There's still time to vote in Fat Bear Week! explore.org#h_6757205407...

The weekend is here and @bearmarketbrief.bsky.social is out! Read this week about the EU's new sanctions, the 2026 federal budget, the gasoline crisis and regional news! Subscribe to have it in your inbox every week! open.substack.com/pub/bearmark...

Interesting theory from @kominmo.bsky.social on Krasnov's crackdown as new Supreme Court head: Krasnov was accruing too much influence as prosecutor general, so he had to be "dismissed upwards", but to appease him, he was given free rein to purge the judiciary. carnegieendowment.org/russia-euras...

As expected, Trump is very understanding with Orbán's refusal to stop buying Russian oil. "Hungary is landlocked. They don't have a nice ocean. (...) They are married to one pipeline. I just don't want to have people go blaming them" www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3ur...

Potentially interesting development in Khakassia: United Russia withdrew, from the agenda of the local parliament, a proposal to override the (communist) governor's veto on the regional law implementing the Kremlin's municipal reform, likely because they didn't have the numbers t.me/notabenenews...

Actually, an opposition (Democratic Coalition) member did address Semjén, asking him to tell "who is uncle Zsolti" accused of sexually abusing minors, but Semjén's response seems to only have made things worse. Watch for yourself.

Squeezed between the prospects of a ballooning deficit and higher prices, the Russian government chooses the latter.

The main political event of the week

While this is happening, I'm sure the administration is *very* busy putting pressure on Viktor Orbán to stop buying Russian oil and gas.

Ilya Seredyuk, the governor of the Kemerovo Region expects a 32-billion-ruble shortfall in the region's 2025 budget due to the crisis of the coal industry. This triples the region's planned deficit and will likely force the regional government to cancel state-financed projects t.me/kuzbassinfo/...

Waiting for the "Biden's senility is endangering all of us" crowd to channel their, no doubt, even bigger outrage into months and months of unrelenting media coverage.

On the one hand, this is yet another nationalisation case of many. On the other hand, it happens in the context of the weakening of a wider team linked to Moscow mayor Sergey Sobyanin in the Urals.

This won't get a lot of attention & fortunately no one was inside the building, but it's exactly this kind of event - the collapse of a school due to chronic underinvestment - that one day may cause anger over the neglect of domestic priorities - to erupt www.sibreal.org/a/zdes-norma...

Fortunately, I had better things to do over the past weekend, so this completely flew past me. How grotesque. www.bbc.com/news/videos/...

Looking forward to reading this - but I can already tell you that if you're interested in subnational politics in Russia, Mikhail is an essential follow.

Have you already read this week's @bearmarketbrief.bsky.social ? We have briefing & analysis on Russia's regional elections and regional economics as well as on the latest concerning Navalny's heritage & cadre rotations. Subscribe to read it each week! bearmarketbrief.substack.com/p/same-old-s...

They are right and these protests are a good way to highlight that arrests like this will become more frequent as Trump's regime hardens. The city and a state need leaders who push back harder against blackmail and the influx of masked goons.

Zsolt Bayer, a founding member of Orbán's Fidesz party and one of his most loyal and aggressive media attack-dogs, at a vigil in Budapest for the murdered Charlie Kirk. Facing the collapse of the economy & public services, Orbán is happy to import a bit of culture war from 4000 mi away. Photo: Telex

America is having its Kukly moment.

Fresh from @vsquare.bsky.social on the GRU's role in parcel bombs set on European targets. vsquare.org/revealed-how...

💥Navalny’s memorial at the Russian Embassy in Budapest keeps being destroyed overnight. An opposition politician reinstalled it for the 2nd time. The Russian Embassy now claims, absurdly, that its creators themselves vandalize it as a false-flag to push for a permanent monument.

According to earlier speculations about the fall rotation of officials, Kozak could be offered the position of presidential plenipotentiary in the NW Federal District. We'll see if that happens, but either way this looks like a defeat from his perspective.

This is my list of regions by week when gasoline shortages were reported. Primorsky krai got gasoline after September 1st at the expense of Khreson region and Amur region. I can't confirm rumors for Samara, Tula and Astrakhan.

A new addition to Orbán's "Patriots"?

United Russia general secretary Yakushev says his party got more than 80% of mandates in regional legislatures where elections were held over the weekend. Save for a couple of regions the party's popularity is much lower, but single-mandate FPTP & manipulation do the trick tass.ru/politika/250...

It looks like Irkutsk governor Igor Kobzev's official vote share will stay around 60%, probably one of if not the worst result among sitting governors, along with Kamchatka governor Vladimir Solodov (63%) and Sverdlovsk governor Denis Pasler (64%). www.kommersant.ru/doc/8039739

In Tomsk, one of the cities, in which campaigns by Navalny's network and local activists deprived United Russia of a majority in 2020, the authorities are successfully taking back control: in the list voting the ruling party almost doubles its vote 2020 vote share www.riatomsk.ru/article/2025...

