The United States has imposed travel restrictions on two Siberian investigators over the alleged torture of detained Jehovah’s Witnesses this year. Investigators in the city of Surgut were alleged to have stripped, suffocated, doused with water and applied stun guns on at least seven Jehovah’s Witnesses who were detained on extremism charges in February. Russia…
A Moscow court has returned theater director Kirill Serebrennikov’s criminal fraud case to prosecutors two years after his high-profile arrest, a move that observers say is a key step toward his case being thrown out. Serebrennikov was detained in August 2017 on charges of embezzling 68 million rubles ($1 million) in government funds as part…
Background Gazprom Dobycha Irkutsk, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gazprom, operates gas and gas condensate production and treatment facilities and acts as an engineering and construction customer for the pre-development of gas and condensate fields in the Irkutsk Region, with Gazprom acting as the license holder. The Kovyktinskoye gas and condensate field, with Gazprom Dobycha Irkutsk acting as its development operator since 2011, serves as a resource base…
Wildfires that burned across swathes of Siberia this summer have been fully extinguished in the Irkutsk region, Interfax cited regional authorities as saying Wednesday. Irkutsk is one of several regions that have been affected by the “unprecedented” wildfires throughout Siberia since June. The wildfires exceeded 3 million hectares, an area the size of Belgium, at…
Release September 11, 2019, 16:20 A working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, and Slavenko Terzic, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Serbia to the Russian Federation, took place in Moscow today. The meeting participants expressed appreciation for their cooperation in the energy sector. The parties paid particular attention to the continuing expansion of gas transmission infrastructure in Serbia, highlighting…
A Russian soldier has been found dead in an Armenian city where Russia has a military base, Armenian investigators told the state-run TASS news agency Wednesday. The 23-year-old serviceman’s body was found with signs of violent death, TASS quoted Armenian investigators as saying. The unnamed soldier had been stationed at the Gyumri military base in…
Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller visited the Kremlin for talks with President Vladimir Putin just days after returning from high-level meetings in Beijing. Natural gas export was on the president’s agenda, including the building of infrastructure for deliveries to China. Putin told Miller that he wanted to see deliveries of natural gas from the Yamal Peninsula…
A Bulgarian investigation into alleged espionage involving Russian non-governmental organizations is not intended to influence relations with Moscow, Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said on Wednesday. Prosecutors charged the head of a Bulgarian non-governmental organization (NGO) on Tuesday with spying for Russia as part of a scheme they said aimed to draw Bulgaria away from its…
Serbia’s plan to join a Russian-led economic union is drawing fire from the European Union, which the Balkan nation says it wants to be part of. The EU’s executive commission has made clear that Serbia will have to cancel any bilateral trade agreements with other countries if and when it joins the EU, and leaders…
St Petersburg – PhosAgro CEO Andrey Guryev took part in the opening ceremony of the 21st Mendeleev Congress on General and Applied Chemistry, which was held today at the St Petersburg Mining University. Taking place 9–13 September 2019 under the auspices of the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the congress is one…
The GQ Russia Person of the Year awards — typically an ordinary star-studded affair — turned political Tuesday night when recipients took turns voicing their opinions on this summer’s high-profile news stories. Award winners praised the recent Russian-Ukrainian prisoner exchange and the release of Meduza investigative journalist Ivan Golunov amid near-unprecedented outcry over his arrest…
Russia warned Europe’s human rights tribunal it risks opening a “Pandora’s Box” of politically motivated cases if it accepts Ukraine’s claims that Moscow-led forces committed atrocities in the Crimea. The legal gambit by Russia’s Deputy Justice Minister Mikhail Galperin came as both sides faced off at the first public hearing at the European Court of Human…
Alexander Beglov has been confirmed the winner of Sunday’s gubernatorial vote in St. Petersburg following a controversial campaign. Russians voted in local and regional elections nationwide Sunday, including in gubernatorial elections in 16 regions. Critics said St. Petersburg’s gubernatorial race suffered from a lack of real competition against Beglov, a Kremlin ally who has been…
Rosneft Oil Company has expanded the range of petrochemical products sold at the exchange trades of the Saint Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange (SPIMEX).
Russia on Wednesday condemned as lies and slander suggestions a suspected CIA mole in President Vladimir Putin’s administration had handed over information to the United States about alleged Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential elections. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov made the comment after U.S. media reports, confirmed to Reuters by two sources, said a CIA informant…
Russian state oil major Rosneft said Tuesday that attempts to curb its business in Venezuela would be illegal and that the United States was using the threat of sanctions as a form of unfair competition. The U.S. could impose sanctions on Rosneft “at some point,” U.S. special envoy to Venezuela Elliott Abrams said Tuesday as…
Russian President Vladimir Putin has a bee in his bonnet about debt. Having lived through the 1998 crisis when Russia’s financial system was wiped out for the want of a few billion dollars to meet the government’s obligations, there has been a strong “never again” meme that has run through the Kremlin’s financial policy. Amongst…
Russia has the world’s third-highest suicide rate, the World Health Organization said Monday in a global study published ahead of World Suicide Prevention Day. Globally, nearly 800,000 people die by suicide every year — more than are killed by malaria or breast cancer, or by war or homicide, the WHO said. The UN public health…
Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov plans to start making films again and to champion the rights of prisoners in Russian jails, he said on Tuesday, days after being freed in a landmark prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia. Sentsov was the most high-profile prisoner to be swapped on Saturday among 35 Ukrainian detainees to return home…
Russia is cautiously optimistic about the exit of U.S. national security adviser John Bolton, Russian media quoted the country’s officials as saying on Wednesday. U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly fired Bolton amid disagreements with his hardline aide over how to handle foreign policy challenges such as North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan and Russia. Dmitry Novikov, the…