Category Archives: Russia

Single fathers with children via surrogates flee Russia amid crackdown

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Authorities’ attack on LGBT community turns on men who use surrogacy who are assumed to be gay

Several gay men have fled Russia after officials said that they would arrest people “of non-traditional sexual orientation” who had had children through surrogacy. The announcement formed the authorities’ latest attack on the LGBT community.

Surrogacy is legal in Russia but has increasingly been attacked by conservative lawmakers and the Orthodox church. Police arrested a number of top fertility doctors this year and have accused them of “child trafficking” in an ongoing case.

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Sweden to increase military spending by 40% as tension with Russia grows

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Military run down after cold war but Russian activity in Baltic Sea forces hasty rearmament

Sweden will increase military spending by about 40% in the next five years and double the number of people conscripted into its armed forces as it aims to strengthen its defence amid growing tensions with Russia, the government has said.

The country, which is not a member of Nato but enjoys close ties with the alliance, ran down its military forces after the cold war to save money.

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EU sanctions Kremlin chiefs over Alexei Navalny poisoning

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Bloc targeting six Russians, including FSB chief, over ‘assassination attempt’ on opposition figure

The EU has announced sanctions against members of Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, including the head of Russia’s domestic spy agency, over the poisoning of opposition figure Alexei Navalny.

The EU said it had agreed sanctions against six people believed to have been involved in the “assassination attempt” against Putin’s most vocal critic.

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MI5 boss says Russian and Chinese threats to UK ‘growing in severity’

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Ken McCallum also pledges to boost diversity in the service as response to Black Lives Matter movement

MI5’s new boss has said the spy threats posed by China and Russia to the UK are “growing in severity and complexity” while the terrorist threat from Isis and the far right “persists at scale”.

Giving his first speech since his domestic spy agency’s director general in April, Ken McCallum focused on risks from hostile states, including undermining “the integrity of UK research” on a coronavirus vaccine.

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Coronavirus: students to replace older teachers in Moscow

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Trainees and graduates will teach in primary schools amid record infections in Russia

Moscow is to draft university students into primary schools to replace older and vulnerable teachers, as Russia reports record numbers of coronavirus infections but resists a fresh lockdown.

Sergei Sobyanin, the mayor of the Russian capital, announced on Wednesday that high schools would remain closed next week after an extended autumn holiday, with about half a million students moved to distance learning.

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Nuclear arms talks spiral into confusion as Russia rejects US ‘delusion’

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Top US negotiator claimed there was ‘an agreement in principle’ between Trump and Putin

US-Russian arms control talks have sunk into confusion after the top American negotiator claimed there was “an agreement in principle” between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, a claim Moscow quickly rejected as a “delusion”.

Marshall Billingslea, the US special envoy for arms control, said he had flown to Helsinki on Monday to meet the Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, on the understanding that there could be an imminent breakthrough in discussions on whether to extend the 2010 New Start treaty, which limits the number of deployed strategic warheads on either side, and which expires in February.

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Saudi Arabia fails to join UN human rights council but Russia and China elected

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Result follows warnings from human rights groups that UN body’s credibility at stake

Russia and China have been elected to the UN human rights council for the next three years, but Saudi Arabia failed in its attempt to win a place on the 47-seat body.

The result is a severe blow to the country’s efforts to improve its image in the wake of the admitted killing of the Saudi citizen and Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi.

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China, Russia and Saudi Arabia set to join UN human rights council

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Rights campaigners voice concerns as Cuba and Pakistan also expected to be elected

China, Russia, Cuba, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are expected to be elected to the board of the UN human rights council on Tuesday, leaving human rights campaigners in the countries aghast and pleading with EU states to commit to withholding their support.

The Geneva-based monitoring NGO UN Watch described the situation as the equivalent of allowing five convicted arsonists to join the fire brigade.

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Fresh Azerbaijani shelling shatters peace after fragile ceasefire agreed

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Any hope for a truce in the long-running conflict in the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh was short-lived

The streets of Stepanakert were quiet as a ceasefire went into effect on Saturday afternoon, but the local population’s ears were still ringing from shelling and drone strikes that have decimated this highland town over the past 13 days.

The peace – and any hope of a lasting truce – was short-lived. Air-raid sirens in Artsakh, a de facto Armenian republic inside Azerbaijan’s borders, were screaming again before nightfall. Residents who have refused to flee the assault retreated back into bomb shelters and basements, bracing for another sleepless night.

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Nagorno-Karabakh: Armenia and Azerbaijan agree to ceasefire

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Countries to halt fighting at 12pm on Saturday to exchange prisoners and casualties

Armenia and Azerbaijan have agreed to a ceasefire starting on Saturday to exchange prisoners and bodies of those killed in the conflict between Azeri and ethnic Armenian forces over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said.

The talks between the two sides were held in Moscow and were the first diplomatic contact between the enemies since fighting over the breakaway enclave erupted on 27 September, killing hundreds of people. The ceasefire begins at 12pm local time (0800GMT).

