- submitted to the upper house of Russia's parliament the candidacy of Vyacheslav Lebedev for reappointment as chairman of the country's Supreme Court
- dismissed Alu Alkhanov as Chechen president and appointed him deputy Russian justice minister
- appointed Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov acting president of the North Caucasus republic
- pledged to enhance General Staff significance in Russia
- appointed government Chief of Staff Sergei Naryshkin deputy prime minister
- appointed Sergei Ivanov first deputy prime minister
* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said:
- the adoption of a law permitting the demolition of Soviet monuments in Estonia is a serious mistake and a disgraceful act
- Russian President Vladimir Putin's speech at a Munich security conference February 10 was not a declaration of a new "cold war"
- some politicians are trying to overcome the split between Europe and the U.S. that followed the Iraq war, at the expense of Russia
* Sergei Lavrov dismissed allegations that Russia pursued imperial policies in ex-Soviet states and used energy resources as a political leverage to promote its national interests
* Moscow may unilaterally abandon the agreement between Russia and the United States on the elimination of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles, the chief of the General Staff said
* Regional air-defense networks are key to building an integrated security system for the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a loose association of former Soviet republics, a senior Russian military official said
* Experts have recovered flight recorders from the Challenger-850 plane that crashed at a Moscow airport, and will hand them over to the International Aviation Committee, a committee spokesman said
* Moldova proposes privileged conditions for investments in the republic's agriculture, a deputy Moldovan agriculture and food industry minister said
* Moscow warns against independence for the Serbian province of Kosovo, and will only support a resolution that meets the interests of both Kosovo and Serbia, a Russian Balkans envoy said
* A tender to prospect the Sakhalin-III oil and gas project in the Far East will be held after bills on foreigners' participation in strategic enterprises are approved, the natural resources ministry said
* A regional Russian court dropped copyright violation charges against a school principal, Alexander Ponosov, who bought pirated software for his students and staff
* New hearings on the July 2004 murder of Forbes Russia Editor Paul Klebnikov have been put off until mid-March after two key suspects failed to appear in court
* Transneft's expenses will see an insignificant rise following Belarus's decision to increase its rates for the transit of Russian crude through its domestic pipeline network by more than 30% on average starting February 15, the company's head said
* Turkmenistan's newly elected President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov said he will be working to boost energy cooperation with Russia
* Workers at Ford's car assembly plant in the Leningrad Region in Russia's northwest have ended their strike, the company's press secretary said
* Rescuers have found four dead climbers who went missing earlier in the Sayan mountain range in southern Siberia, the Emergencies Ministry said
* The U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs approved a draft document promoting future NATO expansion eastward
* Ukraine's prime minister moved to end a diplomatic tit-for-tat with Russia by denying media reports that Russia had drawn up a "blacklist" of Ukrainian officials, the press service of the premier's party said
* There will be no problems with ecology during preparation for Olympic Games in the Russian southern city of Sochi owing to close cooperation between environmentalists and authorities, the World Wildlife Fund's Russia director said
