Moscow, July 29 : Archaeologists in the Sverdlovsk Region in Russia''s Urals have discovered the 9000-year-old bones of a rhinoceros, a local museum worker has said.

The finding is likely to belie the assumption that rhinoceros last wandered the Urals some 15,000-20,000 years ago. It seems to prove that they existed in the area a lot more recently.

Moscow - Sergei Kislyak, Russia's deputy foreign minister, was named the country's new ambassador to Washington, news agencies reported Tuesday.

Kislyak, 57, has headed difficult negotiations with the United States in recent months over Washington's plan to install parts of a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe.

The countries' conflicting security vision is one of a number of issues that makes for tense relations that show no signs of easing as Kislyak takes the post, despite a change of administrations in both capitals.

The two front-runners in the US presidential race have been strongly critical of former president Vladimir Putin, whose legacy his successor Dmitry Medvedev has pledged to follow.

Moscow - A top Kremlin advisor on Monday denied political meddling in the legal struggles of TNK-BP head Robert Dudley with Russian shareholders of the joint oil venture.

"TNK-BP faces no risks whatsoever to its operations in Russia, and the shareholders must decide what to do next," Kremlin economist Arkady Dvorkovich was quoted by news agency RIA-Novosti as saying Monday.

Observers have suspected that the shareholder battle between British Petroleum (BP) and its Russian billionaire partners, as well as recent legal enquires into foreign employees working at the company preface a takeover by a Russian state firm such as Gazprom.

Moscow - Russia's defence ministry on Thursday denied reports that it was considering basing nuclear-armed bombers in Cuba to warn against US plans to base a missile defense shield in Europe, Russian news agencies reported.

"We regard these kinds of anonymous allegations as disinformation," defence ministry spokesman Ilshat Baichurin was quoted by RIA-Novosti as saying.

The report in state newspaper Izvestia on Monday cited an unidentified high-ranking air force official as saying such bombers sent to Cuba to counter US shield plans.

Moscow - Russia is preparing to counter the strategic threat posed if the US sites a missile defence base in eastern Europe with military measures including specially modifying its ballistic missiles, a Russian military expert said Thursday.

"Russia's military responses to the deployment of a US missile defence system in Europe may include improving the Russian strategic Topol-M missiles with hypersonic manoeuvering warheads and a large number of jamming stations that would reduce the effectiveness of missile defence elements tenfold," said Viktor Yesin, a former chief of General Staff of the Russian Strategic Missile Troops.