Russia

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/36864816

Archived

During his official visit to Austria, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy disclosed that Russia had proposed exchanging abducted Ukrainian children for captured Russian soldiers—a proposal he firmly rejected, as was reported on June 16.

Speaking at a joint press conference [...], Zelenskyy stated: “We do not exchange them for anything. It is absolutely unfair. Frankly speaking, this is madness, which the Russians, by the way, proposed: we give them military personnel, and they give us children.” The Ukrainian president emphasized that such exchanges are legally and morally unacceptable, underscoring that kidnapped children are victims of Russian aggression, not subjects of negotiation.

Zelenskyy further stressed that Russia’s deportation of Ukrainian children constitutes a war crime. The International Criminal Court has previously issued arrest warrants for Russian officials, including leader Vladimir Putin, over the unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children from occupied territories to Russia. Kyiv estimates that over 20,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly taken since the start of the full-scale invasion.

Earlier, Ukraine rescued five more children abducted by Russia, including minors who had been held in reeducation camps and subjected to military training.

[...]

Investigations reveal a system of indoctrination of children abducted by Russia. [...] Ukraine has identified over 150 locations where Russia is holding or has relocated abducted Ukrainian children, including families involved in illegal adoptions. These are around 40 camps, over 40 adoptive families, more than 50 educational institutions, and several Russian state-run facilities—spread across Russia and the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

These forced relocations are part of what human rights groups call a state policy of Russification. Children are placed in camps or foster families, issued Russian passports, and compelled to forget their heritage. Some are enrolled in military schools, others are sent deep into Russia, given new biographies as if their pasts never existed.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/36830782

Archived

Director of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, has claimed that Ukraine and the United Kingdom are allegedly preparing acts of sabotage in the Baltic Sea. It is another disinformation campaign from the Kremlin, according to Andriy Kovalenko, head of Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council.

"Ukraine, together with the British, is preparing provocations in the Baltic Sea. One of the scenarios involves staging a fake Russian torpedo attack on a US Navy ship," Naryshkin said.

However, Kovalenko dismissed these claims as false.

"Naryshkin from the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service keeps doing the only thing he knows - fabricating nonsense. This time, he invented a fake story about Ukraine and the UK preparing sabotage operations in the Baltic Sea. And this is the same Naryshkin who organized cable sabotage against NATO using ships of the tanker fleet," he said.

[...]

"So now Naryshkin comes up with nonsense and provocations to win favor with Putin. Only Russia is capable of planning sabotage in the Baltic, as it has done before," the head of the Center for Countering Disinformation notes.

[...]

On December 25 of last year, it was reported that underwater communication cables between Estonia and Finland had been damaged.

Arto Pahkin, a representative of Finnish electricity transmission system operator Fingrid, noted that two vessels were in the area at the time the connection was severed.

Later, it emerged that Finnish authorities were investigating an oil tanker suspected of being part of Russia's so-called shadow fleet.

According to media reports, by stopping the Russian shadow fleet tanker, Finland may have prevented several more serious sabotage operations.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/36828391

Archived

What started with masked soldiers in Crimea and covert proxies in Donbas has evolved into a complex, multi-layered hybrid strategy employed by the Kremlin against the West. Over the past decade, the Kremlin has refined its Soviet-inherited playbook of active measures, combining coordinated campaigns of subversion, sabotage, cyberattacks and disinformation to weaken democratic institutions, undermine public trust, and fracture European and Euro-Atlantic unity. It has stepped up its funding of anti-establishment parties across the EU while deploying covert operatives and disinformation strategies to maximize its reach without triggering open confrontation.

Documented attacks increased fourfold between 2022 and 2023 and threefold in 2024 compared to 2023. In this regard, the Kremlin has increased both the range of targets, from critical infrastructure to transportation hubs, and the tactics used, including explosives and improvised tools. This evident escalation reflects the Kremlin’s shift towards more aggressive and adaptable hybrid disruption tactics, designed to remain just below the threshold of triggering a unified European response.

[...]

