Category Archives: Russia

Russians go to polls in local elections after crackdown on dissent

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Attention is on Moscow vote after arrests of would-be opposition candidates

Russians have gone to the polls in local elections after weeks of opposition protests that led to the biggest police crackdown on dissent in nearly a decade.

Although municipal and regional polls were held across the vast country, most attention has been focused on the vote in Moscow, where independent would-be candidates and their supporters have been arrested and jailed and large protests were held over the summer.

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Released prisoners met by family after Ukraine-Russia exchange – video

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Kyiv and Moscow each released 35 prisoners in a dramatic exchange that resulted in freedom for 24 Ukrainian sailors taken captive by Russia. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was on the runway at Kyiv’s airport to greet the released prisoners and there were emotional scenes as family members were reunited

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Ukraine releases MH17 plane crash ‘suspect’

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Vladimir Tsemakh, who was arrested in June, may be part of prisoner swap deal with Russia

A Ukrainian court has released a potential suspect and key witness in the shooting down of MH17, as Russia’s president said the two countries were working on a deal to swap prisoners.

Vladimir Tsemakh had bragged on video of commanding an anti-air brigade in separatist-held east Ukraine and indicated he hid evidence of a Buk missile system, the kind Dutch investigators say shot down the Malaysia Airlines jet with 298 people on board.

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Statue of Red Army general under wraps in Prague to stop vandals

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Monument has become focus of a row between the Czech capital and its Russian embassy

A statue of a second world war Red Army general repeatedly targeted by vandals has been covered with a tarpaulin amid an escalating row between Czech officials and Russia’s embassy in Prague over its status.

Authorities in the Czech capital’s Bubeneč district put the imposing monument honouring Marshal Ivan Konev under cover after saying they were no longer prepared to keep cleaning it following repeated paint and graffiti attacks.

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German president asks Poland for forgiveness at WW2 ceremony

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Frank-Walter Steinmeier makes speech at Warsaw event to mark 80 years since start of war

The German president vowed his country would never forget the atrocities of the Nazi period on Sunday as he asked forgiveness from Poland during a series of commemorative events to mark the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the second world war.

“In no other square in Europe do I find it more difficult to speak, and to address you in my native language of German ... I ask for forgiveness for Germany’s historical guilt and I recognise our enduring responsibility,” Frank-Walter Steinmeier said at a ceremony in Piłsudski Square in Warsaw.

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Murder of Chechen dissident: suspect linked to Russian security services

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Research by Der Spiegel, Bellingcat and The Insider found suspect’s passport could be linked to Russian military

A suspect arrested last week over the killing of a Chechen dissident in Berlin was carrying a passport whose number linked him to Russian security services, news magazine Der Spiegel and others reported on Friday.

Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, who fought against Russia during the second Chechen war in the early 2000s, was shot twice in the head at close range in the Kleiner Tiergarten park in central Berlin just before midday last Friday.

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No-fly zone: Russian space suit redesign halts lucky pee ritual

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Astronauts will no longer be able to urinate on bus that picks them up for launch

Russia has unveiled a new space suit but the design may have to be changed to continue a decades-old tradition – making a stop to pee on the way to the launch.

The Sokol-M prototype suit was designed as a replacement for suits worn during launches to the International Space Station (ISS) on Soyuz spacecraft.

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‘Will you pay for me too?’: Putin buys an ice cream for Erdoğan – video

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The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Vladimir Putin have underscored their close links with ice cream as they opened a major Russian air show. Erdoğan was the Russian president's guest of honour at the opening of the MAKS aviation show outside Moscow. The two leaders stopped at an ice cream stand for refreshments and Erdoğan was heard asking Putin, 'Will you pay for me?', to which Putin responded: 'Of course, you're my guest.'

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G7: Trump’s demands for Russia’s readmission cause row in Biarritz

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US president argues Putin should be included in discussions on Iran, Syria and North Korea

Donald Trump has rowed with his fellow G7 leaders over his demand that Russia be readmitted to the group, rejecting arguments that it should remain an association of liberal democracies, according to diplomats at the summit in Biarritz.

The disagreement led to heated exchanges at a dinner on Saturday night inside the seaside resort’s 19th-century lighthouse. According to diplomatic sources, Trump argued strenuously that Vladimir Putin should be invited back, five years after Russia was ejected from the then G8) for its annexation of Crimea.

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Trump’s bid to buy Greenland shows that the ‘scramble for the Arctic’ is truly upon us

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World powers are racing to exploit the vast untapped resources of the Arctic as global heating opens up a new frontier

Donald Trump’s cack-handed attempt to buy Greenland, and the shirty response of Denmark’s prime minister, provoked amusement last week. But it was mostly nervous laughter. The US intervention shone a cold light on a rapidly developing yet neglected crisis at the top of the world – the pillage of the Arctic.

Like the late 19th-century “scramble for Africa”, when European empires expanded colonial control of the continent’s land mass from 10% to 90% in 40 years, the Arctic region is up for grabs. As was the case then, the race for advantage is nationalistic, dangerously unregulated, and harmful to indigenous peoples and the environment.

