Month: February 2019

This week on From Russia With News, we speak with New York Times journalist Andrew Kramer about the sentencing of two Russian cyber-security experts this week, handed decades behind bars for treason. We’ll also talk to veteran journalist Artemy Troitsky about the life and legacy of Igor Malashenko, the media executive and political consultant found…

Russia’s population has suffered more from abortion than it did from its losses during World War II, a Russian Orthodox official in charge of family affairs has said. Russia legalized abortion in 1955 and has the second-highest abortion rate in the world after China. While Russia’s anti-abortion movement has largely failed to change the law,…

A Russian court on Thursday ruled that prominent U.S. investor Michael Calvey should remain in custody pending trial, rejecting his appeal to be released on bail or moved to house arrest. Calvey, a founder of Baring Vostok Capital Partners, was detained earlier this month along with three other executives from his private equity group after…

The nephew of top Kremlin propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov was sentenced by a German court for planning to take part in military activities in eastern Ukraine, Russian media reported Thursday. The charges against German citizen Sergei Kiselyov, 48, were reportedly based on an interview that his pundit uncle gave in 2016, in which he said that…

Russia is ready to mediate between India and Pakistan to try to calm tensions between the two nuclear powers, Russian government officials said on Thursday, warning of the risk of further clashes between the two countries. Moscow made the offer after Pakistan said it was considering returning a captured Indian pilot and as U.S. President…

Police in Moscow raided the office of the Open Russia political movement and detained one person late on Wednesday after the organization aired a live feed with founder and exiled oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Russia blacklisted the pro-democracy NGO in 2017 as an “undesirable organization,” a label that banned its activities and places its employees at…

The Kremlin on Thursday dismissed talk of potential U.S. sanctions targeting President Vladimir Putin’s wealth and called draft sanctions legislation an example of anti-Russian sentiment that should not be taken seriously. A group of U.S. lawmakers have proposed sanctions legislation targeting Russia that, among other things, would require the director of U.S. National Intelligence to…

Americans’ negative views of Russia have reached levels not seen since the fall of the Soviet Union, according to a new survey released by the Gallup pollster Wednesday. Relations between the two countries have plummeted to Cold War-era levels after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and was accused of interfering in…

Two U.S. congresswomen have introduced legislation seeking to instruct the American intelligence community to disclose Russian President Vladimir Putin’s finances and report on Kremlin-linked corruption. Critics have accused the Russian leader of amassing a fortune during his 18 years in power as either president or prime minister. Official figures say Putin’s income between 2011 and 2016…

The story of 30-year-old Fatima Musabayeva, a Kazakh survivor of modern-day slavery, appears to have a happy ending. Of sorts. Eight years after escaping years of exploitation, Fatima lives in her own freshly remodelled apartment, raises a son and runs a small business. She went a long way to get where she is now. In…

Moscow’s facial-recognition surveillance cameras are now being deployed by collectors to track down debtors, the city’s chief bailiff told state media on Wednesday. The Russian capital claims one of the world’s largest facial-recognition systems, with 174,000 closed-circuit TV (CCTV) cameras expected to be in operation this year. In 2018, personal loans in Russia grew by…

Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez will hold talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Friday, the state-run RIA news agency reported, the latest in a flurry of visits by Venezuelan politicians to staunch ally Russia. Moscow has backed socialist President Nicolas Maduro in the face of a challenge from opposition leader Juan Guaido who…

Russia’s aviation authority has told airlines to avoid flying over India and Pakistan after at least two military planes were shot down in the area, Russian media have reported. India and Pakistan shot down each other’s fighter jets on Wednesday, a day after Indian warplanes struck inside Pakistan for the first time since a war…

Special Counsel Robert Mueller and other U.S. prosecutors have been investigating whether President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign conspired with Russia. Trump and Moscow have denied any collusion. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded Russia interfered in the presidential election with a campaign of hacking and propaganda to sow discord in the United States and damage the…

Russia will reinforce its western, eastern and southern flanks this year in response to increased Western military exercises near its border, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced on Wednesday. Moscow has bolstered its military capabilities since its relations with the United States and the NATO military alliance deteriorated over Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Speaking at…

