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For Baghdad, the oil-for-food trade "was a way for Saddam Hussein's government to get illegal money," says Abdul Mostafa, Iraq's current ambassador to Russia. "Saddam hoped it would also be a way to buy influence in places like Russia, as well as France and China. ... Whether he was successful is the question for the investigators." Russia received one-third of all oil allocations under the U.N. program. Mr. Mostafa says the embassy played a central role in funneling money to the Hussein regime. "There was an elaborate system here of bypassing the U.N. sanctions," he says. The embassy's oil-for-food dealings...

Creeping forward along a tree line late at night toward an entrenched Ukrainian position, the Russian soldier watched in horror as his comrades were mowed down by enemy fire. His squad of 10 ex-convicts advanced only a few dozen yards before being decimated. “We were hit by machine-gun fire,” said the soldier, a private named Sergei. One soldier was wounded and screamed, “Help me! Help me, please!,” the private said, although no help arrived. Eight soldiers were killed, one escaped back to Russian lines and Sergei was captured by Ukrainians.

UNITED NATIONS - A former Russian top spy says his agents helped the Russian government steal nearly $500 million from the U.N.'s oil-for-food program in Iraq before the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Sergei Tretyakov, who defected to the United States in 2000 as a double agent, says he oversaw an operation that helped Saddam's regime manipulate the price of Iraqi oil sold under the program — and allow Russia to skim profits. Tretyakov, former deputy head of intelligence at Russia's U.N. mission from 1995 to 2000, names some names, but sticks mainly to code names. Among the spies...

Condi and Sergei air differences over an open microphone By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow (Filed: 01/07/2006) Condoleezza Rice, America's secretary of state, is famed for her sang froid but one person seems to be able to rattle her - Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister. The pair are known to have goaded each other on several occasions, reflecting the souring relationship between Washington and Moscow. However, a candid conversation between the pair was revealed to the world when a technician failed to switch off an audio feed during a closed-door lunch at a meeting of foreign ministers in Moscow. For...