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.

Vladimir Putin made what seemed to be an implausible promise in August 1999. The newly appointed prime minister said he could end a crisis caused by the incursion of 2,000 rebels from Chechnya into Dagestan in ""a week and a half or two weeks.""

The public protests shook the president and nearly toppled a government. But the thousands of angry demonstrators that flooded onto the streets of towns and cities around the country in January 2005 were not opposition activists protesting the rollback of democracy or Kremlin policy in the Caucasus.

On his first official visit to European capitals since being named the Kremlin's favored presidential successor, First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was in Belgrade and Budapest on Monday, announcing Hungary's participation in the South Stream pipeline and pledging significant economic and political aid to Serbia.

First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has promised to continue Vladimir Putin's policies after his likely landslide victory in the March 2 presidential election. He appears to be continuing Putin's speech patterns as well.

The vodka had been flowing for about 30 minutes when Andrei Bogdanov poured another shot for the plump, elderly woman in a green beret.

Hello to Spring! Goodbye to Winter! Don't worry if you've never heard of either of these festivals, as neither had anyone else until regional officials conjured them up to entice people from their homes and down to their local polling station Sunday.