The Multi-D digital Product of the Rosatom Engineering Division has won the KulibIT-2023 National Award

The “Multi-D Digital Products for the Construction of a Complex Engineering Facility” project launched by Atomstroyexport JSC (which is part of the Rosatom State Corporation Engineering Division), has become the winner of the “KulibIT-2023 ”National Digitalization Award” in two categories, to take a special prize from the competition organizers. The final competition was held in…

Putin Awards Former Serbian Spy Chief Order of ‘Friendship’

Russian President Vladimir Putin has awarded Serbia’s former top spy with the Order of Friendship for maintaining close ties between the two countries’ intelligence agencies, the nationalist political party that the ex-spy chief heads announced Tuesday. Aleksandar Vulin, who resigned from Serbia’s Security and Information Agency in November, received the state decoration from Russia’s Foreign Intelligence…

Chinese, Turkish Companies Supplying Russia With Key Gunpowder Component

Turkish and Chinese companies have helped Russia replenish its dwindling stocks of ammunition by exporting large volumes of a key component used to produce gunpowder, the Moscow Times’ Russian service reported Wednesday, citing customs data.  The EU banned shipments of nitrocellulose — a highly flammable compound used as the main ingredient of modern gunpowder — to Russia in…

Russian Defense Minister Scolds Artillery Manufacturer for ‘Slow’ Production

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Wednesday chewed out the chief engineer of the country’s leading producer of self-propelled artillery systems over what he suggested was the slow output at the manufacturing plant.  “Stop goofing around, guys,” Shoigu said during a tour of the Uraltransmash machine-building plant in the city of Yekaterinburg. “We should have had these…

Pro-Peace Presidential Hopeful Nadezhdin Submits Signatures to Register as Candidate

MOSCOW – Anti-war Russian presidential hopeful Boris Nadezhdin said Wednesday he submitted 105,000 signatures endorsing his candidacy for the Central Election Commission’s (CEC) review. Nadezhdin, 60, the nominee from the center-right Civic Initiative party, has seen an uptick in support in recent weeks with Russians standing in long lines to endorse his bid in the…

Mass Blackout Takes Russian Internet Offline

Hundreds of websites on the Russian-speaking internet were inaccessible Tuesday evening as a DNSSEC failure took .ru and .рф domains offline. Users both inside and outside Russia complained of outages of major web-based platforms like Tinkoff Bank, online marketplaces Avito and Wildberries, search engine Yandex and telecoms provider MTS. The Moscow Times’ Russian service was among the…

In First, Russian Stands Trial for Displaying ‘Extremist’ Rainbow Flag

A Russian photographer went on trial Tuesday for posting a rainbow flag online, marking the first case of a person being charged for displaying the LGBT symbol since Russia banned the so-called “international LGBT public movement” as an “extremist” organization. Russia’s Supreme Court in November outlawed the “international LGBT movement,” with individuals facing up to…

Russian Election Authority Releases Putin’s Financial Disclosure

Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) on Tuesday published Vladimir Putin’s financial earnings, showing that he made 67.6 million rubles ($753,000) over the past six years. Putin’s income between 2018 and 2024 was derived from his salary, income from securities and bank deposits, military and civilian pension, as well as earnings from property sales. As with previous financial…

2 Russian Presidential Hopefuls Withdraw From Race, Endorse Putin’s Candidacy

Two presidential hopefuls announced Tuesday that they will not be running in the March election and called on supporters to cast their vote for President Vladimir Putin as he seeks re-election.  Sergei Baburin, who leads the Russian All-People’s Union, an extra-parliamentary conservative party, said he was withdrawing from the race shortly after submitting the 100,000…

Mosfilm Celebrates its 100th Birthday

The history of Mosfilm begins on January 30, 1924 with the release of the silent film “Up on Wings” that tells the story of Russian aviation, directed by Boris Mikhin. At the time, Mosfilm was on Zhitnaya Ulitsa in the former studio of Alexander Khanzhonkov, a director and entrepreneur who founded the first cinema factory…

Russian Ex-President Medvedev Slams Japan Over Kuril Islands Claim

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday slammed Japan’s prime minister after he said his government remains committed to signing a peace treaty with Moscow to resolve the territorial dispute over an island chain claimed by Tokyo. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in a policy speech to parliament earlier Tuesday that Tokyo “remains fully committed” to negotiations…

Latvian MEP Secretly Worked for Russia’s FSB for Decades – The Insider

A member of the European Parliament from Latvia has spent decades secretly working for Russian security services, according to a new investigation by The Insider, citing leaked emails between the lawmaker and her suspected “handlers.”  According to The Insider, Tatjana Zdanoka served as an “international observer” in Moscow’s 2014 referendum that paved the way for…

Secret Putin Residence Discovered Near Finland – Dossier Center

President Vladimir Putin is believed to own a highly-guarded residence near Russia’s border with Finland, the investigative outlet Dossier Center reported Monday. Located 30 kilometers from Finland in northwestern Russia’s republic of Karelia, the residence allegedly belonging to Putin features “three modern-style houses on the shore of Marjalahti Bay, two helipads, several yacht piers, a…

