Free Republic

(Reuters) Vladimir Putin with Jose Maria Aznar, then Spain's prime minister, at Moncloa Palace on June 13, 2000. One of Russia's largest organized-crime syndicates allegedly operated out of Spain for more than a decade with the help of close allies of President Vladimir Putin, then the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, Bloomberg reports. Prosecutors in Madrid have filed a 488-page petition to charge 27 people with money laundering and fraud in connection to the St. Petersburg-based Tambov crime syndicate's setting up shop in Spain in 1996. Vladislav Reznik, now the deputy head of the finance committee in Russia's lower house...

Russian officials voiced fear Wednesday that the rise of the Republican party could threaten President Barack Obama’s “reset” of relations with Russia. “We all understand the reason for this [defeat]: disappointment that Obama isn’t a magician,” said Sergei Markov, a senior legislator from the ruling United Russia party. “ Unlike voters in the U.S., we in Russia already knew he wasn’t a magician.” He and other Russian officials voiced fear that the rise of the republican party could threaten Mr. Obama’s “reset” of relations with Russia. On Wednesday, the chairman of a key committee in the Russian parliament said it...