Russia had plans to assassinate the CEO of German defense company Rheinmetall, a key producer of artillery shells and military vehicles for Ukraine, CNN reported Thursday, citing five anonymous U.S. and Western officials familiar with U.S. intelligence. U.S. intelligence had informed Berlin of these plans, allowing German security services to foil the plot against Papperger, the…
Russian lawmakers have called on the country’s largest lender Sberbank to remove a rainbow-colored unicorn from its bank cards for kids, saying that “rainbow symbols” are an attribute of the “international LGBT movement.” In an appeal to Sberbank head German Gref, the lower-house State Duma’s Family, Women and Children Committee said that it had received…
Three EU citizens were detained this week for illegally entering the Russian-controlled Baikonur Cosmodrome in central Kazakhstan, local authorities said Thursday. The secretive space launch facility in a remote area of the Kazakh steppe has become a magnet for daredevil tourists, many of whom attempt to break into the hangars housing old Soviet-era spacecraft. The…
A Russian court Thursday sentenced a student in the Far East city of Birobidzhan 6,000 kilometers from Ukraine to five years in prison for passing troop locations to Kyiv. The unidentified man collected information “using the internet” on “Russian troops and locations of military units in the zone of the special military operation” in Ukraine…
Exiled Russian opposition politician Leonid Gozman has been sentenced to 8.5 years in prison in absentia for criticizing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Moscow judicial press service said Thursday. Gozman, 73, was charged in connection with his criticism of the invasion of Ukraine on his Facebook profile and Telegram channel, as well as in appearances on political shows…
President Vladimir Putin on Thursday granted Russian citizenship to 22 foreigners including a Serbian national who said he faced prosecution in his native country for fighting on Russia’s side in Ukraine. Aleksandar Jokic recorded a video appeal to Putin this spring to ask the Russian president to help him avoid serving 25 years in Serbian prison on mercenarism…
Russian authorities have added exiled opposition figure Yulia Navalnaya to the federal list of “terrorists and extremists” days after issuing a warrant for her arrest, media reported Thursday. A Moscow court said this week that it placed Navalaya, who currently lives outside Russia, in pre-trial detention in absentia for “participating in an extremist organization.” Russian authorities…
Russian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov has called on foreign leaders to facilitate the exchange of political prisoners from Russia in a rare video appeal published Wednesday. “Let’s start exchanging civilians imprisoned on politically motivated charges. Many of them simply won’t survive [in prison],” Muratov said in a 20-minute long YouTube clip. “Let’s exchange…
A court in Latvia has sentenced a pro-Kremlin activist to three years in prison for publicly displaying Russian and Soviet flags, media reported Wednesday. Jelena Kreile has previously been seen wearing pro-war symbols and holding pro-Russian signs at anti-war rallies in the Latvian capital of Riga. The Latvian-born housewife, who only speaks Russian, faces 15 administrative cases for…
128 steel ropes will ensure the safety and maximum strength of the reactor building. Installation of the containment prestressing system (CPS) has been completed in the reactor building of Power Unit No. 1 of the Akkuyu NPP (being built by Rosatom State Corporation in Turkey). This is a part of a sealed structure that creates…
Rosneft Oil Company’s Board of Directors has approved the 2023 Sustainability Report
A Moscow court on Thursday rejected an appeal by jailed human rights defender Oleg Orlov against his imprisonment for criticizing the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine. Orlov, 71, was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison this year on charges of “discrediting” the Russian military with his anti-war pickets and the 2022 article titled: “They Wanted Fascism.…
Russia will not attend a second planned international summit on peace in Ukraine because it will ignore Moscow’s proposals, a senior diplomat said Thursday. Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin told the state-run news agency RIA Novosti that the first summit attended by more than 90 countries in Switzerland last month had “failed.” Moscow and its ally…
Kyiv said Thursday that it had seized a foreign cargo ship and detained its captain, alleging that the vessel had illegally exported Ukrainian grain from the annexed Crimean peninsula. Since Russia’s capture of swaths of agricultural land in Ukraine in early 2022, Kyiv has accused Moscow of illegally harvesting and shipping grain produced on occupied…