Here's another update from RFE/RL's news desk on the latest from Putin regarding sanctions against Russia:
Russian President Vladimir Putin says Western countries have "lost Russia's food market" by launching sanctions against his country.
Talking at the televised "Forum of Action" -- a session of the All-Russia Popular Front (ONF) political movement led by the ruling United Russia party, Putin said, "We, indeed, have benefitted from some incorrect behavior of our partners, who had been well-established in Russia's agriculture sector."
Putin said the sanctions introduced against Russia had given new impetus to the development of domestic industries, which are now being called upon to compensate for the loss of foreign imports.
Putin added that the move "gave us moral, and I think, judicial right to introduce responsive sanctions."
Putin initiated the creation of the ONF in 2011.
The organization was turned into a political movement in June last year.
Here are some more details from our news desk regarding Kadyrov and his horses:
The Kremlin-backed head of Russia's Chechnya region says authorities in Germany have allowed two racehorses he keeps there to receive prize money despite Western sanctions against him.
German media reports last month said that authorities refused to pay monetary awards won by Kadyrov's horses, Zazu and Dashing Home, due to EU sanctions that bar him from traveling or holding assets in the European Union.
Kadyrov wrote on Instagram on November 18 that "common sense has at last prevailed over political intrigues" and that the prize money won by the horses can now be collected.
He had said earlier that tens of thousands of euros earned by the horses would be used for their upkeep in Germany.
Kadyrov is on a list of Russian and Ukrainian officials subject to EU sanctions because their activities jeopardize the territorial integrity, sovereignty, and independence of Ukraine.
More from our newsroom on the release of convicted Putin assassination plotter Adam Osmayev by Ukrainian authorities:
A Ukrainian court has ordered the release of a Russian citizen who was jailed in 2012 over an alleged plot to kill Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The court in the Black Sea port city of Odesa on November 18 sentenced Adam Osmayev to time served -- about two years and nine months -- after convicting him of illegal explosives possession, damaging private property, and forgery.
But amid tension between Moscow and Kyiv over the conflict in eastern Ukraine, authorities dropped the attempted assassination charge against Osmayev last month.
Osmayev, an ethnic Chechen, was arrested in February 2012 after his associate, Kazakh citizen Ilya Pyanzin, was injured in the accidental explosion of a handmade bomb in Odesa. The blast killed a third man.
Osmayev and Pyanzin were charged with plotting to kill Putin.
Pyanzin was extradited to Russia and sentenced to 10 years in prison in September 2013.
Osmayev's extradition had been halted at the request of the European Court for Human Rights.
Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax