https://novayagazeta.eu Говорим как есть. Пишем о происходящем в России, Украине и Европе. Новости, аналитика, мнения экспертов, специальные репортажи и журналистские расследования. en Thu, 01 Oct 2026 12:04:32 +0000 https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/10/01/russia-belarus-and-four-central-asian-countries-sign-pact-to-exchange-information-on-alleged-extremists-en-news https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/10/01/russia-belarus-and-four-central-asian-countries-sign-pact-to-exchange-information-on-alleged-extremists-en-news Novosti · Mezhdunarodnaya politika Evropa Novaya gazeta Prosecutors general of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have signed an agreement on cooperating to fight terrorism and extremism, Russian state-affiliated business daily RBC reported on Wednesday.
The agreement provides for the timely exchange of information on organisations, groups and individuals that the signatories consider “terrorist” or “extremist” and classify as national security threats. The countries will also reportedly share information on such groups’ international ties, possible attacks and threats to their sovereignty.
Additionally, the deal covers information on illegal armed groups; human, arms and drug traffickers; organisers of illegal migration; and foreign terrorist fighters.
Russia routinely uses terrorism and extremism charges to prosecute political opponents. The laws have become a tool for pressuring human rights defenders, antiwar activists and other groups the authorities see as disloyal.
According to a count by the independent outlet Mediazona, Russian authorities had opened at least 225 criminal cases for “financing extremism” over donations to the late opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation as of April 2026. In the first half of 2026 alone, more than 1,200 people in Russia were convicted on terrorism-related charges, a 38% increase from the same period last year. Nearly a third were tried solely over things they had said.
Новая газета. Европа — Read more]]> Thu, 01 Oct 2026 09:54:30 +0000 https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/10/01/russia-sentences-68-year-old-ukrainian-citizen-to-14-years-in-prison-on-treason-charges-en-news https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/10/01/russia-sentences-68-year-old-ukrainian-citizen-to-14-years-in-prison-on-treason-charges-en-news Novosti · Obshchestvo Evropa Novaya gazeta A court in Russia’s Kamchatka region has sentenced a 68-year-old Ukrainian-born man to 14 years in prison on treason charges, independent outlet Mediazona reported.
The Kamchatka Regional Court convicted Valery Dobrovolsky, a native of Ukraine’s Zhytomyr region, on 22 September. The human rights group Memorial has recognised him as a political prisoner.
Details of the case have not been made public. According to Mediazona, Dobrovolsky was initially charged in March 2025 with confidential cooperation with a foreign state, but was ultimately tried for treason. The pensioner was held under house arrest during the investigation.
Court documents cited by the outlet quote Dobrovolsky as saying he had “long maintained contact with representatives of the SBU”, referring to Ukraine’s security service. His lawyer said he made no attempt to hide and appeared when summoned by the Federal Security Service (FSB).
Court materials also state that Dobrovolsky has serious “speech and cognitive impairments”. His health reportedly deteriorated sharply after his arrest.
According to leaked data, Dobrovolsky was born in Ukraine’s Zhytomyr region, where his sons still live. In 2023, he travelled to Ukraine to renew his Ukrainian passport before returning to Kamchatka. He likely also holds Russian citizenship.
Новая газета. Европа — Read more]]> Wed, 30 Sep 2026 13:31:10 +0000 https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/09/30/russia-reportedly-restricts-funding-for-films-depicting-corrupt-law-enforcement-en-news https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/09/30/russia-reportedly-restricts-funding-for-films-depicting-corrupt-law-enforcement-en-news Novosti · Obshchestvo Evropa Novaya gazeta Russia’s Culture Ministry and the state-sponsored Internet Development Institute, which funds propaganda content, have told producers that films and TV series depicting corruption in the security services will no longer receive government funding, business daily Kommersant reported, citing two sources from major film studios.
According to the newspaper’s sources, the restrictions cover scripts in which employees of the Interior Ministry, Federal Security Service (FSB), Investigative Committee or the prosecutor’s office accept bribes or take part in criminal schemes. Projects about serial killers also reportedly fall under the ban.
