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…
Northern lights lit up most of Russia on Sunday after solar flares collided with Earth’s magnetic field and unleashed a strong geomagnetic storm. Known as aurora borealis, the dancing scarlet and green lights were visible from Russia’s Far East and Siberia, to the Ural mountains and North Caucasus. The rare night-time light show was also spotted…
Russian and Ukrainian activists have taken over a vacant building in the Dutch capital of Amsterdam that purportedly belongs to the Russian government, the Dutch newspaper Het Parool reported Sunday. Citing a member of the self-identified “group of international artists,” the publication said the four-story corner building in southern Amsterdam is believed to be “owned…
Ukraine said Monday that Russian forces had launched four missiles and nearly a dozen attack drones from occupied regions of the country in the south overnight. “Fifteen Shaheds and one Kh-59 air-guided missile were shot down,” the Ukrainian air force said, referring to the Iranian-designed kamikaze unmanned aerial vehicle. Ukrainian Presidential Chief of Staff Andriy…
Ukraine has opened an investigation after it was reported a number of its soldiers were killed by a Russian missile strike during an “award ceremony” this week, officials said. The Ukrainska Pravda media outlet said over 20 Ukrainian soldiers from an assault brigade died in the attack, which took place in the southern region of…
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday he was “not ready” for talks with Russia unless its troops withdraw from his country, denying Western officials had suggested holding peace negotiations. He was commenting on reports that US and European officials had spoken with his government about negotiations to end the war, and after a senior Ukrainian…
Russia said Sunday it had successfully test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads from one of its submarines. The launch of the “Bulava” missile, the first in just over a year, comes as Russia ramps up nuclear rhetoric since revoking its ratification of a key nuclear test ban treaty. “The new nuclear-powered…
Ukraine said Saturday its forces struck a shipyard in the port city of Kerch, on the east coast of the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula. Since launching its counteroffensive against Moscow’s forces this summer, Kyiv has ramped up attacks on the Black Sea peninsula that Russia seized in 2014. “On the evening of November 4, the Armed…
President Volodymyr Zelensky denied on Saturday that Ukraine’s war with Russia had reached a “stalemate”, pushing back at suggestions Western leaders were lobbying for peace talks. The sprawling frontline between the two warring sides has barely moved in almost a year, with one senior Ukrainian official warning this week that the conflict was deadlocked. “Time…
Ukraine said Saturday it had filed criminal charges against Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, in absentia for ‘justifying’ Russia’s invasion. Moscow’s most influential spiritual leader, a fervent supporter of President Vladimir Putin, has called the war a historic battle against the ‘forces of evil’. The Security Service of Ukraine said it…
Russia said Friday that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas had ‘postponed’ a trip to Moscow that was planned for this month. Russia – which has working relations with Israel, with Palestinian authorities and with Hamas – has said several times that a visit by Abbas to Moscow was possible without previously giving a date. Russia’s deputy…
When Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko walked up to the state-run TASS news agency’s Soviet brutalist headquarters a few blocks from the Kremlin on July 5, no one suspected that he would announce the appointment of a new general director. TASS’s general director Sergei Mikhailov, 54, who was honored with the presidential Order of Friendship…
Four Russian fertility clinic employees and two surrogate mothers have been handed jail sentences of varying lengths as part of the country’s first surrogacy investigation, state media reported Friday. Authorities launched Russia’s first-ever surrogacy probe in 2020 after one of the babies born to a surrogate mother was found dead in an apartment outside Moscow. Moscow’s…
Russia intends to stick to a nuclear test ban moratorium despite withdrawing its ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the Foreign Ministry said Friday. “We intend to keep the moratorium that was introduced more than 30 years ago in place,” said a ministry statement. But any nuclear tests by the United States would…
Russia’s oil pipeline monopoly Transneft sent hundreds of its employees to fight in Ukraine last summer as the Kremlin struggled to recruit soldiers for its war, according to an investigation by the independent news website IStories. Journalists said that, in the months before President Vladimir Putin announced a “partial” mobilization in September 2022, Transneft was sending and…
Russia’s fourth-largest city of Yekaterinburg has been plagued by snow sculptures of erect penises over the past week, prompting calls among some residents for authorities to crack down on the practice. Local media first spotted a giant snow penis in a public square outside the Yekaterinburg Opera and Ballet Theater and the Ural State University on…
The Kremlin on Friday dismissed a new package of U.S. sanctions, saying Russia had learned to “overcome” such economic hurdles since the Ukraine conflict began. Washington on Thursday sanctioned several Russian energy and finance companies as well as individuals and firms in Turkey, China and the United Arab Emirates it said were supporting Russia’s offensive…
