Russia’s Defense Ministry said early Wednesday that its air defense systems intercepted 117 Ukrainian drones and four missiles across eight regions overnight. All four Tochka tactical missiles and 37 drones were downed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces have gained control of hundreds of square kilometers of territory since launching a surprise cross-border incursion last…
Authorities in the Belgorod region declared a regionwide state of emergency on Wednesday, saying the situation was “extremely difficult” amid shelling attacks and Ukraine’s assault on the neighbouring Kursk region. “The situation in our Belgorod region remains extremely difficult and tense due to shellings from the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Houses are destroyed, civilians died and…
Russian authorities announced Tuesday that they will help move people displaced from their homes in the Kursk region amid ongoing fighting to parts of occupied eastern Ukraine. Acting Kursk region Governor Alexei Smirnov said he was working in coordination with Yevgeny Balitsky, the Moscow-appointed head of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, to accommodate evacuees in resorts and…
Ukraine controlled at least 800 square kilometers (308 square miles) of territory in Russia’s Kursk region as of Monday, according to an AFP analysis of data provided by the Institute for the Study of War. Kyiv launched a surprise offensive into Russia’s southwestern Kursk region last Tuesday, capturing over two dozen settlements in the most…
Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated his calls for Palestinian statehood in a meeting with Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday. “We believe that in order to ensure lasting, reliable and stable peace in the region, it’s necessary to… create a full-fledged Palestinian state,” Putin told Abbas at the presidential residence outside Moscow. He also expressed “great…
President Vladimir Putin appointed his aide and former bodyguard Alexei Dyumin to oversee Russia’s military response to the Ukrainian offensive in the Kursk region, a federal lawmaker said Tuesday, an apparent confirmation of rumors circulated earlier by Russian military bloggers. “Indeed, Alexei Gennadyevich Dyumin was summoned yesterday and tasked with supervising the counterterrorist operation,” State…
Chechen special service units deployed to Russia’s border region of Kursk to repel the Ukrainian incursion are coming under strong criticism from pro-war military bloggers who accuse Ramzan Kadyrov’s men of insubordination, desertion and collaboration with the Ukrainian army. Kyiv’s daring assault entered its second week on Tuesday with Ukraine claiming control of approximately 1,000…
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested an employee of a military unit in southern Russia for allegedly passing information to Ukraine, state media reported Tuesday. The woman, a resident of the city of Rostov-on-Don, reportedly joined a unit in the Southern Military District in January 2023. There, she gathered “information on arsenals, bases and depots,” the…
Russia’s Central Bank revoked the banking license of American Express Bank on Tuesday following the lender’s decision to self-liquidate in the country. American Express suspended its operations in Russia and was one of three U.S. credit card giants that blocked Russian banks from their payment networks in response to Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. “The…
An expedition of ornithological scientists to study red-listed bird species was organised for the first time on the Brekhovsky Islands of the Taymyr, as well as the Yara and Tanama rivers
KYIV — Before it was ripped apart by a Russian missile strike last month, the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital treated about 700 patients daily. Today, Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital operates at roughly 60% capacity. One month after the devastating strike that killed at least 42 people, including five children, global headlines have moved on. Yet for…
Skywatchers across Russia were treated to a rare overnight spectacle as the northern lights coincided with a meteor shower. The stunning display was visible from the western Pskov region and the southwestern Voronezh region to the Tyumen and Irkutsk regions in the Ural Mountains and Siberia. Images capturing the vibrant scarlet and green auroras, along…
A group of unidentified vandals splattered red paint on the entrance doors of Lithuania’s embassy in Moscow, the Baltic country’s foreign ministry said Monday. The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry said it lodged a formal protest to Russian Embassy Counsellor Andrei Gasiuk following the incident. Videos shared by media outlets showed several red handprints on the Lithuanian…
President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered his army to “dislodge” Ukrainian troops who stormed over the border last week, as authorities in the Kursk region said over 120,000 people have been displaced due to the fighting. Kyiv launched a surprise offensive into southwestern Russia’s Kursk region on Tuesday, capturing over two dozen settlements in the…
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said Monday that it captured a Ukrainian soldier who claimed his commanders had issued shoot-to-kill orders during the assault on Russia’s Kursk region. According to the FSB, the captured soldier, identified as a member of Ukraine’s 80th Air Assault Brigade, said during an interrogation that Ukrainian soldiers were instructed to…
