Year: 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday declared martial law in four Ukrainian regions that Moscow claims to have annexed as the Russian military continues to be plagued by setbacks in its eight-month offensive. “I signed a decree to introduce martial law in these four subjects of the Russian Federation,” Putin said during a televised meeting of…

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Wednesday that he had agreed with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to create a “gas hub” in Turkey, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported. During an address to the Turkish parliament, Erdogan cited Putin as saying Europe could obtain its gas supply from the hub in Turkey…

Pro-Kremlin officials were pulling out of the key southern Ukraine city of Kherson on Wednesday, as Kyiv’s forces advanced on territory in Russian hands since the war’s earliest days. Kherson was the first major city to fall to Moscow’s troops after the February invasion and retaking it would be a major prize in Ukraine’s ongoing…

Ukraine has removed its ambassador to Kazakhstan in Central Asia, according to a decree published on the presidential website, after remarks he made about Russia spurred condemnation from Moscow. Russia’s Foreign Ministry had urged Kazakhstan to expel Petro Vrublevsky after he gave an interview in which he made comments about “killing” Russians. He later apologized…

A Russian analyst who contributed explosive details to the so-called “Steele dossier” that alleged close ties between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia has been acquitted on charges of lying to the FBI about the sources of his intelligence, Reuters reported. Igor Danchenko, a Russian-born researcher, was acquitted by a U.S. jury on four charges…

Heightened Tensions 4 Russians Arrested in Norway for Breaking Photography Ban For the third time in a week, police in northern Norway have detained Russian citizens for taking photos in areas where photography is banned. While the…

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…

Updates with initial 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…

Former Russian state television journalist Marina Ovsyannikova, 44, has escaped house arrest and left Russia, her lawyer Dmitry Zakhvatov told Russian media outlet Avtozaklive on Monday.  “Marina Ovsyannikova was forced to leave Russia and is now safe, under the protection of a European country,” Zakhvatov said. The former editor on Russian state TV’s flagship news…

Iran is planning to aid Moscow’s war in Ukraine by sending more weapons to Moscow, according to anonymous U.S. and Western security officials, the Washington Post reported.  The planned weapons delivery from Tehran could include two types of surface-to-surface missiles, officials said, adding to the Iranian attack drones reportedly supplied to Moscow back in August. …

For several weeks following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Alina used a needle every other hour to prick her two-year-old diabetic son’s finger and measure his glucose levels.  “Pricking the fingers of a two-year-old baby so many times a day is just torture,” she told The Moscow Times. “[But] we had no choice.” Prior to the…

Army draft offices will close in Moscow from Monday as the Kremlin’s quotas for recruiting reservists to fight in Ukraine have been met in the capital, city mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced.  “Assembly points for mobilized people will close on October 17, 2022, at 2:00 pm,” Sobyanin said on his website.  He said “the task of partial…

Updates with Zelensky comments and Defense Ministry statement. Russian-launched “kamikaze drones” attacked Kyiv early Monday, the Ukrainian presidency said, describing the strikes as an act of desperation nearly eight months into a war that has claimed thousands of lives. Air raid sirens sounded in Kyiv shortly before the first explosion at around 6:35 a.m., followed…

The Russian Belgorod region bordering Ukraine was hit by strikes on Sunday, leaving at least four people injured in the latest attacks in the area, Russian officials said. “As a result of shelling in Belgorod, three people from the same family were injured,” regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov posted on Telegram on Sunday after visiting the…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday the situation was “the most difficult” near the eastern town of Bakhmut, a few days after pro-Russian forces announced they were moving closer to the city.  “A very severe situation persists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions” in the Donbas, Zelensky said in his daily address, “the most difficult…

Norway said Saturday it arrested a Russian national carrying a drone and camera equipment after he was seen taking photos of an airport in the far north, the second such arrest in a week. Norway is on high alert following reports of mysterious drone sightings close to offshore oil and gas drilling platforms run by…

Russia said two gunmen from an ex-Soviet state on Saturday attacked a military training ground killing 11 people who had volunteered to fight in Ukraine and wounding 15 others. Russia’s defense ministry said the attack in the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, happened during a firearms training session. Russia launched what it calls a special…

The first Russian soldiers to take part in a new joint force with Belarusian troops have arrived in Belarus, Minsk’s defense ministry said on Saturday. “The first convoys of Russian servicemen from the regional force group have arrived in Belarus,” the ministry said, adding that their mission was “exclusively to strengthen the protection and defence…

