• Thousands protest in Russia against conflict in Ukraine

Thousands protest in Russia against conflict in Ukraine 

Thousands of Russians marched in protest against the armed conflict in Ukraine on Sunday in the first major anti-war rally since the start of the standoff between Kiev and pro-Russian rebels.

The armed conflict, which Kiev and the West blame on Russia's support of the separatist armed groups in eastern Ukraine, has killed more than 3,000 people since April, although this month's ceasefire has brought a relative calm.

• Hammered by the West, Putin Turns East - KEITH JOHNSON

Hammered by the West, Putin Turns East
KEITH JOHNSON

Russia and China are close to another mammoth natural gas deal that could reshape the world's energy map.

ht as the West is tightening the screws on Russia's energy sector,Vladimir Putin is accelerating his own pivot to the east, moving closer to another giant natural gas deal with China.

• Putin Threatens Nuclear War Over Ukraine

Putin Threatens Nuclear War Over Ukraine

Raising the spectre of nuclear war over Ukraine, Russia’s Vladimir Putin is playing a new, and dangerous, game.

On Friday, as Russian Federation tanks and troops poured across the border into eastern Ukraine, Vladimir Putin talked about his country’s most destructive weaponry. “I want to remind you that Russia is one of the most powerful nuclear nations,” he said. “This is a reality, not just words.” Russia, he told listeners, is “strengthening our nuclear deterrence forces.”

• Moscow troops could be in five NATO capitals in two days, boasts Putin: Leader boasted to Ukrainian president about Russian power - WILL STEWART FOR MAILONLINE

Moscow troops could be in five NATO capitals in two days, boasts Putin: Leader boasted to Ukrainian president about Russian power 

by WILL STEWART FOR MAILONLINE

Putin, pictured here at a meeting of the Russian State Council, boasted Russia could be in Kiev in two days - and also in Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn, Warsaw and Bucarest

Shockwaves reverberated through Eastern Europe tonight after Vladimir Putin boasted he could invade five NATO capitals inside two days.

• Vladimir Putin threatened to invade NATO nations in alleged conversation with Ukraine’s president

Vladimir Putin threatened to invade NATO nations in alleged conversation with Ukraine’s president

Justin Huggler, The Telegraph

Russian President Vladimir Putin waves after a wreath laying ceremony at the monument to Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2014. As the Ukraine crisis intensifies, the NATO countries closest to Russia have been pushing the alliance to set up permanent bases with troops on their land — with historical fears of Moscow heightened by new Russian aggression.

President Vladimir Putin privately said he could invade Poland, Romania and the Baltic states, according to a record of a conversation with his Ukrainian counterpart.

• Putin 'privately threatened to invade Poland, Romania and the Baltic states' - Justin Huggler

Putin 'privately threatened to invade Poland, Romania and the Baltic states'

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung reports that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told European Commission that Putin made the threat in a recent conversation
By Justin Huggler, Berlin - 6:48PM BST 18 Sep 2014