“It’s very hard, you know. Sometimes I feel I’m under arrest myself,” says Irina’s mother, Lucina, with whom we talk on the phone. We hear cars honking and bus stops being called out: Lucina is on the way to see her husband. She spends the...

During a special operation in Ingushetia that lasted several days, about 20 insurgents were killed or detained. A major terrorist base in Verkhny Alkun was destroyed in an air raid. (This is not the first time air strikes have been used in...

The alleged killer of Eduard Chuvashov, a judge of the Moscow City Court, 28-year-old Alexei Korshunov, a former member of one of the most thuggish Nazi bands called United Brigades 88 (OB 88), was put on the wanted list last week. He is...

Minsk in January and Minsk in March are two completely different cities. Back then, Minsk was surviving on hope. Now Minsk has been inundated with despair and consternation. Court proceedings are underway, while searches, interrogations...

Hello, I’ve been sentenced to life in prison. I pleaded not guilty during the preliminary investigation and in court, for which I got an internal brain injury, an eye wound that made me blind in my left eye and the right eye has 10%...

Court hearings in the case of the murder of wild sheep were again postponed in the Altai Region on 23 March. The animals, which are on the endangered species list, were being hunted by a group in a helicopter, which then crashed, killing...

The Kremlin’s natural gas policy has undergone a massive change since the time of the economic crisis. Instead of threatening to unleash its “energy weapon”, the Kremlin has started selling gas assets, and instead of striving to conquer...

The Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations in New York has engaged us in a discussion, bypassing the Information and Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow, which is very unusual. It is...

All of St. Petersburg’s state-controlled movie theatres have refused to show such films as Russia 88, Love Me Please, Prayers for Bobby, Girl, Wonderful Oblivion and other documentaries about migrant workers. According to the organisers of...

When Vladimir Putin took questions directly from ordinary citizens on a nationally televised call-in programme on 16 December 2010, one particular statement stood out for many people: “We should understand that Mr Khodorkovsky’s guilt was...

The head of government has suddenly attacked the US military. As if he were the President, indeed. It must have been the blue-collar environment reminiscent of rallies in support of the heroic people of Vietnam, Luis Corvalán, Angela...

Andrei YUROV: Human rights activist deported Last Friday, Andrei Yurov, a Russian human rights activist, head of the international supervisory mission, and Moscow Helsinki Group Director for Development, was deported from Minsk. He was...

Compared to the previous election cycle, the end result grew by 0.2%. According to party analysts, it previously was at 46.0%, and now it is 46.2%. Considering the consequences of the economic crisis, this is indeed not bad at all. But one...

Late last Sunday night, the following post was published on Belarusian presidential candidate Ales Mikhalevich’s blog: “I am summoned for questioning by the KGB. I have good reason to think that I if I were to go, I may not be able to...

“I'm a chemist, I teach at the Leningrad Technological Institute. Like many others, I am the leader of a student group,” in this elegiac fashion Nina Andreyeva began her article "I cannot go against my principles", printed in the Soviet...