Russia bans Nobel-winning rights group, raids independent newspaper, in one day

By AFP
April 9, 2026


One protester stood outside the supreme court with a placard reading 'Hands off Memorial. Freedom to politial prisoners' - Copyright AFP Dimitar DILKOFF

Russia banned the Nobel Prize-winning human rights group Memorial and raided the offices of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta Thursday, in fresh blows to already diminished civil liberties in the country.

Memorial and Novaya Gazeta, both founded around the collapse of the Soviet Union, are Russia’s two most reputable and renowned organisations reporting and documenting human rights abuses.

Since sending troops against neighbouring Ukraine four years ago, the Kremlin has not only suppressed opposition to the war, but also launched a wider crackdown on dissent, something unseen since Soviet times.

Memorial was founded in the late 1980s to document victims of Soviet-era political repression during which millions of people perished in the Gulag penal system.

Under pressure from the government almost since its birth, it was formally liquidated by Russia’s Supreme Court in 2021 and since then has largely operated from abroad.

Thursday’s court ruling to label Memorial as “extremist” effectively outlaws any cooperation with the rights group and makes its supporters subject to prosecution.

Novaya Gazeta, established in 1993, was for years Russia’s leading independent outlet and was targeted heavily for its critical reporting and investigations into rights violations and corruption.

On Thursday, Russian law enforcement agents raided its offices and detained one of its top investigative journalists, the outlet said.

The paper, which used to be published several times a week, cut down production inside the country after the war began, but its online version was still available despite court orders.

Some of its staff were forced into exile and founded the online outlet Novaya Gazeta-Europe.



– Symbol of hope –



Memorial’s first chairman was the Nobel Prize-winning Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov and the group established the largest publicly available database on Gulag victims.

A symbol of hope during Russia’s chaotic transition to democracy in the 1990s, it has since documented the country’s slide into authoritarianism under President Vladimir Putin.

It has listed hundreds of political prisoners in modern Russia, among them critics of Putin and opponents of the Ukraine war.

Memorial has also documented rights violations linked to Russia’s brutal wars in Chechnya and Syria, the plight of Ukrainian prisoners of war and kept a list of prisoners persecuted for their religion, including more than 200 Jehovah’s Witnesses.

It counts more than 1,000 political prisoners in Russia as of 2026 — up from 46 in 2015, amidst a crackdown on dissent during the Ukraine war.

The head of Memorial’s legal department, Natalia Sekretaryeva, told AFP the Supreme Court’s ruling was “absurd” but expected.



– ‘Lawlessness’ –



Novaya Gazeta was founded by Dmitry Muratov, its long-standing editor-in-chief who jointly won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2021.

He had to formally step down from the post two years later after being declared a “foreign agent,” a label akin to being an enemy of the state.

One of the early investors in the newspaper was Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the USSR and the father of the perestroika liberal reforms.

After Thursday’s raids, which started in the morning were still ongoing well into the night, the police detained one of the paper’s top investigative reporters on alleged illegal personal data use, Novaya Gazeta said.

The journalist, Oleg Roldugin, reported on corruption in Russia’s top brass, including former President Dmitry Medvedev and the influential head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov.

“We are concerned about the condition of our colleagues and demand an end to this lawlessness!” the paper said on social media.

Several Novaya Gazeta reporters have been murdered in killings widely seen as retribution for their work.

They include Anna Politkovskaya, who spent years investigating allegations of abuses by Russia’s military during its campaigns in Chechnya.

She was found dead in her apartment block on President Vladimir Putin’s birthday in October 2006.

Russian police raid independent Novaya Gazeta media outlet


By AFP
April 9, 2026


Russian police raid independent Novaya Gazeta media outlet - Copyright AFP Igor IVANKO

Russian law enforcement agents on Thursday raided the offices of the Novaya Gazeta independent media outlet, the paper said, adding that a reporter was being questioned by the police.

Novaya Gazeta was for years Russia’s leading investigative independent outlet and was targeted heavily for its critical reporting and investigations into human rights abuses.

“At around 12.00 pm (0900 GMT), security officers in masks started carrying out investigative actions at the editorial office of Novaya Gazeta,” the outlet said on social media.

“We don’t know the reason. The outlet’s lawyers are not being allowed into the office, where some staff members are also present.”

Russian state news agencies reported, citing anonymous law enforcement sources, that the raid was related to one of the paper’s top journalists Oleg Roldugin.

