The Russian reconaissance ship Liman crashed into a Turkish freighter and sank; 78 sailors on board were rescued. Anti-corruption campaigner Alexey Navalny was attacked and Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia was declared ‘undesirable’ and searched by the FSB’s Extremism Center.
The Chechen people have only very recently emerged from two prolonged genocidal assaults inflicted on them by their Russian neighbour. These assaults having failed in their purpose, the Kremlin is now evidently keen to engage in a different kind of war, a war of smears and innuendo.
Those following the reports of gay men fleeing Chechnya in the face of a Chechen government-backed campaign of intimidation may have wondered exactly why Novaya Gazeta has decided to publish these accounts right now
A Russian teenager, described variously as a neo-Nazi and related to ISIS killed a guard at a shooting range in the provincial city of Khabarovsk, then attacked an FSB office, killing two and wounding one other. Police shot him dead and arrested a suspected accomplice.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov met with President Vladimir Putin today in the Kremlin, and denied reports of persecution of gays as “provocations”. Putin did not follow up.
A pair of Russian nuclear-capable bombers flew within 100 miles of Kodiak Island, and US jets scrambled to intercept them.
Chechen clergy led an assembly in the Central Mosque of Grozny on April 3, calling for retribution against Novaya Gazeta’s journalists for their reporting on persecution of LGBT in the republic.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillersen says Russia must push out Syrian dictator Assad; Russia vetoes latest UN Security Council resolution on Syria.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived in Moscow today, warning Russia the US will punish those who use chemical warfare, as Putin lashed out at charges of Russia’s involvement in Idlib attack.
The Russian Investigative Committee has identified a Kyrgyz native as the suspect in the bombing of the St. Petersburg metro yesterday in which 14 were killed and 51 injured.
