Russia’s top lawmaker said Thursday that fighters sentenced to death in eastern Ukraine’s pro-Moscow separatist territories “deserve” to die. “The death penalty is the punishment these fascists deserve,” Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the lower-house State Duma, said, using terminology that President Vladimir Putin has invoked to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Volodin spoke a week…
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A Russian court has extended the pre-trial detention of U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner on drug smuggling charges, state media reported Tuesday. Griner was detained at a Moscow airport on Feb. 17, en route to play for UNMC Yekaterinburg during the WNBA offseason, on charges of carrying vape cartridges with cannabis oil in her luggage. …
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Russia on Tuesday said it was blacklisting 49 UK citizens, including defense officials and prominent journalists and editors from the BBC, The Financial Times and The Guardian. London has been one of the most vocal supporters of Kyiv after President Vladimir Putin sent troops to Ukraine on Feb. 24. “The British journalists on the list…
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Patients in Moscow are being inoculated with expired Russian coronavirus vaccines, The Moscow Times’ Russian service reported, citing sources and eyewitnesses. Epidemiologists say that the expired vaccines aren’t dangerous, but are ineffective against Covid-19. Russia has about 30 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines that are currently past their use-by date and worth more than 23…
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Jailed opposition figure Alexei Navalny has been transferred to a maximum-security prison after his prison term was extended to nine years, his lawyer said Tuesday. The Kremlin’s most vocal domestic foe, Navalny had been at a penal colony in the Vladimir region city of Pokrov east of Moscow since February 2021. His transfer comes in…
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Russia’s energy giant Gazprom said Tuesday it would be reducing the daily gas deliveries via the Nord Stream pipeline to Germany due to the “repair” of compressor units by German company Siemens. “Gas supplies via the Nord Stream gas pipeline can currently be provided in the amount of up to 100 million cubic meters per…
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The Georgian government will become a co-owner of Borjomi, the country’s iconic mineral water brand, by taking over shares from its sanctioned Russian owners, the country’s Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said at a government meeting Monday. Borjomi, one of Georgia’s most recognizable brands, had been majority owned by Russia’s Alfa Group since 2013. Alfa was…
DetailsOn 10 June 2022, the Hungarian Atomic Energy Authority (OAH) issued a licence for the Paks-2 project to start the soil stabilisation of the nuclear power plant construction site. The purpose of this work is to ensure the required bearing capacity of the soils at the base of the future buildings and structures of the…
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Russian forces on Tuesday stepped up efforts to cut off Ukrainian troops in the key industrial city of Severodonetsk in the east of the country despite Ukrainians insisting they were holding on. Moscow has laid siege for weeks to the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, which are separated by a river, as the last areas…
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Russia has earned a likely record $97 billion in revenue from fossil fuel exports in the first 100 days of its war in Ukraine despite heavy sanctions and Europe’s attempts to wean itself off of Russian energy, researchers said this week. “Russia’s export revenues have been falling since March, but remain record-high” due to soaring energy…
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Russia is expected to lose 15% of its millionaires this year as its wealthiest citizens move abroad following the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine and ensuing Western sanctions, according to a new analysis from a London-based firm cited by The Guardian on Tuesday. Around 15,000 wealthy Russians who have $1 million in readily available assets will…
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A Russian town near the Ukraine border has reported three straight days of shelling, with Tuesday’s attack allegedly targeting a military base. Residents of the Bryansk region town of Klintsy less than 50 kilometers from Ukraine reported witnessing a helicopter hovering over the base before firing off two shots and fleeing. “A shell hit part…
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The Kremlin said Monday it sees the “protection” of eastern Ukraine’s pro-Russian separatist Donetsk and Luhansk peoples’ republics (DNR and LNR) as the key goal of its nearly 16-week military campaign. “The republics’ protection is the main goal of the special military operation in general,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the state-run RIA Novosti news…
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June 12 marks Russia Day: a national holiday that sees Muscovites flock to festivities and firework shows across the city. First celebrated in 1992, the date commemorates when the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic first declared state sovereignty in 1990. But 30 years on, the holiday is not only being celebrated in Russia itself —…
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When Vadim and Fyodor waited outside the first McDonald’s to open in the Soviet Union, they stood in line with an estimated 30,000 other people for more than three and a half hours. Thirty-two years later, the pair were again in line on Sunday as McDonald’s reopened in Russia after a lightning sale and hurried…
