The Russian Prosecutor General's Office intends to seek, among other things, criminal liability for persons who disseminate knowingly false information about the elections, RIA Novosti quotes the Deputy head of the Prosecutor General's Office, Alexei Zhafyarov.

"We used mostly methods of prosecutorial response to restrict spreading knowingly false information, calls for mass public events during the voting and even for mass riots," Zhafyarov said at a meeting of the Federation Council …

The Kremlin has decided to abandon plans to freeze defense spending, which were included in the three-year budget adopted last year.

The total amount of military expenditures in the 2022-24 federal budget will increase by 15%, accordint to the explanatory note to the draft budget, TASS reports.

The budget bill for 2021 initially included 3.113 trillion rubles ($43 billion) to finance the army and procurement of weapons - 196 billion rubles ($2.69 billion) less than a year earlier.

But within …

Elections to the Russian Parliament, the State Duma, held in Russia on September 17-19, “took place under conditions not conducive to free and fair proceedings”, said the U.S. Department of State.

"The Russian government’s use of laws on “extremist organizations,” “foreign agents,” and “undesirable organizations” severely restricted political pluralism and prevented the Russian people from exercising their civil and political rights," the U.S. Department of State said in a statement.

“Russian …