Europe

KYIV (Reuters) - A man suspected to be armed took a hostage in a bank office in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Monday but has made no demands yet, deputy interior minister Anton Gerashchenko said.

Gerashchenko wrote on Facebook that the man came to the bank at midday, told employees there he had a bomb in his backpack and asked them to call police.

“Employees of the banking institution left the office while the head of the branch remained there (as hostage). Police have begun negotiations with the terrorist and asked him to surrender,” Gerashchenko said.

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices fell on Monday on fears about the economic fallout from rising COVID-19 cases around the globe and on oversupply worries as OPEC and its allies are set to wind back output cuts in August.

Brent crude fell 18 cents, or 0.4%, to $43.34 a barrel by 1123 GMT, and U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was down 19 cents, or 0.5%, at $40.06.

In the last month, Brent has been trading in a range between $41 and almost $45.

LONDON (AP) — Europe’s biggest bank, HSBC, said Monday that its net profit plummeted 96% in the second quarter of this year as lower interest rates combined with the downturn due to the coronavirus pandemic tool hold.

The bank’s net profit was $192 million in the April-June quarter, down from $4.37 billion reported in the same period a year earlier.

London-based HSBC has most of its business in Asia.

MINSK, August 2. /TASS/: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko will deliver his annual state-of-the-nation address on August 4, his press secretary Natalia Eismont said on Sunday.

"Nothing has been postponed," BelTA agency quoted her as staying. "Both houses of the parliament will open their sessions on August 3, as scheduled. Lawmakers and senators will address procedural matters, discuss the current agenda. On the following day, August 4, as planned, the head of state will address the nation and the National Assembly."

MOSCOW, August 2. /TASS/: Chief of Russia’s sanitary watchdog Anna Popova said on Sunday she is confident in the efficiency and safety of anti-coronavirus vaccines that are being developed in Russia.

"I have no doubts that the vaccine [against the novel coronavirus] that is to reach people will be absolutely safe and, of course, efficient," she said in an interview with the Vesti news program on the Rossiya-1 television channel.

MOSCOW, August 2. /TASS/: Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and his predecessors should meet together to discuss the essence of the Minsk peace deal on settling the Ukrainian crisis, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on her Facebook page on Sunday.

The diplomat commented on a remark by Leonid Kravchuk, a former Ukrainian president and new head of Kiev’s delegation to the Contact Group for ironing out the crisis in Donbass, who said that he did not quite understand the essence of the special status of Donbass mentioned in the Minsk deal.

KALININGRAD, August 2. /TASS/: A private single-engine plane with three people onboard crashed in Russia’s westernmost Kaliningrad region, three people were hurt, a spokesman for the regional department of the Russian emergencies ministry told TASS on Sunday.

"According to reports that came at 15:15 local time, a Cessna private single-engine aircraft with three people - two men and one women - crashes near the village of Streltsovo near Kaliningrad. The three managed to leave the plane. Currently, they are in hospital," the spokesman said.

MOSCOW, August 2. /TASS/: Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed a decree lifting restrictions on entering Russia for Switzerland’s citizens, which had been imposed over the coronavirus pandemic, the cabinet’s press service said on Sunday.

"The citizens of Switzerland can arrive in Russia by planes. The flights with this country are expected to be resumed on a mutual basis since August 15," the press service said.

The flights will be performed once per week on a route Moscow-Geneva-Moscow. The airlines will be notified on the flights’ resumption.

MOSCOW, August 2. /TASS/: Russia’s Vector State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology plans to launch production of the novel coronavirus vaccine in November, its Director-General Rinat Maksyutov told Vesti program on Rossiya-1 TV channel.

"We expect to start production already in November this year. So, closer to the end of the year and the start of the next year we can talk about switching to vaccination at least for [people] from risk groups with a further switch to massive vaccination," Maksyutov said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian oil and gas condensate production increased to 9.37 million barrels per day (bpd) in July, Interfax news agency reported on Sunday, citing energy ministry data, indicating it missed its output target under a global deal.

Production was up from 9.32 million bpd in June.

From August, the output cuts - agreed between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) other major producers including Russia, a group known as OPEC+ - are due to be eased.