Armenia said on Thursday that Russian peacekeepers should have full control of the only land link between its territory and the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The comments, from Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, came during fresh tensions between arch-enemies Armenia and Azerbaijan. On Thursday, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna held talks in Baku on easing tensions…
Law enforcement authorities in Russia’s fourth-largest city on Thursday arrested the local branch head of Memorial, the country’s oldest human rights group, the organization announced on Telegram. Alexei Mosin was detained at his apartment in the morning and brought to Yekaterinburg’s Yeltsin Center, which houses Memorial’s documents and archives, to retrieve legal documents, according to…
Popular Russian Instagram blogger Yelena Blinovskaya has been detained at the Russian border while trying to flee charges of 918-million-ruble ($11.3 million) tax fraud, the country’s Investigative Committee, which probes high-profile crimes, said Thursday. Blinovskaya is accused of underreporting and laundering her 2019-21 earnings from providing online services. With more than 5.3 million Instagram followers, she…
A blast on Thursday killed a police officer in the Moscow-controlled Ukrainian city of Melitopol, Russian authorities said, in the latest in a series of such attacks. Melitopol, with a pre-war population of around 150,000 people, was captured early after Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year and now lies some 65 kilometers (40 miles)…
Russian-made smartphone sales have plummeted to less than half of last year’s figures as they face stiff competition from Chinese imports, the Vedomosti business daily reported Thursday, citing data from suppliers. Compared with 99,300 units moved in January-March 2022, only 46,900 Russian-made smartphones have been sold in the first quarter of 2023. That marks a…
Russia’s oil export revenues fell by nearly a third between January and March this year compared to the last quarter of 2022, the Financial Times reported Wednesday, citing a recent study by the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE). The analysts say the change was largely due to the introduction of price caps on Russian petroleum products by…
A Russian military plane crashed in the country’s northern Murmansk region on Wednesday, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported, citing the Defense Ministry. The Mikoyan MiG-31 supersonic aircraft crashed in an uninhabited area during a training exercise and both pilots safely ejected from the aircraft, according to officials. The incident happened near the town of…
A large fire broke out at the Russian Center of Science and Culture in Cyprus’ capital Nicosia after a Molotov cocktail was thrown into the building, the state-run TASS news agency reported Wednesday, citing the institution’s head. “We heard two explosions at around 1:30 p.m. We couldn’t connect them with anything at first, but then it…
During Russian forces’ spring assault on Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine, air strikes played a key role in their attempts to encircle the city. One night in late March, Russian aircraft dropped 11 bombs on Ukraine’s Sumy region in a major attack. And last week, a Russian jet accidently released a malfunctioning bomb on the Russian…
Russian senators voted Wednesday to stiffen punishments of dissent by adding life sentences for treason and stripping citizenship for anti-war speech. The amendments to Russia’s Criminal Code are being advanced amid an intensifying crackdown on the few Kremlin critics who have not fled the country 14 months after its troops invaded Ukraine. Russia’s upper house…
More than 100 homes were destroyed and one man was killed by overnight fires in the Ural Mountains region of Sverdlovsk, Russian media reported Wednesday. The destructive blaze started after eight railcars loaded with lumber caught fire on Tuesday evening in the village of Sosva, located around 260 kilometers northeast of the regional capital Yekaterinburg. …
Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky by phone on Wednesday, the first known call between the two leaders since the start of Russia’s invasion. The nearly one-hour discussion, which reportedly included Xi advocating for peace negotiations, was met by Russian accusations that Ukraine was undermining efforts to end the fighting.…
Local officials in Russia’s third-largest city scrapped direct mayoral elections on Wednesday. Novosibirsk, the most populous city in Siberia, had been one of just three Russian cities with over 1 million residents that retained direct mayoral elections amid a vigorous centralization of power by the Kremlin. The bill abolishing direct voting and introducing elections of…
The Russian football team, shorn of international competition due to the invasion of Ukraine, will not take part in the inaugural edition of the Central Asian Championship despite having been slated to. Russia had been invited but declined the invitation this week claiming it was due to a loaded fixture list despite having been barred…
Russia said on Wednesday it was expelling 10 Norwegian diplomats as a “retaliatory measure” after Norway announced it was kicking out 15 Russians. “(Norway’s Ambassador to Russia) Robert Kvile was handed a note declaring ‘persona non grata’ 10 representatives of the Norwegian embassy in Moscow,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said. In mid-April, Norway announced the expulsion of…
