Month: November 2020

Russia has confirmed 1,858,568 cases of coronavirus and 32,032 deaths. Nov. 12: What you need to know today Russia confirmed 21,608 new coronavirus cases and a record 439 deaths. About one in three, or 31%, of coronavirus infections in Russia are asymptomatic, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said. Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine is 92% effective, its developers said…

Russia plans to open a military logistics hub for nuclear warships in Sudan, according to a draft deal that also allows Russia to ferry weapons in and out of the volatile northeast African country.  Under the draft deal published on the government website, the Russian Navy will station up to four warships, including those with…

Several thousand demonstrators protested Wednesday in the Armenian capital Yerevan as anger mounted over Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s decision to cede swathes of disputed territory to Azerbaijan under a controversial peace deal. Pashinyan announced a Russian-brokered peace agreement with Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in the early hours of Tuesday, ending weeks of intense…

Russia has almost finished building a secure nuclear command and control post capable of withstanding a nuclear strike, President Vladimir Putin announced Wednesday. Speaking at one of a series of military-themed meetings, Putin emphasized the need for control systems to continue working in combat conditions “even in the event of a nuclear strike.” “I was…

Syria’s government kicked off a two-day Russia-backed conference in Damascus Wednesday towards facilitating the return of millions of Syrian refugees to the war-torn country, despite reservations within the international community. Of neighboring countries hosting the bulk of Syrian refugees, only Lebanon and Iraq sent representatives, according to organizers. Other attendees included a Russian delegation and representatives…

Russian aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska has dispatched essentials and an assistant to a famous Siberian hermit ahead of the harsh winter, the RBC news website reported Wednesday. Agafya Lykova was born 76 years ago to a family of Old Believers, a traditionalist Orthodox Christian sect, fleeing Stalinist persecutions in the remote Siberian taiga. She has…

The Moscow-brokered ceasefire appeared to be holding Wednesday morning, 36 hours after an agreement was reached to end six weeks of bitter fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region and surrounding districts. The conflict is seen as a victory for Azerbaijan, which reclaimed significant portions of territory previously occupied by Armenian-backed forces. Nov…

Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine is 92% effective, its developers said Wednesday as the global race heats up over mass vaccination to slow the spread of the pandemic that has killed nearly 1.3 million people and battered economies worldwide. Interim results showed that 20 of the 16,000 volunteers who received both Sputnik V doses have…

Russia has confirmed more than 400 new coronavirus deaths for the first time since the start of the pandemic Wednesday as authorities hold off on a widespread lockdown in favor of targeted measures. The grim milestone of 432 deaths in a single day pushed Russia’s overall Covid-19 death toll to 31,593. This figure is based…

At least three medics who received Russia’s vaunted Sputnik V vaccine have contracted the coronavirus in Siberia as part of a vaccination drive of at-risk groups, regional authorities said Tuesday. The adenovirus vector-based vaccine’s developer had previously suggested that recipients infected with Covid-19 may have received a placebo during final clinical trials. Authorities are administering…

Hundreds of Russian peacekeepers were heading to Nagorno-Karabakh on Tuesday after Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to a peace deal to end weeks of fierce fighting over the disputed region. The Moscow-brokered agreement, which saw a ceasefire take effect at 21:00 GMT, came after a string of Azerbaijani victories in its fight to retake the ethnic…

A set of Arctic islands north of the Siberian mainland saw temperatures as much as 10 degrees Celsius warmer than normal for the season last month, temperature maps from Russian meteorology service Roshydromet show. It was one of the warmest October months on record for the Russian archipelago of Severnaya Zemlya, which also saw the…

The new Russia-brokered peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan is a sign of Moscow seeking to reaffirm its influence in the conflict over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, analysts said Tuesday. But they disagreed on the level of the Kremlin’s success. Unlike previous agreements brokered by Russia and the U.S. which have fallen through within…

The Russian government is pushing ahead with a long-rumored mini-reshuffle this week in what analysts see as a mark of both newly installed prime minister Mikhail Mishustin’s growing influence and President Vladimir Putin’s divide-and-conquer approach to keeping his underlings in check. A handful of mid-ranking cabinet members have been shuffled out and replaced by new…

Moscow will limit hours at clubs, bars and restaurants for two months starting Friday, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced alongside other measures in the latest effort to contain a record-breaking surge of the coronavirus pandemic. Starting Nov. 13, these establishments as well as others like bowling alleys, karaoke bars and cafes, will not be allowed to…