One source said the changes were conveyed to the Film and Television Producers Association, which unites 46 of the country’s largest production companies, but that there are no plans yet to enshrine the requirements in law. A second source said violating the rule could result in the loss of state support for a producer’s next project. The restrictions apply primarily to feature films, while the rules for TV series are more lenient.
There has been no official confirmation of the restrictions. A source at the Film and Television Producers Association told Kommersant that no official notice had been received. The Culture Ministry did not respond to the newspaper’s request for comment, while the Internet Development Institute and the Film and Television Producers Association declined to comment.
One producer who spoke to Kommersant supported the restrictions, arguing that portraying security officials in a negative light undermines trust in state institutions. Film critic Yevgeny Bazhenov questioned whether the policy would be effective. In his view, audiences will not believe a film that entirely excludes the negative aspects of society.
Новая газета. Европа — Read more]]> Wed, 30 Sep 2026 10:26:51 +0000 https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/09/30/russia-plotted-to-assassinate-garry-kasparov-and-former-lawmaker-ilya-ponomarev-in-us-spanish-media-reports-en-news https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/09/30/russia-plotted-to-assassinate-garry-kasparov-and-former-lawmaker-ilya-ponomarev-in-us-spanish-media-reports-en-news Novosti · Mezhdunarodnaya politika Evropa Novaya gazeta A network of Russian intelligence agents plotted to assassinate former State Duma deputy Ilya Ponomarev and chess champion and activist Garry Kasparov, Spanish newspaper El Mundo has reported.
According to the paper, US authorities warned Kasparov this summer that operatives linked to Russian security services wanted to kill him. He was given a security detail for the first time since moving to New York.
The plot against Ponomarev was reportedly at an “even more advanced stage”, but the person tasked with carrying it out “backed out”, El Mundo wrote.
Russian intelligence also planned a killing in Vilnius, in which the victim would have been ambushed and either stabbed or doused with gasoline and set on fire, according to journalists. The target may have been opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza.
Agents also surveilled Ivan Tyutrin, a co-founder of the Free Russian Forum, and Ruslan Gabbasov, a Bashkir activist and founder of the Committee of the Bashkir National Movement Abroad, in Lithuania, according to El Mundo.
In mid-September, the US Justice Department charged five members of a network that had allegedly been preparing since 2024 to kill Russian dissidents in the US and Europe and to carry out sabotage attacks in countries allied with Ukraine.
The defendants include Yury Khrameev, a former colonel in Russia’s security services; his son Kirill Khrameev, an FSB officer; Cuban nationals Oemis Romagoza Durruthy and Yaidel Delgado Suarez; and Venezuelan national Angel Eduardo Castro.
US prosecutors say that in summer 2026, members of the network instructed a US-based man to surveil a Russian dissident they believed was in Washington. He sent them photos and video but turned down an offer of $40,000 to kill the dissident.
In 2025 another US citizen was allegedly paid $200 to photograph the address of a man the network accused of “lying about Russia”. Yury Khrameev offered him roughly $25,000 to kill the man. After he refused, Khrameev suggested he set fire to a warehouse or attack an electrical substation instead.
Новая газета. Европа — Read more]]> Wed, 30 Sep 2026 09:46:15 +0000 https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/09/30/russian-notaries-start-refusing-to-certify-powers-of-attorney-for-draft-age-men-rights-groups-say-en-news https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/09/30/russian-notaries-start-refusing-to-certify-powers-of-attorney-for-draft-age-men-rights-groups-say-en-news Novosti · Obshchestvo Evropa Novaya gazeta Russian notaries in Moscow and the Samara region have refused to certify powers of attorney for men of draft age, or have imposed additional conditions for doing so, according to two human rights organisations. These groups, the Conscript School and the Conscientious Objectors Movement, called the demands unlawful and offered free help with appeals.
A power of attorney lets a close relative act on a person’s behalf in dealings with the military, whether that means conscription, being recruited to sign a military contract, or a routine visit to an enlistment office. The Conscientious Objectors Movement, which Russian authorities have designated a “foreign agent”, described the document as a “basic necessity” for every man in wartime Russia.
