Italy should recognize Crimea as Russian territory before being allowed to export parmesan into the country again, the head of Russia’s cheesemakers union said Sunday. Russia banned wholesale imports of fresh EU food produce including parmesan in retaliation to Western sanctions over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Italian Ambassador to Moscow Pasquale Terracciano on…
Russia has launched large-scale military exercises involving more than 12,000 servicemen in eastern Siberia, Interfax reported Monday, citing the Eastern Military District’s press service. The drills will involve up to 3,000 weapons and pieces of military equipment, 60 aircraft and helicopters and more than 10 drones. They will be led by the Eastern Military District’s…
The prime minister this month announced snap parliamentary polls that he said were “the best way out of the current internal political situation.” In a visit to northwest Armenia on Sunday, Pashinyan told villagers he will “resign in April” ahead of the vote. “I will resign not to resign, but in order for early elections to take…
Police in Belarus on Saturday detained more than 100 people, including five journalists, a rights group said, as the opposition resumed rallies against strongman Alexander Lukashenko. Protests erupted in the ex-Soviet country last August after Lukashenko claimed a sixth presidential term in a vote the opposition and Western diplomats said was rigged. But they died…
Police in Belarus detained dozens of protesters and at least five journalists on Saturday, a rights group said, as the opposition restarted rallies against strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko’s rule. Protests erupted in the ex-Soviet country last August after Lukashenko claimed a sixth presidential term in a vote the opposition and Western diplomats said was rigged. news Belarus…
Several German lawmakers have once again fallen victim to a cyberattack, local media said Friday, with security experts pointing the finger at Russian hackers. Hackers used phishing emails to gain access to the computers of at least seven federal MPs and 31 lawmakers in regional parliaments, according to Der Spiegel weekly. A spokesman for the…
The Ukrainian military said that four soldiers were killed in shelling it blamed on Moscow-backed separatists in the east of the country on Friday, further undermining a ceasefire brokered last year. “Unfortunately, from the beginning of 2021 we see an increase in escalation,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote in a statement in Telegram late on…
Russia and Myanmar are deepening their defense ties as Moscow’s military supplies continue to pour into the country, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin said Friday at a meeting with the country’s commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing. Fomin’s visit marked the first high-profile visit to Myanmar by a foreign official since the country was rocked by…
Almost $300 million worth of Russian oil products are waiting to enter the Suez Canal, which remains closed following the grounding of the Ever Given tanker. But Moscow is hoping it can turn the freak grounding into long-term gain. Efforts to dislodge the vessel are now in their third day and those tasked with moving…
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny fears losing his leg in a penal colony where he is serving two and a half years, he said in an Instagram post Friday. Navalny’s lawyers warned this week that his life may be in danger because of four weeks of severe back pain and loss of sensation in one…
A. Kharlampiev Memorial Sambo World Cup takes place in Moscow on March 25-26, 2021
RN-Bunker, the operator of Rosneft’s bunkering business, more than doubled its volume of fuelling ships with low-sulphur bunker fuel to 1.3 million tonnes in 2020
Rosneft Oil Company plans to spend about 136 billion roubles on environmental measures at its refineries by 2024
An independent Russian journalist and elections expert has reported receiving threats toward his family and surveillance over his article about a regional elections official seeking re-election to the State Duma this September. Vasily Weissenberg, an expert at the independent Golos election monitor, had published an article about Andrei Gibert, the head of the Yamal-Nenets autonomous district’s…
Rosneft Oil Company continues to implement a programme to equip its filling stations with electric charging infrastructure
Russian conservationists hailed Friday a rare sighting of an Amur leopard mother with three cubs in the Far East as proof of the efficiency of the country’s efforts to boost the population of the endangered species. Scientists in a Russian national park located in the Primorye region on the border with China obtained the stunning…
A fake “TikTok for Business” website has appeared in Russia that hijacks popular accounts with a fraudulent content monetization scheme, the Kommersant business daily reported Friday. This is the first time that the widespread social media entrapment method has involved the popular Chinese short-video app, the newspaper cited the Infosecurity cybersecurity company’s leading analyst Alexander…
