Europe

MOSCOW, July 15. /TASS/: The UN Secretariat has failed to take an balanced stance on the developments in the Ukrainian city of Vinnitsa, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

When asked to comment on UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s statments about developments in Vinnitsa, she said that "contrary to the requirements of the UN Charter, the Secretariat fails to take an equidistant stance, which is what one would expect from the secretariat of the most reputable international organization, particularly designed to help resolve disputes."

MOSCOW, July 16. /TASS/: Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has ordered to enhance country’s military groupings Yug (South) and Center to prevent the Ukrainian military from delivering massive rocket attacks on the cities of Donbass and other regions, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

According to the ministry, Shoigu paid an inspection visit earlier to the Yug and Center military groupings, which are involved in Russia’s special military operation in Donbass.

SOLNECHNOGORSK, July 16. /TASS/: The Central Bank can make the decision to reduce the key rate at the meeting on July 22, Russian presidential aide Maxim Oreshkin said on Saturday.

"The Central Bank eased the monetary policy, the key rate went down. The Central Bank vows now that the decision on further reduction of the key rate will also be considered at the meeting on July 22," Oreshkin said.

The Bank of Russia reduced the key rate from 11% to 9.5% per annum at the meeting on June 10.

NIZHNIY NOVGOROD, July 16. /TASS/: Showpieces from the Russian state museum fund at exhibitions in unfriendly countries were returned to Russia, special envoy of the Russian President for international cultural cooperation Mikhail Shvydkoy told TASS on Saturday.

SKOPJE, July 16 (Reuters) - Lawmakers in North Macedonia on Saturday passed a French-brokered deal aimed at settling a dispute with Bulgaria and clearing the way to long-due European Union membership talks.

With 68 votes, the 120-seat parliament voted in favour of the agreement. Opposition lawmakers did not participate in the vote and left the room.

PARIS/LISBON, July 16 (Reuters) - Wildfires raged in southwestern France and Spain on Saturday, forcing thousands of people to be evacuated from their homes as blistering summer temperatures put authorities on alert in parts of Europe.

About 14,000 people had been evacuated from France's Gironde region by Saturday afternoon as more than 1,200 firefighters battled to bring the flames under control, regional authorities said in a statement.

KYIV, July 16 (Reuters) - Russia said on Saturday its forces would step up military operations in Ukraine in "all operational areas" as Moscow's rockets and missiles pounded cities in strikes that Kyiv says have killed dozens in recent days.

Rockets hit the northeastern town of Chuhuiv in Kharkiv region overnight, killing three people including a 70-year-old woman and wounding three others, regional governor Oleh Synehubov said.

BERLIN (AP) — Chancellor Olaf Scholz says Germany’s decision to reactivate coal and oil-fired power plants to relieve energy shortages because of the war in Ukraine is only temporary and his government remains committed to doing “everything” to combat the climate crisis.

In a video message Saturday, Scholz expressed regret over Germany’s decision to fire up 16 dormant fossil fuel power plants and extend the operating permission for 11 more amid fears of further cuts in natural gas supplies from Russia.

ROME (AP) — Italy’s top criminal court has rebuffed prosecutors’ efforts to revive the trial of high-level Egyptian security officials in the 2016 torture-slaying of an Italian doctoral student.

The Court of Cassation ruled in Rome on Friday evening that there were no grounds to appeal a lower court decision last year that the trial couldn’t go forward because the defendants hadn’t been officially notified of the charges and the trial date.

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine (AP) — The children flicker like ghosts on the empty playgrounds in weedy courtyards deep in a city whose residents have been told to get out now.

Six-year-old Tania has no more playmates left on her street in the eastern Ukraine city of Kramatorsk. She sits on a bench only steps away from the city’s train station that was attacked by Russia in April, killing more than 50 people who had gathered there to evacuate. The remnants of a rocket from that attack bore the inscription in Russian: “For the children.”