Day: January 20, 2021

Russia on Wednesday urged U.S. President Joe Biden’s new administration to take a “more constructive” approach in talks over the extension of the New START treaty, Washington’s last arms reduction pact with Moscow. “We expect that the new U.S. administration will take a more constructive approach in its dialogue with us,” the Russian Foreign Ministry…

A Russian court has banned several popular animes including “Death Note,” “Tokyo Ghoul” and “Inuyashiki” Wednesday over claims that Russian teens reenact violent scenes depicted in the cartoons. State prosecutors had also asked the court in St. Petersburg to ban “Naruto,” “Elfen Lied” and “Interspecies Reviewers” in December. “Every episode contains cruelty, murder, violence,” said the…

Russian authorities have applied for registration of the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in the European Union, the country’s sovereign wealth fund financing the jab said Wednesday. A spokesperson for the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) said the application with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) was lodged on Tuesday. “It is an important milestone,” he added.…

Foreigners and unmarried Russians could be banned from having children with the help of a surrogate under a new draft bill, the RBC news website reported Wednesday. Russia is one of the few countries worldwide where commercial surrogacy is allowed, but a backlash against foreign surrogacy has been growing with warnings that women and children…

Chechnya’s strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov said Wednesday that police had killed Aslan Byutukayev, alleged leader of the Islamic State group in the volatile republic and mastermind of deadly attacks in Moscow. Byutukayev, also known as Amir Khamzat, was designated in 2016 as a “global terrorist” by the U.S. State Department, which said he had become…

The Kremlin said Wednesday that any improvement in Moscow’s tense relationship with Washington would depend on Joe Biden when he enters the White House. The United States recently blamed Kremlin-backed hackers for a massive cyberattack that breached government institutions, adding to a long list of grievances plaguing ties between the former Cold War rivals. “Russia…

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s viral video investigation into President Vladimir Putin’s alleged palace is “a bunch of nonsense,” the Kremlin said Wednesday. Navalny released an extensive exposé into a lavish $1.35 billion Black Sea estate Tuesday after Russian authorities jailed him upon his return from Germany, where he was hospitalized for what Western scientists…

Russia received its lowest level of foreign investment last year since the mid-1990s, data released by the Central Bank on Tuesday showed. Net inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) came in at just $1.4 billion in 2020, as the economic fallout from the pandemic, travel restrictions and a slump in global energy prices heaped pressure…

Russia has confirmed 3,633,952 cases of coronavirus and 67,220 deaths. Jan. 20: What you need to know today Russia confirmed 21,152 new coronavirus cases and 597 deaths. The Russian Direct Investment Fund has applied for authorization of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in the European Union, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported Wednesday. The European Medicines Agency (EMA)…

Last year was the warmest in Russia’s recorded history, the national weather service said this month as global temperatures reached record highs. Russia’s weather service said 2020 was among the country’s 14 hottest years, all of which were recorded in the 21st century. Average temperatures across the country’s 11 time zones were 2 degrees Celsius…

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, has urged Joe Biden’s administration to improve U.S.-Russia ties and extend a key nuclear pact ahead of the U.S. President-elect’s inauguration.  “The current condition of relations between Russia and the United States is of great concern,” Gorbachev said in an interview with the state-run TASS news agency published Wednesday,…

Update: The hearing has been postponed to 10:00 a.m. on Feb. 5 because Navalny was unable to attend the original hearing date while in detention, the independent Mediazona and Dozhd news outlets reported. Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who was detained on his return to Russia for violating a suspended sentence, is due in court Wednesday on separate…

Russia’s Embassy in the United States has accused its counterparts of abruptly cutting off phone lines at the Russian Consulate in New York ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s last day in office. The consulate said earlier in the day that several dozen of its landlines had been simultaneously disconnected, raising “huge problems” for the…