RUSSIA, Belarus and Kazakhstan have decided to create a single economic area by 2012, after they set up a customs union due to be implemented next year.

A LEGAL custody battle over the marquee Russian vodka, Stolichnaya, has been put on ice for another three months pending settlement talks between the Russian Government and a multi-millionaire Russian tycoon who has fled to Switzerland. The Russian Government is taking on Spirits International, the company it believes stole the rights..read more

WHO KILLED STALIN? 8.30pm, ABC1: You! The boy in the green blazer! Out with it, laddie! If someone did indeed kill Joseph Stalin before the Grim Reaper could get to him, that person should be celebrated by the Russian people and the global community as a hero. Conventional wisdom has..read more

PATRIARCH ALEKSY II RUSSIAN ORTHODOX LEADER 23-2-1929 - 5-12-2008

I saw Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya speak at the Sydney Writers' Festival in 2006. She was direct and eloquent, and five months later, she was assassinated.