Russia has reallocated healthcare spending from dozens of its regions to build and repair hospitals in the occupied territories of eastern Ukraine, the Vedomosti business daily reported Monday, citing a government decree. Sixty-one out of 85 Russian regions — including annexed Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol — saw cuts of some 2.4 billion…
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The appearance of several tons of dead fish in a forest in Russia’s Far East Kamchatka region has prompted local authorities to open a probe into unauthorized dumping. The inspection was initiated after photos of the incident appeared on social media, depicting a vast amount of fish strewn across the ground. Kamchatka regional authorities said…
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Russia said Monday its troops had advanced three kilometers (two miles) along the Kupiansk front in northeast Ukraine over the last three days, as it seeks to regain territories it lost earlier in its offensive. The city of Kupiansk and surrounding areas of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region were liberated by Ukrainian forces last September, but Moscow…
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The first moon landing mission in Russia’s post-Soviet history will be accompanied by an evacuation of a village where rocket boosters are expected to fall this week, a local official said Monday. The Luna-25 lunar lander is scheduled to launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East at 23:10 GMT on Friday, Aug. 11. It…
DetailsRosneft specialists have developed the MUZA (the Injected Agent Control Module) software to control waterflooding at the fields.
Russia is on track to open more criminal cases for treason in 2023 than over the past 20 years combined, Russia’s independent news website Kholod reported Monday. Authorities launched 82 treason investigations between January and July — a fourfold increase from the 20 cases investigated in all of 2022 — Kholod said, citing publicly available…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin can choose not to hold presidential elections next year because he will “obviously” win re-election, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said late Sunday. Putin is widely expected to declare his bid for a sixth overall presidential term. Pre-war constitutional changes allow him to remain president until 2036. “Although elections are a requirement…
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European companies have suffered at least 100 billion euros ($110 billion) in direct losses from operations in Russia since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine, the Financial Times reported late Sunday. A survey of major European companies showed that a total of 176 companies that have posted annual reports for 2022 and financial statements this…
DetailsA youth delegation of ROSATOM attended in the 5th BRICS Youth Energy Summit, which closed August 4 in Johannesburg. Attended by over 400 delegates from 30 countries of the world, the event brought together South African energy industry executives, international experts, and young entrepreneurs, researchers, and community leaders from the G5 countries and the global…
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Russia said Monday it had shot down a Ukrainian drone southwest of Moscow, as drone attacks on the Russian capital and its surrounding regions have surged in recent weeks. Authorities said the drone was downed in the central Kaluga region, less than 200 kilometers from Moscow, adding that the incident “affected neither people nor infrastructure.” The drone…
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Russia said Sunday that its forces struck military airbases in the Khmelnytskyi and Rivne regions in western Ukraine and that “all targets were hit.” “Overnight Russia’s armed forces carried out strikes… on Ukrainian armed forces airbases around the settlements of Starokostiantyniv in the Khmelnytskyi region and Dubno in the Rivne region,” the Russian Defense Ministry said. Ukraine said it…
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Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Sunday that Russian air defense had destroyed a drone nearing the capital, which had been rarely targeted throughout the conflict in Ukraine until several attacks this year. “Today at around 11 am a drone attempted to make a breakthrough toward Moscow. It was destroyed while approaching by air defense forces,”…
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Moscow escalated its attacks in Ukraine on Saturday, with President Volodymyr Zelensky denouncing a deadly strike on a blood transfusion centre as a “war crime.” A separate strike struck a key factory, both attacks coming just hours after Kyiv hit a Russian tanker in the Kerch Strait. The attacks were the latest since Moscow exited…
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Russia said Saturday it scrambled an Su-30 fighter jet to “prevent a violation of the Russian state border” by a U.S. Reaper MQ-9 military drone over the Black Sea. “As the Russian fighter approached, the foreign reconnaissance drone performed a U-turn away from the border,” the Russian Defense Ministry said. The ministry said the drone belonged…
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There is an old Russian saying: “A spoonful of tar spoils a barrel of mead” — which means that a small defect can ruin something big and beautiful. But wait a minute — could a tiny speck of tar really ruin an entire barrel of mead? Why couldn’t you just spoon it out along with…
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Russia on Saturday said it captured a settlement in northeastern Ukraine, where Kyiv has reported increased attacks. “In the area of Kupiansk, as a result of the competent and professional actions of the military units of the Western command, the settlement of Novoselivske was liberated,” the Russian Defense Ministry said on Telegram. It added “offensive…
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A Russian tanker was hit by Ukrainian drones in the Kerch Strait, briefly halting traffic on the strategic bridge linking Crimea to Russia, Russian media reported early Saturday. The tanker was damaged in the attack and two tugboats had arrived at the scene, the state-run TASS news agency said, citing the Maritime Rescue Center. No…
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The speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament said that lawmakers will ditch their foreign-made cars for domestic car brands, Interfax reported Friday. “We discussed with the heads of the State Duma factions the issue of the use of domestically assembled cars by deputies. Everyone supports this decision. We agreed that the deputies will use Moskvitch,…
