Russia said Sunday that it scrambled fighter jets to prevent two U.S. strategic bomber planes from crossing its border over the Barents Sea in the Arctic. The U.S. military routinely carries out flights over international waters, operations that it says are conducted in neutral airspace and in accordance with international law. But Moscow has responded…
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said Saturday it was resigned to the Paris Games being targeted by disinformation attacks following recent incidents blamed on Russia. IOC spokesman Mark Adams said he believed a campaign against the Paris Olympics was already under way as final preparations for the sports spectacular entered the home stretch. “Clearly there…
As soon as our compatriots hear the word “baranka” — a hard round bread roll — they immediately begin to hum the famous song “Golden Domed Moscow” where “candy and baranki are like swan sleighs…” It’s good that Putin’s patriots don’t know the awful truth: this anthem of the old Russia we lost is set…
At least two people were killed and four wounded in a Russian airstrike overnight on Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, the regional prosecutor said Saturday. “Around 3:15 in the morning the enemy launched a missile attack on the town of Barvinkove, in Izyum district,” the prosecutor said in a statement. The prosecuted said two men aged…
Russia shot down 26 Ukrainian drones overnight in the southern Rostov region, several hundred kilometers from the front line, the regional governor said Saturday. “Last night, air defense forces intercepted and destroyed a total of 26 UAVs in Rostov region. There were no casualties as a result of the attack,” Governor Vasily Golubev posted on…
Authorities in Russia on Friday designated a Grammy-winning pianist, a priest who helps Ukrainian refugees and a former Soviet spy as “foreign agents,” the latest update to Moscow’s burgeoning list of individuals it deems as enemies of the state. Hundreds of cultural figures, journalists, businesspeople, as well as news outlets and organizations, have been branded “foreign…
Russian pop star Shaman announced that he plans to stage a concert outside the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on Friday evening in response to major Western streaming platforms removing his songs. “As you know, America blocked my YouTube channel simply because I’m Russian and I’m ready to answer back,” Shaman, whose real name is Yaroslav Dronov,…
A Moscow court has ordered the “liquidation” of Russia’s popular Grushinsky music festival, an event that has been held annually in the southern Samara region since 1968. The court’s decision follows an earlier announcement by the festival’s organizers, who said they would be forced to cancel this year’s event due to “possible risks… in the…
Russian attacks killed two people in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region on Friday, a day after Kyiv acknowledged its foothold on the left bank of the Dnipro River was mostly destroyed. Ukraine managed to establish a small bridgehead on the left bank of the Dnipro River that cuts through the Kherson region last year in an attempt…
Russian investigators said Friday that they have launched a criminal probe into “attempted murder” following an assault on a federal lawmaker. Mikhail Matveyev, a Communist Party member of Russia’s lower-house State Duma, said Thursday he had been attacked by “migrants” while attempting to stop them from harassing a passerby in the southern city of Samara.…
Russia’s Digital Communications Ministry said Friday that airlines and banks in the country did not appear to have been impacted by a widespread Microsoft outage that has disrupted flights and business across the globe, touting Moscow’s measures against Western sanctions as a shield from the digital disarray. The international travel industry, as well as some…
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hosted a Russian military delegation led by Deputy Defense Minister Alexei Krivoruchko to discuss the “importance and necessity” of bilateral defense cooperation, state media said Friday. Thursday’s meeting in Pyongyang came roughly a month after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to the North Korean capital, during which the two…
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said Friday that it thwarted an attempted terrorist attack at a bus station in the southern Stavropol region. The law enforcement agency said it detained a man who had purchased supplies to make an improvised explosive device, which he allegedly stored in a garage in the city of Yessentuki. Authorities…
Читаете русскую версию здесь. Artist Philippenzo wants you to refer to him as such — as a pseudonym. “I don’t like it when the media are like policemen and use passport data that has nothing to do with my art,” he says. In his home country, Philippenzo is being prosecuted under Article 214.2 of the…
Updated with sentencing, Smirnov’s comments, White House statement. A judge in Russia’s Sverdlovsk region on Friday sentenced Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich to 16 years in prison on spying charges, a forgone conclusion in a closed trial that has been condemned as a sham by Washington and the journalist’s employer. “The court finds Evan Gershkovich…
