Austrian ex-foreign minister Karin Kneissl, who once danced with Russian President Vladimir Putin at her wedding, has quit her board position at Russian oil giant Rosneft, the company said Monday. Kneissl has submitted a letter of resignation effective from Friday, Rosneft said in a statement. The 57-year-old made headlines when she invited Putin to her wedding in 2018 and was photographed dancing with him during the event. She…
Some 150 military units from across all branches of Russia’s Armed Forces have been deployed in the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, investigative outlet Proekt reported Monday. The large-scale nature of the invasion undermines Kremlin claims that Russia is merely conducting a “special operation” in Ukraine aimed at “denazifying and demilitarizing” the country. Those deployed include…
The first Russian soldier to be tried for war crimes in Ukraine has been found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, the Mediazona news website reported Monday. Vadim Shishimarin, 21, pleaded guilty to fatally shooting 62-year-old civilian Oleksandr Shelipov in northeastern Ukraine’s Sumy region on Feb. 28. Prosecutors requested a life sentence for the…
With a verdict due Monday in the conflict’s first war crimes trial, Moscow’s offensive in eastern Ukraine is only intensifying, with the city of Severodonetsk under “round-the-clock” bombardment as Russian troops attempt its encirclement. The trial in Kyiv — seen as a public test of the Ukrainian judicial system’s independence — comes as international institutions…
At least two neo-Nazi groups are fighting for Russian forces in Ukraine, throwing into question Moscow’s claims of “denazifying” its neighbor, German weekly Der Spiegel reported Sunday, citing a confidential intelligence report. The document shared with German ministries by the BND intelligence service does not provide the exact number of far-right fighters, but identifies them as…
Moscow will consider exchanging prisoners from Ukraine’s Azov battalion for Viktor Medvedchuk, a wealthy Ukrainian businessman close to President Vladimir Putin, a Russian negotiator said on Saturday. “We are going to study the possibility,” said Leonid Slutsky, a senior member of Russia’s negotiating team on Ukraine, speaking from the separatist city of Donetsk in southeastern…
The carcasses of charred buildings stand amid the lush greenery in what remains of the once bustling Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. After weeks of siege and strikes much of the city on the coast of the Sea of Azov has been reduced to a wasteland. As the last Ukrainian troops in the town surrendered…
As the death toll from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine rises, throwing Kremlin imperialism into sharper focus, activists representing the indigenous non-Slavic peoples of Russia are doubling down on efforts to rally supporters behind demands for greater autonomy. “War is a trigger for greater national consciousness,” Ruslan Gabbasov, the head of the Bashkir National Political Center,…
Russia on Saturday published a list of 963 leading Americans, including U.S. President Joe Biden, Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg and Hollywood actor Morgan Freeman banned from entering the country in retaliation for similar moves by Washington since the offensive in Ukraine. Those named in the list on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website also include U.S.…
Russia has declared victory in its months-long operation to capture the strategic port of Mariupol after Ukraine ordered the last of its troops holed up in the city’s Azovstal steelworks to lay down their arms. Moscow’s flattening of Mariupol has drawn multiple accusations of war crimes, including over a deadly attack on a maternity ward,…
Ukraine on Friday ordered its last troops holed up in Mariupol’s Azovstal steelworks to lay down their arms, while Russia said its months-long operation to capture the strategic port city is now complete. Russia’s flattening of Mariupol has drawn multiple accusations of war crimes, including over a deadly attack on a maternity ward, and Ukraine…
Russia on Friday added two high-profile Kremlin critics to its list of “foreign agents”: former chess champion Garry Kasparov and ex-tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The infamous label, reminiscent of the “enemies of the people” of the Soviet period, is used extensively against opponents, journalists and human rights activists accused of conducting foreign-funded political activities. Such “foreign…
Fears over global food shortages as the Ukraine war grinds on are spurring calls for a safe corridor for ships to exit the Black Sea, but the logistics are daunting and would need Russian cooperation. Dozens of container ships are blocked in Ukrainian ports that are surrounded by Russian forces, choking off exports of wheat,…
Russian soldiers preparing to be sent to fight in Ukraine are required to buy personal equipment at their own expense, according to several servicemen who spoke to The Moscow Times’ Russian Service on condition of anonymity. Some of the items apparently not provided by the army include footwear, body armor, bandages and tourniquets. “If they…
President Vladimir Putin on Friday called for “technological sovereignty,” saying Russia has been hit by numerous cyberattacks since Moscow sent troops to Ukraine. “The number of cyberattacks, including complex ones, has increased many times over” since the start of Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine in February, Putin said during a meeting of Russia’s Security Council. …
