Europe

MOSCOW, August 30. /TASS/: The Russian financial system requires "serious adjustment" in conditions of sanctions, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said on Tuesday.

"Our financial system requires serious adjustment in the environment of sanctions and restrictions, primarily to establish efficient mechanisms that will make possible to saturate our economy with sufficient liquidity, ensure stable operations of our business and entire industries, and keep jobs," Mishustin said.

MOSCOW, August 30. /TASS/: Ukraine’s military lost over 1,200 personnel in the past day upon its attempt to launch an offensive in the Nikolayev-Krivoi Rog and other areas on order by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on Tuesday.

The enemy suffered heavy casualties as a result of the rout of the Ukrainian military’s offensive in the Nikolayev-Krivoi Rog and other areas, the spokesman said.

BELGRADE, August 29. /TASS/: Serbia isn’t is planning to change its policy course regarding sanctions on Russia, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday, when asked whether Belgrade could reconsider its stance and introduce restrictions against the Russian Federation.

VILNIUS, Aug 30 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Lithuania on Monday said it had finished building a fence along its border with Belarus to fight illegal immigration which the West accuses Minsk of orchestrating.

Illegal immigration has soared in EU member Lithuania this year, with around 4,200 migrants mainly from the Middle East and Africa crossing the border from neighbouring Belarus.

The West has accused Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime of manipulating the migrant flows with its ally Russia as part of “hybrid” warfare, which Minsk denies.

VIENNA, Aug 29 (Reuters) - Iran is pressing ahead with its rollout of an upgrade to its advanced uranium enrichment programme, a report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog seen by Reuters on Monday showed, even as the West awaits Iran's response on salvaging its 2015 nuclear deal.

The first of three cascades, or clusters, of advanced IR-6 centrifuges recently installed at the underground Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) at Natanz is now enriching, the report said, the latest underground site at which the advanced machines have come onstream. 

LONDON, Aug 30 (Reuters) - It is possible to eliminate the monkeypox outbreak in Europe, World Health Organization officials said on Tuesday, highlighting evidence that case counts are slowing in a handful of countries.

There are encouraging signs of a sustained week-on-week decline in the onset of cases in many European countries, including France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Britain, as well as a slowdown in some parts of the United States, despite scarce vaccine supplies.

PARIS, Aug 30 (Reuters) - France accused Moscow on Tuesday of using energy supplies as "a weapon of war" after Russia's Gazprom (GAZP.MM) cut deliveries to a major French customer and said it would shut its main gas pipeline to Germany for three days this week.

European governments are trying to coordinate a response to soaring energy costs for businesses and households and to fill storage facilities ahead of peak demand in the winter.

LONDON, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Russia condemned the destruction of Soviet war memorials in the three Baltic states and accused them on Tuesday of persecuting their Russian-speaking minorities.

In a forcefully worded statement, Moscow said Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were guilty of xenophobia, saying they were treating their ethnic Russian minorities as "second-class people". It said Russian-language media, kindergartens and schools were being shut down.

MYKOLAIV, Ukraine/KYIV, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has urged Russian soldiers to flee for their lives after his forces launched an offensive to retake southern Ukraine, but Moscow said it had repulsed the attack and inflicted heavy losses on Kyiv's troops.

Ukraine said on Monday its ground forces had gone on the offensive in the south for the first time after a long period of striking Russian supply lines, in particular bridges across the strategically important Dnipro River, and ammunition dumps. 

LISBON, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Portuguese Health Minister Marta Temido resigned on Tuesday amid widespread criticism of her decision to temporarily close some of the country's emergency care services due to staff shortages, local media reported.

Temido's resignation came hours after reports emerged that a pregnant woman died of a cardiac arrest on Saturday during an ambulance transfer from Lisbon's main hospital Santa Maria, which had no vacancies in the neonatology service, to another hospital in the capital.