Poland, Ukraine’s leading supporter and a central hub for NATO logistics, has become a primary target of the Kremlin’s hybrid attacks against critical infrastructure. One striking example came in May 2025, when Polish authorities confirmed that Russian intelligence was behind the fire that destroyed the large shopping centre in Warsaw the previous year, damaging over 1,400 shops and service outlets.

[...]

Numerous instances of Russian hybrid attacks have been recorded across the Baltic states and Romania. The Kremlin has directed these attacks against critical infrastructure, undersea cables and electoral systems.

[...]

In March 2025, Kremlin-linked agents conducted an arson attack on an IKEA store in Lithuania, along with the Russian sabotage of the Baltic Sea cable system, disrupting the country’s internet connectivity.

[...]

Since 2024, Estonia has seen a notable spike in cyberattacks against critical infrastructure. In particular, there has been an increase in satellite-based cyberattacks, which have disrupted the operations of airport infrastructure. Currently, the country is working actively to track the Kremlin’s “shadow fleet”.

[...]

Romania is one of the recent stark examples of the Kremlin’s application of modern hybrid warfare tools. In December 2024, the country’s constitutional court annulled the 2024 presidential election after the country’s intelligence services confirmed Russian interference via fake social media accounts and cyberattacks on election systems.

[...]

A western response should not remain purely defensive. It has to counter the Kremlin’s hybrid attacks that fall below the threshold of triggering a unified European response and incorporate offensive measures. This way, the West can ensure that the Kremlin is discouraged and, if necessary, respond with targeted retaliatory actions against its covert operations, particularly across the EU member states. Otherwise, the Kremlin will continue leveraging hybrid warfare tools to undermine democracies in the West.

The case has been forwarded for criminal charges. A child could be prosecuted as an adult. Defend this, tankies.

crosspostato da: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/36743462

Archived

Finnish authorities have accused senior officers of a Russia-linked vessel that damaged undersea cables last year between Finland and Estonia of criminal offenses related to the wreckage.

They say the oil tanker, the Eagle S, dragged its anchor to damage the Estlink-2 power cable and communication links between Finland and Estonia on Dec. 25. The Kremlin previously denied involvement in damaging the infrastructure, which provides power and communication for thousands of Europeans.

The Eagle S is flagged in the Cook Islands, but has been described by Finnish customs officials and the European Union’s executive commission as part of Russia’s shadow fleet of fuel tankers. Those are aging vessels with obscure ownership, acquired to evade Western sanctions amid the war in Ukraine and operating without Western-regulated insurance.

[...]

The Eagle S was carrying 35,000 tons of oil and investigators allege it left a drag trail with its anchor for almost 100 kilometers (62 miles) on the sea bed before it was stopped and escorted to the vicinity of a Finnish port.

The senior officers, whose names were not made public, were the master, the chief mate and the second mate, Finnish police said.

[...]

The investigators’ findings have been referred to Finnish prosecutors for possible charges.

[...]

The damage to the Estlink 2, which can provide about half of the electricity needs for Estonia in winter, did not disrupt service, although it did drive up energy prices in the Baltic nations.

The cable is about 90 miles (145 kilometers) long and is located at a depth of 90 meters (295 feet) at its deepest point, across one of the busiest shipping lanes in Europe.

The undersea cables and pipelines that crisscross the sea link Nordic, Baltic and central European countries, promote trade, energy security and, in some cases, reduce dependence on Russian energy resources.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/36624735

Archived

[...]

One Russian government official [said that after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he asked his son, who was studying in the U.K. at the time, to come back to Russia out of fear that he would face repression for being a Russian citizen. However, the official admitted that he still wished his son could complete his education in the West.

Another official said she sent her daughter to study at a school in the European Union. The daughter later enrolled in university in that country and now refuses to return to Russia.

[Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity.]

While officials go to great lengths to keep these stories under wraps, especially after the invasion of Ukraine put renewed scrutiny on their families’ whereabouts, there are plenty of examples that we know about.

[...]

The sons of Vladimir Yakunin, the former head of state-owned Russian Railways and a former Putin ally and KGB officer, live and do business abroad.

[...]

