Day: February 10, 2021

The time in prison has done little to quench Ruslan Krasnikov’s thirst for change at the helm of Russian government — and to fight for it through street protests.  “The protests will continue. People have suffered injustice,” he said Wednesday outside a detention center where he had just spent 10 days in Russia’s second-largest city…

Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s wife Yulia Navalnaya has left Russia for Germany, Russian state-run news agency Interfax and German newspaper Der Spiegel reported Wednesday, both citing unnamed sources. Navalnaya flew to Frankfurt from Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport, Interfax cited its source as saying. Lawyers for both Navalny and Navalnaya told the state-run TASS news agency that they…

Russia’s media watchdog said Wednesday it had fined the Russian-language service of U.S.-funded Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe nearly $150,000 over non-compliance with its controversial “foreign agent” law, in a penalty that could increase. Groups or individuals identified as “foreign agents” in Russia must disclose their sources of funding and label publications with the relevant tag…

An independent Russian news website has shut down four months after its editor died from setting herself on fire outside the city of Nizhny Novgorod’s police headquarters. Irina Slavina, editor-in-chief of Koza Press, died on Oct. 2, the day after security forces raided her home in search of evidence of her ties to the opposition.…

A Russian court on Wednesday ordered a psychological examination of former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed, who was convicted of assaulting a police officer in a case condemned by President Joe Biden’s administration. Reed, 29, was found guilty and sentenced to nine years behind bars in July last year for allegedly hitting a Moscow law enforcement…

A major winter storm is expected to descend on Moscow this week with massive snowdrifts and unusually cold air temperatures even by the Russian capital’s standards, forecasters said Wednesday. Snow is expected to blanket Moscow beginning Thursday afternoon and lasting into the weekend, Russian weather service chief Roman Vilfand told the state-run TASS news agency.…

Visitors to Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh now have to get Russian permission ahead of time. The territory’s de facto ministry of foreign affairs announced new entry regulations for foreigners on Feb. 8, and one of the provisions was that Russian peacekeeping forces will examine applications “for security purposes” before they are approved. It’s not clear what prompted the new…

Russia said Wednesday it was looking to simplify entry requirements for migrant workers, to aid industries like construction and agriculture that are facing labor shortages due to the pandemic. Moscow announced border closures in spring last year to curb the spread of the coronavirus, prompting thousands of migrant workers, mostly from ex-Soviet countries in Central…

Russia’s surge in deaths last year is the “harsh reality” of the global coronavirus pandemic, the Kremlin said Wednesday after official data showed a much higher Covid-19 death toll than initially reported. The state statistics service on Monday attributed 162,429 of deaths in 2020 to the coronavirus, three times more than the 57,555 deaths first…

Around 2.2 million Russians have been partially vaccinated against the coronavirus so far — or 1.5% of the country’s population —  the lead scientist behind the development of Russia’s homemade Sputnik V vaccine said Wednesday. The progress update was announced by Denis Logunov, deputy director of research at the state-run Gamaleya Institute, at a meeting…

But Russia has come under fire for its official virus statistics and the government’s stated death toll of 78,134 in particular has been undermined by recent mortality data. Figures published by statistics agency Rosstat on Monday showed more than 162,000 virus-related deaths last year, more than double the number reported by the government’s task force so far.…

Russian activists have announced a “Chain of Solidarity and Love” in central Moscow on Valentine’s Day in support of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s wife Yulia as well as Russian women prosecuted for political reasons.  The event was inspired by last summer’s women-led actions in neighboring Belarus, where people formed long human chains to protest police…

Two coronavirus patients hospitalized outside Moscow have died following an oxygen outage in at least the fourth such incident in recent months, regional health officials confirmed to Russian media Wednesday. A malfunction is believed to have caused the oxygen supply interruption at the coronavirus wing of the hospital in the western Moscow region district of Odintsovo, emergency…

Security forces detained several Moscow-based Jehovah’s Witnesses during raids in connection with a new extremism investigation into the religious group’s members, authorities announced Wednesday. Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said Federal Security Service (FSB) agents, National Guardsmen and police officers assisted in the raids at 16 addresses in and around Moscow. The investigative…

Russia has issued an interstate arrest warrant for Leonid Volkov, the regional network coordinator for jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Interfax reported on Wednesday, citing the court press service.  Volkov, who is currently based in Lithuania, faces criminal charges in Russia for allegedly inciting minors online to participate in unsanctioned protests last month. Several of…

More Russians expect to see new protests than at any other point in the past 23 years while their own willingness to protest continues to decline, according to a survey by the independent Levada Center published Wednesday. The widening gap follows widespread footage of police violence against peaceful demonstrators at recent nationwide rallies in support…

The Russian military has turned down an invitation to attend a European security seminar for the first time in 30 years amid deteriorating ties with the West, Moscow’s arms control delegation in Vienna said Tuesday. The delegation’s Twitter account said Russian Defense Ministry officials opted out of the European Security and Cooperation Organization’s (OSCE) Military…