Syria’s parliament has approved contracts for oil exploration with two Russian companies in an effort to boost production hit by more than eight years of war and Western sanctions. State news agency SANA said the deals cover exploration and production in three blocs, including an oilfield in northeast Syria and a gas field north of…
Sanctions have helped reduce income inequality in Russia, a new study looking into the effects of both Western sanctions against Russia and Russia’s own counter-sanctions has said. The U.S. and EU imposed sanctions against Russia in 2014 in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and support for pro-Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine. In response, Russia…
Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to still use Microsoft’s discontinued Windows XP operating system, the Open Media news website reported Monday after examining photographs of his desktop. Microsoft stopped releasing security updates for Windows XP and Office 2003, with occasional exceptions, in April 2014. Russian officials are technically banned from using foreign software as Moscow…
China and Russia on Monday proposed the U.N. Security Council lift a ban on North Korean exporting statues, seafood and textiles, according to a draft resolution seen by Reuters, in a move Russia said is aimed at encouraging talks between Washington and Pyongyang. The draft also called for a ban to be lifted on North…
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…
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law that increases fines for news media or their employees designated as “foreign agents” Monday. The new fines come two weeks after Putin signed another piece of legislation allowing authorities to label individual journalists and bloggers “foreign agents.” Starting Feb. 1, 2020, any individual who distributes information online…
Rosneft Oil Company expands the sales of high-octane gasoline with enhanced environmental properties RON-95-K5 Euro 6 and Pulsar 95 Euro 6.
A series of censorship scandals rocked Russia’s television landscape in the past week. Here’s a look at the three high-profile cases where words, episodes or entire shows were taken down from Russian television screens: “Servant of the People” The Gazprom-owned TNT entertainment channel pulled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s political satire “Servant of the People” off…
A lot has happened in 2019 — nowhere moreso than in Russia, where geopolitical drama, civil unrest, natural disasters and more played out across the country. As we approach 2020, here’s a look at the stories and events that shaped the narrative across Russia this year: Summer of discontent This summer saw a nearly unprecedented…
Authorities in Russia have registered one of the first transgender marriages in a country that positions itself as a bastion of traditional family values. Erika Askarova and Viktor Manuilin’s otherwise ordinary wedding made national headlines after the two posted photographs from the registry office in the city of Kazan on Dec. 12. Askarova, 30, and…
Russia’s third-largest internet company Rambler wants a record 180 billion rubles ($2.87 billion) in compensation from Amazon’s streaming giant Twitch over illegal streams, the Kommersant business daily reported Monday, the second high-profile action Rambler has taken against a U.S. tech company in less than a week. The lawsuit follows raids on popular web hosting software…
Russia is proposing to move toward ending the ban on selling so-called blood diamonds from the Central African Republic, a former French colony that’s struck recent military and commercial ties with Moscow, amid resistance from the U.S. and Europe. The CAR, which is mired in civil conflict, should be granted a “road map” outlining the…
The city of Moscow spent nearly as much money on urban renewal over the past decade as the rest of the country combined, the Vedomosti business daily reported Friday. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin made urbaniztion a top priority when he took office in 2010. In 2015, Sobyanin launched the Moya Ulitsa (My Street) initiative, which…
Russia is developing nuclear weapons that the United States does not yet have, a senior officer of the force that oversees the U.S. nuclear arsenal was cited by the state-run TASS news agency as saying Friday. U.S. Strategic Command deputy commander Vice Adm. Dave Kriete spoke to reporters as the U.S. tested a missile that…
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party has secured a majority in a landslide election victory, results showed on Friday. In addition to leading Britain through its withdrawal from the European Union, Johnson will be tasked with navigating British-Russian relations, which have been fraught since Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine and a former Russian spy…
Russia’s natural population decline will set an 11-year record this year as the country’s demographic crisis shows no signs of letting up, the RBC news website reported Friday. Russia’s overall population totaled 146.7 million in January-September 2019, the State Statistics Service Rosstat said in a report last week. While migrant inflows had offset its natural…
