Russia

MOSCOW, July 1. /TASS/: The deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian soil does not violate the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) because Moscow does not cede control over them to Minsk, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said.

MOSCOW, July 1. /TASS/: The Ukrainian government has decided to ban monks of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church from using some premises at the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra and is demanding they vacate these premises by July 4, according to a lawyer for the church’s lawyer.

The lawyer, Nikita Chekman, said the Ukrainian Culture Ministry made the restrictions known in a letter, a copy of which he posted on Telegram.

MOSCOW, July 1. /TASS/: Russia and Cuba resumed regular direct air service as the first flight since the two countries suspended service last year took off from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport on Saturday.

Boeing-777 flights will be carried out by Aeroflot’s subsidiary, Rossiya Airlines. Rossiya Spokesman Sergey Starikov said the demand for tickets was enormous. It takes about 13 hours to fly from Moscow to Varadero.

Flights will be operated twice a week, on Thursdays and Saturdays. And starting from September, the program will be expanded to three flights per week.

MOSCOW, July 1. /TASS/: The potential deployment of nuclear weapons to Poland may prompt the country to use them, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev told TASS.

Commenting on Poland’s ambitions to take part in NATO’s Nuclear Sharing program, he said, "The only danger arising from the request to deploy nuclear weapons to Poland is that such weapons will be used."

Earlier, Polish Prime Minister Morawiecki announced that Warsaw would like to join NATO’s Nuclear Sharing program amid Russia’s intentions to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus.

MOSCOW, July 1. /TASS/: Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky signed a decree on Saturday imposing sanctions for 10 years on 192 individuals, mostly Russian nationals.

The latest sanctions also affect 291 legal entities, including Russian factories and businesses. Also, Belarusian, Georgian and Kazakh companies were blacklisted.

The corresponding decree, putting into effect the sanctions decision by Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, was published on the Ukrainian president’s website.

July 1 (Reuters) - U.S. CIA Director William Burns said on Saturday that the armed mutiny by mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was a challenge to the Russian state that had shown the corrosive effect of President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine.

Putin this week thanked the army and security forces for averting what he said could have turned into a civil war, and has compared the mutiny to the chaos that plunged Russia into two revolutions in 1917.

30 June 2023; MEMO: Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, said on Friday that Russia will seek the expansion of the UN Security Council with Asian, African and Latin American countries.

Speaking at a news conference in Moscow, Lavrov said the Security Council has to be reformed "in accordance with existing realities", and the dominance of the Western countries has to be balanced.

MOSCOW, June 30. /TASS/: Helsinki has been mindlessly parroting NATO policy views ever since it joined the North Atlantic Alliance in April, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a comment on Friday.

MOSCOW, June 30. /TASS/: Iran's full-scale admission to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the signing of a memorandum of commitment by Belarus to join the SCO is scheduled for July 4 at the Council of Heads of State of the organization, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.

MOSCOW, June 30. /TASS/: Russian air defense forces intercepted seven rockets of the US-made HIMARS multiple launch rocket system and shot down ten Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles over the past day during the special military operation in Ukraine, Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on Friday.

"Air defense capabilities intercepted seven rockets of the HIMARS multiple launch rocket system," the spokesman said.