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The children of victims of Stalin-era repressions have the right to receive state housing in the cities where their parents had been deported from, Russia’s Supreme Court has said in a landmark ruling Tuesday. Amendments to the 1991 law rehabilitating victims of Soviet-era political repressions adopted in 2005 contradict the Russian Constitution because they make…

Russian authorities were right to jail protesters for throwing plastic cups at police during mass anti-government rallies in Moscow this summer, President Vladimir Putin said at a human rights meeting Tuesday. Putin this fall replaced the presidential human rights council’s longtime chairman and key liberal members with what observers called ultra-loyalist figures. Its new head,…

Russia’s national boxing team will not compete in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo under a neutral flag, it announced Wednesday as Russian athletes grapple with the country’s four-year ban from world sporting events. The World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) banned Russia from the world’s top sporting events, including the next summer and winter Olympics and the…

The attempted shipment of a Vector 40G turbine from the U.S. to Russia was halted last Tuesday as American authorities caught suspicions that the installation was destined for use in the Russian Arctic, the Kommersant business daily reported. The $6.5 million turbine is produced by U.S. company Dresser-Rand. Its exportation to Russia would mean a violation…

The head of Russia’s largest television channel has admitted that airing footage it erroneously claimed to prove Ukraine’s role in the downing of MH17 was a “mistake,” according to a book excerpt published by The New Yorker. Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down over territory controlled by Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, killing 298…

Twelve big cats loll around the ring of the Moscow State Circus during a public rehearsal as Russia’s most famous animal handlers, brothers Ascold and Edgard Zapashny, train them to jump through flaming hoops. Some stare at the men and growl quietly, while others ignore the trainers and play with their own tails. Eventually, a…

U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the White House on Tuesday, where he warned Russia not to interfere in U.S. elections. Lavrov’s last Oval Office meeting in May 2017 turned into a public relations disaster for Trump when unnamed U.S. officials accused him of divulging highly classified information and when he told…

An unusually warm winter has kept some bears in a Siberian zoo from hibernating and forced others out of hibernation, the state-run TASS news agency reported Tuesday. Several Siberian regions saw temperatures up to 14 degrees Celsius higher than usual in the early days of December, forecasters have said. Two brown bears awoke while two…

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on Monday hit Russia with a four-year ban from competing or hosting major world sporting events, including the Olympic Games and World Championships.  The move comes after WADA’s executive committee unanimously ruled that Moscow had tampered with doping laboratory data. Russian athletes will only be able to compete in these…

A ski resort in Kyrgyzstan has unveiled a 2.5-meter statue of Russian President Vladimir Putin, after the resort’s founder received a $1.2 million loan from a Russian-sponsored development fund. Erected last month, the monument sees Russia’s leader wearing a suit as he looks out over a barren landscape of rocky valleys and snow-capped peaks, 30…

As the only remaining independent, English-language news source reporting from Russia, The Moscow Times plays a critical role in connecting Russia to the world. Editorial decisions are made entirely by journalists in our newsroom, who adhere to the highest ethical standards. We fearlessly cover issues that are often considered off-limits or taboo in Russia, from…

U.S. lawmakers have agreed Monday on a $738 billion annual defense policy bill that includes new measures against two of Russia’s nearly finished energy pipelines to Europe and Turkey. The compromise version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) overcame concerns that it might fail for the first time in 58 years over divides between…

A court in St. Petersburg has sentenced the main organizer of the St. Petersburg metro bombing that killed 15 people in 2017 to life in prison, it announced Tuesday, bringing a more than two-year investigation and trial to a close. The court handed jail sentences between 19 and 28 years to 10 other suspects. Investigators suspect…

As the only remaining independent, English-language news source reporting from Russia, The Moscow Times plays a critical role in connecting Russia to the world. Editorial decisions are made entirely by journalists in our newsroom, who adhere to the highest ethical standards. We fearlessly cover issues that are often considered off-limits or taboo in Russia, from…

