Day: November 26, 2020

Azerbaijani lawmakers on Thursday called for France to be expelled from a group mediating in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute after the French Senate backed the breakaway region’s independence claim. The French upper house on Wednesday adopted a non-binding resolution calling on France to recognize the ethnic Armenian enclave of Azerbaijan as an independent state. The move…

Russia’s foreign minister on Thursday accused the West of interfering in Belarus as he met strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko who has faced months of protests over his disputed re-election. Sergei Lavrov held talks with Lukashenko and other top officials in the capital Minsk, in the latest show of Russia’s support for authorities in its ex-Soviet…

The Russian military has test-launched its vaunted Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile for at least the third time this year, the Defense Ministry announced Thursday. Like the previous test launch held on President Vladimir Putin’s birthday on Oct. 7, a Russian Navy frigate fired the Tsirkon that hit its target in the waters of northwestern Russia,…

Russia has confirmed 2,187,990 cases of coronavirus and 38,062 deaths. Nov. 26: What you need to know today Russia confirmed record-breaking numbers of 25,487 coronavirus cases and 524 deaths. Moscow has further extended measures aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus until Jan. 15, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced Thursday. The measures include a self-isolation order for residents aged…

A cocktail of design flaws, management failures and rising temperatures made the worst oil spill in Russia’s modern history — and the most damaging ever inside the Arctic circle — “inevitable,” a report commissioned by Russian metals giant Nornickel has said. The report is the work of consulting group Environmental Resources Management (ERM), which Nornickel…

Coronavirus patients in southwestern Siberia have been placed in a dilapidated, out-of-use hospital ward with flaking paint and cracking walls due to severe bed shortages, regional health officials said Wednesday. The Altai region’s health authorities said City Hospital No. 3 in Barnaul was forced to reopen a previously shuttered ward “due to an urgent need”…

Russia on Thursday registered record numbers for daily infections and deaths from the coronavirus for the second time in less than a week. Health officials reported 25,487 new infections, bringing the national total to 2,187,990 cases since the beginning of the pandemic — the fifth-highest caseload in the world. Health authorities also reported 524 deaths, raising Russia’s…

Facebook has paid Russian authorities a 4 million ruble ($53,000) fine over its refusal to comply with controversial data localization laws. Under laws which came into force in 2016, Russia requires all foreign technology companies to store data related to their Russian customers and users on servers located inside Russia. Campaigners saw the law as…

A Russian airline has canceled a China-bound flight from Moscow after nearly 200 passengers provided identical negative coronavirus test results, the Chinese Embassy in Moscow said Thursday. Pegas Fly grounded the Moscow-Zhengzhou flight Wednesday when the embassy uncovered more than 190 “completely identical” serology tests, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency quoted the embassy as…

Russia plans dramatic upgrades of its TOS-1 heavy flamethrower systems with longer-range “scorching” rockets and real-time targeting capabilities, the pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper reported Wednesday. Up to 100 TOS-1 “Buratino” and TOS-1A “Solntsepyok” models of the Russian Armed Forces’ Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops will reportedly receive the upgrades “due to the growing range and…