An American mother and daughter rushed to hospital in Moscow for suspected thallium poisoning arrived home today as colleagues and relatives struggled to understand how they could have been exposed to the potentially fatal chemical.

Former Russian Premier Yegor Gaidar was being treated in a Moscow hospital today several days after falling violently ill at a conference in Ireland, his daughter said.

Russia’s top prosecutor today took charge of investigating the murder of a journalist who was a prominent critic of the war in Chechnya and planned to publish a story about torture and abductions in the region.

Police in Chechnya killed rebel leader Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev during a special operation today, authorities said.

A persistent spell of extreme cold has caused more deaths among Russians stranded on frigid streets but failed to freeze the spirits of thousands who plunged into ice water for an annual ritual marking a Russian Orthodox Christian holiday.

Yukos tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky returns to court for a fourth day for the gruelling reading of the verdict in his fraud case today, with his frustrated lawyers speculating that the numbing pace is aimed at killing interest in the biggest trial in post-Soviet Russia.

Police in a Siberian city have found the charred remains of several children and suspect they may be those of five boys who went missing in April, ending a massive three-week search, a regional prosecutor said today.

SPANISH police arrested 41 people suspected of laundering over €250 million that the nation’s Interior Ministry said may include funds from embattled Russian oil company, Yukos.

Russia’s Communist Party leader laid flowers at Josef Stalin’s grave outside the Kremlin today, leading several hundred mostly elderly Russians who gathered in Red Square to mark the 52nd anniversary of the Soviet dictator’s death, reports said.

A respected Russian editor was sacked today after his newspaper published pages of photos of wounded and dead children and other victims of the school hostage crisis.

Commandos stormed a school today in southern Russia and battled separatist rebels holding hundreds of hostages as crying children, some naked and covered in blood, fled the building through explosions and gunfire.

Russian security forces today seized a man who claimed he was armed with explosives and threatened to blow up his truck in front of the former KGB headquarters in Moscow.