Russian software developers have submitted early versions of homemade alternatives to Instagram, TikTok and Zoom, the RBC news website reported Thursday. Instagram was blocked by Russian authorities following the invasion of Ukraine, while TikTok and Zoom restricted their services within the country. The proposed domestic platforms — Looky, Sunlight Play and Dion — are part…
Russia on Thursday denied targeting the Ukrainian capital, instead accusing “foreign and Ukrainian” air defense missiles of causing damage in Kyiv, where critical energy infrastructure was hit a day earlier. “Not a single strike was made on targets within the city of Kyiv,” the Russian Defense Ministry said. Any damage was “the result of the…
Moscow said Thursday it has issued more than 80,000 Russian passports to residents of four Ukrainian territories since President Vladimir Putin claimed to have annexed the regions in September. “Since the addition … of the four regions into the Russian Federation, and in accordance with the legislation, more than 80,000 people received passports as citizens…
Russian lawmakers passed legislation Thursday imposing steep fines for LGBT “propaganda” among both minors and adults. The new bill bans the “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships” aimed at any age group — not just toward minors, as was banned under the country’s controversial 2013 law. The bill also codifies new offenses such as “propaganda of pedophilia”…
The Kremlin-linked leader of the notorious Wagner mercenary group said Wednesday that he sent a sledgehammer to be delivered to the European Parliament in a dark reminder of one fighter’s gruesome killing. Yevgeny Prigozhin’s threatening gesture came as the EU Parliament prepared to condemn Wagner in a non-binding resolution after branding Russia a “state sponsor…
Two American babies born to a surrogate mother from eastern Ukraine and evacuated to Russia after the start of the war have been returned to their U.S. parents, the private group behind the operation, Project Dynamo, said Wednesday. The twins, a boy and a girl, were “rescued” Tuesday after the organization’s first mission on Russian…
YEREVAN, Armenia — Russian President Vladimir Putin was greeted with street demonstrations in the capital of this landlocked South Caucasus nation Wednesday as he arrived for talks with the members of a Moscow-led military alliance. Hundreds of Armenians and emigre Russians took part in two days of rallies in central Yerevan to protest Putin’s visit,…
The European Parliament website was hit by a cyberattack claimed by pro-Russian hackers on Wednesday, shortly after lawmakers approved a resolution calling Moscow a “state sponsor of terrorism.” “The European Parliament is under a sophisticated cyberattack. A pro-Kremlin group has claimed responsibility,” the parliament’s president, Roberta Metsola, tweeted. “Our IT experts are pushing back against…
Kyrgyzstan announced on Wednesday that it was looking into the possibility of building its first nuclear power plant, with Russian help, to tackle frequent energy shortages. The country’s Energy Ministry “signed a cooperation document” with a subsidiary of Russian nuclear agency Rosatom, the ministry said in a statement, raising the prospect of Moscow further growing…
A Russian court on Wednesday extended by six months the detention of opposition politician Ilya Yashin, who risks being jailed 10 years for denouncing President Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine. The 39-year-old Moscow city councilor is in the dock as part of an unprecedented crackdown on dissent in Russia, with most opposition activists either in…
A Russian man was sentenced to 90 days in jail in Norway on Wednesday for flying a drone over the country in violation of a ban adopted in response to the war in Ukraine. Now Europe’s main supplier of natural gas, Norway has been on high alert since mysterious unmanned aircraft were spotted near strategic…
The European Parliament on Wednesday adopted a resolution recognized Russia as a “state sponsor of terrorism,” and accusing its forces of carrying out atrocities in its invasion of Ukraine. The move by the European legislators is a symbolic political step with no legal consequences, but MEPs urged the governments of the 27-nation EU to follow…
The CIA is seeking to recruit Russian nationals angry with the course of Russia’s war in Ukraine, a senior official in the U.S. foreign intelligence ageny has said. CIA Director of Operations David Marlowe noted that President Vladimir Putin’s failure to achieve his military and security goals in the nine-month invasion of Ukraine has given…
Members of Yerevan’s Russian population took to the streets of the Armenian capital Tuesday evening to protest against the war in Ukraine ahead of Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s arrival for Wednesday’s Collective Security Treaty Organization summit. The demonstration, which took place on Russia Square, attracted some 50 activists, who flew Russian flags with the red…
Britain is to send helicopters to Ukraine for the first time since Russia’s invasion, the defense ministry in London said on Wednesday. Ten crews of Ukrainian service personnel and engineers underwent a six-week training program in the U.K., as part of the “first helicopter capability the U.K. has donated to Ukraine,” the ministry said. In…
