President Vladimir Putin has fired 18 top law-enforcement officials in the Investigative Committee, Prosecutor General’s Office and the Interior Ministry. His sudden and secretive action has sparked some theories that it is somehow related to Ukraine — either punishing those who are poorly performing with regard to the aggression against Ukraine, or punishing those involved […]
Updated Daily. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev sprang two restrictive Internet decrees on providers and users this week, one requiring presentation of domestic passports to use public Internet cafes or wi-fi, and the other mandating operators of social media to collect more user data and make it available to Russian intelligence agencies. Mysteriously, a group calling […]
Updated Daily. A group seeking greater autonomy for Siberia found its web page, VKontakte community and Twitter account censored as well as an interview with its leader in slon.ru. A rally organized by Russian ultranationalists in support of the separatists fighting in southeastern Ukraine had a very low turnout. Young Russian men cheered a Russian […]
UPDATE 15:21GMT Rebel leader says Donetsk republic PM Borodai has left for Russia. Is he reworking the rebel strategy in Moscow or just fleeing? @BBCDanielS — Alec Luhn (@ASLuhn) July 28, 2014 Vladimir Antyufeyev said he is now Donetsk "People's Republic"'s acting Prime Minister and acting Commander in Chief — Daniel Sandford (@BBCDanielS) July 28, […]
The Russian Foreign Ministry complained today that allegations about the responsibility of the Russian-backed separatists in southeastern Ukraine for the downing of MH17 is merely taken “from social media,” AP reports. “In other words, the Washington regime is basing its contentions on anti-Russian speculation gathered from the Internet that does not correspond to reality,” said […]
As we have reported, the statement posted to the VKontakte group “Strelkov’s Dispatches” on 17 July within 20 minutes of the downing of the Malaysian airliner MH17 is not a hoax or a fake. While some journalists have impugned the reference, we have explained that it represents a genuine report that came from him or […]
Updated Daily. Opposition leaders Sergei Udaltsov and Leonid Razvozzhayev in the long-running Bolotnaya Case were found guilty by a Moscow court of “inciting mass riots” in protests against President Vladimir Putin on 6 May 2012 and sentenced to 4.5 years forced labor. Russian and Ukrainian bloggers confirmed the sighting of the Buk anti-aircraft missile system. […]
UPDATED: This article was updated on 24 July at 1447 GMT to add the information from Reuters’ audio tape, below. The question of whether or not Russian-backed separatist fighters in southeastern Ukraine possessed a Buk anti-aircraft system at all, or whether they may have used it to shoot down the Malaysian airliner MH17, has become […]
Updated Daily. Ultranationalist Sergei Kurginyan bragged that an electronics specialist was sent to repair a Buk anti-aircraft system for the separatists in Donetsk. The citizen reporter at the lake in Gukovo who filmed Grad rockets launching from Russian territory in Ukraine has had his VKontakte page removed. July 15 marks the fifth anniversary of the […]
When regular watchers of the news from the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” saw the latest dispatch on 17 July from Col. Igor Strelkov, the self-appointed “Defense Minister” of the DPR, they realized that the pro-Russian separatists didn’t know yet what had happened. Donetsk commander Strelkov, longtime Russian agent, claimed credit today for shooting plane he […]