A Russian court on Thursday sentenced a man to five years in prison over rare opposition protests in the Urals republic of Bashkortostan. A court in the city of Orsk said in a statement that a 50-year-old man had been found guilty of “participating in mass unrest” and “violence against law enforcement officers” in the…
A business meeting between Alexey Likhachev, Director General of ROSATOM, and Alparslan Bayraktar, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of Türkiye, took place in Istanbul. The parties discussed the implementation status of the largest joint Russian and Turkish project for today – Akkuyu NPP, as well as the potential prospects for expansion of cooperation. “As…
Oil deliveries to Hungary and Slovakia from Russian oil giant Lukoil have come to a halt due to Ukrainian sanctions, media reported Thursday. Restrictions signed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last month effectively banned Russia’s second-largest oil producer Lukoil from using Ukraine as a transit hub. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said late Tuesday that Lukoil…
Authorities in Russia on Thursday added the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to the country’s list of “undesirable” organizations. While the listing does not specify why the organization was added, it does cite a decision by Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office from July 1 to designate Carnegie as “undesirable.” It was not immediately clear what specific…
Russia may make a new deployment of nuclear weapons in response to U.S. plans to station missiles in Germany, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Thursday. “I’m not ruling out any options,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying by the state-run Interfax news agency. “Considering the combined capabilities of NATO member countries, we must calibrate…
A former U.S. paratrooper and rock musician detained in Russia more than a year ago on drug charges was sentenced to 13 years in prison on Thursday, the Moscow court system’s press service said. Michael Travis Leake, who fronted the Moscow-based rock band Lovi Noch, was detained in June 2023 after prosecutors accused him of…
A Moscow court has banned the sale of toilet paper with printed patterns of 1,000-ruble bills, the independent news website Vyorstka reported Thursday, citing the court’s ruling. The decorative toilet paper was deemed to “offend religious feelings” since the 1,000-ruble banknote depicts Yaroslav the Wise, an 11th-century Kyivan Rus’ prince who was made a saint…
The Erarta contemporary art museum in St. Petersburg is facing administrative charges for displaying a painting that the authorities claim contains “Nazi symbols,” a spokesperson for the city’s court system said Thursday. An administrative case against the museum was brought before the Vasilevsky District Court, which is in the same neighborhood where Erarta is located,…
The United States has handed a three-year prison sentence to a Russian businessman who admitted to smuggling military-grade electronics to Russia, the U.S. Justice Department announced Wednesday. Maxim Marchenko, who lived and operated several companies in Hong Kong, was arrested in September and pleaded guilty to smuggling and money laundering in a New York court…
Russia’s Constitutional Court has banned the euthanasia of stray animals unless they pose a direct threat to humans, state media reported Thursday. “Killing animals without owners is an extraordinary measure, which is justified only when others cannot ensure an adequate level of protection of a person, their rights and freedoms and public safety,” Russia’s Constitutional…
Timur Kamaev, a prominent Imam from Russia’s republic of Tatarstan, found himself at the center of a nationwide scandal this week after releasing a video in which he appears to instruct believers on the proper ways to beat one’s wife. Released on Monday as a part of the Tea With Hazrat podcast series, the original…
Updated with AFP report. The espionage trial of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich resumed on Thursday morning behind closed doors in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, local media reported. The hearing was originally set to resume on Aug. 13, but Gershkovich’s defense lawyers had requested the date be moved up. Thursday’s hearing is closed…
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Thursday morning that it had downed dozens of Ukrainian aerial and waterborne drones targeting the annexed Crimean peninsula in an overnight attack. “Air defense systems on duty destroyed and intercepted 33 aerial drones over… Crimea,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that forces “in the Black Sea destroyed 10…
President Vladimir Putin warned on Wednesday that unregulated cryptocurrency mining risks overloading Russia’s electrical grid and causing widespread power outages. “An uncontrolled increase in electricity consumption for mining cryptocurrencies can lead to power shortages in certain regions,” Putin told senior government officials at a meeting focused on the economy. Russia’s Energy Ministry estimates that crypto mining consumes…
Lithuania will no longer allow passenger vehicles with Belarusian license plates to enter the country, the Baltic nation’s customs agency announced on Wednesday. The ban, which takes effect Thursday, applies to passenger cars “regardless of the nationality of their owner or driver,” the agency said. An exception will be made until Aug. 16 for Belarusian…
