Month: May 2019
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On This Day: Andrei Sakharov
Andrei Sakharov was a nuclear physicist and an outspoken activist for disarmament, peace and human rights in the Soviet Union. He was persecuted for his views on civil liberties and reform, but it was these efforts that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975. Today, the Sakharov Prize is awarded by the European Parliament…
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Poland Urges Russia to Compensate for Oil Mistakes — Polish Prime Minister
Russian suppliers will have to provide financial compensation for their mistakes over contaminated oil, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Tuesday. Flows through the Druzhba pipeline were suspended last month due to contamination, sending shockwaves through global oil markets. “Russian suppliers made major business and operational mistakes… Russia and Russian firms have to respond…
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Renault Hands Control of the Dashboard to Yandex
Russia’s transition to connected vehicles is looking increasingly homegrown after the country’s biggest car-making alliance handed control of its dashboards to local search engine Yandex. The Renault-Nissan-AvtoVAZ partnership, which has about a third of the Russian market, will use Yandex in locally made cars for services like real-time navigation, voice assistance and music. The pact…
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Russian Millennials Worry Most About Corruption and Inequality, Study Says
Russian millennials are more concerned about corruption and income inequality than their global peers, the U.S auditing company Deloitte said in a survey published Monday. Millennials around the world named climate change (29 percent) and income inequality (22 percent) as their top personal concerns, the survey said. Russian millennials named political and business corruption (38…
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Kremlin Criticizes New U.S. Pledge to Sanction Nord Stream 2 Pipeline
The Kremlin said on Tuesday that U.S. sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany would be an act of unfair competition that would be seen as unacceptable in Moscow and some European capitals. U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said earlier on Tuesday in Kiev that a sanctions bill putting onerous restrictions on companies…
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Kremlin Is Spending $43M to Renovate Imperial Mansion for Orthodox Patriarch, Media Reports
The Kremlin’s property management department is financing luxury renovations for the residence of Russian Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Kirill near St. Petersburg, The Bell business outlet reported Tuesday. The former residence of Russia’s imperial family, which is being converted for use by the patriarch, occupies almost 2.5 hectares (6.1 acres) of land south of St.…
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Russia’s FSB Wants Alleged U.S. Spy Whelan to Be Held for 3 More Months – Interfax
Russia’s FSB security service has asked a court to keep a former U.S. marine accused of espionage in pre-trial detention for another three months, Interfax reported on Tuesday. Paul Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports, was detained in a Moscow hotel room on December 28 and accused of espionage, a charge he…
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ROSATOM fabricated nuclear fuel for initial loading at Unit 2 of Belarus NPP
Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant (NCCP, an enterprise of TVEL Fuel Company of Rosatom) has successfully completed the final inspection of the initial loading fuel batch for Unit 2 at Belarus NPP, which is under construction in Ostrovets, Grodno region, Republic of Belarus. A batch of 152 fuel assemblies for VVER-1200 reactor was fabricated at NCCP…
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Game of Thrones Finale Sets Moscow Stadium Ablaze
A series that has brought fans on a journey of tears, shock, horror, joy and suspense over the span of its eight seasons, HBO’s hit series “Game of Thrones” came to an end with this week’s much-anticipated season finale. In Moscow, fan frenzy over the Song of Ice and Fire was in full force at…
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200 Russian Journalists Protest ‘Clampdown on Free Speech’ After Kommersant Firings
The firing of two veteran reporters from Russia’s Kommersant business daily is “an obvious clampdown on freedom of speech in Russia,” more than 200 employees of the company have said in an online statement. On Monday, 11 Kommersant journalists said they were resigning from the publication after two of their colleagues were reportedly fired for…
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Ukraine’s Zelenskiy Asks U.S. for Stronger Anti-Russia Sanctions on First Day in Office
Newly inaugurated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has asked U.S. officials to step up sanctions against neighboring Russia in one his first foreign policy actions. Zelenskiy has said that Ukraine’s most pressing issue is conflict with its neighbor Russia, which annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and backed separatists in a war in the east that…
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15,000 Employees of Rosneft and Its Subsidiaries Take Part in Green Spring Environmental Campaign
Rosneft and more than 80 subsidiaries took part in Green Spring, the Russia-wide environmental volunteer clean-up. Throughout the month, the Company’s employees were participating in environmental campaigns: they were cleaning the area of garbage, planting trees, engaging in the development of urban areas and manufacturing sites. Overall, more than 930 hectares were cleaned, which is…
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15,000 Employees of Rosneft and Its Subsidiaries Take Part in Green Spring Environmental Campaign
Rosneft and more than 80 subsidiaries took part in Green Spring, the Russia-wide environmental volunteer clean-up. Throughout the month, the Company’s employees were participating in environmental campaigns: they were cleaning the area of garbage, planting trees, engaging in the development of urban areas and manufacturing sites. Overall, more than 930 hectares were cleaned, which is…
