Russia & CIS

Merry-go-round voting is a specific Russian voting practice.

Russian journalist and politician Lev Shlosberg has been awarded the inaugural Boris Nemtsov Foundation prize for "defending the values of freedom and democracy in Russia."

Russia's latest economic reform package is set to cut state spending and raise the retirement age, the Vedomosti newspaper reported Monday.

The lawyers of Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Alexander Alexandrov - Russian soldiers serving prison sentences in Ukraine on terrorism charges - are set to petition for clemency.

Tajikistan has approved constitutional amendments allowing President Emomali Rahmon to rule for life, the RIA Novosti news agency reported Monday.

More than 700 billion rubles ($10.5 billion) was transferred illegally from Russia into offshore accounts in 2015, the Russian Interior Ministry announced Friday, the TASS news agency reported.

Ukrainian nationalists have leaked a second list of the personal details of journalists working in the Donbass and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine.

A scent of great war is in the air. US deploys air defence systems in Romania and Poland. In some years, Russia will not be able to respond with a nuclear strike. So, which should be an asymmetrical response of Russia to new threats and challenges of the modern world?

The Russian economy has been out of recession for more than six months, Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said during a briefing at the Russia-ASEAN summit on Friday, the TASS news agency reported.

In case you missed it. Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, took some time during the the Russia-ASEAN summit on Thursday to show off her dancing skills in the Kalinka.

Russia is prepared to tackle ambitious projects like tech billionaire Elon Musk's conceptual Hyperloop transportation system, according to Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov, the RBC news website reported Friday.

Russian elections watchdog Golos is to file a complaint against politicians who sent costumed cartoon characters into a kindergarten to campaign for them.

If it is confirmed that the EgyptAir flight, missing since Thursday, vanished from radar on the airspace border between Greece and Egypt, air travel between Russia and Egypt will not be resumed, a high-ranking source within the Russian government said.

This year got off to a bad start. Oil prices fell to below $30 per barrel and a budget deficit of at least 5 percent seemed inevitable. But now Russia's political elite is breathing a sigh of relief.

The former chief editor of the RBC media holding has said that political pressure on the company resulted in the dismissal of top staff members, the Meduza news website reported Thursday.

Russia is rated the least welcoming country to refugees, according to a survey commissioned by Amnesty International and conducted by consulting firm GlobeScan.

On May 10, an unusual post appeared on Facebook, apparently signed by Viktor Ivanov, the head of Russia's Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN). "Comrades and fellow soldiers," it began.

Russian performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky has avoided a jail sentence despite being found guilty of vandalism by a Moscow court.

The cocktail already has a name - the "Rodchenkov." Its standard base is three shots of different steroids; the variable part is the alcohol mixer (the men get whiskey and the women, Martini).

We make our way down a narrow alleyway. A four-digit code opens the heavy green door of the complex, but once inside, bolt cutters are the keys of choice.