Russia Watch Thread

User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6474
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Russia Watch Thread

Post by caltrek »

Navalny App Removed From Online stores as Russian Polls Open
September 17, 2021

https://www.courthousenews.com/navalny- ... olls-open/

Introduction:
MOSCOW (AP via Courthouse News) — An app created by allies of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny disappeared from Apple and Google stores on Friday as polls opened across Russia for three days of voting in a parliamentary election.

Russian authorities are seeking to suppress the use of Smart Voting, a project designed by Navalny to promote candidates that are most likely to defeat those backed by the Kremlin. This weekend's election is widely seen as an important part of President Vladimir Putin's efforts to cement his grip on power ahead of the 2024 presidential polls, in which control of parliament will be key.

Apple and Google have come under pressure in recent weeks, with Russian officials urging them to remove the app, which features Smart Voting, saying failure to do so will be interpreted as interference in the election and threatening them with fines.

Last week, Russia's Foreign Ministry summoned U.S. ambassador John Sullivan over the issue.

On Thursday, representatives of Apple and Google were invited to a meeting in the upper house of Russia's parliament, the Federation Council. The Council's commission on protecting state sovereignty said in a statement after the meeting that Apple agreed to cooperate with Russian authorities.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6474
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Russia Watch Thread

Post by caltrek »

Putin's Party Wins Majority in Parliamentary Election
September 21, 2021

https://www.dw.com/en/russia-putins-par ... a-59232938

Introduction:
(DW) The pro-Putin United Russia party won the country's parliamentary elections following a clampdown against Kremlin critics. Opposition figures have claimed election fraud.

The Kremlin-loyal United Russia party has recorded an overwhelming victory in Russia's parliamentary elections.

With all the votes tallied, the electoral commission said Tuesday that United Russia had won 49.83% of the vote. It was also ahead in 198 seats of the 225 deputies apportioned by party lists.

On Twitter, the party said it had received a constitutional majority.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6474
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Russia Watch Thread

Post by caltrek »

Russia Fatally Poisoned A Prominent Defector In London, A Court Concludes
by Scott Neuman
September 21, 2021

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/21/10392249 ... ghts-putin

Introduction:
(NPR) The European Court of Human Rights has found the Kremlin responsible for the 2006 assassination by radiation poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian intelligence official who defected to the West.

Meanwhile, British police said Tuesday that they have identified a third suspect in a Russian-linked nerve agent attack on a former Russian double agent in southern England.

Litvinenko died in London weeks after drinking tea that was later found to have been laced with the deadly radioactive compound polonium-210.

In its ruling, the ECHR said it "cannot but conclude" that two Russian intelligence agents, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, had killed Litvinenko "acting as agents of the respondent State [Russia]."
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6474
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Russia Watch Thread

Post by caltrek »

Journalist Dmitry Muratov Awarded Nobel Peace Prize
October 8, 2021

https://www.axios.com/nobel-peace-prize ... 47b6e.html

Extract:
(Axios) Dissident journalist…Dmitry Muratov (was) awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize "for …efforts to safeguard freedom of expression," which the Nobel Committee described as "a precondition for democracy and lasting peace."
  • Muratov is the founder of Novaya Gazeta, described by the committee as "the most independent newspaper in Russia today."
    Between the lines: It's the first time a journalist has received the Nobel Peace Prize since 1935, when Germany's Carl von Ossietzky won the iconic award for his secret work exposing his country's re-armament after World War I, according to Reuters.
The big picture:…

Novaya Gazeta has been recognized as "the only truly critical newspaper with national influence in Russia today" by the Committee to Protect Journalists. Muratov and other reporters for the newspaper have covered topics such as human rights violations, corruption within the Russian government and abuse of power.
  • In the last two decades, six journalists from Novaya Gazeta have been killed for their work, the committee notes.
  • "Despite the killings and threats, editor-in-chief Muratov has refused to abandon the newspaper’s independent policy," the committee said.
Image
Dmitry Muratov celebrates his Nobel Prize win.
AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko


https://theconversation.com/nobel-peace ... dia-169579:

Extract:
(The Conversation) Asked why the Peace Prize went to two individual journalists – rather than to one of the press freedom organizations, such as the Committee to Protect Journalists, that have represented Ressa, Muratov and so many of their endangered colleagues – Reiss-Anderson said the Nobel Committee deliberately chose working reporters.

Ressa and Muratov represent “a golden standard,” she said, of “journalism of high quality.” In other words, they are fact-finders and truth-seekers, not purveyors of clickbait.

That golden standard is increasingly endangered, in large part because of the digital revolution that shattered the business model for public service journalism.

“Free, independent and fact-based journalism serves to protect against abuse of power,” Reiss-Andersen said in the prize announcement. But it is increasingly being undermined and supplanted by what’s called “content,” served up algorithmically from sources that are not transparent in ways that are designed to addict and that drive partisanship, tribalism and division.

This poses a challenge for public policymakers and the democracies they represent. How to regulate digital media and still protect free speech? How to support the labor-intensive work of journalism and still protect its independence?
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
wjfox
Site Admin
Posts: 8663
Joined: Sat May 15, 2021 6:09 pm
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Re: Russia Watch Thread

Post by wjfox »

Russia’s population undergoes largest ever peacetime decline, analysis shows

Wed 13 Oct 2021 12.26 BST

Russia’s natural population has undergone its largest peacetime decline in recorded history over the last 12 months, according to an analysis of official government statistics made by a prominent independent demographer, as the country battles a deadly fourth wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The natural population, a number calculated from registered deaths and births, excluding the impact of migration, declined by 997,000 between October 2020 and September 2021, the demographer Alexei Raksha has calculated.

