Month: October 2019

Two foreign-born Florida businessmen who have helped President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani investigate political rival Joe Biden were arrested in a scheme to illegally funnel money to a pro-Trump election committee and other U.S. political candidates, prosecutors said on Thursday. The arrest of Ukraine-born Lev Parnas and Belarus-born Igor Fruman at an airport…

A Siberian shaman has vowed to re-start his journey across Russia by foot to exorcise President Vladimir Putin after his arrest on extremism charges last month. Gabyshev was detained on Sept. 19 — then flown back to his home city and released — in Far East Russia six months into his 8,000-kilometer journey to Moscow…

Turkey’s incursion into Syria is an opportunity for Russia to dial up its influence in the region as Washington appears to be pulling back, but the risks to Moscow’s diplomacy will rise the longer the operation goes on, people close to the Kremlin say. In a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan before…

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny took part in a debate outside Russia for the first time at the annual Boris Nemtsov Forum in Poland on Wednesday. The forum, named after the Russian opposition politician who was murdered in 2015, aims to facilitate discussions between Russia and the West. Curated by Nemtsov’s daughter, journalist Zhanna Nemtsova,…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Thursday accused Russia of delaying a summit aimed at resolving the conflict between Kiev and pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine’s east, but Moscow said Kiev needed to pull back its troops first. Ukraine, France and Germany had planned to hold the meeting of the group known as the Normandy Four, aimed at resolving…

Turkish troops and their Syrian rebel allies attacked Kurdish militia in northeast Syria on Wednesday, pounding them with air strikes and artillery before starting a cross-border ground operation that could transform an eight-year war. Turkey’s assault on the Kurds is potentially one of the biggest shifts in years in the Syrian war that has drawn…

Russia has big plans for its Arctic and is now in the process of building capacities that will enable it to ship out major volumes of goods from the region. “Nuclear icebreakers, sea ports, support vessels and satellites are our main priority,” says Maxim Kulinko, a top representative of Russia’s state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom.…

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has accused President Vladimir Putin of framing his anti-corruption group as a “foreign agent” after Navalny urged people to strategically vote against pro-Putin candidates in elections last month. The Justice Ministry on Wednesday blacklisted Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) under a 2012 “foreign agent” law that imposes crippling auditing and reporting…

Russia’s largest bank and its financial regulator on Thursday called for tougher penalties to be put in place against cybercrime. Governor of the Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina and Sberbank CEO German Gref highlighted how criminal responsibility in Russia for some cyber crimes is softer than in the United States, while for others it is completely…

Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed Sergei Glazyev, the Kremlin’s adviser known for openly criticizing the Central Bank, according to an official decree published on the state law database website on Wednesday. Glazyev came into the spotlight in economic newsflow amidst the crisis in Moscow’s relations with the West over its annexation of Crimea in…

“Perception” was the word of the day at the annual RussiaTalk British-Russian investment forum in central Moscow last week. The dozens of business leaders and investors who gathered in the Russian Chamber of Commerce — many of who have been based in Russia for years or have long-term investments and subsidiaries here — were keen…

A 72-year-old Russian man has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for high treason after a court determined that he shared secrets with Ukrainian intelligence. Vladimir Morgunov’s little-known case did not appear in Moscow’s court database until his pre-trial detention was extended in December 2018. The Federal Security Service (FSB) alleged that Morgunov shared…

Iran has freed a Russian journalist, Yulia Yuzik, who had been detained last week, the Russian Embassy in Tehran said on social media Thursday. “As a result of joint efforts of the Russian Foreign Ministry and the Russian Embassy in Tehran, the Iranian side made a decision on the release of Russian citizen Yulia Yuzik,” it said. According to the…

Russia is aiming to roll out an online encyclopedia in three years with a readership five times the size of Wikipedia’s, the RBC news website reported Wednesday, citing procurement documents. Russia has been planning to create its own version of Wikipedia to ensure Russians have access to more “detailed and reliable” information about their country…

Russia’s state-owned gas giant Gazprom is the world’s third-largest producer of carbon emissions, The Guardian reported Wednesday, citing a new scientific analysis. The analysis from the U.S.-based Climate Accountability Institute ranked the top 20 carbon-emitting companies worldwide to examine their role in the current climate crisis. Since 1965, these 20 companies have contributed to 35%…

Russian scientists say they have discovered small plastic debris along the entirety of an Arctic shortcut connecting Asia and Europe that Russia calls the Northern Sea Route. Microplastics — plastic particles smaller than 5 millimeters in length — are now present in every part of the environment, according to a 2019 scientific review by European Union researchers.…

