2 Years Into Ukraine War, Russia’s Ethnic Minorities Disproportionately Killed in Battle

Russia’s ethnic minorities continue to suffer outsized fatalities in the country’s two-year war in Ukraine, a trend that analysts warn will have long-term destructive impacts on these communities. Though ethnic Russians comprise the majority of deaths in absolute terms, Russia’s non-Slavic minorities and indigenous peoples are greatly overrepresented among the casualties relative to their share…

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Boris Nadezhdin: ‘I Learned from Navalny’s Mistakes’

Boris Nadezhdin says he will not rally his supporters to protest against his exclusion from next month’s presidential election — because, he says, he has learned from “Alexei Navalny’s mistakes.” “It would mean exposing my supporters to the police and Rosgvardia’s batons,” Nadezhdin told The Moscow Times, referring to the inevitable crackdown awaiting unauthorized protests…

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Russian Appeal Against Olympic Suspension Dismissed as Moscow Blasts ‘Discrimination’

Russia’s appeal against its suspension by the International Olympic Committee was dismissed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport on Friday with Moscow lambasting its banishment from this summer’s Paris Games as “discrimination.” The IOC suspended the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) in October last year for violating the territorial integrity of the membership of Ukraine…

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Russia Blocks Radio Liberty’s Central Asia Services – NGO

Russia has blocked the websites of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s (RFE/RL) five Central Asian bureaus, the independent internet freedom monitor Roskomsvoboda said Friday. An “unspecified state body” ruled to block the websites more than a year ago, in January 2023, but their domains were restricted inside Russia only on Thursday. RFE/RL operates in 27 languages in 23 countries,…

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Armenia Says ‘Froze’ Participation in Russia-Led Security Bloc

Armenia has suspended its participation in a Russia-led security bloc, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in an interview published on Friday, Yerevan’s latest step in distancing itself from Moscow. Russia and Armenia have traditionally been allies but relations soured last year when Russian peacekeepers failed to intervene when Azerbaijan took control of the disputed enclave…

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U.S. Charges Russian Banker Kostin With Sanctions Evasion, Money Laundering

The United States on Thursday charged Russian banking tycoon Andrei Kostin and two U.S.-based associates for violating sanctions by paying for the maintenance of his luxury property. Kostin, chairman of Russia’s second-largest state-owned bank VTB, was accused of participating in a scheme to evade sanctions and launder funds to support his two superyachts, the Justice Department…

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Political Persecution Under Putin Highest Since Stalin Era – Proekt

Russian authorities have prosecuted more than 116,000 activists during President Vladimir Putin’s latest term in office, the investigative news outlet Proekt reported, surpassing levels of political repression seen during the rule of Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. Between 2018 and 2023, Russian courts fined 105,000 people for making public statements or attending protests.  Another…

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Russian Police Raid ‘Anti-War LGBT Party’ – State TV

Anti-riot police raided an activist meeting near St. Petersburg that state television claimed was an “LGBT party against the special military operation” in Ukraine, the independent news website Mediazona reported Thursday. The broadcasters Ren-TV and 78.ru published identical reports of the Feb. 18 raid showing masked agents lining up several attendees and asking them about their…

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Over 4.5K Russian Soldiers Convicted of Desertion Since Invasion – Proekt

Russian courts have convicted more than 4,600 soldiers for desertion and other offenses related to refusing to serve in the military since Moscow invaded Ukraine nearly two years ago, the independent investigative outlet Proekt reported Thursday. Russia passed new legislation in the fall of 2022 that toughened punishment for voluntary surrender, conscientious objection and desertion.…

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From Whelan to Karelina: The Americans Held in Russian Prisons

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced Tuesday that a dual U.S.-Russian citizen was arrested in the city of Yekaterinburg on charges of “financially assisting a foreign state in activities directed against [Russian] security.” The detainee was later identified by news agencies as 33-year-old Ksenia Karelina, a native of Yekaterinburg who obtained U.S. citizenship in 2021…

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Ukraine Claims Strike on Russian Training Grounds Near Dnipro River

Ukraine said Thursday that its forces had struck Russian military training grounds on the Moscow-occupied bank of the Dnipro River in the southern Kherson region, killing or wounding dozens of troops. Military spokeswoman Natalia Gumeniuk said on television that the attack took place Wednesday, striking a range where Russian troops undergoing combat exercises. “The work…

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ROSATOM presented advanced Russian nuclear technologies at the 13th International Conference on Nuclear Sciences and Applications in Hurghada, Egypt

As part of the participation at the 13th International Conference on Nuclear Sciences and Applications, Rosatom showcased technologies in medicine, healthcare, and agriculture. ROSATOM, a global technological leader, participated in the 13th International Conference on Nuclear Sciences and Applications organized by the Egyptian Society of Nuclear Sciences and Applications (ESNSA) and Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority…

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Before Navalny: 5 High-Profile Prisoners Who Perished in Russian Detention

The death of opposition politician Alexei Navalny in a remote Arctic prison last week has dominated headlines and put a spotlight on the brutality of Russia’s penitentiary system.  The U.S. State Department in its 2022 Human Rights Practices report described conditions in Russia’s prisons as “harsh and life-threatening,” noting that inmates are systematically abused by…

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Danone Seeks to Sell Russian Operations to Chechen-Linked Businessman – FT

The French food maker Danone plans to sell its Russian assets to a businessman linked to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, the Financial Times reported Wednesday, citing private documents it had seen and anonymous sources familiar with the situation. Kadyrov’s nephew Yakub Zakriev, 33, became the head of Danone’s Russian subsidiary in July 2023 after the Kremlin ordered its…

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Pro-War Russian Blogger Commits Suicide – Reports

Prominent pro-war blogger and Russian soldier Andrei Morozov has reportedly committed suicide after upsetting his commanders for disclosing high military casualties in Moscow’s recent capture of the eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka.  Morozov, known by his call sign “Murz,” regularly criticized Russia’s military and political leadership on his Telegram channel over shortages of weapons, bureaucratic inefficiencies…

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