Europe

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Powerful explosions rocked a Russian air base in Crimea on Tuesday, killing one person and wounding several others, authorities said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said munitions blew up at the Saki base, and it emphasized that the installation had not been shelled. But Ukrainian social networks were abuzz with speculation that it was hit by Ukrainian-fired long-range missiles.

There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian authorities.

MOSCOW, August 8. /TASS/: Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Monday said the Kiev regime ‘effectively takes all of Europe hostage’ by shelling the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.

MOSCOW, August 8. /TASS/: Latvian legislators’ idea to declare Russia as a "terrorist state" is a hostile action and part and parcel of the overall anti-Russian hysteria, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a commentary on Monday.

MELITOPOL, August 8. /TASS/: The head of the Zaporozhye Region, Yevgeny Balitsky, has said that he has signed an order to hold a referendum on accession to Russia.

"I am signing an order to the Central Election Commission to start preparations for a referendum on the Zaporozhye Region’s reunification with Russia," he said at the forum "We are Together with Russia."

MOSCOW, August 8. /TASS/: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will lead the country’s delegation to the 77th United Nations General Assembly in September, according to President Vladimir Putin’s order published on Monday.

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS that Putin had no plans to visit New York or make a video address to the event.

LONDON, Aug 8 (Reuters) - One of President Vladimir Putin's closest allies said on Monday that Russia would achieve its aims in the conflict in Ukraine on its own terms, warning that the West had a long-term plan to destroy Russia.

"Russia is conducting a special military operation in Ukraine and is attaining peace on our terms," former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who serves as deputy chairman of Russia's security council, told TASS in an interview.

MOSCOW, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Russia has told the United States it is suspending inspection activities under the START arms control treaty, the Russian foreign ministry said on Monday, adding that Moscow remains committed to all provisions of the treaty.

Russia has been forced to "resort to this measure as a result of Washington's insistence that it will inevitably seek to restart inspection activities on conditions that do not take current realities into account", the ministry said.

KYIV, Aug 8 (Reuters) - International alarm over the weekend shelling of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear complex grew on Monday, as Kyiv and Moscow traded blame for the attacks while seeking to address fears that their battle for control of the plant might trigger catastrophe.

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres, calling any attack on a nuclear plant a "suicidal thing", demanded that U.N. nuclear inspectors be given access.

VIENNA, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- The European Union has put forward a final text of the draft decision on reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Russia's chief negotiator to the Iran nuclear talks Mikhail Ulyanov said on Monday.

Ulyanov, who is also Russia's permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna, tweeted that "the participants in the Vienna talks now need to decide if the draft is acceptable for them. In case of no objection, the nuclear deal will be restored."

LONDON, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- The Metropolitan Police (Met), Britain's largest police force, strip-searched 650 children, mostly black boys, between 2018 and 2020, data from a research published on Monday showed.

Of the 650 minors aged 10 to 17 searched by the Met officers, 95 percent were boys and 58 percent of the boys were black, according to the research published by Rachel de Souza, the children's commissioner for England.

In 23 percent of the cases, there wasn't an appropriate adult present, the report said.