Novaya Gazeta said that “after morning searches in his flat, he (Roldugin) was taken to Moscow’s main investigative directorate of the ministry of internal affairs for questioning” without a lawyer. It said it could not confirm whether the raid on the outlet’s office was linked to Roldugin.

The investigative journalist reported on corruption in Russia’s top brass, including former President Dmitry Medvedev and the influential head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov.

An AFP reporter in Moscow saw two vans of Russia’s Investigative Committee parked in a yard outside the offices and staff stood inside the entrance foyer.

The paper’s then editor-in-chief, Dmitry Muratov, jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 for his “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression” at the helm of the paper.

Several Novaya Gazeta reporters have been murdered in killings widely seen as retribution.

They include Anna Politkovskaya, who spent years investigating allegations of abuses by Russia’s military during its campaigns in Chechnya.

She was found dead in her apartment block on President Vladimir Putin’s birthday in October 2006.

The paper, which used to be published several times a week, cut down production inside the country after Russia introduced military censorship at the start of its offensive on Ukraine in 2022.

Why Trump’s Cuba Plan Won’t Work

by Joseph Bouchard | Apr 10, 2026 | 

It is clear that the US wants to conduct some kind of regime change operation in Cuba, egged on by Republican and Democratic hawks, though polling indicates it is not popular within the US, Cuba, or the international community. Figures like Marco Rubio have said that Cuba will need to open their economy up, in a nod to when the island was a completely deregulated vassal for US casino companies, ruled by a pro-US brutal dictator, Fulgencio Batista, who was deposed by the Cuban Revolution led by the Castro brothers and Che Guevara.

The US has been applying maximum pressure on Cuba and negotiating like it did in Venezuela to put a new leader compliant to US interests, perhaps even one of the Castros, reportedly.

The Trump administration says it is getting closer to a “deal” as Venezuela has stopped its partnership with Cuba and Mexico has, according to the White House, stopped sending oil shipments. However, Mexico is still sending some oil and aid, Russia is sending more, and China has also sent help. China’s sustained attacks on the Cuban campaign have brought it diplomatic capital. The narrative of a collapsing support network for Havana is wishful thinking.

Conditions on the island are dire thanks to the US blockade, in place since 1958 but increased by Trump. There are rolling blackouts lasting up to 20 hours a day. Hospitals are shutting down wings, and patients have died because respirators lost power. Food is spoiling due to lack of refrigeration, pushing child malnutrition rates to levels not seen since the 1990s. But despite the suffering, Cuba has not budged. Negotiators have said they are “not going anywhere.”

Cubans are reminded daily of what subjugation under the US’s thumb was like, and they see a live demonstration in Venezuela, where the US extracts resources with no regard for the local population. No matter how much the US pushes, Cubans may only be urged to rebel further.

There have been massive youth protests in Cuba, but notably, they rebuke the US and the blockade, throwing out the possibility of an inside coup. Progressives in the US have pushed back, and Cuba’s young population has lost more than 1 million people to emigration (10 percent of the population), which has slowed the economy and decreased the risk of an insurgency. Rich right-wing Cubans are in South Florida. An older, more ideologically-committed population remains.

The history of American interference in Cuba is long and bloody. There was the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. There have been hundreds of assassination attempts against Fidel Castro. There is the ongoing blockade, codified by the Helms-Burton Act. For six decades, Washington has used OFAC to seize Cuban assets. Every tool in the regime change toolbox has been used. None have worked.

What Cuba hawks like Trump, Rubio, Ted Cruz, Maria Elvira Salazar, and Mario Diaz-Balart want is not new. All come from wealthy conservative families, with Rubio, Cruz, and Salazar being of Cuban descent, and they have a personal and ideological vendetta against socialist Cuba – many of their families held positions within the old Batista regime.

They want a throwback to the old pro-US regime that will do the bidding of American corporations and the military. The island is a strategic base for other operations. Washington wants Guantánamo not just for detention but as a staging ground for airstrikes against fishing boats in the Caribbean – strikes that are war crimes according to international law.

Cuba is an older, more resilient regime than the ones the US has successfully toppled. Cuba was the main socialist revolution that spurred anti-colonial revolts throughout Latin America, Europe, and Asia. The Cuban revolutionary government, while blockaded and sanctioned, helped socialist movements in Angola, Bolivia, Syria, Libya, Venezuela, El Salvador, Granada, Colombia, Ethiopia, Congo, Mozambique, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Nicaragua, and elsewhere.

