High-profile Kremlin loyalists voiced support for the military’s decision to withdraw from the strategic southern Ukrainian city of Kherson on Wednesday, the latest major reversal for Russia’s embattled offensive in Ukraine. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered to pull troops out of Kherson and set up defenses on the left bank of the Dnipro River after…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been shunned by the West over his offensive in Ukraine, will not travel to Indonesia for the G20 leaders’ summit next week, officials said Thursday. The Kremlin, which has been mired in a protracted conflict in Ukraine and threatened the West with nuclear weapons, will instead send Foreign Minister…
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Russia on Wednesday vowed to defend its “traditional” values against threats from the United States and so-called “gay propaganda” in a document signed by President Vladimir Putin. The presidential decree, setting out official policy and entering force immediately, stresses the importance of “traditional values as the basis of Russian society.” It warns that Moscow must…
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Updates with reaction and details. The Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday it was withdrawing its forces over the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region, abandoning the only Ukrainian regional capital to have been captured since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine earlier this year. The withdrawal announcement was made by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu…
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Updates with reaction and details. Kirill Stremousov, the vocal deputy head of the Moscow-installed administration in the occupied Kherson region of Ukraine was killed Wednesday in an apparent car accident, according to local officials. Stremousov, known for his strongly anti-Ukrainian rhetoric, died near the town of Henichesk, Russian pro-war blogger Semyon Pegov wrote on Telegram.…
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Viktor Cherkesov, a longtime associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin who fell foul of the Kremlin for publicly discussing a rift within Russia’s security elites, has died in St. Petersburg at age 72. Cherkesov’s death, which followed “a severe illness,” was announced late Tuesday by the Rosbalt news website. He is survived by his wife,…
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Russia has made little progress in absorbing four partially occupied areas of eastern and southern Ukraine that it annexed with great fanfare in September, analysts told The Moscow Times, as intensifying military activity and political challenges hinder integration. Aligning economies and political administrations has been stymied by local resistance, including assassination attempts on Russian-appointed officials. …
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Uzbek officials have been using meetings with the European Union to lobby for the lifting of sanctions on Russian-Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov and his sister Gulbakhor Ismailova, the Financial Times reported Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the talks. The Central Asian country has also signaled readiness to assist the tycoon in his legal action against the…
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The Kremlin said Wednesday that Moscow’s ties with Washington were likely to remain at rock bottom regardless of the results of the U.S. midterm elections, with relations at a historic low over the conflict in Ukraine. “These elections won’t have any significant impact,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies,…
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Russia secretly flew $141 million in cash and Western weapons seized in Ukraine to Iran this summer in exchange for 166 Iranian drones, Sky News reported Tuesday, citing an unnamed security source from an unidentified country. According to Sky News, two Russian military cargo planes landed at a Tehran airport early on Aug. 20 carrying…
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The only crematorium in central Russia’s breadbasket region has been forced to shut down due to EU sanctions levied over the invasion of Ukraine, local media reported Tuesday. The crematorium in the city of Voronezh south of Moscow cannot replace its broken Czech-made cremation oven due to EU restrictions on the export of high-tech goods…
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Russia is moving detained U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner to a penal colony, her lawyers said Wednesday, drawing a sharp rebuke from the White House. Griner, convicted for possession of a small quantity of cannabis oil, was transferred out of a detention center on Nov. 4, her legal team said. She “is now on her way…
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Theatergoers south of Moscow were held “hostage” and shot at by actors playing Ukrainian soldiers during an immersive play that glorifies Russia’s invasion of its neighbor, local media reported Tuesday. Opening scenes from the production titled “Polite People” showed actors dressed in Ukrainian military uniforms violently capturing audience members and shooting them with what appeared to…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday posthumously awarded the highest state decoration to pro-Kremlin archpriest Mikhail Vasilyev, who died in Ukraine over the weekend. The archpriest had said women should have more children to ease the pain of sending their sons to the military operation in Ukraine. He received the Hero of the Russian Federation medal on…
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The Russian mercenary organization Wagner Group hosted a series of pro-war lectures for schoolchildren in its newly opened headquarters in St. Petersburg, Telegram news channel SOTA reported on Tuesday. A SOTA video of the event shows a group of bored-looking school children listening to various speeches justifying Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including some delivered via…
