RussiaLink

Interior Ministry detective Evgeniya Shishkina was murdered outside her home in the town of Arkhangelskoye. An unidentified man shot her as she was leaving her apartment building and walking toward the parking lot, on her way to work. Shishkina died from a gunshot to the neck; her body was later discovered by her husband. Initial reports claimed that the killer shot her twice and then stabbed Shishkina in the neck and head, but investigators later clarified that they recovered just a single bullet and one bullet casing at the scene of the crime.

The two alleged Russian military intelligence officers accused of trying to assassinate double agent Sergey Skripal in Salisbury, England, reportedly tailed him in Prague in October 2014, according to the public radio broadcaster Český Rozhlas, citing sources in Czech intelligence.

Dagestan’s Communications and Mass Media Ministry is promising smartphones to citizens who are especially helpful about reporting Internet users for “extremist content.” The hotline has been active since at least April 2018, but journalists only learned about it recently. The ministry’s website offers a 32-gigabyte iPhone SE to the contest’s winner, but it’s unclear when the promotion ends, and there’s no indication of how many complaints contestants have submitted, so far. Prizes for second and third places are a 32-gigabyte “Xaomi Redmi 5” and “Xaomi Redmi 4A,” respectively.

In a long think piece published on October 9 in Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Russia’s official newspaper of record, Constitutional Court Chairman Valery Zorkin argued passionately for “drastic reforms” to the country’s constitution. Zorkin’s article is a mixed bag, criticizing Russia’s current constitution for having too few checks and balances and “insufficient clarity” in division of powers between the presidency and government, while also warning against “outmoded liberal models of democracy” and the “risks and costs of globalization.” What follows is a short, paraphrased retelling of Zorkin’s text.

After the war with Georgia in 2008, Russia became the first of five UN member states to recognize the independence of South Ossetia, effectively taking the breakaway republic under its wing. Ten years later, the territory’s governance and economy are largely controlled by Moscow, which has spent billions of rubles to keep South Ossetia afloat. Meduza special correspondent Ilya Zhegulev traveled to Tskhinvali to find out where that Russian money ended up, how the territory’s businessmen make ends meet, and how South Ossetia’s budget depends on the unrecognized republics in eastern Ukraine.

Yunus-bek Yevkurov, the head of Ingushetia, is facing a major crisis, following a controversial territorial-exchange agreement with Chechnya that was meant to resolve a decades-long border dispute in the Sunzhensky District. Meduza summarized the past two days’ dramatic events here, and published photographs from the rally here.

The newspaper Kommersant reported on October 5 that former FSB Information Security Center agent Sergey Mikhailov and his three accomplices allegedly received $10 million for giving the FBI classified data about Pavel Vrublevsky, the former head of the payment services company Chronopay.

For two days, demonstrators have gathered in Magas, the administrative center of the Republic of Ingushetia, to protest against a border agreement that trades a contested region to Chechnya. The rally only grew after members of the Ingush parliament claimed that the legislature’s endorsement of the land deal was falsified. Demonstrators say they want the parliament’s ratification nullified, arguing that the issue should be decided by a republic-wide referendum. The protest movement is also demanding the resignation of long-time Ingush leader Yunus-bek Yevkurov. So far, police have not tried to disperse the crowd, and some law enforcement even joined protesters in Friday prayer.

Yunus-bek Yevkurov, the head of Ingushetia, is facing a major crisis, following a controversial territorial-exchange agreement with Chechnya that was meant to resolve a decades-long border dispute in the Sunzhensky District. Meduza summarizes the past two days’ dramatic events.

Behold the seven Russian hackers outed by Western officials on Thursday: Alexey Morenets, Evgeny Serebryakov, Ivan Ermakov, Artem Malyshev, Dmitry Badin, Oleg Sotnikov, and Alexey Minin. These men allegedly work for Russia’s Military Intelligence Directorate and either hacked or tried to hack various antidoping agencies, the International Association of Athletics Federations, FIFA, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, a Pennsylvania-based nuclear energy company, as well as a whole lot more in a whole series of hacker attacks. The agents then leaked intentionally misleading fragments of some athletes’ personal data under the guise of the “Fancy Bear” hacktivist group, hoping to boost international sympathy for Russia in a doping scandal that has cost the country several medals and got it banned from the 2018 Olympic Winter Games.