President Xi Jinping on Wednesday assured Vladimir Putin of China’s support on Russian “sovereignty and security” — leading Washington to warn Beijing it risked ending up “on the wrong side of history.” China has refused to condemn Moscow’s massive military assault on Ukraine and has been accused of providing diplomatic cover for Russia by blasting…
U.S. President Joe Biden announced $1 billion worth of new arms for Ukraine Wednesday as Pentagon officials defended the pace and quality of supplies as meeting Kyiv’s battlefield needs. Ukrainian troops shelled Russian targets on the frontlines in the eastern Donbas region with newly arrived French Caesar howitzers, as Ukraine officials met in Brussels with…
Russia on Wednesday stepped up the energy pressure on Europe, slashing gas supplies to the continent for the second day in a row in a move blasted as “political” by Germany. A day after Gazprom said it was cutting deliveries via the Nord Stream pipeline by around 40%, the Russian state-owned energy giant said it…
Authorities in the Russian republic of Chechnya are forcing local men to join “volunteer” battalions for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, investigative news outlet The Insider reported Wednesday. Soldiers have reported the use of intimidation, blackmail, or threats of torture and kidnapping against their loved ones, according to The Insider’s sources. While the exact number of…
ROSATOM Director General Alexey Likhachev, First Deputy Director General for Development and International Business Kirill Komarov, Deputy Director General for Human Resources Tatyana Terentyeva, and other ROSATOM executives take part in the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF-2022) on June 15-18. On June 16, Alexey Likhachev will take part in the plenary session Northern Sea…
Russian gas giant Gazprom said Wednesday it was cutting daily gas deliveries via the Nord Stream pipeline by a further 33%, after Germany slammed an earlier cut as political. “From 01:30 a.m. Moscow time on June 16 the daily output of the Portovaya compression station will be up to 67 million cubic metrers per day,”…
On June 14, 2022, the rating agency Expert RA confirmed that JSC Atomenergoprom’s (a part of ROSATOM) bonds comply with the “green” bonds issue principles and “green” financial instrument criteria. The agency’s release says: “Following the methodology of the second party opinion on compliance of bonds with the green bond principles, Expert RA confirms that…
Swedish furniture retailer IKEA will scale down its business operations in Russia and sell all four country-based factories, the RBC business daily reported Wednesday, citing the company’s press service. IKEA, which employed some 15,000 people in Russia, temporarily closed its stores and suspended operations of its factories there in March amid the international fallout from…
The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), Russia’s annual showcase event for foreign investors, opened Wednesday amid a reduced participant list, increased secrecy and boycotts by some Western governments. As the war in Ukraine has sent the Russian economy spinning toward recession and deepened Moscow’s international isolation, SPIEF – once dubbed “Russia’s Davos” – looked…
On June 15, 2022, NovaWind (ROSATOM’s wind power division) and the Chukotka Government signed a cooperation agreement for the construction of wind farms in the region within the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. The document was signed by NovaWind CEO Grigoriy Nazarov and Chukotka Governor Roman Kopin. The agreement is intended to study the possibility…
Chinese President Xi Jinping told his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in a call Wednesday that Beijing would keep backing Moscow on “sovereignty and security,” according to state media. China is “willing to continue to offer mutual support (to Russia) on issues concerning core interests and major concerns such as sovereignty and security,” Chinese state broadcaster…
A Russian man went on trial in Munich on Wednesday, charged with plotting to kill a Chechen dissident living in Germany on the orders of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. The suspect, named as Valid D., is accused of planning the murder commissioned by the state, carrying out shooting exercises with the intended hitman and spying…
The VVER-TOI reactor pressure vessel (RPV) has been installed at unit 1 of the Kursk-II NPP under construction in Russia, three weeks ahead of schedule, said Andrey Osharin, First Deputy Director for the Construction of New Units at Kursk NPP. The RPV was delivered to the site in September 2021. “Since that time, a lot…
A senior executive in charge of aircraft purchases for Russia’s flagship airline Aeroflot has been arrested on suspicion of fraud, Russia’s state-run Interfax news agency reported Wednesday. Mikhail Minayev, director of Aeroflot’s fleet planning and aircraft procurement, was placed in pre-trial detention by Moscow’s Khoroshevsky court until Aug. 8. If found guilty, Minayev faces up…
Ukraine pleaded with Western governments Wednesday to decide quickly on sending heavy weapons to shore up its faltering defenses, as Russia said it would evacuate civilians from a frontline chemical plant. The industrial city of Severodonetsk is under intense bombardment as Russia focuses its offensive on the Donbas region in an effort to secure a…
Russia is experiencing a shortage of commercial drones amid increased demand from the military and China’s exit from the Russian market, the Kommersant business daily reported Thursday. Prices have risen by an average of 30% since Russian troops invaded Ukraine in February, Kommersant reported, citing industry sources. Prices for drones used in the oil and…
Russia is reconstructing a long-dormant military airport on its far northern Kola Peninsula as part of a major upgrade of Northern Fleet airstrips in the European Arctic. The Severomorsk-2 airfield which lies 11 kilometers northeast of Murmansk was shut down in 1998. Northern Fleet commander Admiral Alexander Moiseyev said it is among the Russian Arctic…
Russia said Wednesday its forces destroyed a depot containing NATO-supplied arms in western Ukraine as President Volodymyr Zelensky urged Western allies to speed up arms deliveries to his country. “Near the town of Zolochiv in Lviv region, high-precision long-range Kalibr missiles destroyed an ammunition depot of foreign weapons transferred to Ukraine by NATO countries, including 155-mm…
A spokesman for Russia’s National Guard has been killed in battle in Ukraine, a veterans’ organization announced Tuesday. Col. Sergei Postnov served as a war correspondent in the National Guard’s so-called “information response group,” the Russian Interior Ministry’s veterans’ council said on its website. The group said that Postnov died “performing his military duty,” but…
Russia’s top lawmaker said Thursday that fighters sentenced to death in eastern Ukraine’s pro-Moscow separatist territories “deserve” to die. “The death penalty is the punishment these fascists deserve,” Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the lower-house State Duma, said, using terminology that President Vladimir Putin has invoked to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Volodin spoke a week…
A Russian court has extended the pre-trial detention of U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner on drug smuggling charges, state media reported Tuesday. Griner was detained at a Moscow airport on Feb. 17, en route to play for UNMC Yekaterinburg during the WNBA offseason, on charges of carrying vape cartridges with cannabis oil in her luggage. …