Russia’s Central Bank chief on Thursday called for Russia to be an “open economy” despite the barrage of Western sanctions and trading restrictions it has faced over the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina was speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), Russia’s premier business and investment event that used to…
DetailsThere were plans announced to transport 3 million tons of transit cargo along the Northern Sea Route by the end of the year. Representatives of ROSATOM took part in the session “The Northern Sea Route: Expanding Arctic Horizons”, which was held at the XXVII St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF-2024) on June 6. The event…
Details
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Thursday that its forces captured a Columbian man who purportedly fought as a mercenary on the side of Ukraine. “Angel Cardenas Montilla came to Ukraine following an advertisement on TikTok inviting mercenaries to fight against Russia,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement. It did not say where the man was…
DetailsThe memoranda outline specific steps for building human resources for Burkina Faso’s nuclear sector. On June 5, on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF-2024), three memoranda of understanding were signed between ROSATOM and the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Quarries of Burkina Faso. The documents were signed by Director General of…
Details
At least one person was killed and more than 100 others were injured after two trams collided on a bridge in the Siberian city of Kemerovo early Thursday, local officials said. Security camera footage shared on social media showed passengers being tossed onto a busy roadway from one of the careening trams as the driver…
Details
A Ukrainian drone attack started a fire at an oil refinery in southern Russia, forcing it to halt operations, regional authorities said early Thursday, adding that there were no casualties. Russia’s Defense Ministry said 13 drones were destroyed overnight in annexed Crimea, six in the southwestern Belgorod region and an anti-ship missile was shot down…
Details
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday criticized the West’s delivery of long-range weapons to Ukraine, arguing Moscow could arm other countries with similar weapons to attack Western targets. The comment — which Putin made at a rare press conference with foreign news outlets — came after several Western countries including the United States gave Ukraine…
Details
A Moscow court on Wednesday sentenced Twitch streamer Anna Bazhutova to five and a half years in prison for livestreaming witness testimony about alleged Russian atrocities in the Ukrainian city of Bucha. “It’s f***** up. It’s disgusting and vile,” the 30-year-old Bazhutova, speaking from the glass defendant’s box, said in reaction to the ruling against…
Details
The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), Russia’s premier business and investment event, kicked off in the country’s second-largest city on Wednesday with a focus on Russia’s place in a “multipolar” world, partnerships with the Global South and, increasingly, on domestic business deals. Once dubbed the “Russian Davos,” SPIEF had long attracted leading Western businesspeople,…
Details
A Russian military court has sentenced a mobilized soldier to 23 years in prison for killing his fellow servicemen with a grenade while under the influence of alcohol, the state-run news agency TASS reported Wednesday. Junior Sergeant Dmitry Lobovikov was said to be intoxicated when he threw a live grenade inside a sleeping quarter in…
Details
Moldova’s former chief of the general staff shared sensitive military information with Russian intelligence services at the height of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to a new report by The Insider, which cited leaked Telegram messages. Igor Gorgan, Moldova’s chief of the general staff between 2013 and 2016, and then later between 2019 and…
Details
Moscow will increase the number of its military instructors in Burkina Faso, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced Wednesday during a visit to the West African nation as part of a wider regional tour. “Russian instructors work here and their number will increase,” Lavrov said at a news conference in the capital Ouagadougou. “At the…
Details
President Vladimir Putin’s daughters Katerina Tikhonova and Maria Vorontsova are scheduled to speak at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) this week, according to the annual event’s program. Tech executive Tikhonova is among the speakers of a panel discussion on “the defense industry’s role in ensuring technological sovereignty” on Thursday. Washington sanctioned her for…
Details
Russia’s Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a five-year prison sentence against the prominent anti-war sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky on charges of “justifying terrorism,” state media reported. Kagarlitsky, 65, was initially fined 600,000 rubles ($6,600) in December over a since-deleted YouTube video about the 2022 Crimea bridge explosion. In February, a military court of appeals reversed that…
Details
Over a year into Russia’s grotesque full-scale invasion of Ukraine, disinformation and misconceptions of the conflict — fuelled both by the Kremlin and by political actors abroad — continued to permeate public debate. “The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History” by Serhii Plokhy takes aim at many of these myths, demonstrating how Russia’s centuries-long imperial obsession…
