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Russia has opened a criminal case against a United States citizen on suspicion of espionage, the country's Federal Security Service announced Thursday. The security service did not name the individual or say whether they had been taken into custody. "The American is suspected of collecting intelligence information on biological topics directed against the security of the Russian Federation," the security service said. Russia has so far refused to release Whelan, with the seriousness of espionage charges seen as a reason why. Last week, Russia released a U.S. citizen who had crossed into its Kaliningrad exclave weeks after Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine.

Is Russian President Vladimir Putin stepping back from the nuclear ledge? Concerns over Russia’s possible use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine had lessened recently, the sources said. Putin himself has given mixed signals over the question of Russia’s threshold for nuclear use. Russian President Vladimir Putin. “While Putin is unlikely to use nuclear weapons, that is because he is deterred by the fear of escalation, including nuclear escalation.

“We will take the necessary measures to improve the security of civilian facilities and critical facilities,” Sobyanin wrote on Telegram Wednesday. Beyond the four Ukrainian regions now subject to martial law proper, six Russian regions bordering Ukraine are now subject to a “medium response level,” as well as Russian-controlled Crimea. This is essentially “soft” martial law, and it allows regional governors to control movement on their territories and evacuate residents if needed. This has been prompted by Ukrainian strikes on buildings and infrastructure on internationally recognized Russian territory, such as in Belgorod. The rest of the country is subject to a “baseline” readiness level that allows greater security presence and restrictions.

President Vladimir Putin announced on Wednesday that Russia would impose martial law in the four regions in Ukraine he illegally annexed last month, as his military struggles to maintain its grip on territory amid Ukrainian advances. Therefore, I signed a decree on the introduction of martial law in these four subjects of the Russian Federation,” Putin said on national television. Despite these criticisms, Putin went ahead with formal annexation of the four regions at the end of September. On Wednesday, Putin also signed an order introducing some elements of wartime measures to regions bordering Ukraine — such as Crimea, Belgorod, Voronezh, Kursk, and Rostov, among others. Several of the regions have been important staging areas for Russia’s war in Ukraine and in recent weeks have come under increasing Ukrainian fire.

ASTANA, Kazakhstan — Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has a warning for the West: Do not push Russian President Vladimir Putin into a corner. Russia has nuclear weapons for a reason and crossing Putin’s “red lines” in Ukraine would be a mistake, the strongman and close Kremlin ally said in an exclusive interview Friday. And you don’t need nuclear weapons. Russia will cope without them.”The Kremlin has stoked growing nuclear fears as its military retreats on the battlefield and disquiet grows at home. “If nuclear weapons are used even by one country, it will cause a chain reaction.

But it has always demonstrated a sense of restraint, a hesitation to take things too far and risk sparking a broad-scale backlash. With his military in retreat and Ukraine advancing, analysts said Putin appears to have made the largest political gamble of his career. “The social contract has been violated,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The declaration Wednesday is only the third time in Russian history that the government has called for military mobilization. “There are a lot of signals that this will become a significant social and political issue for Putin,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a Russian political analyst and founder of the political consulting firm R.Politik.

The scale of the Russian military’s and political leadership’s setbacks in Ukraine have become too vast for even state media and pro-war activists to ignore. With Russian forces on the retreat, more and more they are accusing the leadership of betraying the troops. As Ukraine retakes territory, videos are appearing online appearing to show massive amounts of equipment abandoned by retreating Russian soldiers. Radical right-wing bloggers calling for Putin to take the gloves off in Ukraine are not a direct threat to the regime, Stanovaya said. The Russian elite is used to seeing Putin as a strong man, someone who deals with challenges and always knows where he’s taking the country.

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