Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed for badly needed air defense systems at the start of a tour of Baltic states Wednesday, warning that Western hesitation on aid for Ukraine was emboldening Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin will not stop at Ukraine, he said, during an unannounced visit to the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. Zelensky was on…
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Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has appeared in court via video link for the first time since being transferred to a maximum-security prison colony in Russia’s Arctic, the independent news website Mediazona reported Wednesday. “A tear is running down my cheek. I’m so glad to see you all,” Navalny said from a jail cell. The…
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Dozens of schoolchildren were evacuated from the Russian border city of Belgorod on Wednesday following a spate of deadly Ukrainian shelling attacks, the region’s governor said. Some 300 residents had already left Belgorod, the biggest evacuation from a major Russian city since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The first group of…
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A Russian singer who is on trial for posting anti-war videos on Instagram has sought repentance in a letter to Russia’s Orthodox Church leader and vowed to devote his career to patriotism. Eduard Sharlot was detained in November after returning to Russia from Armenia, where he had posted videos of himself burning his passport and…
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A Moscow court has ordered the closure of the nightclub where a “nearly naked” party sparked controversy last month, Russian media reported Wednesday. Club Mutabor was forced to close its doors for 90 days over “violations of sanitary standards,” the state-run TASS news agency reported. The independent Medizona news outlet reported earlier that Russia’s consumer…
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Russian border guards have seized more than 1 metric ton of cocaine from Nicaragua at the Great Port of St. Petersburg, the Federal Customs Service (FTS) said Wednesday. “The smugglers hid 1,000 briquettes with compressed white powder in the upper part of a cargo module,” the FTS said on the messaging app Telegram. Images shared…
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Canada has granted Russian anti-war activist Maria Kartasheva citizenship, reversing an initial decision to block her from taking the citizenship oath due to her criminal prosecution in Russia for spreading “fake news” about the war in Ukraine, Canadian media reported Tuesday. Kartasheva, 30, moved to Ottawa in 2019. After invading Ukraine in early 2022, Russia…
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President Vladimir Putin has traveled to the Chukotka autonomous district, the Kremlin said Wednesday, the first time he has visited Russia’s easternmost region during his more than two decades in power. “The head of state will inspect a year-round greenhouse complex, talk to residents and meet with the governor in the city of Anadyr [the…
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Authorities in an Italian city said Tuesday that they would no longer host an exhibition and conference on the “rebirth” of the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol in Ukraine, a decision welcomed by the government in Kyiv. The Russian cultural association in Emilia-Romagna, a region in northern Italy, had rented the civic hall in Modena for…
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Finland will likely extend the closure of its eastern border with Russia due to the continued threat of migrant crossings, top officials in the Nordic country said Tuesday. Last month, Finland closed its 1,340-kilometer border with Russia until Jan. 14, citing what it said was a spike in asylum seekers from the Middle East and…
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South Korean automaker Hyundai’s former production plant in St. Petersburg has reopened under new Russian management, state media reported Tuesday, citing the factory’s press service. In December, the Hyundai plant — which suspended operations in March 2022 amid an exodus of foreign companies from Russia — was sold to the company Art-Finance for a reported…
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Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said Tuesday he has been placed in solitary confinement, just weeks after he was transferred to a high-security prison colony in Russia’s Arctic. Navalny’s lawyers found him last month in a “special regime” colony located in the Yamal-Nenets autonomous district village of Kharp after he disappeared from public view for…
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A woman was killed by Ukrainian shelling in western Russia’s Kursk region, authorities said Tuesday. “This afternoon, the village of Gornal in the Sudzhansky district was shelled from the direction of Ukraine,” Kursk region Governor Roman Starovoit said in a video posted on the messaging app Telegram. “A woman was killed by shrapnel,” Starovoit added without identifying…
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Russia’s top investigator has ordered a criminal probe into popular Russian blogger Sergei Kosenko after a video of him throwing his 2-month-old son into a snowbank went viral. Kosenko faced backlash this week after he shared the video of him tossing the child with his 6.9 million Instagram followers. The blogger later deleted the video…
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Poet, writer and social activist Lev Rubenstein, age 76, was struck by a car in a Moscow intersection on Monday and is now in Sklifosovsky Emergency Hospital. It was reported by his friend, poet and journalist Igor Irtenyev, who said Rubenstein had suffered broken bones and is in critical condition. TV Rain reported that he…
