Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov used a media interview to unleash a barrage of accusations against the Baltic States, echoing the same narratives Russia once used to justify its invasions of Ukraine. According to the Institute for the Study of War, this signals a renewed Kremlin effort to set long-term pretext conditions for a possible future attack on Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania.

Lavrov escalates anti-Baltic rhetoric in major narrative shift

The Institute says Russia is "conducting multiple information operations against the Baltic States as it did to justify the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, likely as part of Phase Zero conditions-setting for a possible attack on the Baltic States at some point in the future." ISW, however, doesn't predict an "imminent Russian attack on the Baltics" yet.

Lavrov’s comments, given in a 11 November interview to Russian media, combined several long-running Russian propaganda claims into a single statement. He accused Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania of harboring “Russophobia,” promoting “anti-Russian” sentiment, and mistreating Russian speakers. He also alleged that the Baltic States had violated agreements with Russia and painted them as pawns of the United Kingdom. According to Lavrov, they had lost their sovereignty and were no longer truly European.

No signs of imminent attack, but groundwork being laid

ISW assessed that Lavrov’s statements are part of ongoing Russian Phase Zero operations — a strategy to set informational conditions for possible military aggression. It emphasized that such efforts can last for years and do not necessarily result in an attack. ISW said there are no indicators of imminent military preparations against NATO states.

Still, the think tank stressed that these activities echo pre-2022 Russian efforts toward Ukraine and warned against ignoring the parallels.

"ISW’s assessments that these and other activities constitute Phase Zero conditions-setting efforts are meant to call attention to the parallels with pre-2022 Russian conditions-setting efforts vis-à-vis Ukraine but are not an imminent attack warning at this time," the think tank wrote.

Ukraine announced the return of a group of children and teenagers from Russian-occupied territories through the Bring Kids Back UA initiative, according to Presidential Office head Andriy Yermak.

The returns underscore the ongoing challenge of recovering Ukrainian children from Russia's systematic deportation campaign. Since February 2022, Russia has deported 19,546 Ukrainian children according to the Children of War portal, with only 1,791 returned as of 12 November 2025—a war crime for which the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against Russian President Vladimir Putin and children's rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova in March 2023.

Children face harassment, forced assimilation under occupation

Among those returned was a 10-year-old girl whose classmates bullied her for her Ukrainian heritage, Yermak stated on Telegram. Her younger brothers at kindergarten were forced to sing Russian songs and collect money for the occupying army.

A 7-year-old girl and her 2-year-old brother lost their mother due to Russian doctors' inaction. Occupation authorities attempted to send the siblings to an orphanage despite having living relatives in Ukraine.

Another young person returned, now 19, had endured torture and execution threats from Russian military personnel because a relative served in Ukraine's Armed Forces. After reaching adulthood, occupation authorities placed him on the military registry.

Recent investigations reveal Russia systematically channels deported Ukrainian children through cadet schools and military training programs. The militarization campaign targets children as young as eight, subjecting them to years of pro-Russian indoctrination before conscripting them into occupation forces.

Russia weaponizes children as political leverage

The returns come as Russia uses deported Ukrainian children as bargaining chips with Washington, according to the Institute for the Study of War. Russian officials frame limited returns as goodwill gestures toward the United States while continuing mass deportations.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently highlighted the Bring Kids Back UA initiative as the primary channel for facilitating children's returns. An international coalition of 41 countries now works to support these efforts.

"We are fulfilling the president's task—to return all Ukrainian children," Yermak said on his Telegram, thanking Save Ukraine, the Security Service of Ukraine's Joint Center, and international partners.

Read more:

From Donetsk orphans to Russian soldiers: How occupation transforms Ukrainian children into occupiers

Russia sees deported Ukrainian children as bargaining chips with Washington - ISW

US senators seek to question Russian ambassador on more than 19,000 abducted Ukrainian children

Moldova is breaking cultural ties with Russia. On 5 November, the Moldovan government officially approved an initiative to close the Russian Cultural Center in the capital Chișinău, known as the “Russian House", as per Nokta. 

The decision has been made following the termination of the bilateral agreement with Russia regarding the establishment and operation of cultural centers in Moldova. 

The “Russian House” in Chișinău became tool of Kremlin influence

Under the agreement on cultural institutions, a Russian Center for Culture and Science was established in Chișinău in 2009 under the management of the Russian embassy.

Minister of Culture Cristian Jardan stated that the “Russian House” functioned not as a cultural center, but as an outpost of Kremlin influence.

“This center was not truly cultural under its cover; activities were conducted that undermined Moldova’s sovereignty,” Jardan emphasized.

Termination of the deal — a response to hybrid threats

Minister of Foreign Affairs Mihai Popșoi explained that the closure of the Russian center is a deliberate political move aimed at protecting national security.

The step was taken following the fall of Russian drones in southern Moldova: in Gagauzia and Taraclia. In May, the parliamentary committee on foreign policy supported ending the 1998 agreement with Moscow.

Despite previous announcements of closure, the “Russian House” had continued its activities, holding events with participants from the Russia-backed Transnistrian region. The center’s operations are now officially terminated.

The government stresses that the ending of the agreement will not have economic or legal consequences for Moldova.

This move sends a clear signal that Chișinău is decisively breaking away from Russian influence, opting for sovereignty and European integration.

Russia uses "peace initiatives" to create an illusion of control and victory. In recent days, Russian generals reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin about the alleged encirclement of three Ukrainian cities — Pokrovsk, Myrnohrad, and Kupiansk, 24 Kanal reports, citing Russian media.

Ukraine has refuted the occupiers’ claims. In response, the Kremlin leader decided to “prove” he wasn’t lying, and issued a bizarre order.

Russia’s Defense Ministry of Defense received Putin’s order to ensure the passage of foreign journalists to visit areas in Pokrovsk, Myrnohrad, and Kupiansk, where, supposedly, Ukrainian troops are “encircled.”

“Encirclement exists only in Putin’s imagination”: Ukraine responds

According to the Ukrainian defense forces, Russian command is prepared, if necessary, to halt combat operations for 5–6 hours in these areas.

The occupiers also reportedly expressed readiness to provide corridors for the unrestricted entry and exit of groups of foreign, including Ukrainian, journalists, on the condition of safety guarantees for both reporters and Russian soldiers.

Victor Trehubov, Head of Communications for the Joint Forces Group, has reacted to the situation in Kupiansk and Putin’s absurd order. 

“How can one even respond to that? The encirclement of Kupiansk exists only in Putin’s imagination,” the officer said.

He added that there is currently no question of any “encirclement” of the city.

“Ilovaisk-2”: Ukrainian Foreign Ministry's warning

At the same time, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi recalled Russia’s treacherous actions in Ilovaisk.

“Frankly, I wouldn’t recommend any reporters trust any of Putin’s proposals for ‘corridors’ in combat zones. I saw with my own eyes how such promises are staged on 29 August 2014, in Ilovaisk. Putin’s only goal is to prolong the war,” wrote Tykhyi.

