Europe

MOSCOW, March 3. /TASS/: Ukrainian armed forces suffer from a deficit of artillery, ammunition, warplanes and tanks, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said Friday. Speaking during a joint press conference with his Latvian counterpart Egils Levits in Lvov, Zelensky claimed that, due to the shortage of weapons and ammunition, the West must speed up arms shipments to Ukraine.

"Artillery is the number one thing that we need. Both systems and ammunition, shells in large amounts," Zelensky said.

ROME, March 3 (Reuters) - Top mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro was captured thanks in part to a hand-written note found hidden in his older sister's house, judicial documents show, after police arrested the woman on Friday.

Rosalia (Rosetta) Messina Denaro, 67, was detained in Sicily on mafia membership charges, Carabinieri police said, releasing a 57-page arrest warrant.

Her brother, Matteo Messina Denaro, 60, was Italy's most wanted man until his arrest on Jan. 16, after 30 years on the run. He was caught in Palermo, outside a private clinic for cancer patients.

MOSCOW, March 3 (Reuters) - A court in Belarus on Friday sentenced Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights activist Ales Bialiatski to 10 years in prison for financing protests and other crimes, in a case that rights groups say was politically motivated.

Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said Bialiatski and other activists sentenced in the same trial had been unfairly convicted, calling the verdict "appalling".

"We must do everything to fight against this shameful injustice & free them," she said on Twitter.

CHASIV YAR, Ukraine, March 3 (Reuters) - Russian troops and mercenaries were closing off the last access routes to the besieged Ukrainian city of Bakhmut on Friday, on the cusp of Moscow's first major victory in half a year after the bloodiest fighting of the war.

The head of Russia's Wagner private army said the city, which has been blasted to ruins, was now almost completely surrounded, with only one route out left open for Ukraine's troops.

ATHENS, March 2 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from Tuesday night's train crash in central Greece has increased to 57, authorities said on Thursday.

Forty-eight people remain hospitalized, six of them in intensive care, Greek police spokeswoman Konstantia Dimoglidou told journalists.

A search and rescue operation is expected to conclude on Friday, Greek Fire Service spokesman Vasilios Vathrakogiannis added.

BERLIN (AP) — Germany wants to buy mothballed Leopard 2 battle tanks from Switzerland to replace tanks that Berlin and its Western allies are sending to Ukraine, the Swiss government said Friday.

The Swiss Defense Ministry said that Germany’s defense and economy ministers wrote on Feb. 23 to Swiss Defense Minister Viola Amherd, setting out German manufacturer Rheinmetall’s interest in buying Leopard 2 tanks that the Swiss army doesn’t plan to put back into service.

LARISSA, Greece (AP) — Authorities in Greece said Friday that all remains recovered so far from scene of this week’s rail disaster have been accounted for, with the death toll from the crash remaining at 57.

The bodies of victims from Tuesday’s head-on train collision were being returned to families in closed caskets after DNA matches were confirmed.

Recovery teams were scouring the wreckage for a third day at Tempe, 380 kilometers (235 miles) north of Athens, where a passenger train slammed into a freight carrier, causing the deadliest rail accident in Greece’s history.

GENEVA, March 2. /TASS/: Moscow has no doubt that the United States is preventing Russia from participating in the probe into the explosions at the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told a press conference on Thursday.

"We were not allowed to involve our experts in the investigation. Neither as participants in the probe, nor as experts, including from Gazprom. Undoubtedly, the United States is behind this," he said.

He also called on the US and its allies to stop obstructing negotiations on this topic.

MOSCOW, March 2. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin voiced confidence that the masters of the Ukrainian neo-Nazis would not pay attention to the attack carried out on Thursday in Russia's Bryansk region.

"I am confident that these same leaders [of Ukrainian neo-Nazis] will forget today's attack. No one will pay attention to this," he said.

All at the same, speaking about the overall situation, he stated, "They will not succeed, we will crush them."

MOSCOW, March 2. /TASS/:  Western sanctions have caused long-term serious damage to the principles of openness of world trade, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in an interview with RT.

"The principles of openness in world trade have been severely damaged. These are not just the consequences of one year and they will have a long-term impact on global trade as a whole," Siluanov said.