Russia

MOSCOW, December 2. /TASS/: Russian citizens will be provided with vaccines against the coronavirus on a priority basis, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday.

"Naturally, Russians are an absolute priority," Peskov said. According to him, domestic production in Russia, which is being developed now, will meet Russians’ demands in the first place.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian authorities on Wednesday to begin mass voluntary vaccinations against COVID-19 next week as Russia recorded 589 new daily deaths from the coronavirus.

Russia will have produced 2 million vaccine doses within the next few days, Putin said. Russia said last month that its Sputnik V jab was 92% effective at protecting people from COVID-19 according to interim results.

MOSCOW, December 1. /TASS/: Russia’s carrier rocket Soyuz ST-A with the United Arab Emirates’ Falcon Eye 2 military satellite could not blast off early on Tuesday from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana over technical problems, CEO of the Arianespace corporation Stephane Israel said.

According to him, problems with transmitting telemetry data occurred during the preparations for the launch. The carrier rocket and the satellite are in good order and will be switched to a standby mode. The new launch will be carried out exactly the same time the next day.

MOSCOW, December 1. /TASS/: Russia is ready for any developments in the world after the US presidential outcome is summed up, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with international news agency Kazinform.

MOSCOW, December 1. /TASS/: The number of coronavirus-related fatalities in Russia went up by 569 in the past 24 hours; this is the highest daily tally since the pandemic began. The total death toll now stands at 40,464, the national anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters Tuesday.

The conditional fatality rate remains at 1.74%.

According to the crisis center, 85 patients died in St. Petersburg, followed by the Rostov Region (25), the Krasnoyarsk Region (22), the Moscow Region (21) and the Komi Region (17).

MOSCOW, November 30. /TASS/: Changes in the status quo in Transnistria may lead to a rise in tensions, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.

When asked under what conditions Russian peacekeepers could leave the region, he pointed out that "Russia is playing an important role and any changes in the status quo, which is based on the letter and spirit of international law, may lead to a serious rise in tensions," the Kremlin spokesman pointed out.

MOSCOW, November 30. /TASS/: Moscow’s Presnensky District Court declined to arrest the fifth one of the detained earlier leaders of the Jehovah’s Witnesses center on Monday, placing him under house arrest, the court told TASS.

MOSCOW, November 30. /TASS/: Russia considers it important for member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to harmonize their legislation on the fight against drug trafficking, international terrorism and extremism, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his address to a session of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly, the Kremlin website reported on Monday.

MOSCOW, November 30. /TASS/: The number of coronavirus cases in Russia rose by 26,338 to 2,295,654 in the past 24 hours, the anti-coronavirus crisis center said on Monday.

The country reported 26,683 cases on Sunday.

In particular, 6,511 new cases were identified in Moscow in the past day, 3,691 in St. Petersburg, 1,064 in the Moscow region, 458 in the Nizhny Novogorod region, 414 in the Karelia region and 381 in the Sverdlovsk region .

According to data from the crisis center, there are currently 477,055 active coronavirus cases in Russia.

MOSCOW, November 29. /TASS/: A UK expert in virology and epidemiology believes Russia had presented sufficient evidence to prove the efficacy of its Sputnik V vaccine against the novel coronavirus, Canada’s CBC channel reported.

"The data [is] compatible with the vaccine being reasonably effective," the channel quoted Stephen Evans, professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, as saying.

The expert was commenting on the results of the Russian vaccine’s clinical trials, which demonstrated the efficacy of 95%.