Washington’s decision to supply Ukraine with cluster munitions is an “act of desperation” that will have no effect on Moscow’s campaign in Ukraine, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Saturday. “It is an act of desperation and shows weakness against the backdrop of the failure of the much-touted Ukrainian counteroffensive,” ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a…
Artyom’s family history in Bakhmut, the eastern Ukrainian city virtually destroyed in a months-long Russian offensive, goes back almost 300 years. So when the question of if he’ll return to the city comes up, the answer is obvious: Yes. But after evacuating the city and relocating to Russia earlier this year, the former technician –…
President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed “brave” Ukraine on the 500th day of Russia’s invasion on Saturday, as the war’s toll mounted with eight deaths reported in Russian rocket fire. Zelensky published on social media an undated video clip of a visit to Snake Island in the Black Sea — a symbol of Ukraine’s defiance against Russia. “Today we…
Jailed U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich has spent 100 days in detention on charges of espionage that he and his employer, The Wall Street Journal, strongly deny. Newsrooms around the world, including The Moscow Times, made shows of support for Gershkovich to mark 100 days since his arrest. Gershkovich, 31, was detained by the Federal Security Service (FSB) on…
Russian law enforcement and security services have regularly reported investigations, detentions and arrests of Russian citizens suspected of financially supporting Ukraine’s army since March. Over the past month, however, such announcements have become increasingly frequent. Little is known about the veracity of such cases, which are prosecuted as treason and punishable by up to life…
Russia has blocked U.S. tech giant Meta’s competitor app to Twitter just a day after its launch, a senior Russian lawmaker said Friday. Threads — a “public conversation” app built by Instagram developers— was downloaded by more than 30 million people after going live on Apple and Android app stores on Thursday. “This service is…
The former director of a Siberian coal mine has been sentenced to two years in prison over an accident that killed more than 50 people in November 2021, the Russian authorities said Friday. Both miners and rescuers died after smoke filled the Listvyazhnaya mine in the Siberian region of Kemerovo following a gas explosion. It…
Russian journalist Yelena Milashina has vowed to continue traveling to the republic of Chechnya despite a violent attack this week that left her hospitalized with multiple bone fractures and a brain injury. “I will continue to travel to Chechnya, whether [Chechen leader Ramzan] Kadyrov wants me to or not,” Milashina told the independent media outlet…
The Kremlin said Friday it will “closely follow” upcoming talks between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Turkey counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, describing their meeting in Istanbul as “important.” The Ukrainian and Turkish leaders will meet in Istanbul for talks on the eve of the 500th day since Moscow launched its offensive. “We will very…
At least six people were killed and two others were injured in a blast at an explosives factory in the Samara region of central Russia, state news agencies reported Friday. “Eight people were injured, six of whom died” at the Promsintez plant in the city of Chapayevsk, the RIA Novosti news agency cited the emergency services as saying. …
Russia’s Defense Ministry has launched a recruitment campaign targeting women for roles as doctors, nurses and cooks in the military, with possible deployment in occupied Ukraine, independent media reported Thursday. “Sign a contract with the Russian Defense Ministry in the same ranks as men,” read an advertisement in the western Siberian region of Omsk. The…
Russian authorities are investigating the U.S. food and chocolate maker Mars Inc. on suspicion of financing the Ukrainian armed forces, state media reported Friday, citing anonymous law enforcement sources. Prosecutors in the Moscow region are carrying out a probe into Mars’ compliance with Russian tax laws, as well as allegations that the company provided financial…
Dozens of Ukrainian clergy members in occupied Ukraine have faced persecution by the Russian military since Moscow launched its invasion last year, according to an investigation by the independent news outlet Vyorstka, citing media reports and civil rights organizations. At least 43 clergy members have faced persecution in the Kyiv, Donetsk and Kherson regions, according…
A Russian lawyer was attacked and doused in green antiseptic dye at a bus stop in Moscow on Thursday. Yelena Ponomareva, 46, said she was diagnosed with second-degree chemical eye burns following the attack carried out by an unidentified assailant. A photo shared by her colleague showed Ponomareva’s head, arms and dress fully covered in…
The UN’s nuclear watchdog is “making progress” on inspecting several parts of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine after claims it had been mined, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi said Friday. Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of planning a provocation at the site, raising alarm over risks…
A pair of Russian university students staged a protest at their graduation ceremony Thursday in support of Novaya Gazeta journalist Yelena Milashina, who was brutally attacked in Chechnya earlier this week. St. Petersburg State University student Yelizaveta Antonova and her fellow classmate displayed a poster of Milashina in a hospital gown with her face visibly…
