Russia & CIS

Azerbaijan has a strong base to withstand shocks, Shahmar Movsumov, Executive Director of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan Republic (SOFAZ), wrote in his letter published in Financial Times Feb. 5.

Armenian solider Simon Chavrshyan, 20, was killed in a gunfight with Azerbaijani armed forces in Armenian-occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.

According to a military diplomatic source, Russia’s Mediterranean Sea ship task force could reach 20 warships depending on set assignments.

The Russian government could broaden the list of excisable goods to include palm oil, soda and chips, the Vedomosti newspaper reports.

The government of Azerbaijan and Ministers' Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina held discussions of the final text of agreement on international automobile ties in Sarajevo on February 4.

President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Thursday stopping the refugee flow is not possible without a halt to the continued airstrikes by Russia and the Assad regime against Syrian civilians.

Armenian armed forces violated the ceasefire with Azerbaijan 110 times using large caliber machine-guns in various directions of the contact line of troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said.

Azerbaijani oil has gone up in price.

Prime Minister Artur Rasizade has introduced alterations to the Rules of Transporting Passengers and Baggage by Automobile Transport.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has delivered a speech at a London conference on Syrian crisis.

The Russian government could broaden the list of excisable goods to include palm oil, soda and chips, the Vedomosti newspaper reports.

The Foreign Ministry on Thursday said Russia will take "compensatory measures" in response to U.S. plans to expand its military presence in Europe, news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Mercury, the luxury brand distributor that manages Moscow's TsUM department store, is developing a tourist shopping tour to increase the number of Chinese customers, the RBC news website reported Thursday.

The European parliament has named the return of the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, to Ukraine as one of the necessary conditions for lifting sanctions against the country.

An international team of hackers, who were exposed in November by Russian special police services, managed to infiltrate the world’s biggest payment systems including VISA and MasterCard, a spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs said Thursday.

Russia suspects Turkey may be secretly preparing to invade northern Syria after Ankara denied a Russian military plane access to its airspace as part of a treaty-mandated surveillance flight on Feb. 3.

A Russian military adviser was killed in a mortar attack in Syria on February 1. According to sources in the Syrian army, the shelling could be conducted from the side of Turkey. The shelling of command posts of Syrian armed forces in the north of the country has become more frequent during the recent several weeks

Navy's deputy commander-in-chief f said that Russian Navy high command and representatives of leading shipbuilding enterprises will discuss the outlook for submarine and above-water shipbuilding during a conference in Saint Petersburg.

The possibility of the Zika virus entering Russia is being controlled, it will be immediately isolated should it be brought into the country, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets said on Thursday.

Thirty-six percent of Russians consider their country to be one of most powerful in the world, the Interfax news agency reported Thursday, citing data from the independent Levada Center pollster.