Two teenagers were detained Wednesday on suspicion of desecrating 87 grave sites at a cemetery in the Omsk region of southwestern Siberia. A criminal case has been opened against a 16-year-old for "desecrating the bodies of the dead and places of their burial." A guilty verdict could put the teenager in prison for up to five years. The teenager's 14-year-old accomplice is under the age of criminal culpability and will not be charged, RIA Novosti reported.

U.S. industrial conglomerate 3M on Wednesday talked up its decision to join a small club of international firms that do research and development in the country. The company's research and development, or R&D, center near Moscow has patented five new technologies since starting work in July last year and is moving to patent another one: a respirator for Russia's sprawling nuclear-power industry, said Sergei Dmitrouk, 3M head of R&D for Eastern Europe.

As Russia limbers up for its upcoming resource extraction drive in the Arctic, a poll showed that 69 percent of Russians favor making the region a neutral zone outside of the purview of sovereign states. Forty two percent of 1,500 poll respondents in various towns said the extraction of natural resources in the Arctic was inadmissible, only slightly less than the 45 percent who favored resource exploitation, RIA Novosti reported.

Gorbachev alive and well at 81 years old, at the Berlin launch of his book "Alone with Myself" in March 2013. SpreeTom Whether he likes it or not, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev is now in the business of resurrection. For the third time this year the former president of the Soviet Union has had to personally assure the world that he is alive and well after hackers spread rumors of his demise online. "It's common knowledge.

Russia's leaders view the Association Agreement with the European Union that Ukraine and five other former Soviet republics recently signed in Vilnius as a major defeat in this longstanding geopolitical standoff. Moscow is so angry that it is threatening to unleash a trade war with Ukraine and punish Lithuania for pandering to the "treacherous" behavior of the former Soviet republics.

Gennady Onishchenko visiting a Perekrostok supermarket in a file photo. Dmitry Grishkin Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev dismissed Gennady Onishchenko as chief of the Federal Consumer Protection Service and appointed him as an adviser, Medvedev's spokeswoman said late Wednesday. The sanitary doctor, known for dishing out unorthodox health warnings over the years, was dismissed because an annual contract that he signed had expired, spokeswoman Natalya Timakova told Russian news agencies.

Russia has removed references to a new American law that seeks to identify tax dodgers from a document on information sharing between the Finance Ministry and the U.S. Treasury Department, a news report said Wednesday. Under the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA, starting July next year, foreign financial institutions will have to track the activities of their American clients and from March 31, 2015, start sending reports to the U.S., in order to avoid a penalty by U.S.

Russia and China are expected to complete the design of a new wide-body aircraft for long-distance flights by the end of the year, Deputy Premier Dmitry Rogozin told journalists Wednesday during his visit to the Irkutsk Aviation Plant. By the next year the sides will be ready to begin discussing joint production of the new plane, Rogozin said, Interfax reported. "The development of the new plane's design should be finished by the end of 2013," he said.

The Russian Direct Investments Fund, or RDIF, will soon launch a program for investing in the development of commercial property in Moscow and the regions, the fund's head Kirill Dmitriyev said Wednesday.

BEIJING — As Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev continued his trip to China on Wednesday, Russian energy companies signed a slew of deals, seeking to lock in sales to fund costly production and pipeline projects that will direct exports away from Europe to Asia. The agreements brought Igor Sechin, CEO of state oil major Rosneft, closer to his goal of exporting more than 1 million barrels per day of oil to China.

An assault rifle that can be used on land and underwater has emerged from the shadows of development and received government approval for use in the military, Rostec said Wednesday. "Until now underwater combatants were forced to use two kinds of weapons, one for operations underwater and a Kalashnikov for shooting on dry land.

Military investigators opened a criminal case Wednesday in connection with a deadly explosion at a military training facility in the Pskov region. The investigation department said in a statement that the blast, which Tuesday killed six paratroopers and wounded two others, was caused by an explosion from an eroded weapon not far from where troops were setting up a target, Interfax reported.

Large-scale Soviet nuclear tests, dumping of spent fuel and two scuttled nuclear-powered submarines are a major source of pollution in the Arctic ocean, a Russian research institute has said. There are 17,000 containers and 19 vessels holding radioactive waste submerged in the Kara Sea, as well as 14 nuclear reactors, said a report passed by Russia to the Norwegian authorities in 2012, according to Bellona, an environmental group that acquired a copy of document.

Putin speaking to religious leaders in Ufa on Tuesday before taking part in the celebrations to mark the 225th anniversary of the founding of the Central Spiritual Board of Muslims of Russia. UFA — President Vladimir Putin has signed a law giving local authorities more responsibility for handling relations between ethnic communities in a sign that the government is growing nervous about nationalist-tinged discontent rising in Russia.

Viktor Cherepkov, a former mayor of Vladivostok, was hospitalized after an unknown suspect attacked him in Moscow, a police spokesman said Wednesday. The spokesman said the incident took place late on Monday night "when an unknown suspect attacked Cherepkov in the northwest of Moscow and hit him several times." He added that Cherepkov was to taken to a hospital with various injuries, while police launched an investigation into the attack.