In Moscow, a notary refused to certify a young man’s power of attorney in favour of his mother, citing his draft-eligible age and the fact that he had not served in the military, according to a friend of the applicant. The friend said the notary demanded he log in to the electronic draft registry to show that no summons had been issued to him, and claimed notaries are obliged to notify enlistment offices about services provided to men of draft age.
In Samara, the mother of an 18-year-old told the groups that she approached several notaries and that all of them demanded a printout from the electronic draft registry. She said the notaries told her this was the rule across the city but cited no law. According to the groups, providing the printout did not solve the problem: the notaries still refused to include powers to remove him from military registration or to represent his interests regarding a medical examination. The mother said the hotline of the Federal Notary Chamber told her it had issued no such instructions and advised her to contact the regional chamber.
Another conscript from the Samara region contacted the Conscientious Objectors Movement after trying to obtain a power of attorney for removal from military registration. Three of the four notaries he visited asked for a printout from the military registration database. The fourth agreed to certify a document only for submitting applications to the enlistment office, leaving out the power to deregister him.
Notaries have no legal authority to demand records from the military registration database or the draft registry as a condition of certifying a power of attorney, the right groups emphasised.
Новая газета. Европа — Read more]]> Tue, 29 Sep 2026 14:34:51 +0000 https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/09/29/estonia-alleges-fire-at-tallinn-robotics-plant-was-russian-arson-attack-en-news https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/09/29/estonia-alleges-fire-at-tallinn-robotics-plant-was-russian-arson-attack-en-news Novosti · Mezhdunarodnaya politika Evropa Novaya gazeta Estonia says a fire at the offices of defence firm Milrem Robotics was an act of arson ordered by Russian intelligence services, Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna announced on X.
Estonian authorities view the fire as part of a broader Russian campaign in Europe aimed at intimidating European countries and weakening their support for Ukraine, Tsahkna said.
On 29 September, Estonia’s Foreign Ministry summoned Russia’s chargé d'affaires, Lenar Salimullin. The Kremlin rejected the accusations as "unfounded”.
The fire broke out overnight on 15 August on Betooni Street in Tallinn, the Estonian capital. It was quickly extinguished, and no one was injured. Three Latvian citizens were detained in connection with the case, according to Delfi.
Milrem Robotics makes unmanned ground vehicles for military use. Ukraine's armed forces use its THeMIS vehicles.
Новая газета. Европа — Read more]]> Tue, 29 Sep 2026 13:10:54 +0000 https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/09/29/siberian-police-plied-businessman-with-vodka-and-tried-to-force-him-into-army-contract-family-alleges-en-news https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/09/29/siberian-police-plied-businessman-with-vodka-and-tried-to-force-him-into-army-contract-family-alleges-en-news Novosti · Obshchestvo Evropa Novaya gazeta Police in the Siberian town of Ust-Kut plied a 54-year-old businessman with vodka, held him for almost a day and tried to force him to sign a contract to fight in Ukraine, his wife and daughter have alleged in a complaint to prosecutors. According to the complaint, at least 17 men may have been detained and taken to the enlistment office in the same way over the past two weeks.
The man, identified as Vladimir Shch., escaped when he was allowed outside for a cigarette and his wife met him there, according to the family, who spoke to the independent outlet Baikal People. Officers allegedly planned to take him to the regional assembly point near Irkutsk because contracts with the Defence Ministry are not formally concluded in Ust-Kut.
The family said that on the night of 20 September, local police officer Nikolay Konatovsky took Vladimir from an apartment after neighbours complained; brought him home, drunk, to collect his documents; and then delivered him to a police station, where his phone and papers were confiscated. Officers gave him and another man detained at the same apartment food and vodka. Vladimir spent 12 hours at the station.
The next morning he was taken to the military enlistment office, with police continuing to give him alcohol on the way. He was made to sign papers he did not understand, his relatives said. In addition to being intoxicated, he did not have his glasses.
He was then driven to a hospital for a medical examination and afterward returned to the police station. Throughout, he was kept under watch and was even escorted to the toilet, according to Baikal People.
