The recent arrests of five top Russian military officers are likely just the first of dozens of military figures who will be jailed in a sweeping purge by the security services, Russian government officials and sources close to the Kremlin and the Defense Ministry told The Moscow Times. Ostensibly an effort to stamp out military…
Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Belarus late Thursday for talks with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko expected to focus on security and joint tactical nuclear weapons exercises. Earlier this month, Putin ordered the Russian military to conduct tactical nuclear weapons exercises in response to Western “threats and provocations.” Belarus, which last year agreed to…
A senior procurement officer in Russia’s Defense Ministry has been charged with abuse of power, Russian law enforcement authorities announced late Thursday. Investigators accuse Vladimir Verteletsky of taking a bribe in relation to “work that was not carried out” under a government contract in 2022, according to Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes. The law…
Moscow on Thursday attacked “hothead” U.S. lawmakers after mounting calls, including from House Speaker Mike Johnson, for Ukraine to be allowed to fire donated American weaponry into Russia. Johnson, the Republican Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, on Wednesday told journalists that it was “not a good policy” that U.S. weapons donated to Ukraine…
President Vladimir Putin on Thursday signed a decree that allows Moscow to take control of U.S. property as compensation for any seizure of frozen Russian assets in the United States. Washington and its European allies seized or blocked around $300 billion of Russian financial assets shortly after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In response to…
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has led to significant disruptions in the migratory patterns of a vulnerable species of eagles, according to a new study, forcing the birds to travel increasingly longer distances as they fly to reach their breeding grounds. Greater spotted eagles, whose breeding grounds stretch from most of Eastern Europe to as…
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has led to significant disruptions in the migratory patterns of a vulnerable species of eagles, according to a new study, forcing the birds to travel increasingly longer distances as they fly to reach their breeding grounds. Greater spotted eagles, whose breeding grounds stretch from most of Eastern Europe to as…
Estonia’s border guards on Thursday said their Russian counterparts had removed buoys overnight from the Narva River, which separates the two neighboring countries, amid a dispute over the shared border. Tallinn said it was only since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine that Moscow has contested the placement of the floating markers used to prevent boats…
Russian air defense systems on Thursday shot down a Ukrainian drone flying over the republic of Tatarstan, more than 1,000 kilometers northeast of the country’s border with Ukraine. Russia’s Defense Ministry said its anti-aircraft systems destroyed the drone at around 2:00 p.m. Moscow time, shortly after airports in the capital Kazan and the city of…
At least eight people were killed and one other was injured in a hostel fire in the Moscow region town of Istra, emergency officials said Friday. The fire broke out at 4:00 a.m. local time and was extinguished around five hours later, the Emergency Situations Ministry’s local branch said, according to the news agency Moskva. …
A woman was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on southwestern Russia’s Belgorod region, local authorities said Thursday. Photos shared by Belgorod region Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov showed the second floor of a house that partially collapsed as a result of the attack. “Unfortunately, there was a victim — the body of a woman was found…
Norway on Thursday announced that it would restrict entry to Russian tourists, shutting their last direct access to Europe’s border-free Schengen area. “Russian citizens whose purpose is tourism and other non-essential travel will be rejected upon entry across the external border,” the Norwegian government said in a statement, adding that the new restrictions will take…
Updated with Peskov’s remarks. Russia has arrested a general on corruption allegations, state media reported Thursday, making him the third senior-ranking officer to face fraud-related criminal charges over the past month. A military court placed Lieutenant-General Vadim Shamarin in pre-trial detention until late July, the state-run TASS news agency reported, citing the court. “On May 22, the…
A prominent Bashkir activist whose imprisonment earlier this year sparked mass protests was designated a political prisoner by the Russian rights group Memorial on Wednesday. Fayil Alsynov was sentenced to four years in a penal colony in January on charges of “inciting interethnic hatred.” However, many observers believe he was targeted for campaigning against illegal…
A woman from Russia’s Far East has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for allegedly sharing footage of Russian troop movements with Ukraine, state media reported Wednesday, citing the local Federal Security Service (FSB) branch. The woman, identified as Chita resident A.Yu. Sulimova, was detained at age 21 on treason charges last July. Authorities accused her of…
