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…
Five thousand children have been evacuated from Russia’s Belgorod region bordering Ukraine following weeks of deadly bombardment by Kyiv, the region’s governor said Saturday. Regional authorities last week said 9,000 minors would be moved to other regions after a spate of cross-border shelling and drone strikes killed over a dozen civilians. “Five thousand of our…
Russia’s security services said Friday that they had arrested three people from “a Central Asian country” who were plotting an attack in the south of the country, news agencies reported. The FSB said in a statement that it had “put an end to the terrorist activities of three nationals from a Central Asian country who…
Authorities in St. Petersburg have been deporting migrants en masse in the week since the deadly attack on a Moscow region concert hall, the legal rights group Perviy Otdel said Friday. More than 64 foreigners were deported from the city’s Vyborgsky district on Thursday alone, the NGO said, citing one of its unidentified lawyers. “Temporary detention…
Russia is outgunning Ukrainian forces sixfold on the front lines, causing losses of troops and positions, Ukraine’s recently appointed commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky said in a rare interview published on Friday. “A few days ago, the enemy’s advantage in terms of ammunition fired was about six to one,” Syrsky told the Ukrinform news agency. “The defense…
A ninth suspect in the deadly Moscow region concert hall attack has been placed in pre-trial detention on terrorism charges, the court system’s press service said Friday. Moscow’s Basmanny District court ruled to keep Lutfulloi Nazrimad, a native of Tajikistan, in custody until May 22. Videos shared by the press service showed Lutfulloi kneeling behind…
A Moscow court placed photojournalist Antonina Favorskaya in pre-trial detention for two months on charges related to the “extremism” case against late opposition activist Alexei Navalny, the court system’s press service said Friday. Russian authorities designated Navalny’s activist network, including the disbanded Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), as “extremist” in 2021, placing employees, volunteers and supporters at risk…
A man was killed when a Ukrainian drone crashed in the city of Belgorod on Friday, regional authorities said. Photos shared on social media showed blown-out windows of an apartment building, rescue workers retrieving a body and Belgorod region Governor Vyachelsav Gladkov meeting with residents. “Unfortunately a man was killed in an explosion,” Gladkov wrote…
A year after Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was jailed in Russia, his parents and friends say they remain hopeful that he will soon be freed. “One year is way too long for Evan to be behind bars on these completely bogus charges,” said Pjotr Sauer, The Guardian’s Russia correspondent and Evan’s close friend.…
Russia and Ukraine said Friday that they have exchanged the bodies of 150 fallen soldiers, the third publically known exchange between the two warring sides so far this year. Kyiv repatriated 121 bodies, Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said on the messaging app Telegram. The coordination center identified 107 of the…
At least nine people had been detained in Tajikistan in connection with last week’s deadly attack at a Moscow region concert hall, Reuters and Russian state media reported Friday, citing anonymous Tajik security sources. “Nine residents of Vahdat district [in western Tajikistan] were detained over links to the people who committed the terrorist attack on…
Armenia has blocked pro-Kremlin Russian TV host Vladimir Solovyov’s shows on its territory over “continuous violations,” the South Caucasus nation’s state broadcasting regulator announced Friday. The shows “Evening With Vladimir Solovyov” and “Sunday Evening With Vladimir Solovyov” were pulled off the air in Armenia based on a Russian-Armenian mass telecommunications cooperation agreement. The regulator, the…
The Kharampurovskaya agricultural community started breeding and raising whitefish at a new fish farm under a grant program of RN-Purneftegaz (part of Rosneft Oil Company’s production complex)
Russia has extended restrictions on money transfers abroad for another six months, the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) announced Friday. Days after ordering troops to invade Ukraine in February 2022, President Vladimir Putin introduced the curbs — which have been gradually eased in the months since — as part of emergency measures to shield Russia’s…
Kyiv said Friday that Russia’s military had fired nearly 100 drones and missiles at Ukraine overnight in a barrage that damaged three power stations. Moscow has stepped up its air strikes on Ukraine in recent weeks, targeting energy infrastructure in response to an uptick in deadly Ukrainian shelling of Russian border regions. Ukraine’s Interior Ministry…
