Crash inquiry is focusing on decision to land Polish jet
MOSCOW — Investigators examining the crash of the Polish president’s plane appeared Sunday to be focusing on why the pilot did not heed instructions from air traffic controllers to give up tryintg to land in bad weather in western Russia.
Female suicide bombers blamed for Moscow blasts
Brazen suicide bombings in the center of Moscow on Monday confronted Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin with a grave challenge to his record of curbing terrorism, and raised the possibility that he will respond as he has in the past by significantly tightening control over the government.
‘Hero of Ukraine’ Bandera splits nation, both inside and out
STARYI UHRYNIV, Ukraine — Half a century after his death at the hands of the KGB, Stepan Bandera, a World War II partisan, has not lost his ability to rally Ukrainians against Russia — and against each other.
Ukraine vote offers a model for the Russians
<i>KIEV, UKRAINE</i>—The apparent victory of Russia’s preferred candidate in the Ukrainian presidential race may be a relief to Vladimir V. Putin, who has long sought to discredit his neighbor’s raucous democracy and its drift to the West.
Russia Says Sanctions Against Iran Are Unlikely
Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov on Thursday all but ruled out imposing new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, brushing aside growing Western concerns that Iran had made significant progress in recent months in a bid for nuclear weapons.
NATO Expels 2 Russian Diplomats on Spy Charge
NATO has expelled two Russian diplomats from its headquarters in Brussels over accusations of espionage, officials said Thursday, threatening a new rift between the two sides just as relations were beginning to improve.
Defiant Envoy to NATO Gives Voice to New Russia
Here is one measure of the aggressive shift in Russian foreign policy in recent days: Dmitri O. Rogozin, Russia’s representative to NATO, a finger-wagging nationalist who hung a poster of Stalin in his new ambassadorial office, is not sounding so extreme any more.
Putin Endorses Loyal Protege To Succeed as Next President
President Vladimir V. Putin on Monday endorsed as his successor Dmitri A. Medvedev, a protege with no background in the state security services and virtually no power base in the Kremlin.