Month: May 2023

When Ukrainian forces launch their long-awaited counteroffensive this summer, they will be up against multiple lines of Russian fortifications stretching hundreds of miles from the Black Sea to Ukraine’s northern border. The military hazards include trenches and anti-tank obstacles, but Russian soldiers have also been busy laying thousands of landmines.  “What we’re seeing is just […]

Russia’s tank losses during its invasion of neighboring Ukraine surpassed 2,000 this week, according to the latest data from Oryx, an open-source intelligence analysis website.  According to Oryx’s report, 1,238 of these tanks were destroyed in combat, 106 damaged, 113 abandoned on the battlefield and 544 captured by Ukraine.  However, the real number of Russia’s […]

A woman who accused Joe Biden during the 2020 presidential race of sexual assault appeared Tuesday in Moscow, where she said she was asking President Vladimir Putin for Russian citizenship. Tara Reade, who worked in Biden’s congressional office for a short period in 1993, said she wanted to stay in Russia after a Republican lawmaker […]

A Russian man has been sentenced to 8.5 years in prison for throwing a Molotov cocktail at Federal Security Service (FSB) office, the civil rights organization Solidarity Zone reported Wednesday. Igor Paskar, 46, was arrested in June 2022 after he set fire to the front entrance of an FSB building in the southern Russian city […]

Russian lawmakers on Tuesday submitted a bill to parliament that would ban legal or surgical sex changes, the latest in a series of conservative proposals put forward since the Kremlin invaded Ukraine last year.  The bill would prohibit “medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person,” according to the website of the State […]

Berlin will drastically reduce Moscow’s diplomatic presence on its soil after Russia slashed the number of people Berlin can employ in its embassies and institutions in Russia, a foreign ministry spokesman said Wednesday. “We have decided to withdraw consent for the operation of four of the five Russian consulates operating in Germany,” the spokesman told […]

The Kremlin on Wednesday called for the rights of ethnic Serbs living in Kosovo to be respected, following clashes this week over local election results that left more than 80 people injured.  “We believe that all the lawful rights and interests of the Kosovo Serbs must be respected,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “We support […]

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday it had “destroyed” what it claimed was Ukraine’s last warship. The landing ship Yuri Olefirenko was struck by “high-precision” Russian Aerospace Forces weaponry in the Black Sea port of Odesa on Monday, the Defense Ministry said in a daily briefing.  It was not immediately possible to verify Moscow’s assertion and […]

A Kremlin-linked entrepreneur accused of smuggling U.S. military technology to Russia had fled house arrest in Italy with the help of a Serbian criminal gang, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the events. Artyom Uss, 41, the son of the ex-governor of Siberia’s Krasnoyarsk region, escaped in March the day after […]

Russia said it was evacuating hundreds of children from villages due to intensifying shelling in the border region of Belgorod, where the situation was deemed “alarming” by the Kremlin.  Russia has seen stepped-up attacks on its soil over a year into its Ukraine campaign, with an unprecedented incursion last week in the southern region of […]

Russia has focused near-daily attacks on the Ukrainian capital recently, sending missiles and drones overhead in the early hours and even broad daylight. While Ukraine says it has mostly managed to intercept the barrages and has reported only two deaths from falling debris, the strikes raise questions about the motives for such disruptive tactics in […]

A Ukrainian woman seeking to return her forcibly transferred godson and his brother from Russia has been detained and deported from Moscow, state media reported Tuesday. Olga Hurulia said she was instructed to retrieve the two boys, who had been taken from southern Ukraine’s Moscow-occupied Kherson region, according to a video of her interrogation at […]

A fire erupted at an oil refinery in southern Russia’s Krasnodar region on Wednesday after a likely drone attack, its governor said as local officials reported a downed drone near another refinery. Governor Venyamin Kondratyev wrote on Telegram that there were no casualties and the blaze at the Afipsky oil refinery had been put out after […]

At least one person has been killed and a number of others injured after a shelling attack on a Russian region bordering Ukraine, the region’s governor said Tuesday.  Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said the shelling struck a temporary shelter for evacuees from the region’s Shebekino district, which lies on the Ukrainian border and has reported […]

A Russian military court has sentenced eight mobilized soldiers to prison terms of up to seven years for deserting their unit in eastern Ukraine, the independent Mediazona news website reported Tuesday, citing their lawyer. The soldiers had been sent to a field camp in the Moscow-occupied region of Luhansk after being drafted in September as […]

Russian officials and pro-Kremlin voices were split over Tuesday’s unprecedented drone attack on Moscow and its surrounding areas, with some downplaying the attack and others sharply criticizing the country’s defense capabilities. President Vladimir Putin called the incident a provocation by Kyiv but appeared calm in televised comments, saying that Moscow’s air defense systems “worked fine” […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed Tuesday’s drone attack on Moscow and the surrounding region on “terrorist activity” and called it an attempt to “intimidate” ordinary Russians. “The Kyiv regime has chosen… the path of attempting to intimidate Russian citizens and striking residential buildings,” the state-run TASS news agency quoted Putin as saying.  “We do not […]

