As a sixth-grader, Leo Koch was assigned a science project: find a way to help the environment, and engage the community in doing so. Helping the environment would be the easy part, Koch figured, just by gathering a few friends for a beach cleanup.
Russian Authorities Redouble Pressure to Preserve Crimeans’ Loyalty
Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 18 Issue: 21
Pro-Navalny protest in Sevastopol, Crimea, January 23 (Source: Spektr)
Moscow and most Russian regions saw a series of huge rallies at the end of January and early February, in which protesters demanded the immediate release of Russian dissident and opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Remarkably, on January 23, a crowd of several hundred pro-Navalny demonstrators even gathered in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol (illegally annexed, along with the peninsula, from Ukraine in 2014) (Spektr, January 23). Since the start of the Russian occupation, Sevastopol City and Crimea have persistently figured, along with Chechnya, among the top three federal regions in terms of local public confidence in Russian President Vladimir Putin (