Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky was laughing about bombs with his apparent assassin at an event in St. Petersburg minutes before he was killed by a bomb hidden inside a gifted statuette, eyewitnesses told The Moscow Times.
Daria Trepova, who gave Tatarsky the golden figurine of himself, told the pro-war blogger in front of the dozens of attendees that security guards had blocked her from bringing her present into the room because they were worried it could contain a bomb, according to Marat Arnis, a local journalist who was at the event.
“She was laughing as she said it, so the audience and Vladlen laughed with her,” said Arnis. “Everyone took it as a joke.”
In response, Arnis recalled Tatarsky saying: “No worries, bring it here, we'll check it."
With Tatarsky’s permission, the golden bust was then brought inside so Trepova could formally hand it to him.
Minutes later, it exploded, killing Tatarsky and injuring about 40 others in Street Food Bar No. 1, a popular venue with pro-war activists and meeting place for ultra-nationalist movement Cyber Front Z.
The events immediately before and after Sunday’s dramatic attack have been the subject of intense interest in recent days, with speculation over Trepova’s exact role — particularly whether she knew the bust contained a bomb — and who organized the hit.
Russian authorities detained Trepova, 26, the following day and she was formally charged with terrorism on Tuesday.
Russia’s Investigative Committee and its National Anti-Terrorism Committee have claimed supporters of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and Ukrainian fighters used Trepova to kill Tatarsky, a bank robber, ex-Ukrainian rebel and vociferous cheerleader of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine who had over half a million online followers.
St. Petersburg real estate agent and war supporter Eduard Omelchenko, who was present at the event, told The Moscow Times he remembered Trepova pointing at the statuette and joking: “That is not a bomb.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/04/05/eyewitnesses-describe-bomb-jokes-moments-before-cafe-blast-that-killed-military-blogger-a80719Apr 6, 2023 
Ukraine Uncensored NetworkA pair of popular Russia-based LGBT bloggers have been arrested in Russia on charges of violating the country’s law outlawing gay “propaganda,” their lawyer said Wednesday.
Khaoyan Suy, a Chinese citizen, and Gela Gogishvili, an ethnically Georgian citizen of Russia, document their life as an openly gay, interracial, non-Slavic couple living in Russia on their popular social media channels, including on TikTok, YouTube and Telegram.
The two men are accused of violating Russia’s law that prohibits “propaganda” of LGBT relationships with a video on their YouTube channel.
They now face a fine of up to 50,000 rubles ($628) or arrest, while Suy also faces deportation from Russia, the couple’s lawyer Adel Khaydarshin told the Telegram news channel SOTA.
Police detained Suy on Wednesday at a Burger King restaurant in Kazan after he failed to present his passport and registration documents during a document check.
Suy asked his partner to bring his documents to the restaurant, but both men were arrested as soon as Gogishvilli arrived.
The couple, who met in Moscow and have been living in the republic of Tatarstan’s capital Kazan since 2021, were targeted by St. Petersburg-based anti-LGBT activist Timur Bulatov in March and have since faced death threats and harassment.
One of Suy’s professors at Kazan University had also threatened to report him to the police for violating Russia’s anti-LGBT law, according to an interview with the couple published by the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty outlet last month.
Russia expanded its controversial law against so-called “gay propaganda” late last year to outlaw virtually all public expression and depictions of LGBT relationships and lifestyles.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/04/05/russia-arrests-chinese-lgbt-blogger-partner-for-gay-propaganda-violation-a80723Apr 5, 2023 Ukraine Uncensored Network Ukraine Uncensored Network Ukraine Uncensored Network Ukraine Uncensored Network Three of the world's largest grain distributors have announced that they will pull out of Russia by July, a move likely to reinforce Moscow's control over the global wheat market.
Government pressure and operational difficulties in the wake of Russia's war against Ukraine have made staying in the country unfeasible for Cargill, Louis Dreyfus (LDC), and Viterra, the companies say.
Until now they had maintained operations in Russia including transport and storage via silos and port terminals, saying it was essential for ensuring the supply of crucial commodities for countries worldwide.
Russia is the world's largest wheat exporter, and the grain was not targeted by the raft of Western sanctions against Moscow after it launched its invasion in February 2022.
But starting July 1, the companies will only charter cargo ships for agricultural shipments from Russia.
U.S. giant Cargill is operating "only essential food and feed facilities" in the country, it said in a statement last Wednesday.
