Russian forces are believed to have paused their grueling offensive in eastern Ukraine to rest soldiers and re-position for their next assaults while simultaneously stepping up rocket attacks on Ukrainian cities, military analysts told The Moscow Times. In the latest strike on a Ukrainian city, at least 23 civilians, including three children, were killed Thursday…
A court in Far East Russia has acquitted feminist and LGBT activist Yulia Tsvetkova of “pornography” charges for what supporters call body-positive images posted on social media, her mother said Friday. Tsvetkova, 29, spent several months under house arrest after authorities in the remote city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur launched a criminal case into the “spread of…
U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner’s Russian team praised her contribution to the country’s sport on Thursday as they shared testimony during her high-profile trial. Griner, a two-time Olympic basketball gold medalist and WNBA champion who had played in Russia, was detained in February, just days before Moscow launched its offensive in Ukraine. The 31-year-old was charged with…
Russia’s development of 5G cellular network coverage is on hold due to the exit of major global telecom providers and constraints posed by government regulations, the Business St. Petersburg news outlet reported Wednesday, citing industry experts. Russia’s digital developments ministry earlier this month said it aims to facilitate the 5G network’s expansion in Russia, including…
Natalia Tikhonova was at an anti-war rally in Moscow’s Zaryadye Park, a few hundred meters from the Kremlin, when police detained her. “Where are you taking me?” the 30-year-old mother with a young son asked as she was put inside a police van. “To improve the gene pool of the nation,” a police officer replied.…
Germany will halt imports of Russian coal from next month and Russian oil by the end of the year, a top economic aide to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced amid pressure on European countries to end their dependence on Russian energy following its invasion of Ukraine. “We will be off Russian coal in a few weeks,”…
Russian missiles struck Vinnytsia in central Ukraine Thursday, killing at least 20 people including three children, in what President Volodymyr Zelensky called “an open act of terrorism.” The midday attack on the city hundreds of kilometers from the frontlines and invading Russian troops came as EU officials convened in The Hague to discuss war crimes…
President Vladimir Putin signed into law Thursday legislation expanding the “foreign agent” label to encompass anyone deemed to have fallen under “foreign influence.” Russia’s registry of “foreign agents,” a name with Soviet-era connotations, lists “politically active” people and organizations that Russian authorities determine to have received foreign funding and subjects them to strict auditing requirements.…
Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine have captured a U.S. citizen for allegedly taking part in pro-Ukrainian rallies, accusations that his friends and family deny, The Guardian reported Wednesday. Suedi Murekezi, 35, is the third American national known to be held by pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine’s separatist-controlled city of Donetsk. He had moved to Ukraine…
Kazakhstan must work to accommodate the hundreds of international businesses that have left Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, the ex-Soviet republic’s president said Thursday. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has walked a diplomatic tightrope since the start of the war in February, maintaining close ties with Moscow while refusing to recognize the independence of Kremlin-backed separatists in eastern…
News Analysis Rewriting History, Putin Pitches Russia as Defender of an Expanding Motherland In an emotional and angry speech, the president justified his decision to recognize breakaway states in Eastern Ukraine as independent.
