Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will attend a meeting of G20 foreign ministers in the United States, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
Zakharova said Russia intends to use Lavrov’s visit to advance proposals to strengthen “the foundations of a multipolar world.”
The meeting will take place in Atlanta on October 30–31.
Lavrov has been under U.S. sanctions since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He has nevertheless visited the United States several times since then to attend U.N. General Assembly sessions.
A summit of G20 heads of state will take place in Miami in mid-December. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been invited. Sources told The Atlantic that U.S. President Donald Trump wants Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to sign a peace agreement at the summit. The Kremlin has yet to confirm Putin’s attendance but has said it is “grateful” for the invitation.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
Talks between the United States, Russia, and Ukraine on ending the war in Ukraine will take place in Abu Dhabi after November 4, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said.
Ushakov did not give an exact date, saying it would depend “in part on battlefield conditions and the broader situation.”
He also said Russia had yet to finalize its delegation for the talks, but “the core is in place.”
In an interview with The Sun published on the morning of October 28, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the talks could take place on November 10. “We very much hope that the escalation in the Middle East that everyone is talking so much about right now won’t get in the way,” he said.
The United States will hold midterm elections on November 3, in which the Republican Party could lose its majority in both houses of Congress. According to media reports, Donald Trump could resume heavy strikes on Iran after the elections.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
A proposed fee on airline tickets to help fund a large-scale aircraft production program could reach 1,000 rubles per ticket, Interfax reported, citing the State Duma Budget and Tax Committee’s assessment of the draft federal budget.
The fee would be 1,000 rubles for international flights and 500 rubles for domestic flights. It could take effect as early as 2027.
Kommersant first reported the possible new fee in late September, citing sources. The newspaper reported that some of the money would go to leasing companies to cover the difference between aircraft production costs and the subsidized prices airlines pay for the planes. The rest would go to airlines to offset the aircraft’s high operating costs.
Russia adopted a large-scale aviation industry development program in 2023 that called for a severalfold increase in domestic aircraft production. The program envisioned annual increases in output, with 80 aircraft to be produced in 2025 and 120 in 2026. But airlines have not received a single aircraft under the program since its adoption. The new MC-21, SSJ-100, and Il-114 airliners are now expected to begin flying no earlier than 2027.
Since September 2025, airline passengers have been paying a fee of 150 rubles per person to fund airfield reconstruction. That fee is to be adjusted annually for inflation.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
Russia’s Federal Tax Service building on Neglinnaya Street in Moscow, 2023
The concepts of tax residency and residency for currency-control purposes are critical for anyone who has left Russia or divides their time between two countries. The obligations and risks depend on your circumstances: perhaps you have moved away for good but still rent out an apartment in Russia, live abroad but still earn a salary from a Russian company, or have no income in Russia but spent more than 183 days there in a year. Other situations are possible, too, and the rules can be confusing. How and when does your status change? How does tax residency differ from residency for currency-control purposes? Do the authorities keep track? And how can you avoid fines?
What is tax residency?
Tax residency determines the country where you must pay most of your taxes. Under Russian law, people who spend at least 183 days in Russia during a calendar year are considered Russian tax residents. Both the day of arrival and the day of departure count toward that total. Many other countries, particularly in Europe, follow a similar approach.
Russia’s tax service considers military personnel serving abroad, government officials, and employees of government agencies abroad to be residents regardless of how much time they spend in Russia. There are also exceptions to the 183-day rule. Time spent abroad for short-term medical treatment or study counts as time in Russia. The same applies to work at offshore oil and gas fields.
Why does this matter?
Tax residency determineshow income is taxed and at what rates. Russians with this status pay Russian taxes on their worldwide income: for example, on both a salary earned in Russia and income from renting out a home abroad.
Nonresidents are required to pay Russian taxes only on income earned within the country. Their foreign income is not taxed in Russia.
Tax rates also depend on whether you are a Russian tax resident. Residents pay personal income tax at progressive rates ranging from 13% to 22%, while nonresidents pay 30%. Nonresidents are also ineligible for tax deductions.
How do I know whether I have become a tax resident of the country where I’m staying?
The main rule is the same: spending more than 183 days in the country. To avoid unwelcome tax surprises, keep careful track of the days you spend in each country, especially if you frequently travel between them. Counting days is the clearest benchmark, Anastasia Burakova, a lawyer who founded the human rights organization Kovcheg, told Meduza.
But many countries use additional criteria to determine tax residency. Spain, for example, considers the center of your economic interests: where your business’s clients and your workplace are located, where you are registered as a sole proprietor or have registered a business, and where your spouse and minor children live permanently. Germany looks primarily at your permanent place of residence. It is best to check each country’s rules separately, either on the local tax authority’s website or with a specialist adviser. If possible, do this as soon as you move.
If you have been living abroad for a long time but are still unsure of your tax status, it is best to clarify it now.
What happens when your tax residency changes?
Once your residency changes, you must pay taxes in another country under its laws. You will lose your right to tax deductions in Russia, but you will still owe Russian taxes on property and most income earned within Russia.
Whether your residency status affects what you owe in Russia depends on the tax in question:
For owning an apartment: No. Property tax is calculated under separate rules. Fixed deductions, such as a 20-square-meter reduction in the taxable floor area, do not depend on residency.
For renting out a home: Yes, if you pay personal income tax. Residents pay 13% to 22%, while the rate for nonresidents rises to 30%. Different rules apply under special tax regimes, however, such as the regime for the self-employed.
For selling property: Yes, if you have not owned it for the minimum required period. Nonresidents pay tax at 30% of the full sale price. The main catch is that nonresidents cannot deduct what they originally paid for the home from that amount. But once the minimum ownership period of three or five years has passed, nonresidents pay no tax.
