Russian prisoners are increasingly denied parole amid efforts by the Wagner mercenary group and later the Defense Ministry to recruit convicts for the war in Ukraine, the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper reported Thursday. Only 23,000 requests for conditional early release (CER) were granted in 2022 out of nearly 59,000 requests reviewed by courts, according to judicial…
Russia has added exiled actor Artur Smolyaninov and former Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksii Arestovych to its list of “terrorists and extremists,” the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported Thursday. Russia’s Investigative Committee opened a criminal case in January against war movie star Smolyaninov, 39, for his support of Ukraine and criticism of the war. At the time,…
Armenia and Azerbaijan on Thursday blamed each other for an exchange of fire along their restive border, which killed one person and wounded four days ahead of EU-hosted peace talks. The Caucasus neighbors have been locked in a decades-long territorial dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, which has reignited in recent months. Russia urged…
Russian authorities will launch construction of a village outside Moscow for conservative-minded Americans and Canadians next year, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported Thursday. Russia has for years positioned itself as a bastion of “traditional” values in contrast with Western liberalism as its relations with the West have deteriorated over its 2014 annexation of Crimea…
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said Thursday that he has been returned to solitary confinement for the 15th time since he was imprisoned in 2021. “Yesterday at 8 in the evening I was released from solitary confinement. Today at 9:30 in the morning I’m back in solitary,” read a tweet shared by Navalny’s team. According…
A Russian court has sentenced a former teacher to five and a half years in prison for referring to last fall’s Crimean Bridge explosion as President Vladimir Putin’s “birthday gift” online, independent media reported Thursday. Nikita Tushkanov, 28, was accused of “approving of” the blasts, which badly damaged the bridge linking mainland Russia to annexed Crimea,…
A Moscow confectioner fined for making cakes decorated with anti-war slogans told The Moscow Times that she plans to keep opposing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine despite harassment from pro-war figures and the risk of jail. Anastasia Chernysheva was ordered to pay 35,000 rubles ($446) last month on charges of “discrediting” the military over cakes with…
Russia is waging a “very difficult” military campaign in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a rare concession of the Russian military’s underwhelming performance over a year into its war on Kyiv. “It’s a very, very difficult operation and of course certain goals have been achieved in a year,” Peskov told the Bosnian Serb broadcaster ATV…
Russia’s budget deficit has surpassed the government’s entire 2023 target in the first four months of the year as wartime spending and falling energy revenues continued to cut into the state budget. The federal budget deficit rose to 3.42 trillion rubles ($45 billion) in January-April 2023, according to the Finance Ministry figures published Wednesday. Revenues fell…
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree Wednesday calling up military reservists for annual training as legal experts say those who turn up could face pressure to sign contracts to be sent to fight in Ukraine. Such trainings are a routine event in which reservists undergo two-month combat readiness drills in the Armed Forces, National…