MOSCOW, November 20. /TASS/. The inter-agency task force established at the direction of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu helped provide timely aid in the fight against the pandemic to Italy, Serbia, the US and a number of other states, chief of Russia’s National Defense Control Center, Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev said on Friday.
He noted that the work of the task force and the active participation of the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Federal Customs Service and the FSB helped provide aid in the fight against the novel coronavirus in an unprecedently quick manner to Russia’s foreign partners in Abkhazia, Armenia, Italy, Serbia, South Ossetia and the US.
Mizintsev informed that within this effort, nearly 10,000 people had received medical aid, 139 settlements had been disinfected, with the total disinfected area covering over 4 mln square meters.
"Units of the Russian Aerospace Forces, along with the involved federal executive government bodies, have carried out tasks on transporting Russian citizens from China and delivering basic necessities by heavy transport aircrafts An-124 "Ruslan". In total, 214 specialists and 43 units of equipment of five consolidated squads of the Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, and over 2,500 tonnes of medical and other equipment, have been transported," Mizintsev said.
In cooperation with the federal and regional executive bodies, the Russian Defense Ministry constructed 25 modern multifunctional medical centers with 2,490 hospital beds. "This helped increase the capacity of the regional healthcare infrastructure in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. Besides, five more hospitals are in the final stages of construction currently. Six mobile hospitals have been additionally deployed in the Republics of Dagestan, Tuva and Khakassia, as well as in the Transbaikal and Krasnoyarsk Regions, which provided qualified medical aid to over 800 citizens. About 6,000 people have received medical consultations," the defense official said.