Tatyana Makeyeva / AFP / Scanpix / LETA Police officers near the Supreme Court building in Moscow. August 17, 2026 On August 17, Russia’s Supreme Court upheld its ruling barring the liberal Yabloko party from this year’s State Duma elections. Just as on August 10 , when the Supreme Court heard the suit against Yabloko at its Povarskaya Street building, large numbers of the party’s young supporters turned out for the appeal ruling. Police detained more than 80 people .

Tommaso Fumagalli / EPA / Scanpix / LETA A Ukrainian serviceman repairs anti-drone netting. Sloviansk, Donetsk region, August 17, 2026. The Russian Embassy in London has accused the United Kingdom of “deliberately opting for an escalation of the Ukraine crisis” after news reports said British-made drones had been used in strikes deep inside Russia. “London’s actions will inevitably carry consequences for which it will have to answer,” the embassy said in a statement.

Alexander Kazakov / TASS / Profimedia The United States and NATO would not be ready to respond to a hypothetical coordinated attack in which China invades Taiwan and Russia simultaneously strikes a NATO member in Eastern Europe, Simon Shuster writes in The Atlantic.

Megan Varner / Getty Images In mid-July, officers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained a Russian citizen, Galina Bobreneva, in California. She arrived in the country in late 2021 and, according to her lawyer, has been in the United States legally ever since. She is awaiting a green card based on her marriage to a U.S. citizen. ICE officers sent her to a detention center anyway, where she spent more than two weeks.

In a video address , Ukraine’s former defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov called for a “legal, safe, and realistic mechanism” that would allow Ukraine to “resume a fully functioning democratic process even amid an ongoing war”: If the war continues for another year, two, or three, can Russia, in effect, gain the right to determine when Ukrainians can once again choose their own government? I am convinced it cannot. Democracy cannot be held hostage by Russia.

Dog owners in several Russian regions have reported that their pets died or deteriorated sharply after routine rabies vaccinations with Multikan-8. The reports have appeared on social media, on Telegram channels , and in the press . Most of the reports ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ) came from Yaroslavl and other towns in the region. The Yaroslavl news outlet Yarcube reported that 20 to 25 dogs were known to have died as of August 17, deaths their owners attribute to batch No. 20 of the Multikan-8 vaccine.

OpenAI has introduced a version of ChatGPT for teenagers. It is designed to “help teens learn, think critically, deepen their knowledge, and use AI with confidence.” “Throughout this work, we have been guided by four principles: putting teen safety first, promoting real-world support, treating teens age-appropriate, and being transparent about how our systems operate,” the announcement reads.

Former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov in his video message called for finding a “legal, safe and realistic mechanism” that would allow Ukraine to “resume a full-fledged democratic process even in the context of an ongoing war.” If the war continues for another year, two, three, could Russia actually gain the right to determine when Ukrainians will again be able to choose their government? I'm convinced not. Democracy cannot be a hostage to Russia.

Charles Spencer, Princess Diana's younger brother, has written a memoir about his sister, reports the Daily Mail. As we approach the 30th anniversary of Diana's tragic death, I am once again inundated with requests for an interview about my sister. This convinced me to write down my own thoughts and memories once and for all, rather than again being uncomfortable reading other people's opinions, many of which were based on untruths that had become generally accepted over time.

Users across Russia — mostly in Moscow and St. Petersburg — reported a major outage affecting a range of services and websites. Downdetector data showed problems with the internet providers Lovit and Rostelecom, the mobile operators MegaFon and Beeline, and Discord, Steam, Telegram, and other websites and services.

Users throughout Russia (but mainly in Moscow and St. Petersburg) complained of a large-scale outage in the operation of a number of services and sites. Data from the Downdetector service indicate problems in the work of providers Lovit and Rostelecom, operators Megafon and Beeline, as well as Discord, Steam, Telegram and other resources and sites. The domain registrar Reg.ru told the TASS agency that the failure in the Runet was caused by power outages at a large communication center.

miHoYo The “Merciless Frost” update to the popular Chinese-developed game Genshin Impact added a new country called Snezhnaya, inspired by Eastern Europe — and, of course, Russia. Officially, the studio created a fictional fantasy state. But the situation there is eerily similar to conditions in real-life Russia: corruption, high prices, and resource shortages. If you look for it, you can even see a reference to Alexey Navalny in a new character named Alyosha.

Restoration workers at the Kremlin’s Archangel Cathedral have discovered the relics of Prince Dmitry Donskoy, the Russian state news agency TASS reported, citing a source in the Russian Orthodox Church.

SOPA Images / Alamy / Scanpix / LETA Anna Arkhipova in St. Petersburg City Court on the day of her sentencing, April 8, 2026 In April, a court in St. Petersburg handed down its verdict in the Vesna case. Vesna is a youth opposition movement that, in 2022, became one of the organizers of Russian protests against the war and mobilization. Six defendants received sentences ranging from six to 12 years.

The chapter of "Eksmo" is about how to publish a book in Russia today Sergey Bobylev / TASS / Profimedia What kind of text is this? This is a brief retelling of the interview of the president of the Eksmo-AST publishing house Oleg Novikov, which he gave to Forbes. The meaning and context are completely preserved, but some parts of his speech may have been edited or swapped.