Details
The Russian online bank Tinkoff announced Wednesday that it was changing its name to T-Bank, marking a symbolic end to the lender’s association with its millionaire founder Oleg Tinkov, who has lived in exile since denouncing Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago. “First there was a word, now there’s a letter,”…
DetailsThe booth of the State Corporation at the Forum shows how technologies serve for development of the humankind. ROSATOM takes part in the XVII St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF-2024) which has opened today. ROSATOM acts as the titular partner of the Forum. The booth of the State Corporation at the event shows how technologies…
Details
Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko surpassed his own record for total time spent in space after he logged 1,000 days in Earth’s orbit on Wednesday, according to the Russian space agency Roscosmos. Kononenko, 59, became the world record holder in February when he overtook fellow Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka by spending 879 consecutive days in space.…
DetailsIt featured with a special presentation on its latest developments on small-modular reactors (SMRs). ROSATOM, a global leader in nuclear technologies, held a presentation of small land-based and floating nuclear power plants (FNPP) during Africa Nuclear Business Platform 2024 that took place from 28th to 31st of May in Accra. As Ghana aims to establish…
Details
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Dozens of people gathered in front of the Russian Embassy in The Netherlands on Tuesday to commemorate late Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny on what would have been his 48th birthday. “It’s crucial that the name of Navalny continues to be spoken, as every mention ensures that his legacy lives on,” Vladimir Nechayev,…
Details
The popular language learning platform Duolingo has removed references to LGBTQ+ people in its Russian version at Moscow’s request, the state-run news agency TASS reported Tuesday. Russia’s state media watchdog Roskomnadzor had this spring ordered Duolingo to comply with its “LGBT propaganda” law after conservative activists spotted phrases like “Ben and Peter love each other” and “Clara met…
Details
Starbucks has applied for several patents in Russia almost two years after exiting the country over its war in Ukraine, the Vedomosti business daily reported Tuesday, citing the database of Russia’s intellectual property agency Rospatent. Experts speculate the move could signal either Starbucks’ potential return to the Russian market or an effort to extend patent…
Details
Russia’s deputy foreign minister claimed Tuesday that the West may be planning to overthrow the government of Georgia ahead of its parliamentary elections later this year, as tensions continue to boil over in the South Caucasus nation after the recent passing of a controversial “foreign influence” law. “We see Western attempts to escalate the situation…
Details
Western army instructors training Ukrainian soldiers in the country would have no “immunity” from Russian strikes, the Kremlin said Tuesday, amid reports that France could despatch military trainers to Ukraine. Ukraine’s army chief Oleksandr Syrsky said last week that French military instructors would soon arrive in the country, but Kyiv’s Defense Ministry later walked back…
Details
Russia’s special services have ramped up the already strict security measures surrounding President Vladimir Putin to an unprecedented degree, two Russian officials who have been present at many of Putin’s public appearances as well as a source close to the Kremlin told The Moscow Times. The Kremlin — already on heightened security alert due to…
Details
Russia is waging an intense disinformation campaign aimed at tarnishing the reputation of the International Olympic Committee and stoking fears of violence at this summer’s games in Paris, according to a new report from Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center. According to Microsoft, the influence operations use a potent mix of fake videos, fictitious news stories, and…
Details
Russia’s second-largest lender VTB Bank announced Tuesday that it plans to open new offices in occupied Ukraine this year. “The bank will open two new branches in Luhansk in July and, by the end of the year, it plans to start customer service in Mariupol and Donetsk,” VTB said in a statement. The three cities are located in…
DetailsReactor hall equipment weighing 500 tons shipped to the Tianwan and Xudapu nuclear power plants. Izhora Plants (part of Rosatom’s Mechanical Engineering Division) have shipped five units of equipment manufactured for two NPPs of Russian design currently under construction in China. The large cargo with a total weight of about 500 tons is to be…
Details
Updated with Turchak appointment. Oleg Khorokhordin announced Tuesday that he was stepping down as governor of the Siberian republic of Altai, making him the third regional head to resign within a week as the country prepares for regional elections in September. “I’m resigning from the post of head of the Altai Republic in connection with…
Details
On a recent May afternoon, a Russian train trundles through the country’s southwestern regions near the border with Ukraine. The train’s dining car is packed with Russian soldiers. Some are heading to the front lines in Ukraine, where their country has been waging war for over two years, while others are returning home for a…
