Russia

MOSCOW, June 26. /TASS/: Anna Kikina, Russia’s only woman cosmonaut, may make her spaceflight in a span of two years, Oleg Kononenko, chief of Russia’s cosmonaut corps, said on Friday.

"If nothing changes, if everything goes smoothly, because we have many if’s, Anna will probably fly in the autumn of 2022, along with me," he said in an interview with Vecherny Urgant program on TV Channel One.

MOSCOW, June 27. /TASS/: The supervisory board of Hungary’s pipeline operator FGSZ approved on Friday a plan of investment into the construction of a gas pipeline to Serbia with an annual capacity of 6 billion cubic meters, the company said in a statement.

According to the document, the designated capacity at the pipeline’s southern tip - that is, on the border with Serbia - must be achieved by October 2021.

MOSCOW, June 26. /TASS/: No violations were reported on the second day of voting on amendments to the Russian constitution in Moscow, a deputy chairman of the Moscow City Election Commission, Dmitry Reut, has told TASS.

"There were no incidents that deserve attention. The voting in Moscow is taking place in normal regime, in a calm atmosphere," he said.

MOSCOW, June 26. /TASS/: Moscow’s Meshchansky Court has handed down a three-year suspended sentence to director Kirill Serebrennikov regarding his 129-million-ruble ($1.8 mln) embezzlement case, where he stood accused of misappropriating state funds for the Platforma theater project.

"[The court] hereby imposes a penalty on Serebrennikov in the form of a three-year-suspended prison sentence along with a fine of 800,000 rubles [about $11,480] and probation for three years," judge Olesya Mendeleyeva ruled.

MOSCOW, June 26 (Xinhua) -- The COVID-19 pandemic is retreating in Russia, President Vladimir Putin said Friday at a meeting with the volunteer movement "We Are Together."

"The volume of tasks for volunteers is starting to decrease slightly. You really did your job honestly. We can only be glad to say thanks again," Putin said.

Russia has confirmed 6,800 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, marking the lowest number of daily infections since the end of April.

MOSCOW, June 26. /TASS/: Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has commented on Japan’s dissatisfaction with Russia’s research near the Kuril Islands, noting that Moscow has the right to do this in its territory.

"Russia has the absolute sovereign right to conduct any kind of research in its territory," he pointed out.

Earlier, the Japanese government rebuked Russia for performing geological research in the Sea of Okhotsk which particularly is planned in the waters near the southern Kuril Islands. The Russian embassy in Tokyo confirmed that it had received the note from Japan.

MOSCOW, June 26. /TASS/: Russia’s Defense Ministry has placed an order for developing multirole medical robots for evacuating the wounded from the battlefield. The order for the relevant experimental design work was posted on the government procurement website on Friday.

"The Defense Ministry of Russia notifies about holding a closed tender for fulfilling the experimental design work: ‘Developing Multi-Functional Robotized Medical Systems for Evacuating the Wounded and Incapacitated Personnel on Advanced Ground Carriers (codenamed ‘Evacuation-R’)," the document says.

MOSCOW, June 26. /TASS/: Kiev remains unwilling to find a comprehensive resolution of the Donbass conflict, Russia’s Permanent Envoy to the Contact Group for settlement in Donbass Boris Gryzlov stated on the outcomes of the group’s video session on Thursday.

MOSCOW, June 25./TASS/: Moscow notes attempts by Tbilisi to politicize the issue of the novel coronavirus, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday after a video conference of Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko and the co-chairs of the Geneva discussions on security and stability in Transcaucasia.

MOSCOW, June 26. /TASS/: The example of influenza shows that a vaccine against the novel coronavirus will not be a panacea for that virus, President of the Dmitry Rogachev National Medical Research Center of Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Immunology and Chief Freelance Pediatric Hematologist and Oncologist of the Russian Ministry of Health Alexander Rumyantsev told TASS.