Parents in the town of Demyanovo in Russia’s central Kirov region released a video appeal last week calling on local officials to make basic repairs to the run-down facilities at the town’s only school. The video, in which parents complain of broken toilets, rotten floors, leaking roofs, and a lack of heating in the building,…
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The owner of the rebranded Russian McDonald’s is seeking to expand into Kazakhstan, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported Monday. The U.S. fast food giant sold its Russian business to a local licensee in May 2022 in response to the invasion of Ukraine. The rebranded McDonald’s, Vkusno i Tochka (“Tasty — and that’s it”),…
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A former commander for Russia’s Wagner private military group who claims to have witnessed several extrajudicial killings has fled to Norway and requested asylum, Russian activists and Norwegian media reported. “I heard dogs barking [and] two bullets flying near me,” the man identified as Andrei Medvedev said of his dramatic journey across the Russian-Norwegian border late…
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Russia and Belarus launched joint air force exercises Monday, using every military airfield in the country that served as a launchpad for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine last February. The drills come as Russia’s invasion, now in its 11th month, grinds on as a bloody war of attrition in eastern Ukraine and a campaign of aerial strikes…
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The Georgian actor, singer and political figure Vakhtang Kikabidze died in a Tbilisi hospital on Sunday. The cause of death was not released, but his producer Rati Abzianidze said that Kikabidze had been in poor health for many years. Kikabidze was one of the Soviet Union’s most popular singers and actors. He had the distinction…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday praised his forces after their claimed capture of a Ukraine town and in the wake of a missile strike that killed 23 people in a tower block. The taking of Soledar in eastern Ukraine, a salt-mining outpost home to 10,000 before the conflict, was hailed as a major success…
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Alexander was quickly deployed to the frontlines in Ukraine after he joined a Russian unit for volunteer soldiers in October because he wanted to “defend his motherland.” One month later, he was badly injured by artillery fire near the Ukrainian village of Makiivka amid intense fighting in the east of the country. He told The…
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Inna Churikova, one of the most celebrated and prolific actresses of the Soviet Union and Russia, died on Saturday at the age of 79. The cause of death was reported to be heart failure, although she had been in poor health for several months. Churikova was born in 1943 in what is now Bashkortostan, where…
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British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Saturday pledged to provide Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine, making it the first Western country to supply the heavy tanks Kyiv has been calling for. The pledge saw a swift reaction from Russia which warned it would only “intensify” the conflict. “Bringing tanks to the conflict zone, far from…
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Buzhenina is one of the most delicious and ubiquitous main courses at holiday feasts. You might find it on a royal table or in a traveler’s backpack. It can be served piping hot, just from the oven, or nicely cold — perfect for a painful morning hangover. One of the first references to buzhenina is found in…
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Ukraine reported a fresh wave of attacks on key infrastructure facilities on Saturday, a day after Russia claimed to have captured the ravaged eastern town of Soledar following a long battle. Victory in Soledar would be a rare achievement for Moscow after an embarrassing series of military setbacks — although Kyiv insisted fighting was still…
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A Russian film reboot featuring legendary Soviet cartoon character Cheburashka has become Russia’s highest-grossing film of all time, surpassing the first part of James Cameron’s “Avatar” despite only being released two weeks ago, according to statistics published by the Russian Cinema Fund. The total box office from “Cheburashka,” which was released on Jan. 1, has already surpassed…
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A Russian film reboot featuring legendary Soviet cartoon character Cheburashka has become Russia’s highest-grossing film of all time, surpassing the first part of James Cameron’s “Avatar” despite only being released two weeks ago, according to statistics published by the Russian Cinema Fund. The total box office from “Cheburashka,” which was released on Jan. 1, has already surpassed…
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Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed that its forces had won a significant victory on Friday with the capture of the eastern Ukrainian town of Soledar, despite military analysts cautioning that the salt-mining town held greater symbolic than strategic value. The situation on the ground in what remains of Soledar remained unclear late Friday, with Ukrainian officials…
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Germany on Friday demanded swift medical care for jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who has complained of being denied access to hospital treatment by prison officials in Russia. Navalny, the most prominent opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, on Wednesday said he had flu symptoms including a fever but was being kept in a punishment cell…
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Russia’s Defense Ministry said Friday that the country’s Armed Forces had captured eastern Ukraine’s salt-mining town of Soledar, some 48 hours after the victory was claimed by the head of Russia’s mercenary company Wagner. The capture of Soledar is a key objective for the Russian military in a larger campaign to take control of the…
