Смекалка: smarts, ingenuity, resourcefulness About a thousand years ago in Moscow, way back when the man in charge was a General Secretary, I bought a kilo of unshelled walnuts (грецкие орехи) at the market. But when I got home, I realized that I didn’t have a nutcracker (щелкунчик). Nor did I have a hammer (молоток).…
Russian President Vladimir Putin denied on Friday that Moscow is stopping Ukraine from exporting grain as Russia’s ongoing Black Sea port blockade continued to raise fears of a global food crisis. Kyiv is one of the world’s major exporters of wheat, corn and sunflower oil, but its shipments have been blocked since the Kremlin’s invasion…
In Vladimir Putin’s 2021 essay about Ukraine, he wrote that Russians, Ukrainians and Belarussians are all descendants of Ancient Rus and shared “the same historical and spiritual space.” Kyiv was “the mother of all Russian cities,” he quoted, and stated that “both the nobility and the common people perceived Rus as a common territory.” He…
The Russian capital played host to over 100 fashion shows this week as part of Moscow Fashion Week. While Moscow Fashion Week was always meant to showcase Russian fashion house’s designs, this year’s event placed a particular emphasis on domestic brands after virtually every Western brand exited the Russian market over the invasion of Ukraine.…
Kazakhstan, which shares the world’s longest continuous border with Russia, has long balanced its status as Moscow’s most trusted ally in ex-Soviet Central Asia with attempts to maintain cordial ties with the West. But Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, combined with Russian perceptions that the Kremlin secured the Kazakh regime during a political crisis earlier this…
The Kremlin said Friday it hopes that Ukraine and Moldova’s already strained ties with Moscow will not be worsened by the countries’ new status as candidates for European Union membership. EU leaders on Thursday agreed to grant candidate status to Ukraine, whose outgunned military has been battling Russian forces for four months, and Moldova in…
Concrete was poured for the first wind turbine foundation at the Kuzminskaya Wind Farm in the Stavropol Krai (Southern Russia). A total of 64 wind turbines with a capacity of 2.5 MW each will be installed on the site. With an aggregate capacity of 160 MW, the wind farm is estimated to generate 378 million…
Russia plans to scale up industrial drone production following China’s exit from the commercial market and increasing demand from the Russian military in Ukraine, the Kommersant business daily reported Friday. The open-source drone manufacturer Copter Express (COEX) sold its industrial division to the drone nest maker Hive for an undisclosed sum, the publication reported. Industrial…
A Russian-appointed official in southern Ukraine’s occupied city of Kherson was killed in an apparent car bomb attack, local authorities reported Friday. Kherson’s so-called “military-civilian” administration told the state-run TASS news agency that one person died in a car explosion in a residential neighborhood in the early morning. “Today, my friend, head of the department of family,…
Ukrainian forces will retreat from Severodonetsk in the face of a brutal Russian offensive that is reducing the battleground city to rubble, a senior Ukrainian official said Friday. The news came shortly after the European Union made a strong show of support for Ukraine, granting the former Soviet republic candidate status, although there is still…
Driving out of the devastated eastern Ukrainian city of Lysychansk Thursday, AFP journalists twice had to jump out of cars and lie on the ground as Russian forces shelled the city’s main supply road. Soon after noon (0900 GMT), an AFP team saw dark smoke rising over the road ahead. They heard artillery fire and…
A Russian military cargo plane crash landed south of Moscow on Friday, killing at least four out of nine to 10 people on board, according to media reports. The Il-76 cargo aircraft crashed in the city of Ryazan 200 kilometers southeast of Moscow, officials said in a statement carried by news agencies. Reports said it was…
European Union leaders on Thursday agreed to grant candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova, in a show of support in the face of Russia’s war. “A historic moment. Today marks a crucial step on your path towards the EU,” Michel wrote on Twitter during a summit in Brussels. “Our future is together.” Ukraine applied to…
EU leaders met Thursday to discuss Ukraine’s long-sought bid to join the bloc, even as tensions between Brussels and Moscow deepened over gas supplies and Russia closed in on key cities in the embattled Donbas region. “This is a decisive moment for the European Union… A choice must be made today that will determine the…
U.S. telecoms equipment maker Cisco will end operations in Russia and Belarus in response to the war in Ukraine, the company told Reuters on Thursday. The company had initially suspended its operations in Russia, including sales and services, in March after the Kremlin ordered troops into neighboring Ukraine. Hundreds of foreign businesses have exited Russia…
