Ukrainian forces will hold positions in Kursk region ‘for as long as necessary,’ top commander says

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Artificial intelligence is evolving at an unprecedented pace—what does that mean for the future of technology, venture capital, business, and even our understanding of ourselves? Award-winning journalist and writer Anil Ananthaswamy joins us for our latest episode to discuss his latest book Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Math Behind Modern AI . Anil helps us explore the journey and many breakthroughs that have propelled machine learning from simple perceptrons to the sophisticated algorithms shaping today’s AI revolution, powering GPT and other models. The discussion aims to demystify some of the underlying mathematical concepts that power modern machine learning, to help everyone grasp this technology impacting our lives–even if your last math class was in high school. Anil walks us through the power of scaling laws, the shift from training to inference optimization, and the debate among AI’s pioneers about the road to AGI—should we be concerned, or are we still missing key pieces of the puzzle? The conversation also delves into AI’s philosophical implications—could understanding how machines learn help us better understand ourselves? And what challenges remain before AI systems can truly operate with agency? If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Sign up for our newsletter at techsurgepodcast.com for exclusive insights and updates on upcoming TechSurge Live Summits. Links: Read Why Machines Learn, Anil’s latest book on the math behind AI https://www.amazon.com/Why-Machines-Learn-Elegant-Behind/dp/0593185749 Learn more about Anil Ananthaswamy’s work and writing https://anilananthaswamy.com/ Watch Anil Ananthaswamy’s TED Talk on AI and intelligence https://www.ted.com/speakers/anil_ananthaswamy Discover the MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellowship that shaped Anil’s AI research https://ksj.mit.edu/ Understand the Perceptron, the foundation of neural networks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perceptron Read about the Perceptron Convergence Theorem and its significance https://www.nature.com/articles/323533a0…

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By the evening of March 12, Ukrainian forces had repelled eight Russian assaults in the Kursk region in western Russia, according to Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces. He said active fighting continued in the suburbs of Sudzha and its surrounding areas.

Russian forces, Syrskyi said, are attempting to push Ukrainian troops out of the Kursk region and across the border into Ukraine’s Sumy and Kharkiv regions.

He added that Russia, “determined to achieve its political objectives at any cost,” had suffered and continues to suffer “significant losses.” Syrskyi claimed that since the start of Ukraine’s operation in the Kursk region, Russian forces have lost 54,900 personnel. There is no independent confirmation of these figures.

“My top priority in difficult situations has always been and remains preserving the lives of Ukrainian soldiers,” Syrskyi said. “To achieve this, [Ukrainian Armed Forces’] units maneuver to more advantageous positions when necessary. [...] Despite mounting pressure from the Russian-North Korean army, we will hold the defense in the Kursk region for as long as it remains practical and necessary.”

retreating from Sudzha

Ukraine withdraws from Sudzha amid Russian advance in Kursk region

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Ukrainian forces will hold positions in Kursk region ‘for as long as necessary,’ top commander says

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published a day ago

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Russian forces, Syrskyi said, are attempting to push Ukrainian troops out of the Kursk region and across the border into Ukraine’s Sumy and Kharkiv regions.

retreating from Sudzha

Ukraine withdraws from Sudzha amid Russian advance in Kursk region

72 episodes

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1
Radical crossroads. Revolutionary Ireland and the fight against the Russian Empire

