The Russian Premier League completed 18 rounds before a long winter break that, amid the suspension from European competitions, will in practice last until March. Reigning champion Krasnodar, owned by Sergei Galitsky, went into the break in first place, one point ahead of Zenit.
One of the main disappointments was Valery Karpin’s spell at Dynamo Moscow. Appointed in the summer with the stated goal of winning the title, he left in mid-November after a run of poor results. Karpin said he wanted to focus on the Russian national team and admitted that combining both jobs left him barely seeing his family. After 15 matches, Dynamo were only 10th, 16 points behind the leader.
Another high-profile dismissal was the departure of Dejan Stankovic from Spartak. After finishing fourth last season, the club was only sixth this year despite spending 83.5 million euros on transfers over a year and a half. Against that backdrop, the main surprise of the autumn was Baltika under Andrey Talalaev: the promoted side reached the winter break in the top five, while goalkeeper Maksim Borisko kept 12 clean sheets in 18 matches.
The season was also marked by a wave of refereeing disputes. According to Sport-Express, officials made 62 mistakes in 144 league matches, excluding incidents corrected by VAR, while VAR interventions rose from 66 to 89. After the CSKA-Spartak derby, 42-year-old referee Vitaly Meshkov ended his career, and Stankovic himself was sent off twice for insulting referees.
Krasnodar secured first place before the break by beating CSKA 3-1 in the final match of the year after conceding first. A major role was played by Eduard Spertsyan, who collected 20 goal contributions (8 goals and 12 assists), and John Cordoba (8+4). Zenit, after a poor start, remains the closest challenger, although expensive summer signings Gerson and Roman Vega have yet to impress.
Other memorable episodes involved Zenit and Lokomotiv. On October 23, several men tried to abduct Zenit midfielder Andrey Mostovoy, but he was helped by his friend, hockey player Aleksandr Grakun; five students were detained in the case. At Lokomotiv, attention centered on 20-year-old Alexey Batrakov, the league’s top scorer with 11 goals and, according to Transfermarkt, the most valuable Russian player at 23 million euros, as well as the November appointment of Boris Rotenberg Jr. as the club’s general director.