Russian authorities have launched a campaign to recruit essential workers for the “reconstruction” of eastern Ukrainian territories occupied by its forces, according to public online job postings and news reports. Since shifting the focus of its invasion eastward following a failed effort to capture Kyiv, Russia has said its main objective is to “liberate” areas…
Russia has made two interest payments on dollar-denominated debt in rubles, the country’s finance ministry said Thursday, as Moscow faces the risk of an external debt default. “Funds for the payment of coupons on external bonds of the Russian Federation maturing in 2027 and 2047 in the total amount of 12.51 billion rubles (the equivalent…
The first shipments of smartphones and game consoles under Russia’s so-called “parallel import” scheme have arrived in the country, Kommersant newspaper reported Thursday. The scheme was was designed as a way to maintain imports of consumer goods into Russia despite Western sanctions and an exodus of Western firms from the Russian market. Mobile retailer Svyaznoy…
Nike will make a complete departure from Russia in the coming months, Reuters reported Thursday, citing an emailed statement from the company. The exit comes nearly four months after the U.S. athletic-wear giant suspended its Russian operations on March 3 following the country’s invasion of Ukraine. “Nike has made the decision to leave the Russian…
Before being allowed to enter Russia last month, a business owner from a European Union member state was forced to give border officials at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport the name of every Ukrainian in his cell phone contact list. “He [the border guard] searched my phone and wrote down about eight or nine Ukrainian numbers on…
Pop singer Yuri Shatunov, who was wildly popular in the 1980s and 1990s, died Thursday at the age of 48. “Last night Yuri’s heart stopped in an ambulance,” said Shatunov’s manager, Arkady Kudryashov, the state-run news agency TASS reported. Shatunov was perhaps best known as the frontman of band Laskovy Mai (‘Gentle May’), which filled…
UN experts have confirmed the full or partial destruction of 152 cultural and historic heritage sites in Ukraine since Russia invaded the country, its cultural agency said Thursday. They include museums and monuments, churches and other religious buildings, and libraries and other exceptional buildings, UNESCO said in an update of its efforts to assist Ukraine…
Russia plans to replace the badly damaged Azovstal steel plant in the captured Ukrainian port city of Mariupol with either an industrial park or a leisure zone, a Russian minister said Wednesday. Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said rebuilding was already underway the site, which became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance after its outnumbered defenders held…
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s global ratings have sunk to 20-year lows as the Russia invasion of Ukraines enters its fourth month, according to a Pew Research Center poll published Wednesday. A median of 9% of respondents in 18 countries said they have confidence in Putin “to do the right thing regarding world affairs,” Pew said.…
Renowned Russian film director Alexander Sokurov was prevented from leaving Russia due to “an order of the prime minister,” the director told Russian independent news outlet The Insider. Sokurov, known for his films “Russian Ark” and “Faust,” planned to cross the Russian-Finnish border by car and then fly to a conference on arts education in Milan,…
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday called for a strengthening of ties with the influential club of BRICS emerging economies, amid unprecedented Western sanctions imposed over Ukraine. “Businessmen of our countries are forced to develop their business under difficult conditions where Western partners neglect the basic principles of market economy, free trade, as well as…
The fire on a Russian gas production platform in the Black Sea was so large two days after it was hit by a Ukrainian missile that it showed up as a bright white speck on pictures taken from a NASA satellite that monitors forest fires. About 70 kilometers from Russian-annexed Crimea, the drilling rig was…
Russia has accused Germany of “Russophobic hysteria” on Wednesday as tensions between the two countries run high over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. In a statement marking the anniversary of Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the Russian Foreign Ministry accused Berlin of jeopardizing the two countries’ ties that were rebuilt in the…
“Massive” Russian bombardment of Ukraine’s battleground eastern Lugansk region and key city Severodonetsk has been “hell” for soldiers there, Kyiv said, while insisting that defenders would hold “as long as necessary.” Moscow’s troops have been pummeling eastern Ukraine for weeks and are slowly advancing, despite fierce resistance from the outgunned Ukrainian military. With President Vladimir…
Home retail giant IKEA is moving to close its stores in Russia nearly four months into the country’s invasion of Ukraine, the Vedomosti daily reported Wednesday. IKEA has notified landlords at 10 Moscow shopping malls that it will terminate its lease agreements before they expire, the newspaper cited commercial real estate sources as saying. Three…
