Plume from unprecedented blazes forecast to reach Alaska as fires rage for third month
A cloud of smoke and soot bigger than the European Union is billowing across Siberia as wildfires in the Arctic Circle rage into an unprecedented third month.
The normally frozen region, which is a crucial part of the planet’s cooling system, is spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and worsening the manmade climate disruption that created the tinderbox conditions.
Continue reading...Five scientists died during suspected secret testing of a nuclear-powered crusie missile
Russia has bestowed posthumous awards and praised as “national heroes” five nuclear scientists who died in a mysterious explosion at sea during a rocket engine test.
Officials have been drip-feeding information about the blast on a platform in the White Sea off northern Russia on Thursday that caused a radiation spike in a nearby city.
Continue reading...Scores arrested in biggest opposition rally in six years, prompted by disqualification of independent candidates
Russia’s opposition held its largest protest in years in central Moscow in a show of strength and defiance after previous rallies were forcefully dispersed with mass arrests.
Monitors from the White Counter group, an NGO that counts participants at rallies, reported that nearly 50,000 people attended the demonstration on Saturday, making it the largest opposition rally since 2013.
Continue reading...Rosatom says five staff died in accident that caused radiation levels to spike in Arkhangelsk
Russia’s nuclear energy agency has said an explosion that caused radiation levels to spike in the Arkhangelsk region was caused by an accident during a test of an “isotope power source for a liquid-fuelled rocket engine”.
In a statement released late on Friday, Rosatom said five of its employees had died as a result of the accident and three more were being treated for burns.
Continue reading...Chemists in two northern cities sell more tablets after radiation levels spiked for a short time
Pharmacies in two northern Russia cities have reported increased sales of iodine, a chemical used to limit the effects from radiation exposure, after a mysterious explosion at a military testing site caused radiation levels to spike for a short time.
Russia’s defence ministry said a liquid-fuel rocket engine exploded during testing at a military site on Thursday, killing two and injuring six. Shortly after the explosion, gamma radiation levels in the neighbouring city of Severodvinsk reportedly jumped to 20 times their normal rate for nearly half an hour, contradicting the ministry’s assurances that all levels were normal.
Continue reading...Twenty years ago the Russian president Boris Yeltsin appointed his fourth prime minister in less than 18 months: Vladimir Putin, then a relatively unknown security services chief with scant experience of politics. Few could have predicted that two decades later Putin would still be ruling Russia, having taken on a dominant role in world affairs. But the anniversary comes at a time of uncertainty in the leader’s reign. Putin’s approval ratings remain at a level most western leaders would envy, but they have taken a hit from a stalling economy and declining living standards
Continue reading...Explosion at military range in Arkhangelsk is second deadly defence incident in week
Two people have been killed and radiation levels reportedly spiked after a rocket engine exploded during a test in northern Russia, in the second deadly incident at a Russian defence installation this week.
There was a sudden rise in radiation levels in the nearby city of Severodvinsk, Russia’s state-owned Tass news agency reported, citing municipal officials.
Continue reading...HMS Forth deployed to accompany the Vasily Bykov navy patrol ship through UK waters
A Royal Navy patrol ship has been deployed to shadow a Russian ship through the Channel.
Portsmouth-based HMS Forth had just returned to UK waters from her first foreign port visit when it was scrambled to monitor the Russian patrol ship Vasily Bykov.
A Navy spokesman said: “Forth had departed Gibraltar on 31 July, before heading north at speed and conducting heavy weather trials before a quick logistics stop in Devonport.
“She then sailed and positioned herself ready to meet the Vasily Bykov as the vessel sailed from the North Sea having taken part in Russia’s Navy Days celebration in St Petersburg.”
HMS Forth’s executive officer Lt Samuel Fields said: “It has been a particularly busy time for HMS Forth as we generate for deployed operations and continue to test our ship’s capabilities.
“I am proud of the ship’s company for rising to this additional challenge.”
The Vasily Bykov was previously shadowed by HMS Forth through the UK’s area of interest last month.
Frigate HMS Westminster was also deployed during the weekend to shadow the Chinese warship Xian up the Channel.
Flying shrapnel from military base leaves one soldier dead and at least seven injured
Thousands have been evacuated from a Siberian town after an ammunition depot on a military base caught fire, triggering huge explosions that have sent deadly shrapnel flying for miles around.
