Belarusian president claims Putin’s humanitarian restraint in Ukraine limits Russia’s advance Kremlin Press Service On Friday, Vladimir Putin met with his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, at a remote monastery in Russia’s northern Karelia region. After a religious service, the two presidents sat down on a bench outside and fielded questions from reporters, focusing on Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and the lack of progress on negotiating a ceasefire.

U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered the deployment of two nuclear submarines to “the appropriate regions” following what he denounced as “foolish and inflammatory statements” by Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev. Trump warned that the move was precautionary, “just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that.” The White House has not specified where the submarines will be positioned.

You can read this story in English here . The Azerbaijani publication Minval began to change the names of Russian toponyms in its materials after one of the publications of the Russian state agency TASS called the administrative center of Nagorno-Karabakh Stepanakert. The city bore this name under the USSR and at a time when it was under the control of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR). Now this is the city of Khankendi. Khankendi or Stepanakert?

Pavel Bednyakov / AP / Scanpix / LETA In Russia, Internet outages have become routine. Website crashes and service disruptions are nothing new, either. But the most serious incident came on July 28, when Ukrainian and Belarusian hackers broke into Aeroflot’s internal systems — delaying 150 flights, stranding at least 20,000 passengers, and costing the airline more than 250 million rubles (over $3 million). And it was far from the only disruption that month.

This is how his relatives and colleagues remember him Meduza Reader Archive Journalist and publisher Derk Sauer died on July 31. In the 90s, he worked as a reporter for Dutch publications, and then made the adventurous decision to go to Russia, where he created the Independent Media publishing house. To do this, Sauer had to mortgage his own home in the Netherlands.

The hackers themselves from the CyberPartisans group answer Sergey Grits / AP / Scanpix / LETA This week, Aeroflot’s IT infrastructure was subject to a hacker attack, which resulted in the largest technical failure in the company’s history. The Silent Crow groups from Ukraine and CyberPartisans from Belarus took responsibility for the attack. Due to the hack, more than a hundred flights were canceled, and the damage to Aeroflot is estimated at hundreds of millions of rubles.

One year after Russia’s landmark prisoner swap with the West, over 1,500 people remain jailed on political charges. Here’s how you can reach them. Exactly one year ago, multiple Western countries came together to carry out the biggest prisoner swap with Russia since the Cold War.

One thousand two hundred fifty-fifth day. Germany has officially announced that it will transfer two Patriot installations to Ukraine. Trump envoy travels to Moscow for first time since April Yevhen Titov / Global Images Ukraine / Getty Images Kramatorsk, consequences of a Russian airstrike. July 31, 2025 Since February 24, 2022, Meduza has been broadcasting live about the Russian-Ukrainian war.

Stars of all arts from Marina Abramovic to Lady Gaga dreamed of working with him Neil Rasmus / BFA / Shutterstock / Vida Press Robert Wilson, an American theater director, artist and designer, has died. He was 83 years old. Wilson was probably the greatest figure in the modern theatre. He embodied the ideal of a director that emerged at the beginning of the 20th century: a full-fledged author who controls what happens on stage to the same extent that a painter controls the colors on the canvas.

Germany declassified a memo containing his words Ambor/Ullstein bild/Getty Images The German Foreign Ministry has declassified a document that shows that Vladimir Putin broadly interpreted the concept of Russian territory back in 1994 - long before he uttered the famous phrase that “Russia’s borders do not end anywhere” and occupied a fifth of Ukraine. Judging by his 1994 statement, he considers not only Crimea and eastern Ukraine, but also northern Kazakhstan to be Russian.

Russia’s ‘compact harvest’ is the latest entry in its expanding euphemism playbook Dmitry Dadonkin / TASS / Profimedia There’s a new addition to Russia’s expanding dictionary of euphemisms — officials have started to describe the country’s below-average grain yield as a “compact harvest.” Instead of reassuring the public, the phrase has only fueled suspicion and criticism.

Lukashenko: Russians will bite Ukraine off. Putin: everything is fine in the Northern Military District Press service of the President of Russia Putin: Our regime is based on the Constitution, which cannot be said about Ukraine. Negotiations are always important. As for someone’s disappointments, disappointments arise from excessive expectations. Russia’s goals, announced in the summer of 2024, remain the same.

Former political prisoner Kevin Lik, who was freed from a Russian prison in the historic prisoner swap between Moscow and multiple Western countries one year ago, tore up his Russian passport at a press conference in Cologne, Germany, on Friday, according to the outlet Sotavision. Lik first tried to burn his passport, but was unable to because of the wind. “I’m not cutting ties with Russia, but I don’t want to be a citizen of a country that tortures so many people,” he said.

In the fall, the Meduza publishing house will publish a novel by the writer, press secretary of Yulia Navalnaya and long-time ally of Alexei Navalny, Kira Yarmysh. The book is called "It's Near Here." The plot centers on two best friends, Eva and Nika. They haven’t seen each other or even talked for ten years, and when they meet, they are immediately forced to go on the run.

Former political prisoner Kevin Leak, released from a Russian prison in an exchange on August 1, 2024, tore up his Russian passport at a press conference in Cologne. This was reported by Sotavision. At first, Lik tried to burn his passport, but this failed due to the wind. “I don’t break ties with Russia, but I don’t want to be a citizen now of that country that tortures so many people.