Ukraine battlefield: Advanced Ukrainian drones raise concerns among Russian forces

Issued on: 02/05/2026 - 
13:38 min From the show

From Ukraine’s evolving battlefield, where drone warfare is redefining front lines and so-called “killing zones,” to reports of “Martian drones” and their impact on both Russian and Ukrainian forces, we also look at the expanding use of unmanned systems in rescue operations, including the evacuation of a 77-year-old woman in Odesa region. FRANCE 24’s Gavin Lee is joined by Olena Krizhanivska, a Ukrainian defence analyst specialising in drones and unmanned systems and founder of Ukraine’s Arms Monitor.


Produced by Gavin Lee, Andrew Hilliar, Maya Yataghene and Guillaume Gougeon


OUR GUESTS

 

Olena KRYZHANIVSKA 

Ukrainian Defence Analyst, specialising in drones and unmanned systems and military technology

 

BY:  Gavin LEE

Andrew HILLIAR

Maya YATAGHENE

Guillaume GOUGEON
VIDEO BY:

Andrew HILLIAR

Gavin LEE

Guillaume GOUGEON

 Ukrainian drones strike Russia's Primorsk oil port

Ukrainian drones struck Russia's Primorsk port and a number of vessels in the Baltic Sea on Sunday as part of a wave of attacks targeting Russian energy infrastructure. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said the strikes aimed to limit "Russia's war potential". The Kremlin warned that attacks on its oil infrastructure would send global oil prices rising further.


Issued on:  04/05/2026 - 
By: FRANCE 24

A handout satellite image taken on March 23, 2026 shows smoke rising from the Russian oil terminal at Primorsk. © Planet Labs PBC, via AFP


Ukraine launched a wave of drone attacks on targets across Russia on Sunday, hitting the Baltic Sea port of Primorsk and setting it on fire, and striking a number of vessels, as it steps up ​attacks on ‌energy infrastructure and other targets.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky commented on the latest wave of strikes, ⁠which also hit one oil tanker in the port, a Karakurt-class missile ship and a patrol boat, saying significant damage had been caused to the infrastructure of ‌the oil terminal port.

In a post on Telegram, Zelensky said Ukraine had struck the Karakurt-class missile ship, ⁠a patrol boat, and an oil tanker in the Baltic Sea, adding that "each such result further limits Russia’s war potential".

Ukraine hits oil facilities in Russia

© France 24
02:00

Alexander Drozdenko, governor of the northwest region which hosts the port, said more than 60 ​drones were downed overnight.

He said the fire at Primorsk, a major oil exporting outlet, ‌was quickly extinguished and there had been no oil spill following the attack.
Ukraine continues to develop long-range capabilities

Primorsk, one of Russia's largest export gateways, has capacity to handle 1 million barrels per day of oil supply. It has been hit multiple times in ‌recent months as as US-brokered talks to end the Ukraine war have stalled.

Zelensky earlier on Sunday said Ukrainian forces also struck two shadow fleet tankers in waters ​at the entrance to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.

"These tankers had been actively used to transport oil – not anymore," Zelensky said on Telegram. "Ukraine's long-range capabilities will continue to be developed comprehensively – at sea, in the air, and ​on land."
Russia unfazed by the attacks

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that global oil prices may rise further if ​Ukraine continues to hit Russia's oil infrastructure, Russian TV reported.

“If additional volumes of our ​oil are dropped from the market, prices will rise further from current levels, which are already above $120 a barrel," Peskov said. "That would mean that even with lower export volumes, ​our companies would earn more money and the state would receive more revenue.”

Baltic Sea strikes: How Ukraine aims to undermine Russia's oil profits from Iran war

Other Russian regions also reported drone attacks on Saturday and Sunday.

Moscow regional governor Andrei Vorobyov said on Saturday evening that a 77 year-old man had died in a village following a drone strike. And Sergei Sobyanin, mayor of the city of Moscow, said four drones were downed on their ⁠way to the Russian capital.

Vasily Anokhin, governor of the western Smolensk region, said three people, including a child, were injured on Sunday after a drone ⁠attacked an apartment ​block there.

Russian troops were meanwhile inching towards the city of Kostiantynivka in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, Ukraine's top army official said on Saturday.

(FRANCE 24 with Reuters)

Ukraine Hits Two Tankers at Novorossiysk and Three Vessels at Primorsk

Courtesy SBU

Published May 3, 2026 1:38 PM by The Maritime Executive\

Ukraine's security forces have struck and damaged two shadow fleet tankers at the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, Russia, and three additional vessels at the Baltic port of Primorsk. The two ports are home to some of the most important oil export terminals in Russia, and Ukraine's ability to reach and hit them indicates faltering Russian defenses - particularly in the Black Sea's northeastern corner, previously a secure redoubt. The weekend attacks also demonstrate Ukraine's ability to mount major long-distance strike operations in two directions simultaneously. 

"Our soldiers continue to apply sanctions against the Russian shadow oil fleet - they hit two such vessels in the waters of the entrance to the port of Novorossiysk. These tankers were actively used to transport oil. Now they will not be," said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a statement Sunday. "Thank you to the Chief of the General Staff Andriy Gnatov for leading the operation, to the counterintelligence officers of the Security Service of Ukraine and to our Ukrainian Navy for the consistently useful results."

