Europe

MOSCOW, February 25. /TASS/: Russian and Belarusian Presidents Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko may have discussed a model of further integration between Moscow and Minsk during their recent talks in Sochi, among other issues, head of the Belarusian Studies Center at the Institute of Europe under the Russian Academy of Sciences Nikolai Mezhevich told TASS on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, February 25./TASS/: The struggle to defeat poverty in Russia faces certain difficulties, but national officials are not giving up on it, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Thursday.

"True, not everything works out well," he admitted, when commenting on the endeavors to do away with poverty in the country. "Yes, certain factors seriously impede this work sometimes. However, nobody is going to give up, and work on this will carry on," he pledged.

BERLIN, Feb 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) – A German court yesterday convicted alleged Syrian secret service agent, Eyad A. of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity and sentenced him to prison for four and a half years.

It was considered as proven that the man “provided assistance to others, to seriously deprive 30 people of their physical liberty and to torture them while in custody,” a statement by the Higher Regional Court Koblenz, read.

It is the world’s first trial in which a former Syrian official was convicted of crimes against humanity.

IBACH, Germany (Reuters) - Just over two weeks after his poisoning with a military-grade nerve agent in Siberia, Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny began to respond to the words of his wife Yulia and wake from a drug-induced coma.

As he emerged from what he would later describe as days of appalling hallucinations, he found himself in Berlin’s Charite hospital, where he’d been evacuated for emergency treatment on Aug. 22. He would later recount how he had to be lifted into a chair from his hospital bed and would sit with his mouth open, staring at a single spot on the wall.

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Armenia’s prime minister spoke of an attempted military coup Thursday after the military’s General Staff demanded that he step down after months of protests sparked by the nation’s defeat in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan.

The General Staff issued a statement calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, which was signed by top military officers. The move was triggered by Pashinyan’s decision earlier this week to oust the first deputy chief of the General Staff.

MOSCOW, February 24. /TASS/: Washington humiliates the European Union by imposing political decisions that run counter to Europe’s interests, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Channel One’s Vremya Pokazhet (or Time Will Tell) show.

MOSCOW, February 24. /TASS/: The prolongation of the Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (the New START Treaty) guaranteed predictability in the Russia-US relations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in his video address to participants in the Geneva disarmament conference on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, February 24. /TASS/: The Russian and Belarusian presidents, Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko, agreed at talks to step up work between the two countries’ economic agencies and tax services, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, February 24. /TASS/: The Progress Space Rocket Center (part of the state space corporation Roscosmos) has launched work on Bion-M No.2 satellite for delivering mice into outer space, the Center’s press office told TASS on Wednesday.

"Work has begun at the enterprise’s production units to make the spacecraft’s hulls, namely, the descent vehicle, the instrumentation and assembly compartments and solar panel sections," the press office said.

MOSCOW, February 24. /TASS/: Russia’s COVID-19 case tally rose by 11,749 in the past day reaching 4,200,902, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Wednesday.

For a second day in the row fewer than 12,000 daily coronavirus cases were recorded.

In relative terms, the growth rate stood at 0.3%.

The lowest growth rates in the past day were registered in the Tuva Republic (0.05%), the Magadan Region (0.06%), the Altai Republic (0.07%), the Khakassia Republic (0.07%) and the Jewish Autonomous Region (0.07%).