Details
American actor George Clooney denied on Monday that the human rights organization he co-founded with his wife intends to seek the arrest of Russian journalists who support Moscow’s war against Ukraine. The legal director at the Clooney Foundation for Justice’s Docket initiative, Anya Neistat, had previously said the organization was seeking the arrest and extradition…
Details
Three people including a 12-year-old boy were killed in Russian attacks on eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces have claimed steady advances in recent weeks, local authorities said Monday. The head of the Donetsk region, which the Kremlin claimed to have annexed in late 2022, said two people were killed and another wounded by Russian attacks…
Details
A group of women staged a rare protest outside the Russian Defense Ministry building in Moscow on Monday, demanding the return of their loved ones drafted to fight in Ukraine and a meeting with new Defense Minister Andrei Belousov. Around 15 women, some with small children, gathered outside the building holding up hand-written placards saying…
Details
Russia’s manufacturing sector saw near-record employment growth in May, according to a new report from S&P Global, as an already tight labor market struggles to meet the surge in demand for workers. S&P Global’s Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for Russian manufacturing rose to 54.4 last month compared to 54.3 in April. A PMI value above 50…
Details
Russian law enforcement authorities will investigate pop star Olga Buzova for performing on Children’s Day in a revealing outfit that sparked outrage among conservative figures, investigators said Monday. Buzova was among the headliners at VK Fest 2024, an event organized by the social media website VKontakte in the republic of Bashkortostan’s capital city Ufa on…
Details
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived on Monday in Guinea, his ministry said, marking his first trip to the West African country since 2013. Moscow, which has seen its relations with the West plummet since invading Ukraine in February 2022, has in recent years sought to boost its influence in Africa. Russia’s Foreign Ministry announced…
Details
Fighters from Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s Akhmat military unit have been deployed to northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region amid Russia’s recent offensive, the unit’s commander Apti Alaudinov said Monday. “The fighters have been transferred to different sites along the entire line of contact that had to be covered up,” the state-run news agency TASS quoted Major…
Details
Nine people were wounded in Ukrainian strikes on the Russian border regions of Belgorod and Kursk, the respective regional governors said on Sunday. “Six civilians were wounded as a result of the bombardment of Shebekino town,” Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram, adding that they had been taken to hospital. All six, five of…
Details
“Born of the devil and filled with the devil’s blood”: this was how Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, with his typical vitriol, described the Gulag medical system. As far as he was concerned, doctors in the Gulag prison camps were pawns in a system designed to extract every ounce of labor from its prisoners. The brutal…
Details
Mourners and soldiers on Saturday laid flowers at a new statue of Yevgeny Prigozhin, a pro-Kremlin mercenary who staged a mutiny and died in a plane crash, at his grave in Saint Petersburg. Prigozhin was head of the Wagner private militia, which fought alongside Russian troops in Ukraine, capturing the city of Bakhmut in a…
Details
In the Soviet period food didn’t get much public attention. Like the rest of daily life, it paled in the glow of lofty communist philosophy. But that’s strange. It would seem that the topic would be perfect to blot out memories of the “glorious” past. After all, food riots in Russia were precursors to the…
Details
Russia fired a combined 100 missiles and drones at Ukraine overnight in a barrage that targeted energy sites across the country, Ukrainian officials said on Saturday. Russia has launched dozens of aerial attacks at Ukraine’s power facilities throughout the war, causing significant damage and energy shortages as Ukraine’s stretched air defenses struggle to repel the…
Details
Ukrainian shelling attacks killed five people in Russian-occupied areas of the eastern Donetsk region on Friday, Moscow-installed authorities said. The Kremlin often accuses Kyiv of indiscriminate attacks on civilians. Ukraine denies the claims, saying it bombs only military targets responsible for deadly strikes on its own civilians. “Five people were killed,” Russian-installed top official of…
Details
Russia on Friday labeled a women’s organization campaigning for the return of mobilized men from Ukraine and a former pro-peace presidential candidate “foreign agents.” Moscow uses the label, heavy in Soviet-era connotations, on Kremlin critics to silence dissent. Russia’s Justice Ministry included the Put’ Domoi (Way Home) movement, which has organized women-led protests in Moscow…
Details
The United States on Thursday finally joined a growing number of its NATO allies in allowing Ukraine to use weapons donated by the West to strike military targets on Russian territory. Officials said Ukraine would only be allowed to defend the embattled Kharkiv region, which is under bombardment by missiles and glide bombs launched inside…
