Eye on Russia: Overview of events January 2026

Written by Ksawery Stawiński, Kateryna Vasilyk

6.01 – A large demographic crisis in Russia

During the yearly global conference “Consyllium of Founders” in Chelabinsk, a well-known Russian economist and prof. of Moscow State University Natalia Zubarewicz stated that the population of Russia would proceed to shrink until a generation of “children of parent capital” begins to be born^[1]It’s okay. ” During the gathering with representatives of industrial companies, the prof. identified the main challenges of Russian demography, specified as long-term decline trends among births and fertility, and illustrated their transition to professional structure, and presented a forecast for 2026 and possible solutions to the problem.

According to the expert, negative changes in the national fertility structure fuel the demographic crisis, which is an additional origin exerting force on the Russian economy. "The average age of birth of the first kid in Russia is now over 25 years. In Moscow it is even higher – 29 years. We've switched to a different reproductive model. First you finish your studies, start your work, meet your financial needs, build a career and then you have children," Zubarewicz noted and laughed at the state's plans to increase birth rate among students and students, including the work to supply rooms for mothers with children at universities. In her opinion, too, given the current age structure, there is no another solution to the problem of depopulation than mass migration.

The investigator besides identified the 3 most crucial demographic trends, which affect the Russian labour market. The first is the decrease in the working age population, noticeable since 2018. Currently, in Russia, the number of young people active has decreased by a third, resulting in a real shortage of fresh labour in the country. The second origin is the increase in labour and wages costs, driven by competition for staff and the resulting wage race – the process was peculiarly sharp in 2023, but has slowed down since 2025 due to weak economical growth or stagnation. The 3rd key trend is the decline in the number of economical migrants from the Commonwealth of Independent States, which from 4.5 million before the pandemic decreased to 3.5 million in 2022.

Commenting on the current situation of economical migrants in Russia, Natalia Zubarewicz cited the concept of organized recruitment (ru. оргнабор) – a government employment strategy in which workers are elected, checked and assigned to circumstantial employers before actually taking up work. The economist stresses that this method will be implemented in the following years by the Russian authorities as the main method for gaining labour from abroad. "They tell us this: there is no point wandering the Russian Federation without supervision. We request to realize that this is simply a grim business story," Zubarewicz concluded and pointed out the inefficiency of attempts to import workers from Bangladesh, India and North Korea to Russia. Finally, the prof. pointed out that the increase in migration does not offset the current population decline in the country and that the current Russian migration policy is likely to see the influx of migrants decline.

11.01 – Gazprom-Media has developed a strategy for identifying "LGBT propaganda"

In the face of a further tightening of the rules on the prohibition of " LGBT promotion" and expanding penalties for the "propaganda" of this community in the Russian Federation, the state-owned Gazprom-Media company invested respective 100 million rubles in the improvement of the information strategy "Platforma Predicto". This module complex consists of 12 subsystems, liable for personalization of content, user activity analysis, recommending algorithms, and an information-search and analytical system. However, the most crucial is the content moderation module, which was developed "to automatically check the presence of undesirable elements specified as drug propaganda, alcohol and smoking, scenes involving LGBT people". After processing the movie in this program, a colour encoding file indicating the presence or absence of "harmful fragments" is returned.

In December 2022, president Vladimir Putin signed a package of laws prohibiting, among others, "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations" and "propaganda of sex change and pedophilia". 1 of the rights prohibits the "promotion of LGBT" in any products sold in Russia – films, books, advertisements and streaming services. For example, a violation of the ban on "proposing non-traditional sexual relations" involves fines ranging from 50,000 to 400 000 rubles for individuals, from 100,000 to 800 000 rubles for officials and from 800 000 to 5 million rubles or suspension of activities for up to 90 days for legal persons. Then in November 2023, the Russian ultimate Court declared the "international LGBT movement" to be an extremist organization and banned its activities in Russia. On July 31, 2025, Putin signed a bill refusing to issue a licence to distribute films, which includes the content of "refuting or discrediting conventional Russian spiritual-moral values". These provisions will enter into force on 1 March 2026.