Ukraine and Russia’s tank numbers are now roughly equal to one another’s, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing the Kiel Institute for the World Economy and the Oryx open-source analysis website. The figures underscore the extent to which Russia’s advantage in heavy weapons has been reduced since it sent troops into Ukraine over 16 months ago. According…
The Russian ruble tumbled past 102 against the euro and 93 against the dollar on Thursday, hitting a new 15-month low as part of a monthslong depreciation that was exacerbated even further last month as Yevgeny Prighzohin’s armed revolt set markets on edge. Russia’s Central Bank said Thursday that the ruble’s weakening was brought on…
Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank is hoping the war in Ukraine will end “soon” to avoid a costly exit from Russia, Reuters reported Thursday, citing multiple sources familiar with the matter. The news outlet said Austrian officials are resisting pressure from the European Central Bank (ECB) for Raiffeisen to spin off its Russian subsidiary by September. Vienna…
Ukraine said Thursday that “tension” around the Moscow-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was “decreasing,” after Kyiv and Moscow accused each other this week of plotting provocations at the atomic facility. “Tension is gradually decreasing,” Nataliya Gumenyuk, an army spokeswoman, said, adding that this was thanks to the “powerful work” of Kyiv’s military and diplomatic efforts…
Russia announced Thursday that it was shuttering Finland’s consulate in St. Petersburg and expelling nine of its diplomats, calling the move a response to a “confrontational anti-Russian policy” being pursued by Helsinki. NATO’s newest member Finland, which shares a long border with Russia, earlier this month expelled nine diplomats working at the Russian Embassy in Helsinki for…
A Russian court has sentenced two Ukrainian citizens to more than 20 years in prison over an attempted assassination of a Russian-installed official in occupied Ukraine, state media reported Thursday. Yury Domanchuk and Vitaly Skakun were arrested in December 2022 shortly after an explosion injured Vitaly Bulyuk — the Kremlin-backed deputy governor of southern Ukraine’s partially occupied…
Russian authorities are still investigating Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin over his failed mutiny last month despite the Kremlin’s promise to drop the criminal charges against him, state television reported late Wednesday. “Nobody planned to close this case,” journalist Eduard Petrov said on a state-run political talk show, referring to Prigozhin as a “traitor.” Petrov did…
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has shot and killed a man it accused of trying to blow up a gas distribution network in the western Siberian region of Tyumen, state media reported Thursday. The FSB said it had foiled a terrorist attack “carried out by Russian supporters of nationalist ideas, who acted under the command…
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin is still in Russia and none of the mercenary group’s fighters have set up in Belarus, its president said Thursday, casting doubt on a Kremlin deal to end their insurrection. “As far as Prigozhin is concerned, he is in St. Petersburg… He is not in Belarus,” Alexander Lukashenko told reporters. He spoke to…
Russian police have carried out searches at the liberal Yabloko party’s regional branch in the northwestern city of Pskov, just weeks after authorities labeled its chairman a “foreign agent,” the branch said Wednesday. Police confiscated office equipment, personal laptops and cellphones belonging to employees and activists present at Yabloko’s Pskov regional office. The party said…
A missile attack on an apartment block in western Ukraine’s Lviv killed four people on Thursday, in what its mayor said was the largest attack on civilian infrastructure in the city since Russia launched its invasion. “The third and fourth floors in two sections of the building were destroyed… As of 7:00 am, four people…
An Israeli-Russian academic who had been missing in Iraq for months is being held by the pro-Iran armed faction Kataeb Hezbollah, the Israeli prime minister’s office announced on Wednesday. Kataeb Hezbollah is a powerful faction of Iraq’s Hashed al-Shaabi, Iran-backed former paramilitaries that were integrated into the Iraqi security forces in recent years. “Elizabeth Tsurkov is…
Russian investigators on Wednesday said they had launched a criminal investigation after award-winning journalist Yelena Milashina was badly beaten in Chechnya. Milashina, 45, covers rights abuses in Chechnya, the Caucasus republic ruled for years by Ramzan Kadyrov, a former warlord. Milashina, who reports for Russia’s top independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, and Alexander Nemov, a lawyer, were…
The general director of Russian tech giant Yandex is under investigation for violating the country’s ban on displaying “gay propaganda” toward minors, the independent news outlet Mediazona reported Wednesday, citing public court records. The case against Artyom Savinovsky is linked to his ongoing role as head of the media services department at Kinopoisk, an online Yandex-owned movie database…
