Russian authorities took another step toward stifling media freedom and free speech in general on Tuesday, when lawmakerspassed a bill that criminalizes the discrediting and the publishing “false” news about any force fighting for Russia in Ukraine, not only the Russian Army.

Russian opposition leaderAlexei Navalny has been imprisoned for nearly 800 days in one of Russia’s most dreadful prison colonies when a documentary on his poisoning and political activitieswon the Oscar as an outstanding documentary feature.

Police fired tear gas at thousands of protesters in front of the parliament building in Tbilisi on Tuesday as lawmakers passed on first reading the controversial “foreign agent” bill which many fear could be used to crack down on independent media and civil society.

A single father, who wasarrested last week and then put under house arrest in Russia because his 12-year-old daughter Masha drew an antiwar picture in school, has not yet been reunited with his daughter, Russian mediareported Monday.

A Russian court Tuesdayfined the Wikimedia Foundation two million roubles (US$27,000) for spreading ‘misinformation’ after Wikipedia refused to delete information pertaining to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The U.S. Department of Justicefiled two separate cases against a Russian oligarch, in its latest efforts to disrupt money laundering and smuggling networks which support the Russian regime’s war in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reputed girlfriend, former Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva, has enjoyed the use of "the largest apartment in Russia'' since 2011 — a 2,600 square meter penthouse with 20 rooms in Sochi. Another three flats in the Black Sea resort were registered in the name of her grandma,according to a new investigation by The Project.

Though they once boasted one of the world’s most robust environments for organized crime since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the criminal ecosystem in Russia and Ukraine has fractured since Russian president Vladimir Putin’s launched his invasion one year ago, according to anew report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC).

OCCRP joined the Londongrad Kleptocracy Tour, organized by campaigners trying to get dirty money out of the U.K.’s capital, to ask what measures are still needed to fight kleptocracy and corruption.

Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, which enters its second year, has so far claimed the lives of over 8,000 Ukrainian people, including nearly a dozen journalists.

Russia has “systematically relocated” possibly more than 6,000 children from Ukraine to several re-educating and adoption facilities in occupied Crimea and mainland Russia, which could be considered a war crime, the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) warned.

The European Union blacklisted Russia, Costa Rica, the British Virgin Islands and the Marshall Islands as tax havens on Tuesday, bringing the total number of blacklisted countries to 16, the Council of the EUsaid. The new list has already drawn criticism from experts.

The infamous Russian mercenary group Wagner has stopped recruiting convicts for its operations in Ukraine, the leader of the group announced on social media.

U.S. prosecutors have charged a friend of Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg with sanctions violation and money laundering because he allegedly helped maintain Vekselberg’s properties in the U.S. and even tried to sell two of them.

A Russian cryptocurrency money laundererpleaded guilty in U.S. federal court, tying off a conspiracy in which he and his partners laundered the proceeds of the Ryuk ransomware from 2018 to 2021.

Russia’s persecution of critics of the Kremlin or of the invasion of Ukraine is lately taking bizarre twists, with Russians living abroad being sentenced in absentia for spreading fake news to people in Russia paying fines for dreaming about Volodimir Zelensky.

The U.K. Foreign Secretary unleashed a new round of sanctions Wednesday against the Russian military and Kremlin elites, targeting among others an IT services company linked by OCCRP and Meduza last year to more than 80 interconnected firms with billions in assets and all tied to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Italian far-right politicians and businessmen accepted sponsored trips to Crimea arranged by a Russian influence group, effectively recognizing Moscow’s occupation of the Ukrainian region as legitimate.

A secretive Moscow group cultivated ties with Cypriot politicians and successfully pushed through a motion in Cyprus’s parliament calling for an end to EU sanctions against Russia. Russian-Cypriot businessman Dmitry Kozlov, who developed links with top politicians and even set up a political party in Cyprus, played a key role in these machinations.

For years, a secret organization run from inside Russia’s parliament successfully interfered with European policies on occupied Ukraine. Leaked emails give a new overview of the operation and show how European Union politicians who helped push Moscow’s agenda were offered cash and perks.