Russia may tighten retaliatory sanctions against Western nations to include a ban on imports of cars, among other things, if the United States and the European Union impose additional sanctions on Moscow, Vedomosti daily newspaper said on Monday.

• August 18, 2014

A meeting of Ukrainian, Russian, German and French foreign ministers scheduled in Berlin on Sunday could be a first step towards a Ukraine-Russia peace summit along the lines of one that took place in Normandy last month, the French government said on Saturday.

• August 16, 2014

European Union foreign ministers voiced concern on Friday at reports that Russian military vehicles had crossed into Ukraine overnight, but behind the tough talk there were signs that EU unity over sanctions against Moscow was fraying.

• August 15, 2014

Artillery shells hit close to the centre of Ukraine's separatist-held city of Donetsk for the first time on Thursday, killing at least one person, as a large Russian aid convoy rumbled towards the border.

• August 14, 2014

President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday Russia would stand up for itself but not at the cost of confrontation with the outside world, a conciliatory note after months of tough rhetoric over the crisis in Ukraine.

• August 14, 2014

A Snapshot of Key Developments in the External Relations of the Russian Gas Sector
By Jack Sharples, EGF Associate Researcher on the external dimensions of Russian gas

Key points:

• Gazprom and the EU – EU antitrust investigators continue to prepare ‘statement of objections’; Gazprom excluded from expanded EU sanctions list
• Nord Stream – Planned capacity auction for OPAL cancelled, as European Commission postpones ruling indefinitely
• South Stream - Gazprom subsidiary Centrgaz is awarded the construction contract for South Stream in Serbia; Bulgarian government willing to listen to the European Commission over South Stream; European Commission recommends that Serbia halt work on South Stream pending legal clarifications
• Gazprom and Ukraine - Naftogaz and Ukrainian government announce plan to avoid Russian gas imports until March 2015; Ukrainian government and Naftogaz disagree over reports of reduced gas deliveries from Europe to Ukraine; Gazprom and Naftogaz arbitration cases could be combined
• Asia-Pacific region - Gazprom continues design process for proposed Vladivostok LNG terminal
• Elena Burmistrova replaces Alexander Medvedev as Director-General of Gazprom Export

• August 12, 2014

Switzerland on Tuesday added 26 Russians and Ukrainians and 18 organizations to a list designed to prevent it being used as a conduit to circumvent Western sanctions against Russia.

• August 5, 2014

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev threatened on Tuesday to retaliate for the grounding of a subsidiary of national airline Aeroflot because of EU sanctions, with one newspaper reporting that European flights to Asia over Siberia could be banned.

• August 5, 2014