June 22, 2022, Büyükeceli, Turkey. – Executives and employees of EUAS International ICC, an international division of EÜAŞ, a Turkish state-owned electricity generation corporation, visited the Akkuyu NPP Construction Site. The delegation headed by Necati Yamac, chief executive officer of EUAS International ICC, examined the construction of four power units and assessed the current work…
Authorities in Moscow said on Wednesday that they have changed the official address of the U.S. Embassy building in the Russian capital to one named after pro-Kremlin separatists in Ukraine. “The United States Embassy in Russia has a new official address,” Moscow City hall said in a statement, saying it had named a previously unnamed…
One of southern Russia’s largest oil refineries said it was struck by a Ukrainian drone attack Wednesday, setting off a massive fire. Footage published to social media showed a drone flying toward the Novoshakhtinsk refinery in the Rostov region five kilometers from the Ukrainian border before one of its facilities caught on fire. “As a…
Russia is commemorating the 81st anniversary of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union on Wednesday amid Moscow’s assault on Ukraine that has killed thousands and triggered Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II. June 22 — the date when Hitler’s forces invaded the Soviet Union as part of Operation Barbarossa in 1941 —…
Updated at 4:15 p.m. on June 22 to clarify that a gas drilling platform, not an oil drilling platform, was struck. Ukraine has admitted striking a gas drilling platform in the Black Sea, saying Tuesday it was being used by Russian troops as a military installation. The attack, which took place on Monday, was the…
A member of Russian protest group Pussy Riot said Monday she was denied entry to Georgia, sparking concerns among the large community of anti-war activists and journalists who fled to the South Caucasus since the invasion of Ukraine. Olga Borisova was stopped in Tbilisi airport Monday afternoon after returning from Pussy Riot’s tour of western…
A Moscow opposition deputy staged an anti-war picket while on trial for “discrediting” the Russian military, the SOTA news outlet reported Tuesday. Alexei Gorinov, a member of central Moscow’s Krasnoselsky District Council, was arrested in April on charges of spreading “fake” information and “discrediting” the Russian Armed Forces under a law passed in the wake…
KARAKOL, Kyrgyzstan — A sense of deja vu overcame veteran Russian political activist Ilya Shafranov when he was detained at an anti-war protest. Unlike in the past, he was not being picked up at an opposition demonstration in Moscow — he was being taken into custody by police officers in a remote town in the…
Russia’s response to Lithuania’s rail blockade of its exclave Kaliningrad will carry “serious negative consequences” for the Baltic country’s citizens, Russian Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev said Tuesday. European Union member Lithuania banned the rail transit of sanctioned Russian goods through its territory on Saturday, enforcing an earlier decision made by the bloc. The move…
The surviving sailors of Russia’s sunken Moskva battleship could be deployed into battle again this month, the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper reported Tuesday. According to a letter the outlet said was authored by the sailors’ parents, 49 conscripts who were rescued from the Moskva have been assigned to the Ladny missile frigate. They could go…
Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian grain exports sparked fresh tensions with Europe as fears grow of a global food crisis, while Kyiv accused Moscow of stepping up attacks in the east of the country. In New York, Dmitry Muratov, the Russian editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, auctioned off his Nobel Peace Prize gold medal…
China’s car exports into Russia have been dropping for two months amid slowing demand and supply chain disruptions over Moscow’s war in Ukraine, the Kommersant daily reported Tuesday. China delivered nearly $32 million worth of passenger vehicles to Russia in May, down from $84.6 million in April and $190.7 million in March, according to Chinese…
Russia accepted an all-time low number of refugees so far this year despite authorities boasting of hundreds of thousands Ukrainians being brought into the country to escape war at home, researchers said Monday. Interior Ministry data revealed that only two people have been granted refugee status between January and March 2022, according to the Civic…
Two Americans captured in Ukraine while fighting with Kyiv’s military were “endangering” Russian soldiers and should be “held accountable for those crimes,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday in an interview with NBC News. The interview marks the first time the Kremlin has commented on the cases of Alexander Drueke and Andy Huynh, both U.S. military…
Dmitry Muratov, the Russian editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, on Monday auctioned off his Nobel Peace Prize gold medal for $103.5 million to benefit children displaced by the war in Ukraine. The medal was sold to an as yet unidentified phone bidder at the sale in New York organized by Heritage Auctions. The…
