Month: February 2019

The United States asked Russia for advice before the U.S. and North Korean leaders meet in Vietnam later this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday, Interfax news agency reported. Lavrov also said there was no quick solution to the Korean Peninsula issue, adding that the United Nations could have lifted some sanctions against North Korea…

Thousands gathered in central Moscow on Sunday to mark the fourth anniversary of slain opposition politician Boris Nemtsov’s murder. Nemtsov, aged 55 at the time, was gunned down on Feb. 27, 2015 while crossing a bridge close to the Kremlin. A vocal critic of President Vladimir Putin, he had been working on a report examining…

Russia’s Defense Ministry on Saturday kicked off a countrywide tour of war trophies from the Syrian civil war. They included vehicles, firearms and equipment that the Russian military collected in Syria since entering the conflict in 2015. The tour kicked off on Defender of the Fatherland Day, an annual celebration on Feb. 23 of Russia’s…

President Vladimir Putin has instructed the government to draw up a plan to support popular music months after young independent artists were pressured to cancel shows in Russian cities. A number of young Russian artists said the authorities had forced them to cancel concerts over allegations of offensive lyrics or extremism. After the brief arrest of…

A recent video showing Siberian shamans performing a sacrificial burning of camels “for the consolidation of Russia and its peoples” has outraged online users and drawn the prosecutors’ attention. Footage dated Feb. 1 showed shamans in the Irkutsk region dragging two-humped camels, lighting a bonfire and beating traditional tambourines in a circle. In the video,…

Russia’s lower chamber of parliament plans to install an online wall of shame displaying lawmakers’ dubious remarks to force them “to think before they speak,” its chairman has said. State Duma chairman Vyacheslav Volodin said on Thursday that false statements made during discussions will be published on the Duma website. “If you’ve done something stupid,…

Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday accused the United States and its NATO allies of discussing how to arm the opposition in Venezuela and alleged Washington was deploying special forces and equipment near the South American nation. Moscow cited unspecified information to back its assertion about the plans to arm the opposition, but did…

A Russian court on Friday ruled to extend by three months the detention of former U.S. marine Paul Whelan who is being held on suspicion of spying, the RIA news agency reported. Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports, was detained in a Moscow hotel room on Dec. 28 and accused of espionage,…

The Russian Football Union (RFU) on Friday chose Alexander Dyukov, a senior oil executive, as its new president until 2023, Russian news agencies reported. Dyukov is the chief executive officer of oil producer Gazprom Neft. He succeeds Vitaly Mutko, a deputy prime minister and veteran sports official, who became embroiled in allegations around Russia’s doping…

The size of Russia’s shadow economy was equal to 20 percent of the GDP last year, media reported Friday, citing the Rosfinmonitoring state financial watchdog. The watchdog recorded 20.7 trillion rubles ($315.9 billion) in undeclared imports and income taxes, as well as under-the-table salaries and other suspicious transactions, in 2018, the RBC news website reported.…

It was a stark departure from past policy objectives. Addressing a crowd of government officials on Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin delivered a state of the nation speech more inward-focused than ever before. Domestic issues — the economy above all — took precedence; Ukraine didn’t even receive a mention. Outlining a litany of measures to help…

Russian activists have slammed the recent detentions and alleged torture of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Western Siberia, comparing them to persecution by the Nazis. A spokesperson for the Jehovah’s Witnesses, an organization that Russia labeled extremist in 2017, alleged that at least seven adherents of the religious group had been brutally tortured after being detained last week in the…

This week on From Russia With News, Financial Times Bureau Chief Henry Foy joins us in the studio to talk about the arrest of Michael Calvey, the U.S. founder of Baring Vostok, Russia’s biggest independent private equity firm. We’ll also talk with Coda journalist Simon Ostrovsky to discuss the new Duma law that bans Russian…

In the cold, gray waters of the Gulf of Finland, 30 kilometers west of St. Petersburg, a giant wall juts across the bay. Completed seven years ago, it protects the city from an age-old danger: floods.  When storms approach from the west, the Baltic Sea is pushed eastwards into the shallow Neva Bay where the…

A military course for schoolchildren taught youngsters how to disperse street protests in Russia’s fourth largest city of Yekaterinburg, local media reported. Researchers registered at least 1,000 more protests in 2018 than in previous years as Russians took to the streets over pension age hikes, rising gas prices and other issues. Activists face a range…

President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia is militarily ready for a Cuban Missile-style crisis if the United States is foolish enough to want one and that his country currently has the edge when it comes to a first nuclear strike. The Cuban Missile Crisis erupted in 1962 when Moscow responded to a U.S. missile…