Maria Alyokhina is no stranger to being prosecuted for her politics. The veteran Pussy Riot member is best known for her role in the group’s “Punk Prayer,” the provocative February 2012 protest in neon balaclavas at Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral. She and fellow activist Nadya Tolokonnikova would spend two years in a prison colony…
France on Friday accused Russia of using its Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine as a tool to spread Moscow’s influence and message rather than as way to fight the global health crisis. “In terms of how it is managed, it (the Sputnik V vaccine) is more a means of propaganda and aggressive diplomacy than a means of solidarity…
Russia’s second coronavirus vaccine triggers antibodies in all recipients, according to early-trial study results involving 100 volunteers published Thursday. EpiVacCorona, a two-shot peptide vaccine developed by the Siberia-based Vektor Institute, came under scrutiny this week after Phase 3 trial participants claimed that it does not produce an immune response. No peer-reviewed research on the jab has…
Russia in 2020 saw record high average temperatures and a record drop of summer ice cover on its Arctic maritime route, the country’s weather monitoring institute Rosgidromet said Thursday. Russia’s average annual temperature last year was 3.22 degrees Celsius higher than the average for the period of 1961-1990 and more than one degree higher than…
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny is in great pain, his lawyer said Thursday after visiting him in prison, adding that allies feared for his life. “He is suffering from strong back pain and pain in his right leg,” lawyer Olga Mikhailova said in remarks on Dozhd television, adding that his condition was “extremely unfavorable”. “Everyone…
The East Siberian Oil and Gas Company (Vostsibneftegaz), a subsidiary of Rosneft, organised a round table in Krasnoyarsk on interaction with the indigenous peoples of the Russian North
On the way to work at Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta last Monday morning, journalists noticed a strong chemical stench on the street outside their central Moscow office. By the time they sat down at their desks they had spread a clear, noxious substance throughout the building on the soles of their shoes. Only months after…
The Supreme Court of Russia’s republic of Dagestan has overturned an earlier decision that ruled a mother was unfit for custody of her three children due to her “immoral” tattoos and piercings, she said Thursday. Nina Tseretilova, 33, had lived with her daughter and two sons in the predominantly Muslim, socially conservative region of southern…
Russia said Thursday that jailed opposition figure Alexei Navalny was in “satisfactory” condition, but failed to reassure his allies who demanded clarity about his health and whereabouts. Navalny, 44, was detained in January after landing in Russia from Germany where he was recovering for several months from a poisoning attack with a Soviet-designed nerve agent…
Opposition activists in Belarus were preparing for fresh protests on Thursday to breathe life into a movement against President Alexander Lukashenko that fizzled out in the face of a severe crackdown. The authorities were moving military vehicles into the center of the capital Minsk in preparation, according to videos circulating on social media and published by local…
Russia has introduced its third registered coronavirus vaccine for general use, Interfax reported Thursday, citing its developers and the Education and Science Ministry. CoviVak, developed by the state-run Chumakov Research Center, is a two-dose, whole-virion vaccine that uses complete, but inactive, particles of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19. Mass production of CoviVak began Thursday…
Investors embroiled in one of the most controversial Russian corporate sagas of the last decade have agreed to sell the bank at the center of their dispute Investment fund Baring Vostok — run by detained U.S. investor Michael Calvey — and Artem Avetisyan’s Finvision have sold their stakes in Russia’s Vostochny Bank to rival Sovcombank…
Germany has asked the European Commission to purchase doses of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine for the EU, Politico Europe reported Wednesday. The Commission plans to determine which countries are interested in purchasing the Russian shot as EU countries remain divided on the issue, an unnamed German official told Politico Europe. Requests from at least…
A Soyuz rocket blasted off from the Vostochny cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East on Thursday carrying 36 UK telecommunications and internet satellites, the Roscosmos space agency said. OneWeb, a London-headquartered company, is working to complete the construction of a constellation of low earth orbit satellites providing enhanced broadband and other services to countries around the world.…
