Month: July 2022

Russia must work to overcome “colossal” high-tech problems caused by Western sanctions imposed on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin said Monday. “This is a huge challenge for our country,” Putin said, accusing Western countries of deliberately blocking access to high-tech products for Russia. “Realizing the colossal amount of difficulties we are…

Russians are facing longer-than-normal waiting times for Schengen visas as tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions have left European embassies in Moscow short-staffed and demand for summer travel surges.  Limited appointment slots are available at most embassies’ visa centers, with all slots at the visa centers of France, Greece and Spain fully booked for July, according to travel…

Russian shelling in battle-scarred east Ukraine on Monday left six dead, Kyiv said, as the country was reeling from President Volodymyr Zelensky’s decision to sack two senior law enforcement officials. EU foreign ministers were convening meanwhile to discuss toughening sanctions against Moscow and the bloc’s foreign policy chief warned of the “life and death” consequences…

Russia’s defense minister has instructed the country’s Armed Forces based in eastern Ukraine to prioritize strikes on Ukraine’s long-range weapons, according to a statement circulated by news agencies Monday. Sergei Shoigu issued the instructions to the Vostok (“East”) Battalion as part of his second publicly announced visit to the frontline since Russia invaded Ukraine in…

Russia’s most modern and technologically advanced tank, the T-90M, has appeared in photos and videos in Ukraine just a handful of times since the beginning of the invasion.  One video posted online last week showed a T-90M on a mud road, hidden under trees.  But its relative rarity — and technological sophistication — has not…

Ukraine’s atomic energy agency accused Russia of using Europe’s largest nuclear power plant to store weapons and shell the surrounding regions of Nikopol and Dnipro that were hit Saturday. Petro Kotin, president of Ukrainian nuclear agency Energoatom, called the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant “extremely tense” with up to 500 Russian soldiers controlling the plant. The…

Russian energy giant Gazprom said Saturday it had asked German group Siemens to return a turbine it has repaired in Canada to ensure the Nord Stream pipeline delivering gas to Europe works. Gazprom started 10 days of maintenance on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline on Monday, with the European Union — particularly gas-reliant Germany —…

Kremlin critic Andrei Pivovarov, the former head of pro-democracy group Open Russia, has been sentenced to four years in prison on charges of “undesirable” activities, his team said Friday.  Pivovarov, 40, has been in detention since May 2021, when he was removed from a Warsaw-bound plane by security services amid the country’s wide-reaching crackdown on…

The United States said Friday it would resume flights to the International Space Station with Russia, despite its attempts to isolate Moscow over the invasion of Ukraine. “To ensure continued safe operations of the International Space Station, protect the lives of astronauts and ensure continuous U.S. presence in space, NASA will resume integrated crews on U.S.…

The head of Russia’s space agency, who has made headlines with his bombastic statements and support for Moscow’s Ukraine offensive, has been relieved of his duties and will get a new job, the Kremlin said Friday. Dmitry Rogozin, a firebrand nationalist politician and one of the most ardent supporters of Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine, was…

Russia said its strikes on the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia targeted a Ukrainian military meeting, as rescuers on the ground continued to search for survivors from the attack that killed at least 23 civilians. The Russian Defense Ministry said Friday that it was targeting a meeting between Ukrainian air force officials and foreign arms…

Paul Urey, a British aid worker captured in Ukraine by pro-Russian forces, has died in captivity, an official in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) said Friday. Urey, 45, was captured near the occupied southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia in April. He and fellow British aid volunteer Dylan Healy were charged with “mercenary” activity, an offense…

Rescue workers were digging through debris Friday, a day after Russian missiles tore through Vinnytsia in central Ukraine, killing nearly two dozen people, including children, in an attack President Volodymyr Zelensky said was an act of terrorism. Russia claimed Friday the strikes — hundreds of the kilometres from the front lines — had targeted a…

Russia has designated the Bellingcat investigative outlet as an “undesirable” organization on Friday, outlawing its operations inside the country. Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office accused Bellingcat and its Russian partner The Insider of “posing a threat to the security of the Russian Federation.”  Any Russian who cooperates with the outlets or cites their work now faces…

Russian forces are believed to have paused their grueling offensive in eastern Ukraine to rest soldiers and re-position for their next assaults while simultaneously stepping up rocket attacks on Ukrainian cities, military analysts told The Moscow Times. In the latest strike on a Ukrainian city, at least 23 civilians, including three children, were killed Thursday…

A court in Far East Russia has acquitted feminist and LGBT activist Yulia Tsvetkova of “pornography” charges for what supporters call body-positive images posted on social media, her mother said Friday. Tsvetkova, 29, spent several months under house arrest after authorities in the remote city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur launched a criminal case into the “spread of…

U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner’s Russian team praised her contribution to the country’s sport on Thursday as they shared testimony during her high-profile trial. Griner, a two-time Olympic basketball gold medalist and WNBA champion who had played in Russia, was detained in February, just days before Moscow launched its offensive in Ukraine. The 31-year-old was charged with…

Russia’s development of 5G cellular network coverage is on hold due to the exit of major global telecom providers and constraints posed by government regulations, the Business St. Petersburg news outlet reported Wednesday, citing industry experts.  Russia’s digital developments ministry earlier this month said it aims to facilitate the 5G network’s expansion in Russia, including…

