Month: January 2021

Russian authorities have applied for registration of the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in the European Union, the country’s sovereign wealth fund financing the jab said Wednesday. A spokesperson for the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) said the application with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) was lodged on Tuesday. “It is an important milestone,” he added.…

Foreigners and unmarried Russians could be banned from having children with the help of a surrogate under a new draft bill, the RBC news website reported Wednesday. Russia is one of the few countries worldwide where commercial surrogacy is allowed, but a backlash against foreign surrogacy has been growing with warnings that women and children…

Chechnya’s strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov said Wednesday that police had killed Aslan Byutukayev, alleged leader of the Islamic State group in the volatile republic and mastermind of deadly attacks in Moscow. Byutukayev, also known as Amir Khamzat, was designated in 2016 as a “global terrorist” by the U.S. State Department, which said he had become…

The Kremlin said Wednesday that any improvement in Moscow’s tense relationship with Washington would depend on Joe Biden when he enters the White House. The United States recently blamed Kremlin-backed hackers for a massive cyberattack that breached government institutions, adding to a long list of grievances plaguing ties between the former Cold War rivals. “Russia…

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s viral video investigation into President Vladimir Putin’s alleged palace is “a bunch of nonsense,” the Kremlin said Wednesday. Navalny released an extensive exposé into a lavish $1.35 billion Black Sea estate Tuesday after Russian authorities jailed him upon his return from Germany, where he was hospitalized for what Western scientists…

Russia received its lowest level of foreign investment last year since the mid-1990s, data released by the Central Bank on Tuesday showed. Net inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) came in at just $1.4 billion in 2020, as the economic fallout from the pandemic, travel restrictions and a slump in global energy prices heaped pressure…

Russia has confirmed 3,633,952 cases of coronavirus and 67,220 deaths. Jan. 20: What you need to know today Russia confirmed 21,152 new coronavirus cases and 597 deaths. The Russian Direct Investment Fund has applied for authorization of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in the European Union, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported Wednesday. The European Medicines Agency (EMA)…

Last year was the warmest in Russia’s recorded history, the national weather service said this month as global temperatures reached record highs. Russia’s weather service said 2020 was among the country’s 14 hottest years, all of which were recorded in the 21st century. Average temperatures across the country’s 11 time zones were 2 degrees Celsius…

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, has urged Joe Biden’s administration to improve U.S.-Russia ties and extend a key nuclear pact ahead of the U.S. President-elect’s inauguration.  “The current condition of relations between Russia and the United States is of great concern,” Gorbachev said in an interview with the state-run TASS news agency published Wednesday,…

Update: The hearing has been postponed to 10:00 a.m. on Feb. 5 because Navalny was unable to attend the original hearing date while in detention, the independent Mediazona and Dozhd news outlets reported. Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who was detained on his return to Russia for violating a suspended sentence, is due in court Wednesday on separate…

Russia’s Embassy in the United States has accused its counterparts of abruptly cutting off phone lines at the Russian Consulate in New York ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s last day in office. The consulate said earlier in the day that several dozen of its landlines had been simultaneously disconnected, raising “huge problems” for the…

Antony Blinken, President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for secretary of state, said Tuesday the incoming administration would seek to extend New START, the last U.S. arms pact with Russia, which expires February 5. “I think we’re going to seek an extension,” Blinken said in response to a question at his Senate confirmation hearing. “I know we…

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny accused President Vladimir Putin of using fraudulently obtained funds to build an opulent billion-dollar estate in an investigation published Tuesday, after authorities jailed him on charges he says are politically motivated. The Praskoveyevka estate on the Black Sea coast in southern Russia cost 100-billion rubles ($1.35 billion) to build and…

The Kremlin on Tuesday dismissed Western demands to release Russia’s most prominent opposition leader Alexei Navalny, saying his calls for mass protests over his arrest were “troubling”. Legal pressure is ramping up against President Vladimir Putin’s best-known domestic critic, who is due in court on defamation charges on Wednesday, as his allies in Russia call…

Russian President Vladimir Putin took a dip in freezing water on Tuesday to mark the Orthodox Christian feast of the Epiphany.  Video shared by Kremlin pool reporters from the state-run RIA Novosti news agency showed Putin wading into the water in blue swimming trunks and dunking three times while crossing himself before hastily exiting the…

Parler, the social network popular with Trump supporters, has partially reappeared online with tech support from a Russian-owned technology company, Reuters reported Monday. Google and Apple removed Parler from their app stores after Trump, who is serving his last day in office, was banned from various platforms following the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S.…

