A mutated version of the coronavirus strain that causes Covid-19 has been discovered in Siberia, the head of Russia’s consumer safety watchdog said Tuesday. “We’re seeing certain changes in the proteins, and these changes detected in Siberia allow us to assume that this region is forming its own version [of coronavirus] with certain mutations,” Rospotrebnadzor…
Russia will transition to primarily freeze-dried doses of its coronavirus vaccine by spring as a workaround to the logistical challenges of transporting liquid doses at controlled temperatures, Reuters reported Monday. The Sputnik V vaccine’s liquid form must be stored at minus 18 degrees Celsius or below to maintain its stated 92% efficacy. Vaccine storage and…
November 17, 2020 PAO Severstal, one of the world’s largest vertically integrated steel and steel-related mining companies, has been recognized as the leader among Russian mining companies in the 2020 International Corporate Human Rights Benchmark. With a score of 11 out of 26, the Company has also outranked major international metals companies such as ArcelorMittal,…
A group of conservative lawmakers has pulled for consolidation two overlapping child custody bills, one of which would have also banned transgender people from legally changing their gender, Russian media reported Monday. Lawyers, activists and President Vladimir Putin’s human rights council have criticized the transgender ban bill, co-authored by Senator Yelena Mizulina, who also spearheaded…
A Russia-brokered peace deal signed last week has ended six weeks of fierce fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh — but this peace hasn’t come without a price. As part of the deal, Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh must return the Aghdam, Kalbajar and Lachin districts to Azerbaijan starting on Nov. 20,…
Fighting has come to an end in the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region a week after Armenia agreed to sign a Russian-brokered peace accord sealing its defeat to longtime rival Azerbaijan. But despite Armenia ceding swaths of territory and the deployment of a Russian peacekeeping mission, a lasting solution to the decades-long conflict remains elusive. Return of…
On Nov. 15, Belarusian security forces detained over 1,200 protesters across the country in the latest weekly demonstration calling for President Alexander Lukashenko to step down and hold a new presidential election. Security forces also reportedly used tear gas and stun grenades on the protesters, and 23 journalists were reportedly among those detained. With Sunday…
A Siberian environmentalist has been detained on suspicion of poaching the world’s largest sheep, the argali, media outlets reported Monday. The Saylyugemsky National Park on the Russian-Kazakh-Mongolian border, which oversees the protection of the argali and snow leopards, said a group of hunters was caught Saturday and charged with administrative offenses. “They said they arrived…
Russia has confirmed 1,948,603 cases of coronavirus and 33,489 deaths. Nov. 16: What you need to know today Russia confirmed 22,778 new coronavirus cases and 303 deaths. The eastern Siberian republic of Buryatia became the first Russian region to impose a second coronavirus lockdown. Restaurants, malls and other places of mass gathering will be shut down for two weeks starting…
Moldova’s pro-European election winner Maia Sandu on Monday vowed balanced ties with the West and Russia as Moscow-backed incumbent Igor Dodon conceded defeat and asked his supporters to refrain from violence. Sandu’s election is seen by analysts as a major blow to the Kremlin, which had pinned hopes on Dodon winning a new term. Russia had wanted polarized…
Almost a week into the latest truce between Armenia and Azerbaijan and there remains no flare-up of fighting. Russian peacekeeping deployments continue to establish their positions, while the exact role Turkey will play remains unclear. Political unrest heightens in Armenia with an alleged assassination plot against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Nov. 16: what you need…
The BBC’s Russian service has made a critically acclaimed documentary on the anti-gay crackdown in the republic of Chechnya available to Russian-speaking audiences. Oscar-nominated American filmmaker David France’s “Welcome to Chechnya” traces a Moscow-based LGBT association’s attempts to exfiltrate gay Chechens to safety. The film pioneers deepfake face-swapping technology to disguise the identities of his…
Maria Plotkina and Arina Nuriahmetova were stressed young computer science teachers battling an entrenched system of learning when they decided to set up Geek Teachers to equip school teachers across Russia with the IT skills to bring the latest education technologies to the classroom. Four years later, their platform, which has over 13,000 online followers,…
Specialists of Orenburgneft, a part of Rosneft, finished the creation of the power generation centre at Garshinskoye field.