Video of the strike shows the drones using a preferred attack method: targeting a tanker in ballast, when the rudder and lower engine room are exposed and vulnerable. The strike disables propulsion and steerage, with minimal risk of a spill.  

Our warriors continue to apply sanctions against Russia’s shadow oil fleet – two such vessels were struck in the waters at the entrance to the port of Novorossiysk. These tankers had been actively used to transport oil – not anymore. I am grateful to Chief of the General Staff… pic.twitter.com/8aCse8h95j

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / ????????? ?????????? (@ZelenskyyUa) May 3, 2026

In a separate statement, Zelensky said that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the Unmanned Systems Forces (USF), and other divisions had carried out a successful strike at Primorsk. The port is the biggest export hub in Russia's Baltic region, and is critical to Moscow's energy revenue. The strike hit a Karakurt-class guided missile corvette, a patrol boat, and another shadow fleet tanker. 

Ukraine has also repeatedly hit the oil terminal and refinery at the port of Tuapse, another major hub on the Black Sea. Russian air defenses failed to stop four successive waves of drone attacks in a single week, and the damage to Tuapse's energy infrastructure is extensive. 

Based on the results from April, our long-range sanctions have reached a new level across three components: reducing Russia’s oil revenues, as well as the range and intensity of sanctions. It is important that not only is the target itself reached, as defined by the operational… pic.twitter.com/ZICHOxsABU

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / ????????? ?????????? (@ZelenskyyUa) May 1, 2026

Russia kills 8 in Ukraine as Zelensky says Moscow fears drones

04.05.2026, DPA

Photo: Dmitry Yagodkin/TASS via ZUMA Press/dpa

By Katharina Schröder, dpa

At least 8 people were killed in the latest Russian attacks in Ukraine, regional officials said on Monday.

Six people were killed in a missile strike on the city of Merefa in Ukraine's eastern Kharkiv region and another 24 were injured, the region's military governor, Oleh Syniehubov, wrote on Telegram.

The victims were said to be men and women aged between 41 and 74.

Several residential houses, high-rise buildings and shops were damaged. The settlement of Bezliudivka was also attacked with a drone, he said.

Two men were killed in various attacks in Ukraine's southern Kherson region, according to the regional prosecutor's office.

A 72-year-old was killed by artillery fire in the village of Shyroka Balka and a 71-year-old in shelling in the village of Komyshany, it said.

Ukrainian drone hits Moscow high rise

The Russian attacks followed a Ukrainian strike early on Monday against a residential building near central Moscow. The damaged building, described by the Kyiv Independent as a luxury high-rise, is located in a western district of the capital that also hosts several embassies.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram, according to the state news agency TASS, that there were no injuries. 

Zelensky: Moscow fears Ukrainian drones

Russia has been waging a full-scale war against Ukraine for more than four years, but on Monday Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he sees signs of Russian weakness.

Russia has decided not to display military equipment at its annual parade commemorating the Soviet victory in World War II on May 9 over fears of Ukrainian drone attacks, Zelensky told a meeting of the European Political Community (EPC) in the Armenian capital of Yerevan.

"This summer will be a moment when [Russian President Vladimir] Putin decides what to do next: expand the war or move to diplomacy. And we must push him toward diplomacy," Zelensky said.

"Russia has announced a May 9 parade in Moscow without military equipment," Zelensky said, alluding to the Russian Defence Ministry's decision.

"If that happens, it will be the first time in many, many years. They cannot afford military equipment – and they fear drones may buzz over Red Square. This is telling. It shows they are not strong now," Zelensky said while urging Ukraine's partners to keep up the sanctions. 

Sweden stops yet another suspected Russian shadow ship

Zelensky thanked allies for monitoring and pressuring Russia's secret "shadow fleet."

On Sunday, the Swedish coastguard stopped yet another ship suspected of belonging to the shadow fleet, which refers to vessels trying to conceal their identity in order to avert western sanctions.

The coastguard stopped a tanker, which was travelling under a Syrian flag, near Trelleborg in southern Sweden. The ship, named "Jin Hui," is on the EU, Ukrainian and British sanctions lists and is suspected of sailing under a false flag, Swedish Civil Defence Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin wrote on X.

Investigators will also question the ship's Chinese captain on suspicion that the tanker was not seaworthy.

• Syniehubov on Telegram, in Ukrainian
• Kherson regional prosecutor's office on Telegram, in Ukrainian

(c) 2026 dpa Deutsche Presse Agentur GmbH

Russia: Anti-War Moscow Buddhist Leader Convicted Again In Re-Trial – Analysis

Judge Andrey Kuznetsov (left), Ilya Vasilyev (right in defendants' box), Preobrazhensky District Court, April 2026. Credit: Ilya Vasilyev Telegram Support Channel

May 4, 2026 
F18News
By Victoria Arnold


The re-trial of a Buddhist leader on charges of disseminating false information about the Russian Armed Forces ended on 28 April, with the Moscow court handing down another guilty verdict. Ilya Vasilyev’s initial conviction and 8-year prison term were overturned on a technicality in October 2025. This time, he received a sentence of 6 years’ imprisonment and a ban on “administering websites”. Vasilyev’s lawyer, Gevorg Aleksanyan, has already lodged an initial appeal.

lIt is unclear why the new judge decided to hand down a shorter sentence. Meanwhile, the 52-year-old Vasilyev remains in detention at Moscow’s Matrosskaya Tishina prison, where he has spent most of the 22 months since his June 2024 arrest (see below).

