Year: 2022

Russia’s largest carmaker AvtoVaz regained its top sales spot in the Russian capital last month for the first time in more than a decade, according to market researcher Autostat. The car market in Russia has been cleared of most competition after Western and Asian automakers suspended operations after the invasion of Ukraine or faced supply shortages…

Russia saw a 22% fall in laptop sales in July compared to the same month last year, Kommersant newspaper reported Thursday, amid the exit of Western brands over the war in Ukraine and an economic slowdown.  A total of 222,000 laptops valued at 13.1 billion rubles ($217 million) were sold in Russia in July, Kommersant…

A prominent Russian human rights activist and member of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s human rights council has been hospitalized after an attacker attempted to stab him in the throat with broken glass.  “Igor Kalyapin was attacked by an unknown assailant in the Nizhny Novgorod region on Wednesday night,” the presidential human rights council said in a…

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was in Kyiv on Wednesday, hailing Ukraine’s six-month long resistance to the Russian invasion as his counterpart President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed the fight would continue “until the end”. Wednesday marked half a year since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the large-scale invasion of Ukraine, as well as the day the…

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered one-off support payments to be made to the parents of schoolchildren in parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia, according to an order posted Wednesday on the Kremlin website.  Parents of children aged between 6 and 18 years old in Russia-controlled areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv and Kherson regions will, according…

Almost 16,500 people have been detained across Russia for protesting the war in the 6 months since the invasion of Ukraine, according to data published Wednesday by an independent human rights group. The overwhelming majority of detentions came in the first month of the fighting before Russian lawmakers passed legislation criminalizing virtually any speech or…

A Russian-appointed official in southeastern Ukraine’s occupied region of Zaporizhzhia was killed in a car bomb attack, a member of the Moscow-backed regional administration said Wednesday. The assassination of Ivan Sushko, who headed the town of Mykhailivka, is the latest of several attacks against pro-Russian officials in the occupied regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in…

Six months after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops into neighboring Ukraine, the bloody war shows no sign of ending soon. Thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the invasion, according to the UN’s human rights office. Ukrainians who made the choice not to flee the country have faced challenges from water and…

Russia and Ukraine traded accusations Tuesday over who was endangering the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, as the United Nations urged both sides to insulate the Ukrainian facility from the ongoing war. Russia called the meeting at the United Nations Security Council to discuss the dangers that close shelling and a military presence posed to the power…

Yevgeny Roizman, a former opposition mayor of one of Russia’s largest cities, was detained Wednesday on criminal charges related to his public criticism of the invasion of Ukraine, media outlets reported. Ex-Yekaterinburg mayor Roizman said he was being charged under legislation that forbids the “discreditation” of the Russian Armed Forces. If found guilty, he faces…

Kyiv accused Moscow on Tuesday of having organized illegal mass adoptions of Ukrainian children after transferring them from occupied territories to Russia. Since the beginning of the war, Kyiv has been accusing Moscow of “deporting” Ukrainians, saying Ukrainians from occupied territories have been forced to go to Russia rather than other regions of Ukraine. “The…

Porsches, Bentleys and other luxury cars with Russian license plates are filling up the parking garage at Helsinki’s airport as Finland becomes an important transit country for Russian tourists flying to Europe. The European Union shut its airspace to Russian planes after Moscow invaded Ukraine, forcing anyone who wants to travel to Europe to drive…

Hundreds of mourners gathered Tuesday for the Moscow funeral of Daria Dugina, the adult daughter of a prominent nationalist philosopher, after she was killed in a car bombing that Moscow blames on Kyiv. Her father Alexander Dugin — a vocal supporter of the Kremlin’s military campaign in Ukraine — is thought to have been the…

Russian tech giant Yandex said Tuesday it has reached a “binding” deal to sell its news platform and homepage to rival VK as war-related sanctions fuel uncertainty over the Russian tech industry’s future. VK said it exited its joint venture with top lender Sberbank to pave the way for the deal with Yandex, once considered…

