Russia may drop its embezzlement case against U.S. investor Michael Calvey and other executives at the Baring Vostok private equity group, the Kommersant newspaper reported on Wednesday. The Baring Vostok executives were detained in February on embezzlement charges, which they denied. They said the case was being used to pressure them in a business dispute…
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September 18, 2019 PAO Severstal, one of the world’s leading vertically integrated steel and mining companies, has launched a pilot project under the World Steel Association’s (“Worldsteel”) “Step up” programme, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by the global steel industry through the introduction of a new methodology. Launched at Severstal’s flagship steel…
DetailsOn September 16, 2019 Unit 2 of Novovoronezh Phase II completed 15-day comprehensive trials of the equipment or so-called commissioning tests. The new innovative power unit ran fault-free at 100% capacity during the entire testing period. “We completed commissioning tests of the new power unit strictly on schedule. Results of the comprehensive trials speak about…
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Russians no longer see a deficit of women on their country’s political stage, according to a state-run survey that has tracked attitudes toward female politicians for over 20 years. Researchers estimate that up to 17% of legislative seats in Russia are currently held by women, about half the global average. In the late 1990s, women…
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A 10-year-old legless skateboarder from Russia has gone viral after getting shoutouts from legendary skater Tony Hawk and a popular Russian YouTuber. Doctors in Far East Russia amputated six-month-old Maxim Abramov’s legs in 2011 after he was injured in a fire. A St. Petersburg family adopted him less than a year later. As he grew…
DetailsOn 17 September, on the sidelines of the 63rd IAEA General Conference in Vienna, ROSATOM and the Ministry of Energy and Mines of the Dominican Republic signed a Memorandum of cooperation in the field of peaceful use of nuclear energy. ROSATOM Deputy Director General Nikolay Spassky signed the document from the Russian side and from…
DetailsThe International Public Dialogue Forum and Exhibition AtomEco 2019 will be held in Hungary, Pécs, on November 6-7. The Forum is held by ROSATOM in cooperation with the Government of Hungary. The Forum participants will discuss capabilities of nuclear power to achieve goals of sustainable development in the field of ensuring affordable and environment-free energy,…
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Russian border guards detained two North Korean racketeering vessels in Russian territorial waters in the Sea of Japan after one of them attacked a Russian patrol ship, the state-run TASS news agency cited the FSB security service as saying on Tuesday. “The crew of a North Korean schooner (more than 45 people) carried out an armed attack…
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Belarus has uncovered an illegal cross-border weapons smuggling network from Ukraine to Russia, the close Moscow ally’s top customs official has said. Kiev’s forces have been battling pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine since 2014 in a conflict that has claimed more than 13,000 lives. Sporadic fighting continues despite a ceasefire agreement.…
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Now that summer is over, Moscow’s concert halls are opening their doors to the new season. Zaryadye Concert Hall, Moscow’s shiny newcomer to a crowded field, opened its doors last year to much fanfare, with performers gushing over its state-of-the-art acoustics and edgy design. To keep up the momentum, this year the Zaryadye directors said…
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A working group set up by exiled Kremlin critic and former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky has written an open letter signed by 77 public figures condemning “the political repression and lawlessness taking place today in Russia.” Signatories include the creators of the hit television series “Game of Thrones” David Benioff and Dan Weiss, British actor…
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Russian film and theater actors have staged an in-person and online campaign in support of a fellow actor who was jailed for using violence against a policeman during one of this summer’s unauthorized election protests in Moscow. A court sentenced Pavel Ustinov to 3.5 years behind bars Monday for allegedly dislocating an officer’s shoulder while…
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Moscow wants the United States to explain a media report on alleged Russian spying that it says has endangered its diplomats, the Russian Embassy in Washington has said. Russian operatives allegedly decrypted secure FBI communications starting in 2010, forcing the U.S. agency to cut off contacts with some of its Russian informants, Yahoo News reported…
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Two Russian football stars have been released after serving six months in jail over their involvement in a pair of violent attacks that sparked public outcry last year. Alexander Kokorin and Pavel Mamayev, who both played in Russia’s top league and used to play for their country, apologized after being caught on surveillance last year…
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Russia is set to be a major winner after an attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities slashed production and ramped up tensions in the Middle East, analysts predict. In a frantic day for the world’s markets, oil prices climbed by almost 15% Monday following the drone attacks on Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia’s largest oil refinery, which…
