More than 20,000 Russians took to the streets of Moscow on Sunday to demand the release of protesters jailed over the summer in what opponents of the Kremlin say is a campaign to stifle dissent.

Russia's ruling United Russia party, which backs President Vladimir Putin, has lost one third of its seats in the Moscow parliament, near complete data cited by Russian news agencies ...

A long-awaited exchange of prisoners between Moscow and Kiev has begun, Russian state television reported on Saturday, broadcasting footage of buses leaving a jail in the capital.

Russian political opposition supporters held vigils across Moscow on Saturday to call for releasing political prisoners and for free elections, after they were banned from holding a rally.

More than 300 protesters were detained at a political opposition rally in central Moscow on Saturday, an independent monitoring group told dpa.

Russian police have detained prominent members of the opposition in Moscow ahead of a planned protest later on Saturday which the authorities have declared illegal and warned could become violent.

More than 22,000 people packed a Moscow square Saturday to demand free and fair local polls, incensed by the authorities' refusal to put popular opposition candidates on the ballot.

The Moscow-Doha motor rally team was accorded a warm welcome on their arrival in Qatar last week on a 'first-of-its-kind' initiative.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday Moscow was ‘thinking’ of making it easier for all Ukrainians to obtain Russian citizenship after the Kremlin moved to grant passports in the country's separatist east, causing uproar in Kiev.

The Taliban will send representatives to multilateral talks in Russia on war-torn Afghanistan this month, the militant group said Tuesday, as the international community ratchets up efforts to end the 17-year conflict.

Rebels have cautiously accepted a Moscow-Ankara deal to prevent a Russia-backed regime attack on Syria's last major opposition bastion of Idlib, while a small jihadist group has rejected it.

On Thursday, the United States expanded its sanctions war against Russia to China, for the first time announcing punitive measures against a Chinese military organisation for buying Russian fighter jets and missiles.