Russia has begun evacuating its citizens who are trapped in the besieged Gaza Strip, according to a statement released by the Emergency Situations Ministry on Sunday. “The Emergency Situations Ministry together with Russian diplomats have organized the evacuation of civilians from the Gaza Strip,” read the statement, which was published on the messaging app Telegram.…
A senior Ukrainian military officer with intelligence ties coordinated the sabotage attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines last year, The Washington Post and Der Spiegel reported Saturday, citing anonymous Ukrainian and European officials, as well as other people familiar with the operation. Moscow and Kyiv’s Western allies have traded blame over the subsea blasts that…
Russian authorities said Saturday they had launched a “terrorism” probe after the derailment of a goods train southwest of Moscow. An “improvised explosive device” caused the derailment of 19 of the train’s wagons in the Ryazan region on Saturday, the state investigation committee said in a social media announcement. Several sabotage attempts have been made…
Russia on Saturday denied stealing Carlsberg’s business, saying its seizure was legal, in reaction to remarks made almost two weeks ago by the head of the Danish brewery company. Carlsberg had announced in June that a buyer had been found for Baltika, which it has owned since 2000, and its 8,400 employees. But a decree…
A missile targeted Kyiv on Saturday, ending nearly two months of relative calm in the Ukrainian capital, while frontline regions fended off waves of drone attacks overnight. Ukraine is bracing for a renewed Russian aerial onslaught this winter, after systematic strikes last year targeted the country’s energy grid, leaving thousands without heating or electricity in…
A missile targeted Kyiv on Saturday without causing casualties but ending nearly two months of relative calm in the Ukrainian capital, while frontline regions fended off waves of drone attacks overnight. Ukrainian officials also hailed the anniversary of the recapture of Kherson city, the regional capital liberated a year ago in the last major frontline…
Russia’s annual inflation rate accelerated to 6.7% in October, the country’s federal statistics agency said Friday, as a weak currency and surging military spending push prices higher across the economy. Rising prices have caused concern for the Kremlin and Russia’s Central Bank, which has raised interest rates to 15% in a bid to battle inflation.…
LONDON — Five Bulgarian nationals accused of working as part of a Russian spy ring in the U.K. will go on trial next year, a judge at the Old Bailey court ruled Friday. Vanya Gaberova, 29, Orlin Roussev, 45, Bizer Dzhambazov, 41, Katrin Ivanova, 32, and Ivan Stoyanov, 31, are charged with conspiracy to collect…
Russian prisoners sent to fight in Ukraine are atoning for their crimes “with blood,” the Kremlin’s spokesman said Friday, answering questions about the controversial pardon of a man who brutally murdered his ex-girlfriend. Tens of thousands of Russians convicted of violent crimes including murder and rape have been recruited to fight in Ukraine, being offered…
The world’s largest crypto exchange Binance said Friday that it will stop providing Russian ruble deposits starting next week as it prepares to leave the Russian market. “From Nov. 15, 2023, we will stop offering fiat deposits in Russian rubles,” Binance said in a statement. Ruble withdrawals will continue to be available until Jan. 31,…
Russia has accused Kyiv of committing environmental crimes in the Ukrainian territories that its troops currently occupy, including soil contamination caused by exploding artillery shells, the state-run TASS news agency reported. Moscow said it will begin collecting evidence of Ukraine’s “ecocidal violations” in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, which it claims to have…
A Ukrainian teenager who was taken to Moscow from occupied Mariupol and then summoned to a military enlistment office will return to his home country, Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said Friday. Bohdan Ermokhin, 17, was one of a group of several dozen children moved from the Donetsk region by the Russian military and…
A Russian judge on Thursday lost his re-election bid for the UN’s top court, marking the first time in the legal body’s 78-year history that a justice from Russia has not served on the bench. The International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, was created after the end of World War II…
Women in Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Dagestan have been warned against sending nude photos to their partners as police have apparently seen an uptick in complaints from women whose partners had taken advantage of them. “No matter how in love you are, no matter how infatuated you are with this prince, don’t lose your mind! Don’t…
Nearly all private clinics in southwestern Russia’s Kursk region have stopped providing abortion services in a Kremlin-ordered effort to reverse the country’s demographic crisis, a senior official said Thursday. Kursk region Deputy Governor Andrei Belostotsky said authorities in Moscow had instructed regional governments to come up with their own policy solutions for boosting birth rates, according to…
