Moscow - Russia's General Prosecutor's office on Thursday ordered a special investigative team to probe the murder of high-profile Chechen politician and former pro-Kremlin lawmaker Ruslan Yamadayev.

Yamadayev was gunned down in central Moscow on Wednesday.

He was the oldest brother in a powerful Chechen clan that has clashed with Kremlin-appointed Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.

Business dailies Kommersant and Vedemosti led with headlines calling Yamadayev's murder the death of Kadyrov's greatest enemy.

Moscow  - Pro-Kremlin lawmaker and former Chechen fighter Ruslan Yamadayev was shot dead in an apparent contract killing in central Moscow on Wednesday, Russian news agencies reported.

"At 17:20 an unknown man approached the car at the red traffic light, shot Yamadaev and injured the other passenger," the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Kiev, Moscow  - The daughter of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko stepped up her career as a fashion model with runway work at a Milan show, Russia's Izvestia newspaper reported Tuesday.

Vitalina Yushchenko took part in the showing of the summer collection of the Ukrainian designer Aina Gase, according to the report.

Vitalina's portfolio also includes photographs posed for Russian Vogue. Prior to taking up modelling, the 27-year-old mother-of-two had pursued a career as a pop singer.

Vitalina is Yushchenko's eldest child by a previous marriage.

Moscow  - The Russian Orthodox Church said it was "appalled" Monday by a proposal to set again in front of the secret service headquarters in central Moscow the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Cheka, the forerunner to the infamous Soviet era secret service agency KGB.

When the statue of the man known as Iron Felix was uprooted with the end of communism in 1991, it was for many a sign that the repression he sponsored was forever gone.

Moscow - A Russian Navy battalion left for Venezuela on Monday, a navy spokesman said, in a show of force in US-patrolled waters that could exacerbate a tense security standoff with Washington.

Last week, two nuclear-capable Russian bombers flew military exercises over the US fleet in the Caribbean at the invitation of US foe Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who plans to visit Moscow next week.

There has been no such deployment - including nuclear-powered cruiser Peter the Great which is outfitted with torpedoes, 500 missiles and anti-submarine aircraft - in Western waters since Cold War days.

Joint Russo-Venezuelan naval exercises are set for mid November.

Moscow/Minsk - Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko threatened Saturday to place relations with the West on ice if it declares next week's parliamentary elections undemocratic.

If there is no recognition of the elections "we will stop talking to them," the president told the news agency Interfax.

Lukashenko, criticized by human rights groups in his homeland as "Europe's last dictator," said Belarus had strictly adhered to the guidelines laid down by the West in preparing the elections.