At least 170 endangered seals washed up dead over the course of several days on the shores of the Caspian Sea in Russia’s republic of Dagestan, researchers told AFP on Thursday. “These are the dead animals that we saw, photographed and whose GPS coordinates we noted,” said Viktor Nikiforov of the Moscow Marine Mammals research…
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday demanded that Russia end its “aggressive” actions towards Ukraine, warning on a solidarity visit to Kiev that the giant neighbor has yet to withdraw most forces from a recent buildup. The top U.S. diplomat met Ukraine’s leadership and toured a somber memorial with photographs of some of…
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Russian scientists and President Vladimir Putin raised objections Thursday after an annual vaccine conference named Moderna’s coronavirus jab the best in the world. The U.S. pharmaceutical giant’s jab was recognized as the world’s best Covid-19 vaccine at the annual World Vaccine Congress earlier in the day, edging out competitors including Pfizer-BioNTech and Russia’s Sputnik V.…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said he supported the idea of a waiver on patent protections for coronavirus vaccines as Russia registered its fourth virus jab called Sputnik Light. A campaign to lift patent protections on Covid-19 vaccines picked up steam on Thursday, with French, German and EU leadership saying they were ready to…
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Updated at 4:09 p.m. on May 6 to add the event’s postponement. Russian kindergarteners in full military gear will march in a “baby parade” to mark Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, authorities in a region near Moscow said in an announcement, which was later deleted. The Tver region’s Likhoslavsky district 200 kilometers…
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Health officials in Russia approved a single-dose version of the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, the developers of the shot said Thursday. The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which helped finance the vaccine, said in a statement that Sputnik Light “demonstrated 79.4% efficacy” compared to 91.6% for the two-shot Sputnik V. The results, it said, were…
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The Kremlin said Thursday it is unaware of its alleged employment of the suspected Russian agents wanted over the 2018 Skripal poisonings in Britain and fatal 2014 arms depot blasts in the Czech Republic. Investigative journalist Christo Grozev said Friday that the duo identified as GRU military intelligence agents Anatoly Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin have…
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Russian lawmakers have proposed banning comparisons between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany as the Kremlin seeks to revive interest in the memory of World War II and praise for Russia’s Soviet past. The bill submitted in the lower-house State Duma on Wednesday follows President Vladimir Putin’s orders earlier this year to legally prohibit publicly…
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The makers of Russia’s third coronavirus vaccine CoviVak said their tests of a live polio vaccine for preventing Covid-19 have proven effective. Aydar Ishmukhametov, the director of the state-run Chumakov Research Center which developed CoviVak, told state television that the results “prove” the polio vaccine’s short-term effectiveness. “We gave some 60 volunteers a live polio…
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The makers of Russia’s second approved coronavirus vaccine EpiVacCorona are studying third doses to boost recipients’ immune response, a senior scientist said Wednesday. Approved last fall and added to Russia’s mass immunization program last month, EpiVacCorona has come under scrutiny after a group of late-trial study participants claimed that it does not produce an immune…
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The Central African Republic described UN information about abuse by CAR troops and Russian forces as “denunciations,” but promised to investigate them. Government spokesman Ange Maxime Kazagui, in a statement late Monday, said President Faustin Archange Touadera had received a report from the UN peacekeeping mission MINUSCA. In it, the mission detailed abuses committed between…
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Hollywood action star Steven Seagal, known for dropping in on tough guy leaders like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, paid a visit to Venezuela’s leftist president Nicolas Maduro to give him the gift of a samurai sword. The hero of 80s and 90s hits including “Hard to Kill” and “Under Siege” appeared in state-run TV footage on Tuesday…
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Russian lawmakers have proposed banning people linked to terrorist or extremist organizations from running for office ahead of a landmark ruling to outlaw jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s political and activist groups. The changes to Russia’s election law, submitted in the lower-house State Duma on Tuesday, come days ahead of a highly anticipated Moscow court…
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U.S. President Joe Biden said Tuesday he expects to hold a summit with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin during a June trip to Europe. “That is my hope and expectation,” Biden said. Biden in April offered a meeting in a third country to discuss rising tensions over Russian sabre rattling around Ukraine, the treatment of…
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A Russian astrologer and yoga instructor said she has been accused of illegal missionary work for organizing celebrations of a major Hindu festival. Yekaterina Kalinkina, 47, faces a fine of 50,000 rubles ($650) for organizing and promoting events marking the festival of Maha Shivratri on social media in March, according to documents she posted Friday. Maha Shivratri,…
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A monument to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin has been dismantled days after local communists in the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan erected it on Russia’s last remaining Stalin Avenue, media reported Monday. The Communist Party chapter in the town of Dagestanskiye Ogni 2,000 kilometers south of Moscow ignited deep-seated divisions when its members placed Stalin’s…
DetailsRosneft will report its Q1 2021 IFRS financial results on Friday, May 14, 2021.
