An anonymously published video of Russia’s fighter jet showed on Tuesday what is purported to be “the most powerful” laser-guided bomb in service. “In the video, the work of the Su-34 using the most powerful of the guided bombs in service,” the video caption reads. The undated video identifies the bunker buster in question as…
If all you know about Romani music came from listening to a couple of singers at a Mediterranean resort jiggling lots of fake gold and stamping their feet — who were, by the way, a Spanish-French-German couple from Des Moines — then you don’t know anything about Romani music. And if you think all Romani…
Russia is racing to return oil exports to normal after deliveries to eastern Europe were cut by a contamination crisis that shut down parts of the giant Druzhba pipeline almost a month ago. Where has supply been restored? Shipments to Belarus via Druzhba have restarted, while oil transport in the direction of Ukraine via the…
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday it was time for Moscow and Washington to put aside years of mistrust and find a way to work together constructively. Pompeo is in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi for talks with his Russian counterpart, and later on Tuesday will also…
Famous Russian stylist Sergei Zverev has been fined for staging a one-person picket in Moscow against a Chinese bottling plant near his hometown on Lake Baikal earlier this year. Zverev was described as an “unlikely activist” against the bottling plant in the world’s largest freshwater lake outside a village where he was born 55 years…
Russian Orthodox priest and survivalist Fyodor Konyukhov has broken records while completing the first of his three-leg effort to circumnavigate the Southern Hemisphere in a row boat. Konyukhov, 67, embarked on the 27,000-kilometer solo voyage from New Zealand in early December. He completed the first leg on Thursday, reaching the southern tip of Chile in…
The Kremlin said on Tuesday that the United States had not made any formal proposal for U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet on the sidelines of a gathering of the G20 in Japan next month. Trump said on Monday that he would meet Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the…
A promising journalist for an online feminist magazine has died at age 25 after falling from an eighth-floor apartment window in a tragic accident that does not appear suspicious. Wonderzine editor Margarita Virova fell out of her window while trying to take a photograph of her friends in the early hours of Monday. She died…
The United States is laying the groundwork to use nuclear weapons in Europe, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s arms control and nonproliferation chief has warned. The U.S. and Russia are suspending the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which bans either side from stationing short- and intermediate-range, land-based missiles in Europe. Russia has said it was…
Legendary Russian rock singer Zemfira released her debut album in May 1999. The young musician quickly attained cult status and became one of the most popular artists in the country and a symbol of the era. Twenty years later, many still adore the musician.
Turkey is considering a U.S. request to delay the purchase of a Russian missile-defense system into 2020, a move that could ease tensions between the NATO allies, according to two people familiar with the proposal. The Trump administration last week asked Ankara to postpone receiving the advanced S-400 missile-defense system which was set for July,…
Protesters in Russia’s fourth-largest city of Yekaterinburg rallied against the construction of a church in a city park, with reports of church supporters using violence and tear gas against the picketers. Opponents gathered in the city’s central park on Monday after photographs of fencing around the planned church site spread online. They argue that authorities…
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 gathering in Japan next month. Trump said his meeting with Xi could be fruitful as their trade dispute escalated after failing to reach agreement during high-level talks last week.
