Moscow said Tuesday that ally China had every right to take measures to protect its sovereignty and called U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit a “clear provocation”. “The Chinese side has the right to take necessary measures to protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity over the Taiwan issue,” the Russian foreign ministry said. Moscow…
Organizers of the benchmark TOEFL English exam have banned Russian citizens from taking the test, independent media outlet Mediazona reported Tuesday. The Educational Testing Service (ETS) has blocked a number of Russian citizens from the online platform that runs the TOEFL exam, according to Mediazona. The TOEFL qualification is recognized by 11,000 universities in over…
Clothing chain H&M reopened stores in Moscow on Tuesday in order to sell-off its remaining stock before permanently exiting the Russian market. Long lines of people were seen outside an H&M store at Moscow’s Aviapark shopping center, according to footage posted on Telegram by news outlet Baza. H&M group, which opened in Russia in 2009…
Russia’s Supreme Court declared Ukraine’s Azov Regiment a “terrorist” organization Tuesday, paving the way for the unit’s captured fighters to be tried in Russian courts and potentially face lenghty prison terms. Moscow has regularly decried the Azov battalion for its past extremist right-wing links, using it to justify its invasion of Ukraine that the Kremlin…
The former head of Russia’s top tech firm Yandex Tigran Khudaverdyan has challenged sanctions against him over the Ukraine war in a European Union court. Khudaverdyan filed a lawsuit on June 7 demanding the European Council lift its “discriminatory and disproportionate” sanctions against him. The lawsuit was first reported by TV channel RTVI on Monday…
In 2021, RN-Yuganskneftegaz’s green investment in environmental protection measures exceeded 5 billion roubles.
The first shipment of grain to leave Ukraine under a deal to ease Russia’s naval blockade was expected in Istanbul “after midnight,” as Kyiv said Tuesday it had begun mandatory evacuations from the war-torn Donetsk region. The Sierra Leone-registered ship, Razoni, set sail from Odesa port for Lebanon Monday under an accord brokered by Turkey and the…
Moscow on Tuesday denounced a potential visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan as a provocation, expressing full solidarity with ally China. “What is connected with this tour and a possible visit to Taiwan is a pure provocation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. He said the potential visit was leading to an…
A post claiming the ex-Soviet nations of Georgia and Kazakhstan were “artificial” creations appeared Monday evening on former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s social media account — but was quickly deleted. Medvedev aide Oleg Osipov said Tuesday morning that Medvedev’s account on Russian social network VK had been hacked, news agency Interfax reported. Since the start…
The Russian economy has been deeply damaged by sanctions and the exit of international business since the country invaded Ukraine, according to a new report by Yale University business experts and economists. Even though Moscow has been able to pull in billions of dollars from continued energy sales at elevated prices, largely unpublished data shows…
U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner’s trial on drug charges resumes in Russia on Tuesday amid intensified diplomatic efforts by Washington to secure her release through a high-profile prisoner exchange. Griner, 31, faces up to 10 years in a Russian penal colony if convicted of smuggling cannabis vape cartridges into the country. The two-time Olympic champion told…
Wildfires have burned across at least 3.2 million hectares of forest in Russia’s Siberian and Far East regions since the start of the year, according to statistics published by Russia’s Aerial Forest Protection Service on Monday. Nearly one-half of all the blazes were concentrated in the Far East Khabarovsk region, with 2.14% of the entire…
Russia has added 39 British nationals to its list of individuals banned from entering the country. Among those included on the list are former U.K. prime minister David Cameron, Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, and Foreign and Commonwealth Office communications director Helen Bower-Easton, as well as The Times columnist David Aaronovitch and The Economist deputy…
Russia’s naval forces went on display Sunday for the country’s annual Navy Day holiday. The main event took place in Russia’s second-largest city St. Petersburg, with over 40 warships and submarines sailing down the Neva River. Prior to the ceremony, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree outlining the Russian Navy’s doctrine. The 55-page document…
