Russia’s military has kicked off Arctic drills to secure a key navigation route Thursday against the backdrop of major exercises held simultaneously in neighbor Belarus. Some 8,000 troops, 120 aircraft and 50 warships have been deployed across waters abutting the entire stretch of Russia’s vast northern coast, according to the Russian Armed Forces’ Northern Fleet.…
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Belarus counterpart Alexander Lukashenko on Thursday agreed on a range of economic policies aimed at integrating the two ex-Soviet countries more closely. The pair said they had agreed on 28 programmes unifying their economies, but stopped short of discussing political integration — thought to be long sought by Moscow, but resisted…
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said it still needs more data on Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine before the jab can be authorized for use across the EU. The regulator said Thursday it was still in discussions with Russia over the data submitted to support its application, adding that the timeline for when the vaccine…
The husband of a Russian beauty influencer has been jailed for 8 years on charges of murdering his wife, authorities said Thursday. Kristina Zhuravleva, 28, who boasted tens of thousands of Instagram followers, was found dead in the woods near Russia’s fourth-largest city of Yekaterinburg in April. Zhuravleva’s husband Dmitry Zhuravlev, who had reported her missing,…
Rosneft Oil Company’s research expedition organised as part of its corporate programme to preserve the biodiversity of Arctic ecosystems. has concluded.
RN-Yuganskneftegaz, Rosneft’s largest producing asset, released more than 3.3 million fish fry of valuable commercial species into the reservoirs of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District – Yugra over the past summer.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Polina Sidelnikova has voted in every Russian election since she was 18. This year is no different, even though she now lives in the United States. The forty-year-old human rights lawyer is one of thousands of Russians living outside their home country who will head to consulates and embassies between Sept. 17…
A smoke alarm sounded Thursday in Russia’s segment of the International Space Station (ISS) and astronauts smelled “burning” on board, Russia’s space agency and NASA said. The incident, which the Russian space agency Roscosmos said happened at 1:55 a.m. GMT ahead of a scheduled spacewalk, is the latest in a string of problems to spur…
A majority of Russians believe that their country is isolated on the world stage, according to an independent poll published Wednesday. Russia has made global headlines in recent years for its strained relations with the West over a litany of disagreements, from alleged election meddling and espionage to Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and the eastern…
Russia’s inflation rate accelerated to a new five-year high of 6.7% in August, the federal statistics service said Wednesday. The country has seen rapid price increases since the start of the year as the global economy recovers from the coronavirus pandemic, causing supply shortages and driving up costs of key materials. Economists had expected Russia’s…
Dmitry Lobusov has spent more than half his life aboard giant vessels forging their way through the frozen waters of the Arctic Ocean. Russia is expanding its nuclear icebreaker fleet which Moscow hopes will secure its supremacy over the Arctic as climate change makes it more navigable. Video by AFP
Several dozen Russian news outlets have launched a campaign in support of independent journalism Wednesday amid mounting pressure on their profession in the run-up to next week’s parliamentary elections. The “There Are No Foreign Agents, There Are Journalists” campaign comes as Russian authorities target a growing number of media outlets and individual journalists with the…
Irina, a 34-year-old teacher in Moscow, had no intention of participating in upcoming elections for Russia’s State Duma because she didn’t consider any candidate worthy of her vote. That all changed when she got a message from her boss instructing her to register online for the ballot. “The management told me voting was part of…
A Chechen official has announced that the volatile North Caucasus region in Russia is offering thousands of dollars to the artist that completes the best portrait of its strongman, Ramzan Kadyrov. Kadyrov has ruled the predominantly Muslim region of Russia for nearly two decades, forming a cult around the family name and his father, Akhmat, who…
Russian Emergency Situations Minister Yevgeny Zinichev, an ally and former bodyguard of President Vladimir Putin, has died at age 55 while trying to save a prominent filmmaker during strategic drills in the Arctic, the ministry said Wednesday. “We regret to inform you that Zinichev tragically died while performing official duties saving someone’s life during interdepartmental…
