As Russia’s Northern Fleet strives to complete its newest Arctic base on the coast of the remote Laptev Sea, construction works have been progressing at a hectic pace. The establishment of the garrison in Russia’s Far East town of Tiksi was first announced by the Northern Fleet’s then-Head Commander Nikolai Yevmenov in September 2018. In a meeting with regional…
At least four civilians have been wounded in a rocket attack on Russia’s military base in Syria, the Russian Defense Ministry has said. Rebel commanders and rights groups have said Russia and its Syrian ally stepped up aerial strikes last week in a new and bloodier phase of a three-month-old assault on the last opposition…
A series of blasts at a Russian military base in the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk may have been caused by “human error,” a senior Defense Ministry official said Tuesday. Dramatic footage posted online Monday showed huge explosions on the horizon after an ammunition depot caught fire, with flames leaping into the sky followed by belching…
Police in St. Petersburg have reportedly detained at least 11 LGBT activists, three of whom were taken away in an ambulance, at an unauthorized Pride event on Saturday. Local administrations in recent years have either banned gay pride parades outright or backtracked on earlier promises to allow them, often citing a 2013 law banning “homosexual…
Fans of FC Zenit St. Petersburg have been accused of racism following the signing of black Brazilian winger Malcom, an allegation that the club has since denied. FC Zenit signed Malcom from Spanish champions Barcelona for an initial fee of $44.39 million last week. Days later, a banner spotted in the fan section during Zenit’s…
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Monday that Moscow would be forced to start developing short and intermediate-range land-based nuclear missiles if the United States started doing so after the demise of a landmark arms control treaty. The United States formally left the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia on Friday after determining that…
Yegor Zhukov, a student at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, was detained on Aug. 2 on suspicion of “mass unrest,” a crime punishable with up to eight years in prison, after he took part in Moscow’s mass opposition protest on July 27.Zhukov’s classmates say he has been targeted for openly showing his opinion on the…
Thousands of people took to Moscow’s streets for the fourth weekend in a row to demand that city authorities allow opposition-minded candidates to be allowed on the ballot for the Sept. 8 City Duma elections. Opposition candidate Lyubov Sobol, virtually the only leading opposition figure who hadn’t yet been jailed ahead of Saturday’s protest, was…
The annual International Army Games takes place this month in Patriot Park on the outskirts of Moscow, giving various combat units from the military a chance to compete against one another and show off their skills. Teams from 25 countries have gathered to battle it out with a tank biathlon, military police firing lines, field…
Japan has rebuked Russia’s planned military exercises on a Pacific island claimed by both countries in the latest row over the territory that has kept the countries from signing a formal peace agreement marking the end of World War II. Tokyo said last week it regretted Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to one of…
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Moscow police have detained students picketing in support of a schoolmate who faces a maximum prison sentence of eight years after taking part in recent opposition demonstrations that have rocked the capital. Yegor Zhukov, a student at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics (HSE), is among 10 people detained on suspicion of “organizing and conducting mass…
Russia said on Monday it would take measures to defend itself if the United States stationed missiles in Asia following the collapse of a landmark arms control treaty and that it expected Japan to deploy a new U.S. missile launch system. U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Saturday that he was in favor of…
Russia‘s anti-Kremlin opposition said it was planning a nationwide protest next weekend despite police forcibly detaining over 1,000 people on Saturday for attending what they said was an illegal march in Moscow to demand free elections. Saturday’s protest, conceived by opposition activists as a peaceful walk to protest against the exclusion of their candidates from…
Russian police forcibly detained 1001 people attending a protest in Moscow on Saturday to demand free elections, including prominent activist Lyubov Sobol, after authorities warned the demonstration was illegal. Police removed Sobol, an ally of jailed opposition politician Alexei Navalny, from a taxi and bundled her into a van minutes before the start of what…
For the past three weeks, thousands of protesters have been demonstrating against the exclusion of opposition candidates from the ballot for city elections in September. As the Kremlin ramps up the pressure on demonstrators, Muscovites who don’t usually attend protests, have been joining the movement. Meet Zhenya, a 25-year-old protester who has vowed to keep…
“They (the authorities) are wiping their feet on us,” said Elena, a student attending Saturday’s protest. Another attendee, Yevgeny Snetkov, a 61-year-old engineer, described as brazen the way the authorities had prevented opposition candidates from running. “I had no option left but to protest,” he said. Some protesters chanted “Putin is a thief” as they…
A helicopter circled overhead. Riot police clad in protective gear and balaclavas lined the sidewalks. Columns of police wagons sped past. There was a sense of foreboding in the air in central Moscow on Saturday afternoon as the authorities prepared for the latest demonstration to demand that opposition candidates be allowed to run in the…
Russian investigators said on Saturday they had opened a criminal investigation into the alleged laundering of 1 billion roubles ($15.3 million) by an anti-corruption foundation set up by jailed opposition politician Alexei Navalny. Russia‘s Investigative Committee made the announcement in a statement while an opposition protest organised by Navalny’s allies was taking place in Moscow.
