Germany’s new government is facing pressure to get tough on Russia, after a German navy chief’s pro-Moscow remarks angered Kyiv and exasperation grows with Berlin’s fence-sitting in the Ukraine crisis. After a week of frantic diplomacy that included a visit to Berlin by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government found itself…
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The United States is not “at this time” organizing an evacuation of American citizens from Ukraine despite rising fears of an unspecified military action by Russia, a State Department spokesperson said Saturday. In the event matters deteriorate, however, “American citizens should not anticipate that there will be U.S. government-sponsored evacuations,” the spokesperson said, speaking on…
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Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has accepted an invitation to meet his British counterpart Ben Wallace to discuss the crisis on the Russia-Ukraine border, a senior U.K. defense source said Saturday. “The Defence Secretary is glad that Russia has accepted the invitation to talk with his counterpart,” the source said. “Given the last defense bilateral…
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Though I long to see the back of it, the Omicron variant has opened up vast swaths of time in my schedule. Easing back into self-imposed semi lockdown at this point feels like slipping on a comfy pair of fuzzy slippers: meetings on Zoom, business trips cancelled, and lots of unmolested time to fiddle in…
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Germany will send a field hospital to Ukraine, Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said on Saturday, while once again rejecting Kyiv’s calls for weapons delivery as fears of a Russian invasion grow. Berlin has already delivered respirators to Ukraine and severely injured Ukrainian soldiers are currently being treated in Bundeswehr hospitals, the minister told Welt am…
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High-stakes talks between Russia and the West have so far failed to de-escalate a tense standoff between the sides, with the United States warning of a serious risk of a Russian offensive against Ukraine. In addition to demanding a ban on Ukraine’s future membership to NATO, Russia wants the Western alliance to pull back its…
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Have a laugh The Moscow Standup Café is making the end of January hilarious with a real star, straight from the U.S.: Avi Liberman. He was in Moscow and St. Petersburg last year doing sold-out shows, so if standup is your thing, buy a ticket right away for the gig on Saturday night (Jan. 22)…
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Moscow has secured a deal that the United States will provide a written response to its European security demands next week, Russia’s top diplomat said following high-stakes talks with his U.S. counterpart Friday. Washington previously dismissed Moscow’s “binding” demands — including barring Ukraine from joining NATO and withdrawing the alliance’s forces and weapons from Eastern…
Details20 January 2022, Dubai, UAE – ROSATOM, a global technological leader, has hosted Small Modular Reactors Day, the key event of its ‘Breakthrough Technologies for a Sustainable Future’ programme at EXPO 2020, which is currently taking place in Dubai. The event was held with the participation of ROSATOM Director General Alexey Likhachev, World Nuclear Association…
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Moscow is seeking the withdrawal of NATO forces and weapons from Romania and Bulgaria as part of its sweeping security demands from the U.S.-led alliance, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Friday. Russia demands written responses from the United States on its proposed security guarantees, which includes the withdrawal of NATO’s infrastructure from eastern European countries that…
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Kyiv on Friday accused Russia of increasing supplies of weapons, ammunition and military equipment to separatist-held territory in eastern Ukraine, ahead of key talks between Moscow and Washington. The breakaway regions bordering Russia, collectively known as Donbass, have been locked in armed conflict with Kyiv’s army since a Kremlin-backed insurgency following Russia’s annexation of Crimea…
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Washington and Moscow’s top diplomats met Friday in Geneva for high-stakes talks on Ukraine, but with little hope of a breakthrough that would ease fears of a Russian invasion. The talks between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov come just 11 days after their deputies met in Geneva and agreed to…
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The mother of a Chechen rights lawyer and activist has been “kidnapped” in western Russia by Chechen law enforcement a month after dozens of his relatives were detained, an NGO that tracks torture reported Thursday. The Committee Against Torture said masked men broke into the home of Abubakar Yangulbaev’s family, using brute force against his…
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Russia reported a record number of new coronavirus infections Friday as the Omicron variant continued its rapid spread across the country. A total of 49,513 new infections were recorded over the last 24 hours, the government’s coronavirus task force reported Friday morning — a 27% rise in a single day. Officials have been warning of…
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ST. PETERSBURG — If you didn’t know Club Malevich existed you would never find it. There are no signs, windows, grand entrances or bouncers at the back of the defunct industrial complex housing its long, black, neon-lit bar and dance floor. The location is the perfect hideaway for St. Petersburg’s secretive BEARsBURG society — a…
