Ten vessels from China, Russia sailed through Tsugaru Strait, which separates Sea of Japan from the Pacific.
Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/19/china-russia-navy-ships-jointly-sail-through-japan-strait
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Moscow takes a lead in new technology that can evade conventional defences and fly at seven times the speed of sound.
Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/program/counting-the-cost/2021/8/28/russias-hypersonic-missiles-can-the-world-avert-an-arms-race
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NATO and the Americans had no chance of success, Gorbachev told Russia’s RIA news agency. “They should have admitted failure earlier,” he said.
Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/gorbachev-leader-who-pulled-soviets-afghanistan-says-u-s-campaign-n1276954
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Reuters
Enlarge / Russian “Nauka” module approaches the International Space Station. (credit: Roscosmos)
Flight controllers at NASA and Roscosmos averted a disaster on Thursday after a large Russian module docked with the International Space Station and began to “inadvertently” fire its thrusters.
The Russian “Nauka” module linked to the space station at 8:30 am CT (13:30 UTC), local time in Houston, where NASA’s Mission Control is based. After that, Russian cosmonauts aboard the station began preparing to open the hatches leading to Nauka, but at 11:34 am Houston time, Nauka unexpectedly started to fire its movement thrusters.
Within minutes, the space station began to lose attitude control. This was a problem for several reasons. First of all, the station requires a certain attitude to maintain signal with geostationary satellites and talk to Mission Control on the ground. Also, solar arrays are positioned to collect power based upon this predetermined attitude.
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Source: https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/07/russian-module-suddenly-fires-thrusters-after-docking-with-space-station/
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Eric Berger
Fuelled by summer heatwaves, wildfires have swept through more than 1.5m hectares of Yakutia’s swampy coniferous taiga, with more than a month still to go in Siberia‘s annual fire season
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2021/jul/29/fighting-siberia-wildfires-in-pictures
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images
PM Nikol Pashinyan says the move would allow border demarcation to be carried out without the risk of military clashes.
Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/29/armenia-seeks-russian-forces-on-azerbaijan-border-amid-tensions
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A bizarre and dramatic piece of performance art was staged in Russia’s second city, St. Petersburg, last week, featuring men dressed as tech tycoons chasing and gagging three young women with the logos of major online platforms.
The protest, staged by a notorious flash mob group, came to light when the video was discovered by local news outlets on Tuesday. The clip features three figures dressed respectively as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, which owns YouTube. The group violently attacks three women, whose mouths have been grotesquely fitted with ball-gags featuring the symbols of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
One of the activists who staged the performance, Maria Rein, said the rationale behind the protests was to highlight the fact that “violence against freedom of speech occurs publicly all the time, without any hesitation, in front of everyone.” Rein has previously starred in a series of provocative and controversial clips aimed at starting conversations around social issues.
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Earlier this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that American tech giants were making increasingly unaccountable decisions over content. “These platforms are, of course, primarily businesses … and what is the primary concern of a business? Making a profit,” he said. “They don’t care if this content or that content causes harm for the people at whom it is directed … After all, these modern IT companies are more and more beginning to control people’s consciousnesses.”
Putin added that there was sometimes a case for restricting access to certain online materials, adding that “we must think about it, and react to it.” But, he insisted, “we must not make decisions that would limit human freedoms – the freedom of choice and freedom of speech.”
On Sunday, Russia’s state media regulator, Roskomnadzor, said that YouTube was a repeat offender when it came to censorship of content from the country. According to officials, the video streaming platform, “more often than other foreign services, restricts access to materials from Russian media. In total, about 30 cases of censorship of Russian publications and information resources have been identified.”
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At the same time, they claimed, “YouTube is the leader in the number of unlawful content that has not been deleted.” The agency went on to add that it had sent Google more than 24,000 requests to remove prohibited content, but that close to 5,000 posts had not been removed.
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Source: https://www.rt.com/russia/529813-flash-mob-zuckerberg-censorship/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS
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The Article Was Written/Published By: RT
The Russian Foreign Ministry has said that negotiations with the Taliban are an essential part of the internationally agreed strategy to end the decades-long conflict in Afghanistan, as American troops pull out of the country.
Speaking to the Russia-1 news channel on Sunday, diplomatic spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that her country backs talks, despite having clear reservations about the Islamist militant group, which is banned as an extremist organization in Russia. “The Taliban movement is prohibited in our country,” she said, adding that Moscow “reaffirms in every possible way its determination to fight against international terrorist activity.”
