A meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council was held at the Kremlin on December 21.

The European Union extended sanctions against Russia for six months.The sanctions will now extend until the end of July 2016.

Brent crude slumped to the lowest level since 2004 amid speculation suppliers from the Middle East to the U.S. will exacerbate a record glut as they continue fighting for market share, Bloomberg reports:

The European Union’s executive backed Ukraine and Georgia’s bid for visa-free access to the bloc on Friday, opening the way to more than 40 million people to potentially travel visa-free to the bloc, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Vladimir Putin held a briefing session with permanent members of the Security Council on December 18.The meeting participants discussed ways to cut off sources of terrorist funding in light of the relevant resolution adopted by the UN Security Council.

European Union envoys agreed on Friday a six-month rollover of the bloc's economic sanctions on Russia, diplomats said, extending the measures on energy, banking and defence sectors until the end of July 2016, Reuters reports.

Russia is not competing with anyone in fighting terrorism and continues favouring the creation of a broad counter-terrorism coalition under the UN supervision, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry department for new challenges and threats Ilya Rogachev said in an interview with TASS on Friday.

From December 14 to 16  London hosted the 11th International Muslim Forum on "Religion, identity and integration, and the transformation of values".

The journalist of the UNIAN agency Roman Tsimbalyuk (Ukrain), who asked Vladimir Putin a thorny question about Russian soldiers in Ukraine at tenth press conference in year 2014, also successed to adress his question today.

Russian president Vladimir Putin was asked a question about his daughters at his news conference.

Russian president Vladimir Putin was asked a few questions about Turkey during his eleventh major news conference.

Russian president Vladimir Putin conducted his eleventh major news conference today at Moscow's World Trade Center.