Interfax

Twenty-three Russian soldiers were crushed to death by rubble after their military barracks collapsed in Siberia, the Russian defence ministry said on July 13. 

Russia said on Dec. 24 NATO was turning Ukraine into a "frontline of confrontation" and threatened to sever remaining ties with the Atlantic military alliance if Ukraine's hopes of joining it were realised.

Top US diplomat John Kerry is set to meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Rome on Dec. 14, amid anger in Moscow over the prospect of new US sanctions and possible supply of lethal military aid to Ukraine.
      

The European Union is to introduce a new round of sanctions against Russia.

Her comments come after European sources told Interfax agency the bloc was determined to go with the measures against Russia.

Sanctions will be in force from Tursday depend on the situation in Ukraine and will therefore be "reversible", the BBC quotes the official as saying.

A Russian court on June 9 sentenced two men found guilty of the murder of prominent journalist Anna Politkovskaya to life imprisonment, and handed lengthy prison terms to three others involved in the killing.