Russia

OMSK, Russia (AP) — A plane carrying a Russian dissident who is in a coma after a suspected poisoning left for a German hospital Saturday following much wrangling over Alexei Navalny’s condition and treatment.

The plane could be seen taking off from an airport in the Siberian city of Omsk just after 8 a.m. local time. Navalny’s spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, confirmed the departure on Twitter. The flight to Berlin was expected to take about five hours.

MOSCOW, August 21. /TASS/: The latest TOS-2 ‘Tosochka’ heavy flamethrower that rolled through Moscow’s Red Square for the first time during the Victory Parade on June 24 will arrive for Russian troops by the end of the year, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Friday.

"The new TOS-2 heavy flamethrower system characterized by increased range and firepower is set to arrive for the troops until the end of the year," the defense chief said at the ministry’s board meeting.

MOSCOW, August 21. /TASS/: Libya’s Government of the National Accord declared an immediate ceasefire and suspension of all military operation across the entirety of the Republic, Sky News - Arabia TV Channel reported Friday.

"A comprehensive ceasefire will make it possible to stop the foreign military intervention [in the country’s internal affairs] and to end the presence of mercenaries [on the Libyan territory]," the GNA said, according to the report.

OMSK, August 21. /TASS/: A medical conference concluded that a flight might pose danger to blogger Alexey Navalny’s live, who is currently in coma in Omsk Ambulance Hospital number 1, the hospital’s chief medical officer Alexander Murakhovsky told journalists Friday.

The blogger’s family insists that Navalny be transported to Germany for examination and treatment. A flight from Nuremberg, ready to transport him to German medics has already arrived in Omsk.

MOSCOW, August 21. /TASS/: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has voiced skepticism about French President Emmanuel Macron’s initiative to act as a mediator in settling the situation in Belarus.

"Macron has said he wants to mediate negotiations in Belarus. Well, let me first be a mediator between the yellow vests and Macron. The situation there is, God save us, awful, with terror, and the yellow vests. He (Macron - TASS) sees nothing," Lukashenko said in a statement posted on the Pul Pervogo Telegram channel.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, one of Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics, lay in a coma Friday at a Siberian hospital, the victim of what his allies said appeared to be a poisoning engineered by the Kremlin.

Navalny’s organization was scrambling to make arrangements to transfer him to Germany for treatment; a German group said it was ready to send a plane for him and that a noted hospital in Berlin was ready to treat him.

MOSCOW, August 20 /TASS/: Rosneft Deutschland GmbH, a Rosneft subsidiary, has started into-plane fuel supplies in Germany’s Stuttgart Airport, the Russian oil producer said on Thursday.

The company plans further increase in production and jet fuel sales in Germany and on the European market as a whole. Rosneft Deutschland clinched several deals for jet fuel sales since the beginning of its marketing operations in Germany in 2019, the company says, including the contract with Aeroflot for fuel supplies in Schonefeld Airport.

MOSCOW, August 20. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has discussed the outcome of the EU summit on Belarus with European Council President Charles Michel, the Kremlin press service said in a statement on Thursday.

"Michel briefed [Putin] on the outcome of the August 19 summit of the European Union, dedicated to events in Belarus. Russia pointed out that any pressure on the leadership of the sovereign Belarusian state and foreign interference in domestic processes taking place in the country were counterproductive," the statement reads.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Mass testing of Russia’s first potential COVID-19 vaccine to get domestic regulatory approval will involve more than 40,000 people, the TASS news agency cited the vaccine’s developer as saying on Thursday.

The vaccine, called “Sputnik V” in homage to the world’s first satellite launched by the Soviet Union, has been hailed as safe and effective by Russian authorities and scientists following two months of small-scale human trials, the results of which have not been made public yet.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Belarusian general prosecutor’s office said on Thursday it had opened a criminal case into a council launched by members of the opposition who disputed an Aug. 9 presidential election, the RIA news agency reported.

The general prosecutor said the body was designed to seize power and undermine national security, RIA reported.

President Alexander Lukashenko faces the biggest challenge to his 26-year rule following the election that triggered mass protests. He has described the opposition council as “an attempt to seize power.”