Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday vowed a “strong response” after gunmen opened fire on a car carrying his senior aide, in what officials said was possible retaliation for a push to rein in oligarchs. More than 10 bullets hit a black Audi carrying Zelenskiy’s advisor Sergiy Shefir during an attack near the village of…
A military transport plane with six people on board vanished from radars in Russia’s Far Eastern Khabarovsk region, the Emergency Situations Ministry said Wednesday. The An-26 was performing a “technical flight” when its communication systems stopped sending signals 38 kilometers from the Khabarovsk city airport, the ministry said. A Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsia) helicopter…
Moscow will conduct a recount of disputed electronic votes for seats in Russia’s lower house of parliament that will have no legal force, the head of the Moscow election observation headquarters Alexei Venediktov told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency on Wednesday. “Everyone is asking about the technical group’s recount of the votes, this, of course,…
The United States imposed sanctions Tuesday on cryptocurrency exchange SUEX for its ties to ransomware attackers, as Washington seeks to crack down on digital crime. The move comes after hacks and data breaches that have targeted a major U.S. oil pipeline, a meatpacking company and the Microsoft Exchange email system, as well as ransomware attacks…
Yuri Aydarov was about to start an algorithms class at his university in the central Russian city of Perm when he heard people running in the corridor. Then he saw a gunman. Aydarov, a lecturer at Perm State University, was one of the witnesses of a shooting spree in which an 18-year-old student killed six…
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov took umbrage at U.S. President Joe Biden’s speech mentioning his Kremlin-loyal southern Russian region in his calls to protect LGBT rights. The strongman took to social media after Biden said “we all must defend the rights of LGBTQI individuals … whether it’s Chechnya or Cameroon or anywhere” during his UN General…
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said Tuesday that a fight for a democratic Russia was a long game after the opposition accused authorities of voter fraud during parliamentary polls. In a message from prison, President Vladimir Putin’s top critic praised his supporters’ tactical voting in an effort to weaken the ruling party but said those…
Forest fires this year covered the largest area of Russia since satellite imaging began, a Greenpeace expert has said. In 2021 18.2 million hectares were covered by fire, up from the previous record of 18.1 million hectares in 2012, according to a report from Greenpeace Russia’s forest department head Alexei Yaroshenko. “This year was the…
Half of all the votes cast for the ruling party in Russia’s parliamentary elections were likely fraudulent, according to analysis by independent statisticians. The pro-Kremlin United Russia party won a landslide victory in Russia’s State Duma elections over the weekend, securing 324 of the lower chamber’s 450 seats — a supermajority that allows them to…
Europe’s top rights court on Tuesday ruled that Russia was responsible for the 2006 killing in London of the dissident former agent Alexander Litvinenko, a verdict swiftly rejected by Moscow. Litvinenko died after drinking tea laced with the radioactive isotope Polonium 210 at a London hotel, in a case that has weighed on relations between…
British police on Tuesday said there was enough evidence to charge a third Russian man with the Novichok poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the English city of Salisbury in 2018. Counter-terrorism detectives said prosecutors had reviewed the evidence against a man identified as Sergey Fedotov for him to…
Shocked and grieving Russians gathered outside a university in the city of Perm on Tuesday after a student went on a campus shooting spree, killing six people and wounding dozens. With a heavy police cordon still around Perm State University a day after the killings, they laid red carnations and lit candles at makeshift memorials.…
Russian gas giant Gazprom has turned down an option to maximize gas shipments to Europe as the continent faces a looming energy crisis amid surging natural gas prices. Gazprom did not book any of the additional capacity available in transit pipelines running through Ukraine in auctions for October, the state-run Interfax news agency reported Monday.…
Members of Russia’s Communist Party gathered in the pouring rain in central Moscow on Monday evening after parliamentary election results showed their candidates seeing their initial strong leads reverse. Several Communist Party candidates who appeared set to win their races during the Sept. 17-19 parliamentary and local polls suddenly fell behind candidates from the ruling,…
