Around 30,000 residents of annexed Crimea face power outages after a gas pipeline caught fire overnight, Russian state media reported Friday. Eyewitnesses filmed the flames erupting from the gas pipeline in the eastern port city of Kerch, which connects to mainland Russia via the Crimean Bridge. Svyatoslav Brusakov, the Russian-installed mayor of Kerch, said up…
A new swimming facility was opened in Samara with the support of Samaraneftegas.
The European Union’s border protection agency has deployed some 50 guards to watch Finland’s border with Russia, it said on Thursday, as Helsinki accuses Moscow of orchestrating a surge in migrants. “Currently we deploy 55 officers in Finland, a majority of them are border guard officers performing surveillance of the border,” Frontex spokesman Piotr Switalski…
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday praised his country’s relations with Iran at a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi, as the two discussed the Israel-Hamas war. Since launching its assault on Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow has sought to deepen its economic and political ties with Tehran, both of which have been sanctioned…
Russia’s Justice Ministry has added the U.S. global policy think tank RAND Corporation to its list of “undesirable” organizations, banning its activities and putting staff at risk of jail in Russia. RAND’s designation, dated Dec. 6 on the ministry website, is not accompanied by a statement explaining Moscow’s decision to blacklist the research and development nonprofit.…
A member of Russia’s National Guard was killed and two others were wounded in an explosion at a training ground in central Russia, authorities said Thursday. An explosive device “self-detonated” during shooting drills at the Dubrovichi aviation training ground in the Ryazan region, the local prosecutor’s office said in a statement. The Investigative Committee, which…
The British government on Thursday accused Russian security services of engaging in a sustained cyber espionage campaign against top politicians, journalists and NGOs. Russia has been suspected of meddling in U.K. politics before, including the divisive 2016 Brexit referendum, however, the Conservative Party-led government has been criticized for failing to investigate. In the latest claims,…
Russia on Thursday arrested a Belarusian man for allegedly placing explosives on two trains on a key part of a Siberian railway near the Chinese border, on Ukraine’s orders. The arrest came around a week after authorities reported traffic complications in a tunnel on the Baikal-Amur mainline, some 5,500 kilometers east of Moscow. Ukrainian sources…
The families of mobilized Russian soldiers on Thursday asked President Vladimir Putin to return their loved ones from the front in Ukraine, more than a year after the men were recruited. “We’re against legalized slavery,” said members of Put’ Domoi (“Way Home”), a group of soldiers’ wives and mothers calling for an end to mobilization, in…
The Kremlin said Thursday that it hopes U.S. lawmakers will continue to block White House requests for emergency aid to Ukraine amid a funding row between Republicans and Democrats over border security issues. Republican senators earlier blocked $106 billion in emergency aid primarily for Ukraine and Israel as conservatives balked at the exclusion of immigration reforms…
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said Thursday that Russians should vote against Vladimir Putin in the 2024 presidential election. “You can do this by voting for any other candidate,” Navalny said in a statement posted on his website. Russia’s upper house of parliament earlier on Thursday officially set March 17 as the date for next…
Ukraine’s allies have drastically scaled back their pledges of new aid to the country, which have fallen to their lowest level since the start of the war, the Kiel Institute’s Ukraine aid tracker showed Thursday. “The dynamics of support to Ukraine have slowed,” the Germany-based institute said, adding that new military, financial and humanitarian aid…
Russia’s Security Service (FSB) on Thursday said it detained two people suspected of organizing several arson attacks on behalf of Kyiv and transferring money to the Ukrainian military. A 21-year-old ex-soldier in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad was accused of being paid by the Ukrainian special services to recruit potential arsonists inside Russia. “The suspect involved several…
Russian oil exports have generated $11 billion through a shadow fleet and obscure entities in the year since G7 countries set a price cap on one of Russia’s largest sources of income, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing trade data. In December 2022, the group of rich countries imposed a $60-per-barrel price cap on Russian oil, while…
A Russian teenager has shot dead a classmate and injured five others before killing herself at a school in western Russia, investigators said Thursday. Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said a 14-year-old student who brought a pump-action shotgun to the school was among the dead. The Investigative Committee said it had launched a…
Sibintek being an internal IT integrator of Rosneft created a corporate cellular communications operator – RN-Svyaz to provide the Company’s subdivisions and employees with secure mobile communications with an extended coverage area.
