responsibility is what Russian society so desperately lacks today.

She won’t have an easy time of it. It’s hard for a free person to live in an unfree country. But it’s a noble choice, one that only people who are free on the inside can understand.

Source: Alexander Podrabinek (Facebook), 3 September 2026. Translated by the Russian Reader

I always thought she was exactly what a Christian should be like.

Lida Moniava, the director of Lighthouse children’s hospice, has been accused of circulating “fake news” about the army. she has been detained and faces up to ten years in prison.

It is clear who is running a country where righteous people are behind bars.

Source: Natalia Vvedenskaya (Facebook), 3 September 2026. Translated by the Russian Reader

On the evening of September 3, Simonovsky Court placed Lida Moniava, founder of Dom s Mayakom (“Lighthouse Charity Foundation”), under a set of restrictions in a criminal case accusing her of spreading “fake” information about the Russian military. Moniava is one of the leading figures in contemporary Russian philanthropy: she founded the Dom s Mayakom charity and its hospices for children with severe and incurable illnesses. Dozens of people came to Simonovsky Court in Moscow to support her. The news outlet Bereg recounts what happened — and shows how Moniava’s supporters celebrated her release. Meduza is translating the report in full.

A hearing on pretrial restrictions for Lida Moniava, founder of the Lighthouse Charity Foundation, is scheduled for 5 p.m. on September 3. A full hour before the hearing, Muscovites who have come to support Moniava are already gathering outside the Simonovsky Court building.

Police searched Moniava’s home early on the morning of August 2 as part of a criminal case over spreading “fake” information about the Russian military, then arrested her. The case stems from a post Moniava published on her Telegram channel to mark the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “For a year now, my country has been sending missiles, tanks, and soldiers into Ukraine. For a year now, innocent people have been dying because of it,” she wrote.

A short young woman named Nadezhda stands in the parking lot reserved for official vehicles directly in front of the courthouse. She is visibly nervous. She introduces herself as Moniava’s goddaughter.

“I’m waiting for justice. If someone like Lida is sent to prison, something truly terrible will happen to the world,” Nadezhda says.

A mixed crowd gradually gathers by the parking lot: young people who might be described as part of the alternative scene, middle-aged people, and elderly members of the support group. Some call themselves Moniava’s friends and acquaintances; others, like red-haired Makar, dressed all in black, learned about her from recent news coverage.

“When I read about Lida, I realized she’s just an incredibly good person — kind, with the noblest intentions,” Makar tells the independent Russian outlet Bereg. “Of course, it’s a real shame things turned out this way.”

Makar says he is trying not to get his hopes up that the charges against Moniava will be dropped or that she will be released from custody, “so I don’t end up disappointed.”

Mikhail, an acquaintance of Moniava’s, is also there to support her. He speaks about her much as dozens of others have in Facebook posts supporting her over the past day.

“I admire what she does, what she stands for, and the fact that she’s open about it. That’s genuinely brave,” Mikhail says. “You can do charity work and still be a conformist because you think charity makes up for everything. But Lida did good work without becoming a conformist just to keep doing it.”

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moniava stayed in the country and continued helping children with incurable illnesses. She also set up a fund to help refugees from Ukraine and Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as residents of the Kursk region’s border areas affected by the Ukrainian military’s incursion in August 2024.

While helping people affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Moniava also wrote antiwar posts on Facebook. In February 2026, Russian authorities fined her 45,000 rubles for “discrediting” the Russian military over those posts. She wrote about children killed in a Russian missile strike on Kryvyi Rih and the deaths of the Martynenko family — a father, a mother, and their 11-year-old son — in a strike on Sumy.

After the February hearing at which a judge imposed the fine, Moniava thanked her followers for their support and said in a post that she had “received a lot of advice to leave Russia”:

When Center E is banging on your apartment door, it’s scary, of course. But look at this photo — Anya and I are having such a great time on our shift [at the hospice]. She’s a girl who spent 19 years behind the walls of a residential institution. If I leave, children in palliative care will spend more time in residential institutions and intensive care units. I doubt I could live happily in some other country knowing that. So emigration isn’t in the plans.

In the same post, Moniava added: “I also can’t stay silent as if there’s no war. Trying to live honestly comes first for me.”

