Russia

SOLNECHNOGORSK /Moscow Region/, September 7./TASS/: The vaccination of first volunteers as part of Phase 3 clinical trials of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine will begin as early as this week, Russian Minister of Health Mikhail Murashko told journalists on Monday.

Concurrently, first supplies of the coronavirus vaccine to Russian regions are planned for the next week, Murashko said.

KUBINKA /outside Moscow/, September 6. /TASS/: NATO plans to redeploy another US military contingent to Poland in the near future, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told reporters on Saturday.

According to Shoigu, manpower of NATO Allied Command Operations deployed to Eastern Europe has surpassed 10,000 troops.

"In the near future additional American units are planned to be redeployed to Poland," Shoigu added.

MOSCOW, September 6. /TASS/: The Progress Rocket and Space Center has eliminated the failure of Soyuz-2.1a upper stage that led to a postponed launch from the Plesetsk spaceport in January, the center told TASS.

"The failure of the third stage of Soyuz-2.1a rocket that was detected during the preparation for the launch in January 2020 has been determined and fixed in accordance with the established procedure," the press service said.

MOSCOW, September 5. /TASS/: Russia’s National Medical Chamber has called on Germany’s Medical Association to set up a joint group of experts to assess the condition of Russian blogger Alexei Navalny, Leonid Roshal, the chamber’s President, told reporters on Saturday.

"Many are concerned about Navalny’s fate, so the National Medical Chamber has called on the German Medical Association to establish an expert group in order to look into the main cause of Navalny’s state," Roshal said.

MOSCOW, September 6. /TASS/: Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has informed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov about the results of his visit to Washington, the Russian foreign ministry said on Sunday after their telephone conversation.

"Vucic informed [Lavrov] about the results of his meeting in Washington and upcoming talks in Brussels," the ministry said.

MOSCOW, September 4. /TASS/: Eight Russian fighter jets of the Southern Military District have been scrambled to intercept three US strategic bombers over the Black Sea, Russia’s National Defense Control Center told reporters on Friday.

According to the center, on September 4 Russian radars detected three B-52N strategic bombers of the US Air Force that were approaching Russia’s sovereign airspace.

MOSCOW, September 5. /TASS/: The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has a sufficient number of employees abroad to prevent external threats to Russia, its Director Sergei Naryshkin told the Rossiya-1 TV channel.

"It is enough to solve the tasks set for the Foreign Intelligence Service to identify and prevent the entire range of external threats to our state and its citizens," he said responding a question about the number of employees abroad.

MOSCOW, September 4. /TASS/: The Russian government has expanded the list of people on the list of economic sanctions, a document published on the official legal information portal informs.

Former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko formed part of the list, along with former Ukrainian MP Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, member of the Ukrainian parliament Kira Rudik and several other officials.

According to the document, 41 people formed part of the list.

MOSCOW, September 5. /TASS/: Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine "Sputnik V" is effective against any dose of the novel coronavirus, Alexander Ginzburg, director of the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology told reporters on Friday.

"The vaccine’s immune response documented currently among volunteers is enough to counter any dose of COVID-19 that you could imagine," he said.

Moscow, Sep 5 (PTI) Defence Minister Rajnath Singh met his counterparts from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan here on Saturday and discussed ways to further boost bilateral defence cooperation with the key Central Asian countries.

Singh is in Moscow on a three-day visit to Russia to attend a crucial meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) defence ministers. On Friday, he held talks with his Chinese counterpart Gen. Wei Fenghe on ways to ease escalating border tension in eastern Ladakh.