"However, as grain export-related challenges continue to mount, Cargill will stop elevating Russian grain for export in July 2023 after the completion of the 2022-2023 season."
Viterra, part of the Swiss-based commodities group Glencore, followed suit a few days later, saying it "has concluded that its activities in Russia no longer fit the long-term direction of the company."
"We are assessing options to transfer our business and assets in Russia to new owners," a spokesperson said.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/04/05/three-leading-grain-exporters-to-quit-russia-by-july-a80714Apr 5, 2023 Ukraine Uncensored Network Ukraine Uncensored Network Ukraine Uncensored Network Central Asian Uzbekistan has canceled a music festival in which Russian artists supporting the Kremlin's Ukraine invasion were due to perform, officials told AFP Tuesday.
The decision came after neighboring Kazakhstan made a similar decision earlier this year.
Both countries are close to Moscow but have not voiced support for the invasion of Ukraine, which has made Russia's allies in the former Soviet Union nervous.
The festival, called Zhara ("heat" in Russian) was due to take place in the capital Tashkent on May 20 and 21.
"It is canceled because of the participation of Russian singers and their publications on social media," an official of Uzbekistan's main ticket booking service told AFP.
The official said he was not sure if the festival would still take place.
But a police spokesman in Tashkent confirmed to AFP that "the Zhara festival was canceled on an order from the interior ministry."
Asked if this was due to the presence of Russian artists who have voiced support for Moscow's Ukraine offensive, he said: "this is correct."
Grigory Leps, a Russian rock star who recently performed at a Moscow patriotic rally attended by President Vladimir Putin, was among those due to perform.
Russian pop star Olga Buzova, a pro-Kremlin artist who traveled to eastern Ukraine late last year to support Moscow troops, was also due to perform.
The Zhara festival was also canceled in Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, last month because of the "unstable situation in the world."
Azerbaijan, a Moscow ally in the Caucasus, had canceled the festival last year.
Central Asian states retain close ties with Moscow but try to maintain diplomatic neutrality on Ukraine in an effort to keep good ties with both Russia and the West.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/04/04/uzbekistan-cancels-festival-with-pro-invasion-russian-artists-a80709Apr 4, 2023 Ukraine Uncensored Network It took some time after I first saw the breaking news alert — that Evan Gershkovich had been detained in Russia — for the horror to sink in.
As more details emerged of my former colleague’s arrest, the more it felt like a bad dream. The Federal Security Service (FSB) had detained him while reporting a story in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg and was now holding him on suspicion of espionage. He is the first Western reporter to face such accusations in Russia since the Cold War.
My memories of Evan keep flitting in and out of my mind, colliding at full velocity with the blunt and devastating fact of the present: that he is now facing charges which can only be described as absurd, and which will likely see him sentenced to up to 20 years behind bars.
I first met Evan in 2019, when I moved to Moscow to join The Moscow Times, where he had already been working since late 2017.
But it wasn't until he and I found ourselves in Riga, Latvia for a month that spring on a visa run gone awry (don’t ask) that I really got to know him.
Over shared meals and drinks around the city, he told me of his upbringing in New Jersey with his parents, who were Jewish exiles from the Soviet Union, and sister. We bantered about the cultural differences between Russia and the United States, our home country.
He carried around a well-worn olive-green backpack whose holes he had darned like his mother taught him to do.
A big fan of soccer, he would patiently explain to me what was happening on the bar’s television as his favorite team, Arsenal, played a match.
He cooked me dinner in his Riga apartment, using the skills he’d picked up in a New York City kitchen where he moonlighted while working as a news assistant for The New York Times.
We had only known each other a few weeks, but I shouldn’t have been surprised by this generosity. Evan didn’t think twice about gestures of kindness.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/04/04/the-evan-gershkovich-i-know-a80692Apr 4, 2023 Ukraine Uncensored Network The assassination of leading Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky has ignited calls for revenge and intensified attacks on Ukraine from pro-war figures.
Tatarsky, a vocal Ukraine war supporter whose real name was Maxim Fomin, was killed Sunday in an explosion during an event at a cafe in Russia's second-largest city of St. Petersburg.
Famous for his words “we'll defeat everyone, we'll kill everyone, we'll rob everyone we need to,” which he said at a Kremlin ceremony in September when President Vladimir announced the annexation of four Ukrainian regions, Tatarsky had an audience of more than 500,000 people on Telegram.
“No one is going to be afraid,” pro-war blogger Ivan Kondakov told The Moscow Times when asked how war correspondents would react to the incident.
