Moscow says temporary disconnection is a test of its cyberdefence capabilities
Russia is planning to temporarily disconnect from the internet as part of what it says is an experiment to test its cyberdefence capabilities.
According to a report on the Russian news site RBC, the planned disconnection is intended to analyse the country’s preparedness for a draft law mandating a “sovereign” internet.
Continue reading...Experts deployed to remove dozens of hungry bears besieging Novaya Zemlya
Analysis: what the polar bears reveal about the climate crisis
Russian environmental authorities have deployed a team of specialists to a remote Arctic region to sedate and remove dozens of hungry polar bears that have besieged the people living there.
The move came after officials in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, with a population of about 3,000 people, appealed for help.
“There’s never been such a mass invasion of polar bears,” said Zhigansha Musin, the head of the local administration. “They have literally been chasing people.”
Continue reading...Former Olympic champion Tatiana Navka may have underreported income, claimed wrong status and owed unpaid property tax
Questions have been raised about the US tax affairs of the wife of Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, after records suggested she may have failed to declare her true income to US regulators and not disclosed foreign bank accounts.
Tatiana Navka, a former Olympic ice dancing champion, also appears to have wrongly claimed a potentially beneficial US tax status, according to an investigation by the Guardian.
Continue reading...Moscow announces move after US said on Friday it would withdraw from INF nuclear treaty
Vladimir Putin has said Russia will suspend its involvement in a cold war-era nuclear pact, following a similar decision by the US, and begin developing new nuclear-capable missiles banned by the treaty.
The move came a day after Donald Trump confirmed the US would exit the intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) treaty. The US had complained for several years that a Russian cruise missile violated the treaty, a claim that Russia has denied.
Continue reading...Announcement gives Russia 180 days to destroy violating missiles and launchers to avoid new arms race
Donald Trump has confirmed that the US is leaving the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, saying “we will move forward with developing our own military response options” to Russia’s suspect missile.
In a written statement, Trump said that the US would be suspending its compliance with the 1987 treaty on Saturday, and would serve formal notice that it would withdraw altogether in six months.
Continue reading...The Facebook accounts had garnered about 2 million followers and researchers say they amplified anti-west views
Facebook and Twitter both announced on Thursday they had taken down hundreds of accounts believed to have been part of coordinated influence operations from Iran, Russia and Venezuela.
Related: Apple cracks down on Facebook after it paid teens for access to their data
Continue reading...More than 1,000 files shared confidentially appeared to have been uploaded to a filesharing site, according to court documents
Evidence gathered by Robert Mueller, the special counsel, was obtained by Russians and leaked online in an attempt to discredit his inquiry into Moscow’s interference in US politics, prosecutors said on Wednesday.
Related: Mueller investigation is almost finished, says acting attorney general
Continue reading...A museum in New York claims to be the only collection focusing on the KGB’s espionage operations in the world. The newly opened exhibition hall, housed in a former warehouse on 14th Street, is home to 3,500 original period objects, which the designer of the museum, Julius Urbaitis, has gathered after 30 years of research around the world
Continue reading...Ofcom says ex-MP breached impartiality guidelines on radio show when casting doubt on Russian role
George Galloway breached broadcasting impartiality rules when he used his radio show to cast doubt on Russian involvement in the poisoning of Yulia and Sergei Skripal in Salisbury last year, according to media regulator Ofcom.
The former MP used his weekly programme on TalkRadio to repeatedly criticise claims of Russian involvement in the incident. He mocked those who agreed with the UK government that the Kremlin was behind the novichok nerve agent attack on the former Russian security agent and his daughter.
Continue reading...The Trump administration has lifted sanctions on three companies, including the aluminum giant Rusal, linked to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Democrats had led a push in Congress to continue the restrictions.
Related: 'Sex trainer' who said she could prove Russia meddled in US election freed
Continue reading...German journalist with links to Russia allegedly organised arson attack in Ukraine to stoke tensions, court told
The plot allegedly involved three Polish extremists and a German journalist with ties to the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, as well as to a number of Kremlin-friendly Russian news outlets.
Their alleged task was to carry out a “false flag” operation in western Ukraine: burn down a Hungarian cultural centre, and make it look as though Ukrainian nationalists were responsible. The main beneficiary of the ensuing recriminations would be Russia.
