Since Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012, new repressive laws and a battery of hostile actions have had a crippling effect on human rights activists and their work, says Amnesty International in a new report.
Campaigners and politicians are demanding action to "rein in the wild west of election campaigning", following news that Vote Leave will be fined just £61,000 for breaking the rules during the EU referendum.
More than a hundred organisations have seen their funding shrink, their reputations tarnished and their staff intimidated under Russia's draconian 'foreign agents' law, said Amnesty International in a new report today
Reports have emerged that the US government is considering deploying land-based nuclear missiles in Europe that could pre-emptively destroy Russian weapons.
The trial and imprisonment of Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot has split the country, brought criticism on the Church and provoked global outrage.
Vladimir Putin's election to a third term as Russian president has spurred debates about civil society and church-state relations within the Russian Orthodox Church.
Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill I has addressed thousands of young people on the dangers of alcoholism and an unchecked market economy as he takes the church to people used to the Kremlin as the biggest institution.