“It’s a challenge from Ukraine and the West,” Kondakov, who runs the Arbalet Z Govorit Telegram channel with 48,000 subscribers, said.
After months of grinding warfare in eastern Ukraine with little movement by either side, Tatarsky’s killing could be used as an excuse for Russia to escalate its offensive — and to crack down harder on the anti-war movement at home, analysts say.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/04/03/russian-pro-war-figures-call-for-revenge-after-killing-of-military-blogger-a80695Apr 3, 2023 Ukraine Uncensored Network General Rustam Muradov, a top Russian commander in Ukraine, has been dismissed in the wake of unsuccessful Russian assaults near the eastern Ukrainian town of Vuhledar, two Defense Ministry sources told The Moscow Times.
Russian attacks on the strategic coal-mining town in January and early February resulted in heavy losses of men and equipment. In one notorious incident, dozens of Russian tanks were reportedly destroyed after being ordered to advance in single-file because of a lack of demining equipment.
The removal of Muradov, a seasoned military commander with experience in Syria and the South Caucasus, offers a rare glimpse into the internal fallout from the Russian military’s failure to achieve any significant territorial gains in its monthslong offensive in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.
Rumors of Muradov’s dismissal have been circulating on pro-war Russian Telegram channels in recent days, but there has been no confirmation from officials.
Russia’s Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Moscow Times.
A source in Russia’s Eastern Military District and a source in the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, however, said that Muradov had been formally relieved of his command of the Eastern Military District. Both sources spoke anonymously as they were not authorized to publicly speak on the matter.
It is not known whether Muradov will be appointed to another military post, nor is it clear who will replace him.
One of the sources suggested that Muradov’s resignation was directly linked to the failures around Vuhledar.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/04/03/top-russian-general-dismissed-after-vuhledar-defeat-a80690Apr 3, 2023 Ukraine Uncensored Network The Strit-Bar cafe on Universitetskaya Embankment in St. Petersburg, where Vladlen Tatarsky was killed.Alexander Demianchuk / TASS
The Kremlin on Monday blamed Ukraine for the bomb blast in St. Petersburg that killed a leading military blogger and injured dozens of others, while Kyiv denied involvement.
Military correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky, 40, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, died Sunday and 32 others were wounded when an explosion ripped through a cafe in the center of Russia’s second-largest city.
Russia's Investigative Committee, which opened a criminal murder case shortly after the explosion, said Monday that a St. Petersburg woman, 26-year-old Daria Trepova, had been detained in connection with Tatarsky’s death.
“Russia is up against the Kyiv regime. This is the regime that supports terrorist actions,” President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman told reporters during a daily briefing.
“This is the regime that is quite possibly behind the murder of Fomin [Tatarsky’s real last name],” Peskov said.
He invoked Tatarsky, as well as the August 2022 car bomb killing of pro-war figure Alexei Dugin’s daughter, Daria Dugina, in explaining Russia’s motivation to invade Ukraine.
Peskov's comments came after Russia’s Anti-Terrorist Committee (NAC) claimed that the attack was orchestrated by Ukraine’s intelligence services.
The NAC said that Kyiv had allegedly “recruited” Trepova as an “active supporter” of jailed Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny and his political network, which is banned as “extremist” in Russia.
The Interior Ministry published footage of an interrogation of the suspect it identified as Trepova.
“I brought the statue that exploded there,” the woman can be seen saying in the video.
Trepova’s name had appeared in the Interior Ministry's database of wanted persons on unspecified charges earlier Monday.
St. Petersburg-based media posted footage Monday showing a makeshift memorial outside the crime scene.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/04/03/russia-blames-ukraine-for-war-bloggers-bomb-killing-a80687Apr 3, 2023 Ukraine Uncensored Network Ukraine Uncensored Network A leading Russian military blogger was killed Sunday in an explosion at a cafe in Russia's second-largest city of Saint Petersburg, the Interior Ministry said.
"One person was killed in the incident. He was military correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky," the ministry said on messaging app Telegram.
"Sixteen people were injured," it added.
The TASS news agency quoted a law enforcement source as saying the blast was "caused by an improvised explosive device hidden inside a statue given to Tatarsky as a gift."
Tatarsky, whose real name is Maxim Fomin, has more than 500,000 followers on Telegram and is in favour of Russia's campaign in Ukraine.
The explosion occurred at "Street Food Bar No. 1" in the city center.