Already secure at the top of the Russian Premier League table, FC Zenit St. Petersburg were officially crowned 2018-2019 champions on Sunday night after a convincing 3-1 home win against PFC CSKA Moscow at the packed Gazrom Arena. Zenit’s win was met with wild celebrations within the stadium and beyond after a 4-year title draught.…
Russia is losing at least $30 billion every year due to the investment climate that has followed its annexation of Crimea, economist Sergei Guriev said in an interview published Monday. Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine has weakened Russia’s relations with the West, launching multiple rounds of sanctions from the U.S.…
The number of Jehovah’s Witnesses persecuted in Russia has almost doubled after 75 more members of the religious group were added this year, the Memorial human rights group 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…
A disgruntled former officer seeking to restore his retirement benefits has been detained for at least the seventh time outside President Vladimir Putin’s administration in Moscow on Sunday. Vladimir Skubak, a retired missile forces major, has staged one-person pickets for nearly a month on claims that he had been denied retirement allowances in 2015. He…
Russia’s national flag carrier Aeroflot has canceled at least 50 Sukhoi Superjet 100 (SSJ 100) flights since a crash landing of the Russian-made aircraft killed 41 people last week. The deadly SSJ landing in Moscow on May 5 ended in the plane’s tail section catching fire on the runway and raised questions about the jet’s…
In April 2019, TENEX together with JSC “SSC RIAR” and FSUE “PA “Mayak” won the tender for the “Development of Technologies for Retrieving Fuel Debris and Internal Structures (Development for Dust Collection System of Fuel Debris)” project which consists of research works on development of a system to collect the dust generated during the processing…
In April 2019, TENEX together with JSC “SSC RIAR” and FSUE “PA “Mayak” won the tender for the “Development of Technologies for Retrieving Fuel Debris and Internal Structures (Development for Dust Collection System of Fuel Debris)” project which consists of research works on development of a system to collect the dust generated during the processing…
The Moscow metro staged a photo op with an Iron Throne inspired by HBO’s hit series “Game of Thrones” over the weekend. The one-day event at Delovoy Tsentr station featured three Daenerys Targaryen, Cersei Lannister and Jon Snow lookalikes on Saturday. A cello duet accompaniment made the experience even more immersive as commuters took turns…
Release May 12, 2019, 20:00 The opening ceremony for the final round of Gazprom’s 8th corporate Fakel Festival took place in Krasnaya Polyana, Sochi. The event brought together over 1,600 people representing 40 delegations from Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, and China. The Festival’s guests include delegations from Bolivia, France, Germany, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. Over the course of three days, contestants…
On May 9, millions of people across Russia march in the Immortal Regiment, a movement to commemorate family members who fought in World War II. We speak with Maria, a 19-year-old girl from Moscow who hasn’t forgotten the story of her great-grandmother, who fought during the war as a “Night Witch.” The all-women 588th Night…
Sergei Dorenko died on May 9 in Moscow. According to multiple media reports, he was riding his motorcycle not far from the city center when he had a heart attack, drove into the oncoming traffic lane and then slid to a stop. No other vehicles were involved in the accident, and he apparently died on the…
RIGA, Latvia — The sun was shining on Latvia’s capital Riga on Thursday as the city’s former mayor Nils Ušakovs stepped forward with a World War II veteran to lay flowers at the base of a monument commemorating the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany. For the Baltic nation’s sizeable Russian minority Victory Day is…
Children in southern Russia who donned military uniforms and paraded in front of their parents and officials ahead of Victory Day have generated pride among local authorities and caused outrage elsewhere in Russia. The Pyatigorsk city administration boasted that around 500 preschoolers dressed as airborne troops, sailors and Soviet soldiers took part in the parade…
Moscow and Tokyo still have “extremely significant” differences over a World War II peace deal that Japan hopes will end a territorial row between them, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying on Friday. Japan is seeking a deal with Russia to put an end to a dispute over islands off…
A controversial sculpture of Soviet leader Josef Stalin was unveiled in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk on Thursday. A small black bust and two plaques were unveiled on the date Russia celebrates Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, with crowds gathering at a site where a fence and security measures will protect the memorial…
This week on From Russia With News, Moscow Times columnist and political consultant Max Hess explains why the Kremlin is going all in on Nicolas Maduro, the embattled leader of Venezuela who recently fended off a coup attempt backed by the United States. And it’s Victory Day. We speak with Washington Post bureau chief Anton…
