Yelizaveta Mayetnaya is a correspondent for RFE/RL's Russian Service.
While the problem of hazing of conscripts remains a stubborn and much-documented problem in Russia’s armed forces, the issue of officers resigning in protest is less well-known.
Moscow is moving to soften penalties for first-time violations of Russia's law on inciting ethnic and religious enmity. But activists say the government still has plenty of tools to keep a lid on political dissent and freedom of expression.
Ninety percent of Russians oppose the Kremlin's plan to raise retirement ages. And now some regional activists of the ruling United Russia party are handing in their party cards and joining the ranks of the protesters.
A quasi-religious painting depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin as the sun god Helios in the company of, among others, the Madonna and child and Kievan Grand Prince Vladimir has become a widely ridiculed viral meme in Russia. The artist who painted it makes no apologies for his depiction.
Federal investigators took the rare step of overturning their North Ossetian colleagues over lurid rape allegations by a young autistic woman.
Russian patients and doctors warn that the low quality of domestic generics could lead to disaster, if Russian lawmakers pass a bill to ban most pharmaceuticals from the United States and its allies.
Questions are being asked in Russia after a decorated K-9 division police officer was locked up in a psychiatric ward for complaining to supervisors about excessive overtime.
If the Russian government doesn't quickly start doing more to combat the spread of HIV infections and to treat those already infected, activists say, the country can expect 20,000 AIDS deaths this year and more in the following years.
A Russian university student claims he was expelled over his opposition activism, the latest clash between young people and school officials over anticorruption protests led by Kremlin foe Aleksei Navalny.
One of Russia's most prominent lawyers has quit his post on the faculty of the Moscow State Law Academy in protest after officials there installed a plaque commemorating a speech given at the school by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in 1924.
In April, two Moscow courts rejected lawsuits filed by female Aeroflot flight attendants against company rules that allegedly discriminate on the basis of age and appearance. But the plaintiffs are undaunted and plan to take their case as far as they need to.
Residents of Russia's North Caucasus complain they're on a secret extremism watch list -- and that their inclusion has turned their lives upside down.
Russian authorities are cracking down against organizations tied to exiled former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, in a move analysts say could be aimed at paving President Vladimir Putin's path to a fourth term as president.
Friends and colleagues say child-pornography charges against one of Russia's most prominent chroniclers of the Great Terror were drummed up by officials determined to cover up Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's crimes against his own people.
Rights activists in Russia say a pattern of suspicious deaths in the military is driven by widespread extortion of money from soldiers.
