Russia has designated the Church of Scientology an “undesirable organization” Friday, effectively banning it within the country and putting its members at risk of jail time. Russia has previously attempted to prohibit the Church of Scientology, a religion that is recognized in some countries but considered by others to be a cult, since it arrived…
The European Union on Friday condemned alleged Russian cyberattacks that have targeted Germany in the run-up to this weekend’s election for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s successor. “Some EU Member States have observed malicious cyber activities, collectively designated as ‘Ghostwriter,’ and associated these with the Russian state,” foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said. “Such activities are unacceptable as…
The ruling, pro-Putin United Russia party kept its supermajority in the lower house of parliament despite critics claiming mass fraud and tampering during the three-day election, according to final results announced by election officials Friday. Russia’s opposition has raised strong doubts over the results’ legitimacy after remote voting showed United Russia candidates taking every single-mandate district…
The chief finance officer and deputy chairman of the board at Russian gas producer Novatek has been arrested in the United States on charges of tax fraud, the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement Thursday. A federal grand jury indicted Mark Gyetvay for hiding assets that were at one point worth up to $93…
Five climbers died after a blizzard on Mount Elbrus, Russia’s emergencies ministry said Friday, in one of the worst tragedies in recent years on Europe’s highest peak. Elbrus, a dormant volcano in Russia’s North Caucasus region, is the highest mountain in Europe at 5,642 meters (18,510 feet) and is seeing a domestic tourist boom due…
Russia posted an all-time record of 828 deaths from Covid-19 on Friday as hospitalizations shot up in Moscow and several regions reportedly began reimposing restrictions after nationwide elections last weekend. The government’s Covid-19 information center said the country recorded 21,379 new cases over the past 24 hours. The new high for deaths comes a day…
A court in the city of Volgograd in southwestern Russia sentenced four Jehovah’s Witnesses to more than 6 years in prison each on extremism charges Thursday, the religious organization said in a statement. The Traktorozavodsky district court sentenced Valery Rogozin to 6 years and 5 months, Igor Yegozaryan and Sergei Melnik to 6 years, and…
Five climbers died after a blizzard on Mount Elbrus, Europe’s highest peak, Russia’s emergencies ministry said Friday. Thursday’s incident struck when a group of 19 climbers was at an altitude of over 5,000 meters. Elbrus, located in Russia’s North Caucasus, is the highest mountain in Europe at 5,642 meters. “Unfortunately, five people died,” the emergencies…
A senior investigator in Russia’s Perm region died by suicide days after a rare campus shooting claimed six lives and left dozens injured, Russian media reported Thursday. The body of Sergei Sarapultsev, who headed the Russian Investigative Committee’s Perm region branch, was found dead in his home. On Monday, an 18-year-old Perm State University student…
Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny accused Google and Apple Thursday of acting as the Kremlin’s “accomplices” after the companies removed his voting app during the country’s parliamentary election last week. “If something surprised me in the latest elections, it was not how (President Vladimir) Putin forged the results, but how obediently the almighty Big…
The French government said Thursday it was in talks with Moscow about suspending a contested law barring French champagne producers from labeling their bubbly “champagne” on bottles sold in Russia. France, home of champagne, jealously guards its AOC, or Appellation of Controlled Origin, which give its producers exclusive use of the term in many countries. But Russia…
Polish campaigners on Thursday accused the government of forcibly sending dozens of migrants back across the Belarus border after detaining them inside Polish territory. Thousands of migrants — mostly from the Middle East — have crossed or tried to cross into Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland in recent months. The European Union has accused Belarus of…
A group of Russian parliamentary candidates said Thursday they are uniting to abolish electronic voting and called for nationwide rallies to protest the results of last weekend’s elections. Russia’s opposition has raised questions over the election results’ legitimacy after the ruling, pro-Kremlin United Russia party won a landslide victory and took every district in Moscow.…
TBILISI, Georgia — On a hot autumn day, a sun-baked Tbilisi square feels a world away from cold and blustery St. Petersburg, where Ivan Pavlov is used to running between courtrooms defending some of the Kremlin’s harshest critics. “I have had to readjust my life, which has not been easy, I have had to start…
Belarus has extended the house arrest of a Russian student who was detained when Minsk ordered the forced landing of a Ryanair flight to arrest a dissident blogger, the BBC’s Russian service has reported. Russian citizen Sofia Sapega, 23, was arrested alongside her boyfriend, Belarusian opposition blogger Roman Protasevich, in May. The pair were traveling…