43 minutes ago

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In a special St. Patrick’s Day edition of The Beet, historian and Hotel Lux author Maurice J. Casey looks back on the period from the 1880s to the 1920s, when Irish revolutionaries and a variety of radicals mobilizing against the Russian Empire found causes for comparison, solidarity, and even collaboration. This story first appeared in The Beet , a monthly email dispatch from Meduza covering Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Sign up here to get the next issue delivered directly to your inbox. Maurice J. Casey On the afternoon of Easter Monday, 1916, Liam Tannam , an Irish republican, experienced a display of global anti-imperialist solidarity at a Dublin post office. Several hours earlier, a force of Irish revolutionaries, Tannam among them, had marched through the capital, seizing several buildings in the city center, intent on posing an armed challenge to British rule. Tannam and his comrades occupied Dublin’s central post office during a foundational moment in the history of modern Ireland: the Easter Rising. Lasting just under a week, this Irish rebellion reduced much of central Dublin to rubble. And though it ended in military defeat for the rebels, their audacity galvanized a movement and inspired anti-colonial activists across the world. The devastation on Dublin’s Sackville Street after the Easter Rising of 1916 British soldiers marching rebel prisoners out of Dublin in May 1916 Many Irish rebels had hoped for support from the wider world of anti-imperialists, including those challenging the Russian Empire. On that Monday afternoon in 1916, mere hours into the insurrection, one of Tannam’s comrades brought him to the window of the post office to reveal that such support had just arrived — in the form of two odd-looking sailors. Recounting the event decades later, Tannam recalled a pair of “obviously foreign men” standing outside the building. With British troops already gathering strength to suppress the revolt, it seemed unlikely that the two were risking their lives to send letters. When Tannam asked what they wanted, one of the men replied: “I am from Sweden, my friend from Finland. We want to fight. May we come in?” Bemused, Tannam asked why they wanted to fight the British. Still answering for the pair, the Swedish sailor said they were crew from a ship docked in Dublin. “Finland, a small country, Russia eat her up. Sweden, another small country, Russia eat her up, too. Russia with the British, therefore, we against,” he explained. The rebels welcomed in the two anti-imperialist volunteers, but quickly relegated both men to backroom duties after the Finn accidentally fired off a round by knocking a cocked shotgun on the terrazzo floor. The rebellion ended with the rebels surrendering to British forces, who carried out thousands of arrests. The Finnish volunteer, one “ Tony Makapaltis ,” was captured along with his Swedish comrade, but according to Tannam, the Swede “got out in no time” thanks to his consul. The Finn was not so lucky. A list of those imprisoned following the Easter Rising indeed includes a name and address that stands out amid the pages of Irish surnames and Dublin hinterlands: “Makipaltis, Antle Zecks, Finland.” (The different spellings can be attributed to the imprecision of English-language speakers hearing a Finnish name. The Finnish rebel’s real name, as deciphered by historian Andrew Newby , was Antti Mäkipaltio .) The General Post Office stands amid the destruction at the intersection of Sackville Street and Abbey Street in Dublin. May 1916. The story of how two men with historical grudges against the Russian Empire ended up supporting (though not, perhaps, actively helping) a major Irish nationalist uprising reflects a curious synchronicity. The most intensive period in Ireland’s fight against the British Empire and the revolutionary dissolution of the Russian Empire more or less coincided. Inevitably, those swept up in these chaotic events reached for analogies to explain what was happening around them. Some stuck with comparison as an intellectual exercise. Others — like our two sailors — moved from considering similarities to taking up a shared cause. Allegories and fantasies Ireland, Britain’s first colony, has long been a place where those fighting empires have sought inspiration. The island’s misfortune in becoming an early laboratory for colonialism also made it a school for anti-colonial tactics. Despite the significant language barrier and geographical distance, revolutionary thinkers living in the Russian Empire could find inspiration in their Irish counterparts’ strategies. Perhaps the best known example of an Irish tactic translated across the world is the boycott. An organized campaign of social isolation, boycotting was refined during the period of Irish land agitation in the late nineteenth century known as the Land War. The collective ostracization of Charles Cunningham Boycott , a loathed landlord resident on a remote Irish island, gained international media attention in the early 1880s. The term “boycotting” became widely understood in English and soon made its way into Russian as boikotirovat’ . Google’s Ngram viewer , which tracks word usage across its corpus of digitized texts, notes spikes in Russian-language usage of boikotirovat’ during revolutionary upsurge and counterreaction. Namely, in 1905 and again from 1917 to 1923. As the Russian Empire faced crisis and collapse, the tongues of anti-Tsarist activists were wrapping around the surname of a hated landlord in Ireland. Meanwhile, certain national cultural circles took a more specialized interest in Ireland. In the revolutionary year of 1905, the Ukrainian poet and feminist activist Lesya Ukrainka published a translation of a booklet by the Irish language activist Francis Fahy detailing the movement to revitalize Irish Gaelic. The parallels with the Ukrainian movement aimed at bolstering the national language as part of a broader quest for independence are readily apparent. These exact echoes surely lead Ukrainka to search out and translate a work as obscure as Fahy’s pamphlet. More broadly, Irish nationalists likely had German writers to thank for stirring the interest in their cause among revolutionaries active in the Russian Empire. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels together spilled much ink thinking through Ireland’s relationship to British imperialism, confronting their readers with the Irish question. During the Communist International’s early years, Bolshevik thinkers cited the case of Ireland when discussing the broader global fight against imperialism and capitalism. Irish Volunteers assembled for field operations in Ireland. May 19, 1921. This specifically Marxist interest in Ireland had a legacy in wider Soviet culture, too, as seen in the 1937 Soviet film adaptation of Treasure Island . Of course, pirates amassing booty (what Marx described as “capital”) for personal enrichment is not a heroic activity for socialists. To make the plot more ideologically amenable, Soviet filmmakers had the Irish rebel protagonists use their treasure to fund arms for a rebellion against Britain. The film ends with our heroes riding away beneath a flag emblazoned with an Irish harp. Unlikely collaborators? As with the case of a Finnish sailor taking up arms against the British in a Dublin post office, sometimes the global movement of people in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century led migrants onto radical crossroads. It was these intimate Irish connections to those seeking to upend the Russian Empire — and not a mutual intellectual study of revolutionary tactics — that would ultimately forge the most impactful connections between the enemies of Kings and Tsars. Although anti-Tsarist migrants from the Russian Empire participated in the Irish Revolution, including Latvians Konrad Peterson and Sidney Arnold , the most impactful allegiances were crafted in sites of exile and diaspora. Nineteenth-century migration patterns created working-class city districts where Irish accents could be heard alongside those speaking Russian, Yiddish, and other national languages of the Russian Empire. READ MORE FROM THE BEET Dispatch from Perloja How the shattering of empires after WWI turned one tiny Lithuanian village into a ‘republic’ Jewish migrants from places like Ukraine, Lithuania, and Poland — many of them fleeing antisemitic violence — also settled in East London from the 1880s onwards, where they found themselves living alongside a large community of Irish Catholics who fled Ireland’s Great Famine in the 1840s. In March 1917, representatives of the East London Jewish community hosted a meeting to welcome the overthrow of Tsarism in Russia. Sylvia Pankhurst ’s The Woman’s Dreadnought reported that attendees showed great enthusiasm for an Irish woman speaker who, like those who organized the event, “belonged to a race which is oppressed.” Inhabitants of New York’s migrant districts had much in common with East London’s recent and not-so-recent arrivals. Russian radical Platon Kerzhentsev , for example, shared a New York boarding house with an Irish literary couple on the eve of the Irish and Russian revolutions; he would become a prominent Bolshevik cultural official and the first Soviet historian of Ireland . Gesturing once more towards the sense of a shared cause, one Irish feminist on tour the year before the Irish War of Independence, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington , told an East Harlem audience that “the Russians, the Jews, and the Irish” were the “three great revolutionary forces that would, in truth, make the world safe for democracy.” In both the Russian and Irish cases, the overthrow of imperial powers gave way to civil war. Ireland’s Civil War (1922–1923) ended with the establishment of the Irish Free State governed by conservative nationalists who sought a place in the liberal postwar order. Russia’s Civil War (1918–1922) consolidated the control of the Bolsheviks, who were intent on upending the liberal order through communist revolutions. Irish National Army soldiers taking over the Curragh military camp after the British withdrawal in 1922 An armed group of Red Guards mass in the street near the Bolshevik headquarters in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) during the Russian Civil War As the ending of the Soviet Treasure Island suggests, Ireland still held a place in the Soviet imagination as a rebel country. But most Irish nationalists, influenced by a conservative Catholic social ethos, did not consider themselves socialists, let alone communists. The beleaguered intellectuals of the Irish radical left, meanwhile, largely believed the Bolshevik claim that the October Revolution had liberated nations from imperialist domination. There were, however, some exceptions to this leftist tendency to take the Soviets at their word. Irish nationalists upstairs, Georgian Mensheviks downstairs For a brief period in the early 1920s, a single London address, 32 Queen’s Gate, was home to a stage actor, an Irish-speaking literary couple, and exiled Georgian Mensheviks. This sitcom-ready scenario was the work of Nannie Florence Dryhurst , a Dublin-raised radical then in her early sixties. Although Georgian independence became Dryhurst’s primary cause in the 1920s, her interest in the country dated back decades to her involvement in the world of exiled anarchists in London in the early 1880s. Living in the imperial metropolis, Dryhurst navigated both Irish nationalist circles and networks linked to the anarchist periodical Freedom . Her politics undergirded her friendships with the Russian anarchist Pyotr Kropotkin and the Georgian nationalist and anarchist Varlam Cherkezishvili . Flanked by anarchist aristocrats, Dryhurst became an active campaigner for national self-determination with an expansive anti-colonial vision that went beyond her native Ireland. After visiting Georgia in 1905 at the suggestion of her friend Cherkezishvili, the plight of this Caucasus nation vied for her attention with the Irish cause. Although initially enthusiastic about the Russian Revolution in 1917, she aligned herself against the Bolsheviks as a keen supporter of the Georgian Republic after it declared independence in 1918. Following the Soviet repression of the Georgian Republic in 1921, Dryhurst revived her Georgian solidarity networks in London. She found a home for a Georgian Menshevik “support committee” at 32 Queen’s Gate and installed her daughter and son-in-law (both Irish nationalist writers) in the upstairs apartment to help cover the rent. Dryhurst’s granddaughter and biographer Maire Gaster , who was a child in these years, recalled how the family residences “gave hospitality to people whose names rang strangely in our ears.” According to her granddaughter, Dryhurst was “campaigning for Georgia till the day she died” in 1930. Hello, I’m Eilish Hart, the editor of The Beet. Thanks for taking the time to read our work! Our newsletter delivers underreported stories like this one to subscribers once a month. Like all of Meduza’s reporting, it’s free to read but relies on support from readers like you. Please consider donating to our crowdfunding campaign . Maurice J. Casey is a visiting fellow at Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge. He received his doctorate in history from the University of Oxford. His first book, Hotel Lux: An Intimate History of Communism’s Forgotten Radicals , was published in 2024.…

