Russian court

French President Emmanuel Macron on Feb. 4 said it was essential to continue dialogue with Russia despite its "huge mistake" in jailing opposition figure Alexei Navalny.

Macron has long pushed for a working relationship with Russia under President Vladimir Putin and renewed his commitment to the strategy during a question and answer session with the Atlantic Council think tank.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian court on Friday ordered that access to the Telegram messenger service be blocked in Russia, heralding possible communication disruption for millions of users in the latest clash between global technology firms and Russian authorities.

A Russian court sentenced an Orthodox priest to 14 years in a penal colony on Jan. 17 in a pedophilia case that dragged on over four years after he had initially fled the country.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday he had not yet decided whether he would run for re-election in March 2018, something he is widely expected to do, Reuters writes.

"Not only have I not decided yet who I will stand against, I have not decided whether I will run at all," Putin said, when asked who he would run against at the election.

A Russian court handed on July 13 jail terms ranging from 11 to 20 years to five Chechen men for organizing and carrying out the contract killing of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov.

A Russian court sentenced a man convicted of murdering opposition leader Boris Nemtsov to 20 years in jail on Thursday and handed terms of between 11 and 19 years to four other men convicted of being his accomplices.

A Russian court found opposition leader Alexei Navalny guilty of embezzlement. According to a report by Interfax the decision takes away from the Russian politician the right to run for President in the 2018 elections.

The decision has not been officially announced yet, but one his lawyers stated that the decision will indeed have these political repercussions.

A Russian court on March 21 found Ukrainian combat pilot Nadiya Savchenko guilty over the killing of two Russian journalists in war-torn east Ukraine, in a trial condemned by Kyiv and the West as a political sham.

Savchenko "committed the premeditated murder as part of a group of people from the motives of hatred and enmity," the judge was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.

President Vladimir Putin has signed a law allowing Russia's Constitutional Court to decide whether or not to implement rulings of international human rights courts. 

The law, published on Dec. 15 on the government website, enables the Russian court to overturn decisions of the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) if it deems them unconstitutional. 

It’s long been an “open secret” on the Internet, yet as the BBC writes, a former Russian internet “troll’s” court case has exposed a propaganda machine for the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin.
Lyudmila Savchuk was awarded one ruble in damages after she sued her ex-employer to expose it as a propaganda “factory”.