Russia’s lower house of parliament will gather for an “extraordinary” meeting Friday amid speculation that deputies could sign off on a major policy announcement or government reshuffle. The meeting comes as Russia faces mounting domestic and foreign policy problems, from the dragging war in Ukraine to the economic fallout of sanctions. But the suddenness of…
The European Union on Wednesday said Lithuania had an obligation to allow the passage of sanctioned goods, with the exception of weapons, between Russia and its exclave of Kaliningrad. While transit by road was not allowed, legal guidance released by the EU executive said that “no such prohibition exists for rail transport” from Russia to…
A court in Moscow arrested opposition activist and former municipal deputy Ilya Yashin on Wednesday after he was charged with spreading false information about the Russian Armed Forces. Yashin, 39, will stay in prison until at least Sept. 12. “This case is politically motivated from first to last,” Yashin, who denies the charges, said in…
Russia and Ukraine on Wednesday held their first direct negotiations since March in a bid to break an impasse over grain exports that has seen food prices soar and millions face hunger. The high-stakes meeting involving UN and Turkish officials in Istanbul broke up after slightly more than three hours without any immediate signs of…
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia Wednesday of forcibly deporting up to 1.6 million Ukrainians to Russia, accusing Moscow of a deliberate criminal operation to depopulate parts of Ukraine. In a statement a day before the Ukraine Accountability Conference in the Hague on alleged war crimes in Ukraine, Blinken said Moscow is conducting…
The number of financial fraud schemes in Russia tripled in the first half of 2022 compared to the same period last year, the Russian Central Bank said Wednesday. Many of the illegal projects included pyramid schemes, according to the regulator. “Worried about the possibility of economic difficulties, people have been searching for new methods of…
Belarus on Wednesday sentenced a young journalist who covered protests against President Alexander Lukashenko to an additional eight years in prison for “state treason,” the channel she worked for said. Katerina Bakhvalova — who uses the pen name Katerina Andreyeva — was already serving a two-year sentence for “violating public order” and was due to…
The first Russian female soldier has died in Ukraine four and a half months into Russia’s war against its pro-Western neighbor, local media reported Tuesday. Anastasia Savitskaya was a corporal from the southwestern Russian city of Volgograd, according to the v1.ru news website. It was not clear where in Ukraine, or under what circumstances, she had…
Several towns and villages are in deep water and dozens of locals have been forced to evacuate after heavy rains broke a dam in Siberia’s republic of Sakha earlier this week. Russia’s largest and coldest region located in remote northeastern Siberia, the republic of Sakha is also witnessing the creeping advance of climate change firsthand.…
Samotlorneftegaz, an enterprise of Rosneft Oil Company, is implementing a unique project for the artificial reproduction of high value fish species for northern rivers.
The European Space Agency (ESA) pulled the plug Tuesday on a joint Russian-European rover mission to Mars in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. ESA chief Josef Aschbacher tweeted that the agency’s council of ministers had determined the circumstances surrounding the March suspension of cooperation with Russia over ExoMars “continue to prevail” and that the official partnership…
President Vladimir Putin’s youngest daughter Katerina Tikhonova has been appointed to oversee Russia’s struggling import substitution program at a leading business lobby group, the RBC news website reported Wednesday. Western sanctions and the exit of Western companies following the invasion of Ukraine mean Russia has seen a collapse in imports and is facing shortages of key…
The Russian company that took over McDonald’s restaurants has banned visitors from charging phones and taking photographs inside some of its locations, Russian media reported Tuesday. The brand known as “Vkusno i Tochka” (“Delicious. Full Stop”) has posted written instructions about the restrictions, visitors at one location in central Moscow told the Podyom news website.…
Russian authorities have launched a criminal case against Ilya Yashin, one of the last opposition figures remaining in the country, for allegedly spreading false information about the Russian army, his lawyer said Tuesday. “I got a call from an investigator – they are beginning to search his home,” lawyer Vadim Prokhorov said on Facebook. In…
Several villages in Russia’s Far East republic of Sakha are facing severe flooding following heavy rainfall, local authorities said, prompting a state of emergency in the country’s coldest and largest region. The government of Sakha said the rains had broken structures around a dam and left a remote village in Siberia “almost entirely” flooded. “Due…
For legal adviser Andrei Rinchino, each day begins by sorting through dozens of new messages from Russian soldiers and their families. Each message is different but all are looking for the same thing: Rinchino’s guidance on how to quit the Russian army or avoid being sent to fight in Ukraine. “A couple of weeks ago…
The world’s largest toymaker, Denmark’s Lego, said Tuesday it would stop all its Russian operations, ending the employment of its Moscow staff and a partnership with a company operating 81 stores in Russia. A Lego spokeswoman said the company had decided to “indefinitely cease commercial operations in Russia given the continued extensive disruption in the…
Russia has fined American tech giant Apple for failing to store Russian citizens’ personal data on Russia-based servers, Interfax reported Tuesday. The fine comes amid Russia’s wider crackdown on Western tech companies in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine that has seen Facebook and Instagram banned as “extremist” organizations and Twitter blocked. Moscow’s Tagansky…
We are deeply saddened to write that Francesca Mereu, an author, playwright, tireless advocate of blues music and former Moscow Times reporter who split her time until recently between Moscow and Alabama, died June 24 in Tijuana, Mexico. Since 2011, Francesca published three books in her native Italian—one on Putin, one on Russia’s transition to capitalism…
Coronavirus cases have risen steeply in Russia’s capital Moscow over the past week, the city’s health authorities said. Many of the infections are of the Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5. “Over the course of the past week, there has been a 57% rise in new cases of Covid-19 compared to the previous week,” Moscow social…
The Zvezda shipyard has commissioned the first two houses in the new Parkovy residential area in Bolshoi Kamen.