Continue reading...Longtime Trump ally appeared in federal court on Friday after being arrested in Florida on seven charges including obstruction
Roger Stone has apparently called into InfoWars, the website-cum-radio show of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
The InfoWars website seems to be having some problems, so I couldn’t listen in. But Paul Joseph Watson, InfoWars editor-at-large and noted crank, says Stone told the website:
Stone says just before 6am 29 agents burst into home w weapons, allowed him to dress, scared death out of his wife, taken to FBI Miami Dade, where he says agents treated him very well, then did bond hearing - shackled hands and feet - Special Counsel and US atty there, $250k bail https://t.co/HyKA5Fmmlt
Of course, Roger Stone wasn’t the only Trump ally appearing in federal court this morning.
Around the same time Stone was shuffling into Fort Lauderdale court in chains, Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, was in the US District Court for the District of Columbia in Washington DC.
His eyes tired and his hair streaked with grey, Paul Manafort looked morose and walked gingerly, with a limp, during his first court appearance in months on Friday.
The former Donald Trump campaign chairman, imprisoned in Virginia as he awaits sentencing, wore a suit and was not handcuffed during the hour-long hearing at the US District Court for the District of Columbia in Washington, which focused mainly on procedure.
Continue reading...Indictment reveals a campaign official was directed to contact Stone about ‘damaging information’ – but who gave the order?
The criminal indictment of Roger Stone is packed with the kind of colourful details one might expect from the flamboyant rogue, who has been dealing in dirty tricks for more than 40 years.
Related: Who is Roger Stone, the longtime Trump ally caught in Mueller's net?
Continue reading...As ice melts and shipping lanes open up, geopolitical tensions are growing and old cold war bases are being reopened
The climate crisis is intensifying a new military buildup in the Arctic, diplomats and analysts said this week, as regional powers attempt to secure northern borders that were until recently reinforced by a continental-sized division of ice.
That so-called unpaid sentry is now literally melting away, opening up shipping lanes and geo-security challenges, said delegates at the Arctic Frontiers conference, the polar circle’s biggest talking shop, who debated a series of recent escalations.
Continue reading...Paul Whelan, ex-marine accused of spying, may have been unaware of possession
A Russian lawyer for Paul Whelan, the US citizen accused of spying on Russia, has said his client was carrying state secrets when he was arrested in Moscow but may not have realised it.
Whelan, an ex-marine, has been accused of an unspecified “act of espionage”, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Continue reading...Alexey Knedlyakovsky and Lusine Djanyan say they fear being arrested and beaten if sent home
Two Russian opposition activists denied political asylum in Sweden say they fear being arrested and beaten up if they are forced to go home.
“You never know when something will happen,” say Alexey Knedlyakovsky and Lusine Djanyan, who fled their home city of Krasnodar in March 2017 after what they say was a campaign of persecution by the secret police. They flew to Sweden with their two-year-old son and claimed asylum.
Continue reading...The US has rejected Moscow’s offer to inspect a new Russian missile suspected of violating a key cold-war era nuclear-weapons treaty, and warned that it would suspend observance of the agreement on 2 February, giving six-month notice of a complete withdrawal.
Related: Top North Korean officials reportedly set for Washington visit
Continue reading...Russian president claims alleged increase of western influence is ‘destablising’
Vladimir Putin has weighed into the row over Macedonia’s name-change, accusing the US and its allies of destabilising the Balkans by “asserting their dominant role” in the region.
The Russian president criticised what he described as deliberate efforts to increase western influence in a part of the world Moscow has long regarded as falling within its own orbit.
Continue reading...Accounts echo those from 2017, when hundreds of men were rounded up and beaten
Two people have been killed and nearly 40 detained in a new crackdown on LGBT people in Russia’s Chechnya region, activists have said. The deaths were reportedly caused by the use of torture by police.
The reports on Monday echo those from 2017, when hundreds of gay men were rounded up by police in Chechnya and subjected to beatings and electric shocks in secret prisons, provoking international condemnation and sanctions.
Continue reading...Donald Trump has strongly denied the stunning claim that he was secretly working on behalf of Russia and again threatened to declare a national emergency to fund a border wall.
In 20-minute live phone interview with Fox News on Saturday night, he described as an “insult” the New York Times story that alleged the FBI launched an investigation into whether the he was acting as a Russian asset, against his own country’s interests.
Continue reading...