The repatriation of a Russian surveyor who had swum to safety after opposing the war has caused a stir in Riga. It serves as a reminder that, in the post-Soviet space, simply fleeing is not enough: one must contend with a web of mistrust, mutual contempt and control that outweighs any shared ideas.
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.”
Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil facilities are also having repercussions in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, with rising prices, a shortage of aviation fuel and growing uncertainty over energy security. Meanwhile, Moscow is seeking supplies from Kazakhstan, which has restricted exports to protect its domestic market.
By trying to impose on society a false narrative of “preventive self-defence”, Putin is attempting to completely absolve himself of personal responsibility before history for triggering a new Cold War, which has effectively isolated the country from the developed world and set its development back by decades.
Kiev’s increasingly intense attacks, even on Moscow and St Petersburg, are leading the propagandists of the Russian invasion to accuse their own leadership ever more openly of failing to understand the situation on the front line. And former General Popov, who was removed from his post in 2023 after criticising Gerasimov, is now being portrayed as a ‘victim of the truth’.
Russian authorities are banning motorbikes from the roads between 10 pm and 6 am because they claim the noise interferes with Russian military operations to shoot down Kiev’s aircraft. The first vehicles have already been impounded for those who disobey. But everyone is now aware that the electronic defence systems no longer work.
In an extensive interview with TASS, Metropolitan Sergij of Singapore described the mission of his exarchate – which today stretches from Korea to Indonesia, across countries with Buddhist or Muslim majorities – as “difficult and stimulating”. “Dialogue on faith? Here it does not begin with dogma, but with the beauty and silence of an Orthodox church”
According to a report published and subsequently censored in the state media, as many as 250,000 men who have returned from the front are struggling to find work in Russia. The website Veter contacted some of them and recounted their stories, which take us back to the period following the Soviet Union’s war in Afghanistan, a time marked by many unresolved social tensions.
By targeting the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, Moscow has struck the sacred site it has used for centuries as evidence of its "special spiritual mission", which it refused to cede to the Ukrainians until its complete evacuation. Now it will be necessary to rebuild the place, like after the Tatar-Mongol invasion, and the Great Patriotic War against the Nazis.
The electorate’s pro-European choice in the 7 June vote was accompanied by the election of the largest number of pro-Russian MPs since 2018. Putin nevertheless aims to influence the prime minister’s policies, with whom he maintains open channels of communication. And the polls themselves suggest that Armenians do not want the partnership with Brussels to be at Moscow’s expense.
In *Novaya Gazeta*, Slavic studies scholar Jakov Klotz describes the flourishing of publications by Russian dissident authors during the period of repression in Moscow: “We do not translate books to entertain Western readers with tales of Putin’s horrors, but to save Russian culture.”
The visit to Vilnius by Bartholomew, Patriarch of Constantinople, marked the completion of the return of Lithuanian territory to his jurisdiction with the consecration of an exarch in a country that has welcomed many Orthodox Christians who left Moscow due to the schism. At the same time, Kirill was in nearby Kaliningrad, where he emphasised the ‘patriotic’ mission of his community.
The Russian academic world has been silenced. An unprecedented campaign mounted around a research project on Aristotle is even discrediting the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. And whereas in 2022 scientists were the professional group most vocal in condemning the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine, today their community has all but vanished from the public eye.
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