Russia

The British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca will investigate whether the corona vaccine, developed together with the University of Oxford, can be combined with the Russian Sputnik V vaccine.   AstraZeneca is entering into a collaboration with the Gamaleja Institute, which developed the Russian vaccine. The Sputnik V corona vaccine is more than 90 percent effective, according to the developers, while that of AstraZeneca has an effectiveness of more than 70 percent. This may also be increased to 90 percent through a combination of doses, but this is still being investigated. The developers of the Russian vaccine had already proposed on Twitter last month to combine the two vaccines. Both the Oxford vaccine and the Russian vaccine are based on a harmless virus to instruct...

Former shareholders of the Russian oil company Yukos may continue to claim 57 billion dollars in damages from Russia.   The Russian state asked the Supreme Court to suspend the payment of that compensation as long as an appeal case is still pending with the highest judicial body in the Netherlands. That request was denied. Yukos was one of Russia's largest oil and gas companies. The company was nationalized at the beginning of this century after the arrest and conviction of its owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who went behind bars for fraud and large-scale tax evasion. After the nationalization of the company, it was sold in parts to competitors. The former shareholders were left empty-handed. In an arbitration case, which took place in The Hague, the Russian government was ordered in...

Russia has reported nearly 22,000 new corona infections, the most massive daily increase since the start of the pandemic.   Catering establishments in the capital Moscow will be faced with stricter measures in the coming weeks to prevent further spread of the virus. Nightclubs, restaurants and cafes are no longer allowed to serve customers between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. until mid-January. Russia, with approximately 145 million inhabitants, is one of the countries worldwide that reported the most infections. Only in the US, India, Brazil and France have more people been diagnosed with the virus. In some areas outside Moscow, hospitals are struggling with the influx of corona patients, according to Russian media. Earlier this year, Moscow was subject to a strict lockdown. The mayor of...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered that greenhouse gas emissions in Russia be reduced by 70 percent compared to the year 1990.   That goal must be achieved by 2030 at the latest, according to the decree issued by the Kremlin on Wednesday. It also mentions that the warming of the climate in Russia is going faster than in other parts of the world. Scientists are particularly concerned about the thawing of the permafrost layer in the Siberian soil, releasing massive amounts of methane gas. Putin's decree was issued the day the United States formally left the Paris Climate Agreement. Climate scientists around the world warn that firm measures are needed to prevent the Earth from warming by more than 2 degrees from pre-industrial temperatures. Russia, the world's largest cou...

Massive vaccinations against the coronavirus will start in the coming months in the Russian capital Moscow. That starts between December and January, Mayor Sergej Sobjanin wrote on his blog on Monday.   The first significant deliveries of the first Russian vaccine will arrive next month. "That will be the ultimate victory over the pandemic," said Sobjanin. The Russian vaccine called 'Sputnik-V' had already been released in August. There was international criticism for approval before the completion of significant tests. Large-scale phase III studies are currently underway. A second vaccine developed in Russia has now also been released. In the largest country in the world in terms of surface area, the number of new infections has been rising rapidly for weeks. According to officia...

The mayor of Moscow is calling on companies to allow their employees to work from home as much as possible from Monday. The number of corona infections in Russia has recently broken new records.   Mayor Sergei Sobjanin of the capital also advises anyone with chronic health problems and people over 65 to stay at home as much as possible. With more than 1.1 million infections, Russia is one of the countries with the highest number of corona infections worldwide. In the past 24 hours, 7,212 new infections were added, the highest number since June 23. In the last 24 hours, 108 people have died from the effects of the virus, according to national figures. The largest concentration of new infections is in and around Moscow. On Friday, Poland and Slovakia also reported record numbers ...