Category Archives: another

The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church and several Kremlin officials fly on a $43 million jet linked to a major state lender, The Bell business website reported Friday. The report follows prominent Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s claims that week that the state VTB bank CEO’s alleged partner and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s wife fly…

Russia’s Athletic Coaches Must Be Fired, Top Anti-Doping Official Says

Russian sport needs a “serious change” in its leadership starting with the firing of all its athletics coaches, the country’s top anti-doping official said Friday as it braces for a four-year Olympic ban for flouting anti-doping rules. Russian sport could enter four more years of gloom on Monday when the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)’s executive committee…

Singapore Arrests Sanctioned Russian Vessel

Authorities in Singapore plan to arrest a Russian vessel under U.S. sanctions for violating economic sanctions imposed on North Korea, Interfax reported Friday. The U.S. Treasury targeted Russia’s Gudzon shipping company in 2018 with sanctions on six of its vessels, including the tanker Sevastopol. South Korea briefly held the Sevastopol last year and China later…

Russia Faces Up to Its Dark Domestic Violence Problem

In December 2017, Margarita Gracheva’s husband drove her into a forest in the Moscow region and chopped off her hands with an axe. Two years later, police pulled a history professor out of a St. Petersburg canal with a backpack containing the severed arms of his girlfriend, Anastasia Yeshchenko. These are the most shocking of…

For Sale: Access to Moscow’s CCTV Network on Black Market

Access to Moscow’s network of more than 170,000 surveillance cameras is being sold on the black market, investigators have found. Researchers at MBKh Media — an investigative media outlet run by Kremlin opponent and former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky — found that live access to any one of Moscow’s public surveillance cameras, which come with…

4 Quotes From Prime Minister Medvedev’s Q&A

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev held his annual end-of-year press conference Thursday, 24 hours after prominent Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny alleged that his wife Svetlana Medvedeva owns a $50 million private jet. Over the course of two hours, Medvedev fielded questions from 20 news, sports, comedy, music and youth television channels. Despite Navalny’s pleas to raise…

U.S. Cracks Down on Russian ‘Evil Corp’ Cybercrime Group

U.S. authorities took aim at a Russian cybercriminal group known as Evil Corp Thursday, indicting its Lamborghini-driving alleged leader and ordering asset freezes against 17 of his associates over a digital crime spree that has netted more than $100 million from companies across the world. The action against Evil Corp, described by officials as one…

Russia Hands Student Protester Zhukov Suspended Sentence After Outcry

A Moscow court gave student and political blogger Yegor Zhukov a three-year suspended sentence Friday, allowing him to avoid imprisonment after one of the most high-profile trials stemming from this summer’s wave of anti-government rallies. Zhukov, 21, was one of about a dozen people placed in pre-trial detention as part of a criminal case opened…

Dozens of Polar Bears Descend Upon Russian Town

An unusually large group of polar bears has converged around a village in Far East Russia, forcing residents into lockdown, the global conservation group World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Russia said Thursday. Residents of Ryrkapiy, population 600, were said to have organized patrols and canceled all public gatherings, including New Year’s celebrations, to prevent the polar…

U.S. Sanctions Russian Cybercrime Outfit ‘Evil Corp’

The U.S. Treasury Department said it would sanction a Russian group known as “Evil Corp” and its leaders for cyber-thefts at hundreds of financial institutions around the world that total more than $100 million. The targets include the group’s leader, identified as Maksim Yakubets. The U.S. said he also worked for the Russian Federal Security…

Libya to Send List of 800 Russian Mercenaries to Moscow – AP

As the only remaining independent, English-language news source reporting from Russia, The Moscow Times plays a critical role in connecting Russia to the world. Editorial decisions are made entirely by journalists in our newsroom, who adhere to the highest ethical standards. We fearlessly cover issues that are often considered off-limits or taboo in Russia, from…

Expelled Russian Diplomats Linked to Military Intelligence – German Media

Two Russian diplomats that Germany expelled over the assassination of a Chechen rebel in Berlin worked for the GRU military intelligence agency, Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung daily reported Wednesday. Germany sent the two unnamed Russian Embassy employees home because it said Moscow did not sufficiently cooperate with Berlin in its investigation into the August murder of…

Belarus’ Lukashenko Dismisses Fears Russia Could Swallow His Country

The veteran leader of Belarus on Thursday dismissed opposition fears that a possible integration pact with Russia could end with his country losing its independence to Moscow, saying the two countries were not discussing deeper political ties. Alexander Lukashenko, in power since 1994, is due to hold talks on Saturday with Russian President Vladimir Putin…