A powerful Russian icebreaker has crossed the Northern Sea Route for the first time at this time of year as ice coverage shrinks in the rapidly melting Arctic.  The liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker Christophe de Margerie made it through the Chukchi Sea and into the Bering Strait on Saturday, Jan. 16, after 10 days…

The arrest and detention for thirty days of prominent opposition activist Alexei Navalny is threatening to upend Russian politics in an already fraught year that will include parliamentary elections in September.  Since rising to prominence for his anti-Kremlin activism, Navalny — who was poisoned by the nerve agent Novichok in August last year and had…

A Russian police officer is under suspicion of leaking the travel data of security officers allegedly behind opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s poisoning, the RBC news website reported Tuesday. The arrest in the central city of Samara comes less than a month after a media investigation named several alleged Rusian Federal Security Service (FSB) chemical-weapons experts…

From hospitals to courtrooms to demonstrations, Russia’s chief opposition figure Alexei Navalny is often flanked by his wife Yulia Navalnaya, who has been thrown into the limelight since his poisoning in August. On Sunday she flew back with her husband to Russia from Germany, where the couple had spent five months as the Kremlin critic…

Navalny ally Vladimir Ashurkov has published a list of eight Russian business and political elites who he says Alexei Navalny wants Western governments to sanction.  Top of the list is Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, who Ashurkov calls “one of the key enablers and beneficiaries of Russian kleptocracy, with significant ties and assets in…

Russia’s most prominent opposition leader Alexei Navalny called Monday for his supporters to take to the streets after a hastily organized court ordered him jailed for 30 days. The makeshift court — set up in a police station on the outskirts of Moscow where Navalny was being held — agreed to a request from prosecutors…

Russia launched a mass coronavirus vaccination campaign on Monday in a bid to end its outbreak without reimposing a new nationwide lockdown. Residents of the far eastern city of Vladivostok queued to receive the country’s homemade Sputnik V jab early Monday after President Vladimir Putin last week tasked officials with making it available to the country’s…

Russian math graduate student and self-described anarchist Azat Miftakhov was sentenced to six years in prison Monday after almost two years in detention on hooliganism charges his supporters say are politically motivated. Miftakhov, 27, was initially detained in February 2019 on accusations of bomb-making, but was later held for breaking the office window of Russia’s…

Moscow said Monday it was expelling two Dutch diplomats from the country in response to a “provocative” decision by the Netherlands in December to remove two Russian embassy staff over spying allegations. Moscow summoned Dutch charge d’affaires Joost Reintjes, the foreign ministry said in a statement, telling him that two Dutch diplomats had two weeks…

The decision to divert the Pobeda Airlines flight with Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny onboard from Vnukovo to Sheremetyevo airport created “a dangerous and reckless situation in the Moscow airspace,” a pilot who was forced to delay their descent on Sunday evening told The Moscow Times. The pilot — who asked to remain anonymous for fear…

Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny is facing a court hearing in the police station where he was taken immediately following his Sunday evening return to Russia. The 44-year-old opposition leader flew back to Moscow after spending several months in Germany recovering from a poisoning attack that he said was carried out on the orders of President…

A U.S. NGO has sued Apple in federal court in a bid to remove secure messaging app Telegram from its App Store, claiming the app fails to filter out far-right extremist activity.  Telegram’s downloads soared last week after Twitter and Facebook banned U.S. President Donald Trump’s accounts and Google and Apple removed conservative social network…

Russia has confirmed 3,591,066 cases of coronavirus and 66,037 deaths. Jan. 18: What you need to know today Russia confirmed 22,857 new coronavirus cases and 471 deaths. Russia’s republic of Bashkortostan is set to become the first region to introduce immunity passports for residents with Covid-19 antibodies starting February, Bashkortostan Governor Radiy Khabirov announced Monday.   Russia’s Sputnik V…

World leaders have called on Russia to release prominent opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who was detained minutes after he landed in Moscow following five months of recovery from nerve agent poisoning in Germany. Below is a selection of international reactions to Navalny’s detention at Sheremetyevo International Airport passport control late Sunday. — U.S. Secretary of…

Russian police detained prominent opposition leader Alexey Navalny Sunday on his arrival in Moscow from Germany, where he had been recovering from an attempted poisoning by the nerve agent Novichok. Navalny — who became a thorn in the Kremlin’s side through his campaigns against corruption and rigged elections in Russia — had been added to…

