Russia and the U.S. on Thursday conducted a one-for-one prisoner swap that secured the release of American basketball star Brittney Griner in exchange for Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout. Bout, 55, was meant to serve a 25-year sentence in a prison in Illinois after being convicted of a handful of offenses by the U.S. courts,…
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Russia and the United States have exchanged the U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner for notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, U.S. and Russian officials said Thursday. The WNBA star, who was serving a nine-year-prison sentence in a Russian jail on drug charges, was released on Thursday in a one-for-one swap for Bout, an arms dealer…
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Russian-annexed Crimea remains at risk of Ukrainian attacks, the Kremlin said Thursday after Russian-aligned authorities claimed to have shot down a drone over the Black Sea peninsula. The Crimean affiliate of the U.S. news organization RFE/RL reported hearing powerful explosions in the port of Sevastopol, which is home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Sevastopol’s Kremlin-aligned Governor…
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A court in Norway has acquitted the dual-national son of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s former ally on charges of defying a ban on flying drones, media reported late Wednesday. Andrei Yakunin, 47, was arrested in October on accusations of launching drones from his luxury yacht over the strategic Arctic archipelago of Svalbard last summer. Yakunin,…
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Russia hit back Thursday at widely reported data which placed the country as a leader in new HIV infections worldwide as “provocative propaganda.” Russia accounted for 3.9% — the world’s fifth-highest share — of the 1.5 million new HIV cases reported around the world in 2021, the data platform Statista said last Thursday, citing the Joint…
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ST. PETERSBURG — Four years after achieving global football celebrity as host of the 2018 World Cup, Russia’s exclusion from international competitions in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine has led to declining standards in domestic matches, fan apathy and foreign players leaving in droves. The Brussels Bar, a sports bar in Russia’s second-largest…
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A Moscow court on Wednesday rejected an appeal by the jailed Russian journalist Ivan Safronov against his 22-year jail sentence for treason earlier this year. The decision to uphold Safronov’s sentence, which was announced at a closed-doors hearing, means that the journalist will soon be transferred from the detention facility where he is currently being…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that the threat of nuclear conflict in Ukraine was still on the rise, but stressed that Moscow had no intention of launching a pre-emptive strike amid concerns that nuclear arms could be used in Ukraine. “Such a threat is growing, needless to say,” the Russian leader said during…
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Time magazine named President Volodymyr Zelensky as well as “the spirit of Ukraine” as its 2022 person of the year on Wednesday, for the resistance the country has shown in the face of Russia’s invasion. Calling Zelensky’s decision to remain in Kyiv and rally his country amid the ongoing war “fateful,” Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal…
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The Russian embassy in Berlin on Wednesday denied maintaining links to far-right terror groups in Germany after a Russian woman was among 25 people arrested in a series of police raids over a suspected plot to overthrow the government. “The Russian Embassy in Germany would like to make clear that Russian diplomatic and consular offices…
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The Kremlin has urged members of the presidential Human Rights Council “not to upset” Russian leader Vladimir Putin with thorny questions about the war in Ukraine when they meet Wednesday, independent media reported, citing unnamed sources close to the council. According to the investigative news website Vyorstka, HRC chairman Valery Fadeyev cleared the topics to…
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Western airlines should prepare to return to Russian airspace when the war in Ukraine has ended, the head of the global airline trade group said Tuesday. Flights between Russia and the West came to a virtual standstill following mutual airspace bans in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February. The closures limited Russian-owned…
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Russia’s oil giant Rosneft said Wednesday its profit over the past nine months had been badly hit by the seizure of its German-based refineries by Berlin. “In 3Q 2022, the most significant negative impact on income came from the transfer of the company’s assets in Germany… which resulted in the recognition of an additional loss…
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The BBC has named Russian pop diva Alla Pugacheva, jailed anti-war activist Alexandra Skochilenko and prominent journalist Taisia Bekbulatova on its list of the year’s most influential women. The Russian entries in the 2022 edition of the annual 100 Women list of inspiring and influential women highlight the “female faces of conflict and resistance in Ukraine…
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Latvia’s decision Tuesday to withdraw the broadcast license of independent Russian television channel Dozhd caused disbelief and anger among the media outlet’s journalists and soul-searching among other Russian journalists in exile. The Baltic country’s media watchdog said in a statement announcing the revocation that Dozhd posed “threats to national security and social order” following a…
