Russia

MOSCOW, January 11. /TASS/: Russia’s Kamaz-Master Team crew of Eduard Nikolaev won the 9th Stage of the 2022 Dakar Rally in the truck category, while his teammate Sotnikov’s crew crossed the finish line in 2nd place.

Nikolaev and his crew of Yevgeny Yakovlev and Vladimir Rybakov won the 287 kilometers distance in 2 hours 38 minutes and 43 seconds.

MOSCOW, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Russia warned on Tuesday it could face a "very intense" rise in cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant in the coming weeks and authorities preparing for a new wave of infections said they would make more hospital beds available in Moscow.

Speaking at a televised meeting of the government's coronavirus task force, Anna Popova, a top consumer health official, said Russia had so far recorded 305 cases of Omicron across 13 of its regions.

"The risk of a very intense rise in (cases) of the disease is real," she said.

MOSCOW, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Russia staged live-fire exercises with troops and tanks near the Ukrainian border on Tuesday while sounding a downbeat note over the prospects for talks with the United States that Washington hopes will remove the possible threat of an invasion of Ukraine.

A day after the U.S. side urged Russia at talks in Geneva to pull back an estimated 100,000 troops from near the border, the defence ministry said about 3,000 servicemen had started combat training including mock battles in four regions of southwestern Russia. 

MOSCOW (AP) — The president of Kazakhstan announced Tuesday that a Russia-led security alliance will start pulling out its troops from the Central Asian nation in two days after completing its mission.

The mostly Russian troops were deployed to Kazakhstan last week by the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a military alliance of six former Soviet states, at the president’s request amid the worst public unrest the former Soviet nation has faced since gaining independence 30 years ago.

MOSCOW, January 10. /TASS/: Russia has registered 15,830 new confirmed COVID-19 infections over the past 24 hours, with the total number of infections reaching 10,666,679 cases, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Monday.

According to the crisis center, the relative increase of new infections is at the level of 0.15%.

MOSCOW, January 9. /TASS/: Aeroflot airline announced that it has stopped selling tickets for flights to Kazakhstan scheduled before January 20.

Sales of tickets for flights scheduled from Kazakhstan to Russia until January 21 have also been halted. The carrier also canceled all its own flights from Moscow to Kazakhstan until January 10, and from Kazakhstan to Russia until January 11.

MOSCOW, January 9./TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to take part in a video conference of the leaders of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) on Monday, January 10, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS on Sunday.

"Yes, we are getting ready for Monday," the spokesman said when asked whether the Kremlin confirmed Putin’s participation in the online summit on January 10.

MOSCOW, January 9./TASS/: The number of confirmed coronavirus cases across Russia grew by 16,246 in the past 24 hours, amounting to 10,650,849 overall, the anti-coronavirus crisis center said on Sunday.

The relative growth rate is 0.15%.

In particular, 3,274 new cases were reported in Moscow, 1,323 in St. Petersburg, 1,124 in the Moscow Region, 374 in the Sverdlovsk Region, 360 in the Krasnodar Region and 349 in the Rostov Region.

MOSCOW, January 9./TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin will take part in an extraordinary online meeting of the CSTO Collective Security Council on January 10, chaired by Armenia, the Kremlin press service reported on Sunday.

"The meeting will discuss the situation in the Republic of Kazakhstan and measures to normalize it," the press service specified.

MOSCOW, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Russia responded angrily on Saturday to a comment by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Kazakhstan might have a hard time getting rid of Russian troops, saying he should reflect instead on U.S. military meddling around the world.

Blinken on Friday challenged Russia's justification for sending forces into Kazakhstan after days of violent unrest in the Central Asian country.

"One lesson of recent history is that once Russians are in your house, it's sometimes very difficult to get them to leave," Blinken said.