Russian President Vladimir Putin will attempt to shore up Russia’s regional authority on a visit Friday to the Central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan for a summit of a Moscow-led trade bloc, analysts and an ex-official told The Moscow Times. The war in Ukraine has not only led to Western sanctions on Russia and wide-spread condemnation…
A former Russian paratrooper who took part in the Russian invasion of Ukraine before fleeing the country and writing a book about his experience has taken the prominent human rights NGO Gulagu.net, which helped him leave Russia, to court in an attempt to win back the royalties for his work. Pavel Filatyev’s lawsuit claims that…
Russia and the U.S. on Thursday conducted a one-for-one prisoner swap that secured the release of American basketball star Brittney Griner in exchange for Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout. Bout, 55, was meant to serve a 25-year sentence in a prison in Illinois after being convicted of a handful of offenses by the U.S. courts,…
Russia and the United States have exchanged the U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner for notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, U.S. and Russian officials said Thursday. The WNBA star, who was serving a nine-year-prison sentence in a Russian jail on drug charges, was released on Thursday in a one-for-one swap for Bout, an arms dealer…
Russian-annexed Crimea remains at risk of Ukrainian attacks, the Kremlin said Thursday after Russian-aligned authorities claimed to have shot down a drone over the Black Sea peninsula. The Crimean affiliate of the U.S. news organization RFE/RL reported hearing powerful explosions in the port of Sevastopol, which is home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Sevastopol’s Kremlin-aligned Governor…
A court in Norway has acquitted the dual-national son of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s former ally on charges of defying a ban on flying drones, media reported late Wednesday. Andrei Yakunin, 47, was arrested in October on accusations of launching drones from his luxury yacht over the strategic Arctic archipelago of Svalbard last summer. Yakunin,…
Russia hit back Thursday at widely reported data which placed the country as a leader in new HIV infections worldwide as “provocative propaganda.” Russia accounted for 3.9% — the world’s fifth-highest share — of the 1.5 million new HIV cases reported around the world in 2021, the data platform Statista said last Thursday, citing the Joint…