Russia

The Guardian reports: Vladimir Putin will not hold a year-end press conference for the first time in at least a decade, in what Kremlin-watchers view as a break with protocol due to his war in Ukraine. The marathon press-conferences are traditionally an occasion for the Russian president to burnish his image, a campy spectacle that allows Putin to play the …

CBS News reports: Brittney Griner, the American basketball star detained by Russian authorities in February, has safely returned to the US after being released from custody in a prisoner exchange. Griner stepped off the plane shortly after 5:30 a.m. ET Friday at Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas. The Biden administration repeatedly made offers to get Paul Whelan released as …

“I think it’s good news that the basketball player is being released. Nine years of hard labor for drug possession is a ridiculous charge. “But I think also Russia needs to realize that the other gentleman’s being kept on trumped-up spy charges. What that means is particularly if he wasn’t a spy, which I don’t have any evidence that he …

The Guardian reports: Speaking at the White House, Joe Biden formally announced the release of Brittney Griner from detention in Russia, and pledged to continue working to bring home another American jailed in the country. “Moments ago, standing together with her wife Cherelle in the Oval Office, I spoke with Brittney Griner,” Biden said. “She’s safe, she’s on a plane, …

TIME Magazine reports: The process of choosing the Person of the Year—who or what most influenced the events of the past 12 months, for good or for ill—can be agonizing. How could one person represent an entire year? Do we lean into the light, reach into the darkness, or land somewhere in between? This year’s choice was the most clear-cut …

The Associated Press reports: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a law that significantly expands restrictions on activities seen as promoting LGBT rights in the country. A 2013 law banned what authorities deem to be spreading “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” to minors. The new law expands that ban to spreading such information to people aged 18 and older. …

The Associated Press reports: Former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who fled prosecution after revealing highly classified surveillance programs, has received a Russian passport and taken the citizenship oath, Russian news agencies quoted his lawyer as saying Friday. Lawyer Anatoly Kucherena was reported as saying that Snowden got the passport and took the oath on Thursday, about three months after …

The Associated Press reports: NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg reaffirmed the military alliance’s commitment to Ukraine on Tuesday, saying that the war-torn nation will one day become a member of the world’s largest security organization. Stoltenberg’s remarks came as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his NATO counterparts gathered in Romania to drum up urgently needed support for Ukraine aimed …

Reuters reports: The United States is still talking to Russia about a deal to free jailed Americans Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan but Moscow has not provided a “serious response” to any of its proposals, a senior U.S. diplomat said in comments published on Monday. Elizabeth Rood, the U.S. chargée d’affaires in Moscow, told Russia’s state-owned RIA news agency that …

The New York Times reports: Pope Francis on Wednesday compared the war in Ukraine to the “terrible Holodomor genocide” of the 1930s, when the policies of the Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, caused a devastating famine in Ukraine. The pontiff’s comparison of Moscow’s attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine to Stalin’s decision to let millions in Ukraine starve represents one of …

Reuters reports: Russia’s parliament on Thursday passed the third and final reading of a law that expands an existing ban on promoting “LGBT propaganda” to children by banning it among people of all ages. Under the new law any event or act regarded as an attempt to promote homosexuality – including online, in film, books, advertising or in public – …

Reuters reports: Russia said on Friday it hoped to clinch a prisoner swap with the United States to return convicted Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout, known as the “Merchant of Death”, in an exchange that would likely include U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner. Amid the deadliest war in Europe since World War Two, Russia and the United States are exploring …

Reuters reports: U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner has been taken to a penal colony in the Russian region of Mordovia, a source familiar with the case told Reuters on Thursday. In August, Griner was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony on drugs charges following her arrest at a Moscow airport in February with vape cartridges containing cannabis oil …

Politico Europe reports: The Kremlin has banned most, if not all, of Ireland’s leaders from visiting Russia — a punishment being met with official indifference and unofficial mockery in Dublin. The Foreign Ministry in Moscow defended Wednesday’s action as necessary to counteract what it called Ireland’s “aggressive anti-Russian propaganda campaign” and “Russophobic hysteria in Irish society.” Outside the chamber, politicians …

CNN reports: Polish President Andrzej Duda said the missile that killed two people in eastern Poland on Tuesday was likely fired by Ukrainian forces defending against a wave of Russian missile strikes, and that the incident appeared to be an accident. “There is no indication that this was an intentional attack on Poland. Most likely, it was a Russian-made S-300 …

The Associated Press reports: Russia pounded Ukraine’s energy facilities Tuesday with its biggest barrage of missiles yet, striking targets across the country and causing widespread blackouts, and a U.S. official said missiles crossed into NATO member Poland, where two people were killed. Polish media reported that two people died Tuesday afternoon after a projectile struck an area where grain was …

Reuters reports: Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Monday he had interfered in U.S. elections and would continue doing so in future, the first such admission from a figure who has been formally implicated by Washington in efforts to influence American politics. In comments posted by the press service of his Concord catering firm on Russia’s Facebook equivalent VKontakte, Prigozhin …

Reuters reports: A senior Russian foreign ministry official said that commercial satellites from the United States and its allies could become legitimate targets for Russia if they were involved in the war in Ukraine. Konstantin Vorontsov, deputy director of the Russian foreign ministry’s department for non-proliferation and arms control, told the United Nations that the United States and its allies …

Reuters reports: Mercedes-Benz said on Wednesday it would withdraw from the Russian market and sell shares in its industrial and financial services subsidiaries to a local investor, becoming the latest carmaker to exit the country. Japan’s Nissan this month took a $687 million loss in handing over its business in Russia to a state-owned entity for one euro, mirroring an …

The BBC reports: Russian state broadcaster RT has suspended and condemned one of its top presenters, Anton Krasovsky, after he called for the burning and drowning of Ukrainian children. His remarks on TV provoked uproar on social media and he has now apologised. Krasovsky was responding to science fiction writer Sergei Lukyanenko, who said that in western Ukraine back in …