Russian left-wing activist and anarchist Lev Skoryakin has been found inside a Moscow detention center weeks after going missing in the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan, the Memorial human rights group said Friday. Skoryakin was allegedly tortured at Moscow’s Butyrka detention center after being abducted from a Kyrgyz jail on Oct. 17 and flown to Moscow…
A court in St. Petersburg made an unusual move to hold a session inside a strip club as part of litigation over unauthorized renovations. The court described the off-site session at the X.O. Men’s Club as an “official necessity” in a tongue-in-cheek statement released Thursday. Local authorities accuse X.O. Men’s Club of “impacting the apartment building”…
Russia’s Tver region has outlawed the act of “coercing women” into undergoing an abortion, becoming the second such region to do so amid growing concerns about a looming nationwide abortion ban. “Persuading, suggesting, bribing or deceiving” a woman into having an abortion is now punishable by a range of fines, according to the new regional law…
A Moscow court has sentenced exiled Russian-Canadian activist Pyotr Verzilov to more than eight years of prison in absentia for spreading “war fakes,” the Mediazona news website reported Friday. Moscow’s Basmanny District Court found Verzilov, who is currently residing outside Russia, guilty of spreading “deliberately false” information about the Russian Armed Forces. He was handed…
A Russian drone manufacturer announced this week it would open a production line in Uzbekistan, as one local official said Thursday the drones were designed for “agricultural” purposes only. Flyseeagro, a Russian firm which says it makes drones for crop spraying, said this week it had signed an agreement to build drones in Uzbekistan’s Navoi…
The Kremlin has ordered regional officials to file weekly reports on the recruitment of marginalized people in Russia for its war in Ukraine, the investigative news website IStories reported Thursday, citing an official letter it obtained. The letter, which is dated Oct. 3, lists the office of the Presidential Envoy to Russia’s Central Federal District…
Kyiv on Thursday named Swiss food giant Nestle as a “sponsor of war” over the Kit Kat-maker’s continued operations in Russia. Hundreds of Western firms quit the Russian market following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February last year, and Kyiv has not shied away from publicly criticizing those that have remained. “Despite Russian aggression, Nestle…
An opposition deputy who ran for governor of Siberia’s Krasnoyarsk region this fall has been arrested on charges of extortion, which the politician on Thursday dismissed as politically motivated. Investigators accuse Alexander Gliskov of blackmailing a state-owned company executive in 2016-17 in order to receive a large bribe. Krasnoyarsk’s Tsentralny District Court ruled after a…
The United States announced sanctions Thursday on individuals and companies it accused of abetting Russia’s war against Ukraine, targeting entities in Turkey, China and the United Arab Emirates in a bid to disrupt Moscow’s supply chains. This comes as Russia has offshored the production of technology, equipment and other goods it needs for its military,…
Russia said Thursday it had intercepted nine Ukrainian drones near the Ukrainian city of Enerhodar, where the Moscow-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is located. The plant, which was captured by Russian forces in March 2022, has been rocked by repeated drone attacks and shelling that Kyiv and Moscow have blamed on each other. “At around 12:30…
The leader of Russia’s Jewish communities has condemned what he called the “propaganda of hate” after anti-Israeli riots rocked the country’s North Caucasus republic of Dagestan. Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar linked Sunday’s violence at Makhachkala International Airport to previous anti-Semitic attacks in Russia’s Muslim-majority regions that took place in the weeks since Israel launched a…
Anti-war activist and punk musician Ayhal Ammosov has been granted asylum seeker status by Kazakh authorities, his lawyer said on social media Wednesday, just weeks after his arrest in Kazakhstan. Ammosov, a Russian national hailing from the republic of Sakha (Yakutia), was ordered to 40 days of arrest by an Almaty-based court on Oct. 9 in connection with…
Israel has no right to self-defense against Hamas militants in Gaza as an occupying power in Palestine, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations said Wednesday. Vasily Nebenzya used his speech at the special UN General Assembly session on Palestine to condemn Western “hypocrisy” over Palestinian civilian deaths amid their criticism of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.…
Ukraine said Thursday that Russian assaults on the nearly encircled eastern town of Avdiivka had eased as the Kremlin rejected Kyiv’s assessment that the 20-month conflict was deadlocked. Avdiivka, an industrial hub at the center of fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces since 2014, came under a renewed Russian effort last month to besiege the…
President Vladimir Putin on Thursday signed into law Russia’s de-ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), a landmark agreement that aims to completely ban all nuclear tests. The law’s text on Russia’s legal portal states that Moscow will no longer be bound by the UN-backed nuclear test ban starting Nov. 2. Both Russia and the…