Vasilyev was on trial at Moscow’s Preobrazhensky District Court under Criminal Code Article 207.3 (“Public dissemination of knowingly false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation”), Part 2, Paragraph d (“for reasons of political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred or enmity, or for reasons of hatred or enmity against any social group”) for an English-language Facebook post (made “solely out of religious conviction”, his lawyer told Forum 18) about a Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Kherson in 2022 (see below).

“A prosecutor who doesn’t understand Zen has intervened in a conversation between Buddhists about religious topics and is dragging the court into it,” Vasilyev said in court on 23 April 2026. “Some people want to pressure Buddhists to fight on the side of one leader or another. But there are no soldiers’ belt buckles with the inscription ‘Buddha is with us’. Opening a ‘Russia against Buddhism’ front is not advantageous to Russia” (see below).

“When I took the Buddhist vow, I vowed to tell the truth. And when people here start saying in my name that what I say is a lie, it is, of course, a great challenge to me”, Vasilyev added in his final speech on 27 April. “These past six months have been difficult for me. But if the court insists that I committed a crime, of course, I will continue to tell the truth. We will continue to defend ourselves and seek my release” (see below).

“I was given six years for reposting a Christmas card on Facebook”, Vasilyev wrote in an open letter to supporters on 29 April. “This is significantly less than the eight they gave me a year ago. This is a great achievement for you, for not giving up and helping me. I am confident we are capable of more, of complete innocence proven in court, and I hope this stage will take less time. Upon release, I intend to continue my path to Zen monasticism .. I will be glad if some of you continue working to free other prisoners of conscience and restore freedom of speech in Russia.”

“Does the voice of compassion have the right to be heard in our society?” Vasilyev’s public defender Anna Tugolukova asked in her own final speech to the court. “Or will any call to stop violence be equated with the voice of an enemy?” (see below).

Moscow City Prosecutor’s Office press service did not respond to Forum 18’s questions as to why prosecutors had requested a custodial sentence and in what way Vasilyev could be considered dangerous (see below).

Preobrazhensky District Court did not respond to Forum 18’s questions as to why a custodial sentence had been deemed necessary and in what way Vasilyev could be considered dangerous, and also why the court had imposed a shorter sentence than in the first trial (see below).

Federal Penitentiary Service officials say that no possibility currently exists for a Buddhist representative to visit Vasilyev there. The Matrosskaya Tishina administration did not respond to Forum 18’s questions as to whether the prison service had yet concluded any agreement with a registered Buddhist organisation, and whether any other opportunity could exist for a detainee to see a Buddhist priest (see below).

On 24 March, the capital’s Gagarin District Court convicted Orthodox journalist Kseniya Luchenko on the same charge for a Telegram post in which she condemned a Russian missile strike on a Kyiv children’s hospital in July 2024, and contrasted this with the Russian state and Moscow Patriarchate’s promotion of so-called “traditional values”. The judge sentenced her in absentia to 8 years’ imprisonment. Before her criminal trial, officials had had her name added to the Interior Ministry’s Federal Wanted List, the Federal Financial Monitoring Service (Rosfinmonitoring) “List of Terrorists and Extremists”, and the Justice Ministry’s register of “foreign agents”.

Although Luchenko left Russia in 2022, these measures – and now her criminal conviction – could nevertheless carry consequences. These include the risk of extradition if she travels to any state with a bilateral extradition agreement with Russia, and possible problems with banking in Western countries as a result of being placed on the Rosfinmonitoring List.

On 27 March 2026, the Russian Justice Ministry added the Christians Against War project to its register of “foreign agents” for allegedly disseminating “false information about the decisions and policies of Russian government bodies, as well as about the Russian Orthodox Church”. Christians Against War was established shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 in order to document the persecution of religious believers who oppose the war in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russian-occupied Ukraine.

Criminal, administrative convictions for opposing war on religious grounds

Since February 2022, courts have sentenced five people to imprisonment (including, most recently, Kseniya Luchenko in absentia, and Ilya Vasilyev) and have fined three on criminal charges for opposing Russia’s war against Ukraine in religious terms or on religious grounds. Investigators have also opened three criminal cases against people who have left Russia and placed them on the Federal Wanted List.

Protestant pastor Nikolay Romanyuk was handed a 4-year prison term in September 2025 under Criminal Code Article 280.4 (“Public calls to implement activities directed against the security of the Russian Federation, or to obstruct the exercise by government bodies and their officials of their powers to ensure the security of the Russian Federation”). He is now serving his sentence in Vladimir Region, his daughter Svetlana Zhukova stated on her Telegram channelon 18 April.

