Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in a call on Wednesday not to further escalate tensions, after Moscow struck facilities vital for grain shipments from Ukraine. Erdogan was a key player in the now-collapsed deal that allowed for safe passage of Ukraine grain shipments on the Black Sea, and has…
Details
Russia announced Wednesday that it had begun naval exercises in the Baltic Sea, amid rising tensions with its European neighbors over the conflict in Ukraine. Russia regularly holds naval drills in the Baltic Sea, often in response to NATO exercises in the area. The Russian Navy has played a key role in Moscow’s assault on Ukraine by…
Details
Russia’s Supreme Court has upheld journalist Ivan Safronov’s 22-year prison sentence for treason, a group of his supporters said Wednesday. Safronov, 33, was found guilty in September 2022 of collecting secret information about the Russian military and handing it to Czech spies as a defense reporter for the Russian newspapers Kommersant and Vedomosti. Safronov lost his final…
Details
President Vladimir Putin is working to silence his most vocal pro-war nationalist critics on the eve of this fall’s regional elections and the 2024 presidential election in which he is expected to seek six more years in power. Following the Wagner mutiny, which posed the biggest threat yet to Putin’s 23-year rule, the Kremlin now…
DetailsThe South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa) entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with TVEL Fuel Company of Rosatom on 27 July 2023 providing for cooperation in the field of nuclear fuel production and related components. Both companies aim to share existing expertise in this field and further collaborate to develop the necessary capabilities.…
Details
Russia’s far northwestern regions witnessed a surge in warm weather in July, with air temperatures soaring 3-4 degrees Celsius above average, according to Tatyana Pozdnyakova, the chief meteorologist at the Meteonovosti news agency. Naryan-Mar, the administrative center of the Nenets autonomous district in the Arctic, saw temperatures rise to 31.6 C on July 31, breaking…
Details
Turkmenistan’s flagship carrier Turkmenistan Airlines announced it was suspending direct flights to Moscow starting Tuesday, just days after consecutive drone attacks on the Russian capital. Turkmenistan Airlines will instead perform flights to and from the city of Kazan, located some 800 kilometers east of Moscow, the company said in a statement. The announcement comes after…
DetailsAs part of its ongoing efforts to prepare for the first concrete pouring of Unit 4, the Nuclear Power Plants Authority (NPPA) hosted an inspection visit comprising of representatives from the Egyptian Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Authority (ENRRA) and its Technical Support Organisation VO Safety which took place at the El-Dabaa site on 30 and…
Details
Demand for abortion drugs in Russia reached an all-time high in 2022, the Kommersant business daily reported Wednesday, citing data by the RNC Pharma consultancy. A total of 1.4 million drugs that induce abortions and 2.2 million emergency contraception drugs were sold in Russia last year, marking a 60% and 53% increase from 2021 respectively. “The launch…
Details
Russian drones damaged port infrastructure in Odesa and targeted the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, authorities said Wednesday. The Ukrainian army said it repelled Iraninan-made Shahed-136 drones launched from the Sea of Azov. “The enemy’s obvious target was the port and industrial infrastructure of the region. Air defense forces worked non-stop for almost three hours,” the…
Details
Workers lowered a hammer and sickle from a towering sculpture overlooking Kyiv on Tuesday in a campaign to remove Soviet icons that ramped up after Russia invaded last year. The 62-meter-high steel figure of a woman holding a sword and shield bearing the U.S.S.R.-linked symbols was unveiled in 1981 as a memorial to Soviet victory in World…
Details
MOSCOW — Tatiana moved to Russia from Sloviansk, a town located in a Kyiv-held part of eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, in March 2022 as shelling attacks intensified near her home. After arriving, she was able to receive Russian citizenship fairly quickly, she told The Moscow Times, under a simplified process for Ukrainians. Although Tatiana, who declined…
Details
Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, one of Russia’s most renowned literary and cultural figures, announced in a Telegram post that she could no longer write. “That’s it,” she wrote. “I’ve always written about my people. About the people who live in Russia. I felt sorry for them, the drunks and wretches… But now I don’t feel sorry for…
Details
Russia’s plans to launch a crypto-based “Digital Ruble” are not going to help it avoid Western sanctions in the foreseeable future, experts say, despite Russian officials’ claims that the new currency could deal a fatal blow to the U.S.-led global financial system. A new law paving the way for the roll-out of the Digital Ruble…
Details
A court in southern Russia has sentenced a former regional administration official to 12 years in prison on charges of providing Ukraine with state secrets, local media reported Tuesday. The Krasnodar Region Court found the unidentified former official guilty of treason and handed him a 12-year sentence in a maximum-security prison. He was accused of…
Details
