Tom Balmforth covers Russia and other former Soviet republics from his base in Moscow.
Ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit on September 13, China has tied up billion-dollar energy deals with four former Soviet republics in Central Asia. The deals cut into Russia’s sphere of influence, yet the Kremlin is not kicking up a fuss.
Aleksei Navalny's outside-the-box campaign in Moscow's mayoral election and his stronger-than-expected showing have shaken up Russian politics. But who are all those young people who volunteered and gave energy to Navalny's campaign team and what motivated them to get involved in politics?
Opposition figure Aleksei Navalny has told a rally of his supporters on Moscow's Bolotnaya Square they were cheated out of a victory in the September 8 Moscow mayoral election.
According to exit polls and preliminary vote counts, opposition Moscow mayoral candidate Aleksei Navalny has polled far better than pundits were predicting as recently as a week ago.
As voting closes in Moscow's mayoral election, voter turnout is low -- at just 30 percent. RFE/RL senior correspondent Robert Coalson and RFE/RL Moscow correspondent Tom Balmforth take a look.
The balloting comes after unusually competitive campaigns in Moscow and Yekaterinburg.
Konstantin Altunin, who painted President Vladimir Putin in lingerie stroking the hair of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, says threatening phone calls and the fear of arrest compelled him to escape the country.
Recent legislation marginalizing gays and lesbians has spawned a rise in homophobia in Russia. But it has also sparked a small backlash as a handful of "straights for gays" groups organize to assist embattled sexual minorities.
A series of shocking videos depicting the vigilante-style bullying of young gay men in Russia has appeared on the Internet. Activists say it is the latest sign that the Kremlin’s campaign against “homosexual propaganda” is stoking homophobic violence.
Western pressure over Russia's laws banning "gay propaganda" is heating up. But the Kremlin appears unmoved.
Fugitive U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden has applied for temporary asylum in Russia and is expected to soon be given a document that would allow him to leave the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport -- where he has spent the past month. RFE/RL takes a look at the procedure for getting asylum in Russia.
Authorities in Moscow have begun arresting demonstrators for protesting against the conviction of opposition figure Aleksei Navalny.
More than two dozen demonstrations are expected this evening in cities across Russia after opposition leader Aleksei Navalny was jailed for five years on charges of embezzlement that are widely viewed as politically motivated. But the authorities aren’t going to make it easy for the protesters.
Young activist groups are forming across Russia in order to ensnare alleged pedophiles and shame them online. The new digital vigilantism, however, has social workers and law-enforcement concerned.
Vitaly Milonov, the St. Petersburg lawmaker who spent the better part of the past year battling so-called "homosexual propaganda," has found a new enemy: fast food. Milonov has introduced legislation that would restrict trans fats in Russia's second city and require restaurants to display nutritional information for their dishes . He’s also planning on taking his campaign national.
U.S. authorities say Alimzhan Tokhtakhunov is a crime boss who should be jailed for 90 years on charges of laundering money and running an illegal gambling business. But in Moscow, where he lives 100 meters from the Kremlin, the man reputed to be one of the last surviving Soviet-era gangsters scoffs at the allegations –- and the authorities certainly aren’t giving him problems. RFE/RL gets an audience with Tokhtakhunov, aka "Taiwanchik."
Since running afoul of the Kremlin, Russia’s leading social network, VKontakte, has been the victim of a series of mysterious incidents -- most recently "accidentally" being placed on a government blacklist.
The director of the independent Levada Center says the polling organization could be forced to close down after Russian prosecutors warned that it must register as a "foreign agent."
After two decades as Russia's marquee company, is Gazprom losing its mojo? A changing energy market and emergence of new energy sources is challenging the company's longtime dominance.
An attack on environmental activists in the Voronezh region this week was the latest skirmish in a struggle to stop a nickel mine near a nature reserve in Russia’s fertile south. RFE/RL reports on the grassroots anti-Kremlin movement that has been growing for two years.
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