Russian authorities on Monday banned foreign nationals from entering the country, shut state schools and limited public gatherings in Moscow in an effort to curb the spread of coronavirus. The ban on foreign nationals will be enforced from March 18 until May 1, though diplomats, airplane crew members and some other categories of people will…
The number of coronavirus cases in Russia rose to 93 on Monday, a 47% increase from the previous day, the state-run TASS news agency quoted Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova as saying. There had been 63 recorded infections in Russia on Sunday. Experts studying the spread of the virus have pointed to the coronavirus’ exponential…
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Russia’s Constitutional Court on Monday approved amendments proposed by President Vladimir Putin to the country’s basic law, giving him the option of serving two further terms in office. The Constitutional Court published the ruling on its website and immediately sent the ruling to Putin, who could now stay in power until 2036. The court issued…
On this day in 1890, Solomon Mikhoels, ne Shloyme Vovsi, was born in a small town in Lithuania. After studying in a Jewish religious school, he went to a secular school in Riga and then moved to Kiev to study at the Kiev Commercial Institute. After his expulsion for political activity, he moved north to…
Starting from March 17 all restaurants, night clubs, gyms, beauty salons, and shopping malls will have to shut down in Kiev, the city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko announced on March 16. The decision furthers the restrictions that Ukraine imposed earlier to prevent the coronavirus spread by closing all educational institutions and banning mass events. The same…
Priests from the Russian Orthodox Church and Cossacks followed Defense Ministry orders to negotiate the Ukrainian army’s surrender during Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, the independent Meduza news website has reported ahead of the sixth anniversary of the land grab. On Feb. 27, 2014, masked troops in unmarked uniforms seized the Crimean parliament building, leading to…
Russia on Monday lifted the house arrest of an LGBT rights activist accused of distributing pornography for posting drawings of vaginas on a body-positive social media page. Yulia Tsvetkova, 26, has been under house arrest since November in the remote Far Eastern city of Komsomolsk-on Amur, some 6,000 kilometers (3,800 miles) east of Moscow. Amnesty…
As the new coronavirus that has killed more than 5,000 people continues to spread around the world, Russia has stepped up measures to tackle the pandemic, including closing most entry points along its 4,200-kilometer border with China, ordering people returning from high-risk areas to self-quarantine and temporarily banning Chinese citizens from entering the country. There…