Russia is choosing lead managers for its planned $7 billion bond, the deputy finance minister said on Saturday, adding that there were no details on the timing of the launch. "Some activities took place in view of choosing lead managers, but it hasn't been finalized yet," Sergei Storchak told a news conference on the sidelines of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development's annual meeting. More than 20 banks were competing to lead manage the bond, Storchak said.

Demonstrators at a January gay rights rally shielding themselves as ketchup is squirted on them. Igor Tabakov The brutal killing of a gay man in the southern city of Volgograd has sparked outrage among Russia's LGBT community, with activists calling authorities "accomplices" in the killing for stigmatizing sexual minorities.

WASHINGTON — The head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency says the Obama administration has discussed declassifying key data on U.S. missile defense to provide it to Russia. The administration has been exploring how to ease Russian concerns that the U.S. missile defense shield is aimed at countering Russia's nuclear arsenal.

A 7-year-old Russian boy told investigators he had shot and killed his 4-year-old brother by accident with their grandfather's rifle on Sunday, law enforcement authorities said. The boy said he and his brother had found the gun under a bed in their grandparents' house in the Siberian town of Bukachacha and were playing with it on the porch while the adults slept, the federal Investigative Committee said.

The MT Conferences section did not involve the reporting or the editorial staff of The Moscow Times. Elena Belashova General Manager Crowne Plaza Moscow World Trade Centre Each year, competition on Moscow's hospitality market continues to increase. Though according to recent surveys, most hotels of similar star ratings are all very much alike with the same cloned services and products. Most hotels do not stand out to guests and are not focused on supporting guests' unclearly obvious needs.

Vladislav Surkov, the one-time gray cardinal of the Kremlin, played a leading role in shaping the current Russian political landscape during President Vladimir Putin's first two terms in office. While Surkov has taken some credit for his behind-the-scenes wizardry, he remains very much a man in the shadows — and he may remain that way after his ouster from the government on Wednesday.

President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree waiving the visa requirement for foreign athletes, coaches and other staff attending international sports events in Russia, the Kremlin announced Monday. Athletes are to pour into Russia over the next five years, with next year's Winter Olympics in Sochi and the 2018 football World Cup the two biggest draws.

Alexei Bayer World War II is only a vague recollection in the rest of the world. Three years ago, my wife's cousin, a heroic U.S. fighter pilot and former prisoner of war, was invited to a ceremony in Great Britain marking the 65th anniversary of victory. But most people no longer remember the date of Nazi Germany's surrender. It is as distant as the Napoleonic Wars were in the early 1880s or the U.S. Civil War was in the 1930s.

After marathon meetings with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry last week, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hinted that Moscow may finally pressure Syrian President Bashar Assad to leave office. "We are not interested in the fate of certain individuals," Lavrov said at a late night news conference last Tuesday.

In early 2005, Gleb Pavlovsky, the Kremlin's top spin doctor at the time, spoke to a small group of political junkies. Standing in for then-presidential deputy chief of staff Vladislav Surkov, he tried to explain the Kremlin's new strategy to restrict registration for new political parties, introduce party list parliamentary elections and abolish direct elections of governors.

A police officer who killed an angry brown bear with a Kalashnikov rifle will receive a commendation for his heroism, Irkutsk region police said in a statement. "The regional police administration regards the actions of district police officer Lieutenant Sergei Kazantsev, who neutralized a wild bear, to be skillful and professional," the statement said. Kazantsev shot dead the bear after it attacked two locals near the Chyornaya River in the Irkutsk region on May 9, Victory Day.

Even in good financial times, development aid budgets are hardly overflowing. Government leaders and donors must make hard decisions about where to focus their limited resources. How do you decide which countries should get low-cost loans or cheaper vaccines and which can afford to fund their own development programs? The answer depends, in part, on how we measure growth and improvements in people's lives.

A lawmaker from the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party wants to take U.S. dollars out of circulation in Russia, a news report said Monday. The measure, proposed by State Duma Deputy Mikhail Degtyaryov, aims to raise the prestige of the ruble and reduce Russia's dependence on the the dollar, Izvestia reported. "If U.S. national debt continues to grow, the collapse of the dollar system will happen in 2017. The proposed legislation will protect Russian citizens," Degtyaryov told the newspaper.

LONDON — Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank have quit as brokers to ENRC, an embattled miner focused on Kazakhstan and Russia, a highly unusual step that adds to the woes of a company facing allegations of fraud around its African and Kazakh operations. The two investment banks, advisers since ENRC's 2007 listing, resigned as brokers late last month, breaking links with a company facing a probe by UK prosecutors, it emerged on Thursday.

Restaurant chain Coffee House has lost an appeal against a Federal Anti-Monopoly Service ruling that found it guilty of using noncompetitive business practices. The Moscow Arbitration Court threw out Coffee House's appeal, siding with antitrust officials who say that Coffee House has taken an unfair advantage from its dominant market position by setting excessively high prices at its outlets located at Domodedovo Airport, Vedomosti reported Monday.