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Update: A court in St. Petersburg has fined Lorber 15,000 rubles ($230) after finding her guilty of illegal drug possession, the city court system’s press service wrote on its Telegram channel. A New York-based film student has been charged with drug possession in St. Petersburg for allegedly bringing medical marijuana into the country. Russia bans…
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An explosion has hit a disease research center in Siberia that houses strains of Ebola and smallpox, causing a fire and injuring one worker. The Vector State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology announced Monday that a gas tank erupted during repairs in a sanitary inspection room at its lab in Koltsovo, Novosibirsk region. One…
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Russia is ready to help Saudi Arabia following attacks on the Saudi oil industry if needed, Russian President Vladimir Putin said after talks with leaders of Turkey and Iran in Ankara on Monday, and proposed Russian weapons for purchase. “We are ready to provide respective assistance to Saudi Arabia, and it would be enough for…
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The leaders of Turkey, Russia and Iran meeting in Ankara on Monday agreed to try to ease tensions in northwest Syria’s Idlib region, but disagreements between the countries appeared to linger, especially over the threat from Islamic State. The summit of the three countries — all of whom have allies fighting in Syria’s ruinous eight-year-old war —…
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September 17, 2019 PAO Severstal (MICEX-RTS: CHMF; LSE: SVST), one of the world’s largest vertically integrated steel and mining companies, announces that it has invested in Arcanum Alloys, Inc., a Michigan-headquartered company that develops innovative steel-based alloys. Severstal is the lead investor of the round, investing approximately six million dollars in this funding round. Among…
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A member of Russia’s National Guard has urged colleagues to disobey orders to detain protesters rallying against the results of a local election in Far East Russia. Hundreds rallied in the center of the city of Ulan-Ude and several were detained after a pro-Kremlin candidate for mayor was declared the winner of the Sept. 8…
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Residents of three Far East Russian regions are accusing the authorities of failing to improve flood control systems in the six years since the area was hit with biggest floods in more than a century, the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper has reported. Tens of thousands of people were evacuated and more than 100,000 were affected…
DetailsThe Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) and TENEX, Joint-Stock Company have renewed their Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on exploring potential opportunities for collaboration in the field of nuclear fuel cycle management. The new MoU was signed on September 20, 2019, during the 24th World Energy Congress in Abu Dhabi by Mohamed Al Hammadi, Chief Executive…
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Russia on Monday urged countries in the Middle East and outside the region not to draw “hasty conclusions” on who staged the attacks on Saudi oil facilities. A senior U.S. official said earlier that evidence from the attack, which hit the world’s biggest oil-processing facility, indicated Iran was behind it, instead of the Yemeni Houthi…
DetailsAbu Dhabi, September 12 – ROSATOM participated at the 24th World Energy Congress, which was held from September 9 to 12 in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Under the theme “Energy for Prosperity”, the Congress this year became a global leadership forum that defined the strategy for a collaborative, sustainable and innovative energy future that enables societal,…
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Russia and its close ally Belarus plan to form an economic confederacy by 2022, according to an undisclosed plan of action for integration seen by the Kommersant business daily. Belarus’ integration with Russia became a widely discussed possibility as one of the ways in which President Vladimir Putin could sidestep constitutional term limits that bar…
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It’s a warm Moscow evening under the floodlights of a baseball stadium. The hitter sends the ball flying off the bat into a cloudless sky. A fielder 80 yards downfield sprints to get under it, glove raised. He’s made it in time, but can he take the catch? No! He fumbled. The hitter makes second…
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Former U.S spy agency contractor Edward Snowden said he would love French President Emmanuel Macron to grant him political asylum after one of Macron’s ministers said if it was up to her she would offer him asylum. French Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet said at the weekend she supported granting asylum to him, though she made…
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A Moscow court has jailed an actor for 3.5 years Monday after finding him guilty of dislocating a riot police officer’s shoulder during anti-government protests last month, despite his claims that he was a bystander. Pavel Ustinov, detained Aug. 3, is among a dozen activists and passersby held on various charges relating to mass election…
DetailsOn October 2-5 Central Exhibition Hall Manezh will host the International Forum “Russian Energy Week. Representatives of ROSATOM will take part in the plenary session where they discuss with international experts the role of nuclear technology in achieving sustainable development goals. On October 2 ROSATOM’s representatives will be speakers of the plenary session “Nuclear power…
