Alexei Navalny

The United States on April 15 imposed a broad array of sanctions on Russia, including curbs to its sovereign debt market, to punish it for interfering in last year's U.S. election, cyber hacking, bullying Ukraine and other alleged malign actions.

The health of jailed Puitn's critic Alexei Navalny is deteriorating and he is beginning to lose sensation in his legs and hands, his lawyer says.

Vadim Kobzev said Navalny, who is in a penal colony serving a sentence for embezzlement, had been diagnosed with two spinal hernias.

Last week, Navalny started a hunger strike to demand proper treatment for acute back and leg pain.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a law allowing him to potentially hold onto power until 2036, a move that formalizes constitutional changes endorsed in a vote last year.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 5 signed a law allowing him to potentially hold onto power until 2036, a move that formalizes constitutional changes endorsed in a vote last year.

Russia called its U.S. ambassador back to Moscow for consultations on March 17 after Joe Biden described Vladimir Putin as a "killer" who would "pay a price" for election meddling, prompting the first major diplomatic crisis for the new American president.

Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who is serving a two-and-half-year jail term in a penal colony outside Moscow, said on March 15 he was locked up in a "real concentration camp".

Russian police on March 13 arrested around 200 opposition politicians and municipal deputies at a Moscow conference as authorities tighten the screws on Kremlin critics ahead of parliamentary elections.

Journalists from the Belarusian opposition news portal Nexta have accused long-time leader Alexander Lukashenko of large-scale corruption in a online video with millions of views.

Almost 2 million people had already watched the video of the investigation titled "Lukashenko: A gold mine," one day after it was posted to YouTube by a group of journalists exiled in Poland.

Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said late on Tuesday that new sanctions imposed by the United States were evidence of a "hostile anti-Russian lunge" and said it would retaliate to what it described as another blow to U.S.-Russia ties.

The United States on March 2 imposed sanctions on senior Russian officials in a coordinated action with the European Union as U.S. intelligence concluded that Moscow orchestrated the near fatal poisoning of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.