‘The Darker My Future, The Wider My Smile’: Student Protester Zhukov’s Closing Statement

Popular YouTube blogger and political science student Yegor Zhukov faces up to five years in prison on charges of calling for extremism online, a case that critics say is politically motivated. Authorities initially charged Zhukov, 21, with mass unrest in connection with anti-government protests that swept Moscow this summer. After fellow students and activists campaigned…

Ahead of Eastern Ukraine Peace Talks, Putin Is Sitting Pretty

It has been more than three years since the leaders of Russia and Ukraine sat down with their counterparts in France and Germany to thrash out a deal aimed at finally bringing an end to the conflict between pro-Russian separatists and Kiev’s forces in eastern Ukraine. On Monday, after repeated fits and starts, Russian President…

No Russia Agreement, No Donbass, Warns Ukraine

Russia Expels Bulgarian Diplomat in Tit-for-Tat Move

The Russian government has expelled a Bulgarian diplomat in a tit-for-tat move after Sofia asked Moscow to recall a diplomat on suspicion of espionage, Bulgaria’s foreign ministry said on Thursday. Bulgaria’s ambassador in Moscow, Atanas Krastin, has been informed that the diplomat must leave Russia within the next 24 hours in line with diplomatic protocol, the ministry said…

Russian Parliament Demands Apology From Norway as Tensions Escalate

Senator Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Federation Council’s foreign affairs committee, and Rune Resaland, the Norwegian Ambassador to Russia, had a tense meeting Wednesday as they discussed the countries’ relations and the 2018 arrest of a Russian parliamentary aide. Kosachev told the Norwegian ambassador that there could be no normal cooperation between the two countries’…

Russia’s Economic Policy to Underpin Economic Growth – World Bank

Economic growth in Russia will be higher than expected in 2019 and is likely to pick up in the next few years thanks partly to higher state spending and looser monetary policy, the World Bank said on Wednesday. Russia’s economic growth has waned this year as investment activity evaporates and consumer demand flatlines, but it…

Russian Judges Eye Punishments for ‘Biased’ Media Coverage

Russian judges are considering punishing journalists and media outlets for “biased coverage” of the national court system, the Vedomosti business daily reported Thursday, a move that observers say would harm free speech in the country. The Russian judicial system’s 2020-2030 draft information policy obtained by Vedomosti aims to penalize the publication of “negative materials” about…

Did Erdogan ‘Personally Authorize’ Shooting Down of Russian Jet?

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan allegedly authorized the downing of a Russian warplane in an incident that briefly soured their relationship four years ago, the Turkey-focused Nordic Monitor website reported, citing a report to NATO it says it obtained. A Turkish F-16 interceptor shot down a Russian fighter-bomber near the Syrian border with an air-to-air…

Navalny Links $50M Jet to Russian PM Medvedev’s Wife

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s wife jetsets on the government’s dime, prominent Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has said in a new video published ahead of Medvedev’s annual end-of-year press conference with reporters from 20 television channels. Medvedev, the subject of Navalny’s viral 2017 investigation into corruption that has been viewed 32.7 million times, is scheduled…

‘We Don’t Call It Annexation,’ Kazakh Leader Says of Crimea

Kazakhstan doesn’t believe that Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, its new leader said in an interview with Germany’s Deutsche Welle news outlet published Wednesday. Kazakh President Kassym Jomart-Tokayev appeared to tamp down concerns that, given northern Kazakhstan’s sizable ethnic Russian minority similar to Crimea’s, the Kremlin could seize parts of its…

Germany Expels Two Russians in Dispute Over Killing of Georgian in Berlin

Germany said on Wednesday it had expelled two Russian embassy employees in protest over what it said was Moscow’s lack of cooperation in an investigation into the murder of a Georgian man in Berlin. German prosecutors suspect Russian or Chechen involvement in the murder of the man in a Berlin park in August. Russia has denied any involvement and…

Investigation Names Alleged Killer of Chechen Rebel In Berlin

Investigative outlets Bellingcat and The Insider said Tuesday they have uncovered the real identity of the assassin of a Georgian citizen in Berlin in August, while The Wall Street Journal reported that Germany could impose sanctions on Russia for the murder. Germany arrested a man it identified as Vadim Sokolov on suspicion of killing Zelimkhan…

The FBI is treating any mobile app that comes out of Russia as a “potential counterintelligence threat,” the U.S.’s top law enforcement agency said in a letter to Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s concern arises in part from “the legal mechanisms available to the Government of Russia that permit access…

