- Russia's Foreign Ministry said the missile tests had threatened Pacific shipping and violated a seven-year missile launch moratorium announced by Pyongyang in 2005
- North Korean diplomats in Moscow said they had no prior knowledge of the launches; North Korean Ambassador to Russia Pak Ui Chun was summoned to the Foreign Ministry, and said he was satisfied with talks at the ministry
- The Russian Foreign Ministry said the Russian and Japanese foreign ministers, Sergei Lavrov and Taro Aso, had agreed in a telephone conversation to stay in close contact with other parties to the six-nation talks on North Korea
- Russian and South Korean foreign ministers agreed in a phone conversation that North Korea's missile launches were not in the interests of regional peace and stability
- Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. State Secretary Condoleezza Rice discussed the issue
- Chief of Russia's General Staff Yury Baluyevsky said North Korea had possibly fired 10 missiles - four more than first thought - in the tests, which were carried out late Tuesday night
- Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said the missile tests would not help resolve the North Korean nuclear issue
- Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said that the launches had done no harm to Russia's national security
- The White House said the U.S. would send the head of its delegation at the six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear issue, Christopher Hill, to Russia, Japan, China, and South Korea, to discuss the situation
- The UN Security Council convened for an emergency session to discuss the issue and said it would draft a relevant document within a few days
* Russia's lower house of parliament passed a draft law giving the president the right to use the Armed Forces and secret services to fight international terrorism abroad
* Russia's top prosecutor Yury Chaika asked the upper chamber of parliament to dismiss five of his deputies and the chief military prosecutor
* Sergei Yastrzhembsky, a Kremlin aide for relations with the EU, said Russia and EU countries would hold three high-level meetings by the end of 2006
* Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Russia's Air Force could receive a new Tu-160 Blackjack strategic bomber by the end of the year
* Ukraine has met 40% of its natural gas storage plan for the winter, the country's oil and gas company Naftogaz said
* Iranian media said talks between Iran's top negotiator on the country's nuclear program and the EU foreign policy supremo Javier Solana scheduled for Wednesday in Brussels had been postponed, but cited no reasons; Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said later the talks had been put off over a threat to the Iranian delegation from anti-Iran terrorist groups based in Europe
* Russian President Vladimir Putin met with European prosecutors in Moscow and said:
- all countries are obliged to combat Nazism; he urged European prosecutors to observe objective standards in these efforts
- Russia is ready for a human rights dialogue but will not allow it to be used as a means of political pressure
- the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism should enter into force as soon as possible
* Russia's lower house of parliament passed a bill in the second and third readings making energy giant Gazprom the country's only exporter of natural gas
* A Ukrianian opposition member said a meeting between Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and leaders of parliamentary factions had been postponed indefinitely
* Georgia's Defense Ministry said it had started constructing a military base in accordance with NATO standards near the breakaway South Ossetia province
* The head of an institute working on a bird flu vaccine said Russia could have its first peroral vaccine for birds against the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza by the end of this year
* Russia's Defense Ministry said the death toll in an attack on a military convoy in the southeast of Chechnya on Tuesday had risen to six with another 15 wounded
* Russia's lower house of parliament passed a bill in the third and final reading prohibiting a number of state officials from holding dual citizenship
* Russia's State Statistic Service said inflation, excluding administrative, random and seasonal factors, had stood at 0.3% in June and 6.2% since the beginning of the year
