Europe

KALININGRAD, April 28. /TASS/: The crews of the small anti-submarine warfare ships Urengoi and Kazanets struck air targets during drills in the Gulf of Finland, the Baltic Fleet’s press office reported on Tuesday.

"During the planned drills, the crews of the small anti-submarine ships Urengoi and Kazanets conducted artillery firings against air targets in the Gulf of Finland and practiced measures to thwart attacks by a notional enemy’s air attack weapons from various altitudes and directions," the press office said in a statement.

MOSCOW, April 24. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law allowing foreigners to apply for Russian citizenship without renouncing their current one, the document was published on the official Internet portal for legal information on Friday.

To date foreign nationals are to submit a confirmatory note that they applied to renounce their current citizenship in native countries when seeking to obtain a Russian passport.

The law will enter into force 90 days after its official publication.

MOSCOW, April 28. / TASS /: About 38% of office employees believe that working from home is more effective, 58% of Russians adhere to the opposite opinion, according to the study done by Mail.Ru Group and ResearchMe, released on Tuesday.

"More than half (58%) said that office work was more efficient. Over a third (38%) of those polled said they could work productively from home," the study said.

MOSCOW, April 28. /TASS/: The international rating agency Moody’s expects that Russia’s national GDP will decline by 5.5% in 2020 but will grow by 2.2% in 2021, the agency said on Tuesday.

The rating agency lowered the outlook for Russian GDP growth to 0.5% on March 25 on the back of falling oil prices and the coronavirus pandemic.

Moody’s also revised real GDP outlooks for 2020 and 2021 downward for all members of the Group of Twenty.

Oil prices are expected to remain low, the rating agency forecasts.

MOSCOW, April 29. /TASS/: Several fighter jets of European countries have escorted two Russian Tu-160 bombers over the Baltic Sea, the Russian Defense Ministry told reporters on Wednesday.

"Two Tu-160 strategic bombers of Russia’s Aerospace Forces have performed their scheduled flight over neutral waters of the Baltic Sea. At some stages of the route the Russian planes were escorted by fighter jets F-18 of the Finnish Air Force, F-16 of the Danish Air Force, F-16 of Poland and Saab JAS 39 Gripen of Sweden’s Air Force," the ministry said.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Some 29.2% of German companies think they would survive for a maximum of three months if the coronavirus-related restrictions remain in place for a longer period while 52.7% said they would survive for a maximum of six months, the Ifo institute said.

“These are worrying figures that point to a wave of bankruptcies ahead,” Klaus Wohlrabe, an economist at Ifo, said of the survey.

ROME, April 28 (Xinhua) -- The coronavirus pandemic has claimed 27,359 lives in locked-down Italy, bringing the total number of infections, fatalities and recoveries to 201,505 as of Tuesday, according to the latest data released by the country's Civil Protection Department.

The death toll on Tuesday was 382, bringing the total to 27,359 fatalities since the pandemic first broke out in the northern Lombardy region.

The department reported 2,091 new infections and 2,317 more recoveries compared to Monday, bringing the nationwide totals to 105,205 and 68,941, respectively.

GENEVA, April 28 (Xinhua) -- Globally, over 200,000 COVID-19 deaths have been reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) as of Tuesday, according to the latest WHO figure.

The WHO COVID-19 dashboard updated at 16:00 CET (1400 GMT) Tuesday showed that so far the WHO has received reports of 2,954,222 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 202,597 deaths worldwide.

The United States ranked the top on the WHO dashboard with the highest death toll at 49,170, followed by Italy with 26,977 deaths.

28 April 2020; MEMO: Russian President Vladimir Putin has appointed Georgy Borisenko as the Federation’s ambassador to Egypt and Russian plenipotentiary to the League of Arab States, Russian News Agency (TASS) reported yesterday.

Borisenko was the director of the North America Department at the Russian Foreign Ministry.

MOSCOW, April 28. / TASS /: The crisis amidst the coronavirus pandemic may be worse than the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, the state needs to quickly respond to the changing situation, said United Russia Chairman, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev at a meeting of the presidium of the party’s general council on Tuesday.