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday Vladimir Putin is responsible for “terrible things,” but wouldn’t go so far as U.S. President Joe Biden in calling the Russian leader a “killer.” Trudeau, unaccustomed to criticizing other world leaders in public, was questioned during an interview on SiriusXM radio’s The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge about Biden’s…
Canada on Wednesday slapped new sanctions against nine Russian officials on Wednesday in response to “gross” rights violations and silencing of Kremlin critics including Alexey Navalny, who was poisoned and jailed. The measure follows similar actions taken earlier this month by the European Union and the United States. “The Russian government has repeatedly shown its…
Alexei Navalny’s health is “deteriorating” in prison and his lawyers weren’t allowed access to him for their latest scheduled meeting, the jailed Kremlin critic’s aides said Wednesday, warning that his life may be in danger. Navalny, who was moved to a prison colony east of Moscow this month, started complaining of severe back pain and numbness…
Russian socialite and television presenter Ksenia Sobchak is facing widespread criticism for interviewing a convicted serial rapist after he was released from prison earlier this month. Viktor Mokhov, 70, spent 17 years in a corrective labor colony after being convicted in 2005 of abducting and repeatedly raping two teenage girls. He held his victims captive in a…
Russian lawmakers on Wednesday approved legislation allowing President Vladimir Putin to hold office for two additional terms, paving the way for him to stay in power until 2036. Putin, already in power for more than 20 years, proposed the change as part of constitutional reforms that Russians overwhelmingly backed in a vote last year. They…
Enterprises of Rosneft Oil Company’s Samara group–Samaraneftegaz, the Novokuibyshevsk, Syzran and Kuibyshev refineries, Novokuibyshevsk Petrochemical Company and Oil and Additives Plant–allocated over 4.5 billion roubles for environmental protection activities in 2020
Chechen authorities have detained dozens of relatives of two gay men who were forcibly returned to the southern Russian region to face terrorism charges, a rights group told the independent Dozhd broadcaster Wednesday. The Moscow-based LGBT Network rights group said Salekh Magamadov, 20, and Ismail Isayev, 18, fled Chechnya last year but were arrested and returned…
Telegram has sold more than $1 billion in bonds to international investors, founder Pavel Durov announced Tuesday — with Russia’s state-run Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) now among the firm’s backers. Durov, who founded Russia’s leading social network VKontakte before launching messaging app Telegram, said the investment will “enable Telegram to continue growing globally, while sticking…
Clinical trial volunteers for Russia’s second coronavirus vaccine have demanded the country’s Health Ministry launch an investigation to explore claims the jab does not produce an immune response. The group — which is currently taking part in Phase 3 studies for Russia’s EpiVacCorona shot, a peptide vaccine developed by the Vektor Institute in Novosibirsk —…
Russia will probe an artistic exhibition of preserved human corpses after the display sparked an uproar among conservative religious groups and public figures. German anatomist Gunter von Hagens’ traveling “Body Worlds” exhibition opened at Moscow’s VDNKh exhibition center on March 12. Its display of donated human bodies and organs aims to educate visitors “by looking inside…
Russians are on average more optimistic than Americans toward the prospect of warmer relations between the countries, though both remain largely pessimistic, a new poll by the independent Levada Center has said Wednesday. If only 10% of American respondents said they believe U.S.-Russian ties would improve in the next decade, 19% of Russian respondents held…
Armenia lifted martial law on Wednesday, five months after the end of its brutal war with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. The decision to lift the order came as part of a deal between Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and the opposition to defuse a political crisis sparked by Armenia’s crushing defeat in the six-week conflict.…
Russian health officials said Tuesday that re-vaccination with any of Russia’s domestically produced coronavirus vaccines after receiving the country’s Sputnik V shot is possible, clarifying earlier remarks suggesting that antibodies could destroy future vaccine components. Natalia Pshenichnaya, senior epidemiologist at national consumer protection watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, said earlier in the day that the Sputnik V shot’s long-term…
Russian President Vladimir Putin got his first dose of the coronavirus vaccine Tuesday, his spokesman told state media, receiving one of the country’s three domestically developed jabs. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin is feeling well and will have a full working day Wednesday. Putin’s delay in getting vaccinated while boasting of Russia’s Sputnik V…