Back then, Russians promised Ukrainian forces a safe withdrawal from the Ilovaisk encirclement through a humanitarian corridor. Ukrainian troops began withdrawing in organized columns along the agreed routes, but soon, Russian forces opened fire.

During the battles for Ilovaisk in August 2014, 366 Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 429 were wounded.

Such “ceasefires for the cameras” could once again serve as cover for war crimes.

A Russian official charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) with the unlawful deportation of children openly described taking a Ukrainian teenager from Mariupol and "re-educating" him until he abandoned his Ukrainian identity.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessed that such actions may constitute genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia's Commissioner for Children's Rights, gave the account in 6 October interview. She said she met 15-year-old Pylyp while "traveling through basements and collecting children who were under fire" in occupied Mariupol after Russia's full-scale invasion began in 2022.

Pylyp had lost his mother at age 10 and was living with a foster family. According to Lvova-Belova, when fighting started, that family gave him his documents and left him alone. He found Russian soldiers and asked for safety.

Lvova-Belova claims Pylyp agreed to live with her family. But she said he arrived traumatized from the shelling and began causing problems in her household. The issue, according to her account: Pylyp maintained what she called "a special attitude toward Russia"—negativity "which had long been cultivated in children in Mariupol schools."

In her telling, Pylyp told her he loved her but hated everything about Moscow and Russia. He didn't want to live in Russia. He loved Ukraine and read pro-Ukrainian websites. Lvova-Belova said she spent nights talking with him, telling him he needed to change his attitude now that he was in Russia.

Pylyp also sang Ukrainian songs, which Lvova-Belova claims he later admitted was an attempt to make her return him faster, to stop hoping his life could change.

Eventually, she claims, "changes in consciousness began" in the boy. Now he doesn't even want to return to Mariupol when he visits.

Explore further

“Putin’s Hitler-Jugend.” Russia builds tomorrow’s army with stolen Ukrainian children, Yale lab reveals

This incident represents one example, that the ISW has documented, of how Russia works to eliminate Ukrainian identity and colonize both the land and minds of people in occupied territories.

Russia frames its relationship with Ukraine through claims of historic and cultural ties, with President Putin publicly denying Ukraine's status as a fully independent nation and describing Russians and Ukrainians as "one people."

Russia's goal extends beyond merely seizing land. The re-education of children like Pylyp, the militarization of Ukrainian youth on occupied territories, and the suppression of Ukrainian language and culture serve a long-term purpose: creating a population that identifies as Russian, accepts Russian narratives, and can be potentially mobilized as soldiers and supporters for further expansion.

The patterns reveal a coordinated approach spanning education and military indoctrination of children, population replacement, repression, and information control.

Explore further

Ukrainian soldier first fought against Russia and then against Ukraine – his story reveals forced conscription in occupation

Occupation authorities threaten families who refuse Russian education

Families living under occupation face a basic dilemma: children need to go to school. Many of these children studied their entire lives in Ukrainian, learned Ukrainian history and read Ukrainian literature. But Russian occupation authorities now demand they switch languages, abandon their curriculum, and attend Russian-controlled schools.

Those who refuse face escalating consequences. Pavel Filipchuk, occupation head of Kakhovka district in occupied Kherson Oblast, made this explicit in late September. His administration identified over 200 children not attending Russian-controlled schools. Some families were keeping their children enrolled in Ukrainian online schools instead.

Filipchuk dismissed Ukrainian education, calling it "a child with a poor education from unclear teachers—a tragedy."

He announced that authorities would start with fines and escalate to deprivation of parental rights and home raids for continued non-compliance.

Explore further

Russian occupiers include history propaganda lessons in school curriculum in Luhansk Oblast

Ukrainian Commissioner for Children's Rights and Rehabilitation Daria Herasymchuk added that Russian occupation officials punish children and parents for studying Ukrainian language and literature in occupied areas, with methods including beatings, isolation of children, and forced administration of psychotropic drugs.

While Russian authorities claim students retain the "option" to study Ukrainian language, they have simultaneously taken steps to substantially limit access to Ukrainian language instruction and disincentivize participation in what limited courses remain available.

In June, the Russian Ministry of Education published a draft order detailing plans to effectively ban Ukrainian-language education in occupied Ukraine starting 1 September 2025. The escalating punitive measures against families who choose Ukrainian education reveal the false nature of any claimed "educational choice," ISW analysts conclude.

Explore further

Eight children returned from occupation: sisters bullied for Ukrainian language, boy hid from Russians

Russia indoctrinates Ukrainian teenagers for war

Once children enter Russian-controlled schools, they face another form of control: militarization programs designed to train them as potential future soldiers and instill hatred of Ukraine and the West.

In October, Crimea occupation head Sergei Aksyonov announced the launch of the "Heroes of Russia-Pride of Crimea" project at a kindergarten and secondary school in occupied Simferopol.

The project installs permanent exhibitions in schools featuring photographs of Soviet World War II veterans and Russian soldiers from the current war in Ukraine. Each photo includes a QR code that students can scan to read extended biographies of what Aksyonov calls "heroes."

Aksyonov framed the project as teaching children "proper" role models, saying these are people "who left their bright mark in the struggle for our great Motherland, who proved not by word but by deed that they are true patriots of their country." 

"I believe that such people should serve as an example for the younger generation. After all, there is nothing more honorable, nothing more valuable, than serving one's Motherland," Aksyonov wrote.

Explore further

Not just deported: Moscow turns Ukrainian children into soldiers, laborers, and Russians, studies show

The project will spread to all schools in occupied Crimea as an important step in the "patriotic development" of children and to instill "personal responsibility" for Russia's destiny, according to the official.

Accompanying images showed young children in cadet-style uniforms standing next to uniformed Russian servicemen and posing with donation boxes marked with Z symbols and the Russian military slogan "We don't abandon our own."

Russian soldiers actively fighting in Donetsk Oblast are also training Ukrainian teenagers. During a three-day course in October, combat troops taught youth from occupied Donetsk how to handle military equipment, navigate battlefields, provide tactical medical care, operate in combat groups, and fly quadcopters.

These aren't retired veterans offering generic patriotic talks - they're active servicemembers passing combat experience directly to Ukrainian children.

"The purpose of such training activities is clearly to prepare Ukrainian youth for future service in the Russian military, including by disseminating to them critical lessons on the realities of contemporary warfighting," the ISW states.

Russia funds study to make Ukrainian identity illegal

While children are indoctrinated through schools and military training camps, adults who resist Russian control are prosecuted as "terrorists" and "extremists."

Russian authorities use fabricated criminal charges to silence opposition and make any expression of Ukrainian identity dangerous.

Russia is working to expand those definitions even further. In October, Zaporizhzhia's occupation administration commissioned a $68,000 study on "Ukrainian nationalist ideology" to get Moscow to officially classify it as "extremism."