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Russia is sending two S-400 surface-to-air missile system battalions to Belarus to join military drills there next month, Interfax reported Friday, citing Moscow’s Defense Ministry as tensions with the West over neighboring Ukraine continue to escalate. Russian military forces and hardware began arriving in Belarus days after the two countries announced snap military drills, named…
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The standoff between Russia and the West over Ukraine threatens to compromise Russia’s domestic economic plans and accentuate the country’s cost of living crisis — even if a diplomatic solution is eventually found — economists told The Moscow Times. Russian markets have been hyper volatile in recent days as high-stakes talks between Russian and American…
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Russian lawmakers have scheduled a hearing next week on whether to recognize the independence of two pro-Russian separatist regions of Ukraine, Russia’s parliament speaker said Friday as pro-Kremlin lawmakers suggested the move would trigger full-scale war between Moscow and Kyiv. Russia’s Communist Party submitted a resolution this week calling on President Vladimir Putin to formally recognize the self-proclaimed…
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January 21, 2022 Severstal announces that Crédit Agricole CIB has joined the steel company’s Climate Memorandum, “Together for a low-carbon Future”. The Memorandum aims to support global efforts to prevent further climate change. The memorandum was signed by Crédit Agricole CIB on 21st January 2022 in Moscow during the Climate Memorandum’s first Steering Committee meeting.…
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The United States and its allies Thursday warned Moscow of grave consequences if “any” of the tens of thousands of troops massed on the border were to cross the border into Ukraine. Following talks in Berlin with Germany, France, and Britain, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken underlined that Russia “cannot match” Western powers’ resoluteness.…
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A Russian court on Thursday sentenced four men to lengthy jail terms for trying to smuggle nearly 400 kilograms of cocaine in suitcases from the Russian Embassy in Argentina. In a case dating back to 2018, Argentine authorities seized the cocaine, worth $62 million, hidden in suitcases in the Russian Embassy school. Moscow’s Dorogomilovsky district…
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High-stakes talks between Russia and the West have so far failed to de-escalate a tense standoff between the sides, with the United States warning of a serious risk of a Russian offensive against Ukraine. In addition to demanding a ban on Ukraine’s future membership to NATO, Russia wants the Western alliance to pull back its…
Details20 January 2022 – As part of the Small Modular Reactors (SMR) Day at the World Expo 2020 exhibition in Dubai, ROSATOM and the Department of Energy (DOE) of the Republic of the Philippines presented a joint action plan to elaborate nuclear power plants (NPP) using the Small Modular Reactor (SMR) technology through a Pre-Feasibility…
DetailsAt Expo 2020 Dubai, which hosted the Russian Day of Small Modular Reactor Nuclear Power Plants on January 20, 2022, Rusatom Overseas JSC (a company of ROSATOM) and PJSC Seligdar signed an Agreement on the Supply and Consumption of Energy Generated by a Small Modular Reactor Nuclear Power Plant (SMR NPP) to develop the Kyuchus…
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Iran, Russia, and China will begin on Friday joint naval drills for three days in the Indian Ocean, seeking to reinforce “common security,” an Iranian naval official said Thursday. The announcement of the maneuvers coincides with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s official visit to Moscow, where he said Tehran has “no limits for expanding ties with…
DetailsOn the sidelines of Expo 2020 in Dubai, where on 20 January 2022 Russian nuclear SMR technology was presented, ROSATOM and the Ministry of Energy and Industry of the Kyrgyz Republic signed the Memorandum of Cooperation on the construction of small modular reactor nuclear power plants. Under the memorandum signed by Alexey Likhachev, Director General…
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Russia’s Central Bank proposed Thursday to ban cryptocurrency investment and mining as governments around the world crack down on the decentralized currencies, citing threats to monetary stability. The Central Bank said “speculative demand” is driving the rapid growth of decentralized cryptocurrencies and risks creating a bubble in the market. “Cryptocurrencies also have signs of a financial pyramid as…
DetailsOn the sidelines of Expo 2020 in Dubai, which hosted the Russian Day of SMR NPPs (Small Modular Reactor Nuclear Power Plants) on 20 January 2022, ROSATOM and the management of the Armenian nuclear power plant signed a Memorandum of Understanding to look into possible cooperation to construct new nuclear power units of Russian design…
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The Russian military announced Thursday plans to hold a series of cross-country naval exercises in January and February as tensions with the West continue to mount over Moscow’s troop buildup near Ukraine. The drills will stretch across every body of water bordering Russia and involve more than 140 warships, 1,000 pieces of military equipment, 10,000…
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St. Petersburg residents have seen the most ice coverage on their streets and sidewalks in years this week. Hundreds of people have landed in the hospital after slipping and falling, while local authorities face criticism for failing to deal with the situation. Here’s a look at Russia’s ice-covered northern capital:
