Rusia

Two years ago tomorrow, on August 23, 2023, a private plane crashed outside Moscow, killing three crew members and seven passengers, including Wagner Group private military company founder Yevgeny Prigozhin. Two months prior, Prigozhin had led a brief mutiny against Russia’s military that captivated the world and culminated in an aborted march on Moscow itself. Ahead of the anniversary of Prigozhin’s death — which U.S. intelligence reportedly assessed as a deliberate assassination — the St. Petersburg news outlet Fontanka interviewed the late mercenary leader’s mother, Violetta Prigozhina. She recently organized a gallery exhibition in honor of her son.

Growing up in Chechnya in the 1990s and early 2000s, Lana Estemirova knew that her mother, renowned human rights activist Natalia Estemirova, had a very important job. She often went to work with Natalia at the Memorial human rights group’s Grozny office, and overheard her conversations about the abuses sweeping the republic amid the Chechen Wars. Then, when Lana was 15 years old, her mother was kidnapped outside their apartment block and brutally murdered. In her new memoir, “Please Live: The Chechen Wars, My Mother and Me,” Lana tells the story of her childhood, and how her mother’s unwavering dedication to her work not only shaped their relationship but ultimately led to her death. Meduza spoke to Lana Estemirova about commemorating her mother’s life and work, how Ramzan Kadyrov’s iron grip on power in Chechnya continues to destroy lives, and how she’s come to terms with the risks that come with fighting for the truth.

In the days since Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump’s Alaska summit, the world’s attention has turned to the portion of the Donetsk region that Kyiv still controls — and that Putin wants it to give up. This territory contains Ukraine’s “fortress belt,” a 31-mile stretch of defensive structures and fortified settlements that’s been built up over more than a decade. Western media outlets have argued that this belt is both the motivation for Putin’s demands and the reason his proposal is a non-starter for Ukraine. Meduza assesses these claims and explains the military and political significance of the “fortress belt.”

Friday’s “peace summit” in Anchorage was not about peace. It was about war, specifically how Russia can continue to fight a war Vladimir Putin believes he is now winning, while pretending he wants “peace”. It was about the rehabilitation of a disgraced leader wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. It was about an opportunistic rapprochement between two great powers whose heads of state are eager “to do business” with one another. None of this has anything to do with bringing lasting peace to Ukraine.

Societies change over time. The political philosophy known as the “Overton Window” measures how a population views what is palatable to them over a certain period, measuring the electorate’s mood on numerous issues and their acceptability to the general public.

US President Donald Trump has expressed growing frustration with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, as the war in Ukraine drags on, saying he is considering imposing new sanctions on Moscow.

In comments made at the White House on July 8, five days after his latest phone call with Putin, Trump indicated he was making little progress in his goal of ending the more than 40-month war.

Les pays du flanc oriental de l’OTAN ont annoncé qu’ils étaient prêts à frapper sur le territoire de la Russie en cas d’agression. Pour eux, la question n’est pas de savoir si cela va avoir lieu, mais quand ?

Les pays, qui se trouvent sur le flanc oriental, déclarent une nouvelle stratégie de défense contre la Russie, menaçant d’attaquer la Russie et de la bombarder s’ils se considèrent en danger jouant avec l’activation de l’article 5 de l’OTAN. «Dans les pays baltes – Lituanie, Lettonie et Estonie – on vit au quotidien la menace russe», rapporte Le Temps signalant une forme de paranoïa qui agite les élites de ces pays pourtant minuscules qui sont dans l’OTAN et dans l’UE, et qui, de ce fait, entraînent les autres pays de l’UE et de l’Alliance dans une escalade du conflit contre la Russie, menaçant de déboucher sur une guerre directe.

President Donald Trump seemed confident he could quickly end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But more than 150 days into his second term, peace seems no closer than it did on day one. Although headlines focus on high-stakes diplomacy and Moscow’s nightly aerial bombardment of Ukrainian civilians, policymakers in the United States should not overlook the Kremlin’s mistreatment of ethnic minorities under its control—particularly the continued persecution of the Crimean Tatar community.

Russia may have recently tested a new Iranian-made Shahed (Geran) drone with new precision capabilities, while likely simultaneously fielding new Russian-made radio-controlled Shahed drones. Ukrainian forces discovered Shahed drone debris on June 18 that had an advanced camera, a computing platform with artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) capabilities, and a radio operation system that allows the drone operator to remotely operate the Shahed drone from Russia.[1] Ukrainian electronic and radio warfare expert Serhiy “Flash” Beskrestnov told the Associated Press that the new Shahed variants are white and have no markings or labels consistent with Russia-made drones, instead having stickers consistent with the standard Iranian labeling system. Drone experts told AP that Iran may have sold new Shahed variants to Russia for combat testing. Beskresnov also commented on the footage of a black Shahed drone with a radio-controlled camera striking a Ukrainian target in Kramatorsk on June 24.[2] Beskresnov noted that while this Shahed variant appears to be different from the white, possibly Iranian-made Shahed drone. Beskresnov noted that Ukrainian intelligence previously warned that Russia sought to integrate radio communications and cameras into a portion of Shaheds and argued that the Russian-made radio-controlled Shahed variants likely have “primitive” and cheap video and radio communications, whereas the Iranian-made drone likely had expensive components. Beskresnov added that the Russian-made Shaheds are still likely vulnerable to Ukrainian electronic warfare (EW) due to their reliance on radio communications.