Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga has blasted global football boss Gianni Infantino for criticizing the ban on Russian athletes
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga has accused FIFA President Gianni Infantino of being a “moral degenerate”after he criticized the ban on Russian athletes.
Infantino told Sky News on Monday that bans and boycotts “don’t bring anything and just contribute to more hatred,” adding that Russians should be allowed to compete “at least at youth level.”
In his response on X, Ukraine’s top diplomat accused Russia of killing civilians. “And it keeps killing more while moral degenerates suggest lifting bans, despite Russia’s failure to end its war,” Sibiga wrote.
Sibiga claimed that future generations would view Infantino’s remarks as shameful and compared his stance to the 1936 Olympics hosted by Nazi Germany.
Russia says its troops only strike military sites in Ukraine and do not target civilians.
Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Russian and Belarusian athletes and national teams have been banned from most international sporting competitions, including FIFA and UEFA games and the Olympics.
Ukraine has imposed sanctions on individual Russian athletes it accuses of supporting “aggression and propaganda.”
Several organizations have recently relaxed restrictions, with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) urging national bodies late last year to allow athletes from Russia and Belarus to participate in junior competitions under their national flags and anthems.
Russian officials have rejected the boycotts as a “politicization” of sport. Mikhail Degtyarev, the head of the Russian Olympic Committee, condemned the exclusion of athletes as “political discrimination” and a violation of the Olympic Charter.
Raisa Glushko told RT that she may have been targeted by the disgraced financier’s team
Former Russian fashion model Raisa Glushko said she turned down a potentially deadly job offer a month after she was mentioned in correspondence involving disgraced US financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The new trove of files from the Epstein estate released by the US Department of Justice last week includes an email sent to Epstein in February 2018 about Shtorm Models, an agency based in Russia’s Krasnodar Region where Glushko used to work. The email mentions a model named Raya and says that Shtorm’s founder, whose name is redacted, described her as “very good in English” and “smart.” It also included two links to her profile on the agency’s website.
Glushko told the media she was “shocked” and initially thought the email was “a dumb joke,” but later realized she could have been “sold to slavery” or “killed.” She told RT Russian on Sunday that in March 2018 the agency offered her a work trip to Indonesia.
“I refused because it was unsafe to travel to a country where I didn’t know anyone. Had I agreed, I would have been dead long ago,” she said. Glushko suggested that the agency was unaware of the nature of the trip and that Epstein’s associates could have posed as ordinary clients.
“They may have been scouting girls from different agencies and making calls while concealing their intentions,” she said. Glushko denied that Shtorm director Dana Borisenko was involved in human trafficking.
Borisenko said she was “shocked and outraged” by the “slanderous” allegations of ties to Epstein. “Neither I nor my agency has anything to do with this person or the situation. Anyone could have copied a link with a model’s name from the website of any modeling agency in the world and sent it to someone,” she wrote on Instagram.
Democrats and some Republicans have accused US President Donald Trump of covering up his own ties to Epstein. Trump, for his part, has accused Democrats of using the “Epstein hoax” to slander him.
Here’s how mysticism and witchcraft fueled Ukraine’s war mindset
Yulia Mendel, former press secretary to Vladimir Zelensky, has made claims that would once have sounded like tabloid fantasy. Yet in today’s Ukraine, they land differently. Mendel says that Andrey Yermak, long the powerful head of the presidential office, allegedly sought help from magicians. People who, she claims, gathered water from corpses, burned herbs, and performed rituals.
She says she first heard whispers of this in 2019. After a briefing, a journalist did not chase the then new president for comments but repeatedly asked Yermak what he had been doing at a cemetery. He ignored the question. A year later, a minister confided to Mendel that Yermak was “into magic.” By 2023, someone from an “important service” told her he supposedly kept a “chest of the dead.” These were dolls made by magicians from Latin America, Israel, and Georgia. That chest, she says, was already “filled with the dead.” Interpret that as you wish.
