Year: 2020

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…

China has 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. China barred entry to all foreign nationals including Russians in March as the virus spread across the world. China, where Covid-19 first emerged late last year and which has…

A decision over whether to overturn Russia’s four-year ban from international sport due to state-sanctioned doping will be known “by the end of this year,” the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) said Thursday. A four-day arbitration hearing between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) wrapped up after four days of…

A report from the OSCE election-monitoring organization published on Thursday condemned “massive” rights abuses and torture in Belarus and called for a re-run of the country’s August presidential polls in which President Alexander Lukashenko claimed victory. The first major independent report into the election and subsequent crackdown by authorities said human rights abuses “were found…

Russia’s foreign ministry on Thursday said outdated legislation and a lack of regulation had revealed flaws in the U.S. electoral system, as votes were being tallied to decide the next American president. The knife-edge U.S. presidential race was tilted toward Democrat Joe Biden early Thursday, but President Donald Trump claimed he was being cheated and…

Between 30% and 40% of the Covid-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests performed in Russia could be giving false negative results because of the methodology being used, the state-run Interfax agency reported Thursday citing Russian Health Ministry chief pulmonologist Sergei Avdeev. “If sampling materials are collected poorly or too lightly, that could lead to a…

Masked men in uniforms raided the Moscow offices of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and authorities charged one of his key aides with contempt of court, multiple reports said Thursday. Footage shared by Navalny’s social media team showed the men sticking tape over security cameras and entering the separately located offices of his Anti-Corruption Foundation…

The Russian stock market leapt higher Thursday as it picked up on a global equities rally, even as counting continues in the closer-than-expected U.S. presidential election. Stocks around the world rallied Wednesday, but the Russian market was closed for a public holiday, leaving it to hitch a ride higher when markets reopened Thursday morning. The…

A Russian court on Thursday eased a two-year jail sentence handed to an activist who displayed a mannequin wearing a mask of President Vladimir Putin. Alexander Shabarchin and Danila Vasilyev were arrested in 2018 after they taped a mannequin sporting the mask and a prisoner’s outfit to a lamp post in the Urals city of Perm.…

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan — now in its sixth week — shows little sign of easing after both sides accused the other of breaking an agreement not to target residential and civilian areas with missile strikes. Nagorno-Karabakh and areas under control of Armenian and Azerbaijani forces, before the conflict resumed in September 2020.…

Russian lawmakers submitted legislation Thursday that would grant former presidents lifetime immunity from criminal prosecution under President Vladimir Putin’s constitutional reforms, Interfax reported. Under current laws, presidents cannot be held criminally or administratively liable for crimes committed while serving their terms. A parliamentary working group assessing Putin’s constitutional reforms proposed earlier this year to extend…

Moscow’s coronavirus outbreak has spread this week despite efforts to contain it, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Thursday. Sobyanin credited the Russian capital’s public transport mask mandate, working from home rule and remote learning plan for bringing down the number of new Covid-19 cases in the past two weeks. “But earlier this week the situation began…

Police in Moscow detained at least 60 nationalists who attempted to stage street rallies known as the “Russian March,” the police-monitoring website OVD Info reported. Unlike previous years, the Moscow authorities did not grant permission for the nationalists to hold their traditional march in the southeast of the city because of the coronavirus pandemic.  According…

Russia is watching Election Day in the United States, with President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden battling it out. Here’s a selection of quotes from Russian politicians and public figures as polls closed across the country and results started to come in early Wednesday: — Vyacheslav Nikonov, deputy of the lower-house State Duma…

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…

Russia has confirmed 1,693,454 cases of coronavirus and 29,217 deaths. Nov. 4: What you need to know today Russia has confirmed the record-breaking number of 19,768 new coronavirus cases and 389 deaths.  Russia is set to miss the self-imposed coronavirus vaccination timeline, information obtained by the business news website The Bell suggests. While the authorities have vowed to vaccinate…

Russia will likely miss its self-imposed timeline for mass vaccination against the coronavirus because of insufficient production capacity, the business news website The Bell reported Tuesday. Authorities have vowed to vaccinate a sizable part of Russia’s population by the end of 2020, but developers are reportedly facing issues with scalability and quality control. As a…