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A senior Russian lawmaker on Friday denied that the Russian military had canceled the right to mobilization deferment for fathers of three or more children amid ongoing speculation that Moscow could launch a second round of mobilization for the war in Ukraine. The Defense Ministry in October granted men with three or more children under the age of…
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Russia’s military has canceled the right to mobilization deferment for fathers of three children, a Russian lawmaker said, amid ongoing speculation that Moscow could launch a second round of mobilization for the war in Ukraine. In October, the Defense Ministry granted men with three or more children under the age of 16 the right to…
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Russians who criticize their country after fleeing abroad should have their remaining property confiscated, lawmakers proposed Friday in an apparent effort to increase pressure on exiled anti-war Russians. Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the lower-house State Duma, said “scoundrels” who have left the country can still face criminal prosecution for “insulting Russia, its inhabitants, soldiers and officers.”…
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Russians who criticize their country after fleeing abroad should have their remaining property confiscated, lawmakers proposed Friday in an apparent effort to increase pressure on exiled anti-war Russians. Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the lower-house State Duma, said “scoundrels” who have left the country can still face criminal prosecution for “insulting Russia, its inhabitants, soldiers and officers.”…
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The Kremlin has started preparing for the 2024 presidential campaign under the assumption that it will go on as planned despite Russia’s grinding military campaign in Ukraine, the Kommersant business daily reported Friday, citing unnamed sources. President Vladimir Putin, 70, has been in power as president or prime minister since 1999. While Russian presidents are…
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Valery Gerasimov, who in a surprise move was named to lead Russian troops in Ukraine after months of setbacks, has been Moscow’s top general for the past decade as chief of the general staff. The decision to appoint the country’s top soldier to lead an offensive on the ground in Ukraine is extremely unusual and…
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Russian families from the Volga region of Samara continue to bury loved ones who died in one of the most deadly single incidents of the Ukraine war as local anger simmers over the New Year’s Eve attack. At least 89 Russian soldiers — mostly men drafted from Samara — were killed when Ukrainian rockets slammed…
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Russia has released a U.S. Navy veteran who had been held in the country’s Kaliningrad region for nine months, U.S. negotiator and former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson announced on Thursday. Taylor Dudley had been held since April 2022 and was one of several detained Americans in Russia who release the U.S. authorities have been…
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A Russian court has sentenced a 24-year-old professional soldier to five years in prison for refusing to fight in Ukraine, officials said Thursday. The soldier, “not wanting to take part in a special military operation,” did not report for duty in May 2022, the court press service in the republic of Bashkortostan in the southern…
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A number of injured Russian soldiers are being sent back to the frontlines in Ukraine without permission from the military medical commission, the Agentstvo investigative outlet reported Thursday. The presidential Human Rights Council is investigating cases in which servicemen didn’t receive proper medical treatment before being sent back into battle, council member Olga Demicheva told the…
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Murtaza Rakhimov, the first president of Russia’s republic of Bashkortostan, died at age 88 on Wednesday in the region’s capital Ufa after a prolonged illness, Bashkortostan’s current head Radiy Khabirov announced. A village boy from Bashkortostan’s southwestern Kugarchinsky district, Rakhimov built a successful career in the region’s thriving oil refining industry before being elected the…
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Updates with clarification from VK source. Russian tech giant VK Group is demanding its employees based abroad return to the country as lawmakers consider a legal ban on remote work, investigative media reported Thursday, citing sources familiar with the matter. The government estimates that 100,000 IT workers — or 10% of the nation’s tech workforce…
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Russia’s Wagner private military group said overnight that it found the body of one of two British aid workers who went missing in eastern Ukraine over the weekend. Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Concord firm posted photographs of two passports belonging to Andrew Bagshaw, 48, and Christopher Parry, 28. “Today the body of one of them was found,”…
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Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said Wednesday that he was being refused access to hospital treatment by prison officials after falling sick, in what his team called an underhanded attempt to kill him. Navalny, the most prominent opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said he had flu symptoms including a fever but was being kept…
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General Valery Gerasimov’s appointment as the new commander of Russian forces in Ukraine raised questions over President Vladimir Putin’s intentions for the next stage of his bogged-down campaign. Russia’s Defense Ministry said Gerasimov is replacing General Sergei Surovikin three months into his role due to the “expanded scale of the tasks” and the need for…
