Russia

MOSCOW, June 5. /TASS/. The statement by US National Security Advisor John Bolton on Washington’s intent to challenge Russia in the Arctic is fraught with consequences for the region, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated during Wednesday’s press briefing.

On May 22, Bolton stated that the US aims to expand the number of icebreakers in the Arctic in order to "challenge growing Russian military influence" in the region.

MOSCOW, June 5. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that he had discussed pressing global issues with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping and noted that the two countries had similar or coinciding stances on key issues.

"We spoke about pressing global topics in detail," Putin said. "We confirmed that Russia’s and China’s stances on key global issues are similar or coincide, as diplomats say."

MOSCOW, June 5. /TASS/. The Project 12700 latest minesweeper Vladimir Yemelyanov will enter dockside trials in June this year, Russian Navy Commander-in-Chief Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov said at the Navy’s enlarged board meeting on Wednesday.

"The dockside tests of the mine countermeasures vessel Vladimir Yemelyanov will begin in June," the Defense Ministry’s newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda quoted the Navy chief as saying.

MOSCOW, June 4 (Xinhua) -- The statement by U.S. President Donald Trump about Russia notifying him that it had withdrawn its staff from Venezuela is a fake, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday.

"This is obvious to me," Lavrov said, answering a question by the RBC news agency if the Trump's statement was a fake, according to an official transcript of an excerpt from the interview posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry's web site.

MOSCOW, June 5 (Xinhua) -- China and Russia agreed on Wednesday to upgrade their relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era.

The decision was made at a meeting between visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

4 June 2019; DW: Russia's communications regulator said Monday that the popular Tinder dating app will be required to provide user data on demand to the country's intelligence agencies, including the FSB security service, successor to the KGB. 

The move from "Roskomnadzor," Russia's telecoms and media regulatory body, added Tinder to a growing list of online services operating in Russia that are required to provide user data.

MOSCOW, June 4. /TASS/: Russian Aerospace Defense Forces have successfully test-launched a new interceptor missile from the territory of Kazakhstan, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.

"Another test-launch of a new Russian interceptor missile was successfully conducted by the Russian Aerospace Defense Forces from the Sary-Shagan training range in Kazakhstan," the defense ministry said.

MOSCOW, June 4. /TASS/: The decision of the Rules Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to invite the Russian delegation to the summer session facilitates resumption of constructive dialogue and serves as recognition that sanctions against Russia were misguided, Russian State Duma Deputy Speaker Pyotr Tolstoy said on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, June 3. /TASS/: Eighteen people have been hospitalized following explosions at the Kristall factory in the Russian town of Dzerzhinsk in the Nizhny Novgorod Region, Deputy Emergency Situations Minister Viktor Yakutsenko told TASS.

"116 people were injured, with 18 of them hospitalized," he said at a video conference in the Ministry on Monday.

On Saturday, June 1, a number of explosions went off in a TNT workshop of the Kristall factory, a fire ensued. The authorities declared a state of emergency in the town and the nearby villages.

MOSCOW, June 3. / Tass /: The shipment of clean oil to Hungary and Slovakia via the Druzhba main oil pipeline is working as usual, and deliveries of clean oil to Poland may start as early as June 8-9, Transneft spokesman Igor Dyomin told reporters on Monday.

"Oil at the delivery point (PSP) Budkovice (Slovakia) and Feneslytke (Hungary) has entered a normal mode. In Belarus, oil with excess organochlorine continues to be pumped out, from the PSP Adam's Zastava (Poland). Presumably, clean oil will reach PSP on June 8-9," he said.