St. Petersburg registered 2,281 coronavirus cases on Friday, October 1 -- the highest daily increase since January 2021. The city also recorded 55 deaths due to COVID-19 and 450 hospitalizations. The day before, St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov warned that "If we don't obtain collective immunity, [additional] restrictions will have to be introduced." According to medical workers, local coronavirus hospitals are already feeling overwhelmed. Meanwhile, the Russian Health Ministry has raised the city's vaccination target to 3.5 million people. But if vaccination continues at its current rate, this goal won't be met until the end of next summer.

Russia's former deputy education minister Marina Rakova was charged with fraud in absentia and put on a wanted list, Interior Ministry spokesperson Irina Volk confirmed to TASS on Friday, October 1. Rakova, who is currently Sberbank's vice president, reportedly stands accused of embezzling 50 million rubles ($688,000) in state funds when she worked for the Education Ministry in 2019. Citing a source in law enforcement, TASS reported that Russian investigators are working to verify reports that Rakova may have left the country for Ukraine. Sources also say detectives plan to ask a court to arrest Rakova in absentia. On Thursday, a Moscow court has jailed three other suspects in connection with the case.

The Russian State Duma is set to consider a bill that would lift restrictions on the heads of regions being elected for more than two consecutive terms, reports RIA Novosti.

The Wagner private military company (PMC) is in the process of recruiting new mercenaries, who will presumably be sent to Mali, reports BBC News Russian. However, the PMC is allegedly no longer accepting recruits from the Russian-backed separatist territories in eastern Ukraine or from annexed Crimea.

The founder of the liberal opposition party Yabloko, Grigory Yavlinsky, was hospitalized in Moscow "due to heart problems," Interfax reported on Monday, September 27.

The Russian Attorney General's Office declared the activities of the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO) "undesirable" in Russia. "The reason for this decision was that the activities of ENEMO pose a threat to the foundations of the constitutional order and security of the Russian Federation," the Attorney General's Office said in a statement on Monday, September 27.

On Monday, September 27, police officers in the Moscow region raided the home of migrant rights defender Valentina Chupik, the head of the nonprofit organization Tong Jahoni. Chupik, who is a citizen of Uzbekistan, has been in custody at an immigration detention center at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport since September 25.

On September 25, a funeral was held in Perm for Sergey Sarapultsev, the late chief of the Perm Krai Investigative Department (the regional branch of the Russian Investigative Committee). Reports about Sarapultsev's death emerged two days earlier. According to unoffical sources, Sarapultsev died by suicide. The news site VKurse reported that he was found dead at his cottage by his driver. And according to the online outlet Life, his body showed signs of strangulation. The Investigative Committee only confirmed that an investigation had been launched into the cause of death. At the funeral, Sarapultsev's widow said that her late husband "served until the end" and that "something inside him broke" after the university shooting in Perm, which took place just days before his death.

The day after the elections to Russia's State Duma, the Communist Party (KPRF) rallied around 200 protesters in downtown Moscow. The Communists refused to recognize the online voting results in the capital, accusing the authorities of falsifying the electronic ballot count. The KPRF is set to hold another rally on Saturday, September 25, under the slogan "For Fair Elections." However, Meduza's sources say the party's top brass isn't planning to challenge the election results as a whole. Instead, party leader Gennady Zyuganov is allegedly trying to bargain with the Kremlin, in a supposed bid to secure influential positions within the State Duma for Communist Party members.

Russia recorded 828 coronavirus-related deaths in the last 24 hours, marking a new pandemic record, the government's anti-coronavirus headquarters reported on Friday, September 24.