A young couple was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike while driving in southwestern Russia’s Belgorod region, Russian authorities said Wednesday. Belgorod region Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said the latest attack took place in the village of Tserkovny, less than 10 kilometers from the border with northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. “As a result of a car fire,…
In a forest in the Kharkiv region, Commander Vyacheslav walks briskly, his eyes fixed on the sky. The radio on his shoulder crackles: “The sky is clear, no more drones, we can go.” The men of one Territorial Defense Brigade of Kharkiv have come to locate a Ukrainian tank destroyed earlier by a Russian drone…
The Kremlin on Wednesday dismissed suggestions that its ground offensive on northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region had failed, coming a day after Russian officials said they would seal off border villages to protect civilians from Ukrainian shelling. Russia launched a surprise assault into the Kharkiv region in early May in a bid to push Ukrainian forces…
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged 190 captured soldiers as part of a deal mediated by the United Arab Emirates, the Russian Defense Ministry announced Wednesday. “As a result of a negotiation process, 95 Russian servicemen … have been returned,” the ministry wrote on Telegram, adding that 95 Ukrainian soldiers had also been released. Ukraine’s human…
Russian media executive Andrei Shmarov, whose short stint as editor-in-chief of the business daily Vedomosti was marred by censorship scandals, has died at the age of 69, the newspaper said Wednesday, citing a family friend. Vedomosti did not name the cause of Shmarov’s death, but anonymously run Telegram news channels with links to Russia’s law…
Around 650,000 Russians have left the country and not returned since Moscow launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, according to a new report by the independent business news outlet The Bell, citing migration data from dozens of countries. Russia saw two waves of outward migration in 2022 — one initially after the start…
Last month’s deadly attacks on Orthodox churches and synagogues in Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Dagestan have renewed the debate over introducing a nationwide legal ban on the niqab, a full-face veil worn by some Muslim women. The debate was triggered by a report that one of the armed assailants had planned to escape from…
Authorities in Russia have issued an arrest warrant for exiled investigative journalist Andrei Zakharov, the independent news website Mediazona reported Wednesday, citing the Interior Ministry’s database of wanted persons. The database does not specify what criminal charges Zakharov faces, but Mediazona noted that he was previously charged with failing to comply with Russia’s “foreign agent” labeling…
Piet Ploeg lost his brother Alex, his brother’s wife Edith and their son Robert while they were traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur in 2014. They were among the passengers on Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 when it was shot down over war-torn eastern Ukraine on July 17, killing all 298 people on board. The remains…
Updated with restrictions in Krasnodar. Power was restored across southern Russia early Wednesday after a malfunction at a major nuclear plant the day before led to sweeping outages and emergency restrictions across the region. A power unit at the Rostov nuclear plant automatically shut down on Tuesday afternoon due to a “false alarm” in the…
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region bordering Ukraine said Tuesday that public access to 14 border villages will be restricted due to constant bombardment. The announcement came after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a May ground offensive on Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region that he said was intended to create a buffer zone to protect the…
A university student who fled Russia last year to evade prosecution for criticizing the war in Ukraine said Monday that the Russian authorities canceled her internal passport. “I’m not worried since I didn’t have any rights before anyway,” Olesya Krivtsova wrote in a Telegram post announcing her passport cancelation. “The only thing that’s worrying is…
The Dutch holding company that split from Russian tech giant Yandex after the West introduced sanctions over the war in Ukraine announced Tuesday that it was relaunching as an artificial intelligence venture in Europe. “Today we are launching Nebius Group, a tech company that aims to become a leading European provider of infrastructure and services…
Finnish President Alexander Stubb on Tuesday signed a controversial law allowing the country’s border guards to refuse entry to asylum seekers who cross over from Russia. The Nordic country’s right-wing government had for months argued that new legal tools were needed to combat an uptick in asylum seekers from Russia, which in mid-December prompted the…
Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab plans to gradually reduce its operations in the U.S. from July 20, the firm told state-run media on Monday. Kaspersky’s exit comes after the U.S. Commerce Department sanctioned the company in June, banning it from selling and updating its popular antivirus software in the country. “The company has carefully studied…