One soldier was killed and at least seven other people have been injured, including several with shrapnel wounds, according to Russian state media reports.
Continue reading...Scepticism and safety concerns persist before vessel begins 4,000-mile Arctic journey
“I feel like I’m one of the first cosmonauts going into space,” said Vladimir Irminku, one of the chief engineers of the Akademik Lomonosov, as he stood on the deck of the giant, box-like platform on a chilly summer morning at Kola Bay in the Barents Sea.
Russia is planning to dispatch the vessel, its first floating nuclear power station, on a 4,000-mile journey along the Northern Sea Route, in a milestone for the country’s growing use of nuclear power in its plans for Arctic expansion.
Continue reading...Activist heading to rally against exclusion of candidates such as herself from Moscow election
Police in Moscow have detained a leading opposition figure as she was heading to an unauthorised rally protesting against the exclusion of independent and opposition candidates from the Moscow city council election.
Lyubov Sobol, who is one of the aspirants rejected from the ballot, was detained on Saturday in central Moscow and taken away in a police van.
Continue reading...Move follows police violence during last week’s protests over forthcoming Moscow elections
Russian authorities have threatened protesters in Moscow with lengthy jail sentences in an attempt to dampen an unexpected surge in protest mood before a planned rally on Saturday.
Last weekend police detained a record number of people, some of them violently, for taking part in a peaceful protest in central Moscow over access for opposition candidates to local elections in September.
Continue reading...US pulls out of cold war-era INF treaty after Moscow’s ‘secret deployment’ of cruise missiles
A key international nuclear disarmament treaty has formally collapsed amid mutual recriminations between the west and Russia, and with Nato pledging to boost Europe’s military defences.
The alliance’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said Nato countries were facing a threat from previously banned Russian land-based cruise missiles that could “reach EU cities, with only minutes of warning time”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Bipartisan bill seeks New Start extension– the last formal restraint on the world’s major arsenals
Bipartisan Senate legislation introduced on Wednesday aims to change the administration’s course on nuclear arms control, urging Donald Trump to extend the New Start treaty with Russia or provide justification for allowing it to expire.
Trump has already pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia, which is due to end on Friday.
Continue reading...The annual GUM AutoRally is the most prestigious event of the vintage car show season in Russia
Continue reading...Politician was taken to hospital from jail where he was detained over call for protests
The Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny remains in hospital after being rushed there on Sunday morning with symptoms that one of his doctors said could indicate poisoning.
Navalny was taken to hospital from jail, where he was serving a 30-day sentence after being arrested last week for calling people to attend an anti-government protest.
Continue reading...A few columns ago I cited a story often told among journalists, for fun and to caution against self-importance, usually in vain. Variously attributed to small newspapers in remote locations at some time in the 19th century, an editorial discussing Russian foreign policy is said to have thundered: “We warn the Tsar!”
Related: The Last Czars: the historical drama that the whole of Russia is laughing at
Continue reading...Further action planned to press authorities to let candidates stand in Moscow city elections
Russian opposition politicians have called on their supporters to keep up with street rallies, the day after the most forceful police response to protests in the country for years.
More than 1,300 people were detained by police on Saturday, at a protest called in response to the refusal of electoral authorities to register independent candidates for the Moscow city council elections in September.
Continue reading...Russian police arrested more than 600 people, including prominent activists, around a political protest in Moscow to demand that members of the opposition be allowed to run in a local election later this year. The protest, which authorities declared illegal beforehand, did not represent a significant challenge to Vladimir Putin and his allies, who have the resources to break up such demonstrations and jail people. Chants of 'Russia without Putin' and 'Putin resign' echoed through central Moscow as guardsmen clad in riot gear beat back protesters with batons and roughly detained people. Jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny had called for the protest
Continue reading...It sounds unpleasant, even painful. But as they ponder the linked challenges posed by China and Russia, Pentagon strategists are earnestly discussing whether Vladimir Putin, Russia’s famously athletic leader, will perform a “reverse Nixon”.
This is neither a daring swivel on the parallel bars nor an unusual sexual position. At issue is whether Putin will emulate the 37th US president, Richard Nixon, whose groundbreaking 1972 cold war outreach to China tilted the strategic balance in America’s favour.
Continue reading...