Day: March 16, 2021
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Gazprom and Shell expanding cooperation
March 16, 2021, 17:30 Today, Gazprom and Shell signed an Agreement of Strategic Cooperation for a five-year period. The signing ceremony was held via a video link in the presence of Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, and Ben van Beurden, Chief Executive Officer of Royal Dutch Shell. The newly signed document expands the interaction between the two companies. Particular attention…
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Hollywood Backs Campaign to Drop Charges Against Pussy Riot
A group of high-profile Hollywood celebrities has signed a letter calling on the Russian government to halt the prosecution of punk protest group Pussy Riot members Maria Alekhina and Ludmila Shtein, entertainment news site Deadline reported on Tuesday. The activists face up to two years in prison for Instagram posts demanding the release of political…
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Share of Apolitical Russians Hits Post-90s High – Levada
The share of Russians who say they’re not interested in politics has reached its highest level of the modern era, a survey by the independent Levada Center polling agency said Tuesday. According to the poll, nearly one-third of Russians, or 27%, said they are not interested in politics at all, compared to 12% of Russians…
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Russian Freediver Claims New Record in Icy Lake Baikal Plunge
Russian freediver Alexei Molchanov claimed to have set a new Guinness World Record on Tuesday after plunging 80 meters in the icy waters of Lake Baikal in Siberia. Clad in blue diving gear, Molchanov dropped into a hole in the Baikal ice before coming back up smiling, winking and forming the OK sign with his…
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Russia Threatens to Block Twitter Within 30 Days
Russia will block Twitter within a month if it fails to delete banned content, authorities told state media Tuesday. Vadim Subbotin, the deputy chief of Russia’s state communications watchdog Roskomnadzor, issued the warning a week after the country began slowing down the social media platform’s speed over the dispute. The agency acted amid tensions with western…
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Explainer: Sputnik V’s Road to the European Market
While Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine has already been authorized by over 50 countries worldwide, it has yet to make its way into one of the world’s largest markets, the European Union. On March 8, an official at the EU’s medicines regulator was quick to dismiss the idea of granting emergency authorization for Russia’s vaccine,…
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Apple Allows Russia to Pre-Install Domestic Apps on Devices
Apple has agreed to pre-install Russian apps on all its devices activated within the country starting April 1, the Vedomosti business daily reported Tuesday. The Russian-developed software will include messengers, internet browsers, antivirus software, email, food delivery and taxi-hailing apps, Vedomosti reported. According to the agreement, all users who turn on an Apple device purchased…
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Subsidiary of TVEL Fuel Company of ROSATOM contracts supplies of nuclear fuel components for research reactor in Egypt
Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant (NCCP, an enterprise of TVEL Fuel Company of ROSATOM) and the Egyptian Atomic Energy Agency (EAEA) signed the contractual documents for supplies of another batch of the low-enriched fuel components to Egypt in 2021. The supplies are carried out under the long-term frame contract for exports of Russian-made nuclear fuel components…
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Russian Journalists Air ‘Silent Broadcasts’ to Dodge Prosecution
Russian journalists in the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk have started airing “silent broadcasts” as a way to avoid prosecution, the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty news outlet reported Monday. The live-streams of protests without commentary follow the detentions of several journalists in recent months for “participation in unsanctioned rallies,” RFE/RL’s Siberian affiliate Sibir.Realii reported. …
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Russia Slams U.S. Over Brazil Coronavirus Vaccine Pressure
Moscow has accused the United States of targeting its Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine by pressuring Brazil to reject it, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund that markets the jab worldwide said Monday. An annual U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report published in January said officials had worked to dissuade Latin American countries from accepting aid from…
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Russian Mother With Tattoos, Piercings Ruled Unfit for Custody – Reports
A court in southern Russia’s republic of Dagestan has ruled a mother of three unfit for custody due to her “immoral” tattoos and piercings, according to media reports. The summer 2020 ruling against Nina Tseretilova is based on Instagram posts submitted by her ex-husband during their custody battle, the Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid reported Friday. “It…
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Russia Confirms First S. African Coronavirus Strain Cases
A more contagious strain of the coronavirus first discovered in South Africa has been detected in Russia, the country’s health authorities said Tuesday. The officials said two people have been found to have the variant out of over 8,000 tests conducted among Russians arriving from abroad and those with atypical presentations of the disease. According…