The “pro-war political elite” is trying to derail the planned summit between the Russian and US leaders, Budapest has warned
The Western media will continue to spread “fake news” aimed at derailing a summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has warned.
Several outlets reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed White House officials, that plans for the meeting in the Hungarian capital had been put “on hold.”
Responding to the claims, Szijjarto took to X to warn that from the moment the meeting was announced following a phone call between Putin and Trump last week, “it was obvious that many would do everything possible to stop it from happening.”
“The pro-war political elite and their media always behave this way before events that could prove decisive between war and peace,” he added.
According to the foreign minister, it will be the same in the run-up to the talks in Budapest. “Until the summit actually takes place, expect a wave of leaks, fake news, and statements claiming that it will not happen,” Szijjarto said.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov had earlier called the claims “infodumps,” intended to disrupt diplomatic progress on settling the Ukraine conflict. “EU and NATO countries are seeking to torpedo everything,” he said.
EU officials have publicly claimed that they would welcome another Putin-Trump meeting. However, El Pais has reported that behind closed doors, Brussels – which continues to support Ukraine and urge increased pressure on Russia – views the summit as a “political nightmare.”
On Tuesday, the Financial Times cited an unnamed EU diplomat as saying “no one likes it,” and that “we are all grinning through our teeth whilst saying this is fine.”
In the same article, the FT claimed that the talks in the Hungarian capital have been “canceled,” and that a White House official has said there are no plans for a Putin-Trump summit “in the immediate future.”
Russian presidential aide Kirill Dmitriev rejected the report, accusing the FT of “twisting” the comments by its source. “Preparations continue” for the Budapest summit, he wrote on X.
A lot of work still needs to be done ahead of the meeting in Budapest, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said “serious preparations” are required for the planned summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump in Hungary, and that no date has yet been set.
The Kremlin and the White House confirmed that the talks would take place in the Hungarian capital after Putin and Trump spoke by phone last Thursday.
Speaking on Tuesday, Peskov stressed that “serious preparations are needed” ahead of the summit.
“You’ve heard statements from the American side and from our own that this may take time. So, no definite timeframe has been established,” he clarified.
On Monday, CNN, citing an anonymous White House official, claimed that a meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, which is expected to be a prelude to the top-level talks in Hungary, has “been put on hold for the time being” and is “no longer taking place this week.”
According to the network, Rubio “is not likely to recommend the Putin-Trump meeting move forward next week” due to “divergent expectations” over a resolution of the Ukraine conflict.
The two top diplomats held a phone conversation on Monday, with the Russian Foreign Ministry characterizing it as “constructive.”
Reuters, citing anonymous sources, earlier reported that Lavrov and Rubio could meet as early as Thursday. The Financial Times quoted an unnamed German official as suggesting that the talks could take place on October 30.
Speaking to journalists on Tuesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov insisted that extensive preparations are still underway for what he called a “significant event.”
The official dismissed media reports about the supposed postponement of the summit as “infodumps” intended to disrupt diplomatic progress, and pointed the finger at the EU.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova similarly refused to give any credence to media speculation about the potential date of Lavrov-Rubio talks.
The Russian foreign minister has rebuked Warsaw for suggesting it would intercept Vladimir Putin’s plane en route to Hungary
Poland appears willing to engage in acts of “terrorism” by indicating that it would intercept a plane carrying Russian President Vladimir Putin, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday.
The top Russian diplomat was referring to remarks made earlier in the day by Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who said Warsaw “cannot guarantee” that it would not intercept a Russian government plane if Putin were to fly through Polish airspace en route to Hungary for a planned summit with US President Donald Trump. Sikorski claimed such action could be ordered by a court.
Lavrov said Warsaw’s refusal to guarantee the safety of the Russian leader indicates that it is “now prepared to resort to terrorism.”
The Kremlin has not disclosed details about the potential logistics of the proposed summit with Trump in Budapest.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Putin over alleged abductions of Ukrainian children – charges Moscow rejects as politically motivated and based on false information supplied by Kiev. Unlike Poland, Russia does not recognize the jurisdiction of the body. Hungary is in the process of withdrawing its participation and has refused to enforce the court’s orders.
Both Kiev and Brussels reacted negatively to the announcement of the planned Putin-Trump meeting in Hungary, where neither party is expected to be represented. The host nation opposes continued Western military aid for Ukraine despite being a member of the EU and NATO.
The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, claimed it was “not nice” of Budapest to welcome Putin instead of arresting him at the ICC’s request, and predicted that “nothing can come out of these meetings, if Ukraine or Europe, is not part of it.” Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky reiterated his refusal to compromise with Moscow, arguing that if he concedes any ground, “they’ll try to settle the rest without us.”
