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Ukraine on Thursday accused Russia of detaining and killing civilians in the border town of Vovchansk in the northeastern Kharkiv region, where Russian forces launched a ground assault last week. “Russian troops are taking civilians prisoner,” Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko wrote on Telegram, adding that intelligence reports suggested Russian forces “trying to gain a foothold in…

Russia’s first transgender politician said Thursday that he has returned to his gender assigned at birth, a surprise announcement that comes amid a nationwide crackdown on the LGBTQ+ community. Roman Alyoshin previously went by the name Yulia Alyoshina, which he said was listed in an internal passport he received in 2020. Last year, while still identifying as a woman, he dropped…

Ukraine warned Thursday that it faced a “very difficult” situation in its northeastern Kharkiv region, where Moscow has made its largest territorial gains in 18 months since launching a surprise offensive last week. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Kyiv was sending more reinforcements to the area, the Ukrainian army said it had managed to…

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said Thursday that it arrested a man and his girlfriend on suspicion of planning to blow up a railway track in annexed Crimea on orders from Ukraine. The unidentified man and woman were arrested “trying to place an explosive device under the railroad tracks” in April near the city of…

Leaders Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping framed their nations’ ties as a stabilizing force in a chaotic world as they met Thursday in Beijing, where the Russian president is seeking greater Chinese support for his war effort in Ukraine and Russia’s isolated economy. This week’s trip is Putin’s first abroad since his March re-election and…

Following the inauguration of President Vladimir Putin to a fifth term in office on May 7, the Russian government has undergone a reshuffle of ministers in cabinet positions. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, who was reappointed to a second term, submitted his cabinet nominations to the Russian parliament late last week, and in the days since,…

President Vladimir Putin has finalized the roster of his administration and government as his fifth term gets off to a start, with new faces including sons of friends and allies as well as officials rumored to be in the running to succeed him. With much of his team staying unchanged, the new appointments appear to…

President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that he does not plan to make any personnel changes to Russia’s General Staff following the ouster of longtime Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu earlier this week. General Valery Gerasimov will appear to maintain his position as chief of Russia’s General Staff, the central organ of command of the country’s armed forces, despite the ongoing…

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s close ally Magomed Daudov announced Tuesday that he is stepping down as speaker of the North Caucasus republic’s legislative assembly, a post he held for nearly nine years.  “After consulting with the head of the republic of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, I decided to resign as Speaker of the Chechen Parliament,” Daudov told regional…

Russian authorities have moved to seize the Russia-based assets of a major vodka producer whose Ukrainian founder was previously accused of funding Kyiv’s armed forces. Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office filed a legal suit with a Kursk region court on Tuesday seeking to suspend the work of four distillers belonging to Global Spirits Holding, a multinational…

President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday hailed Russian advances in the Kharkiv region and the recapture of a symbolic town further south that was one of the only prizes of Ukraine’s underwhelming counteroffensive last summer. Moscow’s claims came as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced fresh military aid while in Kyiv and said Washington had…

At least 16 citizens of Sri Lanka fighting as mercenaries have been killed in Russia’s war against Ukraine, the island nation’s deputy defense minister said Wednesday. Sri Lankan authorities opened an inquiry last week into the recruitment of its citizens in the war and have since identified 288 retired soldiers who participated in the conflict,…

Russia said Wednesday its forces had pushed deeper into the Kharkiv region and also captured the symbolic town of Robotyne further south, one of the only prizes of Ukraine’s underwhelming counteroffensive last summer. Moscow’s advances on two fronts point to the critical shortages of ammunition and manpower that Kyiv has been struggling with in recent…

President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday named five successors to regional governors who were promoted to federal office earlier this week as part of a wider government reshuffle. In the central Tula region, former governor Alexei Dyumin’s deputy Dmitry Milyayev was appointed as the new acting regional head. Milyayev has held public office in the Tula…