Veteran reformer and former Kremlin climate envoy Anatoly Chubais has been hospitalized with a suspected rare neurological disorder, several reports have said. Chubais, 67, quit his post and left Russia in March — the highest-level resignation of its kind following President Vladimir Putin’s orders to invade Ukraine. He gained notoriety in post-Soviet Russia for overseeing…
YEREVAN, Armenia — When tens of thousands of Russians fled the country this spring following the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, many chose to resettle in Armenia and Georgia. But for LGBT Russians, their new homes in the conservative South Caucasus — where there are few protections against homophobic violence — may mean facing even greater…
A senior Russian official on Monday outlined plans to rebuild Ukraine’s southern port city of Mariupol that suffered a devastating siege and heavy shelling before being captured by Russian troops. The move comes as part of Moscow’s wider efforts to gain support in Ukrainian regions that have come under Russian control since the start of…
The first shipment of Ukrainian grain since the Russian invasion in February left the port of Odesa on Monday morning under a landmark deal to lift Moscow’s naval blockade in the Black Sea. United Nations chief Antonio Guterres, who brokered the plan along with Turkey, welcomed the announcement while Kyiv said it would bring “relief…
Russian courts are releasing Ukrainians facing deportations because Kyiv has cut diplomatic ties with Russia after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion, the Kommersant business daily reported Monday. Hundreds of Ukrainian citizens have been stuck in limbo at detention centers in and around Moscow awaiting deportations that were halted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The war…
Russia has accused “radical” Kosovo of attempting to displace Serbs from the north of the Balkan country with new border rules that have renewed tensions. Kosovo police closed two border crossings with Serbia on Sunday after it took on gunfire and ethnic Serbs blocked roads along the border. Ethnic Serbs, who make up a majority…
Ukraine said the “strongest” shelling by Moscow so far of the southern city Mykolaiv killed a grain tycoon Sunday, as Russia claimed an attack from a drone wounded six personnel at the headquarters of its Black Sea fleet in annexed Crimea. AFP journalists witnessed intense Russian bombardment of the eastern town of Bakhmut after President…
The United States’ quest to dominate the oceans and NATO’s expansion are the biggest threats facing Russia, according to a new Russian naval doctrine signed by President Vladimir Putin on Sunday. The 55-page document said the “main challenges and threats” to national security and development were Washington’s “strategic objective to dominate the world’s oceans” and…
Ukraine’s president urged civilians on Saturday to evacuate the frontline Donetsk region, the scene of fierce clashes with the Russian military, as Kyiv called on the Red Cross and UN to gain access to its soldiers being held by Moscow’s forces. The eastern Donetsk region has faced the brunt of Russia’s offensive since its assault…
Kateryna never takes pictures with comrades before going to the front line — it’s bad luck. Karina does not tell her mother she is going to the front. Iana uses social media to try and raise the morale at home. On another day of war in eastern Ukraine, the three are resting with their unit…
Russian energy giant Gazprom Saturday suspended gas supplies to Latvia following tensions between Moscow and the West over the conflict in Ukraine and sweeping European and U.S. sanctions against Russia. The declaration came a day after Moscow and Kyiv accused each other of bombing a jail holding Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russian-held territory, with…
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke Friday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in their first contact since the Ukraine war, saying he pressed him to accept a proposal on freeing two Americans held in Russia. “We had a frank and direct conversation. I pressed the Kremlin to accept the substantial proposal that we…
Few people in Russia’s republic of Bashkortostan had heard of Alik Kamaletdinov before May, when he wrote a viral VKontakte post calling on locals to sign up for a Bashkir battalion to take part in Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. More than 800 Bashkirs aged between 18 and 50 expressed interest in joining in just two…
A former regional activist for jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has been imprisoned for 6.5 years for sharing a video of a mock execution of top Putin lieutenants. Opposition blogger Sergei Komandirov, 26, was detained in October 2021 on criminal charges of justifying terrorism for sharing a controversial video depicting a mock trial of “Vladimir…
A Ukrainian court on Friday reduced to 15 years a life sentence handed down to a Russian soldier for pre-meditated murder in the country’s first war crimes trial. Vadim Shishimarin, 21, was sentenced to life in prison in May after being found guilty of fatally shooting a 62-year-old civilian in northeastern Ukraine in the early…
