Kavkaz

Russia has spared Ukraine from a steep price rise in gas for the time being despite a row over arms sales to Georgia.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Moscow said that the involvement of Georgia by the United States into a military operation against Iran will pose an additional threat to Russia’s national security.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Representatives of Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan and representatives of international companies convened in the port of Astrakhan, Russia on Thursday to attend the first Intergovernmental Economic Conference of the Caspian littoral states.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is in St Petersburg in Russia, helping to mend ties between the two countries.

NABAKHTEVI, Georgia (Reuters) – EU monitors entered a Russian-controlled buffer zone around Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia for the first time Wednesday in what they said was a smooth start to their peacekeeping operation.

ODZISI, Georgia (Reuters) – Riding in a rickety truck laden with furniture, Zina Zakarashvili gave European Union ceasefire monitors an early glimpse on Wednesday of the human face of the conflict between Russia and Georgia.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia is considering blasting a railway line through the Caucasus mountains to link up with South Ossetia, the breakaway region of Georgia over which Moscow and Tbilisi fought a war in August.

FRANKFURT/MOSCOW (Reuters) – European and Russian policymakers urged U.S. politicians to pass a new version of a $700 billion bank rescue package on Wednesday as a new Senate vote on the bailout loomed.

Ingush man was in critical condition at a city hospital Thursday after escaping from a Moscow basement where he was reportedly held captive and tortured by law enforcers as revenge for the 2004 Beslan school seizure.

A brother of the GRU’s (The Main Intelligence Directorate) “Vostok” gang ringleader Sulim Yamadayev, Ruslan (Khalid) Yamadayev shot dead in central Moscow Wednesday, Russian news agencies reported.