Russia

Russian arms exporter Rosoboronexport said yesterday that it may soon sign a new contract with Turkey on the supply of more S-400 air defence missile systems, RIA Novosti reports.

A new contract for S-400 missiles will be signed soon, Rosoboronexport head Alexander Mikheyev said at a briefing, the report said.

KUBINKA / Moscow region/, August 23. /TASS/: At a meeting with visiting King Abdullah II of Jordan, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested they exchange views on the situation in Syria and Afghanistan.

"Of course, we hope for an exchange of views on the most pressing matters <…>. They are the normalization of the situation in Syria and the current escalation in Afghanistan," the Russian leader said, adding that these topics have been on the agenda of the Russian-Jordanian relations for years.

MOSCOW, August 23. /TASS/: Ethiopia hopes to receive a batch of the Sputnik V vaccine in the near future after resolving some technical details, Ethiopian Ambassador to Moscow Alemayehu Tegenu Aargau said in an interview with TASS.

In response to a corresponding question, the ambassador said that he expected the "supplies of the Russian vaccine in Ethiopia in the nearest future." "I hope, the technical issues will be finalized soon," he added.

MOSCOW, August 23. /TASS/: The situation in Afghanistan's Panjshir province is potentially fraught with another civil war in Afghanistan and Moscow has no intention of interfering in the conflict between the Taliban movement (outlawed in Russia) and the resistance forces, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media on Monday.

MOSCOW, August 23. /TASS/: Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has apprehended a Ukrainian national in Tula, a city located 193 km south of Moscow, for gathering highly-classified information on the latest types of weapons on orders from Ukrainian intelligence, the FSB press office told TASS on Monday.

"The Federal Security Service has apprehended a Ukrainian national red-handed in Tula for gathering data constituting a state secret on the latest armaments and secret technical documentation for them," the press office stated.

KUBINKA /Moscow Region/, August 23. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a command via a video conference to lay down six combat ships for the Russian Navy at three shipyards on Monday.

The Russian leader launched the construction of combat ships at the shipyards located in Severodvinsk, St. Petersburg and Komsomolsk-on-Amur. The Russian president gave the keel-laying command from the Patriot Park in Kubinka outside Moscow where the Army 2021 international military-technical forum opened on Monday.

MOSCOW, August 22. /TASS/: The Gamaleya Center can start clinical trials of a vaccine containing proteins of several coronavirus strains early next year, Director of the Center Alexander Gintsburg told TASS.

"We are doing this also. It is not excluded it will pass to the first phase of clinical trials early next year. The pharmaceutical will contain three, four or five different genetic variations of the S-protein in a single vaccine," the Director said.

MOSCOW, August 22. /TASS/: The Soyuz-2.1b carrier vehicle with the Frigate upper stage and 34 UK’s OneWeb communication satellites was launched from the Baikonur site, according to the live stream of the Russian state space corporation Roscosmos on its website.

The Frigate upper stage separated from the third rocket stage later. Satellites will be separated during several phases.

This is the first launch of OneWeb satellites from Baikonur in this year. It should increase the number of spacecraft of the UK-based company on the orbit to 288.

MOSCOW, August 22. /TASS/: The researchers of the Gamaleya center have developed new structures for the Sputnik V vaccine based on emerging new strains of the coronavirus, but so far there is no need to update it, Alexander Gintsburg, head of the Gamaleya center, told TASS.

"We have created structures based on mutant strains. If the regulator decides that it is time to do this (to change the vaccine - TASS), we are ready for this. But now Sputnik V is protecting against all those strains that have emerged recently," he said.

MOSCOW, August 22. /TASS/: Russia confirmed 20,564 COVID-19 cases over the past day, which is the lowest figure since June 27, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Sunday.

In relative terms, the number of cases grew by 0.31%.

Since the start of the pandemic, the total case tally has reached 6,747,087 people.

St. Petersburg reported 1, 481 daily coronavirus cases and the Moscow region registered 1,184 cases. The Sverdlovsk region reported 522 cases, the Nizhny Novgorod region - 498, the Rostov region - 487.