Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny urged the EU on Friday to put targeted economic sanctions on the oligarchs surrounding President Vladimir Putin. “There is no sense in sanctioning colonels or generals or some people who are definitely not traveling a lot,” Navalny told MEPs by videolink. Addressing the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, Navalny, who…
Tens of thousands of tons of sulfur dioxide and other hazardous gases have annually been emitted from the chimneys of Nornickel’s factory in the town named after the metal produced there. Damage to human health, the environment and cross-border relations with Norway have made the town of Nikel in the Murmansk region infamous much further…
Russia’s military has launched a coronavirus vaccine campaign among nearly half a million of its active-duty personnel, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced Friday. More than 2,500 Russian soldiers have been vaccinated so far, Shoigu said, projecting that number to go up to 80,000 by the end of the year. Shoigu himself received the Sputnik V…
Russia’s Pobeda low-cost airline was behind a phallic flight path made in support of the national football team captain after he was embroiled in a sex video scandal, the RBC news website reported Thursday, citing a federal aviation report. Russia’s Federal Air Transportation Agency (Rosaviatsia) said the Nov. 11 Moscow-Yekaterinburg flight with 102 passengers onboard…
One of the developers of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine announced Friday that India-based drugmaker Hetero will produce over 100 million doses of the jab. “Hetero, one of India’s leading generic pharmaceutical companies, have agreed to produce in India over 100 million doses per year of the world’s first registered vaccine against the novel coronavirus…
Russia has confirmed more than 27,000 coronavirus infections in a single day for the first time since the start of the pandemic, the latest record amid the country’s record-setting second wave that is straining regional healthcare systems. Health officials reported 27,543 new infections across all Russian regions Friday, bringing the total caseload to 2,215,533 —…
Moscow reported a 300% month-on-month increase in coronavirus deaths for October, the Russian capital’s health department said late Thursday. In September, the city’s health department said Covid-19 was the direct cause of death among 543 Muscovites. As the second wave of the virus escalated in October, Moscow’s health department said coronavirus was the main cause…
Azerbaijani lawmakers on Thursday called for France to be expelled from a group mediating in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute after the French Senate backed the breakaway region’s independence claim. The French upper house on Wednesday adopted a non-binding resolution calling on France to recognize the ethnic Armenian enclave of Azerbaijan as an independent state. The move…
Russia’s foreign minister on Thursday accused the West of interfering in Belarus as he met strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko who has faced months of protests over his disputed re-election. Sergei Lavrov held talks with Lukashenko and other top officials in the capital Minsk, in the latest show of Russia’s support for authorities in its ex-Soviet…
The Russian military has test-launched its vaunted Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile for at least the third time this year, the Defense Ministry announced Thursday. Like the previous test launch held on President Vladimir Putin’s birthday on Oct. 7, a Russian Navy frigate fired the Tsirkon that hit its target in the waters of northwestern Russia,…
November 26, 2020, 15:50 The Gazprom Management Committee took note of the information about the ongoing implementation of the Company’s programs aimed at expanding gas supplies and gas infrastructure in Russian constituent entities, synchronization with regional programs for converting housing, utilities, industries and other entities to gas, and extension of gas grid coverage in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. It was highlighted that the creation of gas supply infrastructure for…
Russia has confirmed 2,187,990 cases of coronavirus and 38,062 deaths. Nov. 26: What you need to know today Russia confirmed record-breaking numbers of 25,487 coronavirus cases and 524 deaths. Moscow has further extended measures aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus until Jan. 15, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced Thursday. The measures include a self-isolation order for residents aged…
This fall the Museum of Russian Impressionism opened an exhibition called “Sergei Vinogradov: A Painted Life,” about a brilliant artist who worked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and yet is almost unknown today. The exhibition is a voyage of discovery, introducing the public to works by a painter of the same caliber…
A cocktail of design flaws, management failures and rising temperatures made the worst oil spill in Russia’s modern history — and the most damaging ever inside the Arctic circle — “inevitable,” a report commissioned by Russian metals giant Nornickel has said. The report is the work of consulting group Environmental Resources Management (ERM), which Nornickel…
Coronavirus patients in southwestern Siberia have been placed in a dilapidated, out-of-use hospital ward with flaking paint and cracking walls due to severe bed shortages, regional health officials said Wednesday. The Altai region’s health authorities said City Hospital No. 3 in Barnaul was forced to reopen a previously shuttered ward “due to an urgent need”…
Russia on Thursday registered record numbers for daily infections and deaths from the coronavirus for the second time in less than a week. Health officials reported 25,487 new infections, bringing the national total to 2,187,990 cases since the beginning of the pandemic — the fifth-highest caseload in the world. Health authorities also reported 524 deaths, raising Russia’s…
November 26, 2020, 13:50 Gazprom’s overall amount of investments for 2021: RUB 902.413 billion. Gazprom’s borrowings for 2021: RUB 511.626 billion. Final investment program and budget to be approved by the Gazprom Board of Directors. The Gazprom Management Committee took note of the Company’s preliminary operating results for 2020 and the projected investment program and budget (financial plan) for 2022–2023. The Management Committee also endorsed the…
Rosneft Oil Company and the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy of Japan have held the second meeting of the Joint Coordination Committee via a video conference.
