This was Russia today Tuesday, February 10, 2026

Howdy, folks. Today, we’re reviewing an opinion essay that takes issue with several Russian-speaking intellectuals who object to the Epstein files’ release on privacy grounds. Read on for news about Vance’s cancellation of his Armenian genocide acknowledgment, Estonia’s new intelligence assessment, and Moscow’s U.N. challenge to Starlink. Yours, Kevin.

Russian intellectuals responded to the Epstein files by worrying about privacy, not the victims. A writer asks why.

In an essay for Novaya Gazeta Europe, writer Ksenia Buksha takes aim at several Russian intellectuals whose responses to the Epstein files focused primarily on privacy invasion rather than on the crimes themselves. The outrage these commentators direct at the public airing of private behavior, Buksha argues, reveals a deeper problem: a refusal to acknowledge that personal ethics and political life are inseparable.

Buksha singles out satirist Viktor Shenderovich, who denounced the release of Epstein’s correspondence as “mass invasion of private life” and compared the public reckoning to Soviet-era party tribunals and to a “global Shurochka from accounting” — a reference to the busybody bookkeeper in the Soviet comedy The Office Romance who polices her colleagues’ personal lives. Buksha notes that Shenderovich draws a distinction between guests of Epstein’s island who committed crimes, and those who merely “had a good time with girls” — a distinction she finds untenable, given that none of those guests could have verified the age or consent of the women and girls involved, and many continued associating with Epstein even after his 2008 conviction for procuring a child for prostitution.

Columnist Yulia Latynina and historian Alexander Etkind draw similar criticism, though Buksha acknowledges that each argues from a different perspective. Latynina’s rhetoric dismisses the victims; Etkind frames the scandal as an indictment of hypocrisy in American cancel culture, pointing out that the powerful figures implicated have suffered no real consequences. Buksha concedes a grain of truth in the privacy concerns — the U.S. Department of Justice did release correspondence that went beyond the criminal evidence — but argues that all three commentators share a fundamental blind spot: they treat ethics as a strictly private matter, walled off from political accountability.

Buksha extends this critique to former lawyer Mark Feygin, who now serves on a PACE platform for dialogue with Russian democratic forces and recently addressed his participation in the siege of Sarajevo alongside Ratko Mladic’s forces. Feygin now waves it away as a product of “chaotic times” and circumstances beyond his control — a posture Buksha sees as emblematic of the broader evasion she diagnoses throughout the essay. To these figures, she writes, ethical demands are external threats rather than internal imperatives. The mindset makes for poor politics and, ultimately, reproduces the worst practices of the very forces they claim to oppose.

The essay closes with a striking contrast: Willy Brandt, who fought the Nazis and owed nothing to the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto, nevertheless knelt before the memorial as West German chancellor. For Buksha, genuine political life begins not with obligations imposed from outside but with the willingness to hold oneself accountable — privately at first, and then, perhaps, in full public view.

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News you don’t want to miss today

🇺🇸 White House backtracks on Armenian genocide post as Vance visits Caucasus 🇦🇲🇹🇷

The Trump administration has deleted a social media post from Vice President JD Vance’s account that used the term “genocide” to describe the 1915 massacres, a move intended to avoid a diplomatic rift with Turkey.

• A balancing act: While the visit to the Tsitsernakaberd memorial was framed as a sign of respect for Armenian culture and its government, the White House clarified there has been no official policy shift away from the president’s previous refusal to use the term. | Reuters

🪖Estonia says Russia plans to bolster forces near NATO as Putin aims to ‘outsmart’ U.S. 🇪🇪

Estonian intelligence reports that while Moscow lacks the resources for an immediate strike on NATO, it plans to double or triple its border forces once the war in Ukraine concludes.

• A question of resources: According to Estonian intelligence, the Kremlin is playing for time and remains fixated on a total military victory, with internal discussions suggesting there is no intent to cooperate meaningfully with the U.S. | Associated Press

🛰️ Russia claims Starlink violates international law as SpaceX faces U.N. scrutiny 🇺🇳

Moscow has suggested that the Starlink satellite network may be in violation of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, demanding international negotiations to limit the expansion of private mega-constellations and clarify their military use.

• A technological standoff: While SpaceX provides a vital communication link for Ukrainian forces, the Kremlin argues that commercial satellites used for military purposes blur legal lines and threaten the long-term sustainability of outer space activities. | Bloomberg

🪖 Chechnya’s Kadyrov shifts stance on POWs, touting efforts to bring home troops who surrendered in Ukraine | After previously insisting that Chechen soldiers don’t surrender and refusing to meet released POWs, Kadyrov is now publicly taking credit for negotiating the return of 20 Chechen fighters who, according to interviews, were abandoned by their commanders and gave up without resistance.

🇰🇵 Russian travel to North Korea surges in wartime, with nearly 10,000 trips in 2025 alone | Border data shows Russian visits to North Korea roughly doubled from 2024 to 2025 as the two countries have rapidly deepened military and political ties during the war in Ukraine.

🛜 How Russia’s new Telegram restrictions threaten self-inflicted damage to the army’s frontline communications | Roskomnadzor’s new Telegram slowdown is stripping Russian frontline troops of yet another critical communication tool while also threatening the pro-war blogger economy that depends on the platform for content distribution and crowdfunding.

🛜 Telegram is one of the last messaging apps in Russia that the state doesn’t control. Did the Kremlin just block it for good? | Russia’s censorship agency has confirmed it is behind ongoing disruptions, though a full ban remains complicated by the fact that officials, lawmakers, and Kremlin-aligned propagandists still depend on the platform’s channel network to shape public opinion.

🎨 Russia’s psychiatric homes are a ‘meat grinder’ that swallows tens of thousands. A small band of volunteers is pulling art — and artists — back out. | Volunteers and NGOs have spent years fighting institutional resistance, legal barriers, and wartime censorship to nurture the creative lives of artists who produce remarkable work while confined in Russia’s neglectful and isolating state psychiatric care system.

🔍 The latest suspect in the failed assassination of a top Russian spy chief is a former military officer who allegedly tracked the GRU general alongside his own father. | Russian authorities arrested a third suspect who allegedly helped surveil the GRU deputy chief and prepare the attack by providing a car, tracking devices, and online intelligence, reportedly after being recruited by Ukrainian intelligence.

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