Russia

MOSCOW, February 28. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin and members of Russia’s Security Council have voiced their utmost concern about the recent escalation in Syria’s Idlib, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday after the president’s emergency meeting with permanent members of Russia’s Security Council.

MOSCOW, February 28. /TASS/: S7 airline plans to make charter flights between Russia and South Korea by mid-March at the least, the company’s press service told TASS on Friday.

"More than 10,000 passengers that purchased tickets for flights between Russia and South Korea with departures in March. We plan that passengers will be returned home by S7 charters. The charter flight schedule has been prepared until the middle of March so far," the company said.

MOSCOW, February 28. /TASS/: Brent oil futures prices with delivery in May 2020 dropped by more than 4% to $49.66 a barrel on the London-based ICE today, according to trading data.

The last time Brent oil prices were at the level below $50 per barrel at the turn of July 2017.

At the same time WTI futures with settlements in April fell by 4.5% to $44.95 per barrel, their lowest since January 2019.

Meanwhile the dollar added 2.42% against the ruble to 67.6 rubles per dollar. The euro rose by 2.97% and amounted to 74.7 rubles.

MOSCOW, February 27. /TASS/: Rosatom considers possible to conclude the contract with Uzbekistan for construction of the nuclear power plant (NPP) in June 2020 and associate signing with the visit of the President of Uzbekistan to Russia, chief executive officer of the Russian nuclear corporation Alexei Likhachev told reporters on Thursday.

MOSCOW, February 27. /TASS/: Artillery units of the Central Military District’s 41st all-arms army eliminated a notional enemy’s mechanized column with the support of reconnaissance squads during battalion-level tactical drills at the Yurginsky training range in the Kemerovo Region, the District’s press office reported on Thursday.

MOSCOW, February 27. /TASS/: Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has denied reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet in Istanbul on March 5.

"President Putin has no plans for such a meeting on March 5 so far," he told reporters on Thursday.

Peskov added that there was no trip to Istanbul in the president’s schedule for March 5. "No, President Putin has other work plans for March 5," he said.

MOSCOW, February 27. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has confessed that the idea of having a body double was floated for the sake of ensuring the safety of the head of state in the early 2000s, but he rejected it.

"I discarded the idea of any doubles," Putin told TASS in an interview for the project entitled "20 Questions with Vladimir Putin." "This was during the toughest time of our war against terrorism."

MOSCOW, February 27. /TASS/: Russia test-launched its Tsirkon hypersonic missile from a ship for the first time when the Project 22350 frigate Admiral Gorshkov fired the weapon from the Barents Sea against a ground target in January, two sources in defense circles of Russia’s North-Western Federal District told TASS on Thursday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The United States embassy in Moscow urged Russia on Thursday to find the people who organized the murder of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov who was gunned down near the Kremlin five years ago.

Nemtsov, one of President Vladimir Putin’s most vocal critics, was killed in 2015 as he walked home across a bridge near the Kremlin’s walls. He had been working on a report examining Russia’s role in the conflict in Ukraine.

27 Feb 2020; MEMO: The Russian Foreign Ministry ruled out the possibility of achieving a permanent settlement in the Middle East as a result of the US drafted Middle East “peace plan” to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict dubbed the “deal of the century”.

Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said: “The instability between Israel and Palestine is one of the main factors for instability in the region.”