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☆ Russian Deputy Defense Minister Is Detained on Bribery Charges
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-23 | by ( Neil Macfarquhar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A deputy minister of defense in Russia has been detained on charges of taking a “large scale” bribe, the country’s top law enforcement investigators announced on Tuesday. The brief announcement from the Investigative Committee divulged few details about what had led to Timur Ivanov, the deputy minister, being taken into custody. But the legal statute that he is accused of violating is for taking a bribe “on a particularly large scale,” more than one million rubles, or more than $10,000. The Ministry of Defense did not comment on the investigation. Mr. Ivanov, a deputy defense minister since 2016, had long been in charge of military construction projects, including most recently the huge contracts awarded to rebuild the Russian-occupied eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, which was devastated by Russian attacks soon after the February 2022 invasion.

Persons: Timur Ivanov, Ivanov Organizations: Ministry of Defense, Merit, Fatherland Locations: Russia, Ukrainian, Mariupol, Moscow, Russian

☆ An ISIS Terror Group Draws Half Its Recruits From Tiny Tajikistan
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-18 | by ( Neil Macfarquhar | Eric Schmitt | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Even though he spent five years in Tajik prisons as a teenager, she said he never exhibited signs of violent extremism. “We need to understand — who is recruiting young Tajiks, why do they want to highlight us as a nation of terrorists?” said the mother, Muyassar Zargarova. Many governments and terrorism experts are asking the same question. Tajik adherents of the Islamic State — especially within its affiliate in Afghanistan known as the Islamic State Khorasan Province (I.S.K.P. ISIS-K is believed to have several thousand soldiers, with Tajiks constituting more than half, experts said.

Persons: ”, Muyassar Organizations: Islamic Locations: Moscow, Tajikistan, Central Asia, Afghanistan, Khorasan Province, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Europe

☆ 3 Reasons This Country Is a Top ISIS Recruiting Ground
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-18 | by ( Neil Macfarquhar | More About Neil Macfarquhar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In the past year, jihadists from Tajikistan have been involved in an unusually high number of terrorist attacks or foiled plots linked to the Islamic State. Before that, Tajiks staged bloody assaults in Iran and Turkey, while several schemes in Europe said to involve Tajiks were thwarted. Hundreds of men from Tajikistan — a small, impoverished country in Central Asia controlled by an authoritarian president — have joined an affiliate of the Islamic State in Afghanistan known as the Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K, analysts say. Poverty Fuels DiscontentTajikistan ranks among the world’s poorest countries, which drives millions of workers to seek better lives elsewhere. In a country of 10 million people, a majority of working men, estimated at more than two million, toil abroad at any given time.

Persons: — Organizations: Islamic, Fuels Locations: jihadists, Tajikistan, Islamic State, Moscow, Iran, Turkey, Europe, Central Asia, Afghanistan, Khorasan Province

☆ Pardoned for Serving in Ukraine, They Return to Russia to Kill Again
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-06 | by ( Neil Macfarquhar | Milana Mazaeva | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A court in Russia’s Siberian region of Yakutia sentenced him to 11 years in a maximum-security prison. So when recruiters from the private Wagner mercenary group offered him freedom and a clean slate if he deployed to fight in Ukraine, Mr. Savvinov, a morgue orderly, seized the opportunity. By February, Mr. Savvinov had completed his service and was back in his native village of Kutana. Russia’s practice of recruiting convicts has been the backbone of its success in Ukraine, providing an overwhelming manpower advantage in the war. But it is backfiring in tragic ways as inmates pardoned for serving in Ukraine return to Russia and commit new crimes.

Persons: Viktor Savvinov, Wagner, Savvinov, axing Organizations: Mr, of, Fatherland Locations: Russia’s Siberian, Yakutia, Ukraine, Kutana, Russia

☆ Display of Battered Men Was Russia’s Warning to the Public, Analysts Say
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-26 | by ( Valerie Hopkins | Neil Macfarquhar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The four men accused of carrying out Russia’s deadliest terror attack in decades appeared in a Moscow court on Sunday night bandaged and battered. Another was in an orange wheelchair, his left eye bulging, his hospital gown open and a catheter on his lap. One of the most disturbing videos showed one defendant, identified as Saidakrami M. Rajabalizoda, having part of his ear sliced off and shoved in his mouth. A photograph circulating online showed a battery hooked up to genitals of another, Shamsidin Fariduni, while he was being detained. How the videos began circulating was not immediately clear, but they were spread by nationalistic, pro-war Telegram channels that are regarded as close to Russia’s security services.

