The editor's column by Andrei Baklanov. Opinion and position, unlike the analysis section, where they are kept apart from the facts.
- When an Outage in Russia Disrupts Taxi Service in Kazakhstan
Drone strikes damaged three Yandex data centers in four days. The disruption reached Kazakhstan, where users' personal data is stored locally, according to officials. The episode exposed the difference between keeping data inside national borders and keeping a digital service running independently.
- Peskov Says Russia Has No Political Prisoners. What the Cases and Numbers Show
On September 30, Dmitry Peskov said Russia “categorically denies” that it holds political prisoners. FACTUM’s political persecution database listed 6,794 people at the latest count; 2,163 were imprisoned, while 1,404 had been recognized as political prisoners by human rights organizations. This column looks at what those figures mean and at several criminal cases behind them.
- The War Duma
The ninth State Duma includes dozens of war veterans, military propagandists and politicians whose careers were built around the war in Ukraine. We examine who entered parliament, how the 2026 election was conducted, and what the new Duma says about Russia’s continued militarization.
- War at the front door
On 26 September Varvara Kosheleva, who ran the State Duma campaign of Yabloko candidate Anna Shatunovskaya-Byurno, and her husband were beaten outside their home in Moscow. The attackers, she says, were drunk, called the couple "traitors to the Motherland" and claimed to have fought in Ukraine. Kosheleva suffered head and facial injuries. Their status is unconfirmed and an investigation is under way. An editor's column on how the war became an argument in a quarrel at the front door.
- When War Is Measured at the Gas Pump
Ukraine's drone campaign against Russian refineries is cutting fuel output, forcing Moscow to restrict exports and putting pressure on domestic prices. But the consequences no longer stop at Russia's borders: lost Russian diesel is also feeding an increasingly tight global fuel market.
- Europe in the Gray Zone of War
Russia and NATO are not at war. Yet European governments increasingly describe a Russian hybrid campaign involving sabotage, cyberattacks, drones and pressure on critical infrastructure. The harder question is where peace ends when hostile acts remain deliberately below the threshold of open war.
- What Came of Witkoff and Kushner’s Trip to See Putin and Zelensky
Diplomacy has a vocabulary for talks that produce little. “Constructive.” “Useful.” “Productive.” Almost any meeting can be wrapped up with one of them. Steve Witkoff and Jared…