Europe

KYIV, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited Kyiv on a surprise trip on Sunday, meeting President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and pledging that Britain would "stick by Ukraine as long as it takes".

Johnson, who left office in September in the wake of a series of scandals, was prime minister when Russia invaded Ukraine last February and he sought to position London as Kyiv's top ally in the West.

Jan 22 (Reuters) - A close ally of President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that deliveries of offensive weapons to Kyiv that threaten Russia's territories will lead to a global catastrophe and make arguments against using weapons of mass destruction untenable.

Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the Duma - Russia's lower house of parliament - warned that the United States and NATO's support of Ukraine is leading the world to a "terrible war".

Jan 21 (Reuters) - The private Russian military group Wagner plans to send the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers killed in fighting in the captured town of Soledar to territory held by Ukraine, a website linked to the group's founder Yevgeny Prigozhin reported on Saturday.

Wagner said on Jan. 11 it had captured Soledar, and Russian-installed authorities in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region said earlier this week they were in control of the salt-mining town, where intense fighting has taken place.

MOSCOW, Jan. 22 (Xinhua) -- Deliveries of offensive weapons to Ukraine will lead to a "global catastrophe," said Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of the Russian State Duma, on Sunday.

"If Washington and NATO countries supply weapons that will be used to strike civilian cities and attempt to seize our territories, as they threaten, this will lead to retaliatory measures using more powerful weapons," Volodin said on Telegram.

PARIS (AP) — France and Germany are seeking to overcome differences laid bare by Russia’s war in Ukraine and shore up their alliance with a day of ceremonies and talks Sunday on Europe’s security, energy and other challenges.

Germany’s entire Cabinet is in Paris for joint meetings, and 300 lawmakers from both countries are coming together at the Sorbonne University to mark 60 years since a landmark treaty sealed a bond between the longtime enemies that underpins today’s European Union.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held an emotional meeting Saturday with the families of those who died in a helicopter crash earlier this week.

Zelenskyy spoke with family members of seven of those killed in Wednesday’s crash in the Brovary area of Kyiv, the capital city. The helicopter carrying Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi and other top officials slammed into a kindergarten building in the residential suburb, killing him and about a dozen other people, including a child on the ground.

BROVARY, Ukraine (AP) — A small broom and dustpan in hand, Olga Prenzilevich cleans up the debris along the road in a sleepy Kyiv suburb next to a cordoned-off mound of charred vehicles and misshapen wreckage.

But she can’t sweep away the terrible memory of seeing the government helicopter that carried Ukraine’s interior minister tumbling through the fog and crashing into the kindergarten building. Or the frantic dash afterward to save the children, their tiny bodies in flames.

CHISINAU, January 21. /TASS/: The decision to abandon neutrality enshrined in Moldova’s constitution and join a military alliance should be made by citizens through a democratic process, President Maia Sandu said in an interview with Politico.

MOSCOW, January 21. /TASS/: Russia will take retaliatory measures against French media in the country after RT France account have been blocked, the Russian Foreign Ministry told TASS on Saturday.

"Blocking RT France account will lead to retaliatory measures against French media in Russia. They will be very noticeable, if the French authorities do not stop intimidating Russian journalists," the ministry said.

MOSCOW, January 21. /TASS/: Volunteers of assault teams with fire support from the Southern Military District, liberated the village of Dvurechye in the Donetsk People’s Republic, the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reached 50 servicemen killed and wounded, the official representative of the Russian Defense Ministry, Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov said on Saturday.