Russian air defense systems have intercepted dozens of Ukrainian drones and U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles overnight and early Wednesday morning, Russia’s Defense Ministry said. The attacks caused temporary airport closures in the central republic of Tatarstan, as well as explosions at a fuel depot in the southern city of Rostov, where the military headquarters overseeing Moscow’s…

Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed Beijing’s “genuine desire” to help resolve the Ukraine war, in an interview with Chinese state media published Wednesday ahead of his two-day visit to the country. Putin arrives in Beijing on Thursday to meet his “dear friend” Xi Jinping, seeking to win greater support from China for his war effort…

Russian strikes on the center of Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv injured 20 people on Tuesday, officials said. The city, located in Ukraine’s northeast just 30 kilometers from Russia’s border, has faced intensifying aerial attacks in recent months. Moscow also launched a major assault on the wider Kharkiv region last week, capturing several border villages…

Russia’s incoming Defense Minister Andrei Belousov said Tuesday that he will work toward increasing the military’s effectiveness so that Moscow can achieve “victory” in its war against Ukraine. “The main priority, of course, remains achieving victory and ensuring that the military-political goals of the special military operation… are achieved,” Belousov said in an address to Russia’s…

A Ukrainian student who has been arrested multiple times in Russia for anti-war social media posts has been expelled from Moscow State University, the state news agency RIA Novosti reported Tuesday. Since early April, bachelor’s student Serhiy Hulko has been detained three consecutive times on a series of misdemeanor charges, including for the public display of…

TBILISI, Georgia — Georgian lawmakers approved a controversial bill on regulating “foreign influence” in its third and final reading on Tuesday, defying the country’s largest protests in years. The legislation has plunged the South Caucasus country into a political crisis, with tens of thousands rallying against what they say mirrors Russia’s repressive “foreign agent” law…

President Vladimir Putin has appointed the long-serving Russian Security Council chairman Nikolai Patrushev as a presidential aide, the Kremlin announced Tuesday. Patrushev, 73, was dismissed on Sunday after serving 16 years as head of Russia’s Security Council, an executive branch body that advises the president on strategic and security issues. Long considered a key member…

Rescue workers on Tuesday retrieved a woman’s body from beneath the rubble of an apartment building in the western Russian city of Belgorod that collapsed after being struck by a Ukrainian missile over the weekend, raising the death toll in the attack to 16. “Another victim was found dead at the site of the collapse of…

Russia’s state-owned rail company said Tuesday that a freight train derailed overnight near the southern city of Volgograd due to suspected sabotage. “Due to the intervention of unauthorized persons, wagons from a freight train derailed [in the town of]… Kotluban,” the local branch of Russian Railways said. Kotluban is around 300 kilometers from the border…

President Vladimir Putin will visit China this week at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, the Kremlin announced Tuesday, in the Russian leader’s first trip abroad since being sworn into his fifth term. “The two leaders will discuss a wide range of issues concerning their comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation, identify key areas…

Updated to add the Investigative Committee’s confirmation. Russian law enforcement authorities have arrested another senior Defense Ministry official on criminal bribery allegations, the country’s Investigative Committee confirmed Tuesday. Lieutenant-General Yury Kuznetsov, who heads the Defense Ministry’s personnel directorate, has been placed in pre-trial detention on large-scale bribery charges, the Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said. Investigators…

An economist and technocrat with no military background, Russia’s new Defense Minister Andrei Belousov has been tasked with deploying his number-crunching skills and bureaucratic oversight to secure Russian victory against Ukraine. Belousov has been one of President Vladimir Putin’s most trusted and influential advisers and is widely seen as his point man on all things…

The jailed former regional coordinator of Alexei Navalny’s political network in Russia’s republic of Bashkortostan has asked President Vladimir Putin to pardon her, state-funded media reported Monday. Lilia Chanysheva, 42, was the first of Navalny’s associates to be arrested on “extremism” charges in November 2021. Last month, a court in the city of Ufa sentenced…

