Russian diary 

Russian whistleblower’s fate

The Moscow City Court has confirmed the 3.5 years suspended sentence for Aleksey Navalny rejecting appeals by defense and prosecution alike.

However, the city court canceled the earlier ruling that ordered Aleksey Navalny to pay a 500,000-ruble (about $8000) fine.

The ruling was passed on Tuesday after the court considered appeals within the so-called ‘Yves Rocher Case’. The initial sentence in this case was passed by a district court in late December, and according to it the prominent anti-corruption blogger-turned opposition activist, Aleksey Navalny, was given a suspended 3.5 year sentence. Navalny’s brother Oleg got 3.5 years in prison. Both brothers were convicted of embezzling over $500,000 from cosmetics company Yves Rocher.

Moscow court upholds probation sentence for opposition figure Navalny

Defense

Large-scale drills of Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces (RVSN) that embraced more than 20 regions - from the Tula to Irkutsk regions - have ended, Defense Ministry’s spokesman for RVSN Colonel Igor Yegorov said on Monday.

"RVSN units have had more than 600 combat drills, including the study of survivability of divisions armed with the Topol, Topol-M and Yars land-based mobile missile systems in various combat conditions," Yegorov said.

Major Strategic Missile Forces drills over in Russia — Defense Ministry

Combating extremism

The State Duma Committee for Constitutional Law has approved a set of amendments that, once passed, would introduce tougher punishment for public calls for extremism in the mass media.

The committee suggested that bill, drafted by the government is put on the first vote in the State Duma on February 20, TASS reported.

The motion contains amendments to the Administrative Code introducing responsibility for releasing any mass media with public calls for terrorism or justifying terrorism. The proposed punishment is a fine between 100,000 and 1 million rubles (about $1,500-$15,000) levied on the company that owns the medium or media. If there is a physical medium containing the illegal material it must be confiscated.

Parliamentary body backs higher extremism fines

Refugees from Ukraine

More than 265,000 Ukrainian nationals, forced to flee their homes amid continuing violence in the country’s south-east, have been granted temporary shelter and official refugee status in Russia, Federal Migration Service (FMS) said on Monday.

"More than 290,000 people have applied for asylum, which includes temporary shelter and refugee status. About 265,000 have already got it," FMS citizenship department head Valentina Kazakova told journalists, noting that more than 900,000 refugees from Ukraine’s south-eastern regions were currently residing in Russia.

Over 265,000 Ukrainians granted temporary shelter, refugee status in Russia

Poll results

The latest poll has shown that 85 percent of Russian citizens trust President Vladimir Putin and 74 percent say they would vote for him if presidential elections were held next weekend.

The poll, conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation on February 7-8 and released on February 13, shows that the current 85 percent trust rating is up from 75 percent in February 2014. The share of those who said they were ready to vote for Putin was also up from 45 percent one year ago.

Putin’s trust rating hits 85% historical high

Ukraine's jailed ex-military Savchenko 

Doctors from Germany have assessed the health condition of Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko as satisfactory, the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) reported Monday.

The service told TASS that German medical specialists "checked the dynamics of her health for the entire period of her detention" and examined her.

"There have been no differences in the assessment of her health on the part of foreign colleagues and FSIN doctors," FSIN said. Besides, German experts did not find grounds for an additional examination and treatment.

Doctors from Germany assess Ukrainian pilot Savchenko’s health condition as satisfactory

Protesting against anti-crisis program

The opposition coalition Solidarity has submitted a request for a major march against the authorities’ anti-crisis measures on March 1. Moscow City Hall is yet to grant approval for the rally.

The news about the application was reported by one of Solidarity’s key activists, Sergey Davidis. He told Interfax the event would be named simply ‘Spring’ and the maximum turnout is estimated at 100,000. The main objective of the march is to express discontent with the anti-crisis program of the authorities, Davidis elaborated.

Opposition requests license for 100,000 strong rally in Moscow

Combating drug trafficking

The distribution of cocaine is expanding, around five tons of this drug gets to Russia annually, Russian Federal Drug Control Service head Viktor Ivanov told journalists on Tuesday.

"We see that the inflow of cocaine is growing. Of course, it is not yet comparable to heroin turnover. We assess it [cocaine turnover] at five tons that get to Russia. We jointly intercept around 0.5-1 ton, but the rest seeps through with the help of conspirational cells of the international drug cartel," Ivanov said.

Around 5 tons of cocaine gets to Russia annually - drug control service

Weapons seizure

Officers of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in Crimea have seized caches of the Right Sector Ukrainian ultranationalist far-right movement that were designed for organization of mass riots, the head of the regional FSB department in Crimea and Sevastopol Viktor Palagin said Tuesday.

"Two caches that were prepared here for the Right Sector, for organization of mass disorders and opposition to power bodies, have been seized," Palagin said at an extended meeting of the Crimean prosecutor’s office’s board.

Russian Federal Security Service seizes caches with weapons for mass riots in Crimea