Russian mission

The letter contained evidence that Ukraine shelled the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant on August 29.
"We sent a letter to the members of the UN Security Council with information from the Russian Ministry of Defense about the Ukrainian shelling of Zaporizhzhya on August 29," the letter states, as TASS reports.

A spacewalk by two Russians on Aug. 17 was ended abruptly due to a problem with the battery in cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev's suit, though at no point was he in any danger, the US and Russian space agencies said.

The 70 Russian diplomatic officials expelled from Bulgaria are leaving our country today with their families. Two flights will take between 160 and 170 people.

The Russian Federation has requested permission to operate the two flights.

On the first day of its presidency of the Council of the European Union, the Czech Republic announced that it was reducing the staff of the Russian embassy in Prague to the number of Czech officials in Moscow.

The news was announced by the country's foreign minister Jakub Kulhanek at a press conference after a government meeting, quoted by Bulgarian media "SEGA".

"Calls for support for Russian troops are absolutely unacceptable". This is the position of the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in connection with a post on social networks of the Russian Embassy, ​​which calls for donations for Russian soldiers.

In a mocking tone, which has become a trademark of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Sergei Lavrov proposed that NATO, "in case of urgent matters", address the Russian Embassy in Brussels, which is in fact in charge exclusively of bilateral relations between Russia and Belgium.

Lavrov said that Moscow, as of November 1, in response to the revocation of accreditations for eight associates of the Russian Mission to the Alliance, is suspending the work of its permanent mission to NATO, as well as the main military representative.

NATO has confirmed that Russia's mission to the alliance would be halved from 20 to 10 positions, the alliance's press service told TASS on Wednesday.

"We can confirm that we have withdrawn the accreditation of 8 members of the Russian Mission to NATO," the official said alleging that those members were undeclared Russian intelligence officers.

The article, referencing intelligence sources and published by the highly regarded Respekt weekly magazine, set off a burst of curt and conflicting statements from Prague and Moscow in a diplomatic dust-up that threatens to escalate. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman dismissed the report as fake, and the foreign ministry in Moscow demanded action. 

The head of Russia's Roscosmos space agency has said that a proposed Russian mission to the moon will be tasked with verifying that the American moon landings were real.