Russia's largest grassroots election watchdog, Golos, has been almost driven out of existence by a law passed three years ago that saddled it with a "foreign agent" label - which connotes "spy" in Russian. Since then, the organization has been subject of an ongoing wave of tax and criminal investigations, including an official ban on carrying out its primary mission of monitoring elections.
Christian Science Monitor: Russia moves to silence civil society and its ‘undesirable’ contacts
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during the Business Russia forum in Moscow on May 26.