Pastor Romanyuk’s prison address is: 601443, g. Vyazniki, ul. Zheleznodorozhnaya 37, FKU Ispravitelnaya koloniya – 4 UFSIN Rossii po Vladimirskoy oblasti

Individuals also continue to face prosecution under Administrative Code Article 20.3.3 (“Public actions aimed at discrediting the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation”) for opposing the war in Ukraine from a religious perspective.

Most recently, Slavyansk City Court in Krasnodar Region fined independent Orthodox priest Fr Iona Sigida 40,000 Roubles under Administrative Code Article 20.3.3, Part 1 in December 2025. Police had based the case against Fr Iona on an article on his church’s website in which he wrote “Today, on the night of 23-24 February [2022], the newly revealed antichrist, the embodiment of the devil, V. Putin, sent his army to destroy the last unconquered holy Rus’ in the person of Ukraine”.

(Fr Iona remains under investigation for a possibly related offence of “overt disrespect for society about days of military glory” (Criminal Code Article 354.1, Part 4), apparently also for articles he posted on the website of the Holy Intercession Tikhonite Church in Slavyansk-na-Kubani. On 16 April, a judge released him from house arrest, but he is still barred from using the telephone and internet.)

Ever-increasing internet censorship has seen websites and materials blocked for: “extremist” content; opposition to Russia’s war against Ukraine from a religious perspective; material supporting LGBT+ people in religious communities; Ukraine-based religious websites; social media of prosecuted individuals; and news and NGO sites which include coverage of freedom of religion or belief violations.

The Justice Ministry has also added at least 14 religious leaders and activists to its register of “foreign agents”, largely for reasons related to their opposition to the invasion of Ukraine.

June 2024 arrest

The Investigative Committee opened a criminal case against Moscow Buddhist leader and computer programmer Ilya Vladimirovich Vasilyev (born 9 December 1973) on 20 June 2024, partly on the basis of information from the Federal Security Service (FSB). It arrested him the same day after a search of his home.

Prosecutors charged Vasilyev under Criminal Code Article 207.3 (“Public dissemination of knowingly false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation”), Part 2, Paragraph d (“for reasons of political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred or enmity, or for reasons of hatred or enmity against any social group”).

This was based on an English-language Facebook post of 25 December 2022, which said: “Putin rejected Christmas armistice. His rockets are right now shelling peaceful Ukrainian cities and towns. Only yesterday 16 people died in Kherson, where my father’s family lives. Or lived? Millions of Ukrainians are now without electricity and water supply. The picture is called ‘Christmas 2022’.”

Included in the post was a painting by Ukrainian-born artist Iriney Yurchuk, depicting a nativity scene in the ruins of a bombed-out block of flats.

According to the prosecution, with this post Vasilyev deliberately “misled an unlimited number of people” and “created the appearance of illegal activity that violated international law” by the Russian armed forces and government. The prosecution claimed he was acting out of “political hatred, expressed in a ‘disdainful, unfriendly, hostile, aggressive’ attitude towards the authorities”.

Vasilyev made the Facebook post, as well as others on the VKontakte social network which led to a May 2023 administrative prosecution, “solely out of religious conviction”, he told Forum 18 through his lawyer in November 2024. He added that he is “not a politician and is engaged only in religion”.

(Vasilyev deleted his Facebook page in May 2023 immediately after his administrative prosecution, as his lawyer noted in court on 23 April 2026, but FSB investigators had already made a record of the Kherson post.)

June 2025 conviction

Ilya Vasilyev’s case first reached Moscow’s Preobrazhensky District Court in October 2024. The trial ended in a guilty verdict in June 2025 after thirteen hearings before Judge Valentina Lebedeva.

Judge Lebedeva convicted Vasilyev of disseminating “knowingly false information” about the Armed Forces and sentenced him to 8 years’ imprisonment (followed by a 4-year ban on “administering websites”).

Had Vasilyev’s 8-year prison term entered legal force, it would have been the longest known custodial sentence imposed for opposing Russia’s war in Ukraine on religious grounds.


A panel of three judges at Moscow City Court overturned the verdict on 22 October 2025, and ordered that a different judge at Preobrazhensky District Court should re-examine Vasilyev’s case. They concluded that the court had unlawfully refused Vasilyev’s request, early in proceedings, to have an acquaintance act as his public defender [zashchitnik], alongside his lawyer.

2026 re-trial

The re-trial of Ilya Vasilyev, founder of the Moscow Zen Centre and the Civil School of Hackers, began on 19 January 2026, also at the city’s Preobrazhensky District Court, but this time before Judge Andrey Kuznetsov. Vasilyev made a total of nine appearances in court.

At the hearing on 12 March, defence witness Mariya Popova, a family friend of the Vasilyevs, told the court that “accusations of disseminating any kind of false information are completely inconsistent with Vasilyev’s Buddhist worldview”, the independent SOTAvision news channel reported on Telegram the same day.

“It’s hard to create a school—to have people sit and listen to you,” Popova said. “All his schools are about kindness, about love.”

On 14 April, Judge Kuznetsov denied lawyer Gevorg Aleksanyan’s request for another expert examination of Vasilyev’s Facebook post, independent of the FSB (whose expert carried out the original linguistic analysis). Aleksanyan argued that the FSB’s analysis “cannot be considered complete or reliable”, SOTAvision noted on 14 April.