British-governed Gibraltar will on Tuesday auction off the first superyacht to be seized from a sanctioned Russian businessman over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, media outlets have reported. Billionaire Dmitry Pumpyansky’s 72.5-meter vessel the Axioma is valued at around $74 million, though it is expected to sell below that price, the BBC reported Sunday.  Pumpyansky’s Malta-flagged superyacht…

Ryazan, a Russian region to the east of Moscow, announced a state of emergency Monday after a spate of forest fires laid waste to more than 8,000 hectares (20,000 acres) of land. Interim Governor Pavel Malkov said on Telegram the measure would facilitate mobilization of resources “to protect inhabitants and territory.” Malkov added that aerial…

Moscow police detained dozens of metro passengers Monday in what appeared to be a raid to prevent mass actions on Russia’s National Flag Day, an independent watchdog reported. The detentions come at a time when anti-war activism has been effectively outlawed under laws passed shortly after Moscow sent troops into neighboring Ukraine. OVD-Info, a police-monitoring…

The editor-in-chief of the Kremlin-backed RT network on Monday appeared to suggest Russia’s involvement in the 2018 poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal in Britain — a crime Moscow has repeatedly denied. Western countries hit Russia with sanctions and expelled dozens of diplomats following the near-fatal poisonings of Skripal, a former Russian intelligence officer who…

Russia said Monday that Ukraine was responsible for carrying out a car bombing that killed Daria Dugina, the adult daughter of nationalist ideologue and Ukraine war supporter Alexander Dugin, as experts said the assassination would likely spook Kremlin loyalists.  Dugina, 29, died Saturday evening when a car bomb exploded in the Toyota Land Cruiser she…

Russia on Monday marked Flag Day, its annual holiday celebrating the country’s tricolor flag that was restored following the Soviet collapse in 1991. Russia has celebrated Flag Day every year since 1994, when then-President Boris Yeltsin created the holiday. This year’s events were overshadowed by the country’s nearly six-month war against Ukraine. Displaying the tricolor…

China continues to boost Russia’s war chest with surging purchases of energy resources as other countries shun Russian goods over its invasion of Ukraine, Bloomberg reported Monday. Between March and July, China spent $35 billion on Russian oil, gas and coal compared with $20 billion the same time last year, Bloomberg said, citing the latest Chinese…

Eccentric former NBA star Dennis Rodman is planning a trip to Russia in an effort to seek the release of imprisoned WNBA player Brittney Griner, NBC News reported on Sunday. The network quoted Rodman as saying that he was hoping to fly to Russia this week in an attempt to help basketball superstar Griner, who was sentenced to nine…

The Russian flag inspires Russians to “military glory” and represents their adherence to “traditional values,” President Vladimir Putin said in an address marking National Flag Day on Monday. Nearly six months after launching a full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine that has pushed Russia into historic political and economic isolation, Putin vowed that Moscow would continue charting…

Fifteen people were killed Sunday when a minibus collided with two trucks in Russia’s southern Ulyanovsk region, news agencies reported.  According to witnesses quoted by news agencies, a truck veered off the road when it collided with a minibus traveling in the opposite direction near the village of Nikolayevka.  At the time of the accident,…

Sixteen people were killed Sunday when a minibus collided with two trucks in Russia’s southern Ulyanovsk region, news agencies reported quoting emergency services. According to witnesses quoted by news agencies, a truck veered off the road when it collided with a minibus traveling in the opposite direction near the village of Nikolayevka.  At the time…

The daughter of Alexader Dugin, a hardline Russian ideologue close to President Vladimir Putin, has been killed in a car bombing on Moscow’s outskirts, authorities said on Sunday. According to family members quoted by Russian media, Dugin — a vocal supporter of Kremlin’s offensive in Ukraine — was the likely target of the blast as…

Two Albanian soldiers were injured while trying to stop two Russians and a Ukrainian national from entering a military plant, the country’s defense ministry said late Saturday evening. One of the suspects allegedly attacked the guards while trying to take photographs of the Gramsh factory in central Albania, which is used for dismantling derelict weapons,…

Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed that a team of independent inspectors can travel to the Moscow-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant via Ukraine, the French presidency said on Friday. The apparent resolution of a dispute over whether inspectors travel to the plant via Ukraine or Russia came as a senior U.S. defense official said Ukraine’s forces…

Russian gas deliveries to Europe through the Nord Stream pipeline will cease from Aug. 31 to Sept. 2 for “maintenance,” Russian energy giant Gazprom said Friday, raising the prospect of energy shortages in Europe. “It is necessary to carry out maintenance every 1,000 hours” of operation, Gazprom said in a statement. “On Aug. 31, 2022,…

Traces of the Soviet past are disappearing from countries in eastern Europe as part of their wider efforts to distance themselves from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. Countries that had been within Moscow’s orbit during the Soviet period — particularly Poland and the Baltic states — have moved to remove Soviet-era monuments from their…

Russian authorities are building the “largest” military-patriotic youth education center in the country’s northwest amid a wider militarization of young Russians that has accelerated since Russia invaded Ukraine, pro-Kremlin media has reported. The Avangard teaching center in the Vologda region is expected to hold its first training camp in 2023, with 5,000 children and teens expected…

The rebranded Russian successor of the Starbucks coffee shop chain has opened with a localized logo, the latest rebranding of a Western franchise that had left the country over its invasion of Ukraine. Starbucks, which employed 2,000 people across its 130 stores in Russia, suspended work and deliveries into Russia on March 10. The Seattle-based…

Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to attend the Group of 20 summit in Bali this November, Indonesian President Joko Widodo confirmed for the first time Thursday. “[Chinese leader] Xi Jinping will come. President Putin has also told me he will come,” Widodo told Bloomberg following phone talks with the Russian leader. The Kremlin said earlier…

Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Thursday of a nuclear disaster in Ukraine during his first face-to-face talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky since Russia’s invasion began, echoing pleas from the UN’s chief. A flare-up in fighting around Europe’s largest nuclear facility in Russian-controlled southern Ukraine has sparked urgent warnings from world leaders, and UN chief Antonio…

Two Russian villages were evacuated on Thursday after a fire broke out at an ammunition depot near the border with Ukraine, local authorities said.  The blaze comes days after explosions at a military base and munitions depot in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Moscow, which Russia called an act of “sabotage” by Kyiv.  “An ammunition depot…

A significant Ukrainian offensive to recapture Russian-occupied territories in its southern regions is seen as increasingly unlikely by experts as Moscow moves reinforcements to the area and Kyiv re-focuses on targeting Russian military capacity in the rear.   Ukrainian officials have repeatedly threatened an imminent attempt to recapture the city of Kherson, which was seized by…

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday hailed a visit to his war-ravaged country from Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan as Russian strikes battered the eastern region of Kharkiv, leaving several dead and dozens injured. In a separate meeting with UN chief Antonio Guterres, Zelensky called on the UN to ensure security at the Zaporizhzhia power…

Russia on Thursday relocated three warplanes equipped with hypersonic missiles to its exclave of Kaliningrad on the coast of the Baltic Sea.  Wedged between EU and NATO members Lithuania and Poland that have firmly backed Ukraine in the conflict with Moscow, the heavily militarized region of Kaliningrad does not share a land border with Russia. …

Moscow has been blanketed by wildfire smog coming from a nearby region fueled by a summer heat wave, Interfax reported. Authorities in the Russian capital advised residents on Thursday to wear face masks to protect themselves from the smog. The Federal Forestry Agency (Rosleskhoz) blamed authorities in the Ryazan region, where the wildfires are currently burning,…

Major European governments promised no new military aid to Ukraine in July, the first month this has happened since Russia invaded its pro-Western neighbor, according to research published Thursday. Ukraine, which relies heavily on Europe’s military and economic aid, received only around 1.5 billion euros ($1.5 billion) in new pledges of support in July, bringing the total…

The United States and its Western allies are seeking to label Russian diamonds “conflict diamonds” over the world’s largest supplier’s nearly six-month invasion of Ukraine. Russia produces about one-third of the world’s diamonds. The U.S., the largest importer of Russian diamonds, estimates that Russia exported more than $4.5 billion worth of diamonds in 2021. “Proceeds…

