Europe

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Friends and volunteers gathered Sunday at Kyiv’s St Sophia’s Cathedral to say goodbye to Andrew Bagshaw, a New Zealand scientist who was killed in Ukraine while he and another volunteer who also died tried to evacuate people from a front-line town.

Bagshaw, 48, a dual New Zealand-British citizen, and British volunteer Christopher Parry, 28, went missing this month while heading to the town of Soledar, in the eastern Donetsk region, where heavy fighting was taking place.

Volunteers spoke of their memories of Bagshaw and read tributes from his family.

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak fired the chairman of the governing Conservative Party on Sunday for a “serious breach” of ethics rules in failing to come clean about a tax dispute.

Sunak had faced days of pressure to sack Nadhim Zahawi amid allegations he settled a multimillion-dollar unpaid tax bill while he was in charge of the country’s Treasury.

KALYNIVSKE, Ukraine (AP) — When night falls in Tatiana Trofimenko’s village in southern Ukraine, she pours sunflower oil that aid groups gave her into a jar and seals it with a wick-fitted lid. A flick of a match, and the make-do candle is lit.

“This is our electricity,” Trofimenko, 68, says.

29 Jan 2023; AA: A senior Russian lawmaker on Sunday accused Western nations of using Ukraine as a training ground to test their weapons.

“Today, Ukraine is a training ground for Washington and NATO to test their weapons and test out new ways of waging war,” Vyacheslav Volodin, head of the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, said in a Telegram post.

The West has no regard for the lives of Ukrainians and views them as disposable, he added.

29 Jan 2023; AA: President Volodymr Zelenskyy said Saturday that Ukraine needs long-range missiles to fight more effectively against the Russian army in the war in his country.

Russian forces launched missile attacks against Kostiantynivka in the Donetsk region early Saturday, Zelenskyy said in a message on Telegram.

Three civilians were killed and 14 injured in the attack, he noted.

27 Jan 2023; AA: The Holocaust is the biggest genocide the world had witnessed throughout the history, with around 6 million Jews “exterminated” by Nazi Germany between 1941 and 1945 during World War II.

Nazis, the main architect of the exodus for Jews from their homelands across Europe and the culprits of this greatest crime against humanity, had knowing or hesitant accomplices amongst some countries that now form the European Union – the now-champions of human rights.

29 Jan 2023; AA: Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Saturday characterized as "hypocrisy" the US Welcome Corps initiative.

The initiative is aimed at "easing the load of the US state budget and transfer some expenses on households," she wrote on Telegram.

MOSCOW, January 28. /TASS/: Fire broke out at a construction warehouse on the territory of the Sindika market in the Moscow region on an area of 2,100 square meters, emergency services told TASS on Saturday.

"The fire was localized at 0:42 on an area of 2,100 square meters," the central office of the Ministry of Emergency Situations for Moscow told TASS.

"At 02:20, it was announced that the open fire was extinguished," the press service said.

MOSCOW, January 28. /TASS/:  Moscow and Ankara have launched expert discussions of sensitive issues related to the security of a planned gas hub, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov said in an interview with TASS.

MOSCOW, January 28. /TASS/: Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev has lambasted Western attempts to justify arms deliveries to Kiev as an alleged effort to prevent a world war.

"Firstly, defending Ukraine, which nobody needs in Europe, will not save the senile Old World from retribution if anything occurs. Secondly, once the Third World War breaks out, unfortunately it will not be on tanks or even on fighter jets. Then everything will definitely be turned to dust," Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel on Saturday.