Uranium One (a company of ROSATOM) carried out the first shipment of wood pellets to an Italian consumer company. The vessel delivered over 3 thousand tons of the product. “The Italian solid biofuel market is showing stable growth,” said Andrey Shutov, President of Uranium One. “We aim to further strengthen the cooperation with our Italian…
Moldova held its presidential election Sunday in a vote that could push the ex-Soviet eastern European nation further away from Moscow’s orbit. Here’s all you need to know: Where is Moldova and why is it important? Wedged between Ukraine and Romania, Moldova is one of Europe’s smallest and poorest countries. With a population of almost…
Ryazan Oil Refining Company, a subsidiary of Rosneft Oil Company, increased the enterprise’s safety level by introducing a unified information system for product quality control.
Russian investigators do not believe that independent journalist Irina Slavina was driven to suicide by external factors that could carry criminal punishment, the Kommersant business daily reported Monday. Slavina, the editor-in-chief of the independent KozaPress news outlet, set herself on fire outside the Nizhny Novgorod police headquarters on Oct. 2 the day after security forces raided…
The eastern Siberian republic of Buryatia has become the first Russian region to impose a second coronavirus lockdown, shutting down restaurants, malls and other places of mass gathering for two weeks starting Monday. “We need to separate people as much as possible, to relieve the healthcare and testing systems,” Buryatia governor Alexei Tsydenov told reporters,…
Azerbaijan said Sunday it had agreed to extend a deadline for Armenia to withdraw from a disputed district as part of a peace accord that ended six weeks of fierce fighting over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Residents of the Kalbajar district in Azerbaijan, which has been controlled by Armenian separatists since a 1990s post-Soviet war, began…
Moldova heads to the polls on Sunday for the second round of a tightly-contested presidential election pitting a pro-European challenger against the country’s Moscow-backed incumbent. The tiny ex-Soviet nation votes under the watchful eye of Russia, which wants polarised Moldova to remain in its sphere of influence as several Kremlin-aligned governments are rocked by political…
Has this ever happened to you? You see something unusual at the market—you may have no clue what it is — but you pounce on it anyway, only to get it home and wonder, “now what?” These are the inciting incidents of my culinary life in Russia. I fill my pantry with oddities that intrigue…
Russia confirmed more than 22,000 coronavirus infections in a single day for the first time since the start of the pandemic as the authorities continue to hold off on widespread lockdown measures. Saturday’s increase of 22,702 Covid-19 cases brings the country’s official total to 1,903,253, the world’s fifth-highest count behind France, Brazil, India and the United States.…
Russia has confirmed 1,903,253 cases of coronavirus and 32,834 deaths. Nov. 14: What you need to know today Russia confirmed a new one-day record of 22,702 coronavirus cases and 391 deaths. Russia’s flagship air carrier Aeroflot will resume flights with Cyprus starting Nov. 22, the Russian Embassy in Nicosia said. The flights will not immediately be open to Russian…
Thousands of furious protesters rallied in the Armenian capital for a fourth day running on Friday demanding Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan resign over a controversial peace agreement with Azerbaijan. Pashinyan announced the Moscow-brokered agreement Tuesday, ending more than six weeks of intense fighting over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh that left at least 1,400 dead…
Alexei may have the coolest Zoom background in the world, but he’d rather not have to climb a tree for it. Alexei Dudoladov goes by “Omskiy Kolkhoznik” (Farmer from Omsk) on TikTok, where his videos of village life have racked up millions of views and likes in a year. But because his remote Siberian village…
St. Petersburg police and officials from Russia’s consumer safety watchdog Rospotrebnadzor disrupted the opening night of Russia’s only annual LGBT film festival, its organizers said. The Side By Side film festival has been subjected to numerous disruptions, bomb threats and protests in its 13-year history. Last year, the film festival’s opening was disrupted by bomb…
More than 50 countries have requested to buy or localize production of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine as the race for a safe and effective vaccine that could end the deadly pandemic heats up across the globe. In recent weeks, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) that is marketing Sputnik V has announced plans to…
The mayor of a Siberian city that was at the center of a corruption expose by opposition leader Alexei Navalny was arrested Friday for abuse of power, regional officials and Russian media said. The arrest comes two months after Kremlin critic Navalny published the investigation alleging corruption by local officials in Tomsk. Navalny, 44, fell…
Belarus has seen weekly mass protests against the disputed presidential re-election of Alexander Lukashenko for nearly three months. Here’s more of the latest news from Russia’s ex-Soviet neighbor: Nov. 17: What you need to know today The Belarusian Association of Journalists has won the Media Freedom Award, a prize awarded by the governments of Britain and…
