Russia has launched the Meridian-M n°20L satellite onboard a Soyuz 2.1a rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia. The launch lifted off at 12:48:22 UTC bound for a very highly elliptical Molniya orbit of 900 x 39,000 km, with an inclination of 65°.
This kind of orbit allows the satellite to remain over a certain region for about eight hours at a time, which helps to provide communications to regions that are very north or very south of the equator, as these can be difficult to serve using geostationary satellites. The orbit is named after the Molniya satellite constellation, launched starting in 1964, that is replaced by these Meridian satellites.