Russia

MOSCOW/ISTANBUL, July 11 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish leader Tayyip Erdogan plan to meet in the near future after a phone conversation in which they discussed efforts to facilitate grain exports from Ukraine, the Kremlin said on Monday.

Turkey has been mediating between Moscow and Kyiv since Russia sent its armed forces into Ukraine on Feb. 24. The last talks between representatives of Russia and Ukraine were held in Istanbul in the end of March.

MOSCOW, July 10. /TASS/: Global Affairs Canada reported on Saturday that it plans to expand its sanctions against Russia.

"The Honourable Melanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today announced that Canada intends to impose further sanctions in relation to Russia," according to the statement. Ottawa will expand restrictions with regards to the gas, oil and manufacturing sectors.

On Friday, the Canadian authorities expanded sanctions against Russia, adding 29 private individuals and 15 organizations to the list, including Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia.

MOSCOW, July 10. /TASS/: Canada will return to Germany a repaired Siemens turbine for the Nord Stream pipeline, Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson said, according to The Globe and Mail newspaper.

"Canada will grant a time-limited and revocable permit for Siemens Canada to allow the return of repaired Nordstream 1 turbines to Germany, supporting Europe’s ability to access reliable and affordable energy as they continue to transition away from Russian oil and gas," the newspaper quoted him as saying on Saturday.

MOSCOW, July 10. /TASS/: Russia’s COVID-19 death toll rose by 39 to 381,583 over the past day, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Sunday.

Daily deaths dropped below 40 for the first time since April 16 of 2020. The figure was 45 on Saturday.

The number of news cases on Sunday fell to 3,398 from 3,539 a day earlier, reaching a total of 18,462,211.

The number of recoveries dropped to 2,496 compared with 3,086 a day before, reaching 17,888,560.

MOSCOW, July 10. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin prevented a humanitarian catastrophe when he launched a special operation in Ukraine, speaker of the Russian State Duma (lower parliament house) Vyacheslav Volodin said on Sunday.

The Russian president "has done his best to ensure Russia’s security," to protect people living in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), he said in an interview with the Moscow.Kremlin.Putin program on the Duma TV channel.

MOSCOW, July 10. /TASS/: British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss’ departure ahead of a Group of Twenty meeting is seen as a "deep boycott" of the Russian delegation, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Sunday.

"You know, it is a kind of deep boycott of the Russian delegation to leave a day before," she said in an interview with the Voskresny Vecher (Sunday Evening) with Vladimir Solovyov program on the Rossiya-1 television channel.

She said earlier that the West had failed to boycott Russia at the meeting of the G20 foreign ministers.

MOSCOW, July 10. /TASS/: The Kremlin so far has no position on the Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDPR) idea to replace the term "president" with "ruler," Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov told TASS on Sunday.

"It is a new idea. There is no position on this matter," he said when asked what the Kremlin thinks about this idea.

July 10 (Reuters) - Russian forces struck two Ukrainian army hangars storing U.S.-produced M777 howitzers, a type of artillery weapon, near Kostantinovka in the Donetsk region, the Russian defence ministry said on Sunday.

MOSCOW, July 9. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the funeral of Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS.

"Putin - no. The rest depends on protocol rules," he said when asked about the participation of Russia’s representatives.

Kyodo news agency reported earlier the funeral of Shinzo Abe would take place on July 12 in his hometown of Shimonoseki (Yamaguchi Prefecture).

MOSCOW, July 8. /TASS/: The Council of Federation, the upper house of the Russian parliament, approved at its meeting the draft law on support of counter-terrorism and other operations abroad by Russian Armed Forces, other troops and authorities.