Ukraine and Russia’s tank numbers are now roughly equal to one another’s, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing the Kiel Institute for the World Economy and the Oryx open-source analysis website. The figures underscore the extent to which Russia’s advantage in heavy weapons has been reduced since it sent troops into Ukraine over 16 months ago. According…
The Russian ruble tumbled past 102 against the euro and 93 against the dollar on Thursday, hitting a new 15-month low as part of a monthslong depreciation that was exacerbated even further last month as Yevgeny Prighzohin’s armed revolt set markets on edge. Russia’s Central Bank said Thursday that the ruble’s weakening was brought on…
Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank is hoping the war in Ukraine will end “soon” to avoid a costly exit from Russia, Reuters reported Thursday, citing multiple sources familiar with the matter. The news outlet said Austrian officials are resisting pressure from the European Central Bank (ECB) for Raiffeisen to spin off its Russian subsidiary by September. Vienna…
Ukraine said Thursday that “tension” around the Moscow-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was “decreasing,” after Kyiv and Moscow accused each other this week of plotting provocations at the atomic facility. “Tension is gradually decreasing,” Nataliya Gumenyuk, an army spokeswoman, said, adding that this was thanks to the “powerful work” of Kyiv’s military and diplomatic efforts…
Russia announced Thursday that it was shuttering Finland’s consulate in St. Petersburg and expelling nine of its diplomats, calling the move a response to a “confrontational anti-Russian policy” being pursued by Helsinki. NATO’s newest member Finland, which shares a long border with Russia, earlier this month expelled nine diplomats working at the Russian Embassy in Helsinki for…
A Russian court has sentenced two Ukrainian citizens to more than 20 years in prison over an attempted assassination of a Russian-installed official in occupied Ukraine, state media reported Thursday. Yury Domanchuk and Vitaly Skakun were arrested in December 2022 shortly after an explosion injured Vitaly Bulyuk — the Kremlin-backed deputy governor of southern Ukraine’s partially occupied…
Russian authorities are still investigating Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin over his failed mutiny last month despite the Kremlin’s promise to drop the criminal charges against him, state television reported late Wednesday. “Nobody planned to close this case,” journalist Eduard Petrov said on a state-run political talk show, referring to Prigozhin as a “traitor.” Petrov did…
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has shot and killed a man it accused of trying to blow up a gas distribution network in the western Siberian region of Tyumen, state media reported Thursday. The FSB said it had foiled a terrorist attack “carried out by Russian supporters of nationalist ideas, who acted under the command…
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin is still in Russia and none of the mercenary group’s fighters have set up in Belarus, its president said Thursday, casting doubt on a Kremlin deal to end their insurrection. “As far as Prigozhin is concerned, he is in St. Petersburg… He is not in Belarus,” Alexander Lukashenko told reporters. He spoke to…
Russian police have carried out searches at the liberal Yabloko party’s regional branch in the northwestern city of Pskov, just weeks after authorities labeled its chairman a “foreign agent,” the branch said Wednesday. Police confiscated office equipment, personal laptops and cellphones belonging to employees and activists present at Yabloko’s Pskov regional office. The party said…
A missile attack on an apartment block in western Ukraine’s Lviv killed four people on Thursday, in what its mayor said was the largest attack on civilian infrastructure in the city since Russia launched its invasion. “The third and fourth floors in two sections of the building were destroyed… As of 7:00 am, four people…
An Israeli-Russian academic who had been missing in Iraq for months is being held by the pro-Iran armed faction Kataeb Hezbollah, the Israeli prime minister’s office announced on Wednesday. Kataeb Hezbollah is a powerful faction of Iraq’s Hashed al-Shaabi, Iran-backed former paramilitaries that were integrated into the Iraqi security forces in recent years. “Elizabeth Tsurkov is…
Russian investigators on Wednesday said they had launched a criminal investigation after award-winning journalist Yelena Milashina was badly beaten in Chechnya. Milashina, 45, covers rights abuses in Chechnya, the Caucasus republic ruled for years by Ramzan Kadyrov, a former warlord. Milashina, who reports for Russia’s top independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, and Alexander Nemov, a lawyer, were…
The general director of Russian tech giant Yandex is under investigation for violating the country’s ban on displaying “gay propaganda” toward minors, the independent news outlet Mediazona reported Wednesday, citing public court records. The case against Artyom Savinovsky is linked to his ongoing role as head of the media services department at Kinopoisk, an online Yandex-owned movie database…
Moscow and Kyiv have traded accusations of planning “dangerous provocations” at the Moscow-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine this week, raising alarm over the risks of a radioactive disaster at Europe’s largest nuclear plant. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday warned that Russia was plotting an incident at the Zaporizhzhia plant, while Moscow said…
