MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia is sending two planes to Lebanon on Tuesday to evacuate more than 100 of its citizens from Syria, the Emergencies Ministry said, in the clearest sign yet that Moscow may be preparing for President Bashar al-Assad’s possible defeat.

Russia has been Assad’s main foreign protector during a 22-month uprising against his rule, but a diplomat conceded last month the government had lost territory and the rebels fighting Assad could win the war.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The artistic director of Russia’s Bolshoi Ballet will undergo surgery next week to try to save his eyesight after an attacker threw acid in his face, the theatre’s chief said on Saturday.

Sergei Filin, 42, spoke to investigators in a Moscow hospital, Bolshoi director Anatoly Iksanov said, adding that they also questioned his colleagues, who said the attack was likely triggered by envy, rivalry or competition for roles in Russia’s most prestigious theatre.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A masked attacker threw acid in the face of the artistic director of Russia’s prestigious Bolshoi Ballet, endangering his eyesight, in what colleagues said on Friday was the culmination of a two-week campaign of intimidation.

Sergei Filin, a former leading dancer at the Bolshoi who has been in the high-pressure job at the heart of Russian culture for nearly two years, was attacked outside his Moscow apartment building as he returned home on Thursday night.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – An unknown attacker threw acid in the face of the artistic director of Russia’s prestigious Bolshoi Ballet, endangering his eyesight, in what police and colleagues said on Friday was the culmination of a two-week campaign of intimidation.

Sergei Filin, a former leading dancer at the Bolshoi who has been in the high-pressure job at the heart of Russian culture for nearly two years, was attacked outside his Moscow apartment building as he returned from the theatre late on Thursday.

MOSCOW, Jan 17 (Reuters) – Two Russian ships heading for a
naval exercise off Syria this month are picking up munitions on
their way to the Syrian port of Tartous, news agencies reported
on Thursday.

Russia has been Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s main
foreign protector during a 22-month uprising against his rule
and is its biggest arms supplier. It leases a naval maintenance
and supply facility at Tartous that is its only military base
outside the former Soviet Union.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Two Russian ships heading for a naval exercise off Syria this month are picking up munitions to drop at the Syrian port of Tartous, news agencies reported on Thursday.

Russia has been Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s main foreign protector during a 22-month uprising against his rule and is its biggest arms supplier. It leases a naval maintenance and supply facility at Tartous that is its only military base outside the former Soviet Union.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia has sent warships to the Mediterranean Sea in case it needs to evacuate its citizens trapped by the civil war in Syria, a naval source was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

Their departure points to growing concern in Moscow, a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, about rebel advances on the Syrian capital Damascus and suggests Russia is pressing ahead quickly with evacuation preparations announced by a diplomat last week.

MOSCOW, Dec 18 (Reuters) – Russia has sent warships to the
Mediterranean Sea in case it needs to evacuate its citizens
trapped by the civil war in Syria, a naval source was quoted as
saying on Tuesday.

Their departure points to growing concern in Moscow, a
staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, about rebel
advances on the Syrian capital Damascus and suggests Russia is
pressing ahead quickly with evacuation preparations announced by
a diplomat last week.

MOSCOW, Dec 14 (Reuters) – Russia denied on Friday that it
has changed its position on Syria, trying to dampen speculation
that remarks by a senior envoy point to policy differences in
Moscow as the civil war turns against President Bashar al-Assad.

Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, a Kremlin envoy to
the Middle East, made unusually pessimistic assessment of the
situation in Syria on Thursday when he acknowledged that Assad’s
opponents might win.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – By tradition, Cossacks protected Russia’s borderlands, but on Tuesday descendants of the Tsarist warrior caste patrolled a patch of central Moscow as part of a resurgence encouraged by President Vladimir Putin.

A handful of men in high lambswool hats and epaulettes paced a slushy square around a major railway station, looking for illegal trade and other infractions in what they called a trial run for further patrols in the heart of the Russian capital.