Archived

More than 100,000 Russian families have contacted a Ukrainian-run initiative in search of information about missing Russian soldiers, Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of the Prisoners of War (POWs) said on June 12.

[...]

The initiative, called "I Want to Find" (Russian: "Хочу найти"), has received 100,324 requests from Russian citizens seeking answers about relatives who vanished while serving in Russia's military, the Coordination Headquarters said.

The actual number of missing Russian troops is believed to be significantly higher. Since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin has largely concealed the scale of its military losses, forcing many families to search independently, Ukrainian officials said.

In May 2025 alone, the project received a record 12,320 inquiries — the highest monthly figure since the program began in January 2024.

[...]

The Kremlin has not commented on the figures.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/31254568

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/45953900

The National Unity Government (NUG) has begun constructing two bomb-proof underground hospitals in its controlled areas, with plans to build up to eight, according to U Nay Phone Latt, spokesperson for the NUG Prime Minister’s Office.

I keep seeing comments about how Canada avoided a similar fate because of its strict use of paper ballots; the US must have changed its system to include these electronic and possibly not airgapped machines.

Archived version

A court in Estonia has sentenced Svetlana Burceva, who cooperated with the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency (the media group behind Russia Today), to six years in prison on charges of treason and violating international sanctions.

Burceva acquired Estonian citizenship through naturalization in 1994. Since 2017, she had been working for Estonian online outlets affiliated with the propaganda media group Rossiya Segodnya: for Sputnik Estonia (Sputnik Eesti) until it ceased operations in 2019, and then for the Baltnews website from 2020-2023. Much of Burceva’s work for the latter was published pseudonymously.

In 2023, Burceva joined the pro-Russian party Koos (Together). One of its leaders, Aivo Peterson, has also been charged with treason.

Estonian news outlet ERR reports that Svetlana Burceva violated an international sanction by working for the Russian Federation media company RIA Rossiya Segodnya [the media group behind the Kremlin's propaganda outlet Russia Today RT], whose CEO Dmitry Kiselyov is included in the list of financial sanctions, according to a court spokesperson.

In doing so, Burceva made economic resources available to a sanctioned individual by writing articles and providing photos for the RIA Rossiya Segodnya/Baltnews online publication.

Burceva was also accused of establishing and maintaining a relationship antagonistic to the Republic of Estonia with a foreign national, Roman Romachev, and assisting him as well as the Russian Federation organization R-Techno in nonviolent acts directed against the independence and sovereignty of the Republic of Estonia.

...

Harju District Court established that Roman Romachev is a reserve officer of the FSB, and head of the private intelligence company R-Techno. Among other tasks, this company is responsible for creating a talent pool for the system the Russian Federation is currently developing to combat information warfare and psychological operations.

Romachev's role in the "Information and Hybrid Conflicts" master's program at Sevastopol State University was not only to act as a guest lecturer, but also recruit future agents of influence from among the students.

According to the court, the purpose of Romachev and Burceva establishing their relationship was to start jointly publishing various writings aimed at supporting the Russian Federation's foreign and security policy goals, including carrying out influence operations in so-called near abroad countries.

...

Original question by @ReanuKeeves@lemm.ee

Coming Fall 2025

The hacking mystery roiling the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s rightwing government is deepening after researchers said they had found new evidence that two more journalists were targeted using the same military-grade spyware that Italy has admitted to using against activists.

A parliamentary committee overseeing intelligence confirmed earlier this month that Italy had used mercenary spyware made by Israel-based Paragon Solutions against two Italian activists.

But the same committee, which launched an investigation into the hacking scandal in March, said it had been unable to determine who was behind the targeting of a prominent Italian investigative journalist, Francesco Cancellato, whose news outlet has been critical of the Meloni government.

Now a report by researchers at the Citizen Lab has revealed that a close colleague of Cancellato, Ciro Pellegrino, who is head of the investigative outlet Fanpage.it’s Naples bureau, was also targeted by a user of Paragon Solution’s spyware, which is called Graphite. The Citizen Lab said a third journalist, who chose to remain anonymous and is described as a “prominent European journalist”, had also been targeted with the spyware, it said.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/45936559

The fines will be a "minimum" punishment, and it will continue to seek civil damages for compensation for the costs incurred in more serious cases.

Ryanair, Europe's largest airline, announced Thursday that it will impose fines starting at €500 ($579) on passengers whose disruptive behavior leads to their removal from a flight.

The budget carrier said it hopes the fine will serve as "a deterrent to eliminate this unacceptable behavior onboard our aircraft."

"It is unacceptable that passengers are made to suffer unnecessary disruption because of one unruly passenger's behavior," a Ryanair spokesperson said.

TL;DR

• Google has made it harder to build custom Android ROMs for Pixel phones by omitting their device trees and driver binaries from the latest AOSP release.

• The company says this is because it’s shifting its AOSP reference target from Pixel hardware to a virtual device called “Cuttlefish” to be more neutral.

• While Google insists AOSP isn’t going away, developers must now reverse-engineer changes, making the process for supporting Pixel devices more difficult.

I’ve been researching and saving for the Light Phone III for a while, but there’s just one thing that’s making me hesitant about getting it: music streaming. I have no problem with downloading all of my music, but that prevents me from discovering new songs that Spotify or YouTube Music or whatever recommends me. I feel like I’m going to miss it in situations I can’t have my laptop (like on long drives).

What do you miss most?

Britain’s serious crime agency has frozen UK property worth £170m belonging to the former land minister of Bangladesh amid a crackdown on former allies of Sheikh Hasina, the autocratic leader deposed in last year’s student-led revolution.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) confirmed it had frozen assets belonging to Saifuzzaman Chowdhury, who is among allies of Hasina whose sizeable UK real estate portfolios have come under scrutiny by authorities in Dhaka investigating alleged corruption.

Analysis of Land Registry documents indicates that all of Chowdhury’s more than 300 properties are subject to asset freezing orders, preventing them from being sold or transferred.

These include a luxury home in St John’s Wood, London, bought for £11m in 2022, and an apartment block in Fitzrovia, bought for £12.65m a year earlier, part of a portfolio bought for an estimated £170m.