Natalia Kondal, a Russian citizen with Ukrainian roots from the Ural Mountain city of Yekaterinburg, was forced to leave Russia shortly after the start of the war against Kyiv amid intensified repression from the Kremlin. As she looked to get back on her feet in Europe, she turned to Kovcheg, an organization that helps Russian citizens rebuild their lives abroad and supports anti-war activists still inside the country. At least 650,000 people like Kondal have permanently fled Russia since the invasion — whether in protest of the war, to escape repression for their dissenting views or to avoid army conscription. Many left without a clear plan, often with little money or prospects, ending up in unfamiliar countries and separated from their loved ones. Kovcheg — Russian for “ark” — helped Kondal to find accommodation, where she lived for about six months, assisted with her paperwork and offered support with integrating...

The Russian national men’s football team will not play any friendly matches during the October international break, the Russian Football Union (RFU) told reporters Wednesday.  Russia had been in negotiations with Pakistan to play a friendly match this month, but Pakistani outlet Geo News reported that the sides could not come to an agreement. Russia reportedly offered to host the match on Oct. 11 and cover all expenses but Pakistan refused, citing insufficient preparation time. Pakistan proposed holding the match in November.  Instead, the RFU announced it would hold a training session and fan meet at Dynamo stadium in Moscow on Oct. 10 with children from the Belgorod and Kursk regions bordering Ukraine.  The RFU said that it had finalized opponents for friendlies during the November international break, with head coach Valery Karpin telling reporters earlier Wednesday that the national team will play against Syria next month. Russia, which is under FIFA and...

The bodies of Wagner Group mercenaries killed in fighting in Mali this summer have been returned to Russia, the state-run TASS news agency reported Wednesday, citing a Russian officers’ organization. Russian mercenaries suffered heavy losses in two-day fighting against Tuareg rebels near Mali’s border with Algeria in July in what experts called one of the deadliest battles for Wagner in overseas operations. “On the night of Sept. 30, 2024, the Malian armed forces and Russian allies moved out to retrieve the bodies of their fallen comrades, and today they fulfilled their duty,” Alexander Ivanov, the head of the Officer’s Union for International Security, told TASS. “This was an important and demanding mission that had to be accomplished.” Ivanov said the repatriated soldiers would be buried with honors. He did not specify how many soldiers were returned in the operation. Russian fighters have supported Mali’s army in its fight against the rebel...

The U.K. government on Tuesday sanctioned the chemical and biological arm of Russia’s Armed Forces and its commander Igor Kirillov over the alleged use of chemical weapons in Ukraine. Britain and the United States have accused Russia of using the toxic agent chloropicrin against Ukrainian troops in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The British Foreign Ministry said it had slapped sanctions on Kirillov and the Russian army’s Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense unit “for helping deploy these barbaric weapons.” It also sanctioned two Russian Defense Ministry laboratories “for providing support for the development and deployment” of chemical agents on the frontline. “The U.K. will not sit idly by whilst Putin and his mafia state ride roughshod over international law, including the Chemical Weapons Convention,” said Foreign Secretary David Lammy. “Russia’s cruel and inhumane tactics on the battlefield are abhorrent and I will use the full arsenal of powers...

Ex-U.S. President Donald Trump secretly sent Covid-19 tests to Russian President Vladimir Putin amid a domestic shortage at the height of the pandemic in 2020, The Washington Post reported Tuesday, citing its associate editor Bob Woodward’s upcoming book. Putin, a known germophobe who was widely said to have taken extra precautionary measures including extended self-isolation during the pandemic, reportedly accepted Trump’s tests but urged him to avoid going public about them.  “I don’t want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me,” Putin was quoted as saying to Trump at the time. Woodward’s “War,” an account of the Biden administration’s management of the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars which comes out next Tuesday, does not cite the source for the story. news Kremlin Officials Wishing for a Trump Victory — While Claiming Otherwise Read more The Kremlin has not commented on the report in the book,...

