MOSCOW, April 13. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will hold an online video conference for reporters on Tuesday at 12:00 for the first time, the Russian Foreign Ministry informed. Fifteen representatives of Russian and foreign media will take part in the conference.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Lavrov used to meet with reporters on a regular basis. Press conferences were organized after nearly every visit of his foreign colleagues to Russia, during which the Russian top diplomat gave his opinion on the state of bilateral relations with other countries and on the current international issues. He followed the same procedure during foreign trips. Lavrov used to hold two or three press conferences a week, which allowed the media to obtain information about Russia’s stance on the situation in Syria, Ukraine or any other region in the world.

However, the coronavirus pandemic has changed the established practice. Visits of foreign guests to Russia and vice versa have been suspended. The self-isolation regime rules out holding the usual press conferences. The last time Lavrov spoke to the press in person was during his visit to Helsinki on March 3. On March 18, after the visit of Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto to Moscow, the ministers made a joint statement on the outcomes of the meeting without the media present. Since then, Lavrov has held talks with his foreign colleagues on the phone.

International issues continue to pile up. Naturally, everyone is concerned about international cooperation in the fight against the coronavirus and its negative consequences. However, foreign policy issues did not disappear during the pandemic, and in some regions, the pandemic can exacerbate the dramatic situation in some states. Terrorists continue to attack areas in Syria’s Idlib. Reports of shelling of civilian areas come in from Donbass. The US has published a new plan for the democratization of Venezuela, which essentially demands the resignation of Nicolas Maduro’s government. There have been reports in Western media attempting to blame Moscow for the disinformation campaign during the pandemic. It seems that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is set to remind Russia’s foreign partners that the country can lead a successful fight against the virus at home and help its friends and partners abroad while defending its interests.

To date, a total of 18,328 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 1,470 patients having recovered from the virus. Russia’s latest data indicates 148 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.

In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 1,800,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 114,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 428,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.