Modi’s promise, the Nord Stream bombers, and suspicious plates Meduza breaks down today’s biggest Russia-related news stories, October 15, 2025

Below, you’ll find a digest of news reports from October 15, 2025, in Russian and English on energy trade, Russian political repressions and legal cases, European security, the war in Ukraine, and Russia’s strange politics under Vladimir Putin.

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• “President Trump said on Wednesday that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told him that India will stop buying oil from Russia […] An Indian pledge to halt buying Russian oil would mark a potential turning point in global energy diplomacy” — Reuters
• “Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said President Trump supports imposing a tariff on China for purchasing Russian oil — if European countries also act.” — The Wall Street Journal
• “The U.K. slapped sanctions on Russia’s biggest oil producers [Rosneft and Lukoil] and two Chinese energy firms that deal with Moscow […] [and] China’s Beihai liquefied natural gas terminal, which has become the key offloading point for cargoes from Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 project, as well as Chinese oil processor Shandong Yulong.” — Bloomberg
• “Russian exports of refined fuels have slumped to their lowest since the onset of the Ukraine war […] The slump has prompted Russian authorities to extend a gasoline export ban and introduce partial diesel export limits to stabilize the domestic market.” — Bloomberg
• “Collective action within oil producer group OPEC+ is in the interest of both Russia and Saudi Arabia, Russia’s deputy prime minister Alexander Novak told Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman in Moscow on Wednesday” — Reuters

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• Putin signed legislation on Wednesday that lowers the threshold for criminal charges against noncompliant “foreign agents.” The law previously required two administrative fines before criminal charges could be brought; now, prosecution is possible after just one preceding fine. — Meduza
• Russia’s financial intelligence agency added former Deputy Prime Minister Alfred Kokh to its registry of “terrorists and extremists.” The terrorism charges against Kokh aren’t clear, but the designation locks down all his assets in Russia. — Meduza
• A Moscow court has banned the distribution of content from blogger Alex Leslie (real name Alexander Kirillov), whose rape-positive “training lessons” have been linked to at least one attack on a woman and multiple cases of harassment. Leslie, who doesn’t reside in Russia, became a public figure after Nastya Rybka, one of his mentees, was featured in an investigation by Alexey Navalny tying her to sex work aboard a yacht with oligarch Oleg Deripaska and ex-Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Prikhodko. — Meduza
• Former Moscow municipal deputy Alexey Gorinov — the first man in Russia to be imprisoned for spreading “fake news” about the military — has been declared an “arson risk.” The new “preventative registry” designation is prison officials’ latest justification for keeping him in isolation. He has another four years left on his sentence. — Meduza
• Since Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation was banned as “extremist” in 2021, Russian officials have opened at least 114 criminal cases against donors across 49 of the country’s 85 federal subjects, though more than 80 percent of the 79 sentences already issued did not involve imprisonment. — Mediazona

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• “A Ukrainian man suspected of coordinating the 2022 attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines will not be handed over to the German authorities for the moment […] The Court of Cassation, Italy’s highest court, supported the defense’s argument that there had been ‘incorrect legal classification of the facts underlying the European Arrest Warrant’” — Reuters
• “Germany plans to invest €10 billion ($11.6 billion) in military drones in the coming years to help protect European and NATO airspace amid a rising threat from Russia” — Bloomberg
• “The European Union’s top official on Wednesday told Serbia’s populist leader to ‘get concrete’ about its proclaimed goal of joining the 27-nation bloc, including implementing sanctions against traditional ally Russia.” — The Washington Post
• “Foreign donors have provided 93.3 billion crowns ($4.5 billion) to a Czech-led initiative to find and deliver large-caliber ammunition to Ukraine, and the Czech Republic has contributed 1.7 billion crowns […] Andrej Babis, whose ANO party won a parliamentary election on October 3-4 […] has criticized the initiative […] but he has been less clear since his victory” — Reuters
• “Poland’s foreign minister has accused Russia of a ‘tactically stupid and counterproductive’ escalation of the war in Ukraine, saying its drone incursion into Poland last month appeared to be deliberate.” — The Guardian
• “Sweden, Estonia, and Finland pledged contributions on Wednesday to increase spending on purchases of U.S. weapons for Ukraine, but countries including Spain, Italy, France, and Britain have faced criticism for holding back” — The Guardian

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• “Russia is attacking Ukraine’s vital rail network with more precise drones […] Russia has stepped up railway attacks over the past three months, seeking to sow unrest in Ukrainian regions it borders by depriving people there of rail connections” — The Associated Press
• “The International Monetary Fund’s chief plans to travel to Ukraine in a show of support for the war-battered nation, bolstering Kyiv’s ambition to secure a new loan package” — Bloomberg
• “The Trump administration is raising pressure on Moscow to come back to the negotiating table to resolve the war in Ukraine, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warning the Kremlin of possible ‘costs’ at a NATO meeting on Wednesday.” — The Washington Post
• “Hegseth said ‘firepower, that’s what is coming,’ to Ukraine through European nations’ purchases of U.S. weapons, but whether that includes American-made Tomahawk missiles is still not clear.” — CNN

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• Samara Governor Vyacheslav Fedoryshchev doesn’t have the authority to fire municipal heads, but he claimed to do just this in a viral video shared this week. In the footage, he smacks Kinel district head Yuri Zhidkov on the back after telling him, “You’re fired. Fuck off,” after seeing a discarded memorial stone dedicated to WWII veterans. At 36, Fedoryshchev is Russia’s youngest governor and is reportedly at risk of losing his job himself. Zhidkov was briefly hospitalized after the incident, suffering a “hypertensive crisis.” — Meduza
• A Moscow court granted the Prosecutor General’s Office’s lawsuit and confiscated the property and assets of Viktor Momotov, seizing 95 real estate properties worth at least 9 billion rubles ($113.4 million), including the Marton business hotel chain. Momotov, the influential former head of Russia’s Council of Judges, claims to have divested from the hotel business in 2018 and attributes his modest wealth today to his earnings decades ago as a university teacher. During the trial, prosecutors questioned “secret witnesses” and argued that Momotov evaded taxes and abused his judicial authority and immunity to conceal the Marton hotel chain’s criminal activity, including sex work. — RBC
• Prosecutors are seeking 25 years for former Khabarovsk Governor Sergey Furgal, combining his existing 22-year prison term for alleged involvement in contract killings in 2003–2004 with a new sentence for embezzling from a local steel plant while serving in public office. Furgal’s arrest in July 2020 provoked sustained local protests. — RBC

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The head of Russia’s Human Rights Council, Valery Fadeyev, has identified a grave threat to national security — a pattern of behavior with sinister overtones. “They could be demonstrating disdain for the Russian state, rejecting secular authority, or calling for something like separatism,” the council explained in a Telegram post on October 13, revealing that Fadeyev has appealed to Russia’s top cop, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, to investigate the matter.

Fadeyev is concerned about Russian motorists who still drive around using old license plates that do not bear the Russian tricolor. As of January 1, 2025, all new license plates in Russia feature the nation’s flag, but it was previously possible to hire a licensed private company to issue a vehicle plate without the tricolor. Fadeyev urges Kolokoltsev to establish a signal standard for license plates in Russia and set a deadline for all motorists to update their plates. “Given the kinds of cars you see with license plates without the tricolor, I don’t think this will be a financial problem for their owners,” Fadeyev added.