Alexander Bortnikov, head of Russia's Federal Security Service, the FSB, has outlined how special operations and operational military activities in the North Caucasus are winning results. At least 14 militant suspects and two police officers have been killed in three raids in the country’s volatile North Caucasus region.Nine suspects were killed in two separate shootouts with the police in the Kabardino-Balkariya Republic late Friday.Two of those killed were suspected of organizing a bombing in May that killed one man and wounded dozens of others, Russia’s main investigative body said in a statement.

Gazprom president Alexei Miller has said Gazprom is completing construction of the mainline gas pipeline from Sobolevo to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the capital of Kamchata region in Northy Eastern Russia. "This is a key component in the work to get the whole region connected", he told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the president's residence in Gorky last week. "The pipeline will come on line in September, in just a few weeks’ time. The first site to be connected will be Steam Power Plant-2," the Gazprom chief said.

The fires that stifled much of European Russia extinquished, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has been on holiday in the Russian Far East. As in previous years he used the opportunity to bolster his image as a man of action.

Russia’s government may sell the diamonds it bought last year for $1 billion from ZAO Alrosa, the world’s largest rough diamond producer, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said. The diamonds were bought on orders of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin a year ago to help Alrosa ride out a steep global decline in demand for gemstones.

The Moscow Motor Show which closed yesterday has established itself firmly on the international circuit for new product launches and this year was no exception. It is the launch pad for many a European model and new concepts were unveiled at this year's Show encouraged by rising sales figures and forecasts for the Russian market .

THE Youth Olympic Games (YOG) have only just begun. But the organisers of the next Winter Olympics have already been won over by what they have seen in Singapore.Dmitry Chernyshenko, the president and chief executive of the Sochi Winter Games 2014 Organising Committee, was in Singapore to tap the Republic's experience in hosting the inaugural YOG.