Russian President Vladimir Putin warned during a phone call with his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi on Tuesday that any further escalation in the Middle East could have “catastrophic consequences.” “Vladimir Putin expressed the hope that all sides would show reasonable restraint and prevent a new round of confrontation [that could be] fraught with catastrophic consequences for the…
MOSCOW – “I plan to do interviews, reports and avoid going to jail.” With these words, actress Antonina Favorskaya landed her first job in Russian media in 2022. She soon became a court photographer. Driven by her activism, she took photos of Russian political prisoners in court for the independent SOTAvision news outlet. Two years later,…
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has upgraded its forecast for Russia’s economic growth in 2024, as surging military spending helps shield the sanctions-battered country from an economic downturn. Russia’s economy is expected to grow 3.2% this year, up from the previous forecast of 2.6% issued in January, the IMF said in its World Economic Outlook…
A ballet performance in South Korea featuring dancers from Russia’s Bolshoi Ballet was canceled abruptly, the organizers confirmed to AFP Tuesday, amid growing tensions between Seoul and Moscow over Ukraine and North Korea. The Russian Embassy in Seoul expressed its “deep regret” over the cancelation of the show — scheduled to open April 16 —…
A possible deal between Russia and Ukraine that would have ensured the safe movement of cargo ships in the Black Sea fell through at the last moment in March after Kyiv abruptly withdrew from negotiations, Reuters reported Monday, citing four anonymous sources familiar with the matter. The talks, which Turkey mediated after “nudging” from the…
A Moscow court has ordered the arrest in absentia of exiled journalist Mikhail Zygar for spreading “false information” about the Russian military, state media reported Tuesday. Russian authorities pressed criminal charges against Zygar in March, with unconfirmed reports later saying that he was accused of spreading “fakes” on social media about atrocities committed by the…
Authorities in Russia’s Kurgan and Tyumen regions have urged residents to flee as the nearby Tobol and Ishim rivers swelled to dangerous levels. Officials previously forecast that the Ishim and Tobol rivers would reach peak levels around April 23-25. But the Kremlin said flood water levels were now expected to increase in the Kurgan and…
Russia’s state financial watchdog Rosfinmonitoring on Monday added theater director Yevgenia (Zhenya) Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk to its list of “terrorists and extremists.” Berkovich and Petriychuk were arrested in May 2023 over their award-winning play “Finist the Brave Falcon,” which tells the story of Russian women who correspond with Islamist militants, fall in love with them and…
A song by the Russian pro-war pop star Shaman is being used in TikTok videos showing same-sex couples embracing, a trend that appears aimed at ironically juxtaposing “extremist” LGBTQ+ lifestyles with the song’s militaristic overtones. “Moy Boy,” whose title translates into English as “My Fight,” features the lyrics “I’m Russian, I go to the end,” while…
Russia’s Novosibirsk region has banned migrants from working as taxi drivers and selling beverages and tobacco, according to a decree signed by Governor Andrei Travnikov on Monday. The measure comes amid mounting pressure on foreign workers — mostly from Central Asian countries —across Russia in the aftermath of last month’s deadly concert hall attack outside Moscow. The four…
The Russian human rights group Memorial said Monday that its co-founder Oleg Orlov was transferred to a detention center in southwestern Russia before his prison sentence was set to enter into force. A Moscow court in February found Orlov, 71, guilty of “discrediting” the Russian army after he openly criticized the invasion of Ukraine, sentencing…
The swelling Tom River in southwestern Siberia has led to a partial dam collapse in the city of Tomsk, authorities said Monday. “The water has partially destroyed the protective dam,” Tomsk Mayor Dmitry Makhinya said in a video posted on social media that shows him surveying the damage. Spring flooding caused by melting ice is…
Russian shelling killed four people in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, authorities said Monday, as Moscow’s forces aim to push deeper into the war-battered region. Donetsk region Governor Vadym Filashkin said attacks late Sunday against the mining town of Siversk, which is flanked by Russian forces, had led to the deaths. “The city was shelled yesterday…
China has begun disguising imported Russian copper wire as scrap metal to avoid taxes and the impacts of Western sanctions, Reuters reported Monday, citing customs data and anonymous sources familiar with the matter. Copper wire rod is mainly used for making power cables, while copper scrap is a mix of used products chopped into grain-sized…
Tightly clutching her ginger cat, Oksana Altynchurina sat in an inflatable dinghy, after rescuing only her pet and a few documents from her flooded flat. In the southern Russian city of Orenburg, the River Ural has burst its banks, inundating thousands of homes, after heavy rain and melting ice swelled rivers across the region and…
