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The Diplomatic Envoy

Russia

September 2020Eastern EuropeInternational News2020
Timothy Georgetti

Belarusian Opposition Member Faced Death Threats by Authorities

 A member of Belarus’ female opposition coalition, Maria Kolesnikova, ripped up her passport to prevent forced deportation to her native Ukraine before being abducted by masked men on September 8, according to Forbes. Kolesnikova is the only member of her opposition coalition to remain in Belarus after the release of the election results favoring incumbent President Lukashenko. CNN reports that Kolesnikova’s colleagues Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, leader of the opposition, and Veronika Tsepkalo, the third member of the coalition, fled to Ukraine and Lithuania out of fear of imprisonment by the Lukashenko administration. 

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September 2020International News2020Europe
Zachary Schullian

Russia Ready to Mediate Turkey-Greece Conflict in East Mediterranean 

Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said on September 8 that Moscow is ready to help ease rising tensions over Turkey’s search for energy reserves in the eastern Mediterranean, and rejected any actions that could lead to further escalation, The Associate Press reports. The Associated Press cites Larov, stating “we would be ready to contribute to building good neighborly relations in the event this is requested of us by those involved,”  and later adding that Moscow has repeatedly called on leaders in the region to “resolve these differences through dialogue and within a legal framework.” 

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September 2020FocusDomestic Government Surveillance2020
Natalie Sherman

Focus on Domestic Government Surveillance: Russia

The System of Operative Search Measures, or SORM, was once used by the Soviet Union to monitor phone calls. Now it is being used in Russia to track geolocation and IP addresses. The program was resurrected by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in 1995 to surveil online activity and has grown in scope as the internet became an ever greater essential of day-to-day life.

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September 2020Eastern EuropeInternational News2020Europe
Aminat Tokakova

Alexi Navalny, Russian Opposition Leader, Poisoned

It has been confirmed that Navalny, a prominent Kremlin critic, was poisoned, reports BBC News. Political analysts and experts are still wondering who was behind the poisoning and who is responsible for carrying out the plan. Navalny’s allies and other anti-Putin political activists believe that the United Russia Party played a significant role in this situation due to the obvious tensions between him and President Vladimir Putin.

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