Month: November 2019

Apple Inc is “taking a deeper look at how we handle disputed borders” after it referred to the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula as part of Russia in its Maps and Weather apps for Russian users, a company spokeswoman told Reuters on Friday. Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller told Reuters that Apple has not made any changes to its maps outside of Russia and…

Russia‘s MiG-31K interceptor jet carried out a test of the Kinjal (Dagger) hypersonic missile in Russia‘s part of Arctic earlier this month, TASS new agency reported on Saturday, citing two military sources. The report came a day after Danish intelligence service warned of intensifying geopolitical rivalry in the Earth’s freezing North, and said that China’s military…

As the only remaining independent, English-language news source reporting from Russia, The Moscow Times plays a critical role in connecting Russia to the world. Editorial decisions are made entirely by journalists in our newsroom, who adhere to the highest ethical standards. We fearlessly cover issues that are often considered off-limits or taboo in Russia, from…

With endless decorations and lights lining its streets, Moscow transforms into a winter fairytale during the holidays each year. Like clockwork, Christmas trees and brilliant light displays have already began to pop up around the capital, despite the fact that there’s no snow on the ground yet. Over 300 Christmas trees and more than 4,000…

Energy ministers from two dozen of the world’s most important oil producing countries will descend on Vienna next week for a crucial OPEC+ meeting. Top of the agenda will be negotiations over whether to extend or deepen the oil cartel’s current level of production cuts, which are due to expire in March 2020. What is…

A Moscow court on Friday placed a new protester under arrest until Jan. 27 on suspicion of assaulting police at this summer’s anti-government rallies, the latest prosecution under the so-called “Moscow Case.” Russians took to the streets nearly every weekend this summer after a slew of opposition politicians were barred from taking part in Moscow’s…

Forget London and Paris.  Moscow has been named the world’s leading city destination in 2019 by tourism industry standard the World Travel Awards.  The Russian capital saw off tough competition from a list including New York, Rio de Janeiro and Sydney, as well as the British and French capitals.    “Moscow really is the best city…

Russia and China have completed the first vehicle bridge to cross the two neighbors’ border, the RBC news website reported Friday. Footage from the bridge’s opening ceremony showed trucks crossing the bridge between the cities of Blagoveshchensk and Heihe as ice drifted underneath. Russia and China connected their sides of the bridge across the Amur…

Scientists in Far East Russia have discovered a well-preserved two-month-old puppy dating back 18,000 years that left them wondering: Is this a dog or a wolf? The furry creature was discovered largely intact within the permafrost in the republic of Sakha in the summer of 2018, The Siberian Times reported Monday. Its fur, teeth, lashes…

Russia’s Defense Ministry said it has supplied small arms to the Central African nation of Gabon to help it combat poaching and protect national parks. This appears to be the first weapons delivery in the history of Gabon’s ties with either Russia or the Soviet Union, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported, citing the…

Russia has arrested a Russian woman in Crimea on suspicion of state treason for allegedly attempting to obtain Russian military secrets on behalf of Ukraine, the state-run RIA news agency cited Russia’s Federal Security Service as saying on Friday. The woman was arrested in the city of Sevastopol, the report said. Russia annexed the Crimean…

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said his remarks that NATO was experiencing “brain death” had been a useful wake-up call to alliance members, and he would not apologize for saying it. Macron’s blunt verdict ahead of a Dec. 4 summit in Britain drew strong reaction from European peers who believe Europe still needs to…

Russian activists from Greenpeace environmental campaign group protested on Thursday the transportation of what they say is radioactive waste from Germany. The vessel Mikhail Dudin which carries depleted uranium — a by-product of manufacturing fuel for nuclear power plants — docked in St. Petersburg last week. Its cargo was seen being load onto train carriages on…

Time ticked away as 85-year-old Alexandra Zhiglova lay on the floor of the stuck elevator, a team of paramedics monitoring her vital signs. When they finally got her out and into an ambulance, more than 40 minutes had passed.  Doctors call the crucial period within which stroke victims must be treated for them to avoid…

