Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

It was snowing heavily when Yulia* walked across the only open border between Ukraine and Russia last month, carrying her two cats and dragging a large suitcase behind her. She had left her village on the edge of Russian-occupied Melitopol, a city in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, more than 24 hours earlier, paying a Russian “carrier”…

The world’s largest crypto exchange Binance said Monday that it will no longer support person-to-person trading with the Russian ruble starting in January, as the company continues to gradually withdraw from Russia. Binance said users can choose to withdraw their rubles via its fiat partners, convert them into cryptocurrency or trade them on the Binance…

Russia’s Central Election Commission has given the green light on holding next year’s presidential election in partially occupied Ukrainian regions, Interfax reported Monday. Russia’s Armed Forces and the Federal Security Service (FSB) had previously said that they “deem it possible” for the vote to go ahead in areas where fighting continues, nearly two years into Russia’s war…

Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s whereabouts and condition have been unknown for nearly a week after he reportedly suffered a serious health incident, his team said on Monday. “It has already been the sixth day since we haven’t known where Alexei is or what’s happening to him,” Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh wrote on X (formerly…

A once-powerful Siberian businessman and former regional lawmaker has been sentenced to 12 years in prison on his third murder charge dating back to the 1990s, Interfax reported Monday. Anatoly Bykov chaired the Rusal aluminum giant’s Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Plant until his firing in 2000 and served as a lawmaker in the Krasnoyarsk regional legislature from 1997-2016. Prosecutors…

Human rights activists have raised alarm over the detention of a mobilized Russian soldier on charges of desertion in Armenia, saying the move amounts to a violation of the ex-Soviet republic’s sovereignty. Russian military police in Armenia detained Dmitry Setrakov, who fled the country to avoid serving in the Russian military, the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor…

Russian authorities have placed a man with dual U.S.-Russian citizenship in pre-trial custody for “rehabilitating Nazism,” the St. Petersburg court said Saturday. “[Yury] Malev was detained on Dec. 8… and charged the same day. He admitted partial guilt,” the court said on Telegram. Malev was charged with rehabilitation of Nazism, which carries up to five…

In a choreographed and widely predicted move, President Vladimir Putin announced Friday that he will run for a fifth term in the 2024 presidential election next March. The 71-year-old, who has been in power since 2000, is expected to run virtually unopposed apart from a few handpicked challengers following the adoption of wartime censorship and…

The White House mocked Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement on Friday that he would run for re-election in 2024, suggesting that the result was highly unlikely to be in doubt. “Well, that’s going to be one humdinger of a horse race, isn’t it?” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters aboard Air Force One…

Lawmakers in western Russia’s Kursk region passed a law Friday banning the act of “coercing women” into undergoing an abortion amid increasing concerns about a looming nationwide ban. “Let today’s bill be the first step [toward a comprehensive solution to Russia’s demographic problem],” the Kursk region’s parliament wrote on the messaging app Telegram. The new…

Olympic officials on Friday announced that Russian and Belarusian athletes will be able to compete at next year’s Paris Games as neutrals and outside of team events, but only if they have not actively supported Moscow’s war against Ukraine.  The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said only eight athletes from Russia and three from Belarus currently…

Russian authorities on Friday issued an arrest warrant for Russian-American journalist and writer Masha, who earlier this year was charged with spreading “fakes” about Moscow’s war in Ukraine. Russia’s Interior Ministry lists the 56-year-old by the full name Maria Alexandrovna Gessen, as well as her date of birth, gender and nationality. The ministry does not provide…

“Three guys from the staff attacked me and started pulling off my clothes. Just like that. They told me to step on the scales — I said I refused medical intervention. And they started tearing my clothes off, injuring me, hitting me several times, threatening that they would put me in a straitjacket and inject…

Authorities in Moscow have banned billboards containing QR codes after allies of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny used the matrix barcodes to conceal their newly launched anti-Putin campaign ahead of the 2024 presidential election.  Navalny on Thursday urged supporters to vote for any candidate besides Vladimir Putin during the race, which is scheduled to take…

Russia opened an investigation Friday after a passenger aircraft was forced to land due to a technical malfunction, the latest incident to highlight safety concerns in Moscow’s aviation industry. Sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine have effectively cut Russia off from Western plane manufacturers Airbus and Boeing, making it difficult for Russian airlines to import…

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday announced that he will run for re-election in 2024, state media reported. The announcement follows months of speculation over whether the 71-year-old, who has been in power since 2000, plans to seek six more years in office after constitutional amendments in 2020 reset his term count. Putin told Lieutenant…

