MOSCOW – A Russian court has ordered the arrest of Jewish former businessman and oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a spokesman for Russia’s Investigative Committee, Vladimir Markin, was quoted as saying on Wednesday by the RIA Novosti news agency.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday one of its warships, the destroyer Smetlivy, had been forced to fire warning shots at a Turkish vessel in the Aegean Sea to avoid a collision and that it had summoned the Turkish military attache over the incident.
What could possibly link an ultra-luxury spa hotel on the Aegean Sea in Greece, the most violent criminal gang in Russia’s living memory, and a web of prosecutors in the country, leading right up to the family of the general prosecutor?
Russia symbolically handed over a puppy to France on Monday to replace a police dog called Diesel who was killed during a raid linked to the November 13 Paris attacks.
Israel has quietly tested ways of defeating an advanced air-defense system that Russia has deployed in the Middle East and that could limit Tel Aviv’s ability to strike in Syria or Iran, military and diplomatic sources said.
Russia’s defense ministry said on Wednesday it had proof that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his family were benefiting from the illegal smuggling of oil from Islamic State-held territory in Syria and Iraq.
The Israel Air Force does not need anyone’s permission, including Russia’s, on where and when to operate in the region, an IAF officer told reporters, discussing his country’s air coordination with Russia.
Flaunting the concerns of the US, Russia’s state-owned RIA Novosti news agency announced on Thursday that Moscow has deployed its advanced S-400 anti-aircraft missile system to a base in Syria.
Russia’s security chief, FSB head Alexander Bortnikov, acknowledged that terrorism downed a Metrojet flight which crashed in the Sinai several weeks ago, killing 224 people – long after Western intelligence declared that terrorist involvement was ‘probable.’
Moscow does not consider Shi’ite Muslim group Hezbollah to be a terrorist organisation, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying on Sunday.