Traffic almost ground to a halt in Russia’s second-largest city of St. Petersburg following a series of police raids on bus and taxi drivers this week. Social media channels said that afternoon inspections created massive bottlenecks Thursday on a road leading to Pulkovo Airport. Passengers got out of their taxis and continued their journey on…
Details
The Bank of Russia has cut interest rates to 6.5% on the back of low inflation, weak domestic growth and fears of a global slowdown. The central bank said further rate cuts could be on the horizon if inflation, which it expects to come in between 3.2-3.7% this year, does not pick-up. Announcing the cut…
Details
Russian network operators could be forced to block internet traffic from countries they believe hoax bomb threats come from, the RBC news website reported Friday. A wave of hoax threats swept Russia in 2017, and during the football World Cup last year, causing disruptions for businesses and public buildings. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB)…
Details
Around 300 more Russian military police have arrived in Syria, the defense ministry said on Friday, under an accord between Ankara and Moscow which halted Turkey’s military incursion into northeast Syria. The deal, reached on Tuesday by Presidents Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin, requires that Russian military police and Syrian border guards remove all Kurdish YPG militia…
Details
Moscow on Thursday dismissed media reports that Russian hackers piggy-backed on an Iranian cyber-espionage operation to attack government and industry organizations in dozens of countries as an “unsavory” interpretation of a security report. British security officials have said the Russian group, known as “Turla” and accused by Estonian and Czech authorities of operating on behalf…
Details
Efforts by Russian influence campaigns to stay undetected on social media ahead of next year’s U.S. elections are undermining their ability to gain followers and spread divisive political messages, a senior Facebook executive told Reuters. Social media users need to stand out from the crowd to gain traction online, but that type of behavior also…
Details
The discarded nets of North Korean fishermen are threatening the lives of spotted seals and other marine life in Far East Russia, scientists warn. Moscow has called on Pyongyang to crack down on its poachers in Russian waters after border guards detained hundreds of North Korean fishermen recently. Russian marine biologists estimate that North Korean…
Details
An engineer accused of using one of Russia’s most powerful supercomputers at a secret nuclear laboratory to mine Bitcoins has been sentenced to three years and three months in prison. Andrei Rybkin is one of three scientists to be convicted of using a workplace supercomputer to mine the cryptocurrency in the closed city of Sarov.…
DetailsThe CEO of Rosneft Oil Company Igor Sechin gave a keynote speech “Pricing the Turbulence” at the XII Eurasian Economic Forum in Verona, Italy.
A new project aimed at cutting food waste by helping restaurants sell their leftovers has opened in Moscow, the Village news website reported, citing the project’s press service. In Russia, 17 million tons of food worth more than 1.6 trillion rubles ($25 billion) are thrown out each year, according to a study by the Russian…
Details
Yelena Baturina and Tatyana Bakalchuk are household names in Russia’s billionaire circles. Months after cementing their status as Russia’s only women billionaires, Baturina and Bakalchuk have once again topped Forbes magazine’s ranking of the country’s 25 richest women. But while Baturina’s fortune stayed at $1.2 billion this year, Bakalchuk nearly doubled her net worth to…
Details
A Russian commission on Thursday recommended President Vladimir Putin pardon a Norwegian man jailed for spying, spurring hopes in Norway that he may be released as part of a spy swap brokered behind closed doors. Frode Berg, a retired guard on the Norwegian-Russian border, was detained in December 2017 and jailed for 14 years after…
Details
Around $1 trillion of capital has been pulled out of Russia since the fall of the U.S.S.R., a close aide to President Vladimir Putin has told world leaders at the Russia-Africa forum in Sochi. Sergei Glazyev, who was a long-time economic adviser to Putin and is now minister in charge of integration at the Eurasian…
Details
President Vladimir Putin hosted the first-ever Russia-Africa summit Wednesday and Thursday in the latest display of Moscow’s efforts to restore its geopolitical foothold on the continent after the fall of the Soviet Union. Amid a deluge of memoranda of understanding and cooperation agreements, Russia clinched a series of trade agreements with some of the 54…
Details
Russia’s biggest foreign-owned utilities company Enel Russia has finally sold its biggest coal-burning power station Reftinskaya for an undisclosed amount as part of its efforts to go green as well as become more profitable. The Italian-owned firm is already a leader in investing into renewable energy and has several large wind and solar power projects…
Details
A performing bear has mauled its handler during a show in northern Russia, as animal rights activists step up their campaign to ban traveling circuses that use trained animals in the country. Audience members filmed dramatic scenes Wednesday of the brown bear slamming its trainer to the ground and an assistant kicking it in an…
