Polish authorities have arrested nine members of an alleged Russian spy ring who are suspected of planning acts of sabotage throughout Europe, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Monday. “We currently have nine suspects detained and indicted, who have been directly implicated in the name of Russian [intelligence] services in acts of sabotage in Poland,” Tusk…
A Moscow resident who dyed his hair in the colors of the Ukrainian flag has been found guilty of “discrediting the army” and fined, court documents showed. Stanislav Netesov visited a police station in April to report a crime after he was attacked at a bus stop, but after seeing his hair the officers decided…
Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov, competing for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, brandished a picture of two theater artists who went on trial in Moscow on Monday. “They did absolutely nothing wrong, they just put on a show and they have already been in prison for a year,” Serebrennikov told reporters at the film festival. The…
YouTube has blocked at least three videos that show viewers how to evade military service after it received a request from the Russian authorities, the investigative news outlet Agentstvo reported Monday. Russia’s state media watchdog Roskomnadzor notified YouTube between December and February that the three videos violated Russia’s law on information technology and information protection,…
A Moscow court on Monday upheld the 27-year jail sentence for Daria Trepova over the killing of prominent pro-war blogger and propagandist Maxim Fomin, better known as Vladlen Tatarsky. Trepova, 26, gifted Tatarsky a golden bust of himself at an April 2023 event in a St. Petersburg cafe popular among ultranationalists and pro-war figures. An explosive…
Board Chairman of the Nuclear Power Plants Authority of Egypt and First Deputy Director General for Nuclear Energy of ROSATOM checked the progress of the project work. On Thursday, May 16, 2024, the senior management of the El-Dabaa NPP construction project led by Dr. Amged El-Wakeel, Board Chairman of the Nuclear Power Plants Authority of…
Board Chairman of the Nuclear Power Plants Authority of Egypt and First Deputy Director General for Nuclear Energy of ROSATOM checked the progress of the project work. On Thursday, May 16, 2024, the senior management of the El-Dabaa NPP construction project led by Dr. Amged El-Wakeel, Board Chairman of the Nuclear Power Plants Authority of…
Russia’s Communist Party on Sunday marked Pioneer Day, a holiday dedicated to the Soviet Union’s Young Pioneers movement, with an induction ceremony for its modern-day youth organization on Red Square. While the Young Pioneers was dissolved when the U.S.S.R. collapsed, Russian lawmakers in 2022 approved the creation of a new youth movement in the style…
Russia said Monday that its forces captured the Ukrainian village Bilogorivka, one of the few remaining settlements in the eastern Luhansk region under Kyiv’s control. Luhansk is one of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow claimed to have annexed in 2022, and taking full control of it has long been a key priority for the Kremlin.…
The Russian anti-war news startup Helpdesk Media announced Monday that it was closing due to a lack of funding. Founded by former Meduza publisher Ilya Krasilshchik soon after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Helpdesk Media positioned itself as a service journalism startup that told stories about the war, raised money for its victims, and ran a support hotline…
A Russian court has sentenced a software engineer from the Siberian city of Novosibirsk to 25 years in prison for trying to set fire to a military recruitment office, state media reported Monday. Ilya Baburin was detained in September 2022 and charged with terrorism after he set fire to a music school and then was allegedly preparing…
President Vladimir Putin on Monday expressed his condolences over the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash over the weekend. “Sayyid Ibrahim Raisi was an outstanding politician whose whole life was devoted to serving [his] country,” read a statement published on the Kremlin’s website. “As a true friend of…
A Ukrainian drone attack Sunday on a minibus of people going strawberry picking in Russian occupied territory killed one person and injured several more, authorities said. The attack happened in the Kherson region that Russia partially occupied after its 2022 military invasion of Ukraine. “A drone hit a minibus carrying civilians who had come for…
Russian shelling on the outskirts of the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Sunday killed at least four civilians, said the governor of the region facing a new Russian offensive. Russia launched an assault in the border region on May 10 after a surge in aerial strikes. “We know about four civilians killed. At least eight…
A Ukrainian drone attack forced an oil refinery in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region to suspend operations Sunday, its operator and authorities said. Facing Russia’s invasion for over two years, Ukraine has stepped up attacks inside Russia in recent weeks, targeting energy sites in particular. “During the night, six drones fell on the territory of the…
