Medusa found out how the dismissal of journalists discussed inside the newspaper - and why the authors of the article about Matvienko refused to disclose their sources Dmitry Dukhanin / Kommersant On May 20, it became known that two journalists of the publication - Special Corps Ivan Safronov and editor Maxim Ivanov were forced to leave Kommersant.

Arshak Makichyan, a Moscow student who has been picketing weekly to push for action on the global climate crisis, wrote on Twitter that he had been denied a permit to join an international climate strike on May 24. On May 20, Makichyan posted an image of an official document denying government approval for a protest in the Russian capital. The document claimed that there would be no suitable location in the city for 500 activists to gather without disturbing other citizens.

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky called on the United States to increase sanctions pressure on Russia, his press service reports. At a meeting with a US delegation that arrived for his inauguration, Zelensky noted that Washington is a "powerful and very serious partner in overcoming Russian aggression." “I would like to ask you that the United States continue to strengthen sanctions against the Russian Federation,” the Ukrainian president said.

Ivan Streshinsky, Kommersant ’s board chairman and publishing house owner Alisher Usmanov’s representative, told the website The Bell that the firing of journalists Ivan Safronov and Maxim Ivanov is not connected to the content of an article published on April 18 about Federation Council chairwoman Valentina Matviyenko stepping down to clear the way for Russia’s current Foreign Intelligence Service director, Sergey Naryshkin.

A statement by Kommersant’s employees following the mass resignation of their colleagues Anatoly Zhdanov / Kommersant The ‘Kommersant’ newsroom The staff of Kommersant , a major Russian newspaper, has posted a public statement to the publication’s readers after two of its journalists were forced to resign this morning and the entire politics department followed suit in protest. At the time of this publication, more than 120 Kommersant employees had signed on to the statement.

Ecuador has begun handing over belongings of WikiLeaks founder Julian Asssange to US authorities. These items include Assange's manuscripts, official documents, medical records, and electronic devices. Lawyers for the founder of WikiLeaks called Ecuador's actions an "unprecedented violation" of asylum principles. Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in 2012, fearing extradition to the US.

Roman Udot, co-chairman of the Golos movement, was detained in Moscow. He himself wrote about this on Facebook. Udot is a suspect in the case of a death threat (Part 1 of Article 119 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). His lawyer told Interfax that the interrogating officer demanded that Udot be arrested, as he was allegedly hiding from the investigation. As OVD-Info recalls , the case is related to the conflict between Udot and the NTV journalist at Sheremetyevo in March 2018.

The chairman of the board of directors of Kommersant, a representative of the owner of the publishing house Alisher Usmanov, Ivan Streshinsky, stated that the dismissal of journalists Ivan Safronov and Maxim Ivanov has nothing to do with the content of the article about Valentina Matviyenko. He told this to The Bell. According to Streshinsky, he received information that the publication could be ordered and asked Kommersant editor-in-chief Vladimir Zhelonkin to check this information.

Statement of employees of Kommersant after the dismissal of their colleagues Anatoly Zhdanov / Kommersant editors "Kommersant" The Kommersant team made an appeal to readers after journalists Ivan Safronov and Maxim Ivanov were dismissed from the newspaper, and all employees of the policy department submitted after them in the protest of the dismissal. At the time of publication, the appeal was signed by more than 120 employees of the publishing house. "Medusa" publishes this text entirely.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has proposed holding early elections to the National Assembly, the country's parliament. Reuters reports this. The next parliamentary elections were scheduled to take place at the end of 2020. For how long Maduro plans to postpone them, he did not specify. Venezuelan Parliament Speaker Juan Guaidó declared himself Venezuela's interim president in January. Its legitimacy in this capacity was recognized by most countries in Latin America and the United States.

The Kommersant publication will not be able to inform readers about Russian politics in the near future. This is stated in the statement of the journalists of the publication. “The Kommersant team considers itself obliged to inform readers that Kommersant will not be able to inform them about Russian politics for an indefinitely long time.

In China, Tencent, the company that owns the rights to broadcast HBO programs, did not show the final episode of Game of Thrones, The Wall Street Journal reports. The episode was supposed to air on Tencent Video, but on the morning of May 20, the company announced that the show was being postponed due to "signal issues." The HBO press service, in turn, reported that there were no problems with data transmission.

As the Russian reality show ‘Dom-2’ celebrates its 15th anniversary, fans explain why they can’t live without it Mitya Aleshkovsky / TASS The so-called “execution site” in the reality show Dom-2. December 14, 2011 On May 11, 2004, Dom-2 (House-2) released its first episode on the Russian TV channel TNT . Hosted by celebrities like Ksenia Sobchak, Ksenia Borodina, and Olga Buzova over the years, the reality show features contestants dating while building a new house.

Alexander Ryumin / TASS / Scanpix / Leta Quote “First of all, we must remove the topic of abortion on the scale on which it exists, and if every year we have a million children who have not been born, then in ten years our country will already have 156 million, and in twenty years - 166 million,” said the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill on May 19 at a meeting with representatives of the Women for Life Foundation. Due to abortions in Russia, a million children are not born annually? No.

In the Novosibirsk region, the court dropped the case against teacher Natalia Oganisyan, who was accused of extremism for insulting the mother of one of the students at a parent-teacher meeting. This follows from the case file on the website of the Bolotninsky District Court. for the termination of the case initiated in 2018 due to the decriminalization of Article 282 in mid-May The prosecutor's office asked .