“There is a small and important nuance,” Zakharova added. “The Taliban movement is part of the inter-Afghan dialogue. This is the very dialogue that the Security Council [at the UN] has called on all countries to facilitate.” She said that by holding talks with all sides, Russia would continue to champion that process.
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Last week, a top Russian UN envoy, Deputy Permanent Representative Dmitry Polyanskiy, told RT that the country was prepared to work within the framework for peace talks agreed by the Security Council. “We support the inter-Afghan negotiations, and all our efforts are aimed at facilitating the start of substantive talks between the two sides.”
“For that reason, we supported the travel ban exemption… for Taliban representatives to let them participate in peace talks.” A delegation of Taliban political representatives visited Moscow for negotiations at the beginning of the month.
He went on to say that existing UN resolutions opened the door to sanctions against the Taliban being dropped, given the right circumstances and progress in peace talks. The body expressed “its readiness upon the commencement of the intra-Afghan negotiations to consider the start of the review of the status of designations of individuals, groups, undertakings and entities on the list.”
Last week, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said that London would be prepared to engage with the Taliban, “provided it adheres to certain international norms.” However, he warned that any such arrangement would be reviewed “if they behave in a way that is seriously against human rights.”
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The militant group has been gaining ground in the troubled Central Asian nation for weeks, with US forces ramping down their presence after two decades stationed in the region. American President Joe Biden has said that all of his country’s forces will return home by the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks this year.
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Source: https://www.rt.com/russia/529628-taliban-talks-peace-afghanistan/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS
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The Article Was Written/Published By: RT
About 800,000 hectares of forest destroyed so far in region enveloped by smoke as Russia suffers through ‘abnormal heatwave’
Russia’s army has sent water-bombing planes to support thousands of firefighters battling huge wildfires in Siberia, a region known for its frozen tundra that is now sweltering under a heatwave.
Flames are tearing across 800,000 hectares of forest, and the hardest-hit region of Yakutia in the north has been in a state of emergency for weeks as climate scientists sound the alarm about the potential long-term impact.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/14/siberia-wildfires-russia-army-planes-and-thousands-of-firefighters-battle-blazes
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Reuters
Temperatures reach 34.7C in Russian capital as weather bureau blames climate change
Moscow has sweltered through its hottest June day for 120 years after the temperature hit 34.7C with even hotter weather expected over the coming days.
Russia’s weather service, Roshydromet, which blamed climate change for the soaring temperatures.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/23/moscow-sees-hottest-june-day-for-120-years-with-more-to-come
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Agence France-Presse
The Russian military said one of its warships fired warning shots and a warplane dropped bombs Wednesday to force a British destroyer away from an area in the Black Sea near Crimea that Moscow claims as its territorial waters, but Britain denied that account and insisted its ship wasn’t fired upon.
It was the first time since the Cold War that Moscow acknowledged using live ammunition to deter a NATO warship, reflecting the growing risk of military incidents amid soaring tensions between Russia and the West.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the Russian warship fired warning shots after the British destroyer HMS Defender had ignored a notice against intrusion and sailed 3 kilometers (1.6 nautical miles) into Russia’s territorial waters. It said a Russian Su-24 bomber also dropped four bombs ahead of the British ship’s path to persuade it to change course. Minutes later, the British warship left the Russian waters, the ministry said.
The Defense Ministry said it has summoned the U.K. military attache in Moscow to protest the British destroyer’s maneuver.
Britain’s Ministry of Defense denied the Defender had been fired on or was in Russian waters.
“No warning shots have been fired at HMS Defender,” it said in a statement. “The Royal Navy ship is conducting innocent passage through Ukrainian territorial waters in accordance with international law.”
Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, a move that was not recognized by most countries, gaining access to the peninsula’s long Black Sea coast. Russia has frequently chafed at NATO warships visits near Crimea, casting them as destabilizing. In April, it declared a broader sea area off Crimea closed to foreign naval ships.
“We believe the Russians were undertaking a gunnery exercise in the Black Sea and provided the maritime community with prior warning of their activity,” the British Ministry of Defense said. “No shots were directed at HMS Defender and we do not recognize the claim that bombs were dropped in her path.”
British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said the U.K. vessel “carried out a routine transit from Odessa towards Georgia across the Black Sea.”
“As is normal for this route, she entered an internationally recognized traffic separation corridor,” he said on Twitter, adding that HMS Defender exited the corridor safely at 9:45 a.m. BST (0845 GMT; 4:45 a.m. EDT).
“As is routine, Russian vessels shadowed her passage and she was made aware of training exercises in her wider vicinity,” he added.
