Russian band Sansara on Tuesday released a pro-LGBT video for their single “We Will Become Better.” The video is about “two people who love each other but forbid themselves because of societal judgment around their relationship, and so unfortunately it cannot happen,” its writer Evgeny Primachenko told The Moscow Times. The clip has so far…
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday questioned the point of meeting with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy, claiming his country was effectively run by leaders in Washington and European capitals. “What’s the use of meeting with Zelenskiy when he has given full control of his country to outside management?” Putin said during an annual televised phone-in…
A Russian court has handed the country’s longest prison sentence yet to a Jehovah’s Witness, the independent news website MediaZona reported Wednesday. More than two dozen Jehovah’s Witnesses have been sentenced and scores more are currently in prison or under house arrest since Russia declared the Christian denomination an “extremist” organization in 2017. Courts began…
President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that he was vaccinated against the coronavirus with Russia’s Sputnik V jab, lifting the veil on a months-long secret that did little to quell Russians’ vaccine hesitancy. The Kremlin said in spring that it would keep the name of the Russian-made vaccine that Putin had received on March 23 and…
Russian President Vladimir Putin took questions from the public Wednesday in his annual marathon call-in. This year’s Direct Line event, the first since the start of the pandemic and Putin’s 18th overall, focused heavily on domestic issues, particularly Covid-19 vaccination efforts and urging skeptical Russians to get vaccinated. Russia has been grappling with a record-setting…
Russia on Wednesday successfully launched an unmanned space freighter carrying supplies to the International Space Station from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Soyuz rocket carrying the Progress spacecraft launched at 02:27 am Moscow time (2327 GMT) from the Kazakh steppes and reached its target orbit, the Roscosmos space agency said in a statement. Docking…
Guatemala has asked Russia for a refund over its failure to deliver doses of the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine on time, Reuters reported Tuesday amid widespread reports of shortages across Latin America. Guatemala was the world’s 37th country and Latin America’s third to approve Sputnik V earlier this year. It was said to have paid…
Russia said Tuesday it has activated its S-400 missile systems in annexed Crimea as Ukraine and U.S.-led NATO launched a military exercise in the Black Sea. The Navy’s Black Sea Fleet said several of its S-400 batteries joined the Pantsir-S surface-to-air missile systems, as well as 20 warplanes and helicopters including Su-27 air-defense fighters, for…
Russia’s Olympic Committee on Tuesday finalised a roster of 335 athletes who will compete at the rearranged Tokyo Olympics this summer under a neutral flag and anthem as long as they are clean. Sport’s highest court last year banned Russia from international competitions for two years in the latest punishment for its state-backed doping program at the…
The UN Security Council on Tuesday held its first formal public meeting on cybersecurity, addressing the growing threat of hacks to countries’ key infrastructure — an issue U.S. President Joe Biden recently raised with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. While the U.S. envoy to the world body asked that member states respect a framework already in place, her Russian…
The Netherlands on Tuesday accused Russian fighter jets of “unsafe” behavior in an encounter with a Dutch warship in the Black Sea. The incident last Thursday involved the frigate HNMLS Evertsen, part of a carrier strike group with the British destroyer HMS Defender, which itself purportedly came under Russian warning fire a day earlier. The…
Germany has banned most travel from Russia due to the spread of mutated coronavirus strains there, the German Embassy in Moscow announced Tuesday. German citizens traveling from Russia, third-country nationals with German residency, passengers in transit and people with close relatives in Germany, are exempt from the ban, as well as those traveling for urgent…
Russia has confirmed the first Delta Plus coronavirus variant infections within its borders days after media sounded the alarm about the presence of the potentially more dangerous new strain. Consumer protection watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said Friday it was looking into an influenza research expert’s remarks to a St. Petersburg-based newspaper that the first case of infection…
Karaoke club manager Tatiana Amaliya has been scrambling to find a clinic with jabs to spare since a June 24 announcement of mandatory Covid-19 vaccinations for hospitality workers. She needs to vaccinate her staff within the next three weeks or her venue in the plush Krasnaya Polyana ski resort — the setting for Russia’s 2014…
Russia will not meet its widely publicized goal of reaching herd immunity against coronavirus through vaccination by this fall, the Kremlin said Tuesday as the country struggles against the highly infectious Delta variant, record-breaking deaths and a lagging vaccine uptake. President Vladimir Putin’s office made the admission after the independent Dozhd broadcaster reported that the…