Painted in the Russia’s flag’s tricolor, the new Arktika sailed out to the Gulf of Finland on Thursday for a two-day test voyage. During sea trials, the icebreaker will test its ballast system, navigation equipment, anchors and electric installations as well as maneuvering characteristics, Rosatomflot informs. Arktika is the lead vessel in the new class…
Russian lawmakers tasked with weeding out foreign interference have endorsed penalties for Russian nationals who attend “undesirable” NGO courses abroad, the country’s parliament said Thursday. The lower-house State Duma formed a special commission on foreign meddling in Russia after mass anti-government rallies rocked Moscow this summer. Since then, it has accused foreign news outlets, U.S.…
A Russian court jailed a Jehovah’s Witness adherent for six years on Friday after finding him guilty of extremist activity, part of a crackdown on the group that human rights activists say violates religious freedom. A court in Penza, around 350 miles (563 kilometers) southeast of Moscow, said in a statement it had jailed Vladimir Alushkin,…
Yegor Zhukov was tired of giving interviews. So instead of using the main entrance to an event in his honor, where a television crew was waiting for him, he slipped past a security guard and headed for a side door. He didn’t go unnoticed. “Please, young man, follow the rules,” the guard ordered, running after…
Ukrainian police have detained five people, including a pediatric surgeon and a rock musician, over the killing of an investigative journalist in a car bomb in July 2016, law enforcement officials said on Thursday. Briefing journalists alongside President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the officials said the motive for killing 44-year-old Pavel Sheremet, a Belarussian, was to destabilize…
Russian police raided the Moscow offices of a popular U.S.-owned web server over a Russian search engine giant’s ownership claim of its source code, Forbes Russia reported Thursday. Authorities raided Nginx’s Moscow office based on a copyright infingement claim by Russian oligarch Alexander Mamut’s Cyprus-registered investment vehicle Lynwood, Forbes Russia cited an unnamed source at the…
European Union leaders meeting in Brussels on Thursday agreed to extend their main economic sanctions against Russia for six months to the end of July 2020, four diplomatic sources told Reuters. The bloc first slapped sanctions on Moscow after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and went on to back separatists facing off against…
The U.S. Senate on Thursday confirmed the nomination of John Sullivan, President Donald Trump’s pick to be Ambassador to Russia, at a time when ties between Washington and Moscow have been strained. Sullivan, a lawyer who has served in previous Republican administrations before becoming deputy secretary of State in 2017, will replace Jon Huntsman, who…
At least one military serviceman was killed and 12 people were injured by a fire at Russia‘s only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, Russian news agencies reported Thursday. The Admiral Kuznetsov caught fire on Thursday during maintenance work in Russia‘s Arctic port in Murmansk. Hours later the fire has been brought under control. The body of a military…
Turkey could send troops to Libya if its UN-backed government requests help, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday, pointing to Russian military contractors currently in the war-torn country. Libya’s internationally recognized government said last week it plans to confront Russia over the private mercenaries with a list of up to 800 Russian fighters supporting…
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…
Vladimir Putin’s environmental adviser has promised to bring Russian climate activists’ demands to the president later this month, the activists said Wednesday. The activists met Putin’s special representative on climate issues Ruslan Edelgeriyev at the UN climate conference in Madrid for over an hour, the Meduza news website reported. “He agreed to convey our demands…
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…
A Russian television channel has pulled a popular Ukrainian comedy starring current President Volodymyr Zelenskiy the day after its premiere, the Vedomosti business daily reported Wednesday. Zelenskiy, 41, played a disgruntled teacher whose viral rant catapults him into Ukraine’s presidency in the series called “Servant of the People.” Partly thanks to the sitcom’s popularity, Zelenskiy…
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson won a heartfelt endorsement from Russian nationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky on the day of an election that may decide the future of Brexit. Polls show Johnson’s Conservative Party winning a majority in the general election, despite recent figures narrowing its gap with the Labour Party. Opponents have accused him of…
A group of seven men attacked and beat an 18-year-old girl in St. Petersburg after insulting her over her “lesbian appearance,” local media reported earlier this week. According to a study by the St. Petersburg-based Vykhod LGBT center, at least 149 people suffered homophobic attacks in the city in 2018, including 62 who were attacked…
Rosneft Oil Company has won auctions for the Mezeninskoye, Severo-Dzhangodskoye, and Yangodskoye licence blocks located in the Dolgano-Nenets municipal district of Krasnoyarsk Territory.