Details
Russia will send a further 276 military policemen and 33 units of military hardware to Syria in a week, Russia‘s RIA news agency cited a defense ministry source as saying on Thursday. Earlier, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu spoke by video conference to the leader of Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Russian news agencies reported on Wednesday. Shoigu told the SDF head that Russia will increase the number of its military police near…
Details
Russia has inched upward in the World Bank’s latest Doing Business report, rising three places but still missing President Vladimir Putin’s goal of breaking into the top 20. Putin set the challenge of leaping up the ease-of-business ratings by 2018 after the country placed a dismal 120th in 2011. The 2020 Doing Business report published…
Details
A former U.S. Marine held in Russia on suspicion of spying said on Thursday that a prison guard had forced him to his knees in custody and that he had been threatened with a gun, the Interfax news agency reported. Paul Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports, was detained in December and accused of…
Details
Russia said on Thursday a division of its S-400 missile defense system would take part in a military drill in Serbia, underlining Moscow’s wish to keep a traditional ally on side even as Belgrade pursues links with NATO and the European Union. It will be the first time that the sophisticated S-400s, together with a…
Details
A Russian priest who lives in Italy has whipped up a frenzy over a pro-Kremlin pundit’s citizenship status. Almost 195,000 people have signed Father Sergius’ online petition urging Italy to deny citizenship to political talk show host Vladimir Solovyov, even though Solovyov has not applied for citizenship and has had an Italian residence permit for…
Details
Russians trust President Vladimir Putin less than they do their armed forces, according to a new independent survey seen by the Vedomosti newspaper. The army emerged as Russia’s most trusted institution last year as a result of what sociologists called the Kremlin’s “saber-rattling.” This year’s institutional trust rating published by the independent Levada Center pollster placed…
Details
Russian internet firm Yandex will begin testing its driverless cars in the United States next summer, the company said Wednesday. As part of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, to take place from June 6-21, Yandex will provide a driverless taxi service in the city’s business center. “The first 10 cars will take…
Details
A Russian migrant in Latvia has launched a hunger strike to protest the country’s refusal to allow his elderly mother-in-law to obtain a residence permit there without taking the required language exam. Around one-third of Latvia’s population of 2 million are ethnic Russians, many of whom do not have Latvian citizenship and are thus unable…
Details
A European uranium enrichment firm has resumed shipments of a highly toxic and radioactive waste product from Germany to Russia, Greenpeace Russia warned Wednesday. The enrichment firm Urenco and Russia’s state nuclear company Rosatom halted the radioactive waste imports from Germany in 2009 over revelations that the waste was stored in the open. German media…
Details
Russia will land two nuclear-capable strategic Tu-160 bombers in South Africa on Wednesday, Interfax news agency cited South Africa’s military as saying. Observers say it would be the first such deployment on the African continent. The Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bomber, nicknamed the White Swan in Russia, is a supersonic Soviet-era aircraft capable of carrying up…
Details
Russian political consultants ran online campaigns supporting Bolivian President Evo Morales and criticising his election opponents in a bid to secure a fourth-term for the Kremlin-friendly leader, Russian news site Proekt has reported. The support, which focused on pumping out hostile social media campaigns against Morales’ critics, was orchestrated by political consultants close to Rosatom,…
Details
Russia’s mega high-speed rail project to link Moscow, St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod is set to cost 2.3 trillion rubles ($36 billion), according to Russian media reports. Around 600 billion rubles ($9.4 billion) will come in the form of direct state grants or cheap government-backed loans, while the rest will be financed directly by Russian…
Details
The Czech Republic’s chief of counterintelligence has said that his country’s security forces had dismantled a Russian espionage ring last year that had been planning cyberattacks against the European Union member state. The BIS counterintelligence service said last year that Russian intelligence services were behind cyber attacks targeting the Czech foreign ministry. The BIS warned…
Details
The Kremlin said on Wednesday that the United States had betrayed and abandoned the Syrian Kurds and advised the Kurds to withdraw from the Syrian border as per a deal between Moscow and Ankara or be mauled by the Turkish army. The comments by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov to Russian news agencies followed a deal…
Details
