We shared a tweet on this story earlier. Here's a report from our news desk:
Student Says FSB Beat Him For Displaying Ukrainian Flag At Russia Rally
MOSCOW -- A postgraduate student at Moscow State University (MGU) says he was beaten and interrogated by the Federal Security Service (FSB) after he exposed a makeshift Ukrainian flag on the third anniversary of Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
The student of MGU's history department, who introduced himself as Farukh, told RFE/RL on March 21 that he was taken to a nearby police station, where he was beaten and questioned for two hours by men who said things suggesting they were FSB officers.
He said he was then forced to write a statement agreeing to work as an FSB informer.
According to Farukh, the officers threatened that he would be expelled from the university unless he signed the agreement.
The Moscow radio station Govorit Moskva, however, cited a duty officer at the police station as saying that no such incident had occurred there.
The flag-displaying incident happened on March 18 during a concert marking the third anniversary of Crimea's annexation by Russia. The concert on the university grounds was attended by hundreds of thousands people.
Farukh said he waved the Ukrainian flag from his dormitory window to protest the amount of state money that was spent for the celebration while dilapidated student accommodations have been neglected for decades.
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council:
Ukraine's Central Bank Revises Down GDP Outlook As Blockade Hits
Ukraine's central bank said on March 21 that a blockade of the part of the country controlled by Russia-backed separatists will hit the country’s economy harder than previously expected.
Just two days after the International Monetary Fund postponed a review of the disbursement of a new $1 billion loan to Ukraine pending further information on the effects of the blockade, the central bank said output will rise 1.9 percent in 2017, well below an earlier forecast of 2.8 percent growth.
On March 15, Kyiv announced the suspension of all cargo traffic with separatist-held areas of eastern Ukraine, essentially putting a blockade launched by activists in January under state control.
The blockade cuts off the supply of coal and steel that industrial enterprises were still purchasing from territory controlled by Russia-backed separatists whose 3-year-old war against government forces has killed more than 9,900 people.
In response to the blockade, the separatists have seized control of some businesses registered in Ukraine and demanded they pay "taxes" to them rather than the federal authorities.
The $1 billion loan was to be the next installment of a $17.5 billion IMF package, which has been hit by repeated delays over Kyiv's inconsistent record on reforms.
Based on reporting by Reuters and AP
Ukraine Lawmaker Calls On U.S. To Investigate New 'Evidence' Of Secret Payments To Manafort
By Christopher Miller
KYIV -- Paul Manafort is under scrutiny again after a Ukrainian lawmaker released documents he says show that U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman went to great lengths to hide $750,000 tied to his work for former President Viktor Yanukovych.
The documents, made public by lawmaker Serhiy Leshchenko at a press conference in Kyiv on March 21, include an invoice that bears the name of Manafort’s Virginia-based consulting company, a blue seal, and what appears to be his signature.
Initially described in a report published by The New York Times on March 20, the document seems to show that $750,000 was laundered through an offshore account and disguised as payment for computers.
Leshchenko called on Ukrainian and U.S. law-enforcement agencies to investigate the payment.
"This is money stolen from Ukrainian citizens and has been paid to Manafort for [his work] with our former corrupt president," Leshchenko charged in a brief interview with RFE/RL on March 21, speaking in Enghlish. "This corruption must be exposed."
The authenticity of the invoice and other documents Leshchenko presented could not be confirmed.
He said he received the invoice, which billed a Belize-based company called Neocom Systems Limited $750,000 for the sale of 501 computers, in January from IT company employees who found it in a safe after they rented central Kyiv office space that had been vacated by Manafort in 2014.
Leshchenko said he released the documents only now because it took time to "verify" them. He said he did so by comparing Manafort’s signature on his 1996 company registration documents with the signature on the invoice.
"It is an identical signature to the one on this contract," Leschenko said.
Manafort has claimed Leshchenko tried to blackmail him via e-mail last summer when he came in possession of a secret "black ledger" kept by Yanukovych’s Party of Regions showing entries worth $12.7 million from an alleged slush fund set aside for his services. Leshchenko denies the claim, saying that the threatening e-mail -- which was made public by a murky hacker website -- is a fake.
Manafort did not respond to a text message from RFE/RL requesting comment, but he denied Leshchenko’s latest allegations to The New York Times.
Leschenko’s news conference came hours after a March 20 hearing by the Intelligence Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives in which FBI Director James Comey was asked about Manafort’s work in Ukraine and allegations of contacts between Manafort and Russian intelligence officials.
Comey declined to talk specifically about Manafort and others with alleged ties to Russia, but he did take the rare step of confirming that the FBI is investigating communications between Russian officials and associates of Trump.
Manafort resigned from Trump's campaign last summer following allegations of contacts with Russian intelligence officials, and media reports have indicated that the FBI is investigating those allegations. He said previously that he has never had contact with Russian agents, at least not knowingly.
"It’s not like these people wear badges that say, 'I’m a Russian intelligence officer,'" he said in February.
The White House tried to distance itself from Manafort as the congressional hearing was still under way on March 20, with spokesman Sean Spicer describing the former campaign chairman as having "played a very limited role for a very limited time."
Trump hired Manafort to head his delegate efforts for his Republican primary campaign on March 28 last year and kept him on staff until he resigned on August 19, after the disclosure of the "black ledger."
Before he worked for Trump, Manafort worked for more than a decade for Russia-friendly political parties and oligarchs in Ukraine.
Yanukovych fled to Russia after being pushed from power in February 2014 by pro-Western protesters incensed at his decision to abandon plans for a pact tightening Ukraine’s ties with the European Union. Leshchenko was a prominent figure in the Euromaidan protests and was elected to parliament in 2014.