Russia Matters, 5/23/25

1. In the week preceding May 20, 2025, Russian forces gained 55 square miles of Ukrainian territory (just over 2 Manhattan islands), a notable gain over its 33-square mile advance over each of the previous two weeks, according to the May 21, 2025, issue of the Russia-Ukraine War Report Card. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s armed forces lost 1 square mile of their control in Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions, leaving them with a total of 9 square miles, according to the card, which analyzes ISW data. In the past month (April 22–May 20, 2025), Russia gained 135 square miles, according to that data. According to RM’s analysis of data posted by Ukraine’s DeepState OSINT group, the total amount of Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia increased by 0.9% so far this year. See Table 1 for more estimates.*
2. Donald Trump’s May 19 call with Vladimir Putin yielded no breakthrough on the Russia-Ukraine war, with Putin rejecting an unconditional full ceasefire again and Trump asserting that, going forward, Moscow and Kyiv will need to negotiate conditions directly, perhaps in the Vatican, in what Financial Times reporters interpreted as a signal that Washington is “stepping back from a role as a mediator.” While the White House did not explicitly confirm Trump’s disengagement publicly, the U.S. leader did observe after the call with Putin: “This isn’t my war.” When briefing European leaders by phone on the outcome of his conversation with Putin, Trump said that Putin isn’t ready to end the war in Ukraine because he thinks he is winning, according to the Wall Street Journal.¹ Since the call, Russia has a rejected the Vatican as a venue for further talks while advancing to “final stages” the “memorandum” on its terms for a future peace treaty, which Putin promised to come up with during his call with Trump and which his diplomats intend to discuss with their Ukrainian counterparts in Istanbul.
3. Ukrainians should not bet on some kind of “white swan” event that would “bring peace to Ukraine in the borders of 1991 or 2022,” ex-commander of Ukraine’s armed forces Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi said at a recent public forum in Ukraine. Ukraine needs to transform the nature of the current war from that of attrition to one that minimizes the expenditure of Ukraine’s human and economic resources, he said. Given the “huge deficit of human resources and a catastrophic economic situation,” “we can only talk about a high-tech war for survival, where a minimum of human resources, a minimum of economic means are used to achieve maximum benefit,” according to Zaluzhnyi.²

Intellinews, 5/6/25

Russia’s economy contracted by 0.3% quarter on quarter in 1Q25 in seasonally adjusted terms, marking the first quarterly decline since 2Q22, Vedomosti daily reports citing estimates by Raiffeisenbank.

As followed closely by bne IntelliNews, the signs of a slowdown in Russia are clear, with analysts guessing whether the economy overheated by the full-scale military invasion of Ukraine is headed for a “soft” or “hard” landing.

This week the Ministry of Economic Development said that Russia’s economy grew by 1.7% year-on-year in 1Q25 in unadjusted terms. But in seasonally adjusted terms the GDP growth in 1Q25 was actually negative, according to Raiffeisenbank and other analysts surveyed by Vedomosti.

Renaissance Capital also wrote in the note for clients on May 6 that “seasonally adjusted GDP growth in 1Q25 was negative relative to 4Q24”.

The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) predicted a slowdown for this year since it issued a pessimistic medium-term macroeconomic outlook at the start of August last year. In an effort to bring down sticky high inflation it introduced a series of non-monetary policy measures last year to artificially cool the economy, but it appears it may have overshot as external shocks of falling oil prices, which dropped below $60 a barrel a day earlier, and the chaos the Trump administration tariff policy have bounced back to hit the Russian economy.

A debate has been raging over the last nine months. Some economists believe that Russia will be hit by a wave of bankruptcies later this year, while others say the economy is more robust than it appears. However, the latest results suggest the centre of gravity has shifted to the negative end of the spectrum. Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov almost admitted as much earlier this week when he tripled the federal budget deficit forecast for this year and dropped the outlook for average oil prices in 2025 to a mere $56 per barrel from $62.2.

Bloomberg’s Alexander Isakov estimates the contraction at 0.6%–0.8% q/q, while T-Investments’ Sofya Donets puts the decline at up to 1.5%. The most vulnerable sectors in the ongoing slowdown are industrial production, extraction, and transportation, which all are key export-oriented industries.

Most analysts surveyed by Vedomosti expect a near-zero or slightly negative growth path to persist in 2Q25, with Russia’s economy continuing to teeter on the edge of a technical recession, with near-zero or negative q/q growth expected through mid-year.

This contrasts with the recent bullish outlook published by EconMin.

By Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter, 4/26/25

The following article was made possible by paid subscribers of The Dissenter. Become a subscriber with this discount offer and support journalism that stands up to attacks on freedom of the press.