Russian President Vladimir Putin told his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan by phone on Wednesday to avoid any steps in Syria that could damage its peace process, the Kremlin said, as Turkey prepared to launch an operation in northeastern Syria. The Kremlin said that both Putin and Erdogan agreed in the phone call that Syria’s sovereignty…

State media outlets in Russia and North Korea have signed a new cooperation agreement that includes plans to counteract “fake news” together, the state-run TASS news agency reported Wednesday. TASS and North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) previously signed a cooperation agreement in 2005. TASS is currently the only Russian media outlet to…

A radiation spike thought to be caused by a cancer patient has been recorded onboard a passenger train that arrived in Moscow from Berlin on Tuesday, Russian media outlets have reported.  Russian news channels published footage of police, firemen and radioactive waste decontamination teams inspecting the train upon its arrival. No passengers were reportedly onboard…

A group of pro-Kremlin lawmakers has drafted legislation that would allow authorities to block individual email or online messenger users who circulate banned content. The bill is likely to alarm advocates of internet freedoms, but the lawmakers say the legislation is needed to combat a wave of hoax bomb threats that have been sporadically called…

Russia’s Justice Ministry has on Wednesday blacklisted opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) as a “foreign agent.” Russia’s 2012 “foreign agent” law requires labeled organizations to report their activities and face financial audits. Activists have denounced the law, saying it seeks to silence groups critical of the Kremlin’s human rights record. The Justice Ministry…

A top-secret Russian military intelligence unit has been engaged in a campaign to destabilize Europe, The New York Times has reported, citing intelligence officials in four Western countries that only recently discovered the unit’s activities. GRU Unit 29155 reportedly oversaw a campaign to destabilize Moldova, an arms smuggler’s assassination attempt in Bulgaria, a thwarted coup…

The World Bank has become the latest organization to cut its outlook for the Russian economy, predicting growth of just 1% in 2019. A host of domestic and international factors are holding back the economy, the organization said in its new forecast published today. The bank had previously predicted growth of 1.2% in 2019. “The…

Ever since five employees of Baring Vostok were arrested on fraud charges in February, the world’s attention has been on the private equity fund’s American founder Michael Calvey and his French business partner Philippe Delpal.  Outcries in support of the two men, widely seen as having been caught up in a business dispute, came from…

Russian intelligence services have uncovered a secret “charity” that had more than 100 members and sent money to the Islamic State in Syria, authorities said Wednesday. Russian police and the Federal Security Service (FSB) uncovered Islamic State cells in 17 regions so far in 2019, a top anti-extremism official said last month. The FSB said…

Nearly 40% of Russians believe that the recent criminal convictions of more than a dozen people over this summer’s Moscow protests were politically motivated, according to new independent polling. The Sept. 8 local and regional elections were among the most remembered events of the past month, according to the independent Levada Center pollster. Five of…

KAZAN — At first sight, Shahrizat and Shahdiyar Shavkat, 23-year-old twin brothers from China, look like regular students. They spend their days listening to music, playing sports and hanging out with friends in Kazan, Russia’s sixth-largest city and the capital of the majority-Muslim republic of Tatarstan. Only a “Free the Uighurs” screensaver on one of their…

The number of attacks and threats on Russian journalists by the authorities has more than doubled since 2017, according to a new report published by the international Justice for Journalists NGO on Monday. The report was published to mark the 13th anniversary of Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskya’s murder. While five men were sentenced to…

Doctors in southern Russia have removed part of a birthmark on the head of an American baby who was born with a rare skin condition, the state-run TASS news agency reported Tuesday. Seven-month-old Luna Fenner was diagnosed with giant congenital melanocytic nevus, with the shape of the mark covering her face resembling a Batman mask…

A Moscow court has sent theater director Kirill Serebrennikov’s criminal fraud case back to its starting point a month after the case was returned to prosecutors, and more than two years after he was first arrested. Serebrennikov was detained in August 2017 on charges of embezzling 68 million rubles ($1 million) in government funds, a…

President Vladimir Putin has presented U.S. astronaut Nick Hague with one of Russia’s top state honors a year after the astronaut survived an emergency onboard a Russian spacecraft. Hague, along with Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin, made a dramatic emergency landing in the steppes of Kazakhstan in October 2018 when a booster rocket on their Soyuz…

Russia and China will sign a cooperation treaty aimed at combating illegal content on the internet this month, Russia‘s state communications watchdog said on Tuesday, an example of deepening cooperation between the powers. Critics have accused Russia‘s authorities of trying to implement Chinese-style curbs on the internet. Cooperation in this area between the two regulators could alarm proponents…

