Europe

MOSCOW, December 23. /TASS/: The Russian private company Laros will hold the firing tests of its liquid-propellant rocket engine prototype in the first quarter of 2020, Laros owner Oleg Larionov told TASS on Monday.

"In the first quarter of 2020, we are planning to hold the first firing tests of a prototype of our 20kg thrust liquid-propellant rocket engine," Larionov said. The tests will be conducted on a mobile bench also assembled by the company, he said.

MOSCOW, December 23. /TASS/: There are over 320,000 licensed gun owners in the Moscow database of the Russian National Guard as of the end of 2019, the press service of the Moscow directorate of the National Guard informed TASS on Monday.

"On the outcomes of the year, there are over 320,000 licensed gun owners in Moscow. There are also over 3,000 private security firms licensed by the Moscow directorate of the National Guard," the message informs.

SIMFEROPOL, December 23. /TASS/: The Crimean Bridge was built in spite of the Western sanctions and owing to workers and engineers from across Russia. The Crimean direction is among the most popular ones in the country, Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov blogged on his page on the VKontakte social networking service on Monday.

MOSCOW, December 23: German company Uniper, which is a partner of Gazprom in the Nord Stream 2 construction project, expressed confidence that opportunities would be found to quickly complete the construction of the pipeline.

"We are confident that ways will be found to quickly complete the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. This would be important for Europe, because the pipeline will strengthen the security of gas supplies and competition in our markets for the benefit of consumers," the company’s spokesman Georg Oppermann told TASS.

KALININGRAD, December 23. /TASS/: NATO aircraft have stepped up their activities along Russia’s western borders in 2019, Baltic Fleet Commander Admiral Alexander Nosatov said in a statement on Monday.

"Surveillance vessels belonging to Western countries permanently remain near areas where the Baltic Fleet conducts training. The number of flights that surveillance aircraft carried out along our land and sea borders has exceeded 800 this year, compared to 578 in 2018. The number of flights conducted by war planes has doubled, exceeding 400," the admiral added.

MOSCOW, December 23. /TASS/: The Kremlin hopes that the sanctions against Nord Stream 2 will not impede successful completion of this gas pipeline project, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media on Monday.

"The situation is being analyzed. We proceed from the understanding that such sanctions are unacceptable to us," he said. "We do hope, of course, that such steps will not impede successful implementation of this important project."

Peskov said Moscow would not leave these sanctions without retaliation.

MOSCOW, December 23. /TASS/: During a Monday court session, two police officers failed to identify an assailant who allegedly hurled a plastic bottle at them during the July 27 unauthorized protest in Moscow, a TASS correspondent reported from the courtroom.

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil was little changed on Monday, holding near a three-month high on optimism over a nearing U.S.-China trade deal even as Russia said an OPEC-led pact may consider easing output cuts next year.

Brent crude LCOc1 was down 2 cents, or 0.03%, at $66.12 per barrel by 1410 GMT in thin trading ahead of the Christmas holiday. West Texas Intermediate CLc1 was down 5 cents, or 0.08%, at $60.39 a barrel.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin on Monday opened a rail route linking Russia’s two biggest cities to Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014, and said it proved that the country could deliver on giant infrastructure projects.

Putin inaugurated the passenger service by personally taking a train across the road and rail bridge which Russian engineers built to link Crimea to southern Russia after an earlier pre-annexation route which ran through Ukraine was shut down.

GENEVA (Reuters) - Iran unveiled a redevelopment of part of its Arak heavy water reactor on Monday - a move that did not breach international restrictions on its nuclear work but showed it is developing the sector in the face of U.S. pressure.

Iranian state media said technicians switched on a secondary circuit at Arak, a plant built to produce the heavy water used as a moderator to slow down reactions in the core of nuclear reactors.