Year: 2019

The Reporters Without Borders (RSF) press freedom group has called for the immediate release of a journalist detained in the Russian republic of Dagestan late last week, saying that the evidence against him was improperly obtained. Abdulmumin Gadzhiev, the religious affairs editor for the independent Chernovik news weekly, was arrested on June 14 on charges…

Russian anti-doping chief Yuri Ganus said on Wednesday that the country’s suspended athletics federation was not doing enough to stamp out doping culture and was falling short in its bid to be reinstated by global athletics governing body IAAF. Russia’s athletics federation has been suspended since a 2015 report commissioned by World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)…

Russia is at risk of nationwide social upheaval if the country’s economy does not improve, the head of Russia’s auditing agency has said. During a Monday interview on state-run television, Audit Chamber head Alexei Kudrin described an upcoming “explosion” of protests caused by falling living standards and widespread poverty. The only way to prevent this…

The situation in the Korean Peninsula could escalate next year if the United States fails to convince Pyongyang it is serious about improving ties, a senior member of Russia’s Security Council said on Wednesday. U.S. President Donald Trump said last week he was “in no rush” to make a deal with North Korea to get…

Civil unrest and falling living standards are likely to dominate Vladimir Putin’s annual televised national phone-in on Thursday, depriving the Russian president of the opportunity to concentrate on foreign policy and forcing him to confront domestic problems. In the past few months, Russia has seen mass protests over the framing of an investigative reporter, the…

A team of international prosecutors has launched the first criminal proceedings against four suspects in the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 near the Russia-Ukraine border nearly five years ago. MH17 was shot down in July 2014 over territory held by pro-Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people onboard. Investigators have…

Moscow will transition to citywide recycling collection by the end of the year, its city government has announced. Waste reform has been a major issue facing Russia as the country grapples with a trash crisis. Residents of several Russian regions have held mass protests starting last year against a plan to ship Moscow’s trash to…

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has reacted to media reports that a private Israeli intelligence firm had attempted to gather incriminating information against him by saying there’s nothing to uncover. The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday reported that Black Cube, often called “the private Mossad,” had tried to dig up dirt on Navalny, an outspoken…

Russia will offer electronic visas to foreign visitors starting in 2021, President Vladimir Putin has ordered in a decree. Tourists around the world have frequently cited difficulties with obtaining visas as a barrier to visiting Russia. In 2018, Russia offered visa-free entry for foreign fans with Fan ID’s visiting Russia for the 2018 FIFA World…

UN chief Antonio Guterres appealed to Russia and Turkey on Tuesday to stabilize northwest Syria as the UN aid chief said that some hospitals were not sharing their locations with the warring parties because that “paints a target on their back.” Russia, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his country’s civil war, and Turkey,…

Authorities in northern Russia have opened a criminal case against a 78-year-old woman for being a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the religious organization has said. Russia labeled the Jehovah’s Witnesses an “extremist” group in 2017, exposing Russia’s estimated 175,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses to mass raids and forcing at least 5,000 to flee the country. The…

Russia’s Constitutional Court has ruled that the authorities cannot refuse authorization for rallies over their inability to provide security, the state-run TASS news agency has reported. Authorities in the Siberian city of Irkutsk rejected activist Valery Teterin’s request to hold a rally last fall, citing Teterin’s inability to define how organizers would ensure public order…

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) searched a Moscow art gallery owned by prominent businessman David Yakobashvili on Tuesday as part of a criminal investigation, the state-run TASS news agency cited an unnamed security source as saying. Yakobashvili is a former juice magnate who has oil trade and real estate holdings. The search was carried out…

The share of Russians who believe that real men must serve in the military has reached a 22-year high, according to a recent survey published by the independent Levada Center pollster. Russia’s military and intelligence services are among the country’s most-trusted institutions, despite recent polls saying Russians have grown weary with their country’s military campaigns…

A Moscow region official facing corruption charges has attempted suicide during a court hearing for a case he claims is politically motivated. Alexander Shestun, the former head of the Serpukhov district, was arrested last summer on abuse-of-office charges. According to investigators, in 2008-2014 Shestun illegally transferred four plots of public land to a private company,…

