A Russian anti-war activist’s lengthy ordeal at the Serbian border spells trouble for other Kremlin critics based in the Balkan country, independent Serbian and Russian analysts told The Moscow Times. Peter Nikitin, an anti-Kremlin activist who has organized protests against Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, was barred entry when returning to Serbia on Thursday, with his…
Ukraine acknowledged Friday its troops were not making speedy headway in their counteroffensive to recapture territory in the east and south of the country from Russian forces. “Today it’s advancing not so quickly,” the head of the presidency Andriy Yermak told reporters, conceding that battles were difficult. “If we are going to see that something…
Minsk said Friday that members of the Russian mercenary force Wagner were acting as military instructors for Belarusian territorial defense forces, three weeks after the group’s aborted mutiny in Russia. “Near Asipovichy, units of territorial defense troops are undergoing training,” the Belarusian defense ministry said. The ministry said the forces were learning skills including tactical shooting, moving…
Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed to extend the Black Sea grain deal which expires next week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday. Erdogan told reporters he had spoken with his Russian counterpart about the crucial deal allowing for the export of Ukrainian grain to ease a global food crisis. The deal, signed…
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov lashed out at criticism Friday over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine at talks with dozens of foreign ministers in Jakarta, the European Union’s top diplomat said. Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine last year has cemented a deep Cold War-style rupture between Russia and the West, with the United States and major European powers supporting…
Russia turned down a request by South Africa not to send President Vladimir Putin to next month’s BRICS summit in Johannesburg, South Africa’s deputy president told local media Friday. Earlier, Russian officials told The Moscow Times that Putin’s attendance remained uncertain in the face of an International Criminal Court (ICC) indictment over the unlawful deportation…
An elderly woman was killed in the shelling of a Russian village near the border with Ukraine, local authorities said Friday. The Bryansk region Governor Alexander Bogomaz said that Ukrainian forces attacked the village of Belaya Beryozka on the border with northeastern Ukraine’s Sumy and Chernihiv regions. A woman whose year of birth was given…
С: With, from, approximately the size of It’s probably not fair to say that Russian prepositions are the bane of non-native speakers’ existence. There are other contenders for the bane claim — aspect, shifting stress, a few weird verb conjugations — but prepositions present all kinds of problems. They almost all have several, often totally…
South Africa’s graft-tainted ex-leader Jacob Zuma is receiving medical treatment in Russia, his spokesman said Friday, a day after the country’s highest court upheld a ruling that he should return to prison. “Zuma traveled to Russia last week for health reasons,” the 81-year-old’s spokesman Mzwanele Manyi said in a statement. Manyi added that the trip “was private, it was…
An accident at a uranium enrichment plant in central Russia’s Ural mountains has left one worker dead and more than 100 were taken to a hospital for radiation inspections, local media reported Friday. The plant said there was one “victim” in the depressurization of a cylinder containing depleted uranium hexafluoride, without indicating whether the person…
Russian authorities have drafted a 10-point list of requirements that would complicate foreign businesses’ exit from and potential return to Russia, the Vedomosti business daily reported Friday. If a company is owned by an individual or parent from Russia’s list of “unfriendly” countries, the proceeds from its sale to Russian owners may not be transferred abroad, according…
MOSCOW – Alexei, a transgender man, had always planned to someday change the gender marker on his Russian passport — but time is now running out. “I’m in a panic. The process of my gender transition had been delayed because I have been living on my own since I was 18 and I didn’t have…
Russia will shutter Poland’s consulate in the western Russian city of Smolensk to reach “parity” in diplomatic presence, Russia’s government told Interfax on Friday. The Polish consulate in Smolensk was opened in 2011 to expand contacts between Russian and Polish citizens and to develop bilateral relations. A government decree published Friday orders Russia’s Foreign Ministry…
Lawmakers from the Russian parliament’s lower-house State Duma on Friday approved a ban on legal and surgical sex changes. The bill was passed in its third and final reading, banning “medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person” and “the state registration of a change of gender without an operation.” According to the…
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered Wagner mercenaries a chance to continue serving after their failed mutiny, he said in comments to the Kommersant business daily late Thursday. “Nothing would have changed for them,” Putin said, recalling a June 29 Kremlin meeting with 35 Wagner officers and founder Yevgeny Prigozhin just five days after the aborted…