The United States has asked Vietnam to stop letting Russia use a former U.S. base to refuel nuclear-capable bombers engaged in shows of strength over the Asia-Pacific region, exposing strains in Washington's steadily warming relations with Hanoi.
Suggestions that Russian politician Boris Nemtsov was killed by Chechen Islamists are nonsense designed to deflect suspicion from President Vladimir Putin, associates of the slain opposition figure said on Monday.
Russian authorities said on Sunday they had charged two men over the killing of Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov and said one of them was a former senior policeman from the mainly Muslim region of Chechnya who had confessed to involvement in the crime.