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Albania’s foreign ministry said Thursday it had expelled a Russian diplomat over repeated failures to respect coronavirus infection control measures that “cannot be tolerated.” Declared “persona non grata,” the man named as Alexey Krivosheev “is required to leave the country within 72 hours,” Tirana said in a statement. Officials from the ministry had repeatedly asked…

Russia plans to squeeze Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty out of the country with steep fines in an escalating conflict between the Kremlin and the United States, which funds the news organization, the New York Times reported Thursday. Russia’s media regulator reportedly signaled its intention to issue 130 notices of violations against RFE/RL for failing to…

New U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday proposed a five-year extension with Russia of New START, the last remaining nuclear reduction treaty between the powers, but vowed to pressure Moscow on other fronts. The treaty, which has limited the United States and Russia to 1,550 nuclear warheads each, expires on February 5 after negotiations stagnated…

Russian authorities rounded up leading opposition activists and key Alexei Navalny allies Thursday evening, ahead of nationwide protests the Kremlin critic’s operation is organizing for Saturday. Activist Lyubov Sobol — who became the face of Moscow’s Summer 2019 protests in Moscow after she was blocked from running for city council — was detained for inciting…

The EU Parliament on Thursday called for an end to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project over the arrest of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny. MEPs also called for sanctions against “Russian oligarchs” and allies of President Vladimir Putin, in response to the arrest of Navalny upon his return to Russia on Sunday. The EU…

NASA is considering reducing its presence in Russia under new U.S. President Joe Biden, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported Thursday. In addition to its liaison office in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, NASA reportedly has around 90 employees and Russian service staff in Russia’s space agency Roscosmos and other spaceflight offices around Moscow.…

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday ruled that Russia committed a series of rights violations, including torture and preventing people returning to their homes, in the wake of its 2008 war against Georgia. The five-day conflict in August 2008 between Russia and the pro-Western Georgian government ended with Russian troops stationed in…

Germany has offered Russia support in Moscow’s development of its Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday. Russian authorities said Wednesday they have applied for registration of Sputnik V in the European Union. “Beyond all the political differences that are currently large, we can nevertheless work together in a pandemic, in a humanitarian area,” Merkel…

Russia’s republic of Bashkortostan will introduce Covid-19 passports from Feb. 5, becoming the first region of the country to do so, Governor Radiy Khabirov announced. The electronic document and an associated QR code will be automatically issued to residents with Covid-19 antibodies through the Gosuslugi.ru government portal.  “A person who received the vaccine would be…

Russian police threatened to prosecute those who spread calls to join nationwide protests in support of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny amid the authorities’ campaign to discourage attendance, Interfax reported Thursday. Unauthorized rallies are scheduled in at least 50 Russian cities this Saturday, galvanized by Navalny’s arrest upon his return from treatment in Germany for…

Russia has drastically cut funding for anti-domestic violence initiatives following years of dwindling financing in favor of non-government organizations that promote conservative values, the Open Media investigative outlet reported Thursday. The outlet found that all but one out of an estimated dozen domestic violence crisis centers and legal aid organizations were rejected in 2021 as…

The mayor of Russia’s capital Moscow on Thursday announced a “significant” easing of coronavirus restrictions citing the success of the vaccination campaign. Starting Friday, Moscow will reopen its museums and libraries, while theaters and cinemas will be allowed to accommodate more visitors, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. He said colleges, sports schools and children’s clubs will resume…

An extravagant Black Sea mansion alleged to belong to President Vladimir Putin got renewed attention this week after a viral investigation by opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The Praskoveyevka estate in southern Russia cost 100 billion rubles ($1.35 billion) to construct and is 39 times the size of Monaco, Navalny said in the video released after…

A young Russian conscript has been sentenced to 24 and a half years in prison Thursday for gunning down eight fellow soldiers in what he said was retaliation to hazing, Russian media reported. Ramil Shamsutdinov, 22, was arrested in the fall of 2019 on murder charges at a military base where he had served in…

Young Russians have flooded TikTok with calls to rally in support of opposition leader Alexei Navalny this weekend, prompting the state censor to urge the popular short-video app’s administrators to take them down. Navalny called for nationwide street protests this Saturday after his arrest and a viral investigative video into an opulent $1.35 billion Black…

Russia on Wednesday urged U.S. President Joe Biden’s new administration to take a “more constructive” approach in talks over the extension of the New START treaty, Washington’s last arms reduction pact with Moscow. “We expect that the new U.S. administration will take a more constructive approach in its dialogue with us,” the Russian Foreign Ministry…