United States Attorney General Pam Bondi ended a Justice Department (DOJ) policy that explicitly discouraged federal prosecutors from forcing journalists to reveal their sources and other sensitive information, including information obtained from potential leaks. 

With new guidelines, members of the news media who refuse to cooperate with prosecutors could be arrested for contempt. If accused of contempt, they could be fined or jailed.

The move by Bondi comes as Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has “referred” three alleged “intelligence leakers” to the DOJ for criminal prosecution. 

According to Gabbard, one of those individuals allegedly leaked to the Washington Post. The policy change effectively gives the green light to prosecutors to subpoena Post reporters and other staff.

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In October 2022, Attorney General Merrick Garland adopted changes to “news media guidelines” that were celebrated by journalist associations and press freedom groups. As the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) described, for the first time, guidelines prohibited prosecutors “from using subpoenas or other investigative tools against journalists who possess and publish classified information obtained in newsgathering, with only narrow exceptions.”

On April 25, 2025, Bondi issued a memo [PDF] that voided those changes. The memo informs all DOJ employees that members of the news media “must answer subpoenas,” and it also applied to court orders and search warrants intended to “compel the production of information and testimony.” Bondi will approve all “efforts to question or arrest members of the news media.”

The memo further suggests that Bondi will only approve subpoenas, court orders, or search warrants when the information sought is “essential to a successful prosecution” and prosecutors have “made all reasonable attempts to obtain the information from alternative sources.” Yet the DOJ has wide discretion to conduct investigations however it chooses, and the guidelines hardly mean that Bondi and the DOJ will not trample over the rights of journalists.

Bondi cast this development as a necessary part of winning an information war against President Donald Trump’s political opponents within and outside of the government. Specifically, she accused President Joe Biden’s administration of abusing “Garland’s overly broad procedural protections for media allies by engaging in selective leaks in support of failed lawfare campaigns.” 

“The leaks have not abated since President Trump’s second inauguration, including leaks of classified information,” Bondi added. “This Justice Department will not tolerate unauthorized disclosures that undermine President Trump’s policies, victimize government agencies, and cause harm to the American people.”

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Quoting a stunning executive order from Trump that singled out a former official as an “egregious leaker,” Bondi echoed the assertion that disclosures of information related to foreign policy, national security, or “government effectiveness” could be characterized as “treasonous and as possibly violating the Espionage Act.” 

Bondi stated, “The perpetrators of these leaks aid our foreign adversaries by spilling sensitive and sometimes classified information on to the Internet. The damage is significant and irreversible. Accountability, including criminal prosecutions, is necessary to set a new course.”

Garland’s protections for reporters stemmed from a backlash to news reports, which revealed that Trump’s first administration had secretly subpoenaed the communications records of reporters at the Post, CNN, and the New York Times. 

In fact, after Biden assumed office in 2021, the DOJ did not immediately stop Trump’s retaliation against the press. DOJ officials even imposed an “unprecedented” gag order against Times executives. 

DOJ officials eventually met with media representatives to tamp down outrage and agreed to limits on national security leak investigations. The overture was similar to Attorney General Eric Holder’s response to widespread media disapproval in 2013, when it became known that President Barack Obama’s administration had seized records from “more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to [the Associated Press] and its journalists.”

Throughout the Biden administration, a coalition of groups recognized that the protections for press were subject to change under future administrations. They urged the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate to codify the changes into law by passing the PRESS Act, which would have established a federal reporter’s shield law.

The House passed the PRESS Act in January 2024, however, despite bipartisan support, the shield law languished in the Senate for months as Democrats did nothing to move the bill for a vote.

In April 2024, when White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked if Biden supported the PRESS Act, she uttered a platitude: “[J]ournalism is not a crime. We’ve been very clear about that.” But the White House refused to back legislation that would protect reporters from the type of attacks on their newsgathering that Bondi just authorized.  

After Vice President Kamala Harris lost the presidential election to Trump, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democrats, like Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, suddenly recognized the need to pass the PRESS Act. It was too late. Trump came out against the shield law, instructing Republicans to “kill” the bill. Republican Senator Tom Cotton obeyed Trump and blocked the bill, as he had done during a previous session of Congress. 

“Every Democrat who put the PRESS Act on the back burner when they had the opportunity to pass a bipartisan bill codifying journalist-source confidentiality should be ashamed,” Freedom of the Press Foundation advocacy director Seth Stern said, after Bondi revoked press protections. “Everyone predicted this would happen in a second Trump administration, yet politicians in a position to prevent it prioritized empty rhetoric over putting up a meaningful fight.”

“Because of them, a president who threatens journalists with prison rape for protecting their sources and says reporting critically on his administration should be illegal can and almost certainly will abuse the legal system to investigate and prosecute his critics and the journalists they talk to,” Stern added. 

