Almost 40 percent of Russians would consider no longer using plastic bags, according to a state-funded survey published on World Environment Day. The UN’s World Environment Day takes place on June 5 every year to raise environmental awareness. Greenpeace estimates that more than 26 billion plastic bags are handed out annually in shops across Russia. A total…
Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officers are intimidating high schoolers who won a history essay competition, the Memorial human rights group has said. Memorial has organized the history essay-writing contest for high school students since 1999. The NGO was labeled a “foreign agent” in 2016 under a Russian law targeting organizations that take part in…
China and Russia agreed on Wednesday to upgrade their relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era. The decision was made at a meeting between visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. news China’s Panda Diplomacy Puts a Smile on ‘Best Friend’ Putin’s Face Read more During…
Russia and Slovakia are in talks about Bratislava joining the Nord Stream 2 and Turkstream gas pipeline projects, Russian news agencies quoted Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as saying on Wednesday. “We need to find common points and mutually beneficial cooperation areas concerning connecting Slovakia to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, as well as to…
Only four out of Russia’s 22 ministry websites are transparent, a government audit has revealed. Experts commissioned by Russia’s Audit Chamber assessed the ministries’ openness of information, data and dialogue, assigning a letter grade to each of the three categories. Only the interior, culture, finance and energy ministries received AAA ratings, according to the study…
A former U.S. Marine held in Russia on suspicion of spying is being illegally isolated in a Moscow pre-trial detention center and prevented from communicating with visitors, Russian rights activists and U.S. diplomats said. Paul Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports, was detained in a Moscow hotel room on Dec. 28 and…
The good news for Russian President Vladimir Putin is that his premier investment event won’t be dominated this year by discussions about sanctions. The bad news is that attention will be fixed instead on the arrest of American private equity manager Michael Calvey. Calvey, who remained a Russia advocate even after sanctions caused foreign investment to shrivel…
Russia must pay $1.8 million to the families of 20 people abducted from Chechnya during separatist fighting in the 2000s, Europe’s top human rights court has ruled. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has in recent years awarded damages to the relatives of individuals who disappeared during the second Chechen war of 1999-2009. Activists…
The United States believes Russia may be more amenable than in the past to addressing U.S. and Israeli concerns about Iran’s influence, including in Syria, when national security leaders meet in Jerusalem this month, a U.S. official said on Tuesday. The United States announced last week that John Bolton, White House national security adviser, would…
The Russian economy will grow by 1.2 percent in 2019, the World Bank said in at least the third downgrade Tuesday. The Washington-based institution previously downgraded its forecast of Russia’s growth from 1.8 percent to 1.5 percent in early 2019, then again to 1.4 percent in April. Its latest revision — made in the twice-yearly…
Almost half of Russians are concerned about the environment in their regions, according to a study by the Moscow-based NAFI Research Center obtained by the state-run TASS news agency. Environmental issues have taken center stage at protest rallies across Russia over the past year, with citizens drawing attention to concerns including landfills, air pollution and…
A Russian fighter jet made a dangerous high-speed pass that put a U.S. Navy surveillance aircraft at risk during an intercept over the Mediterranean Sea on Tuesday, the U.S. Sixth Fleet said, but Moscow said its pilot had behaved responsibly. “While the Russian aircraft was operating in international airspace, this interaction was irresponsible,” the Sixth…
President Vladimir Putin has inaugurated on Tuesday a monument dedicated to Jewish heroes of resistance in Nazi concentration camps and ghettos during World War II. Putin opened construction of the monument at the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in January 2018. Members of the Jewish resistance “are…
Russian internet giant Yandex said on Tuesday it wanted to abide by the law but not to violate its users’ privacy after a media report said security services had demanded it hand over its encryption keys. The RBC media portal reported earlier on Tuesday that Russia‘s Federal Security Service (FSB) had asked Yandex to hand over…
Opponents of a controversial landfill in northwest Russia clashed with riot police in the latest violent episode of ongoing protests against plans to take in garbage from Moscow. Protests against the $162 million landfill in Shiyes, Arkhangelsk region have become a symbol of Russia’s growing trend of issues-based local activism. Almost a year of demonstrations…
