Russia today denied it illegally annexed the Baltic nations in 1940, rejecting demands from the three former Soviet republics that it admit having illegally occupied them during the Second World War.

A top aide to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin today called Ukraine’s election dispute a major test of Russia’s relations with the West and accused politicians in the United States and Europe of fomenting political change in former Soviet republics.

Three simultaneous car bomb blasts killed at least 21 people and wounded more than 100 others today in southern Russia near the breakaway republic of Chechnya.