US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russia's President Vladimir Putin agreed to intensify the drive for a political settlement in Syria but remained divided over Bashar al-Assad's future.
Russia is not trying to bring back the USSR, President Vladimir Putin said in a documentary aired Sunday, but the problem is that "nobody wants to believe it"
Eldar Ryazanov, one of the most popular film directors of the Soviet era whose comedies captured the unique absurdities of life under Communism, died Monday aged 88.
Turkey on Monday sent back to Russia the corpse of a pilot killed when his plane was shot down by the Turkish air force for allegedly violating its air space on the Syrian border.
Moscow slapped sanctions on Ankara as the war of words over a downed Russian warplane escalated, with Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan warning Russia not to "play with fire".