General :: Keyboard Mapping - Lowercase 'v' Is Not Working

I have quite a strange issue with (supposedly) my keyboard mappings.

while using GNOME session:

lowercase 'v' is not working as it should - no keypress is reaching apps; while I'm holding V key depressed, gnome-terminal console shows a hollow cursor (just like when input focus is in some other window) and nothing is printed; uppercase 'V' is working just fine (that is Shift+V); if I press AltGr + V, a lowercase 'v' is printed; if I'm typing quickly, sometimes pressing V key to get a lowercase 'v' is not just being ignored, but also the next symbol typed is swallowed and not printed out; this issue is present for the USA keyboard layout, as well as for the Russian keyboard layout.

while using TTY console (Alt+Ctrl+F1, etc):

everything works as it should (i.e. lowercase ' is printed whenever I press it);
no problems with the physical keyboard.

I haven't done any editing of any gnome/X configs and/or keyboard mappings.

This is my Ubuntu 10.04 Linux version:

$ uname -a
Linux hostname 2.6.32-25-generic #44-Ubuntu SMP Fri Sep 17 20:05:27 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Update - stty output:

$ stty -a
speed 38400 baud; rows 43; columns 151; line = 0;
intr = ^C; quit = ^; erase = ^?; kill = ^U; eof = ^D; eol = M-^?; eol2 = M-^?; swtch = M-^?; start = ^Q; stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; rprnt = ^R; werase = ^W;

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