Another subregional election worth following is local elections in Khakassia, scene of an ongoing power struggle between United Russia and the region's communist governor, including over the governor's powers over municipal finances. www.kommersant.ru/doc/8039539

At another gubernatorial election that merits attention, in the Irkutsk Region the incumbent Igor Kobzev is (predictably) winning with ~60% of the vote (with 25% counted). But all this is happening at a very low turnout, suggesting a shaky grip on the region. t.me/Sib_EXpress/...

One of the main questions in Russia's ongoing regional elections was how the authorities & governor Alexander Khinshtein would handle the Kursk Region where the Ukrainian army's incursion, corruption and problems with the provision of housing aid have led to protests and dissatisfaction.

Looking for some weekend reading? This week's @bearmarketbrief.bsky.social is out! Read about drone attacks, the state of the Russian federal budget, Russia's new messenger, assorted regional news and more! Subscribe to have it in your inbox every week! open.substack.com/pub/bearmark...

Can't wait for the Jake Tapper book. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

Regional and local elections started in Russia today. I'm re-upping my preview from last week and there is a short paragraph about them in today's Bear Market Brief as well. We'll talk about them in more detail next week. minczifra.substack.com/p/on-russias...

Mediazona did some excellent digging into the identities of the five truckers who were duped into driving those Ukrainian drones to Russian airfields in “Operation Spiderweb.” One of them died when his truck caught fire en route; the others are now behind bars. meduza.io/en/feature/2...

The Brazilian justice system did what the American was unable to. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Russia will hold regional elections from Friday to Sunday including in the Kursk Region where the corruption case regarding the region's defensive fortifications is still ongoing. Former governor Alexey Smirnov - in office just for a couple of months - plead guilty. tass.ru/proisshestvi...

The latest one being, of course, the ongoing shooting in a Colorado high school. Otherwise I agree with every word.

💥Poland’s foreign minister @radek-sikorski.bsky.social reminded Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán that he once again failed to name or condemn Russia — and that his government is still blocking €2 billion in EU funds meant to compensate Poland for the military aid it has provided to Ukraine.

An attack on von der Leyen's record by Borrell, Verhofstadt and Ruiz Devesa. As regards Trump: I find it astonishing that this still needs to be repeated in 2025. If you didn't see this clearly in 2017, what are you doing in politics? Go retire. www.politico.eu/article/dona...

Reporters from Bereg, a cooperative of independent journalists, traveled to Vologda to investigate how locals are coping with a new dry law that imposes some of Russia's strictest limits on liquor sales. meduza.io/en/feature/2...

The Russian MinFin is considering providing support measures for 42 coal companies including deferral of taxes and loan restructuring. That wouldn't be enough a big chunk of Russia's coal sector is exporting at a loss just to prevent closing down. www.kommersant.ru/doc/8023305

The USTA bends the knee. Shameful. I can suddenly think of a million better things to do than to watch the US Open final today and I'm sure you can too. www.nytimes.com/athletic/660...

The weekend is (almost) here and the new @bearmarketbrief.bsky.social is out! Read about Putin & Xi, the Eastern Economic Forum, upcoming changes in the judiciary, regional news and more! Subscribe to have it in your inbox every week! open.substack.com/pub/bearmark...

The weekend is (almost) here and the new @bearmarketbrief.bsky.social is out! Read about Putin & Xi, the Eastern Economic Forum, upcoming changes in the judiciary, regional news and more! Subscribe to have it in your inbox every week! open.substack.com/pub/bearmark...

Morning re-up: next week Russia will hold regional and local elections across the country. While these cannot be analyzed the way you would look at democratic elections, they nonetheless provide important insights into the state of domestic politics. A summary.

New on Substack: a summary of the issues around Russia's upcoming regional and local votes and why these votes are interesting even under the current circumstances. minczifra.substack.com/p/on-russias...

This deliberate degradation of the right to asylum for those fleeing political persecution and torture is deeply shameful, un-American and detrimental to US interests; sadly, it's hard to expect anything else from this administration of crooks and thieves. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Just what the world needs www.ft.com/content/eea0...

New on Substack: a summary of the issues around Russia's upcoming regional and local votes and why these votes are interesting even under the current circumstances. minczifra.substack.com/p/on-russias...

The governor of Chuvashia claims to have a solution for the mobile internet outages that have been hitting Russian regions since Ukraine's "Operation Spiderweb". A bot will allegedly allow residents to stay connected at all times, albeit it's unclear what sites will be reachable t.me/horizontal_r...