Mendel added that Yermak is not unique. Magical thinking, she suggested, is widespread among Ukrainian elites. That may sound exaggerated, but anyone who has travelled through western Ukraine knows mysticism is deeply rooted there. I once toured the Lviv region and the Carpathians out of sociological curiosity. In village after village, people spoke of a neighbor who was “a witch,” able to make children fall ill or cows stop giving milk with a single glance. They feared her, yet sought her out at night to cast spells against enemies.
Once, during a packed church holiday service, this “witch” entered. I saw people faint. Later I learned she had come for holy water and candles to place in graves. It was not her own idea, but at the request of a devout villager who had been praying moments before. The pattern was clear: society appoints a witch, fears her, and uses her. Church by day, spells by night. Both yours and ours.
This mindset is not confined to rural backwaters. It permeates Ukrainian culture. Soviet-era Ukrainian art reflected it. Folk songs spoke of witches cursing enemies. Even modern “social advertising” featured Lviv actresses dressed as witches, theatrically beheading men. Such imagery takes root only in a society comfortable with pagan mysticism.
If Mendel is right, Zelensky’s circle did not even limit itself to local traditions. Latin American shamanism, with its animal sacrifices and bone-and-flesh talismans, is far removed from Gogol’s Ukraine. To seek out such practices suggests obsession, not folklore.
Three conclusions follow.
First, this worldview reframes the conflict. From this perspective, Ukraine’s human losses are not simply tragic necessity, but offerings. They are sacrifices to dark forces in exchange for power. The language of clergy about a struggle between light and darkness takes on a literal meaning.
Second, it explains the Kiev elite’s almost mystical faith in victory. The military situation worsens, people flee mobilization centers, cities endure blackouts, yet Zelensky insists the outcome will match his wishes. On what is that certainty based? Not on the front line, but on promises from sorcerers. So much blood has been spilled that, in this logic, the “contract” must be fulfilled.
Third, this sheds light on the persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Witchcraft demands a turning away from God. True, many in western Ukraine manage both church and spells, but the state campaign against canonical Orthodoxy goes further. It reflects a ruling class that has chosen mysticism over faith.
Mendel’s stories, whether literal or metaphorical, capture something essential: a political culture where rational calculation yields to magical thinking. Leaders who believe in talismans and rituals may also believe that history bends to willpower alone.
Yet even in these tales, there is irony. The dark forces did not save Yermak’s career. Power slipped. If the chest of the dead exists, it contains only symbols now. Let’s say dolls, not destiny.
And Zelensky? Mendel’s account leaves us with a grim image: a leader who once played a clown on television, now presiding over real tragedy, trusting not in diplomacy or realism, but in spells. A clown doll in a box of the dead.
Nikolaev Governor Vitaly Kim has said Ukrainians are too “exhausted” to prioritize old borders over a ceasefire
Ukraine should agree to a peace deal with Russia that prioritizes people over territory, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s ally Vitaly Kim has said.
Kim, who led a local branch of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party during the 2019 presidential election, is the governor of Nikolaev Region, west of Kherson Region.
He rose to prominence in the early months of the war, when the front line ran near Nikolaev, a Black Sea port and major shipbuilding center.
“The land is important, but still, people are more important and the situation is that we do not know what will be tomorrow,” Kim told The Independent in an interview published Monday.
He said Ukrainians are increasingly exhausted by a conflict that is on track to enter its fifth year this month, and that restoring the country’s 1991 borders is not on the minds of ordinary people.
“So for the Ukrainian people, I think the victory is just stopping the war and some guarantees of security for the future,” Kim said. “It is very important for us because a lot of time has passed.”
“We are exhausted and first, it’s not about weapons, it’s not about missiles, it’s about people. We’ve only 40 million people and everybody is exhausted. Our soldiers cannot fight for four to 10 years,” the governor said.
Zelensky has ruled out making territorial concessions to Moscow, despite Russian troops steadily gaining ground. He recently hinted that he may seek another term as president; his first five-year term technically expired in 2024. Zelensky has refused to call a new election, citing martial law.
