Russia

MOSCOW, December 15. /TASS/: The Iskander missile system of Russia’s Western Military District has helped to repel a conventional enemy’s attack with weapons of mass destruction at drills in the southern Astrakhan Region, the district said in a statement on Saturday.

"During the exercise involving the Iskander system, service members drilled at a training ground in the Astrakhan Region how to repel a massive attack on a convoy by the ‘adversary’s’ unidentified armed groups who use weapons of mass destruction," the statement says.

MOSCOW, December 15. /TASS/: Kiev has not formally put forward any new initiatives regarding the deployment of a UN mission in the Donbass, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS on Sunday.

He was commenting on the words of Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadim Pristaiko.

On Saturday, Pristaiko said that Kiev could return to the idea of a UN contingent deployment to the areas in Donbass that are out of Ukraine’s control in case Ukraine’s leadership admits that the conflict fails to yield any result based on the Minsk accords.

MOSCOW, December 15. /TASS/: The Russian and Ukrainian Presidents, Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky, have started dialogue, but they have failed to come to terms on a whole range of issues so far, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Bolshaya Igra (Big Game) TV program on Russia’s Channel One.

"Putin and Zelensky have started talking to each other. However, they are far from reaching an agreement on a whole range of issues, they are using different terms," Peskov said.

SEVASTOPOL, December 15. /TASS/: A decommissioned B-380 submarine of the Black Sea Fleet that earlier sank with a floating dock off Sevastopol has risen to the surface and is afloat, a source in the city’s emergencies services told TASS on Sunday.

"Tonight a floating dock PD-16 with a decommissioned submarine B-380 sank in Sevastopol’s Yuzhnaya Bay. The submarine has broken surface and is afloat," the source said.

The submarine might have sunk due to the technical condition of the dock, which could not be repaired.

MOSCOW, December 14. /TASS/. Russia’s Android Technology Company and Japan’s GITAI startup plan to create a robot to operate on the lunar surface, the Russian company’s executive director, Yevgeny Dudorov, told TASS.

"Colleagues from Japan are thinking in approximately the same direction as we do, eyeing step-by-step design of robotic systems to explore the near and far space. We both identify the Moon - or, in other words, robotic systems that could function and perform tasks on the Moon surface - as our primary target," he said.

MOSCOW/MINSK, December 14. /TASS/: Prime ministers of Russia and Belarus, Dmitry Medvedev and Sergei Rumas, have discussed the issues of bilateral cooperation in the integration field as well as trade and economic area, including a number of issues related to the energy dialogue, in a telephone conversation initiated by Minsk, press service of Russia’s cabinet of ministers said in a statement on Saturday.

13 Dec 2019; MEMO: Ariel Bulshtein, adviser to the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, has announced that Israel has refused to sell weapons to Georgia, at Russia’s request. He also stated a month and a half ago, that Israel had

MOSCOW, December 13. /TASS/: If Kiev seeks to introduce changes to the Minsk Agreements, other members of the Normandy Four group will need time to review this possibility, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"I would like everyone to cast their thoughts back to Monday’s summit in Paris, and point out that the parties agreed a document, which can be considered a success," Peskov said.

MOSCOW, December 13. /TASS/: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Nicaraguan counterpart Denis Ronaldo Moncada Colindres plan to discuss bilateral military and technical cooperation at the talks.

"Our relations with Nicaragua are that between good friends and strategic partners," Lavrov said opening the meeting on Friday. "We have a busy and comprehensive agenda, which includes economic, humanitarian issues and, of course, military and technical cooperation. We look forward to discussing all that in detail today."

MOSCOW, December 13. /TASS/: Russian airlines in January - November 2019 increased transportation compared to the same period a year earlier by 10.6% to 119.2 mln passengers, according to the Federal Air Transport Agency. Over the past year, Russian airlines carried 116.2 mln passengers.

"In just 11 months of this year, Russian airlines transported 119.2 mln passengers, an increase of 10.6% compared to the same period last year; passenger turnover rose to 300 bln passenger kilometers (+13%)," the agency said.