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A 26-year-old Belarusian man escaped from...

A 26-year-old Belarusian man escaped from Moscow"s Butyrka prison on Monday. Officials were at a loss as to how he managed to make his way to freedom.

A Cambodia-flagged cargo ship with 24 Russians...

A Cambodia-flagged cargo ship with 24 Russians on board has been stranded in the Sea of Japan after the main engine failure amid a snow storm, a local sea rescue center official said on Friday.

A colleague of Russian Orthodox priest Daniil...

A colleague of Russian Orthodox priest Daniil Sysoyev who was recently murdered in Moscow has been beaten.

A deputy commander of Tajikistan"s border...

A deputy commander of Tajikistan"s border guard troops has been detained on suspicion of drug trafficking and accepting bribes, the director for the Tajik agency for financial control said on Tuesday.

Anastasia Virganskaya, granddaughter of...

Anastasia Virganskaya, granddaughter of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev secretly got married in Moscow last weekend, Lifeshowbiz.ru reported.

A Proton M carrier rocket bearing three...

A Proton M carrier rocket bearing three Glonass satellites will be launched from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan on March 2, Russian space officials said on Monday.

A Russian court has sentenced a man who...

A Russian court has sentenced a man who illegally cut rare species of trees to nearly four years behind bars, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said on Friday, praising the unusually harsh sentence.

A Russian deputy prime minister said the...

A Russian deputy prime minister said the country"s environmentalists are aiming to "trash" the 2014 Olympics in Russia"s Black Sea resort city of Sochi instead of taking "a constructive stance."

A Thai worker has been killed by a Palestinian...

A Thai worker has been killed by a Palestinian rocket attack in southern Israel, an emergency service source said.

A video recording has appeared in the case...

A video recording has appeared in the case of a car accident involving the chauffeur-driven Mercedes of a vice president of Russia"s largest independent oil company, LUKoil, that resulted in two deaths.

Bulgaria"s concerns over the environmental...

Bulgaria"s concerns over the environmental impact of Russia-backed plans for an oil pipeline through its territory may pose problems for the project, Russia"s energy minister said.

CSKA Moscow will attempt to become the first...

CSKA Moscow will attempt to become the first Russian club to make the last four of the Champions League for almost two decades when they host Inter Milan on Tuesday evening.

Investigators launched on Saturday a criminal...

Investigators launched on Saturday a criminal probe into an attack on a police patrol in western Moscow which left one officer dead and another badly injured, a police source said.

Iran hopes that Russia will fulfill its...

Iran hopes that Russia will fulfill its contract for the supply of S-300 air defense missile systems, an Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday.

LAS PALMAS, September 19 (RIA Novosti) -...

LAS PALMAS, September 19 (RIA Novosti) - Spain has again refused to accept the Arctic Sea vessel in the port of Las Palmas, a port administration official said Saturday.

Manuel Zelaya, the former president of Honduras...

Manuel Zelaya, the former president of Honduras, will be allowed to freely return to his homeland, current President Porfirio Lobo said on Friday.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon announced...

Mexican President Felipe Calderon announced on Friday new measures to simplify visa issuance to Russian nationals in an urge to give a boost to the country"s tourism industry.

Millions of Russians went to the polls on...

Millions of Russians went to the polls on Sunday to vote in regional elections seen as a popularity test for the ruling United Russia party amid rising unemployment and housing and utilities prices.

Moscow and Kiev could be plunged into a...

Moscow and Kiev could be plunged into a new diplomatic row with Ukraine"s presidential administration insisting the new Russian ambassador"s credentials should not be accepted, a Russian daily said on Friday.

MOSCOW, April 8 (RIA Novosti) - A senior...

MOSCOW, April 8 (RIA Novosti) - A senior Kremlin official has said that there is no need no move Lenin from his resting place on Red Square, and that any attempt to do so could have serious consequences.

MOSCOW, August 11 (RIA Novosti) - Russia...

MOSCOW, August 11 (RIA Novosti) - Russia produced 18,349,000 carats of raw diamonds in January-June 2009 worth a total of $1.2 billion, a rise of 4.6% year-on-year, the Finance Ministry said on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, August 24 (RIA Novosti) - Russia"s...

MOSCOW, August 24 (RIA Novosti) - Russia"s Elena Dementieva has climbed one spot to fourth place in the WTA rankings following her victory in an all-Russian final at the Rogers Cup tennis tournament in Toronto.

MOSCOW, August 27 (RIA Novosti) - Eight...