Brussels has said the measure is “incompatible” with Georgia’s bid for EU membership, which is enshrined in the country’s constitution. European Council chief Charles Michel said on X, formerly Twitter, that the veto offered “a moment for further reflection.” He called on lawmakers to “make good use of this window of opportunity” to keep Georgia…
Leonid Volkov, a close ally of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, promised in a BBC interview aired Saturday to “never give up” fighting against President Vladimir Putin despite recently being attacked outside his home. Navalny died in an Arctic prison in February, which Volkov blamed directly on Putin. In his first television interview since…
A Russian court has ruled that Deutsche Bank and UniCredit’s assets in Russia are to be seized, documents showed. European banks have largely exited Russia after Moscow launched its offensive on Kyiv in 2022. A court in St. Petersburg ruled in favor of seizing 239 million euros ($260 million) from Deutsche Bank, documents dated May…
Alexey Likhachev, Director General of ROSATOM, reported to the President of Russia and the Vice Premier of China on the corporation’s major achievements in nuclear technology and the prospects for expanding the strategic partnership between Russia and China. On the opening day of the 8th Russia-China Expo, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese Vice Premier…
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told AFP in an exclusive interview he expects Russia to step up its offensive in the northeast and warned Kyiv only has a quarter of the air defenses it needs to hold the front line. Russian forces, which made only moderate advances in recent months, launched a surprise assault in the…
The basis of the Russian diet historically has always been porridge. Even today porridges made with a variety of grains remain a simple and uncomplicated meal for Russians. But here’s the paradox. This simple porridge became a dish that was synonymous with one of the most elegant and intricate Russian dishes ever invented. You’ve probably…
Russia’s economy grew 5.4% in the first quarter of 2024, official statistics published Friday showed, as President Vladimir Putin denied military spending on his Ukraine offensive was reaching unsustainable levels. The Kremlin has heavily militarized Russia’s economy since sending troops into Ukraine in February 2022, with the vast outlays helping to power growth and cushion…
Jailed Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza’s new charges that could extend his 25-year prison sentence even further have brought the fight to free him from Russian prison back into focus. But while Kara-Murza’s family and colleagues push for his release via a prisoner exchange, wider diplomatic dynamics risk hampering their efforts. Kara-Murza, 42, a critic of…
Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested on Friday that Moscow would not comply with calls for a ceasefire in Ukraine during the Summer Olympics, pointing to what he said was the unfair treatment of Russian athletes. Asked during a visit to China whether he backed French President Emmanuel Macron’s idea for a global “Olympic truce” during the…
The Dutch parent company of the Yandex Group announced Friday that it has completed the first phase of divesting from its Russia-based businesses. Yandex N.V. said in February that it had agreed to sell its Russian assets to a consortium of Russian investors for 475 billion rubles ($5.2 billion) in cash and shares, ending more than two…
MOSCOW — “We live in an intolerant environment,” Eugene, a former member of the Russian capital’s drag collectives, told The Moscow Times while walking near a nightclub in the city center where he and his fellow artists used to work. That sentiment, Eugene said, is shared by drag artists who play with gender stereotypes, norms…
Ukrainian missile strikes destroyed at least three Russian warplanes in annexed Crimea this week, media outlets reported Friday, citing satellite images. Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed to have intercepted 15 U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles on Wednesday and Thursday. Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russian-installed governor of the Crimean city of Sevastopol, said Wednesday that Russian air defense systems had…
President Vladimir Putin said Friday that his country’s armed forces launched their recent offensive against Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region to stop cross-border attacks against Russia’s border regions, but added that Moscow has no plans to capture the city of Kharkiv. Thousands of Russian troops poured over the border into Ukraine on May 10, unleashing artillery…
Microsoft has started blocking Russian corporate clients from using its cloud services in compliance with Western sanctions, a Russian distributor of the tech company’s products Softline said Friday. “Microsoft has apparently approved a list of products to be disconnected. Rolling shutdowns began yesterday evening,” Softline said on its Telegram channel dedicated to supporting its customers…
A Moscow court on Friday ordered the arrest in absentia of exiled feminist activist Zalina Marshenkulova for “justifying” the killing of a pro-war blogger. Russian investigators last month charged Marshenkulova with “justifying terrorism,” a crime punishable by up to seven years in prison, over an April 2023 Telegram post about the death of pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky,…