A Russian Defense Ministry proposal to redraw Russia’s maritime borders in the Baltic Sea has sparked concern from Moscow’s neighbors in the region, with officials from Finland to Lithuania decrying what they describe as an attempt to sow confusion and destabilize regional security. While the Kremlin insisted Wednesday that the government draft resolution was not…
Beijing is sending or preparing to send “lethal aid” to Russia for use in the war against Ukraine, British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps said Wednesday, a claim that comes just days after President Vladimir Putin visited China to meet with his counterpart Xi Jinping. “Today I can reveal that we have evidence that Russia and…
A court in southern Russia’s Saratov region has sentenced a man to three and a half years in prison for trying to persuade his friend to surrender to the Ukrainian army, Russian media reported Wednesday. Federal Security Service (FSB) agents detained 31-year-old farmer Ilya Usoyan in the fall of 2023 on accusations of “repeatedly persuading” a Russian…
Russia said Wednesday that its forces retook Klishchiivka, one of only a handful of villages on the eastern front that Ukraine regained during its counteroffensive last summer. “Units of the Southern grouping of troops liberated the village of Klishchiivka” in the eastern Donetsk region, the Russian Defense Ministry said. Russian troops previously captured Klishchiivka in January…
Russia has returned six children to Ukraine with the help of Qatari mediators, Russian state media reported Wednesday. A video shared by the state-run TASS news agency showed the Qatari Ambassador in Moscow Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani shaking hands with the children, ages six to 17, at Qatar’s embassy. According to TASS, representatives from Russia’s presidential…
A man was killed and one other person was wounded in an attack on southwestern Russia’s Belgorod region, local authorities said Wednesday. Russia’s Defense Ministry said air defense systems had shot down six Ukrainian missiles early Wednesday morning. It said earlier that three Ukrainian drones were shot down over the Belgorod region overnight. Belgorod region…
Russia has launched a “counter-space weapon” into Earth’s orbit that may be able to attack an American government satellite, the Pentagon said Tuesday, coming amid recent accusations from both Washington and Moscow that each side is seeking to weaponize space. A Russian satellite that was launched into low Earth orbit on May 16 is likely…
President Vladimir Putin hailed Russia and China’s growing trade ties last week on his first foreign visit since winning re-election. According to the Russian leader, while a turnover of $100 billion in bilateral trade between Moscow and Beijing was considered a major success a few years ago, this figure now exceeds $200 billion. “Chinese data…
Russia on Tuesday announced the start of tactical nuclear weapons drills close to Ukraine, in what it said was a response to Western “threats.” Throughout its two-year offensive on Ukraine, Moscow has repeatedly talked up its arsenal of nuclear weapons and its readiness to deploy them if it senses an existential threat. The West has…
A Moscow court ruled Tuesday that investigators acted lawfully when they refused to look into two alleged murder attempts against the jailed Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza. Kara-Murza, 42, fell severely ill in 2015 and 2017 with symptoms that he said indicated he was poisoned, but Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, did not open…
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov announced Tuesday that the head of the North Caucasus region’s government has stepped down, becoming the second high-ranking regional official to resign over the past week. “My dear brother Muslim Khuchiyev resigned as chairman of the government of the republic of Chechnya in connection with his transfer to another job,” Kadyrov…
The Finnish government on Tuesday introduced a bill into parliament that would allow authorities to turn away asylum seekers at the country’s border with Russia, an announcement that comes months after Helsinki first shuttered its eastern frontier over an influx of asylum seekers it says was organized by Moscow. Finland closed its border with Russia in…
Russia is likely to keep banking on various coercion tactics to bolster its military manpower in Ukraine, experts say, a strategy that has proven effective at ensuring a continuous supply of fresh recruits to the front lines for the past two years. The Russian military has been pushing to capture more Ukrainian territory this month…
A Russian army general who previously oversaw the defense of occupied Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region has been arrested on fraud charges, the state-run TASS news agency reported Tuesday, citing an anonymous source. “The ex-commander of the 58th Guards Combined Arms Army, Ivan Ivanovich Popov, was arrested on suspicion of fraud,” an unnamed law enforcement official was…
A Russian court on Tuesday sentenced a 77-year-old scientist to 14 years in prison on treason charges after he was accused of sharing top secret information related to Russia’s hypersonic missile program with Germany. The St. Petersburg City Court found Anatoly Maslov guilty of state treason and ordered him to serve 14 years in a…
