Russia

YAKUTSK, Russia, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Temperatures have plunged to minus 50 degrees Celsius (-58 Fahrenheit) this week in Yakutsk during an abnormally long cold snap in the Siberian city known as the coldest on earth.

Located 5,000 km (3,100 miles) east of Moscow on the permafrost of the Russian Far East, residents of the mining city often see the thermometer regularly drop well below minus 40.

"You can't fight it. You either adjust and dress accordingly or you suffer," said Anastasia Gruzdeva, outside in two scarves, two pairs of gloves and multiple hats and hoods.

MOSCOW, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the military operation in Ukraine had gained positive momentum and that he hoped his soldiers would deliver more wins after Russia claimed control of the eastern Ukrainian salt-mining town of Soledar.

Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine has triggered one of the deadliest European conflicts since World War Two and the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

MOSCOW, January 14. /TASS/: Russian forces wiped out three D-20 howitzers in the Kharkov and the Donetsk People’s Republic in the past day during the counter-battery warfare, Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on Saturday.

"In the counter-battery warfare, three D-20 howitzers were destroyed near Scherbakovka in the Kharkov Region, as well as near Orlovka and Dyleevka in the Donetsk People’s Republic," the spokesman said.

MOSCOW, January 14. /TASS/: UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and Chief of the General Staff Patrick Sanders have been included in Russia’s reciprocal sanctions list of 36 people, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in her commentary Saturday.

Jan 14 (Reuters) - Russia's space agency Roscosmos announced new contingency plans on Saturday for the three crew of a damaged capsule docked to the International Space Station, saying the U.S. member of the trio would return to Earth in a separate SpaceX vessel if they needed to evacuate in the next few weeks.

The Soyuz MS-22 capsule, which serves as a lifeboat for the crew, sprang a coolant leak last month after it was struck by a micrometeoroid - a small particle of space rock - which made a tiny puncture and caused the temperature inside to rise.

Jan 14 (Reuters) - Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev accused Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Saturday of shameful subservience to the United States and suggested he should ritually disembowel himself.

It was the latest in a long line of shocking and provocative statements from Medvedev, who was once seen as a Western-leaning reformer but has reinvented himself as an arch-hawk since Russia invaded Ukraine last year.

MOSCOW, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- Britain's Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs James Cleverly is among 36 British citizens that have been recently barred from entering Russia, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Saturday.

MOSCOW, January 12. /TASS/: The plans of unfriendly countries, including Estonia, to use Russia’s frozen assets for their purposes will meet with an adequate response from Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on Thursday.

MOSCOW, January 12. /TASS/: Former NSA (National Security Agency) employee and whistleblower Edward Snowden said on Thursday that US President Joe Biden (during his tenure as vice president) "absconded" with more classified documents than many whistleblowers.

"Worth noting that the President seems to have absconded with more classified documents than many whistleblowers. For comparison, Reality Winner was sentenced to 5 YEARS for just one document," Snowden tweeted, commenting on the news that documents marked as classified had been found in Biden’s namesake think tank.

MOSCOW, January 12. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin will speak with Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi if necessary, but such a meeting is currently not on the Russian president’s work schedule, Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.

"There are no planned meetings on [Putin’s] schedule if we are speaking about Grossi," Peskov told journalists, adding that the Russian president and the IAEA chief agreed during their meeting in St. Petersburg last October "to carry on with the dialogue if necessary."