This article appeared in our special “Russia in 2019” print issue. The road to “New Life” is bumpy. Only recently opened, the entrance to the apartment complex in Belgorod, a provincial city on the border with Ukraine, has yet to be paved. Already, though, young mothers can be seen pushing strollers along bike paths as their toddlers scramble over Danish playground…
The premiere of a new documentary “Wild Edens: South Asia,” the third in a series that highlights the issue of climate change, took place in Mumbai, India. Focusing on the flora and fauna in the one-of-a-kind natural habitats of India and Bangladesh the documentary was filmed in a number of remote locations, including the Western…
Moscow – PhosAgro (“PhosAgro” or “the Company”) (Moscow Exchange, LSE: PHOR), one of the world’s leading vertically integrated phosphate-based fertilizer producers, today announces its consolidated IFRS financial results for the three months (4Q) and 12 months (FY) ended 31 December 2018. Revenue in 4Q 2018 rose by 30% year-on-year to RUB 59.4 billion (USD 893…
Release March 20, 2019, 12:45 Photos A ceremony was held today in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area to mark the launch of full-scale development of the Kharasaveyskoye field. Attending the event were Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, Dmitry Artyukhov, Governor of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area, and heads of Gazprom’s relevant subdivisions and subsidiaries. Vladimir Putin addressed the event participants in his opening speech via a conference call. The Kharasaveyskoye…
More than twice as many people have died in Russian plane crashes last year than in 2017, a top interregional aviation safety organization has said. Aviation safety has come under scrutiny after a spate of air accidents in Russia in 2018, including a deadly collision outside Moscow in February 2018 that killed 71 people. A…
High-level U.S.-Russian talks on how to defuse Venezuela’s crisis ended on Tuesday with the two sides still at odds over the legitimacy of President Nicolas Maduro. Russia has said Maduro remains the country’s only legitimate leader whereas the United States and many other Western countries back Juan Guaido, head of the opposition-controlled National Assembly who…
Scores of buses stopped traveling their regular routes and fruit stands closed in the Siberian city of Yakutsk following protests sparked by allegations that Central Asian migrants raped a local woman, Russian media have reported. Three suspects were detained on charges of kidnapping and raping a local resident this week. Hundreds of locals attended rallies…
Moscow – The Board of Directors of PhosAgro (Moscow Exchange, LSE: PHOR), one of the world’s leading vertically integrated phosphate-based fertilizer producers, has declared that 2018 was an outstanding year for the Company’s in terms of its operational and financial performance. In summing up the 2018, PhosAgro CEO and Board of Directors member Andrey Guryev,…
Russia will stop publishing monthly data that’s shown a slump in disposable incomes for five straight years after the indicator was criticized for using methodology that’s decades out of date. The Federal Statistics Service will start releasing quarterly income data starting next month and historical numbers will be recalculated going back to 2013, head Pavel…
Six volunteers from Russia and the United States locked themselves up for four months on Tuesday (March 19) for a space experiment ahead of the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing. Three males and three females are participating in the SIRIUS-19 isolation study, in which they will live, work and research in isolation from the rest of the…
March 20, 2019 According to the agency, the «Expert RA» rating agency assigned the credit rating of the non-financial company Severstal to ruAAA, which corresponds to the highest level of solvency/financial reliability/ financial stability according to the national scale. The rating outlook is stable. The Expert RA credit rating has been assigned to Severstal for…
March 20, 2019 PJSC Severstal and Global Venture Alliance (GVA) announce the launch of Severstal SteelTech Accelerator – Russia’s first full-scale industrial accelerator for start-ups in the metallurgical industry. Severstal SteelTech Accelerator’s main goal is to find innovative solutions in the industrial sector which can be successfully integrated into Severstal’s production cycle. The window for…
Release March 19, 2019, 19:40 The Gazprom Board of Directors took note of the information about the work being done by the Company to promote natural gas (methane) as a vehicle fuel. It was stressed that wider use of NGV fuel was one of Gazprom’s strategic thrusts in the domestic market. The Company is involved in the NGV refueling infrastructure development, cooperates with manufacturers of natural gas-powered machinery and refueling…
Release March 19, 2019, 19:35 The Gazprom Board of Directors expressed its approval the Company’s ongoing work on its major investment projects. One the Company’s current priorities is the Eastern Gas Program. Gazprom is gearing up for the launch of pipeline gas supplies to China that is scheduled for December 1, 2019. The work on the Power of Siberia pipeline is ahead of schedule. At present, the construction of the pipeline between Yakutia and the…
One of the key events of the year happened at Unit 2 of Leningrad Phase II which is under construction. Erection of the inner containment of the reactor has been completed. The last tier was concreted up to 67 meters in height. Now, the builders will be able to start constructing the highest section of…
