Week-ending 21 March 2025
Russia’s War against Ukraine
Soviet-era dissident Alexander Skobov was sentenced to 16 years in prison for his anti-war views by a military court in St Petersburg. (The Guardian, 21/3/25)
Journalist Maria Ponamarenko, who is serving a six-year prison sentence for spreading “disinformation” about the Russian army, cut her own veins in prison. (Meduza, 18/3/25)
“The Russian Army finds it relatively easy to recruit 18- and 19-year-old conscripts,” Artyom Klyga, a lawyer with the Movement of Conscientious Objectors said. (RFE/RL, 19/3/25)
Russia and Ukraine exchanged 372 prisoners of war, including nearly two dozen severely wounded Ukrainian soldiers. (The Moscow Times, 19/3/25)
President Vladimir Putin ordered Ukrainian citizens in Russia to either “legalize” their immigration status or leave the country by Sept. 10, according to a presidential decree published Thursday. (The Moscow Times, 20/3/25)
The Trump administration is withdrawing from an international body formed to investigate responsibility for the invasion of Ukraine. (The Guardian, 17/3/25)
Russian stand-up comedian Artemyi Ostanin was arrested on charges of inciting hatred over a joke about a Russian soldier in the Ukraine war. (The Moscow Times, 18/3/25)
A Yale University unit that has played a key role in gathering evidence on Russian war crimes committed in Ukraine will close down on March 28 after the US State Department cut funding. (RFE/RL, 19/3/25)
The fate of tens of thousands of Ukrainian children taken from their homeland and transported to Russia has been thrown into uncertainty by a US government decision to defund an American research unit that helped locate them. (RFE/RL, 21/3/25)
Other news
Authorities in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk banned a planned demonstration against restrictions on public protests, a regional lawmaker leading the effort said Monday. (The Moscow Times, 17/3/25)
Russia and other state actors are driving an increase in politically motivated cyber-attacks and sabotage of infrastructure and public institutions in the EU, the bloc’s police enforcement agency has found. (The Guardian, 18/3/25)
The Trump administration halted a multiagency effort to track and counter Russia’s hybrid warfare campaign against the West. (The Moscow Times, 19/3/25)
A Moscow court has toughened an embezzlement conviction against French banker Philippe Delpal, changing his initial suspended sentence to jail time. (The Moscow Times, 19/3/25)
Rescuers evacuated residents in Siberia’s Krasnoyarsk region after unseasonably warm weather caused river ice to rapidly melt. (The Moscow Times, 19/3/25)
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, expressed disappointment over US funding cuts to Radio Free Europe. (The Guardian, 17/3/25)
EU politicians said they are continuing their push into possible support for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty after the US government moved to cut the Prague-based broadcaster’s funding. (RFE/RL, 18/3/25)
Exiled Russian journalists are at risk of being stranded overseas without any legal status after the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw RFE/RL funding. (The Guardian, 20/3/25)