The Kremlin expressed “solidarity” on Friday with China’s stance on Taiwan after Chinese President Xi Jinping warned U.S. leader Joe Biden not to “play with fire” over the self-ruled island. “Certainly we are in solidarity,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “We respect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and believe that no country in the…
Footage that emerged on social media late Thursday appears to show a Ukrainian prisoner of war being castrated by Russian fighters, igniting shock and outrage in Ukraine. The Moscow Times is unable to independently verify the authenticity of the video. The minute-and-a-half-long video, which The Moscow Times has chosen not to republish, shows what appears…
President Volodymyr Zelensky has visited a port in southern Ukraine to oversee grain being loaded for export onto a Turkish ship, the presidency said on Friday, following a deal with Russia brokered by the UN and Turkey. “The first vessel, the first ship is being loaded since the beginning of the war. This is a Turkish vessel,”…
Russia and Ukraine accused one another over the shelling of a prison in separatist-held eastern Ukraine that killed at least 40 Ukrainian prisoners of war. “Ukrainian security forces fired [U.S.-supplied long-range missile systems] HIMARS rockets at a pre-trial detention center near Olenivka tonight,” Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement carried by state news agencies. …
Russia’s population shrank by a record average of 86,000 people a month between January and May, state statistics agency Rosstat has said. The decline surpasses the previous record contraction of 57,000 people a month in 2002, when Russia’s population shrank to 145.3 million from nearly 146 million the previous year. Russia’s population has fallen to…
Eight foreigners have been killed and four injured in a fire at a Moscow hostel, news agencies reported early Friday. The flames broke out on the first floor of the building in southwestern Moscow due to likely equipment failure or a power grid emergency, the state-run TASS news agency cited an unnamed emergency services source…
Moscow’s former chief rabbi now living in exile in Israel warned Thursday of “dark clouds on the horizon” for Russian Jews, as ties between the two countries deteriorate over the Ukraine war. Pinchas Goldschmidt, who left Russia in March over opposition to the conflict, told reporters that “the Jewish community was pressured…to openly support the war. Our…
Estonia said Thursday it would block Russian nationals from obtaining temporary residence permits or visas to study in Estonia. “The continuation of sanctions against Russia is essential to ensuring relentless pressure on the country,” Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu said in a statement. “If the sanctions help in stopping Russian aggression, a positive effect on our own security…
Russian strikes on military facilities and residential buildings across war-scarred Ukraine Thursday left several dead in attacks President Volodymyr Zelensky described as “missile terrorism.” The deadliest attacks, which struck the central Kirovohrad region, came as the country was marking its first Day Of Ukraine Statehood that was announced by Zelensky earlier. Russia’s invasion has morphed…
A former Russian state television producer has been fined on charges of “discrediting” the Russian military, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported Thursday. Marina Ovsyannikova, 44, became famous for protesting the war in Ukraine on a live newscast by her former employer, Channel One, in March. Prosecutors say the journalist “discredited” the Russian Armed…
A Russian court fined U.S. tech giants WhatsApp, Snapchat and Tinder on Thursday for refusing to store the personal data of Russian users inside the country, Interfax news agency reported. U.S. company Meta, the owner of messaging service Whatsapp, was ordered by Moscow’s Tagansky District Court to pay 18 million rubles ($298,136), according to Interfax,…
Ukrainians have been living with the reality of war for nearly half a year as Russia’s offensive shows no sign of letting up. Five months after the Kremlin first sent troops into its western neighbor on Feb. 24, Russia now occupies swathes of Ukraine’s south and east and continues to press forward in the country’s…
The Kremlin confirmed that Russia is in talks with the United States to exchange prisoners held by each country after the U.S. state secretary disclosed a “substantial proposal” for a possible swap. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that Washington made the proposal “weeks ago” to facilitate the release of basketball star Brittney Griner…
The Syzran Refinery (part of Rosneft’s refining complex) has begun installing equipment for the aeration system of the biological treatment unit as part of the reconstruction of the treatment facilities.
