Russia

MOSCOW, September 24. /TASS/: Russia’s non-resource and non-energy exports will exceed last year’s result of $151.4 bln by the end of 2019, Director General of the Russian Export Center (REC) Andrey Slepnev told TASS on Tuesday.

"I think that this year’s result will slightly exceed (the result of last year - TASS), we expect that considering the recent dynamics," he said, adding that in 2018 exports amounted to $151.4 bln.

MOSCOW, September 24. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold a meeting with his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro on September 25, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"Maduro will make a working visit, there will be a one-on-one meeting with Putin tomorrow, followed by Russian-Venezuelan talks in the form of a working lunch," he said.

MOSCOW, September 24. /TASS/: The United States has broken international rules by failing to issue visas to Russian senators for taking part in the UN General Assembly’s session, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Peskov has dismissed the situation as unacceptable, stressing that this demands a tough response by both Moscow and the United Nations.

KAZAN, September 23. /TASS/: Head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Naryshkin thinks that there has been some improvement in the relations between Moscow and Kiev, however, a lot depends on the Ukrainian government, he said on Monday on the outcomes of the meeting between security and intelligence chiefs of the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States).

MOSCOW, September 23. /TASS/: Oil supplies via the Druzhba pipeline were resumed on Monday after Sunday’s incident with the Polish operator PERN was eliminated, spokesman of Russia's pipeline company Transneft Igor Demin told reporters.

"Supplies via the Druzhba oil pipeline suspended due to the incident with the Polish operator PERN that occurred yesterday at 6:50 p.m. causing a minor oil flow, were resumed today at 04:05 a.m. (Warsaw time)," he said.

MOSCOW, September 23. /TASS/: Iran’s authorities have freed the British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero, which was detained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps in the Strait of Hormuz, Sky News Arabia reported on Monday.

Iranian Government Spokesman Ali Rabiei said "legal procedures on releasing the British tanker have been completed." However, he gave no exact date when the vessel would leave Iran’s coast.

MOSCOW, September 22. /TASS/: Russian Defense Minister Army General Sergei Shoigu is convinced that Russia and Ukraine will live in peace and have good neighborly relations in the future.

In his interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets, published on Sunday, Shoigu highlighted that Ukrainians were Russia’s brotherly nation. "And I am absolutely convinced that we will live in peace and have good neighborly ties with the Ukrainian people. I’m sure that the time for this will come."

MOSCOW, September 22. /TASS/: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has revealed that several more attempts to assassinate him have been thwarted since the August 2018 drone attack in Caracas.

"After this assassination plot we have foiled several other attempts to kill me. All of them had been staged by Colombia with Washington’s approval," Maduro has told Rossiya-1 TV channel. "It’s regrettable that they have started using purely criminal methods and are trying to carry out political murder to remove the president," Maduro said.

MOSCOW, September 22. /TASS/: Russia’s Kalibr cruise missile was finetuned after it had been used during the campaign in Syria, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in his interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets published on Sunday.

The minister noted that an instruction to finetune the Kalibr missile had been given by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Shoigu explained that earlier it "took so long to upload a flight mission for the Kalibr missile that a target could be missed." "Today it takes much less to upload a flight mission for Kalibr," the minister said.

MOSCOW, September 22. /TASS/: British citizen Charlie Rowley, who was allegedly exposed to Novichok nerve agent in Amesbury last summer, is planning to sue the Russian state and demand a compensation of 1 mln pound sterling ($1.25 mln), The Mirror newspaper reported citing his lawyer Patrick Maguire.