Russia

March 26 (Reuters) - Russia's defence ministry said on Saturday Azeri armed forces had entered a zone that is the responsibility of Russian peacekeepers in the Nagorno-Karabakh region and had set up a surveillance post in violation of an agreement.

It said Azerbaijan had carried out four drone strikes in Nagorno-Karabakh. Moscow had called on Azerbaijan to pull out its troops, and was "applying efforts" to move forces to their initial positions, it added.

Azerbaijan's authorities were not immediately available for comment.

25 March 2022; MEMO: Russia is looking to China, Turkey, Iran and India, to plug the gap created by an exodus of western retail companies, an industry body said on Friday, as Moscow grapples to find ways to combat its growing isolation in the face of sanctions, Reuters reports.

MOSCOW, March 24. /TASS/: Russia’s National Wealth Fund (NWF) decreased by 675.16 bln rubles ($6.8 bln) in February 2022 to around 12.9 trillion rubles ($131 bln) as of March 1, 2022, the Finance Ministry said in a statement.

"As of March 1, 2022, the National Wealth Fund amounted to 12.935 trillion rubles, or 9.7% of GDP projected for 2022," the statement said.

As of February 1, the National Wealth Fund amounted to 13.6 trillion rubles ($177 bln). Its liquid part stood at 7.3% of GDP, or 9.73 trillion rubles ($116.5 bln), as of February 1.

MOSCOW, March 24. /TASS/: Russia’s COVID-19 case tally rose by 25,387 over the past day to 17,690,008, the anti-coronavirus crisis center reported on Thursday.

In relative terms, the growth rate reached 0.14%.

As many as 4,540 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in Russia over the past day, down 11.14% from a day earlier. The number of hospitalized patients decreased in 47 regions, while in 35 other regions the figure increased. A day earlier, 5,109 people were rushed to hospitals.

MOSCOW, March 24. /TASS/: The United States must stop expelling Russian diplomats, if it wants Russia to stop expelling American ones, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media on Thursday.

"If it wants us to stop expelling American diplomats, the United States must stop the expulsions of our diplomats. Our actions are not the root cause of this crisis. They are forced and retaliatory measures," Peskov said.

Earlier, the US Department of State issued a call "on the Russian government to end its unjustified expulsions of U.S. diplomats and staff."

MOSCOW, March 24. /TASS/: The United States has declared economic war on Russia, which threatens to completely collapse bilateral relations, but the countries can still agree by observing the principles of mutual respect, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a briefing on Thursday.

MOSCOW, March 24. /TASS/: Western countries are making every effort to politicize humanitarian issues facing Ukraine on the United Nations platform, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a meeting with President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Peter Maurer in Moscow on Thursday.

MOSCOW, March 24. /TASS/: Polish authorities failed to clarify what exact claims they have against the Russian diplomats that they expelled, Russian Ambassador to Poland Sergey Andreyev said on Russian TV Thursday.

"There was no response to my question asking ‘what complaints do you have against our employees exactly?’ They simply citied alleged actions, incompatible with their status, with the Vienna Convention and so on," the diplomat said.

MOSCOW, March 23 (Xinhua) -- Russia will reject U.S. dollars or euros and only accept rubles for its natural gas supplied to "unfriendly countries," including the European Union (EU) members and the United States, President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday.

Over the past few weeks, some Western countries have taken "illegitimate decisions" to freeze Russian assets, thus undermining the reliability of their currencies, Putin said at a meeting with government members via video link.

MOSCOW, March 24 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Department of Defense was directly involved in developing biological weapon components in Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday.

Documents received from Ukrainian employees working at the laboratories were studied by Russian experts and have shown that Ukrainian biological projects were directly developed and approved by the Pentagon, the ministry's spokesman Igor Konashenkov said during a briefing.