As censorship is reinstalled in Russia and everything related to LGBTQ+ is anathema, bookshops struggle to survive in a decent manner. Books by authors brandished as 'foreign agents' have to be shelved in brown paper camouflage. The St. Petersburg bookshop 'Podpisnye Izdaniya' doesn't compromise.

Putin's appointment of the former Finance Minister and Chairman of the Accounts Chamber Alexei Kudrin, long ago known for his liberal views, as the head of Russian search giant Yandex is strange. A strategic move?

Fifteen years ago journalist Anna Politkovskaya was killed in the entrance to her appartment. The murder was never solved. As the Kremlin cracks down on independent media, journalists say that Politkovskaya's worst fears materialized.

The Kremlin's growing obsession with lists and registers to control the population is a mix of Chinese social control and fear of flying. If you are not in a register in Russia, you don't exist, argues Andrei Soldatov, investigative journalist specialised in security services. In effect this super-bureaucratic tool has become a new form of censorship.

The Kremlin’s domestic policy bloc tries to run Russia as a corporation. It’s not surprising, therefore, that they have resorted to using deep packet inspection (DPI) technology, a corporate method of internet control, writes Alexandra Prokopenko for Carnegie Moscow. The new internet law is driven by anxiety about growing discontent in society, but instead it will drag Russia down.

After six years of unabated attack on Internet freedoms in Russia, the Kremlin is taking another bold step. In a first lecture, the Duma adopted a new law that can cut off the Russian internet from the world wide web by installing special equipment all over the country. Security specialist Andrei Soldatov reports.

The ban on Russian internetsites in Ukraine is useless, counterproductive and ineffective. It threatens to push the country in a more authoritarian direction. These are Putinist methods, argues political analyst Kostiantyn Fedorenko from Kiev. 'Europe harshly criticized internet limitations in Turkey; it should be as harsh towards Ukraine.'