Low-cost international airlines could soon fly in and out of St. Petersburg more freely after an easing of restrictions announced by Russian officials, Russian media have reported. No other Russian city allows so-called “seventh freedom flights,” which allow international carriers to operate flights outside their country of registration. St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport projects that the permissions will…
If all goes to plan for St. Petersburg’s new governor, Russia’s second-largest city may soon have the landscaped public parks, brand-new buses and budget surpluses of its big brother Moscow. The man behind the promises, Kremlin protégé Alexander Beglov, was inaugurated Wednesday in the gold and marble halls of the Mariinsky Palace in the city…
Specialists of the Nenets Nature Reserve have launched an extensive field survey of a population of the Atlantic subspecies of walrus as a part of the biological indicator species monitoring programme implemented by Rosneft Oil Company.
The enterprise responsible for Russian seaport and maritime infrastructure development today operates a total of 36 icebreaking vessels. This is the largest fleet of its kind in the world, the state-run Rosmorport company says. And more is to come. According to company deputy general director Vasily Strugov, another nine vessels will be added to the fleet by 2024. Among them, there…
A Moscow court has ruled to release novice actor Pavel Ustinov from custody days ahead of his appeal following widespread public outcry over his conviction. Ustinov, 23, was found guilty Monday of dislocating a riot police officer’s shoulder during mass anti-government protests in Moscow last month. A court sentenced Ustinov to three and a half years…
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Friday that one North Korean poacher, captured by Russian border guards in the Sea of Japan, has died, the Interfax news agency reported. A Russian border patrol discovered two North Korean schooners and 11 motorboats fishing illegally off its far eastern coast on Tuesday and detained the first…
Officials have sent a Siberian shaman to a psychiatric hospital after he was apprehended on his way from Far East Russia to Moscow to exorcise President Vladimir Putin, authorities said Friday. Alexander Gabyshev embarked on his odyssey in March, promising to walk more than 8,000 kilometers from his native republic of Sakha to Moscow to…
The United States military has a secret blueprint targeting the air defense system protecting Russia’s westernmost territory of Kaliningrad, according to the U.S. Air Force’s top commander in Europe. NATO members perceive Russia’s missile deployments in Kaliningrad as a threat at a time when tensions between Russia and its Western neighbors are running high over…
Russia cast its 13th veto on Thursday of UN Security Council action on the Syrian conflict, blocking a demand for a truce in northwest Syria because it does not include an exemption for military offensives against UN blacklisted militant groups. China backed Russia by also blocking the text, drafted by Kuwait, Belgium and Germany. It…
A court in southern Russia has found six Jehovah’s Witnesses guilty of “extremism” and sentenced them to prison terms between two and three and a half years Thursday. Russia outlawed Jehovah’s Witnesses in 2017, making it a criminal offense for the group’s estimated 175,000 worshippers to meet or distribute literature. Human rights groups have condemned…
A Russian university is said to have threatened a student with expulsion after his pink phone case and membership in pro-LGBT social media groups fueled suspicions about his alleged sexual orientation. The reported threats made by Ural State University of Economics (USUE) administrators in Russia’s fourth-largest city of Yekaterinburg come six years after the Russian…
Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service said Thursday it had fined Google 100,000 rubles ($1,560) for circulating adverts for financial services by Ali Trade, a company it said did not have the required license for such activity. Russia has fined Google on several occasions in recent years, although those fines typically amount only to small sums. It…
Thousands of Russians from different walks of life have added their names to the growing chorus of voices against a crackdown following the biggest anti-Kremlin protests in the capital in years. Over a dozen protesters and bystanders are being held in custody on accusations of mass unrest, using violence against police, attending multiple unauthorized rallies…
Wearing a traditional black cassock and long Orthodox beard, Father Oleg Batov heaves a pensive sigh. “I really feel for the boys. A great evil is being done to them,” he told The Moscow Times in an interview in his office on the second floor of Moscow’s 16th-century Church of the Dormition of Theotokos, located…
A Russian volcano’s eruption this summer has turned sunrises and sunsets in the Northern Hemisphere more purple, according to research by the University of Colorado Boulder. Raikoke erupted on June 22 on an uninhabited island south of the Kamchatka peninsula in the Russian Far East after lying dormant for 95 years. NASA said the eruption…