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The Russian environmental group Movement 42, based in Russia’s Arctic Arkhangelsk region, announced that it was ceasing its activities on Wednesday just one month after being designated a “foreign agent” by the Russian authorities. “We consulted with lawyers and realized that it’s a big risk for us to continue to exist as an association”, the group…
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Surovikin, an army veteran with a reputation for ruthlessness appointed to the role in October, was tasked with turning the tide in Ukraine as the Russian army faced a series of battlefield defeats. Two days after Surovikin’s nomination, the Russian army signaled a strategic change by unleashing a wave of drone and missile attacks on…
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At least two regional officials in Russia have been condemned by the Russian public and the upper echelons of the ruling United Russia party after posting material from their vacations abroad on social media during wartime. In one case, a video showing Maxim Vasilyev, a member of the regional parliament in the Kursk region, which borders…
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Estonia announced the expulsion of 21 Russian diplomats and embassy staff in order to “reach parity” between the two nations’ diplomatic personnel on Wednesday. Tensions between Russia and its European neighbors have spiked since Moscow invaded Ukraine last year. The number of positions at Russia’s embassy in Tallinn and Estonia’s diplomatic mission in Moscow would…
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A conscript in the Russian army who pushed and swore at his superior officer on a parade ground in the Moscow region last year was sentenced to five-and-a-half years hard labor in a penal colony on Wednesday. The incident, a video of which quickly went viral after being made public on Nov. 13, took place…
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A Russian-U.S. space crew will stay on the International Space Station (ISS) until the arrival of a new capsule to replace one damaged by a meteorite last month, Russia’s state space agency Roscosmos said Wednesday. Cosmonauts Sergei Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin arrived at the ISS with NASA astronaut Frank Rubio on board the Soyuz MS-22 in…
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Russia’s widely read pro-war bloggers offered mixed reactions to the promotion of Colonel-General Alexander Lapin, a senior military officer who was widely blamed for Russia’s battlefield retreats in the second half of 2022. Russian media reported Tuesday that Lapin, 59, was named chief of the General Staff of the Ground Forces, an appointment neither confirmed…
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The leader of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group claimed the capture of the eastern Ukrainian town of Soledar early Wednesday, with heavy fighting ongoing in the salt-mining town near the city of Bakhmut. Ukraine denies Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin’s claim and it was impossible to independently verify either side’s claim. If confirmed, the capture of Soledar would…
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Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday said he had revoked the citizenship of Viktor Medvedchuk, once seen as Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s top ally in Kyiv and accused of high treason. Medvedchuk, a former Ukrainian lawmaker who was handed over to Russia in a prisoner exchange last September, was stripped of his citizenship along with…
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Russia’s monthly fiscal deficit reached a record 3.9 trillion rubles in December amid the EU-imposed ban on seaborne crude oil exports and the increasing operational cost of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to preliminary budget data analyzed by Bloomberg. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov on Tuesday also confirmed that Russia’s total budget deficit in 2022 amounted to…
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Beijing is planning to reorient its foreign policy away from Moscow fearing a decline in Russia’s economic and political clout as a direct result of its disastrous invasion of Ukraine and Putin’s eventual downfall, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing anonymous Chinese officials and regional experts. Though Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping pledged…
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Dozens of Russian doctors signed an open letter on Tuesday urging Russian President Vladimir Putin “to stop abusing” jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who was returned to solitary confinement on New Year’s Eve for the 10th time since his nine-year jail sentence began last year. “We cannot and do not have the right to look…
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Russia’s Interior Ministry has opened its first investigation into a breach of the recently expanded law against so-called “LGBT propaganda,” State Duma Deputy Alexander Khinshteyn announced on his Telegram channel on Tuesday. President Vladimir Putin signed a series of amendments to Russia’s existing anti-LGBT legislation into law in November, making any promotion of “non-traditional sexual…
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Moscow has constructed a housing complex for foreign diplomats and journalists, state media reported Monday, in a move reminiscent of the Soviet practice of assigning living and working quarters for expats. The project sprang up as Russia finds itself internationally isolated and under unprecedented Western sanctions for launching a full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine last year. …
