Month: April 2019

Russia’s lower house of parliament approved on Tuesday the third reading of a draft law that aims to increase Moscow’s sovereignty over its internet segment and defend against foreign meddling, Interfax reported. The bill must now be approved by parliament’s upper house and the presidency before passing into law. The bill’s authors said earlier that…

A record 70 percent of Russians approve of Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s role in Russian history, according to a poll published by the independent Levada Center pollster on Tuesday. Stalin’s image has been gradually rehabilitated in the 2000s from that of a bloody autocrat to an “outstanding leader.” President Vladimir Putin has revived the Soviet…

Russia will send up to 30 military personnel to Central African Republic as part of a UN mission to help stabilize the country, according to a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin on Monday. The decree said the Russian contingent would include military observers, staff officers and military communications specialists. Moscow has already sent military…

Russian lawmakers have stepped up calls to ban plastic bags over the past week amid mounting concerns about pollution and Russia’s national waste crisis. Moscow’s plan to export its waste to surrounding regions has riled Russian citizens in recent months, while nationwide trash reforms threaten to shut down garbage collectors in nine regions. In the…

Russia has stopped all cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said in an interview with state media on Monday. The Western alliance suspended military and civilian cooperation with Russia in the spring of 2014 in response to Moscow’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula. Several disputes, including a naval…

Russia’s “real men” are being replaced by “scrawny chickens,” a Russian Orthodox official said on Monday as heated debates surround the concept of toxic masculinity and the #MeToo movement in the West. Many Russian women raise their children independently due to the country’s high divorce rate — in 2016, Russians were 1.6 times more likely…

Trash collection companies in at least nine Russian regions are at risk of shutting down over unpaid bills, the Vedomosti business daily reported on Monday. The difficulties are blamed on nationwide reforms tasking regions with choosing operators to collect waste that took effect on Jan. 1. The reforms have been criticized for increasing the costs of…

At least two opposition leaders in Russia’s republic of Ingushetia have been arrested on charges of attacking police shortly after being released from detention following protests against a divisive border-change deal. Thousands took to the streets in Ingushetia last month over a land swap deal signed last fall with the neighboring republic of Chechnya in…

Russia’s biggest aluminum producer Rusal has agreed on a joint project to build a rolling mill in the U.S. just three months after the Trump administration lifted sanctions on the metals giant. In April 2018, the U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, Rusal and other companies in which he owns stakes, citing…

Two suspected Islamic State members were killed during a shootout in the Siberian town of Tyumen following a raid by the Federal Security Service (FSB). Russia‘s National Anti-Terrorism Commitee released footage in the early hours of Saturday showing security measures around the streets where the raid took place. According to the committee, the FSB obtained…

President Vladimir Putin earned less than half in 2018 than he did the previous year, the Kremlin announced on Friday. Putin earned 18.7 million rubles ($291,000) in 2017, the state-run RIA Novosti news outlet quoted a Kremlin announcement as saying. His pay in 2018 fell to 8.6 million rubles ($134,000). Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s yearly…

Russia has breached the rights of a Chechen domestic abuse victim, a United Nations women’s rights panel ruled on Friday in what has been called the UN’s first decision on domestic violence in the country. Domestic violence complaints have skyrocketed since President Vladimir Putin passed a 2017 law decriminalizing first-time abuse where beatings resulted in…

A court in Russia fined Facebook on Friday for failing to tell authorities where it stores Russian user data, Russian news agencies reported, a ruling that highlights wrangling between tech giants and Moscow as it ramps up internet controls. The court fined Facebook 3,000 rubles ($47) for not providing information in line with legislation that…

Moscow’s real estate costs rose at some of the highest rates in the world last year, the global real estate and investment firm CBRE Group said Thursday. The city of some 12.5 million people has seen its cost of living fall this year and it ranked outside the world’s 50 most expensive cities last year.…

Russia’s state space agency plans to send “outstanding citizens” to the International Space Station (ISS) at no cost in exchange for their achievements, the agency’s head announced on Thursday. The Roscosmos space agency plans to send tourists to the ISS in late 2021 under a deal signed with the U.S. tourism firm Space Adventures. Dmitry…

