Day: February 18, 2021
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Russian Flights to Egypt’s Sinai to Resume Five Years After Deadly Jet Attack
Russia will resume flights to Egypt’s Red Sea resorts in March after the lifting of a ban imposed following a 2015 attack on a Russian jet, an aviation official said. Flights “to the two cities of Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada will resume on March 28 via the Russian company Nordwind at a rate of four…
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What Comes Next After European Rights Court’s Call to Release Navalny?
Russia is likely to ignore the European rights court’s demand for the immediate release of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, legal experts said as Moscow categorically rejected the calls. Navalny, 44, appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for his release on Jan. 20, days after his arrest at a Moscow airport. The…
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Latvia Bans Russian TV Host Over Hitler Remarks
Latvia on Thursday said it would ban entry to a Russian TV host after he called Hitler a “very brave man” while disparaging Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. “The glorification of Nazism in any form is unacceptable to Latvia,” Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics wrote on Twitter. На основании ч. 2 ст. 61 Закона об иммиграции я…
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Russia Has One of the World’s Highest Excess Death Rates. Why Aren’t Russians Angrier?
Russians are showing few signs of anger over the government’s handling of the health aspects of the coronavirus pandemic, despite the country recording one of the world’s largest increases in mortalities last year. Russia’s excess death toll — calculated by comparing the number of people who died over a given period compared with the number…
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Russian Pro-Democracy Activist Gets Suspended Sentence in ‘Undesirable Org’ Case
Prominent Russian activist Anastasia Shevchenko will walk free after receiving a suspended sentence for her involvement in a pro-democracy group that the government labeled “undesirable.” Shevchenko, 41, is the first activist to be prosecuted under Russia’s 2015 law against “undesirable organizations.” She has been under house arrest since 2019, when one of her three children…
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World’s Oldest DNA Found in Siberian Mammoth Teeth
Siberian mammoth teeth have contributed to the discovery of the world’s oldest DNA, the scientific journal Nature reported Wednesday. Before the latest findings, the oldest DNA sequences were believed to have come from a 700,000-year-old Canadian horse’s leg bone in 2013. Geneticists have now uncovered DNA as much as 1.2 million years old from molar…
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Kremlin Says U.S. Should Focus on Texas Instead of Nord Stream 2
The Kremlin has said the U.S. should mind its own business when it comes to Moscow’s work on the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline and focus on power outages in Texas instead. Millions of people in Texas were left without power and drinking water this week due to an abnormally severe winter storm. Meanwhile, the…
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Coronavirus in Russia: The Latest News | Feb. 18
Russia has confirmed 4,125,598 cases of coronavirus and 81,926 deaths. Feb. 18: What you need to know today Russia confirmed 13,447 new coronavirus cases and 480 deaths. Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine has been certified and approved for mass use in Uzbekistan, Uzbekistan’s state coronavirus commission announced Wednesday. Muslim Spiritual Board of Russia’s republic of Tatarstan announced Tuesday…
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Russian 3D Model Details Explosive Origins of Arctic ‘Pit to Hell’
Russian scientists believe that a massive crater above the Arctic Circle described as a “pit to hell” was formed as a result of an explosion caused by built-up methane. The researchers based their conclusions on a 3D model they created from drone footage from inside the well-preserved crater that has not yet eroded or filled with water.…
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Spain’s Reopened Case Against Russian Tycoon Mikhail Fridman ‘Technical Error’
Spain’s move to reopen a criminal case against Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman and two of his associates over their alleged role in the deliberate bankruptcy of a Spanish tech firm was a “technical error,” a judge said Thursday. Spain’s National Court first opened a case against the tycoon in 2019, with prosecutors accusing Fridman of…
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Spain Reopens Criminal Case Against Russian Tycoon Mikhail Fridman
Spain has reopened a criminal case against Kremlin-linked billionaire Mikhail Fridman over his alleged role in the deliberate bankruptcy of a Spanish tech firm, Deutsche Welle reported Wednesday. Spain’s National Court first opened a case against the tycoon in 2019, with prosecutors accusing Fridman of market manipulation, fraudulent insolvency, business corruption and misuse of company…
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Actor Andrei Myagkov Dies at Age 82
Andrei Myagkov, an actor most famous for his role of Zhenya Lukashin in the 1975 New Year’s hit, “Irony of Fate,” directed by Eldar Rozanov, died of an apparent heart attack at the age of 82 at his home in Moscow. Myagkov was born in Leningrad in 1938 and graduated from the Moscow Art Theater…
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Belarus Court Sentences Journalists to 2 Years in Prison
A court in Belarus on Thursday sentenced a pair of young television journalists to two years in prison for covering a protest last year, the first lengthy jail term in a legal crackdown on independent media. Standing defiant in a cage, Katerina Bakhvalova, 27, and Daria Chultsova, 23, flashed V for victory signs as they…
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Russia Rejects Calls From Europe Court To Release Navalny
Europe’s rights court told Russia on Wednesday to release jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny out of concern for his life, but Moscow swiftly rejected the call. Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s most outspoken opponent, was arrested and jailed upon returning to Russia last month following months of treatment in Germany for a nerve agent poisoning he…