Russia has confirmed 1,817,109 cases of coronavirus and 31,161 deaths. Nov. 10: What you need to know today Russia confirmed 20,977 new coronavirus cases — the fifth day in a row where new infections passed 20,000 — and 368 deaths. Moscow will order all bars, restaurants, clubs and other nighttime establishments to close between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.…

The first foreign diplomatic mission will open in sanctions-hit Crimea six years after Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine and incurred international sanctions, Russian state media reported Tuesday. The consulate will belong to the Central American nation of Nicaragua, which had named sanctioned Russian naval officer Oleg Belaventsev as its honorary consul in Crimea this…

Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed on Tuesday to a Russian-brokered peace deal to end weeks of heavy fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh and find a long-term solution to the dispute over the region. Here are the main points of the deal, which came after Azerbaijan managed to retake significant territory it had lost to Armenian separatists in a…

Russia needs to improve its ties with the United States under Joe Biden, though “not at any cost,” the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said after major U.S. television networks called the race for the Democratic Party challenger. Gorbachev said Biden appeared to “understand the importance of relations with Russia” when he last met the…

More than 400 Jehovah’s Witnesses have been charged or convicted in Russia since the country banned the religious group as an “extremist” organization three years ago, the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia has said. Since the April 2017 ban by Russia’s Supreme Court, law enforcement officers raided the homes of 1,166 worshippers’ families, the Jehovah’s Witnesses…

Armenia and Azerbaijan have reached an agreement to end the war in Nagorno-Karabakh with immediate effect.  Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan first made the announcement on Facebook early Tuesday morning. Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed details of the deal, brokered by Moscow, minutes later in a televised statement. “I have signed a statement on the…

Armenia and Azerbaijan have reached an agreement to end the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced on Facebook early Tuesday morning. “I have signed a statement on the termination of the Karabakh war along with the Russian and Azerbaijani presidents,” he wrote. The agreement came into effect at 01:00 local time, he added — minutes…

A Russian soldier suspected of killing three servicemen using an axe and a gun at a military base has been detained after a massive manhunt, officials said. The shooting — the second at a military base in a year — took place at an airfield near the city of Voronezh where activists say army conscripts…

Belarus has seen weekly mass protests against the disputed presidential re-election of Alexander Lukashenko for nearly three months. On Monday, exiled Belarusian opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya called for a national strike after the deadline she set for Lukashenko to resign and free all political prisoners expired the previous day. Here’s more of the latest news…

Crew members on a nuclear submarine have shot and killed a bear and her cub that climbed on board their vessel in Russia’s Far East, reports said Sunday.  Footage shared by local media in the Kamchatka region shows the cub and its mother swimming toward the submarine, then sitting on its deck before shotgun fire…

The Russian ruble and stock market soared Monday, hitting their strongest levels in months as global markets cheered positive news from one of the frontrunners in the coronavirus vaccine race. American pharma giant Pfizer and German BioNTech said their vaccine, currently in Phase 3 medical trials, was 90% effective in preventing Covid-19 infections. It is…

All cartoons that offend religious believers should be banned, a senior Russian Orthodox Church cleric has said following the killing of a French teacher by a Chechen refugee last month. Metropolitan Hilarion, who heads the church’s Department of External Relations, told state television Saturday that cartoons depicting the founders of major religions in an offensive light “don’t…

Like most of the world, Moscow has been anticipating the U.S. presidential election results, which were finally projected Saturday after days of vote-counting. With former Vice President Joe Biden set to replace President Donald Trump in the White House in January, there could be new opportunities to reshape the U.S.-Russia relationship, which has chilled to…

The captain of Russia’s national football team Artyom Dzyuba has been excluded from the squad’s training camp and three upcoming international fixtures after a private video appearing to show him masturbating went viral. The team said Sunday it would not call up Dzyuba for November matches against Moldova, Turkey and Serbia to “protect the team…

Russia will not yet recognize Joe Biden as President-elect of the United States, the Kremlin said Monday as world leaders rushed to congratulate the Democratic Party challenger after U.S. television networks declared him the winner. “We believe it’s correct to wait for the official results of the elections to be announced,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov…

Russia’s elections chief said Monday that voting by mail in the U.S. presidential election had paved the way for massive voter fraud, echoing rhetoric from the campaign of Donald Trump.  Ella Pamfilova, the head of Russia’s elections commission, said she had carefully studied mail-in voting in the United States and found the process vulnerable to…