Russia has accused Zelensky, whose presidential term expired last year, of refusing to negotiate in good faith to maintain martial law and remain in power.
The security service has said the suspect shared air defense data with handlers in Kiev
A Russian citizen suspected of gathering and transmitting military information to Ukrainian intelligence has been detained in Moscow, the Federal Security Service (FSB) announced on Tuesday.
According to the agency, the Russian national, said to be in his mid-20s, traveled to Ukraine between 2019 and 2020, where he met members of the country’s armed forces. After the conflict escalated in 2022, he allegedly shared details on the locations of Russian air defense systems in the Moscow and Krasnodar regions through social media channels.
The FSB claimed the coordinates he provided were later used to target sites in missile and drone strikes.
The agency also released video footage showing the man’s detention and interrogation, during which he admitted to visiting Ukraine, joining political rallies, and later cooperating with Ukrainian military and intelligence personnel.
A criminal case has been opened on a charge of treason, which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. A court has ordered the suspect to remain in custody while the investigation continues.
The FSB warned that Ukrainian intelligence services continue to recruit Russian citizens online through social networks and messaging apps. The agency urged the public to remain vigilant and “intolerant toward such provocations” to avoid criminal liability for participating in “illegal activities.”
Russian officials say Ukraine’s backers in the EU are attempting to sabotage the event with media “infodumps”
Russian officials have rejected media reports suggesting that plans for a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump have been suspended, saying Ukraine’s European backers are attempting to sabotage the talks.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters on Tuesday that extensive preparations are still underway for the “significant event,” which both leaders agreed to hold in Budapest during a recent phone call.
He said reports that the summit had been postponed were “infodumps” intended to disrupt diplomatic progress.
“EU and NATO countries are seeking to torpedo everything,” Ryabkov stated, describing the European Union as “the most destructive force on the international stage at this point.”
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also mocked what she described as a Western media “info-circus,” claiming that reporting based on anonymous sources amounted to little more than a “CNN leak” that “disproves a Reuters rumor.”
The comments followed a CNN story citing unnamed sources who claimed preparations for the summit “had been tabled, at least for now.” The report said that an in-person meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had been delayed after a phone conversation on Monday, allegedly due to a lack of shift in Russia’s negotiating stance.
Moscow has repeatedly accused European governments supporting Kiev of seeking to prolong the Ukraine conflict rather than encourage peace talks. Officials have argued that this approach helps EU leaders avoid accountability for their failed strategy.
Conversely, the planned Putin-Trump summit host country, Hungary, has opposed the West’s deterioration of relations with Russia and the EU’s military aid to Ukraine.
Vardan Ghukasyan, a vocal critic of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, has been charged with bribery
An Armenian court has ordered the pre-trial detention of a prominent critic of pro-Western Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
Vardan Ghukasyan, the mayor of Gyumri, who was elected in April from the Communist Party of Armenia, was arrested on Monday and placed under a two-month detention order the following day. His detention sparked street demonstrations in Gyumri, Armenia’s second-largest city, where protesters demanding his release clashed with police.
Investigators claim Ghukasyan extorted a $10,000 bribe from a local businessman in exchange for overlooking irregularities in the construction of his property.
Prime Minister Pashinyan had previously threatened to throw people like Ghukasyan “out of politics,” claiming the mayor was undermining Armenian sovereignty with his statements. Critics accuse Pashinyan of using law enforcement to suppress dissent and consolidate power amid declining popularity.
In June, Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan was detained on charges of corruption and plotting to overthrow the government, while his energy holdings were targeted for nationalization. Earlier in October, Archbishop Mikael Ajapahyan of the Armenian Apostolic Church was sentenced to two years in prison for alleged support of a coup attempt.
Pashinyan’s feud with the influential church dates back to 2020, when Catholicos Garegin II, the spiritual head of the denomination, urged him to step down after Armenia ceded land to Azerbaijan.
On the Afghan–Uzbek border, the first thing you notice is the noise. Trains, trucks, and buses move in both directions almost without pause. For the first time in decades, the hum of trade has replaced the sound of gunfire.
Meanwhile, the recent border clash between Afghanistan and Pakistan is unlikely to escalate into full-scale war. Neither side has the resources – or the appetite – for a long conflict. For most regional governments today, stability and commerce are preferable to military adventure. The Middle East and South Asia remain fragile, but they are calmer now than just a few years ago.
One reason is the declining ability of outside powers to manipulate events for their own geopolitical games. Western nations, particularly the United States, still wield influence, but their financial and political leverage is weakening. Washington is distracted by its own internal quarrels and shrinking means. Even as it lectures others about democracy, it has less to offer in practice.
