Russia

MOSCOW, April 29. /TASS/: Russia confirmed 9,284 COVID-19 cases over the past day and the total case tally hit 4,796,557, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Thursday.

This is a new high since April 17 when 9,321 coronavirus cases were registered.

The growth rate reached 0.19% in relative terms.

The lowest growth rates were recorded over the past day in the Tuva Republic (0.01%) and the Altai Republic (0.02%).

MOSCOW, April 29. /TASS/: The Czech drug regulator’s refusal to review documents on Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine is linked to the diplomatic scandal, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.

"Most likely, this may and even should [be linked to the diplomatic scandal]," Peskov told reporters, answering a question.

(Reuters) --- Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, looking gaunt and drained after a hunger strike, denounced Russia’s justice system on Thursday as his team said he faced new criminal charges and that it was disbanding a network of regional campaign offices.

In his first appearance since declaring an end to the three-week hunger strike last week, Navalny, his head shaven, remained defiant, though a blurry video link from jail during a legal hearing in a separate case showed he had lost weight.

MOSCOW, April 28. /TASS/: Tech giants who control social networks act according their own rules and pursue policies that are not always fair and this sparks condemnation from a number of countries, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev says on Wednesday during the VKLive streaming.

MOSCOW, April 28. /TASS/: Following a meeting in Paris, Russian and French diplomats stressed the need to hold the summit of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (P5) as soon as possible, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

MOSCOW, April 28. /TASS/: Russia confirmed 7,848 COVID-19 cases in the past day, a new low since September 26, bringing the total case tally to 4,787,273, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Wednesday.

The relative growth rate stood at 0.16%.

Moscow registered 1,840 COVID-19 cases while St. Petersburg recorded 723 cases, a new high since March 27. Some 612 new COVID-19 cases were confirmed in the Moscow Region, 228 in the Rostov Region, 179 in the Samara and Nizhny Novgorod regions each and 159 in the Voronezh Region.

MOSCOW, April 28. /TASS/: Neither Moscow nor the Vatican has received any official proposal from Kiev for holding a meeting between Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Vladimir Zelensky of Ukraine in the Vatican, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday.

"President Zelensky said that it would be the perfect place for such a meeting. However, neither the Vatican nor Russia has official information on the matter. We haven’t received specific information about the proposal," Peskov pointed out.

MOSCOW, April 28. /TASS/: Brussels should look into the issue of private entrepreneurs being involved in ammo depots in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during a press conference on Wednesday, commenting on the accusations of Bulgaria against Russia.

MOSCOW, April 27 (Xinhua) -- The novel coronavirus could be associated with a leak from a U.S. biological laboratory, said Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of Russia's lower parliament house the State Duma, on Tuesday.

"There was a leak from one of those laboratories that they have opened around the world. It would be right if the government of the Russian Federation raises the issue (of responsibility for the COVID-19 outbreak)," Volodin told a session of the Council of Legislators.

MOSCOW, April 27. /TASS/: The Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine gives enough antibodies to combat the virus’ Indian strain, Alexander Gintsburg, director of the Gamaleya Center, the vaccine developer, told TASS on Tuesday.

"If necessary, we will combat the Indian strain by high titers of antibodies triggered by the Sputnik V vaccine. As a rule, it generates antibodies 20, 30, 80 times as much as necessary to neutralize the biggest amount of the virus in an infected organism. Sputnik V will be effective against the Indian strain," he said.