The son of a jailed Belarusian banker and philanthropist was sentenced to eight years in prison on charges related to the disputed 2020 elections in Belarus that sparked mass protests and a brutal crackdown on critics of President Alexander Lukashenko. Eduard Babariko, 33, was arrested along with his father Viktor Babariko in the run-up to…
A billboard proclaiming Russia to be a “peaceful” country appeared across from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on Tuesday, an apparent dig by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) aimed at Washington as Americans celebrated their Independence Day. “Welcome to our peaceful country,” read the billboard in the colors of the Russian flag, set against the…
The Kremlin warned Wednesday that Kyiv could be preparing a provocation at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. “The situation is quite tense because the threat of sabotage from the Kyiv regime is really high, sabotage that could have catastrophic consequences,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. The comments come after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this…
The Wagner mercenary group’s rebellion against Russia’s military leadership has further split Russia’s anti-Kremlin opposition, which is already largely divided over a litany of issues and geographically scattered in exile. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an exiled former oil tycoon turned opposition figure, swiftly emerged as the most vocal of Prigozhin’s unlikely supporters, while allies of jailed Kremlin critic…
Russian investigative journalist and former Meduza reporter Ivan Golunov said he was awarded 1.5 million rubles ($16,500) in damages for fabricated drug charges against him, the MSK1.RU news outlet reported Tuesday. Golunov was arrested in June 2019 on fabricated drug charges and released days later following an unprecedented public outcry. The court dropped all charges…
On July 3, 2023, at the Paks II NPP construction site, the general contractor of the project, JSC ASE (Engineering Division of Rosatom) started works on the first phase of construction of the new Paks NPP units (Hungary) with the construction of the groundwater cut-off. The construction of the groundwater cut-off is carried out in…
Isotope – Regional Alliance JSC (a Rusatom Healthcare company) delivered the first shipment of germanium-68/gallium-68 (Ge-68/Ga-68) generators manufactured by Cyclotron CJSC (Obninsk) under the new contract with Esente Healthcare, a local medical product distributor, to the Republic of India. According to the contract terms, Isotope JSC will supply the Indian side with 40 units of…
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has arrested a Russian national who lives abroad on suspicion of donating money to the Ukrainian military, state news agencies reported Wednesday. The FSB claimed the 39-year-old had also tried buying satellite communication equipment that would help Ukrainian artillery locate and fire on Russian military units, according to TASS. It…
At least one person was injured in attacks on two Russian regions bordering Ukraine, regional authorities said early Wednesday. The governors of southwestern Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk regions both issued statements about Ukrainian attacks on two residential areas, located some 400 kilometers apart from each other. The Belgorod region town of Valuyki was shelled for…
Recast and includes updated casualty count. Russia said Wednesday that one person was killed and another 41 were injured by a Ukrainian strike in the Russian-controlled town of Makiivka in the eastern Donetsk region. “Forty-one people, including two children, have been injured due to the shelling. One person has died from their wounds,” Vladislav Klyucharov, the Moscow-installed head…
WindSGC-2 (part of NovaWind, ROSATOM’s wind power division) and Carbon Zero LLC signed a contract to maintain a register of green certificates. According to the contract, Carbon Zero will maintain a register of certificates issued for the electric power generated at ROSATOM’s renewable energy facilities as required by the green electricity certification standard. Three of…
The Kremlin said Tuesday there were “certain contacts” with the U.S. over detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, responding to a question about a possible prisoner exchange. U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy was allowed to visit Gershkovich in prison on Monday after a gap in visits of more than two months. Russian state media reported…
Russian authorities have returned 10 billion rubles ($111.2 million) to exiled Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin which they had seized in police raids during his aborted rebellion last month. Law enforcement in St. Petersburg confiscated the large sum of money — along with “hundreds of thousands” of U.S. dollars and five gold bars — in raids…
Manufacturing facilities based in one of Russia’s special economic zones have been assembling Iranian drones used to attack Ukraine, the Protokol and Razvorot independent media outlets reported in a joint investigation published Monday. As part of a three-stage franchise agreement, specialists at the Alabuga special economic zone in the republic of Tatarstan assemble prefabricated drone…
