Stories about Russia from August, 2015
31 August 2015
This Ukrainian Artist Is Drawing Comics About His Imprisonment By Pro-Russian Militants in Donetsk
A Ukrainian guerrilla artist whose street art got him kidnapped and tortured by pro-Russian militants is working on a comic book to raise awareness of prisoners in occupied eastern Ukraine.
27 August 2015
An Indigenous Reindeer Herder Takes on Oil Giants in Siberia
Sergey Kechimov faces two years in prison, accused of threatening to kill two oil workers. He is one of the last Khanty people living near the 'sacred' Imlor Lake.
26 August 2015
This Is What Happened When a Ukrainian Film Director Was Sentenced to 20 Years in a Russian Prison
When Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov was sentenced to 20 years in a high-security Russian prison on terrorism charges, Russian and Ukrainian Internet users were less than pleased.
24 August 2015
Think You're So Clever, Wikipedia? Russian Censors Are Blocking You Anyway
Though Wikipedia has tried to circumvent Russian censors' demands to remove content, the Kremlin seems intent on blocking the website at all costs.
Did Russia's Biggest Search Engine Censor Itself to Protect Putin's Spokesman?
Vladimir Putin's spokesman is back in the news, after Internet users discovered this weekend that Yandex, the country’s most popular search engine, might be censoring itself to protect him.
22 August 2015
Did Wikipedia Just Outsmart Russia's Internet Blacklist?
Wikipedia is trying something new in the fight against Russian censorship, and it might actually work.
20 August 2015
That's the Last Time This Cafe Owner Messes with a Supermodel's Autistic Sister
What happened when a cafe owner tried to eject from his business a 27-year-old customer named Oksana, diagnosed with autism and cerebral palsy, saying she was scaring away customers?
19 August 2015
How One News Website Is Taking On Russia's Attorney General (and Losing)
How one small oppositionist news website has gobbled up almost half the Russian Attorney General's online censorship efforts.
Russia Blocks Euronews ISIS Video Over ‘Extremist’ User Comment
Russian censors have blocked another YouTube video, although it did not violate any Russian laws. Instead, an offending user comment under the video caused Roscomnadzor to ban the page wholesale.
17 August 2015
Russian Censors Falsify Evidence Against Newspaper to Uphold Ban on Political Coverage
Last weekend, in an appeals case by one newspaper against the government, state censors finally revealed specifically why they banned several news stories last year about a protest in Siberia.
11 August 2015
Eat Your Heart Out, Boston Tea Party. This Is How Russia Destroys Food.
RuNet Echo collects some of the most poignant jokes and statements from Russian-language Twitter about Russia's new war on banned Western food imports.
10 August 2015
Pro-Russian Web Network Digs Up the Dirt on Kremlin Critics
Some of the sites in the pro-Kremlin network aim to attack Ukrainian politicians and Russian opposition figures by way of "personal dossiers" and alleged "dirt" dug up on the individuals.
8 August 2015
Russia's Democratic Coalition Is On The Ropes
The Democratic Coalition has recently been barred from various regional elections this September, as its grand ambitions have collided full force with the harsh reality of politics in Putin's Russia.
7 August 2015
Russia Hacks the Military Again (Its Own)
Russian hackers Anonymous International are shaming the country's Defense Ministry for poor information security practices by leaking sensitive documents that were allegedly sent via free email services.
6 August 2015
Russian Internet, Say Hello to Barbra Streisand
We look at four prominent examples of the Streisand effect on the RuNet, when banned articles, shut-down websites, and pirated movies exploded online not unlike Streisand's Malibu mansion in 2003.
5 August 2015
Russia's ‘Draconian’ Internet Laws Mostly Ignored By Industry Experts
Russian Internet laws have been called "draconian" and accused of limiting free speech. But a recent study found that Russian online industry and experts actually know little about these regulations.
2 August 2015
Selfie Empowerment: Russian Communists Want Your Lenin Selfies
Young Russian Communists want to make Lenin hip again—so they're proposing a flashmob campaign that involves taking selfies with Lenin statues.
Russia's Mustachioed Corruption
A day after Putin's press secretary wed, Russia’s most famous anti-corruption activist has published evidence that Dmitry Peskov wears a wristwatch worth at least $620,000.
