"Putin is “stuck” in a “dangerous place” as he finds himself fighting against a resilient and adaptive Ukraine, says Sir William Browder."

US special needs envoy Steve Witless and Volodymyr Zelensky are meeting in Oslo, with relations on the slide between the Ukrainian leader and US President Donald Trump.

"Putin's war is tearing apart the political bargain that keeps his government obedient, with money running short and powerful institutions fighting to protect themselves. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov is gaining control over the machinery of government as Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin loses a crucial ally. Military spending remains protected while healthcare, education, and ordinary households face deep cuts. The Kremlin's internal struggle reveals the growing cost of keeping Putin's system together.

That crisis has now reached Putin's hometown, where a massive Ukrainian drone attack struck St. Petersburg, leaving oil facilities burning, airports disrupted, and thousands without electricity. Moscow boasts about intercepting enormous numbers of drones, yet critical infrastructure still suffered damage. Every new attack increases the cost of defending the homeland while China extracts extraordinary discounts on gas exports. The war is reaching deeper into the institutions and infrastructure sustaining Putin's power.

The FSB has become so desperate to demonstrate victories that officers have staged arrests and forced prisoners to perform scripted confessions, according to a new investigation. Kadyrov's teenage son is assembling an armed faction from Chechnya's ruling families, while Russian military satellites confront Western intelligence infrastructure. Republicans in Congress are also challenging Trump's concessions to Moscow. Putin can reshuffle ministers and manufacture displays of control, but the financial pressures and political fractures continue growing."

"Thousands of Russian soldiers have abandoned the front lines, but a select few have gone a step further: actively sabotaging Vladimir Putin’s military from the inside.

From encrypted leaks of high-value coordinates to midnight escapes across active minefields, an underground network of Russian defectors, intelligence contacts, and anti-war activists is directly aiding Ukraine’s war effort.

In this video, Former senior Advisor to the British Armed Forces Chip Chapman unpacks the implications of high-stakes defectors. "

"Russia just keeps sending guys forward
10,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or seriously wounded so far in October with most of them in the exact direction that Russian leadership lied about this past week. In fact we’ve got some footage from the Dobropillia direction that was just released showing the fields covered in Russian bodies after they try again and again to advance along the same deadly route, only to be met by Ukrainian drones."

"Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wilentz interview Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia and author of “Autocrats vs. Democrats,” about Trump’ s diesel deal with Putin, the secret agreements that Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are making with the Russians that are a reason Trump is pressuring Ukraine’s Zelensky to surrender, Putin’s strategy of divide and conquer being achieved through Trump, and what a new Democratic Congress could do to inform the public beginning with subpoenaing Kushner and Witkoff."

"Best-selling author and Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones, David Corn, sits down with Jon Stewart to discuss his latest book, "How Russia Won: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the Fight for America." They talk about Trump’s fixation on teaming up with Vladimir Putin, how Trump’s “man crush” on Putin drove him to sign a diesel fuel deal with Russia in spite of the war in Ukraine, Putin embodying Trump’s dream of wealth with full authority, and how Trump employs the theory of “big f**ks small.” #DailyShow #Russia #Trump #Putin"

"Russian state TV accidentally showed off a shoulder-fired MANPADS nobody could identify, and the visual clues point toward Chinese QW-19 technology, Iran’s Misagh family, or a Russian-built copy. I trace the weapon through open-source photo comparisons, a Reuters report on a $70 million Iran-China missile deal, and a map that explains why Moscow suddenly needs thousands of shoulder-fired missiles protecting targets deep behind the front line."

"Trust in AFU, trust in Ukraine"

"Foreign policy expert and presidential advisor Dr Fiona Hill CMG gave a lecture on defence to members of the House of Lords on 13 October 2026, speaking in conversation with Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon. The discussion covered a range of topics, including the USA, Presidents Trump and Putin, Russia and Ukraine, plus what security and resilience might look like on a local level in Britain.

Dr Hill was a National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia under Presidents Bush and Obama from 2006 to 2009 on the National Intelligence Council. She served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European and Russian Affairs on President Trump's National Security Council.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon is a former minister at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, where he covered a variety of responsibilities including South and Central Asia, Middle East, North Africa, United Nations and the Commonwealth.

The Lord Speaker's Lecture series invites speakers from inside and outside the House of Lords to address members on a range of topics to support and inform their work."

"Something bizarre just happened in eastern Russia. Local health authorities suddenly scrambled to respond to a severe biological threat—and then the entire story mysteriously vanished from state media.

Tonight, we are investigating the unexplained Siberian "plague scare" that officials are now trying to keep quiet. What actually happened in Krasnoyarsk? We have two critical questions to answer.

First: Was there a genuine medical emergency that triggered local panic, or was it a massive bureaucratic overreaction?

Second, and far more concerning: Does the sudden deployment of extreme quarantine protocols suggest the Russian state was quietly rehearsing its ability to impose a sweeping domestic lockdown? We will analyze the timeline, the official silence, and what this episode reveals about the Kremlin's readiness to restrict movement and control the population.

Grab a cup of tea, and let's look at how the system really works.

INSIDE RUSSIA provides serious, anti-propaganda coverage explaining how the Russian system really works."

"On day 1700 of Russia’s full-scale war, I examine Ukraine’s reported strike on the Nikolskoye LPDS oil-pumping facility in Tambov Oblast—a Transneft-Druzhba network hub that regulates crude flows on the Kuibyshev-Unecha pipeline. I also cover reported Ukrainian strikes on a telecommunications operator in occupied Donetsk, a command post, repair facilities, logistics depots, and personnel concentrations.