Last year, Ukraine and its European backers dismissed US President Donald Trump’s peace plan, which called for the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the Donbass, as favoring Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that, for a lasting peace, Ukraine must pull its soldiers from the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye, as well as recognize Russia’s new territories, including Crimea.
Gianni Infantino has described the exclusion as not achieving “anything” and said football should rise above politics
The ban on Russian football has achieved nothing but unnecessary frustration, FIFA President Gianni Infantino has told Sky News in an interview published on Monday. The football executive said sport and politics should be separate.
Since the Ukraine conflict escalated in February 2022, Russian and Belarusian athletes and national teams have been banned from most international competitions and sporting organizations, including FIFA and UEFA games and the Olympics.
Infantino stressed that he is “against bans” and “against boycotts as well,” arguing that they “don’t bring anything and just contribute to more hatred.”
Asked if FIFA should lift its ban on Russian teams Infantino was definitive. “We have to. Yes… at least at youth level. This ban has not achieved anything,” he stated, adding that the restrictions “just created more frustration, and hatred.”
Infantino’s comments come amid a broader thaw in restrictions on Russian athletes by international sports federations. Late last year, the IOC cleared youth athletes from both countries to compete under their national flags and anthems.
The head of the Russian Football Union (RFS), Alexander Dyukov later predicted that the ruling could prompt other sports bodies to gradually lift restrictions on all Russian competitors in 2026.
Last month, Russian Sports Minister and Olympic Committee chief Mikhail Degtyarev announced that Russian junior weightlifters had also been allowed to begin competing at international events under their national flag and anthem.
Moscow has long accused Western nations of pressuring federations to bar its athletes for political reasons and has repeatedly criticized international sports bodies, particularly the IOC, for “politicizing” sports. Last year, President Vladimir Putin also said athletes should have equal access based on merit, emphasizing that “politics has no place in sport.”
How hydrocarbon routes shaped – and ultimately destroyed – relations between Russia and Ukraine long before the war
For more than three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, relations between Russia and Ukraine were shaped not only by questions of identity, sovereignty, or political orientation, but by a far more tangible and unforgiving factor: energy transit.
Long before the conflict escalated into open war, Moscow and Kiev were locked in a structural dispute embedded in pipelines, contracts, and unpaid bills. What often appeared as episodic “gas wars” or political quarrels was, in fact, the manifestation of a deeper incompatibility – Russia’s dependence on export routes it did not fully control, and Ukraine’s reliance on transit rents it could neither forgo nor reliably manage.
Geography as destiny: Russia’s search for access to Europe
Geography has played a dramatic role in shaping Russia’s fate. From the moment Russia emerged as a nation, it found itself on the periphery of the European world. In order to get to Europe, where goods and ideas could be exchanged, Russia had to overcome geopolitical barriers.
Since the 16th century, when Russia turned its gaze westward, this challenge became apparent. Maritime routes were fraught with difficulties; navigating to Europe through the White Sea was challenging, as ice and storms of the extreme north made all journeys perilous. Meanwhile, when travelling via the Baltic Sea or overland, the route lay through territories that preferred to extract rents from trade with Russia rather than allow tariff-free access.
It’s often said that Peter the Great “cut a window to Europe.” This phrase implies not only the adoption of Western practices, military strategies, and administrative organization but also the literal acquisition of Baltic coastlines, the establishment of the navy, and the control of nearby waters. Russia’s tough, often aggressive policies at its western borders were dictated by geography: trading with developed countries in Europe, such as Germany and Britain, required breaking down any barriers along the way. Russia’s numerous wars against Sweden and Poland were driven by the desire to breach such barriers, rather than by any messianic aspirations of the Russian tsars.
