Russia reported 1,252 COVID-19 fatalities on November 21, the fourth consecutive day of near-record fatalities over the entire pandemic.
The country reported a record 1,254 deaths on both November 19 and 20 and 1,251 on November 18.
Russia has been widely criticized for possibly manipulating its coronavirus statistics and understating the consequences of the pandemic. Russia's statistics include cases in the Ukrainian region of Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014.
Russia also reported 36,970 new infections on November 21.
Respected literary scholar, writer, and activist Marietta Chudakova died on November 21 of COVID-19 at Moscow's Kommunarka infectious-diseases hospital. The scholar, who was known for her research on writers including Yury Olesha, Mikhail Zoshchenko, and Yevgeny Zamyatin, was 85.
Screen and stage actor Valery Garkalin died of COVID-19 in Moscow on November 20 at the age of 67.
More than 264,000 Russians have died of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, according to official figures.