A court in the Siberian republic of Buryatia on Friday sentenced the head of the anti-war advocacy group Free Buryatia Foundation to seven years of prison in absentia for spreading “war fakes.” Russian authorities accused activist Alexandra Garmazhapova of spreading “knowingly false information” about the Russian Armed Forces in a video about Russian servicemen who…
A Russian court sentenced a 20-year-old woman to six years in prison for trying to set fire to a military aid collection point, state media reported Friday. Authorities have slapped long jail terms on Russians accused of attacking enlistment offices or trying to disrupt military operations in Ukraine. The woman, identified only as Zotova, had…
Ukraine’s military attacked several Russian Navy landing craft in annexed Crimea during a night-time operation, Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency said Friday. Video footage shared by Kyiv showed what appeared to be seaborne drones striking the Russian warships, which were said to be carrying armored vehicles and anti-air missile systems at the time of the…
Russia said on Friday it had sent 25 tons of humanitarian aid to Egypt to be delivered to the Gaza Strip, which has been under near-total siege and relentless bombardment. Since Oct. 9, when Israel placed the Palestinian territory under a “total siege,” only very limited quantities of basic human necessities like water, food and…
Updated with Peskov’s remarks. Dozens of Russian citizens are preparing to flee the besieged Gaza Strip into Egypt through the Rafah border crossing, Russia’s state-run news agency RIA Novosti reported Friday. No Russians have yet been publicly confirmed as having left Gaza since the Rafah checkpoint was reopened on Nov. 1 to allow the evacuation…
A Latvian court on Thursday jailed former interior minister Janis Adamsons and a Russian accomplice for spying for Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). The court in Riga sentenced Adamasons to eight-and-a-half years in prison and Russian citizen Gennady Silonov to seven years in prison. “Adamsons collected secret and unclassified information for the Russian secret services, in…
President Vladimir Putin paid a surprise overnight visit to the military headquarters overseeing Moscow’s war against Ukraine, the Kremlin said on Friday. It is his second visit to military headquarters, which is located in southern Russia’s Rostov-on-Don, in the past month. Putin “visited the headquarters of the Russian Armed Forces in Rostov-on-Don, after completing his…
Russia dismissed the possibility of Ukraine joining the European Union as “hardly real” on Thursday, a day after the bloc’s executive recommended opening formal membership talks with Kyiv. Moscow’s offensive on Ukraine has breathed fresh life into the EU’s stalled push to take on new members, as Brussels looks to keep Russian and Chinese influence…
SIEVIERODONETSK, Ukraine — Destroyed houses, scorched earth and trees shredded by shrapnel form the landscape on the road leading to Sievierodonetsk over a year after the city was captured by the Russian army. Oleg, 59, sits alone in the courtyard of a residential building on the town’s outskirts destroyed by shelling. His apartment on the…
EU lawmakers on Thursday urged the bloc to ban imports of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) and to close loopholes present in existing sanctions against Moscow. The EU has imposed 11 rounds of sanctions on Russia since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Brussels is currently working on proposals for…
Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold his end-of-year press conference and televised call-in show in a “combined format” this year, the Kremlin announced Thursday. Set-piece political events involving Putin have been delayed or scrapped altogether in the tumultuous months following Moscow’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The Russian leader did not hold his Direct Line…
Russia on Thursday dismissed accusations that Moscow was behind the daubing of dozens of Stars of David on buildings in Paris and its suburbs as “stupid.” Investigators said some of the mass graffiti — widely condemned as antisemitic — may have been carried out at the “express demand” of an individual residing abroad, implying a…
Russian law enforcement officials on Thursday detained a Kazakh national who works as a journalist in the Ural Mountains city of Perm, his employer Properm.ru said. Journalist Vladislav Ivanenko was arrested early Thursday at his home in Perm and taken first to a local police station and then to a temporary detention facility for foreign…
Private clinics in annexed Crimean have “voluntarily” stopped providing abortion services to patients, Kremlin-installed health officials on the peninsula said Thursday, amid growing concerns about a possible nationwide abortion ban. Crimea’s Health Ministry was informed about the decision by the region’s private clinics to stop providing abortion services following a meeting with state officials and…
Russia said Thursday it was “shocked” by the Israeli ambassador saying it could take up to two weeks to evacuate Russian citizens from the Gaza Strip. Israel’s envoy to Moscow told Russian state media this week that with 500-600 people leaving each day, and 7,000 waiting to be evacuated, it could take two weeks to…
