Europe

MUNICH, Feb 19 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday warned top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi of consequences should China provide material support to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, saying in an interview after the two met that Washington was concerned Beijing was considering supplying weapons to Moscow.

MOSCOW, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Russia on Sunday scolded Emmanuel Macron over remarks about wanting to see Russia defeated, saying Moscow still remembered the fate of Napoleon Bonaparte and accusing the French president of duplicitous diplomacy with the Kremlin.

Macron told paper Le Journal du Dimanche France wanted Russia to be defeated in Ukraine but had never wanted to "crush" it.

Munich (AP) — Estonia’s prime minister on Sunday insisted that once the war in Ukraine ends, Russia must be brought to justice for war crimes as well as for the decision to invade its neighbor if it is to have any chance of developing a normal relationship with the West.

Kaja Kallas, whose small Baltic country is the biggest per-capita contributor of military aid to Ukraine, told The Associated Press that the conflict cannot end with a peace deal that carves up the country and doesn’t hold Moscow to account.

18 Feb 2023; MEMO: Russia is to propose a partnership with the Gulf States to produce its cutting-edge fighter jet Su-75, also referred to as Checkmate, Russian media reported on Thursday.

"Rosoboronexport is considering options for joint design and manufacture of cutting-edge high-tech products, including a fifth-generation fighter based on the Checkmate light tactical aircraft," shared Rosoboronexport's Director General Alexander Mikheev.

19 Feb 2023; MEMO: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced during the Munich Security Conference on Friday that Ukraine's acquisition of an Israeli missile interception system to use against Russia "is only a matter of time". He added that his country needs to acquire the David's Sling air defence system from Israel to use against the Russian Goliath.

MUNICH (AP) — The top diplomats from the United States and China met on Saturday in the first high-level contact between their countries since the U.S. shot down an alleged Chinese spy balloon two weeks ago, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken sending the message that Beijing’s surveillance program had been “exposed to the world.”

Blinken and Wang Yi, the Chinese Communist Party’s most senior foreign policy official, held the hourlong talks in Munich, where they were attending an international security conference, according to the U.S. State Department.

LONDON (AP) — The amount of grain leaving Ukraine has dropped even as a U.N.-brokered deal works to keep food flowing to developing nations, with inspections of ships falling to half what they were four months ago and a backlog of vessels growing as Russia’s invasion nears the one-year mark.

Feb 18 (Reuters) - China has "neither stood by idly nor thrown fuel on the fire" regarding the crisis in Ukraine, and continues to call for peace and dialogue, top diplomat Wang Yi said at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.

"I suggest that everybody starts to think calmly, especially friends in Europe, about what kind of efforts we can make to stop this war," said Wang, the director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee.

MUNICH, Feb 18 (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday warned that Chinese support for Russia in its war in Ukraine would reward aggression, as the two powers traded barbs at a prominent security conference in Germany.

At the Munich Security Conference, Harris said the United States was "troubled that Beijing has deepened its relationship with Moscow since the war began."

"Any steps by China to provide lethal support to Russia would only reward aggression, continue the killing, and further undermine a rules-based order," she said.

MUNICH (AP) — The United States has determined that Russia has committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine, Vice President Kamala Harris said Saturday, insisting that “justice must be served” to the perpetrators.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Harris said the international community has both a moral and a strategic interest in pursuing those crimes, pointing to a danger of other authoritarian governments taking advantage if international rules are undermined.