Year: 2019

U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman will boycott Russia’s showcase economic forum in St. Petersburg in June in response to the house arrest of American investor Michael Calvey, a U.S. Embassy spokesperson told media. Calvey, who was transferred to house arrest last month, faces up to 10 years in jail if convicted on embezzlement charges…

Vardø is a small fishing village on a little island off Norway’s coast in the Barents Sea. A huge military radar facility forms its skyline. In clear weather, if you look east across the water, you can see the shoreline of Russia’s Fishermen Peninsula, a northern appendix of the Kola Peninsula.    Officially, the intelligence service…

Russia’s armed forces have introduced a new military rank of sergeant major, “experimenting” with 370 of the new recruits in the southern district. Plans to add the new rank as part of Russia’s military reform have been considered since the early 2010s. A sergeant major would undergo grueling recruitment procedures and oversee the military’s sergeant…

The delivery of Russia’s most expensive and technically advanced nuclear submarine to the Russian Navy is being delayed by design flaws, Russian media have reported. “Kazan” (K-561) is the first modernized multipurpose submarine of the Yasen-M class after “Severodvinsk” was handed over to the Northern Fleet in 2013. There are considerable changes in the auxiliary systems on…

British Prime Minister Theresa May led her country at a difficult period for its ties with Russia, the Kremlin said after she announced her resignation on Friday. May said she will step down on June 7, ending her three-year tenure following Britain’s vote to leave the European Union in 2016 and deepening the Brexit crisis.…

Russia’s deputy chief of police declared an income of 38 million rubles ($588,000) two days after complaining that law enforcement officers’ living standards are falling. Deputy Interior Minister Arkady Gostev’s income grew tenfold between 2017 and 2018, according to declarations published on Thursday, making him the richest police officer in Russia. Police spokeswoman Irina Volk…

A former U.S. Marine held in Moscow on suspicion of spying said on Friday he had been threatened by a Russian investigator and harassed in custody, accusations that added to strains in U.S.-Russian relations. Paul Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports, was detained in a Moscow hotel room on Dec. 28 and accused…

Russia plans to take back around 1 million tons of contaminated oil from Belarus, cleaning up the Druzhba export pipeline section leading to Poland and Germany, four industry sources familiar with the plan told Reuters. The plan was discussed at talks in Warsaw on Thursday between Russian, Belarussian and European companies. Another roughly 1 million…

Pro-Kremlin activists tried to shut down the opening of an LGBT film festival in Moscow on Thursday. Two fringe nationalist groups called the National Liberation Movement (NOD) and SERB harassed attendees and poured ammonia on an employee of the Canadian Embassy in Moscow, organizers said. The two groups are known for attacks on opposition activists…

Russia has signed a bilateral agreement to send military “specialists” to the Republic of Congo to advise their counterparts and repair Soviet equipment in a move that further increases Moscow’s footprint on the continent. The Republic of Congo is the latest sub-Saharan African nation where Russia has stepped up its presence recently. Since Western nations…

Ice hockey heavyweights Russia and Canada reached the world championship semi-finals after thrilling wins while holders Sweden crashed out after a 5-4 sudden-death overtime defeat by traditional rivals Finland on Thursday. On a day of enthralling action in Bratislava and Kosice, the Czech Republic were the only side to enjoy a smooth ride into the last four…

Police officers in large Russian cities will be able to identify criminals using face recognition glasses by 2020, the head of state-owned industrial conglomerate Rostec said Thursday. The augmented-reality (AR) glasses will use technology that helped catch more than 180 criminals during the football World Cup in Russia last year, Sergei Chemezov said at a…

Russian investigators say they have found drugs in the apartment of detained former minister Mikhail Abyzov, Interfax reported on Thursday. Abyzov, 46, faces up to 20 years behind bars on suspicion of embezzling $62 million. The former minister of a since-disbanded Open Government Affairs post denies the charges. A forensic analysis showed that a “narcotic substance”…

Russia is using rail, storage tanks and ships to remove contaminated oil from an export pipeline, and has so far extracted around 2 million tons of the tainted oil — or over a third of volumes hit, industry sources and data showed. A month ago, Russia had to stop exports via the Druzhba pipeline to Poland…

