A popular Russian blogger has received a suspended three-year sentence for "inciting extremism on the Internet" in his calls for protests against President Vladimir Putin and his government. Yegor Zhukov was hailed as a hero by his supporters on the steps of a Moscow courthouse.
Thousands of Russians marched in central Moscow as opposition activists defied authorities' warnings and pushed ahead with a protest focused on upcoming city council elections. The August 31 action was the latest in a series of confrontations between liberal activists and Moscow city authorities -- and the Kremlin. A leading opposition figure, Lyubov Sobol, speaking to journalists during the protest, said that repression will not work and also called on Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin to resign.
The Moscow-based rights group, Memorial, is to publish a book naming more than 6,000 executed Polish prisoners buried in 1940 in the village of Mednoye, near the Russian city of Tver. The killings were part of a mass execution of nearly 22,000 Polish officers ordered by Soviet leader Josef Stalin.
