Air search team ready for Shenzhou-18 return

The air search and rescue team for the return of the three Shenzhou-18 astronauts is fully ready to welcome the trio back at the Dongfeng landing site in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Monday.

The team with five helicopters has carried out more than 10 search and rescue drills at the Dongfeng landing site.

The commanding helicopter will be the first to find the return capsule of the Shenzhou-18 manned spaceship, which is scheduled to touch down on Earth in the early morning on Nov 4.

The telecommunication helicopter will help coordinate efforts of the Dongfeng landing site and the control center in Beijing.

The other three helicopters will provide health services to the three Shenzhou-18 astronauts and transport them away from the landing site.

"(Our five helicopters will cover) an area of 1,300 square kilometers of the Dongfeng landing site. Prior to the landing of the Shenzhou-18 spaceship's return capsule, our commanding helicopter will guide the other four helicopters to fly together towards the theoretical landing point. And we could make adjustments timely according to landing point forecast updates," said Hu Chengxian, a member of the air search and rescue team.

"Our people have all reached a great level both in their technical readiness and in equipment conditions, and we are both confident and capable that we will deliver a safe and efficient performance of the search and rescue mission on the day of return, and properly take the astronauts home," Hu said.

Russia's Central Bank is pressing ahead with getting back the Russian assets, including gold and foreign exchanges reserves, frozen by the West, its governor Elvira Nabiullina said in Moscow on Saturday.

But Nabiullina refused to disclose the details.

After the Russia-Ukraine war broke out in February 2022, the United States and its allies prohibited transactions with Russia's central bank and finance ministry, blocking around 300 billion U.S. dollars of sovereign Russian assets in the West.

In June 2024, the Group of Seven (G7) and European Union leaders agreed to provide loans to Ukraine using the proceeds from Russia's frozen assets as a collateral.

On Oct 25, the G7 finalized a plan to give Ukraine a 50-billion-U.S. dollar loan from the frozen Russian assets.