Moscow says ties with China are at post-Cold War peak; Russia scrambles to deal with massive floods

Relations between Russia and China have reached an “unprecedented” level, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday following talks with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing.

Lavrov said cooperation between the nations “exceeds ... the military-political alliances of the Cold War, and is not directed against any third party.”

In other news, Russian authorities are scrambling to deal with massive flooding in the south of the country, with thousands of homes flooded after the Ural River, Europe’s third-longest river, burst through a dam last Friday.

Floodwaters are expected to rise today in the Orenburg region, putting parts of the region’s capital at risk, Russian news agencies reported.

Floods are threatening Russia’s southern Kurgan region, putting more than 19,000 people’s lives at risk, the state news agency said on Tuesday, days after unprecedented flooding displaced thousands of people and inundated a city in the Ural region.

Citing the local branch of Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations, TASS news agency reported that at least 4,000 homes could also be affected. Emergency measures were put in place in the region, it added.

Some of the worst floods in decades have hit a string of Russian regions in the Ural Mountains and Siberia, alongside parts of neighbouring Kazakhstan in recent days, after Europe’s third-longest river burst through a dam.

In the city of Orsk in the Orenburg region, angry residents asked President Vladimir Putin for help, complaining that their local officials had not done enough to help with the worst flooding on record.