Russia

Russian news agencies ignored the C-6 summit in Kyrgyzstan, which showed participants’ willingness to protect their economic interests from Western sanctions and ensure the functioning of the Middle Corridor. Meanwhile, the dynastic nature of power is being legitimised.

For several centuries, the Orthodox Church in Kyiv and Moscow dated the Baptism of Rus' to 1 August 988, the feast of the Merciful Saviour and the Most Holy Theotokos, the day in which water was to be blessed in memory of the “Source of the Dnieper”. The idea of ​​linking the holiday to the memory of Vladimir arose in the context of the ecclesiastical and political intrigues of 2008.

The Moscow Duma is openly discussing the possibility of relocating 200,000–300,000 citizens living in the ‘liberated’ territories of the Donbass – which are now uninhabitable – to the Far East or Siberia. This is in keeping with the Russian-Soviet system, which throughout its history has displaced vast numbers of people to suit its own needs.

“Why isolate ourselves from Western culture? I don’t understand it: Russia is part of a wider civilisation.” A statement by Elizaveta Likhačeva, former director of the Pushkin Museum, has sparked a patriotic outcry in Moscow led by Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova

In his book *People Behind the Fence*, journalist Maksim Trudoljubov explains the different types of Russian citizenship, based on moral service and private property. He also explores how a post-Putin and post-war transition might be organised on the basis of these principles.

Patriarch Kirill travelled to the capital of Tatarstan for the feast day of the famous Marian icon and celebrated the anniversary of the historic church. Built to commemorate the visit of Peter the Great, it was converted into a planetarium during the Soviet era. “Here one realises just how much greater God’s power is than that of man.”

Queuing is the fundamental form of social organisation and political control in Russia. It offers an image of communal existence, where the all-powerful state distributes benefits from the top, and the people, like supplicants, are organised in a single chain at the bottom.

A cryptocurrency magnate and financial beneficiary of Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich. Sentenced in Moldova to 15 years’ imprisonment for a fraud worth one billion dollars, he was also considered a criminal in Russia. Until 2023, when he put his ‘talent’ at Moscow’s disposal to circumvent sanctions and bolster pro-Russian movements.

Russian citizens have been worn down considerably by the war. Like the elderly, people who are still full of vigour have rushed to take refuge in comfortable information and social bubbles, aware that they have lost any prospect of a normal life

The mother of two Chechen dissidents who fled abroad was abducted in 2022 by the security forces whilst at her home in central Russia and taken to Grozny, where she remains in prison. Now her daughter Aliya has appealed to Ajšat Kadyrova, former Minister of Culture and Social Affairs, in a last-ditch effort to secure her release.

Serebrennikov and Bogomolov were the most acclaimed figures in Russian theatre, celebrated far beyond the country’s borders. But since the start of the war, the former has left Russia and is now working in Europe, whilst the latter has remained in Moscow, urging the intelligentsia to “set aside their contempt for their own people” and to “work, live and believe”.

From Ukraine, Sister Ligy Payyappilly, a nun from Kerala, shares her account of a journey to the areas closest to the front line of the war with Russia. “We have been alongside people for whom the war is not just news but a daily struggle for survival. The challenge is to give children living here a chance.”