Russian nuclear power company ROSATOM’s director general Alexey Likhachev and the head of the Republic of Sakha (also known as Yakutia) Aysen Nicolayev have signed an agreement “on intentions and a procedure for organising cooperation for promoting projects involving a small nuclear power plant based on the SHELF-M reactor”. The agreement will see the two…
Islam is not just another soldier. “If the Russians take me, I won’t be exchanged”, said the Chechen fighting with the Ukrainian army near the front line. “They’ll torture me then show me on television.” The 33-year-old dissident, a refugee who has been in Poland for nearly two decades, joined the Sheikh Mansur battalion in…
The Russian army is unlikely to return to its full force in the near future after it has incurred significant losses of troops and military equipment during its four-month war in Ukraine, the investigative outlet iStories reported Monday. Before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, the country’s army was ranked the second-best in the world.…
Ukraine on Sunday celebrated Healthcare Workers Day, which was established by the U.S.S.R. in 1980, amid Russia’s ongoing invasion. In a video address, President Volodymyr Zelensky congratulated nurses who “have literally been on the frontlines since Feb. 24” and called them an example of “extraordinary heroism.” During the four months of Russia’s offensive, these medical…
At the Rooppur NPP construction site in the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (with the ROSATOM’s Engineering Division being the general designer and general contractor), installation of the first of the three tiers of the inner containment dome has just been finished at the reactor building of power unit 2. The large-dimensioned structure being 195 tons…
A wave of panic buying spread across the Kaliningrad region after a rail blockade imposed by neighboring Lithuania on Saturday threatened to isolate Russia’s strategic Baltic exclave. One unverified video shared Sunday showed anxious shoppers loading up on cement at a hardware store in the outskirts of the regional capital. “On the first day [of…
Russian high schools will start teaching students about the Kremlin’s recognition of eastern Ukraine’s breakaway republics as independent states in the upcoming academic year, according to a course outline published on the federal Institute for Education Development Strategy website. In a break with the international community, President Vladimir Putin formally recognized the independence of the…
Russia on Monday demanded the immediate lifting of Lithuania’s “openly hostile” restrictions on the rail transit of EU-sanctioned goods to Moscow’s exclave of Kaliningrad that borders Lithuania and Poland. Moscow accused the Baltic nation of banning the rail transit of goods subject to sanctions imposed by the European Union over Russia’s miliary campaign in Ukraine.…
Updated at 4:15 p.m. on June 22 to clarify that a gas drilling platform, not an oil drilling platform, was struck. Offiicals Russia-annexed Crimea has accused Ukraine of firing upon a gas drilling platform in the Black Sea Monday morning, with three injured and seven missing. “This morning the enemy struck the drilling platforms of…
The head of Russia-annexed Crimea has accused Ukraine of firing upon an oil drilling platform in the Black Sea off the coast of the peninsula. “This morning the enemy struck the drilling platforms of Chernomorneftegaz…I am in touch with colleagues from the Defense Ministry and the FSB. We are working to rescue people,” Aksyonov wrote…
A Russian tennis player has avoided a Wimbledon ban on all competitors from her country by changing her nationality to Georgian, according to a report in The Times newspaper. Natela Dzalamidze, a 29-year-old doubles player ranked No. 44 in the world, will compete in the women’s doubles with Serbia’s Aleksandra Krunic when the tournament starts…
Russia plans to expand its high-tech surveillance program to areas near Ukraine amid a spate of cross-border attacks during Moscow’s nearly four-month invasion, the Kommersant daily reported Monday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the project. Russia’s Emergencies Ministry plans to deploy the “Safe City” program in annexed Crimea, as well as the Krasnodar, Voronezh and…
Russia exported a record 8.42 million tons of discounted crude oil to China in May amid Western sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reported Monday. That amounts to 1.98 million barrels per day (bpd), up from 1.59 million bpd in April, according to Chinese customs data cited by the news agency. Russia displaced…
For Russian users, watching a television series on U.S. streaming service Netflix or downloading a new online video game from Steam used to be a matter of a few clicks. But an exodus of Western companies after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made accessing hundreds of popular entertainment platforms much harder, spawning a network of…
Russian President Vladimir Putin slammed the West’s “economic blitzkrieg” and vowed that Russia would withstand sanctions levied over its invasion of Ukraine in his address at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) Friday. After starting nearly two hours late due to alleged cyberattacks, the Russian president delivered an impassioned speech that scorned the U.S.-led…