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Russian authorities have placed a man with dual U.S.-Russian citizenship in pre-trial custody for “rehabilitating Nazism,” the St. Petersburg court said Saturday. “[Yury] Malev was detained on Dec. 8… and charged the same day. He admitted partial guilt,” the court said on Telegram. Malev was charged with rehabilitation of Nazism, which carries up to five…

In a choreographed and widely predicted move, President Vladimir Putin announced Friday that he will run for a fifth term in the 2024 presidential election next March. The 71-year-old, who has been in power since 2000, is expected to run virtually unopposed apart from a few handpicked challengers following the adoption of wartime censorship and…

The White House mocked Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement on Friday that he would run for re-election in 2024, suggesting that the result was highly unlikely to be in doubt. “Well, that’s going to be one humdinger of a horse race, isn’t it?” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters aboard Air Force One…

Lawmakers in western Russia’s Kursk region passed a law Friday banning the act of “coercing women” into undergoing an abortion amid increasing concerns about a looming nationwide ban. “Let today’s bill be the first step [toward a comprehensive solution to Russia’s demographic problem],” the Kursk region’s parliament wrote on the messaging app Telegram. The new…

Olympic officials on Friday announced that Russian and Belarusian athletes will be able to compete at next year’s Paris Games as neutrals and outside of team events, but only if they have not actively supported Moscow’s war against Ukraine.  The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said only eight athletes from Russia and three from Belarus currently…

Russian authorities on Friday issued an arrest warrant for Russian-American journalist and writer Masha, who earlier this year was charged with spreading “fakes” about Moscow’s war in Ukraine. Russia’s Interior Ministry lists the 56-year-old by the full name Maria Alexandrovna Gessen, as well as her date of birth, gender and nationality. The ministry does not provide…

“Three guys from the staff attacked me and started pulling off my clothes. Just like that. They told me to step on the scales — I said I refused medical intervention. And they started tearing my clothes off, injuring me, hitting me several times, threatening that they would put me in a straitjacket and inject…

Authorities in Moscow have banned billboards containing QR codes after allies of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny used the matrix barcodes to conceal their newly launched anti-Putin campaign ahead of the 2024 presidential election.  Navalny on Thursday urged supporters to vote for any candidate besides Vladimir Putin during the race, which is scheduled to take…

Russia opened an investigation Friday after a passenger aircraft was forced to land due to a technical malfunction, the latest incident to highlight safety concerns in Moscow’s aviation industry. Sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine have effectively cut Russia off from Western plane manufacturers Airbus and Boeing, making it difficult for Russian airlines to import…

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday announced that he will run for re-election in 2024, state media reported. The announcement follows months of speculation over whether the 71-year-old, who has been in power since 2000, plans to seek six more years in office after constitutional amendments in 2020 reset his term count. Putin told Lieutenant…

Russian election officials announced Friday that the 2024 presidential race will be held over three days, the first time that multi-day voting has been used for a presidential election.  “Three-day voting is already becoming a tradition in our electoral system,” said Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) chairwoman Ella Pamfilova. “It was first used during the [Covid-19]…

A court in Finland has refused to extradite a Russian nationalist fighter to Ukraine and ruled to release him from detention, Finnish media reported Friday. Since 2016, Ukrainian authorities have sought the arrest of Yan Petrovsky, a Russian-Norwegian national, on terrorism charges, accusing him of assisting pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine as a member of…

Around 30,000 residents of annexed Crimea face power outages after a gas pipeline caught fire overnight, Russian state media reported Friday. Eyewitnesses filmed the flames erupting from the gas pipeline in the eastern port city of Kerch, which connects to mainland Russia via the Crimean Bridge. Svyatoslav Brusakov, the Russian-installed mayor of Kerch, said up…

The European Union’s border protection agency has deployed some 50 guards to watch Finland’s border with Russia, it said on Thursday, as Helsinki accuses Moscow of orchestrating a surge in migrants. “Currently we deploy 55 officers in Finland, a majority of them are border guard officers performing surveillance of the border,” Frontex spokesman Piotr Switalski…

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday praised his country’s relations with Iran at a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi, as the two discussed the Israel-Hamas war. Since launching its assault on Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow has sought to deepen its economic and political ties with Tehran, both of which have been sanctioned…

Russia’s Justice Ministry has added the U.S. global policy think tank RAND Corporation to its list of “undesirable” organizations, banning its activities and putting staff at risk of jail in Russia. RAND’s designation, dated Dec. 6 on the ministry website, is not accompanied by a statement explaining Moscow’s decision to blacklist the research and development nonprofit.…

A member of Russia’s National Guard was killed and two others were wounded in an explosion at a training ground in central Russia, authorities said Thursday. An explosive device “self-detonated” during shooting drills at the Dubrovichi aviation training ground in the Ryazan region, the local prosecutor’s office said in a statement. The Investigative Committee, which…

The British government on Thursday accused Russian security services of engaging in a sustained cyber espionage campaign against top politicians, journalists and NGOs. Russia has been suspected of meddling in U.K. politics before, including the divisive 2016 Brexit referendum, however, the Conservative Party-led government has been criticized for failing to investigate. In the latest claims,…

