Europe

MOSCOW, August 19. /TASS/: Specialists have deciphered two flight recorders of an Il-112V military transport plane that crashed in the Moscow Region on August 17, law-enforcement agencies told TASS on Thursday.

"The flight data and voice recorders have been deciphered, the information is not subject to disclosure," the source said. 

A source told TASS on Wednesday that both black boxes were slightly burnt and damaged, but specialists managed to read the data in a special laboratory.

MOSCOW, August 19. /TASS/: Russia’s United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) will unveil the mockups of the large amphibious assault ship Kaiman and the autonomous underwater drone Yunona at the Army-2021 international military-technical forum, the USC press office announced on Thursday.

"The USC will demonstrate for the first time on the demonstration center’s site the mockups of the Kaiman large amphibious assault ship based on Project 11711 and the Yunona autonomous unmanned submersible vehicle," the press office said in a statement.

GENEVA, August 19. /TASS/: The Nord Stream 2 AG company labelled media reports saying that the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline would be completed on August 23 as ‘speculations’. A source in the company told TASS on Thursday that it "cannot confirm" this information.

MOSCOW, August 19. /TASS/: The visit of Foreign Minister of Libya’s Government of National Unity Najla Mangoush to Moscow indicates the intention of the Libyan government to build priority relations with Russia, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday at the opening of talks with his Libyan counterpart.

MOSCOW, August 19./TASS/: Russia is ready to provide civil planes to evacuate Afghan nationals who want to leave the country to any other state, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a briefing on Thursday. 

BRUSSELS, Aug 19 (Reuters) - The European Union's foreign policy chief branded developments in Afghanistan "a catastrophe" on Thursday and said there had been a failure of intelligence to anticipate the Taliban's rapid return to power.

Addressing the European Parliament, Josep Borrell said about 100 EU staff and 400 Afghans working with the EU and their families had been evacuated, but that 300 more Afghans were still trying to leave.

BRUSSELS, Aug 19 (Reuters) - The European Commission said on Thursday it had reached a temporary agreement with South Africa to use a plant there to bottle Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) COVID-19 vaccines that are being imported into the EU.

The deal highlights the complexity of producing vaccines with factories spread across the world and is likely to stir concerns about drugmakers' power in negotiating supply deals with countries.

ATHENS, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Greece's border forces are on alert to avoid a repeat of the mass arrivals of migrants that the country experienced in 2015, the government's spokesman said on Thursday, following the return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan.

Greece was on the frontline of Europe's migration crisis in 2015, when nearly one million people fleeing conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan landed on its islands.

MOSCOW, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny on Thursday told Russians to take part in a tactical voting campaign at next month's parliamentary elections to try to dent the ruling United Russia party's political dominance.

The campaign, which asks people to vote for specific candidates judged to have the best chance of defeating the United Russia candidate in any given area, is one of the last levers Navalny and his allies have after a crackdown this summer outlawed his movement as "extremist".

MOSCOW (AP) — When the Taliban swept over Afghanistan, Russia was ready for the rapid developments after working methodically for years to lay the groundwork for relations with the group that it still officially considers a terrorist organization.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov emphasized this week that Moscow was “in no rush” to recognize the Taliban as the new rulers of Afghanistan, but he added there were “encouraging signals” of their readiness to let other political forces join the government and allow girls into schools.