The Russian owner of British ethical cosmetics retailer Lush is being forced to close its stores in the country due to supply chain disruptions stemming from wartime sanctions, the Kommersant business daily reported Tuesday. Lush was among the hundreds of international brands that suspended operations in Russia in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Lush Russia is…
Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing visited Moscow Tuesday, Russian media reported, as the U.S. vowed to put pressure on his military regime over a 2021 coup. Russia’s Embassy in Myanmar told the Interfax news agency that Hlaing was in Moscow on a “private” visit. “He plans to take part in the opening of a…
Russia has registered its first case of monkeypox, federal health authorities confirmed Tuesday. “The infection was found in a young man who came back from a trip through European countries and went to a medical facility with a characteristic rash,” state consumer protection watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said in a statement. Rospotrebnadzor said the patient, whose symptoms…
Authorities in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson occupied by pro-Russia forces said Tuesday that Ukrainian shelling on a city there had killed seven people. “There are already seven dead and around 60 wounded” following artillery fire on the city of Nova Kakhovka, the head of the Moscow-backed administration, Vladimir Leontiev, said on Telegram. It…
Around 150 soldiers from a Siberian region with one of the highest military death tolls in the Ukraine war have refused deployment, a prominent activist has said. The men returned home to the republic of Buryatia over the weekend after their wives pleaded for their return in a rare video appeal last month, according to…
Iran is planning to supply hundreds of drones with combat weapon capabilities to Russia for use in Ukraine, a top U.S. official said Monday. Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, said the information received by the United States supported views that the Russian military is facing challenges sustaining its weaponry after significant losses…
Pro-Kremlin figures have expressed rare public concern after Western-supplied weapons allowed Ukraine to carry out a series of successful attacks on Russian targets far behind the frontlines. The M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), which the United States started sending to Ukraine last month, appear to have been most effective at damaging Russian military…
Ukraine warned Monday that Russian forces were preparing to intensify their fight for key cities in the Donbas, where the death toll from a weekend attack rose to 26 as rocket strikes killed six in the country’s second city. The attacks in Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine came as Europe braced for deeper cuts in gas…
Moscow-backed authorities of the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson said Monday they had foiled an attack against their local leader. In recent weeks, attacks against pro-Russian representatives have increased in the occupied southern Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. On Monday, the Moscow-backed administration claimed that its leader, Vladimir Saldo, narrowly escaped an attack. An…
Russia will extend its fast-tracked citizenship scheme to all Ukrainian citizens, not just those living in separatist or Russian-occupied areas, according to a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin on Monday. Putin’s decree orders that “all citizens of Ukraine” be given “the right to apply for admission to the citizenship of the Russian Federation in…
The Ritz-Carlton Moscow is changing its name after its parent company, U.S. hospitality group Marriott International, pulled out of the Russian market over the invasion of Ukraine, the five-star hotel announced Monday. The luxury hotel, located steps away from Red Square on Tverskaya Ulitsa, will now be known as The Carlton Moscow, it said in…
A Russian court on Monday overturned a ruling for a 30-day ban on the unloading of oil deliveries from Kazakhstan, a source of tensions between the two countries. Last week, Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev ordered officials to find oil export routes bypassing Russia in a move that risked deepening tensions that have emerged between the…
Residents of the newly Russia-occupied city of Lysychansk in eastern Ukraine have resorted to holding church services in basements after Russia’s campaign to capture the city left its churches badly damaged. While Russia has maintained that its forces are not targeting civilian areas in Ukraine, there has been widespread evidence that apartment buildings, schools, theatres…
Taas-Yuryakh Neftegazodobycha LLC, an enterprise of Rosneft Oil Company, released about 705,000 whitefish fry (peled) into a flow of the Akhtaranda River, continuing work to replenish the bioresources of the Vilyuy reservoir in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).