His wife, whose name was not given, went to the hospital, but Konatovsky refused to release him, accusing her of “obstructing the signing of a contract for the special military operation”, using the Russian authorities’ term for the full-scale war in Ukraine.
Vladimir got away by chance. After the medical examination, the officers eased their supervision and allowed him to step outside for a cigarette. His wife met him there, put him in a car and drove him home.
Konatovsky has since been searching for him, the family said, and has visited his registered address several times. He told relatives that if he found Vladimir, he would be sent to war regardless. Vladimir is now staying with family, who try not to let him go outside alone. They fear he could be tracked down on his way to work.
Police were slow to return his documents, insisting he come to collect them himself. After Baikal People published its story, the outlet learned that his belongings had been returned.
Vladimir's daughter, Svetlana, noted in the complaint that she had heard police receive bonuses for recruiting people to fight in Ukraine. She stressed that she could not verify this herself and called on prosecutors to look into it. With a new group of men detained after Vladimir's case, the number of people affected comes to about 20, Baikal People reported.
Similar reports from the town have appeared before. In July, the local outlet Ust-Kut24 wrote about men in military uniform who grabbed a man with a disability on the street and took him to the enlistment office, where he was threatened and pressured to sign a contract. His relatives managed to take him home.
In June, the same outlet reported three such cases at once. Police were said to have detained people with suspended sentences and threatened to send them to prison if they refused to sign.
Новая газета. Европа — Read more]]> Tue, 29 Sep 2026 11:22:17 +0000 https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/09/29/lukewarm-alliance-en https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/09/29/lukewarm-alliance-en Syuzhety · Mezhdunarodnaya politika Khud Kolin China has enabled Russia to pursue its war in Ukraine, and more recently to agitate Japan over the disputed islands that Tokyo refers to as its Northern Territories. Leaked records indicate that at least 46 tons of drone material have been sent from China to a sanctioned Russian company this year. Naval drills between Moscow and Beijing have escalated, with 60% of all joint exercises since 2009 taking place since the full-scale invasion. This strong yet informal alliance is, however, based on calculated benefit rather than trust, as threats of Chinese espionage and divergent geopolitical outlooks strain relations between Moscow and Beijing.

Critical dependence in Ukraine
Russia has relied on China as a crucial partner in its war against Ukraine: as an energy customer, military supplier, economic anchor and diplomatic ally.
Cheap Chinese components are crucial for both capitals to keep up with demand on the battlefield. Russia’s latest generation of drones in Ukraine shows that Moscow, like Kyiv, can develop increasingly sophisticated weapons. Analysis of Geran-5 drones shot down by Ukraine has revealed that they contain Chinese parts. This latest version, faster and sturdier than its predecessor, is much harder for Ukrainian air defences to shoot down.
Maria Snegovaya, senior fellow at the Washington, DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told Novaya Gazeta Europe that “Russia has no choice but to remain dependent on China because of [Beijing’s] significance, its willingness to assist Russia, and its relative autonomy from Western sanctions.”
She added that Moscow “doesn’t have a lot of options” as “there aren’t many countries willing to become Russia’s ally,” pointing to growing ties with North Korea for technology and manpower as an example.
While Russia has turned to North Korea and India for economic support in recent years, experts argue that these relations can only supplement, not replace, Moscow’s entrenched dependence on China.
Russia has relied on Beijing for its supply of critical parts — including jet engines, onboard computers and fibre-optic cables — since the start of the full-scale invasion. A recent analysis by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) found that China has exported $10.3 billion (€9.03 billion) worth of export-controlled items since 2022. This includes dual-use goods, which can be repurposed for military use.
Beijing has consistently maintained that it does not supply “lethal weaponry to either side of the conflict” and that it “strictly controls dual-use items.”
The USCC report emphasized asymmetric relations in China’s favour, with Beijing gaining discounted energy, military expertise, and broader economic gains. Meanwhile, “Beijing avoids binding alliance commitments that would obligate it to match Russia’s risk-taking,” the report said.
