Russian Lawmakers Pass Bill Expanding ‘Undesirable’ Label to Include State-Affiliated Orgs

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Lawmakers in Russia’s lower-house State Duma voted Tuesday to expand the criteria for blacklisting organizations as “undesirable” to include any entity affiliated with a foreign government. The 2015 law, initially aimed at foreign-funded NGOs, has gradually been extended to target independent news outlets, human rights groups, environmental organizations and educational institutions. The recent amendments would empower Russia’s…

Igor Sechin: Realignment of routes to Asia-Pacific markets and stable oil exports ensure resilience of the Russian economy

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The reorganisation of logistics routes to Asia-Pacific markets and stable oil exports have played a major role in ensuring the sustainability of the Russian economy, said Igor Sechin, Executive Secretary of the Presidential Commission on the Strategy for the Development of the Fuel and Energy Complex and Environmental Safety, Chief Executive Officer of Rosneft

Igor Sechin: The West overestimated the impact of its pressure on the powerful potential of the Russian and Chinese economies

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Western countries have overestimated the effectiveness of their pressure on the potential of the Russian and Chinese economies; all efforts to curb growth have the opposite effect, said Igor Sechin, Executive Secretary of the Russian Presidential Commission on the Strategy for the Development of the Fuel and Energy Complex and Environmental Safety, Chief Executive Officer…

Raging Wildfires Devastate Russia’s Far East Sakha Republic

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Wildfires have destroyed nearly 5 million hectares of forest in Russia so far this summer, the country’s Aerial Forest Protection Service reported Monday.  This figure means that this year’s wildfire season in Russia has already been more devastating than the previous two, which saw 4.6 million hectares and 3.5 million hectares of forest destroyed respectively,…

Moscow Says Captured Small Village in Eastern Ukraine

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Russia’s military said Tuesday it captured another small village in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, where its forces have been making incremental advances for the past several months. The defense ministry said its troops “liberated” the settlement of Ivano-Dariivka, a village that consisted of just a few streets and houses before Russia launched its full-scale invasion…

Exiled Russian Journalist Mikhail Zygar Jailed 8.5 Years in Absentia for Bucha ‘Fakes’

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A Moscow court has sentenced exiled journalist Mikhail Zygar to eight-and-a-half years in prison in absentia for spreading so-called “fake” information about the Russian military’s actions in Ukraine, the independent Mediazona news website reported Tuesday. The criminal case against Zygar stems from his April 2022 Instagram post in which he spoke about the Russian army’s atrocities against…

Putin Transfers Seized TGK-2 Utility to Gazprom

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President Vladimir Putin has ordered the transfer of the nationalized power-generating company TGK-2 to a subsidiary of Russian state-owned gas monopoly Gazprom. TGK-2 is one of northwestern Russia’s largest thermal power companies with 12 plants, 30 boiler houses and four heat network enterprises spanning six regions. A court in the city of Yaroslavl northeast of Moscow ruled…

Russian Army Says Killed 50 ‘Western Instructors’ in Missile Attack

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A Russian ballistic missile attack on northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region killed dozens of Western military instructors, state media reported on Tuesday, citing Russia’s Defense Ministry. “[An] Iskander-M missile defense system launched an attack on the temporary deployment point of instructors and mercenaries from Western countries in the locality of Derhachi, Kharkiv region,” the state-run TASS…

Rejecting Kremlin Propaganda’s ‘Russophobia’ Claims, Russian Exiles in Warsaw Hope for a Bright Future

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WARSAW, Poland — “Poland has never been a popular immigration destination for Russians,” says Alexandr Menyukov, a Warsaw-based coordinator of Kovcheg, an international group supporting Russian wartime emigres and activists.  “This is, perhaps, understandable, because in Russian propagandists’ list of enemies Poland ranks second after the U.S. It even seems like Russia is fighting the…

‘Worse Than a Monkey With a Grenade’: Russian State TV Reacts to Biden’s Withdrawal, Harris’s Presidential Bid

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Russian state-run TV channels mocked the United States presidential election after President Joe Biden withdrew from the race on Sunday and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party’s new nominee. Vladimir Solovyov, the host of a popular evening talk show broadcast on the Rossiya 1 channel and one of the Kremlin’s most loyal…

Indonesia Seeks to Buy Russian Oil for the First Time in Decade – Reuters

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Indonesia’s state-owned oil and natural gas corporation Pertamina is looking to purchase Russian oil for the first time in more than a decade, Reuters reported on Monday, citing three anonymous traders familiar with the matter. As Southeast Asia’s largest economy, Indonesia stepped back from buying Russian oil following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but the country…

Russia Sentences U.S.-Russian Journalist Alsu Kurmasheva to 6.5 Years in Prison – AP

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A court in the republic of Tatarstan has sentenced Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva to six-and-a-half years in prison for spreading “fakes” about the army, the Associated Press reported on Monday, citing court records and a court spokeswoman. Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian citizen who works for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), was arrested in October of last…

Liquor Store in Southern Russia Explodes

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A gas explosion ripped through storefronts in southern Russia’s Krasnodar region, injuring at least four people, investigators said Monday. “Building structures collapsed in the city of Apsheronsk as a result of the explosion of a gas-air mixture early this morning,” Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said in a statement. Videos published by independent…

