LGBTQ activists in Georgia said Monday they had been forced to cancel a planned Pride march after opponents clashed with activists and police and the prime minister spoke out against the event. Pride events are still controversial in Georgia, a conservative country where the powerful Orthodox Church has previously clashed with Western-leaning governments over progressive…
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Champagne houses in France on Monday issued a plea for diplomatic help over a new Russian law reserving the term “champagne” for Russian-produced sparkling wines, which interrupted supplies from the local market leader Moet Hennessy. French producers are fiercely jealous of the AOC, or Controlled Appellation of Origin, that is supposed to give them exclusive…
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Russians who refuse to get vaccinated against the coronavirus are taking a sin upon themselves that they will repent for until the end of their days, a top Russian Orthodox Church official said Monday. “I now constantly face such situations when people come to a priest in order to repent that they did not vaccinate…
DetailsThe office and laboratory complex of Research and Development Center (part of the Rosneft Group) has again been assigned the status of a Green Office, confirmed by the BREEAM In-Use certificate.
A Russian warship equipped with long-range cruise missiles plans to return to annexed Crimea to reinforce its military amid tensions over an ongoing U.S.-led NATO exercise in the Black Sea, Interfax reported Monday. The Navy’s Black Sea Fleet said the Kalibr cruise missile-equipped frigate Admiral Essen and the Moskva missile cruiser are en route to…
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A majority of Russian (54%) are still not ready to get vaccinated against the coronavirus despite a mounting surge driven by the highly contagious Delta variant, according to an independent poll published Monday. Russia set new records for coronavirus deaths for five consecutive days from June 29-July 3 as infections reached levels not seen since…
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Soviet director and actor Vladimir Menshov passed away on Sunday at age 82 from coronavirus, according to a press release released by Mosfilm. “We have lost a dear friend at Mosfilm, a man who used all his creative powers and rich talent in his work at the film studio,” they wrote. He is best known…
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In June, as western Siberia recovered from its worst forest fires in a decade, Russian President Vladimir Putin toasted his country’s contribution to the struggle against climate change at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, the premier get-together for the country’s business elite. “Our country accounts for one fifth of the world’s forests. They absorb…
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Russian organic grocer VkusVill has pulled its promotional material featuring an LGBT family and replaced it with an apology less than a week after posting it. Social media users reportedly swarmed VkusVill’s and the same-sex family’s accounts with death threats after their story ran Wednesday as part of a series spotlighting the retail chain’s regular…
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Exiled former tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky has said he plans to relocate the employees of his media projects out of Russia or close them altogether over state pressure on dissent. Khodorkovsky launched the Open Media and MBKh Media outlets in 2017 after Russian authorities blacklisted as “undesirable” his pro-democracy NGO Open Russia, banning its activities within…
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Russia on Sunday reported more than 25,000 new coronavirus cases, the highest number of daily infections since early January as the country battles the surging Delta variant. The coronavirus figures have soared since mid-June against a background of reluctance among many to get vaccinated and suspicion of home-grown shots. Russia on Sunday announced 25,142 new…
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Russian elites could soon find themselves without their favorite French bubbles if Moet Hennessy makes good on a threat to halt champagne supplies following a new law signed by President Vladimir Putin. Moet Hennessy’s Russia office warned local partners it was suspending supplies after Russian lawmakers adopted legislation stipulating that the word “champagne” can only…
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Former French prime minister Francois Fillon has been named to the board of Russian state oil company Zarubezhneft, a list published by a website specialising in business information disclosure showed. Zarubezhneft did not respond Friday to a request for comment on the list posted to the e-disclosure.ru website run by the Interfax news agency, which…
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Russia on Saturday reported 697 Covid-19 deaths in the previous 24 hours, the fifth straight day the country has set a new record as it battles the surging Delta variant. It also recorded 24,439 new coronavirus infections, the highest figure since the middle of January when Russia was emerging from its second wave of the…
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I like to think of myself as an egalitarian, but when it comes to tomatoes, I am the worst kind of elitist: an unapologetic raging tomato snob. I don’t care who I offend — I will pick a hapless, pulpy, under-ripe, hothouse forced tomato out of every single dish I encounter with a curled lip…