More than 1,000 people were evacuated in the annexed Crimean city of Feodosia after Ukrainian strikes sparked a large fire at a major oil terminal there the day before, Russian-installed authorities said Tuesday. On Monday, Ukraine’s military claimed its missile forces had carried out a successful strike on the Feodosia offshore oil terminal, which it called the largest on the Crimean peninsula. Russian-installed authorities said there were no casualties. “An evacuation of 1,047 people to temporary accommodation centers was carried out to ensure the safety of the people living near the site of the emergency,” Feodosia’s Moscow-backed mayor Igor Tkachenko said. The evacuees were placed in hotels and guest houses after registering and undergoing medical examinations, Tkachenko wrote on Telegram. He added that firefighting efforts continued and urged residents to “remain calm and only trust official information.” Pantsir-S short-range air defense systems have been deployed at the oil terminal since at least the...

Russia on Monday arrested a medic for “Satanism” and “promoting same-sex relationships,” as Moscow intensifies a legal crackdown on LGBTQ+ rights in defense of what it calls “traditional family values.” Moscow has for years created a hostile environment for LGBTQ+ people, a trend it hugely accelerated since sending troops to Ukraine in 2022. The powerful FSB security service said it had arrested the head of a medical institution in the central Ulyanovsk region, accusing him of “devil worshipping.” Such accusations from state authorities are rare, but the influence of the Orthodox Church has steadily risen as Russia takes an increasingly conservative social turn. “In the course of operational searches, it was established that this person, being a supporter of Satanism, promoted the idea of same-sex relations among subordinate employees as a way of initiating them into devil worshipping,” the FSB said. news ‘No One Knows Anything’: St. Petersburg’s Queer Community...

Russian President Vladimir Putin is to meet Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian for talks Friday at a forum in the Central Asian country of Turkmenistan, a senior aide said Monday. Yury Ushakov, Putin’s aide on foreign policy, told journalists the leaders will meet in Ashgabat while attending an event celebrating a Turkmen poet. “This meeting has great significance both for discussing bilateral issues as well as, of course, discussing the sharply escalated situation in the Middle East,” Ushakov said. Leaders of Central Asian countries are meeting to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the birth of 18th-century poet Magtymguly Pyragy. news Kremlin Calls for ‘Restraint’ After Iran Missile Attack on Israel Read more Putin’s attendance had not been previously announced. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin visited Iran last week for talks with Pezeshkian and First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref. The talks come as Israel intensively bombs Lebanon, targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah and Russia...

Last month, Fortanga, an independent news outlet from the republic of Ingushetia in Russia’s North Caucasus, broke the news that the neighboring republic of North Ossetia-Alania was plotting to redraw the two regions’ shared border. Documents obtained by Fortanga revealed that North Ossetian officials were hoping to incorporate into their territory parts of Ingushetia’s Dzheyrakhsky district, including a section of Stolovaya (Myat-Loam) mountain where large deposits of dolomite are located.  “There was a huge public outcry [in Ingushetia]. Everyone was talking about it, except perhaps the infants and the mute,” said Isabella Evloeva, journalist and founder of Fortanga. Evloeva told The Moscow Times that many residents of Ingushetia, Russia’s smallest ethnic republic, took to community groups in messaging apps such as WhatsApp to express their outrage and pledge to stage protests if the border deal goes ahead.  “People calmed down a bit when they saw the responses from [Ingush] ministries...

Anti-Kremlin activist Ildar Dadin, who was imprisoned in Russia for protesting against Vladimir Putin, was killed on the front line in Ukraine where he was fighting alongside Kyiv forces, his relatives and Russian media said Sunday. “It is with deep regret that I must inform you that Ildar Dadin – call sign Gandhi – died yesterday in combat in the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine, his friend and former Russian MP Ilya Ponomaryov, who is living in exile, announced on Facebook. He hailed Dadin as a “fearless and determined fighter” who had gone “to the front to fight Putinism”. Dadin, 42, had fought alongside Ukrainian armed forces in a “Siberian battalion”, according to Ponomaryov, and then in the “Freedom Legion of Russia”, a group claiming to be made up of Russians and responsible for several incursions into the country. news Russia Sentences Crimean to 14 Years on Treason Charges Read...