Category: RUSSIA

• MOSCOW
• Saint Petersburg
• Kazan

Russia on Saturday called for the earliest possible normalization of the military and political situation in the Middle East, urging all parties involved to prevent the situation from developing into a catastrophic scenario.

Expressing concerns over the situation in Middle East and West Asia, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar on Thursday said that there remains a "widespread anxiety" that the ongoing conflict would spread further in the region.

During the summit - themed 'Strengthening Multilateralism for Just Global Development and Security' - the BRICS leaders will discuss three main areas of cooperation outlined by the Russian chairmanship - politics and security, economics and finance, and cultural and humanitarian contacts.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday held bilateral discussions on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in the Russian city of Kazan.

Highlighting the time-tested India-Russia partnership and his friendship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday emphasised that the bond between the two countries is so strong that PM Modi would understand him without needing the help of any translator.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday reiterated to Russian President Vladimir Putin that India is ready to provide any possible assistance in the future to resolve the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday once again hailed India's rising global stature and the strength of its growing economy under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The aim of the drills is to assess the combat readiness of the Russian Navy and the Air Force, as well as to check their interoperability, he said as he joined the opening of the exercise via video link.

Russia's air defence forces thwarted Ukraine's overnight drone attacks targeting Moscow and several other Russian regions, officials said on Sunday.

The Kremlin said that the Indian PM informed Putin about his recent visit to Kyiv, emphasising his interest in contributing to a possible political and diplomatic settlement of the situation around Ukraine.

Lauding India's "widely-recognised track record of success", Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Moscow attaches great importance to the privileged strategic partnership between the two countries.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation has expressed concern about the recent turmoil in Bangladesh, saying that it looks forward to the internal political processes in Bangladesh returning to the Constitutional norms as soon as possible.

Infuriating his fellow European Union leaders, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban made a surprise visit to Russia on Friday and held talks with President Vladimir Putin.

Two Orthodox churches, a synagogue, and a traffic police station in Russia's Dagestan region were attacked on Sunday, leaving a priest and around 10 security personnel, including local policemen, dead, and over two dozen injured, reports said.

Russia could change its nuclear doctrine, which provides for the use of nuclear weapons only in retaliation if the country is attacked with weapons of mass destruction or faces an existential threat from conventional warfare, if the threats and challenges to the country continue to grow, a top Russian parliamentarian said on Sunday.

The Ukrainian Air Force has reported that Russia launched several attacks on Ukraine using various missiles, including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles.

The 71-year-old leader was quick to add that the conversation - including on issues of security and strategic stability - is possible "only on equal terms, respecting each other's interests" and "not from a position of strength".

Ukrainian drones attacked the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) on Sunday, including one on the dome of the 6th power unit, according to the plant's press service.

Russia's space agency Roscosmos has said that its Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the moon after it ran into "unspecified trouble", the media reported on Sunday.

Luna-25 took off atop a Soyuz-2.1b rocket from the Vostochny launch facility in Russia at 2:10 a.m. Moscow time (4:40 am IST) on Friday, TASS news agency reported.

The explosion happened on Wednesday morning at around 10:40 a.m. local time at a pyrotechnics warehouse, which was being rented out on the optical-mechanical plant's territory by a private company, said Governor of the Moscow Region Andrei Vorobiev in a Telegram post.

Putin made a case for India as he discussed the opportunities for Russian companies due to the West’s sanctions policies, and the need for the Moscow to “offer support tools to help our companies market their products more efficiently".

A US Air Force MQ-9 Reaper surveillance drone was brought down over the Black Sea, after what its European Command (EUCOM) described as "an unsafe and unprofessional intercept" by two Russian jets, media reports said.

In a major move, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday announced that his country was suspending its participation in the New Start treaty - the sole remaining strategic weapons reduction treaty between the US and Russia.

The US has been reaching out to armed groups that oppose the Taliban and secretly giving money to Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS), as per Russia's Presidential envoy for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, media reports said.