Samsung smartphones have disappeared from store shelves in some areas of Russia, media outlet RBC reported Thursday, as overall smartphone sales reached a decade low. Customers in some major Russian cities are being asked to wait up to five days for deliveries, according to RBC. Western electronics manufacturers Samsung and Apple suspended shipments to Russia…
An Israeli delegation will sit down with talks with Russian officials Thursday as tensions simmer over Russian threats to close a veteran Jewish immigration agency, according to Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz. The Kremlin initially did not approve the meeting on Sunday and the delegation’s trip was delayed, Haaretz reported. The Israeli-Russian negotiations will take place…
An American teacher jailed on drug charges in Russia is being kept from communicating with family freely, his sister told CNN on Wednesday. Marc Fogel, 61, was last month found guilty of drug acquisition, manufacture, smuggling and possession and sentenced to 14 years in a maximum-security prison. Fogel’s family says he was carrying cannabis for…
The United States has made a “substantial proposal” to Russia to free Americans including basketball star Brittney Griner, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday, as he announced he will speak to his Moscow counterpart for the first time since the Ukraine war. Blinken said he expected a telephone call “in the coming days” with…
Jailed Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza faces a second criminal case, Novaya Gazeta Europe reported Wednesday. Kara-Murza, 40, has been in pre-trial detention since his April 12 return to Russia on charges of spreading “false” information about the Russian military and faces 10 years in prison. Authorities now accuse him of cooperating with an “undesirable” foreign…
US basketball star Brittney Griner said at her trial Wednesday she had no intention of smuggling drugs into Russia and that she came to the country despite U.S. warnings so as not to let down her Russian team. Griner, a two-time Olympic basketball gold medalist and Women’s NBA champion who had played in Russia, was detained…
Russia has handed down its first-ever sentence against a surrogate mother on human trafficking charges, Russian media reported Wednesday. A court in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk found Kazakh citizen Tamara Yandieva, 29, guilty of human trafficking and sentenced her to three years in prison, the state-run TASS news agency reported. Although surrogacy is legal…
A barrage of Ukrainian rocket fire on the Russian-controlled Antonovskiy Bridge in the occupied Kherson region late Tuesday appeared to signal intensifying military preparations for Ukraine’s first major counteroffensive of the war. Video footage Wednesday showed huge craters in the strategic bridge over the Dnipro River that is part of a major highway connecting the…
The Philippines has scrapped a deal to buy 16 Russian military-transport helicopters over fears of U.S. sanctions, the Associated Press reported Wednesday. The $227 million deal to acquire Mi-17s from Moscow was approved in November and canceled in June, before the end of then-President Rodrigo Duterte’s term in office. “We could face sanctions,” Former Defense…
Russia’s prisons hope to replace Western brands like IKEA with products made by inmates as the government races to carry out its import substitution program, reports said Wednesday. State and municipal companies have signed 600 million rubles ($10 million) of contracts with penal colonies from the Middle Urals region so far this year, the local…
The Kremlin on Wednesday vowed to hinder work of Western media in Russia after a European court upheld a broadcast ban imposed on Russian news channel RT France. “Of course, we will take similar measures of pressure on Western media that operate in our country,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “We will also not…
Supplies of Russia’s Sputnik Light Covid-19 booster shot have run out in most regions as the country sees a new resurgence in the virus, the Kommersant business daily reported Wednesday. Russia on Wednesday recorded over 9,000 new coronavirus infections, an increase of nearly 3,000 compared to Tuesday. Sputnik Light consists of the first dose of…
Russian tourist Alexandra Rumyantseva is tanning on a beach in Moscow-annexed Crimea, not far away from the front lines of Ukraine’s eastern and southern territories. Sitting on a rock in a white bikini by clear Black Sea waters on the outskirts of Sevastopol, Rumyantseva looks up as a Russian fighter jet whizzes through the perfectly…
The European Union agreed to reduce gas consumption to break its dependence on Russia on Tuesday, as missile strikes on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast cast doubt on a grain export deal. The effort to help Germany wean itself off Russian gas for the winter came as Turkey announced a meeting in Russia next week between…
Despite damaging Western sanctions imposed on Moscow in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s economy appears to be weathering the storm better than expected as it benefits from high energy prices, the IMF said Tuesday. The sanctions were meant to sever Russia from the global financial system and choke off funds available to…
Russia will withdraw from the International Space Station (ISS) “after 2024” and build its own orbiting space outpost, the newly appointed chief of state space agency Roscosmos said Tuesday. “I think that by that time we will start putting together a Russian orbital station,” Roscosmos chief Yury Borisov said at a meeting with Russian President…
U.S. and German authorities’ decision to block Russian darknet drug marketplace Hydra following the invasion of Ukraine has made life more dangerous for some illegal drug users, according to Russian charities. Hydra, which was estimated to be worth over $1.3 billion at the time of its closure, had dominated Russia’s economic underworld, enabling the purchase…