Twitter Inc. this month made a significant revision to its public database of more than 3,000 accounts that it has linked to Russia’s Internet Research Agency, fundamentally altering the record about the group’s trolling efforts in the U.S. in the year following the contentious 2016 presidential election. Twitter’s changes invalidate central portions of a Bloomberg…

It’s no longer lonely at the top for Yelena Baturina, Russia’s richest woman and the wife of former Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov. Forbes Russia said Tatiana Bakalchuk, the co-founder and owner of popular private online retailer Wildberries, joined its women billionaires list on Thursday. The business magazine now estimates Bakalchuk’s net worth at more than…

President Vladimir Putin calls improving the Russian navy’s combat capabilities a priority. The unfinished husks of three guided-missile frigates that have languished for three years at a Baltic shipyard show that is easier said than done. Earmarked for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, the frigates fell victim to sanctions imposed by Ukraine in 2014 after Russia…

Russia must prepare for possible Western attempts to deny it access to the global internet by creating its own self-sufficient ‘segments’ of the web, President Vladimir Putin was quoted as saying on Wednesday by Russian news agencies. “I think, they [foreign countries] will think through carefully before doing it, but there is a theoretical possibility…

Russia’s Defense Ministry released footage of what it said was a successful test launch of its new submarine drone missile system, hours after President Vladimir Putin said there had been major advancements in the system. Putin announced the development of a series of new advanced weapons ahead of his re-election in March 2018. Of those,…

Russian military police and Syrian troops have blockaded food and goods supply routes to the Rukban refugee camp in Syria in a bid to force thousands of desperate residents to leave the U.S.-protected area near a Pentagon-run base, camp residents and rebels said on Wednesday. Russia’s defense ministry announced on Tuesday it was opening two…

U.S. citizen Michael Calvey, the founder of major private equity fund Baring Vostok in Russia, was detained on Feb. 14 on suspicion of defrauding Vostochny bank shareholders. On Saturday, a Moscow court placed him under arrest on fraud charges until April 13. The arrest has sparked an outcry among Western businessmen, political officials and members…

Venezuela on Wednesday received a shipment of humanitarian aid sent from Russia, including medicine and medical equipment, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported, citing a Russian diplomatic source. Russia has sided with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in his stand-off with opposition leader Juan Guaido, who declared himself interim president late last month. Maduro retains…

A majority of Russians say that doing business in the country without breaking a few rules is impossible, according to a newly released state-funded survey. The poll was carried out a day after Michael Calvey, a U.S. citizen and one of the biggest private equity investors in Russia, was detained on suspicion of embezzling $37.7…

Russia will respond to any U.S. deployment of short or intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe by targeting not only the countries where they are stationed, but the United States itself, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday. In his toughest remarks yet on a potential new arms race, Putin said Russia was not seeking confrontation and would not take…

Against a backdrop of falling approval ratings and a faltering economy, Russian President Vladimir Putin began his annual address to the Federal Assembly on Wednesday with an emphasis on domestic issues. Speaking at Gostiny Dvor to 2,000 senior government officials, he focused on questions of internal economic and social development, before discussing Russia’s new missile…

A spokesman for the Jehovah’s Witnesses has said that Russian investigators have brutally tortured adherents of the group who are currently held in detention. Russia’s Supreme Court declared the Jehovah’s Witnesses an extremist organization in 2017, leading to mass raids and causing hundreds of its estimated 175,000 members to flee the country. Earlier this month,…

Residents of a central Russian town plagued by air pollution are beginning to sue over health complications that they say are caused by toxic emissions from a nearby copper mine, local authorities have said. The town of Sibai has been hit by thick smog since November, sparking protests and leading to the distribution of medical…

Russia’s FSB security service has asked a Moscow court to extend the detention of former U.S. marine Paul Whelan who is being held on suspicion of spying, the Interfax news agency cited a court spokeswoman as saying on Wednesday. Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports, was detained in a Moscow hotel room…

Russia‘s largest oil company could take over and renovate a ruined palace once used by the tsars, under draft legislation provisionally backed on Tuesday by lawmakers. The bill, approved by lawmakers in its first of three readings, seeks to save thousands of dilapidated listed buildings by creating a mechanism for investors to take them over…

Animal rights activists have staged a picket in Moscow demanding the release of more than 100 orcas and belugas held in so-called “whale jails” in Far East Russia. Activists have raised the alarm about the mistreatment of 11 killer whales and 90 belugas that they say are kept in cold and cramped pens in Srednyaya…

