You can learn to speak Russian efficiently by learning the phrases and sentences used in day to day conversations. These Russian sentences are designed for beginner and early intermediate Russian language learners.
Many of them will be very useful for your first Skype conversations.
These five hundred Russian sentences (with audio, flashcards, and learning games) use the grammar and vocabulary needed in basic conversations. (There are also sentences in other languages.)
There are ten sentences in each unit. The first fifty units cover the present and past (mainly).
Russian uses the cyrillic alphabet. The sentences also include a romanised version, so that it is possible to learn the sentences without learning cyrillic.