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MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday called an explosion that tore through a Saint Petersburg supermarket, wounding 13 people, “an act of terror.” “As you know, an act of terror took place in Saint Petersburg yesterday,” he said at a meeting of military officers in the Kremlin. The homemade bomb went off in a locker at the supermarket on Wednesday evening, officials said. Anna Mityanina, vice governor of Saint Petersburg, […]
by Olga Rotenberg and Anna Smolchenko Agence France-Presse moscow, Russia (AFP) — Russia has lost contact with Angola’s first national telecoms satellite launched from the Baikonur space pad, its maker said Wednesday — a fresh embarrassment for Moscow’s once proud space industry. The incident involving the Russian-made Angosat-1 followed a similar one in November when Russia lost contact with a weather satellite launched from a new cosmodrome in the country’s far east. Energia, Russia’s top […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) – The United States’ top diplomat defended his country’s foreign policy record on Wednesday, saying progress had been made in the last year to rein in North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and to counter the “immense challenges” posed by Russia, China and Iran. In an opinion piece in the New York Times, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said some 90 percent of Pyongyang’s export earnings had been cut off by a series of international […]
by Marina Koreneva Agence France-Presse SAINT PETERSBURG, Russia — A homemade bomb blast at a supermarket in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg injured 10 people Wednesday, officials said, sparking a probe into attempted murder. “According to preliminary information, an explosion of an unidentified object occurred in a store,” a spokeswoman for Russia’s Investigative Committee, Svetlana Petrenko, said in a statement. The blast was caused by a “homemade explosive device with the power equivalent to 200 grammes of TNT […]
by Anna Smolchenko Agence France Presse MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — Russia on Tuesday rejected concerns that the decision to bar opposition leader Alexei Navalny from running against President Vladimir Putin in a March election could undermine the vote’s legitimacy. Navalny is seen by many as the only Russian opposition leader who stands a fighting chance of challenging Putin. Observers say barring him from running in the polls undermines the legitimacy of the vote and could […]
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) – More than three dozen Syrian rebel groups, including influential Islamists, have rejected a Russian-led initiative for talks next month in Sochi on ending Syria’s war. Russia and Iran, both key allies of Syria’s regime, agreed with opposition backer Turkey on Friday to hold a “Congress of National Dialogue” in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on January 29 and 30. Syria’s government swiftly said it would attend but rebels have pushed back, calling […]
MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — Four people were killed Monday when a Moscow bus ploughed into a pedestrian underpass in the west of the city, officials said. It was not immediately clear what caused the accident as authorities said they were looking into several possibilities, including a technical malfunction. Authorities did not mention terrorism as a possible cause. “Nine people are currently in the city’s clinics… four people died on the spot,” the Moscow city hall […]
MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — Russia’s Central Election Commission on Monday unanimously rejected top opposition figure Alexei Navalny’s bid to run against President Vladimir Putin next year, leading him to urge a boycott of the polls. The commission voted 12 to zero in barring Navalny from the presidential election, citing a controversial embezzlement conviction for which he received a five year suspended sentence. Navalny’s crime qualifies as “serious” and therefore rids the individual of the right […]
KIEV, Ukraine (AFP) — Hundreds of thousands of children are at imminent risk of being hit by mines and other explosive weapons in war-torn eastern Ukraine, one of the most mine-contaminated places on earth, a UN report said Thursday. A bloody conflict between Ukraine’s army and Russian-backed rebels has endangered 220,000 children who live, play and go to and from school in areas littered with landmines and other deadly explosive devices, the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund […]
by Dave Clark and Douglas Gillison Agence France-Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The United States slapped sanctions on Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov on Wednesday, accusing Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s key regional ally of personal involvement in repression, torture and murder. Kadyrov was added to the US Treasury’s blacklist along with Chechen security official Ayub Kataev and three Russians linked to the corruption case uncovered by deceased whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky. The sanctions were authorized under the 2012 Magnitsky Act, […]
SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) — Embattled cyber security firm Kaspersky Lab said Monday that it is asking a federal court to overturn a ban on its products being used by US agencies. Allegations that Moscow-based Kaspersky, which sold more than $600 million of anti-virus software globally in 2015, knowingly or unknowingly helped Russian intelligence steal top-secret information from the US have effectively killed its business here and hurt its worldwide reputation. Kaspersky said it […]
by Thibault MARCHAND Agence France Presse MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked his US counterpart Donald Trump on Sunday for the CIA’s help in thwarting a planned attack in Saint Petersburg, the second time in a week that the leaders have exchanged praise. Putin spoke by phone with Trump to convey his gratitude for intelligence supplied by the CIA which allowed Russia’s FSB security service to break up a “terrorist cell” that […]