Crimes involving weapons have surged by nearly 30% in Russia this year, the RBC news website reported Wednesday, citing police data. Some 5,000 offenses involving firearms, ammunition and explosives were registered in January-October 2022, a 29.7% increase from the same time period last year. Authorities saw a more than 12% increase in the theft and…
A newborn baby was killed following a Russian strike that hit a maternity ward in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, which Moscow claims to have annexed, Ukrainian emergency services said Wednesday. Overnight on Tuesday to Wednesday, “in the city of Vilniansk in Zaporizhzhia region, as a result of a rocket attack on the territory of the…
A former teacher in annexed Crimea has said he was beaten and jailed for posting a patriotic Ukrainian song that has become a symbol of Kyiv’s resistance to Russia’s invasion, independent Russian media reported Tuesday. Andrei Belozerov said security officers in the annexed peninsula’s second-largest city of Simferopol barged into his dormitory and violently arrested him…
Ukraine’s Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula was targeted by a drone attack on Tuesday, Kremlin-installed authorities said, adding that Moscow’s forces there were “on alert.” The strike came as Kyiv claimed another territorial victory and just days after Moscow said it was strengthening its position on the Crimean peninsula. “There is an attack with drones,” the governor…
Explosions killed three people in two villages in Russia’s Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine on Tuesday, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. A woman was killed in what Gladkov said was Ukrainian shelling in the village of Shebekino, around seven kilometers from the Ukrainian border in the south of the Belgorod region. “During the…
President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday oversaw the launch of a new nuclear-powered icebreaker as Russia pushes to develop the Arctic and seeks new energy markets amid sanctions over Ukraine. Addressing a St. Petersburg ceremony for the launch of the Yakutia icebreaker by video link, Putin spoke of the vessel’s “strategic” importance to Russia. In addition…
Russian energy giant Gazprom on Tuesday accused Ukraine of diverting natural gas supplies transiting its territory to Moldova and threatened to cut deliveries through a key pipeline to Europe in response. The allegations are the latest point of tension over energy deliveries between Kyiv, European capitals, and Moscow, which has reduced natural gas deliveries to…
Anti-gay legislation under consideration by the Russian parliament could drive the country’s embattled LGBT+ community entirely underground, activists and experts told The Moscow Times, as the Kremlin doubles-down on what it calls “traditional values” amid the Ukraine war. Russian lawmakers last month backed a bill to expand an existing ban on LGBT “propaganda” in its…
A Colonel in the Russian General Staff responsible for overseeing mobilization has been placed under a two-month house arrest for allegedly demanding a washing machine as a bribe from a fellow officer, the Kommersant business daily reported on Tuesday. Colonel Ivan Mertvishchev pleaded guilty to demanding the unusual bribe from a Moscow military commissar whose…
A member of the Russian Armed Forces was handed a one-year suspended sentence back in August for deserting his unit in Ukraine, a court in Pskov announced on Monday. Professional soldier Mikhail Guryanov was found guilty by the court of abandoneding his unit on Apr. 6. He was subsequently apprehended and detained by the Russian…
Ukrainian investigators said Tuesday that a prison official in the recently liberated city of Kherson was suspected of committing treason for releasing inmates before the Russian army’s retreat. On Nov. 11, the Russian army pulled forces from the southern city of Kherson, in a major setback in a region President Vladimir Putin claimed to have…
Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, adopted a resolution Tuesday condemning the alleged killings of captive Russian troops by Ukrainian forces and urging Western counterparts to drop their support for Kyiv. Russian military and civilian authorities, as well as influential state media figures and bloggers, accused Kyiv of committing war crimes after videos…
Ukraine’s security service said Tuesday it had raided a historic Orthodox monastery in Kyiv over suspected links to Russian agents. The Kremlin denounced the searches as the latest chapter in Kyiv’s “war” against the Russian church. Located south of the city center, the 11th-century Kyiv Pechersk Lavra is a UNESCO World Heritage site and seat…
Russia’s state media watchdog has denied ordering state television to censor war-related words after several entertainment channels censored the lyrics “war” and “peace” in recent broadcasts, state media reported Monday. Vadim Subbotin, deputy head of the Roskomnadzor regulator, maintained that the agency does not keep a list of banned words apart from explicit language, according…
Russian troops allegedly dumped and burned the bodies of fallen fellow soldiers at a landfill site on the outskirts of the recently liberated southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, The Guardian reported Monday. Workers and local residents told the publication they had witnessed black bags being unloaded from Russian open trucks and set on fire over…
