Alexander Bastrykin

Two senior Russian officials are vying to lead efforts to combat religious extremism in Russia as ethnic and religious tensions continue to escalate.

More than 30,000 foreigners who recently acquired Russian citizenship but failed to register for military service have been identified and added to mobilization lists, according to Alexander Bastrykin, chairman of the Investigative Committee, as reported by Russian news agency Interfax on Thursday.

Russia has sent around 10,000 naturalised citizens to fight in Ukraine, a top official said Thursday, adding that some had chosen to leave the country rather than face being enlisted.

Moscow has been accused of pressuring Central Asian migrants to join its armed forces amid an intense recruitment drive to boost troop numbers for its military offensive on Ukraine.

In the aftermath of the harrowing attack on Moscow's iconic concert hall "Crocus City Hall," the accused perpetrators have come forth with full testimonies detailing the orchestration of the assault and those who aided in its planning.

Moscow declared the attackers of the Monument to the Soviet Army a day ago as criminals and threatened to hold them accountable.

The head of the Investigative Committee (IC) of the Russian Federation, Alexander Bastrykin, ordered the initiation of a criminal case for the desecration of the Monument to the Soviet Army in Sofia, reported the Russian state agency TASS, quoted by BTA.

The State Agency "National Security" (SANS) has started an investigation on the basis of the spread information that the truck that caused an explosion on the Crimean bridge on October 8 passed through the territory of Bulgaria.

The investigation began immediately after the disclosure of the information, by order of Acting Prime Minister Galab Donev.

Deputy Head of the Security Council of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, said that Moscow must respond to the terrorist attack on the Crimean bridge.
As he said, Russia will respond by eliminating the terrorists responsible for the attack.

The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, called the explosion of the Crimean bridge a terrorist attack, the perpetrators, guarantors and executors of which are the Ukrainian special services. The chairman of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, added that Russian citizens and foreign countries were involved in the organization of the attack.

Ambassadors of 27 European Union nations have agreed further anti-Russian sanctions over the situation around Russian blogger Alexey Navalny, a source in one of the delegations told TASS on Monday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on March 6 he was cutting his salary by 10 percent as well as the earnings of several top government officials, as the country's economy reels from the collapse of the ruble.