Russia

MOSCOW, July 6. /TASS/: The chief of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Mark Green, has presented a strategy on ‘countering malign Kremlin influence,’ the organization said on its website on Friday.

The document features measures to counter Russia’s influence in Europe, in particular in Moldova and Ukraine.

The concept "responds to the challenge of the Kremlin’s malign influence by building the economic and democratic resilience of targeted countries."

MOSCOW, July 6. /TASS/: Later this month, a group of Russian scientists will embark upon an expedition to study Baikal seals, or nerpas - a species of freshwater earless seal endemic to Siberia’s Lake Baikal, the press service of the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution said.

KRASNODAR, July 6. /TASS/: The pleasure boat that capsized in the Black Sea near the coastal town of Dzhubga late on Friday killing two people had 55 people on board, head of the Tuapse district Anatoly Rusin told TASS on Saturday.

Earlier reports said that it had 43 people on board. According to head of the company that manufactured the vessel, it was built in 2008. The warranty period was six years, and it was to be scrapped after that. The boat was designed to carry 12 people, including the crew, meaning it was overloaded almost five-fold.

TULUN /Irkutsk Region/, July 6. /TASS/: More than 400 people have been taken to hospitals following heavy floods in East Siberia’s Irkutsk Region, Russia’s Deputy Minister for Civil Defense, Emergency Situations and Disaster Relief Pavel Baryshev said at a meeting of the commission on the issue of floods in the Irkutsk Region.

As of the middle of Friday, 22 people were reported dead, 15 people missing and over 330 hospitalized as a result of floods in the Irkutsk Region.

MOSCOW (AP) — One evening last summer, Mikhail Khachaturyan decided that his living room wasn’t tidy enough, so he summoned his three teenage daughters one by one and doused each with pepper spray.

SEVASTOPOL, July 5. /TASS/: A task force of the Black Sea Fleet has started scheduled combat training amid NATO’s Sea Breeze-2019 drills, the Fleet’s press service said on Friday.

"While fulfilling the goals, the task force of Russian warships has started practicing a number of scheduled combat training events in the Black Sea waters," the statement said.

The Black Sea Fleet’s drills involve some 10 warships, including large amphibious ships Azov and Cezar Kunikov, small-size missile ships Orekhovo-Zuyevo and Mirazh, and some guided-missile boats.

TASS, July 5: A Russian Su-27 fighter jet of the Air Force in the Southern Military District was scrambled to intercept a US Boeing P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft approaching Russia’s border, the Defense Ministry said on Friday.

"A Su-27 fighter jet of the Air Force on duty in the Southern Military District was scrambled to intercept a target," the ministry said.

4 July 2019; DW: Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that the defense minister had assured
him that the stricken submarine's nuclear reactor had been contained. 

"...The Nuclear reactor on the vessel is completely isolated and unmanned. All the necessary measures were taken by the crew to protect the reactor which is in complete working order," Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told Putin, according to a Kremlin transcript.

KRASNOYARSK, July 4. /TASS/: The area of the burning taiga in the Krasnoyarsk Region has reached 112,000 hectares on Thursday, the regional forest fire center reported.

"According to the information collected, at 12:00 (8:00 Moscow time) on July 4, 2019, 149 forest fires were active on the territory of the region on a total area of 112,459 hectares <...>. There is no threat to communities," the report says.

3 July 2019; DW: The Russian Defense Ministry on Tuesday said 14 people on board one of its deep-sea submarines were killed when a fire broke out.

"On July 1, a fire broke out during biometric measurements on a scientific research deep-sea submersible," the defense ministry said in comments carried by state media. "Work is underway to establish the cause of the incident."