Russia surpassed 60,000 confirmed coronavirus deaths Thursday, according to daily official figures. National task force figures showed 506 new deaths and 23,541 infections detected in the past 24 hours. Autopsy-based statistics suggest the official death toll is a fraction of the true number. A total of 3,332,142 cases and 60,457 fatalities have been registered in…
President Vladimir Putin made no statement on the unprecedented chaos in the United States when he spoke briefly with journalists after attending an Orthodox Christmas service in a remote medieval church late Wednesday. A rampaging mob of Trump supporters stormed a session of Congress to certify Joe Biden’s election win, triggering violence and accusations the…
At least two miners died after a rockfall at a Trans-Siberian Gold company-owned mine on Russia’s Pacific coast, emergency officials said Wednesday. Three of the five engineers who were installing ventilation systems at the Asacha deposit in the Kamchatka region climbed out on their own, the Emergency Situations Ministry’s regional branch said in a statement.…
Russians’ economic optimism for 2021 has fallen to a two-decade low, according to a Gallup International poll cited by the RBC news website Wednesday. The survey results come after a year when Russians’ incomes fell and the double blow of the coronavirus pandemic and declining global oil demand battered the national economy. The poll said…
Russia has confirmed 3,308,601 cases of coronavirus and 59,951 deaths. Jan. 6: What you need to know today Russia confirmed 24,217 new coronavirus cases and 445 deaths. Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel discussed by phone the potential for joint production of a coronavirus vaccine, the Kremlin said. Hungary will not purchase the Sputnik V…
U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies said Tuesday that Russia was probably behind the massive SolarWinds hack that has shaken government and corporate security, contradicting President Donald Trump, who had suggested China could be to blame. A joint statement by the FBI, Directorate of National Intelligence, the National Security Agency and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security…
Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel discussed by phone the potential for joint production of a coronavirus vaccine, the Kremlin said Tuesday. Putin and Merkel discussed cooperation in the fight against Covid-19 “with an emphasis on potential prospects for the joint production of vaccines,” according to a statement on the Kremlin’s website.…
In Russia’s staid parliament, the dying days of 2020 were marked by unusually frenzied lawmaking activity, most of it centering on civil rights. Over the course of a few days in late December, the State Duma passed a flurry of bills introducing sweeping new restrictions on political protests, legalizing censorship of social media and cementing…
Elections to the State Duma look set to be the focus of Russian domestic affairs this year after a turbulent 12 months dominated by succession, constitution and opposition. Even before the coronavirus upended the world, 2020 had been an extraordinary year for Russia’s usually staid politics. In January, ex-president Dmitry Medvedev abruptly resigned as prime…
Police in Ukraine have received new evidence that may help identify those who ordered the murder of award-winning investigative journalist Pavel Sheremet in 2016. “The documents and audio recordings, the last of which are dated by 2012, are already at the disposal of the investigation,” the police said in a statement. Fragments of these recordings published…
Fugitive U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden said Monday he hoped the British refusal to extradite Julian Assange would mark “the end” of attempts to see the WikiLeaks founder face espionage charges in the United States. A British court on Monday ruled citing health concerns that Assange should not be extradited to the United States where he…
Russia has confirmed 3,260,138 cases of coronavirus and 58,988 deaths. Jan. 4: What you need to know today Russia confirmed 23,351 new coronavirus cases and 482 deaths. Hungary will not purchase the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine for large-scale inoculation due to Russia’s lack of production capacity, Reuters quoted Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff as saying. Moscow…
Russia had to tread a fine foreign policy line in 2020. The country’s near abroad was rocked by unprecedented unrest as uprisings in Kremlin-friendly Kyrgyzstan and Belarus and war in the Caucasus challenged its influence in the region. In the U.S., the election of Joe Biden is set to fundamentally change the course of American…
The Moscow metro said Sunday it had hired female drivers for the first time in its recent history, following recent changes in controversial Russian legislation prohibiting women from many professions. The Russian capital’s transport system, which oversees the sprawling metro system, said in a statement that “the first female electric train drivers in modern history…
Hungary is unlikely to use Russia’s coronavirus vaccine due to its limited production capacity, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Sunday while criticising the EU’s vaccine acquisition approach. Often at loggerheads with Brussels over democratic standards, Orban has sent experts to monitor vaccine development in Russia and China, and received samples of Moscow’s controversial Sputnik V…
The Moscow Times has compiled a list of the most impressive Russian women in 2020. It includes movers and shakers across different parts of Russia, generations, and occupations. However, all of these women have one thing in common — they were able to use their platforms to tackle the new and old challenges of 2020 and…
Russia has confirmed 3,236,787 cases of coronavirus and 58,506 deaths. Jan. 3: What you need to know today Russia confirmed 24,150 new coronavirus cases and 504 deaths. Hungary will not purchase the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine for large-scale inoculation due to Russia’s lack of production capacity, Reuters quoted Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff as saying.…
A Tale of Two Photographers Photography, since its inception, has provided an invaluable window into Russia’s turbulent past. The revolutions of 1917 irrevocably altered the course of Russia’s history with seismic political change, but also rendered an entire way of life not only obsolete but also taboo. Historians were left to pour over sepia-toned photos…
A Tale of Two Photographers Photography, since its inception, has provided an invaluable window into Russia’s turbulent past. The revolutions of 1917 irrevocably altered the course of Russia’s history with seismic political change, but also rendered an entire way of life not only obsolete but also taboo. Historians were left to pore over sepia-toned photos…
A car bomb detonated near a Russian military base in northeastern Syria Friday in the first such jihadist attack in the area against the ally of Damascus, a war monitor said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported several wounded in the attack after midnight in the Tal Saman area in Raqa province,…
January 1, 2021, 10:55 Gazprom today began supplying gas to Serbia, as well as to Bosnia and Herzegovina, via a new route across Turkey and Bulgaria. Gas from Russia is transmitted by the TurkStream offshore gas pipeline and further across Turkey. It is then brought via Bulgaria’s national gas transmission system to Serbia, where it is distributed among consumers in Serbia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Deliveries along this route were…
Russia came under siege from climate change in 2020, and experts warn that Arctic heatwaves, fires and melting permafrost could be worse this year. The year began with the warmest winter in 140 years of recorded meteorological data, leaving Moscow — a city usually covered in snow for four months of the year — entirely…