Putin Discusses Public Security in Blast-Hit Volgograd

MOSCOW, January 1 (RIA Novosti) – Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed public security and anti-terrorism measures early on Wednesday in the southern Russian city of Volgograd, which is reeling from two suicide bombings within 24 hours.

Two separate suicide bombings ripped through the city’s railway terminal on Sunday and a trolleybus on Monday, killing a total of 34 people. Another attack by a female suicide bomber on a commuter bus in Volgograd in October killed six people and injured 37.

Putin arrived in the city on Wednesday morning, hours after delivering a New Year’s speech in which he called the attacks “inhumane” and vowed that his country would continue to battle terrorists until all are eliminated.

Shortly after arriving to Volgograd, the president met with senior regional and federal officials to discuss “what is being done here and all across the country to maintain public security.”

The meeting was attended by FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov, Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, Health Minister c, Volgograd Region Governor Sergei Bozhenov and other officials.

After the meeting, Putin laid flowers to the site of the Monday attack and visited victims who are being treated in one of the city’s hospitals.

© RIA Novosti.

Terrorist threat levels in Russia

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28 Detained at Moscow Rally to Uphold Freedom of Assembly

MOSCOW, December 31 (RIA Novosti) – Twenty-eight people were detained in central Moscow on Tuesday during an unsanctioned rally calling for the government to uphold the constitutional right to free assembly.

The rally, which took place on the downtown Triumfalnaya Square, was organized by the activist group Strategy-31, which gathers on the 31st of every month with so many days to defend the Russian Constitution’s Article 31, which grants the right to free assembly.

Moscow authorities require that all rallies of more than one person receive prior permission from City Hall.

Police reported that 28 people were detained at the Tuesday rally, “despite numerous warnings that the event was unsanctioned,” according to a statement released by the Interior Ministry’s press service.

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Putin Says Russia Will Fight Terrorists Until All Are ‘Eliminated’

KHABAROVSK, December 31 (RIA Novosti) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that his country would continue to battle terrorists until all are eliminated.

“Dear friends, we bow our heads before the victims of cruel terrorist attacks. We will continue fighting terrorists in a confident, tough and relentless manner until they are completely eliminated,” Putin said in his New Year’s celebratory address to residents of the Russian far-eastern city of Khabarovsk.

Putin on Tuesday paid a surprise visit to Khabarovsk, which had been hit by devastating floods in late August and early September.

Two separate suicide bombings in the southern Russian city of Volgograd ripped through Volgograd’s railway terminal on Sunday and a trolleybus on Monday, killing a total of 34 people.

Another attack by a female suicide bomber on a commuter bus in Volgograd in October killed six people and injured 37.

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Putin Makes 2 New Year’s Speeches for 2014

MAGADAN/KHABAROVSK, December 31 (RIA Novosti) – Russian President Vladimir Putin broke with tradition this December 31 and delivered two New Year’s speeches instead of one.

In a pre-recorded New Year’s address to Russians shown on television minutes before midnight in Russia’s easternmost Kamchatka region, Putin outlined the priorities for the coming year.

“Next year, a lot needs to be done in the economy, to improve the lives of people and to hold, on the best possible scale, the Olympic Games, which are to begin in just over a month,” he said.

On Tuesday afternoon, Putin paid a surprise visit to Khabarovsk, a far-eastern city hit by devastating floods in late August and early September.

“The president decided to be with those who endured this unprecedented natural disaster. There [in Khabarovsk] he made another speech, and it was a New Year’s address as well. So, in fact, he broke with a longtime tradition,” Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told media.

In his second speech, Putin mentioned “problems and serious challenges” that Russians had to face in 2013, including the far-eastern floods and the recent bombings in the southern city of Volgograd.

He said he would like to make a toast “for the people as well as for the health of those impacted by the flooding.”

Putin attended a New Year’s reception for rescuers and people who lost their houses in the floods, an event hosted by his envoy to the Far East region, Yury Trutnev.

Ahead of the celebration, Putin visited a temporary shelter for Khabarovsk residents rendered homeless by the disaster.

On his way to Khabarovsk, the president’s plane made a stop in the Siberian city of Chita to take on board the widow of the only person known to have died in the floods.