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday denied having accepted a Russian proposal to impose a moratorium on missile deployments in Europe, but said it was important the Kremlin initiative not be simply dismissed. Russia has called on the United States and other countries to declare a moratorium on the deployment of short and intermediate-range nuclear…

The head of Russia’s Olympic Committee said on Thursday it was carrying on with preparations for the Tokyo Olympics next year and criticized World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) recommendations to punish some Russian Olympic officials as excessive and wrong. A WADA committee recommended this week that Russia be banned from the Olympics and world championships in…

The United States on Thursday accused Russia of helping Syria conceal the use of banned toxic munitions in the civil war by undermining the work of the global chemical weapons agency trying to identify those responsible. The comments by the U.S. representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Kenneth Ward, drew a rapid…

Russian and Syrian state museums have signed two agreements to begin restoring the ancient city of Palmyra after it was heavily damaged by the Islamic State, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg has said. Aided by Russian airstrikes, the Syrian army captured Palmyra from the Islamic State twice in March 2016 and March 2017.…

Russia’s largest lender, Sberbank, has added driverless cars to its list of technology ventures, by teaming up with artificial intelligence (AI) transport developer Cognitive Technologies, the two companies said Thursday. Sberbank and Cognitive Technologies have signed a legally binding document to create a new company, Cognitive Pilot, they said in a statement. Sberbank will have…

Russia has banned a prominent French sociologist from entering the country for 10 years after she arrived to give a lecture on France’s yellow vest protests, the Kommersant business daily reported Thursday. Carine Clément was due to give a lecture in Moscow on Friday on yellow vest protesters in Paris, which she researched for a…

Russian space agency Roscosmos has been recruited to help the United Arab Emirates (UAE) launch the gulf state’s Falcon Eye 2 spy satellite into orbit, Russian news site Vedomosti has reported. The Russian-made Soyuz ST rocket launcher will be used for the Falcon Eye 2 launch next year, replacing the European Vega launcher which was…

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) said on Wednesday that a recommendation to bar Russia from hosting major sporting events will not affect the Euro 2020 football championships or the 2021 Champions League final. A WADA committee this week recommended Russia be handed a four-year ban from the Olympics and world championships in a number of…

The number of people studying Russian worldwide has halved in the 30 years since the Soviet Union collapsed and is anticipated to decline further, according to state estimates cited by the RBC news website Thursday. Russian ranks as the world’s 10th-most widespread language with speakers in 27 countries, according to a report by the Higher…

Ukraine and Russia have reached the final stages of an all-for-all prisoner exchange agreement ahead of a key peace summit next month, the RBC news website reported Thursday. Russia and Ukraine swapped 35 prisoners each in September, a move that appeared to presage a thaw in relations that have been frozen since Moscow annexed Crimea…

Ukraine said on Wednesday Apple did not “give a damn” about its pain, after the U.S. tech giant began referring to the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula as part of Russia in its Maps and Weather apps for Russian users. Russia and Ukraine have both been highly sensitive to the way global companies identify Crimea, since Russian troops seized the territory and Moscow…

The head of a prominent Russian investigative website said on Wednesday he had been attacked in Moscow by an assailant who punched him and splashed him with an antiseptic green dye, echoing past assaults on opposition politicians. Ruslan Leviev, founder of Conflict Intelligence Team, which investigates Russian military and mercenary activity, posted pictures of himself on Facebook…

The Kremlin on Wednesday paid tribute to a late Soviet intelligence officer it credits with helping foil a Nazi plot to kill Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin and Franklin Roosevelt, saying her career may have changed the course of history. Goar Vartanyan, who died on Monday at the age of 93, was an undercover field operative…

Russia has revealed a new drone prototype capable of tracking, intercepting and disarming enemy drones, the state-run TASS news agency reported Wednesday.  Unlike existing Russian means of countering enemy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), these “killer drones” will scramble their enemies’ networks to disable them, TASS quoted Viktor Kladov, director of international cooperation and regional policy…

The British military would be “outgunned” along NATO’s eastern flank in the event of a conflict with Russia, according to a think tank report cited by the BBC on Wednesday. The London-based Royal United Services Institute’s assessment comes after the head of the British army warned earlier this month that Russia could inadvertently trigger a…