Tourists are not traveling to Moscow because they think it’s too expensive and unsafe, according to a Boston Consulting Group (BCG) survey obtained by Russia’s RBC news website on Tuesday. BCG polled 3,500 tourists and classified their answers into two categories to reflect the respondents’ biases and structural barriers. The consulting group didn’t disclose the…
The Kremlin said on Tuesday it didn’t know where U.S. President Donald Trump had got the idea Moscow had removed most of its military specialists from Venezuela, who it said continued to work there. Trump tweeted on Monday that Russia had told the United States it had removed “most of their people” from Venezuela, where Moscow has…
The Tinder dating app has denied sharing the personal data of its Russian users amid reports that it had been added to a registry of entities required to hand over such data to the authorities. Russia said on Monday it had added Tinder to a list of entities required to hand over user data and…
Russia’s Kommersant business daily, plagued by a censorship scandal that led to a mass walkout of its reporters, is now facing fines under a law that punishes media for disseminating state secrets. Under the law prohibiting “abuse of the freedom of mass media,” the disclosure of state secrets by a news outlet is punishable by fines between…
President Donald Trump said on Monday that Russia told the United States it had removed “most of their people” from Venezuela, where Moscow has maintained military and economic ties with socialist President Nicolas Maduro. Trump posted a message on Twitter about the alleged Russian drawdown while on a state visit to London but did not…
Russia has tested a new unidentified missile at a launch site where the country had previously test-launched missiles designed to protect Moscow’s airspace, the Russian military said. The Russian Defense Ministry test-launched its anti-ballistic missile at the Sary-Shagan missile testing site in Kazakhstan at least twice in 2018. Those tested missiles had been deployed to…
Unlike their peers abroad, who worry about climate change, Russian millennials say they’re most concerned by corruption and inequality, according to a recent poll by Deloitte. We headed to the streets of Moscow to ask young Russians what their major concerns are.
Russia could be banned from competing in the second consecutive Olympics over allegedly forged medical documents, Britain’s The Sunday Times reported. High jumper Danil Lysenko, 22, had been one of the Russians cleared to compete internationally for having demonstrated he was training in a doping free-environment. However, he lost his status and was provisionally suspended…
Russia told a hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Monday that the court lacks jurisdiction in a case filed by Ukraine against Moscow over its alleged support of pro-Russian separatists in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. In a 2017 filing to the ICJ, also known as the World Court, Ukraine asked judges to…
Russian-annexed Crimea has experienced the fastest economic growth in Russia in 2019 so far, the RBC news website reported on Monday. Crimea has received large cash injections from Moscow since 2014, when Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine. More than $13 billion in Russian funds will have been spent on the Crimean economy…
The Tinder dating app is now required to share its user data with Russian authorities, according to Russia’s Roskomsvoboda internet rights group. Legislation that came into force in 2016 requires social media companies to store user data on servers located in Russia and provide this data to the authorities on demand. Russia last year issued…
The Kremlin rebuffed criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump of Russian and Syrian government military action in Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province, saying on Monday it was needed to shut down rebel attacks being launched from there. Trump on Sunday urged Russian and Syrian government forces to stop bombing Idlib, following a Friday Kremlin statement that…
Russia will in the near future send 30 military personnel to the Central African Republic where they will form part of a United Nations mission to help stabilize the country, Interfax news agency quoted a Russian foreign ministry official as saying. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree in April on the despatch of the…
Leaked footage of Russian prisoners chanting criminal underworld slang during their Easter celebrations has sparked scandal in a prison system already under national scrutiny. Russia’s Federal Prison Service (FSIN) has been rocked by scandal in the past year as footage of guards violently beating inmates has leaked. Last fall, FSIN launched a probe into lax…
The Kremlin on Monday called an embezzlement case against prominent U.S. investor Michael Calvey regrettable and said it hoped he would be freed from house arrest and be able to attend an economic forum in St. Petersburg later this week. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the RT TV channel in an interview that Calvey was…
