Russia

(AP) --- Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered one of the top commanders of the Wagner military contractor to take charge of “volunteer units” fighting in Ukraine, signaling the Kremlin’s effort to keep using the mercenaries after the death of their chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

In remarks released Friday by the Kremlin, Putin told Andrei Troshev that his task is to “deal with forming volunteer units that could perform various combat tasks, primarily in the zone of the special military operation” — a term Moscow uses for its war in Ukraine.

MOSCOW, September 28. /TASS/: Russia continues to work on the development of relations with the African continent, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

The Kremlin official recalled that today Russian President Vladimir Putin would hold a meeting with his South Sudanese counterpart Salva Kiir, who is in Russia on an official visit.

"We continue to develop our relations with the states of the African continent," the Russian leader's spokesman said.

MOSCOW, September 28. /TASS/: Russia will support South Sudan in addressing its internal political challenges and ensuring security, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with South Sudanese President Salva Kiir.

"Of course, we are aware that further development is associated with ensuring security, with the settlement of all those problems and difficulties that you inherited from the old times. So, we will do everything to support you in this area as well," Putin said.

MOSCOW, September 28. /TASS/: The creation of an alternative to SWIFT will be one of the issues on the agenda of BRICS countries’ meeting next year, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told a forum, adding that a whole number of BRICS members already have their own systems.

MOSCOW, September 28. /TASS/: Moscow is disappointed about Yerevan’s intention to sign the Rome Statute, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"Armenia knows very well that we are not a party to [the Rome Statute], and Armenia is fully aware of the hardly digestible decision [of the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin] made based on this statute. We know that Yerevan is well aware of this. This is not something we approve of," the Kremlin official said, commenting on Armenia’s actions on the matter.

MOSCOW, September 28. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin is confident that the country is able to solve all the existing problems, contrary to the expectations of its opponents.

"There are many questions, but I want to emphasize this - we have all the capabilities for solutions, no matter how strange it may seem to some external onlookers, to those who have expected to see everything collapse here," Putin said at a meeting with regional leaders elected in September.

Sept 28 (Reuters) - Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said he discussed his region's contribution to Russia's war effort in Ukraine at talks with President Vladimir Putin on Thursday that came at a sensitive moment in relations between the two sides.

Kadyrov enjoys wide leeway from Putin to run Chechnya ruthlessly as his personal fiefdom, but he angered even pro-Kremlin hardliners this week by praising his 15-year-old son for beating up an ethnic Russian prisoner in Chechen custody.

26 September 2023; MEMO: Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, said Tuesday that the US is “creating a Kurdish quasi-state” in Syria, Anadolu Agency reports.

He spoke at a news conference in Moscow and said he briefed his Tunisian counterpart, Nabil Ammar, at a meeting Tuesday about the work that Russia, Turkiye and Iran are carrying out within the framework of the Astana format to promote Syrian settlement.

MOSCOW, September 27. /TASS/: Russia is expecting that its signals regarding relations with Armenia will find a receptive ear among the South Caucasus country's leadership in Yerevan, and that all bilateral agreements between Moscow and Yerevan will be put into practice, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a briefing.

MOSCOW, September 27. /TASS/: Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has noted high production rates demonstrated by the Tactical Missiles Corporation (KTRV). At the same time, he hopes that the production pace will increase further in certain areas, the Defense Ministry has said.

Shoigu noted that KTRV was developing modern aviation weapons, including high accuracy ones.