Europe

MOSCOW, July 13. /TASS/: Kiev is in talks with Bartholomew I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, on the relocation of Christian relics from Ukraine, Director of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Sergey Naryshkin said in a statement.

MOSCOW, July 13. /TASS/: Ukraine's NATO membership will create a threat to Russia's security; one of the reasons for launching the special military operation was the threat of Ukraine's joining NATO, Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin in the "Moscow. Kremlin. Putin." program.

"As for Ukraine's NATO membership, we have repeatedly said that this creates threats to Russia's security," he said. "And, in fact, one of the reasons for the special military operation is the threat of Ukraine joining NATO," Putin added.

MOSCOW, July 13. /TASS/: Ukraine should work to ensure its security, but not by creating threats to Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

"Every country has a right to ensure its security and, of course, it has a right to choose the way to achieve that goal that it considers the best," he said on Rossiya-24 television.

Putin said there’s just one limitation for Ukraine when it seeks to ensure its security, which is that "the work to achieve security for one country shouldn’t create threats for another country."

GENEVA, July 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The UN Human Rights Council voted Wednesday to condemn recent Koran burning incidents, but many countries declined to back the measure, fearing it encroached too much on free speech.

Despite overwhelming condemnation of the Muslim holy book being desecrated, the vote brought more division than unity as Western nations said that more negotiation could have resulted in a unanimous consensus.

GENEVA, July 13 (NNN-XINHUA) — Ongoing outbreaks of bird flu have caused devastation to animal populations, and may now infect humans more easily, according to a joint release by three United Nations (UN) organizations.

Poultry, wild birds and some mammals have been affected by the outbreaks, and farmers’ livelihoods and the food trade damaged, the organizations said.

HELSINKI, July 13 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden on Thursday gave his assurance that the United States would stay committed to NATO despite "extreme elements" of the Republican Party, in remarks during a visit to Finland to welcome it as the alliance's latest member.

"I absolutely guarantee it," Biden told a press conference when pressed by a Finnish reporter about the U.S. commitment to NATO given political instability in the United States. Biden's predecessor, Republican former President Donald Trump, threatened to take the United States out of the alliance.

KYIV, July 13 (Reuters) - After the role of unmanned aerial vehicles in the Ukraine war expanded dramatically since Russia invaded 16 months ago, attention is turning to ground drones that developers say could be the next frontier in military innovation.

Among the Ukrainian engineers working in the sector is 22-year-old Yevhen Hnatok, who said he had already supplied several dozen remote-controlled ground vehicles for the armed forces.

MOSCOW, July 13 (Reuters) - A Russian general said he had been dismissed as a commander after telling the military leadership about the dire situation at the front in Ukraine, where he said Russian soldiers had been stabbed in the back by the failings of the top military brass.

After the June 24 mutiny by Wagner mercenaries, the biggest domestic challenge to the Russian state in decades, President Vladimir Putin has so far kept Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov in their jobs.

MOSCOW, July 13 (Xinhua) -- Russia considers the deployment of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine as a nuclear threat, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday.

Lavrov made the comment in an interview with the Russian news agency Lenta.ru, during which he discussed the potential consequences of the decision of the United States and its allies to supply F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.

"During the hostilities, our military will not check whether each specific aircraft of this type will be equipped for the delivery of nuclear weapons or not," Lavrov said.

BERLIN (AP) — The head of this year’s United Nations climate talks called Thursday for governments and businesses to tackle global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions in all regions and sectors if they want to stop the planet from passing a key temperature limit agreed on more than seven years ago.