The head of the Russian Defense Ministry sports directorate, Alexander Shchepelev, was demoted, apparently over an interview that was published saying the ministry planned to buy badminton equipment in a hype after President Dmitry Medvedev said he enjoyed the sport, an officer in the ministry’s central apparatus said. The officer told RIA Novosti the decision [...]
Tag: RIA Novosti
December 16, 2011
December 16, 2011
Russia, Azerbaijan Discuss Lease Renewal For Radar Station
BAKU — Russian and Azerbaijani officials are in the midst of three days of talks in Baku on renewing Moscow’s lease on an Azerbaijani radar station, RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service reports. The Russian Defense Minister told reporters the talks — which began on December 13 — would continue through December 15. Russia signed a lease agreement [...]
December 12, 2011
Russia launches fourth unit at Kalinin Nuclear Power Plant
UDOMLYA (Tver region), December 12 (RIA Novosti) – Unit 4 of the Kalinin Nuclear Power Plant in central Russia went online on Monday in the presence of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The unit with a total capacity of 1,000 MW will be operated at half capacity for the time being. Its construction began in 2007 [...]
December 11, 2011
Vote protest a ‘watershed’ Russian leaders cannot ignore: analysts
Opposition rallies against recent elections that culminated in a massive demonstration in Moscow this weekend are a major “watershed” in Russia’s post-Soviet social and political development that the country’s leadership must reckon with, analysts said. The rally in Moscow on Saturday, attended by tens of thousands of relatively young, well-dressed, educated “mainstream” people rather than [...]
December 11, 2011
Poll protests continue in Russian regions
Authorized and unauthorized protests against alleged electional fraud continued in several Russian cities on Sunday, RIA Novosti correspondents reported. The largest sanctioned rally was held in Perm, a city in the Urals, which gathered some 800 people instead of 300 permitted by the police. Two people were detained. The demonstrators signed a resolution demanding the [...]
December 11, 2011
Fugitive Russian businessmen take part in election fraud protest in London
Some 100 people, including fugitive Russian businessmen Boris Berezovsky and Yevgeny Chichvarkin, gathered on Friday outside the Russian embassy in London to protest against the alleged fraud in Russian parliamentary elections, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported. Similar protests against the results of Sunday’s vote, in which the pro-Kremlin United Russia party retained its majority in [...]
December 11, 2011
Poll protests in eastern Russia
Hundreds of people have gathered in different cities across Russia on Saturday to protest against alleged electoral fraud in favor of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, RIA Novosti correspondents reported from the scene. Some 1,000 people rallied in the southern Siberian city of Barnaul, about 200 at the central square in Chita and [...]
December 11, 2011
December 11, 2011
Top Russian Health Inspector: Demonstrators Will Catch The Flu
The Kremlin spin machine was firing on all cylinders on December 9 as top state doctor Gennady Onishchenko warned that protesters set to rally across dozens of Russian towns on December 10 should stay at home – or else risk catching the flu. It was unclear whether Onishchenko’s advice had struck a chord with the [...]
December 8, 2011
Russian social network rebuffs FSB request to close ‘opposition’ accounts
Russia’s most popular social network was asked by the country’s domestic security agency to deactivate accounts of groups that contained posts calling for street protests, but the company rejected the request, a spokesman said Thursday. “We received a request from the FSB to stop the activity of Vkontakte groups calling for riots and a revolution,” [...]
December 8, 2011
Moscow police seal off central square as opposition to rally
Police are setting up metal barriers along the perimeter of Triumfalnaya Square in central Moscow as opposition groups are preparing to stage a new unsanctioned rally to protest election fraud, a RIA Novosti correspondent reports. On Tuesday evening the square saw a rally that drew up to 5,000 people, including both opposition and pro-Kremlin youth [...]
December 8, 2011
Russian army officer jailed for spying for Georgia
A former Russian Army major was given a 12-year prison term on Wednesday for spying for Georgia, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported from the courtroom. Vladimir Klenkov passed classified information concerning the location of Russian military units in the Southern Military District to Georgian intelligence services “for mercantile motives,” investigators alleged. The North Caucasus District [...]
December 8, 2011
Poll protests continue in Russia, more arrests
Demonstrations against alleged electoral fraud in favor of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party continued for a third night on Wednesday, with arrests in both Moscow and St. Petersburg, police said. Some 500 people rallied in downtown St. Petersburg, where police said 70 people had been detained. A much smaller protest took place in [...]
December 8, 2011
Moscow city hall says will allow only 300 people at Saturday’s rally
Moscow Deputy Mayor Alexander Gorbenko warned organizers of Saturday’s rally against election results that the number of protestors should not surpass the previously declared 300 people. Some 20,000 people have so far indicated on social network sites that they will attend a sanctioned protest on Saturday at central Moscow’s Revolution Square. “A total of 300 [...]