On November 10, a court in Ufa jailed Liliya Chanysheva for two months pending trial for 'extremism.' The former head of Alexey Navalny's regional campaign office in Bashkiria, Chanysheva is the first suspect to be arrested as part of a criminal case opened against the imprisoned opposition leader and his close associates for creating an "extremist group." Investigators launched the case retroactively in late September 2021, months after a Moscow court outlawed Navalny's anti-corruption nonprofits and countrywide political network as "extremist" organizations. During her arraignment, Chanysheva told the court that she may be in the early stages of pregnancy. Nevertheless, she was remanded in custody until January 9, 2022. If found guilty, she will face up to a decade in prison.

Natalia Poklonskaya is one of the few politicians in Russia with international recognition. She owes this reputation to her two years as Crimea's first post-annexation attorney general (inspiring several Internet memes based on her demure public presence). Afterward, she moved to Moscow and served one term as a federal lawmaker in Russia's State Duma, drawing the media's attention for her religious conservativism and opposition to raising the country's retirement ages (she was the only United Russia deputy to vote against the party's unpopular pension reforms).

On Friday, November 12, Russia's Presidential Human Rights Council released a statement of concern in response to prosecutors asking the courts to liquidate Memorial International and the Memorial Human Rights Center (Memorial HRC).

Nineteen-year-old Katya Levchenko disappeared in the spring of 2017, but it wasn't until February 2020 that her mother, Tatyana, learned that Katya had died. That's when Meduza released an investigation that outlined several Penza Network case suspects' possible involvement in the murder of Katya Levchenko and her boyfriend Artyom Dorofeyev, who disappeared along with her. In early October 2021, Maxim, who had already been sentenced to 13 years in prison for allegedly plotting terrorist activity (the Russian authorities consider the Network a terrorist organization) and attempting to sell illegal drugs, was charged with Levchenko's and Ivankin's murders. Soon after, another Network case suspect, Alexey Poltavets, who first told Meduza about the murders and confessed to one of them himself, was put on the wanted list. Meduza special correspondent Kristina Safonova spoke with Tatyana Levchenko about her daughter's life and death, her attitude towards Ivankin, last year's investigation, and a future without Katya.

Roughly two-thirds (65 percent) of Russians say they're unaware that the state authorities maintain a registry of "foreign agent" media outlets, which currently includes independent publications like Meduza and Dozhd television. Just 34 percent of respondents in a new survey by the Levada Center told pollsters that they've heard something about this.

Darknet forums and Telegram channels have started selling databases containing the personal information of Russians who purchased fake COVID-19 vaccination certificates and forged PCR test results. Journalists at Kommersant spoke to one vendor who offered to sell them a database with 1,000 lines of information for $120. The file contained people's passport numbers, insurance policy numbers, telephone numbers, home addresses, and information about when they received their forged documents.

As Russia confronts its latest wave of deadly coronavirus infections, the state media wages a war against homegrown vaccine skeptics. Journalists call them "halfwit anti-vaxxers" and "imbecile murderers." Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of Russia Today, has raised questions about these individuals' basic "cognitive abilities" and accused them of poisoning the nation's solidarity, prompting allegations of hate speech against Russia's anti-vaccine community. These same people, however, adore Simonyan's main product: RT's reporting for foreign audiences. And it's no wonder why: When it comes to pandemic coverage at the network's English-language division and especially its German-language branch, Russia Today actively amplifies unscientific information about COVID-19 and features many guests who are openly hostile to the very idea of vaccination. As a result, RT's content for audiences abroad becomes material that Russia's own vaccine opponents cite as "proof" against the need for inoculation.

Russian citizens in need of public housing often go decades without receiving assistance. Meanwhile, hundreds of government officials -- including ministers, governors, and their deputies -- have received tens of millions of rubles in housing subsidies since 2012, according to a joint report from iStories and Transparency International Russia. What's more, the investigation uncovered that some of these officials deemed "needy" already owned multiple pieces of real estate. Meanwhile, others have used these funds to purchase additional properties or, by all appearances, haven't used this government money to purchase any housing at all. Meduza summarizes the report's findings here.

A district court in Ufa has jailed political activist Liliya Chanysheva for two months pending trial, her lawyer Vladimir Voronin reported on Wednesday, November 10.

Russian prosecutors have terminated the criminal case against former inmate and whistleblower Sergey Savelyev, reports the human rights group Gulagu.net.