Russia

MOSCOW, March 28. /TASS/: Russia’s Federal Biomedical Agency has created a tool to safely split ventilators between two to four patients, the agency’s head Veronika Skvortsova told Channel One.

"We have been able to create prototype models that can help ventilate two to three to four patients at once," she said, adding that unlike similar foreign tools, the Russian ventilator had anti-bacterial filters that killed 99.9% of bacteria and viruses.

MOSCOW, March 27. /TASS/: Russia’s Federal Medical Biological Agency has developed seven vaccine prototypes against the novel coronavirus, the agency’s head, Veronika Skvortsova, said on Friday.

"As of today, the Federal Medical Biological Agency has developed seven prototypes of a genetically engineered vaccine assembled from fused proteins, with each of them having epitopes, i.e. parts that interact with the virus," she said in an interview with Russia’s TV ChannelOne.

SEVASTOPOL, March 27. /TASS/: Three frigates of the Black Sea Fleet operating within the Russian Navy’s permanent Mediterranean taskforce repelled a notional enemy’s missile attack, firing Kalibr cruise missiles during the drills, the Fleet’s press office reported on Friday.

MOSCOW, March 27. /TASS/: Russian stocks have extended losses on Moscow Exchange on Friday following the oil price drop as the RTS index lost 5.27% to 963.41 points, while the MOEX index dropped by 3.42% to 2,404.75 points, according to the trading data as of 4:02 pm Moscow time.

The price of futures contracts of Brent crude oil is down by 3.8% compared with the previous closure at $25.34 per barrel.

The dollar exchange rate on Moscow Exchange gained 1.57% to 78.68 rubles as of 4:05 pm, while the euro exchange rate was down by 1.17% at 86.41 rubles.

MOSCOW, March 27. /TASS/: Over 1,500 Russian motor rifle troops from the 201st military base took part in force-on-force tactical drills that ended in Tajikistan, the press office of Russia’s Central Military District reported on Friday.

"The motorized infantry personnel practiced the assignments of conducting an offensive, holding defense and switching to a counter-attack, and also reconnaissance and strike operations in interaction with aviation and rocket artillery," the press office said in a statement.

MOSCOW, March 27. /TASS/: Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport has received two messages saying that bombs had been planted on board two planes en route from St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg to Moscow, an aviation source informed TASS on Friday.

"Sheremetyevo has received two E-mail messages saying that bombs had been planted on board Moscow-bound planes from St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg," the source said.

The plane from St. Petersburg has already landed safely, while the one en route from Yekaterinburg is in midair.

MOSCOW, March 27. /TASS/: Russia has fully suspended regular and charter international flights since Friday and airlines will only perform flights to bring Russians back home, according to a decision announced by the board of the government’s coordination council.

The move comes amid the novel coronavirus pandemic declared by the World Health Organization and its rapid spread in 170 countries in the world, including Russia.

MOSCOW, March 27. /TASS/: The Russian Energy Ministry considers $45-55 per barrel to be a fair market priced for oil at the moment, optimal for demand growth, but would not allow shale projects to grow, Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin said on Friday.

Moscow, Mar 27 (AFP/PTI) The Russian government has ordered all cafes and restaurants to close for a week from Saturday to stem the spread of the coronavirus infection.

Russian regions are to "halt the activities of public food service organisations," except for delivery services, a government decree said on Friday.

MOSCOW, March 26 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin urged Thursday the leaders of the Group of 20 (G20) to lift all sanctions on supplies of essential goods until the COVID-19 pandemic is under control.

"It is important for the period of crisis to create the so-called green corridors, free from trade wars and sanctions for the mutual supply of medicines, food, equipment and technology," Putin said, addressing the G20 virtual summit, according to an official Kremlin transcript.