At the age of 16, Yegor Balazeikin, a high-school student from St. Petersburg, threw Molotov cocktails at two military conscription centers — an anti-war protest that had become widespread across Russia following the invasion of Ukraine. The devices failed to ignite. No one was injured. But Balazeikin, who was initially charged with hooliganism, was eventually…
Authorities in Russia have called on Google to restore more than 200 pro-government YouTube channels that have been blocked since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the state-run TASS news agency reported Tuesday. Russia’s state media regulator Roskomnadzor said it sent Google CEO Sundar Pichai a request to unblock the channels of “Russian media, federal authorities,…
They may not have the prestige of the Euros or World Cup, but exhibition matches like these can never be seen in isolation from global conflicts and diplomatic tensions. Twenty-seven days after President Vladimir Putin left North Korea where he met with Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, Russia’s women’s team hosted North Korea for the…
The Kremlin on Tuesday gave a cautious response to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s apparent invitation to a future peace summit, saying that Russia first needs to understand what Kyiv means before attending talks. Zelensky said on Monday that Russia “should be” represented at a second summit on the Ukraine conflict, following high-level talks last month…
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has called on European Council President Charles Michel to resume diplomatic relations with Russia, the German newspaper Bild reported Monday, citing a letter written by the populist leader following his recent foreign trips that sparked anger in Brussels. Orban — whose country this month took over the rotating EU presidency —…
A Russian court has rescheduled the closed-door trial of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich at the request of his defense team, the independent news website Mediazona reported Tuesday, citing the court’s press service. The Sverdlovsk Regional Court in the city of Yekaterinburg was originally scheduled to resume hearings in the espionage case against Gershkovich…
A Russian military court on Monday granted house arrest to a general and former commander in Moscow’s Ukraine offensive who has been charged with fraud. Russia has recently arrested several senior military and defense figures over alleged fraud and bribe-taking, more than two years into Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine. Major General Ivan Popov was released…
Russian volunteers are sending cats to fight off rodent infestations in the battlefield trenches during the country’s invasion of Ukraine, local media reported Monday. “The soldiers complained to me that they’re plagued by mice,” volunteer Vladimir Malygin told the state-affiliated media outlet Tatar Inform. “Cats saved the Hermitage during the Great Patriotic War [World War II],…
This year’s Pitrau festival came and went in the republic of Tatarstan. Celebrated by the Kryashens, an Orthodox Christian ethnic sub-group of the Volga Tatars, the holiday has a deep folk and religious meaning. While Pitrau is largely to observe the Day of Saints Peter and Paul, the festival also has pre-Christian roots. The day…
A U.S. citizen jailed in Russia for kicking a police officer two years ago has complained of being tortured by his fellow inmates, local state-run media reported Monday. Robert Gilman, 30, was sentenced to four years and six months in Russian prison for allegedly kicking a law enforcement officer in October 2022, a sentence that was…
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that Russia should be represented at a second summit aiming to secure lasting peace with the Kremlin, after more than two years of war. Dozens of world leaders voiced support for a just peace in Ukraine after a high-level summit convened by Zelensky last month in Switzerland, to which…
“Limonov: The Ballad,” directed by Kirill Serebrennikov, was screened at the Cannes Film Festival and will be released in the US in September. The screenplay, written by Serebrennikov with Ben Hopkins and Paweł Pawlikowski in an adaptation of Emmanuel Carrère’s 2015 fictionalized biography, tells the story of the poet, writer and Soviet dissident who became…
A Russian soldier who was medically discharged from Ukraine was accused of firing at a group of children in southern Russia’s Volgograd region, local media reported Monday, citing authorities and the victims’ relatives. A 12-year-old boy was hospitalized with a gunshot wound in the leg, according to the news website v1.ru. The outlet said several anonymous…
Russia’s state-run Rossiya 1 TV channel ran a segment threatening to strike European capitals during its primetime broadcast on Sunday evening. “Almost all European capitals will be under threat if our missiles are stationed in Kaliningrad: Berlin, Warsaw, all the Baltic states, Paris, Bucharest, Prague, and of course, the American bases in Germany,” TV host and…
The Dutch holding company of Russian tech giant Yandex has closed a deal to sell its remaining stake in Russia, the company said on Monday. The $2.8 billion sale of a 28% stake completes the Amsterdam-based Yandex NV’s exit from Russia, after most of its assets in the country were sold to a Russian consortium…