The last picture police officer Nikolay Korokhov posted on the Russian social media site VKontakte shows him carrying his young daughter on his shoulders while his wife Yekaterina takes a photo of the three of them. They’re all wearing silly sunglasses and smiling. A week later Korokhov shot himself in his office. He left a…
Details
Turkey and Russia agreed on Tuesday to remove the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia to beyond 30 km (19 miles) from the Turkish border, after which their troops will jointly patrol a narrower strip of land in a “safe zone” Ankara has long sought in northern Syria. Beginning at noon on Wednesday, Russian military police and Syrian border guards…
Details
Three people were killed on Tuesday in an accident at Norilsk Nickel’s Taimyr underground mine in Siberia, the Russian mining giant said. The world’s largest palladium producer and second-largest nickel producer said the facility was still working after the incident. It is one of the company’s main mines in Siberia and contains mixed ores. At 16:30…
Details
Police in St. Petersburg rounded up more than 800 migrant workers in a market raid last week following a mass brawl, the local 47news.ru news website reported Monday. The raid is one of two launched by police this month in an attempt to find the instigators of a Sept. 14 violent altercation involving 50 migrants…
Details
President Vladimir Putin announced Monday that Moscow will soon forgive Ethiopia its debts — the fourth African country to be forgiven in recent years as Russia moves to increase its influence on the continent. Putin made the announcement on the eve of the first-ever Russia Africa Summit, which will bring more than 50 African leaders…
Details
Russia says it has obtained the data needed to support its claims in the Arctic region. The new information will be assessed by the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) during a meeting in February, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov said. Last week, the high-ranking government official spoke in the Marine…
Details
The Kremlin said Tuesday that preparations to organize a four-way summit aimed at finding a resolution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine had effectively ground to a halt. A breakthrough in talks last month appeared to open the way to a possible summit between Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany, known as the Normandy Four. But…
Details
Special agents in northern Russia have raided a resort where dozens of Jehovah’s Witnesses had gathered, marking the latest instance in an ongoing campaign against the religious group that Russia considers extremist. Russia labeled the Jehovah’s Witnesses an extremist organization in 2017, leading to mass arrests and spurring hundreds of its estimated 175,000 Russian members…
Details
Russia has the world’s highest levels of wealth inequality, surpassing the United States and China, the Credit Suisse Research Institute’s annual review has said. An estimated 83% of Russia’s wealth is now owned by its richest decile despite the country’s modest average wealth, the financial services company said in its report published Monday. “This is…
Details
President Vladimir Putin is on a mission to wean Russia off foreign food and modernize the dairy industry, where milking is still often done by hand. To do that, he’s getting help from Europe. Five years after the food embargo banning Dutch gouda and Italian parmesan, Russian companies are trucking in thousands of black-and-white holsteins…
Details
Three Russian military helicopters have landed in the Tabqa military airfield in Syria that the United States abandoned earlier this month, Russian state media reported Tuesday. Syrian government forces took control of the airfield last week when U.S.-led coalition forces left the base as part of the U.S. withdrawal of troops from northern Syria. The airfield had…
Details
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has accused Russia, among other countries, of trying to interfere in the 2020 U.S. presidential election through the social network. In at least the third instance this year, Facebook announced Monday that it had shut down one Facebook and 50 Instagram accounts it linked to Russia’s infamous “troll farm.” The U.S.…
Details
Soil samples taken along the route of a planned highway in Moscow are emitting radiation levels that pose cancer risks to residents, Greenpeace Russia said Monday. Activists have warned that the eight-lane highway, which authorities hope to start building next year and finish by 2024, will release buried radioactive dust into the air and the…
Details
President Vladimir Putin has appointed state television presenter Valery Fadeyev as the new head of the presidential human rights council and expelled several prominent liberals from the consultative body. Mikhail Fedotov, the council’s current head, has been dismissed from his position because of his age, Putin’s decree signed Monday said. Fadeyev, who hosted a Channel…
Details
A former journalist may be among the dozens of Russian mercenaries believed to have died while fighting in Libya’s civil war last month, the Znak.com news website reported Monday. Previous reporting said that more than 100 Russian mercenaries arrived at a base in Libya in early September and up to 35 may have died in…
Details