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said Wednesday he faces potential life imprisonment on fresh charges of terrorism amid an ongoing campaign to silence one of the most potent opposition forces in modern Russia. Authorities have launched as many as 10 new criminal cases against Navalny, 46, since he was sentenced to nine years in prison on…
A leaked phone call allegedly between two wealthy Russian businessmen highlights frustration with Russia’s leadership and war effort among the country’s elite, the Current Time broadcaster reported late Tuesday. The men in the recorded conversation are identified as Roman Trotsenko, one of Russia’s richest businessmen, and Nikolai Matushevsky, the creator of Moscow’s Flacon and Khlebozavod…
Yevgeny Roizman, a prominent Kremlin critic and popular former mayor, stood trial on Wednesday over accusations of “discrediting” the Russian military. Roizman is one of just a few leading opposition figures who remain in Russia and have not been jailed. He faces up to five years in prison. Since invading Ukraine in February last year,…
President Vladimir Putin signed a decree Tuesday authorizing temporary control over foreign companies’ Russia-based assets. The move marks Russia’s latest retaliation to the freezing of its assets abroad over the invasion of Ukraine. Putin’s decree lists the Russian divisions of the German energy giant Uniper and Finland’s Fortum whose shares had already been taken over…
MOSCOW – The rebranded version of KFC reopened at its first location in central Moscow on Tuesday after the U.S. fast-food chain exited Russia’s market over the war in Ukraine. The rebranded restaurant chain’s flagship location on Tverskaya-Yamskaya Ulitsa some 5 kilometers from the Kremlin was fully packed at its grand opening Tuesday evening, over…
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday called Joe Biden a senile and “desperate grandpa” after the U.S. president announced his candidacy for re-election in 2024. “Biden has taken his decision. A desperate grandpa,” Medvedev wrote on Telegram about the 80-year-old U.S. leader. “If I was in the place of the U.S. military I would…
A Russian soldier has been sentenced to 14 years in prison for treason and illegal access to state secrets, the state-run TASS news agency reported Tuesday, citing court records. The sentencing is the latest in a series of increasingly frequent court verdicts against military servicemembers since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The case against…
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Tuesday hosted four-way talks aimed at normalizing ties between Ankara and Damascus, which were severed at the start of Syria’s civil war in 2011. “Practical steps were discussed in the field of strengthening security in the Syrian Arab Republic and normalizing Syrian-Turkish relations,” the Russian Defense Ministry. Moscow stressed…
Sweden on Tuesday announced it was expelling five Russian diplomats for “activities not compatible” with their diplomatic status. Sweden’s foreign ministry said “five officials at the Russian Embassy in Sweden are being asked to leave the country” due to activities incompatible with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. The foreign ministry did not specify the…
Russian authorities announced Tuesday that they will close Moscow’s Red Square to the public for an unprecedented two weeks ahead of the country’s annual parade marking the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. Each year on May 9, Russia celebrates the Victory Day holiday with a massive military parade on Red Square…
The Russian military’s spring call-up has targeted Moscow students in an apparent attempt to meet President Vladimir Putin’s target of enlisting 147,000 young men for compulsory service, the Meduza news website reported Tuesday, citing activists. The speculation follows reporting last week that authorities had started violently delivering students to enlistment offices. Students in at least three schools,…
More than 200 freshly dug graves bearing the insignia of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group have been located at a cemetery in Russia’s third-largest city of Novosibirsk, the Siberia-based news site Tayga.info reported Tuesday. Wagner wreaths can be seen next to the majority of the tombs in footage shared by the outlet. The years of death on…
A Russian man claiming to be a deserter from the Kremlin-linked Wagner mercenary group went on trial Tuesday in Oslo over a street fight in the center of the capital. Wearing a beige shirt and pants, Andrei Medvedev pleaded guilty to participating in a brawl outside a bar in February, resisting arrest and carrying an…
Demand for European vacations among Russian tourists has increased slightly this month despite ongoing flight and visa difficulties due to the war in Ukraine, the Kommersant business daily reported Tuesday. European countries have tightened visa procedures for Russian nationals over the past year and have increased rejections of applications since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.…
Kyiv’s allies on Monday slammed Russia for a Security Council meeting chaired by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov about protecting the United Nations charter, which Moscow itself violated by invading Ukraine. “By organizing this debate Russia is trying to portray itself as a defender of the UN charter and multilateralism. Nothing can be further from the…
