Russian scientists have breached an ice sheet that has sealed subglacial Lake Vostok in Antarctica for more than 20 million years at a depth of nearly 4,000 meters, reaching a critical stage in a decades-long drilling project.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus on Tuesday, sending a clear message that Russia intends to stand by its strongest ally in the Middle East amid an international outcry over the country's response to a civil revolt.

A schmaltzy music video hailing Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as Russia's savior became a hit on the Russian Internet on Tuesday, with many bloggers and YouTube users poking fun at the song's hyperbolic lyrics.

In Tuesday's second presidential debate of the campaign season, firebrand Vladimir Zhirinovsky harangued Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's levelheaded proxy over her patron's refusal to debate and alleged desire to rule for life.

The Federal Security Service paid over 2 million rubles ($67,000) for an order of nearly 100 typewriters, or about 22,000 rubles per machine.

Signs with English translations of station names will be installed in the Moscow metro as part of the city's effort to create an international financial center, a city transport official said Tuesday.

If politics is a dirty business, then Russia is no exception.

Every failed revolution is followed by a serious repercussion. Considering that the current "White Revolution" is bound to fail, turmoil awaits this country after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is inaugurated as president in May. And it will be a powerful repercussion, like the one that followed the failed revolution of 1905.

People have been asking me all week why the Kremlin is so stubbornly supportive of Syrian President Bashar Assad. "Is Russia's support based solely on weapons contracts with Syria," they wonder, "or the Kremlin's desire to maintain its naval base at the Tartus port?"

Australia is making a renewed effort this year to lift a 2009 ban on imports of kangaroo meat to Russia.

Pussy Riot, a feminist punk collective from Moscow, creates protest through its dissident songs and unsanctioned performances, including a brief unauthorized concert in late January on Red Square.

The history of successive authoritarian regimes in Russia reveals a recurring pattern: They do not die from external blows or domestic insurgencies.

Prime Minister and leading presidential candidate Vladimir Putin acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that he might face a runoff in the March election but warned that it might result in the "destabilization" of the country.

As Moscow braces itself for this weekend's street demonstration against disputed December elections, Russian businessmen on Wednesday expressed their disquiet with the protest movement and the goals articulated by its leaders.

U.S. Senator John McCain has again angered supporters of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin by describing Russia's nascent protest movement as an extension of the Arab Spring uprisings that have shaken and toppled governments across the Middle East.

Almost 14 million foreigners and stateless people legally arrived in Russia last year.

Hungary's state airline Malev stopped flying after 66 years on Friday, citing bankruptcy, amid debts to creditors that include 100 million euros ($130 million) owed to VEB.

The Defense Ministry plans to spend 729 million rubles ($24.5 million) on eight underwater drones made by Icelandic firm Teledyne Gavia.

The cyber front of Syria's year-old civil war spread to Russia this week as pro- and anti-government bots splashed criticism and expressions of gratitude across the Russian Internet, and Syrian hackers attempted to commandeer the website of a Russian embassy.

One of Russia's largest fraud schemes over the past 10 years has affected 70,000 homebuyers who were cheated out of their investments after the developer vanished or declared bankruptcy.

In a city that was once the cradle of Russian democracy, an unprecedented new campaign kicked off over the weekend to install web cameras in every polling station around the country in an effort to prevent voting fraud.

Pussy Riot, a feminist punk collective from Moscow, creates protest through its dissident songs and unsanctioned performances, including a brief unauthorized concert in late January on Red Square.

Two Russian warships arrived in Syria on Sunday, news agencies reported, a visit that will likely be seen as a show of force and a display of support for President Bashar Assad's government.

If Putin gave up power at any age, he and dozens of his friends and colleagues who have become millionaires and billionaires over the past 10 years through their Kremlin-connected businesses could face serious corruption charges. This is why the best, and perhaps only, way for Putin to preserve immunity is to stay in power until death.

Can an entire people go mad? Sometimes it certainly seems so.
Images of hundreds of thousands of North Koreans howling with grief over Kim Jong Il's death suggest something very disturbing. Was this an exercise in mass delusion? A ritual of collective masochism?

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin got very angry last Wednesday when he met with the editors-in-chief of Russia's top media outlets.

A Russian state commission investigating the crash of the Fobos-Grunt Mars probe will conduct tests to see whether U.S. radar played a role in the spacecraft's failure.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin proposed a radical rollback of his own social and fiscal policies in a draft of his presidential program, which touts economic modernization and strengthening rule of law.

U.S. President Barack Obama caused considerable damage to the Kremlin during a visit to the Pentagon last week when he announced a decisive reduction in the military ambitions of the United States. This was a serious blow to Russia's propagandistic stereotype that Washington is still determined to dominate the world, with Russia being at the top of the U.S. list of targets.

Demographics make it a candidate’s market, but foreigners have to offer something unique to find their place.