Russia on Tuesday said it hoped Turkey would exercise “restraint” and refrain from “any excessive use of force” in Syria, where Ankara has carried out air strikes and is threatening to launch a ground offensive against Kurdish fighters. “We hope to convince our Turkish colleagues to refrain from resorting to excessive use of force on Syrian…
Russia on Tuesday called for Turkey to exercise “restraint” and warned against “destabilizing” Syria, where Ankara has carried out air strikes and is threatening to launch a ground offensive against Kurdish fighters. “We understand and respect Turkey’s concerns regarding its own security. We believe this is the legal right of Turkey,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov…
Russians have murdered, tortured and kidnapped Ukrainians in a systematic pattern that could implicate top officials in war crimes, a senior U.S. official said Monday as Kyiv said it had discovered four Russian torture sites in newly-liberated Kherson. Moscow, in turn, accused Ukrainian forces of summarily killing a number of prisoners of war after a…
A Polish court on Monday overturned a decision by Poland’s anti-monopoly watchdog to impose a 6.2 billion euro ($6.3 billion) fine against Russian gas giant Gazprom, the watchdog said. The fine imposed in 2020 against Gazprom and five other companies, including British-Dutch giant Shell, was over construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Supplies through…
The first criminal case against conscripted soldiers refusing to fight in Ukraine has opened in Russia, according to footage circulating on social media over the weekend. The video shows two soldiers who allegedly refused to go to the frontlines being pulled out of a lineup by military police, according to the Veteran’s Notes Telegram channel.…
Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said Monday that he is suing his maximum security prison for not giving him winter boots, as temperatures in Russia drop below freezing. “I am suing my colony and demanding to be issued winter boots,” Navalny said on Twitter. The 46-year-old is serving a nine-year sentence outside Vladimir, a…
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Monday denied the Kremlin was considering a second wave of mobilization to further bolster Russian forces in Ukraine. “There are no discussions about that,” Peskov told reporters in a call, according to the state-run TASS news agency. The Kremlin denial of another round of mobilization came amid increasing speculation that…
The New York Times said Sunday it has verified footage showing captive Russian troops being killed by Ukrainian forces as experts remain divided on whether the grisly episode constitutes a war crime or an act of self-defense. At least four drone and cellphone videos of the incident emerged between Nov. 12-17 as Ukraine recaptured the village…
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday congratulated Kazakhstan’s incumbent president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, on his landslide victory in a snap presidential poll held months after deadly unrest in the oil-rich Central Asian country. “You have received a convincing mandate of trust from fellow citizens, which opens up new opportunities for the implementation of the course…
At least five people were killed in a fire at a warehouse in central Moscow near three railway stations linking the Russian capital to major cities, according to Russian emergency services. The fire broke out at a two-story brick warehouse on Sunday afternoon near the usually busy stations connecting Moscow to cities such as St.…
Ukrainian authorities said they will soon begin voluntary evacuations from the liberated southern city of Kherson and nearby areas as Russian strikes have hammered the country’s power grid at the onset of winter. Remaining residents of Kherson — as well as Mykolaiv 65 kilometers to the northwest — whose homes were damaged in Russia’s invasion…
The Ukrainian parliament’s commissioner for human rights on Sunday denied Kyiv’s forces had killed Russian prisoners of war, arguing that Ukraine’s soldiers were defending themselves against Russians who feigned surrender. Videos circulated on Russian social media this week purporting to show the bodies of Russian servicemen killed after surrendering to Ukrainian troops. Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets…
A warehouse caught fire in the center of Moscow near three railway stations linking the Russian capital to several major cities, the Emergency Situations Ministry said Sunday. Thick plumes of black smoke rose above the city’s skyline in contrast with the snow-covered pavements just next to the Yaroslavsky, Leningradsky and Kazansky train stations, Russian television footage showed. …
Kyiv and Moscow on Sunday traded accusations of shelling on the territory of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant that Russia controls in southern Ukraine. The UN atomic watchdog that has a team of experts at the plant — the biggest nuclear facility in Europe — said “powerful explosions” had occurred on Saturday and Sunday. Kyiv…
The news that American basketball player Brittney Griner had arrived in the IK-2 penal colony in Mordovia, also known as the Russian “land of prisons,” left locals rather unmoved. The double Olympic gold medalist was handed nine years in prison in August for drug possession and trafficking over possessing vape cartridges with a small quantity…