A group of friends frolicking on a beach in Brazil recently discovered a Russian message in a bottle thought to be written by Soviet sailors, Brazilian media have reported. The 15 friends were vacationing on the country’s southern tip on Sept. 20 when they came across a glass bottle containing a rolled sheet of paper…

President Vladimir Putin wants to connect ports on Russia’s Arctic coast with ports on the Indian Ocean, he said at the Valdai Discussion Club conference. Asia and the Middle East were in the spotlight during the conference, which Putin has attended since its establishment in 2004. Infrastructure development was a key part of this year’s talks which took…

Russia was not informed in advance by the United States or by Turkey about U.S. plans to pull troops back from Syria’s northeast border region ahead of a Turkish military operation, the Kremlin said on Tuesday. Russia, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has emerged as a leading power broker in Syria over more…

A court in Moscow ruled Tuesday that U.S. investor Michael Calvey should remain under house arrest facing charges of embezzlement until Jan. 13, the state-run TASS news agency reported. Calvey and other executives at private equity group Baring Vostok were detained in February. They deny wrongdoing and say the charges against them are being used…

The Kremlin will no longer allow authorities in Moscow to run their own elections after the ruling party lost a third of its seats in the capital’s city legislature last month, the Vedomosti business daily reported Tuesday. President Vladimir Putin’s administration has reportedly reviewed the results of the Sept. 8 vote — where the pro-Putin…

Russia is aiming to launch a new high-speed rail connection between Moscow and St. Petersburg by 2026, the state railway organization said yesterday. The proposed launch date was confirmed at a meeting between lawmakers in Russia’s Federation Council and Dmitry Kattsyn, head of high-speed projects at the country’s state rail operator, Russian Railways. Russian Railways…

The former head of a Siberian diamond mine owned by Alrosa where eight men were killed in a flood two years ago was found dead in a pre-trial detention center on Tuesday, a day after he was arrested, Russian investigating authorities said. A regional branch of the federal Investigative Committee said there were indications the…

A group of scientific researchers has discovered a record methane emission coming from the eastern Siberian Sea, expedition organizer Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU) said in a statement. The scientists found concentrations of the greenhouse gas —  which can significantly influence the planet’s climate — up to nine times the global average. “This is the most…

Businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin has for the first time said he is linked to pro-Kremlin media after years of denying the association, Russia’s RBC news website reported. A newly formed group of four pro-Kremlin outlets called Patriot mentioned Prigozhin by name, identifying him as chairman of its board of trustees.  “This is undoubtedly a big honor…

Personal data relating to the Russian mobile operator Beeline’s 2016 database of 8.7 million clients has been leaked, the Kommersant business daily reported citing banking security department sources. Kommersant checked the database, which list Beeline’s internet clients, and found that it includes full names, addresses and phone numbers. Beeline’s press office told Kommersant the leak…

Couriers at one of Russia’s biggest online retailers Ozon staged a strike in St. Petersburg against low wages on Saturday and Sunday, disrupting deliveries in the country’s second-biggest city, the Fontanka news website reported. Ozon, which pioneered the Russian e-commerce sector in 1998 and is often referred to as Russia’s Amazon, holds around 10% of…

Almost 300 lawyers have signed an open letter demanding that Russian authorities stop prosecuting two of their colleagues for allegedly insulting an FSB investigator, the Bumaga news website reported Sunday. St. Petersburg lawyers Andrei and Mikhail Zlomnov are accused of insulting Dmitry Sablin while they were defending their relative Pavel Zlomnov against charges of arms…

A Russian journalist who is being held in Iran was detained last week for a visa violation and not for spying, the Students News Agency ISNA quoted Iran’s government spokesman as saying on Monday. The spokesman said Yulia Yuzik’s case was undergoing a “quick review” by the Iranian authorities but gave no more details. “Her case…

President Vladimir Putin turns 67 today. The Kremlin announced that Putin would be spending his birthday outdoors with family and friends, and released a series of pictures of the president hiking in the Siberian taiga over the weekend. Today also marks the 13th anniversary of the murder of Russian investigative journalist and fierce Putin critic…

Michael Calvey has had almost $1 million in assets frozen in the latest development in the high-profile legal case against the star U.S. investor and his Baring Vostok private equity fund, the Financial Times reported. The development is a setback for Calvey’s team following reports last month that prosecutors were considering dropping the case. A…

Thousands of people gathered in Kiev’s main square on Sunday to protest against President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s deal with Moscow to grant autonomy to Ukraine’s pro-Russian rebel-held east as part of efforts to end a five-year conflict there. In the first breakthrough towards a possible peace deal in years, envoys from Moscow and Kiev agreed at…