That person, Bair Banzaraktsaev, was a military man who took part in the rescue effort. He was driving a truck along a partially inundated highway linking Khabarovsk and another far-eastern city, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, when damp soil gave way under the heavy vehicle. He drowned while trying to prevent his truck from sliding into the water.

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Man Sets Himself on Fire Near St. Petersburg

MOSCOW, December 31 (RIA Novosti) – An unnamed Russian man set himself on fire Monday night at a police station near St. Petersburg, local police said on Tuesday.

The man phoned the police in the town of Priozersk, Leningrad Region, saying he was across the street and wanted someone to come outside to meet him. When an officer approached him, the man, who was drenched in a flammable liquid, set himself on fire and ran into the station, the police said.

“The police put the fire out in the entrance to the building. The man was hospitalized in a grave condition with severe burns,” police said.

Investigators said later on Tuesday the 36-year-old man had been diagnosed with a psychiatric condition in childhood.

The man remains in intensive care with burns covering 95 percent of his body.

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Prosecutor's Aide Blown Up in Russia's North Caucasus

MAKHACHKALA, December 31 (RIA Novosti) – An aide to a regional prosecutor died in a bomb attack in Russia's troubled North Caucasus on Tuesday, a regional Investigative Committee spokesman said.

Unknown assailants in the town of Buinaksk in the republic of Dagestan detonated an explosive device under Rasul Gasanov’s Toyota car, killing him on the spot, the spokesman said.

More than a decade after a war against Islamist separatists ended in the neighboring republic of Chechnya, Russian security forces and police continue to fight militants across the volatile North Caucasus region.

Attacks by militants on security forces, police and civilians are reported regularly in the republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria.

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RT Head Simonyan Appointed Rossiya Segodnya Editor-in-Chief

MOSCOW, December 31 (RIA Novosti) – Margarita Simonyan, the head of the state-funded RT satellite news network, was appointed Wednesday to head the Rossiya Segodnya media conglomerate that will include Russia’s major state-run news agency RIA Novosti.

"This key position could only be held by a person with a brilliant journalistic reputation and contemporary managerial skills," Rossiya Segodnya's director Dmitry Kiselyov said.

Simonyan will also retain her post as the head of RT, which formerly broadcast under the name Russia Today.

Earlier in December, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to scrap RIA Novosti and the state-owned Voice of Russia radio and absorb them into the new Rossiya Segodnya.

In a separate decree, the Kremlin appointed Kiselyov, a prominent Russian television presenter and media manager, to head Rossiya Segodnya.

RIA Novosti was set up in 1941, two days after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, as the Soviet Information Bureau, and now has reporters in over 45 countries providing news in 14 languages.

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Russian Village Reformer Granted Parole

MOSCOW, December 31 (RIA Novosti) – A former painter from Moscow, whose quest to bring culture to provincial villagers resulted in a jail term for bribery, was granted parole on Tuesday.

The Tver Region Court upheld a parole request filed by 36-year-old Ilya Farber, who had already spent two years and nine months behind bars.

Farber left Moscow for the village of Moshenki in central Russia in 2010 to teach arts, music and literature at a local school.

His actions were compared by the media to those of the “narodniki” – activists of the intelligentsia who resettled in Russian villages in the late 19th century to educate the peasants, in a bid to bridge the gap between urban Russians and the rural poor.

Farber was accused of taking a bribe in 2011 from a company that he had contracted to renovate the village’s town hall, but did not do a proper job. That cost the village budget 940,000 rubles ($28,500), the court said in its verdict.

Farber denied the charges and maintained that he had been framed by the dishonest contractor, who was not charged over the incident.

He was sentenced to eight years in a maximum security prison in August 2012, but the sentence was reduced to seven years and one month upon retrial four months later. Both verdicts have been criticized by the media as unexpectedly harsh.

Earlier this month, the same court canceled his seven-year maximum security jail sentence and ruled that he should instead serve three years in prison and pay a fine of 3 million rubles ($90,000).

