Sergey Zuyev, the rector of the Moscow School for the Social and Economic Sciences ("Shaninka"), was detained in connection with the fraud case against Russia's former deputy education minister Marina Rakova, two sources told Meduza on Tuesday, October 12.

In the Siberian city of Yakutsk on October 12, Russia's censorship agency (Roskomnadzor) summoned Stepan Petrov, the head of the public organization "Yakutia -- Our Opinion," and charged him with a misdemeanor for failing to fulfil "foreign agent" requirements.

Under pressure because of a joke from last year about ethnic Ossetians, stand-up comedienne Ariana Lolaeva has now apologized twice in tearful messages on social media. The apologies follow a video from a "Roast Battle" in 2020 that started spreading in North Ossetian online groups on October 9, 2021. In the footage, fellow comic Alexander Ni tells Lolaeva that she has "Ossetian pie between her thighs." As the news outlet Baza explains, this dish has specifical significance for Ossetians particularly because it's associated with the "rite of the three pies," which according to some versions symbolizes God, the Sun, and the Earth.

Russian police investigators questioned socialite and television host Ksenia Sobchak on Tuesday, October 12, as part of a criminal case launched over a fatal car accident near Sochi, the Interior Ministry's press center told Interfax.

Gulagu.net (No to the Gulag) founder Vladimir Osechkin says the human rights project has received another leaked archive of videos evidencing the torture and abuse of inmates in Russian prisons.

Biologist Olga Shchegoleva uses her scientific training to educate adults about sex. In addition to being involved in "Ne Stidno" ("Not Ashamed") -- a project that teaches parents how to talk to their children about sex, -- she's also a member of the expert community "Seksprosvet 18+" ("SexEd 18+"). And for the past year and a half, she's been running her own Instagram blog dedicated to sex education. Unfortunately, this passion project recently lost Olga Shchegoleva her day job as a biology teacher at the St. Petersburg State Conservatory. According to the local newspaper Fontanka, Shchegoleva was forced to resign after parents complained to the school about her blog and the administration gave her an ultimatum.

Belarusian journalist Gennady Mozheiko has been in custody for more than ten days. A longtime reporter for the recently shuttered Belarusian edition of the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, Mozheiko was arrested in early October after publishing an article about a deadly shootout between an IT worker and security forces in Minsk. The article was only online for a few minutes before the publication took it down to "avoid conflicts." Nevertheless, in the days that followed, the Belarusian authorities blocked the website of Komsomolskaya Pravda in Belarus (citing national security reasons) and took Genady Mozheiko into custody. On October 11, Komsomolskaya Pravda surmised that because Mozheiko hadn't been released, he must have been indicted on charges of "inciting social hatred or discord" and "insulting a government official." Under Belarusian law, these felonies are punishable by up to 12 years in prison.

On Tuesday, October 12, the new convocation of Russia's State Duma convened for its first session. Roughly a fifth of all lawmakers -- 88 of 450 deputies -- received their seats from higher-ranked candidates on party lists, winning the jobs because others didn't want them. The candidates who decided against joining the parliament include four of the five figures who led United Russia's federal list, 50 governors, many regional deputies, several famous actors and athletes, and multiple public sector managers. Nine of the Duma's seats weren't filled until the winning candidate and the next two people on the party list all declined. Another three seats passed from hand to hand four times, and one spot didn't find a willing recipient until round five.

Dmitry Muratov, the editor-in-chief of the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, has won this year's Nobel Peace Prize, sharing the award with Maria Ressa, the CEO of Rappler, a news outlet critical of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's anti-drug campaign. Ressa and Muratov were honored "for their courageous fight for freedom of expression in the Philippines and Russia." The Norwegian Nobel Committee credited Ressa with "using freedom of expression to expose abuse of power, use of violence, and growing authoritarianism in the Philippines" and recognized Muratov for "decades [of defending] freedom of speech in Russia under increasingly challenging conditions." "They are representatives of all journalists who stand up for this ideal in a world in which democracy and freedom of the press face increasingly adverse conditions," the Nobel Committee explained in its prize announcement.

Just 8 percent of Russians know of and support Alexey Navalny's "Smart Vote" initiative, according to the results of a survey conducted by the independent Levada Center at the end of September.