Day: February 21, 2019
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Arrest of ‘Legendary’ U.S. Investor Calvey. And Why Russian Soldiers No Longer Can Take Selfies
This week on From Russia With News, Financial Times Bureau Chief Henry Foy joins us in the studio to talk about the arrest of Michael Calvey, the U.S. founder of Baring Vostok, Russia’s biggest independent private equity firm. We’ll also talk with Coda journalist Simon Ostrovsky to discuss the new Duma law that bans Russian…
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St. Petersburg’s Dam Is Holding Back the Floods, for Now
In the cold, gray waters of the Gulf of Finland, 30 kilometers west of St. Petersburg, a giant wall juts across the bay. Completed seven years ago, it protects the city from an age-old danger: floods. When storms approach from the west, the Baltic Sea is pushed eastwards into the shallow Neva Bay where the…
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Patriotic Course Teaches Russian Schoolkids to Disperse Protests
A military course for schoolchildren taught youngsters how to disperse street protests in Russia’s fourth largest city of Yekaterinburg, local media reported. Researchers registered at least 1,000 more protests in 2018 than in previous years as Russians took to the streets over pension age hikes, rising gas prices and other issues. Activists face a range…
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I’m Ready for Another Cuban Missile Crisis If You Want One, Putin Tells U.S.
President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia is militarily ready for a Cuban Missile-style crisis if the United States is foolish enough to want one and that his country currently has the edge when it comes to a first nuclear strike. The Cuban Missile Crisis erupted in 1962 when Moscow responded to a U.S. missile…
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Twitter Says Troll Accounts Linked to Russia Were Actually Venezuelan, Revises Data
Twitter Inc. this month made a significant revision to its public database of more than 3,000 accounts that it has linked to Russia’s Internet Research Agency, fundamentally altering the record about the group’s trolling efforts in the U.S. in the year following the contentious 2016 presidential election. Twitter’s changes invalidate central portions of a Bloomberg…
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Russia Now Has 2 Woman Billionaires, Forbes Says
It’s no longer lonely at the top for Yelena Baturina, Russia’s richest woman and the wife of former Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov. Forbes Russia said Tatiana Bakalchuk, the co-founder and owner of popular private online retailer Wildberries, joined its women billionaires list on Thursday. The business magazine now estimates Bakalchuk’s net worth at more than…
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‘Yiddish Glory’ Rewrites History
The myth still remains that during World War II Jews were more likely to bemoan their fate than to actively resist the Nazis. This is easily disproved by the 300,000-500,000 Jews that are estimated to have fought in the Red Army. But due to anti-Semitic policies in the Soviet Union, many of these stories were…
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Despite Putin’s Swagger, Russia Struggles to Modernize Its Navy
President Vladimir Putin calls improving the Russian navy’s combat capabilities a priority. The unfinished husks of three guided-missile frigates that have languished for three years at a Baltic shipyard show that is easier said than done. Earmarked for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, the frigates fell victim to sanctions imposed by Ukraine in 2014 after Russia…
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Russia Must Build Own Internet in Case of Foreign Disruption, Putin Says
Russia must prepare for possible Western attempts to deny it access to the global internet by creating its own self-sufficient ‘segments’ of the web, President Vladimir Putin was quoted as saying on Wednesday by Russian news agencies. “I think, they [foreign countries] will think through carefully before doing it, but there is a theoretical possibility…
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Russian Military Posts Video of Underwater Nuclear Drone Launch
Russia’s Defense Ministry released footage of what it said was a successful test launch of its new submarine drone missile system, hours after President Vladimir Putin said there had been major advancements in the system. Putin announced the development of a series of new advanced weapons ahead of his re-election in March 2018. Of those,…
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Rebels Say Russia Blocks Food Supply to Syria Refugee Camp
Russian military police and Syrian troops have blockaded food and goods supply routes to the Rukban refugee camp in Syria in a bid to force thousands of desperate residents to leave the U.S.-protected area near a Pentagon-run base, camp residents and rebels said on Wednesday. Russia’s defense ministry announced on Tuesday it was opening two…