Europe

MOSCOW, April 20. /TASS/: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has condemned the refusal of the US and Western states to lift unilateral sanctions against several states in the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic. Al-Assad made this statement during a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Damascus, quoted by SANA news agency.

MOSCOW, April 20. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has stressed that foreign interference in Venezuelan affairs is unacceptable, the Kremlin press service informed on Monday on the outcomes of the phone call between the Russian leader and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

"Russia has reaffirmed its support of Venezuela’s legal government on peaceful regulation of domestic policy disputes based on national dialogue. [Russia] has stressed that destructive foreign interference in Venezuelan affairs is unacceptable," the message informs.

MOSCOW, April 20. /TASS/: Issues of combating the coronavirus infection were among the topics of a telephone conversation between Russian and Venezuelan Presidents, Vladimir Putin and Nicolas Maduro, the Kremlin press service said on Monday.

"The sides noted the importance of internationally agreed measures to combat the new global threat, including Vladimir Putin’s initiative to create the so-called green corridors, free from trade wars and sanctions, for deliveries of medicines, food, equipment and technologies for the crisis period," the press service said.

ST. PETERSBURG, April 20. /TASS/: The Russian Geographical Society (RGS) continued the Trans-Polar Railroad expedition to install geo-thermal equipment in the Yamalo-Nenets and Krasnoyarsk regions. Collected data will be used to evaluate the expediency of the project to build a railway line between Korotcheyevo, Igarka and Norilsk, RGS’s press service said in a statement.

MOSCOW, April 20. /TASS/: The arrival of the latest S-350 anti-aircraft missile systems for Russia’s Aerospace Force and its Navy will boost the efficiency of the country’s defense against cruise missiles fourfold, according to the article posted on the website of the Defense Ministry’s Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper on Monday.

MOSCOW, April 20. /TASS/: A Russian fighter jet was scrambled from the Hmeymim air base in Syria to shadow a US reconnaissance plane flying over the neutral waters of the Mediterranean Sea towards Russia’s military facilities, the Defense Ministry of Russia reported on Monday.

NOVO-OGARYOVO, April 20. /TASS/: The coronavirus epidemic continues to spread, but Russia’s preventive measures have contained it, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday.

"The situation is still challenging, and unfortunately, the epidemic spread continues and the number of citizens, who contract the coronavirus, is on the rise," Putin told a meeting to discuss the sanitary and epidemiological situation in Russia.

20 April 2020; AFP: Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have blacklisted four major British tabloid newspapers, accusing them of publishing stories that were "distorted, false and invasive beyond reason", UK media reported.

In a scathing letter to the editors of the Sun, Daily Mail, Mirror and Express, the couple, who have formally stepped down as senior members of the British Royal family, said there would be "no corroboration and zero engagement" with the newspapers, the Guardian said.

20 April 2020; MEMO: The European Union has warned Israel’s Benny Gantz not to accept the annexation of the country’s settlements in the occupied West Bank, Quds Press reported on Sunday.

EU officials have apparently told Gantz’s foreign affairs adviser, Melody Sucharewicz, over the past few weeks that Europe strongly opposes any unilateral move to extend Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank.

20 April 2020; MEMO: A Russian news agency close to President Vladimir Putin criticised Syrian regime President, Bashar Al-Assad, describing him as “weak”, adding he cannot rule a country ravaged by corruption.

The Federal News Agency, owned by businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin who is known as “Putin’s chef”, added in a report published a few days ago that rampant corruption in Syria hinders cooperation between Damascus and Moscow.