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The Lithuanian–Belarusian balloon war, Putin’s disappearing cousin, and Domodedovo’s fire sale Meduza breaks down today’s biggest Russia-related news stories, October 27, 2025
Source: Meduza
Below, you’ll find a digest of news reports from October 27, 2025, in Russian and English.
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This concerns you directly, Europeans
- 🇱🇻 Latvia’s State Security Service has asked prosecutors to open a criminal case against four people suspected of committing “malicious acts against the country’s critical infrastructure” on instructions from Russia. — Meduza
- 🛢️ “Washington has floated a six-month deadline for Berlin to sort out the ownership limbo affecting the German assets of Russian oil major Rosneft, allowing them to be temporarily exempted from U.S. sanctions” — Bloomberg
- 🇱🇹🎈🇧🇾 “Lithuania’s Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene said on Monday her country will begin to shoot down smuggler balloons crossing the border from Belarus” — Reuters
Wake up, Americans
- 🕊️ “Russia tested a nuclear-powered cruise missile that it said is capable of traveling thousands of miles. Trump countered that there is a U.S. nuclear submarine off Russia’s coast.” — The Washington Post
- 🇻🇳 “Three Takeaways From Vietnam’s Drift Toward Russia and Away From America: The Times examined weapons sales documents from a Russian arms supplier and interviewed dozens of officials from Vietnam, the United States, and other countries in the region.” — The New York Times
- ☢️ Putin has formally denounced the 2000 plutonium disposal agreement with the United States, which committed both countries to eliminate 34 tons of weapons-grade plutonium each, no longer needed for defense. The agreement had been suspended in 2016, two years before the disposal process was scheduled to begin. — Meduza
Meanwhile, in Russia
- 🧑🎤 Police arrested Stoptime guitarist Alexander Orlov as he walked out of jail, after serving 12 days on a disturbing the peace administrative charge. Like the band’s vocalist, Diana “Naoko” Loginova, Orlov now faces a separate administrative charge for “discrediting” the military by performing songs by blacklisted “foreign agent” musicians. A St. Petersburg court has returned to police a second “discrediting” charge, potentially sparing Loginova felony liability for repeat offenses. — Meduza
- 🪓 An encyclopedia entry for Anna Tsivileva — deputy defense minister, wife of energy minister Sergey Tsivilev, and Vladimir Putin’s cousin — was deleted from Russian-language Wikipedia on August 10, 2025. According to the anonymous administrators who removed the page, Tsivileva does not qualify as a “politician” or “military figure.” Journalists believe Belarusian activist and veteran Wikipedian Mark Bernstein might have carried out the purge, possibly under pressure from the state and in connection with a conviction for “grossly violating public order.” — RFE/RL
- ⚖️ A Moscow court sentenced ChronoPay founder Pavel Vrublevsky to 10 years in prison for fraud, theft, and money laundering. Vrublevsky and his accomplices created fake websites that promised rewards for surveys and lotteries, then stole money from the bank cards used to register. — Meduza
- ✈️ A Moscow court ordered former Domodedovo Airport owners Dmitry Kamenshchik and Valery Kogan to pay more than 3 billion rubles ($37.9 million) in unpaid taxes, fees, insurance contributions, and fines. Domodedovo was nationalized in June after prosecutors claimed its ownership structure placed it under “foreign influence,” reportedly linked to the owners’ foreign citizenship. Russia’s Finance Ministry plans to sell the airport by the end of the year. — Meduza
- 🪖 New research, based on budget data from 11 Russian regions, shows that local governments have used emergency reserve funds — originally meant for disaster relief — to pay recruiters who enlist people for military service. The total cost of these payments now nearly rivals what many regions spend on education, healthcare, and social support. — iStories
- 🧑🍼 “Russia faces a shrinking and aging population and tries restrictive laws to combat it […] Russia could increase its population by allowing more immigrants — something the Kremlin is unlikely to adopt.” — AP News
Around the world
- 🇺🇳 “A U.N. human rights commission has documented hundreds of instances of Russian drone pilots targeting civilians in the city of Kherson in southern Ukraine, and concluded that they amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes.” — The New York Times
- 🛢️ Lukoil announced plans to sell all its foreign assets in response to new Western sanctions (which reportedly led Chinese state oil companies to halt purchases of Russian crude). — Meduza
- 🇰🇵 “North Korea’s top diplomat visited the Kremlin on Monday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which followed last month’s meeting between the countries’ leaders” — AP News
- ✈️ “Russia has flown a second prototype of its MC-21 medium-haul passenger jet built with domestic components, the industry ministry said on Tuesday, as sanctions on foreign components stall production and high interest rates crimp investment.” — Reuters
- 🇮🇳🛢️ “Indian refiners have not placed new orders for Russian oil purchases since sanctions were imposed, as they await clarity from the government and suppliers” — Reuters
- 🛢️ “Special Report: A dark fleet of tankers carried tens of billions of dollars of Iranian and Russian oil to Asia, evading Western sanctions. Reuters found the ships were connected by one thing: a small insurance company in New Zealand, run by a British family.” — Reuters