The State Department confirmed Wednesday that the United States had secretly sent long-range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine as part of the March assistance package, fulfilling a long-standing request from Kyiv. “We did not announce this at the onset in order to maintain operational security for Ukraine at their request,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told…
Independent news outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe reported on Monday that Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman leader of Chechnya, has been living with a potentially fatal illness for more than five years, prompting the Kremlin to start working on a plan for a managed transfer of power. In the first part of its investigation into the political…
Kyiv’s SBU security service said Wednesday it suspected a high-ranking cleric and head of east Ukraine’s main monastery of having revealed army positions to Russian forces. The SBU said it had “served a notice of suspicion to the Metropolitan of the Sviatohirsk Lavra who ‘tipped off’” Ukrainian positions in the Donetsk region to Russian forces.…
The arrest of a senior defense official on bribery suspicions signals Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s diminishing status and the rising influence of the security services, two sources in the Russian government and a person close to the Kremlin told The Moscow Times. All spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic.…
When the water started rising sharply in Orenburg, a regional capital near Russia’s border with Kazakhstan, Veronika realized that a “gigantic tragedy” was unfolding before her eyes. “It was such a terrible, nerve-wracking situation because the water kept rising and rising,” Orenburg resident Veronika told The Moscow Times. “Every day you wake up, scroll through…
Russia and Ukraine have for the first time held in-person talks to exchange children displaced by the war, Moscow’s children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova announced Wednesday. Forty-eight children are set to be exchanged under the deal agreed in Qatar, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency quoted Lvova-Belova as saying. Qatar said it mediated the Russian-Ukrainian children’s…
A veteran of Russia’s war on Ukraine has been appointed as a district head in his home region on Monday, marking the first known example of a participant in the war being named to public office in Russia. “Today, deputies of the Berezovsky District Duma unanimously endorsed the candidacy of Ruslan Alexandrov for the post…
Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov has been arrested in one of the highest-profile corruption cases involving the military since Russia invaded Ukraine more than two years ago. Dubbed “one of the richest siloviki,” 48-year-old Ivanov has been the subject of Russian media investigations into his and his family’s lavish lifestyles. Ivanov is also seen as…
The Russian Orthodox Church has suspended a priest who led a memorial service for the late opposition figure Alexei Navalny last month, according to a ruling on the Moscow diocese website. Priest Dmitry Safronov performed a memorial service at Navalny’s gravesite in Moscow on March 26, 40 days after the Kremlin critic died in an Arctic prison. According…
A Russian deputy defense minister who was exposed in an investigation by late opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s team was remanded in custody Wednesday on suspicion of taking large bribes. The arrest of Timur Ivanov, a longtime ally of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, is the most dramatic corruption case in Russia in recent years, and comes…
Ukraine launched attack drones at oil facilities in western Russia early Wednesday, defense sources in Kyiv confirmed, in the latest aerial assault by Kyiv aiming to dent Russian military logistics. Ukraine over recent weeks has stepped up aerial attacks on Russian energy facilities in the hopes of crippling Moscow’s ability to attack Ukrainian cities or…