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Dozens of recently mobilized Russian soldiers who surrendered to Ukrainian troops in eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk region have been decrying their conditions and lack of training according to unverified video footage circulating on social media. At least 21 soldiers — most of them hailing from Moscow and the surrounding Moscow region — were captured by Ukrainian…
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German police have confiscated 30 paintings owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov, the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported Monday. The collection, whose value is estimated at 5 million euros ($4.9 million), includes works by renowned artists including Marc Chagall. The works had been displayed on Usmanov’s $600 million superyacht, Dilbar, until 2021, when they were…
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Kremlin-installed authorities in Ukraine’s southern region of Kherson said Tuesday that power had been fully restored to its main city, after blaming Kyiv for attacks that disrupted water and electricity supplies. Kherson city was the first urban hub to be captured by Russia after Moscow announced its “special military operation” in February and it has suffered outages…
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Russia’s Defense Ministry supports reinstating Soviet-era basic military training in high schools, pro-Kremlin media reported Tuesday, citing correspondence between lawmakers and army officers. Russia retired the so-called “initial military training” program — which taught teens to respond to a nuclear or chemical attack, provide first aid and handle firearms — in 1993. Several attempts to revive…
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Thousands of people on Sunday flocked to Red Square for an interactive exhibit re-creating the Soviet Union’s October Revolution Parade of 1941. The parade held 81 years ago took place during the Battle of Moscow against Nazi Germany. Soldiers who marched in the parade went straight to the front lines afterward, and many would be…
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Russia and the United States are discussing resuming nuclear arms reduction negotiations in the coming weeks in the first face-to-face contact since Russian forces invaded Ukraine, the Kommersant business daily reported Tuesday, citing three unnamed sources. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) talks could take place in an unnamed Middle Eastern country, instead of their traditional…
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Armenia and Azerbaijan held peace talks on Monday, mediated by the United States, just hours after a fresh shootout along their troubled border in a conflict which has left hundreds dead in recent months. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken hosted the foreign ministers of the rival nations. “The United States is committed to the…
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North Korea said Tuesday that claims by the United States that Pyongyang is supplying artillery ammunition to Moscow for its war in Ukraine were groundless, state media KCNA reported. The rebuke comes amid heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula after a spate of North Korean weapons tests last week — including an intercontinental ballistic missile…
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Russian media personality Ksenia Sobchak has returned to Russia days after she fled the country amid police searches of her residence linked to an extortion case, state media reported on Monday. Sobchak, 41, entered Lithuania on an Israeli passport in late October after Russian police raided her villa outside Moscow in connection with an investigation into…
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Influential Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is linked to President Vladimir Putin and sanctioned by Washington and European countries, admitted on Monday to interfering in U.S. elections. “Gentlemen, we interfered, we are interfering and we will interfere,” Prigozhin, who has been accused of running a “troll factory” to influence the outcome of votes in several…
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Armenia and Azerbaijan on Monday traded accusations of provoking a shootout along their troubled border, just hours before the arch-foes were to hold U.S.-mediated peace talks. The incident came ahead of a meeting in Washington of Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov for a fresh round of peace talks hosted by…
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A Russian priest who encouraged women to have more babies so they would feel less distressed about sending their sons to fight in Ukraine has been killed on the battlefield, the Russian Orthodox Church announced Sunday. Archpriest Mikhail Vasilyev died “while carrying out pastoral duties in the area of the special military operation in Ukraine…
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An elite Russian naval infantry unit has blasted its superiors’ decision-making after suffering massive losses in what its members called a “baffling” assault on an eastern Ukrainian village, pro-war reporters said Sunday. Russian forces launched an offensive on the Ukrainian garrison in Pavlivka southwest of Donetsk on Nov. 2 to seize control of a key…
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Ukraine’s Russian-occupied city of Kherson was cut off from water and electricity supplies Sunday after an air strike and a key dam in the region was also damaged, local officials said. It is the first time that Kherson — which fell to Moscow’s forces within days of their February offensive — has seen such a…
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Ukraine’s Moscow-occupied southern city of Kherson was cut off from electricity and water supplies after a Kyiv strike on nearby power lines, Russian-installed authorities said Sunday. “In Kherson and a number of other areas in the region, there is temporarily no electricity or water supply,” the city’s Moscow-installed administration said on Telegram. It said it…
