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Residents in a region hit by the deepest drone strikes within Russian territory since the start of the war in Ukraine have been warned that air defenses may not be able to protect them from future attacks. Since the start of its full-scale invasion, Russia has been hit with drone strikes reaching Moscow as well as ammunition depots and warehouses around the country linked to the war effort. Russian authorities blame Ukraine for the attacks, which Kyiv rarely claims responsibility for. In the latest incident, a drone attack on the Russian republic of Tatarstan on Tuesday reportedly hit industrial areas...

Dramatic footage shows the moment a suspected Ukrainian plane-type UAV explodes as it was targeted at a Russian plant assembling Iranian Shahed drones used in the war. There was a huge blast and fireball near Yelabuga, deep in Russia, at least 660 miles from the closest Ukrainian territory. A total of three strikes were reported in the area. Russian sources say it hit a dormitory for workers in the Alabuga economic zone in the Republic of Tatarstan, where it is believed the deadly Iranian drones are assembled. It is unclear so far if there was also damage to the drone-making...

Russian tank academy building caught on fire on Thursday, March 7th, according to the Defense Ministry's statement and videos circulating online. One video posted by Astra, a Telegram news outlet, was captioned: "A tank academy barracks is on fire in Kazan." The barracks of the Kazan Higher Tank Command School, located in Kazan, Central Russia, which trains soldiers deployed to tank units in Ukraine, was seen engulfed in smoke as fire raged

Russia is "extremely concerned" about what is happening in the Gaza Strip, head of Tatarstan region Rustam Minnikhanov said on Tuesday. "Our country is extremely concerned about the worsening situation in the Middle East, the bloody fighting in the Gaza Strip, the numerous victims, and the huge humanitarian disaster there," Minnikhanov said, speaking at a meeting of the Russia-Islamic World group in Moscow. Russia insists on the implementation of the decisions of the UN Security Council, first of all, for the establishment of an independent sovereign Palestinian state, he emphasized. Minnikhanov also condemned the actions of burning of holy Quran...

Vladimir Putin taunted the West by taking a joyride in a modernised supersonic Tu-160M strategic nuclear bomber today - as the Kremlin threatened nuclear war. The despot's stunt - which lasted around 40 minutes - appeared to be intended to enhance his macho ratings as he stands for re-election next month -snip- Putin was seen taking off in Kazan a day after he visited a factory in the city where the Tupolev bombers are manufactured.

A Russian television serial exploring the tragedy wrought by brutal teenage street gangs fighting for survival, money and love in the last years of the crumbling Soviet Union has become a sensation in Russia. The series – “A hoodlum’s promise – blood on the asphalt” – shows the savagery of the gangs which carved up the Russian city of Kazan in 1989 as the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev gyrated the Soviet Union towards its 1991 demise. In the Kazan badlands, many of the teenagers tried to make sense of their Soviet world turned upside down by flocking to the gangs...

Many observers have warned that Putin’s military campaign in Syria may backfire at home. Russia’s 144 million people include about 20 million Muslims; the overwhelming majority are Sunnis. Some analysts believe that these Russian Sunnis will recoil from Russia’s support for Assad’s Alawite-dominated regime and its attacks on Sunni rebels, and from Russia’s effort to lead a coalition of Shiite powers, Iran, Iraq and Syria. If pundits’ predictions were true, Muslims would be more likely to choose the anti-war response and less likely to support Putin’s intervention. But that’s not exactly what we found. ...There wasn’t a consensus among any...

President Vladimir Putin has promised government backing for Islamic religious education in Russia, in a bid to stave extremism and cater to Russia’s large Muslim community. Up to 20 million Muslims make up Russia’s second-largest religious minority. Thousands of young radicalized Russians have travelled to Iraq and Syria to join jihadist fighters in recent years, making the country the largest source of foreign fighters in the war-torn region. At a meeting with Islamic religious figures on Wednesday, Russia’s president pledged “undoubted support” for a "revival of Islamic education in Russia," the state-run TASS news agency reported. “Traditional Islam is an...

Russian Taliban Suspect Sues United States Created: 28.06.2005 18:10 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 18:10 MSK, 6 hours 31 minutes ago Alexandra Zaitseva Gazeta.ru A former Guantanamo prisoner who is a Russian national filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government. This Tatarstan resident, Airat Vakhitov, issued a statement Tuesday that is capable of sparking a new wave of anti-American protests in Muslim countries. In his lawsuit, which is being examined in a U.S. civil court, Vakhitov not only demands that the authorities admit to inhumane treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo camp, but insists that they acknowledge that a majority of...

