APRNEWS - US President Donald Trump on Monday proposed future talks with the leaders of China and Russia aimed at halting what he described as an “uncontrollable” arms race.

Trump’s comment follows an October announcement in which he said he would withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), a Cold War deal with Russia to cut missile numbers.

APRNEWS - Ukraine and Russia’s relations are hanging by a thin thread. The Ukrainian president has urged NATO to deploy naval ships to the Sea of Azov, a proposal that has been sharply criticized by Russia as a provocation that could further inflame tensions between the two countries.

APRNEWS - Russian internet giant Yandex disappointed tech enthusiasts on Monday by failing to unveil what many hoped would be a highly anticipated Russian-made smartphone.

Speculation has been mounting for years that Yandex -- which dominates internet services in Russia -- will put forward its own mobile device to rival giants like Apple, Samsung and Huawei.

REUTERS - Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was stopped from leaving Russia on Tuesday over an unpaid fine, a move he said was illegal and designed to prevent him from attending the finale of a legal case he filed at Europe’s top human rights court.

REUTERS - Russia’s military spies are being mocked abroad as bunglers but the army’s influence over Kremlin foreign policy is growing and there is little likelihood it will halt its “black operations”.

REUTRES - The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that the names of two men British prosecutors have accused of trying to murder former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia meant nothing to Moscow, the RIA news agency reported.

APRNEWS - Russia has blocked the publication of a UN report on the implementation of sanctions against North Korea because it disagrees with some of the findings, Moscow’s ambassador to the world body said Thursday.

The report had previously been seen by media organizations including AFP before formal publication.

REUTERS - Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday that the Russian military was in talks with leaders of armed groups in Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province to reach a peace settlement, Russian news agency RIA reported.

Shoigu said the aim of the Idlib talks was to reach peaceful resolution similar to the settlements in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta and Deraa, RIA said.

REUTERS - U.S. sanctions against Russia tied to a nerve agent attack in Britain, which were announced earlier this month, will officially take effect on Monday, according to a notice posted on Friday at the Federal Register.

REUTERS - U.S. President Donald Trump said “collusion is not a crime” on Tuesday as the first trial in federal Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe begins.

“Collusion is not a crime, but that doesn’t matter because there was No Collusion (except by Crooked Hillary and the Democrats)!” Trump wrote on Twitter.