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The United States has given the green light for Baltic nations to rush U.S.-made weapons to Ukraine, with Lithuania on Thursday saying it hoped to deter “aggressor” Russia. A State Department official in Berlin, where Secretary of State Antony Blinken is holding crisis talks on Ukraine, said Washington was “expediting authorized transfers of U.S.-origin equipment from…
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Russia reported its highest number of coronavirus cases in two months on Thursday, with new infections setting record highs in the two largest cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Russia is in the midst of a fifth Covid-19 wave, officials say, fueled by the Omicron variant which was first detected in Russia last December. Some…
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The Kremlin warned Thursday that U.S. President Joe Biden’s threats of sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine destabilize European security. “All these statements can contribute to the destabilization of the situation,” Interfax quoted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov as telling reporters. “We believe that they don’t contribute in any way to defusing tensions that…
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French President Emmanuel Macron urged the European Union to forge its own security pact with Russia on Wednesday in a break with U.S. calls for unity amid ongoing efforts to forestall a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine. The EU was not involved in direct talks with Moscow during last week’s high-level diplomatic talks to try to…
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KARMADON, North Ossetia — In the Karmadon Valley, humans have always lived by the glaciers’ rules. For hundreds of years, the inhabitants of this bleak, slender valley a few miles from the Georgian border built their homes in eyries that line the cliff sides, fearing the once-in-a-generation glacial surges that devastated the valley floor. The…
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Meet Molchat Doma, the most popular Russian-speaking band in the world. And it might get even more popular very soon: it has been picked for the line-up at the Coachella Music Fest in California this spring. Molchat Doma (“Houses are Silent”) is a trio from working-class Minsk in Belarus: vocalist Egor Shkutko, guitar and synth-player…
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A set of Bronze Age gold and silver tubes discovered in southern Russia more than a century ago may be the first surviving straws used for communal beer drinking, researchers said Wednesday. Eight 1-meter-long tubes were found alongside other precious artifacts at a burial mound near the North Caucasus city of Maikop, which holds an archeological…
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U.S. President Joe Biden threatened Wednesday to block Russian banks’ access to the U.S. dollar if Russia takes aggressive military action against Ukraine, potentially cutting the country off from the international financial sector. In a press conference marking his first year in office, Biden threatened a host of “severe economic consequences,” for Russia should it…
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U.S. President Joe Biden warned Russia Wednesday that it will pay a stiff price for a full-blown invasion of Ukraine, but sowed confusion by suggesting a “minor” incursion would prompt much less pushback from the West. Biden said he did not believe that President Vladimir Putin wants a war, but said the Russian leader has…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi hailed bilateral ties during a meeting in Moscow Wednesday, as pressure mounts for a decision on the Iran nuclear deal. Raisi said he had presented Moscow with draft documents on strategic cooperation that would cement joint collaboration for the next two decades. “We in Iran…
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High-stakes talks between Russia and the West have so far failed to de-escalate a tense standoff between the sides, with the United States warning of a serious risk of a Russian offensive against Ukraine. In addition to demanding a ban on Ukraine’s future membership to NATO, Russia wants the Western alliance to pull back its…
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Every year on Jan. 19, the Russian Orthodox Church commemorates the Feast of the Epiphany. It’s believed that on this day, Jesus Christ was baptized in the Jordan River and revealed himself as the son of God. It is also the day when thousands of Russians, religious or not, take a dip in the sub-zero…
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Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has urged Western governments to ignore Russian President Vladimir Putin’s security demands instead of “falling into his trap” of trying to prevent a possible invasion of Ukraine through negotiations. Washington and its allies have voiced increasingly grave concerns that Russia plans to attack Ukraine with the 100,000 troops it has…
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to choose the “peaceful path” on Ukraine, as he visited Kyiv to show support before crunch talks with Russia later this week. In Ukraine, in advance of talks with European allies in Berlin and his Russian counterpart in Geneva on Friday, Blinken…
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ALMATY, Kazakhstan — When anti-government protests erupted across Kazakhstan, seasoned activist Kulbarshin Erezhepova didn’t think twice about heading to the main square in the country’s commercial capital Almaty to show her opposition to the regime. What she didn’t know was that among the hundreds gathered there on Jan. 5 was her 20-year-old nephew Margulan Bektersin,…
