Day: July 7, 2022

Russian forces left a trail of destruction Thursday, seeking to push deeper into the eastern Donbas region as President Vladimir Putin said his military campaign was still ramping up. Diplomatic tensions meanwhile mounted between Ankara and Kyiv, with Ukraine accusing Turkey of ignoring calls to seize Ukrainian grain being transported by a Russian ship. A…

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday challenged the West to try and defeat Russia “on the battlefield” and said Moscow’s intervention in Ukraine marked a shift to a “multi-polar world.” Delivering one of his strongest speeches since he sent troops to Ukraine on February 24, Putin also raged against “totalitarian liberalism” that he said the West…

A Russian prosecutor on Thursday requested a seven-year prison term for a Moscow city councillor accused of criticizing Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine. Alexei Gorinov, a 60-year-old lawyer by training, was arrested in late April for spreading “knowingly false information” about the Russian army and is now on trial. Gorinov is the first elected member…

A growing number of Russian officials have been handed senior jobs in occupied parts of Ukraine in what analysts said was an attempt to strengthen ties to Moscow ahead of a possible annexation process. This week alone, appointments included a former deputy from the Russian parliament, regional government officials and a high-ranking Federal Security Service…

British and American diplomats in Moscow will refuse to adopt new addresses for their embassies after officials renamed streets in honor of eastern Ukraine’s pro-Kremlin separatist republics. City authorities renamed the area close to the British Embassy on Monday, effectively changing the building’s address to “1 Luhansk People’s Republic Square.” The move comes less than…

American basketball player Brittney Griner has pleaded guilty to drug charges before a Russian judge. The two-time Olympian denied that she had any intention of breaking Russian law when she was detained at a Moscow airport in February with cannabis vape cartridges in her luggage. “I was in a rush packing. And the cartridges accidentally…

Russian forces left a trail of destruction in their wake Thursday as they grinded deeper into Donbas with their sights set on the industrial hub of Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine as their next target. Moscow’s slow push came as diplomatic tensions mounted between Ankara and Kyiv, where Ukrainian officials accused Turkey of ignoring calls to…

Russian lawmakers have advanced new legislation to block the public from accessing information from the country’s state real estate register, a move that could hinder independent journalists from investigating the hidden wealth of the country’s elite. The bill, which passed its third and final reading in the lower-house State Duma on Thursday, restricts third parties…

The Kremlin says it hopes that the U.K.’s next leader will be “more professional,” after Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned as the country’s ruling Conservative Party leader Thursday. The politician will remain as a “caretaker” Prime Minister until elections are held later this year. “We would like to hope that someday in Great Britain more…

A disputed cargo ship carrying allegedly stolen grain from Ukraine has returned to Russian territorial waters, Turkish sources told AFP on Thursday, drawing angry condemnation from Kyiv. The marinetraffic.com website showed Zhibek Zholy moving at least 20 kilometers (12 miles) away from Turkey’s Black Sea port of Karasu before apparently switching off its transponder and…

The Russian ruble extended a recent slump Thursday, declining 17% against the U.S. dollar in 48 hours to reach its lowest level since late May.   The ruble hit 64.5 against the greenback during morning trading on the Moscow Exchange as the Russian authorities apparently intervened in currency markets to stop the ruble from strengthening and…

Moscow will not discuss swapping basketball star Brittney Griner in a potential exchange with the United States until her formal conviction on drug smuggling charges, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Thursday. Ryabkov told reporters that were currently “no nominal, formal or procedural grounds to take any further steps” regarding Griner’s exchange, the state-run…

A court in the Russian Far Eastern city of Vladivostok sentenced a dozen North Korean fishermen to long sentences for attacking Russian coast guards in a clash in the Sea of Japan in 2019. Twelve fishermen from the closed state were handed sentences from four to 13 years in prison.  The court found them guilty…

Ukrainians held prisoner by Russian and pro-Moscow forces have accused their captors of torture in a series of interviews. Paramedic Yuliia Paievska, widely known by her nickname Taira, was captured in mid-March while assisting civilians wounded in an airstrike on a theater in the port city of Mariupol. The city fell to Russian forces in…

The speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament threatened Wednesday to “claim back” Alaska if the United States froze or seized Russian assets as punishment for its invasion of Ukraine. “Let America always remember: there’s a piece of territory, Alaska,” Vyacheslav Volodin said at the last session of parliament, the State Duma, before it goes on…