February 1:
Russia's New Times magazine has received an official warning from the country's state censor, reports Ukraine's Meduza news portal. The formal reason for the notice, according to ROSKOMNADZOR, was the magazine's failure to indicate in a recent article that Ukraine's Right Sector ultranationalist group is banned as extremist in Russia. However, speculation abounds regarding an ulterior, and more personal, motive behind the Russian government's attention; the warning came shortly after the magazine published a story about the private life and motherhood of Russian President Vladimir Putin's eldest daughter, and follows on the heels of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) cyberattack that shut down the site.
Russia's deteriorating diplomatic relations with Turkey are playing out in the country's regional politics. TheFinancial Times reports that the largely-Muslim republic of Tatarstan, which boasts strong ties to Turkey, is suffering from a pronounced decline in the local economy amid restrictions on trade imposed by the Kremlin in response to Turkey's downing of a Russian fighter jet back in November. "This is a political fight, but you are punishing businesses and the people," one local businessman tells the FT.
February 2:
The United States has added five more people to the Magnitsky List, reports Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Passed in 2012, the List now contains the names of 39 people who were involved in human rights abuses connected with the 2009 death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. Magnitsky was arrested, charged with fraud, convicted on tax evasion charges and subsequently died of mistreatment in prison after having uncovered a $230 million tax fraud scheme.
According to Current Time, the Russian Ministry of Justice has sent the country's Constitutional Court a formal appeal in response to a European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decision in the case of Anchurov and Hladkov vs Russia. In its verdict, the ECHR declared that prisoners in detention centers are nonetheless entitled to vote in elections to appoint public authorities. The Ministry of Justice, however, claims that the decision directly violates the Russian Constitution, and argues that the Russian government can dispute the ruling in its own courts because Russian law takes precedence over international law.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has appointed a new head of military intelligence. According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Lieutenant General Igor Korobov has been formally tapped by the Kremlin to head the GRU. Korobov, a longtime Russian military intelligence officer, is seen by Russia watchers as a "continuity choice." He replaces Colonel General Igor Sergun, who died back in January of purported heart failure.
Despite triumphant talk from the Kremlin, Russia's demographic fortunes continue to decline. News website Polit.ru reports that the "club" of demographically depressed regions of Russia has surged. ROSSTAT, Russia's state statistics agency, has chronicled "a record addition to the group of regions in which the population is shrinking - their number has grown from 46 to 53," the news portal reports. The number of Russian Federation "subjects" that are experiencing "negative demographic values" now stands at its highest point ever. This is so even though the national population of Russia has grown ever so slightly (increasing by 0.17% between January of 2015 and January of 2016), something which Russian officials have cited as proof that their demographic strategy of reducing mortality and increasing fertility is working.
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