Russia

MOSCOW, November 14. / TASS /: Tomsk Mayor Ivan Klein was charged with abuse of power, the Investigative Committee press service told reporters on Saturday.

"He was charged with committing a crime under Part 2 of Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The accused pleaded not guilty," the department said.

Klein was detained in his office on November 13. On Saturday, at the request of the investigation, the court detained him.

MOSCOW, November 15. /TASS/: Two An-124 transport aircraft delivered about 30 peacekeepers and armored vehicles from Ulyanovsk to Yerevan, the Russian Defense Ministry told reporters on Sunday

"Two An-124 Ruslan aircraft of the Russian military transport aviation brought armored vehicles and personnel of units of the 15th peacekeeping brigade to the Yerevan airport," the Ministry says.

MOSCOW, November 15. /TASS/:  Russia’s coronavirus case tally grew by 22,572 in the past day to 1,925,825, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Sunday. A day earlier, 22,702 COVID-19 cases were reported, a new high during the pandemic.

The lowest growth rates in the past day were recorded in Dagestan, the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region (0.6%), the republics of Mariy El republic, Kalmykia, Tatarstan and the Chukotka Autonomous Region (0.7%).

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Police in Belarus on Sunday arrested dozens of people in Minsk demonstrating against Alexander Lukashenko, leader of the ex-Soviet country, a witness said and several media outlets reported.

The witness said police used rubber bullets against the protesters. Interfax news agency said police had used tear gas to disperse the crowd near the Pushkinskaya metro station.

Mobile internet has been also down across the city, according to the witness.

MOSCOW, November 14. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded the Orders of Courage to three crewmembers of a Mi-24 helicopter shot down over Armenia, according to the presidential decree posted on the Kremlin’s website on Saturday.

The award has been bestowed on Senior Lieutenant Vladislav Gryazin, Major Yuri Ishchuk (posthumously) and Senior Lieutenant Roman Fedina (posthumously) "for the courage, valor and selflessness displayed in the performance of the military duty," the decree says.

MOSCOW, November 14. /TASS/: Coronavirus cases in Russia grew by 22,702 in the past twenty-four hours to 1,903,253, the federal anti-coronavirus crisis center reported on Saturday.

"This is a new record high since the start of the pandemic. The previous daily record high of 21,983 cases was registered on Friday, November 13," the crisis center said.

MOSCOW, November 13. /TASS/: Russia’s latest TOS-2 ‘Tosochka’ heavy flamethrowers are currently on trial tests with national troops, a senior Russian military official said on Friday.

"Heavy flamethrower TOS-2 is one of the newest weapons with the RCBD [Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense] troops," Chief of Russia’s Chemical, Biological and Radiation Protection Forces Lieutenant-General Igor Kirillov said in an interview with the Russian Defense Ministry’s Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper.

MOSCOW, November 13. /TASS/: Disagreements that emerged during the administration of Barack Obama have led to the current degradation of relations with the US, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with the RT TV channel.

MOSCOW, November 13. /TASS/: Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov is certain that "Russophobic antibodies" won’t take long to disappear in Ukraine.

"We still believe that we have been and remain two related nations but not brotherly, at the same time," he said Friday in an interview with RT when speaking about the ties between Russia and Ukraine. Moreover, he underlined, "the Ukrainian leadership made a lot of effort in these years to provoke certain animosity in their nation."

MOSCOW, November 13. /TASS/: The Kremlin considers the cause for sanctions against Russian high-ranking officials over the incident with blogger Alexey Navalny "more than dubious," Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with the RT TV channel published on Friday.

"The cause for these sanctions was more than dubious, the sanctions were unprecedented due to the questionable reason of including in them top representatives of the presidential administration," he emphasized.