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‘My child’s life is on the line’. Russia’s wartime budget slashed funding for essential medicines. Now they’re running out.

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Across Russia, patients are struggling to access essential medications. Drug shortages have become a persistent issue in Russian regions since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine. While officials blame sanctions and logistical challenges, the budget for medical procurement has shrunk — leading some analysts to suggest that funds have been redirected to Russia’s war effort. The independent Okno project spoke with patients and parents of sick children to understand the situation on the ground. Meduza shares a summary of their findings. Recently, Russian parents of children with short bowel syndrome (SBS) say they haven’t been receiving the intravenous feeding formula their children need to survive. Desperate for solutions, families have turned to group chats and social media groups, relying on one another to get by. For the past month, they’ve survived by swapping medications — hoping they’ll eventually be able to “pay each other back,” as one parent put it. Meanwhile, in Saratov, Volsk, and Balakovo, residents are reporting severe shortages of insulin, glucose test strips, and insulin pump supplies — all essential for managing diabetes. “I was given barely any test strips last time,” said Dmitry, a Saratov resident. “Insulin isn’t always available, and recently, they outright refused to give it to me. Luckily, I’d stocked up — experience has taught me to expect delays. But every time I go to pick up my prescription, I’m on edge. Will they give it to me or not?” “The pharmacies had insulin,” he continued. “They had test strips. But only for sale — at full price. These are lifesaving medications! By law, they’re supposed to be free. But no!” Svetlana, who lives in Volsk, said insulin shortages in her city began three months ago. “I went all the way to the Health Ministry to demand my insulin, but now I live in fear of what will happen next,” she said. “Not everyone has the strength to fight like that. My neighbor never got hers. She recently told me they even gave her expired test strips — completely unreliable for tracking blood sugar. She had to throw them away.” Everyone Okno spoke to brought up the death of 28-year-old Olga Bogaeva, a Saratov region resident who died due to a lack of insulin. The case prompted the Investigative Committee to open a criminal inquiry, but the results of the investigation were never made public. Officials “didn’t learn a thing” from that tragedy, one person said. the doctor shortage ‘This must be a terrible mistake’ Russia doesn’t have enough doctors — but that hasn’t stopped the authorities from arresting physicians on dubious charges ‘We’ve been left with nothing’ The shortages have led to patients being switched to Russian-made insulin substitutes — which, they say, come with serious side effects. “Even adults are experiencing complications,” Svetlana said. “And just when you start to accept it, the substitutes run short too. What can you do? When we can’t get them, we have to buy insulin ourselves — sometimes from another region, sometimes at a steep markup.” A month’s supply of insulin in local pharmacies costs anywhere from 5,000 rubles ($58) for Russian generics to 30,000 rubles ($348) for imported brands — on par with the region’s average monthly salary. Patients say the government appears to be rationing medications, pointing to recent comments by regional Health Minister Vladimir Dudakov, who admitted during a regional Duma meeting that state reserves would only last until March. He also warned that there was a three-billion-ruble ($34.8 million) shortfall in the regional budget for medicine and medical supplies through the end of the year. Officials in other regions have given similar explanations. In December, Zabaykalsky Krai Governor Alexander Osipov responded to repeated complaints about insulin shortages by saying that while the regional budget had initially covered demand, the number of patients needing insulin increased throughout the year — catching the health ministry “off guard.” “According to our Health Ministry, only 19,000 people required insulin at the start of the year,” Osipov said. “By year’s end, another 400 patients had been added.” The Kremlin crushed Meduza’s business model and wiped out our ad revenue. We’ve been blocked and outlawed in Russia, where donating to us or even sharing our posts is a crime. But we’re still here — bringing independent journalism to millions of our readers inside Russia and around the world. Meduza’s survival is under threat — again. Donald Trump’s foreign aid freeze has slashed funding for international groups backing press freedom. Meduza was hurt too. It’s yet another blow in our ongoing struggle to survive. You could be our lifeline. Please, help Meduza survive with a small recurring donation. In Krasnoyarsk Krai and the Ulyanovsk region, parents report that even children with diabetes are struggling to receive critical supplies. “Every year, it’s the same story,” said Iya Dianova from Krasnoyarsk. “Either the orders are delayed, or they get the wrong medication, or they fail to sign a contract, or the supplier backs out. That’s how they justify these constant shortages of lifesaving medication.” Dianova’s seven-year-old daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age two. For five years, Dianova has fought for access to proper care. But this year, she said, the situation has become worse than ever. “In 2025, we’ve been left with nothing. Nothing at all,” she said. “No test strips to monitor glucose, no supplies for insulin pumps. [...] Without the pump, my daughter will have to go back to injections — seven shots per day. She can’t do them on her own. That means no school. We’d have to pull her out. What’s happening here is outrageous.” Parents note that doctors continue to write prescriptions in good faith, but pharmacies impose long wait times. “Because [the medicines] simply don’t exist!” one mother told Okno. “Switching to an alternative is always a risk, especially for a child. But the real problem is that even Russian-made substitutes are in short supply too.” In response, diabetic patients also have formed online exchange networks where they barter for medicine and supplies. “It sounds insane, doesn’t it?” said Dianova. “There are now special group chats in Russia where diabetics trade medications. We spend hours in online marketplaces, swapping whatever we have — test strips for insulin, insulin for cannulas. And when there’s nothing left to trade, we give an IOU. What else can we do? We take it, hoping we’ll be able to pay it back later. My child’s life is on the line.” “The scale of this crisis is staggering,” said Olga, another mother from Krasnoyarsk Krai. “In one local diabetes chat alone, there are 1,200 patients. And every single one of them is missing something they need.” doctors and the war Weaponized patriotism As patients use denunciations to get their way, Russian doctors are keeping quiet on politics and the war in Ukraine Less medicine, more military Medication shortages have become widespread across Russia, according to Maria Balashova, who works for a nonprofit organization that supports children and adults with short bowel syndrome. “Every region in Russia is now facing shortages of expensive, life-saving medications for rare and severe diseases,” she said, calling it a growing crisis. Balashova said health officials are refusing to distribute medications that should be covered by the state budget. According to her, some parents were told by regional health ministries that the shortages are due to sanctions, as foreign drug distributors are supposedly refusing to send shipments to Russia. “Desperate parents started writing directly to [these foreign] drug distributors,” Balashova said. “And guess what? They responded that they’d be happy to supply the medications — but the Health Ministry stopped buying them.” Parents of children with SBS say they have dealt with sporadic shortages before, sometimes paying out of pocket for costly medications to get through shortfalls. But in the past year, Russia’s Health Ministry has stopped providing some essential drugs entirely. Without parenteral nutrition, children with SBS cannot survive. According to Balashova, some of the missing medications have no Russian-made alternatives at all. “What does it mean to deny these children parenteral nutrition?” asked Elina Belkova, the mother of a two-year-old with severe intestinal and metabolic disorders. “It means death.” In 2023, Russia slashed its federal budget for imported medications by 65 billion rubles ($753.6 million). Analysts from Headway Company and DSM Group suggest that the money was redirected to fund military needs. That same year, the government approved a record-high defense budget and has increased military spending every year since. Since the start of the full-scale war against Ukraine, medication shortages have been a persistent issue across Russia. In August 2024, pharmacies in several remote villages in Kamchatka ran out of essential drugs, with authorities promising new deliveries only by September 1. The month before, HIV-positive patients across multiple regions began reporting widespread shortages of antiretroviral drugs and the replacement of imported medications with Russian-made alternatives that cause severe side effects. Experts say the government has cut funding for antiretroviral therapy by a third, even as the number of patients continues to rise. In spring 2024, pharmacies in 58 Russian regions ran out of Kalimate, the only potassium binder registered in the country and a critical drug for dialysis patients. Since summer 2023, parents of children with cystic fibrosis have been reporting shortages of essential medications, too. Starting in 2025, patients are being forcibly switched to a Russian-made targeted therapy — one that has never undergone clinical trials on humans. withholding treatment ‘Take the pills you’re given’ How Russia’s prison system prevents inmates with HIV from getting the treatment they need to survive…

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Kremlin confirms Putin met with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff

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Russian President Vladimir Putin met late on March 13 with Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. According to Peskov, “Russia was given additional information” during the meeting at the Kremlin, while Putin, in turn, passed along information and “additional signals” for Trump through Witkoff. He added that both sides agree on the need for direct talks between Putin and Trump, which are expected to take place after Witkoff briefs the U.S. president. Peskov did not specify a timeline. Peskov also said that “there are certainly grounds for cautious optimism” regarding negotiations for a ceasefire in Ukraine. According to him, Putin supports Trump’s position “on settling the conflict” but “raised certain questions that require joint solutions.” “There is still much work to be done,” he added. Putin on a ceasefire Putin endorses idea of a ceasefire — with ‘nuances’ Zelensky says the statement is ‘manipulative’ but Trump thinks it’s ‘promising’…

