Five million people have left Russia during the 20 years of President Vladimir Putin’s rule, according to a study published by the Moscow-based Takie Dela portal. The study used official data from Rosstat, the state statistics service, of Russian citizens who canceled their registrations in Russia. But the study notes that there are no reliable…
A teacher in a prestigious St. Petersburg school has been forced to resign after the administration and the students’ parents found out about her adult sex education blog, media reported this week. The Rimsky-Korsakov St. Petersburg State Conservatory’s special music school deemed it “inappropriate” for biology teacher Olga Shchegoleva to run the blog outside work…
Russia on Tuesday warned that ties with the United States faced the threat of “new aggravations” as talks on embassy staffing numbers ended with no breakthrough. U.S. officials led by State Department number three Victoria Nuland met in Moscow with Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. Consular services at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow have…
Rapid warming in Russia could unleash viruses previously unknown to humanity, a Nobel laureate climatologist has warned at an international climate forum in Siberia. Russia is warming three times faster than the rest of the world, according to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientists, with its Arctic and Siberian regions warming four times faster…
Russia’s volunteer cyber morality squad will inspect the hugely popular South Korean television series “Squid Game” over reports of young Russians imitating its violent versions of children’s games. The dystopian global smash hit — where South Korea’s most marginalized compete in traditional children’s games for the chance to win 45.6 billion won ($38 million) and…
Russia has launched its first lawsuits against individual journalists and human rights activists for what it deems as noncompliance with the country’s controversial “foreign agent” law. An administrative case was opened against veteran human rights activist Lev Ponomaryov, 80, for failing to include a mandated disclaimer announcing his status as a “foreign agent” on a…
The head of a prestigious private Russian university has been detained in connection with a fraud investigation targeting a former senior education official, Russia’s Interior Ministry said Tuesday. Sergei Zuyev, rector of the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, also known as Shaninka, was taken into custody for questioning Tuesday morning as a suspect…
Russia registered its highest number of daily coronavirus deaths since the start of the pandemic Tuesday as a growing list of Russian regions imposed vaccine mandates in an attempt to slow the course of the virus. The government’s coronavirus information center reported 973 fatalities over the past 24 hours. Russia has now posted record numbers…
Russia’s FSB security service said new smart glasses launched by Facebook and Ray-Ban are a possible “spy gadget” — a designation which could prohibit them from being sold in Russia. The social networking giant and the iconic eyewear brand launched “Ray-Ban Stories” in September, offering a wireless connection to Facebook as well as voice-command photo…
Russia, France and Germany said Monday that their foreign ministers could soon meet to discuss the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine. Moscow said President Vladimir Putin, his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel instructed the ministers to work toward a meeting during a joint telephone call Monday. According to the Kremlin, it…
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has congratulated Dmitry Muratov on his Nobel Peace Prize win Monday, days after the Novaya Gazeta editor-in-chief’s win highlighted deep divisions in Russia’s opposition. Navalny’s supporters criticized the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision to award Muratov with the Nobel Peace Prize instead of Navalny, who was viewed as a frontrunner for…
Rosneft Oil Company’s enterprises have collected and sent more than 200 tonnes of paper and cardboard for recycling in 9 months of 2021
The Kremlin on Monday described Russia’s Covid fatality toll as “high” and the country’s vaccination rate as “unacceptably” low, even as it rejected new restrictions so as to protect the economy. Officials on Monday registered 957 new deaths from Covid-19 over 24 hours, bringing the country’s total fatalities to 217,372 – the highest toll in…
Russia’s natural population underwent its largest peacetime decline in recorded history over the last 12 months, an analysis of official government statistics has shown. Russia’s natural population — a figure which counts registered deaths and births, excluding the effects of migration — declined by 997,000 between October 2020 and September 2021, demographer Alexei Raksha calculated.…
Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said Monday that his prison has lifted his designation as a “flight risk” and placed him on its “terrorist watch list.” Navalny, 45, is serving a two-and-a-half year sentence on old fraud charges he dismisses as politically motivated after voluntarily returning to Russia this winter. He was swiftly jailed upon returning…
