Moscow on Friday reported intense fighting near southeast Ukraine settlements that had until recently been under its control, which appeared to indicate advances by Kyiv’s forces. Russian officials — including President Vladimir Putin — have repeated that Ukraine’s long-expected counteroffensive was failing despite Kyiv claiming some gains. But the Russian army said the most…
A barrage of Russian missiles greeted a delegation of African leaders arriving in Kyiv on Friday as part of a mission aiming to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine. The high-level diplomatic team hopes to bring to the table the voice of a continent that has badly suffered from repercussion of the Ukraine war, including by rising…
The Czech president’s office on Friday watered down his claim that Russians living in the West should be monitored, likening them to Japanese Americans who were interned in the United States during World War II. President Petr Pavel told U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) Thursday that Russians living in Western countries should be closely…
A Russian general was “almost certainly” killed in a strike on a command post in southern Ukraine this week, the British Defense Ministry said Friday. Major General Sergei Goryachev would be “the first Russian general confirmed killed in Ukraine since the start of 2023,” the British military said in an intelligence update on Twitter. Goryachev is…
Updated with Peskov’s comments. Mobile internet access will be disrupted at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) ahead of President Vladimir Putin’s keynote speech, organizers said Friday, just hours before the Russian leader is expected to arrive at the event grounds. “Internet access for mobile devices will be temporarily unavailable at the SPIEF venue……
Prosecutors in Russia’s republic of Chechnya have requested a 5.5-year prison sentence for the mother of a prominent Chechen rights lawyer and activist, the Committee Against Torture rights group reported Thursday. Zarema Musaeva, the mother of lawyer and activist Abubakar Yangulbaev, has been charged with assaulting the authorities and fraud — accusations she strongly denies. Musaeva was violently detained…
Russian authorities maintain a secret registry of nearly 900 individuals deemed to be “affiliated” with people and organizations labeled “foreign agents.” The size of the registry, which is legally closed to the public, was disclosed in a report by the State Duma’s Committee on Foreign Interference published Thursday. The committee’s report states that 861 people…
UN nuclear chief Rafael Grossi on Thursday said the situation at the Moscow-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine was “serious,” but was being stabilized. Grossi arrived at Europe’s biggest nuclear plant to assess potential safety risks after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, which caused huge floods and exacerbated fears for the facility’s safety.…
Czech President Petr Pavel said Thursday that Russians living abroad in Western countries should be closely monitored by security services, given Moscow’s “aggressive war” in Ukraine. The pro-Western Czech leader said he had sympathy for Russians outside the country finding it hard to cope with the invasion. But “when there is an ongoing war, the…
Russian Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina warned Thursday that Russia is at risk of reverting to a planned economic system as it grapples with restructuring challenges driven by soaring war expenses and unprecedented Western sanctions. “The temptation to manage economic restructuring can lead to [a situation] where we suppress private initiative [by businesses], not to…
Russia’s far-right Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) has unveiled an AI chatbot featuring the voice and personality of its longtime firebrand leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who died last year after contracting Covid-19. Zhirinovksy — known for his brash ultra-nationalist views and support of the war in Ukraine — reappeared in the form of a ghostly neural network…
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday lauded his “dear friend” Xi Jinping in a message for the Chinese leader’s 70th birthday. Putin told Xi “it is difficult to overestimate the efforts you have been making to foster the comprehensive partnership” between Russia and China, which have ramped up cooperation in recent years. The two leaders have grown…
Kyiv on Thursday reported progress in its counteroffensive on the eastern and southern fronts, despite contending with strong resistance from Russian troops. The chief of the UN’s atomic watchdog arrived in the southeastern region of Zaporizhzia — home to Europe’s largest nuclear plant and one of the current fronts — to assess risks to the…
The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), often called the “Russian Davos,” opened Wednesday in what is predicted to be the least impressive showing in the event’s 25-year history. Russia’s annual four-day economic showcase, which had once drawn crowds of foreign investors to President Vladimir Putin’s hometown, has been boycotted by Western countries for a…
Russia on Thursday blasted Australia’s decision to prohibit Russia from building a new embassy after intelligence officials warned it posed a security threat. “To our regret, Australia diligently continues to follow the path created by the authors of the Russophobic hysteria, which is now active in the countries of the collective West,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “Australia…