A Russian court has banned several popular animes including “Death Note,” “Tokyo Ghoul” and “Inuyashiki” Wednesday over claims that Russian teens reenact violent scenes depicted in the cartoons. State prosecutors had also asked the court in St. Petersburg to ban “Naruto,” “Elfen Lied” and “Interspecies Reviewers” in December. “Every episode contains cruelty, murder, violence,” said the…

Russian authorities have applied for registration of the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in the European Union, the country’s sovereign wealth fund financing the jab said Wednesday. A spokesperson for the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) said the application with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) was lodged on Tuesday. “It is an important milestone,” he added.…

Foreigners and unmarried Russians could be banned from having children with the help of a surrogate under a new draft bill, the RBC news website reported Wednesday. Russia is one of the few countries worldwide where commercial surrogacy is allowed, but a backlash against foreign surrogacy has been growing with warnings that women and children…

Chechnya’s strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov said Wednesday that police had killed Aslan Byutukayev, alleged leader of the Islamic State group in the volatile republic and mastermind of deadly attacks in Moscow. Byutukayev, also known as Amir Khamzat, was designated in 2016 as a “global terrorist” by the U.S. State Department, which said he had become…

The Kremlin said Wednesday that any improvement in Moscow’s tense relationship with Washington would depend on Joe Biden when he enters the White House. The United States recently blamed Kremlin-backed hackers for a massive cyberattack that breached government institutions, adding to a long list of grievances plaguing ties between the former Cold War rivals. “Russia…

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s viral video investigation into President Vladimir Putin’s alleged palace is “a bunch of nonsense,” the Kremlin said Wednesday. Navalny released an extensive exposé into a lavish $1.35 billion Black Sea estate Tuesday after Russian authorities jailed him upon his return from Germany, where he was hospitalized for what Western scientists…

Russia received its lowest level of foreign investment last year since the mid-1990s, data released by the Central Bank on Tuesday showed. Net inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) came in at just $1.4 billion in 2020, as the economic fallout from the pandemic, travel restrictions and a slump in global energy prices heaped pressure…

Russia has confirmed 3,633,952 cases of coronavirus and 67,220 deaths. Jan. 20: What you need to know today Russia confirmed 21,152 new coronavirus cases and 597 deaths. The Russian Direct Investment Fund has applied for authorization of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in the European Union, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported Wednesday. The European Medicines Agency (EMA)…

Last year was the warmest in Russia’s recorded history, the national weather service said this month as global temperatures reached record highs. Russia’s weather service said 2020 was among the country’s 14 hottest years, all of which were recorded in the 21st century. Average temperatures across the country’s 11 time zones were 2 degrees Celsius…

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, has urged Joe Biden’s administration to improve U.S.-Russia ties and extend a key nuclear pact ahead of the U.S. President-elect’s inauguration.  “The current condition of relations between Russia and the United States is of great concern,” Gorbachev said in an interview with the state-run TASS news agency published Wednesday,…

Update: The hearing has been postponed to 10:00 a.m. on Feb. 5 because Navalny was unable to attend the original hearing date while in detention, the independent Mediazona and Dozhd news outlets reported. Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who was detained on his return to Russia for violating a suspended sentence, is due in court Wednesday on separate…

Russia’s Embassy in the United States has accused its counterparts of abruptly cutting off phone lines at the Russian Consulate in New York ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s last day in office. The consulate said earlier in the day that several dozen of its landlines had been simultaneously disconnected, raising “huge problems” for the…

Antony Blinken, President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for secretary of state, said Tuesday the incoming administration would seek to extend New START, the last U.S. arms pact with Russia, which expires February 5. “I think we’re going to seek an extension,” Blinken said in response to a question at his Senate confirmation hearing. “I know we…

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny accused President Vladimir Putin of using fraudulently obtained funds to build an opulent billion-dollar estate in an investigation published Tuesday, after authorities jailed him on charges he says are politically motivated. The Praskoveyevka estate on the Black Sea coast in southern Russia cost 100-billion rubles ($1.35 billion) to build and…

The Kremlin on Tuesday dismissed Western demands to release Russia’s most prominent opposition leader Alexei Navalny, saying his calls for mass protests over his arrest were “troubling”. Legal pressure is ramping up against President Vladimir Putin’s best-known domestic critic, who is due in court on defamation charges on Wednesday, as his allies in Russia call…