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Russian Police Detain Navalny Aide Over Nationwide Pension Protests
Police in Moscow have detained a senior aide to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Tuesday for mass rallies against unpopular pension reforms last fall. More than 150 protesters, including 50 Navalny supporters, were detained during nationwide protests on Sept. 9, 2018, against President Vladimir Putin’s plan to increase the pension age. Putin signed the…
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Rosneft Launches Digital Field Project in Bashkiria
Rosneft launched the information system Digital Field in trial operation. This project, implemented based on the Bashneft Ilishevskoye field, for the first time in the industry covers all basic processes of oil production and logistics. The opening ceremony dedicated to the launch of innovative system was attended by Chairman of the Board of Bashneft, Andrei…
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A Glimpse Behind the Iron Curtain
As a young ballerina with the Moscow City Ballet, from 2008-2012 Varvara Bortsova lived, traveled and worked alongside dancers from across the post-Soviet sphere. Artists in the company came from nearly every corner of the former U.S.S.R., from the steppes of Central Asia to the mountains of the Caucasus to the shores of the Baltic…
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Gazprom’s Power Generation Strategy Press Conference held
Listen to audio For Gazprom’s Press Conferences audio broadcast please dial: +7 495 719-35-77 (Russian) +7 495 719-30-00 (English) Materials May 20, 2019, 02:30 pm (Moscow time) [embedded content] Participant: Denis Fyodorov, Head of Directorate, Gazprom; Director General, Gazprom Energoholding. 222
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Leningrad Phase II/2 under construction has started flooding process systems with the unsealed reactor
On May 18, 2019, Leningrad NPP II Unit 2 under construction has started one of the key operations of the year, i.e. flooding of process systems with the unsealed reactor. The first (passive) stage was carried out using pressurizer and four accumulators of the emergency core cooling system (ECCS) which had been previously filled with…
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Russian History Enthusiasts Re-Enact Battle of Borodino
On Sunday, May 19, Russia’s Patriotic Education Center in Moscow organized a historical re-enactment of the final part of the Battle of Borodino, which was fought in 1812 during the French invasion of Russia. With at least 70,000 casualties, Borodino marked the deadliest day of the Napoleonic Wars. This historic battle has appeared in many…
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Russian GRU Officer Charged With Running Apple ‘Ponzi Scheme’ – RBC
A Russian military intelligence officer whose unit was accused of hacking the U.S. presidential election has been charged in Russia for running a Ponzi scheme involving Apple products, the RBC news website reported. The U.S. Justice Department indicted 12 GRU officers in mid-2018 on charges of hacking the computer networks of 2016 Democratic presidential candidate…
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Russia Has Most Protected Natural Areas in the World, WWF Says
Russia now ranks first in the world for its amount of protected natural areas, according to World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Russia data. Official statistics state that Russia has 63.3 million hectares of specially protected natural areas, WWF had previously reported. These figures do not take into account natural territories including cultural heritage sites and territories of traditional use,…
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Record $185M in Cash Seized From Russian Official in Sting Operation
Russian authorities have seized 12 billion rubles ($185.5 million) from former FSB official Colonel Kirill Cherkalin, making him the country’s richest ex-law enforcement official under investigation for corruption. Cherkalin, former head of the FSB economic security department’s financial counterintelligence support unit, was charged with bribery of $850,000 last week. Videos posted online show bags stuffed…
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Spring Bike Festival Races Through Moscow
You know it’s spring when Moscow closes its busiest streets and lets outdoor activities take over. Last weekend saw a rare trio: a half marathon, a cross-country race and an epic bike festival that gathered cyclists in the tens of thousands. Here’s a look at central Moscow during the festival:
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318K HIV-Positive Russians Have Died Since 1987 – Watchdog
The HIV epidemic has led to the deaths of an estimated 318,000 Russians since the first case was registered in 1987, or 10,000 every year, the country’s national consumer watchdog has said. The World Health Organization warned last year that Russia risked developing an out-of-control HIV epidemic after data showed a record number of new…
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Russian Journalists Quit En Masse as Censorship Scandal Hits Kommersant
The entire political department of Russia’s Kommersant business publication resigned Monday in solidarity with two veteran journalists at the newspaper who said they had been forced to step down. In April, Kommersant reported that Federation Council leader Valentina Matviyenko would be replaced “in the coming months,” citing several government sources. The Kremlin said it was…
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Putin Has No Plans to Congratulate Zelenskiy on Inauguration — Kremlin
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, asked if Vladimir Putin will congratulate incoming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on his inauguration, says the Russian president had no such plans. He said that Putin would congratulate his newly elected counterpart if Zelenskiy makes progress in settling the conflict with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine and mending relations with Russia.
