Relatives gathered to mourn the 62 victims of a passenger jet crash in southern Russia on Sunday and officials warned an investigation could take weeks to determine the cause of the downing.

• March 20, 2016

The United States is still fundamentally hostile to Iran and its policies have undermined the benefits of sanctions relief, the Islamic Republic's hardline leader said on Sunday, warning Iranians not to trust their old enemy.

• March 20, 2016

A prominent figure in the Bavarian sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives said on Sunday a deal between the European Union and Turkey to halt illegal immigration to Europe could lead to Kurds heading to Germany en masse.

• March 20, 2016

The East-West standoff over the Ukraine crisis has brought the threat of nuclear war in Europe closer than at any time since the 1980s, a former Russian foreign minister warned on Saturday.

• March 19, 2016

The ceasefire in Syria is broadly holding but the United States should be doing more to support it, Russia's Defence Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

• March 19, 2016

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif joined his Turkish hosts in Istanbul on Saturday in condemning a suicide bombing by suspected Kurdish militants in a main shopping district that killed five people.

• March 19, 2016

President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia could scale up its military presence in Syria again within hours and would still bomb terrorist groups there despite a partial draw-down of forces ordered after military successes.

• March 17, 2016

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev agreed to slash funding for Russia's space program by 30 percent on Thursday, an effort to reign in state spending in the face of a deepening economic crisis.

• March 17, 2016