Europe

ST. PETERSBURG, June 5. /TASS/: Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) plans to deliver over 30 SSJ100 (Sukhoi Superjet 100) passenger jets in 2021, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov said in an interview with TASS on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

"About 200 aircraft of this brand are already flying and this year’s plans include the delivery of about 33 Superjet aircraft to our airlines," he noted.

Borisov added that part of the deliveries would fall to Aurora, a Russian Far East air carrier.

ST. PETERSBURG, June 4. /TASS/: The global economy may see the highest growth rates in decades following a decline caused by the coronavirus pandemic, while Russia’s economy is already approaching pre-crisis levels, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, addressing the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on Friday.

MOSCOW, June 5. /TASS/: The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Russia increased by 9,145 per day to 5,117,274, the federal operational headquarters for the fight against coronavirus told reporters on Saturday

In relative terms, the increase in the number of cases was 0.18%.

The lowest growth rates were recorded per day in the Nenets Autonomous District and Chukotka Autonomous District (0% each), in the Republic of Tyva (0.03%), in the Jewish Autonomous Region (0.04%).

ST. PETERSBURG, June 5. /TASS/: Russia’s government has spent a total of four trillion rubles ($54.9 billion) to shore up the country’s economy during the pandemic, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on Saturday.

(Reuters) --- A deputy Polish parliamentary speaker faced calls for his dismissal on Saturday after criticising Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya for meeting Warsaw's liberal mayor.

Tsikhanouskaya met Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, a member of Poland's biggest opposition party, during a visit to Warsaw this week which she used to call for increased Western pressure on Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. 

(Reuters) --- It would be "unimaginable" for Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz to stay in office if convicted of perjury, the country's vice chancellor and leader of the Greens, Werner Kogler, said in remarks broadcast on Saturday.

Kogler's comments suggest the coalition between his party and Kurz's conservatives could collapse if Kurz, whom prosecutors have placed under investigation over his testimony to a parliamentary commission, were charged and then convicted.

(Reuters) --- Russian President Vladimir Putin said the United States was wrong to think that it is "powerful enough" to get away with threatening other countries, a mistake, he said, that led to the downfall of the former Soviet Union.

Putin made the comments during a press briefing late on Friday as he spoke about U.S. sanctions against Moscow, according to Russia's news agency TASS.

KIEV, June 4 (Xinhua) -- A record of a UN mission showed the ongoing conflict in Donbass killed 152 children and injured 146 children from April 2014 to April 2021, the Office of the Ombudsman of Ukraine said Friday.

"Unfortunately, these painful statistics do not fully reflect the scale of the losses suffered by children during the long-lasting armed conflict," the office said on its official Facebook page, citing the data from the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.

BELGRADE, June 4 (Xinhua) -- The production of Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine officially started on Friday at the Institute of Virology, Vaccines and Sera "Torlak" in Belgrade, the Serbian government confirmed in a press release.

The production, launched by the institute director Vera Stoiljkovic, was witnessed by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, via a video meeting.

LONDON (AP) — The world’s richest countries signed a landmark global agreement Saturday to confront tax avoidance and make sure that giant tech companies pay their fair share, Britain’s treasury chief said.

Treasury chief Rishi Sunak said finance ministers from the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations signed the pact on the second and final day of meetings in London.