Senior Ukrainian Military Officer Organized Nord Stream Attack – Washington Post

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…

Russia Inflation Accelerates to 6.7%

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.…

Moscow Accuses Ukraine of ‘Ecocide’ in Occupied Regions

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…

Private Clinics in Russia’s Kursk Region Stop Providing Abortions

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…

EU Lawmakers Call for Ban on Russian LNG

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…

Putin to Hold Call-In Show, Annual Press Conference in ‘Combined Format’

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…

Crimean Private Clinics Stop Providing Abortion Services

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…

Russian University to Train ‘Social Media Police’ for Fighting Online Extremism

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…

Russian Prosecutors Seek 8-Year Jail Term for Artist Over Supermarket Protest

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…

5 Killed in Attacks Against Occupied Donetsk, Kremlin-Backed Mayor Says

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…

Russia Issues Arrest Warrant for ICC Judge

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…

Russia Hands Jehovah’s Witness Follower 7-Year Jail Term for ‘Extremism’

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…

As Russia’s Permafrost Thaws, Ancient Pathogens Risk Re-Awakening

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…

Russian Pro-War Pop Star’s Thesis Heavily Plagiarized From Wikipedia – Dissernet

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…

Russian Subsea Telecoms Cable Damaged in Baltic Sea

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 Appeals World Olympic Body Suspension

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…