Russia & CIS

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday she believes there will be progress in the "Normandy format" negotiations on the Ukraine crisis over the next few months.

The former head of Russian athletics Valentin Balakhnichev and the country's former head coach Aleksei Melnikov have been banned from the sport for life over corruption charges.

The Kremlin is worried about North Korea's announcement that it had carried out a hydrogen bomb test, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday.

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill urged people not to weaken under economic difficulties in Russia, the Interfax news agency reported Thursday.

A group of Russian activists said on Thursday they had evidence that Russian aircraft deployed in Syria were armed with cluster bombs, challenging official denials.

A Ukrainian businessman has filed a complaint against Russia in The Hague, saying he was unfairly deprived of his right to operate a passenger airport in Crimea after Russia annexed the peninsula in March 2014.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had an ice hockey training session in Sochi on Wednesday, the Kremlin press office reported.

A reported successful test of a hydrogen bomb by North Korea would amount to a gross violation of international law if confirmed, Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

The European Court of Human Rights has ordered Russia to pay damages to an opposition activist arrested at a 2012 Moscow protest.

Moscow believes there is a high probability that Islamic State is using chemical weapons in Syria, the RIA news agency reported on Tuesday.

Attacks on diplomatic missions can never be a legal means of protest, Russia said on Monday, after Iranian demonstrators stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran.

Despite the crisis, the Russian economy did not collapse in 2015. The decline in GDP in 2015 made up only four percent, although in 2009, the index was larger - eight percent. Such an insignificant decline in GDP against the backdrop of the closed financial market is obviously an achievement for the Russian economy

Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko plans to meet an inspection commission of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) in Moscow on Jan. 11.

A new appraisal names the United States as a threat to Russia's national security for the first time, a sign of how relations with the West have deteriorated in recent years.

A social network account of Russia's communications minister was temporarily blocked on Sunday in a cyberattack carried out by hackers presenting themselves as a Turkish activist group.

This year Russia was caught in the biggest doping scandal in the history of athletics.

About 500 people were evacuated from two railway stations in Moscow on Friday after police were tipped off about bombs being planted.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into a law a bill allowing agents from the Federal Security Service (FSB) to open fire on crowds.

Russian air strikes in Syria have killed 2,371 people - a third of them civilians, including 180 children - according to a tally released Wednesday by a Britain-based monitoring group.