Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed support today for First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to run for president.

Russia’s parliament overwhelmingly approved Viktor Zubkov as prime minister today, and President Vladimir Putin said he was among at least five people who could hope to succeed him next year.

International experts from the United States, Sweden and other nations travelled to Tbilisi today as part of the investigation into Georgia’s claims that a Russian aircraft violated Georgian airspace and dropped or fired a missile that landed near a village.

A senior Russian official said strategic and tactical missiles tested today can penetrate any missile defense system, Russian news agencies reported.

POLAND and Ukraine will host the European soccer championship in 2012 after UEFA awarded them the tournament ahead of Italy and another joint bid from Hungary and Croatia yesterday.

A price increase for Russian natural gas will be painful, but manageable, a Belarusian official said today, while urging Moscow to scrap a new customs duty on oil exports to Belarus.

Russia and Belarus are digging in today in a deepening dispute over natural gas prices, as Russia's state-run gas monopoly Gazprom started the countdown towards a January 1 supply cut unless the neighbouring nation agreed to pay more.

The Russian government is weighing a variety of economic sanctions that could be imposed against Moldova in retaliation for what it considers unfriendly actions by the former Soviet republic, the Interfax news agency today quoted a top Russian diplomat as saying.

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.

Rival factions in Ukraine’s parliament failed today to agree on passing electoral changes aimed at ensuring a fair vote in the nation’s December 26 presidential run-off.

Russia’s lower house of parliament ratified the Kyoto Protocol on combating global warming today, putting the sweeping environmental pact firmly on the road to realisation.

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.

Nineteen people were killed and seven injured in a bus accident in southern Kyrgyzstan today, officials said.

A KUWAITI hospital was last night preparing to receive an Iraqi boy whose arms were blown off in a coalition air raid.

SWITZERLAND conceded yesterday that its air traffic controllers were at least partly to blame for the midair collision of a Russian charter jet and a cargo plane which killed 71 people.

In a renewed attack on former Kremlin insiders, authorities in Russia issued an arrest warrant for tycoon Boris Berezovsky and charged railways minister Nikolai Aksyonenko, the state prosecutor said yesterday.