Russia’s state financial watchdog Rosfinmonitoring has added journalist Nadezhda Kevorkova to its list of “terrorists and extremists,” the state-run news agency TASS reported Monday. Kevorkova, 65, is a Russian war correspondent, author, and filmmaker who has written about the Middle East and Russia’s North Caucasus for both independent and state-funded media.  A Moscow court last…

A Russian court in annexed Crimea has handed down prison sentences to five Ukrainian citizens accused of sharing military intelligence with Kyiv, state media reported Monday. The men were charged with treason and espionage after sharing information on the location and movements of Russian army units that helped the Ukrainian army target aerial strikes, Russia’s…

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s dismissal has come as a shock to many in Russia’s political and military leadership, current and former officials as well as sources close to the Kremlin and the Defense Ministry have told The Moscow Times. All of these sources spoke on condition of anonymity in order to speak freely about…

A Ukrainian drone strike in western Russia’s Kursk region has killed one woman and injured three others, regional authorities said Monday. “Today, Ukrainian terrorists deliberately attacked vehicles with drones in the Glushkovsky district,” the Kursk regional government said on Telegram. “One woman died at the scene, three other people were injured,” it said, noting that the…

A regional Russian lawmaker said he was targeted in a car bomb attack in occupied Ukraine over the weekend. Denis Kharitonov, who is a deputy from the ruling United Russia party in the southern Astrakhan region’s legislative assembly, said earlier this year that he had joined the military and was sent for deployment on the front line. Over…

Agents from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) have detained a former employee of the tech company Yandex on suspicion of sending money to the Ukrainian army, state media reported Monday. “The FSB has disrupted the illegal activities of a former Yandex LLC employee in the Nizhny Novgorod region,” the TASS news agency quoted the FSB’s…

Russia’s Defense Ministry said early Monday that its anti-air systems had shot down 31 Ukrainian drones over several Russian regions and annexed Crimea. “During the night, new attempts by the Kyiv regime to carry out terrorist attacks with the help of aerial drones… against targets on the territory of the Russian Federation were foiled,” the…

In a major shakeup, President Vladimir Putin has nominated former First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov to replace longtime Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, the upper-house Federation Council announced Sunday night. The ouster of Shoigu, a longtime Putin ally, comes nearly a week after Putin was sworn into a fifth term in office, cementing his more…

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Sunday that its forces had captured four more villages in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region as thousands of residents were evacuated amid Moscow’s surprise ground offensive. The ministry said its forces had “advanced deeply into the enemy defenses” and taken villages including Gatishche, Krasnoye, Morokhovets, and Oleinikovo. Ukraine’s military, meanwhile, said it was…

Updated with injury, death count. Rescue workers in the western Russian city of Belgorod have recovered the bodies of 15 people buried beneath the rubble of an apartment building that collapsed earlier on Sunday after being struck by a Ukrainian missile. “The main part of removing rubble from the apartment building on Shchors Street has been…

At least 17 people were injured after a Ukrainian missile struck a residential building in the western Russian city of Belgorod, Russian authorities said Sunday. Russia’s Defense Ministry said a Ukrainian Tochka-U missile hit a “residential district” in the city after it was intercepted by air defense systems.  It was not immediately possible to verify…

Thousands of protesters marched through central Tbilisi on Saturday at a rally against a controversial “foreign influence” bill backed by the Georgian government and likened to Russian laws silencing dissent. Massive rallies have gripped the Black Sea Caucasus country for almost a month after the ruling Georgian Dream party revived the bill dropped last year…

Russia on Saturday said it had captured five villages in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region during a surprise ground offensive that prompted mass evacuations, as President Volodymyr Zelensky made an urgent call for military aid. Moscow’s Defense Ministry said its troops had “liberated” five villages in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region near the Russian border — Borysivka, Ohirtseve,…