Floodwaters in southern Russia on Sunday threatened to submerge thousands more homes in the Kurgan region, where the governor predicted a “very difficult situation” in the coming hours. There is widespread flooding in the Russian Urals regions and neighboring Kazakhstan, caused by melting ice swelling rivers, exacerbated by heavy rainfall. In Kazakhstan, more than 107,000…
The three poetry texts below explore the behavior of ordinary Russians in the context of war. All of them are based on real events. But the authors look at the situation in Russia from very different geographical locations and through different metaphysical lenses. Jamil Nilov is right in the thick of things: He lives in…
Ukrainian troops defending the frontline town of Chasiv Yar under relentless Russian attack have received additional drones and weaponry, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi said Sunday. Syrskyi wrote on Facebook after visiting troops defending the battered town that “measures were taken to significantly strengthen the brigades with ammunition, drones and electronic…
Russia on Sunday urged all sides to “show restraint” after Iran launched an unprecedented missile and drone attack on Israel. “We are counting on the regional states to solve the existing problems with political and diplomatic means,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Moscow expressed “extreme concern over the latest dangerous escalation in…
Russia has suspended flights to Israel, Jordan and Iraq after Tehran launched an unprecedented attack against Israel overnight. Late Saturday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps announced that they had launched “dozens of drones and missiles” toward military sites on Israeli territory. Tehran the attack as a justified response to a strike that destroyed its consulate building in…
Ukraine’s commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky said Saturday the situation on the eastern front had worsened significantly as Russia claimed the capture of a village near the occupied industrial town of Avdiivka. “The situation on the eastern front has deteriorated significantly in recent days,” said Syrsky, who took over as commander-in-chief in February after Ukrainian President Volodymyr…
AMSTERDAM — “My point is to talk to everyone,” says Anastasia Shevchenko. After losing a child while under house arrest in Russia and witnessing the atrocities of the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, the exiled civil activist sees it as her mission to speak to Russians across the political spectrum and win over as many minds…
The United States and Britain took joint action on Friday to widen a ban on Russian metals imports in a bid to target the important Russian revenue source following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. “This new action prohibits the import of Russian-origin aluminum, copper, and nickel into the United States,” the U.S. Treasury Department said…
Space flights are definitely important and certainly exciting. But even cosmonauts (and astronauts) flying in space need to have lunch. Of course, when Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov blasted off the launchpads as the first and second Soviet citizens in space, they weren’t thinking about food. But later space nutrition became very important in longer…
Ukraine’s commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky said Saturday that the situation on the eastern front has “deteriorated significantly” in recent days amid mounting Russian attacks. Syrsky, who took over as commander-in-chief in February after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky relieved his popular predecessor, Valery Zaluzhny, also said that Russian forces had superior weapons. He spoke of “a significant…
The Russian military is calling up a higher-than-normal number of reservists for its annual training exercises in at least one region of the country, The Moscow Times has learned from senior managers of several companies in the Moscow region. Experts say the mass training call-ups could be an effort to make up for lagging volunteer…
Tajikistan’s Foreign Minister condemned the alleged torture of four suspected gunmen behind last month’s deadly attack on a Moscow region concert hall, media in the Central Asian country reported Friday. “The open display of detaining suspected terrorists with the use of torture, by inflicting bodily harm against them, is unacceptable,” Foreign Minister Sirojiddin Muhriddin told the Tajik…
Murmansk region Governor Andrei Chibis said Friday that he was discharged from the hospital after undergoing surgery for wounds he received from a knife attack last week. Chibis was hospitalized on April 4 after being stabbed in the stomach in the Arctic town of Apatity following a meeting with residents. A local man, who admitted…
A former Ukrainian intelligence officer who defected to Russia before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was injured in a car bomb attack in northwestern Moscow on Friday afternoon, state media reported. Vasily Prozorov was injured after an explosive device detonated under his Toyota Land Cruiser, the state-run TASS news agency reported, citing anonymous law enforcement sources and people…