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Ukraine strikes oil facility in Russia’s Tuapse, igniting massive fire

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Ukrainian forces attacked an oil facility in Tuapse, a port town in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai, early on Friday, Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said on Telegram. The strike ignited a gasoline storage tank, sparking a fire that spread over more than 1,000 square meters (over 10,700 square feet), he said, adding that no injuries were reported. Local officials did not specify what type of weapon was used, but local residents described hearing the sound of a drone, according to the Telegram channel Baza. At the same time, another witness told Astra that the blast was “too powerful to have come from drones.” Several hours after the attack, the local news outlet Kuban 24 published footage of thick black smoke rising over the city. Despite the incident, schools and daycare centers in Tuapse remained open on Friday. Andriy Kovalenko, the head of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council’s Center for Countering Disinformation, said the strike hit the Tuapse oil refinery, which is owned by Rosneft. “This refinery is of strategic importance to the Russian military, as it supplies fuel to the Black Sea Fleet and military infrastructure in the country’s south,” he said. Neither Russia’s Defense Ministry nor Ukraine’s General Staff has commented on the strike.…

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U.S. intelligence indicates Putin has not abandoned plans to control Ukraine — The Washington Post

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Classified U.S. intelligence reports, including one from early March, indicate that Vladimir Putin remains intent on “dominating” Ukraine, raising questions about his willingness to negotiate an end to the war, The Washington Post reported , citing sources familiar with the documents. According to one source, a March 6 intelligence assessment states that Putin remains determined to gain control over Kyiv, though the source did not specify what that entails. Some current and former U.S. officials believe that even if Putin agrees to a temporary ceasefire, he would use the pause to rearm and later break the truce — potentially staging a provocation and blaming Ukraine. Others note that there is no indication Putin has abandoned his goal of bringing Ukraine into Russia’s “security and economic orbit.” It remains unclear whether Donald Trump has been briefed on the March 6 report, but a Washington Post source said this is the type of intelligence typically shared with the president. Another source told the newspaper that some assessments of Putin’s resolve appear to frustrate Trump. The Washington Post noted that this frustration may be reflected in recent discussions within the U.S. administration about possibly tightening sanctions on Russia. The intelligence findings highlight the challenges facing Trump and raise questions about whether the White House is accurately assessing Putin’s willingness to negotiate a ceasefire, according to The Washington Post. skirting the issue Putin endorses idea of a ceasefire — with ‘nuances’ Zelensky says the statement is ‘manipulative’ but Trump thinks it’s ‘promising’…

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U.S. set to resume GLSDB bomb deliveries to Ukraine as ATACMS supply runs out — Reuters

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The United States is preparing to resume deliveries of GLSDB (Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb) guided munitions to Ukraine, Reuters reported , citing two sources familiar with the weapon. The glide-bombs were originally procured by the Biden administration as part of a military aid package for Ukraine. While some reports suggested GLSDB munitions had limited effectiveness — particularly against Russian electronic warfare systems — sources told Reuters that the weapons have since been upgraded to counter jamming. The GLSDB has a range of approximately 100 miles. According to one Reuters source, Ukrainian forces last used these munitions several months ago. The renewed deliveries come as Kyiv is reportedly running low on ATACMS missiles. The shipment could take place “in the coming days,” Reuters reported, as a GLSDB stockpile is already in Europe.…

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Ukrainian drones attack Moscow and its suburbs, leaving residential buildings damaged

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Ukrainian drones targeted Moscow and the surrounding region around 7:00 a.m. local time on Friday, according to Russian media reports. Drone debris struck a residential complex in the city’s Dorogomilovo district, damaging the roof and entrance, according to the Telegram channels Mash and Astra. No injuries were reported, Ostorozhno, Novosti wrote. Debris from a downed drone landed on an unoccupied building on Lesteva Street in Moscow, according to Baza. The roof of the structure caught fire, Astra reported. A drone also crashed into a house in Troitsk, a town near Moscow, according to Mash and VChK-OGPU. Another drone struck an unoccupied residential complex in Bittsa, a settlement just outside Moscow, according to Mash. In Balashikha, a city in the Moscow region, residents reported hearing an explosion, Ostorozhno, Novosti wrote. A video shot by locals appeared to show drone debris in a courtyard. Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin wrote on Telegram that air defense forces intercepted four drones heading for Moscow. “Emergency services are working at the crash sites,” he said. Moscow region Governor Andrey Vorobyov said air defenses shot down two drones over Balashikha, with debris from one landing on a construction site. A third drone was downed just south of Moscow, with fragments falling on a high-rise under construction. No casualties were reported, he said. The attack was Ukraine’s second on Moscow and its surrounding region in a week. In the early hours of March 11, Kyiv launched its largest drone assault on Russia since the start of the full-scale war, deploying more than 340 drones. In Moscow and the Moscow region, residential buildings were hit, leaving three people dead and 18 others injured. Ukraine’s largest drone attack Moscow hit as Russia reports largest Ukrainian drone attack since full-scale war began…

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Armenia and Azerbaijan agree on draft peace agreement

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Representatives of Armenia and Azerbaijan have concluded negotiations and agreed on the text of a peace agreement, the foreign ministries of both countries announced. Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov stated that Armenia had accepted Azerbaijan’s proposals on the last two unresolved provisions of the agreement. “In the next stage, Baku’s expectation is that Armenia must amend its constitution, which still contains territorial claims against Azerbaijan,” Bayramov said on Thursday. Yerevan, in turn, confirmed that it is ready to begin consultations with Baku on the timing and location of the document’s signing. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been attempting to finalize a peace agreement since 2023, following an Azerbaijani military operation that brought Nagorno-Karabakh under Baku’s control, cleansing the area of most ethnic Armenians. In February 2025, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated that the parties had agreed on 15 out of 17 points of the peace deal. The remaining unresolved issues concerned the mutual abstention from lawsuits in international courts and the non-deployment of third-party forces along the border. At the time, he also noted that he saw no reason for an escalation of tensions between Yerevan and Baku. Further reading ‘We left everything’ Uprooted and jobless, Nagorno-Karabakh refugees start from scratch in Armenia…

