Among the nations condemning Israel’s war in Gaza, one has stood out — Russia had built a growing friendship with Israel, but that dalliance is over, analysts said, erased by the shifting sands of Middle East geopolitics. Just under two years ago, the picture had been very different. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022,…
Former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan says he feels “abandoned” and betrayed by his country after being imprisoned in Russia on espionage charges, the BBC said in an interview published Wednesday. Whelan, 53, has been behind bars since 2018 and is serving a 16-year sentence for spying, a charge the U.S. government says is without merit.…
A member of the Russian military’s Storm-Z penal unit has alleged widespread corruption among commanders in the Ukraine war, the independent news outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe reported Wednesday. Officers regularly extort up to 20,000 rubles ($220) in exchange for releasing troops from so-called “punishment pits” in the ground where they are placed for various infractions, the…
A European Union court has dismissed Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich’s challenge to remove war-related sanctions against him, the Court of Justice of the EU said Wednesday. The EU included Abramovich in its sanctions list in March 2022, one month after Russia invaded Ukraine, for his alleged ties to President Vladimir Putin and contributions to Russia’s war…
The Russian military will not impose a one-year service limit for mobilized soldiers despite requests from the soldiers’ families, St. Petersburg opposition politician Boris Vishnevsky said Wednesday. Vishnevsky, a veteran Kremlin critic and member of the St. Petersburg legislative assembly, said his request on behalf of the soldiers’ relatives for Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to back…
The Russian Football Association on Wednesday voted against leaving UEFA to join the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), despite having been banned from the European body over the conflict in Ukraine. “We decided that we will not move to Asia. Everyone supported the decision unanimously,” Vice-President of the Russian Football Union Akhmed Aydamirov said, according to…
A Russian left-wing activist has been sentenced to two years in jail for “extremism” after being detained in Kyrgyzstan, the Moscow court system said late Tuesday. Alyona Krylova was among three Russian anti-war activists arrested by authorities in Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia, this summer. One of the activists was fined and released from…
German federal prosecutors said Wednesday they aim to seize hundreds of millions of euros from an unnamed Russian bank as part of a Western crackdown over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The federal public prosecutor’s office said in a statement it had filed a motion before a court in the German financial capital Frankfurt requesting “independent…
A Russian music channel has been fined for displaying “LGBT propaganda” by airing a music video by popular pro-war singer Nikolai Baskov, the independent Vyorstka news website reported Wednesday. Moscow’s Tagansky District Court determined that the video for Baskov’s 2012 single “Strannik” (Wanderer), which depicts an imagined orgy in the Roman Empire, contains “signs of…
Sixteen candidates have filed to run for Russia’s presidency next year, officials said Wednesday, in an election that is expected to easily hand Vladimir Putin a fifth term. Moscow has for years sidelined opposition figures from elections and political life, a clampdown that accelerated after the Kremlin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine in 2022. “So…
President Vladimir Putin has ordered the revival of Soviet-era Athletes Parades on Red Square. The government has been instructed to prepare proposals for the parades by March 2024, according to the order published on the Kremlin website. The Soviet Union regularly held these parades on Red Square beginning in 1919 as a way of promoting…
ROSATOM presented its solutions for small NPPs and balanced nuclear fuel cycle to Indian partners. ROSATOM took part in India’s biggest nuclear energy conference INSIC-2023, which ended in Mumbai on December 15. The event was organized jointly by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and the Indian Nuclear Society (INS). The conference brought…
Russian lawmakers will lose their free gas privileges for ignoring President Vladimir Putin’s calls to stop driving foreign cars, the pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia reported Wednesday, citing a senior member of Russia’s lower house of parliament. Putin ordered officials in August to support sanctions-hit domestic carmakers by giving up foreign-made vehicles. Senior State Duma officials notified executive authorities in Russia’s…
Ukraine said nine people, including four children, were wounded by Russian shelling in the southern city of Kherson as drones also targeted the capital Kyiv and the second-largest city Kharkiv. “During the evening shelling of Kherson by the Russian occupiers, nine people were injured, four of them were children,” said Roman Mrochko, head of Kherson,…
Russian President Vladimir Putin called on Wednesday for a “severe” response to foreign agents who aim to destabilize Russia by aiding Ukraine. “The Kyiv regime with direct support of foreign special services has taken the path of terrorist methods, practically state terrorism,” Putin said in a video address. “These are acts of sabotage against civilian…