Russia has been one of the countries hit hardest by the pandemic, registering at least 660,000 excess deaths since the start of 2020, according to government data, and the dramatic drop appears to show the devastating toll the pandemic has had on the country’s social fabric.

Previous government reports showed Russia’s population decline in 2020 was 11 times greater than that of the pre-pandemic 2019.

“It’s pretty simple, the deaths caused by Covid-19 are the biggest reason for the decline witnessed. Most other factors have stayed the same,” said Raksha, a demographic forecaster who left Russia’s state agency Rosstat last year after criticising the information centre’s coronavirus figures.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... me-decline


Image
User avatar
funkervogt
Posts: 1165
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 3:03 pm

Re: Russia Watch Thread

Post by funkervogt »

This prediction fell flat. And from experienced "Kremlin watchers"!
VLADIMIR Putin is planning to quit early next year amid growing fears for his health, Moscow sources claimed last night.

Kremlin watchers said recent tell-tale footage showed the 68-year-old strongman has possible symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease.
https://www.the-sun.com/news/1752270/vl ... ar-health/
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6474
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Russia Watch Thread

Post by caltrek »

Meet the Male State: Russia’s Nastiest Online Hate Group
October 20, 2021

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and- ... ate-group/

Introduction:
(Belling Cat) In a courtroom in the city of Nizhny Novgorod on October 18, the future of a gang of online misogynist thugs who call themselves the ‘Male State’ (Muzhskoye gosudarstvo in Russian) looked to be hanging in the balance.

A few weeks before, regional prosecutors had filed a lawsuit to have Male State banned as an extremist group. Founded by Vladislav Pozdnyakov — a man convicted of inciting hatred against women in 2018 — Male State’s tens of thousands of members have been at the forefront of a backlash against gender equality in Russia, winning its fair share of headlines in Russia and around the world.

Judge Anna Belova wasn’t convinced by the attempts of Male State’s lawyer Dzhambolat Garabayev to defend the group — “these are women who themselves discredited the male population,” he claimed in response to well-documented evidence of the group’s misogynist harassment campaigns. After a few minutes’ deliberation, Belova ruled that Male State was to be designated as an extremist organisation in Russia, banning the movement’s activities in the country. Male State reportedly plans to appeal.

The verdict comes after a particularly busy year for Male State. In just the past several months, they’ve harassed and threatened retailers who use Black models in their advertisements, posted the private contact details of a member of feminist protest group Pussy Riot — who soon found herself the target of abuse — and reportedly sent threats to Russian women in relationships with non-Russian men.

Their increasing belligerence had prompted growing revulsion against the group in some sectors of Russian society, leading to demands for action against Male State.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
Yuli Ban
Posts: 4631
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 4:44 pm

Re: Russia Watch Thread

Post by Yuli Ban »

Russia’s Parliament will consider restrictions on films and TV shows with same-sex love scenes, making them viewable only by “special access … as with pornography,” a lawmaker said this week.

Legislation to this effect is being drafted now, Vitaly Milanov, a member of Parliament, said Monday, according to RT, a Russian state news site. He made the remarks directly to RIA Novosti, the state-controlled news agency.

Milanov, deputy chairman of the Committee on Family Affairs, Women, and Children, said Russian citizens don’t want such content to be broadcast widely. “The legal solution to this situation is just around the corner,” he said, adding, “Whoever wants can have special access to such videos as well as with pornography.”

In a recent survey by Russia’s Public Opinion Research Center, that 80 percent of respondents said same-sex relations should not be depicted even in films and TV programs restricted to adult viewers, and 57 percent said scenes of “sexual deviance” should be banned, RT reports.
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
weatheriscool
Posts: 12724
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Russia Watch Thread

Post by weatheriscool »

Russian court shuts renowned rights group
Source: AP

By DASHA LITVINOVA
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s highest court on Tuesday shut down one of the country’s oldest and most prominent human rights organizations, the latest move in a relentless crackdown on rights activists, independent media and opposition supporters.

The Supreme Court’s ruling revoked the legal status of Memorial, an international human rights group that drew international acclaim for its studies of political repression in the Soviet Union.

Memorial is made up of more than 50 smaller groups in Russia and abroad. It was declared a “foreign agent” in 2016 — a label that implies additional government scrutiny and carries strong pejorative connotations that can discredit the targeted organization. Prosecutors said the group repeatedly failed to identify itself as a foreign agent and tried to conceal the designation.

Memorial has rejected the accusations as politically motivated and vowed to continue its work.


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/europe-russi ... aa3d99ecf5
User avatar
wjfox
Site Admin
Posts: 8663
Joined: Sat May 15, 2021 6:09 pm
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Re: Russia Watch Thread

Post by wjfox »

Given that Russia's population is only 44% of the US, that's equivalent to 1.42 million deaths in the US and close to 200,000 last month alone, or about 6,500 every single day.

Maybe that's why Putin wants to invade Ukraine...?


Russia’s Deadliest Month of the Pandemic

30 December 2021, 22:49 GMT

November was Russia’s deadliest month of the Covid-19 pandemic. There were a record 85,527 deaths associated with the virus last month, according to government officials. That was a 16% increase over the previous month, and raised total confirmed fatalities linked to the coronavirus in Russia to more than 625,000, though the actual number is likely higher.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newslett ... f-pandemic


Image
Post Reply