Russia’s Defense Minister Andrei Belousov said Monday that developing artificial intelligence, robots and drones is crucial for ensuring Moscow’s victory in its ongoing confrontation with the West. Referring to the invasion of Ukraine as an “armed confrontation between Russia and the collective West,” Belousov outlined four “simultaneous conditions for success in modern military conflicts.” In…
A Russian court sentenced the head of an Uzbek diaspora group to four years in prison for “inciting hatred” after he earlier posted a meme spoofing the country’s rising inflation and mobilization for the war in Ukraine, media reported Monday. Usman Baratov, a naturalized Russian citizen who heads an Uzbek diaspora association called Vatandosh, was…
Kyiv and Moscow exchanged blame late Sunday after a fire broke out at a cooling tower of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which Russian forces seized days after launching the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia, Ukraine and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said there had been no detected spike in radiation levels or any…
Authorities in Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions on Monday ordered the evacuation of areas near the border with Ukraine as Kyiv’s forces made apparent advances deeper into Russian territory as part of their ongoing offensive. Overall, emergency authorities say more than 76,000 people have been temporarily relocated to safe places in the Kursk region since…
Thousands of Ukrainian troops are taking part in an incursion aiming to destabilize Russia by showing the country’s weaknesses, a top official from Ukraine has said as the assault entered its sixth day. “We are on the offensive. The aim is to stretch the positions of the enemy, to inflict maximum losses and to destabilise the situation…
A man and his four-year-old son were killed in an overnight Russian missile attack near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, the emergency service said Sunday. Explosions rang out Saturday night in the center and east of Kyiv, AFP journalists noted, as Ukraine’s air force said two Russian missiles targeted the city. Air raid sirens sounded in…
Struggling to put down a major Ukrainian incursion for a fifth day, Russia on Saturday said it had evacuated tens of thousands of people from its border region, launched a “counter-terror operation” and warned that the fighting was endangering a nuclear power plant. Ukrainian units stormed into Russia’s western Kursk region on Tuesday morning in…
Yevgeny Poddubny Russian State TV War Correspondent Survives Drone Attack Initial reports falsely claimed Yevgeny Poddubny had died, but authorities later confirmed that he had regained consciousness. 1 Min read
The pace of Russia’s economic growth slowed in the second quarter of 2024, official data showed Friday, amid concerns over stubborn inflation and warnings of “overheating.” Gross domestic product (GDP) dipped from 5.4% in the first quarter to 4% from April to June, the lowest quarterly result since the start of 2023 but still a…
Russia has blocked the Signal messaging app for alleged “violations” of the country’s legislation, state media regulator Roskomnadzor told the RBC business daily on Friday. The messenger was restricted “due to violations of the requirements of Russian legislation, compliance with which is necessary to prevent the use of the messenger for terrorist and extremist purposes,”…
An 87-year-old pensioner was assaulted on a Moscow bus for his alleged criticism of the Wagner mercenary group, the independent rights project OVD-Info reported Friday, citing an eyewitness and the veteran’s lawyer. Dmitry Grinchiy was attacked by two fellow passengers who claimed he called Wagner fighters “murderers” as their bus passed a memorial to the…
Natural gas prices in Europe hit their highest level of the year this week after Ukrainian forces took control of the last remaining transit hub for Russian gas into Europe. Prices rose for at least three consecutive days, surpassing 40 euros ($43.71) per megawatt-hour for the first time since Dec. 4, 2023, according to Dutch…
Despite the EU’s partial embargo on Russian oil and some European countries’ ban on Russian gas purchases, the Kremlin’s fossil fuel revenues show resilience, prompting further soul-searching among Ukraine’s allies on the future course of action. Russia weathers the sanctions storm Over two years into the invasion of Ukraine, sanctioning Russia’s energy sector — the…
Russian pro-war military bloggers are criticizing Russia’s military leadership after a video circulating online appeared to show a Russian military convoy destroyed by Ukrainian shelling in the Kursk region. The footage shows damaged military trucks with what appear to be the burned bodies of Russian military personnel who were reportedly sent to the Kursk region as reinforcements…
The Russian military deployed additional forces to fight invading Ukrainian troops in the southwestern Kursk region, Defense Ministry-affiliated media reported Friday. The Zvezda broadcaster shared videos of several army trucks and other military vehicles on a highway crossing into the Kursk region. “The marching columns include [BM-21] Grad multiple rocket launcher combat vehicles, tanks transported…
