INSIDE RUSSIA - WHAT'S HAPPENING IN RUSSIA RIGHT NOW | October 12, 2026

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MOSCOW REJECTS ZELENSKY’A PROPOSED 60-DAY CEASEFIRE 

Russia does not intend to cease fire to allow elections to be held in Ukraine. Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov told Reuters that Moscow favors a long-term peace rather than a temporary ceasefire.

“Both President Putin and officials at other levels in the Kremlin have repeatedly stated that we do not want a ceasefire. We want a long-term peace and are ready to do everything possible to achieve it,” Peskov said.

At the same time, he allowed that Putin might order a halt to strikes on Ukraine specifically on the day of the presidential election, if Kyiv genuinely decides to hold one.

Earlier, the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Kyiv was ready to hold elections if Russia agreed to a 60-day ceasefire.

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RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT PROPOSES TIGHTENING RESTRICTIONS ON BANKING TRANSACTIONS FOR “TERRORISTS AND EXTREMISTS” 

Russian state financial monitoring agency Rosfinmonitoring proposed requiring banks to block spending above the established limit by wanted individuals on the “terrorists and extremists” list until the search for them is terminated. Amendments to the law on combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism have been published for public consultation.

Currently, such transactions are suspended for five business days. Extending the block requires an order from Rosfinmonitoring for up to 30 days, followed by a court ruling. The new procedure would allow spending above the limit to be frozen without these additional decisions for the entire period during which an individual remains wanted in Russia.

The government allows people on the list to spend no more than one minimum monthly wage (MROT) per month on their everyday needs, plus one additional MROT for each cohabiting family member without their own income. In 2026, this amounts to 27,093 rubles ($318.74) per person. However, transactions involving wanted individuals on the list are already suspended even when they fall within this limit.

The restrictions will not affect the payment of taxes, fines, and other mandatory charges, or the fulfillment of financial obligations incurred before an individual was added to the list.

In addition, Rosfinmonitoring proposes enshrining in law the obligation of the Russian Interior Ministry to provide it with information about wanted individuals. The agencies have already agreed to exchange such information, but no separate legal provision currently establishes this requirement.

According to human rights organizations and expert reports, at least 5,063 people in Russia have been designated “terrorists” and “extremists” for political reasons.

According to a joint study by the Anti-War Committee and independent analysts, this figure represents at least 23.5% of all individuals listed in the official register maintained by Rosfinmonitoring. As of mid-2026, the “terrorist and extremist” register contains more than 21,600 people.

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RUSSIA’S LARGEST IT COMPANY YANDEX IS UNABLE TO RESTORE ITS SERVICES AFTER UKRAINIAN ATTACKS ON ITS DATA CENTERS 

Services of Russia’s largest IT company Yandex continue to experience outages following Ukrainian attacks on three of the company’s data centers in the cities of Sasovo, Kaluga, and Vladimir. 

On the second day since the latest strike on Sunday, users are reporting that banking service Yandex Pay, videocalling service Telemost, advertising service Direct, cloud service Disk, as well as Mail, Messenger, and other services are not working, according to reports on the DownDetector service. A total of 435,000 people noticed outages over the course of 24 hours.

Yandex Pay users cannot transfer money or pay for subscriptions, and their current account balances are not displayed, Post reports. The previous evening, the company said that the service had not yet been restored. Dmitry Pirogov, head of Yandex’s fintech division, was unable to provide an exact timeline for resolving the issues. However, he assured users that their money was safe: it is not stored in the data center, and account information exists in multiple copies across different sites. 

The outages have also affected Yandex Music, delivery services Eats and Lavka, the Yandex Go taxi app, and Yandex Pro, a service for drivers and couriers. In some cases, customer support is also unavailable. Taxi drivers and couriers have also complained that they are unable to withdraw the money they have earned, Sirena reports.

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KREMLIN BOTS DOWNPLAY THE SCALE OF THE ATTACKS ON YANDEX DATA CENTERS, PRAISE AIR DEFENSE, AND SUGGEST THAT RUSSIANS “STEP AWAY FROM THEIR PHONES” 

In the four days after Ukrainian strikes on Yandex data centers began, pro-government bots on Russian social network VKontakte left around two thousand comments on the topic. This is evidenced by data from the Botnadzor project, analyzed by Verstka.

After the first attack on the night of October 8, the bots used a universal narrative: they urged Russians not to “spread panic” and described how air defenses “quite calmly shoot down 90–99% of attacks.”

On October 9, when a second data center came under attack, Kremlin bots began downplaying the scale of the losses. In particular, they started posting messages claiming that the data center in Sasovo, which had been attacked the previous day, “accounted for only 5% of capacity, so there was no major outage.”

“Well, one data center got hit, well, a little bit burned, but the Emergency Situations Ministry arrived immediately and put everything out,” the messages said.

On October 11, after an attack on a third data center that knocked numerous Yandex services offline, the bots began writing that the data center would either “be repaired soon” or that the company’s apps were working normally.

“All services have been running smoothly since noon. Update your maps already and stop spreading this spam,” the bots wrote.

In rare cases when bots acknowledged problems with the services, they presented the attacks on the data centers as something beneficial.

“Seems like the perfect time for people to step away from their monitors and smartphones and look at the world around them. The internet has made you addicted,” the bots wrote.

