April 28:
Ukraine's recent agreement to a quarter-century extension of Russia's naval presence at the Crimean port of Sevastopol has touched off protests in the former Soviet republic. According to the Associated Press, nationalist protesters in Ukraine resorted to smoke-bombing a parliamentary session and throwing eggs at speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn to protest what they view as a prolonged occupation of Ukraine by the Russian navy. Many view the new agreement - avoided by previous governments in Kyiv - as a reflection of new President Viktor Yanukovych's more overtly pro-Russian stance. The lease extension passed the 450-seat Ukrainian parliament with a majority of 236 votes, but the opposition, led by former premier Yulia Tymoshenko, has vowed it would eventually be reversed.
April 29:
Russia has published secret files regarding the massacre of approximately 22,000 Polish officers by Stalin's secret police in 1940. 9 News and the Agence France Presse report that although the published documents relating to the Katyn massacre were originally declassified in 1992 and released to Polish officials at that time, those recently posted on the Russian archives website are originals, previously only available in print to visiting researchers. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev announced while on a visit to Denmark that his orders to publish the files were intended as a goodwill gesture toward Poland, and indicated that there were more documents relating to the incident still to be released.
American adoptions of Russian children will be slowed down, but allowed to continue as Russia and the United States work toward a new agreement to govern the adoption process. Russia has the third-highest contributing number of foreign adoptions to the United States according to Reuters, but the recent attempt by an American adoptive mother to return her seven-year-old Russian-born child by sending him alone on a one-way ticket to Russia sparked widespread outrage in both countries. Officials are currently cautiously optimistic that talks can lead to a better system of adoptions between Russia and the United States, but the rate of adoptions has remained slow in recent months.
April 30:
The Russian newspaper Vedomosti has filed a defamation suit against State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov for his allegations that the paper has ties to the Chechen rebels responsible for the recent Moscow Metro bombings. The St. Petersburg Times reports that Gryzlov based his accusations on two articles published shortly after the bombings, which pointed out the threat by Chechen rebels to "bring the war in the North Caucasus to the Russian heartland." After Gryzlov refused to give a formal apology for his claim, the paper's parent company filed a suit with the court. The case comes just days after the introduction of a Duma bill which could grant the FSB the power to arrest journalists and publishers for a refusal to remove or retract articles deemed a threat.
May 1:
The number of deaths in Russia caused by racist crime have declined significantly in the first four months of 2010, compared to last year. The decrease, noted by human rights watchdog SOVA, is not directly attributable to any concrete factor, though some activists cite the increasingly harsh stance taken by Russian courts toward hate crimes. According to Reuters, most race crimes are the work of Russian nationalists against darker-skinned (often Muslim) migrants looking for work in Russia. SOVA's report identifies 15 people killed and 103 injured between January and April of this year, down from the 30 people killed and 149 injured during the same time period in 2009.
May 2:
For the thirteenth straight year, the United States has placed Russia on an intellectual property watch list for its inability to prevent copyright theft. Reuters reports that this placement is not tied to material threats of sanctions, but rather relies on shaming the involved nations into addressing piracy and copyright infringement issues. Last year, the United States lost an estimated $1.9 billion in Russia as a result of piracy, according to a report by the International Intellectual Property Alliance. Algeria, Argentina, Canada, Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Thailand, and Venezuela were also placed on the watch list, while Taiwan was removed for only the second time in more than a decade.
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