Current Digest of the Russian Press, Vol. 78, No. 6 – Table of Contents

([No author indicated.] Meduza, Feb. 4, 2026, https://meduza.io/en/feature/2026/02/05/the-last-nuclear-guardrail-falls-this-week-and-the-u-s-and-russia-have-chosen-to-fly-blind. Complete text:) Editors’ Note. – The dangerous drift toward a new arms race between Russia and the US crosses another major threshold tomorrow, Feb. 5, with the expiration of New START – the last treaty limiting the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals. [Russian President] Vladimir Putin has proposed a year-long extension to the agreement’s terms, but [US President] Donald Trump has stonewalled, citing US concerns about a growing nuclear threat from China. Meduza reviews how Moscow and Washington arrived at this precipice, what experts think about the risk of nuclear escalation, and why the halt in mutual monitoring and data exchange is particularly worrisome…

EXPERT ARBATOV: DESPITE LOSS OF TRANSPARENCY, SATELLITES WILL MAINTAIN DEGREE OF MONITORING; TRUMP DEMAND TO INVOLVE CHINA IS UNWORKABLE; DESPITE GROWING RUPTURE, HUMANITY DEPENDS ON RESUMING LIMITATION, NONPROLIFERATION EFFORTS

(By Yury Paniyev. Nezavisimayagazeta, Feb. 2, 2026, p. 9. Condensedtext:) Editors’ Note. – On Feb. 5, New START, which limits the number of Russian and US deployed nuclear warheads, is due to expire. After this date, Russia and the US will be left without arms control agreements and without a negotiating process to work out new ones. In an interview with Yury Paniyev, managing editor of NG Dipkuryer [NG Diplomatic Courier], Academician Aleksei Arbatov, head of the International Security Center at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Yevgeny Primakov Institute of World Economics and International Relations, talked about what this means and what consequences it may have…

LEBEDEV: WHILE U.S. STRIKES AGAINST IRAN ARE LIKELY, THE RISKS OF REGIONAL DESTABILIZATION, ENERGY MARKET DISRUPTION, A MIGRATION CRISIS, RADICALIZATION MAY SUFFICE TO PREVENT STRIKES

(By Sergei Lebedev. Izvestia, Feb. 5, 2026, p. 4. Complete text:) Over the past few weeks, [US President Donald] Trump has regularly promised to use force against Iran, backing up these promisesby moving naval forces. But he is also making it clear that he would not be opposed to sitting down at the negotiation table with Tehran…

PAKISTAN, TURKEY OFFER TO MEDIATE TALKS WITH IRAN; EXPERT: LEVEL OF DISTRUST IS VERY HIGH IN THE REGION; TALKS WILL BE ‘PAINFUL,’ ‘DIFFICULT’

(By Vladimir Skosyrev, Nezavisimaya gazeta, Feb. 5, 2026, p. 6. Condensed text:) As President Donald Trump said, the US has amassed an entire armada of ships near the shores of Iran and is prepared to deliver a crippling strike against the Islamic Republic. Against this backdrop, announcements that Washington and Tehran have reached an agreement on talks is an encouraging signal. But one of the puzzling moments is Pakistan’s participation in a meeting planned for Feb. 6 in Oman…

IRANIAN ÉMIGRÉS: PEOPLE ‘DEEPLY DISAPPOINTED’ BY ‘EMPTY PROMISES’; TRUMP WILL INTERVENE, BUT HIS GOALS DO NOT COINCIDE WITH WHAT IRANIANS WANT

(By Pavel Kuznetsov. Novaya gazeta Europe, Feb. 5, 2026, https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/02/05/protesty-v-irane-zabity-6f51b7285a1b7810088196c6fb512be94a9a255b. Condensed text:) Editors’ Note. – The Middle East, which has been holding its breath on the brink of a seemingly inevitable strike against Iran, has let it out for now. Donald Trump hopes to conclude an agreement and eliminate the nuclear threat once and for all. . . …

(By Ksenia Veretennikova. Kommersant,Feb. 4, 2026,p. 3. Condensed text:)In preparation for his report to the State Duma, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin is continuing a series of meetings with [Duma] factions, which began with a conversation with United Russia members on Jan. 26. On Feb. 3, he met with deputies from the Russian Federation Communist Party (RFCP) and A Just Russia. . . .

