Week-ending 10 October 2025
Russia’s War against Ukraine
A drone killed Antoni Lallican, a French photojournalist on assignment in eastern Ukraine on Friday and wounded a Ukrainian reporter. Ukrainian journalist Georgiy Ivanchenko was wounded in the same attack, which Ukraine’s military and French President Emmanuel Macron blamed on Russia. (The Moscow Times, RFE/RL, 4/10/25)
Pavel Guguyev, a Russian soldier freed in a prisoner swap with Ukraine, has been sentenced to four years in a penal colony on a charge of “confidential cooperation” with foreign nationals, after he gave interviews to a Ukrainian blogger. (The Moscow Times, 6/10/25)
A court in the northwestern Pskov region released opposition politician Lev Shlosberg from house arrest pending trial for his criticism of the invasion of Ukraine. Yabloko said Shlosberg was barred from using the internet, a phone and communicating with anyone outside his household for four months. (The Moscow Times, 7/10/25)
President Putin last week signed a decree that appears to target the assets of foreign companies that continue to operate in Russia and that have not yet been seized by the government. Putin signed the decree in an apparent response to the EU’s consideration of a scheme to loan Ukraine billions of dollars based on frozen Russian assets held in the EU. (RFE/RL, 8/10/25)
Russian law enforcement authorities on Wednesday pressed criminal charges against culinary historian Pavel Syutkin for allegedly spreading “false information” about the Russian military. According to his relatives, the charge is related to Syutkin’s posts about Russian atrocities against civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha. (The Moscow Times, 8/10/25)
Ruslan Shadiyev, a Russian nuclear engineer, was sentenced to 18 years in a maximum-security prison for donating 1,200 rubles ($13) to Ukraine-based paramilitary units of Russian citizens on charges of treason and aiding terrorist activity. (The Moscow Times, 8/10/25)
Lilya Manyukhina, an anti-war activist sentenced to prison, has been held in custody in Armenia for more than a month following an extradition request from Moscow. (The Moscow Times, 9/10/25)
Twenty-three Ukrainian children and adolescents have been brought out of Russian-occupied areas of the country to territory under Kyiv’s control. (The Guardian, 10/10/25)
A Moscow court ordered the seizure of assets belonging to Maxim Kruglov, deputy chair of Yabloko in custody on charges of spreading ‘fake news’ about the military. (The Moscow Times, 10/10/25)
Other news
Exiled Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza said a future delegation of Kremlin opponents outside Russia to PACE should “carry the widest possible representative character,” to “ensure [its] legitimacy.” On 1 October PACE voted to “establish a Platform for Dialogue with Russian Democratic Forces” in order to “address issues of common concern.” (RFE/RL, 7/10/25)
Russia held its first official meeting with Afghanistan after recognizing the Taliban government earlier this year. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov used the occasion to denounce Western sanctions and urge international support for postwar recovery. (The Moscow Times, 7/10/25)
Russia’s lower-house State Duma voted to fully withdraw from a long-suspended bilateral agreement with the United States on the disposal of weapons-grade plutonium. (The Moscow Times, 8/10/25)
Russia has begun enforcing a 24-hour blackout on mobile data and text messaging for all foreign SIM cards that connect to its networks. (The Moscow Times, 8/10/25)
Ksenia Sobchak said she deleted a recent interview with the openly gay Russian-born singer and blogger Sergei Grigoryev-Apollonov from her YouTube channel. (The Moscow Times, 8/10/25)
A court in Primorye region upheld the detention of Sofiane Sehili, a French endurance cyclist arrested last month on charges of illegally crossing the Russian border. (The Moscow Times, 9/10/25)
Independent digital rights group Roskomsvoboda said it is shutting down after 13 years of advocating against and monitoring government restrictions on the internet. (The Moscow Times, 9/10/25)
Russian authorities are to launch thorough inspections of regional airlines amid a growing number of aviation accidents and fatalities in recent years. (The Moscow Times, 9/10/25)