A court in Kazan has rejected asylum claims from Chinese Uighur-Tatar twin brothers who fear deportation and imprisonment in China, their lawyer told The Moscow Times. Shahrizat and Shahdiyar Shavkat (23) moved to Russia in 2015 to study at Kazan’s Federal University.  Chinese immigration authorities told the twins last year that they would need to…

As the only remaining independent, English-language news source reporting from Russia, The Moscow Times plays a critical role in connecting Russia to the world. Editorial decisions are made entirely by journalists in our newsroom, who adhere to the highest ethical standards. We fearlessly cover issues that are often considered off-limits or taboo in Russia, from…

Sweden, Estonia, Lithuania and Ukraine have called on Russia to ensure that Kiev keeps its freedom of navigation in the sea bordering Russia, annexed Crimea and Ukraine. The four countries issued the joint statement in support of Ukraine’s sovereignty Tuesday a week after Russia returned three Ukrainian ships it had captured in the Kerch Strait…

The number of Russians eligible for bankruptcy has passed one million for the first time in history, research by a credit ratings agency has shown. Russians can declare bankruptcy if they have debts of at least 500,000 rubles ($7,800) and are more than 90 days behind in their repayment schedule. For comparison, the average Russian…

As the only remaining independent, English-language news source reporting from Russia, The Moscow Times plays a critical role in connecting Russia to the world. Editorial decisions are made entirely by journalists in our newsroom, who adhere to the highest ethical standards. We fearlessly cover issues that are often considered off-limits or taboo in Russia, from…

Cyprus has stripped Kremlin-friendly Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska and two other Russian nationals of Cypriot passports after admitting flaws in its citizenship-for-investment program, Cyprus’ Politis newspaper reported Wednesday. Cyprus said this month it had started a process to strip 26 individuals of citizenship they received under a secretive passports-for-investment scheme. Sources on the Mediterranean island…

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy are “close to 100%” likely to meet for the first time in Paris next month, the Kommersant business daily reported Wednesday. The face-to-face is expected to take place on the sidelines of their anticipated four-way summit with French and German leaders on Dec. 9. The summit…

Nikolai Kholodov has been driving his truck along the highway from St. Petersburg to Moscow for two decades. This week, he’ll finally be able to make the trip without worrying about diversions, traffic jams and animals running onto the road. After eight years of construction, a 669-kilometer toll highway as wide as 10 lanes in…

Russian and Chinese intelligence services are behind the most aggressive spying activities in the Czech Republic, the Central European nation’s counterintelligence agency said Tuesday in a report for 2018. The countries’ activities were connected to politics, diplomacy, espionage, economy and information warfare, the Czech counterintelligence agency BIS said. It said Russia’s foreign, military and domestic…

The impact of Russian trolls on U.S. voters may have been exaggerated, according to a preliminary U.S. study of Twitter interactions with troll accounts published Monday. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the Kremlin used social media to interfere in the 2016 presidential election through disinformation and other tactics. Calls for research to measure the…

Russia’s Central Bank is warning Russian lenders against conducting operations in euros, governor Elvira Nabiullina has said. Nabiullina said doing business in euros brings no profits to Russian banks because of the negative interest rate environment in the eurozone, and the Central Bank is pushing Russian financial institutions not to have “excessive” foreign currencies on…

Moldova’s new prime minister on Tuesday raised the possibility of a “pause” in its cooperation with the International Monetary Fund, a day after he said his ex-Soviet republic was negotiating a $500 million loan with Russia. Ion Chicu’s comments and actions, including a trip to Moscow last week, suggest a likely pivot back towards Russia…

As the only remaining independent, English-language news source reporting from Russia, The Moscow Times plays a critical role in connecting Russia to the world. Editorial decisions are made entirely by journalists in our newsroom, who adhere to the highest ethical standards. We fearlessly cover issues that are often considered off-limits or taboo in Russia, from…

Sales of luxury Moscow apartments are set to be worth a total of 82 billion rubles ($1.3 billion) in 2019 — the highest annual level since 2014, analysts at real estate firm Knight Frank have said. The figure represents a 6% jump on last year and takes the total amount spent on luxury real estate…