A visibly gaunt Alexei Navalny made his first public appearance Thursday since being imprisoned on old fraud charges and finishing a three-week hunger strike. Joining a court hearing via videolink from the notoriously harsh prison colony outside Moscow where he is serving two and a half years, the 44-year-old Kremlin critic compared himself to a…
The independent Meduza news website has launched a fundraising campaign after editors said its branding as a “foreign agent” has put its survival in jeopardy. Russia’s Justice Ministry added Meduza to its “foreign agents” registry last week, a move supporters say is aimed at silencing one of Russia’s most popular independent media outlets. Meduza’s editors…
Authorities in Russia’s republic of Chechnya have granted state protection to two gay men facing threats of familial “honor killings” after they were forcibly returned to their home region, the MBKh Media news website reported Thursday. Salekh Magamadov and Ismail Isayev had fled Chechnya for Nizhny Novgorod northeast of Moscow last summer after they were…
Bulgaria’s foreign ministry said Thursday that it would expel a Russian diplomat, a day after prosecutors said they had established links between six Russian nationals and several past explosions at arms depots. “The Bulgarian foreign ministry declared one more Russian diplomat persona non grata,” the ministry said in a statement. It urged Russia to “fully…
Tensions between Russia and the Czech Republic soared this month when Prague accused Moscow of orchestrating a fatal arms depot blast on Czech soil in 2014. The accusations set in motion a flurry of tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions between Prague and its European allies on one side and Moscow on the other. Slovakia, Albania and the…
Armed forces in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have exchanged gunfire along a contested stretch of border, dramatically raising the stakes in a conflict that began with clashes among local residents. Marufkhan Tulayev, deputy head of Kyrgyzstan’s southern Batken region, told Interfax news agency on April 29 that at least four Kyrgyz soldiers have been hospitalized with…
Moscow’s chief infectious disease specialist hit out Thursday at the city’s slow vaccination drive and residents not wearing masks in crowded places after coronavirus cases nearly doubled in the Russian capital overnight. Doctor Nikolai Malyshev said both factors were behind a 74% increase in single-day infections that Moscow authorities confirmed earlier in the day. The…
United States law enforcement authorities have arrested a Russian citizen in Los Angeles whose bitcoin mixing platform allegedly helped users launder $336 million over a decade, Reuters reported Tuesday. Roman Sterligov was the main operator of Bitcoin Fog, a website founded in 2011 to help users anonymize cryptocurrency payments, especially on darknet markets where drugs…
TEREKLI-MEKTEB, Dagestan – In the remote north of Russia’s Caucasian Dagestan region, rich grasslands once sustained hordes of humans and animals alike. Now, herds of stray cows roam towering sand dunes in a huge new desert that grows bigger every year. For 30 years now, climate change has been driving the sands further into the…
The Zvezda Shipbuilding Complex has begun the next stage of measures for artificial reproduction of aquatic biological resources – the release of young salmonid fish into rivers of Primorsky Krai.
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s political network has been disbanded ahead of a court ruling to declare it an “extremist” organization, his senior aide announced Thursday. A Moscow court is expected to hand down the decision behind closed doors next month, banning the network’s crowdfunded work and putting members and supporters at risk of up…
Sudan has suspended plans for Russia to open a naval logistics base in a key Red Sea port, Middle Eastern media reported Wednesday in news that sparked immediate denials from Moscow. Russia in December announced the signing of a 25-year deal to build the logistics hub for nuclear-powered warships and up to 300 military and…
April 29, 2021, 10:00 IFRS results 2020 Today PJSC Gazprom issued its audited consolidated financial statements prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards for the year ended December 31, 2020. The table below presents the main items of the consolidated statement of comprehensive income prepared in accordance with IFRS for the years ended December 31, 2020 and December 31,…
Tainted batches of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid vaccine sent to Brazil carried a live version of a common cold-causing virus, the South American country’s health regulator reported in a presentation explaining its decision to ban the drug’s import. Top virologist Angela Rasmussen told AFP the finding “raises questions about the integrity of the manufacturing processes”…
April 28, 2021, 21:05 On April 29, Gazprom’s Investor Day event will be webcast live. The live broadcast will start at 03:00 pm Moscow time (08:00 pm in Singapore, 01:00 pm in London, 08:00 am in New York) at gazprom.ru and gazpromvideo.ru, as well as the Company’s pages on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. Investor Day participants: Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Management Committee, Gazprom; Oleg Aksyutin, Deputy Chairman of the Management Committee – Head…