Russia cannot negotiate with the “vassal” leadership of Ukraine, former President Dmitry Medvedev said in an expletive-laden article published Monday — pushing back against Ukraine’s attempts to secure a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has offered to meet Putin to discuss the return of annexed Crimea and resolve the seven-year…
Authorities in central Russia said Sunday they are offering food in exchange for alcohol, after 34 people died from drinking bootleg liquor containing highly toxic methanol. The deaths are the latest in Russia from the consumption of a cheap alcohol substitute, a persistent problem in a country where 21 million people live below the poverty line. In the region…
Sixteen people were killed after an aircraft carrying parachutists crashed in central Russia on Sunday, the emergencies ministry said. The L-410 plane carrying 22 people crashed around 9:23 a.m. local time (0623 GMT) during a flight over the republic of Tatarstan, the ministry said on its Telegram channel. “Six people were rescued, 16 were taken out without…
Sixteen people were killed when a plane carrying parachutists crashed in central Russia on Sunday, the emergencies ministry said. The L-410 plane carrying 22 people crashed around 9:23 a.m. local time near the town of Menzelinsk in the republic of Tatarstan, the ministry said on its Telegram channel. “Six people were rescued, 16 were taken out without…
Russia on Friday called on the U.S. embassy in Moscow to waive the diplomatic immunity of three of its staff, saying they were suspected of stealing. The announcement comes amid simmering tensions between Moscow and the West and days after NATO stripped eight members of the Russian mission to the alliance of their accreditation. Russia’s…
Russia recorded 65,000 excess deaths in August, data published Friday by the Rosstat national statistics service showed, as another brutal wave of the coronavirus pandemic continues to show no sign of abating. The figures revealed that August 2021 was one of the most deadly months since the beginning of the pandemic in Russia, with the…
Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov credited the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, where he has served as editor-in-chief for over two decades, for the prestigious award on Friday. “I can’t take credit for this. This is Novaya Gazeta’s,” Muratov said after the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded him and prominent journalist from the Philippines, Maria…
Russia added the investigative outlet Bellingcat and nine journalists from various news outlets to its “foreign agents” registry Friday. The additions come hours after the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper’s editor Dmitry Muratov received the Nobel Peace Prize for “defending freedom of speech in Russia under increasingly challenging conditions.” Bellingcat, as well as the independent Caucasian…
A new Russian drag competition has sparked controversy among the country’s LGBT community, with activists saying the YouTube show ignores issues LGBT people face in Russia. Nastya Ivleeva, a popular blogger with millions of followers on Instagram and YouTube, last week launched “Royal Cobras,” a drag competition that resembles the hit U.S. series “RuPaul’s Drag…
Russia broke another one-day coronavirus death toll record Friday, as more regions reimpose restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the virus and the Kremlin stops short of reintroducing nationwide measures. A government tally recorded 936 Covid deaths over the past 24 hours, bringing the number of total deaths based on daily figures to 213,549.…
The editor of one of Russia’s leading independent newspapers, Novaya Gazeta, has won the Nobel Peace Prize. The awards committee, based in Oslo, Norway, handed the prestigious prize to Dmitry Muratov, 59, editor-in-chief of the liberal paper, which focuses on reporting related to human rights, freedom of speech and other politically sensitive topics. “Muratov has…
The European Union has accused Russia of delaying the mutual recognition of coronavirus vaccine certificates to ease travel between countries. EU Ambassador to Russia Markus Ederer said the 27-member bloc had sent the Russian Health Ministry “all the information and requests needed to decide on recognizing the equivalence” of EU and Russian certificates. “Russia has…
At least 17 people died from counterfeit alcohol poisoning in central Russia, authorities said Friday, a problem that has plagued the country for years despite the Kremlin’s campaign against so-called surrogate alcohol. The victims included residents of neighboring towns in central Russia’s Orenburg region aged 36 to 79, according to the Investigative Committee, which probes…
The World Health Organization said on Thursday it was about to restart the process of approving Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine following a series of problems with the dossier. WHO authorisation has been sought for the Sputnik V jab created by Russia’s Gamaleya research institute, which is already being used in 45 countries, according to an AFP…