Residents already face charges of terrorism, extremism, and high treason for pro-Ukrainian sentiment, which carry lengthy prison sentences. The study, however, would grant law enforcement even broader authority to criminally prosecute people of occupied areas.

This legal framework targets not only ethnic Ukrainians but anyone who doesn't conform to Russian identity. Crimean Tatars, the peninsula's indigenous Muslim population, face particularly harsh persecution.

Explore further

Russia weaponizes history to erase Crimean Tatar identity

Crimean Tatars largely opposed Russia's 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea and continue to advocate for the peninsula's return to Ukraine. Moscow views them as disloyal and uses their suppression to silence dissent and demonstrate control.

In October, the Russian Federal Security Service intensified this crackdown by targeting four Crimean Tatar women. The FSB conducted searches in four homes in occupied Crimea, detained Esma Nimetullayeva, Nasiba Saidova, Elviza Alieva, and Fevziye Osmanova, and transported them to Simferopol on charges of "organizing and participating in the activities of a terrorist organization."

Human rights activists maintained the women's innocence, stating the arrests are part of Russia's systematic campaign against the Crimean Tatar community. The FSB has historically used fabricated extremism charges to persecute the minority group and consolidate control.

Explore further

Toxic fumes and threats: Crimean Tatar political prisoners face torture in Russian detention

Occupiers steal Ukrainian homes to make room for Russians from other regions

Suppressing existing Ukrainian identity on occupied territories is only half of Russia's demographic strategy. The other half involves replacing the population itself.

Russia's full-scale invasion displaced approximately 2.9 million people from areas now under occupation and killed tens of thousands more, according to ISW. To legitimize its occupation, Russian authorities are implementing policies designed to repopulate these territories.

Russia's migration policy concept for 2026-2030, signed by President Putin in October, includes provisions to "create conditions for the return" of residents who fled occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. While the concept doesn't specify implementation methods, it likely signals financial or legal incentives aimed at convincing Ukrainian refugees to return to occupied areas.

Russia is also repopulating occupied territories by stealing Ukrainian property and giving it to Russian settlers.

The theft operates through a bureaucratic facade. In July 2022, Russian authorities invalidated all real estate documents issued by Ukrainian authorities between 2014 and 2022, stripping property rights from anyone who had purchased, inherited, or transferred property during eight years of Ukrainian control.

They compiled lists of apartments classified as "ownerless" - a category that includes property whose owners died, fled the war, or are Ukrainian citizens living abroad.

Explore further

Russia legally steals 20,000 homes in razed Mariupol — then charges homeless victims for rent

Property owners have 30 days to appear in person and prove ownership. But returning requires traveling through Moscow, where Russian security services interrogate arrivals, examine social media for pro-Ukrainian content, and demand Russian passports. Any pro-Ukrainian activity risks jail, while the journey is also costly for people who have already lost their homes and jobs in the war.

Russian authorities stopped accepting Ukrainian passports in October 2022 and rejected power of attorney arrangements in April 2025, demanding only personal presence. The system is designed to prevent rightful owners from reclaiming their homes.

Russia then offers this seized property to Russians willing to relocate. A new draft law proposes allocating the "ownerless" apartments to government officials, military personnel, doctors, and teachers from other Russian regions as incentives.

Meanwhile, many Mariupol residents who survived a devastating three-month siege in the city are left homeless or moved to old dormitories. They protest to occupation officials demanding the return of their homes, but their appeals go nowhere.

Moscow forces Russian-only TV on occupied territories

Russia's control over minds extends beyond school curricula to what residents can watch and read at home. While children are taught Russian narratives in classrooms, adults—especially older people who rely on television for news—face similarly restricted information.

Russian occupation officials provided updates in October on the installation of Russkiy Mir [Russian World] satellite dishes throughout occupied Ukraine.

Explore further

Ukraine charges top Russian propagandist Solovyov with genocide incitement

The Kherson Oblast occupation administration claimed it installed 20,000 Russkiy Mir satellite kits in total, while Zaporizhzhia Oblast occupation head Yevgeny Balitsky reported that 5,000 residents installed kits in the past month.

"This is 20,000 homes where the Russian language sounds, where people feel the support and presence of the country. For us, this is proof that Kherson Oblast is confidently moving toward full integration of the region into the unified digital space of the state," noted Roman Grigoriev, deputy minister of digital development and mass communications of the region.

These dishes transmit only Russian national and local channels, blocking access to Ukrainian or international media.

The Ukrainian Resistance Center warned that Russian occupation officials use the installation process to collect personal information on residents by registering addresses and personal details during installation.

Explore further

“I don’t give a damn about their tribunal.” Why prosecuting Russian propagandists is so difficult

The enforcement of Russian narratives and the erasure of Ukrainian identity operates at every level—from high-ranking Kremlin officials like Maria Lvova-Belova, who openly described "re-educating" Ukrainian teenager from Mariupol, to local occupation administrations threatening parents who refuse Russian schools.

It encompasses all areas of life from children's education to property seizure and control over what information residents have access to. Opposition to Russian control risks persecution and jail, with any dissent carefully monitored. 

Russia keeps pushing to occupy more Ukrainian territory despite heavy losses and minimal gains. Ukrainian defenders have held the line for years. Wherever Russia establishes control, it imposes its rules, history, language, and traditions—suppressing the Ukrainian identity that existed before. The battle for Ukraine's sovereignty persists.

Though she never really left. Beyond Vienna, she continued performing at Berlin’s Staatsoper and Arena di Verona from 2022 to 2025. But most major opera houses tried to avoid her, following the lead of the Metropolitan Opera, which cancelled her planned engagements in the spring of 2022 and never allowed her to return.

The decision was logical. Netrebko received awards from Putin and was his representative during elections, sang in the Kremlin, donated to the opera in Donetsk under the control of Russian paramilitaries, and posed with the “Novorossiya” flag in 2015. In 2022, she only wrote a watered-down statement as if condemning the war.

But now something has changed. On 2 November, Zürich Opera opens its run of Verdi’s “La forza del destino”, and the controversial Russian soprano will lead as Leonora, shortly after her recent performances at Covent Garden, despite protests in Britain and now Switzerland.

Given Netrebko’s complicated history, this has sparked a heated debate that spans a broad spectrum between uncompromising radical rejections and uncritical acceptance in the spirit of “anything goes”.

In particular, Zürich Opera Intendant Matthias Schulz—who had already brought Netrebko to Berlin during his tenure there—arduously defended his decision in an interview in Neue Zürcher Zeitung on 16 October. In a commentary on 17 October, the editorial team found the arguments to be strong. But should we follow the bandwagon of this reborn Netrebko enthusiasm?

Bridges to the Moscow mafia?

Mr Schulz chose to “accentuate the positive” of “building bridges”. What a commendable, noble initiative! However, this begs a question: why do we have to build bridges through Netrebko, and where are those bridges intended to go from Zürich?

Vienna, perhaps, where she lives? Is it maybe war-torn Ukraine, whose culture and identity are being destroyed? Perhaps by staging an opera by a Ukrainian composer or even commissioning one, as the Metropolitan Opera did in 2023? Neither of these is happening.

