Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will push India to double its payment for renovations on a long-delayed aircraft carrier, while also trying to conclude other deals for arms, nuclear energy and communications during a two-day visit beginning Thursday.

One person was killed and two were reported missing after a blaze early Tuesday in the Opera nightclub.

Russian diplomats pressed British officials for information Tuesday after media reports said a Russian family of three had jumped to their deaths from an apartment building in Glasgow after being denied asylum.

Brothers Boris and Arkady Rotenberg, two long-time Judo acquaintances of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, have large footholds in Gazprom's pipe-building contracts, but Gazprom denies any preferential treatment.

A dozen centuries-old shipwrecks — some of them unusually well-preserved — have been found in the Baltic sea by the Nord Stream consortium building an underwater gas pipeline between Russia and Germany, Swedish experts said Tuesday.

Moscow prosecutors may slap extremism charges against a Polish literary magazine in a case that threatens to strain Polish-Russian relations just a month before Prime Minister Vladimir Putin meets with his Polish counterpart for a historic meeting.

Uzbekistan’s government has instructed health workers to surgically sterilize women as part of a campaign to reduce the birth rate of the country, a human rights group and a think tank said.

A new bill prepared by the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service would prohibit a company with more than 35 percent of the market share of gas stations in a particular area from expanding its operation any further in that region.

A Turkish man armed with a gun and suspected of carrying a bomb was shot and wounded by a security guard when he tried to enter the Ukrainian consulate in Istanbul on Tuesday, Turkish officials said.

President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday accused Sweden of sheltering suspected militants as Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt visited Moscow in an attempt to repair ties between the countries.

The case promises to reignite Russian anger over U.S. adoptions, a delicate issue in U.S.-Russian relations in recent years, and could tangle efforts by U.S. President Barack Obama to "reset" ties that deteriorated under the previous administration.

Bloggers are seething over what they interpret as insensitive comments made by the company after one of its vice presidents, Anatoly Barkov, was involved in a car crash that killed two people. Some have called for a boycott of LUKoil gas stations and a popular rapper has written a song declaring that Barkov will go to hell.

The Kremlin is clearly not content with its diminished power status. But one way it can still project its power globally is to be the spoiler.

The financial collapse in Greece and Spain has compelled the authorities to adopt unpopular measures — measures that Moscow officials refuse to even discuss.

Russia may scrap the ruble and introduce a common currency with Belarus and Kazakhstan as the nations broaden their alliance and seek to reduce their dependence on the dollar, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said Friday.

A lenient sentence for a St. Petersburg man convicted of raping his niece for four years starting when she was 5 provoked an outcry Thursday. A State Duma deputy called the verdict "inhuman" and said he had asked law enforcement agencies to investigate whether the defendant had bribed the judge.

The Cabinet's high-tech commission is to take on broad new powers to enforce its modernization agenda, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced Wednesday, significantly raising the body's profile on his first day as its chairman.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on Friday won pledges for revitalized ties and tighter economic cooperation, including an invitation to join a Russian-led customs union, during his first official visit to Moscow.

The high-stakes hearing is the first major case involving Russia since the State Duma voted in January to ratify Protocol 14 to the European Convention on Human Rights, allowing the court to proceed with reforms.

Iran has given Russian commercial pilots working in the Islamic Republic two months to leave the country because it has no need for them, Transportation Minister Hamid Behbahani said.

Elections in Ukraine as well as in Russia have shown that impoverished people are incapable of making sober decisions and voting responsibly in a popular election.

More than 35 years on, Washington is finally owning up to Project Azorian, a brazen mission from the days of high-stakes — and high-seas — Cold War rivalry.

In mid-January, the Garden Ring Road was choked with traffic as stunned motorists slowed down to gawp at a pornographic film playing on a 9-by-6 meter roadside video billboard. A hacker in Novorossiisk has been linked to the stunt.

Kadyrov had filed libel suits against Lyudmila Alexeyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Oleg Orlov, head of rights watchdog Memorial, and Novaya Gazeta — all having accused the Chechen leader of ordering kidnappings and killings in the North Caucasus republic.

Promises of prosperity for the 2014 Winter Olympics host city ring hollow for the residents of a small neighborhood near the local airport, who have been homeless since a garbage landslide almost two years ago.

The case promises to reignite Russian anger over U.S. adoptions, a delicate issue in U.S.-Russian relations in recent years, and could tangle efforts by U.S. President Barack Obama to "reset" ties that deteriorated under the previous administration.

Bloggers are seething over what they interpret as insensitive comments made by the company after one of its vice presidents, Anatoly Barkov, was involved in a car crash that killed two people. Some have called for a boycott of LUKoil gas stations and a popular rapper has written a song declaring that Barkov will go to hell.

The average fixed mortgage rate for ruble loans has fallen to a post-crisis low of 15.8 percent and the government is fighting for rates to decline even further.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin traveled to Tatarstan on Thursday to oversee the signing of two key auto deals — Fiat agreed to establish a joint-venture with Sollers, while Daimler is to boost its stake in KamAZ.

Considering the West to be Russia’s primary security threat is a throwback to the Cold War and runs counter to Obama’s reset policy.