Lithuania on Thursday summoned the Russian ambassador, accusing the Kremlin's warships of thwarting work on a key underwater power link to Sweden that would reduce the Baltic state's dependence on Russian energy. 

Lithuania's foreign ministry said the Russian navy has repeatedly tried to disrupt the laying of cable during Moscow's military drills in the Baltic sea.

Norway said Thursday that up to 5,000 NATO troops would take part in anti-submarine warfare exercises off its coast in early May, amid growing regional unease over suspected submarine sightings.

More than 10 ships and submarines as well as aircraft and helicopters would participate in the exercise between May 4 and 13 in the North Sea and in Skagerrak, the strait between Norway and Denmark.

Dutch and international investigators have finished recovering human remains and wreckage from the MH17 plane crash site in eastern Ukraine, the mission's head said on Thursday.

All 298 passengers and crew on board the Malaysia Airlines jetliner -- the majority of them Dutch -- died when it was shot down over rebel-held eastern Ukraine last year.

China and Russia will conduct their first-ever joint naval exercises in the Mediterranean Sea within weeks, Beijing's military said Thursday as it extends its reach and the pair's relationship becomes ever closer.

The live-fire exercises, set for mid-May, will involve nine surface ships in total, with three from China, military spokesman Geng Yansheng said at a monthly briefing.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has canceled his planned visit to Moscow to attend Russia's World War II anniversary celebrations on May 9, President Vladimir Putin's spokesman said on Thursday.

"He will not come. This is related to internal North Korean issues," Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told AFP, saying the message had been received "through diplomatic channels."

The United States embassy in Azerbaijan denied on Wednesday  Russian President Vladimir Putin's claims that Washington was supporting separatist militants in the restive North Caucasus.

"We flatly reject the notion," a spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Azerbaijan told AFP.

Warsaw officials said Wednesday they have decided to revoke the residency permit of Leonid Sviridov, a Russian journalist with the RIA Novosti news agency, following spying allegations. 

Poland's foreign ministry had already rescinded Sviridov's press accreditation in October at the request of the internal security agency ABW, which suspects him of espionage, according to local media.

Russia has withdrawn the opposition Progress Party led by arch Putin foe Alexei Navalny from the list of authorized parties, the justice ministry announced on Tuesday.

The decision came 10 days after the announcement of the creation of a new opposition movement, the Democratic Coalition, which includes the Progress Party and RPR-Parnas, the party of slain Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov.

Lithuanian border guards said Tuesday they had denied entry to eight Russian bikers including at least one member of a pro-Kremlin group attempting that had planned a controversial WWII victory ride through Europe.

The border guard service said it turned away eight Russian citizens at the Baltic state's borders with Belarus and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad on Monday and Tuesday.

Something hideously violent happened in Elishku. Whether it was a separatist attack or a civilian massacre is shrouded in the mists of conflict, control, claim and counter-claim that plague China's mainly Muslim region of Xinjiang.

According to authorities, 96 civilians and "terrorists" died when militants attacked a police station in the township last July 28. Residents, speaking to foreign media for the first time, say that hundreds of people mounted a protest against government restrictions on religion which was brutally put down.