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Russian President Vladimir Putin phoned Iran's new interim president on Monday as Moscow made clear its desire to preserve and build on its deepening relationship with Tehran despite the sudden death of President Ebrahim Raisi. The Kremlin said Putin expressed his condolences to interim president Mohammad Mokhber and to the whole Iranian people over Raisi's death in a helicopter crash, describing Raisi as a "reliable partner who made an invaluable personal contribution" to bilateral relations. "Both sides emphasised their mutual desire to further consistently strengthen comprehensive Russian-Iranian interaction for the benefit of the peoples of the two countries," the Kremlin...

Can Russia's main task is to achieve victory on the battlefield in Ukraine with the minimal loss of troops, incoming defence minister Andrei Belousov said on Tuesday. -snip- Belousov presented himself as a man of integrity, telling parliamentarians: "I have always been, and will be, guided by the reinforced concrete principle 'You can make mistakes (but) you can't lie'." That was a pointed comment, given that he is taking charge of a ministry embroiled in a major corruption investigation that damaged his predecessor Shoigu. The scandal widened on Tuesday with the arrest of another senior official suspected of bribery. -snip-...

The wife of a Russian soldier delivered an emotional appeal for his return from Ukraine on Saturday at the election headquarters of President Vladimir Putin, a defiant gesture in a country where open criticism of the war is banned. "Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has issued a decree that my husband has to be there (in Ukraine). I'm interested to know when he will issue a decree that my husband has to be home," Maria Andreyeva said. She became involved in a heated exchange with a woman who told her that Russian soldiers in Ukraine were defending the motherland and she should...

A prominent liberal priest faces expulsion from the Russian Orthodox church for refusing to read out a prayer asking God to guide Russia to victory over Ukraine. In a verdict published on Saturday, a church court said Aleksiy Uminsky should be “expelled from holy orders” for violating his priestly oath. The decision was forwarded for approval to Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian church who strongly backs President Vladimir Putin. The case shows how the church is clamping down on internal dissent as it throws its support behind Putin and his “special military operation” in Ukraine, which is now...

A politician bidding to run against Vladimir Putin in Russia's upcoming presidential election described the decision to go to war in Ukraine as a "big mistake" in comments to the wives of soldiers on Thursday. Boris Nadezhdin, representing a centre-right party called Civic Initiative that has no seats in parliament, is seeking to gather the necessary 100,000 signatures from people across Russia to enable him to stand against Putin. -snip- Nadezhdin has promised to present a plan for ending the conflict. Last week he also aimed sharp criticism at the authorities over heating outages that have struck parts of Russia...

Russian investigators said on Tuesday they had arrested three people over heating outages south of Moscow that have sent regional officials scrambling to restore services and drawn scrutiny from the Kremlin. Authorities blamed the breakdown on failures at a boiler plant owned by a private ammunition factory. The heads of the heating plant and the factory were arrested on suspicion of providing unsafe services, investigators said in a statement. The deputy head of the local administration was also detained on suspicion of certifying the heating plant as adequate for winter despite allegedly knowing about defects that needed to be fixed....

Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a rare apology on Thursday when a pensioner complained to him about the price of eggs. During Putin's end-of-year question and answer session with the media and with members of the public calling in from across Russia, pensioner Irina Akopova was shown seated at her kitchen table and addressing the president by video link. She complained that prices for eggs, chicken breasts and wings had all skyrocketed. "Vladimir Vladimirovich, take pity on pensioners! We don't get millions in our pensions. Sort this out - we have no one to turn to," she said. "I'm very...

President Vladimir Putin's spokesman refused to comment on Tuesday on the beating of a prisoner by the teenaged son of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, an incident that drew condemnation even from some pro-Kremlin hardliners. Kadyrov said on Monday he was proud of his son Adam, 15, for the attack on Nikita Zhuravel, a Russian man accused of burning the Koran, and posted a video of the beating. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters at the start of his daily briefing that he would not be commenting on the incident. When asked why, he said: "I don't want to." In the...

A Russian war reporter was killed and three were wounded in Ukraine on Saturday in what the defence ministry said was a Ukrainian attack using cluster munitions, prompting outrage from Moscow. In a separate incident, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle said one of its journalists, Yevgeny Shilko, had been wounded elsewhere in Ukraine in a Russian attack with cluster munitions that killed a Ukrainian soldier. It said his life was not in danger. Cluster bombs are in the spotlight after Ukraine received supplies of them from the United States this month. Many countries ban them because they rain shrapnel over a...

Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Monday that Ukrainian forces had retaken part of the village of Berkhivka, north of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, calling it a "disgrace". Prigozhin's private Wagner militia captured Bakhmut last month after the longest battle of the war and handed its positions there to regular Russian troops. Ukrainian forces have continued to attack areas north and south of the city including Berkhivka, whose seizure Wagner had claimed on Feb. 24. The village lies about 3 km (1.9 miles) northwest of Bakhmut. "Now part of the settlement of Berkhivka has already been lost, the troops...

The head of Russia's Wagner mercenary group said on Thursday that his forces' flanks were under pressure near the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, resulting in the loss of ground that his men had captured at heavy cost. Yevgeny Prigozhin has argued that it is the job of regular Russian forces to protect Wagner's flanks near Bakhmut, the city at the centre of the longest and bloodiest battle of the war. "The situation on the flanks is developing according to the worst predicted scenario," Prigozhin said in an audio message. "All the territories that were taken with the blood and lives...

The head of Russia's Wagner mercenary group has said in a rare interview that it could take two years for Moscow to control the whole of two eastern Ukrainian regions whose capture it has stated as a key goal of the war. Yevgeny Prigozhin said his understanding of Russia's plan was that it needed to fully control the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that Moscow last year claimed as "republics" of Russia, in a move condemned by most countries of the United Nations as illegal. "As far as I understand, we need to close off the Donetsk and Luhansk republics and...

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov on Thursday criticised a prohibition on Russian soldiers wearing beards, joining Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in the two men's latest outburst against the Russian military leadership. In an interview with the RBC news site on Wednesday, Viktor Sobolev, a retired lieutenant general and member of Russia's parliament, defended the ban on beards, personal smartphones and tablets as an "elementary part of military discipline". Writing on Telegram, the bearded Kadyrov, who has talked up the role of his troops in Russia's war in Ukraine, wrote: "Apparently, Lieutenant General Viktor Sobolev has a lot of free time...

(Reuters) -Russia "will not accept" a price cap on its oil and is analysing how to respond, the Kremlin said in comments reported on Saturday, in response to a deal by Western powers aimed at limiting a key source of funding for its war in Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow had made preparations for Friday's price cap announcement by the Group of Seven nations, the European Union and Australia, the Russian state news agency TASS reported. "We will not accept this cap," RIA news agency quoted him as saying. He added that Russia would conduct a rapid analysis...

Russia's leading war hawks rallied behind the humiliating decision for Moscow's forces to retreat from the Ukrainian city of Kherson this month, but the commander who argued in favour of the move is now under growing pressure to prove it was worth it. Sergei Surovikin, nicknamed "General Armageddon" by the Russian media for his reputed ruthlessness, on Nov. 9 recommended Moscow's forces quit Kherson and the west bank of the River Dnipro where they were dangerously exposed. Surovikin, a 56-year-old veteran of wars in Chechnya and Syria who has been decorated by President Vladimir Putin, argued the withdrawal, completed two...

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu on Wednesday ordered his troops to withdraw from the occupied Ukrainian city of Kherson and take up defensive lines on the opposite bank of the River Dnipro. The announcement marked one of Russia's most significant retreats and a potential turning point in the war, now nearing the end of its ninth month. In televised comments, General Sergei Surovikin, in overall command of the war, said it was no longer possible to keep Kherson city supplied. -snip- The announcement had been anticipated by Russia's influential war bloggers, who described it as a bitter blow. "Apparently we...

LONDON (Reuters) -In a sign of Russia's urgent need to bolster its war effort in Ukraine, parliament said on Friday it would consider a bill to allow Russians over 40 and foreigners over 30 to sign up for the military. The website of the State Duma, parliament's lower house, said the move would enable the military to utilise the skills of older professionals. "For the use of high-precision weapons, the operation of weapons and military equipment, highly professional specialists are needed. Experience shows that they become such by the age of 40–45," it said. Currently, only Russians aged 18-40 and...

LONDON (Reuters) - Russia on Thursday shifted its stance over the bombing of a Ukrainian hospital in the city of Mariupol, with a mix of statements that veered between aggressive denials and a call by the Kremlin to establish clear facts.Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskiy said three people including a child had been killed in the bombing on Wednesday, and rejected Russian assertions there had been no patients there."Like always, they lie confidently," said Zelenskiy, who has accused Moscow of waging genocide in the war it launched two weeks ago.In the face of worldwide condemnation there were rare signs of inconsistency...