Europe

(Reuters) --- Moscow has offered to help mediate negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan to demarcate their border after an alleged Azeri incursion, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday.

Armenia accused Azerbaijan of sending troops across the border last week, highlighting the fragility of a Russian-brokered ceasefire that halted six weeks of fighting between ethnic Armenian and Azeri forces last year. 

(Reuters) --- The Kremlin said on Wednesday that strategic stability should be high on the agenda of a possible meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden, alongside bilateral relations.

Biden, who in March said he thought Putin was a "killer", prompting Moscow to recall its ambassador to Washington for consultations, has said he would like to hold talks with Putin during a trip to Europe next month.

KIEV, May 19 (Xinhua) -- The Ukrainian parliament dismissed Health Minister Maksym Stepanov on Tuesday due to the country's slow vaccination pace, the parliament's press service reported.

The corresponding decision was supported by 292 members of parliament, while the minimum required number is 226.

Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that the main reason for the dismissal of Stepanov was the unsatisfactory pace of the nation's vaccination campaign against COVID-19, which stems from the constant postponement of the delivery of vaccines to the country.

MOSCOW (AP) — The Russian parliament’s lower house voted Wednesday to withdraw from an international treaty allowing surveillance flights over military facilities following the U.S. departure from the pact.

The Russian exit from the Open Skies Treaty is yet to be endorsed by the upper house of parliament and needs to be signed by President Vladimir Putin to take effect. Moscow has signaled its readiness to reverse the withdrawal procedure and stay in the treaty if the U.S. returns to the agreement.

MOSCOW, May 18. /TASS/: Two Tupolev Tu-95MS strategic missile-carrying bombers performed a scheduled flight over the Black Sea, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Tuesday.

"Two Tu-95MS strategic missile-carrying bombers of long-range aviation performed a scheduled flight in the airspace over the neutral waters of the Black Sea," the statement says.

The crews of Su-27 fighters of the Southern Military District’s Air Force and Air Defense Army provided support for the strategic bombers during the flight that lasted over five hours, the ministry said.

MOSCOW, May 18. /TASS/: Hackers were unable to steal any state secrets as a result of attacks against Russian bodies of state power, the deputy director of the National Coordination Center for Computer Incidents, Nikolai Murashov, told a news conference in Moscow on Tuesday.

"Information that constitutes a state secret could not be stolen by any means," Murashov said.

He recalled that in Russia there were about 40 types of secrets, for instance, medical, tax and child adoption secrets.

MOSCOW, May 18. /TASS/: Russia’s coronavirus cases rose by 8,183 to 4,957,756 in the past 24 hours, the anti-coronavirus crisis center said on Tuesday.

According to data from the crisis center, Russia’s coronavirus growth rate stands at 0.17%.

The rate is the lowest in the Nenets autonomous region (0%), the Altai and Sakhalin regions (0.01%) and the Tuva region (0.03%).

MOSCOW, May 18. /TASS/: Moscow appreciates Switzerland’s neutrality and its role as an international mediator in disputes, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a ceremony to receive credentials from foreign ambassadors on Tuesday.

ZAGREB, May 18. /TASS/: North Macedonia has announced its plans to expel a Russian diplomat, North Macedonia’s news portal MKD reported on Tuesday.

"[North Macedonia’s] foreign ministry has confirmed reports [about the expulsion] and said that in line with article 9 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations it has been decided to declare a diplomat from the Russian embassy persona non grata in North Macedonia," it said.

(Reuters) --- Spain has deployed troops to Ceuta to patrol the border with Morocco after thousands of migrants swam into the northern African enclave, in what Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called a serious crisis for Spain and Europe.

Soldiers in armoured vehicles were guarding Ceuta's beach on Tuesday. Dozens of migrants swimming and wading close to the beach appeared to be moving away from where troops stood. Hundreds of other potential migrants stood on the Moroccan side of the fence that separates the Spanish enclave from Morocco.