Robert Coalson worked as a correspondent for RFE/RL from 2002 to 2024.
The Russian Orthodox Church, Gazprom, and the government have created a chain of some 20 Russian "history parks" that historians say present a "propagandistic" view of history with one main lesson -- "we need to gather together around our leader."
Six months after Russia adopted a controversial law imposing fines for using electronic media to insult officials or state symbols, the number of people facing charges under the measure is in decline.
The district council in a neighborhood near the heart of President Vladimir Putin's hometown has voted to remove the portraits of "active politicians" -- including Putin -- from the wall of their meeting room. Instead, they have hung an iconic image of Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov.
Two prominent opposition activists have been held in pretrial detention in Pskov since January on drug charges supporters say are trumped up and politically motivated.
When Milena Mebius saw the nasty, pro-Kremlin trolling under the online comments condemning the prison term handed to actor Pavel Ustinov, it was like looking into a mirror. For two years, she herself had been employed inside the opinion-shaping machine of Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.
Moscow courts have handed down prison terms ranging from two to five years against alleged participants in election protests earlier this summer. Now many prominent Russians are calling on the authorities to renounce what they say are "outrageous injustices."
Russia's September 8 regional elections were far from revolutionary. They did, however, mark a significant shift for the anti-Putin opposition led by Aleksei Navalny. Russian democrats are now searching for ways to take the tactical lessons into the State Duma elections in 2021.
In the Moscow legislative vote last weekend, one district elected an unknown engineer who didn't campaign at all. Even the party that supposedly nominated him could not answer questions about him.
Activists are hopeful that a criminal investigation into a case in Tyumen Oblast will expose the dark world of punitive psychiatric "treatment" inside Russian prisons. "Many prisoners say they'd rather have 10 years added to their sentence than to have to spend one year in a prison psychiatric ward," activist Vladimir Osechkin told RFE/RL.
The United Russia party is not officially participating in the September 8 elections for the Moscow City Duma. However, its faux independent candidates are clearly reaping the benefits of all the "administrative resources" the ruling political juggernaut can muster.
Sergei Kusyuk, a former commander of Ukraine's Berkut riot police wanted in Kyiv for his role in violence at the 2013-14 Maidan protests, has been spotted commanding Russian riot police during the most recent crackdown on protesters calling for fair municipal elections in the Russian capital.
Russian President Vladimir Putin seems immune to the charges of corruption and other scandals that have followed him over his two decades in power.
On July 27, the Russian opposition is calling for an unsanctioned protest against alleged electoral abuse. It could be the largest election-related demonstration since 2012.
A Greco-Roman wrestler whose Rwandan father died in combat is just one of the new faces elected to Ukraine's parliament in snap elections on July 21. Here's a look at him and a few others.
It's been 25 years since Alyaksandr Lukashenka was first sworn in as president of Belarus on July 20, 1994. How has he managed to rule a poor country in a perilous geopolitical position for so long -- and what might the future hold as he prepares for a sixth presidential term next year?
Russia's United Russia party is going into September's regional elections with a shockingly low approval rating and a badly tarnished brand, prompting governors and local lawmakers to step up efforts to produce the results the Kremlin demands.
Lyubov Sobol, a driving force of Aleksei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, is among the outsiders hoping to break United Russia's monopoly hold over the Moscow city council. But forces tied to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin seem to be pulling out all the stops to derail her.
Chisinau-based political analyst Vladislav Kulminski explains why the path to resolving the current political standoff may lead through Venice.
Residents of the picturesque Karelian village of Kinerma -- in 2016 named the most beautiful village in Russia -- have festooned their wooden houses with rags and tarps to protest plans by a Moscow movie company to film a feature about firefighters within meters of the historic settlement.
The judge took pause when a participant in a case before him sent some documents in an envelope decorated with a gruesome 15th-century painting showing a corrupt magistrate being skinned alive.
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