The lawyer pointed to the FSB expert’s apparent lack of experience, the fact she did not cite the authors of the methods used, meaning that “The entire report is based on methods that cannot be verified”, and the use of two different Russian translations of Vasilyev’s English-language post – one a machine translation which investigators sent for expert analysis, the other a professional translation included in the indictment and submitted to the court.

“Key thesis of the prosecution – the motive of political hatred – is contrary to .. Zen Buddhism”

In court at his re-trial, Ilya Vasilyev “disagreed with attempts to attribute emotions and intentions to him that he did not experience”, independent Russian news outlet Novaya Gazeta reported on 28 April. He said he had timed his post for 25 December (in 2022) – “a day significant for many religious traditions” – and did not address it to a Russian audience.

Vasilyev admitted only that he had indeed made the post, and denied the accusation of disseminating false information motivated by hatred, insisting that his intention was completely the opposite. He stated: “They’re trying to throw me behind bars here on a far-fetched pretext.”


Vasilyev’s public defender Anna Tugolukova also argued that “the key thesis of the prosecution – the motive of political hatred – is contrary to the very nature of Zen Buddhism”, at the core of which is “compassion, which does not divide people into ‘us’ and ‘them'”, Novaya Gazeta quoted her as saying.

“For a mind nurtured in the Zen tradition, there is no difference between the suffering of a soldier in one army and the suffering of a soldier in another,” Tugolukova said. “There is simply suffering”.

“Does the voice of compassion have the right to be heard in our society,” Tugolukova concluded. “Or will any call to stop violence be equated with the voice of an enemy?”
“When I took the Buddhist vow, I vowed to tell the truth”

“The history of Buddhism is the history of victory over ignorance. And Buddha wins not because you take the winning side. Buddha wins because you stop engaging in momentary nonsense and focus on what truly matters”, Ilya Vasilyev said in his final speech to the court on 27 April.

“My [teaching] method is traditional. Students come to me for training, reach their hacker level, and return to defend their businesses, their families, and their countries. They don’t attack their neighbours or engage in criminal activity; they serve their nations with their acquired skills, being worthy citizens. The FSB, however, can turn law-abiding citizens into criminals, locking them up in pre-trial detention on trumped-up charges.”

“When I took the Buddhist vow, I vowed to tell the truth. And when people here start saying in my name that what I say is a lie, it is, of course, a great challenge to me. These past six months have been difficult for me. But if the court insists that I committed a crime, of course, I will continue to tell the truth. We will continue to defend ourselves and seek my release.”

“Reducing religion to some kind of puppet show backed by security forces means Buddhism becoming a department of the FSB. I’ve met practitioners who are afraid to adhere fully to Buddha’s teachings because they fear prison.”

“I wonder what we’re bringing to the new territories [i.e. Russian-occupied Ukraine], what kind of culture? True greatness is achieved not by force of arms, but by wisdom, the power of conviction, and personal example.”

Vasilyev expressed his belief that Russia would soon start respecting human rights and that convictions under Criminal Code Article 207.5 would be overturned. He stated that he would continue to practice Buddhism if sent to a penal colony.

“Ultimately, people will no longer be jailed for words in Russia, and Russia will protect the rights of Russian-speaking people not only in foreign territories, but also in its own territories and even in Moscow, my home city, which I love,” Vasilyev told the court.

Buddhist leader convicted again

On 28 April 2026, the re-trial of Ilya Vasilyev, at Preobrazhensky District Court, also ended in conviction. Judge Andrey Kuznetsov sentenced Vasilyev to 6 years’ imprisonment for disseminating “false information” about the Armed Forces, plus a ban on “administering websites” for 3 years and 6 months, the Moscow court system announced on its Telegram channel on the same day.

Vasilyev’s lawyer Gevorg Aleksanyan has already lodged an initial appeal, he told Forum 18 shortly after the final court hearing. In the meantime, Vasilyev remains at Moscow’s Matrosskaya Tishina prison, where he has been detained for almost all of the 22 months since Investigative Committee officers arrested him in June 2024 for the Facebook post about a Russian missile strike on Kherson in Ukraine.

Freedom of speech “is not a whim of human rights activists for the sake of grants. It’s essential for survival, for the preservation of territorial integrity”, Vasilyev told the court on 23 April. “My case has religious and political overtones. A guilty verdict complicates international relations, which Russia is currently trying to maintain.”

“The situation in Russia, Russian Orthodoxy, and Russia’s attitude toward religion will be judged by this verdict.”

“A prosecutor who doesn’t understand Zen has intervened in a conversation between Buddhists about religious topics and is dragging the court into it,” Vasilyev continued. “Some people want to pressure Buddhists to fight on the side of one leader or another. But there are no soldiers’ belt buckles with the inscription ‘Buddha is with us’. Opening a ‘Russia against Buddhism’ front is not advantageous to Russia.”

On 23 April, prosecutors requested a sentence of 8 years’ imprisonment for Vasilyev. “Of course, it is difficult to say anything” as to why the judge decided on a shorter term, Aleksanyan commented to Forum 18.