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Death Toll in Volgograd Blasts Rises to 33

MOSCOW, December 31 (RIA Novosti) – The death toll in two suicide bombings in the Russian city of Volgograd climbed to 33 Tuesday morning after one of over a hundred injured victims died overnight, officials said.

The two separate explosions ripped through Volgograd’s train station on Sunday and a trolleybus on Monday. Initial reports said 17 people were killed in Sunday’s blast, but one of the many injured died last night, the Emergencies Ministry said Tuesday.

Monday's attack was the third in the southern city in the past two months, and comes just weeks before Russia is due to host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in February in the city of Sochi.

The two attacks left over a hundred injured, including 65 people hospitalized.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the two latest explosions.

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Aircraft MiG 31E

This special version of MiG-31 was built In the beginning of the 90s. It is intended to intercept and destroy air targets at low and high altitude, in any weather conditions, day and night.

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Links to explore: See even more of English Russia:

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Round About the Olympic Park

Flying over the Olympic park – one of the two clusters of the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi 2014.

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Olympic stadium “Fisht”, it will hold opening and closing ceremonies. Capacity – 40 000 spectators. “Fisht” is planned to used as a football stadium after the Games.

Absolutely unique object for Olympic Games – cemetery of old-believers. 1,5 years ago it looked like this. It was enclosed in a modern way.

Big Ice Palace for 12 000 spectators, the main hockey arena of the Games.

“Adler-Arena”. Skating, 8000 spectators. It’s going to serve as an exhibition hall after the Games.

ÐZIMUT Hotel Resort & SPA. 4 stars, the hotel is already open for visitors.

Entertainment park with a hotel.

Central square of the park with a bowl for the Olympic flame.

To the left is a 5-star hotel “Russian seasons”, to the right is an office building of the Games organizing committee.

“Iceberg” – the palace of winter sport, 12 000 seats. Figure skating, short track speed skating.

Links to explore: See even more of English Russia:

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Night On the Mars

If the Mars had cities and was inhabited by humans, the Martian night landscape could look like this… But for now it’s just an amazing night at the Crimean saline…

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via aquatek-filips

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Putin Allows Logging, Building in Nature Reserves

MOSCOW, December 30 (RIA Novosti) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law a bill allowing nature reserves to be turned into areas where limited construction, logging and other commercial activities are possible.

Russia’s parliament gave its final approval to the bill earlier this month.

Currently, Russia has 103 nature reserves – territories with unique ecosystems where most types of commercial activities are banned and logging is allowed only to prevent fires.

The bill will allow the conservation status of such areas to be lowered to that of national parks, where some zones remain under special protection, but others may be used for logging and construction of houses, roads and pipelines.

The Russian natural resources ministry said that about a dozen of Russia’s nature reserves, mostly those located near large cities, had already become popular areas for sports and recreation, and the new legislation would streamline their use.

The initiative, however, has been widely criticized by Greenpeace activists, who said it will destroy Russia’s nature conservation system.

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Roadside Bomb Blast Kills One, Injures 2 in Dagestan

MAKHACHKALA, December 30 (RIA Novosti) – One person was killed and two injured in a roadside bombing in Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Dagestan late Monday, a police spokesman said.

“An improvised explosive device went off as a traffic police car was driving by. Two officers in the car were injured and a passerby was killed,” the spokesman said.

An Islamist insurgency, once confined largely to Chechnya, has spread across the North Caucasus in recent years, with attacks on security forces, police and civilians reported almost daily in the nearby republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria.

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US Slams Volgograd Terror Attacks, Offers Sochi Help

WASHINGTON, December 30 (RIA Novosti) – The United States on Monday condemned the back-to-back terrorist attacks in Volgograd that killed dozens and offered to assist Moscow with security preparations for the upcoming 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi.

“The United States stands in solidarity with the Russian people against terrorism,” White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in a statement. “The US government has offered our full support to the Russian government in security preparations for the Sochi Olympic Games.”

A bomb explosion tore through a trolleybus in Volgograd on Monday morning, killing at least 14 people and injuring 28 in the southern Russian city’s second terrorist attack in less than 24 hours.

Authorities believe both Monday’s attack and an explosion at the Volgograd-1 railway station Sunday that killed 17 and injured more than 40 were carried out by suicide bombers.