Moscow and Kyiv have traded accusations of planning “dangerous provocations” at the Moscow-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine this week, raising alarm over the risks of a radioactive disaster at Europe’s largest nuclear plant. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday warned that Russia was plotting an incident at the Zaporizhzhia plant, while Moscow said…
The son of a jailed Belarusian banker and philanthropist was sentenced to eight years in prison on charges related to the disputed 2020 elections in Belarus that sparked mass protests and a brutal crackdown on critics of President Alexander Lukashenko. Eduard Babariko, 33, was arrested along with his father Viktor Babariko in the run-up to…
A billboard proclaiming Russia to be a “peaceful” country appeared across from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on Tuesday, an apparent dig by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) aimed at Washington as Americans celebrated their Independence Day. “Welcome to our peaceful country,” read the billboard in the colors of the Russian flag, set against the…
The Kremlin warned Wednesday that Kyiv could be preparing a provocation at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. “The situation is quite tense because the threat of sabotage from the Kyiv regime is really high, sabotage that could have catastrophic consequences,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. The comments come after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this…
The Wagner mercenary group’s rebellion against Russia’s military leadership has further split Russia’s anti-Kremlin opposition, which is already largely divided over a litany of issues and geographically scattered in exile. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an exiled former oil tycoon turned opposition figure, swiftly emerged as the most vocal of Prigozhin’s unlikely supporters, while allies of jailed Kremlin critic…
Russian investigative journalist and former Meduza reporter Ivan Golunov said he was awarded 1.5 million rubles ($16,500) in damages for fabricated drug charges against him, the MSK1.RU news outlet reported Tuesday. Golunov was arrested in June 2019 on fabricated drug charges and released days later following an unprecedented public outcry. The court dropped all charges…
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has arrested a Russian national who lives abroad on suspicion of donating money to the Ukrainian military, state news agencies reported Wednesday. The FSB claimed the 39-year-old had also tried buying satellite communication equipment that would help Ukrainian artillery locate and fire on Russian military units, according to TASS. It…
At least one person was injured in attacks on two Russian regions bordering Ukraine, regional authorities said early Wednesday. The governors of southwestern Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk regions both issued statements about Ukrainian attacks on two residential areas, located some 400 kilometers apart from each other. The Belgorod region town of Valuyki was shelled for…
Recast and includes updated casualty count. Russia said Wednesday that one person was killed and another 41 were injured by a Ukrainian strike in the Russian-controlled town of Makiivka in the eastern Donetsk region. “Forty-one people, including two children, have been injured due to the shelling. One person has died from their wounds,” Vladislav Klyucharov, the Moscow-installed head…
The Kremlin said Tuesday there were “certain contacts” with the U.S. over detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, responding to a question about a possible prisoner exchange. U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy was allowed to visit Gershkovich in prison on Monday after a gap in visits of more than two months. Russian state media reported…
Russian authorities have returned 10 billion rubles ($111.2 million) to exiled Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin which they had seized in police raids during his aborted rebellion last month. Law enforcement in St. Petersburg confiscated the large sum of money — along with “hundreds of thousands” of U.S. dollars and five gold bars — in raids…
Manufacturing facilities based in one of Russia’s special economic zones have been assembling Iranian drones used to attack Ukraine, the Protokol and Razvorot independent media outlets reported in a joint investigation published Monday. As part of a three-stage franchise agreement, specialists at the Alabuga special economic zone in the republic of Tatarstan assemble prefabricated drone…
Zarema Musaeva, the mother of prominent Chechen human rights lawyer and activist Abubakar Yangulbaev, has been sentenced to 5.5 years in prison, the Committee Against Torture rights group reported Tuesday. A judge at a local court in Grozny, the capital of Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, found Musaeva guilty of assaulting the authorities and fraud…
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday it had downed five Ukrainian drones near Moscow, calling it a “terrorist act” that disrupted flights at one of the capital’s main airports. Four unmanned aircraft were downed by air defense systems near Moscow, with the fifth “suppressed by electronic warfare” in the Moscow region, the Russian military said. According…
A prominent Russian journalist and lawyer have been hospitalized after being badly beaten on a visit to Russia’s republic of Chechnya, the rights groups Memorial and the Crew Against Torture (CAT) said early Tuesday. Yelena Milashina and lawyer Alexander Nemov arrived in the Chechen capital of Grozny to attend the court hearing of the mother of…