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A St. Petersburg court on Tuesday recognized the Russian human rights NGO Vesna as an extremist organization, the group announced in a statement, a move that if upheld will compel the organization to disband and cease all activity in Russia. “We plan to appeal this decision and to continue working … It’s not a secret…
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Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Tuesday that the border region is forming self-defense units amid Russia’s ongoing war with neighboring Ukraine. “Literally from the very first days of the beginning of the special military operation, a large number of residents of the Belgorod region addressed the need to begin training and forming territorial defense…
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Do Russians support the war in Ukraine? This question has been discussed intensely since the invasion in February. According to surveys from major Russian pollsters (including the independent Levada Center and state-controlled VTsIOM) about 75% of the population does support the invasion. But many are deeply skeptical of these figures. Russian officials have access to…
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Police in Russia’s Rostov region are searching for a suspected deserter from the Russian army who shot at police officers in the southern Russian city of Novoshakhtinsk near the Russian-Ukraine border on Tuesday, Russian news agency TASS reported. The man reportedly fired at police officers after emerging from a wooded area on the outskirts of…
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Russian bookstores have started removing LGBT-themed works from their catalogues after President Vladimir Putin signed a wide-reaching ban on expressions of LGBT identity into law on Monday. Under the new law that entered into force immediately after its signing, bookstores, film and video game makers, as well as advertisers and media outlets, risk being shut…
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President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday met with top officials on Russia’s “domestic security” as the Kremlin said the latest Ukrainian drone attacks presented a danger to the country. Earlier Tuesday, authorities said that a drone had struck near an airfield in Russia’s Kursk region bordering Ukraine, a day after Moscow blamed Kyiv for drone strikes…
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Russia has pounded Ukraine with newly made cruise missiles in recent weeks, British weapons researchers said Monday, suggesting that production has continued months after Western governments imposed unprecedented sanctions on Moscow. The Conflict Armament Research (CAR) said its experts were in Kyiv on Nov. 23 when Russia fired around 70 cruise missiles. Analysis of two…
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Updates with court ruling, adds top three lines. A Moscow court on Tuesday ordered the arrest in absentia of two Ukrainian ministers after they were accused of violating Russia’s territorial integrity. The decision came following a request by the FSB security service to arrest in absentia Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk and Deputy Foreign…
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Jailed Belarusian opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova, who was admitted to intensive care last week, has been returned to jail and is being monitored by doctors, her allies have said. She was arrested and handed 11 years behind bars last year in the wake of huge and long-running popular protests against the authoritarian rule of strongman…
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Latvia said Tuesday that it is revoking the independent Russian television channel Dozhd’s broadcasting license, citing “threats to national security and social order” following a series of infringements related to the channel’s coverage of the war in Ukraine. “Dozhd TV will disappear from the airwaves on Thursday, Dec. 8,” tweeted Ivars Abolins, chairman of Latvia’s…
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Ukraine worked to restore power on Tuesday after Russia’s latest wave of missile strikes caused power disruptions across the country, right as winter frost builds and temperatures plunge. Out of the 70 missiles launched by Moscow, “most” were shot down, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, but the barrage still hit Ukraine’s already battered infrastructure. Fresh power…
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The Russian Defense Ministry said Ukrainian drone attacks caused explosions at two airfields in the Saratov and Ryazan regions on Monday, leaving three dead. On Monday morning “the Kyiv regime attempted to strike the Dyagilevo airfield in the Ryazan region, and the Engels airfield in the Saratov region, with Soviet-made drones,” the ministry said in…
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The investigation of the war in Ukraine by the International Criminal Court (ICC) should not be “set up to fail” by plans to create a separate special tribunal for Russia, its prosecutor said on Monday. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week proposed a UN-backed special court to prosecute the Russian leadership for…
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The battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut in the country’s eastern Donetsk region has become the bloodiest of the war so far and has even prompted comparisons to the great battles of World War I for its trench warfare, high casualty numbers and largely static frontline. While the medium-sized city has been shelled by…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law expanding the existing ban on the prohibition of “LGBT propaganda” to children to include the entire population on Monday. People of all ages are now banned from accessing certain content under the new legislation. From now on, LGBT relationships and “lifestyles” cannot be displayed or mentioned, according to…
