31st March, Business-Online

"Every second user does not turn it off at all": Russian Federation declares war on VPN

Russian Federation has stepped up its campaign against VPNs with a package of measures that includes charging for mobile international traffic above 15 GB a month, pushing major platforms to restrict users with active VPNs, and cutting off Apple ID top-ups through mobile operators. This is a state response to how widespread VPN use has become in Russia, with one expert saying the country now leads the world in VPN usage and that roughly every second user keeps a VPN switched on all the time. The authorities want to make VPN use less convenient and more expensive without openly relying on straightforward administrative punishment, which Digital Development Minister Maksut Shadaev has described as a “difficult compromise.”

29th March, Insider

Russia has banned all protests against internet blocking: at least six protest organisers have been arrested.

All planned protests against internet blocking in Russia on 29 March have been banned, and at least six organisers have been arrested, with two detained and four others facing pressure from authorities. Even a previously permitted rally in Penza was cancelled, despite being scheduled in a zone that normally does not require approval, as the Interior Ministry warned of possible administrative and criminal liability for participants. Non-religious demonstrations not aligned with the state are not permitted, with each region citing different reasons for this.

23rd March, RIA

The State Duma will consider a project to strengthen the protection of historical memory.

State Duma leadership stated that a second-reading debate was set for 24 March on amendments to the Criminal Code aimed at “protecting historical memory.” The package would expand criminal liability for desecration of memorials and burials associated with victims of the “genocide of the Soviet people,” including sites outside Russia, adding liability under the “rehabilitation of Nazism” article for publicly denying or approving that genocide. Reported maximum penalties included up to five years’ imprisonment for damage to protected burial/memorial sites, and up to three years for public denial and/or “insulting the memory” of victims. The initiative was explicitly framed as countering “falsification of history” and defending the multiethnic Soviet wartime “sacrifice.” 

13th March, Kommersant

(Internet) "Whitelists" have been introduced in Moscow.

Mobile internet access in Moscow has begun operating through “whitelists,” meaning service is available only for approved users or devices in at least some parts of the city.  According to the telecom-market sources, the system is now working, although coverage remains uneven because some base stations are still switched off in certain districts. Experts estimate that the total damage to Moscow’s businesses over five days was between 3 billion and 5 billion Rubles, with courier services, taxis, car-sharing companies, and retail businesses among those most affected by the outages.

6th March, Interfax

The monument to Solzhenitsyn is planned to be moved from the centre of Vladivostok

Authorities in Vladivostok plan to relocate the monument to Alexander Solzhenitsyn from the city centre to Vera and Nadezhda Square on Ovchinnikova Street, near a memorial dedicated to victims of political repression. The city has awarded a contract worth 201,000 Rubles to dismantle, transport, and reinstall the 2.5-metre statue, with the work expected to be completed by 2 July 2026, the city’s anniversary day. The monument was erected in 2015 to commemorate Solzhenitsyn’s 1994 visit to Vladivostok, but it has remained controversial, has been vandalised several times, and has faced unsuccessful attempts at removal.

2nd March, Current Time

Russia’s Supreme Court has declared the Anti-War Committee of Russia a "terrorist" organisation.

Russia’s Supreme Court, at a hearing held behind closed doors, granted a request from the Prosecutor General’s Office to designate the Anti-War Committee of Russia a “terrorist” organisation and ban its activities in the country. Judge Oleg Nefedov delivered the ruling. He had previously declared the non-existent "international LGBT movement" and "international Satanism movement" to be "extremist" and designated Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation a "terrorist" organisation. The committee was founded in February 2022 to oppose Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and its members include prominent exiled Kremlin critics such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Garry Kasparov, Dmitry Gudkov, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Yekaterina Shulman, and Viktor Shenderovich. The FSB had already opened a criminal case against all committee members last year, alleging involvement in a “terrorist community” and a seizure of power, citing their support for Ukraine, the 2023 Berlin Declaration condemning the war, and their work with a Russian democratic platform in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Previously, the group was also labelled “undesirable.”

25th February, Meduza

Western analysts say Russia is on track to losing 50,000 soldiers a month. A Meduza investigation suggests those estimates are based on manipulated data.

