Month: March 2021

On the way to work at Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta last Monday morning, journalists noticed a strong chemical stench on the street outside their central Moscow office. By the time they sat down at their desks they had spread a clear, noxious substance throughout the building on the soles of their shoes.    Only months after…

The Supreme Court of Russia’s republic of Dagestan has overturned an earlier decision that ruled a mother was unfit for custody of her three children due to her “immoral” tattoos and piercings, she said Thursday.  Nina Tseretilova, 33, had lived with her daughter and two sons in the predominantly Muslim, socially conservative region of southern…

Russia said Thursday that jailed opposition figure Alexei Navalny was in “satisfactory” condition, but failed to reassure his allies who demanded clarity about his health and whereabouts. Navalny, 44, was detained in January after landing in Russia from Germany where he was recovering for several months from a poisoning attack with a Soviet-designed nerve agent…

Opposition activists in Belarus were preparing for fresh protests on Thursday to breathe life into a movement against President Alexander Lukashenko that fizzled out in the face of a severe crackdown. The authorities were moving military vehicles into the center of the capital Minsk in preparation, according to videos circulating on social media and published by local…

Russia has introduced its third registered coronavirus vaccine for general use, Interfax reported Thursday, citing its developers and the Education and Science Ministry. CoviVak, developed by the state-run Chumakov Research Center, is a two-dose, whole-virion vaccine that uses complete, but inactive, particles of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19. Mass production of CoviVak began Thursday…

Investors embroiled in one of the most controversial Russian corporate sagas of the last decade have agreed to sell the bank at the center of their dispute Investment fund Baring Vostok — run by detained U.S. investor Michael Calvey — and Artem Avetisyan’s Finvision have sold their stakes in Russia’s Vostochny Bank to rival Sovcombank…

Germany has asked the European Commission to purchase doses of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine for the EU, Politico Europe reported Wednesday.  The Commission plans to determine which countries are interested in purchasing the Russian shot as EU countries remain divided on the issue, an unnamed German official told Politico Europe. Requests from at least…

A Soyuz rocket blasted off from the Vostochny cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East on Thursday carrying 36 UK telecommunications and internet satellites, the Roscosmos space agency said. OneWeb, a London-headquartered company, is working to complete the construction of a constellation of low earth orbit satellites providing enhanced broadband and other services to countries around the world.…

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday Vladimir Putin is responsible for “terrible things,” but wouldn’t go so far as U.S. President Joe Biden in calling the Russian leader a “killer.” Trudeau, unaccustomed to criticizing other world leaders in public, was questioned during an interview on SiriusXM radio’s The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge about Biden’s…

Canada on Wednesday slapped new sanctions against nine Russian officials on Wednesday in response to “gross” rights violations and silencing of Kremlin critics including Alexey Navalny, who was poisoned and jailed. The measure follows similar actions taken earlier this month by the European Union and the United States. “The Russian government has repeatedly shown its…

Alexei Navalny’s health is “deteriorating” in prison and his lawyers weren’t allowed access to him for their latest scheduled meeting, the jailed Kremlin critic’s aides said Wednesday, warning that his life may be in danger.  Navalny, who was moved to a prison colony east of Moscow this month, started complaining of severe back pain and numbness…

Russian socialite and television presenter Ksenia Sobchak is facing widespread criticism for interviewing a convicted serial rapist after he was released from prison earlier this month.  Viktor Mokhov, 70, spent 17 years in a corrective labor colony after being convicted in 2005 of abducting and repeatedly raping two teenage girls. He held his victims captive in a…

Russian lawmakers on Wednesday approved legislation allowing President Vladimir Putin to hold office for two additional terms, paving the way for him to stay in power until 2036. Putin, already in power for more than 20 years, proposed the change as part of constitutional reforms that Russians overwhelmingly backed in a vote last year. They…

Chechen authorities have detained dozens of relatives of two gay men who were forcibly returned to the southern Russian region to face terrorism charges, a rights group told the independent Dozhd broadcaster Wednesday. The Moscow-based LGBT Network rights group said Salekh Magamadov, 20, and Ismail Isayev, 18, fled Chechnya last year but were arrested and returned…

