JP O’Malley talked to author Peter Conradi about the authoritarianism behind the growing tension between a former superpower and its neighbours in the Baltic and the EU.

Great rivalries are made at the Olympic Games. We have Michael Phelps and Chad le Clos in swimming, Bolt and Gatlin in the 100m sprint, the O’Donovan brothers and those très cool French dudes in the rowing. But you ain’t seen nothin’ like Ross and Hickey in the egos.

The leaders of Russia, Turkey, and China have cast off quasi democratic checks and balances, but the more autocratic their rule, the more they have to lose, writes Nina L Khrushcheva

Shannon Airport’s celebration of 70 years since the first commercial transatlantic flight into an Irish airport has been marked with a photographic exhibition featuring the many famous people who passed through — and the one who didn’t.

Former Russian prime minister Yevgeny Primakov, whose career included journalism, diplomacy and spycraft, has died at the age of 85.

A fire has broken out in the bell tower of Moscow’s Novodevichy Convent, one of the Russian capital’s most noted visitor attractions.

One by one, thousands of mourners filed past the white-lined coffin of slain Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov yesterday, many offering flowers as they paid their last respects to one of the most prominent figures of Russia’s opposition.

Like Stalin, Putin has nurtured a climate of fear and lawlessness, in which those who rally behind the Kremlin feel a duty to eliminate the leader’s opponents however they can, says Nina L Khrushcheva

Holding placards declaring “I am not afraid”, thousands of Russians marched in Moscow in memory of Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov, whose murder has widened a split in society that some say could threaten Russia’s future.

A leading Russian opposition politician, former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov, has been shot dead, Russian officials say.

Richard Fitzpatrick looks back at the day the Russian premier couldn’t be roused from his plane to meet the Taoiseach

To counteract a weaponised virus, researchers must first know how to create a weaponised virus, and devise a system that infects many hosts.

IN HIS 1979 novel The Island of Crimea, Vasily Aksyonov imagined the region’s flourishing independence from the Soviet Union.

Ever since the Winter Olympics were awarded to Russia, fears were raised about potential terrorist attacks, which have plagued the country since the collapse of the Soviet Union, writes Dmitri Trenin.

A new ‘official’ history of Russia to be used in schools will devote an entire chapter to Vladimir Putin’s domination of politics since he came to power in 2000.

Crisis, what crisis?

Neil Robinson on a biography of Vladimir Putin which concludes that he has turned into another Russian leader who promised more than he could deliver.

Putin governs Russia with all the panache of a Bond villain, says Dave Kenny. Or so his photoshoots suggest

Radiation experts investigating the death of the Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky have given his mansion the all clear.

SHORTLY after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian President Boris Yeltsin allowed a small number of academics to poke around in the previously secret Communist Party and KGB archives.

Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky has lost his High Court battle with Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich.

Monitored by web cameras and a network of volunteer civilian observers, Russians voted today in presidential elections expected to return Vladimir Putin to the Kremlin.

For many Russians, reforms mean not freedom but a slow implosion of life’s possibilities, writes Owen Matthews

HELICOPTER trips, smart skiing holidays and plush properties are just a few of the luxuries that changed Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich’s mind about not imitating a rival’s “extravagant lifestyle”, a London court has heard.

CHELSEA Football Club owner Roman Abramovich is “good at appearing to be humble”, a British High Court judge was told.

WHEN I tell people what I do for a living, their eyes widen.

MOSCOW’S ousted mayor yesterday launched a withering attack on President Dmitry Medvedev, accusing him of promoting a climate of repression and censorship reminiscent of the Stalin era.

FOR the vast majority of families, the luxury of having breakfast just before 9am is just that — a luxury.

RUSSIAN leader Boris Yeltsin was once found near the White House late at night dressed in his underwear, seemingly drunk and looking for pizza, according to a new book detailing Bill Clinton’s presidency.

VLADIMIR PUTIN celebrated a decade in power yesterday, and it appears the former KGB strongman may maintain his grip on Russia’s government for years to come.

The last czar and his murdered family were victims of political repression, a Russian Supreme Court appeals panel declared today.

Emboldened by the oil and natural gas resources at its disposal, falling back on a million soldiers, thousands of nuclear missiles and the third-largest military budget in the world, Vladimir Putin obviously considers the time is right to lay his strong hand of cards on the table

WHEN Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich appeared in the literary magazine Novy Mir back in November 1962, taboos were shattered. Secrets were unearthed. And the Soviet Union was shaken to its foundations.

Ninety years after he was executed, Tsar Nicholas II is leading a tight race to be named the greatest Russian in history.

Dr Michael DeBakey, the world-famous cardiovascular surgeon who pioneered such now-common procedures as bypass surgery and invented a host of devices to help heart patients, has died. He was 99.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has criticised the US for its approach to the war on terror.

Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed his long-serving prime minister today and nominated little-known Cabinet official Victor Zubkov to replace him in a surprise move that could put Zubkov in the running to replace Putin next year.

FIANNA FÁIL would, in public at least, angrily refute any suggestion that we live in a single-party state.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern will address a joint session of the House of Commons and the House of Lords at Westminster today.

The curtain finally fell on the shattered Yukos oil empire today, with a mysterious auction providing a dramatic conclusion to the politically charged, four-year demise of the company that was once Russia’s biggest oil producer.