Three years later, Belka and Strelka gained a place in history as the first animals to survive space orbit. Accompanied by a rabbit, 42 mice, two rats, flies and several plants, the duo and all their traveling companions made it safely back to earth. Sergei Preobrazhensky, Nikolai Sitnikov / TASS

The wealthiest 3 percent of Russians owned 89 percent of all financial assets in 2018, according to joint research by the Higher School of Economics and the state-run VEB Bank. This is the first time a comprehensive study of wealth inequality has been attempted in Russia, the Kommersant business daily reported on Friday. Last month,…

Russians traveling in Sudan are not in danger after the ouster of the African nation’s longtime leader and ongoing unrest, the Russian Embassy in Khartoum said Thursday. An estimated 140 Russian citizens are registered as residing in Sudan, where a military coup overthrew President Omar al-Bashir, a close ally of Russia, after 30 years of…

Russian State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin has presumably cast a vote for a controversial bill tightening internet controls while on a working trip to his home region. Shrugging off an outcry from opposition politicians and rights activists, the 450-seat lower chamber of parliament voted in a second reading to pass a largely unchanged version of…

The president of Belarus has ordered the closure of a Russian oil export pipeline for repairs in retaliation to Moscow’s “brazen” import ban. Belarus and Russia have seen a new flare-up in bilateral tensions barely two months after an amicable meeting between their presidents in Sochi. In late March, the two countries’ Foreign Ministries exchanged…

A star Russian football player has sparked national outrage this week after stepping out of his Mercedes at a traffic light to beat up a pedestrian who had bumped against his car. The victim is reportedly a U.S. citizen who is working as a translator in Russia’s capital. The incident took place in the aftermath…

Russia’s sovereign wealth fund RDIF plans a joint investment in the next couple of months with Baring Vostok, the private equity group whose executives are facing charges in Russia of fraud, RDIF head Kirill Dmitriev told Reuters. A Moscow court on Thursday ruled that Michael Calvey, the U.S. citizen who heads Baring Vostok, should be…

Russia is entering the final testing phase of its nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile dubbed Satan-2, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday. Russia announced plans in 2013 to develop the ICBM to replace a Cold War standby known in the West as “Satan,” or the RS-20B Voyevoda in Russia. Putin unveiled Satan-2 with an array of other…

Update: Moscow’s Basmanny district court has ruled to extend Calvey’s house arrest through July 14, the state-run TASS news agency reported on Friday. A Moscow court has ruled to move detained U.S. investor Michael Calvey from pre-trial detention to house arrest, Russian media reported Thursday. In February, Russia detained Calvey, the founder of the Baring Vostok…

A Moscow court has ruled to move detained U.S. investor Michael Calvey from pre-trial detention to house arrest, Russian media reported Thursday. In February, Russia detained Calvey, the founder of the Baring Vostok private equity group, on suspicion of fraud along with three other partners in the fund. Calvey denies the allegations, saying the case…

Russian engineers announced on Thursday they have shrunk an artificial heart for infants, giving children with heart defects a new lease on life. A synthetic replacement for the heart remains one of the long-sought holy grails of modern medicine. A functional artificial heart — first successfully implanted in a human in 1982 — lowers the…

A Chechen court has overturned an earlier ruling ordering Russian gas giant Gazprom to write off 9 billion rubles ($140 million) of the region’s gas debt. Unpaid debts on utility bills are a widespread problem in Chechnya’s capital of Grozny, where local media reported extensive raids and mass blackouts over unpaid bills by as many as…

Russian lawmakers have passed a bill on Thursday to criminalize doping in athletics years after the country was thrust into a doping scandal. Several Russian sports bodies and athletes have been banned from international competition since 2015 following a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) report that found evidence of widespread doping. Since late 2016, coaches and other…

With Russia’s economy faltering under an onslaught of Western sanctions, Russian President Vladimir Putin attended the 5th International Arctic Forum in St. Petersburg this week to promote the resource-rich region’s development. Presentations and panel discussions between more than 3,600 Russian and international lawmakers, scientists and businesspeople wrapped up on Wednesday. Delegates discussed topics including the Northern…