China and Russia said Tuesday they would strengthen strategic cooperation as Moscow’s top diplomat met President Xi Jinping in Beijing, further deepening ties as the war in Ukraine grinds on. The two countries have in recent years ramped up contacts, and their strategic partnership has only grown closer since Moscow’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine. On…
Police in Lithuania have detained a person suspected of carrying out two arson attacks on Russia’s Embassy in Vilnius over the weekend, media in the Baltic country reported Tuesday. Law enforcement authorities launched a criminal investigation after Molotov cocktails were thrown at the embassy early on Sunday and Monday. Neither the embassy nor Russia’s Foreign…
Updated with second launch abort, Borisov’s remarks. Russia’s space agency Roscosmos on Wednesday called off the test launch of its Angara A5 space rocket for a second day in a row, though the exact cause of the aborted flight was not immediately known. “The command ‘abort launch’ has been issued,” a flight controller said in…
Russia has issued an arrest warrant for a former Norwegian politician who currently serves as a medic in the Ukrainian military, the state-run news agency TASS reported Tuesday, citing law enforcement agencies. “Sandra Andersen Eira, a Norwegian woman from the International Legion of Ukraine, has been placed on an international wanted list as part of…
Authorities in western Russia’s Voronezh region said Tuesday that air defense systems had downed two drones overnight, with unconfirmed reports saying that a flight training school was damaged in the incident. Voronezh region Governor Alexander Gusev said air defense and electronic warfare systems had downed one drone over his region, adding that no one was…
China’s top diplomat said Tuesday that Beijing would strengthen strategic cooperation with Moscow and that the two countries must stand on the side of “fairness and justice” as he met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. Lavrov arrived in China for a two-day official visit on Monday, with the pair of countries looking to deepen…
Ukraine has escalated its drone attacks on Russian oil refineries since the beginning of the year in an effort to cripple Russia’s economy and constrain fuel supplies to its military. Despite the increased intensity of these strikes, experts who spoke to The Moscow Times agree that their impact on the Russian economy has so far…
PETROZAVODSK, Russia – On a cold April morning, a closed coffin was laid to rest with military honors in the local cemetery of Petrozavodsk, a city of 235,000 people in the republic of Karelia. Inside the coffin lay the body of 19-year-old Russian soldier Kirill Chistyakov, one of the first to be sent by the…
Residents of Orsk, the Ural Mountains city most impacted by some of Russia’s worst flooding in decades, staged protests against local authorities’ perceived inaction on Monday. Much of Orsk was submerged underwater after the Ural River swelled and burst through a dam embankment on Friday, forcing thousands to evacuate. Russia declared a regionwide state of emergency…
Russia has hit up to 80% of Ukraine’s conventional power plants and half its hydroelectric plants in recent weeks in the heaviest attacks since the war began, Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko said Monday. Moscow has launched almost daily strikes on Ukraine’s power grid since late March, causing major blackouts in the northeastern city of…
A Russian activist and volunteer who had helped Ukrainian refugees return home during the invasion has died in police custody in the southwestern Russian city of Belgorod, the Vot Tak news outlet reported Monday, citing two anonymous sources in his inner circle. Alexander Demidenko, 61, was reportedly abducted and tortured in October 2023. After serving 10 days in…
Russia on Monday accused Ukraine of attacking the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station with a drone for the second day running, after Kyiv had earlier pointed the finger at Moscow. The plant in southern Ukraine, Europe’s largest nuclear facility, has been under the control of Russian forces since the first days of the military offensive in…
The indigenous people of Tyumen Oblast celebrated the national holiday of the arrival of spring – Crow’s Day – with the support of RN-Uvatneftegaz (part of Rosneft’s oil production complex)
Russia’s Embassy in Lithuania was attacked with Molotov cocktails twice over the weekend, media in the Baltic country reported Monday. The embassy wall in Vilnius was damaged after unidentified individuals threw bottles with incendiary liquids after 2:00 a.m. local time on Sunday and Monday, according to the broadcaster LRT. The suspects have not yet been identified.…
A jailed ex-minister in annexed Crimea has asked to join the Russian military and be deployed to Ukraine, a Russian prison watchdog member told state media Monday. Moscow’s Zamoskvoretsky District Court last July sentenced Vera Novoselskaya, Crimea’s former Russian-installed culture minister, to 10 years in prison for accepting 25 million rubles ($270,000) in bribes. Russia’s Public Monitoring…
Russia said Monday that more than 10,000 residential buildings were flooded across the Urals, Volga region and western Siberia as emergency services evacuated cities threatened by rising rivers. On Sunday, Russia declared a federal emergency in the Orenburg region, where the Ural River flooded much of the city of Orsk and is now reaching dangerous…
