Russia

12 March 2022; MEMO: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday ordered the transport of volunteer fighters from the Middle East to fight alongside the Russian army in Ukraine.

Putin held an online meeting with Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu as part of the Security Council meeting, where he received a briefing on the latest situation in Ukraine.

MOSCOW, March 11. /TASS/: The Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Information Technologies and Mass Communications decided to restrict access to Instagram in view of calls spread for violence against Russians, including servicemen, the watchdog said on its website on Friday.

"By virtue of the requirement of the Russian Office of General Prosecutor, access to Instagram social media (owned by Meta Platforms, Inc.) will be limited on the territory of the Russian Federation," the regulator said.

MOSCOW, March 11. /TASS/: Russia in the near future should launch official procedures of leaving the Council of Europe this year, the chairman of the State Duma’s international affairs committee, Leonid Slutsky, said on Friday.

MOSCOW, March 10. /TASS/: Prolonging the life cycle of the International Space Station till 2030 will require colossal funding, or else the station will "fall apart," the CEO of Russia’s space corporation Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, said at a meeting with the LDPR faction in the State Duma.

March 10 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that sanctions imposed against Russia would rebound against the West, including in the form of higher food and energy prices, and Moscow would solve its problems and emerge stronger.

Putin said there had been no alternative to what Russia calls its special military operation in Ukraine and that Russia was not a country which could accept compromising its sovereignty for some sort of short-term economic gain.

9 March 2022; MEMO: Russia has withdrawn hundreds of allied Syrian fighters from Libya, as reports emerge of the Kremlin pulling out of some of its operations in the Middle East amid its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

MOSCOW, March 9. /TASS/: Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) may increase the production of Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft to 40 units per year, the Industry and Trade Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday following the minister Denis Manturov’s meeting with representatives of the sector devoted to the current situation in civil aircraft construction.

MOSCOW, March 9. /TASS/: Russia’s COVID-19 case tally rose by 58,675 over the past day to 17,140,069, the anti-coronavirus crisis center reported on Wednesday.

In absolute terms, the growth rate was the lowest since February 22. In relative terms, it reached 0.34%.

MOSCOW, March 9. /TASS/: Kiev has confirmed that a meeting between Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov will take place on the sidelines of a diplomatic forum in Turkey’s Antalya on Thursday so Moscow expects that the meeting will indeed be held, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told the Sputnik radio station on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, March 9. /TASS/: The situation at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is controlled jointly by Russian troops, Ukrainian specialists and the National Guard, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday.

"Currently, control over the situation at the Chernobyl NPP is being exercised jointly by Russian servicemen, Ukrainian specialists, the plant’s civilian personnel, and that country’s National Guard," she said, adding that Ukraine’s allegations about 20-fold radiation increase at the Chernobyl plant are not true.