British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt condemned the sentence handed out to a prominent human rights activist by a court in Chechnya, calling it “an awful example of Russia suppressing vital work of human rights defenders.” Oyub Titiyev, who runs the office of the Memorial Human Rights Center in the southern Russian region, was sentenced to…
Russia’s national flag carrier Aeroflot will introduce hand luggage-only fares for some of its medium-haul flights at the beginning of April, the Kommersant business daily reported on Tuesday. The new fares come after increased passenger demand for charges to reflect this lighter style of travel. The discounts will apply to select flights operated by Aeroflot…
Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev unexpectedly resigned on Tuesday after three decades in power, saying his oil-rich Central Asian nation now needed “a new generation of leaders.” Nazarbayev, 78, the last Soviet-era leader still in charge of his country, said he would retain key security council and party leader positions while handing over the presidency to…
The Russian Navy has shared a video of a new Borey-style nuclear ballistic missile submarine for the Day of the Russian Submariner, celebrated in Russia on March 19. Vladimir Korolev, commander-in-chief of the Russian Navy, congratulated submariners on their professional holiday, adding that Russia’s submarine program is being actively developed, the Izvestia news website reported. Navy…
Nearly 200 people are currently being held as political prisoners in Russia, the Memorial Human Rights Center has estimated. “There are civil and political activists who are pursued because of their activity, and those jailed for exchanging scientific information or reposting in social networks,” Memorial, one of Russia’s oldest and most prestigious human rights organizations,…
Special Counsel Robert Mueller, examining potential conspiracy between President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia, is leading the latest in a series of U.S. investigations conducted by prosecutors outside usual Justice Department channels in recent decades. The release of the findings by previous investigators analogous to Mueller has been handled differently over the years, sometimes with…
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that Moscow supported the Algerian government’s initiative to hold talks with the opposition after weeks of protests. Lavrov made the comments after meeting Algeria’s Deputy Prime Minister Ramtane Lamamra in Moscow on Tuesday. Lavrov said earlier on Tuesday that Russia was concerned by the protests in Algeria which he…
A Moscow court has ruled that a feminist Reebok ad urging readers to “sit on a man’s face” did not insult a male plaintiff’s feelings, Russian media reported on Tuesday. PR expert Oleg Voronin sought 200,000 rubles ($3,100) in moral damages from Reebok’s parent company Adidas last month over the racy ad. Following public outcry,…
A Moscow court has ruled that a feminist Reebok ad urging readers to “sit on a man’s face” did not insult a male plaintiff’s feelings, Russian media reported on Tuesday. PR expert Oleg Voronin sought 200,000 rubles ($3,100) in moral damages from Reebok’s parent company Adidas last month over the racy ad. Following public outcry,…
RN Gas Fuel Company, a subsidiary of Rosneft Oil Company, has become a member of the National Gas-Vehicle Association where it will continue to develop the gas-vehicle market and increase the level of use of natural gas as motor fuel. The National Gas-Vehicle Association is an industrial solutions development platform that engages design engineers, builders,…
RN-Yuganskneftegaz, a subsidiary of Rosneft Oil Company, has produced the 400-millionth tonne of oil in Maysky region since the start of commercial exploration of the regional fields. The first field in the area put into commercial exploration in 1976 was South-Balykskoye field. In 2018, Maysky region produced 18.9 million tonnes of oil, a 15% increase…
Russia will not destroy its intermediate-range nuclear missiles that the United States claims violate an unraveling Cold War-era arms control treaty, its Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday. The U.S. said last month it would withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in six months unless Moscow ends what Washington says are violations of the…
Marlen Khutsiev, one of the Soviet Union and Russia’s most innovative and beloved film directors, died on Tuesday morning at the age of 93. Khutsiev was born in Tiflis (now Tbilisi, Georgia) in 1925. His father (ne Khutishvili) was a communist with a pre-Revolutionary socialist pedigree, who, after serving in high positions within the Soviet…
Moscow’s cost-of-living ranking has plummeted over the past year in comparison to other cities worldwide, the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Worldwide Cost of Living survey has found. The decrease in living costs is linked to high inflation and currency deprivation, the survey reported. The Russian capital has fallen 16 places from 86th to 102nd in the…
A Hyundai Motor Group unit and Russia’s biggest technology company Yandex NV will jointly develop autonomous vehicles based the South Korean automotive giant’s cars. Carmakers and tech companies are racing to rollout self-driving cars. Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler and BMW have set aside traditional rivalries, while Volvo Cars and Baidu Inc. have joined forces to develop…
