Russia

LANGKAWI /Malaysia/, March 26. /TASS/. Sanctions and political environment won’t affect the deliveries of Russian Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets to Indonesia, Deputy Director of Russia’s Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation Mikhail Petukhov told TASS on Tuesday.

Earlier reports said Russia and Indonesia had signed a contract on the supplies of 11 Su-35 fighter jets.

25 Mar 2019; DW: Two planes loaded with Russian soldiers and military equipment landed in Venezuela at the weekend, officials said.

The delivery is part of ongoing cooperation between the two nations.

What we know so far

MOSCOW, March 25. /TASS/. Outside pressure in the form of sanctions has become an incentive to resolve various issues of Russia’s economy, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev stated in an interview with the Izvestiya daily.

He noted that through introducing sanctions against Russia, "the West aims to destabilize Russia’s economy and to create social and political tensions in society."

MOSCOW, March 24. /TASS/. The West is doing its utmost to conceal information about the real situation in Crimea from the rest of the world because it is afraid that the peninsula will be recognized as Russia’s territory, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on her Facebook page on Sunday.

MOSCOW, March 23. /TASS/. Russia’s Aerospace Force has twice scrambled the on-duty Su-27 fighter jets over the past 24 hours to intercept US Air Force (USAF) B-52H Stratofortress strategic bombers operating in international airspace over the Baltic Sea, Russia’s National Defense Control Center said on Saturday.

"Two US aircraft had been detected by the Russian airspace monitoring system at a considerable distance from the state border of the Russian Federation and then were taken to escort," the statement says.

Moscow, Mar 23; AFP/GANASHAKTI:  Several thousand supporters of Russia's Communist Party rallied in Moscow against government policies, with some attacking President Vladimir Putin who they said was personally responsible for entrenched corruption and rising prices.

The Communists had called on Russians to take to the streets across the country to protest the latest raft of repressive laws and falling living standards.

The Moscow rally featured both young and elderly protesters and was led by veteran Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, 74.

MOSCOW, March 22 (Xinhua) -- Russia will take necessary measures if the United States implements its plans to conduct anti-missile tests, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday.

The ministry said it noted recent reports by U.S. media about Pentagon's intention to test the SM-3 Block IIA interceptor against intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) in 2020 and recalled similar plans announced in U.S. Missile Defense Review published in January.

MOSCOW, March 22. /TASS/. The NATO airstrike on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade on May 7, 1999, could have been deliberate, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview for NTV’s "U-Turn Above the Atlantic" documentary.

"I think it was an accident but I am not completely sure," Lavrov said when asked to comment on the airstrike.

MOSCOW, March 21. /TASS/. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at last month’s meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Munich failed to present a single shred of evidence that Russia was in breach of the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, responding to Stoltenberg’s claims that NATO was certain about Moscow’s violations of the agreement.

MOSCOW, March 21 (Xinhua) -- The first flight of the new Russian military transport aircraft Il-112V will take place at the end of March or the beginning of April, local media reported Thursday.

"Everything is ready, all issues with engines have been resolved," TASS news agency quoted a source in the defense industry as saying.

Il-112V will be accompanied by an An-26 aircraft on its maiden flight. "The An-26 will fly in parallel, at the same altitude and speed, to monitor the operation parameters of different systems," the source added.