Residents of three sparsely populated Siberian regions have voted to reunite in a resource-rich territory that will be larger than Western Europe, Russian media reported today, extending the trend to increased Kremlin control over the country’s far-flung provinces.

Armed men seized a school in the Russian region of North Ossetia today and were in a gun battle with police.

Suspicions grew today that terrorists were to blame for twin airline crashes, with a top official saying terrorism was the main theory and many Russians insisting the double disaster could not be explained by mere coincidence.

Flight recorders from the wreckage of two planes that crashed almost simultaneously in Russia have not revealed reliable information on the causes of the double disaster, a top Russian official said.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has vowed retribution after an explosion ripped through a stadium in the Chechnya’s capital during a Victory Day parade, killing its president Akhmad Kadyrov.