Page 20 - Current Time News Today

The Kremlin has tried to use the Israel-Hamas conflict for its own ends, castigating the West and hosting a delegation from the Palestinian group. The storming of the airport in Daghestan shows that a shift in Moscow's Mideast balancing act has potentially explosive repercussions for Russia.

St. Petersburg State University has stepped up expulsions of students and faculty who have spoken out against the war in Ukraine or otherwise expressed discontent with the growing authoritarianism of President Vladimir Putin. 

Russian intelligence operatives posing as representatives of the Russian Geographical Society (RGS), asked a Norway national to take pictures of military facilities near the cities of Alt and Tromse. — Ukrinform.

A trip to China, an eye on the Middle East -- and for Russia, a continued focus on the war in Ukraine, where its forces struggle on the battlefield and Kyiv uses newly delivered Western weapons. And 20 months into the full-scale invasion, the Kremlin's clampdown at home continues.

A proposal that would deprive migrants who had recently received Russian passports of their citizenship if they refused to take part in Russia's war against Ukraine was suggested by Russia's Investigative Committee Head Alexander Bastrykin, according to a press release on Oct. 19.

It's been a staple of Russian TV since the Soviet era: A high-minded but fast-paced brainteasing quiz show filled with wit and wordplay. Now, What? Where? When? has increasingly turned into something else, some of its veterans say: a vehicle for Kremlin propaganda about the Ukraine invasion.

In a wide-ranging interview, Russian opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky tells Current Time that President Vladimir Putin views everything through the prism of his war against Ukraine and what the exiled former oil tycoon portrays as the authoritarian leader’s weakening grip on power.

A Russian-born émigré tells Current Time how her family hid in a safe room as Hamas gunmen searched their home in Israel. Maria Ballach moved to Israel 20 years ago and is a resident of Kibbutz Nahal Oz, an Israeli village near the border with Gaza. She says her husband and infant child could hear the attackers talking, and looting their home. Ballach credits the reinforced latch on the safe room door for saving their lives as Hamas militants repeatedly tried to enter.

Amid widespread horror over Hamas's surprise attack on Israel and the violence targeting civilians, many pro-Kremlin commentators have welcomed the carnage as a distraction from Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and a comeuppance for anti-war Russians who fled to Israel.

Updated to add details from the Financial Times' report.