Meduza argues that widely cited Western estimates of roughly 50,000 Russian losses per month are overstated because they rely on distorted open-source data rather than a real battlefield turning point. According to the investigation, Russia has been retroactively declaring large numbers of previously missing soldiers dead through court procedures, which makes many older deaths show up in databases as if they were new 2025 casualties. After adjusting for those reclassifications and for improved obituary-database coverage, Meduza estimates current Russian battlefield deaths at under 600 per day and total irreversible losses at about 27,000 per month, far below the headline figure.

20th February, RG

The Museum of the History of the Gulag will become the Museum of Memory of the Victims of the Genocide of the People of the USSR

Moscow’s Gulag History Museum, which stopped operating in November 2024 after a fire-safety inspection, is set to be rebranded as the “Museum of Memory” focused on victims of what officials call the “genocide of the Soviet people” and Nazi war crimes during World War II, with reopening planned for 2026.  Reports say the new concept will draw on archival materials from the “Without Statute of Limitations” project and will include sections on manifestations of Nazism, trials of Nazi criminals, and evidence related to biological weapons testing, including digital features for preserving personal family histories.  Natalya Kalashnikova (previously head of the “Smolensk Fortress” museum) has been appointed director, while questions and controversy remain over what happens to the former repression-focused exhibition and the museum’s thousands of artefacts.

18th February, Agenstvo

The State Duma unanimously voted to introduce “prevention” of “an incorrect understanding of the history of Russia.” It will be handled by the security services.

On 18 February 2026, Russia’s State Duma unanimously approved in first reading amendments to the 2016 “prevention of offences” law, adding “prevention/suppression of evasion of the duty to defend the Fatherland” and “countering distortion of historical truth” to the list of areas covered by preventive measures. Sponsors say this would empower security and law-enforcement bodies to act earlier via warnings, “preventive conversations,” legal education, and possible preventive supervision of people previously convicted under relevant articles (including “rehabilitation of Nazism,” insulting veterans, or evading military service), arguing that a “hybrid war” fosters “incorrect” views of Russia’s history.  During the debate, some deputies questioned how police can objectively judge contested historical issues, while critics warn the measure could broaden enforcement around “memory” laws and be used for political pressure.

14th February, Meduza

The Russian Federation authorities continue to break Telegram and WhatsApp

In the past few days, starting on February 9, the Russian authorities have resumed active attempts to break popular foreign Internet services and make them completely unavailable in the country. Telegram worked intermittently, and YouTube and WhatsApp were under the threat of complete blocking. Around the same time, outlets reported that YouTube, WhatsApp and other domains were removed from Russia’s National Domain Name System records, a move framed as a step toward tougher blocks. At the same time, the restriction of foreign messengers threatens not only communication between users. For example, Telegram is a whole ecosystem with information and entertainment channels, mini applications, its own cryptocurrency and much more.

10th February, Kommersant

Films without distribution certificates will be checked on complaints to the Ministry of Culture

From 1 March 2026, Russia’s Ministry of Culture will start checking online films and series that lack distribution certificates for possible “discrediting” of traditional spiritual values. Reviews will be triggered by any citizen’s complaint and assessed via an expert mechanism. If violations are found, the ministry will send its conclusion to Roskomnadzor, which can require platforms to restrict access within 24 hours, preferably by deletion. Separately, a Duma committee backed amendments introducing administrative fines for distributing this kind of content up to 3 million Rubles after 1 March 2026, with the possibility of avoiding penalties by promptly deleting content after Roskomnadzor’s demand.

6th February, Meduza

St. Petersburg scientist Alexey Dudarev was accused of treason for publishing scientific journals that "may have been read by Norwegian intelligence."

In St. Petersburg, scientist Alexei Dudarev, a Doctor of Medical Sciences and chief researcher at the Northwestern Scientific Centre for Hygiene and Public Health of Rospotrebnadzor, has been arrested on treason charges. The basis for the scientist's criminal prosecution was Dudarev's publications in open international scientific journals of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP). The programme operates within the framework of the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum of which Russia is a member. Investigators claim that information from the scientific publications could have been accessed and used by Norwegian intelligence.

