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A Russian opposition politician, whose election as a city mayor last year embarrassed President Vladimir Putin, was detained on Wednesday on corruption charges.

The State Duma is set to vote Wednesday in a first reading on a heavily criticized bill sponsored by the government that would strip the Russian Academy of Sciences of an important source of revenue: the right to lease its premises.

Russia’s state arms exporter said Wednesday that its order portfolio stood at $34 billion as of June 1.

The State Duma on Tuesday passed in the third and final reading the long-awaited economic crimes amnesty bill, which will free several thousand businessmen from the nation’s prisons.

China will join Russia later this week for its largest-ever naval drills with a foreign partner, underlining deepening ties between the former cold war rivals along with Beijing’s desire for closer links with regional militaries.

The new Venezuelan President is on his first visit to Europe. The most important stop of that trip is Moscow, where on July 1-2 he will, among other things, might try to be part of the developments around Edward Snowden, a former NSA agent, who is now somewhere in the Russian capital. The Venezuelan leader […]

[Golos, Russia’s only independent election monitor, is the first NGO to succumb to the controversial new law forcing groups that receive foreign funds or engage in “political” activities to register as “foreign agents.” — Ed.] The Ministry of Justice has suspended activities of the “Golos” association for six months. The organization is surprised by this […]

Billionaire Roman Abramovich has resigned from his only government post – chairmanship of the Chukotka regional assembly – to avoid falling foul of a new law banning officials from holding assets abroad, in a development that some analysts said threatened to cut off funding to a remote area of Russia.

Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters in Moscow on Tuesday that Mr Snowden had called back his request after the Russian president said the American would have to stop harming US interests if he wanted to stay.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says both Washington and Moscow are seriously committed to organizing an international conference on Syria.