A Russian military plane crashed on Thursday into waters off the coast of annexed Crimea, the Moscow-installed governor of Sevastopol said. “A military plane has fallen into the sea,” Mikhail Razvozhayev said in a post on the messaging app Telegram without giving the cause. An unverified video on social media showed a plane in flames…
Russian authorities have arrested a suspected “financier” of last week’s deadly concert hall attack, Russia’s top investigative body said Thursday, claiming that Ukraine had paid “large amounts” to the perpetrators. “Another suspect involved in the terrorist financing scheme has been identified and detained,” Russia’s Investigative Committee said in a statement, adding that the person was…
Camouflaged gunmen killed at least 143 people and wounded 360 others at the Crocus City concert hall near Moscow late last week, the deadliest attack in Russia since the 2004 Beslan school siege. Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry released the names of those who were killed and whose identities could be established, though the list could…
Polish security services said Thursday they had raided a Russian spy network in cooperation with Czech intelligence, which a day earlier had busted a major Russian propaganda network. The services said their operations were linked to charges filed earlier this year against a Polish citizen suspected of spying for Russia. “The Internal Security Agency is…
Police in the Siberian republic of Tyva detained a nine-year-old girl on suspicion of urging strangers to commit acts of terrorism via text message. A video published by the local branch of Russia’s Interior Ministry was said to have shown the girl providing testimony to a police officer, though there was no audio accompanying the video, so it was…
A company based in the West African nation of Gabon imported nearly $1.5 billion worth of aircraft parts to Russia last year despite Western sanctions in response to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, The Moscow Times’ Russian service reported Thursday, citing customs data. Of the nearly $2 billion worth of aircraft parts exported to Russia in 2023, the…
The Kremlin said Thursday that discussions continued to take place over a possible prisoner exchange involving Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was detained in Russia nearly one year ago on espionage charges. The 32-year-old American journalist was detained by Russian security agents in March 2023 and accused of spying, the first such charge…
The Kremlin gave no indication on Thursday that President Vladimir Putin plans to meet with the family members of those killed in Friday’s deadly attack at the Crocus City Hall music venue. Putin was seen lighting a candle for the victims at a Moscow church last week but has otherwise not visited the scene of…
A queer bar in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk has been fined for “LGBT propaganda,” local police said Thursday, a month after the bar announced its closure over police raids. Krasnoyarsk’s Sovetsky District Court found the legal entity that owns the bar Elton guilty of the administrative charges and fined it 450,000 rubles ($4,800), according…
Russian police have detained at least two independent journalists on “extremism” charges in connection with a criminal case against the late opposition activist Alexei Navalny, media outlets reported. According to the independent broadcaster Sotavision, its photojournalist Antonina Favorskaya was detained for a second time late Wednesday after initially serving a 10-day administrative sentence in the Moscow…
The Russian city of Ulan-Ude will no longer hold direct mayoral elections and instead select its local political leader through a council of electors, the regional assembly of Far East Russia’s republic of Buryatia announced Thursday. Buryatia head Alexei Tsydenov had first proposed the changes in January, arguing that the new model would breathe fresh…
Russia’s spy chief visited Pyongyang earlier this week to discuss security cooperation, North Korea’s state news agency reported Thursday, as the historical allies deepen ties amid Moscow’s war in Ukraine. Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, met with North Korea’s State Security Minister Ri Chang Dae during his visit between Monday…
Five days since the deadliest attack on Russian soil since 2003, President Vladimir Putin has still not visited the site of the attack in Moscow or met with the victims’ families. After repeatedly implicating Ukraine and the West in the attack despite the Islamic State claiming responsibility, Putin on Wednesday made a surprise visit to…
A Russian court on Wednesday sentenced a man to six years in jail for online messages denouncing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as Moscow clamps down on public criticism of the conflict. Nikolai Farafonov, 35, was found guilty of “public incitement to commit terrorist acts” by a military court in Russia’s northern republic of Komi, local…