The January attack on the legendary ballet troupe's artistic director was allegedly masterminded by Pavel Dmitrichenko, a dancer who specialized in villainous roles like Ivan the Terrible.
Before last month's meteor strike, Chelyabinsk was best known for a 1957 nuclear waste disaster. Now officials there are trying to turn the meteor into a tourist attraction.
Some 20,000 people turned out for a protest in Moscow this weekend over the death of a 3-year-old adoptee in Texas, which was ruled an accident. Russian officials are demanding more evidence.
The Kremlin has urged the US to move cautiously. Moscow claims it is doing all it can to promote a settlement in Syria that avoids an Afghanistan-style militant blowback.
Experts say that Putin's message was meant to play well to Russian generals who have resented the dramatic reforms of recent years.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry came out of their Berlin meeting sounding optimistic, in contrast to recent discord in the US-Russia relationship.
But critics say that his high-profile, flamboyant appearances echo the old Soviet-era practice of using sympathetic foreign celebrities to reflect well on the government.
A recent newspaper poll found nearly half of its readers believe that the event could be anything from a divine message to UFOs to a US weapons test.
Many in the West see a perplexing obstructionism in Russia's stands on everything from Syria to adoption. But Russia is working from a fundamentally different understanding of the post-cold war world.
A Kremlin ombudsman says that Russian 3-year-old Maxim Kuzmin was killed by his adoptive Texan mother last month. The accusation has stoked a new firestorm in Russia over US adoptions.
A bus-sized meteor exploded over Russia's Ural Mountains, sparking speculation about everything from a missile attack to the end of the world. The shock waves smashed windows and damaged buildings.
From love-letter scribes for hire in Mexico to the perfect place to escape romantic expectations in Japan, Valentine's Day takes many different forms.
Russia's Internet is facing official efforts to rein it in. Users are in an uproar over suggestions they should soon be sent only to a list of approved websites proposed by The League for Internet Safety.
Analysts say that the Russian president's angry tirade, followed by the official's firing, may be a bit of political theater meant to ease public concerns over the troubled Sochi Games preparations.
The country faces two competing visions of democracy, one that emphasizes majority rule versus another that stresses minority protections.
Volgograd will temporarily revert to its former name, Stalingrad, in commemoration of its WWII Soviet victory. But some see it as a Trojan horse for glorification of Stalinist times.
In her last week as secretary of State, Clinton accused Moscow of being 'unwilling to go forward' in helping to broker a peace deal. The Russian government says she has distorted the picture.
Russian experts say the downturn is a result of Putin's determination to do away with international pacts that he sees as demeaning or forcing Russia into a 'junior partner' role.
In a CNN interview aired over the weekend, the former president and current prime minister commented on Syria, Sergei Magnitsky, and his office-swap with Vladimir Putin.
An ultranationalist party has proposed a bill to ban about 100 English words 鈥� like 'killer' and 'sale' 鈥� that it says are 'cluttering' the Russian language. Language experts are dubious.
