Armenian News - NEWS.am presents the daily digest of top news as of 03.03.22:

He was the only presidential candidate nominated by the ruling party.

Accordingly, 71 MPs took part in the respective voting, and all of them voted in favor.

To note, however, solely the ruling majority “Civil Contract” Faction in parliament voted.

The two opposition factions in parliament boycotted the elections.

According to the Armenian Constitution, at least two-thirds of the total number of votes of the MPs, or 81 votes in favor, are needed to elect the new president in the first round — but the parliament ruling majority faction has only 71 seats.

In the second round, however, the president is elected by three-fifths of the lawmakers—in this case, by 65 votes in favor.

Ex-president Armen Sarkissian had announced his resignation back in January citing lack of powers.

Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan, Armenian parliament  speaker Alen Simonyan have congratulated Vahagn Khachaturyan on elections. Russian leader Vladimir Putin has also sent a congratulatory message to Kachaturyan.

Head of the Russian delegation Vladimir Medinsky today noted that the Russian and Ukrainian delegations decided together to hold second talks in Belovezhskaya Pushcha.

"The Russian military provided a security corridor for the Ukrainian delegation," Medinsky said.   

Before talks, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and then with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The conversation with Putin, which lasted an hour and a half, is already the third in a row since the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis.

Meanwhile, Russian FM Sergy Lavrov noted that NATO and Ukraine are hatching a plan to unleash a real nuclear war against Russia.

The incident took place in the city of Kherson, where heated battles have been going on for the last few days. Kherson, as Russia announced Wednesday, has completely passed under the control of  Russia.

Military actions are in full swing in Ukraine.

The Russian troops rendered the reserve technological radio and television center in Kyiv inoperative, said Russian defense ministry spokesman, Major General Igor Konashenkov.

According to him, the security services of Ukraine used this radio and television center for "psychological operations against Russia," and no civilians were affected during the shelling.

Meanwhile, an advance team from the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague has left for Ukraine to begin investigating possible war crimes, the ICC chief prosecutor told Reuters.

At an emergency meeting of the UN General Assembly, 141 out of 193 member states voted for the resolution, 35 abstained, including Armenia, and five voted against.

Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea, Russia and Syria voted against the resolution.

Turkey voted in favor. While Azerbaijan did not participate in the vote.

Meanwhile, the whole world continues to impose new sanctions on Russia.

The World Bank announced the termination of all programs in Russia and Belarus, citing "military actions against the people of Ukraine."

The United States, in turn, in coordination with allies and partners, imposes additional sanctions against Russia and Belarus.

The EU has imposed several packages of sanctions on Russia, including a ban on exports to Russia of certain refining technologies from Europe, which makes it difficult and expensive to modernize Russian refineries. European Commissioner said the EU sanctions on Russia will gradually hit Moscow's oil revenues

Russia, in turn, reacted to sanctions and noted that they stopped supplying the US with rocket engines.

Moscow will also stop cooperating with Berlin on joint experiments on the Russian segment of the ISS and will conduct them independently.

The American dollar’s (USD) exchange rate against the Armenian dram (AMD) comprised AMD 496.48/$1 in Armenia on Thursday; this is up by AMD 7.12 from Wednesday, according to the official website of the Armenian Central Bank.

The exchange rate for one euro was AMD 550.40 (up by AMD 7.21), while the rate of one Russian ruble made up AMD 4.26 (down by AMD 0.31) in the country.

In its weekly pandemic report, the WHO said deaths have fallen by 10%, continuing the decline in deaths first seen last week.

The WHO said more than 10 million new cases and about 60,000 deaths have been reported worldwide.

The omicron variant remains dominant worldwide, the WHO added. None of the other worrying variants, including beta, gamma, lambda or mu, have been reported in the past month, although the WHO has said there are problems with surveillance in many countries.

Armenian officially confirmed COVID-19 cases have declined from nearly 1,000 cases to 200-300, while the total number has exceeded 420,000 cases.

The death toll in Armenia has reached 8,505.

Almost 2,000,000 COVID-19 vaccination doses have been given in Armenia, while over 870,000 people are fully vaccinated.

"After 95 international games, hard work, unprecedented ups and downs, I decided to stop playing for the Armenian national team,” he said in a statement.

Mkhitaryan noted that in the coming years, he will be fully focused on his club career.