President Vladimir Putin said Russia would go back to its Cold War stance of aiming its missiles at Europe if Washington went ahead with a plan to build a missile defence shield near Russia’s borders. Putin said Moscow would not be responsible for the consequences because Washington had started the escalation.

Russia prepared to bury former president Boris Yeltsin on Wednesday, mourning the man who dismantled the Soviet Union and piloted the country in its first chaotic years of independence. In a break with the past, he was to be buried not alongside previous Kremlin leaders, but at the capital’s Novodevichye cemetery alongside actors, writers and performers.

A fire at a Moscow drug rehabilitation clinic on Saturday killed 45 female patients and staff whose attempts to flee were hampered by metal grilles blocking escape routes, emergency services said. The fire, which broke out in the early hours of the morning, was likely caused by arson, a senior firefighter said .