Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday arrived in the Kazakh capital where he was set to sign a deal with his Kazakh and Belarussian counterparts creating a new economic union championed by Moscow.
According to him, the launch of the Union will be a great incentive to develop and modernize our economies and to bring the member states up to leading positions in the world.
Ukrainian forces have suffered fresh losses in a rebel raid in the separatist east as the newly-elected president promised to hold his first talks with Russia's Vladimir Putin on easing the worst East-West standoff since the Cold War.
Fugitive self-proclaimed spy Edward Snowden said Wednesday he wants to return home, as he defended his massive leak of US intelligence secrets, saying abuses of constitutional rights left him no choice.
Opposition protesters stormed the presidency in Abkhazia overnight in what the leader of the Georgian breakaway region called a coup attempt, Russian news agencies said.
Russia has refused to permit the release of a film about the mass deportations of entire ethnic groups on Stalin's orders during World War II, calling it anti-Russian and a falsification of history.
The main airport in Ukraine's eastern city of Donetsk shut down on Monday after being raided by dozens of armed separatists who vowed to keep up their resistance a day after presidential polls.
Russia's ice hockey team avenged their defeat at the Sochi Olympics as watched by President Vladimir Putin they overpowered Finland 5-2 to take gold at the world championships in Minsk.
Chocolate baron Petro Poroshenko claimed a resounding victory on Sunday in Ukraine's presidential election and immediately vowed to end a bloody pro-Russian uprising that thwarted voting across swathes of the separatist east.
Three of the world's biggest miners have warned that government taxes, high costs and a strong currency are putting pressure on their Australian operations, reports said Monday, as they battle falling commodity prices owing to a supply glut.
Russian troops near the Ukraine border will return to base in at least the next 20 days following an order from President Vladimir Putin, the military's chief of general staff said.
Disgraced British fashion designer John Galliano, little-seen since being sacked by Dior in 2011 for making drunken racist tirades, reappeared in Moscow Thursday as creative director of a Russian cosmetics chain.
A Senate panel set aside $100 million Thursday to develop a US rocket engine as an alternative to Russian equipment currently used to launch military satellites into orbit.
A crocodile was injured in Russia when an accountant weighing 120 kilogrammes (260 pounds) fell on him during a bus trip through the arctic north, local media reported.