Western-sanctioned Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska repeated his calls for a Russian-Ukrainian ceasefire and slammed Moscow’s war spending in an interview with Japanese media published Thursday. “If you want to stop the war, first you need to stop the fire,” Deripaska told Japan’s The Nikkei daily, calling for an “immediate, unconditional ceasefire.” The publication said Deripaska criticized…
Drying blood was smeared across a billboard advertising electronics and black smoke billowed over the tangled metal remains of a supermarket after a Russian strike tore into Kostyantynivka in east Ukraine. Anya Alyabieva was dozing off in her shop that sells hardware and military accessories when the blast jolted her from her stupor and sent panic…
This article was first published by Politika.Kozlov. Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk and Lipetsk border regions has stunned the Russian military and come as a “slap in the face” to President Vladimir Putin personally, four Russian officials told Politika.Kozlov. The ongoing offensive, which Russia has failed to repel for three days, has exposed Russia’s territorial…
Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry on Friday initiated a federal-level emergency response in the southwestern Kursk region as clashes between Russian and Ukrainian forces continued for a fourth day following Kyiv’s surprise incursion earlier this week. The Russian government classifies a federal emergency as a man-made or natural disaster resulting in more than 500 casualties or…
9 August commemorates the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, established by the UN General Assembly
One person was killed and two others were injured in a Ukrainian attack on southwestern Russia’s Belgorod region, local authorities said Friday. The man died in the border town of Shebekino, which authorities said has repeatedly come under shelling and drone attacks over the past 24 hours. “A man died in an ambulance while on…
Ukraine’s military said early Friday that it hit a Russian airfield in the Lipetsk region in an overnight strike that destroyed ammunition warehouses. “Last night, the Ukrainian Defence Forces attacked the Lipetsk airfield,” Ukraine’s General Staff said, adding that they struck “warehouses with guided aerial bombs and a number of other facilities.” The overnight attack…
President Vladimir Putin on Thursday signed a law expanding legislation on “undesirable” organizations to include state-sponsored entities in addition to non-governmental organizations. Since introducing their “undesirable” list in 2015 to crack down on foreign-funded NGOs, Russian authorities have expanded the law to target independent news outlets, human rights groups, environmental organizations and educational institutions. Under the…
Users across Russia reported widespread outages of YouTube on Thursday, just weeks after Russian authorities criticized the video streaming platform for what they described as anti-Kremlin actions. The online monitoring service Sboi.rf reported receiving around 12,000 complaints about YouTube within a 10-minute period. Downdetector, another outage tracking service, reported that three-quarters of the complaints it…
Poland arrested a former ally of the late Russian dissenter Alexei Navalny and exiled Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky on charges of threatening public safety, Polish media reported Wednesday, citing local authorities. Igor Rogov was detained on July 29 in the southern Polish city of Katowice where he was studying on a scholarship, reported Vot Tak, a…
A Message from The Moscow Times: Dear readers, We are facing unprecedented challenges. Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office has designated The Moscow Times as an “undesirable” organization, criminalizing our work and putting our staff at risk of prosecution. This follows our earlier unjust labeling as a “foreign agent.” These actions are direct attempts to silence independent…
At least five Western insurers continue to provide coverage to tankers carrying Russian crude oil despite concerns they may be violating G7 price caps, Reuters reported Thursday, citing data from traders and shippers. The G7 group of industrialized countries and their allies introduced a $60 per barrel price cap on seaborne Russian oil in December 2022…
A prominent war correspondent for Russian state television was seriously injured in a Ukrainian drone attack in the southwestern Kursk region, his employer said late Wednesday. Rossiya-24 correspondent Yevgeny Poddubny was hospitalized after a drone struck the vehicle he was riding in during a reporting assignment on Ukraine’s surprise incursion into the Kursk region, which…
The White House said Wednesday it was contacting key U.S. ally Ukraine to learn more about the “objectives” of Kyiv’s most serious cross-border incursion into Russian territory in months. “We’re going to reach out to the Ukrainian military to learn more about their objectives,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters when asked about…
Russian customs authorities seized Time correspondent Simon Shuster’s bestselling biography of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at an airport in Moscow, state media reported Wednesday. Expertise carried out at Sheremetyevo International Airport determined that Shuster’s “The Showman” is banned from crossing the customs border of the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union, according to the RIA Novosti news…