In view of the fresh amendment of Russian anti-LGBT law, Gazprom-Media ordered from the private startup Predicto the improvement of a number of digital solutions which were registered as state-owned in the registry of the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Transfer of the Russian Federation in July 2025. According to the list of daughter companies ‘ГПМ Цифровые Инновации” which owns the rights to this technological core, among customers of the purchased service are besides another Gazprom-Media entities, specified as: Premier net cinema, Rutube video hosting (which aims to displace YouTube from the Russian market), Yappy vertical video service as well as TNT tv channels and Пятница!. On the another hand, Roskomover, a Russian authority liable for monitoring, controlling and censoring media, stated that he welcomed "any method and organisational measures taken by audiovisual service providers to identify illegal information".

The Predicto technology solution is designed by automation to aid platforms filter video content, especially since the verification is presently carried out in manual or semi-automatic mode. "All content is checked by employees who first participate in seminars organised by regulatory authorities, carried out to rise awareness of the fresh legal requirements on content. Although any basic scenes containing prohibited content are recognized by machines, the vast majority of nuances and semantic connections in audiovisual works can only be recognized by a person," admits Vladimir Trunow, manager of Relations with State Authorities at Tricolor. The fresh censorship tool is besides being considered by Andrei Swincow, Vice-President of the State Duma Information Policy Commission, associate of the Liberal-Democratic organization of Russia: "I hope that this robot, who will monitor and check automatically, will be decently configured to mark specified content for the editor. The editor will then manually check and decide whether to block this content, cut the stage, reject the full episode, or even quit the acquisition of the series if it is besides saturated with themes that the Ministry of Culture's licensing committee believes can be considered even undesirable."

It should be mentioned that, despite the existence of a full block of government prohibiting "general LGBT propaganda", as well as "displaying LGBT content to children", there were never defined criteria that would clearly separate propaganda from display, nor a list of circumstantial actions subject to penalties was presented. Therefore, bookstores, publishing houses, tv channels and net cinemas began to receive mass notices of violations with the adoption of the first law. In 2023, the online cinema Prime Minister was fined 4 million rubles for "showing LGBT", while in 2024 the movie service Kinopoisk paid 10 million rubles of fines immediately for 2 cases – the "propaganda LGBT" and the "propaganda pedophilia". In the light of the latest update of law and the upcoming wave of penalties, request for the Russian media marketplace for the automated monitoring strategy from Gazprom-Media can be expected, which will at the same time supply Kremlin with an enhanced control over media transmission and its recipients.

12.01 – Wagners employed in Russian Houses

Yevgeni Primakow Jr., manager of the national Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, Countrymen surviving behind Borders and global Humanitarian Cooperation (Russia), officially confirmed that Russian Houses in any African countries were opened by Wagner Group. In an interview with the “Wiedomosti” issue, the diplomat besides said that any of the representatives of this “famous PMC”. private military company)’ presently works in Rossa Hardy. This body is simply a specialised agency that falls under the Ministry of abroad Affairs of the Russian Federation and is liable for building influences through soft power.

One of the projects of Rossotrudnicza is Russian Houses – institutions that officially advance Russian culture, language, education and science, while serving as public diplomacy platforms. In fact, they frequently function as the Russian propaganda and intelligence cells of Moscow, and their hybrid activities pose a threat to the host country. By developing a network of specified centres, Russia strengthens its ability to influence another global actors through cultural and social aspects. After 2020, Rosso-difficulty underwent a major transformation, as Africa and Asia became a precedence political precedence due to the deterioration of relations with the collective West. A typical manifestation of this change was the liquidation of respective Russian Houses in fresh years – Russia lost its influence tools in Azerbaijan, Moldova, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Romania and Macedonia.

"Some 26 Russian home Partnership Agreements have been signed, of which 14 deal with centres in Africa. We were very pleased to sign akin agreements with Russian Houses, which were opened by the well-known African PMC in Mali and the Central African Republic," Primakow confessed. He characterized erstwhile mercenaries as follows: “We were joined by any very intelligent men from this team, “eggheads” – incredibly intelligent. They are «on the subject» [...]. With our limited resources they do amazing things.” The head of the Agency besides mentioned a large number of applications from students from Africa to Russian universities – over 40,000 out of 4,800 seats per academic year 2024/2025. This demonstrates the effectiveness of Russian soft force in developing countries.