Clouds of thick black dust blanketed Siberia’s coal mining region of Kemerovo, local news outlet Sibdepo reported Thursday. Residents of the mining towns of Kiselevsk and Belovo shared footage showing massive clouds of coal dust covering the streets amid strong winds and thunderstorms. Locals said the coal dust was brought from the coal mines surrounding the…
Students in Siberia have opened a 50-year-old time capsule containing a wish for peace and international friendship from their Soviet peers, local media reported Thursday. The Soviet students’ message of hope for a peaceful future was unearthed as Russia faces unprecedented economic and political isolation in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine. To mark…
Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and the CEO of the shelved Nord Stream 2 project Matthias Warnig resigned Friday from the board of directors of Russia’s state-owned oil giant Rosneft amid pressure over the war in Ukraine. “Gerhard Schroeder and Matthias Warnig have informed [us] of the impossibility of extending their service on the company’s…
Russia’s largest lender Sberbank has sold its digital ecosystem to an obscure new company in what experts call an attempt to shield those services from Western sanctions, media reported Thursday. Sber said it sold its video, audio and sports streaming platforms, as well as its cloud technology and biometric system research center, on Tuesday “as…
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Friday Moscow was nearing full control of Ukraine’s eastern separatist region of Luhansk. Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops to Ukraine on Feb. 24 under the guise of protecting the Russian-speaking population there, especially in the breakaway regions of Luhansk and Donetsk. Russia recognized the independence of the…
Incessant bombardment has turned Ukraine’s Donbas region into “hell,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said, as the first post-invasion trial of a Russian soldier for war crimes neared its closely watched climax Friday. Zelensky’s government received a fresh boost as the U.S. Congress approved a $40 billion aid package, including funds to enhance Ukraine’s armored vehicle fleet…
A Siberian entrepreneur who played the Ukrainian national anthem in public has been found guilty of “Nazi propaganda,” a local court said Thursday in the latest example of Russia’s ongoing crackdown on wartime dissent. The Tyumen resident, identified as Vladimir Fofanov by the OVD-Info police-monitoring website, was shown performing the anthem on a piano set up on an…
Videos and eyewitness testimony provided evidence of Russian troops executing eight Ukrainian men in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, implicating them in a possible war crime, The New York Times reported Thursday. “I was shot and I fell down,” the lone survivor of the March 4 execution, 43-year-old builder Ivan Skyba, recounted to the NYT. …
The United Nations on Thursday urged Russia and Ukraine to “build on” contacts and coordination that enabled the evacuation operations from Mariupol in order to resume stalled peace talks. The successful operations to evacuate civilians and later fighters from the sprawling Azovstal steelworks in the devastated Ukrainian port points the way back towards broader negotiations…
The Kremlin said Thursday it was important to ensure basic living conditions in war-torn Ukraine as signs multiplied that Moscow was seeking to permanently occupy or even annex the pro-Western country’s southeast. Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops to Ukraine on February 24 but Moscow has repeatedly stressed it is not seeking to occupy Ukrainian…
The Russian-appointed head of Ukraine’s Kherson region said Thursday that the area will “soon become part” of the Russian Federation. De-facto governor Volodymyr Saldo was installed by Russian forces after they took control of the southern Ukrainian region in early March. “We are looking at the Russian Federation as our own country because it is…
McDonald’s will sell its Russian restaurants to Siberian businessman Alexander Govor, the U.S. fast-food giant announced Thursday. Govor, who co-owns oil firm NefteKhimServis, already operates 25 of the chain’s restaurants in Russia. Once approved by regulators, the deal will see the 62-year-old take over all 850 McDonald’s locations within Russia under a new brand, business…
Ukrainian prosecutors on Thursday requested a life sentence for the first Russian soldier on trial for war crimes since the start of Moscow’s invasion, AFP journalists in the courtroom reported. The prosecution asked the judge to sentence the 21-year-old Russian army sergeant to “life imprisonment” for killing 62-year-old civilian Oleksandr Shelipov in the first days…
Russia is approaching Chinese companies to join in its bid to revive the Soviet-era Moskvitch car, the Vedomosti business daily reported Thursday, citing two unnamed sources. The report comes days after Moscow’s mayor announced plans to bring back the Moskvitch (Muscovite) by nationalizing a Renault majority-owned factory that the French automaker handed over in its…
Russia had taken steps to prepare itself for a food crisis even before President Vladimir Putin sent troops to Ukraine, a Kremlin aide said on Thursday. Russia and Ukraine alone produce 30 percent of the global wheat supply. Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine and a barrage of unprecedented international sanctions on Russia have disrupted supplies…