During the final exchange of arguments [preniya] on 23 April, Aleksanyan remarked that “had he been tasked with examining charges for words more than ten years ago, when he was graduating from university, he would have reconsidered his career choice”, the independent SOTAvision news outlet reported the same day. He noted that by requesting such a long prison sentence, the state was “equating murder cases with cases for words”.

“What should [Vasilyev] have learned in that time? Never to call for peace again? I’m sure this [Criminal Code] article will be repealed one day, as it is unconstitutional,” Aleksanyan stated to the court.

Forum 18 wrote to the Moscow City Prosecutor’s Office press service on 24 April to ask why prosecutors had requested a custodial sentence and in what way Vasilyev could be considered dangerous.

Forum 18 also wrote to Preobrazhensky District Court on 28 April to ask why a custodial sentence had been deemed necessary and in what way Vasilyev could be considered dangerous, and also why the court had imposed a shorter sentence than in the first trial.

Forum 18 had received no response from either institution by the end of the Moscow working day of 29 April.

Nearly two years in detention

On 20 February, the court extended Vasilyev’s detention period again – this time until 6 June 2026 – refusing Aleksanyan’s request to have him placed under house arrest instead. Vasilyev appealed unsuccessfully against this decision on 24 March.

According to the detention order appeal ruling, seen by Forum 18, Aleksanyan noted that Vasilyev has no previous criminal record and before his arrest had lived with and cared for his mother, who “suffers from chronic illnesses”. He argued that “the [district] court’s conclusion regarding the defendant’s potential to abscond or otherwise obstruct the proceedings is not supported by the case materials and was made by the court without regard to Vasilyev’s character [lichnost]”.

The Moscow City Court appeal judge nevertheless decided that “The circumstances that served as grounds for selecting detention as a preventive measure for Vasilyev have neither changed nor ceased to exist”, given that Vasilyev stands accused of “committing a serious crime”, which “provides grounds to believe that, if released, he might abscond from the court, continue his criminal activities, or otherwise obstruct the proceedings in the criminal case”.

In Matrosskaya Tishina Prison, Vasilyev appears to be free to meditate and read religious literature as he wishes. He also exchanges letters with acquaintances, discussing Buddhist thought and general topics (some of which are posted as open letters on his support channel on Telegram). He noted in one open letter, however, that he cannot write about either his case or “everyday life” in the detention centre.

The detention centre also continues to refuse Vasilyev access to a Buddhist priest, lawyer Gevorg Aleksanyan told Forum 18 on 13 April.

In July 2025, Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) officials told Aleksanyan that a detainee could only see a priest if a formal agreement existed between FSIN and a centralised religious organisation. Officials said that, because so few detainees were Buddhist, no such agreement was in place.

FSIN officials nevertheless added that “the matter remains under review”, and would be reconsidered if there were an increase in the number of Buddhists or more requests were received.

Forum 18 wrote to Matrosskaya Tishina Prison on 15 April 2026, asking whether the prison service had yet concluded any agreement with a registered Buddhist organisation, and whether any other opportunity could exist for a detainee to see a Buddhist priest. Forum 18 had received no reply by the end of the working day in Moscow of 29 April.

Vasilyev is likely to remain in the same prison until his appeal is heard. His address:

107076 g. Moskva
ul. Matrosskaya Tishina 18
FKU Sledstvenniy izolyator No. 1 UFSIN Rossii po g. Moskve

PRIMITIVE ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL

Hijackings off Somalia raise fears that piracy is back on the rise

Reports of multiple hijackings off the coast of Somalia are raising fears that piracy may be reviving after a relative lull over the past decade. Increased traffic round the Horn of Africa amid the war in the Middle East, along with the diversion of naval forces, could be creating more opportunities for pirates to strike.


Issued on: 02/05/2026 - RFI

Somali maritime police patrol in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Puntland State in Somalia, on 26 November 2023. © AP - Jackson Njehia

By: Anne-Marie Bissada

In the past 10 days, pirates have hijacked at least three boats off the coast of Somalia. The Honour 25 oil tanker was seized on 21 April, followed by a dhow on 25 April and the Sward, a merchant vessel, on 26 April.

According to the Maritime Security Centre Indian Ocean (MSCIO), the European Union Naval Force's tracking service, the three incidents were ongoing as of 29 April.

MSCIO has issued a warning to vessels in the area to "maintain a heightened level of vigilance", particularly within 150 nautical miles of the Somali coast between Mogadishu and Hafun on the Indian Ocean.


Security vacuum

Piracy off the coast of Somalia, concentrated near the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, shot up between 2008 and 2013, before international naval patrols and tighter security on commercial ships helped bring down attacks.

Following a lull, activity picked up again in late 2023 during the Red Sea crisis – when Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen began launching missiles and armed drones at Israel in response to the war in Gaza.

The Houthis also seized or attacked merchant and naval ships they believed to be affiliated with Israel, the US or the UK. By April 2024, some 40 vessels had been targeted.

Somalia's coastline spans the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden, near the entrance to the Red Sea and directly across from Yemen. © NormanEinstein, via Wikimedia Commons


In response, local and international naval forces that had been patrolling Somali waters were deployed closer to the Red Sea, says David Willima, a maritime security researcher at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in South Africa.

