Russian law enforcement authorities have detained an activist and PR expert who was among people to be interviewed by U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich before his arrest last month on disputed spying charges, the Kommersant newspaper reported Tuesday. Footage that emerged on messaging app Telegram showed Russian security officers storming Yaroslav Shirshikov’s apartment, arresting him and…
The Russian military has begun using Moscow’s vast video surveillance system to find conscripts who evade compulsory service, Moscow’s chief draft officer Maxim Loktev told state-run news agency TASS on Tuesday. “Moscow’s video surveillance systems are being used to determine a conscript’s residence,” said Loktev. He added that workplaces and educational establishments will also provide…
Updates with Agentsvo reporting on visit timing and Peskov comments. Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited occupied Ukrainian territories for the second time since launching a full-scale invasion, the Kremlin said Tuesday. Putin visited a military headquarters in Ukraine’s Kherson region in the south, as well as a Russian National Guard headquarters in the Luhansk…
Russia said Monday that it had repelled an “illegal” Ukrainian attempt to infiltrate Russian territory in the southern border region of Bryansk, 11 days after reporting a similar incident. “The intruder stepped on a mined protection line, which Russian armed forces created to prevent infiltrations of Russian territory and to ensure the security of residents…
U.S. ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy said she found journalist Evan Gershkovich “in good health” when meeting him in prison Monday for the first time after his arrest on spying charges. “I visited The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich today at Lefortovo Prison — the first time we’ve been permitted access to him since his wrongful detention…
The number of prisoners in penal colonies across 35 Russian regions decreased by 17,248 in 2022, according to the report released Monday by independent news outlet Mediazona. The drop, according to Mediazona, was likely the result of the recruitment of prisoners for the Wagner mercenary group. As the Mediazona report only counted prisoner numbers in…
A Russian court on Monday sentenced journalist, activist and Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza to 25 years in prison on charges of treason. But who is Kara-Murza and for what is he famous? In this short biography, we look at his family history, his entry into politics and the two apparent attempts to poison him. Family…
MOSCOW – Human rights group the Sakharov Center held its final public event Sunday before closing down its premises in the center of the Russian capital as a result of an eviction order from the local authorities. “What I’m feeling is a light sadness — wonderful people have come here and it’s a pleasure to see…
Updates with reaction to the sentencing. A Russian court sentenced opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza to 25 years in prison on charges of treason and “fake news” Monday, capping a high-profile trial of one of the country’s most defiant anti-war voices. Moscow City Court found Kara-Murza, 41, guilty of treason, “false information about the Russian army,”…
A Russian mayor wanted on fraud charges has surfaced fighting in the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine, the Kommersant newspaper reported Monday. The Russian authorities accuse Rustyam Abushayev, who headed two municipalities in Far Eastern Russia’s Primorye region, of making fraudulent land deals and conducting business illegally. On Monday, Abushayev posted a video of himself…
The number of data breaches in Russia surged last year and is on course to increase further in 2023, the RBC news website reported Monday, citing data from cyber-security firms. According to Group-IB, 1.4 billion pieces of data such as names, phones, addresses and birthdays appeared online in 2022. That marks a 42-fold increase from…
Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu on Sunday hailed ties with Moscow during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. “We have very strong ties. They surpass the military-political alliances of the Cold War era… They are very stable,” he said in translated remarks broadcast on Russian TV. He added that Russia-China ties…
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sent shock waves across the former Soviet Union, with Moscow’s traditional partners seeking allies elsewhere. Armenia, which for decades has relied on Russia for military and economic support and even hosts a Russian military base, serves as a key illustration of Moscow’s diminishing regional influence. Many in Armenia today say…
Russia on Saturday claimed advances on the northern and southern outskirts of Ukraine’s embattled city of Bakhmut, the scene of the longest and bloodiest battle of Moscow’s military campaign. Russian troops have been battling since last summer to capture the town in eastern Ukraine, which has taken on huge symbolic importance even though analysts say…
Russia shelled a block of flats in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk, killing nine people, authorities said Saturday, including a two-year-old boy who was rescued from the rubble but died on his way to hospital. Friday’s strike on the quiet neighborhood came as Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill that will make it…