MOSCOW, August 27 (RIA Novosti) - Eight men detained last week on suspicion of hijacking the Arctic Sea cargo ship have been arraigned on piracy and kidnapping charges, Russia"s special investigations committee said on Thursday.

MOSCOW, August 4 (RIA Novosti) - Depopulation...

MOSCOW, August 4 (RIA Novosti) - Depopulation rates in Russia slowed by 30.2% in the first six months of 2009 year-on-year, a Russian vice premier said on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, December 9 (RIA Novosti) - A draft...

MOSCOW, December 9 (RIA Novosti) - A draft law to toughen control over electronic media, including in the Internet, as part of efforts against extremism has been withdrawn from Russia's lower house of parliament for further discussion.

MOSCOW, January 25 (RIA Novosti) - An Ethiopian...

MOSCOW, January 25 (RIA Novosti) - An Ethiopian airliner with more than 90 passengers on board disappeared from radar early on Monday and is believed to have crashed into the Mediterranean Sea.

MOSCOW, January 25 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's...

MOSCOW, January 25 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's president arrived Thursday in India hoping to strengthen Moscow's economic and military ties with its traditional partner in Asia.

MOSCOW, July 22 (RIA Novosti) - Russian...

MOSCOW, July 22 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law to regulate the production and turnover of ethyl alcohol and alcoholic products, the presidential press service said Friday. The State Duma, parliament"s lower house, adopted the law on July 8 and the Federation Council, parliament"s upper house, adopted it on July 13. The law aims to improve the legal regulation of this area of the economy, strengthen state control and protect consumers from black-market products. The law expands the authorities of the federal bodies of state power. Under the law, they will introduce a unified state automated system to calculate the volumes of produced and sold ethyl alcohol and alcoholic products. If there is no information in the system about certain products, the products will be confiscated. Authorities will also be charged with defining the procedure to license alcohol retail sales and ensuring that organizations observe license rules. The law states that state enterprises and organizations with paid-in equity capital worth no less than 10 million rubles, or $349,650, can produce ethyl alcohol, while state enterprises and organizations with paid-in equity capital worth no less than 50 million rubles, or $1.75 million, can produce vodka. Putin spoke in Kaliningrad on July 2 at a State Council session. He criticized the current alcohol market regulation system and advocated a state monopoly on alcohol.

MOSCOW, March 13 (RIA Novosti) - At least...

MOSCOW, March 13 (RIA Novosti) - At least 10 people were killed on Saturday morning in a suicide bomb attack at a security checkpoint in northwest Pakistan, police say.

MOSCOW, March 25 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's...

MOSCOW, March 25 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Oxana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin won a compulsory dance at the 2009 World Figure Skating Championship in Los Angeles to take the lead in the event.

MOSCOW, March 29 (RIA Novosti) - The World...

MOSCOW, March 29 (RIA Novosti) - The World Wildlife Fund has asked Russians to switch their lights off for one hour on Saturday as part of Earth Hour, a global event to promote energy conservation and raise climate change awareness.

MOSCOW. (Maxim Krans, RIA Novosti political...

MOSCOW. (Maxim Krans, RIA Novosti political commentator) - On September 1, 2004, The North Caucasus town of Beslan became know to the world for a tragic reason. A terrorist group took hostage 1,128 people who gathered at a local school on that day; two days later, 319 hostages including 187 children were killed in the storming of the building. Hundreds of schoolchildren and their relatives were injured.

MOSCOW. (Nikita Petrov exclusively for RIA...

MOSCOW. (Nikita Petrov exclusively for RIA Novosti) - Russia and the United States have completed talks on the U.S. plans to deploy a third positioning ABM region in Europe.

MOSCOW, November 14 (RIA Novosti) - Russia"s...

MOSCOW, November 14 (RIA Novosti) - Russia"s top health official urged the government Tuesday to introduce a state monopoly on alcohol amid the rising death toll from bootleg vodka in the country. Russia has recently been swept by large-scale outbreaks of alcohol poisoning in several regions as bootleg vodka and poisonous substitutes have been sold at low prices in the country. Hundreds of Russians have died and several thousand others have been hospitalized in Russia with toxic hepatitis caused by substandard vodka in recent weeks. Gennady Onishchenko said alcohol consumption has increased considerably in the country in the last 10 years. "In the 1990s, per capita consumption of alcohol stood at 7.6 liters. In 2005, the figure was already 9.7 liters," Onishchenko said. Onishchenko said his department and the Interior Ministry were taking active measures to expose bootleg vodka and alcohol substitutes. Some critics have blamed a new alcohol regulation policy, introduced in July, for causing widespread confusion and an attendant shortage of alcohol, leading many to resort to substandard bootleg liquor.

