More than 4,000 people, including Alexei Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, were detained at rallies across Russia as supporters of the Kremlin critic took to the streets to protest against his imprisonment. Security measures, riot police and national guards troops shut down metro stations in Moscow and blocked off streets to prevent a repeat of last week’s record protests, some of the largest since 2012
Category Archives: Russia
Alexei Navalny protests: Moscow in lockdown as police detain thousands
Riot police and national guard troops close central metro stations and block off streets
Police have paralysed the centres of Russia’s largest cities, including Moscow, as the Kremlin sought to beat back rallies in support of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the country’s most significant protests in a decade.
Supporters of the Kremlin critic took to the streets to protest against his jailing, despite the biting cold and threat of arrest. At least 4,700 people, including Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, were detained as the rallies across the country entered a second week.
Continue reading...Putin’s former judo partner says he owns palace linked to Russian leader
Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny alleges that the mansion belongs the Russian president
The Russian businessman Arkady Rotenberg said on Saturday he owns a palace in southern Russia which jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has linked to Vladimir Putin.
Navalny and his anti-corruption foundation have published a video in which they allege the opulent mansion belongs to the Russian president. The video has been viewed more than 103m times.
Continue reading...‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years – ex-KGB spy
The KGB ‘played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality’, Yuri Shvets, a key source for a new book, tells the Guardian
Donald Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset over 40 years and proved so willing to parrot anti-western propaganda that there were celebrations in Moscow, a former KGB spy has told the Guardian.
Yuri Shvets, posted to Washington by the Soviet Union in the 1980s, compares the former US president to “the Cambridge five”, the British spy ring that passed secrets to Moscow during the second world war and early cold war.
Continue reading...‘Keep me in handcuffs’: Navalny denounces criminal proceedings
Kremlin critic will remain in jail until parole hearing next week where he could be sent to penal colony
Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has denounced the criminal proceedings against him, telling a Russian court via a video link from jail that while it had the power now to “keep me in handcuffs … that situation is not going to continue for ever”.
As a Moscow appeal hearing has rejected calls to release him from jail and investigators charged Navalny’s top aides in a series of inquiries meant to disrupt the protest movement that has arisen in his support, he told the court he believed the proceedings were part of a campaign to intimidate the opposition.
Continue reading...No-fly zone over Putin-linked palace is due to Nato spies, says FSB
Alexei Navalny’s investigation into £1bn seaside mansion has sparked protests across Russia
Russia’s FSB security agency has confirmed it enforced a no-fly zone over the £1bn seaside palace that Vladimir Putin has assured the public he does not own. It said the restrictions were imposed last summer to protect the Black Sea coast from Nato spies. Coincidentally, that stretch of coastline also hid an opulent chateau of murky provenance boasting its own casino, skating rink and vineyard.
The Kremlin has been scrambling to explain away an investigation by Alexei Navalny into the 17,691 sq metre seaside mansion that was allegedly funded by a number of Putin’s friends and guarded by the government agencies that also protect Putin and his family. The investigation was released after Navalny, an opposition leader, was jailed and threatened with years in prison on charges he claims are political. the video has been viewed more than 95m times on YouTube.
Continue reading...Biden presses Putin on election interference and Navalny arrest in first call
- US and Russia agree to extend arms control treaty
- Biden raised concerns over several issues
The US and Russia have agreed to extend an arms control treaty limiting their deployed nuclear warheads after Joe Biden’s first phone call as president with Vladimir Putin.
At the same time, Biden took a firm position on Russian actions that Donald Trump largely ignored, raising concerns about the poisoning and arrest of the opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, warning Putin that the US supported Ukraine against Russian “aggression”, complaining about Russian interference in last year’s US presidential election, and the “Solar Winds” cyber attack on US government agencies last year.
Continue reading...EU foreign chief to fly to Moscow to condemn Navalny arrest
Josep Borrell says that while there are no concrete proposals as yet, bloc is ‘ready to react’
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, will fly to Moscow to personally deliver the bloc’s condemnation of the “completely unacceptable” arrest of the opposition leader, Alexei Navalny.
The heads of state and government of the 27 member states will then reassess the EU’s relationship with Russia at a summit in March.
Continue reading...Russia downplays Navalny protests as it dismisses US ‘diktats’
Despite 3,500 arrests and reports of violence, Moscow insists few people turned out
The Kremlin has broken its silence on Russia’s biggest opposition protest in years, claiming the size of the demonstrations against Vladimir Putin were overstated and accusing the US of meddling in Russia’s internal affairs.
A record 3,500 people were arrested as police tried to shut down unsanctioned rallies in 10 time zones across the country in support of Alexei Navalny, the opposition leader who was jailed upon returning to Russia after being treated for a suspected federal security service poisoning.
