Heavy Police Presence Ahead of Navalny’s Funeral

Mourners of late opposition activist Alexei Navalny gathered under heavy police presence as they waited outside the Russian Orthodox church in southeastern Moscow where his memorial service will take place later Friday.  Authorities have installed metal detectors, security cameras and metal fencing around the perimeter of the church, as well as the nearby cemetery where Navalny…

All Roads Lead to Chechnya: How Chechen Authorities Return Escapees With Impunity

Seda Suleimanova, a young woman from Russia’s republic of Chechnya, was detained in St. Petersburg and returned to her home region last summer. She had fled Chechnya, a conservative, majority Muslim region of the North Caucasus, after her family threatened to kill her for being “insufficiently religious.” This month, rights activists announced that she may have been…

Disgraced ‘Nearly Naked’ Party Organizer Says Planning to Vote for Putin

Russian TV personality and blogger Anastasia Ivleeva said Thursday that she will vote for Vladimir Putin in next month’s presidential election after facing a conservative backlash for organizing her “nearly naked” party in December. Ivleeva and several other celebrities issued public apologies after pictures from the private event at a Moscow nightclub were leaked online,…

Russian Court Fines Novaya Gazeta Chief Editor for ‘Discrediting’ Army

Updated with court ruling. A Moscow court has fined the editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta for breaking wartime censorship laws, the publication reported Thursday. Sergei Sokolov, who replaced Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov as Novaya Gazeta’s head editor last year, was found guilty of “discrediting” the Russian military in an article published…

Russian Officials Secretly Assigned Patriotism ‘Instructors’ – Report

President Vladimir Putin has secretly assigned “political instructors” to Russian government ministries and state agencies to ensure loyalty among officials, the independent news outlets Meduza and IStories reported Thursday, citing leaked Kremlin files obtained by an international team of journalists. The political instructors — called “deputy heads for social and political work” — are tasked with instructing…

Who Is Left to Lead Russia’s Opposition After Navalny?

Russia’s most prominent opposition figure Alexei Navalny died on Feb. 16 in the Arctic penal colony where he was serving a 19-year prison sentence, dealing a major blow to the country’s beleaguered opposition.  Ahead of next month’s presidential election, which President Vladimir Putin is expected to easily win, Russia’s opposition is divided more than ever before — both physically,…

Criminal Cases Against ‘Foreign Agents’ Doubled in 2023 – Vyorstka

The number of criminal cases against “foreign agents” in Russia more than doubled last year compared to the preceding two years, the investigative news outlet Vyorstka reported Wednesday. Hundreds of journalists, activists and civil society figures have been branded “foreign agents” in recent years amid the Kremlin’s widening crackdown on independent media and the opposition. …

Moscow Vows Response to Sweden’s NATO Accession

Russia will take measures against Sweden following its accession to NATO, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday. Sweden on Monday cleared the final hurdle to become the 32nd member of the U.S.-led military alliance after Hungary, the last holdout in accession talks, ratified the Nordic country’s membership. Stockholm dropped years of military non-alignment when it applied for…

Navalnaya Urges EU Politicians to Target Western Assets of Putin’s Inner Circle

Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of late Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, urged European politicians to “investigate” the Western assets of President Vladimir Putin and his inner circle on Wednesday. “You cannot hurt Putin with another resolution or another set of sanctions,” Navalnaya told the European Parliament in Strasbourg. “The most important thing is people who…

Russia’s Nuclear Strike Threshold Lower Than Publicly Stated – FT

Russia’s threshold for using tactical nuclear weapons in an armed conflict is lower than previously made public, the Financial Times reported Wednesday, citing leaked military documents. In 2020, President Vladimir Putin approved a new nuclear deterrence policy that permits the use of nuclear first strikes in several scenarios, such as those where Russia’s existence as a state…

Lawyer Who Helped Navalny’s Mother Recover His Body Briefly Detained

A lawyer who helped the mother of late opposition figure Alexei Navalny recover his body from prison authorities was briefly detained, independent media reported Tuesday. Vasily Dubkov had accompanied Lyudmila Navalnaya to Salekhard, the capital of Russia’s Yamal-Nenets autonomous district, following Navalny’s death in a nearby prison colony on Feb. 16. He and other Navalny lawyers helped…

Bears, Robots and Zhirinovsky: The Best and Weirdest of Russia’s Election Campaign Ads

With Russia’s presidential election weeks away and early voting already underway in parts of Russia and occupied Ukraine, campaign season is in full swing.  While President Vladimir Putin is all but certain to win in the March 17 vote, his political organization and the three candidates allowed to run against him are nonetheless blanketing television and the internet…

Russia Develops ‘Spiritual’ Psychology University Course

Russia’s Science and Higher Education Ministry has created a new psychology course that trains future mental health professionals to instill traditional conservative values in their patients, the youth news website Doxa reported Tuesday. The new course, which will be offered to both undergraduate and master’s students, is called “Individual Spiritual Security and Traditional Russian Spiritual and…

Moscow Police Detain Navalny Mourners

Police in Moscow have detained at least four people who were previously arrested at memorials to the late Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, the rights group OVD-Info reported Tuesday. Hundreds were arrested across Russia for laying flowers at memorials in the days after Navalny died at a remote Arctic prison on Feb. 16.  OVD-Info said Mikhail…

‘I Believe in a Better Future’: Rights Veteran Oleg Orlov on His 2.5-Year Sentence for Opposing Ukraine War

A Moscow court sentenced veteran human rights campaigner Oleg Orlov to two-and-a-half years in prison on Tuesday for speaking against the war in Ukraine and “discrediting” the Russian military. Orlov, the co-chair of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Memorial human rights group, is one of the few prominent anti-war figures who have stayed in Russia since the…

Denmark Closes Nord Stream Sabotage Probe

Danish police said Monday that they were closing their investigation into the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia and Germany, a move dubbed “close to absurd” by the Kremlin. Neighboring Sweden closed its investigation in early February citing a lack of jurisdiction, meaning only Germany now has an ongoing investigation into…