A business class jet cascaded off a runway at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported Tuesday. Surveillance footage posted online shows the plane skidding off the runway’s asphalt and onto the surrounding airfield after landing. The three passengers and three members of crew on board the flight traveling from Baku were…

The Kremlin said on Wednesday that an email it had received from an adviser to then U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump in January 2016 about a Moscow real estate project had made no mention of Trump’s personal interest in the project. The Kremlin was speaking before Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, testifies before a House…

The Kremlin on Wednesday said that U.S. territory was constantly being used to launch cyber attacks against Russia, but said it was unable to confirm a U.S. media report that the U.S. military had disrupted the internet access of a Russian troll farm. The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the U.S. military had disrupted the internet…

Renowned Russian media executive and political consultant Igor Malashenko is believed to have committed suicide in Spain, Russian state media cited a Spanish court as saying. Malashenko’s former colleagues and family said he had taken his own life at age 64 on Monday, but no official sources have yet confirmed the reports. “Everything shows” that…

Leonardo DiCaprio has joined Pamela Anderson this week in calling on Russia to release dozens of orcas and belugas held in a so-called “whale jail” in the country’s Far East. Novaya Gazeta reported in late 2018 that about 100 Orcas and Belugas are being held in small temporary enclosures in a bay near the city of…

A suspected Russian spy has been arrested in Stockholm, the Swedish Security Police said on Wednesday. The suspect, who was arrested late Tuesday, is believed to have been engaged in criminal activity since at least 2017, the Security Police said. They declined to provide either a name or a gender for the suspect. “It is a…

Russia and Syria issued a joint statement on Wednesday calling on U.S. forces to leave Syria and to allow people inside a refugee camp in the southeast of the country to be evacuated by Russian and Syrian forces. The statement, released by Russia’s Defense Ministry, said Russian and Syrian forces had prepared buses to relocate…

Russia saw a 10 percent surge in international tourist arrivals last year, dominated by visitors from China, Germany and South Korea, state media cited the authorities as saying. Russia has introduced visa-free travel for Chinese tour groups and hired Chinese-speaking staff at airports and train stations to accommodate growing tourist numbers from the country of…

At least eight people, including three children, have been killed in a house fire in the Siberian region of Kemerovo, one year after a deadly fire there claimed scores of lives and sparked mass safety inspections. Sixty people, many of them children, died in the Siberian city of Kemerovo in March 2018 after the Winter…

The U.S. military disrupted the internet access of a Russian troll farm accused of trying to influence American voters on Nov. 6, 2018, the day of the congressional elections, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday. The U.S. Cyber Command strike targeted the Internet Research Agency in the Russian port city of St. Petersburg, the Post…

The U.S. Army estimates the Russian army’s military capabilities will peak in 2028, closely followed by the Chinese around 2030, giving the United States almost a decade to prepare for those threats, a senior Pentagon official said in an interview on Monday. The top civilian at the U.S. Army, Secretary Mark Esper, said the Army…

A federal judge on Tuesday agreed to delay the sentencing of Maria Butina, who has admitted to working as a Russian agent to infiltrate a gun rights group and make inroads with U.S. conservative activists and Republicans, at the request of a prosecutor who cited her ongoing cooperation. Butina, 30, has been in custody since…

The head of a Russian vodka manufacturer has told The Moscow Times he was shocked to hear Dutch customs had intercepted a shipment of his goods on suspicion of it being bound for North Korea’s top brass. Early on Tuesday, the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad (AD) reported that customs officials in the Dutch port city…

A Russian court on Tuesday sentenced a former state security officer and a cybersecurity expert to long jail terms after finding the two men guilty of committing state treason in the interests of the United States. The two were arrested in December 2016 shortly after the United States accused Russia of trying to influence its…

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin will not intervene in the case of a prominent U.S. investor arrested over embezzlement accusations, the Kremlin said on Tuesday, playing down pressure to release him before trial. The detention of Michael Calvey, a founder of Baring Vostok Capital Partners, has rattled foreign investors in Moscow and is likely to further…

Ukraine’s national broadcaster has dropped the singer who was meant to represent the country at the Eurovision Song Contest due to apparent political differences over Russia. Anna Korsun, 27, who goes by the stage name Maruv, was selected by a public vote on Saturday to sing at the contest in Israel in May. But she…

