The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office has conducted a large-scale inspection of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and discovered that more than 1,800 had received financing from abroad in the last year.
Russia, which is chairing the G20 in 2013, will spend around 7 billion rubles (around $215 million) organizing G20 events. The government has allocated around 2 billion rubles ($62 million) for the upcoming G20 summit in St. Petersburg.
The spring session of the upper house of parliament came to an end this week, but that may not signal an end to the steady stream of wealthy senators who have stepped down as the Kremlin put forward new restrictions on officials owning assets abroad.
Russian immigration officials said Saturday they have not received an application from Edward Snowden, the U.S. National Security Agency leaker who wants to get asylum in Russia.
Four policemen were killed in Russia’s violence-plagued Dagestan region on Sunday when unidentified gunmen opened fire on their car, local investigators said.
President Vladimir Putin ordered the surprise drill on July 12 to check the alert status of all forces in Russia’s Eastern Military District. The exercise is thought to be the largest of its kind in the post-Soviet period.
Strauss-Kahn left the IMF in 2011 after facing allegations of the attempted rape of a hotel maid in New York. He denied the charges, which were later dropped, and he settled the maid’s lawsuit last year.
A Russian Orthodox youth group unveiled a video game on Thursday that gives players a chance to “kill” members of the punk band Pussy Riot, whose profanity-laden protest in a Moscow cathedral last year angered the church and offended some believers.
The government has refused a request for a public inquiry into the death of the Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, in what the dead man’s widow called a “political” decision that showed more concern for British-Russian relations than getting to the truth.
Travel site Skift reports that the new law, signed into law by Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 30, contains a provision that allows the government to arrest and detain gay (or “pro-gay”) foreigners for up to 14 days before they would then be expelled from Russia.
