Victory in the March 15-17 contest will allow him to stay in the Kremlin until at least 2030, longer than any Russian leader since Catherine the Great in the eighteenth century.

The ceremony will take place two weeks after Navalny died in an Arctic prison, amid pressures denounced by his team who accuse Russian President Vladimir Putin of murdering his top critic.

The decision, outlined in a new Army document, aligns with the Pentagon's refocus on countering Chinese and Russian military capabilities after decades of concentrating on the fight against terrorism.

The action to be rolled out on Friday will hit "Russia, its enablers, and its war machine," a Treasury spokesperson told AFP.

Former US President George W. Bush believed he had a "sense of his soul".

While the official cause of death remains unknown, the U.S. holds Russian President Vladimir Putin responsible. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby stated, "Regardless of the scientific answer, Putin's responsible for it."

Biden and other Western allies have already used unprecedented sanctions as a way of throttling support for Moscow's war in Ukraine, while at the same time supplying Kyiv with both weapons and aid.

Lavrov, who will also visit Venezuela and Brazil -- hosting a G20 foreign ministers meeting -- told Cuban counterpart Bruno Rodriguez in Havana that both nations were victims of "illegal pressure" from the US and its allies.

Donald Trump's last remaining Republican rival for the US election in November bashed the ex-president Sunday for his continued silence over the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his recent outburst over NATO.

Navalny had been imprisoned since 2021 on charges that many considered to be politically motivated

Many nationals, seasoned by years of conflict with guerrillas, have volunteered to contribute to Kyiv's war effort

Andrei Volna had long started losing faith in his homeland before Russian tanks entered Ukraine.

The United Nations' top court will decide on Friday whether it has jurisdiction to rule in a case brought by Ukraine over Russia's brutal 2022 invasion, with Kyiv urging reparations.

Armenia on Thursday formally joined the International Criminal Court (ICC), officials said, in a move that traditional ally Moscow has denounced as "unfriendly".

A poll shows that this group is pessimistic about the war's outcome

Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva received a four-year ban from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Monday for failing a doping test prior to the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Top Ukrainian junior Yelyzaveta Kotliar said she was "deeply sorry" after her tennis federation criticised the 16-year-old for shaking the hand of a Russian opponent at the Australian Open.

Dozens of Russian communists gathered in Red Square on Sunday to mark the 100th anniversary of Vladimir Lenin's death, in one of the few official events commemorating the Soviet founder.

The UK is taking threats of foreign interference elections expected later this year "very seriously", the defence minister said Sunday, after a warning from a counter-terrorism official.

Russian President Vladimir Putin met North Korea's top diplomat in the Kremlin on Tuesday in the latest sign of deepening ties between the two authoritarian states.

The US special envoy for Ukraine's economic recovery said Monday that tapping frozen Russian assets would be an "easy" source of money for Kyiv, but the G7 must first agree collectively to do it.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will travel to Switzerland on Monday, his office said, as Ukraine tries to ensure stable support from allies as the war against Russia nears its second anniversary.

Russian poet Lev Rubinstein, a key figure of the Soviet underground literary scene who later protested against President Vladimir Putin, has died days after being hit by a car, his daughter said Sunday.

China-Russia trade reached more than $240 billion, customs figures showed, overshooting a goal of $200 billion set by the neighbours in bilateral meetings last year.

Kyiv's mobile air defences have enough ammunition to withstand a few more powerful attacks, but then will need more Western aid, a senior military commander said Wednesday.

President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Moscow would intensify strikes on military targets in Ukraine, after an unprecedented Ukrainian attack over the weekend on the Russian city of Belgorod.

Authorities transferred Russia's most prominent opposition politician to an isolated penal colony three months before a presidential vote expected to easily hand Vladimir Putin a fifth term.

Finland on Monday signed an agreement to enhance military cooperation with the United States, saying it saw a long-term threat from Russia, a day after its giant neighbor issued a warning over Helsinki's recent entrance into NATO.

The deep freeze has significantly affected scientific research in a region warming around four times faster than the planet as a whole.

The Kremlin on Tuesday criticised what it called US "interference" in the case of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, whose whereabouts are unknown according to his allies.