Defected Pro-Kremlin Lawmaker Resettles in Germany

A former pro-Kremlin lawmaker who voted for a law banning U.S. citizens from adopting Russian children has resettled in Germany, the country’s Süddeutsche Zeitung daily reported Monday. Robert Schlegel supported the adoption ban, tried to push through a “fake news” bill, co-authored Russia’s “Google tax” and boasted about a 2007 cyberattack that crippled neighboring Estonia’s…

Russia Accuses U.S. of Deliberately Delaying Visas for Its Officials

U.S. Charges Russian Companies for Attempt to Evade Trade Sanctions

U.S. federal prosecutors have charged Russian, Italian and U.S. companies and several employees for allegedly trying to evade U.S. sanctions by providing a U.S.-manufactured power turbine to a Russian state-controlled business, the U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday. The unidentified Russian company was barred from acquiring the turbine under U.S. sanctions imposed after Russia’s annexation…

Russia Accuses Alleged U.S. Spy Whelan of Lying About Ill-Treatment in Jail

Russia on Tuesday accused a former U.S. Marine it has held for almost a year on spying charges of faking health problems in custody and lying about his ill-treatment, comments the U.S. Embassy rejected as factually inaccurate “pulp fiction.” Paul Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports, was accused of espionage after agents from Russia‘s…

Russia to Make Investors Pass Exam Before Trading Shares

Millions of Russians will have to take a test to prove they understand financial markets if they want to carry on trading foreign stocks, under a central bank plan aimed at stemming potentially heavy losses among retail investors. The central bank had sought to limit access for non-professional investors, arguing that some lacked the knowledge…

5 Things to Know About Russia’s Alleged Banker-TV Anchor Couple

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s latest investigation claims that state-owned bank CEO Andrei Kostin gifted millions of dollars worth of elite property, a private jet and a yacht to his alleged partner, state television journalist Nailya Asker-Zade. News outlets have previously covered the real estate transfers from VTB Bank CEO Kostin to Rossia state broadcaster…

Putin Criticizes NATO Expansion as Alliance Holds London Summit

Rosatom Signs Deal to Boost Russia’s Arctic Infrastructure

State nuclear agency Rosatom has confirmed it will take a stake in transport conglomerate Delo Group as part of Russia’s plans to capitalize on Arctic shipping routes. In a statement published on Rosatom’s website Tuesday, the organization said the deal would “launch a global international transport and logistics business” to develop Russia’s infrastructure and capacity…

Russia Tightens Border Control Over Chinese Bubonic Plague Scare

Russia’s consumer protection watchdog has tightened border control measures last week after China reported a fresh case of the deadly and infectious bubonic plague in the country’s north. The diagnosis of a rural herder in China’s Inner Mongolia region marked the country’s fourth plague case since the start of November, Reuters reported Thursday. Three people…

German Prosecutors Suspect Russia Connection to Georgian Killing in Berlin

German federal prosecutors believe Russian intelligence was involved in the August killing of a Georgian citizen in Berlin and want to take over the investigation, a legal source told Reuters on Tuesday, confirming a report by public broadcaster ARD. The measure could raise tensions between Germany — and other western countries — and Russia, after strains over…

Kremlin Laughs Off Allegations of Possible U.K. Election Meddling

The Kremlin said on Tuesday it viewed suggestions from Western researchers that Russian hackers may have leaked British-U.S. trade documents before Britain’s election with derision, saying such allegations were often a ploy to deflect attention. Moscow was reacting after experts said the leak and distribution of the classified documents online resembled a disinformation campaign uncovered…

Russia Will Charge Sisters Who Killed Abusive Father With Premeditated Murder

Russian Probe Blames Pilot for May Plane Crash That Killed 41

Russia has completed an investigation into a plane crash at a Moscow airport in May that killed 41 people, and plans to formally charge the pilot with causing death by negligence, the Kommersant business daily said. Citing an unidentified source close to Russia’s Investigative Committee, the state body that investigates major crimes, the paper said…

Russian Mobile Operators Flag Security Loopholes in Sovereign Internet Law

Russia’s internet providers have asked the Kremlin to introduce changes to the new sovereign internet law to better protect user data, the RBC news website reported Tuesday. At a meeting with government officials last week, the country’s top telecoms firms highlighted loopholes in the controversial legislation which could give third parties access to swathes of…

