Russia

April 7 (Reuters) - Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said on Thursday that his country must be involved in negotiations to resolve the conflict in Ukraine and that he expected to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the next few days.

"There can be no separate agreements behind Belarus's back," Lukashenko was quoted as saying by the Belarusian state news agency Belta.

"Since you dragged us into this - principally Western countries - the position of Belarus naturally needs to be heard at these negotiations."

April 7 (Reuters) - Russia is facing its most difficult situation in three decades due to unprecedented Western sanctions, but foreign attempts to isolate it from the global economy will fail, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said on Thursday.

He also said the situation provided room for new business opportunities as foreign companies leaving Russia would make space for others.

Western countries are progressively tightening a barrage of economic sanctions imposed to try to force Russia to end its military operation in Ukraine and withdraw its forces.

MOSCOW, April 6 (Xinhua) -- The United States is consistently building up its military biological potential in various regions of the world, taking advantage of gaps in international law, the Russian military said Wednesday.

Washington is creating biological laboratories in different countries and connecting them to a unified system, said Igor Kirillov, chief of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces of the Russian Armed Forces.

MOSCOW, April 6. /TASS/: Russia’s COVID-19 case tally rose by 14,661 over the past day to 17,940,765, the anti-coronavirus crisis center reported on Wednesday.

In relative terms, the growth rate reached 0.08%.

As many as 3,713 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in Russia over the past day, down 13.4% from a day earlier. The number of hospitalized patients decreased in 56 regions, while in 29 regions the figure increased. A day earlier, 4,288 people were rushed to hospitals.

MOSCOW, April 6. /TASS/: Lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula will be possible only on the condition there is no US pressure, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev said in a commentary in the daily Kommersant.

In his opinion, "greater independence of countries in making sovereign decisions meeting national interests would facilitate progress towards a settlement over the Korean Peninsula."

MOSCOW, April 5. /TASS/: Expulsion of Russian diplomats from other countries is a shortsighted step, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.

"We are negative about it, we regret it," he said, commenting on the situation around the expulsion of Russian diplomats.

MOSCOW, April 5. /TASS/: No scenario for the exclusion of the Russian Federation from the OSCE is envisaged, as there are no such rules in the organization, Russia's permanent representative to the OSCE, Alexander Lukashevich said during a Rossiya-24 TV broadcast on Tuesday.

"No, such a scenario is not envisaged, because there are no such norms and rules in the procedures of our organization. There is a consensus rule on which the entire organization is based," he replied to the relevant question.

MOSCOW, April 5. /TASS/: Russia systematically explains its position on the situation in Bucha, but the collective West "shut its eyes and ears with blinds" and is not willing to listen, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Tuesday.

He noted that, previously, the Russian position was "rather systematically explained" by Permanent Representative to the UN Vasiliy Nebenzya and by the Ministry of Defense.

MOSCOW, April 5 (Xinhua) -- A meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is possible only after a peace treaty is ready, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.

"Nothing has changed for us. We do not reject the possibility of such a meeting for our president," Peskov told a daily briefing.

"But we repeat once again that such a meeting is possible only after the text of the document is agreed upon," he said.

04 April 2022; MEMO: Five Arab Foreign Ministers have travelled to the Russian capital, Moscow, to hold talks with Russia's top diplomat on the war in Ukraine, the Arab League said in a statement.

According to the statement, the Foreign Ministers of Egypt, Algeria, Iraq, Jordan and Sudan are scheduled to meet on Monday with Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov.  The Arab League Secretary-General, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, is also scheduled to join the meeting.