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…
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday that more than 100,000 people have signed up to fight as contract soldiers in the war against Ukraine so far this year. “Over the past week and a half, recruitment points have seen a significant increase in the number of people interested in signing contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry…
Russia accused Israel Tuesday of seeking to fuel conflict in the Middle East, blaming it for a strike on Iran’s consulate in Syria that killed at least 13 people. Slamming the “flagrant violation” of Syria’s sovereignty, Moscow’s United Nations envoy Vasily Nebenzia told a Security Council meeting that Russia was “of the view that such…
Ukraine on Tuesday said a Russian missile strike on its central city of Dnipro wounded at least 18 people, with President Volodymyr Zelensky saying rescue efforts were underway after a college and kindergarten were hit. Dnipro is a city in central Ukraine on the river of the same name. It has been a target for…
Kyrgyzstan will stop accepting Russia’s Mir payment cards amid concerns it could expose the country’s financial sector to Western sanctions, the national payments operator said Tuesday. The United States in February sanctioned the organization behind Mir — Russia’s domestic card payments system — and is putting pressure on third countries over their financial links to…
Unprecedented drone strikes on two industrial sites in Tatarstan on Tuesday have stirred fear and panic among residents of the Turkic-majority republic in Russia’s Volga region. The purported Ukrainian attacks, which targeted an oil refinery in the city of Nizhnekamsk and a military drone production site in the Alabuga special economic zone, are the farthest-reaching…
Nearly 140 dolphins and other marine mammals have washed up dead on the shores of Russia’s Black Sea coast over the past month, the dolphin rescue and research center Delfa said Tuesday. “A total of 137 cetaceans died in the last month. This is a serious figure,” Delfa wrote on the messaging app Telegram, referring…
Russia’s spy chief said Tuesday that U.S. warnings of a possible extremist attack were too broad to have prevented the deadly concert hall attack outside Moscow late last month. “The Federal Security Service [FSB] received some information from the U.S. intelligence services that such a thing was unfortunately possible,” Sergei Naryshkin, who heads Russia’s Foreign Intelligence…
Russia said Tuesday its forces had captured 400 square kilometers (150 square miles) of Ukrainian territory this year. Moscow secured its first territorial gains in almost a year in recent months, as Kyiv struggles with manpower and ammunition shortages amid delays to vital Western aid. “Since the start of the year, 403 square kilometers… have…
Samaraneftegaz, one of Rosneft’s main production facilities in the Volga Region, saved more than 74 million kWh of electricity in 2023 as a result of the energy saving program, which amounted to 330 million roubles
For years, Russian landowners have watched a toxic, invasive plant species spread across their properties like wildfire and have been helpless to act. Sosnovsky’s hogweed — a monstrous plant that can tower up to five meters in height — has spread unchecked across the country, wreaking havoc on ecosystems and landing thousands in the hospital every…
Russia’s Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS) announced Tuesday that it will conduct inspections at the country’s largest supermarket chains amid the rising cost of eggs. “Inspections will be carried out to assess whether anti-competitive agreements [were made] between retail chains, which could have led to an increase in the cost of socially important goods,” FAS said in…
A Chechen man died in police custody hours after being detained in Moscow in connection with last month’s deadly concert hall attack, the investigative news outlet Agentstvo reported, citing the man’s mother. Taisa Uspanova told Agentstvo that her son Askhab Uspanov was detained by police on March 22, the day of the Crocus City Hall attack,…
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said Tuesday it had seized dozens of kilograms of explosives that were sent from Ukraine and concealed in Orthodox Christian religious icons as they were moved through the EU. The seizure came following a cargo inspection in the northwestern Pskov region along the border with Latvia, the FSB said in…
Russia on Tuesday reported drone attacks on factories in the republic of Tatarstan, more than 1,100 kilometers from Ukraine, and said people were wounded in the strikes. “Drone attacks took place against factories in Tatarstan at Yelabuga and Nizhnekamsk,” Tatar leader Rustam Minnikhanov’s press service said on Telegram. The attacks “did not cause serious damage…
