MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Turkmenistan on December 5 to take part in a meeting of the CIS Council of the Heads of State, presidential adviser Yuri Ushakov told journalists on Tuesday.
BEIJING — The role of BRICS countries (an acronym standing for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) in the post-recession recovery of the global economy and the economic situation in these countries were in the focus of the first BRICS forum entitled “BRICS 2013: Challenges and Possibilities” that was held in Beijing on Tuesday.
MOSCOW — Guinea’s authorities have expressed deep gratitude to Russia for its humanitarian aid, the Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.
BRUSSELS — Russia will not challenge Turkey’s right to collective defence as a NATO member state under article five of the Washington Treaty, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday after a ministerial meeting of the Russia-NATO Council.
BRUSSELS — Russia has been regularly receiving assurances from the Syrian authorities that they are not going to use chemical weapons, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday after a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council.
BRUSSELS — Russia and NATO have agreed to continue their dialogue on the problem of missile defence, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday after a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council.
BRUSSELS — The U.S. Senate’s idea to ban any deals with Russia’s Rosoboronexport is harmful to the United States’ national interests and its cooperation with Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday after a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council.
MOSCOW — By the middle of the 21st century Russia may lose sovereignty, if it fails to clearly identify its national interests in the Arctic Region today, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Tuesday.
MOSCOW — Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has signed a decree, thus adopting a draft intergovernmental agreement with Serbia under which Russia will grant to Serbia a state export credit worth 800 million U.S. dollars for five years. The document was posted on the Russian government’s official website.
MOSCOW — The Russian government has redistributed subsidies from the federal budget for 2012 for the development of farming, since a number of regions have failed to timely create the conditions for their use. The total amount of redistributed subsidies amounts to nearly 54.5 billion roubles. The corresponding executive orders, signed by RF Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, are posted on the RF government website.
NEW YORK — American investors are planning to increase their capital investments in the Russian economy, according to the results of the Russia Day, held at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Monday.
MOSCOW — RUSAL and Interros have reached an agreement in principle on the settlement of the shareholder conflict over MMC Norilsk Nickel and envisaging the conclusion of an agreement between Interros headed by Vladimir Potanin, RUSAL of Oleg Deripaska and Millhouse of Roman Abramovich, it is said in the companies’ joint statement.
GORKI — Russia’s gas giant Gazprom still makes no announcement on a gas deal with China, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller told reporters on Tuesday. He did not answer the question whether progress in the talks on signing an agreement on gas supplies with China is expected.
MOSCOW — Investigators have asked to extend custody for former director of the "Expert" legal support center Yekaterina Smetanova and former director general of a warehouse of the Moscow military district Maxim Zakutailo, accused of fraud in the Oboronservis case, spokeswoman for Moscow's Khamovniki court Darya Lyakh told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
KIEV — Leader of the ruling Party of Regions Nikolai Azarov it is likely to take the post of prime minister, believe Ukrainian political scientists. According to them, no significant changes will take place in the Ukrainian Cabinet.
MOSCOW — Russia does not think its fixing different exports dues for oil produced at different fields is a problem within the World Trade Organization (WTO), director of the trade negotiations department of the Russian ministry of Economic development Maxim Medvedkov, who led the Russian delegation to WTO accession talks, told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
MOSCOW — Experts from India have arrived in Moscow in order to work jointly with the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) on the development of a multipurpose transport plane.
MOSCOW — Russia’s Reserve Fund has accumulated 1,906.89 billion roubles as of December 1, which equals to 61.40 billion U.S. dollars, the Finance Ministry said in its regular report.
GORKI — Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev acknowledged "calculation errors" during the shaping of the Russian pension system several years ago. He was speaking at a meeting with members of the all-Russian association "Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs" on Tuesday.
MOSCOW — Chairwoman of the State Duma Committee for Security and Counteraction to Corruption Irina Yarovaya from the United Russia faction offers to confiscate the property from the former state officials, who were found guilty of corruption. Yarovaya told a press conference on Tuesday that she will draft relevant amendments in the legislation.
MOSCOW — Lawmakers at the State Duma lower house of the Russian parliament did not support the proposal by their Communist colleagues to make second higher education free of charge. On Tuesday, the dedicated house committee rejected the relevant amendment to the draft basic law on education which is being prepared for the 2nd reading.
MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin fired director of the Investigative Committee department for the Kirov region Maj-Gen Alexander Panov, according to the Kremlin website.
MOSCOW — A Just Russia faction at the State Duma lower house of the Russian parliament submitted a bill proposing to have unscrupulous employers pay the cost of deportation of the illegal aliens, whose labor they used. The authors of the initiatives are A Just Russia leaders Sergei Mironov and Nikolai Levichev.
MOSCOW — The Committee of Civil Initiatives of Alexei Kudrin on Tuesday called for formulating a new “social pact” between the society and government. According to the authors of the statement “2012: the power and our common risks,” “the observance of this pact will give an opportunity to develop and implement a set of the most important and coordinated reforms of the political system, economy and social sphere.”