Russia, meanwhile, reportedly launched 165 drones, including 105 jet-powered Shaheds. Ukraine reported 20 strike locations, damage to energy infrastructure and rail facilities, and power-outage measures across 12 regions as winter approaches. I assess why the reported interception rate matters, the human toll from strikes in Kyiv and Kharkiv, and claims that Starlink/Starshield restrictions are limiting Ukraine’s ability to strike Russian logistics behind the front. The strategic question is whether Ukraine can maintain pressure on Russian supply lines while defending its civilian infrastructure."

"I examine the reported proposal for a Putin-Trump-Xi meeting on the sidelines of the November 18–19 APEC summit in Shenzhen—and why Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, argues that elevating Putin before a ceasefire would reward continued war. The core issue is not simply diplomacy: it is whether Ukraine is treated as a participant in decisions about its own future or as an object of great-power bargaining.

I also cover Ukraine’s planned field trials of two domestic low-cost air-defense missiles targeting a price below $20,000, Russia’s Kosmos-2612 satellite passing within 26 meters of ICEYE-X36, and proposed civilian evacuation arrangements for occupied Oleshki. Beyond Ukraine, I assess the strategic fallout from Starlink restrictions, Canada’s diversification plans, European satellite dependence, French protest violence, and the wider deterrence challenge facing Europe if pressure falls more heavily on Kyiv than on Moscow."

"Today, the biggest news comes from the Huliaipole direction.

Russian forces are currently reinforcing the Huliaipolie axis in order to try to break the Ukrainian defense in this sector. Russia’s advantage in manpower is four to one across the wider axis and up to seven to one in the most threatened sectors. This troop concentration indicates that Russia regards the Huliaipolie direction as one of its most important fronts. Here, Russia is using its usual infiltration tactics of sending one to three soldiers at a time, who try to get behind Ukrainian lines and accumulate there, while the use of armored vehicles is minimal. To support its infiltration efforts, Russia deployed three elite Rubicon drone units, which are being rotated through the area to try to cover a wider section of the frontline.

Long-term, Russia wants to capture the left-bank part of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, including Zaporizhzhia city, the regional capital. Russia currently controls approximately seventy-five percent of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, while this figure was around seventy-three percent after the Ukrainian counteroffensive in two thousand and twenty-three. Based on this statistic and their rate of advance this year, which dropped to almost zero in this sector, it is highly unlikely that Russia can achieve its goal. Notably, Russia advanced more than twenty kilometers in two thousand and twenty-five and, by the end of the year, captured Huliaipolie. However, their rate of advance dropped to ten kilometers in two thousand and twenty-six. Given this, it would take seven years for Russia to reach Zaporizhzhia city.

In the short term, the Russian high command has tasked its forces to advance thirty kilometers from Huliaipolie by the end of October. This move would allow them to encircle Orikhiv from the north and cut it off from supplies. Given that Orikhiv is the main supply hub for the Ukrainians here, holding their defense south of the town would be significantly more difficult in case Russia manages to take Orikhiv under its control. However, this goal is also highly unlikely to be achieved in the near future as Russia struggles to make meaningful territorial gains west of Huliaipolie. Notably, the main Ukrainian defense line runs there, which took the Russians approximately eight months to gain a relatively small foothold over it. It consists of extensive anti-tank ditches, dragon’s teeth obstacles, and a series of lines of barbed wire. This is why Russia cannot conduct mechanized assaults here and is forced to rely on infiltrations. Despite getting through the first defense line, Russia still cannot use vehicles to supply its advancing forces or conduct assaults because it couldn’t dismantle the defense line enough to make it easier to pass. After getting through the defense line, which is still constantly monitored by Ukrainian drones, Russian infiltration groups have to go through vast open fields, which are mined. As a result of these conditions, Russia can barely advance here, while its losses are mounting, which has forced it to redeploy troops to try to break the deadlock.

Overall, Russia’s decision to redeploy additional troops and rotate elite Rubicon drone units to the Huliaipolie direction shows that its current tactics are failing to deliver the breakthrough the high command needs. The extensive Ukrainian fortifications, mined open fields, and constant drone surveillance mean that even if Russia redeploys troops here, they will face the same challenges that their comrades failed to overcome. This creates a costly cycle in which Russia must commit more manpower to achieve limited gains, potentially weakening other sectors as troops are diverted to sustain the offensive here. Unless Russian forces find a way to overcome these logistical and defensive obstacles, their ambitions to encircle Orikhiv and eventually reach Zaporizhzhia city will remain far beyond their current capabilities."

"I examine Ukraine’s report that it received no advance U.S. warning before the first wave of a Russian barrage involving 16 ballistic missiles against Kyiv and the surrounding region. The attack reportedly damaged more than 10 energy facilities and left at least 550 households without power. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he had no information on that night’s incident, while noting that previous warning failures involved software problems. But when ballistic missiles are involved, even a brief gap can carry grave consequences—especially for a country short of Patriot interceptors.

I then connect that episode to the wider policy picture: reported delays of Patriot missiles already funded through a NATO initiative, alleged Starshield and Starlink constraints, calls for Ukraine to halt strikes on Russian oil refineries, and discussion of sanctions relief for Moscow. I assess Zelensky’s proposed Patriot-for-restraint trade, Russia’s stated ambitions in Kharkiv, Sumy, and Dnipropetrovsk, and congressional threats of oversight. My central question is whether pressure on Kyiv can produce a durable settlement—or instead increase Russia’s leverage while attacks continue."