Europe

MOSCOW, February 28. /TASS/: A Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with a Fregat booster and Arktika-M weather satellite blasted off from the Baikonur spaceport, according to a broadcast on the Roscosmos state space corporation’s website.

LONDON (Reuters) - British finance minister Rishi Sunak said he would not try to fix the public finances overnight, days before he announces a budget plan that is expected to pile more borrowing on top of nearly 300 billion pounds ($418 billion) of COVID spending and tax cuts.

“Look, this is not something that’s going to happen overnight. Given the scale of the shock we’ve experienced, the scale of the damage, this is going to take time to fix,” Sunak told Sky News on Sunday.

“But it’s important ... to also have strong public finances over time.”

ROME, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- The top finance officials from the world's major economies have emerged from Friday's summit with agreement to commit to a more multilateral process aimed at stemming the spread of the coronavirus pandemic and sparking global economic growth.

Friday's virtual summit of finance ministers and central bank governors was the first major event of Italy's year-long presidency of the Group of 20, or G20, a forum representing the world's major economies.

MOSCOW, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- A Russian Mi-35 helicopter made an emergency landing for technical reasons during a scheduled patrol mission over the Al-Hasakah province of Syria on Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The chopper was not attacked, the ministry said, adding that rescuers have transferred the Mi-35 crew to an airfield.

The pilots aboard were immediately treated by the rescuers and are not in serious condition, according to the ministry.

BUDAPEST, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Hungarian President Janos Ader received an injection of China's Sinopharm vaccine against COVID-19 on Friday as the country was bracing for the third wave of the pandemic.

Ader told local news agency MTI that he chose the Chinese product that was immediately available, instead of Pfizer or Moderna's vaccines, for which he would have to wait several months.

Meanwhile, in a short message aired by Hungarian public television M1, Ader called on all Hungarians to register for the vaccination as soon as possible.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — An explosion in a Ukrainian hospital ward where COVID-19 patients are being treated has killed one person and injured another, authorities said Saturday.

The national emergencies service said in a statement that the explosion occurred in an oxygen pipe. It said 20 people were evacuated after the blast at the hospital in Chernivtsi, a city about 400 kilometers (250 miles) southwest of Kyiv.

MOSCOW, February 27. /TASS/: Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and his Armenian counterpart Vagharshak Harutyunyan have discussed over the phone the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday.

"During the conversation, the two sides discussed issues of bilateral cooperation, the current situation in the region and the areas where Russian peacekeepers perform tasks in Nagorno-Karabakh as well as other issues of mutual interest," the ministry said.

BERLIN, February 26. /TASS/: The years of Vladimir Zelensky’s presidency will be just as lost for Ukraine, as the reign of his predecessor Pyotr Poroshenko - mainly due to his unwillingness to carry out reforms, according to an article published in Germany’s Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper Friday.

According to the author, Florian Hassel, "it is not often that a president loses the support of his voters as rapidly as Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky does."

MOSCOW, February 27. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has congratulated the military personnel and veterans of Russia’s Special Operations Forces on their professional holiday.

MOSCOW, February 27. /TASS/: An increase in the number of coronavirus cases can occur for several years even after most of the population is vaccinated, Deputy Director for Clinical and Analytical Work at the Central Research Institute of Epidemiology Natalia Pshenichnaya told TASS.