Russian strikes on Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region killed three people on Monday, in the second day of deadly attacks on the area, its governor said. The strike on the rural area came a day after three people were killed in a Russian attack on the town of Huliaipole. “Three people were killed and three people…
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in China for an official visit on Monday, his ministry said, as the two countries look to strengthen diplomatic ties as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine grinds on. The Foreign Ministry announced Lavrov had touched down in Beijing in a post on X Monday morning. He will spend two days…
A major flood in the Russian city of Orsk forced thousands of people to evacuate, with Moscow reporting a “critical” situation Sunday and warning of dangerous water levels in Siberia. Russia has introduced a “federal emergency” situation in the southern Orenburg region, where the Ural River has flooded Orsk and now threatens the main city…
The situation around eastern Ukraine’s frontline city of Chasiv Yar is “difficult and tense,” the army said on Sunday, adding that the Russian invaders were now “in retreat.” Russian forces have unleashed “constant fire” in the area in recent days seeking to seize the city’s dominant heights. Chasiv Yar lies less than 30 kilometers southeast…
The mayor of the city of half a million people, Sergei Salmin, said authorities would forcibly evacuate people from flooded zones if necessary. He said the water level of the Ural River had risen to dangerous levels and would rise further. “The situation leaves you no choice. At night, the river can reach a critical…
A NASA astronaut, a Russian cosmonaut and Belarus’s first ever space traveler on Saturday returned to Earth safely after a fortnight aboard the International Space Station, Russia’s Roscosmos agency reported. “Today, at 10:17 am Moscow time (0717 GMT), the descent vehicle of Sozuz MS-24 manned spacecraft landed near the Kazakh city of Jezkazgan,” Roscosmos reported.…
An overnight Russian drone attack on Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv killed six people and wounded 10 others, national emergency services and the city’s mayor said Saturday. The State Emergency Service of Ukraine said in a Telegram post that “six people were killed and at least 10 injured as a result of an enemy strike.” Kharkiv…
A series of Russian attacks on Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv killed seven people and wounded a dozen more, Kyiv said on Saturday. The northeastern city, 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the Russian border, has seen increased deadly attacks in recent months, more than two years into Moscow’s invasion. An overnight attack killed six people,…
Massive rainfall has ruptured a dike in the Russian city of Orsk, authorities said Friday, prompting hasty evacuations in the surrounding area. According to the city authorities, more than 4,000 houses and some 10,000 people are in the affected area near the border with Kazakhstan, and at risk of being flooded. Local authorities had earlier…
The mayor of the city of half a million people, Sergei Salmin, said authorities would forcibly evacuate people from flooded zones if they refused orders to leave. He said the water level of the Ural river had risen to 855 centimeters and “will rise” further. He named several districts of the city and nearby villages…
Kyiv warned Friday that a key frontline town has come under “constant fire” from advancing Russian forces as Moscow announced that it had captured another village in eastern Ukraine. Buoyed by their advantage in manpower and arms, Russian forces are on the offensive, and the Ukrainian town of Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region appears…
Russian IT specialists based abroad are increasingly eyeing jobs at Western IT companies amid growing worries that their days of being permitted to work remotely for Russian firms are numbered. Western tech startups and firms, meanwhile, appear to be interested in capitalizing on this highly skilled and less costly workforce, actively recruiting Russian tech workers…
Authorities in Russia’s republic of Chechnya have imposed limits on music tempos to abide by strict cultural norms in the deeply conservative Muslim-majority region. “From now on all musical, vocal and choreographic works should correspond to a tempo of 80 to 116 beats per minute,” Chechnya’s Culture Ministry said in a statement earlier this week. …
A monument to the late co-founders of the Wagner mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin has been unveiled in southern Russia’s Krasnodar region, photos published to Wagner’s official Telegram channel on Friday showed. The statue depicts Prigozhin in a flak jacket holding a two-way radio and Utkin gripping an automatic rifle behind him. Engraved on the…
Moldova’s pro-Russian breakaway region of Transnistria has made international headlines in recent weeks after its leadership called on Moscow to “protect” it from Moscow against alleged pressure from Chisinau. While some experts warn that Transnistria — a sliver of land bordering Ukraine that hosts a small contingent of Russian soldiers — could act as a…