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The Kremlin has tried to maintain a semblance of normalcy on the home front, but the recent strikes on Belgorod have brought the Ukraine conflict closer to home for many Russians. A series of aerial attacks from Kyiv’s forces in Belgorod last month killed 25 people, the worst attack on Russian civilians since the conflict…
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Russian authorities could bar its citizens living in so-called “unfriendly” countries from voting at embassy polling stations in the upcoming presidential election, the Vedomosti business daily reported Tuesday, citing several anonymous sources close to the Foreign Ministry. Moscow has designated 49 countries as “unfriendly,” accusing them of carrying out “hostile” actions against Russian missions abroad. After…
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President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday granted U.S. heavyweight boxer Kevin Johnson and Canadian ice hockey player Brendan Leipsic Russian citizenship under a decree published on the government’s website. Johnson expressed his love for Russia and “Russian women” last year, asking Putin to give him Russian citizenship so that he could continue his career in the country…
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Updated with arrest order. A St. Petersburg court ordered the arrest of Russian singer Maxim Moiseyev (real name Maxim Tesli) after he was filmed performing on stage wearing only a sock on his genitals, the local news website Fontanka reported Tuesday. Tesli was detained Monday night by law enforcement agents at St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport, according to Fontanka.…
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U.S. investment bank Morgan Stanley and British law firm Allen & Overy are helping Russian-born oligarch Sergei Kolesnikov as he seeks to claim ownership of a major oilfield in southern Russia, The Guardian reported Monday. Kolesnikov, who is president of the construction materials producer TechnoNicol, as well as the majority shareholder of the Cypriot firm…
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A crash involving dozens of vehicles along a highway in northwestern Russia’s Novgorod region has left at least four people dead, including a child, and six others injured, authorities said Monday. The deadly crash took place around 30 kilometers northwest of the city of Novogord at 2:40 p.m. local time, according to law enforcement officials in…
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Russian authorities handed military summons to a rapper who attended a “nearly naked” party last month wearing only a sock on his penis, the Moskovsky Komsomolets tabloid reported Monday, citing a member of Russia’s state prison watchdog. A Moscow court fined and jailed rapper VACÍO (real name Nikolai Vasilyev) for 15 days in late December after finding him…
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Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry has launched a disciplinary probe into one of its regional chiefs for publically wishing cancer on the family members of subordinates who accused him of corruption, a federal lawmaker said Monday. Nikolai Lyubavin, who heads the Emergency Situations Ministry’s Volgograd region branch, was recorded blasting unidentified staff members for filing a complaint…
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The independent environmental news outlet Kedr has shut down after being labeled a “foreign agent,” its founder said Monday. Russia’s Justice Ministry added Kedr to its list of “foreign agents” in November for spreading “fake news” about the government’s environmental policies and distributing content of other “foreign agents.” “Kedr has been closed since the beginning…
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Three anti-corruption officers at Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) have been arrested on charges of accepting more than 5 billion rubles ($55.2 million) in bribes, the state-run TASS news agency reported Monday, citing an anonymous law enforcement source. “Alexei Tsaryov, Sergei Manyshkin and Alexander Ushakov of the FSB’s Directorate M are accused of a series of…
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A Russian warplane made an “emergency release” of a bomb over a city in eastern Ukraine’s occupied Luhansk region, Kremlin-back authorities said Monday, marking the second instance this month of a Russian military aircraft dropping its explosive payload over a civilian area controlled by Moscow. “While carrying out combat operations, a Russian Air Force aircraft…
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Some 300 residents of the western Russian city of Belgorod have been evacuated following a recent wave of Ukrainian strikes, authorities said Monday. “Around 300 Belgorod residents, who decided to evacuate temporarily, are currently being housed in temporary shelter centers in Stary Oskol, Gubkin and the Korochansky district,” Belgorod region Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said in…
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Russian authorities said Saturday that they would cancel Orthodox Christmas midnight masses in the city of Belgorod, a day after some residents were offered to relocate to safety following an unprecedented wave of rocket attacks. Western Russia’s Belgorod and its capital city have been hit with near-daily Ukrainian attacks over the past week, the deadliest…
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One of the most important Slavic folk holidays is Святки (holy days) which in the West are called the “twelve days of Christmas.” In Russian these days are said to stretch “from the star to the water,” that is, from the appearance of the first star on Christmas Eve to baptism on Epiphany. This is…
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Russia on Saturday said its military shot down four Ukrainian missiles over annexed Crimea overnight. The attack came a day after Moscow said it repelled a Ukrainian drone attack on Crimea, downing 36 of the unmanned craft over the peninsula. “Air defense systems on duty intercepted and destroyed four Ukrainian missiles over the Crimea peninsula,” the…
