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A Russian court on Monday dismissed dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza’s appeal against the 25-year prison sentence he received for criticizing the offensive in Ukraine.  Kara-Murza received the longest sentence against a Russian opposition figure in recent years, drawing immediate condemnation from Western countries.  “The verdict of the Moscow City Court from April 17 shall be left […]

At least 81 Russian billionaires have business links to Russia’s military or to annexed Ukrainian territories amid the war in Ukraine, the independent investigative outlet Proekt reported Monday. Most of these individuals have stayed silent on the war, with some reportedly criticizing it in private conversations. Despite their links to Russia’s war machine, 34 of these […]

President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a law that significantly raises fines for failing to appear at a military enlistment office after receiving a draft notice. The fines will increase from the current range of 500-3,000 rubles ($5-32) to 10,000-30,000 ($109-327) when the law comes into force on Oct. 1. Fines were also raised for […]

A missile strike on a residential building in Ukraine killed six and wounded dozens on Monday, as Russia said it stepped up strikes against Ukrainian military facilities in response to attacks on its territory, including Moscow. Two missiles landed close to the centre of the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih just after 9:00 a.m. […]

At least four residents of the Russian-occupied Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine were killed in Ukrainian shelling on Monday, Kremlin-backed officials said. Three people were killed in the city of Donetsk and one in Horlivka to the north, according to the region’s information center on Ukrainian attacks. Ten others were injured in attacks that damaged apartment […]

Russia imported more than $502 million worth of foreign-made microchips in the first six months of 2023 despite U.S. and EU sanctions, the independent news website Vyorstka reported Monday, citing classified customs data. Since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has been slapped with Western export restrictions on advanced semiconductors and other goods that […]

Russia has “received” more than 700,000 Ukrainian children after launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, Russia’s presidential commissioner for children’s rights said in a report published Sunday. “Since February 2022, the Russian Federation has received about 4.8 million residents of Ukraine and the Donbas republics [of Donetsk and Luhansk], more than 700,000 of […]

Russia’s Wagner mercenary outfit has not yet decided when to restart recruitment of new fighters, the group’s founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said Monday. At the beginning of July, Wagner announced a one-month recruitment suspension in the aftermath of its failed mutiny and as the Russian military’s deadline for volunteer units to sign contracts passed. But Prigozhin’s […]

A Ukrainian drone attacked a police station overnight in Russia’s western Bryansk region, local authorities said early Monday. “Ukrainian forces attacked the district of Trubchevsky at night,” Bryansk Governor Alexander Bogomaz said on the Telegram messaging app.  “A drone hit the police station in this district. There are no victims,” but the windows and roof […]

Eight people including three small children died in Russia when trees crashed into a lakeside campsite during a storm described as a “hurricane,” authorities said on Sunday. Several hundred people camped in a national park in Mari El, a Russian region located along the northern bank of the Volga River, when the storm struck on Saturday. The […]

President Vladimir Putin on Sunday praised Russia’s Navy in an address at an annual warship parade in St. Petersburg, which he attended accompanied by several African leaders. The military display took part as Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine stretches into its second year and three Ukrainian drones were downed over Moscow early on Sunday. The Russian Navy […]

Russia said on Sunday it had downed Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow and the Crimea peninsula, in attacks that damaged two office towers in the capital and briefly shut an international airport. One drone targeting Moscow was shot down on the city’s outskirts and two others were “suppressed by electronic warfare” and smashed into an office […]

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday said that the United States believes Russia’s Defense Minister is in North Korea to secure supplies of weapons to aid Moscow’s stalled invasion of Ukraine. Following Sergei Shoigu’s arrival on a rare trip to Pyongyang, Blinken said that Russia is scrambling to buy arms from allies across the […]

Russia said Friday it intercepted two Ukrainian missiles over its southern Rostov region bordering Ukraine, with at least a dozen people wounded by debris falling on the city of Taganrog. Regions bordering Ukraine have seen regular drone strikes and shelling since Moscow launched its military campaign in February last year, but have hardly ever been targeted […]

Attendees watch a broadcast of the summit’s plenary session. Speaking at the summit Thursday, President Vladimir Putin said Russia would offer free supplies of 25,000 to 50,000 tons of grain to Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, the Central African Republic and Eritrea, countries that have been impacted by the end of the Ukrainian grain deal.