Russia on Thursday arrested a Belarusian man for allegedly placing explosives on two trains on a key part of a Siberian railway near the Chinese border, on Ukraine’s orders. The arrest came around a week after authorities reported traffic complications in a tunnel on the Baikal-Amur mainline, some 5,500 kilometers east of Moscow. Ukrainian sources…

The families of mobilized Russian soldiers on Thursday asked President Vladimir Putin to return their loved ones from the front in Ukraine, more than a year after the men were recruited. “We’re against legalized slavery,” said members of Put’ Domoi (“Way Home”), a group of soldiers’ wives and mothers calling for an end to mobilization, in…

The Kremlin said Thursday that it hopes U.S. lawmakers will continue to block White House requests for emergency aid to Ukraine amid a funding row between Republicans and Democrats over border security issues. Republican senators earlier blocked $106 billion in emergency aid primarily for Ukraine and Israel as conservatives balked at the exclusion of immigration reforms…

Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said Thursday that Russians should vote against Vladimir Putin in the 2024 presidential election.  “You can do this by voting for any other candidate,” Navalny said in a statement posted on his website. Russia’s upper house of parliament earlier on Thursday officially set March 17 as the date for next…

Ukraine’s allies have drastically scaled back their pledges of new aid to the country, which have fallen to their lowest level since the start of the war, the Kiel Institute’s Ukraine aid tracker showed Thursday. “The dynamics of support to Ukraine have slowed,” the Germany-based institute said, adding that new military, financial and humanitarian aid…

Russia’s Security Service (FSB) on Thursday said it detained two people suspected of organizing several arson attacks on behalf of Kyiv and transferring money to the Ukrainian military. A 21-year-old ex-soldier in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad was accused of being paid by the Ukrainian special services to recruit potential arsonists inside Russia. “The suspect involved several…

Russian oil exports have generated $11 billion through a shadow fleet and obscure entities in the year since G7 countries set a price cap on one of Russia’s largest sources of income, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing trade data. In December 2022, the group of rich countries imposed a $60-per-barrel price cap on Russian oil, while…

A Russian teenager has shot dead a classmate and injured five others before killing herself at a school in western Russia, investigators said Thursday. Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said a 14-year-old student who brought a pump-action shotgun to the school was among the dead. The Investigative Committee said it had launched a…

Russia on Thursday set March 17 as the date for a presidential election which is expected to be another shoo-in for Vladimir Putin, who has silenced opposition during over two decades in power. In a meeting broadcast live on Russian television, the upper house of parliament unanimously approved the date of the vote. The decision…

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Saudi Arabia Wednesday after visiting the United Arab Emirates, making a rare trip abroad as Moscow seeks to reassert itself on the global stage. It is only the third trip the Russian leader has taken outside the former Soviet Union since he invaded Ukraine, following visits to Iran and…

Kyiv said it orchestrated the assassination of a pro-Kremlin Ukrainian politician on Wednesday after an ex-lawmaker who had defected to Russia was shot dead outside Moscow. Since Russia invaded last February, Ukraine has claimed to be behind a spate of assassinations and attacks on pro-war Russians and former Ukrainian officials who have backed Moscow’s war.…

The United States charged four pro-Russian soldiers with war crimes on Wednesday for the abduction and torture of an American national in Ukraine. Attorney General Merrick Garland said the charges against the four “Russia-affiliated military personnel” were the first to be brought under a U.S. war crimes statute passed by Congress nearly 30 years ago.…

A Moscow-backed politician in eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk region has been killed in a bombing attack, Russian state media reported Wednesday. Oleg Popov, a deputy in the pro-Kremlin Luhansk regional parliament, was killed Wednesday afternoon in the city of Luhansk, which has been under the control of Moscow-backed separatists since 2014. “As a result of the car explosion…

Russian lawmakers on Wednesday voted in favor of banning the use of cellphones in school classrooms, a move they argue will help improve the learning process for students.  The speaker of Russia’s lower-house State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin said cellphones would no longer be permitted in classrooms except for “emergencies.” “Parents and teachers asked us to back this rule. The…

Police in Nepal said Wednesday that they had detained 12 people accused of illegally sending young men to be recruited into the Russian army, days after authorities confirmed the death of six Nepali citizens fighting in the Ukraine war. Nepal prohibits its citizens from joining foreign militaries, except those of countries with which it has…

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday landed in the United Arab Emirates for a rare visit outside the former Soviet Union, as Moscow seeks to reassert itself on the global stage. Isolated by the West over the Ukraine war, Putin is courting allies in the Middle East, where he will discuss oil, trade and the…

Two senior Russian officers have been imprisoned on charges of failing to prevent a Ukrainian missile strike on Russia, the first such case of its kind, the business daily Kommersant reported Wednesday, citing anonymous sources familiar with the trial. Lieutenant Colonel Anatoly Bondarev and Major Dmitry Dmitrakov were accused of allowing a Ukrainian missile strike…

