Pakistan and Iran on January 29 agreed to work together to improve security cooperation in the wake of deadly air strikes by Tehran and Islamabad earlier this month that killed at least 11 people, marking a significant escalation in fraught relations between the neighbors.
Incumbent Vladimir Putin has been officially registered as a candidate in Russia's upcoming presidential election, a vote he is expected to easily win with most of his main opponents in jail or outside the country, having fled for security concerns.
Russian rights defender Aleksandr Podrabinek said on January 29 that a letter he sent to longtime Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza at the IK-6 prison in the Siberian city of Omsk was sent back marked "return to sender."
A Moscow court on January 29 issued arrest warrants for imprisoned opposition politician Aleksei Navalny's self-exiled associates Maria Pevchikh, Kira Yarmysh, Dmitry Nizovtsev, and Anna Biryukova on charges of organizing an extremist group.
The Russian city of St. Petersburg on January 27 marked the 80th anniversary of the end of a devastating World War II siege by Nazi forces with a series of memorial events attended by President Vladimir Putin.