Moscow, November 25, 2020 – The establishment of a new national project – the National Quantum Laboratory (NQL) – has been announced. The consortium created under the auspices of ROSATOM is going to adopt the international best practices and unite efforts and resources of key universities, research centers, technological companies, financial organizations, start-ups, and development…
Facebook has paid Russian authorities a 4 million ruble ($53,000) fine over its refusal to comply with controversial data localization laws. Under laws which came into force in 2016, Russia requires all foreign technology companies to store data related to their Russian customers and users on servers located inside Russia. Campaigners saw the law as…
A Russian airline has canceled a China-bound flight from Moscow after nearly 200 passengers provided identical negative coronavirus test results, the Chinese Embassy in Moscow said Thursday. Pegas Fly grounded the Moscow-Zhengzhou flight Wednesday when the embassy uncovered more than 190 “completely identical” serology tests, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency quoted the embassy as…
Russia plans dramatic upgrades of its TOS-1 heavy flamethrower systems with longer-range “scorching” rockets and real-time targeting capabilities, the pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper reported Wednesday. Up to 100 TOS-1 “Buratino” and TOS-1A “Solntsepyok” models of the Russian Armed Forces’ Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops will reportedly receive the upgrades “due to the growing range and…
Rosneft Oil Company has been the first in the history of Arctic surveys to drill shallow stratigraphic wells in the north of the Kara Sea.
RN-Komsomolsk refinery, an enterprise of Rosneft Oil Company’s refining complex, has completed a technical upgrade of one of its major crude distillation units, CDU/VDU-2.
Vladimir Putin has held a working meeting with Rosneft Oil Company Chief Executive Officer Igor Sechin.
On November 25, 2020, Deputy Director General for International Activity of ROSATOM Nikolai Spasskiy had a meeting with Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the Kingdom of Bahrain to the Russian Federation A. A. Al Saati at the request of the Bahrain party. During the meeting, the parties discussed prospects of closer cooperation between ROSATOM and…
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has become the latest victim of a pair of notorious Russian pranksters who called him while posing as Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. In the phone call published on the Vovan and Lexus comic duo’s YouTube page this week, the fake Greta grills Trudeau about NATO, other world leaders and…
Russian President Vladimir Putin may be the father of a secretive St. Petersburg millionaire’s 17-year-old daughter, the Proekt investigative website reported Wednesday. Yelizaveta Vladimirovna Krivonogikh “bears a phenomenal resemblance to the Russian president,” Proekt reported, citing photographs it said it had obtained. Her mother Svetlana Krivonogikh is the beneficiary of a company that owns a…
Moscow plans to track its residents’ “loyalty” with detailed digital profiles akin to China’s social credit system, the Open Media news website reported Tuesday, citing public documents. Moscow City Hall has since 2017 been collecting the gender, age, income level and relationship to other people signed up to its mos.ru website as part of the…
Feminist Russian lawmaker Oksana Pushkina and prosecuted LGBT activist Yulia Tsvetkova have been named among the world’s 100 most inspirational and influential women in 2020 by the BBC. This year’s edition of the BBC’s annual 100 Women list aims to highlight women who act as leaders of change. The BBC left one of the 100 spots…
Russia reported a record high of 507 new coronavirus-related deaths Wednesday as the Kremlin acknowledges the heavy strain placed on the country’s healthcare system but continues to rule out a new nationwide lockdown. The country’s total number of fatalities now stands at 37,538, a figure widely believed to be undercounted due to tallying methods. An analysis…
November 25, 2020, 10:10 The Gazprom Board of Directors took note of the information on the projects being designed and implemented for the widespread adoption of digital technologies and other technological solutions. It was highlighted that the introduction of digital technologies is an important tool to improve the effectiveness of corporate governance and achieve the strategic goals of the Gazprom Group. Today, the Company is at the final stage of automating its core…
A Russian hospital has been fined for concealing more than 1,000 coronavirus patients earlier this fall, with the regional health officials blaming the national authorities for a misunderstanding. A court in the city of Ufa handed a 200,000 ruble ($2,600) fine to the Kuvatov Republic Clinical Hospital on Monday after finding them guilty of withholding…
