Europe

VOLGOGRAD, February 2. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday visited the memorial complex on Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd as part of the celebrations marking the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Battle of Stalingrad.

The president laid a wreath at the Eternal Flame in the Hall of Military Glory, then observed a minute of silence in memory of Soviet soldiers killed during the Battle of Stalingrad.

MOSCOW, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that Russian forces would respond to the delivery of longer-range Western weapons to Kyiv by trying to push Ukrainian forces further away from its borders to create a safe buffer zone.

Lavrov told state TV that everybody wanted the conflict in Ukraine - which Moscow calls a "special military operation" - to end, but that the West's support for Kyiv was playing an important role in how Russia approached the campaign.

KYIV/VOLGOGRAD, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged European leaders visiting Kyiv on Thursday to pile more sanctions on Russia, where President Vladimir Putin evoked a famous World War Two victory over the Nazis to rally his nation.

The West has imposed sweeping punitive measures since Russia's nearly year-old invasion of Ukraine that has devastated cities, killed tens of thousands of people, forced millions to flee their homes and shaken the global economy.

VOLGOGRAD, Russia, Feb 2 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin evoked the spirit of the Soviet army that defeated Nazi German forces at Stalingrad 80 years ago to declare on Thursday that Russia would defeat a Ukraine supposedly in the grip of a new incarnation of Nazism.

In a fiery speech in Volgograd, known as Stalingrad until 1961, Putin lambasted Germany for helping to arm Ukraine and said, not for the first time, that he was ready to draw on Russia's entire arsenal, which includes nuclear weapons.

OSLO, Feb 1 (Reuters) - A former commander of Russia's Wagner mercenary group who fled to Norway told Reuters he wanted to apologise for fighting in Ukraine and was speaking out to bring the perpetrators of crimes to justice.

Andrei Medvedev, who crossed the Russian-Norwegian border on Jan. 13, said he witnessed the killing and mistreatment by Wagner of Russian convicts taken to Ukraine to fight for the group.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday marked the 80th anniversary of the World War II Soviet victory over Nazi German forces in the battle of Stalingrad, and invoked the long and grueling fight as justification for the conflict in Ukraine.

Putin laid a wreath at the eternal flame of the memorial complex to the fallen Red Army soldiers in Volgograd, the current name of the city, which stretches along the western bank of the Volga River. The memorial is dominated by an 85-meter (279-foot) sculpture of a sword-wielding woman, Europe’s tallest statue.

BRUSSELS (AP) — Senior members of the European Union’s executive branch traveled to Ukraine on Thursday looking to boost relations with the war-torn country and pave the way for it to one day join the bloc, but concerns over corruption and democratic deficiencies remain.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen led a team of 15 policy commissioners who were to spend the day discussing Ukraine’s financial, business and energy needs, and how to bring the former Soviet state’s legislation into line with EU standards.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre of Norway said Thursday that the oil-rich Scandinavian country will become one of the world’s top donors to Ukraine when his two-party center-left government presents another planned military and civilian aid package.

Norway’s profits from oil will finance the additional aid, and there will be a temporary increase in the use of oil money, Gahr Støre told the Norwegian parliament. He did not reveal how large the contribution will be, but he said the government would make it soon.

VIENNA (AP) — Austria’s government said Thursday that it has ordered four Russian diplomats based in Vienna, including two at Moscow’s mission to U.N. agencies in the city, to leave the country.

The Foreign Ministry said in a brief statement that two diplomats at the Russian Embassy had “engaged in acts incompatible with their diplomatic status” and two at the permanent mission to the United Nations in Vienna “committed acts incompatible with the Headquarters Agreement.” It didn’t elaborate.

The diplomats were given a week to leave Austria.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian missiles hit residential areas in an eastern Ukrainian city Thursday for the second time in 24 hours, while top European Union officials held talks with the government in Kyiv as the war with Russia approaches its one-year milestone.

The latest strikes in Kramatorsk came as rescue crews searched for survivors in the rubble of an apartment building hit late Wednesday by a Russian missile that killed at least three people and wounded 21 others. At least one more victim was thought to be under the debris, Ukraine’s presidential office said.