MOSCOW, November 27 (RIA Novosti) - A dozen...

MOSCOW, November 27 (RIA Novosti) - A dozen race-hate youth groups have been uncovered in Russia's two largest cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as in the Moscow Region in 2008, an Interior Ministry official said on Thursday.

MOSCOW, October 11 (RIA Novosti) - Russian...

MOSCOW, October 11 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Sunday identified priorities for the domestic economy"s modernization, with energy efficiency, information technology, civilian nuclear energy and pharmaceuticals outlined as target areas.

MOSCOW, October 12 (RIA Novosti) - Russian...

MOSCOW, October 12 (RIA Novosti) - Russian and foreign investigators have agreed on a unified approach to probing the July seizure of the Arctic Sea dry cargo ship and its crew, a spokesman for Russian investigators said on Monday.

MOSCOW, October 22 (RIA Novosti) - Russian...

MOSCOW, October 22 (RIA Novosti) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will pay a brief working visit to Sri Lanka on October 26, the ministry said on Friday.

MOSCOW, October 23 (RIA Novosti) - Countries...

MOSCOW, October 23 (RIA Novosti) - Countries that do not threaten Russia have no reason to fear its new military doctrine, the Russian foreign minister said on Friday.

MOSCOW, October 23 (RIA Novosti) - Neither...

MOSCOW, October 23 (RIA Novosti) - Neither Russia nor Ukraine are seeking to revise the terms of an agreement on the presence of Russia"s Black Sea Fleet in the Crimea, the countries" foreign ministers said on Friday.

MOSCOW, October 29 (RIA Novosti) - Alrosa...

MOSCOW, October 29 (RIA Novosti) - Alrosa, Russia"s largest diamond miner, said on Thursday it sold diamonds worth $1.73 billion in January-October 2009.

MOSCOW, October 5 (RIA Novosti) - Pyongyang...

MOSCOW, October 5 (RIA Novosti) - Pyongyang is ready to discuss with foreign mediators the nuclear problem on the Korean Peninsula in bilateral and multilateral formats, the official N. Korean news agency KCNA said on Monday.

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti economic correspondent...

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti economic correspondent Maria Selivanova) - The struggle against corruption in Russia is, more often than not, fictional. There is practically no real progress, which is borne out by the results of the annual report published on November 17 by the international non-governmental organization Transparency International.

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator...

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator Ilya Kramnik) - The transfer of the aircraft carrier Vikramaditya, formerly known as Admiral Gorshkov, to India has been planned for several years already.

MOSCOW, September 1 (RIA Novosti) - Russia...

MOSCOW, September 1 (RIA Novosti) - Russia marks on Monday the fourth anniversary of the Beslan school tragedy during which 331 people died, including 186 children.

MOSCOW, September 22 (RIA Novosti) - Companies...

MOSCOW, September 22 (RIA Novosti) - Companies developing the Shtokman gas condensate field in the Russian sector of the Barents Sea have so far invested $500 million, the project operator said on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, September 23 (RIA Novosti) - United...

MOSCOW, September 23 (RIA Novosti) - United Co. Rusal, the world"s biggest aluminum producer, has filed an appeal against a Guinean court ruling that overturned its deal to buy the Friguia bauxite and alumina complex.

MOSCOW. (Viktor Danilov-Danilyan for RIA...

MOSCOW. (Viktor Danilov-Danilyan for RIA Novosti) - Developed countries' obligations on the Kyoto Protocol will come into force on February 16.

NEW DELHI, October 9 (RIA Novosti) - India...

NEW DELHI, October 9 (RIA Novosti) - India will discuss the modernization of the Russian-made Su-30MKI aircraft in service with its air force during an upcoming military-technical cooperation meeting in Moscow, the country"s Defense Ministry said on Friday.

Polish Prosecutor General"s office said...

Polish Prosecutor General"s office said on its website it was looking into four preliminary versions of the recent air crash that killed President Lech Kaczynski.

Residents in the Urals city of Perm are...

Residents in the Urals city of Perm are bringing flowers on Sunday to the scene of a deadly nightclub fire that killed at least 112 and injured over 120 people.

Reuters Moscow said Thursday certain Internet...

