Moscow - Russia's defence minister said Saturday that almost 88,000 rebels had been killed in Syria in the three years since Moscow's intervention to back government forces.

Sanktpeterburg - Two people died and several more were injured on Friday in an explosion at a fireworks factory outside Russia's second largest city of Saint Petersburg, regional authorities said.

Moscow - Russia's top rights group on Friday said that for the first time in 11 years, Moscow city authorities had refused permission for an annual ceremony honouring victims of Stalin's terror.

Moscow - Russia's Patriarch Kirill blasted the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople as "schismatic" for granting independence to the Ukrainian church, a move that pushed Moscow to cut ties with Orthodoxy's mother church.

Sochi - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said the citizens of many former Soviet Republics regretted the collapse of the USSR, which he described as a "great state".

Sochi - Russians will "go to heaven" as martyrs in the event of nuclear war because Moscow will only ever use nuclear weapons in retaliation, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday.

Moscow - Italy's far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini denounced the "madness" of western sanctions against Russia, during a trip to Moscow Wednesday, and launched a fierce attack on the European Union.

Moscow - A teenage gunman shot dead at least 19 people and injured dozens before killing himself at a technical college where he was a student in Russian-annexed Crimea on Wednesday. Here is what we know so far about the shooting.

Moscow - The trial of Russian stage and screen director Kirill Serebrennikov began Wednesday with a closed hearing, more than a year after he was placed under house arrest in a controversial embezzlement probe.

Moscow - Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin on Tuesday said the G-force during last week's emergency landing of the Soyuz spacecraft felt like a concrete block on his chest but he and NASA astronaut Nick Hague are now in "great" health.

Moscow - Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend a November 11 ceremony in Paris marking 100 years since the end of World War I, his advisor Yuri Ushakov said Tuesday.

Moscow - Orthodox Church leaders from numerous countries on Tuesday called for unity and raised fears of further discord after the Moscow branch announced it would break ties with the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarchate, in what has been described as one of ...

Moscow - Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said Monday he faces a new criminal charge for slander just a day after his release from two consecutive terms behind bars for organising anti-Kremlin protests.

Moscow - An Amnesty International researcher said Monday he was abducted and brutally beaten by men claiming to be from the Russian security service after he travelled to the North Caucasus to monitor peaceful protests.

Moscow - Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was released from jail Sunday after three weeks behind bars for organising anti-Kremlin protests, his second spell in detention in as many months.

Moscow - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday said the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarchate's decision to recognise the independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was a "provocation" backed by Washington.

Russia - Looking at the lush green hills around his native village in Russia's Ingushetia region, 59-year-old Ruslan says that even if this does not seem like much, it should still belong to his people, not their neighbours in Chechnya.

Moscow - The Orthodox Church, the third main Christian faith after Catholics and Protestants, counts between 125 and 180 million believers around the world, mainly in Russia and eastern Europe.

Moscow - Russian President Vladimir Putin met mixed martial arts champion Khabib Nurmagomedov on Wednesday, saying that he did not deserve harsh punishment for a recent post-fight brawl.

Moscow - Five Jehovah's Witnesses have been detained in Russia and charged with possessing weapons and running an extremist group, investigators said Wednesday, in the latest case targeting the banned religious movement.