As the only remaining independent, English-language news source reporting from Russia, The Moscow Times plays a critical role in connecting Russia to the world. Editorial decisions are made entirely by journalists in our newsroom, who adhere to the highest ethical standards. We fearlessly cover issues that are often considered off-limits or taboo in Russia, from…

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy held their first face-to-face meeting Monday at a four-way summit in Paris with the French and German leaders as mediators. The last time the so-called Normandy summit met to work out a deal to end the conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists in the Donbass…

Russian President Vladimir Putin said a Georgian man murdered in Berlin in August was himself a killer who took part in bloody acts on Russian soil and that Moscow’s requests for his extradition had not been heeded. Asked at a news conference in Paris if Russia would respond in kind to Germany’s expulsion of two Russian diplomats…

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Moscow had grounds to appeal a decision by the World Anti-Doping Agency to bar Russia from major sporting events, a move he said violated the Olympic charter. Russia was banned from the world’s top sporting events for four years earlier on Monday, including the next summer and…

The leaders of Russia and Ukraine agreed on Tuesday to exchange all remaining prisoners from the conflict in east Ukraine by the end of the year, but left thorny questions about the region’s status for future talks. Russia‘s Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in their first face-to-face meeting, took part in nine hours of talks…

Russian President Vladimir Putin met his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy for the first time on Monday at a summit in Paris aimed at advancing efforts to restore peace to eastern Ukraine. Zelenskiy and Putin are holding talks together with the leaders of France and Germany in a renewed effort to end a conflict that has…

Russia plans to establish an air defense “dome” across its polar region by arming all of its Northern Fleet’s Arctic divisions with S-400 missile batteries, a Russian naval commander said on Monday. Russia has been stepping up its military presence in the Arctic, building new infrastructure and overhauling its ports as it vies for dominance…

As the only remaining independent, English-language news source reporting from Russia, The Moscow Times plays a critical role in connecting Russia to the world. Editorial decisions are made entirely by journalists in our newsroom, who adhere to the highest ethical standards. We fearlessly cover issues that are often considered off-limits or taboo in Russia, from…

Thousands of people protested against plans to build a waste dump in northern Russia as the anti-landfill movement passed its one-year mark last week, activists said Sunday. Mass protests against plans to ship waste from Moscow to the former village of Shiyes erupted across northwestern Russia on Dec. 2, 2018. The accidental discovery of the…

The legal battle between Russia and Ukraine over an unpaid $3 billion loan reached new heights Monday, as Ukraine pushed the British Supreme Court not to force it to make a repayment. Russia is demanding Ukraine repay the loan, which matured in December 2015 and has not been repaid, with interest, while Ukraine argues that…

Thousands of Russian football fans staged a walkout at games over the weekend following a recent police crackdown on hooliganism, in what observers say was the largest coordinated fan action in Russian football history. FC Spartak Moscow’s Fratria fan group called for the walkout after police detained an estimated 90 fans in St. Petersburg before…

Russia will be banned from competing in or hosting major world sporting events for four years after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) unanimously ruled that Moscow had tampered with doping laboratory data. The ruling is the latest blow to Russia’s already tarnished sporting reputation, which has been hit by scandals since a 2015 report commissioned…

Russian forces have entered Raqqa, the former de facto capital of the Islamic State caliphate, in one of the starkest examples yet of how Moscow has filled the vacuum created by President Donald Trump’s decision to pull U.S. forces from northern Syria. Russian troops were shown in footage on the defense ministry’s Zvezda TV channel…

Russia was banned from the world’s top sporting events for four years on Monday, including the next summer and winter Olympics and the 2022 soccer World Cup, for tampering with doping tests. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) executive committee acted after concluding that Moscow had planted fake evidence and deleted files linked to positive doping tests…

