The United States wants to subdue Moscow, but will never succeed, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday.

"They do not want to humiliate us, they want to subdue us, solve their problems at our expense," Putin said at the end of a four-hour meeting with his core support group, the People's Front.

"No one in history ever managed to achieve this with Russia, and no one ever will," he said, triggering a wave of applause.

Putin's tough talk reflected the strain in ties between Moscow and Washington, who are at loggerheads over the crisis in Ukraine, where the West has accused Russia of promoting and arming a separatist rebellion.

During the meeting, Putin repeatedly urged Russian firms, including in the agricultural and defense sectors, to boost their sales on domestic markets following tit-for-tat sanctions with West triggered by the row over Ukraine.

Putin fielded a range of questions during the event, on everything from the sales of blood glucose meters to housing problems, with the Russian leader stressing his determination to improve the economy which is straining under the sanctions.


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UK Prime Minister David Cameron says Russian President Vladimir Putin "can see he is at a crossroads" over Ukraine.
"If he continues to destabilise Ukraine, there will be further sanctions, further measures and there will be a completely different relationship between European countries and America on the one hand and Russia on the other."
He was speaking at the G20 summit in Australia.

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 Pro-Russian separatists will vote to set up a breakaway regional leadership in eastern Ukraine on Sunday aiming to take their war-torn region closer to Russia and defying Kiev and the West as the big guns still boom across the territory.

The United States and European Union have denounced as illegitimate the vote which is sure too to stoke tensions further between the West and Russia.

The separatists' poll is the latest twist in a geo-political face-off between Russia and the West over Ukraine going back to the overthrow of a Moscow-backed president in February and the installation of a Ukrainian leadership that seeks integration with mainstream Europe.

In Donetsk, the separatists' political and military stronghold, election workers at a polling station in an elementary school pasted red, black and blue rebel flags over Ukrainian state symbols on ballot boxes ahead of the vote.

"Voters lists were taken out by Ukrainian authorities, so we have had some difficulties, but we're trying to hold a legitimate vote for the people of Donetsk," said Natalia Chaban, an election official at a local school.

The big industrial city, which had a peace time population of nearly one million, experienced some of its heaviest mortar and artillery shelling of the last few weeks just hours before voting was due to begin. Ukraine said six of its servicemen had been killed in the last 24 hours.

Kiev says the vote violates the Minsk protocol that underpins a ceasefire between the rebels and Ukrainian troops. This, although sporadically broken, has allowed a semblance of normality to return to Donetsk following violence that has killed more than 3,700 people.

Kiev's pro-European government says the Minsk agreements, signed by rebel leaders and envoys from Kiev, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), forsee elections held under Ukrainian law.

These would appoint purely local officials with whom Kiev would agree new local powers to provide the regions with greater say in their own affairs.

The rebels' plan to elect leaders and institutions in a breakaway territory in the regions of Donetsk and neighbouring Luhansk, one week after a Ukrainian parliamentary election, violates that agreement, Kiev says.

The vote is certain to further strain ties between the West and Russia, already under several rounds of European and U.S. sanctions for its role in eastern Ukraine, after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow would recognise the vote.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday the election was illegitimate and would not be recognised by Europe.

"We all understand that the West is fighting with Russia, but they've decided to do it in Ukraine. As for us, we're just trying to survive," said Vitaly, 34, a businessman in Donetsk.

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Rebels say the election will legitimise the separatist leadership and consolidate power, though many Donetsk residents say the vote will change nothing and the outcome is already a foregone conclusion.

Enthusiasm for the rebel cause, which was at its peak in Ukraine's Russian-speaking east following the ouster of Moscow-backed Viktor Yanukovich, waned after violence closed banks and many stores, forcing people out of work.

"As for the elections tomorrow, I don't plan to vote. No one I know plans to either. There is no point," said Natasha, without giving her last name, outside a central Donetsk jewelry store, whose windows have been boarded up for months.

Current rebel prime minister Alexander Zakharchenko, a former mining electrician whose face is plastered on campaign advertisements across Donetsk, is almost certain to win the vote for the leadership of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic.

Zakharchenko, 38, has pulled colourful campaign stunts comparing the industrial region's coal deposits to the oil reserves in the United Arab Emirates and promising pensioners a monthly stipend that will allow them to go on safari in Australia.