Natalia Tikhonova was at an anti-war rally in Moscow’s Zaryadye Park, ​​a few hundred meters from the Kremlin, when police detained her.  “Where are you taking me?” the 30-year-old mother with a young son asked as she was put inside a police van.  “To improve the gene pool of the nation,” a police officer replied.…

Germany will halt imports of Russian coal from next month and Russian oil by the end of the year, a top economic aide to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced amid pressure on European countries to end their dependence on Russian energy following its invasion of Ukraine. “We will be off Russian coal in a few weeks,”…

Russian missiles struck Vinnytsia in central Ukraine Thursday, killing at least 20 people including three children, in what President Volodymyr Zelensky called “an open act of terrorism.” The midday attack on the city hundreds of kilometers from the frontlines and invading Russian troops came as EU officials convened in The Hague to discuss war crimes…

President Vladimir Putin signed into law Thursday legislation expanding the “foreign agent” label to encompass anyone deemed to have fallen under “foreign influence.” Russia’s registry of “foreign agents,” a name with Soviet-era connotations, lists “politically active” people and organizations that Russian authorities determine to have received foreign funding and subjects them to strict auditing requirements.…

Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine have captured a U.S. citizen for allegedly taking part in pro-Ukrainian rallies, accusations that his friends and family deny, The Guardian reported Wednesday. Suedi Murekezi, 35, is the third American national known to be held by pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine’s separatist-controlled city of Donetsk. He had moved to Ukraine…

Kazakhstan must work to accommodate the hundreds of international businesses that have left Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, the ex-Soviet republic’s president said Thursday. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has walked a diplomatic tightrope since the start of the war in February, maintaining close ties with Moscow while refusing to recognize the independence of Kremlin-backed separatists in eastern…

News Analysis Rewriting History, Putin Pitches Russia as Defender of an Expanding Motherland In an emotional and angry speech, the president justified his decision to recognize breakaway states in Eastern Ukraine as independent.

Russia’s lower house of parliament will gather for an “extraordinary” meeting Friday amid speculation that deputies could sign off on a major policy announcement or government reshuffle. The meeting comes as Russia faces mounting domestic and foreign policy problems, from the dragging war in Ukraine to the economic fallout of sanctions.   But the suddenness of…

The European Union on Wednesday said Lithuania had an obligation to allow the passage of sanctioned goods, with the exception of weapons, between Russia and its exclave of Kaliningrad. While transit by road was not allowed, legal guidance released by the EU executive said that “no such prohibition exists for rail transport” from Russia to…

A court in Moscow arrested opposition activist and former municipal deputy Ilya Yashin on Wednesday after he was charged with spreading false information about the Russian Armed Forces.  Yashin, 39, will stay in prison until at least Sept. 12.  “This case is politically motivated from first to last,” Yashin, who denies the charges, said in…

Russia and Ukraine on Wednesday held their first direct negotiations since March in a bid to break an impasse over grain exports that has seen food prices soar and millions face hunger. The high-stakes meeting involving UN and Turkish officials in Istanbul broke up after slightly more than three hours without any immediate signs of…

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia Wednesday of forcibly deporting up to 1.6 million Ukrainians to Russia, accusing Moscow of a deliberate criminal operation to depopulate parts of Ukraine. In a statement a day before the Ukraine Accountability Conference in the Hague on alleged war crimes in Ukraine, Blinken said Moscow is conducting…

The number of financial fraud schemes in Russia tripled in the first half of 2022 compared to the same period last year, the Russian Central Bank said Wednesday.  Many of the illegal projects included pyramid schemes, according to the regulator. “Worried about the possibility of economic difficulties, people have been searching for new methods of…

Belarus on Wednesday sentenced a young journalist who covered protests against President Alexander Lukashenko to an additional eight years in prison for “state treason,” the channel she worked for said. Katerina Bakhvalova — who uses the pen name Katerina Andreyeva — was already serving a two-year sentence for “violating public order” and was due to…

The first Russian female soldier has died in Ukraine four and a half months into Russia’s war against its pro-Western neighbor, local media reported Tuesday. Anastasia Savitskaya was a corporal from the southwestern Russian city of Volgograd, according to the v1.ru news website. It was not clear where in Ukraine, or under what circumstances, she had…

Several towns and villages are in deep water and dozens of locals have been forced to evacuate after heavy rains broke a dam in Siberia’s republic of Sakha earlier this week. Russia’s largest and coldest region located in remote northeastern Siberia, the republic of Sakha is also witnessing the creeping advance of climate change firsthand.…

The European Space Agency (ESA) pulled the plug Tuesday on a joint Russian-European rover mission to Mars in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. ESA chief Josef Aschbacher tweeted that the agency’s council of ministers had determined the circumstances surrounding the March suspension of cooperation with Russia over ExoMars “continue to prevail” and that the official partnership…

President Vladimir Putin’s youngest daughter Katerina Tikhonova has been appointed to oversee Russia’s struggling import substitution program at a leading business lobby group, the RBC news website reported Wednesday.  Western sanctions and the exit of Western companies following the invasion of Ukraine mean Russia has seen a collapse in imports and is facing shortages of key…

The Russian company that took over McDonald’s restaurants has banned visitors from charging phones and taking photographs inside some of its locations, Russian media reported Tuesday. The brand known as “Vkusno i Tochka” (“Delicious. Full Stop”) has posted written instructions about the restrictions, visitors at one location in central Moscow told the Podyom news website.…

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…