December 2, 2020 PAO Severstal, one of the world’s largest vertically integrated steel and mining companies, has launched coke battery No. 11, a new unit using coal charge ramming technology, at the Cherepovets Steel Mill. The capacity of the first block is 700 thousand tonnes of products per year. The new unit will increase coke…
Global climate change is behind this year’s extraordinarily warm autumn in Moscow and St. Petersburg, experts interviewed by The Moscow Times said. Russia’s two largest cities experienced the warmest autumn temperatures of their recorded histories in 2020, official weather services reported Tuesday. And it’s only the beginning, experts say. Over the next 10 years, Russia…
Russia’s ultra-wealthy have increased their net worth by nearly $500 million in 2020 thanks to a historic stock market rally in November, according to the Bloomberg list of billionaires. Altogether, the 22 Russian billionaires added $486 million to their net worth between the start of the year and Dec. 1. Sixteen of them added just…
As one virus sweeps the globe, the Voznesensky Center in Moscow has joined with several arts and non-governmental organizations to launch a nearly month-long series events to mark a battle against another virus, HIV. The project, called “Of the Same Blood,” will start on Dec. 1, World AIDS Day, and run until Dec. 22. More…
Russian authorities have detained a man suspected of murdering dozens of elderly women in the republic of Tatarstan and nearby regions nearly a decade ago. Unofficially known as the “Volga maniac,” the murderer has been linked to the killings of anywhere from 19 to 32 female pensioners, most of whom were strangled to death between…
Irina Antonova, longtime head of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts and renowned expert in Renaissance art, has died at the age of 98, the museum’s press service said in a statement on Tuesday. She died from complications caused by the coronavirus. Antonova was born in Moscow in 1922. As a child, she spent…
The Azerbaijani takeover of Lachin, the last of three districts handed back by Armenia under a deal to stop fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh, ends the first stage of a Russian-brokered peace process. But the decades-old dispute over Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian region that broke away from Azerbaijan during a war in the 1990s, is far from…
The European Court of Human Rights said Tuesday that Russian authorities denied a top physicist a fair trial ahead of his 2004 conviction on claims of passing state secrets to China, which saw him imprisoned in Siberia for eight years. Accused of spying for China as well as embezzlement, Valentin Danilov was arrested in 2001,…
Despite the coronavirus restrictions in place, Moscow residents will still be able to enjoy some of their favorite winter outdoor activities like ice skating this year. Despite a lack of steady snow, the capital’s outdoor ice rinks opened to the public over the weekend — with some changes in place to help prevent the spread…
Russian authorities are probing opposition figure Alexei Navalny’s comments during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic for inciting extremism, news agencies quoted law enforcement sources as saying Tuesday. Moscow investigators are reportedly examining whether Navalny’s April 27 interview with the liberal Ekho Moskvy radio station contained calls for a violent overthrow of the Russian…
Turkey and Russia have agreed to monitor a truce over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region from a joint peacekeeping center, Ankara’s defense ministry said on Tuesday. The deal comes after days of talks between Turkish and Russian officials about how the two regional powers would jointly implement a Moscow-brokered ceasefire signed this month between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Technical…
An Aframax tanker under construction for Sovkomflot has been laid down at the Zvezda Shipbuilding Complex.
A majority of Russians doubt that relations between their country and the United States will improve under President-elect Joe Biden, a new poll by the independent Levada Center has said. Biden, who helped lead the failed push for a “reset” in U.S.-Russia ties as former President Barack Obama’s vice president, is expected to take a…
Four Jehovah’s Witnesses have been convicted and sentenced on extremism charges in southwestern Siberia, the religious organization banned in Russia said Monday. A court in the city of Omsk found husband and wife Sergei and Anastasia Polyakov guilty of recruiting others to join an “extremist” group. Two other Jehovah’s Witnesses, Dinara Dyusekeyeva and Gaukhar Bektemirova,…
Scientists Conduct Vostsibneftegaz-Sponsored Unique Studies of Post-Fire Landscapes of Evenki Forests
President Vladimir Putin has taken steps toward banning Russian government officials with access to state secrets from holding foreign passports as part of his recent changes to the Constitution. Putin on Monday submitted a bill to Russia’s lower house of parliament that would amend the Labor Code to ban military and civil servants with access to…
Fall 2020 in Moscow will be declared the warmest on record for the capital, according to Russia’s state weather service. The average temperature in Moscow for September, October and November was 3.2 degrees Celsius, which is 4.4 C above normal. “This autumn in Moscow will be the warmest ever,” the state-run TASS news agency quoted…