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Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has offered to release Ukrainian prisoners of war in exchange for lifting U.S. sanctions against his family members, Russian state media reported Friday. Kadyrov said he had provided a list of Ukrainian captives to American writer Scott Ritter, a former U.S. intelligence officer and regular contributor at Russian government-owned media outlets. …
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Authorities in western Russia’s Belgorod region on Friday offered to move some residents from its capital city to safety following intense shelling by Ukrainian forces over the past week. The announcement came a day after rocket attacks wounded at least two people and knocked out glass from high-rise buildings, sparking panic among residents. “I see…
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Nepal has stopped issuing permits for its citizens to work in Russia and Ukraine following the deaths of Nepalis who have gone to fight in the war, Reuters reported Friday, citing a government official. The Nepali government issues work permits to its citizens for civilian jobs abroad. More than 800 Nepalis were issued permits for…
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Residents of a Moscow region town impacted by power outages have taken to the streets, demanding that local authorities restore heat to their homes as subzero temperatures grip the region, Russian media reported Friday. At least 21,000 people had power knocked out in their homes on Thursday morning in the town of Podolsk when a…
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Russia confirmed Friday it had blocked the UN’s nuclear watchdog from accessing parts of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia power plant, but said the restrictions were for safety reasons. Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have been on the ground monitoring the plant since September 2022, six months after it was captured by Russian forces. Responding…
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The Russian city of Belgorod was targeted by another round of Ukrainian shelling late Thursday, officials said, hours after some schools in the region were ordered to extend their winter breaks due to the risk of further attacks. At least two people were injured in the latest shelling, Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said, as channels…
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North Korea has provided Russia with ballistic missiles and missile launchers that were used in recent attacks on Ukraine, the White House said Thursday. The Pyongyang-supplied missiles, with ranges of around 900 kilometers, were fired by Russia in two attacks over the past week, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. “Our information indicates that…
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The Estonian Foreign Ministry said Thursday that Russia plans to close a key border checkpoint to road traffic for two years, citing renovation works as the reason behind the move. Authorities in Tallinn said they had received an official note from Russia saying the Narva-Ivangorod crossing would close on Feb. 1. “According to the note,…
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Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence said Thursday it had destroyed a Russian Su-34 fighter bomber deep inside Russian territory. Video published on the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine’s YouTube channel showed an unidentified person setting fire to the warplane while giving a “sign of the horns” hand gesture. The video was said to have been shot at…
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President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree simplifying the process of obtaining Russian citizenship for foreigners who join the Russian army, according to a document published by the government Thursday. “Foreign citizens who signed a [one-year] contract with the Russian Armed Forces or military formations or who are undergoing military service during the special military…
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Russian hackers infiltrated Ukraine’s main mobile operator Kyivstar months before launching a “disastrous” cyberattack that disrupted services for some 24 million users, Reuters reported Thursday, citing Ukraine’s cybersecurity chief. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has said it suspects Russia’s secret service was behind the Dec. 12 Kyivstar attack that paralyzed its network for days.…
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Ukraine and Russia said late Wednesday they had exchanged over two hundred captive soldiers each in what Kyiv has described as the biggest prisoner swap of the war so far. The two warring sides have carried out dozens of exchanges since Moscow launched its February 2022 invasion, but the swaps have become less frequent and…
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Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has called for the prosecution of wanted fugitives’ family members, according to the opposition group 1Adat, remarks he made during a meeting with officials on New Year’s Eve. Kadyrov said he had instructed Chechnya’s law enforcement agencies to maintain “extreme vigilance” during the holidays, which in Russia take place on Jan.…
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Russian authorities have launched a criminal investigation into “war fakes” against the head of a Kazakh diaspora in Moscow, the independent news outlet Vyorstka reported Wednesday, citing an undisclosed report by Russia’s Investigative Committee. Polat Dzhamalov, who heads an NGO called Moscow Foundation “Kazakh Diaspora,” is accused of sharing a senior Russian official’s alleged estimate of Russian…
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The European Union on Wednesday imposed sanctions on Russia’s state-run diamond giant Alrosa and its CEO as part of a ban on imports of the precious stones over the Ukraine war. The EU in December agreed to prohibit diamonds exported from Russia as it tightens sanctions to further sap the Kremlin’s coffers. The 27-nation bloc…
