Russian payment services provider Qiwi posted an all-time record profit in 2022 as Russians found themselves cut off from cross-border transactions and other payment services due to the war in Ukraine, the Vedomosti business daily reported Monday. Qiwi’s net revenue last year totaled 34.137 billion rubles ($436.5 million), up from 23.113 billion rubles ($295.5 million) in 2021.…
The Kremlin said on Monday that a surprise announcement by OPEC+ to cut oil production is “in the interests” of global energy markets. On Saturday the group of oil-producing countries, which includes Russia, Saudia Arabia, and other major suppliers, pledged to cut production by more than one million barrels per day, calling the decision a…
From March 28 to 30, 2023, experts from the Moscow Center of the World Association of Organizations Operating Nuclear Power Plants (WANO-MC) held an on-site training seminar on the methodology for conducting peer reviews at the Kalinin NPP (branch of Rosenergoatom). The training course was attended by 25 heads of the chief engineer service and…
President Vladimir Putin’s technological advancement initiative has established a joint venture fund to invest in drones and microchips amid shortages exposed by the war in Ukraine, the Vedomosti business daily reported Monday. Putin created the National Technology Initiative (NTI) in 2014 to ensure Russia’s long-term technological leadership. According to Vedomosti, NTI’s project support fund has partnered…
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a decree creating a special fund to support soldiers fighting in Ukraine and their families. Russia rarely gives any estimates of its losses in its military operation launched in February 2022, where its military has faced a series of setbacks. The decree in support of the “Defenders of the…
Nuclear power plants in Russia (branches of Rosenergoatom, ROSATOM’s Electric Power Division) generated about 53.5 billion kilowatt-hours in three months of 2023, or 104.42% of the balance target* of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) of Russia. Therefore, since the beginning of the year, about 2.3 billion kWh have been generated in excess of the FAS…
The Kremlin on Monday blamed Ukraine for the bomb blast in St. Petersburg that killed a leading military blogger and injured dozens of others, while Kyiv denied involvement. Military correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky, 40, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, died Sunday and 32 others were wounded when an explosion ripped through a cafe in the…
A leading Russian military blogger was killed Sunday in an explosion at a cafe in Russia’s second-largest city of St. Petersburg, the Interior Ministry said. “One person was killed in the incident. He was military correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky,” the ministry said on messaging app Telegram. “Sixteen people were injured,” it added. The TASS news agency…
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year, hundreds of thousands — perhaps more than a million — people left Russia. Although there is no data on how many of those people were foreigners, certainly many foreign citizens left Russia either at the insistence of their employers or on their own initiative. Many Western embassies…
Tobin Auber is an English writer who lived in St. Petersburg for 29 years. During that time he worked in many jobs, including as editor of The St. Petersburg Times and as a film producer. He has published ten chapters of his memoir, “30 Days in the Hole,” an extract of which is published here.…
Ukraine on Saturday branded Russia’s presidency of the UN Security Council for the month of April “a slap in the face,” joining a chorus of outrage from Western countries. Moscow assumes the presidency as part of its monthly rotation between the Security Council’s 15 member states, with ties with the West at their lowest point since…
How serious is cooking? Certainly many people think that the kitchen is no place for jokes and pranks. But today, on April Fool’s Day, we simply must take a closer look at the humor and fun that we find even in such an important matter as culinary history. Foreigners’ acquaintance with Russian cuisine has always…
In the first quarter of 2023 wind farms of NovaWind (ROSATOM’s wind power division) generated 650 thousand MWh of electricity, having demonstrated a 1.2-fold increase year-on-year. In Q1 2022, the wind farms produced 550 thousand MWh (excluding power output from the Berestovskaya Wind Farm). The 2023 figure includes electric power generated by seven wind farms…
The Russian resort town of Sochi, which hosted the 2014 winter Olympics, has some of the highest luxury housing prices in the world, with only Hong Kong and Monaco boasting pricier real estate, a study by consulting agency NF Group has found. At present, $1 million would allow you to buy just 29 square meters…
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday announced a new foreign policy strategy aimed at curtailing Western “dominance” while drawing the country closer to China and India. The new strategy appears to view the deterioration of Moscow’s relations with the West over its invasion of Ukraine as a long-term geopolitical reality. “The Russian Federation intends to…