Absence of security guarantees or defence pledges, as well as spy fears, have put limits on this alliance. Leaked documents from Russia’s security services, obtained by The New York Times, laid out plans by authorities to defend against Chinese espionage. CSIS’s China Power Project has recorded four cases of Russian nationals passing sensitive data to China since February 2022.
Snegovaya also blamed their uneasy partnership on clashing strategic interests. She said that “the Chinese benefit from the international order [as it is]”, while “Russia is undermining [it].”
Michal Bogusz, China expert at the Centre for Eastern Studies in Warsaw, said that while Russia’s position as a junior partner does provide Beijing with serious leverage, it is unlikely to pressure Moscow as long as the war does not escalate beyond Ukraine’s borders. He said that “the survival of an anti-Western, anti-democratic, authoritarian regime in Russia [is in China’s interest]”, adding that, in this regard, “Putin, or Putinism even without Putin” remains the best option for Beijing.
‘Muscle-flexing diplomacy’ towards Japan
As Russia fights a war in Europe with China’s help, the two countries have also adopted an increasingly assertive posture together towards Japan.
In August, Vladimir Putin visited Iturup, one of the disputed Kuril Islands that, since 1945, has been controlled by Russia but claimed by Japan. The trip came shortly after Russian and Chinese forces held live-fire military drills in Tokyo’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The previous month, Chinese and Russian warships conducted a joint patrol through several strategically important waterways around Japan.
Putin’s trip, his first to the contested islands, prompted an immediate protest from Tokyo. Following the visit, Moscow’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that “Russia’s sovereignty and jurisdiction over [the islands] are beyond question.” She also condemned Japan’s support for Ukraine, accusing Tokyo of “complicity in the Russophobic policies of the collective West.”
Snegovaya said that Russian operations alongside China in the waters off Japan “conveys a very strong signal” to Tokyo about the depth of Moscow’s ties with Beijing, and their potential as a security threat. This is particularly important as China has sharply intensified its pressure on Japan.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks in November 2025 that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could constitute an “existential crisis” for Japan sparked the latest diplomatic dispute with China, which in turn has accused Tokyo of remilitarizing.
Since then, Beijing has banned more Japanese companies from receiving its exports, flown bombers near southwest Japan (alongside Russia), and placed tight restrictions on rare earth minerals necessary for manufacturing.
While the exact reasons for this escalation remain unclear, Snegovaya suggested that Moscow sees Tokyo’s growing integration with the West as a “security dilemma” and is seeking to penalise Japan for its continued support for Ukraine.
In September, Tokyo also protested the erection of a 50-foot statue in Khabarovsk in Russia’s Far East which depicts a Soviet soldier shattering a post engraved with the Japanese chrysanthemum emblem. The flower remains a symbol of Japan and the Japanese imperial family.
Bogusz said that the escalation of joint naval drills is part of Moscow’s efforts to deepen its alignment with Beijing. “Russia has enough resources on its own [to intimidate Japan]. They want to do it together with China, not because they need the Chinese, but they want to prove how useful they are” for Beijing’s own posture against Tokyo.
He added that Moscow wanted to send the message that “we can continue the war on Ukraine, but we can also be a danger in different parts of the world.”
Новая газета. Европа — Read more]]> Tue, 29 Sep 2026 09:36:41 +0000 https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/09/29/a-starving-human-shield-en https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/09/29/a-starving-human-shield-en Syuzhety · Voyna v Ukraine Vasileva Olga For more than a year, residents of occupied Oleshky, on the left bank of the Dnipro across from Kherson, have begged for a civilian evacuation. At times it seemed they had been heard: volunteers compiled lists of those still in town and passed them to officials and international organisations, hoping they would negotiate a humanitarian corridor with the occupation authorities. Nothing came of it.

This summer, volunteers documented the first deaths from starvation among residents, though no one can officially confirm them, since Oleshky is on the front line. The town is shelled hourly from both sides, and there is no civilian government. The Ukrainian military administration sits across the front in liberated Kherson, while the collaborationist authorities are 70 kilometres away in occupied Skadovsk. Russian soldiers, who are also hungry, are stationed in the town. The last time volunteers brought food to the residents, who are effectively held hostage by the Russians, was 26 May.
