The military junta that seized power in Guinea-Bissau after presidential elections last year has released Domingos Simões Pereira, one of the opposition leaders and former Prime Minister of the country, from house arrest. He was detained in the early days of the military coup at the end of November last year. Reuters reports this.

Hungary filed a lawsuit with the European Court challenging the REPowerEU regulation, which completely bans the import of Russian gas from 2027. This was stated by Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó. “Without Russian oil and natural gas, it is impossible to guarantee the security of the country’s energy supply, nor to maintain the results of reducing utility bills,” Szijjártó justified his decision.

Crimean-born Oleksandr Kachkurkin, who had been living in Almaty in recent years, was deported from Kazakhstan and arrested on charges of treason upon his arrival in Russia. The human rights project Perviy Otdel (lit. “Department One”) reported on Kachkurkin’s deportation and the circumstances of his arrest. Kachkurkin is a Ukrainian citizen, born and raised in Crimea. After the peninsula’s annexation in 2014, he was forced to accept Russian citizenship.

Passengers' mobile phones are being selectively searched in the Moscow metro. Such measures can be an addition to existing security methods if the need arises, the press service of the Moscow Metro told Interfax. Metro representatives noted: “New measures for the inspection of mobile phones, established by Order No.

Politics Marianna Belenkaya February 2, 2026 After the Saudi Air Force struck cargo arriving from the UAE at the Yemeni port of Mukalla at the end of December, competition between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi entered a heated phase. The Saudis have accused their former allies in the military coalition of supplying weapons to the Yemeni separatists, the Southern Transitional Council (STC). The UAE denied the accusations but announced the permanent withdrawal of its forces from Yemen.

The Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt has officially reopened after a nearly two-year break. The Times of Israel writes about this. The checkpoint has been almost completely closed since May 2024. The Rafah crossing allows you to cross the Gaza Strip border on foot. According to the Associated Press, about 50 Palestinians are expected to cross the border in each direction on the first day.

The son of Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, Ilya, received the post of Secretary of the Council for Innovation and Technological Development in United Russia. RBC writes about the creation of the council and the appointment of Ilya Medvedev to it. The Council for Innovation and Technological Development in the party will “form and implement the innovation and technological agenda” of United Russia.

One of the screenwriters of the Iranian film “A Mere Chance,” Mehdi Mahmoudian, was arrested in Tehran, reports the Associated Press. The film was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Screenplay category. According to representatives of the film’s team, Mahmudyan was detained on Saturday, January 31. The details of the charges against him are still unknown. The BBC Persian edition only reported the day before that Mahmudyan managed to talk to his lawyer, but where he is is also unknown.

In the first month of 2026, utility accidents were reported 1,280 times in Russia - this is almost twice as many as in the same period last year, Novaya Gazeta Europe calculated . There were more than 2,200 such messages in December and January 2025–2026. The leader in the number of accident reports was the Belgorod region - 143 reports in two months. In addition to deteriorating infrastructure, the region regularly suffers from shelling from Ukraine.

Civitai, an online marketplace backed by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), allows users to buy and sell instructional files for creating deepfakes of celebrities, including pornographic images that are prohibited by the platform's own rules. This is stated in a study by scientists from Stanford and Indiana universities who analyzed user requests on the site from mid-2023 to the end of 2024.

The FSB has tightened requirements for Russian banks to include their websites and applications in the so-called white lists compiled by the Ministry of Digital Development, a list of resources that must be available during Internet shutdowns. As the RBC publication writes , citing sources, security forces prohibit adding applications to those banks that have not yet installed SORM - a system for tracking and storing user correspondence.

The Russian company Neiry Group has implanted chips in the brains of pigeons, claiming to have turned them into “biodrones” that can be controlled remotely. Similar experiments in other countries did not reach practical application due to low efficiency, and experts consider the development more of a publicity stunt to attract funding than a real technological breakthrough, writes T-Invariant.

In 2025, Russia began restoring an abandoned Soviet-era military base in Petrozavodsk, the capital of Karelia, near the border with Finland. Finnish public broadcaster Yle also report s Russian plans to build new military towns in the area, citing satellite image analysis and data from Russian regional media. Satellite evidence shows that as early as 2024 the Russian military facility in the Rybka residential district of Petrozavodsk was still in a state of neglect.

The Ukrainian government has adopted a resolution to create a white list for Starlink satellite communication terminals. This was announced by Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov. He linked this decision to the use of terminals by the Russian military. Russian drones equipped with Starlink terminals are difficult to shoot down, Fedorov explains: they fly at low altitude, are resistant to electronic warfare and can be controlled by operators in real time, even from a great distance.

News The Insider 2 February 2026 A Ukrainian serviceman stands next to a vehicle equipped with a Starlink satellite communications terminal. Photo: Reuters The Ukrainian government has approved a resolution to create a “whitelist” for Starlink satellite communication terminals, according to a Feb. 2 statement from Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who linked the decision to the use of the terminals by Russian forces.