MOSCOW

Russia registered a new record number of coronavirus-related deaths on Wednesday while daily recoveries outnumbered new cases for the first time in two months.

The virus claimed 456 more lives over the last 24 hours, taking the death toll to 34,387, according to the official figures reported by the emergency task force.

Meanwhile, for the first time since Sept.16, daily recoveries outnumbered new cases, with 25,179 patients discharged from hospitals since Tuesday against 20,985 more people testing positive for COVID-19.

Over 1.99 million people have contracted the virus in Russia since the beginning of the pandemic, and more than 1.5 million of them recovered so far.

The number of active cases has dropped for the second consecutive day, currently standing at 456,528.

Russia's overall case tally is the fifth highest in the world, behind the US, India, Brazil, and France.