Russian election officials announced Friday that the 2024 presidential race will be held over three days, the first time that multi-day voting has been used for a presidential election.  “Three-day voting is already becoming a tradition in our electoral system,” said Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) chairwoman Ella Pamfilova. “It was first used during the [Covid-19]…

A court in Finland has refused to extradite a Russian nationalist fighter to Ukraine and ruled to release him from detention, Finnish media reported Friday. Since 2016, Ukrainian authorities have sought the arrest of Yan Petrovsky, a Russian-Norwegian national, on terrorism charges, accusing him of assisting pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine as a member of…

Around 30,000 residents of annexed Crimea face power outages after a gas pipeline caught fire overnight, Russian state media reported Friday. Eyewitnesses filmed the flames erupting from the gas pipeline in the eastern port city of Kerch, which connects to mainland Russia via the Crimean Bridge. Svyatoslav Brusakov, the Russian-installed mayor of Kerch, said up…

The European Union’s border protection agency has deployed some 50 guards to watch Finland’s border with Russia, it said on Thursday, as Helsinki accuses Moscow of orchestrating a surge in migrants. “Currently we deploy 55 officers in Finland, a majority of them are border guard officers performing surveillance of the border,” Frontex spokesman Piotr Switalski…

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday praised his country’s relations with Iran at a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi, as the two discussed the Israel-Hamas war. Since launching its assault on Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow has sought to deepen its economic and political ties with Tehran, both of which have been sanctioned…

Russia’s Justice Ministry has added the U.S. global policy think tank RAND Corporation to its list of “undesirable” organizations, banning its activities and putting staff at risk of jail in Russia. RAND’s designation, dated Dec. 6 on the ministry website, is not accompanied by a statement explaining Moscow’s decision to blacklist the research and development nonprofit.…

A member of Russia’s National Guard was killed and two others were wounded in an explosion at a training ground in central Russia, authorities said Thursday. An explosive device “self-detonated” during shooting drills at the Dubrovichi aviation training ground in the Ryazan region, the local prosecutor’s office said in a statement. The Investigative Committee, which…

The British government on Thursday accused Russian security services of engaging in a sustained cyber espionage campaign against top politicians, journalists and NGOs. Russia has been suspected of meddling in U.K. politics before, including the divisive 2016 Brexit referendum, however, the Conservative Party-led government has been criticized for failing to investigate. In the latest claims,…

Russia on Thursday arrested a Belarusian man for allegedly placing explosives on two trains on a key part of a Siberian railway near the Chinese border, on Ukraine’s orders. The arrest came around a week after authorities reported traffic complications in a tunnel on the Baikal-Amur mainline, some 5,500 kilometers east of Moscow. Ukrainian sources…

The families of mobilized Russian soldiers on Thursday asked President Vladimir Putin to return their loved ones from the front in Ukraine, more than a year after the men were recruited. “We’re against legalized slavery,” said members of Put’ Domoi (“Way Home”), a group of soldiers’ wives and mothers calling for an end to mobilization, in…

The Kremlin said Thursday that it hopes U.S. lawmakers will continue to block White House requests for emergency aid to Ukraine amid a funding row between Republicans and Democrats over border security issues. Republican senators earlier blocked $106 billion in emergency aid primarily for Ukraine and Israel as conservatives balked at the exclusion of immigration reforms…

Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said Thursday that Russians should vote against Vladimir Putin in the 2024 presidential election.  “You can do this by voting for any other candidate,” Navalny said in a statement posted on his website. Russia’s upper house of parliament earlier on Thursday officially set March 17 as the date for next…

Ukraine’s allies have drastically scaled back their pledges of new aid to the country, which have fallen to their lowest level since the start of the war, the Kiel Institute’s Ukraine aid tracker showed Thursday. “The dynamics of support to Ukraine have slowed,” the Germany-based institute said, adding that new military, financial and humanitarian aid…

Russia’s Security Service (FSB) on Thursday said it detained two people suspected of organizing several arson attacks on behalf of Kyiv and transferring money to the Ukrainian military. A 21-year-old ex-soldier in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad was accused of being paid by the Ukrainian special services to recruit potential arsonists inside Russia. “The suspect involved several…

Russian oil exports have generated $11 billion through a shadow fleet and obscure entities in the year since G7 countries set a price cap on one of Russia’s largest sources of income, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing trade data. In December 2022, the group of rich countries imposed a $60-per-barrel price cap on Russian oil, while…

A Russian teenager has shot dead a classmate and injured five others before killing herself at a school in western Russia, investigators said Thursday. Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said a 14-year-old student who brought a pump-action shotgun to the school was among the dead. The Investigative Committee said it had launched a…