For remote work paid by a Russian employer: No, with qualifications. Since 2024, nonresidents working remotely for Russian employers have paid the same rates as residents, but they have lost their right to all personal income tax deductions, including those for expenses such as education, medical care, and home purchases. This can increase the final amount owed if you previously claimed deductions.
What else to keep in mind
The standard personal income tax rates apply both to staff working remotely and to contractors. An exception took effect on January 1, 2026, for “foreign agents,” whose earnings are taxed at 30% in all cases. Dividends paid to nonresidents are generally taxed at a flat rate of 15%.
How does tax residency differ from residency for currency-control purposes?
The two systems serve entirely different government purposes. Tax residency determines who must pay taxes, on what income, and at what rates. Currency regulation allows the authorities to monitor money moving across borders. Put simply, its purpose is to keep the ruble and the domestic foreign exchange market stable.
Residency is also determined differently under the two systems. Residency for currency-control purposes depends on citizenship or a residence permit, rather than the number of days spent in or outside the country. You can lose this status only by renouncing Russian citizenship or failing to renew your residence permit. As Burakova said, “someone with a Russian passport remains a Russian resident for currency-control purposes regardless of where they live.” Renouncing Russian citizenship, meanwhile, is neither simple nor inexpensive.
Like tax residency, residency for currency-control purposes imposes certain obligations and restrictions. Under the law “On Currency Regulation and Currency Control,” residents must notify the tax authorities of their foreign accounts and report transactions through them. For example, they must report opening a foreign account within a month.
In 2018, however, the concept of a “special resident” emerged: someone who is no longer a Russian tax resident but remains a resident for currency-control purposes. Special residents have fewer obligations: they do not have to report account openings or closings or account activity. Restrictions on currency transactions through foreign accounts do not apply to them either.
In practice, Burakova said, this means you will have to report foreign accounts only if you return to Russia for an extended stay and spend a total of more than 183 days there in a year. Again, you need to count your days carefully and be prepared to prove that you were outside the country. Keep documents that establish your travel dates and actual whereabouts, such as a long-term lease, an employment contract with a foreign employer, and airline boarding passes.
What happens if I spend more than 183 days in Russia and fail to report foreign accounts?
If you spend more than 183 days in Russia after returning to the country, the exemption from reporting foreign accounts no longer applies. You will have to notify the tax service even of accounts you previously did not report because of the exemption. The deadline is June 1 of the following calendar year. A report on account transactions may also be required by that date, unless you qualify for an exemption on other grounds.
Otherwise, you could face a fine under Article 15.25 of Russia’s Code of Administrative Offenses, which covers violations of currency laws and regulations. Failure to report an account carries a fine of up to 5,000 rubles for individuals and 800,000 to 1 million rubles for legal entities.
There is another risk: if someone fails to notify the tax service of a foreign account and money has moved through it, those transactions may be classified as illegal currency transactions. In that case, the person could be fined 20% to 40% of the value of the transactions, Burakova said. The statute of limitations for violations of currency laws is two years.
“After 2022, the tax authorities began keeping closer track of everything related to Russians’ taxes and the obligations that come with them,” Burakova said. For the most part, however, the government cannot obtain information from foreign banks, including details of an individual’s accounts. In practice, Burakova said, “they most often go after people who once reported their accounts themselves or transferred money to Russia and then stopped filing the required reports.” You could also face action at the Russian border if a foreign account is discovered during a phone inspection.
The tax service promises to determine tax residency automatically. What could that mean?
The Russian authorities have not yet introduced a system for determining tax residency automatically, but they want to. The Federal Tax Service considered requesting individual citizens’ passport information from the border service to establish their status.
The tax service had planned to automate the process by the end of 2025, but the system has yet to launch. According to the agency’s work plan, its introduction has been postponed until December 2027.
Tax adviser Artur Dulkarnaev wrote that this monitoring would benefit emigrants whose income information inspectors had received through data exchanges with other countries. These people would not have to file a tax return in Russia themselves. For those who have declared foreign accounts and companies, confirming residency and having the tax service review their documents would also become easier.
But automation has a downside: it would become much easier for the agency to identify people whose nonresident status has gone undetected and assess additional taxes at higher rates. Those who rent out homes in Russia or sell them before the minimum ownership period has passed would be at risk. In those cases, they would have to pay the state 30% of the money they receive.
Some types of income, however, are subject to more lenient rules. Remote employees of Russian companies will continue to pay the standard personal income tax rates of 13% to 22% regardless of their status, while dividends that nonresidents receive from Russian businesses will generally be taxed at 15%.
Entrepreneurs who live abroad but continue to operate under Russia’s patent-based tax system could also face problems. Living abroad does not, in itself, disqualify someone from this special tax regime. But the Federal Tax Service can check where the business actually operates. If inspectors prove that it operates outside the region that issued the tax patent, the patent will be revoked. The agency will then recalculate the taxes under a different system. If the sole proprietor is registered under the simplified tax system, that will usually mean paying 6% of income or 15% of income after deducting expenses. Otherwise, the general tax system applies, under which the personal income tax rate for nonresidents is generally 30%. The entrepreneur may also have to pay value-added tax.
Do I need to report taxes paid in other countries to the Russian authorities?
If you are not a Russian tax resident, you do not need to report taxes paid abroad. Nonresidents pay Russian taxes only on income earned within Russia.
Residents, however, must report their foreign income to the government. This information, along with the amounts already paid in taxes in the other country, goes on the 3-NDFL personal income tax return. It must be filed by April 30 of the following year. Foreign income is reported in Appendix 2. For the Federal Tax Service to credit taxes paid abroad, attach documents from the foreign tax authority along with a notarized Russian translation.
Depending on the country, your Russian tax bill can be reduced by the amount already paid abroad. This depends on whether a double taxation agreement is in force between the two countries. If there is an agreement, as with Turkey or the United Arab Emirates, you will need to pay only the difference in Russia. For example, if you paid 10% abroad but owe 13% in Russia, you will owe the Russian government just 3%.