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A Russian-led regional military bloc has completed its withdrawal from Kazakhstan following violent unrest that rocked the ex-Soviet nation this month, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced Wednesday. The contingent of Russian, Belarusian, Armenian, Tajik and Kyrgyz peacekeepers was deployed to Kazakhstan on Jan. 6 at the request of its president as protests over a New Year energy…
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Just ahead of the new year, residents of Georgia’s remote mountain region of Svaneti gathered in a church to make a solemn oath upon an icon of St. George: that they would not mine cryptocurrency. “It is unfortunate that we had to resort to this extreme measure, but we have been left with no other…
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The White House said Tuesday that Russia is ready to attack Ukraine at “any point,” upping its threat assessment ahead of a meeting between the top U.S. and Russian diplomats. “We’re now at a stage where Russia could at any point launch an attack on Ukraine,” Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. “I would say…
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Russian markets came under more pressure on Tuesday, as fears of a possible military escalation over Ukraine continued to hit the ruble and share prices. The Russian stock market was down 8% in dollar terms in afternoon trading in Moscow in the sharpest one-day fall for the market since March 2020. The slide compounds last week’s…
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Russia is still awaiting the U.S. and NATO’s response to its sweeping demands for a new security settlement in Europe, Russia’s top diplomat said Tuesday as tensions between Moscow and the West over Ukraine continue to mount. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after a series of high-level talks last week that the United States and NATO promised…
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday warned Russia against invading Ukraine, calling the former Soviet republic a “powerful” country with international friends. Turkey’s supply of combat drones to Ukraine has drawn the wrath of Russia, which fears they could be used by Kyiv in its years-long conflict in two regions of the Moscow-backed separatist…
DetailsThe installation of the core melt localization device, or the “core catcher”, has started at Tianwan NPP Unit 7. The first element of the device – the core catcher casing – has been installed in the design position. The core catcher casing is a tank weighing over 156 tons, with the total weight of the…
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ALMATY – Former Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said Tuesday that there was “no conflict or confrontation” among Kazakhstan’s elite in his first appearance since deadly protests rocked the former Soviet country earlier this month. Nazarbayev, 81, has not been seen in public since the worst unrest since Kazakhstan’s independence broke out earlier this month, leading to…
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Sculptors from all over Russia and the world came to carve their winter masterpieces. Jan. 18, 2022 – 12:44 Enormous creatures and people sculpted from snow and ice have appeared along the Moscow River in Gorky Park as part of the “Snow and Ice” festival.Carved, sanded, packed, shaped, scraped and cut, these figures were made…
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A Russian sculptor has been arrested for laying a giant turd in a central St. Petersburg park, local media reported Monday. “It’s so beautiful that I pooped myself,” quipped Ivan Volkov in a since-deleted Facebook post that included a photo of his long, brown snow sculpture, according to St. Petersburg’s Bumaga news website. Images of the…
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Russian troops arrived in Belarus on Tuesday for snap military drills, as Moscow hosted Germany’s foreign minister for the latest talks over fears of an invasion of Ukraine. More than a week of negotiations between Russia and the West have done little to ease worries raised by the massing of tens of thousands of Russian troops on…
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Britain has sent defensive weapons to Ukraine amid mounting worries that Russia could invade its ex-Soviet neighbor, which is asking for Western military aid. British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told Parliament that London delivered to Ukraine on Monday a small number of anti-armor defensive weapon systems as well as a small number of training personnel. “This…
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January 18, 2022 PAO Severstal, one of the world’s leading steel producers, announces that Yakovlevsky Mining and Processing plant (part of PAO Severstal) has launched a new loading and storage complex in test mode. This is the final stage of the project, the plant’s largest investment project of the past year. The Company invested approximately…
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Among the relics in the cathedral are shackles similar to those worn by St. John, a holy man who was a younger contemporary of St. Basil. The eleventh chapel, added to the cathedral in 1672, is dedicated to him. Some holy men and women wore shackles under their clothing, hidden so that others would not…
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Belarus’ strongman leader announced that his country and its close ally Russia will stage joint military exercises near NATO’s eastern borders and Ukraine in February, media reported Monday. President Alexander Lukashenko and his top brass disclosed details of the so-called “Allied Resolve” drills amid high tensions over Russia’s troop buildup near the border with Ukraine. The…
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