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Ukrainian diplomats told U.S. that Kyiv will never agree to limit size of its armed forces or renounce NATO aspirations — European Pravda

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Ukraine will not agree to limit the size of its armed forces or abandon its NATO membership aspirations as part of a potential peace deal with Russia. Ukraine’s delegation conveyed this position to the U.S. earlier this week at a meeting in Saudi Arabia, a source close to the negotiations told European Pravda . According to the source, the meeting was not intended to finalize a position on a peace agreement but served as an opportunity for the Ukrainian side to inform its American partners of Kyiv’s “red lines.” Sources reported the same information to RBC-Ukraine and BBC Russia . “For Ukraine, there are red lines — including that there can be no restrictions on the size of the defence forces and no prohibitions on Ukraine’s participation in international organisations, including the E.U. and NATO. The issue of NATO also came up in remarks by [Zelensky Chief of Staff Andriy] Yermak, stressing that Russia must not have a veto right,” the source told European Pravda. During the negotiations, the delegations also discussed Ukraine’s territorial integrity and the Russian-occupied territories but did not address the possibility of territorial concessions, according to the BBC. A Ukrainian diplomat noted that Kyiv acknowledges it cannot reclaim these territories by military means, but it doesn’t recognize them as Russian and will seek to regain them through diplomacy.…

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Moscow court logs administrative case against Meduza journalist Lilia Yapparova

17 hours ago

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Meduza special correspondent Lilia Yapparova has been charged with illegal participation in an “undesirable” organization. On Thursday, the news outlet Mediazona reported the misdemeanor case against Yapparova. The materials submitted to Moscow’s Zamoskvoretsky District Court do not specify what prompted the charges. Russia’s Prosecutor General outlawed Meduza as an “undesirable” organization in January 2023. Another Moscow court filed separate “undesirable” participation charges against Russian nuclear policy expert Maksim Starchak , who’s previously granted interviews to Meduza and other banned news outlets, including iStories, Riddle, and The Insider. Past reporting by Yapparova ‘This is mourning’ Meduza correspondent Liliya Yapparova reports from Yerevan in the aftermath of the settlement in Nagorno-Karabakh ‘You really are a terrorist’ How Russia’s FSB recruits former ISIS fighters — and tries to plant them in Ukrainian battalions ‘Mom, please make it stop’ Meduza special correspondent Lilia Yapparova was in Chernihiv in the final days before Russian troops cut it off from the outside world. Here’s what she saw. ‘He considered himself indestructible’ Meduza spoke to Wagner mercenaries about the plane crash that killed Yevgeny Prigozhin ‘They would prefer that she die’ The first openly trans woman in the Russian army, her Ukrainian boyfriend, and their fight to keep her out of the war ‘Let’s find out if they’re spies’ Pegasus spyware was used to target seven more journalists and activists in the E.U. In 2024, Russian courts issued a total of 81 administrative fines to journalists and readers of independent media deemed “undesirable” by Russian authorities, Mediazona estimates. Meduza accounted for the largest number of these cases (45 fines), followed by Radio Liberty (12 protocols) and Dozhd (nine protocols). These fines typically target journalists or experts who were in some way involved in the creation of media materials. Those penalized include Meduza journalists Andrey Pertsev, Elizaveta Antonova, Svetlana Reiter, Anton Khitrov, and others.…

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Putin endorses idea of a ceasefire — with ‘nuances’. Zelensky says the statement is ‘manipulative’ but Trump thinks it’s ‘promising’