Wagner's group was a paraprivate military organization formed in 2014 on the initiative of Russian intelligence. It consisted of mercenaries with experience in the military or safety services, and its intent was to conduct military operations outside Russia. The formation was active in conflicts in Ukraine, Syria and African states, and vasners are liable for many human rights violations and war crimes. An example of Wagner Group's transit to Rossatruscy is Dmitri Sytyj, head of the Russian home in the Central African Republic, more widely known as a key figure in PMC management. In an interview with “Deutsche Welle“ of 2024, the “cultural ambassador of Russia” acknowledged that he had sometimes carried out “disarmament missions” against armed groups in Central Africa at the command of the president of the Central African Republic Faustina-Archange Touadéra. However, he did not mention that in exchange for services provided by mercenaries to this country, Russia received favourable concessions for the extraction of mineral natural materials, especially gold and diamonds. Furthermore, Wagner's Group has repeatedly been accused of supporting African paramilitary regimes, stalking and intimidated civilians in the Central African Republic, killing civilians in Mali, raping women and men, and committing "other sexual abuse".

The inclusion of positions related to promotion and cultural cooperation by erstwhile militants is simply a courageous but at the same time calculated step of Russian diplomacy, which has already traditionally utilized Ross-difficulty structures as a cover for intelligence and diversion activities. Wagnerovers have not only combat experience, but are besides acquainted with safety resorts – both Russian and African. These links may service to grow and strengthen Russian influences on local elites, and the functioning of Russian Houses would aid build a network of agents and bases of political and business contacts. In its strategy towards African states, Russia legitimises participants in armed action, giving them diplomatic positions. It thus combines elements of coercion and attractiveness to better prosecute its own interests and advance its image in the Sub-Saharan Africa region.

18.01 – Sanctions drain the resources of the Russian National Welfare Fund

In fear of secondary sanctions to date, the biggest contractors of Łukoil and Rosnieft – China, India and Turkey have decided to limit the acquisition of oil from Russia. Therefore, Moscow is forced to sale its products with a large discount, and the current situation has a negative impact on the country's budget plan, which was being developed with higher oil revenues. Following the introduction of US restrictions on existing Kremlin ventures, it will no longer be possible to finance funds from the sale of natural material. Russia sought an alternate origin of backing decided to liquidate funds from the National Fund of Prosperity.

While the Ministry of Finance estimates a budget gap for the year 2026 of $49 billion, Gazprombank sets it at as much as 77 billion – about 3% of GDP. Russia's authoritative fiscal policy assumes a deficit of 1.6% of GDP ($49 billion). In the event of a script envisaged by Gazprom, this would imply the request to cover about 1.5 percent points by the state, or $38 billion.

The National Prosperity Fund of the Russian Federation has so far covered the urgent request for Kremlin cash. The FND is an institution in which surplus profits were deposited from the sale of energy resources to safe the financial capacity of the State. In fact, it has been utilized for respective years to wage war with Ukraine. According to The Moscow Times, liquid funds of the fund amounted to $113,5 billion in 2022 and presently – $52 billion. The fund's gold resources decreased at that time to 40% of the first state. Based on the scale of the shortfall, the Fund can be exhausted completely over a year to 2 years. Only between 16 January and 5 February, Russia sold $2.5 billion of the Fund's funds. This is the highest level since the pandemic.

26.01 – Syrian-Russian relations

Syria under Ahmed al-Shara, who won last year's nearly a decade and a half of civilian war, incorporates the territory of his own country to return to Damascus. The ongoing run to reconstruct state power in the country expanded to include the northeastern part of Syria, which is controlled by the Kurdish faction supported by various abroad players, including Russia. Moscow became active in the policy of this peculiar region in 2019. Kremlin intervention was a consequence to the 3rd anti-kurdish Turkey offensive conducted in Syria. Russia has since assumed the function of mediator between Kurds and Turks in overseeing the enforcement of the ceasefire. The logistics hub of the Russian army became a base in Kamshil.

