Russia

MOSCOW, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- Moscow favors normalizing relations with Washington, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said in his Christmas and New Year greetings to U.S. President Donald Trump.

Moscow supports establishing equal dialogue between the two countries based on mutual respect of interests, Putin told Trump in the message posted on the Kremlin website on Monday.

Putin noted that Russia and the United States are historically responsible for ensuring global security and stability.

MOSCOW, December 30. /TASS/: The Kremlin regards as productive Russian-US cooperation concerning information about preparations for terrorist attacks, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media on Monday.

MOSCOW, December 30. /TASS/: The parties to the Libyan conflict need to end military activities without preconditions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said following talks with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif on Monday.

"I believe that putting an end to military activities is a crucial condition for the launch of political dialogue. We believe that there is a need to end military activities without any preconditions," Lavrov pointed out.

MOSCOW, December 30. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has wished his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad a happy New Year, the Kremlin press service said in a statement.

MOSCOW, December 30. /TASS/: The Normandy Quartet’s summit in Paris allowed for achieving shifts in settling the conflict in Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a commentary on the results of 2019.

"Shifts were achieved in settling the intra-Ukrainian conflict. After a three-year pause a Normandy Quartet summit was held in Paris in December," the Foreign Ministry stated. "Proceeding from humanitarian considerations Russia eased the procedure of granting citizenship to the population of some districts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions."

ROSTOV-ON-DON, December 30. /TASS/: Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who is serving a 20-year sentence in the US, will receive a set of Russian newspapers and magazines as a New Year’s gift, his wife Viktoria told TASS.

"We would like him to receive the parcel before the holidays as he has been looking forward to reading Russian newspapers and magazines. He says when he gets them, he stays awake all night to read them through and re-reads everything ten times because he misses the Russian media," the pilot’s wife said.

MOSCOW, December 30. /TASS/: Two Russian nationals detained for plotting to carry out terrorist attacks in the city of St. Petersburg have pleaded guilty, a Federal Security Service (FSB) source told TASS.

"They have pleaded guilty," the source said, adding that evidence of plans to carry out terrorist attacks had been seized from the detained.

According to the FSB, a criminal case was opened under Article 205.5.2 of the Russian Criminal Code (participation in terror activity).

MOSCOW, December 30. /TASS/: Export supplies of MC-21 passenger jets to non-CIS countries, including Malaysia, may start in 2023, Russian Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov said on Monday on the air with the Rossiya-24 TV Channel.

"Commercial deliveries will start in 2021. We will start deliveries to Russian operators and CIS countries at first. Customers from non-CIS countries are in the portfolio of orders but [deliveries] will target 2023-2024. These are countries of Southeast Asia and Malaysia," Manturov said.

MOSCOW, December 30. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent a message of greeting to US President Donald Trump and confirmed the invitation to the US leader to visit Moscow in May 2020 for the 75th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory in the Great Patriotic War, the Kremlin’s press-service said.

MOSCOW, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday discussed by telephone the exchange of prisoners in east Ukraine, Russian gas supplies to Europe and the situation in Libya.

The two leaders gave a positive assessment of the "all for all" prisoner swap that took place in the Donetsk region on Sunday, said a Kremlin press release.

Putin and Merkel also discussed issues of cooperation in the gas sector, confirming the readiness for further support of the Nord Stream 2 project.