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday that Western sanctions against Russia would not be lifted unless Ukraine’s sovereignty was restored. Merkel said she and visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had discussed the Minsk peace agreement, adding: “As long as there is no progress on this front, the sanctions cannot be lifted and the sanctions…

President Vladimir Putin has signed a law on Monday that introduces fines for the unauthorized production or distribution of foreign print media. Russia has clamped down on the presence of foreign media in recent years. Since 2016, foreigners have been barred from owning more than 20 percent of media organizations, resulting in an exodus of…

Russia told the United States on Tuesday that it should drop what it called provocative plans to deploy more troops to the Middle East or risk war with Iran. The comments, from Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov to Russian news agencies, followed an announcement from Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan who said on Monday…

A community of about 900 Roma in Russia’s Penza region have been forcibly relocated to the Volgograd region following a mass brawl with local residents, the investigative Novaya Gazeta newspaper has reported. A mass fight reportedly broke out between residents of the village of Chemodanovka and the local Roma community on June 13, resulting in…

Leonid Volkov, an aide to opposition leader Alexei Navalny, has been released after serving a total of 28 days in jail for his role in organizing nationwide protests last year against an unpopular government decision to raise the pension age. Volkov had been sentenced in mid-May to 20 days in jail for the September 2018…

Russia’s population could decrease by half by the end of this century, a new United Nations demographic report has said. Russia has grappled with stagnating population growth in recent years despite the government’s efforts to reverse the trend as the country’s population ages and fewer people have children. In 2018, Russia’s population declined for the…

Russia has uncovered and thwarted attempts by the United States to carry out cyber attacks on the control systems of Russian infrastructure, Russian news agencies cited an unnamed security source as saying on Monday. The disclosure was made on Russia’s state-run RIA and TASS news agencies days after the New York Times cited unnamed government…

A Russian local deputy has warned about the threat of mosques replacing Orthodox cathedrals, weeks after thousands protested against the building of a new cathedral in central Russia. Mass protests rocked Russia’s fourth-largest city of Yekaterinburg last month as citizens clashed with vigilantes over the planned construction of a new cathedral in a popular central…

Violations of Russia’s environmental protection laws cost the country more than $187 million in 2018, a reduction from previous years, officials from the Prosecutor General’s Office said on Monday. The 2018 figures represent a downward trend in environmental damage over the past decade, the state-run TASS news agency quoted Miroshnik as saying. Since 2009, damage…

A U.S. agreement with Poland to send 1,000 extra troops to the country is a defensive measure needed for its security, the U.S. ambassador to Warsaw said on Monday, replying to accusations from neighboring Russia that the move is aggressive. U.S. President Donald Trump’s pledge last week to dispatch the troops to Poland was a…

A German exchange student has reportedly been expelled from a Russian university and ordered to leave the country after writing an article about environmental protests. Lukas Latz, a Freie University student studying abroad at St. Petersburg State University, published an article in April on a German news website about an ongoing protest movement against copper…

Russia’s Air Force has received its first delivery of two MiG-35 fighter jets, the corporation that manufactures the jets has said. Air Force commander-in-chief Viktor Bondarev in 2017 announced the Defense Ministry’s plans to replace its entire fleet of light fighters with the MiG-35, a modernized version of the ship-based MiG-29K fighters which Russia has…

The Kremlin said on Monday that a report in the New York Times newspaper citing sources as saying the United States had inserted potentially disruptive implants into Russia’s power grid showed a cyber war was, in theory, possible. The New York Times on Saturday published an article citing current and former unnamed U.S. government officials…

Russian officials have said that the country’s energy infrastructure is safe, days after a New York Times article detailed U.S. cyberattacks on Russia’s electric grid. Citing anonymous sources, the report published Saturday details escalating efforts by the U.S. to hack Russia’s power grid. The article said the U.S. strategy was enacted in response to reports…