Russia on Monday granted the United States consular access to jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, with the U.S. ambassador reporting him in good health. The U.S. State Department said Ambassador Lynne Tracy met Gershkovich at the Lefortovo prison in Moscow, only her second such meeting with him since he was arrested on March…
Anna, a 67-year-old woman from the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, remembers being woken up by the sounds of military equipment early in the morning of June 24. From her window, she could see a tank, armored vehicles and machine gunners of the Wagner private military company sitting opposite her house, surrounding one of the Russian…
Russia has added the Ukrainian owner of a popular vodka brand to its wanted list on suspicion of financing Ukraine’s armed forces. Russia’s Investigative Committee said Monday it had launched a criminal investigation into Yevhen Cherniak, the founder of Ukraine’s Global Spirits holding — which produces Khortytsa vodka — on charges of sponsoring terrorism. Cherniak…
Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu on Monday praised his army’s “loyalty” during an armed uprising last month by the Wagner military group that targeted the country’s senior military leadership. “The plans primarily failed because the personnel of the armed forces showed loyalty to their oath and military duty,” he said in his first public comments since…
Russia’s top energy official said Monday that Moscow will voluntarily cut oil exports by 500,000 barrels per day, building on previously announced production cuts. “As part of efforts to ensure that the oil market remains balanced, Russia will voluntarily reduce its oil supply in the month of August by 500,000 barrels per day, by cutting its exports…
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has appeared on video with his close ally and Russian lawmaker from Chechnya, Adam Delimkhanov, following growing rumors that he has been suffering from serious health problems. In the three-minute video published on Instagram Sunday, Kadyrov was shown seated beside Delimkhanov at a dining table. “We’re living our lives, slowly but…
Russia’s domestic intelligence agency said Monday it had thwarted an assassination attempt on the Moscow-installed head of annexed Crimea. “An assassination attempt organized by Ukraine’s special services targeting the head of the Republic of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, was foiled,” Russian state-run agency TASS reported, citing a statement by the Federal Security Service (FSB). Video released…
Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has announced it is suspending the recruitment of new fighters in the aftermath of its failed mutiny and as the Russian military’s deadline for volunteer units to sign contracts passed over the weekend. Wagner’s recruitment channel on the Telegram messaging app said late Sunday that a one-month recruitment suspension was linked to…
There is no need for further mobilization in Russia to replace Wagner fighters who left the battlefield in Ukraine after their short-lived mutiny, Russian state media said on Monday, citing a senior lawmaker. Last month, the head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, led his forces in a rebellion against Russia’s top military brass.…
A top Russian propagandist on Sunday accused the Wagner boss of “going off the rails” after receiving billions in public funds, as Moscow’s new narrative takes shape after Wagner’s brief mutiny. Last weekend the head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, led his forces in a short-lived rebellion against Russia’s top military brass, in a…
Forty diplomats and Russian embassy staff in Bucharest were set to leave Romania on Saturday following a request from the government, with ties worsening between the two countries since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Eleven diplomats and 29 technical and administrative staff, accompanied by their families, “will leave Romania on board a civilian aircraft belonging to…
Wagner mercenary group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has closed down his St. Petersburg-based media holding, according to multiple media reports published Friday. The Patriot media group, which Prigozhin founded in 2019, encompasses the Internet Research Agency, widely known as a “troll factory,” which conducts online influence operations to advance Russia’s business and political interests abroad. All…
As members of the Wagner mercenary outfit launched their “march of justice” to Moscow early on June 24, residents of the Far Eastern republic of Sakha (Yakutia) thousands of kilometers away gathered outside the regional capital to celebrate Yhyakh, the New Year marked by indigenous Sakha peoples. Though many Sakha locals boycotted this year’s government-sponsored…
Moscow said Friday that the Wagner Group would continue to work in African countries if their governments chose to maintain contracts with the private military group. “The future of the agreements between African countries and the Wagner private military company is above all up to the governments of the countries concerned,” Russian foreign minister Sergei…
Public displays of support shown for Wagner mercenaries in southern Russia’s Rostov-on-Don as they took control of a military headquarters last weekend were “staged,” the regional governor said Thursday. Rostov region Governor Vasily Golubev disputed claims that locals in the regional capital were sympathetic to Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s short-lived mutiny, arguing that those who…