Authorities in Far East Russia’s republic of Sakha (Yakutia) have declared a state of emergency after seasonal flooding submerged hundreds of homes and forced residents to move to temporary shelters. Nearly 450 homes and more than 550 land plots have been flooded since the Lena River, with a length of 4,294 kilometers, started overflowing last week…
A woman was killed and three others were wounded in a drone strike on western Russia’s Belgorod region, local authorities said Tuesday. “A kamikaze drone attacked a moving car where a driver and three passengers were sitting,” Belgorod region Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on Telegram, characterizing the strike as a “targeted attack on civilians.” “Sadly,…
Polish authorities have arrested nine members of an alleged Russian spy ring who are suspected of planning acts of sabotage throughout Europe, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Monday. “We currently have nine suspects detained and indicted, who have been directly implicated in the name of Russian [intelligence] services in acts of sabotage in Poland,” Tusk…
A Moscow resident who dyed his hair in the colors of the Ukrainian flag has been found guilty of “discrediting the army” and fined, court documents showed. Stanislav Netesov visited a police station in April to report a crime after he was attacked at a bus stop, but after seeing his hair the officers decided…
YouTube has blocked at least three videos that show viewers how to evade military service after it received a request from the Russian authorities, the investigative news outlet Agentstvo reported Monday. Russia’s state media watchdog Roskomnadzor notified YouTube between December and February that the three videos violated Russia’s law on information technology and information protection,…
A Moscow court on Monday upheld the 27-year jail sentence for Daria Trepova over the killing of prominent pro-war blogger and propagandist Maxim Fomin, better known as Vladlen Tatarsky. Trepova, 26, gifted Tatarsky a golden bust of himself at an April 2023 event in a St. Petersburg cafe popular among ultranationalists and pro-war figures. An explosive…
Russia’s Communist Party on Sunday marked Pioneer Day, a holiday dedicated to the Soviet Union’s Young Pioneers movement, with an induction ceremony for its modern-day youth organization on Red Square. While the Young Pioneers was dissolved when the U.S.S.R. collapsed, Russian lawmakers in 2022 approved the creation of a new youth movement in the style…
Russia said Monday that its forces captured the Ukrainian village Bilogorivka, one of the few remaining settlements in the eastern Luhansk region under Kyiv’s control. Luhansk is one of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow claimed to have annexed in 2022, and taking full control of it has long been a key priority for the Kremlin.…
The Russian anti-war news startup Helpdesk Media announced Monday that it was closing due to a lack of funding. Founded by former Meduza publisher Ilya Krasilshchik soon after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Helpdesk Media positioned itself as a service journalism startup that told stories about the war, raised money for its victims, and ran a support hotline…
A Russian court has sentenced a software engineer from the Siberian city of Novosibirsk to 25 years in prison for trying to set fire to a military recruitment office, state media reported Monday. Ilya Baburin was detained in September 2022 and charged with terrorism after he set fire to a music school and then was allegedly preparing…
President Vladimir Putin on Monday expressed his condolences over the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash over the weekend. “Sayyid Ibrahim Raisi was an outstanding politician whose whole life was devoted to serving [his] country,” read a statement published on the Kremlin’s website. “As a true friend of…
A Ukrainian drone attack Sunday on a minibus of people going strawberry picking in Russian occupied territory killed one person and injured several more, authorities said. The attack happened in the Kherson region that Russia partially occupied after its 2022 military invasion of Ukraine. “A drone hit a minibus carrying civilians who had come for…
Russian shelling on the outskirts of the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Sunday killed at least four civilians, said the governor of the region facing a new Russian offensive. Russia launched an assault in the border region on May 10 after a surge in aerial strikes. “We know about four civilians killed. At least eight…
A Ukrainian drone attack forced an oil refinery in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region to suspend operations Sunday, its operator and authorities said. Facing Russia’s invasion for over two years, Ukraine has stepped up attacks inside Russia in recent weeks, targeting energy sites in particular. “During the night, six drones fell on the territory of the…
Brussels has said the measure is “incompatible” with Georgia’s bid for EU membership, which is enshrined in the country’s constitution. European Council chief Charles Michel said on X, formerly Twitter, that the veto offered “a moment for further reflection.” He called on lawmakers to “make good use of this window of opportunity” to keep Georgia…
