Foreign Minister Murray McCully has added his voice to international calls for restraint any further escalation of tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

Condemned to death at the hands of a private extermination company, around 150 of the stray dogs from Sochi's Olympic Park have been saved after the intervention of a Russian billionaire.

Vladimir Putin did not need to try to steal the limelight when this Olympic show, the most expensive the world has ever seen, was all his.

In Sochi, there is plenty on the Russian President's to-do list as he bustles about town, preparing for the opening of his Olympic Games.

Rod Emmerson's take on Vladimir Putin's law change.

An Islamic militant group says it was behind the Volgograd bombings that killed 34 people - and they'll give tourists at Sochi for the Olympics 'a present, too'.

Official says there's no need to rethink safety measures for Sochi Winter Olympics despite bombings in Russia.

Two New Zealanders who spent two months in a Russian prison following a protest at an Arctic oil platform have returned home.

Two Kiwis who were among a group of Greenpeace protesters arrested for hooliganism by Russian authorities, are expected home in the next few days.

It's not unusual, of course, for the Olympics and politics to become intertwined. But it is quite a while since the impact has been so pronounced.

Charges against 29 Greenpeace activists, including two Kiwis, who faced prison in Russia have been dropped following a Kremlin amnesty.

A group of Greenpeace activists, including two New Zealanders, are trying to stay realistic over their chances of being home for Christmas, after the Russian parliament backed an amnesty bill to drop charges against them.

President Vladimir Putin cast Russia as a defender of conservative values against the "genderless and infertile" Western tolerance that he said equates good and evil.

Time magazine has named Pope Francis its person of the year, saying that in nine months in office the head of the Catholic Church had become a new voice of conscience.

Pro-European demonstrators toppled the statute of Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union, from its plinth in central Kiev as record numbers flooded the city streets.

French luxury brand Louis Vuitton has been ordered to remove a giant trunk put up on Moscow's iconic Red Square after it triggered outrage among some Russians.

Anyone who switched on Russian TV recently might have been forgiven for thinking the Kremlin was relaxing its hard line on gays: Images of rainbow flags and a happy same-sex couple looking adoringly at their child flashed across the screen.

One of the two New Zealand Greenpeace protesters charged with hooliganism by Russian authorities has walked out of jail on bail today.

The first of 30 Greenpeace activists arrested by Russia in an Arctic protest two months ago has been freed on bail, in a case that has drawn attention both to Russia's ambitions in the region and its hard line against dissent.

One of the two New Zealand Greenpeace protesters jailed in Russia on hooliganism charges has been told he will be released on bail.

Within five seconds, a dot of light that Russian authorities say is a Boeing 737 appears in the sky over the tarmac and plunges to the ground in a near-vertical crash.