A man shot dead two police officers and three other people on Monday when the authorities evicted him from his home in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s biggest city, police said. A police statement carried by Russian news agencies said that a man served an eviction notice “opened fire” on court bailiffs, police officers and emergency ministry officials…
The U.S. State Department cast doubt Monday on the integrity of Russia’s parliamentary election, saying a government crackdown on critics had “prevented” citizens from exercising their civil rights. “The September 17-19 Duma elections in the Russian Federation took place under conditions not conducive to free and fair proceedings,” said State Department spokesperson Ned Price, adding…
France’s defense minister met her counterpart in Mali on Monday, amid rising tensions with the war-torn Sahel state over reports that it plans to hire Russian mercenaries, and the potential for delayed elections. Former colonial power France last week warned Bamako against signing a deal with private-security firm Wagner, after claims that Mali’s army-dominated government…
Russia’s opposition called for protests on Monday after accusing the authorities of rigging highly anticipated elections to the country’s parliament. As polls closed on Sunday, early results from the Far East and Siberia had suggested that the pro-Kremlin United Russia party might lose ground in an election that had turned on difficult issues of rising…
A Russian opposition politician lost weekend elections to a Kremlin-aligned opponent after spoiler candidates in the country’s second city St. Petersburg changed their names and even appearances to resemble him. Russia held parliamentary and local elections that were marred by irregularities and allegations of fraud, with early counts showing an easy win for the ruling…
Poland on Monday accused Russia and Belarus of orchestrating a wave of illegal immigration at its land border, a day after four migrants were found dead at its Belarusian frontier. Thousands have been trying to cross from Belarus into EU members Latvia, Lithuania and Poland in recent weeks. The EU suspects the influx of people…
Russia and China have kicked off multinational anti-terrorism military exercises as the countries seek to fill a regional security void left by the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, Russian state media reported Monday. The two powers will hold the Peace Mission 2021 drills in Russia’s Orenburg region near the Kazakh border from Sept. 20-24 under…
Russia’s Communist Party will not recognize electronic voting results which reversed its candidates’ strong leads in the country’s parliamentary elections held over the weekend, a party official said Monday. Several Communist Party candidates who appeared set to win their races suddenly fell behind candidates from the ruling, pro-Kremlin party as soon as election officials started…
At least six people have been killed and dozens injured after a student opened fire at a Russian university campus, authorities said Monday. Video published to social media shows students jumping out of second-floor windows to flee the gunman at Perm State University in the city of Perm some 1,300 kilometers east of Moscow. Russia’s…
Ukraine on Monday launched joint military exercises with the United States and other NATO countries as tensions with Russia remain high over the Kremlin-backed insurgency in the country’s east. The annual Rapid Trident military exercises, taking place in western Ukraine until Oct. 1, involve some 6,000 soldiers from 15 countries, Ukraine’s defense ministry said in…
President Vladimir Putin’s party United Russia claimed a landslide victory in parliamentary and regional elections that have been marred by claims of widespread voter fraud after an unprecedented crackdown on monitors and opposition candidates. According to Interfax, Andrei Turchak, United Russia’s general council secretary, told reporters that the results as of early Monday showed the party…
At least eight people have been killed and several more injured after a student opened fire at a university in western Siberia, Russian media and authorities reported Monday. Video published to social media shows students evacuating by jumping out of second-floor windows at Perm State University in the city of Perm some 1,300 kilometers east…
President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party was on track to win a strong majority in a parliamentary vote, results showed Sunday, after an election that followed an unprecedented crackdown on the opposition. With 19% of votes counted, United Russia was ahead with 42.5% of the vote, followed by the Communist Party with 23.2%. The vote…
