* Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline deal would give rise to major transit hubs in the Balkan countries, raise world energy security, and assured that environmental norms would be fully observed
* Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov resigned from the posts of director general and president of Norilsk Nickel, the company said in a news release
* Russia's flagship air carrier Aeroflot will soon sign a contract for the delivery of 22 A-350 Airbuses, the company's head told a news conference
* The Russian Federal Property Fund sold a 3.3% government stake in Russia's largest telecoms operator in the northwestern region for more than 1.5 billion rubles (about $57.4 million), the fund's spokesman said
* Evraz Group was announced the auction winner to buy a 93.35% stake in West Siberian Heat and Power Plant for 5.95 billion rubles ($227 million), Russia's leading steel and mining company said
* A new draft resolution of the 15-nation UN Security Council on Iran, circulated in the UN, stipulates sanctions against 13 Iranian companies and 15 individuals
* A court in St. Petersburg sentenced Nikolai Zavadsky to five years in prison for the theft of 77 exhibits from the Hermitage Museum
* Russia's Central Election Commission will select its new head at a session scheduled for March 26-27, Alexander Veshnyakov, the outgoing chief of the commission, said
* Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov proposed holding a referendum on amendments to the republic's Constitution, the chief of the presidential and governmental staff said. Kadyrov also said a former Chechen separatist minister, currently in exile, was a good doctor and could help reanimate the republic if he returned to his homeland
* The head of Russian Atomstroyexport's department for the construction of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iran flew to Tehran for a final round of talks, a spokesman for the project's contractor said
* Russia proposed that North Korea put 13 issues, including its $8-billion debt to the former Soviet Union, on the agenda of a Moscow meeting of the bilateral cooperation commission March 23
* Russia's Foreign Ministry said Ukrainian security services increasingly interfered in foreign policy matters after Ukrainian security officials said they would question the Moscow mayor over his separatist statements on the former Russian autonomy in present-day Ukraine, the Crimea
* Ukraine's parliament postponed a decision on Volodymyr Ohryzko's candidacy for the post of a foreign minister until March 20. The ruling parliamentary faction said it wanted a new candidate for the post.
