Russia

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION, January 1. /TASS/: The members of the International Space Station (ISS) crew celebrated the New Year with a cake and a space-version of a traditional Russian salad, TASS special correspondent and Roscosmos cosmonaut Dmitry Petelin reported.

According to him, Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev, Anna Kikina and himself made the Olivier salad, a traditional Russian New Year's dish also known as the Russian salad. However, the crew had run out of green peas that had to be replaced with corn.

MOSCOW, January 1. /TASS/: The Russian Ground Forces will take part in eight international military exercises at Russian training ranges in 2023, the Defense Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

MOSCOW, January 1. /TASS/: The Russian Armed Forces carried out a high-precision strike on Ukrainian defense industry sites involved in the production of combat drones on December 31, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov said on Sunday.

"On December 31, 2022, the Russian Armed Forces employed long-range high-precision air-launched weapons to target Ukrainian defense industry facilities involved in the production of combat unmanned aerial vehicles that are used to carry out terrorist attacks on Russia," he noted.

31 Dec 2022; AA: Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved a set of guidelines on the development of unmanned aerial vehicles, the Kremlin announced on Saturday.

“Vladimir Putin approved a list of instructions on the development of unmanned aerial vehicles,” the Kremlin said on Telegram.

“In particular, the Government was instructed to approve priority areas and a development strategy for unmanned aviation for the period up to 2030 and until 2035,” the statement added.

MOSCOW, December 31. /TASS/: The West has been systematically deceiving Russia since the end of the Cold War in order to weaken it geopolitically, Leonid Slutsky, Chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on Foreign Affairs, said, comme nting on former French President Francois Hollande's statement about the Minsk agreements being an attempt to buy Kiev some time.

MOSCOW, December 31. /TASS/: Remarks by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and ex-French President Francois Hollande that the Minsk Agreements served to win time for Kiev to prepare for war are "documented betrayal," Deputy Speaker of the Federation Council Konstantin Kosachev said on Saturday.

MOSCOW, December 31. /TASS/: The price of gas in Europe fell by 48% in December 2022 versus the previous month to around $845 per 1,000 cubic meters, according to data provided by London’s ICE on January and February futures contracts and TASS’ calculations.

The decrease was triggered by the abnormally warm weather in the region and a large amount of gas supplies in storage facilities.

Dec 31 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin devoted his annual New Year's address on Saturday to rallying the Russian people behind his troops fighting in Ukraine and pledging victory over Ukrainian "neo-Nazis" and a West supposedly intent on "destroying Russia".

In a stern and combative recorded video message, broadcast on national television, Putin cast the war - which he calls a "special military operation" - as a near-existential fight for the future of Russia.

MOSCOW, December 29. /TASS/: Russian missile troops and artillery struck four Ukrainian command posts in the past day during the special military operation in Ukraine, Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on Thursday.

MOSCOW, December 29. /TASS/: The aircraft manufacturer in Komsomolsk-on-Amur in the Russian Far East has mastered mass production of Sukhoi Su-57 fifth-generation multirole fighters and the number of aircraft produced by the company will keep increasing, Head of the United Aircraft Corporation Yury Slyusar said on Thursday.