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Former Crimean Prosecutor Natalya Poklonskaya has been dismissed from her post in the Russian government, weeks after criticizing Moscow’s war in Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin removed Poklonskaya from her post as the deputy head of Rossotrudnichestvo, Russia’s federal agency for international outreach, on Monday. The 42-year-old took up the role in February 2022, after declining…
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Nearly 70 Moscow metro passengers and pickters have been detained across the Russian capital on the Russia Day national holiday Sunday, an independent watchdog has said. “At least 67 people were detained by police on Russia Day,” the OVD-Info police-monitoring website said. “Most of them — 43 people — were detained in the Moscow metro…
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Russian forces said Sunday they had struck a site in western Ukraine storing US- and EU-supplied weapons, as fighting intensified in an eastern region where the country’s top commander said the land “is covered in blood.” The strike on the town of Chortkiv, a rare attack by Russia in the relatively calm west of Ukraine,…
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The head of the Russian Committee for the Prevention of Torture said Sunday he had disbanded the organisation after it was branded a “foreign agent” by authorities, a label he called an “insult”. “We don’t want to continue working by being labelled ‘foreign agents’. We consider this term an insult and slander,” Sergei Babinets said…
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The restaurant that launched McDonald’s in Russia in 1990, heralding Moscow’s opening after decades of Soviet rule, reopened Sunday with a new name and logo in a potent reminder of the upheaval sparked by the conflict in Ukraine. The U.S. fast-food giant announced on May 16 that it would exit Russia in the wake of…
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A pro-Russian separatist leader in eastern Ukraine said Sunday he would not alter the death sentences handed to two Britons and a Moroccan for fighting with the Ukrainian army. “They came to Ukraine to kill civilians for money. That’s why I don’t see any conditions for any mitigation or modification of the sentence,” Denis Pushilin,…
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Authorities in the Moscow-occupied city of Kherson in southern Ukraine handed out Russian passports to local residents for the first time on Saturday, news agencies reported. Russia’s TASS agency said 23 Kherson residents received a Russian passport at a ceremony through a “simplified procedure” facilitated by a decree signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in…
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After fleeing Russia in the days after the start of the invasion of Ukraine, Mikhail entered the European Union illegally by fording a river in Bosnia and Herzegovina and making his way over the border into Croatia. His successful crossing followed three failed attempts to get into the EU. “I was afraid of police, bears,…
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country’s forces were “doing everything” to stop the Russian offensive, with fierce battles in the east and the south. Kyiv said Friday it had launched new air strikes in the captured southern region of Kherson, one of the first areas to be taken by Russia after the February 24 invasion. But…
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Local authorities in cities across Russia have removed banners with the letter “Z” – a symbol of support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – in recent days as the war appears to enter a new phase of bloody fighting and limited territorial gains in eastern Ukraine. The head of the A Just Russia political party,…
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In ancient Russia, embroidery was more than a form of art: It was a language unto its own. Cloth and thread took the place of paper and ink, while symbols and motifs made up their own alphabet — all woven together according to the grammar of deep-seated folk traditions. In a celebration of these traditions,…
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Накрыться медным тазом: to fail, flop, end, close The other day a friend was talking about a project that had gone belly up. But in Russian, belly up is — pardon the bad joke — another kettle of fish. Instead of the image of a dead fish in the water, it’s the image of something…
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A Russian suspect accused of downing Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 told Dutch judges on Friday he had “nothing to do with the disaster,” as the long-running trial concluded. Oleg Pulatov is one of four men on trial in absentia for shooting down the jetliner in July 2014 as it passed over war-torn eastern Ukraine, killing…
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President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Russia has been able to “get a grip” on inflation after data showed almost a month of no inflation. “From the second half of May, price growth has stopped completely. Now inflation is at the zero mark,” Putin told a government meeting. But while stable prices might sound like…
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Russia celebrated the 350th birthday of Peter the Great, one of its most famous tsars, on Thursday. Celebrations were held in Peter’s namesake city St. Petersburg and Moscow to mark the anniversary of his birth on June 9, 1672. A pivotal figure in the country’s history, Peter led efforts to modernize Russia, expand its territory…
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The Russian government will buy over 970 million rubles’ ($17 million) worth of Russian flags and coats of arms to install in rural schools as part of a wider push for “patriotic” education amid the country’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Education Minister Sergei Kravtsov in April said that starting Sept. 1, schools will raise the Russian…
