posted May 4th, 2024 - It was in August 2021 when teams from Russia attended their last FAI/ISC event, the FAI Tanay Mondial. Bubbles won a set of gold medals on home turf, and the Russian 8-way team added bronze medals in the horizontal Formation Skydiving competition categories.

The Russian 4-way delegation was ready for a strong showing at the FAI Indoor World Cup 2022, as the NSL News reported on 2 February 2022. The Russian participation in Charleroi, Belgium, was canceled shortly later, and there were no Russian teams at any of the FAI/ISC indoor and outdoor events after the sanctioning organization had decided to "suspend the members of Russia and Belarus with immediate effect".

Scores and information still arrived from Russia in 2022, first after the Small Party's Indoor Cup in March, followed by the Russian Indoor Cup in April. The Russian Indoor Nationals in November 2022 was the last event that the NSL News received information of for an update. Formation Skydiving competition has still continued in Russia since December 2022. The most recent event was the Russian Indoor Cup 2024, which took place a few days after the completion of the FAI Indoor World Cup in China that teams from Russia still did not participate in.

FAI Tanay Mondial 2020			1		2		3		4		5		6		Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Women		O,19,Q,5		17,B,E,P		H,15,12		M,N,7,F		K,L,C,4		J,18,16		Total	Avg
1	Bubbles	RU	21	-1	33	-3	18	-1	33	-3	27		18	-2	150	25.0
2	Aerodyne Maubeuge	FR	24		27	-4	18		34		24	-2	21		148	24.7
3	No Mercy	PL	15		20	-1	11	-1	20	-2	16		11		93	15.5
4	Aviatrixx	US	15		25		13		14		0		12	-1	79	13.2

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Russia - France at the FAI Tanay Mondial 2020

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The teams in the Top 3 positions dominated the competition in a very similar way as they did in December 2022, and the lineups included once again Russia's most experienced 4-way competitors. Seven members of the Top 3 teams in December 2022 were back in 4-way indoor action, including the 4-way Women world champions of 2021, Alena Chistova and Olga Bykova.

The complete Bubbles lineup had won the Russian Indoor Nationals 2021 in AAA/4-way Open over Airborne VDV and IFS Moscow, just a few months after becoming 4-way Women world champions. They did not continue with Bubbles and were back with Strike last month to challenge Airborne VDV for the top spot.

Alena Chistova and Olga Bykova had Yury Drozdov and Alexander Golovkin, both former IFS Moscow members, in their lineup. New team Strike won the second half of the meet by three points but were too far behind with a 10-point deficit at half-time.

Winner Airborne VDV had three of the seasoned 4-way competitors in their lineup, including Georgy Miroshnichenko, who was severely injured in the crash of a L-410 Turbolet jump plane shortly before the FAI Tanay in April 2021. The NSL News reported on 19 July 2021 that Oleg Shalamykhin was supposed to replace Georgy Miroshnichenko for Airborne VDV at the outdoor world championship.

Russian Indoor Cup 2024		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	P,21,19	15,C,D,E	12,10,J	A,G,16,Q	14,1,B	3,H,O,N	2,5,11	13,22,K	9,L,17	F,7,20	Total	Avg
1	VDV Airborne	29	38	26	39	31	37	23	27	35	32	317	31.7
2	Strike	28	35	25	38	27	37	20	25	41	34	310	31.0
3	2x2	27	37	22	36	26	34	23	23	34	30	292	29.2
4	Airborne Club	22	34	17	34	22	30	20	22	30	25	256	25.6
5	Feathers	21	24	21	28	22	30	20	21	28	25	240	24.0
6	Nomads	21	29	16	29	22	30	18	17	29	23	234	23.4
7	Trinity	23	29	18	21	23	29	17	20	29	24	233	23.3
8	Night Eagles	21	16	21	32	21	28	15	20	28	26	228	22.8
9	H4	19	18	17	27	18	26	18	20	26	22	211	21.1
10	MT Ka-Tet	18	24	18	23	16	22	17	18	24	18	198	19.8
11	Gang	21	22	15	21	15	22	17	18	17	22	190	19.0
12	FlyStones	16	15	15	21	17	21	10	17	19	19	170	17.0
13	Airborne Club 2	11	13	18	10	11	10	8	8	10	11	110	11.0

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Airborne VDV - Strike - 2x2 at the Russian Indoor Cup 2024

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Russia eventually did not compete in 4-way Open in Tanay 2021, while Bubbles won the gold medals in 4-way Women. Georgy Miroshnichenko was now back in indoor 4-way action with his two former team mates and a new 4-way competitor. Salomeya Popova launched her 4-way team career six months ago and finished the ten rounds for Airborne VDV with a 31.7 average.

Salomeya Popova is the only new name in the Russian Top 3 positions, and she made it straight to the top. The 2x2 lineup changed only by half of the lineup, while the experience level is similar to the one in December 2022. Dmitry Novik and Kirill Zaitcev were team mates in the previous lineup. Maria Serova and Egor Gusev replaced Olga Bykova and Alexander Odinokov.

Maria Serova trained and competed with 4-way Women team Illusions, where she also met Alena Chistova. Egor Gusev had won the indoor championship in December 2022 with IFS Moscow. He and Maria Serova have competed with different teams for almost two decades. Former 2x2 member Olga Bykova placed ahead of the new 2x2 lineup with her own new Strike team, including her own Bubbles team mate Alena Chistova and Egor Gusev's two former IFS Moscow team mates Yury Drozdov and Alexander Golovkin. The three top teams in Moscow would have finished most likely in the Top 10 of the indoor world cup in China, or even in medal positions.

Russian Indoor Nationals 2022		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class Top 3	18,K,G,F	14,1,7	D,P,A,11	17,C,13	4,N,6	20,E,2	5,L,H,10	J,22,B,8	O,9,19	M,Q,21,16	Total	Avg
1	IFS-Moscow	29	25	34	28	26	23	26	26	30	31	278	27.8
2	VDV GROM	35	25	33	24	27	23	21	25	32	29	274	27.4
3	2x2	31	24	29	27	23	22	23	23	27	26	255	25.5

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IFS Moscow - Airborne VDV in December 2022

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