Russia is opening more new floor space in shopping malls than any other country in Europe, real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield has found. In the first half of 2019, around 200,000 square meters of new mall space was opened in Russia — equivalent to 27 football fields and accounting for nearly one-quarter of all…
Details
Children and teenagers in St. Petersburg are dying from cancer almost 680% more than they were 10 years ago, according to a new report by the region’s anti-cancer program. Dozens of Russian regions have cut spending on cancer treatments in recent years amid rising costs. Advocacy groups have long campaigned for easier access to cancer…
Details
Russia wants to make its Arctic waters more attractive to shippers than the Suez Canal and could be willing to compensate for potential risks to make that happen. President Vladimir Putin has made development of the Arctic one of Russia’s top long-term priorities and huge projects to export liquefied natural gas via the Northern Sea…
Details
Shares in Russian tech giant Yandex have jumped higher on reports Russia will soften proposals to limit foreign ownership of strategically important tech firms. The government is now considering placing a 50%-minus-one cap on the number of shares that can be held by non-Russian investors — up from the 20% limit proposed in a draft…
Details
Billionaire Elon Musk appeared at a government-run small-business forum in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar, making good on a promise after its organizers invited him by billboard. “What is the point of any company? To produce any product or service that is useful to other people,” Musk told delegates via video. “Starting a company…
Details
Turkey’s offensive in Syria has left at least 12 prisons for foreign fighters unguarded, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Monday, warning that hundreds of escaped fighters could return to their home countries. Turkey launched an operation against Kurdish fighters in northeastern Syria earlier this month after President Donald Trump announced he was withdrawing U.S.…
Details
A member of an elite Chechen police unit has killed a Russian special-forces police officer after an altercation at a training course in the North Caucasus region, Interfax reported Saturday. The two servicemen reportedly got into a fight during advanced training courses at an Interior Ministry university in the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria. The Chechen policeman is…
Details
At least 15 gold miners were killed on Saturday when a dam collapsed, flooding an artisanal mining encampment in a remote part of Siberia, officials said. Heavy rains had weakened the dam and water broke through, sweeping away several cabins where the artisan miners lived, about 160 kilometers south of the city of Krasnoyarsk. President…
Details
A State Duma commission on foreign interference says it has found violations of election law by six foreign and independent outlets operating in Russia, Interfax reported Friday. Russian lawmakers created the commission after this summer’s wave of opposition protests in Moscow. At the time, Russia had accused Germany’s Deutsche Welle news outlet, the U.S. Embassy…
Details
President Vladimir Putin supervised major test launches of ballistic and cruise missiles on land, air and sea Thursday. The three-day Grom (Thunder)-2019 exercises involved five submarines, more than 100 aircraft, 200 missile launchers and 12,000 Russian troops. They aimed to test the readiness of Russia’s command structure and how efficiently its orders are carried out…
Details
Russian intelligence services are actively recruiting students from the prestigious Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), the independent Proekt online outlet reported in an investigation Thursday. MGIMO is considered one of Russia’s elite academic institutions, training future government leaders and diplomats, as well as businesspeople, journalists and thinkers. Its alleged ties to Russia’s secret services came…
Details
Russia plans to pay more attention to the impact climate change is having on its vast permafrost area. Thawing of once permanently-frozen ground covering more than half of Russia is putting buildings, pipelines and other infrastructure at risk of damage. With the Arctic warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, that’s a…
Details
Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, warned on Friday that the world was drifting into a dangerous era of militarized politics and appealed to Moscow and Washington to sit down for urgent nuclear arms control talks. Gorbachev, whose 1980s arms control push and democracy-oriented reforms helped end the Cold War, made the comments to the…
Details
Former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul believes President Vladimir Putin is fighting against the tide of history and that Russian society will not “tolerate disenfranchisement and oppression forever.” In an interview with The Moscow Times touching on topics from Putin through sanctions to arms treaties, Barack Obama’s former man in Moscow said it would…
Details
Economists have raised questions over a surprisingly healthy batch of economic data released by the Russian statistics agency Rosstat. Statistics published Thursday evening showed an unexpected and significant jump in real disposable incomes of an annual rate of 3% in the third quarter of the year, off the back of a 0.1% fall in the…
Details