Russian submarine sailors buried in St. Petersburg

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny says he is facing a "mockery of justice" as police in Moscow organised a makeshift hearing in a police station a day after his dramatic airport arrest.

A Moscow court jails the Kremlin's most prominent critic Alexei Navalny for nearly three years, triggering more protests resulting in more than a thousand arrests.

Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny is serving his two and a half years sentence for violating parole at penal colony no.2 in the provincial town of Pokrov, 100 kilometres east of Moscow. It is part of a sprawling network of some 684 work colonies that today holds some 393,000 prisoners. The system requires inmates to carry out menial labour for a meagre salary and is routinely flagged by Russian advocacy groups for imposing long working hours and overlooking harsh conditions.

TikTok became a site for anti-Kremlin content during recent opposition protests in Russia. Now, the tightening grip of the authorities on social media platforms and the internet could push bloggers into opposition.

Russia's government is using an extremism trial to put an end to the movement surrounding the opposition figure Alexei Navalny.

Russia's presidential regiment, a prestigious regiment responsible for keeping watch over the Kremlin in Moscow, hosts a changing of the guard ceremony. The traditional display resumed this year after a year's hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic, and was accompanied by music performed by the Kremlin orchestra. Both cavalry and foot soldiers this year joined the display, in which members of the regiment carry out maneuvers and exercises to exhibit a mastery of arms and horsemanship.

The US actor, a longtime admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin, says he wants to crack down on businesses that harm the environment.

Two outlets backed by the London-based Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky were blocked for users in Russia. It represents the latest crackdown on freedom of the press in Russia.

The election monitoring group Golos has been added to a list of organizations with foreign backers. The move comes a month before Russia's parliamentary vote.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is in self-isolation after cases of the coronavirus emerged in his inner circle. He will skip a regional summit in Tajikistan that he was scheduled to attend later in the week.

The Russian president is likely to self-isolate for at least another week. He cancelled all in-person events earlier this week after announcing the outbreak.

The Kremlin seemed to distance itself from a threat made by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko amid a standoff with the European Union.