Russian theater director Yevgenia Berkovich on Monday spoke out in court against remaining in pre-trial detention. She and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk are under investigation for the charge of “justifying terrorism” for the play “Finist, the Brave Falcon.” The charge is punishable by up to seven years in prison. Yevgenia Berkovich: My opinion about this motion…
A Russian state acting school has opened enrollment for a theater arts program that will train future actors and directors for the Mariupol drama theater in occupied southern Ukraine. “The program will be carried out through in-person courses on a state-funded basis for the Mariupol Russian Drama Theater, focusing on ‘Acting’ and ‘Theater Directing’ degrees,”…
Zarema Musaeva, the mother of prominent Chechen human rights lawyer and activist Abubakar Yangulbaev, has been sentenced to 5.5 years in prison, the Committee Against Torture rights group reported Tuesday. A judge at a local court in Grozny, the capital of Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, found Musaeva guilty of assaulting the authorities and fraud…
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday it had downed five Ukrainian drones near Moscow, calling it a “terrorist act” that disrupted flights at one of the capital’s main airports. Four unmanned aircraft were downed by air defense systems near Moscow, with the fifth “suppressed by electronic warfare” in the Moscow region, the Russian military said. According…
A prominent Russian journalist and lawyer have been hospitalized after being badly beaten on a visit to Russia’s republic of Chechnya, the rights groups Memorial and the Crew Against Torture (CAT) said early Tuesday. Yelena Milashina and lawyer Alexander Nemov arrived in the Chechen capital of Grozny to attend the court hearing of the mother of…
Russia on Monday granted the United States consular access to jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, with the U.S. ambassador reporting him in good health. The U.S. State Department said Ambassador Lynne Tracy met Gershkovich at the Lefortovo prison in Moscow, only her second such meeting with him since he was arrested on March…
Anna, a 67-year-old woman from the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, remembers being woken up by the sounds of military equipment early in the morning of June 24. From her window, she could see a tank, armored vehicles and machine gunners of the Wagner private military company sitting opposite her house, surrounding one of the Russian…
Russia has added the Ukrainian owner of a popular vodka brand to its wanted list on suspicion of financing Ukraine’s armed forces. Russia’s Investigative Committee said Monday it had launched a criminal investigation into Yevhen Cherniak, the founder of Ukraine’s Global Spirits holding — which produces Khortytsa vodka — on charges of sponsoring terrorism. Cherniak…
Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu on Monday praised his army’s “loyalty” during an armed uprising last month by the Wagner military group that targeted the country’s senior military leadership. “The plans primarily failed because the personnel of the armed forces showed loyalty to their oath and military duty,” he said in his first public comments since…
Russia’s top energy official said Monday that Moscow will voluntarily cut oil exports by 500,000 barrels per day, building on previously announced production cuts. “As part of efforts to ensure that the oil market remains balanced, Russia will voluntarily reduce its oil supply in the month of August by 500,000 barrels per day, by cutting its exports…
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has appeared on video with his close ally and Russian lawmaker from Chechnya, Adam Delimkhanov, following growing rumors that he has been suffering from serious health problems. In the three-minute video published on Instagram Sunday, Kadyrov was shown seated beside Delimkhanov at a dining table. “We’re living our lives, slowly but…
Russia’s domestic intelligence agency said Monday it had thwarted an assassination attempt on the Moscow-installed head of annexed Crimea. “An assassination attempt organized by Ukraine’s special services targeting the head of the Republic of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, was foiled,” Russian state-run agency TASS reported, citing a statement by the Federal Security Service (FSB). Video released…
Located in Stavropol Krai, the wind power station consists of 64 wind turbines with an installed capacity of 160 MW. As confirmed by the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, 68% of the wind farm parts and components have been sourced locally. “Kuzminskaya is our eighth wind farm in Southern Russia. The first 100 MW…
Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has announced it is suspending the recruitment of new fighters in the aftermath of its failed mutiny and as the Russian military’s deadline for volunteer units to sign contracts passed over the weekend. Wagner’s recruitment channel on the Telegram messaging app said late Sunday that a one-month recruitment suspension was linked to…
There is no need for further mobilization in Russia to replace Wagner fighters who left the battlefield in Ukraine after their short-lived mutiny, Russian state media said on Monday, citing a senior lawmaker. Last month, the head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, led his forces in a rebellion against Russia’s top military brass.…