Iran has once again rejected allegations that it has supplied Russia with weapons “to be used in the war in Ukraine,” its Foreign Ministry said Saturday. Kyiv and many of its Western allies have accused Moscow of using Iranian-made drones in attacks on Ukraine in recent weeks. The topic is expected to be discussed by…

St. Petersburg lawyer Andrei Nikiforov was drafted into the Russian army four days after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “partial” mobilization in a bid to solve the military’s manpower problems in the ongoing Ukraine war.  Less than two weeks later, Nikiforov became one of the first mobilized men to be killed as Ukraine pushed…

Russian President Vladimir Putin shed some light on his current state of mind regarding the war in Ukraine at a press conference in the Kazakh capital Astana on Friday. Among the takeaways from the president’s rare Q&A session was the announcement that Russia’s “partial” mobilization campaign would be coming to an end in a matter…

Russian military recruiters appear to be employing new and increasingly desperate methods to round up men for the Kremlin’s “partial” mobilization drive.  Military and law enforcement officials in Moscow and St. Petersburg on Friday were seen inspecting the identity papers of passers-by around the entrance to metro stations and handing out draft notices to eligible…

Rapes and sexual assaults attributed to Moscow’s forces in Ukraine are part of a Russian “military strategy” and a “deliberate tactic to dehumanize the victims,” UN envoy Pramila Patten told AFP in an interview on Thursday. “All the indications are there,” the UN special representative on sexual violence told AFP, when asked if rape was…

At a bookshop in Kyiv, 33-year-old Yulia Sydorenko was dumping an entire collection of old books – some gifts from childhood friends – that have recently lost their appeal. Why? They were written in Russian. “Since February 24, Russian books have no place in my house,” Sydorenko said, referring to the day Russian President Vladimir…

French food giant Danone announced plans on Friday to transfer the control of its essential dairy and plant-based business in Russia, retaining only its infant nutrition branch. One of the few multinationals to have remained in Russia since the Ukraine war, Danone said the move to “transfer the effective control” of the dairy business could…

The United States is pressing allies to hastily build Ukraine a patchwork air defense network using NATO-compatible equipment – some ultra-modern, others older – to protect strategic targets from Russian strikes. The effort was given added urgency after Moscow pummeled Ukraine with missiles this week, damaging energy facilities nationwide and leaving at least 20 people…

The Kremlin-installed governor of Ukraine’s Kherson region, which the Kremlin says it has annexed, appealed to Moscow to help evacuate civilians from the area on Thursday, in yet another sign that the Ukrainian military’s southern counteroffensive is continuing to gain ground.  “Сities in the Kherson region are coming under daily rocket attacks,” Vladimir Saldo said…

The Israeli government has said it intends to open temporary camps in Azerbaijan for Russian Jews seeking to move to Israel in the wake of the war in Ukraine. On Oct. 2, the government of Israel approved a proposal to facilitate the immigration of Russian Jews to Israel, amid the largest wave of Russian emigration…

Russian lawmakers have proposed a bill that would allow the granting of amnesties to prisoners enlisting to fight in Ukraine, according to Senator Olga Kovitidi on Thursday. “If a convict shows courage and heroism while performing military duty … the court may release him from serving his sentence … or commute the remainder of the…

Swedish furniture giant IKEA announced that it would be making around 10,000 of its remaining Russian staff redundant on Thursday, despite posting a 6% rise in full-year sales in what it described as a “challenging” year due to inflation and scaling back in Russia. The 2022 fiscal year “was a challenging year for the world,…

Russia’s foreign ministry said Thursday it had summoned envoys of Germany, Denmark and Sweden to express “bewilderment” over Moscow’s exclusion from an investigation into leaks on the Nord Stream pipelines. Multiple leaks were discovered on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines connecting Russia to Germany, further raising political tensions already sky-high since the Kremlin…

The Russian authorities have resorted to raiding hostels and hotels in search of men who may be eligible for military service as part of the country’s “partial” mobilization, according to multiple media reports.  Two Moscow locations of the Travel Inn hostel chain were visited by the police last week, according to a report by broadcaster…

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday told his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Moscow would consider developing a “gas hub” in Turkey, with Russia’s supplies to Europe disrupted by Ukraine-related sanctions and leaks at key pipelines. “Turkey has turned out to be the most reliable route for deliveries today, even to Europe. We could…