A group called Cyber Front Z, which refers to itself on social media as "Russia's information troops," said it had hired out the cafe for the evening.
"There was a terrorist attack. We took certain security measures but unfortunately they were not enough," the group said on Telegram.
"Condolences to everyone who knew the excellent war correspondent and our friend Vladlen Tatarsky," it said.
Tatarsky, 40, came from the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, which Russia claims to have annexed and which is currently mostly controlled by Russian troops.
The Interior Ministry said police were called to the scene of the blast at 6:13 p.m. and investigators were working at the scene.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/04/02/leading-russian-military-blogger-killed-in-st-petersburg-cafe-blast-a80684Apr 3, 2023 Ukraine Uncensored Network Ukraine Uncensored Network Ukraine on Saturday branded Russia's presidency of the UN Security Council for the month of April "a slap in the face," joining a chorus of outrage from Western countries.
Moscow assumes the presidency as part of its monthly rotation between the Security Council's 15 member states, with ties with the West at their lowest point since the Cold War over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Russia's tenure was "a slap in the face to the international community."
"I urge the current UNSC members to thwart any Russian attempts to abuse its presidency," he said on Twitter, calling Russia "an outlaw on the UNSC."
Moscow last chaired the council in February 2022, the same month it invaded Ukraine — prompting Kyiv to call for Russia's removal from the council.
Russia will hold little influence on decisions but will be in charge of the agenda.
Moscow has said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is planning to chair a UN Security Council meeting this month on "effective multilateralism."
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also said that Lavrov would lead a debate on the Middle East on April 25.
In New York, a UN Security Council diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "In the case of abuse by the presidency, we will certainly react."
However, "this is not the point. The point is the war in Ukraine and making sure that we put this to an end.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/04/01/ukraine-calls-russia-un-presidency-a-slap-in-the-face-a80683Apr 1, 2023 Ukraine Uncensored Network Ukraine Uncensored Network President Vladimir Putin on Thursday signed an order allowing Russia's Defense Ministry to enlist 147,000 men for their compulsory military service in the upcoming spring call-up.
The number of draftees to be called up this year marks an increase of 12,500 compared to last year's recruitment figures.
The Defense Ministry will kick off the conscription campaign on Saturday, drafting eligible men between the ages of 18 and 27. The recruitment drive is scheduled to wrap up on July 15.
Enlistment officers will likely crack down on draft dodgers in order to meet Putin’s ambitious 147,000 target, according to experts quoted by the independent news outlet Agentstvo.
The experts also said that the pool of potential conscripts born between 1995 and 2005 has grown insufficiently to meet the military’s increasing demand for fresh troops, despite a steady rise in birthrates since 2000.
“There was definitely no surge [in birthrates], so the idea is apparently to catch as many [draft dodgers] as possible,” Ilya Kashnitsky, a professor of demography at the University of Southern Denmark, told Agentstvo.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/03/31/russian-military-to-draft-147000-new-recruits-in-spring-call-up-a80672Apr 1, 2023 Ukraine Uncensored Network The Russian resort town of Sochi, which hosted the 2014 winter Olympics, has some of the highest luxury housing prices in the world, with only Hong Kong and Monaco boasting pricier real estate, a study by consulting agency NF Group has found.
At present, $1 million would allow you to buy just 29 square meters of luxury real estate in the Black Sea holiday destination, study results published by RBC business daily show.
In New York, which has the fourth most expensive luxury property market in the world, the same kind of outlay would get you a marginally larger property of 33 square meters.
While the capital Moscow currently ranks as the 12th most expensive luxury property market in the world, apartment prices there vary significantly from district to district. A luxury apartment in the capital’s highly sought-after Patriarch's Ponds neighborhood could be as expensive as one in Hong Kong, while in the city’s southern Danilov district, $1 million could buy a property nearly 4 times that size.
Moscow was also found to rank in the top 10 cities in the world in terms of luxury housing price growth. The cost of luxury real estate in Moscow increased by 13.2% year-on-year last year and is expected to rise by an additional 3% in 2023, according to the study.
But Sochi is likely to remain the most popular destination for Russia’s luxury property buyers in 2023 amid Western sanctions and widespread travel bans that have left most European countries inaccessible even to the super-wealthy, RBC cited NF Group partner Olga Shirokova as saying.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/03/31/study-finds-sochi-has-some-of-worlds-highest-priced-luxury-properties-a80680Mar 31, 2023 Ukraine Uncensored Network 