Pro-Kremlin state television host Dmitry Kiselyov has been hospitalized with the coronavirus, he told state media Tuesday. Kiselyov, 67, is the host of the weekly “Vesti Nedeli” (“News of the Week”) program, where he is known for trumpeting strong anti-Western, pro-Putin rhetoric. He has headed the state-owned Rossiya Segodnya news agency, which includes the RT…
NORTH POLE – A massive icebreaker cuts its way through the frozen waters of the Arctic Ocean, clearing a path to the North Pole, all white as far as the eye can see. But even here, the impact of climate change can be felt. Dmitry Lobusov has seen it. For 13 years he has captained…
Updated death toll at 10:00 a.m. on Sept. 9. Suspected gas explosions ripped through apartment blocks in two Russian cities early Wednesday, underscoring the persisting dangers of gas-equipped households. At least seven residents of a nine-story block were killed and 17 others were injured in the Moscow region town of Noginsk, authorities told state media. Emergency…
Russian media published an audio leak Tuesday that they say shows a ruling pro-Kremlin party official instructing poll watchers to ignore voter fraud at the upcoming election. The United Russia party, which was founded by President Vladimir Putin and consistently backs his initiatives, is seeking to maintain its lower-house majority in the Sept. 17-19 parliamentary elections…
Russia’s 2020 temperatures were a record 3.22 degrees Celsius above the historical average, according to a new draft report by Environment Ministry experts published on Tuesday. The spike represents the first time temperatures have been over 3 C higher than the norm since measurements began in 1936. Last year’s anomaly beat the previous record seen…
A prominent Russian defense lawyer involved in high-profile cases and himself facing criminal charges said Tuesday he has fled the country amid an ongoing exodus of opposition-leaning figures ahead of this month’s elections. Ivan Pavlov headed Team 29, a legal group that self-disbanded this summer after Russian authorities declared it an “undesirable” organization with foreign links, a…
Every year on September 7, International Clean Air Day is celebrated to raise public awareness of the impact on the atmosphere.
SARANSK, MORDOVIA — For barbershop owner Oleg Kechin, the first 18 months of the coronavirus pandemic were a breeze. After shutting for just four weeks last April, his Barabas chain has blossomed, opening new stores in nearby cities, a first franchise in the Moscow suburbs and taking on new staff. “Since that first month, everything’s…
Russia’s flagship airline Aeroflot has suspended several pilots for refusing to vaccinate against the coronavirus, the RBC news website reported Monday, citing a company spokesperson. At least six unvaccinated pilots were at various times sent on unpaid leave or vacation without pay, Aeroflot spokesman Mikhail Demin told the outlet. The pilots’ labor union complained to Aeroflot CEO…
A St. Petersburg court on Monday sentenced a Russian man to three years in a penal colony for hitting a police officer at a rally in support of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. According to the prosecutors, Ilya Pershin, a local artist, hit a policeman at least twice in the chest with his elbow and…
Russians are less likely to view economic protests as a possibility than they did at the start of the year despite being more willing to take part in such protests themselves, according to an independent poll published Monday. The decrease in protest expectations comes amid what Kremlin critics describe as a tightening clampdown on the…
Western media news websites are being hijacked by pro-Russian trolls to spread propaganda and disinformation supporting the Kremlin, according to research published by a British university on Monday. The Crime and Research Security Institute at Cardiff University said it had unearthed evidence from 32 major news outlets in 16 countries that have been targeted via…
Russia has banned Tajik-born opposition activist Saidanvar Sulaimonov from the country for 40 years in what he calls retaliation for his work on Kremlin critic Andrei Pivovarov’s campaign for this fall’s parliamentary election. “So my romance with Russia has ended. I’ve been kicked out for 40 years,” Sulaimonov, who also goes by Sasha Pechenka, tweeted…
Nyaganneftegaz, a subsidiary of Rosneft Oil Company, released about 1,200,000 fry of muksun and Siberian sturgeon into Reservoirs of the Tyumen Region and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug-Yugra during the spring and summer period of 2021
The families of 298 people killed in the shooting down of flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014 demanded justice from Russia on Monday as they testified in the Dutch trial of four suspects. People who lost close relatives in the crash of the Malaysia Airlines plane said they could not truly say goodbye to their…