Russia on Thursday set March 17 as the date for a presidential election which is expected to be another shoo-in for Vladimir Putin, who has silenced opposition during over two decades in power. In a meeting broadcast live on Russian television, the upper house of parliament unanimously approved the date of the vote. The decision…

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Saudi Arabia Wednesday after visiting the United Arab Emirates, making a rare trip abroad as Moscow seeks to reassert itself on the global stage. It is only the third trip the Russian leader has taken outside the former Soviet Union since he invaded Ukraine, following visits to Iran and…

Kyiv said it orchestrated the assassination of a pro-Kremlin Ukrainian politician on Wednesday after an ex-lawmaker who had defected to Russia was shot dead outside Moscow. Since Russia invaded last February, Ukraine has claimed to be behind a spate of assassinations and attacks on pro-war Russians and former Ukrainian officials who have backed Moscow’s war.…

The United States charged four pro-Russian soldiers with war crimes on Wednesday for the abduction and torture of an American national in Ukraine. Attorney General Merrick Garland said the charges against the four “Russia-affiliated military personnel” were the first to be brought under a U.S. war crimes statute passed by Congress nearly 30 years ago.…

A Moscow-backed politician in eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk region has been killed in a bombing attack, Russian state media reported Wednesday. Oleg Popov, a deputy in the pro-Kremlin Luhansk regional parliament, was killed Wednesday afternoon in the city of Luhansk, which has been under the control of Moscow-backed separatists since 2014. “As a result of the car explosion…

Russian lawmakers on Wednesday voted in favor of banning the use of cellphones in school classrooms, a move they argue will help improve the learning process for students.  The speaker of Russia’s lower-house State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin said cellphones would no longer be permitted in classrooms except for “emergencies.” “Parents and teachers asked us to back this rule. The…

Police in Nepal said Wednesday that they had detained 12 people accused of illegally sending young men to be recruited into the Russian army, days after authorities confirmed the death of six Nepali citizens fighting in the Ukraine war. Nepal prohibits its citizens from joining foreign militaries, except those of countries with which it has…

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday landed in the United Arab Emirates for a rare visit outside the former Soviet Union, as Moscow seeks to reassert itself on the global stage. Isolated by the West over the Ukraine war, Putin is courting allies in the Middle East, where he will discuss oil, trade and the…

Two senior Russian officers have been imprisoned on charges of failing to prevent a Ukrainian missile strike on Russia, the first such case of its kind, the business daily Kommersant reported Wednesday, citing anonymous sources familiar with the trial. Lieutenant Colonel Anatoly Bondarev and Major Dmitry Dmitrakov were accused of allowing a Ukrainian missile strike…

Kyiv said Wednesday that Moscow had launched dozens of Iranian-designed attack drones toward Ukraine overnight from southern Russia and the annexed Crimean peninsula, in its latest aerial barrage. Officials in Kyiv say Russian forces have been stockpiling drones and missiles for systematic attacks on Ukraine’s struggling energy grid over winter months. “A total of 48…

Russian businessman Alexei Nechaev will stand in as President Vladimir Putin’s “liberal” rival during Russia’s 2024 presidential race, the independent news outlet Mozhem Obyasnit reported Tuesday, citing two anonymous sources in the pro-business political party he created nearly four years ago.  Nechaev, who owns one of Russia’s leading cosmetics companies Faberlic, stepped into politics when…

The United States said Tuesday that Russia rejected a new proposal to free two detained Americans, Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan. “We have made a number of proposals, including a substantial one in recent weeks,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters. “That proposal was rejected by Russia,” he…

Russian oil giant Lukoil said Tuesday it would consider selling its oil refinery in Bulgaria following a government plan to end imports of Russian crude oil, which the company called “discriminatory.” “In view of the significant change in the operating conditions of the Lukoil Group companies in Bulgaria, the company has commenced work to review…

Ukraine said Tuesday it had hit Russian military facilities in Crimea with drones, in the latest such operation on the Moscow-annexed Black Sea peninsula. Russia said it had neutralized 35 Ukrainian drones over Crimea and the Sea of Azov, which lies between the warring countries. Kyiv has targeted Crimea throughout Moscow’s offensive but increased attacks…

ST. PETERSBURG — The ban on the “international LGBT movement” by Russia’s top court has thrown the queer community of St. Petersburg, historically one of the country’s most LGBT-tolerant cities, into unprecedented uncertainty and fear.  “People are scared,” said Maria, 43, an openly lesbian feminist and LGBT activist who asked for anonymity out of concerns…