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July 2, 2021, 19:00 Gazprom, the Russian Olympic Committee, and the Federation of Sports Journalists of Russia announce the start of the 11th edition of the Energy of Victories national sports journalism festival contest for Russian-language mass media based in Russia and abroad. The primary goals of the contest are to promote the Olympic movement, sports, and healthy living, as well as to improve the quality of sports journalism…
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The oldest, thickest Arctic sea ice known as the “Last Ice Area” is melting faster than anticipated as the earth warms, scientists from the Polar Science Center wrote in a new study. Located north of Greenland and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the Last Ice Area’s ice cover is particularly thick, staying frozen for 4-5 years…
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Russians’ approval of every government institution except for President Vladimir Putin has dropped in the past month, an independent poll published Friday revealed as the Kremlin distanced itself from regional authorities’ unpopular coronavirus measures amid a deadly third wave. Putin’s approval rating only saw a 1% dip from 67% in May to 66% in June,…
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Tilda Food & Bar, a tiny gastropub in central Moscow that’s usually bursting at the seams, has been empty almost every day this week since the Russian capital introduced strict new rules for diners in an attempt to halt the spread of the highly infectious Delta variant of the coronavirus. “Usually at this time we…
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Russian organic food retailer VkusVill has featured an LGBT family in its new promotional material this week, defying the country’s law against “gay propaganda toward minors.” As part of a series of health-conscious families, VkusVill spotlights a “matriarch” Yuma, her partner Zhenya and two daughters Mila and Alina, who practice ethical veganism, support fair trade…
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Red Garden on Red Square After decades of being a vast empty space during the Soviet period, Red Square is beginning to reassume its historical appearance and function as a busy space filled with people, trade, celebrations, official proclamations, activities, food, and drink. Two weeks ago it was covered with books, authors, readings, music, and…
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Russia on Friday said it would not impose a new lockdown despite reporting a record number of coronavirus deaths for the fourth day in a row. A government tally showed 679 pandemic-related deaths in the previous 24 hours, as Russia battles a surging outbreak driven by the highly infectious Delta variant and worsened by a…
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Russia’s Embassy in the United States pointed the finger back at the U.S. Friday after its cybersecurity agencies blamed Kremlin-backed hackers for a massive hacking campaign on Western private and government entities. U.S. and U.K. national security agencies on Thursday said a cyber-unit within Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency has conducted “brute force” attacks on predominantly…
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Six hundred Russian security instructors have recently been sent to the Central African Republic, the foreign ministry said on Thursday, bringing the total number in the country to 1,135. The announcement came after the UN’s envoy to the Central African Republic (CAR) accused the nation’s security forces and their Russian allies of multiple human rights…
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An enormous exhibition called “Andy Warhol and Russian Art” opened last week at the expo center Sevkabel Port in St. Petersburg. The show, organized by the Artsolus Foundation, displays 100 works by Andy Warhol, one of the founders of pop art, along with works by such important Russian artists Alexander Melamid, Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe, Pavel Pepershtein,…
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Russia said Thursday it has summoned the Czech ambassador in Moscow to protest Prague’s “extortionist” demand for compensation over a deadly 2014 arms depot blast. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the gesture was in response to a Czech diplomat delivering the compensation claims to Russia’s envoy in Prague on Monday. “Usually those who…
Details30 June 2021 – Anton Moskvin, Vice President for Marketing and Business Development of Rusatom Overseas, has spoken about ROSATOM’s current projects and plans in hydrogen technology development at the annual business forum held by the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce. The event this year was dedicated to collaboration in environment protection and saw heads of…
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Over 40% of Finland’s new coronavirus cases are linked to football fans returning from Euro 2020 matches in neighboring Russia, the country’s health authority said Thursday. The Scandinavian country had nearly eradicated the spread of Covid-19 with just 55 new cases recorded on June 17, days after the first Euro 2020 match in St. Petersburg.…
DetailsTaas-Yuryakh Neftegazodobycha LLC, an enterprise of Rosneft Oil Company, released more than 730,000 whitefish fry (peled) into a flow of the Akhtaranda River, continuing work to replenish the bioresources of the Vilyuy reservoir in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).
Orenburgneft, a production enterprise of Rosneft Oil Company, has begun using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to monitor greenhouse gas levels at its oil and gas treatment facilities.