Unlike some of these projects, Cuba’s Communist Party has a deep bench of leadership and a command economy designed to withstand siege. Their universal programs in healthcare, education, and housing have been massive improvements, though the state is deeply authoritarian. The Cuban state has gone through much worse, including the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, which wiped out 80% of its economy overnight and left Cuba vulnerable to a coup. Still, the island survived.

Currently, the Trump administration is distracted and bogged down. Washington is managing simultaneous military campaigns in Ukraine, Ecuador, Gaza, Iran, Somalia, Venezuela, and elsewhere, and has signaled it could invade Greenland and Canada. Historically, overstretched empires lose. The idea that the US could focus its full weight on Cuba alone is fantasy.

Cuba has more allies today than in the 1990s, partly due to its medical and security diplomacy. After the earthquake in Haiti, Cuban doctors took the lead when cholera broke out. During COVID, Cuba sent doctors to Italy, South Africa, and Mexico when wealthy nations restricted vaccines and the US tried to block them. That diplomatic capital buys loyalty. Russia is sending oil. China is sending food aid and investment. Canada continues to send tourists and aid. Even Gulf states, US allies, have maintained trade ties. The Cuban revolutionary state is much stronger than hawks project.

Crucially, there are no natural resources worth invading for. Cuba’s main exports are sugar, tobacco, nickel, and biotech. Its main economic sector is tourism. None of these are strategic enough to justify a war. Unlike Iraq, Iran, or Venezuela, Cuba does not possess a resource that would make American corporations lobby hard for intervention.

Finally, there is no popular right-wing opposition backed by US politicians and capital, unlike in Venezuela. In Cuba, the dissident movement is minuscule, not credible, and mostly foreign. There is no right-wing in Cuba. Even within the regime, there seems no interest in a negotiated takeover. If the Castro family – who engineered the socialist revolution in Cuba and others like it – is the Trump admin’s best shot, then they have no shot.

As things stand, the American strategy is based on a fantasy of a compliant vassal state that the Cuban people do not want. The blockade will continue to cause suffering, but it will not bring about surrender. Only diplomatic partnership and humanitarianism can bring lasting progress for the Cuban people.

Joseph Bouchard is a PhD candidate, journalist, and researcher from Québec covering security and geopolitics in Latin America. His articles have appeared in Reason, The Diplomat, The National Interest, Le Devoir, and RealClearPolitics, among others.

When Flotillas Fight for Life, Not Empire

Olivia DiNucci

April 10, 2026

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Image courtesy of CodePink.

Flotillas have historically been fleets of military vessels—tools of empire designed for swift offensive or defensive operations at sea. The images they evoke are ones of imperial power and looming violence. Just look at the massive US naval buildup that surrounded Iran as part of the recent US attacks.

But peace activists have also developed a new kind of flotilla.

Instead of instruments of war, flotillas have become symbols of peace—acts of humanitarian direct action, civil resistance, and cross-border solidarity. Take the flotillas that have tried to reach Gaza, like the Global Sumud Flotilla. Even though they have been illegally intercepted by the Israeli military, they have educated millions of people worldwide about Israel’s atrocities, activated entire cities to shut down, and offered a beacon of hope to the beleaguered people of Gaza.

As U.S. policy continues to sanction and blockade Cuba—causing immense hardship for the Cuban people—I, along with many others, felt compelled to escalate our own tactics of solidarity by joining the recent flotilla to Cuba as part of the Nuestra América Convoy. Our boat carried 15 tons of aid, part of the more than 40 tons delivered by the convoy.

The United States is currently imposing some of the harshest sanctions on Cuba in recent history, compounding a 67-year blockade that has restricted access to medicine, fuel, and food. But in recent months, the US added another dimension: a naval blockade to severely limit fuel imports, leading to a humanitarian crisis.

In an ideal world, we wouldn’t need fossil fuels—we would already have made a just transition to renewable energy. And while Cuba is working at lightning speed to expand solar power, the current reality is stark: people still need fuel to cook, to transport food, to operate ambulances, to power hospitals, and to keep ventilators running.

The international community has responded to this escalation in U.S. economic warfare with intensified solidarity. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world have been mobilizing to send aid and condemn the US blockade. In March, Progressive International, CODEPINK, and The People’s Forum launched the Nuestra América Convoy, bringing together over 600 people from 33 countries. We came with millions of dollars’ worth of aid—from urgently needed medical supplies to longer-term solutions like solar panels.