Finland’s border guard on Friday unveiled the first section of a 200-kilometer border fence with Russia being built after Moscow invaded Ukraine last year. Finland joined NATO just a week ago and its 1,300-kilometer border has also doubled the frontier between the U.S.-led military alliance and Russia. Three meters tall and topped with barbed wire, it will cost…
Russia has lost as many as 1,820 soldiers in Ukraine in the past two weeks, the largest number of casualties recorded within that time span since the beginning of its invasion, the BBC Russian service reported Friday citing data it collected in tandem with independent Russian news outlet Mediazona. The total number of Russian troops…
Direct flights between Moscow and the Georgian capital Tbilisi appeared Friday on flight schedules at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport, despite ban introduced by Russia in 2019 on air travel to the South Caucasus country, according to media reports. Vnukovo airport’s new flight schedule online showed daily flights between Tbilisi and Moscow, with Georgian Airlines indicated as…
A Moscow resident was fined for “discrediting” the Russian army after she defended Ukrainians in an argument that unfolded in front of customers at a Moscow coffee shop, human rights watchdog OVD-Info reported Friday. The woman, who requested anonymity to speak freely, related going to her favorite coffee shop one day in March to find…
It took the Russian parliament just twenty-three minutes to vote on the second and third readings of a controversial bill tightening military draft rules that many observers believe will pave the way for a second wave of mobilization. In a rare show of protest, several lawmakers complained they were only shown the full text of…
Russia’s largest labor union announced Friday that it was canceling its demonstrations planned for the popular Labor Day celebrations on May 1, citing heightened terrorist threats amid Moscow’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. The decision comes as the Kremlin has stepped up its rhetoric around domestic security concerns, particularly since the deadly bomb attack on a…
A Russian court has sentenced a radio enthusiast to six years in jail for calling for President Vladimir Putin’s violent overthrown shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began last year. The police-monitoring website OVD Info reported Friday that Kirill Akimov, 52, was arrested in June on suspicion of calling for violence during two broadcasts on…
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Friday the country’s Pacific Fleet had launched surprise combat drills as tensions rage with the West over Ukraine. The Kremlin called the exercises “routine” and said they were aimed at developing Russia’s armed forces. At a meeting with Russia’s top brass, Shoigu said the Pacific Fleet, headquartered in the…
A court in Russian-annexed Crimea found a Russian soldier guilty of mistakenly shooting one of his comrades in Ukraine while drunk and sentenced him to 10 years imprisonment, the Kommersant newspaper reported Friday. Alexei Usenko was accused of fatally wounding a Russian National Guardsman who was accompanying a convoy in a passenger vehicle last year,…
Russian oil exports jumped to their highest level in almost three years in March despite Western sanctions, the International Energy Agency (IEA) announced on Friday, though Moscow’s oil revenues nevertheless dropped sharply from last year. Following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the West has imposed a slew of sanctions against Russia including price…
Russian lawmakers are set to consider making it a criminal offense to comply with International Criminal Court (ICC) orders to arrest President Vladimir Putin for war crimes, the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, said Thursday. The ICC issued a shock arrest warrant for Putin and his children’s rights commissioner in March for the…
Past financial disclosures made by Russian officials have begun to disappear from government websites, just months after President Vladimir Putin signed a decree waiving a legal requirement that the declarations be published online, independent news outlet Mozhem Obyasnit reported Thursday. Each year, millions of Russian government officials are required to declare their income and property,…
MOSCOW – The headquarters of Russian human rights group the Sakharov Center, a rare island of free debate in the Russian capital, will close its doors to the public this weekend in response to an eviction order from local authorities as Russia’s wartime drive to suppress dissent shows no sign of ending. Opened in 1996…
Moscow said on Thursday that Russian troops were preventing Ukrainian forces from entering or leaving the frontline city of Bakhmut, which for months has been the focal point of Russia’s assault in eastern Ukraine. “Airborne troops are providing support to advancing assault troops, blocking the transfer of Ukrainian army reserves to the city and the…
Russian men of conscription age have greeted a law tightening military draft procedures with what appeared to be widespread confusion and indifference despite warnings that the changes — approved this week by the Russian parliament — could amount to backdoor martial law and facilitate a second wave of mobilization. The wording of the law is…