The Soviet Union came closest to resolving this problem. Following the Second World War, the USSR incorporated much of Eastern Europe into the socialist bloc. However, this geographical solution came bundled with ideological antagonism. Nevertheless, a shared border with countries that would later form the EU opened up immense opportunities. Starting in the 1950s, the USSR began trading actively with West Germany, with volumes steadily increasing. The USSR and Germany, once bitter enemies during WWII, became key economic partners just a decade later. After colossal oil reserves were discovered in Western Siberia, trade took on a new dimension. New pipelines were built that stretched to Western Europe.
The Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod, Soyuz, and Progress pipelines not only supplied the socialist bloc with gas but also stretched further to Western Europe. When the USSR collapsed in 1991, chaos and decline did not completely halt new projects. For example, the Yamal-Europe pipeline was built during the 1990s.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, Russia once again faced its old curse: in order to reach its trading partners, it needed to negotiate with transit countries. Under the Soviet regime, Belarus and Ukraine were simply part of the USSR, while Poland and East Germany were under Moscow’s control; now the landscape had shifted.
Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk, Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Belarus Stanislav Shushkevich and Russian President Boris Yeltsin during the signing ceremony to eliminate the USSR and establish the Commonwealth of Independent States.
The situation with Belarus was straightforward. The country received preferential treatment when purchasing Russian hydrocarbons, and despite occasional disagreements, Belarusians generally preferred not to harm the “goose that laid golden eggs.”
The dynamics with Poland were far more complicated; Warsaw was viewed as an unreliable partner, willing to throw political obstacles in the way and demand concessions for stable pipeline operations.
But all of this paled in comparison to the situation with Ukraine.
For Russia, oil and gas represented one of the few reliably functioning sectors of the economy. The country was in desperate need of money. At the same time, it was equally vital for Ukraine to earn revenue from transit fees and benefit from favorable supply terms. Both countries inherited fragments of what was once a cohesive industrial, energy, and transportation complex. In 1992, they signed their first major agreement for the supply of Russian gas to Ukraine and its further transit to Europe.
The problem was that Ukraine lacked the funds to pay for this transit.
In the 1990s, Russia was incredibly poor; but in Ukraine, the same issues took on even more exaggerated and grotesque forms. Ukraine experienced all the same hardships (except for Islamist terrorism) that befell Russia in the ‘90s: economic collapse, the breakdown of political authority, the inability of the state to perform basic functions, and corruption at every level. Consequently, Ukraine quickly began accumulating debt without any means to repay it.
Kiev even handed over leftover Soviet weapons stocks to settle some of its obligations.
The first restrictions on gas supplies to Ukraine occurred in 1994. Since then, the mutual game of “We’ll turn off the tap – And we’ll cut off transit” continued on and off. Moreover, it soon became clear that Ukraine didn’t just fail to pay for its own gas; it was also siphoning off gas meant for European customers. Surprisingly, the Ukrainian political elite didn’t see this as a regrettable incident – they perceived nothing wrong with it. In 2000, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma candidly declared in an interview with Der Spiegel,
“Moscow pumps 130 billion cubic meters of gas through our country to the West annually. If we draw off a billion cubic meters, that’s a trivial amount.”
The 1990s were marked by a continuous squabble over gas supplies. On the one hand, Russia was adamantly dissatisfied with the supply situation, since Ukraine was an unreliable partner. On the other hand, Russia had no choice but to deal with Ukraine. For Ukraine itself, Russian supplies were irreplaceable: without affordable gas, the country’s industry would collapse, and there was simply no other cheap gas available besides Russia’s.
Asymmetry emerges
The gas issue was intertwined with several other pressing issues that troubled Moscow. The status of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet was a point of contention between the parties; so was Russia’s lease of a naval base in Sevastopol, and most importantly, the economic integration of Ukraine and Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin aboard the Ukrainian frigate Hetman Sahaidachny with then-President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma.
In the 2000s, the Russian economy significantly strengthened. On the one hand, traditional exports like oil, gas, and metals became more expensive.