June 30, 2021, Cairo, Egypt – Nuclear Power Plants Authority (NPPA) of Egypt handed over the licensing documentation for Units 1 and 2 of El Dabaa NPP construction to Egyptian Nuclear and Radiological Regulation Authority (ENRRA). This marked an important milestone in the implementation of El Dabaa NPP Project in the path forward to issue…
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Russia said Thursday it had killed an alleged member of the Islamic State jihadist group and arrested another, accusing them of planning simultaneous attacks in Moscow and the southern region of Astrakhan. “Acting on the instructions of the leaders of the terrorist structure, two citizens of Russia planned a simultaneous attack on residents of Moscow…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law Thursday forcing foreign internet companies to set up local offices after authorities accused them of interference by not deleting Russian users’ calls for protests. Starting Jan. 1, 2022, internet companies with a daily base of more than half a million Russian users will be required to establish a…
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Employees of Russia’s security services are unable to obtain the official QR codes necessary for dining out in Moscow under current coronavirus restrictions, a Federal Protection Service (FSO) source said Thursday. All Moscow restaurants and cafes now require patrons to present a QR code proving their vaccination, recent recovery from Covid-19 or negative PCR test…
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Foreigners arriving in Russia for periods longer than three months will have to submit their fingerprints and other biometric data under a new law that President Vladimir Putin signed Thursday. Migrant workers will be required to submit biometric data within 30 days, while those foreigners visiting outside of work will have a window of 90…
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Climate change is a serious global problem that has been caused in large part by human economic activity, President Vladimir Putin said in his Direct Line phone-in with Russians Wednesday. The statement marks a major change in the Russian president’s rhetoric on climate change. During his two decades in power, Putin has gone from joking…
DetailsThe Marchenkovskaya wind farm began supplying electric power and capacity to the wholesale electric power and capacity market from July 1, 2021. The Marchenkovskaya wind farm located in Zimovniki, Rostov Oblast, with an installed capacity of 120 MW, consists of 48 wind turbine generators. Local content of facility equipment, as confirmed by the Ministry of…
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Russia on Thursday reported 672 coronavirus deaths over the past 24 hours, according to a government tally, setting a pandemic high of fatalities for the third day in a row. The country is battling a surging outbreak driven by the highly infectious Delta variant and worsened by a lagging jab drive, with President Vladimir Putin…
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Six decades after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit Earth, earning Moscow a key win in the Cold War, Russia is again in a space race with Washington. This time though the stakes are somewhat glitzier. On Oct. 5, one of Russia’s most celebrated actresses, 36-year-old Yulia Peresild is blasting off…
DetailsCairo, Egypt, 30 June 2021 – ROSATOM presented two books at the Cairo International Book Fair. The company oversees Egypt’s El-Dabaa NPP project. The book “Nuclear ABC” relates the basics of nuclear physics, atoms and atomic energy, radiation, nuclear reactor design, and the principles of operating nuclear power plants to children in simple and accessible…
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Russia on Thursday designated four European civil society and educational groups associated with exiled former tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky as “undesirable,” a move that risks significant jail time for those affiliated with them. The four NGOs blacklisted by Russian prosecutors are the Britain-registered Khodorkovsky Foundation and its subsidiary Oxford Russia Fund, the Future of Russia Trust…
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A televised phone-in with Russian President Vladimir Putin Wednesday was targeted by “powerful” cyberattacks, the state-run Rossiya 24 network which broadcast the event said. Shown on Kremlin-friendly media, the annual session with Putin sees the president field in real time queries submitted by Russians throughout the country. This year’s phone-in on Wednesday, which lasted nearly…
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Russian band Sansara on Tuesday released a pro-LGBT video for their single “We Will Become Better.” The video is about “two people who love each other but forbid themselves because of societal judgment around their relationship, and so unfortunately it cannot happen,” its writer Evgeny Primachenko told The Moscow Times. The clip has so far…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday questioned the point of meeting with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy, claiming his country was effectively run by leaders in Washington and European capitals. “What’s the use of meeting with Zelenskiy when he has given full control of his country to outside management?” Putin said during an annual televised phone-in…
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A Russian court has handed the country’s longest prison sentence yet to a Jehovah’s Witness, the independent news website MediaZona reported Wednesday. More than two dozen Jehovah’s Witnesses have been sentenced and scores more are currently in prison or under house arrest since Russia declared the Christian denomination an “extremist” organization in 2017. Courts began…