Ukraine has accused Russian security agents of detaining dozens of Crimean Tatars in what it called an ongoing crackdown on individuals who oppose Moscow’s annexation of Crimea. Federal Security Service (FSB) officers had initially detained five Crimean Tatars, including a senior member of the ethnic minority’s self-governing body, late last week, Ukrainian ombudswoman Lyudmila Denisova…
Russian authorities have blocked a website that promotes jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s anti-ruling party voting strategy in this month’s parliamentary elections. Senior Navalny aide Leonid Volkov said state internet regulator Roskomnadzor started blocking the website for the “Smart Voting” strategy that seeks to unseat pro-Kremlin ruling party incumbents by rallying support behind their most promising…
A court in Belarus sentenced one of the country’s most prominent opposition figures, Maria Kolesnikova, to 11 years in prison on Monday after she led unprecedented protests against President Alexander Lukashenko last year. A defiant Kolesnikova smiled and made her signature heart-shaped hand symbol during the court hearing in Minsk, where lawyer and fellow opposition…
VORONEZH — Retired collective farm workers Vitaly and Valentina Plotnikov, aged 81 and 74, have to grow most of their own food to get by on their combined 35,000 Rubles ($480) monthly pensions. But despite straightened circumstances common to many Russian retirees, they remain strong supporters of President Vladimir Putin. “We’ve lived through hard times…
An independent Russian investigative outlet that was banned as “undesirable” and its journalists labeled “foreign agents” has relaunched as a new entity, with an investigation into the alleged PR machine of the country’s defense chief. Proekt’s former chief editor Roman Badanin announced Monday that his new outlet is called “Agentstvo,” a play on the journalists’…
Voters in Russia’s second city St. Petersburg will face a confusing choice at the polls between opposition politician Boris Vishnevsky and two other candidates named Boris Vishnevsky who look very similar to him. Vishnevsky, a longtime Kremlin critic running for the local legislative assembly in the Sept. 19 vote, accuses authorities of running the two…
A delegation headed by Hardeep Puri, Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs of India, visited the Zvezda shipbuilding yard located in the city of Bolshoy Kamen, Primorye Territory.
Ukraine has accused Russia of trying to ramp up military support for separatists after Moscow refused to extend the mandate of international observers stationed on the border between the two countries. Hundreds of OSCE monitors have been involved in two long-running missions in the areas where Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian separatists began fighting in 2014.…
Russia has named four more media outlets as “foreign agents” amid what critics call a widening clampdown on independent journalism. “On Sept. 3, the Justice Ministry of Russia entered the following legal entities into the register of foreign media performing the functions of a foreign agent: Altair 2021 LLC, Vega 2021 LLC, Editor-in-Chief 2021 LLC…
The leader of a Russian ultra-nationalist hate group has been arrested, one of the group’s administrators wrote on its Telegram channel. Vladislav Pozdnyakov, founder of the “Male State” — an anti-women, anti-liberal social media group — launched a campaign of threats and abuse against a sushi company last week for running an advert featuring a…
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday he hopes the Taliban will behave in a “civilized” manner in Afghanistan so the global community can maintain diplomatic ties with Kabul. “Russia is not interested in the disintegration of Afghanistan. If this happens, then there will be no one to talk to,” Putin said. He was speaking at…
A leaked audio recording published by the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper on Thursday has revealed alleged efforts to coordinate “falsification” of votes in Russia’s upcoming parliamentary elections. Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) on Friday announced it has launched a rapid-response inquiry into the recording. According to Novaya Gazeta, the recording was made by an unnamed…
Russia has blocked access to six VPN services which authorities say allow access to illegal online content in violation of Russian law. The country’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor said Friday it had blocked access to some of the world’s largest VPN providers, including Nord VPN and Express VPN, following an investigation. “The use of such services…
With less than three weeks to go before much-hyped elections to Russia’s national parliament, the State Duma, there is virtually no campaigning to be seen. Covid restrictions — and spiralling case numbers — have largely precluded traditional campaigning, while election debates are relegated to state TV’s graveyard slot as polls show interest in politics at…
