Russia

MOSCOW, April 4. /TASS/: Kiev will consider Europe’s silent position as carte blanche for a military operation in Donbass and restoring territorial integrity by force, Deputy Speaker of the Russian Federation Council (upper house of parliament) Konstantin Kosachev said on Sunday, commenting on a joint statement by the top French and German diplomats on Donbass.

MOSCOW, April 3. /TASS/: Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine ensures quick recovery without severe symptoms in case of contagion, the Gamaleya Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology said on Saturday.

The Sputnik V developer commented as news broke out that Argentine President Alberto Fernandez, who had been inoculated with the Russian vaccine earlier, tested positive for COVID-19

MOSCOW, April 4. /TASS/: Russia confirmed 8,817 new COVID-19 cases in the past day, bringing the total case tally to 4,580,894, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Sunday.

In relative terms, the growth rate dropped to 0.19%.

The lowest growth rates in the past day were registered in the Chukotka Autonomous Region (0%), the Magadan Region and the Tuva Republic (0.01%) and the Sakhalin Region (0.05%).

MOSCOW, April 4. /TASS/: Ukraine’s leaders have gone too far in their rhetoric about the conflict in Donbass, which is fraught with grave consequences, and they won’t get away with their actions in Donbass, speaker of the Russian State Duma lower parliament house, Vyacheslav Volodin, said on Sunday.

MOSCOW, April 4. /TASS/: NATO’s defense spending kept on increasing in 2020 to be up by 7.4% and such a policy is triggering global arms race, the Russian foreign ministry said on Sunday on the 72nd NATO anniversary.

"OTD 72 years ago NATO was founded with a declared purpose of "securing peace". By now, on its account: bombing of Yugoslavia, invasion of Iraq, intervention in Libya - and more. In 2020, NATO "defense" expenditures increased by yet another 7.4%," the ministry said on its Twitter account.

MOSCOW, April 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Russia has recorded over 225,000 deaths related to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic in April, the Rosstat statistics service said on Friday, a figure that is more than double the death toll cited by the government coronavirus task force.

The statistics, which are reported on a monthly basis and with a lag, covering the period from April 2020 to February 2021, suggest that Russia has the third highest death toll in the world.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Russian government approved extending an agreement on cooperation in space with the United States until December 2030, news agencies cited the cabinet’s press service as saying on Saturday.

Moscow’s ties with Washington are at a post-Cold War low, with U.S. President Joe Biden saying he believes his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin is a killer who deserves to be hit with sanctions for meddling in U.S. politics, charges the Kremlin denies.

ROSTOV-ON-DON, April 2. /TASS/: Over 50 battalion tactical groups of Russia’s Southern Military District will practice fighting enemy drones jointly with electronic warfare and air defense forces in drills, the District’s press office reported on Friday.

"Over 50 battalion tactical groups and tactical groups of the branches of the Southern Military District’s troops will practice interaction with electronic warfare and air defense units during a control check for the purpose of defense against unmanned aviation strikes," the press office said in a statement.

REUTOV /Moscow Region/, April 2. /TASS/: The Research and Production Association of Machine-Building (part of Tactical Missiles Corporation) has launched work on developing active phased array radar mini-satellites that can help monitor the Arctic, Company CEO and Chief Designer Alexander Leonov said on the sidelines of the conference on cosmonautics on Friday.

MOSCOW, April 2. /TASS/: European countries look the other way when it comes to the disgraceful policy of outright segregation pursued by the Baltic states and Ukraine, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin told TASS on Friday.