Kazakh authorities this month arrested anti-war activist and musician Ayhal Ammosov, a Russian national hailing from the Far East republic of Sakha (Yakutia). Though Ammosov’s name might be known to few abroad and elsewhere in Russia, he is something of a local celebrity in his native Sakha, first rising to prominence as an eccentric punk…
Russian President Vladimir Putin called Monday for “unhindered access” for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, in a telephone call with his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the Kremlin said. According to a readout of the call from the Kremlin, the two leaders “expressed serious concern about the growing number of civilian casualties and…
Russian courts have imprisoned more people under wartime censorship laws so far in 2023 than in all of 2022, the Kommersant business daily reported Monday, citing Supreme Court data. Russia outlawed “discrediting” and spreading “deliberately false” information about the Russian military shortly after it invaded Ukraine 21 months ago. According to Kommersant, eight out of 21…
Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk FC has terminated the contract of its player who fled to Russia following a UEFA Youth League match in Belgium this month, the team announced Monday. Instead of returning to Ukraine following his team’s Oct. 4 victory against Antwerp (2-1), U19 midfielder Oleksandr Rosputko, 19, reportedly changed his clothes in an airport…
Ukraine’s CIA-trained intelligence agencies have assassinated “dozens” of Russians and Ukrainian collaborators since the start of Moscow’s invasion, The Washington Post reported Monday, citing more than two dozen anonymous current and former Ukrainian, U.S. and Western intelligence and security officials. The missions involved elite teams that were formed, trained and equipped in “close partnership” with the…
Russian police were present but did not intervene in the fight that ended with the fatal stabbing of a Gabonese graduate student this summer, according to a video published by local media on Monday. François Ndjelassili, 32, an economics student at Ural Federal University, was killed outside of a Burger King restaurant in Russia’s fourth-largest…
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has refused to attend his latest court hearing after prison authorities confiscated his writing tools, his aides said Monday. “Alexei @navalny usually attends his court hearings via video link, but today he was not there,” Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) said on X (formerly Twitter). “We don’t know the reason. The hearing has…
U.S. President Joe Biden was correct to call for a new world order but was wrong to assume it would be built by the United States, the Kremlin said Monday. Biden said Friday that the 50-year post-war period had “run out of steam” following the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas and Russia and Ukraine. “A…
A controversial Russian artist has been fined for his art piece of a toy doll covered in criminal tattoos. Vasily Slonov was charged with “public demonstration of prohibited symbols” over the art piece, a round-bottomed doll modeled on the traditional Russian nevalyashka. The Central District Court of Krasnoyarsk in Siberia ordered Slonov to pay a…
A Russian-American journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has been ordered to stay in pre-trial detention until December on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent, her employer said Monday. Alsu Kurmasheva, an editor with the U.S.-funded outlet’s Tatar-Bashkir service who was detained last Wednesday, faces up to five years in prison if found…
Russian police rounded up Muslim worshippers exiting a Moscow region mosque after Friday prayers and brought them to a military enlistment office for the war in Ukraine, media have reported. Videos shared on social media over the weekend showed young men inside a moving bus, outside a military recruitment office and in a barracks with bunk beds. …