On October 6, the installation of the “core catcher” for Unit 1 of the El-Dabaa NPP in the Arab Republic of Egypt started (the general designer and general contractor is Rosatom Engineering Division). The core catcher is one of the main passive safety systems of the power unit. It is included a unique equipment specific…
Kazakhstan announced on Friday new efforts to increase the share of the Kazakh language over Russian in its media landscape, amid growing skepticism over Moscow’s influence since the invasion of Ukraine. Kazakh is the official language of the former Soviet republic in Central Asia, but Russian is recognized too and is still widely spoken among…
“It was hard for me there, I wanted to come back all the time,” Alexander Pipkin, his eyes downcast, said in an interview on Belarusian state television at the end of August. In the interview, Pipkin is presented as a repenting doctor, formerly part of the Belarusian opposition in exile, who decided to return to…
A Russian court in annexed Crimea has sentenced a Ukrainian activist who was abducted last year to 13 years in prison for “espionage,” Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said Friday. Serhiy Tsygipa, an activist and citizen journalist from southern Ukraine’s Kherson region, went missing in March 2022 while attempting to bring medicine to his mother-in-law,…
The Russian government has lowered the payout offered in the restructuring of tech giant Yandex following anti-war statements made by the company’s co-founder, Russian media reported Friday. Sanctions over Russia’s war in Ukraine have forced Yandex, once the crown jewel of Russia’s tech sector, to split into two new companies, with one overseeing its operations…
Шовинист: chauvinist Long before the war began in 2022, I’d been tracking the linguistic dehumanization of Ukrainians practiced by some Russian speakers. At first I was mostly tracking bloggers and young people; lately I’ve been listening and reading Russian media figures, leaders, public figures and even religious figures and academics. Other folks are following this…
The ruble fell further against the dollar on Friday, a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin said the sanctions-hit country’s economic situation was “stable.” The Russian currency fell by as much as 101.46 rubles to the dollar in morning exchanges before paring down some losses. The ruble crossed the psychological threshold of 100 to the…
Russia’s western enclave of Kaliningrad on Friday received its first cargo ship via the Northern Sea Route, long touted by Moscow as an alternative shipping lane to the Suez Canal. The vessel made a stop in the port town of Baltiysk while en route to St. Petersburg from Shanghai, Kaliningrad region Governor Anton Alikhanov said on…
Senior Russian legislators will consider revoking the ratification of a global nuclear test ban treaty after President Vladimir Putin suggested resuming nuclear weapons tests, the parliament’s speaker said Friday. Putin said Thursday it was “theoretically possible” to de-ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) since the United States had signed but not ratified it. Vyacheslav Volodin,…
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Friday called for more Su-34 fighter jets to be produced, as Moscow pursues its offensive in Ukraine. The Kremlin has announced a massive spending hike to accommodate its military needs in Ukraine as its large-scale offensive approaches its second year. “These planes are real workhorses. They can make four…
A powerful storm flooded and knocked out power in households in Far East Russia’s Sakhalin region, authorities said Friday. Video shared on social media showed heavy rains and flooding in the region’s largest city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. More than 5,000 residents were left without electricity after emergency crews restored power for 13,500 people, according to the Sakhalin…
A 10-year-old and his grandmother were killed on Friday when Russian missiles smashed into Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, just hours after another attack left dozens dead at a wake in a nearby village. Rescue workers in Kharkiv were extinguishing fires next to charred vehicles, and twisted missile fragments lay in a deep crater in the…