Day: February 28, 2023

Russia’s governing body for chess said Tuesday it had been admitted into the game’s Asian federation and will leave Europe as Russian players face restrictions over Moscow’s assault in Ukraine. The shift, finalized by a vote at the Asian Chess Summit in Abu Dhabi earlier Tuesday, comes as other Russian sports federations, including football, are…

Finland has begun construction of its planned 200-kilometer fence along part of its border with Russia, the country’s border guard announced on Tuesday, as Helsinki fears Moscow could use migrant flows at the frontier for political purposes. Terrain work would begin on Tuesday “with forest clearance and will proceed in such a way that road…

Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the loss of life members of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) have suffered in the war in Ukraine and urged the agency to step up its counterintelligence activities in a speech to an expanded FSB board meeting in Moscow on Tuesday.  “I would like to thank the leadership and all…

Russian President Vladimir Putin may have earned up to $500 million from sales of a popular vodka branded under his own name between 2004 and 2019, according to an investigation published on Tuesday by independent media outlet Proekt.   Russian vodka sold under the Putinka brand hit the shelves in Russia in 2002 and became the…

The lists of Russia’s war dead may be hundreds and thousands of names long but some casualties stand out to the journalists who painstakingly compile them. Olga Ivshina, a senior reporter at the BBC Russian Service, can instantly recall Mikhail Shuvalov, a retired power plant worker who volunteered to fight in Ukraine at the age…

Moscow and Baku on Tuesday criticized the deployment of an expanded EU monitoring mission to Armenia’s volatile border with Azerbaijan. Arch Caucasus foes Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars for control of the Nagorno-Karabakh border region but have recently made progress toward a peace deal. The EU announced last week it had deployed a…

A Russian anti-war activist has been detained upon arrival in Armenia’s capital Yerevan, he told independent Russian human rights watchdog OVD-Info.  Nikita Kamensky had arrived at Zvartnots International Airport on a flight from Istanbul early Tuesday, OVD-Info reported, when he was detained for an unknown reason.  The detention could be linked to Armenia’s obligations under…

Russian authorities said Tuesday that several regional television and radio stations that have recently broadcast air raid alerts had been breached by hackers. The alerts are common across Ukraine, which is routinely targeted by drone and missile attacks, but the impact of fighting within Russia is limited to regions bordering the conflict. “As a result of hacking…

A Russian journalist was fined Tuesday for “discrediting” the Russian army by describing her anti-war tattoo in a televised interview, the independent Mediazona news website reported. Yulia Starostina, a former journalist for news outlets The Bell, Proekt and RBC, spoke to the independent broadcaster Dozhd for a December segment about Russians providing assistance to Ukrainian…

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to Central Asia hoping that greater U.S. engagement will reassure former Soviet republics rattled by the Ukraine war, although Russia’s historic clout limits the extent of cooperation. Days after the anniversary of the Ukraine invasion, the top U.S. diplomat will hold talks Tuesday in Kazakhstan and then Uzbekistan and…