18 hours ago

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During a press conference on Thursday, Vladimir Putin said he supports the idea of a ceasefire with Ukraine but there are “nuances” that need to be addressed. This statement came two days after Kyiv expressed willingness to accept a proposed 30-day truce if Russia follows suit, based on a proposal put forward during talks between Ukrainian and U.S. delegations in Saudi Arabia on March 11. In his evening address on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Putin’s comments were “manipulative” and warned that Moscow is likely to reject or delay the proposed ceasefire. In turn, U.S. President Trump said that Putin gave “a very promising statement, but it wasn’t complete.” Russian President Vladimir Putin says he supports the idea of a ceasefire with Ukraine but that it must result in “long-term peace.” He made these remarks during a joint press conference with Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko on Thursday, which was broadcast by the state news agency BelTA. “We agree with the proposal to halt hostilities,” Putin said when asked about the U.S.-backed ceasefire initiative. “But we proceed from the premise that this cessation must lead to a long-term peace and address the root causes of the crisis.” At the same time, he raised concerns about the ceasefire terms, saying a 30-day truce would benefit the Ukrainian side. “We support it, but there are nuances,” Putin said. “What will we do about [the Ukrainian army’s] incursion into the Kursk region? What does it mean if we halt hostilities for 30 days? That all [Ukrainian soldiers] there will simply leave without a fight?” Russian forces are advancing in almost all sectors. […] How will these 30 days be used? To continue forced mobilization in Ukraine? To send in more weapons? To train newly mobilized units? Or will none of that happen? Then, the question arises: How will control and verification be handled? What guarantees do we have that nothing like this will take place? […] Who will issue the orders to halt hostilities? And what are those orders worth? The [contact line] is nearly 2,000 kilometers long — who will determine where and by whom a possible ceasefire agreement has been violated? Then, Putin suggested that Russia discuss these issues with U.S. President Donald Trump. “The idea itself is the right one, and we certainly support it, but there are issues we need to discuss,” he said, emphasizing that Russia would negotiate an end to the war “based on how the situation develops on the ground.” Ukraine has expressed readiness to accept a 30-day ceasefire if Russia follows suit, based on a proposal put forward during talks between Ukrainian and U.S. delegations in Saudi Arabia on March 11. In his evening address on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described Putin’s statement as “manipulative” and called for additional sanctions to put pressure on the Russian leader. Meduza has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from the very start, and we are committed to reporting objectively on a war we firmly oppose. Join Meduza in its mission to challenge the Kremlin’s censorship with the truth. Donate today . “He is actually preparing a rejection [of the ceasefire proposal] as of now,” Zelensky said. “Putin is afraid to tell President Trump directly that he wants to continue this war, that he wants to kill Ukrainians. And that’s why [officials] in Moscow are setting preconditions for a ceasefire that won’t work at all or will [delay it] as long as possible.” “We do not set conditions that complicate anything. Russia is doing this,” Zelensky added. “The only one who will delay everything [and] be unconstructive is Russia. They need the war.” President Trump also commented on Putin’s response, saying it was “promising” but incomplete. “He put out a very promising statement, but it wasn’t complete,” Trump told reporters during an Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Thursday. “I’d love to meet with them or talk to him, but we have to get it over with fast. You know, every day, people are being killed.” Trump added that the U.S. has been discussing with Kyiv what territory “would be kept and lost” as part of a final peace deal. “So a lot of the details of a final agreement have actually been discussed,” he said. “Now we’re going to see whether or not Russia is there, and if they’re not, it’ll be a very disappointing moment for the world,” Trump added. Asked what “leverage” the U.S. has over Putin, Trump declined to offer any details. “I do have leverage, but I don’t want to talk about leverage now, because right now we’re talking to them, and based on the statements he made today, they were pretty positive I think,” he said. READ MORE ABOUT THE PROPOSED CEASEFIRE Ukraine pledges immediate ceasefire — if Russia follows suit Meduza summarizes key takeaways from latest Saudi Arabia talks, including U.S. resumption of military aid to Kyiv Cover photo: Gabriel Grigorov / RIA Novosti / Scanpix / Leta…

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The curious case of ‘Konstantin K.’. German newspaper claims Russian national who worked for prominent CDU lawmaker has ties to the FSB

20 hours ago

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A Russian national who worked in the parliamentary office of prominent German lawmaker Christian Hirte is pushing back against the Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung after the newspaper claimed that he has ties to Russia’s secret service. In an article published on March 12, the German newspaper reported that a Russian citizen who worked for Hirte named “Konstantin K.” had long been suspected of collaborating with the FSB, and that this had been confirmed by a German security agency. The investigative outlet iStories later identified the Russian national in question as Konstantin Khrapov. In a Telegram channel set up to address the allegations, Khrapov attributed the FAZ article to political infighting in Germany and argued that the newspaper hadn’t presented any evidence to corroborate its claims. Here’s what we know about the story of “Konstantin K.” On March 12, the Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reported that a Russian national with ties to the FSB worked in the parliamentary office of prominent German lawmaker Christian Hirte from March 2023 until the end of 2024. The German newspaper identified the Russian national as “Konstantin K.” and cited several anonymous sources who had “long suspected” him of collaborating with Russia’s secret service. According to the FAZ, a German security agency also confirmed K.’s connections to the FSB. The investigative outlet iStories later identified the Russian national in question as Konstantin Khrapov. In turn, The Insider reported that according to the caller identification app GetContact, Khrapov’s contact information is saved in several users’ phones as “Scammer, FSB snitch.” ‘Connected to the system’ According to FAZ’s reporting, K.’s résumé is full of connections to Vladimir Putin’s government. From 2014 to 2016, he worked for a “non-governmental organization” that handled relations with the Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia on behalf of Putin’s administration, and he also held other positions in associations and youth organizations controlled by the Russian government. In 2020, K. began working for the Moscow office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation — which is how he met Hirte, a member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has served in the German Bundestag since 2008. According to FAZ, Hirte “had long shown a keen interest in Russia,” traveled there for conferences, and was friends with the former director of the Adenauer Foundation’s Moscow office, Lars Peter Schmidt. The Kremlin crushed Meduza’s business model and wiped out our ad revenue. We’ve been blocked and outlawed in Russia, where donating to us or even sharing our posts is a crime. But we’re still here — bringing independent journalism to millions of our readers inside Russia and around the world. Meduza’s survival is under threat — again. Donald Trump’s foreign aid freeze has slashed funding for international groups backing press freedom. Meduza was hurt too. It’s yet another blow in our ongoing struggle to survive. You could be our lifeline. Please, help Meduza survive with a small recurring donation. Following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, K. contacted Hirte to explain that he had fled abroad; the lawmaker then offered him a job in his parliamentary office after the two met in Berlin. “I had the impression that he was clearly opposed to the Putin regime,” Hirte told FAZ. Nevertheless, Hirte sent K.’s résumé to a German security agency, he said, “because I knew he was connected to the system in Russia.” Hirte received a tip about K.’s possible FSB connections in mid-2023 but was asked not to terminate his employment right away so as not to arouse suspicion. The lawmaker was finally advised to “quietly” fire K. in “late summer/early autumn 2024,” and he allowed K.’s contract to expire at the end of the year. Though K.’s Bundestag ID card would have allowed him access to the German parliament until the end of 2024, Hirte told FAZ that the Russian national was never involved in the internal workings of his parliamentary office. “He had no key to the office, no digital access, and no access to internal office data or that of the Bundestag,” the lawmaker said. Instead, K. maintained contact with exiled Russian opposition figures — including former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky — and wrote papers for Hirte about the Russian opposition and current affairs in Russia. A spokesman for Khodorkovsky told FAZ that given his past involvement with the Putin regime, they were “always cautious” when dealing with K. ‘ Ready to give testimony ’ According to iStories , the outlet that identified “K.,” Konstantin Khrapov also worked with the Center for Analysis and Strategies in Europe (CASE), an E.U.-based think tank focused on post-Soviet countries and the Russian diaspora. The CASE website lists its founders as Russian economist Vladislav Inozemtsev, former State Duma lawmaker Dmitry Gudkov, and Russian economist and politician Dmitry Nekrasov. After the FAZ article came out, Gudkov wrote on Telegram that Khrapov did not work for the think tank but “provided services for organizing presentations and promoting some CASE reports, including in the Bundestag and a number of ministries.” According to Gudkov, CASE’s “interaction” with Khrapov took place when he worked in the Bundestag, as well as during his time at the Adenauer Foundation’s Moscow office. Gudkov added that the think tank had “no reason to doubt” Hirte’s claim that Khrapov appeared to oppose the Putin regime and that German security services had done a background check. “We consider this publication to be part of the political struggle within the Bundestag during the formation of the new government and would rather not take anyone’s side,” he said. Khrapov himself made a similar argument in a lengthy Telegram post dated March 12, claiming the FAZ article was the product of CDU infighting amid the formation of the new German Cabinet. “The authors’ conclusions [...] are based solely on [the line in] my biography from ten years ago about my work for a pro-government project in Abkhazia (which, by the way, I never hid, not while I was in Russia nor after arriving in Germany),” Khrapov wrote. Khrapov said that while he “helped establish contacts” between CDU lawmakers and Russian opposition figures, he had “no access to any sensitive information” while working in Hirte’s office. He also claimed that the Bundestag and German security services didn’t find anything in their background checks and that he hasn’t received any inquiries from German law enforcement or intelligence agencies. “The article doesn’t provide a single piece of evidence or confirmation that I have any kind of ‘connection’ with the Russian intelligence services. For my part, I’m ready to give testimony to Germany’s state security agencies, if anyone is interested, of course. Although I strongly doubt this, since I’m sure the publication wasn’t aimed at me personally but at my former boss,” he concluded. Khrapov later told The Insider that he plans to contact German law enforcement “to dispel public suspicions.” READ MORE New investigation alleges Latvian member of European Parliament has secretly worked for Russian FSB for 20 years…

