World News

Radio Free Asia, which ran a small operation in Hong Kong, said its staff was at risk because of the law’s sweeping definition of “external interference.”

Some prominent Russians are calling for the execution of those responsible for the massacre at a concert hall near Moscow, and an end to Russia’s 28-year moratorium on capital punishment.

A Kremlin-linked group known for online campaigns to sow falsehoods and distrust among Russia’s foes helped fuel the frenzy of conspiracy theories about Catherine and her health.

Moscow has found better ways to conceal influence operations that spread arguments for isolationism, officials and experts say.

The ruling means that Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, will spend more than a year in custody awaiting trial on a spying charge.

Conceding that the Islamic State alone carried out the assault on a Moscow concert hall would mean admitting to a security failure, and risk diluting Vladimir Putin’s narrative war with the West.

But President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia held fast to the idea that a Western-backed Ukraine could have been the ultimate mastermind of the assault that killed 139 people.

Russian state media pushed the idea that Ukraine was the obvious culprit, but at least three of the four suspects charged on Sunday are from the Central Asian nation of Tajikistan.

The four men are migrant laborers from Tajikistan. They looked severely injured as they were brought into the courtroom. They face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

The Islamic State has long threatened to strike Russia for helping the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, stay in control.