MOSCOW — The Moscow authorities have refused to authorize an opposition march on December 15 along a route chosen by the Opposition Coordination Council, Sergei Udaltsov, the Left Front coordinator, told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
KOROLEV — The Sea Launch spacecraft launch service that uses a mobile sea platform in the equatorial part of the Pacific Ocean has to carry out at least four blastoffs per year for its payback, President of the RKK Energia Rocket-Space Corporation Vitaly Lopota told reporters on Tuesday. The corporation manufactures and operates the DM-SL upper stages for the Zenit-3SL carrier rockets.
BRUSSELS — Russia and NATO are considering launching a new joint project on safe recycling of obsolete munitions stockpiled in Russia, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters on Tuesday in the run-up to the upcoming meeting of the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) at the level of Foreign Ministers.
MOSCOW — A military police will be formed in the Russian Armed Forces, Chief of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff Col. Gen. Valery Gerasimov said at a meeting with the military attaches on Tuesday.
MOSCOW — Member countries of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) will create this year the Military Committee of the Armed Forces of the Organisation, Chief of the General Staff of the RF Army, Colonel-General Valery Gerasimov said at a meeting with military attaches on Tuesday.
MOSCOW — A new state defense contract fulfilment monitoring agency will be set up at the Russian Defense Ministry, the Chief of the General Staff, Colonel-General Valery Gerasimov, said at a meeting with foreign military attaches at the Russian Army Cultural Center on Tuesday.
VLADIVOSTOK — The Indra 2012 naval exercises of Russian and Indian ships have taken place in the Arabian Sea. Taking part in them from the Russian side was the Marshal Shaposhnikov large anti-submarine ship, the Irkut sea tanker and the Alatau rescue tug of the RF Pacific Fleet. India was represented by the INS Tabar and INS Mysore missile destroyers.
MOSCOW — A squadron of ships of the Russian Pacific Fleet will arrive in the area of the Horn of Africa next week to fulfill a combat task of ensuring safety of civilian ship navigation, press service Chief of the Russian Pacific Fleet Captain First Rank Roman Martov told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
MOSCOW — The Borisoglebsk training centre of Russia’s Air Force (The Air Force Academy) has received three more new Yak-130 subsonic two-seat advanced jet trainers, Air Force spokesman Vladimir Deryabin told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
MOSCOW — Russian paratroopers will take part in a number of international exercises in 2013, spokesman for the Russian Airborne Troops Colonel Alexander Kucherenko told Itar-Tass.
MOSCOW – A heavy snowstorm enveloped the entire territory of the Moscow region in the small hours of Tuesday. Weather forecasters said a cyclone that has moved to Russia from the Balkans and has mixed up with warm southern masses of air along the way is likely to produce a snow cover 12 centimeters to 13 centimeters thick.
YEKATERINBURG – Hearings of a case of two skinheads affiliated with the Volkssturm grouping begin in the Sverdlovsk region court Tuesday. According to the information released by the press service of the court, the two young men. Alexander Solovyov and Alexander Minin have committed three murders, eight assassination attempts and no less than 26 attacks on non-Slavic-looking people.
MOSCOW — The third criminal case was opened against aide to the State Duma deputy Leonid Razvozzhayev for illegal border transgression on October 15, 2012, spokesman for the Russian Investigation Committee Vladimir Markin told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
MOSCOW — Investigators denied the reports alleging their refusal to open criminal cases on the strength of Kopeisk penitentiary inmates' complaints. "The reports by a number of Internet media alleging the resolutions not to open criminal cases at inmates' statements and a formal check into them are not true," an Investigative Committee /SK/ official told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
MOSCOW — Moscow prosecutors will supervise the probe into the criminal case over the beating of Rossiya Channel journalists at a city district administration building in October. "The Babushkinsky district prosecutor's office has agreed that opening a criminal case over the beating of a shooting team from the Rossiya Channel, at the Severnoye Medvedkovo administration building was legal, and will supervise the probe," a prosecutor told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
MOSCOW — Former chief of the Tsaritsyno police station Denis Yevsyukov, sentenced to life imprisonment for supermarket massacre, said he was ready to pay damages to the injured parties per ruling by Moscow's Nagatinsky court, but asked not to increase the sum.
ST PETERSBURG — The prosecutor for the state on Tuesday demanded nine years in a general regime penitentiary for Vyacheslav Datsik /alias "Redhead Tarzan"/ at the Nevsky district court of St.Petersburg where the parties began to present their arguments.
YEKATERINBURG — The suspected mastermind behind a contract hit in Yekaterinburg has been put on the Interpol wanted list, spokesman for the regional department of the Investigative Committee /SK/ Alexander Shulga told Itar-Tass on Tuesday. The suspected perpetrator of the murder is Alexei Savosin, a Russian and European powerlifting champion.
YEKATERINBURG — The Sverdlovsk regional court on Tuesday began the trial of members of an extremist group Volkssturm, accused of murders and attacks. The prosecutor for the state read the indictment. The next hearing is due on December 18. The court is expected to question witnesses.