A secret Russian military unit staffed by dozens of mostly young engineers and IT professionals is behind the selection of targets for deadly missile strikes in Ukraine, according to an independent investigation published Tuesday. According to the investigative group Bellingcat, independent Russian news website The Insider and German weekly Der Spiegel, at least 33 military…
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Twenty years since Chechen separatists seized a crowded theatre in Moscow, spurring a hostage standoff that ended with more than one hundred dead, the survivors remain haunted by their memories and plagued by unanswered questions. On Oct. 23, 2002 — as the Second Chechen War was raging in southern Russia — armed militants burst into…
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Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov called Tuesday for the destruction of Ukrainian cities in response to increasing counterattacks on border areas and Ukrainian regions that Putin claimed in a disputed annexation. “We’ve already declared martial law… but they’re not shy, they shoot,” Kadyrov, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said in an audio message posted…
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Yum Brands Inc announced Monday it has sold its KFC restaurants and franchise in Russia to a local buyer as one of the world’s largest restaurant companies plans to fully exit the market over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. “Following the completion of the transaction, Yum! Brands will have ceased its corporate presence in Russia,” the…
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Iran’s foreign minister said Monday that Tehran would not remain “indifferent” if it becomes evident Russia is using Iranian-made drones in Ukraine. His remarks came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia ordered around 2,000 drones from Iran, the same kind that Kyiv says Moscow has been using in its recent attacks against Ukraine. “During…
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The United States has no indication that Russia has decided to use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, including a so-called “dirty bomb,” a senior military official said Monday. Moscow has repeatedly warned in recent days that Ukraine could employ a dirty bomb — which spreads nuclear, chemical or biological material via conventional explosives…
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Moscow has claimed that Ukraine is building a “dirty bomb” with the aim of deploying it against Russian troops. But what is a dirty bomb, and what can it achieve? At its most basic, a dirty bomb is a conventional bomb laced with radioactive, biological or chemical materials which get disseminated in an explosion. Using…
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As Russian troops withdraw from territories they previously occupied in Ukraine, pro-Kyiv administrators are finding themselves facing the task of demining thousands of hectares of land. Partnering with IT companies, European countries, and the U.S., Ukraine has recently started work demining the Kharkiv region, even launching an app to facilitate public participation in the efforts,…
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Moscow said Monday that Ukraine had nearly completed developing a “dirty bomb,” after Russia’s defense minister in calls with NATO counterparts claimed Kyiv’s forces were planning to deploy the weapon. “According to the information we have, two organizations in Ukraine have specific instructions to create a so-called ‘dirty bomb.’ This work is in its final…
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The Moscow-installed authorities in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region formed a territorial defense unit on Monday and have urged men across the region to join up to defend the city of Kherson. “For all men who wish to stay in Kherson, despite the increased security threat due to the actions of Ukrainian nationalists, an opportunity has…
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A Russian IT professional and anti-war activist has come up with an unusual way to avoid being drafted by the military, setting up camp in a remote forest in southern Russia where he keeps the public updated about his life in the wilderness, the independent news website Mediazona reported Saturday. Adam Kalinin, whose name was…
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A host at Russia’s state-funded broadcaster RT was suspended Sunday after he made calls on the air to “drown or burn” Ukrainian children who viewed Soviet Russia as an occupier. Anton Krasovsky’s remarks on his RT show broadcast Thursday sparked widespread outrage over the weekend. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba accused the Kremlin-controlled channel of…
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The United States, Britain and France on Sunday jointly dismissed Russian claims that Ukraine is preparing to use a dirty bomb and warned Moscow against using any pretext for escalating the conflict. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made the allegation about a possible dirty bomb attack in a round of telephone conversations with Western defense…
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Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu on Sunday held rare calls with NATO counterparts in which they discussed Ukraine, the Russian defence ministry said. “The situation in Ukraine, which has a steady tendency towards further, uncontrolled escalation, was discussed,” by Shoigu and French Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu, the ministry said. Later on Sunday, the ministry said…
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Ukraine on Sunday denied it was planning to use a “dirty bomb” against Russian forces, as Moscow’s defence minister suggested during telephone calls with NATO counterparts. “Russian lies about Ukraine allegedly planning to use a ‘dirty bomb’ are as absurd as they are dangerous”, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on social media. “Firstly, Ukraine is…
