Lisa Haseldine

Twenty people have been killed – including 15 police officers and a priest – following two coordinated gun attacks in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan. The attacks began simultaneously at approximately 6pm local time yesterday in the cities of Derbent and Makhachkala, with the groups targeting two synagogues and two churches. In Makhachkala, the assailants also opened fire on a traffic police checkpoint. According to the Dagestani authorities, at least 46 people have been injured, although unconfirmed reports suggest the true number may be higher. The church and synagogue targeted in Derbent have both burnt down.

Vladimir Putin has arrived in China for a two-day state visit, the first since the start of his fifth term as president. The trip began in Beijing, where Putin met with Chinese premier Xi Jinping for the first of several talks. There remained a distinct sense that once again Putin has come to Beijing with begging bowl in hand  The meeting began with the effusive pleasantries that have become a standard part of any interaction between the two leaders. Putin called Xi a ‘dear friend’ once again and said he had chosen to make his first post-inauguration trip abroad to China to return a favour, after Xi travelled to Russia for the first trip of his new term in 2023.

Volodymyr Zelensky this morning cancelled all of his upcoming foreign trips. He was scheduled to travel to Madrid on Friday to meet King Felipe VI. The news was announced by the president’s press secretary, and comes as Ukrainian troops struggle to hold back a renewed offensive by Russia in the Kharkiv region. Recognising the urgency of the situation, Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, who has been in Kyiv this week, said the US would provide another $2 billion (£1.6 billion) in funds on top of the $60 billion aid package signed off by Joe Biden earlier this month. The fighting in the Kharkiv region has been intensifying for days. It’s centred around Vovchansk, a town 45 miles from the regional capital of Kharkiv.

It’s reshuffle time in Moscow and it seems that Sergei Shoigu, who has served as Vladimir Putin’s defence minister for the last 12 years, is out. He’s being replaced with Andrei Belousov, an academic economist who has been advising Putin for 20 years and spent the last four as deputy prime minister. It’s a surprise appointment given Belousov’s lack of military experience. Sergei Lavrov, 74, stays as foreign minister, as does Valery Gerasimov, 68, head of the army. Rumours had been swirling about the demotion of Shoigu, 68, for some time, especially after one of his deputies and close allies, Timur Ivanov, was last month thrown in jail pending trial for taking bribes. His treatment was seen by some quarters as an attempt by Putin to chip away at Shoigu’s authority.

Stepping out onto Red Square for today’s Victory Day parade in Moscow, it was clear to see that Vladimir Putin was in a good mood. Arms swinging with almost comic vigour as he walked, he sat down in the stands above Lenin’s mausoleum with a smug smile on his face. The pathetic fallacy of the flurries of snow on this uncharacteristically cold day were not going to interfere with his glee. The Russian president has reason to be cheerful: two days ago, he indulged in his fifth inauguration ceremony in the Kremlin, handing himself another six years in power. The war in Ukraine is currently working in his favour; Ukraine has been struggling with a lack of troops, weapons and funding that has made repelling the advancing Russian troops increasingly difficult.

Amidst the golden splendour of the Kremlin’s Hall of the Order of St Andrew, Vladimir Putin was once again inaugurated as president of Russia this morning. But while today’s event was in many ways a carbon copy of the ceremony that has taken place five times now since 2000, it marks a significant watershed in the history of Putin’s rule: for the first time since assuming power 24 years ago, his leadership can no longer be considered constitutionally legal. Technicalities such as this, though, matter little to Putin. Taking to the podium in the hall that once served as the throne room to the Tsars of Russia, Putin placed his hand on a specially-bound copy of the Russian constitution.

Rishi Sunak arrived in Poland today to announce a £500 million boost in aid to Ukraine, using the trip to Warsaw to also finally put a timeline on increasing Britain's defence spending. By 2030, the Prime Minister pledged to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP. His announcements come ahead of a much anticipated meeting with German chancellor Olaf Scholz tomorrow – one which may prove to be more awkward than either leader had originally anticipated. This morning, Berlin briefed out its displeasure at Westminster’s heel-dragging on UK spending contributions to European security. ‘There does not seem to be any plan to increase defence spending at all,’ a senior German official told Politico.

On Wednesday, Georgia’s government came one step closer to realising its desire to embed the country deeper within Russia’s sphere of influence. A year after mass protests forced them to pull the plug on a controversial ‘foreign agents’ law, the Kremlin-sympathetic ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party is once again trying to force this ‘Russian-style’ legislation through parliament.  While the bill was undergoing its first reading in parliament, 20,000 Georgians turned out onto the streets to demonstrate. Several thousands protested in Tbilisi alone. Shouts of ‘No to the Russian law’ rang out alongside renditions of the Georgian national anthem and ‘Ode to Joy’, the EU’s official song. Once again, like last year, riot police were deployed.

A year ago today, the Putin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza was jailed for 25 years – the longest sentence handed down to a political prisoner in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union over 30 years ago. For the last year, Kara-Murza has been held in a prison in Siberia, often in solitary confinement, with only occasional visits from his lawyer, a couple of books and hostile prison guards watching over him. Kara-Murza was arrested in April 2022 and held for over a year in pre-trial detention after being accused of treason and spreading ‘fake information’ about the Russian army.

In the fortnight since four Isis gunmen stormed Crocus City Hall in the Moscow suburbs, Vladimir Putin has done his best to dodge as much of the blame as possible. Speaking at a trade convention in Moscow on Thursday, Russia’s president once again reiterated the implication that Ukraine, and not the Islamist terror group, was responsible for the atrocity. But there are growing questions not only about what Putin knew in advance of the attack, but also the Russian president’s willingness to face up to who was responsible. ‘We have every reason to believe that the main goal of those who ordered the bloody terrorist attack in Moscow was to damage our unity,’ he mumbled into the microphone on stage. ‘No other motives have emerged.

A branch of the Islamic State terror group, Isis-K, has claimed responsibility for last night's stadium terror attack in Moscow. US officials, who had warned of such an attack two weeks ago have said this sounded credible. But the Kremlin has not accepted the Isis-K claim and says it’s looking at all explanations – even (as some Russian journalists are advocating) that the attack was organised by the Ukrainians. Putin himself has hinted at this, saying the FSB had apprehended men on their way to the Ukrainian border. As I reported last night, western intelligence warned the Kremlin of a likely terrorist attack on Russian soil earlier this month.

As Russia comes to terms with what seems to be the largest terrorist attack on its soil in recent times, Vladimir Putin has something difficult to explain. For some time, Western intelligence agencies have been picking up chat about potential strikes in Moscow – and the US took the unusual step of making a public warning. 'The Embassy is monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts, and US citizens should be advised to avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours,' ran the advice. Just three days ago, as reported by the Russian state media agency TASS, Putin branded these warnings ‘outright blackmail’ whose intention was ‘to intimidate and destabilise our society’.

As expected, following a three day ‘vote’, Vladimir Putin has once again crowned himself president of Russia. As of 9 a.m. Moscow time, according to the central electoral commission, 99.7 per cent of ballot papers had been counted with Putin claiming 87 per cent of the vote – higher than he’s managed in any other previous election. That didn’t stop Putin calling a press conference on Sunday evening – when supposedly just 40 per cent or so of the vote had been counted – to declare himself the victor. As his gloating press conference showed, Putin considers the democratic charade of the past three days to have been a success Putin’s press conference was extraordinary, not just because he’d clearly dropped the pretence of the result still being unknown.