Voting is open across Russia’s 11 time zones to elect the 450 members of the country’s lower chamber of parliament, the State Duma. Here’s the latest (Moscow time): Monday Sept. 20 10:00 With 80.1% of votes counted, United Russia was ahead with 49.42% of the vote, followed by the Communist Party with 20.25%. Voting by party…
Google has blocked lists of Russian candidates recommended by jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny as best placed to defeat Kremlin-aligned politicians in parliamentary and local polls closing Sunday. The move comes as the U.S. tech giant faces mounting criticism from the Russian opposition and abroad for backing down to demands from Russian authorities, who are…
Voting is open across Russia’s 11 time zones to elect the 450 members of the country’s lower chamber of parliament, the State Duma. Here’s the latest (Moscow time): Sunday Sept. 19 10:00 According to the Central Election Commission, nationwide turnout for in-person voting is at 31.51% as of the end of Saturday. 08:00 Voting has resumed in Moscow…
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s “Smart Voting” bot has disappeared from the Telegram messenger app following similar moves by Apple and Google on Friday at the start of a three-day parliamentary vote in Russia. The bot, which instructed Navalny supporters which candidate they should back to unseat Kremlin-aligned politicians, was removed after Telegram announced it…
Voting is open across Russia’s 11 time zones to elect the 450 members of the country’s lower chamber of parliament, the State Duma. Here’s the latest (Moscow time): 08:00: Voting has resumed in Moscow on the second day of Russia’s 2021 State Duma Elections. 00.30: Telegram founder Pavel Durov said on Friday evening that the instant messenger…
Russia and China’s leaders on Friday urged the new Taliban government in Afghanistan to remain peaceful to its neighbors and combat terrorism and drug trafficking. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke via video link at a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), an eight-member group that promotes itself as an antidote…
Russia’s three-day voting periods are likely here to stay, the head of the country’s Central Election Commission (CEC) said Friday, a move that critics warn will make it easier to commit voter fraud. Ella Pamfilova’s comments came as Russia kicked off a parliamentary election with both in-person and online voting from Sept. 17-19. This weekend’s…
The Kremlin praised Google and Apple’s move to take down jailed opposition figure Alexei Navalny’s tactical voting strategy apps on Friday, saying the “Smart Voting” recommendations harm voters. The Western tech giants earlier in the day removed Navalny’s apps from their online stores over a Moscow court ruling that declared his electoral network a banned…
Russia’s Foreign Ministry claimed Friday that the Soviet invasion of Poland during World War II was an act of liberation, reanimating a years-old debate over a secret Hitler-Stalin pact to carve up Eastern Europe between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. “On Sept. 17, 1939, the Red Army began a liberation campaign on the territory of…
This weekend, Muscovites hoping to vote for Communist Party (KPRF) candidates in elections to Russia’s State Duma will have to be careful to tick the right box. In the Russian capital, KPRF candidates Vitaly Petrov, Nikolai Volkov and Anastasia Udaltsova will run against Vasily Petrov, Alexei Volkov and Anna Udalova, all from the much smaller…
10.20: Over 10% of Russians that applied for electronic voting have already voted, the Ministry of Digital Science said. 10.13: Apple and Google deleted jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s apps from their online stores after Russian authorities threatened jail time for their employees, Navalny’s aides said Friday. 08.01: Polling stations have opened in Russia’s regions that belong to…
Apple and Google have deleted jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s apps from their online stores after Russian authorities threatened jail time for their employees, Navalny’s aides said Friday. The move comes as voting gets underway in parliamentary elections overshadowed by an unprecedented crackdown on the opposition. The Navalny app contained recommendations for its supporters to…
Rosneft has put a new gas boiler house of 20.8 MW thermal capacity into commercial operation in Krasnoufimsk, Sverdlovsk Region
Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to China for next year’s Winter Olympic Games, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday, while Moscow remains under penalties for state-sponsored doping. “Putin with delight has accepted the invitation of Xi Jinping to visit the Winter Olympic Games in February 2022,” Lavrov said during a meeting with his Chinese…
Ensuring the sustainability of its production activities, Rosneft works continuously to minimise its impact on the environment in order to preserve it for the benefit of current and future generations.