While many of my friends boarded planes to Havana, packing every inch of their luggage with medicine, hygiene products, vitamins, and art supplies, I traveled to Mexico to meet the flotilla crew. We spent four days at sea together—activists, journalists, organizers. Some had helped organize the Gaza Sumud Flotilla; others had taken part in mass protests in solidarity with Palestine.

Our goal was to deliver much-needed aid to the people of Cuba. But just as important was challenging the dominant narrative—that Cuba’s suffering is the result of its own government, rather than decades of U.S. cruel policy.

Even though the boat was full of journalists documenting the trip, their cameras could not fully capture the sense of community among strangers united by a shared mission. I remember being nervous about the cold and the possibility of seasickness, but within minutes, people were offering ginger chews, acupressure bracelets, and rain gear.

Our departure was delayed due to weather, boat repairs, and the logistics of loading the aid. In the meantime, we stayed with supporters in Mexico who couldn’t join the voyage but found other ways to contribute. We shared a send-off dinner at an Egyptian restaurant whose owner had followed the Gaza flotillas. He told us how proud he was to see a flotilla to Cuba leaving from his small town.

On the boat, we shared cooking, dishwashing, and night watch shifts—standard practice in occupations, encampments, and direct actions where resources are limited but creativity and collaboration are abundant. At sea, a simple breakfast of rice, beans, eggs, guacamole, and toast tastes like a feast. We slept under galaxies of stars, woke to sunrises on the horizon, and at sunset made music with whatever we had—a guitar, a bucket drum, water bottles filled with dry beans.

Meanwhile, I stayed connected to those traveling by plane, watching group chats fill with photos of carefully packed bags and urgent questions: Who can fit more supplies? How many solar batteries can we carry on? The coordination was constant, collective, and inspiring.

The blockade severely limits what goods can reach Cuba. While US citizens can still travel there under certain categories, they face restrictions and often risk questioning upon return. But solidarity is not tourism. It is not about swooping in, taking photos, and leaving. It is about building relationships, listening, and committing to ongoing struggle from our home countries.

We had a beautiful reception from the Cuban people when we landed, and then had the opportunity to speak directly with community groups about current conditions.I learned how they overcome so much by placing value in community over the individual.

The US empire is indeed dying, and it is up to us to not just reimagine the better world we need and want, but to actually put that world into practice. Reflecting on my experience, I started thinking — if we can turn flotillas from a force of evil into vessels of hope and solidarity, then what else can we change? What if we built schools around the world instead of sending bombs? What if, like the Cubans, we funded healthcare over warfare and sent doctors to cure people instead of soldiers to kill them?

You don’t have to board a boat with humanitarian supplies to show solidarity. Flotillas are one tactic, but we need a variety and diversity of tactics right now, and always. You can move forward by showing solidarity to your neighbors at home, as well as to our neighbors 90 miles off our shores. Because what we build together, in community—whether through a peace flotilla or local mutual aid—is stronger than anything built through force.

Olivia DiNucci is an anti-militarism and climate justice organizer based in Washington DC.

Russia deputy FM hails ‘special’ relations 

on Cuba visit

By AFP
April 10, 2026


Havana's communist authorities have said exiled Cubans can invest on the island to help its ramshackle economy but the idea is being met with caution in Florida. A coconut water stall is seen on a street in Havana with a sign reading "Ice-cold coconut water," on March 16, 2026. Cubans living abroad and their descendants will be able to invest and have their own businesses on the island, the communist government announced on March 16, 2026, at a time when the country’s economy is almost paralyzed by the energy blockade imposed by Washington. — © AFP YAMIL LAGE

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov hailed the “special nature” of relations with Cuba on a visit Thursday, where he met President Miguel Diaz-Canel as tensions simmer between Washington and energy-starved Havana.

“Russia is not going to leave the western hemisphere, no matter what they say in Washington,” Ryabkov told a press conference after the meeting, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

“Our relations with Cuba are of a special nature… We can’t just betray Cuba, it’s completely out of the question, we can’t leave it to its fate.”

The meeting, confirmed by Diaz-Canel’s office on X, came 10 days after a Russian oil tanker arrived in Cuba despite a de facto US fuel blockade.

