To reinforce and control the narrative on the war in Ukraine, Putin has muzzled the press and muscled repression, with more arrests in recent weeks. This article by Anton Troianovski is published by Yahoo News. Here is an excerpt:

They came for Dmitry Kolker, an ailing physicist, in the intensive care ward. They came for Ivan Fedotov, a hockey star, as he was leaving practice with a film crew in tow. They came for Vladimir Mau, a state university rector, the week he was reelected to the board of Gazprom.

The message sent by these high-profile detentions: Nearly anyone is now punishable in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

The flurry of arrests across the country in recent days has signaled that the Kremlin is intent on tightening the noose around Russian society even further. It appears to be a manifestation of Putin’s declaration in the early weeks of his war in Ukraine that Russia needed to cleanse itself of pro-Western “scum and traitors,” and it is creating an unmistakable chill.

Read the full story here.