On the other hand, the political structure underwent major reforms. Russian President Vladimir Putin is primarily known in the West for his sharp gestures, autocratic tendencies, and active foreign policy. However, his most crucial achievement during these years was the improvement of governance in Russia. Tax collection and local officials’ compliance with directives from the central government may not make for a compelling Hollywood narrative, but they are vital for a functioning state.
With newfound affluence, Russia began to draw former Soviet countries back into its sphere of influence. Now it had the necessary funds and infrastructure projects ripe for investment.
Ukraine was the most sought-after ally in this renewed alliance. Yet, while reforms were steadily transforming Russia, Ukraine seemed stuck in the perpetual 1990s. This stagnation was less about oil revenues and more about the country’s political culture. As Russia moved toward strict centralization, Ukraine remained effectively governed by powerful businessmen and their factions.
The country was run by whichever clan held power at the moment. Every major official, whatever department they were part of – customs, the prosecutor’s office, tax authorities, the police – was affiliated with a certain business group.
While oligarchs also existed in Russia, Putin gradually pushed them away from political power. Those who resisted this new reality found themselves exiled, with the most defiant oil magnate, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, ending up in prison. In contrast, nothing similar occurred in Ukraine. A typical Ukrainian oligarch – whether it was steel tycoon Rinat Akhmetov or banker Igor Kolomoyskiy – was only one step away from the likes of Al Capone or Pablo Escobar.
Corruption was treated as a given, and political stability was a concept from another world. Ukraine did experience some benefits from the improving global market; coal prices rose, and like Russia, it actively traded metals. Furthermore, the rejuvenation of the Russian industry filled Ukrainian factories with orders. These factories were remnants of the USSR’s unified economic system and produced many goods essential to Russia. Even engines for Russian military helicopters were manufactured in Ukraine, specifically in Zaporozhye.
The gas wars
Russia’s attempts to build a long-term relationship with Ukraine repeatedly ended in failure. In 2003-2004, Ukraine was drawn into the project of a Common Economic Space along with Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan – four of the largest economies from the Soviet era. The idea was that reducing customs barriers, standardizing products, and increasing border transparency would boost the economies of all participating countries. Ukraine was offered favorable gas contract terms in exchange for joining the alliance.
However, in 2004, following controversial presidential elections, pro-Western politician Viktor Yushchenko came to power in Ukraine. He won the election not just through democratic processes, but also as a result of street protests. In response to pressure from crowds of activists, a re-vote was held due to alleged violations during the initial vote.
Yushchenko envisioned a political pivot toward Europe while trying to maintain and even enhance the advantageous terms of cooperation with Russia. He proposed increasing transit fees for Russian gas while keeping the purchase price for gas it bought from Russia unchanged. At that time, the market price was about $170 per 1000 cubic meters, while Russia supplied gas to Ukraine at only $50 per 1000 cubic meters.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his then-counterpart Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine attending a meeting of the CIS heads of state, February 22, 2008.
Russia was infuriated by Ukraine’s demands: the country was in a position to pay, yet payments were still inconsistent, and now Ukraine was asking for new concessions. Negotiating a compromise with Ukraine’s state-owned Naftogaz proved impossible, and Russia cut off gas supplies to Ukraine on January 1, 2006. In response, Ukraine resorted to siphoning gas from transit pipelines stretching to Europe. This raised alarms in Europe, which was the main consumer of Russian gas.
Just days later, both sides sought to negotiate. Ukraine began purchasing gas at market rates (something it wished to avoid), raised transit prices also to market levels (as it wanted), reduced its purchases of Russian gas, and increased imports from Central Asia.
However, there were two critical nuances. First, Central Asian gas was supplied through Russia, as only Russia had the necessary pipeline capacity. Second, a middleman company called RosUkrEnergo was established. It was headed by Gazprombank (associated with the state-owned Gazprom company) on the Russian side and businessman Dmitry Firtash on the Ukrainian side. Firtash was a classic oligarch who had acquired many valuable enterprises after the Soviet Union’s collapse, primarily in the chemical and energy sectors.