The Communists arrived at the White House first. Mikhail Mishustin immediately praised them for their constructive interaction and consistency in defending their positions, and also assured them that the government “always carefully considers” the RFCP’s initiatives. He recalled that the president particularly noted the faction’s activities in the area of parliamentary diplomacy, preserving historical memory and establishing partnerships with “friends in the world.”…

(By Stepan Melchakov. Kommersant, Feb. 2, 2026, p. 3. Condensed text:) The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) hosted a town hall event on Jan. 30 where young people got a chance to meet with the party’s leader Leonid Slutsky. Organizers made no secret of the fact that for their youth outreach they rely, among other things, on techniques they borrowed from the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement, including the heavy use of memes, since this is the language that young voters understand. . . .

For the event, the Liberal Democrats rented a stage in the middle of the Three Stations Depot food court. At a nearby table, a member of the LDPR youth wing was handing out promotional materials based on Internet memes to activists. “Sigma males vote LDPR,” one sign read. “You call yourself a liberal because you’re a soy boy. I call myself a liberal because I vote for the LDPR. We are not the same,” a leaflet with Giancarlo Esposito of Breaking Bad fame said. “I guess it’s a kind of MAGA experience,” the young man in charge of handout materials told Kommersant…

(By Darya Garmonenko. Nezavisimaya gazeta,Feb. 5, 2026,p. 3. Condensed text:)On Feb. 4, the Russian Supreme Court rejected the Russian Federation Communist Party’s appeal against a ruling by the Chelyabinsk Province Electoral Commission. Last year, it banned an election leaflet created by the Communists using a neural network. . . .

The Supreme Court session regarding the Chelyabinsk Communists’ appeal proceeded quickly. Once again, the judges sided with the regional electoral commission. Georgy Kamnev, head of the RFCP’s legal service, told NG that “the court broadly interpreted the provisions of the Civil Code, recalling that images of individuals are prohibited in campaigns, thereby effectively acknowledging that images of fictional characters from, say, fairy-tales are the same as real people.”…

(By Aleksandr Tikhonov. Krasnaya zvezda, Feb. 5, 2026, p. 1. Complete text:) A meeting chaired by the head of Russia’s [Defense Ministry] was held in Moscow to address the production and delivery of high-demand weapons, military equipment and special-purpose hardware. The discussion focused on supplying groupings of the Russian Armed Forces in the special military operationzone, and the results of military production and deliveries in January were reviewed.

Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov reported at the meeting that more than 10,000 units of weaponry and nearly 2 million of munitions have already been delivered to the Armed Forces in January. He noted that these results were made possible by the establishment of steady production schedules at enterprises from the first days of the new year and through constructive cooperation with the Defense Ministry, the Industry and Trade Ministry, the Finance Ministry and the designated servicing bank…

(By Dmitry Taratorin. Nezavisimaya gazeta, Feb. 4, 2026, p. 1. Complete text:)Editors’ Note. –Viktor Babariko, [Belarussian President] Aleksandr Lukashenko’s purportedly most popular rival in the 2020 presidential election [see Vol. 72, No. 33, pp. 3-7], has announced his return to politics. Released from prison just before the new year, Babariko took a pause to consider his options, but now he says he will soon be ready to propose an action program. Meanwhile, his comrade-in-arms Maria Kolesnikova is complaining that people have become very cruel during the time [she and other] political prisoners have been behind bars. Experts are not sure that Babariko’s and Kolesnikova’s compromise position toward President Lukashenko will find many followers.

