Wildfires visited dozens of villages in the Volgograd, Saratov and Samara regions, killing at least eight people and reducing more than 500 homes to ruins, officials said.

Sukhoi has broken into the coveted U.S. aircraft market with its new Superjet 100, winning an order for six jets and an option for four more that could be worth $300 million, a spokesman for SuperJet International said.

The head of the European Parliament's subcommittee on human rights harshly criticized Russia's human rights record and said the country would be better off without Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

U.S. knowledge of Russia's nuclear capabilities will dwindle if the New START nuclear arms treaty with Moscow is not ratified, the chief U.S. negotiator argued as a Senate panel on Friday scheduled a vote on the document.

The director of a prominent Belarus opposition web site that has faced pressure from the government was found dead Friday.

Rosneft's board has approved first deputy chief Eduard Khudainatov as its new president, the company said Sunday, ending Sergei Bogdanchikov's 12 years at the helm and tightening chairman Igor Sechin's control over Russia's largest oil producer.

Former cell phone magnate Yevgeny Chichvarkin rules out leaving his exile in Britain voluntarily and says he will be killed in prison if he loses a court battle against extradition to Moscow.

"Zebras" were led back and forth across some of the city's busiest intersections on Friday as part of a police campaign to call attention to the importance of crosswalks, which are routinely ignored in the capital.

Yulia Kruglova, a pregnant mother of four young children, was released Friday after the Samara Regional Court postponed her prison sentence on embezzlement charges until 2022 — when her youngest daughter will turn 14.

President Dmitry Medvedev dispatched Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov to Dagestan on Sunday after the North Caucasus republic was rocked by a series of attacks that killed at least three people and injured dozens, including a local government minister.

Glamorous secret agent Anna Chapman has posed provocatively for a Russian magazine shoot in her first public appearance since she was deported from the United States in a major spy swap.

Russia's hybrid regime, which combines elements of authoritarianism and electoral democracy, makes the nation an unattractive potential partner for global alliances. To improve relations, Russia must modernize and adopt a more predictable political system.

Police detained dozens of protesters attempting to rally late Tuesday at the closed Triumfalnaya Ploshchad in central Moscow, including rally leaders, but did not exert additional force despite a warning from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that the protesters deserved to be beaten.

The deputy chief of the Moscow metro police force was fired Thursday after two of his officers were detained on suspicion of abducting and raping a Belarussian woman this week.

Moscow’s horrendous daily traffic jams and this summer’s wildfires have something in common: The roots of both of these problems can be found in the government’s gross incompetence, Yulia Latynina says.

Russia, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are home to the wealthiest expats, with euro-zone countries falling behind when it comes to paying for foreign expertise, according to a survey of expats released Wednesday.

Police arrested a 28-year-old suspect on suspicion of stealing $41 million from the federal pension fund in an elaborate scheme that involved Cyprus bank accounts, 23 cell phone numbers and a travel regime that avoided the use of trains and planes.

Rather than global warming, it may have been a combination of jet streams, blocking effects and solar activity that caused this summer's drought, the director of an economic think tank suggests.

Russia has done little to reduce its high number of fake diplomas ― but at the same time it requires foreigners to prove that their degrees are valid before they can get a work permit.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin got behind the wheel of a Glonass-equipped Lada Kalina to test the new Amur highway over the weekend, but he complained that the quality of the “historic” road was unsatisfactory and that gas prices were too high.

The country's top doctor implored foreigners not to be scared off by intense smog that has blanketed Moscow for the past three days, even as embassies evacuated staff and at least one closed altogether.

Forty minutes. Just five minutes less than halftime in a football match and about the length of a TV show. It was enough time for a village of 341 houses to burn to the ground in the Nizhny Novgorod region.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin took the pilot's seat in the government's fight against wildfires Tuesday, hopping on a firefighting plane to put out two blazes in the Ryazan region.

Russia looked ready to exchange one natural disaster for another as cold winds swept across the country's northwest on Monday and weather forecasters said hurricane-like gales might replace wildfires and drought.

Bloggers took issue with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's decision to pilot a firefighting aircraft this week, saying he should be fined for operating a plane without a license.

A dramatic nighttime shootout between policemen and car thieves in southwestern Moscow left two people dead and two others injured — and was captured on a video posted on YouTube.

Rock group U2 will be in Sochi to meet President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday, a day before its first concert in Russia. The group is set to discuss its anti-poverty campaign with the president, although Bono joked about canceling the meeting after hearing that Medvedev was a Deep Purple fan.

Now, 20 years after the end of the Cold War, what is hindering a close partnership between Russia and the West? A professor with the Foreign Ministry's Diplomatic Academy names some of the reasons. Cold War memories and economic disputes are just two.

Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev have used controversial tactics in responding to wildfires that have killed 53 people and smog that has sickened millions. But political analysts say public backlash over the fires will be minimal.

Facing an uproar from foreign businesses, the government has promised to scrap a new customs duty on the personal belongings of foreigners moving to Russia. The duties have resulted in foreign households receiving customs bills running into the thousands of dollars.