Search teams that were able to reach the crash site of a military transport plane in the remote stretches of the Russian Far East have found no survivors, the Emergency Situations Ministry said Thursday. The An-26 with six crew members on board vanished from radars during a “technical flight” Wednesday evening in the Khabarovsk region…
Russia reported 820 deaths from Covid-19 on Thursday equalling August’s record, while Moscow reported its highest number of daily cases since July. The government’s Covid-19 information center said Moscow had recorded 3,445 new cases in the past 24 hours. Russia has the fifth-highest number of recorded Covid-19 cases in the world and the highest death…
Moscow election officials on Thursday said they found no evidence of wrongdoing in online voting in parliamentary elections after a technical recount of the votes. “The election observation headquarters in Moscow did not find any traces of hacking or ballot stuffing in online voting,” the head of the group Alexei Venediktov said on the Telegram…
Russia held controversial parliamentary elections last weekend that were marred by claims of mass fraud in handing the ruling United Russia party a supermajority in the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament. Though final results are expected Friday, election officials have counted 100% of the ballots and most winners have already been named. Here…
The U.S. and Russian military chiefs of staff met Wednesday in Helsinki for the first time in 20 months, amid Washington’s hopes for support to continue surveillance of extremists in Afghanistan. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley met with Chief of Russian General Staff General Valery Gerasimov, the first time since…
Moscow’s coronavirus hospitalizations have shot up in the past week, authorities said Wednesday after the Russian capital held three-day parliamentary and local assembly elections. Hospitalizations are up 15% compared to the previous week and new infections have risen by 24%, according to Moscow’s deputy mayor and Covid-19 response center chief Anastasia Rakova. The Delta variant accounted…
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday vowed a “strong response” after gunmen opened fire on a car carrying his senior aide, in what officials said was possible retaliation for a push to rein in oligarchs. More than 10 bullets hit a black Audi carrying Zelenskiy’s advisor Sergiy Shefir during an attack near the village of…
A military transport plane with six people on board vanished from radars in Russia’s Far Eastern Khabarovsk region, the Emergency Situations Ministry said Wednesday. The An-26 was performing a “technical flight” when its communication systems stopped sending signals 38 kilometers from the Khabarovsk city airport, the ministry said. A Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsia) helicopter…
Moscow will conduct a recount of disputed electronic votes for seats in Russia’s lower house of parliament that will have no legal force, the head of the Moscow election observation headquarters Alexei Venediktov told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency on Wednesday. “Everyone is asking about the technical group’s recount of the votes, this, of course,…
The United States imposed sanctions Tuesday on cryptocurrency exchange SUEX for its ties to ransomware attackers, as Washington seeks to crack down on digital crime. The move comes after hacks and data breaches that have targeted a major U.S. oil pipeline, a meatpacking company and the Microsoft Exchange email system, as well as ransomware attacks…
Yuri Aydarov was about to start an algorithms class at his university in the central Russian city of Perm when he heard people running in the corridor. Then he saw a gunman. Aydarov, a lecturer at Perm State University, was one of the witnesses of a shooting spree in which an 18-year-old student killed six…
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov took umbrage at U.S. President Joe Biden’s speech mentioning his Kremlin-loyal southern Russian region in his calls to protect LGBT rights. The strongman took to social media after Biden said “we all must defend the rights of LGBTQI individuals … whether it’s Chechnya or Cameroon or anywhere” during his UN General…
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said Tuesday that a fight for a democratic Russia was a long game after the opposition accused authorities of voter fraud during parliamentary polls. In a message from prison, President Vladimir Putin’s top critic praised his supporters’ tactical voting in an effort to weaken the ruling party but said those…
Forest fires this year covered the largest area of Russia since satellite imaging began, a Greenpeace expert has said. In 2021 18.2 million hectares were covered by fire, up from the previous record of 18.1 million hectares in 2012, according to a report from Greenpeace Russia’s forest department head Alexei Yaroshenko. “This year was the…
Half of all the votes cast for the ruling party in Russia’s parliamentary elections were likely fraudulent, according to analysis by independent statisticians. The pro-Kremlin United Russia party won a landslide victory in Russia’s State Duma elections over the weekend, securing 324 of the lower chamber’s 450 seats — a supermajority that allows them to…