“We saw the reports this morning,” said Max Blain, a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson. “It’s incorrect to say either that it was fired on or this ship was in Russian waters. HMS Defender was taking the most direct and internationally recognized route between Ukraine and Georgia.”
He emphasized that Britain, along with much of the international community, does not recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the incident was “a clear proof of Ukraine’s position: Russia’s aggressive and provocative actions in the Black and Azov seas, its occupation and militarization of Crimea pose a lasting threat to Ukraine and allies.” “We need a new quality of cooperation between Ukraine & NATO allies in the Black Sea,” Kuleba tweeted.
HMS Defender, a Type 45 destroyer, is part of the U.K. Carrier Strike Group currently heading to the Indo-Pacific region. However, it was announced earlier this month that it would be temporarily breaking away from the group to carry out its “own set of missions” in the Black Sea.
NATO members Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria all are on the Black Sea. Warships from the U.S., U.K. and other NATO allies also have made increasingly frequent visits in a show of support for Ukraine.
Speaking just before the incident, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, sharply criticized the deployment of NATO warships near Russian waters.
“The moves by warships of the U.S. and its allies have been clearly provocative,” Gerasimov said at an international security conference in Moscow organized by the Defense Ministry. “It creates preconditions for incidents and doesn’t help ease tensions in the military sphere.”
He charged that the British destroyer HMS Dragon intruded into Russian waters near Crimea in October, and the U.S. destroyer USS John S. McCain violated the Russian border in the Sea of Japan in November.
In April, Russia imposed restrictions on foreign navy ships’ movements near Crimea until November in a move that drew strong complaints from Ukraine and the West. Russia has rejected that criticism and noted that the restrictions wouldn’t interfere with commercial shipping.
Earlier this year, Russia also bolstered its troops near the border with Ukraine and warned Ukrainian authorities against using force to reclaim control of the country’s eastern industrial heartland, where a conflict with Russia-backed separatists has killed more than 14,000 people in seven years. Moscow withdrew some of its forces after maneuvers, but Ukrainian officials say the bulk of them have remained.
Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/23/russia-uk-warship-black-sea-495646
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Associated Press
Record-breaking heat is expected to hit much of Russia this week, with temperatures in Moscow set to rise to over 36 degrees Celsius (97 Fahrenheit) and officials issuing health warnings about the dangers of extremely hot weather.
Evgeny Tishkovets, an expert at the capital’s Phobos meteorological center, said on Sunday that “the background temperature will exceed the normal climate for June by 13 to 15 degrees” Celsius.
“Moreover,” he added, “almost every day will be marked by a series of heat records of the kind that have never been seen before in more than a century of measurements.”
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“It is highly likely that an absolute record will be broken for the whole of June, which has not been since 1901, with an air temperature of plus 34.7 degrees. A comparable heat was only observed 120 years ago,” the forecaster said.
The Central Federal District, home to more than 38 million Russians, will see dangerously high levels of ultraviolet radiation, which has been linked to cancers and other health issues. The scientific director of Russia’s Hydrometeorological Center, Roman Vilfand, told RIA Novosti that “such a situation is rare in European Russia,” and warned that the public should “beware the strong sun.”
Health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor announced on Monday that employers should consider reducing the duration of the working day by an hour if offices and workspaces rise beyond 28.5C (83F), and by two hours if they become more than half a degree hotter than that.
In 2010, an almost unprecedented heat wave struck Western Russia, with temperatures consistently well above the seasonal average. An estimated 55,000 people died from the extreme conditions, while agricultural production cratered by 25% as crops withered and more than $15 billion was wiped off the economy. Analysts and campaigners have chalked up the freak event to climate change.
In June of last year, massive wildfires swept through Siberia and the mercury rose to above 38C (over 100F) in the Far North, breaking Arctic temperature records. More than 1.15 million hectares of forest was estimated to be on fire at one point, sparking concern from environmentalists.
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Source: https://www.rt.com/russia/527169-extreme-heat-work-cut/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS
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The Article Was Written/Published By: RT
President Biden did not extend an invitation for Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit the White House during their summit on Wednesday, Putin said at a news conference.The Russian president …
Source: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/558745-putin-says-biden-did-not-invite-him-to-white-house
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Brett Samuels
The mayor ordered a week off for some workplaces and imposed restrictions on many businesses to fight coronavirus infections that have more than doubled.
Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/moscow-orders-new-restrictions-covid-19-infections-soar-city-n1270615
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The Article Was Written/Published By: The Associated Press
The Kremlin said on Monday that the U.S. decision to withdraw from the treaty had “significantly upset the balance of interests” among the pact’s members.
Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/putin-signs-law-taking-russia-out-open-skies-arms-control-n1269797
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Reuters
VTimes, one of country’s last remaining independent media outlets, to shut this month
One of Russia’s last remaining independent media outlets, VTimes, has announced it will cease publication this month after it was labelled a “foreign agent” by authorities.
The editors’ statement comes at a difficult time for Russian journalists who do not work for state-run media, with space for independent journalism and dissenting voices shrinking dramatically.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/03/russian-news-site-close-foreign-agent-vtimes
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Agence France-Presse in Moscow
Russia’s national oil company has begun construction on a massive project in the Arctic that officials say will produce 25 million tons of oil each year by 2024. The new operation is possible only because the Arctic is now traversable in places and at times it previously wasn’t, due to sea ice levels plummeting as the…
Source: https://gizmodo.com/russia-s-new-arctic-oil-development-is-a-nightmare-1846991892
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Molly Taft
The long-awaited personal meeting between US President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will happen on June 16 in Switzerland, a traditionally neutral country that isn’t a member of any major military bloc.
Biden and Putin will hold a bilateral summit in Geneva, the Kremlin and White House both confirmed, on Tuesday. The city hosts many international organizations and often offers a third-party platform for various meetings.
“In accordance with the agreement reached (with Washington), the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, will hold talks in Geneva on June 16 with President of the United States of America, Joseph Biden,” the Kremlin announced. “It is intended to discuss the current state of Russian-American relations, and prospects for their further development, as well as issues of strategic stability and topical issues on the international agenda, including cooperation in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic and the settlement of regional conflicts.”
“President Biden will meet with President Putin in Geneva, Switzerland on June 16, 2021,” a statement from the White House simultaneously explained. “The leaders will discuss the full range of pressing issues, as we seek to restore predictability and stability to the U.S.-Russia relationship.”
While it won’t be the first time the politicians will meet in person, all their previous one-on-ones happened before Biden was elected to the White House. The two national leaders have a wide array of difficult topics to discuss, considering that the US and Russia are currently at the lowest point in their relations in decades.
Showcasing the strained ties was President Biden’s remark in March, when during an interview he agreed that Putin was a “killer”. The Russian president responded by wishing his counterpart good health and citing a Russian childrens’ insult-deflecting saying that “whatever you say [about others] is what you are yourself”.
The Biden administration accused Russia of a range of sinister actions, from hacking American computer networks to militarizing the Arctic region to ‘weaponizing’ its vaccines against Covid-19 to hurt the interests of the US and its allies. Moscow says Washington is simply trying to hurt the Russian economy with groundless sanctions and political accusations because it cannot tolerate governments that pursue sovereign policies.
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“In accordance with the agreement reached (with Washington), the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, will hold talks in Geneva on June 16 with President of the United States of America, Joseph Biden,” the Kremlin announced. “It is intended to discuss the current state of Russian-American relations, and prospects for their further development, as well as issues of strategic stability and topical issues on the international agenda, including cooperation in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic and the settlement of regional conflicts.”
“President Biden will meet with President Putin in Geneva, Switzerland on June 16, 2021,” a statement from the White House simultaneously explained. “The leaders will discuss the full range of pressing issues, as we seek to restore predictability and stability to the U.S.-Russia relationship.”
While it won’t be the first time the politicians will meet in person, all their previous one-on-ones happened before Biden was elected to the White House. The two national leaders have a wide array of difficult topics to discuss, considering that the US and Russia are currently at the lowest point in their relations in decades.
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Showcasing the strained ties was President Biden’s remark in March, when during an interview he agreed that Putin was a “killer”. The Russian president responded by wishing his counterpart good health and citing a Russian childrens’ insult-deflecting saying that “whatever you say [about others] is what you are yourself”.
The Biden administration accused Russia of a range of sinister actions, from hacking American computer networks to militarizing the Arctic region to ‘weaponizing’ its vaccines against Covid-19 to hurt the interests of the US and its allies. Moscow says Washington is simply trying to hurt the Russian economy with groundless sanctions and political accusations because it cannot tolerate governments that pursue sovereign policies.
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Source: https://www.rt.com/russia/524680-putin-biden-summit-confirmed/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS
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The Article Was Written/Published By: RT
People in the peninsula say they are subject to poor social services, dirty water and spiralling prices.
Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/21/the-devastating-human-economic-costs-of-crimeas-annexation
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A growing chorus of voices in the West is accusing Moscow of aggressively militarizing the region, which Russia denies.
Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/arctic-summit-sets-stage-first-high-level-russian-meeting-biden-n1267747
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Matthew Bodner and Abigail Williams
