First record of the Plebejus christophi (Staudinger, 1874) species group in Europe with description of a new subspecies (Lepidoptera, Lycaenidae)

Previously unknown geographically isolated populations of recently described species from northwestern Kazakhstan, P. karinae Churkin & Krupitsky 2025, are discovered in Astrakhan Oblast, Lower Volga Region, Russia. A new subspecies, P. karinae artifex ssp. nov., is described, being the first record of the mostly Central Asian desert P. christophi (Staudinger, 1874) species group from Russia and Europe. Compared to the nominotypical subspecies, the new subspecies differs in grey ventral side of the wings, bright reddish elements of the submarginal pattern of the ventral side of the wings, darker dorsal side of the wings in males and brown dorsal side of the wings lacking blue colouration in females.