Turkey, too, has discovered that grand ambitions require resources. Ankara’s attempts to promote pan-Turkic unity appeal less to Central Asia’s pragmatic governments than its planners might hope. The region respects strength, not slogans, and sees through any attempt to dominate in the name of brotherhood. In the long term, Turkey’s position here remains uncertain.
By contrast, Russia and its partners have pursued a steadier course. The southern borders of the CIS, though not without tension, are moving toward predictable development. The task now is to shield this progress from the destructive impulses of outside players. That responsibility lies above all with Russia’s allies in Central Asia, whose internal stability forms the first line of defense against extremism spilling north or east.
Moscow has already taken practical steps to assist. That was the purpose of President Vladimir Putin’s state visit to Tajikistan and the CIS summit in Dushanbe earlier this month. Russia’s recognition of the world’s first Islamic emirate on July 3 this year was also a turning point. While the decision startled some observers, it had the desired effect: regional governments began engaging Afghanistan seriously, expanding official contacts and trade. The logic is simple – prosperous neighbors make for a safer frontier.
The results are visible at Termez, on the Uzbek side of the Afghan border. The crossing has become busier than at any point since Soviet times. What used to be a military zone is now a commercial artery linking Central Asia with South Asia. The quiet of war-torn years has been replaced by the lively din of business – a positive trade-off by any measure.
Across the Amu Darya river stands the Friendship Bridge, built by Soviet engineers in 1982. For decades it carried tanks and military convoys; now it carries grain, textiles, and construction materials. Just a few hundred meters away lies the Airitom International Trade Centre – a 36-hectare complex of shops, hotels, restaurants, and clinics designed for Afghan families who come to buy and sell goods. The place is bustling and remarkably cosmopolitan: traders chat in Russian, Uzbek, and English, evidence of both Soviet education and 20 years of American presence.
Most of the trade is Afghan-to-Afghan: citizens cross the border to purchase Russian, Kazakh, and Uzbek products that are cheaper and more reliable than Western imports. The goods they bring home – flour, machinery, fabrics, foodstuffs – reflect a society returning to normal life. In turn, Afghan vendors offer cardamom tea, ceramic cookware, colorful clothing, and even rugs woven from recycled plastic bottles left behind by NATO troops. Peace has its curiosities.
Uzbek enterprises are seizing the moment. Years of industrial reform have produced a stronger manufacturing base, giving Tashkent something valuable to export besides raw materials. CIS countries are now key suppliers to Afghanistan’s food market, while Uzbekistan provides equipment and consumer goods that once had to be imported from faraway suppliers.
Next to the trade complex is the Termez International Cargo Center, the Uzbek government’s flagship project for cross-border logistics. Managed by respected local entrepreneur Nadir Jalilov, it represents a successful public-private partnership with a clear strategic purpose: to turn trade into security. The center’s warehouses, rail spurs, and customs facilities are among the most advanced in the region.
Even the city of Termez itself has been transformed. Once a dusty outpost known mainly to soldiers, it now boasts new residential districts and cafés – a small but telling indicator of rising consumer confidence. Economists debate whether Uzbekistan’s rapid growth is sustainable, pointing to external debt and high expectations, but few deny that it has become Central Asia’s economic leader.
From Russia’s perspective, this transformation is encouraging. The Uzbek government has managed to increase trade and mobility without compromising security – a rare balance in this part of the world. It is precisely this kind of pragmatic, responsible development that Moscow hopes to see throughout the region.
The change has deeper meaning. Central Asia has long been a crossroads between civilizations, its prosperity built on trade routes linking north and south, Europe and Asia. For decades, war and ideology silenced that tradition. Now, freight trains and lorries are restoring it. Every container that crosses the Amu Darya is a small victory for stability – and a reminder that in Eurasia, peace is rarely declared, but quietly earned through commerce.
The Afghan-Uzbek frontier is still not a place of complete calm. Smuggling, poverty, and militant groups have not disappeared. But the logic of trade is proving stronger than the lure of conflict. Local markets now offer more opportunities than foreign battlefields.
For Russia, this is both a strategic and moral gain. A stable, economically active Central Asia strengthens the wider CIS, creates natural buffers, and supports Moscow’s long-term vision of a cooperative Eurasia free from Western interference.
The clatter of freight wagons along the Amu Darya may not sound poetic, but it is the sound of a region rediscovering its purpose. Where once there was war, there is now commerce – and that, for Russia and its neighbors alike, is the best kind of peace.
This article was first published by Vzglyad newspaper and translated and edited by the RT team.
