In mid-August, Russian film director Andrey Zvyagintsev was transferred to Germany for treatment due to a severe case of COVID-19. Doctors are now preparing to bring him out of a medically-induced coma, reports The Bell, citing sources familiar with the situation.

The Russian Investigative Committee launched a criminal case over an alleged attempt to orchestrate "mass riots" during voting in this weekend's State Duma elections, the agency announced on Thursday, September 16.

The "Smart Vote" website and Telegram bot are being subjected to DDoS attacks, Alexey Navalny's team reported late in the evening on Thursday, September 16.

It's been five years since Russian photographer Dmitry Markov last published a book of his work. In the meantime, he's been sharing his snapshots on Instagram. But with the Kremlin cracking down on civil society and increasingly censoring online content, Markov decided to put his work down on paper once again. In his words, "The events of this year suggest the disturbing thought that 'free access' is a fragile phenomenon and depends on the political agenda. Of course, the likelihood of Instagram being blocked is low, but such a scenario can't be ruled out entirely. In this context, I would like to preserve a multi-year photo archive in a reliable, analog format." Markov is currently raising money to fund the publication of his forthcoming book. Titled "Rossiya v kvadrate" ("Russia Squared"), it's set to be released by the publishing house Treemedia early this winter. Meduza shares some of the snapshots from Dmitry Markov's photobook here.

Since early 2021, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has regularly resorted to sanctioning his domestic opponents. By law, both Ukraine's president and National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) have the right to impose sanctions -- and they've used it to target opposition-leaning media outlets. The television channels 112 Ukraine, NewsOne, and ZIK came under sanctions back in February, and in August, sanctions were imposed on Igor Guzhva, the founder and editor-in-chief of the news site Strana. All of these media outlets have a reputation for being "pro-Russian" and for leveling criticism against Zelensky, particularly for his supposed refusal to reconcile with the separatist-held territories in eastern Ukraine, alleged infringements on the rights of Russian-speaking Ukrainians, and alleged support for nationalists. In turn, the Ukrainian authorities maintain that they're imposing sanctions in the name of protecting national security and accuse these media outlets of promoting the "Kremlin's agenda." At the same time, the opacity of the decision making leaves room for the opposition to argue that Zelensky's government is carrying out attacks on freedom of speech. Journalist Konstantin Skorkin breaks down the controversy for Meduza.

In a new report for BBC Russia, journalist Pyotr Kozlov profiles Dmitry Medvedev's political life since losing his job as prime minister in January 2020. "Roughly two dozen sources at the highest echelons of the Russian government" mostly told Kozlov that Medvedev has been unhappy in his new position as deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council. The former Russian president has apparently been busy trying to make a comeback, albeit without much success. Meduza summarizes what BBC Russia discovered.

On Tuesday, September 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he's going into self-isolation after several people in his inner circle were diagnosed with the coronavirus.

Court marshal's visited Google's Moscow office in the Balchug Plaza business center on the evening of Monday, September 13.

An anti-migrant protest erupted in Buzhaninovo, a village in the Moscow region, on the evening of September 13. This came after local news outlets published a letter from a reader, claiming that two migrant workers were detained on suspicion of raping and murdering a local woman. State investigators later confirmed the arrests in the murder case, laying charges against two unnamed foreign citizens on September 14. The crowd of several hundred demonstrators gathered outside of a migrant dormitory in the village and didn't disperse until local officials promised to get the company that owns the dormitory to shut it down. The Moscow region's governor later ordered the dormitory's closure.

In December 2019, Ilya Khudoba was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a disorder that costs millions of dollars to treat. His parents turned to Instagram to raise money for the drug their toddler needed. But it wasn't until Russian rapper Morgernshtern "blew up" their crowdfunding campaign that the donations started pouring in. Khudoba's parents were able to announce the happy end of their fundraising efforts on September 14 -- three days after Morgenstern released a video in support of Ilya, in which the rapper admitted that he decided to help the family in an attempt to stave off problems with the police.