Vyacheslav Opalev KIROV — A key prosecution witness whose testimony triggered charges of embezzlement against a Russian opposition leader contradicted himself in court on Thursday, but then insisted that any inconsistencies [...]

Russia’s only independent election monitoring group was fined 300,000 rubles ($10,000) on Thursday for failing to register as a foreign agent — the first enforcement by Russian authorities of a much-disputed law. The parliament [...]

Gazprom has warned European companies against what it alleges are illicit resales of Russian gas to Ukraine, stepping up pressure on its neighbor in a long-standing contractual dispute. Ukraine argues that it is being forced to pay too [...]

The Justice Ministry will decide whether to register the People’s Alliance party, which backs outspoken Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, by May 8, the ministry’s press service said Thursday. The decision will be made based on the [...]

Sergei Pomazun A court in Belgorod on Wednesday granted a petition to extend the detention of the suspected gunman in Monday’s shooting spree for one month and 29 days. Sergei Pomazun, accused of killing six people in Monday’s [...]

All 122 workers were safely evacuated from a mine in the Urals that caught fire early on Thursday, the Emergency Situations Ministry said. Rescuers immediately brought 112 of the 122 workers to the surface, eight more climbed out on their [...]

Police in India warned the country’s population about getting involved in the MMM financial pyramid which was founded by Sergei Mavrodi and left millions of Russians cheated in the 1990s, an Indian newspaper has said. The [...]

The Skolkovo Foundation might sue State Duma Deputy Ilya Ponomaryov, if an inquiry into his work for the foundation reveals that he acted in bad faith, the foundation’s president, Viktor Vekselberg, said Thursday. “Most likely [...]

A photo taken by witnesses showing the damage at the scene. A criminal case has been opened after a construction crane fell on a Mercedes believed to belong to the Prosecutor General’s Office in the Novosibirsk region [...]

DAMASCUS — Syria hopes to clinch more financial aid from its allies Russia and Iran soon, but still has enough foreign reserves to pursue its war on rebels trying to oust President Bashar al-Assad, the central bank governor said. Speaking [...]

Konstantin Lebedev A close ally of opposition leader Sergei Udaltsov was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in a penal colony on Thursday for plotting mass riots at last May’s rally on Bolotnaya Ploshchad, which ended in violence [...]

Military cadets watching a rollerskater in St. Petersburg on Wednesday prior to a Victory Day parade rehearsal. This is part of an occasional series. As part of his effort to promote patriotism among younger generations of Russians, [...]

The call-in show, which has been held since 2001, is one of Putin’s favorite ways of communicating with the nation. The Moscow Times ran a live blog of President Vladimir Putin’s 11th televised call-in show, [...]

Sharapova blowing a kiss in a marketing photo for her Sugarpova line of candies. For her first truly independent venture outside of a tennis court, Maria Sharapova is relying on familiar tools: high heels, her cover-girl lips, and [...]

State Duma lawmakers have passed in a third and final reading a bill banning government officials from holding overseas bank accounts and foreign-issued equities. The new regulation, which was approved late Wednesday in the lower house, [...]

Over 100 refugees arrived in Domodedovo Airport on Thursday aboard a Russian plane delivering humanitarian aid to conflict-torn Syria, a spokesperson for the airport said. The Emergency Situations Ministry plane landed at Domodedovo [...]

Kommersant 1. Afanasy Sborov et al. report headlined “Adoption of profits” says that seeking additional budget revenues, the state is stepping up pressure on companies with state shares over 50 percent and demands [...]

Seventy-one years ago today, on April 25, 1942, the Moscow mint was founded under the Russian unitary enterprise Goznak, which oversaw the process of making rubles. The mint’s first task was to manufacture medals and awards [...]

ExxonMobil was a highlight of an investment conference in Moscow on Wednesday, attended by U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul, where speakers discussed the prospects of U.S. business in Russia. Organized by the American Chamber of Commerce [...]

MAKHACHKALA — U.S. investigators are in contact with the parents of the two Boston bombing suspects in southern Russia and working with Russian security officials to shed light on the deadly attack, a U.S. Embassy official said Wednesday. The parents [...]

A study released Wednesday of people’s printing habits in the office, conducted by the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center, or VTsIOM, demonstrated that document printing was on the increase in Russia. Among 500 respondents [...]

Since Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency in May, civil society has been the target of a government crackdown whose scale and severity is unprecedented in post-Soviet Russia, two leading international human rights organizations [...]

A Kremlin tower is reflected in the windshield of a car double parked and blocking other vehicles on Ulitsa Nikolskaya on Wednesday. The sign says “Oh, sorry, I’m not here for long” and provides a phone number. At least one [...]

The Moscow region transportation department on Wednesday received the first 10 buses to be used at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, out of a total of 709 ordered from GAZ Group. Mostransavto, the main public transportation operator in the [...]

Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest nickel and palladium producer, may suspend operations at its Tati Nickel mine in Botswana after a sharp drop in metal prices, a company document showed on Wednesday. Global prices for nickel, [...]

President Vladimir Putin has ordered the government to draft proposals by July 1 to limit severance packages for the top executives of some state corporations, but most state companies are unlikely to be affected by the restrictions, [...]

Russian Muslims, like those seen here praying at Moscow’s central Mosque, go on hajj via the Najm-Tur agency. Investigators are conducting a preliminary check into whether Akhmed Bilalov, a former vice president of the Olympic [...]

The Central Elections Commission says it will leave it to individual regions to decide whether to use webcams prompted by the disputed 2011 Duma elections for this September’s single voting day. The final decision on whether to use [...]

Intrinsic deficiencies rather than external shocks can turn the current slowdown in the Russian economy into a full-blown recession, research conducted at the Higher School of Economics has found. Valery Mironov and Vadim Kanonov from the [...]

Billionaire Mikhail Fridman’s Altimo has secured a $3.2 billion loan from Sberbank, part of which will be used to pay for a share conversion of telecom firm VimpelCom‘s stock, a U.S. regulatory filing disclosed. Altimo said [...]