For Russians who have been fighting on Ukraine’s side as part of the “Freedom of Russia” legion since President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine, secrecy is of the utmost importance. The exact number of their personnel is strictly confidential, their positions are never disclosed and their statements are carefully worded. Their spokesperson, who uses…
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While Russian state propaganda has for weeks been portraying Europeans freezing in their own homes as a result of the EU’s collective decision to boycott Russian energy due to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, independent Russian news website Verstka reported the widespread challenge faced by many Russian households to keep warm on Tuesday. More than 10 million Russians —…
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Russian reservists called up to fight in Ukraine as part of Russia’s recent mobilization drive will be eligible for free sperm-freezing procedures, state-run media reported on Wednesday, citing a lawyers’ association that represents military families hoping to secure state funding for the procedure. Igor Trunov, who heads the Russian Union of Lawyers, told the TASS news…
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A Moscow court sentenced former Russian senator Rauf Arashukov and his father Raul Arashukov to life in prison for ordering the contract killing of two men in the North Caucasus republic of Karachayevo-Cherkessia over a decade ago, court authorities said Tuesday. The verdict came nearly four years after the politician’s dramatic arrest in the Russian…
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Russia issued a decree Tuesday to ban oil sales to countries and companies that comply with a price cap agreed by Western countries in response to Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine. “The supply of Russian oil and oil products to foreign legal entities and individuals is prohibited if the contracts for these supplies directly or indirectly”…
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Prominent opposition politician Ilya Yashin has been transferred to a detention facility some 1,000 kilometers from Moscow even though his sentence must still be approved by an upper court, his lawyer said Tuesday. A Moscow court sentenced Yashin, 39, to eight-and-a-half years in jail earlier in December after he was charged with spreading “false” information…
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Indian police are investigating the sudden deaths of a wealthy Russian politician who reportedly criticized the war in Ukraine and his traveling companion at a luxury hotel, authorities said on Tuesday. The body of Pavel Antov, 65, was found on Saturday in a pool of blood outside his lodgings in eastern Odisha state, where he was on…
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned the United States on Tuesday against ordering a “decapitation strike” on President Vladimir Putin. Lavrov’s comments refer to an anonymous U.S. military official telling Newsweek back in September that a special operation “to kill Putin in the heart of the Kremlin” had been “front and center” among the options…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin presented symbolic rings to the leaders of the various former Soviet republics that now make up the Moscow-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) at an informal summit in St. Petersburg on Monday evening. The summit was held against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has caused a crisis in…
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The prime minister of Armenia on Tuesday questioned the role of Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh as he discussed a blockade of the breakaway region with President Vladimir Putin. Since mid-December Azerbaijani activists have been blocking the Lachin corridor, the only road between Armenia and Karabakh, to protest what they claim is illegal mining. As a result…
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Boris started taking antidepressants for the first time in his life at the end of February, shortly after Russian tanks rolled across the border into Ukraine. The 33-year-old head engineer at a Moscow construction company had overcome a major mental health crisis during the coronavirus pandemic without seeing a doctor or taking any pills —…
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The Russian government has granted its media regulator the authority to block websites containing “LGBT propaganda” without a court order, according to a decree published on Monday. “Information propagating non-traditional sexual relations and (or) preferences” now serves as grounds for blacklisting any website in Russia, alongside those containing child pornography, information about suicide methods, and…
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The number of foreigners visiting Russia as part of an organized tour plummeted by more than 90% during 2022 as the country’s international isolation over its invasion of Ukraine kept most travelers away, the Kommersant business daily reported on Tuesday. Official figures place the year-on-year drop in Russia’s inbound tourist numbers as a whole at…
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In 2022, Russian filmmkers were virtually shut out from Western markets. They were not invited to the world’s main film festivals and their films were boycotted. The alternative? Go East. The logical first step was to try to forge closer ties with India, which has the largest film industry in the world and a long…
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Russia’s Interior Ministry placed Christo Grozev, the lead Russia journalist with the open-source investigative journalism group Bellingcat, on its wanted list on Monday. In keeping with previous wanted lists, the ministry did not specify which criminal offense Grozev was suspected of. The Interior Ministry only provided the Bulgarian national’s birthplace, date of birth, gender, and…
