Year: 2019

Russian television presenter and onetime presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak is the country’s highest-earning Instagrammer, Forbes Russia has said in its list of the top 15 earners on the social media app in 2019. The magazine ranked each user by the income they earn from advertising and sponsored posts on their Instagram pages. All 15 names…

Orthodox Christianity and Islam are based on the same fundamental values, President Vladimir Putin said in an address to a religious conference in Kyrgyzstan. The conference, titled “Orthodoxy and Islam — Religions of Peace,” aimed to promote interethnic and interreligious dialogue between Russia and Kyrgyzstan. “Islam and Orthodox Christianity, just like other world religions, are…

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…

Russian gas goliath Gazprom raked in $3 billion Friday selling shares to an unknown mystery buyer in an unconventional share deal. Gazprom sold 3.6% of its own shares in a 188 billion ruble ($3 billion) deal, almost completing a share-offloading program announced in the summer by CEO Alexey Miller, the firm confirmed in submissions to…

Alina Afasyeva wears black leather gloves as she delicately picks through mountains of trash bags in Moscow’s elegant central Tverskaya neighborhood.  This is the fourth or fifth dumpster she’s visited tonight, but none of them have yielded results so far. Despite the early winter chill in the air, the smell is pungent — equal parts…

Spain has opened an investigation into the role of a secret Russian military unit in Catalonia’s 2017 independence referendum, the country’s El Pais newspaper reported Thursday. The Spanish government tried to prevent Catalonia’s independence referendum that it declared illegal, leading to hundreds of injuries. Spanish ministers said in 2017 that Russia-based groups promoted the referendum…

Baring Vostok — the Russian investment house at the centre of the high-profile fraud case involving its founder U.S. citizen Michael Calvey — has cancelled plans to launch a new investment fund, bne IntelliNews has reported. The company suspended plans to launch a sixth fund, citing investor fears over “contradictions in Russian and international arbitration…

The president of Russia’s athletics federation and several other federation officials were suspended on Thursday by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) for serious breaches of anti-doping rules, adding to the federation’s woes ahead of next year’s Olympics. The AIU, which oversees integrity issues in global athletics including doping, said the provisional suspensions were linked to…

Serbian intelligence agencies have uncovered a wide-ranging intelligence operation involving Russian spies and members of the Serbian military, President Aleksandar Vucic said on Thursday. Vucic’s remarks came after a meeting of the National Security Council which he convened after a video showing a Russian intelligence officer handing money to a Serbian man in Belgrade was…

President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that the scientists killed in a mysterious nuclear explosion in northwestern Russia this summer had been testing an “unparalleled” weapon. A liquid propulsion system blast on Aug. 8 at a naval missile test facility in Nyonoksa in Arkhangelsk region killed five people and led to a brief radiation spike nearby.…

Russia‘s lower house of parliament passed legislation on Thursday that will allow individual journalists to be labeled foreign agents, a move that critics say will tighten curbs on the media. Russia adopted an initial foreign agent law in 2012 which gave the authorities the power to label non-governmental organizations and human rights groups foreign agents. The…

The Kremlin on Thursday distanced itself from a video showing four Russian-speaking men torturing, stabbing and beheading a Syrian man in 2017 and said the incident had nothing to do with Russia’s military. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had not seen the footage, but said: “I am certain that this has no relation to…

Schoolchildren in Siberia are now required to stand and sing the Russian national anthem during morning assembly under a new decree. Aisen Nikolayev, the head of the republic of Sakha, signed the decree Wednesday as part of a regional initiative aimed at turning each student into “a patriot who is ready to learn and work…

Nine Russian television channels have been banned from broadcasting in Latvia due to ongoing EU sanctions against their co-owner, the Russian billionaire Yury Kovalchuk, Latvian media reported Thursday. Kovalchuk, a banker close to President Vladimir Putin, was one of several individuals added to the EU blacklist in 2014 in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea…

Russia did not remove equipment including toilets from three Ukrainian naval vessels before returning them this week, the Federal Security Service (FSB) said Thursday. The chief of Ukraine’s navy said Russia “took off lamps, power outlets and toilets” from the two small armored artillery vessels and a tugboat that it had held for a year.…

A foundation run by President Vladimir Putin’s alleged daughter has earned a record 488 million rubles ($7.6 million) last year, the Open Media news website reported Wednesday. Katerina Tikhonova, 33, is widely believed to be Putin’s younger daughter, though the president has neither confirmed nor denied this. Tikhonova’s foundation operating under the Innopraktika brand boasts…

