(image credit: EPA-EFE/Yuri Kochetkov)
There have been seismic events in Russian news in 2024, none more so than the killing of opposition leader Alexey Navalny in his Arctic penal colony in February. There was the Moscow’s Crocus City Hall terror attack in March, when masked gunmen opened fire on people waiting for a concert to begin at one of the Russian capital’s main music venues, killing 145 people and injuring another 551. And then, in a drop of uncharacteristically positive news in August, Russia and the West negotiated their largest ever prisoner exchange. Yet as we enter 2025 and the war in Ukraine approaches its third anniversary and fourth year, political repression in Russia continues to reach levels not seen since the worst days of communism.
Here’s a look back at some of the key events in Russia’s year.
The year kicked off with a glimmer of hope, as over 200,000 Russians endorsed war critic Boris Nadezhdin’s candidacy in the March presidential election. Despite many realising that Nadezhdin’s presidential campaign was doomed, people were seen queuing up on the streets of Russian cities in January in a show of support for the only potential candidate standing on a platform of ending the war in Ukraine. Nadezhdin was ultimately disqualified from running in the election in February as the Central Election Commission claimed he had filed a higher-than-permitted proportion of invalid signatures supporting his nomination.
