Europe

KYIV, June 5 (Reuters) - Moscow said on Monday it had thwarted a major offensive against its forces in eastern Ukraine, but Ukrainian officials dismissed the report and both sides said Kyiv's military had made small gains elsewhere along front lines.

It was unclear whether the attacks represented the start of Ukraine's long-heralded counteroffensive against Russia's invasion, and Ukrainian officials made no mention of any broad, significant new campaign or sidestepped questions on the matter.

MOSCOW, June 5 (Xinhua) -- Russia will extend its voluntary oil production cut of half a million barrels per day until the end of 2024, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Sunday.

Quoted by Russia's TASS news agency, Novak said: "Russia will extend its voluntary production cut of 500,000 barrels per day until the end of December 2024 as a precautionary measure in coordination with the countries participating in the OPEC+ agreement, which announced voluntary cuts in April."

GENEVA (AP) — Cristiano Ronaldo is already in Saudi Arabia. Karim Benzema looks sure to be next. And as the oil-rich kingdom pursues Lionel Messi as well, it is making sure that money continues to flow into the domestic soccer league.

BERLIN (AP) — Austria’s main center-left opposition party on Monday reversed the result of its weekend leadership election, announcing that a computer error originally led to the wrong candidate being declared the winner.

LONDON (AP) — The European Union is pushing online platforms like Google and Meta to step up the fight against false information by adding labels to text, photos and other content generated by artificial intelligence, a top official said Monday.

EU Commission Vice President Vera Jourova said the ability of a new generation of AI chatbots to create complex content and visuals in seconds raises “fresh challenges for the fight against disinformation.”

04 June 2023; MEMO: Famous singer Dua Lipa criticized British government officials' comments on migrants, slamming them as "shortsighted and small-minded," Anadolu reports.

Lipa, a Grammy-winning performer who was born to Kosovar-Albanian parents, expressed the personal "hurt" caused by the way the government has discussed Albanians and called for a greater sense of empathy.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Lipa warned such rhetoric has a negative impact.

SIMFEROPOL, June 4. /TASS/: Crimea’s air defenses shot down five Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) overnight to Sunday, while four more were jammed by electronic warfare systems, region’s head Sergey Aksyonov wrote on his Telegram channel.

VIENNA, June 4. /TASS/: A new visit of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi to Moscow is possible, but there are no concrete arrangements for now, Russian Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov told TASS on Sunday.

"Of course, it is possible. A new visit is possible, but so far we have not discussed it in practical terms," he said. According to Ulyanov, the date of a possible visit is not being discussed currently.

MOSCOW, June 4. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin devotes as much time to meetings on the progress of the special military operation as he needs as supreme commander-in-chief, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with the Moscow.Kremlin.Putin program.

"Exactly as much as it is necessary for the supreme commander-in-chief to exercise overall leadership," the Kremlin spokesman said, answering a related question.

A fragment of the program was posted on its host Pavel Zarubin’s Telegram channel on Sunday.

MOSCOW, June 4. /TASS/: Governor of Russia’s Belgorod Region Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Sunday he is ready to meet with Ukrainian saboteurs at the Shebekino checkpoint for the sake of saving Russian prisoners of war, if they are still alive.

"I am grieved to say but most probably, they have killed them (prisoners - TASS). But is they are alive, from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Shebekino checkpoint. I guarantee security," he said in a video address posted on his Telegram channel.