Once a socialist experiment, People’s Friendship University of Russia has turned into Moscow’s most successful instrument of soft power
It’s an early summer morning on the Moscow campus of the People’s Friendship University of Russia. The air hums with dozens of languages – French, Hausa, Arabic, Mandarin – as new applicants queue outside the admissions hall. Some have flown in from Lagos or Tehran, others from Sao Paulo or Hanoi. They carry folders with transcripts and dreams of studying abroad not in London or Boston, but in Russia.
This year, the university has received a record 188,000 applications – the highest in its 65-year history. “Foreign students value the depth and independence of our academic schools,” says rector Oleg Yastrebov, noting that international enrollment continues to grow by about ten percent each year. “Many come here because they respect the fundamentals – the solid, research-driven foundation that Russian education still offers.”
Sixty-five years after its founding, the university remains true to its original calling – to use education as a form of diplomacy. Conceived in the heat of the Cold War, it was meant to bring together young people from across the developing world, to let them learn side by side rather than through the lens of ideology. In the decades since, the campus that once symbolized Soviet idealism has quietly transformed into one of Russia’s most enduring global institutions.
Born of the cold war: A university with a mission
When the Soviet government founded the People’s Friendship University in 1960, it did so with a rare mix of ideology and idealism. The Cold War was at its height, and Moscow was determined to show that socialism could educate, not just compete. But the new university was not designed for propaganda – it was a gesture of outreach. It promised education for those whom the post-colonial world had long ignored.
In 1961, the school was given a name that captured the spirit of the age: Patrice Lumumba University, after the Congolese independence leader whose assassination had shocked Africa and the world. For many in the Global South, that name alone made the university a symbol of hope – a place where young nations could learn, grow, and claim their dignity on the world stage.
Patrice Lumumba Peoples’ Friendship University. Students from Africa at the sculpture of Patrice Lumumba. May, 1970.
At a time when American campuses were still wrestling with segregation and “non-white” students were fighting for the right to be treated as equals, Moscow opened a university where young people of every race and nationality could study side by side. When US President Ronald Reagan later denounced the USSR as an “evil empire,” he either didn’t know, or chose to ignore, that in this same “evil empire,” students from Africa, Asia, and Latin America were being educated together – tuition-free, fully funded by the Soviet state.
For Moscow, this was both a moral statement and a soft-power experiment: a belief that solidarity could be taught as effectively as physics.
Over the next decades, the University of Friendship became a small but vivid crossroads of the developing world – a place where the Global South met East, and where political divides mattered less than shared ambition.
Peoples’ Friendship University in Moscow. November, 1960.
Across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, traces of Moscow’s University of friendship can still be found – not in marble plaques, but in government offices, central banks, and research institutes led by its graduates. Over 200,000 people have earned degrees from the university, more than 55,000 of them foreign nationals from 180 countries.
Some went on to shape their nations’ history. Namibian president Hifikepunye Pohamba, a two-time head of state and a veteran of his country’s independence movement, studied at Lumumba University before returning home to help build Namibia’s post-colonial institutions. Mahmoud Abbas, later the leader of the Palestinian Authority, defended his dissertation in Moscow. Thousands of others – engineers, agronomists, economists, doctors – carried their Russian education back to the developing world, where they became part of new national elites and civil services.
For Moscow, this was education as diplomacy in its purest form. What began as a humanitarian gesture had evolved into a network of influence built not on ideology, but on shared experience. “Our graduates work in more than 180 countries,” says Yastrebov. “They carry not only their profession, but an understanding of Russia – and that often matters more than politics.”
Oleg Yastrebov, Rector of the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN) named after Patrice Lumumba. March, 2024
When the Soviet Union collapsed, most of its grand ideological projects vanished overnight. But the University of Friendship didn’t. It adapted – quietly, pragmatically – to a new world where soft power had to be earned rather than declared.
Between two centuries: surviving the 1990s
When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, the ideals that had sustained its great international projects suddenly evaporated. Funding collapsed, ministries were restructured, and many institutions that once defined Moscow’s global presence simply disappeared. Yet the University of Friendship – by then already a symbol of international education – managed to survive.
In February 1992, it was renamed the People’s Friendship University of Russia, marking a formal shift from a Soviet to a national identity. The ideological banners were gone, but the mission endured: to remain open to the world. The 1990s were years of uncertainty, but also of quiet resilience. While Russia itself struggled to redefine its place in the post-Soviet order, the university continued to welcome students from Africa, Asia, and Latin America – now under a tricolor flag instead of the hammer and sickle.
