September 2024
Putin’s propaganda queen admits covertly working to get Trump elected
While the Kremlin has denied US claims of meddling in the election, Margarita Simonyan proudly admits her work is at the behest of the Russian government.
- Robyn Dixon
August 2024
Why a Russian tech billionaire who stood up to Putin is now a target
Pavel Durov, who founded secret, successful messaging app Telegram in 2013, has been arrested in France, sparking outrage from free speech campaigners.
- Updated
- Abigail Buchanan
April 2024
How this Wirecard executive ran a brutal Russian spy ring
Former COO Jan Marsalek used agents in Vienna to plot break-ins and assassinations by Russian hit squads, prosecutors claim.
- Sam Jones
March 2024
- Analysis
- Putin's Russia
Moscow attack exposes Putin’s weakness
After the concert attack, Vladimir Putin ignored a claim of responsibility by the Islamic State, tried to implicate Ukraine and mischaracterised a US warning.
- Catherine Belton and Robyn Dixon
Putin cements hold on power in election with no serious opposition
Vladimir Putin, who came to power in 1999, easily won a new six-year term that would make him Russia’s longest-serving leader for more than 200 years.
- Anton Troianovski and Nanna Heitmann
Putin set for poll victory as Ukraine launches drone attacks
Vladimir Putin is set to win another six years in power in an election marked by Ukraine’s efforts to sabotage the poll with drone attacks on Russian soil.
- Updated
- Mark Trevelyan and Felix Light
‘You weren’t afraid’: Mourners defy riot police at Navalny’s funeral
Hundreds of Russians braved riot police and the threat of arrest to attend the funeral of opposition leader Alexei Navalny after his death in a prison camp.
- Katie Marie Davies
February 2024
- Opinion
- NATO
Europe needs to prepare for the end of NATO
Russian aggression and American wavering reveal how ill-equipped Europe is to defend itself.
- The Economist
US imposes major new sanctions on Russia after Navalny’s death
The Biden administration is targeting Russia’s financial sector and military-industrial complex in a broad effort to degrade the Kremlin’s war machine.
- Alan Rappeport
‘Riddled with bullets’: Russian defector hunted down in Spain
The helicopter pilot who defected to Ukraine last year was found dead in a Spanish coastal town, fuelling speculation Moscow’s intelligence services were responsible.
- Michael Schwirtz and Constant Méheut
The death throes of a Ukrainian city
Avdiivka fell to the Russians after some of the most horrific and destructive fighting of the two-year-old war.
- Marc Santora a
Inside Polar Wolf, the sadistic centrepiece of Putin’s gulag archipelago
The prison where Alexei Navalny, Russia’s top opposition leader, died in mysterious circumstances is part of a network of about 700 penal colonies and has a reputation for cruelty.
- James Kilner
- Opinion
- The AFR View
Once a KGB thug…
During the Cold War, many on the political left in Western countries looked through the repression of the Russian people. Today, the moral equivalence of Russia’s “useful idiots” is on the populist political right.
- The AFR View
Navalny’s allies accuse Russia of murder cover-up
Police arrest hundreds of people at spontaneous memorial gatherings in Russia for the jailed opposition activist and Putin critic who died suddenly.
- Emma Burrows
Putin’s power ‘now absolute’ after Navalny’s death
The Russian president despised the popular opposition figure and security forces will ensure his mourners are arrested “and then everything will die out”.
- Max Seddon, Anastasia Stognei and Polina Ivanova
Leaders hail Navalny as hero, blame Putin for his death
Australian political leaders have labelled Alexei Navalny a “courageous force for democracy”, joining the global outcry over the Russian opposition leader’s reported death.
- Updated
- Dasha Litvinova and Steven Deare
Putin critic Alexei Navalny dies in Arctic prison camp
Alexei Navalny, the Russian lawyer and activist who became the most potent voice in opposition to President Vladimir Putin, died in his prison camp on Friday.
- Updated
- Benedict Smith, Cameron Henderson, Timothy Sigsworth and Peter Baker
December 2023
Missing Russian dissident Navalny located in Siberian penal colony
Vladimir Putin’s most formidable political foe is being kept in a prison in the town of Kharp, the site of some of the harshest camps of the gulag system.
- Mary Ilyushina
September 2023
- Opinion
- World politics
Trump’s trials will inspire a global epidemic of whataboutism
The spectacle of a leading candidate in the US presidential election facing possible imprisonment is still a gift for authoritarian governments.
- Gideon Rachman
August 2023
Poison, prison or death: Putin purges Wagner boss ‘traitor’
In today’s Russia, fates can quickly change in a system in which affronts to Vladimir Putin are neither forgiven nor forgotten.
- Paul Sonne