RFE/RL's Russian Service is a multi-platform alternative to Russian state-controlled media, providing audiences in the Russian Federation with informed and accurate news, analysis, and opinion.
President Vladimir Putin has made a last-ditch appeal to Russians to vote for controversial amendments to the constitution that among other things would allow him to stay in power until 2036.
Property records reportedly tie Kremlin-backed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov to a Moscow apartment in the same building where Movsar Barayev, head of the gang that carried out the deadly "Nord-Ost" hostage-taking at a Moscow theater, lived in the days before the attack in 2002.
In Russia, the Committee Against Torture has recorded some 2,500 accusations of abuse by law enforcement personnel over 20 years. But, of the cases that have made it to a courtroom, just 147 police officers have received significant sentences. Rights defenders say the problem is far more widespread than the cases that have been brought to light.
Russian state TV journalist Vladimir Zharinov has quit to protest the process by which President Vladimir Putin is pushing the adoption of hundreds of constitutional amendments -- including one that could enable him to remain in the Kremlin until 2036. Zharinov denounced the process as "madness" and "a historic crime."
A Russian metallurgical giant has admitted one of its plants pumped wastewater into the fragile Arctic environment and that it has suspended the responsible employees.
A Moscow court has handed theater and film director Kirill Serebrennikov a three-year suspended sentence after finding him guilty on embezzlement charges he has rejected.
The Supreme Lama Dzhampel Lodoi of Russia's Siberian region of Tyva -- a remote area of 330,000 people near the Russia-Mongolia border -- has died from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
A lawyer for the former U.S. Marine convicted of espionage in Russia last week says his client will not appeal the decision because he doesn’t trust the country’s judicial system.
The Kremlin has denied it has any territorial claims on former Soviet republics after President Vladimir Putin appeared to question the redrawn borders of Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
The Clooney Foundation for Justice (CFJ), a human rights watchdog founded by Hollywood star George Clooney and his wife, Lebanese-British lawyer Amal Clooney, will be monitoring the high-profile trial of Russian journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva, who is accused of "justifying terrorism."
Prosecutors have asked a Moscow court to sentence acclaimed theater and film director Kirill Serebrennikov to six years in prison on embezzlement charges he denies.
Two Russian activists from a group known as Set (Network) have received lengthy prison terms on charges of being members of a terrorist group that planned to overthrow the country's authorities.
Sergei Khrushchev, the son of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, has died in the United States, where he had lived for almost three decades.
Russian World War II veterans scheduled to watch a Victory Day military parade with President Vladimir Putin later this month have been placed under quarantine as a precautionary measure.
The prosecutor at the high-profile trial of two activists from a group known as "Set" (Network) has recommended to a court in St. Petersburg that they be sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
Russian journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva again has rejected charges that she had "justified terrorism" by publishing an online commentary that linked a suicide bombing with the country’s political climate as her trial resumed proceedings.
Under cover of darkness, activists are spray-painting their opposition to proposed constitutional changes that would enable Russian President Vladimir Putin to stay in office until 2036. They say it's the only form of protest left, after people staging single-person open protests were detained by police.
A court in Russia has extended pretrial detention for Yury Dmitriyev, a Russian historian and prominent Gulag researcher who is being tried on charges of sexually assaulting his adopted daughter, which he and his supporters deny.
Russian investigators have opened a criminal investigation against opposition politician Aleksei Navalny for suspected libel over comments he made on social media.
All five deputy chief editors at one of Russia's most prominent business newspapers, Vedomosti, have quit in protest at the appointment of Andrei Shmarov as the publication's editor-in-chief.
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