Authorities in Kazakhstan have approved Moscow’s request to extradite a Russian cybersecurity expert wanted by the FBI, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported Tuesday, citing Artyom Oganov, an official at the Russian consulate in Almaty. Nikita Kislitsin, a department head at Russian cybersecurity firm F.A.C.C.T., was detained by Kazakh law enforcement on June 22…
Details
At least nine Russian military enlistment offices have been targeted in arson attacks linked to phone scams in recent days, media outlets reported Tuesday. The first such incidents occurred in annexed Crimea and the central city of Kazan on Saturday, when two middle-aged women were detained trying to set local enlistment offices on fire, according…
Details
Russia said Tuesday it had downed another wave of Ukrainian drones aimed at vessels in the Black Sea and Moscow, as an office block in the capital’s main business district was struck for the second time in a few days. “Two Ukrainian (unmanned aerial vehicles) were destroyed by air defense systems over the territory of the…
Details
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday that three Ukrainian sea drones targeted two Black Sea Fleet patrol boats in a second unsuccessful attack near annexed Crimea in two weeks. The patrol boats, Sergei Kotov and Vasily Bykov, perform control-of-navigation tasks 340 kilometers southwest of the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet base in Sevastopol. “All three unmanned…
Details
An office tower in Moscow was struck by a downed drone on Tuesday, Russian officials said, in the second such instance in just three days. “Several drones were shot down by air defense systems while trying to fly to Moscow. One [drone] flew into the same tower in [Moscow] City as last time. The facade…
DetailsOn July 28, a round table “Nuclear technologies for sustainable development of the African countries : the role of the Russian and Soviet universities’ Alumni” was held on the basis of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University in the format of a business breakfast. The event took place within the framework of the Second…
Details
A Russian court on Monday dismissed dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza’s appeal against the 25-year prison sentence he received for criticizing the offensive in Ukraine. Kara-Murza received the longest sentence against a Russian opposition figure in recent years, drawing immediate condemnation from Western countries. “The verdict of the Moscow City Court from April 17 shall be left…
Details
At least 81 Russian billionaires have business links to Russia’s military or to annexed Ukrainian territories amid the war in Ukraine, the independent investigative outlet Proekt reported Monday. Most of these individuals have stayed silent on the war, with some reportedly criticizing it in private conversations. Despite their links to Russia’s war machine, 34 of these…
Details
President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a law that significantly raises fines for failing to appear at a military enlistment office after receiving a draft notice. The fines will increase from the current range of 500-3,000 rubles ($5-32) to 10,000-30,000 ($109-327) when the law comes into force on Oct. 1. Fines were also raised for…
Details
A missile strike on a residential building in Ukraine killed six and wounded dozens on Monday, as Russia said it stepped up strikes against Ukrainian military facilities in response to attacks on its territory, including Moscow. Two missiles landed close to the centre of the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih just after 9:00 a.m.…
Details
At least four residents of the Russian-occupied Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine were killed in Ukrainian shelling on Monday, Kremlin-backed officials said. Three people were killed in the city of Donetsk and one in Horlivka to the north, according to the region’s information center on Ukrainian attacks. Ten others were injured in attacks that damaged apartment…
Details
Russia imported more than $502 million worth of foreign-made microchips in the first six months of 2023 despite U.S. and EU sanctions, the independent news website Vyorstka reported Monday, citing classified customs data. Since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has been slapped with Western export restrictions on advanced semiconductors and other goods that…
Details
Russia has “received” more than 700,000 Ukrainian children after launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, Russia’s presidential commissioner for children’s rights said in a report published Sunday. “Since February 2022, the Russian Federation has received about 4.8 million residents of Ukraine and the Donbas republics [of Donetsk and Luhansk], more than 700,000 of…
Details
Russia’s Wagner mercenary outfit has not yet decided when to restart recruitment of new fighters, the group’s founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said Monday. At the beginning of July, Wagner announced a one-month recruitment suspension in the aftermath of its failed mutiny and as the Russian military’s deadline for volunteer units to sign contracts passed. But Prigozhin’s…
DetailsOn July 31, 2023, Director General of ROSATOM Alexey Likhachev visited Bangladesh. During the visit, Mr. Likhachev met with Prime Minister of the Republic of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina. At the meeting, the Parties discussed the current issues of Rooppur NPP construction and the readiness of the site for the most important milestone of the year…