Now the whole world is watching. Football fans, musicians, religious leaders and others have begun advocating for the town's residents under the banner SAVE OLESHKY, and Ukrainian officials have appealed to the international community to secure aid and an evacuation.

Novaya Gazeta Europe spoke to residents about what life in Oleshky looks like today.

The hunger games
“We’re finishing the last of our vegetables, and after that it’s ‘Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favour!” says Andriy (name changed for security reasons), a badly emaciated 46-year-old who has not left his hometown once since 24 February 2022.
Early in the war, the Russians took him away with a sack over his head to a basement, where they tortured him for several days. When they let him go, they warned him that if he tried to leave Oleshky, he wouldn’t leave the torture chamber alive next time. Andriy knows he is unlikely to get past the many Russian checkpoints. He says he no longer knows which is worse: watching his parents starve to death beside him, since they refuse to leave without him, or facing the torture of the Russian security forces again.
The last food delivery to Oleshky was on 26 May. The next attempt ended in tragedy.
On 2 June, four vehicles carrying food and humanitarian aid headed for the town. One of them belonged to a local priest. The drivers stopped repeatedly, getting out and checking the road for mines before moving on.
During one such check, on Oleshky’s outskirts, there was a powerful explosion when a mine by the roadside went off, probably triggered by movement. Four men were injured.
The priest drove two of the seriously wounded to the hospital in Skadovsk; one died on the way. Another driver was loaded into a garden wheelbarrow and rushed to the hospital in Oleshky. The wheelbarrow filled with blood almost immediately, and his chances of survival seemed slim, but he made it. The fourth driver also lived, with less severe injuries.
After that, nobody tried to bring food into the blockaded town again.
Foraging past mines
Somehow the locals made it through the summer by eating grass and vegetables from their gardens. They searched the cellars of neighbours who had left or been killed, and sometimes they got lucky and found food. By autumn, things had become desperate. Hunger drove people farther and farther from town in search of something to eat.
The river is off limits; everything along it is mined. The woods, with their mushrooms and berries, are out of bounds too, since Russian troops are there, along with more mines. The town of Hola Prystan, where a few goods still trickle in from time to time, is unreachable: the road runs along the Dnipro, which is to say along the front line, and it is mined and patrolled around the clock by drones, which kill anyone they detect.
Desperate with hunger, some residents began travelling to Radensk, a village that is also occupied but 20 kilometres farther from the front. When the first came back with food, others followed. Radensk still has a market and shops, and it’s sometimes even possible to pay with a Russian bank card. Some people — pensioners and hospital and utility workers — had the foresight in the first years of the occupation to have their pensions and salaries paid onto cards.
“If they open the road to Radensk, there will be food,” says Andriy. “Right now, groups go on foot every day to buy supplies. Not everyone comes back. People try to finish everything before dark, because after sunset you can’t see the mines. But I’ve heard this route will be closed off in the next few days too. I hope that’s just gossip.”
According to the volunteer Ksenia Arkhipova, who left Oleshky herself in 2022 and has since organised free evacuations from her hometown and arranged deliveries of food and animal feed, people gather by the hospital in Oleshky at dawn and walk 23 kilometres together to the market in Radensk. The trip takes six to eight hours each way. Most are elderly and weakened by hunger, which means their speed is severely limited. There is also periodic shelling, which they have to wait out. Sometimes they physically can’t get there before the market closes, but the vendors know that “the Oleshky people will come” and set aside some goods for them.
The road to Radensk is mined just like the one to Hola Prystan, though a little less densely. Those who can cycle are better off. But sometimes they have to stop and carry their bikes so as not to set off magnetic mines. The roadside and the road itself are littered with burned-out vehicles. And the route is passable only in clear, dry weather: once it rains, or fog rolls in, or snow falls, no one can get through.
“Right at the entrance to Radensk the checks begin, and then there’s one at every checkpoint,” Andriy continues. “A ‘contaminated person’ like me has no business there. And anyone of draft age, even less so. Mobilisation has reached here too. I know two guys from Radensk were forcibly sent to a military medical commission, and there they pass everyone as fit, even the disabled.”