The Russian company that provides free public Wi-Fi in Moscow and St. Petersburg will also supply the capital’s facial recognition network, the Kommersant business daily has reported.Maxima Telecom company won a 1.15 billion-ruble ($18 million) contract to provide the servers for Moscow’s facial recognition system, which authorities have been establishing for the past two years,…

Russian investigators said on Thursday they had opened two criminal cases into the management of a company involved in building the Vostochny Cosmodrome, a space center in the country’s Far East. The announcement came less than two weeks after President Vladimir Putin complained to government officials about corruption at the facility and called for further…

This article contains graphic content which may be disturbing to some readers. Four Russian-speaking men who were filmed beheading, dismembering and setting fire to a Syrian man in 2017 are believed to be private mercenaries for the Kremlin-linked Wagner Group, the investigative Novaya Gazeta newspaper reported Wednesday. Novaya Gazeta said it has identified one of…

Russian airlines are ‘desperate’ for compensation from the government after its ban on direct flights to Georgia cost them a combined 3.2 billion rubles ($50 million), the Vedomosti business daily reported Wednesday.  President Vladimir Putin ordered the temporary ban of passenger flights from Russia to Georgia this summer following an outbreak of unrest in Tbilisi…

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic ordered an investigation on Wednesday into a video clip that purportedly shows a Russian intelligence officer handing over money to a Serbian man, in an incident that could strain normally warm bilateral relations. A Bulgaria-based investigative reporter, Christo Grozev, said on his Twitter account at the weekend that the clip, posted on…

Russia‘s FSB security service has detained a Russian serviceman suspected of spying for Ukraine, the RIA news agency reported on Wednesday. The serviceman was allegedly gathering secret information for Ukraine’s intelligence service and is being investigated for treason, RIA reported, citing the FSB.  The independent CIT outlet identified the suspect as Ruslan Artykov, born in 1991.…

Producing energy without carbon emissions will send humanity back to the prehistoric period, Russian President Vladimir Putin told an investment forum Wednesday. Putin has joked about climate change in the past, saying in 2003 that warmer weather could increase grain harvests and cut spending on fur coats. This summer he criticized wind turbines, saying they…

Ukrainian naval ships, captured by Russia last November and released on Tuesday to be returned to Ukraine, are in very poor condition and cannot move independently, the commander of Ukraine’s navy said on Wednesday. Russia seized three ships in the Kerch Strait last year after opening fire on them and wounding several sailors. Moscow said the ships — two…

The share of Russians who view free speech, the right to a fair trial and other civil rights as important freedoms has increased by double digits in two years, according to the independent Levada Center pollster. Experts and sociologists link the double-digit growth in the importance of civil rights issues among Russians to events surrounding…

President Vladimir Putin is unlikely to meet most of his flagship economic and development goals during his final term without a significant increase in spending and better performance on a host of key indicators, a new report from a government-owned bank said Wednesday. The National Projects program — a $400 billion package of investments covering…

President Vladimir Putin is unlikely to meet most of his flagship economic and development goals during his final term without a significant increase in spending and better performance on a host of key indicators, a new report from a government-owned bank said Wednesday. The National Projects program — a $400 billion package of investments covering…

The widow of a Russian dissident murdered in London has backed a legal challenge to force Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government to publish a report on alleged Russian meddling in British politics. The report by parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) was cleared by Britain’s security services but Johnson’s office has not yet released it, meaning it…

Russia’s economy will lose hundreds of billions of dollars in potential growth as a result of climate change, a new report published Wednesday showed. In its new climate resilience index, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) calculated that Russia’s GDP will be 3.3% lower in 2050 than it would be without the hit to growth from…

St. Petersburg will delay its implementation of citywide recycling for at least another year amid fears that it could lead to a spike in the costs of garbage collection and a public backlash, the Kommersant business daily reported Tuesday. Russia launched its nationwide “trash reform” on Jan. 1, 2019, in an effort to tackle a…

Estonia wants Russia to return its territory that it says is annexed by Moscow, its top lawmaker has said as the prospects of a Russian-Estonian border treaty turned grim this year over Tallinn’s territorial claims. Estonia is the only NATO member lacking a ratified border treaty with Russia. The two countries have sparred as recently…