Svetlana Gradvol, the eldest child of Bashkortostan’s head Radiy Khabirov, has lived in Austria for many years. A graduate of the Vienna University of Economics and Business, Gradvol is married to an Austrian finance professional and owns a photo studio in the Austrian capital, according to information obtained by regional news outlet Prufy.

Gradvol’s younger sister, Rita Khabirova, is also based abroad. Having graduated from King’s College London in 2020, she still lives in London and works in the marketing department of the skincare brand Skin + Me, according to an investigation by Navalny LIVE.

[...]

If these relatives were ordinary people not born into families with status and wealth (which is, in many cases, acquired through corruption), their lives would look very different.

For one, the quality of education in an average school in Russia’s regions is quite different than what you’d get at a private school abroad.

[...]

Even high-scoring school graduates from Russian regions are more likely to enroll in lower-ranked and lesser-known universities due to a lack of knowledge about the higher education system or financial barriers.

[...]

And that’s not to mention matters of basic infrastructure. At least 3,900 schools in Russia are not equipped with a sewage system, according to data analytics project To Be Precise. In the republics of Sakha and Dagestan, sewage systems are absent from as many as 41% of all school buildings; in Tyva, that is true for more than half of all schools.

[...]

Since the invasion of Ukraine, Russian lawmakers have repeatedly tried to ban politicians and officials’ children from studying abroad, a gesture likely aimed at convincing the public that the elites are standing with the Russian people in wartime.

“If you want to change the world, start with yourself. Deputies, mayors and officials not only shouldn’t have foreign citizenship or property abroad — their relatives, including their children, shouldn’t be living or studying abroad either,” State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said in 2023.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/36544659

Archived

More than 100,000 Russian families have contacted a Ukrainian-run initiative in search of information about missing Russian soldiers, Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of the Prisoners of War (POWs) said on June 12.

[...]

The initiative, called "I Want to Find" (Russian: "Хочу найти"), has received 100,324 requests from Russian citizens seeking answers about relatives who vanished while serving in Russia's military, the Coordination Headquarters said.

The actual number of missing Russian troops is believed to be significantly higher. Since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin has largely concealed the scale of its military losses, forcing many families to search independently, Ukrainian officials said.

In May 2025 alone, the project received a record 12,320 inquiries — the highest monthly figure since the program began in January 2024.

[...]

The Kremlin has not commented on the figures.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/36534778

Archived

[...]

Since [Russia's] full-scale invasion in 2022, dozens of teenagers in Ukraine and at least 12 teens elsewhere in Europe – in Germany, Poland, Britain and Lithuania – have been arrested in Russia-linked cases of sabotage and spying. [Canadian teenager Laken] Pavan’s case [...] sheds light on these covert Russian operations and their cryptocurrency trail. [Pavan pleaded guilty to charges of helping Russian intelligence and was sentenced in December 2024 in Poland. Pavan, who turned 18 a few weeks after his arrest, is now serving a 20-month sentence in a Polish prison on the outskirts of Radom, a city 100 kilometres south of the capital.]

The answer to why Moscow has resorted to using untrained agents lies in the mass expulsion of Russian diplomats and operatives from Europe after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. To plug the hole in their operations, Russian intelligence services have shifted to recruiting common criminals or individuals with little spycraft experience, said a senior NATO official. His statement echoed comments last year from Germany’s domestic security service. Two European security experts said teenagers are recruited because they’re vulnerable, low-cost, and often in need of money.

“These are, in many cases, not trained intelligence professionals,” the NATO official said on condition of anonymity to describe the clandestine operations.

The official expects more Russian hybrid warfare, which combines physical warfare with non-military tactics used to undermine an adversary’s security and sow distrust and confusion. “One of the main objectives of the Russian hybrid campaign is to undercut support for Ukraine, and that is both politically, in terms of creating disquiet amongst the population, but also very practically, in terms of the actual concrete support going to Ukraine,” he said.

[...]

The bitcoin transactions in the court documents allowed [investigators] to trace the payments, revealing transfers across several wallets. The analysis identified one large cryptocurrency wallet that financed the two wallets which paid bitcoin directly to Pavan. That big wallet has processed over $600 million since its creation in June 2022, four months after the start of the war in Ukraine, the analysis found. [Investigators] could not ascertain who operates the large upstream wallet.

