Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has ordered the restoration of international Internet access, the Iranian Ministry of Communications announced on May 25. How the connection to the global network will be restored is not specified. The NetBlocks project reported earlier on Monday that the Internet has been down in Iran for 87 days. Only some citizens have access to expensive VPNs that allow you to bypass the restrictions.

The Higher Qualification Board of Judges of Russia deprived former Supreme Court judge Viktor Momotov of the status of a retired judge, leaving him without judicial immunity, Kommersant reported on May 25. 65-year-old Momotov has been in retirement since October 8, 2025; he left the position of judge of his own free will when the prosecutor’s office demanded that 95 properties worth nine billion rubles be confiscated from him. Momotov denied that the seized property belonged to him.

The Analysis department answers questions about the next round of bloody escalation Gleb Garanich / Reuters / Scanpix / LETA Explosion in Kyiv as a result of a hit from one of the Russian ammunition during the attack on May 24, 2026 On the night of May 22, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) attacked the city of Starobelsk in the annexed Lugansk region. As a result of the UAV attack, the buildings of a local college were partially destroyed. 21 people aged 18 to 21 died under the rubble.

On May 25, residents of the Kaliningrad region first received messages about the danger of a drone strike, Klops reports. “The warning system went off. All necessary services are activated. An investigation is underway,” the regional government said. Before this, temporary restrictions on the arrival and release of aircraft were introduced at the Kaliningrad Khrabrovo airport to ensure flight safety. Other details are unknown.

The Court of Cassation in Italy refused to compensate a foreign tourist because she was not given tap water in a restaurant, Corriere dellʼAlto Adige reported on May 25. Thus, the court confirmed previous decisions, including those of the Supreme Court of Italy, which also denied the tourist.

In France, it is necessary to introduce a three-year moratorium on immigration, the country's Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin said in an interview with Le Journal du Dimanche. France has reached the “limits of its ability” to integrate and assimilate foreigners. The flow of immigration needs to be greatly reduced, the minister believes.

The Syzran oil refinery (part of Rosneft) suspended operations after a Ukrainian drone attack on May 21 damaged a primary oil refining unit, industry sources told Reuters. According to the agency, we are talking about an installation that accounts for more than 70% of the enterprise's capacity. It may take more than a month to repair it. There was no official information about the shutdown of the plant.

What Alexander Dugin talked about in an interview with Ksenia Sobchak. The shortest retelling What kind of text is this? This is a brief retelling of the most striking fragments from Alexander Dugin’s interview with Ksenia Sobchak. Dugin is a Eurasian philosopher, political scientist, one of the most prominent ideologists of the “Russian world.” Western journalists often call Dugin an ideologist of Vladimir Putin (although there is no direct evidence that Putin is inspired by Dugin’s views).

Vladimir Putin signed a law that gives the president the right to use the Armed Forces to protect Russian citizens abroad. The head of the State Duma Committee on Defense, Andrei Kartapolov, linked the need for the law with the case of archaeologist Alexander Butyagin, detained in Poland (he was released at the end of April).

Meduza publishes Andrei Zvyagintsev’s response to Dmitry Peskov, who refused to convey the director’s Cannes speech to Putin Eliot Blondet / ABACA / Scanpix / LETA Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov refused to convey to the president the words director Andrei Zvyagintsev said in Cannes. In his speech, the author of the film “Minotaur,” which won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, called for an immediate end to the war with Ukraine.

After-school care program staff suspected of physically and sexually abusing students Dimitar Dilkoff / AFP / Scanpix / LETA France is facing a crisis in its system of after-school child care in public kindergartens and schools. Paris police are investigating complaints of abuse, physical abuse and sexual abuse of children in more than 100 institutions. The program staff supervising the students came under suspicion.

The Russian Foreign Ministry threatened that the Russian Armed Forces would strike defense enterprises, “decision-making centers” and command posts in Kyiv in response to an attack on a dormitory in the annexed LPR.

1552nd day. Russian authorities organized a trip for foreign journalists to Starobelsk, where a strike on a college killed 21 people. This is what they were shown there Since February 24, 2022, Meduza has been broadcasting live about the Russian-Ukrainian war. We publish your letters every day because we are sure that we need to continue talking about the war. Share with us your thoughts about the war. What feelings are you experiencing?

Russian officials and bankers are discussing in conversations with each other three possible candidates for the place of the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, writes The Bell. Her term of office expires on June 24, 2027. One of the possible candidates is Deputy Head of the Russian Presidential Administration Maxim Oreshkin.

Analysis by sinologist Alexander Gabuev (Carnegie Politika) Maxim Shemetov / AP / Scanpix / LETA Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. May 20, 2026 In mid-May, Donald Trump and a huge team went to China to meet with Xi Jinping. Following him, literally four days later, Vladimir Putin went there. Propagandists even tried to prove that the visit of the Russian president was no less significant than the American one - and showed a “suitcase of signed documents” that the Russian delegation took from China.