News Highlights

A local man was detained in western Russia for putting up for sale six mortar bombs, police in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad said.

Russian stock markets fell sharply Monday during the first day of trading in 2014, with one benchmark index shedding almost 4 percent.

The Russian Embassy in Dakar has asked Senegal’s Foreign Ministry to explain the detention of the Oleg Naidenov trawler, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Monday.

President Vladimir Putin has lifted a ban on public protests during the Olympics opening next month in Sochi, four months after signing an order banning demonstrations during the winter sports event.

At $51 billion, the Sochi Games are the costliest ever, surpassing the $40 billion spent by China on the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Investigators in Russia said Thursday that they will press charges against an opposition activist over claims he struck police officers during an anti-government rally in Moscow earlier this week.

A pro-Kremlin civic movement headed by President Vladimir Putin has registered its first regional office in Russia, the party’s website said Friday.

Twenty-eight people were detained in central Moscow on Tuesday during an unsanctioned rally calling for the government to uphold the constitutional right to free assembly.

A prominent Russian Orthodox Church academic has been sacked from his post as a professor at a Moscow theological school for writing blog posts and giving interviews at variance with the Church’s official position on current affairs.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the recent suicide attacks in Volgograd as “indefensible”, during a visit to the city.