Russia China Silent on Gaza Massacre

President Medvedev orders aid to... Russians in Gaza

Following the president's instructions, the Foreign and Emergency Situations ministries are considering how to provide aid or carry out an evacuation procedure.

"We are working out the details of a plan to provide assistance to Russians [in Gaza] and to evacuate them if necessary," a Foreign Ministry spokesman told RIA Novosti.

Evacuation coordinator on the Palestinian side, Yelena Alyan, told RIA Novosti Monday that about 200 Russian and CIS nationals have applied to be evacuated from Gaza. The evacuation plan is being prepared by Russian diplomats.

The evacuation lists contain 122 Russians, four Belarusians, 38 Ukrainians, 30 Moldovans and five Kazakhs.

There are at least 250 Russian citizens in the Gaza Strip, most of them wives and children of Palestinians who studied at Russian universities.

The Russian envoy to the Palestinian National Administration said Monday there had been no reports of casualties among Russians in Gaza so far.

"We have an evacuation plan in case of an emergency. If we think that the situation is becoming a threat, we will evacuate them via Jordan as we did before," Sergei Kozlov said.

Russian diplomats organized an emergency evacuation of Russian residents in Gaza in 2007 at the height of clashes between Fatah and Hamas militants. At that time, over 100 Russians were transported to Jordan via Israel and flown to Moscow by emergencies ministry plane.

Russia's Foreign Ministry on Monday warned Russians against visiting popular pilgrimage sites in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

"The Russian Foreign Ministry recommends that Russian citizens refrain from visiting these regions until the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation is over and the situation is back to normal," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. More

Blackout fear for EU as gas row escalates

Russia cut off gas supplies to Ukraine yesterday in a dispute over unpaid bills that rang political alarm bells across the European Union, which imports up to 40 per cent of its natural gas from Russia, the bulk of it through Ukraine.