Seventy-two passengers settled into their seats as their Tu-154 jet lifted off the runway of the Sakha republic's Polyarny Airport for a five-hour flight to Moscow. But 3 1/2 hours later, the plane suffered an electrical failure and made a remarkable emergency landing.

When Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos launched an initiative in January to lift visa restrictions between the European Union and Russia, he raised hopes among Russians and Europeans fed up with long lines and bureaucratic headaches.

A U.S. couple is seeking a plea agreement after being charged with abusing three girls adopted from Russia, a defense lawyer said.

A feud between pro-Kremlin Nashi activists and Oleg Mitvol, prefect of Moscow's Northern Administrative District, escalated on Wednesday when they hung a giant poster of Mitvol on a building in his district that they said housed a brothel.

Ukraine's Russian speakers are making a new push to upgrade the official status of the Russian language, disappointed by President Viktor Yanukovych's failure to do so even though he has tilted key policies toward Moscow.

The Hungarian government announced Wednesday that it had begun discussions about Surgut's purchase of a stake in the national energy company MOL, a deal that has long riled Hungarian authorities.

Two senior U.S. officials promised that Washington would speak openly about its concerns over Russia's human rights record during a meeting with the country's top rights activists Wednesday, two activists said.

Russia is our strategic partner, a European country and our close neighbor, foreign ministers from Hungary and Finland say. The time is ripe to give a new boost to European Union-Russian relations, while continuing open and sincere dialogue based on common interests and values.

A Russian circus has been forced to cancel an act in which a woman swallows a live fish and regurgitates it after Australian officials deemed it cruel.

A hacker was handed a six-year suspended sentence Wednesday after he pleaded guilty to participating in a worldwide scheme to withdraw $9 million from automated teller machines.

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.

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.

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.

Seventy-two passengers settled into their seats as their Tu-154 jet lifted off the runway of the Sakha republic's Polyarny Airport for a five-hour flight to Moscow. But 3 1/2 hours later, the plane suffered an electrical failure and made a remarkable emergency landing.

After Prime Minister Vladimir Putin cruised around the Far East in a Lada Kalina for 11 days, political pundits claimed that it was the start of his presidential campaign. But what is the point of conducting an election campaign in a country that has no real elections?

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.

Tabloids have been reporting that Russian-born model Natalia Vodianova is about to get divorced from her husband, British aristocrat Justin Portman. Vodianova has the ultimate rags-to-riches story, going from a market worker in Nizhny Novgorod to a top model.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin insisted that Russia remained open to foreign investment in strategic sectors, accused jailed former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky of having “blood on his hands” and spoke of Washington and Beijing in uncharacteristically warm terms during a meeting with Russia experts.

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.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin abruptly extended the grain export ban by at least several months from the end of this year because farmers and wholesalers sent grain prices up by holding the latest harvest.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Putin's macho trip to the Far East, where he has shot gray whales, studied mammoth bones and palled around with brown bears, has left government watchers speculating why the prime minister has chosen this moment to burnish his image.