Rosneft Oil Company’s ecologists have released more than 2 million fry of red-listed sturgeon into the water bodies in the area of the Vostok Oil project
Russian President Vladimir Putin celebrates his 69th birthday on Thursday. While he typically spends his birthdays at work, ending the day with family and friends at home, he occasionally marks the big day with special celebrations like a hockey game with NHL stars or drinking vodka with Chinese and Japanese heads of state. Here’s a…
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday the alliance had to act against rising Russian “malign activities” after expelling members of Moscow’s delegation for alleged spying. “The decision to withdraw the accreditation of eight members of the Russian delegation to NATO was done based on intelligence because these are undeclared Russian intelligence officers,” Stoltenberg said. …
Russia has invited the Taliban to attend negotiations on Afghanistan in Moscow later this month, the Kremlin’s envoy to Afghanistan said Thursday. The hardline Islamist group seized control of the Afghan government in August following a lightning-fast offensive that coincided with the United States’ withdrawal of troops that ended its 20-year war. Russia’s presidential envoy to Afghanistan,…
SARANSK, Mordovia — Saransk Football Club’s last three home games attracted fewer than 250 fans, a quarter of the crowd allowed under Russia’s coronavirus restrictions. While lackluster attendance is no surprise for a team formed only months ago and playing in the third rung of Russia’s football pyramid, the idle turnstiles and empty stands seem…
Russians were set Thursday to commemorate the killing of top journalist Anna Politkovskaya 15 years ago on President Vladimir Putin’s birthday, while her newspaper warned time had run out to name the mastermind of the murder. Politkovskaya, a fierce critic of Putin and the Kremlin’s brutal wars in Chechnya, was gunned down on October 7,…
Russia’s inflation rate shot up to a new five-year high in September, heaping more pressure on the country’s economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. Annual price rises came in at 7.4%, the Rosstat statistics agency said Wednesday — ahead of market expectations and a significant jump from the 6.7% inflation rate recorded in August. That…
Russia’s inflation rate shot up to a new five-year high in September, heaping more pressure on the country’s economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. Annual price rises came in at 7.4%, the Rosstat statistics agency said Wednesday — ahead of market expectations and a significant jump from the 6.7% inflation rate recorded in August. That…
A German prize for democracy and freedom of expression was on Wednesday awarded to imprisoned Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny and his FBK anti-corruption foundation. “Of course, we’ll keep going,” Navalny’s close ally Leonid Volkov, who lives in exile, said as he accepted the M100 Media Award in Potsdam, just outside Berlin. Despite repression by…
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has taken disciplinary action against his subordinates in St. Petersburg for sending honor guards to the country’s first royal wedding in over a century, news agencies reported Wednesday. The Russian military’s honor guard was filmed last Friday forming a saber arch during Grand Duke George Mikhailovich Romanov and his Italian…
NATO said on Wednesday it had stripped eight members of the Russian mission to the Alliance of their accreditation, calling them “undeclared Russian intelligence officers,” meaning spies. A NATO official giving the information said that “we can also confirm that we have reduced the number of positions which the Russian Federation can accredit to NATO…
Three female politicians who failed to gain seats in Russian parliamentary elections critics say were marred by fraud are launching a project that aims to prepare the next generation of women lawmakers. Former independent State Duma candidates Marina Litvinovich and Alyona Popova and former State Duma deputy Oksana Pushkina said they want to use their…
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Europe was to blame for the current energy crisis after soaring gas prices spurred accusations that Moscow is withholding supplies to pressure the West. “They’ve made mistakes,” Putin said in a televised meeting with Russian energy officials. He said that one of the factors influencing the prices was…
Russia broke its daily coronavirus deaths record Wednesday, passing 900 fatalities as officials warn that new case numbers have tripled since last fall and are on course to pass the 30,000 mark. The government tally said 929 people died from Covid-19 across Russia in the past 24 hours, bringing the official death toll based on…
The Belarus edition of a popular pro-government Russian newspaper said Tuesday it was shutting down after Belarusian authorities blocked its website and detained one of its journalists last week. Komsomolskaya Pravda Belarus said it reached the decision “having analyzed the events of the past year and especially the past week.” Days earlier, Belarus blocked the…
