Members of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hand-picked Human Rights Council were warned not to upset him with “thorny” questions about Moscow’s faltering war in Ukraine when they met Wednesday, the English-language Moscow Times newspaper reported.
Council Chairman Valery Fadeyev cleared the topics to be discussed beforehand during meetings with Kremlin officials in recent weeks, the Moscow Times reported, citing the investigative news website Vyorstka.
Protests over Russian troop mobilizations, strict laws criminalizing so-called “fake news” about the military and a video showing a deserter from the Wagner mercenary group being executed with a sledgehammer were among the topics considered off-limits while speaking with Mr.