Release March 19, 2019, 12:20 A Gazprom delegation headed by Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Company’s Management Committee, paid a working visit to Serbia today. As part of the visit, Alexey Miller met with Aleksandar Vucic, President of the Republic of Serbia, in Belgrade. The parties discussed the main areas of their cooperation, focusing, in particular, on the beginning of the construction of the Pancevo TPP which is going to become the first combined cycle…
The partnership at the heart of the OPEC+ alliance showed further signs of strain after Russia pressured the Saudi-led group to delay a decision on the future of their production cuts. The unusual recommendation to cancel next month’s scheduled meeting means the group probably won’t decide whether to prolong its supply curbs until late June,…
An EU citizen has been placed in solitary confinement, denied visitation with his wife and subjected to a grueling daily regimen while awaiting trial in central Russia, the Jehovah’s Witnesses told The Moscow Times. The federal penitentiary service of Kirov region did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Andrzej Oniszczuk, 50, was one of…
U.S. investor Michael Calvey wants to steer away from the politicization of his detention on suspicion of multimillion dollar fraud in Russia, he told Russian tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets in an interview. “I don’t want to politicize this story and try to distance myself from everything that could lead to that,” Calvey told the Moskovsky Komsomolets…
A court in Chechnya on Monday sentenced Oyub Titiyev, a prominent human rights activist, to four years in a penal settlement after finding him guilty of possessing illegal drugs, a charge his supporters say was trumped up. Titiyev, who runs the office of the Memorial Human Rights Center in the southern Russian region, was detained in…
A court in Moscow has returned to the prosecutors a case against American national Gaylen Grandstaff who faces 20 years in Russian prison for ordering a cleaning product containing a chemical banned in Russia. The judge in the case has decided to release Grandstaff from the pre-detention facility before the second hearing. “The court returned…
Russia has signed a $2 billion contract for the supply of more than 20 Su-35 fighter jets to Egypt, the Kommersant news daily reported on Monday, citing two senior defense industry officials. Russia has become one of Egypt’s largest arms suppliers as Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi has developed friendly ties with President Vladimir Putin. The…
Residents in the Siberian city of Yakutsk held an unauthorized rally on Sunday after unconfirmed reports alleged that Central Asian migrants raped a local woman. On March 17, a female Yakutsk resident was kidnapped and raped, then fled after her captor fell asleep, the Yakutsk Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement. A source in the…
The Russian Football Union (RFS) is set to investigate controversial remarks made by veteran international striker Pavel Pogrebnyak, local media reported on Sunday. Pogrebnyak, who has 33 caps with Russia, came under scrutiny after he commented on the race of Brazilian-born, naturalized Russian striker Ariclenes da Silva Ferreira, also known as Ari, who has two…
Russia celebrated the fifth anniversary of its takeover of Crimea with pomp and pride this weekend. The festivities will reach their peak on Monday when Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives to open two new power stations, sealing Crimea’s economic integration with Russia. Patriotic fervor ran high on the peninsula as a giant bronze double-headed eagle—an…
The pro-Kremlin Night Wolves motorcycle gang staged a celebratory concert outside Sevastopol on Saturday to mark the fifth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea. The event was marked by patriotic fervor and featured a display of military equipment, a rock concert, the unfurling of the largest Russian flag in the world and an awards ceremony…
Half a decade has passed since Vladimir Putin annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. For Russia, the costs continue to mount. The accession treaty signed to bring the Black Sea territory into Moscow’s fold is still unrecognized by most countries and the U.S. and European Union led a broad effort to punish Russia with sanctions. Undeterred, Russia…
Russia will respond to new European Union sanctions, its Foreign Ministry said on Saturday, without saying what action it would take. The EU on Friday added eight more Russians to its sanctions list over a stand-off between Russia and Ukraine in the Azov Sea, including senior security service officials and military commanders that the EU accuses of preventing Ukrainian…
Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska sued the United States on Friday, alleging that it had overstepped its legal bounds in imposing sanctions on him and made him the “latest victim” in the U.S. probe into Moscow’s alleged election interference. In what legal experts called a long shot attempt, Deripaska asked a federal court in Washington to…
Thousands of people marched in Crimea’s capital city of Simferopol on Friday in an event staged by Moscow-backed authorities to mark the fifth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of the peninsula from Ukraine. While participants waved flags and sang songs of celebration, many of them told The Moscow Times that the dramatic increase in living standards…