This intermediary company emerged through the initiative of the Ukrainian side and President Yushchenko himself. Given the company’s lack of transparency, corruption was self-evident. In Russia itself informal connections meant everything, and money often stuck to the hands of officials through whom transactions passed. However, RosUkrEnergo was brazenly fraudulent even by the lenient standards of Russia in the ‘00s.
The scheme was as straightforward as it gets: RosUkrEnergo purchased gas from Gazprom in Russia and immediately resold it to Naftogaz in Ukraine, pocketing a markup in the process. Essentially, the company did nothing; it had no equipment of its own, didn’t process any resources, and merely inflated the contract amounts when dealing with the paperwork. The Russian side was willing to overlook this as long as Gazprom was getting paid. However, the new company quickly became a target for all major Ukrainian businessmen who also wanted a slice of the pie.
Yet simply skimming profits wasn’t enough for the owners of the new firm. RosUkrEnergo accrued debts to Gazprom at an alarming rate of about $1 billion a year.
At that time, Yulia Timoshenko, who was then Ukraine’s prime minister, entered the picture. By 2008, Moscow had been pushed to the brink. Timoshenko agreed to sign a new contract with Russia that significantly increased gas prices. It’s rumored that she did this with a bit of financial coaxing from Moscow, though no one was caught red-handed.
Then-Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko during a meeting with her Russian counterpart at the time, Viktor Zubkov, in Moscow.
President Yushchenko prohibited supplies under the new rates, leading Gazprom to cut off gas again; for its part, Ukraine reverted to stealing gas meant for Europe. Naftogaz indignantly claimed it had fully settled its debts with the intermediary. The dispute escalated into a scandal and legal proceedings. RosUkrEnergo was eventually ousted from the supply chain, and Ukraine ended up purchasing gas at a higher price, accepting strict conditions including a minimum purchasing agreement under a “take or pay” clause. Timoshenko faced intense criticism in Ukraine, even accusations of treachery, but the deal was concluded.
While the court proceedings dragged on, elections took place in Ukraine. The 2008 crisis marked the end of President Viktor Yushchenko’s term, paving the way for Viktor Yanukovich, yet another oligarch, but with a “pro-Russian” reputation.
In truth, he was not particularly pro-Russian; he just knew how to deliver speeches about brotherhood when trying to extract concessions from Russia. Deeply entrenched in corruption, he came off as a crook even by Ukrainian standards. Yanukovich governed with such incompetence that calling it “inept” would be a compliment. Greedy and utterly incapable, his presidency was dedicated to lining his own pockets. Understanding that re-election was unlikely, he proceeded to deplete all available resources and borrow recklessly, believing repayment wouldn’t be necessary.
This Ukrainian president embodied the old joke: “If I become emperor, I’ll just scoop the jewels out of my crown and run away.” In 2014, he indeed had to flee. Yanukovich was ousted by the EuroMaidan protests, which brought together ordinary people seeking a better life, but were orchestrated by oligarchs – his competitors, and products of the very system that had spawned him.
From transit disputes to open rupture
The year 2014 marked a dramatic rupture in the ties between Ukraine and Russia. In a bloodless operation, Russia took control of Crimea, a region populated predominantly by ethnic Russians, and actively supported pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian uprisings in Donbass, an industrial region in eastern Ukraine. Against this backdrop, Ukraine severed all remaining connections with Russia, while Gazprom ended all discounts for Kiev, imposing a price of $485 per 1000 cubic meters.
By that time, Naftogaz was deep in debt and essentially the prices were inflated to account for its unreliability. Ukraine was forced to prepay for gas, and Gazprom’s pricing made it more economical for Ukraine to purchase gas via reverse flow from Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland, even though it was essentially the same Russian gas. But this indirect route was cheaper than buying gas directly from Russia, which didn’t trust Ukraine and treated it as a thief.
Delivering Russian gas to Ukraine and Europe via the Sudzha gas-measuring station in Russia’s Kursk Region.
