Moscow, May 20 (EFE).- French actor Gerard Depardieu, a Russian citizen since early this year, is soon to open a restaurant in the city where he now resides, authorities in the Mordovia region said Monday. "Depardieu told us that he will soon open a restaurant that aims to attract creative, enterprising people," Valeri Maresiev, information minister for the Russian Republic of Mordovia, told the Interfax news agency.

The chief executive of French banking giant Societe Generale's Russian unit was detained in Moscow on Wednesday on suspicion of seeking a $1.5-million bribe and accepting a smaller kickback. The chief executive of Rosbank is suspected of demanding a $1.5 million bribe from a businessman for extending a loan and signing another loan agreement on favourable terms, said a statement from the Russian interior ministry.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit Russia for talks with President Vladimir Putin amid concerns Moscow may be about to deliver advanced missiles to Syria, the Kremlin said Saturday. Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the visit to AFP, but declined to give details, although he told the Interfax news agency it was being planned for next week. The state RIA Novosti news agency, citing a diplomatic source, also said Netanyahu expected to call on Putin at his Black Sea residence in Sochi early next week.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday expressed determination to hold talks on solving a territorial dispute over Pacific islands that has prevented the two countries from signing a World War II peace treaty. The two leaders agreed it was "abnormal" the countries had not signed a peace treaty 67 years after the end of World War II and expressed determination to overcome "the existing differences" on the islands dispute through talks, said a joint declaration adopted in the Kremlin. am-sjw/as/ric