A top Russian security official on Tuesday accused the United States of deploying forces in Puerto Rico and Colombia in preparation for a military intervention in Venezuela to topple Moscow’s ally, President Nicolas Maduro. Venezuela has been plunged into political turmoil and was rocked by violent clashes at the weekend. The United States and a…

Russia has established high-speed internet service on a chain of Pacific islands off its far eastern coast, state-run telecoms operator Rostelecom said on Tuesday, despite a decades-old dispute with Japan over the territory. Rostelecom said an 815-kilometer fibre optic cable line had been laid between Russia’s offshore Sakhalin island and the island chain to introduce…

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday said that his daughter interns at the European Parliament as a regular student, after several EU lawmakers expressed security concerns. Yelizaveta Peskova, 21, is listed as a trainee for French far-right EU parliamentarian Aymeric Chauprade, who had backed Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine. Several of…

SARATOV — Olga Trunova has no secrets from her neighbor: they talk about everything. But there is one topic which is off-limits. Their faith. “She goes to the Orthodox Church,” Trunova, 77, said as she laid out homemade pies in her apartment, where paintings of a blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus decorate the walls. “I told her…

Russia has been ranked the world’s 95th healthiest country in a new index released by Bloomberg, behind most other nations in Eastern Europe. Although alcohol consumption has sharply plummeted in recent years, obesity rates in Russia have been on the rise due to deteriorating eating habits and measles cases skyrocketed in the past year. Russia has…

 A Russian tanker violated international trade sanctions by transferring fuel to a North Korean vessel at sea at least four times between October 2017 and May 2018, two crew members who witnessed the transfers said. Such transactions could have helped provide North Korea with an economic lifeline and eased the isolation of the secretive communist…

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) thwarted an Islamic State plot to bomb a train in central Moscow, a shopping mall in a Moscow suburb and the headquarters of the GRU military intelligence service, the Kommersant business daily reported Tuesday, citing sources close to the investigation. Tajik national Tojiddin Nazarov, who uses the nom de guerre…

The renowned Russian media executive and political consultant Igor Malashenko has died in Spain at the age of 64, the Kommersant business daily reported on Monday. Some Russian media reported the death as having been a suicide, citing sources close to Malashenko. No official sources have yet confirmed the reports. Malashenko was the co-founder and…

A former mixed-martial-arts fighter and Russian ultranationalist serving time for attacking a brothel was released from prison early on Monday. Vyacheslav Datsik, who fought under the nickname “Red-Haired Tarzan” and has a long criminal history, was sentenced in March 2018 to 3.5 years in maximum-security prison for unlawful intrusion, battery and disorderly conduct. He was…

Russian state television has listed U.S. military facilities that Moscow would target in the event of a nuclear strike, and said that a hypersonic missile Russia is developing would be able to hit them in less than five minutes. The targets included the Pentagon and the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland. The report, unusual even by…

Russian police have opened a criminal case into air pollution in the Siberian coal-mining region of Kemerovo, weeks after black snow first covered towns in the area. Dark snow descended on the cities of Prokopyevsk, Kiselyovsk and Leninsk-Kuznetsky in mid-February, a phenomenon that has been attributed to rising coal output. Authorities in another Kemerovo town were…

Russian President Vladimir Putin defended the decision to prosecute U.S. fund manager Michael Calvey on fraud charges in a case that’s shaken investors and drawn criticism from top Kremlin insiders. At a closed-door meeting last week, Putin was asked about attacks on the handling of the case and the damage it might do to the…

Moody’s Investors Service has for the first time named “abrupt regime change” as a risk factor for the Russian economy. Analysts have forecast increasing competition within the Kremlin and growing popular discontent over social issues as Vladimir Putin’s fourth presidential term approaches its end in 2024. Moody’s named regime change as one of several “distant…

Russia-based private equity group Baring Vostok appealed on Monday for President Vladimir Putin to take a criminal investigation into its U.S. founder Michael Calvey and other executives under his personal control. It made the request in an open letter to Putin posted on its website. There was no immediate comment from the Kremlin. Prosecutors last…

A majority of Russians view corruption cases against top officials as evidence of the government’s overall decay, according to a new independent survey. Levada carried out the survey in the wake of the high-profile detention of Russian senator Rauf Arashukov on murder, organized crime and witness tampering charges. His father, the high-ranking gas official Raul…