Year: 2022

Russia’s flagship IT company Yandex will stop showing national borders on its online maps. Speaking on Thursday, the company said that their updated digital maps would “focus on natural features rather than on state boundaries.”  “Our task is to display the world around us. So the map will show mountains, rivers, and other data usually…

Three foreign men fighting alongside the Ukrainian army have been sentenced to death by a court in eastern Ukraine’s self-proclaimed Donetsk Peopleʼs Republic following a lightning-fast trial, Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti reported Thursday. British fighters Shaun Pinner, 48, and Aiden Aslin, 28, as well as Moroccan national Saadun Brahim, were charged with terrorism, committing a…

McDonald’s Russian owner has picked a new logo, menu and app name ahead of its re-opening under a new brand this month, the company confirmed to state media Thursday. The U.S. fast food giant recently ended its three-decade presence in Russia after it sent troops into Ukraine, selling all 850 of its locations to a…

Relatives of Russian soldier Amir Shaikenov came across a photo of a dead man in Ukraine on social media that caused his family immediate alarm.  The soldier in the picture taken in the Ukrainian city of Bucha bore a striking resemblance to Shaikenov, whose elite military unit, the 76th Air Assault Division, was deployed to…

Russia said Thursday it was ready to broker a peace treaty between Azerbaijan and Armenia, as Moscow seeks to reassert its influence on the world stage after invading Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held talks with his Armenian counterpart in the capital Yerevan on Thursday, reaffirming Moscow’s willingness to help negotiate a deal following the…

Two years after an oil spill at a facility owned by Russian mining giant Nornickel sparked one of the worst-ever environmental disasters in the Arctic, the company says the environment in the area of the spill is in satisfactory condition.  Investigations by a visiting environmentalist indicate otherwise. “Two years have passed, there have been some…

The Kremlin received nearly 42,000 complaints in April from the relatives of soldiers missing in Ukraine, investigative outlet iStories reported Thursday. Official data revealed that President Vladimir Putin’s administration received 41,666 requests related to missing or captured soldiers. The Russian government has not released any official figures on its Ukraine death toll since March 25,…

Dozens of Russian ships on Thursday took part in military exercises in the strategic Baltic Sea after Sweden and Finland recently announced bids to join NATO.   Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that ships of its Baltic fleet, will “perform training tasks for the defense of sea lanes and fleet bases.” It said that…

At least 20 Russian billionaires have launched legal challenges against European Union sanctions imposed after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.  More than 1,000 Russian individuals, including President Vladimir Putin, are on the EU sanctions list, which sees them hit by travel bans and asset freezes. Former Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, industrialist…

A Ukrainian journalist on Wednesday took advantage of a visit to Ankara by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to confront him with an unwanted question about grain exports from Ukraine, amid fears of world hunger if the issue is not resolved. Lavrov was in Turkey to discuss the establishment of secure corridors for Ukrainian grain…

A British man fighting in Ukraine has been captured by pro-Russian separatists, an international legion backing the Kyiv government said on Wednesday. “It was announced in the Ukrainian press that the Russians had completed a criminal investigation against three foreigners whom they were preparing to put on trial and that they risked the death penalty,”…

Russian forces are now largely in control of the key eastern Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk amid fierce fighting, Kyiv said Wednesday, as UN chief Antonio Guterres starkly warned the war’s impact on the world was worsening. The strategic city has become the focus of Russia’s offensive as it seeks to seize an eastern swathe of…

Russian flag carrier Aeroflot hopes to raise $3 billion by issuing new shares amid ongoing economic turmoil sparked by Western sanctions and Moscow’s war in Ukraine. Aeroflot shareholders approved the emergency issue of new shares worth 185.2 billion rubles on Wednesday, news agency Reuters reported. More than half of that amount, 107 billion rubles ($1.74…

Russia’s Interior Ministry has created a new department to help enforce martial law, the country’s state-run TASS news agency reported Tuesday. The Main Directorate of Rapid Response will also coordinate ministry forces if a state of emergency or a counter-terrorism operation is declared in the country. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the new measures reflected…

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annual telephone marathon, Direct Line, will not be held this June for the first time in almost two decades. It is the first time that the program, which see ordinary citizens speak directly to the Russian leader about their daily problems, has been delayed since 2004.  In a statement, Kremlin’s spokesman…

Hackers targeted Russian radio station Kommersant FM on Wednesday, broadcasting the Ukrainian national anthem and anti-war songs to protest Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The station was quickly pulled off the air. “The radio station has been hacked. The internet stream will soon be reinstated,” the station confirmed in a statement. The hackers’ anti-war offering included…

Russia and Turkey made little headway on Wednesday in talks aimed at securing safe passage for Ukrainian grain exports, as a Russian sea blockade triggered new warnings of deadly famine. Prior to the war, Ukraine was a major exporter of wheat, corn and sunflower oil, but shipments have been blocked since Russia invaded its neighbor…

Europe’s highest human rights court ordered Moscow to overturn its ban on the country’s Jehovah’s Witnesses Tuesday, just hours before Russian lawmakers passed legislation ending its jurisdiction. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said Tuesday that Russia violated 1,444 worshippers’ right to religious freedom when it declared the Christian organization an “extremist” group in…

