Week-ending 14 November 2025
Russia’s War against Ukraine
The EU will no longer issue multi-entry visas to Russian citizens residing in the country, its latest move to raise pressure on Moscow over its war on Ukraine.. (The Moscow Times, 7/11/25)
The EU executive plans to create a Centre for Democratic Resilience to counter disinformation from Russia and other authoritarian regimes, according to a leaked paper. (The Guardian, 7/11/25)
The FSB said it has detained eight residents of the republic of Bashkortostan over an alleged plot to sabotage mobile phone infrastructure, state media reported Monday. (The Moscow Times, 10/11/25)
At least 20 Russian regions have begun recruiting military reservists to guard strategic infrastructure under a new law that allows the military to deploy them during peacetime, the Kommersant business newspaper reported on Monday. (The Moscow Times, 10/11/25)
St. Petersburg police detained 18-year-old singer Diana Loginova and guitarist Alexander Orlov for a third time in a month, media outlets reported on Monday, coming immediately after the two musicians completed their latest jail sentences. (The Moscow Times, 10/11/25)
A court in the Russian city of St. Petersburg has sentenced members of the musical group Stoptime to another 13 days in jail, local media reported on November 11. The band gained national attention last month after publicly performing anti-war songs in Russia’s second-largest city. (RFE/RL, 11/11/25)
Mobile internet access will be restricted in parts of the central Ulyanovsk region for the duration of Russia’s so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine, regional authorities said Tuesday, marking the first permanent internet blackout in the country. (The Moscow Times, 11/11/25)
Russian opposition figures have reacted with anger and dismay to a decision by the EU to introduce a ban on multi-entry visas to the Schengen zone for Russian citizens. (The Guardian, 13/11/25)
Lithuania has banned the exiled Russian rapper Morgenshtern from entering the country for 10 years, local media reported on Thursday. (The Moscow Times, 13/11/25)
A Moscow military court sentenced exiled politician Leonid Gozman to 10 years in prison in absentia for “justifying terrorism,” authorities announced on Friday. (The Moscow Times, 14/11/25)
Other news
Central Asian migrants have experienced intensified police raids, deportations, and mistreatment in Russia in the aftermath of the deadly terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall in March 2024. Several Tajik citizens were arrested over their alleged involvement in the attack. (RFE/RL, 8/11/25)
Systema, RFE/RL’s Russian investigative unit, found there are not just one but two copies of Putin’s office at Novo-Ogaryovo — one in Sochi and the other at Valdai, roughly halfway between Moscow and St. Petersburg — and that the Kremlin has been dishonest about the president’s location hundreds of times in recent years. (RFE/RL, 11/11/25)
A senior lawmaker in Russia’s lower-house State Duma said Tuesday that the government has no plans to disconnect the country’s internet from the global web following debate over a decree that grants new powers to state internet regulators. (The Moscow Times, 11/11/25)
Russian law enforcement authorities arrested two workers at a Moscow mental health clinic following an incident that left a 20-year-old patient without both hands, a municipal deputy who has closely followed the case said Wednesday. (The Moscow Times, 12/11/25)
The Institute for the Study of War reported that German Gref, head of Sberbank, spoke, unusually, of Russia’s economic problems in a meeting with President Putin. (The Guardian, 12/11/25)
An RFE/RL investigation has discovered that Russian President Vladimir Putin uses three nearly identical offices in different parts of Russia and that the Kremlin has repeatedly misled the public about the leader’s whereabouts. (RFE/RL, 13/11/25)
Russia’s financial watchdog Rosfinmonitoring added exiled political analyst Ekaterina Schulmann and philanthropist Boris Zimin to its list of “terrorists and extremists.” (The Moscow Times, 14/11/25)
A Moscow court has posthumously found Andrei Kotov, owner of a travel agency guilty of organizing extremist activities linked to the banned “LGBT movement.” nearly a year after he died in police custody, the independent outlet Mediazona reported on Friday. (The Moscow Times, 14/11/25)
