Russia’s middle class has fallen by nearly one-fifth since the start of the country’s economic crisis in 2014, an analysis by the Moscow-based Alfa Bank has said. Low oil prices and Western sanctions have reduced Russians’ real incomes for five years in a row. Economists forecast that the population’s purchasing power will keep falling in…
The head of Russia’s smallest region has resigned following months of controversy over a land-swap deal with the neighboring republic of Chechnya, Russian media have reported. Residents of the North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia first took to the streets against the border-swap agreement signed with Chechnya in fall 2018. Violent protests reignited in March as…
Georgia’s economy could lose up to $300 million annually from the absence of Russian tourists amid tensions between the ex-Soviet neighbors, Georgian analysts estimate. Angry protests erupted in Tbilisi after a Russian lawmaker’s visit last week, prompting Russian President Vladimir Putin to suspend flights to Georgia, a popular vacation destination for Russians, as of July…
Nearly half of Russians say they wouldn’t support a switch to a four-day work week over fears that it would reduce their earnings, a new poll has said. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that a shift to a four-day work week is “very likely” to happen as a way to help workers…
Prominent businessman David Yakobashvili told Interfax news agency on Monday he did not plan to return to Russia after security services searched his art gallery, though he later denied this was the reason for his staying away. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) searched a Moscow art gallery owned by Yakobashvili earlier this month as part…
President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday extending a Russian ban on food imports from the European Union until the end of 2020, according to a government database. Russia imposed an embargo on a wide range of imports from the EU and other countries in 2014 in retaliation for international sanctions over Moscow’s role…
The Islamic State (IS) terror group has claimed responsibility for a gun attack on security officials in Russia’s republic of Chechnya, the online monitor Site Intelligence Group reported on Sunday. IS has claimed a series of attacks over the past year in Chechnya, a predominately Muslim republic in Russia’s North Caucasus. An estimated 3,400 Russians fought…
The U.S. deployment of land-based missile systems near Russia’s borders could lead to a stand-off comparable to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying on Monday. Russia has been fiercely critical of U.S. plans to deploy missile systems in eastern Europe, and of Washington’s withdrawal from the…
A majority of Russians believe that the Soviet system took care of the common man and woman, according to a recent poll by the independent Levada Center pollster. Russia has seen an upward trend in positive opinions about the Soviet Union in recent years, with nostalgia toward it hitting a 14-year high in December. Public…
Ex-Soviet Georgia is in the grip of a wave of Russophobic hysteria which is being artificially whipped up and is getting worse, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday. He said Russia was not imposing sanctions on Tbilisi, but had been forced to halt Russian airline flights to Georgia to protect its citizens after violent…
Russia and its partners will take steps to counter new sanctions that Washington has said it will impose on Iran, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies on Monday. In the comments reported by the state-run TASS and RIA news agencies, Ryabkov did not specify what those steps would…
The film crew of a Russian state-run television channel was attacked in Georgia’s capital on Saturday amid a flare-up in tensions between the two countries, Russian media have reported. Tensions between Russia and Georgia were ignited after a Russian lawmaker’s speech in the Georgian parliament set off mass protests in Tbilisi on Thursday. Demonstrators violently…
President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to suspend passenger flights carrying Russian citizens from Russia to Georgia. The move comes amid a brewing political crisis between the two countries after mass anti-Russian protests sparked by a Russian lawmaker’s visit rocked Georgia’s capital on Thursday. In a decree signed Friday, Putin also instructed the Russian…
Russia is ready to help Iran with oil exports and its banking sector if the Instex European payment system is not launched, Interfax cited Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Friday. The Instex mechanism was created by European countries in an attempt to save the 2015 Iran nuclear deal with six global…
Rosneft Aero, the operator of the jet-fuelling business of Rosneft Oil Company, has been awarded a tender for fuelling the aircraft fleet of the largest Turkish air carrier Turkish Airlines in Russian airports until 2020.