ROSATOM presented the NORM (Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material) management principles at a product webinar held for companies of Central and South Africa. The event brought together representatives of analytical agencies, investment and energy companies, scientific and research organizations, municipalities, as well as the oil industry of the region. TVEL Fuel Company of Rosatom was appointed…
Starting Monday, June 28, all restaurants and cafes in Moscow will require patrons to show a QR code proving full vaccination, a negative PCR test in the previous 72 hours, or proof of recovery from the coronavirus. The unprecedented move is the city’s latest effort to clamp down on a renewed surge in Covid-19 cases…
Torrential rains pounded Moscow on Monday following a once-in-a-lifetime heatwave that saw temperatures soar into the mid-30s Celsius. The rains flooded streets and metro stations — while wind tore away parts of some buildings. Here’s a closer look at the extraordinary weather event that brought about a much-anticipated drop in temperatures:
Russia has reported the highest number of coronavirus deaths in a single day since the start of the pandemic amid the country’s Delta variant-driven third wave and introduction of mandatory vaccination to prop up sluggish take-up. Russia’s Covid-19 task force which tallies deaths nationwide recorded 652 Covid deaths on Tuesday, beating the previous mortality record…
On June 29, an official ceremony was held that was dedicated to the first concrete pouring into the foundation plate of the reactor building for Kudankulam NPP Unit 5 (Republic of India). The concrete pouring commemorated the official commencement of the main stage of the nuclear power plant stage 3 construction. Due to anti-epidemiological restrictions,…
At least one Russian investigative journalist has been detained and police searches are underway in the homes of two others early Tuesday after they announced a new report into Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev’s alleged hidden wealth. The Proekt investigative outlet said its deputy editor-in-chief Mikhail Rubin was detained outside the home of the report’s author…
Updated at 4:12 p.m. on June 29 to add Zakharova’s statement. Some western schoolchildren are taught that Jesus Christ was bisexual and non-binary, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov wrote in a sweeping critique of liberal democracies Monday. Lavrov made the unsupported claim as an example of the “boundlessly permissive” United States and Europe imposing a…
Authorities in the Czech Republic have asked Russia to pay compensation for damages caused by a deadly 2014 arms depot explosion, the Czech Foreign Ministry said Monday. Czech Deputy Foreign Minister Martin Smolek delivered the compensation claim to Russia’s Ambassador to Prague Alexander Zmeyevskiy, the Czech Foreign Ministry said. The ministry’s statement did not specify…
The leaders of China and Russia on Monday announced the extension of a 20-year-old friendship treaty, hailing increasingly close ties and the “stabilizing role” of their relationship. The Kremlin published a joint statement from Russia and China to mark two decades since the treaty was signed, as Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping held a televised meeting by video link.…
St. Petersburg held its annual “Scarlet Sails” celebration for high school grads, the climax of the White Nights festival, this weekend. Some 39,000 people are reported to have attended the event despite a record-setting surge in new coronavirus cases and deaths in Russia’s second-largest city.
On June 24-25, 2021, the first joint volunteer action with the participation of representatives of Paks NPP, Paks-2 NPP, ASE EC JSC (Russian General Contractor) and Rosatom Central Europe took place in the city of Kalocsa (Hungary). Over 20 volunteers from Hungarian and Russian nuclear companies repaired and painted benches on the nursing home premises,…
The Ivan Pavlov Museum had been leading a fairly standard life of a typical memorial museum since it opened in the village of Koltushi outside St. Petersburg in 1949. But this June the venue reopened with a bang, a new curator and an array of new technology, from sound art to video-installations, all aimed to…
Moscow has rolled out one of the world’s most ambitious mandatory vaccination schemes, requiring 60% of all service sector workers — more than 2 million people — in the capital to be fully vaccinated within the next seven weeks. The unprecedented push comes as the city faces a surge of cases and hospitalizations, and only…
One of Belarus’s leading opposition figures on Monday denied any wrongdoing as he addressed the court in a trial that may see him jailed for 15 years on fraud charges. Former banker Viktor Babaryko was arrested in June last year ahead of a disputed presidential election that sparked historic nationwide demonstrations that gripped the ex-Soviet…
The Euro 2020 quarter-final in St. Petersburg on Friday will go ahead as planned, Russia’s tournament organizers told AFP Monday, as the city posted a new pandemic high for daily virus deaths. “The quarter-final will take place as planned,” the press service of the organizing committee in Saint Petersburg said. A UEFA spokesperson told AFP…