Russian police on Saturday detained prominent opposition activist Lyubov Sobol ahead of a planned protest in Moscow to demand free elections. Thousands of Russian opposition protesters are expected to try and rally again in Moscow on Saturday despite a sweeping police crackdown and ban on the event. Sobol had called on people to attend the demonstration,…
U.S. President Donald Trump has imposed another round of sanctions on Russia over the poisoning of a former spy in Britain, the White House said on Friday, a move Moscow said would hurt already strained U.S.-Russia ties. The move came hours before a landmark Cold War-era arms control treaty expired, after Washington withdrew, accusing Moscow of violating it, which Russia denies. Washington…
Nearly 1,400 demonstrators were detained, some violently, during last Saturday’s rally to demand that independent candidates be allowed onto the ballot in Moscow’s city council elections. While officials warned citizens not to attend the unauthorized protest, thousands of people took to the streets to voice their discontent. The ensuing scenes of riot police dispersing protesters soon became powerful…
Russian-speaking social media users fumed after a viral video showed red foxes begging drivers for food in an area of Siberia affected by widespread wildfires. The wildfires cover 3.1 million hectares — an area the size of Belgium — of mostly remote, uninhabited forest, the Federal Forestry Agency said on Friday in what environmentalists have…
Russia’s Paratroopers Day — an event that in previous years has been marked with street strolling, beer guzzling and general merrymaking — began as a quieter, more sober affair this year (at least while the sun was still up). Ahead of the raucous roaming through central Moscow and fun in the fountains still to come,…
A Moscow court has ordered five suspects in the criminal case into “mass unrest” over last weekend’s opposition protests to be kept in custody until Sept. 27. Alexei Minyaylo, Ivan Podkopayev, Samariddin Radzhabov, Kirill Zhukov and Yegor Zhukov were among 10 people detained on suspicion of “organizing and conducting mass riots” last Saturday. Police had detained,…
Russia‘s Foreign Affairs Ministry said Friday that a move by the United States to impose another round of sanctions on Moscow over the poisoning of a former spy in Britain hurt ties and was regrettable. Washington last year imposed a first batch of sanctions on Russia after determining that Moscow had used a nerve agent…
Russian football fans clashed with riot police on July 20 at Russia’s Rostov Arena. Video footage posted online showed police brutally beating fans, with around 30 people injured as a result. FC Spartak was outraged by the police’s actions and has since filed a complaint with Russia’s Prosecutor General.