Netrebko is not just any Russian artist–we are not talking about “all Russians”. Her career was fostered by powerful patrons in Russia; her longstanding ties to Putin’s friends, such as Valery Gergiev, are widely documented. She owes these people, no matter what her staff says in their statements now. Gergiev, rumoured to be Putin’s children’s godfather, was particularly instrumental in launching her career almost singlehandedly.

Honest Russian musicians, many of whom I have known for a long time in Europe, openly talk about Gergiev as “the Putin of Russian music”. Gergiev turned institutions under his control into mafia-like clan structures, presiding over the fates of musicians and singers. This is his network, and Netrebko is part of it.

Gergiev is always “at the ready” to serve Putin, and some classical music has turned into propaganda in Tskhinvali (Russian-occupied South Ossetia), Palmyra, or, indeed, Italy, where he unsuccessfully tried to make inroads last summer. In the same way, Netrebko owes favours to Gergiev–and Putin. These deeply personal, informal patron-client networks never dissolve.

Music theatre directors, such as Mr Schulz, are also apparently friends of Netrebko and try to shield her in bad faith, rather than out of concern for artistic freedom. This is not surprising as these same people also cherished their relations with the Russian classical music “mafia dons” such as Gergiev, conductor Theodor Currentzis (closely affiliated with Russian banks and governmental structures), or “Putin’s cashier” and cellist Sergei Roldugin, turning them into staples of Western concert halls and theatres.

“I want to sit on two chairs, even three if necessary”, Netrebko said in her own words about her “doing the splits between East and West”. If she doesn’t perform in Russia now, it shows her pragmatic distancing from the rotten herring—her Russian friends. They, too, may want to distance themselves pragmatically from Netrebko, who isn’t the woman of the moment inside Russia due to her deep integration into the Western context and institutions.

Surely it would have been convenient for both to sit it out, but as the war drags on and will likely continue for the foreseeable future, Netrebko chose the West out of comfort, not because of the government she had supported up to 2021. Cold, pure, calculating, cynical pragmatism–not a clean moral break with a criminal regime.

Dirty people’s pure art

The defense is always the same: she’s too great an artist. But this ignores decades of debate about art’s complicity in power.

Walter Benjamin warned that every document of civilization is also a document of barbarism. And Theodore Adorno asked, “How can one write poetry after Auschwitz?”

Art is not merely a technical skill but a projection of specific ideological and political values. This is not about diminishing the status of art; in fact, art’s political context has a positive function. When we enjoy Wagner’s operas, only professional musicians appreciate the use of enharmonicism to modulate between distant tonalities. The public enjoys stories of love, betrayal, and power—deeply political.

This, of course, is a choice everyone has to make for themselves. But I doubt that Romans enjoyed Nero’s vocal technique as Rome burned.

The perfect conformist

Thankfully, Ms Netrebko did none of those things. Her advocates say that, in fact, she is not a war supporter, evidenced by her agreeing to perform in houses that sided with Ukraine, such as Zürich, and a couple of statements furnished by her lawyers.

But this is an extremely low standard. Do we lack so much in self-respect that we are grateful to Netrebko for tolerating us? She can do better than “not support war”.

The legendary conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler stayed in the Third Reich, earning more controversy than Netrebko has ever faced. Goebbels hailed Furtwängler’s foreign concerts as “German triumphs,” just as Moscow will claim Netrebko’s performances.

But Furtwängler used his position to save dozens of persecuted musicians, donated his concert proceeds to refugees, and risked his life defying Hitler. He systematically refused to give the “Hitler salute” to the Führer himself, challenged his and Goebbels’s authority over German music. What is Netrebko contributing? A statement through her lawyer.

Passive complicity

In her own account, one thing stands out: she is always a passive object. She didn’t know or understand; she was simply given the flag. Such passivity is out of character, especially with someone who built such an efficient career with a sharp focus and ruthless pragmatism.

This suggests dishonesty or indifference. Actually, Putin fosters this attitude of indifferent passivity in Russian society, preferring docile perpetrators to even active war supporters, as historian Jade McGlynn shows in “Russia’s War.”

What is needed is simply staying within the lines drawn by the government, ready to do whatever you are told to do. In short, precisely Netrebko’s behaviour: when needed, you sing in the Kremlin or in London; if necessary for your continued influence in the West, you may even disown your Kremlin masters publicly.

In fact, her lukewarm condemnations of war reflect this passivity: she bends to whatever power that be. If the elite consensus in Europe is to condemn the war, she will follow the crowd. If Europeans tomorrow demand worshipping the Flying Spaghetti Monster, she will do that—because she doesn’t care about anything but her personal promotion.

A perfect conformism combined with self-serving profiteering. This may be even understandable at a human level. But must Europeans really fund this with their tax money through their publicly financed opera houses?

To prove she actively resists the war, it would be right for her to donate her entire proceeds from Zürich to displaced Ukrainians, especially Ukrainian musicians and composers; or better still, to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This is at least what Furtwängler would do. Will Ms Netrebko and Mr Schulz rise to the challenge?

The short answer is: no. I don’t believe this. But miracles might happen. As unlikely as this supernatural act would be, one thing is certain, despite the current ardour of Netrebko supporters: the angel of history will be kind neither to her nor to them.

Roman Horbyk

Roman Horbyk is a Ukrainian media scholar and journalist at the University of Zürich. He holds a PhD in media studies from Södertörn University and has written on Russian propaganda, media politics, and the weaponization of culture in the post-Soviet space.

Editor's note. The opinions expressed in our Opinion section belong to their authors. Euromaidan Press' editorial team may or may not share them.

Submit an opinion to Euromaidan Press

Russian leaders keep claiming non-existent major battlefield victories in Ukraine, yet these boasts are being publicly dismissed even by pro-war Russian milbloggers, who describe the situation on the ground as chaotic and accuse the military leadership of inflating results, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on 26 October.

Putin and Gerasimov outline sweeping operations

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chief of the General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov have continued to issue claims of major battlefield victories while reaffirming the Kremlin’s intent to capture all of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts.

ISW says Putin held a meeting on 26 October with Gerasimov and commanders of Russia’s groupings of forces. The event drew attention because Putin appeared in military uniform—only the third such appearance since the start of the full-scale invasion and just weeks after the previous one on 16 September. During his report to Putin, Gerasimov said Russian forces were continuing operations to seize all territory within the four illegally annexed Ukrainian oblasts.

He further claimed that Russian forces from the Western Grouping had ostensibly encircled Kupiansk in Kharkiv Oblast. According to him, detachments from the 68th Motorized Rifle Division crossed the Oskil River south of the town and, together with units from the 47th Tank Division and 27th Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 1st Guards Tank Army, had allegedly cut off Ukrainian troops on the eastern bank. Gerasimov stated that 18 Ukrainian battalions were trapped in Kupiansk.

