Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Russian Anti-War Store Owner Jailed 1.5 Years
A Russian grocery store owner who has openly opposed the war in Ukraine was sentenced to one-and-a-half years in prison on Thursday, independent media reported. Dmitry Skurikhin, 48, gained notoriety for featuring pro-Ukrainian slogans and posters on the facade of his store outside of St. Petersburg following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Skurikhin has…
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8.5K Russian Airborne Troops Wounded in Ukraine, Commander Says
At least 8,500 members of the Russian Airborne Forces have been wounded in the year and a half since Russia invaded Ukraine, the elite troops’ commander said Wednesday. Airborne Forces commander Mikhail Teplinsky disclosed the figures in a video message congratulating comrades on Paratroopers’ Day, which marked 93 years since the founding of the corps. “More…
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Russia’s Mordovia Becomes First Region to Pass Abortion ‘Propaganda’ Law
Russia’s republic of Mordovia has become the country’s first region to ban so-called abortion “propaganda” and the act of “influencing” women to undergo the procedure, independent media reported. The regional-level law passed Thursday potentially sets the stage for similar laws across the country. According to the law’s explanatory note cited by the Mediazona news website,…
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Russia’s Mordovia Becomes First Region to Outlaw ‘Coercion’ Into Abortion
Updated to reflect that the final version of the legislation does not introduce fines for abortion “propaganda,” as was previously reported. Russia’s republic of Mordovia has become the country’s first region to outlaw the act of “coercing” women into undergoing abortion, independent media reported. The regional-level law passed Thursday potentially sets the stage for similar…
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Moscow Adds Norway to List of ‘Unfriendly’ States
Moscow on Thursday added Norway to its list of “unfriendly” countries that restricts the number of local staff its diplomatic mission in Russia can hire. “The government has included the Kingdom of Norway in the list of foreign states that commit unfriendly acts against Russian diplomatic and consular missions abroad,” Russia’s cabinet of ministers said…
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ROSATOM helps Kyrgyzstan develop nuclear medicine
An expert commission of representatives of the Ministry of Health of the Kyrgyz Republic and ROSATOM completed the key stage of the roadmap for the project to create a new department of radionuclide diagnostics for the treatment of patients with oncological and other socially significant diseases at the National Center for Oncology and Hematology (NCОН)…
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ROSATOM participates in the creation of a new radionuclide diagnostics department in Bishkek
ROSATOM together with the Ministry of Health of the Kyrgyz Republic completed the key stage of the project to establish a new radionuclide diagnostics department at the National Center for Oncology and Hematology (NCHO) in Bishkek. The parties are developing interaction within the framework of the IAEA technical cooperation program, which aims to develop advanced…
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Russian Factories Face Record Labor Shortages
Russia’s industrial worker shortage reached a new high last month, the RBC news website reported Thursday, citing a survey by the Yegor Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy. The survey found that 42% of Russian industrial enterprises faced a shortage of workers in July, surpassing April’s record-setting shortage of 35%, according to the same survey of around…
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Russia Says Downed 6 Ukrainian Drones Near Moscow
Russian air defense systems shot down six Ukrainian drones outside Moscow, Russia’s military and regional authorities said Thursday. The drones were intercepted while attempting to “fly through” western Russia’s Kaluga region overnight, Kaluga Governor Vladislav Shapsha wrote on the messaging app Telegram. The Kaluga region lies southwest of Moscow and northeast of the Bryansk region,…
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Russia Says Downed 7 Ukrainian Drones Near Moscow
Updated with new downed drone count. Russian air defense systems shot down seven Ukrainian drones outside Moscow, Russia’s military and regional authorities said Thursday. The drones were intercepted while attempting to “fly through” western Russia’s Kaluga region overnight, Kaluga Governor Vladislav Shapsha wrote on the messaging app Telegram. The Kaluga region lies southwest of Moscow…
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‘I Feel Calm’: Few in Moscow Bat an Eye as Drones Crash Into Capital’s Skyscrapers
Drones targeted the Moscow City business and finance district, a cluster of modern skyscrapers towering over the Russian capital, for the second time in three days Tuesday. But while Kyiv said the back-to-back incidents were a sign of how the war has come home to Russia a year and a half into its offensive on…
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Natalia Lizorkina’s Anti-War Play ‘Vanya is Alive’ Heads to the Fringe
Director Ivanka Polchenko described “Vanya is Alive,” her latest play, as “the most important play written in Russian since the start of the war” in an interview with The Moscow Times before its U.K. premiere. “It was written as the invasion was unfolding, so it’s very immediate.” The play follows Alya, the loving yet delusional…
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ATOMEXPO-2022 Featured Discussion on Pronuclear Movement Pushing Atomic Technologies Forward
On November 21, ATOMEXPO-2022 International Forum in Sochi hosted a roundtable discussion on Nuclear NGOs Pushing Atomic Technologies Forward. Members of pro-nuclear civil society organizations and independent activists from Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia, Russia and South Africa discussed the contribution of grassroots initiatives to debunking myths about nuclear energy and promoting the benefits of peaceful atomic…
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Bashneft Invests 3.6 Billion Rubles in Environment-Oriented Projects in H1 2023
Bashneft (part of Rosneft) invested over 3.6 billion roubles in environmental projects in the first half of 2023, 33% more than in the same period last year.
