Russia

MOSCOW, October 25. /TASS/: Russia has sent around 300 more military police officers from Chechnya to Syria to perform special tasks in the 30-kilometer zone on the Syrian-Turkish border, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday.

"Around 300 military police officers from the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation stationed in the Chechen Repubic have arrived in the Syrian Arab Republic to carry out special tasks," the defense ministry said adding that military police officers departed Russia from an aerodrome in North Ossetia.

MOSCOW, October 24. /TASS/: A third Rezonans-N radar capable of spotting stealth targets, cruise, ballistic and hypersonic missiles will assume combat duty on Russia’s Novaya Zemlya Arctic Archipelago in November 2019, Rezonans Research Center CEO Ivan Nazarenko told TASS on Thursday.

"The third Rezonans-N radar in the Arctic has been deployed on Novaya Zemlya. The radar will go on combat duty in November this year," the chief executive said.

MOSCOW, October 26. /TASS/: Russian national Maria Butina who was released from a US prison on Friday has thanked the diplomats who worked hard to secure her release and those Russians who provided financial and moral support.

MOSCOW, October 26. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has discussed with the permanent members of Russia’s Security Council the implementation of the memorandum on Syria agreed on by Moscow and Ankara on October 22 and his contacts at the Russia-Africa Summit, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

MOSCOW, October 26. /TASS/: The United States smuggles Syrian oil to other countries, the convoys are guarded by US private military companies and special operations forces, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.

"Tank trucks guarded by US military servicemen and private military companies smuggle oil from fields in eastern Syria to other countries. In the event of any attack on such a convoy, US special operations forces and combat aviation are immediately used to protect it," Konashenkov stressed.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian national Maria Butina, who was jailed in the United States in April after admitting to working as a Russian agent, arrived in Moscow on Saturday, greeted by her father and Russian journalists who handed her flowers.

Butina pleaded guilty in December last year to one count of conspiring to act as a foreign agent for Russia by infiltrating a gun rights group and influencing U.S. conservative activists and Republicans.

MOSCOW, October 25. /TASS/: Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has assured that the application for pardon from Norwegian citizen Frode Berg convicted in Russia of spying will be considered, but it is more than likely that the document has not been received yet.

"[The petition for pardon] may have not been received yet, because that takes some time," he told reporters on Friday.

"When it is received in accordance with the established procedures, the [pardon] commission will consider it and submit its recommendation to the head of state," Peskov promised.

MOSCOW, October 25. /TASS/: Sberbank of Russia is working hard to prevent cybercrime related to the theft of personal data of its customers, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"We know that Sberbank is working hard to prevent these types of cybercrimes," he said.

Peskov added that Sberbank had already denied earlier media reports about leaks of data of its customers.

OMSK, October 25. /TASS/: Secret services of foreign states are deliberately looking for vulnerabilities in the Russian information infrastructure to launch cyberattacks, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said on Friday at a meeting on national security issues in the Siberian Federal District.

MOSCOW, October 25. /TASS/: The crews of the Su-30SM, Su-27 and Su-24M planes of the Naval Air and Air Defense Force of the Black Sea Fleet have carried out an exercise in Crimea during which they destroyed the "enemy’s" command center, the press service of the Southern Military District reported on Friday.