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Russia’s FSB domestic security agency announced on Monday that it had killed a group of saboteurs from Ukraine attempting to cross into a Russian border region. “As a result of a clash on December 25, 2022, four saboteurs, who attempted to enter the territory of the Bryansk region from Ukraine, were killed,” the FSB said…
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Ukraine called for Russia to be removed as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council on Monday. “Ukraine calls on the member states of the UN … to deprive the Russian Federation of its status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and to exclude it from the UN as a…
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Russian air defense troops downed a Ukrainian drone as it approached an air base in southern Russia and three people died after being struck by debris, Russian news agencies said Monday. It was the second attack on the Engels base this month. Engels, in the southern Saratov region, lies over 600 kilometers from Ukraine. “On…
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Pope Francis on Sunday appealed for an end to the “senseless” war in Ukraine, in his traditional Christmas message from St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. The 86-year-old also warned the 10-month-old conflict was aggravating food shortages around the world, urging an end to the use of “food as a weapon”. The head of the…
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President Vladimir Putin has blasted the West for trying to “tear Russia apart” and said in a nationally broadcast interview on Sunday that his offensive in Ukraine aimed to “unite the Russian people.” Meanwhile in Kyiv, a day after deadly shelling in southern Ukraine, residents held Christmas services on Sunday, defying Russian spiritual leaders who…
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday blasted Russian “terror” after shelling on Christmas Eve left at least seven dead and 58 injured in Kherson city, which Kyiv’s forces recaptured in November. On the day marking 10 months since the start of the war in Ukraine, shells rained around a busy market in the southern port…
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Members of the anti-Kremlin feminist activist group Pussy Riot released their latest anti-war music video with footage of the most harrowing scenes from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as it crossed the 10-month mark on Saturday. “We want to shout about this war as loudly as possible. Don’t turn your back on the war. We must…
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A fire erupted overnight in a private illegal nursing home in the Siberian city of Kemerovo, killing 22 people, Russia’s investigative committee said Saturday. In a video released by the emergency services, a long row of emergency vehicles lined up outside the burning building, as firefighters tackled flames which sent plumes of smoke into the…
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The United States on Friday derisively called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to acknowledge reality and pull troops from Ukraine after he finally called the conflict a “war.” Since Putin ordered the invasion in February, Russia has officially spoken of a “special military operation” and imposed a law that criminalizes what authorities call misleading terminology.…
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Ukraine estimates its grain harvest fell by around 40% year on year due to the Russian invasion, a representative for the country’s industry told AFP Friday. “We expect a grain harvest of 65-66 million tons” by the end of the year, the head of the Ukrainian Grain Association Sergiy Ivashchenko said, following a record harvest…
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Zhzhyonka (жжёнка) may look like a series of typos and be hard for non-Russian speakers to pronounce. But zhzhyonka is a legend of pre-Revolutionary Russian life. It isn’t just a drink — it’s a relic of a long-lost culture and its customs. So what is this unpronounceable drink? The two letters ж at the beginning…
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Ukraine’s cultural heritage has been systematically targeted throughout Russia’s 10-month invasion. At least 227 Ukrainian cultural sites have been verified to be damaged by UNESCO. The list includes 101 religious sites, 79 buildings of historical or artistic interest, 17 museums and 19 monuments. Here’s a look at some of Ukraine’s cultural sites that have been…
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Без памяти: madly Memory is a funny thing. What gets lodged in there forever and what gets ejected — or distorted — seems largely outside the control of the owner of the memory. And then what has been forgotten can sometimes reappear instantly and in full when you hear a sound or catch a scent…
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A Russian lawmaker has called for legal action against President Vladimir Putin for calling the conflict in Ukraine a “war” instead of using an official term coined by Moscow. During a press conference on Thursday, Putin said Russia wants to “end this war” as soon as possible, referring to the fighting in Ukraine. Officials in Moscow typically…
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Belarus’ opposition criticized Friday a lengthy prison sentence handed to a man accused of sabotaging railway equipment in the ex-Soviet country that Russia used as a launchpad for its Ukraine offensive. “The resistance against the war continues in Belarus despite the risk of severe punishments. The criminal case against ‘railway partisan’ Vital Melnik ended yesterday…
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The head of Russia’s republic of Tatarstan will lose the title of “president,” the last remaining symbol of Russian federalism following the Kremlin’s decades-long centralization of power. Tatarstan’s president will instead hold the title “Rais,” an Arabic term meaning “leader,” according to the publication. Lawmakers in the majority Muslim region introduced a new bill to…