Lost in the furor over the arrest of the since-released investigative journalist Ivan Golunov on fabricated drug charges last week was another high-profile detention: this one of the opposition activist Leonid Volkov. Volkov, who is a key senior aide to opposition politician Alexei Navalny, had just spent 20 days in prison charged with co-organizing Navalny’s…

 An official from Russia‘s security council described as absurd accusations that Moscow used disinformation to sway voters towards right-wing parties in last month’s European Union elections, Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper reported on Sunday. An EU review into elections to its parliament, published on Friday, said there was evidence both Russian and European online sources had sought to promote…

Chinese President Xi Jinping celebrated his 66th birthday on Saturday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who Xi considers a close friend and who gave Xi ice cream as a present, Chinese state media reported. The discussion of senior leaders’ private lives is extremely rare in China, and the exact birth dates of most of them are…

In August 2018, the armed forces on Kotelny fired two Termit cruise missiles with missile complex Rubezh on targets located about 50 km away in the ice-covered part of the Laptev Sea. In 2015, the country moved the S-400 Triumph the new generation anti-aircraft weapon system, to the Kola Peninsula. That was followed by the deployment…

Russian runner Artyom Denmukhametov has been provisionally suspended for working with banned coach Vladimir Kazarin, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) said on Friday. Athletes are not allowed to receive training, strategy, nutritional or medical advice from coaches or medical staff serving doping bans, according to World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) rules — and they face sanctions if…

Exactly one year ago, hundreds of thousands of football fans descended on Russia to attend one of the most long-awaited competitions in the country’s history – the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Russia proudly hosted the event, reviving its global image and spending over $14 billion on construction, infrastructure and planning, making it the most expensive…

Kazakhstan has been roiled with mass protests following a presidential election seen by critics as undemocratic and an extension of their longtime authoritarian leader’s rule. Swathes of citizens have taken to the streets in the capital Nur-Sultan and largest city Almaty to condemn a vote they say was rigged, a rare sight in a country…

A Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft that crashed in May killing 41 people lost autopilot after a lightning strike and came in to land at excessive speed, according to a report from crash investigators, Russian news agencies reported on Friday. But the preliminary report, from the Interstate Aviation Committee which investigates plane crashes in Russia,…

The Middle East situation requires closer ties between Iran and Russia, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said at a China-led security bloc summit on Friday, according to the Russian state-run RIA news agency. Rouhani earlier said U.S. actions pose a serious threat to stability in the Middle East after Washington accused Iran of attacks on oil…

A court in Russia’s Far East has fined a company nearly $900,000 for its role in the so-called “whale prison” that has garnered international outrage in recent months. Nearly 100 whales reportedly bound for export to China have been held for months in cramped pens near the Sea of Japan port of Nakhodka, triggering a…

Living in a country where so-called gay propaganda is banned, Denis, 19, was happy to finally meet someone he felt a connection with on the dating app Tinder. A few weeks after they had started chatting, the guy on the other side of the screen invited him over and asked him to bring “some weed”…

Jets used for corporate travel by Russian state-owned oil major Rosneft flew at least 13 times to Mallorca, Ibiza, Sardinia and the Maldives when CEO Igor Sechin or people from his social circle were in the same vacation spots. Using publicly available data, Reuters tracked 290 Rosneft flights between January 2015 and May 2019. Of…

Russians’ perception of the United States and Ukraine as hostile foreign powers has dropped significantly over the past year, according to a new poll by the independent Levada Center pollster. The U.S., Ukraine and Britain have ranked as the top three countries Russians view as enemies since 2017. Russia has experienced fraught relations with the…

Europe’s Baltic states are at risk from further Russian money laundering, a top European police official said after several big banks were hit by scandals centered on the region. Pedro Felicio, who is responsible for fighting money laundering at European police agency Europol, told Reuters that “huge inflows of criminal money” are mainly coming into…

Moscow police have released all but four of the more than 500 people who were detained during Wednesday’s protest in support of freed journalist Ivan Golunov. At least 549 people were detained in central Moscow at the protest, the OVD-Info police-monitoring website reported. The unauthorized march had originally been scheduled in support of Golunov, who…