If the double taxation agreement has been suspended, as with the United States, the United Kingdom, European Union countries, and other “unfriendly” states, you will have to pay Russian tax at the full rate in some cases. Russia does not apply preferential tax treatment in these circumstances, although there are exceptions to the rates on income paid by Russian organizations to foreign ones, particularly for aircraft leasing and certain types of maritime shipping.
How can the Russian tax service find out about my foreign income?
The Federal Tax Service has two options: automatic data exchanges with countries where this practice continues, and manual checks.
The latest list of countries with which Russia automatically exchanges tax information included 71 countries, among them Armenia, Argentina, Israel, and Thailand. Several European Union countries used to be on the list but were later removed. Kovcheg suggested that if you moved to the EU in 2021 or 2022, the Russian authorities most likely have no information about you.
That does not mean people who moved to Europe are entirely off the authorities’ radar. Tax officials have begun seeking information themselves. As early as late 2023, the newspaper Vedomosti reported that the Federal Tax Service was selectively demanding that some Russians provide foreign account statements, documents on currency transactions, and information on how many days they had spent outside Russia. In 2025, Forbes Russia reported that the agency had begun actively checking the incomes of Russians in the EU and Switzerland. According to the publication, tax service employees were demanding reports not only for 2024 but also pulling records for 2022 and 2023. Experts believe officials request documents when they have a lead — for example, if someone previously declared their foreign accounts themselves.
Judging by the tax service’s practice in 2023, people are given just a week to respond. If a request goes unanswered, the Federal Tax Service can impose a fine for failing to provide documents and later assess additional taxes at a higher rate, along with interest for each day the payment is overdue.
What should I do to avoid problems with tax authorities abroad?
Burakova recommends the following steps:
First, consult a local tax adviser in advance. If that is not possible, study the tax rules on the official websites of the tax service and other government agencies in your country of residence. Find out which taxes you need to pay, whether you need to file a return, and what the deadlines are.
Second, if you travel back and forth frequently, keep careful track of how many days you spend in each country. Remember that under Russian law, both arrival and departure days count as days spent in Russia.
Third, keep documents confirming when and where you stayed, such as passport stamps recording border crossings, tickets, employment contracts, and utility bills. They may come in handy if the tax authorities in the country where you are staying ask you to confirm your status.
Fourth, if you discover an error in a tax return or find that you have unpaid taxes, ask a local adviser or consult official guidance from the local tax service about how to resolve the issue voluntarily. In some countries, this can reduce the fine, although you will still have to pay the tax itself and interest for the days it was overdue.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
We found that in March 2026, the National Antiterrorism Committeepublished “Collected Information on the Activities of Organizations Designated as Terrorist in the Russian Federation.” Staff at the FSB Research Center prepared it “to inform the public about the crimes” committed by these groups.
The collection covers every terrorist organization added to the FSB’s list by the summer of 2024, including the Taliban movement.
The Taliban also remains on the list of extremists and terrorists maintained by Rosfinmonitoring, Russia’s financial intelligence agency. In the latest version, dated October 23, it appears alongside other movements designated as criminal in Russia:
144. TAGANROG REPUBLIC MOVEMENT* , ;
145. TALIBAN MOVEMENT* , ;
146. TVER LAND MOVEMENT* (TVER PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC; TVER REPUBLIC)
Wait, didn’t the Russian authorities stop treating the Taliban as a banned organization?
That’s right. On April 17, 2025, Russia’s Supreme Court granted a request from the Prosecutor General’s Office to suspend the ban on the Taliban’s activities.
This procedure was added to Russia’s Federal Law on Countering Terrorism only in January of that year. And it was devised specifically for the Taliban!
I see. So the FSB’s collection was just out of date by the time it was published!
No. The collection already mentions the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Taliban; it even specifies that the ruling took effect on May 20, 2025.
Yet the authors continue to call the Taliban movement an international terrorist organization. In the relevant sections, they describe its ideological tenets, propaganda tools, and criminal activities. Here’s how the security service’s experts describe the movement’s main goals and objectives:
The goals are to overthrow secular rule in Afghanistan and establish a state governed by Sharia law. This goal was largely achieved after the movement came to power in 2023. As the fundamentalist state consolidates its position in Afghanistan, efforts are being made to establish relations with foreign countries, including the Russian Federation.
This is confusing… Didn’t the FSB remove the Taliban from its terrorist list in line with the Supreme Court’s ruling?
No! The Taliban remains on the unified federal list of terrorist organizations maintained by the security service. Its entry now mentions both Supreme Court rulings: the one banning its activities in 2003 and the one suspending that ban 22 years later.
But surely the second ruling overturns the first one entirely!
That’s not the case either. The Russian Supreme Court’s 2003 ruling had two parts:
Designating the Taliban movement and more than a dozen other groups as terrorist organizations
Banning their activities in Russia
On the basis of the foregoing and pursuant to Articles 194, 195, and 198 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation
rules:
The application of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation is granted. The following organizations are designated as terrorist organizations: “Supreme Military Majlis al-Shura of the United Mujahideen Forces of the Caucasus,” “Congress of the Peoples of Ichkeria and Dagestan,” “The Base” (“Al-Qaeda”), “Asbat al-Ansar,” “Holy War” (“Al-Jihad” or “Egyptian Islamic Jihad”), “Islamic Group” (“Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya”), “Muslim Brotherhood” (“Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun”), “Islamic Liberation Party” (“Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami”), “Lashkar-e-Taiba,” “Islamic Group” (“Jamaat-e-Islami”), ”Taliban Movement,” “Islamic Party of Turkestan” (formerly the “Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan”), “Social Reform Society” (“Jamiyat al-Islah al-Ijtimai”), “Revival of Islamic Heritage Society” (“Jamiyat Ihya al-Turath al-Islami”), and “House of the Two Saints” (“Al-Haramain”). Their activities in the Russian Federation are banned.
