Week-ending 20 September 2024
Russia’s War against Ukraine
President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday increasing the number of soldiers in the Russian military by 180,000. (The Moscow Times, 16/9/24)
Russia has begun testing its new digital military draft system. (The Moscow Times, 18/9/24)
Ukraine and Russia announced a new major exchange of prisoners of war on September 14, involving 103 soldiers from each side. (RFE/RL, 14/9/24)
Ukraine invited the UN and ICRC to visit territory it has captured in its six-week-old military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. (RFE/RL, 14/9/24; The Moscow Times, 16/9/24)
Moscow resident Yury Kokhovets has been sentencedto five years in prison for condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a street interview with RFE/RL. (RFE/RL, 17/9/24)
Unknown attackers threw a Molotov cocktail at the house of Dmitry Tyulenev, father of blogger Danya Milokhin, who condemned the invasion of Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 17/9/24)
The Supreme Court rejected an appeal by self-exiled TV journalist Tatyana Lazareva against her “foreign agent” status related to a report she made on the war. (RFE/RL, 17/9/24)
Other media news
The Kremlin is working to systematically instill “patriotic” values in children and teenagers through a Soviet-style propaganda campaign. (The Moscow Times, 13/9/24)
Top U.S. diplomat Antony Blinken accused Russian media outlet RT of being a “de facto arm of Russia’s intelligence apparatus.” (The Moscow Times, 14/9/24)
Jailed Siberian journalist and activist Maria Ponomarenko declared a hunger strike after prison authorities placed her in an isolation cell. (The Moscow Times, 16/9/24)
The Sobesednik publishing house in Russia has suspended for up to three months production at all of its outlets following its designation as a “foreign agent.”(RFE/RL, 17/9/24)
Facebook owner Meta said on Monday it was banning RT, Rossiya Segodnya and other Russian state media networks. (The Guardian, 17/9/24)
Mikhail Afanasyev, imprisoned editor of the Novy fokus (New Focus) online newspaper, has been given a 2024 Free Media Award for journalistic bravery. (RFE/RL, 18/9/24)
Kirill Martynov, chief editor of Latvia-based Novaya Gazeta Europe, is being investigated on a charge of “conducting activities of an undesirable organization.” (RFE/RL, 19/9/24)
Ethnic minorities
Veteran Tatar activist Zinnur Agliullin has been detained for questioning after police searched their home on September 18 on a charge of propagating extremism. (RFE/RL, 18/9/24)
Russian law enforcement authorities said Wednesday that they uncovered and dismantled a female terrorist cell based in the republic of Tatarstan.. (The Moscow Times, 18/9/24)
Sami people are being forced to hide their identity for fear of persecution after dozens of Indigenous organisations were labelled terrorists and extremists. (The Guardian, 20/9/24)
Thursday marks five years since Yakutian shaman Alexander Gabyshev was detained by police. He has spent most of that time in psychiatric hospitals. (The Moscow Times, 19/9/24)
Other news
Opposition activist Vitaly Ioffe was killed in St. Peterburg. (RFE/RL, 17/9/24)
The Prosecutor General has overturned more than 4,000 “rehabilitations” of supposed war criminals in World War II in the past two years. (Meduza, 19/9/24)
Anatoly Blinov, a man accused of helping organize attacks on allies of Alexei Navalny, was reportedly detained in Poland. (The Moscow Times, 19/9/24)
An EU Monitoring Mission (EUMM) patrol in Georgia was temporarily detained on September 17 near the boundary with the breakaway region of Abkhazia. (RFE/RL, 17/9/24)