A court in the republic of North Ossetia-Alania in Russia’s North Caucasus has found a Russian national guilty in absentia of attending an anti-war rally in Georgia and issued him with a fine for “discrediting” the Russian army, independent regional news outlet Caucasian Knot reported. Vladimir Zagalov, who comes from North-Ossetia-Alania but has been living…
The Russian authorities’ decision to arrest Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on spying charges came under intense scrutiny Friday, with speculation over why the Kremlin decided to take a step that was not only provocative but has no analogy in post-Soviet Russia. As the dust settled on Gershkovich’s detention on Thursday in the Ural…
Проходимец: rogue Двор (courtyard) is a deceptive word in Russian. You think it’s easy to understand and translate. It means a court — as in royal — or a courtyard — as in the space belonging to a house. But in cities some of the дворы are tricky to translate. The big issue is whether…
The Russian company that made President Vladimir Putin’s limousine has taken over Japanese car maker Toyota’s St. Petersburg plant, the Russian Trade and Industry Ministry announced Friday. The former Toyota production facilities have been transferred to the Central Scientific Research Automobile and Automotive Engine Institute (NAMI), a subsidiary of the ministry. NAMI was responsible for…
President Vladimir Putin on Thursday signed an order allowing Russia’s Defense Ministry to enlist 147,000 men for their compulsory military service in the upcoming spring call-up. The number of draftees to be called up this year marks an increase of 12,500 compared to last year’s recruitment figures. The Defense Ministry will kick off the conscription…
Georgia has more than tripled its exports of automobiles to Russia in the first months of 2023 amid claims that Tbilisi is helping Moscow skirt Western sanctions, the Kommersant business daily reported Friday. The former Soviet republic in the South Caucasus delivered 978 passenger vehicles to Russia between January and February, worth a total value…
Belarusian strongman and close Kremlin ally Alexander Lukashenko called Friday for a “truce” in Ukraine and for talks “without preconditions” between Moscow and Kyiv. “We must stop now, before an escalation begins. I’ll take the risk of suggesting an end of hostilities … a declaration of a truce,” Lukashenko said during a televised state-of-the-nation address.…
As Ukraine marked the first anniversary of the mass killing of Ukrainian civilians by Russian forces in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield has made the case that Russia “should not be” a permanent member of the UN Security Council in an interview with AFP. “Russia is a…
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that Ukraine would “never forgive” Moscow for its occupation of Bucha, a year after the town became a symbol of alleged Russian war crimes. Russian forces pulled back from the commuter town northwest of Kyiv on March 31, 2022, just over one month after President Vladimir Putin ordered his…
Four bankers from Gazprom’s Swiss affiliate have been found guilty by a Zurich court of failing to properly check vast sums of money flowing through the accounts of a Russian cellist and close confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The accounts in the Swiss branch of Gazprombank were held by Sergei Roldugin, the artistic director…
A Moscow court on Thursday sentenced a rail worker to seven years in jail for online posts denouncing the Russian bombing of Ukrainian cities. Mikhail Simonov, 63, was detained in the fall for publishing anti-war comments on the Russian social network Vkontakte in March. “While killing children and women, we sing songs on Channel One [state…
Russian President Vladimir Putin has for the second time appointed an official serving in one of the Russian-installed administrations in occupied Ukrainian territories to head one of Russia’s regions where gubernatorial elections are due to place later this year. Putin named Vitaly Khotsenko, who was appointed prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic last year,…
On March 29, 2023, a meeting of Board of Directors of Egyptian Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Authority (ENRRA) was held, at which the regulatory authority issued a license for construction of El-Dabaa NPP Unit 3 (general designer and general contractor – ROSATOM Engineering Division). From 11 to 17 March 2023, a commission of Egyptian Nuclear…
Celebrated Soviet and Russian actress Liya Akhedzhakova has resigned from the Moscow theater where she has worked for 46 years following her outspoken criticism of the war in Ukraine, Novaya Gazeta reported on Thursday. Moscow’s Sovremennik Theater effectively ended the actress’s decades-long career at the theater in February when it canceled a production of “The Gin Game”…
Austrian banking group Raiffeisen, one of the last major Western lenders in Russia, said Thursday it was considering a “sale or spin-off” of its subsidiary in the country. The RBI Group, which owns the bank, has been under scrutiny over its links to Russia since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February last year. Ukrainian President Volodymyr…
A major Russian film distributor said it had developed an alternative to the high-resolution, large-format cinematic experience IMAX, the Vedomosti business daily reported Thursday. The IMAX Corporation, a Canadian company that produces entertainment technology, left Russia in June as part of the backlash against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by Western firms. The company has since banned screenings…