Russian airline Aeroflot has scaled back the number of Sukhoi Superjet 100 flights it operates after one of its planes made a crash-landing last month, killing 41 people, according to data provided by a flight tracking website. Flightradar24 data shows Aeroflot has also at times substituted Airbus or Boeing planes for the Superjet, the first…
Russian kindergarteners are being given tours of the controversial pens that hold 10 killer whales and 87 beluga whales in the country’s Far East, an animal rights activist said Monday. Images of the mammals kept in enclosures in a bay near the Sea of Japan port of Nakhodka first appeared after they were caught for…
At least two people were missing on Saturday after blasts at the explosives plant Kristall in the central Russian town of Dzerzhinsk, Interfax and RIA news agencies reported. “As we understand, two went missing,” deputy governor Dmitry Krasnov was quoted by RIA as saying in a statement broadcast by Russian state TV channel Rossia 24.…
Out with the old, in with the new. Airports in dozens of Russian cities will now bear the names of their famous residents after President Vladimir Putin issued a decree on the name change Friday. Here’s a look at some of the newly minted names of some of Russia’s most popular airports. Hopefully, this will help…
Four out of 10 Russians believe their country is going in the wrong direction, a poll by the independent Levada Center polling agency said. Approval for Russia’s direction peaked at 61 percent in 2008 – the tail end of the economic boom – and at 60 percent shortly after the Crimean annexation in 2014. It…
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday he hopes that European Union sanctions on Russia will remain in place until Ukrainian territories are returned, according to a statement released on the presidential website. The West imposed sanctions on Russia following Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and support for separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine. “Thank…
The Kremlin said on Friday it was Turkey’s responsibility to stop rebels in Syria’s Idlib province from firing on civilian and Russian targets, signaling it would continue to back a Syrian government offensive there despite Ankara’s protests. The month-long offensive, the biggest escalation of the war between President Bashar al-Assad and his enemies since last summer,…
The Kosovo government said on Friday that a Russian national working for the UN mission would not be allowed back into the country after his expulsion. It said the UN staffer, Mikhail Krasnoshchenkov, had been declared persona non grata. The UN mission, UNMIK, said on Thursday the Russian had sustained injuries when he was arrested during a…
Public trust in President Vladimir Putin has more than doubled hours after the Kremlin asked sociologists to explain why his trust and approval ratings differ. A state-funded survey published May 24 said that trust in Putin slipped to a 13-year low of 31.7 percent. The Kremlin on Thursday asked the VTsIOM pollster to explain how…
Russia has launched a powerful European-made communications satellite for the state energy giant Gazprom from Kazakhstan. Gazprom’s space subsidiary, Gazprom Space Systems, runs Yamal satellites to broadcast to customers in Russia, western and central Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. France’s Thales Alenia Space company manufactures the satellites for Gazprom. The Yamal-601 satellite launched…
The U.S. Department of Defense will ban space launch and satellite cooperation with Russia in 2023, the Pentagon said, drawing ire from Russia’s space agency. The U.S. has been trying to cut reliance on Russian-made rocket engines, eyeing 2022 as the latest deadline, amid strained relations. Last year, Russia’s top defense and space industry official…
Russia has deleted gay sex and drug scenes from the Russian-language version of a newly released Elton John biopic, the Dozhd TV news channel reported Friday. “Rocketman” premiers throughout Russia on June 6, but viewers in Moscow were treated to a prescreening on Thursday. A racy 40-second scene featuring two nude actors playing John and…
Russia has rejected an Iranian request to buy S-400 missile defense systems, concerned that the sale would stoke more tension in the Middle East, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, including a senior Russian official. The request was rebuffed by President Vladimir Putin, the people said on condition of anonymity because they’re…
The Yandex.Taxi ride-hailing service is in talks to add helicopters to its fleet of vehicles in Moscow, Russia’s Kommersant business daily reported Thursday. Several companies offer air taxi services in the Russian capital, one of which offers hour-long helicopter rides for the ruble equivalent of $708. Yandex.Taxi is in four-way discussions with Moscow City Hall,…
Russian border guards have detained two individuals who allegedly tried to make it illegally across the border to Norway. The two people, both of them citizens of Iraq, were detained as they were making an attempt to cross into the neighboring country. Neither of the detainees had needed travel documents and both were caught in…
