A TOP Russian soccer official has accused the political establishment of interfering in forthcoming elections to replace the country’s long-serving football chief Vyacheslav Koloskov.

Angry pensioners demanding that their social security benefits be restored staged a second day of protests in President Vladimir Putin’s home city, joining the call from protesters in other cities for him to resign.

International mediators were renewing efforts today to defuse Ukraine’s political crisis, with the opposition and government locked in a tense stand-off awaiting a Supreme Court decision on the disputed results of the presidential election.

Ukraine’s two rivals for power failed in nearly three hours of talks to resolve the political stalemate over who will lead the bitterly-divided nation.

THE rivals for the Ukrainian presidency sat down and talked last night with European and Russian envoys and the man they both hope to succeed.

The rivals at war over the Ukrainian presidency sat down and talked tonight with the man they both hope to succeed and European and Russian envoys.

Russia’s lower house of parliament set hearings on ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on combating global warming for Friday, State Duma speaker Boris Gryzlov said today.

Russia’s prime minister signed a government order today officially approving the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and sending it to President Vladimir Putin, who is to submit it to parliament for ratification.

THE Russian Duma marked its first session since the Beslan siege yesterday by rejecting a motion to restore capital punishment.

President Vladimir Putin today nominated Mikhail Fradkov, a former tax police chief who is Russia’s representative to the European Union, to the post of prime minister.

Russia has vowed to hunt down the terrorists responsible for the suicide bombing of a train that killed 42 people near Chechnya.

Three women and a man took part in the suicide bomb attack that killed at least 40 people and wounded scores on a Russian commuter train packed with school children and students near war torn Chechnya today.

A blast believed to have been caused by a woman suicide bomber ripped through a Russian commuter train near the war-torn region of Chechnya today, killing at least 36 people and wounding dozens.

THE final moments in the life of a Russian bomb disposal expert were captured on film yesterday as he vainly tried to defuse a deadly package carried by a Chechen “black widow” into central Moscow.

The final moments in the life of a Russian bomb disposal expert were captured on film today as he vainly tried to defuse a deadly package carried by a Chechen “black widow” into central Moscow.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has cancelled a planned trip to Uzbekistan and Malaysia because of suicide bomber attacks on a Moscow rock festival that killed 15 people, the Kremlin said today.

Sixty seven hostages in the Moscow theatre crisis have been killed.

The governor of Russia's Far Eastern region of Magadan has been shot on a busy Moscow street.

The Russian Prime Minister has hit out at the drunken soccer fans who rioted in Moscow after their national side was beaten by Japan at the World Cup.

Russian President Vladimir Putin today made his most sweeping Cabinet changes since his election a year ago, naming his Security Council chief as the new defence minister.

Russian MPs are preparing a proposal that could force President Vladimir Putin to choose between firing his Cabinet or dissolving parliament.