The State Department announced Wednesday that it has added two people to the federal list of designated terrorists, one of whom was once detained at Guantanamo Bay military prison. Ayrat Nasimovich Vakhitov, one of the newly added jihadists, was a former detainee at Guantanamo for less than two years from June 2002 until February 2004 before being turned over to Russian officials in his home country. Turkish authorities recently arrested Vahkitov in connection with the June 29 suicide bombings at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport that killed 42 people. While no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, U.S. and Turkish authorities...

The bad news: 1. Russian NTV channel reported the detention of 25 Ukrainians on the territory of the Russian Federation. According to NTV, they were planning terrorist attacks in Rostov, Volgograd, Tver, Orlov, Belgorod oblasts [regions] and the Republics of Kalmykia and Tatarstan. Among the detained activists, it was stated there were activists of “Right Sector” [ultra-nationalist group], who “confirmed the receipt of instructions from representatives of the SBU [Security Services of Ukraine].” We can laugh out of habit at this and forget about it – you never know what lies PutinTV will come up with next. But in reality,...

(Reuters) - The top Islamic official in Russia's largely Muslim Tatarstan region was wounded in a bomb attack and a deputy was killed in a separate shooting on Thursday, rocking a province long seen as a showcase of religious tolerance in Russia.

(Reuters) - The top Islamic official in Russia's largely Muslim Tatarstan region was wounded in a bomb attack and a deputy was killed in a separate shooting on Thursday, rocking a province long seen as a showcase of religious tolerance in Russia.

MOSCOW (AP) - A Muslim cleric formerly held at Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba said Tuesday U.S. guards there regularly desecrated the Qur'an by putting it into a toilet, although he added he never witnessed it himself. Airat Vakhitov, who described himself as a former imam of a mosque in Tatarstan, a majority Muslim republic in southern Russia, is one of seven men released from Guantanamo in 2004 and returned to Russia. He and the six others were held in Russia for three months, then released a year ago. Vakhitov said at a news conference organized by the state RIA-Novosti...

SNIPPET: The Supreme Court of Tatarstan found 12 activists of the Kazan division of the international terrorist organization Islamic Liberation Party (Hizb ut-Tahrir) guilty of extremism. "Seven men, including Tajik citizen Dzhurayev and six Russians, have received four to eight years in a penal colony," court press secretary Natalya Loseva told Interfax. Four other Kazan residents have received suspended sentences of three years and six months to five years in prison." SNIPPET: ""The accomplice Gimaliyev was found insane and is exempt from criminal liability. He will be forcibly treated," Loseva said."

KAZAN, Russia — US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday visited Kazan, the capital of Russia's predominantly Muslim Tatarstan region, lauding it as an example of multi-ethnic tolerance and peace. .... Over half of the region's population are Tatars, a Muslim Turkic people who live alongside a large ethnic Russian Orthodox Christian population and other minorities. Clinton, donning a yellow headscarf and taking off her shoes in line with Islamic custom, visited the gigantic Kul Sharif mosque in the Kazan Kremlin alongside the regional leader Mintimer Shaimiyev. "You are well known as someone who has fostered religious tolerance. It's...

Administration of the city Kazan, which is considered the Muslim hub of Russia, has extensive plans of turning the city into an influential centre of business and religious tourism and to attract pilgrims from around the world, like Mecca.

"If people wear tight jeans or skirts and speak slang, it does not mean they have veered from the path of true Islam."Shamil Alyautdinov often says things you do not quite expect from an imam. But 70 years of communism have bulldozed most religious and ethnic traditions in Russia, so do not be surprised when you hear him saying it is all right that most Muslims do not even attend the mosque. "It is not obligatory," Mr Alyautdinov adds. "Life is very fast these days, so people don't have time to go to mosque." The 31-year-old imam of the Moscow...

MOSCOW, Sept. 13 - President Vladimir V. Putin ordered a stunning overhaul of Russia's political system on Monday in what he called an effort to unite the country against terrorism. If enacted, as expected, the proposals would strengthen his already pervasive control over the legislative branch and regional governments. Mr. Putin, meeting in special session with cabinet ministers and regional government leaders, outlined what would be the most sweeping political overhaul - and his most striking single step to consolidate power - in Russia in more than a decade. Critics immediately said it would violate the Constitution and stifle what...