Russian News From Russia…

Activists say Syrians are taking to the streets to continue a monthslong protest against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said thousands of people demonstrated in the flashpoint industrial city of Homs. Elsewhere, security forces broke up a demonstration in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor. They also [...]

WATCH: The breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia is voting for a new president, three years to the day since Russia recognized it as an independent state. (Video by Reuters) The separatist Georgian territory of Abkhazia is holding an early presidential election. The vote will result in a replacement for Sergei Bagapsh, the separatist president who [...]

SARATOV, Russia — A Russian soldier who claims he spent more than a decade in forced labor has been released from detention after authorities accused him of desertion, RFE/RL’s Russian Service reports. Andrei Popov went missing 11 years ago while serving his mandatory two-year military service in the Tatishchev military garrison in Russia’s southwestern region [...]

The Power Vertical The sun sets on Red Square near the Kremlin. It’s been a busy week here at RFE and I haven’t had as much time to blog as I would like. And as luck would have it, there was plenty of action in Russia that was blogable, from the mini-scandals that erupted over [...]

MOSCOW, Aug 26 (PRIME) — Russias Federal Customs Service may consider increasing the oil transportation tariff for oil pipeline company Transneft in the period between August 29 and September 2, a spokesperson for the service told PRIME Friday. The service could increase the tariff by 2.8% from September 1 and 5.0% from November 1, the [...]

MOSCOW, Aug 26 (PRIME) — Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has signed a ruling to switch to unified export duties on light and heavy oil products, or the so-called 6066 tax regime, on October 1, according to a document published on the Russian governments Web site Friday. In particular, the regime envisages decreasing the maximum [...]

MOSCOW, Aug 26 (PRIME) — Modernization of the Russian electric power sector requires 11.1 trillion rubles of investments until 2020, the Energy Ministrys press office said Friday, RIA Novosti reported. The modernization is to be financed mainly with preferential loans from state banks at interest rates not exceeding 8% annually, the launch of the wholesale [...]

VOLGOGRAD, August 26 (Itar-Tass) —— The death toll of the Tuesday explosion at the Ashuluk training range in the Astrakhan region has grown to seven, a source at the regional health ministry told Itar-Tass on Friday. “Private Yevgeny Barsukov drafted from Kalmykia died at the Astrakhan region clinic without coming out of coma,” he said. [...]

MOSCOW, August 26 (Itar-Tass) —— The Russian government has given an order to grant to NOVATEK’s subsidiary, NOVATEK-Yurkharovneftegaz, licences for the development of four oil and gas deposits located in Yamal: Geophizicheskoye, Salmanovskoye (Utrenneye), Severo-Obskoye and Vostochno-Tambeiskoye fields. The related instruction, which was posted in the bank of federal normative documents on Friday, was signed [...]

UFA, August 26 (Itar-Tass) —— Head of the Republic of Bashkortostan Rustem Khamitov has made a decision to establish a republican reserve fund of grain in order to support farmers in the period of prices’ decline on the grain market, the presidential press service told Itar-Tass on Friday. The republic plans to borrow 1.5 billion [...]

TBILISI, August 26 (Itar-Tass) — Georgian Speaker David Bakradze has called illegal the election in the Abkhaz region. “This ‘ballot’ is not a real and legal election at the time when over 70% of residents of the Abkhaz region are refugees who are banished from their homes and have no right to declare their position,” [...]

ANAPA, August 26 (Itar-Tass) — The 9-year-old boy from Moscow who fell overboard in the Black Sea near Anapa is found alive, the Krasnodar territorial emergency situations department told Itar-Tass. “The crew of the Leopard towboat of the Maritime Rescue Center found the boy at 5:00 p.m. Moscow time. He was wearing a life jacket,” [...]

MOSCOW, August 26 (Itar-Tass) — Dozens of servicemen, including the wounded, have been questioned in the investigation of the Tuesday explosion at the Ashuluk training range in the Astrakhan region, the Main Military Investigation Department of the Russian Investigation Committee told Itar-Tass. “Eleven injured servicemen are receiving therapy at the hospital. Three of them have [...]

MOSCOW, August 26 (Itar-Tass) — Moscow strongly condemns the terror act in the capital of Nigeria and presents condolences to the families and friends of the victims, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday. A suicide bomber set off an explosive in front of the UN mission’s office at about 11:00 a.m. local time. “According [...]