Russia

MOSCOW, July 24. /TASS/: One person was killed and one injured in a light plane crash near the village of Kalinka in Russia’s Far Eastern Khabarovsk region, the Public Safety Answering Service told TASS on Saturday.

Earlier, the region’s department of the Russian emergencies ministry said a light plane crashed near the city of Khabarovsk.

"As a result of the crash, one person was killed and another one injured. The severity of injuries is yet unknown. The victim is being taken to a Regional Hospital No.2," the service said.

MOSCOW, July 24. /TASS/: Two An-124 Ruslan aircraft of Russia’s Aerospace Defense Forces have taken off for Cuba with a humanitarian cargo, consisting of foodstuffs, individual protection means and over 1 mln face masks, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday.

MOSCOW, July 24. /TASS/: Russia confirmed 23,947 COVID-19 cases over the past day, bringing the total caseload to 6,102,469, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Saturday. The number of cases grew by 0.39% in relative terms.

Moscow confirmed 3,376 coronavirus cases in the past day. Some 2,096 COVID-19 cases were recorded in the Moscow Region, 1,937 in St. Petersburg, 533 in the Nizhny Novgorod Region, 488 in the Sverdlovsk Region and 487 in the Krasnoyarsk Region. Currently, 477,418 people are undergoing treatment in Russia.

MOSCOW, July 24 (Reuters) - Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and his Tajik counterpart Sherali Mirzo on Saturday discussed joint measures to counter threats from the Taliban in the Tajik-Afghan border area, the TASS news agency reported.

Russia on Friday pledged to help its ally Tajikistan to build a new outpost on the border, amid a worsening conflict in Afghanistan as U.S.-led troops withdraw after a 20-year intervention. The two countries will also hold major drills next month. 

MOSCOW, July 24 (Reuters) - Russian electoral authorities on Saturday barred a well-known Communist Party candidate from running in September's parliamentary election, the latest high-profile opposition figure to be disqualified from the vote.

Pavel Grudinin, who won 12% of votes when he challenged Vladimir Putin in a 2018 presidential election, was excluded from a candidate list because the Prosecutor's Office had found he held shares in a foreign company, news agencies reported.

MOSCOW, July 23. /TASS/: Supporting the new High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) Christian Schmidt, who does not enjoy legitimacy, will have a negative effect on the road to a peace settlement, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement Friday.

The diplomat expressed regrets that the Russian-Chinese draft resolution on Schmidt’s appointment was not adopted during the July 22 UN Security Council vote.

MOSCOW, July 23. /TASS/: The situation with Crimea’s ownership on the map posted on the official website of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics calls for a response by the Russian Embassy and Russian sports officials, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday.

"I believe this is a reason for our embassy and our sports officials to take certain steps and ask respective questions," Peskov stressed.

MOSCOW, July 23. /TASS/: Moscow expects that no one will dare embark on any sort of aggression against members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), taking advantage of the current situation in Afghanistan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a webinar on Russia’s foreign policy on Friday.

ZHUKOVSKY, July 23. /TASS/: The Sukhoi Design Bureau has for the first time presented a flight simulator with virtual reality to train pilots for the expert version of the Su-57E fifth-generation aircraft, team leader with Sukhoi Yuri Zavgorodnev told TASS on Friday at the MAKS 2021 International Aviation and Space Salon.

"The concept has already made a step forward. We present the Su-57E interactive simulator," Zavgorodnev said.

The virtual simulator for the Su-35 aircraft was presented for the first time at the MAKS 2019 air show, he noted.

MOSCOW, July 23. /TASS/: The experience of Russia’s relations with the West in recent decades shows that any unilateral concessions made by Moscow will be seen as weakness, and new unacceptable demands will follow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.

He recalled that in a difficult geopolitical situation, which "requires both steadfastness and wisdom" in developing one’s policy, certain voices that call for the need "to achieve reconciliation with the West on its terms" could be heard.