Russia

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian warships set off Monday to take part in a joint naval drills with China, an exercise that showcases increasingly close defense ties between the two countries as they face tensions with the United States.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the Varyag missile cruiser, the Marshal Shaposhnikov destroyer and two corvettes of Russia’s Pacific Fleet would take part in maneuvers in the East China Sea starting Wednesday.

MOSCOW, December 18. /TASS/: Russian Defense Minister General of the Army Sergey Shoigu inspected the grouping of troops in the areas of the special military operation and spoke with servicemen on the front line, the Defense Ministry reported on Sunday.

MOSCOW, December 18. /TASS/: Pyotr Ivanov, who was elected president of the Russian Athletics Federation (RAF) in late November 2020, has resumed his duties as head of the organization, Russian Sports Minister Oleg Matytsin told reporters on Sunday at the RAF conference.

Ivanov temporarily resigned as president of the Russian Athletics Federation on February 13, 2021, after the Court of Arbitration for Sport banned high-ranking Russian officials from heading sports federations until December 16, 2022.

MOSCOW, Dec 18 (Reuters) - A 17-metre-long Canadian-made robotic arm on the International Space Station will inspect a docked Soyuz spacecraft after a leak was noticed just before a spacewalk last week, Russia's state space corporation said on Sunday.

After the spacewalk was called off on Dec. 15, Roscosmos said there had been damage to the outer skin of an instrument assembly compartment of the Soyuz MS-22 capsule. It said there was a coolant leak.

17 Dec 2022; MEMO: Russia is currently talking with the Gulf States and a number of Asian countries about the visa-free system, TASS reported Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Yevgeny Ivanov saying on Thursday.

Ivanov shared, according to TASS, that Russia's efforts to achieve a visa-free entry system with more countries have been continuous.

MOSCOW, December 17. /TASS/: The Russian Armed Forces hit a base of foreign mercenaries in the Donetsk People’s Republic, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov said on Saturday.

"A temporary base of foreign mercenaries was hit near Krasny Liman in the Donetsk People’s Republic," he specified.

MOSCOW, December 17. /TASS/: Dialogue between Russia and NATO is out of the question amid the current developments, a source in Moscow told TASS.

"Any dialogue with NATO as an organization is out of the question now, given the current developments," the source said.

MOSCOW, December 17. /TASS/: Moscow considers the suspension of broadcasting licenses of six Russian-language television channels in Moldova as an unprecedented act of political censorship, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement on Saturday.

"We view this ban as an unprecedented act of political censorship, as the abuse of the principle of media pluralism and as a blatant breach of the right to free access to information, the adherence to which the republic’s political leadership regularly reiterates," the diplomat said.

MOSCOW, December 17. /TASS/: The Central African Republic at the highest level announced its intention to cooperate with Russia in investigating the terrorist attack on Dmitry Sytyi, head of the Russian House, the Russian embassy in Bangui told TASS on Saturday.

"The Central African authorities at the highest level pledged their readiness to cooperate," the diplomatic mission said. "The embassy is in constant contact with the CAR’s law enforcement agencies. The investigation is underway; no details have been disclosed yet."

MOSCOW, Dec 17 (Reuters) - A shield is being set up over a storage site for spent nuclear waste at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine to protect it from shelling and drones, a Russian-installed official said on Saturday.

Video footage published by Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-appointed official in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia province, showed workers mounting a screen of what appeared to be some kind of transparent sheeting on wires above dozens of concrete cylinders about 5 metres (16 feet) high.