North.Realities is a regional news outlet of RFE/RL's Russian Service.
The loved ones of some prominent Russian prisoners tell RFE/RL about how their lives have been overturned by their confrontation with President Vladimir Putin’s repressive state -- and about what keeps their spirits up.
The human toll of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s wars have landed mainly on the nation’s poor. Ask Komi village cook Vera Maksakova. She lost her partner, Semyon Tutrinov, in the Second Chechen War, and their son, Aleksandr Tutrinov, in Ukraine.
The media group controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin has been closed down in what appears to more retaliation against the tycoon following a brief mutiny staged on June 24 by him and his Wagner mercenary gro
A court in Russia's far western exclave of Kaliningrad on June 22 sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison 64-year-old anti-war activist Igor Baryshnikov after finding him guilty of spreading "fake" information about Russia's armed forces involved in the war on Ukraine.
A court in Russia's Komi Republic has sentenced leaders of a notorious criminal group -- Yury Pichugin and Khadis Azizov -- to life in prison on multiple charges, including murders, extortion, and abductions they had organized since 1992 in the country's northwestern region.
The Moscow City Court has canceled a five-year prison sentence handed in October to noted protest artist Pavel Krisevich over a so-called suicide performance in which he fired blanks from a pistol in Moscow's Red Square.
Several independent media outlets in Russia are holding a marathon event on June 12, which is commemorated as Russia Day in the country, to raise funds to support political prisoners and Russian citizens who openly condemn Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Although the Russian Orthodox Church has outspokenly supported Moscow's aggression in Ukraine and ordered priests to pray for a Russian victory, some clergymen feel conscience-bound to oppose the violence and what they see as the degradation of Russian society.
Nadezhda Glebovskaya once made jewelry for fashion shows, before developing a unique, politically charged form of knitted art. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the artist fled for Armenia, where she continues to work today.
A court in Russia's northwestern Komi region sentenced human rights activist Andrei Ivashev on charges he posted online calls for terrorism.
A prosecutor in Russia's far western exclave of Kaliningrad has asked a court to sentence a 64-year-old anti-war activist to eight years in prison on a charge of spreading "fake" information about Russia's armed forces.
Andrei Borovikov, an associate of jailed Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, was released from prison in the northwestern city of Arkhangelsk on May 23 after serving a 27-month prison term he was handed in 2021 for sharing a video by the German rock band Rammstein online.
The controversial handovers of two of Russia's most revered pieces of art to the Orthodox Church leave experts wondering what may be next.
Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny has been placed in a punitive solitary confinement for the 16th time since August 2022.
A court in Russia's northwestern region of Karelia has sentenced a 34-year-old man to six years in prison for high treason.
Russian artist Ivan Volkov told RFE/RL that he has been sentenced to five months of "correctional work" for creating a snow sculpture in January 2022 in the form of a giant feces near the Field of Mars in the city of St. Petersburg, where those who died in the 1917 Russian Revolution are buried.
Two women from Russia's northwestern region of Karelia, Anna Trusova, 57, and Irina Nippolainen, 59, have fled the country after authorities launched a probe against them in March, accusing them of public calls for actions compromising Russia's national security.
A 29-year-old history teacher in Russia's Komi Republic in the Urals has been sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison for his online posts supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia's unprovoked invasion.
Prosecutors have asked a court in Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg, to convict and hand a suspended three-year prison term to a 60-year-old woman charged with the hatred-based desecration of the grave of the parents of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The leader of Russia's popular Naiv rock group, Aleksandr Ivanov, has left Russia for an unspecified country after he supported a 13-year-old girl, Masha Moskalyova, whose anti-war picture helped lead to her father's prosecution, media reports said on May 9.
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