Russia

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Wednesday that it approved of a move by Kiev to sign a peace plan with pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine’s east that it had previously rejected, RIA news agency reported.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday that a plan known as the Steinmeier formula to provide special status for the Donbas region and hold elections there should be written into Ukrainian law.

MOSCOW, October 1. /TASS/: The United States is unlikely to extend the Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (the New START Treaty) but Washington may take this step for the sake of control of Russia’s nuclear potential, Russian experts said at a disarmament conference on Tuesday.

The conference titled ‘New Vector’ was organized by the Gorchakov Public Diplomacy Fund and also involved US experts.

ST. PETERSBURG, October 1./TASS/: Relations between Russia and the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean are developing steadily, their cooperation is based on a foreign policy philosophy rooted in commitment to the principles of the UN Charter, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a letter welcoming the participants in the international forum entitled "Russia and Ibero-America in a Globalizing World."

MOSCOW, October 1. /TASS/: The work on adapting Soyuz-2.1b carrier rockets for orbitting Gonets-M communications satellites will be over in 2020 and the first such launch is scheduled for the summer of next year, Gonets Satellite System Company told TASS on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, October 1. /TASS/: The upgraded T-90M may become the main battle tank for the Russian Army, Uralvagonzavod Special Representative for Military and Technical Cooperation, Army General Alexei Maslov told TASS on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, October 1. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin inked a law on ratifying the Convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea, which confirms the exclusive competence of littoral states in solving issues related to this sea and takes into account the interests of security and protection of Russia’s state border.

The document was published on the official legal information portal on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, October 1. /TASS/: An officer from the Russian Investigative Committee, attacked with a knife earlier in the day, has died of a stab wound in an intensive therapy ward of Moscow’s Sklifosovsky Research Institute of Emergency Care, a medical source has told TASS.

"For all their efforts, medics have failed to save his life. Vladislav Kapustin has just died," the source said. Kapustin received a stab wound from an unidentified person at the public entrance to the Investigative Committee’s building.

ROSTOV-ON-DON, September 30. /TASS/: Platov International Airport (part of the holding Airports of the Regions) in Rostov-on-Don will launch flights to the Chinese city of Sanya in autumn and winter, the press service of the Platov airport told reporters on Monday.

"In autumn and winter, we expand the geography of flights abroad from Platov airport. A new destination will be the southernmost city of China — Sanya, located on the Island of Hainan. The schedule is currently being discussed," the airport’s press service said.

MOSCOW, September 30. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold separate meetings with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on October 1 in Yerevan, the Kremlin press service informed.

"Putin will hold talks with Prime Minister of Armenia Pashinyan and President of Iran Rouhani on the sidelines of the event [the Eurasian Economic Union summit — TASS]," the message informs.

ST. PETERSBURG, September 30. /TASS/: The Project 12700 latest minesweeper Vladimir Yemelyanov has left the Sredne-Nevsky Shipyard (part of the United Shipbuilding Corporation) quay and is heading for the Gulf of Finland for shipbuilders’ sea trials, the Shipyard’s press office reported on Monday.