He also declared Russian progress in the northeast and east of Ukraine, including the seizure of more than 70% of Vovchansk, completion of fighting in Yampil, and the capture of Dronivka and Pleshchiivka. Gerasimov said Russian troops continued urban fighting in Siversk and Kostiantynivka.

Explore further

NYP: Russia tells the world it’s winning — actual military performance paints a different picture

Russian milbloggers openly challenge the official version

Several Russian milbloggers said the claims of encirclements in Pokrovsk and Kupiansk were false. One wrote that a wide corridor still separates Russian groups west and north of Pokrovsk, while another pointed out that Russian fire control over Ukrainian supply lines does not mean a full encirclement.

Others highlighted the porous nature of the front and said that Russian forces often declare towns captured while Ukrainian troops still hold positions there. One described the situation in Pokrovsk and Kupiansk as “100% chaos.” Another blogger said Gerasimov was “getting ahead of himself again,” predicting that the general expected reality to eventually align with his optimistic reports. That same source argued that the exaggerated claims were meant to influence US President Donald Trump by giving him the impression that Ukrainian forces faced collapse.

"Gerasimov similarly presented exaggerated territorial claims in late August 2025, including about Kupiansk, that Russian milbloggers heavily criticized," ISW wrote.

Russia’s claims of victory in Ukraine are pure fiction, argues retired US General Jack Keane in his 24 October 2025 New York Post opinion piece. Despite nearly four years of all-out war, Russia is bleeding manpower, facing a collapsing economy, and relying on lies to mask its military failure. 

Keane, chair of the Institute for the Study of War, says Kremlin propaganda conceals the reality that Russia is losing militarily and internally.

Russia’s war of attrition hides catastrophic losses

According to Keane, Vladimir Putin insists that victory in Ukraine is inevitable and refuses any peace deal that does not hand him full control of the Donbas. Yet after years of fighting, Russia’s forces remain stuck in place. They have failed to take any major Ukrainian city since 2022 and now fight for small towns and empty fields at what Keane calls “extravagant losses.”

Ukraine’s resistance, aided by effective drone warfare, has forced Russian troops to abandon tanks and mechanized formations. Instead, they attack in small squads of three to five soldiers, suffering massive casualties to move only meters forward. Keane cites data showing that in 2025, Russian forces lost an average of 70 to 75 soldiers for every square kilometer captured — a rate he calls “horrifying.”

Putin leans on foreign allies as Russia’s losses mount and recruitment system unravels

Keane writes that without China, North Korea, and Iran, Russia’s war effort would collapse. He highlights that 10,000 North Korean troops helped Moscow retake Kursk — a move he calls embarrassing.

Even as Russia loses 35,000 troops per month, the Kremlin is cutting enlistment bonuses. Keane suggests forced mobilization may follow, risking backlash at home.

As Russia’s economy sinks, Kremlin bets big on propaganda

Keane reports Russia’s sovereign wealth fund dropped from $113 billion in 2022 to $50.26 billion by October 2025. The country faces 16.5% interest rates and a 13–20% gasoline shortage due to Ukrainian refinery strikes. Trump’s sanctions have also hurt oil revenues.

Despite this, the Kremlin raised propaganda spending by 54% in its 2026 budget, flooding media with false victories to hide battlefield losses and economic pain.

In its latest disinformation effort, the Kremlin launched a staged narrative claiming Russian forces had seized a strategic bridgehead in Kherson Oblast. But geolocated footage published by Ukrainian troops shows otherwise. Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reports the operation is part of Moscow’s broader cognitive warfare campaign aimed at making Ukraine submit and discouraging Western support by convincing the US and EU that a Russian victory is inevitable.

Russia stages false bridgehead in Kherson

Russian-installed Kherson occupation head Vladimir Saldo published footage on 22 October showing a Russian soldier raising a flag on Karantynnyi Island in the 5th Selyshche Microraion in southwestern Kherson City. Saldo claimed Russian reconnaissance and airborne units had crossed the Dnipro River, repelled Ukrainian counterattacks, secured a bridgehead, mined access routes, and begun organizing logistics for a sustained presence.

Some Russian milbloggers echoed Saldo’s narrative, crediting drone operators of the 31st VDV Brigade with establishing air superiority and artillery units of the 18th Combined Arms Army with striking Ukrainian targets on the island and nearby bridges. One milblogger also alleged Russian sabotage groups were preparing to hunt Ukrainian forces in the Korabelnyi Microraion on the northeastern part of the island.

Ukrainian forces bust Russian claims

On 23 October, a Ukrainian brigade released a geolocated video showing its troops moving freely through Ostriv Microraion—part of Karantynnyi Island—directly contradicting Russian claims of an active military presence. The brigade stated that Karantynnyi Island, as well as the areas of Antonivka and Sadove east of Kherson City, remain “silent,” with no sign of Russian forces on the west bank of the Dnipro River.

A Russian milblogger focused on the Kherson front had claimed Russian troops had pushed Ukrainian forces out of Sadove and conducted sabotage near Antonivka. ISW assessed that no available evidence supports these assertions.

"The Kremlin is attempting to falsely portray Russian forces as having established a bridgehead in west (right) bank Kherson Oblast – a new Russian cognitive warfare effort against Ukraine and its partners," ISW wrote, adding: "Available evidence continues to indicate that Russian forces have not established a bridgehead or begun an offensive in west bank Kherson Oblast."

According to ISW, this information operation fits within a larger pattern: the Kremlin wants to project inevitability of victory to the European Union, the US, and Ukraine itself, encouraging submission to Moscow’s demands and eroding foreign support for Ukraine. ISW notes this narrative undermines Russia’s own occasional signals of willingness to negotiate territorial matters in southern Ukraine.

"ISW continues to assess that this Russian cognitive warfare effort is incompatible with any claim that Russia is willing to make territorial concessions in southern Ukraine," the think tank concluded.

Update: Russian propaganda outlet retracts its report on the island capture that never happened

Russian state-funded propaganda media outlet Sputnik will cease operations in Azerbaijan, Russia Today media group CEO Dmitry Kiselyov said on July 3, according to the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

"We regret to say that, as of today, the conditions for Sputnik Azerbaijan to continue its activities in this country are not in place," Kiselyov said.

The move comes amid a major deterioration in Russian-Azerbaijani relations.

Kiselyov's comments followed the detention of several Sputnik Azerbaijan employees by Azerbaijani police on June 30. Authorities said two of the detainees were operatives of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), prompting a formal protest from Moscow.

Kiselyov called the charges "far-fetched," saying the staff had worked to "develop cooperation between Azerbaijan and Russia." He added that legal action would be taken to defend them.

Sputnik, a key pillar of the Kremlin's global propaganda network, has long been accused by Western governments and media watchdogs of spreading disinformation and pro-Russian narratives.

These developments follow a deadly June 27 operation in Russia's Yekaterinburg, where Russian security forces killed two Azerbaijani nationals and injured several others in a raid linked to a 2001 murder case.

