Politics Marianna Belenkaya January 29, 2026 A year after coming to power, Syria's interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa took active steps to subjugate Rojava, or Syrian Kurdistan, the last major fully autonomous and self-governing territory in the country. In exchange for integration with state forces, al-Sharaa offered the Kurds recognition of their language as the state language and the Nowruz holiday as the national holiday.

Ukraine is working with Elon Musk's SpaceX to prevent Russia from using the Starlink satellite system to guide drones, Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov said, Reuters reports . Earlier this week, Ukrainian officials released photos of the wreckage of Russian long-range drones with Starlink terminals attached to their bodies. “We thank SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell and Elon Musk personally for their quick response and beginning to work on resolving the situation,” Fedorov wrote on Telegram.

The court arrested the shares of Novoroscement and Verkhnebakansky Cement Plant, owned by Aktualnye Investments JSC. According to Vedomosti, the seizure has also been imposed on all real and movable property of the companies of this group, with the exception of manufactured products. The court ordered the companies to transfer income from the sale of products only to accounts in Russian banks.

The Central Election Commission in Kosovo said that the recount of votes in parliamentary elections held in late December was completed in 88% of polling stations (2,245 out of 2,557) in 34 municipalities (out of 38). This was reported by the local publication Koha on the morning of January 29. The recount began on January 13 after widespread irregularities in the vote counting process became known. Voting took place on December 28.

An application to combat porn addiction leaked data from more than 600 thousand users, including minors. This was reported by 404 media with reference to an independent researcher in the field of cybersecurity. The compromised data included users' age, frequency of masturbation, emotional reactions to viewing pornography, as well as so-called triggers and "addiction scores." According to the researcher, about 100 thousand victims indicated their age as minors.

The Basmanny Court of Moscow brought charges against the first four defendants in the case of the Ukrainian Operation Web, during which drones flying from several trucks attacked military airfields on Russian territory. Charges have been brought against the drivers of the trucks that transported cargo with drones hidden inside: Mikhail Ryumin, Alexander Zaitsev, Andrey Merkuryev and Sergei Kanurin.

Moscow’s Basmanny District Court has brought criminal charges against the first four defendants accused of participation in Ukraine’s Operation Web, which saw drones launched from long-haul trucks attack military airfields on Russian territory. The charges were brought against the Russian drivers — Mikhail Ryumin, Alexander Zaitsev, Andrei Merkuryev and Sergei Kanurin — who unknowingly transported cargo with Ukrainian drones hidden inside.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has changed its tactics in Minnesota after its officers shot and killed two American citizens protesting immigration raids in Minneapolis. According to internal department instructions reviewed by Reuters, agents are now instructed to avoid any interaction with “agitators” and detain only migrants with a criminal history - charges or convictions: “DO NOT COMMUNICATE OR ENTER IN CONTACT WITH AGITATORS.

News The Insider January 29, 2026 #Military report In today's summary: In the Sumy direction, the Russian military occupied a non-existent village on the border with the Kursk region In the Kupyansk direction, the command of the RF Armed Forces is striving to bring the situation “on the ground” into line with the reports In the Pokrovsk direction, Ukrainian troops maintain a presence only on a few streets in the north of Pokrovsk The Russian Armed Forces are expanding the use of loitering

The United States handed over to Venezuela one of the tankers detained for transporting Venezuelan oil. As Reuters reports, citing unnamed American officials, we are talking about the ship M/T Sophia (IMO: 9289477), seized on January 7. The agency's sources did not explain why the US authorities made this decision.

The Anti-Corruption Foundation published an investigation dedicated to the Minister of Construction and Housing and Communal Services Irek Faizullin and his mistress Nadezhda Trubilina. Thanks to leaked documents, the fund found out that Trubilina has two minor children from the minister, and a number of luxury real estate properties are registered in her name.

In Russia, since the beginning of 2025, the number of foreign citizens has decreased by 10% - from 6.3 million to 5.7 million people. Such data were announced by the head of the analytical department of the migration service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Alexander Perezhogin, at the conference “New Migration Policy of the Russian Federation,” Vedomosti writes .

A Beechcraft 1900 operated by the state airline Satena crashed in the Colombian mountains, killing 15 people (13 passengers and two crew). Among the victims of the plane crash were Colombian congressional deputy Diogenes Quintero Amaya and parliamentary candidate Carlos Salcedo. The BBC reports this. The plane was flying from the city of Cucuta to the city of Ocaña near the Venezuelan border.

Russian scientists and university staff were advised to carefully evaluate the feasibility of participating in professional events in “unfriendly” countries and, if necessary, coordinate such trips with the Ministry of Education and Science. A corresponding letter dated January 26 was sent to federal scientific organizations and higher education organizations. The letter is published by the T-Invariant media project.

A court in Moscow arrested the leaders of Akrilan LLC, a large manufacturer of chemical products - CEO Oleg Kuzin and head of the legal department Tatyana Shadeeva. As Kommersant writes , they are accused of fraud (Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) due to a transaction to sell a share of a company owned by the state corporation Rusnano. According to investigators, the deal was obviously unprofitable for the state-owned company.