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Russia Says It Repelled an Attack on Its Main Syrian Air Base – Reports
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Monday that it had repelled a drone and missile attack on its main air base in Syria over the weekend and accused former Nusra Front militants of being behind the assault, the state-run RIA news agency reported. RIA cited the ministry as saying it had shot down six missiles fired…
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Russia’s CSKA Wins Eighth Euroleague Basketball Title
CSKA Moscow clinched their eighth Euroleague title with a 91-83 win over Anadolu Efes Istanbul after 20 points each from American forwards Will Clyburn and Cory Higgins in a rip-roaring title showdown on Sunday. Anadolu, who trailed by as many as 14 points in the first half, nosed ahead 45-44 shortly after the break but…
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Russian Church Leader Calls to End Abortions to Boost Population
The head of Russia’s Orthodox Church has proposed a national ban on abortion to boost the country’s lagging population numbers. 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, it has gained momentum in recent years, spurred…
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New Ukrainian President Zelenskiy Takes Office, Calls to End War in East
Ukraine’s new President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was inaugurated on Monday morning, saying that his first task in office will be to achieve a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, where a five-year-old conflict with Russian-backed separatists has killed 13,000 people. “Our first task is to end the conflict in the Donbass,” Zelenskiy said in translated comments as he took…
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How One Village on the Volga Sowed Chaos in Europe’s Oil Market
Residents of Nikolayevka haven’t had much to gossip about since the owner of the vodka museum over on People’s Friendship Street died, forcing the closure of the only tourist attraction in town. But now that this hardscrabble village in central Russia has emerged as the epicenter of an international oil scandal, they say they knew…
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The Mixed Feelings of Moscow’s Venezuela Community About Life Abroad
According to the United Nations, more than 3.4 million people have fled Venezuela to live abroad in the wake of the country’s political and economic crisis. Some of them are living in Russia —which openly supports the government of Nicolas Maduro. We decided to ask the Venezuelan community in Moscow what they think about what’s happening in their…
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The Heroic Bitter Land of ‘Chernobyl’
“Chernobyl” is not an easy show to watch. Nor should it be. The 1986 explosion at Chernobyl in present-day Ukraine was the worst nuclear accident to date, which killed hundreds of thousands and still affects millions more. But HBO’s five-part miniseries is hard to watch for reasons beyond those harrowing facts and graphic images of…
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Self-Help Lessons From the Russian Classics
Writer and comedian Viv Groskop has faced many rooms full of strangers expecting to be amused in her career as a stand-up. But what really scared her in the run-up to the publication of her latest book were the Russians. “I was terrified they would be offended,” Groskop said. She needn’t have worried. Part memoir,…
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Russia’s Arctic Basks in the Snow for Summer ’19
In Moscow, residents are enjoying the start of a breezy summer with increasingly warm temperatures and picnics in the park. Nearly 2,900 kilometers northwest, residents of Norilsk — an industrial city above the Arctic Circle — are not quite as lucky. However, they’re not letting the lack of warm temperatures stop them from some serious summer…
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Night in the Museum, Day in the Hotel
Moscow is celebrating this year’s Night in the Museum with a record 356 events at 200 venues — and keeping the doors open until 6 a.m. The theme is “Live in the Museum” with events designed to let you study, listen, experience, see, create and stroll in some of the city’s best, biggest, smallest and…
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Russian Plan to Free Whales Risks Their Survival, Say Scientists
International scientists criticised on Friday a Russian plan to release 10 captive killer whales into the Sea of Japan rather than return them to their original habitat, saying it could endanger the mammals’ lives. The plight of the orcas, which are being held with 87 beluga whales in cramped conditions in a bay near the port…
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Russia and Rwanda signed the roadmap to build cooperation in the peaceful uses of atomic energy
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Pompeo Names 3 National Interests U.S. Shares With Russia
The United States shares counterterrorism, North Korean denuclearization and Afghan reconciliation interests with Russia, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said after his visit to Russia. Pompeo’s trip marked the first high-profile U.S. visit to Russia since allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and an investigation rankled bilateral relations. Though the…
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Gazprom discovers two new fields containing over 500 billion cubic meters of gas on Yamal shelf