Telegram has sold more than $1 billion in bonds to international investors, founder Pavel Durov announced Tuesday —  with Russia’s state-run Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) now among the firm’s backers. Durov, who founded Russia’s leading social network VKontakte before launching messaging app Telegram, said the investment will “enable Telegram to continue growing globally, while sticking…

Clinical trial volunteers for Russia’s second coronavirus vaccine have demanded the country’s Health Ministry launch an investigation to explore claims the jab does not produce an immune response. The group — which is currently taking part in Phase 3 studies for Russia’s EpiVacCorona shot, a peptide vaccine developed by the Vektor Institute in Novosibirsk —…

Russia will probe an artistic exhibition of preserved human corpses after the display sparked an uproar among conservative religious groups and public figures. German anatomist Gunter von Hagens’ traveling “Body Worlds” exhibition opened at Moscow’s VDNKh exhibition center on March 12. Its display of donated human bodies and organs aims to educate visitors “by looking inside…

Russians are on average more optimistic than Americans toward the prospect of warmer relations between the countries, though both remain largely pessimistic, a new poll by the independent Levada Center has said Wednesday. If only 10% of American respondents said they believe U.S.-Russian ties would improve in the next decade, 19% of Russian respondents held…

Armenia lifted martial law on Wednesday, five months after the end of its brutal war with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. The decision to lift the order came as part of a deal between Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and the opposition to defuse a political crisis sparked by Armenia’s crushing defeat in the six-week conflict.…

Russian health officials said Tuesday that re-vaccination with any of Russia’s domestically produced coronavirus vaccines after receiving the country’s Sputnik V shot is possible, clarifying earlier remarks suggesting that antibodies could destroy future vaccine components. Natalia Pshenichnaya, senior epidemiologist at national consumer protection watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, said earlier in the day that the Sputnik V shot’s long-term…

Russian President Vladimir Putin got his first dose of the coronavirus vaccine Tuesday, his spokesman told state media, receiving one of the country’s three domestically developed jabs.  Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin is feeling well and will have a full working day Wednesday. Putin’s delay in getting vaccinated while boasting of Russia’s Sputnik V…

Russian investigators have recognized three sisters accused of murdering their abusive father as victims in the criminal case against their father, lawyers said Tuesday, a move that activists called a “breakthrough” in their case.  Krestina, Angelina and Maria Khachaturyan admitted to killing their father in July 2018 after he subjected them to years of physical,…

Russia is creating a digital platform to collect satellite and drone data on its vast forests in the Far East with the aim of offering them on the carbon offset market, Bloomberg reported Tuesday. The Lesvostok.rf system, when it launches later in 2021, will allow the government to lease sections of forest to enterprises, which…

French police have issued an arrest warrant for a driver at the Russian consulate in Strasbourg suspected of selling dozens of stolen bikes while on the job, sources close to the inquiry said Monday. The suspect, a Russian citizen in his 40s, does not have diplomatic immunity and was brought in for questioning on Feb.…

Alexei Navalny’s allies announced new protests in support of the jailed Kremlin critic Tuesday, holding off on setting a date until their online campaign reaches half a million potential participants. The team launched a website to gather signatures of supporters willing to take to the streets again after some of the largest rallies in Russia’s recent history…

France could start using Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in its national vaccination drive as early as June, France’s Secretary of State for European Affairs Clément Beaune told the France Info radio broadcaster Tuesday.  “The EU may use the Russian vaccine after it is certified [by the European Medicines Agency (EMA)] and France, in turn,…

Three Russian soldiers have died in a supersonic bomber accident at a military airfield near Moscow, state media reported Tuesday. Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed the deaths of three soldiers as a result of the Tupolev Tu-22M3 incident at the Shaykovka air base in the Kaluga region, the TASS news agency said. “An ejection seat went…

Norway said Tuesday it would block Rolls-Royce’s sale of a Norwegian engine maker to Russia over concerns that Moscow could get its hands on sensitive technology. The Scandinavian country, a NATO member, two weeks ago asked Rolls-Royce to temporarily halt the sale of Bergen Engines while it examined the consequences a sale would have on…