His opponents, two lesser known separatist figures, have rarely, if ever, appeared in public.

At a Donetsk university, students gathered on Saturday to the tune of Russian composer Pyotr Chaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite" playing over loudspeakers until Zakharchenko arrived, dressed in his camouflage military gear.

"We need a strong republic," he told the hundreds of students assembled in the auditorium of the Donetsk National Technical University, "And your weapons are your textbooks."

The rebel vote, which has no voting lists, will allow internet voting, which has already started, and mobile polling stations, will also select a People's Council, a lawmaking body.

Walking her two months old-granddaughter, Valentina Borisova, 52, said she planned on voting in the election to legitimise the current rebel leadership and start building a future for the region.

"We have to hope for the best and work towards creating our own little country," said Borisova, a worker at a local steel factory.

"Otherwise at our factory we barely have work, and that only happens when Russia delivers raw materials," she said.


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Moscow and Kiev on Thursday clinched a deal that will guarantee that Russian gas exports flow into Ukraine and beyond to the European Union throughout the winter despite their intense rivalry over the fighting in eastern Ukraine.

"There is now no reason for people in Europe to stay cold this winter," said EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, whose offices mediated the talks for months.

He said he was "hopeful that the agreement can contribute to increase trust between Russia and Ukraine."

EU energy chief Guenther Oettinger said that "we can guarantee a security of supply over the winter," not only for Ukraine but also for the EU nations closest to the region that stood to suffer should the gas standoff have worsened.

The agreement long hinged on the question whether Ukraine was in a position to come up with the necessary cash to pay for the gas. "Yes, they are," a confident Oettinger said. The EU is set to come forward with aid to back up the cash-strapped government in Kiev.

Oettinger said the $4.6 billion deal should extend to the spring.

"We can claim and pay for amounts that we need. That question has been totally settled," said Yuriy Prodan, Ukrainian Minister for Energy.

After gas stopped flowing over the summer, Prodan said that it would resume its way into Ukraine "straight after we pay $1.45 billion" in a first portion. "There will be no problems."

The deal only stretches through March and the difficulties of the talks were immediately evident when the Russians and Ukrainians started disagreeing on terms and prices of gas for next summer.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Petro Poroshenko, agreed earlier this month on the broad outline of a deal, but financial issues, centering on payment guarantees for Moscow, had long bogged down talks.

But with each week, the need for a resolution becomes more pressing, since winter is fast approaching in Ukraine, where temperatures often sink below freezing for days.

Russia cut off gas supplies to Ukraine in June after disputes over Russia's annexation of Crimea in March. Ukraine since then has been relying on gas transfers from other European countries and its own reserves.

The EU has said previously that Ukraine would settle its energy debt to Russia with a $1.45 billion payment by the end of the month and $1.65 billion more by year's end. It has said for new gas deliveries, Ukraine would pay $385 per 1,000 cubic meters, which Russia should deliver following advance payments by Ukraine.

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Christophe de Margerie, the charismatic CEO of Total SA who dedicated his career to the multinational oil company, was killed at a Moscow airport when his private jet collided with a snowplow whose driver was drunk, Russian investigators said Tuesday.

Three French crew members also died when the French-made Dassault Falcon 50 burst into flames after it hit the snowplow during takeoff from Moscow's Vnukovo airport at 11:57 p.m. Monday local time.

Tatyana Morozova, an official with the Investigative Committee, Russia's main investigative agency, said investigators are questioning the snowplow driver, who was not hurt, as well as air traffic controllers and witnesses.

"At the current time, it has been established that the driver of the snowplow was in a state of alcoholic intoxication," Morozova said.

NTV television showed the charred plane lying on a grassy field. Though it had snowed earlier Monday in Moscow, it was unclear how much snow remained at the airport at the time of the crash.

De Margerie, 63, was a regular fixture at international economic gatherings and one of the French business community's most outspoken and recognizable figures. His trademark silver handlebar earned him the nickname "Big Mustache."

A critic of sanctions against Russia, he argued that isolating Russia was bad for the global economy. He traveled regularly to Russia and recently dined in Paris with a Putin ally who is facing EU sanctions over Russia's involvement in the crisis in Ukraine.

According to the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a telegram to his French counterpart Francois Hollande, lauding de Margerie for being at the "origins of the many major joint projects that have laid the basis for the fruitful cooperation between Russia and France in the energy sphere for many years."