The 2025 ruling could address only the second part. And it doesn’t lift the ban — it merely suspends it. In effect, the suspension is temporary, and the law allows the Russian authorities to change their minds at any time. They wouldn’t need to add the Taliban to the terrorist list again. They would only need to revoke the court-ordered suspension.
So technically, the Taliban is a terrorist organization that’s legal in Russia?
Yes. It’s the first and so far the only organization with this status.
Russian authorities concluded that the movement had renounced terrorism, and they legalized it. Yet they still formally consider the Taliban a terrorist organization. The 2025 amendments also specifically stated that suspending the ban would not trigger a review of past criminal cases involving the Taliban.
Is that also why the Taliban remains on Rosfinmonitoring’s list?
No, it should have been removed from that list long ago. In 2025, suspending a ban became one of the grounds for removing an organization from the list of extremists and terrorists. We don’t know why that still hasn’t happened. But Rosfinmonitoring is sometimes slow to remove people from the list even after they die.
Because the Taliban is still on the list, Russian banks, for example, remain prohibited from doing business with it.
The law on combating terrorist financing does allow the movement to apply to have itself removed from the list. Rosfinmonitoring would then have two weeks to remove it or explain its refusal. We don’t know whether the Taliban has tried to use this procedure.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
Dmitry Kamenshchik, the former owner of Domodedovo Airport, has left Russia and moved to Israel, Forbes reported.
A representative for the businessman told Forbes that Kamenshchik left Russia in 2025, immediately after authorities carried out a court order to seize his airport. He later obtained Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return.
Kamenshchik now lives in Tel Aviv and remains active in business.
His representative stressed that Kamenshchik “had neither a residence permit nor citizenship in any other country” either when he gained control of the airport or when prosecutors filed the lawsuit to nationalize it.
Domodedovo Airport was nationalized in June 2025 following a lawsuit by the Prosecutor General’s Office. Formally, the office’s case rested specifically on allegations that the airport had come under “foreign influence”: Prosecutors alleged that Kamenshchik held residence permits in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates in 2022–2023, while supervisory board chairman Valery Kogan held Israeli citizenship.
After its expropriation, Domodedovo sold for only about half its market value — 66 billion rubles. Entities controlled by Arkady Rotenberg became its new owners.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
Late October falls within the recommended window for annual flu vaccination. It takes about two weeks for protection to develop after vaccination, which is why vaccination is generally recommended shortly before the flu starts spreading. Protection gradually wears off, so the timing also affects how much immunity remains at the end of the season.
That’s why the World Health Organization recommends getting vaccinated in October. The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control says it’s best to have immunity to the flu by mid-November.
Who benefits most from vaccination?
The benefits vary depending on a person’s health and risk factors. Vaccination reduces the risk of getting sick and, if infection occurs, lowers the likelihood of severe illness or death. People at the greatest risk from the flu benefitmost from vaccination. These include:
People with chronic conditions
Older adults (usually those 65 and older)
People who are pregnant or gave birth within the past two weeks
Children under 5
Minors who regularly take aspirin or similar medications
People with a body mass index of 40 or higher
Healthy adults rarely become seriously ill, so the benefit of vaccination for any one healthy adult is small: For every vaccinated person whose illness was prevented by the vaccine, 70 vaccinated people received no benefit. Still, a healthy adult who doesn’t get sick won’t pass the virus on to others, including vulnerable people. That’s why some countries offer free vaccinations to both people in high-risk groups and those who have frequent contact with them.
Flu vaccines can also cause side effects. Usually, this means pain at the injection site, but one in 100 people may developflu-like symptoms. More serious side effects are much rarer.
How does access to vaccination vary by country?
Procedures depend on the country. Details are usually available on national or local government websites. The following links cover several countries:
Russia (details are available on the websites of regional health ministries and departments, as well as local branches of Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s consumer protection and public health agency)
In some places, vaccination requires a prior doctor’s visit; in others, shots are available at pharmacies or mobile vaccination clinics.
Where governments or insurers cover vaccination only for people in high-risk groups, paid vaccination is usually available at private clinics or pharmacies. A doctor may also be able to provide a referral, depending on the eligibility rules.
For countries not listed here, information is also available through doctors, local health ministries, and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control’s website. Search engines or chatbots can help locate relevant sources.
Identification and a vaccination record, preferably an international one, are useful documents for an appointment. Vaccination records can often be issued on the spot, though arrangements vary by provider.
What options exist for people who aren’t eligible locally?
For people unable to access vaccination locally, even for a fee, another option is to travel abroad for vaccination, sometimes called vaccine tourism. This can also mean getting vaccinated during an otherwise planned trip. Vaccination clinics, pharmacies, and other places that offer shots without a doctor’s examination usually have no restrictions based on citizenship or immigration status (that’s the case in Germany and Armenia, for example). Requirements vary by provider.
The nonprofit Kollektivny Immunitet maintains a spreadsheet of people’s experiences getting vaccinated in different countries. More detailed accounts and recommendations appear under the hashtag #nv_туризм on its director’s Telegram channel.
Are some vaccines better than others?
Some vaccines have been studied more thoroughly. Imported vaccines are currently unavailable in Russia. Of those available, Ultrix Quadri, Flu-M, and Flu-M Tetra contain 15 micrograms of each type of hemagglutinin — exactly as much as their foreign counterparts. Other vaccines (Grippol Plus, Grippol Quadrivalent, and Sovigripp) contain less of the active ingredient. According to studies by their manufacturers, however, additional ingredients make these vaccines sufficiently effective. Whether to trust those findings is open to debate. For its part, the nonprofit Kollektivny Immunitet recommends vaccination with whichever flu vaccine is available.