The vast Russian region of Siberia will face hot and dry weather this year leading to more forest fires, forecasters said on Tuesday, linking the blazes to climate change.  Devastating forest fires have ripped across Siberia with increasing regularity over the past few years, which the country’s weather officials and environmentalists have linked to climate…

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accused European Union leaders of “destroying” relations with Moscow, the state-run TASS news agency reported Tuesday.  “There are no relations with the European Union as an organization. The entire infrastructure of these relations has been destroyed by the unilateral decisions of Brussels,” Lavrov was quoted as saying during a…

Russian billionaire and Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich has launched a defamation lawsuit against author Catherine Belton over claims that he had bought the club at President Vladimir Putin’s orders. According to Belton’s critically acclaimed 2020 book “Putin’s People,” Abramovich allegedly bought Chelsea in 2003 at Putin’s direction as part of an effort to…

“At this moment, I imagine that I’m filming a Russian remake of Star Wars, where instead of imperial stormtroopers there are prisoners in pea jackets and hats with earflaps,” Navalny said.  “Defending the interests of the Emperor, space prisoners travel from planet to planet, suppressing the rebels. But wherever they are, at exactly 6:05 am…

President Vladimir Putin on Monday dismissed foreign criticism of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine and said he would get vaccinated himself on Tuesday. Speaking at a televised meeting with health officials, the 68-year-old Russian leader described recent remarks in Europe questioning the need for the Russian vaccine as “strange.” “We are not imposing anything on anyone……

On a frosty March morning, a group of anti-Putin opposition activists gathered in a Soviet-era hotel on Moscow’s outskirts to plan their strategy for September elections to the country’s national parliament. Ten minutes later, the police arrived. Herded into police vans and shipped off to jail, around 200 attendees were charged en masse with participating…

The Leningrad region of Russia which surrounds its second-largest city St. Petersburg is facing shortages of the country’s homemade Sputnik V vaccine, local media reported Monday. While Moscow has boasted of its global deliveries of Sputnik V, which has been approved in over 50 countries, concerns over Russia’s capacity to produce enough doses for its…

Moscow said Monday it regretted that Washington did not respond to President Vladimir Putin’s proposal to organize public talks with U.S. President Joe Biden. “One more opportunity has been passed up to look for a way out of the dead end in Russia-U.S. ties,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.  “Responsibility for that rests…

EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday approved sanctions over abuses in China, Myanmar and Russia, as the bloc expands measures targeting global rights breaches. The 27 nations are due to place four Chinese officials and one state-run entity on a blacklist over Beijing’s crackdown on the Uighur minority after ambassadors gave the go-ahead last…

Police in Russia’s fourth-largest city of Yekaterinburg have broken up weeklong protests against the construction of a 5G wireless technology tower, local media reported Monday. Anti-5G activists set up tents to prevent works at the construction site in the Yekaterinburg district of Uralmash last Tuesday, arguing that the tower is unsafe for locals and illegal.…

The governor of Russia’s Penza region and a leading pharmaceutical executive have been charged in a large-scale bribery case, Russia’s Investigative Committee said Monday.   Ivan Belozertsev, Biotek pharmaceutical group founder Boris Spiegel and suspected accomplices were detained over the weekend on suspicion of exchanging bribes for lobbying Biotek’s interests.  Investigators said Belozertsev accepted money and…

The backer of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine said Monday it had signed an agreement with an India-based pharmaceuticals giant for the production of up to 200 million doses of the jab a year. The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), the country’s sovereign wealth fund, said in a statement it has partnered with the Virchow…

Russian lawmakers have moved toward easing visa rules for tourists and relatives of Russian citizens. The reforms introduced last week will allow foreign tourists with valid hotel bookings to stay in Russia for up to six months, up from the current maximum visa stay of one month.  Relatives of Russian citizens will be able to…

Most Russians who switched to remote working during the coronavirus pandemic have already returned to the office, according to a Rabota.ru survey of employees cited by the RBC news site. The poll found that just a quarter of Russians started working from home during the pandemic, and that more than half of those have now…

Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a holiday in Siberia with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, piloted an all-terrain vehicle through thick woodland and traversed a swaying rope bridge, Kremlin footage showed.  Putin routinely appears on state television participating in various outdoor pursuits to project the image of a healthy and robust leader capable of leading the…