Each year on Victory Day, millions of people in Russia parade with portraits of relatives who fought in World War II. Called the Immortal Regiment, the tradition — which recognizes those who took part in what Russia calls the Great Patriotic War — has grown every year since it began in 2012, both inside and…
Every year, Russia celebrates May 9 as the day the Soviet Union defeated Nazi Germany in World War II. Modern-day Russia marks Victory Day with parades and processions across the country, but none more well-known than Moscow’s massive parade that showcases the Russian military’s tanks, planes, artillery and soldiers. This year’s military parade on Red…
President Vladimir Putin watched intercontinental nuclear missile launchers roll across Red Square on Thursday as Russia put on its annual show of military might to mark the Soviet Union’s World War Two victory over the Nazis. Battling a ratings slump as Russia grinds through a sixth consecutive year of falling real incomes, Putin looked on…
Two Russian intelligence officers and two opposition politicians were among 13 people sentenced on Thursday over a 2016 election day plot aimed at toppling Montenegro’s government, killing the prime minister and bringing a pro-Russian alliance to power. The verdict given in the heavily guarded Montenegro court said that on Oct. 16, 2016, the accused planned to…
Staff at a Moscow airport scrambled fire crews one minute after a malfunctioning passenger jet crash-landed on Sunday, raising questions among some senior Russian aviation industry figures about whether the staff acted quickly enough. The speed of the response to the emergency, in which 41 people were killed in an intense blaze, has come into…
Police in the Russian republic of Chechnya are carrying out a new round of detentions and beatings of suspected sexual minorities two years after reported mass anti-gay purges, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday. The new report makes this the third anti-gay crackdown in the majority Muslim region in as many years. An investigative report…
A Moscow court on Wednesday sentenced two well-known Russian football players to prison terms for their involvement in assaults last year. Moscow’s Presnensky District Court sentenced Alexander Kokorin to 18 months in jail, while Pavel Mamayev was ordered to serve 17 months. Alexander Kokorin and Pavel Mamayev, who both play in Russia’s top league and…
When in Moscow, see what is unique to Moscow. That is the credo that sends tourists and expats to the Kremlin, St. Basil’s Cathedral, and even Bunker 42. It should also send everyone to the Romen Theater, the only dramatic and musical repertory theater in the world created by, run by, and dedicated to the…
A Russian-made passenger plane has encountered delays days after an emergency landing ended in a plane fire that resulted in the deaths of 41 people in Moscow. Questions resurfaced about the Sukhoi Superjet 100’s safety after one of the planes crash-landed shortly after takeoff at Sheremetyevo Airport on Sunday, killing 40 passengers and one flight…
Kremlin aide Sergei Glazyev has said a passage on an obscure nationalist website in which he entertained the possibility that Ukraine’s new president could populate the country’s war-torn southeastern region with Jews has been falsely interpreted. Glazyev, an economic adviser to President Vladimir Putin, wrote that Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s presidency could lead to “mass movement into…
The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Iran had been provoked into rolling back some of the terms of a 2015 nuclear deal due to external pressure which it blamed on the United States. Iran said earlier on Wednesday it had started scaling back parts of its commitments under the deal and threatened to do more…
May 9 represents one of the biggest celebrations in Russia, but also the commemoration of the end of one of the darkest chapters in the history of the country. Although victorious in what Russians call the Great Patriotic War (their part of World War II), the Soviet Union lost over 27 million people. Leningrad paid…
Former U.S. marine Paul Whelan told his family that he thinks that Russia is holding him on espionage charges because of U.S. sanctions over Ukraine, Foreign Policy reported on Wednesday. Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports, was detained in a Moscow hotel room on Dec. 28 and accused of espionage, a charge…
Police in a city north of Moscow have filed administrative charges against a man who posted a photograph online of graffiti calling President Vladimir Putin an anti-gay slur. Kirill Potupnikov of Yaroslavl snapped a picture of the phrase which translates as “Putin is a f–” spray-painted on the local police building in late March. Two…
Russian middle distance runner Ksenia Savina has been suspended for 12 years after she was found to have taken a banned substance and then provided false medical documents to avoid sanctions, the Athletics Integrity Unit said on Wednesday. The 29-year-old Savina, whose ban essentially ends her career, tested positive in an out-of-competition test for the…
On 16 May 2019, PhosAgro will publish its condensed consolidated IFRS financial statements for the three months ended 31 March 2019. The Company will hold a conference call and webcast the same day at 14:30 London time (16:30 Moscow; 09:30 New York). The call will be held in English, with simultaneous translation into Russian on…
