Russia

14 Jan 2021; MEMO: Russian oil giant Gazprom has resumed talks with the Saudi Arabian chemical manufacturer SABIC over the latter's co-investment in building a gas chemical complex in Serbia's northwestern peninsula of Yamal.

MOSCOW, January 14. /TASS/: Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny has been declared wanted after he missed several criminal inspection registrations as a person under suspended sentence for the Yves Rocher case, the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service told reporters.

MOSCOW, January 14. /TASS/: The Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology of the Russian Healthcare Ministry plans to begin clinical trials of a combined vaccine against the coronavirus and flu in the middle of 2022, Center’s Director Alexander Gintsburg told TASS on Thursday.

MOSCOW, January 14. / TASS /: The ruble in 2021 will strengthen to a fundamentally justified level of 65-70 rubles per US dollar, according to the forecast by the new economic survey of Credit Suisse released on Thursday.

MOSCOW, January 14. /TASS/: Russia confirmed 24,763 new coronavirus cases in the past day, bringing the total caseload to 3,495,816, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Thursday.

This is a new high since January 2 when 26,301 cases were recorded.

The lowest growth rates were recorded in the past day in the Tuva Republic (0.2%), the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region, the Jewish Autonomous Region, the Kostroma Region (0.3%) and the Magadan Region (0.4%).

The average growth rate stood at 0.7%.

14 Jan 2021; MEMO: The US' recent claims about Iran becoming a "safe haven" for Al-Qaeda are "baseless", Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zamir Kabulov asserted on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, January 13. /TASS/: Russia has never said the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement must be confined to the return of seven districts of the region to Azerbaijan without taking care of its status, the Russian co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, special ambassador Igor Popov said in the wake of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s article Origins of the 44-Day War.

"Claims to the effect Russia called for returning seven districts ‘in exchange for nothing’ and forgetting about its status have nothing to do with the reality," the diplomat said.

MOSCOW, January 13. /TASS/: At least 31 people were killed in airstrikes carried out by Israel in eastern Syria, Al Arabiya TV channel reported on Wednesday citing the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based NGO.

Earlier reports said 23 people died.

According to the NGO, the Israeli Defense Forces launched a series of airstrikes early on Wednesday on weapons depots and Syrian military positions in the outskirts of Deir ez-Zor and Al-Bukamal near the Syrian-Iraqi border.

MOSCOW, January 13. /TASS/: S7 airline has opened ticket sales to charter flights from Moscow to Bari, Olbia and Pisa in Italy with the scheduled departures from early March, the Russian air carrier says in its press release.

"In accordance with the authorization of the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency, S7 Airlines has opened sales for daily charter flights from Moscow to Italian cities - Bari, Olbia and Pisa," the company said.

Moscow - Bari - Moscow flights are scheduled from March 5. Flights to Olbia and Pisa and back to Moscow are scheduled from March 6 and 7.

NOVO-OGARYOVO, January 13. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has instructed authorities to move forward with mass coronavirus inoculation for all Russians starting next week.

"We have already started large-scale vaccination. Last week, [Prime Minister] Mikhail [Mishustin] reported to me that the industry had not only kept up with the promised targets and volumes but also exceeded the planned vaccine production targets. We need to move from large-scale to mass vaccination," Putin told a cabinet meeting.