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Emergency services in Moscow-occupied Ukraine said Sunday the key Kakhovka dam in the Russian-controlled region of Kherson was “damaged” by a Ukrainian strike, Russian news agencies reported. “Today at 10:00 there was a hit of six HIMARS rockets. Air defense units shot down five missiles, one hit a lock of the Kakhovka dam, which was…
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Moscow’s occupying authorities in the southern Ukrainian city of Melitopol said Saturday they had brought back a statue of Lenin, seven years after it was taken down following Kyiv’s pro-EU revolution. The Moscow-installed head of the Zaporizhzhia region, Vladimir Rogov, posted a photograph of workers in the city reinstating the tribute to the Bolshevik leader.…
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Iran admitted for the first time on Saturday that it has sent drones to Russia, but insisted they were supplied to its ally before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “We supplied Russia with a limited number of drones months before the war in Ukraine,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said, quoted by the official news agency…
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A fire Saturday killed at least 15 people at a bar in the Russian city of Kostroma, Russian news agencies reported. The night-time fire at the popular bar could have been started after a drunk man fired a “flare gun” on the dance floor, the TASS news agency reported. State television showed images of the…
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Moscow’s crackdown on Memorial has only intensified since the rights group won the Nobel Peace Prize last month, but its executive director says members are pushing on despite the dangers. “Of course it is very difficult,” Elena Zhemkova told AFP in an interview, stressing though that there had never been any question about whether or…
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Lobsters, crabs, crawfish… what could be further from Russian cuisine? Actually, that’s not right, if only because all kinds of European seafood have been part of Russian culinary tradition for more than 250 years. In 1766 Catherine gathered together the most prominent scientists of the time and gave them a difficult task. She demanded that…
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ST. PETERSBURG – The until-recently highly secretive Wagner mercenary organization continued to grow its public profile on Friday as it opened a new headquarters and technology center in Russia’s second city. The glass-fronted multistory building in St. Petersburg will not only function as administrative hub for the military group, whose public profile has grown as…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that the remaining civilian population should be evacuated from the city of Kherson in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine as all indicators suggested the battle for the strategically key city on the Dnipro River was imminent. “Now, of course, those who live in Kherson must be removed from the zone…
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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Friday that he had urged Chinese President Xi Jinping to use Beijing’s “influence” on Moscow to stop the war in Ukraine. “I told President [Xi] that it is important for China to use its influence on Russia,” Scholz said. “Russia must immediately stop the attacks under which the civilian…
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Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev marked Russian Unity Day on Friday with a blistering Telegram post in which he excoriated the West, Ukraine, and some of Russia’s erstwhile allies for a litany of percieved transgressions and betrayals. In a post entitled “Why our cause is just,” Medvedev used the occasion of Russian Unity Day –…
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Draft-age men who left Russia in fear of being sent to fight in Ukraine are returning home after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced an end to the country’s chaotic mobilization that swept hundreds of thousands into the Armed Forces. After the initial rush to get out of the country spurred by rumors of border closures,…
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of “energy terrorism” on Thursday night, after renewed strikes on the country’s energy infrastructure left some 4.5 million people without power. “Tonight, about 4.5 million consumers have been temporarily disconnected from energy consumption,” Zelensky said in his daily evening address. “The very fact that Russia is resorting to energy…
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Negotiations underway to unblock exports of fertilizer from Russia have made “important steps forward,” one of the main United Nations negotiators said on Thursday, while acknowledging that there was still a way to go. Russian grain and fertilizer exports continue to face issues over sanctions imposed after the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, despite two agreements…
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Russian tech group Yandex announced on Thursday that its revenues continued to climb during the third quarter, despite Russia being under Western sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine. The company’s revenues rose 46% compared to the third quarter of last year, reaching 113.2 billion rubles ($2.1 billion). Yandex – often dubbed “Russia’s Google” – employs around…
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Russia summoned the UK ambassador to Moscow to the Foreign Ministry on Thursday and warned London of “dangerous consequences” after accusing it of helping Kyiv carry out an attack on Moscow’s Black Sea fleet in Crimea last week. “Such confrontational actions of the English carry a threat of escalation of the situation and could lead…
