Latest news with #Mediazona
The Guardian
10 minutes ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Ukraine war briefing: Three soldiers killed in Russian attack on training camp, Trump gives Moscow ceasefire deadline
At least three Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 18 wounded in a Russian strike on a military training camp, the Ukrainian army announced early on Wednesday. 'The enemy launched a missile strike on the territory of one of the training units of the ground forces' on Tuesday, the army said on Facebook. At least 'three servicemen are dead and 18 wounded,' it added, without specifying where the attack took place. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a Russian attack on a prison on Tuesday in which 16 people were killed and dozens injured, was deliberate. 'The Russians knew it was a civilian facility. They could not have been unaware,' Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. 'Each such Russian strike, each instance of Russian arrogance in response to global calls to end the war, all this only confirms that pressure is necessary.' Hours after Tuesday's attacks US President Donald Trump shortened his deadline for Russia to end its invasion of Ukraine or face new sanctions to 10 days. Trump told reporters flying with him back from a visit to Scotland that he had not heard from Putin, adding 'It's a shame.' The Kremlin said on Tuesday that it had 'taken note' of Trump's earlier statement. 'The special military operation continues,' said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, employing the term that Moscow uses for its war effort in Ukraine. However former president Dmitry Medvedev, who is deputy head of the country's Security Council, warned Trump against threatening Russia. 'Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war. Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country,' Medvedev wrote on social platform X. A Russian court jailed a journalist and former volunteer for Alexei Navalny for 12 years on Tuesday under laws that ban cooperation with the opposition activist's organisations – even if it happened in the past. Olga Komleva, 46, volunteered for the party run by Navalny – who died last year – before it was banned as 'extremist' in 2021, according to independent media outlet Mediazona. She was also found guilty of criticising the Russian army as she covered Russia's offensive in Ukraine and anti-government protests for independent outlet RusNews. The journalist did not admit guilt on either charge. Zelenskyy on Tuesday signed a law allowing Ukrainian people over 60 to join the armed forces, which are struggling to find recruits. The law will allow them to sign a one-year contract for non-combat roles if they pass medical tests, according to an explanatory note on the parliament's website. The EU is set to make a reduced aid payment to Ukraine from its wartime fund for the first time, after Kyiv failed to fulfil all required reforms, Brussels said Tuesday. The European Commission has proposed paying Kyiv just over 3bn euros ($3.5bn) instead of 4.5 bn euros originally foreseen in a latest instalment of aid, spokesperson Guillaume Mercier said. That comes after Ukraine admitted in June that it had missed three of 16 reform benchmarks, including concerning the appointment of judges to an anti-graft court. Russian airline Aeroflot cancelled dozens more flights on Tuesday but said it had now stabilised its schedule after a major cyber-attack a day earlier, and the transport ministry said the issue had been resolved. Two pro-Ukraine hacking groups claimed on Monday to have carried out a year-long operation to penetrate Aeroflot's network. They said they had crippled 7,000 servers, extracted data on passengers and employees and gained control over the personal computers of staff, including senior managers.
Al Jazeera
9 hours ago
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Russia jails journalist for alleged Navalny links amid crackdown on dissent
A Russian court has sentenced journalist Olga Komleva to 12 years in prison on 'extremism' charges over her links to an opposition group, as the Kremlin intensifies its crackdown on dissent. On Tuesday, Komleva, 46, was found guilty of 'extremist' ties for her past volunteer work with the late opposition leader Alexey Navalny's banned political party and for allegedly spreading false information about the Russian army in her reporting on the war in Ukraine. The verdict underscores Moscow's expanding repression, which now targets not only active critics but also those who were once affiliated with opposition groups. Independent outlet Mediazona reported that Komleva had volunteered for Navalny's party before it was outlawed in 2021. She later worked for the independent media outlet RusNews, covering antigovernment protests and Russia's military assault on Ukraine. The Kremlin has escalated its decade-long clampdown on independent media amid its campaign in Ukraine by imposing sweeping censorship laws, effectively banning any criticism of the military. A district court in the central Russian city of Ufa 'found that the defendant participated in the activities of an extremist community' and 'spread deliberately false information about the actions of the armed forces,' it said in a statement. 'The court found the defendant guilty and sentenced her to 12 years in prison,' it added. The journalist did not admit guilt on either charge. Komleva was seen smiling and waving from inside a glass defendants' box after she heard the verdict, and said 'I love you all' to a group of people who came to support her, according to a video published by RusNews. Komleva has diabetes and struggled to receive medication while in pre-trial detention, Mediazona said. Navalny, President Vladimir Putin's main opponent, who died in an Arctic penal colony under unclear circumstances last year, was declared an 'extremist' by Russian authorities in 2021. Russia banned Navalny's organisations in the same fashion shortly before launching its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine and has ruthlessly targeted those it deems to have links to him.
Novaya Gazeta Europe
18-07-2025
- Politics
- Novaya Gazeta Europe
Russian former news anchor sentenced in absentia to 8 years for Freedom of Russia Legion interview — Novaya Gazeta Europe
Russian former national news anchor Farida Kurbangaleyeva has been sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison, independent news outlet Mediazona reported on Friday. Kurbangaleyeva, who resigned from her role in protest over the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea and went into exile, was convicted of spreading 'false information' about the Russian military and 'justifying terrorism'. The second defendant in the case, Alexey Baranovsky, who fought for Ukraine as part of the Freedom of Russia Legion, which fights alongside the Armed Forces of Ukraine against the Russian military, was also sentenced in absentia to six years in a penal colony. The prosecution said that Kurbangaleyeva had 'consciously used her reputation and media resources as a former presenter on a national TV channel' to publish an interview with Baranovsky on her YouTube channel in May 2024, which included 'assertions of … heroism' regarding the legion's activities. The prosecution also considered posts on her Telegram channel to be 'false information' about the army. Kurbangaleyeva hosted the Vesti news programme on Russian state TV channel Rossiya-1 until 2014, and after going into exile she hosted the news on the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty-affiliated TV channel Current Time from 2018 to 2021. She now lives in Prague and runs her own YouTube channel. Reacting to her sentence on her Telegram channel, Kurbangaleyeva wrote: 'I've decided to recover from the blow with a glass of rosé in a café in the town of Châteaufort near Paris. I have to think about how to live with all this…' A Moscow court first issued a warrant for Kurbangaleyeva's arrest in absentia in June 2024, when she was also added to the Russian government's list of 'foreign agents' and 'extremists and terrorists'. In February, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office lodged a formal request with Czechia for the extradition of Kurbangaleyeva, which was turned down. This was the first known instance of Russia submitting an extradition request to an EU country for a Russian citizen facing charges of justifying terrorism or spreading false information.
Novaya Gazeta Europe
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Novaya Gazeta Europe
Russian man sentenced to 3 years in prison for donating €16 to Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation — Novaya Gazeta Europe
A Moscow court has sentenced a man to three years in prison for donating €16 to Alexey Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), independent media outlet Mediazona reported from the courtroom on Tuesday. Dmitry Marsov, a 55-year-old father of five, was arrested on 2 April and charged with making five monthly donations of 300 rubles (about €3) each to the FBK, which was declared 'extremist' by the Russian government in June 2021, between August and December of the same year. Marsov said during interrogation that he had felt remorse for what he had done 'ever since December 2021', when he ended the direct debit, Mediazona reported. He explained that he began making donations to the FBK out of a 'general belief' in fighting corruption, and only subsequently learnt that FBK members 'sullied the name of the country and the government' from abroad. Calling himself a peaceful and law-abiding person, Marsov had willingly given up all his passwords to the police and fully cooperated with the investigation. Marsov's defence team told the court that the donation was lower than the equivalent of the monthly minimum wage, and asked the court to show mercy by imposing a non-custodial sentence. In his closing statement, Marsov said he regretted what he had done, according to Mediazona, and added that it was 'foolish to believe' that any organisation could fight corruption. Marsov's sentence is the latest in a series of cases against Russians whose donations to Navalny-linked organisations had been uncovered by law enforcement accessing their banking details, with another Moscow resident, Alexey Levanov, sentenced in February to 3.5 years in prison for donating to the FBK.
Novaya Gazeta Europe
14-07-2025
- Politics
- Novaya Gazeta Europe
Russian court sentences writer Boris Akunin in absentia to 14 years in prison — Novaya Gazeta Europe
A Moscow court sentenced exiled writer Boris Akunin in absentia to 14 years in prison on Monday, after he was found guilty of 'aiding and justifying terrorism' and violating the law on 'foreign agents', independent news outlet Mediazona has reported. Akunin, whose real name is Grigory Chkhartishvili, is a Russian-Georgian writer famous for his Erast Fandorin novels that have been published in dozens of languages around the world. The charge of aiding terrorism relates to a conversation between Akunin and well-known Russian pranksters Vovan and Lexus, in which the writer encouraged Russian servicemen to switch sides and fight for Ukraine, and called a Ukrainian attack on the Crimean Bridge a 'clear and direct way' to bring the realities of war home to 'stupid people'. The charge of justifying terrorism related to an online post where Akunin said he was for 'revolution, as there is no other way to get rid of a dictatorship', while the third and final charge concerned 'at least 33' Telegram posts to which he had failed to add a notification that the material was by a 'foreign agent', as required by Russian law. Prior to the sentence being handed down on Monday, Akunin wrote that he had taken no part in the trial. 'I don't recognise their court. I have not authorised any lawyer to represent me … and have not been part of this circus in any way.' After the announcement of his sentence, he joked with readers that he would next post in 2043, factoring in the four years subsequent to his release where he would be banned from administering internet websites. Rosfinmonitoring, the Russian financial watchdog, added Akunin, who now lives in London, having left Russia in protest at the annexation of Crimea, to its list of 'terrorists and extremists' in December 2023. The Russian Justice Ministry declared him a 'foreign agent' the following month.
