Former Russian minister Mikhail Abyzov was arrested Tuesday evening on suspicion of embezzling $62 million, Russia’s Investigative Committee said in a press release. In May 2012, Abyzov was appointed as Minister for Open Government Affairs in former President Dmitry Medvedev’s cabinet, a post he held for six years. He is suspected of creating and running a…
The presence of “Russian specialists” in Venezuela is governed by a military-technical cooperation agreement between the two countries, Russia‘s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday. The ministry did not provide any further details in its statement about the specialists. Two Russian Air Force planes landed at Venezuela’s main airport on Saturday carrying a Russian defense official and nearly 100…
Thousands of residents in Russia’s smallest region protested for the right to hold a referendum on a divisive border-change deal after local leaders sought to remove such proposals from the ballot box. In October 2018, the republic of Ingushetia’s leaders signed the land swap deal with neighboring Chechnya, sparking mass protests. According to proposed rules,…
Football striker Pavel Pogrebnyak has been disciplined by Russia’s Football Union (RFU) over controversial comments he made against naturalized players on Russia’s international team. In an interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid earlier this month, the footballer stated: “it’s weird when a black player plays for the Russian national team,” adding that he is “against” the…
The United States on Monday accused Russia of “reckless escalation” of the situation in Venezuela by deploying military planes and personnel to the crisis-stricken South American nation that Washington has hit with crippling sanctions. The Russian planes and military personnel arrived outside the Venezuelan capital Caracas on Saturday, according to local media reports, two months after the Trump…
Russia ranks in the top 25 percent of countries whose citizens can enjoy the most freedom of travel abroad, according to an annual rating of passport “strength.” The Henley & Partners residence and citizenship planning firm ranks the strength of 199 different passports based on the availability of visa-free or visa on arrival travel to…
An autonomous power generation centre has been created at North-Komsomolskoye field to ensure failure-free power supply to drilling units and processing facilities. The centre comprises mobile smart gas-turbine units with a capacity of 2,500 kW each. Their main advantage is associated with low-cost power generation at drilling horizontal wells of up to 3.5 km –…
Volkhov, Leningrad region – PhosAgro (Moscow Exchange, LSE: PHOR), one of the world’s leading vertically integrated phosphate-based fertilizer producers has launched a project to build a new, modern phosphate-based fertilizer production facility and energy plant at its Metachem production site. Alexander Drozdenko, Governor of the Leningrad region, Viktor Evtukhov, State Secretary and Deputy Minister of…
Facebook said on Tuesday it has removed more accounts from Iran, Russia, Macedonia and Kosovo, citing what it described as “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” A total of 2,632 pages, groups and accounts were removed from Facebook and Instagram for operations linked to the above-mentioned countries, the social media platform said. Facebook said 1,907 of those accounts…
A London court has ruled against Artem Avetisyan, a businessman who is embroiled in a legal battle with detained U.S. investor Michael Calvey’s Baring Vostok over control of Russia’s Vostochny Bank, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday. Calvey, the founder of the Baring Vostok private equity group who was detained on Feb. 14 for fraud,…
The Russian military has confirmed that three of its soldiers were killed in an ambush in Syria late last month. A total of 112 Russian soldiers were killed in the three years since Moscow intervened in the Syrian civil war in support of government forces, a Russian lawmaker estimated in September 2018. Media reports place the…
The first Russian to be prosecuted under a new law that bans encouraging young people to attend unauthorized rallies was found guilty on Monday. Under the law that President Vladimir Putin signed in December, adults face fines and up to 15 days in jail for involving minors in protests. The law was introduced after opposition…
Russia’s youth affairs agency has become the sixth national agency with the authority to block websites deemed harmful to young people. To date, Russia’s Interior Ministry, consumer protection agency, tax service, alcohol regulator and media watchdog Roskomnadzor have had the right to block websites without a court order. A Russian government decree has added the Federal…
Russia sent home nearly two-thirds of some 30,000 North Koreans working there during 2018, according to unpublished reports by Moscow to the United Nations Security Council. The one-page report, seen by Reuters on Tuesday, was submitted to the council’s North Korea sanctions committee in compliance with a 2017 resolution that demanded the repatriation of all North…