Russia is planning to restart few international flights from August 1, Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova mentioned on Friday, but the list of the destinations is going to be limited initially to Tanzania, Turkey, and the UK.
The international flights got grounded on March 30 following the imposition of lockdown measures to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus or COVID-19, which has infected over 800,000 in Russia.
COVID-19 in Russia
Golikova said the decreasing number of coronavirus infections had allowed Russia to resume flights from airports in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Rostov-on-Don. Specifically, she said flights would resume between London in the United Kingdom, Turkish cities Istanbul and Ankara and the island of Zanzibar in Tanzania from August 1. More holiday destinations in Turkey would be added from Aug. 10, Golikova added.
Golikova said that Russia would take care to ensure that the resumption in flights "does not lead to a new appearance of imported (coronavirus) cases on Russian territory". Russia continues to report thousands of new COVID-19 infections daily. Its nationwide tally is 800,849, the fourth-highest in the world, with 13,046 deaths.
(With agency inputs)
