"Today is the first day that the number of those who have recovered is exceeding the number of those falling ill," Mishustin told a meeting of senior officials on Wednesday, according to comments carried by the Russian news agency Interfax.

Senior officials have been noting a declining infection rate in the past week and a half as they seek to lift lockdown measures that have compounded the country's economic woes.

"It is possible that our health care system has begun to pass the peak of its workload," Mishustin said.

"This shows that the situation is gradually stabilising, especially in Moscow, which was the first to struggle with new infections."

Moscow, Russia's capital and largest city, has accounted for about half of the country's coronavirus caseload.

Russia's caseload surpassed 300,000 on Wednesday, with about a third of those patients currently in hospital, authorities said.

Russia has more than 90,000 hospital beds occupied by coronavirus patients, with more than 2000 of those patients using ventilators, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said in comments carried by state news agency TASS.

"The mortality rate from COVID-19 in Russia is currently 0.95 per cent, significantly lower than in the world as a whole," Golikova said, explaining that experts were working to figure out why Russia's rate has been so low.

The country has recorded 2972 deaths directly linked with the coronavirus, according to a federal monitoring service.

Russia's total caseload rose by 8764 on Wednesday from the previous day to 308,705, a rise of about 3.0 per cent.

Russia has the world's second highest coronavirus caseload behind that of the United States.

Brazil is third, according to comparative data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Australian Associated Press