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President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed a law allowing Russian banks and other financial institutions to block the assets of sanctioned foreign organizations and individuals. The law allows Moscow to freeze the funds and property of legal entities controlled by foreign citizens and organizations against whom Russia has imposed what it calls “special economic measures.” It…
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A Moscow court has sentenced jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny to 19 years in prison, Interfax reported Friday, on a string of new “extremism” charges that his supporters have called an attempt to keep him out of politics forever. President Vladimir Putin’s most vocal domestic opponent, who is already serving a nine-year prison sentence on…
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Блат: crimes (in prison and among criminals); connections (outside prison by everyone else) Alexei Navalny got in trouble in prison again, this time for saying two words: крыша (roof) and хата (hut or peasant house). So what is the problem with those two words? He was told that they “входят в сборник жаргонных слов и…
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President Vladimir Putin has signed a law that raises the upper age limit for military conscription, as Moscow continues its efforts to widen the pool of potential recruits for its war in Ukraine. Under previous Russian law, all men aged 18-27 were required to complete a one-year term of compulsory military service, a requirement that…
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Poland on Friday said it had detained a Belarusian man on suspicion of being part of a “Russian spy ring” which it claimed planned to derail trains carrying aid to Ukraine. Poland, a key ally of Ukraine, had previously reported arrests in the investigation, including that of a Russian ice hockey player in June who…
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An elderly man charged with trying to set fire to a Russian military enlistment office has been found dead in his home near St. Petersburg, local media reported late Thursday, amid a nationwide wave of arson attacks linked to phone scams. The 76-year-old was detained on Wednesday after cameras captured him throwing Molotov cocktails at an…
DetailsIn June and July, Rosneft subsidiaries released more than 17.1 million fry of various fish species into Russian rivers.
Rosneft and the Voronezh Tourist Information Centre (TIC) presented a joint project to develop car tourism.
Authorities in northern Russia are seeking millions of dollars in damages from neighboring Norway after a herd of wild reindeer crossed over the border and damaged a protected nature reserve last winter, The Barents Observer reported. Natalya Polikarpova, director of the Murmansk region’s Pasvik nature reserve, said the animals ate away moss and shrubs and…
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Russia has nearly doubled its defense budget plan after spending more in the first half of 2023 than originally targeted for the entire year, Reuters reported Friday, citing a government document it obtained. Defense spending has increased every month since President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine in February last year. In June, Russia stopped the…
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Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited the war zone in Ukraine to inspect a command post and captured Western military hardware, the army said Friday. Footage published by the Defense Ministry showed Shoigu boarding a helicopter, meeting with officers and inspecting a Swedish armored combat vehicle captured by Russian forces. The footage also showed Shoigu…
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Russia claimed Friday it had thwarted Ukrainian sea and air drone attacks on a naval base in the Black Sea and the Crimean peninsula. “Tonight, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, with the use of two unmanned sea boats, attempted an attack on the Novorossiysk naval base of the Russian Armed Forces,” the Defense Ministry said…
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Russia said Friday it had thwarted Ukrainian sea and air drone attacks on a naval base in the Black Sea and the Crimean peninsula. The number of attacks in the sea has increased from both sides since Moscow exited a deal last month that had allowed Ukrainian grain exports via the shipping hub during the…
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Collage artist GM_collage combines photos of symbolic people, places and things in surreal arrangements to lay bare the contradictions, nuances and hypocrisies of modern Russia. When contacted by The Moscow Times, the artist declined to share details about their identity, only saying that they are from Belarus and now live in Georgia. The Moscow Times…
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At least 79 civilians have been killed on Russian soil since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine last year, the independent news website 7×7 reported Tuesday. The Belgorod region which borders Ukraine, which has regularly been targeted by drone attacks and shelling, saw the highest share of civilian losses, with 48 people killed. Other casualties were…
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Russia has enlisted over 230,000 additional personnel into the army since the start of the year, Moscow’s Deputy Security Council Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday. Moscow has conducted an aggressive military recruitment campaign this year as it seeks to stave off an ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive and hold territories it has captured during the conflict. “According…
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A controversial new bill seeking to ease logging restrictions along the shores of Lake Baikal could deal irreversible damage to the Siberian lake’s unique ecosystem, experts and activists have told The Moscow Times. Baikal was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1996 and recognized as the planet’s most outstanding example of a freshwater ecosystem.…
DetailsThe reactor vessel for Unit 7 of Tianwan NPP, which is being constructed in China with the participation of Rosatom State Corporation Engineering Division, arrived at the construction site after covering the sea route from Russia in less than two months. One day earlier, four steam generators, three reactor coolant pump bodies and a bubbler…
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In the opening scene of “Grace,” a new film independently funded and produced in Russia by director Ilya Povolotsky, a teenage girl has just gotten her first period. But it isn’t her mother who helps her as she enters womanhood. Instead, a woman she doesn’t know steps out of her father’s minivan and hands her…
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Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said Thursday he expects a Russian court to deliver a “Stalinist” verdict on extremism charges on Friday as he urged supporters to continue “cold-blooded” opposition activities. Prosecutors have requested a jail term of 20 years for Navalny on charges that include financing extremist activities, publicly inciting extremist activities and “rehabilitating…