Less than half of Russians pay attention to foreign policy issues, according to a new poll by the state-run Foundation of Public Opinion (FOM) pollster. Polling in recent years has suggested Russians are becoming less focused on endeavors abroad as the economy stagnates and living standards fall. In the FOM poll published Friday, 49 percent…
Viktor, 62, turned his back on society 16 years ago and moved to the remote forest wilderness of Russian Siberia where he lives in seclusion in a wooden hut, studying the Bible and foraging for food. Gray-bearded, enigmatic and with a huge tattoo of Christ across his back, the former barge operator refuses to disclose…
The head of Georgia’s parliament has resigned after mass anti-Russian protests rocked the capital this week. Thousands of protesters on Thursday tried to storm the Georgian parliament in Tbilisi after Russian lawmaker Sergei Gavrilov addressed an event for Orthodox Christian leaders in his native Russian from the parliamentary speaker’s seat. Demonstrators violently clashed with police,…
Russia accused the United States on Friday of deliberately stoking dangerous tensions around Iran and pushing the situation to the brink of war, the state-run RIA news agency reported. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov called on Washington to weigh the possible consequences of conflict with Iran and said a report in the New York Times…
Oyub Titiyev, a prominent human rights leader in Russia’s republic of Chechnya, was released from Russian prison on Friday morning, more than 18 months after first being detained on drug charges his supporters say were fabricated. Titiyev, who runs the office of the Memorial Human Rights Center in the southern Russian region, was detained in…
Officials in Russia and Georgia have spoken out following Thursday night’s mass protest in Tbilisi which broke out over anti-Russian sentiment and led to dozens of injuries. Crowds angry over the visit of a Russian lawmaker tried to storm Georgia’s parliament building on Thursday evening, pushing against lines of riot police, throwing bottles and grabbing…
European Union leaders agreed on Thursday to prolong until the end of January 2020 economic sanctions against Russia over the turmoil in Ukraine, a spokesman for the bloc said. The EU first slapped sanctions on Russia after Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 and supported rebels fighting Kiev troops in the east of…
Crowds angry over the visit of a Russian lawmaker tried to storm Georgia’s parliament building on Thursday evening, pushing against lines of riot police, throwing bottles and grabbing riot shields from some officers and tearing off their helmets. The scenes in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, flared up suddenly after public anger over the visit and speech…
Dmitry, his wife, their five children and his elderly mother spent last weekend hiding in the woods just outside Penza, a city 650 kilometers southeast of Moscow. Whenever they needed food or water, Dmitry drove to the nearest store, bought rations and, after briefly charging his phone, hurried back to his family. “I didn’t sleep…
Tens of thousands of Georgians gathered outside the parliament building in the capital Tbilisi on Thursday to protest against a speech made in the country’s parliament by a Russian lawmaker in his own language. Protesters chanted slogans against Russian President Vladimir Putin and dozens broke through police lines to try to storm the parliament building. Sergei Gavrilov…
Hundreds of protesters opposing a controversial landfill in Russia’s north have set up camp near its construction site in a rare tent-based demonstration for the country. Protests against the $162-million landfill in Shiyes, Arkhangelsk region, have become a symbol of Russia’s growing trend toward issues-based local activism. Almost a year of demonstrations in the abandoned…
Russia has started releasing a group of captive whales whose detention in Russia’s Far East has caused an international outcry, state media said on Thursday. Nearly 100 whales reportedly bound for export to China have been held for months in cramped pens near the Sea of Japan port of Nakhodka, triggering a wave of international…
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s is holding his annual question and answer session broadcast live on Thursday on state television. The marathon Q&A session has become a yearly tradition during Putin’s nearly two decades in power, giving the Russian president a chance to shape narratives around pressing issues. Here are the highlights: On whether he has…
As many as 350 people gathered in central Moscow on Wednesday evening to protest murder charges brought last week against three teenage sisters who stabbed their father to death after he had abused them for years. Krestina, Angelina and Maria Khachaturyan had been under house arrest waiting to hear what the charges against them would…
President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the fate of 24 Ukrainian sailors held in Russia since last year must be linked to the release of Russian citizens held in Ukraine whom Moscow wants to see freed. Putin’s comments marked a departure from the Kremlin’s insistence that the sailors must be put on trial and…