Moscow on Monday expressed “serious concern” over fresh tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which have been locked for decades in a deadly territorial conflict. The comments from the Foreign Ministry came a day after Azerbaijan set up a checkpoint on the only land link to the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh, sparking anger from Armenia. Armenia…
Russia’s Sberbank on Monday announced that it has developed a rival technology to ChatGPT, the widely popular Microsoft-backed artificial intelligence chatbot released in November. Called Gigachat, the Sberbank chatbot is said to excel among its peers — ChatGPT in particular — thanks to its excellent Russian-language comprehension as well as its ability to generate images,…
A “Ukrainian” drone has been found outside Moscow, an official said on Monday, adding this had led local authorities to call off a Victory Day parade for security reasons. Moscow has accused Ukraine of being behind a number of drone attacks on military infrastructure deep inside Russian territory. On Monday, Igor Sukhin, head of the…
Russia has expropriated 20 billion rubles ($250 million) in “voluntary contributions” into its budget from foreign businesses that have left the country in the past four and a half months, the RBC news site reported Monday. Hundreds of mostly Western companies have either fully exited or scaled back operations in Russia since it launched a full-scale…
The headline-grabbing decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) last month to issue an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin on war crimes charges has caused nervousness among the Russian elite, according to current and former officials who spoke to The Moscow Times. While Russia formally condemned the decision, with ex-President Dmitry Medvedev even…
The chief of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said his men fighting in the flashpoint eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut would kill rival soldiers and take no more prisoners. He was reacting to a Wagner-affiliated Telegram channel’s posting of an alleged recording of what it said were two Ukrainians deciding to shoot a Russian prisoner…
Russian companies across a wide range of sectors are facing record staff shortages this year as the country grapples with population decline, a wartime exodus and military losses amid its offensive on Ukraine, the Kommersant business daily reported Monday. Employee availability hit its lowest value since record-keeping began in 1998, the newspaper said, citing a…
Over 300 foreign correspondents have called for the release of jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in an open letter to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov published Monday. Among the signatories are journalists with decades of experience reporting from Russia, some having arrived in Moscow as far back as the early 1960s, while others…
The son of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman has claimed that he fought with Russia’s Wagner mercenaries in Ukraine in a rare example of the children of senior Russian officials serving at the front. Nikolai Peskov, 33, who also uses the last name Choles after his British stepfather, is the son of veteran Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. …
Azerbaijan on Sunday set up a checkpoint on the only land link between Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, sparking an angry response from its archrival Yerevan. The move fuels tensions between the ex-Soviet Caucasus nations that fought two wars over Azerbaijan’s Armenian-majority region of Nagorno-Karabakh. “The units of the Azerbaijani Border Service established a border…
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Sunday said Moscow “will not forgive” Washington for denying U.S. visas to Russian journalists meant to accompany him on a visit to UN headquarters. “We won’t forget, we will not forgive this,” said Lavrov, who will chair several UN Security Council meetings in New York. Russia took up the presidency…
The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman on Saturday announced the expulsion of “more than 20” German diplomats as a retaliatory measure for the “mass expulsion” of Russian embassy staff from Berlin. Maria Zakharova told state-run television Zvezda that Moscow had decided to expel “more than 20” diplomats. Her statement came shortly after her ministry denounced “another…
The arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich last month brought to light the stark reality of media freedom in Russia, which is rapidly becoming one of the world’s most perilous places for journalists. As many as 22 journalists are currently imprisoned in Russia for their work, according to data from international press freedom…
The authorities in several Russian regions are distributing digital summons to men of call-up age, according to media reports, less than a week after a radical overhaul of the country’s military draft system was signed into law by President Vladimir Putin. Previously summons had to be issued in person — making them relatively easy to…
Belarusian prosecutors on Friday requested a 10-year prison term for an opposition activist who helped coordinate mass protests against President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime in 2020. Roman Protasevich, the editor of an opposition Telegram channel, was arrested in 2021 after his Ryanair flight was intercepted by a fighter jet and forced to land in Minsk. The…