Russian oligarch Mikhail Abyzov built a complex network of offshore companies that were used to move a fortune out of Russia, according to a Swedbank internal draft report obtained by OCCRP and its Swedish partner, national public TV channel Sveriges Television (SVT).  Today he’s charged with defrauding the Russian government and investors of US$60 million,…

Arctic sea ice recovery between Russia and Alaska has slowed to record levels since bottoming out over the summer, according to research, as climate change clears ice quicker and for longer periods. Frozen water vanished from Russia’s Northern Sea Route in mid-August, opening up the Arctic shipping lane coveted by the Russian government. Arctic sea…

Russia is unlikely to agree to deepen cuts in oil output at a meeting with fellow exporters next month, but could commit to extend existing curbs to support Saudi Arabia, three sources said. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries meets on Dec. 5 at its headquarters in Vienna, followed by talks with a group…

Russia’s Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest nickel and palladium miner, has begun closing down its smelter in the northern Russian city of Nikel just a month after it first announced its plans. Forty-four employees at the furnace will soon turn off the heat for the last time. “The shutdown of the smelter will be going in stages until the end of…

The Kremlin wants Russian lawmakers to refrain from inviting high-level foreign guests to Victory Day commemorations next spring, the Open Media news website reported Monday. President Vladimir Putin has invited several foreign leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron, to attend Russia’s parade marking the end of World War II on…

The Russian government doesn’t see domestic violence as a “serious problem” and believes that its scale is exaggerated, the country’s Justice Ministry said in an official response to Europe’s human rights court obtained by the Kommersant business daily. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) this summer had asked Russia to respond to questions regarding…

Police have busted what they say is Russia’s largest synthetic drug lab on a farm outside Moscow, the Interior Ministry said in a statement Tuesday. Police published footage of the clandestine lab on a four-hectare farm in the city of Serpukhov 100 kilometers south of Moscow. It estimated that 1.5 metric tons of synthetic drugs…

Russia said on Tuesday it was bewildered by a Turkish pledge to conduct a new military operation in northern Syria if the area was not cleared of people Ankara calls terrorists, warning that any such move would damage efforts to stabilize the region. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was cited on Monday as saying his country…

Greenpeace activists have blocked a train in Germany carrying a shipment of radioactive waste destined for Russia, the environmental organization said Monday. German exports of depleted uranium hexafluoride, a byproduct of uranium enrichment, resumed to Russia earlier this year. The shipments had been halted in 2009 by Russia’s state nuclear company Rosatom following reports that…

Russia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said Tuesday that a U.S. decision to effectively back Israel’s right to build Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank undermined the legal basis for a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday abandoned Washington’s four-decade-old position that such settlements were “inconsistent with international law.”…

The Russian parliament’s commission on foreign interference said it has found several “camps” that allegedly receive funding from abroad to train protesters, both in-person and online, the Kommersant business daily reported Tuesday. Lawmakers formed the commission after this summer’s wave of protests in Moscow, accusing several news outlets and the U.S. Embassy in Russia of…

Russian corporate heavyweights Sberbank and Mail.Ru have finalized a new strategic partnership just one day after Sberbank confirmed it would step-back from its role in tech giant Yandex. In a series of announcements, Sberbank and Mail.Ru confirmed today the terms of a new joint venture to cover their food and taxi businesses, which the pair…

Ruble volatility has fallen to its lowest level in five years, amid a pause in sanctions pressure from the U.S. and more stable macroeconomic policies from the Russian government. The ruble’s implied volatility on the financial markets — a measure of how extreme traders expect swings in the value of the currency will be over…

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…

A Russian lawyer for Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine held in Moscow on spying charges, urged the United States and other countries on Tuesday to push for a prisoner swap with Moscow that could get his client released. Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports, was arrested in December and accused of espionage.…

Russian tour operators have begun selling organized tours into war-ravaged Syria despite government warnings for citizens to avoid the country, the Kommersant business daily reported Tuesday. Syria has been wracked by eight years of conflict after anti-government protests in 2011 devolved into civil war. Russia launched a military campaign in 2015 to support its ally…

When John Gartner, a former Rhodesian soldier who now heads the military security company OAM, was approached by a Mozambican official to help fight the Islamist insurgency in the country’s north, he thought he was about to win a lucrative contract.  “We presented them with a first-class proposal in early August. We have so much…