Russia has lost $50 billion due to Western sanctions in the past five years, compared to $240 billion that the European Union has lost from Russian sanctions, President Vladimir Putin has claimed. Russia has been hit with several rounds of Western sanctions since 2014 after its annexation of Crimea and aggression in Ukraine, as well…
Russian pipeline monopoly Transneft said on Thursday that more contaminated oil had been found at a section of the Druzhba pipeline from Belarus to Poland, the RBC media portal said. Pumping was suspended on Wednesday evening but resumed on Thursday, the report cited Transneft as saying. Russia suspended west-bound flows through the pipeline in April…
President Vladimir Putin told Russians on Thursday there were signs that years of falling real wages, which have dented his popularity, were drawing to an end and that a government programme would deliver higher living standards. Putin, 66, in power as president or prime minister since 1999, was re-elected by a landslide last year but…
Russians will see a boost in their living standards if they raise their labor productivity, President Vladimir Putin has said during his annual phone-in with the public. The productivity of the Russian workforce is among the lowest of the world’s major economies, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Living standards have declined as…
A former U.S. Marine held in Russia on suspicion of spying called on U.S. President Donald Trump and the leaders of Britain, Canada and Ireland to help him as he appeared in court at an appeal hearing on Thursday. Paul Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports, was detained in a Moscow hotel…
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Thursday that Russia is being made a scapegoat for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 and questioned the objectivity of the investigations into the 2014 disaster. The international investigative team set up to probe the crash said on Wednesday three Russians and one Ukrainian will face murder…
President Vladimir Putin began his televised phone-in session with the Russian public on Thursday at noon Moscow time amid a backdrop of growing dissatisfaction at home and stormy relations abroad. The marathon Q&A session has become a yearly tradition during Putin’s nearly two decades in power, giving the Russian president a chance to shape narratives…
President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at next week’s G20 summit in Japan. In an interview on Fox News, Trump said he would hold meetings with Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump confirmed earlier this week he would be meeting with Xi. “I want to get along…
Vietnam has formed a special team of experts, including four Russian scientists, to help preserve the embalmed body of the Communist-ruled state’s founding leader, Ho Chi Minh, according to a written copy of the official decision seen by Reuters. The special council has been created to assess the condition of Ho’s aging corpse — first embalmed…
Russia‘s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that it regretted the findings of the international investigation into the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17and called murder charges against Russian suspects groundless. Three Russians and a Ukrainian will face murder charges for the 2014 downing of the MH17 jet over eastern Ukraine that killed 298 people, in…
The United States has sanctioned a Russian financial institution for allegedly helping North Korea evade financial sanctions by assisting a company linked to Pyongyang’s primary foreign exchange bank, the U.S. Treasury Department said on Wednesday. U.S. officials targeted Russian Financial Society and accused it of opening multiple bank accounts for Dandong Zhongsheng Industry & Trade…
The Reporters Without Borders (RSF) press freedom group has called for the immediate release of a journalist detained in the Russian republic of Dagestan late last week, saying that the evidence against him was improperly obtained. Abdulmumin Gadzhiev, the religious affairs editor for the independent Chernovik news weekly, was arrested on June 14 on charges…
Russian anti-doping chief Yuri Ganus said on Wednesday that the country’s suspended athletics federation was not doing enough to stamp out doping culture and was falling short in its bid to be reinstated by global athletics governing body IAAF. Russia’s athletics federation has been suspended since a 2015 report commissioned by World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)…
Russia is at risk of nationwide social upheaval if the country’s economy does not improve, the head of Russia’s auditing agency has said. During a Monday interview on state-run television, Audit Chamber head Alexei Kudrin described an upcoming “explosion” of protests caused by falling living standards and widespread poverty. The only way to prevent this…
The situation in the Korean Peninsula could escalate next year if the United States fails to convince Pyongyang it is serious about improving ties, a senior member of Russia’s Security Council said on Wednesday. U.S. President Donald Trump said last week he was “in no rush” to make a deal with North Korea to get…
