Russia

MOSCOW, March 6. /TASS/: Deployment of Russian-made S-400 air defense systems would commence in April, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, during his meeting with the journalists in the wake of Moscow talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

"They [S-400] already belong to us. In April, we will begin deploying them," Erdogan said, according to Yeni Safak newspaper.

The Turkish President underscored that Ankara does not reject the US-made Patriot air defense systems.

MOSCOW, March 6. /TASS/: The excessive presence of foreign warships in the Persian Gulf region does not facilitate ease of tensions in the region but works as an additional irritant instead, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Friday.

MOSCOW, March 6. /TASS/: Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin has met with British Ambassador to Moscow Deborah Bronnert to discuss Moscow’s initiative to hold a summit of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (Russia, France, the United States, the United Kingdom and China), the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday.

MOSCOW, March 6. /TASS/: About 60,000 residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics have been granted Russian citizenship since the beginning of this year. More than 225,000 people in these republics have been granted Russian citizenship since the presidential decree on the issue came into force last year, the press center of the Russian Interior Ministry informed TASS.

"More than 225,000 residents of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Lugansk regions were granted Russian citizenship in 2019 and 58,000 in 2020," the press center said in response to an inquiry from TASS.

MOSCOW, March 6. /TASS/: The United States seeks to provide new capabilities to its nuclear forces, which increases the possibility of their use, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on Friday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny lodged a complaint against Russia at the European Court of Human Rights on Friday to contest a money-laundering investigation he says authorities have opened to thwart his political activities.

Russian investigators opened the case against Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation last August after he called on people to attend rallies that grew into Moscow’s biggest sustained protest movement in years before fizzling out.

MOSCOW/ANKARA/DAMASCUS, March 6 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A ceasefire in northern Syria agreed between Russia and Turkey came into force on Friday, aiming to halt intense fighting that has sparked a humanitarian disaster and raised fears of their armies clashing.

The deal struck between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan comes after an escalation of violence in Idlib, the northwestern province of Syria where Ankara is battling Moscow-backed government forces.

MOSCOW, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Russia and Turkey agreed Thursday on a ceasefire in the de-escalation zone in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib, a development that could ease escalating conflicts and facilitate a peace process in the war-torn country.

The agreement was reached after a six-hour meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Kremlin.

The ceasefire becomes effective on Friday, according to the protocol read after the talks by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

MOSCOW, March 5. /TASS/: The next launch of a Glonass-M navigation satellite is scheduled for March 16, the Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems Company (the producer of Glonass satellites) announced on Thursday.

"The Glonass-M satellite is scheduled to be orbited on March 16 with the help of a Soyuz-2 carrier rocket," the company said in a video uploaded to YouTube.

MOSCOW, March 5. /TASS/: Russian intelligence services seek to identify and located the author of the fake "bomb" threats to planes, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday, adding that Kremlin counts on that the perpetrators would be found and properly punished.

"The intelligence services work on these people, and this work cannot be disclosed to public," he said. "Let’s hope that sooner or later [the threats’ author] would be found and punished."