Russia will offer electronic visas to foreign visitors starting in 2021, President Vladimir Putin has ordered in a decree. Tourists around the world have frequently cited difficulties with obtaining visas as a barrier to visiting Russia. In 2018, Russia offered visa-free entry for foreign fans with Fan ID’s visiting Russia for the 2018 FIFA World…
UN chief Antonio Guterres appealed to Russia and Turkey on Tuesday to stabilize northwest Syria as the UN aid chief said that some hospitals were not sharing their locations with the warring parties because that “paints a target on their back.” Russia, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his country’s civil war, and Turkey,…
Release June 19, 2019, 10:00 The Joint Coordinating Committee for scientific & technical cooperation and partnership between Gazprom and OMV held a meeting in Vienna, Austria. The meeting was run by Oleg Aksyutin, Deputy Chairman of the Management Committee, Head of Department at Gazprom, and Johann Pleininger, Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board of OMV. The meeting participants reviewed issues related to the integrity…
Authorities in northern Russia have opened a criminal case against a 78-year-old woman for being a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the religious organization has said. Russia labeled the Jehovah’s Witnesses an “extremist” group in 2017, exposing Russia’s estimated 175,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses to mass raids and forcing at least 5,000 to flee the country. The…
Russia’s Constitutional Court has ruled that the authorities cannot refuse authorization for rallies over their inability to provide security, the state-run TASS news agency has reported. Authorities in the Siberian city of Irkutsk rejected activist Valery Teterin’s request to hold a rally last fall, citing Teterin’s inability to define how organizers would ensure public order…
On June 18, 1812 Russian writer Ivan Goncharov was born in Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk). Born into a wealthy merchant family, Goncharov went to boarding school and university in Moscow before relocating to St. Petersburg where he worked as a government translator and private tutor. He served for nearly 30 years as an official: first in…
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) searched a Moscow art gallery owned by prominent businessman David Yakobashvili on Tuesday as part of a criminal investigation, the state-run TASS news agency cited an unnamed security source as saying. Yakobashvili is a former juice magnate who has oil trade and real estate holdings. The search was carried out…
The share of Russians who believe that real men must serve in the military has reached a 22-year high, according to a recent survey published by the independent Levada Center pollster. Russia’s military and intelligence services are among the country’s most-trusted institutions, despite recent polls saying Russians have grown weary with their country’s military campaigns…
Release June 18, 2019, 16:00 Gazprom’s Coordinating Committee for Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency held a meeting today. The meeting was moderated by Vitaly Markelov, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, Head of the Coordinating Committee. Taking part in the meeting were Gennady Sukhov, Member of the Company’s Management Committee, Head of Department, and heads of the structural units and subsidiaries of Gazprom. The meeting participants reviewed the…
A Moscow region official facing corruption charges has attempted suicide during a court hearing for a case he claims is politically motivated. Alexander Shestun, the former head of the Serpukhov district, was arrested last summer on abuse-of-office charges. According to investigators, in 2008-2014 Shestun illegally transferred four plots of public land to a private company,…
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday that Western sanctions against Russia would not be lifted unless Ukraine’s sovereignty was restored. Merkel said she and visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had discussed the Minsk peace agreement, adding: “As long as there is no progress on this front, the sanctions cannot be lifted and the sanctions…
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President Vladimir Putin has signed a law on Monday that introduces fines for the unauthorized production or distribution of foreign print media. Russia has clamped down on the presence of foreign media in recent years. Since 2016, foreigners have been barred from owning more than 20 percent of media organizations, resulting in an exodus of…
Russia told the United States on Tuesday that it should drop what it called provocative plans to deploy more troops to the Middle East or risk war with Iran. The comments, from Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov to Russian news agencies, followed an announcement from Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan who said on Monday…
The government of the Brazilian state of Amazonas assigned the priority status to Rosneft’s project in the Solimões Basin.