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A senior Russian official warned Friday that Moscow would ban oil sales to countries that join a Western price cap on the country’s crude. President Vladimir Putin said he plans to lay out next week the Kremlin’s response to the $60 per barrel price cap imposed this month by the European Union, G7 countries and…
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A Russian court on Thursday jailed a man for three years over spreading “false information” about Russia’s offensive in Ukraine on a pirate radio station, as Moscow steps up its crackdown on critics. The court found Vladimir Rumyantsev, a 61-year-old worker in Vologda city in northwest Russia, guilty of broadcasting “false information” that was “full of hatred”…
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North Korea has delivered arms to Russia’s private military group Wagner, the White House said Thursday, calling the mercenary enterprise a “rival” for power to the defense and other ministries in the Kremlin. The United States will boost sanctions against Wagner following North Korea’s sale of infantry rockets and missiles to the group last month,…
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In a rare show of defiance toward the federal government in Moscow, regional politicians in Tatarstan on Thursday rejected a set of amendments to its constitution that would have, among other measures, demoted the republic’s leader from “president” to “head” as the Kremlin continues its attempt to rein in Russia’s regions. While at one…
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Russian tech giant Yandex has registered holding companies in Armenia and the U.S. in order to bypass international sanctions on Russia over the invasion of Ukraine, Russian-language TV channel RTVI reported on Thursday. Senior Yandex managers Maxim Zagrebin and Dmitry Stepanov registered Beyond ML, a company that itself owns a dozen technology startups, in Armenia…
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Russia’s army chief said on Thursday that his troops in Ukraine were “focused on completing the liberation” of Donetsk, an eastern Ukrainian region Moscow claims to have annexed. “The situation on the frontline has stabilized and the main efforts of our troops are now focused on completing the liberation of the territory of the Donetsk People’s…
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Two documentaries about prominent Russian opposition figures and a film on life in the Russian Arctic are among the titles shortlisted for the 95th Oscars released by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Wednesday. Daniel Roher’s “Navalny,” which explores the events following the Kremlin critic’s nerve-agent poisoning in August 2020, was shortlisted…
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Georgia’s ailing ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili on Thursday looked frail as he appeared by video link at a court that will consider deferring his sentence of abuse of office over poor health. Gaunt, hollow-cheeked, and his hands trembling, Saakashvili was connected from the hospital by video link. The footage was aired live from court by the…
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Armenian Prime Minister Nikolai Pashinyan accused Russian peacekeepers Thursday of failing in its mission to unblock a key road that links Armenia to the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Pashinyan last week accused Armenia’s neighboring arch-nemesis Azerbaijan of blocking the Lachin corridor, Yerevan’s sole road link to the Armenian-populated separatist enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, and cutting off residents…
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Russian officials and other prominent figures have dismissed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s first wartime trip to the United States as an empty gesture that would not advance Russian-Ukrainian peace talks. More hawkish voices, meanwhile, called for Ukraine to be “destroyed” altogether following Zelensky’s meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden and widely praised address to Congress.…
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Russia’s former space chief Dmitry Rogozin said early that Thursday he and several others were wounded in shelling in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk. Rogozin, a nationalist politician and avid backer of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, said “someone leaked information” about his “working meeting in a small group” at a local hotel on Wednesday evening.…
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday directly appealed for long-term U.S. support on his first foreign trip since Russia’s invasion, saying aid was not “charity” and had helped keep his country “alive and kicking.” Three hundred days after Russian leader Vladimir Putin attacked Ukraine with hopes of swift conquest, Zelensky enjoyed a hero’s welcome on a…
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Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Kremlin-linked businessman and Wagner Group founder, has voiced his support for commuting the sentences of female prisoners in Russia who agree to fight in Ukraine, according to a Wednesday press release. Women could serve “not only as nurses and signallers but also in sabotage groups and sniper pairs,” Prigozhin said, adding that…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday inaugurated the Kovykta natural gas field in eastern Siberia, which will allow Russia to increase its gas exports to China amid soaring tensions between Moscow and the West. “We are launching the unique Kovykta gas field, the largest in eastern Siberia. Its recoverable reserves are 1.8 trillion cubic meters…
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Adds further comments by Putin and Shoigu Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia would continue developing its military potential and the combat readiness of its nuclear forces as Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine continued to face severe challenges. “The armed forces and combat capabilities of our armed forces are increasing constantly and every…
