Russia’s economy grew for a second consecutive quarter despite high inflation and Western sanctions that have weakened the ruble, official data showed Wednesday. The economy expanded by 5.5% year-on-year in the third quarter after contracting in the same period last year, according to the federal statistics agency. The Russian economy shrank in 2022 but it…
“I have seen the dead forest with my own eyes, it’s a very eerie sensation,” Andrei Ozharovsky, a nuclear physicist and antinuclear campaigner, told The Moscow Times. “The explosion happened in the 1970s — but in one direction, for about two or three kilometers, there are still dead trees standing. Coniferous trees, the taiga, are…
Cyprus has long drawn criticism for providing offshore financial services for people associated with corrupt regimes and businesses. A new series of investigations by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, along with 68 media partners, has exposed the industry’s links to President Vladimir Putin’s regime. Among the revelations is the discovery that Chelsea Football Club…
A young Komi-Karelian activist announced this month that he was able to escape Russia despite being featured as a key witness in a high-profile investigation handled by the Federal Security Service (FSB). Nikita Goldin, 18, was detained by Russian security services in the northern port city of Arkhangelsk in September and taken in for an…
Updated with reports from Fontanka, Mash and lawyer’s remarks. A Russian woman accused of killing military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky pleaded partially guilty during a court hearing on Wednesday. Investigators say Darya Trepova, 26, assassinated Tatarsky on orders from Ukraine and working with the help of anti-Kremlin activists, while Kyiv has pointed to domestic Russian infighting.…
Moscow has recruited its annual target number of contract soldiers into the military ahead of schedule, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Wednesday. More than 22,000 people signed contracts with Russia’s military, according to Sobyanin, as the country continues to wage its war against neighboring Ukraine. “Thus, we’ve fulfilled the Defense Ministry’s task ahead of schedule for…
Northern Russia’s Leningrad region has sent half a million pine seedlings to the occupied Ukrainian region of Donetsk, Russian authorities announced Tuesday. The so-called “green humanitarian aid” is just the latest in a series of seedling shipments from the Leningrad region to occupied Donetsk, with authorities having already sent around 100,000 pine and spruce seedlings…
When the Russian military retreated from the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson in November last year, they stole a number of prized items: paintings from local museums, World War II memorabilia, monuments to 18th-century military commanders — and 2,000 Ukrainian prisoners. Almost a year on, more than 1,500 Kherson prisoners still remain in prisons in…
Russia’s security service (FSB) accused a resident of Tyumen in Siberia of handing military information to Ukraine and detained him, state-run news agencies reported Wednesday. This is the latest in a string of treason or espionage cases linked to Ukraine, with trials often held behind closed doors and few details seeping through. The FSB said…
Russia said Wednesday for the first time that some Ukrainian troops had established positions on the Moscow-held side of the Dnipro River, the vast waterway that splits the frontline in southern Ukraine. A sustained Ukrainian breakthrough across the river would mark a significant tactical success for Kyiv, whose wider counteroffensive has so far failed to…
Cyprus has long drawn criticism for providing offshore financial services for people associated with corrupt regimes and businesses. A new series of investigations by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, along with 68 media partners, has exposed the financial services industry’s links to President Vladimir Putin’s regime. Among the revelations is the discovery that German…
Police in Armenia have detained a young Russian woman fleeing domestic violence after her family filed complaints to local authorities, Russian media reported Wednesday, citing the human rights group Marem. According to the independent news website Holod, Fatima Zurabova, 21, fled her home earlier this month in the republic of Ingushetia, a Muslim-majority region in Russia’s…
Russia said Wednesday that it “deeply regretted” Finland’s move to consider closing its border crossings with Russia amid an uptick in asylum seekers from the Middle East and Africa entering the country. Helsinki on Tuesday accused Moscow of deliberately allowing migrants to enter Finland without having proper travel documents, suggesting it was a tactic to destabilize the…
Russian authorities have launched a criminal investigation into terrorism over a blast at an explosives factory in central Russia’s Tambov region, the Kommersant business daily reported Wednesday, citing unnamed sources. Police investigators have reportedly found fragments of a drone that attacked the Tambov gunpowder factory late Saturday, which caused a fire at the plant, though…
A Russian delegation led by Natural Resources Minister Alexander Kozlov is visiting Pyongyang, North Korea’s state media said Wednesday, with the two countries’ growing cooperation triggering concern in Washington and Seoul. The visit comes less than a week after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that ties between Pyongyang and Moscow were “growing and…