Kyrgyzstan’s parliament elected an ally of acting leader Sadyr Japarov as speaker Wednesday, in a move bolstering the populist politician’s position as he prepares for a January presidential election. Japarov, who was propelled to power less than two weeks after being freed from jail during political chaos that saw Sooronbay Jeenbekov resign as president, has…

At a bustling produce market in southwest Moscow, Azerbaijani salesman Avas’ fruit and vegetables kiosk is a few steps away from Armine’s where she sells cheese from Armenia. When Avas was 26 years old, conflict broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region and he was forced to leave his home. The…

The number of new coronavirus cases in Russia hit another record Wednesday, surpassing 19,000 for the first time since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The 19,768 new coronavirus cases smash Sunday’s record by more than 1,000 and push the total caseload to 1,693,454, the world’s fourth-highest number.  The national coronavirus information center said that…

Soon after news broke that a Chechen teenager was responsible for the gruesome daylight beheading of French teacher Samuel Paty, Parisien student Akhmat started to get texts from his friends asking him if he knew the killer.  “We are a relatively small group, so people just assumed we knew each other. It shows what an…

A Russian suspect in the crash of flight MH17 saw no sign of the missile allegedly used to shoot down the plane, he said in a video played Tuesday at his trial. Oleg Pulatov is one of four men being tried in absentia by a Dutch court over the loss of the Malaysia Airlines jet,…

Authorities in Austria have detained suspects from southwestern Russia’s North Caucasus region as part of an investigation into the deadly shooting rampage in Vienna, Russia’s ambassador in Vienna said Tuesday. The only known gunman in Monday evening’s shooting spree across Vienna that killed four people and wounded 22 was an Islamic State group supporter, Austria’s…

Belarus on Tuesday launched its controversial Russia-built nuclear power station despite safety concerns from neighboring Baltic states three decades after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The launch comes as Belarus strongman president Alexander Lukashenko faces historic protests against his claim to victory in August presidential polls that Western leaders and his critics say were fraudulent. Ahead of…

Large-scale mail-in voting and late results in the 2020 U.S. presidential election could raise concerns over the transparency and legitimacy of the voting process, a senior Russian election official has said. Nearly 100 million Americans have already voted early, both in person and by mail, as the coronavirus pandemic has upended the traditional approach to…

Russia’s healthcare and consumer protection watchdog believes that most of the country’s “imported” coronavirus cases came from Turkey, Interfax has reported. “Our general monitoring showed that out of the total number of detected (imported cases) — more than 10 thousand positive tests for coronavirus, some 90%, are people who returned from Turkey,” Interfax quoted the…

As the second wave of the record-breaking coronavirus pandemic tears through Russia, the government has reinstated a national mask mandate as well as a decree requiring establishments to close between 11 pm and 6 am. Moscow, however, has kept its nightlife going past 11 pm, requiring Muscovites only to register their phone number with a…

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan — now in its sixth week — shows little sign of easing after both sides accused the other of breaking an agreement not to target residential and civilian areas with missile strikes. The United Nations warned Monday evening those attacks “may amount to war crimes.” Nagorno-Karabakh and areas under…

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday called the Vienna shooting a “cruel and cynical” crime in a condolences telegram to the Austrian leadership. Four people were killed in multiple shootings in Vienna on Monday evening in what Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz described as a “repulsive terror attack”. In the telegram to Kurz and Austrian President…

The second record-breaking wave of coronavirus infections battering Russian regions has been accompanied by distressing stories and images of patients struggling in a strained health system. Cities including St. Petersburg and the western enclave of Kaliningrad have seen their highest caseloads since the spring outbreak, while the Moscow region has doubled Covid-19 hospitalizations over the…

Europe’s football governing body UEFA might make Russia the sole host of the Euro 2020 football championship that was postponed by the coronavirus pandemic until 2021, the French daily Le Parisien reported Monday. UEFA’s Euro 2020 is currently scheduled to be staged in 12 cities, including St. Petersburg, between June 11 and July 11, 2021.…