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Russia Hits Ukraine Grain Export Route Near Romania
Russian drones on Wednesday damaged infrastructure at a Ukrainian port on the Danube, as Moscow targeted facilities vital for grain shipments from Ukraine following the collapse of a key export arrangement. Turkey, which along with the United Nations-brokered the deal to allow Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea, urged Russia after the port strike not to take…
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Russian Volunteer Soldier Turns Himself In After Grenade Threat
A Russian volunteer soldier who threatened to detonate a grenade in public unless charges of desertion against him were dropped has turned himself in to the authorities after speaking with the governor of Bashkortostan, local media reported Wednesday. Security forces cordoned off a section of a highway in the southern Urals city of Ufa in…
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Erdogan Urges Putin Not to Escalate Ukraine War Tensions
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in a call on Wednesday not to further escalate tensions, after Moscow struck facilities vital for grain shipments from Ukraine. Erdogan was a key player in the now-collapsed deal that allowed for safe passage of Ukraine grain shipments on the Black Sea, and has…
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Russia Announces Start of Baltic Sea Naval Drills
Russia announced Wednesday that it had begun naval exercises in the Baltic Sea, amid rising tensions with its European neighbors over the conflict in Ukraine. Russia regularly holds naval drills in the Baltic Sea, often in response to NATO exercises in the area. The Russian Navy has played a key role in Moscow’s assault on Ukraine by…
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Russian Journalist Safronov Loses Final Appeal of 22-Year Treason Sentence
Russia’s Supreme Court has upheld journalist Ivan Safronov’s 22-year prison sentence for treason, a group of his supporters said Wednesday. Safronov, 33, was found guilty in September 2022 of collecting secret information about the Russian military and handing it to Czech spies as a defense reporter for the Russian newspapers Kommersant and Vedomosti. Safronov lost his final…
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Kremlin Brings ‘Party of War’ to Heel Ahead of Key Regional, Presidential Elections
President Vladimir Putin is working to silence his most vocal pro-war nationalist critics on the eve of this fall’s regional elections and the 2024 presidential election in which he is expected to seek six more years in power. Following the Wagner mutiny, which posed the biggest threat yet to Putin’s 23-year rule, the Kremlin now…
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TVEL and Necsa Sign MoU to collaborate on nuclear technology for peaceful means
The South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa) entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with TVEL Fuel Company of Rosatom on 27 July 2023 providing for cooperation in the field of nuclear fuel production and related components. Both companies aim to share existing expertise in this field and further collaborate to develop the necessary capabilities.…
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Russia’s Polar Regions See Record High Temperatures in July
Russia’s far northwestern regions witnessed a surge in warm weather in July, with air temperatures soaring 3-4 degrees Celsius above average, according to Tatyana Pozdnyakova, the chief meteorologist at the Meteonovosti news agency. Naryan-Mar, the administrative center of the Nenets autonomous district in the Arctic, saw temperatures rise to 31.6 C on July 31, breaking…
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Turkmenistan Halts Moscow Flights Amid Drone Attacks
Turkmenistan’s flagship carrier Turkmenistan Airlines announced it was suspending direct flights to Moscow starting Tuesday, just days after consecutive drone attacks on the Russian capital. Turkmenistan Airlines will instead perform flights to and from the city of Kazan, located some 800 kilometers east of Moscow, the company said in a statement. The announcement comes after…
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Successful Inspection Visit for Unit 4 of the El-Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant Site in Egypt
As part of its ongoing efforts to prepare for the first concrete pouring of Unit 4, the Nuclear Power Plants Authority (NPPA) hosted an inspection visit comprising of representatives from the Egyptian Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Authority (ENRRA) and its Technical Support Organisation VO Safety which took place at the El-Dabaa site on 30 and…
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Demand for Abortion Pills in Russia Hits Record High – Kommersant
Demand for abortion drugs in Russia reached an all-time high in 2022, the Kommersant business daily reported Wednesday, citing data by the RNC Pharma consultancy. A total of 1.4 million drugs that induce abortions and 2.2 million emergency contraception drugs were sold in Russia last year, marking a 60% and 53% increase from 2021 respectively. “The launch…
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Russian Drones Attack Odesa Region Port Facilities
Russian drones damaged port infrastructure in Odesa and targeted the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, authorities said Wednesday. The Ukrainian army said it repelled Iraninan-made Shahed-136 drones launched from the Sea of Azov. “The enemy’s obvious target was the port and industrial infrastructure of the region. Air defense forces worked non-stop for almost three hours,” the…
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‘War for Identity’: Kyiv Pulls Hammer, Sickle from Giant WWII Statue