Russia on Thursday set March 17 as the date for a presidential election which is expected to be another shoo-in for Vladimir Putin, who has silenced opposition during over two decades in power. In a meeting broadcast live on Russian television, the upper house of parliament unanimously approved the date of the vote. The decision…
Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Saudi Arabia Wednesday after visiting the United Arab Emirates, making a rare trip abroad as Moscow seeks to reassert itself on the global stage. It is only the third trip the Russian leader has taken outside the former Soviet Union since he invaded Ukraine, following visits to Iran and…
Kyiv said it orchestrated the assassination of a pro-Kremlin Ukrainian politician on Wednesday after an ex-lawmaker who had defected to Russia was shot dead outside Moscow. Since Russia invaded last February, Ukraine has claimed to be behind a spate of assassinations and attacks on pro-war Russians and former Ukrainian officials who have backed Moscow’s war.…
The United States charged four pro-Russian soldiers with war crimes on Wednesday for the abduction and torture of an American national in Ukraine. Attorney General Merrick Garland said the charges against the four “Russia-affiliated military personnel” were the first to be brought under a U.S. war crimes statute passed by Congress nearly 30 years ago.…
A Moscow-backed politician in eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk region has been killed in a bombing attack, Russian state media reported Wednesday. Oleg Popov, a deputy in the pro-Kremlin Luhansk regional parliament, was killed Wednesday afternoon in the city of Luhansk, which has been under the control of Moscow-backed separatists since 2014. “As a result of the car explosion…
Russian lawmakers on Wednesday voted in favor of banning the use of cellphones in school classrooms, a move they argue will help improve the learning process for students. The speaker of Russia’s lower-house State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin said cellphones would no longer be permitted in classrooms except for “emergencies.” “Parents and teachers asked us to back this rule. The…
Police in Nepal said Wednesday that they had detained 12 people accused of illegally sending young men to be recruited into the Russian army, days after authorities confirmed the death of six Nepali citizens fighting in the Ukraine war. Nepal prohibits its citizens from joining foreign militaries, except those of countries with which it has…
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday landed in the United Arab Emirates for a rare visit outside the former Soviet Union, as Moscow seeks to reassert itself on the global stage. Isolated by the West over the Ukraine war, Putin is courting allies in the Middle East, where he will discuss oil, trade and the…
Two senior Russian officers have been imprisoned on charges of failing to prevent a Ukrainian missile strike on Russia, the first such case of its kind, the business daily Kommersant reported Wednesday, citing anonymous sources familiar with the trial. Lieutenant Colonel Anatoly Bondarev and Major Dmitry Dmitrakov were accused of allowing a Ukrainian missile strike…
Thematic days dedicated to the Company’s information technologies will be held as part of the Russia international exhibition and forum from December 7 to December 10 in the Rosneft pavilion.
