Russia has long sought to inject disinformation into U.S. political discourse. Now, it's got a new angle: paying Americans to do the work. This week's indictment of two Russian state media employees on charges that they paid a Tennessee company to create pro-Russian content has renewed concerns about foreign meddling in the November election while revealing the Kremlin's latest tactic in a growing information war. If the allegations prove correct, they represent a significant escalation, analysts say, and likely capture only a small piece of a larger Russian effort to sway the election. We have seen the smoke for years. Now, here's the fire, said Jim Ludes, a former national defense analyst who now leads the Pell Center for International Relations at Salve Regina University. I don't wonder if they're doing more of this. I have no doubt." According to prosecutors, the two employees of RT, a Russian outlet formerly known as Russia Today, funneled $10 million to the U.S. media company
The classes "will put a lot of things on a systematic basis" in schools, Putin said Monday during a televised discussion with a group of children in Kyzyl in Russia's Tuva region
Durov, who has dual French and United Arab Emirates citizenship, was arrested as part of a preliminary police investigation into allegedly allowing wide range of crimes to be committed using Telegram
We do not believe that the attempt to eliminate and assassinate Trump was organised by the current authorities, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters
'They are jealous - that means they are closely monitoring it,' said Peskov, addressing Western attitudes towards PM Modi's upcoming visit to Moscow
Given the "very trusting nature" of the relationship between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, no topic was off-limits for the two leaders when they meet here soon, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday. The dates of Prime Minister Modi's visit to Moscow will be announced a bit later but preparations for it are already at their final stages, Peskov said. Putin and Modi will discuss regional and global security, trade and all other topics on the agenda during their meeting, Peskov was quoted as saying by Russia's state-owned TASS news agency. "We (Russia and India) jointly take part in integration processes, so regional affairs, regional security and global security are always at the top of the agenda. In addition, of course, our bilateral trade and economic interaction is always a focal point, the Kremlin official said, answering a question about what topics will be discussed at the negotiations between Putin and Modi. Describing Prime ...
Peskov said that no decision had yet been made on the matter and that Russia was considering different ways to respond to the West
After being re-elected for another six-year term earlier this year, Putin made Dyumin an aide specialising in the defence industry
President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine has touched off the worst breakdown in relations between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis
Russia has previously said it saw no point in a conference being planned by Switzerland to discuss how to end the Ukraine conflict
The war has killed thousands, displaced millions and turned Ukrainian cities into rubble
Russia's President Vladimir Putin on Sunday proposed replacing Sergei Shoigu as defence minister on Sunday and appointed him as secretary of Russia's national security council. The appointment comes after Putin proposed appointing Andrei Belousov as the country's defence minister in place of Shoigu, who has served in the post for years. The reshuffle comes as Putin starts his fifth presidential term and as the war in Ukraine drags on for the third year In line with Russian law, the entire Russian Cabinet resigned on Tuesday following Putin's glittering inauguration in the Kremlin. The announcement came as thousands more civilians have fled Russia's renewed ground offensive in Ukraine's northeast that has targeted towns and villages with a barrage of artillery and mortar shelling, officials said Sunday. The intense battles have forced at least one Ukrainian unit to withdraw in the Kharkiv region, capitulating more land to Russian forces across less defended settlements in the so-cal
With most Russian billionaires having been sanctioned over the past two years, the next concern is which decades-old privatisation decisions might be reversed
Russia's spymaster said on Tuesday that opposition leader Alexei Navalny died of natural causes, a statement that appeared to reflect the Kremlin's efforts to assuage international outrage over the death of President Vladimir Putin's fiercest foe. Sergei Naryshkin, the director of the Foreign Intelligence Service, the top spy agency known under its Russian acronym SVR, made the statement in an interview broadcast by Russian state television. He didn't name the cause of Navalny's death in a remote Arctic penal colony or give any other details. Sooner or later life ends and people die, he said. Navalny has died of natural causes. Navalny died on February 16 at Penal Colony No. 3 in the town of Kharp, in the Yamalo-Nenets region about 1,900 kilometres northeast of Moscow where he was serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism. Russian authorities still haven't announced the cause of his death at age 47 and many Western leaders blamed it on Putin, an accusation the Kremlin ang
