A Ukrainian light aircraft has crashed in Russia’s Bryansk region which borders Ukraine, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported late Wednesday, citing the Federal Security Service (FSB)’s border service. The FSB said the plane “crashed for an unknown reason” near the village of Butovsk located some 30 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. Shortly after…
Russian law enforcement authorities on Wednesday said they will probe a stand-up skit by two popular Russian comedians that mocked a recent bombing attack that killed a prominent pro-war blogger. Stand-up comedian Garik Oganesyan was gifted a statuette onstage by fellow comic Sasha Kapadya during a performance in Berlin. It appeared to reference the figurine…
The Department for Nuclear and Radiation Safety of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Republic of Belarus (Gosatomnadzor of the Republic of Belarus) has issued a permit for opening of the Power Start-up stage at Unit 2 of Belarus NPP (the general designer and general contractor is Rosatom State Corporation Engineering Division). The obtained…
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday accused Western intelligence agencies of “regularly” staging “terrorist attacks” in Russia and in Moscow-occupied Ukrainian territories. “Terrorist attacks targeting government and law enforcement officials, journalists, public figures, teachers of schools and universities are staged regularly,” Putin said at a Security Council meeting dedicated to ensuring law and order in…
A pair of popular Russia-based LGBT bloggers have been arrested in Russia on charges of violating the country’s law outlawing gay “propaganda,” their lawyer said Wednesday. Khaoyan Suy, a Chinese citizen, and Gela Gogishvili, an ethnically Georgian citizen of Russia, document their life as an openly gay, interracial, non-Slavic couple living in Russia on their…
Russia’s additional oil and gas revenues will fall short 113.6 billion rubles ($1.4 billion) below expectations in April, the Finance Ministry said Wednesday. The difference between expected oil and gas revenues and those received as of March totaled 39 billion rubles ($490 million), it said. To cover the expected shortage, Russia’s Finance Ministry uses a budget…
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday told the new U.S. Ambassador in Moscow, Lynne Tracy, that Washington was responsible for the “Ukrainian crisis” while accepting her credentials in a Kremlin ceremony. Ties between Moscow and Washington have disintegrated since Putin sent troops to Ukraine last year. Putin spoke a week after Moscow detained a U.S.…
A Russian activist who has been documenting Russia’s war losses in Ukraine was forced to flee the country after the authorities opened two criminal cases against him, local news outlet Protokol reported Wednesday. “I’ve left Russia. I’m starting life anew,” the VCHK-OGPU Telegram news channel cited Vitaly Votanovsky as saying of his departure from Russia. …
Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky was laughing about bombs with his apparent assassin at an event in St. Petersburg minutes before he was killed by a bomb hidden inside a gifted statuette, eyewitnesses told The Moscow Times. Daria Trepova, who gave Tatarsky the golden figurine of himself, told the pro-war blogger in front of the…
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has detained a married couple in the country’s tank manufacturing hub on suspicion of sharing details of a defense enterprise with Ukraine, state media reported Tuesday. Video of the detention in the industrial Ural Mountains city of Nizhny Tagil posted by the TASS news agency showed agents in military uniforms forcing a…
The Kremlin on Wednesday said it did not want to comment on the indictment of former U.S. President Donald Trump, accused of making payments to cover up embarrassing deals ahead of the 2016 presidential election. “We will not comment on this,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said after being asked a question by reporters. “We…
Russia’s second-largest bank, VTB, reported a record annual loss of $7.7 billion on Wednesday after it was battered by Western sanctions last year. VTB was one of the first banks to be excluded from the SWIFT global payments system after Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Both the U.S. and Britain placed individual sanctions on…
At least 200 Russian journalists have signed an open letter calling on the Russian government to release American journalist Evan Gershkovich after he was detained and charged with espionage last week. The signatories dismissed allegations that Gershkovich had been collecting state secrets about Russia’s defense industry while reporting a story for his employer, the Wall…
On 5 April, Director General of ROSATOM Mr. Alexey Likhachev had a meeting with IAEA Director General Mr. Rafael Mariano Grossi in Kaliningrad. From the Russian side, the meeting was attended by head of Rostechnadzor Mr. Alexander Trembitskiy; Chief of Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection Forces of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Mr.…
Russia exported a record volume of oil products in March as Moscow successfully developed alternative routes for its deliveries one month after a Western embargo came into force, the Vedomosti business daily reported Wednesday. Supplies of seaborne Russian oil products totaled 3.13 million barrels per day (bpd) in March 2023, according to the commodities analyst…
Three of the world’s largest grain distributors have announced that they will pull out of Russia by July, a move likely to reinforce Moscow’s control over the global wheat market. Government pressure and operational difficulties in the wake of Russia’s war against Ukraine have made staying in the country unfeasible for Cargill, Louis Dreyfus (LDC),…