A Russian military court on Monday granted house arrest to a general and former commander in Moscow’s Ukraine offensive who has been charged with fraud. Russia has recently arrested several senior military and defense figures over alleged fraud and bribe-taking, more than two years into Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine. Major General Ivan Popov was released…
Russian volunteers are sending cats to fight off rodent infestations in the battlefield trenches during the country’s invasion of Ukraine, local media reported Monday. “The soldiers complained to me that they’re plagued by mice,” volunteer Vladimir Malygin told the state-affiliated media outlet Tatar Inform. “Cats saved the Hermitage during the Great Patriotic War [World War II],…
This year’s Pitrau festival came and went in the republic of Tatarstan. Celebrated by the Kryashens, an Orthodox Christian ethnic sub-group of the Volga Tatars, the holiday has a deep folk and religious meaning. While Pitrau is largely to observe the Day of Saints Peter and Paul, the festival also has pre-Christian roots. The day…
A U.S. citizen jailed in Russia for kicking a police officer two years ago has complained of being tortured by his fellow inmates, local state-run media reported Monday. Robert Gilman, 30, was sentenced to four years and six months in Russian prison for allegedly kicking a law enforcement officer in October 2022, a sentence that was…
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that Russia should be represented at a second summit aiming to secure lasting peace with the Kremlin, after more than two years of war. Dozens of world leaders voiced support for a just peace in Ukraine after a high-level summit convened by Zelensky last month in Switzerland, to which…
“Limonov: The Ballad,” directed by Kirill Serebrennikov, was screened at the Cannes Film Festival and will be released in the US in September. The screenplay, written by Serebrennikov with Ben Hopkins and Paweł Pawlikowski in an adaptation of Emmanuel Carrère’s 2015 fictionalized biography, tells the story of the poet, writer and Soviet dissident who became…
A Russian soldier who was medically discharged from Ukraine was accused of firing at a group of children in southern Russia’s Volgograd region, local media reported Monday, citing authorities and the victims’ relatives. A 12-year-old boy was hospitalized with a gunshot wound in the leg, according to the news website v1.ru. The outlet said several anonymous…
Russia’s state-run Rossiya 1 TV channel ran a segment threatening to strike European capitals during its primetime broadcast on Sunday evening. “Almost all European capitals will be under threat if our missiles are stationed in Kaliningrad: Berlin, Warsaw, all the Baltic states, Paris, Bucharest, Prague, and of course, the American bases in Germany,” TV host and…
The Dutch holding company of Russian tech giant Yandex has closed a deal to sell its remaining stake in Russia, the company said on Monday. The $2.8 billion sale of a 28% stake completes the Amsterdam-based Yandex NV’s exit from Russia, after most of its assets in the country were sold to a Russian consortium…
Russian television will for the first time in 40 years not broadcast the Olympics due to the near-total absence of its athletes, the news outlet sports.ru has reported, citing unidentified sources. Russian and Belarusian athletes are only allowed to compete in the Paris Olympics this month as neutrals without national flags and anthems. Additional vetting…
A Moscow court has sentenced Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen to eight years in prison in absentia for spreading fake information about Russia’s military, the human rights NGO Net Freedoms Project reported Monday. Moscow’s Basmanny District Court found Gessen, who was born in Russia but lives in the U.S., guilty of “disseminating knowingly false information about…
Russia on Monday denied a plea from a Siberian shaman for transfer out of a severe psychiatric hospital over three years after being confined for protesting against President Vladimir Putin, his lawyer said. Alexander Gabyshev, 55, was sent to a psychiatric hospital in January 2021 after repeatedly attempting to walk from his native republic of…