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President Vladimir Putin on Monday visited the bridge that links Moscow-annexed Crimea to the Russian mainland weeks after the vital link was hit by a blast, images on state television showed. It was the closest the 70-year-old Russian leader has come to the frontline in Ukraine, after sending troops to the pro-Western country on Feb.…
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A former Russian prisoner who had his jail sentence reduced to allow him to serve in the Russian military in Ukraine has been confirmed dead after claiming to have been threatened with execution, investigative news website The Insider reported, citing prominent prisoners’ rights NGO Gulagu.net. Victor Sevalnev, who served as the commander of the 7th…
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After six months of combat with Russia’s 64th Motorized Rifle Brigade in Ukraine, Alexei Astashov quietly rejoiced when he was discharged from the army and sent back to his former life as a veterinarian in the Far East. But amid the elation of being reunited with his wife and son, he has still not been…
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A Russian prosecutor on Monday requested a nine-year prison sentence for Kremlin critic Ilya Yashin for denouncing Vladimir Putin’s military intervention in Ukraine. According to the prosecution, Yashin, a 39-year-old former Moscow city deputy, was guilty of claiming that the occupying Russian military had been responsible for the massacre of civilians in the Kyiv suburb…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law expanding the existing ban on so-called “LGBT propaganda” toward the entire population, not just minors, on Monday. People of all ages are now banned from accessing certain content under the new legislation. From now on, LGBT relationships and “lifestyles” cannot be displayed or mentioned, according to activists. The…
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Georgia’s jailed ex-president, Mikheil Saakashvili, has been “poisoned” in custody by heavy metals and risks dying without proper treatment, according to a medical report distributed on Monday by his legal team. The 54-year-old was transferred to the hospital last year after a hunger strike that he maintained for 50 days to protest at his jailing,…
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Longtime Kremlin ally Alexei Kudrin confirmed Monday that he has accepted a role at tech giant Yandex as senior adviser. Kudrin, 62, a former finance minister and economic liberal, stepped down as head of the country’s Audit Chamber last week, with state agencies reporting that he was expected to take a leadership role at Yandex…
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Three people have been killed and at least two nuclear-capable bombers likely damaged in separate blasts at two Russian airfields, state and independent media outlets reported Monday. Russia’s Defense Ministry has not yet commented on the alleged incidents, which took place hundreds of kilometers from the Ukrainian border. Two Tu-95 long-range strategic nuclear bombers were damaged…
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At least 2,500 dead Caspian seals have been found on the shores of Russia’s Caspian Sea coast, local authorities said Sunday. Photos published online showed the mammals’ carcasses scattered across the beach. The Russian republic of Dagestan’s natural resources ministry said the endangered seals had likely died of “natural causes,” adding that laboratory tests will…
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The price cap on Russian oil agreed by the EU, G7 and Australia is set to come into force on Monday. It aims to restrict Russia’s revenue while making sure Moscow keeps supplying the global market. Embargo and cap The cap is due to take effect alongside an EU embargo on maritime deliveries of Russian crude…
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There is currently no diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine, a co-founder of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Russian rights organization Memorial said Sunday. “I am absolutely convinced that there is not a diplomatic solution with Putin’s regime, so long as it is still there,” said Irina Scherbakova. “The solution that there will now be…
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YEREVAN, Armenia — Nearly every hand in the packed auditorium went up when the moderator asked who had arrived in this South Caucasus nation after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “And who was living here before then?” Three hands rose from the crowd. At ArtDocFest Yerevan, the longstanding Russian documentary film festival that launched in the…
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Russia on Saturday denounced a $60 price cap on its oil agreed by the EU, G7 and Australia, even as Ukraine suggested it was not tough enough and might have to be revisited. “We will not accept this price cap,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told domestic news agencies, adding that Russia, the world’s second-largest crude exporter, was…
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Everyone knows the dish called “Beef Stroganoff.” But its history is less well known, although no one disputes that the dish belongs to the Stroganov family. But it didn’t appear out of nowhere, did it? Nothing ever does, not in the kitchen or in history. Why is this dish so popular? First, it’s relatively easy…
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ST. PETERSBURG — A museum about LGBT history opened to visitors in Russia’s second-largest city this week — but it looked set to be accessible for only a few days before it is banned under draconian “gay propaganda” laws expected to come into force imminently. “The museum is a political act,” said Russian LGBT activist…
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Бешенство: rabies, fury The Russian language has lots of ways to describe getting angry, losing your temper, and flying off the handle. Сердиться/рассердиться (to get angry) is just so bland. It can’t capture the rage you feel when, say, you spend two hours filling in an online application, hit “save” and watch your work disappear…
