Russia reports 8,697 new COVID-19 cases, 342 deaths

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia reported 8,697 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, including 2,699 in Moscow, taking the official national tally since the pandemic began to 4,823,255.

The government coronavirus task force said 342 people had died of coronavirus-linked causes in the past 24 hours, pushing Russia's death toll to 110,862.

The federal statistics agency has kept a separate count and reported a toll of more than 225,000 from April 2020 to February.

According to Reuters calculations based on data from the state statistics agency published on Friday, Russia recorded more than 400,000 excess deaths from April 2020 to March 2021.

(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov; writing by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Catherine Evans)