President Joe Biden met privately in California on Thursday with the widow and daughter of Kremlin opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died last week in a Russian prison, the White House said. Biden met with Yulia and Dasha Navalnaya in San Francisco “to express his heartfelt condolences for their terrible loss,” a statement said, adding…
Latvia’s parliament on Thursday banned the import of food products from Russia and Belarus, including via intermediary countries, following protests by farmers over “blood grain” imports. Earlier this month, thousands of farmers demonstrated in 16 towns across the country calling for a ban on Russian grain — which they said was funding the Kremlin’s war…
Anti-riot police raided an activist meeting near St. Petersburg that state television claimed was an “LGBT party against the special military operation” in Ukraine, the independent news website Mediazona reported Thursday. The broadcasters Ren-TV and 78.ru published identical reports of the Feb. 18 raid showing masked agents lining up several attendees and asking them about their…
Russian courts have convicted more than 4,600 soldiers for desertion and other offenses related to refusing to serve in the military since Moscow invaded Ukraine nearly two years ago, the independent investigative outlet Proekt reported Thursday. Russia passed new legislation in the fall of 2022 that toughened punishment for voluntary surrender, conscientious objection and desertion.…
The mother of late Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said Thursday that Russian investigators had finally allowed her to see her son’s body but are now pressuring her to hold a funeral for him in secret. “Looking into my eyes, they [investigators] told me they’ll do something to my son’s body if I don’t agree to…
The U.K. on Thursday announced more than 50 new sanctions against Russia ahead of the second anniversary of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The sanctions target arms manufacturers, electronics companies, as well as diamond and oil traders, and they aim to “diminish” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s weapons arsenal, the British foreign office said. They also seek…
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced Tuesday that a dual U.S.-Russian citizen was arrested in the city of Yekaterinburg on charges of “financially assisting a foreign state in activities directed against [Russian] security.” The detainee was later identified by news agencies as 33-year-old Ksenia Karelina, a native of Yekaterinburg who obtained U.S. citizenship in 2021…
Russia claimed on Thursday its forces had advanced further in east Ukraine, piling pressure on Kyiv days before the two-year anniversary of the conflict. Ukraine has faced intense pressure on its eastern front in recent months as it grapples with ammunition shortages and hold-ups to much-needed Western military aid. The Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday…
Ukraine said Thursday that its forces had struck Russian military training grounds on the Moscow-occupied bank of the Dnipro River in the southern Kherson region, killing or wounding dozens of troops. Military spokeswoman Natalia Gumeniuk said on television that the attack took place Wednesday, striking a range where Russian troops undergoing combat exercises. “The work…
Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a sarcastic response on Thursday when asked to comment on U.S. counterpart Joe Biden calling him a “crazy SOB.” The Kremlin leader, who endorsed Biden over rival Donald Trump in the upcoming U.S. elections, joked: “He can’t of course say to me: Volodya, well done, thank you [for the endorsement],…
Earlier this week broadcast and print journalist Alexander Plyushev published a list of 252 books that could be considered to be in violation of the Russian law prohibiting “LGBT propaganda.” The list contained some books that might expected, such as Oscar Wilde’s “Portrait of Dorian Gray” and James Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Rooms.” But it also included…
Scientists of the Siberian Federal University with the support of Vostsibneftegaz (an enterprise of Rosneft’s oil and gas production block) analysed the state of the wolf population in the Evenki district of Krasnoyarsk Territory.