Russia

MOSCOW, July 31. /TASS/: President Vladimir Putin signed a bill that amends Russian electoral legislation, including providing an option to hold a vote for several days, but no more than three. The document was published on the official legal information website.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Friday it hoped that more than 30 Russian private security contractors detained in neighbouring Belarus and accused of plotting acts of terrorism would soon be released.

Russia a day earlier demanded an explanation over what it called Minsk’s wrongful arrest of the group, an incident that risks worsening already strained relations between Belarus and traditional ally Moscow.

MOSCOW, July 30. /TASS/: The state commission at the Baikonur spaceport cleared a Proton-M carrier rocket for its launch on July 31, Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos announced on Thursday.

"Following the reports by State Corporation Roscosmos specialists about the readiness of the space rocket and the ground-based space infrastructure of the Baikonur Cosmodrome for the launch, the state commission made a decision on fueling the Proton-M launch vehicle and confirmed the launch time," Roscosmos said.

MOSCOW, July 30. /TASS/: It is necessary to start this year’s seasonal influenza vaccination in Moscow earlier than usual because of the coronavirus pandemic, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin told the Rossiya 24 TV channel on Thursday.

MOSCOW, July 30. /TASS/: Visitors of the Army-2020 international military and technical forum will be able to see the Vityaz-D unmanned deep-sea submersible that submerged to the Mariana Trench in the Pacific on May 8, Advanced Research Foundation CEO Andrei Grigoryev told TASS on Thursday.

"The forum will feature a number of our developments, including the Vityaz-D. This will be the vehicle that submerged to the bottom of the Mariana Trench on May 8, 2020," the chief executive said.

MOSCOW, July 30. /TASS/: Moscow’s Golovinsky District Court on Thursday sentenced Trevor Reed, an American student, to 9 years in penal colony for violent assault of a police officer, the court told TASS.

"The court found Reed guilty under part 2, Article 318 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (the use of violence against officials) and sentenced him to 9 years in general security penal colony," the source said.

MOSCOW, July 30. /TASS/: Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has told reporters that Moscow does not yet have full information regarding the detention of Russians in Belarus and expects the situation to be clarified.

"Today, our ambassador held a meeting in the Foreign Ministry and with [our] colleagues in Minsk. We hope that we will receive comprehensive information about what happened as a result of that communication and through communication channels between our special services," he explained.

MOSCOW, July 29. /TASS/: US sanctions against Nord Stream 2 challenge the attractiveness of investing in Europe, Chairman of Executive Board of Austria’s OMV, one of Gazprom’s financial partners on the project, Rainer Seele said during a conference call on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, July 29. /TASS/: Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has castigated claims that Russia is allegedly promoting a coronavirus pandemic ‘disinformation’ campaign, branding it an ongoing neurotic obsession.

MOSCOW, July 29. /TASS/: The number of new coronavirus infections in the Russian capital has taken a 90-percent dive since the peak of the pandemic, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Wednesday.

"If we take the period from the peak of the incidence, the number of newly-diagnosed COVID-19 cases in Moscow has seen a ten-fold decline. You remember, we had 6,500 [cases]. Today, we have about 650 cases, plus or minus 50," he said at a meeting on the nationwide sanitary and epidemiological situation chaired by Russian President Vladimir Putin.