The United States formally withdrew from a landmark nuclear missile pact with Russia on Friday after determining that Moscow was in violation of the treaty, a claim the Kremlin has repeatedly denied. U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. would terminate adherence to the 1987 arms control accord, known as the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty…
With wildfires raging across Siberia and Russia’s Far East, about 1,000 residents of the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk on Thursday called for the resignation of the region’s governor, who said at the start of the crisis it wasn’t economically profitable to fight the blazes. Wildfires have swept across a swath of Russia the size of Belgium.…
Five more people have been detained as part of criminal proceedings into mass civil unrest related to last weekend’s opposition protest in Moscow as activists push ahead with a new protest planned for Saturday, the state-run TASS news agency reported. Police detained more than 1,300 people in central Moscow on Saturday, some violently, at a…
Hundreds of thousands of HIV patients in Russia face a severe shortage of antiretroviral therapy medication under new government procurement rules, health officials say. Russia centralized HIV medication-buying procedures in 2017 in a bid to provide more patients with treatment, empowering the Health Ministry instead of regional authorities to carry out drug tenders. The changes…
Russia said on Friday it had asked the United States to declare and enforce a moratorium on the deployment of short and intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe as a landmark arms control pact banning such a move formally ended. The United States formally withdrew from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) on Friday, after accusing…
Russian labs are “afraid” to test samples taken from jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny after he was briefly hospitalized with an acute allergic reaction which he claims was the result of poison, his personal doctor has said. Earlier this week, a Russian state hospital said that Navalny had tested negative for poison, but his personal…
A visit on Friday by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to an island claimed by both Japan and Russia was extremely regrettable, Japan’s foreign ministry said, urging Moscow to take constructive steps to advance ties. In his first visit since 2015, Medvedev traveled to one of four Russian-held islands off Japan’s northern region of Hokkaido, known as Iturup in Russian…
U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order imposing fresh sanctions on Russia over the poisoning of a former Russian spy in England last year, the U.S. news website Politico reported Thursday. Britain says Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were exposed to a military-grade nerve agent in an attempted murder carried out by…
Russia’s independent Dozhd news channel has been hit by a tax audit Thursday over what its founder says is connected to its coverage of rallies for fair elections in Moscow. Dozhd opened its broadcasts to non-subscribers last Friday to cover the weekend’s rallies in support of opposition candidates who had been disqualified from running for…
A former associate of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has allegedly earned 6.5 billion rubles ($101.9 million) from deals with the ministries of defense and emergency situations, according to an investigation by Russia’s The Insider news website. The Insider’s investigation follows the high-profile sentencing for embezzlement and quick parole in 2015 of Yevgenia Vasilyeva, a Defense…
Some of Russia’s most well-known celebrities and public figures are speaking out in support of the mass opposition protests that have rocked central Moscow over the past three weeks. On Saturday, nearly 1,400 protesters were detained during the most recent unauthorized rally as thousands took to the streets to demand that opposition candidates be allowed…
DRONTEN REFUGEE CENTER, THE NETHERLANDS — Artyom Shitukhin decided last March that enough was enough. Following what he described as months of harassment by police, and expulsion from the university in his hometown of Pyatigorsk, the LGBT activist bought a one-way ticket to Morocco with a stopover in Amsterdam, where he got off the plane…
Russia‘s media regulator said on Thursday it planned to change the law so it could fine British and other foreign media working in Russia for breaching impartiality standards, a step it called retaliation for London fining Russia‘s RT television channel. Moscow last month warned British media operating on its territory that they should be ready for consequences after…
Russia‘s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Thursday it had the impression that the United States was looking for a pretext for conflict in the Persian Gulf, the state-run RIA news agency reported. “Events there are really moving to a dangerous point and there are risks of a large-scale military clash,” RIA cited Foreign Ministry…
Five people have been detained as part of criminal proceedings into mass civil unrest related to last weekend’s opposition protest in Moscow, with more apprehensions expected, Russian investigators said. Police detained more than 1,300 people in central Moscow on Saturday, some violently, at a march in support of fair local elections this fall. Observers have…
More than 10,500 Russian soldiers and dozens of warships will take part in the country’s second annual naval drills in the Baltic Sea, the Defense Ministry has said. The exercises come amid simmering tensions between Russia and its NATO-member neighbors in the Baltics. The Russian Navy’s Aug. 1-9 “Ocean Shield” exercises involve 10,634 troops, 49…