Natalya, who came to Simonovsky Court, does not know Moniava personally but has long followed her work. “I’m just in shock over what’s happening,” she says. “It’s probably to be expected, but it’s still very hard for me to accept. I’m an outsider looking on, and I simply respect her work, so I came here to support her. Lida is a wonderful person who helps others live and survive. That’s very important in our world. In turbulent times, we need to support each other somehow and do something.”

Others who came to support the Dom s Mayakom founder included Nobel laureate Dmitry Muratov, former editor-in-chief of the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta; Nyuta Federmesser, founder of the Vera Fund, which helps people with incurable illnesses; actress Tatyana Drubich, co-chair of the same fund; and Daniil Maksimov, a Vera Fund employee and founder of an inclusive magazine about sex for people with disabilities.

Maksimov, a blogger, writes on social media about living with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and the problems wheelchair users face. Several people in motorized wheelchairs gathered outside Simonovsky Court on the day of Moniava’s hearing.

The Lighthouse Charity Foundation needs support. In recent days, it has lost many donations and some of its donors. You can donate from Russia in rubles on the foundation’s website.

Shortly before 5 p.m., a prison transport van parked outside the courthouse pulls away. By now, around 200 people have gathered. Someone in the crowd says, “This one’s probably leaving now, and the next one will have Lida in it.” When another prison van drives onto the court grounds soon afterward, people start chanting, “Lida! Lida!”

The van’s barred windows make it impossible to see who is inside. The van pulls into the garage.

People line up to enter the courthouse, and the line moves very slowly. One woman in a blue jacket stands out among the crowd, holding a copy of Viktor Vilisov’s book Nas Vsekh Toshnit (We’re All Sick to Our Stomachs) with a bright orange cover. Off to one side stands Yekaterina Duntsova, head of the Rassvet (“Dawn”) party; somewhere in the same crowd are Tatyana and Valery Yashin, the parents of convicted politician Ilya Yashin, who was sent to Germany in a prisoner exchange.

“So many people showed up. This is a really high-profile case,” someone in the crowd says.

“Yeah, this isn’t Remeslo.”

Forty minutes later, the line still has not cleared. Two young men carrying tripods come out of the courthouse toward the line. Someone in the crowd asks hopefully:

“So, any news?”

“No, nothing at all.”

It is a little after 5 p.m. when Nyuta Federmesser, who had entered the courthouse near the front of the line, comes back outside. “Lida hasn’t arrived yet,” she says. “We came down because it’s impossible to breathe in there. There’s no point in standing here anymore because they’ll start kicking everyone out soon. The court closes at 6 p.m.”

Some of those who came are in no hurry to leave, even though it is very stuffy inside. Dmitry Muratov takes a spot right by the courtroom entrance. One woman who came to support Moniava offers people postcards to write warm messages on, which will later be delivered to Moniava. A police officer comes upstairs and asks everyone to leave the building: the court has closed for the day.

Everyone heads down to the courtyard, which is packed with people. In the middle, a group shares a pie. Police soon drive everyone out of the courtyard as well, and the gates close. Now everyone waits for Moniava by the fence.

Traffic police officers watch the crowd from cars with their emergency lights on. One of them approaches the crowd. What he says is familiar from rallies and pickets:

“Citizens, do not obstruct the passage of other citizens!”

“We’ve heard that one before,” a woman over 60 says. “I’m so sick of you!”

Word eventually spreads that Moniava has been brought to the courthouse after all and that the hearing has begun. The press is not allowed to attend.

“I know Lida personally,” says Fatima, who came to Simonovsky Court to support her. “Lida is a wonderful person. She’s done a lot in our country to help children with severe and incurable illnesses, and she built a palliative care system. Of course, it’s pretty horrifying that she’s inside the Simonovsky Court building at all.”

Neither Fatima nor Mikhail, who respects Moniava for refusing to conform, expects “anything good” to come of the judge’s decision.

Half an hour later, the crowd starts to stir. The courthouse doors open, and two security officers appear in the doorway. Several people start chanting “Lida!” but she is nowhere in sight. A few men come out, followed by a woman. “The workday is over,” someone in the crowd says.

As they wait, someone starts singing, but the words are impossible to make out.

