Evening Medusa

Biden invited Putin to meet. Navalny will sue the colony over the ban on reading the Koran. What happens if Boston Dynamics robots start shooting

Good evening,

This is Meduza's daily newsletter about the important news of the day. Important announcement: we still love capybaras . Our new pet has recently moved from Krasnoyarsk to Minsk, and he has a luxurious name: Kapibarin. See how he lives (no less luxurious), and imbued with respect.

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Pulse

The main thing - point by point

• Joe Biden phoned Vladimir Putin and offered to meet , including to discuss Ukraine.
• Navalny's wife Yulia met him in the colony and said that he had difficulty speaking . Navalny has been on hunger strike for two weeks now. FPS says he's fine. Navalny himself is going to sue the colony because he is not allowed to read the Koran.
• VKontakte blocked the official community of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia, possibly due to the announcement of the collection of donations. The department said that they were not related to the public.
• The heads of eight employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations who died while extinguishing a fire in Moscow in 2016 received suspended sentences . Read our report from the court session.
• In Minneapolis, a police officer shot and killed an African American, confusing a stun gun and a gun. Riots broke out in the city.

Texts of the day

Boston Dynamics robots are beginning to be used to solve combat missions. The developers are protesting - but they themselves used to claim army contracts

The French Special Military School of Saint-Cyr, which trains personnel for the army and the gendarmerie, tested the four-legged robot Spot for intelligence. Boston Dynamics said the tests do not contradict the requirement not to use robots to harm people - although they were outraged when a paintball gun was installed on their robot as part of the show. At the same time, at the beginning of its existence, the company received several contracts from the Pentagon. But in the end, the US military chose other robots - on wheels. We talk about the path of Boston Dynamics and what will happen if one of the buyers still wants to make the robots shoot .

Yesterday we continued to consider Lyubov Sobol's "housing case". She again refused a lawyer, challenged the judge and forced the police to make excuses

This time, Sobol refused a lawyer appointed by Tatyana Bozhenova - and asked to return Vladimir Voronin, whose services she had refused at the last meeting. The judge did not grant the request, but Bozhenova herself stated that she could not defend Sobol, and as a result, she simply sat in the courtroom. Further, witnesses for the prosecution were interrogated in court: a courier who delivered pizza to the apartment of the alleged poisoner Navalny, and police officers who went to the call. Meduza special correspondent Kristina Safonova tells how the meeting went . Today Sobol did not come to court, tomorrow she will be brought there by force.

The coronavirus

Russia has almost completely closed air communication with Turkey until June 1. Half a million Russians planned to fly there

Two regular flights a week will continue to fly between Moscow and Istanbul on a reciprocal basis. It will also be allowed to carry out export flights and flights necessary for the construction of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant. Rospotrebnadzor said that those who arrived from Turkey account for about 80% of “imported” cases of coronavirus. The Russian Union of Tourism Industry called the travel ban to Turkey a "new hard blow" for the tourism business .

Of course, the main question now is: “Well, where to fly instead of Turkey?” We answer it . For example, there is such an option - in Tyumen.

Other news about coronavirus:

• The United States suspended the use of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine after reports of blood clots in six patients.
• the 60th country to approve the use of Sputnik V. India became India is expected to produce 850 million doses of vaccine per year.

Podcast "What Happened"

Are American prisons really worse than Russian ones - as RT claims? Spoiler: it's not far from the truth

RT employee Maria Butina visited Navalny and said that his colony is much better than American prisons (and some hotels in the Russian regions). The American penitentiary system is indeed one of the worst in the world. And definitely the worst among developed countries. In the new issue, we discuss its problems together with Pavel Koshkin, a senior researcher at the Institute for the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Listen to What Happened on Meduza . And subscribe to Apple Podcasts , Google Podcasts , Castbox , Yandex.Music and other podcast services.

"Go!!!" days

The deputy from United Russia posed for Cosmonautics Day in a suit with a NASA patch

Mikhail Pogorelov posted a photo on Instagram with the following comment: “Today we, the people of Russia, are celebrating the 60th anniversary of the first manned flight into space. We are proud that our compatriot Yuri Gagarin circled the Earth on the Vostok satellite and returned safely.” In general, I had to delete the post and make excuses: to say that the suit was a gift from a friend, and the patch on the sleeve was not with the American flag, but with the Russian one.

Well, we are booking a hotel in Tyumen, your Meduza