Thousands of mourners threw flowers on a slow-moving hearse and joined an enormous viewing line at Warsaw’s Presidential Palace to pay their respects to Lech Kaczynski and his wife as their bodies lay in state.

A RUSSIAN chimpanzee has been sent for rehabilitation treatment by zoo-keepers to cure his smoking and beer-drinking habits, a newspaper reported yesterday.

A RUSSIAN electrician took the bus home from a vodka binge, ate breakfast and slept off his hangover never realising a kitchen knife had been plunged into his back.

Russian authorities have detained two suspects over the killing of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, it was claimed today, although her newspaper dismissed the report as “absolutely wrong".

Chechen Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov said in an interview published today that he and his security service had set the target of killing rebel warlord Shamil Basayev by May 9, the first anniversary of Kadyrov’s father’s assassination in a bombing at a Victory Day parade in the Chechen capital Grozny.

Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov today warned a US victory in Iraq was “far from certain,” and said the campaign was prompting Moscow to strengthen its own armed forces.