The United States on Wednesday announced a raft of new sanctions aimed at constraining Moscow’s ability to wage war on Ukraine while raising the stakes for foreign banks that still do business with Russia. The Treasury Department and State Department’s sanctions impacted more than 300 targets, including entities in Russia and countries like China, Turkey…
A Russian nuclear-powered submarine and other naval vessels arrived in Cuba on Wednesday for a five-day visit to the island in a show of force amid spiraling U.S.-Russian tensions. The submarine Kazan, which Cuba says is not carrying nuclear weapons, was accompanied by the frigate Admiral Gorshkov, as well as an oil tanker and a…
At the end of the Soviet era and dawn of Russia’s emergence as a state, the Russian media, and later social media, got very interesting very quickly. It wasn’t only raw politics, revelations about the present and past — it was also sexuality, both “traditional and untraditional,” gay parades and performers, and even a prime…
Russian exiled media and activists held a telethon on Wednesday in support of the growing number of political prisoners inside Russia, raising tens of thousands of euros for those currently held behind bars. Moscow has waged a sweeping crackdown against domestic dissent since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Leading rights group Memorial…
Russian peacekeepers on Wednesday completed their withdrawal from the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which Baku recaptured last year from Armenian separatists, officials in Baku said. Azerbaijan and Armenia had fought two wars — first from 1988 to 1994 and then again in 2020 — for control of the then-breakaway enclave. “The process of the full withdrawal of the manpower,…
Russia’s Supreme Court last week ruled to ban the so-called “Anti-Russian Separatist Movement” and “its structural divisions” as an extremist organization. Though no organization with this name formally exists in Russia or elsewhere, the country’s Justice Ministry defined the group as an “international public movement to destroy the multinational unity and territorial integrity of Russia.” …
Moscow has called for the immediate release of a Russian woman arrested in Denmark on suspicion of espionage, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Wednesday, accusing Copenhagen of “persecution.” Danish authorities announced Tuesday that a Russian citizen had been arrested on suspicion of “enabling a foreign intelligence service to operate in Denmark.” They did not…
German energy giant Uniper said Wednesday a tribunal had awarded it over 13 billion euros ($14 billion) in damages from Russian state energy company Gazprom for its failure to deliver gas. The ruling gave Uniper “the right to terminate the contracts and awarded it an amount of more than 13 billion euros in damages for…
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Wednesday hailed his country’s ties with Russia, saying the two nations were “invincible comrades-in-arms” amid reports President Vladimir Putin will visit Pyongyang this summer. Kim made a rare overseas trip to meet the Kremlin leader in Russia’s far east last year, with Seoul and Washington subsequently accusing Pyongyang…