A young woman who previously said she fled domestic violence in her native republic of Chechnya has left Russia, a member of Russia’s presidential human rights council said Friday. Liya Zaurbekova, 19, said her family physically and psychologically abused her, according to the human rights group Maram. Earlier this week she fled to Moscow, but after…
President Vladimir Putin traveled to the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin on Friday, the final day of his brief trip, where he sought to promote crucial trade with China and win greater support for Russia’s war on Ukraine. The Russian leader arrived in China on Thursday, his first trip abroad since being re-elected in March,…
Ukraine launched a stunning wave of drone attacks on Russia and annexed Crimea overnight, killing at least two people and setting an oil refinery ablaze, Russian officials said Friday. The attack was Kyiv’s largest aerial offensive in recent weeks and comes as Russian forces advance along the front line in northeastern Ukraine, taking advantage of…
VIP hunters including senior Russian officials and wealthy businessmen appear increasingly keen to target protected animals and areas across the country. These efforts, when combined with poor government oversight, could threaten the survival of the country’s rare species, experts told The Moscow Times. “Since the tsarist era, hunting has been seen in Russia as an…
Russia ordered the expulsion of the United Kingdom’s defense attache in Moscow on Thursday, a move it said was direct retaliation for London expelling Russia’s defense attache last week. The U.K. had accused Moscow’s defense attache — a diplomat in charge of military affairs — of being “an undeclared military intelligence officer,” a charge Moscow…
Russian paleontologists at St. Petersburg State University said Thursday that they have discovered a new species of fast-running dinosaurs believed to have lived in Siberia at least 100 million years ago. A single specimen of the Kiyacursor longipes was found in the Kiya River of the coal-producing Kemerovo region. The dinosaur belongs to a genus of carnivorous ceratosaurs thought…
A Moscow court ruled Thursday to extend the pre-trial detention of eight men accused of organizing and carrying out the deadly Crocus City Hall concert attack in March. Law enforcement agents arrested four gunmen the day after the March 22 attack, which left 145 people dead and hundreds more wounded. A total of 11 people were…
Russian prosecutors have filed an unspecified lawsuit against the exiled former tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his one-time business partner Platon Lebedev, the Vedomosti business newspaper reported Thursday. Moscow’s Meshchansky District Court registered the suit against Khodorkovsky, Lebedev, and the defunct Siberian Leasing Company on May 8, the newspaper said, citing Russia’s database of court cases. Initial…
Russian authorities on Thursday labeled the independent news outlet SOTA as “undesirable,” effectively banning anyone from working with or having links to the organization. Russia’s General Prosector’s Office, which announced the designation, described SOTA’s news coverage as “nothing more than an outright attempt to destabilize the socio-political situation inside Russia.” It also accused the news…
Ukraine on Thursday accused Russia of detaining and killing civilians in the border town of Vovchansk in the northeastern Kharkiv region, where Russian forces launched a ground assault last week. “Russian troops are taking civilians prisoner,” Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko wrote on Telegram, adding that intelligence reports suggested Russian forces “trying to gain a foothold in…
Russia’s first transgender politician said Thursday that he has returned to his gender assigned at birth, a surprise announcement that comes amid a nationwide crackdown on the LGBTQ+ community. Roman Alyoshin previously went by the name Yulia Alyoshina, which he said was listed in an internal passport he received in 2020. Last year, while still identifying as a woman, he dropped…
At least 12 million people have visited the Russia Expo at Moscow’s VDNKh exhibition center. The exhibition, which opened in November 2023 and runs through July 2024, describes itself as “a large-scale projection of the entire country” and comes as the Kremlin pushes to increase public patriotism amid the invasion of Ukraine. In addition to…
Ukraine warned Thursday that it faced a “very difficult” situation in its northeastern Kharkiv region, where Moscow has made its largest territorial gains in 18 months since launching a surprise offensive last week. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Kyiv was sending more reinforcements to the area, the Ukrainian army said it had managed to…
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said Thursday that it arrested a man and his girlfriend on suspicion of planning to blow up a railway track in annexed Crimea on orders from Ukraine. The unidentified man and woman were arrested “trying to place an explosive device under the railroad tracks” in April near the city of…
Leaders Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping framed their nations’ ties as a stabilizing force in a chaotic world as they met Thursday in Beijing, where the Russian president is seeking greater Chinese support for his war effort in Ukraine and Russia’s isolated economy. This week’s trip is Putin’s first abroad since his March re-election and…
