A ride down a ski slope inside a giant inflatable ball ended in tragedy for two Russian men inside.

THE head of Russia’s deep cover US spying operations has betrayed the network and defected, a Russian paper said, potentially giving the West one of its biggest intelligence coups since the end of the Cold War.

Ingushetia’s prime minister has reportedly been injured in an assassination attempt after two powerful explosions hit the city of Nazran in southern Russia.