A top Russian propagandist on Sunday accused the Wagner boss of “going off the rails” after receiving billions in public funds, as Moscow’s new narrative takes shape after Wagner’s brief mutiny. Last weekend the head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, led his forces in a short-lived rebellion against Russia’s top military brass, in a…
Forty diplomats and Russian embassy staff in Bucharest were set to leave Romania on Saturday following a request from the government, with ties worsening between the two countries since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Eleven diplomats and 29 technical and administrative staff, accompanied by their families, “will leave Romania on board a civilian aircraft belonging to…
Moscow and St. Petersburg are old rivals, and not only for the title of capital city. They even argue about food and what to call it. For example, Muscovites call gyros “shaurma,” but in St. Petersburg they are called “shaverma.” Another big argument is what to call a doughnut: ponchik or pyshka? In the northern…
The wind farms operated by NovaWind, Rosatom’s wind power division, generated a total of 1.1 billion kWh of electric power in the first six months of 2023, up 110 million kWh year on year. In the first half of 2022, their total output exceeded 987 million kWh. For half a year, the wind farms prevented…
Wagner mercenary group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has closed down his St. Petersburg-based media holding, according to multiple media reports published Friday. The Patriot media group, which Prigozhin founded in 2019, encompasses the Internet Research Agency, widely known as a “troll factory,” which conducts online influence operations to advance Russia’s business and political interests abroad. All…
As members of the Wagner mercenary outfit launched their “march of justice” to Moscow early on June 24, residents of the Far Eastern republic of Sakha (Yakutia) thousands of kilometers away gathered outside the regional capital to celebrate Yhyakh, the New Year marked by indigenous Sakha peoples. Though many Sakha locals boycotted this year’s government-sponsored…
Moscow said Friday that the Wagner Group would continue to work in African countries if their governments chose to maintain contracts with the private military group. “The future of the agreements between African countries and the Wagner private military company is above all up to the governments of the countries concerned,” Russian foreign minister Sergei…
A group of Russians has bid farewell to dating app Tinder on Friday with a beachfront funeral in the resort city of Sochi. Tinder owner Match Group last month announced it will leave Russia on June 30, citing its commitment “to protecting human rights.” Mourners clad in black shared stories of how Tinder helped them…
Поход: hike, walk, march Like just about everyone else reading this, I watched Russia very closely for about 30 hours over the weekend, and despite all that and a lifetime of experience with the place, I have no idea what happened. What was it? Mutiny? Rebellion? Attempted coup? As I look back, it seems that…
Public displays of support shown for Wagner mercenaries in southern Russia’s Rostov-on-Don as they took control of a military headquarters last weekend were “staged,” the regional governor said Thursday. Rostov region Governor Vasily Golubev disputed claims that locals in the regional capital were sympathetic to Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s short-lived mutiny, arguing that those who…
From June 28 to June 30, Yangon (Myanmar) hosted the Science Festival, organized by ROSATOM and the Ministry of Science and Technology of Myanmar. The event was held simultaneously at the Information Center for Nuclear Technologies and the Yangon Technological University. The Science Festival is held in the countries of ROSATOM presence and traditionally brings…
Organizers of Russia’s International Air and Space Salon (MAKS) confirmed Friday that the flagship airshow due to be held in July this year in the Moscow region town of Zhukovsky has been postponed to 2024. MAKS airshow has been held biennially since 1993, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors over the years. This year marks the…
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday that Russia would emerge “stronger” after the failed mutiny by Wagner Group mercenaries last weekend. “Russia has always overcome all its problems… it comes out stronger and stronger,” Lavrov told journalists during a briefing in Moscow. “It will be the same this time, too. This process has already…
Muslims across Russia this week are celebrating the holy festival of Eid al-Adha, or “The Feast of Sacrifice,” the second and largest of the two main holidays celebrated in Islam. The holiday, which this year takes place from June 28-July 1, commemorates the prophet Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son on God’s orders. At Moscow’s…
Poland said Friday it arrested a Russian ice hockey player on suspicion of having spied for Moscow while playing for a Polish club, prompting Russia to protest and demand an “immediate” explanation. Relations between Warsaw and Moscow have been hostile historically but have reached new lows during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with Poland being one of…
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenary outfit continues to recruit fighters despite his exile in Belarus following a short-lived mutiny last weekend, according to multiple media reports. “Everything’s the same as before, for now. Nothing’s changed,” a recruiter for Wagner in the central Russian city of Saratov told the BBC. “Nothing has stopped, we’re still recruiting,” said…