An anti-war activist has died in police custody in southern Russia after receiving death threats from law enforcement officials, his lawyer told the OVD-Info human rights monitor late Wednesday. Anatoly Berezikov, 40, was detained last month on suspicion of hanging pro-Ukrainian leaflets in the city of Rostov-on-Don, some 60 kilometers south of eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region.…
Russian forces have downed nine drones over the Crimean peninsula, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014, its Moscow-installed Governor Sergei Aksyonov said Thursday. “Last night and this morning, nine drones were detected above republic of Crimea territory,” Aksyonov said on Telegram. “Six devices were shot down by air-defense forces” while three others were “deactivated”…
President Vladimir Putin has signed a confidential decree giving the Russian government powers to buy Western companies at a “significant discount,” the Financial Times reported Thursday, a move likely to make it harder for them to exit the country. The Russian government would be given priority rights to buy any Western asset for sale at…
Russian lawmakers voted on Wednesday to ban legal or surgical sex changes, the latest in a series of conservative proposals put forward since Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine last year. Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, approved in its first reading the bill that bans “medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a…
A fire broke out Wednesday at a power plant in Russia’s southern Rostov region, with authorities denying local media reports suggesting an explosion may have been the cause. Video shared online showed large flames and plumes of black smoke rising from the Novocherkasskaya power station, located some 50 kilometers southeast of Ukraine’s partially Russian-occupied Donetsk…
Russian President Vladimir Putin and the head of Mali’s junta, Colonel Assimi Goita, discussed security and economic relations between their two countries, both sides reported on Wednesday. During the phone talks, “at the initiative of the Malian side,” the two leaders paid “particular attention” to trade and economic relations, including the delivery of cereals, fertilizers…
A visit by UN nuclear chief Rafael Grossi to the Moscow-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine was delayed to Thursday, Russian officials said. Grossi was expected at Europe’s largest atomic plant on Wednesday to assess any impacts to the site’s safety after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam. The breach of the dam, which formed…
Updated with Kremlin’s comments and Kadyrov’s denial. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov denied media reports Wednesday claiming one of his close allies had been wounded in Ukraine. “Thanks to everyone who was worried! Adam [Delimkhanov] is alive and well and not even injured,” Kadyrov said on the Telegram messaging app. Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry-run Zvezda TV…
Deadly Russian missile strikes hit southern and eastern Ukraine on Wednesday as the Western-backed country’s air defenses fought back against Moscow’s intensified attacks. Russia fired four Kalibr missiles on the southern port city of Odesa from a warship in the Black Sea, Ukraine’s air force said, with air defenses shooting down three of them. One of…
A Russian court on Wednesday sentenced a former regional coordinator of jailed Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny to seven-and-a-half years in prison on charges of creating an extremist group. Lilia Chanysheva, 41, headed Navalny’s political office in the central Russian city of Ufa until it was forced to dissolve in 2021, when the authorities blacklisted…
Fewer patent applications in the field of quantum technologies were filed in Russia last year due to sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine, the Kommersant business daily reported Wednesday. Quantum computing is an emerging technology that seeks to solve problems too complex for conventional computers. The number of patent applications related to quantum technologies in…
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday admitted that Moscow could have more successfully readied the country’s southern regions bordering Ukraine for cross-border attacks from Ukrainian territory. His comments, made at a meeting with pro-Kremlin war bloggers and reporters, follow weeks of intensifying strikes on the Belgorod region that included an unprecedented incursion claimed by an…
The Kakhovka dam, a critical dam holding back a major water reservoir on the Dnipro River, was destroyed last Tuesday, sparking an environmental and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine’s Kherson region. Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for causing the collapse of the dam. In areas upriver from the dam in the Zaporizhzhia region, the…
Russian forces on Tuesday killed an elderly priest in a churchyard when they shelled the town of Bilozerka in southern Ukraine, authorities said. Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said on social media that the priest was 72, adding that a 76-year-old woman was wounded. Four residential buildings, a post office, a central…
Authorities in the southern Siberian republic of Khakasia have stopped publishing the obituaries of local soldiers killed fighting in Ukraine to avoid their inclusion in independent media tallies of Russia’s war dead, the local RFE/RL affiliate Sibir.Realii reported Tuesday. Citing an anonymous source close to the Khakasia regional government, Sibir.Realii wrote that the move was directly linked…