DetailsTVEL Fuel Company of ROSATOM has supplied the first batches of TVS-2M nuclear fuel to India for the two functioning units-1&2 of Kudankulam NPP, powered by VVER-1000 reactors. After refueling in July 2022, the Unit 1 will start its operation in 18-months fuel cycle from currently used UTVS fuel with 12 month operating cycles. With…
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Russia’s Central Bank cut its key interest rate on Friday as the country’s economy recovers faster than expected following sanctions imposed on Moscow over its military action in Ukraine. The Bank of Russia cut the rate to 9.5% from 11%, saying in a statement that “inflation is slowing faster and the decline in economic activity…
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A former Russian government official was detained at a Moscow airport this week on suspicion of embezzling over $15 million from a Siberian metro construction project’s budget, media reported Friday. According to the RBC news website, Federal Security Service (FSB) agents apprehended Oleg Mitvol, a former ecology official and a Moscow city prefect in the…
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Dmitry Medvedev as Russian president chomped on a burger at an American diner with Barack Obama, praised independent media and made ambitious promises of reform to create a more open Russia. But with the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine raging for over three months, he now vows to make enemies of Russia “disappear,” warns of military…
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Seven in 10 European businesses expect to cut their investments in Russia this year as Western sanctions over the Ukraine invasion and Moscow’s countermeasures have forced them to revise their outlooks, according to an Association of European Businesses (AEB) survey. The companies’ forecasts mark a dramatic reversal from their strong performance in 2021, when three-quarters of…
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The first vehicle bridge between Russia and China opened to freight traffic Friday as Moscow pivots to Beijing amid the crisis in relations with the West over its invasion of Ukraine. Most building work on the Blagoveshchensk-Heihe bridge across the Amur River was completed in late 2019. Transportation between the border cities with close economic…
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Ukraine has depleted its stocks of Soviet and Russian-designed weaponry and is now completely dependent on allies for arms to defend against Russia’s invasion, U.S. military sources say. Once part of the Soviet Union, Ukraine’s army and its defense industry were built around Soviet and Russian-standard equipment, small arms, tanks, howitzers and other weapons not…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday compared his current actions to Peter the Great’s conquest of the Baltic coast during his 18th-century war against Sweden. After visiting an exhibition in Moscow dedicated to the 350th birthday of tsar Peter the Great, Putin told a group of young entrepreneurs that “you get the impression that by fighting…
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Moscow is set to rename a square close to the capital’s German embassy in honor of one of Ukraine’s breakaway republics. If authorities approve the plans, the embassy’s address will change to “Luhansk People’s Republic Square.” The separatist region is backed by Russian forces, with President Vladimir Putin recognizing the area as an independent country…
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Russia’s flagship IT company Yandex will stop showing national borders on its online maps. Speaking on Thursday, the company said that their updated digital maps would “focus on natural features rather than on state boundaries.” “Our task is to display the world around us. So the map will show mountains, rivers, and other data usually…
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More than three centuries after he sought to bring Russia closer to Europe, Russians on Thursday marked the 350th birthday of tsar Peter the Great with the country deeply isolated over the Ukraine conflict. Inspired by time spent abroad, Peter made huge efforts to modernize his vast and under-developed nation during his rule from 1682…
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Three foreign men fighting alongside the Ukrainian army have been sentenced to death by a court in eastern Ukraine’s self-proclaimed Donetsk Peopleʼs Republic following a lightning-fast trial, Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti reported Thursday. British fighters Shaun Pinner, 48, and Aiden Aslin, 28, as well as Moroccan national Saadun Brahim, were charged with terrorism, committing a…
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McDonald’s Russian owner has picked a new logo, menu and app name ahead of its re-opening under a new brand this month, the company confirmed to state media Thursday. The U.S. fast food giant recently ended its three-decade presence in Russia after it sent troops into Ukraine, selling all 850 of its locations to a…
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Relatives of Russian soldier Amir Shaikenov came across a photo of a dead man in Ukraine on social media that caused his family immediate alarm. The soldier in the picture taken in the Ukrainian city of Bucha bore a striking resemblance to Shaikenov, whose elite military unit, the 76th Air Assault Division, was deployed to…
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Russia said Thursday it was ready to broker a peace treaty between Azerbaijan and Armenia, as Moscow seeks to reassert its influence on the world stage after invading Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held talks with his Armenian counterpart in the capital Yerevan on Thursday, reaffirming Moscow’s willingness to help negotiate a deal following the…