Hollande expressed his "stupor and sadness" at the news. In a statement, he praised de Margerie for defending French industry on the global stage, and for his "independent character and original personality."

De Margerie started working for Total in 1974 after receiving his degree because it was close to home. It was a difficult time to join the firm as the oil embargo, which led to a fourfold increase in prices, was coming to an end.

"I was told 'You have made the absolute worst choice. Total will disappear in a few months,'" he said in a 2007 interview with Le Monde newspaper.

De Margerie rose through the ranks, serving in several positions in the finance department and the exploration and production division before becoming president of Total's Middle East operations in 1995. He became a member of Total's policy-making executive committee in 1999, CEO in 2007, before adding the post of chairman in 2010.

He was a central figure in Total's role in the United Nations oil-for-food program in Iraq in the 1990s. Total paid a fine in the U.S., though de Margerie was acquitted in France of corruption charges.

Under his leadership, Paris-based Total claims it became the fifth-largest publicly traded integrated international oil and gas company in the world, with exploration and production operations in more than 50 countries.

On Monday, de Margerie took part in a meeting of Russia's Foreign Investment Advisory Council with members of Russia's government and other international business executives.

Jean-Jacques Guilbaud, Total's secretary general, said the group would continue on its current path and that the board would meet in coming days to discuss who will succeed de Margerie. Total planned a minute of silence in its offices worldwide at 2 p.m. Paris time.

After dipping slightly early Tuesday, Total's share price was trading 2 percent higher, in line with the broader rally in French stocks.

The WTA took swift action and fined Tarpishchev $25,000 and disqualified him from working in an organizational capacity for a year on Saturday after he made the comments on Russian State Television on Friday.

Tarpishchev, who is also an International Olympic Committee member, made an official apology later on Saturday after a WTA demand to do so but that was not enough for a clearly unhappy Williams.

"I thought they were very insensitive and extremely sexist as well as racist at the same time. I thought they were in a way bullying," Williams told reporters in Singapore on Sunday.

"I've done the best that I can do, and that's all I can say. So I just wasn't very happy with his comments. I think a lot of people weren't happy as well.

"But the WTA and the USTA (United States Tennis Association) did a wonderful job of making sure that -- in this day of age, 2014 for someone with his power, it's really unacceptable to make such bullying remarks."

Appearing on a chat show, the program host said to Tarpishchev: "I was at the Olympics, where Maria Sharapova was in the final, playing with one, with one of the...." before the RTF head responded by saying "Williams brothers".

American Serena Williams, 33, is the current world number one and has won 18 grand slam singles titles. She has also teamed up with her elder sister Venus to win 13 grand slams and three Olympic gold medals in doubles.

Venus, 34, is a former world number one, who has also won seven grand slam singles titles.

Serena is in Singapore to play in the season-ending WTA Finals tournament, which she has won the last two years. The tournament begins on Monday.

(Reuters) - "The Equalizer", a thriller starring Denzel Washington as a man who helps rescue a teenage girl under the control of Russian gangsters, debuted in the top spot on U.S. and Canadian movie charts over the weekend with $35 million in ticket sales.

Young adult drama "The Maze Runner" dropped to second place after winning the box office race last weekend. "Maze Runner" earned $17.5 million at domestic theaters from Friday through Sunday, according to tracking firm Rentrak.

Quirky animated movie "The Boxtrolls" starring green monsters that wear cardboard finished third in its opening weekend, grossing $17.3 million.

In "The Equalizer" two-time Oscar winner Washington plays McCall, a trained killer who comes to the defense of the helpless, in this case a young Russian prostitute (Chloë Grace Moretz) in the grips of a human trafficking ring.

"Maze Runner" stars MTV "Teen Wolf" heartthrob Dylan O'Brien as one of a group of boys living in an isolated paradise where they are trapped by a giant, moving concrete maze.

"Boxtrolls" was made by hand using stop-motion technology, where each scene is set up with puppets placed on miniature sets. The 3D film features the voices of Ben Kingsley and Elle Fanning.

Sony Corp's movie studio released "The Equalizer". "The Maze Runner" was distributed by 20th Century Fox, a unit of 21st Century Fox. "Boxtrolls" was released by Comcast Corp's Universal Pictures.