European officials have pointed to Russia for sabotage including cyberattacks and arson, attempted assassinations, as well as espionage in countries allied with Ukraine. Moscow denies involvement and has called such allegations “ empty” and unproven. Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, known as the SVR, did not comment directly on Pavan’s case and accused Europe of blindly supporting “the Kyiv regime's terrorist methods.”

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/36511553

Archived

The chief of Germany’s foreign intelligence service warned that his agency has “concrete” evidence that Russia is planning an attack on Nato territory.

Bruno Kahl, the outgoing head of Germany’s federal intelligence service (BND), said in a rare interview that Russian leadership no longer believes Nato’s article 5 guarantee of mutual assistance will be honoured — and may seek to test it.

“We are very sure, and we have intelligence evidence to back this up, that [Russia’s full-scale invasion of] Ukraine is only one step on Russia’s path towards the west,” he told a podcast of German outlet Table Briefings.

Kahl qualified that “this doesn’t mean that we expect large tank battalions to roll from the east to the west.”

Kahl said: “We see that Nato is supposed to be tested in its mutual assistance promise. There are people in Moscow who don’t believe that Nato’s article 5 still works.”

[...]

While the war is still confined to Ukrainian territory, the German internal secret service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), has warned that Moscow is increasingly extending the conflict to western countries through cyberwarfare and espionage.

Russia has in particular taken to deploying so-called low-level agents to commit acts of sabotage, according to the BfV annual report, which was presented in Berlin on Wednesday. They are believed to have been deployed to plant incendiary devices in parcels, which caused a series of fires in European logistics hubs last year.

“We have noticed that Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has led to our cyber and espionage defences being increasingly tested,” Sinan Selim, vice-president of the BfV, said.

Talks on a potential new nuclear deal between the U.S. and Iran have once again hit a deadlock. But they haven’t broken down completely — instead, both parties appear to be focused on negotiating better terms for themselves. Amid this impasse, Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered to help broker an agreement, telling Trump he’d be willing to serve as a mediator. But what would Moscow’s involvement in these negotiations do for Washington and Tehran? And does the Kremlin really want to see Iran get out from under U.S. sanctions? To answer these questions and more, Meduza turned to Middle East expert Nikita Smagin, author of the Telegram channel Islamism from a Foreign Agent.

Foundations linked to former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have amassed about $850 million since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, RFE/RL's Russian investigative unit, Systema, has found.

The rising fortunes of the foundations coincides with a wartime reincarnation of Medvedev, 59, who was dismissed as prime minister by President Vladimir Putin in 2020.

But he has found an audience of millions in a new role as an online attack dog while keeping a hand in government as deputy chairman of Putin's Security Council and chairman of the dominant United Russia party.

Medvedev, a once mild-mannered, moderate figure, has championed the war in wildly hawkish, hate-filled social media rants against Kyiv and the West.

[Op-ed by political scientists Ben Noble and Nikolai Petrov.]

As the regime becomes more entrenched, even the slightest expression of doubt about its absolute legitimacy or infallibility is treated as subversive.

Ideological compliance and fomenting moral panics have, therefore, become vehicles for bureaucratic advancement.

The state has eliminated genuine opposition figures – first those who were openly defiant, like Alexei Navalny, and then those who dissented more covertly. The state is now shifting its focus to the ‘insufficiently loyal’.

When the state defines itself as encircled by enemies, the lines between regime survival, institutional opportunism, and personal ambition, blur – with increasingly chaotic consequences.

Archived

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/36449599

Archived

Nikolai Kolesov, former governor of the Armur Region and now the head of state-owned company Russian Helicopters and a close associate of Rostec chief Sergey Chemezov, has turned Russia's defense industry into a private empire, according to the investigation. He quietly privatized defense plants, putting them in the names of frontmen and then using the proceeds to buy luxury homes, aircraft, and palaces across the globe.

Assets linked to the Kolesov family:

Spain (Mallorca)

• A €5 million villa registered to Kolesov’s seven-year-old daughter, Nicole. She was four at the time of purchase.