“We take this opportunity to send a hug to our dear friend, President Vladimir Putin,” Diaz-Canel said in the meeting, according to his office.

Ryabkov said Cuba’s economic issues, including its energy security, were among the main topics of discussion, TASS reported.

Under President Donald Trump, the United States has threatened tariffs on any country that attempts to sell oil to Cuba, resulting in an energy crisis on the communist island that has worsened since January.

The US labels Cuba a threat to US national security, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is of Cuban descent, has demanded changes to the island’s leadership.

Earlier on Thursday, Diaz-Canel told US-based NBC News that he would not resign under US pressure.

Rubio has denied calling for Diaz-Canel’s resignation.

“At the present moment, Russia is one hundred percent in solidarity with Cuba; despite the complexity the country is going through, we are by your side, said the deputy foreign minister,” the Cuban president’s office wrote on X on Thursday.

More Guns, Less Butter

Seth Sandronsky

 April 10, 2026

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Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

President Trump says the quiet part out loud. He is plain as day when it comes to policy preferences to line the pockets of his donor class. You can’t blame him alone for supporting the military-industrial complex, sometimes called the Blob, the enforcer of economic imperialism.

There’s a bipartisan history of like minded presidential administrations and congress critters funding war spending on the taxpayers’ dime since the Cold War. It ended with the fall of the former Soviet Union. Still, the corporate gravy train for war contractors keeps on rolling.

Meanwhile, the federal government cannot pay for guns (war) and butter (education, health and housing), according to the president, at the White House during an Easter luncheon. He promised the opposite on the campaign trail. We are supposed to forget that.

“It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things,” Trump said. “They can do it on a state basis. You can’t do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country.”

You heard it there. State funding can replace the budget duties of the federal government, since the role of Uncle Sam is to finance war primarily, according to the president. What’s wrong with this picture?

The federal government can and does run budget shortfalls. The federal debt and deficit are proof of that. Such borrowing requires willing lenders.

State governments can do no such borrowing. One need not be an economist to see a budgetary outcome. Sharp funding cuts to education, health and housing assistance that help the U.S. working class living in blue, red and purple states.

Federal assistance to cool and heat homes? Cut. Federal assistance for nutrition? Cut.

Federal assistance for disease control? Cut. Federal assistance to address wage theft and help small businesses? Cut.

Apparently, the unprovoked U.S.-Israel war on Iran, a violation of international law, is an example of guard duty for the country. Tell that to the survivors of Israeli bombings of residential neighborhoods in South Lebanon and U.S. strikes against hospitals and schools in Iran. Israel is the top recipient of U.S. military assistance, year after year.

Trump’s 2027 budget proposal calls for a Pentagon funding increase of $445 billion, 15 times the annual price tag for Obamacare subsidies. U.S. war corporations such as Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and RTX Corporation welcome the increased federal funding. The Blob has quite an appetite.

It would feast larger in part from shifting federal assistance away from providing fresh produce to poor women and children. The proposed budget from Trump for assistance to Women, Infants and Children would create more hunger among them.

“The science-based increase to WIC’s fruit and vegetable benefits has led to meaningful improvements in how families eat,” according to a statement from Georgia Machell, head of the National WIC Association, “Young children now consume an additional ¼ cup of fruits and vegetables per day, and parents report being better able to afford a healthier, more varied diet. The proposed cuts would reverse that progress, reducing benefits to levels that would meet just 19 percent of the recommended intake for children and 12 percent for breastfeeding mothers, short of what families need to support healthy growth and development.”

It’s what the war corporations demand and get the old-fashioned way, the economic playbook since WWII. That is war spending as an economic stimulus policy. Congress and the White House receive campaign contributions from war corporations to make that policy happen.

Despite overwhelming U.S. public opposition to the current war of choice, the president is doubling down on his more guns, less butter approach to the federal budget. Meanwhile there is a global economic crisis due to the unprovoked U.S.-Israel war on Iran. The economics and politics of this are fraught with a harmful prognosis, from higher energy and fertilizer prices to use of nuclear weapons.

How the U.S. public responds is key to their best interests and that of global humanity. As citizens of an empire in decline, the American population is facing in part a battle with the Blob over federal assistance. To say that much hangs in the balance is a mighty understatement.

Seth Sandronsky is a Sacramento journalist and member of the freelancers unit of the Pacific Media Workers Guild. Email sethsandronsky@gmail.com