Luxury houses owned by the Russian elite and President Vladimir Putin’s main out-of-town residence were just a few kilometers from where drones were shot down Tuesday during a major attack on the Russian capital, according to a crash site list published by a Russian parliamentary deputy. Since the Soviet era, Moscow’s western suburbs — where […]

Russia has issued 1.5 million passports in occupied Ukrainian territories, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said Tuesday. Residents of the occupied regions told AFP this month that they had been pressured into taking up a Russian passport, necessary for using basic public services. Kyiv has described the passport handouts as an effort to suppress Ukrainian identity. […]

Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said Tuesday that he and other inmates in his prison colony are forced to listen to pro-war and anti-Semitic songs several times a day as part of the prison’s “re-education” efforts. Navalny is serving his jail term in the IK-6 prison in the Vladimir region east of Moscow, a facility […]

Russia on Tuesday told the West to stop its “deceitful propaganda” after more than 30 peacekeepers deployed in a NATO-led mission in Kosovo were injured in clashes with ethnic Serbs. Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, but Belgrade and Moscow have refused to recognize it. Russia, Serbia’s traditional ally, also effectively barred Kosovo […]

Updated to add more details on the attacks, eyewitness accounts and context.  Moscow was targeted by a swarm of drones early Tuesday morning, marking the first time that unmanned aerial vehicles have struck residential areas of the Russian capital since the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.  The attack on Moscow, located more than […]

Russia fired a barrage of missiles at Kyiv on Monday sending panicked residents running for shelter in an unusual daytime attack on the Ukrainian capital following overnight strikes. A series of explosions rang out in Kyiv on Monday as Russia targeted the city for the second time in 24 hours. AFP journalists heard at least […]

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met Kenyan leaders on Monday on a surprise visit to Nairobi, as Moscow and Kyiv both seek to bolster support from African nations over the war in Ukraine. Lavrov’s trip to the East African powerhouse comes on the heels of a trip to the continent last week by his Ukrainian […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law that allows elections to be held in areas under martial law, Russian state-controlled media reported Monday, paving the way for votes to take place in Russian-occupied Ukraine.  Russian regional elections are scheduled for September and presidential elections are set to be held in spring next year.  The […]

The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, which lies on the border with Ukraine, said Monday that Russia was in a “state of de facto war” and called for the annexation of adjacent Ukrainian territory.  “We live in a state of de facto war. Whether we like it or not, it’s happening,” Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said […]

Russia has issued an arrest warrant for United States senator Lindsey Graham for “Russophobic statements,” Russian media reported Monday. Russian officials and state-conotrolled media have slammed Graham for comments he made during a Friday meeting in Kyiv with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the U.S. politician’s third such visit since the start of the war. In […]

Updates with statement of military damage in Western Ukraine.  Kyiv repelled another large volley of overnight air strikes, officials said Monday, as the Ukrainian capital was still picking up the pieces from the biggest drone attack to hit it since Russia’s invasion began. Local air defenses managed to fend off more than 40 drones and […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday congratulated Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has collaborated closely with Russia on key international issues despite disagreements, on his re-election.  “Your victory in these elections is the logical result of your dedicated work as head of the Turkish Republic,” Putin said, according to the Kremlin website. Putin told […]

Corrected to reflect that one person was injured, not killed, in warehouse fire.  Russia carried out its “most important” drone attack on Kyiv overnight Saturday-Sunday since the start of the invasion, Ukrainian military authorities said. Forty of the 54 drones launched targeted the capital, killing two people and wounding three. “In total a record number […]

When animation artist Varvara returned to Russia earlier this year for the first time since fleeing abroad after the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the main emotion she felt was surprise. Not by how much had changed in her homeland after over a year of war — but by how little. “If you read the […]

Shelling in Russian regions bordering Ukraine killed two people on Saturday, regional authorities said.  The regional governor of Belgorod said there were fresh attacks, a day after dozens of strikes. “One person was killed. He was a security guard…he was outside at the time of the shelling” in the Shebekino area, Vyacheslav Gladkov said.  He […]

Two drones damaged an administration building of an oil pipeline in Russia’s western Pskov region, the regional governor said Saturday.  The explosion is the latest in an escalating series of attacks in Russia amid the Ukraine offensive. “Early morning, an explosion damaged the administrative building of the oil pipeline near Litvinovo, Nevelsky district,” governor Mikhail […]