• A neighboring villa worth €3 million registered to Kolesov’s sister, Lyudmila Tenno.

• Three villas, each 750 m², purchased in the name of Kolesov’s four-year-old son Alexei, who is the godson of former Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov.

Russia and occupied Crimea

• A palace in Yalta, allegedly purchased in the name of a state-owned factory.

• A plot of land in Rublyovka worth 1 billion rubles, registered to Kolesov himself and his factory.

• A private resort near Kazan with a bowling alley, saunas, and shooting ranges.

UAE (Dubai)

• A $25 million villa in XXII Carat Villas, registered to Kolesov’s subordinate Lyudmila Koshcheyeva.

• A neighboring 1,400 m² villa registered to his former mother-in-law, Nella Mazayeva.

• Another apartment worth $10 million (822 m²) in The Residence, registered to his eldest daughter, Anastasia Kolesova.

• A 532 m² unit in the same building, registered to her husband. Kolesov’s air fleet

• A Bombardier Global Express business jet — $20 million

• A second jet, Embraer Legacy 650 — $10 million

• An AgustaWestland 109 helicopter — $5 million

The entire fleet is registered to an affiliated company called Spetsdostavka. Navalny’s team estimates the total value at around $35 million, or 2.8 billion rubles.

[...]

Kolesov’s shell companies:

• JSC Star – a front company holding shares in several defense plants. Officially registered to Nikolai Shadrin, a former drug treatment doctor from Samara with no real role in the business. Assets related to the Mallorca villas passed through this firm.

• JSC High Technologies – registered to Kolesov’s driver Denis Samonov. It funnels dividends that end up with Kolesov’s niece, Yekaterina Blokhina (9 billion rubles).

• InGroup LLC – believed to be registered to Kolesov’s first mother-in-law, Dilyara Kraynova, who has flown with him on private jets. The company later paid 1.25 billion rubles to his son Alexander.

• CanFinance LLC – registered to Natalya Rumyantseva, an employee at the Elecon plant and another close associate of Kolesov. The company transferred 2.5 billion rubles to his daughter Anastasia.

• Riverpark LLC – registered to Elena Matina, Kolesov’s deputy for finance at Elecon. This firm personally paid Kolesov nearly 4 billion rubles in dividends.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/36438076

Russian forces have used more than a dozen types of antipersonnel mines since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, causing thousands of civilian casualties and contaminating vast tracts of agricultural land. The antipersonnel mines have been emplaced by hand, delivered by rockets, and—as a report from my colleagues at Human Rights Watch has documented—dropped from drones.

Now some neighboring countries, concerned about Russian aggression, are moving to withdraw from the international treaty ratified by 165 countries that comprehensively bans antipersonnel mines. Russia, China, the United States, and several other countries, are not party to the treaty, but most of Russia’s European neighbors are, including Ukraine.

As documented in the report, Russian forces are modifying commercial quadcopter drones to scatter antipersonnel mines in and around the city of Kherson, as part of a campaign that has killed dozens of civilians and injured hundreds. Russian military-affiliated Telegram channels show PFM-series antipersonnel mines—also known as “petal” or “butterfly” mines—being fitted onto the drones with a mechanism to allow them to be dropped from the drone.

The Russian drone campaign has prevented residents from moving around safely and from accessing essential goods and services. The attacks represent serious violations of the laws of war and have the overwhelming impact of spreading terror among the civilian population and forcing residents to leave Kherson.

[...]

In the 1990s, Russian political consultants were seen as kingmakers — savvy operatives who could sway voters and win competitive elections. They helped bring Vladimir Putin to power and crafted the campaign for United Russia, now the country’s ruling party. But as the system they built tightened its grip on elections, it no longer had much use for them. Meduza special correspondent Andrey Pertsev traces how Russia’s political consultants went from shaping the country’s future to struggling for relevance — and explains the Kremlin’s latest plans to repurpose them as “social architects,” now that the very regime they helped create has rendered them obsolete.

Far-right activists from a group calling itself the “Russian Community” are increasingly being linked to violent assaults, anti-migrant raids, and mass brawls across Russia.

