* Russian Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said Russia and the U.S. had made substantial progress in resolving the contentious issues in bilateral talks over Russia's bid to join the WTO
* President Putin said the political future of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) did not depend on the price of Russian natural gas
* FSB Director Nikolai Patrushev said Russian security services had eliminated more than 300 militants in the North Caucasus and prevented damages to the state totaling 41.5 billion rubles in 2005
* Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Russia's GDP growth would be 6.2% in 2005
* A Moscow district federal arbitration court rejected an appeal filed by embattled oil major Yukos against a back-tax bill of about $3 billion for the year 2000
* Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said the liberalization of the Russian natural gas price would end Ukraine's political and energy dependence
* The Russian government said it had given energy giant Gazprom the right to use a sector of the country's continental shelf located in the southeastern part of the Barents Sea
* The prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia urged Russia to extradite war criminals accused of war crimes against humanity as soon as possible
* The parliament of Belarus set the date of March 19 for next year's presidential elections
* Authorities said one person had died and two were seriously injured after an accident in a smelter near the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant
* The European Aeronautic Defense and Space company (EADS) bought a 10% stake in Russian aircraft manufacturer Irkut for $65.3 million, an Irkut representative said
* A Dutch court interrupted for several months the trial of the lawsuit brought against embattled Russian oil company Yukos by a consortium of major foreign banks, a court officer said