Following the inauguration of President Vladimir Putin to a fifth term in office on May 7, the Russian government has undergone a reshuffle of ministers in cabinet positions. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, who was reappointed to a second term, submitted his cabinet nominations to the Russian parliament late last week, and in the days since,…
President Vladimir Putin has finalized the roster of his administration and government as his fifth term gets off to a start, with new faces including sons of friends and allies as well as officials rumored to be in the running to succeed him. With much of his team staying unchanged, the new appointments appear to…
President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that he does not plan to make any personnel changes to Russia’s General Staff following the ouster of longtime Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu earlier this week. General Valery Gerasimov will appear to maintain his position as chief of Russia’s General Staff, the central organ of command of the country’s armed forces, despite the ongoing…
The Rosneft pavilion at VDNKh hosted events to mark International Climate Day as part of the International Russia Expo
On a recent Friday night in Warsaw, Poland, over 300 people filled a small university-run club to see exiled electronic duo AIGEL — but few, if any, spoke the language of the song they were eagerly awaiting. “I must not miss the song,” a woman in the crowd tells her friend in Russian as they…
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s close ally Magomed Daudov announced Tuesday that he is stepping down as speaker of the North Caucasus republic’s legislative assembly, a post he held for nearly nine years. “After consulting with the head of the republic of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, I decided to resign as Speaker of the Chechen Parliament,” Daudov told regional…
Russian authorities have moved to seize the Russia-based assets of a major vodka producer whose Ukrainian founder was previously accused of funding Kyiv’s armed forces. Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office filed a legal suit with a Kursk region court on Tuesday seeking to suspend the work of four distillers belonging to Global Spirits Holding, a multinational…
President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday hailed Russian advances in the Kharkiv region and the recapture of a symbolic town further south that was one of the only prizes of Ukraine’s underwhelming counteroffensive last summer. Moscow’s claims came as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced fresh military aid while in Kyiv and said Washington had…
At least 16 citizens of Sri Lanka fighting as mercenaries have been killed in Russia’s war against Ukraine, the island nation’s deputy defense minister said Wednesday. Sri Lankan authorities opened an inquiry last week into the recruitment of its citizens in the war and have since identified 288 retired soldiers who participated in the conflict,…
Russia said Wednesday its forces had pushed deeper into the Kharkiv region and also captured the symbolic town of Robotyne further south, one of the only prizes of Ukraine’s underwhelming counteroffensive last summer. Moscow’s advances on two fronts point to the critical shortages of ammunition and manpower that Kyiv has been struggling with in recent…
President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday named five successors to regional governors who were promoted to federal office earlier this week as part of a wider government reshuffle. In the central Tula region, former governor Alexei Dyumin’s deputy Dmitry Milyayev was appointed as the new acting regional head. Milyayev has held public office in the Tula…
Russian air defense systems have intercepted dozens of Ukrainian drones and U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles overnight and early Wednesday morning, Russia’s Defense Ministry said. The attacks caused temporary airport closures in the central republic of Tatarstan, as well as explosions at a fuel depot in the southern city of Rostov, where the military headquarters overseeing Moscow’s…
Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed Beijing’s “genuine desire” to help resolve the Ukraine war, in an interview with Chinese state media published Wednesday ahead of his two-day visit to the country. Putin arrives in Beijing on Thursday to meet his “dear friend” Xi Jinping, seeking to win greater support from China for his war effort…
Russian strikes on the center of Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv injured 20 people on Tuesday, officials said. The city, located in Ukraine’s northeast just 30 kilometers from Russia’s border, has faced intensifying aerial attacks in recent months. Moscow also launched a major assault on the wider Kharkiv region last week, capturing several border villages…
Russia’s incoming Defense Minister Andrei Belousov said Tuesday that he will work toward increasing the military’s effectiveness so that Moscow can achieve “victory” in its war against Ukraine. “The main priority, of course, remains achieving victory and ensuring that the military-political goals of the special military operation… are achieved,” Belousov said in an address to Russia’s…