MEDUZA/EN/VHF

Anna Tsivilyova, the wife of the governor of Russia's Kemerovo region, happens to be the daughter of Russian President Vladimir Putin's cousin, according to a new report from the investigative outlet Agentstvo. What's more, according to the journalists' findings, she and her husband acquired a major stake in one of Russia's biggest coal companies thanks to the generosity of one of Putin's oldest friends -- billionaire Gennady Timchenko. Though the coal company, Kolmar, had financial troubles in the past, it has since been propped up by the Russian government.

After last week's talks between Russia, the United States, and NATO led to no apparent breakthroughs on European security, speculation has resumed in the West that Moscow is preparing an expanded invasion of Ukraine that could begin at any time. The Kremlin denies any plans to attack Ukraine, but policymakers in Kyiv and Washington say the Russian military's buildup near Ukraine's borders suggests otherwise. Some experts in the West, including several former senior U.S. military personnel, now argue that the Ukrainian Army might be able to withstand a Russian onslaught, if it receives all feasible support from NATO. Hoping that is purely a thought experiment, Meduza reviews some of the theories about how a larger war between Russia and Ukraine could unfold.

The prisoners' rights group Gulagu.net (No to the Gulag) has released a new video evidencing the abuse of inmates in prisons in Russia's Omsk region.

A Moscow court has fined Novaya Gazeta and its editor-in-chief, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov, for failing to appropriately label a "prohibited organization" in the newspaper's reporting.

The Russian State Duma Council unanimously agreed to withdraw from consideration a controversial bill that would require QR-code vaccine passes for accessing many public spaces, parliamentary speaker Vyacheslav Volodin announced on Monday, January 17.

On the morning of Monday, January 17, Ukraine's former president, lawmaker Petro Poroshenko, arrived in Kyiv after spending nearly a month abroad. An estimated 3,000-4,000 people met him at Kyiv's Zhuliany Airport; some of his supporters carried Ukrainian flags and posters with pro-Poroshenko slogans. At passport control, Poroshenko was met by officials from Ukraine's State Investigation Bureau. His passport was taken away for around 15 minutes, but then returned to him. The state investigators attempted to serve Poroshenko with a subpoena but he refused to take the document. Poroshenko then proceeded to hold an impromptu rally, addressing his supporters gathered outside the airport and urging them to support him in court.

On February 2, a Moscow court incarcerated Alexey Navalny, making him not only Russia's most outspoken opposition politician and most serious opponent to Vladimir Putin but also the country's most famous political prisoner. Drawing heavily on work by Evgeny Feldman, Meduza studied photo archives to recall how Navalny went from a young Moscow activist and blogger in the mid-2000s to the international figure he is today. His journey, which features arrests, political campaigns, criminal cases, assaults, and a near-fatal poisoning, hasn't been easy.

On January 17, 2021, Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny was arrested at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport immediately upon returning to Russia from Germany, where he had spent months recovering from a near-fatal poisoning. Navalny would go on to spend the next year behind bars, first in Moscow's Matrosskaya Tishina remand prison and then in a prison colony in the Vladimir region, where he is still in custody today. The Kremlin critic was incarcerated under a reinstated sentence after Russia's Penitentiary Service accused him of parole violations. Navalny was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, but given the number of ongoing criminal cases against him, the opposition leader says he's not counting the days until his release. To mark the anniversary of Alexey Navalny's arrest, his supporters rallied in dozens of cities around the world to call for his freedom. Here's what the rallies looked like from Moscow to Miami.

Russia's week of security talks with the U.S., NATO, and the OSCE wrapped up on Thursday, January 13. The meetings took place amid ongoing international concern over Russia concentrating troops near its border with Ukraine. However, the talks didn't result in any agreements, as each party refused to budge key issues. Russia has demanded an array of security guarantees, including that NATO rule out membership for Ukraine and Georgia. But both the alliance and Washington insist that Moscow has no say in the matter. For Meduza, political scientist Igor Zevelev breaks down why this week's talks failed to produce results and where there may be room for negotiations.

Precious little is known about the immediate family of Kazakhstani President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. But according to a recent investigation from RFE/RL's Russian Service and Current Time TV, Tokayev's ex-wife and son are both closely connected to Russia. Indeed, according to media reports, Tokayev's ex-wife is a Russian citizen. And both she and her son have been linked to pricey real estate in and around Moscow. More recently, their ownership of two apartments in the Russian capital appears to have been covered up in Russia's federal property database. Meduza summarizes the investigation's findings here.