Rodion Chepel’s documentary film “Durov” that premiered at the Moscow International Film Festival over the weekend tried to lift the veil of mystery surrounding one of the most talked-about IT entrepreneurs — Pavel Durov. Durov, 36, has been dubbed by the media as “Russian Mark Zuckerberg” for founding the social networking platform VKontakte, the Russian…
Updated at 4:47 p.m. on April 28 to add Kremlin statement. Russia will send a large shipment of medical aid to India as the country battles an unprecedented wave of the coronavirus pandemic, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Wednesday. The shipment of coronavirus treatment drugs, ventilation equipment, oxygen supplies and other medical equipment comes “in…
Russia could invest $11 billion in reconstruction projects in the mineral-rich Central African Republic, where rebel violence has led to mass displacement and Russian mercenaries are widely reported to be providing security services to the embattled military, a government official has said. Moscow has since 2018 expanded its diplomatic and financial activities in the former…
The Kremlin has denied keeping secret statistics on the number of coronavirus cases in Russia, after Bloomberg reported government officials warning a third wave of the pandemic has already hit the country. The newswire on Wednesday quoted two unnamed government sources saying “unofficial statistics” painted a different picture from that presented by Russia’s coronavirus task…
In 1871 a very elegant bath house was opened on Fonarny Pereulok in St. Petersburg. Called the Voroninskiye Bani for the merchant who owned the building, Mikhail Voronin — or Fonarskiye Bani or just plain Fonari for the street it was on — in the Soviet period it became simply Bathhouse #43, with much of…
Bulgarian prosecutors have linked six Russian nationals to a series of explosions at ammunition and arms factories on its soil, media in the southeastern European nation reported Wednesday. Prosecutor-General’s Office spokeswoman Siika Mileva said the four incidents dating as far back as a decade ago may be connected to the attempted 2015 poisoning of Bulgarian…
Moscow on Wednesday expelled seven European diplomats after their countries ordered Russian diplomats to leave in solidarity with the Czech Republic, which is engulfed in a diplomatic row with Russia. The Czech government this month accused Russian security services of being behind a deadly explosion at an arms depot in eastern Czech Republic in 2014.…
A popular Russian YouTuber has been sentenced to six years in prison for the death of his abused girlfriend in a disturbing live-stream this winter, media reported Tuesday. Stanislav Reshetnyak, who performed abusive stunts in exchange for viewers’ cash tips under the nickname Reeflay, had beat his girlfriend Valentina Grigoryeva and forced her to sit…
Russian authorities have detained nearly 200 people in over two dozen cities in the week since protests in support of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny swept the country, an independent police monitor said Wednesday. Police initially detained 1,800 people in 100 Russian cities on the day of the rallies last Wednesday that called for civilian doctors…
Kiev said Tuesday it was expelling a Russian diplomat from the port city of Odessa in response to the “unfriendly” removal of a Ukrainian embassy worker in Moscow. The announcement came amid heightened tensions between Moscow and Kiev over an uptick in fighting between Ukraine’s army and pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine. It also added…
Russia’s third-largest city of Novosibirsk has been blanketed by smog from dozens of nearby wildfires, with residents gasping for air and local media reporting a distinct smell of smoke in the city center. Authorities in the Siberian city of 1.7 million on Tuesday issued a so-called “Black Sky” air quality warning, according to the local…
Russians’ life expectancy last year dropped for the first time in nearly 20 years, according to figures released on Tuesday, with officials blaming the Covid-19 pandemic for the decline. Life expectancy in Russia plummeted after the fall of the Soviet Union but has been steadily increasing since 2003. In 2020, however, it fell to 71.5…
DERBENT, Dagestan — At low tide, the waves on the beach fall back to expose an odd pile of rocks, half buried in the sand. Smooth and grey, some are carved into arched gateways. They are the last traces of a centuries-old tower, long hidden beneath the sea. The walls of Derbent — an ancient…
A Moscow court has restricted the work of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) ahead of its ruling to blacklist the group, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported Tuesday. The Moscow City Court will this week decide whether to designate FBK and Navalny’s regional offices as “extremist” organizations, a move that would…
Popular Russian independent news website Meduza said Monday that authorities are attempting to “kill” it with an onerous foreign agent designation that will strip it of advertising revenue and put employees at risk of jail time. The Justice Ministry declared Meduza, one of the country’s most-read news outlets, a “foreign agent” on Friday. The designation,…
