Russian authorities have formally brought espionage charges against arrested U.S. reporter Evan Gershkovich, Interfax reported Friday, citing sources familiar with his case. Gershkovich, a journalist with The Wall Street Journal, categorically denied the espionage accusations, the state-run TASS news agency reported. Gershkovich was detained while reporting in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg last week…
Starting in September, Russian high school students in grades 10 and 11 will undergo basic military training as part of changes made to the Russian school curriculum last year following the invasion of Ukraine. During these training sessions, students will learn to shoot Kalashnikov assault rifles, use hand grenades and administer first aid. Independent teachers’…
A British firm registered in London appears to have arranged the sale of about $1.2 billion worth of electronic goods into Russia since the launch of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Financial Times reported Friday. Russian records list the company, Mykines Corporation LLP, as having sent technical equipment including servers, laptops and computer parts…
A Minsk court on Friday sentenced exiled Belarusian opposition politician Valeriy Tsepkalo to 17 years in a high-security prison in absentia, the state-run news agency Belta reported. Tsepkalo, a former head of Belarus’ equivalent of Silicon Valley, the High Technology Park, intended to run in Belarus’ 2020 presidential election but was barred from registering as…
Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, freed from a U.S. jail last year, on Friday urged U.S. ex-president Donald Trump to seek refuge in Russia as his life was “in peril.” Bout, also known as the “Merchant of Death,” was swapped for U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner in a high-profile prisoner exchange between Moscow and Washington…
Russian security agents have stepped up the humiliation and intimidation of anti-war activists to suppress dissent among the wider public, the BBC’s Russian service reported. Russian anthropologists refer to the tactics, which involve on-camera apologies or acts of performative patriotism to atone for opposing the war in Ukraine, as “guilt-shame rituals.” These rituals “serve two functions:…
Околесица: blather, nonsense Now here’s a word I’d never heard before: куролесица. It isn’t used much — less than 15,000 hits on Google — and apparently means nonsense, confusion, something unintelligible. It comes with a verb, куролесить, which means to behave oddly, to act silly, to play pranks. Он дурачился на счет “таганской куролесицы” ―…
After months of relative stability, the Russian ruble continued to weaken rapidly against major currencies on Friday, a trend that analysts say has been spurred by increased imports and a surge in foreign capital outflows. This week the Russian currency slumped to its lowest level since last April. On Friday it was trading above 83…
MOSCOW – Longtime Russian human rights campaigner Oleg Orlov told The Moscow Times that he has no plans to leave the country despite facing years in prison for criticizing the war in Ukraine. The co-chair of Russia’s oldest human rights group, Memorial — which was one of last year’s shared Nobel Peace Prize recipients —…
Moscow wants any Ukraine peace talks to focus on creating a “new world order,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on a visit to Turkey on Friday. The top Russian diplomat was in Turkey — which has retained ties with both Moscow and Kyiv — to hold talks with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu. He…
Russia has become the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency mining country this year, the Kommersant business daily reported Friday, citing Bitriver, Russia’s largest bitcoin mining provider. While the United States remains by far the world’s largest crypto miner, boasting 3-4 gigawatts of mining capacity, Russia’s generating capacity reached 1 gigawatt in January-March 2023. In taking second place for the first…
Three out of four Russian manufacturers have been negatively impacted by Western sanctions over the past year, according to a survey of nearly 2,000 Russian companies cited by the Vedomosti business daily on Thursday. Seventy-seven percent of the manufacturing companies affected by sanctions said the impact was negative, according to the poll by the Moscow-based…