Europe

MOSCOW, July 5. /TASS/: Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine will continue until all the tasks set by Russian President Vladimir Putin are accomplished in full, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said at the ministry’s conference call on Tuesday.

The lives and health of the Russian military personnel and the safety of civilians are top priority tasks, the defense minister emphasized.

TASS offers highlights of the defense minister’s speech.

BELGRADE, July 5. /TASS/: The director of the Serbian office for Kosovo and Metohija, Petar Petkovic, on Tuesday said the international community should put pressure on Pristina after the prime minister of the unrecognized nation of Kosovo threatened to attack Serbs.

MOSCOW, July 5. /TASS/: Moscow has named a stretch of land located outside the UK Embassy "Lugansk People's Republic Square" thanks to a decree signed by Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin, sources from the press service of the mayor’s office and the city government told TASS on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, July 5. /TASS/: Russia was among the founders of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and is not going to withdraw from it, a Russian senator said on Tuesday.

"If anyone is dreaming to see us leaving the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, he or she is profoundly wrong. Russia was among the founding nations of the OSCE," Vladimir Dzhabarov, first deputy chairman of the international committee of Russia’s Federation Council, or upper parliament house, told a news conference.

MOSCOW, July 5. /TASS/: Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected on Tuesday previous reports that Chinese leader Xi Jinping allegedly refused President Vladimir Putin’s invitation to visit Russia.

"This is completely not true," he said adding that all mutual presidential visits would be paid after the Chinese side started gradually lifting anti-COVID restrictions.

PARIS, July 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Gas consumption will contract slightly this year due to high prices and Russian cuts to Europe, with only slow growth over coming years as consumers switch to alternatives, the IEA said Tuesday.

The International Energy Agency chopped its forecast for global gas demand by more than half in its latest quarterly report on gas markets.

It now expects growth of just 3.4 percent by 2025, an increase of 140 billion cubic metres (bcm) from 2021 levels, which is less than the 175 bcm jump in demand registered in 2021 alone.

LONDON, July 5 (Reuters) - The Russian government will be able to compel businesses to supply the military with goods and make their employees work overtime under two laws to support Moscow's war in Ukraine that were approved in an initial vote in parliament on Tuesday.

The measures will effectively place Russia on a war economy footing, nearly 19 weeks into the invasion which it describes as a "special military operation".

AMSTERDAM, July 5 (Reuters) - Police across Europe have arrested abut 130 people suspected of inolvement in human trafficking in a joint operation carried out by 22 countries, the international police agency Europol said on Tuesday.

The police actions, which took place in the week up to June 13, also led to more than 100 possible victims of human trafficking being identfied, Europol said.

LUGANO, Switzerland, July 5 (Reuters) - Switzerland has given a cool response to calls from Ukraine's prime minister to use frozen assets of ultra-wealthy Russians to help fund his country's $750 billion reconstruction project.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal told a conference in Lugano that $300-500 billion of Russian assets had been frozen by the United States, European Union and Britain, money he said could help rebuild wrecked schools, hospitals and homes. 

MOSCOW, July 5 (Reuters) - The speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament asked a senior lawmaker on Tuesday to look into scrapping a treaty that establishes the country's maritime border with NATO member Norway.

The treaty, which was signed in 2010, aimed to put an end to disputes between Russia and Norway in the Barents Sea, the part of the Arctic Ocean adjoining the northern coasts of Norway and Russia.