Enlarge / SAINT PETERSBURG, RUSSIA - JULY 31: Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu (L) seen during the Navy Day Parade, on July, 31 2022, in Saint Petersburg, Russia. (credit: Getty Images )

On the evening of August 20, Russian TV pundit and conspiracy theorist Darya Dugina was killed on the outskirts of Moscow when a powerful explosion ripped apart her Toyota Land Cruiser. Dugina was a vocal supporter of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the daughter of fascist philosopher and writer Alexander Dugin, nicknamed “Putin’s brain” thanks to his perceived ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin. According to Russian authorities, a remote-controlled “explosive device,” presumably installed in her car, went off at around 9 pm local time.

News of Dugina’s assassination spread like wildfire through social media, most notably on the instant messaging service Telegram, where it was shared approvingly by a vast network of Russian and Ukrainian channels. But in the hours that followed, it became clear that one channel, operated by the media outlet Utro Fevralya, or February Morning, is more than just a place to share the news. It aims to play a key role in the story.

Created by exiled former Russian MP and dissident Ilya Ponomarev, February Morning was the first to report on a group claiming responsibility for Dugina’s death. Ponomarev himself took to YouTube , where February Morning airs its shows, claiming that the perpetrators were a little-known Russian resistance group called the National Republican Army. According to Ponomarev, an all-out war against “Putinism” had just begun.

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After Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Google formed its exit strategy from Russia, suspending all ads by March , then blocking Play Store app sales and removing most of its employees by May. After that, Google has only continued to provide free services to Russian Internet users, like Search, Gmail, Maps, or YouTube, and now, Google might be paying big for that decision.

This week, Russian regulator Roskomnadzor announced that a Russian court ordered the tech giant to pay its steepest fine yet since the Ukraine war started, citing Google’s “repeated failure” to remove “prohibited content” deemed “fake.” Unless Google manages to appeal the decision, it will have to fork over approximately $374 million for not restricting content that goes against Russian interests. Examples include content discrediting the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, promoting extremism, or inciting young people to join mass protests ( which Russia banned ).

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment on a possible appeal, but the company knew a fine was coming. It just perhaps didn’t know how large a fine. Roskomnadzor warned Google last month that it would be fined 5 to 10 percent of its annual turnover, but TechCrunch estimates that ultimately “the new fine would be around 15 percent of the company’s annual turnover.” (Roskomnadzor did not immediately respond to Ars' request to clarify the percent of Google’s annual turnover the fee represents.)

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Russian companies have been plunged into a technological crisis by Western sanctions that have created severe bottlenecks in the supply of semiconductors, electrical equipment, and the hardware needed to power the nation’s data centers.

Most of the world’s largest chip manufacturers, including Intel, Samsung, TSMC and Qualcomm, have halted business to Russia entirely after the US, UK, and Europe imposed export controls on products using chips made or designed in the US or Europe.

This has created a shortfall in the type of larger, low-end chips that go into the production of cars, household appliances, and military equipment. Supplies of more advanced semiconductors, used in cutting-edge consumer electronics and IT hardware, have also been severely curtailed.

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This story was originally published by ProPublica .

On February 25, the day after Russia invaded Ukraine, a prolific ransomware gang called Conti made a proclamation on its dark website. It was an unusually political statement for a cybercrime organization: Conti pledged its “full support of Russian government” and said it would use “all possible resources to strike back at the critical infrastructures” of Russia’s opponents.

Perhaps sensing that such a public alliance with the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin could cause problems, Conti tempered its declaration later that day. “We do not ally with any government and we condemn the ongoing war,” it wrote in a follow-up statement that nonetheless vowed retaliation against the United States if it used cyberwarfare to target “any Russian-speaking region of the world.”

Enlarge / The Google doodle for Russia National Day 2016. (credit: Google )

Google no longer offers paid apps or paid app updates to Russian users. A new support page —first spotted by 9to5Google —says, "Google Play is blocking the downloading of paid apps and updates to paid apps in Russia starting May 5, 2022."

Many companies have voluntarily stopped their business in Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine, but Google makes it clear it's not voluntarily ending payments in the country. In March, Google said it was forced to "pause" its billing system for users "due to payment system disruption." (The big four credit card companies voluntarily pulled out of Russia in March over the Ukraine invasion, making it basically impossible for Google to offer paid apps.) Now Google says the blocking of paid apps is "part of our compliance efforts."

The page says "users cannot purchase apps and games, make subscription payments or conduct any in-app purchases of digital goods using Google Play in Russia." Free apps will continue to be available, and paid apps you've already purchased will still be available for download and use, but any purchases will now show an error message. Subscriptions will not be able to be renewed and will be canceled. Because Google is only dealing with a lack of credit card processing, it says developer payouts to Russian developers will continue.

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In the snowy streets of the north Ukrainian town of Trostyanets, the Russian missile system fires rockets every second . Tanks and military vehicles are parked on either side of the blasting artillery system, positioned among houses and near the town’s railway system. The weapon is not working alone, though. Hovering tens of meters above it and recording the assault is a Ukrainian drone. The drone isn’t a sophisticated military system, but a small, commercial machine that anyone can buy.

Since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine at the end of February, drones of all shapes and sizes have been used by both sides in the conflict. At one end of the scale are large military drones that can be used for aerial surveillance and to attack targets on the ground. In contrast, small commercial drones can be flown by people without any specific training and carried around in a suitcase-sized box. While both types of drones have been used in previous conflicts, the current scale of small, commercial drone use in Ukraine is unprecedented.

Drone videos shared and posted to social media depict the brutality of the war and reveal what has happened during battles. Drones have captured fighting in the destroyed Ukrainian city of Bucha , with lines of tanks moving around streets and troops moving alongside them. Commercial drones have helped journalists document the sheer scale of destruction in Kyiv and Mariupol , flying over burnt-out buildings that have been reduced to rubble.

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For years, Dmitriy Sergeyevich Badin sat atop the FBI’s most wanted list. The Russian government-backed hacker has been suspected of cyber attacks on Germany’s Bundestag and the 2016 Olympics, held in Rio de Janeiro.

A few weeks into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, his own personal information—including his email and Facebook accounts and passwords, mobile phone number and even passport details—was leaked online.

Another target since the war broke out two months ago has been the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, known as a voice of the Kremlin and home to Vladimir Solovyov, whose daily TV show amplifies some of the most extreme Russian government propaganda.