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Russia Today puts Japan on the map, where New Zealand should be

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New channel apologises to New Zealanders for map mix-up that also labelled Papua New Guinea as South Korea

Russian news channel RT has apologised for apparently accidentally labelling New Zealand as “Japan”, and Papua New Guinea as “South Korea” in an embarrassing southern hemisphere mix-up.

The mistake came in a segment produced by their US bureau about potential new missile bases in “Japan, South Korea and Australia”. But in a large, erroneous graphic only Australia was correctly labelled.

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I’ve spent years reporting from Syria. The world has tuned out, but hope still exists | Sara Firth

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Every day the mounting horrors are broadcast in real time, but it feels like nobody is watching any more

This is often how the news comes in: “Regime airstrikes on Tuesday killed nine civilians in rebel-held northwest Syria, the target of months of regime and Russian bombardment, says the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.” Working for an international news channel, we follow up these stories with our sources on the ground, the local monitoring group or news agency. Where possible we go to verify for ourselves. Usually, though, I’m miles away on the other side of the border in Hatay, Turkey. Safe.

Related: Rebels withdraw from key Syrian town as pro-Assad troops advance

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Rebels withdraw in key Syrian town as pro-Assad troops advance

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Move by insurgents in Khan Sheikhun marks a milestone for Idlib, the last major rebel stronghold

Insurgent groups have withdrawn from Khan Sheikhun in north-west Syria, clearing the way for pro-government forces to enter the town, in a milestone moment in the war for Idlib province, the country’s last major rebel stronghold.

The development came hours after Turkey deployed tanks and armoured cars deep into Syria, partly in response to days of advances by forces fighting on behalf of the Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad.

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Turkish convoy in Syria hit by airstrikes, Ankara claims

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Reported strike came after large number of Turkish forces crossed border into Idlib province

Turkey has sent significant numbers of tanks and troops deep into Syria in an apparent bid to reinforce the town of Khan Sheikhun, where 92 people died in a 2017 sarin gas attack, one of the war’s most infamous atrocities.

Columns of Turkish forces, amounting to Ankara’s largest incursion into Syria of the eight-year conflict, crossed the southern border into Idlib province early on Monday, accompanied by Arab proxy forces.

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Cold War sailor’s 50-year-old message in a bottle found in Alaska

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Green bottle was discovered on a remote shoreline by a man collecting firewood

A man discovered a 50-year-old letter in a bottle from the Russian Navy on the shores of western Alaska.

Tyler Ivanoff found the handwritten Russian letter early this month while gathering firewood near Shishmaref about 600 miles (966km) northwest of Anchorage, KNOM-AM reported on Tuesday.

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The nuclear arms race is back … and ever more dangerous now

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Donald Trump has increased spending on America’s arsenal while ripping up cold war treaties. Russia and China are following suit

Imagine the uproar if the entire populations of York, Portsmouth or Swindon were suddenly exposed to three times the permissible level of penetrating gamma radiation, or what the nuclear physicist Ernest Rutherford termed gamma rays. The outpouring of rage and fear would be heard across the world.

That’s what happened to the roughly 200,000 people who live in the similarly sized northern Russian city of Severodvinsk on 8 August, after an explosion at a nearby top-secret missile testing range. Russia’s weather service, Rosgidromet, recorded radiation levels up to 16 times higher than the usual ambient rate.

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Putin’s 20 years in power producing new generation of protesters

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New wave of protest leaders were children when Russian president first came to power in 1999

The young face of Moscow’s protests, a 21-year-old libertarian with 123,000 followers on YouTube, appeared in court on a television screen this week.

Yegor Zhukov, a political science student at Russia’s prestigious Higher School of Economics, faces eight years in prison over controversial “mass unrest” charges. The Kremlin’s critics think the charges are a scare tactic to crush Russia’s largest protests in years, set to continue for their fourth weekend on Saturday.

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Kremlin lauds ‘heroes’ who landed plane in cornfield after gull strike

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Pilots to get state awards for safe landing outside Moscow having collided with flock of birds

The Kremlin has lauded two Russian pilots as heroes and said they would be given state awards after they landed a plane carrying 233 people in a cornfield outside Moscow having struck a flock of birds during takeoff.

The Ural Airlines Airbus 321 came down in a field south-east of Moscow with its landing gear up after colliding with a passing flock of gulls, which disrupted the plane’s engines.

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Passengers flee plane after emergency landing in Russian cornfield – video

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A passenger jet with 233 passengers was forced to make an emergency landing in a cornfield after striking a flock of birds as it took off. The pilot, Damir Yusupov, was hailed a hero by Russian media after landing the plane with its engines off and landing gear up. All onboard survived the incident, although the Russian health ministry said 23 people had been injured

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Riot police in Russia punch woman during protest for free elections – video

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Russia’s interior ministry has launched an investigation after a video went viral showing a riot police officer punching a woman in the stomach during a protest for free elections. The footage shows Daria Sosnovskaya, 26, being dragged by two masked police officers in riot gear, with one of them punching her in the stomach before reaching down to pick up a baton. The images provoked outrage in the media and on social networks. 

Sosnovskaya, in an interview to the Mediazona website, said she was dragged away by police for protesting against the detention of a disabled man. A decision to block opposition candidates from running for election to Moscow’s city parliament has prompted a wave of protests that are among the largest since Vladimir Putin returned to the Kremlin in 2012.

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