Russia has not buzzed U.S. aircraft and ships in Europe and the Mediterranean in the past three months, the Military.com news website quoted a top U.S. commander in Europe as saying Tuesday. Russian and NATO aircraft have conducted thousands of intercepts over international waters in the past four years, Gen. Tod Wolters said in June.…
Russia on Thursday expelled two German diplomats in what it called a standard diplomatic response to a similar move by Germany last week and said it hoped a dispute over the killing of a Georgian citizen in Berlin would not damage ties further. Berlin announced the expulsion of two Russian diplomats last week over what it said…
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…
Rudy Giuliani’s associate Lev Parnas got $1 million from an account in Russia in September, a month before he was charged with conspiring to funnel foreign money into U.S. political campaigns, according to U.S. prosecutors who asked a judge to jail him for understating his income and assets. “The majority of that money appears to…
A Russian court has ordered the deportation of five U.S. academics for allegedly giving a lecture at a university on a tourist visa, according to local media reports and court documents. The deportation order in the city of Ryazan 200 kilometers south of Moscow comes months after a government order which advised state-affiliated scientists to…
Russia ranks 52nd out of 61 countries worldwide for its adoption of climate change goals, according to the 2020 Climate Change Performance Index. Presented at the COP25 climate talks in Madrid, the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) ranking illustrates differences in climate protection among 57 high-emitting countries as well as the EU. It ranks countries…
Moscow places smack dab in the middle of a list of the 100 most comfortable and affordable Russian cities to live in, the RBC news website reported Wednesday. RBC cited research from the Urbanica spatial planning institute, which ranked the 100 cities with populations over 173,000 based on ease of life and cost of living. The…
Russia on Wednesday banned a shaman from leaving his Siberian hometown after he was detained during a second attempt to hike to Moscow on what he has called a mission to banish President Vladimir Putin from the Kremlin. Alexander Gabyshev became a media curiosity when he set off in March on a more than 8,000-kilometer…
The German government said Wednesday it was unaware that Russia had made an extradition request for a Georgian man murdered in Berlin in August, after Russian President Vladimir Putin complained multiple requests had gone unheeded. In an escalation in already tense relations, Germany last week expelled two employees at the Russian embassy in Berlin, saying…
Germany contradicted Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, saying it was not aware Russia had requested the extradition of a Georgian man who was murdered in Berlin in August. In an escalation in already tense relations, Germany last week expelled two employees at the Russian embassy in Berlin, saying Moscow was not cooperating sufficiently in the investigation into the…
The children of victims of Stalin-era repressions have the right to receive state housing in the cities where their parents had been deported from, Russia’s Supreme Court has said in a landmark ruling Tuesday. Amendments to the 1991 law rehabilitating victims of Soviet-era political repressions adopted in 2005 contradict the Russian Constitution because they make…
Russian authorities were right to jail protesters for throwing plastic cups at police during mass anti-government rallies in Moscow this summer, President Vladimir Putin said at a human rights meeting Tuesday. Putin this fall replaced the presidential human rights council’s longtime chairman and key liberal members with what observers called ultra-loyalist figures. Its new head,…
Russia’s national boxing team will not compete in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo under a neutral flag, it announced Wednesday as Russian athletes grapple with the country’s four-year ban from world sporting events. The World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) banned Russia from the world’s top sporting events, including the next summer and winter Olympics and the…
The attempted shipment of a Vector 40G turbine from the U.S. to Russia was halted last Tuesday as American authorities caught suspicions that the installation was destined for use in the Russian Arctic, the Kommersant business daily reported. The $6.5 million turbine is produced by U.S. company Dresser-Rand. Its exportation to Russia would mean a violation…
The head of Russia’s largest television channel has admitted that airing footage it erroneously claimed to prove Ukraine’s role in the downing of MH17 was a “mistake,” according to a book excerpt published by The New Yorker. Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down over territory controlled by Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, killing 298…
Twelve big cats loll around the ring of the Moscow State Circus during a public rehearsal as Russia’s most famous animal handlers, brothers Ascold and Edgard Zapashny, train them to jump through flaming hoops. Some stare at the men and growl quietly, while others ignore the trainers and play with their own tails. Eventually, a…
U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the White House on Tuesday, where he warned Russia not to interfere in U.S. elections. Lavrov’s last Oval Office meeting in May 2017 turned into a public relations disaster for Trump when unnamed U.S. officials accused him of divulging highly classified information and when he told…
An unusually warm winter has kept some bears in a Siberian zoo from hibernating and forced others out of hibernation, the state-run TASS news agency reported Tuesday. Several Siberian regions saw temperatures up to 14 degrees Celsius higher than usual in the early days of December, forecasters have said. Two brown bears awoke while two…
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on Monday hit Russia with a four-year ban from competing or hosting major world sporting events, including the Olympic Games and World Championships. The move comes after WADA’s executive committee unanimously ruled that Moscow had tampered with doping laboratory data. Russian athletes will only be able to compete in these…
A ski resort in Kyrgyzstan has unveiled a 2.5-meter statue of Russian President Vladimir Putin, after the resort’s founder received a $1.2 million loan from a Russian-sponsored development fund. Erected last month, the monument sees Russia’s leader wearing a suit as he looks out over a barren landscape of rocky valleys and snow-capped peaks, 30…
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…
U.S. lawmakers have agreed Monday on a $738 billion annual defense policy bill that includes new measures against two of Russia’s nearly finished energy pipelines to Europe and Turkey. The compromise version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) overcame concerns that it might fail for the first time in 58 years over divides between…
A court in St. Petersburg has sentenced the main organizer of the St. Petersburg metro bombing that killed 15 people in 2017 to life in prison, it announced Tuesday, bringing a more than two-year investigation and trial to a close. The court handed jail sentences between 19 and 28 years to 10 other suspects. Investigators suspect…
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…
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…
Rosneft Oil Company employees have received an award from the Government of the Russian Federation and the award-winning title for their innovative developments in Science and Technology.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy held their first face-to-face meeting Monday at a four-way summit in Paris with the French and German leaders as mediators. The last time the so-called Normandy summit met to work out a deal to end the conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists in the Donbass…