30th January, Meduza

For the first time, the platform of the Russian opposition at PACE gathered in Strasbourg

On January 29, 2026, Strasbourg hosted the first meeting of a new platform of Russian democratic forces under PACE (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe), with 15 approved members, including Garry Kasparov, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Lyubov Sobol, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, among others. Participants have agreed on basic procedures and said their priorities include supporting political prisoners and protecting the practical rights of anti-war Russians abroad, while also urging Europe to help Ukraine. The debut also highlighted ongoing frictions over the next year procedure and produced a viral moment when Kara-Murza dismissed a reporter from SOTA with the insult.

29th January, Insider

11 Russian universities will withdraw from the Bologna process

From September 1 of this year, additional universities in the Russian Federation will cancel the "bachelor" and "master" formats; instead, basic and specialised higher education will be introduced. The transition away from the Bologna system began in 2022 with a pilot in six universities, and the new model will now be tested in 11 additional institutions. In May 2022, State Duma Deputy Speaker Pyotr Tolstoy said that it was time for Russia to abandon the Bologna system and return to the "traditional Russian education system" so as not to "suffer an ideological defeat" and not to "lose our schoolchildren and citizens."

26th January, Kommersant

The government supported the introduction of liability for denying the genocide of the Soviet people

The Government Commission on Legislative Activity supported the initiative to introduce criminal liability for denying the fact of genocide of the Soviet people and insulting the memory of its victims. An amendment is made to the article on the rehabilitation of Nazism (Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code). The same bill introduces criminal liability (in Article 243.4 of the Criminal Code) for the destruction or damage of monuments and other memorial structures perpetuating the memory of the victims of genocide, as well as for the desecration of their burials. Under the article on the rehabilitation of Nazism, which also appeals to the conclusions of the Nuremberg Tribunal, the maximum punishment is three years in prison or a fine of 3 million Rubles. Will it spread to statements that could be interpreted as denigration of the Soviet people in the future?

20th January, Meduza

A schoolgirl who posted a photo of RVC fighters on a school bulletin board was sentenced to four years in prison.

The First Western District Military Court in St. Petersburg sentenced 17-year-old schoolgirl Eva Bagrova to four years in prison for posting photographs of members of the Russian Volunteer Corps at school. The verdict was handed down in October 2025 but was previously unknown. Bagrova was found guilty of justifying terrorism (Article 205.2 of the Russian Criminal Code) and aiding terrorist activity (Article 205.1 of the Russian Criminal Code).

23rd January, Kommersant

United and collective

At the “Znanie. Gosudarstvo” forum, Kremlin official Alexander Kharichev delivered a programme talk presenting the “pentabasis” model (person–society–family–country–state) as a framework for defining Russia’s direction. He contrasted Russia’s “sovereign traditionalism” with Western “liberal globalism” and said that research into a “civilizational code” shows that top-rated values include collectivism, service to the fatherland, and the unity of peoples, with rights and freedoms rated much lower. Kharichev also outlined five “polar vectors” (e.g., rationalism–idealism, individualism–collectivism, negative vs “positive” freedom) and linked policy responses to perceived threats ranging from “childfree” ideas and distrust of institutions to consumerism, virtual retreat, and transhumanism. According to him, the vision of an ideal Russia has five options: Great, Comfortable, Just, Modern, and Land of opportunity, which the administration hopes to unite into one vision, where a citizen is a proactive participant.

11th January, URA.ru

Rossiyane/Russovians can lose their property after owing just 3,000 Rubles.

Bailiffs can seize property if the debt exceeds three thousand Rubles, Vladimir Gureev, chairman of the public council of the Federal Bailiff Service of Russia, has announced. "Current enforcement legislation allows for the seizure of a debtor's property for debts exceeding 3,000 Rubles (£28/€32/$38). Accordingly, foreclosure, generally, is possible starting from this amount," he said. Gureev noted that the debtor retains the opportunity to repay the debt voluntarily at any time, and if the seized property has not been sold within the framework of enforcement proceedings by that time, it will be returned to the debtor. A convenient method to take away the property of ‘foreign agents’ and those with frozen bank accounts.

1st January, Novaya Gazeta

RDK leader Denis Kapustin is alive.

Denis Kapustin, the founder of the Russian Volunteer Corps, was not killed, as previously reported. This information was disseminated to cover up a Ukrainian intelligence operation to save his life. This was reported by Ukrainian intelligence agencies. According to the Main Intelligence Directorate, the murder of Denis Kapustin was ordered by Russian intelligence agencies, and half a million dollars was allocated for its implementation.