However, its sales had slumped, and in 2017 it was turned into a weekly newspaper, with a Russian-language website built, based on Ynet.

[5] Vesti was edited by one of its founders, the right-wing Soviet refusenik Eduard Kuznetsov, until he was fired in December 1999.

[8] At the time The Jerusalem Post reported anonymous claims that Kuznetsov had been fired for his criticism of Sharansky's Yisrael BaAliyah party, or even at the party's request, while Religious Zionist news outlet Arutz Sheva stated that an advisor to Ehud Barak "was reportedly instrumental in bringing about Kuznetsov's dismisal [sic]".

[5] Vesti managing editor Yulia Shamalov-Berkovich, another of the paper's founders, later became a Kadima politician, joining the Knesset in 2009.

[14][15] In 2006 the paper's opinion page editor and one of its writers were taken to court over an allegedly racist poem it had published.

[19] Reprinting articles published elsewhere is a common practice of the Russian language press in Israel and elsewhere, and Vesti had faced similar complaints in the past.