When is it too late to get vaccinated?
It’s hard to say. Government vaccination campaigns can run into the spring. Experts at Germany’s Robert Koch Institute write:
If you haven’t been able to get vaccinated during this period [before mid-December], it may still make sense to get vaccinated at the beginning or even at the height of an epidemic. After all, it’s impossible to predict exactly how long it will last. For example, in the 2022-23 season, a second wave of flu caused by a different variant of the virus began in March.
“It’s never too late to get vaccinated if the flu is still circulating in the community,” the World Health Organization writes.
What other measures help reduce the risk of infection?
Other preventive measures help reduce the risk of flu as well as colds and other respiratory viral infections (for which there are no vaccines). These include:
Regular, thorough handwashing
Avoiding touching the face with dirty hands (Meduza has published a guide on breaking the habit)
Keeping a distance from people who are sick and avoiding crowded places, especially enclosed, poorly ventilated spaces
Disinfecting objects frequently touched with dirty hands, such as doorknobs and keyboards
Wearing an FFP2 respirator for people at high risk of severe illness
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
A former Roskomnadzor employee responsible for blocking websites in Russia is now the lead developer of AIVPN, a service that helps users get around such blocks, according to reporting by The Bell’s Maria Kolomychenko.
Ads for AIVPN appeared online in the spring of 2026. The service is marketed as a tool that can disguise VPN traffic, making it virtually indistinguishable from ordinary traffic and undetectable by deep packet inspection (DPI) systems.
Oleg Kirichenko, an IT entrepreneur from Rostov-on-Don, identifies himself as AIVPN’s creator. He now lives in Turkey and works on artificial intelligence projects. Kirichenko told The Bell he created AIVPN to help users in countries with restricted access to information.
But AIVPN’s commit history — a record of changes on GitHub — indicates that most of its code was written not by Kirichenko but by a user with the handle vminakov. The user joined the project in June 2026 and has since made several hundred changes affecting hundreds of thousands of lines of code.
Using the AI model Claude, The Bell calculated that vminakov wrote nearly 90% of the source code in AIVPN’s latest release. He also developed most of the project’s key components.
The user vminakov is Vladislav Minakov, a former employee of the Main Radio Frequency Center, a Roskomnadzor agency whose responsibilities include blocking websites in Russia. At the center, Minakov worked on the “Revizor” system, which checks whether Russian internet service providers are blocking websites on Roskomnadzor’s banned lists.
Minakov rose to the post of technical adviser to the center’s director before leaving for another job in 2023. His LinkedIn profile now says he heads software development at GlavNIVTs, an organization overseen by the Russian Presidential Property Management Directorate. GlavNIVTs develops and deploys information systems for government agencies.
Kirichenko told The Bell he met Minakov through GitHub when Minakov submitted a pull request to the project:
I confirmed that he’d worked at Roskomnadzor, emailed him, and asked, “Are you seriously trying to barge in here and mess things up?” But he wrote back that he didn’t work there anymore. I checked everything very carefully, then we started working together, and he made some pretty useful changes. I just don’t have time to do much work on this project right now.
Minakov also confirmed that he is helping develop AIVPN. He said he became interested in the project because of problems transmitting data reliably: “Lately, there have been problems with legitimate traffic: Even connecting two data centers can be a challenge sometimes. The AIVPN protocol makes all of that possible.”
Minakov said AIVPN is unrelated to his main job and has no political or commercial dimension. Bypassing blocks is “just one possible use,” he said, and anyone can inspect the code.
At The Bell’s request, specialists at RKS Global examined AIVPN. Sarkis Darbinyan, the organization’s co-founder and a legal adviser to the VPN Guild, said a quick review had found nothing suspicious in the code, but Minakov’s professional background still raised concerns about the project.
Mikhail Klimarev, who runs the Telegram channel ZaTelekom, agreed: “In any project, especially an open-source one, it matters who’s behind it. In this case, we see that the person behind the VPN project spent years essentially implementing censorship in Russia. We don’t know why he’s developing a VPN. Figuring out what’s inside it takes time and investigation. But under no circumstances would I install software like that on my devices.”
Filipp Kulin, an IT expert, told The Bell he has known Minakov since Minakov worked at the Main Radio Frequency Center. Kulin called Minakov “a genuine Z patriot” — a supporter of Russia’s war in Ukraine — who nonetheless kept in touch with the telecom industry “and really did try to help with some things.” Kulin considers the concept behind AIVPN “out of touch with reality.”
“The idea might even be interesting, but it achieves nothing. The question isn’t how cleverly you can disguise the protocol, but where to find hosting providers you can actually access to bypass the blocks. If Roskomnadzor throttles half the hosting providers you could use for that, nothing works,” he said.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
An Albert Heijn supermarket in the Netherlands after a cyberattack in early October 2026
After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow-linked hacker groups began targeting not only the websites of government and private organizations in the West but also critical infrastructure and businesses, Bloomberg reported in a lengthy feature. Targets have included water facilities, factories, and food companies. The attacks have caused pipes to burst, food to spoil, and fires to break out. Meduza summarizes the report’s key findings.
What the attacks targeted
Spain
Crematorium ovens at a funeral home in Alicante province stopped working.
Equipment used to manufacture transformers for renewable energy systems malfunctioned at a factory in Catalonia, where a fire broke out.
Two Spanish wineries halted operations after their heating and ventilation systems were disrupted, sending temperatures soaring in production and storage areas.
The incidents in Spain took place from late 2024 to the summer of 2026.
Denmark
In mid-December 2024, 450 homes in the Danish village of Tureby lost their water supply. The pressure setting in the electronic control system had been turned to zero. Local workers restarted the water pumps.
The next day, the pressure suddenly surged, causing underground pipes to burst and leak. Jan Hansen, who chaired the committee managing the local water supply, discovered that he could no longer access the control panel. When he arrived at the pumping station, he found the pump running out of control.