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Russia offers to host Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire talks

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Putin proposes halt in fighting to exchange prisoners and collect soldiers’ bodies, says Kremlin

Russia has moved to stop the worst escalation of fighting in the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh in more than a quarter-century by offering to host ceasefire talks on Friday.

Late on Thursday, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, issued a statement calling for a break in the fighting between the Armenian and Azerbaijani forces that has raged for nearly two weeks over the region.

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Russia explosion: 2,000 villagers evacuated after blast and fire at munitions depot – video

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Russian authorities evacuated thousands of people from more than 10 villages in the region of Ryazan on 7 October after a blaze broke out at an ammunition depot, sending thick smoke belching into the air.  Munitions could be heard detonating in footage circulated on social media

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Russia explosion and fire at munitions depot sends 2,000 fleeing

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Villages in Ryazan region south-east of Moscow cleared after grass fire reaches military facility

Russia has evacuated more than 2,000 people from nearby villages after a wildfire set off explosions at a munitions depot in the Ryazan region south-east of Moscow, officials said.

More than 400 firefighters were battling into the evening on Wednesday to extinguish a blaze that broke out at the depot that day, with the authorities saying five people were injured but there were no deaths.

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Russian rocket fuel leak likely cause of marine animal deaths

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Injured surfers and large number of dead sea creatures reported in Kamchatka region

Water pollution in Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula that caused sea creatures to wash up dead on beaches has prompted fears that rocket fuel stored in the region’s military testing grounds may have leaked.

The pollution came to light late last month after surfers reported stinging eyes and said the water had changed colour and developed an odour. Officials later confirmed the surfers had sustained mild burns to their corneas.

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Coronavirus: Europe struggles to contain surge of cases

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Rise in infection rate in Paris as Spanish authorities clash over Madrid lockdown

Bars in Paris have been ordered to close for two weeks, Madrid residents may no longer leave their city and Ireland is set to introduce tighter national restrictions as governments struggle to contain a Europe-wide surge in Covid-19 cases.

As infections in the Paris area rose to 270 for every 100,000 people – and as high as 500 for every 100,000 among 20- to 30-year-olds – with 36% of intensive care beds occupied by Covid-19 patients, the city’s police chief said bars must close from Tuesday.

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Turkey and Russia’s deepening roles in Libya complicate peace efforts

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Ankara’s assertive foreign policy is an increasing factor in broad geopolitical dispute

Plans for a durable Libyan ceasefire are to be endorsed by diplomats from 15 countries on Monday, but the value of the commitments made in the virtual meeting are belied by signs that deepening involvement in the country by rival external powers including Russia and Turkey could complicate efforts to form an interim government of national unity.

The Libya conflict has to be seen as not only a long-running power struggle in the country itself but also part of a wider geopolitical dispute in which Turkey’s assertive foreign policy – ranging from the eastern Mediterranean to Azerbaijan – is an increasing factor.

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Belarus opposition leader to ask Merkel about upping pressure on Lukashenko

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Svetlana Tikhanovskaya says in interview that people can no longer live under dictatorship, as more 100,000 protest on Sunday

The Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya will meet Angela Merkel in Berlin on Tuesday, as the standoff in Belarus increasingly takes on a geopolitical dimension, becoming one more bone of contention between Russia and the west.

Tikhanovskaya said she will ask the German chancellor about “her potential participation as a mediator” in talks between protest leaders and the government of the embattled autocrat Alexander Lukashenko, who has been backed by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and has flatly refused to participate in negotiations.

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Nagorno-Karabakh: Azerbaijan accuses Armenia of rocket attack

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At least one person killed in Ganja incident, as former Soviet republics move closer to war

Fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh has escalated dramatically after Baku accused Armenian forces of firing rockets at Ganja, which lies outside the contested territory.

At least one civilian was killed and four more injured in the attack on Sunday on Ganja, Azerbaijan’s second largest city, 100km (60 miles) north of the Karabakh capital, Stepanakert.

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Syrian recruit describes role of foreign fighters in Nagorno-Karabakh

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Deployment of 1,000 Syrians to Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict shows Ankara’s rise in region

A Syrian fighter sent into combat with Azerbaijani forces in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh has detailed the extent of foreign involvement in the new conflict with Armenia that, after six days of clashes, is taking on a regional dimension.

The deployment of 1,000 Syrian fighters working for a private Turkish security firm, as well as Ankara’s outspoken support for Azerbaijan in the worst fighting between the two neighbours since 1994, confirms Turkey’s rise as a regional power – and threatens to upset the fragile status quo in the Caucasus, long seen as Russia’s domain.

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Russian journalist sets herself on fire after police search property

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Irina Slavina dies following self-immolation she blamed on Russian Federation

A Russian journalist has died after setting herself on fire in front of the local branch of the interior ministry in the city of Nizhny Novgorod, a day after her apartment was searched by police.

Prior to her self-immolation, Irina Slavina wrote on her Facebook page: “I ask you to blame the Russian Federation for my death.”

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