Europe

MOSCOW, November 30. /TASS/: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has expressed hope that the current Ukrainian leadership won’t repeat the actions of Georgia’s former president Mikhail Saakashvili in 2008 at a press conference on Tuesday.

"I will express hope that even the current Kiev regime won't follow the path of Mikhail Saakashvili of the August 2008 vintage," he said.

MOSCOW, November 30. /TASS/: Russia recorded 32,648 coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, the lowest daily number since October 15, the anti-coronavirus crisis center said on Tuesday. The total number of cases has reached 9,636,881.

Russia’s coronavirus growth rate was 0.34%.

In particular, 2,215 cases were reported in the Moscow region in the past day, 2,103 in St. Petersburg, 908 in the Samara region, 742 in the Voronezh region and 716 in the Nizhny Novgorod region.

There are currently 1,032,435 active coronavirus cases in Russia.

MINSK, November 30. /TASS/: Su-30SM multirole fighters of Belarus and Russia conducted a new joint aerial patrol over the Belarusian state border to enhance air defense combat alerts, the republic’s Defense Ministry reported on Tuesday.

"Efforts continue for implementing a decision on joint patrols of the airspace along the state border of the Republic of Belarus to enhance air defense combat alerts by a mixed tactical group of Su-30SM multirole fighters of Belarus and Russia," the ministry’s press office said on its Telegram channel and uploaded a video clip.

RIGA, November 30. /TASS/: NATO guarantees the collective security of its members but not partners like Ukraine, to whom the alliance provides support, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at a press conference upon arrival in Latvia’s capital of Riga for a meeting of NATO foreign ministers.

MOSCOW, November 30. /TASS/: The dollar has not lost its value as a reserve currency but the policy of US authorities undermines its global positions, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the plenary session of the 13th VTB Capital Investment Forum "Russia Calling!"

"I did not say the dollar lost its value as the reserve currency, as the universal global currency for settlements. No, I merely said that the policy of US authorities undermines the dollar and pushes us out of the dollar zone," the President said.

MOSCOW, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday he had not yet decided whether to run for six more years in the Kremlin when his current term ends in 2024, while praising U.S. President Joe Biden's decision to seek re-election in that year.

Putin has been in power as president or prime minister since the turn of the century, making him the longest-serving Kremlin leader since Josef Stalin. Russia passed reforms last year allowing him to run for two more six-year terms, without which he would have had to step down in 2024.

FRANKFURT, Nov 30 (Reuters) - A German court on Tuesday jailed a former Islamic State militant for life after convicting him of involvement in genocide and crimes against humanity over mass killings of minority Yazidis by IS in Syria and Iraq.

It was the first genocide verdict against a member of Islamic State, an offshoot of al Qaeda that seized large swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014 before being ousted by U.S.-backed counter-offensives, losing its last territorial redoubt in 2019.

GRANDE-SYNTHE, France, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Police on Tuesday tore down a makeshift camp near the northern French port of Dunkirk where scores of migrants who say they are fleeing war, poverty and persecution in the Middle East were hunkered down with hopes of reaching Britain.

Armed officers entered the camp, which runs along a disused railway line, before workers in protective suits pulled down tents and plastic shelters.

RIGA, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Russia would pay a high price for any new military aggression against Ukraine, NATO and the United States warned on Tuesday as the Western military alliance met to discuss Moscow's intentions for massing troops on the border of the former Soviet republic.

The West has already shown that it can wield economic, financial and political sanctions against Moscow, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters ahead of talks of the alliance's foreign ministers in the Latvian capital Riga.

BRUSSELS, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Ukraine Prime Minister Denys Shmygal accused Russia on Tuesday of being "absolutely" behind what he called an attempt to organise a coup to overthrow the pro-Western government in Kyiv, citing intelligence.

Last Friday, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine had uncovered a plot to topple his government this week, involving individuals from Russia, but he stopped short of saying whether he believed the Kremlin was behind the plot.