Persons: Rajabalizoda, Shamsidin Fariduni Locations: Moscow

☆ Russia Charges 4 People With Terrorism After Concert Hall Attack
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-24 | by ( Neil Macfarquhar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The four men suspected of carrying out a bloody attack on a concert hall near Moscow, killing at least 137 people, were arraigned in a district court late Sunday and charged with committing a terrorist act. The four, who were from Tajikistan but worked as migrant laborers in Russia, were remanded in custody until May 22, according to state and independent media outlets reporting from the proceedings, at Basmanny District Court. The press service of the court only announced that the first two defendants, Dalerjon B. Mirzoyev and Saidakrami M. Rachalbalizoda, pleaded guilty to the charges. The men looked severely battered and injured as each of them was brought into the courtroom separately. Videos of them being tortured and beaten while under interrogation circulated widely on Russian social media.

Persons: Dalerjon, Rachalbalizoda Locations: Moscow, Tajikistan, Russia, Basmanny

☆ Russia’s Battle With Extremists Has Simmered for Years
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-24 | by ( Neil Macfarquhar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In the past few months, deep in the forbidding deserts of central Syria, Russian forces have quietly joined the Syrian military in intensifying attacks against Islamic State strongholds, including bombing what local news reports called the dens and caves where the extremist fighters hide. While the world was focused on the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, this type of skirmishing has been simmering for years in Syria, and the Islamic State has long threatened to strike Russia directly for shoring up the regime of its sworn enemy, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. That moment appeared to have come on Friday night with the bloody assault on a Moscow concert hall that left more than 130 people dead. “The fiercest in years,” said a statement of responsibility issued on Saturday by a branch of the Islamic State via its news agency, referring to the long history of brutal terrorist attacks pitting jihadist forces against Moscow.

Persons: Bashar al, Assad, “, ” Organizations: Islamic Locations: Syria, Ukraine, Gaza, Islamic State, Russia, Moscow

The group got a dramatic second wind soon after the Taliban toppled the Afghan government that year. The attack raised ISIS-K’s international profile, positioning it as a major threat to the Taliban’s ability to govern. Counterterrorism officials in Europe say that in recent months they have snuffed out several nascent ISIS-K plots to attack targets there. And now the group has claimed responsibility for the attack in Moscow. “ISIS-K accuses the Kremlin of having Muslim blood in its hands, referencing Moscow’s interventions in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Syria.”

Persons: Biden, Michael E, “, Qassim Suleimani, Vladimir V, Putin, Colin P, Clarke, ” Organizations: Taliban, U.S, Islamic State, ISIS, military’s, Command, Counterterrorism, Soufan, Kremlin Locations: Kabul, Afghanistan, Moscow, State Khorasan Province, U.S, United States, Persian, Europe, Kerman, Iran, Gen, Iranian, Russia, New York, Chechnya, Syria

☆ Five Takeaways From Putin’s Orchestrated Win in Russia
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-17 | by ( Neil Macfarquhar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Mr. Putin said the vote represented a desire for “internal consolidation” that would allow Russia to “act effectively at the front line” as well as in other spheres, such as the economy. The government was dismissive of a protest organized by Russia’s beleaguered opposition, in which people expressed dissent by flooding polling places at noon. Mr. Putin, 71, will now be president until at least 2030, entering a fifth term in a country whose Constitution ostensibly limits presidents to two. The vote, the first since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, was designed to both create a public mandate for the war and restore Mr. Putin’s image as the embodiment of stability. Still, Russians are somewhat edgy over what changes the vote might bring.

Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, Russia’s, ” Locations: Russia, Ukraine

☆ Russia’s 2024 Presidential Vote: What to Know
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-14 | by ( Neil Macfarquhar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Why does this vote matter? The presidential vote in Russia, which began Friday and lasts through Sunday, features the trappings of a horse race but is more of a predetermined, Soviet-style referendum. President Vladimir V. Putin, 71, will undoubtedly win a fifth term, with none of the three other candidates who are permitted on the ballot presenting a real challenge. The main opposition figure who worked to spoil the vote, Aleksei A. Navalny, a harsh critic of Mr. Putin and the Ukraine war, died in an Arctic prison last month. Still, the vote is significant for Mr. Putin as a way to cement his legitimacy and refurbish his preferred image as the embodiment of security and stability.

Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, Aleksei A, Mr, ”, Nikolay Petrov Organizations: Kremlin, German Institute for International and Security Affairs Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Kyiv, Russian, Berlin

☆ Russia’s 2024 Presidential Election: What to Know
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-14 | by ( Neil Macfarquhar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Why does this election matter? The presidential vote in Russia, which begins Friday and lasts through Sunday, features the trappings of a horse race but is more of a predetermined, Soviet-style referendum. President Vladimir V. Putin, 71, will undoubtedly win a fifth term, with none of the three other candidates who are permitted on the ballot presenting a real challenge. The main opposition figure who worked to spoil the vote, Aleksei A. Navalny, a harsh critic of Mr. Putin and the Ukraine war, died in an Arctic prison last month. Still, the vote is significant for Mr. Putin as a way to cement his legitimacy and refurbish his preferred image as the embodiment of security and stability.

☆ Wife, Protector and Now Political Heir: Yulia Navalnaya Rallies Russians
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-20 | by ( Neil Macfarquhar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

It was August 2020, and Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of Russia’s most famous opposition leader, was striding through the battered, gloomy hallways of a provincial Russian hospital, looking for the room where her husband lay in a coma. Aleksei A. Navalny had collapsed after being given what German medical investigators would later declare was a near-fatal dose of the nerve agent Novichok, and his wife, blocked by menacing policemen from moving around the hospital, turned to a cellphone camera held by one of his aides. “We demand the immediate release of Aleksei, because right now in this hospital there are more police and government agents than doctors,” she said calmly in a riveting moment later included in an Oscar-winning documentary, “Navalny.”

Persons: Yulia Navalnaya, Russia’s, Aleksei A, Navalny, Novichok, Aleksei, ” Locations: Russian

☆ With Prison Certain and Death Likely, Why Did Navalny Return?
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-17 | by ( Neil Macfarquhar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

There was one question that Russians repeatedly asked the opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, who died in a remote Arctic penal colony on Friday, and he confessed that he found it a little annoying. Why, after surviving a fatal poisoning attempt widely blamed on the Kremlin, had he returned to Russia from his extended convalescence abroad to face certain imprisonment and possible death? Even his prison guards, turning off their recording devices, asked him why he had come back, he said. “I don’t want to give up either my country or my beliefs,” Mr. Navalny wrote in a Jan. 17 Facebook post to mark the third anniversary of his return and arrest in 2021. If your beliefs are worth something, you must be willing to stand up for them.

Persons: Aleksei A, “, ” Mr, Navalny, ” Organizations: Kremlin Locations: Russia

The news of Mr. Navalny’s death shocked many at the conference and could add new urgency to the discussion. Ms. Harris said at the start of her address to the conference — which had already been expected to focus on Russia — that the United States was still trying to confirm the reports of Mr. Navalny’s death, but that it held Russia’s government responsible. “I made it clear to him that I believe the consequences of that would be devastating for Russia,” Mr. Biden told reporters after meeting with Mr. Putin in Geneva in 2021. “What do you think happens when he’s saying it’s not about hurting Navalny, all the stuff he says to rationalize the treatment of Navalny, and then he dies in prison?” Mr. Biden continued. “I saw Yulia Navalnaya and Leonid Volkov last night here in Munich,” said Michael McFaul, a former American ambassador to Moscow.

Persons: Aleksei A, Yulia Navalnaya, clampdown, Navalnaya, Leonid Volkov, Kamala Harris, Antony J, Blinken, Vladimir V, Putin, Navalny’s, Harris, ”, Mr, Biden, Navalny, “, ” Mr, it’s, Ms, Michael McFaul, Aleksei, ” Edward Wong Organizations: Munich Security Conference, ” Locations: Munich, Europe, Ukraine, Moscow, Russia, United States, Geneva, American

☆ How Russia Depicts Wounded Soldiers: As Heroes, or Not at All
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-15 | by ( Neil Macfarquhar | Milana Mazaeva | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load. How Russia Depicts Wounded Soldiers: As Heroes, or Not at AllTroops with amputated limbs or serious injuries return home to find a patchwork system of treatment and, often, efforts to keep them out of the public eye. Share full articleA concert for wounded soldiers at a military hospital in Rostov-on-Don, southwestern Russia, in March 2022. Credit... Sergey Pivovarov/ReutersNeil MacFarquhar and

