U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday blamed Russia and Cuba for causing Venezuela’s political crisis by supporting President Nicolas Maduro. His comments came after the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Russian bank Evrofinance Mosnarbank for helping Venezuelan state oil firm PDVSA evade U.S. financial restrictions. “This story is not complete without acknowledging…
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Latvia has completed construction of a 93-kilometer barbed wire fence on the border with Russia to combat illegal migration, media outlets reported, citing the Latvian border service. The 2.7-meter-tall fence, announced in 2015, alternates between sensor-based systems and surveillance camera zones. It is part of a 21 million euro ($23.8 million) project to modernize 283…
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Prosecutors in Russia’s Irkutsk region want to stop a Chinese company from building a water-bottling factory that residents say will drain and pollute the deepest lake and largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth. The AquaSib company began construction of the 1.5 billion-ruble ($22.7 million) factory in January, with plans to bottle 190 million liters…
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Release March 11, 2019, 18:05 Vyacheslav Tyurin has been appointed Director General of Gazprom Invest. Vyacheslav Tyurin was born in 1960 in Kamensk-Uralsky, Sverdlovsk Region. He graduated from Kirov Ural Polytechnic Institute. In 1991–1999, he held managerial positions at commercial entities based in Nizhnevartovsk and Moscow. In 1999–2002, he served as Director General of SG-Trans at the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation. He has been part of Gazprom’s team for…
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Two new videos showing guards abusing inmates have brought national attention back to a notorious prison near Moscow that rocked Russia’s penitentiary system last year with reports of systemic torture. Bodycam footage released last summer by the investigative Novaya Gazeta newspaper showed guards violently beating prisoners in the Yaroslavl region. The videos’ publication touched off…
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The Russian military has significantly expanded and upgraded its weapons systems in the past six years, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told lawmakers on Monday. The country’s military achievements between 2012 and 2018 have turned Russia’s military into a mobile force capable of projecting influence abroad, The Associated Press quoted the minister as saying at a…
DetailsOn March 7, in Beijing, ASE (ROSATOM Engineering Division) and CNNC enterprises signed a General contract for units 7 and 8 of Tianwan NPP, as well as a contract for a technical project for units 3 and 4 of Xudabao NPP. The preparation of these documents was carried out in accordance with the strategic package…
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One in 10 foreigners who visited Russia visa-free for the FIFA World Cup last summer took advantage of a visa waiver to return to the country by the end of 2018, Russia’s top lender Sberbank has said. Security services estimate that more than 633,000 Fan ID holders visited Russia during the 2018 World Cup, according…
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Over the past week, Russia celebrated the pre-Lent festival known as Maslenitsa, or Pancake Week. Besides an abundance of blini (pancakes) served, it all came to an end with traditional bonfires across the country. Here’s a look at the fun and fire that took place over the weekend.
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Tyumenneftegaz, a Subsidiary of Rosneft, drilled 15 downhole splitters at Russkoe field in 2018, which is 30% more year-on-year. All the drilled horizontal wellbores and laterals are over 16 000 km in length. This technology enables increasing a start-up oil rate by 20-30%, as compared to a conventional horizontal well. Given geology of Russkoe field,…
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Russia remains the world’s second-largest arms exporter after the United States despite five years of declining sales abroad, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has said in a new report that was disputed by Russia’s state-owned arm exporter. Russia’s arms exports dropped 17 percent between 2014 and 2018 when compared to 2009-2013, contributing to…
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President Vladimir Putin will not reply to a letter from the son of a woman killed by a suspected Russian nerve agent near the English city of Salisbury last year because Russia‘s ambassador to Britain has already done so, the Kremlin said on Monday. Ewan Hope called on Putin in a letter publicized by the Daily Mirror…
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A Russian Ural Airlines jet bound for Moscow from Bahrain with 225 people aboard made an emergency landing in Baku, Azerbaijan on Monday because of a suspected bomb on board the plane, Baku airport said. Flight U6-1116 was en route to Moscow’s Domodedovo airport when the crew “received information about possible restricted items” on board, a…
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World athletics governing body IAAF has decided not to lift a ban on Russia‘s athletics federation over doping, saying on Monday it was still waiting to receive data collected from Moscow and financial compensation for its investigations. Russia‘s athletics federation (RUSAF) has been suspended since 2015 following a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) report that found evidence…
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A young Russian couple on vacation and a skydiving instructor were among the 157 people killed in an Ethiopian Airlines crash on Sunday, Russian media have reported. There were no survivors aboard the Boeing 737 jet carrying passengers from more than 30 countries from Addis Ababa to Nairobi, Kenya, the airline said. Ethiopia’s parliament declared…
