Russia

MOSCOW, June 23. /TASS/: Washington is actively building up the Pacific segment of the US global missile shield and strengthening cooperation with Tokyo, Chief of the Russian General Staff’s Main Department Admiral Igor Kostyukov said at the Moscow Conference on International Security on Wednesday.

"Washington is actively building up the Pacific segment of the US global ballistic missile defense system," the Russian defense official said.

MOSCOW, June 23. /TASS/: A Russian Su-30SM fighter was scrambled to intercept a US Air Force RC-135 reconnaissance plane over the Sea of Okhotsk near Russian borders, Russia’s National Defense Control Center reported on Wednesday.

On June 23, Russian radar stations detected an aerial target over the Sea of Okhotsk approaching Russia’s state border, the National Defense Control Center said in a statement.

MOSCOW, June 23. /TASS/: Russia confirmed 17,594 COVID-19 cases over the past day, bringing the total caseload to 5,368,513, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Wednesday.

In relative terms, the growth rate reached 0.33%.

The Moscow Region recorded 2,323 coronavirus cases over the past day, a new high since the start of the pandemic. Some 1,092 COVID-19 cases were registered in St. Petersburg, 291 in the Nizhny Novgorod Region 255 in the Republic of Buryatia, 210 in the Republic of Crimea and 209 in the Voronezh Region.

MOSCOW, June 23 (Reuters) - Russia said on Tuesday it had fired warning shots and dropped bombs in the path of a British destroyer sailing in the Black Sea off the coast of the Crimea peninsula, which Russia seized and annexed from Ukraine.

Britain's Ministry of Defence said no Russian warning shots were fired at the Royal Navy's HMS Defender, which sailed into the Black Sea earlier this month, and it did not recognise assertions that bombs were put in its path.

MOSCOW, June 22. /TASS/: Russia and Uzbekistan have signed a number of agreements in the customs field and other documents. The signing ceremony was attended by prime ministers of the two countries, Mikhail Mishustin and Abdulla Aripov.

Prime ministers signed a joint communique following the results of the second meeting of the joint commission at the level of heads of governments of the Russian Federation and Uzbekistan. Moreover, a memorandum of understanding in the area of development of logistic corridors Russia-Uzbekistan was signed at the level of deputy prime ministers.

SEVASTOPOL, June 22. /TASS/: The Black Sea Fleet’s coastal defense missile systems practiced eliminating a notional enemy’s warships during drills in Crimea, the Fleet’s press office reported on Tuesday.

"The teams of Bal and Bastion mobile coastal defense anti-ship missile systems from the Black Sea Fleet’s missile and artillery formation held drills to eliminate a notional enemy’s surface ship in the Black Sea," the press office said in a statement.

MOSCOW, June 22. /TASS/: The state coup in Ukraine in 2014 that split the country and prompted Crimea’s withdrawal was organized by the United States and only tentatively supported by European states, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an article, Being Open, Despite the Past, published on the Kremlin’s website and in the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit on Tuesday.

The article is timed to mark the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Soviet Union’s 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany.

MOSCOW, June 22. /TASS/: Moscow restaurants may lose 90% of their visitors due to the change over of establishments to a covid-free regime from June 28, Sergey Mironov, public commissioner in the restaurant business under the Moscow business ombudsman, told TASS on Tuesday. 

As the city mayor Sergey Sobyanin said earlier in his blog, that from June 28 only those who have recovered from COVID-19 no longer than six months ago, vaccinated against COVID-19 or have a negative coronavirus test that lasts for three days, will be allowed to visit public catering in Moscow.

MOSCOW, June 22 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, and Myanmar’s military leader committed to further strengthening security and other ties between the two countries at a Moscow meeting on Monday.

Myanmar’s military leader, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, flew to the Russian capital on Sunday to attend a security conference this week. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier on Monday said President Vladimir Putin would not be meeting Min Aung Hlaing, Interfax reported.

MOSCOW, June 22 (Reuters) - Belarus views Western sanctions, imposed in response to Minsk’s forced landing of a Ryanair plane last month to arrest a journalist on board, as a declaration of economic war, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

Western powers hit Belarus with a wave of new sanctions on Monday in a coordinated response against officials, lawmakers and ministers from the administration of President Alexander Lukashenko, whose air force intercepted the Ryanair plane flying between Athens and Vilnius on May 23 in what the West called state piracy.