In a cramped office decorated with posters of Stalin, a veteran Communist Party member addresses a group of concerned citizens, banging his fist on a desk.“Friends, we are at war,” Alexander Golovanov declares. “They want to take away our history and pride.” The ancient town of Tarusa, 140 kilometers south of Moscow, still has a…
Nov. 13: what you need to know today The ceasefire continued to hold with no reports of fighting flaring up in Nagorno-Karabakh or the surrounding territory. A delegation from Moscow is in Ankara on Friday to discuss the details of a joint Russian-Turkish ceasefire monitoring center. The deployment of almost 2,000 Russian peacekeepers continues. The…
Russian President Vladimir Putin was a “tough” but “physically unremarkable” man, former U.S. President Barack Obama said in the first volume of his upcoming memoir. According to a New York Times review of “A Promised Land,” Obama likened Putin to “the tough, street-smart ward bosses who used to run the Chicago machine.” Obama’s personal relationship…
Soviet rock icon Viktor Tsoi’s legacy has experienced a renaissance in 2020, with his band Kino’s Perestroika-era song “Khochu Peremen!” (I Want Changes!) becoming an anthem of the mass opposition protests in Belarus. But don’t expect the charismatic Kino frontman to appear onscreen in a new biopic that opened in theaters across Russia on Thursday.…
Russia has broken its daily coronavirus record, confirming nearly 22,000 new infections Friday as the latest restrictions on clubs and restaurants are taking effect later in the day. The 21,983 new Covid-19 infections bring the total caseload to 1,880,551, the world’s fifth-highest count behind France, Brazil, India and the United States. A quarter of those…
A Russian court has ordered the arrest on treason charges of a representative of the Aeroflot flagship airline’s office in Britain, state media reported Thursday. Dmitry Fedotkin has been placed in pre-trial detention until Jan. 10, 2021, according to the state-run TASS news agency. A court database shows that Moscow’s Lefortovo District Court registered the…
Belarus has seen weekly mass protests against the disputed presidential re-election of Alexander Lukashenko for nearly three months. Here’s more of the latest news from Russia’s ex-Soviet neighbor: Nov. 13: What you need to know today Roman Bondarenko, 31, died on Thursday after being beaten to death by unknown security agents. Witnesses say Bondarenko was detained…
A Russian nonprofit organization has built a replica World War II prison camp through a presidential grant for children’s patriotic education, local media in northern Russia has reported. When it opens in the republic of Karelia on the Finnish border in December, schoolchildren will be able to roam the guard towers, barracks and barbed wire…
RN-Vostoknefteprodukt, an enterprise of Rosneft Oil Company’s retail network, has been expanding the sales of the trademark Pulsar 95 fuel in the Far Eastern Federal District.
The Lakhta Center skyscraper in St. Petersburg has received the Emporis Skyscraper Award, becoming the first structure in Russia to win the prize in its 20-year history. The 462-meter Lakhta Center, which has been Europe’s tallest skyscraper and the 15th-tallest in the world since its completion in 2018, is the headquarters of Russia’s Gazprom gas…
The U.S. system of electing presidents is archaic and distorts the will of the people, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday. Joe Biden won the popular vote by more than 5 million ballots in the U.S. last week but that translated to an extremely tight margin in the electoral college that ultimately decides…
Russia said Thursday it will soon introduce retaliatory sanctions on German and French officials over the poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny. The 44-year-old anti-graft campaigner collapsed on a flight in Russia in August and was transported to Germany where experts concluded he was poisoned with the Soviet-designed nerve agent Novichok. The European Union…
A religious ruling that bans Muslim men in Russia from marrying non-Muslim women sparked backlash from senior Muslim clerics across the country this week. The ruling by the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia (DUM)’s advisory council of scholars says that interfaith marriages between Muslim men and non-Muslim women are allowed “in isolated cases” that only…
Citizens of 52 countries will be able to visit Russia with an electronic visa starting Jan. 1, 2021, according to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s order published Wednesday. While Russia’s borders have partially reopened following a nearly total border shut-down in the spring, most foreigners are still not able to enter the country. The e-visa system is…
Moscow will not hold its traditional Christmas and New Year’s Eve celebrations, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced Wednesday amid record coronavirus infections and deaths in recent weeks. Earlier that day, Sobyanin suspended mass events and ordered late-night establishments to close starting from Friday and ending in mid-January 2021 as part of the latest restrictions to try…
Alexander Komarov, a patient in one of Moscow’s temporary hospital wards, cannot hold back tears as he speaks about his fear of dying from the coronavirus. But as Russia’s underfunded and poorly staffed hospitals in the regions beyond Moscow are struggling to cope with a new surge in virus patients, Komarov acknowledges that he is…
