Lev Fedoseyev / TASS If the RBC news agency's estimates are correct, the Russian military has spent roughly $168 million deploying its lone aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, to the Mediterranean to assist in airstrikes in Syria. RBC tallied up the material costsincurred by its air wing, the munitions expended, and the fuel consumed. To keep the figure conservative, it discounted regular costs associated with ship maintenance, whichwould have burned through cash regardless.

Russian prisoners in Berlin Bain News Service / Project 1917 The Moscow Times and Project1917 continue to share the most compelling stories of 1917. In the second instalment of this series, which takes place this week one hundred years ago, Lenin discusses Ukraine with a prisoner of war. British intellectuals, including Bertrand Russell, realize the enormity of events on the horizon. The atmosphere in the Tsar’s palace becomes increasingly foreboding. January 30 1.

Richard Drew / AP Russia will wait until 2023 for U.S. television host Bill O’Reilly to apologize for calling President Vladimir Putin “a killer,” the Kremlin has said. Presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters Tuesday that the Russian government was "prepared to be patient." "We've made a mark on the calendar and will get back to it," he said. The Kremlin first called on O'Reilly to apologize on Monday, after he called Putin a killer during an interview with U.S.

The German flag on the Reichstag building is reflected in the windows of another building of the German parliamentary complex in Berlin. Ferdinand Ostrop / AP German intelligence agencies have found no clear evidence ofa Kremlin-led propaganda drive targeting the country’s voters. A year-long investigation found no direct proof that Russianmedia outlets were running a deliberate disinformation campaign, an unnamedsource told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

Don't believe the faces you see on themetro — more than half of Russians are happy. According to a new GallupInternational/WIN poll, 56 percent of Russians considered themselves tobe happy in 2016, an increase of 1 percent on 2015. Happy Russians find themselves in goodcompany. Some 68 percent of respondents around the world say they arehappy, meaning Russian happiness is still below average. But not everyone is overjoyed.

Yasumasa Morimura Pushkin Museum of fine Arts The History of the Self-Portrait Posing as Rembrandt “The History of the Self-Portrait” is a solo exhibitionof works by the contemporary Japaneseartist Yasumasa Morimura. About eighty worksshow Morimura posing as a number of famouspainters, from da Vinci to Frida Kahlo.

Vincent Yu / AP Shock, as ever, was followed by denial. The American people couldn’t have consciously committed such a suicidal act, so the logic went. They must have fallen under the charms of Russian agents of influence. If you were to read the headlines, you would think Moscow had an unrivaled capacity to change the course of world history. The Kremlin, no doubt, is reveling in the idea of its supposedly supernatural abilities.

Russian activist Mark Galperin Andrei Zubets / Facebook Russian activist Mark Galperin has been arrested outside of his homein Moscow. Galperin reportedly tried to evade arrest by jumping from asecond story window before being detained by the police, journalist ArkadyBabchenko wrote on Facebook. Galperin - who currently works with activist group Za Smenu Vlasti, or "For the Change of Power" - also wrote on his social media page that he was waiting in the back of a police vehicle.

Father Vladimir, a 64-year-old former rockstar, has been practicing exorcism since 1996. In 2006, he opened a rehabilitation center in the village of Stanovoi Kolodez, 300 kilometers south of Moscow. Courtesy of Father Vladimir More than 100 pilgrims from all over Russia have come to witness the exorcism. Father Vladimir stalks between them — breathing heavily and looking into their eyes. “Lord, forgive my Soviet forefathers for repudiating God,” he intones.

Maxim Stulov / Vedomosti The Russian government will not privatize the country's railways within thenext three years, a top government official has claimed. First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, head of the government’stransport and communications commission, said that Russian Railways would not beprivatized before then end of 2019. The Russian state could instead sell off a small sharein the state-owned enterprise, Shuvalov told the Izvestia newspaper.

Russian mobile phone operators could be compensated forimplementing sweeping new anti-terror legislation. Nikolai Podguzov, the deputy head of Russia’s EconomicDevelopment Ministry, hopes the compensation scheme will convince mobile operators to takeon the massive costs of the controversial legislation, the Vedomosti newspaper reported Tuesday. The new laws require mobile operators to store customers’messages, including photos and videos, for six months.

Pixabay A library in Novosibirsk has canceled a quiz about the Harry Potter books, following a reader’s complaint that the quiz included questions that might encourage children to attempt the production of certain potions. According to local news website NGS, the concerned reader claimed the questions about potions posed a public danger. The library has reportedly offered the quiz two years in a row, becoming a popular attraction among local children and adults.

The Yarovaya packet, introduced by politician Irina Yarovaya, introduced a wide-range of strict anti-terror legislation. TASS A man has been fined 70 thousand rubles ($1,180) by aRussian court after failing to tell police that his friend had joined aterrorist group. Ulugbek Gafurov was found guilty after appearing at the KirovskyDistrict Court in the southern Russian region of Astrakhan.

Hours after Russia’s federal censor, Roskomnadzor, blocked the adult video site Brazzers, the same government agency unblocked YouPorn, another even more popular online resource for pornography. “We’ve removed the page on the website YouPorn from the state registry [for banned websites] after receiving a decision to cancel the verdict by a Vladivostok court,” Roskomnadzor said in a press release. Russian censors first blocked YouPorn on Sept. 14, 2016, the same day they also banned PornHub.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has orderedRussia to pay protesters 183,550 euros ($196,000) after refusing to givethem the licence they needed to hold a demonstration. Alexander Lashmankin petitioned the court with several otheractivists after they were denied a permit to hold a public rally in the Russiancity of Samara in 2009.