The Soviet-born former world chess champion Kasparov is a longtime opponent of President Vladimir Putin and has lived in the United States for almost a decade.

Russia and India's leaders yesterday announced a raft of deals worth billions of dollars including for a military defence system, as New Delhi walks a tightrope between Moscow and Washington with a wary eye on China.

A prominent Russian journalist and critic of President Vladimir Putin is shot dead in Ukraine where he had fled into exile following threats, police say.

President Vladimir Putin unveils an array of new nuclear weapons, in one of his most bellicose speeches in years, saying they could hit almost any point in the world and not be intercepted.

Russian President Vladimir Putin tossed President-elect Donald Trump a bouquet in December when he chose not to retaliate for the US expulsion of Russian diplomats and seizure of Russian diplomatic compounds.

US President Donald Trump says in a tweet that he discuss forming a cyber security unit to guard against election hacking with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Families of victims of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, shot down over Ukraine in 2014, are suing President Vladimir Putin and Russia for Aus$10 million each in the European Court of Human Rights, The Sydney Morning Herald reports today.

The Kremlin slams the leak of the "Panama Papers" tax documents as an attack aimed primarily at Russian President Vladimir Putin, claiming that former CIA officials helped analyse the papers.

The Kremlin calls on the US Treasury to come up with proof after it told a BBC investigation it considered President Vladimir Putin to be corrupt.

A senior US Treasury official directly accuses Russian President Vladimir Putin of corruption, in a BBC programme.

Looking back at the eventful year, some names stand out head and shoulders above others, and have managed to make headlines with significant contributions to the whole as a whole. Let’s meet some of the luminaries of 2015 who have shown bright as a beacon of inspiration for many people around the world.

President Vladimir Putin orders the Russian military to take "extremely tough" action against any threat to its forces in Syria.

Russia rejects Turkey's claims that it did not know the plane it shot down on the Syria border was Russian.

David Cameron is holding talks in Paris with French President Francois Hollande on co-operation in the fight against so-called Islamic State.

Russia says it has flown 11,000 tourists home from Egypt in the past 24 hours, and more will return on Sunday.

They are the great many who simply ignore what motivates Putin's armed diplomacy (and not just in Syria): the desire to exact revenge on those who, in his eyes, were responsible for the Soviet Union's downfall.

Turkish F-16 fighter jets are scrambled after a Russian warplane violates Turkey's air space on Saturday, the foreign ministry says.

Russia is considering whether to follow the US and its allies in conducting air strikes against Islamic State (IS) targets, President Vladimir Putin says.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is to meet world leaders today including India's Narendra Modi ahead of the start of a summit of the BRICS emerging economies.

A Reuters/Ipsos online poll reveals President Barack Obama poses an imminent threat to the United States outranking Russian President Vladimir Putin