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President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that he was vaccinated against the coronavirus with Russia’s Sputnik V jab, lifting the veil on a months-long secret that did little to quell Russians’ vaccine hesitancy. The Kremlin said in spring that it would keep the name of the Russian-made vaccine that Putin had received on March 23 and…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin took questions from the public Wednesday in his annual marathon call-in. This year’s Direct Line event, the first since the start of the pandemic and Putin’s 18th overall, focused heavily on domestic issues, particularly Covid-19 vaccination efforts and urging skeptical Russians to get vaccinated. Russia has been grappling with a record-setting…
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Russia on Wednesday successfully launched an unmanned space freighter carrying supplies to the International Space Station from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Soyuz rocket carrying the Progress spacecraft launched at 02:27 am Moscow time (2327 GMT) from the Kazakh steppes and reached its target orbit, the Roscosmos space agency said in a statement. Docking…
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Guatemala has asked Russia for a refund over its failure to deliver doses of the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine on time, Reuters reported Tuesday amid widespread reports of shortages across Latin America. Guatemala was the world’s 37th country and Latin America’s third to approve Sputnik V earlier this year. It was said to have paid…
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Russia said Tuesday it has activated its S-400 missile systems in annexed Crimea as Ukraine and U.S.-led NATO launched a military exercise in the Black Sea. The Navy’s Black Sea Fleet said several of its S-400 batteries joined the Pantsir-S surface-to-air missile systems, as well as 20 warplanes and helicopters including Su-27 air-defense fighters, for…
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Russia’s Olympic Committee on Tuesday finalised a roster of 335 athletes who will compete at the rearranged Tokyo Olympics this summer under a neutral flag and anthem as long as they are clean. Sport’s highest court last year banned Russia from international competitions for two years in the latest punishment for its state-backed doping program at the…
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The UN Security Council on Tuesday held its first formal public meeting on cybersecurity, addressing the growing threat of hacks to countries’ key infrastructure — an issue U.S. President Joe Biden recently raised with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. While the U.S. envoy to the world body asked that member states respect a framework already in place, her Russian…
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The Netherlands on Tuesday accused Russian fighter jets of “unsafe” behavior in an encounter with a Dutch warship in the Black Sea. The incident last Thursday involved the frigate HNMLS Evertsen, part of a carrier strike group with the British destroyer HMS Defender, which itself purportedly came under Russian warning fire a day earlier. The…
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Germany has banned most travel from Russia due to the spread of mutated coronavirus strains there, the German Embassy in Moscow announced Tuesday. German citizens traveling from Russia, third-country nationals with German residency, passengers in transit and people with close relatives in Germany, are exempt from the ban, as well as those traveling for urgent…
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Russia has confirmed the first Delta Plus coronavirus variant infections within its borders days after media sounded the alarm about the presence of the potentially more dangerous new strain. Consumer protection watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said Friday it was looking into an influenza research expert’s remarks to a St. Petersburg-based newspaper that the first case of infection…
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Karaoke club manager Tatiana Amaliya has been scrambling to find a clinic with jabs to spare since a June 24 announcement of mandatory Covid-19 vaccinations for hospitality workers. She needs to vaccinate her staff within the next three weeks or her venue in the plush Krasnaya Polyana ski resort — the setting for Russia’s 2014…
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Russia will not meet its widely publicized goal of reaching herd immunity against coronavirus through vaccination by this fall, the Kremlin said Tuesday as the country struggles against the highly infectious Delta variant, record-breaking deaths and a lagging vaccine uptake. President Vladimir Putin’s office made the admission after the independent Dozhd broadcaster reported that the…
DetailsROSATOM presented the NORM (Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material) management principles at a product webinar held for companies of Central and South Africa. The event brought together representatives of analytical agencies, investment and energy companies, scientific and research organizations, municipalities, as well as the oil industry of the region. TVEL Fuel Company of Rosatom was appointed…
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Starting Monday, June 28, all restaurants and cafes in Moscow will require patrons to show a QR code proving full vaccination, a negative PCR test in the previous 72 hours, or proof of recovery from the coronavirus. The unprecedented move is the city’s latest effort to clamp down on a renewed surge in Covid-19 cases…
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Torrential rains pounded Moscow on Monday following a once-in-a-lifetime heatwave that saw temperatures soar into the mid-30s Celsius. The rains flooded streets and metro stations — while wind tore away parts of some buildings. Here’s a closer look at the extraordinary weather event that brought about a much-anticipated drop in temperatures:
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