Norway’s counter-intelligence service (PST) on Friday revealed what it said was the true identity of a Russian spy posing as a Brazilian researcher. The PST named the suspect as Mikhail Mikushin, a Russian born in 1978, who they said had been passing himself off as a 37-year-old Brazilian named Jose Assis Giammaria. Mikushin is a…
Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu announced that on Friday that the partial mobilization campaign declared to boost the Russian military campaign in Ukraine has come to an end. “The dispatch of citizens called up during mobilization was completed today. The notification of citizens [to report for military duty] has ended,” the state-run RIA Novosti quoted…
The battle for the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut has intensified as Russian troops led by the murky Wagner mercenary group relentlessly exchange artillery fire with Ukrainian forces in their attempt to seize the small but strategically important city. The fighting, which has grown increasingly deadly in recent days, underscores Russia’s desperation to declare a…
Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who spent more than a decade in a U.S. jail before being returned to Russia in a prisoner swap, was appointed a member of Russia’s Civic Chamber by President Vladimir Putin on Friday. Yaroshenko, who was arrested in Liberia in 2010 and extradited to the United States on drug charges, was…
The Russian Central Bank kept its key rate at 7.5% on Friday, an expected measure aimed at supporting the economy against a global trend of rising borrowing costs. For the first time since the beginning of the military operation in Ukraine, the key rate remains unchanged. After Russia was hit by Western sanctions over the Ukraine offensive,…
Russia on Friday put the son of a senior official arrested in Italy on a U.S. order for alleged sanctions evasion on a wanted list, potentially paving the way for Moscow to demand his extradition. Artyom Uss, the son of a Siberian governor, was arrested at Milan’s Malpensa Airport on Oct. 17, with Washington saying…
President Vladimir Putin’s veiled threats to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine have fueled huge increases in demand for iodine pills in Russia, the RBC news website reported Thursday. Potassium iodide sales in Russian pharmacies have risen by 150% since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, RBC cited the pharmaceutical marketing agency DSM Group as saying. …