Large-scale joint military exercises being held by Russian and Belarus are not aimed at anyone and are purely of a defense nature, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Monday.

President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev made an entire cascade of important statements in an interview for Swiss media on Friday ahead of a visit to Switzerland next Monday and Tuesday.

“The US is Russia’s longtime and prospective partner but we still have many projects to implement together”, President Dmitry Medvedev said while addressing the participants of the Russian-American business summit in Moscow.

The Russian and U.S. presidents signed a preliminary agreement on Monday to cut their countries' nuclear arsenals to 1,500-1,675 operational warheads within seven years after a new arms reduction treaty comes into force.

Today in “Maendorf” castle near Moscow, the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliev signed a very important declaration on the peaceful resolution of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict and international guarantees. The meeting was initiated by the president of Russia Dmitry Medvedev.

“I signed Decrees on the recognition by the Russian Federation of South Ossetia's and Abkhazia's independence. Russia calls on other states to follow its example. This is not an easy choice to make, but it represents the only possibility to save human lives.”

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered state officials to stop "terrorizing" business, just days after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin did just that -- issuing a broadside against coal and steel giant Mechel. Does this very public disagreement signal a looming Medvedev-Putin schism and a political crisis?

The presidents of Russia and the United States issued a joint address on Tuesday to participants of the fourth meeting of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, underway in Madrid.

In Germany for his first European trip as Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev sternly warned on June 5 that further expansion of NATO would damage the West's relationship with Moscow.

The president of Russia Dmitry Medvedev's first visit to the West since his inauguration as president in May will last barely eight hours.