Russia

(Reuters) --- Russian President Vladimir Putin said the United States was wrong to think that it is "powerful enough" to get away with threatening other countries, a mistake, he said, that led to the downfall of the former Soviet Union.

Putin made the comments during a press briefing late on Friday as he spoke about U.S. sanctions against Moscow, according to Russia's news agency TASS.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday set a tough tone for his upcoming summit with U.S. President Joe Biden, accusing Washington of trying to contain Russia and citing its response to the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol as a manifestation of the West’s double standards.

Speaking at an economic forum in St. Petersburg, Putin said that arms control, global conflicts, the coronavirus pandemic and climate change are among the issues he and Biden would discuss at their June 16 summit in Geneva.

ST. PETERSBURG, June 4. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that he does not want to delve into the Ryanair passenger plane’s emergency landing in Minsk.

"I do not have the slightest wish to delve into the affair. You know, we have nothing to do with it at all," Putin said in reply to a question at a plenary meeting of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday.

He said he had no idea about what exactly had happened to that plane or about the alleged bomb threat and had no wish to make judgements on the political processes afoot in Belarus.

SEVASTOPOL, June 4. /TASS/: The crew of the Black Sea Fleet’s missile corvette Ingushetia held artillery firings against naval and aerial targets at a practice range in the Black Sea, the Fleet’s press office reported on Friday.

"In the course of the drills, the seamen practiced measures for the ship’s air defense during its transit by sea and held artillery firings against mock aerial targets provided by a Su-24M frontline bomber from the Black Sea Fleet’s naval aviation and air defense forces," the press office said in a statement.

ST. PETERSBURG, June 4. / TASS /: The decision to exclude dollar assets from the National Wealth Fund (NWF) is forced solution, Alexey Kudrin, the head of the Russian Audit Chamber, told reporters on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on Friday.

"On the whole, it is forced," said Kudrin, answering the question whether this is the right decision. He stressed that the exclusion of the dollar from the NWF will not affect the turnover of the American currency in Russia.

ST. PETERSBURG, June 4. /TASS/: Foreign nationals employed in Russia will be offered to get vaccinated with the Sputnik Light coronavirus vaccine, Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said on Friday.  

"The first thing that was said is that foreign nationals working in Russia will be granted access to vaccination. <…> We plan to use Sputnik Light," he told journalists on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

ST. PETERSBURG, June 4. /TASS/: The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) is Eurasia’s key economic and business event, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro said in his video address to participants in the forum’s plenary meeting on Friday.

"SPIEF is the mouthpiece of a new geopolitical and geo-economic landscape that is being created in Eurasia - a region that is acquiring an ever greater and decisive role in the epicenter of huge transformations of the contemporary world," the Brazilian leader stressed.

ST. PETERSBURG, June 4. /TASS/: The United States using the dollar as a competitive and political instrument is damaging it as an international reserve currency, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).

MOSCOW, June 4. /TASS/: The International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) has confirmed that the 2022 Volleyball Men’s World Championship will be hosted by Russia regardless of WADA’s current sanctions against Russian sports, FIVB press office announced to TASS on Friday.

ST. PETERSBURG, June 4. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the government to work out the matter of paid coronavirus vaccination for foreigners in Russia before the end of June.

Speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum Friday, the president noted that the Russian pharma industry is "ready to keep ramping up vaccine production".

"We not only fully fulfill our own demand, but we can provide foreign citizens with an option to come to Russia and take vaccine here," Putin assured.