On June 28, Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry issued a rare public rebuke, calling the operation "ethnically motivated" and part of a "systematic pattern" of unlawful treatment of Azerbaijani nationals in Russia.

The diplomatic rupture deepened further after Azerbaijani authorities arrested eight Russian citizens the next day, presenting them in court handcuffed and visibly injured. They were accused of participating in organized crime, cyberattacks, and drug smuggling from Iran.

The closure of Sputnik's bureau marks a new low in relations between the two former Soviet states, which have seen escalating tensions despite longstanding ties.

Arrests, raids, beaten and bloodied suspects — how Russia-Azerbaijan relations have unravelled

Deaths in custody, media offices raided, and beaten and bloodied suspects paraded in court — relations between Russia and Azerbaijan, once considered close, have sharply deteriorated in recent days amid a series of high-profile incidents. The latest tensions erupted over the weekend when Russian law enforcement officers detained over 50 Azerbaijani

The Kyiv IndependentTim Zadorozhnyy

Armenian authorities should "seriously" consider banning the broadcast of Russian television channels in Armenia, Armenian Parliament Speaker Alen Simonyan said on July 1, citing concerns over interference and deteriorating ties.

"We must very seriously discuss the suspension of the Russian television channel broadcast in the territory of Armenia," Simonyan told reporters, according to Armenpress. He criticized recent content aired by Russian state broadcasters, which the Armenian government has denounced as harmful to bilateral ties.

The remarks come as Armenia continues to pivot away from Moscow's sphere of influence and seeks to bolster ties with the West.

Simonyan suggested that individuals connected to Armenian-Russian oligarch Samvel Karapetyan may be financing efforts to meddle in Armenia's internal matters.

"If there are channels that allow themselves to interfere in Armenia’s domestic affairs, perhaps we ought to respond likewise, by at least banning their entry into the homes of our society," he said.

Tensions between Armenia and Russia have mounted since Moscow's failure to intervene during Azerbaijan's military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023, which resulted in the mass displacement of ethnic Armenians.

In April, Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturyan signed a law initiating the country's formal accession process to the European Union.

Though symbolic, the legislation marks a significant political shift, embedding European integration into Armenian law. The bill, passed by parliament in March, was backed by 64 lawmakers and opposed by seven.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has said that EU membership would require a referendum, while the Kremlin warned that joining both the EU and the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) is "simply impossible." The EAEU, established in 2015, includes Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan.

Why Norway is investing billions in Ukraine’s victory

The Kyiv Independent’s Oleksiy Sorokin sat down with Eivind Vad Petersson, state secretary to the Norwegian foreign minister and co-chair of the joint Norwegian-Ukrainian Working Group on Nuclear Safety and Security.

The Kyiv IndependentOleksiy Sorokin

Editor's note: The story was updated after the Sputnik news agency disclosed the names of those detained in Baku.

Azerbaijani police detained two alleged agents of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) on June 30 following searches at the Baku office of the Russian state-controlled news agency Sputnik, the Azerbaijani news outlet Apa.az reported.

Sputnik later elaborated that Igor Kartavykh, chief editor of Sputnik Azerbaijan, and Yevgeniy Belousov, managing editor, had been detained in Baku. The agency called the allegations that the detainees were FSB agents "absurd."

The move comes amid a major deterioration in Russian-Azerbaijani relations that followed the detention of over 50 Azerbaijanis as part of a murder investigation in Yekaterinburg on June 27. Two people died during the detentions, and three others were seriously injured.

The searches in the office of the Russian propaganda media outlet, which operates as a local branch of Russian state news agency Russia Today (RT), began on June 30.

The Russian propagandist Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of Russia Today, said that representatives of the Russian embassy in Baku were on their way to Sputnik's office. Sputnik employees were offline and probably did not have access to phones, she added.

According to Simonyan, some of Sputnik's employees were Russian citizens.

The Azerbaijani government ordered in February that the activities of Sputnik's Azerbaijani office be suspended.

The authorities said that the move was intended to ensure parity in the activities of Azerbaijan's state media abroad and foreign journalists in the country. This meant that the number of Sputnik Azerbaijan journalists working in Baku was to be equal to the number of journalists of the Azerbaijani news agency Azertadzh in Russia.

As a result, Sputnik Azerbaijan had to reduce its staff from 40 people to one but refused to do so and continued to operate despite the Azerbaijani government's decision, according to Apa.az.

As the Russian-Azerbaijani relations deteriorate, Azerbaijan has cancelled all planned cultural events hosted alongside Russian state and private organizations, the country's Culture Ministry announced on June 29.

The announcement followed the deaths of two Azerbaijani citizens during police raids in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.

Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry said on June 28 that Ziyaddin and Huseyn Safarov had died during a raid carried out by Russian authorities. Azerbaijan called the killings "ethnically motivated" and "unlawful" actions.

Baku called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice and said it expected Moscow to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the incident.

In the meantime, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that the detentions were carried out as part of an investigation into serious crimes. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova claimed that these were cases related to murders committed in 2001, 2010, and 2011.

Russia pulls its scientists out of Iranian nuclear plant, as Israeli strikes threaten decades of collaboration

Israel’s strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities have alarmed none more than Russia, the country that first brought nuclear power to Iran in defiance of Western objections. We’re “millimeters from catastrophe,” said Kremlin spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on June 18 in response to a bombing campaign that Israel launched against Iran on June 13. Decades of conflict with the West have united Iran and Russia, despite a cultural gulf between the two nations that dwarfs the Caspian Sea that physically di

The Kyiv IndependentKollen Post

Editor's Note: This story was updated with comments from Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said "all of Ukraine" belonged to Russia in a speech on June 20 at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, amid increasingly aggressive official statements about Moscow's final territorial ambitions in Ukraine.

Putin's claim was based on the false narrative often pushed both by himself as leader and by Russian propaganda that Russians and Ukrainians are "one people."

The narrative has long figured prominently in Putin's rhetoric, often brought up as justification for its aggression in Ukraine.

In July 2021, just half a year before the full-scale invasion, the Russian leader stoked fears of a larger attack when he wrote and published an essay on the "historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians."

In response to the speech in St Petersburg, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha condemned Putin’s comments as "cynical," saying it showed “complete disregard for U.S. peace efforts."

"While the United States and the rest of the world have called for an immediate end to the killing, Russia's top war criminal discusses plans to seize more Ukrainian territory and kill more Ukrainians," he wrote in a post on X.

Putin made several other statements at the forum, some contradictory, about Moscow's aims in the war going forward.

"Wherever the foot of a Russian soldier steps is Russian land," Putin said, directly implying Russia's intention to continue occupying more than just the five Ukrainian regions that Moscow has illegally laid claim to: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts, as well as the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

Sybiha said that "Russian soldier's foot" brings only "death, destruction, and devastation." He accused Putin of indifference toward his own troops, calling him “a mass murderer of his own people.”

"He already disposed one million Russian soldiers in a senseless bloodbath in Ukraine without achieving a single strategic goal. One million soldiers. Two million feet," the minister said.