DetailsA workshop for suppliers of the Akkuyu NPP project organized by Rosatom and AKKUYU NUCLEAR JSC project company was held on March 5, 2019 in Istanbul in the framework of the VI International Nuclear Power Plants Summit (INPPS Expo). Mr. İbrahim Halil Dere, Nuclear Energy General Director in Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources of…
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In a world of oligarchs, Igor Zyuzin was once one of the richest. As businessmen raced to get their hands on Russia’s assets in the mid-1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union, Zyuzin built a nationwide coal conglomerate. His company, Mechel, later also invested in metals. Although the moves made him a billionaire, he…
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In a legal system that has long been an instrument of the powerful, wealthy Russians continue finding clever new ways to use it to their advantage. A Moscow Times investigation has uncovered a new formula: a simple but effective legal scheme that allows wealthy Russians to get their lawsuits in front of friendly judges in…
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Specialists of Rosneft United Research and Development Centre (part of the corporate R&D complex of Rosneft) together with LLC RN-Lubricants (a subsidiary of Rosneft) have developed and patented a method of production of green technical oil TDAE (Treatment Distillated Aromatic Extract) to use for production of synthetic rubbers, tyres and rubber products. Technological potential development…
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It was Saturday afternoon and Mikhail Svetov was buzzing with nervous energy. Just 24 hours later, the member of Russia’s Libertarian Party would be leading a protest against a draft bill aimed at creating a so-called sovereign internet. “I see signals that something unusual is happening. Something similar to 2011,” Svetov said, referring to the…
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A giant wooden tower was torched on Saturday as part of the Maslenitsa folk festival celebration in Russia‘s western Kaluga region. The theme of this year’s festival was the French Revolution and the wooden tower was inspired by the Bastille, the site of the former fortress and symbol of the Bourbon monarchy, that was stormed in…
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Only a small number of Americans have not yet made up their minds about whether Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign coordinated with Russian officials, according to new Reuters/Ipsos polling, which also showed deep divisions in the United States in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election. Eight out of 10 Americans decided almost immediately about…
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President Vladimir Putin congratulated Russian women on International Women’s Day in a video message posted on the Kremlin’s website on Friday. Women’s Day is a national holiday in Russia and one of the most important public holidays inherited from the Soviet period. “You manage everything at work and at home, whilst staying beautiful, bright, and…
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Turkey is running out of time to avert a showdown with the United States over its plans to buy advanced Russian air defenses and spurn a counter-offer from its NATO partner, raising the chance of U.S. sanctions against Ankara. The last diplomatic crisis between the two countries contributed to driving the lira to a record…
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The U.S. and the European Union are coordinating their strategy in the Western Balkans to foil Russian meddling in the volatile region, a U.S. government official said. Russia “worked very hard” to undermine the recent agreement between Greece and North Macedonia and is boosting aspirations among Bosnian Serbs to secede from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Matthew A. Palmer,…
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Members of conservative pro-Kremlin youth organization Set entered Russia’s sole “women-only hours” cafe in St. Petersburg, resulting in a scuffle on Thursday. March 8 marks International Women’s Day. In Russia, it is celebrated as a public holiday with flowers traditionally being gifted to women. In the footage posted online by Set, several men are seen…
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For more than two decades, Ruben Vardanyan was the face of Western-style investment banking as a founder of Troika Dialog during the birth of Russian capitalism, going on to earn successes that brought him billionaire status and ties to the Kremlin, British royalty and Hollywood. With his former investment bank now accused of laundering billions…
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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has expressed his admiration for Russian rocket engineering in a tweet on Thursday. Musk’s tweet came in response to an article posted by the tech outlet Ars Technica, which said that the Russian Soyuz spacecraft cannot compete with SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft. Last December, the SpaceX CEO also praised the design of…
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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has expressed his admiration for Russian rocket engineering in a tweet on Thursday. Musk’s tweet came in response to an article posted by the tech outlet Ars Technica, which said that the Russian Soyuz spacecraft cannot compete with SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft. Last December, the SpaceX CEO also praised the design of…
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This year, International Women’s Day in Russia is coming back to its political roots. All around the world, Women’s Day activities typically promote discussions of gender inequality. Issues such as unequal pay, education, voting rights and gender-based violence are, at least for one day, important talking points in the media. This politicized tone was once the norm…