Background Vasily Dinkov (1924–2001) was an eminent figure in the history of the Russian fuel and energy complex. He served as Minister of the USSR Gas Industry in 1981–1985 and as Minister of the USSR Oil Industry in 1985–1989. Gazprom secured the subsurface use licenses for the Rusanovsky and Nyarmeysky licensed blocks in 2013. Since then, 3D seismic surveys covering 5,790 square kilometers have been carried out within…
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Russia to Award $3M to Greenpeace in Settlement
Greenpeace will receive 2.7 million euros ($3 million) from Russia under a settlement reached between the Dutch state and Moscow, the environmental group said on Friday. The agreement should end years of legal battles following the seizure by Russian authorities of a Dutch-flagged Greenpeace vessel, the Arctic Sunrise, in 2013 and the arrest of 30…
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Yekaterinburg Protesters Will Hold Out for Proof Church Project Is Canceled
YEKATERINBURG — Thousands of residents of Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains who have been protesting the construction of a new church in the city’s central park have vowed to keep up their vigil until they hear an official announcement the project has been canceled. The Mayor of Yekaterinburg, Alexander Vysokinsky and local governor Yevgeny Kuivashev…
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How to Spend A Night in a St. Petersburg Museum
On May 18, International Museum Day, most museums, art galleries, and churches in St. Petersburg will be open to the public from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and can be visited with a single ticket. Tickets — at the very reasonable price of 400 rubles — can be purchased all street theater kiosks. Events are…
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Russia’s Crimean Annexation Cost Ukrainian Ports $400M – FT
Ukrainian ports have lost $400 million in potential revenue from Russia’s seizure of Crimea and its chokehold on a key shipping passage with a bridge that connects the peninsula to mainland Russia, The Financial Times reported. President Vladimir Putin inaugurated the $4 billion bridge on May 15, 2018, with a ceremonial truck ride across its…
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Ministers Agree Way For Russia to Rejoin Europe’s Human Rights Body
Foreign ministers from the Council of Europe, the continent’s chief human rights watchdog, reached an agreement on Friday that opens the way for Russia to return to the organization, resolving a dispute that began after Moscow’s seizure of Crimea. The agreement follows efforts by France and Germany to find a compromise among the 47-nation group…
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Russia Makes It to Eurovision Song Contest Final
It’s Eurovision Song Contest time again, and Russia’s Sergei Lazarev has made it to Saturday’s final with a horror-themed ballad. The annual celebration of kitsch — which is more famous for its over-the-top staging and shameless political voting than the quality of the music — takes place in Israel this year, and the guest…
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Kremlin Pledges a Response to New U.S. Sanctions on Russian Individuals
The Kremlin said on Friday it would respond in kind to a new round of U.S. sanctions on Russian nationals, saying its retaliation would be consistent with Russia’s national interest. The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on a Chechen group and five people, including at least three Russians, over allegations of human rights abuses,…
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Russian TV Cancels ‘The Voice Kids’ Results After Mass Vote Rigging
Russia’s state-run television has canceled the results of a popular children’s singing competition after cyber experts uncovered online vote-rigging that favored the 11-year-old daughter of a celebrity and a banker. Channel One hired the Group-IB international cybersecurity firm to investigate claims that “The Voice Kids”’ vote-by-phone system was tampered with in April. Group-IB’s initial investigation…
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ROSATOM and Uzatom signed a contract as part of the NPP project in Uzbekistan
On 17 May, a contract for engineering survey to be undertaken at the NPP construction site was signed in Tashkent with a view of further NPP detail design development. The documents were signed by Otabek Amanov, NPP Construction Director, Uzatom, and Dmitry Ashanin, Deputy Director for Prospective Projects, Atomstroyexport (a company of ROSATOM engineering…
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‘No End in Sight’ to Fraud in Russia’s Space Agency, Top Investigator Says
Billions of rubles have been funneled out of Russia’s federal Roscosmos space agency over the past five years in corruption schemes, the country’s top investigator has revealed this week. Prosecutors uncovered 1.6 billion rubles ($24.6 million) worth of fraud in the Roscosmos and the Rostec state-run defense corporation last year. Overall, fraud involving Russian state-run…
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Venezuela Wants Russia to Help Restructure Its Debt to Other Countries — Reports
Venezuela would like Moscow to help it restructure its external debt to other countries, Russia’s RIA news agency cited Venezuela’s ambassador in Geneva as saying on Friday. Asked whether sanctions-hit Venezuela would like to receive debt-restructuring assistance from Russia, the ambassador was quoted as saying: “Yes.”