Russian sociologists should explain President Vladimir Putin’s record-low trust levels amid his growing approval ratings, the Kremlin said on Thursday. A recent state-funded survey said that public trust in Putin has dropped to its lowest level since 2006. The same survey showed Putin’s approval rating grow from 61 percent in January to 65 percent this…
Protesters rallying against plans to build a landfill in northern Russia for Moscow’s waste have said they expect the authorities to tear down their camp amid the latest escalations this week, Russian media reported. Residents of Arkhangelsk region have for months demonstrated against the controversial $162 million landfill designed to take in Moscow’s garbage. Moscow…
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that Russia was only operating on its own territory after Japan accused Moscow of a military buildup on a chain of islands in the Pacific, the state-run RIA news agency reported. Russia has held the islands — known as the Northern Territories in Japan and the Southern Kurils…
More Russians drank alcohol so far this year than they did in 2018, a survey by the state-funded VTsIOM agency has said. Sixty-seven percent of respondents said they had consumed alcohol between several times a week and less than once a month in 2019, the pollster said Thursday. Last year’s results said 57 percent of…
Russia’s ambassador to the United States on Thursday said a U.S. allegation that Moscow may be conducting banned nuclear tests was a calculated attempt to undermine nuclear arms control, Russian state television reported. The head of the U.S.’s Defense Intelligence Agency said on Wednesday that Russia may be conducting low-level nuclear testing that flouts the…
Riot police responded “appropriately” when its officers were filmed using force against young fans at a Moscow hip-hop festival earlier this month, the Russian National Guard said. At least 20 people were detained and charged during the Hip-Hop Mayday festival at Luzhniki Stadium on May 1. Authorities had reportedly said the violence erupted due to…
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a bill that allows Russians living with HIV and other diseases to legally adopt children in their care. The changes were anticipated as part of Russia’s broader state strategy to combat the epidemic that has led to the deaths of 318,000 Russians in three decades. Russia’s 2016 strategy to…
Rising tensions between the Balkan countries of Serbia and Kosovo are the result of the European Union and NATO “appeasing” Kosovo, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday. The Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday accused Kosovo of provocation after its police detained more than two dozen people, including one Russian national, during an armed raid…
Now that the final episode of HBO’s hit series “Game of Thrones” has aired, a spectre may be haunting Westeros: The spectre of communism. Unsatisfied with the fate of the show’s heroes and villains, a branch of the Communists of Russia Party has penned an open letter to HBO and the show’s producers demanding a…
The United States believes Russia may be conducting low-level nuclear testing in violation of a moratorium on such tests, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency said on Wednesday. “The United States believes that Russia probably is not adhering to its nuclear testing moratorium in a manner consistent with the ‘zero-yield’ standard,” Lieutenant General Robert P. Ashley said at…
The United States believes Russia may be conducting low-level nuclear tests, a U.S. intelligence official on Wednesday, while the head of a body monitoring a global nuclear treaty said there was no sign of such violations by Moscow. Negotiated in the 1990s, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) enjoys wide global support but must be ratified…
Russians’ incomes will fall for a sixth consecutive year in 2019, experts from Moscow’s Higher School of Economics (HSE) and Russia’s Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) said. Russia’s Economic Development Ministry has projected real incomes to reverse the five-year slump and grow by 1 percent in 2019, based on a methodology…
Less than half of Russians would vote for President Vladimir Putin in a new presidential election, according to a closed state-run survey obtained by the RBC news website. Putin won reelection with nearly 77 percent of the vote in March 2018, extending his presidency for another six-year term. If the elections were held this Sunday,…
A news website in Russia’s fourth-largest city of Yekaterinburg has been ordered to remove videos of protests against plans to build a church due to “extremist” comments. Mass protests against a controversial plan to build a new cathedral in a popular riverside park gained national attention this month as protesters clashed with vigilantes and riot…
Russia summoned Spain’s ambassador to Moscow on Tuesday after acting Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell referred to the country as an “old enemy,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday. Borrell told Spanish newspaper El Periodico last week: “Russia, our old enemy, is once again saying, ‘here I am,’ and has returned as a threat,…