Moscow - Russians have picked Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin as the greatest figure in history, a new poll said Monday, beating President Vladimir Putin into joint second alongside poet Alexander Pushkin.

Moscow - Russia's FSB security agency on Monday said the Telegram messaging service was used by those behind the Saint Petersburg metro bombing, the latest salvo by authorities after they threatened to block the app.

Russia - A young girl with a garland of flowers in her hair sings to the setting sun before a group of women join in nearby. "We give our thanks to you, oh sun," they chant.

Moscow - President Vladimir Putin on Saturday praised Russia's network of intelligence officers as "unique people" who are devoted to the country.

Moscow - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday visited Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula Moscow annexed in 2014, a trip quickly denounced by Kiev as a violation of Ukraine's sovereignty.

Moscow - Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is gearing up to run for the presidency, is ineligible to stand for office, the country's central electoral commission announced Friday.

Moscow - Russian authorities may have succeeded at quashing dissent on television and mass media but a new generation of voters has found a way to still get relevant news: on YouTube.

Moscow - Two Russian warships and a submarine in the Mediterranean have fired missiles at Islamic State group targets in Syria, the defence ministry said Friday.

Admiral Paul Zukunft, Commander of the U.S. Coast Guard, told a U.S. House sub-committee that the U.S. may need icebreakers with surface-to-air missiles to defend U.S. sovereign resources from Russia and China.

Moscow - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday attacked new US sanctions against his country, saying they "seriously threaten the whole relationship" between Moscow and Washington.

Moscow - A Russian court on Thursday jailed the campaign chief of opposition leader Alexei Navalny for five days for organising unauthorised anti-corruption protests across Russia this month.

While the U.S.-supported Syrian Democratic Forces are confronting the Islamic State in eastern Syria and beginning to enter the strategic city of Raqqa, the Syrian Army has been taking control of positions in their rear further west.

Moscow - A NATO military plane on Wednesday approached the plane of Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu above the Baltic Sea, Russian news agencies reported, the third such encounter in three days.

Moscow - The Kremlin on Wednesday hit back at embarrassing media reports that President Vladimir Putin mistook a video of US attacks on Afghanistan for Russian strikes on Syria.

Russia has said that it will now consider US warplanes operating in parts of Syria where its forces are also present as "targets" after the U.S. downed a Syrian jet.

Moscow - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday denounced Washington's "Russophobe obsession" after the United States beefed up its trade sanctions against Moscow for its role in the Ukraine crisis.

Sydney - Inhabitants of the tropics, Middle East and most Western nations are in for progressive murderous heatwaves. New studies by the University of Hawaii indicate a rolling incremental increase in severity of heatwaves worldwide.

Boxing referee Tony Weeks should be praised for his decision to stop the Andre Ward-Sergey Kovalev fight Saturday night to save Kovalev from further punishment following Ward's unrelenting body attack that sent Kovalev rolling down the ropes.

Moscow - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced Monday that the next round of Syria peace talks in Kazakhstan's capital Astana will be held on July 10.

Sovetsk - An intoxicated man was walking back to his home when he was attacked and killed by a pack of stray dogs. The horrible incident was captured on video.