Russia

MOSCOW, December 16. /TASS/: Vladimir Putin’s election campaign headquarters will be established as soon as all procedures for his self-nomination have been completed, Secretary of the ruling United Russia party’s General Council Andrey Turchak announced.

"The [election campaign] headquarters will be established upon the completion of all organizational procedures, after the initiative group [of voters] has held a meeting and all documents have been submitted to the Central Election Commission," he explained.

MOSCOW, December 16. /TASS/: Vladimir Putin’s election campaign headquarters will be established as soon as all procedures for his self-nomination have been completed, Secretary of the ruling United Russia party’s General Council Andrey Turchak announced.

"The [election campaign] headquarters will be established upon the completion of all organizational procedures, after the initiative group [of voters] has held a meeting and all documents have been submitted to the Central Election Commission," he explained.

MOSCOW, December 16. /TASS/: Russia launched the Soyuz-2.1b rocket carrying the country’s second meteorological satellite, Arktika-M, from the Baikonur spaceport on Saturday, Roscosmos reported.

The spacecraft should be orbited within the next 4.5 hours or so.

Russia launched its first weather satellite in February 2021. Last December, the Lavochkin design bureau announced that the fleet of Russian meteorological satellites will be expanded to four from two.

MOSCOW, December 16. /TASS/: Russia’s Aerospace Forces downed a Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopter over the town of Orekhov in the Zaporozhye Region, the Russian Defense Ministry reported.

Also, Russian air defense forces thwarted an attempt by the Kiev regime to conduct a massive drone attack on facilities in Crimea, destroying all Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, the ministry added.

MOSCOW, December 16. /TASS/: Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin discussed free Russian grain and fertilizer supplies to the world’s neediest countries with United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Secretary General Rebeca Grynspan and UN Under-Secretary-General Martin Griffiths, the Russian Foreign Ministry reported after the consultations involving Russia’s concerned agencies and companies.

MOSCOW, December 16. /TASS/:  Russia’s second meteorological satellite Arktika-M, which was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome by a Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle, has been successfully put into a designated orbit with a Fregat booster, Roscosmos said in a statement.

"The second Arktika-M is in orbit!" the space agency said.

MOSCOW, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Russian Railways on Friday said Finland's state-owned railway company VR had acted unlawfully in seizing four trains co-owned through a joint venture.

"The transfer of trains ... was not agreed," Russian Railways said in a statement.

VR said on Thursday it had seized the Allegro trains that used to travel between the two countries after more than 18 months of negotiations without any result.

Passenger trains between Finland and Russia were suspended in March 2022, following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

MOSCOW, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- Russia plans to conduct seven launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in 2024, the commander of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces (SMF) Lieutenant General Sergei Karakayev said on Friday.

In an interview with Russian newspaper Red Star, Karakayev said that in the past five years, the SMF has conducted more than 20 ICBM launches as part of flight tests of new missile systems and training exercises for the Russian armed forces.

MOSCOW, December 14. /TASS/: The conflict in Ukraine is a tragedy, akin to a civil war between brothers, President Vladimir Putin said at the combined Direct Line Q&A and year-end press conference.

"What is happening now [in Ukraine] is a huge tragedy, a kind of civil war," he said.

MOSCOW, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared briefly lost for words on Thursday when confronted with an AI-generated version of himself.

The "double" took the opportunity to put a question to Putin about artificial intelligence during an annual news conference where dozens of callers from around the country were hooked up to the president by video link.