Moscow reported a record number of coronavirus deaths in a single day for the second consecutive day as the Delta variant-driven third wave of the pandemic rips through the country, official figures said Monday. The Russian capital recorded 124 Covid deaths in the past 24 hours. The new record came 24 hours after Moscow posted…
The United States’ Embassy in Moscow will suspend visa and other consular services starting Aug. 1 due to a hiring ban imposed by Russia, Ambassador John Sullivan told the independent Dozhd broadcaster Sunday. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow is Washington’s last remaining diplomatic mission in Russia after it closed its St. Petersburg consulate in 2018…
June 28, 2021, 10:50 A meeting of the Sustainable Development Council led by Oleg Aksyutin, Deputy Chairman of the Management Committee – Head of Department at Gazprom, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), and Nikolai Kasimov, Member of the RAS, took place in St. Petersburg. The meeting discussed the completed and planned joint studies conducted by Gazprom and the RAS in the field of hydrogen energy. The studies…
Russia’s Euro 2020 host St. Petersburg on Saturday reported the country’s highest daily Covid-19 toll for a city since the start of the pandemic, data showed. Official figures said the city, which has already hosted six Euro 2020 matches and is due to host a quarter-final on Friday, recorded 107 virus deaths over the last…
Russia’s Euro 2020 host Saint Petersburg on Saturday reported the country’s highest daily Covid-19 toll for a city since the start of the pandemic, data showed. Official figures said the city, which has already hosted six Euro 2020 matches and is due to host a quarter-final on Friday, recorded 107 virus deaths over the last…
As Moscow grapples with a third wave of coronavirus, the thorny issue of vaccine hesitancy has emerged as the biggest roadblock to achieving that desired herd immunity. An overwhelming majority of Russians flatly refuse to get the widely available Sputnik vaccine, despite all inducements or mandates from the government. This should surprise no one. A…
Moscow, 25 June 2021 JSC Atomenergoprom, the company that unites Rosatom’s civil assets, has placed its first issue of green exchange-traded bonds with a par value of RUB 10 billion. Investors’s demand for securities exceeded supply more than sevenfold. This is the first placement of exchange-traded bonds by a Russian issuer to finance renewable sources…
Since this week the epidemiological situation in Moscow is even worse than last week, the city is maintaining the restrictions already implemented. Most outdoor theaters, playgrounds, food courts, children’s playrooms in malls, and zoos will remain closed. Restaurants and bars must close from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Theaters, movie theaters, museums and other cultural…
Watching as Russia’s drive to vaccinate its citizens against coronavirus stumbled earlier this year, Sergei had a hunch that authorities would eventually make inoculations mandatory. But the 30-something in the southern Krasnodar region had no plans of getting a jab. So he found a dealer online hawking fake vaccine certificates, sent his personal details over…
Belarus investigators said Friday that dissident journalist Roman Protasevich, who was dramatically detained after his plane was forced to land in Minsk, has been moved to house arrest. Protasevich, 26, was arrested in May along with his Russian girlfriend Sofia Sapega, 23, when Belarusian authorities scrambled a fighter jet to intercept their Ryanair flight from…
Russia has confirmed 5,409,088 cases of coronavirus and 132,064 deaths, according to the national coronavirus information center. Russia’s total excess fatality count since the start of the coronavirus pandemic is around 475,000. June 25: What you need to know today Russia on Friday confirmed 20,393 new coronavirus cases, the highest number since January, and 601 deaths. Moscow recorded 7,916 cases…
Russia is investigating reports of the first Delta Plus coronavirus variant infections within its borders, the country’s consumer protection watchdog told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency Friday. Some 200 cases of Delta Plus — itself a slight variant of the highly contagious Delta variant first detected in India — have been confirmed in 11…
On June 24, ROSATOM hosted the “Northern Sea Route: Prospects and Opportunities” workshop. The event aimed at promoting the Japan-Russia dialogue on the joint Northern Sea Route (NSR) projects was held in a hybrid format: the attendees gathered in Tokyo, while Rosatom speakers joined in from a studio in Moscow – everything was broadcast on…
The U.S., British and Canadian embassies in Russia on Friday hung rainbow flags on their buildings in Moscow in honor of LGBT Pride Month celebrated worldwide. In a joint statement with colleagues from Australia, Iceland and New Zealand, the Western diplomats said the actions affirm the countries’ “commitment to protecting the human rights of all…
The Kremlin on Friday said it “regretted” a decision by EU leaders to reject a proposal by Germany and France to resume summit meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “President Putin was and remains interested in establishing working relations between Moscow and Brussels,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. EU leaders said Friday they had…