Workers lowered a hammer and sickle from a towering sculpture overlooking Kyiv on Tuesday in a campaign to remove Soviet icons that ramped up after Russia invaded last year. The 62-meter-high steel figure of a woman holding a sword and shield bearing the U.S.S.R.-linked symbols was unveiled in 1981 as a memorial to Soviet victory in World…
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After 1.5 Years of War, Ukrainian Refugees in Russia Grapple With Assimilation Question
MOSCOW — Tatiana moved to Russia from Sloviansk, a town located in a Kyiv-held part of eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, in March 2022 as shelling attacks intensified near her home. After arriving, she was able to receive Russian citizenship fairly quickly, she told The Moscow Times, under a simplified process for Ukrainians. Although Tatiana, who declined…
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War Made Lyudmila Petrushevskaya Put Down Her Pen
Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, one of Russia’s most renowned literary and cultural figures, announced in a Telegram post that she could no longer write. “That’s it,” she wrote. “I’ve always written about my people. About the people who live in Russia. I felt sorry for them, the drunks and wretches… But now I don’t feel sorry for…
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Russia’s Digital Ruble Won’t Help It Evade Sanctions Anytime Soon
Russia’s plans to launch a crypto-based “Digital Ruble” are not going to help it avoid Western sanctions in the foreseeable future, experts say, despite Russian officials’ claims that the new currency could deal a fatal blow to the U.S.-led global financial system. A new law paving the way for the roll-out of the Digital Ruble…
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Ex-Official Jailed 12 Years for Sending Ukraine ‘State Secrets’
A court in southern Russia has sentenced a former regional administration official to 12 years in prison on charges of providing Ukraine with state secrets, local media reported Tuesday. The Krasnodar Region Court found the unidentified former official guilty of treason and handed him a 12-year sentence in a maximum-security prison. He was accused of…
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Kazakhstan Rebuffs U.S. Extradition Request for Russian Cybersecurity Expert
Authorities in Kazakhstan have approved Moscow’s request to extradite a Russian cybersecurity expert wanted by the FBI, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported Tuesday, citing Artyom Oganov, an official at the Russian consulate in Almaty. Nikita Kislitsin, a department head at Russian cybersecurity firm F.A.C.C.T., was detained by Kazakh law enforcement on June 22…
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Phone Scammers Coax Russians to Set Fire to Military Offices – Reports
At least nine Russian military enlistment offices have been targeted in arson attacks linked to phone scams in recent days, media outlets reported Tuesday. The first such incidents occurred in annexed Crimea and the central city of Kazan on Saturday, when two middle-aged women were detained trying to set local enlistment offices on fire, according…
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Drone Attacks Target Moscow and Russia’s Black Sea Patrols
Russia said Tuesday it had downed another wave of Ukrainian drones aimed at vessels in the Black Sea and Moscow, as an office block in the capital’s main business district was struck for the second time in a few days. “Two Ukrainian (unmanned aerial vehicles) were destroyed by air defense systems over the territory of the…
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Russia Says Repelled Ukrainian Drone Attack on Black Sea Patrol Boats
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday that three Ukrainian sea drones targeted two Black Sea Fleet patrol boats in a second unsuccessful attack near annexed Crimea in two weeks. The patrol boats, Sergei Kotov and Vasily Bykov, perform control-of-navigation tasks 340 kilometers southwest of the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet base in Sevastopol. “All three unmanned…
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Moscow Office Tower Hit by Drone for Second Time
An office tower in Moscow was struck by a downed drone on Tuesday, Russian officials said, in the second such instance in just three days. “Several drones were shot down by air defense systems while trying to fly to Moscow. One [drone] flew into the same tower in [Moscow] City as last time. The facade…
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ROSATOM organized round table with the Russian and Soviet universities’s alumni
On July 28, a round table “Nuclear technologies for sustainable development of the African countries : the role of the Russian and Soviet universities’ Alumni” was held on the basis of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University in the format of a business breakfast. The event took place within the framework of the Second…
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Russia Rejects Appeal from Putin Critic Kara-Murza, Jailed for 25 Years
A Russian court on Monday dismissed dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza’s appeal against the 25-year prison sentence he received for criticizing the offensive in Ukraine. Kara-Murza received the longest sentence against a Russian opposition figure in recent years, drawing immediate condemnation from Western countries. “The verdict of the Moscow City Court from April 17 shall be left…
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Russian Billionaires Supply Kremlin’s Army, Military-Industrial Complex – Proekt
At least 81 Russian billionaires have business links to Russia’s military or to annexed Ukrainian territories amid the war in Ukraine, the independent investigative outlet Proekt reported Monday. Most of these individuals have stayed silent on the war, with some reportedly criticizing it in private conversations. Despite their links to Russia’s war machine, 34 of these…