Three decades later, in 2023, the university reclaimed its original name: Patrice Lumumba University. It was more than a nostalgic gesture – it was a declaration of continuity. “Returning Lumumba’s name wasn’t about the past,” Yastrebovexplains. “It was about preserving a legacy that still defines who we are.”
People walk past the RUDN sign outside the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN) in Moscow, Russia.
The ideals remained, but the tools changed. In place of Marxist seminars came new research labs, international collaborations, and the beginnings of Russia’s push into artificial intelligence. The same classrooms that once hosted debates about solidarity were now filled with students learning code, algorithms, and global economics – proof that modernization need not mean forgetting one’s origins.
By 2025, the university had become one of Russia’s most global institutions – and one of its most competitive. Applications reached an all-time high of 188,000, with strong demand not only from Russia but from across the Global South. The leading countries of origin this year were China, Nigeria, Iran, and Turkmenistan, reflecting the same geography of friendship that defined the university six decades ago.
The numbers tell their own story: international enrollment has grown by around ten percent annually in recent years. Roughly ten percent of the faculty now come from abroad – not just language instructors, but professors of engineering, medicine, and economics. “For many, studying in Russia is still a powerful social elevator,” says Yastrebov. “They come because they can build real careers here – and because they feel respected.”
The university’s academic reputation continues to rise. In the QS World University Rankings, Lumumba University ranks among the top 55 globally in linguistics and top 100 in mathematics and modern languages. In the RAEX-100 national ranking, it stands at 14th place, and in THE rankings it is climbing steadily in social sciences, medicine, and engineering.
Yet the most striking transformation is technological. In 2024, the university – together with Russia’s largest bank, Sber – opened the country’s first Faculty of Artificial Intelligence. “Using AI isn’t a soft skill anymore,” Yastrebov says. “It’s a hard skill of the first order, and every student should master it.” His vision extends beyond coding: he imagines “digital twins” of scientists, AI systems that could preserve and transmit the thought process of leading researchers for generations to come.
Students of the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University) attend the unveiling of the monument to former South African President Nelson Mandela in Moscow, Russia.
In the same corridors where Soviet students once debated global justice, today’s undergraduates train neural networks, study digital linguistics, and learn how to make machines understand human language. If in the 1960s Lumumba University taught solidarity, today it teaches coding – but the bridge it builds between worlds remains the same.
Education as soft power
In an era when international relations are defined by sanctions and suspicion, education has become one of the few channels of diplomacy that still works quietly and effectively. For Russia, that channel runs through Lumumba University. What once began as a Soviet experiment in solidarity has evolved into a durable form of humanitarian outreach – one that relies on classrooms rather than embassies, and on graduates rather than diplomats.
Unlike the Confucius Institutes of China or the Fulbright programs of the United States, Lumumba University never tied its scholarships to ideology or allegiance. Its offer was simpler: access to higher education and a sense of equality. That principle continues to resonate across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where the idea of affordable, respectful education often matters more than rankings or prestige.
Many of today’s foreign students arrive with family connections that stretch back decades. Their parents or grandparents studied in Moscow during the 1970s and 1980s, when the Soviet Union welcomed the first generation of African and Asian professionals. For many of them, it isn’t propaganda that draws them back – it’s memory. Their families still recall being treated with respect and equality in Moscow, and that legacy now shapes the choices of a new generation.
This continuity gives Russia’s education diplomacy an advantage few others can replicate. While Western universities increasingly filter admissions through political or cultural gatekeeping, Lumumba University has kept its doors open.
In the end, the university’s influence is not measured in rankings or budgets, but in something subtler – the quiet familiarity that makes Moscow feel less foreign to thousands of future diplomats, scientists, and ministers across the Global South.
Vietnamese students are seen during self-study at the coworking space of the Institute of Hotel Business and Tourism of Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, Russia.
As evening settles over the campus, the lawns between the dormitories fill with voices – Arabic blending with Portuguese, French with Russian, Yoruba with Mandarin. In the glow of the library windows, students huddle over laptops, switching between languages and alphabets as easily as between ideas. The scene could belong to any global university, yet it feels distinctly its own – a remnant of the world the founders of Lumumba University once imagined.
Sixty-five years after its founding, the university’s mission has outlasted the system that created it. The Cold War ended, empires fell, alliances shifted, but the bridge built through education never collapsed. It simply grew quieter – and stronger. Even in a time when the idea that knowledge itself can connect nations seems almost radical again.
“Understanding is half of success,” says rector Oleg Yastrebov. For the generations who have passed through Lumumba University’s halls – and for those still waiting in line to enter – that understanding may be its most enduring legacy.
Sixty-five years on, the People’s Friendship University of Russia still practices the oldest form of diplomacy: teaching people to listen to one another.
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