* Russia proposes that the UN Security Council adopt an interim resolution to demand a ceasefire in Lebanon in the event member-states fail to come to terms on the French-American draft, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Denisov said
* Russia will launch shipments of humanitarian aid to war-torn Lebanon on Thursday, the agency managing state material reserves said
* Bilateral documents on the pre-term repayment of Russia's Soviet-era debt to the Paris Club of Creditor Nations will be signed early next week, a source in the Finance Ministry said
* Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych said he was planning to visit Russia in August, and a government source said it could be as early as next week
* A referendum on Ukraine's accession to NATO will be held no sooner than 2008, Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk said
* In the southern Russian republic of Daghestan:
- Adilgerei Magomedtagirov, the interior minister of Daghestan survived an assassination attempt Tuesday morning but two policemen died in the hospital as a result of the wounds they sustained
- Bitar Bitarov, a regional prosecutor, was killed in a car bombing earlier in the day
* Georgia has agreed to UN monitoring of the Kodori Gorge, which it shares with the self-proclaimed republic of Abkhazia, but with a minimal Russian presence, Defense Minister Irakly Okruashvili said
* Russia advocates revitalization of a UN-chaired coordination council set up to break a long-standing impasse over the status of a Georgia's breakaway republic, Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said at the end of his two-day visit to Abkhazia
* Russia's foreign trade in the first half of 2006 totaled $199.7 billion, representing a 31.8% year-on-year increase, the Federal Customs Service said
* LUKoil will build an oil refining complex in Turkey if the country's authorities give their approval to its plans, the head of Russia's largest oil producer, Vagit Alekperov, said
* Russian prosecutors said they had opened an investigation into an alleged act of embezzlement during the bankruptcy of Yukos Oil Company
* Gazprom will select partner companies to develop the giant Shtokman gas deposit off Russia's Arctic coast in the near future, a government official said
