Russia & Central Asia

Four men accused of staging the Russia concert hall attack that killed more than 130 people appeared before a Moscow court Sunday showing signs of severe beatings as they faced formal terrorism charges. One appeared to be barely conscious during the hearing.

The suburban Moscow music hall where gunmen opened fire on concertgoers was a blackened, smouldering ruin Saturday as the death toll in the attack surpassed 130 and Russian authorities arrested four suspects. 

Eleven people have been detained after gunmen stormed a concert hall in Moscow and opened fire on the crowd, the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service told President Vladimir Putin on Saturday, according to Russian state news agency Tass.

Several assailants stormed a Moscow concert hall, firing at the crowd, leaving over 60 dead, 145 injured, and setting the venue ablaze. This occurred shortly after President Putin's electoral victory.

Russian President Vladimir Putin basked in a victory early Monday that was never in doubt, as partial election results showed him easily securing a fifth term after facing only token challengers and harshly suppressing opposition voices.

Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine on Friday of trying to disrupt a Russian presidential election that is virtually certain to hand him six more years in the Kremlin and said Moscow would punish Kyiv for its latest attacks.

Associates of late opposition leader Alexei Navalny said late Tuesday that the politician’s close ally and top strategist was attacked near his home in Lithuania’s capital.

Ukrainian sea drones reportedly sank another Russian warship in the Black Sea on Tuesday, the latest in a series of strikes that has crippled Moscow’s naval capability and limited its operations with the war now in its third year.

Under a heavy police presence, thousands of people bade farewell Friday to opposition leader Alexei Navalny at his funeral in Moscow after his still-unexplained death two weeks ago in an Arctic penal colony.

Russia’s 2024 presidential election isn’t expected to bring change to the Kremlin. With most opposition figures either in jail or abroad and many independent media outlets blocked, the Kremlin maintains tight control over the country’s political system.

The body of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been handed over to his mother, a top aide to Navalny said Saturday on his social media account.

President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia was against the deployment of nuclear weapons in space and his defence minister flatly denied US claims that Russia was developing a nuclear capability for space.

Alexei Navalny, Russia’s top opposition leader and President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe, died in prison on Friday, a statement from the Federal Penitentiary Service said.