- Rassvet after the second launch: satellites that will not climb, and a race that has moved to the ground
The second batch of Rassvet satellites went up on 19 July. By the end of August, public catalogues showed something they had not shown in July: not one spacecraft from that batch has climbed above 360 kilometres, and…
- Switching Russia Off: From the Telegram Ban to the Whitelisted Internet
An ordinary morning in 2026, somewhere in Rostov, Kazan or, these days, Moscow. You step out of the house and open the taxi app — the wheel spins. You try to pay by phone at the shop — the payment fails. Your messenger…
- Civil death by registry: Russia revives the institution of the lishentsy
The bottom line. Russia is not stripping its emigres of citizenship — the constitution expressly forbids it. Instead, on 22 July the State Duma passed a law that switches off every function citizenship performs:…
- Rassvet: Russia's home-grown Starlink, between political showcase and orbital reality
Russia is rolling out Rassvet, a low-Earth-orbit broadband constellation billed as a domestic answer to Starlink. In four months it has produced two serial launches, its first burned-up satellite, and assurances from…
- Bureau 1440: Russia's Answer to Musk, or Another Putin Simulacrum?
In early February 2026, thousands of Starlink terminals fell silent across the Russian front all at once. SpaceX had switched on whitelist verification and cut off everything not registered in Ukraine — that is,…
- Asylum as theatre: why Russia would have taken the Tate brothers
Last Saturday in Miami, outside a bare-knuckle boxing event, US marshals put handcuffs on the two most famous misogynists on the planet: Andrew and Tristan Tate. The warrant was sealed, so no one explained the charges…
- How Russia jams Starlink — and what lies behind its "own Starlink" promises
Russia is answering its dependence on Starlink on two clocks at once. The Volna Kupol Garant jammer works here and now, but it turns itself into a priority target: a powerful emission and a bulky rig give the complex…
- Wildberries warehouses hit: Kyiv claims the strike, Moscow calls it terrorism — what is established
By the evening of 18 July the overnight strike on Wildberries' warehouses was no longer anonymous. Volodymyr Zelensky publicly claimed the attack, describing it as "long-range sanctions" and a response to Russian…
- On Foot Along the Rails: How Much Power Russia Actually Has for the AI Race
On 16 July, Natalya Kaspersky told RTVI that Russia can no longer catch up with the United States and China in artificial intelligence. She compared the country to someone walking along railway tracks used by trains:…
- The Season That Never Was: Who Pays for a Million Cancelled Trips to Crimea
The collapse of Crimea's holiday season is not just a tourism story. For the first time, the costs of the war are being distributed directly through a mass consumer market: roughly a million cancelled bookings, billions…
- Busification in Penza: what is known about the raids, and what they signal
The frame. The June raids in Russia's Penza region are the most visible episode of coercive military recruitment since the war began. This is not mobilisation: there is no decree, and in law every man who signed a…
- Putin Stopped Denying the Damage — Now He's Arguing About What It Means
A breakdown of two late-June 2026 Putin appearances — his interview with Pavel Zarubin and his speech at the United Russia party congress. We don't pronounce a verdict of "true/false": intent cannot be fact-checked. We…