Kyiv said Wednesday that Moscow had launched dozens of Iranian-designed attack drones toward Ukraine overnight from southern Russia and the annexed Crimean peninsula, in its latest aerial barrage. Officials in Kyiv say Russian forces have been stockpiling drones and missiles for systematic attacks on Ukraine’s struggling energy grid over winter months. “A total of 48…

Russian businessman Alexei Nechaev will stand in as President Vladimir Putin’s “liberal” rival during Russia’s 2024 presidential race, the independent news outlet Mozhem Obyasnit reported Tuesday, citing two anonymous sources in the pro-business political party he created nearly four years ago.  Nechaev, who owns one of Russia’s leading cosmetics companies Faberlic, stepped into politics when…

The United States said Tuesday that Russia rejected a new proposal to free two detained Americans, Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan. “We have made a number of proposals, including a substantial one in recent weeks,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters. “That proposal was rejected by Russia,” he…

Russian oil giant Lukoil said Tuesday it would consider selling its oil refinery in Bulgaria following a government plan to end imports of Russian crude oil, which the company called “discriminatory.” “In view of the significant change in the operating conditions of the Lukoil Group companies in Bulgaria, the company has commenced work to review…

Ukraine said Tuesday it had hit Russian military facilities in Crimea with drones, in the latest such operation on the Moscow-annexed Black Sea peninsula. Russia said it had neutralized 35 Ukrainian drones over Crimea and the Sea of Azov, which lies between the warring countries. Kyiv has targeted Crimea throughout Moscow’s offensive but increased attacks…

ST. PETERSBURG — The ban on the “international LGBT movement” by Russia’s top court has thrown the queer community of St. Petersburg, historically one of the country’s most LGBT-tolerant cities, into unprecedented uncertainty and fear.  “People are scared,” said Maria, 43, an openly lesbian feminist and LGBT activist who asked for anonymity out of concerns…

Russia has been launching major investments and building up its military presence in the Arctic as it steps up its drive to develop a crucial northern maritime route linking Asia and Europe. In the country’s latest move, Russia’s nuclear agency Rosatom on Tuesday presented its two new RITM-200 reactors that will power the future Chukotka…

Russia’s recent “extremist” designation of a loosely defined “LGBT movement” has led to a surge in emergency evacuations from the country, independent media reported Tuesday, citing the European human rights group for post-Soviet LGBT people, Equal PostOst. Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday banned the so-called “international LGBT movement” — which does not formally exist —…

Two in five Russians who fled the country in the months following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine have since returned home, the pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia reported Tuesday, citing data from an immigration support company and job recruitment website. According to official statistics, 668,400 Russians left the country last year as war broke out in neighboring Ukraine,…

Russian soldiers’ requests for help deserting their units in Ukraine have almost doubled in recent months, the Idite Lesom (“Get Lost”) group, which helps Russians evade fighting in the war, told The Moscow Times. The project said it received 577 such requests between September and November, an 89% increase from the 305 it received between…

Six Ukrainian children taken by Russia in the wake of Moscow’s invasion are to be reunited with their families after Qatari mediation, officials from the Gulf state said Tuesday. Russia has been accused of forcibly deporting thousands of Ukrainian children from schools, hospitals and orphanages in parts of the country controlled by its forces. The…

Two Finnish companies are suspected of having exported drones and other military products worth over three million euros ($3.25 million) to Russia in violation of EU sanctions, Finnish customs authorities said Tuesday. “There are altogether six criminal suspects, one of whom has been detained since September,” the country’s customs agency said in a statement. It…

Ravaged forests, flooded towns and dead dolphins: after nearly two years of war in Ukraine, experts say environmental damage is becoming an “enormous” tragedy that will affect generations to come. The invasion of Ukraine has been particularly devastating for nature, said Doug Weir, head of research at the Conflict and Environment Observatory, a British NGO.…

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi will visit Moscow on Thursday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin confirmed Tuesday. Iran’s official news agency Irna had earlier reported on the planned visit, saying that the two leaders would discuss “bilateral issues, including economic interactions, as well as discussions about regional and international issues, especially the situation…

A left-wing activist who was “tricked” by Russian security services into leaving Georgia has turned up at a pre-trial detention facility in central Russia, the human rights organization Perviy Otdel reported Tuesday. Rafail Shepelev went missing in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi on Oct. 12 and was found a month later inside a detention center in…

Russian prosecutors have requested a 19.5-year prison sentence for former minister Mikhail Abyzov nearly five years after his arrest in a $62 million fraud case, Interfax reported Monday. Abyzov, 51, had been a close ally of former President Dmitry Medvedev, serving as his minister of open government affairs from 2012-2018. He was arrested in March 2019 on charges…

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday complained of deteriorating ties with Western countries, which crumbled after he launched a full-scale offensive against Ukraine last year, as he accepted the credentials of several new ambassadors. At a Kremlin ceremony, Putin swore in some two dozen new ambassadors, including from countries such as Britain and Germany, with…

Ukraine said Monday that it had exported around 7 million tons of cargo through the Black Sea despite Russia’s blockade — a more than fivefold increase in just over a month. “Two hundred vessels exported 7 million tons of cargo,” Ukraine’s reconstruction ministry said in a post on Telegram. The cargo included “almost 5 million…