CHERTANOVO — It’s 11 p.m. in a south Moscow hypermarket and Roman Yuneman is feeling philosophical. “Either I’ll end up in jail, or on the ballot,” says the twenty-six-year-old independent candidate for Russia’s State Duma, over supermarket cafe sushi. “I knew that sooner or later it would come to this. I just didn’t think it…
Russian opposition politician and Moscow municipal deputy Ilya Yashin said he has been barred from running in the upcoming Moscow City Duma elections for supporting jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. Yashin said the Moscow electoral commission cited a recent law that bars anyone associated with a terrorist or extremist organization from running for public office.…
Russia has for the first time deployed two interceptor jets capable of carrying the hyped Kinzhal hypersonic missile for war games in Syria, media reported Friday. “A pair of MiG-31K aircraft with the ability to use the latest hypersonic missiles from the Kinzhal complex flew from Russian airfields to the Russian airbase Khmeimim in Syria…
EU leaders said Friday the bloc had rejected a push by Germany and France to relaunch meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin after fierce resistance from member states worried about Moscow’s aggressions. Berlin and Paris blindsided EU counterparts by putting forward a last-minute proposal for the bloc to resume meetings with Putin in the wake…
Nearly 100 supporters of Finland’s national football team who traveled to Russia for a Euro 2020 defeat against Belgium have caught the coronavirus, authorities said Thursday. The prime minister joined the THL health authority overseeing the epidemic in calling for Finns who returned home after Monday’s 2-0 loss in St. Petersburg to take a test. “It is…
A Russian military helicopter on a training flight crashed on Thursday evening near St. Petersburg, killing three people, local authorities said. The Mi-8, which belonged to the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia), was carrying three crew members who were all killed in the crash, according to a spokesperson quoted by the local online news site Fontanka.…
The United States’ Ambassador to Moscow John Sullivan has returned to his posting in Russia on Thursday after he was recalled to Washington amid a major diplomatic fallout between the two powers. Sullivan and his counterpart, Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov, were recalled to their respective countries for consultations — an unprecedented move…
A record-breaking heatwave hitting Moscow and other parts of Russia shows no sign of letting up until July, the head of Russia’s meteorological service told the Izvestia newspaper on Wednesday. While meteorologists initially predicted that the heatwave would retreat at the beginning of next week, the abnormal temperatures are now expected to last well into…
Kondaneft, a production enterprise of Rosneft Oil Company, planted 964,000 pine saplings in the Kondinskiy District of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous District-Yugra.
Russia’s Black Sea coastal resorts including popular holiday destination Sochi will no longer accept tourists who haven’t been vaccinated against the coronavirus starting later this summer, Krasnodar region Governor Veniamin Kondratyev announced Thursday. The restrictions come as Moscow and St. Petersburg battle surging Covid-19 infections and deaths driven by the highly infectious Delta variant and…
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday defended the route taken by a Royal Navy destroyer through Black Sea waters claimed by Russia after it purportedly came under warning fire. Speaking at army barracks the day after the incident involving HMS Defender, Johnson said “it was entirely right that we should vindicate the law and…
The European Union on Thursday imposed sanctions on key sectors of the Belarus economy, ratcheting up pressure on the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko after the forced landing of an airliner. The new package looks to hit key sources of revenue for the authorities in Minsk by restricting trade in potash fertilizer, petroleum and tobacco…
Much of Russia has been fighting a scorching summer heatwave this week, and Moscow has been no exception. This week saw the Russian capital’s previous hottest recorded day — in 1901 — broken by over 1 degree Celsius. Similar records have been broken in St. Petersburg and in the Arctic Circle. Muscovites have been finding…
Russia on Thursday reported more than 20,000 new coronavirus infections and 568 deaths, a peak not seen since January, as the country battles a surging outbreak of the Delta variant worsened by a sluggish jab drive. In total, officials reported 20,182 new cases across the country over the past 24 hours, including just over 8,500…
Russian human rights activists have criticized the country’s official report to the United Nations regarding its detentions of protesters at this winter’s nationwide pro-Navalny protests, the Kommersant business daily reported Wednesday. Tens of thousands of Russians protested nationwide in January and February to call for Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s release after he was detained upon…