Europe

VILNIUS, July 12. /TASS/: NATO believes its priority is to supply Kiev with advanced weapons systems and a huge amount of ammunition and spare parts for them, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday.

VILNIUS, July 12. /TASS/: The countries of the Group of Seven (G7) will continue to exert economic and political pressure on Russia in connection with its special operation in Ukraine.

This is stated in the G7 declaration on the general principles of long-term security guarantees for Ukraine, adopted on Wednesday on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Vilnius.

VILNIUS, July 12. /TASS/: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said that Russian President Vladimir Putin voiced a number of proposals on the grain deal, which are being discussed now.

"The grain deal has been extended twice, with 33 mln tons of food delivered to global markets during the period of its validity. We have discussed the issue of extending the grain deal with [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky. He supports its extension. Putin has voiced some proposals on the issue. Those proposals are being discussed," Erdogan told reporters following a NATO summit.

VILNIUS, Lithuania, 12 Jul (NNN-XINHUA) – Leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), yesterday failed to set a timetable for Ukraine’s membership of the alliance, following the first day of the NATO summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.

Speaking at a press conference, NATO Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg, said, allies have agreed on a package of three elements to “bring Ukraine closer to NATO.” However, he clarified that an invitation for Ukraine to join the alliance will be issued “when allies agree and conditions are met.”

LONDON, July 12 (Reuters) - Chinese state-linked hackers have secretly accessed email accounts at around 25 organisations including government agencies in a sweeping cyberespionage campaign, Microsoft said on Wednesday.

In an interview with ABC television, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the United States had detected a breach of federal government accounts "fairly rapidly" and had managed to prevent further breaches.

KYIV, July 12 (Reuters) - Ukraine on Wednesday reported some success in fighting near the Russian-occupied eastern city of Bakhmut as its troops press on with a counteroffensive against Moscow's forces.

Heavy fighting and Russian drone strikes on Ukrainian cities have continued while President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is in Vilnius for meetings with NATO leaders who are holding a summit in the Lithuanian capital.

LONDON, July 12 (Reuters) - It started as a local dispute over China's plans to build a new embassy next to the Tower of London - pitting the world's second biggest superpower against an inner-city borough that blocked the project.

Just over seven months later, it is escalating into a diplomatic standoff that, officials from both countries told Reuters, is undermining efforts to repair their badly damaged relations.

VILNIUS, July 12 (Reuters) - NATO leaders at this week's summit in Vilnius said Ukraine should be able to join the military alliance at some point in the future but dashed Kyiv's hopes for an immediate invitation.

The guarded statement on Ukraine's path into NATO irked President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. But after 16 months of war since Russia launched what it calls its special military operation, his country is still set to come away from the summit with some tangible rewards.

Below are some of the main commitments pledged to Ukraine in connection with the summit.

MOSCOW, July 12 (Reuters) - Russia is decaying in a potent brew of absurdity and repression that is comparable to the Leonid Brezhnev-era of the Soviet Union, Oleg Orlov, one of the Russia's most respected human rights campaigners, told Reuters.

Orlov, 70, is on trial in Russia for articles he published last year which cast Russia as a "fascist" state seeking revenge for the perceived humiliations of the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. He faces up to three years in prison.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union on Wednesday slapped a $475 million fine on U.S. biotech giant Illumina for buying cancer-screening company Grail without regulators’ approval, the latest setback for the deal.

Illumina announced an $7.1 billion acquisition of Grail in 2020, but the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm and top antitrust enforcer, said the company broke EU merger rules by completing the deal without its consent. The 27-nation bloc announced last year that it was blocking the acquisition, saying it would hurt competitors.