CHOKH, Dagestan – Maxim Alyoshin sips sweet black tea from a thermos flask in this picturesque mountain village as he recalls the horror stories his father told him about fighting jihadist militants in the region in the 1990s as part of an elite Russian special forces regiment. “We always heard scary things about Dagestan, that…
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The NIKA Awards The Russian film community holds their big awards ceremony every spring, except in 2020 when Moscow was on lockdown during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, this year’s ceremony gave out awards for two years: 2019 and 2020. The best film of 2019 was “The Frenchman,” the story…
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Hundreds of journalists from scores of countries have called on Russia to end its persecution of independent media, according to an open letter published on the Russian student-run news outlet DOXA’s website Monday. The World Press Freedom Day statement came a month after authorities filed a criminal case against DOXA’s editorial team for allegedly “inciting…
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The European Union summoned the Russian ambassador on Monday after Moscow put eight EU nationals, including top Brussels officials, on a blacklist in retaliation for sanctions by the bloc. Moscow’s envoy was to meet senior officials from the European Commission and the EU’s diplomatic service later in the afternoon, EU spokesman Peter Stano said. “These…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law fines for publishing information and reports from “foreign agent” media without identifying the outlet’s status amid what observers call tightening restrictions on dissent ahead of key elections. Under to the new law that Putin signed Friday, media organizations can be fined up to 50,000 rubles ($650) for…
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Russians across the country on Sunday celebrated the most important and sacred holiday in the Russian Orthodox Church’s calendar: Easter. At home, most Russians took part in beloved traditions like dyeing and decorating eggs, as well as eating Easter delicacies like kulich bread and paskha cake. Worshippers also flocked to church to attend Easter services,…
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Three Russian tycoons and the Rosneft oil giant have filed libel and data protection lawsuits in Britain against the publisher of journalist Catherine Belton’s acclaimed 2020 book “Putin’s People,” the Financial Times has reported. The billionaires — Mikhail Fridman, his longtime business partner Peter Aven and real estate tycoon Shalva Chigirinsky — and Rosneft filed…
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Kyrgyzstan said a ceasefire with Tajikistan was holding on Sunday, as it accused citizens from its Central Asian neighbor of crimes during the pair’s worst clashes at their contested border in decades. The Kyrgyz interior ministry said that casualties on its side had risen to over 160 with 34 deaths, 31 of whom were civilians. The…
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This Translation by Robert Chandler Teffi is difficult to translate. I have said a little in the foreword about her Pushkinian grace and deft use of repetition. She also makes the most of two freedoms—the freedom to omit words and an extreme freedom of word order—that are available only in a highly inflected language like…
DetailsOn April 30, over 3 200 people from some 40 countries watched ROSATOM’s Atoms for Humanity new nuclear awareness campaign launch event. The project is aimed at demonstrating the importance of nuclear technologies in achieving the UN Sustainable Goals through human-centered stories. The project launch event Why Humanity Needs Nuclear brought together Polina Lion, Chief…
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In December 2019, police officers came to Ruslan Shaveddinov’s Moscow apartment, sawed through the door and placed him in handcuffs before whisking him away for forced military service in the Arctic. Denied access to a cell phone — a rule violation, according to the 25-year-old opposition activist — he had to correspond with his loved…
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Russia recorded more than 460,000 excess deaths during the first 12 months of the coronavirus pandemic, according to analysis of official statistics published by the Rosstat federal statistics agency. In its latest report published Friday, Rosstat data showed 38,000 more people died in March 2021 compared to the same month in 2020 — the last…
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One of life’s great indulgences is a mid-afternoon tea break. At 4:00 each afternoon, my phone trills the high-pitched, reedy “Tea” melody from “The Nutcracker,” signaling that it is time for a cup of tea and perhaps a slice of something sweet. During lockdown, my family members have folded this habit into the rhythms of…
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Five girls were killed Friday when a truck overturned on a highway in southern Russia and crushed a minibus carrying their basketball team to a tournament, officials said. The team was going from the city of Volgograd to a tournament in Cherkessk when the accident happened. “It is very difficult to write about this […] five children…
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Five girls were killed Friday when a truck overturned on a highway in southern Russia and crushed a minibus carrying their basketball team to a tournament, officials said. The team was going from the city of Volgograd to a tournament in Cherkessk when the accident happened. “It is very difficult to write about this […] five children…
