Russia to suspend flights to Britain for a week

Russia suspended air traffic with the U.K. for one week starting from Tuesday, due to concerns over a new strain of the coronavirus detected in Britain. The U.K. was one of 16 countries Russia had resumed flights with after closing its borders in March in an effort to curb the spread of the virus.

"Aeroflot cancelled flights to London since midnight of 22 December, for seven days. The cancellation has been done in accordance with the decision of the (Russian) government," the press secretary of the Aeroflot Air Company Yulia Spivakova said on Tuesday.

Russia, which has so far registered more than 2.8 million confirmed cases of the virus and over 51,000 deaths in the pandemic, has been swept by a rapid resurgence of the outbreak this autumn, with numbers of infections and deaths significantly exceeding those reported in the spring.

Earlier this month, mass vaccinations started in Russia with Sputnik V - a domestically developed coronavirus vaccine that is yet to complete advanced studies among tens of thousands of people needed to ensure its safety and effectiveness. irill Dmitriyev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund that bankrolled Sputnik V's development, assured people on Monday that the shots were "highly effective against the mutation of the virus detected in Europe".