“The United States condemns the terrorist attacks that struck the Russian city of Volgograd and sends deepest condolences to the families of the victims with hopes for the rapid healing of those wounded,” Hayden said in the statement.

Monday’s blast was the third such attack in Volgograd in just over two months and came just weeks before the Sochi Games are set to kick off on February 7. Previously known as Stalingrad, Volgograd is located about 430 miles (700 kilometers) from Sochi.

© RIA Novosti.

Countries with greatest risk of terrorism

Russian authorities have made efforts to boost security at the Black Sea resort that is due to host the Winter Games, and Hayden said Monday that Washington would “welcome the opportunity for closer cooperation for the safety of the athletes, spectators and other participants” in Sochi.

Relations between the United States and Russia have floundered over the past 18 months, particularly over Russia’s human rights record and what Moscow sees as US meddling in its internal affairs. But both sides have publicly spoken of constructive collaboration in counterterrorism efforts.

A joint US-Russian report issued by a presidential commission last week lauded bilateral counterterrorism cooperation since the Boston Marathon bombing in April, which US authorities say was carried out by two brothers with ties to Russia’s mainly Muslim North Caucasus region.

“In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, our nations have redoubled our counterterrorism and law enforcement efforts,” the report states.

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Russian Lawmaker Wants to Bring Back Death Penalty

MOSCOW, December 30 (RIA Novosti) – A Russian federal lawmaker on Monday called for his country to reinstate the death penalty to eradicate terrorist conspirators after twin bombings killed nearly two dozen in the past two days.

Roman Khudyakov, who represents the nationalist LDPR party in Russia’s lower house of parliament, said the initiative was spurred by the recent terrorist attacks in the southern Russian city of Volgograd.

He said the moratorium, established in 1996, should be lifted to punish those guilty of particularly grave crimes, such as terrorism and crimes against children.

Previously, the idea was voiced by another lawmaker in the lower house of parliament, Alexei Zhuravlyov of the ruling United Russia party.

The proposal was also supported by Taimuraz Mamsurov, who heads North Ossetia, a predominantly Christian republic in the North Caucasus that has been a magnet for terrorist attacks in the volatile region. North Ossetia saw one of the deadliest attacks in the history of modern Russia: the Beslan school siege.

Russian ombudsman Vladimir Lukin, in turn, urged Russians to “avoid hysterical calls for the death penalty” for organizers and perpetrators of the deadly blasts on Sunday and Monday that killed at least 21 people and injured more than 70.

© RIA Novosti.

Major Terror Attacks of 21st Century

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Khodorkovsky Gets 3-Month Swiss Visa

BERLIN, December 30 (RIA Novosti) – Former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky has been granted a three-month visa to Switzerland, the Swiss Embassy in Berlin said Monday.

Khodorkovsky, who has been staying in Germany since his release from a Russian jail on December 20, applied for a Swiss visa last week. His wife, Inna, and his two sons are residing in Switzerland, which is part of the 26-nation Schengen free-travel zone in Europe.

“Switzerland has granted the request of Mikhail Khodorkovsky for a Schengen visa. The visa allows a three-month stay in the Schengen area,” a spokesperson for the Swiss Embassy told reporters without providing further details.

Germany, another Schengen state, had earlier granted Khodorkovsky a one-year visa allowing him to stay in that country.

Khodorkovsky, former head of the dismantled oil giant Yukos, was freed by a presidential pardon after serving more than a decade in prison following his arrest on a Siberian runway in 2003 and two subsequent convictions for fraud, tax evasion and embezzlement.

Russia’s Supreme Court last Wednesday ordered a review of past cases against Khodorkovsky citing an earlier ruling by the European Court of Human Rights as a basis to renew legal proceeding in the case.

The European court ordered Russia in July to pay Khodorkovsky $13,200 in damages for numerous violations of his rights during the high-profile trial.

Earlier this year, Khodorkovsky, 50, said he would not go in for politics and would not fight for the return of Yukos assets.