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Anastasia and Oleg decided to get married the moment Oleg received his draft papers in Russia’s “partial” mobilization announced last month by President Vladimir Putin. “We had begun making wedding plans before,” said Anastasia, who declined to provide her surname. “But when we heard the news about mobilization we immediately decided to get married.” For…
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Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu held phone calls Sunday with his French and Turkish counterparts, during which they discussed Ukraine, the Russian defence ministry said. “The situation in Ukraine, which has a steady tendency towards further, uncontrolled escalation, was discussed,” by Shoigu and France’s Sebastien Lecornu, the ministry said. Later on Sunday, the ministry said…
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Two pilots were killed after a Russian jet conducting a test flight crashed Sunday into a two-storey building in the city of Irkutsk in southern Siberia, the regional governor said. The incident comes days after a military jet crashed into a block of flats in the Russian town of Yeysk, killing more than a dozen…
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One of the rites of culinary passage for foreigners in Russia is the first time they are introduced to a “chocolate potato,” one of the iconic dishes of Soviet cuisine. It was served in restaurants and student cafeterias, and often made at home. Made of crushed dry cookies or breadcrumbs mixed with butter, condensed milk…
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Pro-Russian authorities in the Ukrainian region of Kherson, which Russia claims to have annexed, urged those remaining in the north of the province to leave “immediately” in the face of Kyiv’s advancing counteroffensive on Saturday. The recommendation to evacuate came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia launched 36 rockets overnight in a “massive attack”…
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Fresh Russian missile strikes on Saturday targeted energy infrastructure in Ukraine’s west, the country’s energy operator Ukrenergo said, with officials in several regions reporting outages. The Russian military “carried out another missile attack on energy facilities of the main networks of Ukraine’s western regions. The scale of the damage is comparable or may exceed the…
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Вышла ошибочка: whoops I’m not sure there’s an art to making mistakes, but there is an art to deciding which verb or phrase you want to use in Russian to describe your particular screw-up. Was it a misunderstanding? A lapse of judgment? Did you get something wrong? Was it an honest mistake or did you…
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Russian forces have been moving thousands of civilians in the occupied southern Ukrainian region of Kherson over the Dnipro River and deeper into Russian-occupied territory this week. The evacuations, announced by the region’s Kremlin-installed governor Vladimir Saldo, followed warnings from Moscow that Kyiv’s southern counteroffensive meant the regional capital, Kherson, could be recaptured. But Kyiv…
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Russia’s Investigative Committee said Friday that two journalists were among four people killed by a Ukrainian night-time strike on a bridge in Russian-occupied Kherson. “There is information about two killed journalists,” the committee, which probes major crimes, said. It said 13 people were wounded in the strike. “Children and representatives of the media” are among…
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The exhibition was dedicated to “soldiers and officers of the Red Army who liberated Ukraine in 1943-1944, and modern heroes participating in the special military operation,” the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported. Sergei Kiselev / Moskva News Agency
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The Kremlin said Friday that the “truth” behind last month’s explosions on the Nord Stream gas pipelines would “surprise” many Europeans if it was to be made public. Moscow has for weeks alluded that its intelligence has a different version of what caused the September explosions, while some Western countries have called it sabotage and…
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Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu spoke by phone to U.S. counterpart Lloyd Austin about topics including the war in Ukraine, Moscow’s Defense Ministry said on its official Telegram channel Friday. “Current international security matters were discussed, including the situation in Ukraine,” the ministry said, without providing further details. The phone call marks the first confirmed…
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Russian military authorities will end their screenings of men looking to cross into Georgia or its breakaway region of South Ossetia, Interfax reported Friday, citing a South Ossetian official. Russian officials had set up a screening checkpoint for draft-eligible men at the Georgian border on Sept. 27 as tens of thousands fled to the South Caucasus country…
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The Kremlin on Friday condemned the arrests of two Russians — including the son of a senior official — on a U.S. request in Europe for alleged sanctions evasion and illegal sale of U.S. technology to Russian arms companies. “We are categorically against this and we condemn the practice of these kinds of arrests of…
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A Russian start-up is offering its clients the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to arrange their own fake funeral and go through the experience of being buried alive for 3.5 million rubles ($57,119). “There is a possibility that after this procedure [the client] will discover new talents, psychic abilities or see success in business,” the start-up’s founder Yekaterina…
