On the evening of December 22, the VKontakte social network reported the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, spread by fake pages called Meduza. Judging by the testimonies of users, the message was reposted by dozens of communities. Among them were some official communities of the VKontakte administration, writes TJ.

On December 22, the International Olympic Committee published new decisions of the disciplinary commission regarding Russian athletes. Silver medals Sochi-2014 lost Russian sanctuary Albert Demchenko and Tatyana Ivanova. In total, since the beginning of November, 46 Russian athletes fell under the sanctions of the IOC, the country lost 13 Olympic medals. Photo in the announcement: Ruslan Shamukov / TASS / Scanpix / Leta

The US Treasury Department blacklisted ten crime bosses from Russia and the former Soviet republics. Zakhary Kalashov, Vasily Khristoforov, Kamchibek Kolbaev, Lasha Shushanashvili, Vladislav Leontiev, Yuri Pichugin, Vladimir Tyurin, Gafur Rakhimov, Alimzhan Tokhtakhunov and Ruben Tatulyan were sanctioned by the Ministry of Finance.

Grigory Sobchenko / Kommersant On December 23, at the Congress of the Communist Party, a secret vote was elected a party candidate to participate in the presidential election. The leader of the Communist Party, 73-year-old Gennady Zyuganov, unexpectedly proposed to vote the director of the Lenin state farm near Moscow and the Moscow Region Deputy of the three convocations of Pavel Grudinin.

December 22. The collapse of the Bitcoin course and the elections without Zyuganov Main The Crimean bridge went up by three billion rubles . Because for the embankment along which the rails are laid, they purchased unsuitable soil. Gennady Zyuganov may become a candidate for the president of Russia from the Communists! The main candidate is the director of the Lenin state farm Pavel Grudinin ( Zyuganov supported him ).

The Rosneft company entered into a settlement agreement with AFK Sistema, from which it demanded compensation for the damage caused to the Bashneft company. As reported on the Rosneft website, under the terms of the agreement, Sistema will pay 100 billion rubles for losses caused to Bashneft.

Stefan Rousseau / AFP / Scanpix / Leta British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, during his visit to Moscow on December 22, visited the murder of Russian opposition Boris Nemtsov near the Kremlin. “Justice should be done,” Johnson wrote on his Twitter. In the summer of 2017, Nemtsov killers were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment, customers of the crime were not found.

In the simulator of the La Noire detective, the game mode in virtual reality has appeared: players get almost complete control over the hands of the detective Cole Felps, the protagonist of the game. But, it seems, the developers should not add support for virtual reality helmets to the game. Now the players are mocking the heroes of the game, forcing them to dance and stroke on the head of other heroes. The GTA Series Videos channel even released a VR-films.

The International Olympic Committee has stripped Russia of two Sochi 2014 silver medals in luge: in the men's event and in the mixed relay. This happened due to the disqualification of Albert Demchenko and Tatyana Ivanova, who were convicted of doping.

"Dunkirk" is! "Twin Pix" is! What else? On the eve of the holidays, the film critic of Medusa Anton Dolin sums up the results of 2017 and talks about the best films that have been released over the past 12 months. The paintings presented in this (subjective) list are listed in alphabetical order. "Dunkirk" Christopher Nolan USA-Great British The best blockbuster of the year: laconic, tense, rich.

The Ukrainian company Naftogaz announced that the Stockholm Arbitration Court, having considered a claim against Gazprom, made a decision in its favor. "Naftogaz won the arbitration against Gazprom on all disputed issues. The court completely rejected all Gazprom's claims under the " take or pay " rule in the amount of $56 billion for 2009-2017," Naftogaz's official Twitter account reported. Gazprom, in turn, did not agree with this assessment of the Stockholm Arbitration Court’s decision.

Community "Protest Moscow in VKontakte" Activists of "Protest Moscow" urge to free Alexei Navalny out of administrative arrest, October 22, 2017 The movement "Protest Moscow" appeared after the mass opposition campaign on March 26, 2017. On the eve of the action, Moscow student Roman Rashimas (asked Medusa to not call the university where he is studying), together with his friends, created the “Protest Moscow” chat in Telegram.

The State Duma adopted in the third reading amendments to the Tax Code providing for a tax amnesty for individuals and individual entrepreneurs. They were added to the bill urgently shortly after Vladimir Putin’s press conference, during which the head of state promised to free Russians from some debts. The last time the authorities made a similar decision to write off debt was at the end of 2011 , on the eve of the parliamentary and presidential elections. Quite possible.

Patriarch Kirill is still quite alive, but that’s not stopping the Russian Orthodox Church from erecting a monument to its sitting high priest in Moscow. The monument will appear near the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, and Kirill’s statue will be one of 16 dedicated to the church’s patriarchs over the years. Mayor Sergey Sobyanin reportedly approved the monuments in early December.

The saga surrounding Ilya Yashin’s efforts to stage a rally in Moscow on December 24 continues. Yashin, the head of Moscow’s Krasnoselsky District Council, says he’s willing to hold his “Free Elections Day” “holiday celebration” on Sakharov Prospect (where the city previously offered Dmitry Gudkov a demonstration permit), not at Lermontovsky Square (where Yashin previously wanted to stage his event).