The head of Russia’s Institute of Contemporary Economics has announced the start of the New Russia political movement, which will attempt to re-format the management of the state and fight economic recession through major reforms.
Russia’s Constitutional Court has ruled that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decision to order compensation of over $2 billion to former Yukos shareholders violates the Russian constitution and cannot be executed.
A Russian Communist Party MP has announced plans to draft a law that would allow alterations to the constitution, such as re-introducing the notion of state ideology in the form of “patriotism and primacy of the state.”
A senior Crimean official has told reporters that residents of the region would welcome a visit by French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, as well as other politicians who support Crimeans’ choice of reunification with Russia.
Russian officials say an ECHR ruling, which orders compensation to people who were prevented from adopting Russian orphans due to the Dima Yakovlev Law, amounts to interference into the affairs of a sovereign nation and a violation of children’s rights.
Over two-thirds of Russians are sure that their country has enemies and over half the population think that these enemies pose a real threat, according to a recent poll conducted by independent research group the Levada Center.
The Crimean State Committee for Inter-Ethnic relations has prepared a draft resolution detailing numerous violations of human rights committed in the republic by the Kiev regime before it seceded from Ukraine and voted to join the Russian Federation.
The lifting of Western sanctions has no separate value and is not even a strategic goal that requires sacrifices in the sphere of strategic security, the head of the upper house’s Committee for International Relations says.
The Russian lower house has given the first nod to a bill that limits foreign stakes in online video services to 20 percent and bans them from running political ads. The bill, however, only applies to video-on-demand sites and not to sharing services such as YouTube.
State Duma chairman Vyacheslav Volodin has met with PACE chief Pedro Agramunt to urge him to make the body more democratic by protecting national delegations from infringements on their rights, including the right to vote.