Recently, a court in the city of Kovrov ordered the arrest of two of its members for kidnapping an 18-year-old male. According to investigators, the accused tortured and threatened to kill the guy. While these activists have now found themselves in detention, members of the “Russian Community” have typically evaded responsibility for violence due to their close ties to security forces and the public patronage of Alexander Bastrykin, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee.

Their raids have already turned fatal. A month ago, an attack carried out by the group led to the death of Gor Ovakimyan, a 37-year-old Armenian native living in the Leningrad region; no suspects have been named in the resulting criminal case for causing death by negligence.

cross-posted from https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/36329861

Archived

Ukraine's Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR) has published a detailed technical breakdown of the new Russian V2U strike drone, which is now actively used in the Sumy sector of the front line.

[...]

Ukrainian intelligence says the drone’s computing system is powered by a Chinese-made Leetop A203 minicomputer, which includes an advanced NVIDIA Jetson Orin module responsible for image processing and target acquisition.

Despite Russia’s claims of domestic production, HUR reports that most of the drone’s components are of foreign origin. The V2U carries only a single GPS module, likely a response to the effectiveness of Ukraine’s electronic warfare systems, which send spoofing GPS signals to a system’s receiver.

[...]

The drone’s critical components include a Japanese Sony sensor, an electromagnetic relay from Ireland’s TE Connectivity, Chinese-made motors and servos, as well as Chinese-manufactured SSDs and rangefinders.

HUR identified four companies involved in supplying parts and assembling the drones – two based in Russia and two in China.

However, recent claims that the Kremlin is now using AI and Telegram bots to control the drones mid-flight have been widely dismissed by Ukrainian analysts and specialists.

[...]

crosspostato da: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/36246086

Archived

Russian leaders have increasingly used museums and their digital collections to show propaganda about Slavic unity and deny Ukrainian identity since the 2022 invasion, analysis shows.

The research shows the increasing ideological indoctrination of Russian museums and digital spaces, a tightening of access to digital collections, and using copyright to limit and control how online collections are accessed and reused.

Russian museum websites and online collections have portrayed Ukraine, its history, and culture as inseparable from Russia before 2022. During the past three years they have hosted exhibitions which represent occupied territories as historically and culturally Russian, framing the invasion of Ukraine as a fight against Nazism and NATO, and glorifying the invasion and individuals who served in the Russian Army.

Ksenia Lavrenteva, from the University of Exeter, examined activities organised by Russian museums before and after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, as well as legislation, cultural policies, and museum practices.

This included four museums – Russian Museum, State Hermitage Museum, the State Historical Museum, the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, and the State Catalogue, a national database of digitised museum objects, as well as 25 Russian museum websites.

[...]

“This study underscores the need to scrutinize who controls access to cultural data and for what purposes. There is a need for a more critical and context-sensitive approach to open access —one that balances its potential for inclusivity with safeguards to prevent the amplification of oppressive ideologies.”

[...]

During the first year of the invasion, Russian museums hosted 58 events on “Nazism,” with some focusing on World War II and others drawing parallels with contemporary issues, specifically discussing “Ukrainian neo-Nazism”. Exhibitions such as “Evidence of Crimes by Ukrainian Nazis in Donbas” and “Ordinary Nazism,” trace the “history of Ukrainian Nazism” and portray Ukraine as a Nazi state, thereby justifying the Russian invasion as a fight against Nazism akin to World War II. Exhibitions such as “NATO: History of Lies” and “NATO: Chronicles of Cruelty” aim to present the Russian war in Ukraine as a war against NATO.

[...]

The Russian Ministry of Culture has launched the 2023 Guidelines for Creating Exhibitions on the History of the Special Military Operation. These exhibitions are expected to focus on the occupied regions of Ukraine from 2022, emphasize these regions’ historical significance as integral parts of Russia, highlight alleged anti-Russian sentiments in Ukraine, and present the purported reasons for Russia’s invasion. These reasons include the “ongoing terrorist shelling of Donbas” and “NATO’s involvement in enhancing the combat capabilities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces”.

[...]