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RUSSIA WILL TOUGHEN PENALTIES FOR CALLS FOR TERRORISM AND MASS RIOTS 

The Russian government has backed a bill to increase criminal penalties for public calls for terrorism and mass riots, as well as for violence against government officials. This was reported by state outlet TASS. 

The government’s review states that the bill will help “strengthen the protection of citizens, society, and the state from extremist and terrorist threats.”

The initiative was authored by Vasily Piskaryov, head of the Russian Government Committee on Security, and senator Eduard Valeev. Both are members of Putin’s party United Russia. They explained the need for the bill by citing a “sustained increase in crimes” related to “terrorist propaganda.” 

According to the senators, 393 such offenses were registered in Russia in 2021, 564 in 2022, 624 in 2023, 967 in 2024, and 781 in the first half of 2025. The authors of the amendments claim that most of these offenses were committed online.

The bill introduces an additional penalty for “public calls for terrorism”: a ban on holding certain positions or engaging in certain activities for a period of two to six years. For “calls for mass riots,” the senators want to increase the maximum prison sentence or term of forced labor from the current two years to four years. For the same acts committed “using the internet,” the proposed penalty would be up to six years in prison.

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PROFITS OF RUSSIA’S LARGEST RETAILERS PLUNGE NEARLY THREEFOLD IN A YEAR AS RESIDENTS CUT BACK ON SPENDING 

Net profit among Russia’s 50 largest retailers fell sharply amid a deteriorating economy and Russians “tightening their belts.” At the end of 2025, the figure had dropped nearly threefold year over year, from 587 billion rubles ($6.91 billion) to 215 billion rubles ($2.53 billion), while business profit margins declined from 3.3% to 1.1%. This follows from the companies’ financial statements reviewed by Vedomosti.

At the same time, combined revenue among the largest retailers increased by 8.3% in 2025, from 18.2 trillion rubles ($214 billion) to 19.7 trillion rubles ($231.76 billion). The top 10 retailers increased their revenue by 11.4%, to 13.8 trillion rubles ($162.35 billion), while the remaining 40 companies grew their revenue by just 5%. 

The decline in retailers’ net profits was driven by higher loan servicing costs, rising logistics expenses, wage increases, and slowing consumer demand, noted the Presidential Academy in St. Petersburg.

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RUSSIA’S MAJOR CLOUD SERVICE ABSOLVES ITSELF OF RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE LOSS OF USER DATA IN DRONE ATTACKS DAYS BEFORE THE UKRAINIAN STRIKES ON YANDEX DATA CENTERS 

On September 30, a week before the first Ukrainian attack on Yandex data centers, Russia’s major cloud platform VK Cloud updated its terms of service, absolving itself of responsibility for safeguarding clients’ data during drone attacks. Independent outlet Verstka drew attention to the changes in the document.

In the new terms, the company clarified the list of events it considers force majeure circumstances. These included, in particular, the adoption by government authorities of acts containing prohibitions or restrictions on the platform’s operation under the contract, civil unrest, and the consequences of the use of weapons.

“The consequences of the use, impact, fall, or detonation of weapons, military equipment, aircraft (including unmanned aerial vehicles), other means of destruction, ammunition, and their components, including, but not limited to, the physical destruction, damage to, or loss of control over any facilities or equipment used to provide the Services under the Contract,” the new terms state.

VK Cloud states that in the event of force majeure circumstances, the company “under no circumstances” bears responsibility for the loss, damage, or destruction of a customer’s content. The platform will also not compensate clients for losses incurred in such situations.

VK Cloud is part of the VK corporate ecosystem, whose CEO is Vladimir Kiriyenko, the son of Sergei Kiriyenko, First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration of Russia. The cloud platform became one of the companies with which Yandex reached an agreement on expedited migration of its clients’ data and services following the drone attacks.

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FINLAND PROPOSES BANNING VISAS FOR PUTIN’S INNER CIRCLE AND RUSSIAN ATHLETES 

Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen called on EU countries to stop issuing tourist visas to Russian citizens until Russia ends its war in Ukraine. Valtonen sent a letter to the European Commission with proposals to tighten visa policy.

The Kyiv Independent reports that the letter proposes “stopping the issuance of Schengen visas to Russian citizens for non-essential travel,” introducing a ban on issuing visas to Putin’s inner circle and “any individuals and legal entities subject to EU sanctions.”

Finland also proposes refusing visas to “Russian athletes and members of sports teams with close ties to the Russian government” and banning former Russian combatants from entering the EU.

Earlier, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo called for a complete halt to the issuance of tourist visas to Russians for travel to Europe. He plans to present this proposal at the European Union summit on October 15–16.

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THE EU APPROVES ITS LARGEST-EVER SANCTIONS PACKAGE AGAINST RUSSIA 

The EU has approved its new sanctions package against Russia. A total of 826 legal entities and 743 individuals linked to Russia’s military-industrial complex will be subject to restrictions.

This was announced by EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who described the new measures as the largest expansion of the sanctions list since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine. More than half of the new sanctions are related to the production of ballistic missiles.

“We are making Russia’s production of weapons used to kill Ukrainians significantly more difficult, slower, and more expensive,” Kallas said.

Earlier, Euronews reported that the sanctions list would also include 77 officials who ran for the Russian Government in the occupied territories of Ukraine. They will be banned from entering the EU and have their assets frozen.

ON THAT NOTE, WE END TODAY’S NEWS BROADCAST.

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