MOSCOW (AP) — The Russian parliament’s upper house on Friday quickly approved a bill that punishes online searches for information officially branded “extremist,” the latest in a series of moves by authorities to tighten control of the internet.

Here is how things stand on Saturday, July 26: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces were facing fierce fighting around the city of Pokrovsk in the country’s east, a logistics hub near where Russia’s military has been announcing the near-daily capture of Ukrainian villages.

Vladimir Putin's crackdown on corruption and opposition to his war in Ukraine has seen a number of Kremlin officials die in suspicious circumstances

At a ceremony in Severodvinsk in Russia’s northwestern Archangelsk region, the Russian president oversaw the raising of the flag on a newly-constructed submarine. The Russian navy has suffered considerable losses in the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Russian strikes across Ukraine killed at least 12 civilians and injured more than 120 others. In the eastern Donetsk oblast, or province, systematic shelling and glide bombs killed six non-combatants and wounded 44 others.

In late July 2025, amid high media interest in Derek Huffman, a Texas man who moved his family to Russia to escape LGBTQ+ values in the U.S., a claim ( archived) circulated online that Huffman had died in combat after enlisting in the Russian armed forces.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is stalling over a ceasefire. Meanwhile, Trump has changed his mind about sending weapons to Ukraine.

Child injured as Moscow and Kyiv fire drones and missiles after latest peace talks - Kremlin dismisses likelihood of a Putin-Zelensky meeting before August

In July alone, Andrei Badalov, the vice-president of state-owned pipeline company Transneft, fell to his death from a balcony at his home. A former deputy defence minister was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment on charges of corruption, only for a fellow military official to go down for 17.

Renowned Russian conductor Valery Gergiev's concert in an Italian palace has been canceled without explanation amid an uproar over his support for Vladimir Putin.

Irina Podnosova, 71, became the first woman to be appointed as Chief Justice of Russia's Supreme Court in April 2024

The administration’s claims are overblown, but newly declassified information provides some messy details about a January 2017 intelligence assessment of Moscow’s election interference.