A community of about 900 Roma in Russia’s Penza region have been forcibly relocated to the Volgograd region following a mass brawl with local residents, the investigative Novaya Gazeta newspaper has reported. A mass fight reportedly broke out between residents of the village of Chemodanovka and the local Roma community on June 13, resulting in…
Leonid Volkov, an aide to opposition leader Alexei Navalny, has been released after serving a total of 28 days in jail for his role in organizing nationwide protests last year against an unpopular government decision to raise the pension age. Volkov had been sentenced in mid-May to 20 days in jail for the September 2018…
Russia’s population could decrease by half by the end of this century, a new United Nations demographic report has said. Russia has grappled with stagnating population growth in recent years despite the government’s efforts to reverse the trend as the country’s population ages and fewer people have children. In 2018, Russia’s population declined for the…
Russia has uncovered and thwarted attempts by the United States to carry out cyber attacks on the control systems of Russian infrastructure, Russian news agencies cited an unnamed security source as saying on Monday. The disclosure was made on Russia’s state-run RIA and TASS news agencies days after the New York Times cited unnamed government…
A Russian local deputy has warned about the threat of mosques replacing Orthodox cathedrals, weeks after thousands protested against the building of a new cathedral in central Russia. Mass protests rocked Russia’s fourth-largest city of Yekaterinburg last month as citizens clashed with vigilantes over the planned construction of a new cathedral in a popular central…
Violations of Russia’s environmental protection laws cost the country more than $187 million in 2018, a reduction from previous years, officials from the Prosecutor General’s Office said on Monday. The 2018 figures represent a downward trend in environmental damage over the past decade, the state-run TASS news agency quoted Miroshnik as saying. Since 2009, damage…
A U.S. agreement with Poland to send 1,000 extra troops to the country is a defensive measure needed for its security, the U.S. ambassador to Warsaw said on Monday, replying to accusations from neighboring Russia that the move is aggressive. U.S. President Donald Trump’s pledge last week to dispatch the troops to Poland was a…
The Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences has started vast field studies of the Black Sea dolphins, with support of Rosneft Oil Company. The marine expedition took off from Sochi. Following a shipboard phase, scientists of the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology are to take on special research of a part of…
The Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences has started vast field studies of the Black Sea dolphins, with support of Rosneft Oil Company. The marine expedition took off from Sochi. Following a shipboard phase, scientists of the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology are to take on special research of a part of…
A German exchange student has reportedly been expelled from a Russian university and ordered to leave the country after writing an article about environmental protests. Lukas Latz, a Freie University student studying abroad at St. Petersburg State University, published an article in April on a German news website about an ongoing protest movement against copper…
Rosneft and Credit Bank of Moscow have launched a fuel payment service for individuals via a mobile app. The service is available for customers of 96 multi-purpose filling stations under the BP brand in Moscow and Moscow Region. The World of Privilege mobile app for iOS and Android will be available not only for clients…
Russia’s Air Force has received its first delivery of two MiG-35 fighter jets, the corporation that manufactures the jets has said. Air Force commander-in-chief Viktor Bondarev in 2017 announced the Defense Ministry’s plans to replace its entire fleet of light fighters with the MiG-35, a modernized version of the ship-based MiG-29K fighters which Russia has…
The Kremlin said on Monday that a report in the New York Times newspaper citing sources as saying the United States had inserted potentially disruptive implants into Russia’s power grid showed a cyber war was, in theory, possible. The New York Times on Saturday published an article citing current and former unnamed U.S. government officials…
Russian officials have said that the country’s energy infrastructure is safe, days after a New York Times article detailed U.S. cyberattacks on Russia’s electric grid. Citing anonymous sources, the report published Saturday details escalating efforts by the U.S. to hack Russia’s power grid. The article said the U.S. strategy was enacted in response to reports…
Lost in the furor over the arrest of the since-released investigative journalist Ivan Golunov on fabricated drug charges last week was another high-profile detention: this one of the opposition activist Leonid Volkov. Volkov, who is a key senior aide to opposition politician Alexei Navalny, had just spent 20 days in prison charged with co-organizing Navalny’s…