Leonid Volkov, a close ally of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, promised in a BBC interview aired Saturday to “never give up” fighting against President Vladimir Putin despite recently being attacked outside his home. Navalny died in an Arctic prison in February, which Volkov blamed directly on Putin. In his first television interview since…
A Russian court has ruled that Deutsche Bank and UniCredit’s assets in Russia are to be seized, documents showed. European banks have largely exited Russia after Moscow launched its offensive on Kyiv in 2022. A court in St. Petersburg ruled in favor of seizing 239 million euros ($260 million) from Deutsche Bank, documents dated May…
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told AFP in an exclusive interview he expects Russia to step up its offensive in the northeast and warned Kyiv only has a quarter of the air defenses it needs to hold the front line. Russian forces, which made only moderate advances in recent months, launched a surprise assault in the…
Russia’s economy grew 5.4% in the first quarter of 2024, official statistics published Friday showed, as President Vladimir Putin denied military spending on his Ukraine offensive was reaching unsustainable levels. The Kremlin has heavily militarized Russia’s economy since sending troops into Ukraine in February 2022, with the vast outlays helping to power growth and cushion…
Jailed Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza’s new charges that could extend his 25-year prison sentence even further have brought the fight to free him from Russian prison back into focus. But while Kara-Murza’s family and colleagues push for his release via a prisoner exchange, wider diplomatic dynamics risk hampering their efforts. Kara-Murza, 42, a critic of…
Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested on Friday that Moscow would not comply with calls for a ceasefire in Ukraine during the Summer Olympics, pointing to what he said was the unfair treatment of Russian athletes. Asked during a visit to China whether he backed French President Emmanuel Macron’s idea for a global “Olympic truce” during the…
The Dutch parent company of the Yandex Group announced Friday that it has completed the first phase of divesting from its Russia-based businesses. Yandex N.V. said in February that it had agreed to sell its Russian assets to a consortium of Russian investors for 475 billion rubles ($5.2 billion) in cash and shares, ending more than two…
Ukrainian missile strikes destroyed at least three Russian warplanes in annexed Crimea this week, media outlets reported Friday, citing satellite images. Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed to have intercepted 15 U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles on Wednesday and Thursday. Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russian-installed governor of the Crimean city of Sevastopol, said Wednesday that Russian air defense systems had…
President Vladimir Putin said Friday that his country’s armed forces launched their recent offensive against Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region to stop cross-border attacks against Russia’s border regions, but added that Moscow has no plans to capture the city of Kharkiv. Thousands of Russian troops poured over the border into Ukraine on May 10, unleashing artillery…
Microsoft has started blocking Russian corporate clients from using its cloud services in compliance with Western sanctions, a Russian distributor of the tech company’s products Softline said Friday. “Microsoft has apparently approved a list of products to be disconnected. Rolling shutdowns began yesterday evening,” Softline said on its Telegram channel dedicated to supporting its customers…
A Moscow court on Friday ordered the arrest in absentia of exiled feminist activist Zalina Marshenkulova for “justifying” the killing of a pro-war blogger. Russian investigators last month charged Marshenkulova with “justifying terrorism,” a crime punishable by up to seven years in prison, over an April 2023 Telegram post about the death of pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky,…
A young woman who previously said she fled domestic violence in her native republic of Chechnya has left Russia, a member of Russia’s presidential human rights council said Friday. Liya Zaurbekova, 19, said her family physically and psychologically abused her, according to the human rights group Maram. Earlier this week she fled to Moscow, but after…
President Vladimir Putin traveled to the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin on Friday, the final day of his brief trip, where he sought to promote crucial trade with China and win greater support for Russia’s war on Ukraine. The Russian leader arrived in China on Thursday, his first trip abroad since being re-elected in March,…
Ukraine launched a stunning wave of drone attacks on Russia and annexed Crimea overnight, killing at least two people and setting an oil refinery ablaze, Russian officials said Friday. The attack was Kyiv’s largest aerial offensive in recent weeks and comes as Russian forces advance along the front line in northeastern Ukraine, taking advantage of…
VIP hunters including senior Russian officials and wealthy businessmen appear increasingly keen to target protected animals and areas across the country. These efforts, when combined with poor government oversight, could threaten the survival of the country’s rare species, experts told The Moscow Times. “Since the tsarist era, hunting has been seen in Russia as an…