Volodymyr Zelensky has stripped Verkhovna Rada deputy Viktor Medvedchuk, the former leader of the pro-Kremlin party Opposition Platform – For Life who was charged with treason in 2021, of his Ukrainian citizenship, the president announced in an address on Tuesday. Parliamentarians Taras Kozak and Renat Kuzmin, who were both elected as members of Medvedchuk’s party, as well as Andrii Derkach, who doesn’t belong to a party faction, have also lost Ukrainian citizenship.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has stripped Ukrainian citizenship from Verkhovna Rada deputy and former head of the political council of the pro-Russian party Opposition Platform - For Life (OPFL) Viktor Medvedchuk. Zelensky announced this in his evening address. In addition, Taras Kozak and Renat Kuzmin , elected to the Verkhovna Rada from the Opposition Platform - For Life, as well as non-factional Rada deputy Andriy Derkach , have been stripped of their Ukrainian citizenship.

In his January 9 court hearing, the anti-war protester Igor Paskar, charged with terrorism for setting fire to the FSB building in Krasnodar, told the court that he was tortured by FSB operatives after throwing a Molotov cocktail at their headquarters in June 2022. Paskar is facing up to 15 years in prison. According to his lawyer, he admits the arson, but denies the allegations of terrorism.

On January 10, in less than a day after the publication of an open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin in support of opposition politician Alexei Navalny, about 300 Russian doctors signed this letter. “We cannot and do not have the right to calmly look at the deliberate infliction of harm to the health of politician Alexei Navalny, which takes place in correctional colony No. 6 of the Federal Penitentiary Service in the Vladimir Region,” the letter says.

Igor Paskar, a native of the Volgograd region, accused of setting fire to the Krasnodar FSB department, told a court hearing on January 9 about how he was tortured after his arrest. His words were cited by Doxa and Mediazona . In June 2022, Paskar threw a bottle of flammable liquid into the building of the FSB Directorate for Krasnodar Krai. As a result, according to the criminal case materials, "the door, the column, and the wall near the door" caught fire.

Decorated general lambasted by Ramzan Kadyrov as ‘incompetent’ is appointed head of Russia’s Ground Forces Anna Mayorova / URA.RU / TASS Colonel General Alexander Lapin, who previously served as the commander of Russia’s Central Military District, has been appointed chief of staff of the country’s ground forces , according to sources from the Russian Defense Ministry who spoke to RBC and Ura.ru . The ministry itself has not officially commented on the claims.

Mentions of LGBT representatives have been removed from the TV series Sex and the City, which recently became available on the Kinopoisk service with an additional subscription to Amediateka . This was reported by the Telegram channel Beware, News. In the ninth episode of the first season, the word "gay" in the Russian translation was replaced with the word "boy". At the same time, the original audio track in English, also available on Kinopoisk, remained the same.

In an open letter to President Putin, Russian doctors demand medical help for the imprisoned opposition politician Yulia Morozova / Reuters / Scanpix / LETA On January 9, Alexey Navalny’s Twitter account was updated with the news that the imprisoned politician had been sent on New Year’s Eve into “punitive confinement” — for the tenth consecutive time .

The director of the international policy department of the Office of the President of Poland, Piotr Gillert, was fired because of a telephone conversation between Polish leader Andrzej Duda and Russian pranksters Vovan and Lexus. This was announced by an employee of the Polish radio station RMF Roch Kowalski, citing "unofficial information". Gillert was responsible for the relations of the President of Poland with representatives of other countries. Updated .

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has denied Russian national Sofia Sapega’s request for a pardon, the independent outlet Mediazona Belarus reported on Tuesday, citing Sapega’s lawyer. Sapega was sentenced to six years in prison by a Belarusian court in May 2022 on charges of illegally gathering personal data and “inciting social hostility” for her work as an editor for the Telegram channel Black Book of Belarus, which published Belarusian security officials’ personal data.

Your Browser Does Not Support the Audio Element. Supporters of the former President of Brazil are in the capital and want a military dictatorship in the country again. Are they serious? On January 8, thousands of supporters of the former President of Brazil Zhira Bolsonaru took to the streets of Brazilia, the capital of the country. They entered into clashes with the police and stormed several government buildings at once.

An officially commissioned bas-relief sculpture of former Yekaterinburg Mayor Evgeny Roizman, who Russian authorities declared a “foreign agent” in November and who’s currently facing felony charges for “discrediting” the Russian army, has been installed in the city administration building. The artwork is part of the building’s Gallery of Mayors, which contains 31 sculptures of previous city leaders.

Russia’s Wagner Group gains control over most of the mining town and threatens Ukrainian positions near Bakhmut, but the offensive’s price has been high Clodagh Kilcoyne / Reuters / Scanpix / LETA Soledar, a salt-mining town in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, being shelled on January 5, 2022 In wartime, new military information cannot always be promptly verified, even when presented by official sources. Please consider it critically.

Russian troops have reduced artillery shelling in Ukraine. In some sectors of the front, their intensity has decreased by 75% from peak values, CNN writes, citing unnamed Ukrainian and American officials. At the same time, sources from Ukraine and the United States presented completely different estimates of the reduction of Russian fire. Washington said that Russia used to fire about 20,000, and now it is about 5,000 artillery rounds a day.

Alexander Lukashenko has rejected the request of Russian citizen Sofia Sapieha for pardon, the publication " Mediazona . Belarus" reports , citing the lawyer of the Sapieha family, Anton Gashinsky. The lawyer told RBC that "we will now ask that she be sent to serve her sentence in the Russian Federation." According to him, Sapega herself or her parents can make such a request. The corresponding request will be submitted in the near future, the lawyer told TASS.