Russia

MOSCOW, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Russia's top diplomattold Afghanistan's neighbours on Wednesday to refuse to host U.S. or NATO military forces following their withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The Kremlin is worried by the risk of Islamist militants spilling into Central Asia from Afghanistan and bristles at the idea of the West gaining a foothold in a region that used to be part of the Soviet Union.

MOSCOW, Oct. 27 (Xinhua) -- Russia has reported 36,582 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, taking the nationwide tally to 8,352,601, the official monitoring and response center said on Wednesday.

The nationwide death toll grew by 1,123, the highest daily rise since the start of the pandemic, to 233,898. The number of recoveries increased by 29,151 to 7,242,735.

Meanwhile, Moscow, Russia's worst-hit region, reported 5,789 new cases, taking its total to 1,786,570.

27 Oct 2021; MEMO: The Kremlin said today that its fears about Turkey's decision to sell strike drones to Ukraine were being realised and that the Turkish drones risked destabilising the situation in eastern Ukraine, Reuters reports.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was commenting on media reports that Ukrainian government forces had successfully deployed a Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drone to strike a position in eastern Ukraine controlled by Russian-backed separatists.

MOSCOW, October 26. /TASS/: The container ship freed by Russian marines in the Gulf of Guinea on October 25 had a crew of 22, Commander of the Russian Northern Fleet’s Naval Taskforce Captain 1st Rank Stanislav Varik reported on Tuesday.

As the Russian Defense Ministry reported earlier, the Panama-flagged container ship Lucia bound from Togo to Cameroon was attacked by pirates in the Gulf of Guinea. After receiving a distress signal, a Russian warship sent a helicopter with a marine corps squad to liberate the vessel.

MOSCOW, October 26. /TASS/: Berlin and Paris must provide their assessment of how Kiev’s threats of a missile strike at Russia influence the Normandy Four negotiations process, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Tuesday, adding that their lack of reaction raises questions.

"The behavior of our partners on the Normandy Four format - Berlin and Paris - raises questions," the diplomat pointed out.

MOSCOW (AP) — The daily number of COVID-19 deaths in Russia hit another high Tuesday amid a surge in infections that forced the Kremlin to order most Russians to stay off work starting this week.

The national coronavirus task force reported 1,106 deaths in 24 hours, the most since the start of the pandemic. The number brought the country’s pandemic death toll to 232,775, Europe’s biggest by far.

Russia registered 36,446 new daily coronavirus cases, slightly fewer compared to the past few days.

MOSCOW, October 25. /TASS/: The Taliban (outlawed in Russia) are waging a real war on militants of the Islamic State terrorist organization (outlawed in Russia) on the territory of Afghanistan, Special Russian Presidential Representative for Afghanistan, Director of the Foreign Ministry’s Second Asian Department Zamir Kabulov said at an online conference on Monday.

MOSCOW, October 25. /TASS/: The German military attache in Moscow was summoned to Russia’s Defense Ministry where he was handed a note and told that statements by German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer on nuclear deterrence of Russia provoked tension in Europe, the Russian Defense Ministry reported on Monday.

"Today, on October 25, the defense attache of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in the Russian Federation was invited to the Russian Defense Ministry’s Main International Military Cooperation Department," the statement reads.

MOSCOW, October 25. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has tasked the government with developing measures to neutralize in the country the negative consequences of Europe’s energy crisis by November, the Kremlin website reported on Monday.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia reported another daily record of confirmed coronavirus cases Monday as a surge in infections has prompted the Kremlin to tell most people to stay away from work starting later this week.

The Russian government’s coronavirus task force tallied 37,930 new confirmed cases in 24 hours, the highest number since the start of the pandemic. The task force also reported 1,069 more COVID-19 deaths in the same period, slightly fewer than a record of 1,075 reached over the weekend.