EU Sanctions Russia’s Chief Denunciator Mizulina Over Free Speech Abuses

The European Union on Monday announced sanctions against the Kremlin-aligned Safe Internet League and its head Yekaterina Mizulina for silencing Russian anti-war content creators and reinforcing government censorship. “The [European] Council today approved additional restrictive measures… in view of the continuing deterioration of the human rights situation in Russia,” the Council of the EU said…

Northwest Russia Jams Nighttime Internet After Drone Strikes – Reports

Authorities in three regions in northwestern Russia have turned off internet access at night to improve anti-drone technology, the business newspaper Kommersant reported Monday, citing three anonymous sources with Russia’s telecom operators. The previously announced LTE wireless broadband outages in the Leningrad, Novgorod and Pskov regions on Jan. 25-30 were needed to “fine-tune law enforcement equipment…

Chicken and the Theory of Evolution

“Humans are the middle link of evolution, necessary for the creation of the crown of nature’s glory — a shot of cognac and a slice of lemon,” the brilliant writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky once jokingly wrote. The statement about human beings is debatable, but that the chicken evolved for purely culinary purposes is the…

Man Dies in Detention Amid Bashkortostan Protest Crackdown – Reports

A man who was detained in Russia’s republic of Bashkortostan amid a region-wide crackdown on protesters and activists has died in police custody, the human rights group Za Prava Cheloveka (ZPC) reported Friday, citing the man’s sister. Law enforcement officers detained Rifat Dautov following a protest last Friday in Bashkortostan’s capital of Ufa, his sister, identified…

Russia Says Ukraine Shot Down Military Transport Plane From Kharkiv Region Village

Russian law enforcement officials said Friday that the Il-76 military transport plane that crashed this week was shot down by a Ukrainian missile fired from a village in the northeastern Kharkiv region.  The announcement comes a day after Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, opened a terrorism investigation into the crash.  Moscow has accused Kyiv of…

How Can You Tell if a Russian Judge is a Man?

Феминитив: feminine job title The decision of Верховный Суд Российской Федерации (The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation) about the so-called Международное движение ЛГБТ (International LGBT Movement) that was made public without authorization last week is an extraordinary document. It is 19 pages of paragraph-long sentences, lists of violations, accusations, sins, instructions, directives and so on without any facts,…

Russia’s Bashkortostan Holds Pro-Government Rally Amid Crackdown on Protesters

Authorities in Russia’s republic of Bashkortostan on Friday held a pro-government rally amid their efforts to contain the public backlash that ensued following the imprisonment of a prominent Bashkir activist.  Last week, Bashkortostan witnessed some of the largest protests in Russia since the invasion of Ukraine as thousands gathered in the Ural Mountains region to…

Russian Convicts Fighting in Ukraine Accuse Army of Refusing Payments, Pardons – IStories

The Russian military is withholding payments and pardons promised to convicted criminals who signed up to fight in some of the most dangerous hotspots in Ukraine, the investigative news outlet IStories reported Thursday. Journalists said they had obtained a copy of a letter sent to President Vladimir Putin by a group of convicts-turned-soldiers, who expressed…

Russian Anti-War Presidential Hopeful Says Will Not Submit Endorsements From Abroad

Anti-war presidential hopeful Boris Nadezhdin said Thursday that he will not submit signatures endorsing his candidacy that were collected abroad to Russia’s election authorities. According to Russian election laws, a presidential hopeful running from a party not represented in parliament must collect 100,000 unique signatures endorsing his or her candidacy. Nadezhdin, who hopes to run…

UN Nuclear Chief Says ‘Very Real’ Threat Remains at Moscow-Held Zaporizhzhia Plant

The possibility of a nuclear disaster at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine remains “very real,” according to the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog.  Russian forces captured the Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest, in March 2022 shortly after the Kremlin ordered the invasion of Ukraine.  Regular shelling and drone attacks around the plant have raised…

Yevgenia Berkovich’s Statement in Verse to the Court is Now an Illustrated Music Video

Theater director Yevgeniya (Zhenya) Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk were back in court right after the New Year’s holidays to determine if they would be released from pre-trial detention. The two women have been held since May 2023 on charges that the play “Finist, the Brave Falcon,” written by Petriychuk and directed by Berkovich, contained…

Ukraine Says ‘VIP’ Russian Officials Were Supposed to be On Board Downed Plane

A Russian military plane that crashed near the border with Ukraine was supposed to transport senior Russian officials before a last-minute change of plans was made, Ukraine’s military intelligence spokesman claimed Thursday. Russia accuses Ukraine of shooting down one of its Il-76 transport planes over the Belgorod region on Wednesday, killing all 74 people on board, including…

Russian Court Fines Activist for Interview With ‘Undesirable’ Media

A Russian court has handed down the country’s first-ever sentencing against a person for appearing in an interview with an “undesirable” organization, the independent news website Mediazona reported Thursday. Activist Nadezhda Nizovkina from the Far East Russian republic of Buryatia appeared on the independent news channel Dozhd during a broadcast in August, just two months after…