US Secretary of State John Kerry called his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Thursday to express concern about a visit to Moscow by the commander of Iran's covert forces.
Kiev's public relations war with Moscow scaled new heights as Ukraine released a list of prominent Russian reporters and authors whose books will be banned from sale.
A Russian opposition coalition co-led by leading Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has had nearly all its candidates barred from September regional and local elections.
OSCE observers based in the separatist stronghold of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine said that four of their vehicles were destroyed in an apparent arson attack at their hotel.
The EU formally extended until next year a multi-million-euro aid package to help European fruit and vegetable growers hit by Russian sanctions over the Ukraine crisis.
Russia's tight-knit free diving community has been left reeling by the tragic disappearance of Natalia Molchanova, who vanished last week during a dive.
Russian officials steamrolled tonnes of cheese, fruit and vegetables, defying public outrage to begin a controversial drive to destroy Western food smuggled into the crisis-hit country.
French President Francois Hollande said there would be "no difficulty" in finding new buyers for two Mistral warships that had been sold to Russia before Paris scrapped the deal.
President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev has signed the ratification of the agreement on Kyrgyzstan's joining to the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).
French President Francois Hollande's office said he had reached an agreement with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on compensation for failing to deliver two Mistral warships over the Ukraine crisis.
Earlier Kazakhstani residents just withdrew their entire pension savings when moving to another country and managed the entire amount at their own discretion.
Kazakhstani boxer Gennady Golovin (33-0, 30KOs), the holder of the WBA Super, IBO and WBC Interim middleweight titles from Kazakhstan, was named among the Top 5 boxers from the post-Soviet space according to BoxingPlanet.ru.
The widow of a Russian ex-spy fatally poisoned in London said she believed a British judge-led inquiry had uncovered the "truth" into his death as it heard its final submissions.