Ukraine on Thursday criticized calls for Kyiv to hold negotiations with Russia, following media reports that its Western allies were pushing for peace talks in the wake of an underwhelming Ukrainian counteroffensive. Nearly two years into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the sprawling front line remains largely static as both Ukrainian and Russian forces struggle to…
President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Wednesday offering a way for Russian investors to “swap” their frozen assets abroad with the frozen assets of foreign companies in Russia. Since Moscow invaded Ukraine in late February last year, Western countries have introduced a barrage of sanctions against Russia, blocking its banks from making international payments…
Ukraine said Wednesday that Russia fired a missile at a civilian ship entering a port in the Black Sea region of Odesa, injuring the ship’s crew and killing a harbor pilot. Since a UN-brokered deal guaranteeing safe passage for civilian ships collapsed in July, both Kyiv and Moscow have ramped up military activity and attacks…
A Ukrainian teenager taken to Moscow from the occupied city of Mariupol has been summoned to a local military registration and enlistment office, media have reported. Bohdan Yermokhin, 17, was one of a group of several dozen children moved from the Donetsk region by the Russian military and placed with foster families in Russia. He…
A Ukrainian teenager taken to Moscow from the occupied city of Mariupol has been summoned to a local military registration and enlistment office, media have reported. Bohdan Yermokhin, 17, was one of a group of several dozen children moved from the Donetsk region by the Russian military and placed with foster families in Russia. “I…
ZAPORIZHZHIA REGION, Ukraine — Kaneki, a 24-year-old soldier attached to the Ukrainian Ground Forces’ Reco Kilo unit, sits behind the wheel of his pickup truck, taking a long drag on his cigarette. Behind him, the tall factory chimneys of Zaporizhzhia, blurred by the sun, vanish into the horizon. The sound of Russian artillery pounding the…
The United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency (NCA) on Wednesday issued a red alert to the financial sector warning that Russia was using gold to evade sanctions imposed after it invaded Ukraine. The NCA said deliberate attempts were being made “to launder sanctioned gold to mask its origin so that it can be hidden in supply chains…
Russia’s leading management university has launched an undergraduate program to train experts who can monitor and detect “extremism” online, the pro-Kremlin daily Izvestia reported Wednesday. Backed by Russia’s National Anti-Terrorist Committee, the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) program aims to train future media managers as well as spokespersons for government ministries…
Russia’s nearly monthlong offensive on the eastern Ukrainian stronghold of Avdiivka has made only minimal progress despite the battle forming the focal point of Moscow’s war effort for weeks. The Russian army launched a large-scale offensive on Avdiivka, a small industrial hub north of the city of Donetsk, on Oct. 10 in what is seen…
A Russian left-wing nationalist activist has been placed inside a detention center in southern Russia after going missing in neighboring Georgia a month ago, the independent news website Mediazona reported Wednesday. Rafail Shepelev went missing on Oct. 12 in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, where he has lived since 2021, according to the human rights project Perviy…
Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed strengthening military ties with Beijing on Wednesday as he hosted a senior Chinese general in Moscow. Russia has bolstered ties with its Chinese neighbor in the last year, as it seeks allies against the backdrop of its dragging offensive on Ukraine. “Our contacts in the military and military-technology spheres are…
A military court in southern Russia’s Rostov-on-Don on Wednesday sentenced a Ukrainian soldier to 19 years in prison for allegedly shooting a civilian he suspected of being a Russian infiltrator in Mariupol last March. Russia’s Southern District Military Court said Anton Cherednik stopped a pair of civilians while on patrol in the southern port city…
Russian prosecutors on Wednesday requested an eight-year prison sentence for artist Alexandra Skochilenko, who was arrested last year for an anti-war protest in which she replaced supermarket price tags with information about civilian deaths in Ukraine. The 33-year-old artist and musician has been in detention since April 2022, when she was arrested for swapping out price tags…
Russian President Vladimir Putin has pardoned a man convicted in the murder of his ex-girlfriend after he is believed to have signed up to fight in Ukraine, women’s rights activist Alyona Popova said Wednesday. Last summer, Vladislav Kanyus was sentenced to 17 years in a maximum-security prison over the 2020 murder of Vera Pekhteleva in the…
Ukrainian shelling killed five people and wounded 18 in the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, the city’s Kremlin-backed mayor said Wednesday, a day after the attack was said to have taken place. Officials in the occupied region accused Ukraine’s military of using long-range missiles supplied by the U.S. to carry out Tuesday evening’s deadly attack…