Continue reading...Protesters demonstrate across Russia in support of Alexei Navalny – in pictures
Russian police arrested more than 3,400 people on Saturday during nationwide protests demanding the release of opposition leader
Continue reading...‘The problem is Putin’: protesters throng Russia’s streets to support jailed Navalny
More than 2,500 are arrested at rallies across the country as cities see huge turnouts in support of opposition leader
As riot police surged to retake Moscow’s Pushkin square on Saturday, all you could see of them from the crowd were their truncheons raised high, ready to strike. Then their black helmets came into view, and finally they pushed forward, driving waves of panicked Russians out on to the boulevards and side streets of the capital. “Respected citizens, the current event is illegal. We are doing everything to ensure your safety,” an officer repeated over a loudspeaker, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
For more than a decade, the Kremlin has used every tool at its disposal to keep Russians off the streets, wielding fear and boredom to make protesting against Vladimir Putin seem pointless. And yet in defiant scenes on Saturday in cities across Russia, from St Petersburg to Vladivostok and even in Yakutsk, where protesters braved temperatures below -50C, tens of thousands of Russians sent a message to a Kremlin that has squeezed out all opposition in Russia: enough is enough.
Continue reading...Tens of thousands protest in Russia calling for Navalny’s release
More than 1,870 arrested across country in one of largest demonstrations against Putin’s rule
Tens of thousands of Alexei Navalny supporters have protested across Russia in one of the largest demonstrations against Vladimir Putin’s rule in the past decade.
More than 1,870 people were arrested by riot police on Saturday at dozens of unsanctioned rallies throughout the country, spanning from Kaliningrad in the west to Vladivostok in the far east, as the turnout of those calling for the opposition leader’s release from jail far surpassed many protesters’ expectations.
Continue reading...Thousands rally across Russia to call for Navalny’s release – video
More than a thousand people have been arrested at rallies in towns and cities across Russia as they called for the release of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny from jail. The protests are thought to be the largest in Russia since 2017
Continue reading...Alexei Navalny: Russian authorities brace for Saturday protests
Police expected to break up demonstrations against detention of opposition leader
Russia is braced for mass protests on Saturday as thousands of supporters of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny are expected to hold rallies across the country to call for his release from jail.
Police are expected to break up the unsanctioned demonstrations in Moscow, St Petersburg and dozens of other cities in what allies of Navalny say is their best chance of convincing the Kremlin to free him.
Continue reading...Alexei Navalny releases investigation into Vladimir Putin’s wealth – video
Alexei Navalny’s team has released a mammoth investigation into Vladimir Putin’s wealth, including a £1bn palace on the Black Sea allegedly built for the Russian president that the opposition leader called 'the biggest bribe in history'.
Navalny’s allies plan to hold demonstrations on Saturday in about 65 cities across the country in support of the Kremlin critic, who was arrested and jailed on his return to Russia last weekend. Navalny, 44, returned to Russia on Sunday from Germany, where he had been recovering from a near-fatal poisoning with the novichok nerve agent in an attack he blamed on Russian security services and Putin.
The Kremlin has denied the luxury complex belongs to Putin and urged Russians not to send their money to 'crooks'. They have also warned social media platforms against spreading online calls to stage weekend protests
Continue reading...Communist party supporters celebrate Vladimir Lenin – in pictures
Supporters mark the 97th anniversary of Lenin’s death during commemorations in Red Square in Moscow. Lenin, who died in 1924, was placed in the mausoleum despite his wish to be buried near his mother at Volkovo cemetery in St Petersburg
Continue reading...Global nuclear weapons ban begins – without the world’s nuclear powers signing up
Treaty signatories include Africa’s most populous country and Europe’s least populated, but Russia and Nato on the sidelines
An international treaty banning all nuclear weapons that has been signed by 51 countries and that campaigners hope will help raise the profile of global deterrence efforts comes into force on Friday.
Although in some respects the step is largely symbolic because the world’s nuclear powers have not signed up, the treaty will be legally binding on the smaller nations that have endorsed it, and it is backed by the UN leadership.
Continue reading...Even in a Moscow jail, Alexei Navalny is dangerous to Putin
Analysis: release of investigation into Putin’s wealth shows opposition leader is still determined to expose Russian president
For more than a decade, Vladimir Putin has refused to say Alexei Navalny’s name in public, referring to him as “that gentleman”, or more recently, the “patient”, a reference to his suspected poisoning by FSB agents.
In the logic of politics, Putin is simply trying not to give the Russian opposition leader free advertising. But his linguistic game also points to a rivalry that has become deeply personal, stoked by a decade of attacks against friends and family, and made urgent by the understanding that Navalny will not back down despite the threat of death by poisoning or prison.
Continue reading...How Biden era could kickstart coordinated approach to Russia
Analysis: the west has been hampered by the fatal ambiguity of Trump’s US policy towards Moscow
Joe Biden’s accession to the US presidency has spawned a huge body of literature about his intentions towards China, but in his four years out of office Biden has in fact made Russia his primary focus in combatting authoritarianism.
Now, just days from coming into office, the arrest of the Russian dissident Alexei Navalny has suddenly presented him with a test case, which may also lead to friction with two of his closest allies: Germany and the UK.
Continue reading...Navalny calls his arrest ‘lawlessness of the highest order’ – video
Alexei Navalny has appeared in court for the first time following his arrest at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, amid growing international condemnation of the Russian opposition leader’s detention.
In a video Navalny asked why a court hearing was being held in a police station and described it as 'lawlessness of the highest order'.
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