Persons: Sergey Pivovarov, Neil MacFarquhar Organizations: All Troops Locations: Russia, Rostov

☆ Russia Hides Its War Toll. We Pieced Together the Clues.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-15 | by ( Neil Macfarquhar | More About Neil Macfarquhar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The true casualty toll in Russia from its invasion of Ukraine is an enduring secret of the war. The Kremlin maintains a policy of silence, and many Russians do not speak publicly for fear of repercussions. But the number of Russians wounded in combat is believed to be staggering. What Russians sayOne senior Russian official estimated that amputees represented more than half of those seriously wounded. The New York Times interviewed five wounded Russian soldiers and the relatives of others to learn more about what happens to the vast numbers of injured, coming home to inconsistent treatment and little discussion of them.

Persons: amputees Organizations: Pentagon, U.S, Russian, New York Times Locations: Russia, Ukraine

☆ Russia Moves to Label Gay Rights Movement as ‘Extremist’
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-30 | by ( Neil Macfarquhar | More About Neil Macfarquhar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In recent years, L.G.B.T.Q. people in Russia have lived under increasing fear as the Kremlin has ratcheted up measures curtailing gay and transgender rights in tandem with the repressive search for “internal enemies” during the war in Ukraine. In the latest threat, the Ministry of Justice will seek a court order on Thursday to declare the international gay rights movement an “extremist organization.”Gay rights activists and other experts say that a ruling in favor would put gay people and their organizations under the threat of being criminally prosecuted at any time for something as simple as displaying the rainbow flag or for endorsing the statement “Gay rights are human rights.”That prospect has heightened angst and alarm in the country’s already beleaguered gay communities. “It is not the first time we are being targeted, but at the same time, it is another blow,” said Alexander Kondakov, a Russian sociologist at University College Dublin, who studies the intersection of law and security for the L.G.B.T.Q. “You are already marked as foreign, as bad, as a source of propaganda, and now you are labeled an extremist — and the next step is terrorist.”

Persons: ”, Alexander Kondakov Organizations: Ministry, Justice, ” Gay, University College Dublin Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Russian

The woman in the video, her face blurred, gave a blunt assessment of Russian military policy: Soldiers mobilized over a year ago to fight in Ukraine deserved to come home. Why weren’t they? “Our mobilized became the best army in the world, but that doesn’t mean that this army should stay there to the last man,” she said. Women in various cities are seeking to stage public protests, challenging the official argument that mobilized troops are needed in combat indefinitely to secure their Russian homeland. Hand-lettered posters behind the speaker in the video echoed that sentiment with slogans like “Do only the mobilized have a homeland?” A video of the speech, delivered at a rally in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk on Nov. 19, was released online.

Persons: ” Locations: Ukraine, Russia, Russian, Siberian, Novosibirsk

☆ Russia Pulled Out of a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Here’s What That Means.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-02 | by ( Neil Macfarquhar | More About Neil Macfarquhar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

But it leaves only one significant nuclear weapons pact between Russia and the United States in place: the New START treaty. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, or CTBT, was an attempt under the umbrella of the United Nations to ban all nuclear tests. Adopted in 1996, it never came into effect because not enough key countries, including the United States, have ratified it. The New START is now the only nuclear weapons deal between the United States and Russia. Although Mr. Putin announced last February that Russia was suspending its participation, Russia has thus far stuck to the treaty limits.

Persons: Russia’s, Mr, Putin, Siberia — Organizations: United Locations: United States, Russia, Ban, United Nations, Washington, Ukraine, Europe, Siberia, Moscow

☆ The Proxy Forces Iran Has Assembled Across the Middle East
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-27 | by ( Neil Macfarquhar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For decades, the Shiite Muslim ayatollahs who came to power in Iran through the 1979 Islamic Revolution have worked to build an arc of like-minded proxy forces across the Middle East. Training and arming extremist, nonstate militia groups throughout the region have been pillars of Iran’s foreign and security policy. Hamas, which controls the strip and is a rare Sunni Muslim organization among mostly Shiite militants, catapulted Iran and its allies back onto the global radar on Oct. 7 with a brutal cross-border attack on Israel. The degree to which Iran holds direct influence over this loose regional network is murky. Here is a summary of the main proxy forces and their locations in the region.