Updates with confirmation of Moskalev’s arrest. Alexei Moskalev, the single father from Russia’s Tula region who fled house arrest on the eve of his sentencing in a criminal case for “discrediting” the Russian military earlier this week, has been detained in Belarus, Russian news outlet RBC reported Thursday. Moskalev, who first came to the attention of…
NovaWind (ROSATOM’s wind power division) and Primus Advanced Technologies Ltd. signed an agreement on fixing the top-level “roadmap” for cooperation on wind farm construction projects. The document was signed by NovaWind CEO Grigoriy Nazarov and Primus Advanced Technologies CEO Kyaw Hla Win. The agreement envisions a partnership to construct a 172 MW wind farm. “We…
Updated with details of arrest. Russia on Thursday arrested Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on espionage charges in a major escalation of the Kremlin’s wartime crackdown on independent journalism. After being detained in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg, Gershkovich was formally arrested by a Moscow court in a hearing held behind closed doors. Russia’s…
March 29, 2023, Moscow – Russia and Nicaragua have signed the Intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in the field of non-energy applications of atomic energy for peaceful purposes. Within the framework of the agreement, the Parties will work together in a wide range of areas, particularly in medicine and agriculture. The document was signed during the…
Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service has offered the state-owned defense conglomerate Rostec the use of inmate labor to boost the production of military equipment for the country’s armed forces, the Russian daily newspaper Kommersant reported on Wednesday. Rostec head Sergei Chemezov, who is widely believed to be close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, is said to have received a proposal from…
Elvira only found out that her son, a soldier serving in Russia’s Armed Forces, had been taken prisoner when she received a phone call from a Ukrainian security officer. “I was really shocked when Ukraine’s Security Service called me to say that my son was in captivity,” Elvira told The Moscow Times, recalling the moment…
An event company owned in part by Elizaveta Peskova — the daughter of Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov — was revealed to have grown its revenue by 70 times in 2022 compared to the previous year, independent news outlet Verstka reported on Tuesday. Centrum Moscow, whose clients include Russia’s Ministry of Trade and Industry, the Moscow Government, and…
A St. Petersburg court has sentenced a 54-year-old man to five-and-a-half years in prison for spreading “fakes” about the Russian army and for “calling for extremist activities,” local news website Fontanka reported on Wednesday. The case is the first time strict war censorship laws have been used in Russia’s second city since their introduction last year,…
Russia’s Interior Ministry has placed Nadya Tolokonnikova, co-founder of Russian feminist protest and performance art group Pussy Riot, on its wanted list, independent news outlet Mediazona reported Wednesday. Though the ministry didn’t specify which criminal offense prompted the move, the Russian authorities opened an investigation into Tolokonnikova for “insulting the religious feelings of believers” earlier…
The head of the UN’s nuclear power watchdog arrived at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on Wednesday in a rare visit to Europe’s largest atomic facility, which is currently controlled by Russian forces. There have been persistent fears over the safety of the nuclear plant in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, where there has been frequent…
Stockholm said on Wednesday that it was summoning the Russian ambassador to Sweden for warning the country would become a “legitimate target” of “retaliatory measures” if it joined NATO. Sweden and neighbor Finland both ended decades of military non-alignment in May when they decided to join the Western defense alliance in the wake of Russia’s…
The demand for Mandarin language classes in Russia has surged in the wake of the country’s increasing economic dependence on China and its pivot to Asia amid tensions with the West over the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. The number of Russian job vacancies requiring some knowledge of Mandarin has doubled in sectors such as sales,…
The Kremlin’s spokesperson predicted a long-lasting hybrid war against Russia’s Western adversaries on Wednesday after a media report revealed he had urged colleagues to brace themselves for a “forever war” three months ago. According to the report published by The Guardian on Tuesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov warned members of Russia’s cultural and political elite at a New…
The top global agricultural commodity trader Cargill is to stop exporting Russian grain this summer while maintaining its other operations in the country, Russia’s RBC news website reported Wednesday, citing a letter sent by Cargill Russia to a senior Russian official. Cargill Russia has reportedly notified Russian Deputy Agriculture Minister Oksana Lut of its intentions to…