A Moscow court said on Thursday that it would review the jailing of an actor over an opposition protest after state prosecutors formally requested that he be released on bail following a public outcry over his conviction. Pavel Ustinov, 23, was sentenced on Monday to three and a half years in jail for dislocating a…
Uganda said on Wednesday it had signed an Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) with Russia to help the East African country build capacity to exploit nuclear technology for energy, medical and other peaceful purposes. The government of President Yoweri Museveni has previously said it is eager to use the country’s uranium deposits to boost energy production capacity.…
An anti-Putin shaman from Siberia has been kidnapped by armed and masked men thought to be security officials, Russian media have reported. Alexander Gabyshev has been walking on foot from the Far East republic of Sakha to Moscow since March to “expel” President Vladimir Putin. Last week, the detention of his supporters in the city…
Russia has uncovered Islamic State terrorist group cells in nearly 20 of the country’s regions stretching as far as Siberia, a top anti-extremism official at the Interior Ministry has said. Extremism accounts for 1% of all crimes in Russia, Oleg Ilyinykh wrote in a piece for the ministry’s “Russian Police” magazine published Tuesday. “But even…
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Israel is a Russian-speaking state and that the two countries share a common history and extensive family ties. Israel is home to the world’s largest population of Russian Jews, a large portion of whom emigrated there from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s. About 17% of Israel’s…
A Moscow court has ordered the release of one of several activists charged with “mass civil unrest” during the Russian capital’s biggest wave of anti-government protests in nearly a decade. More than a dozen men, including Sberbank software engineer Aidar Gubaidulin, were placed in pre-trial detention on accusations of organizing mass unrest during election-related protests…
Russia may drop its embezzlement case against embattled U.S. investor Michael Calvey and other executives at the Baring Vostok private equity group, the Kommersant business daily reported Wednesday. Calvey and three other Baring Vostok executives were detained in February on embezzlement charges, which they denied. They said the case was being used to pressure them…
A pair of nationalists from Moscow is suspected of a hate crime after allegedly stabbing a Central Asian migrant in St. Petersburg, the Fontanka.ru news website has reported. Unofficial data estimates that at least 245 acts of violence against Central Asians were committed in Russia out of a total of 772 hate crimes in 2010-2018.…
Russia is holding 161 suspected North Korean poachers who were detained in the Sea of Japan on Tuesday after one of the boats they were on attacked a Russian patrol, the state-run RIA news agency said on Wednesday. A Russian border patrol discovered two North Korean schooners and 11 motorboats fishing illegally off its far eastern coast on…
Hundreds of people have lined up for single pickets outside President Vladimir Putin’s administration building in central Moscow to support an actor who was jailed for using violence against a policeman during one of this summer’s unauthorized election protests. Pavel Ustinov’s sentencing to 3.5 years behind bars Monday for allegedly dislocating an officer’s shoulder while…
The Directorate for the Russian Federation State Border Arrangement plans to build a major radar at Cape Chelyuskin, the Krasnoyarsk news agency NGS24 has reported. The facility is to be built in 33 months. Its development tender was recently announced by Rosgranstroy, the federal border development authority. The project is officially called “Radiotechnical point Chelyuskin” and includes a cost frame…
Scores of Russian priests have joined the chorus of voices calling on the authorities to stop the criminal prosecutions of protesters and bystanders following this summer’s mass election protests in Moscow. Around a dozen men, some as young as 21 years old, are being held on various charges after the largest sustained protest movement in…
Scores of Russian priests have joined the chorus of voices calling on the authorities to stop the criminal prosecutions of protesters and bystanders following this summer’s mass election protests in Moscow. Around a dozen men, some as young as 21 years old, are being held on various charges after the largest sustained protest movement in…
Anti-migrant attitudes have risen for a second consecutive year in Russia, according to a new independent survey’s results that experts link to the country’s economic woes. The Levada Center’s findings come as research has shown a decade-high surge in migration to Russia in the early months of 2019. At the same time, real incomes continue…
