Napoleon complex
Prominent Russian historian Oleg Sokolov has confessed to murdering one of his former students after he was discovered in a St. Petersburg river with a backpack containing the woman's arms.
Sokolov is believed to have planned to get rid of the body before publicly committing suicide dressed as French statesman and military leader Napoleon Bonaparte, according to reports of his police testimony.
Free willy
Russian authorities said they had completed the release of dozens of captured beluga whales whose plight sparked an appeal by Hollywood celebrities and the intervention of President Vladimir Putin.
The 87 beluga whales, caught last year to be sold to marine parks or aquariums in China, were being kept in cramped conditions in a bay near the Pacific port of Nakhodka along with 11 orcas. Russian media dubbed the mammals’ enclosures a "whale jail."
‘Final invention’
Putin has said that Russian tech firms and the professional community should draft a “code of ethics” to govern interaction between humans and artificial intelligence.
Two years after predicting that whoever leads the AI race would “rule the world,” Putin called the technological race “the toughest and most uncompromising in the history of our civilization.” He added: “some even say that humankind is making its final invention.”
Troop pullout
Ukrainian government forces and Russian-backed rebels began withdrawing from a village in the disputed Donbass region Saturday, one of a series of measures that could pave the way for a summit between Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany.
Moscow has blamed Kiev for delaying the four-way summit.
AK-100
At least 100 schoolchildren marked inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov’s 100th anniversary by assembling and disassembling his famous AK-47 assault rifle at a Moscow park, Agence France Presse reported.
The Kalashnikov Concern manufacturer had said that 15 Russian regions planned to mark the famous inventor’s centenary on Nov. 10.
Includes reporting from Reuters.
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