Hundreds of people were evacuated from areas near the Russian border in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, the regional governor said Saturday, a day after Moscow launched a surprise ground offensive. Russian forces made small advances in the area it was pushed back from nearly two years ago, the latest in a series of gains as Ukrainian…

Law enforcement authorities in the South Caucasus nation of Georgia have arrested a Russian man who attended recent protests against a controversial “foreign influence” bill, local media reported Friday. Members of the Russian diaspora have joined tens of thousands of Georgians in Tbilisi since April to rally against what has been described as a copycat of…

Updated with new death toll. At least seven people have died and six injured after a passenger bus plunged into a river in central St. Petersburg, Russia’s Investigative Committee said Friday. St. Petersburg police said around 20 passengers were on board the bus when it fell off a bridge into the Moika River at around…

Russian forces launched a surprise ground offensive into Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region on Friday, as Ukrainian authorities told civilians along border areas to flee amid heavy fighting. “Russia launched a new wave of counteroffensive actions… Ukraine met them there with our troops, brigades, and artillery,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a briefing. “Now there…

Russia has launched a cross-border ground offensive into Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry and a high-ranking Ukrainian military source said Friday. Kyiv’s forces pushed back Russian forces from most of the Kharkiv region in 2022, the same year the Kremlin launched its so-called “special military operation.” But Moscow appears to be back on…

President Vladimir Putin has nominated acting Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin for reappointment, with Russian lawmakers widely expected to approve his candidacy later on Friday, an apparent signal of continuity as Moscow presses on with its full-scale war against Ukraine. Mishustin, a low-profile technocrat who has steered Russia’s economy through a storm of Western sanctions and…

Updated with voting results. Russian lawmakers on Friday approved President Vladimir Putin’s nomination of Mikhail Mishustin to return as prime minister, a sign that the Kremlin is banking on continuity and stability as it presses ahead with its full-scale war against Ukraine. Mishustin, a low-profile technocrat who has steered Russia’s economy through a storm of Western sanctions and…

A Ukrainian drone struck an oil refinery in central Russia’s Kaluga region, local authorities said Friday, as a recent uptick in attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure possibly risks destabilizing global energy markets. The Kaluga region, located south of Moscow, was among at least five Russian regions that reported drone strikes between Thursday night and Friday…

SEVASTOPOL — At a cemetery on the outskirts of Sevastopol, annexed Crimea’s main port city, hundreds of Russian flags fluttered in the wind beside the graves of soldiers killed in Moscow’s war against Ukraine.   Walking among the graves were Olga, 65, with her husband Vladimir, 73. The retired couple came to visit the cemetery on…

MOSCOW — Thousands of Muscovites flocked the streets of the Russian capital on Thursday to commemorate Victory Day, an annual celebration marking the Soviet Union’s triumph over Nazi Germany in World War II. Many came out to watch the traditional military parade — a showcase of army vehicles and thousands of marching troops dressed in…

Russia has agreed to remove some of its troops and border guards from Armenia, the Kremlin said on Thursday, after months of spiraling tensions between the two ex-Soviet allies. Yerevan, a traditional partner of Moscow, has publicly distanced itself recently, angry that Russian peacekeeping forces did not intervene during last year’s Azerbaijani offensive to retake…

A drone has attacked an oil refinery in Russia’s republic of Bashkortostan, regional authorities said Thursday, the first such reported case in the region since Moscow invaded Ukraine more than two years ago. “A drone attacked the industrial zone of Salavat city at around 13:00 today, after which there was smoke at one of the…

Ukrainian attacks in and around the western Russian city of Belgorod have injured at least eight people, Russian authorities said Thursday, as the country marks the 79th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany. “The city of Belgorod and the Belgorod district came under an air attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. There were direct…

Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a defiant speech Thursday slamming Ukraine and its Western allies over their alleged attempts to “distort” history and stoke regional conflicts as he attended a military parade on Red Square to mark Victory Day.  “Today we see how they’re trying to distort the truth about WWII. It interferes with those…