FIFA President Gianni Infantino thanked Russia on Thursday for hosting the “best World Cup ever” as President Vladimir Putin presented him with a state award for his role in making last year’s tournament possible. In a Kremlin ceremony broadcast on television, Putin thanked “all those who helped to make this dream come to life,” including the…

The son of LUKoil chief executive Vagit Alekperov is Russia’s richest heir with an expected inheritance of $21.8 billion, according to rankings published by Forbes Russia on Thursday. Forbes estimates that the 48 ranked sons and daughters of Russian tycoons are set to inherit a combined $238 billion from their parents. Last year, the business…

An elite school in central Russia has drawn national attention after it lowered passing grades for boys because its headmaster says girls are better students and boys grow up to lead the country. A bulletin posted on the wall of the school in the city of Perm showed that the passing grade was set at…

A Danish adherent of the Jehovah’s Witnesses jailed for six years in Russia after being found guilty of organizing a banned extremist group lost his court appeal on Thursday, a spokesman for the group said. Armed police detained Dennis Christensen, a builder, in May 2017 at a prayer meeting in Oryol, some 200 miles (320…

Nearly half of Russians support equal rights for members of the LGBT community, marking the highest level of support in 14 years, according to the independent Levada Center pollster. Since Russia banned the display of “gay propaganda” to minors in 2013, authorities have refused to authorize gay pride events across the country and polls have…

Libyan military strongman Khalifa Haftar’s almost two-month assault on the capital, Tripoli, has stalled and he can’t take the city, according to a Russian special envoy to the oil-rich North African state. “It was absolutely predictable that Haftar would get bogged down,” said Lev Dengov, who forecast a lengthy stand-off. The leader of the self-styled…

A resident of the Russian city of Yekaterinburg has filed a lawsuit with Europe’s human rights court for his detention during rallies against the construction of a church on park grounds. Daniil Pugin was one of dozens detained amid spontaneous and unauthorized protests at the proposed construction site last week. A state-sponsored poll published Wednesday…

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government is increasingly turning to allies Cuba, China and Russia to offset a health crisis caused by U.S. sanctions, a minister said on Wednesday. Venezuelans have been suffering dire shortages of medicines and health equipment for several years as it has spiralled into economic chaos and political conflict. The opposition blames…

Russian soldiers in Siberia have told their supervisors that they are willing to open fire on protesters if ordered, a special forces serviceman has claimed in an interview. The soldier made the statement in a video interview published Tuesday by opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s office in the Siberian city of Tyumen. In the video, the…

A majority of residents in Russia’s fourth-largest city of Yekaterinburg oppose the construction of an Orthodox cathedral in a popular riverside park, according to a state-run poll released on Wednesday. Thousands of residents took to the streets last week to protest plans to replace the park with a replica of a cathedral demolished in the…

Russians are more likely to oppose having an LGBT neighbor than a neighbor from another social group, according to a new survey released by the independent Levada Center pollster. Recent public polling has shown surging anti-LGBT sentiment in the years since Russia banned “homosexual propaganda” among minors in 2013. Respondents to the survey released Wednesday…

Syrian government troops on Wednesday morning repelled three big attacks by militants in Syria’s Idlib province, the Russian Defense Ministry said. It said in a statement that 500 Nusra front militants, seven tanks and about 30 pickups mounted with heavy machine guns had taken part in the attacks. The ministry said that Syrian militants based in…

The Russian government has rejected a bill that would have introduced fines for officials who exhibit disrespect toward citizens, weeks after lawmakers passed a bill that introduced fines for disrespecting the authorities. Communist lawmakers introduced the legislation in February, seeking to fine and suspend civil servants for humiliating voters. Around the same time, another bill that…

U.S. fighter jets intercepted several Russian bombers in international airspace off the coast of Alaska on Tuesday, in the fourth and fifth such incursions this year, U.S. military officials said on Wednesday. “The Russian aircraft remained in international airspace and at no time entered U.S. or Canadian sovereign airspace,” the North American Aerospace Defense Command…