A self-proclaimed shaman has restarted his cross-country trek to cast President Vladimir Putin out of power after being arrested and declared mentally ill, the RBC news website reported Sunday. Alexander Gabyshev in March embarked on an 8,000-kilometer journey on foot from his native republic of Sakha to Moscow to “expel” Putin, whom he called a…

Talks between the Russian and Belarusian Presidents in Sochi Saturday over plans for closer integration of the two countries appeared to end in a stalemate. Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko were locked in negotiations for more than five hours at the Black Sea resort Saturday, the Kremlin confirmed — although the pair…

The U.S. military believes that an unarmed American drone reported lost near Libya’s capital last month was in fact shot down by Russian air defenses and it is demanding the return of the aircraft’s wreckage, U.S. Africa Command says. Such a shootdown would underscore Moscow’s increasingly muscular role in the energy-rich nation, where Russian mercenaries…

The leak and distribution of classified UK-U.S. trade documents online is tied to a previous Russian disinformation campaign, social media site Reddit said on Friday, fueling fears that Moscow is seeking to interfere in Britain’s upcoming election. Britain’s opposition Labour Party seized on the leaked documents on Nov. 27, saying they showed the ruling Conservatives…

The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church and several Kremlin officials fly on a $43 million jet linked to a major state lender, The Bell business website reported Friday. The report follows prominent Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s claims that week that the state VTB bank CEO’s alleged partner and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s wife fly…

Russian sport needs a “serious change” in its leadership starting with the firing of all its athletics coaches, the country’s top anti-doping official said Friday as it braces for a four-year Olympic ban for flouting anti-doping rules. Russian sport could enter four more years of gloom on Monday when the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)’s executive committee…

Authorities in Singapore plan to arrest a Russian vessel under U.S. sanctions for violating economic sanctions imposed on North Korea, Interfax reported Friday. The U.S. Treasury targeted Russia’s Gudzon shipping company in 2018 with sanctions on six of its vessels, including the tanker Sevastopol. South Korea briefly held the Sevastopol last year and China later…

In December 2017, Margarita Gracheva’s husband drove her into a forest in the Moscow region and chopped off her hands with an axe. Two years later, police pulled a history professor out of a St. Petersburg canal with a backpack containing the severed arms of his girlfriend, Anastasia Yeshchenko.       These are the most shocking of…

Access to Moscow’s network of more than 170,000 surveillance cameras is being sold on the black market, investigators have found. Researchers at MBKh Media — an investigative media outlet run by Kremlin opponent and former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky — found that live access to any one of Moscow’s public surveillance cameras, which come with…

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev held his annual end-of-year press conference Thursday, 24 hours after prominent Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny alleged that his wife Svetlana Medvedeva owns a $50 million private jet.  Over the course of two hours, Medvedev fielded questions from 20 news, sports, comedy, music and youth television channels. Despite Navalny’s pleas to raise…

U.S. authorities took aim at a Russian cybercriminal group known as Evil Corp Thursday, indicting its Lamborghini-driving alleged leader and ordering asset freezes against 17 of his associates over a digital crime spree that has netted more than $100 million from companies across the world. The action against Evil Corp, described by officials as one…

A Moscow court gave student and political blogger Yegor Zhukov a three-year suspended sentence Friday, allowing him to avoid imprisonment after one of the most high-profile trials stemming from this summer’s wave of anti-government rallies.  Zhukov, 21, was one of about a dozen people placed in pre-trial detention as part of a criminal case opened…

An unusually large group of polar bears has converged around a village in Far East Russia, forcing residents into lockdown, the global conservation group World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Russia said Thursday. Residents of Ryrkapiy, population 600, were said to have organized patrols and canceled all public gatherings, including New Year’s celebrations, to prevent the polar…

The U.S. Treasury Department said it would sanction a Russian group known as “Evil Corp” and its leaders for cyber-thefts at hundreds of financial institutions around the world that total more than $100 million. The targets include the group’s leader, identified as Maksim Yakubets. The U.S. said he also worked for the Russian Federal Security…