Timofei Voronov, 21, a cultural studies student at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics (HSE), was summoned to see the prestigious university’s deputy head in March after being detained at an anti-war rally. Along with several other students, Voronov was shown a list of new laws at the March meeting, including those that mandate long jail…
A Russian rock legend has been charged with “discrediting” the Russian military after making an anti-war speech at a show in central Russia. Yury Shevchuk, the frontman of 1980s rock band DDT, is already known for his direct confrontations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, support for anti-Kremlin activist collective Pussy Riot and opposition to Russia’s…
A new investigation has named the former director of the Bavarian State Ballet as the partner of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s second-eldest daughter. Igor Zelensky, 52, is reportedly in a serious, long-term relationship with Katerina Tikhonova, 35, widely believed to be Putin’s daughter, Russian news outlet iStories and German news site Der Spiegel reported Thursday.…
Russia’s defense ministry said Thursday that 1,730 Ukrainian soldiers had surrendered this week at the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Ukraine’s port city of Mariupol. “Over the past 24 hours, 771 militants of the Azov nationalist regiment surrendered,” the ministry said in its daily briefing on the conflict. “In total, since May 16, 1,730 militants…
Russia reported Thursday its second civilian death since the start of the invasion of Ukraine as fighting near Russia’s border with Ukraine intensified. “Another enemy attack that took place at dawn unfortunately ended in tragedy,” Roman Starovoit, the governor of western Russia’s Kursk region, wrote on Telegram. A truck driver making a delivery to a…
A top Russian official claimed Wednesday that Europe’s largest nuclear power station – that was captured by Russian forces in Ukraine – will provide electricity to Russia . Ukraine’s energy providers dismissed the comments on the seized Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant as a technical impossibility. Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, on a visit to the…
Russia is shutting down the Moscow offices of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in retaliation to Ottawa banning Russia’s state-run RT and RT France networks, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova announced Wednesday. The Foreign Ministry is also withdrawing the press accreditations and canceling the visas of CBC’s journalists in Russia, Zakharova told reporters. “A decision…
The first Russian soldier on trial in Ukraine for war crimes during Moscow’s invasion pleaded guilty on Wednesday, facing possible life imprisonment in Kyiv. Asked in court if he was guilty of the allegations, including war crimes and premeditated murder, 21-year-old sergeant Vadim Shishimarin responded “yes.” The captured soldier is accused of killing a 62-year-old…
Google’s Russian branch has initiated a bankruptcy procedure over its inability to pay a $100-million fine for keeping up content Moscow deems illegal, media reported Wednesday as Russia continues to intensify its pressure on Big Tech following its invasion of Ukraine. A Moscow court fined Google 7.2 billion rubles ($113.5 million) in December 2021 for…
Google’s Russian branch has initiated a bankruptcy procedure over its inability to pay a $100-million fine for keeping up content Moscow deems illegal, media reported Wednesday as Russia continues to intensify its pressure on Big Tech following its invasion of Ukraine. Google confirmed the reports the next day. “Google Russia has published a notice of…
Talks aimed at ending hostilities in Russia’s nearly three-month attack on Ukraine have come to a standstill because of a “lack of willingness” on Kyiv’s part, the Kremlin said Wednesday. Russian and Ukrainian negotiators have held several rounds of peace talks since the start of the invasion in February. But the talks have lost momentum…
Moscow said Wednesday it was expelling 34 “employees of French diplomatic missions” in a tit-for-tat move following the expulsion of Russian diplomats from France as part of joint European action over Russia’s campaign in Ukraine. “Thirty-four employees of French diplomatic missions in Russia have been declared persona non grata,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a…
Moscow on Wednesday kicked out diplomats from France, Italy and Spain in retaliation for the expulsion of Russian diplomats from European countries as part of a joint action against Russia’s campaign in Ukraine. Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement it was expelling 34 “employees of French diplomatic missions” in Russia and gave them two…
The de factor leader of Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia has announced that the territory will hold a referendum on joining Russia on July 17. But can the vote actually go ahead and would the outcome change anything? Holding the vote will be complicated by the fact that the South Ossetian leader, Anatoliy Bibilov,…
Belarus has introduced the death penalty for attempts to carry out acts of terrorism, Russian news agencies reported Wednesday, charges that several opposition activists face in the ex-Soviet country. Belarus — a close ally of Russia that has supported its military offensive in Ukraine — is the only country in Europe that continues to carry…
