The Russian military has sustained over 10,000 verifiable deaths in the course of its nine-month invasion of Ukraine, according to open-source research conducted by the BBC and independent Russian news outlet MediaZone that was released on Friday. Among the 10,002 dead servicemen identified in the investigation are scores of elite servicemen belonging to Russian airborne…
French energy group TotalEnergies said Friday it was withdrawing from the board of Russian gas giant Novatek and taking a $3.7 billion hit in the wake of sanctions against Moscow. While other Western oil and gas majors have exited Russia following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, TotalEnergies has come under criticism for maintaining investments in the country. The…
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has backed out of an annual Russia-India summit because of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Bloomberg reported Friday citing an anonymous source in the Indian government. Modi believes that drawing too much attention to the relationship with the Kremlin could be damaging to his image,…
A Chechen dissident blogger living in Sweden who it was claimed earlier this week had been murdered is reportedly still alive, according to Chechen government in exile. “Tumso Abdurakhmanov is alive and is under the protection of the Swedish police,” news website Kavkaz.Realii, an affiliate of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, quoted the government-in-exile’s press officer…
Слово года 2022: Word of the year, 2022 Every year a group of Russian word-watchers track all the words and expressions that seem to capture the spirit — or obsessions — of the year coming to an end. The group, headed by linguist and professor of Russian language and literature Mikhail Epstein, is made up…
American basketball star Brittney Griner arrived in the United States Friday morning after being released from a Russian prison in exchange for an arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death.” Griner, 32, who was arrested in Russia in February on drug charges, was seen by an AFP reporter walking across a runway after her…
American basketball star Brittney Griner returned to the United States after she was released from a Russian prison in exchange for an arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death.” Griner’s family and WNBA teammates rejoiced at the news that the star athlete’s imprisonment in Russia on drug charges had come to an end. Russia’s…
Russia’s largest social network VKontakte has started labeling LGBT-themed pages on its site with warnings that they may violate draconian legislation signed into law this week banning the depiction of non-heterosexual relationships and identities. “There may be controversial material in this community,” a warning label displayed to potential visitors reads before allowing users the option…
Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was freed in a prisoner swap with U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner, told Kremlin-run media on Friday that Western countries are seeking to “destroy” and “divide” Russia. “The West believes that they did not finish us off in 1990, when the Soviet Union began to disintegrate… They think that they…
A Moscow court on Friday sentenced prominent opposition politician Ilya Yashin to eight and a half years in jail for spreading “false” information about the Russian military in his criticism of the Kremlin invasion of Ukraine. The 39-year-old Moscow city councilor was found guilty for saying that occupying Russian forces in Ukraine were responsible for…
Millions of barrels of oil on apparently non-Russian tankers were stuck in Turkish waters due to Ankara’s proof-of-insurance demands as part of a Western price cap on Russian crude, Bloomberg reported Thursday. Shipping data compiled by the news agency showed 26 tankers with more than 23 million barrels of oil from Kazakhstan had been unable…
A massive fire at one of Russia’s largest shopping malls has killed one person and burned down a formerly German-owned home improvement store in northwest Moscow, emergency officials and state media reported early Friday. The fire, which broke out before dawn, engulfed 18,000 square meters of the MEGA Khimki mall at its peak. It was eventually contained…