Technicians from Evotect ApS, the Danish company that manufactured the pump controller, determined that the system had been hacked. Hansen later admitted that they had chosen a cheap system to control the water supply and that its password was 1234.
United States
In 2024, hackers shut off refrigeration at a meatpacking plant near Los Angeles. More than 2,000 pounds (about 900 kilograms) of meat spoiled, and an ammonia leak forced workers to evacuate.
That same year, hackers attacked a public water system in Texas. They changed the control settings, causing an unknown volume of drinking water to spill from storage tanks.
In October of that year, hackers broke into a waste treatment facility’s control system in Pennsylvania and tampered with equipment used to kill bacteria.
Who is carrying out the attacks
Cyber Army of Russia Reborn (CARR)
A hacker group linked to Russia’s military intelligence agency, the Main Directorate of the General Staff, formerly known as the GRU
Has repeatedly claimed responsibility for attacks in Europe and the United States, including on water systems in the United States and Poland and a power plant in France
A hacker group formed in September 2024 by members of CARR and NoName057(16)
According to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), some CARR members were unhappy with the level of support from the GRU and decided to break away, forming their own group focused on industrial sabotage
Under European Union sanctions: The EU holds the group responsible for attacks on critical infrastructure, particularly in the energy and water sectors. The group has also publicly claimed involvement in such attacks
Victoria Dubranova
Bloomberg gives a detailed account of Victoria Dubranova, a Ukrainian citizen whom the U.S. Justice Department accused in late 2025 of participating in cyberattacks on Russia’s behalf.
Dubranova has been charged with working for Cyber Army of Russia Reborn and Z-Pentest. She is in custody and denies the charges. According to the Justice Department, she had been working with the hackers since at least the fall of 2022. She was recruited through a chat group for people seeking remote work.
She allegedly created and edited videos for the hackers, helped identify targets, and gave them a database containing personal information about people in Ukraine, Romania, and Moldova. Z-Pentest said Dubranova had not engaged in hacking.
Chris Barlati
In March, Italian citizen Chris Barlati was arrested in Spain. Spanish police said Barlati acted as an intermediary for the hackers and helped select targets, among other things. U.S. investigators also allege that he tried to help Dubranova flee Ukraine for Russia via Europe. He has pleaded not guilty and is not currently in police custody.
What experts say about the attacks
In the attacks described above, hackers most often exploited vulnerabilities in poorly secured systems. They can cause serious damage through either malice or incompetence. “I am genuinely surprised that we haven’t yet seen a catastrophe,” said Cian Heasley, a principal consultant at the British cybersecurity company Acumen Cyber.
In September 2025, the U.S. company Forescout Technologies created a dummy industrial control system designed to look as though it served a Dutch water facility. The company said a hacker group called TwoNet, similar to Z-Pentest, broke into the system and then claimed to have successfully attacked the fictitious facility. Such amateurishness does not make the hackers any less dangerous, said Simon Berner, lead cyber threat intelligence analyst at Estonia’s National Cyber Security Center:
Even if the level of sophistication is not too big, the problem is that the more they poke around, the more it is probable they can find something critical that wasn’t protected well.
The desire simply to sow chaos gives groups such as Z-Pentest the freedom to choose whichever targets are poorly defended. “Rather than focusing on strategically significant targets, they are opportunistic and breach whatever is available to them,” CISA said in its report. The agency also warned that these groups exaggerate their capabilities and the impact of their actions, portraying minor incursions as significant breaches.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
A teenager armed with two knives attacked a gendarmerie officer guarding a facility in front of the Israeli Embassy in Belgrade, shouting “God is greatest.”
The officer fought back and killed the attacker. Authorities raised the terrorism alert level to red, which means increased policing nationwide.
Interior Minister Ivica Dacic confirmed the attack, which took place at 12:15 a.m. on October 28. The officer suffered minor injuries.
Dacic said security services had been monitoring the attacker, who was believed to be a supporter of the Islamic State group.
The attack came a day after Israel held parliamentary elections on October 27. Votes are still being counted. Exit polls show the opposition bloc led by former military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot narrowly ahead of incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
The viral AI-generated song “Ty moya…” (“You’re my…”) by musician DJ NARODNII has been blocked on Russian streaming services, the news outlet Ostorozhno, Novosti reported.
Attempts to play the track on services such as Yandex Music bring up a notice saying it is unavailable at the request of Roskomnadzor, Russia’s communications regulator.
In late September, Russia’s Federal Agency for Youth Affairs demanded that access to the song be restricted.
DJ NARODNII said he received no warning that the track would be removed and found out when he checked the music platforms. He said Yandex Music had removed five remixes along with the original song.
The musician believes the track was blocked because of complaints from “certain individuals who took it personally.” He disagrees with the decision:
Then they should block every song with any swearing in it. If you watch the video, follow the story, and understand the context, it all makes sense — why the song is the way it is and why it uses those particular words. […] Some people just can’t understand or appreciate real art. It’s like a niche perfume with complex notes.
DJ NARODNII’s AI track, whose chorus goes “You’re my scumbag, you’re my pig…” has become popular on TikTok and Instagram in recent months. Its creator originally posted the song to mock AI-generated music, but it became a hit.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
Residents of Oleshky in Ukraine’s Kherson region who want to evacuate to Ukraine will be flown to Belarus aboard a Russian Defense Ministry aircraft, according to documents shown in photographs published by Fox News.
The documents say a Ukrainian delegation led by the country’s ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, will accompany the residents. The plane will first take them to Anapa. From there, they will fly to Gomel, Belarus, on October 31.
The published excerpt does not specify how the residents will travel from Gomel to Ukraine.
