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News From Russia: What You Missed Over the Weekend

Alla Dmitriyeva / TASS

Kerch crisis

Russia will return three captured naval ships to Ukraine Monday and is moving them to a handover location agreed with Kiev, Russian news agencies reported, citing Crimea's border guard service.

The move, if it happens, will be seen as a confidence-building measure ahead of a planned four-way summit on the eastern Ukraine conflict.

‘Unquantifiable’

Britain cannot rule out that Russia may have interfered in the 2016 Brexit vote but its effect was “unquantifiable,” The Sunday Times reported, citing intelligence officials who have either seen or been briefed on a report on the matter.

“The government’s refusal to publish the report has been very damaging to the British intelligence community, because it suggests that we have something major to cover up,” the unnamed officials were quoted as saying.

Domestic violence

The author of a bill to recriminalize domestic violence, lawmaker Oksana Pushkina, has told police that she, the draft legislation’s co-authors and other activists have received threats of violence.

More than 180 Russian Orthodox and parental organizations wrote an open letter asking President Vladimir Putin to prevent the adoption of the law, which seeks to overturn a 2017 law that decriminalized most forms of domestic violence.

Antifa raid

Police detained then released up to 80 people, including five minors, during an anti-fascist combat sports competition in Moscow, the OVD-Info police-monitoring website reported.


										 					neverxsurrender / Vkontakte
neverxsurrender / Vkontakte

They were released after being photographed and filling out a detailed questionnaire.

Damaged Madonna

A vandal has damaged the "Madonna and Child" statue in Moscow's Rimskaya metro station, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported Sunday, citing the metro's press service.

The suspect was reportedly detained and measures to restore the statue have started. The press service said that fully repairing the statue will likely take a long time, however.

Includes reporting from Reuters.

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