Russia

MOSCOW, December 2. /TASS/: Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and Premier of the Chinese State Council Li Keqiang will hold the 27th regular meeting of the two countries' heads of government on Monday, December 5, in a video conference format, the press service of the Russian Cabinet of Ministers announced on Friday.

MOSCOW, December 2. /TASS/: Flooding Ukraine with weapons is a destructive policy, Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed out in a phone call with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday, according to the Kremlin press service.

"Attention was drawn to the destructive policy that is being pursued by Western countries, including Germany, who are flooding the Kiev regime with weapons and training Ukrainian troops," the Kremlin press service said in a statement.

Dec 2 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin is "open to negotiations" on Ukraine but the West must accept Moscow's demands, the Kremlin said on Friday, a day after U.S. President Joe Biden said he was willing to talk if Putin were looking for a way to end the war.

MOSCOW, Dec 2 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin is open to talks on a possible settlement to the conflict in Ukraine and believes in a diplomatic solution, the Kremlin said on Friday after Joe Biden suggested he was prepared to speak to the Russian leader.

Biden, speaking beside French President Emmanuel Macron, said the only way to end the war in Ukraine was for Putin to pull troops out and that if Putin was looking to end the conflict then Biden would be prepared to speak to him.

MOSCOW (AP) — The family of Paul Whelan, an American imprisoned in Russia for espionage, said Friday that he has resumed contact after unexpectedly becoming unreachable in November.

Along with WNBA star Brittney Griner, Whelan is the focus of efforts by the United States to arrange a prisoner swap with Russia.

The Associated Press and other news organizations have reported that Washington has offered to exchange Griner and Whelan for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer who is serving a 25-year sentence in the U.S. and once earned the nickname the “merchant of death.”

MOSCOW, December 1. /TASS/: The Russian Foreign Ministry denounced on Thursday a Bundestag resolution classifying the mass starvation in the Ukrainian Soviet Republic in 1932-1933 as genocide as yet another attempt to justify the campaign to demonize Russia being inculcated in Ukraine.

"This is yet another attempt to justify and prop up the Western-sponsored campaign being inculcated in Ukraine to demonize Russia and to pit ethnic Ukrainians against the Russians and other ethnicities in Russia and across the former USSR," the Ministry said in a statement.

MOSCOW, December 1. /TASS/: Russia hits only those infrastructure facilities in Ukraine that have military significance, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a press conference on European security issues on Thursday.

"The infrastructure that is now under attack is crucial to the combat potential of Ukraine’s armed forces and nationalist battalions," Lavrov said.

MOSCOW, December 1. /TASS/: The fortunes of Russia’s wealthiest businessmen have plunged by almost $74.3 billion this year, according to the released Bloomberg Billionaires Index calculated among other things on the basis of corporate stock prices.

Dec 1 (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday big problems had accumulated in the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, accusing the West of spurning the chance to make the OSCE a real bridge with Russia after the Cold War.

At a news conference, Lavrov gave a long recital of Russian historical grievances against the West, saying the "reckless enlargement" of NATO had devalued the basic principles of the 57-nation OSCE, Europe's top security and rights watchdog.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s foreign minister on Thursday accused the West of becoming directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine by supplying it with weapons and training its soldiers.

Sergey Lavrov also said that Russia’s strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities and other key infrastructure that have left millions without power, heating and water were intended to weaken Ukraine’s military potential and derail the shipments of Western weapons.