The document also mentions further “repatriation operations” from cities in the Kherson region. These will take place “at least once a month, with assistance and coordination from U.S. first lady Melania Trump.”
Over the past several months, Russian-controlled Oleshky has been on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe: The city has been under constant shelling, and leaving has been virtually impossible because most roads are mined.
In late October, Russia and Ukraine agreed to a localized ceasefire mediated by Melania Trump to allow residents to leave the city. The ceasefire took effect on October 27 and is expected to last until November 1.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
Trump hopes a trilateral meeting with Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky will happen soon. The U.S. president told reporters such a meeting could take place “very soon” and said he expects the summit to achieve “a lot of progress.” He did not say where or when the talks might occur.
Plans for a trilateral meeting of U.S., Ukrainian, and Russian delegations have become clearer. Ukrainian President Zelensky said that after a call between Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre with Vladimir Putin, “there is a sense that the Russians are serious about meeting in Abu Dhabi.”
Zelensky said the talks in Abu Dhabi are expected to address “de-escalation steps in the energy sector and at sea, as well as the exchange and return home of prisoners.” He added that there is also hope “to discuss the format in which a trilateral meeting at the leaders’ level could take place.”
During the call, Putin lectured the Finnish president and the Norwegian prime minister on the history of the Slavs. As a result, the call stretched to nearly an hour and a half instead of the planned half hour, Financial Times sources said. The Kremlin’s press service, commenting on the call, said “Putin assessed the current situation in the conflict zone in Ukraine, recalling its root causes.” The FT reported that an immediate ceasefire was not discussed during the call.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen criticized Stubb and Støre for the call with Putin. She said the initiative had not been coordinated with the rest of the EU countries. The Finnish president responded by saying that he and Støre “held the conversation in our capacity as leaders of our respective countries, not as representatives of Europe.” The European Union is trying to choose who will represent it in talks with Russia. Stubb has been named as one of the most likely candidates, with his good relationship with Donald Trump cited as one of the factors.
EU representatives also plan to take part in the talks in Abu Dhabi.According to Euronews, the delegation will be led by Björn Seibert, head of the Cabinet of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. A meeting in this format — with representatives from the U.S., Ukraine, Russia, and the European Union — would be the first since the start of the full-scale war, the broadcaster said.
The war in photographs
Russian forces struck Kharkiv overnight on October 28, and a drone attack set an apartment building on fire in the city’s Osnovianskyi district. The attack killed a 60-year-old man and injured four people, said Oleh Syniehubov, head of the regional military administration. It also set fire to a private home, an industrial building, and several outbuildings.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
Germany supplied Russia with prosthetic arms and legs, as well as artificial joints, worth 79 million euros in the first half of 2026, almost a third more than a year earlier, according to Eurostat data reviewed by Forbes Russia.
Prosthetic arms and legs and related components accounted for 41.2 million euros of that total, while endoprostheses — artificial hip, knee, and other joint replacements — accounted for 37.8 million euros.
Supplies of prosthetic arms and legs grew 5.4 times compared with 2021, while shipments of endoprostheses grew 6.1 times.
Russia received prostheses and endoprostheses worth a total of 144.9 million euros from European Union countries in the first half of 2026, compared with 66.5 million euros during the same period in 2021.
Russia’s prosthetics market is growing, but domestic production capacity is not keeping pace with demand, Forbes writes. People with disabilities received 152,661 prosthetic arms and legs from the state in 2024, more than in any of the previous 10 years, according to the Labor Ministry.
Market participants say prosthetics are now being issued significantly faster and recipients have become significantly younger. Young people accounted for about 8% of those needing prosthetics before 2022, but their share had grown to 15–20% by 2025, according to Rostec, the Russian state defense conglomerate. Most are people who fought in the war with Ukraine and were wounded there.
Younger patients need more complex, technologically advanced devices, but production of these prostheses in Russia has “historically developed somewhat more slowly,” experts say. As a result, Russian-made products account for about 80% of the prosthetics market by unit but only 30% by value, and imports account for up to 70% of the market for expensive, high-tech components.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
Russia’s largest bookstore chain, Chitai-Gorod–Bukvoed, has spent about 100 million rubles in recent years pulling books that violate Russian law from sale and destroying them, the chain’s head, Alexander Brychkin, said in an interview with the Russian business news outlet RBC.
“Mostly it’s the inability to return the goods to the supplier, so we have to write them off as a loss. We can’t just throw these books in the trash. They’re toxic waste. So they have to be disposed of, and that’s also at our expense. On top of that, no one compensates us for the costs of pulling them from the shelf, sending them back to the warehouse, having it all transported somehow, and then processed at the warehouse. All of this adds up to an enormous amount of work and fairly large expenses,” Brychkin said.
Brychkin described how the disposal process works: “The disposal process looks like this: a service provider destroys the books on camera using an industrial shredder.”
Brychkin said a book is pulled from sale after the chain receives notice from the Russian Book Union that “there are suspicions regarding a particular book.” The chain then stops selling it “until clarity is reached.”
“Of course, there can be no complete clarity in this situation. Because even if the Russian Book Union doesn’t find anything in the book, there’s no guarantee that some parallel expert assessment isn’t happening at the same time somewhere within another organization,” Brychkin added.
Brychkin said Russian readers have shown no noticeable interest in books by Lyudmila Ulitskaya and Boris Akunin pulled from sale.
“Some of Boris Akunin’s books are still sitting in the warehouse, and we haven’t disposed of them yet. It’s not possible to return them to the supplier. In a sense, you could think of it as a special restricted storage,” Brychkin said.
In recent years, Russia has regularly pulled books from sale at the demand of authorities or pro-government organizations. For example, in October 2026, Russia’s media regulator, Roskomnadzor, banned the novels Dvesti tretiy den zimy “The 203rd Day of Winter” and Vesna vody “The Spring of Water” by writer Olga Ptitseva. According to media reports, the ban may have stemmed from signs of “promotion of non-traditional sexual relations.”