“So that place had a security vacuum, which is when these groups were able to take advantage,” he tells RFI.

Many boats were then forced to take the longer route around Africa, through the Indian Ocean towards South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, to avoid the Red Sea. For pirates off Somalia, the increase in traffic and reduced naval forces nearby meant more opportunity to hijack ships.

Now, as Iran blockades the Strait of Hormuz in response to US-Israeli strikes, vessels are once more seeking an alternative route around the Horn of Africa. Meanwhile naval patrols are being diverted to the Middle East.

Trickle-down impacts of Middle East war, from pistachios, to copper, to leather

Widening inequality

Several of the underlying reasons pushing people into piracy have not changed over the years. “Some of it is just pure criminality,” says Willima. “Some of it is connected to a lack of livelihood alternatives.”

Many Somalis living on the coast have traditionally made their livelihoods by fishing. But foreign fleets have increasingly encroached on their waters, whether operating illegally or authorised by questionable licences – such as a 2018 deal that allowed Chinese companies to fish within 24 nautical miles of Somalia's shores for $1 million.

Somalia: Chinese deal angers fishing communities, sparks concerns over sovereignty and piracy

Increased fishing has contributed to a decline in stocks – pushing fishermen further out into deeper and riskier seas, according to Enact, an EU-funded research site on transnational organised crime in Africa.

Faced with dwindling incomes, some fishers resort to illegal activities, says Willima. Some turn to “criminality on land” and others look to piracy, which is seen “as another lucrative avenue to make money”.

The same groups continue to be drawn to piracy, he says. “These are people [who] have looked at the sea as a source of livelihood for generations. Where livelihoods have been eroded, inequalities have deepened.”

Quelling the Polycrisis 

(Video, Part 3)

By Jeremy Brecher, Dominick Conidi

 April 28, 2026

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

Whatever happened to the “polycrisis”?

A couple of years ago it was the buzzword of the world, describing a concatenation of interacting crises that aggravated each other and made solutions appear impossible. In the year since the inauguration of Donald Trump his words and actions have so dominated world events that discussion of the polycrisis has atrophied. But the polycrisis is alive and well and massively aggravated by Trump’s aggressive and erratic behavior.

This commentary, and the previous two, trace the development of the polycrisis in the Trump era, examine the intensification of its dynamics, look at its possible outcomes, and give a preliminary perspective on how it might eventually be quelled.

Watch Part 1 here.
Watch Part 2 here.

Credits:

• Author: Jeremy Brecher
• Narration & Video Production: Dominick Conidi
• Original text transcript published by ZNetwork.org and the Labor Network for SustainabilityEmail

Jeremy Brecher

Jeremy Brecher is a historian, author, and co-founder of the Labor Network for Sustainability. He has been active in peace, labor, environmental, and other social movements for more than half a century. Brecher is the author of more than a dozen books on labor and social movements, including Strike! and Global Village or Global Pillage and the winner of five regional Emmy awards for his documentary movie work.

 

Working Class Hero: Why Life and Legacy of Tony Mazzocchi is Being Celebrated at Rutgers in June

By Steve Early, Rand Wilson

 May 1, 2026

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

Image by Kristina Mazzocchi from Tony Mazzocchi Center website, https://uswtmc.org/

In the 1960s and 70s, conservative leaders of the AFL-CIO and many national unions viewed militant activists in the civil rights, anti-war, environmental, and women’s movements with alarm. When student radicals started migrating from campus and community organizing to unionized workplaces, the labor officialdom did not welcome them.

But a World War II veteran from Brooklyn named Tony Mazzocchi did. Mazzocchi had risen through the ranks of the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers (OCAW), a CIO union which had a strong tradition of rank-and-file activism and internal democracy. He welcomed Sixties’ radicals into the ranks of labor and went on to personally mentor them. Many of these unofficial Mazzocchi students became effective organizers, grievance handlers, contract negotiators, strike leaders, and movement builders.

Mazzocchi was a role model and catalyst for activism on issues ranging from civil rights to labor-based environmentalism, job safety reform, single-payer health care, nuclear disarmament, and union democracy. His story is recounted well in Les Leopold’s 2007 biography, The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor. As an OCAW local officer in New York, legislative director in Washington, and later the union’s national secretary-treasurer, Mazzocchi managed to juggle day-to-day union responsibilities with a tireless commitment to building workers’ political power.

A hundred years after Mazzocchi’s birth, and nearly a quarter century after his death in 2002, several hundred of his friends and allies, new and old, are gathering at the Rutgers University Labor Center on June 4-5, for an in-depth discussion of his life and legacy.

Tony’s path was unusual. After combat duty in the Army, he went to work in a Queens cosmetics factory and joined OCAW Local 149. As a union shop steward, organizer, and eventually president, he helped triple his local’s size. He built a strong cadre of shop floor leaders, started a book club and credit union, and, according to his biographer, sponsored a “vast array of social activities” that “combined to create a remarkable new spirit at work.” Even though Local 149’s membership was 95 percent white, it allied itself with the rising civil rights movement.

In 1957, Mazzocchi helped launch the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) to oppose atom bomb testing. His longtime involvement with SANE put him in touch with leading scientists, environmentalists, and activists who later joined him in building a new movement for occupational safety and health.

