Despite Rosstat's classified data, several observers claim that Russia's population has now fallen below 140 million, with deaths consistently outnumbering births. The regions with traditionally higher growth rates are those with the highest number of casualties on the Ukrainian front.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union 35 years ago, the region - close to the Urals - proclaimed its autonomy, later cancelled by Vladimir Putin's “vertical of power”. In today's Urfa, home to thousands of soldiers now on the Ukrainian front, very little remains of those dreams and the word ‘sovereignty’ has been banned from public discourse.
The 2025 military campaign, the most violent and systematic, is nearing its conclusion before the winter freeze. For one expert, “the strategic context of the war is [. . .] shifting," while Russia’s economy slides towards stagnation. Trump is tempted to conclude a "mutual deal" with Putin. Neither Russia nor Ukraine are truly capable of changing the course and nature of the war.
Young singer Diana Loginova, known by the pseudonym Naoko, and two other members of a rock band were arrested for attracting large crowds of spectators and onlookers to listen to their songs, despite being recognised as “foreign agents”. They performed songs by the great singer-songwriter Bulat Okudžava, who died in the late 1990s and sang against the ‘cowardly war’.
The creation of a platform at the Council of Europe for dialogue with the democratic forces in Russia that oppose Vladimir Putin's regime is hampered by internal divisions between the various groups, including criticism of the Anti-Corruption Fund created by Alexei Navalny. Vladimir Kara-Murza's appeal: ‘Every political prisoner must be able to count on not being forgotten’.
This morning Leo XIV received at the Apostolic Palace a group of Russian Catholics in Rome for their Jubilee pilgrimage. He invited them to light “the fire of Christian love" and warm the “most hardened hearts” in a world brutalised by war. With charity and hope, a "new world" can be built from the “ruins”. The icon of the Salus Populi Romani is "the sign of the Holy Year”.
