Russia

MOSCOW, September 18/TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin held telephone calls on Sunday with the Kyrgyz and Tajik presidents, Sadyr Japarov and Emomali Rahmon, calling on the parties to prevent further escalation on the border.

According to the Kremlin press service, the presidents "discussed the situation on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border". "Putin urged the sides to prevent further escalation and to take measures to resolve the situation solely through peaceful, political and diplomatic means as soon as possible," the Kremlin noted.

MOSCOW, September 17. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin in a conversation with Uzbekistan’s leader Shavkat Mirziyoyev voiced support for the Uzbek authorities in their efforts to stabilize the situation in Karakalpakstan, the Kremlin said in a news release on Saturday.

MOSCOW, September 17. /TASS/: Russia recorded 58,305 coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, the anti-coronavirus crisis center said on Saturday. The total number of cases has reached 20,382,344.

As many as 4,216 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, up from 4,178 the day before. Hospitalizations declined in 44 regions of the country and rose in 36 regions.

Moscow’s COVID-19 cases surged by 7,077 to 3,141,079 in the past day and St. Petersburg’s cases increased by 4,152 to 1,715,663

MOSCOW, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Russia's defence ministry said on Saturday that its forces had launched strikes on Ukrainian positions in several parts of Ukraine, and accused Kyiv of carrying out shelling near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Russian forces conducted their strikes in the Kherson, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, according to the ministry, which added that Ukrainian forces had carried out an unsuccessful offensive near Pravdyne in Kherson.

MOSCOW (AP) — The security chiefs of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan sat down for talks Saturday to stop fighting on the border between the two countries that so far has killed at least 24 people and wounded over 100.

The Kyrgyz border service announced the new round of talks as the two ex-Soviet nations traded blame for shelling that resumed Saturday morning after what appeared to be a brief respite overnight.

MOSCOW (AP) — The president of Kazakhstan on Saturday signed constitutional amendments that extended the presidential term to seven years and brought back the old name of the country’s capital.

MOSCOW, September 15. /TASS/: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will address a session of the UN General Assembly and is also planning to hold around 20 bilateral meetings on its sidelines, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharov said on Thursday.

MOSCOW, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that if the United States decided to supply Kyiv with longer-range missiles, it would cross a "red line" and become "a party to the conflict".

In a briefing, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova added that Russia "reserves the right to defend its territory".

Washington has openly supplied Ukraine with advanced GMLRS rockets, fired from HIMARS launchers, that can hit targets up to 80 km (50 miles) away. 

MOSCOW, September 14. /TASS/: The US-led West has not managed to eject Russia from the global economy, but they will obviously continue to push the country out of its usual markets, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said on Wednesday. He was speaking at a meeting on the draft federal budget for the next three years.

MOSCOW, September 14./TASS/: The main purpose of the sanitary shield created in Russia, is to protect the people from possible future biological threats, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday as he met with the staff of the Russian sanitary watchdog that marks its 100th birthday.

"Among the priorities is the creation of the so-called sanitary shield of our country. Its main goal is to protect Russian citizens from biological threats possible in the future. The implementation of this project will make the diagnostics of infections quick and accessible," the president noted.