Kyiv said Wednesday that Moscow had launched dozens of Iranian-designed attack drones toward Ukraine overnight from southern Russia and the annexed Crimean peninsula, in its latest aerial barrage. Officials in Kyiv say Russian forces have been stockpiling drones and missiles for systematic attacks on Ukraine’s struggling energy grid over winter months. “A total of 48…
Russian businessman Alexei Nechaev will stand in as President Vladimir Putin’s “liberal” rival during Russia’s 2024 presidential race, the independent news outlet Mozhem Obyasnit reported Tuesday, citing two anonymous sources in the pro-business political party he created nearly four years ago. Nechaev, who owns one of Russia’s leading cosmetics companies Faberlic, stepped into politics when…
The United States said Tuesday that Russia rejected a new proposal to free two detained Americans, Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan. “We have made a number of proposals, including a substantial one in recent weeks,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters. “That proposal was rejected by Russia,” he…
Russian oil giant Lukoil said Tuesday it would consider selling its oil refinery in Bulgaria following a government plan to end imports of Russian crude oil, which the company called “discriminatory.” “In view of the significant change in the operating conditions of the Lukoil Group companies in Bulgaria, the company has commenced work to review…
Ukraine said Tuesday it had hit Russian military facilities in Crimea with drones, in the latest such operation on the Moscow-annexed Black Sea peninsula. Russia said it had neutralized 35 Ukrainian drones over Crimea and the Sea of Azov, which lies between the warring countries. Kyiv has targeted Crimea throughout Moscow’s offensive but increased attacks…
ST. PETERSBURG — The ban on the “international LGBT movement” by Russia’s top court has thrown the queer community of St. Petersburg, historically one of the country’s most LGBT-tolerant cities, into unprecedented uncertainty and fear. “People are scared,” said Maria, 43, an openly lesbian feminist and LGBT activist who asked for anonymity out of concerns…
Russia has been launching major investments and building up its military presence in the Arctic as it steps up its drive to develop a crucial northern maritime route linking Asia and Europe. In the country’s latest move, Russia’s nuclear agency Rosatom on Tuesday presented its two new RITM-200 reactors that will power the future Chukotka…
Russia’s recent “extremist” designation of a loosely defined “LGBT movement” has led to a surge in emergency evacuations from the country, independent media reported Tuesday, citing the European human rights group for post-Soviet LGBT people, Equal PostOst. Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday banned the so-called “international LGBT movement” — which does not formally exist —…
Two in five Russians who fled the country in the months following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine have since returned home, the pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia reported Tuesday, citing data from an immigration support company and job recruitment website. According to official statistics, 668,400 Russians left the country last year as war broke out in neighboring Ukraine,…
Russian soldiers’ requests for help deserting their units in Ukraine have almost doubled in recent months, the Idite Lesom (“Get Lost”) group, which helps Russians evade fighting in the war, told The Moscow Times. The project said it received 577 such requests between September and November, an 89% increase from the 305 it received between…
Six Ukrainian children taken by Russia in the wake of Moscow’s invasion are to be reunited with their families after Qatari mediation, officials from the Gulf state said Tuesday. Russia has been accused of forcibly deporting thousands of Ukrainian children from schools, hospitals and orphanages in parts of the country controlled by its forces. The…
Two Finnish companies are suspected of having exported drones and other military products worth over three million euros ($3.25 million) to Russia in violation of EU sanctions, Finnish customs authorities said Tuesday. “There are altogether six criminal suspects, one of whom has been detained since September,” the country’s customs agency said in a statement. It…
Ravaged forests, flooded towns and dead dolphins: after nearly two years of war in Ukraine, experts say environmental damage is becoming an “enormous” tragedy that will affect generations to come. The invasion of Ukraine has been particularly devastating for nature, said Doug Weir, head of research at the Conflict and Environment Observatory, a British NGO.…
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi will visit Moscow on Thursday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin confirmed Tuesday. Iran’s official news agency Irna had earlier reported on the planned visit, saying that the two leaders would discuss “bilateral issues, including economic interactions, as well as discussions about regional and international issues, especially the situation…
A left-wing activist who was “tricked” by Russian security services into leaving Georgia has turned up at a pre-trial detention facility in central Russia, the human rights organization Perviy Otdel reported Tuesday. Rafail Shepelev went missing in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi on Oct. 12 and was found a month later inside a detention center in…
Russian prosecutors have requested a 19.5-year prison sentence for former minister Mikhail Abyzov nearly five years after his arrest in a $62 million fraud case, Interfax reported Monday. Abyzov, 51, had been a close ally of former President Dmitry Medvedev, serving as his minister of open government affairs from 2012-2018. He was arrested in March 2019 on charges…