Danske Bank A/S will close its operations across the Baltic states and in Russia after authorities in Estonia kicked out the Danish lender amid a deepening money-laundering scandal. The Financial Supervisory Authority in Tallinn took the extraordinary step on Tuesday of ordering Danske to close its operations in the Baltic country. The agency is giving…

All but a handful of Russians living on the disputed Kuril Islands in Far East Russia have overwhelmingly rejected the prospect of being transferred to Japan, a state-funded survey said Tuesday. The dispute over the four islands, which Soviet troops captured from Japan in the final days of World War II, is so acrimonious that…

Russia’s state space agency has announced plans to send tourists into space along the route taken by the first man in space over the next two years. Legendary Soviet cosmonaut Yury Gagarin made history as the first human to orbit the Earth when he spent 108 minutes in space in 1961. “We’re […] launching a…

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, in a telephone conversation, voiced their support for continued coordination on the global energy markets, the Kremlin said on Tuesday. The Kremlin also said the two leaders praised bilateral cooperation between Russia and Saudi Arabia. “Mutual attitude for further strengthening of multifaceted Russia-Saudi…

Russian soldiers will no longer be able to take selfies or share information online under new legislation passed by the State Duma on Tuesday. In recent years, online investigative journalism sites like Bellingcat have used open source data to cast light on Russia’s alleged role in eastern Ukraine and other countries. In a third and…

Serial production of Russia’s first post-Soviet mainline commercial aircraft will be delayed by a year due to U.S. sanctions, the head of state-owned industrial conglomerate Rostec said on Monday, Russian news agencies reported. Russia hopes the MS-21, a twin-engine, medium-range passenger plane, will give Boeing and Airbus a run for their money. Three prototypes have…

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov temporarily transferred power to the head of the legislative assembly of his republic early last week as he battled what he said was a common cold. Kadyrov, 42, has ruled Chechnya, a Russian region that was devastated by two bloody separatist conflicts in the 1990s and early 2000s, since he was…

The detention in Russia of Baring Vostok’s U.S. founder Michael Calvey is an emergency for the Russian economy, former finance minister Alexei Kudrin, now head of the Audit Chamber, said on Monday. “I find this particular situation (to be) an emergency for the economy,” Kudrin tweeted. He said Calvey’s detention shows Russian President Vladimir Putin’s…

Facebook has taken down the Kremlin-funded RT network’s In the Now viral video page days after it was accused of hiding its ownership structure. RT’s American branch was ordered to register as a “foreign agent” in the United States after accusations that it had interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. RT ceased broadcasting in…

An independent news outlet in southern Russia has reported that its journalist was attacked over the weekend in an incident it linked to a corruption investigation into a local official. An increasing number of civil activists, politicians and journalists have been assaulted in Russia since 2015, the Agora human rights group said in a report…

The Kremlin said the arrest of Michael Calvey, founder of the private equity firm Baring Vostok Capital Partners, shouldn’t hurt the confidence of foreign investors in Russia and it’s “very closely watching” developments in the case. But investors and analysts said they were disturbed by the arrest of one of the country’s longest-standing American investors…

Russia’s Pobeda budget airline eased up its hand luggage policy on Monday to allow passengers to carry backpacks and other items free of charge, following numerous complaints and lawsuits from passengers. Earlier this month, Russia’s Supreme Court ordered Pobeda to change its hand luggage allowance to reflect the Transport Ministry’s 2017 ruling that gave all…

Around 60 percent of Russian military police officers have received wartime experience in Syria in fewer than three years of deployment, a Russian Defense Ministry official said Monday. Officers began patrolling the Golan Heights frontier between Syria and Israel in 2016 and installed observation posts in the area. “Currently around 60 percent of the military…

The Kremlin is following the situation around the detention of Baring Vostok’s head Michael Calvey very closely and hopes it will not affect the Russian investment climate, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday. He said President Vladimir Putin had met Calvey many times in the past but that his detention was beyond Putin’s…

A group of budding football players from Nigeria has been stranded in Russia since arriving on a visa-waiver system for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, a Russian anti-slavery NGO has said. Russian police have said that an estimated 5,500 foreigners who traveled to Russia visa-free for the football tournament have remained in the country since…

Dutch police briefly detained a Russian journalist and a Russian human rights activist at Amsterdam airport on unknown charges, Novaya Gazeta reported Monday. Yelena Milashina, a journalist with the investigative Novaya Gazeta newspaper, and Milana Bakhayeva, an activist with the Memorial human rights NGO, reportedly arrived in Amsterdam to meet with activists investigating the plight…