Leading senators have on the United States to consider expelling up to 300 Russian diplomats unless Moscow issues more visas for the U.S. embassy. The United States protested when Moscow on August 1 barred embassies from hiring Russian or third-country staff, forcing Washington to lay off nearly 200 locals at missions across Russia. In a…
A group of 45 Western countries demanded at the global toxic arms watchdog on Tuesday that Russia provide urgent answers about the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. Moscow now has 10 days to respond to the questions posed by the EU and countries including the United States, Canada and Australia, under the rules of…
Russia on Tuesday stepped up the pressure on Facebook, threatening to hit the company with its largest fine yet for repeatedly ignoring requests to remove banned content. The country’s media regulator Roskomnadzor said that it had drawn up a new protocol to penalize the U.S. social media giant for repeatedly failing “to remove information dangerous…
A prominent NGO that tracks abuses in Russia’s prison system says it has received “thousands” of leaked video clips showing inmates being beaten and tortured by guards in several prisons across the country. “This is an unprecedented leak that will send shockwaves across the country. In total we have over 40 gigabytes of files showing…
A Russian actress and director arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday to begin a 12-day mission to make the first movie in orbit. The Russian crew is set to beat a Hollywood project that was announced last year by “Mission Impossible” star Tom Cruise together with NASA and Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Actress…
Prominent migrant rights defender Valentina Chupik has fled to Armenia following a 30-year entry ban to Russia, she told The Moscow Times on Tuesday. Chupik, an Uzbek activist who had held asylum in Russia since 2009, was detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport last month, with FSB officers telling her that her refugee status was revoked…
Russia broke its daily coronavirus deaths record again on Tuesday as the rising toll and the spike in new cases prompt regional response centers to reimpose restrictions that have been absent since the start of the year. The government tally reported 895 Covid-19 deaths across Russia in the past 24 hours, bringing the official death…
Russian officials highlighted the need to develop the country’s own “sovereign” social media platforms after a massive outage at Facebook’s vast family of apps affected billions of users worldwide late Monday. Facebook and its Instagram and WhatsApp platforms essentially “disappeared” from the internet for several hours after a traffic routing problem left the sites unreachable for…
Russia on Tuesday is set to launch an actress and a film director into space in a bid to best the United States to the first movie in orbit. If successful, the Russian crew will beat a Hollywood project that was announced earlier this year by “Mission Impossible” star Tom Cruise together with NASA and…
Russia said Monday it has developed software that monitors social media to help authorities prevent young people from harming themselves and others, but which critics say could be used to silence dissent. The initiative comes after an 18-year-old student at Perm State University last month shot dead six people in the latest in a growing…
The operator of the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany — criticized by some Western countries as a geopolitical weapon — said on Monday it had begun filling the pipeline with gas. The latest step pushing the Baltic Sea pipeline to completion comes as Europe faces an energy crisis with natural gas…
Leaked financial papers published by an international group of investigative journalists Sunday implicated several close associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin in allegedly hiding mass amounts of wealth in offshore firms. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists said that Russian nationals are “disproportionately represented” in the Pandora Papers, with 14% of the more than 27,000…
Rosneft has started design work and a set of engineering surveys for Vostok Oil’s key energy facilities
Russian film director Klim Shipenko said Monday the first movie in orbit would be an “experiment,” on the eve of his journey into space hoping to beat a rival Hollywood project. The 38-year-old director and one of Russia’s most famous actresses, Yulia Peresild, 37, are due to blast off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan at…
The November-class K-159 submarine sank in late August 2003 while being towed in bad weather from the closed naval base of Gremikha on the eastern shores of the Kola Peninsula toward the Nerpa shipyard north of Murmansk. Researchers have monitored the wreck ever since, fearing leakages of radioactivity from the two old nuclear reactors onboard…
Russia’s top cabinet official on Monday criticized the country’s stalling vaccination rates for failing to slow the spread of Covid-19 as Russians die in numbers not seen since the start of the pandemic. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said health officials have made it easy for people across the country’s 11 time zones to get the Covid…