Finally, Moniava’s defense attorney, Mikhail Biryukov, says from inside the courtroom that the court is releasing Moniava from custody and placing her under a “ban on certain activities.” While the investigation continues, she is barred from going outside between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m., communicating with witnesses, or using the internet.

Sometime between 8 and 9 p.m., Moniava and Biryukov emerge from the courthouse. The people waiting behind the fence chant Moniava’s name and applaud. Once outside the gates, she tells the crowd: “I thought I was going to get 10 years in prison. Some kind of miracle.”

She says investigators spent “many hours” trying to persuade her to admit guilt: “For some reason, it’s very important that the defendant say they feel guilty. I don’t feel guilty. I want the war to end as soon as possible.”

“Is there anything you want to do right now?” journalists ask Moniava.

“See my friends,” she says with a smile.

Source: “Chants, applause, and hundreds of supporters: A report from the Moscow courthouse where children’s hospice founder Lida Moniava faced a charge of spreading ‘fakes’ about the Russian military,” Meduza, 4 September 2026

The Art of Translation

The first attack on the Saky military airfield, in the annexed Crimean peninsula, took place on August 9. Le Monde/AP

Lyudmyla Khersonska

When Crimea was still a place of light,

when gulls
were free
of orders,
when sandals
beat light
on the border
of water,
and gulls were the only patrols in the sky;
when women in bright dresses
walked barefoot or in cheap sandals,
in sandals, in sandals
instead of boots,
before missiles.
Before missiles,
I, too, loved it all.

Translated from the Russian by Ilya Kaminsky and Katie Farris

Когда-то во времена Крыма,

когда Крым еще не был горем,
когда Крым еще был морем,
и над морем летали чайки,
а в море резвились дельфины,
когда по берегу ходили в сандалиях,
а не в тяжелых берцах,
когда-то во времена солнца,
когда не было дыма снарядов,
когда в море не вбивали сваи
и не строили железную сушу,
тогда я все это любила.

Lyudmyla Khersonska is the author of About Today Is a Different War (Arrowsmith Press, 2023), and The Country Where Everyone’s Name Is Fear: Selected Poems (Lost Horse Press, 2022), coauthored with her husband, Boris Khersonsky, and translated by Ilya Kaminsky and Katie Farris.

About this Poem

“I [wrote] this poem after Russia annexed the Crimea. After this beautiful Ukrainian place [was] violently transformed into a Russian military base. I visited Crimea many times before the annexation. I loved its poetic tranquillity and inspiring landscapes. Now it is all gone. I might never be able to see it again. But I have it in my memory. I often think of my friends who used to live there before the annexation. They had to flee. Their house stays empty with the memory locked behind the door.”
—Lyudmyla Khersonska

“Katie Farris and I [collaborated] to translate this poem by Ludmyla Khersonsky [sic] who is a poet from Odesa, Ukraine, who is also a war refugee, currently living in Italy. Her writings have appeared widely in the U.S., including in The New Yorker and World Literature Today. She has written about war for many years and, to my mind, her writing stands in the tradition of other Eastern European poets, including Anna Swir, who write about crisis with hypnotic clarity and restraint.”
—Ilya Kaminsky

Source: Poets.org. In the original publication, the translators are credited right below the author’s name. Although this might have been an editorial decision, it does point to a sense of authorship on the part of the translators. I have tried to contest this claim by moving their names underneath their text, in keeping with convention, and by providing my own more literal translation of the poem, below. ||||| TRR

Back in the days of Crimea,

when Crimea was not yet sorrow,
when Crimea was still the sea,
and over the sea flew seagulls,
and dolphins frolicked in the sea,
when the shore was trod in sandals,
not heavy combat boots,
back in the days of sunshine
when there was no missile smoke,
no piles driven into the sea,
no building of an ironclad land,
in those days I loved all of it.

Translated, from the Russian, by the Russian Reader

Day of Knowledge

Zakhar Prilepin addressing an assembly at Petersburg’s Mining University. Photo: Bumaga

Zakhar Prilepin speaks at Mining University welcome assembly

Zakhar Prilepin was introduced as a “writer and participant in the Special Military Operation,” but was mistakenly referred to as “Prigozhin,” so he corrected the master of ceremonies, our correspondent reports.

