Europe

MOSCOW, July 25. /TASS/: Gazprom has to halt the operation of one more gas turbine engine at the Portovaya compressor station of the Nord Stream gas pipeline due to the expiration of time before overhaul, the holding said in a statement on Monday.

ATHENS, July 24 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Greece on Sunday battled three ferocious wildfires across the country which forced hundreds to evacuate, as higher temperatures raised concern over more blazes.

The country is in the grip of a heatwave that began on Saturday and is expected to last 10 days. Temperatures were set to rise to 42 degrees Celsius (107 degrees Fahrenheit) in some regions.

Experts blame climate change for the soaring temperatures — and warned that worse is yet to come.

Fires raged in the north, east and south of Greece including on the island of Lesbos.

GORZOW WIELKOPOLSKI, Poland, July 25 (Reuters) - Construction sites, factory assembly lines and warehouses across central Europe are scrambling to fill vacancies after tens of thousands of Ukrainian men left their blue-collar jobs to return home after Russia invaded their country.

Ukrainian workers had flocked to central Europe in the past decade - drawn by higher wages and aided by an easing of visa requirements - filling jobs that weren't highly paid enough for local workers in construction, the automotive sector, and heavy industry.

KYIV, July 25 (Reuters) - Ukraine said on Monday its forces had used U.S-supplied HIMARS rocket systems to destroy 50 Russian ammunition depots since receiving the weapons last month.

In comments on national television, Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov underlined the growing impact that the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) are having as Ukraine tries to repel Russia's invasion.

"This cuts their (Russian) logistical chains and takes away their ability to conduct active fighting and cover our armed forces with heavy shelling," Reznikov said.

MOSCOW, July 25 (Xinhua) -- Russia and Ukraine separately signed a deal in Istanbul on Friday with Türkiye and the United Nations to resume grain shipments from Ukrainian ports to international markets via the Black Sea.

The long-awaited deal, the first major pact between Moscow and Kiev since Russia's special military operation in February, was welcome news for the international community as a food crisis has already been plaguing countries heavily dependent on grain imports from Ukraine and Russia.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia’s top diplomat said Moscow’s overarching goal in Ukraine is to free its people from its “unacceptable regime,” expressing the Kremlin’s war aims in some of the bluntest terms yet as its forces pummel the country with artillery barrages and airstrikes.

The remark from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov comes amid Ukraine’s efforts to resume grain exports from its Black Sea ports, something that would help ease global food shortages, under a new deal tested by a Russian strike on Odesa over the weekend.

BERLIN (AP) — A German union has called on Lufthansa ground staff to walk out on a one-day strike Wednesday in a dispute over pay.

The ver.di service workers’ union said Monday that the call applies to all Lufthansa locations in Germany. It comes amid negotiations on pay for about 20,000 employees of logistical, technical and cargo subsidiaries of the airline.

The strike was set to start at 3:45 a.m. (0145 GMT) Wednesday and end at 6 a.m. (0400 GMT) on Thursday.

LONDON (AP) — The two candidates vying to be Britain’s next prime minister will face off in a TV debate Monday, after both sought to woo the Conservative Party’s right-wing base by backing a controversial plan to deport some asylum-seekers to Rwanda.

MOSCOW, July 24. /TASS/: Russian air defense systems repelled a strike from the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Melitopol, said Vladimir Rogov, a member of the main council of the military-civilian administration of the Zaporozhye region.

"Melitopol - very loud! Air defense responded. They [the Ukrainian military] send missiles and attack drones to the sleeping city. The lives of Melitopol residents are reliably protected by Russian air defense. The air target was destroyed," he wrote on his Telegram channel on Sunday.

MOSCOW, July 24/TASS/: The number of confirmed coronavirus cases grew by 7,523 across Russia in the past 24 hours, up from 6,953 a day earlier, the coronavirus crisis center told journalists on Sunday.

This is the highest daily tally since April 29, when 7,710 cases were recorded in one day. Overall, Russia has recorded 18,532,255 coronavirus cases since the pandemic began.