Moscow region to be partly cloudy Wednesday afternoon.

MOSCOW, January 5 (Itar-Tass) - Moscow City and Moscow region will be
mostly overcast Wednesday, but occasional appearances of the Sun are
possible.i
The averaged air temperatures in the capital will stand at minus 13
degrees Celsius to minus eleven degrees.
In various parts of the Moscow region, the temperature bracket during
the daytime will be minus 9 to minus 14 degrees.
Forecasting experts from Russia's Federal Service for Hydrometeorology
and Environment Monitoring /Rosgidromet/ say the wind will mostly be
western, blowing at 2 m per second to 7 m per second.
Overnight to Thursday, a slight snow will be possible amid the air
temperatures minus12 to minus 10 in the city and minus 14 to minus 9.
Slight snow will continue Thursday, January 6. The air will be minus 8
to minus 6 degrees Celsius in Moscow and minus 5 to minus 10 across the
region.
Formation of a highly dangerous, slight icy film on the pavements will
be possible during the day.

.Russian trawler safely escorted to ice free waters from hummock ice
trap.

VLADIVOSTOK, January 5 (Itar-Tass) - An operation to rescue the Mys
Yelizavety trawler from a trap in hummocked ice in the Sakhalin Bay has
reached a successful completion in the Sea of Okhotsk.
The Admiral Makarov icebreaker that took the Mys Yelizavety to the
clear waters is now moving at full tilt to help the icebreaker Magadan,
which took part in the escorting effort but got stuck in the ice itself,
spokespeople for the Far-Eastern Shipping Line told Itar-Tass.
The Mys Yelizavety got to the ice-free water area at 12:00 hours sharp
Vladivostok time.
Given that the Magadan, too, has stuck in the thick ice filling the
spaces of the Sakhalin Bay, the number of ships drifting amid ice floes
towards the shore has again increased to five.
A total of three ships - the Sodruzhetsvo floating factory, the Bereg
Nadezhny refrigerating ship, and the Professor Kizivetter, all of them
registered in the port of Vladivostok - found themselves stranded in the
ice December 30. They are located at a distance of eleven to twelve
nautical miles away from Sakhalin's shore.
One more ship, the Anton Gurin trawler registered in St Petersburg,
joined the trapped ships January 3.
The Magadan, a port area icebreaker, has the technical characteristics
largely inferior to those of the Admiral Makarov. It has a length of 88
meters and a capacity of 13,000 horse-powers.
The Admiral Makarov has the length of 135 meters and the capacity for
12,000 horse-powers.
Prior to the latter ship's arrival, the Magadan's crew had been doing
its best to get to the stranded crews but could not reach them closer than
at a distance of 3 miles.
A mass of ice floes has been driven into the Sakhalin Bay by northern
winds.
The ice is covered with hummocks and its thickness reaches 2 meters in
some spots.
The total number of seamen trapped by the ice at present stands at
around 500. The Sodruzhestvo floating factory has the largest crew of 340
persons.
The crew of the Mys Yelizavety, which has been rescued from the icy
captivity, has a 78-strong crew.
-0-kle