Yelena Osipova, a St. Petersburg-based artist and famous voice of protest against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has resumed her anti-war pickets shortly after suffering a stroke. Osipova, 77, was a fixture at anti-war rallies in Russia’s second city of St. Petersburg following the outbreak of the war, with footage of her frequent detentions by police going viral. …
The family of Tanzanian-born Nemes Raymond Taremo first heard rumors that their beloved relative had been killed on the frontlines in faraway Ukraine in December last year. They received their last message from Taremo, 37, two months earlier — on Oct. 17 — shortly after he joined Russia’s Wagner mercenary group from a Russian prison…
Moscow said Tuesday that it had captured several German Leopard tanks and U.S. Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, releasing footage showing Russian troops surveying the equipment supplied to Ukraine by Western countries. “Leopard tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. These are our trophies. Equipment of the Ukrainian armed forces in the Zaporizhzhia region,” the Russian Defense…
Ukraine on Monday said it had retaken seven villages and made small gains in a “tough” counter-offensive against Russian forces that France said could last months. “The fighting is tough, but we are moving forward, this is very important,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a daily evening address. “I thank our guys for every…
MOSCOW — Russia marked its Russia Day holiday on Monday with widespread state-organized celebrations — but for many, the holiday is just another day off rather than a patriotic event, Muscovites who spoke with The Moscow Times said. Observed every year on June 12, Russia Day commemorates when the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic first…
A young Chechen woman has been detained at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport after attempting to flee from her abusive family in Russia, the human rights project Marem reported on Monday. Selima Ismailova, 19, fled her home region of Chechnya, a majority-Muslim republic in Russia’s North Caucasus, in March to escape regular beatings and death threats from…
Russia said Monday it had repelled Ukrainian attacks around several villages in the war-battered southeast of the country, contradicting earlier claims from Kyiv’s forces that they had retaken the settlements. The contradictory reports from Kyiv and Moscow come as analysts have said that Ukraine has launched a long-awaited counteroffensive with Western weapons in an aim to…
A reporter for the Kremlin-funded broadcaster RT claimed Monday to have blocked ruble-denominated donations for an anti-war telethon organized by exiled Russian independent media. The outlets joined forces on the national holiday Russia Day for a day-long fundraiser in support of the 20,000 activists fined or detained for opposing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. RT correspondent…
SHEBEKINO, Russia — Weeks of relentless shelling have turned this once-thriving district center near the Ukrainian border with a pre-war population of about 40,000 into a ghost town. Rubble and broken glass litter the empty streets, and in the town’s central square, signs of shelling are visible on the building facades. Not far from there,…
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday he was saddened by the death of his “dear friend” former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Berlusconi, who dominated Italian public life for decades as a billionaire media mogul, businessman and prime minister, was confirmed to have died at a Milan hospital at age 86. He had been suffering…
The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has said he will not sign contracts with the military that seek to formalize the hierarchy of forces fighting in Ukraine. The defiance is the latest episode in the public feud between Wagner, which has been at the forefront of Russia’s offensive in Ukraine for several months, and…
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un offered his country’s “full support and solidarity” to Moscow in a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, state media reported. Kim sent the message of congratulations on the national day of Russia, one of a handful of nations that maintain friendly relations with Pyongyang. His message, published…
Kyiv announced on Sunday that Ukrainian forces had retaken two villages in the eastern region of Donetsk, the first reported gains of their new offensive. After months of building expectations, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that a counteroffensive against Russian forces was underway, but refused to provide any details. “Neskuchne of the Donetsk region…
Moscow said on Sunday its forces repelled a Ukrainian attack on a Russian warship guarding gas pipelines in the Black Sea. “Ukraine’s armed forces made an unsuccessful attempt to attack the Black Sea Fleet’s Priazovye ship,” the Russian Defense Ministry said, adding Kyiv’s forces used six unmanned boats. “All the boats have been destroyed,” the…
TBILISI, Georgia – Alexei Yermolaev hardly expected that he’d be proposing to his girlfriend Anna Volshuva in the dead of night, surrounded by packed bags. It was a few days after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and Yermolaev had just bought a one-way ticket to Tbilisi in the South…
