Pro-EU Ukrainians were reinforcing barricades in Kiev on Saturday ahead of a new mass rally, despite President Viktor Yanukovych signing legislation that placed strict curbs on protests, which drew condemnation from the West.
Russia launches a fresh round of Syrian diplomacy on Thursday when it receives the foreign minister of Iran before hosting his counterpart from Syria ahead of historic peace talks on the bloody crisis.
Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed Monday to stay within international law in the hunt for the perpetrators of two bomb attacks in the city of Volgograd, the United Nations said.
Pussy Riot bandmember Maria Alyokhina, who was freed from prison Monday under a Kremlin-backed amnesty, slammed the measure as a mere publicity stunt and said that she would have preferred to remain in prison.
President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed a decree granting a pardon to Russia's former richest man and bitter Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, allowing his release after more than a decade in prison.
The Russian Supreme Court has ordered a review of the guilty verdicts handed to two members of punk band Pussy Riot, three months before the pair are due to be released from prison, it said Thursday.
Thousands of Ukrainian protesters massed outside parliament in Kiev on Tuesday as lawmakers were set to debate a vote of no confidence in the government over the scrapping of a deal with the European Union.
Though the European Union appears to have lost to Russia in the first round of an East-West tussle over winning friends and influence in eastern Europe, some analysts would disagree.
Jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko called on EU leaders to drop all demands and sign a historic pact with Ukraine without any preconditions at a summit that opens Thursday.
Russia's president on Tuesday called for European leaders to end their criticism over Ukraine's decision to delay a key EU pact, as thousands rallied in Kiev in a third day of protests.
Jailed Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko went on a hunger strike Tuesday in solidarity with thousands of pro-European protesters outraged with the ex-Soviet state's shock decision to scrap a key EU pact.
Italy's Silvio Berlusconi is in for a tumultuous week that will likely see him booted out of parliament and shift into opposition to a government where he is still formally a coalition partner.
World leaders hailed Sunday a "historic" nuclear deal with Iran as a triumph for diplomacy, but cautioned the hard work was just starting to keep Tehran from building a bomb.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Friday the United States will assert its sovereignty in the rapidly thawing Arctic but called on countries to work together to avoid conflict over the untapped frontier.
Having outfoxed him on Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin has now pipped Barack Obama to the title of the world's most powerful leader as ranked by Forbes on Wednesday.
US Senator John McCain penned a blistering column for Russian media, telling the Russian people that their President Vladimir Putin is a dissent-quashing tyrant who "doesn't believe in you."