Russia

May 25 (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Thursday that Russia's security services knew what they were doing after a top Ukrainian intelligence official said President Vladimir Putin was number one on Kyiv's kill list.

Vadym Skibitsky, deputy head of Ukraine's military intelligence service, told Germany's Die Welt newspaper in an interview that Kyiv wanted to assassinate Putin "because he coordinates and decides what happens" in the war and that the Russian leader was aware he topped Ukraine's kill list.

MOSCOW, May 25 (Reuters) - Russia moved ahead on Thursday with a plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, whose leader said the warheads were already on the move, in the Kremlin's first deployment of such bombs outside Russia since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.

The U.S. State Department denounced the deployment plan, but said Washington had no intention of altering its position on strategic nuclear weapons or seen any signs Russia was preparing to use a nuclear weapon.

MOSCOW, May 24. /TASS/: The crew of the Russian naval ship Ivan Khurs repelled an attack by Ukrainian surface drones in the Bosporus Strait waters within Turkey’s exclusive economic zone, Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, May 24. /TASS/: Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Wednesday took a dig at threats by the US State Department to levy restrictions on Georgia over its move to resume flights with Russia.

"There’s no other way to call [the statements by the State Department] than interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states," the diplomat said at a news conference. "We regard such mentoring statements from Washington as interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states and in their relations with third countries and overt pressure."

MOSCOW, May 24. /TASS/: Behind NATO’s latest expansion push lie the same underlying intentions as the policies of Hitler, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at an international meeting of high-level officials responsible for security issues in Moscow on Wednesday.

"In essence, NATO’s reckless expansion reflects the same intentions that undergirded the Hitlerian doctrine of ‘Drang nach Osten’ (German for ‘Drive to the East,’ which was the Nazi slogan justifying the conquest of Central and Eastern European lands - TASS)," Lavrov said.

MOSCOW, May 24. /TASS/: Russia, together with other countries, will assuredly achieve a fair world order, whereas the model under which certain countries develop at the expense of others will become a thing of the past, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, greeting the participants in the 11th International Meeting of High-Level Officials Responsible for Security Issues.

ST PETERSBURG, Russia, May 24 (Reuters) - The first of three Russian hypersonic missile scientists to be arrested on suspicion of treason will go on trial next week, the court handling the case said on Wednesday.

The criminal case against Anatoly Maslov, 76, will open in St Petersburg's city court on June 1, the court said on its website.

He and two colleagues at the same Siberian institute, the Khristianovich Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITAM), have all been arrested on suspicion of treason in the past year.

MOSCOW, May 24 (Reuters) - Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner mercenary group, warned that Russia could face a revolution similar to those of 1917 and lose the conflict in Ukraine unless the elite got serious about fighting the war.

Russia's most powerful mercenary said his political outlook was dominated by love for the motherland and serving President Vladimir Putin, but cautioned that Russia was in danger of turmoil.

MOSCOW, May 23. /TASS/: Russia is coming together as a country at this important moment in history, and national pride is on the rise, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, May 23 (Reuters) - Yevgeny Prigozhin on Saturday delivered Vladimir Putin one of the few battlefield victories of the president's 15-month war in Ukraine.

Even then, Russia's most powerful mercenary could not resist breaking the taboos of Putin's tightly controlled political system.

Holding a Russian flag and with an automatic weapon slung over his shoulder, Prigozhin announced the fall of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut surrounded by heavily armed mercenaries, the black standards of his Wagner group and charred ruins where tens of thousands have perished.