Italy expelled two Russian officials on Wednesday after an Italian navy captain was allegedly caught red-handed selling secret documents to a Russian military officer.

A Russian Soyuz rocket blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday carrying 38 foreign satellites after takeoff was twice postponed due to technical issues, Russian space agency Roscosmos said.

The launch of a Russian Soyuz rocket, with 38 foreign satellites on board, has been postponed until Sunday, the Russian space agency Roscosmos said.

The G7 group of leading nations warned Moscow on Thursday that they would not accept Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine, in a statement marking the seventh anniversary of a takeover they deem illegal.

Russian police on Saturday arrested dozens of opposition politicians and activists taking part in a meeting in Moscow, the organisers of the "United Democrats" forum said.

The Kremlin said Tuesday that Western sanctions against Russia are ineffective, in response to reports that the European Union and the United States are preparing new penalties against Moscow.

A Moscow appeal court on Saturday upheld a prison sentence imposed on chief Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny after he returned to Russia from Germany last month.

Moscow announced Saturday it had registered its third vaccine against the coronavirus and promised to introduce the jab to the Russian population by March.

Iran's armed forces on Tuesday launched a joint naval drill with Russia in the north of the Indian Ocean designed to "enhance security" of maritime trade, state television reported.

Russian prosecutors on Monday backed a request to imprison opposition leader Alexei Navalny for several years on old charges, after police detained a record number of anti-Kremlin protesters across the country.