A Russian court has detained a U.S. citizen on drugs charges that could see him jailed for several years. Moscow’s Khamovniki District Court said Travis Leake, a “former paratrooper and musician,” had “organized the sale of drugs to young people.” He will be remanded in custody “until Aug. 6, 2023,” pending a possible trial. The…
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that a counteroffensive against Russian forces was underway, while declining to give specifics on his troops’ operations. “Counteroffensive and defensive actions are taking place in Ukraine: at which stage I will not talk in detail,” Zelensky said on Saturday, commenting after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that Kyiv’s operation was…
Russia on Saturday said it would “respond” after Iceland became the first country to suspend its embassy operations in Moscow. “All of Reykjavik’s anti-Russian actions will inevitably prompt a response,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement, accusing Iceland of “ruining” relations between the two countries. “We will take this unfriendly decision into account…
Swedish hygiene and health company Essity announced Saturday it had secured a deal to sell off its business in Russia. As noted in the company’s press release, the Russian authorities have already approved the deal, which is expected to be finalized during the second quarter of 2023. Essity did not say who bought its Russian…
Miners in Russia’s Ural Mountains region have demanded to speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin as their strike against their mine’s closure and mass layoffs entered a second day, the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta Europa reported Friday. The strike at the Mariinsky emerald mine, located on Europe’s largest emerald deposit, started Thursday, when 80 to…
Russian Armed Forces Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov said Friday his country’s strong military partnership with China provides stability around the world. Gerasimov, who is commander of Russia’s military operations in Ukraine, made the remark during a videoconference with his Chinese counterpart, Liu Zhenli. “The coordination of Russian and Chinese efforts on the…
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that a long-expected counteroffensive from Ukraine had begun but Kyiv had so far “failed” to reach its goals. “We can definitely state that this Ukrainian offensive has begun,” Putin said in a video interview published on Telegram by a Russian journalist. “But the Ukrainian troops did not reach their…
A group of Ukrainian “prisoners of war” has been handed over to Hungary, according to the Russian Orthodox Church, with Kyiv saying Friday they had not been informed of the move. The transfer took place on Thursday “with the blessing” of Russian Orthodox leader Patriarch Kirill “within the framework of cooperation between churches and at…
Russian-installed authorities in occupied Ukraine are developing a centralized “information space” for pro-Russian mass media and outreach, the Vedomosti business daily reported Friday. Russia claims to have annexed four regions of Ukraine — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — in September 2022 following widely disputed referendums, despite failing to fully control any of them. Moscow-installed…
Russia’s Central Bank on Friday extended its interest rate pause, the longest in more than seven years, as inflation pressures sparked by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine continued to loom over the economy. The Central Bank maintained its key interest rate at 7.5%, a move widely expected by analysts. But the Bank also hinted at future…
Iceland said Friday it would suspend work at its embassy in Russia as of Aug. 1, the first country to do so, and asked Russia to limit its operations in Reykjavik. “The current situation simply does not make it viable for the small foreign service of Iceland to operate an embassy in Russia,” Foreign Minister…
Ukraine’s SBU security service on Friday published an intercepted phone call in which an alleged Russian soldier claims that Tuesday’s explosion at the Kakhovka dam was organized by a Russian sabotage group. “They [the Ukrainian military] didn’t blow it up. That was our sabotage group. They wanted to scare [Ukrainians] with this dam,” said the…
Seismologists from the Norwegian Seismic Array monitoring group (NORSAR) have detected signals of an explosion in the area of Ukraine’s Kakhovka dam, which collapsed Tuesday and caused catastrophic flooding in the south of the country. Data from NORSAR’s regional seismic stations showed signals of an explosion on June 6 at 02:54 a.m. local time (1:54 a.m.…
Authorities in Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Chechnya have pressured Chechens to fight in Ukraine using money and force since the start of the war, according to a report published Thursday by the SK SOS human rights organization. “The invasion of Ukraine was another opportunity for [Chechen leader] Ramzan Kadyrov to curry favor with Vladimir…
Russian oil companies have exported 37% more gasoline so far this year despite Western sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the Kommersant business daily reported Friday. January-May 2023 gasoline exports from Russia neared 2.5 million tons, the publication said, citing an unidentified source familiar with the data. Russia exported about 2 million tons of gasoline…