North.Realities is a regional news outlet of RFE/RL's Russian Service.
President Vladimir Putin has called for the liquidation of Russia's disastrously substandard housing at least seven times in the past 15 years. Yet more than 1 million Russians still live in dilapidated buildings, battling problems like leaks, mold, rats, and collapsing walls every day.
A court in St. Petersburg on December 12 ordered popular Russian rapper Oxxxymiron to pay a fine of 45,000 rubles ($705) for "discrediting Russia's armed forces" in comments over Moscow's ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to increase the number of police officers in the country to 938,000 by 2025.
Russia has declared Lithuanian think tank Riddle Russia an "undesirable" organization amid an ongoing crackdown on international and domestic NGOs, independent media, and civil society.
A gay-rights activist and historian has opened Russia's first museum of LGBT culture in St. Petersburg. But the exhibition will become illegal if, as expected, the government approves a draconian new law against sharing information about so-called "nontraditional" lifestyles in the coming days.
The editorial boards of five investigative journalistic groups have launched an app called Samizdat to avoid the blocking of their websites by Russian authorities.
A human rights group in Russia says Yury Dmitriyev, the imprisoned historian and former head of the Memorial human rights group in the northwestern region of Karelia, has been placed in punitive confinement for the fourth time since mid-September at his penal colony in Mordovia.
A court in Russia's far western Kaliningrad exclave has rejected an appeal filed by activist Vadim Khairullin against his imprisonment under a controversial law that criminalizes participation in more than one unsanctioned protest within a 180-day period.
Across Russia, marriages have shot up since President Vladimir Putin ordered a mobilization amid steep losses in the war on Ukraine. Many couples who were living together are making things legal after the man received his call-up notice -- in part to lock in spousal death and disability benefits.
Denis Skopin, an associate professor at St. Petersburg State University, was recently fired from the prestigious institution for opposing Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
The governor of the Pskov region, northwest of Moscow, jumped at the chance to oversee the reconstruction of schools in a Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s Kherson region. His own region has an awful record at completing construction projects at home.
A top official at the Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg has left Russia in protest at the Kremlin's ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
The chaotic and haphazard mobilization process under way inside Russia is fuelling speculation that the Kremlin is aiming to activate far more than the 300,000 soldiers initially stated by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
A human rights group in Russia says Yury Dmitriyev, the imprisoned historian and former head of the Memorial human rights group in the northwestern region of Karelia, is being mistreated at his prison in Mordovia.
Russian authorities have raided the home of a village store owner who used his business to oppose the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine -- and now faces criminal charges punishable by up to five years in prison.
Eduard Anisimov from St. Petersburg had served almost half of his term in prison when he was recruited to fight in Russia's war in Ukraine by representatives of the Vagner private military contractor. Relatives tell RFE/RL that he went to fight in hopes of gaining his freedom.
In the wake of Kyiv’s counteroffensive in the Kharkiv area, rumors swirled that Russian teachers set to work in the occupied areas had been arrested and could face prison terms. The story gave some Russians who had been planning to accept Kremlin perks to work in Ukraine second thoughts.
Russian journalists Viktor Zyryanov and Sergei Nosov have left Russia after their homes were searched last week as part of a probe against fugitive former lawmaker Ilya Ponomaryov, who currently resides in Ukraine.
Seven lawmakers in Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg, have been summoned by the police after they demanded parliament's lower chamber, the State Duma, charge President Vladimir Putin with high treason over his decision to launch the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
A court in Russia has ordered columnist and Kremlin critic Viktor Shenderovich and the defunct Ekho Moskvy radio station to pay an additional 3.5 million rubles ($57,200) to businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close associate of President Vladimir Putin, for damaging his dignity and reputation.
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