Day: July 12, 2022

Russian authorities have launched a criminal case against Ilya Yashin, one of the last opposition figures remaining in the country, for allegedly spreading false information about the Russian army, his lawyer said Tuesday. “I got a call from an investigator – they are beginning to search his home,” lawyer Vadim Prokhorov said on Facebook. In…

Several villages in Russia’s Far East republic of Sakha are facing severe flooding following heavy rainfall, local authorities said, prompting a state of emergency in the country’s coldest and largest region. The government of Sakha said the rains had broken structures around a dam and left a remote village in Siberia “almost entirely” flooded. “Due…

For legal adviser Andrei Rinchino, each day begins by sorting through dozens of new messages from Russian soldiers and their families.  Each message is different but all are looking for the same thing: Rinchino’s guidance on how to quit the Russian army or avoid being sent to fight in Ukraine.  “A couple of weeks ago…

The world’s largest toymaker, Denmark’s Lego, said Tuesday it would stop all its Russian operations, ending the employment of its Moscow staff and a partnership with a company operating 81 stores in Russia. A Lego spokeswoman said the company had decided to “indefinitely cease commercial operations in Russia given the continued extensive disruption in the…

Russia has fined American tech giant Apple for failing to store Russian citizens’ personal data on Russia-based servers, Interfax reported Tuesday.  The fine comes amid Russia’s wider crackdown on Western tech companies in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine that has seen Facebook and Instagram banned as “extremist” organizations and Twitter blocked. Moscow’s Tagansky…

We are deeply saddened to write that Francesca Mereu, an author, playwright, tireless advocate of blues music and former Moscow Times reporter who split her time until recently between Moscow and Alabama, died June 24 in Tijuana, Mexico. Since 2011, Francesca published three books in her native Italian—one on Putin, one on Russia’s transition to capitalism…

Coronavirus cases have risen steeply in Russia’s capital Moscow over the past week, the city’s health authorities said. Many of the infections are of the Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5. “Over the course of the past week, there has been a 57% rise in new cases of Covid-19 compared to the previous week,” Moscow social…

The Russian owner of British ethical cosmetics retailer Lush is being forced to close its stores in the country due to supply chain disruptions stemming from wartime sanctions, the Kommersant business daily reported Tuesday.  Lush was among the hundreds of international brands that suspended operations in Russia in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Lush Russia is…

Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing visited Moscow Tuesday, Russian media reported, as the U.S. vowed to put pressure on his military regime over a 2021 coup.  Russia’s Embassy in Myanmar told the Interfax news agency that Hlaing was in Moscow on a “private” visit.  “He plans to take part in the opening of a…

Russia has registered its first case of monkeypox, federal health authorities confirmed Tuesday. “The infection was found in a young man who came back from a trip through European countries and went to a medical facility with a characteristic rash,” state consumer protection watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said in a statement.  Rospotrebnadzor said the patient, whose symptoms…

Authorities in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson occupied by pro-Russia forces said Tuesday that Ukrainian shelling on a city there had killed seven people.  “There are already seven dead and around 60 wounded” following artillery fire on the city of Nova Kakhovka, the head of the Moscow-backed administration, Vladimir Leontiev, said on Telegram. It…

Around 150 soldiers from a Siberian region with one of the highest military death tolls in the Ukraine war have refused deployment, a prominent activist has said. The men returned home to the republic of Buryatia over the weekend after their wives pleaded for their return in a rare video appeal last month, according to…