A Russian blogger has been sentenced to 10 months of correctional labor for “rehabilitating Nazism” in an Instagram video where she pretends to tickle a World War II monument. Authorities detained Alyona Agafonova in February, months after pro-Kremlin bloggers drew attention to a video in which she recorded herself wiggling her finger in front of…
Russia’s Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media said Friday that two-thirds of tech workers who left the country after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 have returned. “Over the past year, we have not observed an outflow of IT specialists,” the ministry said in a statement, which appeared to have been issued…
Russian investigators said Friday that they have uncovered more evidence of Ukraine’s alleged involvement in last month’s deadly concert hall attack, including photos of Ukrainian flags found on one of the suspected assailant’s phones. Following the March 22 attack on Crocus City Hall, which left at least 145 people dead and hundreds more injured, Russian officials…
Murmansk region Governor Andrei Chibis appeared in a hospital video on Friday morning after surviving a knife attack the day before. An unidentified assailant stabbed the official in his stomach following a meeting with residents in the Arctic town of Apatity on Thursday evening. Chibis underwent surgery, after which the regional health chief assessed his condition as…
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Friday that it downed 53 Ukrainian drones, most of which targeted the southern Rostov region where the military command center for Moscow’s war against Ukraine is located. “During the night and on the morning of April 5, the Kyiv regime tried to commit several terrorist attacks with aerial drones,” the ministry…
Updated with reports of destroyed Russian planes, injured investigators. Russia’s Defense Ministry said Friday that it downed 53 Ukrainian drones, most of which targeted the southern Rostov region, where sources in Ukraine’s security services claim to have destroyed several Russian warplanes. “During the night and on the morning of April 5, the Kyiv regime tried…
Two German construction companies are taking part in rebuilding Russian-occupied Mariupol, the Ukrainian city that fell to Moscow’s invading forces two years ago, a German press investigation claimed on Thursday. The industrial Knauf group, which manufactures plasterboard, and WKB Systems, which produces aerated concrete, have been providing materials for construction in the city that was…
Finland on Thursday said it would extend its border closure with Russia “until further notice,” after it was shut last year in response to an uptick in asylum seekers. Finland, which joined the NATO military alliance following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, says the increased flow of asylum seekers has been orchestrated by Russia, a charge…
Kyrgyzstan ended its acceptance of Russia’s Mir payment cards after its national payments operator’s Latvian software provider threatened to shut it down unless it did so, the Central Asian nation’s prime minister said Thursday. Kyrgyzstan’s Interbank Processing Center (IPC) said it would stop servicing Mir bank cards from Friday to “minimize the risk of secondary sanctions” after the…
MOSCOW – The March 22 attack on a concert venue near Moscow is likely to have extensive and far-reaching impacts on the country, experts warn. The Crocus City Hall attack, Russia’s deadliest attack in two decades, risks escalating already existing tensions in Russian society, leading to more state and law enforcement repression and an increase…
BRUSSELS — Finland views Ukrainian strikes on oil refineries and military targets inside Russia as legally justified, Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen told The Moscow Times on the sidelines of a NATO foreign ministers meeting. Ukrainian drone strikes on Tuesday targeted an oil refinery and a drone assembly plant in the republic of Tatarstan, the farthest-reaching…
Russia’s Wagner mercenary group is once again recruiting fighters for deployment in Africa, months after the death of its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, the investigative news outlet Vyorstka and research group Nordsint reported in a joint investigation published on Thursday. Wagner disbanded late last year and its fighters were transferred to units under the control of the…
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said it has detained three more suspects in the ongoing criminal investigation into last month’s deadly concert hall attack outside Moscow, state media reported Thursday, citing the law enforcement agency’s press service. “In Moscow, Yekaterinburg and Omsk a citizen of Russia and two foreign citizens, both from the region of…
A former American city council member who faces trial in the United States on child pornography charges appears to have fled to Russia and joined the Russian military, according to footage shared by regional authorities in the northern Khanty-Mansi autonomous district. Wilmer Puello-Mota, former city councilor of Holyoke, Massachusetts, reportedly left the United States on Jan. 7…
