Validity of the passport when applying for visa.

My employer is setting up the Russian branch of the company as a LLC company (OOO) and after the constitution I should apply for my Russian visa. So far, so good but there is a small detail.

Passport at the time of application should have a validity of 18 months or more. My passport reached that point last week. Authorities in my country couldn't renew a passport with a validity more than 12 months. If damaged the replacement will have same validity as the initial one. If lost then you have troubles and when cleared the new passport will be as the initial. There is no procedure for extension of validity.

Covid19 story is well known, borders around world are closed, airports as well. Russia is not accepting applications for visa while in lock-down. Performance of various government branches are slowed down and registration of the company is slowed down.

What is the chances in this extraordinary situation due to COVID19, russian authorities to accept my passport for residence visa?

if not then what? what consequent visas for covering the period of 6 months before the renewal of my documents?

Thanks