Russia would need to attract as many as 1 million new migrants every year until the end of the century to maintain its current population levels, according to research cited by the RBC news website on Thursday. Russia’s population has declined for the past four years in a row and dropped by half a million…
Norway on Thursday announced the expulsion of 15 Russian embassy employees in Oslo, accusing them of working undercover as intelligence officers for Moscow. “The 15 intelligence officers have been engaging in activities that are not compatible with their diplomatic status,” Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt said. She added that the Russian embassy employees had been…
Ukraine’s energy giant Naftogaz said on Thursday that a Hague-based tribunal had ordered Russia to pay the firm $5 billion for the illegal seizure of its assets in Crimea. Naftogaz chief executive Oleksiy Chernyshov said the firm had “won a key victory on the energy front” over losses he said were caused by Russia’s 2014…
A fresh batch of leaked U.S. intelligence documents made public on Thursday has revealed infighting between Russia’s powerful Federal Security Service (FSB) and its Defense Ministry over the true scale of Russian casualties in Ukraine, The New York Times reported. The new documents came to light just days after a major leak of classified intelligence…
A Russian court has sentenced a 21-year-old man to life in prison for one of the country’s worst school shootings in recent times, Interfax reported Thursday. Ilnaz Galyaviyev opened fire at pupils attending his own former high school in the city of Kazan, the capital of the central Russian republic of Tatarstan, on May 11,…
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had identified a second suspect in the bombing attack that killed the prominent pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in St. Petersburg earlier this month, as it continued to link the act to the team of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. St. Petersburg resident Daria Trepova, 26, was detained on…
The Kremlin on Thursday denied claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally endorsed the arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich for espionage. Citing sources “familiar with the situation,” Bloomberg on Wednesday reported that the initiative to arrest Gershkovich came from “hawks among top officials of Russia’s security services.” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called…
Inflation in Russia dropped below 4% in March for the first time since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine led Western governments to impose wide-ranging sanctions on the country, state statistics agency Rosstat announced on Wednesday. Inflation in March stood at 3.51% year-on-year, down sharply from 10.99% in February. The sharp decrease does not however reflect a…
The U.S. Treasury Department has announced the sanctioning of a further 29 companies and 25 individuals linked to the Russian government over the invasion of Ukraine, including the country’s Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, according to a statement released on Wednesday. Other entities targeted in the latest round of sanctions include Russian telecoms provider Megafon,…
South Africa has admitted that the international arrest warrant issued for Russian President Vladimir Putin represents a “spanner in the works” ahead of a BRICS summit due to take place in the country in August. Pretoria, which has close ties to Moscow, has been faced with a diplomatic dilemma since the International Criminal Court (ICC)…
The Russian authorities have been ramping up efforts to increase enrollment in the military. Multiple media sources report that the Russian army aims to recruit some 400,000 new recruits to bolster its stagnating invasion of Ukraine. Since Moscow invaded its neighbor last year, Russian forces have suffered significant casualties, with leaked U.S. intelligence documents suggesting…
A Russian single father who was detained in Minsk after fleeing house arrest in late March has been extradited back to Russia, the independent rights organization OVD-Info reported Wednesday, citing a Belarusian activist. Alexei Moskalev was handed a two-year jail sentence late last month by a Tula region court for “discrediting” the Russian military over…
A court in western Russia has sentenced a Russian man on charges of trying to join the Ukrainian military in its fight against Moscow’s forces, the independent Mediazona news website reported Wednesday. Sergei Glushenkov, 28, was reportedly detained while trying to cross the border between the Belgorod region and Ukraine in August. The pro-war website extremizmu.net…
Russia’s deputy foreign minister on Wednesday acknowledged that detained U.S. reporter Evan Gershkovich had not been granted consular access, two weeks after his arrest. The Wall Street Journal journalist was arrested in Russia on claims of espionage, which he denies. “The question (of consular access) is under review,” Sergei Ryabkov was cited as saying by…
The leak of a trove of highly sensitive documents online could be a move by the United States to “deceive” Russia, its deputy foreign minister was quoted as saying Wednesday. “It’s probably interesting for someone to look at these documents, if they really are documents or they could be a fake or it could be…
