Year: 2020

Maria Sharapova, the Russian five-time Grand Slam champion who became one of the highest-paid sportswomen in the world, announced her retirement at the age of 32 on Wednesday. Florida-based Sharapova, whose Wimbledon victory in 2004, aged 17, propelled her to superstardom, broke the news in an article for magazine Vanity Fair. “I’m new to this, so please…

Polar bears in Russia’s Arctic are increasingly turning to cannibalism as growing human activity and development in the region shrinks their hunting grounds, scientists at the Russian Academy of Sciences said Wednesday. While cannibalism is a recognized part of polar bears’ natural behavior, its frequency has climbed sharply in recent years, Ilya Mordvintsev, a senior…

China’s Embassy in Russia has demanded authorities in Moscow end what it said are discriminatory anti-coronavirus measures against Chinese nationals, saying they are damaging relations and alarming Chinese residents of the Russian capital. The complaint, detailed in an embassy letter to the city’s authorities and published by the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper late on Tuesday, deplored what it called “ubiquitous monitoring”…

The United States announced Tuesday it was imposing sanctions on 13 foreign entities and individuals in Russia and other countries for supporting Iran’s missile program as President Donald Trump also extended Crimea-related sanctions. The State Department said the action placed new sanctions on three Chinese firms, a Chinese individual and a Turkish company. It did…

A former U.S. Marine faces up to 10 years in Russian prison for allegedly assaulting police officers during a drunken night out last year, charges that his defense denies, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Trevor Reed, 28, who was honorably discharged from the Marines in 2016, traveled to Moscow last May to visit his…

The Russian Orthodox Church has begun installing video surveillance cameras at its Moscow churches to comply with government anti-terrorism orders, Interfax reported Tuesday.  The Moscow Patriarchate’s move follows a September 2019 decree signed by then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev requiring all religious organizations to install security and surveillance systems as part of the government’s anti-terrorism campaign.…

One of three Russian men charged with poisoning a Bulgarian arms dealer was an accredited diplomat, according to a joint investigation by Russia’s The Insider news website, the investigative outlet Bellingcat and Swiss media. Bulgarian prosecutors charged three Russians including Georgy Gorshkov last month with the attempted murder of arms factory owner Emilian Gebrev and…

A Russian state-run television channel is airing the names of the nearly 13 million Soviet soldiers killed in World War II in the weeks leading up to the 75th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany. The project is a collaboration between Russia’s Defense Ministry and Memory of the People, an internet database that…

Siberian law enforcement officers have been charged with abuse of power two months after a musician they had detained on drug charges was found decapitated, a city councilman said Monday. Dmitry Fyodorov’s body was found on a railway in the city of Omsk on Dec. 26 in what police called either a suicide or a…

Dmitry Yazov, the last appointed Marshal of the Soviet Union, died on Tuesday in Moscow after a long illness. With a career extending from the Siege of Leningrad to the 1991 August Coup, Yazov was one of the most decorated and controversial Russian military figures of the twentieth century.  Born in 1924 in the Omsk…

Dutch prosecutors have at least one eyewitness in the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine, lead prosecutor Fred Westerbeke said two weeks ahead of the first court hearing into the tragedy. A Dutch court will on March 9 hear the case against three Russian suspects and one Ukrainian over the downing of…

Russia’s police force is developing technology that would allow them to identify criminal suspects by tattoo, iris and voice, the RBC news website reported Monday. Moscow rolled out its facial recognition system, one of the world’s largest, on Jan. 1. Opponents have filed lawsuits against the Russian capital’s use of facial recognition over privacy concerns,…

The wind was whipping up snow, which meant that there was no place in the world Alexei Koltsov would rather be than the banya — the Russian bathhouse. “You come in here from the freezing cold and the heat presses up to you,” Koltsov told me, wrapping his arms around himself as he spoke. “It’s…

The United States has staged a mock limited nuclear strike on Russia, an unnamed senior Pentagon official said in an unprecedented disclosure that angered Russian lawmakers. During the simulation the official described as a “mini-exercise,” “Russia decides to use a low-yield limited nuclear weapon against a [U.S.] site on NATO territory.” “In the course of…

As the new coronavirus that has killed more than 2,600 people continues to spread around the world, Russia has stepped up measures to tackle the health risk, including closing most entry points along its 4,200-kilometer border with China and temporarily banning Chinese citizens from entering the country.  Russia reported its first two cases of coronavirus…

China, Russia, France, Germany and Britain will meet with Iran in Vienna on Feb. 26 to discuss how to uphold the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran, the European Commission said in a statement on Tuesday. Britain, France and Germany formally accused Iran on Jan. 14 of violating the terms of the 2015 arms control agreement…

The square in Prague where Russia‘s embassy is located is to be renamed after Boris Nemtsov, the Czech capital said on Monday, joining cities like Washington and Kiev in commemorating the murdered opposition leader. Nemtsov, one of Russia President Vladimir Putin’s most vocal critics, was shot dead in February 2015 as he walked across a bridge near Moscow’s…

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders warned Russia on Friday to stay out of 2020 White House elections after U.S. officials had told him Moscow was trying to aid his campaign. “The intelligence community is telling us they are interfering in this campaign, right now, in 2020. And what I say to Mr. Putin, if elected…

Two Russian sailors have been sentenced to a combined 395 years in prison in Greece for trafficking migrants, the RBC news website reported Friday. The sailors claim that they were initially hired to tow yachts and then received threats when they objected to trafficking people, human rights activist Ivan Melnikov told RBC. Interfax identified them…

The Kremlin on Friday denied it was interfering in the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign to boost Republican President Donald Trump’s re-election chances following reports that American intelligence officials warned Congress about the election threat last week. U.S. intelligence officials told members of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee in a classified briefing last week that…

