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The Battle of Ilovaisk in August 2014 was a turning point in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Updated Daily. This week’s issue: – TV Rain’s Chief Producer Assaulted in Moscow – In Moscow City Legislature Race, United Russia Leads with Close Vote Between Independent and Nationalist – Low Turnout in Moscow Municipal Elections, Difficulties for Opposition Candidates – Gay Tango Instructor Found Murdered in St. Petersburg – Leading Russian Human Rights Group […]

On 14 August, the popular and enigmatic Col. Igor Strelkov resigned from his position of “Defense Minister” and “Commander of the Donetsk People’s Republic Militia” after reports that he was wounded. He then disappeared for weeks, and was rumored to be in Sevastopol, in a rest home. When he surfaced yesterday September 11 for a […]

Updated Daily. This week’s issue: – Presidential Human Rights Council Members Appeal to Investigative Committee on Missing Soldiers – Russian Defense Ministry Meets with Soldiers’ Mothers, Human Rights Advocates – Russian Soldier ‘Fighting as Insurgent’ Killed in Ukraine: Kyiv Post – Persecuted Russian Parliamentarian Ponomarev Decides to Remain Abroad – Cell Phone Messages of Moscow […]

Andrey Panasyuk, a Ukrainian soldier taken prisoner by Russian-backed militants, was the last subject filmed by Andrei Stenin, a Russian state media war correspondent whose death near Donetsk while on assignment was confirmed today by RIA Novosti. Panasyuk appeared in a number of photographs Stenin took while embedded with Russian-backed fighters in the “Donetsk People’s […]

Updated Daily. -Kremlin advisor Sergei Glazyev speaks in Yalta, surrounded by separatists and European far right; advocates for “Novorossiya” to join Customs Union. -There was an anti-war rally in St. Petersburg. -Lev Shlosberg, Pskov deputy who investigated Pskov paratroopers’ deaths, assaulted, hospitalized; he links his attack to his investigation, and Acting Governor Turchak condemns attack. […]

Updated Daily. Chechen Leader Ramzan Kadyrov joined the “Night Wolves,” a bikers’ gang that Putin has favored. Russian press and social media mined the popular social media network VKontakte for information on Russian paratroopers said to be killed or captured in Lugansk Region in Ukraine; oddly, some pictures were removed of armored vehicles and a […]

Pavel Kanygin, special correspondent for the independent Russian online newspaper Novaya Gazeta has been interviewing a number of the pro-Russian separatists and other political figures in Ukraine for some time. [See our translation of his interview with former Yanukovych Aide Anna German—The Interpreter). Kanygin himself was once kidnapped by the Russian-backed separatists and freed on […]

Updated Daily. Prime Minister Medvedev’s Twitter account was hacked with a claim he was resigning in shame and protests against the Crimean annexation and robbing of pensions to pay cost of forcible annexation. Following confusion and wishful thinking that new regulations regarding Internet access will not be so restrictive, Russia’s Minister of Communications clarifies that […]

In a 7 August radio interview with Karina Orlova of the program “Separate Opinion” on Ekho Moskvy, Dmitry Muratov, editor of Novaya Gazeta, commented on the resignation of Aleksandr Boroday from the post of “prime minister” in the self-declared “Donetsk People’s Republic,” and discussed a persistent claim recently in independent media in Moscow: that Boroday […]