Brazilian Viktor Ferreira was elated in May 2018 when he was accepted into the elite Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington. “Today we made the future!” he wrote a colleague. But Ferreira was no normal student: according to a U.S. indictment, he was a Russian spy under deep cover, an “illegal”…
Olympic chiefs on Tuesday recommended the return to competition of Russian and Belarusian athletes as individual neutrals, but refused to give a timeline on their potential participation at next year’s Paris Olympics. IOC president Thomas Bach said the body’s Executive Board had recommended to international federations and international sports event organizers that “athletes with a…
The mayor of Vorkuta, a coal-mining town in the Arctic republic of Komi, has enlisted in the Russian army to fight in the country’s war against Ukraine. “The time has come to offer direct support to our boys and for me to join the special military operation as a military serviceman of Russia’s Defense Ministry,”…
A Russian unmanned Soyuz MS-22 capsule returned to Earth on Tuesday from the International Space Station (ISS), landing in Kazakhstan three months after experiencing a coolant leak. The vessel landed at 5:46 p.m. local time in the vast Central Asian country, a Roscosmos live transmission showed. Russia’s space agency said the capsule carried “around 218…
A local court in the town of Yefremov in Russia’s Tula region on Tuesday sentenced single father Alexei Moskalev to two years in a penal colony for repeated violation of wartime censorship laws that criminalize “discrediting” the Russian military, Mediazona reported. However, Moskalev himself reportedly escaped from house arrest on the eve of his sentencing…
Foreign films have always been the backbone of the film distribution industry in modern Russia. According to the Russian Cinema Fund, foreign films made up almost 75 percent of all ticket sales in 2021. In March 2022, the situation changed dramatically, especially after Hollywood studios left the Russian market. But the latest edition of the…
A Russian entrepreneur accused of smuggling American technologies to Russian arms manufacturers may have received help from Russian security services to flee house arrest in Italy, the Italian newspaper la Repubblica reported, citing unnamed sources. Artyom Uss, 40, the son of the governor of Russia’s Krasnoyarsk region, is known to have removed his electronic bracelet…
A court in Russia’s southwestern Kaluga region last week ordered a university in St. Petersburg to pay compensation to a student who was expelled for his anti-war stance, media outlet iStories reported on Tuesday, citing the student’s lawyer. Andrei Kotenko, a former journalism student at St. Petersburg University of the Humanities and Social Sciences (SPbGUP),…
Belarus said on Tuesday that it felt compelled to host Russian nuclear weapons after “unprecedented” Western pressure, insisting their deployment did not violate international agreements. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently announced plans to station tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus, its closest ally, which drew condemnation from the West. “Belarus is forced to…
A court in Russia’s Far East has overturned feminist and LGBT activist Yulia Tsvetkova’s acquittal for charges of “pornography,” her lawyer and mother said on Tuesday. A judge in the remote city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur in July 2022 cleared Tsvetkova of all charges brought against her after she was detained in late 2019 and placed under house…
Online mysticism courses have experienced a nearly 20-fold surge in popularity among the Russian public, the Vedemosti business daily reported Tuesday, citing data provided by telecommunications companies. Analysts attribute Russians’ growing interest in mysticism to the stress and uncertainty being caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Online schools offering lessons in fortune telling, astrology, and…
Russia has increased its oil exports to India by a massive 2,200% since sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine cut the country off from its European markets, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Tuesday. “Most of our energy resources have been redirected to other, friendlier markets,” Interfax quoted Novak as saying. “If we look at…
Russia’s Defence Ministry said Tuesday that its navy had fired test anti-ship missiles at mock targets in the Sea of Japan during military exercises. Russia’s Pacific Fleet drills came a week after Tokyo’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited Ukraine. Moscow holds regular naval drills off its Pacific coast, but Tokyo said these had been “increasing”…
The number of murders in Russia last year increased for the first time in 20 years in what some analysts suggest is a knock-on effect of the country’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Russian business daily Kommersant reported Tuesday, citing a bar association report. The past two decades had seen a steady decline in the number…
An arrest warrant for exiled Russian activist and Mediazona publisher Pyotr Verzilov has been issued by a Moscow Court in absentia on charges of spreading “knowingly false” information about the Russian Armed Forces, Mediazona reported on Monday. Verzilov, who is also a member of the anti-Kremlin activist group Pussy Riot, was accused of spreading “fake…