Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban will meet president Donald Trump at the White House on Friday to seek exemptions from US sanctions on Russian oil and broker a summit between the American leader and Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Responding to rumours of a fallout between Vladimir Putin and his long-serving ally Sergei Lavrov, the Kremlin has insisted nothing has changed. That's despite the foreign minister being left out of a security meeting and dropped from a delegation.

Under Putin, however, loyalty and continuity are still prized. Last year, for instance, the Kremlin announced the replacement of Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s long-serving minister of defense. But instead of being fired outright for a lack of battlefield success, Shoigu was moved sideways to a post as the secretary of Russia’s Security Council.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his top officials on Wednesday to draft proposals for a possible test of nuclear weapons, something Moscow has not done since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

Pianist and composer Justus Frantz has regularly divided opinion in Germany's classical music world over his close relationship with Russia's President Vladimir Putin. Now he's set disapproving tongues wagging again within the industry by accepting Moscow's Order of Friendship award.

In an interview with CBS news, Trump praised both Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin for being "smart, tough, serious" leaders.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday the world would have no future without a system of arms control, with the future of a nuclear weapons pact between Russia and the United States hanging in the balance.