Alexei Navalny

A Moscow judge on Feb. 20 upheld a ruling to jail top Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, as he lost two court cases in one day and was headed for more than two years in a penal colony.

Residents of Moscow and Saint Petersburg on Sunday staged Valentine Day's flashmobs in residential courtyards and public squares, lighting their phone flashlights in support of jailed opposition politician Alexei Navalny.

Russia is ready to cut ties with the EU if Brussels initiates it, but for its part, Moscow is calling for cooperation, the Russian Foreign Ministry told TASS on Friday.

The European Union is working on a proposal to sanction Russia over the imprisonment of opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who suffered a near-fatal nerve-agent attack that he and Western governments blamed on Russian intelligence services.

Russia has issued an arrest warrant that covers a swath of other former Soviet republics for one of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny's closest allies, a Moscow court said on Wednesday.

The European Union is likely to impose new sanctions on Russia over the Navalny case following the unsuccessful visit to Moscow by its top diplomat Josep Borrell, said experts interviewed by Izvestia. Borrell faced criticism in the EU, where his trip was deemed to be a failure.

At the moment of strained relations with Russia, some EU members, with their defending the Russian Nord Stream gas pipeline, further deepen the divisions in Europe and in the transatlantic partnership, writes the EUobserver portal, as EURACTIV reports.

The video, shot by a man detained in a Moscow protest, shows a group of people jammed into a police minibus. One of them says on the recording that they had already been held there for nine hours, with some forced to stand because of overcrowding and no access to food, water or bathrooms.

The European Union's top diplomat Josep Borrell said during a visit to Moscow on Friday that the bloc's ties with Russia were under "severe strain" following the arrest and imprisonment of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.

Biden called on Moscow to release dissident Alexei Navalny