Seven Russian climbers died and two survived in an avalanche in the Altai mountains in Siberia, emergency officials said on Wednesday. The avalanche happened in a remote area on the border of Russia and Kazakhstan Monday, but the survivors were able to descend and report the incident on Tuesday, Interfax reported. The two female survivors…
Outside the Oktyabr cinema in central Moscow a well-dressed crowd lines the red carpet, waiting to catch a glimpse of acclaimed director Pavel Lungin as he enters the building for the premiere of his latest movie, “Bratstvo” (called “Leaving Afghanistan” for distribution abroad). But inside the auditorium is half empty because the authorities have closed…
A Russian court has placed four private oil firm executives under arrest for what authorities say is their role in the tainted oil scandal that forced Moscow to shut a major pipeline to central Europe and Germany. As of Tuesday, the main route of the Druzhba pipeline had been closed for almost two weeks and…
Only 3 percent of Russians believe that government officials submit trustworthy income declarations every year, according to an independent Levada Center survey. The 2018 declaration showed President Vladimir Putin earning 8.6 million rubles ($134,000), or less than half of what he earned in 2017. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s yearly pay rose to 9.9 million rubles…
Born on May 7, 1840, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky became the first Russian composer to break through into the international market with a lasting impact on music all over the world. Today he remains the most popular Russian composer of all time. Tchaikovsky was born in a small town in Vyatka Governorate (now Udmurtia) to a…
Taas-Yuryakh Neftegazodobycha LLC, a subsidiary of Rosneft Oil Company, has set a new penetration record in Fishbone downhole splitter drilling. The total length of the horizontal wellbore exceeded the previous record by over 800 metres and reached 6,052 metres. This is the most extensive horizontal part of a downhole splitter onshore. The start-up oil rate…
Ukrainian President-elect Volodymyr Zelenskiy could populate eastern Ukrainian land with Jews, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s adviser Sergei Glazyev said in an opinion piece published Monday. Glazyev’s blog post on an obscure nationalist website appeared on the day that Zelenskiy, who is himself Jewish, met with top Ukrainian Orthodox Jewish Hasidic rabbis. Kremlin officials and Russian…
More than 500 working fountains are located across Moscow. Once used as sources of drinking water, they can be found anywhere from the city’s most photographed sightseeing spots to its quiet courtyards. Moscow city authorities traditionally open these fountains right before the start of warm weather in May. As a result, Muscovites see the launch…
Almost half of Russians plan to attend Victory Day military parades and commemorative processions this May 9, a state poll published on Tuesday shows. Every year on May 9, Russia celebrates Victory Day to commemorate the Soviet victory in World War II. In Moscow, the day is marked with a massive parade through the city…
Authorities in annexed Crimea will remove a chapter from a 10th grade history textbook that describes Crimean Tatars as collaborating with Hitler by the beginning of the next school year. The pro-Moscow council of the Crimean Tatar ethnic group asked de-facto authorities in February to remove the offending textbook from local schools and libraries. The…
Morgan Stanley is planning to send a formal notice to the Russian central bank that it will close down its banking operations in the country in the first quarter of 2020, its Russian unit said in its annual report. Morgan Stanley announced late last year that it was planning a voluntary shutdown of its banking business in Russia.…
Russian regional carrier Yamal Airlines said on Monday it was cancelling its planned purchase of 10 Sukhoi Superjet 100s, the same type of aircraft involved in a fatal crash landing the previous day, the state-run TASS news agency reported. Yamal announced its decision hours after Russia’s transport minister said there was no reason to ground…
The share of Russians who support President Vladimir Putin’s military intervention in Syria has dropped from more than half to less than half since August 2017, according to an independent Levada Center survey. Russia launched air strikes in Syria in 2015, helping regime forces take back most of the country in the eight-year-long civil war.…
Almost 7,500 people have been found guilty on charges of bribery last year, more than half of them for giving or taking less than $150, according to data released by the Russian Supreme Court’s justice department. Anti-corruption activists say official figures vastly underestimate the prevalence of bribery in a country that ranks low in transparency…
Belarus has no idea when clean Russian oil will flow across it once more to customers in Europe after contamination rocked the pipeline, sources at Belarusian state oil firm Belneftekhim and in the trading sector said. Flows via the main route of the Druzhba pipeline were suspended in late April because tainted crude had entered…