November 25, 2020, 10:00 The Gazprom Board of Directors took note of the information on the Company’s efforts to expand gas infrastructure in rural areas. It was highlighted that gas infrastructure expansion in Russian regions is an essential social project on a national scale. The project aims to facilitate the development of Russian constituent entities and improve the quality of life for the population. The top priority in this line of work is gas expansion…
November 25, 2020, 09:50 Decline in gas production growth rates expected in the U.S. shale industry. Slowdown in the LNG sector may have negative implications for its long-term development prospects. LNG produced in Russia could be useful for entering new gas sales markets. The Gazprom Board of Directors took note of the information about the growth prospects of the shale gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) industries across…
Scientists from Rosneft Oil Company have developed unique catalysts for the production of diesel fuel of the Arctic and winter grades.
During the summer and autumn of 2020, Bashneft, a subsidiary of Rosneft, replenished the water bodies of the Republic of Bashkortostan, the Nenets Autonomous District, and the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District with small fry of valuable fish species.
November 25, 2020 PAO Severstal, one of the world’s largest vertically integrated steel and mining companies, has resumed deliveries to Alfapipe, a spiral welded steel pipe manufacturer based in Algeria. Severstal produced 26 thousand tons of X70 grade skelp steel coils to supply to Alfapipe. X70 Grade Steel is one of the highest-strength steel grades,…
Belarus authorities said Tuesday that opposition politician Viktor Babaryko — who until his arrest had intended to run against President Alexander Lukashenko in the August election — was charged with corruption and money laundering. For over three months Belarus has been gripped by historic protests against the re-election of strongman leader Lukashenko, 66, who secured a sixth term…
Shares in Russian online retail giant Ozon surged by more than 40% in the first minutes of trading after the most eagerly anticipated Russian initial public offering (IPO) in years. Ozon is the country’s second-largest e-commerce player and is placing itself to become Russia’s answer to Amazon with a plan to consolidate and dominate the…
Cyclone Sara arrived in Russia from northern Europe late on Sunday, bringing the much-awaited first substantive snows of the season to Moscow. Muscovites streamed outside to enjoy the winter wonderland while they still can — because it’s already expected to disappear when warmer weather arrives later this week. Here’s a closer look at the magic…
A drunk father took six children hostage in his St. Petersburg apartment during a suspected dispute with his wife, Russian news outlets reported Tuesday. According to Interfax, police responded to a call by the hostage-taker’s wife, who said she was unable to get inside the apartment where she heard the children crying. Special forces ended…
Russia plans to vaccinate its minks against the coronavirus after a mutated form of the virus found on mink farms prompted mass culls in Europe, the Defense Ministry’s Zvezda news channel reported Monday. Earlier this month, Denmark said it will cull its entire population of about 17 million mink after discovering a mutated Covid-19 strain…
In May, as Russia was tentatively emerging from a nationwide lockdown and clocking up near-record numbers of new infections, Russian officials began mounting an aggressive public campaign to present Moscow’s handling of the coronavirus as faultless. Central to that was boasting about the country’s low number of fatalities compared with Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere. …
Russia has confirmed 2,138,828 of coronavirus and 37,031 deaths. Nov. 24: What you need to know today Russia confirmed 24,326 coronavirus cases and a new record of 491 deaths. A contact tracing smartphone app developed by the Ministry of Digital Development is now available on App Store and Google Play. The app, called Gosuslugi.COVID Treker, alerts users of…
Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine is 95% effective, its developers said Tuesday as Russia seeks a leading role in the high-stakes global race for a safe, effective vaccine that can end to the deadly pandemic. The calculations were based on preliminary data obtained 42 days after volunteers received the first dose, the Health Ministry, the…