Russia may drop its embezzlement case against U.S. investor Michael Calvey and other executives at the Baring Vostok private equity group, the Kommersant newspaper reported on Wednesday. The Baring Vostok executives were detained in February on embezzlement charges, which they denied. They said the case was being used to pressure them in a business dispute…
Russians no longer see a deficit of women on their country’s political stage, according to a state-run survey that has tracked attitudes toward female politicians for over 20 years. Researchers estimate that up to 17% of legislative seats in Russia are currently held by women, about half the global average. In the late 1990s, women…
A 10-year-old legless skateboarder from Russia has gone viral after getting shoutouts from legendary skater Tony Hawk and a popular Russian YouTuber. Doctors in Far East Russia amputated six-month-old Maxim Abramov’s legs in 2011 after he was injured in a fire. A St. Petersburg family adopted him less than a year later. As he grew…
Russian border guards detained two North Korean racketeering vessels in Russian territorial waters in the Sea of Japan after one of them attacked a Russian patrol ship, the state-run TASS news agency cited the FSB security service as saying on Tuesday. “The crew of a North Korean schooner (more than 45 people) carried out an armed attack…
Belarus has uncovered an illegal cross-border weapons smuggling network from Ukraine to Russia, the close Moscow ally’s top customs official has said. Kiev’s forces have been battling pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine since 2014 in a conflict that has claimed more than 13,000 lives. Sporadic fighting continues despite a ceasefire agreement.…
A working group set up by exiled Kremlin critic and former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky has written an open letter signed by 77 public figures condemning “the political repression and lawlessness taking place today in Russia.” Signatories include the creators of the hit television series “Game of Thrones” David Benioff and Dan Weiss, British actor…
Russian film and theater actors have staged an in-person and online campaign in support of a fellow actor who was jailed for using violence against a policeman during one of this summer’s unauthorized election protests in Moscow. A court sentenced Pavel Ustinov to 3.5 years behind bars Monday for allegedly dislocating an officer’s shoulder while…
Moscow wants the United States to explain a media report on alleged Russian spying that it says has endangered its diplomats, the Russian Embassy in Washington has said. Russian operatives allegedly decrypted secure FBI communications starting in 2010, forcing the U.S. agency to cut off contacts with some of its Russian informants, Yahoo News reported…
Two Russian football stars have been released after serving six months in jail over their involvement in a pair of violent attacks that sparked public outcry last year. Alexander Kokorin and Pavel Mamayev, who both played in Russia’s top league and used to play for their country, apologized after being caught on surveillance last year…
Russia is set to be a major winner after an attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities slashed production and ramped up tensions in the Middle East, analysts predict. In a frantic day for the world’s markets, oil prices climbed by almost 15% Monday following the drone attacks on Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia’s largest oil refinery, which…
Update: A court in St. Petersburg has fined Lorber 15,000 rubles ($230) after finding her guilty of illegal drug possession, the city court system’s press service wrote on its Telegram channel. A New York-based film student has been charged with drug possession in St. Petersburg for allegedly bringing medical marijuana into the country. Russia bans…
An explosion has hit a disease research center in Siberia that houses strains of Ebola and smallpox, causing a fire and injuring one worker. The Vector State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology announced Monday that a gas tank erupted during repairs in a sanitary inspection room at its lab in Koltsovo, Novosibirsk region. One…
Russia is ready to help Saudi Arabia following attacks on the Saudi oil industry if needed, Russian President Vladimir Putin said after talks with leaders of Turkey and Iran in Ankara on Monday, and proposed Russian weapons for purchase. “We are ready to provide respective assistance to Saudi Arabia, and it would be enough for…
The leaders of Turkey, Russia and Iran meeting in Ankara on Monday agreed to try to ease tensions in northwest Syria’s Idlib region, but disagreements between the countries appeared to linger, especially over the threat from Islamic State. The summit of the three countries — all of whom have allies fighting in Syria’s ruinous eight-year-old war —…
A member of Russia’s National Guard has urged colleagues to disobey orders to detain protesters rallying against the results of a local election in Far East Russia. Hundreds rallied in the center of the city of Ulan-Ude and several were detained after a pro-Kremlin candidate for mayor was declared the winner of the Sept. 8…