Russian investigators have recognized three sisters accused of murdering their abusive father as victims in the criminal case against their father, lawyers said Tuesday, a move that activists called a “breakthrough” in their case. Krestina, Angelina and Maria Khachaturyan admitted to killing their father in July 2018 after he subjected them to years of physical,…
Russia is creating a digital platform to collect satellite and drone data on its vast forests in the Far East with the aim of offering them on the carbon offset market, Bloomberg reported Tuesday. The Lesvostok.rf system, when it launches later in 2021, will allow the government to lease sections of forest to enterprises, which…
French police have issued an arrest warrant for a driver at the Russian consulate in Strasbourg suspected of selling dozens of stolen bikes while on the job, sources close to the inquiry said Monday. The suspect, a Russian citizen in his 40s, does not have diplomatic immunity and was brought in for questioning on Feb.…
Alexei Navalny’s allies announced new protests in support of the jailed Kremlin critic Tuesday, holding off on setting a date until their online campaign reaches half a million potential participants. The team launched a website to gather signatures of supporters willing to take to the streets again after some of the largest rallies in Russia’s recent history…
France could start using Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in its national vaccination drive as early as June, France’s Secretary of State for European Affairs Clément Beaune told the France Info radio broadcaster Tuesday. “The EU may use the Russian vaccine after it is certified [by the European Medicines Agency (EMA)] and France, in turn,…
Three Russian soldiers have died in a supersonic bomber accident at a military airfield near Moscow, state media reported Tuesday. Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed the deaths of three soldiers as a result of the Tupolev Tu-22M3 incident at the Shaykovka air base in the Kaluga region, the TASS news agency said. “An ejection seat went…
Norway said Tuesday it would block Rolls-Royce’s sale of a Norwegian engine maker to Russia over concerns that Moscow could get its hands on sensitive technology. The Scandinavian country, a NATO member, two weeks ago asked Rolls-Royce to temporarily halt the sale of Bergen Engines while it examined the consequences a sale would have on…
The vast Russian region of Siberia will face hot and dry weather this year leading to more forest fires, forecasters said on Tuesday, linking the blazes to climate change. Devastating forest fires have ripped across Siberia with increasing regularity over the past few years, which the country’s weather officials and environmentalists have linked to climate…
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accused European Union leaders of “destroying” relations with Moscow, the state-run TASS news agency reported Tuesday. “There are no relations with the European Union as an organization. The entire infrastructure of these relations has been destroyed by the unilateral decisions of Brussels,” Lavrov was quoted as saying during a…
Russian billionaire and Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich has launched a defamation lawsuit against author Catherine Belton over claims that he had bought the club at President Vladimir Putin’s orders. According to Belton’s critically acclaimed 2020 book “Putin’s People,” Abramovich allegedly bought Chelsea in 2003 at Putin’s direction as part of an effort to…
“At this moment, I imagine that I’m filming a Russian remake of Star Wars, where instead of imperial stormtroopers there are prisoners in pea jackets and hats with earflaps,” Navalny said. “Defending the interests of the Emperor, space prisoners travel from planet to planet, suppressing the rebels. But wherever they are, at exactly 6:05 am…
President Vladimir Putin on Monday dismissed foreign criticism of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine and said he would get vaccinated himself on Tuesday. Speaking at a televised meeting with health officials, the 68-year-old Russian leader described recent remarks in Europe questioning the need for the Russian vaccine as “strange.” “We are not imposing anything on anyone……
On a frosty March morning, a group of anti-Putin opposition activists gathered in a Soviet-era hotel on Moscow’s outskirts to plan their strategy for September elections to the country’s national parliament. Ten minutes later, the police arrived. Herded into police vans and shipped off to jail, around 200 attendees were charged en masse with participating…
The Leningrad region of Russia which surrounds its second-largest city St. Petersburg is facing shortages of the country’s homemade Sputnik V vaccine, local media reported Monday. While Moscow has boasted of its global deliveries of Sputnik V, which has been approved in over 50 countries, concerns over Russia’s capacity to produce enough doses for its…
Annually on March 22, the World Day of Water is celebrated – the most valuable natural resource, without which life on Earth would be impossible