Within the 200,000-member OCAW, Mazzocchi helped elect a new national union president in 1965, after a bitter struggle with top OCAW officials linked to CIA meddling in foreign labor movements. He became the union’s national legislative/political director.

The Labor-Environment Connection

In this Washington, D.C. role, Mazzocchi linked emerging public concern about environmental pollution to the source of the problem—workplaces where workers were exposed to toxic chemicals at much higher levels than anyone in surrounding communities. At his initiative, organized labor began to shift from a traditional emphasis on job safety (protection against injuries) to dealing with the causes and long-term health effects of occupational hazards.

A high-school dropout himself, Tony recruited a high-powered network of medical researchers to provide documentation for lawsuits, reports, press releases, hearing testimony, and investigative reporting. He regularly dispatched these allies to probe for the causes of members’ illnesses. He also organized non-stop “road shows” that brought workers together with those experts—and forced lawmakers to listen to both.

Mazzocchi’s drive to pass the Occupational Health and Safety Act in 1970 is a case study in building effective labor clout. (His critical role in OSHA’s passage was even noted by President Nixon.) From MassCOSH in Boston to Work Safe in the Bay Area, the local occupational safety and health coalitions that Mazzocchi helped create are still fighting for job safety and health.

Political Setbacks

Mazzocchi ran twice to become president of OCAW. But in hotly contested convention elections in 1979 and 1981, members in the nuclear industry proved to be his Achilles heel. Conservative opponents critical of his “anti-nuke” politics and “incessant boat-rocking” mobilized against him, and he suffered narrow defeats.

But Tony confounded his foes, per usual, by making an unexpected political comeback. In 1988, he returned to OCAW leadership as national secretary-treasurer. He used that post to promote worker education initiatives, like the Labor Institute, and to fight for a new labor-based political party.

The Labor Party got off to a promising start in 1996 amid growing rank-and-file disillusionment with the Clinton Administration. Its founding convention in Cleveland drew 1400 delegates, including rank-and-file activists, local officers, some national union officials, and labor-oriented academics.

During the LP’s early years, Mazzocchi’s relentless personal barnstorming around the country helped generate much of its labor funding and support. Unfortunately, dreary and divisive left sectarian squabbles soon paralyzed some chapters. The election of President George Bush in 2000 and resulting Republican attacks on labor drove almost all unions back into the Democratic Party fold. 

Mazzocchi’s Legacy

Two key Labor Party demands—single payer health coverage and “Free Higher Ed”—the latter inspired by Mazzocchi’s own experience with the original GI Bill became centerpieces of Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020.

As Les Leopold, a Rutgers conference organizer and Labor Institute founder, points out, Mazzocchi always raised hopes and expectations by “conjuring up a labor movement that… would be militant and green. It would bring about radical changes that would stop global warming. It would give workers real control over the quality and pace of work, and over corporate investment decisions. It would champion the fight against militarism and for peace and equality. It would win free health care. It would dare to create a new political party to counter the corporate domination of the two major parties.”

In a period of declining union density, many union leaders are now in a Trump-inspired defensive crouch. Few project anything like Mazzocchi’s expansive vision. But among working people, there’s evidence that support for working-class-centered politics is building.

 The two-day event in New Jersey will begin with panels and workshops featuring speakers who worked with Mazzocchi or whose current organizing was inspired by him. Organizers say it will also include a more “interactive, worker-centered, action-centered day of strategizing, learning from the lessons of the past and applying them to the present and future.”

The conference will officially unveil the Tony Mazzocchi Archive, to be permanently housed at the Rutgers Labor Center. It will feature not just OCAW-related documents but a wide-ranging oral history project, capturing the voices of workers influenced by the visionary leadership and pragmatic radicalism that Brother Tony embodied.

(For schedule and registration information, see: https://smlr.rutgers.edu/LEARN/tony-mazzocchi-conference.)

Steve Early

Steve Early has worked as a journalist, lawyer, labor organizer, or union representative since 1972. For nearly three decades, Early was a Boston-based national staff member of the Communications Workers of America who assisted organizing, bargaining and strikes in both the private and public sector. Early's free-lance writing about labor relations and workplace issues has appeared in The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, The Nation, The Progressive, and many other publications. Early's latest book is called Our Veterans: Winners, Losers, Friends and Enemies on the New Terrain of Veterans Affairs (Duke University Press, 2022). He is also the author of Refinery Town: Big Oil, Big Money, and the Remaking of An American City (Beacon Press, 2018); Save Our Unions: Dispatches from a Movement in Distress (Monthly Review Press, 2013); The Civil Wars in U.S. Labor: Birth of a New Workers’ Movement or Death Throes of the Old? (Haymarket Books, 2011); and Embedded With Organized Labor: Journalistic Reflections on the Class War at Home (Monthly Review Press, 2009). Early is a member of the NewsGuild/CWA, the Richmond Progressive Alliance (in his new home town, Richmond, CA.) East Bay DSA, Solidarity, and the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. He is a current or past editorial advisory board member of New Labor Forum, Working USA, Labor Notes, and Social Policy. He can be reached at Lsupport@aol.com and via steveearly.org or ourvetsbook.com.