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The OVD-Info rights group said on March 21 that a court in Moscow had sentenced poet Aleksandr Byvshev to seven years in prison on a charge of calling for terrorism and distributing false news about Russia's military.
Residents of the Graivoronsky urban district of Russia's Belgorod region bordering Ukraine have been advised by authorities to temporarily leave the area, which has been frequently targeted by drones and missile attacks from Ukrainian and Ukraine-aligned forces.
A Moscow court has issued an arrest warrant for the self-exiled founder of the Gulagu.net group, which monitors inmates' rights. The warrant was issued on March 21 after the Federal Security Service launched a probe against Vladimir Osechkin on a charge of justifying terrorism.
Observers continue to document irregularities in Russia's presidential election as the Central Election Commission (TsIK) announced Vladimir Putin had officially won a landslide victory in a vote that the international community has called a "sham" and not "free and fair."
A Russian court rejected a lawsuit filed by the mother of late Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny against guards of a prison where he died last month, his associate Ivan Zhdanov said on March 21.
Russia refused to extend the visa for Spanish journalist Xavier Colas and ordered him to leave the country within 24 hours, the reporter's employer, the El Mundo newspaper, said on March 21.
The websites of Russian independent news outlet SOTA and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Memorial Center for Protection of Human Rights have been blocked by media-monitoring agency Roskomnadzor.
A massive wave of Russian missiles targeting Kyiv was largely repelled by the air-defense systems of the Ukrainian capital early on March 21, but several people were wounded by the falling debris while extensive damage was reported in parts of the capital.
Russian troops on March 19 shelled border territories and settlements in the northeastern Sumy region, targeting more than a half dozen communities in at least 30 incidents on a single day.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has called on the world's athletes to ignore Russia's plans to organize a so-called Friendship Games, saying the plan is a "cynical attempt to politicize sport."
A Moscow court on March 19 sentenced former Russian Deputy Education Minister and former Deputy President of Sberbank Marina Rakova to five years in prison on fraud and embezzlement charges.
A Moscow court sentenced SotaVision journalist Antonina Favorskaya to 10 days in jail on charges of disobeying the police after visiting the grave of late opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, where she laid flowers and took photographs.
Another supporter of anti-war politician Boris Nadezhdin was sentenced to five days in jail on a charge of resisting police.
Two people were killed and four others were wounded in a Ukrainian air strike on Russia's Belgorod region on March 18, the head of the region's administration, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said on Telegram.
Vladimir Putin has claimed a fifth presidential term with a landslide victory in a tightly controlled election that has been condemned by the West as neither free nor fair as the Russian leader seeks to prove overwhelming popular support for his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Russians completed the second day of voting late on March 16 in a three-day presidential election that has seen sporadic protests as some people, defying threats of stiff prison sentences, showed their anger over a process set up to hand Vladimir Putin another six years of rule.
About a dozen Russians, defying threats from authorities of long prison sentences, have vandalized ballot boxes and polling stations across the country in protest of a presidential election that is almost certain to hand Vladimir Putin six more years as president.
Russians began voting on the first day of a three-day presidential election that President Vladimir Putin is all but certain to win, extending his rule by six more years after any serious opponents were barred from running against him amid a brutal crackdown on dissent and the independent media.
The Khoroshevsky district court in Moscow has sentenced two members of late opposition politician Aleksei Navalny's team on extremism charges.
Russia's border regions of Belgorod and Kursk have been targeted again in a series of Ukrainian drone and missile strikes that killed at least two people, wounded several others, and caused material damage.
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