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Head of FSB’s Secretive Unit Charged for $850K Bribery
The head of a highly secretive branch of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has been charged for $850,000 bribery three weeks after his detention, the RBC news website reported Thursday. Colonel Kirill Cherkalin headed the FSB economic security department’s financial counterintelligence support unit. The department played key roles in investigations surrounding former economy minister Alexei…
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U.S. Sanctions Chechen Group, Russians for Alleged Human Rights Abuses
The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on a Chechen group and five individuals, including at least three Russians, for alleged human rights abuses under the Global Magnitsky Act, including extrajudicial killings and the torture of LGBT individuals. The sanctions against the Terek Special Rapid Response Team in the republic of Chechnya and the five individuals…
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Russian Mayor Halts Church Construction Amid Protests, Clashes
The mayor of Russia’s fourth-largest city of Yekaterinburg has suspended construction of an Orthodox cathedral on park grounds as mass protests against the project continued for a fourth day. Thousands of residents have taken to the streets against the city authorities’ plans to replace a central park with a replica of a cathedral demolished in…
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Winners of 8th corporate Fakel Festival awarded in Sochi
Release May 16, 2019, 22:00 The final round of the 8th corporate Fakel Festival run by Gazprom came to a close in Krasnaya Polyana, Sochi. Taking part in the Festival were delegations representing 39 subsidiaries of Gazprom from Russia, Belarus, and Kyrgyzstan, together with performers from CNPC (China). The total number of participants exceeded 1,600. The event was attended by foreign colleagues from Gazprom’s partner…
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Russia Evades Exclusion From Council of Europe
Russia is to keep its membership in Europe’s top human rights body after Germany and France engineered a last-minute deal to avoid a Russian expulsion, a step that threatened to further incite tensions between the Kremlin and the West. Foreign ministers from the Council of Europe will endorse the agreement at a meeting Friday in…
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Russia to Set Up ‘Fake News Database’
Russia plans to launch a public database of news it flags as “fake,” the head of Russia’s powerful media regulator announced two months after President Vladimir Putin signed a law criminalizing the spread of “fake news.” Alexander Zharov’s regulatory agency, known by the acronym Roskomnadzor, has successfully blocked LinkedIn in Russia and is currently engaged…
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Why Are Russians Clashing Over a New Cathedral in Yekaterinburg?
Thousands of Russians in the country’s fourth-largest city of Yekaterinburg have taken to the streets in recent days in growing protests against a controversial plan to build a new cathedral in a popular riverside park. Tensions came to a head on Monday when opponents of the new church toppled a fence surrounding the proposed construction…
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Discover Nikolai Meshcherin
The private Museum of Russian Impressionism was founded less than five years ago, but it has already become an important part of the Moscow art and museum scene. Its significance is not only thanks to its architecturally stunning venue — a reconstructed sugar silo at what was once a confectionary factory — and its central…
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Britain Scrambled Fighters Twice to Intercept Russian Aircraft in Baltic
Britain has scrambled Typhoon fighters twice in two days in the Baltic to intercept Russian aircraft, the defense ministry said. British Typhoons were launched on Wednesday to intercept two SU-27 fighters and an IL-22 and escorted the formation toward Russia. On Tuesday, British Typhoon fighters scrambled out of Ämari Air Base in Estonia in response to two Russian…