Stalin Bust Beheaded With Sledgehammer in Russian Park

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An unknown man wielding a sledgehammer has decapitated a statue honoring Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in a city near Moscow, Russian state media reported. Video taken in the city of Zvenigorod showed the suspect staggering around the statue before knocking its head off in what appeared to be one swoop and walking away. “On Saturday,…

Russia Says Captured Two Villages in East Ukraine

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Russia said Sunday that its forces had captured two frontline villages in Ukraine, Andriivka in the eastern Luhansk region and Pishchane in the northeast Kharkiv region. The two villages are less than 20 kilometers from each other on a section of the frontline where Moscow has made grinding advances in recent weeks. Russian army units…

Russia Says Intercepted U.S. Bomber Planes Over Arctic

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Russia said Sunday that it scrambled fighter jets to prevent two U.S. strategic bomber planes from crossing its border over the Barents Sea in the Arctic. The U.S. military routinely carries out flights over international waters, operations that it says are conducted in neutral airspace and in accordance with international law. But Moscow has responded…

Two Killed in Overnight Strikes on Ukraine

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At least two people were killed and four wounded in a Russian airstrike overnight on Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, the regional prosecutor said Saturday. “Around 3:15 in the morning the enemy launched a missile attack on the town of Barvinkove, in Izyum district,” the prosecutor said in a statement. The prosecuted said two men aged…

Russian Attacks in Southern Ukraine Kill 2

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Russian attacks killed two people in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region on Friday, a day after Kyiv acknowledged its foothold on the left bank of the Dnipro River was mostly destroyed. Ukraine managed to establish a small bridgehead on the left bank of the Dnipro River that cuts through the Kherson region last year in an attempt…

Police Launch Probe After Russian Lawmaker Attacked

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Russian investigators said Friday that they have launched a criminal probe into “attempted murder” following an assault on a federal lawmaker. Mikhail Matveyev, a Communist Party member of Russia’s lower-house State Duma, said Thursday he had been attacked by “migrants” while attempting to stop them from harassing a passerby in the southern city of Samara.…

FSB Says Foiled Attempted Bomb Attack in Southern Russia

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Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said Friday that it thwarted an attempted terrorist attack at a bus station in the southern Stavropol region. The law enforcement agency said it detained a man who had purchased supplies to make an improvised explosive device, which he allegedly stored in a garage in the city of Yessentuki. Authorities…

Russia Bans Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

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Authorities in Russia on Thursday added the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to the country’s list of “undesirable” organizations. While the listing does not specify why the organization was added, it does cite a decision by Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office from July 1 to designate Carnegie as “undesirable.” It was not immediately clear what specific…

Russia Bans Ruble Toilet Paper

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A Moscow court has banned the sale of toilet paper with printed patterns of 1,000-ruble bills, the independent news website Vyorstka reported Thursday, citing the court’s ruling. The decorative toilet paper was deemed to “offend religious feelings” since the 1,000-ruble banknote depicts Yaroslav the Wise, an 11th-century Kyivan Rus’ prince who was made a saint…

Putin Warns of Blackouts From ‘Uncontrolled’ Crypto Mining

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President Vladimir Putin warned on Wednesday that unregulated cryptocurrency mining risks overloading Russia’s electrical grid and causing widespread power outages. “An uncontrolled increase in electricity consumption for mining cryptocurrencies can lead to power shortages in certain regions,” Putin told senior government officials at a meeting focused on the economy. Russia’s Energy Ministry estimates that crypto mining consumes…

Lithuania Bans Cars With Belarusian Plates

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Lithuania will no longer allow passenger vehicles with Belarusian license plates to enter the country, the Baltic nation’s customs agency announced on Wednesday.  The ban, which takes effect Thursday, applies to passenger cars “regardless of the nationality of their owner or driver,” the agency said. An exception will be made until Aug. 16 for Belarusian…

Kremlin Dismisses Claims That Kharkiv Offensive Failed

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The Kremlin on Wednesday dismissed suggestions that its ground offensive on northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region had failed, coming a day after Russian officials said they would seal off border villages to protect civilians from Ukrainian shelling. Russia launched a surprise assault into the Kharkiv region in early May in a bid to push Ukrainian forces…

Russia, Ukraine Swap 190 Prisoners of War

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Russia and Ukraine have exchanged 190 captured soldiers as part of a deal mediated by the United Arab Emirates, the Russian Defense Ministry announced Wednesday. “As a result of a negotiation process, 95 Russian servicemen … have been returned,” the ministry wrote on Telegram, adding that 95 Ukrainian soldiers had also been released. Ukraine’s human…

Ex-Vedomosti Chief Editor Andrei Shmarov Dies at 69

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Russian media executive Andrei Shmarov, whose short stint as editor-in-chief of the business daily Vedomosti was marred by censorship scandals, has died at the age of 69, the newspaper said Wednesday, citing a family friend. Vedomosti did not name the cause of Shmarov’s death, but anonymously run Telegram news channels with links to Russia’s law…