The Nobel-Prize-winning Memorial human rights group on Monday expressed concern over the condition of its jailed co-founder Oleg Orlov, who was recently imprisoned for criticizing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A Russian court in February sentenced Orlov, 70, to two-and-a-half years in prison for “discrediting” the Russian army after he spoke out against the full-scale invasion…
A car bomb in eastern Ukraine’s partially occupied Luhansk region killed a Russian-backed official on Monday, local authorities said. The local branch of Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said the deputy head of a state-run administrative agency was killed when “an unidentified device detonated in a car” on Monday afternoon. The Investigative Committee released…
Russia’s top investigative body announced Monday that it will look into alleged involvement by the United States, Ukraine and other Western countries in terrorist attacks inside Russia. Top Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have suggested that Ukraine and the West were partly responsible for the Crocus City Hall attack last month, but they have…
A Russian court on Monday extended the pre-trial detention of U.S.-Russian journalist Alsu Kurmasheva until June 5, according to her employer. Kurmasheva, who works for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), was arrested last year for failing to register as a “foreign agent.” RFE/RL says she was subsequently charged with spreading “false information” under wartime censorship laws that…
A giant fire broke out on the grounds of Uralmash, one of Russia’s largest heavy machinery factories, emergency officials said Monday. Footage shared online showed a plume of black smoke rising from the factory in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg. Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry said the fire engulfed 4,500 square meters of an unidentified “workshop”…
President Vladimir Putin’s former university classmate has been nominated as the sole candidate to head Russia’s Supreme Court after the recent death of its longtime chairman, the legal news outlet Rapsi reported Monday. Deputy Chief Justice of Russia’s Supreme Court Irina Podnosova and Putin studied law at Leningrad State University, from which they both graduated in…
The Interfax news agency cited an FSB video showing one of the detained men saying: “I took weapons to them, these guys who attacked Crocus City Hall. I took them weapons from Makhachkala.” Russian authorities had previously announced the arrests of 12 people they say are connected to the attack — including the four suspected…
Emergency crews have called off the search and rescue operation at a gold mine in Far East Russia’s Amur region, where 13 miners were trapped by a rockslide two weeks ago, the mine’s operator said Monday. “It was decided to stop the rescue operation at the Pioneer mine on April 1,” operator Pokrovsky Rudnik said…
International Bird Day takes place on April 1
Ukrainian shelling killed a woman in the Russian border village of Dunayka on Sunday, the latest in a series of deadly cross-border attacks by Kyiv, the local governor said. Since Moscow launched its assault on Ukraine two years ago, Russia’s Belgorod region on the frontier has been repeatedly targeted by what authorities say is indiscriminate…
The owner of a popular gay bar in the Russian city of Orenburg has been arrested for “extremism”, rights groups said Sunday, as authorities crack down on the LGBTQ community. Police and local nationalists raided the Pose bar in Orenburg earlier this month during a drag show, later arresting its administrator and artistic director in…
Russian authorities on Sunday arrested three people in the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan on charges of planning terrorist attacks, following a deadly attack on a concert hall near Moscow. The arrests were made during an operation in Dagestan’s capital Makhachkala and in the town of Kaspiysk, around 10 kilometers (six miles) to the south,…
Ukraine said Saturday that Russian shelling overnight and in the morning killed two elderly people in the eastern town of Krasnogorivka, and urged civilians still living there to evacuate. Krasnogorivka lies directly on the frontline in the eastern Donetsk region, more than half of which is under the control of Russian forces and is an…
The Kremlin said Saturday that President Vladimir Putin was still pained by last week’s massacre at a Moscow concert hall, even if this was not outwardly visible. More than one week after gunmen stormed Crocus City Hall on the outskirts of the capital, killing 144 people and injuring hundreds more, Putin has not publicly met…