Civil unrest and falling living standards are likely to dominate Vladimir Putin’s annual televised national phone-in on Thursday, depriving the Russian president of the opportunity to concentrate on foreign policy and forcing him to confront domestic problems. In the past few months, Russia has seen mass protests over the framing of an investigative reporter, the…
A team of international prosecutors has launched the first criminal proceedings against four suspects in the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 near the Russia-Ukraine border nearly five years ago. MH17 was shot down in July 2014 over territory held by pro-Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people onboard. Investigators have…
Moscow will transition to citywide recycling collection by the end of the year, its city government has announced. Waste reform has been a major issue facing Russia as the country grapples with a trash crisis. Residents of several Russian regions have held mass protests starting last year against a plan to ship Moscow’s trash to…
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has reacted to media reports that a private Israeli intelligence firm had attempted to gather incriminating information against him by saying there’s nothing to uncover. The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday reported that Black Cube, often called “the private Mossad,” had tried to dig up dirt on Navalny, an outspoken…
Russia will offer electronic visas to foreign visitors starting in 2021, President Vladimir Putin has ordered in a decree. Tourists around the world have frequently cited difficulties with obtaining visas as a barrier to visiting Russia. In 2018, Russia offered visa-free entry for foreign fans with Fan ID’s visiting Russia for the 2018 FIFA World…
UN chief Antonio Guterres appealed to Russia and Turkey on Tuesday to stabilize northwest Syria as the UN aid chief said that some hospitals were not sharing their locations with the warring parties because that “paints a target on their back.” Russia, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his country’s civil war, and Turkey,…
Authorities in northern Russia have opened a criminal case against a 78-year-old woman for being a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the religious organization has said. Russia labeled the Jehovah’s Witnesses an “extremist” group in 2017, exposing Russia’s estimated 175,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses to mass raids and forcing at least 5,000 to flee the country. The…
Russia’s Constitutional Court has ruled that the authorities cannot refuse authorization for rallies over their inability to provide security, the state-run TASS news agency has reported. Authorities in the Siberian city of Irkutsk rejected activist Valery Teterin’s request to hold a rally last fall, citing Teterin’s inability to define how organizers would ensure public order…
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) searched a Moscow art gallery owned by prominent businessman David Yakobashvili on Tuesday as part of a criminal investigation, the state-run TASS news agency cited an unnamed security source as saying. Yakobashvili is a former juice magnate who has oil trade and real estate holdings. The search was carried out…
The share of Russians who believe that real men must serve in the military has reached a 22-year high, according to a recent survey published by the independent Levada Center pollster. Russia’s military and intelligence services are among the country’s most-trusted institutions, despite recent polls saying Russians have grown weary with their country’s military campaigns…
A Moscow region official facing corruption charges has attempted suicide during a court hearing for a case he claims is politically motivated. Alexander Shestun, the former head of the Serpukhov district, was arrested last summer on abuse-of-office charges. According to investigators, in 2008-2014 Shestun illegally transferred four plots of public land to a private company,…
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday that Western sanctions against Russia would not be lifted unless Ukraine’s sovereignty was restored. Merkel said she and visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had discussed the Minsk peace agreement, adding: “As long as there is no progress on this front, the sanctions cannot be lifted and the sanctions…
President Vladimir Putin has signed a law on Monday that introduces fines for the unauthorized production or distribution of foreign print media. Russia has clamped down on the presence of foreign media in recent years. Since 2016, foreigners have been barred from owning more than 20 percent of media organizations, resulting in an exodus of…
Russia told the United States on Tuesday that it should drop what it called provocative plans to deploy more troops to the Middle East or risk war with Iran. The comments, from Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov to Russian news agencies, followed an announcement from Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan who said on Monday…
The government of the Brazilian state of Amazonas assigned the priority status to Rosneft’s project in the Solimões Basin.