Russia

MOSCOW, February 21. /TASS/: Russia recorded 12,742 COVID-19 cases in the past day and the total caseload hit 4,164,726, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Sunday.

In relative terms, the growth rate reached 0.3%.

The lowest growth rates in the past day were registered in the Tuva Republic (0.04%), the Jewish Autonomous Region (0.09%), the Magadan Region (0.09%), the Chechen Republic (0.11%) and the Adygea Republic (0.11%).

21 Feb 2021; MEMO: Pressures in relations between Russia and the West have recently become so strained that Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned of the possibility of a complete break in ties, reports Anadolu Agency.

In an interview with Anadolu Agency, Andrey Kortunov, head of the Russian International Affairs Council, a Moscow-based academic and diplomatic think tank established upon a presidential decree, assessed how real the threat is and what consequences it could lead to.

MOSCOW, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- Russia has confirmed the first case of human infection with the avian influenza A(H5N8) virus in the world, a Russian sanitary official announced on Saturday.

Scientists have isolated the genetic material of this bird flu virus in seven workers of a poultry farm in south Russia, where an outbreak among fowls was reported in December, said Anna Popova, head of the country's consumer rights and human well-being watchdog Rospotrebnadzor.

MOSCOW, February 20. /TASS/: Russia’s authorities never close opposition mass media outlets and never impose sanctions on their own citizens, that is why it is not right to draw any parallels between Moscow’s and Kiev’s policies in these spheres, Russian president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Saturday.

"As they say, there is a world of difference here," he said, adding that the Kremlin cannot cite any examples of persecution of the opposition in Russia like the ones in Ukraine.

MOSCOW, February 20. /TASS/: The developers of Sputnik V have announced the beginning of trials of a combination vaccine with AstraZeneca, as follows from the post on the Russian vaccine’s Twitter account.

"Using Sputnik V shot as a second shot for AZ vaccine will eliminate the need to wait for 3 months. Clinical trials of this approach have already started," the Twitter post reads.

MOSCOW, February 20. /TASS/: The Moscow City Court has ruled that the decision of the court of first instance to convert Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny’s suspended sentence in the Yves Rocher embezzlement case into real prison time was legal and also took into account the time he spent under house arrest, TASS reports from the courtroom.

MOSCOW, February 20. /TASS/: Russia doesn’t meet any reciprocity in its attempts to normalize relations with the West, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Saturday.

Commenting on the remarks made by several Western politicians at the Munich Security Conference, Peskov noted, "Russia remains interested in getting good relations back on track with the United States and the European Union."

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will produce 88 million vaccine doses in the first half of this year, including 83 million doses of its Sputnik V shot, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova said on state TV on Saturday.

Of these, 59 million will be released for the national inoculation programme, she added. Russia has produced 11.1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses so far, of which 7.9 million have been released for the national inoculation programme, she added.

It will produce 30.5 million doses by the end of the first quarter of this year, she added.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia on Saturday approved a third coronavirus vaccine for domestic use, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said on state TV, though large-scale clinical trials of the shot, labelled CoviVac and produced by the Chumakov Centre, have yet to begin.

Russia has already approved two COVID-19 vaccines, including the Sputnik V shot, developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute, following a similar approach of granting approval before seeing any late-stage trial results.

MOSCOW, February 19. /TASS/: Talks of colonization of Mars today is futurism, says Ivan Moskatinyev, Deputy Chief Designer of the Lavochkin Research and Production Association.

"This is futurism, of course. One can hardly talk about it seriously today," Moskatinyev said in an interview for the Russian TV, commenting on Mars colonization options.

According to the designer, interplanetary flights will become easier after the colonization of the Moon.