Robert Coalson worked as a correspondent for RFE/RL from 2002 to 2024.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has dismissed the tens of thousands of Russians who have protested the past weekends in support of jailed opposition leader Aleksei Navalny as "hooligans and provocateurs." But eyewitnesses to the January 31 protests tell a different story.
Amid an aggressive, sometimes brutal police response to protests sparked by opposition leader Aleksei Navalny's jailing, the authorities have paid particular attention to nonstate journalists and bloggers in an apparent effort to control the narrative about the country's convulsions.
Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, who has been recuperating in Germany after being poisoned by a nerve agent, hsaid he will return to Russia to continue opposing President Vladimir Putin on January 17. Russians flocked to social media to weigh in on the decision and the looming showdown.
Sardana Avksentyeva, the mayor of the city of Yakutsk, has resigned, citing unspecified health concerns. But many residents claim that the popular mayor ran too far afoul of the ruling United Russia party and was pressured from her post in the run-up to Russian parliamentary elections this fall.
International Ice Hockey Federation head Rene Fasel met on January 11 with embattled Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka to discuss Minsk's plans to host the 2021 world hockey championships. The two exchanged warm words and hugs, prompting an angry reaction from the Belarusian opposition.
Workers at several research and educational institutions in St. Petersburg have reported that the Federal Security Service has assigned resident agents to monitor their work. "They are monitoring our loyalty," a former instructor at the world-famous Vaganova Ballet Academy said.
As a violent mob briefly took over parts of the U.S. Capitol building in a bid to overturn a democratic presidential election, some far-right, nationalist, and racist figures across Eastern Europe and the Balkans saw a common cause with the Confederate flag-waving rioters.
One of the many laws that came into effect in Russia over the New Year's break was a measure to bring back drunk tanks for people found inebriated in public. Such institutions, which were notorious for their human rights abuses during the Soviet period, were abolished in 2010.
With national legislative elections fast approaching in the new year, longtime Russian President Vladimir Putin faces falling popularity, a contracting economy, and growing public discontent.
Earlier this month, St. Petersburg artist Kirill Gorodetsky went public with his yearslong struggle to find out what happened to his great-grandfather, who disappeared without a trace in September 1941.
Russians on social media have reacted with shock, anger, and humor after Aleksei Navalny said on December 21 that he had tricked a Russian secret agent into disclosing details of the botched poisoning plot to kill him.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s year-end press conference on December 17 lasted about four and a half hours. During the marathon, he answered dozens of questions on topics ranging from “are we in a new cold war” to “what is the secret of family happiness.”
In March, Russian online media were full of salacious stories about how the FSB raided the St. Petersburg apartment of a Russian Orthodox bishop and discovered a laboratory for making drugs. Now the bishop has spoken exclusively to RFE/RL, saying he was framed for refusing to serve as an informant.
On a frigid December 21, 1980, a few hundred Beatles fans gathered in the Soviet capital to mourn the death of John Lennon. A student who captured the event in photographs recalls that it was a time of sadness, fear, and anger.
Plans are in place for an open-air museum at a Soviet-era labor camp in Kolyma, where thousands of innocent people were killed under dictator Josef Stalin. "Here in Russia, there are very few places where the history of the gulag has not been rewritten or erased," the museum's director said.
A COVID-19 patient in Kemerovo was discharged from the hospital in a coma. This case and others point to a health-care system strained to the limits, and a political system sometimes dominated by denial.
In the last two rounds of local elections around Russia, candidates opposed to the ruling United Russia party made striking gains, despite what observers called unfair, manipulated votes. Now they say their colleagues and other officials are punishing them for doing what they were elected to do.
Konstantin Malofeyev, a socially conservative Russian businessman known as the “Orthodox Oligarch,” has launched an organization aimed at making sure the 2021 State Duma elections bring to power people who share his nationalist, monarchist, and antigay views.
A 53-year-old man was stabbed to death in St. Petersburg after asking a couple on a bus to wear masks to hinder the spread of the coronavirus. The case was just the most dramatic example of rising public rage in Russia.
Under outgoing President Igor Dodon, Moldova lived in a state of self-imposed isolation, engaging in substantial dialogue only with Moscow. President-elect Maia Sandu has pledged a more comprehensive approach based on the poor, landlocked country's national interests.
Load more
![A sobering-up station in Moscow in 1999: "[So] many rights violations were committed there," said Moscow-based human rights activist Natalya Taubina. "That is why the system was shut down 10 years ago."](https://gdb.rferl.org/1ebbc1be-b74d-4791-ad0c-a8064de32973_cx0_cy8_cw0_w100_r1.jpg)
![A sobering-up station in Moscow in 1999: "[So] many rights violations were committed there," said Moscow-based human rights activist Natalya Taubina. "That is why the system was shut down 10 years ago."](https://gdb.rferl.org/1ebbc1be-b74d-4791-ad0c-a8064de32973_cx0_cy8_cw0_w66_r1.jpg)