Andriy says he has to find food every day. Occasionally he finds some in the cellar of an abandoned house. Sometimes he has to “beg from the neighbours in exchange for junk they need and we don’t.”
At the local market, he says, 80% of goods are now bartered. Cash matters mainly for arranging purchases in Radensk. Some people risk their lives to shop there on others' behalf and will bring you your order, but at several times the price.
“We ordered zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes,” Andriy says. “In Radensk it’s about 100 rubles a kilo. Here they start at 1,000 right away. A dozen eggs there costs 150 to 300 rubles; at our market it’s 300 rubles for one egg. The chickens in Oleshky have all been slaughtered for meat, some eaten by their owners, some sold. Now a 1.4-kilo chicken costs 5,000 rubles here, while 20 kilometres away you can buy a kilo of beef for 600 rubles, and I mean actual meat, not canned stew. Canned meat here costs up to 2,000 rubles, whatever kind it is; in Radensk the most expensive is 250. In Oleshky flour is available only by exchange, no other way and no markups. People brought back five sacks from Radensk for 1,000 rubles.”
The middlemen risk their lives just as any other food forager does. Their first concern is feeding themselves and their families, so they don’t always take orders from locals, and sometimes they have to be talked into it. Andriy’s family has enough food for five days. He placed an order for groceries and medicine and handed over his last savings, asking the buyer to get the medicine first and use whatever was left on food. A third of the money went straight to the middleman.
‘If the hospital closes, there’s no town’
“Russian soldiers come into Oleshky on foot, through the woods,” says Andriy. “The occupation authorities can’t bring in troops and supplies for them without serious losses. So sometimes they go hungry too, except they have weapons. Every so often the soldiers rob the locals. If someone resists, they kill him, loot the house and then blow it to splinters with drones to cover up any trace.”
Ksenia Arkhipova confirms his account. Around town, you can see a message scrawled on fences: “There’s no food. We’re starving ourselves.” It is meant for the soldiers, who scavenge through the town for food just like the locals.
The situation in the hospital is even worse. Many of the people brought in are missing limbs. Doctors can stop the bleeding, but they have no medicine. The hospital has run out of food, too.
“The staff have asked residents to donate any grain at all so they can make porridge for the people lying here without limbs,” says Ksenia. “You understand, even in the hospital there’s hunger, though they had a chance to stockpile food back when they were still sending the wounded to Skadovsk. Staff are quitting and trying to get out of Oleshky. If the hospital closes, that’s it, there’s no town anymore.”
Ksenia says she already knows of deaths from starvation in Oleshky. When she manages to get people out, they look more like Buchenwald prisoners than people “liberated by the Russian world”.
“The men weigh 50 kilos at most,” Ksenia says. “Recently we got out an old woman: just skin stretched over bones. They walk to Radensk with their feet bleeding. They have no strength, they faint, and other travellers pour water on them. And every day there’s a text: ‘Ksenia, help, my child is hungry’… This is a repeat of the Holodomor.”
Serhiy, a resident of Oleshky, is now in Ukrainian-controlled territory. About a week ago, he and his wife made the many-hour trek to a point where volunteers could pick them up.
“We had 300 grams of buckwheat, 200 grams of spaghetti and two cans of stewed meat left,” Serhiy says. “We ate it all before leaving the house so we’d have the strength to make it.”
Serhiy explains that he is of retirement age and staying in Oleshky any longer was impossible. If he fell ill, he doubts the hospital would have been able to help him. Almost nothing works there now, and the morgue is overflowing with decomposing bodies. Burial isn’t allowed without a forensic examination, and the only examiner is in Skadovsk, so bodies have been lying piled up in the local morgue for months. There has been no electricity for a long time, and the generator runs on gasoline, which hasn’t been brought into Oleshky since the beginning of summer.
Everyone left in Oleshky is waiting desperately for an evacuation, because many, like Andriy, cannot get through the checkpoints. Some of those who had got on the FSB’s radar tried to flee the hunger but vanished at Russian checkpoints.