Moscow seemingly decided to borrow this policy to build a birate relation with the fresh government in Damascus. The erstwhile warlord, supported by the Kremlin – al-Assad – lost the war. Consequently, the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kamszila and the simultaneous end of support for the Kurdish case in that country constitute a motion of goodwill towards the fresh Syrian leader, al-Shara, whom the Moscow-supported faction has fought so far. Nota bene United Kingdom and the US are presently pursuing a akin policy by abandoning existing allies to normalize relations with the fresh leader of the country. Al-Sharah policy includes establishing friendly relations besides with Israel and Turkey.

Another reason why Russia cares about good relations with Damascus is its desire to keep control of its 2 military bases located in the west of Syria (the only military port belonging to Russia outside its country, and the second facility - military airport). The future of the bases was discussed by the presidents of both countries in January of that year, at another gathering in Moscow. In addition, the question of the possible extradition of Bashar al-Assad from Russia to Syria was besides raised. So far, the Russians are refusing Damascus's requests on this issue. All indications are that the Russians' presence in Kashmila is over. This can be concluded after reports by reporters, as well as a later, brief comment by Lavrow on the future of Russian troops in Syria. The question of whether or not the another 2 bases stay ineffective.

27.01 – American policy of active combating shadow fleet

On December 17, the United States occupied Venezuela with a naval blockade. It includes tankers affected by sanctions, which cannot leave or dock on the shore of Venezuela. 1 of these ships – Bella 1 – broke the ban and breached the naval blockade, resulting in US units pursuing. respective days of pursuit ended in the North Atlantic, south of Iceland. Bella 1 in the meantime, however, changed its flag and became a Russian ship from the Panamanian ship. It was christened to Marinera, and according to Kremlin's words it gained ,, interimly authorized to rise the Russian flag". Ergo, the ship and its cargo and crew were covered by Moscow's protection. In the event of giving up further pursuit, the Americans would show that Russia succeeded in breaking the naval blockade imposed on its ally by Washington.

Additionally, The Wall Street diary reports that Marinera was escorted by a Russian warship and submarine. Nevertheless, the Americans reached the baptised Bella 1, and made the boarding. possibly Russian ships drove distant American ,,C-17 transport aircraft, V-22 Osprey verticalzlot and AC-130 assault aircraft”, which according to PISM were to participate in the full operation. Washington legitimises its action by maintaining, in accordance with the global law of the sea applicable on the oceans, that the ship is stateless as it sailed under a false flag. It is thus not protected by anyone. The British helped throughout the action, in the waters where Mariner and his crew were found at the end of the action.

But the communicative of the tanker does not end there. The sailors of the captured ship were transported to land, where their common destiny ended – each crew was transported to a different location depending on their nationality and degree of engagement in criminal activity. The wife of a Georgian-sounding ship's captain – Natia Dziadzam, learning that her husband was on Scottish soil, wanted to prevent his further transport to the US. According to her line of reasoning – Captain Avtandil Kalandade (apparently the spouses do not have a common name) was on Scottish soil, so his further destiny falls under Scottish jurisdiction alternatively than American jurisdiction. Furthermore, he is protected from extradition to the United States by European human rights records. With the engagement of a resourceful wife, the Scottish court issued a warrant preventing the Americans from taking Kalandade to the United States. However, it was withdrawn erstwhile it became clear that the Americans had passed any action of the court in the Islands. The mystery is how Georgians, along with their first officer, found themselves aboard a U.S. Coast defender ship Munro embarking on a long voyage from Scotland across the Atlantic towards American courts. 1 of the Russian sources (Военное обозрение) suggests that they were simply stolen from Scottish dirt by American personnel.

