Russia

SIMFEROPOL, December 23. /TASS/: The Crimean Bridge was built in spite of the Western sanctions and owing to workers and engineers from across Russia. The Crimean direction is among the most popular ones in the country, Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov blogged on his page on the VKontakte social networking service on Monday.

MOSCOW, December 23: German company Uniper, which is a partner of Gazprom in the Nord Stream 2 construction project, expressed confidence that opportunities would be found to quickly complete the construction of the pipeline.

"We are confident that ways will be found to quickly complete the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. This would be important for Europe, because the pipeline will strengthen the security of gas supplies and competition in our markets for the benefit of consumers," the company’s spokesman Georg Oppermann told TASS.

KALININGRAD, December 23. /TASS/: NATO aircraft have stepped up their activities along Russia’s western borders in 2019, Baltic Fleet Commander Admiral Alexander Nosatov said in a statement on Monday.

"Surveillance vessels belonging to Western countries permanently remain near areas where the Baltic Fleet conducts training. The number of flights that surveillance aircraft carried out along our land and sea borders has exceeded 800 this year, compared to 578 in 2018. The number of flights conducted by war planes has doubled, exceeding 400," the admiral added.

MOSCOW, December 23. /TASS/: The Kremlin hopes that the sanctions against Nord Stream 2 will not impede successful completion of this gas pipeline project, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media on Monday.

"The situation is being analyzed. We proceed from the understanding that such sanctions are unacceptable to us," he said. "We do hope, of course, that such steps will not impede successful implementation of this important project."

Peskov said Moscow would not leave these sanctions without retaliation.

MOSCOW, December 23. /TASS/: During a Monday court session, two police officers failed to identify an assailant who allegedly hurled a plastic bottle at them during the July 27 unauthorized protest in Moscow, a TASS correspondent reported from the courtroom.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin on Monday opened a rail route linking Russia’s two biggest cities to Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014, and said it proved that the country could deliver on giant infrastructure projects.

Putin inaugurated the passenger service by personally taking a train across the road and rail bridge which Russian engineers built to link Crimea to southern Russia after an earlier pre-annexation route which ran through Ukraine was shut down.

MOSCOW, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- Washington, by imposing sanctions on its allies related to the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, proves its unreliability, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday.

"When the closest allies are punished for solving their economic problems and tasks related to energy security, I think that no country in the world should ever doubt that if the United States promises them something, they will be abandoned at any moment," Lavrov said when speaking at the Federation Council, or upper house of the parliament.

MOSCOW, December 21. /TASS/: Russia’s partners in Europe will hold consultations on Saturday with the United States Department of the Treasury for explanations concerning sanctions against the gas pipelines Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, who is in charge of the energy sector, told reporters on Saturday.

MOSCOW, December 22. /TASS/: Chairman of the Russian State Duma’s (lower house) Foreign Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky is hoping that the German leadership will not let US sanctions affect the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, the member of parliament told TASS on Saturday, underlining that these sanctions hurt European interests.

MOSCOW, December 21. /TASS/: Russian aircraft conducted two patrol missions in the Syrian air space in the past 24 hours, Major General Yuri Borenkov, chief of the Russian center for reconciliation of conflicting sides in Syria, told reporters on Saturday.

"The Air Force has conducted two patrols along the route of Umm-Mial - Metras - Ayn Isa - the power substation Mabruka-Kamyshly and along the route of Kamyshly - Tell al-Shur-Gharbi - the Mabrouka power substation - Tell al-Shur-Gharbi - Kamyshly," Borenkov said.