Russia

MOSCOW, March 29. /TASS/. Washington will never remove sanctions on Moscow because this is what its policies have been based on for years, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said while answering questions from users of the VKontakte social network on Friday.

KALININGRAD, March 29. /TASS/. More than 450,000 forcibly displaced refugees from Ukraine have sought shelter in Russia since 2014. Kirill Adzinov, head of the Directorate for the Organization of Visa Issuance of the Main Directorate for Migration Issues of the Russian Interior Ministry, said about it at a session of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference (BSPC) in Kaliningrad on Friday.

KRASNOYARSK, March 29. /TASS/. The Russian Export Center, Rail Cargo Logistics-RUS and the Fesco Group have signed a trilateral agreement to launch a joint service for the delivery of export cargos to China, President of the Fesco Group, Aleksandrs Isurins, told TASS.

Signed at the Krasnoyarsk Economic Forum, the agreement provides for delivery of non-oil and gas exports in container trains from the Siberian Federal District, in particular, the cities of Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk, to China by railroad and via the Vladivostok Commercial Sea Port.

WASHINGTON, March 30. /TASS/. A package of documents for deporting to the home country Russian national Maria Butina, charged with conspiracy to act as a foreign agent in the US, has been submitted to the judge, according to the court’s electronic database.

"It is hereby ordered… that the defendant is ordered removed from the United States to the Russian Federation promptly upon her sentencing," reads the draft order of judicial removal, submitted for signing to Judge Tanya Chutkan.

MOSCOW, March 28; GANASHAKTI:  Russian military experts will remain in Venezuela as long as the republic’s government needs it, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at Thursday’s briefing.

"How long? As long as they need it, and as long as the Venezuelan government needs them. It all is being done based on bilateral agreements," the diplomat said in response to a question. "There are international and bilateral legal frameworks for it."

MOSCOW, March 27. /TASS/. US journalists, who have been making groundless accusations against Russia of the 2016 US presidential election meddling, should now apologize to the domestic and Russian audience, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Tuesday evening.

MOSCOW, March 27. /TASS/. The annual Russian-Chinese Maritime Cooperation-2019 naval exercise will be held in late April and early May, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, March 27. /TASS/. Russian Space Systems (RSS) has developed a space system capable of taking hold of decommissioned satellites in the Earth’s orbit to grind and process them into fuel, Project Developer and RSS Research Engineer Marina Barkova told TASS on Wednesday.

The space debris disposal system will be able to capture "decommissioned small satellites in low orbits (from 500 to 700 km)," the engineer said.

MOSCOW, March 27. /TASS/. Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied on Wednesday media reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu allegedly handed over to President Vladimir Putin some plan regarding the resolution of the ongoing conflict in Syria.

"I cannot confirm this information," Peskov said. "In this case details must be apparently clarified to establish what plan we are talking about here and what [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu meant when he spoke about it."

MOSCOW, March 27. /TASS/. Unilateral approaches of the US and its allies increase tensions in the world and defy international law, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a session of the Alexander Gorchakov Public Diplomacy Fund’s Board of Trustees.

Efforts taken by public diplomacy "play a major role in maintaining trust and mutual understanding between the peoples, between the civic societies," the top diplomat stressed.