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Russian authorities have approved a draft agreement with China to establish an international protected area for rare tigers and leopards, the Russian Natural Resources Ministry said Tuesday. The proposed Russian-Chinese nature reserve — called Land of Big Cats — will encompass habitats in the southwest of Russia’s Primorye region and the mountainous region of northeastern…
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A Russian grocery store owner who has openly opposed the war in Ukraine was sentenced to one-and-a-half years in prison on Thursday, independent media reported. Dmitry Skurikhin, 48, gained notoriety for featuring pro-Ukrainian slogans and posters on the facade of his store outside of St. Petersburg following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Skurikhin has…
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At least 8,500 members of the Russian Airborne Forces have been wounded in the year and a half since Russia invaded Ukraine, the elite troops’ commander said Wednesday. Airborne Forces commander Mikhail Teplinsky disclosed the figures in a video message congratulating comrades on Paratroopers’ Day, which marked 93 years since the founding of the corps. “More…
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Russia’s republic of Mordovia has become the country’s first region to ban so-called abortion “propaganda” and the act of “influencing” women to undergo the procedure, independent media reported. The regional-level law passed Thursday potentially sets the stage for similar laws across the country. According to the law’s explanatory note cited by the Mediazona news website,…
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Updated to reflect that the final version of the legislation does not introduce fines for abortion “propaganda,” as was previously reported. Russia’s republic of Mordovia has become the country’s first region to outlaw the act of “coercing” women into undergoing abortion, independent media reported. The regional-level law passed Thursday potentially sets the stage for similar…
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Moscow on Thursday added Norway to its list of “unfriendly” countries that restricts the number of local staff its diplomatic mission in Russia can hire. “The government has included the Kingdom of Norway in the list of foreign states that commit unfriendly acts against Russian diplomatic and consular missions abroad,” Russia’s cabinet of ministers said…
DetailsAn expert commission of representatives of the Ministry of Health of the Kyrgyz Republic and ROSATOM completed the key stage of the roadmap for the project to create a new department of radionuclide diagnostics for the treatment of patients with oncological and other socially significant diseases at the National Center for Oncology and Hematology (NCОН)…
DetailsROSATOM together with the Ministry of Health of the Kyrgyz Republic completed the key stage of the project to establish a new radionuclide diagnostics department at the National Center for Oncology and Hematology (NCHO) in Bishkek. The parties are developing interaction within the framework of the IAEA technical cooperation program, which aims to develop advanced…
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Russia’s industrial worker shortage reached a new high last month, the RBC news website reported Thursday, citing a survey by the Yegor Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy. The survey found that 42% of Russian industrial enterprises faced a shortage of workers in July, surpassing April’s record-setting shortage of 35%, according to the same survey of around…
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Russian air defense systems shot down six Ukrainian drones outside Moscow, Russia’s military and regional authorities said Thursday. The drones were intercepted while attempting to “fly through” western Russia’s Kaluga region overnight, Kaluga Governor Vladislav Shapsha wrote on the messaging app Telegram. The Kaluga region lies southwest of Moscow and northeast of the Bryansk region,…
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Updated with new downed drone count. Russian air defense systems shot down seven Ukrainian drones outside Moscow, Russia’s military and regional authorities said Thursday. The drones were intercepted while attempting to “fly through” western Russia’s Kaluga region overnight, Kaluga Governor Vladislav Shapsha wrote on the messaging app Telegram. The Kaluga region lies southwest of Moscow…
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Drones targeted the Moscow City business and finance district, a cluster of modern skyscrapers towering over the Russian capital, for the second time in three days Tuesday. But while Kyiv said the back-to-back incidents were a sign of how the war has come home to Russia a year and a half into its offensive on…
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Director Ivanka Polchenko described “Vanya is Alive,” her latest play, as “the most important play written in Russian since the start of the war” in an interview with The Moscow Times before its U.K. premiere. “It was written as the invasion was unfolding, so it’s very immediate.” The play follows Alya, the loving yet delusional…
DetailsOn November 21, ATOMEXPO-2022 International Forum in Sochi hosted a roundtable discussion on Nuclear NGOs Pushing Atomic Technologies Forward. Members of pro-nuclear civil society organizations and independent activists from Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia, Russia and South Africa discussed the contribution of grassroots initiatives to debunking myths about nuclear energy and promoting the benefits of peaceful atomic…
DetailsBashneft (part of Rosneft) invested over 3.6 billion roubles in environmental projects in the first half of 2023, 33% more than in the same period last year.
Russian drones on Wednesday damaged infrastructure at a Ukrainian port on the Danube, as Moscow targeted facilities vital for grain shipments from Ukraine following the collapse of a key export arrangement. Turkey, which along with the United Nations-brokered the deal to allow Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea, urged Russia after the port strike not to take…
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A Russian volunteer soldier who threatened to detonate a grenade in public unless charges of desertion against him were dropped has turned himself in to the authorities after speaking with the governor of Bashkortostan, local media reported Wednesday. Security forces cordoned off a section of a highway in the southern Urals city of Ufa in…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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.…
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