Russian Beauty Queen Fears for Son’s Safety After Divorcing Malaysian King

A Russian beauty queen’s fairytale ending has hit a dark turn following her divorce from a former Malaysian king. Oksana Voyevodina, who was named Miss Moscow 2015, has filed a police report over threats against her infant son, Interfax reported Monday. Voyevodina, 26, divorced Sultan Muhammad V, 50, this summer, a year after tying the…

Russia Blocks U.S. Stock Photo Site’s Domain Over ‘Objectionable’ Content

Russia has blocked one of U.S. stock photography and footage provider Shutterstock’s domains over content it said constituted an insult to state symbols. The website of communications watchdog Roskomnadzor showed that one of the firm’s domains had been blocked in Russia as a result of a decision by the country’s Attorney General on Nov. 13. It did not…

Russia Refused Dutch Request to Hand Over MH17 Suspect, Investigation Says

Russia has refused a Dutch request to hand over a suspect in the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, in violation of European law, prosecutors said on Monday. Volodymyr Tsemakh, a Ukrainian national, had been identified as a suspect by the Netherlands, which is leading an investigation into the disaster on July 17, 2014 which…

Russian Trans Woman Jailed for ‘Manga Porn’ Faces Life-Threatening Sentence

A Russian transgender woman with cancer who has been jailed for three years for sharing manga illustrations online faces a potentially life-threatening sentence, the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper reported. A court in the city of Bryansk southwest of Moscow reportedly found Michele, 53, guilty of “circulating pornography depicting minors” in the Japanese-style illustrations. An expert…

Russia’s New ‘Foreign Agent’ Law, Explained

Russia has passed legislation that will allow individual journalists and bloggers to be labeled “foreign agents,” a move that critics say will tighten curbs on the media and free speech. At least nine news organizations funded by the U.S. government have been designated “foreign agents” under the original version of the law since it was…

Russia Bans Sale of Smartphones Without Russian Apps

Russia will force tech companies to pre-install Russian-made government-approved applications and software onto new smartphones from next year. The measures — dubbed the “law against Apple” due to the U.S. iPhone maker’s refusal to sell products loaded with third-party apps — sailed through the Russian parliament and was rubber-stamped by President Vladimir Putin Monday. It…

HIV Cases in Russia Surpass 1 Million – State Watchdog

The number of people living with HIV in Russia has surpassed 1 million as government officials have largely remained silent, Interfax reported, citing consumer protection watchdog data. More than 340,000 people with HIV have died in Russia since the first case was registered three decades ago, two-thirds of them since 2012, Iskander Yasaveyev, a sociologist…

Tajik Remittances From Russia Could Stop – Kommersant

Tajikistan’s move toward a money-transfer monopoly risks complicating or cutting off remittances from Russia as early as Tuesday, the Kommersant business daily reported. Ex-Soviet Tajikistan relies heavily on millions of its migrant workers in Russia sending money back home. The World Bank puts the Central Asian republic near the top of its list of the…

3 Russian Military Police Injured in Bomb Attack on Syrian Border

Are Russia and Belarus Creating a Unified Cabinet and Parliament?

Russian-language media was abuzz after Belarus’ top diplomat in Moscow said the countries are working toward creating a single parliament and cabinet of ministers. Talks to deepen Russian-Belarussian integration have taken on greater significance amid discussions that President Vladimir Putin could extend his rule past his current term limit by taking on the leadership of…

Russia to Upgrade Homegrown Encyclopedia to Replace ‘Unreliable’ Wikipedia

Russia is to set up a new online site for its national encyclopedia after President Vladimir Putin said Wikipedia was unreliable and should be replaced. The move will ensure people can find “reliable information that is constantly updated on the basis of scientifically verified sources of knowledge,” a government resolution said. Putin last month proposed…

Everyday Life in the Moscow Metro

A lot has changed since the first stations of the Moscow metro were opened in 1935. Over the decades, World War II, perestroika and the collapse of the U.S.S.R. have all radically changed life for Muscovites. One thing has remained constant, however: The importance of the metro in residents’ lives. It’s more than just a…

Russians Embrace Black Friday Sales

Russian shoppers spent 30% more in Black Friday online sales this year than they did in 2018, the head of Russia’s internet retail association said Monday. Despite not celebrating Thanksgiving, Russian retailers and consumers still embraced the shopping bonanza that kicks off the day after the U.S. holiday. In total, Russians spent 22.3 billion rubles…

Turkey Says Purchase Date for New S-400 Russian Missiles Is Just a ‘Technicality’