Russia

MOSCOW, September 18. /TASS/: Washington’s destructive actions are impeding efforts to dismantle the Rukban refugee camp in Syria, head of Russia’s National Defense Management Center Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev said at a joint meeting of the Russian and Syrian coordination centers for the return of refugees on Wednesday.

Moreover, the operation to dismantle the camp is on the verge of collapse because of provocations staged by US-controlled militants, Mikhail Mizintsev claimed.

MOSCOW, September 18. /TASS/: Situation in Syria will stabilize only after full withdrawal of US troops and handover of occupied territories to the Syrian government, head of Russia’s National Defense Management Center Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev said.

MOSCOW, September 18. /TASS/: Russian border guards have detained over 160 North Korean crewmembers from two poaching vessels in the Sea of Japan, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Public Relations Center told TASS on Wednesday. Some of the detained are injured.

"As a result of coordinated action by the coast guard, aviation and special purpose units, the border guards have detained 2 schooners, 11 motorboats, and 161 citizens of the DPRK. Several foreigners are injured, they have been provided with the required medical aid," the center informed.

MOSCOW, September 17. /TASS/: The Moscow City Court has upheld a lower court’s decision to extend the remand of Paul Whelan, an American national charged with espionage in Russia, a TASS correspondent reported from the courtroom.

"The Court hereby upholds the decision made by a court of first instance and rejects the defense’s appeal," the judge announced.

Tuesday’s hearing took place behind closed doors since the case concerns information constituting state secrets. The investigation of the case is over and the defense has begun to study the case files.

MOSCOW, September 17. /TASS/: So far, there are no results of the internal probe at the Russian Investigative Committee held in the wake of reporter Ivan Golunov’s case, the investigation is ongoing, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"I can only say that a probe is ongoing at the Russian Investigative Committee. So far, there are no results," Peskov stated.

GELENDZHIK, September 17. /TASS/: The professional community of Russian geneticists is working on a message to Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova with a request for freezing genome editing-related experiments, the chief specialist in medical genetics of the Russian Health Ministry, Sergei Kutsev, told the biomedical technologies forum Biotechmed-2019 on Tuesday.

STAR CITY /Moscow Region/, September 17. /TASS/: Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononeko believes that in certain situations space crews returning from the International Space Station may need weapon, while the current emergency kits include no arms at all.

"A re-entry capsule may touch the surface at any point on the globe. Possibly, this may happen in hard-to-access areas, so we may need a special knife to build a shelter. Possibly, we will need weapons, because wild animals are still there," Kononeko told a news conference at the space training center on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, September 17. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday he is proud that Russia’s relations with Israel have reached the highest ever level.

"We in Russia pay much attention to the development of comprehensive and mutually beneficial relations with Israel. And we want to build them in a partner, constructive spirit," Putin said at a congress of the Israeli charity foundation Keren Hayesod.

MOSCOW, September 17. /TASS/: Soviet intelligence agents couldn’t have ‘stolen’ nuclear weapons in the 1940s because without fundamental scientific developments this data would have been useless, Mikhail Kovalchuk, the president of the Kurchatov Institute that created the first Soviet nuclear bomb in 1949, said on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, September 17. /TASS/: Washington’s aggressive and short-sighted steps, particularly, its decision to abandon commitments to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, are alarming, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Director Sergei Naryshkin said at a roundtable devoted to the history of the Soviet nuclear project.