Russia has appointed new commanders of both its Baltic and Pacific fleets, the state-run Interfax news agency reported Friday, citing sources. Admiral Viktor Liina, the former commander of Russia’s Baltic Fleet, will now head the country’s Pacific Fleet headquartered in the Far East port of Vladivostok, according to Interfax. Liina’s predecessor in the Pacific, admiral Sergey Avakyants,…
The lawyer who defended Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza at his trial that ended in a 25-year prison sentence this week, told The Moscow Times he fled Russia after receiving warnings that he, too, could be jailed. Vadim Prokhorov has defended a string of prominent Kremlin critics in court over the years, including Kara-Murza, Ilya Yashin…
A Moscow court on Friday ordered the arrest of Christo Grozev, a top investigative journalist with open-source group Bellingcat, independent news outlet Mediazona reported. Grozev, who is not in Russia and looks set to be tried in absentia, was accused of illegally crossing the Russian border, according to Mediazona. The Friday court hearing was held…
The Kremlin attempted to sway German politicians to form an anti-war coalition as part of a broader strategy to weaken European backing for Ukraine, The Washington Post reported Friday. Citing documents dated between July and November last year that were obtained by an unidentified European intelligence service, the publication said Kremlin deputy chief of staff…
A Russian-flagged fishing vessel caught fire off the coast of South Korea, leaving four out of the 25 sailors on board dead, Russia’s state-run media reported Friday. The 769-ton boat was carrying 100 tons of fish and seafood to Russia when the fire erupted after midnight off the coast of Ulsan, 300 kilometers southeast of…
The father of a Russian smuggling suspect wanted by the United States has stepped down from his governor’s post in Siberia, a decree on the Kremlin website said Thursday. Alexander Uss, 68, was appointed by President Vladimir Putin as acting head of the Krasnoyarsk region in 2017 and elected governor in 2018. He is the…
Russia said one of its fighter jets lost ammunition over Belgorod near the Ukrainian border on Thursday, after local authorities reported a blast that injured two people and left a huge crater in the city. Russian jets have regularly flown sorties over Belgorod since the launch of Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine in February 2022. On…
Russia said Thursday that it had finished snap navy drills in the Pacific, stressing its forces were ready to repel “aggression” during an armed conflict at sea. Last week Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the country’s Pacific Fleet, headquartered in the port of Vladivostok, had launched surprise combat drills as tensions rage with the West…
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday pressed NATO to invite Ukraine to join the military alliance, while also calling for more shipments of fighter jets and long-range weapons. Zelensky was speaking during a visit to Kyiv by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, his first since the start of Russia’s invasion last year. Moscow views Ukraine’s…
Russia has sentenced a soldier to 10 years in prison for the near-fatal shooting of his slain brother’s commander, according to a statement by the Sevastopol Garrison Court in annexed-Crimea. Ismail Dzangiyev, 29, was convicted of shooting a platoon commander in the head whom he accused of causing his younger brother’s death, according to the…
Russia’s ultra-rich have seen their wealth swell over the past year despite punishing Western sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, according to the 2023 Forbes World’s Billionaires list published late Wednesday. The overall wealth of Russian billionaires rose from $353 billion in 2022 to $505 billion this year, with the average increase per…
The European Union does not plan to significantly expand sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, The Financial Times reported Thursday, citing unnamed EU officials. Further penalties on Russia’s economy would likely meet vetoes EU member states that “can’t live without” Russian industries like nuclear energy, according to the newspaper. “We are done,” the…
The commander of the Russian Navy’s Pacific Fleet has been removed from his post, President Vladimir Putin’s envoy to the Russian Far East said Thursday. The reshuffle was announced a week after the Pacific Fleet was ordered to stage surprise combat drills to repel a theoretical enemy landing. Presidential envoy Yury Trutnev said Admiral Sergei Avakyants,…
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega on Wednesday played down the impact of U.S. sanctions on officials of their two nations. During a four-hour stopover in Managua, Lavrov met with Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, who is also vice president. The issue of sanctions arose after the U.S. Treasury Department…
At least 53,000 army recruitment advertisements have appeared on the Russian social media outlet VKontakte since the beginning of March, according to a report by Novaya Gazeta Europe. The figure represents a seven-fold increase compared to Russia’s largely unsuccessful recruitment campaign for volunteer soldiers last summer, according to Novaya Gazeta Europe’s calculations. Recruitment advertisements have appeared…