This story contains graphic content that may be disturbing to some readers. A disturbing video that circulated online this week shows the apparent beheading of a Ukrainian prisoner of war by Russian troops. In the clip, a uniformed man with a yellow armband — an identifying mark of the Ukrainian military — can be seen…
Russia has conducted what it said was the successful test launch of an “advanced” intercontinental ballistic missile, weeks after it suspended participation in its last remaining nuclear arms control pact with the United States. The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that a “combat crew successfully launched an intercontinental ballistic missile [ICBM] of a…
Jailed Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny has been returned to solitary confinement for the 13th time since he began serving his nine-year prison sentence last year, his team said on Twitter on Tuesday. Tweeting on Navalny’s behalf, the Kremlin critic’s press secretary said that he had been sent back to solitary confinement as punishment for…
Moscow began exporting fuel products to Iran by rail for the first time earlier this year after its main purchasers stopped importing Russian fuel in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing three industry sources and export data. Now both subject to strict Western sanctions, Russia and Iran have increasingly…
U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday called Russia’s imprisonment of American journalist Evan Gershkovich on spying charges “out of bounds.” Biden, who made the comments as he departed Washington for a trip to Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, also told reporters that The Wall Street Journal correspondent’s jailing was “totally illegal.” The U.S.…
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) raised its 2023 economic growth forecast for Russia on Tuesday, predicting that deficit-fueled government spending would help counteract the growing costs of its war in Ukraine. But the Russian invasion is expected to have a significant impact over the medium term, with the IMF predicting the Russian economy would be…
Russian authorities have opened three criminal investigations into the work of Roman Ivanov, a journalist from the Moscow region working for the RusNews website, RusNews reported Tuesday, citing a criminal investigator. The criminal investigations are believed to be linked to posts written by Ivanov on his Telegram channel, which has some 1,600 subscribers. Police started searching…
Ukrainian forces have for months been holding at bay a grueling Russian offensive in battered towns and heavily shelled trenches spanning the eastern front line. But now, with the Kremlin’s forces running out of steam after making only incremental gains over the winter onslaught, Ukraine is preparing to hit back. “If our senior military staff…
The head of Russia’s FSB security service on Tuesday accused Ukraine and the West of recruiting young Russians to stage armed attacks in their home country. The accusation by security chief Alexander Bortnikov comes a week after President Vladimir Putin accused the West of having helped Kyiv stage “terror attacks” in Russia while Moscow pursues…
Russian authorities on Tuesday banned the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum (CSF), an organization created to foster cooperation between Russian and European NGOs, as an “undesirable” organization. The Prosecutor General’s Office said the Berlin-based organization’s activities, which include conferences it organizes and information it publishes, have a common aim of “discrediting the leadership of the Russian Federation.”…
Russian lawmakers voted Tuesday in favor of changes to the country’s military conscription rules that would make it easier to summon recruits and stop them from fleeing the country. The new bill comes amid ongoing speculation that authorities could announce a second mobilization drive aimed at boosting Russia’s flagging campaign in Ukraine. Russia’s “partial” mobilization…
Russian lawmakers voted Tuesday in favor of changes to the country’s military conscription rules that would make it easier to summon recruits and stop them from fleeing the country. The new bill comes amid ongoing speculation that authorities could announce a second mobilization drive aimed at boosting Russia’s flagging campaign in Ukraine. Russia’s “partial” mobilization…
A powerful volcanic eruption in Russia’s Kamchatka region has spewed massive plums of ash across a large swathe of the region, blanketing a nearby village and disrupting air traffic, media reported Tuesday. Monitors in the far-flung peninsula issued an aviation “code red” after the Shiveluch volcano in Kamchatka’s eastern range released an ash cloud that drifted…
The number of young workers in Russia has dropped to one of its lowest levels in the country’s post-Soviet history, the RBC news website reported Tuesday, citing research based on official statistics by the Finexpertiza consulting firm. Working citizens under the age of 35 in the Russian labor market totaled 21.5 million in December, accounting…
The leaked classified U.S. documents that rocked Washington and its allies this week have provided a rare glimpse into the Defense Department’s intelligence on Russia’s offensive on Ukraine. The leak raises concerns that Russia could change its methods of communication to conceal its planning and try to ferret out human confidential sources that formed the…