News Highlights

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law Tuesday imposing tougher penalties for extremism-related crimes.

A teenage gunman has shot dead a police officer and a teacher, and held more than 20 students hostage during a siege at a school on the outskirts of Moscow.

A court has found three men guilty of murdering a fellow villager in Russia’s Far East in a homophobic hate crime, local prosecutors said Monday.

Russian opposition figure and anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny, who is restricted from travelling outside Moscow, has requested permission to visit Sochi during the Winter Olympics, according to his blog and his press secretary.

Russia’s Audit Chamber has exposed a fraud scheme in the construction of prison facilities that resulted in undue benefits to the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN).

US Secretary of State John Kerry has asked Russia to press its ally Syria into speeding up the removal of chemical weapons.

Thousands of people gathered for a protest march in downtown Moscow on Sunday urging the authorities to drop charges against a group of activists facing lengthy jail terms over a 2012 mass anti-Kremlin rally.

A Ukrainian opposition leader wanted for inciting mass anti-government protests said Monday that he had fled to the United Kingdom over fears that he could be arrested.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych is to return to work on Monday after four days of illness, with protesters still demanding he give up power.

Hungary’s left-wing opposition parties are promising that if they win April 6 elections they will hold a referendum on a government deal with Russia to expand the country’s only nuclear power plant.