Moldova’s pro-European presidential hopeful Maia Sandu won a surprise first-round victory, a major setback for Moscow-backed incumbant Igor Dodon that suggests a tight second round later this month. The small former Soviet country voted under the watchful eye of Russia, which wants polarized Moldova to remain in its sphere of influence as several nearby Kremlin-aligned governments…

Armenia and Azerbaijan failed to strike another ceasefire in talks brokered by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), as Baku pledged to “fight to the end” to recapture territory which has been controlled by Armenia-backed separatists since 1994. Meanwhile, Yerevan formally opened consultations with Moscow over when Russia would come to the…

Belarus faced harsh criticism at the UN on Monday, with diplomats slamming arbitrary detentions and torture allegations in the response to months of protests against President Alexander Lukashenko. During a review of Belarus’s rights record at the United Nations in Geneva, many diplomats urged Belarus authorities to halt the crackdown on demonstrators, who since August have…

Russia has confirmed 1,655,038 cases of coronavirus and 28,473 deaths. Nov. 2: What you need to know today Russia has confirmed 18,257 new coronavirus cases and 238 additional deaths.  Only 36% of Russians are ready to vaccinate against Covid-19, according to the results of an independent Levada Center poll published by Russia’s Open Media news Monday. The share of Russians unwilling to…

New coronavirus cases are spiking in 40% of Russian regions, Russia’s top public health official said Monday amid reports of hospital bed, staff and drug shortages hitting far-flung areas outside Moscow. Infections are on the decline in only two regions, Anna Popova, who heads Russia’s consumer safety watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, said during a Covid-19 government task…

Russia’s attempt to overturn its four-year ban from international sport got underway in Lausanne Monday, the latest chapter of a long-running and controversial saga over state-sanctioned doping. Global anti-doping body WADA in December last year declared the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) to be non-compliant after being accused of manipulating testing data. The ban meant the…

Russia’s Arctic Laptev Sea has not yet frozen for the first time since records began, according to the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Centre. The sea, which is known as the “birthplace of ice,” thawed much earlier in 2020 than in any previous year since 1979, and has not yet re-frozen as of late…

Masked assailants murdered Russian meat magnate Vladimir Marugov with a crossbow at his countryside estate outside Moscow in the early hours of Monday morning, Russia’s Investigative Committee reported. Marugov and his partner were in an outdoor sauna hut on the estate about 25 miles west of the capital when the attack happened. The woman managed…

More Russians distrust their homegrown coronavirus vaccine now than they did in the summer, a new independent poll cited by Russia’s Open Media news website said Monday as authorities raise hopes of mass vaccination in the coming months. The share of Russians unwilling to vaccinate against Covid-19 has risen to 59% in October from nearly…

Fugitive U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden said Monday he had applied for Russian citizenship but would keep his U.S. nationality. The former American intelligence contractor, who revealed in 2013 that the U.S. government was spying on its citizens, has been living in exile in Russia since the revelations. Snowden’s tweet comes weeks after he was granted…

Moldovans went to polls on Sunday to elect a president under the watchful eye of Moscow which wants the polarised country to remain in its orbit amid political and security crises on Russia’s borders. Polling stations opened at 0500 GMT and will close 14 hours later.  Despite its small size, politics in tiny Moldova, which is…

Thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets of Georgia’s capital Tbilisi on Sunday to demand snap polls after the ruling Georgian Dream party claimed victory in a parliamentary vote. The ex-Soviet nation’s opposition rejected the results of Saturday’s vote, which showed Georgian Dream with a narrow lead in the tightly contested election. The demand…

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said Sunday there was no reason for Russia to intervene in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh because Baku is not threatening Armenian territory. Fighting has been raging over Karabakh — an ethnic Armenian region of Azerbaijan — for more than a month and on Saturday Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan asked Moscow for “urgent…

Russia has confirmed 1,636,781 cases of coronavirus and 28,235 deaths. Nov. 1: What you need to know today Russia has confirmed 18,665 new cases and 245 new deaths. Over 150 patients were evacuated from a coronavirus hospital on Saturday in the Ural city of Chelyabinsk following an oxygen explosion and fire.  All of Russia’s regions are currently experiencing shortages of doctors to…