A RUSSIAN spacecraft carrying an American and two Russians blasted off yesterday from the snow-covered Kazakh steppes in a faultless launch that eased anxiety about the future of US and Russian space programmes.

AS Russia’s space agency struggled to fix a probe bound for a moon of Mars that instead got stuck in Earth’s orbit, some experts said the chances of saving the $170 million craft looked slim.

RUSSIA launched a €470 billion rearmament plan yesterday to counter the West’s military dominance by adding eight nuclear submarines and hundreds of warplanes to its creaking armed forces.

A US proposal to install part of its missile defence system in former Warsaw Pact nations would be a "clear threat" to Russia, a leading Russian general said today.