Trump has argued that the Arctic island is critical for U.S. security given threats posed by Russia as well as China.

Mr Putin praised Russia’s constructive role in Latin America and the Middle East. He made no mention of America’s armed forces having abducted Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s president, a Russian ally whom he had welcomed in the Kremlin eight months earlier—much less of how easily they had knocked out Venezuela’s Russian-built air defences.

President Trump signed the founding charter of his Board of Peace without major U.S. allies on Thursday then met with Ukraine's President Zelenskyy.

Feet of snow buried the town of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Kamchatka, in Russia's Far East, during the middle of last week. Two people were killed by snow falling from rooftops. The Kamchatka Peninsula was also the location of a major earthquake and tsunami last year.

MOSCOW, Jan 22 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia is ready to donate $1 billion in U.S. dollars from its sovereign assets frozen in the United States to President Donald Trump's Board of Peace and commit an unspecified amount for the restoration of Ukraine.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson also took "no part" in the decision.

A former Austrian intelligence official pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges that include handing over sensitive devices and selling secret information to Russia.On the first day of his trial in Vienna,

Russia has reaped a windfall from a surge in gold prices since the start of its war in Ukraine, generating gains on a scale comparable to the sovereign reserves frozen in Europe over President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

Officials say that France’s navy, working with intelligence provided by the United Kingdom, intercepted an oil tanker in the Mediterranean Sea that traveled from Russia, in a mission targeting the sanctioned Russian shadow fleet.