Russia

NAGURSKOYE, Russia (AP) — During the Cold War, Russia’s Nagurskoye airbase was little more than a runway, a weather station and a communications outpost in the Franz Josef Land archipelago.

It was a remote and desolate home mostly for polar bears, where temperatures plunge in winter to minus-42 Celsius (43 degrees below zero Fahrenheit) and the snow only disappears from August to mid-September.

(Reuters) --- Moscow's prosecutor on Monday submitted a huge amount of new material to a court hearing a request to outlaw jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny's political movement, Navalny's lawyers said.

The court is considering the prosecutor's request to declare Navalny's anti-corruption foundation and regional campaign groups as "extremist", a major escalation in a crackdown on supporters of President Vladimir Putin's staunchest critic.

MOSCOW, May 16. / TASS /: Russia’s coronavirus spread rate surged to 1.06 on Sunday and has been above 1 for eight days in a row, according to TASS estimates based on the anti-coronavirus crisis center’s data.

MOSCOW, May 16. /TASS/: Russia confirmed 8,554 COVID-19 cases over the past day, bringing the total caseload to 4,940,245, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Sunday.

In relative terms the growth rate reached 0.17%.

MOSCOW, May 16. /TASS/: Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has started tracking the British Royal Navy’s HMS Trent patrol vessel, the Russian Defense Ministry’s National Defense Management Center reported on Sunday.

"The forces and means of the Black Sea Fleet have started tracking the activities of the Trent patrol vessel of the British Navy, which entered the Black Sea waters on May 16," the statement said.

On May 11, the report said the Black Sea Fleet started keeping a close eye on the French Navy’s patrol ship Commandant Birot, which had entered the Black Sea.

MOSCOW, May 15. /TASS/: Palestine calls for an urgent meeting of the Middle East Quartet of international mediators (Russia, the United States, the UN and the EU) at the level of foreign ministers, Palestinian Ambassador to Russia Abdel Hafiz Nofal told TASS on Saturday.

MOSCOW, May 15. /TASS/: Russia’s coronavirus recoveries grew by 9,866 in the past 24 hours, this is the highest number since April 15. In total, 4,547,500 people have recovered by now, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Saturday.

According to the crisis center, recoveries remain at 92.2% of the total number of infected people.

Another 1,676 patients recovered in St. Petersburg, 551 in the Moscow Regioin, 263 in Ingushetia, 208 in the Pskov Region and 204 in the Saratov Region.

MOSCOW, May 14. /TASS/: European countries are mostly interested in the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline construction project. The project is still planned to be completed in 2021, Russia’s Minister of Energy Nikolay Shulginov said in an interview with Energy Policy magazine.

MOSCOW, May 14. /TASS/: Nearly half of the crimes in the Russian capital are committed with the use of information technologies, Yuri Gavrilin, an associate professor of the Russian Interior Ministry’s Academy of Management, said on Friday.

"Every fourth crime in Russia is committed with the use of IT technologies, and in Moscow it is every second crime," he told the Comprehensive Security-2021 workshop.

NOVO-OGARYOVO, May 14. /TASS/: Attempts are being made to turn Ukraine into Russia’s polar opposite, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with members of the National Security Council on Friday.

"Apparently - and regrettably - attempts are being made to slowly but surely turn Ukraine into some kind of Russia’s polar opposite, an anti-Russia, from where we are likely to be getting news requiring special attention in terms of national security," the head of state pointed out.