Election officials battle Zaporizhzhia’s ‘governor,’ a crew in Kazan daringly frees a draft dodger, and an abortion stats milestone Meduza breaks down today’s biggest Russia-related news stories, October 24, 2025

Below, you’ll find a digest of news reports from October 24, 2025, in Russian and English. Today, we focus on the signs of wear and tear in Russia’s occupation of eastern Ukraine and other evidence that the invasion is straining life for many in Russia. We also look at developments in Kremlin propaganda, the ongoing human rights crackdown, and what it all means for Europeans and Americans.

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What’s the state of Russia’s occupation of eastern Ukraine?

Say, who’s in charge here?

Since the summer, Russia’s Central Election Commission has been fighting an unusually public administrative battle against Yevgeny Balitsky, the Kremlin-appointed “governor” of Ukraine’s occupied Zaporizhzhia region. On October 24, Commissioner Ella Pamfilova appealed to the Prosecutor General’s Office to challenge Balitsky’s recent dismissal of a local election commission worker. Pamfilova insists that governors lack the authority to remove commission members, calling it “just Balitsky’s latest arbitrary action.”

Russian “elections” — LOL. Why do they care? ⇒ You’ll be shocked to learn that the dispute in occupied Zaporizhzhia boils down to money. The governor wants to reduce the regional election commission’s staff from 85 to 25, citing funding shortages. When Pamfilova refused to make these cutbacks (Russia’s elections aren’t going to rig themselves, after all), lawmakers in Zaporizhzhia drafted a bill that would empower Balitsky to dissolve the entire regional commission.

Russian policing trends suggest that occupying all that Ukrainian land may have created some problems

• According to Novaya Gazeta Europe, Russia’s financial watchdog Rosfinmonitoring now adds about 300 people a month to its registry of “terrorists and extremists.” Since last year, the list has been growing twice as fast as at the start of the full-scale invasion. Recently, one in five new entries is a Ukrainian citizen — often prisoners of war or civilians convicted under “terrorism” statutes.
• For example, on October 24, a Russian military court sentenced another Azov Regiment soldier captured at Azovstal to 17 years in prison. Though captured in war, Anatolii Bezkrovainyi was convicted of terrorism.

Life in Russia’s military hasn’t exactly been rosy, either

• The State Duma is moving forward with legislation that will allow Russia to call up reservists in peacetime to guard critical infrastructure. The bill will make it easier to deploy reservists to repel Ukrainian drone attacks.
• A dozen people were killed on October 22 in an explosion at a weapons factory outside Chelyabinsk. Regional officials say they’ve ruled out a drone strike, claiming the cause was a lapse in safety measures. The plant, a Rostec subsidiary, manufactures artillery ammunition and S-8 rockets. The Chelyabinsk region declared a day of mourning on October 24; President Putin has not commented on the tragedy.
• But it’s not all bad news, depending on how you look at it. KamAZ, Russia’s biggest truck maker and manufacturer of military vehicles, will return to a five-day workweek starting November 10, ending the reduced four-day schedule it adopted earlier in 2025 due to a market downturn. KamAZ had blamed Russia’s high interest rate and oversupply of imported vehicles for its sales problems.

Let’s talk about human rights in Russia (while safely abroad, of course)

• 🍆 A man in Zabaykalsky Krai has been charged with the criminal offense of insulting religious sentiments for posting a picture online that showed a penis covering a meme depicting Jesus Christ. The man’s Telegram audience was 85 subscribers. Most of his content features “furry” and other erotic images, for which he could face separate pornography-distribution charges.
• 👮 Police in Ulyanovsk raided the home of the mother of Anastasia Chumakova, the founder of the media outlet Astra, in connection with “fake news” criminal charges against her daughter.
• 🤰 In 2025, nearly 28 percent of Russian women who sought abortions at state clinics decided to keep their pregnancies. Health Minister Mikhail Murashko has previously attributed the rise in women changing their minds after consultations to learning about available social support programs. However, in recent years, areas of Russia have also restricted access to reproductive healthcare, even referring some women to priests as part of the consultation process.

What’s new with Russian propaganda?

• 🗞️ Former Kommersant journalist Darya Burlakova published an open letter describing a crisis at the newspaper that she attributes to the cruel, politicized, and unethical leadership of Mikhail Lukin, who was named editor-in-chief last year. Lukin has reportedly celebrated Wagner Group mercenaries and praised its late founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, despite his involvement in violence against journalists. Burlakova, who won a Redkollegiya award in 2019 for an investigation into Prigozhin’s catering businesses in Moscow schools, was fired by Lukin in January 2025.
• 🇦🇿 A court in Baku released Sputnik Azerbaijan’s editor-in-chief, Yevgeny Belousov, from pretrial detention and transferred him to house arrest. He was caught up in the now largely cooled tensions between Russia and Azerbaijan following the December 2024 Azerbaijan Airlines crash, accidentally caused by Russian anti-aircraft fire. Putin apologized earlier this month, nearly a year later.
• 🧠 Education Minister Sergey Kravtsov announced a new “concept of historical enlightenment.” It’s based on the principle “Russia as a civilization-state,” developed by methodologists who follow philosopher Georgy Shchedrovitsky, known for viewing people as programmable systems.
• 🪝 At an international export forum in Moscow on October 21, Channel One CEO Konstantin Ernst — one of the titans of the Kremlin’s domestic propaganda — urged the promotion of industries where Russia has advantages, referring explicitly to the new Oreshnik medium-range missile system and the Su-57 fighter jet, which he called the world’s best.

And this involves you, dear Westerners

• 🇺🇸 Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev has arrived in the U.S. for official talks shortly after Trump’s new sanctions on Moscow. (CNN)
• 🕊️ Senator Marco Rubio’s influence spurred Trump’s sudden reversal in policy toward Putin. (Bloomberg)
• 🇪🇪 Estonia is turning its proximity to Russia into an economic and defense advantage. (NYT)
• 🫦 Female spies are using sexual relationships to extract technology secrets from Silicon Valley. (The Times)
• 🛢️ New U.S. sanctions could severely impact Russian oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil. (FT)
• 🏭 European defense startups once shunned by investors are now booming as governments boost spending on military innovation. (WSJ)
• 🇬🇧 A British man has been sentenced for planning pro-Russian attacks across the U.K., highlighting Moscow’s influence operations in Europe. (NYT)
• 🏁 The FIA has reinstated a Russian official facing U.S. and U.K. sanctions to its World Motor Sport Council, prompting criticism from Western governments. (The Athletic)
• 🇵🇱 Poland has sentenced three Ukrainians for arson in what officials call part of a wider Russian sabotage campaign in Europe. (Reuters)
• 🤔 NATO chief Mark Rutte says sending Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine remains under review as allies debate escalation risks. (Reuters)

😮 wait, really?

With Russia’s fall conscription drive in full swing, reports of raids on suspected draft dodgers are multiplying. Now, we’re seeing some pushback. In Kazan, two men attacked a convoy, beat the escort officers, and freed a detained draft dodger — then got away.