Russia

(Reuters) --- The head of Belarusian national airline Belavia on Saturday condemned as "despicable" the decision by numerous EU countries to impose airspace restrictions on the carrier following the forced landing of a passenger jet in Minsk.

Most of Belarus's neighbours and many other European nations have banned Belavia flights amid outrage over Sunday's forced landing of a Ryanair (RYA.I) jet en route to Lithuania from Greece and the arrest of a dissident journalist on board. 

MOSCOW, May 28. /TASS/: Russia’s Foreign Ministry has protested against provocations staged near the Russian embassy in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, the ministry said in a statement on Friday.

"On May 28, the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned Ukraine’s Charge d'Affaires Vasily Pokotilo and strongly protested against the ongoing inflammatory activities taking place near the Russian embassy in Kiev," the statement reads.

"The Russian embassy sent a note of protest to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry following one such incident," the Russian Foreign Ministry added.

MOSCOW, May 28. /TASS/: Russian Defense Minister Army General Sergey Shoigu and his Armenian counterpart Vagharshak Harutyunyan held a working meeting in Moscow on Friday.

"We are strengthening our military interaction both in the bilateral format and within the framework of international structures, first of all, the CSTO [the Collective Security Treaty Organization], Shoigu said while opening the working meeting.

MOSCOW, May 28. /TASS/: Cases where Moscow has refused to accept flights from the European Union bypassing the territory of Belarus are due to technical issues related to the coordination of points of entry into Russia’s airspace, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"I am convinced that the aviation authorities will provide the necessary clarifications, but these are technical issues," Peskov specified. He noted that "there are certain points of departure and arrival in the airspace of each country".

MOSCOW, May 28 (NNN-SPUTNIK) — Russia is ready to supply military equipment to Gabon, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

“We are ready to supply military products in the interests of increasing the defense capability of Gabon,” Lavrov said after a meeting with his Gabonese counterpart, Pacome Moubelet Boubeya.

The Gabonese foreign minister, on his part, highlighted the ongoing military and technical cooperation between the two countries.

(Reuters) --- The Kremlin said on Friday it regretted Washington's decision not to rejoin the Open Skies arms control pact, which allows unarmed surveillance flights over member countries.

The original U.S. decision to quit the pact was taken by the administration of U.S. president Donald Trump last year, but Moscow had hoped that Joe Biden would reverse it.

But on Thursday the United States informed Russia it would not rejoin the pact, accusing Russia of violating it, something Moscow denied. 

MOSCOW (AP) — Belarus’ authoritarian leader heads to Russia Friday to seek assistance amid a bruising showdown with the European Union over the diversion of a flight to arrest a dissident journalist.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is set to meet with Russia’s Vladimir Putin at his Black Sea residence in Sochi for talks on closer economic ties, according to the Kremlin.

MOSCOW, May 27. /TASS/: The Kremlin finds intolerable Polish President Andrzej Duda's latest rhetoric towards Russia, in particular his claim Russia was an "abnormal country". Moscow wishes to have friendly relations with all neighbors, including Poland, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media on Thursday.

MOSCOW, May 27. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko in Sochi on Friday, May 28, and discuss relevant issues related to the further development of bilateral ties and the two countries’ joint projects, the Kremlin press service reported on Thursday.

MOSCOW, May 27. /TASS/: Those individuals who have been inoculated with both components of the Sputnik V vaccine against the coronavirus infection are not contagious, Vladimir Gushchin, head of the laboratory of mechanisms of population variability of pathogenic microorganisms of the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology that developed the jab, said.