Russia failed Friday in a bid to prevent Ukraine taking a place on the World Health Organization’s Executive Board, on a day which also saw North Korea gain a berth. Ten countries joined the board for a three-year term but Russia tried to exclude Ukraine, which it invaded 15 months ago, from joining the 34-nation […]

Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Friday declined an invitation to travel to St. Petersburg during a telephone call with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The refusal came just days after a spat between Lula and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky at the G7 summit in Japan, where a planned meeting between the pair fell […]

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told China’s special envoy Li Hui on Friday that there were “serious obstacles” to resuming peace talks, blaming Ukraine and Western countries. “The Russian foreign minister reaffirmed Moscow’s commitment to a political-diplomatic resolution of the conflict, noting the serious obstacles to the resumption of peace talks created by the Ukrainian […]

Amid reports this week that Russia has canceled its biggest air show, experts told The Moscow Times that there was little point in holding the International Air and Space Salon (MAKS) because the war in Ukraine and Western sanctions mean there will be so few foreign buyers present. Western countries imposed stringent sanctions on Russia’s […]

French tire maker Michelin announced Friday that it had agreed to sell its Russian assets to a local distributor in the latest international business exit following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  Michelin was among hundreds of mostly Western major companies to suspend Russian operations in March 2022 after President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine.  The […]

Lawyers representing Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, detained in Russia on spying charges, have appealed the latest extension of his arrest, Russian news agencies reported Friday.  Gershkovich, who continued reporting from Russia after the Kremlin launched its large-scale offensive in Ukraine, became the first Western journalist to be arrested and accused of spying since […]

At least two civilians have been killed and 23 wounded when a Russian missile struck a veterinary clinic in the south-central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, officials said Friday following an overnight barrage. “A 69-year-old man has died. He was just passing by when the Russian terrorists’ missile struck the city,” the head of the regional […]

Ukrainian civilians forcibly deported to Russian jails are regularly beaten and threatened with death, Russia’s independent news website Meduza reported Friday, citing former inmates. Prison guards routinely subject Ukrainian detainees to beatings, air gun shootings, electric shocks and threats of execution, Meduza cited several detainees as saying.  “We were turned into hunted animals,” said Alexander Tarasov, […]

Updates with official statement.  Two drones crashed and exploded in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar early Friday morning, local authorities reported. “The crash of two drones was the cause of this morning’s incident on Morskaya St. in the regional capital. There is damage to buildings, but critical infrastructure has not been affected,” Krasnodar region […]

Japan announced fresh sanctions against Russia on Friday over its invasion of Ukraine, targeting its military as well as the construction and engineering sectors. Russia was hit with a wave of sanctions after it sent forces into Ukraine in February last year, but calls have grown from Kyiv and its allies for tougher action against […]

An Algerian-born French commodities trader is seeking to broker an African peace initiative between Russia and Ukraine, The Financial Times reported Friday. Jean-Yves Ollivier, 78, is known as a fixer close to the long-time president of the Republic of Congo and as someone who has also advised Russia’s state nuclear power group Rosatom. The Ollivier-founded […]

Authorities in the Netherlands have seized land belonging to the Dutch former son-in-law of Russian President Vladimir Putin as part of a criminal investigation, The Guardian reported Thursday. The confiscated land southeast of Amsterdam was owned by Jorrit Faassen, who married Putin’s eldest daughter Maria Vorontsova in 2008. The couple reportedly subsequently divorced. Protesters had […]

Russian forces launched overnight air attacks on Kyiv, military officials in the Ukrainian capital said Friday, adding that all the missiles were intercepted and destroyed. “Another air attack on Kyiv, 13th in a row since the beginning of May! And, as always, at nighttime,” the city’s military administration said on its Telegram account. It said […]

Arch foes Armenia and Azerbaijan are advancing toward normalizing ties following mutual recognition of territorial integrity, the two countries’ leaders said Thursday as they held talks in Moscow. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met separately with Russian President Vladimir Putin before the three held joint negotiations late on Thursday. The […]

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said Thursday that Russia had begun moving nuclear weapons to its western neighbour and ally, after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced plans to transfer them in March. There were no new comments from Russia on bringing the nuclear weapons to Belarus. “The transfer of nuclear munitions has begun,” Lukashenko said told […]

Russian human rights activist Andrei Ivashev was sentenced to six years in prison on extremism charges for a series of social media comments, the independent 7×7 media outlet reported Thursday.  Ivashev, 62, is well known in the northern republic of Komi for his criticism of the region’s Governor Vladimir Uyba, as well as one-man pickets […]

Moscow’s prestigious Higher School of Economics (HSE) announced Thursday that it will pay for the education of those who fight in Ukraine and their family members. One of Russia’s top-ranked universities, HSE had long been seen as a bastion of liberal values. But in recent years, the university has increasingly aligned itself with the Kremlin’s positions. […]