"And, while Putin is busy sending Russian feet to invade other countries, he is bringing Russians inside the country to their knees economically."

Russia just accidentally admitted to its staggering troop losses in Ukraine

A senior Russian official on June 19 inadvertently confirmed the staggering troop losses incurred by Moscow’s forces during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In an interview with CNN, Russian Ambassador to the U.K. Andrey Kelin was asked about Moscow’s maximalist intentions in Ukraine and its ability to recruit enough

The Kyiv IndependentChris York

As per the "peace memorandum" presented by the Russian delegation at the last round of peace talks in Istanbul on June 2, Moscow demands Kyiv recognize the oblasts as Russian and hand over all territory not yet controlled by Russian forces into occupation, including the regional capitals of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

Asked whether Russia aimed to seize the regional center of Sumy in Ukraine's northeast, Putin said that while such a mission has not been assigned, he wouldn't rule it out.

Russian ground attacks into Sumy Oblast have intensified along the northeastern border in the past weeks, having first crossed the border after Ukraine's withdrawal from most of its positions in Kursk Oblast in March.

Russian troops have moved 10-12 kilometers (6-8 miles) deep into the region, according to Putin.

"The city of Sumy is next, the regional center. We don't have a task to take Sumy, but I don't rule it out," Putin said.

Sybiha urged the West to ramp up military aid to Ukraine, tighten sanctions against Russia, designate Moscow a terrorist state, and "isolate it fully."

"His cynical statements serve only one purpose: to divert public attention away from the complete failure of his quarter-century rule," the minister added.

Since March, Russia has reportedly taken control of about 200 square kilometers (80 square miles) in northern Sumy Oblast, including roughly a dozen small villages, according to open-source conflict mapping projects.

As of May 31, mandatory evacuations had been ordered for 213 settlements.

In May, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his military to create a so-called "security buffer zone" along the border with Ukraine, while Zelensky said on May 28 that Moscow had massed 50,000 troops near Sumy.

In a separate interview with Bild on June 12, Zelensky dismissed Moscow's claims of significant territorial gains as "a Russian narrative" aimed at shaping global perceptions. He stressed that Ukrainian forces have managed to hold off a renewed offensive for nearly three weeks.

When asked if Moscow requires the complete capitulation of Kyiv and the Ukrainian leadership, Putin denied this, saying that Russia instead demands the "recognition of the realities on the ground."

The statement follows a consistent line from Russian officials since the return of U.S. President Donald Trump brought new momentum to the idea of a quick negotiated peace in Ukraine.

Projecting a winning position on the battlefield and gaining confidence from Trump's frequent anti-Ukrainian rhetoric and refusal to approve further military aid to Kyiv, Moscow has stuck to maximalist demands, refusing the joint U.S.-Ukraine proposal of a 30-day unconditional ceasefire along the front line.

On June 18, in an interview to CNN, Russian ambassador to the U.K. Andrei Kelin said that while Russian forces were advancing on the battlefield and taking more Ukrainian, there was no incentive to stop, and that Kyiv must either accept Moscow's peace terms now or "surrender" after losing much more.

With no new US aid packages on the horizon, can Ukraine continue to fight Russia?

The U.S. has not announced any military aid packages for Ukraine in almost five months, pushing Kyiv to seek new alternatives. But time is running out quickly as Russian troops slowly advance on the eastern front line and gear up for a new summer offensive. “While Ukraine’s dependence on

The Kyiv IndependentKateryna Hodunova

It happened so quickly.

On Friday afternoon in Delhi, I was at my daughter's school, waiting to pick her up and straining to eavesdrop on knots of parents and -- this being Delhi -- separate knots of household staff. Every tightly bunched group was absorbed by conversation on the only subject anyone in Delhi, and no doubt the rest of India, was talking about: are we going to war with Pakistan?

By Saturday afternoon, my assumption that India and Pakistan would find a way to step back from the brink because they had no other serious choice, seemed wildly optimistic. On the jingoistic, cacophonous, largely unwatchable Indian news channels, there were still reports of drones being shot down and air bases and military infrastructure being attacked. War seemed imminent. So imminent that India’s largest-selling weekly newsmagazine went with “War!” and a battalion of fighter jets on its cover. 

But by five pm on Saturday, Donald Trump announced a complete ceasefire. Before anyone from the Indian or Pakistani government had said anything. Entire nations were caught off guard. The screeching newsreaders, still foaming at the mouth, were outraged – “who moved my war?” 

And then the media swiveled on a dime (rather, a one-rupee coin). Spinning furiously, crazed hamsters on their wheels, the analysts and anchors insisted India had won. In Pakistan, their counterparts were doing much the same. The truth is, both countries had lost 

India and Pakistan had been locked in a clumsy, deadly two-step while the rest of the world looked away. It began on April 22, with a terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir, in which 26 men, almost all of them Hindu, and singled out for their religious affiliation, were killed. United States Vice President JD Vance, was in India on a “private trip” at the time, with his Indian-American wife and children.

The attack was a provocation that the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist government could not tolerate. Their supporters bayed for vengeance. And Modi, whose personal brand as the protector of the Hindu nation – boasting in campaign speeches about his 56-inch chest – is predicated on him being the leader of a newly vigorous, aggressive India, an emerging superpower, had to respond with overwhelming force.

It took two weeks -- during which India did not provide proof of the Pakistani state's involvement in the April 22 attack beyond an established history of Pakistan’s financing of terror. The country featured on the Financial Action Task Force's grey list between 2018 and 2022, though it insists it has since largely cleaned up its act. Indian retribution came in the form of the bombing of what India described as terrorist camps. This was, Indian officials said, a restrained, responsible response to Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. No military sites, for example, were hit.

Pakistan said civilians were killed and that mosques were bombed. They then retaliated to India's retaliation. And India retaliated to Pakistan’s retaliation against India’s retaliation. Inevitably, there was a retaliation to the retaliation to the retaliation against the retaliation. And so on, until Trump announced the ceasefire. As the bombings intensified, both India and Pakistan insisted they didn't want war and were taking responsible actions to de-escalate. In the warped logic of this fighting, the bombs being dropped actually signaled both countries' understanding that they could go so far and no further.

Initially, the United States, which has played a part in brokering peace in previous clashes between India and Pakistan, seemed content to let both countries duke it out. It’s “none of our business,” said Vance. While Donald Trump seemed to think the dispute over Kashmir was the latest episode of a show that dated back "1,000 years, probably longer." Later, he modified this assessment to mere centuries.

The truth is, this conflict is a product of British colonial rule, of the hastily conceived and disastrously executed partition of India in 1947. The Cliffs notes, with considerable nuance lost through inadequate summary, are as follows: Kashmir, a Muslim-majority state with a Hindu king, wanted to be independent of both India and Pakistan. But when Pakistani forces invaded Kashmir in October, 1947, the king asked India for help and signed an agreement binding Kashmir to the Indian union. 

