Day: August 25, 2022
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Exile, Fines or Jail: Censorship Laws Take Heavy Toll on Anti-War Russians
At a March council meeting in the Russian city of Voronezh, local deputy Nina Belyaeva condemned her country’s invasion of Ukraine and described the Russian military’s actions as a war crime. Within weeks, she was accused of “spreading false information” about the army — a violation of wartime censorship laws that can lead to a…
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Latvia Removes Controversial Soviet Monument
Latvia on Thursday took down a Soviet-era monument in Riga following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, despite protests from the Baltic state’s ethnic Russian minority to keep it. Demolition machinery was used to remove the 79-meter World War II memorial, which has become a rallying point for Kremlin supporters in Latvia, according to an AFP journalist at…
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Russian Court Restricts Internet Access for Opposition Leader Roizman
Updates to correct the court decision. A court in Yekaterinburg restricted internet access and freedom of movement for the city’s former mayor and opposition figurehead Yevgeny Roizman on Thursday, local media outlet E1.ru reported. Roizman, 59, was detained at his apartment in Yekaterinburg a day earlier on charges of “discrediting” the Russian Armed Forces —…
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Putin Orders Increase in Russian Army Size to Over 2M
President Vladimir Putin ordered the expansion of the Russian military Thursday as Moscow struggles to fulfill its objectives in Ukraine six months after the invasion of its pro-Western neighbor. As part of the changes, the total number of military and civilian staff in the Russian Armed Forces will increase from 1.9 million to nearly 2.04…
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Russia’s AvtoVaz Tops Moscow Car Sales in Decade-First
Russia’s largest carmaker AvtoVaz regained its top sales spot in the Russian capital last month for the first time in more than a decade, according to market researcher Autostat. The car market in Russia has been cleared of most competition after Western and Asian automakers suspended operations after the invasion of Ukraine or faced supply shortages…
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Monthly Laptop Sales in Russia Drop 22% – Kommersant
Russia saw a 22% fall in laptop sales in July compared to the same month last year, Kommersant newspaper reported Thursday, amid the exit of Western brands over the war in Ukraine and an economic slowdown. A total of 222,000 laptops valued at 13.1 billion rubles ($217 million) were sold in Russia in July, Kommersant…
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Prominent Human Rights Activist Assaulted in Russia
A prominent Russian human rights activist and member of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s human rights council has been hospitalized after an attacker attempted to stab him in the throat with broken glass. “Igor Kalyapin was attacked by an unknown assailant in the Nizhny Novgorod region on Wednesday night,” the presidential human rights council said in a…