Russia

MOSCOW, March 3 (Reuters) - A court in Belarus on Friday sentenced Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights activist Ales Bialiatski to 10 years in prison for financing protests and other crimes, in a case that rights groups say was politically motivated.

Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said Bialiatski and other activists sentenced in the same trial had been unfairly convicted, calling the verdict "appalling".

"We must do everything to fight against this shameful injustice & free them," she said on Twitter.

MOSCOW, March 2. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin voiced confidence that the masters of the Ukrainian neo-Nazis would not pay attention to the attack carried out on Thursday in Russia's Bryansk region.

"I am confident that these same leaders [of Ukrainian neo-Nazis] will forget today's attack. No one will pay attention to this," he said.

All at the same, speaking about the overall situation, he stated, "They will not succeed, we will crush them."

MOSCOW, March 2. /TASS/:  Western sanctions have caused long-term serious damage to the principles of openness of world trade, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in an interview with RT.

"The principles of openness in world trade have been severely damaged. These are not just the consequences of one year and they will have a long-term impact on global trade as a whole," Siluanov said.

March 2 (Reuters) - The founder of Russia's Wagner mercenary force on Thursday published a video showing his fighters inside Bakhmut, the small Ukrainian city Wagner has been fighting to capture for months.

Wagner has spearheaded Russia's assault on Bakhmut, which had a pre-war population of 75,000, and has made steady but incremental progress around the city's outskirts in recent months, endangering Ukraine's supply lines.

1 Mar 2023; MEMO: Russia's Foreign Ministry said, on Wednesday, that Moscow would only agree to extend the Black Sea grain deal, which allows grain to be safely exported from Ukrainian ports, if the interests of its agricultural producers are taken into account, Reuters reports.

MOSCOW, March 1. /TASS/:  Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed at a meeting with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu on the sidelines of G20 foreign ministers’ meeting on Wednesday that the grain deal could only be extended with the interests of Russian producers of agriculture products and fertilizers taken into consideration.

MOSCOW, March 1 (Xinhua) -- Moscow on Wednesday opened the 70-km Big Circle Line (BCL), the longest subway line in the world.

The metro line was constructed from 2011 to 2022. The first section of the BCL opened in 2018, and another 20-km section, which is the longest in the history of the capital's metro, was launched in December 2021.

The BCL has 31 stations, with 24 of those providing 47 interchanges to existing and future stations of the capital's metro.

MOSCOW, February 28. /TASS/:  Russian President Vladimir Putin has called on the Federal Security Service (FSB) to continue to help the army in the course of the special military operation, including by providing counter-reconnaissance support.

MOSCOW, February 28. /TASS/: An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has crashed near the village of Gubastovo in the Kolomna district of the Moscow Region. There is no threat to the safety of local residents, the Moscow Region’s governor, Andrey Vorobyov, said on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, Feb 28 (Reuters) - The Kremlin on Tuesday repeated its position that Russia was open to negotiations to end the Ukraine conflict, but that new "territorial realities" could not be ignored.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Russia would never renounce its claims to four Ukrainian regions that Moscow declared it had annexed last year following referendums that Kyiv and the West slammed as bogus and illegal.