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel rebuffed U.S. pressure last month to conduct a naval maneuver in Russia’s backyard aimed at provoking President Vladimir Putin, according to three people familiar with the talks. At a Feb. 16 meeting at the Munich Security Conference, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence urged Merkel to send German ships through a narrow…
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This week on From Russia With News, we discuss the explosive Troika Laundromat investigation with Paul Radu, the executive director of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, which revealed the scheme. We’ll also talk to Guardian correspondent Andrew Roth on why the return of hundreds of women and children from Iraq and Syria has…
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Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich has sold off his shares in Russia’s state-run Channel One television network due to his recently acquired Israeli citizenship, the shares’ buyer told Interfax on Thursday. Russian law prohibits foreign citizens from owning more than 20 percent of a media company, putting Abramovich in violation of the law when he acquired…
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Background The construction of the Pancevo TPP is carried out jointly by the Gazprom Energoholding Group and NIS a.d. Novi Sad (part of the Gazprom Neft Group). In June 2015, the companies signed a shareholders agreement to form a joint venture, Serbskaya Generaciya d.o.o. Novi Sad. The share of the Gazprom Energoholding Group in this company is 51 per cent and that of NIS a.d. Novi Sad is 49 per…
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Russian lawmakers pushed through a package of bills Thursday seeking to punish internet users and journalists for disrespecting the authorities and spreading fake news. Observers have argued that the highly contentious legislation introduced in December could lead to mass arrests due to its loose wording. Free speech and internet activists are scheduled to protest against…
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Two U.S. Mormons detained in Russia for violating immigration law and reportedly charged with teaching English without a license are set to be deported from Russia, local media said on Thursday. The two men, identified as David Gaaga and Kole Brodowski, were detained in southern Russia region late last week, U.S. media reported Wednesday. Both…
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Russia’s Defense Ministry released footage Wednesday of its fighter jet intercepting a U.S. reconnaissance plane over neutral waters near its western border. The video shows a Russian Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker approaching and shadowing a U.S. Air Force RC-135 plane over the Baltic Sea. With tensions on the rise, Russia and NATO countries have increasingly scrambled…
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Russian counterintelligence exposed hundreds of foreign spies in 2018, President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday. “[Counterintelligence agencies] conducted successful special operations to cut short the activities of 129 career officers and 465 agents of foreign intelligence service,” Putin said at a board meeting of the Federal Security Service (FSB). At the annual meeting, Putin urged FSB…
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The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) said on Wednesday it has completed a painstaking process of uploading doping data mined from a tainted Moscow laboratory and will start assessing the information to ensure it is complete and authentic. Obtaining, uploading and authenticating the data has been a massive undertaking requiring WADA to construct a virtual Moscow…
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Prosecutors in the Netherlands said on Wednesday they are evaluating signs of Dutch involvement in a money laundering network which is alleged by a report this week to have channelled billions of euros from Russia. Shares in Dutch banks ING and ABN Amro fell after a report by a collective of European news outlets called the Organised Crime and…
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Alina Politika is one of 42 female cadets attending the naval academy in Russia‘s Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, but she knows she is unlikely to ever step onto the captain’s bridge of a battleship. Politka’s diploma and military rank after graduation won’t differ from those of male cadets, but the Russian navy does not accept women as commanding officers — a situation she…
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Before Russia annexed Crimea and backed separatists in east Ukraine, Moscow had a Ukrainian president who did much of what it wanted. Now, as Ukraine readies to elect a new leader, none of the main candidates look that enticing to Russia. Viktor Yanukovich, the last Moscow-friendly Ukrainian president, was toppled by protests in 2014 and fled to Russia, and…
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The ice cover in the Bering Sea is at its lowest on record for this time of year after losing an area about the size of Montana at the height of winter. It’s the second consecutive year that the ice extent in the area has retreated at record pace. It shrank from 566,000 square kilometers (219,000…
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An outspoken communist lawmaker in Russia has said in an interview on state television that gay people are “sick” and need to be “cured” of their homosexuality. Russia banned displays of “homosexual propaganda” to minors in 2013, while courts regularly ban gay pride events and public polls show surging anti-LGBT sentiment. In a late Tuesday…
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Blessing Obuson thought Russia’s football World Cup would be an opportunity to find a job and flew into Moscow from Nigeria last June on a fan ID. Instead, she found herself forced to work as a prostitute. Fan IDs allowed visa-free entry to World Cup supporters with match tickets, but did not confer the right…