Russian senators have unanimously voted to unseat their colleague who faces life in prison on aggravated murder charges months after his dramatic arrest in the Federation Council’s chambers. Rauf Arashukov, 32, was arrested during a session of the upper house of parliament after attempting to flee the chamber on Jan. 30. Arashukov, who represented the…

The United States has sanctioned two Russian arms manufacturers and a missile training center for allegedly violating international arms control restrictions on exports to Iran, North Korea and Syria. The move was a response to the Russian entities’ transfer of restricted goods, services and technologies to the countries in violation of a U.S. law, a State…

New systems for radio-electronic warfare installed along Russia’s Arctic coast are capable of jamming foreign ships and aircraft from thousands of kilometers away, Russian military officials have been cited as saying by the Izvestia tabloid. The Northern Fleet has completed its new Center for Radio-Electronic Warfare, military representatives told Izvestia. The center includes two Murmansk-BN systems, as…

Ukraine may submit any preliminary peace deal agreed with Russia to the Ukrainian people for a referendum, the new head of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s administration told Ukrainian television Tuesday. Ukrainian troops are fighting Russian-backed separatists in the Donbass region in a conflict that has killed 13,000 people since 2014. Ukraine also wants Russia to return…

Security forces have killed two militants in western Russia suspected of planning a terrorist act, authorities said Wednesday. The suspects in Vladimir region refused to lay down arms and opened fire on FSB officers, Russia’s National Antiterrorism Committee (NAC) said in a statement. “They were neutralized by return fire in the ensuing shootout,” the statement…

Russians living with HIV will be able to legally adopt children living with them under new legislation passed on Tuesday. Russia’s Constitutional Court ruled last year that preventing HIV-positive families from adopting children who already live with them was unconstitutional. The changes were anticipated as part of Russia’s broader state strategy to combat the epidemic…

Russian suppliers will have to provide financial compensation for their mistakes over contaminated oil, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Tuesday. Flows through the Druzhba pipeline were suspended last month due to contamination, sending shockwaves through global oil markets. “Russian suppliers made major business and operational mistakes… Russia and Russian firms have to respond…

Russia’s transition to connected vehicles is looking increasingly homegrown after the country’s biggest car-making alliance handed control of its dashboards to local search engine Yandex. The Renault-Nissan-AvtoVAZ partnership, which has about a third of the Russian market, will use Yandex in locally made cars for services like real-time navigation, voice assistance and music. The pact…

Russian millennials are more concerned about corruption and income inequality than their global peers, the U.S auditing company Deloitte said in a survey published Monday. Millennials around the world named climate change (29 percent) and income inequality (22 percent) as their top personal concerns, the survey said. Russian millennials named political and business corruption (38…

The Kremlin said on Tuesday that U.S. sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany would be an act of unfair competition that would be seen as unacceptable in Moscow and some European capitals. U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said earlier on Tuesday in Kiev that a sanctions bill putting onerous restrictions on companies…

The Kremlin’s property management department is financing luxury renovations for the residence of Russian Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Kirill near St. Petersburg, The Bell business outlet reported Tuesday. The former residence of Russia’s imperial family, which is being converted for use by the patriarch, occupies almost 2.5 hectares (6.1 acres) of land south of St.…

Russia’s FSB security service has asked a court to keep a former U.S. marine accused of espionage in pre-trial detention for another three months, Interfax reported on Tuesday. Paul Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports, was detained in a Moscow hotel room on December 28 and accused of espionage, a charge he…

The firing of two veteran reporters from Russia’s Kommersant business daily is “an obvious clampdown on freedom of speech in Russia,” more than 200 employees of the company have said in an online statement. On Monday, 11 Kommersant journalists said they were resigning from the publication after two of their colleagues were reportedly fired for…

Newly inaugurated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has asked U.S. officials to step up sanctions against neighboring Russia in one his first foreign policy actions. Zelenskiy has said that Ukraine’s most pressing issue is conflict with its neighbor Russia, which annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and backed separatists in a war in the east that…

Police in Moscow have detained a senior aide to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Tuesday for mass rallies against unpopular pension reforms last fall. More than 150 protesters, including 50 Navalny supporters, were detained during nationwide protests on Sept. 9, 2018, against President Vladimir Putin’s plan to increase the pension age. Putin signed the…