Eleven endangered species are now “likely extinct” within Russia, according to a Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology assessment cited by the Kommersant business daily. These species include the European sea sturgeon, crested ibis, western capercaillie, Jankowski’s Bunting, monk seal, onager and Przewalski’s horse, the assessment said. While overhunting and poaching put the European bison…
Russia said Thursday that Google and Apple’s refusal to remove jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s app ahead of elections could be seen as interference in the country’s domestic affairs. The country is holding parliamentary elections later this month, with nearly all vocal Kremlin critics including Navalny’s allies barred from running. Last month Russian communications watchdog…
Russia plans to ban the use of disposable plastics by 2024, Natural Resources and Environment Minister Alexander Kozlov said Thursday. Banned goods would include disposable plastic straws, plates, glasses, lids and appliances; coffee capsules; cotton swabs; opaque and colored PET (thermoplastic polyester) bottles; boxes and packs for tobacco products; blister packaging (except for medicines); egg…
A Russian “green” tanker of the Aframax type has been launched from the slipway of the Zvezda Shipyard.
Independent Russian news website The Bell said it was hacked after its newsletter subscribers received an email that urged them to boycott the country’s upcoming parliamentary elections. “Boycotting the State Duma elections will force the country’s leadership to pay attention to the problems of the people, and will open up an opportunity for building a…
Russia could see a renewed surge of the coronavirus as early as this month, top health officials have warned. Though Russia’s Covid-19 infections have stabilized around 18,000 per day in recent weeks, the country is still grappling with a record-shattering third wave, driven by the Delta variant, that started in early June. Despite the country…
President Joe Biden assured Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday that the United States opposes “Russian aggression” but he showed no sign of moving on requests to open NATO to the eastern European country. “The United States remains firmly committed to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russian aggression and our support…
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy becomes only the second European leader to meet President Joe Biden at the White House on Wednesday but his bid for more heavyweight U.S. protection against a powerful Russia is likely to be frustrated. Zelenskiy, who spent Tuesday at the Pentagon pressing for military assistance in Ukraine’s fight against Russia and…
Russian police have detained Anastasia Vasilyeva, the doctor-turned-activist linked to jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, near her Moscow office, her lawyer said Wednesday. “She was detained. It is not yet clear why. Perhaps they want to forcibly take her to court. Today is just a court hearing on the case of ‘sanitary standards’ violations,” lawyer…
A working meeting was held between Rosneft Chief Executive Officer Igor Sechin, and Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs of India Hardeep Singh Puri.
On Knowledge Day, Rosneft Oil Company has opened its first specialised class in the town of Dudinka, Taymyr Dolgano-Nenets Autonomous District, Krasnoyarsk Territory
New Era School in Tulun, built by Rosneft under the instructions of the Russian President Vladimir Putin, became the coordination centre of All-Russian scientific and social programme for youth schoolchildren called «Step into the Future»
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that the United States’ 20-year campaign in Afghanistan ended in “only tragedies, only losses.” The Russian leader has a track record of criticizing Western countries for trying to impose their values on non-Western nations. Moscow has regularly slammed the U.S. policy in Afghanistan, which is now controlled by the…
A polylingual boarding school for 300 children was opened in Neftekamsk on September 1
Russia has confirmed 6,937,333 cases of coronavirus and 184,014 deaths, according to the national coronavirus information center. Russia’s total excess fatality count since the start of the coronavirus pandemic is around 596,000. Sept. 1: What you need to know today Russia on Wednesday reported 18,368 new coronavirus cases and 790 deaths. Slovakia will halt the use of Sputnik V due…
A Russian space official on Tuesday raised concerns about the deteriorating state of Russia’s segment of the International Space Station due to out-of-date hardware, warning it could lead to “irreparable failures.” In recent years, the Russian segment of the ISS has experienced a string of problems, including air leaks caused by cracks, raising questions about…