Moscow on Wednesday put another judge of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on its wanted list, months after the Hague-based court announced that it would seek the arrest of President Vladimir Putin over war crime allegations. A notice on the Russian Interior Ministry’s website said that Judge Sergio Gerardo Ugalde Godinez was “wanted in the framework of…
Ukraine said Wednesday it was behind the assassination of a Russia-backed politician and former militia leader who died in a car bomb attack in eastern Ukraine. Mikhail Filiponenko, a deputy in the pro-Moscow Luhansk regional parliament, was killed on Wednesday morning when an “unidentified explosive device” detonated under his 4×4, Russian investigators said earlier. In…
A court in Russia’s Chelyabinsk region has sentenced a Jehovah’s Witness follower to seven years in prison on charges of “extremism,” the religious organization’s Russian branch said Tuesday. Yevgeny Bushev had been under house arrest since September 2022 on allegations of “organizing actions to continue the illegal activities of a banned religious organization,” the religious…
Ancient pathogens that have been preserved in northern Russia’s permafrost for millennia could reawaken as global temperatures rise, scientists warn, potentially putting humanity at risk of never-before-seen diseases. Jean-Michel Claverie, a virologist and emeritus professor at the Aix-Marseille University School of Medicine, is one of the few scientists worldwide who has studied “zombie viruses” in…
Pro-Kremlin pop singer Shaman plagiarized large portions of his final thesis at a prestigious musical college in Moscow, according to the prominent anti-plagiarism project Dissernet. Shaman, whose real name is Yaroslav Dronov, has emerged as one of Russia’s most well-known pop stars over the past year, as he has been regularly invited to perform at state-sponsored…
Updated to include official confirmation of Ismailov’s arrest. The deputy police chief of Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Dagestan has been arrested over a week after an anti-Israeli mob stormed a local airport, state media reported Tuesday. Searches were underway at the home and workplace of Dagestan’s Deputy Interior Minister Rufat Ismailov, according to the…
A Russian court has ordered the arrest of Pussy Riot member Lucy Shtein in absentia for spreading “fake news” about the Russian military, the state-run news agency TASS reported Tuesday. Moscow’s Basmanny District Court authorized Shtein’s two-month placement in pre-trial detention once she is extradited or returns to Russia, a court spokesperson told TASS. “She…
Russia has formally withdrawn from a key conventional arms control treaty with Europe decades after suspending cooperation over NATO expansion, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. The 1990 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) placed limits on the number of conventional weapons that could be deployed by NATO and Warsaw Pact countries west of…
Russia foiled an attempted Ukrainian drone attack Tuesday morning, shooting down drones over the Black Sea and the annexed Crimean peninsula, Russia’s Defense Ministry said. “On the morning of November 7, an attempt by the Kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist attack using 17 unmanned aerial vehicles against buildings on Russian territory was repelled,”…
The head of Russia’s navy met Myanmar’s junta chief ahead of joint naval exercises due to begin Tuesday, according to Myanmar state media, the first combined drills by the two countries at loggerheads with the West. The security exercises involving Russia’s Pacific Fleet and Myanmar’s navy will continue until November 9 in the Andaman Sea,…
Updated with Borrel’s, Peskov’s remarks. Georgia said Monday that Russian troops had killed a Georgian civilian near the breakaway region of South Ossetia, which has been under Moscow’s effective control since the brief 2008 war between the two countries. Detentions of Georgian villagers by Russian troops — who patrol the de facto border between the separatist…
Finnish authorities said Monday that a Russian telecommunications cable in the Baltic Sea was discovered damaged in October, roughly coinciding with damage to subsea infrastructure in Sweden and Finland. “The Russian salvage vessel Spasatel Karev began to repair Rostelecom’s Baltika telecommunications cable in the Gulf of Finland on Nov. 6,” Finland’s economic affairs ministry said…
Russia on Monday called for “collective action” to end fighting between Israel and Hamas, almost a month into the war that has left thousands dead. Moscow maintains ties with both the Hamas militant group and Israel and has said it can mediate the war which began in early October. “Amid the unprecedented escalation of violence…
Russian President Vladimir Putin has decided to run in next year’s presidential election, Reuters reported Monday, citing six anonymous sources familiar with the matter. In power since 2000, Putin is widely expected to run for a fifth term as president in the 2024 election, a move made possible by constitutional changes that allow him to…
Russia’s Olympic body on Monday launched an appeal against its suspension by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the sports tribunal said. The IOC suspended the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) on Oct. 12 for violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine’s membership after it recognized Olympic regional organizations in…