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The Russian Communist Party has announced it will form a coalition government with the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) in three regions where Kremlin-backed candidates suffered rare gubernatorial election defeats over the past week. Incumbents from the ruling party in the Far East Khabarovsk region and central Russia’s Vladimir region lost gubernatorial runoffs to LDPR on Sunday. Candidates from the Communist Party and A Just Russia will compete for the governor’s seat in the Siberian republic of Khakasia on Oct. 7 after its governor’s withdrawal from the race. “We will now form a coalition government in Khabarovsk, Vladimir and Khakasia,”...

Putin stirs up fears of nuclear war by taking secret briefcase to funeral of ultranationalist Russian politician. Russian President Vladimir Putin stoked fear of nuclear war by bringing a secret case containing the codes to remotely launch a nuclear attack to the Moscow funeral of a politician on Friday. According to media reports, Putin was accompanied by a man in a dark suit carrying the briefcase – the Russian equivalent of the U.S. President’s “nuclear football” which contains launch codes for the country’s nuclear weapons – while attending the funeral of ultranationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky. As Putin paid his respects...

A pregnant journalist was recovering in hospital last night after a pro-Kremlin political leader in Russia told two male aides to ‘violently rape’ her. Nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky launched his extraordinary tirade after reporter Stella Dubovitskaya asked him an innocuous question about sanctions against Ukraine. The 67-year-old MP’s outburst came before a deadly gunfight at a Ukraine checkpoint controlled by pro-Russian separatists tore apart an Easter truce.

The official website of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia had announced that it will be putting forward a motion in the Russian State Duma to relieve Ilya Ponomarev of his duties as an MP. Ponomarev became the only lawmaker out of 446 who voted against ratification of the treaty annexing Crimea. "On April 7th, the faction will introduce a motion before the State Duma to recognize that Ilya Ponomarev had lost the authority of a deputy, because he opposed the interests of the state, blindly obeying the Nazis who want to split the country " – was said in...

Far-right Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky says Poland and Baltic states risk being “wiped out” in the escalating conflict over Ukraine. “They will be wiped out. Nothing will remain there. The heads of these dwarf states should think who they are,” Zhirinovsky, a deputy speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament (Duma) said in an astonishing outburst on the state-backed Russia 24 TV channel station on Monday. The 65 year-old leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, an opposition politician who is seen as a close ally of the Kremlin, said that the fate of Eastern Europe is in...

February 2, 2011, 3:33 pm Investment Banking | Legal/Regulatory Police Search Deutsche Bank Office in Russia By ANDREW E. KRAMER 6:10 p.m. | Updated MOSCOW — Masked policemen raided Deutsche Bank’s main Moscow office on Wednesday, questioning bankers and unnerving employees. Police said they were searching for documents in a real estate deal linked to a member of the Russian Parliament, now living in exile in the United States. The parliamentarian, Ashot Yegiazaryan, had business dealings with companies tied to the former mayor of Moscow, Yuri M. Luzhkov, who fell from favor and resigned last fall. Deutsche Bank said in...