April 15:
Russia’s first anti-sexual harassment law has been submitted to the State Duma, reports the St. Petersburg Times. Under the law, Russian offenders would face a fine or community service, while non-Russian offenders would face deportation. However, critics such as Muhammad Amin Madzhumder, president of the Federation of Migrants in Russia, have expressed concerns that the bill could be used to deport foreign workers unfairly.
April 16:
Pavel Durov, the founder and former CEO of vKontakte, has disclosed that Russian intelligence services pressed the popular social media site to divulge the personal information of Ukrainian opposition organizers. Social website Mashable cites Durov as writing that the demands were refused by him and his colleagues. "Our response has been and remains a categorical refusal — Russian jurisdiction does not extend to Ukrainian users VKontakte," he wrote in a post on his vKontakte page. "Giving personal details Ukrainians Russian authorities would not only be against the law, but also a betrayal of all those millions of people in Ukraine who have trusted us.”
[EDITORS’ NOTE: Durov has paid dearly for his refusal. On April 1st, he formally stepped down from his role as CEO of the social media site – a move attributed to pressure from shareholders and interested parties to play ball with Russian authorities and shut down or compromise the pages of Russian and Ukrainian opposition activists. Durov wrote in his post that, as part of his departure, he was forced to give up his shares in the website.]
Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine are denying reports that they have called for Jews in Donetsk to register. According to the Times of Israel, official-looking flyers distributed in the region mid-month called on Jewish residents to check in with the newly-declared pro-Russian administration there and formally register their property and belongings in what amounts to a throwback to Nazi practice. But pro-Russian forces, which days earlier had declared an independent Donetsk Republic, denied any involvement in the creation of the flyers, and termed them a provocation designed to impugn the credibility of the separatists.
April 17:
The U.S., EU, Russia, and Ukraine have reached a deal designed to defuse rising tensions in eastern Ukraine, Foreign Policy reports. Under the agreement, the U.S. and EU will not impose new sanctions on Russia as long as both Ukraine and Russia cease all violent activities. All illegal armed groups are expected to disarm pursuant to the deal, and buildings that have been taken over by pro-Russian mobs are to be evacuated. The agreement, however, does not require Russia to withdraw any of the troops it has amassed on its common border with Ukraine.
April 19:
Russia has taken an important step forward in strengthening its ties to the regime of Kim Jong Un in North Korea. Reuters reports that the Russian State Duma has ratified a 2012 agreement between Moscow and Pyongyang under which nearly all of the DPRK’s debt to Russia – estimated at upwards of $10 billion – would be wiped clean. Under the terms of the deal, North Korea will have two decades to pay Russia the remaining $1.09 billion owed. Russian officials have said that that sum could be used to fund “mutual” projects in North Korea, among them a proposed natural gas pipeline and railroad connecting the Stalinist state with neighboring South Korea
Want these sent to your inbox?
Subscribe