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Russia Ramps Up Fines for Draft Dodging
President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a law that significantly raises fines for failing to appear at a military enlistment office after receiving a draft notice. The fines will increase from the current range of 500-3,000 rubles ($5-32) to 10,000-30,000 ($109-327) when the law comes into force on Oct. 1. Fines were also raised for…
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6 Killed in Сentral Ukraine as Moscow Says Intensified Strikes
A missile strike on a residential building in Ukraine killed six and wounded dozens on Monday, as Russia said it stepped up strikes against Ukrainian military facilities in response to attacks on its territory, including Moscow. Two missiles landed close to the centre of the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih just after 9:00 a.m.…
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4 Killed in Shelling of Occupied Donetsk, Kremlin-Backed Authorities Say
At least four residents of the Russian-occupied Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine were killed in Ukrainian shelling on Monday, Kremlin-backed officials said. Three people were killed in the city of Donetsk and one in Horlivka to the north, according to the region’s information center on Ukrainian attacks. Ten others were injured in attacks that damaged apartment…
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Russia Imports $500M in Foreign-Made Microchips So Far in 2023 – Vyorstka
Russia imported more than $502 million worth of foreign-made microchips in the first six months of 2023 despite U.S. and EU sanctions, the independent news website Vyorstka reported Monday, citing classified customs data. Since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has been slapped with Western export restrictions on advanced semiconductors and other goods that…
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700K Ukrainian Children Transferred to Russia Since Invasion – Official
Russia has “received” more than 700,000 Ukrainian children after launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, Russia’s presidential commissioner for children’s rights said in a report published Sunday. “Since February 2022, the Russian Federation has received about 4.8 million residents of Ukraine and the Donbas republics [of Donetsk and Luhansk], more than 700,000 of…
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Wagner’s Recruitment Restart in Limbo, Prigozhin Says
Russia’s Wagner mercenary outfit has not yet decided when to restart recruitment of new fighters, the group’s founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said Monday. At the beginning of July, Wagner announced a one-month recruitment suspension in the aftermath of its failed mutiny and as the Russian military’s deadline for volunteer units to sign contracts passed. But Prigozhin’s…
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ROSATOM Director General Alexey Likhachev discussed the course of construction of Rooppur NPP with Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina
On July 31, 2023, Director General of ROSATOM Alexey Likhachev visited Bangladesh. During the visit, Mr. Likhachev met with Prime Minister of the Republic of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina. At the meeting, the Parties discussed the current issues of Rooppur NPP construction and the readiness of the site for the most important milestone of the year…
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Russian Police Station in Western Bryansk Region Targeted in Drone Strike
A Ukrainian drone attacked a police station overnight in Russia’s western Bryansk region, local authorities said early Monday. “Ukrainian forces attacked the district of Trubchevsky at night,” Bryansk Governor Alexander Bogomaz said on the Telegram messaging app. “A drone hit the police station in this district. There are no victims,” but the windows and roof…
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Children Among 8 Dead After Storm Pummels Russia Campsite
Eight people including three small children died in Russia when trees crashed into a lakeside campsite during a storm described as a “hurricane,” authorities said on Sunday. Several hundred people camped in a national park in Mari El, a Russian region located along the northern bank of the Volga River, when the storm struck on Saturday. The…
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Putin, Several African Leaders Attend Russian Naval Parade
President Vladimir Putin on Sunday praised Russia’s Navy in an address at an annual warship parade in St. Petersburg, which he attended accompanied by several African leaders. The military display took part as Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine stretches into its second year and three Ukrainian drones were downed over Moscow early on Sunday. The Russian Navy…
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Russia Says Thwarted Ukrainian Drone Attacks on Moscow, Crimea
Russia said on Sunday it had downed Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow and the Crimea peninsula, in attacks that damaged two office towers in the capital and briefly shut an international airport. One drone targeting Moscow was shot down on the city’s outskirts and two others were “suppressed by electronic warfare” and smashed into an office…
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Grief and Healing in Tom Parfitt’s ‘High Caucasus’
Veteran journalist Tom Parfitt came up with the idea of a solo walk through Russia’s North Caucasus after reporting on the bloody Beslan school siege by Islamic militants in 2004. The undertaking was, as he puts it, his way of trying to “dilute” the memories of that horror. The result is a poignant, beautiful and…
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Watermelon With Bread? It’s Better With Cheese!