Details
A Ukrainian drone attacked a police station overnight in Russia’s western Bryansk region, local authorities said early Monday. “Ukrainian forces attacked the district of Trubchevsky at night,” Bryansk Governor Alexander Bogomaz said on the Telegram messaging app. “A drone hit the police station in this district. There are no victims,” but the windows and roof…
Details
Eight people including three small children died in Russia when trees crashed into a lakeside campsite during a storm described as a “hurricane,” authorities said on Sunday. Several hundred people camped in a national park in Mari El, a Russian region located along the northern bank of the Volga River, when the storm struck on Saturday. The…
Details
President Vladimir Putin on Sunday praised Russia’s Navy in an address at an annual warship parade in St. Petersburg, which he attended accompanied by several African leaders. The military display took part as Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine stretches into its second year and three Ukrainian drones were downed over Moscow early on Sunday. The Russian Navy…
Details
Russia said on Sunday it had downed Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow and the Crimea peninsula, in attacks that damaged two office towers in the capital and briefly shut an international airport. One drone targeting Moscow was shot down on the city’s outskirts and two others were “suppressed by electronic warfare” and smashed into an office…
Details
Veteran journalist Tom Parfitt came up with the idea of a solo walk through Russia’s North Caucasus after reporting on the bloody Beslan school siege by Islamic militants in 2004. The undertaking was, as he puts it, his way of trying to “dilute” the memories of that horror. The result is a poignant, beautiful and…
Details
The Russian state appeared on the map and watermelons appeared on the table at almost the same time for people living in what is now Russia. The country got its present name after Grand Duke Ivan IV of Moscow was proclaimed tsar in 1547. The land he possessed became known as the Russian Kingdom. And…
Details
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday said that the United States believes Russia’s Defense Minister is in North Korea to secure supplies of weapons to aid Moscow’s stalled invasion of Ukraine. Following Sergei Shoigu’s arrival on a rare trip to Pyongyang, Blinken said that Russia is scrambling to buy arms from allies across the…
Details
Russia said Friday it intercepted two Ukrainian missiles over its southern Rostov region bordering Ukraine, with at least a dozen people wounded by debris falling on the city of Taganrog. Regions bordering Ukraine have seen regular drone strikes and shelling since Moscow launched its military campaign in February last year, but have hardly ever been targeted…
Details
Attendees watch a broadcast of the summit’s plenary session. Speaking at the summit Thursday, President Vladimir Putin said Russia would offer free supplies of 25,000 to 50,000 tons of grain to Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, the Central African Republic and Eritrea, countries that have been impacted by the end of the Ukrainian grain deal.
Details
The Kremlin was purportedly against amendments recently passed in the Russian parliament that, once signed into law, would expand the pool of eligible army recruits by raising the upper age limit for military conscription, the independent news website Vyorstka reported Thursday, citing multiple anonymous sources familiar with the matter. Under current Russian law, all men aged…
DetailsJuly 27, 2023, St. Petersburg – A roadmap for the development of Russian-Ethiopian cooperation in the field of the peaceful use of atomic energy was signed on the sidelines of the Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum. The document was signed by Alexey Likhachev, Director General of ROSATOM, and Belete Molla, Minister of Innovation and Technology…
Details
Всё–таки: nevertheless, in the end, all the same, really, finally… Little words, little words… It is my life’s work — or at least my summer challenge — to sort out some confusion experienced by readers and translators when one word has dozens of meanings and almost an endless number of possible translations. This is particularly…
Details
A Russian organization affiliated with the Wagner mercenary group shared a message apparently from its boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, who said the events in Niger were part of the nation’s fight against “colonizers.” The Officers’ Union for International Security (OUIS), considered by Washington to be a front company for Wagner in the Central African Republic, on…
Details
A court in Brazil has denied requests by the United States and Russia to extradite an accused Russian spy posing as a Brazilian citizen, the country’s justice ministry said Thursday. Sergei Cherkasov, 37, is in prison in the Brazilian capital of Brasilia for using false personal documents after being deported from the Netherlands. Cherkasov, who is…
Details
The head of Russia’s Olympic Committee on Friday accused the International Olympic Committee of picking sides after it urged sports federations to show sensitivity when handling Ukrainian athletes. “The statement in question indicates that the IOC determined for itself and picked a side in the political conflict, (and) began to act in the interests of this…
Details
