Europe

BELGRADE, November 21. /TASS/: Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has discussed his visit to Sochi on December 4 with Russian Ambassador Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko, the presidential press service said on Thursday.

"One of the topics at the meeting was preparations taken for a working visit of President Vucic to Russia on December 4 and his conversation with President Putin," the statement reads. Serbian Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin was also present at the meeting between the leader and the ambassador.

ST. PETERSBURG, November 21. /TASS/: The Northern Fleet’s most advanced warship Admiral Gorshkov will sail from the Barents to the White Sea for trials, the press office of Russia’s Western Military District reported on Thursday.

"The ship has started its transit to the Belomorsk naval base. The frigate will arrive in Severodvinsk on November 23. The weather forecast for the route of the ship’s transit from the Barents to the White Sea is favorable," the press office said.

SEVASTOPOL, November 21. /TASS/: A group of the Black Sea Fleet’s warships led by the missile frigate Admiral Essen repelled a notional enemy’s air attack during drills, the Fleet’s press office reported on Thursday.

"At the first stage of the drills, the crew of the frigate Admiral Essen practiced the algorithm of measures to detect air targets, apportion them among the tactical group’s ships and simultaneously destroy them," the press office said in a statement.

MOSCOW, November 21. /TASS/: The United States will quit the International Space Station project as soon as it has tested its own manned spacecraft, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Ryazansky said in an interview to the Yandex.Efir video hosting service (Russia’s counterpart of YouTube).

"I am certain that as soon as the Americans have tested their manned spacecraft, they will quit the ISS program," Ryazansky told talk show host Sophie Shevardnadze.

After that, he speculated, the United States will begin to invest in a Moon orbiter.

MOSCOW, November 21. /TASS/: The M11 highway, a toll road linking the capital Moscow with the second largest city of St. Petersburg, will be opened next week, a source close to the Russian Ministry of Transport told TASS on Thursday.

"The construction of the M11 Moscow - St. Petersburg highway has been fully completed. Its opening will take place in a week," the source said.

MOSCOW, November 21. /TASS/: Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said Ukraine would request Moscow to return the equipment that went missing from the Ukrainian Navy ships released by Russia earlier this week, the UkrInform agency quoted the president as saying on Thursday.

MOSCOW, November 21. /TASS/: An online project that is being created based on the Great Russian Encyclopedia will be fully launched by the summer of 2022, Executive Editor of the Great Russian Encyclopedia and scholarly publisher Sergei Kravets said in an interview with TASS.

"The project, which began in July, is anticipated to take 33 months. It will be completed by the spring or summer of 2022," he specified.

According to Kravets, the online encyclopedia does not have a name yet, but its creators would like its name to refer to the Great Russian Encyclopedia.

BRUSSELS, Nov 21 (NNN-XINHUA) – Foreign ministers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), agreed to include space as its new operational domain, alongside air, land, sea and cyber, NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, said Wednesday.

Following the meeting of the North Atlantic Council, at the level of foreign ministers, Stoltenberg defended the decision by saying, space “can be used aggressively.”

For a long time, NATO, led by the United States, has been paving its way for Wednesday’s decision.

21 Nov 2019; MEMO: The Dutch parliament passed a motion on Tuesday objecting to a recent European court ruling concerning the labelling of produce made in Israeli settlements, reported the Times of Israel.

21 Nov 2019; MEMO: The European Union (EU) was yesterday urged by Luxembourg to recognise a Palestinian state in response to the United States’ policy shift on Israeli settlements, reported Reuters.