The Kremlin was purportedly against amendments recently passed in the Russian parliament that, once signed into law, would expand the pool of eligible army recruits by raising the upper age limit for military conscription, the independent news website Vyorstka reported Thursday, citing multiple anonymous sources familiar with the matter.  Under current Russian law, all men aged […]

A Russian organization affiliated with the Wagner mercenary group shared a message apparently from its boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, who said the events in Niger were part of the nation’s fight against “colonizers.” The Officers’ Union for International Security (OUIS), considered by Washington to be a front company for Wagner in the Central African Republic, on […]

A court in Brazil has denied requests by the United States and Russia to extradite an accused Russian spy posing as a Brazilian citizen, the country’s justice ministry said Thursday. Sergei Cherkasov, 37, is in prison in the Brazilian capital of Brasilia for using false personal documents after being deported from the Netherlands. Cherkasov, who is […]

The head of Russia’s Olympic Committee on Friday accused the International Olympic Committee of picking sides after it urged sports federations to show sensitivity when handling Ukrainian athletes. “The statement in question indicates that the IOC determined for itself and picked a side in the political conflict, (and) began to act in the interests of this […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday said Moscow is “carefully” examining proposals made by some African leaders to end the conflict in Ukraine. “We respect your initiatives and we are examining them carefully,” Putin said on the second day of a Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg. “Previous mediation initiatives were monopolized by so-called advanced democracies. Now […]

An independent group of soldiers’ relatives lobbying the Kremlin for the return of mobilized troops from Ukraine has announced that it will close after being slapped with a “foreign agent” label just months earlier.   “We cannot act with this stigma,” Olga Tsukanova, who heads the Council of Wives and Mothers, said Friday in a video […]

Japan on Friday announced an expanded list of sanctions against Russia that includes an export ban on hybrid and electric vehicles. Tokyo has already frozen the assets of Russian individuals and groups and banned the export of goods to Russia’s military-related organizations, as well as the export of construction and engineering services. On Friday, the […]

The number of Russian visitors to Thailand has skyrocketed by more than 1,000% this year, as other popular destinations in Europe and elsewhere have become difficult to enter for Russian nationals following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Bloomberg reported late Thursday. Between January and June, the Thai Tourism and Sports Ministry recorded 791,574 arrivals by Russian […]

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Friday it had thwarted a Ukrainian drone attack in the Moscow region overnight.  “The unmanned vehicle was destroyed by air defense,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app, adding that there were no casualties or damage. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin had earlier released a statement about the attack but did […]

The Russian government could be moving closer toward outlawing abortion, experts and activists have told The Moscow Times, as its wartime stifling of freedoms spreads to sexual and reproductive health rights.  While Russia has historically had a liberal abortion policy — with the exception of the Stalin-era ban — the conservative turn among the country’s […]

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday granted U.S. hockey player Brennan Menell Russian citizenship, allowing him to play for the country’s national team. Menell, 26, is a defenseman from Minnesota who signed a one-year contract with the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) team Dynamo Moscow in September 2022, becoming the third U.S.-born player to ever join the […]

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) on Thursday said it arrested a Russian Navy sailor who it accused of plotting to blow up a warship. The FSB said the sailor had been recruited by Ukrainian special services “to commit a terror attack aboard one of the Black Sea Fleet ships carrying high-precision missile weapons.” It added […]

Updated with revised death toll. Four people have been killed and 12 injured in a Russian helicopter crash in southern Siberia’s republic of Altai, the region’s emergencies ministry said Thursday. The Mi-8 transport helicopter was approaching landing near the village of Tyungur not far from the border with Kazakhstan when it struck electric wires, the Altai […]

Russian lawmakers will be banned from visiting the war zone in Ukraine without direct approval from the country’s military leadership, the RBC business outlet reported Thursday, citing three anonymous sources in Russia’s parliament. Since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, politicians in Russia have frequently made trips to the frontline in order […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday offered free grain to six poor African countries as he launched a summit with leaders from the continent days after withdrawing from the Ukraine grain export deal. The two-day summit in Putin’s native St. Petersburg is being scrutinized as a test of his support in Africa, where he retains […]

