The U.S. government on Monday unveiled criminal charges against three men for their alleged involvement in a Russian spy ring operating in New York City.
Russia prevented the U.N. Security Council on Saturday from criticizing statements by pro-Russian Ukrainian rebels and condemning an upsurge in violence that has claimed dozens of lives in Ukraine, council diplomats said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed "criminal orders" by Ukrainian leaders on Friday for a surge in fighting in east Ukraine, and Russian-backed separatists struck a bellicose tone in ruling out seeking more peace talks.
Nine years after former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in a plush London hotel in what has been described as Russian "state-sponsored nuclear terrorism", a public inquiry into his death finally begins in the British capital next week.
Russia received a positive initial signal from North Korea after President Vladimir Putin invited its leader Kim Jong Un to attend anniversary celebrations of the Soviet victory over Germany in World War Two, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
Germany's Angela Merkel said on Wednesday she hoped a new round of talks with Ukraine and Russia in Berlin could help implement an elusive ceasefire in eastern Ukraine but warned against expecting too much, given another upsurge in the violence.
Hundreds of thousands of people protested in Russia's Chechnya region on Monday against what its Kremlin-backed leader called the "vulgar and immoral" cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad published by French newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
Tens of thousands of people staged a rally on Monday in Russia's Chechnya region against French magazine Charlie Hebdo's cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, which the predominantly Muslim region's leader denounced as "vulgar and immoral".
Ukrainian troops recaptured almost all the territory of Donetsk airport in eastern Ukraine they had lost to separatists in recent weeks, as thousands gathered in Kiev for a state-sponsored peace march on Sunday.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's nominee for agriculture minister in the new cabinet is on an Interpol wanted list for tax evasion in Estonia, a fact Ghani's spokesman said was unknown to his office at the time of his nomination.
A top NATO official said on Friday it was the wrong time to talk about mending relations with Russia, but EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker sounded more conciliatory, saying the bloc must begin to engage with Moscow again in areas of common interest.
The International Criminal Court has launched an inquiry into possible war crimes in the Palestinian territories, opening a path to possible charges against Israelis or Palestinians.
European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini has suggested EU states could re-engage with Russia on global diplomacy, trade and other issues in return for gradual steps to defuse the crisis over Ukraine.
Germany, Russia, Ukraine and France have decided not to hold a summit on the conflict in Ukraine on Thursday because of a lack of progress in implementing a four-month-old ceasefire agreement.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is unlikely to join world leaders gathering at the site of the Auschwitz death camp this month because distrust caused by the conflict in Ukraine has cast a pall on arrangements to commemorate the Holocaust.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Russian President Vladimir Putin on the phone on Saturday that a four-way summit to discuss the situation in eastern Ukraine would not take place until there was real progress on the Minsk peace plan.
The foreign ministers of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine will meet in Berlin on Monday to discuss the situation in eastern Ukraine and the implementation of the Minsk peace plan, Germany said on Friday.
The new head of Syria's Western-backed political opposition cast doubt on Monday on whether members of his group would attend talks in Russia this month aimed at finding a solution to the nearly four-year Syrian conflict.
Ukraine on Friday reported its first military death of 2015 in its conflict with pro-Russian separatists, saying a soldier had been killed and five others wounded in attacks by the rebels.
A new Syrian opposition group linked to a prominent cleric said on Thursday President Bashar al-Assad would have to step down as part of any political solution to the civil war, setting out its position ahead of possible peace talks in Moscow this month.
