Russia has added The Moscow Times to its list of “foreign agents” alongside several other journalists and activists, the Justice Ministry announced Friday. Russia’s “foreign agents” registry, launched in 2012 in response to similar legislation in the United States, has been disproportionately used to target independent journalists, activists and NGOs in recent years. The “foreign agents”…
Независимость: independence, self-sufficiency In the part of the world I’m in, November seems to be particularly rich in state holidays of independence. In the Russian language these holidays are sometimes of освобождение (liberty, freedom) and sometimes of независимость (independence, freedom). So what’s the difference? Освобождение (freedom) is related to the verb pair освобождать/освободить, which means…
Ukraine said Friday it had carried out successful attacks on the Russian-occupied eastern bank of the Dnipro River, days after Moscow admitted Kyiv’s forces had gained a foothold there. A sustained Ukrainian breakthrough across the frontline waterway would mark a significant success for Kyiv, whose wider counteroffensive has so far failed to turn the tide…
Vladimir Urin, general director of the Bolshoi Theater, has submitted his resignation, according to reports in several Russian media. Valery Gergiev, the artistic and general director of St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theater, is reported to be in Moscow and ready to take over the position at the Bolshoi. Urin, who joined the theater in 2013, was…
The European Union on Friday accused Russia of making a “shameful” use of migrants to put pressure on other countries, saying it had noted an increased number of undocumented asylum seekers crossing Russia’s border to Finland. Helsinki announced Thursday that it will close four of its eight border crossings with Russia from this weekend because…
Russia’s Justice Ministry said Friday it has filed a motion for the Supreme Court to ban what it called an “international LGBT public movement” as extremist, a move activists warned would effectively put all LGBT Russians at risk of criminal prosecution. The LGBT “movement’s” activities within Russia were found to “incite social and religious discord”…
Russia has sent the first of its promised shipments of free grain to Africa, the country’s agriculture minister said Friday. “The first two ships have already left Russian ports for Somalia and Burkina Faso. We expect them to arrive in late November to early December,” Agriculture Minister Dmitry Patrushev said in a statement. State news…
A court in Kazakhstan’s largest city Almaty has ordered Yakutian anti-war activist and musician Aykhal Ammosov to one year of extradition arrest, his lawyer said on social media. “I’m not surprised [by this decision],” Ammosov’s lawyer Murat Adam wrote on Instagram on Thursday. Ammosov, a Russian national hailing from the republic of Sakha (Yakutia), was…
President Vladimir Putin’s successor will be nearly identical to his predecessor, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday as the country gears up for an election in which Putin is expected to win a fifth term. Putin, 71, who has been in power since 1999, is widely anticipated to announce his 2024 re-election bid next month,…
Dozens of Russian business leaders expressed alarm to President Vladimir Putin about the “frightening” number of nationalizations that have taken place since the invasion of Ukraine, the Vedomosti business daily reported Friday, citing four anonymous sources familiar with their late-night meeting this week. One of the sources told the publication that while “everyone understands the…