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Russia’s foreign ministry said Friday it had barred eight European officials from entering the country in response to EU sanctions against Russian officials last month. The ministry said it was responding to sanctions imposed by the European Council last month against four top Russian security officials over the jailing of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and…
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April 30, 2021, 18:35 Dear members of the media and representatives of investment and finance companies, We are pleased to invite you to the traditional Press Conferences of Gazprom’s top management to be held in the lead-up to the Company’s annual General Shareholders Meeting The Press Conferences will take place online from May 14 through June 16 as follows: May 14 (02:00 pm, Moscow time) – “Power generation: development prospects” with Denis Fyodorov, Head…
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Hundreds of military vehicles and thousands of troops swept through Russia’s capital late Thursday for the first grand rehearsal of Moscow’s Victory Day parade. Held annually on May 9, the parade commemorates the Soviet victory in World War II, or the Great Patriotic War as it is usually referred to within the country. Apart from…
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The Russian Navy for the first time test-fired a supersonic anti-ship cruise missile in the Black Sea, the military announced Friday with tensions still high following Russia’s troop buildup near Ukraine. The Moskva guided missile cruiser launched one turbojet missile toward the “opposite end” of the Black Sea, according to the Defense Ministry-run Zvezda broadcaster’s…
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Officials in Kyrgystan and Tajikistan sought to ease tensions on Friday after major clashes between the ex-Soviet neighbors in Central Asia left over a dozen dead and thousands displaced in Kyrgyzstan. Clashes between communities over land and water along the pair’s long-contested border are regular occurrences, with border guards often getting involved. But the shooting…
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Easter The Russian Orthodox Church celebrates Easter this year on May 2, which means that there will be lines outside churches on Saturday as people bring baskets of kulich (sweet bread), paskha (a sweet cheese spread), colored eggs and other treats to be blessed. The main Easter service, with the glorious procession around the church,…
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Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s political network has been blacklisted as a “terrorist-linked” organization, Russia’s state financial watchdog Rosfinmonitoring said Friday. “Navalny Networks” now appears on Rosfinmonitoring’s searchable database of groups and persons with links to terrorist activities, which includes al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the Islamic State. The designation means that authorities can block the…
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A member of German metal band Rammstein has expressed support for an ally of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny who was jailed for reposting one of the band’s music videos on social media. Andrei Borovikov, the former coordinator of Navalny’s Arkhangelsk headquarters in northern Russia, was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison Thursday on charges…
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The U.S. Embassy in Moscow said Friday it will cut most visa services for Russians and eliminate non-emergency consular services for Americans from next month following Moscow’s hiring ban on “unfriendly” countries. The move means 75% of consular staff will lose their jobs. Russian President Vladimir Putin last week capped the number of Russians allowed…
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On April 21 the Museum of Russian Impressionism has mounted another exhibition filled with revelations. Called “Seekers of Art,” the show continues the museum’s innovative approach to uncovering the hidden aspects of Soviet life. It tells about a phenomenon that before perestroika was not publicized and in fact was harshly punished: private collections of art,…
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One of Russia’s leading defense lawyers has been detained on criminal charges of disclosing details of an investigation hours before he was due in court to represent a prominent former journalist accused of treason, his colleagues said early Friday. “Ivan Pavlov, the leader of Team 29, was arrested on April 30 in Moscow after a…
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A prominent Russian scientist accused of state treason has died from cancer at age 77, his lawyer and the RBC news website reported Thursday. Viktor Kudryavtsev was charged in 2018 in connection with a suspected leak of hypersonic missile secrets to Belgium. He was later released after over a year in pre-trial detention after he…
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Brazil’s health regulator said Thursday its decision to reject the Russian-made Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine was based on the developer’s own data, after the latter threatened to sue for defamation. Brazilian regulators’ decision Monday to deny emergency use authorization for the vaccine has blown up into an all-out international row, with Sputnik V’s makers accusing…