A Chechen man committed suicide in police custody late last month, the republic of Chechya’s human rights chief said Wednesday, after previous unconfirmed reports alleged the man was tortured to death by law enforcement agents. Askhab Uspanov was found dead at a Moscow police station hours after being detained on March 22, his relatives said, the…
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said it has detained and deported a former Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldier who was allegedly seeking to join the Ukrainian army, state media reported Thursday. “Yuval Lanzman, a former IDF soldier born in 1960, was detained in the Krasnodar region,” a spokesperson from the FSB branch in the southern…
Ukrainian drone attacks on oil refineries inside Russia led to a slump in the country’s gasoline production during the last week of March, the Kommersant business daily reported Thursday, citing official data. Between March 25 and March 31, Russia produced 110,700 metric tons of gasoline per day, a 12% decrease compared to the average output in…
Overnight Russian air strikes against Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv killed four people and injured 11 others, Ukrainian officials said Thursday. Three rescue workers died during a second strike on a residential building in a “densely populated district of Kharkiv,” Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on the messaging app Telegram. Another person died in a drone…
Updated with new death toll. Overnight Russian air strikes against Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv killed at least five people and injured one dozen others, Ukrainian officials said Thursday. Three rescue workers died during a second strike on a residential building in a “densely populated district of Kharkiv,” Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on the messaging…
Prominent St. Petersburg opposition politician Boris Vishnevsky said Wednesday that he plans to challenge his recent designation as a “foreign agent” in court. Vishnevsky, a member of the liberal Yabloko party, is among the few high-profile opposition voices to have stayed in Russia following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s Justice Ministry labeled him a “foreign agent”…
French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu on Wednesday told Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu in rare telephone talks that France is ready to step up exchanges to battle “terrorism” after the deadly Moscow attack claimed by Islamic State. The pair also discussed the war in Ukraine, with Lecornu reaffirming French support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia, the…
“I have typical Russian looks and there was no place that would refuse me a job before,” Yasmina, a Muslim woman from Russia, told The Moscow Times. “Everything changed when I started wearing a hijab. I still had my education, my knowledge of foreign languages and years of professional experience, but people only saw the…
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday that Russia’s military plans to draft some 300,000 new troops over the next two months. “I can say that Russia is preparing to mobilize an additional 300,000 military personnel by June 1,” Zelensky said during a joint press conference with Finnish President Alexander Stubb, according to the news outlet RBC Ukraine. He…
Russian investigators have opened a criminal probe into the disappearance of a young Chechen woman who is feared to have been murdered by her family, the human rights group NC SOS said Wednesday. Seda Suleimanova, 26, fled her native republic of Chechnya in October 2022 after relatives threatened to kill her for refusing an arranged marriage. In August, she…
Three Russian-Israeli dual nationals remain in Hamas captivity in Gaza as Moscow attempts to secure their release, Israel’s Ambassador to Russia Simona Halperin said Wednesday. Hamas-led militants launched a surprise attack against Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 250 others hostage. Israel responded with a devastating offensive on the Gaza…
Soviet dissident Alexander Skobov has been detained for “justifying terrorism” in social media posts about last month’s deadly concert attack outside Moscow, the St. Petersburg-based news outlet Fontanka reported Wednesday. Skobov, 66, was convicted twice starting in the late 1970s and subjected to punitive psychiatry for “anti-Soviet propaganda.” According to Fontanka, the dissident is accused…
Moscow smashed a daily temperature record on Tuesday, with thermometers in the Russian capital measuring a balmy 23.2 degrees Celsius. The previous record was broken in 1951, when the daily high for April 2 in Moscow was recorded at 17.4 degrees C. Tuesday’s new historic high followed days of unseasonably warm weather throughout much of…
The number of children confirmed killed in the attack on Crocus City Hall last month has risen to six, Russia’s top children’s rights official said Wednesday. “We currently have information on six dead children and seven injured,” presidential commissioner for children’s rights Maria Lvova-Belova said. “Two are being treated at home, five are at the…
An independent newspaper in the Novosibirsk region town of Berdsk has announced its closure after 20 years due to “unbearable” wartime censorship. Founded in 2003, Kurier.Sreda emerged as one of the main sources of news in Berdsk, a town of around 100,000 people and a suburb of the region’s capital city Novosibirsk. “We tried to…