Russia reports record daily COVID-19 death toll of 786

Russia reported 786 coronavirus-related deaths on Wednesday, the most confirmed in a single day since the beginning of the pandemic, and 23,827 new cases nationwide.

Russia faces a surge in cases that authorities have blamed on the more infectious Delta variant and a slow rate of vaccinations.

The government's coronavirus task force said the official national COVID-19 case tally now stood at 5,857,002. It said the national death toll had risen to 145,278.

The federal statistics agency has kept a separate count and said Russia recorded around 290,000 deaths related to COVID-19 from April 2020 to May 2021.