An official from Russia‘s security council described as absurd accusations that Moscow used disinformation to sway voters towards right-wing parties in last month’s European Union elections, Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper reported on Sunday. An EU review into elections to its parliament, published on Friday, said there was evidence both Russian and European online sources had sought to promote…
This year’s winner of the Pushkin House Book Prize is Serhii Plokhy, whose book, “Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy” (Allen Lane) was announced at a ceremony in London on Wednesday. This was the second time Plokhy has won the award. The Pushkin House Book Prize is unique in the world of literary competitions. First, it…
Chinese President Xi Jinping celebrated his 66th birthday on Saturday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who Xi considers a close friend and who gave Xi ice cream as a present, Chinese state media reported. The discussion of senior leaders’ private lives is extremely rare in China, and the exact birth dates of most of them are…
In August 2018, the armed forces on Kotelny fired two Termit cruise missiles with missile complex Rubezh on targets located about 50 km away in the ice-covered part of the Laptev Sea. In 2015, the country moved the S-400 Triumph the new generation anti-aircraft weapon system, to the Kola Peninsula. That was followed by the deployment…
Russian runner Artyom Denmukhametov has been provisionally suspended for working with banned coach Vladimir Kazarin, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) said on Friday. Athletes are not allowed to receive training, strategy, nutritional or medical advice from coaches or medical staff serving doping bans, according to World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) rules — and they face sanctions if…
Exactly one year ago, hundreds of thousands of football fans descended on Russia to attend one of the most long-awaited competitions in the country’s history – the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Russia proudly hosted the event, reviving its global image and spending over $14 billion on construction, infrastructure and planning, making it the most expensive…
Kazakhstan has been roiled with mass protests following a presidential election seen by critics as undemocratic and an extension of their longtime authoritarian leader’s rule. Swathes of citizens have taken to the streets in the capital Nur-Sultan and largest city Almaty to condemn a vote they say was rigged, a rare sight in a country…
A Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft that crashed in May killing 41 people lost autopilot after a lightning strike and came in to land at excessive speed, according to a report from crash investigators, Russian news agencies reported on Friday. But the preliminary report, from the Interstate Aviation Committee which investigates plane crashes in Russia,…
Rosneft has been awarded for its active involvement in the Green Spring—the Russia-wide environmental volunteer clean-up—and badged “For Initiative and Significant Contribution to Protection of the Environment.” Over 15,000 employees from over 80 subsidiaries of Rosneft Oil Company took part in the environmental campaign. Throughout the month, the Company’s employees were cleaning the area of…
The Middle East situation requires closer ties between Iran and Russia, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said at a China-led security bloc summit on Friday, according to the Russian state-run RIA news agency. Rouhani earlier said U.S. actions pose a serious threat to stability in the Middle East after Washington accused Iran of attacks on oil…
European power generation companies agreed that the most advanced Russian project of the VVER-TOI NPP complies with the European Utility Requirement (EUR). The ceremony of handing of the corresponding certificate was held in St. Petersburg on June 13. Atomenergoproekt JSC (a company of Rosatom engineering division) is the general designer of VVER-TOI, Hydropress Design Bureau…
A court in Russia’s Far East has fined a company nearly $900,000 for its role in the so-called “whale prison” that has garnered international outrage in recent months. Nearly 100 whales reportedly bound for export to China have been held for months in cramped pens near the Sea of Japan port of Nakhodka, triggering a…
Living in a country where so-called gay propaganda is banned, Denis, 19, was happy to finally meet someone he felt a connection with on the dating app Tinder. A few weeks after they had started chatting, the guy on the other side of the screen invited him over and asked him to bring “some weed”…
Jets used for corporate travel by Russian state-owned oil major Rosneft flew at least 13 times to Mallorca, Ibiza, Sardinia and the Maldives when CEO Igor Sechin or people from his social circle were in the same vacation spots. Using publicly available data, Reuters tracked 290 Rosneft flights between January 2015 and May 2019. Of…
Russians’ perception of the United States and Ukraine as hostile foreign powers has dropped significantly over the past year, according to a new poll by the independent Levada Center pollster. The U.S., Ukraine and Britain have ranked as the top three countries Russians view as enemies since 2017. Russia has experienced fraught relations with the…
