Europe

VIENNA, June 27. /TASS/: Hungary doesn’t even plan to discuss with other countries a ban on Russian gas supplies because the curbs would ruin the country’s economy, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Monday.

The minister made the remarks as he attended a European Council meeting on transport, telecoms and energy in Luxembourg.

He said he came to the meeting "with a clear mandate, whereby Hungary doesn’t want to hold talks on a gas embargo."

MOSCOW, June 27. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has accepted Indonesia’s invitation to take part in a summit meeting of the Group of 20, but the details are still being specified, presidential aide Yury Ushakov told the media on Monday.

"Yes, we have confirmed. Our participation is due," he said.

At the same time, he was uncertain whether Putin would attend the meeting in person or participate by video link.

WARSAW, June 27 (Reuters) - Poland is to send a protest note to Russia after it removed a Polish flag at the Katyn cemetery, which commemorates Polish military officers killed by Soviet forces in 1940, the government said on Monday.

An estimated 22,000 officers and intellectuals were killed in Katyn, near Smolensk in western Russia, many trucked in from prison camps, shot in the head from behind, and shoved into mass graves.

June 27 (Reuters) - Russia sanctioned 43 Canadian citizens on Monday, barring them from entering the country in a tit-for-tat response to Western sanctions on Moscow.

The list, published by the foreign ministry, included the chairperson of Canada's governing Liberal Party, Suzanne Cowan, and the former governor of the Bank of England and Bank of Canada, Mark Carney.

In April, Moscow sanctioned 61 Canadian officials and journalists. It has barred dozens of other Western politicians, journalists and business figures from entering Russia.

LONDON, June 26 (Reuters) - Vladimir Putin will visit two small former Soviet states in central Asia this week, Russian state television reported on Sunday, in what would be the Russian leader's first known trip abroad since ordering the invasion of Ukraine.

Russia's Feb. 24 invasion has killed thousands of people, displaced millions more and led to severe financial sanctions from the West, which Putin says are a reason to build stronger trade ties with other powers such as China, India and Iran.

KYIV, June 27 (Reuters) - Ukraine's richest man filed a lawsuit against Russia at Europe’s top human rights court on Monday, seeking compensation over what he has said are billions of dollars in business losses since Russia's invasion.

Rinat Akhmetov, owner of the Azovstal steelworks in the city of Mariupol where Ukrainian fighters defied weeks of Russian bombardment, sued Russia for "grievous violations of his property rights" at the European Court of Human Rights, his System Capital Management (SCM) holding company said.

BRUSSELS, June 27 (Reuters) - NATO will massively boost the number of troops on high readiness to over 300,000, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday, with allies set to adopt a new strategy describing Moscow as a direct threat four months into the Ukraine war.

"Russia has walked away from the partnership and the dialogue that NATO has tried to establish with Russia for many years," Stoltenberg said in Brussels ahead of a NATO summit later this week in Madrid.

KREMENCHUK, Ukraine, June 27 (Reuters) - Two Russian missiles slammed into a crowded shopping centre in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk on Monday, killing at least three people and wounding 40, senior Ukrainian officials said.

The attack caused a huge fire and sent dark smoke billowing into the sky, footage circulated by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy showed.

A Reuters reporter saw the charred husk of a shopping complex with a caved-in roof. Firefighters and soldiers were pulling out mangled pieces of metal as they searched for survivors.

GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHE, Germany, June 26 (Xinhua) -- The three-day G7 summit opened here Sunday amid protests as hundreds of people took to the streets in the southern German town.

Thousands of other protesters also held demonstrations in Munich, the capital of Bavaria, a day before the summit.

They demanded that the G7 countries fulfill their responsibilities and become more active in tackling climate change and global hunger, among other issues.

SOFIA, June 27 (Xinhua) -- Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov submitted the resignation of his coalition government to the National Assembly on Monday after it was ousted in a no-confidence motion, the press office of the Parliament said.

According to the country's Constitution, resigning is compulsory after a losing vote.

Petkov's government will continue to act until the election or appointment of a new Council of Ministers.