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Two years after an oil spill at a facility owned by Russian mining giant Nornickel sparked one of the worst-ever environmental disasters in the Arctic, the company says the environment in the area of the spill is in satisfactory condition. Investigations by a visiting environmentalist indicate otherwise. “Two years have passed, there have been some…
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The Kremlin received nearly 42,000 complaints in April from the relatives of soldiers missing in Ukraine, investigative outlet iStories reported Thursday. Official data revealed that President Vladimir Putin’s administration received 41,666 requests related to missing or captured soldiers. The Russian government has not released any official figures on its Ukraine death toll since March 25,…
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Dozens of Russian ships on Thursday took part in military exercises in the strategic Baltic Sea after Sweden and Finland recently announced bids to join NATO. Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that ships of its Baltic fleet, will “perform training tasks for the defense of sea lanes and fleet bases.” It said that…
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At least 20 Russian billionaires have launched legal challenges against European Union sanctions imposed after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. More than 1,000 Russian individuals, including President Vladimir Putin, are on the EU sanctions list, which sees them hit by travel bans and asset freezes. Former Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, industrialist…
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A Ukrainian journalist on Wednesday took advantage of a visit to Ankara by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to confront him with an unwanted question about grain exports from Ukraine, amid fears of world hunger if the issue is not resolved. Lavrov was in Turkey to discuss the establishment of secure corridors for Ukrainian grain…
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A British man fighting in Ukraine has been captured by pro-Russian separatists, an international legion backing the Kyiv government said on Wednesday. “It was announced in the Ukrainian press that the Russians had completed a criminal investigation against three foreigners whom they were preparing to put on trial and that they risked the death penalty,”…
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Russian forces are now largely in control of the key eastern Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk amid fierce fighting, Kyiv said Wednesday, as UN chief Antonio Guterres starkly warned the war’s impact on the world was worsening. The strategic city has become the focus of Russia’s offensive as it seeks to seize an eastern swathe of…
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Russian flag carrier Aeroflot hopes to raise $3 billion by issuing new shares amid ongoing economic turmoil sparked by Western sanctions and Moscow’s war in Ukraine. Aeroflot shareholders approved the emergency issue of new shares worth 185.2 billion rubles on Wednesday, news agency Reuters reported. More than half of that amount, 107 billion rubles ($1.74…
DetailsRecently, the experts from “Rusatom Healthcare” JSC and NIIEFA JSC completed one of the most important stages of the cyclotron-radiochemical complex project in the Kingdom of Thailand. The Russian team, headed by “Rusatom Healthcare” JSC project expert Ilya Grigoryev and NIIEFA JSC head of the ion accelerator department Roman Klopenkov organized in-depth training on the…
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Russia’s Interior Ministry has created a new department to help enforce martial law, the country’s state-run TASS news agency reported Tuesday. The Main Directorate of Rapid Response will also coordinate ministry forces if a state of emergency or a counter-terrorism operation is declared in the country. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the new measures reflected…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annual telephone marathon, Direct Line, will not be held this June for the first time in almost two decades. It is the first time that the program, which see ordinary citizens speak directly to the Russian leader about their daily problems, has been delayed since 2004. In a statement, Kremlin’s spokesman…
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Hackers targeted Russian radio station Kommersant FM on Wednesday, broadcasting the Ukrainian national anthem and anti-war songs to protest Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The station was quickly pulled off the air. “The radio station has been hacked. The internet stream will soon be reinstated,” the station confirmed in a statement. The hackers’ anti-war offering included…
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Russia and Turkey made little headway on Wednesday in talks aimed at securing safe passage for Ukrainian grain exports, as a Russian sea blockade triggered new warnings of deadly famine. Prior to the war, Ukraine was a major exporter of wheat, corn and sunflower oil, but shipments have been blocked since Russia invaded its neighbor…
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Every year the Cannes Film Festival is dominated by certain topics with a particular political focus. This year’s theme was the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Discussions and disputes began when the film “Tchaikovsky’s Wife” by Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov was entered into the main competition. The president of the European Film Academy Agnieszka Holland criticized…
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