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said Thursday it had found “explosives traces” on a cargo ship bound for the southern Russian port of Rostov-on-Don through the Black Sea. The ship, Bmo River, arrived from Turkey and had previously sailed twice to the Ukrainian port of Reni, the state-run Interfax news agency reported, citing security officials.  […]

Russia has placed International Criminal Court (ICC) Judge Tomoko Akane on its wanted list months after the court issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin for war crimes, state media reported Thursday. The Russian Interior Ministry search database lists Akane’s personal information, according to the state-run news agency TASS, but does not specify which […]

Russian lawmakers on Wednesday passed legislation banning the use of foreign email accounts when registering on websites, drawing criticism from the country’s IT industry.  If signed into law, online users in Russia will be required to create accounts on websites using a Russian telephone number, the government e-portal Gosuslugi, biometric data or email addresses ending in […]

Secret diplomatic talks are ongoing between former senior U.S. national security officials and high-ranking members of the Kremlin, a former U.S. official directly involved in the talks has confirmed to The Moscow Times. Earlier this month, NBC first reported the existence of these back-channel discussions, which involve former U.S. officials engaging in discreet exchanges with […]

Moldova has ordered 45 Russian diplomats and embassy staff to leave the country “over numerous unfriendly actions,” officials said Wednesday, as tensions between the two countries reach an all-time high. “This decision comes as a result of numerous unfriendly actions towards the Republic of Moldova… as well as attempts to destabilise the internal situation in […]

A Russian court has sentenced Ilya Sachkov, the founder of one of Russia’s top cybersecurity firms, to 14 years in prison for treason, the independent news website Mediazona reported Wednesday. Sachkov, 37, co-founded the Group-IB cybersecurity firm in 2003. The firm specializes in the detection and prevention of cyberattacks and works with Interpol and several other […]

Boris Kagarlitsky, a Russian sociologist and Marxist theorist who has openly opposed Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, has been detained on charges of “justifying terrorism” online, his lawyer said Wednesday. The Federal Security Service (FSB) transferred Kagarlitsky to the city of Syktyvkar in northwestern Russia’s republic of Komi, where the case against him is being investigated, […]

Russian soldiers may now be able to avoid criminal prosecution if they serve on the frontline in Ukraine, the Kommersant business daily reported Wednesday, citing a recent ruling by Russia’s Supreme Court.  The new legal precedent was set in a deadly automobile accident case where Corporal Vladislav Ustinov was handed a two-year prison sentence in […]

A former U.S. Marine who spent more than two years in a Russian prison was injured fighting in Ukraine, the State Department said Tuesday. Trevor Reed, who was released by Moscow in an April 2022 prisoner swap, has been sent to Germany for the treatment of unspecified injuries incurred while fighting for Ukraine, said Vedant […]

Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Wednesday hailed his country’s partnership with North Korea during a meeting with his counterpart Kang Sun Nam in Pyongyang. “For Russia, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is an important partner, with which we share a common border and a rich history of cooperation,” Shoigu said according to a ministry […]

North Korea rolled out the red carpet for the Russian Defense Minister, state media said Wednesday, with delegations from Moscow and Beijing set to attend Korean War anniversary events. Pyongyang on Thursday will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the signing of the July 27, 1953 Korean War armistice, which ended open hostilities and is marked […]

Russia is doubling down in its efforts to block Ukrainian grain exports and maximize damage to Kyiv’s profits one week after it pulled out of a landmark grain deal securing Ukrainian grain exports.  In addition to its systematic attacks on three Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea near Odesa in recent days, Moscow for the […]

The Kremlin will be seeking to clinch new economic agreements and partnerships across the African continent as it hosts delegations from dozens of African states this week — but may come away with less than it hopes for. The second Russia-Africa Summit, due to commence in St. Petersburg on Thursday, comes as Moscow increasingly turns […]

President Vladimir Putin is planning to visit China in October, the Kremlin said Tuesday, as Russia aims to shore up ties with one of its closest allies. “It is known that we have received an invitation and that we intend to go to China when the Belt and Road Forum is held in October,” Yuri Ushakov, an […]

Russia said Tuesday that its forces had progressed by up to two kilometers (1.2 miles) along a section of the front in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.  “The total advance of our units amounted to up two kilometers in depth along up to four kilometers of the front” in the direction of Lyman, the Defense Ministry said […]