Russia has confirmed 1,858,568 cases of coronavirus and 32,032 deaths. Nov. 12: What you need to know today Russia confirmed 21,608 new coronavirus cases and a record 439 deaths. About one in three, or 31%, of coronavirus infections in Russia are asymptomatic, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said. Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine is 92% effective, its developers said…
Russia plans to open a military logistics hub for nuclear warships in Sudan, according to a draft deal that also allows Russia to ferry weapons in and out of the volatile northeast African country. Under the draft deal published on the government website, the Russian Navy will station up to four warships, including those with…
Several thousand demonstrators protested Wednesday in the Armenian capital Yerevan as anger mounted over Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s decision to cede swathes of disputed territory to Azerbaijan under a controversial peace deal. Pashinyan announced a Russian-brokered peace agreement with Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in the early hours of Tuesday, ending weeks of intense…
November 12, 2020 PAO Severstal, one of the world’s leading steel and steel-related mining companies, has launched new corporate branding to reflect the significant transformation of the business into a customer-centric innovative solutions provider. The Company’s new positioning will be presented as part of a large-scale online conference for customers and partners later today. The…
November 11, 2020, 17:50 A working meeting between Alexey Miller Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, and Viktor Karankevich, Minister of Energy of the Republic of Belarus, took place today in St. Petersburg. At the start of the meeting, the parties noted that the issue of repaying the debt owed by Belarusian consumers for Russian gas supplies had been completely settled. In this connection, negotiations have been launched…
Russia has almost finished building a secure nuclear command and control post capable of withstanding a nuclear strike, President Vladimir Putin announced Wednesday. Speaking at one of a series of military-themed meetings, Putin emphasized the need for control systems to continue working in combat conditions “even in the event of a nuclear strike.” “I was…
Syria’s government kicked off a two-day Russia-backed conference in Damascus Wednesday towards facilitating the return of millions of Syrian refugees to the war-torn country, despite reservations within the international community. Of neighboring countries hosting the bulk of Syrian refugees, only Lebanon and Iraq sent representatives, according to organizers. Other attendees included a Russian delegation and representatives…
Russian aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska has dispatched essentials and an assistant to a famous Siberian hermit ahead of the harsh winter, the RBC news website reported Wednesday. Agafya Lykova was born 76 years ago to a family of Old Believers, a traditionalist Orthodox Christian sect, fleeing Stalinist persecutions in the remote Siberian taiga. She has…
The Moscow-brokered ceasefire appeared to be holding Wednesday morning, 36 hours after an agreement was reached to end six weeks of bitter fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region and surrounding districts. The conflict is seen as a victory for Azerbaijan, which reclaimed significant portions of territory previously occupied by Armenian-backed forces. Nov…
Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine is 92% effective, its developers said Wednesday as the global race heats up over mass vaccination to slow the spread of the pandemic that has killed nearly 1.3 million people and battered economies worldwide. Interim results showed that 20 of the 16,000 volunteers who received both Sputnik V doses have…
Russia has confirmed more than 400 new coronavirus deaths for the first time since the start of the pandemic Wednesday as authorities hold off on a widespread lockdown in favor of targeted measures. The grim milestone of 432 deaths in a single day pushed Russia’s overall Covid-19 death toll to 31,593. This figure is based…
At least three medics who received Russia’s vaunted Sputnik V vaccine have contracted the coronavirus in Siberia as part of a vaccination drive of at-risk groups, regional authorities said Tuesday. The adenovirus vector-based vaccine’s developer had previously suggested that recipients infected with Covid-19 may have received a placebo during final clinical trials. Authorities are administering…
Hundreds of Russian peacekeepers were heading to Nagorno-Karabakh on Tuesday after Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to a peace deal to end weeks of fierce fighting over the disputed region. The Moscow-brokered agreement, which saw a ceasefire take effect at 21:00 GMT, came after a string of Azerbaijani victories in its fight to retake the ethnic…
On November 9, 2020 in Moscow, GEM, supported by the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia, has opened Russia’s first plant producing uniform line of virus and microbiology handling systems used for coronavirus tests. The production capacity is 1.5 mln handling systems a month. They will be sterilized by ROSATOM’s Sterion, the operator of…