Prilepin told the students that emigrating after receiving an education at the Mining University would be an act of treason.

“If you take your knowledge beyond the borders of this country, beyond the bounds of our national science, you will betray all those who stand beside you. I hope there is no one here like this, but some of you might secretly be thinking, ‘I was born so intelligent, I am so wonderful and gorgeous, and basically I’m entitled to everything, that I’ll just pack my bags and go off somewhere where they’ll pay me more for my brains.’ Please understand that this is a treachery against those people who have conquered and cultivated this vast expanse,” Prilepin declared.

Prilepin was the third to speak, after Rector Vladimir Litvinenko and one of his vice-rectors. On stage, the writer stood next to Litvinenko.

Source: Bumaga (Facebook), 1 September 2026. Translated by the Russian Reader

A wave of false bomb threats triggered mass evacuations at schools, kindergartens, hospitals and museums across at least nine Russian regions, local officials and media reported Tuesday.

In the Leningrad region, Governor Alexander Drozdenko said “a dozen” schools, kindergartens and hospitals responded to bomb scares. The hoaxes came amid Day of Knowledge celebrations that mark the start of the new school year every Sept. 1.

“We can’t ignore these threats, even though we understand the enemy’s goal to… ruin the holiday for children and adults,” Drozdenko wrote on Telegram, likely a reference to Ukraine.

St. Petersburg and Leningrad region police told the Fontanka.ru news outlet that “more than 100 institutions” received false threats.

In Moscow, at least four museums, including the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, evacuated visitors or temporarily closed for what they called “technical reasons.”

A government building in the Far Eastern Zabaikalsky region and a number of hospitals in the central republic of Tatarstan were also reportedly evacuated.

Fake bomb threats were also reported across the Ural Mountains, the Yamal-Nenets autonomous district, the Orenburg region and the Krasnoyarsk region.

Mass bomb threats, which the Kremlin referred to as “telephone terrorism,” have periodically plagued Russian cities in the years before and since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Source: “Bomb Threats Force Evacuations at Russian Schools,” Moscow Times, 1 September 2026

Prilepin greeted the 2014 ‘Russian Spring’ with delight as the realisation of long-held hopes for a resurgence of Russian power. He hailed the Crimean annexation as a vital turning point in Russia’s post-Soviet history, marking an end to the dominance of what he called the ‘hysterical’ domestic media coverage of the Russian military campaigns in Chechnya and Georgia, and expressing the hope that ‘the Crimean story will give a kind of super-brutal revolutionary impulse inside the country, so that it undergoes a metamorphosis’. Prilepin has been actively involved in the Donbas conflict, initially as a war correspondent and as an activist organising charity rock concerts in aid of the pro-Russian side and delivering humanitarian supplies to the local population. From 2015 to mid-2018 Prilepin was employed as adviser tothe head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR), Aleksandr Zakharchenko; in a move that has prompted speculation and conspiracy theorising when, Prilepin, citing health problems, left Zakharchenko’s service a few weeks before the latter was assassinated in August 2018. Apparently on commission from Kremlin ‘grey cardinal’ Vladislav Surkov, Prilepin published a popular biography of Zakharchenko in 2016.

In early 2017 Prilepin’s involvement in the war moved to another level after he announced that he was forming his own battalion to fight in the Donbas for the DNR. This led to his being hailed in the newspaper Moskovskii komsomolets as not just both writer and soldier, but also ‘perhaps, a prophet’; the popular tabloid Komsomol’skaia pravda described him as a ‘hero of our time’ for the 2000s, and the‘Byron of Donetsk’. Other commentators predicted that Prilepin would write ‘the first great novel’ about the war in the Donbas, which ‘our children and grandchildren will use to study the history of the second decade of the 21st Century’. Prilepin followed up his announcement with an online videoclip in which he held up a peace sign and delivered a mock-serious speech about the writer’s duty to oppose war, before tearing up the peace sign and ordering his men to open fire on Ukrainian positions.

Source: Julie Fedor, “Spinning Russia’s 21st Century Wars: Zakhar Prilepin and His ‘Literary Spetsnaz.’” The RUSI Journal, vol. 163, no. 6 (December 2018): 20–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/03071847.2018.1562015.