German opposition lawmakers appealed to the Constitutional Court to oblige the government to bring ex-U.S. spy contractor Edward Snowden to Germany to testify before a parliamentary committee investigating espionage.
Freed former tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky said in Berlin on Tuesday he had no intention of founding a new political party or standing in Russian elections, but wanted his "Open Russia" movement to support fundamental change.
The Ukrainian city of Donetsk was rocked by blasts on Saturday, even as government forces and pro-Russian separatists prepared to create a buffer zone to separate the warring sides.
Ukraine ratified a sweeping agreement with the European Union on Tuesday - an issue at the heart of the Russia-West crisis over its future - and sought to blunt the independence drive of Russian-backed separatists by offering them temporary and limited self-rule.
Russian and U.S. officials will meet in Moscow on Thursday to discuss compliance with a 1987 arms treaty, Interfax news agency quoted a Russian Foreign Ministry official as saying.
Vietnam will soon have a credible naval deterrent to China in the South China Sea in the form of Kilo-class submarines from Russia, which experts say could make Beijing think twice before pushing its much smaller neighbor around in disputed waters.
Russia's Foreign Ministry vowed on Saturday to react if the European Union implements new sanctions against Moscow over its role in the Ukraine crisis.
Officials in West Texas said last Monday they are investigating the "suspicious" death of a 3-year-old boy, who was adopted from Russia. A Russian official blamed the death on "inhuman abuse," He was born on January 9, 2010, and died on January 21, 2013, according to Konstantin Dolgov, the Russian Foreign Ministry's special representative for human rights. "I would like to draw your attention to another case of inhuman abuse of a Russian child by U.S. adoptive parents."
