The United States expressed deep unease over Putin’s threat to send weapons to Pyongyang, warning such action could destabilize the Korean peninsula. “It is incredibly concerning,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters. “It would destabilize the Korean peninsula, potentially, depending on the type of weapons, and might violate UN Security Council resolutions that Russia…
Prison conditions for Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin — serving 8.5 years for denouncing Moscow’s Ukraine offensive — have considerably worsened after he was moved to a punitive cell, his lawyer told AFP Thursday. Fears for jailed Kremlin critics have risen since opposition leader Alexei Navalny died in his Arctic prison in February. Yashin —…
As President Vladimir Putin paid a state visit to China in May, his Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said that Moscow and Beijing were soon planning to sign a contract on the construction of the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline. “We plan additionally to finish the review and sign a contract for the construction…
A Moscow Court on Thursday extended the pre-trial detention of former Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, who was arrested in late April and then later charged with accepting a bribe of more than 1 billion rubles ($11.4 million) while he oversaw military construction projects. Moscow’s Basmanny Court approved a request from investigators to hold Ivanov,…
Ten Ukrainian children and their families have been returned to territory controlled by Ukraine’s armed forces after living under Russian occupation, authorities in Kyiv said Thursday. Ukraine has accused Moscow of abducting almost 20,000 children from parts of the east and south of the country, while many more have found themselves living under Russian occupation…
Updated with second reported death. A powerful storm rumbled through the Russian capital on Thursday afternoon, carrying heavy rains and winds that ripped hundreds of trees from the ground and killed at least two people, local authorities said. Russia’s Emergency Services Ministry said a man was killed near Park Dubki in northern Moscow when wind…
Russian cyclist Alexander Vlasov has turned down the chance to participate in the upcoming Olympic Games in Paris due to his “very busy calendar,” a top Russian sporting official said on Thursday. Vlasov, 28, was one of 14 Russian athletes approved by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) over the weekend to compete in the games under…
EU member states on Thursday signed off on a fresh package of sanctions against Russia targeting its lucrative liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector for the first time, officials said. The new measures — which should be formally adopted on Monday — are aimed at further choking off Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war machine. “This hard-hitting package…
Russia’s largest lender Sberbank will begin providing services to corporate clients in eastern Ukraine’s partially occupied Luhansk and Donetsk regions later this month, a top manager at the bank told state media on Thursday. “Starting June 25, we will begin servicing legal entities” in occupied Ukraine, Sberank’s Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board, Anatoly Popov,…
The interdepartmental memorandum on the schedule for implementation of the project for construction of the Nuclear Science and Technology Center in Viet Nam was signed. Alexey Likhachev, Director General of ROSATOM, visited Viet Nam within the official delegation of the Russian Federation. He had a meeting with Phạm Minh Chính, Prime Minister of Viet Nam,…
A dual U.S.-Russian citizen accused of donating around $50 to a Ukrainian charity went on trial for treason in the Ural city of Yekaterinburg on Thursday. Ksenia Karelina, a 32-year-old ballerina living and working in Los Angeles, was detained by police in Yekaterinburg in late January while on a trip to visit her family in…
A Russian missile and drone barrage damaged a Ukrainian power plant and other energy facilities overnight, officials said on Thursday, the latest in a series of strikes that have pushed the country’s grid to the brink. The targeted aerial barrages over recent months have crippled Ukraine’s electricity generation capacity and forced officials to impose rolling…
An overnight Ukrainian drone attack in southern Russia’s Krasnodar region has killed a woman, local authorities said early Thursday, as other drone strikes across the country set several oil depots ablaze. Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defense systems destroyed six drones in the republic of Adygea, three each in the Bryansk and Krasnodar regions,…
Updated with cooperation agreement signing. Russia and Vietnam pledged Thursday to strengthen mutual ties as President Vladimir Putin made a state visit aimed at bolstering his alliances to counter Moscow’s growing isolation over the war in Ukraine. Putin traveled to Vietnam, a close ally of Russia since the Cold War, from a summit with North…