Mike Eckel

Russian officials make no secret of what a new law signed by President Vladimir Putin is intended to do: strip basic legal rights from many Russians living outside the country, and scare them into silence.

A former US Marine who has been held in a Russian prison since 2022 and had been reported to be in serious medical condition in recent weeks has been freed and is being flown back to the United States.

A children’s song. Doves. Suprematist art. A Hiroshima photograph. Few were surprised by the court decision banning Russia’s Yabloko party from running in upcoming Duma elections. Many were perplexed over how authorities went about doing it.

With the blessing of the Russian Orthodox Church, officials unearthed the remains of a warrior prince whose 14th-century battlefield victory is a seminal moment in Russian history. Fragments are now being sent to the front lines in Moscow’s war on Ukraine.

It’s the first time since the all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022 that Russians will cast ballots to fill the 450-seat lower house of parliament. Here are five things to know about the tightly controlled vote for the State Duma.

By most accounts, the Ukrainian counteroffensive is shaping up to be one of the largest shifts on the battlefield in months, possibly in a year.

The US Justice Department has released a declassified indictment against five people, including two Russian citizens, who, allegedly on orders from Russian intelligence services, plotted assassinations and sabotage around the world, including in the United States.

Powerful phone hacking software built by Russian-owned Oxygen Forensics was used by dozens of US and European government agencies, including the FBI and the Secret Service. One former agent used it to pull thousands of hidden files from Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Last week, a Russian military satellite came “exceptionally close” to another Finnish-operated satellite that provides intelligence to Ukraine. “It’s concerning and aggressive with potential hostile intent – but I also think cooler heads believe it is signaling on the part of the Russians.”

US officials publicly accused Russia of threatening a Finnish-operated commercial satellite that provides imagery and intelligence to Ukraine and other nations, calling the move “deliberately reckless.”