Europe’s top rights court on Tuesday ruled that Russia was responsible for the 2006 killing in London of the dissident former agent Alexander Litvinenko, a verdict swiftly rejected by Moscow. Litvinenko died after drinking tea laced with the radioactive isotope Polonium 210 at a London hotel, in a case that has weighed on relations between…
British police on Tuesday said there was enough evidence to charge a third Russian man with the Novichok poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the English city of Salisbury in 2018. Counter-terrorism detectives said prosecutors had reviewed the evidence against a man identified as Sergey Fedotov for him to…
Shocked and grieving Russians gathered outside a university in the city of Perm on Tuesday after a student went on a campus shooting spree, killing six people and wounding dozens. With a heavy police cordon still around Perm State University a day after the killings, they laid red carnations and lit candles at makeshift memorials.…
Russian gas giant Gazprom has turned down an option to maximize gas shipments to Europe as the continent faces a looming energy crisis amid surging natural gas prices. Gazprom did not book any of the additional capacity available in transit pipelines running through Ukraine in auctions for October, the state-run Interfax news agency reported Monday.…
Members of Russia’s Communist Party gathered in the pouring rain in central Moscow on Monday evening after parliamentary election results showed their candidates seeing their initial strong leads reverse. Several Communist Party candidates who appeared set to win their races during the Sept. 17-19 parliamentary and local polls suddenly fell behind candidates from the ruling,…
A man shot dead two police officers and three other people on Monday when the authorities evicted him from his home in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s biggest city, police said. A police statement carried by Russian news agencies said that a man served an eviction notice “opened fire” on court bailiffs, police officers and emergency ministry officials…
The U.S. State Department cast doubt Monday on the integrity of Russia’s parliamentary election, saying a government crackdown on critics had “prevented” citizens from exercising their civil rights. “The September 17-19 Duma elections in the Russian Federation took place under conditions not conducive to free and fair proceedings,” said State Department spokesperson Ned Price, adding…
France’s defense minister met her counterpart in Mali on Monday, amid rising tensions with the war-torn Sahel state over reports that it plans to hire Russian mercenaries, and the potential for delayed elections. Former colonial power France last week warned Bamako against signing a deal with private-security firm Wagner, after claims that Mali’s army-dominated government…
Russia’s opposition called for protests on Monday after accusing the authorities of rigging highly anticipated elections to the country’s parliament. As polls closed on Sunday, early results from the Far East and Siberia had suggested that the pro-Kremlin United Russia party might lose ground in an election that had turned on difficult issues of rising…
A Russian opposition politician lost weekend elections to a Kremlin-aligned opponent after spoiler candidates in the country’s second city St. Petersburg changed their names and even appearances to resemble him. Russia held parliamentary and local elections that were marred by irregularities and allegations of fraud, with early counts showing an easy win for the ruling…
Poland on Monday accused Russia and Belarus of orchestrating a wave of illegal immigration at its land border, a day after four migrants were found dead at its Belarusian frontier. Thousands have been trying to cross from Belarus into EU members Latvia, Lithuania and Poland in recent weeks. The EU suspects the influx of people…
Russia and China have kicked off multinational anti-terrorism military exercises as the countries seek to fill a regional security void left by the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, Russian state media reported Monday. The two powers will hold the Peace Mission 2021 drills in Russia’s Orenburg region near the Kazakh border from Sept. 20-24 under…
Russia’s Communist Party will not recognize electronic voting results which reversed its candidates’ strong leads in the country’s parliamentary elections held over the weekend, a party official said Monday. Several Communist Party candidates who appeared set to win their races suddenly fell behind candidates from the ruling, pro-Kremlin party as soon as election officials started…
At least six people have been killed and dozens injured after a student opened fire at a Russian university campus, authorities said Monday. Video published to social media shows students jumping out of second-floor windows to flee the gunman at Perm State University in the city of Perm some 1,300 kilometers east of Moscow. Russia’s…
Ukraine on Monday launched joint military exercises with the United States and other NATO countries as tensions with Russia remain high over the Kremlin-backed insurgency in the country’s east. The annual Rapid Trident military exercises, taking place in western Ukraine until Oct. 1, involve some 6,000 soldiers from 15 countries, Ukraine’s defense ministry said in…
