Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Wednesday that his main foreign policy goal was maintaining good ties with Russia and Germany, adding that the United States was an important partner but not the central focus of foreign policy.
Ex-KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko, who died three months after drinking tea poisoned with a radioactive isotope, told British police that Russian President Vladimir Putin was personally behind his killing, an inquiry heard on Tuesday.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has confirmed he will attend celebrations in Russia in May marking the Soviet victory over Germany in World War Two, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said on Wednesday, citing a Kremlin spokesman.
Russia prevented the U.N. Security Council on Saturday from criticizing statements by pro-Russian Ukrainian rebels and condemning an upsurge in violence that has claimed dozens of lives in Ukraine, council diplomats said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed "criminal orders" by Ukrainian leaders on Friday for a surge in fighting in east Ukraine, and Russian-backed separatists struck a bellicose tone in ruling out seeking more peace talks.
Nine years after former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in a plush London hotel in what has been described as Russian "state-sponsored nuclear terrorism", a public inquiry into his death finally begins in the British capital next week.
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill called on Thursday for a deep cut in the "horrifyingly high" number of abortions, which he linked to a Western rejection of moral norms.
Russia received a positive initial signal from North Korea after President Vladimir Putin invited its leader Kim Jong Un to attend anniversary celebrations of the Soviet victory over Germany in World War Two, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
Two performance artists were arrested after pouring holy water on the Red Square tomb of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin and shouting "Rise and be gone!", Russian media reported.
Hundreds of thousands of people protested in Russia's Chechnya region on Monday against what its Kremlin-backed leader called the "vulgar and immoral" cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad published by French newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
Tens of thousands of people staged a rally on Monday in Russia's Chechnya region against French magazine Charlie Hebdo's cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, which the predominantly Muslim region's leader denounced as "vulgar and immoral".
Ukrainian troops recaptured almost all the territory of Donetsk airport in eastern Ukraine they had lost to separatists in recent weeks, as thousands gathered in Kiev for a state-sponsored peace march on Sunday.
Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was questioned on Friday by Russian investigators and his offices were raided by police in what colleagues called an attack on his anti-corruption campaigning.
A top NATO official said on Friday it was the wrong time to talk about mending relations with Russia, but EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker sounded more conciliatory, saying the bloc must begin to engage with Moscow again in areas of common interest.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is unlikely to join world leaders gathering at the site of the Auschwitz death camp this month because distrust caused by the conflict in Ukraine has cast a pall on arrangements to commemorate the Holocaust.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Russian President Vladimir Putin on the phone on Saturday that a four-way summit to discuss the situation in eastern Ukraine would not take place until there was real progress on the Minsk peace plan.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised New Year's address on Wednesday that the "return home" of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula to Moscow's control would forever remain an important chapter in Russia's history.
A Russian court gave Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny a suspended sentence on Tuesday for embezzling money but jailed his brother for three and a half years in a case seen as part of a campaign to stifle dissent.
Ukraine's President said on Monday he would meet the leaders of Russia, France and Germany on Jan. 15 in an attempt to restore peace to Kiev's eastern territories and acknowledged Kiev lacked the resources to regain control by military means.
The United States is using corruption allegations against some Hungarian public officials as a "cover story" to boost its influence in central Europe amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Tuesday.
Russia will not be intimidated over its actions in Ukraine and Crimea, President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday as his foreign ministry warned that it was preparing to retaliate against fresh Western sanctions.
