Billboards around the city show Mayor Yury Luzhkov urging Moscow residents to vote on March 2. But what they will be voting for is not a continuation of President Vladimir Putin's course but of Luzhkov's course.

Zamoskvoretsky District Court sentenced former Nuclear Power Minister Yevgeny Adamov to 5 1/2 years in prison Wednesday, one day after it found him guilty of abuse of office and defrauding Russia and the United States out of millions of dollars.

Vladimir Potanin's Interros, a key shareholder in Norilsk Nickel, said Wednesday that it was considering a possible ""white knight"" bid to merge its metals assets with those of Alisher Usmanov's Gazmetall, as Norilsk Nickel struggles to fend off a merger with RusAl on unfavorable terms.

Complete coverage of the U.S.-Russia summit, being held July 6-8 in Moscow.

The government reacted immediately Sunday to Kosovo's declaration of independence, calling for a meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the move, while former Soviet breakaway regions, long fostered by aid from Moscow, rejoiced at improved prospects of international recognition.

The head of international rights group Human Rights Watch has been denied a Russian visa, scuttling his plans to present a report accusing authorities of shackling nongovernmental organizations with burdensome regulations.

President Vladimir Putin and his likely successor, Dmitry Medvedev visited the country's main flight test center Wednesday and unveiled a plan to help revive the aircraft industry, which fell on hard times after the 1991 Soviet collapse.

Six dark-skinned people have been stabbed to death in Moscow in less than a week. In each case, the victims were male and targeted by young people who did not rob them -- attacks that bear the hallmarks of skinhead violence.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko met President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov late Wednesday, lending her name to a recently concluded gas deal that both countries are touting as a revolutionary step in their notoriously murky trade relations.

Oleg Mitvol, the environmental official who has aggressively targeted foreign oil companies, was struggling to hold on to his job Wednesday after his new boss moved to have him fired.