The value of Russian imports from Belarus has surpassed that of goods arriving from Germany, news service Bloomberg reported Wednesday. Data from Moscow’s largest trading partners shows that Russian imports have plummeted amid a global backlash against the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. Figures show a 40% drop in imports to Russia in April compared to…

Up to 400 workers at Georgia’s Borjomi mineral water factory have gone on strike as the firm’s Russian owner has been hit by sanctions and the company stopped paying salaries. The Georgian government, meanwhile, says it has worked out a plan to bail out the company by taking over the Russian shares. Borjomi’s salty tasting…

The Kremlin hopes to annex southern Ukraine’s Kherson region just as it did Crimea, a senior Russian lawmaker said Tuesday. Moscow annexed the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, staging a referendum later condemned as illegal by the West.  “The Kherson region’s admission into Russia will be complete, similar to Crimea,” State Duma member…

Moscow chief rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt fled Russia two weeks after the invasion of Ukraine due to pressure to support the military campaign, his daughter-in-law said Tuesday. Journalist Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt, the wife of Goldschmidt’s son Benyamin, tweeted that Goldschmidt “refused” to support the war. Goldschmidt and his wife, Dara Goldschmidt, traveled to Hungary in March to…

Russia claimed Tuesday that its forces had taken full control of residential neighborhoods in eastern Ukraine’s Severodonetsk, after Kyiv said its outnumbered troops were fighting on in the key eastern hub. The brutal weeks-long contest for the key city in the Luhansk region continued to grind on, with civilians fleeing and some 800 taking refuge…

A Russian court on Tuesday ordered the arrest in absentia of science fiction writer Dmitry Glukhovsky, who faces up to 10 years in prison for criticism of Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine. The 42-year-old, who is believed to be abroad, has spoken out against the offensive in posts on social media and opinion pieces for…

Russia’s Higher School of Economics (HSE) will allocate 10% of its state-funded places to children of soldiers who served in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine starting this fall, the university rector said Tuesday. “There are 3,800 state-funded places [in total]. Almost 400 children [of soldiers fighting in Ukraine] will enter the Higher School of Economics through…

Russian authorities have placed Andrei Soldatov, one of the country’s leading independent investigative journalists and security services experts, on the federal wanted list.  Soldatov found out a criminal case had been opened against him on Monday after two Russia-based banks notified him that his accounts were frozen and he subsequently found himself in the federal…

A Russian bank is set to open a branch in Ukraine’s occupied Kherson region this week, an official in the region’s Moscow-appointed administration announced Tuesday. “I think in the near future, a month or a month and a half, people will be able to open accounts and try to pay via the internet,” said Kirill Stremousov,…

A Russian court sentenced four members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the U.S.-based Christian evangelical movement, to six years in prison for “extremism,” investigators said Tuesday. The four adherents of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who hail from the city of Chita in eastern Siberia, were found guilty of organizing “extremist” activities between 2017 and 2020, the Investigative…

Deutsche Bank has relocated hundreds of its Russia-based IT specialists to Germany following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Financial Times reported Tuesday.  The Frankfurt-headquartered bank has relocated approximately half of its 1,500 highly skilled software developers based in Moscow and St. Petersburg as well as their families in the past three months, citing difficulties…

A dozen Russian officers have been prosecuted for sending hundreds of young conscript soldiers to fight in Ukraine, a military prosecutor announced Tuesday. “Around 600 conscripts were involved in the special military operation, all of whom were returned as soon as possible,” military prosecutor Artur Yegiev of Russia’s Western Military District said at a Federation…

Russia’s neighbor and ally Belarus announced so-called “wartime transition” exercises Tuesday as Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine shows no sign of slowing in its fourth month. The Belarusian defense ministry said all of its army units, command centers and personnel will undertake “a set of training sessions on the transition from peacetime to wartime.” It claimed…

As the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine raged, Yelena Bagaeva, an English teacher from the Siberian republic of Buryatia, held a discussion with her students about the events dominating the headlines.  “I tried to convey that any war is bad, that you can’t wish death on Ukrainians and hate them, they are people like us,” she…

A senior executive at Russian internet giant VK has died in an accident in the Arctic, the company confirmed Tuesday following reports that he went missing during a dangerous river crossing. First deputy CEO Vladimir Gabrielyan was said to have gone missing with his colleague, VK’s director of procurement Sergei Merzlyakov, in northern Russia’s remote…

Moscow has threatened to strip the accreditations of U.S. journalists in Russia in response to the treatment of Russian reporters in the United States, Reuters reported Monday, citing unnamed sources with direct knowledge of the meeting. “If they don’t normalize the work of Russian media on U.S. territory, there will be forceful measures as a…

The U.S. Justice Department ordered the seizure Monday of two aircraft owned by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, saying they had been used in violation of sanctions on Russia imposed over its invasion of Ukraine. The department said in court filings that the two aircraft, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner and Gulfstream G650ER executive jet, had been…

