Page 52 - Current Time News Today

A court in the Siberian city of Barnaul has rejected a request by journalist Maria Ponomarenko, who is under house arrest on the charge of discrediting Russia’s armed forces with "fake" social-media posts about the war in Ukraine, to be transferred to a pretrial detention center.

RFE/RL opened its new office in the Lithuanian capital on January 10 in what the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster called its "latest step in a comprehensive strategy to counter pervasive Russian disinformation and reach new audiences with trusted, independent news and information." 

Twenty-seven-year-old Russian reservist and former police officer Stanislav Bashilov simply climbed a fence on the Russian-Latvian border to get to the West. Staying there has been more difficult.

A group of Belarusian hackers claiming to have gained access to a database belonging to their country's presidential medical center have released what they say are the results of PCR tests taken by President Alexander Lukashenko and his son Nikolai.

Ukrainian paratroopers have shared their experiences of the conflict in the city of Kreminna, noting that they are relying on their wits rather than sheer numbers to come out victorious in the battle.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty may seem like a Cold War relic, but with the war in Ukraine, the broadcaster is again being counted on to transmit straight news into areas where free press is challenged.

The war of words is the latest in what many analysts see as a deepening rift under way between the Russian military elite and Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Vagner mercenary company, amid Russia’s setbacks on the battlefield.

Amid relentless fighting, one official claims that Ukrainian forces are closing in on recapturing Kreminna, which would disrupt Russian supply lines in the Donbas and deal Moscow another setback. Here’s what Ukrainian paratroopers say about the situation on the ground.

The Ukrainian soldier also revealed that executions were common among the Russian armys ranks.

Bold and unpredictable maneuvers are supposed to be the trademark political style of Russian President Vladimir Putin; last week, however, he surprised observers of various persuasions not with a proactive move but with an unusual act of avoidance. Putin’s annual marathon end-of-the-year press conference has been canceled, as has the traditional “direct line” with carefully trained audiences, and his constitutionally …