Maria Chernova is a correspondent for Siberia.Realities, a regional news outlet of RFE/RL's Russian Service.
With dozens of detentions and arrests of people who participated in the April 21 demonstrations in support of Aleksei Navalny, and with his organizations likely to be tarred as "extremist," Russian authorities seem determined to quash the most effective opposition movement since Putin took power.
Officials are signaling their intention of tagging three groups tied to jailed opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, including his network of regional offices, as "extremist organizations." His representatives around the country say that they will continue their work even under the threat of prison.
Two senior prison officials in Siberia's Irkutsk region have been dismissed in the wake of two cases of alleged horrific prisoner torture. But activists say the region has been plagued by such lawlessness for decades, with more and more convicts coming forward with their stories.
A man in Tomsk says he was beaten up by plainclothes police. Authorities initially acknowledged it was a case of mistaken identity but after his family went public, they changed their minds and charged him with resisting arrest. Now he has a limp, a fractured jaw, and a 500-ruble ($7) fine to pay.
Sardana Avksentyeva, the mayor of the city of Yakutsk, has resigned, citing unspecified health concerns. But many residents claim that the popular mayor ran too far afoul of the ruling United Russia party and was pressured from her post in the run-up to Russian parliamentary elections this fall.
Medical workers in Russia's Irkutsk region say that shortages of personnel and other problems are making it difficult to cope with the latest spike in coronavirus infections. Meanwhile, social-media posts from the eastern Siberian region tell of people waiting days for an ambulance to arrive.
Teachers, psychologists, scientists, filmmakers, human rights activists, museum professionals, and others have signed open letters condemning the prison sentences imposed on seven men convicted in the so-called Network case, which many activists in Russia and abroad have denounced as fabricated.
Friends and supporters of Omsk resident Dmitry Fyodorov are calling for an investigation after his decapitated body was found near a train track just days after he claimed police had planted narcotics on him.
On September 19, police in Buryatia arrested an anti-Kremlin shaman, the latest sign of a crackdown on rising discontent in the Siberian region.
In the days following a peaceful, legal protest against corruption in Irkutsk, its organizers say subsequent detentions by masked troops were intended to send a message of strength ahead of next spring's presidential vote.