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday complained of deteriorating ties with Western countries, which crumbled after he launched a full-scale offensive against Ukraine last year, as he accepted the credentials of several new ambassadors. At a Kremlin ceremony, Putin swore in some two dozen new ambassadors, including from countries such as Britain and Germany, with…
Ukraine said Monday that it had exported around 7 million tons of cargo through the Black Sea despite Russia’s blockade — a more than fivefold increase in just over a month. “Two hundred vessels exported 7 million tons of cargo,” Ukraine’s reconstruction ministry said in a post on Telegram. The cargo included “almost 5 million…
A Stakhanovist pace Labor shortages are usually good news for workers. Wages rise, working conditions become more bearable, and workers who are discriminated against have more chances of finding employment. This is the case in Russia at the moment, especially at factories associated with state defense orders, where women, the elderly and people with disabilities…
A Russian delegation led by the deputy defense minister met with Niger’s military leaders in Niamey on Monday, Nigerien authorities said, with the two countries agreeing to strengthen military cooperation. The trip was the first official visit by a member of the Russian government since the coup in Niger on July 26, when the army…
Authorities in Russia’s Zabaikalsky region in October unveiled the region’s largest memorial dedicated to Russian soldiers killed in the war in Ukraine: a 3.3-meter-tall stele and a statue of a soldier holding a child erected in the very heart of the region’s capital Chita. The Zabaikalsky region, a swathe of Russia’s Far East with a…
Nepal said Monday that six of its citizens had been killed while serving as mercenaries in the Russian army, while another had been captured in Ukraine, confirming that Nepalis are fighting in Moscow’s invasion. Kathmandu urged Russia to stop the use of Nepali mercenaries and send any men still serving back home. Nepal’s Foreign Ministry said…
An endangered Siberian tiger has killed a man in Russia’s Far Eastern region of Khabarovsk, law enforcement officials said Monday. According to the local branch of Russia’s Investigative Committee, a wild Siberian tiger — also known as an Amur tiger — attacked the unidentified man near the village of Obor, which has a population of…
Ryazan Oil Refining Company (part of Rosneft’s refining complex) ramps up production of winter diesel fuel by introducing a process of catalytic dewaxing of diesel fractions.
Finland’s intelligence service is aware of plans by Moscow to incite demonstrations in the Nordic country, the Finnish broadcaster Yle reported Monday. Citing a secret Russian intelligence report, Yle said Moscow had planned to organize “disruption campaigns disguised as demonstrations” in Finland and Sweden as the two EU members sought to join NATO following Russia’s…
Moscow broke a daily snowfall record on Sunday when nearly 11 millimeters of precipitation fell over just 12 hours, meteorologists in the Russian capital said. Sunday’s snowfall, powered by a strong cyclone that formed over southern Europe last week, marked the absolute daily record in Moscow since observations began in 1878, according to meteorologist Yevgeny Tishkovets. The…
Krasnoyarsk hosted the Rosneft’s Future festival organized by the Company at the Siberian Federal University (SFU).
Ukraine on Sunday launched an investigation into what it said was an “execution” by Russian forces of two unarmed Ukrainian soldiers who had signaled their intention to surrender. The day before, a short video was posted on the messaging app Telegram, showing two men coming out of a shelter, one with his hands above his…
Ukraine said Saturday that two power lines connecting its electricity grid to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant were cut overnight, putting the plant at risk of an “accident.” The plant has been at the centre of fighting since it was captured by Russian forces last year, and both sides have accused each other of compromising its…
Moscow police carried out raids of gay-friendly nightclubs, bars and saunas in the city center overnight, media reported. The raids came one day after Russia’s top court banned the “international LGBT movement,” a group that does not formally exist, sparking fears of widespread persecution of LGBT people and rights groups. Police burst into a club on Malaya…
A Russian TV channel was fined $5,500 on Friday for showing a music video by ex-Eurovision contestant Sergey Lazarev that allegedly showed same-sex couples holding hands. The move comes a day after Russia’s top court effectively outlawed LGBTQ activism, cementing a long crackdown on the community as the Kremlin pushes ultra-conservative social values. St. Petersburg’s…
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Friday boosting troop numbers by 15%, in a move the army said was due to “threats” associated with the Ukraine offensive. The move comes as both Ukraine and Russia seek to gain ground and replenish their ranks in the conflict, whose front lines have barely moved in…
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday expressed indifference over the future of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which this week hel its annual summit in the North Macedonian capital of Skopje. Created in 1975 as a forum for dialogue between the Eastern and Western blocs, the OSCE faces mounting challenges in…
Law enforcement agents in central Russia’s Tula region on Friday reportedly raided a warehouse belonging to the online retail giant Wildberries in search of fresh recruits for Moscow’s war against Ukraine, according to news channels on the messaging app Telegram. The raid, which took place in the town of Aleksino, was said to have targeted…