Russia has broken its daily coronavirus record, confirming more than 21,000 new infections Monday as the second wave of the outbreak shows no signs of slowing down. The 21,798 new coronavirus cases shattered Friday’s record by over 1,200 and pushed the total caseload to 1,796,132, the world’s fourth-highest count after a brief lead taken by…

Azerbaijan accidently shot down a Russian military helicopter in Armenia as fighting raged over Nagorno-Karabakh on Monday, threatening to draw Moscow further into the conflict. The Defense Ministry in Moscow said two crew members were killed when the Mi-24 helicopter was hit by a man-portable air defense system close to the border with Azerbaijan. A…

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny congratulated President-elect Joe Biden on his victory Sunday before there was any reaction from the Kremlin to the U.S. election results. Navalny in a tweet congratulated Biden, running mate Kamala Harris and Americans for “defining the new leadership in a free and fair election”. “This is a privilege which is…

Russia has confirmed 1,774,334 cases of coronavirus and 30,537 deaths. Nov. 8: What you need to know today Russia confirmed 20,498 new coronavirus cases and 286 deaths — the third day in a row where new infections passed 20,000. Nov. 7 — Russia confirmed 20,396 new coronavirus cases and 364 deaths — the second day in a row where new infections…

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan — now in its sixth week — shows little sign of easing after three ceasefires have fallen apart, and could be approaching a decisive moment as heavy clashes are reported near a key town. Nagorno-Karabakh and areas under control of Armenian and Azerbaijani forces, before the conflict resumed in…

The head doctor of the Siberian hospital which first treated leading Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny — and repeatedly denied that he had been poisoned — has been appointed the region’s new health minister. Omsk region governor Alexander Burkov said in a statement Saturday morning he had named Alexander Murakhovsky, 49, to head up the region’s…

Russia recorded almost 120,000 excess deaths between the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and the end of September, official statistics on fatalities published Friday revealed. Russia’s federal statistics service (Rosstat) said a total of 9,798 people with Covid-19 died during September, the latest month for which figures are available. This was up from the 7,463…

Russia has confirmed 1,733,440 cases of coronavirus and 29,887 deaths. Nov. 6: What you need to know today Russia has confirmed the record-breaking number of 20,582 new coronavirus cases and 378 deaths.  Chinese authorities suspended entry for Russians with valid visas and residence permits because of Russia’s spike in coronavirus cases, the Chinese Embassy in Moscow announced Thursday.  Russia has recorded…

Producers of mink fur in Russia said Friday they have not encountered outbreaks of the coronavirus on their farms and do not have plans to cull their stocks amid growing concerns in Europe that the virus could spread and mutate in mink-to-human transmission. “We have no intention of killing our mink because of Covid-19. Our…

Arctic sea ice is on track to continue shrinking because of climate change and could soon cover half the area it did in the late 1970s, a leading Russian climate scientist told The Moscow Times. “Sea ice continues to shrink by approximately 10% every decade and this is a very fast-paced trajectory,” said Vladimir Semenov,…

The former partner of Russian radical performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky has accused him of rape and domestic abuse in a tell-all book, the news website Wonderzine reported. Oksana Shalygina told the outlet she had helped organize several of Pavlensky’s stunts, including nailing his scrotum to the cobblestones in Red Square, slicing off part of his…

Russian officials said Friday that metabolic problems and pancreatitis caused Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny to fall ill in August, ruling out findings by European labs that he was poisoned. The 44-year-old anti-graft campaigner collapsed on a flight from Siberia to Moscow and was transferred for treatment to Germany where experts ruled he was poisoned with…

Belarus has seen weekly mass protests against the disputed presidential re-election of Alexander Lukashenko for nearly three months. On Monday, exiled Belarusian opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya called for a national strike after the deadline she set for Lukashenko to resign and free all political prisoners expired the previous day. Here’s more of the latest news…

Kyrgyzstan tore down the gates of its main government building on Friday in a move authorities said symbolized the removal of barriers between citizens and authorities following political turmoil. Sooronbay Jeenbekov last month became the third president in Kyrgyzstan to resign amid unrest since the country gained independence 29 years ago amid the collapse of…

A Russian activist has been detained for staging a half-naked crucifixion stunt outside the Federal Security Service (FSB) headquarters in central Moscow, witnesses reported late Thursday. Pavel Krisevich replicated the crucifixion of Jesus Christ while other activists in raincoats labeled “FSB” doused the surrounding area with a harmless burning liquid and scattered folders signifying criminal…