Trump’s second term already presents more danger to freedom of the press than his first term, particularly because there is nothing constraining his administration. They are hellbent on weaponizing government and engaging in the kind of lawfare that they fervently believe the Biden administration waged against them. 

As The Dissenter thoroughly recounted when Biden’s term ended, his administration laid the foundation for further attacks on the press by Trump. The Biden administration continued the unprecedented Espionage Act prosecution against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and in Florida, FBI agents raided the home newsroom of Timothy Burke in 2023. The following year, the DOJ charged Burke as an economic cybercriminal. (A jury trial is scheduled for September 8, 2025.) 

Those guilty of journalism could have had the ability to go to court and fight back against Trump’s war on the press. But now, as Trump officials spread propaganda to demonize reporters and whip up public support for violating their First Amendment rights, there is little that the news media can do to stop petty and vindictive officials eager to target them and their sources.

By Gilbert Doctorow, Website, 5/5/25

I open this installment of my travel notes with remarks on my experience in arranging and enjoying the past three days in Moscow. What I have to say is not intended to give tips to the Community which might be useful on any future travel to and in Russia that you may be considering. All the cutting edge services I mention are accessible only if you have a Russian bank account and credit cards, from which follows the possibility to put bank Apps on your telephone and enjoy the conveniences I outline here.

My purpose is rather to share my observations on how ordinary Russians live – which, to put it succinctly, is very well indeed. For those who occupy management positions in business or even are just employees with skills in demand, their salaries support the good life I describe here. For pensioners, whose monthly allowance is very meager, there are non-monetary allotments from the government, like a couple of train trips cross country for free each year or greatly reduced airline ticket prices that make it possible to enjoy the good life even on a very small nominal budget.

I must explain here that a few very large Russian corporations see you through many different sides of consumer life. One of them now is Sber, formerly Sberbank, which has its finger in all kinds of pies and offers their Russian customers many services quite remote from banking such as shopping for and home delivery of groceries. But the single biggest helper in the travelers’ needs is Yandex, Russia’s equivalent to Google.

Yandex began life as THE search engine of Russia and then used its skills and proprietary software to take over the lives of its countrymen as a benevolent monopolist. Occasionally you encounter the downsides of its lacking competition in management failures. But nearly all the time Yandex subsidiaries do a commendable job.

Had I so desired, I could have bought our train tickets to Moscow online from Yandex Travel (Puteshestvie) but we have an old fashioned instinct and wanted to consult with a railways sales person about our choice of train and the discount that suited us best, so we made the purchase at the main railway station in Petersburg.

What it was like on the Sapsan high speed train connecting the two capitals and covering the 700 km route in exactly 4 hours I will explain below. There were several pleasant surprises for us at the level of on board service even in the Economy railway car that I will share below.

As regards reserving a hotel in Moscow, I used Yandex Travel, which served as a very efficient substitute for booking.com. I quickly waded through their list of 4 and 5 star hotels in the city center, deciding finally on a Movenpick which is managed by the French hospitality services giant Accor, and is managed very well as our stay there proved.

For those who follow the money, I inform you that since I dithered in placing our booking in what is a peak travel period, the Standard rooms were sold out and we necessarily moved up to a Superior room for the ruble equivalent of 120 euros per night without breakfast. If that sounds like a lot, bear in mind that a 22 meter very well appointed room such as we received would cost the double in any European capital and probably the triple in New York. No breakfast, but if you use your wits and order breakfast from the menu, you can nicely get by for 10 euros per person, enjoying a royal omelet and a double espresso worthy of Milano. If you are indifferent to prices, a buffet breakfast with shampanskoye is on offer for 30 euros per person. When you come after 10 am on weekends, you are treated to live piano music over breakfast. But the little secret which reception does not share with everyone, is that at level -2 the hotel has a splendid swimming pool, sauna and well-equipped workout gym available for free to guests.

Who, you may wonder, are the guests? With the exception of myself, the hotel guests this weekend were 100% Russians, nearly all couples, many with young children. I would estimate the age band of the adults as running from 25 to 35.

The Movenpick is situated 200 meters from the Taganka Theater, a landmark in Russian cultural and social history going back to the 1970s when it was directed by the free spirit Yuri Lubimov who gained special renown for staging Hamlet with the bard Vladimir Vysotsky in the title role (which I saw together with my future wife seated on stairs leading to the balcony since all seats were sold out).

