Vienna - Besides Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Russian carrier S7 Airlines is also still in the race for taking over Austrian Airlines AG, Austria's state holding OeIAG announced Monday.

Moscow  - Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet held talks with President Dmitry Medvedev and other top Russian officials at the Kremlin on Monday to boost trade and energy ties.

The talks including the head of Russian energy giant Gazprom Alexei Miller and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were expected to touch joint development of Vietnam's offshore oil reserves.

"In the last years many good and successful projects have been realized between us. These have been in the oil and gas sphere, power industry and the mining sector," Medvedev told journalists ahead of the talks, news agency Interfax reported.

Moscow - John McCain's US presidential campaign begged at the enemy's door this week when a wayward letter reached the desk of Russia's UN envoy Vitaly Churkin in New York asking for a donation.

The Russians wouldn't spare a ruble for the Republican, and sent McCain a sardonic message saying that unlike the United States, the Russian government does "not finance political activity in foreign countries."

In fact, Russian officials aren't banking on either McCain or Democratic nominee Barack Obama mending relations upturned by Russia's recent war with US-ally Georgia.

Moscow - At least four people were reported killed when a helicopter on a test flight after repairs crashed near Kazan Sunday in the Russian republic of Tatarstan.

Tblisi/Moscow - A high-ranking local politician was killed Saturday in an explosion in Georgia along with another resident of a community just outside the breakaway region of Abkazia, local media reported.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili dubbed it a "terrorist act" and called together his security council in the capital Tblisi.

Abkazian leaders denied involvement in the attack.

Moscow - At least three counter-demonstrators were arrested during opposition rallies Saturday, the Interfax agency reported.

Opposition groups which are not represented in the national parliament, the Duma, staged demonstrations for political and social reforms held under the motto "day of rage," with some 400 people participating in a rally in Moscow and around 150 in St. Petersburg.