The issue of headship over Kalandade's destiny has become a origin for debate among Scottish politicians as well as a breach of relations between the allied US and Scotland. As Ross Greer (the anti-Russian politician) points out, co-chair of the Green Scottish Party: ,,The U.S. government abducted 2 people from Scotland in the mediate of the night [...] Trump America is simply a criminal state that despises global law. She's not our ally, and she can't be trusted. It is time for John Swinney to remove US troops from their de facto base on the Scottish Government's Prestwick Airport and block their access to any publically owned resources in Scotland." However, the government's authoritative position is more subdued, claiming as the BBC: ,,Disturbing, disrupting and demoting the Russian shadow fleet is simply a precedence for this government. Together with our allies, we are sharpening our consequence to shadow ships – and we will proceed this.” No less, the statements of the First Minister of Scotland – John Swinney – propose that the Scots were not sufficiently informed by the Americans about the full action. possibly they have indeed kidnapped Captain Kalandadze, as the Russian origin and Georgian couple's lawyer Aamer Anwar convinces.

The situation is indicative of the advanced expediency of abroad American politics. During the last fewer decades, the US has stopped 7 sanctioned ships: Marinera, Sophia, Olina, Skipper, Sagitta, Centuries, Galileo. The policy of actively combating the shadow fleet is an crucial precedent which allows European countries to enforce their own sanctions on tankers carrying contraband themselves.

29.01 – Łukoil plans to sale all abroad assets

As part of the sanctions imposed on Rostnieft and Łukoil, these companies must sale their abroad assets. However, this component of restrictions imposed by the American administration will not full enter into force until 28 February. By then, both companies will operate under a limited sanctioning regime. This transitional period is intended to let them to breach the comparatively average procedures associated with the sale of a large part of the company. Despite the fact that there is no shortage of merchants so far, no of them have managed to enter into a transaction with Łukoil to get assets. The reason is the deficiency of approval of the abroad Asset Control Office of the Treasury Department (OFAC) to breach specified purchase. OFAC is the body liable for monitoring the enforcement of the sanctioning regime, so the transaction cannot recover without its cognition and acceptance. Although there are reports in the media of possible buyers (e.g. Exxon Mobil, Chevron, IHC, Midad Energy, Gunvor) who want to get Łukoil's assets in different configurations, no of them managed to make the calls far adequate to request approval from OFAC and convince him to accept the purchase.

Carlyle can change that. According to the message on the Łukoil website, the US company started serious talks with the Russians about buying all of LUKOIL global GmbH – part of the company liable for abroad assets. Only funds located in Kazakhstan are to be excluded from the transaction. On January 8th, the Kazakhs themselves sent a letter asking OFEC to authorise the acquisition of LUKOIL assets in their country. Carlyle himself is 1 of the American financial giants. It ranks sixth worldwide in the ranking of the size of investment companies. Its resources are $474 billion, of which 20 billion are located in oil and gas.

Łukoil is the second largest Russian oil company, but unlike the largest in the country of Rostnieft, it acts as a private company. The equity held in Vienna LUKOIL global GmbH is valued at about $22 billion (including Kazakh funds). Łukoil is simply a company with large possible to supply Russia with a permanent and strong presence on global energy markets. S&P analysis estimates that: ,oil and gas production from Lukoil's abroad assets will grow by the end of the decade. It predicts Lukoil's share of production from abroad projects will increase by 119,000 barrels of oil conversion per day compared to the level of 2025, reaching 448,000 barrels of oil conversion by 2030."

The amount for which Carlyle would buy LUKOIL global GmbH was not specified. For now, the company is subject to due diligence. Meanwhile, the Russian company continues to talk to another possible buyers of abroad assets. Given the upcoming caesura on 28 February, even if Carlyle does not decide to finalise the transaction, Łukoil will gotta rapidly dispose of his investments outside Russia

[1] Maternity capital is simply a state support programme for Russian families, which aims to halt the decreasing birth and fertility rates. The programme can receive a one-time benefit for the first kid with a value of 737 200 rubles (9.6,000 USD) and for the second and subsequent (if not paid for the first child) – 974 100 rubles (12.7 1000 USD). The funds may be utilized to improve housing conditions, children's education, mother's savings pension and adaptation of children with disabilities. The program was launched in 2007 and will last until the end of 2030.