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President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday accused Russia of planting mines at a hydroelectric dam in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine, which is under the control of Moscow’s forces. “According to our information, the aggregate and dam of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant were mined by Russian terrorists,” Zelensky said in his daily address published on…
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President Vladimir Putin on Thursday visited a training center for mobilized Russians for the first time since announcing a partial military call-up on Sept. 21. State television showed Putin visiting a shooting center in the Ryazan region, southeast of Moscow, dressed in black, shooting a newly developed sniper rifle and hugging military men. Wearing ear…
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Jailed Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny said Thursday he was slapped with new terrorism and extremism charges that he says could put him behind bars for up to 30 years. “I received an official notification that a new criminal case has been initiated against me” for propagating extremism, calling for terrorism, financing extremist activity and…
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Russia reacted to the resignation of British Prime Minister Liz Truss on Thursday by calling the short-serving British premier a “disgrace.” “Britain has never known such a disgrace of a prime minister,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel. “She will be remembered for her catastrophic illiteracy,” Zakharova added. Truss was…
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Martial law entered into force in the four Ukrainian regions that Russia recently claimed to have annexed early Thursday — just hours after President Vladimir Putin had declared the measure the previous day. While making his announcement, the Russian leader signed a separate decree introducing varying “response levels” across the country’s regions as well as…
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A Russian delegation in Syria on Thursday took 38 children from families of suspected Islamic State (IS) group members for repatriation, a Kurdish official and AFP correspondents said. Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria handed over the children, “most of whom are orphans,” to the Russian delegation, Kurdish foreign affairs official Khaled Ibrahim told a press…
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The EU imposed sanctions Thursday against three Iranian generals and an arms firm accused of supplying Iranian drones to Russia that have been used to bomb Ukraine. The names of Iranian drone maker Shahed Aviation Industries and three top Iranian military officials were published in the EU official journal, adding them to the sanctions blacklist.…
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Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said Thursday that his three underage sons have been fighting with the Russian military on the frontlines of the war in Ukraine. “Akhmat, Eli and Adam visited the contact line, where fierce battles with Ukrainian nationalists are currently taking place,” Kadyrov, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, wrote on his…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday signed a decree abolishing Rostourism, Russia’s federal tourism agency, and handing its remit to the Economic Development Ministry. The Economic Ministry said in a statement that the decision to dissolve Rostourism and to give its responsibilities to the ministry would help Russia meet its tourism objectives more effectively. Rostourism…
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Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Kremlin-linked magnate who leads the notorious Wagner mercenary group, said Wednesday that the private military contractor was “forming a people’s militia” in Russia’s Belgorod region on the Ukrainian border. According to Prigozhin, “several сompanies” were producing “required items for fortifications,” while Wagner instructors were training “citizens who will defend the region’s borders.”…
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The Moscow-installed authorities of the port city of Mariupol, which fell to Russian forces after a devastating siege earlier in the year, took down a monument to Ukrainian victims of Stalin’s famine on Wednesday. Kyiv has been calling the 1930s man-made hunger under Josef Stalin a “genocide,” while Moscow has been downplaying it as an…
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Italy’s ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi was under fresh scrutiny Wednesday over his friendship with Vladimir Putin after being recorded describing a birthday present of vodka from the Russian leader and expressing concerns about arming Ukraine. His aides insisted he had been misrepresented, but the row risks embarrassing Berlusconi’s coalition allies, led by far-right leader Giorgia Meloni,…
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State-run Russian television aired footage on Wednesday of long lines of people and their luggage on the banks of the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region after Moscow announced it was evacuating tens of thousands of local residents. “People are getting on the ferry and going to the temporary accommodation centers,” one apparent volunteer…
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A judge in Norway on Tuesday ordered the son of one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies to be placed in custody for two weeks following a request from the country’s police. “The man has Russian and British citizenship and is charged with violating the Sanction Act §4 for flying a drone in Norwegian territory at…