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A series of anonymously produced Russian military recruitment ads has stirred heated debate among pro-war bloggers over what truly motivates men to fight Ukraine. The sleek productions, which first appeared online last week, portray poverty-stricken Russians whose fortunes turn for the better after they join the Russian Armed Forces. Some of the widely shared videos…
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Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Wednesday in an unannounced visit to Beijing, where he passed on President Vladimir Putin’s message hailing “unprecedented” cooperation. “The talks were quite useful,” Medvedev, who is now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said in a video posted on his Telegram messaging app channel.…
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President Vladimir Putin established a task force Tuesday to coordinate work between the government and pro-war military bloggers on Russia’s chaotic mobilization campaign. The move fueled questions over possible plans to launch a second round of mobilization, despite Putin declaring its end in late October, as Moscow faces mounting losses in Ukraine. The Kremlin has denied that…
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Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet U.S. leader Joe Biden and address Congress in Washington on Wednesday, during a visit the White House said will send Russia a strong message of Western unity. The secretly arranged trip comes on the same day Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to meet his top military officials to assess the dire…
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The Russian leadership has conflicting views on whether to launch a winter offensive in Ukraine, which has warned of a fresh Russian attempt to seize Kyiv, a senior U.S. official said Tuesday. Russian President Vladimir Putin has publicly called for his top military brass to present him with “short- and medium-term” plans on how to…
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Russia’s Justice Ministry has filed for a court order to shut down one of the country’s most prominent and respected human rights organizations, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported on Tuesday. In its legal filing, the Justice Ministry claimed that the Moscow Helsinki Group had violated unspecified “legal requirements” while carrying out its activities, a…
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Three people died on Tuesday when a key gas pipeline in the Republic of Chuvashia in western Russia caught fire, the regional governor told Russian television. Images circulating on social media showed a large ball of fire billowing over one and two-story buildings in a snow-blanketed village, with residents moving closer to inspect the blaze.…
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Around 100,000 IT specialists have left Russia this year, an official said Tuesday, following the start of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine on Feb. 24. Young Russians fled the country in droves, especially those working in the IT sector and able to work remotely, sparking fears of a brain drain. Some months later, the announcement of the…
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A Russian court ordered the seizure of a luxury hotel complex owned by Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska after he criticized President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine earlier this year, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday. The court order to seize the $1bn Imeretinskiy hotel and marina complex in Sochi came in September after the Kremlin…
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The head of Russian space agency Roscosmos on Tuesday praised Russia-U.S. cooperation at the International Space Station following a major coolant leak from a Soyuz crew capsule. “Say hello to the entire American team. They proved themselves to be very worthy in this situation and lent us a helping hand,” Borisov said, speaking to the…
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A senior Russian diplomat has accused the United States of holding more than 60 Russian citizens as “hostages,” the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported Tuesday. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin’s comments come nearly two weeks after Russia freed U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner in exchange for Viktor Bout, a notorious arms dealer imprisoned in…
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Russia has placed prominent art gallerist and former Kremlin adviser-turned-critic Marat Gelman on its wanted list. An Interior Ministry card listing Gelman — who moved to Montenegro in 2014 amid a growing crackdown on artistic freedoms — as a wanted person mentions his Israeli citizenship, the RBC news website reported. It does not specify the crime…
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President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s counterintelligence services on Monday to step up their hunt for “traitors, spies and saboteurs” and prevent threats from abroad. Speaking on Security Agency Worker’s Day, a professional holiday in Russia, Putin laid out “high demands” on Russia’s security agencies to respond to “new threats and challenges.” “You must put a firm…
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A Russian court has sentenced four members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses to prison terms ranging up to seven years, the religious organization said Monday. The men in the Far East city of Birobidzhan were charged with organizing and financing “extremist” activities by holding joint worship services. They were detained as part of a special operation involving…
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