The Russian state appeared on the map and watermelons appeared on the table at almost the same time for people living in what is now Russia. The country got its present name after Grand Duke Ivan IV of Moscow was proclaimed tsar in 1547. The land he possessed became known as the Russian Kingdom. And…
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U.S. Says Shoigu Looking for Weapons in North Korea
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday said that the United States believes Russia’s Defense Minister is in North Korea to secure supplies of weapons to aid Moscow’s stalled invasion of Ukraine. Following Sergei Shoigu’s arrival on a rare trip to Pyongyang, Blinken said that Russia is scrambling to buy arms from allies across the…
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Moscow Says Intercepted 2 Ukraine Missiles Over South Russia
Russia said Friday it intercepted two Ukrainian missiles over its southern Rostov region bordering Ukraine, with at least a dozen people wounded by debris falling on the city of Taganrog. Regions bordering Ukraine have seen regular drone strikes and shelling since Moscow launched its military campaign in February last year, but have hardly ever been targeted…
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In Photos: Russia Pursues Closer Economic Ties with African Countries at St. Petersburg Summit
Attendees watch a broadcast of the summit’s plenary session. Speaking at the summit Thursday, President Vladimir Putin said Russia would offer free supplies of 25,000 to 50,000 tons of grain to Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, the Central African Republic and Eritrea, countries that have been impacted by the end of the Ukrainian grain deal.
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Russian Military Convinced Putin to Expand Draft Age Range — Reports
The Kremlin was purportedly against amendments recently passed in the Russian parliament that, once signed into law, would expand the pool of eligible army recruits by raising the upper age limit for military conscription, the independent news website Vyorstka reported Thursday, citing multiple anonymous sources familiar with the matter. Under current Russian law, all men aged…
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Russia and Ethiopia begin cooperation in the field of peaceful atom
July 27, 2023, St. Petersburg – A roadmap for the development of Russian-Ethiopian cooperation in the field of the peaceful use of atomic energy was signed on the sidelines of the Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum. The document was signed by Alexey Likhachev, Director General of ROSATOM, and Belete Molla, Minister of Innovation and Technology…
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And Yet It’s Nevertheless All the Same, After All
Всё–таки: nevertheless, in the end, all the same, really, finally… Little words, little words… It is my life’s work — or at least my summer challenge — to sort out some confusion experienced by readers and translators when one word has dozens of meanings and almost an endless number of possible translations. This is particularly…
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Apparent Wagner Chief Comments Defend Niger Coup
A Russian organization affiliated with the Wagner mercenary group shared a message apparently from its boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, who said the events in Niger were part of the nation’s fight against “colonizers.” The Officers’ Union for International Security (OUIS), considered by Washington to be a front company for Wagner in the Central African Republic, on…
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Brazil Denies Extradition Requests From U.S., Moscow for Accused Russian Spy
A court in Brazil has denied requests by the United States and Russia to extradite an accused Russian spy posing as a Brazilian citizen, the country’s justice ministry said Thursday. Sergei Cherkasov, 37, is in prison in the Brazilian capital of Brasilia for using false personal documents after being deported from the Netherlands. Cherkasov, who is…
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