The makers of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine on Tuesday have slammed Brazilian regulators’ move to block imports of the jab, calling it a “political” decision. Brazil’s federal health regulator Anvisa on Monday denied a request from several states to import Sputnik V, saying it did not have the data needed to verify the jab’s…
Russian police have detained two journalists from leading independent news outlets after they covered recent protests in support of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, the Ekho Moskvy radio station reported Tuesday. Officers arrived at the homes of Dozhd journalist Alexei Korostelev and Ekho Moskvy correspondent Oleg Ovcharenko early Tuesday and brought them to a Moscow…
Britain announced its first sanctions under a new global anti-corruption regime on Monday, freezing assets and imposing business restrictions on 22 individuals from Russia, South Africa, Sudan and Latin America. Those sanctioned include 14 people allegedly involved in the diversion of $230 million of Russian state property through a fraudulent tax refund scheme uncovered by…
April 27, 2021 PAO Severstal, one of the world’s leading vertically integrated steel and mining companies, announces that it has received permission from the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia (FAS) to acquire a 20% stake in LLC Production Association Nizhne-Volzhsky Pipe Plant (NVTZ), a large pipe enterprise located in Volzhsky in the south of Russia.…
President Vladimir Putin on Monday dismissed as “absurd” Prague’s accusations against Moscow after Czech authorities accused the Russian secret services of being behind a deadly arms depot blast in 2014. In a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, Putin “commented on the current state of Russian-Czech relations, emphasizing the absurd nature of Prague’s accusations…
Moscow announced Monday it was expelling a Ukrainian embassy worker, the latest in a wave of diplomatic expulsions that have embroiled Russian and European diplomats. The expulsion came amid heightened tensions between Moscow and Kiev over an uptick in fighting between Ukraine’s army and pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine. Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement…
Most Russians support the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and do not believe Russia violated international agreements when it took the action in 2014, according to an independent survey published on Monday. The Levada Center polling agency said 86% of respondents supported the annexation, while 71% of respondents did not see it as illegal and…
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said Monday he opposes new sanctions against Russia despite soaring tensions between the West and Moscow over a slew of accusations. The European Union and NATO earlier this month expressed solidarity with the United States, which hit Russia with the toughest sanctions in three years for election interference and cyberattacks. In…
Russia has vaccinated 11.9 million people with a first dose of one of its three homemade coronavirus vaccines, Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova said Monday. That represents around 10% of Russia’s adult population and comes as the government has stepped up efforts to boost its slow-going nationwide vaccination campaign, which was rolled out early December.…
Ilya Repin is best known as a realist painter, whose portraits of writer Leo Tolstoy and canvases such as “Barge Haulers on the Volga” and “Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks” represented Russia to the world. But the show “Ilya Repin: Known and Unknown” at the State Tretyakov Gallery invites you to forget all that —…
Russian prosecutors on Monday suspended the activities of Alexei Navalny’s regional offices, in a move his team said would essentially shut down the jailed opposition figure’s decade-long movement against President Vladimir Putin. The order came as a court began considering whether to designate Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) and his regional offices as extremist organizations, putting…
ROSATOM, a global technological leader, and the EDF Group, the world leader in low-carbon energy solutions, signed a strategic cooperation agreement to develop green hydrogen in Russia and Europe. In particular, the EDF and ROSATOM agreement aims to develop initiatives in the sectors of mobility and industrial complex decarbonisation, and anticipates research and development cooperation…
April 26, 2021, 16:25 Airat Ishmurzin has been elected Director General of Gazprom Pererabotka. Airat Ishmurzin was born in 1972. He graduated from Kazan State Technological University, majoring in Chemical Technology of Natural Fuels and Carbon Materials. He has a PhD degree in Engineering. He has been employed with Gazprom for 26 years. Between 1995 and 2008, he rose through the ranks from Process Unit Operator to Chief…
Nowhere Near Angel (right) and Gaia are school friends from Livorno, Italy. Both are of Nigerian origin. Angel was born in Italy, shortly after her parents moved there, as her father was setting up a wine business; Gaia came with her parents two years ago, as they wanted her to go to an Italian school.…
Moscow announced Monday it was expelling an Italian diplomat in response to the “unfriendly” removal of two Russian officials from Italy in March over spying allegations. The foreign ministry said it had summoned Italy’s ambassador and that he was informed Russia was “declaring ‘persona-non-grata’” Rome’s naval attache in Moscow, who would have 24 hours to leave the…