President Vladimir Putin’s party United Russia claimed a landslide victory in parliamentary and regional elections that have been marred by claims of widespread voter fraud after an unprecedented crackdown on monitors and opposition candidates. According to Interfax, Andrei Turchak, United Russia’s general council secretary, told reporters that the results as of early Monday showed the party…
At least eight people have been killed and several more injured after a student opened fire at a university in western Siberia, Russian media and authorities reported Monday. Video published to social media shows students evacuating by jumping out of second-floor windows at Perm State University in the city of Perm some 1,300 kilometers east…
President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party was on track to win a strong majority in a parliamentary vote, results showed Sunday, after an election that followed an unprecedented crackdown on the opposition. With 19% of votes counted, United Russia was ahead with 42.5% of the vote, followed by the Communist Party with 23.2%. The vote…
Voting is open across Russia’s 11 time zones to elect the 450 members of the country’s lower chamber of parliament, the State Duma. Here’s the latest (Moscow time): Monday Sept. 20 10:00 With 80.1% of votes counted, United Russia was ahead with 49.42% of the vote, followed by the Communist Party with 20.25%. Voting by party…
Google has blocked lists of Russian candidates recommended by jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny as best placed to defeat Kremlin-aligned politicians in parliamentary and local polls closing Sunday. The move comes as the U.S. tech giant faces mounting criticism from the Russian opposition and abroad for backing down to demands from Russian authorities, who are…
Voting is open across Russia’s 11 time zones to elect the 450 members of the country’s lower chamber of parliament, the State Duma. Here’s the latest (Moscow time): Sunday Sept. 19 10:00 According to the Central Election Commission, nationwide turnout for in-person voting is at 31.51% as of the end of Saturday. 08:00 Voting has resumed in Moscow…
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s “Smart Voting” bot has disappeared from the Telegram messenger app following similar moves by Apple and Google on Friday at the start of a three-day parliamentary vote in Russia. The bot, which instructed Navalny supporters which candidate they should back to unseat Kremlin-aligned politicians, was removed after Telegram announced it…
Voting is open across Russia’s 11 time zones to elect the 450 members of the country’s lower chamber of parliament, the State Duma. Here’s the latest (Moscow time): 08:00: Voting has resumed in Moscow on the second day of Russia’s 2021 State Duma Elections. 00.30: Telegram founder Pavel Durov said on Friday evening that the instant messenger…
Russia and China’s leaders on Friday urged the new Taliban government in Afghanistan to remain peaceful to its neighbors and combat terrorism and drug trafficking. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke via video link at a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), an eight-member group that promotes itself as an antidote…
Russia’s three-day voting periods are likely here to stay, the head of the country’s Central Election Commission (CEC) said Friday, a move that critics warn will make it easier to commit voter fraud. Ella Pamfilova’s comments came as Russia kicked off a parliamentary election with both in-person and online voting from Sept. 17-19. This weekend’s…
The Kremlin praised Google and Apple’s move to take down jailed opposition figure Alexei Navalny’s tactical voting strategy apps on Friday, saying the “Smart Voting” recommendations harm voters. The Western tech giants earlier in the day removed Navalny’s apps from their online stores over a Moscow court ruling that declared his electoral network a banned…
Russia’s Foreign Ministry claimed Friday that the Soviet invasion of Poland during World War II was an act of liberation, reanimating a years-old debate over a secret Hitler-Stalin pact to carve up Eastern Europe between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. “On Sept. 17, 1939, the Red Army began a liberation campaign on the territory of…
This weekend, Muscovites hoping to vote for Communist Party (KPRF) candidates in elections to Russia’s State Duma will have to be careful to tick the right box. In the Russian capital, KPRF candidates Vitaly Petrov, Nikolai Volkov and Anastasia Udaltsova will run against Vasily Petrov, Alexei Volkov and Anna Udalova, all from the much smaller…
10.20: Over 10% of Russians that applied for electronic voting have already voted, the Ministry of Digital Science said. 10.13: Apple and Google deleted jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s apps from their online stores after Russian authorities threatened jail time for their employees, Navalny’s aides said Friday. 08.01: Polling stations have opened in Russia’s regions that belong to…
Apple and Google have deleted jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s apps from their online stores after Russian authorities threatened jail time for their employees, Navalny’s aides said Friday. The move comes as voting gets underway in parliamentary elections overshadowed by an unprecedented crackdown on the opposition. The Navalny app contained recommendations for its supporters to…