Russia

MOSCOW, December 8. /TASS/: Russian national Viktor Bout, who was serving a prison term in the US on arms trafficking charges, has returned to Russia as a result of an agreement with the US to exchange him for American basketball player Brittney Griner, found guilty in Russia of drug smuggling, the Russian Foreign Ministry told TASS on Thursday.

"As a result of the efforts made, we managed to agree with the American side to arrange an exchange of Viktor Bout for Brittney Griner. The Russian citizen has been returned to his homeland," the Foreign Ministry said.

LONDON, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Russia said on Thursday that it was still set on securing at least the bulk of the parts of east and south Ukraine that it has claimed as its own, but appeared to give up on seizing other areas in the west and northeast that Ukraine has recaptured.

The Kremlin has never fully defined the goals of its invasion, which it said was partly intended to protect Russian-speakers in eastern Ukraine. But it no longer speaks of trying to force a change of government in Kyiv as Ukraine has steadily reversed early Russian territorial gains.

Dec 8 (Reuters) - Talks on freeing former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan from prison in Russia are continuing, the Russian Interfax news agency cited his lawyer as saying on Thursday, after U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner was released by Moscow in exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

"Whelan is currently in the penal colony," Vladimir Zherebenkov was quoted as saying. "Discussions about his exchange are continuing at the level of the intelligence services, so everything is quite closed - but they are going on."

MOSCOW, December 7. /TASS/: President of Russia Vladimir Putin and his counterpart in the United Arab Emirates Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan discussed the decision of Western countries to impose non-market restrictions on the price of Russian oil in a telephone conversation, the Kremlin’s press service reported on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, December 7 /TASS/: Western countries are blindly using developing nations, encouraging them to support the seizure of Russian assets and the creation of a tribunal against Russia within the UN General Assembly, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the Primakov Readings forum on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, December 7. /TASS/: The special military operation is a long process, but it has already yielded significant results, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with members of the Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights (HRC) on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, December 6. /TASS/: Moscow plans to create and launch a mechanism banning Russian companies from selling oil to countries that operate within the framework of the West’s price cap by the end of 2022, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told reporters.

"Yes, I am confident it will be done," he said, replying to a question on the topic. "We are currently hashing over and fine-tuning the decision, and discussing it with companies," Novak added.

MOSCOW, December 6. /TASS/: The unipolar world order and its key attribute - the dominance of the West - are a thing of the past. The Northern Hemisphere has seen a return to the Cold War and the confrontation of the two poles - the US and NATO, on the one hand, and Russia and China, on the other, the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute Of World Economy And International Relations (IMEMO), Alexander Dynkin, said at the opening of the Primakov Readings international forum of experts on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, December 6. /TASS/: Putting the Zaporozhye NPP under the control of the IAEA will be impossible, because that organization does not have the authority to manage nuclear power plants, Renat Karchaa, an adviser to the CEO of the Rosenergoatom concern, said on the Rossiya-24 TV channel on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, December 6. /TASS/: Eurasian countries are forming a new world majority that upholds just and universal principles, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said on Tuesday.

"[You] can already say that a new powerful, constructive force is taking shape on Eurasian soil, what can be called the world majority, which defends just and universal principles and approaches," the Kremlin aide said, addressing the Primakov Readings in Moscow.