Veteran Russian nationalist politician had been hospitalized since early February due to Covid-19 Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the long-serving firebrand leader of Russia’s parliamentary opposition LDPR party, died on Wednesday in Moscow, aged 75. He had spent over two months in hospital, suffering with coronavirus.

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Citing the NATO build-up, Moscow has increased the size of its active service to 1.3 million Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed an executive order increasing the size of the armed forces by 170,000 members, effective immediately.