In the early 1980s, Lyubimov fell afoul of the authorities due to caustic productions including Brecht’s Threepenny Opera and Good Person of Szechwan. He was compelled to emigrate, first to Israel as a refuge of convenience. He then traveled around Europe and the USA directing operas, which was an entirely new domain. Finally in the 1990s he returned home to Moscow. His theater was returned to him and he became a celebrity among Russia’s freedom fighters and a close friend of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whose 80th birthday was feted in the theater in the presence of notables including foreign ambassadors and the mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov. I know. I was there, and strolling around this quiet corner of Moscow brought back these recollections. Moreover; Solzhenitsyn’s Museum of the Russian Emigration Abroad is just across the street from the theater, while a monument to Vladimir Vysotsky is around the corner.

It is now typical of Moscow that such small oases of culture and desirable residential buildings are to be found on one side or another of the 8 lane ‘boulevards’ like Zemlyanoi Val on which the hotel is situated that run through the center of Moscow and set this city apart from all other European capitals. Called boulevards, they are in fact highways and the only way to get across them as a pedestrian is via underground passages.

Returning to the subject of Yandex, I note that their taxis swarm the streets of Moscow and wherever in the city you may be, when you order a taxi on your telephone App, you are likely to be picked up within 5 minutes or so. The operator finds you by geolocation software and their system remembers where they delivered you recently so that when you type in the first letters of your destination they identify a driver and show you the price for various categories of car, from Economy on up.

Yandex Go, as the taxi service is called, covers the entire Russian Federation. When we arrived in Pskov on 29 April having crossed over from Estonia, my Yandex App instantly found me a driver ready to take us to our home in Petersburg 290 km to the north.

Yandex also provided us with our entertainment for Friday evening in Moscow. Their search engine listed the very few concerts being presented on this first day of a long holiday weekend when most theaters are closed. We chose the Zaryad’ya Concert Hall where Mariinsky and Bolshoi theater chief conductor Valery Gergiev was putting on Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony. Then we bought our tickets via the Yandex theater ticketing system.

Bruckner is not a favorite composer of ours, but we were keen to discover the concert hall which dates from 2018 and is where Gergiev holds his Easter Festival each year.

The concert itself was less than enjoyable. The symphony seemed disconnected and going nowhere, though there were some glorious moments of rich polyphonic sound. Saying that, I think of the comment by Hungarian conductor Ivan Fischer to those of us who came to the final rehearsal of Dvorak’s Rusalka in the Brussels opera house some years ago: ‘This opera is magnificent and if you don’t enjoy the show you have me to blame for a poor presentation of the score.’

It could well be that Gergiev gave a poor reading of the score. Boring or not, over its two hours of uninterrupted music, his rendition of the Eighth Symphony left no one snoozing. Gergiev loves FULL volume and his combined double orchestra from the two opera theaters blasted us a good deal. On the positive side, we learned that the acoustics of the Zaryad’ya concert hall are wonderful.

The Zaryad’ya seats 1,600 and it is notable for the seating configuration which wraps around the orchestra from all sides. I know of nothing similar in our part of Europe.

Another unusual aspect of the Zaryad’ya is security. When buying tickets online you are obliged to enter your passport number, issuing country, etc. And when you come to the hall, you must produce your passport together with your ticket to gain entry. I have not seen such tight control anywhere in Petersburg venues.

*****

I close these Travel Notes with some observations on the Siemens-built Sapsan trains that operate on the Moscow-St Petersburg route.

They are in perfect condition, withdrawal of the manufacturer from the Russian market notwithstanding. Punctuality is remarkable, as are cleanliness and high quality service even in Economy Class. Security is uppermost: your passport is entered into the system with your ticket; and you are allowed to board the train only after the attendant standing at the door to each wagon checks your passport against the data shown on the electronic gadget in her hands. Inside the train, it is clear that there are not only attendants to serve you but also guards to maintain order.

Our train mostly cruised at 200 km per hour. For much of the route, there was little sway or vibration, but in places there were both phenomena. The reason is that the Sapsan is running on normal Russian railway track, which is all welded to eliminate the clack-clack but is not of such precision as the French TGV rail beds, that are segregated from ordinary train tracks.

Though every seat was taken in our rail wagon, there was dead silence. Nearly all passengers were looking only at their mobile phones but no one was conversing. The reason? The train offers a broad selection of movies in all imaginable genres that you can choose to watch via their wifi channels on board. All films are Russian: there is not a single foreign film. And the majority of films are about war. There were only a couple of romances or situation comedies and a few cartoons for the kids, including the ever present Masha and the Bear. When watching, you are obliged to use earphones so that you do not disturb others.

The wifi also offers a direct connection with the bistro car so that you can order sandwiches or beverages that an attendant will bring to your seat.

As for price, in Economy it was about 50 euros per person for a round trip ticket.

YouTube link here.

5/16/25, Voice of translator.