Year: 2021

Sardana Avksentiyeva was never a typical Russian mayor. In her two-and-a-half-year stint running Yakutsk, a remote, Far Eastern city of 300,000, the 48-year-old political independent rose to national prominence as her populist style, savvy social media use and unorthodox policy positions marked her out from the often uncharismatic technocrats who govern most Russian cities. However,…

Russian eco-activists will end more than two years of protests against a controversial garbage dump that would have seen tons of waste shipped from Moscow to northern Russia after its construction was halted. Russians nationwide have protested against plans to ship Moscow’s trash to remote regions since fall 2018 over environmental concerns, with a massive…

Encrypted messaging app Telegram has become the second-most downloaded app in the United States after President Donald Trump and his supporters were deplatformed in the wake of last week’s deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol, The Daily Telegraph reported Monday. Telegram’s downloads rose as Twitter and Facebook banned Trump while Google and Apple removed conservative…

Algeria and the State of Palestine have approved Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine against the coronavirus, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund marketing the jab announced this week. Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) CEO Kirill Dmitriyev said that the countries are the first African and Middle Eastern nations to issue emergency-use authorization approvals.  Dmitriyev said deliveries to Palestine,…

Russia has confirmed 3,448,203 cases of coronavirus and 62,804 deaths. Jan. 12: What you need to know today Russia confirmed 22,934 new coronavirus cases and 531 deaths. Russia has extended its suspension of flights with Britain through Feb. 1 due to Britain’s surge in new infections linked to a new strain of Covid-19 believed to be more infectious.…

A 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck early Tuesday in northern Mongolia not far from the border with Russia, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said. The epicenter of the quake, which struck at a relatively shallow depth of 10 kilometers (six miles), was located 33 kilometers south-southwest of Turt, U.S. seismologists said. The epicenter appeared to be located…

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh was still not resolved as he met the leader of his country’s arch foe Azerbaijan in Moscow on Monday. President Vladimir Putin hosted the heads of the two former Soviet states for a rare trilateral meeting and urged them to negotiate further steps in a…

A Swedish court on Monday convicted a Russian citizen of the attempted murder of a blogger from Chechnya critical of strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov, alleging high-level backing for the attack. The assault on Tumso Abdurakhmanov took place in his apartment in the Swedish city of Gavle in February 2020, when the accused struck him in…

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said on Monday he expected U.S. President-elect Joe Biden to extend a landmark arms agreement with Russia and urged the two sides deepen arms reductions. The New START Treaty is the Cold War rivals’ last remaining nuclear reduction pact and is set to expire Feb. 5.  The fate of the…

Russia will trial a one-dose version of its Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, officials said on Monday, as they aim to provide a stopgap solution for badly hit countries. The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which financed the development of the two-dose Sputnik V jab, said it was also financing clinical trials of “Sputnik Light,” a less…

Moscow plans to expand its residents’ digital profiles to include data on their incomes, school grades and pets, the Kommersant business daily reported Monday, citing public documents. Moscow City Hall currently collects the gender, age and income level of residents signed up to its mos.ru municipal services website and as part of its monitoring systems. In…

Man-made fires have burned down forests and killed endangered animals at a protected Russian nature park on the border with China and North Korea, Russian activists say. Animals including Far Eastern forest cats as well as several endangered species either burned alive or died by asphyxiation while endangered plants such as relict oaks burned to…

The billionaire leader of Georgia’s ruling party, Bidzina Ivanishvili, who is widely seen as the Western-backed country’s most powerful man, announced Monday he was quitting politics. Ivanishvili made the announcement after his Georgian Dream party claimed a narrow victory in a tightly contested parliamentary election last year that sparked protests. “My mission has been accomplished,”…

Sardana Avksentiyeva, the popular independent mayor of one of the world’s coldest cities, has submitted her resignation nearly three years after defeating a Kremlin-backed incumbent for the role. Avksentyeva, 50, became the first woman mayor of the Siberian city of Yakutsk in September 2018 elections that drew international attention for being free and fair and…

Moscow on Sunday confirmed its first case of the new UK coronavirus strain, despite an earlier decision by officials to suspend flights from Britain to stop the mutation reaching Russia.  One person returning to Russia from the UK was found to have been infected with the new strain, the head of Russia’s health regulator Rospotrebnadzor…

Populist Sadyr Japarov was on the path to an easy win Sunday in Kyrgyzstan’s presidential election, the first vote following recent political upheaval in the Central Asian country. Results published by the ex-Soviet country’s Central Election Commission (CEC) showed Japarov with close to 80% of the vote after an automated count. A referendum held in…

Russia has confirmed 3,401,954 cases of coronavirus and 61,837 deaths. Jan. 10: What you need to know today Russia confirmed 22,851 new coronavirus cases and 456 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…

Three people were killed after an avalanche swept through a ski resort outside the Arctic city of Norilsk overnight, Russian investigators said Saturday. The Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said it was notified at 00:30 local time that an avalanche had buried four buildings under snow at the Otdelnaya Gora ski complex in the…

Three people have died in a mid-air collision between two light aircraft near St. Petersburg, Russian media reported Friday. One of the planes landed safely with its pilot unharmed.  Interfax, citing Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry, said the crash occurred at an airfield that hosts regular competition aerobatics events next to the Leningrad region village of…

Russia has suspended its electronic visa system until further notice because of the coronavirus pandemic, tourism authorities have said. Citizens of 52 countries, including EU member states, China and India, were expected to be able  take advantage of e-visas from Jan. 1, 2021. However, most foreigners are still unable to enter Russia after it banned…

Russia has confirmed 3,355,794 cases of coronavirus and 60,911 deaths. Jan. 8: What you need to know today Russia confirmed 23,652 new coronavirus cases and 454 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…

A Russian hacker was sentenced to 12 years in a U.S. prison Thursday for consumer data theft worth $19 million from 100 million customers of over a dozen financial service companies, the Justice Department said. Andrei Tyurin, 37, pleaded guilty in 2019 after his extradition from the country of Georgia the previous year, admitting to…

Russia on Thursday pointed to the storming of the U.S. Capitol building as evidence of America’s decline, with officials saying its out-of-date electoral system and deep divisions had left its democracy “limping on both feet”. Under banners reading “Storm of the Capitol” and “Chaos in Washington”, Russian state television showed rolling images of mobs of…

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, while Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the U.S electoral process is archaic and prone to violations. A rampaging mob of Trump supporters on Wednesday stormed a session of Congress being held…

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 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,…

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…