Major General Roman Kutuzov was reportedly leading an operation around the village of Mykolaiv on Sunday as Ukrainian artillery slammed into Russian positions across eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.  Hours later, he was reported dead by Russian state television reporter Alexander Sladkov in a Telegram post that hailed the general’s bravery.  “The general led the soldiers…

A Moscow court confirmed Monday the arrest of a sixth person linked to an alleged plotting to kill pro-Kremlin TV host Vladimir Solovyev.  Moscow resident Timofey Mokiy, 29, stands accused of being part of the “neo-Nazi terrorist group” National Socialism/White Power, according to Russia’s Security Services (FSB). They say that the suspects hoped to assassinate…

Regional officials across Russia are rushing to buy fresh graves plots at an “abnormal“ rate, investigative news outlet Mozhem Obyasnit reported Monday. The number of burials purchased by local governments far outstrips figures from previous years, according to public procurement records.  The sudden shift in policy could be linked to unreported deaths among the Russian…

Latvian officials have granted a broadcasting license to Russian TV channel Dozhd, regional news platform DELFI reported Monday.  Dozhd, previously Russia’s only independent television channel, suspended operations in March after being ordered ​​by authorities to stop broadcasting over its coverage of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.  Dozhd is expected to shortly resume operations from the Latvian…

Moscow on Monday furiously condemned the rejection by several European countries of a request for Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s plane to pass through their airspace, forcing him to cancel a trip to ally Serbia. “The unthinkable has happened,” Lavrov told an online news conference in Moscow.  “This was a deprivation of a sovereign state of…

A Russian court has jailed a Chechen soldier for refusing deployment amid growing reports of military personnel refusing to fight in Ukraine. The court ruling did not specify whether contract soldier Ali Musayev defied orders to fight in Ukraine, only saying that he refused to take part in a “special mission.”  But the date of…

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s visit to Serbia has been scrapped after neighboring countries closed their airspace, his spokeswoman confirmed late Sunday. Serbian media reported earlier that Bulgaria, Montenegro and North Macedonia had not granted clearance to Lavrov’s flight over their territories. “Just an hour ago the countries surrounding Serbia closed the natural air channel…

A bridge and a sugar refinery in western Russia’s Kursk region near Ukraine have been damaged in the latest cross-border shelling, Governor Roman Starovoit said Monday. There were no injuries or fatalities in the attack on the Kursk region village of Tetkino, Starovoit said. “The main impact was on the local bridge,” the governor said.…

Russian General Roman Kutuzov has been killed on the battlefield in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, Russian state-owned media reported Sunday. If confirmed by the Russian military, Kutuzov would be at least the fourth Russian general killed in more than three months of fighting in Ukraine. “The general had led soldiers into attack, as if there…

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Sunday that Moscow will hit new targets if the West supplies Ukraine with long-range missiles, hours after several explosions rocked the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. The battle for the control of the strategically important eastern city of Severodonetsk also raged on, with regional governor Sergiy Gaiday saying Ukrainian forces now control…

When the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in late February, many Westerners living in Russia started looking for an exit. “When it first started, we were shocked because we honestly didn’t think it was going to happen,” said one U.S. woman and longtime Moscow resident. “We were getting lots of messages saying we have to…

Explosions rocked the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Sunday as a regional governor said Ukrainian forces were pushing back against Russian troops in the strategic eastern city of Severodonetsk. The battle for Ukraine’s eastern city of Severodonetsk was being waged street by street, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, while explosions rocked the capital early Sunday. “Several explosions…

Russian forces have lost ground in Severodonetsk, a key city in eastern Ukraine that has been the scene of ferocious fighting as Moscow seeks to gain control of Donbas, a regional governor said Sunday. “The Russians were in control of about 70 percent of the city, but have been forced back over the past two…

The billionaire founder and CEO of Russian tech giant Yandex has resigned from the company after being targeted by European sanctions in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.  The European Union included Arkady Volozh in its latest package of sanctions on Russia on Friday, citing his company’s role in “promoting state media and narratives in…

The father of a Russian conscript believed to have been killed in the Moskva battleship’s sinking said he has been questioned by security services on suspicion of sending a bomb threat.  Dmitry Shkrebets is the father of 20-year-old conscript Yegor Shkrebets, who was declared missing after the Moskva guided missile cruiser sank in the Black…

On Feb. 24, Russian forces crossed Ukraine’s borders in a full-scale invasion. In the 100 days since the conflict began, thousands have been killed, civilians have been tortured and raped, millions displaced and Ukrainian towns and cities destroyed.

Russian opposition politician and former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, who has been critical of Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine, said Friday he had left Russia temporarily but was hoping to return. Kasyanov, who served as President Vladimir Putin’s first prime minister from 2000 to 2004, told AFP in written messages that he was not currently…

Russian TV journalist and Kremlin critic Alexander Nevzorov has been granted Ukrainian citizenship for “outstanding service to the country,” a Ukrainian official said Friday. Russian authorities sentenced Nevzorov to arrest in absentia in May after he criticized Russia’s March 9 shelling of a Mariupol maternity hospital on social media. A Moscow court said his posts…