Vladimir Putin’s decision to withdraw his forces from Syria puts Russia in a powerful position as negotiations on the future of the war-torn country get under way, writes Mark Galeotti

Vladimir Putin has warned that the Russian military will “immediately destroy” any targets threatening its forces in Syria.

In a move raising the potential threat of a Russia-NATO conflict, Russia says it will deploy long-range air defence missiles to its base in Syria and destroy any target that may threaten its warplanes after the downing of its military jet by Turkey.

Russia's defence minister says the country will have a military unit permanently stationed in the Arctic by 2018.

Russia is using warships in the Caspian Sea to target the so-called 'Islamic State' state group in Syria, defence minister Sergei Shoigu said.

Ukraine said its artillery destroyed part of a Russian armoured column that entered its territory on Thursday night and said its forces came under shellfire from Russia yesterday in what appeared to be a major military escalation between the ex-Soviet states.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has ordered troops deployed in regions near Ukraine to return to their home bases, the Kremlin said.

The United States and other nations in the Group of Seven have agreed to “move swiftly” – as early as Monday – to impose additional economic sanctions on Russia for its actions in Ukraine.

Russia’s defence minister has announced new military exercises along the Ukrainian border just hours after Ukrainian troops killed at least two pro-Russia insurgents in eastern Ukraine.

Nato’s foreign ministers have ordered an end to civilian and military co-operation with Russia and told their generals and admirals to quickly devise ways to better protect alliance members that feel threatened by Moscow.

Russia sharply hiked the price for natural gas to Ukraine today, raising the heat on its cash-strapped government, while Ukrainian police moved to disarm members of a radical nationalist group after a shooting spree in the capital, Kiev.

Vladimir Putin has called US president Barack Obama to discuss a diplomatic solution to the Ukrainian crisis.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has said Ukraine could regain some arms and equipment belonging to military units in Crimea that did not switch their loyalty to Russia.

President Vladimir Putin completed the annexation of Crimea yesterday, signing the peninsula into Russia at nearly the same time his Ukrainian counterpart sealed a deal pulling his country closer to Europe.

Russia’s order for 150,000 troops to test their combat readiness near Ukraine’s border has prompted a blunt warning from the United States that any military intervention in the crisis-torn nation would be a “grave mistake”.

Fighting broke out between pro and anti-Russian demonstrators in Ukraine’s Crimea region as Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered military exercises just across the border.

President Vladimir Putin has reportedly ordered an immediate test of combat readiness of troops in central and western Russia.

Expanding Russia’s military presence in the Arctic region is among the armed forces’ top priorities, president Vladimir Putin has declared.

The Russian leader hooks, nets, lands and snogs a sizeable pike while fishing on his holidays. Is there anything he can't do?

The re-election of Vladimir Putin has seen Russia stifle dissent and put reform on the back foot; moves that recall the age of Stalin, writes Nina L Khrushcheva.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has fired the country's defence minister two weeks after a criminal probe was opened into alleged fraud in the sell-off of military assets.

Firefighters have extinguished a massive fire aboard a docked Russian nuclear submarine as some crew members remain inside, officials say.

A major fire aboard a docked Russian nuclear submarine that injured seven crew members with toxic fumes and left others stuck inside the vessel appeared to be brought under control today.

President Dmitry Medvedev has called for rapid changes in Russia’s troubled air transport industry as the country mourned a crash that killed 43 people, among them most of a leading hockey team.

RUSSIA said there was little hope of finding any more people alive after an overloaded tourist boat sank in the Volga river, killing as many as 128 people in Russia’s worst river accident in three decades.

More than 100 people, many of them children, were feared drowned today after an overloaded Russian cruise ship sank on the Volga river.

FIRES have scorched forests contaminated with radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, a Russian forestry official said yesterday, but it was unclear what danger the smoke from such wildfires could pose.

Wildfires that have wiped out Russian forests, villages and a military base sent the thickest blanket of smog yet over Moscow today, as emergency officials said the death toll had reached 48.

Fears grew today that there are not enough crews to battle the devastating wildfires sweeping western Russia, as the country’s emergency chief said some were out of control.

About 30 people have died in the last three days as massive forest fires wiped out villages and vast areas of woodland in Russia, state television reported today.

Rescuers struggling through the blast-shattered corridors of a Siberian coal mine have nearly reached the last area where any of 30 missing miners could still be found after two explosions, the emergency ministry said today.

The confirmed death toll after an explosion at a coal mine in Siberia has risen to 44, while the fate of 46 others still underground is unknown, Russian officials said today.

Russian state television said the death toll from two explosions in the country’s largest underground coal mine rose to 30, with about 60 people still trapped.

FOUR people were ordered to remain in jail yesterday pending an investigation into a nightclub fire that killed at least 112 people in Russia’s worst blaze in decades, investigators said.

Four people were held in jail tonight pending an investigation into a nightclub fire that killed at least 112 people in Russia’s worst blaze in decades, investigators said.

President Dmitry Medvedev demanded that Russia tighten its notoriously lax fire codes after the deadliest blaze since the Soviet era killed at least 107 people celebrating in a nightclub with a decorative twig ceiling and single exit.

Russia’s top investigative body said the number of people who died in a nightclub fire in the Urals city of Perm has risen to 109.

Russian authorities launched a probe into a possible terror attack today after an express train carrying hundreds of passengers from Moscow to St Petersburg derailed, killing at least 39 people and injuring scores of others.

Hopes were fading today for 64 workers missing after an accident at Russia’s largest hydroelectric plant.

An accident at Russia’s largest hydro-electric plant has killed seven people and shut down the plant.

Flooded caverns and flammable gas hampered the search for workers missing after an explosion at a Siberian coal mine as Russia held a day of mourning for the 108 killed in the country’s worst mining disaster in more than a decade.

One hundred and six people have been killed in a methane gas explosion in a Siberian coal mine – Russia’s deadliest mining disaster in a decade.

The concave, snow-covered roof of a three-decade-old Moscow market collapsed early today, killing at least 31 people and trapping about 10.