Belgian prosecutors have opened an investigation into Russian “interference” in the European Parliament following allegations that lawmakers were paid to spread Kremlin propaganda, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said Friday. “Our judicial authorities have now confirmed this interference is subject to prosecution,” De Croo said. “The cash payments did not take place in Belgium,…
Russia and Ukraine announced Friday that they exchanged the bodies of 122 fallen soldiers, the fourth publicly known swap between the two warring sides since the start of this year. Moscow received the remains of 23 soldiers, the RBC news website reported, citing Russian lawmaker Shamsayil Saraliyev. Kyiv, meanwhile, repatriated 99 bodies, according to Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters…
A group of Russian Orthodox priests flew over a swelling river on Friday, taking with them a religious icon as they prayed for an end to unprecedented flooding that has gripped several regions over the past week. Rising rivers in Russia’s southern Urals and western Siberia, as well as northern Kazakhstan, have inundated scores of…
The research looked at fish species diversity, population dynamics, habitats and factors affecting them
“They brought me to a dimly lit room filled with a heavy stench,” Denis, 34, said of his arrest in southern Russia by Federal Security Service (FSB) officers. “There was a big table, eerie concrete walls, floor and ceiling, and — this was imprinted in my memory — a portrait of Putin. It looked like a…
A Russian official in the Samara region has resigned after a federal lawmaker accused him of being in a relationship with a man. State Duma deputy Alexander Khinshtein singled out Sergei Burtsev, the Samara region’s Minister of Youth Policy, accusing him of being in a long-term relationship with one of his male assistants. In a…
Russian military instructors have arrived in Niger with an air defense system and other equipment as part of the West African nation’s deepening security ties with Moscow, state television announced late Thursday. Niger’s military government agreed in January to step up military cooperation with Russia after expelling French forces that were helping to fight jihadist…
The mayor of the southern Russian city of Orenburg urged residents to evacuate immediately on Friday as water in the nearby Ural River reached critically dangerous levels and was not expected to recede until next week. “The sound of sirens is heard in the city. This is not a drill. A mass evacuation is underway,” Orenburg Mayor…
Scores of homes and properties in the southern Russian city of Orenburg were submerged underwater on Friday as authorities warned that water levels in the nearby Ural River would remain “critical” over the weekend before gradually receding early next week. The Ural River, the third-longest in Europe, reached 11.29 meters in Orenburg, or two meters above…
The Kremlin’s wartime campaign of forced nationalization has hit the Ural Mountains region of Chelyabinsk, a major industrial center, harder than most. Since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russian prosecutors have targeted 55 enterprises — metals, chemicals, agribusiness and even a major car dealership — for compulsory state takeover, according to figures from the…
A memoir written by the late Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny will be published posthumously this fall, his wife and allies announced Thursday. Navalny died at an Arctic penal colony on Feb. 16 while serving a 19-year sentence on “extremism” charges widely seen as politically motivated. As one of President Vladimir Putin’s most vocal political opponents, the…
Russia has nationalized the country’s largest winemaker linked to an arrested billionaire whose business assets were confiscated earlier this year, the RBC news website reported Thursday, citing the tax service’s corporate database. Kuban Vino, which produced 95.5 million bottles of wine in 2023, was reportedly one of four nationalized wine and food companies that were…
The Pushkin House has announced six books shortlisted for its 2024 Book Prize. The books cover a broad range of topics, time periods and places, from the mountain ranges of the Caucasus in the south to the Arctic snowfields in the north, from Stalin’s labor camps to the war Russia is waging in Ukraine today,…
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said Thursday that it thwarted an attempted landing in southern Ukraine’s partially occupied Kherson region carried out by Ukrainian special forces who received training from British commandos. A video published by the Russian Defense Ministry broadcaster Zvezda showed what was said to be the Ukrainian special forces’ landing boat being…
Moscow on Thursday called on Iran and Israel to exercise restraint amid spiraling tensions in the Middle East. Tehran has issued fresh threats against Israel over a strike earlier this month that killed two Iranian generals, triggering U.S. President Joe Biden to pledge “iron-clad” support for Israel on Wednesday. “It is very important for everybody…
Russia successfully launched its Angara A5 space rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome on Thursday afternoon after two aborted liftoff attempts earlier this week. The heavy-lift rocket was initially scheduled for launch on Tuesday at the Amur region spaceport in Far East Russia. Previously, all three Angara A5 launches were based out of northern Russia’s Plesetsk Cosmodrome.…
