The infamous opulence of the Russian rich has come under fire from an unlikely source — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

For years, Vladimir Putin has appealed to his electorate with stability and predictability. But on Feb. 9, he questioned the legitimacy of property rights in the country.

London's High Court sentenced Mukhtar Ablyazov, the former head of Kazakhstan's BTA Bank, to 22 months in prison last week for contempt of court. He was found guilty of lying under oath, but there has been no ruling yet on the main question of whether Ablyazov embezzled at least $5 billion of the bank's assets.

Police detained a member of the all-female rock band Pussy Riot after the group gave an unsanctioned concert complete with swear words Tuesday inside Christ the Savior Cathedral.

Russia will not attend an international meeting on the conflict in Syria this week because the Syrian government will not be represented.

Sergei Mokhnatkin greets visitors with the warm smile of an old-world gentleman, but it does little to hide the exhaustion on his face.

Campaign advertisements for presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov are being illegally torn down in a number of cities across Russia, a Prokhorov representative said Tuesday, Interfax reported.

Russia may prohibit its airlines from carbon-emission trading in protest against a European Union law it says is unfair.

A handful of commercial officers at local U.S. diplomatic offices have done their discreet part — that included asking a lot of questions — for American and Russian mutual trade to reach a record high of $43 billion last year.

It was an Ice Age squirrel's treasure chamber, a burrow containing fruit and seeds that had been stuck in the Siberian permafrost for more than 30,000 years.

Russia's armed forces would be within their full rights to use nuclear weapons if any threats to the integrity of the country arise, Russian General Staff head Nikolay Makarov said Wednesday.

Katya moved to Moscow seven years ago and three years later — when she was pregnant with her first child — discovered she was HIV-positive.

Monaco-based potash tycoon Dmitry Rybolovlyev has bought the priciest piece of residential real estate in New York City, paying $88 million for a Manhattan penthouse.

"I'm probably not going to move back for a couple of decades," said Yekaterina Paramonova, a third-year undergraduate majoring in nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, echoing the sentiment of many Russians wh