Reuters Moscow said Thursday certain Internet media distorted the true meaning of an interview Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov gave the news agency recently.

Roman Pavlyuchenko"s former club Spartak...

Roman Pavlyuchenko"s former club Spartak Moscow are unwilling to pay Tottenham Hotspur"s asking price of 15 million pounds ($24.3 million) to bring the unsettled international back to Russia.

Russia could soon stop issuing biometric...

Russia could soon stop issuing biometric passports due to technical problems, a newspaper reported on Tuesday citing the head of the Federal Migration Service.

Russia is the second largest producer of...

Russia is the second largest producer of internet child pornography in the world after the United States, Russia"s ombudsman for children"s rights said on Monday.

Russia needs the support of U.S. and European...

Russia needs the support of U.S. and European businesses to enter the World Trade Organization, Russian Deputy Prime Minster Igor Shuvalov said on Thursday.

Russian energy giant Gazprom plans to spend...

Russian energy giant Gazprom plans to spend some 14.9 billion rubles ($505 million) on oil and gas offshore development in India and Vietnam in 2010, a business daily said on Tuesday.

Russian energy giant Gazprom will hold talks...

Russian energy giant Gazprom will hold talks with Bulgaria in January on the implementation of the project to build the South Stream gas pipeline, the Russian energy minister said Thursday.

Russian Olympic Committee President Leonid...

Russian Olympic Committee President Leonid Tyagachev resigned on Wednesday, two days after President Dmitry Medvedev said sports officials should quit over the country’s poor showing at the Vancouver Winter Olympics.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has welcomed...

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has welcomed signs of a "steady normalization" in Iraq, the Kremlin press service said on Saturday.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said...

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Thursday he was not backing Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko"s presidential bid.

Russia"s aluminum giant RusAl said on Tuesday...

Russia"s aluminum giant RusAl said on Tuesday it had appointed two Hong Kong representatives as independent directors to its board of directors as the company was preparing an initial public offering (IPO) on the Asian trading floor.

Russia"s official unemployment rate grew...

Russia"s official unemployment rate grew 1.8% to 2.2 million people over the past week, the country"s Health and Social Development Ministry said in a statement on Monday.

South American countries have resolutely...

South American countries have resolutely condemned Monday"s deadly bombings in the Russian capital"s subway, local media reported Tuesday.

SUKHUMI, September 23 (RIA Novosti) - Abkhaz...

SUKHUMI, September 23 (RIA Novosti) - Abkhaz President Sergei Bagapsh confirmed Tuesday that two Russian military bases are to be stationed in the republic, recognized as an independent state by Moscow on August 26.

The Arctic Sea cargo vessel which was hijacked...

The Arctic Sea cargo vessel which was hijacked last year will take to the seas again in February, the Russian Seafarers" Union said on Friday.

The Customs Union between Russia, Belarus...

The Customs Union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan could well adopt a single currency at some point in the future, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said on Friday.

The female suicide bomber who set off a...

The female suicide bomber who set off a bomb at Park Kultury metro station on March 29 has been identified, a source of the Russian security service in the North Caucasus Federal District said.

The growing number of convicts suffering...

The growing number of convicts suffering from tuberculosis poses a danger of epidemics in Russian prisons and demands compulsory medical treatment, the head of the medical department of the federal prison service said on Wednesday.

The Kremlin"s invitation to Poland"s premier...

The Kremlin"s invitation to Poland"s premier to attend events to mark the massacre of thousands of Polish POWs by Soviet forces in WWII is an important step in the improvement of bilateral ties, the senate speaker said on Thursday.

The Middle East Quartet of international...

The Middle East Quartet of international mediators has called on Israel to freeze all settlement activity in East Jerusalem, saying it will "use all powers" to resume Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

The number of Russian conscripts evading...

The number of Russian conscripts evading military service has significantly increased while the courts refuse to bring them to justice, a deputy chief of the General Staff said on Thursday.

The presidents of Russia and the U.S., Dmitry...

The presidents of Russia and the U.S., Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama, agreed on Friday to sign a new arms reduction treaty in Prague on April 8, the White House said in a statement.

The rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan...

The rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan creates security risks for bordering Central Asian states, the head of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) said on Thursday.

The Russian coat-of-arms is a golden two-headed...

The Russian coat-of-arms is a golden two-headed eagle perched on a red heraldic shield. Above the eagle are three historical crowns of Peter the Great, and in its talons the eagle holds a scepter and an orb, while depicted on a red shield on its breast is a horseman slaying the dragon with his spear.