The European Union’s imports of Russian goods have grown in monetary terms despite declining in volume this year due to higher prices for commodities including oil. Critics have decried continued EU imports of Russian fossil fuels since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February, accusing the bloc of funding the Kremlin’s offensive. EU imports from Russia rose by…

A spacewalk by two Russians on Wednesday was ended abruptly due to a problem with the battery in cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev’s suit, though at no point was he in any danger, the U.S. and Russian space agencies said.  “Oleg, you must return to the airlock as soon as possible,” the Earth-based Russian mission controllers ordered,…

A new commander has been appointed to the Russian Black Sea Fleet, state news agency RIA Novosti reported Wednesday citing military sources. If confirmed, the removal of Igor Osipov and the elevation of Viktor Sokolov would be one of the most major Russian military reshuffles since the invasion of Ukraine began in late February.  The…

Up to half of Russia’s country’s air traffic control staff are currently on temporary leave or have been dismissed as the country’s aviation industry contracts amid the war in Ukraine and international sanctions, Vedomosti newspaper reported Wednesday.  The State Air Traffic Management Corporation has laid off 2,000 employees including 600 air traffic controllers since the…

Russia opened its ARMY-2022 international military exhibition at a military park outside Moscow this week, aiming to showcase its defense prowess to foreign arms buyers. The annual expo comes nearly six months since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has been beset by a number of setbacks. Despite the lagging successes in Ukraine,…

Estonia has barred entry to a group of Ukrainians entering from Russia who apparently fled the destroyed port city of Mariupol, according to volunteers who help refugees escape war-torn Ukraine.  “Been in Russia too long,” volunteer Svetlana Vodolazskaya quoted Estonian border guards as saying to a Ukrainian family that was refused entry to the Baltic…

Russia saw a 38% fall in smartphone imports in the first half of this year amid the exit of major brands over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Kommersant business daily reported Wednesday citing research by GS Group.  The drop was particularly pronounced for cheaper smartphones with a 56% fall in shipments for devices worth under…

Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny on Tuesday called for systematic punitive measures against Russian oligarchs supporting Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and his military operation in Ukraine. In a lengthy social media post, he said that Western sanctions — by the United States, European Union or the United Kingdom — have only targeted 46 of the…

Russians are racing to try and obtain European visas as some countries impose travel restrictions and fears grow that the European Union could ban Russian tourists from the bloc in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.  The number of applications for Schengen visas — which give access to most EU countries — submitted by Russians…

A robotic dog equipped with an anti-tank rocket launcher mounted on its back quickly went viral after it was unveiled at Russia’s annual Army-2022 international arms expo Monday.  Just as quickly, investigative outlets found the futuristic device to bear a striking resemblance to a consumer-grade robotic dog available on Chinese online marketplaces.  Dubbed “M-81 complex,”…

Estonia on Tuesday removed a Soviet-era World War II memorial from Narva — a city with a large Russian-speaking minority — accusing Russia of using such monuments to stir up tensions. Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said in a statement that the move was a response to “increasing tensions and confusion around memorials in Narva.” “We…

Russia said Tuesday that massive explosions at a military facility on the Kremlin-controlled Crimean peninsula in Ukraine that also damaged electrical power infrastructure were the result of “sabotage.” Russian President Vladimir Putin meanwhile said the United States was trying to drag out the conflict, accusing Washington of putting Ukrainians in the firing line and supplying…

Russia has no military need to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday.  “From a military point of view, there is no need to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine to achieve the set goals,” Shoigu said at an international security conference in Moscow. He slammed media speculation that Russia could potentially…

Russian President Vladimir Putin has revived the Soviet-era award of “Mother Heroine” as  the country grapples with a demographic crisis fueled by plunging birth rates. Putin signed a decree Monday reviving the honorary title “Mother Heroine,” which Soviet leader Josef Stalin first established in 1944 in the wake of massive population losses during World War…