Russian investigators on Wednesday opened criminal proceedings against a blogger for spreading what they said was “knowingly false information” about the war in Ukraine, during the first application of a new law that carries a penalty of up to up to 15 years in prison. The Investigative Committee said theRead More →
New Russian law means 15 years in prison or military conscription that sends anti-war Russians to Ukraine with orders to shoot civilians The New York Times published on Monday an article describing how thousands of middle-class Russians have fled the country for neighboring Armenia and (Republic of) Georgia since theRead More →
Screenshot from CBC Radio Canada Youtube channel video, residents of St. Petersburg are waiting in a full train station. Olga, leaving for Spain said, “The situation could become more serious at any time. I’m really scared. Since the beginning of the Russian war in Ukraine, more … than 7,000 peopleRead More →
A former aide to jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has slammed Russian authorities’ use of the extremism law to suppress peaceful political opposition as she appeals her pre-trial restrictions in court siberian monday. Ksenia Fadeyeva, who was elected to the Tomsk city council in 2020, faces up to 12 yearsRead More →
A Russian court in Siberia has sentenced two Jehovah’s Witnesses to long prison terms in the latest persecution of members of the banned Christian group. The commission of inquiry noted on January 20, a court in the city of Seversk sentenced a Jehovah’s Witness to seven years in prison afterRead More →
Updated at 11:30 a.m. Dec. 29 to add three more detentions. At least five former network coordinators of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny have been arrested across the country for organizing an extremist group, media reported on Tuesday. The raids and arrests in the cities of Tomsk and Irkutsk comeRead More →
The year in Russia is ending with a series of events that have alarmed many observers about the intentions of President Vladimir Putin and his government. First, the state media monitoring agency Roskomnadzor blocked the OVD-Info website, which notably served as a clearinghouse between detained protesters and defense lawyers. ThenRead More →
Three of five associates of imprisoned Russian opponent Aleksei Navalny who were arrested by police in raids across the country on December 28 have been freed. The five former directors of the headquarters of Navalny’s network of regional campaign groups have been arrested and questioned for possibly abusing their officialRead More →
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that one of the country’s oldest and most prominent human rights organizations must be shut down, a move that sparked public outrage. and is the latest step in a months-long crackdown on human rights activists, independent media and opposition supporters. TheRead More →
Russian police have taken three former regional coordinators of Aleksei Navalny’s campaign team for questioning amid continued pressure against associates of the jailed opposition leader. The home of Zakhar Sarapulov, who headed the Irkutsk headquarters of Navalny’s network of regional campaign groups, was raided in the early morning of DecemberRead More →
A secret European intelligence report has concluded that the Chechen security services were most likely behind the 2020 attempted murder in Sweden of a dissident Chechen blogger. Tumso Abdurakhmanov, an exiled critic of Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov, barely survived a hammerhead attack last year in a bizarre assassination attempt thatRead More →