Romania said Monday it will expel a Russian diplomat, the latest European country to do so in solidarity with the Czech Republic, which is involved in a spat with Moscow. The deputy military attache at the Russian embassy in Bucharest, Alexei Grichayev, would be declared “persona non grata… in view of his activities and actions…
The ex-mayor of Yakutsk, Sardana Avksentiyeva will run in Russia’s State Duma elections this fall for the recently formed New People party, she said in an Instagram post Monday. “I’m going to the State Duma elections with New People,” said Avksentiyeva, who was the first female mayor of the Siberian town, adding that the chairman…
President Volodymyr Zelensky was due Monday to visit the Chernobyl exclusion zone and address Ukrainians to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear disaster. The exclusion zone is a 30-kilometer radius around the nuclear power plant that was evacuated in the aftermath of an explosion and was deemed unsafe for humans to live for thousands…
Russia and the rest of the world increased military spending in 2020 despite the coronavirus pandemic, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) think tank said in a new report Monday. In a second consecutive year of growth, Russia’s military expenditure rose 2.5% to $61.7 billion, placing it fourth in the world behind the United…
A Soyuz rocket blasted off from the Vostochny cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East on Monday carrying 36 U.K. telecommunications and internet satellites, the Roscosmos space agency said. OneWeb, a London-headquartered company, is working to complete the construction of a constellation of low earth orbit satellites providing enhanced broadband and other services to countries around the…
We are entering what I think of as “sprint season,” and very welcome it is too. I’m not referring to any kind of physical exertion — unless of course you consider bounding across the market to snap up the last bunch of ramps — but, rather, that happy season of the year when some of…
Rusatom Overseas (a subsidiary of ROSATOM) and TMH – Energy Solutions (a subsidiary of Transmashholding JSC) signed a memorandum of cooperation and mutual understanding regarding the creation of a joint venture with the purpose of combining efforts in the field of hydrogen fuel cell-powered transport. The Parties intend to implement a project including the creation…
Russia has declared the leading independent news website Meduza a “foreign agent,” the Justice Ministry announced Friday amid what critics call the Kremlin’s continuing crackdown on free speech. A statement on the ministry’s website said the decision, which also includes the Moscow-based Pasmi (“First Anti-Corruption Media”) news site, was made “in compliance with the requirements…
Russia has relaxed its coronavirus entry requirements to give citizens from a list of countries, including the United Kingdom, more options to cross its borders. A government decree, signed last week, says citizens from any of the 29 countries with which Russia has resumed regular air connections can enter Russia via a flight from either…
Europe’s football governing body UEFA said Thursday that the Russian city of St. Petersburg will host three additional Euro 2020 group games after the original hosts of the 12-city tournament could not guarantee fan admittance due to the coronavirus. St. Petersburg was initially scheduled to host three group stage matches and one quarter-final when UEFA’s…
On April 23 in Moscow the Ministry of Far East and Arctic Development, the Government of Sakhalin Region and ROSATOM signed the agreement of intention concerning the cooperation in the project “Creation and Development of the Hydrogen Cluster”. The document was signed by Minister of the Russian Federation for Far East and Arctic Development Aleksei…
The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania said Friday they were expelling a total of four Russian diplomats in solidarity with the Czech Republic, which is involved in a spat with Moscow. The Czech government has accused Russian secret services of being behind a fatal explosion at an arms depot in eastern Czech Republic…
President Vladimir Putin did not discuss anticipated unification between Russia and Belarus during late-night talks with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko, the Kremlin said Friday. Lukashenko met Putin in Moscow days after he said his security services had thwarted a coup plot in Belarus, and the Russian president denounced Western silence about the claims. Their…
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny ended his three-week hunger strike Friday, saying it had resulted in “huge progress” and thanking his supporters. In a post on Instagram, Navalny said he was following the advice of his supporters and doctors, who had warned he could die “at any minute,” if he continued to refuse meals in…
President Vladimir Putin on Friday backed a proposal by the head of Russia’s health watchdog to introduce a non-working period in early May to prevent a surge in coronavirus infections. “If you think that it’s necessary, let’s do it. Today I’ll sign the relevant decree,” Putin said in a televised meeting in response to a…