Russia

MOSCOW, March 20. /TASS/: The spring draft campaign to the Russian Armed Forces will not be postponed over the coronavirus and will take place between April 1 and July 15, as planned, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said Friday.

"We have paid special attention to the upcoming draft. It will take place with strict compliance with the federal law, in the planned time span," Shoigu said.

MOSCOW, March 20. /TASS/: The article by the Dutch de Volkskrant newspaper about alleged Russian attempts to obstruct the investigation of the 2014 MH17 Boeing crash is misinformation that seeks to influence the court proceedings in the Hague, Russian Foreign Ministry announced Thursday on its website’s "rebuttals" section.

MOSCOW, March 20. /TASS/: A citywide quarantine in Moscow due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) situation is not currently under discussion, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday.

"This is not currently under discussion whatsoever," he said in response to a question on whether Moscow may be fully closed off to combat the spread of the virus.

Earlier, Moscow officials also refuted reports of a planned citywide quarantine.

MOSCOW, March 19. /TASS/: The United States finds annoying the Russian-Turkish agreements on Syria’s Idlib and looks ready to use any pretext for upsetting a political settlement in that country, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news briefing on Thursday in the wake of growing contacts between senior US officials and ringleaders of the pseudo-humanitarian organization White Helmets operating in Syria.

MOSCOW, March 20. /TASS/: Submarines of Russian Navy’s Northern Fleet will conduct test firing of hypersonic missiles shortly, Fleet Commander Vice Admiral Alexander Moiseyev said.

"In the nearest future, our submarines will begin test-firing hypersonic weapons. We have already received our orders," he said, speaking to Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper.

MOSCOW, March 20. /TASS/: Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia and Saudi Arabia are not waging any wars over oil prices. He is certain that other states should not interfere in the partnership between the two countries.

"There are no price wars between Russia and Saudi Arabia. There is a very unfavorable pricing environment for many countries," he told reporters.

According to him, Russia and Saudi Arabia have "good relations, a partnership." "We do not think that anyone should intervene in these relations," Peskov added.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has not been tested for the new coronavirus and does not need to undergo such a test because he is healthy and has no symptoms, the Kremlin said on Friday.

Russia has reported 199 coronavirus cases so far, less than in many other European countries. But the figure has risen sharply in recent days and one person diagnosed with the virus has died.

“Thank God, he always feels brilliant,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call when asked if Putin had undergone a coronavirus test.

MOSCOW, March 20 (NNN-TASS) — Russia’s sanitary watchdog Rospotrebnadzor has launched tests of a vaccine against the novel coronavirus, reported Russian news agency TASS.

“In Russia in order to prevent and control the COVID-19 epidemic the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology Vector of Rospotrebnadzor has swiftly developed prototypes of vaccines based on six various technological platforms,” the watchdog said.

Experts have managed to create vaccines based on broadly used recombinant viral vectors of flu.

MOSCOW, March 19. /TASS/: Russia’s Konteiner new-generation over-the-horizon radar, capable of tracking launches of cruise and hypersonic missiles at the distance of up to 3,000 km, will be deployed in Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad to cover the entire territory of Europe, including the United Kingdom, a defense industry source told TASS on Thursday.

The first Konteiner radar went on combat duty in the Volga area region of Mordovia on December 1, 2019.

MOSCOW, March 19. /TASS/: Moscow officials do not plan to introduce a curfew in the city to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), Moscow’s coronavirus task force reported on Thursday, disproving media reports.

"The task force on controlling and monitoring the coronavirus situation in Moscow informs that the reports claiming that Moscow will introduce a curfew are false. We ask you to only trust official sources of information," the task force stated.