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A Russian court on Thursday sentenced an ally of jailed opposition politician Alexei Navalny to two and a half years in prison on pornography charges, his lawyer said. The sentencing came as Russia inches closer to shutting down Navalny’s political network, with his regional offices announcing they would disband ahead of a ruling over whether…
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The developer of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine said Thursday it would sue Brazil’s health regulator Anvisa after it refused to import the jab. “Sputnik V is undertaking a legal defamation proceeding in Brazil against Anvisa for knowingly spreading false and inaccurate information,” the developer said on the official Sputnik V Twitter account. Anvisa announced…
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The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has completed a special investigation into how Russia conducted clinical trials for its Sputnik V vaccine as part of the jab’s application for approval in the EU. The regulator told The Moscow Times on Thursday that an EMA inspection team currently in Moscow had conducted a Good Clinical Practices (GCP)…
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A visibly gaunt Alexei Navalny made his first public appearance Thursday since being imprisoned on old fraud charges and finishing a three-week hunger strike. Joining a court hearing via videolink from the notoriously harsh prison colony outside Moscow where he is serving two and a half years, the 44-year-old Kremlin critic compared himself to a…
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The independent Meduza news website has launched a fundraising campaign after editors said its branding as a “foreign agent” has put its survival in jeopardy. Russia’s Justice Ministry added Meduza to its “foreign agents” registry last week, a move supporters say is aimed at silencing one of Russia’s most popular independent media outlets. Meduza’s editors…
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Authorities in Russia’s republic of Chechnya have granted state protection to two gay men facing threats of familial “honor killings” after they were forcibly returned to their home region, the MBKh Media news website reported Thursday. Salekh Magamadov and Ismail Isayev had fled Chechnya for Nizhny Novgorod northeast of Moscow last summer after they were…
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Bulgaria’s foreign ministry said Thursday that it would expel a Russian diplomat, a day after prosecutors said they had established links between six Russian nationals and several past explosions at arms depots. “The Bulgarian foreign ministry declared one more Russian diplomat persona non grata,” the ministry said in a statement. It urged Russia to “fully…
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Tensions between Russia and the Czech Republic soared this month when Prague accused Moscow of orchestrating a fatal arms depot blast on Czech soil in 2014. The accusations set in motion a flurry of tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions between Prague and its European allies on one side and Moscow on the other. Slovakia, Albania and the…
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Armed forces in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have exchanged gunfire along a contested stretch of border, dramatically raising the stakes in a conflict that began with clashes among local residents. Marufkhan Tulayev, deputy head of Kyrgyzstan’s southern Batken region, told Interfax news agency on April 29 that at least four Kyrgyz soldiers have been hospitalized with…
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Moscow’s chief infectious disease specialist hit out Thursday at the city’s slow vaccination drive and residents not wearing masks in crowded places after coronavirus cases nearly doubled in the Russian capital overnight. Doctor Nikolai Malyshev said both factors were behind a 74% increase in single-day infections that Moscow authorities confirmed earlier in the day. The…
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United States law enforcement authorities have arrested a Russian citizen in Los Angeles whose bitcoin mixing platform allegedly helped users launder $336 million over a decade, Reuters reported Tuesday. Roman Sterligov was the main operator of Bitcoin Fog, a website founded in 2011 to help users anonymize cryptocurrency payments, especially on darknet markets where drugs…
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TEREKLI-MEKTEB, Dagestan – In the remote north of Russia’s Caucasian Dagestan region, rich grasslands once sustained hordes of humans and animals alike. Now, herds of stray cows roam towering sand dunes in a huge new desert that grows bigger every year. For 30 years now, climate change has been driving the sands further into the…
DetailsThe Zvezda Shipbuilding Complex has begun the next stage of measures for artificial reproduction of aquatic biological resources – the release of young salmonid fish into rivers of Primorsky Krai.
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s political network has been disbanded ahead of a court ruling to declare it an “extremist” organization, his senior aide announced Thursday. A Moscow court is expected to hand down the decision behind closed doors next month, banning the network’s crowdfunded work and putting members and supporters at risk of up…
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Sudan has suspended plans for Russia to open a naval logistics base in a key Red Sea port, Middle Eastern media reported Wednesday in news that sparked immediate denials from Moscow. Russia in December announced the signing of a 25-year deal to build the logistics hub for nuclear-powered warships and up to 300 military and…
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