Updated

Russian authorities intensified legal action against critics this week, with a Moscow court ordering four Anti-Corruption Foundation-linked critics to pay billionaire Oleg Deripaska 40 million rubles in a defamation case, and prosecutors ordering former Communist Duma deputy Oleg Mikhailov held in pretrial detention on terrorism-justification charges that Meduza's sources say were planned before his election defeat. Separately, Russia's Justice Ministry designated Ekho editor-in-chief Maxim Kurnikov a "foreign agent," and a deputy justice minister defended a new registry imposing "temporary restrictive measures," described as effective civil death, on dissidents living abroad.