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday said Moscow is “carefully” examining proposals made by some African leaders to end the conflict in Ukraine. “We respect your initiatives and we are examining them carefully,” Putin said on the second day of a Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg. “Previous mediation initiatives were monopolized by so-called advanced democracies. Now…
Details
An independent group of soldiers’ relatives lobbying the Kremlin for the return of mobilized troops from Ukraine has announced that it will close after being slapped with a “foreign agent” label just months earlier. “We cannot act with this stigma,” Olga Tsukanova, who heads the Council of Wives and Mothers, said Friday in a video…
Details
Japan on Friday announced an expanded list of sanctions against Russia that includes an export ban on hybrid and electric vehicles. Tokyo has already frozen the assets of Russian individuals and groups and banned the export of goods to Russia’s military-related organizations, as well as the export of construction and engineering services. On Friday, the…
Details
The number of Russian visitors to Thailand has skyrocketed by more than 1,000% this year, as other popular destinations in Europe and elsewhere have become difficult to enter for Russian nationals following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Bloomberg reported late Thursday. Between January and June, the Thai Tourism and Sports Ministry recorded 791,574 arrivals by Russian…
Details
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Friday it had thwarted a Ukrainian drone attack in the Moscow region overnight. “The unmanned vehicle was destroyed by air defense,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app, adding that there were no casualties or damage. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin had earlier released a statement about the attack but did…
Details
The Russian government could be moving closer toward outlawing abortion, experts and activists have told The Moscow Times, as its wartime stifling of freedoms spreads to sexual and reproductive health rights. While Russia has historically had a liberal abortion policy — with the exception of the Stalin-era ban — the conservative turn among the country’s…
DetailsOn July 27, 2023, the plenary session “Nuclear Technologies for the Development of Africa” powered by ROSATOM was held in Saint Petersburg at the Second Summit Russia–Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum. The event was held in a hybrid format. The event was attended by: Tanzanian Minister of Minerals Doto Mashaka Biteko, Zimbabwean Minister of Energy…
Details
MOSCOW — Vladimir Shushvalov would stop at nothing to see “Barbie.” Since the Hollywood film based on the iconic toy doll will not be shown in Russian cinemas, Shushvalov spent nearly 30,000 rubles ($335) to fly from Moscow to Astana, Kazakhstan for its premiere there last week. “I absolutely adore movies,” the 21-year-old student told…
DetailsOn July 27, 2023, on the sidelines of the Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum in St. Petersburg, an agreement was signed between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Republic of Zimbabwe on cooperation in the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes. The document was signed by the Director General…
Details
President Vladimir Putin on Thursday granted U.S. hockey player Brennan Menell Russian citizenship, allowing him to play for the country’s national team. Menell, 26, is a defenseman from Minnesota who signed a one-year contract with the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) team Dynamo Moscow in September 2022, becoming the third U.S.-born player to ever join the…
Details
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) on Thursday said it arrested a Russian Navy sailor who it accused of plotting to blow up a warship. The FSB said the sailor had been recruited by Ukrainian special services “to commit a terror attack aboard one of the Black Sea Fleet ships carrying high-precision missile weapons.” It added…
DetailsJuly 27, 2023, Büyükeceli, Mersin Province, Turkey. – Installation of a gas insulated switchgear designed for a voltage of 400 kV (GIS-400) started at the Akkuyu NPP. The high-tech facility is included in the modern system of the NPP electrical equipment and is designed to transmit power to the unified power system of the Republic…
DetailsWATER AND ENERGY SOLUTIONS and Rusatom Smart Utilities, within the framework of Second Summit Russia–Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum, signed the memorandum of understanding. Based on the document, the parties plan to cooperate for the implementation of desalination, water conditioning and water purification projects. “According to the UN, today more than two billion people suffer…
Details
Updated with revised death toll. Four people have been killed and 12 injured in a Russian helicopter crash in southern Siberia’s republic of Altai, the region’s emergencies ministry said Thursday. The Mi-8 transport helicopter was approaching landing near the village of Tyungur not far from the border with Kazakhstan when it struck electric wires, the Altai…
Details
Russian lawmakers will be banned from visiting the war zone in Ukraine without direct approval from the country’s military leadership, the RBC business outlet reported Thursday, citing three anonymous sources in Russia’s parliament. Since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, politicians in Russia have frequently made trips to the frontline in order…
Details