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
Russian President Vladimir Putin spent much of an October 27 phone call with Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre recounting the “medieval Slavic history,” the Financial Times reported, citing sources familiar with the conversation.
The call was initially expected to last 30 minutes but instead ran for an hour and a half.
Putin spent most of the call describing what the Kremlin considers the “initial reasons for the conflict” rather than discussing ways to end the Russia–Ukraine war, according to the Financial Times. The prospect of an immediate ceasefire came up only briefly, the outlet’s sources said.
One of the sources said Stubb and Støre chose not to interrupt Putin, wanting to gauge how serious he was about pursuing dialogue with Europe.
The conversation between Stubb, Støre, and Putin took place at the initiative of Western leaders. The Kremlin reported the day before that the Russian president had “assessed the current situation” in Ukraine, recalling the “root causes of the conflict,” and had also drawn attention to the “confrontational policy of EU and NATO countries, which is prolonging the fighting.” A source close to the Kremlin told Reuters that Putin told Stubb and Støre that Russia would not abandon its goal of seizing the entire territory of Donbas. The European leaders responded that a “just” peace was necessary.
During conversations with Western politicians and journalists, Putin has repeatedly spent a long time recounting his version of the history of Russia and Ukraine. He did so, for example, in an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson in 2024, and during a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Alaska.
At the end of October 2026, Putin, in an interview with Pavel Zarubin, a correspondent for the Russian state broadcasting company VGTRK, commenting on his meeting with Trump’s negotiators, said that Russia does not want to fight Ukraine. According to him, “the latest genetic research shows that this is one people — Russians and Ukrainians.” It is unclear what research he was referring to.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
U.S. President Donald Trump said he expects to hold a trilateral meeting soon with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
.@POTUS: "We're making a lot of progress with Russia-Ukraine. There'll be a meeting set up very soon." pic.twitter.com/N0vU2zoIsJ
“We’re making a lot of progress with Russia [and] Ukraine. There’ll be a meeting set up very soon,” Trump told reporters. Asked who exactly the meeting would involve, he said it would include Putin and Zelensky. Trump added that he expects “a lot of progress” at the meeting.
Trilateral talks among the United States, Ukraine, and Russia are expected to take place in Abu Dhabi in mid-November, though no exact date has been set. The talks are expected to follow the U.S. midterm congressional elections, scheduled for November 3.
There have been repeated reports of a possible trilateral meeting among Trump, Zelensky, and Putin, but the parties have not announced any concrete agreement on the meeting.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
The absence of a military ID for a man of draft age could become grounds for refusing to accept documents for a foreign passport application, according to materials from Russia’s Interior Ministry reviewed by the Russian state news agency TASS.
The materials list several grounds for refusing to accept foreign passport applications, including the absence of a military ID for an applicant of draft age.
The TASS report, widely cited by other media outlets, gives no further details, and it remains unclear whether it describes a change to the current procedure for issuing foreign passports. The report also cites provisions governing domestic Russian passports that are already in effect.
Human rights activists have repeatedly said that applicants, including those of draft age, need to present a military ID when applying for a foreign passport only if they already have one. The same applies to a certificate from the local draft office, they said.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
Russia’s Digital Development Ministry is discussing a plan to route all traffic from foreign domains through the country’s internet traffic filtering system (TSPU) and limit its volume, Forbes Russia reported. Several sources — including officials at the ministry and people in the IT industry — told the outlet that the measures could be included in a bill overhauling the telecommunications sector.
The ministry is expected to gain the authority to restrict foreign traffic for Russian users once it exceeds a limit that has yet to be set. From an operator’s standpoint, VPN use looks like foreign traffic.
Industry representatives polled by Forbes Russia said determining which traffic is foreign will be difficult. “A Russian website hosted abroad would be classified as foreign, while a server rented in Russia would be classified as domestic,” said a technical expert at RKS Global.
The Digital Development Ministry announced that “these issues are currently being worked out, but it would be premature to say which of them, and in what form, will be included in the final version of the amendments.”
There have been repeated reports that the Digital Development Ministry wants to charge higher fees for foreign traffic.
Demand for VPNs in Russia has surged as authorities block popular social networks, services, and messaging apps. In response, Russian authorities have intensified their fight against means of circumventing the blocks. The budget for the next three years allocates a record 60 billion rubles for traffic filtering.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
Ozon estimated that drone attacks on 11 of its logistics centers cost it 30.1 billion rubles, according to the company’s financial report for the third quarter of 2026.
The loss figure includes the cost of goods destroyed in the warehouses, damaged equipment, and what the report describes as “other losses and expenses.”
The report says some of the company’s own risks were insured, and Ozon is continuing negotiations with insurance companies over possible compensation.
Despite the losses from the strikes, Ozon’s net profit grew 25% in the third quarter, reaching 3.7 billion rubles. Revenue increased 1.6-fold to 421.2 billion rubles, and Ozon delivered 1.2 billion orders to customers over the same period, 76% more than a year earlier.
Ukraine expanded its target list for strikes on Russian infrastructure in the summer of 2026, moving beyond oil refineries and defense plants to marketplace warehouses. Ukrainian drones attacked a warehouse belonging to Wildberries for the first time on July 18, and 36 of the company’s warehouse facilities came under attack over the next three months. Attacks on Ozon’s warehouses began on August 22.
Ukraine’s armed forces shifted to digital infrastructure in October. From October 8–11, Ukraine carried out a series of strikes on three data centers belonging to Yandex. Ukrainian drones attacked a data processing center belonging to Sberbank on October 14, and a data center belonging to the Federal Tax Service on October 23. The strikes caused widespread disruptions to services at Yandex, Mail.ru, Ozon, MegaFon, VKontakte, and other companies.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
Login
