- Russia will buy 17 intercontinental ballistic missiles in 2007
- Joint regional forces will soon be set up in the country
* LUKoil and Gazprom Neft plan to set up a joint venture for new and existing projects, and to acquire assets in and outside Russia, LUKoil said
* President Vladimir Putin said
- Russia's Armed Forces must maintain the strategic balance, to guarantee the ability to eliminate any potential aggressor
- Seventy percent of Russia's armed forces will operate on a contract basis by 2008
- Russia's Armed Forces should be supplied with new strategic weapons
* The Quartet of international mediators on the Middle East conflict should meet again as soon as possible, and talks should ideally include Israel and Palestine as well as other regional states, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said
* Tehran is ready to discuss renewed inspections by the United Nations nuclear watchdog if the UN Security Council halts its consideration of the Iranian nuclear file, Ali Larijani, the country's top nuclear negotiator, said
* Debt claims against bankrupt Russian oil company Yukos [RTS:YUKO] rose 42.1 billion rubles (about 1.6 billion) to $23.6 billion after a Moscow court upheld additional back-tax and corporate creditor claims, the company receiver's press service said
* Gazprombank, a subsidiary of Russian energy giant Gazprom, could hold an initial public offering in the fall of 2007, a deputy board chairman said
* Russia started withdrawing its Soviet-era garrison from Georgia's capital, ahead of schedule
* More than 20 earthquakes have been registered in the Kuril Islands area, off Russia's Pacific coast, since Wednesday afternoon, the Emergency Situations Ministry said
* Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko called on parliament to recognize an allegedly state-orchestrated mass famine that Ukraine suffered in the early years of Soviet rule as an act of genocide