Russia said Wednesday that another 694 Ukrainian soldiers defending Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant have surrendered over the past 24 hours as Kyiv’s effort to retain its last holdout in the devastated southern port comes to a close. They join the 265 soldiers that Russia’s Defense Ministry said had surrendered earlier, bringing the total to 959 in…
A Russian gymnast who sported an insignia linked to his country’s invasion of Ukraine on a medal podium has been banned for one year, a disciplinary panel said. Ivan Kuliak’s singlet had the letter ‘Z’ prominently placed as he stood next to Ukraine’s Kovtun Illia, the gold medalist at a World Cup event in Doha in March. The ‘Z’ has been…
Russia spent more than $300 million per day on defense last month as its invasion of Ukraine continued to drag on, according to Finance Ministry data, more than doubling its pre-war defense spending. Defense spending has increased every month since President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine in late February as Russia’s Armed Forces failed…
A village and a sugar refinery near Russia’s border with Ukraine were shelled late Tuesday, according to officials. Belgorod region Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said the village of Bezymeno 50 kilometers northwest of Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv was damaged in an attack that wounded at least one person. “There is some damage. A door-to-door assessment…
This article was corrected with the date of Russia’s occupation of Kherson and updated with details about Russian confiscations of agricultural goods and equipment in the surrounding region. A top Russian official has promised to revive the occupied southern Ukrainian region of Kherson by rebuilding roads, bridges and buildings destroyed as a result of the…
Precision-guided missiles have been one of the weapons of choice for the Russian Armed Forces since invading Ukraine in late February. These domestically-produced missiles have been responsible for some of Russia’s most deadly attacks in Ukraine, including on the Ukrainian port city of Odesa and on a train station in the eastern Ukrainian city of…
Mortgage loans in Russia fell by their largest margin ever in April despite government measures to avert the economic fallout from war-related Western sanctions, the RBC news website reported Tuesday. Russian banks approved 37,200 mortgage loans totaling 130.5 billion rubles ($2 billion) in April 2022. That marked a 75% drop from March, when banks issued 529.3…
Moscow said on Tuesday that two employees of Finland’s embassy in Russia will have to leave the country in response to a similar move by Helsinki. The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it summoned Finland’s ambassador to Moscow and expressed its “strong protest” against the expulsion of two Russian diplomats from neighboring Finland…
Russia said Tuesday that 265 Ukrainian soldiers holed up in Mariupol’s besieged Azovstal steel plant had “surrendered,” contradicting Kyiv’s account that the evacuated soldiers would be exchanged later. “The surrender of fighters from the Azov nationalist unit and Ukrainian servicemen blocked in the Azovstal plant in Mariupol began yesterday,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a…
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny on Tuesday opened an appeal process for a nine-year prison sentence he was handed in March on charges that he and his allies say are politically motivated. After a brief start to the hearing on Tuesday morning, the court said it would resume the process on May 24 following a…
President Vladimir Putin is involved in Russia’s push to capture eastern Ukraine on a tactical level, British media reported Monday, citing unnamed western military sources. Russian forces are currently attempting to encircle cities under Kyiv’s control in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions after abandoning their initial plan to seize the Ukrainian capital in late February.…
Ukrainian authorities said a rescue mission to extract the last defenders of the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol was under way on Tuesday, after hundreds of soldiers were evacuated in an earlier operation. The factory complex had become a symbol of resistance, with around 600 soldiers holed up in underground tunnels and bunkers fighting a rear-guard…
A Russian village on the Ukrainian border was shelled early Tuesday, according to the the governor of Russia’s Kursk region, a day after his counterpart on Ukrainian side reported an attempted Russian incursion. “Today at around 5 a.m., large-caliber weapons were fired at the border village of Alekseevka in the Glushkov district,” Kursk region Governor…
The southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol has been under near-constant Russian bombardment since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. Securing the strategic port on the Sea of Azov would allow Russia to establish a broad “land bridge” connecting the annexed Crimean peninsula with eastern Ukraine’s separatist-held Donbas region. But the city’s Ukrainian…
A Russian beverage maker has unveiled a new range of soft drinks to replace the iconic brands that have left the Russian market in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine. In lieu of Coca-Cola, Fanta and Sprite, Russians will be able to choose from CoolCola, Fancy and Street, Russian drink producer Ochakovo announced Monday.…