When charismatic opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was gunned down on a bridge near the Kremlin in February 2015, more than 50,000 Muscovites expressed their shock and outrage the next day at the brazen assassination. Police stood aside as they rallied and chanted anti-government slogans. Nine years later, stunned and angry Russians streamed into the streets on the night of Feb 16, when they heard that popular opposition politician Alexei Navalny had died in prison. But this time, those laying flowers at impromptu memorials in major cities were met by riot police, who arrested and dragged hundreds of them away. In those intervening years, Vladimir Putin's Russia evolved from a country that tolerated some dissent to one that ruthlessly suppresses it. Arrests, trials and long prison terms once rare are commonplace, especially after Moscow invaded Ukraine. Alongside its political opponents, the Kremlin now also targets rights groups, independent media and other members of civil-society
Earlier this month, when Tucker Carlson asked Vladimir Putin about his reasons for invading Ukraine two years ago, Putin gave him a lecture on Russian history. The 71-year-old Russian leader spent more than 20 minutes showering a baffled Carlson with dates and names going back to the ninth century. Putin even gave him a folder containing what he said were copies of historical documents proving his points: that Ukrainians and Russians historically have always been one people, and that Ukraine's sovereignty is merely an illegitimate holdover from the Soviet era. Carlson said he was shocked at being on the receiving end of the history lesson. But for those familiar with Putin's government, it was not surprising in the least. In Russia, history has long been a propaganda tool used to advance the Kremlin's political goals. In an effort to rally people around their world view, Russian authorities have tried to magnify the country's past victories while glossing over the more sordid chapte
Over 400 people were detained in Russia while paying tribute to opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died at a remote Arctic penal colony, a prominent rights group reported. The sudden death of Navalny, 47, was a crushing blow to many Russians, who had pinned their hopes for the future on President Vladimir Putin's fiercest foe. Navalny remained vocal in his unrelenting criticism of the Kremlin even after surviving a nerve agent poisoning and receiving multiple prison terms. The news reverberated across the globe, and hundreds of people in dozens of Russian cities streamed to ad-hoc memorials and monuments to victims of political repressions with flowers and candles on Friday and Saturday to pay a tribute to the politician. In over a dozen cities, police detained 401 people by Saturday night, according to the OVD-Info rights group that tracks political arrests and provides legal aid. More than 200 arrests were made in St Petersburg, Russia's second largest city, the group said. Amo
Alexei Navalny's spokesperson confirmed Saturday that the Russian opposition leader had died at a remote Arctic penal colony and said he was murdered," but it is unclear where his body is. An official note handed to Navalny's mother stated that he died at 2:17 pm local time Friday, Kira Yarmysh said. She added that an employee of the prison colony said that Navalny's body was taken to the nearby city of Salekhard as part of a probe into his death. She demanded that his body be handed over to his family. When a lawyer and Navalny's mother visited the morgue in Salekhard, it was closed, Navalny's team said, writing on their Telegram channel. The lawyer called the morgue and was told that Navalny's body is not there, his team said. We demand that Alexey Navalny's body be handed over to his family immediately, Yarmysh wrote on X, previously Twitter. The cause and the circumstances of Navalny's death Friday remain largely unclear. Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service reported that Nava
Argentina's incoming Foreign Minister Diana Mondino said in November that his country would not join the Brics grouping of developing nations despite being invited to do so
Shelling in the centre of the Russian border city of Belgorod Saturday killed 21 people, including three children, local officials reported. A further 110 people were wounded in the strike, said regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, making it one of the deadliest attacks on Russian soil since the start of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine 22 months ago. Russian authorities accused Kyiv of carrying out the attack, which took place the day after an 18-hour aerial bombardment across Ukraine killed at least 41 civilians. Images of Belgorod on social media showed burning cars and plumes of black smoke rising among damaged buildings as air raid sirens sounded. One strike hit close to a public ice rink in the very heart of the city, which lies 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of the Ukrainian border and 415 miles (670 kilometers) south of Moscow. While previous attacks have hit the city, they have rarely taken place in daylight and have claimed fewer lives. Russia's Defence Ministry said it ...