Details
Sting singing “I hope the Russians love their children too” from a Moscow TV studio. Appearances by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and interviews with Ukrainian politicians. Political satire on the country’s top comedy show. None of these things would appear on television in today’s Russia, which has been isolated from the West and under strict…
Details
The European Union on Friday imposed sanctions against Primorye region Governor Oleg Kozhemyako in Russia’s Far East over what it said were arms supplies to North Korea in violation of UN sanctions. Kozhemyako was seen gifting kamikaze and reconnaissance drones, as well as a bulletproof vest, to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his…
Details
G7 foreign ministers said Friday they were “gravely concerned” about deepening cooperation between Russia and North Korea, particularly arms transfers from Pyongyang to Moscow for use on the battlefield in Ukraine. “We are gravely concerned by the deepening DPRK-Russia cooperation in flagrant violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions,” they said in a statement…
Details
Traffic along the Trans-Siberian Railway was partially disrupted on Friday after a cargo train flew off the tracks, crashing into trees and setting a nearby forest on fire, the local rail operator said. A total of 29 cars carrying coal were derailed at 2:30 p.m. local time in Far East Russia’s Amur region, causing damage…
Details
A Russian court on Friday extended the pre-trial detention of U.S.-Russian journalist Alsu Kurmasheva until August, nearly a year after she was first charged with spreading “false information” about the army. Kurmasheva, who works for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), was arrested last year for failing to register as a “foreign agent.” She was subsequently charged with…
Details
Moscow and Kyiv have traded 150 prisoners of war with the help of mediators from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Russia’s Defense Ministry announced Friday, the first such exchange after months of stalled talks between the two warring sides. “As a result of negotiations, 75 Russian servicemen, who were in mortal danger in captivity, were…
Details
Dmitry Azarov announced Friday that he was stepping down as governor of southern Russia’s Samara region, making him the second regional head to resign this week ahead of gubernatorial elections later this year. “I’ve made a decision to complete my work in the governor’s post,” Azarov said in a video address to residents posted on…
Details
Russia’s Finance Ministry submitted a major tax reform plan this week that seeks to introduce a progressive tax system and increase corporations’ contributions to the state budget. The reform, if passed, promises to generate nearly 3 trillion rubles ($33.2 billion) per year at a time when government spending on the war in Ukraine continues to…
Details
Berlin has given Ukraine permission to fire German-delivered weapons at targets in Russia, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s spokesman said Friday, matching a move by the United States. Kyiv has the “right under international law to defend itself” against attacks coming from inside Russia, Steffen Hebestreit said in a statement. Attacks from Russian territory have increased in…
Details
Russian forces are advancing on all fronts in Ukraine and have seized some 880 square kilometers of territory this year alone, Defense Minister Andrei Belousov said on Friday. If confirmed, Russia would have made more gains in the past five months than in all of 2023, when the front line remained largely static despite a…
Details
An overnight Ukrainian drone strike in southern Russia’s Krasnodar region sparked a large fire and injured at least two workers at an oil depot, regional authorities said Friday. Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defense systems destroyed 29 Ukrainian drones and five missiles over the region. Krasnodar region Governor Venyamin Kondratyev said an aerial attack…
DetailsFrom June, Russian companies will be able to offset their carbon footprint with energy produced at the Leningrad NPP. Rosenergoatom (Electric Energy Division of ROSATOM) has passed certification for inclusion in the register of low-carbon generating facilities and received the right to sell “green” attributes of electricity – atomic certificates. The first nuclear power plant…
Details
President Joe Biden has lifted restrictions on Ukraine using weapons supplied by the United States against targets on Russian territory, but only to defend the under-fire Kharkiv region, U.S. officials said Thursday. Biden has come under increasing pressure from a desperate Ukraine to ease his ban but had so far resisted amid fears it could…
Details
Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence service said Thursday that its forces had used naval drones to destroy two Russian patrol boats off Moscow-annexed Crimea. The GUR wrote on Telegram that its Group 13 special forces unit “successfully attacked the boats of the aggressor state of Russia in temporarily occupied Crimea” using Ukrainian naval drones. It said…
Details
Denmark’s Foreign Minister said Ukraine would be allowed to attack targets inside Russia with F-16 fighter jets it sends as part of military support for Kyiv, Ukrainian media reported Thursday. “The short answer is yes,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen was quoted as saying in Brussels by the news website European Pravda when asked…
Details