Day: January 18, 2021

From hospitals to courtrooms to demonstrations, Russia’s chief opposition figure Alexei Navalny is often flanked by his wife Yulia Navalnaya, who has been thrown into the limelight since his poisoning in August. On Sunday she flew back with her husband to Russia from Germany, where the couple had spent five months as the Kremlin critic…

Navalny ally Vladimir Ashurkov has published a list of eight Russian business and political elites who he says Alexei Navalny wants Western governments to sanction.  Top of the list is Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, who Ashurkov calls “one of the key enablers and beneficiaries of Russian kleptocracy, with significant ties and assets in…

Russia’s most prominent opposition leader Alexei Navalny called Monday for his supporters to take to the streets after a hastily organized court ordered him jailed for 30 days. The makeshift court — set up in a police station on the outskirts of Moscow where Navalny was being held — agreed to a request from prosecutors…

Russia launched a mass coronavirus vaccination campaign on Monday in a bid to end its outbreak without reimposing a new nationwide lockdown. Residents of the far eastern city of Vladivostok queued to receive the country’s homemade Sputnik V jab early Monday after President Vladimir Putin last week tasked officials with making it available to the country’s…

Russian math graduate student and self-described anarchist Azat Miftakhov was sentenced to six years in prison Monday after almost two years in detention on hooliganism charges his supporters say are politically motivated. Miftakhov, 27, was initially detained in February 2019 on accusations of bomb-making, but was later held for breaking the office window of Russia’s…

Moscow said Monday it was expelling two Dutch diplomats from the country in response to a “provocative” decision by the Netherlands in December to remove two Russian embassy staff over spying allegations. Moscow summoned Dutch charge d’affaires Joost Reintjes, the foreign ministry said in a statement, telling him that two Dutch diplomats had two weeks…

The decision to divert the Pobeda Airlines flight with Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny onboard from Vnukovo to Sheremetyevo airport created “a dangerous and reckless situation in the Moscow airspace,” a pilot who was forced to delay their descent on Sunday evening told The Moscow Times. The pilot — who asked to remain anonymous for fear…

Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny is facing a court hearing in the police station where he was taken immediately following his Sunday evening return to Russia. The 44-year-old opposition leader flew back to Moscow after spending several months in Germany recovering from a poisoning attack that he said was carried out on the orders of President…

A U.S. NGO has sued Apple in federal court in a bid to remove secure messaging app Telegram from its App Store, claiming the app fails to filter out far-right extremist activity.  Telegram’s downloads soared last week after Twitter and Facebook banned U.S. President Donald Trump’s accounts and Google and Apple removed conservative social network…

Russia has confirmed 3,591,066 cases of coronavirus and 66,037 deaths. Jan. 18: What you need to know today Russia confirmed 22,857 new coronavirus cases and 471 deaths. Russia’s republic of Bashkortostan is set to become the first region to introduce immunity passports for residents with Covid-19 antibodies starting February, Bashkortostan Governor Radiy Khabirov announced Monday.   Russia’s Sputnik V…

World leaders have called on Russia to release prominent opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who was detained minutes after he landed in Moscow following five months of recovery from nerve agent poisoning in Germany. Below is a selection of international reactions to Navalny’s detention at Sheremetyevo International Airport passport control late Sunday. — U.S. Secretary of…