Updated with Putin’s videoconference. The southern Russian city of Orenburg is expected to face major flooding in the next 24 hours as water levels in the nearby Ural River continue to rise, local authorities said Thursday, urging residents in impacted areas to evacuate. “I think [water levels] will peak in Orenburg within a day, followed…
In the north, Kharkiv — pounded almost daily in recent days — was also attacked, a day after a strike killed three people there. Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko called the attack “massive” and said it lasted “for several hours.” Ukrainian media reported that an attack “completely destroyed” the Trypilska power station in the Kyiv…
The southern Zaporizhzhia and Odesa regions and the western region of Lviv were also hit, officials said. Zelensky urged Ukraine’s Western partners not to “turn a blind eye” to what was happening and to provide Kyiv with more air defense systems. His call came as he traveled to Lithuania — one of Kyiv’s staunchest allies…
Russian law enforcement agents in the North Caucasus republic of Kabardino-Balkaria killed two armed militants during a counterterrorism operation, the National Anti-Terrorism Committee (NAC) said Thursday. A firefight erupted between “members of a gang that is part of an international terrorist organization who were planning to commit a number of acts of sabotage and terrorism”…
A Ukrainian drone attack inside Russia on Wednesday killed three people, including two children, said the governor of the Kursk border region. The Ukrainian drone fired a rocket at a civilian car in a village in the Korenevski district, said Governor Roman Starovoit on the Telegram messaging app. “Unfortunately three people who were in the…
Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday criticized plans to hold a Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland, calling it a futile initiative of the U.S. Democratic Party ahead of this year’s presidential election in the United States. The high-level summit will be held in Switzerland on June 15-16, with Swiss media saying U.S. President Joe Biden is…
The wife of jailed Russian nationalist and ex-rebel commander Igor Girkin said Wednesday that her husband is seeking to clear his criminal record and serve at the front line in eastern Ukraine. Girkin, a convicted war criminal in the West better known by his pseudonym Igor Strelkov, was arrested in July after criticizing Russian President Vladimir…
A Russian Mi-24 attack helicopter crashed off the coast of annexed Crimea on Wednesday morning, according to a Defense Ministry statement shared with state news agencies. “At around 6:00 a.m. Moscow time, the Mi-24 helicopter crashed near the western coast of the republic of Crimea while performing a scheduled flight over the Black Sea,” the statement reads.…
Russian authorities have charged exiled feminist activist Zalina Marshenkulova with “justifying terrorism,” media reported Wednesday, citing anonymous law enforcement sources. According to the Telegram news channel Astra, Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, opened a criminal case over a post on Marshenkulova’s Telegram channel about the killing of pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky. In the post, dated April 3, 2023,…
ORENBURG REGION, Russia – Russia’s southern Orenburg region has been grappling with its worst flooding in decades, with 55 cities and towns fully or partially flooded and thousands evacuated in an unprecedented emergency. Footage from the cities of Orsk and Orenburg showed entire neighborhoods submerged underwater, with volunteers and emergency workers on inflatable dinghies rescuing…
Russia hit two energy sites in aerial strikes on southern Ukraine overnight, officials said Wednesday, the latest in Moscow’s targeted attacks against the country’s power network. “The enemy attacked energy facilities in the south of the country,” Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said in a statement. It said a substation in the southern Mykolaiv region was targeted,…
The European Union Court of Justice ruled Wednesday to annul sanctions imposed on Russian billionaires Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven between 2022 and 2023, saying the EU failed to provide enough evidence to include the pair on the bloc’s sanctions list. “The General Court upholds the requests of Petr Aven and Mikhail Fridman and annuls…
The European Union Court of Justice ruled Wednesday to remove Russian billionaires Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven from the EU’s sanctions list in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “The General Court upholds the requests of Petr Aven and Mikhail Fridman and annuls both the initial acts and the acts maintaining the lists of restrictive…
A Russian military court has sentenced two men to nine years in prison on separate charges of attempting to join a militia group fighting alongside the Ukrainian army, state media reported Wednesday. Vsevolod Kulikov, 19, from the central Lipetsk region, and Vyacheslav Kuznetsov, 36, from the republic of Tatarstan, were accused of applying to enlist…
Russia has issued an arrest warrant for exiled anti-war activist and feminist poet Daria Serenko on unknown charges, according to the independent news website Mediazona. Serenko, who fled to Georgia after Russia invaded Ukraine, is a feminist thinker and the author of two books of feminist and anti-war prose. She is among the coordinators of…