Residents of three Far East Russian regions are accusing the authorities of failing to improve flood control systems in the six years since the area was hit with biggest floods in more than a century, the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper has reported. Tens of thousands of people were evacuated and more than 100,000 were affected…
Russia on Monday urged countries in the Middle East and outside the region not to draw “hasty conclusions” on who staged the attacks on Saudi oil facilities. A senior U.S. official said earlier that evidence from the attack, which hit the world’s biggest oil-processing facility, indicated Iran was behind it, instead of the Yemeni Houthi…
Russia and its close ally Belarus plan to form an economic confederacy by 2022, according to an undisclosed plan of action for integration seen by the Kommersant business daily. Belarus’ integration with Russia became a widely discussed possibility as one of the ways in which President Vladimir Putin could sidestep constitutional term limits that bar…
Former U.S spy agency contractor Edward Snowden said he would love French President Emmanuel Macron to grant him political asylum after one of Macron’s ministers said if it was up to her she would offer him asylum. French Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet said at the weekend she supported granting asylum to him, though she made…
A Moscow court has jailed an actor for 3.5 years Monday after finding him guilty of dislocating a riot police officer’s shoulder during anti-government protests last month, despite his claims that he was a bystander. Pavel Ustinov, detained Aug. 3, is among a dozen activists and passersby held on various charges relating to mass election…
A former Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) official has been jailed for four years in what experts say is the country’s first conviction on torture charges against a security official. Recent polling has said that one in 10 Russians have been subjected to what they perceived to be torture by law enforcement officials. The United…
There is enough oil in global stockpiles to replace barrels Saudi Arabia has temporarily lost due to attacks on its oil facilities, Russia‘s Energy Minister Alexander Novak, an ally of Riyadh in a pact to curb supply, told reporters on Monday. Following the strike on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure, which shut about 5% of global supply,…
Russia‘s first floating nuclear power plant has arrived to its permanent base near an isolated Russian town across the Bering Strait from Alaska, Russian state nuclear energy company Rosatom said on Saturday. Developed by Rosatom, the plant, known as “Akademik Lomonosov,” set off on a 5,000 kilometers journey on Aug. 23 through Arctic waters to reach the…
The Britten-Shostakovich Festival Orchestra has had its first concert in Moscow within the tour through Russian and British cities.
A supporter of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has filmed himself “evacuating” his hard drives on a drone as police closed in on his high-rise apartment building during nationwide mass raids. Navalny and his allies said police carried out more than 200 searches in 41 towns and cities, including Russia’s third-largest city of Novosibirsk, as part…
Supported by Rosneft Oil Company, the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Arctic Exploration Centre have conducted a scientific survey of polar bears on Bely Island and Vilkitsky Island, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District.
Russia is ready to take part in a four-way summit in Paris to try to breathe life into the stalled Ukrainian peace process but has strict preconditions for such a meeting, a senior Kremlin aide said on Friday. Kiev’s forces have been battling pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine since 2014 in a…
Nearly one-third of Russia’s population has come face-to-face with domestic violence in their own families or among acquaintances, according to an independent survey published Friday. Russia decriminalized certain forms of domestic violence in 2017, a decision that top lawmakers have said was a mistake two years later. Activists say the absence of a domestic violence…
It was one of the defining moments of the summer: the budding leader of Moscow’s protest movement for fair elections and the official responsible for protecting Russians’ voting rights coming to verbal blows at a public hearing. “You are the talking head of the presidential administration. Shame on you,” Lyubov Sobol lobbed at Ella Pamfilova,…
Russia has planted its flag on the northernmost tip of Eurasia to symbolize Russia’s desire to peacefully explore and develop the Arctic, the Northern Fleet said. The steel construction was erected on Cape Fligely, located at 81.5 degrees north on Rudolf Island in the remote archipelago of Franz Josef Land. Nothing but desolate Arctic waters lies to…
Police in St. Petersburg have been filmed dragging a local election monitor out of a building as observers accuse officials in Russia’s second-largest city of staging the “dirtiest” campaign in the country. No official results have been declared in the five days since St. Petersburg held the municipal vote, leading some election commission members to…