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In the remote waters of the Arctic Ocean above Russia’s Far East mainland lies Wrangel Island — a rugged, mountainous stretch of land that remains barely touched by human life. The 91st-largest island in the world, Wrangel Island covers an area roughly the size of Crete and is under UNESCO protection. As the island is…
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The Russian-installed head of eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin, announced the completion of the latest in a series of prisoner swaps between Moscow and Kyiv on Thursday. According to Pushilin, 107 captured troops on both sides were swapped in what was the second prisoner exchange between the warring militaries in just over a week. …
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The Russian flag hanging in front of the regional administration in Ukraine’s occupied Kherson region has been taken down, pro-Russian Telegram channels said Thursday. “I drove up to the building of the former government of the Kherson region; I confirm that there is no [Russian] flag over it,” pro-Kremlin war correspondent Alexander Kots said on…
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Grain ships left Ukraine’s ports on Thursday, a day after Russia rejoined an international agreement to guarantee their safe passage through the Black Sea. But Russia said it had yet to decide whether to extend the grain deal beyond Nov. 19 — the renewal date set in the agreement. “Before making a decision on an…
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Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday called on Russia to reinstate the death penalty for those suspected of wartime sabotage. “We can overcome the moratorium on the death penalty, if necessary, within the framework of the current Constitution,” Medvedev wrote on his Telegram messaging app channel. “It’s a matter of choosing the means to…
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The Russian authorities in annexed Crimea said Thursday they are considering nationalizing Ukrainian-owned property on the peninsula, including an $800,000 apartment owned by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. A commission is currently compiling a list of properties owned by “unfriendly” foreign individuals and states that could be subject to nationalization, Vladimir Konstantinov, the head of Crimea’s…
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Russia on Wednesday rejoined a deal to allow Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea but Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Moscow could pull out of the agreement again. The revival of an agreement aimed at easing fears of global food insecurity came just as Washington warned it was “increasingly concerned” that Moscow could use…
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Russia said Wednesday that the world’s “top priority” should be to avoid a clash of nuclear powers, stressing it could lead to “catastrophic consequences.” “We are firmly convinced that in the current difficult and turbulent situation — a consequence of irresponsible and shameless actions aimed at undermining our national security — the top priority is…
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The Dutch firm that owns Russian telecoms operator Vimpelcom will sell its Russian operations, the company announced Wednesday, reportedly due to the growing complications of Western sanctions. Vimpelcom, which operates popular Russian phone and internet provider Beeline, has been owned by Netherlands-based multinational Veon, formerly Vimpelcom Ltd., since 2009. Veon is now “conducting a competitive…
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More than 100 mobilized Russian men have gone on strike at their training center in central Russia to protest their lack of payment. The men, who hail from the republic of Chuvashia, said they still haven’t received the promised sum of 195,000 rubles ($3,170) and refuse to fight in Ukraine until they are paid. “They…
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Moscow will “in the near future” summon the British ambassador to hand over “evidence” of its claim that the U.K. helped orchestrate an attack on the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday. Russia has claimed U.K. “specialists” helped Kyiv launch a drone attack on the fleet in Moscow-annexed Crimea at…
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Russian military officials recently met to talk about the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, The New York Times reported Tuesday, citing U.S. intelligence. Washington learned last month of the conversations, which did not include Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to the newspaper. U.S. officials did not disclose the possible scenarios in which…
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Poland has started construction of a barrier along its border with Russia amid Warsaw’s concerns that Moscow could orchestrate a migrant crisis on the European Union’s frontiers, Russian state media reported Wednesday. A senior official in Poland’s ruling party disclosed plans last week to erect a barrier on the border with Russia’s Kaliningrad region after…
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Nikita moved to his family’s summer cottage outside the Russian capital to lie low after President Vladimir Putin announced a “partial” mobilization for the war in Ukraine. Although Putin said earlier this week that mobilization was over, Nikita told The Moscow Times that he has no plans yet to return to his normal life in…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered to allow visa-free travel from countries regardless of their visa policies toward Russian citizens. A Kremlin decree dated Oct. 30 instructs Putin’s cabinet to facilitate visa-free tourism, business, educational, sports and cultural travel even if these countries require visas for Russians to visit. Ukraine, for example, introduced visa requirements…
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