News Highlights

A militant was killed Monday during a clash with security forces in the capital of Russia’s republic of Dagestan, just as some parts of the city were placed on lockdown.

At least five people were injured in a grenade launcher attack followed by a car bomb blast outside a restaurant in the capital of Russia’s restive North Caucasus republic of Dagestan.

In recent weeks Russia has stepped up supplies of military gear to Syria, including armored vehicles, drones and guided bombs, boosting President Bashar al-Assad just as rebel infighting has weakened the insurgency against him, sources with knowledge of the deliveries say.

Dutch authorities have reached a compensation agreement with the mother of a Russian opposition activist who committed suicide after being denied political asylum in the Netherlands last year, a Dutch media outlet said Thursday.

Syria’s foreign minister on Friday proposed a ceasefire in the battle-scarred city of Aleppo and an exchange of prisoners with the country’s opposition forces ahead of an international conference on the country’s future next week.

The head of the republic of Chechnya claimed Thursday to have new evidence that the country’s most notorious Islamist militant is dead, just as Russia braces to host the Winter Olympics amid heightened security in the nearby resort of Sochi.

Russia is not “going after” gays, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday, defending a ban on “propaganda of homosexuality” that has brought criticism from the West ahead of the Winter Olympics.

Russia said Friday that gas drilling technology likely to be used by Ukraine could pollute water supplies for Russians living near the border between the two countries.

Two senior U.S. lawmakers have introduced legislation that would expand to all countries the Magnitsky Act passed in 2012 to penalize Russian officials for alleged human rights abuses.

The owner of a Russian trawler that was seized by Senegal on suspicion of illegal fishing has paid a $1 million fine to release the vessel, a Russian state fisheries spokesman said Friday, signaling a possible end to a dispute that has ensnarled relations with the West African nation for two weeks.