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Fewer than 100 Russian billionaires now have a combined wealth that is greater than the entire population’s savings, according to figures published by Forbes. Russia is regularly named in international ratings as one of the most unequal of the world’s major economies, with an estimated 89 percent of the country’s wealth owned by its richest 10…
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Russia’s central bank will not need to raise interest rates further if it considers the impact of its two rate increases last year to be enough, its monetary policy chief said. The central bank raised rates twice in the second half of 2018 to limit inflation, which was being fed by a weaker rouble, rising…
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A British destroyer is shadowing a Russian naval task group as it passes the English coast, the Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday. HMS Defender was called upon to sail over the weekend and keep watch on the frigate Admiral Gorshkov and three auxiliary ships as they neared U.K. territorial waters off Scotland. It will…
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Background OMV AG is Gazprom’s main partner in Austria. The companies cooperate, among other things, on gas production, transportation and supplies. Since 2017, OMV has been partnering with Gazprom in the development of the Yuzhno-Russkoye oil, gas and condensate field. In June 2018, an Agreement was signed to extend until 2040 the existing contract between Gazprom Export and OMV Gas Marketing & Trading GmbH for Russian gas supplies to Austria.…
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On a brisk, sunny Saturday in early March, a group of women dressed in full hockey gear and carrying industrial size brooms descend upon the frozen tennis courts of the German embassy. The tennis courts—which have been flooded to make a thick layer of ice—have become dusted overnight with a light layer of snow, which…
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Russia is ready to take part in Bulgaria’s Belene nuclear power plant project if such a possibility arises, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday. “We have the opportunity to implement this project, no less than other countries,” Medvedev says.
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Russian lawmakers have passed a bill banning hostels in residential buildings, a measure that risks severely limiting affordable accommodation options for travelers. Hoteliers warn that the ban could shutter up to 40 percent of hostels in Moscow and 80 percent in St. Petersburg and result in 16 billion rubles ($243 million) of losses in yearly…
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An investigation into a Russian money laundering network that funneled billions of dollars abroad sent shockwaves through Europe this week but was largely ignored by Russian officials and state media. The report released by the Organized Crime and Corruption Project (OCCRP) Monday said that a network of over 70 offshore companies had funnelled $4.6 billion…
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The Russian accounts of Venezuelan companies, including state oil firm PDVSA, will move to the Russian Financial Corporation Bank (Rusfincorp), which is sanctioned by the United States, the RIA news agency reported on Wednesday. Reuters reported last month that Russian lender Gazprombank had decided to freeze the accounts of PDVSA and halted transactions with the…
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The parents of kindergarteners in Moscow have sued the firm of a catering magnate with ties to the Russian president and military over a dysentery outbreak among dozens of children. Officials confirmed some 130 cases of food poisoning among kindergarteners in southeastern Moscow in December, leading parents to file a class-action lawsuit against a catering…
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Release March 5, 2019, 18:10 Photos The closing ceremony of the Gazprom Winter Spartakiada Games was held at the Uralochka competitive sports center in Yekaterinburg. The winners received congratulations from Sergey Khomyakov, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, Alexey Kryukov, Director General of Gazprom Transgaz Yekaterinburg, and Vladimir Tortyshev, chief referee of the Spartakiada Games. First, second and third places in the…
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Belarus will seek better ties with the West even though this provokes “hysterics” from its traditional ally Russia, long-serving President Alexander Lukashenko said on Tuesday, a day after lifting a cap of five U.S. diplomats in his country. Belarus is trying to improve ties with the West after a number of disputes with Moscow, which…
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Eight Russian billionaires have been named among the 100 richest people in the world, according to new rankings published by Forbes on Tuesday. The richest Russian on the list was Leonid Mikhelson, the CEO of the Novatek gas giant, who came in 32nd place overall with an estimated net worth of $24 billion. Other Russians…
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Release March 5, 2019, 17:05 Sergey Menshikov has been appointed Head of Department 307 at Gazprom, effective April 2, 2019. Sergey Menshikov was born in 1968 in Grozny. He graduated from Grozny Petroleum Institute, majoring in Machinery and Equipment at Oil & Gas Production Facilities, and received an additional degree in Oil and Gas Enterprise Management from the Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and…
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Moscow will deploy new missiles with a strike range over the entirety of Europe if the United States puts missiles on the continent, Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. warned Monday. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday suspending Russia‘s participation in the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with the United States, citing U.S.…
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