Prisoners with combat experience across Russia are being recruited en masse to fight in Ukraine, the Gulagu.net prisoner’s rights group has reported. Representatives from the Kremlin-linked Wagner private military contractor and Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) are reportedly offering convicts deployment or work on restoring and demining occupied Ukrainian territories. According to Gulagu.net, the recruitment…
Russia’s Nord Stream gas pipeline suspended deliveries to Germany for maintenance Monday amid European worries of an extended shutdown over its response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. “From 11 July to 21 July 2022, Nord Stream AG will temporarily shut down both lines of its gas pipeline system for annual routine maintenance works,” a notice…
For many Russian IT specialists, the fallout from the invasion of Ukraine heralded disaster. For others, it has been an opportunity. Amid Western sanctions and a flood of Western companies exiting the Russian market, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin made an emotional appeal to the country’s IT community in April, urging them “not to fear anything,”…
Newly crowned Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina broke down in tears on Saturday after she was again confronted by questions over her Russian roots. Rybakina, born in Moscow but representing Kazakhstan after switching allegiances in 2018, defeated Ons Jabeur in the women’s final. Her triumph came at a tournament where her Russian compatriots were banned following…
Russian-born Elena Rybakina powered back from a set down against Ons Jabeur to win the Wimbledon title on Saturday, denying the Tunisian world number two the chance to make African tennis history. Jabeur was in charge at the start of the match but the 17th seed, representing Kazakhstan, regrouped and dropped just four more games…
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday that Washington saw “no signs” of Russia engaging with G20 diplomats over its invasion of Ukraine after Moscow faced a barrage of criticism at talks in Indonesia. Russia’s top diplomat Sergei Lavrov stormed out of a meeting with G20 foreign ministers on the resort island of Bali…
Russian troops pursued their “relentless” shelling of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region on Saturday, as the United States promised new military aid to Kyiv including powerful rocket launchers. Having endured long battles to capture cities in the neighboring Luhansk region, Russia is now seeking to push deeper into Donetsk to consolidate its hold over the entire…
Former McDonald’s restaurants in Russia are facing a shortage of French fries due to a poor harvest and Western sanctions over Ukraine, a business newspaper reported on Friday. The US fast-food giant announced in May that it would exit Russia in the wake of Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine. A Russian businessman bought the 850-restaurant operation,…
British officials are making little effort to free two of its citizens sentenced to death by eastern Ukrainian separatists for fighting alongside Kyiv’s forces, Russia’s ambassador to Britain told Reuters on Friday. A court in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) last month sentenced British citizens Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, as well as Moroccan…
A few days after the announcement that St. Petersburg would officially be twinned with occupied Mariupol, St. Petersburg governor Alexander Beglov visited the devastated Ukrainian port city seized by Russia after three months of bloody fighting. Beglov went to see a school, where he handed out tablet computers to children, and dropped in to see…
A Russian court
Russia’s top diplomat stormed out of talks with G20 foreign ministers meeting in Indonesia on Friday as Western powers criticized Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine. Washington and allies condemned Russia’s assault ahead of the meeting before Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov faced what U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called a barrage of Western criticism…
Russian officials joined leaders from around the world in expressing shock over the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday. Abe died at age 67 after being shot at a campaign event in the south-central city of Nara outside Osaka. A suspect identified by local media as a former member of Japan’s…
The mothers of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine last week have accused pro-Kremlin war correspondents of causing their deaths by revealing their positions, a BBC Russian service journalist said Thursday. The mothers said Ukrainian artillery shelling killed at least five soldiers and heavily wounded three others after the Izvestia daily published a field report on Russian…