Russia

MOSCOW, August 18. /TASS/: A state commission has given the green light to the start of flight trials of the Soyuz-MS spacecraft and the Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket due to be launched on August 22, Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin said.

"At the Baikonur space center, a state commission gave the green light to the start of flight trials of the Soyuz-MS spacecraft and the Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket and of taking the space rocket to the launch pad on August 19," Rogozin wrote on his Twitter page on Saturday.

MOSCOW, August 18. /TASS/: More than 1 million people attended the 5th International Army Games held on the territory of ten countries on August 3-17, the Russian Defense Ministry’s department of information and mass communications said on Sunday.

"Competitions of the 5th International Army Games, held on the territory of ten countries, were attended by 1 million 36,385 people," the department said in a statement.

Some 100,000 people visited the Russian fan zone, which for the first time ever was created at the Patriot Park near Moscow.

MOSCOW, August 18. /TASS/: Nineteen people have been taken to the hospital following a tourist bus accident in eastern Moscow, a spokesperson for the city’s Health Department told TASS on Sunday.

"The accident left 29 injured. As many as 19 people, including two children, have been taken to the hospital," he said.

According to earlier reports, the bus, which was carrying Chinese tourists, collided with a lamp-post after the driver had lost control of the vehicle on a wet road.

Police have launched a probe into the accident, a law enforcement source told TASS.

MOSCOW, August 18. /TASS/: The flight recorders from the Airbus A321 passenger plane that belly-landed at a cornfield near Moscow earlier this week, are in normal conditions. The data are being deciphered and analyzed, the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) said on Sunday.

"The flight recorders (the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder) were examined at the IAC’s research and technical center. They are in a normal condition. The data are being deciphered and analyzed," as follows from a press statement posted on the IAC’s website.

MOSCOW, August 18. /TASS/: Russia’s Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bombers carry out flights to the Chukotka region according to schedule and are not aimed at bullying the United States, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told the Rossiya-24 TV channel on Sunday.

SARATOV, August 18. /TASS/: The first flight has arrived at a new airport in the Russian city of Saratov, which is named after Yuri Gagarin, a TASS correspondent reported. The flight was operated by Pobeda Airlines.

Russian State Duma (the lower house of parliament) Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, Deputy Transport Minister Alexander Yurchik, Federal Air Transport Agency head Alexander Neradko and owner of the airport's operating company Viktor Vekselberg arrived on the flight.

Regular flights to Gagarin Airport are expected to be launched on August 20.

SIMFEROPOL, August 18. /TASS/: A tomb created during the first wave of Greek colonization of Crimea, in the second half of the 6th century BC, was found by archaeologists at Myrmekion, an ancient Greek colony near the city of Kerch.

PERM, August 18. /TASS/: The injury toll from a major bus accident in the Russian city of Perm has risen to 33 after one more person had to be taken to the hospital, a spokesperson for the regional Health Ministry told TASS on Sunday.

"As of 14:00 local time, 33 injured people have been taken to the hospital, including nine kids," she said.

MOSCOW, August 18. /TASS/: Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani has condemned a terrorist attack on a wedding in Kabul, which killed over 60 people.

MOSCOW, August 18. /TASS/: Despite the United States’ withdrawal from the INF Treaty, Moscow is still ready for dialogue on intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told the Rossiya-24 TV channel on Sunday.

"We are keeping the door open. As long as the US doesn’t deploy such systems to Europe, we won’t do the same, and as long as there are no US missiles in Asia, there won’t be our missiles in the region," Shoigu said.