Russia

Listen to this BosNewsLife News report via Vatican Radio:   By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife MOSCOW/BUDAPEST (BosNewsLife)-- Russian officials say as many as 17 people, including two police officers, have died and 50 others were injured in a suicide blast that devastated a train station in the southern Russian city of Volgograd.

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife KYIV, UKRAINE (BosNewsLife)-- Ukrainian Christians gathered for prayers as pro-Russian activists attacked a pro-Kyiv rally on Ukraine's disputed Crimea's peninsula with clubs and whips on Sunday, March 9, while thousands took to the streets across Ukraine in rival demonstrations. The protests came while Interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk vowed Ukraine would not cede "an inch" of its territory to Moscow.

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife with additional reporting by Vatican Radio's Laura Ieraci KIEV, UKRAINE (BosNewsLife)-- The leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which suffered persecution under Communism, has urged voters to act against corruption and political candidates to stay away of populism.

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife KYIV, UKRAINE (BosNewsLife)-- Fighting raged Sunday in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk despite a request from the pro-Russian separatists for a cease-fire to prevent what they called a "humanitarian catastrophe." At least one person was killed and 10 injured in the latest shelling that started early Sunday and continued throughout the day, officials said.

By BosNewsLife News Center with reports from Moscow MOSCOW/BUDAPEST (BosNewsLife)-- Russia buried its first post-Soviet Orthodox patriarch, Alexy II, Tuesday, December 9, after a funeral attended by presidents, foreign emissaries and the country's political elite.

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife MOSCOW/BUDAPEST (BosNewsLife)-- For the first time in nearly 1,000 years bone fragments of Saint Nicholas, one of the Russian Orthodox Church's most revered figures, have been moved from an Italian church to Russia where huge crowds of Orthodox faithful were expected to visit the relics. The historic move follows talks between Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill.

By BosNewsLife News Center MEXICO CITY/MOSCOW (BosNewsLife)-- Christian Maya looked on in wonder Friday, December 21, at the invasion of foreign tourists to ancient cities in southern Mexico and Central America where they expected the world to end based on ancient Maya predictions.

Listen to this BosNewsLife News report via Vatican Radio:   By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife  KYIV/AMSTERDAM (BosNewsLife)-- Ukraine has ordered the withdrawal of all its forces from Crimea, following the Russian takeover of the peninsula. Monday's announcement came while Western concerns over Ukraine was expected to dominate a nuclear security summit in the Netherlands.

Listen to this BosNewsLife News report via Vatican Radio: By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife MOSCOW/BUDAPEST (BosNewsLife)-- Officials say a top regional security official has been shot dead in the troubled Russian republic of Ingushetia in an attack that the local leadership linked to his efforts to end violence.

Listen to this BosNewsLife News Report via Vatican Radio:  By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife KYIV,UKRAINE (BosNewsLife)-- The foreign ministers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have condemned the use of what they call "excessive force" against pro-European protesters in Ukraine, amid escalating tensions in the former Soviet nation. Speaking after talks of the NATO military alliance in Brussels, Belgium, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged Ukraine's leadership to listen to what he called "the voices of its people".