The West’s attempts to persuade Ukraine to negotiate with Moscow, after a series of major military victories by Kyiv, are “bizarre” and amount to asking for its capitulation, a key adviser to the Ukrainian presidency told AFP. “When you have the initiative on the battlefield, it’s slightly bizarre to receive proposals like: ‘you will not…
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Saturday used his first visit to Kyiv to announce a major new air defense package, as the country celebrated retaking the southern city of Kherson. Kyiv meanwhile said it was checking the authenticity of video footage Moscow says shows surrendering Russian soldiers being executed. “I am here today to say…
Russia Saturday blasted Warsaw’s refusal to allow Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to attend a meeting next month of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe as “unprecedented and provocative”. “The decision from Poland, which is the acting chairman of the OSCE, to refuse the participation of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov in…
A suspected gas explosion early Saturday in a five-story residential building killed nine people in Russia’s southeastern Sakhalin island, the local governor said. The blast occurred in a brick building built in the 1980s in the village of Tymovskoye, the TASS news agency reported. “Nine people were killed, including four children,” the region’s governor Valery…
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday dismissed the idea of a “short truce” with Russia, saying it would only make things worse. “Russia is now looking for a short truce, a respite to regain strength. Someone may call this the war’s end, but such a respite will only worsen the situation,” the Ukrainian leader said…
Updates with comments and background The Russian Defence Ministry on Friday accused Kyiv of executing at least 10 prisoners of war in what Moscow said constituted a “war crime,” the latest allegation of abuses after nearly nine months of fighting in Ukraine. Moscow’s claims come after the UN this week published a report saying prisoners…
Finland unveiled a plan on Friday to build a 200-kilometer fence along its border with Russia, amid increased security concerns since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine began in late February. “In this situation, we have every reason to reconsider our arrangements,” Brigadier General Jari Tolppanen of the Finnish Border Guard agency told AFP. Some 200 kilometers of…
The Netherlands summoned the Russian ambassador on Friday after Moscow accused a Dutch court of a politically motivated verdict in the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 above Ukraine. Russia’s foreign ministry had on Thursday described as “scandalous” the ruling by Dutch judges that saw two Russians and a Ukrainian sentenced to life imprisonment in…
Russia’s war in Ukraine has had a “significant impact” on the security of other countries, G7 interior ministers said on Friday, warning of attacks on key infrastructure and risks posed by returning foreign fighters. German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser reaffirmed the Group of Seven’s “unwavering solidarity” with Ukraine, after hosting two days of talks in…
Belarus’s autocratic president, Alexander Lukashenko, on Friday ridiculed McDonald’s after the announcement it would be replaced by a Russian franchise following its departure over the Ukraine conflict. McDonald’s in Belarus will from Tuesday operate under the name ‘Delicious. Full Stop.’, the moniker of the Russian chain that took over the U.S. burger group in Russia in…
While usually greeted with excitement, the first snows of the winter were this year met with unease in Ukraine, as millions of people were left without power after a fresh barrage of Russian missile strikes targeting the country’s infrastructure, and millions more feared being left without heat as the mercury plummeted. While the recent recapture…
Jailed Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny says he has been moved to a small, isolated cell and deprived of family visits, his team announced on social media. Navalny said he had been placed in a “cramped cell” used for prisoners accused of bad behavior, adding: “Congratulate me!” Under the toughened detention conditions, he is only…
Russian authorities in annexed Crimea are fortifying the peninsula’s defensive positions, its governor said Friday in a signal of Moscow’s growing concerns over Ukrainian forces’ push to reclaim captured territories in the south. Attacks on the Black Sea peninsula have increased in recent weeks as Kyiv presses on with a counteroffensive to retake territory in southern…
The blasts which destroyed sections of the Nord Stream pipelines carrying natural gas from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea in September were acts of sabotage, Swedish officials confirmed Friday. The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines have been at the center of geopolitical tensions as Russia cut gas supplies to Europe in suspected retaliation…
The Russian military has dismissed as “fake” a video address by mobilized soldiers who accuse commanders of endangering them during last week’s chaotic retreat from southern Ukraine’s city of Kherson, state media reported Thursday. In the video published Tuesday, the soldiers said they had suffered losses during two days of Ukrainian shelling while they were…