Russia

MOSCOW, August 27. /TASS/: First batches of the Sputnik V vaccine against the coronavirus have been supplied to the medical institutions within the framework of the third post-registration phase of clinical trials of the preparation, Russian Healthcare Minister Mikhail Murashko told journalists on Thursday.

"The first batches of the vaccine against the coronavirus infection are being supplied already within the framework of Phase 3 clinical trials," he said.

MOSCOW, August 27. /TASS/: Russia has set up a backup law enforcement unit on the request of incumbent President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, however, it will not be used so far, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday in an interview with the 60 Minutes program on the Rossiya-1 TV channel.

"Alexander Grigoryevich [Lukashenko] has asked me to form a backup law enforcement unit, and I have done so. However, we also agreed that it won't be used unless the situation gets out of control," the president said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia’s Interior Ministry said on Thursday it was launching a probe into the hospitalization of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny over what his allies suspect was a poisoning, TASS news agency reported.

Navalny is in a medically induced coma in a Berlin hospital where he was airlifted on Saturday after collapsing during a flight.

The German clinic treating him said its initial medical examination pointed to poisoning, though Russian doctors who had treated Navalny in a Siberian hospital have contradicted that diagnosis.

MOSCOW, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said Thursday it had detained a soldier on suspicion of passing state secrets to the Ukrainian military intelligence service.

The soldier belonging to the Russian Strategic Missile Forces was detained in the Siberian city of Barnaul, the FSB said in a statement, adding it has initiated a criminal case against the detainee on the grounds of high treason.

If found guilty, the suspect will face a prison term of 12 to 20 years, in accordance with Russian law. 

MOSCOW, August 26. /TASS/: Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not comment on the words of the leader of Belarusian opposition Svetlana Tikhanovskaya that a "peaceful revolution" is happening in the republic.

MOSCOW, August 26. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin sent greetings to participants and guests of the opening ceremony of the cross years of Russian-Chinese scientific, technical and innovative cooperation. The message was published on the Kremlin website on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, August 26. /TASS/: The Kremlin does not see any grounds for the deterioration of ties between Russia and the West amid the incident with blogger Alexei Navalny, who is in a coma in a German clinic.

"First, we don’t want this. Second, there are no grounds for this," Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday, answering a question if Moscow was afraid that ties with Western states would worsen amid the incident.

MOSCOW, August 25. /TASS/: The information systems for struggle against the COVID-19 pandemic were created within tight deadlines, hence it was just impossible to meet all the safety requirements, but the experience gained in the process will be taken into account in further work, the deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council, Oleg Khramov, told the weekly Argumenty I Fakty on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, August 25. /TASS/: Repeat coronavirus infection is possible if the antibody titer is at the low level, that is, the presence of antibodies does not guarantee a 100% protection from the infection, Director of the Scientific Information Center for Prevention and Treatment of Viral Infections Georgy Vikulov told the Govorit Moskva radio station.

MOSCOW, August 25. /TASS/: The Belarusian Interior Ministry has opened 39 administrative and 3 criminal cases in the past 24 hours over the participation in unauthorized protests, the statement published on the ministry’s website informs.