“What really stings is that the authorities got people out of besieged Mariupol through an official corridor, and they only remembered us now,” says Andriy. “And here, you swim across the river and you’re in free Ukraine. But no.”
Deliveries by drone
“Yes, there really are problems with delivering food, medicine and so on there. The Kyiv regime is doing literally everything possible to obstruct these deliveries. Drones are constantly overhead, killing people. The situation is indeed critical,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters a week ago.
“In occupied Oleshky, the Russians are holding around 2,000 of our people hostage, almost 50 of them children,” Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, said on Sunday. “They are forced to survive without food, electricity or water. And the most terrible thing is that the Russians have effectively deprived them of any chance to leave this hell.”
According to Prokudin, the military has begun dropping food into Oleshky by drone to help the residents of the occupied town, and recently managed to deliver about four tonnes.
“I really did hear the hum of drones, and then I found a box of food,” Andriy confirms. “Inside were canned stew, pasta, grains and other things. While the drones are in the sky, the occupiers hide, so we manage to collect the packages. Some of the food landed near the hospital. The [Russians] helped themselves there too, of course, but the medics also managed to grab something.”
This bought a little time against the hunger, but, unfortunately, did not solve the problem entirely. What matters now is finding a way to persuade the Russian authorities to organise a humanitarian corridor.
“Unfortunately, the Russian Federation does not agree to an evacuation of the civilian population and refuses to open a green corridor. It rejects all our proposals and initiatives,” said Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman. “We worked out many technical details and considered different routes. We even agreed that the evacuation should be carried out only by a land corridor and that all combat operations would be suspended for its duration. We could have taken all these people out in a single day. We have only one problem: the position of the Russian side, which rejects any proposal. My impression is that they deliberately do not want a humanitarian evacuation, because the Russian military is now using the civilians as a shield against active operations by the Ukrainian army.”
Новая газета. Европа — Read more]]> Mon, 28 Sep 2026 15:00:15 +0000 https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/09/28/russias-new-preschool-education-standards-will-focus-on-moral-values-not-letters-and-numbers-minister-says-en-news https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/09/28/russias-new-preschool-education-standards-will-focus-on-moral-values-not-letters-and-numbers-minister-says-en-news Novosti · Obshchestvo Evropa Novaya gazeta The Russian Education Ministry is preparing to update the country’s federal education standards and preschool programme, Education Minister Sergey Kravtsov said in an interview with state news agency RIA Novosti published Sunday.
The changes are intended to strengthen ties between kindergartens and families, Kravtsov said. He stressed that kindergartens should remain a space for moral and cultural upbringing, not merely preparation for school.
“Familiarity with one’s native culture, literature, customs and moral values is more important than memorising letters and numbers in kindergarten,” the minister said. According to him, this will be the emphasis of the updated standards.
He did not specify the timeline for introducing the changes or the specific requirements for kindergartens.
Новая газета. Европа — Read more]]> Mon, 28 Sep 2026 14:02:37 +0000 https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/09/28/campaign-manager-from-russias-anti-war-party-says-she-was-assaulted-by-ukraine-war-veterans-en-news https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/09/28/campaign-manager-from-russias-anti-war-party-says-she-was-assaulted-by-ukraine-war-veterans-en-news Novosti · Obshchestvo Evropa Novaya gazeta A Russian activist and former campaign manager with the country’s anti-war Yabloko party said she and her husband were assaulted by men claiming to be veterans of the war in Ukraine, she told independent outlet RusNews.
Varvara Kosheleva, who ran the campaign of State Duma candidate Anna Shatunovskaya-Burno, was diagnosed with a concussion and multiple bruises in hospital, the outlet reported. She also complained of a headache, dizziness, and nausea.
Kosheleva said the men, who were intoxicated, placed a beer can on the couple’s car as they pulled up to the building around midnight. They began taunting them, then attacked.
“They immediately started saying we were traitors to the motherland, that they fight for people like us and that we’re ungrateful scum,” she said.
Новая газета. Европа — Read more]]>