Russia

MOSCOW (AP) — A doctor for imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is in the third week of a hunger strike, says his health is deteriorating rapidly and the 44-year-old Kremlin critic could be on the verge of death.

Physician Yaroslav Ashikhmin said Saturday that test results he received from Navalny’s family show him with sharply elevated levels of potassium, which can bring on cardiac arrest, and heightened creatinine levels that indicate impaired kidneys.

“Our patient could die at any moment,” he said in a Facebook post.

17 Apr 2021; MEMO: The relations between Russia and Turkey are "developing", a Kremlin spokesman said today, Anadolu Agency reports.

Suspension of the flights from Russia to Turkey does not mean chilling in the bilateral relations, the restrictions were put due to the worsening coronavirus situation in Turkey, Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow.

MOSCOW, April 17. /TASS/: The Russian side informed Ukraine’s Charge D’Affaires Ad Interim Vasily Pokotilo about its decision to expel Ukrainian consul in St. Petersburg Alexander Sosonyuk detained by the Federal Security Service (FSB) for obtaining law-enforcers’ classified data, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

The Ukrainian diplomat must leave Russian territory by April 22, the ministry said.

MOSCOW, April 17. /TASS/: New confirmed coronavirus cases in Russia grew by 9,321 in the past twenty-four hours, registering the highest level since March 20, the anti-coronavirus crisis center reported on Saturday.

The coronavirus growth rate equaled 0.2%, the latest figures show.

Overall, Russia has recorded 4,693,469 coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic in the country, the anti-coronavirus crisis center said.

(Reuters) --- Three members of the International Space Station's crew returned safely to Earth on Saturday on a Russian Soyuz craft, Russia's Roscosmos space agency reported.

The Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, a microbiologist who in 2016 became the first person to sequence DNA in space, and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov landed in Kazakhstan at 0455 GMT.

The three had been at the space station since mid-October 2020.

(Reuters) --- Russia's FSB security service briefly detained a Ukrainian diplomat in St Petersburg, Ukraine's foreign ministry said on Saturday, in the latest flare-up of tensions between the neighbouring countries.

Interfax news agency earlier reported the FSB as saying Oleksandr Sosoniuk was taken into custody when he tried to obtain classified information from Russian law enforcement databases during a meeting with a Russian citizen.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia on Friday responded to a barrage of new U.S. sanctions by saying it would expel 10 U.S. diplomats and take other retaliatory moves in a tense showdown with Washington.

The Russian Foreign Ministry also published a list of eight current or former U.S. officials barred from entering the country, including U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.

MOSCOW, April 16. /TASS/: Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday declined to comment on slip-ups made by US President Joe Biden during his statement on Russia.

"I watched the address myself, and I didn’t notice any mispronunciations," he said in response to a corresponding question. "After all, we are talking about the head of state so let’s not talk about slips of the tongue. This is the media’s specialty and not ours."

Joe Biden during his speech on Russia after introducing sanctions mispronounced some words, in particular, Vladimir Putin’s last name.

MOSCOW, April 16. /TASS/: A two-week isolation experiment simulating a flight to the Moon aboard an Orlyonok spacecraft kicked off on the premises of the Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow, Project Supervisor, Institute Staffer Sergei Ponomaryov told TASS on Friday.

"An isolation experiment, Eskiz, has begun on the premises of the Institute of Biomedical Problems. The crew of six has entered the ground-based compound," he said.

MOSCOW, April 16. /TASS/: Russia’s Energomash Research and Production Association (part of the State Space Corporation Roscosmos) handed over six RD-180 engines to the US side, Roscosmos announced on Friday.

"On Wednesday, April 14, 2021, a ceremony was held at the Energomash Association named after Academician Glushko to hand over six RD-180 engines to the US customers. Representatives of Pratt & Whitney, United Launch Alliance and RD Amross signed the record forms on the engines," Roscosmos said in a statement.