Europe

STECCATO DI CUTRO, Italy (AP) — Rescue crews searched by sea and air Monday for the dozens of people believed still missing from a shipwreck off Italy’s southern coast that drove home once again the desperate and dangerous crossings of migrants seeking to reach Europe.

MOSCOW, February 26. /TASS/: Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatiana Moskalkova has said EU sanctions undercut rights diplomacy that helped people.

She made the remark in comments on her being sanctioned by the EU.

MOSCOW, February 26. /TASS/:  The West could only admit Russia to the so-called "family of civilized peoples" through breaking the country into separate parts, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the "Moscow. Kremlin. Putin" program on Rossiya-1 TV channel on Sunday.

"And later, [after liquidating Russia] they will probably admit us to the so-called family of civilized peoples, but only by parts, each part separately. What for? For ordering those parts around and putting under their control," he said when asked questions by journalist Pavel Zarubin.

MOSCOW, February 26. /TASS/: The decision on suspension of Russia’s participation in the New START treaty was unexpected for the West, though it is an absolutely reasoned and correct step, Foreign Intelligence Service Director Sergey Naryshkin said in a commentary for the "Moscow. Kremlin. Putin" program on Rossiya-1 TV channel aired on Sunday.

MOSCOW, February 26. /TASS/: Russia will have to push the threat off its borders to a distance depending on weapons the West will supply to Ukraine, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on Sunday.

"It will depend on weapons it will receive," he said in an interview with the Moscow.Kremlin.Putin program on the Rossiya-1 television channel.

In his state of the nation address, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia will be forced to push the threat further off its border in case the Kiev regime is supplied with long-range systems by the West.

BRUSSELS, Feb  26 (NNN-AGENCIES) — New EU sanctions over Russia’s war in Ukraine adopted on Saturday target 121 individuals and entities, including Iranian drone manufacturers, officials said.

 The measures, agreed late Friday ahead of Saturday’s formal adoption, are the 10th round of European Union sanctions aimed at undercutting Russia’s finances and military supplies used in its invasion that started a year ago.

VATICAN CITY, Feb 26 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The Vatican and Oman have established diplomatic relations, a joint statement said, three months after a visit by Pope Francis to the Gulf.

There are currently 12 Catholic priests working in four parishes in Oman and the local population of nearly 4.5 million people includes a “significant number of foreign workers”, it said.

The pontiff visited Bahrain in November, his second visit to the Gulf since becoming pope in 2013. His first visit was to the United Arab Emirates in 2019.

LONDON, Feb 26 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will meet European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen on Monday in an effort to finalise a new deal for Northern Ireland's post-Brexit trading arrangements.

More than a year of stop-start and sometimes rancorous negotiations between London and Brussels on an overhaul of part of the 2020 EU exit deal look to be coming to a conclusion although it is unclear whether any agreement will go far enough to satisfy critics in Britain and Northern Ireland.

Feb 26 (Reuters) - A Russian spacecraft on a mission to bring back to Earth a crew stranded on the International Space Station (ISS) has docked at the station, Russian space agency Roscosmos said early on Sunday.

The Soyuz MS-23, which lifted off from Baikonour space centre in Kazakhstan on Friday, is to bring back Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin, and U.S. astronaut Francisco Rubio in September.

MOSCOW, Feb 26 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin cast the confrontation with the West over the Ukraine war as an existential battle for the survival of Russia and the Russian people - and said he was forced to take into account NATO's nuclear capabilities.

A year since ordering the invasion of Ukraine, Putin is increasingly presenting the war as a make-or-break moment in Russian history - and saying that he believes the very future of Russia and its people is in peril.