Prominent St. Petersburg opposition politician Boris Vishnevsky said Wednesday that he plans to challenge his recent designation as a “foreign agent” in court. Vishnevsky, a member of the liberal Yabloko party, is among the few high-profile opposition voices to have stayed in Russia following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s Justice Ministry labeled him a “foreign agent”…
French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu on Wednesday told Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu in rare telephone talks that France is ready to step up exchanges to battle “terrorism” after the deadly Moscow attack claimed by Islamic State. The pair also discussed the war in Ukraine, with Lecornu reaffirming French support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia, the…
“I have typical Russian looks and there was no place that would refuse me a job before,” Yasmina, a Muslim woman from Russia, told The Moscow Times. “Everything changed when I started wearing a hijab. I still had my education, my knowledge of foreign languages and years of professional experience, but people only saw the…
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday that Russia’s military plans to draft some 300,000 new troops over the next two months. “I can say that Russia is preparing to mobilize an additional 300,000 military personnel by June 1,” Zelensky said during a joint press conference with Finnish President Alexander Stubb, according to the news outlet RBC Ukraine. He…
Russian investigators have opened a criminal probe into the disappearance of a young Chechen woman who is feared to have been murdered by her family, the human rights group NC SOS said Wednesday. Seda Suleimanova, 26, fled her native republic of Chechnya in October 2022 after relatives threatened to kill her for refusing an arranged marriage. In August, she…
Three Russian-Israeli dual nationals remain in Hamas captivity in Gaza as Moscow attempts to secure their release, Israel’s Ambassador to Russia Simona Halperin said Wednesday. Hamas-led militants launched a surprise attack against Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 250 others hostage. Israel responded with a devastating offensive on the Gaza…
Soviet dissident Alexander Skobov has been detained for “justifying terrorism” in social media posts about last month’s deadly concert attack outside Moscow, the St. Petersburg-based news outlet Fontanka reported Wednesday. Skobov, 66, was convicted twice starting in the late 1970s and subjected to punitive psychiatry for “anti-Soviet propaganda.” According to Fontanka, the dissident is accused…
Moscow smashed a daily temperature record on Tuesday, with thermometers in the Russian capital measuring a balmy 23.2 degrees Celsius. The previous record was broken in 1951, when the daily high for April 2 in Moscow was recorded at 17.4 degrees C. Tuesday’s new historic high followed days of unseasonably warm weather throughout much of…
The number of children confirmed killed in the attack on Crocus City Hall last month has risen to six, Russia’s top children’s rights official said Wednesday. “We currently have information on six dead children and seven injured,” presidential commissioner for children’s rights Maria Lvova-Belova said. “Two are being treated at home, five are at the…
An independent newspaper in the Novosibirsk region town of Berdsk has announced its closure after 20 years due to “unbearable” wartime censorship. Founded in 2003, Kurier.Sreda emerged as one of the main sources of news in Berdsk, a town of around 100,000 people and a suburb of the region’s capital city Novosibirsk. “We tried to…
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday that more than 100,000 people have signed up to fight as contract soldiers in the war against Ukraine so far this year. “Over the past week and a half, recruitment points have seen a significant increase in the number of people interested in signing contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry…