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Tag: Russian

  • 71 die in Russian plane crash

    71 die in Russian plane crash

    A five-year-old girl and her mother were among 71 people who died when a Russian passenger plane crashed near Moscow shortly after taking off.

    Nadezhda Krasova, five, the youngest victim in the crash, died along with her mother Oksana Krasova, 32, after the Antonov An-148 airliner broke up in mid-air, according to eyewitness reports.

    Two bodies were yesterday found at the site of a Russian plane crash, an official at the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said.

    A plane operated by Russia’s Saratov Airlines crashed near Moscow. There were 71 people on board and all of them are feared dead, the Russian authorities said.

    The cockpit voice recorder and parts of the fuselage were also retrieved from the crash site of the Saratov Airlines An-148.

    The search-and-rescue operation is ongoing. Special lighting had been set up so the operation could continue into the night, he added. The ministry said the area would be observed by drones.

    The Transport Prosecutor’s office said everyone aboard the plane was dead. The Emergencies Ministry released the names of all 71 people on board the ill-fated aircraft.

    Russia’s Investigative Committee opened an investigation into the crash

    Authorities said all lines of inquiry into the plane crash were open.

    Russian Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov flew to the site near Argunovo village in the Moscow region.

    The crashed plane was spotted from the air in the countryside near Moscow, a rescue service source told Russia’s RIA news agency.

    The Saratov Airlines jet vanished minutes after take-off and crashed near the village of Argunovo, about 80km (50 miles) south-east of Moscow.

    The cause of crash is unclear. Investigators and emergency crews were working at the snow-covered site.

    The Antonov An-148 was en route to the city of Orsk in the Ural Mountains.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences to the victims’ families and announced an inquiry into the cause of the crash.

    Russia’s gazeta.ru website quoted unnamed investigators as saying the pilot had reported a malfunction and requested clearance for an emergency landing.

    All 65 passengers were from Orenburg, the Russian region to which the plane was flying, a spokesman for the regional governor told Interfax news agency.

    This is the first commercial passenger jet crash for more than a year – 2017 was the safest year on record for air travel.

    Saratov Airlines is based in Saratov, 840km south-east of Moscow.

    wreckage
    The wreckage of the plane…yesterday

    In 2015 it was banned from operating international flights when surprise inspectors found someone other than the flight crew was in the cockpit.

    The airline appealed against the ban and changed its policy before resuming international charter flights in 2016.

    It flies mainly between Russian cities but also has destinations in Armenia and Georgia.

    The crew of the Airlines didn’t report any problems before the plane crashed into snowy terrain, state-run media said.

    Three children – ages 5, 13 and 17- were among the passengers, state news agency RIA reported.

    “The snow is very dense … the Moscow region has had some of its heaviest snowfall in decades,” CNN’s Matthew Chance reported from Moscow. “It’s not clear at this stage whether weather was factor in this crash.”

    Sunday’s crash ends a 440-day streak without a passenger jet airliner fatality — the longest stretch in modern aviation history.

  • Russian modeling agency only represents models over 45 years

    Fashion modelling has always been an industry  dominated by the young, with most models having to retire around the age of 30. One Russian modeling agency is going against the norm by working exclusively with models aged 45 and. The oldest model on their roster  is 85.

    Moscow-based modelling agency Oldushka was founded by former street photographer Igor Gavar last year. He used to document the street style of retirees on his blog, and the agency was just a natural evolution of his hobby. As the name implies, Oldushka is committed to finding work for older models and broadening their professional opportunities. 18 models are currently represented by the agency, ages 45 to 85, and based in cities across Russia. With the exception of Sergey, a 45-year-old model whom Gavar hired  because he “looks older than he is”, the agency’s youngest model is 60.

  • Russia accuses U.S. of training ex IS fighters to destabilise Syria

    Russia accuses U.S. of training ex IS fighters to destabilise Syria

    The chief of the Russian General Staff  on Wednesday accused the U.S. of training former Islamic State fighters in Syria to try to destabilise the country.

    Gen. Valery Gerasimov’s allegations, made in a newspaper interview, centre on a U.S. military base at Tanf, a strategic Syrian highway border crossing with Iraq in the south of the country.

    Russia says the U.S. base is illegal and that it and the area around it have become “a black hole” where militants operate unhindered.

    Islamic State has this year lost almost all the territory it held in Syria and Iraq.

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday the main part of the battle with Islamic State in Syria was over, according to the state-run RIA news agency.

    The U.S. says the Tanf facility is a temporary base used to train partner forces to fight Islamic State.

    It has rejected similar Russian allegations in the past, saying Washington remains committed to killing off Islamic State and denying it safe havens.

    Gerasimov told the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper that the U.S. was training up fighters who were former Islamic State militants but who now call themselves the New Syrian Army or use other names.

    He said Russia satellites and drones had spotted militant brigades at the U.S. base.

    “They are in reality being trained there,” Gerasimov said, saying there were also a large number of militants and former Islamic State fighters at Shadadi, where he said there was also a U.S. base.

    “They are practically Islamic State,” he said.

    “But after they are worked with, they change their spots and take on another name.

    “Their task is to destabilize the situation.”

    Russia has partially withdrawn from Syria, but Gerasimov said the fact that Moscow was keeping an air base and naval facility there meant it was well placed to deal with pockets of instability if and when they arose.

  • Russian oil output declines, almost at global pact target

    Russian oil production edged down to 11.00 million barrels per day (bpd) in April from 11.05 million bpd in March, just short of full compliance with the targets of a global deal to cut oil output, Energy Ministry data showed on Tuesday.

    The Organization of the Petroleum Producing Countries with Russia and other leading oil producers agreed to cut oil production by almost 1.8 million bpd in the first six months of this year to tackle bloated inventories and prop up weak prices.

    Of that amount, Russia undertook to reduce its output by 300,000 bpd by the end of April to a target of 10.947 million bpd from a 30-year high of 11.247 million bpd in October.

    In April, its compliance with its target was 95.2 per cent.

    In tonnes, oil output in April reached 45.002 million versus 46.739 million in March.

    Investors are now focusing on whether the OPEC and other producers will extend cuts into the second half of the year.

    OPEC states and others meet on May 25 to discuss the issue.

    Russia has yet to state publicly whether it backs an extension but has said it was studying the market and had held talks with some OPEC ministers to determine its position.

    Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil producer, contributed the most to Moscow’s cuts last month with a 1 percent reduction from March.

    Almost all other Russian majors, apart from Gazprom Neft, also curtailed output in April.

    Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of Russian gas giant Gazprom, ratcheted up oil production in April by 2.9 per cent as it continued to pump more from its newly launched fields.

    Smaller producers cut output by 2.1 per cent.

    Russian oil pipeline exports in April rose to 4.736 million bpd up from 4.415 million bpd in March.

    Natural gas production was at 54.17 billion cubic meters (bcm) last month, or 1.81 bcm a day, versus 58.79 bcm in March.

  • Pirates abduct seven Russians, Ukrainian in Niger Delta

    Gunmen operating within the territorial waters of Nigeria around the Niger Delta region abducted seven Russian sailors and a Ukrainian.

    Russian Embassy was said to have raised the alarm that BBC Caribbean ship was attacked by pirates within the Nigerian territorial waters.

    The embassy was quoted as saying: “The BBC Caribbean Ship came under a pirate attack in the territorial waters of Nigeria. Seven Russian citizens and one Ukrainian citizen have been kidnapped from the ship.

    “The Russian Embassy has asked the Nigerian authorities for assistance in establishing the whereabouts of the abducted”.

    It was learnt that the vessel, described as a general cargo ship, was attacked in the Gulf of Guinea, 45 nautical miles, south-west Brass.

    Specifically, the incident was said to have occurred close to the Pennington River where the pirates on a speedboat approached the ship and opened fire on her.

    Though the guards on board reportedly fired back, the gunmen later overpowered the ship and seized her occupants.

  • London 2012: Three more athletes fail doping tests

    London 2012: Three more athletes fail doping tests

    The International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Wednesday said three more athletes have tested positive for doping in reanalysis of samples from the 2012 Olympic Games, including a Russian relay silver medalist.

    IOC is the supreme authority of the worldwide Olympic movement, an international, non-profit, non-governmental organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland.

    IOC said Antonina Krivoshapka of the Russian 4×400 metres team, which finished second to the U.S., tested positive for dehydrochlormethyltestosterone (turinabol).

    It said that Russians would give up their silver medals as a result of the disqualification.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Russia had already lost the silver medal in the event from the 2008 Games due to doping violations.

    The IOC is reanalysing over 1,000 doping samples from the 2008 and 2012 Games using improved analytical methods.

    Another Russian, the discus thrower Vera Ganeeva, and Turkish boxer Adem Kilicci were also named as testing positive in retests of 2012 samples.

  • Russia says no sign of survivors after plane crashes with 93 aboard

    The Russian Defence Ministry said that “no survivors are seen” from the Tu-154 military plane that crashed on Sunday in the Black Sea off the coast of Sochi.

    The plane, which was carrying 93 people, including a renowned choir to perform for the holidays at a Russian airbase in Syria, crashed shortly after takeoff, Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in televised comments.

    At least four bodies have been recovered from the crash site, with major debris found about 1.5 kilometres from the coast, Konashenkov said. He earlier said 92 people were aboard the plane.

    The Russian military’s most prominent choir, the Alexandrov Ensemble, was travelling to Syria’s coastal region of Latakia to perform at the Khmeimim airbase, Russia’s main base of operations for its military campaign in the Syrian civil war.

    The plane was carrying more than 60 musicians, including the choir’s revered conductor, Lt-Gen. Valery Khalilov, and nine journalists, according to a list published on the Defence Ministry’s website.

    There are “practically no chances” that anyone survived the crash, the Interfax news agency cited an undisclosed source in Russia’s emergency services as saying earlier.

    Russia has been supporting its longtime ally Syria with a bombing campaign against militant groups for more than a year.

    Last week Russia’s ambassador to Turkey, Andrey Karlov, was shot dead in Ankara by a gunman who shouted Islamist slogans and denounced Moscow’s military involvement in Syria.

    The most likely cause of the crash was either a problem with the plane or pilot error, state news agency RIA Novosti cited an undisclosed source as saying.

    Russian federal investigators have opened a criminal case into the incident on charges of disobeying aviation rules, the Investigative Committee said in a statement on its website.

    Designed in the late 1960s and with more than a thousand produced, Tu-154s were one of the main airliners of the Soviet Union and its successor states for decades until they began to be phased out in recent years.

    The planes have been involved in almost a dozen major crashes since 2000, killing more than 800 people, including Poland’s then-president Lech Kaczynski near the Russian city of Smolensk in 2010.

    Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has been in “continual contact” with President Vladimir Putin over Sunday’s incident, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in comments carried by state media. (dpa/NAN)

  • Russian military plane disappears from radar with dozens on board

    A Russian Defence Ministry flight carrying dozens of people has vanished from the radar screens after departing from the resort city of Sochi, Russian media reported on Sunday, citing preliminary findings.
    A total of 91 people were on board the Tu-154 aircraft, including musicians and media representatives, the Sputnik news agency quoted a security service source as saying.

    Meanwhile, some media outlets cited sources as saying that the plane might have crashed in mountains in Krasnodar Krai.

    Based on preliminary information, the accident was caused by technical malfunction or pilot error, a law enforcement source was quoted as saying.

    The vanished airplane is not a civilian one and was en route to the Syrian port city of Latakia, according to Russian aviation and emergency ministry authorities.

    The Tu-154 is a three-engine medium-range airliner produced by Russian aerospace and defence company Tupolev.

    It is one of the fastest civilian aircraft in use and widely used in extreme Arctic conditions. (Xinhua/NAN)

  • UK pork farmers threatened by Russian import sanctions

    UK pork farmers will face pressure to lower prices because of Russia’s ban on food imports from a number of Western countries, say experts.

    The ban is expected to increase the supply of pork on world markets.

    “This will increase competition on global markets,” said Mick Sloyan, director of BPEX, the UK trade body for pork producers.

    “It may have some knock-on effect on the EU market and, hence, the UK,” he added.

    The ban bars imports from countries which have imposed sanctions on Russia.

    The tit-for-tat ban, expected to last at least a year, includes the EU, US, Australia, Canada and Norway.

    Russia imports around 90% of its pork with Canada supplying 40% of that. The ban means that those farmers will now have to find alternative markets.

    James Leavesley, chief executive of Midland Pig Producers, said this could lead to oversupply in the market, with pork exports originally bound for Russia now set to be sold elsewhere.

    “If Russia bans pork from other countries there is a danger it could be dumped into the UK market,” he says.

    Mr Leavesley said the industry had already been hurt by low margins and falling prices.

    Pork prices have already fallen in some regions.

    In Chicago, where one of the main benchmark pork prices is determined, “Lean Hog Futures” have fallen 18 per cent from their  July 7 peak.

    “The Russians are going to leave some extra meat on the market for consumers to absorb,” Terry Roggensack, partner at commodity research firm the Hightower Report, said.

  • Ukraine crisis: Nato warns Russia

    Ukraine crisis: Nato warns Russia

    Nato has warned Russia that further intervention in Ukraine would be a “historic mistake” with grave consequences.

    Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Moscow must pull back troops it has massed on the Ukrainian border.

    On Tuesday, Ukraine regained control of one of the government buildings occupied by pro-Russian activists in the east of the country.

    Moscow has said that using force to end the protests could lead to civil war.

    However, in Luhansk, officials said “radicals” occupying the state security building had placed explosives and were holding about 60 people against their will. Activists in the building denied having explosives or hostages but said they had seized an armoury full of automatic rifles.

    Kiev says the unrest in the east is being fomented by Russia following its annexation of the Crimean peninsula.

    Russia took control in Crimea – where Russian-speakers are in a majority – after a disputed referendum.

    The US and the EU have already imposed targeted sanctions on Russian and Ukrainian individuals over the annexation of Crimea.

    Mr Rasmussen added: “We call on Russia to pull back the tens of thousands of troops it has massed on Ukraine’s borders, engage in a genuine dialogue with the Ukrainian authorities and respect its international commitments.”

    anning the barricades in Donetsk proves tiring for some activists

    US Secretary of State John Kerry, addressing a Senate panel on Tuesday, said Russian special forces and agents had been “the catalyst behind the chaos of the last 24 hours”.

     

    He said recent events “could potentially be a contrived pretext for military intervention just as we saw in Crimea”.

    As tensions rose on Tuesday, Russian Senator Viktor Ozerov, chairman of the defence and security committee, said President Putin could “theoretically” send troops anywhere in Ukraine under the powers given to him by parliament that allowed him to move forces into Crimea.

    “The Federation Council gave its agreement to the president… to use the armed forces in order to preserve people’s lives. We have not cancelled this resolution,” he told Ukraine’s Unian news agency.

    Hundreds of pro-Russia demonstrators seized government buildings in Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk on Sunday night, barricading themselves inside and raising Russian flags.

    Some called on Moscow to send “peacekeepers” to their aid.

    Yesterday, Ukrainian authorities said they had retaken control of the building in Kharkiv and hoped that offices in Luhansk and Donetsk would be freed shortly as well.

    Some 70 people were detained in Kharkiv without shots being fired, Ukraine’s interior ministry said.

    In Donetsk on Monday, protesters inside the regional authority building declared a separatist republic and called for a referendum on secession from Ukraine.

    Yesterday, Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danylo Lubkivsky told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the situation in eastern Ukraine was “under control but remains dangerous”.

    The Russian foreign ministry increased pressure on Kiev on Tuesday by accusing it of making “military preparations that are fraught with the risk of unleashing a civil war”.

    Russia is refusing to recognise the new authorities in Kiev who took power after pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted in February.

    Mr Yanukovych fled Kiev for Russia after months of street protests triggered by his refusal to sign an association agreement with the EU in favour of closer ties with Russia.

    More than 100 people died in the ensuing unrest.