Europe’s Baltic states are at risk from further Russian money laundering, a top European police official said after several big banks were hit by scandals centered on the region. Pedro Felicio, who is responsible for fighting money laundering at European police agency Europol, told Reuters that “huge inflows of criminal money” are mainly coming into…
Moscow police have released all but four of the more than 500 people who were detained during Wednesday’s protest in support of freed journalist Ivan Golunov. At least 549 people were detained in central Moscow at the protest, the OVD-Info police-monitoring website reported. The unauthorized march had originally been scheduled in support of Golunov, who…
Russians’ favorite cartoon is the Soviet-era cult favorite “Nu, Pogodi!”according to a new state-run poll published Thursday. “Nu, pogodi!” — which translates into English as “Well, just you wait!” — debuted in 1969 and centers on Wolf’s neverending, futile pursuit of Hare. The wolf resembles a typical Soviet ruffian: He has a low voice, wears…
Russia on Thursday warned against rushing to attribute blame for a suspected attack on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, and said the incident should not be used to stoke tensions with Tehran, Russia’s state-run RIA news agency reported. Two oil tankers were attacked, leaving one ablaze and both adrift, shipping firms said, driving…
The leader of Russia’s republic of Chechnya has threatened to break the fingers and tear out the tongues of anyone who leaves offensive comments about his subjects online. Residents of the neighboring republic of Dagestan have expressed outrage this week over a new sign that was installed near their border that marked the area as…
The Russian military said on Thursday that Syrian rebels had attacked a Turkish observation point in Syria’s Idlib province, a version of events at odds with Ankara which said the attack was mounted by the Syrian army. Turkey’s Defence Ministry said earlier on Thursday that Syrian government forces had carried out what it assessed to…
Turkey denied Russian assertions on Thursday that a ceasefire had been put in place in Syria’s Idlib province and demanded Russia restore calm, after the Syrian army and its allies shelled and attacked a Turkish observation post there. Turkey’s Defense Ministry said Syrian government forces had carried out what it assessed to be a deliberate…
On this day in 1991, Boris Yeltsin was elected president of the R.S.F.S.R. — the Russian republic within the U.S.S.R. In a March referendum the population in Russia had voted to create the office of the president and vice president. The Russian Congress of People’s Deputies then adopted legislation to authorize and organize the elections.…
Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed two high-ranking police generals involved in the case against investigative journalist Ivan Golunov. Major General Yuri Devyatkin, the head of the Interior Ministry’s drug trafficking department, and Major General Andrei Puchkov, head of the Interior Ministry’s Moscow department, were dismissed Thursday, according to a Kremlin decree. Interior Minister Vladimir…
Russian lawmakers said on Thursday that a new U.S. military deployment to Poland announced by President Donald Trump would force Moscow to take retaliatory steps, with one saying it would make Poland a target in the event of a conflict. Trump pledged to Polish President Andrzej Duda on Wednesday that he would deploy 1,000 U.S.…
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Thursday that its planes had carried out four air strikes against militants in Syria’s Idlib region, the state-run RIA news agency reported. The Russian military said that the Turkish army had asked for its help to protect Turkish troops by striking “terrorists in Idlib.”
Activists in eastern Ukraine’s separatist republic of Luhansk marked Russia Day by carrying a gigantic Russian passport through the streets. Russian President Vladimir Putin in April signed a decree to expedite the process of naturalization for residents of separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine. The Kremlin said Putin enacted the measures to protect the rights of the area’s…
Nightlife in Moscow is about more than just its nightclubs. The city’s potpourri of activities, people, landmarks and cultures is what it’s already famous for during the day, but when the sun goes down, everything shines in a new light. Here’s a look at what the city does in the shadows:
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has vowed to support embattled Moldovan President Igor Dodon against “usurpers” in the country’s ongoing constitutional crisis. On Sunday, Moldova’s constitutional court suspended Dodon’s powers and appointed former Prime Minister Pavel Filip as the country’s acting president. Dodon’s ministers have refused to resign, resulting in two separate governments claiming power in…
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he was considering sanctions over Russia’s Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline project — which the United States has told European companies to avoid — and warned Germany against being dependent on Russia for the fuel. “We’re protecting Germany from Russia and Russia is getting billions and billions of dollars…