Footage of the runaway reptile. Police in Yekaterinburg are searching for a runaway crocodile after it was spotted Wednesday near a circus on the bank of the river Iset. A local resident reported having seen the crocodile and said that it was heading toward the water, the local police department said. The witness said that there were no people within striking distance of the crocodile at the time.

Orlando Ortega Competes in a Heat at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Martin Meissner The Cuban hurdler who went missing during the IAAF World Athletics Championships in Moscow is staying with friends in Italy. Orlando Ortega abandoned the Cuban team on Aug. 21 and was thought to have defected, though Russia's Federal Migration Service never managed to figure out where he had gone. He plans to go from Padua to the U.S.

Even the harshest critics of the Russian Armed Forces will have a hard time finding fault with the Ensemble of Song and Dance's Eurovision-worthy rendition of "Skyfall," the theme song to the most recent James Bond film of the same name. Proving that Russian soldiers also have a sensitive side, their performance of the tune by British singer Adele on Channel 5, a nationwide television channel, has led many to comment that their version is more well-suited to the film than the original.

Boris Kagarlitsky One of Josef Stalin most-quoted phrases is: "It doesn't matter how people vote. What matters is who counts the votes." This describes Russia's elections even now. The Moscow mayoral election is an extremely important event for government officials, the liberal opposition and journalists. The only group for whom the elections are not terribly important is Muscovites. They know perfectly well that nothing in the city will change after Sept. 8.

A United Airlines flight that stranded more than 200 passengers in Domodedovo Airport on Tuesday after an emergency landing took off Wednesday for its final destination in the United States. The Boeing 777-200 jet traveling from Delhi, India to Newark, New Jersey landed just after 4 a.m. after pilots detected a problem with the aircraft's main battery.

Russian government officials made it clear Wednesday that the scandal around detention of potash maker Uralkali's chief executive Vladislav Baumgertner would not have a negative impact on existing agreements between Moscow and Minsk. The arrest of Baumgertner would not affect the decision by the Eurasian Economic Community's bailout fund to provide the final tranche of the $3 billion loan to Belarus, Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak told journalists.

Home electronics retailer M.Video said Wednesday that it would not go ahead with a proposed acquisition of closest rival Eldorado because they could not agree on terms. The company also cited requirements imposed by the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service for the deal to go ahead, said Anton Panteleyev, M.Video's spokesman.

Participants at the University of Iowa program reading samples of their own writing, both in Russian and English. Russian teenagers have been spending two weeks learning the craft of writing at one of America's best literary arts institutions. Mikhail Zaharov, a 16-year-old from Smolensk, thought his English was near perfect when he went to the U.S.

ASTANA — Kazakhstan's oil-driven economy is forecast to grow by between 6 and 7.1 percent in 2014-18 when the Kashagan oilfield is expected to come onstream, Kazakh Economy and Budget Planning Minister Yerbolat Dosayev said Wednesday. The vast Central Asian nation of 17 million, which holds 3 percent of the world's recoverable oil reserves and is the second largest post-Soviet oil producer after Russia, forecasts its gross domestic product to expand by 6 percent this year.

A competition to select a design for a monument to Kazimir Malevich will be conducted before the end of the year, Moscow region culture minister Oleg Rozhnov told RIA Novosti on Tuesday. The completed monument will be erected near the presumed site of his grave within the Romashkovo housing complex in the Odinstovsky district of Moscow region.

ST. PETERSBURG — Police seized a painting of Russia's president and prime minister in women's underwear from a gallery in St. Petersburg, prompting the artist to flee the country. The artist, Konstanin Altunin, headed to France to request asylum, Tatyana Titova, the director of the museum that hosted the paintings, told The Associated Press. Police said they had taken the paintings from the “Museum of Power” gallery late Monday after receiving reports they were illegal.

A group of poppy plants growing in a residential garden plot in Russia. Vladimir Filonov Russia's top narcotics official on Wednesday expressed alarm over a "serious poppy invasion" of the country causing a major increase in illegal drugs.

Police Officers Providing Security at an Assembly on Triumfalnaya Square Earlier This Month. M. Stulov About 400 Moscow police officers have been fired for various offenses in the first 8 months of this year, the city's police chief Anatoly Yakunin said. The figure is two times higher than last year, and it will continue to rise as the authorities try to "create order in the system," Yakunin said on the Rossiya 24 television channel.

VILNIUS — Moscow criticized Lithuania on Tuesday for extraditing a Russian man to the United States to stand trial on charges of smuggling military equipment, and said it would strive to get him returned to Russia.

Police have found a greenhouse for the cultivation of illegal drugs concealed in the back of an old bus in the Moscow region. The LiAZ bus was parked in the yard of a summer house in the Orekhovo-Zuevsky district when police discovered its surprising contents, Interfax reported Wednesday. Inside the bus there was a greenhouse equipped for growing marijuana and other drugs complete with air-conditioning and irrigation systems, the police department said.