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A former Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) official has been jailed for four years in what experts say is the country’s first conviction on torture charges against a security official. Recent polling has said that one in 10 Russians have been subjected to what they perceived to be torture by law enforcement officials. The United…
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There is enough oil in global stockpiles to replace barrels Saudi Arabia has temporarily lost due to attacks on its oil facilities, Russia‘s Energy Minister Alexander Novak, an ally of Riyadh in a pact to curb supply, told reporters on Monday. Following the strike on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure, which shut about 5% of global supply,…
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Russia‘s first floating nuclear power plant has arrived to its permanent base near an isolated Russian town across the Bering Strait from Alaska, Russian state nuclear energy company Rosatom said on Saturday. Developed by Rosatom, the plant, known as “Akademik Lomonosov,” set off on a 5,000 kilometers journey on Aug. 23 through Arctic waters to reach the…
DetailsSeptember 14, 2019, Pevek, Russia – The floating power unit Akademik Lomonosov has arrived at the port of its permanent location in Pevek, Chukotka, in Russia’s Far East, where it is being docked to start operations by the end of this year. Once commissioned, it will become the world’s first operational nuclear power plant based…
DetailsThe Britten-Shostakovich Festival Orchestra has had its first concert in Moscow within the tour through Russian and British cities.
A supporter of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has filmed himself “evacuating” his hard drives on a drone as police closed in on his high-rise apartment building during nationwide mass raids. Navalny and his allies said police carried out more than 200 searches in 41 towns and cities, including Russia’s third-largest city of Novosibirsk, as part…
DetailsSupported by Rosneft Oil Company, the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Arctic Exploration Centre have conducted a scientific survey of polar bears on Bely Island and Vilkitsky Island, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District.
A report published by global management consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG), WorldSkills Russia and Rosatom has identified new ways for governments and employers to address the growing skills crisis and boost economies. The research, Mission Talent– Mass Uniqueness: A Global Challenge for One Billion Workers, has been presented at the WorldSkills Conference 2019 in…
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Russia is ready to take part in a four-way summit in Paris to try to breathe life into the stalled Ukrainian peace process but has strict preconditions for such a meeting, a senior Kremlin aide said on Friday. Kiev’s forces have been battling pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine since 2014 in a…
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Nearly one-third of Russia’s population has come face-to-face with domestic violence in their own families or among acquaintances, according to an independent survey published Friday. Russia decriminalized certain forms of domestic violence in 2017, a decision that top lawmakers have said was a mistake two years later. Activists say the absence of a domestic violence…
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It was one of the defining moments of the summer: the budding leader of Moscow’s protest movement for fair elections and the official responsible for protecting Russians’ voting rights coming to verbal blows at a public hearing. “You are the talking head of the presidential administration. Shame on you,” Lyubov Sobol lobbed at Ella Pamfilova,…
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St. Petersburg’s main thoroughfares were shut down Thursday for a grand Russian Orthodox procession. The occasion: celebrating the day in 1724 when Peter the Great transferred St. Alexander Nevsky’s saintly relics to St. Petersburg. Priests donned their finest golden robes for their walk down Nevsky Prospekt, the city’s main boulevard, and were reportedly joined by…
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Russia has planted its flag on the northernmost tip of Eurasia to symbolize Russia’s desire to peacefully explore and develop the Arctic, the Northern Fleet said. The steel construction was erected on Cape Fligely, located at 81.5 degrees north on Rudolf Island in the remote archipelago of Franz Josef Land. Nothing but desolate Arctic waters lies to…
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Police in St. Petersburg have been filmed dragging a local election monitor out of a building as observers accuse officials in Russia’s second-largest city of staging the “dirtiest” campaign in the country. No official results have been declared in the five days since St. Petersburg held the municipal vote, leading some election commission members to…
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A newly discovered comet hurtling toward the orbit of Mars has scientists scurrying to confirm whether it came from outside the solar system, a likely prospect that would make it the second such interstellar object observed in our planetary neighborhood. The trajectory of the comet, first detected by Crimean astronomer Gennady Borisov, follows a highly…
