An Amur tiger approaching a slab of meat carved with ‘Happy Tiger Day.’ President Vladimir Putin sent his greetings to big-cat enthusiasts nationwide as Russia marked Tiger Day, an annual celebration held in Russia's Far East.

Rebels in the Ukrainian east and the central authorities in Kiev announced plans to exchange prisoners on Sunday. "The procedure will move along the 30 for 30 formula. We expect the exchange to take place around 5 p.m. Moscow time," a source in the Donetsk people's republic told Interfax. On Sunday, Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko tweeted that 12 Ukrainian military servicemen had been released the night before. The swap will be conducted under the agreement from Sept.

NOON AGAINST PUTIN Russians Abroad Take Part in Anti-Putin Election Protest, In Pictures Russians living across the world took part in the anti-Putin protest on the last day of voting in the presidential election. 1 Min read

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov addressing the 69th United Nations General Assembly in New York on Saturday. Moscow called on Sunday for a new "reset 2.0" in relations with Washington, saying the situation in Ukraine that had led to Western sanctions against Russia was now improving thanks to Kremlin peace initiatives.

A slump in Russia's auto market will force the country's car dealers to merge to survive the downturn, the founder of major dealership Rolf said in an interview. Most of Russia's car dealers are struggling to service heavy debts at a time when the Russian auto market is weak. Consumers are putting off big purchases because of a sharp economic slowdown and the uncertainty created by Western sanctions over Moscow's role in the Ukraine crisis.

Solzhenitsyn, pictured in 1974, when he was stripped of his Soviet citizenship and deported from the country. As Moscow's weather gradually cools down, the temperature of political discourse is definitely heating up.

Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller reacts as he attends a news conference after gas talks between the EU, Russia and Ukraine at the EU representation in Berlin on Sept. 26. Alexei Miller, head of Russia's top natural gas producer Gazprom, has warned of possible disruptions of Russian gas flows to Europe via Ukraine next winter, due to low volumes of the fuel in Ukrainian gas storage facilities.

Moscow called on Sunday for a new "reset 2.0" in relations with Washington, saying the situation in Ukraine that had led to Western sanctions against Russia was now improving thanks to Kremlin peace initiatives. Washington and Brussels accuse Moscow of supporting a pro-Russian rebellion in eastern Ukraine and have imposed financial sanctions, which they have repeatedly tightened since Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in March.

A Ukrainian security official said Saturday that one serviceman and one civilian have been killed in the past day as rebels in the east continue attacks despite a cease-fire declared three weeks ago. Volodymyr Polyoviy, a spokesman for Ukraine's national security council said that the civilian died and 16 others were wounded in rebel mortar fire on the town of Shchastya, damaging the local hospital and a vocational school.

A McDonald's restaurant in downtown Nizhny Novgorod was shut down Saturday, the latest in a series of fast-food restaurant closures, state-run news agency Interfax reported.

Kids carrying banners during a protest in Raqqa, Syria, on Friday against U.S. airstrikes on the Islamic State. The United States and Russia see Islamic State as a common enemy but are failing to overcome deep mutual distrust and agree on how to tackle the threat together, making any role for Moscow in the U.S.— led campaign unlikely, say U.S. officials. Differences between the former Cold War foes are stark, say the officials.

The turbulent Ukrainian economy is chillingly reminiscent of Russia's economy in 1998. Ukraine's president, prime minister and National Bank chief recently called on the country's largest exporters and banks to help stop the attack on the national currency, the hryvna. According to one blogger writing for Ukrainian Pravda, President Petro Poroshenko told businesspeople that yes, he is a liberal, but the exchange rate should not exceed 12.05 hryvnas to the dollar.

Rosneft announced that it has discovered oil in its Arctic joint project with Exxon Mobil. Russia's top crude oil producer Rosneft said Saturday that it had made an oil discovery jointly with ExxonMobil at an offshore Arctic field, which has been at the center of controversy due to Western sanction against Moscow. But further progress at the site is likely to be problematic as international oil majors have to wind down work in Russia due to Western sanctions following the Ukraine crisis.

Andrei Zvyagintsev’s “Leviathan” portrays the plight of a family living by the remote Barents Sea whose family home is expropriated by bureaucrats. "Leviathan," a Russian film that had been prohibited from public screenings due to its liberal use of expletives, could represent the country at the 2015 Academy Awards in the U.S., Interfax reported, citing a source in Russia's selection committee.

While the Kremlin is seriously considering cutting the country off from the global Internet, an obscure piece of legislation is likely to prove no less disruptive for millions of Russians. Signed into law by President Vladimir Putin last summer, it mandates that all foreign Internet companies store the personal data of their Russian account-holders on Russia-based servers. An amendment to expedite the law's entry into force from September 2016 to Jan. 1, 2015, is nearing approval.