Employees of Russian online retailer Wildberries have launched a work-to-rule strike, denouncing a drop in wages at the company run by the country’s richest woman, Tatyana Bakalchuk. In a petition published on Wednesday, employees announced the start of work-to-rule action in the group’s network across several regions, meaning they will do no more than the…
Alyona Popova fears that if she is not elected to Russia’s lower house of parliament on Sunday, the passing of a law to protect women from domestic violence will be put on the back burner for another five years. Popova, 38, a women’s rights activist turned politician, has been working with lawyers and lawmakers on…
Authorities in eastern Ukraine’s breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) have readied nearly 1,000 buses and trains to neighboring Russia for residents to cast ballots in this weekend’s parliamentary elections, a move slammed by officials in Kiev. An estimated 600,000 Russian passport holders from the DPR and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR), separatist-held regions that have…
President Vladimir Putin on Thursday urged Russians to vote in parliamentary elections later this week in which most vocal Kremlin critics have been barred from running. “I count on your responsible, balanced, patriotic civic position,” Putin said in a video address published overnight on the Kremlin website. Putin’s United Russia party is widely expected to…
An unknown assailant has opened fire and detonated a bomb outside a police station in southern Russia’s Voronezh region, seriously wounding at least one officer, authorities said early Thursday. “An unknown person entered the territory of the district police department in Liski, Voronezh region, today at 05:30 [Moscow time], injured a police officer and disappeared…
Russian mobile network providers have begun blocking Google Docs after jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s team used the platform in its campaign to defeat ruling party incumbents, independent monitors said Wednesday. The outages affected users of Russia’s state-run telecommunications provider Rostelecom, as well as the mobile networks Megafon and MTS, according to GlobalCheck, a service…
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that dozens of people in his entourage tested positive for the coronavirus before he went into self-isolation earlier this week. The Russian leader, who announced in March he had been vaccinated, started self-isolating on Tuesday after being identified as a coronavirus contact. “You know that unfortunately I had to…
Dozens of people in Vladimir Putin’s entourage have tested positive for the coronavirus, the Russian leader said Thursday, as his country struggles with high infection rates and a vaccine-skeptic population. Earlier this week, 68-year-old Putin canceled all in-person events and said he was self-isolating after announcing an outbreak in the Kremlin. “Cases of the coronavirus…
The World Health Organization (WHO) has suspended its approval process for Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, pending a fresh inspection of at least one Russian factory manufacturing the shot. Speaking at a press briefing of the Pan American Health Organization, a regional branch of the WHO, Assistant Director Jarbas Barbosa said Russia’s bid for emergency…
Countries allied with Russia and China were preparing for a series of meetings on Afghanistan Wednesday held in the crisis-hit country’s neighbor, Tajikistan. Moscow and Beijing have moved to assert themselves as key players in the region, after the United States’ hasty retreat from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s takeover of the country. Two regional security…
The Kremlin said Wednesday there were no formal discussions on military cooperation with Mali after France warned the West African country against hiring hundreds of Russian mercenaries linked to Moscow’s foreign conflicts. French sources told AFP this week that the Malian government was nearing a deal with the secretive Russian firm Wagner to hire nearly…
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which has authored several high-profile investigative reports into fraud in Russia and the post-Soviet world, has announced its closure in Russia on Wednesday. Since its founding in 2006, OCCRP has released bombshell reports into alleged multibillion-dollar offshore schemes involving figures close to Russian President Vladimir Putin as part of…
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s team has published its long-anticipated roster of candidates it hopes supporters will rally behind to oust pro-Kremlin incumbents during this weekend’s parliamentary elections. With virtually all of Navalny’s allies shut out from the ballot, his team says it is backing a total of 1,234 candidates for Russia’s lower-house State Duma…
After Moscow’s election authorities blocked Anastasia Bryukhanova from standing for City Council in summer 2019, she vowed not to back down. Bryukhanova, now 28, was one one of more than a dozen independents barred when the election commission ruled the mandatory signatures she had collected were fake. Critics saw the decision as a move to…
Fans of European giants Real Madrid and Inter Milan will see their teams face unusual competition this autumn: a club from a tiny separatist region in one of Europe’s least-known countries, Moldova. After a couple of failed attempts, Sheriff FC are making their debut this week as the first club from the ex-Soviet country to…
The Moscow metro has added Uzbek- and Tajik-language signage at two stations leading to migrant processing centers outside the Russian capital, local media reported Tuesday. The signs at the Prokshino and Lesoparkovaya stations on the southern outskirts of Moscow are designed to help migrants from the two ex-Soviet Central Asian republics board buses toward the…
A Russian Soyuz rocket has blasted into space carrying 34 new satellites from British operator OneWeb, which aims to provide broadband internet everywhere in the world. The rocket, operated by Europe’s Arianespace, took off at 18:07 GMT Tuesday from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, broadcast live by the Russian Roscosmos space agency. “The launch went…
Russia has deadlocked the Security Council over the one-year renewal of the United Nations political mission in Libya, threatening international unity ahead of a presidential election on Dec. 24, diplomatic sources said Tuesday. Moscow, which has veto-wielding power, did not approve the language in a resolution drafted by Britain on the withdrawal of foreign troops…