Release March 15, 2019, 18:50 A working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, and Francois Fillon, French politician, took place today in St. Petersburg. The parties touched upon the current trends in the French and European gas markets, while also highlighting the successful operation of the Nord Stream gas pipeline and the importance of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline construction for…
March 15, 2019, 18:45 A working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Management Committee of Gazprom, and Isabelle Kocher, CEO of ENGIE, took place in St. Petersburg today. Through their respective representants, Gazprom and ENGIE discussed current Russian gas supplies to France. By the end of 2018, Gazprom increased gas exports to the Republic on 5.4% compared with 2017 – to 12.9 billion cubic meters. At the beginning…
Russia’s national flag carrier Aeroflot will cancel its order of 20 Boeing 737 Max planes unless Boeing is able to guarantee the plane’s safety after Sunday’s deadly crash in Ethiopia by November, Aeroflot CEO Vitaly Savelyev said on Friday. Aeroflot has ordered 20 Boeing 737 Max planes for its low-cost subsidiary Pobeda and Boeing is…
The United States on Friday asked why Russia had not provided any evidence to back up its accusation that Paul Whelan, a detained former U.S. marine, was a spy, a day after Whelan alleged he was being mistreated by a “kangaroo court.” Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports, was detained in a Moscow hotel…
A Russian State Duma deputy from a small opposition party has been detained on suspicion of accepting 3.2 billion rubles ($49 million) in cooperation with a former governor. Vadim Belousov, 58, had been deprived of official immunity in December in connection with a bribery investigation into fugitive ex-Chelyabinsk region governor Mikhail Yurevich. His detention follows…
Russia wants dialogue between North Korea and the United States to continue, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited the Russian Foreign Ministry as saying on Friday. North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hu said earlier on Friday that North Korea was considering suspending its talks with the United States, the state-run TASS news…
Russia could raise the legal drinking age to 21 from 18 and restrict alcohol sales in residential areas this year, according to the RBC news website. The change would be part of President Vladimir Putin’s ambitious plan to overhaul Russia’s economy by the end of his last term in office. The total spend will be…
Authorities in Siberia have suspended the construction of a controversial Chinese bottling plant in the world’s largest fresh water lake following public outcry and pressure from the Kremlin. Residents in Irkutsk region criticized the Chinese-founded AquaSib company’s plans to bottle 190 million liters of water per year from Lake Baikal starting in 2021, saying the…
The European Union sanctioned on Friday eight more Russians over a stand-off with Ukraine in the Azov Sea, including senior security service officials and military commanders that the bloc accuses of preventing Ukrainian ships from reaching port. Last November, the Russian navy captured 24 Ukrainian sailors and their vessels in the Kerch Strait, which links…
Despite still approving of their country’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, fewer Russians view it as beneficial on the fifth anniversary of the annexation, a state-run survey has found. Independent polls have shown a yearly uptick in the percentage of Russians who believe that their country benefited from “the return of Crimea” despite economic…
European Union lawmakers have called on member states to adopt an EU law which would punish state and non-state actors for human rights violations using the name of Sergei Magnitsky, mirroring similar legislation in the United States. The U.S. passed the Magnitsky Act in 2012 to sanction Russian officials linked to the 2009 death of…
An old tram depot in the center of Moscow has become the city’s latest foodie haven. Depo Food Mall, which opened last month near Belorussky Station, houses more than 200 stalls, shops and restaurants serving food from all over the world. It continues Moscow’s food revolution that started when the Soviet-era Daniilovsky Market got a…
A Russian Soyuz spacecraft has arrived at the International Space Station after a successful launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Aboard the spacecraft were NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Christina Hammock Koch and cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos. Hague and Ovchinin were originally meant to launch to the ISS in October, but…
This week on From Russia With News, we discuss the five-year anniversary of the hugely controversial referendum in Crimea with the deputy foreign editor at the Kommersant newspaper Elena Chernenko. We’ll also talk to Moscow Times correspondent Evan Gershkovich about his investigation that revealed how rich Russians dodge taxes and move court cases to a…
This week on From Russia With News, we discuss the five-year anniversary of the hugely controversial referendum in Crimea with the deputy foreign editor at the Kommersant newspaper Elena Chernenko. We’ll also talk to Moscow Times correspondent Evan Gershkovich about his investigation that revealed how rich Russians dodge taxes and move court cases to a…