Chief Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny returned to Russia from Germany today and was immediately detained. The 44-year-old opposition leader flew back to Moscow after spending several months in Germany recovering from a poisoning attack that he said was carried out on the orders of President Vladimir Putin.  Follow the latest developments on the Navalny return…

A charismatic anti-corruption campaigner, Alexei Navalny has been Russia’s leading opposition politician for around a decade, determined to challenge Vladimir Putin’s grip on power despite frequent prison stays and harm to his health. The Yale-educated 44-year-old lawyer — who has said he will return to Russia from Germany on Sunday after treatment there for a…

Arch Kremlin foe Alexei Navalny returns to Russia from Germany on Sunday, facing imminent arrest after authorities warned they would detain him for violating a sentence over alleged fraud. The 44-year-old opposition leader is flying back to Moscow after spending several months in Germany recovering from a poisoning attack that he said was carried out…

Germany has transmitted to Russia transcripts of interviews with Alexei Navalny as part of its response to Moscow’s request for assistance in its investigation into the poisoning of the Kremlin critic, Berlin said Saturday.  Navalny was evacuated to Berlin in late August for treatment after he fell violently ill on a flight from Siberia to…

Russia has confirmed 3,544,623 cases of coronavirus and 65,058 deaths. Jan. 16: What you need to know today Russia confirmed 24,092 new coronavirus cases and 590 deaths. Russia’s Sputnik V and EpiVacCorona coronavirus vaccines are not available or in short supply in 42 of the country’s regions, a report from the Peterburgskaya Politica think tank suggests. Health care…

When President Vladimir Putin named little-known former tax chief Mikhail Mishustin as his prime minister a year ago, he stunned the country. In replacing Dmitry Medvedev — a political heavyweight and former president, but one tarnished by allegations of serious corruption — Putin had chosen a man few in Russia or abroad had even heard…

Russia told the United Nations this week it plans to withdraw the 300 “military instructors” it sent to the Central African Republic at the end of 2020 for the presidential election, diplomats told AFP Friday. “The Russians have informed the UN that they will withdraw the troops and helicopters” which had been deployed to the…

The Open Skies Treaty, which Russia says it is leaving after the U.S. quit last year, was agreed just after the Cold War to allow signatories to avoid nasty surprises by monitoring rival militaries. Moscow and Washington had long accused each other of breaching its terms, and President Donald Trump formally pulled the U.S. out last November.…

The U.S. is willing to lift sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline if Europe suspends its construction, adviser to U.S. President-elect Joe Biden and incoming C.I.A. chief Nicholas Burns told the German newspaper Handelsblatt.  “The Europeans must stop the construction of Nord Stream 2, and the Americans must suspend the sanctions. This will…

Russia’s top lawmaker said Thursday he is considering sending election advice to the United States following the storming of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump who dispute his loss. Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the lower house of parliament, was among numerous Russian politicians who called the U.S. electoral system “archaic” and…

Russia’s foreign ministry said Friday it is leaving the Open Skies treaty, a post-Cold War defense accord that allows its signatories to carry out unarmed surveillance flights over each other’s territories.  Citing “lack of progress” on maintaining the functioning of the treaty after the United States withdrew from it last year, the ministry said in…

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s defiant pledge to return to Moscow from Germany after surviving a poisoning attack puts the Kremlin in a major bind. President Vladimir Putin, observers say, is caught between a rock and a hard place: allow his most outspoken critic to freely return to Russia and risk looking weak, or hand Navalny a…

Russian tycoon Yevgeny Prigozhin has offered to erect a tombstone for three Russian journalists who were killed in the Central African Republic while investigating a secretive mercenary group linked to him. Kirill Radchenko, Alexander Rastorguyev and Orkhan Dzhemal were shot and killed on July 30, 2018, while investigating the activities of the Wagner private military…

Russia’s Sputnik V and EpiVacCorona vaccinations for the coronavirus are not available or in short supply in 42 of the country’s regions, according to a report from the Peterburgskaya Politica think tank.  The main barriers to the start of the mass vaccination in the regions are shortage of supplies, lack of coordination between regional authorities…

Russians are still overwhelmingly unwilling to take the coronavirus vaccine as the national vaccination drive gains steam, the RBC news website reported Friday, citing poll results. The Superjob.ru job board’s survey taken this month showed 60% of Russian respondents opposing the vaccine compared with 40% favoring it, according to RBC. Opponents cited mistrust of the…

Russia and the United States have until Feb. 5 to prolong a key agreement to curb their nuclear arsenals, the last remaining arms reduction pact between the former Cold War rivals. Here are key details of the New START treaty, which expires a little over two weeks into U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s first term. A legacy…