- A visa facilitation agreement with the European Union was the first step toward visa-free travel
- Russia will look for more markets for sales as it seeks to expand its energy sector further
- Russia does not regard China as a possible alternative consumer to Europe of its energy resources
- Russia is interested in developing relations with the United States, and is certain that Washington is also set on cooperation
- Russia wants to be treated as an equal partner in the energy sphere by Europe
- Foreign companies are welcome to work in Russia's energy sector, but Russia expects foreign countries to reciprocate
- Russia will continue search for ways to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem
* Russia and the European Union signed visa facilitation and readmission agreements at the summit in Sochi
* Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said:
- Inflation would be kept to below 5% in three years, despite it currently running at about 11% in 2006, and forecast it would be kept down to 9% this year
- The economy would grow at a rate of about 5.5-6% in the next three years
- The Stabilization Fund stood at about $71.4 billion on May 24
- Russia could adopt its first three-year budget in 2008
- Russia's state debt would be brought down to 12% of gross domestic product in the next two years
- Russia's private sector capital inflow and outflow matched each other for the first time
- Russia's early payment of its debt to the Paris Club of Creditor Nations would not affect the foreign exchange market
* A source said a Russian delegation headed by Security Council Secretary and former foreign minister Igor Ivanov would fly to Tehran for talks Saturday
* A police source said two people were injured when a car blast rattled a parking lot near the Petrovsko-Razumovky groceries market in northern Moscow
* The Ukrainian government headed by Yuriy Yekhanurov officially resigned after the newly elected parliament started its first session
* Roman Bezsmertny, senior representative of the pro-presidential party Our Ukraine said the leaders of his party, the eponymous bloc of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and the Socialist Party had reached an agreement to form a parliamentary coalition
* The Armenian civil aviation authority's press service said the flight recorders from an Armenian Airbus that crashed into the Black Sea May 3 would be sent to Paris for checking before being decoded in Moscow
* The Russian Supreme Court upheld jailed Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky's appeal allowing him to meet with lawyers in working hours
* Authorities in southwestern Siberia imposed quarantine restrictions in four districts after outbreaks of bird flu
* Konstantin Romodanovsky, the head of the Federal Migration Service, said Russia's economy suffered annual losses of over 200 billion rubles ($7.4 billion) due to illegal migration
* Gazprom said its management had approved a strategy that would see the company producing 80 million metric tons of oil a year by 2020
* A senior executive of Gazpromneft (formerly Sibneft) said the market capitalization of the third largest state-owned oil company in Russia could reach at least $40 billion by 2020
* American Peggy Sue Hilt was sentenced to at least 25 years in prison for killing her adopted Russian daughter