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Russia’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday it downed 12 Ukrainian missiles in the western Belgorod region, which in recent days has been the target of multiple rocket attacks that have left dozens of people dead. “This morning, another attempt by the Kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist attack on structures on the territory of the…
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One in two decrees signed by President Vladimir Putin in 2023 was classified, the independent news website Mediazona reported Tuesday, marking a new annual record for the number of “secret” decrees made during the Russian leader’s time in power. Presidential decrees in Russia are numbered sequentially at the start of each year, and Mediazona said it…
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One person was killed and seven others were injured in Ukrainian rocket attacks on western Russia’s Belgorod region, local authorities said Tuesday. The air strikes, which prompted Russian authorities to issue three separate alerts on Tuesday, came just hours after Russia launched a deadly wave of attacks on the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv and Kharkiv. Belgorod…
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A Russian warplane on Tuesday made an “emergency release” of its explosive payload over a village in western Russia’s Voronezh region, military and civilian authorities said. “At around 9:00 a.m. on January 2, while an Air Force plane was flying over the village of Petropavlovka in the Voronezh Region, there was an emergency release of…
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Russia on Tuesday rained missiles across Ukraine, killing four people and injuring dozens, while 250,000 people in Kyiv were left without power in near-freezing temperatures. The attacks came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin said his army would intensify strikes in response to Ukrainian shelling of the city of Belgorod. “One wounded elderly woman…
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Police in St. Petersburg detained some 3,000 migrant workers during New Year’s Eve celebrations, the local news website Fontanka reported Monday, citing anonymous sources. More than 600 of those detained had allegedly broken Russia’s immigration laws, Fontanka said, with over 100 people expected to be deported from the country. Police carried out Sunday night’s mass round-up of…
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President Vladimir Putin said Monday that Russia will “intensify” strikes against Ukraine after a deadly attack on the Russian city of Belgorod over the weekend left at least two dozen people dead and more than 100 injured. Saturday’s attack on Belgorod came after Moscow’s large-scale air assault on cities across Ukraine the day before, killing…
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A tsunami warning has been issued in Far East Russia after a series of powerful earthquakes struck Japan on Monday, authorities in multiple Russian regions announced. In the Primorye region city of Vladivostok, located on the coast of the Sea of Japan, authorities said they expect waves to reach 30 centimeters by Monday evening and…
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed to wreak “wrath” against Russian forces in 2024, hours before Ukraine saw attacks on the first day of the new year. Russia and Ukraine have seen an escalation in strikes in recent days, including unprecedented strikes on the Russian city of Belgorod that killed 24 people on Saturday. The attack…
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President Vladimir Putin praised the Russian army in his New Year’s Eve address Sunday, calling for “unity” in a subdued speech that did not explicitly mention the war in Ukraine. In stark contrast to last year’s address, when the Russian leader was flanked by soldiers in uniform, Putin stood in front of the traditional backdrop…
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Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday said his country’s ties with Russia had grown stronger in 2023, as he exchanged New Year greetings with his counterpart Vladimir Putin, state media reported. Beijing and Moscow are staunch allies and have strengthened their relations as Western countries turn their backs on Russia over its military invasion of Ukraine.…
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Russia launched fresh strikes against Ukraine early Sunday, a day after vowing to retaliate for what it called a “terrorist attack” on the city of Belgorod. Several Iranian-made Shahed drones targeted Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv overnight, according to local authorities, as Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of bombarding civilian areas near their…
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Russia accused Ukraine of carrying out a “terrorist attack” Saturday on civilians in the city of Belgorod, including using controversial cluster munitions in the strikes that killed at least 21 and wounded dozens more. Moscow said the attack — which followed waves of rocket and drone attacks by Russian forces on Ukrainian cities — would…
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An openly gay Russian journalist said Saturday he had been beaten near a park in central Moscow in a hate attack. Pavel Lobkov, a former presenter on Russia’s independent TV Rain channel, posted images of his injuries on Facebook, showing a bloodied nose and hand. “The broken face of a ‘f****t’ beaten up in a…
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Until Feb. 24, 2022, the Russian music industry was developing at a brisk pace, using all the opportunities of international promotion and local services to build a strong foundation. It has certainly suffered in this period, but it still might be able to recover and adapt. Spotify left Russia in 2022. YouTube Music disabled paid…
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