Russia’s Foreign Ministry has softened its refusal to issue visas for teachers at a Moscow school run by the U.S., British and Canadian embassies amid signs of a slight thaw in tensions between the Kremlin and Washington. The Foreign Ministry on Thursday issued seven of the 30 visas requested, which will allow all current students…
Russians’ trust in television news as a news source dropped by 25% in the past decade, according to the independent Levada Center pollster’s latest report on the national media landscape. Television remains the biggest news source for Russians despite becoming less trusted over the past decade, past Levada polling has said. Trust in television news…
Russia has tested its high-speed military internet that can send encrypted data over long distances, the pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper reported Thursday. The secure military internet tests come three months before parts of a Russian law tightening state control over the internet come into effect. Lawmakers say “internet sovereignty” will protect the Russian-language segment of the…
Russia’s law enforcement authorities will look into whether arson was a factor behind the raging wildfires across Siberia, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday as emergency officials decried insufficient firefighting efforts. The vast wildfires that have engulfed forest areas the size of Belgium were initially thought to be triggered by a combination of dry lightning and…
U.S. President Donald Trump offered his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin help in putting out vast wildfires that are raging in Siberia, the Kremlin said late on Wednesday, a move it said Putin took as a sign that battered ties can be restored. The Kremlin said the two leaders had spoken by phone at Washington’s initiative, hours…
A Russian state hospital said on Wednesday that opposition leader Alexei Navalny had tested negative for poison after falling ill in custody, but his personal doctor warned the findings were inconclusive and could be wrong. Navalny, who was jailed for 30 days last week for urging people to take part in an unauthorized protest, was rushed…
Update: The embassy’s account has been re-activated as of late Wednesday night. Twitter has suspended the account of Russia’s Embassy in Syria, the Russian Foreign Ministry has confirmed, with fellow Russian embassy accounts saying it was suspended for its “factual” criticism of Syrian rescue workers. Syrian rebel commanders and rights groups said Monday that Russia…
More people have died from HIV-related causes in Russia last year than in 2017 as the country grapples with a rise in infections, according to Health Ministry data cited by the Kommersant business daily on Wednesday. More than 1.2 million people live with HIV in Russia, a figure experts say is likely underreported and that…
Opponents of a controversial landfill in northwestern Russia have asked Sweden, Norway and Finland for help in averting an environmental crisis, the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper reported Tuesday. Activists have staged protests near the small train station of Shiyes for the past year against Moscow’s plans to ship 2.3 million tons of garbage there annually.…
Russian police said they had arrested a man suspected of murdering a popular lifestyle blogger and model whose body was found in a suitcase in her apartment in Moscow. Ekaterina Karaglanova’s landlord found the 24-year-old’s body at a rented apartment Saturday after her parents had been unable to reach her by phone, the Investigative Committee…
As 3 million hectares of remote forest burn across six regions in Russia’s Siberia and Far East – the approximate size of annexed Crimea — residents of affected areas are using social media to demand that the authorities take tougher action. Authorities have been slow to respond to the blazes and said any efforts to extinguish…
Devastating floods hit Russia’s Irkutsk region again as the water level in local rivers has risen by over a meter on Tuesday, the local authorities said on their website. The administration of Tulun, the town in Irkutsk region almost destroyed by the first wave of floods this June, said the water in the local Iya…
Moscow authorities have conducted raids on opposition activists and issued warnings to Muscovites in the run-up to this weekend’s planned protest to demand that opposition candidates be allowed to run in the city’s local elections. Activists have rallied for three weekends in a row after authorities barred independent candidates from running because they failed to…
Russia could make domestic violence a crime two years after lawmakers decriminalized some forms of domestic abuse, a top senator has said after a ruling by Europe’s top human rights court put a spotlight on the issue. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) this month ruled for the first time that Russia failed to…
Almost a quarter of Russians say they have felt their finances dwindle in recent months, according to a survey by the state-run Foundation of Public Opinion (FOM) pollster. Real incomes have declined in the past five years in Russia against the backdrop of Western sanctions and falling oil prices. As he took office last year,…
In a YouTube video posted on the evening of July 13 that has been viewed more than half a million times, Lyubov Sobol made two announcements. The first was that Moscow’s election commission would be preventing her from running in upcoming city council elections. The second was that she would be going on a hunger…
The popular ride-sharing service BlaBlaCar risks being banned in Russia as a passenger association seeks legislative help in cracking down on illegal buses, the pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper reported Tuesday. About one-third of 900,000 bus carriers in Russia are uninsured and operate without undergoing checkups, obtaining the required permits or paying taxes, according to the All-Russian…