Viktor Babariko, Aleksandr Lukashenko’s most formidable potential rival in the 2020 presidential election, is staging a political comeback. [Babariko] stated this in an extended post on his blog…

(By Rod Thornton, senior lecturer in international studies, defense and security, King’s College London and Marina Miron, postdoctoral researcher, King’s College London’s war studies department. Novaya gazeta Europe, Feb. 5, 2026, https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/02/05/under-pressure-en. Complete text:) There is a major sticking point often overlooked in the ceasefire negotiations between Ukraine and Russia currently being held in Abu Dhabi [see the following article]. This relates to the fact that, as part of any agreement, Kiev is being asked to give up the entire Donetsk Basin region in eastern Ukraine.

If it does so, it will also be giving up the strategic positions that have prevented major advances by the Russian military for many months now. This is the significant line of defensive fortifications across Donetsk Basin, known as the Donetsk Basin line. It’s Ukraine’s equivalent to the Maginot line of forts, which were France’s main line of defense against Germany before World War II…

(By Kirill Fenin. Izvestia, Feb. 6, 2026, p. 1. Condensed text:) The second round of the behind-closed-doors consultations on a Ukraine settlement between Russia, the US and Ukraine has ended in the United Arab Emirates. . . .

The most concrete outcome so far is an agreement to swap 314 prisoners of war, which was announced by [US President Donald] Trump’s special envoy [for the Middle East], Steve Witkoff. This is the first prisoner exchange in the past five months. The Russian Defense Ministry announced the return of 157 Russian soldiers from Ukrainian captivity almost immediately. It isn’t clear whether the exchange was part of an agreement reached earlier. Apart from that, Moscow, Kiev and Washington discussed ceasefire and monitoring mechanisms…

(By Political analyst Andrei Nikolayevich Serenko. Nezavisimaya gazeta,Feb. 6, 2026,p. 3. Complete text:)Afghan Ambassador to Moscow Gul Hasan has announced the possible arrival of Afghan migrant workers in Russia. According to the head of the Taliban diplomatic mission, his country has a large number of young, able-bodied people ready to leave for work in Russia practically tomorrow. Gul Hasan’s statement has provoked a mixed reaction in Russian society: Citizens fear that terrorists and drug dealers will appear in our country under the guise of migrant workers from the Taliban “emirate.”

Modern Afghanistan is indeed a very young country. According to various estimates, people under 30 make up 70% to 80% of its population. And young people in Afghanistan have virtually no future. Since the Taliban movement came to power in Afghanistan in August 2021 [see Vol. 73, No. 33-34, pp. 3-7], all major social and economic problems have worsened. As many as 90% of Afghans live in extreme poverty and destitution, and the economy and social system are steadily deteriorating due to a lack of investment. Unemployment, inflation, rising prices and a lack of prospects at home are forcing citizens to seek a variety of ways to flee abroad. For an opportunity to leave Afghanistan, many Afghans are now giving up not only their last savings, but often selling their kidneys and even their own children…

(By Denis Antonov. Republic.ru, Feb. 4, 2026, republicmag.io/s/fzgy4. Complete text:) Editors’ Note. – In recent decades, dependence on the US has become the new standard for European politics; even the fall of the USSR could not change that. But has [US President] Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House adjusted the situation in some ways? Why has the European Union agreed to pay more, speak up less and yield in advance? Estonian journalist Denis Antonov discussed whether the EU still has a chance of escaping this trap.

Modern Europe is increasingly resembling a needy teenager afraid that Dad will suddenly stop giving them an allowance –even though it has money, as well as assets, a market and influence. All it lacks is a habit of taking responsibility for itself. And it is this infantilism that Europe has been insistently passing off as political wisdom in recent years…

MAKING A BETTER ‘MIR.’¹ (By Daniil Sechkin and Anastasia Kostina. Izvestia,Feb. 4, 2026,p. 3. Condensed text:) . . . Even under sanctions, Russia is striving to ensure the continued use of Mir cards for the convenience of Russian citizens in various countries, including Vietnam.

“Russian and Vietnamese banking institutions are discussing ways to expand the use of the Russian Mir payment card in Vietnam. These include increasing the number of ATMs of the Vietnam-Russia Joint Bank (VRB) in areas where a large number of our citizens reside,” the Russian Embassy in Vietnam told Izvestia…