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”.

Ukraine’s opposition has failed to force out the government with a no-confidence vote in parliament, leaving the country’s political tensions unresolved.

A Boeing 737 airliner crashed in the Russian city of Kazan yesterday, killing all 50 people on board and spotlighting the poor safety record of regional airlines that ply internal routes across the world’s largest nation.

A passenger plane carrying football fans skidded past a landing strip and overturned in Ukraine, killing five people.

Faulty brakes may be to blame for a Russian airliner sliding off the runway and smashing onto a highway near Moscow, killing five people, a member of the crash investigation team said yesterday.

Russian agents have foiled terror attack plans on the Black Sea resort of Sochi, host of the 2014 Winter Games, and seized a large amount of weapons and ammunition, authorities say.

PRE-TAX profits at the overseas duty-free operator owned by the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) last year plummeted by 87% to €3 million.

RUSSIA’S President Dmitry Medvedev called for immediate changes in his country’s troubled aviation industry — including sharply reducing the number of airlines — as the country mourned a crash that killed 43 people and devastated a top ice hockey team.

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.

Investigators were today searching for flight recorders in the shattered remains of an airliner that crashed on the banks of the Volga River, killing 43 people including most of one of Russia's premier hockey teams.

A passenger jet crashed in heavy fog and burst into flames on a main road in north-western Russia, just short of a runway whose high-intensity lights had failed, killing 44 people. Eight people survived.

Eight foreign citizens, including two Britons, were among the 35 people killed in a suicide bombing at Moscow’s busiest airport, Russia’s Emergencies Ministry said today.

Russia has ordered the country’s airlines to stop using Tu-154B planes until the cause of a passenger jet fire and explosion that killed three people is determined.

Gazprom of Russia clinched a deal today to double supplies from Azerbaijan in a bid to expand its control over gas produced by former Soviet republics and to undermine the European Union’s plans for an alternative gas pipeline.

Rescue operations to find 24 workers missing in a Siberian coal mine explosion were suspended today because of fears of a new blast.

Two explosions tore through Russia’s largest underground coal mine, killing 11 workers and injuring 41 others, an emergency services ministry official said today. Another 84 people remained in the mine, including rescue workers.

Companies from four European nations today signed an agreement with Russia’s natural gas monopoly Gazprom to be supplied by a new pipeline – a project that has raised concerns about increasing European dependence on Russian supplies.

The pilot of the Aeroflot jet that crashed, killing all 88 people on board, ignored commands from air traffic controllers, probably contributing to Russia’s worst air disaster in two years, according to reports.

An engine fire appeared today to be the cause of a Russian jet crash that killed all 88 people on board.

A passenger jet travelling from Moscow to the Ural Mountains city of Perm crashed as it was preparing to land early today, killing all 88 people aboard, officials said.

Russia’s prime minister Vladimir Putin today defended Russia’s war in Georgia and insisted that Russia has no intention of annexing the territory of former Soviet republics.

The US today cancelled a once-celebrated civilian nuclear co-operation deal with Russia.

Nato bowed to Russian pressure today by delaying plans to expand eastwards to include two former Soviet republics.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree suspending Russia’s participation in a key European arms control treaty, the Kremlin said today.

Russia’s foreign minister today urged a pro-Kremlin youth group to stop harassing Britain’s ambassador, following a formal protest lodged by the British Foreign Office.

A price increase for Russian natural gas will be painful, but manageable, a Belarusian official said today, while urging Moscow to scrap a new customs duty on oil exports to Belarus.

Senior Belarusian energy officials held talks in Moscow this evening to seek an agreement on a new supply contract for Russian natural gas, hoping to avert a threatened New Year’s Day cut-off that could affect European deliveries, officials said.

Russia’s natural gas monopoly warned Belarus today not to siphon gas from the main pipeline leading across its territory to Europe if it goes ahead with a threatened supply cut-off on New Year’s Day.

Speaking in Vilnius, Lithuania, US Vice President Dick Cheney today caused a stir in neighbouring Russia.

Nato foreign ministers today considered proposals for strengthening support for African peacekeepers struggling to contain political and ethnic violence in Sudan’s Darfur region.

A fire broke out early today in a makeshift barracks for construction workers in the Moscow region, killing 10 and injuring four, the Interfax news agency reported.

The corporate sector is starting to cash in on new markets created by our growing non-national population.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko expressed confidence yesterday that Moscow will not significantly raise the price his country pays for Russian gas, a defiant statement that followed warnings that the rate could skyrocket.

Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, declared the overwhelming winner of weekend elections, said today that his opponents had failed to topple him in a foreign-backed “revolution".

Belarus’ main opposition candidate demanded a new vote today as President Alexander Lukashenko stormed to victory by a massive margin.

The main Belarusian opposition candidate, Alexander Milinkevich, tonight called for new presidential elections as thousands of his supporters jammed a main square in central Minsk to protest the ballot that authorities said would hand incumbent Alexander Lukashenko a huge victory.

Relatives carried the bodies of victims of a roof collapse at a Moscow market out of a morgue in wooden boxes today to put them on flights home, while the discovery of more corpses in the rubble brought the death toll to 66.

Rescuers, pausing frequently to put their ears to the rubble to listen for signs of life, pulled scores of corpses out of a mass of concrete planks and metal beams after the snow-laden roof of a Moscow market collapsed.

THE concave, snow-covered roof of a large Moscow market collapsed early yesterday, killing at least 52 people.

The snow-covered roof of a large Moscow market collapsed early today, killing at least 49 people and forcing rescuers to clear away concrete slabs and metal beams to reach possible survivors trapped in the wreckage.

Police have arrested six suspects in a special operation against an international child pornography ring, officials said today.

Thousands of Georgians jammed the main streets and squares of the capital Tbilisi today to mark the second anniversary of the Rose Revolution protests that drove out the country’s longtime leader and brought Mikhail Saakashvili to office.

Azerbaijan’s opposition, emboldened by international criticism of the parliamentary vote and the government decision to annul the count in two districts, prepared for a massive protest rally tomorrow that it hopes will give it irreversible momentum.

European Union human rights chiefs and the Red Cross are to investigate claims that the CIA set up secret jails in eastern Europe and elsewhere to interrogate al-Qaida suspects.