Persons: ayatollahs Organizations: Training Locations: Iran, Republic, Yemen, Arabian, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Israel

☆ Developing World Sees Double Standard in West’s Actions in Gaza and Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-23 | by ( Neil Macfarquhar | More About Neil Macfarquhar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

For 20 months, the Biden administration has attempted to stake out the moral high ground against Russia, condemning its brutal war on Ukraine for indiscriminately killing civilians. Speaking from the Oval Office on Thursday, President Biden tied American support for Ukraine and Israel together, describing both nations as democracies fighting enemies determined to “completely annihilate” them. Such accusations are not exactly new in the Middle East conflict. But the dynamics of the dual crises have gone beyond Washington’s desire to rally global support to isolate and punish Russia for invading its neighbor. “That will make international cooperation on Ukraine, like sanctions enforcement on Russia, even harder.”

Persons: Biden, Israel bombards, ”, Clifford Kupchan Organizations: America, West, Eurasia Group Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, Africa, Asia, China, Brazil, Indonesia, New York

The ceremony to honor a fallen Russian soldier went viral for all the wrong reasons. The musical faux pas last May in the eastern Russian town of Kyakhta, home to a prominent infantry brigade, soon rocketed around social media. If the incident was discordant in the extreme, it also accentuated the contradictions of Vladimir Putin’s war that are changing the face of garrison towns across Russia. The local cemetery is growing exponentially. The flood of newly purchased cars in Kyakhta telegraphs loss as much as prosperity — the money comes from large government payouts to families of the dead and grievously injured.

Persons: ” blaring, Vladimir Putin’s Organizations: telegraphs Locations: Russian, Ukraine, Kyakhta, Russia

Jan Dvorkin had raised and nurtured his adopted son in Moscow for seven years until, one day in May, the Russian authorities notified him they were revoking custody. A woman Mr. Dvorkin knew had filed an official complaint, saying that because he was transgender and gay, he was an unfit parent. When Mr. Dvorkin asked the woman why she had reported him, she told him he had brought it on himself, and “that I could have easily avoided it by staying in the closet.”He managed to find another family to take the boy, who is deaf, so that the child would not be sent to an orphanage. Mr. Dvorkin’s experience underscores the increasingly repressive treatment gay and transgender people are subjected to across Russia — a hardship that seems certain to grow as the government leverages the war in Ukraine as justification for greater restrictions on L.G.B.T.Q.

Persons: Jan Dvorkin, Dvorkin Locations: Moscow, Russia, Ukraine

Moscow took sharp action on Friday to curb inflation, fearing the effects of ever higher spending on the war in Ukraine and of a weakening Russian ruble. Russia’s central bank took the unexpected step of raising its benchmark interest rate by a full percentage point, to 8.5 percent from 7.5 percent. It was the first large hike in more than a year, and the bank warned that further increases were likely. “It is a surprise and on its face reflects more concern at the central bank about inflation and how the economy is doing that we had appreciated,” said Robert Kahn, the head of the Geoeconomics Team at the Eurasia Group, a New York-based risk analysis firm. “It suggests that the war is proving increasingly disruptive to economic activity and pushing up inflationary pressures.”

Persons: Moscow, ”, Robert Kahn Organizations: Eurasia Group Locations: Ukraine, Russia’s, New York

Russia on Thursday stepped up its aerial assaults on Ukrainian ports critical to the world’s food supply, as the White House warned that the Kremlin has mined sea routes and might be setting the stage for attacks on commercial transport ships. Moscow has already put shipping companies on notice that they now cross the Russian blockade in the Black Sea at their own peril, and could be treated as military targets. The warning came days after Russia pulled out of a multinational deal that had allowed desperately needed Ukrainian grain to make it to the world market. In a further sign of rising tensions, Ukraine on Thursday issued its own warning: Ships heading to Russian ports or to ports in occupied Ukraine, the Ministry of Defense said, will now be considered to be carrying “military cargo, with all the corresponding risks.”In Washington, a White House official accused Moscow at a news conference of engaging in a false-flag operation to implicate Ukraine if Russia attacked a ship. The waters where Russia is said to have placed the mines are in an area already mined by Ukraine to deter an amphibious assault.

Organizations: White House, Ministry of Defense, White, Moscow Locations: Russia, Moscow, Russian, Ukraine, Washington

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