Russia

ST. PETERSBURG, July 21. /TASS/: The Project 22350 frigate Admiral Kasatonov has entered service with the Russian Navy, Navy Spokesman Captain 1st Rank Igor Dygalo announced on Tuesday.

"By order of Russian Navy Commander-in-Chief Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov, the Project 22350 latest frigate Admiral Kasatonov has been accepted for service in the Navy," the spokesman said.

GROZNY, July 21. /TASS/: Head of Russia’s Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov responded to US Secretary of State’s statement regarding introduction of new sanctions against him by inviting to his home village in the mountain region of the republic to discuss who really violates human rights, according to the Grozny broadcast company.

MOSCOW, July 21. /TASS/: Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov hopes that the new report prepared by the Intelligence and Security Committee of the UK Parliament will not contain unfounded accusations and insinuations.

"We hope that at least this time, after so many investigations held by UK allies on [Russia’s] interference that led to negative results and did not confirm anything, there will be some documents that will not contain unfounded accusations or insinuations," the Kremlin spokesman said shortly before the document’s publication.

MOSCOW, July 19. /TASS/: Radio contact has been lost with an An-2 plane with six people aboard in Russia’s Siberian republic of Buryatia, a spokesman for the Russian emergencies ministry’s regional department.

"It was reported at 20:21 Moscow time that contact was lost with an An-2 (tail number 71276) of the Fenix air company. There were six people aboard, including two crewmembers. The An-2 plane took off from the settlement of Kyren in Buryatia. Its flight route is unknown," the spokesman said.

MOSCOW, July 20. /TASS/: Members of the second group of volunteers taking part in trials of a coronavirus vaccine at Moscow's Burdenko Main Military Clinic Hospital have developed antibodies, Medical Service Colonel Sergei Borisevich, the head of the 48th Central Research Institute of the Russian Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, told the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper.

"Tests show that the volunteers have developed coronavirus antibodies, and the vaccine’s components are safe and well-tolerated," he said.

MOSCOW, July 20. /TASS/: Russia’s COVID-19 fatalities grew by 85 in the past 24 hours reaching 12,427, the anti-coronavirus crisis center said on Monday.

That was the lowest number of deaths since May 4.

Fifteen patients died in Moscow in the past 24 hours, the Nizhny Novgorod and Tula regions reported four fatalities each, while the Novosibirsk, Murmansk, Moscow and Khanty-Mansi regions confirmed three deaths each.

MOSCOW, July 19. /TASS/: The Russian government presented a bill providing for tax support of books and periodicals publishers to the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian diet. The text of the document is posted in the database of the lawmaking support system.

The current version of the Russian Internal Revenue Code categorizes losses in the form of the cost of reject and unsold books and mass media products as sundry expenses and reduces the tax base of the income tax.

MOSCOW, July 19. /TASS/: Vaccination against the novel coronavirus will not prevent other inoculations, including seasonal ones, Director of the National Research Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology Alexander Gintsburg told TASS.

MOSCOW, July 15. /TASS/: The Koronavir drug for the treatment of the novel coronavirus, has been released in Russia, the R-Pharm statement made public on Wednesday said.

The company noted that the drug was produced and labeled at its factory in the city of Yaroslavl.

"To date 7,373 drug packages have been put in civil circulation," the statement said.

MOSCOW, July 18. /TASS/: Russian pharmaceutical company R-Pharm signed an agreement on production of a coronavirus vaccine developed by British-Swedish AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford. The company plans to supply the drug to 30-50 countries, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Russian company Alexey Repik said in an interview with Rossiya 24 TV channel.