Russia said Thursday it would respond in kind if the EU imposes sanctions on Moscow over the jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny and a crackdown on protests by his supporters. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell earlier this week said he would propose the bloc impose new sanctions on Russia, as he blasted the…
Vladimir Kara-Murza, a prominent Kremlin critic who survived two suspected poisonings, was likely tailed by the same chemical weapons squad that allegedly poisoned Alexei Navalny, the Bellingcat investigative outlet reported in a joint investigation with The Insider and Der Spiegel. Bellingcat analyzed travel data which showed that in both cases, in 2015 and 2017, Kara-Murza…
Law enforcement authorities warned Russians Thursday not to take part in Valentine’s Day courtyard protests in support of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Navalny’s team has called on supporters to hold up their cellphone flashlights in their residential courtyards for short intervals to avoid the kind of crackdown that followed a wave of mass nationwide…
As the value of Bitcoin soared this year, bringing cryptocurrencies back into the global spotlight, Russia’s opposition leader Alexei Navalny saw his team’s crypto wallet fatten. Public blockchain data shows that a Bitcoin address tied to Navalny received 3.5 Bitcoin ($120,000) at the end of January as supporters rushed to donate to the Kremlin critic…
On Sunday the Shchusev State Museum of Architecture in Moscow will host the premiere of a documentary film about one of the world’s foremost specialists in ancient Russian architecture, the American professor at Tulane University, William Craft Brumfield. The film, “The Treasure of William Brumfield,” was written and directed by Irma Komladze, a renowned photographer,…
Ukraine has banned coronavirus vaccines produced in bitter rival Russia despite struggles to launch its vaccination campaign. A resolution passed by the government on Feb. 8 and posted on its website Wednesday banned the registration of vaccines from “aggressor states,” a designation Ukraine has applied to Russia since 2015. Ukraine’s pro-Western leadership has repeatedly rejected…
Two Russian regions’ move to lift their face mask mandates is premature, a leading health expert told The Moscow Times on Thursday. Officials in the republic of Chechnya and the republic of Udmurtia on Wednesday announced that residents would no longer be required to wear face masks in public, becoming the first two regions of…
A senior Russian university administrator has resigned after tricking students into filming a flashmob in support of President Vladimir Putin following mass nationwide protests that criticized his rule, local media reported Wednesday. The students were shocked to learn that their participation in a coordinated hand- and flag-waving performance for a state holiday had been repackaged…
France had allegedly rejected Russia’s offer to examine its scientists’ findings that opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned, President Vladimir Putin was reported to have said at a closed meeting Wednesday. Putin told chief editors of Russian news outlets that he had promised French President Emmanuel Macron that Moscow would “immediately” open a criminal investigation…
Protests sparked by the jailing of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny have spread beyond the traditional Russian activist hubs of Moscow and St. Petersburg as discontent with the authorities and frustration over low standards of living rise. Tens of thousands took to the streets in over 120 cities after the opposition leader was arrested on his…
A St. Petersburg court has jailed Russian rapper Vyacheslav Mashnov, known as “Gnoyny” (“Rotten”), for using profanity at demonstrations in support of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Mashnov, who also goes by “Slava KPSS” (“Glory to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union”), was among the 1,500 people detained in Russia following Navalny’s Feb. 2…