The freedom of the Russian media “was severely restricted” in 2015, according to an Amnesty International human rights report entitled “Human Rights in the Contemporary World”.  The Russian presentation of the report was held in Moscow in the Rosbalt Media Center.

According to Sergey Nikitin, the Director of the organization in Russia, the number of independent media sources in Russia “can probably be counted on one hand”.

“With regard to the freedom of the media, it is no secret that it has …

Russia intends to request US permission to conduct observation flights over the United States.  They hope to do this with the use of aircraft which will be equipped with powerful digital cameras.  American intelligence and military sources have warned that such flights will help Moscow gather intelligence about the United States.

Russia and the US have both signed the Treaty on Open Skies, which allows making observation flights with aircraft with no weapons over the territories of all 34 …

The Tartu District Court in Estonia has convicted three people for crimes against the state.  The Public Prosecutor’s office reported that all three convicts “illegally cooperated with Russian intelligence services”.

According to Interfax, two sentences were passed in October 2015 and the third one was passed last week.

In February, Maxim Gruzdev, a 32-year-old Estonian citizen, was sentenced to four years in prison.  He was recruited in the second half of 2013 in the Pskov region.  Before he …

On the 28th of February 2014, the leaders of Ukraine attended an emergency meeting of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) in order to determine how the country should react to Russia’s actions. The participants of the meeting concluded that Russia was ready for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2014. During that time, Russia was carrying out the occupation of Crimea with the use of Special Forces.

Regarding the eastern border of Ukraine, 38,000 Russian servicemen with …

In an open letter to the leaders of PARNAS and the Yabloko Party, prominent Russian public figures, human rights activists, and scholars called on the two parties to unite in the forthcoming State Duma elections. The activists published a second appeal to the general public, calling on them to support such cooperation. Both were published together in Novaya Gazeta on Tuesday, February 23rd.

The authors expressed alarm over the impending chaos in Russia due to the current political …