Russian authorities have arrested Jehovah’s Witnesses in Moscow and across 20 other regions as part of their latest investigation into the religious group that is officially banned as “extremist,” investigators said Tuesday. Video released by the Moscow branch of the federal Investigative Committee, which investigates major crimes, showed masked men prying open an apartment door…
A Russian warship caught a U.S. Navy destroyer operating in Russia’s Pacific waters on Tuesday and chased it off, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said. The USS John S. McCain, a guided-missile destroyer, violated Russia’s territorial waters by moving two kilometers beyond the maritime border at 03:17 GMT into Peter the Great Gulf, the ministry said in…
Russian President Vladimir Putin will not congratulate U.S. President-elect Joe Biden despite news that the Trump administration has approved the formal presidential transition process, the Kremlin said Tuesday. Trump eased some lingering post-election uncertainty by tweeting late Monday that the agency that works with incoming administrations would begin work to assist Biden’s team. While the…
Queen Elizabeth II has granted Russian-British media mogul Yevgeny Lebedev the title of “Baron of Hampton and Siberia,” according to the British government’s official journal of record The Gazette. The British monarch conferred a lifetime peerage to Lebedev, 40, after his longtime friend Prime Minister Boris Johnson nominated him in July. Reports suggested that Lebedev’s…
President Vladimir Putin has awarded a Russian World War II veteran for raising funds to support the families of doctors who died from coronavirus, according to a government decree published Monday. Zinaida Korneva, 98, received the Decoration “For Beneficence” for her “great contribution to charitable and public activities,” the decree said. The medal recognizes charity…
A Russian peacekeeper has been wounded and an Azerbaijani soldier killed in a mine explosion in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday. Four emergency workers from the unrecognized ethnic Armenian republic of Nagorno-Karabakh were also wounded in the region’s Tartar district, the Defense Ministry was cited as saying by Interfax.…
A freak snowstorm that has battered parts of the Russian Far East and left 100,000 residents without electricity for several days is linked to climate change, analysts and activists say. The storm that hit the Primorye region and its capital of Vladivostok last Thursday brought down trees and power lines and covered outdoor surfaces in…
Russian courts on Monday fined two Pussy Riot activists for hanging rainbow flags on several government buildings last month to mark President Vladimir Putin’s birthday. On Oct. 7 — Putin’s 68th birthday — members of the anti-Kremlin punk group draped the flags associated with LGBT pride on buildings in Moscow including Russia’s Supreme Court and the…
A man dressed in all black mimes scrambled Brodsky verses while a cellist rakes her instrument with plastic wedges…thundering drum beats are inspired by the latest protests in Belarus… musicians in virtual reality goggles clatter on mechanical typewriters. These are just some of the images and sounds that the audience at “Russian Music 2.0” was…
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a law on increasing income tax for high earners in the first move away from a flat tax system in place since 2001. Starting next year, the tax rate will rise from 13% to 15% on incomes over 5 million rubles (about $65,800/55,370 euros at the current exchange…
Bashneft (an enterprise of Rosneft Oil Company) has treated approximately 65 million cubic metres of wastewater at the Ufa Refining Complex’s biological waste treatment facilities since their launch and brought them to the full process mode.
Three Siberian schoolchildren have been charged with terrorism over an alleged plot to blow up a virtual security building in the popular block-building game Minecraft, according to reports. Investigators in the Krasnoyarsk region announced the arrest of three 14-year-old “anarchists” over the summer on suspicion of training at abandoned sites to commit acts of terrorism.…
Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman has slammed The New York Times’ job posting for a Russia correspondent, criticizing it for “political bias” and “Russophobia.” In its description for the job posted early last week, The New York Times lists its requirements for an ideal candidate along with a description of the job’s location, “Vladimir Putin’s Russia.” …
At least seven people in the Far East Russian republic of Sakha have died from drinking hand sanitizer at a party, authorities and news reports have said. Nine people consumed the hand rub from a five-liter container that they purchased from a local store, the regional branch of consumer safety watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said in a…