A dual U.S.-Russian citizen standing trial for having donated money to a Ukrainian charity pleaded guilty to treason charges, her lawyer told state media on Wednesday. Ksenia Karelina was arrested in January while visiting her family in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg. She faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty of…
President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Ukraine was carrying out “indiscriminate” attacks on civilians during cross-border incursions into southwestern Russia’s Kursk region that triggered a regionwide state of emergency. “The Kyiv regime has launched another large-scale provocation, firing indiscriminately with various types of weapons, including rockets, at civilian buildings, houses and ambulances,” Putin told government…
Residents of Russia’s Kursk region bordering Ukraine are appealing to authorities for help with evacuating and accusing them of taking insufficient action as an apparent attack by Kyiv’s forces continued for a second day. While armed militants from Ukraine have conducted multiple incursions into Russia’s border regions since last year in retaliation to Moscow’s full-scale invasion…
The video streaming platform of the Russian social media company VK has seen a surge in downloads over the past week as playback speeds on YouTube plummet in an apparent attempt by the authorities to “throttle” the website. “VK Video app downloads rose 4.5 times in the first week of August compared to July’s monthly average,…
Russia’s Defense Ministry on Wednesday denied reports that Ukrainian forces made significant advances into the southwestern Kursk region amid ongoing clashes along the border. “Air strikes, missile forces, artillery fire and a swift response by units defending the state border in the Kursk region prevented the enemy from advancing deep into the territory of the…
A Russian military blogger who criticized Moscow’s conduct in the Ukraine war was sentenced to six and a half years in jail for spreading “fakes” about the army, the Moscow court system’s press service said Wednesday. Andrei Kurshin, a former soldier, accused Russia of cutting off water access to civilians near the Ukrainian city of…
Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman on Wednesday accused Ukraine of opening a “second front” in Africa after Mali and Niger broke off diplomatic relations with Kyiv. “Unable to defeat Russia on the battlefield, the criminal regime of Volodymyr Zelensky has opened a second front in Africa,” spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told the RIA Novosti news agency. Zakharova…
The Angarsk Petrochemical Company, a Rosneft refining and petrochemical complex enterprise, has commenced production of Rosneft Drilltec B2lh drilling fluids
Russia’s two-way trade with China rose to $136.67 billion between January and July, a 1.6% increase compared to last year, the Kommersant business daily reported Wednesday. China has emerged as a major economic lifeline for Russia since the West slapped sanctions on Moscow in response to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Trade…
Ukraine lobbed missiles and drones at southwestern Russia’s Kursk region overnight, the local governor said Wednesday, a day after pro-Kyiv forces stormed across the border with tanks and armored vehicles. “Two Ukrainian missiles were shot down by air defense systems in the Kursk region,” acting governor Alexei Smirnov wrote on Telegram, adding that three drones…
A former Russian military official responsible for overseeing clothing supplies was arrested on bribery charges, law enforcement authorities announced Tuesday. Vladimir Demchik, who holds the rank of colonel in Russia’s reserve forces, oversaw the defense ministry’s clothing department until April 2018. Investigators accuse Demchik of accepting 4 million rubles ($46,700) in bribes from the CEO…
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday afternoon that was rushing reserve troops and aviation units into the southwestern Kursk region as Ukrainian forces staged a surprise incursion, which left at least 3 civilians dead and more than a dozen others injured. The Russian military said Ukrainian forces launched an attack with up to 300 soldiers, 11…
Two sleeper agents who returned to Russia as part of last week’s historic prisoner exchange spoke to state television about breaking the news to their Spanish-speaking children that they were Russian. Artyom Dultsev and Anna Dultseva, a married couple who spent years posing as Argentine expats in Slovenia while acting as “illegals,” returned to Russia…
A man was killed by an explosion inside his apartment on the west side of Moscow, police said Tuesday, with state media reporting that he was a retired soldier who had shown suicidal tendencies in the past. “A woman found her husband lying dead in the apartment of a residential building,” the Russian Interior Ministry’s…
Russia has started sending advanced air defense systems and radars to Iran as it threatens to retaliate to the suspected Israeli assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, the New York Times reported Monday, citing anonymous sources. Earlier, Iranian media reported that Tehran requested air defense systems, and two Iranian officials who spoke to…