Europe

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The European Union’s decision to make Ukraine a candidate for EU membership offered war-weary Ukrainians a morale boost and hope of a more secure future Friday as the country’s military ordered its fighters to retreat from a key city in the eastern Donbas region.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed the decision of EU leaders as vindication for his nation’s fight against Russia’s aggression and said he was determined to ensure Ukraine retained the ability to decide if belonged in Europe or under Moscow’s influence.

MOSCOW, June 23. /TASS/: The number of people killed in an earthquake that hit Afghanistan’s Paktika and Khost provinces has reached 1,500, Al Jazeera reported, citing a Taliban official (the Taliban movement is outlawed in Russia).

According to him, the quake left over 2,000 people injured.

MOSCOW, June 23. /TASS/: Russia strictly follows all its commitments of energy supplies to Europe, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday.

"The Russian Federation strictly performs all its commitments. Being a fairly reliable and proven supplier of energy resources to Europe over decades, Russia treats its reputation in this regard with due care," the Kremlin spokesman said.

MOSCOW, June 23. /TASS/: The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are deepening their cooperation on the entire agenda with the bloc’s authority growing year by year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday at the BRICS summit held in a videoconference format.

"The countries of our bloc are deepening cooperation on the entire range of issues on the global and regional agenda. And every year the authority of the BRICS and its influence on the global stage is steadily increasing," the Russian leader said.

MOSCOW, June 23 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Russia is increasing gasoline and naphtha supplies to Africa and the Middle East as it struggles to sell fuel in Europe, while Asia is already taking bigger volumes of Russian crude, Refinitiv Eikon data showed and sources said.

    The development is likely to increase competition for Asian customers between Russia and other big fuel exporters – Saudi Arabia and the United States  – which are the top three suppliers to Asia.    

COPENHAGEN, June 23 (NNN-AGENCIES) — As the lone laboratory manufacturing a licensed vaccine against monkeypox, Danish company Bavarian Nordic has seen its order book fill up as the usually rare disease spreads around the world.

“The approval we got in 2019, when we only sold maybe a few hundred doses, all of a sudden became very, very relevant for international health,” the company’s vice president Rolf Sass Sorensen says with a smile at the biotech
company’s headquarters in Copenhagen’s harbour.

KYIV, June 23 (Reuters) - Ukrainian troops may need to pull back from the key frontline city of Lysychansk to avoid being encircled after Russian forces captured two villages to its south, regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said on Thursday.

The retreat of Ukrainian troops from Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk, the last two Ukrainian-held cities in Luhansk, would bring Moscow closer to one of its key war aims of capturing all of that region.

LONDON, June 23 (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday criticised "the abuse" of international sanctions, while Russian President Vladimir Putin scolded the West for fomenting global crisis, with both leaders calling for greater BRICS cooperation.

Xi called on Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) to take up the responsibility conferred by their economic clout, and said they should stand up for a truly multinational international system based on the United Nations.

BARCELONA, June 23 (Reuters) - The body of software entrepreneur John McAfee remains in a Spanish morgue a year after his death as a legal case lodged by his family to demand further checks is yet to be resolved, authorities and his lawyer said.

McAfee, who launched the world's first commercial anti-virus software in 1987, was found dead, aged 75, on June 23 last year in his prison cell a few hours after Spain's high court authorised his extradition to the United States on tax evasion charges.

BRUSSELS, June 23 (Reuters) - A summit of European Union and Balkan leaders failed on Thursday to break a deadlock over a stalled EU membership bid by North Macedonia and Albania, even as Ukraine was set to become an official candidate for membership.

Separate from the Ukraine decision later on Thursday, the leaders of the six Balkan countries of Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia expressed disillusion that negotiations have not started or are stalled, years after being promised eventual EU membership.