Robert Coalson worked as a correspondent for RFE/RL from 2002 to 2024.
Federal investigators took the rare step of overturning their North Ossetian colleagues over lurid rape allegations by a young autistic woman.
A Crimean Tatar leader raised eyebrows recently by asserting that Moscow had imported up to 1 million Russians into Crimea since it annexed the Ukrainian region in 2014. It's impossible to know what the exact figure is, other analysts say, but it is clear Moscow is intentionally reshaping the disputed region's demographics.
A journalist claims Dimitrovgrad's mayor publicly called him a "traitor" and struck him twice after he failed to stand during the national anthem. The mayor admits calling the journalist a traitor but says if he'd struck him "even at half-strength," the reporter wouldn't have been able "to get up and go off to write about it."
Retired FSB General Ivan Mironov, a KGB veteran from the 1970s, commands the pseudo-Cossack unit whose members were filmed beating anti-Putin protesters in Moscow on May 5. Although Mironov has tried to remake himself as a guardian of Russian Orthodox tradition, he is an old-school product of the Soviet security agencies with a murky history in the emergence of Russia's post-Soviet kleptocracy.
It's one of 11 Russian cities hosting next month's FIFA World Cup. And it's spent over $1 billion in preparations. But locals in Nizhny Novgorod are uncertain exactly what they'll be left with after the final whistle.
Russian political analysts identify the challenges facing Vladimir Putin as he sets off on his fourth term in the Kremlin.
Two-thirds of the Red Army soldiers captured by the Germans during World War II died in captivity, in part because of a Soviet government policy aimed at convincing soldiers that being captured meant certain death.
Russian patients and doctors warn that the low quality of domestic generics could lead to disaster, if Russian lawmakers pass a bill to ban most pharmaceuticals from the United States and its allies.
Announcements have appeared online in the Bashkortstan capital proclaiming a "homophobic game" named after the popular horror movie Saw, and LGBT activists cite "dozens" of cases of violence, intimidation, extortion, and other harassment.
A Moscow Oblast student wants to decide for himself whether to participate in a demonstration to honor the 27 million Soviets who died fighting Nazi Germany.
Russia's state aid agency is urging students studying abroad to return home, citing growing anti-Russian sentiment in Europe. Russian students in England say such concerns are nonsense.
An RFE/RL investigation uncovers evidence that two regional Russian officials kept their Canary Island property secret, and prosecutors backed them up.
It isn't just Russia's presidential election that can be characterized as "without alternatives." That is the nature of the entire political atmosphere in the country Vladimir Putin has ruled for nearly two decades.
Three Russian mercenary commanders told RFE/RL what the situation is like in Syria and why their comrades are fighting there.
A new Telegram account from a Russian-language troll in St. Petersburg's nefarious troll factory who says he spends his days "s****ing in the comment boxes."
Olga Litvinenko, daughter of the rector of the National Mining University in St. Petersburg, claims she was present in 1997 and saw her father writing President Vladimir Putin's dissertation.
Animal-protection activists in Russia have discovered millions of rubles worth of state tenders for the killing of stray dogs and cats in cities that will host this summer's soccer World Cup.
For six years, a school in Pskov Oblast begged local authorities for funds to build a perimeter fence required by federal law. Finally, they took matters into their own hands.
The Russian government is planning to increase the subsidy paid to attract people to settle in the Far East to 1 million rubles, plus other perks. But locals eking out a tough living think more should be done for them.
Orthodox believers have complained to the authorities that a 2017 history of the Solovki Islands offends their religious feelings. The author's supporters say the complaint is part of broader effort to whitewash and simplify the region's -- and Russia's -- complex history.
Load more