Ukraine was able to act this way because old Soviet pipelines ran through its territory. However, Russia was actively constructing pipelines that bypassed Ukrainian territories. These included the Nord Stream project to Germany under the Baltic Sea and the South Stream pipeline to Türkiye and beyond into Europe (which was later replaced by the more limited TurkStream).
Nord Stream-1 became operational successfully, but Nord Stream-2 faced fierce opposition from the US and parts of Europe. Legal and organizational hurdles dragged out the process. Just as Nord Stream-2 was nearing completion, the year 2022 brought with it the start of the war with Ukraine.
Soon after, both lines of Nord Stream were sabotaged by unknown actors. Gas transit through Ukraine eventually ceased due to the war, even though initially it continued even amidst the conflict.
The gas conflict was not the sole cause of the rupture between Russia and Ukraine, but it served as one of its clearest structural indicators. Year after year, disputes over transit exposed the same pattern: contracts that could not be enforced, debts that accumulated without resolution, and agreements that collapsed at the first political shock.
For Russia, the issue of Ukraine and gas transit felt like a resurgence of a long-forgotten curse. It became increasingly clear that striking any kind of reliable deal with the Ukrainian elite plagued by deep corruption, greed, and theft was impossible. Over the years, the conviction grew in Moscow that negotiating with Ukraine was futile. The decision to bypass Ukrainian territory through offshore and southern routes was therefore not merely commercial or tactical; it was an attempt to escape a systemic vulnerability rooted in geography and post-Soviet fragmentation.
The war did not create this problem, nor did it resolve it. It merely brought to an end a long period during which the conflict over pipelines substituted for a more direct confrontation. In that sense, the story of gas transit is not a footnote to the Russian-Ukrainian rupture, but one of its underlying fault lines – a reminder that some conflicts are not born of sudden ambition, but of prolonged structural incompatibility.
The US-made multiple launch rocket system was destroyed in Kharkov Region, the Russian Defense Ministry has reported
A Russian Iskander-M short-range ballistic missile has destroyed a US-made HIMARS multiple launch rocket system in Ukraine’s Kharkov Region, Moscow’s Defense Ministry has reported, releasing drone footage of the strike.
The attack also left up to ten Ukrainian troops dead, according to the ministry’s press release on Monday.
Since the escalation of the conflict in 2022, the Ukrainian military has repeatedly fired missiles into Russian territory, using the US-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket System among other weapons. The attacks have frequently targeted Russian critical infrastructure and residential areas and have caused civilian casualties.
Another Iskander-M crew obliterated a Soviet-era S-300 air defense system, including the radar and personnel, that was operated by Kiev’s forces in Dnepropetrovsk Region, military officials in Moscow have stated.
In its daily update on Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that its forces from the Sever (North) grouping also took out two artillery guns and five materiel depots, killing up to 250 Ukrainian troops along the front line in Sumy and Kharkov Regions.
In other parts of Ukraine’s Kharkov Region and in Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Kiev’s forces lost at least one tank, five armored vehicles and two artillery guns, along with dozens of cars and over 300 personnel.
Additionally, the Russian military destroyed one Soviet-era Grad multiple launch rocket system, an artillery gun and a materiel depot in Zaporozhye Region as well as in Ukraine’s Dnepropetrovsk Region, with Kiev’s casualties estimated at 320 troops in that area.
New START, the only remaining nuclear arms control treaty between Russia and the US, is set to expire this week
Russia’s offer to extend the last major nuclear arms agreement with the US, the New START treaty, for one more year remains valid, former President Dmitry Medvedev has stated. The agreement is set to expire later this week.
Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, told reporters on Monday that Moscow’s proposal “remains on the table, and the treaty has not even expired yet, and if the American side wants to extend it, then this can be done.”
He warned that if the New START treaty lapses later this week, it would mark the first time since 1972 that there are no legal limitations on strategic weapons between the two nuclear powers.