It led to the first war between Pakistan and India, nations that were born just weeks earlier as the British departed. Under the terms of a United Nations-negotiated ceasefire, India gained control of about two-thirds of Kashmir. But this was temporary until a plebiscite to determine the future of Kashmir was held. This plebiscite never happened. As a result, both countries believe they have an inalienable right to the entirety of Kashmir: India because of the king's decision to sign the instrument of accession; Pakistan because Kashmir is a Muslim-majority state and Pakistan was created as a homeland for the subcontinent's Muslims. In 1965, both countries fought another inconclusive war. 

But as long as India continues to pretend there is a viable military solution to its disputes with Pakistan, the prospect of conflict, if not outright war, remains an ever-present Damoclean threat.

But since 1989, as the Soviet Union collapsed and there was a proliferation of US-funded mujahideen in the region, separatist sentiments in Kashmir spiraled into violent insurgency. India says these militants are a proxy, a tool of the Pakistani deep state. So Kashmir became a theater of both postcolonial and post-Cold War conflict.

Between 1999 and 2019, the U.S. reliably talked both countries off the ledge and leading international diplomatic efforts to get India and Pakistan to back off when overly aggressive gestures and posturing threatened to become kinetic. The U.S. has Cold War-era strategic and security ties with Pakistan but only recently has India become a close partner with an active role to play in containing China’s emerging dominance. India, Australia, Japan and the U.S. are part of the Quad, a loose grouping intended to counter China’s designs on the Indo-Pacific.

Modi and Trump have made several displays of personal friendship, each supporting the other’s election campaigns. But the Trump administration had declined to intervene in current tensions. It was a position of apathy, as if it had no stake in preventing war. For Modi, it must sting that carefully choreographed hugs with Western leaders had not resulted in more diplomatic support for his military action against Pakistan. 

Modi also received little support from institutions. For instance,  India had lobbied for the IMF to withhold funds from Pakistan. But the IMF chose to release $1 billion in loans to Islamabad, even as Pakistan was engaged in artillery exchanges with India. With the U.S. seemingly taking a back seat, Saudi Arabia and Iran had offered to mediate, as had Russia. Even China, which provides over 80% of the Pakistani army's weaponry and also administers part of Kashmir, said it would help broker peace. 

But it was the U.S. that swooped in over the weekend. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio both posted about the negotiations, with Trump even saying he had used trade as leverage to prevent a nuclear war. “Millions of people,” he said, “could have been killed.”

While Pakistan were happy to acknowledge the U.S. role in forcing a truce, Indian diplomats and politicians were either tight-lipped or disapproving. India has long resisted external interference in the Kashmir dispute, insisting that negotiations have to be strictly bilateral. Ultimately, neither India nor Pakistan can afford full-scale war. This is not asymmetrical combat. India may be much larger than Pakistan and conventionally more powerful. It may have a growing economy, while Pakistan is struggling to finance its debts. But, as one British analyst said, if this is a Goliath-David struggle, David has a nuclear weapon in his sling. 

The Trump-brokered ceasefire may only be temporary respite – so temporary, indeed, that barely hours after the agreement was announced, the chief minister of Indian-administered Kashmir posted on X that he had heard explosions in the state capital Srinagar. “What the hell,” he wrote, “just happened to the ceasefire?” But as long as India continues to pretend there is a viable military solution to its disputes with Pakistan, the prospect of conflict, if not outright war, remains an ever-present Damoclean threat.

As an Indian citizen and a parent, I find both governments' confidence that they can toe an invisible line more than a little disconcerting. But, judging by the political and media response to the prospect of war, only a few shared my scepticism. In India, since April 22, there have been very few calls for peace, very few questions about the need for a military response to a terrorist attack, even though bombing Pakistan has not deterred subsequent terrorism.

One of those calls for peace, though, came from Himanshi Narwal, whose husband of six days, an Indian navy officer, was shot in front of her. Narwal, who was photographed kneeling beside her husband's prone body, became a symbol of India's grief and outrage. 

That was before she spoke. Narwal told reporters that she only held the men who had murdered her husband responsible and not all Muslims or all Kashmiris. "We want peace," she said, "and only peace."

This sentiment made her a target of Hindu nationalist scorn on social media. Narwal was excoriated as a "woke secular" – a particularly Indian insult, mixing American right wing culture war tropes with the Indian use of the word "secular" to mock Indian liberals who supposedly kowtow to minorities, particularly Muslims.  

India's initial retaliation was given the code name "Operation Sindoor", a reference to the deep red powder some married Hindu women dab on the parting of their hair or on their foreheads. India's military action, in other words, was being taken on behalf of the women who had lost their husbands on April 22. Women like Himanshi Narwal. Though what she, and others like her, might think is apparently besides the point or even worthy of contempt. 

The contrast between Narwal's dignity and the absurd propaganda peddled by the mainstream Indian media would have been comical if it were not simultaneously so depressing. On Friday evening, a friend, an editor at a national magazine, sent me a collection of screen grabs of headlines in India, mostly from television news. Each claim was remarkable -- Pakistani planes being shot out of the sky, rebels from Balochistan capturing the city of Quetta, the Indian navy bombing Karachi, even reports of a coup -- and each claim was either knowingly false or entirely unverified. On Indian TV screens every night, since Wednesday night when India first bombed its targets in Pakistan, we've been exposed to a tale told by idiots.

 Was it too much to hope for some restraint? But the tone taken by the mainstream media, a mimicking of the abrasive arrogance of Hindu nationalist trolls on social media, was matched by the Indian government. I watched a spokesperson from the BJP, India's governing party, tell a British news channel about Modi's "3E policy -- evaporate, eradicate, eliminate... shameless Pakistan needs to be taught a lesson." Oy vey! 

And now, does the ceasefire mean that the so-called 3E policy has been abandoned? Would the Modi government – which had blocked the few critical, independent voices – have the courage to reimagine its response to Pakistan, to reevaluate the belligerence of its rhetoric, and to instead embrace the inherent strength in India’s secular, constitutional values and enter into constructive dialogue?

The signs are not encouraging. In a late bid to wrest the narrative momentum from Donald Trump, Indian politicians, journalists and commentators spread word of the country’s new approach to terrorism. Modi, having been silent through much of the fighting, elaborated on the “new normal,” in an address to the nation on Monday night. India, he said, would no longer distinguish “between the government sponsoring terrorism and the masterminds of terrorism.” The words were belligerent, the policies no kind of solution. 

Perhaps, India’s wounds are still too raw for self-reflection. But the question remains: Is India going to be held hostage to its own anger? Or will it acknowledge that talks, and people to people contact, must resume.

A version of this story was published in last week’s Sunday Read newsletter. Sign up here.

Related Articles

The demolition of dissent in India

Tusha Mittal

‘I cannot hide’: Viral photos from Kashmir conflict haunt subjects for years

Zenaira Bakhsh

Life in Pakistan without a digital ID

Alizeh Kohari

The post The Truth Social Truce appeared first on Coda Story.