Lisa Haseldine

Alexei Navalny had a brutal December. At the start of the month the Putin critic abruptly disappeared from his prison colony in Vladimir, east of Moscow. For 20 days no one knew of his whereabouts until his lawyers tracked him down to the ‘Polar Wolf’ colony of Kharp, deep within the Arctic Circle. Yesterday, he was seen by the public for the first time since his transfer.   Appearing over video link, the gaunt Kremlin critic held a short press conference ahead of his appointment in court to sue the Vladimir colony where he was being held until December. Standing behind a metal grille, head shaved and dressed in a prison jumpsuit, Navalny looked thrilled, and a little relieved, to be allowed to interact with journalists.

That Russia's security services have been targeting British politicians and other high-profile figures won't come as a surprise. But the scale of the accusations levelled today at the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) by the British government is still shocking. GCHQ has said that, since 2015, Russia has carried out hundreds of hacks against MPs, journalists and civil servants. Former trade secretary Liam Fox and the ex head of MI6 Richard Dearlove are among the victims. British intelligence revealed a surprising amount of detail about the FSB unit responsible for this hacking activity. The group allegedly goes by the name ‘Star Blizzard’ and belongs to the FSB’s Centre 18.

Just days after returning to government as Lord Cameron, the former prime minister and new Foreign Secretary has made his first foreign visit. Unsurprisingly, the destination of this trip was Kyiv, to meet with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.  The news of Cameron’s visit broke early this morning, although whether it took place this morning or earlier in the week remains unclear thanks to the wartime high security protocols that exist around such visits. In footage posted by Zelensky to X/Twitter, the Ukrainian premier is shown welcoming Cameron and his delegation to Kyiv. Shaking hands, Cameron calls it an ‘enormous honour’ to meet Zelensky.

Who is to blame for the shocking pogrom in the Dagestani city of Makhachkala, where a mob of hundreds stormed the local airport in search of Jews on a flight from Tel Aviv? Vladimir Putin has offered a predictable answer: the West. In a meeting with Russia’s security council and law enforcement agencies, president Putin said the actions of the anti-Semitic mob in Dagestan were ‘inspired through social media, including originating from Ukraine, created at the hands of agents of Western intelligence services’.

Since Hamas’s attack on Israel nearly three weeks ago, Vladimir Putin has been torn between who to back. It took the Russian president several days to address the conflict, and even longer to speak to Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu. Now, it increasingly appears that he has made up his mind. Yesterday afternoon, at the invitation of the Kremlin, a Hamas delegation touched down for talks in Moscow. The visit was not briefed out in advance and was only confirmed by the Russian foreign ministry once news of the meeting began appearing in the Russian state media. The delegation was led by Moussa Abu Marzouk, a senior member of the Palestinian group.

Just days after Ukraine’s President Zelensky declared his intention to start EU membership negotiations by the end of this year, the bloc’s former president Jean-Claude Juncker has poured cold water on the idea, branding it a country ‘corrupt at all levels of society’. In an interview with the South German regional Augsburger Allgemeine paper, Juncker accused current EU officials of making ‘false promises’ to Ukraine and ‘telling Ukrainians that they can become members immediately’.  The Ukrainian government admitted that only two of the seven EU membership conditions had been met ‘Despite its efforts, it is not eligible to join and needs massive internal reform,’ he said.

For the past week, the arrangements for Yevgeny Prigozhin’s funeral have been shrouded in secrecy. Now it has been confirmed that the leader of the mercenary Wagner group was buried today in St Petersburg – just under a week after he was killed in a plane crash outside Moscow.   According to a statement released by Prigozhin’s press service, his funeral took place in private at the Porokhovskoe cemetery this afternoon. According to one anonymous cemetery worker, between 20 and 30 people attended the ceremony, which lasted approximately 40 minutes. Now the ceremony is over, anyone who wants to pay their respects is welcome to do so, the press service’s statement said.

In the early hours of this morning, Ukraine launched 42 unmanned drones at the annexed territory of Crimea, the Russian ministry of defence has claimed. Announcing on Telegram that the attack had been ‘thwarted’, the Russian MoD said nine of the drones had been shot down, while the remaining 33 were electronically jammed and downed ‘before they reached their target’. If the number of drones Russia claims to have been attacked with is correct, this would amount to the largest Ukrainian air attack on Russian-held territory since the beginning of the war. This could amount to the largest Ukrainian air attack on Russian-held territory since the beginning of the war.

After Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted march on Moscow at the end of June, the Wagner Group leader became a divisive figure in Russia. He was not quite a pariah – on account of his mercenary group’s huge contribution to the war in Ukraine and Putin’s seemingly weak decision to condemn him to barely enforced exile in Belarus – but definitely not a hero either. Therefore it comes as no surprise that, following his sudden demise in a plane crash en route to St Petersburg yesterday, the Russian press has struggled with how to cover the news. Notably, despite Prigozhin’s status for nearly a year as an invaluable contributor to the ‘special military operation’, none of the papers have run obituaries or glowing, weepy tribute pieces to a ‘war hero’.

From the moment Yevgeny Prigozhin aborted his march on Moscow it was a question of when and how – not whether – he would end up dead. Yesterday we saw a video of him for the first time talking about Wagner promoting Russia’s interests in Africa. Now, two months to the day after that coup was launched, we hear that his plane has crashed in Russia – apparently shot down.  The Russian press is saying that Prigozhin was one of ten passengers listed on a small jet that crashed in the Tver region to the north east of Moscow earlier today. Footage has emerged on social media showing what looks like the tail of an antiaircraft missile. The plane, reportedly on its way to St Petersburg, is then seen to crash with one wing missing.

When it comes to disclosing the true cost of the war in Ukraine for Russia, the Kremlin has rarely, if ever, chosen to be honest. But occasionally, things slip out. Last Wednesday, Mikhail Teplinsky, commander-in-chief of the Russian Airborne Forces, congratulated his troops on the anniversary of the division’s founding. He said how proud he was of the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine and reeled off the number of soldiers honoured as ‘Heroes of Russia’, as well as the 30,000 who had received other honours from the state. A video of his speech, below, was posted to the Russian ministry of defence’s social media channels and website. But the video was taken down quickly because Teplinsky let some other figures slip.