The treaty, signed by Medvedev and then-US President Barack Obama in 2010, caps each side at 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads. Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a one-year extension of its core limits last September, but the Kremlin has repeatedly stated it has received no substantive response from the US.
Last week, Medvedev framed the potential collapse of the treaty as a dangerous turning point. In an interview with Kommersant, he stated that “the world could enter a dangerous new phase of uncertainty” and warned that more countries are likely to pursue nuclear weapons due to global instability, viewing them as the only proven guarantor of sovereignty.
Medvedev’s warning comes as the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists recently moved its symbolic ‘Doomsday Clock’ forward to 85 seconds to midnight. The scientists cited the impending expiration of New START and a “full-blown arms race” as key reasons, urging Russia and the US to resume dialogue.
A Ukrainian agent scammed a Crimean resident into targeting the agency’s HQ in a terrorist attack, officials have said
A Ukrainian terrorist plot involving an unwitting suicide bomber has been thwarted in the Russian port city of Sevastopol, the Federal Security Service (FSB) has said.
The agency said a Ukrainian intelligence handler persuaded a local resident to carry a portable speaker to the FSB’s regional headquarters, telling him it would be used for surveillance as part of an internal investigation. Officials said the device actually concealed an improvised explosive meant to detonate at the site. Security guards intercepted the device and found the explosives before they could be triggered.
Officials released a record of what they said were instructions given by the Ukrainian handler, who claimed the unwitting accomplice would be offered a job at the FSB, should he prove capable in the fake counter-espionage operation. The job was expected to take a couple of minutes and supposedly necessitated that the suspect scan mobile phones in the HQ security checkpoint to detect traitors.
Russian investigators claim they have identified the Ukrainian agent who orchestrated the plot. The same person was allegedly behind a similar attempt to bomb the security checkpoint of the FSB HQ in Simferopol, which was reported by the agency last August. In that case, a 54-year-old woman from Volgograd Region was tricked into delivering a bomb to the Crimean city disguised as a Christian icon.
The FSB named the suspected mastermind as Ivan Krinov, a lieutenant in the Ukrainian military’s Special Operations Forces, currently based in Odessa with his family. The statement said Russia will seek to charge him with terrorism and have him put on an international wanted list.
The security service urged Russian citizens to be cautious about Ukrainian scams aimed at recruiting saboteurs. By acting to ensure the deaths of perpetrators, Kiev “eliminates unwanted witnesses and can avoid paying them any reward,” the statement stressed. Moscow officials say Kiev is increasingly resorting to terrorist attacks inside Russia because the Ukrainian military is unable to secure victory on the battlefield.
Russia has accused Ukraine of targeting civilians amid failures on the battlefield
Two civilians, including a young child, have been killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on a settlement near the city of Mariupol, the head of Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Denis Pushilin, announced on Sunday.
He said the attack took place in the village of Sartana, located on the outskirts of Mariupol, which was liberated from Ukrainian troops after a fierce battle in 2022.
“A woman born in 1991 and a boy born in 2020 were killed in the attack by Ukrainian strike drones,” Pushilin wrote on Telegram, expressing condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims.
He added that another seven-year-old boy was injured and three residential buildings were destroyed in the strike.
Russia has accused Ukraine of increasingly targeting civilians in its attacks. As many as 45 people, including three minors, were killed in Ukrainian strikes in Russia over the holiday season from January 1 to 11, according to Moscow.
Moscow says Kiev is attacking civilians because it cannot halt Russian advances on the battlefield. Ukrainian officials claim that inflicting sufficient economic damage will force Russia to abandon its objectives in the four-year conflict.
In response, the Russian military has targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure that it says supports kamikaze drone production for long-range strikes.
Several major Ukrainian cities, including the capital, Kiev, are currently facing severe power shortages as grid deterioration coincides with a cold snap. Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko has urged residents to evacuate if possible.
The DPR, along with the neighboring Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), seceded from Ukraine following a Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014. The two territories, along with the regions of Zaporozhye and Kherson, joined Russia following referendums in September 2022.