The Kremlin has responded with fury to the attack on the Crimean Bridge on Saturday, launching a devastating series of missile attacks on Ukrainian cities in which it has targeted civilian infrastructure in an attempt to terrorize the local population. By now quite accustomed to the privations of war, Ukrainians have responded with hardened resolve…

A copy of an ambitious Russian plan for the reconstruction of the city of Mariupol — the occupied Ukrainian port city largely reduced to rubble by Russian forces in one of the most brutal battles in the Ukraine conflict to date — was published on Wednesday by Russian news website The Village. The plan, which…

One of the by-products of the Ukraine war has been the emergence of the online “Z-Universe,” an enormous network of websites and social media accounts named after a popular pro-war symbol. It is most active on Telegram, which, unlike Twitter and Facebook, is not banned in Russia. All its participants spread pro-Kremlin and anti-Ukrainian propaganda,…

In his brand new co-working space in Chelyabinsk, a city in central Russia, entrepreneur Maxim Novikov is counting the empty seats. The space is usually overflowing with designers, programmers and young Russians working on their start-ups. But since President Vladimir Putin announced a mobilization of hundreds of thousands of young Russian men last month, the…

Russian President Vladimir Putin must “return to the table” to discuss making peace in Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday, adding that he thought Kyiv would have to negotiate with him at some point. “Today, first of all, Vladimir Putin must stop this war, respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and come back to the table…

The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted to condemn Russia’s annexation of parts of Ukraine after Moscow vetoed a similar effort in the Security Council. The General Assembly approved the resolution with 143 in favor and five against but 35 nations abstained including China, India, South Africa and Pakistan despite a major US…

Over 90,000 Russian soldiers have died, cannot be accounted for, or have suffered such serious injuries that they are unable to return to service, independent Russian media project iStories reported on Wednesday, citing sources close to the Kremlin. The figure falls roughly in line with estimates made by the Pentagon and other Western governments in…

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday said his country was a reliable energy supplier and blamed the West for disruptions on the market at an energy forum in Moscow. After the Nord Stream pipelines connecting Russia to Europe were damaged by explosions, Putin said “the ball was in the EU’s court” to resume deliveries. “If…

The Kremlin on Wednesday denied reports that Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin before he tweeted his proposal for ending the war in Ukraine. The U.S. billionaire sparked controversy last week when he tweeted a proposed peace deal involving re-running referendums on annexation under UN supervision in Moscow-occupied areas;…

Dozens of Russian cities have canceled or scaled back planned New Year’s Eve celebrations as the war strains local budgets and calls grow for money to be diverted to mobilized Russian soldiers lacking basic equipment and supplies. “After Feb. 24, most people believed it [the war] would not affect them personally. But now it will…

Russian authorities are mobilizing men from the country’s most vulnerable groups to send to the front in Ukraine, the independent Mediazona news website reported Tuesday. In Moscow, security officers have taken men to military enlistment centers from charity centers for the homeless and needy as well as hostels where labor migrants live, Mediazona reported. The…

Authorities in St. Petersburg have launched criminal proceedings against a pensioner who allegedly placed a handwritten note wishing death to Russian President Vladimir Putin on the grave of his parents.  Irina Tsybaneva, 60, was arrested at her St. Petersburg home on Monday on charges of “desecration of the bodies of the dead and their burial…

The Druzhba oil pipeline linking Russia and Germany has been partly shut after a leak was discovered in Poland, the Polish PERN operator said on Wednesday. “The cause of the incident is not known for the moment. Pumping in the affected line was immediately stopped. Line 2 of the pipeline is functioning normally,” the operator…

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said it has arrested eight suspects in last week’s apparent attack that tore apart the Crimean Bridge and killed three people, Interfax reported Wednesday.  Five Russians, three Ukrainians and one Armenian were detained over their alleged involvement in the Oct. 8 explosion that collapsed a road segment and caused a…

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday told UN nuclear agency chief Rafael Grossi he was “open to dialogue” on Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in territory controlled by Moscow’s forces in southern Ukraine. In televised comments with Grossi ahead of their meeting in Saint Petersburg, Putin told the IAEA chief he was “ready to discuss all…

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko claimed Monday that Ukraine was readying an attack on Belarus and announced the formation of a “joint military group” with Russia.  “Ukraine is not just discussing but planning strikes on the territory of Belarus,” Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said during a meeting with security officials, according…