Russian President Vladimir Putin took a dip in freezing water on Tuesday to mark the Orthodox Christian feast of the Epiphany.  Video shared by Kremlin pool reporters from the state-run RIA Novosti news agency showed Putin wading into the water in blue swimming trunks and dunking three times while crossing himself before hastily exiting the…

Parler, the social network popular with Trump supporters, has partially reappeared online with tech support from a Russian-owned technology company, Reuters reported Monday. Google and Apple removed Parler from their app stores after Trump, who is serving his last day in office, was banned from various platforms following the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S.…

A powerful Russian icebreaker has crossed the Northern Sea Route for the first time at this time of year as ice coverage shrinks in the rapidly melting Arctic.  The liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker Christophe de Margerie made it through the Chukchi Sea and into the Bering Strait on Saturday, Jan. 16, after 10 days…

The arrest and detention for thirty days of prominent opposition activist Alexei Navalny is threatening to upend Russian politics in an already fraught year that will include parliamentary elections in September.  Since rising to prominence for his anti-Kremlin activism, Navalny — who was poisoned by the nerve agent Novichok in August last year and had…

A Russian police officer is under suspicion of leaking the travel data of security officers allegedly behind opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s poisoning, the RBC news website reported Tuesday. The arrest in the central city of Samara comes less than a month after a media investigation named several alleged Rusian Federal Security Service (FSB) chemical-weapons experts…

From hospitals to courtrooms to demonstrations, Russia’s chief opposition figure Alexei Navalny is often flanked by his wife Yulia Navalnaya, who has been thrown into the limelight since his poisoning in August. On Sunday she flew back with her husband to Russia from Germany, where the couple had spent five months as the Kremlin critic…

Navalny ally Vladimir Ashurkov has published a list of eight Russian business and political elites who he says Alexei Navalny wants Western governments to sanction.  Top of the list is Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, who Ashurkov calls “one of the key enablers and beneficiaries of Russian kleptocracy, with significant ties and assets in…

Russia’s most prominent opposition leader Alexei Navalny called Monday for his supporters to take to the streets after a hastily organized court ordered him jailed for 30 days. The makeshift court — set up in a police station on the outskirts of Moscow where Navalny was being held — agreed to a request from prosecutors…

Russia launched a mass coronavirus vaccination campaign on Monday in a bid to end its outbreak without reimposing a new nationwide lockdown. Residents of the far eastern city of Vladivostok queued to receive the country’s homemade Sputnik V jab early Monday after President Vladimir Putin last week tasked officials with making it available to the country’s…

Russian math graduate student and self-described anarchist Azat Miftakhov was sentenced to six years in prison Monday after almost two years in detention on hooliganism charges his supporters say are politically motivated. Miftakhov, 27, was initially detained in February 2019 on accusations of bomb-making, but was later held for breaking the office window of Russia’s…

Moscow said Monday it was expelling two Dutch diplomats from the country in response to a “provocative” decision by the Netherlands in December to remove two Russian embassy staff over spying allegations. Moscow summoned Dutch charge d’affaires Joost Reintjes, the foreign ministry said in a statement, telling him that two Dutch diplomats had two weeks…

The decision to divert the Pobeda Airlines flight with Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny onboard from Vnukovo to Sheremetyevo airport created “a dangerous and reckless situation in the Moscow airspace,” a pilot who was forced to delay their descent on Sunday evening told The Moscow Times. The pilot — who asked to remain anonymous for fear…

Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny is facing a court hearing in the police station where he was taken immediately following his Sunday evening return to Russia. The 44-year-old opposition leader flew back to Moscow after spending several months in Germany recovering from a poisoning attack that he said was carried out on the orders of President…

A U.S. NGO has sued Apple in federal court in a bid to remove secure messaging app Telegram from its App Store, claiming the app fails to filter out far-right extremist activity.  Telegram’s downloads soared last week after Twitter and Facebook banned U.S. President Donald Trump’s accounts and Google and Apple removed conservative social network…

Russia has confirmed 3,591,066 cases of coronavirus and 66,037 deaths. Jan. 18: What you need to know today Russia confirmed 22,857 new coronavirus cases and 471 deaths. Russia’s republic of Bashkortostan is set to become the first region to introduce immunity passports for residents with Covid-19 antibodies starting February, Bashkortostan Governor Radiy Khabirov announced Monday.   Russia’s Sputnik V…

World leaders have called on Russia to release prominent opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who was detained minutes after he landed in Moscow following five months of recovery from nerve agent poisoning in Germany. Below is a selection of international reactions to Navalny’s detention at Sheremetyevo International Airport passport control late Sunday. — U.S. Secretary of…