Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed fears of a sharp deterioration of the situation in besieged Gaza during a call with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Kremlin said Tuesday. The leaders expressed “deep concern over the growing number of civilian casualties and the catastrophic deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip,” the…
A Russian court on Tuesday rejected an appeal by an opposition activist who was sentenced to seven years in prison over social media posts that prosecutors said “justified terrorism.” Russia has banned criticism of its military campaign and has orchestrated a huge crackdown on dissent as troops fight in Ukraine. The activist, 63-year-old Mikhail Krieger,…
The United States has made a “serious proposal” to Moscow for the release of ex-Marine Paul Whelan as his imprisonment in a Russian nears five years, CNN reported Tuesday. Whelan was accused of spying after agents from Russia‘s Federal Security Service (FSB) detained him in a Moscow hotel room on Dec. 28, 2018. He was sentenced to…
A Ukrainian-born deliveryman has been accused of attempting to poison the graduates of a Russian military aviation academy during their reunion, Russia’s Kommersant business daily reported Tuesday, citing anonymous law enforcement sources. Around 77 alumni of the Armavir Higher Military Aviation School for Pilots in southern Russia’s Krasnodar region were attending a 20-year reunion party…
Footage of apartment buildings in the Gaza Strip crumbling under Israeli airstrikes and suffering Palestinian civilians has filled Russian political talk shows and newscasts for weeks. “They are razing Gaza to the ground,” state television anchor and propagandist Vladimir Solovyov said during a recent show. “We [the Russian army] don’t fight like that, not even close.”…
The Kremlin said Tuesday that it has so far been unsuccessful in freeing Russian hostages held by Hamas and still does not know how many of its citizens had been captured since the militant group’s attack on Israel earlier this month. “Indeed, we have not succeeded so far, but we will continue,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry…
Jailed Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny was returned to solitary confinement on Tuesday, a day after his allies said he was deprived of writing materials, his only means of communication with the outside world. “They put Alexei in an isolation cell for the 21st time,” Navalny’s exiled spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said on social media, noting…
The popular messaging app Telegram, founded by Russian-born tech entrepreneur Pavel Durov, has partially restricted access to the accounts of Hamas militants and their affiliates, Russian media reported Tuesday. Android users have been notified that they are no longer able to access the channels of Hamas and its military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, in line…
Russia has established a new national park in the northern republic of Karelia, a designation that gives its lands federally protected status. The move has drawn skepticism from conservationists, who suspect that officials may be creating new protected areas for the sake of appearances without due consideration of their environmental value. Vottovaara National Park spans…
A court in Russia’s majority-Muslim republic of Chechnya has postponed the hearing against a teenager accused of burning the Quran and who was beaten while in custody by the son of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, media outlets reported Tuesday. Nikita Zhuravel, 19, was detained in May on suspicion of publicly burning a Quran in the…
Russia’s military said Tuesday it had detected three Ukrainian seaborne drones off the coast of annexed Crimea. “Around 4:00 a.m. Moscow time, technical surveillance systems detected three unmanned Ukrainian Navy boats in the northern Black Sea,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement. Russia’s Defense Ministry said the seaborne drones were fired on but it…
A cyber specialist who briefly worked at the top-secret U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) pleaded guilty on Monday to attempting to spy for Russia, the U.S. Justice Department said. Jareh Sebastian Dalke, 31, spent less than four weeks working at the NSA, the United States government’s intelligence gathering agency, before he suddenly quit at the…