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For the third time in a week, police in northern Norway have detained Russian citizens for taking photos in areas where photography is banned. While the police declined to give any further information, they did confirm that the arrests took place “at a location in Nordland,” a county in northern Norway that is home to…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday declared martial law in four Ukrainian regions that Moscow claims to have annexed as the Russian military continues to be plagued by setbacks in its eight-month offensive. “I signed a decree to introduce martial law in these four subjects of the Russian Federation,” Putin said during a televised meeting of…
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Wednesday that he had agreed with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to create a “gas hub” in Turkey, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported. During an address to the Turkish parliament, Erdogan cited Putin as saying Europe could obtain its gas supply from the hub in Turkey…
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Pro-Kremlin officials were pulling out of the key southern Ukraine city of Kherson on Wednesday, as Kyiv’s forces advanced on territory in Russian hands since the war’s earliest days. Kherson was the first major city to fall to Moscow’s troops after the February invasion and retaking it would be a major prize in Ukraine’s ongoing…
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Ukraine has removed its ambassador to Kazakhstan in Central Asia, according to a decree published on the presidential website, after remarks he made about Russia spurred condemnation from Moscow. Russia’s Foreign Ministry had urged Kazakhstan to expel Petro Vrublevsky after he gave an interview in which he made comments about “killing” Russians. He later apologized…
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A Russian analyst who contributed explosive details to the so-called “Steele dossier” that alleged close ties between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia has been acquitted on charges of lying to the FBI about the sources of his intelligence, Reuters reported. Igor Danchenko, a Russian-born researcher, was acquitted by a U.S. jury on four charges…
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Heightened Tensions 4 Russians Arrested in Norway for Breaking Photography Ban For the third time in a week, police in northern Norway have detained Russian citizens for taking photos in areas where photography is banned. While the…
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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its “partial” military mobilization are pushing the country’s population decline to a historic precipice, Bloomberg reported Tuesday. President Vladimir Putin has made reversing Russia’s demographic crisis a key goal and his government aimed to start stabilizing the country’s declining population numbers this year. Mass war casualties, Putin’s “partial” mobilization of 300,000…
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Ten days after being mobilized into the Russian army, Igor Puchkov was killed fighting in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region. The 27-year-old father of two was sent into combat with no military instruction beyond what he had received during his compulsory military service as a teenager, according to relatives. “We were outraged when he was sent…
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Germany’s cybersecurity chief has been sacked after a TV satire show accused him of having ties to the Russian intelligence services, an interior ministry spokesman told AFP on Tuesday. Arne Schönbohm, head of the Federal Cyber Security Authority (BSI), had been relieved of his duties “with immediate effect,” the spokesperson said. “The background to this…
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Estonian lawmakers on Tuesday condemned Moscow’s annexation of Ukrainian territory and declared Russia a “terrorist regime.” The statement was adopted by 88 votes in favor in the country’s 101-seat legislature. Ten MPs were absent and three abstained. The parliament “declares Russia a terrorist regime and the Russian Federation a country that supports terrorism,” the statement…
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Russia has handed down one of its first criminal cases on secretly working with a foreign government to undermine national security to a Moscow resident, Interfax reported Tuesday. Lawmakers criminalized “confidential” cooperation with foreign individuals, states or organizations in June, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine plunged the country into isolation and catalyzed a historic crackdown…
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The Kremlin said Tuesday that the investigation into the explosions that tore through the Nord Stream gas pipelines was being “tailored” to place the blame on Russia. Explosions in early September sent natural gas bubbling up from the pipelines on the floor of the Baltic Sea to the surface in a major environmental disaster that…
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Officials in two Russian regions bordering Ukraine blamed Kyiv for new strikes on their territory Tuesday. Train traffic in the Belgorod region was temporarily brought to a halt after shelling struck a railway station and damaged the railroad tracks, the region’s Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on his official Telegram channel. One man was wounded by…
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American oil giant ExxonMobil has completed its exit from the Russian market after President Vladimir Putin ordered the expropriation of its assets, the company said. ExxonMobil had been in negotiations with the Russian authorities to sell its more than $4 billion in assets — including its largest Russian investment, a 30% stake in the Sakhalin-1…
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Updates with new casualty figures. A military aircraft crashed Monday into a residential building in the southern port town of Yeysk in Russia’s Krasnodar region, Interfax news agency reported, citing local officials. Russia’s Defense Ministry said a Su-34 fighter jet crashed after taking off from a local airfield for a training flight, the state-run RIA…
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