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Alexander Rosenbaum was born into a medical family in Leningrad on Sept. 13, 1951. He qualified as a doctor, but became one of Russia’s most famous bards, or singing poets, best known for his so-called blatnaya pesnya songs about criminal subculture. His most popular songs are “Gop-Stop,” about two gangsters executing an unfaithful lover, and…
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Russia’s Healthcare Ministry has drafted a bill to introduce excise taxes on electronic cigarettes, Russian news agencies reported on Friday, citing minister Veronika Skvortsova. Russia has in the past decade tightened tobacco sales regulations as part of a wider campaign to reduce smoking. “The manufacturers of these products are actually pulling (people) into a new…
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Russian officials who had allowed a rumored CIA informant to violate a travel ban and subsequently flee to the United States have been “punished,” Interfax reported, citing an unnamed official familiar with the situation. U.S. media reports said a CIA informant in the Russian government had been extracted and brought to the U.S. in 2017.…
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Igor Rybakov co-founded a roofing-supply company in Russia in the 1990s, becoming one of the country’s youngest billionaires. He stepped back four years ago to focus on managing his fortune and philanthropy. His latest endeavor is music. Rybakov, 47, released his debut album this month devoted to his wife Ekaterina. The five-track work mixes elements of trip-hop and pop,…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin raised a shot of vodka to Russian soldiers on Thursday, while visiting the town of Botlikh in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan. Putin promised to visit Dagestan in June during annual phone-in conference. Botlikh resident said that Putin, then-Prime Minister visited the region during the days of armed conflict in…
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Israel must be allowed to act freely against Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday during a visit to Sochi, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss security coordination in Syria. The two leaders have met more than a dozen times in recent years and the countries’ militaries have been working…
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The Russian military said it has discovered a new island in the Arctic where maps had previously shown a peninsula as climate change accelerates the disappearance of sea ice. The Defense Ministry last month confirmed the discovery of five new Arctic islands off the coast of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. Russia has been increasing its…
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A district assembly in Prague voted on Thursday to remove a statue of a Soviet World War Two marshal and replace it with a more general memorial following a row that has drawn in the Czech president and Russian authorities. The statue of Marshal Ivan Konev, who led the Red Army forces that liberated most…
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Every fall, Russia’s reading public is offered a new dose of esoteric musings and funny word play from the novelist Viktor Pelevin. While it may be a nuisance for those who have never been hooked on his work, it is now a notable annual literary event for those expecting his latest release. This year’s work…
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Russia’s state finance watchdog has placed a popular YouTube blogger accused of “mass unrest” during Moscow’s recent election protests on its list of extremists ahead of his trial. Yegor Zhukov, 21, was detained last month on charges of “organizing mass unrest,” a crime punishable by up to eight years in prison. A court ordered Zhukov’s…
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Russia has asked the United States via Interpol to confirm the whereabouts of a former Kremlin official who Russian media have said may have been a U.S. spy exfiltrated in 2017, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday. Zakharova made the comment after U.S. media reports, confirmed to Reuters by two sources, said a…
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VKontakte, Russia’s largest social network run by Mail.ru Group Ltd, is starting its own dating app Lovina centered around quick-fire videochats. The Lovina app offers a videochat to users who liked each others’ profiles, or sets a “carousel” of limited-time videochats for random users, in a model similar to speed dating when men and women…
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School administrators in Siberia have threatened to expel a 4th-grade student for wearing a man bun styled after his hero, the Swedish football star Zlatan Ibrahimovic, in an incident that has sparked an outcry across Russia. The hair-raising controversy gained nationwide attention this week after the 10-year-old aspiring football player was reprimanded for coming to…
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An inspection made by the Murmansk prosecutor’s office revealed poor anti-terrorist measures at Saida, Andreeva and Gremikha bays, the Kommersant business daily has reported. The law enforcement officials brought the violations to court, asking to oblige the defendant to install extra physical barriers of protection and other means to enhance security. All three sites are operated by…
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Russia condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to annex the Jordan Valley ahead of a meeting between the Israeli leader and President Vladimir Putin later on Thursday, warning it could sharply increase regional tensions. Netanyahu, who is campaigning for re-election on Sept. 17, announced on Tuesday he intended to “apply Israeli sovereignty” to the…
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