From the editor
Mikhail Khodorkovsky has shut down his Open Media and MBKh Media outlets that were providing independent reporting in Russia after authorities blocked their websites. Previously his Open Russia organisation was designated as “undesirable” and several people associated with it were prosecuted. Its former executive director, Andrei Pivovarov, is in jail awaiting trial. Khodorkovsky became one of the first victims of Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on opponents when his Yukos oil company was taken apart and he was arrested in 2003 after he expressed interest in politics. He was released from prison in 2013 and left the country. The Kremlin now wants to prosecute him again on new charges.
MBKh Media recently published a video of Mikhail Khodorkovsky talking about Sergei Shoigu
These developments are yet another huge blow to journalism in Russia and will further narrow the options for obtaining reliable information about what is happening in the country. MBKh Media’s editor-in-chief, Veronika Kutsyllo, said the outlet had survived previous efforts to block it. She wrote on Facebook: “The state – or rather, those people who currently consider themselves the state – has done everything to ensure that there is less and less free media in Russia every day, less media that’s independent of the government. And just less freedom. The country is rapidly falling into an incredible feudal darkness. Blocking our project and others, accusing us of ‘links’ with mythical ‘undesirable organisations’ is another step on that path, not the first, and unfortunately not the last. And this time the risks are too great – not only for the journalists who work for us, but for anyone who likes our content and decides to share it with others. The state, which has turned into a dragon more terrible than Schwartz’s, can eat any of them.”
Khodorkovsky tweeted that he was closing his outlets because journalists were in danger of being jailed. “Unfortunately there are already enough criminal cases. There are also enough people who help the Kremlin, whining about the futility of the struggle. Resistance to the regime will continue, taking into account the new risks.”
At the same time Alexei Navalny’s team have set up a new website through which people can make donations to the Foundation for Fighting Corruption via a bank account outside Russia. Leading Navalny aides Leonid Volkov, Ivan Zhdanov and Vladimir Milov are also outside the country. Inside Russia there is less appetite for a repeat of the turbulent events of 30 years ago that ushered in a brief period of democracy. A poll this week found that 48 percent of Russians would like to see a new statue of Stalin put up. Those who do crave freedom face an insurmountable task until the rest get hungry enough to complain.
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Navalny aides sentenced for organising protests
Alexei Navalny’s top aide Lyubov Sobol has been sentenced to 18 months of “restricted freedom” for allegedly violating Covid regulations by organising protests in support of the jailed opposition leader in January. Sobol was the first of numerous leading opposition activists to be sentenced in a mass case. All have been subjected to various restrictions since January: some are under house arrest and others, including Sobol, have been given curfews. The restricted freedom sentence means Sobol must be at home every night from 10 pm to 6 am and cannot participate in events or leave Moscow Oblast. She had wanted to run for the State Duma in September but was prohibited from doing so.
Today former Navalny aide Nikolai Lyaskin was sentenced to a year of restricted freedom in the same case, and Alexei Navalny’s brother Oleg was given a year’s suspended prison sentence. Meanwhile a judge is considering a request from the prison service to convert the pre-trial restrictions on Dr. Anastasia Vasilieva to jail. Vasilieva is the head of Russia’s Alliance of Doctors and a supporter of Navalny. The prison service said she had been late for curfew by 3-10 minutes on multiple occasions. Vasilieva has two children. In St. Petersburg, a court has sentenced Nikolai Devyaty to 4 ½ years in prison for allegedly punching two police officers at a protest in support of Navalny on January 23.
Prisoners escape from detention centre
Five violent prisoners awaiting trial escaped early this morning from a detention centre in Istra, Moscow Oblast, using a wrench to break a lock. One of the prisoners is Alexander Mavridi, who is accused of murdering “sausage king” businessman Vladimir Marugov last November by shooting him with a crossbow when he was in his sauna. The others were named as Nikolai Teterya, Alexander Butnaru, Denis Grozavu and Ivan Tsurkanu. Guards are suspected of helping them to escape by transferring Mavridi to a cell with the others and leaving a window open.
Russian module jolts International Space Station
Russia’s research module Nauka docked with the International Space Station in late July, provoking an excited response from the head of Roskosmos, Dmitri Rogozin: “We have contact!” But shortly afterwards the module accidentally fired its thrusters, briefly tilting the space station. The NASA flight director who was leading mission control in Houston at the time, Zebulon Scoville, told the New York Times that the station spun about 540 degrees before coming to a stop upside down. It then did a 180-degree forward flip to get back to its original orientation. Scoville said this was the first time he had ever declared a “spacecraft emergency” and tweeted “Yeehaw! That. Was. A. Day” after the incident.
Nuclear sub loses propulsion in Danish waters
The Danish navy has described on Facebook how Russia’s nuclear submarine Orel recently lost propulsion in the Baltic Sea in an incident that it said “will go down in history as both dramatic and exciting”. The submarine was “dead in the water at Sejerø,” the navy said. The Orel’s captain declined assistance from the Danes. “From DIANA we followed closely the situation on the submarine and the thoughts quickly ran for the movie ′The Hunt for Red October’ when we saw a crowd of people on the front deck of the submarine. But there were three nautical miles to Sejerø after all. A bit long to swim for a detour to the west,” the navy wrote. The Russian submarine got going again without any help.
Russia denied that any incident had taken place. “Reports in Danish media that on July 30 nuclear submarine Orel lost control while passing through the Baltic Sea straits do not correspond with reality,” a military source told TASS. The source said the submarine sailed normally through the straits and is now continuing to fulfil scheduled tasks.