Britain has blocked a deal by Russian billionaires, Mikhail Fridman and German Khan, to buy 12 oil and gas fields in the North Sea as part of their acquisition of Germany's oil firm DEA from RWE.

A sea of mourning Muscovites marched silently through downtown Moscow on Sunday in honor of Boris Nemtsov, one of Putin's most virulent critics, who was gunned down steps from the Kremlin on Friday night.

It was near closing time on Friday at the upscale Bosco restaurant that looks out onto the illuminated red-brick walls of Moscow's Kremlin. Boris Nemtsov and his young, dark-haired girlfriend were finishing dinner.

The Russian ruble has recorded its biggest monthly gain since the early 1990s amid higher oil prices, an easing of the fighting in eastern Ukraine and a less intensive foreign debt repayment schedule.

The United States and the European Union are unlikely to widen economic sanctions on Russia if a tentative cease-fire emerging in eastern Ukraine takes hold, Western diplomats said on Friday.

Hurray! We are attacking! Thank God! Many are dead and wounded! Thank God!" Thus exclaimed "good soldier Svejk" from the eponymous immortal novel by Jaroslav Hasek. And Russian public opinion today is no less absurd.

Female teachers from the city of Yekaterinburg concerned about pay cuts were told by a regional official that finding a rich husband would put an end to their financial woes, a local news site reported this week.

Cyprus on Wednesday signed a deal with Russia allowing its navy ships to make regular port calls on the island.

A theater director in the Russian city of Novosibirsk is under investigation for allegedly offending religious believers with his staging of a Wagner opera.

An Italian court has sentenced actress Ornella Muti to jail after she took a sick day to skip a theater performance but then flew out to have dinner with President Vladimir Putin at a charity dinner in St. Petersburg, Italian web site Oggi reported.