Russia grateful to US for help in fighting pandemic – deputy FM

Moscow is grateful to the US for providing help to counter the coronavirus pandemic, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Friday. “Yesterday, we received the first shipment of 50 ventilators from the US. We believe that these gestures are perfectly natural. They are exclusively of humanitarian nature, and we are grateful to the US side for the help provided at this stage,” Ryabkov said.

The diplomat noted that on April 1 an An-124 jet delivered medical equipment to New York including 45 ventilators, 15,000 respirators and 1,000,000 masks as part of humanitarian aid to the US.

“I believe that this is a significant contribution to the fight advanced by the authorities of New York City and the State of New York, particularly in early April,” TASS quoted Ryabkov as saying.

On Thursday, US C-17 military transport aircraft with the first shipment of 50 American ventilators landed at Moscow’s Vnukovo-3 airport. Overall, the US is aiming to donate 200 ventilators.