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A number of Ukrainian diplomatic missions in the European Union have received packages containing animal eyes in what Kyiv described Friday as a “well-planned campaign of terror.” The Ukrainian foreign ministry announcement came after a security guard at the embassy in Madrid was lightly injured Wednesday opening a letter bomb addressed to the ambassador through…
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Latvia has fined independent Russian television channel Dozhd 10,000 euros ($10,500) over its coverage of the war in Ukraine, the Latvian National Electronic Mass Media Council (NEPLP) said Friday. The channel was penalized for displaying a map marking the annexed Crimean peninsula as part of Russia and for referring to the Russian Armed Forces as…
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TikTok kept up hundreds of videos that promote and glorify violent acts allegedly committed by Russian mercenary group Wagner despite their direct violation of the platform’s policies, according to a new investigation by independent misinformation watchdog NewsGuard. NewsGuard’s analysts identified as many as 160 clips explicitly depicting or glorifying violent Wagner-linked activities on the video-sharing…
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President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia’s strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure were “inevitable” as the Kremlin rejected U.S. President Joe Biden’s terms for talks and warned the assault would continue. After suffering humiliating military defeats during what has become the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II, Russia began targeting Ukrainian energy…
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Russia has successfully test-launched a new missile defense system at its Sary Shagan firing range in neighboring Kazakhstan, the country’s Defense Ministry announced Friday. “The anti-missile defense system is in service with the Aerospace Forces and is designed to protect against air and space attacks,” the ministry said in a statement, without naming the system…
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American whistleblower Edward Snowden has received a Russian passport, the state-run TASS news agency reported Friday, citing Snowden’s lawyer. Snowden, who in 2013 exposed mass surveillance by his former employer the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), has lived in Russia since that year to avoid prosecution by U.S. authorities. President Vladimir Putin granted him citizenship…
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The Kremlin on Friday rejected U.S. President Joe Biden’s conditions that Russian troops fully withdraw from Ukraine before he speak with President Vladimir Putin. In the strongest suggestion so far that he would be prepared to sit down with Putin, Biden said late Thursday he would be willing to speak to the Russian leader for…
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Six letter bombs have been sent to high-profile government, military and diplomatic targets in Spain in the past week, prompting authorities to step up security and re-commit support for Ukraine in its nine-month war against invading Russian forces. Here’s what we know so far: Who received the letter bombs? Starting Nov. 24, police intercepted an…
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Ukraine will move to impose limitations on religious organizations in the country which have links to Russia, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address on Thursday. “The National Security and Defense Council has instructed the government to propose to [parliament] a bill on proscribing activities in Ukraine by religious organizations affiliated with centers of…
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Italy has placed a refinery run by Russian oil giant Lukoil under provisional state supervision to avoid its closure and guarantee energy supplies, a government source told AFP on Thursday. The ISAB refinery is one of the biggest in Europe and was in danger of having to cease production because of the European Union embargo…
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Russian manufacturing firms recorded their fastest rate of growth last month in almost six years due to new export orders and increased demand from domestic customers, according to a business survey published Thursday by S&P Global. Despite Western sanctions imposed on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, “firms expanded their input buying at the fastest…
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A Moscow court has sentenced ex-billionaire Ziyavudin Magomedov to 19 years in a maximum-security prison on charges of embezzling state funds and organizing a criminal group, Interfax reported Thursday. Ziyavudin Magamedov, 54, built his fortune during Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency as the founder and main owner of Summa, a Russian holding that unites companies in a…
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Ukraine on Thursday formally sacked and branded a traitor the Ukrainian engineer appointed by Moscow to head Europe’s largest nuclear facility, the Zaporizhzhia plant, which is under Russian occupation. Yuri Chernichuk, the facility’s chief engineer, said on Wednesday that he had agreed to take the post because it was “in my opinion the only correct…
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Jailed Belarusian opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova, who led historic anti-government demonstrations in the ex-Soviet country and was recently hospitalized, is “getting better,” her allies said Thursday. The 40-year-old was part of a trio of women — along with Veronika Tsepkalo and Svetlana Tikhanovskaya — who mobilized large crowds against strongman Alexander Lukashenko in 2020. She…
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