Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that the first segment of the new space station that Moscow plans to construct to replace the ISS should be in orbit by 2027, despite recent setbacks. Russia previously announced its intention to withdraw from the International Space Station (ISS), where its cosmonauts are permanently stationed and the country…
Russia’s Sakhalin region has become the first in the country to set carbon quotas, the latest step in its goal of achieving climate neutrality by 2025. In light of President Vladimir Putin’s 2021 announcement of Russia’s aim to reach climate neutrality by 2060, Sakhalin has emerged as a testing ground for mechanisms that could pave…
Russia on Thursday criticized Ukrainian-backed peace talks set to be held in Malta this weekend, warning any discussions without its participation would be counterproductive. The talks, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hopes will drum up support for his own peace plan, come after similar gatherings in Jeddah and Copenhagen earlier this year. “Obviously such gatherings…
Delegates from the Palestinian militant group Hamas have arrived in Moscow for talks, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced Thursday evening. “I can confirm that representatives of the [Hamas] Palestinian movement are visiting Moscow,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a weekly briefing. “We will inform you additionally about its contacts,” she added. Moscow had…
Russia has issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian World War II veteran in Canada who fought alongside the Nazis after Russian investigators pressed genocide charges against him. Yaroslav Hunka was celebrated in Canadia’s parliament as a veteran who had “fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians” during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in…
Russian lawmakers backed a record increase in military spending to fund Moscow’s offensive on Ukraine, in a first reading of the bill Thursday. Defense spending will account for almost a third of all outlays in 2024 — up 68% to 10.8 trillion rubles ($115 billion). At more than 6% of the country’s GDP, military spending…
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said Thursday it had killed a Russian man accused of planning to attack a military enlistment office on orders from Ukrainian intelligence services. Video shared by the state-run TASS news agency showed the unidentified man talking on the phone while filming a thermal power station in the city of Tver, located some…
Former Russian state TV journalist Marina Ovsyannikova has lost custody of her two children after a court battle with her ex-husband, independent media reported Thursday. Moscow’s Shcherbinka District Court issued the ruling behind closed doors as it dealt with issues relating to minors, according to the independent Sota news outlet, which cited the court’s spokesperson in…
Israel has resumed accepting applications from Russians for its repatriation program days after suspending document processing over fears of protests outside the Israeli embassy in Moscow, Israel’s Ambassador in Russia Alexander Ben Zvi said Thursday. Ben Zvi told the state-run news agency TASS that his diplomatic mission stopped accepting repatriation applications on Tuesday to avoid…
A polar bear has been making regular intrusions into an arctic town in Siberia’s Krasnoyarsk region over the past month, prompting officials to declare a “high alert” as the animal poses a threat to local residents, Russian media reported. Although the bear has not yet attacked anyone, authorities in the port town of Dikson —…
A Stockholm court on Thursday acquitted a Russian-Swede accused of passing Western technology to Russia’s military, ruling that while he did export the material his actions did not amount to espionage. Prosecutors had sought a five-year sentence against Sergei Skvortsov, a 60-year-old dual national who has lived in Sweden since the 1990s running import-export companies.…