Russia

MOSCOW, April 2. /TASS/: Russian radars tracked 50 foreign aircraft that conducted air reconnaissance near Russia’s state borders over the past week, the Russian Defense Ministry’s Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper reported on Friday.

The paper’s infographics show that 37 foreign spy planes and 13 drones conducted air reconnaissance along Russia’s state borders in the past week.

The flights by foreign spy aircraft were tracked by Russian radar stations. No violations of the Russian state border were allowed, the paper said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia has issued tenders to buy anti-riot kits and protective police gear, state procurement documents showed, ahead of a protest that allies of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny hope will be the largest in modern Russian history.

Navalny, 44, was jailed in February on charges he said were fabricated. He declared a hunger strike on Wednesday in a bid to force the prison holding him to provide proper medical care for what he said was acute pain in his back and legs.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian court on Friday fined Twitter 3.2 million roubles ($42,011.29) over its failure to delete what the authorities said was banned content.

Moscow said last month it had slowed the speed of U.S.-based Twitter inside Russia and on March 16 threatened to ban the social media service outright in a month over content ranging from child pornography to drug abuse.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Friday that any deployment of NATO troops to Ukraine would lead to further tensions near Russia’s borders and force Moscow to take extra measures to ensure its own security.

NATO voiced concern on Thursday over what it said was a big Russian military build-up near eastern Ukraine after Russia warned that a serious escalation in the conflict in Ukraine’s Donbass region could “destroy” Ukraine.

MOSCOW, April 2 (Xinhua) -- Russia-China relations have been qualitatively strengthened and continue to be further cemented, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday.

Bilateral ties are built on a clear-cut and objective foundation of overlapping interests, Lavrov told the Great Game talk show on Russian TV.

The "strategic interaction and multifaceted partnership" between China and Russia are not directed against anyone, but focus exclusively on the interests of the two peoples and countries, he said.

MOSCOW, April 1. /TASS/: Diplomatic missions of 12 states have suspended work in North Korea and all foreign personnel of international humanitarian organizations have left the country due to the challenging situation, namely over the lack of goods and medicine, the Russian Embassy in Pyongyang wrote on its Facebook page.

"Those leaving the Korean capital can be understood - not everyone can tolerate the unprecedentedly strict total restrictions, the sharpest shortage of essential goods, including medicine, the lack of possibility to solve health problems," the Embassy said.

MOSCOW, April 1. /TASS/: It is up to Russian President Vladimir Putin to decide when the country’s Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov will return to Washington, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Channel One’s Great Game show on Thursday.

"It is up to Russian President Vladimir Putin to decide," he said in response to a question.

MOSCOW, April 1. /TASS/: The coronavirus pandemic in Russia may end by August, Viktor Maleyev, an advisor to the scientific director of the Russian health watchdog’s Research Institute of Epidemiology, said in a post on the watchdog’s Instagram.

"The coronavirus pandemic in Russia may end by August 2021 because many people will develop immunity," the post reads.

According to Maleyev, the daily number of coronavirus cases may drop to hundreds and below in the summer, given the seasonal nature of the virus. However, a slight rise in infections is possible in the fall.

MOSCOW, April 1. /TASS/: The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has foiled a terror plot targeting a fuel and energy industry facility by a member of the Islamic State, he resisted detention and was eliminated, the FSB Public Relations Center told TASS Thursday.

MOSCOW, April 1. /TASS/: The movement of Russian troops across the country should not concern other states since this does not pose any threat to them, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday, commenting on a remark by the Ukrainian military on Russia’s military buildup along the border with Ukraine.

"The Russian Federation transfers the Armed Forces on its soil as it wants to. This should not concern anyone and this is not posing any threat to anyone," Peskov stressed.