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Putin says Russia supports a ceasefire, but there are ‘issues to discuss’

21 hours ago

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Russian President Vladimir Putin says he supports the idea of a ceasefire with Ukraine but that it must result in a “long-term peace.” He made these remarks during a joint press conference with Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko on Thursday, which was broadcast by the state news agency BelTA. “We agree with the proposal to halt hostilities,” Putin said when asked about the U.S.-backed ceasefire initiative. “But we proceed from the premise that this cessation must lead to a long-term peace and address the root causes of the crisis.” At the same time, he raised concerns about the terms of the ceasefire, saying a 30-day truce would be beneficial for the Ukrainian side. “We support it, but there are nuances,” Putin said. “What will we do about [Ukrainian army’s] incursion into the Kursk region? If we halt hostilities for 30 days, what does that mean? That all [Ukrainian soldiers] there will simply leave without a fight?” Russian forces are advancing in almost all sectors. […] How will these 30 days be used? To continue forced mobilization in Ukraine? To send in more weapons? To train newly mobilized units? Or will none of that happen? Then the question arises: how will control and verification be handled? What guarantees do we have that nothing like this will take place? […] Who will issue the orders to halt hostilities? And what are those orders worth? The [contact line] is nearly 2,000 kilometers long — who will determine where and by whom a possible ceasefire agreement has been violated? Putin then suggested that Russia should discuss these issues with U.S. President Donald Trump. “The idea itself is the right one, and we certainly support it, but there are issues we need to discuss,” he said. Ukraine has expressed readiness to accept a 30-day ceasefire if Russia follows suit, based on a proposal put forward during talks between Ukrainian and U.S. delegations in Saudi Arabia on March 11. But Putin emphasized on Thursday that Russia will negotiate an end to the war “based on how the situation develops on the ground.” READ MORE ABOUT THE PROPOSED CEASEFIRE Ukraine pledges immediate ceasefire — if Russia follows suit Meduza summarizes key takeaways from latest Saudi Arabia talks, including U.S. resumption of military aid to Kyiv…

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Russian state media publishes photos from newly recaptured areas in the Kursk region

1 day ago

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Russian troops are rapidly advancing in the Kursk region, parts of which have been under Ukrainian control since August 2024. On March 13, Russia’s Defense Ministry officially announced it had taken control of Sudzha — the only Ukrainian-controlled city on Russian territory. A day earlier, Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s top commander, said that intense fighting was still ongoing on the city’s outskirts. Russian state media outlets have published images of war-torn settlements in the Kursk region that are now back under Russian control. Meduza shares some of these images. A Russian soldier in Agronom, Kursk region, the day after Russia’s Defense Ministry officially announced it had recaptured the hamlet. March 12, 2025. Agronom had 38 houses and a population of about 50 people. March 12, 2025. Agronom. March 12, 2025. Meduza’s survival is under threat — again. Donald Trump’s foreign aid freeze has slashed funding for international groups backing press freedom. Meduza was hurt too. It’s yet another blow in our ongoing struggle to survive. You could be our lifeline. Please, help Meduza survive with a small recurring donation. Russkaya Konopelka, a village in the Kursk region. March 12, 2025. A detached BMP turret in Russkaya Konopelka. March 12, 2025. Russkaya Konopelka had 136 houses and a population of about 200 people. March 12, 2025. Russkaya Konopelka. March 12, 2025. leaving Sudzha Ukraine withdraws from Sudzha amid Russian advance in Kursk region…

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Russia opposes temporary ceasefire, Kremlin says

1 day ago