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Armenia will not host Russian-led military exercises this year, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Tuesday, signaling growing frustration with Moscow. Pashinyan’s announcement came after the leader of the ex-Soviet republic criticized Moscow and the work of Russian peacekeepers in the South Caucasus, which has been plagued for decades by fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Speaking…
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Russia’s aviation sector, among the industries hardest-hit by Western sanctions over Ukraine, has suffered a number of incidents in the first days of 2023. Experts and industry figures had voiced concerns about flight safety in 2022, a year that saw more than 130 incidents including 28 plane crashes. Major plane makers Boeing and Airbus halted deliveries…
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Russia’s aviation sector, among the industries hardest-hit by Western sanctions over Ukraine, has suffered a number of incidents in the first days of 2023. Experts and industry figures had voiced concerns about flight safety in 2022, a year that saw more than 130 incidents including 28 plane crashes. Major plane makers Boeing and Airbus halted deliveries…
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Russian mercenary group Wagner said on Tuesday it was fighting “heavy, bloody battles” for control of the town of Soledar as part of Russia’s months-long offensive to capture Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. “On the western outskirts of Soledar there are heavy bloody battles. The Armed Forces of Ukraine are honorably defending the territory of Soledar,” Wagner…
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Dutch authorities have granted a broadcasting license to exiled Russian news channel Dozhd following Latvia’s decision to revoke its permit over disputed coverage of the Ukraine war. A short statement on the Dutch Media Authority’s website published Dec. 22 said it “grants permission to TVR Studios B.V. as a commercial media institution.” The license allows the Dutch-registered limited…
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A member of St. Petersburg’s legislative assembly, Boris Vishnevsky, has been charged with “discrediting the Russian army,” the local newspaper Zaks.ru reported Monday. Prosecutors charged prominent opposition deputy Boris Vishnevsky and former deputy Maxim Reznik with spreading “material about the city of Bucha” and information on the “large number of civilians killed,” the court told…
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Ordinary Russians are unable to access an increasingly broad range of literature as bookshops and libraries pull titles from their shelves amid a wartime crackdown on political dissent and a November law banning LGBT “propaganda.” In particular, failing to comply with the controversial — and vague — anti-LGBT law puts shops at risk of large…
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Though Russia’s prolonged Christmas and New Year’s holidays have come to an end, the winter season across the country is far from over. A January cold wave that arrived in Russia late last week continues to bring record-breaking low temperatures to parts of the Volga and Ural regions, Siberia and the capital Moscow. Here are…
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Five Russian nationals who all separately fled Russia’s autumn mobilization drive hoping to find a safe haven in South Korea have been stuck in limbo at Seoul’s international airport for as long as two months, The Korea Times daily reported Monday. All five men reportedly claimed asylum upon arrival at Seoul’s Incheon International Airport only to…
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Jailed Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny said on Monday that the authorities at the prison where he is serving his nine-year term had placed him in solitary confinement on New Year’s Eve for the 10th time since his sentence began. “My prison goons actually bothered enough to convene their commission on the weekend of December…
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Supporters of Brazil’s right-wing ex-president Jair Bolsonaro stormed government buildings in Brasilia on Sunday, one week after the inauguration of leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Russian officials offered support for Lula, who now presides over the country that like Russia is a member of the club of BRICS emerging economies: — Konstantin Kosachev, chairman…
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An exiled Russian war movie star faces criminal charges over his criticism of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, authorities announced Monday. Actor Artur Smolyaninov “made a series of statements against Russia in an interview to a Western publication,” Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said in a short statement. It did not identify the…
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Five employees of what used to be authoritarian Belarus’s largest independent news outlet went on trial Monday in Minsk, facing several charges including tax evasion and “inciting enmity,” a rights group said. The outlet Tut.by covered large-scale protests in 2020 that erupted after President Alexander Lukashenko claimed a sixth term in office in a contested…
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Russia’s ruling party is purging its ranks of opponents to the war in Ukraine with AI and algorithms that track voters’ social media activity, the Vedomosti business daily reported Monday, citing unnamed sources within the pro-Kremlin party. The tools scour two popular Russian social networks, VKontakte and Odnoklassniki, for “politically significant actions” that include likes and…
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The head of a Russian region on the Ukrainian border that has faced regular attacks throughout the war said he has undergone combat training with the notorious Wagner mercenary group. Kursk region Governor Roman Starovoit said he, his colleagues in the regional administration and a volunteer territorial defense unit visited Wagner’s training camp in the…
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