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Icebound Russian Ship's Passengers to Be Rescued by Helicopter

MOSCOW, December 30 (RIA Novosti) – All passengers and four crew members aboard a Russian research ship stuck in the ice off the coast of Antarctica will soon be evacuated by a Chinese helicopter, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Monday.

“A decision has been made to evacuate 52 passengers and four crew members by a helicopter from China’s Xuelong icebreaker, if weather conditions are suitable,” the ministry said.

Eighteen crew members are expected to remain aboard the icebound ship, the Akademik Shokalsky.

A team of scientists and tourists on the ship had been retracing a famous Australian Antarctic Expedition from 101 years ago when the vessel became trapped in thick ice about a week ago.

A Chinese icebreaker, the Snow Dragon, came within just seven nautical miles (11 kilometers) of the stranded vessel on Saturday, but was forced to turn back after also having problems with dense ice. An earlier rescue attempt by a French vessel had also failed.

An Australian icebreaker, the Aurora Australis, was forced to turn back from a rescue attempt earlier on Monday, citing poor weather that made the mission unsafe.

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Putin Named International Person of Year by Times

MOSCOW, December 30 (RIA Novosti) – Russian leader Vladimir Putin has been named International Person of the Year by Britain's The Times newspaper for succeeding in his ambition of bringing Moscow back to the international top table.

The paper said Putin, 61, a judo black belt, has hip-flipped US President Barack Obama on the Syrian crisis, wrestled the EU to the ground on Ukraine, tripped up the opposition at home and rescued weaker team players such as President Assad of Syria and Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower, who was given asylum in Russia.

Also this year, Putin, who served two four-year presidential terms and could run for president again in 2018 when his third term ends, became the world's most eligible bachelor, having divorced his wife Lyudmila after 30 years of marriage.

Even a string of successive terror attacks in southern Russia in the last three days, just weeks before Russia is due to host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in February in Sochi, are unlikely to blight Putin’s reputation, The Times says.

“The President is expected to use the bombing to rally Russian and international support around a pre-Sochi Winter Olympics crackdown on Islamic radicals in the region, especially in Dagestan,” the paper said.

© RIA Novosti.

President Vladimir Putin's Life and Milestones

In October, Putin was named the Most Powerful Person on the Planet by Forbes magazine, knocking US President Obama off the number one spot. Forbes said Putin showed his dominance in diplomatic maneuvering during the international crisis over Syria.

In 2007, Putin was named Person of the Year by the US Time magazine.

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Moscow Restaurant Owner Jailed for Carving Up Wife

MOSCOW, December 30 (RIA Novosti) – A Moscow café owner and chef who killed his journalist wife and then cut up her body was sentenced to 14 years behind bars on Monday by a Russian court.

Alexei Kabanov, 38, the founder of a chain of cafes in Moscow, said he strangled his wife Irina, 39, a mother of three children, in a fit of rage on January 3. He then dismembered her body and stashed it in a friend’s car, hoping to get rid of it later.

The investigation into the crime revealed he killed his wife during a domestic argument, after she learned he was having an affair. Kabanov strangled her with a computer cord while their children were asleep in another room.

Kabanov then took her body into the bathroom where he cut it up for disposal. Investigators believe Kabanov's experience as a chef may have helped him to dismember his wife's body.

He later launched a phony effort to locate her, complete with emotional posts on his Facebook page.

Psychiatric experts found that he was not mentally ill, although he suffered from a “histrionic personality disorder.”

The court also ordered Kabanov to pay 1.5 million rubles ($46,000) compensation to his mother-in-law.

Kabanov’s defense lawyer said he plans to appeal the sentence, insisting Kabanov committed the murder in a fit of rage.

Kabanov was a co-founder of the Project O.G.I., a club in downtown Moscow popular with writers, musicians and artists.

The club, launched in 1998, was shut down in 2012. Kabanov and his wife, known by her pen name Irina Cherska, opened another café, Cherska, in 2010, but it went bankrupt within months.

Ukraine-born Kabanova (Cherska) worked as a freelance radio editor who co-hosted numerous shows on psychology on Komsomolskaya Pravda radio station, said a representative of the eponymous media holding.

Several family acquaintances alleged on social networks that Kabanov routinely beat up his wife, though the accusations could not be verified.

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