Russia

MOSCOW, September 7. /TASS/. The United States can forward information concerning preparations for an alleged attack involving the use of chemical weapons in Syria’s Idlib to Russia though bilateral conduits, if Washington has such information, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday. The spokeswoman responded to the remarks by US Special Representative for Syria Engagement James Jeffrey who said that there was plenty of evidence proving that Damascus was getting ready to conduct a chemical weapons attack in Idlib.

MOSCOW, September 5. /TASS/. The UK must provide fingerprints of the suspects in the Skripal case to Interpol, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated on Wednesday on the Rossiya-1 channel.

"We should start the conversation with facts, that is, with fingerprints. If according to the British side, these people have come from Russia, they must have received British visas, so, please, "fingers at the table". Because none of us can work without Interpol here," the diplomat stressed.

MOSCOW, September 6. /TASS/. A hole in the hull of the Russian Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft was drilled when the spaceship was fully assembled, a source in the space industry told TASS on Thursday.

"The hole was drilled when the spaceship was already assembled," he said, adding that the spacecraft's manufacturer, the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation had decided to check all manned Soyuz and cargo Progress spaceships, both those that are being assembled and those sent to the Baikonur space center.

MOSCOW, August 31. /TASS/. Russia calls on the Ukrainian authorities to give up the use of terrorist methods as an instrument for the solution of their country’s domestic problems, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement circulated on Friday.

"We urge the Kiev authorities to give up the staking on terrorist methods for resolution of Ukraine’s domestic problems," it said. "We hope the Ukrainian politicians with a sense of responsibility will summon their strength to bridle the ‘party of war’ and to avert an upsurge of confrontation in Donbass."

BOCHAROV RUCHEI, September 1. /TASS/. Azerbaijan has purchased Russian-made military-technical products worth more than $5 bln, President Ilham Aliyev said on Saturday following talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

"We discussed further cooperation in the military-technical sphere. It has great traditions. The cost of the military-technical products purchased by Azerbaijan from Russia exceeds $5 bln, and this tends to grow," he said.

MOSCOW, August 30. /TASS/. Cosmonauts are working to fix the problem with a minor air leak discovered on the International Space Station (ISS) and the situation on the orbital outpost is under control, the press office of Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos told TASS on Thursday.

MOSCOW, August 30. /TASS/. Fragments of Russia’s Progress MS-08 cargo spacecraft, which was deorbited on Thursday following a weeklong experiment, splashed down in a remote area of the Pacific Ocean, a Russian Mission Control Center official said.

"Unburied fragments of the Progress MS-08 spacecraft have landed in a non-navigational region of the Pacific Ocean," the source said.

ROSTOV-ON-DON, August 29. /TASS/. Russia and China take a stand against attempts by Western counties to monopolize "the right point of view," the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Ambassador-at-Large in China Yevgeny Tomikhin said.

MOSCOW, August 27. /TASS/. The United States has been building the amount of cruise missile carriers in the Middle East for strikes against government forces in Syria after pre-planned provocation involving the use of chemical weapons in Idlib Province, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told the media on Monday.

"The United States keeps building up the cruise missile carriers group in the Middle East as part of preparations for another provocation in Idlib Province to be presented as an alleged use of chemical weapons," Konashenkov said.

MOSCOW, August 27. /TASS/. Russian Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov has met with Head of the Joint Staff Department of the Chinese Central Military Commission Li Zuocheng in Moscow. During the negotiations, the army officials discussed expanding bilateral military cooperation.

"Today I offer to discuss the prospects of expanding and deepening our bilateral relations, including holding joint military exercises and exchanging opinions on the situation in the critical regions of the world," the chief of General Staff said.