Statements by NATO's new chief do not raise hopes of a rapid improvement in relations between Russia and the military alliance, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said on Thursday.

• October 9, 2014

Islamic State raised its flag on a building on the outskirts of the Syrian frontier town of Kobani on Monday after an assault of almost three weeks, but the town's Kurdish defenders said its fighters had not reached the city centre.

• October 6, 2014

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday it was essential that both Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists fully observed a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine clinched nearly a month ago.

• October 3, 2014

Ukraine accused Russian forces on Friday of helping separatists step up pressure on government troops holding the main airport in the eastern city of Donetsk, threatening a fragile ceasefire.

• October 3, 2014

Russia said on Friday the mortar fire that killed a Swiss worker from the International Committee of the Red Cross in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine was fired from territory controlled by Ukrainian government forces.

• October 3, 2014

NATO's new leader offered an olive branch to Russia on Wednesday, saying he saw no contradiction between a strong alliance and building a constructive relationship with Moscow.

• October 1, 2014

Turkey signalled it may send troops into Syria or Iraq and let allies use Turkish bases to fight Islamic State, as coalition jets launched air strikes on Wednesday on insurgents besieging a town on its southern border with Syria.

• October 1, 2014

NATO's potential expansion to the former Yugoslav republics of Bosnia, Macedonia and Montenegro could be seen as a "provocation", Russia's foreign minister was quoted as saying in a newspaper interview published on Monday.

• September 29, 2014