An American cancer-medicine inventor has been arrested in Russia on suspicion of bribery, the Kommersant business daily reported Friday. Gene Miron Spektor is accused of giving 4 million rubles ($64,000) in the form of two holiday packages to Thailand and the Dominican Republic to a former cabinet official’s assistant in 2015 and 2016. The alleged…

Norway has rejected Russian accusations of violating the terms of an international treaty regulating activities on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, as a diplomatic spat over Russian operations there escalated. Russia complained earlier in February that Oslo-imposed rules were restricting activities of Russian organizations there, calling for bilateral consultations, and on Thursday accused Norway of…

Deadly fighting has led Russia and Turkey to the brink of conflict in Syria as the battle over the war-torn country’s final rebel bastions intensified this week.  Turkish forces and Syrian rebels fought government troops Thursday and Russian warplanes struck back in a sharp escalation in northwest Syria’s Idlib, Russian and Turkish officials said. Moscow…

“If you ask me, I would say ‘kill borders’ — they don’t need to exist at all,” says Alexander Galitsky, pushing his closed notebook to the side as he warms to his topic.  “All these borders and all these rules exist only for politicians. We don’t have borders with each other. We have only political…

Around 2,500 people arriving in Moscow from China have been ordered to be placed under quarantine for the coronavirus and are being monitored by the Russian capital’s facial-recognition technology, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Friday. All arriving passengers from China are required to undergo a physical examination and coronavirus test at the airport, Sobyanin wrote on…

U.S. intelligence agencies have said that Russia is interfering in the country’s 2020 election in an effort to help re-elect President Donald Trump, The New York Times reported Thursday. One source said Trump complained that his Democratic Party opponents would “weaponize” the intelligence about his support from Russian operatives eight months ahead of the vote.…

As the new coronavirus that has killed more than 2,000 people continues to spread around the world, Russia has stepped up measures to tackle the health risk, including closing most entry points along its 4,200-kilometer border with China and temporarily banning Chinese citizens from entering the country.  Russia reported its first two cases of coronavirus…

Britain and the United States joined Georgia on Thursday in blaming Russia for a large-scale cyber attack last year that knocked thousands of Georgian websites offline and disrupted national television broadcasts. Up to 15,000 state, private and media websites were taken out by unknown hackers on Oct. 28, including those belonging to the Georgian president’s…

Turkey said two of its soldiers were killed and five others wounded in Syrian government air strikes in northwest Syria on Thursday, bringing Turkish military fatalities to 15 so far this month in the Idlib region. Turkey’s defense ministry said more than 50 Syrian forces members had been killed in retaliation in Idlib, where nearly…

As the new coronavirus that has killed more than 2,000 people continues to spread around the world, Russia has stepped up measures to tackle the health risk, including closing most entry points along its 4,200-kilometer border with China and temporarily banning Chinese citizens from entering the country.  Russia reported its first two cases of coronavirus…

Russia’s far northern territories, border areas and closed military towns could be directly governed by the federal government in Moscow, a leading member of the parliamentary group that is drafting a package of amendments to Russia’s Constitution has said. Senator Andrei Klishas suggested subjecting parts of the country’s Arctic territories and other areas directly to…

A road rage incident between Russian and U.S. combat vehicles was caught on video in Syria at a time of heightened tensions between the two forces in the war-torn country. A bystander caught the moment when a U.S. Oshkosh M-ATV ran what appears to be a Russian Tigr armored car off the busy road as…

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…

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…

TikTok is best known as the app that launched a thousand memes and viral challenges.  But health officials in southern Russia now plan to spread awareness about the country’s HIV crisis using the popular video-sharing platform, the Open Media news website reported Wednesday, citing public procurement files. The initiative follows the release of popular journalist…

Turkey and Russia are discussing the possibility of joint patrols as one means of reaching a deal that will halt fighting and counter the exodus of civilians in Syria’s Idlib region, a Turkish official said on Thursday. This statement came a day after Ankara threatened military action to push back Syrian government forces. Although two…

Russian lawmakers from the Communist Party have prepared a new amnesty bill to release prisoners jailed after last summer’s mass opposition rallies in Moscow, the Kommersant business daily reported Thursday. Twenty people have been convicted on charges of “mass unrest” and assault of law enforcement officers after tens of thousands took to the streets in…

For the first time in more than a decade, businesswoman Yelena Baturina is no longer Russia’s wealthiest woman, Forbes Russia reported Thursday. That honor now goes to Tatyana Bakalchuk, 44, the founder and head of the private online clothing retailer Wildberries. Both Baturina and Bakalchuk cemented their status as Russia’s only women billionaires last year.…

President Vladimir Putin has dished on Russia’s cabinet reshuffle for the first time since his sweeping shake-up of the government which led to the resignation of his longtime ally, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, last month. Putin replaced Medvedev with little-known former tax chief Mikhail Mishustin as part of a wider push to jump-start Russia’s economy,…

U.S. President Donald Trump offered to pardon WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange if he said that Russia had nothing to do with WikiLeaks’ publication of Democratic Party emails in 2016, a London court heard on Wednesday. Assange appeared by videolink from prison as lawyers discussed the management of his hearing next week to decide whether he should be…

Two Russian citizens from a quarantined cruise ship have been diagnosed with the new coronavirus, bringing the total number of infected Russian nationals to three, Russia’s Embassy in Japan said Thursday. One Russian passenger of the Diamond Princess liner has been hospitalized on suspicion of contracting the virus, the embassy said Tuesday. More than 620 passengers…

President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday he believes “it’s tough” to live on a minimum wage in Russia. In a video shared on social media, a member of the public can be seen confronting Putin at a memorial marking the 20th anniversary of the death of his former boss and St. Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak. “I…