Day: October 18, 2022

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its “partial” military mobilization are pushing the country’s population decline to a historic precipice, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.  President Vladimir Putin has made reversing Russia’s demographic crisis a key goal and his government aimed to start stabilizing the country’s declining population numbers this year. Mass war casualties, Putin’s “partial” mobilization of 300,000…

Ten days after being mobilized into the Russian army, Igor Puchkov was killed fighting in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region.  The 27-year-old father of two was sent into combat with no military instruction beyond what he had received during his compulsory military service as a teenager, according to relatives.   “We were outraged when he was sent…

Germany’s cybersecurity chief has been sacked after a TV satire show accused him of having ties to the Russian intelligence services, an interior ministry spokesman told AFP on Tuesday. Arne Schönbohm, head of the Federal Cyber Security Authority (BSI), had been relieved of his duties “with immediate effect,” the spokesperson said. “The background to this…

Estonian lawmakers on Tuesday condemned Moscow’s annexation of Ukrainian territory and declared Russia a “terrorist regime.” The statement was adopted by 88 votes in favor in the country’s 101-seat legislature. Ten MPs were absent and three abstained. The parliament “declares Russia a terrorist regime and the Russian Federation a country that supports terrorism,” the statement…

​​Russia has handed down one of its first criminal cases on secretly working with a foreign government to undermine national security to a Moscow resident, Interfax reported Tuesday.  Lawmakers criminalized “confidential” cooperation with foreign individuals, states or organizations in June, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine plunged the country into isolation and catalyzed a historic crackdown…

The Kremlin said Tuesday that the investigation into the explosions that tore through the Nord Stream gas pipelines was being “tailored” to place the blame on Russia. Explosions in early September sent natural gas bubbling up from the pipelines on the floor of the Baltic Sea to the surface in a major environmental disaster that…

Officials in two Russian regions bordering Ukraine blamed Kyiv for new strikes on their territory Tuesday. Train traffic in the Belgorod region was temporarily brought to a halt after shelling struck a railway station and damaged the railroad tracks, the region’s Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on his official Telegram channel. One man was wounded by…

American oil giant ExxonMobil has completed its exit from the Russian market after President Vladimir Putin ordered the expropriation of its assets, the company said.  ExxonMobil had been in negotiations with the Russian authorities to sell its more than $4 billion in assets — including its largest Russian investment, a 30% stake in the Sakhalin-1…

Updates with new casualty figures. A military aircraft crashed Monday into a residential building in the southern port town of Yeysk in Russia’s Krasnodar region, Interfax news agency reported, citing local officials. Russia’s Defense Ministry said a Su-34 fighter jet crashed after taking off from a local airfield for a training flight, the state-run RIA…