‘Loyalty Check’: Russia Holds Election in Occupied Ukrainian Territories

Russia has opened polling stations for the 2024 presidential election in the Moscow-occupied regions of Ukraine despite ongoing fighting and the regions being internationally recognized as part of Ukraine. Moscow claimed to have annexed Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions following 2022 referendums that Ukraine and the West described as a sham. It previously…

Russia’s Online Voting System Briefly Crashes on First Day of Election

Russia’s online voting system briefly crashed on Friday, the first day of the March 15-17 presidential race, with independent election observers saying the likely cause was “huge numbers” of workers being forced to vote. “The system has temporarily switched to electronic line management due to the unprecedented number of people wishing to vote online,” read a message…

Russia Says 6K Foreign Fighters Killed in Ukraine

Russia said Thursday that its forces have killed nearly 6,000 foreign volunteers fighting on the side of Ukraine since Moscow’s full-scale invasion over two years ago. According to the Defense Ministry, 13,387 “foreign mercenaries” from dozens of countries have fought in Ukraine since February 2022. Overall, Russian forces have killed 5,962 of those volunteer fighters, it…

Bread Rolls and Dyson Hair Stylers: Russia Lures Voters With Election Day Freebies

Local officials across Russia have been doubling down on efforts to encourage the public to vote in this weekend’s presidential election as the Kremlin seeks a historic turnout for President Vladimir Putin’s expected re-election.  In addition to pressuring public sector workers and employees of state-linked companies into casting a ballot, officials are also trying to…

Russia Bans Entry to 227 Americans for ‘Anti-Russian’ Actions

Russia has banned entry to 227 U.S. citizens, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow announced Thursday. The Foreign Ministry accused the banned individuals of playing a role in steering Washington’s “Russophobic policies” and being directly involved in “anti-Russian actions.” The latest additions to Russia’s “stop list” include State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, former U.S. Ambassador to…

Police Search Homes of Nadezhdin Campaign Volunteers in Southern Russia

Law enforcement agents have searched the homes of several volunteers from ex-presidential hopeful Boris Nadezhdin’s campaign team in southern Russia, the online news outlet Caucasian Knot reported Thursday. The police searches were carried out on Tuesday and Wednesday in the southern Russian city of Stavropol, local Nadezhdin campaign manager Alexander Korovayny told the outlet, adding that he believed…

In Quotes: Putin Grants Wide-Ranging Interview to State Media Ahead of Election

President Vladimir Putin gave a wide-ranging interview to leading Russian TV presenter Dmitry Kiselyov on Wednesday, days ahead of the country’s presidential election where he is expected to easily win re-election.  The hour-and-a-half-long televised interview focused heavily on domestic political and economic issues with some attention given to Russia’s foreign policy, particularly its two-year war…

Nadezhdin’s Far East Campaign Head Jailed for ‘LGBT Propaganda’ in Hacked Private Chat

A court in Russia’s Far East city of Vladivostok has arrested ex-presidential hopeful Boris Nadezhdin’s local campaign head for “LGBT propaganda,” the independent news outlet Mediazona reported Wednesday. Igor Krasnov was ordered to six days of arrest on charges of “displaying extremist symbols,” Mediazona reported, citing his friends.  Russia’s Supreme Court outlawed the “international LGBT…

Pro-Kyiv Militias Urge Russians in Border Regions to Evacuate

Anti-Kremlin militia groups fighting on the side of Ukraine have urged civilians in western Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk regions to evacuate, saying they were preparing to launch attacks on Russian “military positions” across the two regions. “Putin’s assassins are carrying out massive strikes on peaceful Ukrainian cities, putting their positions between your homes, your children’s schools…

Attack on Navalny Ally Volkov Likely ‘Organized by Russia’ – Lithuania

Lithuanian intelligence services on Wednesday said that the attack on Russian opposition figure Leonid Volkov, a close ally of late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was likely “organized by Russia.” The Baltic state’s president said Moscow’s potential involvement should not come as a surprise, before striking a note of defiance against Russian President Vladimir Putin: “No…

Russia Opens Criminal Case Against Journalist Zygar Over ‘War Fakes’

Russian authorities have pressed criminal charges against journalist Mikhail Zygar for spreading “fake news” about the Russian military, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported on Wednesday, citing an anonymous law enforcement source. According to the Baza Telegram channel, which is purported to have links to Russian law enforcement, Zygar is accused of spreading false information…

EU Lifts Sanctions on Yandex Co-Founder Volozh

The European Union has removed sanctions that were placed on Russian tech billionaire Arkady Volozh after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to a document published on Wednesday.  Volozh, who co-founded the Russian tech giant Yandex, announced his resignation as CEO of the company in mid-2022 after being targeted by EU sanctions. In August,…

‘Make the Young Fall in Love With Putin’: Young Russians Pressured to Vote as Kremlin Demands Record Turnout

Russian officials have been ordered to significantly boost voter turnout among young people in the upcoming presidential election as the Kremlin seeks to hand President Vladimir Putin a resounding re-coronation. Students, graduate students and young workers are facing pressure and coercion from authorities, their schools and employers in the lead-up to the March 15-17 vote.…

Russia Bans Entry to 347 Citizens of Baltic States

Moscow on Tuesday banned entry to 347 citizens of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia over what it called the “hostile policy” of the three Baltic states toward Russia. The Russian Foreign Ministry accused the governments of the three Baltic states of interfering in its domestic affairs and “persecuting” their Russian-speaking populations in the announcement published on its…

Moldova Slams Russia Over Polling Stations in Transnistria

Moldova on Monday said it would summon the Russian ambassador to show “its disapproval of the decision to open polling stations” in separatist Transnistria during the Russian presidential election. Moldova last week downplayed talk of rising tensions after pro-Russian rebel officials in Transnistria appealed to Russia for “protection.” Russian news agencies reported that six polling…

Russia Overturns ‘War Fakes’ Sentence Against Activist Pyotr Verzilov

A Moscow court has overturned the jail sentence against exiled Russian-Canadian activist Pyotr Verzilov and sent his case for review, the Setevyye Svobody (Network Freedoms) NGO reported on Monday. In November, Verzilov was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in prison in absentia for spreading “deliberately false” information about the Russian military. He was accused of “causing social…