Day: July 28, 2020

Russian judges on Tuesday slapped the anti-corruption group founded by Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny with fines and convicted its director for refusing to delete a film about President Vladimir Putin’s top ally. The film is an expose which accuses former prime minister Dmitry Medvedev of controlling a huge luxury property empire.  Published in 2017 by…

Ivan Safronov, a journalist-turned-space adviser arrested on treason charges, has turned down a plea deal that would have required him to disclose his journalistic sources, his lawyer told Interfax on Tuesday. Safronov, who was a well-respected reporter for 10 years before becoming media adviser to the head of Russia’s state space agency Roscosmos, was charged…

Russia has confirmed 823,515 cases of coronavirus and 13,504 deaths. July 28: 3 things you need to know today The European Union won’t open its borders to Russian citizens until at least mid-August, the state-run TASS news agency reported Tuesday, citing a source in one of the EU member states’ delegations. The EU is revising its “white list”…

The number of infections in northern Russia’s Murmansk region has surpassed those of the two countries it neighbors, according to official data. The Murmansk region has confirmed a total of 9,791 coronavirus cases as of Tuesday. To the region’s east, Finland has confirmed 7,404 cases and Norway has registered 9,132.  Finland and Norway each have…

Russians have been trying to obtain foreign passports and residence permits in unprecedented numbers since the coronavirus pandemic shut borders worldwide, Forbes Russia reported Monday. Demand for foreign residence permits was up 20% in March-May 2020 compared with the same period last year, Forbes reported, citing data from the Knight Frank real estate consultancy and…

Nearly half of Russians say they approve of a recent wave of anti-Kremlin protests in the Far East, according to an independent Levada Center poll published Tuesday. Mass protests broke out this month after the arrest of the Khabarovsk region’s popular governor Sergei Furgal and his replacement with a Putin-appointed lawmaker from an outside region.…

Ivan Safronov, a former journalist arrested on treason charges, has been isolated in jail with suspected coronavirus, prison watchdog representatives told Interfax on Monday. Safronov was arrested this month shortly after leaving his decade-long journalism career to become a media adviser to Russia’s space chief. He was placed in pre-trial detention in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison…

The European Union will remain closed to Russian citizens until at least mid-August, the state-run TASS news agency reported Tuesday, citing a source in one of the EU member states’ delegations.  After three months of being closed to nonessential travel, the EU reopened its borders on July 1 to visitors from countries that were considered…

The highest number of new cases were in Moscow, the western Siberian region of Khanty-Mansiysk and Sverdlovsk in the Urals. Russia’s fatality rate has remained low compared to other badly-hit countries, raising speculation that Moscow could be underreporting figures. Russian authorities began easing anti-virus measures in June ahead of a massive World War II military…